Book 4: Astoria Greengrass and the Curse of Quennell Park
Song rec: "I Lost Something in the Hills" by Sibylle Baier
Notes: Astoria discovers what lurks within her blood, and the meaning behind her family's marriages on the Vernal Equinox. A certain travelling visitor makes one last wrinkle in time...
Astoria seemed to have thought of all the wrong spells to use in the emergency. She had cast the Diminishing Charm on the explosion rather than having thought to Vanish the damn bomb. Even if she hadn't managed to Vanish the bomb, she could have Shielded herself and safely escaped. But she had continued her pattern of casting the Banishing Charm, this time on herself, to get away. That had served to send her two wings down and concuss her. From two wings down, she could not reach her family without going outside.
Coming to, she crawled out the nearest window, hoping that her family had long since made their exit from the house, and dashed through the back garden, but the manor was larger than two little legs and a concussed brain could cover. Before rounding the corner, Astoria came across Nott Sr and the Snatcher, who were still skulking the premises and in a heated argument until they spotted her. Unwilling to leave the disaster empty handed, the Snatcher expected to win a hefty sum by Astoria's capture. She moved to fight back but could hardly make the proper wand motions with her head in so much pain. To her luck, the Snatcher was unaware of her injury and had had his fill of fighting. Afraid of what he thought she was trying to cast, he Disapparated. That let Astoria know that her father had lifted the charms on the property. It was time to go.
For some reason, Nott Sr did not attempt to intercept her on her way to the front gardens. She made a final cautious glance at the old Death Eater. His face was hidden in a silvery mask that he had owned since his youth, but he had clearly begun to wince in pain. It was his left arm that bothered him — the Dark Mark that Death Eaters used to communicate with Voldemort. She stopped moving and watched him carefully from a garden alcove.
Based on Nott's thrashing, Voldemort was calling him urgently and angrily. Rabastan Lestrange must have tattled on Ivory Stretton's overnight mission. If Voldemort himself came to Quennell Park now that the Anti-Apparition charms were gone, it wouldn't matter how many Death Eaters they had defeated. Astoria had to stop Nott from touching the Mark and revealing his location, even if it meant cutting his arm off. She went tearing back toward him. To her confusion, Nott was not touching his wand to his Dark Mark but to the side of his head. He was heaving breathy sobs. Astoria's mind swelled with thoughts of Theodore.
"Wha– Wait! What are you doing‽ Legilimens!" Astoria panicked, again choosing a spell that didn't help the situation.
I have had enough. I have gone from being Tom Riddle's schoolmate, to his ally, to his laughingstock, and finally to his slave. This is the end of that. But it is not death I want. All I want is for my son to have a better life than the one I have given him. I want to forget who I am and disappear.
"Obliviate," said Nott, and through her Legilimency, Astoria felt nearly seventy years' worth of memories drain out to an unchartable sea.
She was shaken, and she left Nott. Finally, the Greengrasses had a window through which they could safely leave England. Astoria ran in stumbles to the front gardens, where she had been certain her family had been. There was nobody there, so she kept running. She kept calling. She went back inside, where it was much darker and smokier, and only the corpses of Death Eaters greeted her. How long had it been since the explosion? It was nearly three o'clock when Rhiannon and Daphne detected the Death Eaters. There wasn't a clock left in the house, since all their clocks had supposedly been valuable, so Astoria ran back out. She looked up to the sky to calculate the time. This used to be fun for her, but it was impossible to do with her concentration skidding against her skull. With her concussion, she only succeeded in falling backwards into the wet grass. She grabbed something that was bleeding, and shrieked. It was a body part, an arm. Astoria screamed louder, handling the body part like it was burning her, trying to look for an explanation. She needed her family now. She screamed all the names she could think of, but her body had given up on her will, and she slid round in the dew with a disembodied arm. Its fingers were indented from rings and tipped in pink nail polish.
"DAPHNE!"
Astoria's wet cheek hit the ground. She did nothing else but lay and look. There were two more body parts showing against the ground, but they weren't Daphne's. The grass was twisted into mud in countless spots like feet had been dug into it. The whole plan had been to Disapparate. Maybe they did. Maybe they all made it, because none of them were here anymore. If they Apparated a long distance on short notice, there were bound to be a few Splinches, right? They could staunch the bleeding — they knew how, her family. But Daphne was never going to get her arm back. It was here in England with her stupid baby sister.
