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rarepair_shorts2013-12-29 10:57 am
rarepairs_mod) wrote in rarepair_shorts2013-12-29 10:57 am
Entry tags:
A Gift for dramioneinlove: Redemption (Draco/Astoria, R)
Author: ???
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dramioneinlove
Title: Redemption
Pairing: Draco/Astoria
Rating: R
Word Count: 2497
Summary: Draco abandoned the life he knew to redeem himself after the war. He didn't think - then - to ask if that life was the one he really wanted.
"Mum?"
Draco said this, looking around the foyer of the French estate in confusion. In any Malfoy house, the use of the Floo should have invited the immediate attendance of either the proprietor or the elves. Draco could see neither.
"Out here, darling," drifted in his mother's voice. The source was the veranda, through the French doors to one side.
Draco followed the voice outside.
His mother was sitting, lazily sipping on tea. Beside her was a young woman with glossy chestnut hair, and when he came around them properly, he saw that it was Astoria Greengrass.
"Astoria, hi," he said with some surprise. He leaned in to kiss his mother's cheek, still looking over at her.
"I notice I don't get a hello," Narcissa said without rancour.
He humoured her. "Hello, Mum."
"Better. Astoria's visiting."
"So I see," he said, taking his seat. "I didn't know you were still in France." He vaguely remembered that the Greengrasses had been sent to school abroad when the war broke out. Astoria would have finished a couple of years ago.
"I stayed on for Beaubaxton's tertiary program. That ended a few months ago. Our house was damaged in one of the Dark Lord's raids, and it's still being rebuilt. Your mother kindly offered to let me stay here until it's finished."
Draco shot his mother a look, and wondered how much of that was atonement. His father had been part of that raid. "Well. I'm sure she's enjoyed having you. France has certainly been good to you both."
"You're still a flatterer." Narcissa let out a low, rich laugh. She went on mildly, "How's your father?"
"I haven't seen him," he said, looking away quickly and reaching out to the plate of little cakes on the table in front of them. Avoiding her gaze.
"Oh, Draco," she reproached. "He's still your father."
"You can talk."
"There's a difference between a spouse – an ex-spouse – and a parent."
Draco pressed his lips together. "I've seen him across the corridor at the Ministry a few times. He keeps to himself, but he seems fine."
"Your father, keeping to himself? Gods."
"I really don't have anything to do with him. It's just how he seems from a distance. Can we talk about something else?"
Narcissa pursed her lips, but she let the matter drop.
"So why don't you speak to your father?" Astoria wondered later as Draco squired her around the room.
Narcissa had invited a few people over for dinner and dancing – all her own age – so they had stuck together by default. Astoria was a pleasing dancing companion, well practiced in more steps than anyone he spent time with at home. He'd forgotten how good dancing could be.
He'd had a couple of drinks, relaxed a bit, so he didn't stiffen or pull away. Just frowned. "He did terrible things."
"He didn't do them to you, though. Your mum says he was a good father. She says it's why she stayed as long as she did."
"He was all right," he conceded, a bit ungraciously. "Hard, but all right. He didn't do anything to me directly. But that's not the point."
"Then what is?" Her tone wasn't accusing. Just curious.
"I –" he faltered a moment. "Some things are too bad to just ignore, even if they didn't happen to you."
Astoria shrugged. "My dad says there's the love you get in a family just because you belong, and the love you get because you earn it by being a good person. It's better if you can have both, but one's better than nothing." A smile curled around her mouth. "On the other hand, my family's just regular-messed-up, so maybe I should just shut up."
He smiled in spite of himself. That curling-up of her mouth was infectious. "Far be it from me to tell a lady to shut up."
"Do you see any of the old crowd?" she wondered. "Greg? Pansy?"
Draco felt his face close up at that. "No," he muttered. "I don't really move in those circles anymore."
It seemed to hover on her lips to ask why, but instead she said lightly, "Who do you see, then?"
"I see a lot of the Weasleys," he said, a bit awkwardly.
"Aah," Astoria smirked. "Redemption by association."
This time he did stiffen. "Don't presume to analyse me, Astoria," he said with a tone of warning, and releasing her, he turned and walked away.
