AN: This was for the Quidditch Fanfiction League, Round 12, write a lighthearted story about Slytherin characters. Very minor Cursed Child Spoilers, 906 words, maybe a bit more bittersweet?

It was days like these that Astoria felt at home. Sitting with the Carrow sisters on the lawn, scribbling down a Potions essay that they could bungle completely and still get full marks for. It certainly relieved the stress for Astoria. She never was much good at Potions.

"What did you get for problem six?" Flora asked, her dark eyes not straying from the Arithmacy homework in front of her.

"Problem six?" Astoria flipped through her several pages of parchment. "I got forty-two."

"Are you sure?" Flora asked.

Astoria gave her a look of utter seriousness. "My sister took the class. It's forty-two. She showed me how to work it."

"Thanks," Flora said quickly.

"So tell me," Hestia said, looking up from her Transfiguration textbook, "did he talk to you today?"

"Who?" Astoria asked, playing dumb as she possibly could.

The twins giggled.

"I think you know," Flora said coyly.

"Oh no-"

"Draco Malfoy," the twins chorused.

"For the love of Merlin, no!" Astoria cried, her white complexion going very pink. "You are never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"We share a dormitory with you," Flora said reasonably. "Of course everyone was going to see 'Madam Draco Malfoy' scrawled all over your diary."

"Mostly because Mafalda Prewett took it," Astoria said darkly. She then broke out into a fit of coughs that drew attention. Passerby stared at the younger Greengrass sister's fit.

"You okay?" Flora asked.

"I'm fine," Astoria said, only to break into coughing again. The twins exchanged a concerned look. "Just don't tell my sister. Please."

"We won't," Hestia said firmly, remembering the last time they went to Daphne for Astoria's constant sickness. "Is the curse getting worse?"

Astoria frowned. "It shouldn't be. Father said it wouldn't get worse unless I had a child."

Hestia let out a cough that sounded oddly like 'Draco Malfoy's.'

"Can we talk about something else?" Astoria asked, her coughing finally dying down. "I already hear enough from Daffy."

"Sure," Flora said amicably. "We were. Malfoy."

Astoria rolled her eyes and pretended to be annoyed, despite the large grin that had bloomed on her face.

"I'm telling you, he's interested in Parkinson," she insisted despite the bitterness. "He wouldn't know me from a Hufflepuff."

"That's because you're so nice!" Flora said.

"Kiss-up," Astoria taunted.

"Compliment-fisher," Hestia shot back.

"Interrupter," Flora said irritably, glaring at her twin. "You always steal my-"

"Sentences?"

Hestia's charming, smug smile seemed to win even Flora over, for now.

"Come on losers, let's go by the lake," Astoria said teasingly, shoving papers into her books and her books into her schoolbag. "It's a nice day."

"You'd think it a nice day if we were in Hell," Hestia said.

Astoria shrugged. "At least I'd get to see something interesting."

Still, the other girls packed up their things. The Carrow twins knew that it was better to indulge their friend in her whims like the wind than to dig their heels, especially on something as trivial as where on campus they did their homework.

The small brunette skipped down to the side of the lake, and paused for only a moment before taking off her socks and shoes.

"I thought we were studying!" Flora protested.

"It's too beautiful out to study," Astoria scoffed as she waded into the water. Her long blond-streaked brown hair shielded her pensive face from the others as she stared at the reflection of the sky in the water.

"Are you coming or not, Flor?" Hestia asked as she stomped in the soft, luscious lake mud after Astoria.

"I'll stay here," Flora said with her customary frown. "I'd rather not get wet."

"Suit yourself," Hestia said with a shrug, flipping her own dark hair dramatically. She kicked the surface of the water, causing a kaleidoscope of ripples to break out. Astoria, for some reason, stood still, arms outstretched as if she were basking in the sun, but she was looking down at her feet, radiating a solemnity that Hestia and Flora both only had seen on Astoria. Not even adults, battered and bruised and wiser, had such solemnity radiating off them.

It made Hestia feel old, just being near her.

"Everything's changing," Astoria said in a voice that sounded as old as the sun. "I only want one thing to be the same. I'm not asking to be friends forever. I don't want anyone tied to me. I just want to be remembered. For you to remember me."

"Of course we would," Hestia said with a glance back at Flora, gesturing for Flora to join them. Flora reluctantly set her books down and began taking off her robes so they wouldn't get wet.

"I don't want you to make some empty promise," Astoria continued. "I want you to mean it."

"Like an Unbreakable Vow?" Flora asked seriously as she waded out to where the other girls stood.

"No, I'm not like that," Astoria said with a dry, bitter laugh. "I guess I mean the muggle expression. . . Cross your heart?"

"I suppose that works," Hestia said with a glance at Flora.

"Sounds more reasonable," Flora admitted.

"I promise to remember you too," Astoria assured them. "Cross my heart."

"Cross my heart," Flora and Hestia repeated.

They only lingered in the water and in seriousness for one moment longer. Then they turned and danced in the golden autumn day. While this wouldn't be forever, it was now.