Astoria knew that she had been left behind. Her father must have lost sight of her in the explosion and thought the worst. It was disgusting and traumatising to look for clues about what had happened, but the warmth of Daphne's arm meant that Astoria had just missed their departure. Awful. Awful. They wouldn't have left her, but they must have thought that the odorous fire had already eaten her body.
"Aguamenti," Astoria called from the ground, and she made the water reach the house, but she couldn't seem to make the water do anything.
A manor that had stood for over three-hundred years was now seeing its east side fall. The fire created an ugly brightness compared to the moonlight. Astoria tried to tell herself there was no reason to be upset. No one was in the house. Not even their silly possessions were in the house, just the beds and some clothes for the morning. It wasn't like Astoria could live there alone and wait for someone to come back for her. Death Eaters would return to see what had happened, with or without Nott there. Her family wasn't coming back for a pile of her ashes. But she kept the water going, so that the forest might not feel the flame after the house was done.
Astoria understood why her family had left without her perfectly well, but they had completely forgotten who they were if they had left their forest to burn. The flames were born of Dark magic and never submitted to water. They would come for the land, she knew, once her Vanishing and Containment charms similarly failed. Astoria lay back on the cool ground feeling nearly as dead as her family had thought her. She pointed her wand at the sky.
"Nimbus momentum," she said, hoping that a shower of rain would douse the fire the way it had doused her in the middle of class.
Rain was never that far away where Astoria lived, but when the clouds came, their tears did nothing. Astoria wiped her face and sat up to the looming figure of a man.
"Depulso!" she cried instinctively for the umpteenth time, and the pressure went through the man and shot out a window of the house.
The man wasn't a new threat or a confused Nott Sr, but the ghost of Quennell himself, come to watch Astoria's mental collapse on the lawn.
"This is the first time you have ever screamed upon seeing me, dearest," Quennell said.
He removed his hat and looked down at her with empty eye sockets. Through him, Astoria saw the fire ravaging the manor where she had been born and raised.
"It's Dark magic. It'll take the forest," was all Astoria managed to say.
Quennell staggered across the twisted, muddy Apparition tracks and someone's missing leg and walked directly into the flame. Astoria lost sight of him, and it wounded her even though she knew he was long dead.
"Quennell, please…"
They were the only two Greengrasses left. Astoria did not know the first thing about Apparition by herself. Even if she could Apparate, she could not Apparate internationally. If she could Apparate internationally, she still had no idea where her family had gone. They could be anywhere on the planet, incorrectly mourning her death. She didn't think herself worthy to be mourned alongside Uncle Faunus, Renshaw, Gracie, and her grandfather. She was not an innocent victim, nor was she a hero. Astoria did not know whether she had been so fervent about saving Adamina out of love or out of a desire to cleanse herself of blame. When the flames in front of her abruptly sucked back into the manor, Astoria expected an explosion. This time she could not react. However, when the fiery magic disappeared, it gave her far less relief than she had thought it would. Quennell's feet and side showed first through blackened stone, and he emerged with as earthly a walk as ever.
"Are you all right, sir?" Astoria cried out.
Quennell might have been through the whole ordeal with her the way he sighed. He sat down in the grass at her side. Astoria had never seen him behave this way from the time she was a child. His preternatural distance had always been hard for her to scale, and why she had always tried so hard to be closer with him she could not say.
"What a preposterous thing to ask, Astoria. The question is how will you ensure your safety? There is very little I can do to help you. Unless, that is, you want to stay with me."
"I…" Astoria breathed. "I don't have an answer yet, sir."
They sat quietly in the sour scent of dissipating smoke. She should have cast the Bubble-Head Charm ages ago, when there was still a point to. Most matters had boiled down to "oh, well" by now, though. She could only hope she wouldn't die from smoke inhalation.
"Sir, thank you, but how did you put out the fire?"
She had asked it because it was so essential for her to have someone to speak to, but she may have done better to have left the subject alone. Quennell leaned forward, opened his maw, and blew out cinders past his lips. Quennell's evident pain was casual, as though he had made its infernal acquaintance centuries prior. Astoria had always thought ghosts could not feel physical pain, so this bothered her deeply.
"I m-must tell you that your family Disapparated after they could not find you. They took Faunus's body," Quennell rasped.
"Our family," she tried to correct him.
"I tried but was unable to tell them that — that you had survived. Please forgive me. There are so few in your family who acknowledge me."
