The Day After Tomorrow

THE BUSHES HAVE EARS

40 - THE BUSHES HAVE EARS

"YOUR mother tells me you're doing better." Astoria glanced about the grounds of Malfoy Manor. It wasn't the pristine English rose garden that the Greengrass' grounds had, this was an expanse of woodland to the end, cropped neat green hedges and elegant rows of bright blooms. Somehow it felt forbidding, how well curated it all was, even from the evergreen avenue that cast cool shadows across the ironwork table they were set at. It all felt strangely formal.

This was supposed to be hers one day, she couldn't bring herself to believe it. It felt uncomfortable almost, like an overtight corset, cutting off her air.

Draco glanced up from his cup of tea at her, feeling irritated at her politeness, not her per se but at the fact that she had to be. Was someone listening? Who was he kidding, someone was always listening, and if she was being so poised and polite it meant she'd noticed ears. He had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at it all, it was probably his future mother-in-law hiding in the bushes. "I'm feeling much better." Said Draco cooly instead.

This whole charade sometimes felt like something that had happened to someone else. Like he was a bystander watching some version, some double of his go through the motions. It helped that it was Astoria he was acting it all out with. A long moment passed where all Astoria did was nod sagely, as if she were deeply engrossed by his response. It was one of her Looks. The kind she reserved for their charade, it worried him sometimes how easily she turned them on and off – and that meant something considering that he had always been one for his mask.

In a way, she looked no different from the last time he saw her at St Mungo's. Which told him that whatever she was thinking, she wasn't going to show it. All the days since then, he'd run her words through his mind on an endless loop: Hermione loves you, and so when I'm gone...

"For fucks sake." Astoria literally slumped into her seat, like someone had cut the strings of a puppet. She grinned at him across the table, a cheeky relieved grin. "I was worried we'd have to start talking about the weather next."

He couldn't reconcile this cavalier version of her with the way she'd so insistently looked at him at the St Mungo's. They way she'd spoken about herself as gone so easily. But now, when she was herself, the version of her that didn't worry about the future, when no one was watching, Draco found that she was good company, fun to be around even.

There was a confidence, rawness and mischievousness to her that made him feel like he could count her as a close friend. He felt sorry that she'd been squashed into the mould of delicate daughter when she was so much more. Wild, reckless even. He found it hard not to smirk in return. "Merlin forbid, the weather." He shuddered and heard her snicker into her teacup. A sound that would have had her mother gasping.

"Who was it in the bushes?" Asked Draco, when the laughter had died down. He'd thought their little spot at the bottom of the garden would be relatively secluded, with its shaded branches.

It was these private moments when they could stop pretending that he enjoyed the most, the moments when they didn't have to suppress the truth. There was the silent shadow however, the truth that she out of everyone knew, the same one he refused to acknowledge for fear of what it would mean: Granger.

Astoria shook her head. It was filled with pins today, her mother's idea. She spent a moment with her head tipped back towards the late afternoon light and pulled each pin out till her hair fell back in a heavy dark wave. With the needles gone she felt herself sigh more in relief than exasperation at being watched. "Does it matter? Its was either my mother or her house elf which is almost worse because she's got ears double the size and a photographic memory."