Word Count: 352
Challenge/Competition: Tour De Fiction
Prompts: To have a home, forgiven
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own Harry Potter, it's all JKR's.
With Astoria, she's perpetually constricted by her heavy chains of expectations. Be beautiful, be bold, be smart, be cunning, be coy, be perfect. She's dragged down by the Greengrass name, she is hardly a person because she feels as if she's made from the broken pieces of the people around her.
And she's always known Cormac, but she hates him. She hates him because he exudes joy - always smiles and sarcasm and surrounded by friends as she passes him in the corridors hugging her books tightly to her chest, just wanting to disappear into herself.
But something draws her to him, and at some point they just fall together. She thinks his light seems like the answer to all of her darkness. Of course it's not, she's broken, running, hiding. It hurts him to even try and put her back together, so they push and they pull until they can barely breathe anymore.
They never seem to have a honeymoon period. She doesn't want anyone to know, she doesn't want the questions or the looks or the judgement or any of it. She just wants it to be her and Cormac and that is it. All Cormac sees is shame, it's no foundation for a relationship and they just teeter from one extreme to another. It's either hungry kisses or screaming matches.
She's not allowed to sit in the shades of grey when the time comes, she's tugged into all the darkness that her family is shrowded by. And when she retreats into her shell, Cormac is there to pull her out. They have these moments, and she is reminded that he is her balance.
In a world where she is always running, it's nice to be able to run into someone elses arms instead of into the darkness. He is her home, she realises, so in the end all of the fighting and misunderstandings can be forgiven, because he is the most important thing in her life.
AN- Hope this was enjoyed, please don't forget to favourite & review 3