Quennell's hoarse voice had been charred further still, and he coughed fresh burns onto his palm. Whatever he had done to save the forest was akin to neither natural nor Dark magic. Quennell seemed so real there sitting beside her that she half expected his clothing to be grass-stained and wrinkled. He breathed very heavily and fidgeted against the uneven ground. He groped for his hat with his free hand, and when Astoria reached for it to give it to him, she went right through it. Yet her hand made genuine contact with his, and the touch was simultaneously so hot and so cold that her skin briefly lost feeling.
"Quennell, sir?" she winced.
"Yes, dearest?"
"You're unlike other ghosts I know."
"I am something different."
"Are you… in Hell, sir?"
Quennell drew his hat over his open eye sockets.
"Not quite."
He seemed so alive that she felt less alone. However, Quennell did not exactly make himself ideal company.
"Were you attacked because of Renshaw the eleventh's marriage to the Muggle woman? I had believed the world had changed since my time," Quennell said.
Astoria didn't know the answer, and she didn't want the guilt. For she had shared her earliest memory with Draco Malfoy, a Death Eater. She had told Draco that Renshaw was a Squib and that her parents had invited him over to comfort Astoria when she used no magic. Had Rabastan Lestrange been able to extract Draco's memories? No, most people knew Renshaw was a Squib long before that. It really had to be the old Jugson woman that set it all off. It had to be.
Renshaw, I'm so sorry.
"I don't know. They murdered Renshaw's family before coming here. Not that much in the world has changed."
Quennell paused, and then said, "You know your family quite well."
"They're our family, sir," Astoria huffed, refusing to be alienated.
"Do you hold faith that they will maintain the Vernal tradition?"
"What should I care‽" Astoria reacted to his sore, distant voice. "I can't imagine too many are going to be in the marrying mood in the middle of an exile! After what happened tonight… Faunus the ninth was killed, you know! My Uncle Faunus!"
Quennell contorted his face. His voice boomed out with smoky breath, cinders spitting out onto his clothes. The rain did not put out their glow on him, just as it had not stopped the house from burning.
"I am merely trying to hold on to the hope that no more shall die before their time!"
He stood up, rubbed his loose eyelids, and started to walk toward the woods. Astoria was furious. Quennell had lived and died well before her time, but to her, he had been a lifelong friend. And now, with the house half-burnt in the middle of the night, an Obliviated Death Eater traipsing about the property, and no one else left, he was going to leave her there.
"You'd prefer to run off than to bother to tell me what that means?" Astoria called. "How like a ghost! I could die out here anyway, so I guess I'll come find you when I'm dead!"
"Do not insult me, Astoria!" his booming reply came. "Do you not wonder why I am forced to walk these woods when I did not choose to remain as a ghost?
"Oh, I've only wondered all my life! You think now's a good time?" Astoria retorted.
Quennell was panting hot air, his well-adorned clothing glistening in the moonlight. He repeatedly turned to look behind him in the forest, a mark of fear that should not have existed in the dead.
"I sought far too much out of life, and the forest and I are now one and the same."
"Well, this is all news to me," said Astoria moodily.
"Your wounds are fresh from the tragedy. I would not have you disturbed by my own troubles at a time like this. You, for one, are young. As far as the rest of the family goes, there is nothing I can do now."
Astoria finally got off the ground. Even though whatever Quennell feared was back in their sacred wood, she ran over to him, closer to the darkness.
"You can't say all that and expect me not to ask. Tell me. I hate when people hide things from me," she said firmly, trying to meet his covered face.
"Astoria, I know that we have been at odds, but you must understand I want only the best for you. You know nothing about the magic this land holds over you. Please, simply respect it. I do not know what the future holds for you after tonight. If I could help in ways that preserve your life, I would."
"Yes, well, I think you can help by just spitting it out. I've got no plans right now and no one to help! I've got eight dead bodies in my house! Nothing's going to ruin my night more than it's already ruined!"
Quennell reached out a blurry hand and touched her cheek. The heat and coldness of his being once more caused slight pain on a living body. It was no wonder why his presence killed the garden flowers.
"Are you able to talk about Faunus so soon? It partly involves him," he asked.
Astoria's tears fell at the name, but she said resolutely:-
"If I know Uncle Faunus, he wants me to be strong about it."
"Then please listen carefully," Quennell rasped, and Astoria wished she could give him a drink of water.
