And then Astoria had gone and fucked it up. He hadn't believed the idiot woman would approach Hermione, as they'd never met and had not a single thing in common. Draco had become comfortable enough to turn his back on the room, not paying attention to (and frankly not caring about) what Astoria did when Blaise caught his attention. He hadn't thought, only reacted. He still didn't know if he sent Astoria away for her own protection or Hermione's, but he had suddenly found himself very much alone with what well might have been the love of his life for the first time in years. Looking down at her, he hadn't seen a damn thing of the woman he'd fallen in love with, the woman he'd missed like a limb for so long. Her eyes were... haunted. Still that same whiskey color he'd all but drowned in at fifteen. But they were... strange. Different. He couldn't pinpoint what it was, but it rattled him to his core. Then, she had sneered at him, a look so unfamiliar, so wrong on her face that it had stunned him speechless. She'd spoken to him, and he'd been too hung up on being so close to her again, so caught off guard by her expression and her posture and her strange eyes that he hadn't been able to form a response before she'd stormed away and out of the room. Her hissed "she's a fucking delight" was going to torture his dreams, he just knew it.