Book 2: Astoria Greengrass and the Haunt of Azkaban
Song rec: "Hey There" by Rosemary Clooney

"Donaghan Tremlett is getting married next month," Rhiannon mentioned through her toast as she read the Daily Prophet the next morning. She was obviously hoping to see something about Pariah, but so far, she had been disappointed. The upcoming marriage of The Weird Sisters' bass player took precedence over a review of Pariah's album in both the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly; The Quibbler was typically absent from music reviews in any case.

"Ooh, I'm sorry, Hestia," cooed Flora. "He was your favourite, wasn't he?"

"Not like that," Hestia said defiantly. "He's The Weird Sisters' bass player, and I'm yours. I just admire the skill he has. His talent was what inspired me to play bass." Hestia stirred her cereal and continued a bit testily, "But, I mean, I wouldn't marry the guy."

"Riiiight."

"Nothing about us, yet, Rhi?" Astoria asked courteously.

Rhiannon flipped through the paper again, making enough rustling noise to startle some of the owls that were delivering letters.

"Not a word."

"We'll show up soon," said Astoria.

Her tone was meant to be reassuring, but she yawned in mid-sentence and defeated the purpose. With so little sleep, she knew there was no way she would be able to function properly that morning, and she was correct. When Peeves the Poltergeist flittered over her and Flora's path to the Arithmancy room, Astoria jumped back just in time to Banish a bust of Paracelsus he intended to drop onto their heads. Her spell, as expected, was reflective of her mood; the stone bust flew down the corridor at top speed and shattered against the wall at the end, leaving an essence of dust in the air above it.

"That could have been our heads smashing like that! Off with you! Off with you!" Astoria rampaged until the poltergeist disappeared.

Flora scuttled over to the broken sculpture to Mend it before they went to class.

"You're scarier than I am when you're sleepy," Flora whispered as they studied Pascal's triangle. "Why didn't you come back to the dorm after Astronomy?"

"One, eight, twenty-eight, fifty-six, seventy…"

"Pssst. Astoria. Are you all right?"

"And back symmetrically… yes, Flora, I'm all right. Thank you."

"Why didn't you come back to the dorm until 1:30?"

"…Was it really 1:30? Oh, my..."

"Astoria."

"Ladies!" Professor Vector called. "Five points from Slytherin. You have plenty of time to talk after class."

Astoria definitely did not want to finish that conversation after class, and she walked to Potions in front of Max Manson, whom she knew Flora would avoid as he was chanting far past the twentieth line of Pascal's triangle under his breath. Thursdays were the only time that Astoria had D.A.D.A. immediately following Potions, and she actually wished that Umbridge's demeanour was closer to that of Professor Snape's. The high-pitched voice and marionette-like movements of the subtly malicious old woman were far more disturbing for Astoria than the fact that Max Manson was still chanting numbers during lunch.

"Astoria," Rhiannon addressed over the chanting, "You know, er, Gryffindor Quidditch trials are today. We're gonna go and see how they do. You wanna come?"

"No, thank you," Astoria declined as politely as she could. She still had plenty of Astronomy homework to do, and seeing the performances of the Gryffindor Quidditch team hopefuls was among the last of her priorities.

"I'll go," Hestia said gladly. "I bet Flora won't, eith—"

"No, I don't need to watch that," Flora declared. "Astoria and I should actually catch some sleep."

Astoria knew that Flora was not going to let the earlier subject go. Since Flora had ruthless insomnia, she almost always knew when her roommates came to the dormitory for the night. This was Astoria's first offence in the time they had known each other.

"What?" Rhiannon asked as one side of her mouth curled. "Neither of you ever nap."

"I'm not incapable," Flora said, bringing her praying hands to the side of her cheek as an imitative pillow. "Astoria didn't come into the dormitory until 1:30 last night."

"Oh, wow. Yeah, you should get some sleep," Rhiannon chuckled worriedly at Astoria.

"Yes, I think I shall," Astoria said, shooting glares at Flora, who would soon consider Astoria's failure with the hedgehog-to-pincushion spell in Transfiguration yet another reason to pry.

"So tell me," Flora enunciated once she had ushered Astoria up to their dorm that evening, "is it trouble with your sister? Or Draco Malfoy?"

"My sister," Astoria lied.

"Oh," Flora said believingly. "What'd she do this time?"

"I guess, I guess it's what she didn't do…" Astoria played out the act.