"I carry a curse, Astoria. Faunus, in his youth, explored the forest often and encountered me many a time. In fact, I might not have appeared to him so much if he did not have a penchant for trouble. To stop his reckless carving of trees, I decided to divulge the secret. Faunus, a second-born, only revealed the nature of my curse once, to his second-born, Renshaw. Why, dear girl, you wonder? Because Renshaw, in taking a Muggle wife, was tempted not to marry on the Equinox. Faunus and Renshaw died tonight without revealing the curse to anyone else. Thus it is solely back in my hands."
Astoria tried to remain level-headed. Uncle Faunus and Renshaw both knew about this so-called curse and had both been murdered. They had both been second-born, like Astoria. It was very difficult to process.
"The curse… it gets them killed," she choked. "You tell them about this curse, and they die? Why do you tell anybody then? Why would you do that? Is part of your curse that you have to curse us? Is that why Maman and Father tried to keep me away from you?"
"You have already assumed the full nature of the curse in spite of everything else you know. This is because I have not appointed you Secret Keeper on the side of the living," Quennell said coldly.
"I-I don't want to be the Secret Keeper if that means I'll die! I'm second-born too! Listen, I might not have a plan for what I'm doing next, but it's definitely not to get murdered by Death Eaters!" Astoria exclaimed, backing away from what she had got herself into.
How could Uncle Faunus and Renshaw have died from some stupid curse from the 1600s? Impossible! She saw them both die, and their heroism was real. Their deaths were brought about by human evil, not supernatural fate. She needed at least that comfort.
"You always make conclusions prematurely, Astoria. I speak to second-born children because their lives are proof that their parents have survived my curse. Indeed, becoming the Secret-Keeper sharply decreases the chance that you will die from the curse. However, it becomes your responsibility to see that no one in your family falls to it. The knowledge of the curse and the guilt of failure could rest on your shoulders all your life."
Astoria looked back at the rainy blackness in her house. She had really been trying to become a better person. Someone responsible who could protect others. It had led her to do some horribly crazy things in one night. She yearned for her family, and she wanted security, but neither of her wishes would be granted. Quennell was confined to the land, and with her family so far away, there was no way for them to know about the curse. They might never find out how to protect themselves from it if Astoria did not become Secret Keeper now. Someday, she swore, she would find them. She would ensure their safety. They had so much to deal with as it was — they didn't need to be dying from some old curse. So instead of jumping to conclusions, she considered her next move seriously.
"I chose to become a Legilimens, and that's given me plenty of knowledge and guilt," Astoria said. "There's no guarantee we'll ever be back to see you. I'm the only one you can tell."
"You are correct about the situation, but I will still not put this on you if you do not wish it," Quennell said. "You are in so much pain as it is."
"I'll do anything for them. M-Maybe that's why I'm stuck here," she nodded.
"Very well. Do not divulge this information to anyone who does not absolutely need to hear it," Quennell said.
He began to walk into the woods. He did not directly beckon her to follow him, but she had to in order to hear him speak. The compression of the forest's darkness was not the only test of Astoria's will, for the longer she followed him, the less she felt like she had lived here her whole life. She had become the foreigner, watched by eyes she could not see.
"First, please tell me what you know about me. The legend your parents gave you about Quennell the first, if you will," Quennell said with his back to her.
"You settled in this forest in the 1640s, after saving it from the attack of a dragon. Because, erm, you knew the forest was sacred. That if, erm, you made a family here, the land would bless you."
Astoria said this in a whisper, because she felt like Quennell was not the only one listening anymore. She kept the light from her wand barely bright enough to see where she was walking, because she did not want to see more.
Just follow Quennell. Just look at Quennell.
"All lies," said Quennell, shaking his head sorrowfully.
Big surprise. Her parents had been sheltering her with false stories from the time she could toddle.
"My dear girl, this magic you feel in the forest is not sacred. It is ravenous, and it is alive. This land is my soul's container, a cistern of my sins. There was never a dragon or a sacred nymph, or anything in that folktale."
The air of the woods had never felt quite so hostile. She realised it was Quennell causing the disruption that he so often did in their flowerbeds. They were not especially far into the thicket, so it bothered her that she had never encountered this particular clearing before. In the centre was a wild apple tree, nearly eight metres tall. Its roots were pale and unnatural, and their placement was the reason for so little growth surrounding the tree. Quennell, who should have been an immaterial being, had to step round the roots to reach the centre of the tree. The wind from the rains Astoria had conjured rushed through the tree's branches, and Quennell caught an apple in his hand without looking.
