Nought to Sixty (2/5) by enchantedteapot
Title: Nought to Sixty (2/5)
Author/Artist: enchantedteapot
Pairing(s): Draco/Astoria
Prompt number: #99
Word Count: 9,368
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Bad language, scenes of a sexual nature.
Beta(s): My undying gratitude to NRC (at ff.n) and writermerrin
Summary: (To use the original prompt) ’There’s a reason we’ve never heard of the younger Greengrass sister - she’s a Squib.’
Author's Notes: My betas were both amazing. Any and all mistakes still in here are completely my own, due to last minute editing/rushing. Also credit to the genius writers of BBC's Sherlock Holmes from whom I *borrowed* a line or two for the first chapter. Enjoy!
27th September, 2003
The waitress hovers over Astoria’s table. This is the fifth time she’s been asked if she’s ready to order and the fifth time she has replied politely (through gritted teeth), that she’ll need a few more minutes yet. She can see the pity in the young woman’s eyes, hear it in the way she asks if she’d like another glass of wine, and it makes her jaw ache.
The waitress thinks she’s been stood up. Astoria supposes in a way she has been, although not in the traditional sense. Her father arranged this lunch meeting- the obligatory bi-annual refresher on his youngest daughter’s life- and it is her father who has abandoned her, sitting in Harrod’s tea rooms for almost an hour looking and feeling the fool.
The waitress edges closer again and Astoria orders a cream scone and an espresso to save face. ‘Daddy issues’ really do nothing for the waist-line.
She is halfway done when she sees him, strolling up to the counter, shaking the rain from his platinum hair. There is a large black umbrella tucked beneath his arm and her first thought is what possessed him not to use it (for it is positively torrential out there), her second is to hide.
She snatches up a menu and stares hard at the extensive selection of herbal teas (she isn’t sure how comfortable she would feel drinking something called Oolong but perhaps now isn’t the time for such concerns,) before chancing another look. Draco is pointing at something on the sweet trolley, barking orders at the once-smug waitress.
Perhaps she could make a run for it, leave some money on the table and slip out before he sees her? But, with a curse, she realises he is directly between her and the door and all she’s got is a twenty which she’s bloody well not leaving behind for the smarmy bint’s tip.
And besides, she hasn’t finished her scone.
She glances up again. He is staring right at her. Bugger.
For a second he does not move. The waitress is trying to ask him something but it is as if he cannot hear. Astoria can literally see the thought process etched all over his face and she imagines he is reading hers right back. She’s not sure what he sees but he misinterprets because he starts towards her (bugger, bugger, bugger), his order now standing forgotten at the counter as he makes his way over to her table.
She doesn’t quite manage a smile as he slips into the seat opposite without waiting for an invitation.
“What on Earth are you doing here?” It comes out much more direct than she had meant it.
Draco simply raises an eyebrow, amused. “A pleasure to see you, too, Astoria. If you must know, I am on my lunch break.”
“You work?” she asks, disbelieving.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Where?”
He is chuckling openly now. “Gringott’s. I’m a financial consultant. Apparently if you have enough money of your own, it entitles you to tell other people how poor they are at managing theirs.”
She feels the corner of her lips twitching to a smile and fights to suppress it.
The waitress arrives with Draco’s forgotten food order and, glancing between him and Astoria, flashes her a knowing smile; they are friends now, it seems. Astoria glares her off.
“So, am I to be extended the same courtesy?”
Astoria frowns, distracted. “Pardon?”
“Well, don’t I get to know why you are here?”
“I like it here,” she mutters, deciding quickly that he definitely doesn’t need to know about her absent father; in fact the less he know about her in general, the better. “They have a very good range of herbal teas,” she attempts to justify.
“If you say so.” He fails to suppress a smirk and eyes her espresso which she knocks back in one gulp.
She looks different than he remembers somehow. (Her hair is lighter, dark roots evidence of a fading dye. Perhaps a darker lipstick too?) Then again, he supposes, it has been five months, perhaps his memory of that night is fading. Worn out, more likely, for Draco finds himself thinking of that terrace more often than is necessarily healthy.
“Have dinner with me,” he says at last. “Tonight.”
She stares at him incredulously, before shaking her head. He scowls; he hardly thinks it the most unreasonable of suggestions.
“I’m afraid I’ve rather been warned against you,”
“Ah.” His scowl darkens, “May I ask by whom?”
She snorts, somewhat unattractively, “My mother, sister and everyone else who saw us at the party and likes to throw around advice where it isn’t wanted.”
“So you didn’t like them telling you to stay away from me?”
