Even in the Darkest of Times (Draco/Astoria)

3 | Astoria

Chapter Three: Astoria

Pompous, cocky, rude—and on top of all that, ridiculously good-looking. It hardly seemed fair that Draco Malfoy should be in possession of the loveliest set of eyes, and that hair, when all he could offer personality-wise were lines like "Am I to believe that I have not yet been officially employed as the new Potions teacher?"

Astoria never thought she'd want to deck a person so badly until this moment.

Grumbling loudly, Astoria stomped around her empty flat with a cold cup of tea she had brewed for herself over an hour ago. She had been pacing like this for a while now, re-living every moment of that infuriating reunion with Draco Malfoy.

Ha! She slammed her fist on her dining-room table, letting out a loud, bird-like squawk. It had felt more like a wrestling match than a reunion. And it wasn't as though they had ever been friends to begin with—even the position of acquaintances would've been an overstatement. Yes, there was that one time at that Christmas party when they'd—Astoria blushed furiously at the memory and banished it with another a sharp kick to the table, this time with her foot. She had forgotten she was wearing nothing but a pair of bright green flip-flops and so the contact between the hard wood and her toes shot into her a sharp, stabbing pain. She squawked again, jerking back violently, and the tea spilled messily onto her hand.

"Look at yourself," Astoria muttered later as she dumped the contents of the tea into the bin. She caught her reflection in her kitchen window and observed, with distaste, how her hair had managed to entangle itself into hopeless little knots. It would be damn near impossible to comb her way through this. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I will not let some snotty little Mummy's boy get in the way of a job I deserve. And then she was travelling back down to that moment again, when she'd uncharacteristically spit out an almost feisty response to Malfoy who had dared snigger at her. If there was one thing Astoria hated, it was sniggering.

"I already sound like a teacher," she grumbled to herself, moving back down to her bedroom where her clothes lay neatly arranged on top of her bed. McGonagall had already owled her the September timetable sometime this afternoon, showing all the days she would be teaching.

It had seemed so incredibly daunting at first when she saw just how many lessons she would be teaching in a day, let alone six weeks. It almost made her sympathetic towards Severus Snape, who had been teaching the subject for years and years all on his own. Almost—until she remembered that one time the oily-haired pillock had tipped the contents of her Sleepless Draught potion into the bin because the texture, according to him at least, had been 'all wrong'. The man had never liked her (although this mattered little to her, the feeling most definitely had been mutual) because her father had crucio'd him as part of his initiation process into their little Death Eater club. According to Daphne, the resentment stemmed from the fact that Papa had been a tad...overly-zealous with his torture methods during the initiation.

It was hardly Astoria's fault her father was a sick bastard but she had grown up learning to bear the brunt of her parents' mistakes

As the new September term was starting in just four days, all professors were required to be in the Hogwarts' grounds at least two days before the students were. This gave them time to settle in and prepare some of their lessons. Dumbledore had never been too strict on this rule but, now, McGonagall insisted on it. Astoria would be leaving this evening, keen to make an impression on McGonagall by arriving a lot earlier than was expected of her. She smirked to herself as she packed her favourite woolly jumper into her third suitcase (one could never be too prepared!). From what she knew of Malfoy from her school days, he had always had problems with punctuality. Daphne had reaffirmed this by recounting all those times the git had appeared to class, flushed and half-asleep, at least twenty minutes late to lesson. That was all Astoria needed to be sure he would make a fool of himself. That'll show the sniggering bastard.