"If you do not wish to be Secret Keeper, my dearest, now would be the time to make it known."
He tossed it all the way over to her. Astoria still stood at the edge of the clearing. The truth was that she had no idea what she was doing anymore. Reality had started to slip. An hour ago, she had had her family with her. She had been sleeping, scared yet excited to start a new life in the morning, away from the war. With everyone gone, all she had managed to do was to walk into the woods with a ghost her parents had always told her to avoid. Could she really do this?
—
—
Scorpius Malfoy had only minutes to spare, and he had to make them count. Like any good Slytherin, he had agreed to be part of the Time Turner ploy not only for Cedric Diggory, not only for the war, but for his beloved mother. And tonight — if his skipping through time could be called "tonight" — was his only chance to change history without having to go back and undo the damage later. This was the only way.
Bolting through the grounds of Quennell Park, Scorpius didn't have any more time to ponder his existence and his duty, but there were things he already knew. Things he had already mulled over during this entire Time-Turner fiasco. What had stuck out to him the most was that his very best friend, Albus Potter, was not born in every timeline they had manipulated. But Scorpius was. He was always born, in every timeline, no matter what series of events played out in the war or otherwise. That was why he could still do this now, why he had fought so hard to do this. Scorpius didn't place the weight of destiny on himself, though. His inevitable existence wasn't a testament to him being the saviour that he would have liked to be. It was a testament to the deep love his parents had. They would always be together in one crazy, crazy way or another.
But when Scorpius had realised with relief that he would always be born, it came with some unhappy knowledge. Because merely existing, merely being created by a bunch of chromosomes, didn't mean one always turned out the same person. He had seen himself as a crass, arrogant, and racist fool in enough timelines already. Whether the war was in Harry Potter or Voldemort's favour had not changed his mother's death at the hands of a blood curse. Sometimes, her death just happened earlier depending on how much she had expended herself. However, the side that won the war significantly altered the fate of his father, Draco, and thus affected Scorpius, too. No one else in any other timeline could take the credit Astoria could for shaping Scorpius into the wizard he wanted to be. No one.
Oh, but hadn't he learnt his lesson about meddling with time? Yeah, he had. The long, painful way. The trauma-inducing way. The way where he watched people die. But he realised that Mother's choice tonight could have prevented even that from happening.
As if he wouldn't go back for Mother. As fucking if.
Mother had always made sure Scorpius was brought into the very folds of existence, so the least Scorpius could do was to help save her adult life. With charms a-plenty on his body, he silently approached the spot where Mother stood in the forest. He avoided the soul of Quennell Greengrass at all costs. This was what they both needed, although in all other timelines, the soul was too selfish to realise that. Scorpius beheld his mother's young, tattered, and frightened form, and it was all he could take not to reach out to her and stay with her here forever, destroying reality and time.
Mother was about to reject the Fidelius Charm offered to her, and Scorpius had to intervene. Because Quennell wouldn't make Mother the Secret Keeper. As far as Quennell was concerned, he had presented Mother with the choice, and that was enough to clear his conscience. Scorpius lost track of the timelines where Mother had chosen no. Quennell won either way, for his loneliness had become a moral ill.
In the world Scorpius had come from, by the time she had become the Secret Keeper, it was far, far too late. Mother's determination to be with Father had led her to elope him in every timeline Scorpius had ever seen. And she just couldn't do that without finishing things with stupid old Quennell Greengrass first. She had to know what she carried in her blood, and she had to know tonight, before anything could possibly happen differently.
Even though he already had no time to squander, Scorpius wasted more and hated himself for it. But he had this terrible feeling that if he encouraged Mother to be the Secret Keeper now, the war would be much worse for her. The payoff would be greater, though, greater for her and everyone. So Scorpius drew a hood over his head and stayed just out of view. As Mother was about to put the tree's apple down, he spoke a gentle request.
"Please, for me."
Mother, already so frightened and alone, looked round, unsure of whether she was losing her mind or in danger once again.
"Uncle Faunus?" she uttered in sharp grief, and then she cried because Uncle Faunus wasn't there, and there were no more words in the air.
Scorpius, for a silly moment, felt a bit proud that his voice had deepened enough to sound like Uncle Faunus's ghost, and for an even sillier moment, he hoped Rose Granger-Weasley would notice one day.
