FIC: another apple to cut into pieces [Draco/Astoria - PG-13]
Author: Anonymous
Title: another apple to cut into pieces
Characters/Pairings: Asteria Greengrass, Daphne Greengrass, Draco Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy; Draco/Asteria
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: depression, some graphic imagery
Word Count: 2,314
Prompt: for blossomdreams’s prompt: Draco/Astoria, no one asked Astoria if she wanted the Malfoy heir.
Notes: According to the Weasley family tree, Astoria was originally called Asteria and I like that better since Asteria was the name of a Greek Titan and I just dig that.
Mabel is not crazy, she's unusual. She's not crazy, so don't say she's crazy.
(A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE)
I don't know what my love looks like, and I can't describe it. Most of the time I can't feel it. (SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE)
-
(Asteria screams. Asteria screams and blood is pounding in her head, keeping tempo with the beat of her heart. Her face is bright red but her lips are white, stretched over the white of her teeth; she looks almost comical.
There’s a ringing in her ears but she still screams.
There is too much red in this picture.)
-
Their first choice (the obvious choice) is Daphne, but Theodore Nott already has his claws in her, or maybe it’s the other way around but regardless, Asteria is the second choice.
“Consider yourself lucky,” Olena murmurs in her ear after Lucius Malfoy leaves, brushing her daughter’s dark hair away from her face. “So many girls would kill to be in your shoes.”
Asteria wishes they would.
-
Daphne had been the obvious, expected choice; beautiful and ambitious, but she is less wild than Asteria is, her tongue less acerbic, her head cooler. She is not as angry as Asteria is, and she is older and far more cunning, so she was the first choice, the predictable, safe choice. The Malfoy boy could marry Daphne, their name and legacy on the way to being cleared because the Greengrasses supported Dumbledore during the war and what better way to return to society’s good graces again by marrying the beautiful daughter of someone who fought for The Greater Good?
Asteria boils inside and she hates them. Asteria bleeds and Asteria screams and Asteria wants to peel back her skin and show them her veins and her muscles and her bones and heart and tears and sweat and blood and Asteria wants to kill them. Asteria wants to be human.
It will never be enough.
-
She trains to become an Auror, knuckles scraped to the bone and bleeding because she is not promised to Draco Malfoy yet. The scar tissue on her chest and back make a map and she traces them in the morning, her soft fingertips drag along rough edges. The scars are as white as a fish belly, shockingly pale against the red of her fingernails, gnarled against the smooth skin of her stomach. She inhales deeply and lets out a breath, smiling to herself.
She is a warrior, she thinks. She is free, she thinks.
(She is a fool.)
-
Narcissa Malfoy gives her a once-over and turns up her aristocratic nose, her acceptance reluctant but there is a gleam in her eye and Asteria is too angry to try to decipher the meaning behind it. “You’ll do,” Narcissa says.
Asteria knows that she means, you are worthy of my son and she wants to ask, is your son worthy of me?
It doesn’t matter, though. Her opinion is quite irrelevant nowadays.
-
Draco Malfoy isn’t handsome but he is wealthy, has parents with deep pockets and connections in the right places (and some in the wrong places). His family is inching their way back into society’s good graces and Narcissa Malfoy throws parties twice a month.
Asteria gets invitations, but she suspects that’s only because she’ll be family soon. She recognizes some of the people there (either she saw their pictures in the papers or they went to school together) but she doesn’t speak to them. She doesn’t feel very social and it shows.
Her future husband makes idle chatter, Asteria tunes him out. She sips her red wine and scowls, rage simmering inside her.
“I said, ‘what do you think of the Vratsa Vultures’?” Draco repeats loudly.
“I don’t really care about Quidditch much these days,” Asteria answers and drains her half-full glass of wine in one gulp.
-
It’s unfair and she knows and that makes it more bittersweet. She goes to Hogsmeade alone one day, her scarf tied high upon her throat and she keeps it on even though the cold lingers outside rather than in - there is a different kind of cold inside of her, though - and when she hands over two Sickles to pay for her drink, the girl behind the counter lets out an appreciative sigh at the glitter of her ring. “How lovely,” she sighs. “You’re a very lucky woman.”
