Book 4: Astoria Greengrass and the Curse of Quennell Park
Song rec: "The End of Love" by Florence + the Machine
For as much as Astoria loved her new home at Lake Greendragon, she didn't get to spend much time there. With distractions such as Rhiannon, Hestia, Flora, food, and the beautiful lake itself, she had trouble focusing on grant writing at home, even in her office. Although the Greengrasses were the wealthiest family in Britain, they were not magic-space-telescope wealthy. That kind of money only belonged to organisations. Astoria sure wished she could pay somebody to write these grant proposals for her.
She was spending a late August weekend at Mrs Tonks's house. With the babies as lively as ever, Astoria wasn't foolish enough to expect to get any grant writing done there, but that wasn't the only thing she had to write. The deadlines for Pariah's last recordings were fast approaching, and she hoped to finish the composition that she had mentally dedicated to Delphini. It was one of Mr Davis's most anticipated songs, but that pressure had given her writer's block. None of her countless other visits to Mrs Tonks's had helped remedy it, but one thing she knew was that the song wasn't going to get finished when she was not near the little girl.
Astoria sat on the couch and watched the kids play on the floor. They were such smart babies; they were always handing each other toys. Teddy could sit up and walk with help, and Delphi could hoist herself up alone and toddle until she fell. Some time ago, Mrs Tonks, Astoria, and Mr Lupin had once spent a whole day toddler-proofing the house. Delphi was always spewing magic to undo their efforts, so with serious consultation of the baby books Mrs Tonks had bought many years ago for Nymphadora, they were able to secure everything that could even remotely pose a danger. Everywhere Astoria stepped, there seemed to be a Cushioning Charm, and she often felt like she was walking on a giant pillow. It had to be done; the babies were frequent floaters.
"Nana," Teddy said to Astoria once he got bored with his toy.
"Aw, Teddy, Nana's napping," Astoria said.
"Nana?"
"Napping," Astoria said, putting her hand to her cheeks and closing her eyes.
"Nappin," said Delphi, keen to be in on the conversation. "Ssseepy."
"Yes, sleepy! Elle a très sommeil."
"Ssss-ss," said Delphi.
Mrs Tonks and Astoria had both read up on Parseltongue, but the literature on it was scarce. There was conflicting information about it across sources; generally, any author with the last name of Sayre, Slytherin, or Scamander provided honest explanations, and anyone else tended to call it "demon noises." Apparently, well-versed Parselmouths could control when they spoke it when they were older with one exception: if they were in the presence of snakes, serpentine creatures, or other Parselmouths, they would automatically speak it without trying. Young Parselmouths had no command over it and no way to tell when they were using it or not. It was exactly halfway between a language and an inborn trait, which was a tricky thing to understand. After all, it wasn't like French was the colour of Astoria's hair. This put the ladies in a tricky situation, because if they gently dissuaded Delphi from using it, she wouldn't ever learn to control it in moments of great emotion. On the other hand, if they let it continue as it was, it seemed she would be using it well into middle childhood. Either way, Mrs Tonks had been firm about not ever telling her daughter it was "bad."
Astoria had long been using Legilimency to figure out what all of Delphi's little hisses meant. Now that Delphi started forming words in earnest, the witches planned to encourage her to use English or French words out loud when she started hissing. Nevertheless, it seemed unavoidable that someone somewhere would eventually hear Delphi speak Parseltongue. They still had their last line of defence, since some of the Rosiers in France were Parselmouths unrelated to any Slytherins. It wasn't the best explanation, but it would have to do.
Teddy crawled over to Delphi and tugged on her feet, and they both rolled sideways and giggled. Astoria couldn't have asked for a better way to spend her afternoon. She had the best company, yet it was also like having time to herself.
Much had happened since Astoria came home from the summer conference with an engagement ring on her finger. Everybody had given up being upset at Asenath for taking a job at the tattoo parlour in Knockturn Alley and redirected their ire and disappointment at Astoria. Both her parents and Draco's had thrown temper tantrums worse than even Delphi could muster (and hers were pretty bad). It was all irrelevant to Astoria. She had greatly hoped to marry at the Vernal Equinox at Quennell Park, but if it wasn't going to work that way, that was fine too. What was important was Draco, not the wedding.
Her hope was to marry at the next Equinox, but two major issues thwarted that plan: her father's absolute forbidding of it and Daphne's sudden engagement to Ernie Macmillan. So it would be Daphne, not Astoria, who would have her wedding on the millennium equinox. Astoria had spent many days frustrated and angry, but she had since got over it. She wouldn't want to have a double wedding with her sister anyway, and there was no point in getting married in front of a bunch of unhappy people. So Astoria told her father, mother, and everyone else that she and Draco were either going to marry at the 2001 Equinox at Quennell Park, or they were going to marry quietly by the lake. She figured that if nobody would support them by then, there was no point in trying to do it their way anymore.