She found him on the love seat in the rose garden.
"I'm sorry," she said, dropping down beside him without preamble. "The war wasn't as bad here, but we all were on a hair-trigger anyway. We all learned to read each other and talk to each other. It's what happens when you put a bunch of scared girls together. I have to keep reminding myself that out here in the real world, it isn't usually helpful or welcome."
Draco shrugged. "There might have been some truth in it, I suppose."
Astoria shrugged too. "Even so. Sometimes a lady really should just shut the fuck up." She stood, and took his hand. Tugged on it gently. "Come back inside and dance with me. I promise not to ask any more wildly improper questions."
He hesitated a moment, then tugged her back. "Stay here. I might as well tell you."
"Do you want to tell me?" she wondered.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't not want to."
Astoria thought on this a moment. "Good enough," she said, and dropped back down at his side.
"Harry kind of took me on as a pet project, that first year. Draco Malfoy's redemption and acceptance into post-war society. I don't even know why, really. I didn't do anything that special. I didn't give him up, but I didn't help him, either."
"From what I heard, not giving him up was helping him. The way I heard it, you saved his life."
"Yeah, that's Harry's story, too. But I didn't save him. I just didn't help them kill him. There's a difference." From the corner of his eye, he saw her turn her head as if to speak, but she didn't. He went on, "If I had to guess, he was mostly trying to put off dealing with his own demons. He successfully integrated me into polite society – cemented by my acceptance as a surrogate Weasley – then promptly fell to pieces himself."
"It's to be expected," she said with sympathy.
"Of course it is, but apparently not to everyone around him, who for some insane reason thought he'd come out of seven years of evading a psychopath with nary a psychological scratch. He and Ginny have spent the last two years breaking up and making up, rinse and repeat. The last time, she said it was over, and asked me out to prove it, but it isn't. She's marking time with me. She just won't admit it."
"Ouch. I'm sorry."
He said easily, "I never thought it would be anything else, so it's fine. She feels terribly guilty, of course. I'd do her a favour and end it if I had the bollocks for it, but Molly would never forgive me. So we'll just have to keep limping along until she gets up the guts to do it herself."
"Coward," she said, her voice suffused with warmth.
"Yes," he agreed complacently. "I shouldn't have said yes to start with, but she's nice, she's pretty, and..."
"And your redemption was complete," Astoria said with a twinkle.
"Sometimes a lady really should just shut the fuck up," he said without rancour. "But yes. Something like that."
They were silent a moment, but then she said, tentatively, "Draco. About your father-"
"I don't want to talk about my father."
"Draco-"
He turned on her. "Why the fuck do you care?" he demanded. "Just because your family made it through together, doesn't mean we all have to!" He got to his feet and stormed off towards the gazebo.
Astoria got up too, following him, her heels clattering along the path. "And what the hell makes you think we made it through?" she shouted. "That war touched all of Europe! Did you think it was just bloody Wiltshire? Why the hell do you think I'm here and not with my own mother?"
That made him pause. He turned to face her. "What?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "She was a Dark Lord sympathiser. She never did anything, but she believed in him. My dad got a couple of friends out of the country – Muggle-borns – and I passed messages via the Beaubaxton owls to help set it up. And now she won't look at me."
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "Really. But you did something good. My father was a traitor. They're completely different things."
"Don't you think she sees me as a traitor?" Astoria said, and he noticed with alarm that her eyes were glistening with tears in the dark. "And you know, I don't even care if she thinks I'm a traitor. I just wish she could love me anyway. Traitor or not."
Draco felt awful. "Shit, Astoria, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Not sure what else to do, he put his arms around her. He'd never been able to stand to see people cry.
Astoria pulled away, but she did it gently. "Thanks. Sorry. I'm all right. I just get-"
"Yeah." He took her hand. "Come on. Let's go back and dance. It will help."
"I don't feel much like company. Will you dance with me here a bit?"
"Sure," he said softly, and led her into a slow waltz.
They stayed that way for a while, not saying much, and gradually, they settled into one another. Closer and heavier. Hips fitting together, her breath warm as she bent her head to his neck. He allowed himself one single press of his lips to her hair.
