Astoria Georgiana Greengrass was just thirteen the first time she attempted suicide. The healers at St. Mungo’s had said

 ‘What are you doing here, dear? You’re just a little girl, you don’t even know how tough life gets,’ countless times. Astoria had often laughed at them, occasionally informing a few
‘Obviously you don’t know what it’s like to be part of the Greengrass family.’
 

  ‘Bye-bye, darling, have a good year,’ cooed Louisa Greengrass, kissing her eldest daughter on the cheek. ‘Goobye, Astoria.’

  ‘Bye,’ Astoria said, with even less enthusiasm than her mother, picking up her cat-carrier and her trunk and pushing past the throngs of parents and students, participating in tearful goodbyes, and clambering onto the scarlet steam engine.