"Ignoring you again?"

Astoria hesitated for a long time. She had to make her farce match her previous unwillingness to speak to Flora. Otherwise, Flora would catch Astoria's change in talkativeness and know it was a lie.

"Yeah… I don't know. I was thinking it was for Parkinson's sake this time, which I guess is understandable since they're good friends… But I saw her start making eyes at Timothy Morcott in Astronomy, and I remembered all that mess with Zabini, and…"

"Gosh, Morcott's such a pretentious git," Flora agreed.

It was true that Daphne had ogled Morcott plenty of times, yet Daphne had ogled most boys plenty of times, and Astoria knew that any rumours Flora might wish to start about Daphne would not be unfounded. Besides, Daphne would enjoy the attention.

"Don't let her bother you, Astoria. She obviously has poor taste in friends. Ignore her like she ignores you, and maybe she'll get the point."

"But she's my sister," Astoria continued weaving her false story. "How would you feel if Hestia was acting like this?"

"Hestia," Flora said slowly as though she was having trouble juxtaposing Hestia and Daphne. "Come to think of it, I don't think Hestia would act like this at all. Well, anyway, I mean, I'd be quite upset, yes. But listen, Daphne's going to follow her own twisted path. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I don't think there's much you can do about it. You've already talked to her about it before."

Astoria slumped onto her bed, relieved to have dodged the topic of Malfoy. Once the feeling of her pillow graced her head, she figured she would take a nap after all. Flora, quite satisfied with their little talk, left for the common room to work on Transfiguration. Astoria did not feel guilty about lying to Flora; the girl was too nosy for Astoria to feel that her intentions were only to help.

During Astoria's nap, she had a rather objectionable nightmare in which she and Draco were running down the Grand Staircase whilst a Pansy Parkinson-shaped basilisk slithered after them. The two managed to slip into a storage closet off the kitchen, but Rhiannon was in there crying and kept telling Astoria that she had betrayed her. Flora somehow appeared in the tiny space remaining in the closet and started laughing because she had shoved Astoria into Draco's arms in order to make room. Quite frazzled, Astoria and Draco ran from the closet and found Daphne sitting on a throne, surrounded by a harem of boys throwing jewellery at her. Some of the jewellery spectacularly deflected from where the boys had tossed it and had hit Draco, at which point he started shouting "Mudblood" at Daphne, which did not make any sense at all. Astoria ran away from him and straight into Professor Moody and Professor Lupin, and both of them started screaming at her because she had left poor Rhiannon in a closet somewhere.

"Those Gryffindors…" Rhiannon's voice resonated as Astoria was awakening.

"Ha! I know," Hestia laughed.

"But Montague's making sure all of our team is blokes again…" Rhiannon vented. "Oh, hi, Astoria. You feeling better?"

Astoria rubbed her eyes and dared not lift her head, only guessing about the state of her hair.

"I, I… yes, thank you."

Rhiannon got Astoria a glass of water and sat on the foot of her bed.

"The Gryffindors don't look so good, thankfully. But Crabbe and Goyle are trying out for Beaters, so…"

"You know you can still try out, Rhi," Hestia said.

"Nah, I don't have a prayer with Pucey and Malfoy there. 'Sides, I'm in a band. I can't donate all that time to Quidditch practice."

"Right," Astoria agreed as though she had been part of the conversation all along, and shook off the nightmare.

Rhiannon must have told her roommates the results of the Slytherin Quidditch trials three times by dinner on Friday, so when Draco approached Astoria in the common room later that evening, it was old news to Astoria that he was still the Seeker. Seeing his rolled up Astronomy notes under his arm, Astoria made room for him at her little table by the lake window. A part of her wanted to have another conversation with him to make up for the negative feelings she had about their first one. The other part of her wanted proof that he was not worth her conversations so she could forget about it. Thus, she held off the homework for a bit.

"So you're the Seeker. Are you any good, though?" Astoria teased, trying to sound more interested than she was. If she was entirely amicable and Draco still managed to twist the conversation into insults, she would be able to dismiss him with no qualms. If he acted agreeably, well… she hadn't got that far in her head.

"I'm fantastic," Draco stated in arrogance mixed with humour.

"We'll see."

"Oh, decided to come to the matches, then?" said Draco as though he won a duel.

"We'll see," Astoria grinned.

Draco shook his head and spread out a blank piece of parchment on the table.

