Book 3: Astoria Greengrass and the Legilimens of Hogwarts
Song rec: "Full of It" by Summer Cannibals
Note: POV is Rhiannon here (not sure if it was clear enough)
Astoria had really done it when she scarpered from Ollivander's, but she hadn't been there to see the looks on her parents' faces like Rhiannon had. They were furious with Astoria, not so much for never having got the new wand but for embarrassing them so badly in front of Mr Ollivander. That hardly mattered anymore, Rhiannon thought, because Ollivander went missing the day after and probably had much more to think about if he was still thinking at all.
Astoria had planned her getaway shrewdly. She had hung about Neville Longbottom and his grandma as a method of defence: when the group had finally located Astoria in Madam Malkin's, her parents could not find a chance to scold her in front of the Longbottoms without making a scene. Only during the walk to the Infinite Records Headquarters did Mr and Mrs Greengrass get to put in a few words about shame and unreasonableness and the like. Both girls were also told upfront that their album was the most vulgar thing they had ever listened to, and they yelled at Astoria about the image she was choosing to portray. Then Rhiannon and Astoria were relieved from the scolding when they were called to the meeting, but there was nothing to be optimistic about with that, either.
First of all, Hestia and Flora, who needed to be there, had not come. Astoria, who wasn't going to talk about the twins or offer a helpful word, had sat there wide-eyed whilst Rhiannon explained to their producer Mr Davis, their manager Leonard Mongaby, and an Infinite tycoon that the twins' aunt and uncle weren't letting them leave the house for something like this. The meeting had continued with great tension, with the tycoon giving the impression that he felt he was wasting his time speaking with teenagers. It was he who had informed them that Fylth would not be released internationally and that its album cycle had been cut to end at the same time as Fed Lines's. Astoria had had no comment, and Rhiannon had known better than to risk arguing. Then the girls were given unreasonable deadlines. They had until the fourteenth of December to present their demos for another album, and only a week to modify them, because recording was scheduled for the day after they came home from school for Christmas.
Things after the meeting had been tense, and Mr and Mrs Greengrass only added to it with further lectures about Astoria's misdemeanour and the importance of staying in one group at Diagon Alley. Rhiannon had her own lectures to give to Astoria, namely, the "Get Your Shit in Gear because we're Going to Lose our Contract Otherwise" sermon and the "Next Time Don't Stay up All Night with Malfoy before the Day of Recording" tirade. Astoria didn't listen to anything anyone said that day. She had carried on to Rhiannon about how almost everything of hers from Fylth had been scrapped or mutilated anyway, so that she was not in the wrong, and that Draco had needed her support more than a thousand strangers listening to music would ever need her to be well-rested. (To her lucky parents, Astoria had been as silent as she was loud with Rhiannon).
Just to get back on terms with Astoria again, Rhiannon ended up placing the majority of the blame on the Infinite executive and Mongaby, who had only spent a week and a half promoting the album. Astoria heartily agreed and, with logic and a little bit of maths, discovered that there was no way that Infinite was losing money with Fylth. Though the contract that the Greengrasses negotiated was mostly in the band members' favour, promotion had been scant and production in the Wizarding music industry was cheap. The execs were probably fed up with the terms of the contract since they were normally used to gobbling up the majority of the pie. But getting to the roots of the problem was only good for the girls' relationship with each other. It didn't solve the hurdle of working for the rest of the summer to get their contract back to safety.
Almost as if to prove a point that Rhiannon was making a bigger deal of music-related things than necessary, though, worse things did crop up. Dementor attacks were making the headlines. One Kiss here, one Kiss there — thinking of the victims and their families made one feel so awful. There was a growing sense that anybody could be next… And not just for the Dementor's Kiss. Witches and wizards all over the country were either being attacked by undercover Death Eaters or going missing. The new Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, was asserting that he was doing everything in his power to fight the Dark forces and keep Wizardkind safe, but how much power the Ministry of Magic still had was up for debate. Because of this undisclosed but obvious instability, Witch Weekly projected that Hogwarts enrolment would plummet for the 1996-1997 school year. In fact, one morning, Mr and Mrs Greengrass were discussing an important letter from "Dromeda's girl," a.k.a. Tonks, which apparently confirmed the new security measures to be taken at Hogwarts. It surprised Rhiannon to think that Adam Greengrass had not considered home-schooling his girls again.
Then there was the shadow. Rhiannon had a habit of checking her broken piece of Foe-Glass each morning, noon, and night to see if any threats were getting bigger. It wasn't exactly business as usual, because more shadows had been appearing than ever before. They were always very hazy though: a sign that Quennell Park was a safe place to be. But there was one shadow that kept moving forward and backward in the plane and changing position almost every day that seemed like an enemy who was trying to figure out something. For a brief moment on the last night of July, Rhiannon thought she might have seen a clearer outline of the head, but of course, she could not recognise it. Sometimes, she felt, her "Foe-Shard" caused her more stress than it was worth. She had her nose in it during the school shopping trip to Diagon Alley, a place that was almost unrecognisable. Astoria made a comment that the entirety of Diagon Alley had come to look like Knockturn Alley. Her parents instantly questioned how she would know what Knockturn Alley looked like, and she responded that it had merely been a figure of speech.
The trip was short, but not too short for Rhiannon to find out where kids were getting their wands with Ollivander's' being deserted. Most of the crowd was going to Jimmy Kiddle's, the place where Rhiannon had no choice but to buy her cheap wand. It sort of legitimatised the place for her, and she watched it a little reminiscently as she waited to purchase her schoolbooks.
"Oh my," Astoria said.
Rhiannon looked away from the window in Flourish and Blotts and followed the direction of Astoria's nod. Placed strategically by the checkout were July's bestsellers; most of them had to do with countering the Dark arts. Astoria picked up a copy of a blue-jacketed book, and Rhiannon felt her jaw drop. Thirty Things to Expect from the Dementor's Kiss by Aurora M. Sinistra was quickly added to Rhiannon's and Astoria's purchases. But neither of the girls got round to reading it. Neither of them really wanted to.
The rest of August was spent true to form: the girls made music. Astoria's inspiration finally kicked in; she wrote about people. To balance that, Rhiannon wrote about concepts. Fylth had mostly seen it the reverse way for their lyrics, which was probably why it had turned out so loud and angry. The biggest difference, though, was that Rhiannon and Astoria were mostly writing separately and only came to each other about the matters of their respective instrumental parts. It was a little weird, but it seemed to be working. Astoria was getting up earlier and could be found before breakfast playing her heart out at the grand piano in the music room, the insides of her elbows red and broken out in wheals. Rhiannon, with her sore neck and blistered fingers, was staying up later but still shamelessly hiding her underage Trace in the magic of the adults because she needed spells to activate her guitar.
Music had once again become the escape. Even with Rhiannon's career on the line, she was able to appreciate the music as a warm, protective blanket that shielded her mind against bigger worries. She could not cast a corporeal Patronus. Nervous letters in French had been zooming in by the half-dozen from Mrs Ciel-Greengrass's side of the family. Death Eaters were slowly adding names to the obituaries. And when Astoria packed to leave for school, she boxed up several things in her room that she was not taking but might need to take somewhere else far away.
"Just in case," she told Rhiannon.