Sorry, I had to reload this because it was having issues displaying. Thanks for your patience!
At the moment there is no real plot line, I'm hoping that that will develop as I write ('hoping' being the operative word)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in the story, J.K Rowling does (unfortunately, might I add). What I do own are Astoria's looks and personality, as she was never actually described in the Harry Potter series. Damn.
Thanks for being interested enough for reading!
Astoria stepped off of the train, scanning the crowds on the platform half eagerly, and half pensively. Letting the crowds of children and their parents carry her along, she drifted until coming to a halt in front of her mother. She smiled shyly, wondering what her mother would say after their year's separation.
"Oh honey, haven't you grown! You look lovelier than you did when you left," Hannah said, admiring her daughter's long dark brown hair, that even now defied the straightening that it had received earlier, softly falling in waves down her back. "Though you do look a little pale. Have you been eating enough?" she frowned. "Oh well, there's plenty of time to get you back into shape." Hannah smiled a secret little smile, and Astoria froze slightly inside.
She knew that this was coming. When her sister, Daphne, had graduated from Hogwarts two years ago, she was instantly married off to Marcus Flint, an ex-Hogwarts and ex-Slytherin student. Astoria had been apprehensive as her final year at school grew to a close, because she knew her mother would spend the next few months going the through marriage options for her; and she wouldn't get a say in any of it. But she knew that she would just have to accept it, as that's what happened to pure-blood girls from leading Wizarding families.
Turning away from her mother at the sound of someone calling her name, she saw two of her friends coming to bid her farewell. She smiled brightly has she hugged first Louise and then Thomas, her eyes glazing over with unshed tears. Stepping back, she blinked rapidly to clear the tears from her eyes. "Ah, Astoria," Louise cooed. "Don't give me that colour. It's not one of your best and not one that I often want to see." It was a little in-joke in her group of friends, that to tell how Astoria was truly feeling, all you had to do was look at her eyes. Their normal colour was a dark blue-green with a ring of brown around the iris, but now they were more of a grey blue, with the brown turning almost as dark as black.
A tap on her shoulder warned her to hurry up. "I'll send Henwyn often, okay?" Astoria said, thinking of the small grey owl that now sat hooting sleepily behind her. Louise nodded and Thomas just looked mournfully at her. Giving them one last wave, Astoria turned around and steered her trolley into the midst of the crowd.
Dumping her bags onto the floor of her bedroom, Astoria saw that nothing had changed. In fact, it looked as though nobody had stepped foot through the door, apart from the house elves when they came to clean her room. The feature wall was still the same dark purple, glinting with dark and light patches. The bed was still made up in a green embroidered spread, and the quilt that she had made a few years ago still hung on the bathroom door, its leaves hanging at different angles from the green and brown squares.
Gently lifting Henwyn's cage onto her hip, Astoria took it over to the antique stand placed strategically near the window. Tenderly lifting the small owl out and setting her on the stand, Astoria looked at her fondly before opening the window.
Her room was on the second floor of the Greengrass' rather luxurious house. She leaned out of the window, breathing in the warm summer air, wondering about her future and what was going to happen to her.
A number of thoughts all piled into her head at once, some pleasant and some dark and murky. Her mood thoroughly dampened, Astoria withdrew her head back into her room and began to unpack her things.
As she was placing her jewellery box back onto her dresser, she noticed a note stuck onto the mirror. Gently she removed it, peering at the writing on the parchment's surface, at first not understanding what the words meant. A list of names was written on one half of the paper, and on the corresponding half there seemed to be a list of dates and times. It then dawned on her that her mother had already started planning her future; the parchment was a list of parties and their times and dates. Looking at the top name, Astoria sighed. The first party was to be at the Malfoys', a family that she absolutely detested.
She remembered their son, Draco Malfoy, from when he was at school with her, but as he had been two years her senior, she had not seen him for a long time nor had she known him well. Casting her mind back, she vaguely remembered a mop of white-blond hair and piercing blue eyes. And an attitude that could rival . . . well, anything. As she hadn't known him well, Astoria decided to give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to his later, and much darker, years.
But that didn't quell her hate for the rest of the family. They were a rich pureblood family, similar to her own, but much more influential and prejudiced. During the times of the Dark Lord, they had tried to use this influence to turn every pure-blooded family to their side, and as they were doing so, turned every other Wizarding family against the pure-bloods. Although the Greengrass' hadn't followed the other pure-bloods to the dark side, people still spread rumours, and the last year-and-a-bit of Astoria's schooling had been an effort just to get people to believe that she wasn't a Death Eater and she wasn't going to suck out their souls – not that she could've done that anyway if she was a Death Eater – or cast the killing curse.