"Okay," he drawled, "what's this essay that Sinister Sinistra gave us?"

"Draco! Don't call her that," Astoria chided. "It's about Jupiter's moons, remember?"

Astoria brought out her own report, which consisted of five meagre lines.

"Oh. Yes. Just the Galilean ones, right?"

"No, all of them."

"Aghh, I'll call Sinistra what I want, then!"

Draco and Astoria wrote their reports quietly, careful not to include any filler sentences, for Professor Sinistra was frustratingly intolerant of the tripe that might help the students actually finish her assignments.

"I can't remember a thing about Jupiter XVIII," Draco complained.

"The Muggles lost track of that one," Astoria said. "It orbits outside of any group of moons, unlike most of the others."

"That's the one."

"Its orbital period is 129.83 days," she added.

"Oh, thanks," he said, glancing up at her.

The glance had brought her attention away from her paper briefly. She saw that Draco's hair was getting in the way of his work as he leaned over his paper. Abandoning his cool façade because he thought that no one was looking, he kept scrunching his nose up and flicking his hair out of his way with his hand. Draco being overdue for a haircut made Astoria smile. That was when he looked. Rather than darting her head back downward, which would be painfully transparent, Astoria simply moderated her smile and anticipated a snide comment.

"What are you wearing that grin for?" questioned Draco.

"Hm? I just thought of something," Astoria avoided.

"What, how dull I am in Astronomy? It's not my fault I don't remember that Jupiter XVIII's orbital period is 129.83 days."

"No, I've already said that you do quite well in Astronomy. And you're right, I don't see how memorising the orbital period of the smaller Jovian moons is of any importance," confessed Astoria. "That's what I thought of — what difference does it make?"

"That's something coming from you," Draco commented and continued writing, suffering through his disobedient hair because he knew Astoria was looking.

Without making any plans to do so, Draco and Astoria worked on their moon essays again the following day and made enough progress that they eventually let themselves get distracted by inconsequential conversations with one another, although the fact that Umbridge had created a position for herself called "High Inquisitor" was amongst the topics that were not so trivial.

The homework situation with Draco should have relieved Astoria, for it was plain to see she had the ability to function with him. She would be able to make it through Astronomy class; he would not prevent her from succeeding on her O.W.L. However, this new camaraderie with Draco came with feelings of guilt. The previous year, Astoria was her friends' main defence against Draco Malfoy. Perhaps because of their similar backgrounds, Draco implicitly held Astoria's statements in higher regard than those of the other girls. If Astoria confronted him, he would be more likely to leave Flora, Hestia, and even Rhiannon alone. Other bully victims did not have as much luck, and often ended up feeding fire when they talked back to Draco. Without exception, if Draco insulted her friends, Astoria would not hesitate to hiss back at him, but recently, he hadn't done that.

It felt strange to be sitting there on a Saturday evening with him, laughing about the fact that his grandfather was so proud to own a large muster of albinistic peafowl. Astoria followed up with the story of her father coming home from work once with peacock feathers for a beard after his co-workers tried an experimental charm directly on him. Everything was grand until Flora came into the common room with a stack of textbooks at nine o'clock and reminded Astoria of her massive Arithmancy graph that was due the next time they had class. And Flora, who noticed everything, definitely noticed everything about Astoria and Draco.

On Sunday, Draco slumped into his seat in their spot by the underwater window after his long Quidditch practice. His hair was slicked back and plastered against his crown as Astoria had never seen before; he looked somewhat elfin. Without his fringe in the way, Astoria could not glance at him whilst he wrote without him noticing.

"New look?" Astoria wondered.

"Old look," Draco corrected. "It's just for flying."

"How did your practice go?"

"Fine. Warrington was slow today."

Draco uselessly reached a hand to his head to try to move his fringe; its absence must have felt as unusual as it looked.

"I told him I'd knock him off his broom if he didn't stop staring at your sister. You know she comes to that pitch every chance she gets?"

"Being single is excruciating for her."

"I can tell," Draco snorted. "How's your essay?"

"I finished," Astoria said.

"How long ago?" he asked immediately to catch her off-guard. She knew from his simpering face that she needed an excuse as to why she was still sitting at the table, waiting for him.

"Not long ago," Astoria said smoothly. "Crabbe was walking in when I put it away. I figured I'd just wait and see if you needed to borrow my notes or something."

"Oh. Thanks," Draco said, surprised.