Asteria nods, feeling sick. “I suppose I am.”
She leaves, the wind whipping her scarf and hair in the wind. Snowflakes land on her cheeks and melt, they cling to her eyelashes making her blink.
-
One day, she has tea with Narcissa Malfoy. Narcissa is lovely and pale and she sits with her back upright, poker straight and her hair falls in soft waves around her lovely face. Asteria takes care not to slurp her tea and she keeps her legs crossed at the ankle, trying to be elegant and poised because she respects Narcissa the way she does not respect Narcissa’s son or husband. A very small part of her wants Narcissa’s approval.
“So, you’re an Auror?” Narcissa asks quietly.
Asteria nods and tucks her hair behind her ear.
Narcissa smiles; she looks a little sad.
Asteria says, “What did you do before you were married? I mean… what was your job?”
“I never had one,” Narcissa answers with a casual wave of one bejeweled hand but Asteria can see the sadness in her eyes. Asteria suspects if she’d asked Narcissa about any dreams, she’s get the same response.
-
The wedding is a lovely affair, Asteria looks beautiful. She keeps her lips pressed together when her husband parades her around and only opens them when she greets them; pursing and pressing them to cheeks when offered. The rest of the time, she smiles without teeth and holds down the bile rising in her throat.
She does what is expected of her all day. At night, she does not turn away her new husband and he tries to be gentle (she thinks this is the only unexpected action of the day and he kisses her neck when he pushes inside) but it hurts anyway, he feels too big inside of her and it feels like all the bones in her body are breaking; she pictures her pelvis snapping in half. There’s too much blood on the sheets when they’re done and it soaks into the fibers and she thinks that she’ll probably have to wash those later. Dutiful wife, washing sheets and dusting her husband’s trophies.
“It sometimes hurts the first time,” he mumbles next to her, sounding fatigued. “I mean… for the woman. Then I guess it gets easier.” He reaches up, touches her hair.
Asteria doesn’t answer. She rolls onto her side, facing away from him. She is sore and she feels tired. Tears sting her eyes and she screws them shut.
There is blood staining the inside of her thighs when she wakes up in the morning.
-
“So, have you two decided what to name your child?” one of Narcissa’s friends asks and Draco answers without consulting his wife.
Again, her opinion on the matter is painfully irrelevant.
She quits her job four weeks later. When Shacklebolt asks her why, she answers that the hours aren’t really conducive to raising a child but what she really means is that her husband’s family didn’t exactly approve.
Narcissa asks her to have tea a few days later and Asteria politely declines.
-
Asteria used to think herself angry, but these days she’s just tired. The rage is still there but she puts it on the backburner, lets it simmer away, and sometimes she has to check her pulse to make sure she’s still alive.
She wakes up one morning and empties her stomach in the toilet. Draco looks smug, Lucius proud and Narcissa a little… sad.
Her stomach churns and Draco brings her fruit when Asteria wants nothing except to starve this child out of her. She never wanted this, this thing inside of her, a parasite that feeds off of her, sucks her blood into itself. Draco brings her fruit and Asteria eats it, resentful and the rage boils up again and oh, she missed that. She bites into the orange he brings her letting the juice drip down her chin; books taught her that she must love this thing and crave sour foods and glow with joy, lighting up when she feels the child kick but Asteria feels nothing but anger.
“You should feel blessed,” Daphne says, pouring her a cup of tea.
Asteria scowls.
-
Later:
“How can I be a mother when the only people I love are my mother and sister? I don’t love this thing yet.” She smiles, feeling sad. “I don’t even love my husband,” she adds in a whisper. “I wish I could.”
Daphne sighs, peeling herself an apple. “Mother says it’s not hard. Besides, what does your husband have to do with anything?”
“It’s half him.” Asteria takes a piece of apple from her.