But Scorpius silently stepped further back still. He felt Quennell's ugly gaze upon him. But Quennell said nothing. Perhaps he couldn't because of what he was, or could it be that they had reached an understanding? Tonight, Astoria Nesrine Greengrass carried the fate of so many people. Tonight, she was more than just Scorpius and Draco Malfoy's world.
Mother thought she was hearing things, hearing Faunus's voice, because she didn't know Scorpius. But hearing the desired company was enough for her to persevere. Scorpius watched her bring the fruit back to her face. This would be bad for her. But then she would be happy.
They would all, one day far from now, be unfathomably happy.
—
—
Astoria had been standing at the coast of a sea of panic for too long, trying to avoid the crashing waves. She drew a deep breath to steady herself. Uncle Faunus had been at this spot in his youth. Maybe he had not been here in the middle of the night, and maybe he wasn't here now, but he had been here before. Even a Gryffindor like himself probably would have thought twice about the balance between bravery and safety. But perhaps Uncle Faunus did not appreciate the enormity of the knowledge handed down to him at the time. Even though he was gone, he and Astoria still shared this Earth and this secret. It was not Eden she stood in, so knowledge would not harm her. She gripped the apple and bit it. It dripped cold with magic. A Fidelius Charm, born of Quennell Park.
Between illusion and reality, Astoria saw visions. A thousand of Quennell's missing eyes peered at her through the trees. The roots began to wring their way through the ground like a swimmer's arms above water, and the wind howled in torture. This place was not holy as she had been taught. What they all felt had been a fiend. Astoria fell backwards, her elbows digging into the ground in an instinct to save her head.
"This is what I have done, my dearest. I have split my soul. I cannot pass," said her ancestor reluctantly.
"Quennell, please…" she begged for the visions to go away, and then there was nothing to be seen except an odd tree and the phantom she loved. The wind had stopped, the eyes were gone, and the roots sunk to rest. Quennell began to speak his secrets, seemingly unable to move as he did.
"There exists a spell so unclean that the evillest of Dark practitioners would not even utter its name. This is Black magic, named Horcrux, which binds my soul. My body died, and what you see of me is not a ghost I willed, but what I slit from my soul and left behind. As you have suspected, I exist on the very same plane as you. This is the immortality I thought I desired. When I settled in this forest, I fought no dragon and protected no native population. I did not begin with the heroic life you are so told. I felled everything in my way and built a home beyond the highest of luxuries. I sought to be above others and to perfect Dark magic in solitude. There was no better place to be alone than this expansive wood. It enclosed me then, as it does to this day. In spite of my greatest efforts to enchant the forest and be alone, one day I saw smoke billowing and followed it. A witch had made a settlement in my woods to hide herself from Muggles. Although she viewed her self-segregation as the result of misunderstanding, I despised Muggles. I could not send her out of my woods, she who had broken all of my walls in search of a safe place to live. In time, she wed me. We chose the auspicious wedding date at the time, the Vernal Equinox. In bearing a family, we were forced to interact with society once more. We both made names for ourselves as teachers of natural magic. Though my wife was also a user of the Dark arts, it was I who craved more.
"The temptation of creating a Horcrux to preserve myself beyond my time collided with my arrogance, and I prepared the greatest tree in the forest to be my vessel. To create a Horcrux, you must kill another person in the coldest of cold blood. As this breed of magic is violent and volatile, control of the spell escaped me once the vessel was prepared. I intended to take the life of a Muggle who had no significance to me from a nigh village. However, the Black magic I had churned within my body melded with my hatred of their kind, and warped my senses. Unbeknownst to me, my wife had followed me into the copse to see what I was doing. To discover that I intended to kill a defenceless Muggle threw her into desperation. As I was to do the deed, she cast herself between… and she died by my wand whilst I was possessed with the frenzy from my own magic. Thus, this Horcrux was created from a most fetid deed, the killing of my own wife. The Muggle escaped, though it was later said he went insane.
"I enucleated myself with my wand once I saw what I had done to the love of my life. I ran into the house and tampered with the memories of our children, leading them to believe that my wife and I had simply succumbed to dragon's plague. Then, in direct opposition to the immortality I had sought, I killed myself beneath this tree, where I had killed my dearest. Because I had severely tampered with my blood in order to create the Horcrux, and used the flesh of my flesh to split my soul, my magic lives on as a curse. Rather than become immortal, I only succeeded in cursing my bloodline to feed my Horcrux.