"Of course," Astoria continued, "I've helped you quite a bit with this essay. I think you owe me, wouldn't you say?"

"Sheesh, what is it?"

"I've heard you're good in Charms," Astoria ingratiated.

"I am," Draco bragged.

"Well, I still can't do wand writing, and Olivia Shardlow made fun of me for it on Friday."

"Wand writing? Really?"

And to make a show, Draco wrote "TOO EASY" in a nasty shade of orange on the window. It flickered at Astoria before he swept his wand backward over the words and they disappeared.

"Hey, you know, don't you ever try wand writing on these windows — you'll crack them, and we'll all drown," he said.

"I know I would," Astoria said, and Draco looked momentarily unsettled. He then tried to put on the air of a guru.

"Hmmm… When you're wand writing, you have to focus more on what you are trying to do than what you are trying to write. You have to treat it like a spell and not like physical writing." He paused, and then added, "Each letter is an individual incantation, you know. You can do it really quickly, but you have to be sure to think of each letter rather than the syllable or the word. That's where people get tripped up. Did your parents actually fail to teach you that for your first year?"

"Father wanted to teach me the Shield Charm. He said he's seen even adults get critically injured because they didn't cast a strong enough Shield. He might have prioritised that a bit too high; I spent nearly three months on that. Unfortunately, that didn't help me with any assignments last year… But so far, Parkinson hasn't been able to hex me, has she?"

"Huh. Well, try writing something."

Astoria followed Draco's advice, but found that the glowing writing had lost its shine quickly. By the time she reached the end of a word, she couldn't see the beginning. She had lost some of her will to write; her wand definitely sensed it and got lazy on her.

"'Pit.' Nice try, Greengrass."

"It says 'Jupiter,' see?"

"I just see 'pit,'" Draco said, his eyes clearly catching the rest of the faded word.

"Well, whatever. Thank you, anyway. How is your essay?"

"I need a conclusion, but I really don't want to restate all of this again. She doesn't like repetition, and yet she expects you to close with a summary."

"Then perhaps summarise some basic things about the moons' similarities and differences with some examples. Don't write specific details and the satellite groups again."

"Good idea," Draco mumbled as he squashed his writing into the last bit of space on his third roll of parchment.

The conversation that followed was of no importance. In fact, it was merely about the mishap that Tracey Nettlebed had at dinner when Amy Frome Transfigured her ham into a pair of smelly socks from across the table. It was a conversation that could afford to end, but not necessarily one that should have been cut in half. Yet Parkinson had entered the common room with Millicent and Daphne trailing behind, and Draco rolled up his report. Interrupting his own sentence with a "See you, Greengrass," he bolted out of the common room with his girlfriend. Astoria could almost feel the dust he kicked up as he left.

Flora evidently noticed said hypothetical dust from where she was sitting, for she strolled over to what was once Astoria and Draco's table and pronounced quietly, "He's using you."

"For this essay? Ha, he thought he was. I really had him doing most of his own work without his noticing it," Astoria said strongly.

"That's not what I mean," Flora said unpleasantly. There was a moment of quiet in which Flora stood right over Astoria like an officious babysitter. Astoria only had to guess that Flora had figured out why Astoria had stayed up until 1:30 last Wednesday. Thankfully, Flora did not raise that subject again, but said quite brusquely:–

"Draco Malfoy is enjoying this attention you give him. In fact — and I'm sure you'll be very proud of yourself to hear this, Astoria — he enjoys it so much that he feels the need to dash loyally to Parkinson's side at the sight of her due to his guilty conscience. But the more attention you give him, the more he can use against you later. I can't tell if you're being like your sister or if you are merely being naïve. How about this: don't be either. Do you understand?"

Astoria was astounded and angry. Why did Flora think it was her business, anyway? Was she just sitting across the common room this whole time interpreting Draco's feelings based on how she wanted to nag Astoria? "Naïve" was a word that cut Astoria deeply, conceivably because it had truth in it. She knew, however, that she was not being naïve in this case. She was very guarded around Draco. Astoria did not like making enemies; Draco just liked being one. Because he had not been objectionable, Astoria felt that she could talk to him. She had to get along with him to pass her favourite class anyway. She was well aware of the fact that Draco could turn at any instant, but talking to him was worth it for the time being. Yet as soon as her mind formulated the phrase "worth it," Astoria felt her throat go dry.