Chase This Light, Part II (R)
Part II
"it's not perfection, how boring if it is"
“What am I doing?” Astoria wonders aloud around the girly, menthol cigarette she’s just dug out of her brown leather handbag, hands still sifting for her wand or the little ivory lighter (whichever surfaces first).
“What are you doing what?” Draco presses, eyes narrowed suddenly.
The lighter it is. She fumbles for the catch and lights the cigarette, calming only slightly as she inhales deeply. “What am I doing here, what am I doing with you, what am I doing with this,” she elaborates, tossing the lighter back into the cluttered abyss and shaking her left hand in the air, the monstrous diamond (set in the ugliest sort of ornate antique gold) casting prisms of light in its motion. “All of this quite neatly summed up in the blanket statement, what the fuck am I doing?”
Astoria looks at him, across the wrought iron of the café table on this side street in muggle Edinburgh, as though he’s turned on her suddenly. And Draco has rather suddenly remembered that, even when the game is fixed, you still have to go through the motions. Maybe he’d had a slightly softer idea of what winning Astoria would entail when he’d tracked her to her office, to where she sat, bespectacled and squinting in concentration, behind the desk piled high with legal documents and scattered with broken quills.
He’d almost laughed aloud at the image; from what he could recall of her from school (not much; two years seemed like such a gap when you were a teenager) this seemed rather out of character. She’d worn the bronze and blue, yes, but she’d always seemed to be of the ‘innately and undeservingly clever’ genre of Ravenclaw, with no real work ethic or motivation; capable of great things but settling only for ‘good enough.’
It was certain; Astoria was no Slytherin, unlike her elder sister (Daphne was half as clever, but twice as driven and she was probably better for it). She’d never had an ounce of ambition and that had always been clear. He wasn’t sure if he respected her for that or not.
He thinks Astoria must’ve agreed to lunch just to hustle him out her stepfather’s magical law offices as quickly and quietly as possible. The gossip following their all-too-short (in Draco’s opinion) jaunt around the MacMillan ballroom has been malicious, to say the least. Well, in regards to him; Astoria seems to be consistently painted as the helpless maiden in the claws of the dragon (dragon, Draco, hah, how clever) and he’s surprised to find that he prefers her characterised as such. The shame is nothing on his blighted name, nothing to the tattoo on his arm; he’ll take it without complaint, claim it with pride, even.
Although, really, Astoria seems to have mistaken ‘lunch’ for ‘chain-smoking binge,’ waving aside the menu, ordering something called a ‘cherry coca-cola’ from the muggle café (in a strictly muggle district on the opposite end of town from the small, concealed wizarding side street where she works) and, after unwrapping a new pack of cigarettes, she set in with a vengeance. Draco ordered the same, unwilling to admit unfamiliarity (and perhaps an accompanying discomfort) with his completely non-magical surroundings.
When the (rather disarmingly pleasant-tasting) glass of ‘coca-cola’ fails to provide him enough to do with his hands (he’s fidgeting) he bums another cigarette, and Astoria shoves her newly lit one at him, already back at excavation in her handbag (the cigarettes and lighter have already sunk into the mire). There’s a pale peach print sticky on the filter and the slide of it on his lips sends his mind to places he really hasn’t got around to venturing yet because, up to now, it has been (surprisingly, for a man whose total experience in relationships can be expressed in Blaise’s rather cruel title, “Pansy Parkinson: Resident Slytherin Slag”) about respect and winning (because, Merlin, was Ernie’s face the most satisfying sight he’s seen in quite a while, and that’ll be nothing to the inevitable day when Éliane Malfoy’s blue diamond replaces the hideous hunk of gold and carbon still on Astoria’s finger-he’s made up his mind; if he’s taking a ring, however ugly and unwanted, off her finger, he is putting another right back on.)
