She || Drastoria

13 - In The Name Of Love

It was as though someone had snatched the wind right from Draco's lungs.

He kept replaying Daphne's words over and over again inside his head, trying to decipher their meaning, trying desperately to find a way that they could mean anything other than what he feared they indicated.

He chased after her, but by the time he battled through the stunned crowd and made it to the front door, she had vanished. He Apparated immediately to her building, flinging himself up the fire escape and praying she was there. But she wasn't.

It was Theo in the end who confirmed his worst fear.

"It wasn't Daph's place to say," he said, pressing a whisky into Draco's hand after he'd returned to the wedding, desolate and empty handed. "She only told me because you know, husband and all. You need to talk to Astoria. The details I'm sketchy on, I'm afraid. Some sort of blood malediction which starts killing her off the moment she hits adulthood. A slow and unpleasant death, I'm told. Man, her ancestor must have really pissed someone off to have such a rotten curse placed upon them."

And it all suddenly made sense to Draco. Her attitude towards life, the turning back on her inheritance (because what was the point of an inheritance if you're not going to outlive your parents?), and the way she freaked out when he talked about the future.

Because Astoria Greengrass didn't have a future.

"There must be a way," he said suddenly, pushing his untouched whisky aside, thinking of the billions he had in the bank. "There must be something we can do to put a stop to it."

"You don't think her parents have tried?" Theo scoffed. "Why do you think they can barely look at her? Guilt, man. It's not like they're short on dough either. Nah, no amount of gold or wishful thinking can stop this. Just face it, Draco, the poor girl was doomed from the very moment she was conceived."

But Draco wasn't listening, instead he marched right out of the wedding and Apparated back home where he spent all night long going through the books in Malfoy's Manor library, searching for anything he could find on blood curses.

Because he refused to believe there was no saving her. The idea that someone so beautiful and amazing could be gone too soon was nonsensical to him.

When the sun came up, and every book on blood curses had been opened and sifted through, he had still learned nothing that could help save her. Literally the only thing he could do was get his hands on a Time-Turner and go back in time to prevent the curse from being cast in the first place.

But doing that could risk all of their existence altogether. And that was if he ever found out when, where and by whom placed the curse, because according to Theo, the family did not know.

No, he thought determinedly, getting to his feet. He would use his gold to find the best people and throw money at them until they found Astoria a cure.

In the meantime, he was going to find her and do what he could for her - which was to offer her all his time and all his love. He could not stand by knowing that she was dying alone in that pokey little room.

Fuck, he hoped she would accept him. He hadn't missed the look in her eyes when they were dancing, however. Years of learning about occlumency and legilimency taught him a thing or two about reading people (not that he was skilled at it like Snape and his aunt had been).

And when she had looked at him, he saw the look of a person who had lost something they hadn't wanted to lose.

And he knew she had lost so much, that he was only a tiny piece of the losses she had endured over the years. But the truth was she hadn't lost him.

Astoria Greengrass had his heart and she didn't even realise. She'd had it from that very day she'd offered him an escape route through her bedroom.

And he was going to find her and tell her. The only thing was, he had no idea where she had got to.

When he looked through the window of her room, the place looked derelict. His heart contracted as he stared longingly at her bed, recalling the countless times they had fucked on it. He hated the thought that he might never fuck her again, never feel her naked body pressed against his as they slotted together like two perfect pieces of a puzzle.

No woman had ever caused Draco to feel so perpetually full of lust and desire before. During those three months, they had fucked all the time. He couldn't stop touching her, never being able to get close enough to her. Just fucking her had never been enough, he wanted to hold her in his arms as he came down from each and every orgasm. Usually he'd be right out the door the second he got that sweet release, his interest in the girl vanishing completely once he'd gotten what he came for. But with Astoria it was different, she always left him hungry for more.

The way she had ended things so abruptly made Draco feel like a drug addict having had his heroin snatched away. She was his drug and he wanted it back, craved her like nothing else on this earth.

He wasn't stupid, he knew it was just his hormones at play, the one they called 'love'. Like a drug. But it was the fact that Astoria had been the one to trigger its release in him that made him realise this girl was worth holding onto. He never went in for that soulmate shit, or the idea that everyone has 'the one' (even though he had used it to get girls into bed all the time).

But that was before he had met Astoria. And if he could only have her for a short time, then it was better than having her no time at all.

Time that was already running out for them.

So, in the name of love, he broke into her room, looking for clues as to where she might be.

He found one straight away. On her desk. A letter unfinished.

I miss you, I miss Benji.

I'm so tired of missing people.

And he knew exactly where to find her.

*****