Forever -Dramione

Ch 29

A/N: Hey everyone! Hope you guys liked the last chapter. I know, I know, Draco was being a jerk, and the chapter was an angsty one. But please don't stop reading, everything will be cleared soon, and Draco will confess his feelings. Have a little faith in him. Read the A/N at the end to find out when the next chapter will be out. On with the chapter! 

"What?" Astoria gasped. "You knew? You knew that I had wanted to hide that curse from you yet you yelled at her?"

Draco had just told her that he had known it wasn't Hermione's fault, that it wasn't her choice to hide the blood curse from him.

But if he had known that fact before they kissed, then why had he reacted in that way? What was wrong with him?

"Got that right." Draco muttered.

"But why? I-I don't understand. Why would you yell at her, accuse her of being a killer and then act cold towards her afterwards?"

"Remember what I told you when I said that I had betrayed you?" He asked her. "What I had said when you said that Granger would never hate me?"

"Then I will make her." Draco told her. "I will make her hate me. I will act like I always did in Hogwarts towards her, be the same old prat, and then I don't see how she will still love me."

Astoria frowned for a moment, and then nodded. That was the day she had decided that she would help Draco get his happiness with Hermione, even if he didn't want that.

Because even though she loved him, she knew he had to move on. He might have told her that he had moved on and all of that, but she knew he hadn't.

Draco still thought that him being with Hermione would be a betrayal to Astoria, to her memories, to their memories. And she knew it couldn't go on like that.

The pain he had felt when Hermione had first left had left him in a very bad state. And if she left again, that too without knowing that Draco loved her, Astoria knew that it would break Draco.

Because he would never be able to tell the ex Gryffindor that he was head over heels for her, has been for a long time now, in fact, and would regret the decision of letting her go once again. Forever.

So she had decided that she would do the opposite of what Draco had asked her to do. She would not support him trying to make Hermione hate him. Because neither of them deserved this. They didn't deserve to get hurt and be miserable just because they fell in love with each other.

And as Astoria had thought that time, Draco underestimated the power of love. She would do anything for him. And she knew Narcissa would too.

That's why, when the Malfoy matriarch would be coming here soon, as according to what Hermione had told her, Astoria will ask for her help. And she hoped, no, she knew that Narcissa would side with her. 

"Are you still going through with that stupid plan, Draco?" Astoria groaned. "I told you that day to not do that, and I am telling you now as well. Please listen to me." 

"Astoria......" He sighed and lent forward so that his forehead rested on top of where her hands were in the portrait. "You have always supported me, haven't you? And I have been forever grateful for that, you know it really well. And so I am asking you to support me again. Just please let go of your noble thinking this time, and support me in this? I am begging you, Tori."

When she didn't say anything, Draco continued, "It is for the best, you know.

"The best?" She exclaimed. "How is it for the best, Draco? We both know how much it is hurting you to hurt her. I can literally see it in your eyes. How is doing something which is obviously paining you for the best? How is doing something which you would always regret for the best?"