She shoots him a wry smile. “I’m not having dinner with you.”
“No, perhaps not tonight.”
“Malfoy,” her tone is warning and he smirks, holding up his hands in mock defeat.
She surveys him as she finishes her scone. He is overly confident for a man with a reputation as black as tar, oh yes she’s been well (and rather loudly) informed since last April about his turbulent past, not to mention how little he knows of her (and best to keep it that way). Although, she concedes, feeling a familiar kind of heat creeping down the back of her neck, that didn’t stop him the last time they met.
She suddenly feels restless and toys with her empty cup, steadfastly ignoring his lingering gaze. It is unnerving, and a little ridiculous, just how easily one memory asserts itself in her mind at any given moment. After all, she tells herself, it was really nothing more than a silly, drunken kiss on an evening where there was little better to do and she needed the excitement.
But that is not true.
She steals a glance at the man sitting opposite her. He is still watching her, eyes cool and gaze suggestive. The heat creeps down to her navel.
She wanted him then, she still wants him now and she could not and cannot explain the force, the gravitational pull that has her literally inching towards the edge of her seat. She barely even remembers the kiss, except for the way it had made her nerves catch on fire; an ice cold fire that had burnt its way along sending shivers as it went. He had held her tightly at the wrist, almost to the point of pain. Her whole world tethered to that one point: the heat of his hand, the strength of his grip. And oh God, his tongue-
The waitress cuts between them to retrieve Astoria’s empty cup, and the memory is instantly pulled from focus. Taking a deep breath, she brushes her fingers through her hair, fumbling in her bag for the cigarettes she’s sure are in there before looking up at Draco to hurry her goodbye.
Without a word he leans forward and for a startling second she thinks he’s going to kiss her again, right here in the middle of some over-priced Muggle cafe. Her blood freezes, red hot in her veins. Instead, he smoothes a slender finger over her bottom lip. His touch is cold and she gasps inaudibly.
She opens her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them, to find him watching her in amusement.
“There was cream,” he says simply, “on your face.”
Astoria stares at him dumbly for half a second before bursting into peals of girlish laughter. Part in amusement, part in embarrassment and part because she is struck by how very fast her pulse is racing and she has only now begun to realise the extent of her own insanity.
“I have to go.” She manages to calm herself long enough to slip on her old camel Mac, reaching for her purse with her cigarettes in one hand.
Draco reaches out a hand to stop her, his fingers brushing hers, and Astoria feels that wave of heat push inappropriately south. She needs to leave.
“Let me get this.” Ever the gentleman.
“Fine.” She snatches up her bag and sets off for the door, “it can count as dinner.”
She throws him a brazen smile as she steps out onto the pavement, hand already signalling for a taxi by the time he has caught up. They stand in the pouring rain, he makes no move to offer the black umbrella (perhaps not quite the gentleman after all) and the traffic is dense.
“Let me Apparate you somewhere,” he shouts above the roar of a number 54 bus.
Astoria visibly blanches. She’d been the unsuspecting victim of a side-along appa-whatsits once after Daphne had passed her test. Her eyebrows had taken a leave of absence to Leicester for three weeks following.
“Not after I’ve just eaten,” she leans out into the road, hand held high. The taxi speeds past her.
Draco frowns. “Fine. Let me walk you to the nearest Floo point?”
“Too far.” She keeps her eyes on the road, gritting her teeth, and tries to swipe away the hair now plastered to her face.
He’s taking her negativity as a rebuff, and growls out in frustration, “At least get the buggering Knight Bus, this weather is relentless!”
She clenches her fist (will he not just give up?), and turns on him aggressively. Grasping his rain washed face between small hands, she crushes her mouth against his. It isn’t the same. There is no expectation, no strange unease. It is a means to an end and now he has stopped asking questions.
But there is still that heat, frothing up inside of her as his hands sink into her hair and his lips stake their claim on hers, bruising and asphyxiating and it is all she can do to tear herself away without meeting his eye as a taxi finally pulls up beside them.
“Notting Hill, Westbourne Grove,” she instructs, swinging the door shut behind her. She does not dare glance back at the man left reeling on the pavement, who is staring after her in confusion and frustration. Nor does she dare pay attention to her own pulse, deafening in her ears, or the strange light headedness that makes her lean against the window in the back of the cab.
Because this is trouble; worse, this is dangerous, and not just because he is Draco sodding Malfoy. She does not exist, cannot exist, for him for she is nothing but a ghost in his world, there in shell but not in spirit and he can never know. No one can know.
