when they became villains [draco malfoy] {book 2}

Summer 1997 - 165

Days tend to stretch agonizingly slow when all one is left to are the thoughts they only try to keep pushing out. When one is locked in their room without any real hobbies and nobody to talk to, time passes even slower. So much that books begin to get interesting. Shopping trips with your hands tied and held by an invisible rope, a large hat covering your face, are as exciting as it can get.

Astrid felt she was being reduced to a thoughtless animal and the girl hadn't yet managed to wrap her mind around the reality that she was facing. Still, the girl hoped perhaps it was all a dream. None of it felt real. It couldn't be.

Narcissa led Astrid down an abandoned cobbled street. Being instructed to hold her head down, the girl couldn't see much, but she could hear few people chatting out of stores or apartment windows here and there. She could smell both tints of expensive perfume and the stench of rot. 

Only when a bell dinged and bright light flooded her vision was the hat lifted off her face and her wrists were freed. It took a moment for her to adjust to the sharp lights of the shop and the frown on her face only deepened when she realised just how classy of a shop was it that they were in. Everywhere were clothes a forty-year-old lady would wear to the office. Uncomfortable. Dark. Not anything Astrid would ever want to wear. Not a shop she would've ever entered and not because she probably wouldn't have been able to afford anything in there.

A wand tapped her back and Astrid winced as a firm, invisible pressure got applied to her back, keeping it straight. Then and there the girl decided she would try and remembered about keeping her back straight herself or else the wounds on it would never heal.

"Now, take a look around if there's anything you like. Take it and try it on. I'll bring you pieces I like too," spoke Narcissa and walked off to converse with the shop assistant. 

Left alone, Astrid twirled on her axis and scanned the room for anything at all she could possibly work with. Her eyes landed on the shirts of the men's section and she wondered if Narcissa would notice and object Astrid had taken these. The shirts looked to be pretty much the most comfortable thing in the store, and that was saying a lot.

Alone, none of the clothes looked good, though, with a determined narrow of her eyes, Astrid decided styling and a bit of jewellery could make all the difference. She just has to figure what to wear with what.

The girl began with browsing the men's section and telling Narcissa to mind her own business when asked about it. Shirts, blazers, jumpers. The only restriction Astrid could not disobey was that everything had to be black. Having placed her goods in a dressing cabin, surprising both the shop assistant and the Malfoy wife, Astrid strolled right back out again browsing the woman's section for pants and skirts she could find. 

As time went on, surprisingly enough, Astrid found she was even having fun. Not only did she get to order around the shop assistant 'politely' just to irk Narcissa, but she did also actually get handled all that she wanted. Even better was seeing the shocked reactions of the two women and the other two customers that had come in when Astrid strolled out of the dressing room in nothing but an oversized black blazer to find herself a belt to tie around her waist. In her mind, it was hilarious.

By the end of it, Astrid was pretty content with all that she had found. Narcissa was not. But that wasn't Astrid's problem. Her problem was the fact none of her pants were flared and all her skirts were tight. That and Narcissa had allowed her to buy just one oversized blazer, which Astrid personally considered to be the best piece of them all. As well as this one heavily laced dress the woman had chosen for 'special occasions. Sleeves long but collarbones and shoulders bare, the dress made a heart shape at her chest and stretched to the very ground, going tight around her upper half and loose around her legs. Astrid thought she looked much like a bride in black. It was unnerving and so gashing that looking herself in the mirror, she hadn't quite managed to believe it was her.