Astoria smothered a giggle behind her hand as she listened to her sister count down from twenty. She sucked in her breath and held it, afraid even the slightest whisper of sound would give her away, and she didn't want that. Her excitement over the game of hide-and-seek was doubled by the fact that Merlin's Pants, she was in her father's office! Astoria had outwitted him! He probably had no idea when she told him that there was a gnome attack in the garden, she was really going to sneak into his super-secret office with Daphne! Ha!
Her hand was splayed against the mahogany desk her father was so very proud of, and it levered her balance as Astoria's breathing quickened, excitement surging through her veins as Daphne called delightedly, "Zero! Ready or not, here I come!"
The little witch bit her lip to keep from laughing as she wondered what her father would think when he found the distinctly gnome-less garden. It would take forever, because he was as thorough as a cat cleaning itself, so she had plenty of time to hide from Daphne's prying eyes. Then they could explore the office and examine his knickknacks and- and all sorts of things! However, her thoughts condensed into keeping herself hidden as she heard the doorknob turn and the soft pad of feet on the lush carpet. Daphne!
Unable to help herself, Astoria giggled. Horrified with herself a moment later, she clapped a hand over her mouth even as Daphne whipped her head around the corner and her face split into a grin. "Ha! Found you!"
"No!" she protested, giggling so hard she fell over backwards. "No fair! I laughed!"
"That's your own fault! You should've been sneakier!" Despite her words, Daphne grinned at her, and Astoria grinned back. The sisters had similar facial features, and it showed especially in their smiles. Where Daphne's long gold hair was the sun-spun color of gold and her eyes the icy blue of a winter sky, Astoria's hair was an inky swath only a few shades lighter than her onyx eyes. Their straight noses and delicately rounded chins marked them as unmistakably Greengrasses, but their identical smiles marked them as sisters.
Astoria huffed with grumpiness that held no real gloom to it and hauled herself to her slippered feet, smiling a moment later. However, as she pulled herself upright, her toes dug down on the trailing hem of her silken dress, and the seven-year-old witch pitched forward with a yelp. She crashed into Daphne, bringing both girls down in a heap.
"Hey!" Daphne protested, sitting upright a moment later and starting to laugh. "What was that for?"
Startled only for a moment more than her sister, Astoria too began to giggle. "It wasn't on purpose!"
Though Daphne's grin was as bright as a new penny, it soon faded as her eyes dropped to her pale pink dress, and it turned into a full-blown frown as she picked at the skirt. A moment later, she moaned, "Tori, look at what you've done!"
She blinked and lowered her eyes to the soft fabric. "Huh-? Oh."
She reached for the little tear with careful fingers, but Daphne smacked them away and stood, her cheeks pink and a crease between her pale eyebrows. Her expression was stormy, and Astoria's eyes widened with distress. She hastily pulled herself to her feet once more, this time managing not to fall, and reached for her sister imploringly.
"Daphy-Taffy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-!"
"You ruined it!" she wailed, her face screwing up with the onslaught of oncoming tears, and Astoria's distress increased at the sight of hers.
"Don't cry," she begged. "Mama can mend it with a spell. It'll be alright-"
"I knew this was a bad idea!" she yelled, tears starting to fall thick and fast, and Astoria watched with horror as Daphne swiped at them furiously and glared at her with such intensity that the smaller girl shriveled. "We could've played hide-and-seek anywhere!"
Still glaring at her hard enough to punch holes right through her, Daphne shoved Astoria backwards with all the force her nine-year-old arms could muster. Astoria let out a cry as she toppled backwards right into a tapestry, and it ripped off its bar, collapsing onto her. The cloth closed on her like being sealed inside an envelope, plunging the young witch into darkness.
She lay stunned for a moment, wondering if she was about to cry, before pleading, "Daphne, wait!"
She heard the stomp of tiny feet on the floor and then the slam of a door, and Astoria knew she was on her own. Then the tears did come, flooding upwards and spilling down her cheeks, stinging her eyes. She cried, rocking on her knees and curling up to make herself smaller. The tapestry still lay over her back, pooling over her, and after a few minutes in which Astoria felt utterly wretched, she sniffed away the last of her tears and struggled to extricate herself from the heavy cloth.
