No Antidote | Draco Malfoy x Astoria Greengrass Love Story

Friends? | Chapter 01

*** The characters & the world in this story belongs to JK Rowling ***

Astoria woke up to the sun beating onto her face and she sighed.

Another day. 

It was already half past noon. She worked at a bar, and on occasion for a busy night, they stayed open quite late. She did not get home until nearly 3 AM last night. She got up and did her everyday waking up routine. Using the restroom, making herself a tea, stretching near the floor length window over looking the grassy fields behind her apartment, and getting into her uniform.

Her apartment was small. At least compared to the estate she grew up in. She purposely chose to live that way. While her trust fund was hers by birthright and running away from home and not attending her last two years of Hogwarts didn't didn't change the fact that she had enough money to rent out all of Diagon Alley for the next 99 years, she wanted to live minimally. All she wanted was to be normal.

In fact, most people at work believed her to be poor. She told them her name was Astrid Grey, that she had moved here from a small countryside village. That she had been homeschooled. Her once black hair was colored auburn and she had bewitched her eyes to be a light green instead of the original dark brown and golden specked that would haven given her away to anyone who saw her and knew her from school.

Her grandfather had trained her in the skills of both legilimency and occlumency and this proved to be useful in remaining unknown.

At around noon, she walked over to her favorite little cafe for a quick sandwich and coffee before heading to her shift at the hip bar and restaurant she worked at called Flow. It was located right before Diagon Alley turned into Knockturn Alley and she loved the vibe there. While trendy with an industrial twist, typically Pure Blood Elitist didn't bother stepping foot into their bar, because the owner was a muggle born wizard. This meant it was rare that anyone who knew the old her would ever step foot and find her out. Additionally, Astoria had given up all meat and animal byproducts after the Battle of Hogwarts as a way to pay a debt so to speak, as the idea of murder and torture haunted her. Flow was completely plant-based, the only completely plant-based spot in Diagon Alley.

"Good day, Astrid!" called John, the owner of the bar.

"Hello John! We're busy today." she replied with a smile. John was a great boss, friendly, delegated well, and an amazing chef, though he was too humble to ever use the term.

"Yes, so I'm very happy you're on duty today!" he chuckled, while carefully watching as the pots and pans flipped and fried the foods magically on their own. 

"I'll get started immediately" replied Astoria with a smile, before skipping off to the back where employees stored their belongings. She quickly hung up her cloak and tucked her purse into her cubby and threw on her denim apron.

"Table 12 just sat down" the hostess Annie, informed Astoria, before hurrying off to greet the guests walking in. 

Astoria walked over to the booth she mentioned. She was just about to open her mouth and introduce their specials and ask if she could grab them a drink to start, when she saw the face of the man sitting there. He looked eerily familiar. As a fraud herself, she could tell right away that he had bewitched his hair to be brown. It took her months to get the spell to be seamless.  Additionally she couldn't hear his thoughts. Across from him was a man who worked for the ministry. 

"Hello lovely" the ministry man said with a crooked smile. This ones got a nice little face. She heard him think to himself.

"Uh, right! Hello!" she quickly said, realizing she had been staring at the strange man hiding his identity. He looked up at her slowly and his expression felt like he was reading her soul. "Can I get you a drink to start while you look at the menu? We're known for our no-menu cocktails..." she began to say.