Draco stared into her eyes, wide and broken. Slipping her hands from his, she said, "So whatever you think you felt for me -- don't, because we can't be --"
"Astoria --" His attention was too rapt with Astoria to glance at who had just burst through the doors.
Her gaze flickered from him to the door, him to the door. "I'm sorry --" she said, her voice laced with tears and uncertainty, and rushed through the door.
His gaze following her, he realized it was her sister, Daphne, who had called.
Daphne kept at a close clip behind Astoria as they hurried away.
He was left frozen for a moment, standing out there alone, her words swirling in a confusing muddle in his mind.
She didn't want to kiss him.
She wasn't engaged.
She was . . . sick.
He hadn't the slightest clue what this entailed. She was sick -- with what? She was dying -- how long did she have left? Why was it so imperative it be kept a secret? What could he do to save her?
He shook his head, getting a semblance of bearings again. His legs moving of their own accord, he made for the doors. "Astoria -- wait --!" he called. She didn't even look back, tugging her sister down the hallway.
He started after them, and kept calling her name, desperation flaring inside him when -- THUMP.
"Sorry --" he muttered absently to whoever he'd walked square into, already skirting around them, when the person pushed a hand to his chest.
"What are you doing?!" shrieked Pansy.
His eyes darted from down the hallway, where Astoria had just disappeared through a doorway, down to her. For a millisecond he didn't even recognize who he was looking at.
"Pansy could you just --" he was squirming away from her hand.
"Why are you chasing after Daphne's little sister?!" Her tone was anger, confusion, disgust and heartbreak wrapped in one desperate, shrill whine.
Remembering that, like it or not, this was his fianceé, he said "I just need to make sure she's alright -- you saw what happened in there --" and also the fact that I'm beginning to fall in love with her, he thought.
"You don't need to do anything for her." She jerked her thumb toward the doorway the Greengrasses escaped off to. "I'm your fianceé -- so whatever is going on here --"
Impatience was blurring his common sense, and as a hasty, ill-planned last resort he said, very hurriedly, "Pansy, you don't really love me, and I don't really love you, so why are we pretending? So just please move, and --" but his words caught when a hard slap burned across his face. His hand instinctively rose to the searing cheek, his touch only making the sting worse.
There were tears in Pansy's eyes, and she said, her voice breaking, "Forgive me for actually believing you did really love me." She jabbed her index finger hard into his chest with each word as she said, "All those years, all the times I've been there for you, all the rubbish I had to go through for you, all the times I stuck it out no matter how difficult," she took in a shaky breath, recomposing herself, if only a little bit. Tone icy, eyes stone solid, she said, "To be thrown away on some girl who won't even last a decade."
His eyes narrowed, his mouth parted -- did she mean a relationship wouldn't last or. . . did she somehow know. . . ?
She backed away from Draco, but only slightly. With a new, crazed cruelty in her narrowed eyes, she continued, "Didn't know? Oh, well, you see, it's in her blood -- her tainted, jaded blood -- a curse that'll kill her." A malicious grin curled around the words. Draco partially knew this, but he didn't interrupt, too frazzled to order coherent sentences.
"So every year, every day, she just gets more and more weak. She probably can't even have kids, and if she did, their blood would be just as vulnerable. Just as dirty."
She turned on her heel, and, slipping off the ring on her finger said, "So good luck, Draco. I do hope she was worth it." She tossed the ring behind her as she stomped away, the metal ringing clattering to a stop in it's rotation, laying still on the polished floor. He looked down at it, and after her.
Not thinking of the onslaught of repercussions, the many, many loose ends he just severed and would have to tie up later, he ran back in the opposite direction, down the hall and out of the doorway, already knowing he was probably too late.
By the time he stood on the damp grass of the front gardens, he was alone. He didn't have much room to wonder or hope that perhaps Astoria was hiding off somewhere in the house -- he knew she was completely unaware of the labyrinth of the Malfoy Manor, and would've come out here -- out here, and left.