Still sniffling, she stood unsteadily and gazed down at the tapestry, a sudden weight dropping onto her lungs. Her father would surely find out what had happened if she left it like this. However, those worries flew out the window as Astoria raised her eyes and let them fall on the giant black hole that gaped like a mouth directly behind where the tapestry once hung.
She blinked, staring at it, too surprised to move. What was it?
She stepped forward, wobbling slightly as her foot fell on the rumpled cloth, and she touched the walls. After a moment of speculation, she decided it must be a tunnel. Perhaps it was a secret passage!
Excitement flooded her veins, chasing away the last of the guilt with fizzy giddiness. At least, for now.
Looking around, Astoria spied fairy-lights lining the walls, lighting their own circle of orange light around the false-flames and spreading purplish, dusky light over the rest of the stone tunnel. So Astoria stepped through, eyes probing the gloom, wondering where it could possibly lead. As she ventured further into the darkness, she felt a lurch as her foot fell onto a step that she hadn't expected. She blinked, looking down, her eyes adjusting to the darkening light as she realized with a surge of excitement that she had come to a staircase.
Casting a quick glance over her shoulder, she felt a pang of longing. Usually, this was the sort of thing she'd explore with Daphne.
Biting her lip, Astoria pushed onward- or rather, downward. She circled down, down, down, until her feet ached and the fine drape of her dress was gathering dust. She knew that she lived in an old manor that had soaked up secrets like a sponge throughout the years that generations of her family had lived here, but she'd been sure that she'd discovered all the ones that it had to offer. Sometimes it was Daphne who found a secret passage, and sometimes it was her who found the gem that brightened the longer one touched it. She was very proud of that find, even though her mother scolded her for the thousandth time for sticking her nose in places that she shouldn't.
But how else would she find answers? Surely, surely she was old enough now. She was seven! She was big enough for this, at least! Spooky passages didn't scare her.
When Astoria at last reached the end, she blinked, her dark eyes taking in the strange sight.
It looked a little like a junkyard, except it was...organized chaos. Wooden benches lined the walls, on which there was all manner of objects. Drippy jewels, corked bottles with potions glinting within, columns of golden spiderwebs that climbed up the walls like ivy, broken bottles that still gleamed, mussed feathers, discarded coins, woolen scarfs, hats striped in bright colors, scales the size of her hand and others no bigger than a Knut, and even a few small birds which twittered away at the intruder.
Astoria stared in open-mouthed shock.
There were other, less pleasant things. On a pedestal sat a fuzzy cushion with a plump, blackened hand that remained as still as if it was made of plaster. A skull lay among a mess of gold and silver coins. A huge, looming cabinet stood at a height even taller than her father. A bowl of rotted fruit with a conspicuous lack of flies abuzz over it (Astoria suspected the birds) sat proudly atop the mess. She even spotted what looked like a ripped Invisibility Cloak, its purple threads worn.
Perhaps most disconcerting of all was a picture on the opposite side of the rooms, larger across than her even with her arms thrown wide and taller than her by a foot or so. It's subject was a- a- Well, she wasn't sure what it was. If she had to hazard a guess, she'd say it was a man, but his face was chalky white and his head was utterly hairless. His eyes were slit-shaped and as Astoria tentatively neared the picture, she realized with a sudden jolt in her stomach that they were red. So red that they made her think of spilled garnets, of pomegranates exploding with luscious seeds, of the vibrant feathers of a noble-breasted phoenix. They made her think of blood and battlefields and suffering. They made her think of things she shouldn't even know about.
Astoria didn't know how long she stood there, staring at the creature with the red, red, red eyes. A huge snake lay draped around his shoulders, and he sat at a wooden table that looked...oddly familiar, when she pulled her gaze away from his long enough to examine the rest of the framed picture.
She lifted her eyes to the creature's once more, and then she took a step back, away from him- it. Fear, irrational and overwhelming, flooded her senses. She couldn't understand why this awful picture was here, in her home. It was creepy.
Then heavy footfalls sounded behind her, making Astoria jump so hard that she knocked a tarnished platter clatter to the floor and she squeaked with dismay.
Then her father, Samuel Greengrass, appeared at the end of the stairway with his fair hair askew and his olive-green eyes wide with something like panic. But that couldn't be. Not her cool, composed, distant father. Sure enough, whatever it was was gone in a moment as his gaze came to rest on his youngest daughter.