And, fuck, she needs a cigarette.
Chapter Three
Author/Artist: enchantedteapot
Pairing(s): Draco/Astoria
Prompt number: #99
Word Count: 9,368
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Bad language, scenes of a sexual nature.
Beta(s): My undying gratitude to NRC (at ff.n) and writermerrin
Summary: (To use the original prompt) ’There’s a reason we’ve never heard of the younger Greengrass sister - she’s a Squib.’
Author's Notes: My betas were both amazing. Any and all mistakes still in here are completely my own, due to last minute editing/rushing. Also credit to the genius writers of BBC's Sherlock Holmes from whom I *borrowed* a line or two for the first chapter. Enjoy!
27th September, 2003
The waitress hovers over Astoria’s table. This is the fifth time she’s been asked if she’s ready to order and the fifth time she has replied politely (through gritted teeth), that she’ll need a few more minutes yet. She can see the pity in the young woman’s eyes, hear it in the way she asks if she’d like another glass of wine, and it makes her jaw ache.
The waitress thinks she’s been stood up. Astoria supposes in a way she has been, although not in the traditional sense. Her father arranged this lunch meeting- the obligatory bi-annual refresher on his youngest daughter’s life- and it is her father who has abandoned her, sitting in Harrod’s tea rooms for almost an hour looking and feeling the fool.
The waitress edges closer again and Astoria orders a cream scone and an espresso to save face. ‘Daddy issues’ really do nothing for the waist-line.
She is halfway done when she sees him, strolling up to the counter, shaking the rain from his platinum hair. There is a large black umbrella tucked beneath his arm and her first thought is what possessed him not to use it (for it is positively torrential out there), her second is to hide.
She snatches up a menu and stares hard at the extensive selection of herbal teas (she isn’t sure how comfortable she would feel drinking something called Oolong but perhaps now isn’t the time for such concerns,) before chancing another look. Draco is pointing at something on the sweet trolley, barking orders at the once-smug waitress.
Perhaps she could make a run for it, leave some money on the table and slip out before he sees her? But, with a curse, she realises he is directly between her and the door and all she’s got is a twenty which she’s bloody well not leaving behind for the smarmy bint’s tip.
And besides, she hasn’t finished her scone.
She glances up again. He is staring right at her. Bugger.
For a second he does not move. The waitress is trying to ask him something but it is as if he cannot hear. Astoria can literally see the thought process etched all over his face and she imagines he is reading hers right back. She’s not sure what he sees but he misinterprets because he starts towards her (bugger, bugger, bugger), his order now standing forgotten at the counter as he makes his way over to her table.
She doesn’t quite manage a smile as he slips into the seat opposite without waiting for an invitation.
“What on Earth are you doing here?” It comes out much more direct than she had meant it.
Draco simply raises an eyebrow, amused. “A pleasure to see you, too, Astoria. If you must know, I am on my lunch break.”
“You work?” she asks, disbelieving.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Where?”
He is chuckling openly now. “Gringott’s. I’m a financial consultant. Apparently if you have enough money of your own, it entitles you to tell other people how poor they are at managing theirs.”
She feels the corner of her lips twitching to a smile and fights to suppress it.
The waitress arrives with Draco’s forgotten food order and, glancing between him and Astoria, flashes her a knowing smile; they are friends now, it seems. Astoria glares her off.
“So, am I to be extended the same courtesy?”
Astoria frowns, distracted. “Pardon?”
“Well, don’t I get to know why you are here?”
“I like it here,” she mutters, deciding quickly that he definitely doesn’t need to know about her absent father; in fact the less he know about her in general, the better. “They have a very good range of herbal teas,” she attempts to justify.
“If you say so.” He fails to suppress a smirk and eyes her espresso which she knocks back in one gulp.
She looks different than he remembers somehow. (Her hair is lighter, dark roots evidence of a fading dye. Perhaps a darker lipstick too?) Then again, he supposes, it has been five months, perhaps his memory of that night is fading. Worn out, more likely, for Draco finds himself thinking of that terrace more often than is necessarily healthy.
“Have dinner with me,” he says at last. “Tonight.”
She stares at him incredulously, before shaking her head. He scowls; he hardly thinks it the most unreasonable of suggestions.
“I’m afraid I’ve rather been warned against you,”
“Ah.” His scowl darkens, “May I ask by whom?”
She snorts, somewhat unattractively, “My mother, sister and everyone else who saw us at the party and likes to throw around advice where it isn’t wanted.”
“So you didn’t like them telling you to stay away from me?”
