Malediction: the love and life of Astoria Malfoy

Prologue

Polite chatter and laughter whispered and nipped at the air in the ornate room, adorned with black marble floors and pillars. I was sitting in a chair, next to dozens of other chairs lining the back wall, desperate to disappear from this place. Lavish clothes and food all swirling about the scene.

From across the room I saw my sister, Daphne, eyes wide, motioning me over with a few (horribly conspicuous) head nods. I patted over slowly, my tiny five year old legs rushing as much as possible, but slow being the only pace I could go after all.

    I walked up to my family, who were standing beside a blond man and woman. The man sported a bored expression, the woman, a nervous sort of eager smile.

"Astoria, these are our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, and their son, Draco," My mother said in her best haughty voice, shrill and cold, with a lingering, wispy note on the 's'. The woman, Mrs. Malfoy, presented a pale boy with frighteningly light blond hair, and mean, startling gray eyes. "He's the same age as Daphne," mum said, willing me to say something, anything, before I embarrassed her by my silence.

    I nodded and extended my hand. An awkward half smile (really just a thin line of uncomfortableness) appeared on his lips, and probably on mine as well. Daphne was gazing at him like he was made of gold, which, considering his family fortune, he might as well have been.

    I looked at my parents, a stifled apprehensiveness, maybe excitement, was written across their faces. Despite my introduction, their eyes were still glued to Daphne, darting back to the boy, Draco.

I didn't know it then, but that would be the first of many pure-blood family parties designed to set up couples, ensuring the next perfect pure-blooded generation (even though Daph was only seven at the time). At that moment, I suppose my parents were hoping one day Daphne would become the next Mrs. Malfoy.

    Daphne, she fit right in. Like a baby, she was passed around the room, receiving admiring looks and nods, trailing after my parents to meet the next family and their son. Every greeting was practically a business pitch to the boy's family. I followed, an outsider in my own family, for no one looked at me with the same gleam of adoration which was shown to my sister.

I understood even then, that Daphne would be the one to carry on our bloodline, not me. My parents knew I wasn't destined for children, and, in result, not destined for a prestigious pure-blood match (afterall, what self-respecting pure-blooded man would marry a woman who offered him no heirs?).

They loved me. That was for certain. And they tried, they really did, to be proud of me, but I felt it in their little slip-ups of emotional suppression: I was a disappointment. What I didn't know was, one day I would turn that young blond boy I'd only just met, Draco Malfoy, into the same.