"I discovered both the existence and the nature of the induced malediction in our blood a long time after my crime. The maker of a Horcrux can resurrect to living form if fed enough bodily material from three key sources: the user's family, the user's subjects, and the user's foes. You and your family, Astoria, are my family. Thus, my Horcrux — this tree — naturally hungers for you. It is not living here that increases your risk; it is that you were born of my blood and subject to the Horcrux.
"As the legend of the auspicious wedding date fell out of fashion, it became necessary for me to divulge the truth behind the Equinox and appoint Secret Keepers within the family. For even though the Equinox is tradition, traditions as specific as this one rarely last through the centuries as this one, necessarily, must.
"The endless guilt of sapping my own kin's life is my punishment and sorrow, lest I forget my actions. Any attempt to continue my accursed bloodline will wither away the body to the point of death, at which point you will feed my Horcrux, and I will strengthen. I do not wish it, yet I cannot undo it. There are only two ways to overcome this malediction: either do not bear children or, miraculously, simply marry on the Equinox.
"Because of my dearest wife's pure sacrifice to prevent my murdering of an innocent, the date we joined together in marriage became the escape from my Horcrux's curse. Love, not counter-curses, is the strongest protection against Dark magic. Because of my wife's actions, the requirement to break the curse is so mercifully simple that very, very few have failed to follow it. Only those who wed outside of the Equinox will feed my Horcrux, and I must watch them die. I can feel physical pain on account of being a Horcrux, but the spiritual torture is insurmountable. My wife's love will give couples at least two children in honour of the children we had left behind, and of recognition that they have survived the curse. I thank you, Astoria, deeply, for being the bearer of this information."
Astoria dropped the apple she held. Her brow was so furrowed it gave her a tension headache. None of this made sense. Horcrux? Bloodline curse? And Quennell was a murderer of his own wife? It was hard to imagine, but she had been happier when her greatest concerns were that she had lost her uncle and cousin and was left in the country by herself.
"This — this is horrible!" Astoria screamed. "We – we – we have this family tradition we're taught to love, and it's all so we don't get slaughtered by a… what's it called, a Horcrux‽ No, your Horcrux! How dare you! How could you ever…‽"
The fact that she was yelling at a being who was stuck between spirit and human forms for actions he committed roughly three-hundred years ago did not strike her. She kept screaming at him.
"You're saying my parents only had me because they married on the day your wife's leftover magic is more powerful than yours? My parents didn't know any of this! What if they tried to have Daphne without marrying on the Equinox because of the war — or without marrying at all? Father would just up and die? To feed your immortality‽ How dare you!"
Quennell grabbed his head with both hands and howled.
"The First Wizarding War saw many Greengrasses succumb to my curse, since the Secret Keeper at the time, Calhoun, had been murdered by Titus Lestrange, and Faunus was unable to reach his extended family abroad! It is lucky that the Equinox is celebrated as a sacred tradition in its own right! Some did not follow it… My apparition became stronger with their deaths, and I can now manifest at will, as you see me now. I will never forgive myself!"
As he said this, nearly ten tree roots sprung up from the ground, speckling Astoria with wet dirt. They tangled in circles round Quennell, reflecting his emotions and acting as evidence of his unbreakable connection with the forest. He shed tears that pooled in his eye sockets, and he had to keep drooping his head forward for them to drip out onto the ground.
"So what, is this the tree where your soul is bound‽ Why has no one cut it down‽ Plenty of us have been Secret Keepers since then, is that right? Plenty of us have known what it will do to us!"
"Astoria, before you were born, I begged many a Secret Keeper to destroy the parent tree of this spell and take me with it! You do not know the level of my remorse! A Horcrux cannot be killed by normal means; it was fed by human bloodshed!"
That's absolutely sick.
Quennell scrambled to sugar-coat what he had just revealed.
"Remember, marrying on the Equinox guarantees at least two children if the parents wish it. An easily avoidable curse comes with my dear wife's blessing! Don't you understand? The love she had, you see, has made us one of the largest and greatest Wizarding families in Britain. Yet this is why I am ashamed to consider myself family to you. I am the one who has put you all through this. I am not worthy to walk this Earth."
"Greatest family! — Britain‽ They're all gone now! Everyone! It's just me!" Astoria pounded her chest. "Just me in the fucking woods!"
