Draco Malfoy isn’t what Astoria expects. Daphne used to talk about a spoiled whiny boy who constantly threated to tell his father when things didn’t go his way. Astoria remembers him from Hogwarts, but she’s four years younger, so they never really interacted very much at all. Her first year had been during Umbridge’s reign of terror, that she and Daphne just attempted to avoid, and her second year was the year Dumbledore died. Everyone knows how her third year would have gone, but her parents decided an extended holiday in America would be a good idea, so they missed the worst of the war year.
He’s handsome, not like his father, who Astoria can admit to giggling over with several friends as a young girl, but there’s something regal about his features that she likes. He’s also clever, which matters more to her than his looks. Pretty fades, after all, but intelligent minds get sharper with age. While Daphne’s secondary house is likely Gryffindor, of all places, Astoria knows her own would have been Ravenclaw. She thinks perhaps Draco’s would have been, as well.
The war changed him, just like it did so many others, and she thinks it’s an improvement because he’s no longer mindlessly obeying anyone’s orders. He actually protested the arranged marriage when it was first brought up, and she knows he’s only relented in fighting it because she told him she doesn’t mind. She likes that he’s willing to fight for her, and she likes that he thinks for himself now. Her family doesn’t share the same history that his does, which is one of the reasons she suspects his parents brought up the arrangement once she left school. Daphne is wild and opinionated, often being written about in gossip columns, but Astoria is smart and pretty and fits the general idea of a proper Pureblood, so she’s worth the contract, she’s sure.
She might not be wild like Daphne, but she’s certainly opinionated, and she likes Muggles, enjoys their fashions and their music and their food. When she told him this, Draco surprised her by admitting that he could possibly benefit from some of her open-mindedness. That is what actually set her mind to follow through with this. Not his looks or his intelligence or his willingness to fight, but the fact that he admitted a weakness and already looked to her to help him fix it.
It might not be romantic love or even sexual chemistry that is driving them to get married, but Astoria thinks both of those things are possible in time. After all, just because it's an arranged marriage doesn't mean it can't work.
End
Expectations
Story Notes:
10/5/14