Gently, he detached himself from her. "I should go, Astoria." He didn't mention Ginny. He didn't need to.
"Draco," she called as he began to walk away.
He turned.
"Maybe redemption that makes you push people away isn't much of a redemption at all."
"Why don't you end it?"
Arthur asked this one day as they sat on the porch. Ginny and Harry were walking in the cornfields a little distance away.
Draco shrugged. "She needs to come to it on her own. When she wants to pull the plug, I'll be decent about it. But I'm not going to be the bad guy for her by beating her to the punch."
Arthur raised an eyebrow, but said only, "We don't always get to be the good guy in life, Draco, no matter how hard we try."
Draco gave a noncommittal sound.
"Besides," Arthur said. "Maybe a bad guy is exactly what this situation needs."
"Arthur Weasley and I agree on something," his father marvelled. "Gods."
"Don't start," Draco muttered. "I only came at all because Mum and Astoria thought I should, so don't think we're going to be ganging up on the Weasleys together. I don't know why I told you about Ginny at all."
"Astoria, hmm?" Lucius said approvingly. "Excellent."
"Oh, put a sock in it. You're as objectionable as ever."
"I do try," he said smugly. "So you'll be bringing Astoria next time, I hope?"
"Astoria is a friend," Draco said loftily. "A good friend."
"Oh, indeed, my boy, as was your mother to me, or so I told my father." Lucius added fondly, "I asked her to marry me the very next day."
"My father is obsessed with the idea that we're going to lope off into the sunset together. He's absolutely insufferable. I don't know why I let you talk me into seeing him at all."
Draco said this, rather irritably on Christmas Eve. Molly's wrath at his and Ginny's breakup had not eventuated, but they had still agreed that he should miss this particular Weasley Yule.
"Oh, stop sulking, darling," his mother said airily. "I think it's excellent that you're talking to him at last. And it's all thanks to you," she added, leaning in to kiss Astoria's cheek.
Astoria shot him a look that was half-amused, half-apologetic.
"Ugh," Draco said. "Not you, too."
"Why darling," Narcissa said with a twinkle, "I'm sure I didn't say a word."
"Really, Mother?"
Draco said this as mistletoe drifted, seemingly completely spontaneously, into the parlour where they were sitting.
His mother's bedroom door banged conspicuously closed in reply.
Astoria was laughing.
"I'm sorry, Draco," she giggled. "I think I've created a monster."
"Is there anyone who doesn't love you?"
"Just you and my mother," she said, but she said it playfully.
"Much as I hate to give them the satisfaction, maybe we should try doing something about one of those," he said lazily.
"We could do that," she murmured through smiling lips. "And according to your mother's spellwork, you do owe me a kiss."
With an air of rather pleased resignation, he leaned in. Gently but firmly pressed his lips to hers.
It started warm and matter-of-fact, but then, slowly, her smile faded into something more intense and focused. Her head tipped back and her breaths came deep and slow as she leaned deeper into him. He wove his fingers into that glossy hair, twining it into big handfuls as he sank down over her.
"Draco," she sighed, and that sigh impressed itself on his brain as inevitability. As something just about them. Something in her was calling to him - and something in him was calling back.
"Astoria," he answered, holding her with his eyes, blazing need as they fumbled urgently through the clothes between them.
"This lounge is four hundred years old," she gasped out between feverish kisses. "Your mother will kill us."
"Serve her bloody right," he growled as he settled between her thighs. Moving against her until her breath caught, then sinking deep inside her. Making her cry out, the lounge forgotten, cry out over and over until she fell back, as overwhelmed with it all as he.
They would have to be right, damn them, Draco thought irritably as he drew her into the crook of his arm afterwards. But looking at her, he couldn't bring himself to mind.
Although, that bloody mistletoe was going to meet a fiery end when he could be bothered to find his wand.
"Promise me something?" he said.
"What?" she wondered. She was gorgeous, laying there half-dressed, her hair loose and wild. Still flushed and breathless for him.
Kissing her hair, he smirked, "If my parents succeed in marrying us off, we're going to match-make them back together as relentlessly and blatantly as they have to us."
Astoria gave a bark of laughter at that. "Spoken like a true Malfoy."