Gently placing the parchment back onto her mirror she was just about to head into her bathroom to finish unpacking her toiletries, when a short knock on the door stopped her, but before she could reach it to open it, it flew open to reveal her sister and her mother.
"Stori! Darling!" her mother cried. "Look who just apparated!" Daphne had a smug look on her face, but for the life of her, Astoria could not figure out why. "Daphne," she said shortly. The smug smile on Daphne's face increased. "Stori," she replied.
Their mother stood looking between them exasperatedly. She threw her hands up in the air. "Honestly girls," she breathed before moving onto safer ground. "Now, Astoria, Daphne is wearing that rose pink gown of hers, so what are you going to wear?"
"Honestly, I hadn't even thought about it yet." Astoria mentally rummaged through her closet. "How about the dark turquoise one?" Her mother walked over to her cupboard and fished out the dress. It was of a deep turquoise hue, that shimmered with peacock purples and emerald greens as the light moved over it. It had a shallow v-neck, with thin spaghetti straps holding it up, and was fitted until the hips, where it flared out ever so slightly, to drape down her figure until it ended just above her knees. The dress was finished with an inch-and-a-bit thick black velvet ribbon, which ran around the dress just underneath the bust.
Daphne snorted at the choice, but her mother said that "It'll do," and replaced the dress back in the cupboard.
Carefully finishing up the last of her mascara, Astoria stepped back from the mirror and analysed her work. She had outlined her eyes in black eyeliner, and used black mascara over the top, but she hadn't bothered to do anything with her lips, apart from give them a quick gloss-over, as her lips were already a natural rosy pink.
Deciding that she was pleased with her appearance, she went over and picked up her black duffel coat. She collected her wand from her bedside table and carefully slipped it into the long inner pocket. She was about to head down stairs when she noticed her bookshelf, and decided that it couldn't hurt to take a book for entertainment during the duller parts of the evening.
Browsing over the titles that she had not picked up for a year, she decided to choose a simple leather bound Muggle book. Astoria was very interested in the history of Muggles, perhaps because their history was so inexplicably tied with the history of the Wizarding world. This simple book had been published in the 1700s, and was about a family the ruled for a couple hundred years during the Medieval era – the Plantagenets.
Hearing footsteps in the hallway outside of her bedroom, Astoria quickly slipped the book into one of the deep pockets of her coat, then collected it into her arms and made herself look as though she were just about to head downstairs.
Just as she had turned to face the door, her mother burst in.
"Oh good, you're ready," Hannah said as she meticulously scanned her daughter's appearance. "Hmm, I wouldn't have gone that dark around the eyes, but I guess they do make the colour stand out. Oh well, no time to fix it now without you throwing a fit, let's go. Everyone is waiting for us downstairs."
Astoria rolled her eyes and her mother's comment; she would not have thrown a fit. She would've just yelled a bit.
Stepping out of the fireplace, Astoria had been the last one to floo into the Malfoy estate. Looking around, she noticed grand pillars of marble, and richly carpeted floors, but everything seemed to have been dulled, as though a thin grey mist hung over everything.
Shaking her head, she followed her family to where Narcissa Malfoy was standing. The absence of her husband stood out sharply – he was currently in Azkaban, serving out a 30 to life sentence.
"Mr and Mrs Greengrass, so pleased that you could make it. Hello Daphne, good to see you again, and you must be Astoria. I'm afraid that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you before." Narcissa managed to greet the whole family in only one breath, without really even seeing any of them – Astoria was impressed, but before she could return the greeting, Narcissa turned to Hannah and then drew her away, saying that they had some important gossip to catch up on. Astoria rolled her eyes and went with the rest of her family to the coat room, where she left her coat, wand, and, unfortunately, book.
Hours had passed, and Astoria found herself sitting in a dark corner on the balcony in a rug. She had been asked to dance numerous times, but declined most of them, not wanting her mother to see that she had accepted, and would therefore, to her mother's mind, happily marry the ugly potato.
She had needed somewhere to sit quietly, and after finding a rug on one of the chairs on the balcony, she retreated to the dark patch behind a huge pot plant, content just to watch and listen to the revelries.
She'd been there for a good half an hour, contemplating the various young men that she had seen that night. She also thought about how after each dance, she'd tell her mother what she thought of her partner, hoping that it'd have a bit of a sway over the final choice. By the time the footsteps approached her, she was deep in thought and unaware of the world around her.