-
After eight and a half months of carrying a parasite in her womb there are days and nights of blackness and pain and she screams and swears and thrashes about in bed with a Healer at her side, smoothing her hair and soothing her quietly and there’s sweat on her brow even though she thinks it would evaporate from the heat on her face but finally, finally the child is born.
Asteria falls back on the pillows, damp from sweat and tears and she sighs. “It’s a girl,” the Healer whispers, handing her the tiny wrinkled blotchy pink mess, swaddled in white cotton wool and Asteria sighs. The world is a hard place for women, she wants to tell her daughter but she can’t, not with the people filing in; Draco in the lead, Narcissa at his elbow and Olena behind her.
“Oh.” Narcissa’s voice comes quietly. “A girl? That won’t do.”
-
“It gets easier,” Olena tells Asteria, wiping the sweat from her daughter’s brow. “I promise.”
It varies from woman to woman, Asteria wants to say but doesn’t. That’s what I read. She’s too tired and she sleeps restlessly.
-
They name their daughter Cassiopeia and Asteria resents her and hates herself for it. She wants to scream at her and ask her why she couldn’t have been a boy and she also wants to hold her close, comfort her and tell her that the world is hard for women and that no matter what your accomplishments and dreams and hopes, you are the expendable gender and that maybe she shouldn’t have dreams in the first place since her father will just sell her to the highest bidder, anyway.
“We are like cattle,” Asteria murmurs to Cassiopeia in her crib. “It’s best to not have any hope at all. You will grow up to be a woman and you will know how we suffer. You are already a woman.”
Asteria is not very good at being a mother. She touches her daughter’s tuft of dark hair; the child cries with a strand catches on her mother’s ring and it tugs, it hurts. Asteria walks away, exhausted.
-
The second child comes easier and when the Healer hands her the baby and announces, “it’s a boy,” Asteria breathes out, relieved. She refuses to hold this child to her breast, imploring that the Healer give the child to his father.
There is your son, she thinks. There is your progeny, your heir. I hope you are happy. I hope I have done my duties well.
She rolls over and goes to sleep.
-
There are scars on Asteria’s back and chest and sides and she traces each individual one, feeling the hills and valleys on her skin. There are scars inside her mind, too.
Her husband works long hours and he leaves Asteria to raise the children. She tries at first, she really does because she was a Ravenclaw and she believes that if she puts her mind to something, she can accomplish it, but whenever she looks at them, she’s reminded of what she was robbed of - a husband she loved, a child she wanted, a life she wanted, dreams she accomplished and she hates them.
She wishes she could feel guilty, but she doesn’t.
Scorpius plays in the garden and brings her a flower setting it in her lap. She tries to smile but she can’t bring herself to.
-
“I hate my children,” Asteria murmurs to Daphne.
“Don’t be absurd. They’re just children.”
Asteria sighs and closes her eyes. She is so tired these days.
-
Draco sleeps next to her, his eyes closed and his long lashes casting a curved shadow across the white pillow. He sleeps soundly, covers tucked tightly around him because the single battle Asteria has won in their six years of marriage is sleeping with the window open and it’s bitterly cold outside, the chill seeping into their bones and settling down.
Asteria rests a hand on his face, stroking her thumb over the high cheekbone under the stupid, baby soft skin. She could love him, she thinks, if she were a different woman.
He rolls over in his sleep. “Close the window,” he mutters.
She rolls over, ignoring him. Or maybe if you were a different man,.
-
Asteria watches as Scorpius and Cassiopeia chase each other in the garden and her heart aches as Scorpius trips and falls down, but he dusts himself off and keeps running. “Mum, come play with us!” Cassiopeia yells over her shoulder at her mother and she takes off after a butterfly.
Asteria turns her head away and wipes at her watering eyes. The tears burn on her hand and she wipes them off on her robes. She imagines them sizzling and burning through her robes like acid, setting her skin on fire and oh she wishes she could be consumed by flames.
Instead, she looks back at her children. “In a moment, precious,” she calls, ignoring the lump in her throat. She takes a deep breath and stands up, following after them.