"Well, you can't be a good guy all the time," he said easily. "Or so I'm told."
"No," she said. "But I think you're good enough."
END
Recipient:
dramioneinloveTitle: Redemption
Pairing: Draco/Astoria
Rating: R
Word Count: 2497
Summary: Draco abandoned the life he knew to redeem himself after the war. He didn't think - then - to ask if that life was the one he really wanted.
"Mum?"
Draco said this, looking around the foyer of the French estate in confusion. In any Malfoy house, the use of the Floo should have invited the immediate attendance of either the proprietor or the elves. Draco could see neither.
"Out here, darling," drifted in his mother's voice. The source was the veranda, through the French doors to one side.
Draco followed the voice outside.
His mother was sitting, lazily sipping on tea. Beside her was a young woman with glossy chestnut hair, and when he came around them properly, he saw that it was Astoria Greengrass.
"Astoria, hi," he said with some surprise. He leaned in to kiss his mother's cheek, still looking over at her.
"I notice I don't get a hello," Narcissa said without rancour.
He humoured her. "Hello, Mum."
"Better. Astoria's visiting."
"So I see," he said, taking his seat. "I didn't know you were still in France." He vaguely remembered that the Greengrasses had been sent to school abroad when the war broke out. Astoria would have finished a couple of years ago.
"I stayed on for Beaubaxton's tertiary program. That ended a few months ago. Our house was damaged in one of the Dark Lord's raids, and it's still being rebuilt. Your mother kindly offered to let me stay here until it's finished."
Draco shot his mother a look, and wondered how much of that was atonement. His father had been part of that raid. "Well. I'm sure she's enjoyed having you. France has certainly been good to you both."
"You're still a flatterer." Narcissa let out a low, rich laugh. She went on mildly, "How's your father?"
"I haven't seen him," he said, looking away quickly and reaching out to the plate of little cakes on the table in front of them. Avoiding her gaze.
"Oh, Draco," she reproached. "He's still your father."
"You can talk."
"There's a difference between a spouse – an ex-spouse – and a parent."
Draco pressed his lips together. "I've seen him across the corridor at the Ministry a few times. He keeps to himself, but he seems fine."
"Your father, keeping to himself? Gods."
"I really don't have anything to do with him. It's just how he seems from a distance. Can we talk about something else?"
Narcissa pursed her lips, but she let the matter drop.
"So why don't you speak to your father?" Astoria wondered later as Draco squired her around the room.
Narcissa had invited a few people over for dinner and dancing – all her own age – so they had stuck together by default. Astoria was a pleasing dancing companion, well practiced in more steps than anyone he spent time with at home. He'd forgotten how good dancing could be.
He'd had a couple of drinks, relaxed a bit, so he didn't stiffen or pull away. Just frowned. "He did terrible things."
"He didn't do them to you, though. Your mum says he was a good father. She says it's why she stayed as long as she did."
"He was all right," he conceded, a bit ungraciously. "Hard, but all right. He didn't do anything to me directly. But that's not the point."
"Then what is?" Her tone wasn't accusing. Just curious.
"I –" he faltered a moment. "Some things are too bad to just ignore, even if they didn't happen to you."
Astoria shrugged. "My dad says there's the love you get in a family just because you belong, and the love you get because you earn it by being a good person. It's better if you can have both, but one's better than nothing." A smile curled around her mouth. "On the other hand, my family's just regular-messed-up, so maybe I should just shut up."
He smiled in spite of himself. That curling-up of her mouth was infectious. "Far be it from me to tell a lady to shut up."
"Do you see any of the old crowd?" she wondered. "Greg? Pansy?"
Draco felt his face close up at that. "No," he muttered. "I don't really move in those circles anymore."
It seemed to hover on her lips to ask why, but instead she said lightly, "Who do you see, then?"
"I see a lot of the Weasleys," he said, a bit awkwardly.
"Aah," Astoria smirked. "Redemption by association."
This time he did stiffen. "Don't presume to analyse me, Astoria," he said with a tone of warning, and releasing her, he turned and walked away.
She found him on the love seat in the rose garden.