After a terrible night, this of all things was what brought her out of her panic and into a mad fury. She stormed round the tree that was part of a forest she had tried to save. Why? Because she had been taught the forest was sacred. Why? Because Secret Keepers have been building up this lore of lies for over three-hundred years to keep the family safe and dumb and happy. That was the very sort of thing she hated most.
"My Squib cousin married on the Equinox for you, and he still died! He died tonight! Are you going to use him in your little 'Horcrux' too? Drink his blood‽"
One false step, and Astoria tripped on a root, scraping herself badly. She thought either the Horcrux tree or its soul, Quennell, would try to drink the blood right out of her wounds, but nothing moved.
"You're disgusting," Astoria cried, and she didn't have anywhere to wipe her nose and tears except her sooty, sweaty, and mud-stained pyjamas.
"I know what I am," Quennell said, turning away so she wouldn't have to see the holes he'd put in his face drip again.
In swelling rage, Astoria beat her fists at the apparition's back, but it only caused her that prickly sensation in her hands. She couldn't stop. The betrayal was too strong.
"I loved you!" she wailed. "You were my friend! Clearly, I never got out much! How could you do this‽"
Quennell said nothing; she only heard him sobbing in the wind.
"Well, Quennell, you were right. All of that 'are you sure you want to be Secret Keeper' stuff. It makes perfect sense now."
Astoria leaned against the tree defiantly because there was nowhere else to lean, but she couldn't exert her superiority over it. Who was she going to make the Secret Keeper when her time came? Was it wrong that Uncle Faunus had not told Aunt Elly? Would it be wrong of her if she couldn't tell her future spouse, either?
If Astoria had a child, how could she put them through this after years and years of thinking the Equinox was a fun, special time with family instead of a curse-breaker? Renshaw had learnt as an adult, so maybe that would be okay. Astoria could tell a family member that was more mature than she was now.
Astoria wondered what her family was doing without her. Had all their injuries been treated? Had they stopped the bleeding in Daphne's arm and helped her recover? Was Rhiannon managing her supposed death? Would they all treat Rhiannon properly, as dear as she was to Astoria? Who was already old enough to get married, and would they still do it on the Equinox so far from home? Artemis, Xylia, Ansel, and so many distant cousins were of marrying age, but maybe it would take them a while to recover from the trauma. Somehow, some way, Astoria would be able to reach them in time, encouraging the celebration of the Equinox no matter what. But what could she say to insist upon Equinox marriages without alarming people? "It's important to uphold family tradition in times of strife," or something like that. Sure. A load of rubbish, just as it had been handed down to her.
Astoria balled herself up on the ground and cried herself to exhaustion. She might fall asleep in the woods and become Horcrux food or whatever the hell. What difference would it make? What did it matter? She shut her eyes, shivering, but the environment was not conducive to even the most restless sleep.
"Quennell, are you still there?" she groaned.
"I cannot leave, my dearest. This is where I go when you do not see me. Nor would I leave you if I could."
Astoria dragged herself off the ground.
"Is there a reason for the waltz?" she asked, glaring at him.
"Pardon?"
"I said, is there a reason for the waltz? Quennell's Waltz? It's choreographed with arithmancy. Is it all just some Horcrux repellent?"
Quennell was so confused by her question that it brought him out of his wallowing.
"No. They originated with my elder son's love of arithmancy. His name was Quennell as well. His dances eventually became the waltz you know today, and it is he for whom the composition is named, not for me. Why ever do you ask at this time, Astoria?"
"I don't know! Perhaps I'd like to know that not every last thing in my life is out of control!" she shouted.
She kicked the tree Quennell and his wife died under. It did nothing except hurt her leg. She decided that if she was going to die, it wasn't going to be anywhere near this Horcrux nonsense. She would start by making her way back to the house and getting overnight supplies and food together. She did not know what would come after that.
"Astoria…"
"Oh, what the hell do you want now?" she hissed.
"The outsider has made his way into the manor. He appears ill and does not know how to leave," Quennell rasped.
"Oh, Nott? He's not ill. He panicked about You-Know-Who and Obliviated himself. There was a lot going on, so I, erm… left him…"
I have no idea what I'm going to do.
"Do bear in mind that I can protect this land, but I cannot protect you. You must find someone you can trust," Quennell advised.
"No kidding," Astoria said, and she made her way out of the vast forest.
Quennell had flung the word "trust" out there like it was a real thing.