She shoots him a wry smile. “I’m not having dinner with you.”
“No, perhaps not tonight.”
“Malfoy,” her tone is warning and he smirks, holding up his hands in mock defeat.
She surveys him as she finishes her scone. He is overly confident for a man with a reputation as black as tar, oh yes she’s been well (and rather loudly) informed since last April about his turbulent past, not to mention how little he knows of her (and best to keep it that way). Although, she concedes, feeling a familiar kind of heat creeping down the back of her neck, that didn’t stop him the last time they met.
She suddenly feels restless and toys with her empty cup, steadfastly ignoring his lingering gaze. It is unnerving, and a little ridiculous, just how easily one memory asserts itself in her mind at any given moment. After all, she tells herself, it was really nothing more than a silly, drunken kiss on an evening where there was little better to do and she needed the excitement.
But that is not true.
She steals a glance at the man sitting opposite her. He is still watching her, eyes cool and gaze suggestive. The heat creeps down to her navel.
She wanted him then, she still wants him now and she could not and cannot explain the force, the gravitational pull that has her literally inching towards the edge of her seat. She barely even remembers the kiss, except for the way it had made her nerves catch on fire; an ice cold fire that had burnt its way along sending shivers as it went. He had held her tightly at the wrist, almost to the point of pain. Her whole world tethered to that one point: the heat of his hand, the strength of his grip. And oh God, his tongue-
The waitress cuts between them to retrieve Astoria’s empty cup, and the memory is instantly pulled from focus. Taking a deep breath, she brushes her fingers through her hair, fumbling in her bag for the cigarettes she’s sure are in there before looking up at Draco to hurry her goodbye.
Without a word he leans forward and for a startling second she thinks he’s going to kiss her again, right here in the middle of some over-priced Muggle cafe. Her blood freezes, red hot in her veins. Instead, he smoothes a slender finger over her bottom lip. His touch is cold and she gasps inaudibly.
She opens her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them, to find him watching her in amusement.
“There was cream,” he says simply, “on your face.”
Astoria stares at him dumbly for half a second before bursting into peals of girlish laughter. Part in amusement, part in embarrassment and part because she is struck by how very fast her pulse is racing and she has only now begun to realise the extent of her own insanity.
“I have to go.” She manages to calm herself long enough to slip on her old camel Mac, reaching for her purse with her cigarettes in one hand.
Draco reaches out a hand to stop her, his fingers brushing hers, and Astoria feels that wave of heat push inappropriately south. She needs to leave.
“Let me get this.” Ever the gentleman.
“Fine.” She snatches up her bag and sets off for the door, “it can count as dinner.”
She throws him a brazen smile as she steps out onto the pavement, hand already signalling for a taxi by the time he has caught up. They stand in the pouring rain, he makes no move to offer the black umbrella (perhaps not quite the gentleman after all) and the traffic is dense.
“Let me Apparate you somewhere,” he shouts above the roar of a number 54 bus.
Astoria visibly blanches. She’d been the unsuspecting victim of a side-along appa-whatsits once after Daphne had passed her test. Her eyebrows had taken a leave of absence to Leicester for three weeks following.
“Not after I’ve just eaten,” she leans out into the road, hand held high. The taxi speeds past her.
Draco frowns. “Fine. Let me walk you to the nearest Floo point?”
“Too far.” She keeps her eyes on the road, gritting her teeth, and tries to swipe away the hair now plastered to her face.
He’s taking her negativity as a rebuff, and growls out in frustration, “At least get the buggering Knight Bus, this weather is relentless!”
She clenches her fist (will he not just give up?), and turns on him aggressively. Grasping his rain washed face between small hands, she crushes her mouth against his. It isn’t the same. There is no expectation, no strange unease. It is a means to an end and now he has stopped asking questions.
But there is still that heat, frothing up inside of her as his hands sink into her hair and his lips stake their claim on hers, bruising and asphyxiating and it is all she can do to tear herself away without meeting his eye as a taxi finally pulls up beside them.
“Notting Hill, Westbourne Grove,” she instructs, swinging the door shut behind her. She does not dare glance back at the man left reeling on the pavement, who is staring after her in confusion and frustration. Nor does she dare pay attention to her own pulse, deafening in her ears, or the strange light headedness that makes her lean against the window in the back of the cab.
Because this is trouble; worse, this is dangerous, and not just because he is Draco sodding Malfoy. She does not exist, cannot exist, for him for she is nothing but a ghost in his world, there in shell but not in spirit and he can never know. No one can know.
And, fuck, she needs a cigarette.
Chapter Three