"I'm sorry," she said, dropping down beside him without preamble. "The war wasn't as bad here, but we all were on a hair-trigger anyway. We all learned to read each other and talk to each other. It's what happens when you put a bunch of scared girls together. I have to keep reminding myself that out here in the real world, it isn't usually helpful or welcome."
Draco shrugged. "There might have been some truth in it, I suppose."
Astoria shrugged too. "Even so. Sometimes a lady really should just shut the fuck up." She stood, and took his hand. Tugged on it gently. "Come back inside and dance with me. I promise not to ask any more wildly improper questions."
He hesitated a moment, then tugged her back. "Stay here. I might as well tell you."
"Do you want to tell me?" she wondered.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't not want to."
Astoria thought on this a moment. "Good enough," she said, and dropped back down at his side.
"Harry kind of took me on as a pet project, that first year. Draco Malfoy's redemption and acceptance into post-war society. I don't even know why, really. I didn't do anything that special. I didn't give him up, but I didn't help him, either."
"From what I heard, not giving him up was helping him. The way I heard it, you saved his life."
"Yeah, that's Harry's story, too. But I didn't save him. I just didn't help them kill him. There's a difference." From the corner of his eye, he saw her turn her head as if to speak, but she didn't. He went on, "If I had to guess, he was mostly trying to put off dealing with his own demons. He successfully integrated me into polite society – cemented by my acceptance as a surrogate Weasley – then promptly fell to pieces himself."
"It's to be expected," she said with sympathy.
"Of course it is, but apparently not to everyone around him, who for some insane reason thought he'd come out of seven years of evading a psychopath with nary a psychological scratch. He and Ginny have spent the last two years breaking up and making up, rinse and repeat. The last time, she said it was over, and asked me out to prove it, but it isn't. She's marking time with me. She just won't admit it."
"Ouch. I'm sorry."
He said easily, "I never thought it would be anything else, so it's fine. She feels terribly guilty, of course. I'd do her a favour and end it if I had the bollocks for it, but Molly would never forgive me. So we'll just have to keep limping along until she gets up the guts to do it herself."
"Coward," she said, her voice suffused with warmth.
"Yes," he agreed complacently. "I shouldn't have said yes to start with, but she's nice, she's pretty, and..."
"And your redemption was complete," Astoria said with a twinkle.
"Sometimes a lady really should just shut the fuck up," he said without rancour. "But yes. Something like that."
They were silent a moment, but then she said, tentatively, "Draco. About your father-"
"I don't want to talk about my father."
"Draco-"
He turned on her. "Why the fuck do you care?" he demanded. "Just because your family made it through together, doesn't mean we all have to!" He got to his feet and stormed off towards the gazebo.
Astoria got up too, following him, her heels clattering along the path. "And what the hell makes you think we made it through?" she shouted. "That war touched all of Europe! Did you think it was just bloody Wiltshire? Why the hell do you think I'm here and not with my own mother?"
That made him pause. He turned to face her. "What?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "She was a Dark Lord sympathiser. She never did anything, but she believed in him. My dad got a couple of friends out of the country – Muggle-borns – and I passed messages via the Beaubaxton owls to help set it up. And now she won't look at me."
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "Really. But you did something good. My father was a traitor. They're completely different things."
"Don't you think she sees me as a traitor?" Astoria said, and he noticed with alarm that her eyes were glistening with tears in the dark. "And you know, I don't even care if she thinks I'm a traitor. I just wish she could love me anyway. Traitor or not."
Draco felt awful. "Shit, Astoria, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Not sure what else to do, he put his arms around her. He'd never been able to stand to see people cry.
Astoria pulled away, but she did it gently. "Thanks. Sorry. I'm all right. I just get-"
"Yeah." He took her hand. "Come on. Let's go back and dance. It will help."
"I don't feel much like company. Will you dance with me here a bit?"
"Sure," he said softly, and led her into a slow waltz.
They stayed that way for a while, not saying much, and gradually, they settled into one another. Closer and heavier. Hips fitting together, her breath warm as she bent her head to his neck. He allowed himself one single press of his lips to her hair.
Gently, he detached himself from her. "I should go, Astoria." He didn't mention Ginny. He didn't need to.
"Draco," she called as he began to walk away.
