Plot bunny
Jul. 14th, 2020 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
momginnyDraco/Astoria. After the war, with her husband in Azkaban, and the bulk of their fortune redistributed for reparations, Narcissa Malfoy sells the Manor. Draco can’t decide if he’s angry with her, or grateful. She moves to France, and he rents a flat in muggle London, and applies himself to his entry-level grunt job at the Ministry. About six months on after a particularly trying day, unthinking, he apparates back to a favorite quiet spot of his from childhood. Surprisingly, he is not immediately rebuffed by the new wards, which begin at the bottom of this hill, though they no longer hide the building on the next rise. Visible at the top of that hill is the old Malfoy Manor, now dubbed Greengrass Hall, it's gardens spilling over onto the slope. It was purchased by Geronimous Greengrass for his wife and daughter, after the war. When he was younger, Draco would come to this hill to think and dream, and it serves the same purpose now. On his second visit, though he's tried to be quiet and unobtrusive, he is accosted by the young lady of the house, wand drawn. Astoria Greengrass is not the timid quiet girl he remembers from school, and he is not the dangerous extremest she expected. When he tells her why he's there, she's not heartless enough to send him away, but she's also not interested in letting him sit and stare broodily at her home and plot unwatched. She doesn't tell him he can't come back, but she doesn't welcome him either.
Draco going in to work at the Ministry where he's basically a paper pusher in the Auror department only given a job on the grace of Harry's testimony and placed in that office bc then at least the cops can watch his every move. Harry appears to be awkwardly stumbling into something resembling trying to be friendly which is strange enough, until suddenly Granger and Longbottom are doing so as well (Ron the single holdout), all while Draco is trying to figure out what he actually wants out of the next phase of his life. He ends up sharing his "thinking spot" with Astoria, two or three times a week, while she tries to puzzle out what kind of man he actually is between gossip about the Ministry and people they went to school with, big silent stretches where they Don't Talk About The War, and stories about things that happened at the Manor while he was a child, happy memories that he can link so some part of the house grounds that he can see from that hill.
Maybe ending with him telling her at one point that he'd been invited to Potter's wedding, and marveling over how strange that is for a couple visits, before she takes a deep breath after watching him in silence, and says "Ask me to go with you. To the wedding." And he's had plenty of stray thoughts about how pretty she is, and how inexplicable it is that she's willingly spending time with him, and how pathetic he must seem to her: common now and nearly penniless, with no stature or real connections anymore, so he's baffled. "You wouldn't actually say yes." He says after a moment, and she arches an eyebrow at him in that way that reminds him that she is of the same sort of stock as his mother, and says "I shan't tell you unless you ask." And then she tells him that he is not who she thought he'd be - which is a sentiment that she's expressed before, but it sounds new, now. And she lists out all of the things she knows about him since the war. That he's quiet, and circumspect, that he does his job without complaint despite it being menial, and puts effort into his work even when it's just paperwork designed to keep him busy. She points out that he has a good heart, and causes that he cares about (fostered by Granger and Longbottom), and doesn't very much resemble at all the villain that he'd been painted as after the war. She's enjoyed spending time with him, on his hill, here. He's intelligent, and witty, and he's quite fit, and she and her mother are currently having a row, and being seen as his date to the Potter's wedding will confuse and irritate her, which is a pleasant bonus. "So ask me to go with you to the wedding, Draco Malfoy, or you won't get a third chance." And he asks. And she says yes. And the end? IDK.
Draco going in to work at the Ministry where he's basically a paper pusher in the Auror department only given a job on the grace of Harry's testimony and placed in that office bc then at least the cops can watch his every move. Harry appears to be awkwardly stumbling into something resembling trying to be friendly which is strange enough, until suddenly Granger and Longbottom are doing so as well (Ron the single holdout), all while Draco is trying to figure out what he actually wants out of the next phase of his life. He ends up sharing his "thinking spot" with Astoria, two or three times a week, while she tries to puzzle out what kind of man he actually is between gossip about the Ministry and people they went to school with, big silent stretches where they Don't Talk About The War, and stories about things that happened at the Manor while he was a child, happy memories that he can link so some part of the house grounds that he can see from that hill.
Maybe ending with him telling her at one point that he'd been invited to Potter's wedding, and marveling over how strange that is for a couple visits, before she takes a deep breath after watching him in silence, and says "Ask me to go with you. To the wedding." And he's had plenty of stray thoughts about how pretty she is, and how inexplicable it is that she's willingly spending time with him, and how pathetic he must seem to her: common now and nearly penniless, with no stature or real connections anymore, so he's baffled. "You wouldn't actually say yes." He says after a moment, and she arches an eyebrow at him in that way that reminds him that she is of the same sort of stock as his mother, and says "I shan't tell you unless you ask." And then she tells him that he is not who she thought he'd be - which is a sentiment that she's expressed before, but it sounds new, now. And she lists out all of the things she knows about him since the war. That he's quiet, and circumspect, that he does his job without complaint despite it being menial, and puts effort into his work even when it's just paperwork designed to keep him busy. She points out that he has a good heart, and causes that he cares about (fostered by Granger and Longbottom), and doesn't very much resemble at all the villain that he'd been painted as after the war. She's enjoyed spending time with him, on his hill, here. He's intelligent, and witty, and he's quite fit, and she and her mother are currently having a row, and being seen as his date to the Potter's wedding will confuse and irritate her, which is a pleasant bonus. "So ask me to go with you to the wedding, Draco Malfoy, or you won't get a third chance." And he asks. And she says yes. And the end? IDK.