Just as Draco is silently cursing Lavender Brown’s name and all her lineage for the ridiculously excellent way she’s designed her new line of Muggle/Magic fashion, (especially the white, pleated blouse Astoria’s wearing; it doesn’t even have buttons all the way up the front, how can he be blamed for a few surreptitious glances?) Astoria stubs her cigarette into the ash tray and gathers herself up to stand.
He’s up as well, only a moment’s delay and her wrist is in his hand and she’s only halfway standing and not fighting; it occurs to him that maybe she just wanted to make him touch her (if the Hat sorted women instead of little girls, Madame Malkin’s could do away with skirts and jumpers trimmed in any other colours than silver and green; cunning, manipulative sirens, all of them). He draws his hand down, his fingers light on her hand, brushing the MacMillan ring.
“You don’t want that,” he tells her, pulling his hand away (this girl is playing with a real Slytherin, she doesn’t even know manipulation). Almost involuntarily, her hand twitches after his and she looks up at him, her lovely eyes wide and alive.
“I did once,” she defends softly, twisting the ring around her finger. “When I was fifteen and he was brave and that was more than enough of a reason to be in love.” Her head snaps up, eyes dagger-sharp. “This isn’t just about you, you know…not entirely,” she concedes, turning her face away, pale roses blooming on her high cheeks. “I was ready to just run away that day, before I ever even met you…just rip off those old robes and this fucking ugly ring and those stupid curls and stop pretending to be happy,” she says miserably. “I said yes three years ago; what else do you say when your brave, lovely boyfriend gets down on one knee after your graduation in front of everyone and proposes? He’s a lovely, kind man but it’s all too easy, too perfect…” she trails off, shaking herself out of the descent into rambling. “It’s not enough,” she finishes, with a lofty sort of quiet, “because we're not in love anymore, it’s all just convenience and childhood romance.”
She settles back into her chair, drained, a bitter, wry smile on her face. “Do you even care?”
Very aware that dishonesty wasn’t going to get him too far with Astoria (he’s either getting too easy to read or she’s just exceptionally perceptive, because he doesn’t doubt for a second she’d know if he lied to her) he shrugs. “Not really, but it seems to be going in the direction I want, so please, do continue.”
She really laughs at that, and her laugh is bright like bells on Sunday mornings in summer. Her laugh is light in Draco’s ears and, maybe for the first time, he knows what happiness it is to create something beautiful, something worth enjoying.
He walks her back to her office, and they fall into an alley halfway between. She’s up against the wall, his arms curled up around her, and their faces are so painfully close (he can hear, feel, her whispery-quick breathing, her heartbeat is jarringly out of sync with his, too fast and fluttery, and she smells so exquisitely expensive) but neither can bring themselves to close the distance. Her hands are curling over his shoulders, smoothing down his chest and the lowest part of his mind wants to take her to the most beautiful hotel suite in the city and find out what other beautiful sounds he can have her make (because that laugh he created is living in lovely, singing echoes in his mind and he wants more of that) but he can’t seem to find a way to end this moment, because somehow this moment (there will only ever be one, just this once in a back alley of muggle Edinburgh when he held her up against him and still didn’t know how her lips felt) is far more precious.
They don’t quite find a way to kiss in the alleyway; there are a few tentative tries, but somehow they never get closer than pressing their foreheads together. For the moment, the way her eyes meet his so calmly, searchingly curious, is a hundred thousand times more than enough.
When he walks away from her office block (she wouldn’t let him walk her any closer), it seems rather obvious to him that he loves her. It’s a bit worrying, really, recalling what she said about Ernie being too perfect and easy (he was listening; caring and listening are two entirely different things) because this seems deceptively perfect and easy (apart from the extreme and unfortunately literal case of Astoria being ‘otherwise engaged’).
And then, in a flash that settles his thoughts, he remembers he is Draco Malfoy, and things haven’t gone easy for him since he was a teenager.
Oh, thank God.
Another title from Jimmy Eat World's new(ish) album, Chase This Light (from the song Here It Goes.