"Astoria," he said, and the little girl felt a pit of nerves widen in her stomach, though she was surprised to find that none of the sternness that she had expected in his words was present.
He crossed the room, took her hand, and led her away from the portrait. She glanced over her shoulder at the creature, wondering yet again what it was. She'd never seen anything like that in the storybooks Mother read to her.
"Father," she said, pulling on his sleeve, and he looked down at her with one foot poised on the step.
"Yes?"
"Are you mad?" she asked softly, that worry the first that needed to be alleviated, and though his expression did not change, she thought she saw something in his eyes soften. He bent to be on eye-level with her, brushing a lock of dark hair off her forehead.
"I am displeased that you lied to me. We are Greengrasses, Astoria, and we do not lie to one another. And as for my office..." His frown made Astoria drop her eyes and study her flowered shoes. He sighed and cupped her chin, tilting her face back up to his. "Don't you think there's a good reason why I'd ask you to leave my office alone?"
"I suppose..." she murmured, abashed, then had a sudden thought. "So what is that reason, then?"
It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw the corners of his lips twitch upward. She hoped it wasn't her imagination. He hardly ever smiled, and even more rarely was it because of her.
Instead of answering her question, he placed a hand on her back and turned her to face the picture she'd just been studying with such revulsion. "Astoria, I'm going to tell you a story, about a great man."
A smile began to creep onto her face. She liked the sound of that. Stories were familiar and safe, though Father wasn't usually the one who told them to her. She looked at him expectantly, hope scrawled across her round, still child-like features.
"Once upon a time," he began, and she smiled at the familiar opening, "the world was filled with many, many different types of people, just as there are now. There were non-magic people, and they were called Muggles. And then there were the magic-users, called wizards and witches, like you and me."
Astoria listened intently, wondering what this had to do with the monster on the wall, but drawn into the lull of the story by his voice, which was unusually softened by the tale.
"The wizards and witches had a natural right to govern those without magic, because it's only natural for someone who has greater abilities to rule over another."
Astoria frowned, not understanding, and he hastened to clarify. "It's like how we own dogs and cats. They're cute and useful, of course, but they're still not as smart as we are. The range of things that they can do are limited compared to the things people can. It's the same concept, you understand?"
She didn't, not quite, but she nodded slowly anyway, because that was the answer that he was expecting and she wanted to hear the rest of the story. Besides, one didn't disagree with her father. Not really.
"Well, people began to rebel against that idea. They believed that somehow, Muggles and wizards were equal," There was a hardness to her father's face when he said that word, and Astoria wondered at it, "even though the lack of magic was an obvious defect. And there was one man who tried to restore that balance, Astoria. He wanted to put the world back to the way that it is meant to be."
"What was his name?" she interrupted curiously.
Her father smiled slightly, but it was one of distraction, so it didn't count as a real smile. "I'll tell you when you're older. But you've seen him."
"I have?"
He nodded behind her, and with a lurch of dread, Astoria realized who he meant even without turning to look at it. That was the savior he was talking about?
"But because Muggles and wizards intermingling had become so entrenched in society, the man was struck down. He wasn't allowed to say his piece, he wasn't allowed to tell them how this mixing was a disease that needed to be rooted out, because people are always afraid of the truth, sweet girl. The truth is not kind."
"What did the people do to him? Did he die?" asked Astoria slowly, struggling to interpret the words her father was telling her. She didn't really know how to feel about it, but then again, she'd never met a non-magical person. Maybe they really were inferior to her. It did make sense in a way- if one person could do magic and the other couldn't, the choice seemed obvious of which was better.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I can't be sure. I hope not. But for now, sweet girl, let's go eat dinner. I'm sure the house-elves are wondering where we've gone."
Hands sliding under her arms, he hoisted her up into his arms, and Astoria wrapped her arms around his neck and twined her ankles together around her father's waist. As he turned to mount the steps, Astoria was presented once more with the sight of the creature that Father said was a savior. She watched it, she looked into those sanguine eyes that made her think of such awful things, and she didn't dare tell her father how much the savior scared her.
A/N: Hello lovelies. :) This is just a random idea I had that kinda took off, lol. Welcome to the world of a writer. :P Basically, this is a series of oneshots to highlight and flesh out Astoria's life, and it could be counted as a Draco/Astoria love story. :P
Leave a review, if you please!
Blanket Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or the world, nor am I making profit off of them. I own only the story.