He turned.
"Maybe redemption that makes you push people away isn't much of a redemption at all."
"Why don't you end it?"
Arthur asked this one day as they sat on the porch. Ginny and Harry were walking in the cornfields a little distance away.
Draco shrugged. "She needs to come to it on her own. When she wants to pull the plug, I'll be decent about it. But I'm not going to be the bad guy for her by beating her to the punch."
Arthur raised an eyebrow, but said only, "We don't always get to be the good guy in life, Draco, no matter how hard we try."
Draco gave a noncommittal sound.
"Besides," Arthur said. "Maybe a bad guy is exactly what this situation needs."
"Arthur Weasley and I agree on something," his father marvelled. "Gods."
"Don't start," Draco muttered. "I only came at all because Mum and Astoria thought I should, so don't think we're going to be ganging up on the Weasleys together. I don't know why I told you about Ginny at all."
"Astoria, hmm?" Lucius said approvingly. "Excellent."
"Oh, put a sock in it. You're as objectionable as ever."
"I do try," he said smugly. "So you'll be bringing Astoria next time, I hope?"
"Astoria is a friend," Draco said loftily. "A good friend."
"Oh, indeed, my boy, as was your mother to me, or so I told my father." Lucius added fondly, "I asked her to marry me the very next day."
"My father is obsessed with the idea that we're going to lope off into the sunset together. He's absolutely insufferable. I don't know why I let you talk me into seeing him at all."
Draco said this, rather irritably on Christmas Eve. Molly's wrath at his and Ginny's breakup had not eventuated, but they had still agreed that he should miss this particular Weasley Yule.
"Oh, stop sulking, darling," his mother said airily. "I think it's excellent that you're talking to him at last. And it's all thanks to you," she added, leaning in to kiss Astoria's cheek.
Astoria shot him a look that was half-amused, half-apologetic.
"Ugh," Draco said. "Not you, too."
"Why darling," Narcissa said with a twinkle, "I'm sure I didn't say a word."
"Really, Mother?"
Draco said this as mistletoe drifted, seemingly completely spontaneously, into the parlour where they were sitting.
His mother's bedroom door banged conspicuously closed in reply.
Astoria was laughing.
"I'm sorry, Draco," she giggled. "I think I've created a monster."
"Is there anyone who doesn't love you?"
"Just you and my mother," she said, but she said it playfully.
"Much as I hate to give them the satisfaction, maybe we should try doing something about one of those," he said lazily.
"We could do that," she murmured through smiling lips. "And according to your mother's spellwork, you do owe me a kiss."
With an air of rather pleased resignation, he leaned in. Gently but firmly pressed his lips to hers.
It started warm and matter-of-fact, but then, slowly, her smile faded into something more intense and focused. Her head tipped back and her breaths came deep and slow as she leaned deeper into him. He wove his fingers into that glossy hair, twining it into big handfuls as he sank down over her.
"Draco," she sighed, and that sigh impressed itself on his brain as inevitability. As something just about them. Something in her was calling to him - and something in him was calling back.
"Astoria," he answered, holding her with his eyes, blazing need as they fumbled urgently through the clothes between them.
"This lounge is four hundred years old," she gasped out between feverish kisses. "Your mother will kill us."
"Serve her bloody right," he growled as he settled between her thighs. Moving against her until her breath caught, then sinking deep inside her. Making her cry out, the lounge forgotten, cry out over and over until she fell back, as overwhelmed with it all as he.
They would have to be right, damn them, Draco thought irritably as he drew her into the crook of his arm afterwards. But looking at her, he couldn't bring himself to mind.
Although, that bloody mistletoe was going to meet a fiery end when he could be bothered to find his wand.
"Promise me something?" he said.
"What?" she wondered. She was gorgeous, laying there half-dressed, her hair loose and wild. Still flushed and breathless for him.
Kissing her hair, he smirked, "If my parents succeed in marrying us off, we're going to match-make them back together as relentlessly and blatantly as they have to us."
Astoria gave a bark of laughter at that. "Spoken like a true Malfoy."
"Well, you can't be a good guy all the time," he said easily. "Or so I'm told."
"No," she said. "But I think you're good enough."
END