Running a hand through his hair, he contemplated doing the same. Just apparating somewhere far. Very, very far. Not having to hear Pansy's shrill voice. Not having to deal with his father's wrath. Not having to see his mother's disappointment.
But then, a whole other chapter of worry unfolded, his eyes widening in realization. Pansy knew Astoria's secret --
She would tell everyone.
Everyone.
He had to go back inside. Go back inside and sort the whole mess out with her, his fantasies of escape receding just as quickly as they had come.
Running back through the hallways and doorframes, he arrived out of breath in the entryway to the ballroom.
Each and every pair of eyes were fixed upon him.
Straight across from him stood the Parkinsons; Pansy's eyes were bloodshot and mouth in a tight pout, her mother and father looking most vexed, and conversing with --
His heart somersaulted.
They were talking to his parents. His father's eyes narrowed with revulsion upon seeing his son, his mother's wide with devastation.
His head swirled. What had she told them? What did they know? He could tell, of course, that they at least knew the engagement was over.
Glancing to the side of the room, where the Greengrasses usually sat, he saw Astoria's parents, crowded around the Averys, looking very apologetic and groveling indeed.
Good, he thought. Maybe they were still on what happened before with Lawrence -- maybe Pansy didn't do anything too stupid.
But his relief was short-lived. For, Pansy made dead eye contact with him, her teeth clamped and her nostrils flared.
The room was still silent.
She marched into the center of the ballroom, and cleared her throat. The gesture was unnecessary, for everyone was already staring at her.
"My dear, fellow peers," she said, her voice laden with faux remorse, a sugary importance. "I believe it is of the utmost importance I inform you of the scandal that has been brewing under our noses for far too long now." She took in a breath, a small smile creeping up on her lips. A bead of sweat traipsed down Draco's spine, paralyzed by what he could only assume she was about to say.
"I am sure you are all familiar with the Greengrasses?" she said, gesturing her hand to the table in the corner.
Astoria's parents froze. Confusion and panic was smothered in an obvious attempt of composure. Their attempts were failing.
"It has come to my attention that these people and their daughters have been attempting to poison our prosperous pureblood future." She allowed a pause for her smile to waver in its poor concealment. Draco's whole body froze, his gut tightening, panic flashing over him, making his knees lock.
"You see, the Greengrasses are cursed." She spat the word. All of the attention in the room shifted from her to the Greengrasses.
Mr. Greengrass was looking around the room frantically, his wife looked to be on the verge of tears, her eyes wide with horror.
"The curse is in their very blood. So, please, proceed to any further dealings involving them with caution." A grin was spread thin on her lips as the room filled with tumultuous chatter and whisperings.
Mrs. Greengrass was utterly paralyzed, and pulled from her chair by her husband, the table shifting in his panicked wake of frantic movement. They didn't protest, they didn't try to defend themselves, they didn't argue; they just scrambled out of the room like frightened animals, scurrying right past Draco, where he stood petrified.
He knew Pansy was mean and petty and cruel, but this? She'd just besmirched the entire family name in a single moment.
She swayed toward Draco, and once she stood next to him, hissed, "We'll see how the Augury takes being lied to," and brushed past, leaving the ballroom, her parents in close quarters behind her, shooting daggers at him as they passed.
As if he couldn't be even more panicked, more worried, more stressed -- the Augury.
Pansy was right -- they'd withheld information that could have jeopardized future pureblood blood lines, and that wouldn't be something the Augury took lightly.
He was scared and anxious and worried, his stomach was flipping, his heart pounding. If he hadn't followed Astoria out there, if he hadn't told Pansy the truth, if he could've just, for once, followed through on his responsibilities, no matter how much he didn't want to, then none of this would've been happening. And it wasn't he who would bear the brunt of the repercussions; it was Astoria. At this thought, he was nearly sick.