-
end.
Title: another apple to cut into pieces
Characters/Pairings: Asteria Greengrass, Daphne Greengrass, Draco Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy; Draco/Asteria
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: depression, some graphic imagery
Word Count: 2,314
Prompt: for blossomdreams’s prompt: Draco/Astoria, no one asked Astoria if she wanted the Malfoy heir.
Notes: According to the Weasley family tree, Astoria was originally called Asteria and I like that better since Asteria was the name of a Greek Titan and I just dig that.
Mabel is not crazy, she's unusual. She's not crazy, so don't say she's crazy.
(A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE)
I don't know what my love looks like, and I can't describe it. Most of the time I can't feel it. (SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE)
-
(Asteria screams. Asteria screams and blood is pounding in her head, keeping tempo with the beat of her heart. Her face is bright red but her lips are white, stretched over the white of her teeth; she looks almost comical.
There’s a ringing in her ears but she still screams.
There is too much red in this picture.)
-
Their first choice (the obvious choice) is Daphne, but Theodore Nott already has his claws in her, or maybe it’s the other way around but regardless, Asteria is the second choice.
“Consider yourself lucky,” Olena murmurs in her ear after Lucius Malfoy leaves, brushing her daughter’s dark hair away from her face. “So many girls would kill to be in your shoes.”
Asteria wishes they would.
-
Daphne had been the obvious, expected choice; beautiful and ambitious, but she is less wild than Asteria is, her tongue less acerbic, her head cooler. She is not as angry as Asteria is, and she is older and far more cunning, so she was the first choice, the predictable, safe choice. The Malfoy boy could marry Daphne, their name and legacy on the way to being cleared because the Greengrasses supported Dumbledore during the war and what better way to return to society’s good graces again by marrying the beautiful daughter of someone who fought for The Greater Good?
Asteria boils inside and she hates them. Asteria bleeds and Asteria screams and Asteria wants to peel back her skin and show them her veins and her muscles and her bones and heart and tears and sweat and blood and Asteria wants to kill them. Asteria wants to be human.
It will never be enough.
-
She trains to become an Auror, knuckles scraped to the bone and bleeding because she is not promised to Draco Malfoy yet. The scar tissue on her chest and back make a map and she traces them in the morning, her soft fingertips drag along rough edges. The scars are as white as a fish belly, shockingly pale against the red of her fingernails, gnarled against the smooth skin of her stomach. She inhales deeply and lets out a breath, smiling to herself.
She is a warrior, she thinks. She is free, she thinks.
(She is a fool.)
-
Narcissa Malfoy gives her a once-over and turns up her aristocratic nose, her acceptance reluctant but there is a gleam in her eye and Asteria is too angry to try to decipher the meaning behind it. “You’ll do,” Narcissa says.
Asteria knows that she means, you are worthy of my son and she wants to ask, is your son worthy of me?
It doesn’t matter, though. Her opinion is quite irrelevant nowadays.
-
Draco Malfoy isn’t handsome but he is wealthy, has parents with deep pockets and connections in the right places (and some in the wrong places). His family is inching their way back into society’s good graces and Narcissa Malfoy throws parties twice a month.
Asteria gets invitations, but she suspects that’s only because she’ll be family soon. She recognizes some of the people there (either she saw their pictures in the papers or they went to school together) but she doesn’t speak to them. She doesn’t feel very social and it shows.
Her future husband makes idle chatter, Asteria tunes him out. She sips her red wine and scowls, rage simmering inside her.
“I said, ‘what do you think of the Vratsa Vultures’?” Draco repeats loudly.
“I don’t really care about Quidditch much these days,” Asteria answers and drains her half-full glass of wine in one gulp.
-
It’s unfair and she knows and that makes it more bittersweet. She goes to Hogsmeade alone one day, her scarf tied high upon her throat and she keeps it on even though the cold lingers outside rather than in - there is a different kind of cold inside of her, though - and when she hands over two Sickles to pay for her drink, the girl behind the counter lets out an appreciative sigh at the glitter of her ring. “How lovely,” she sighs. “You’re a very lucky woman.”
Asteria nods, feeling sick. “I suppose I am.”
She leaves, the wind whipping her scarf and hair in the wind. Snowflakes land on her cheeks and melt, they cling to her eyelashes making her blink.
-
One day, she has tea with Narcissa Malfoy. Narcissa is lovely and pale and she sits with her back upright, poker straight and her hair falls in soft waves around her lovely face. Asteria takes care not to slurp her tea and she keeps her legs crossed at the ankle, trying to be elegant and poised because she respects Narcissa the way she does not respect Narcissa’s son or husband. A very small part of her wants Narcissa’s approval.
“So, you’re an Auror?” Narcissa asks quietly.
Asteria nods and tucks her hair behind her ear.
Narcissa smiles; she looks a little sad.
Asteria says, “What did you do before you were married? I mean… what was your job?”
“I never had one,” Narcissa answers with a casual wave of one bejeweled hand but Asteria can see the sadness in her eyes. Asteria suspects if she’d asked Narcissa about any dreams, she’s get the same response.
-
The wedding is a lovely affair, Asteria looks beautiful. She keeps her lips pressed together when her husband parades her around and only opens them when she greets them; pursing and pressing them to cheeks when offered. The rest of the time, she smiles without teeth and holds down the bile rising in her throat.
She does what is expected of her all day. At night, she does not turn away her new husband and he tries to be gentle (she thinks this is the only unexpected action of the day and he kisses her neck when he pushes inside) but it hurts anyway, he feels too big inside of her and it feels like all the bones in her body are breaking; she pictures her pelvis snapping in half. There’s too much blood on the sheets when they’re done and it soaks into the fibers and she thinks that she’ll probably have to wash those later. Dutiful wife, washing sheets and dusting her husband’s trophies.
“It sometimes hurts the first time,” he mumbles next to her, sounding fatigued. “I mean… for the woman. Then I guess it gets easier.” He reaches up, touches her hair.
Asteria doesn’t answer. She rolls onto her side, facing away from him. She is sore and she feels tired. Tears sting her eyes and she screws them shut.
There is blood staining the inside of her thighs when she wakes up in the morning.
-
“So, have you two decided what to name your child?” one of Narcissa’s friends asks and Draco answers without consulting his wife.
Again, her opinion on the matter is painfully irrelevant.
She quits her job four weeks later. When Shacklebolt asks her why, she answers that the hours aren’t really conducive to raising a child but what she really means is that her husband’s family didn’t exactly approve.
Narcissa asks her to have tea a few days later and Asteria politely declines.
-
Asteria used to think herself angry, but these days she’s just tired. The rage is still there but she puts it on the backburner, lets it simmer away, and sometimes she has to check her pulse to make sure she’s still alive.
She wakes up one morning and empties her stomach in the toilet. Draco looks smug, Lucius proud and Narcissa a little… sad.
Her stomach churns and Draco brings her fruit when Asteria wants nothing except to starve this child out of her. She never wanted this, this thing inside of her, a parasite that feeds off of her, sucks her blood into itself. Draco brings her fruit and Asteria eats it, resentful and the rage boils up again and oh, she missed that. She bites into the orange he brings her letting the juice drip down her chin; books taught her that she must love this thing and crave sour foods and glow with joy, lighting up when she feels the child kick but Asteria feels nothing but anger.
“You should feel blessed,” Daphne says, pouring her a cup of tea.
Asteria scowls.
-
Later:
“How can I be a mother when the only people I love are my mother and sister? I don’t love this thing yet.” She smiles, feeling sad. “I don’t even love my husband,” she adds in a whisper. “I wish I could.”
Daphne sighs, peeling herself an apple. “Mother says it’s not hard. Besides, what does your husband have to do with anything?”
“It’s half him.” Asteria takes a piece of apple from her.
-
After eight and a half months of carrying a parasite in her womb there are days and nights of blackness and pain and she screams and swears and thrashes about in bed with a Healer at her side, smoothing her hair and soothing her quietly and there’s sweat on her brow even though she thinks it would evaporate from the heat on her face but finally, finally the child is born.
Asteria falls back on the pillows, damp from sweat and tears and she sighs. “It’s a girl,” the Healer whispers, handing her the tiny wrinkled blotchy pink mess, swaddled in white cotton wool and Asteria sighs. The world is a hard place for women, she wants to tell her daughter but she can’t, not with the people filing in; Draco in the lead, Narcissa at his elbow and Olena behind her.
“Oh.” Narcissa’s voice comes quietly. “A girl? That won’t do.”
-
“It gets easier,” Olena tells Asteria, wiping the sweat from her daughter’s brow. “I promise.”
It varies from woman to woman, Asteria wants to say but doesn’t. That’s what I read. She’s too tired and she sleeps restlessly.
-
They name their daughter Cassiopeia and Asteria resents her and hates herself for it. She wants to scream at her and ask her why she couldn’t have been a boy and she also wants to hold her close, comfort her and tell her that the world is hard for women and that no matter what your accomplishments and dreams and hopes, you are the expendable gender and that maybe she shouldn’t have dreams in the first place since her father will just sell her to the highest bidder, anyway.
“We are like cattle,” Asteria murmurs to Cassiopeia in her crib. “It’s best to not have any hope at all. You will grow up to be a woman and you will know how we suffer. You are already a woman.”
Asteria is not very good at being a mother. She touches her daughter’s tuft of dark hair; the child cries with a strand catches on her mother’s ring and it tugs, it hurts. Asteria walks away, exhausted.
-
The second child comes easier and when the Healer hands her the baby and announces, “it’s a boy,” Asteria breathes out, relieved. She refuses to hold this child to her breast, imploring that the Healer give the child to his father.
There is your son, she thinks. There is your progeny, your heir. I hope you are happy. I hope I have done my duties well.
She rolls over and goes to sleep.
-
There are scars on Asteria’s back and chest and sides and she traces each individual one, feeling the hills and valleys on her skin. There are scars inside her mind, too.
Her husband works long hours and he leaves Asteria to raise the children. She tries at first, she really does because she was a Ravenclaw and she believes that if she puts her mind to something, she can accomplish it, but whenever she looks at them, she’s reminded of what she was robbed of - a husband she loved, a child she wanted, a life she wanted, dreams she accomplished and she hates them.
She wishes she could feel guilty, but she doesn’t.
Scorpius plays in the garden and brings her a flower setting it in her lap. She tries to smile but she can’t bring herself to.
-
“I hate my children,” Asteria murmurs to Daphne.
“Don’t be absurd. They’re just children.”
Asteria sighs and closes her eyes. She is so tired these days.
-
Draco sleeps next to her, his eyes closed and his long lashes casting a curved shadow across the white pillow. He sleeps soundly, covers tucked tightly around him because the single battle Asteria has won in their six years of marriage is sleeping with the window open and it’s bitterly cold outside, the chill seeping into their bones and settling down.
Asteria rests a hand on his face, stroking her thumb over the high cheekbone under the stupid, baby soft skin. She could love him, she thinks, if she were a different woman.
He rolls over in his sleep. “Close the window,” he mutters.
She rolls over, ignoring him. Or maybe if you were a different man,.
-
Asteria watches as Scorpius and Cassiopeia chase each other in the garden and her heart aches as Scorpius trips and falls down, but he dusts himself off and keeps running. “Mum, come play with us!” Cassiopeia yells over her shoulder at her mother and she takes off after a butterfly.
Asteria turns her head away and wipes at her watering eyes. The tears burn on her hand and she wipes them off on her robes. She imagines them sizzling and burning through her robes like acid, setting her skin on fire and oh she wishes she could be consumed by flames.
Instead, she looks back at her children. “In a moment, precious,” she calls, ignoring the lump in her throat. She takes a deep breath and stands up, following after them.
-
end.