Astoria hadn't told anybody about the blood curse on the family because she had seen to the end of it herself. She could marry whenever she damn well wanted to now. There was no blood curse. There was just bad blood between the Greengrasses and the Malfoys. She mentally grouped everyone based on how they felt about their engagement into three categories. First, there were their parents, who staunchly opposed the whole thing and made it known at every opportunity. Next, the vast majority of people were displeased to hear about it, but they at least had the decency not to voice those opinions. Then there were the people who quietly respected their choices and minded their own business, including, thank goodness, Mrs Tonks and Professor Sinistra. Lastly, there were the people who were utterly thrilled at the engagement. That last group included only Astoria and Draco, and that was what counted.
Astoria stretched her arms and legs, bundled Teddy and Delphi up, and buckled them into their twin HoverPush that Mr Lupin had bought. Mrs Tonks had a large garden, and Astoria often took them for walks out there. They loved dangling their feet off the HoverPush, and it often excited them enough that they wouldn't Levitate on their own overnight.
"Wheee!" said Teddy before they even got going. It was his new favourite word.
"Wheee! It's so fun!" Astoria said, poking his cheek.
Delphi started hissing in her excitement.
"What's that, Delphi? What's that mean?" asked Astoria gently, even though she already knew what the hiss meant. Delphi hissed more and started flapping her arms.
"M-hmm, what's that mean?"
"Up!" said Delphi.
"Up! Okay! Montons!" Astoria said.
She Levitated the HoverPush, and Teddy squealed "WHEEE" at top volume. It was a good thing Astoria had already blocked the sounds from the house from reaching Mrs Tonks's bedroom. Nana-slash-Mama needed rest after a long night of toddlers fussing and a not-so-tasty breakfast.
To Delphini, Astoria was "Ssssori," and to Teddy, she was "Aah-aa." It really made her realise what a difficult name everyone in her family had for babytalk purposes. Astoria didn't remember what she had called Aunt Laureline and Uncle Salomon in her childhood, but according to her sources, they had been "LaLa" and "Salmon."
Delphi flapped her arms for the first half of their walk, apparently thinking she was doing something to keep them afloat. Then she got tired. Then Teddy got tired, and they were both in a snooze for the second lap round the garden. Astoria breathed the aroma of autumn leaves and simply appreciated the moment. From the house, she heard Mizzle the Augurey start crowing, so she made her way back to the porch. The grey sky grew darker, and she felt the first drops of rain on her skin as she reached the overhang. She got the children under it seconds before the rain started to pour. The sound woke the babies up, but they didn't cry. They actually loved the rain. Delphi, as expected, started trying to imitate the sound in her low hiss, and Teddy laughed at her and reached for the raindrops pouring down from the old gutters.
"Pluie!" Delphi said.
"Oui, c'est la pluie," Astoria replied.
It hit her very suddenly — what the song needed — and there was nowhere to write it out here! Astoria brought the kids back into the house and rummaged through her suitcase to find her manuscript. She didn't have the knowledge of how to annotate it the way she heard it in her head, so she wrote "rainsticks everywhere" on the front of the piece for later reference. The themes of the composition came from Astoria's experience at Rowle Ridge as well as the joy and constancy that Delphi had brought to her messy life. Water was such a key part of her idea, and she hadn't included rainsticks! No wonder she felt something was missing! It had been raining when she first lay her eyes on the child, and Delphi herself sounded like light rain when she spoke Parseltongue. How perfect. Astoria was so excited that she wished she had somebody to tell that moment. Oh, well. She told the kids.
"We're going to use rainsticks."
Teddy had half his hand in his mouth, and Delphi was already floating above the cushioned floor again. A fresh look at the manuscript made the words start pouring. She enlarged the paper and added the staves for the vocals.
"Da naa nana," she sang to herself as she tried to figure out where best to put them. She was glad the kids weren't old enough to laugh at her like her friends were. Pariah's album would be divided into four parts based off the stages of dusk and twilight for both aesthetic and thematic purposes. Consequently, the lighter songs were in the section "Civil Dusk," whereas the darkest songs were in the section "Nightfall." This particular song was planned for the "Nautical Dusk" section.
Now that it was all coming to her, Astoria conceived the title "Gospel of Pisces," in reference to Delphi's birth date and the "prophecies" her birth mother had hoped she would fulfil. The lyrics gave none of that away; not even Delphi would be able to figure out the song when she was older. Astoria kept the words vague but earnest in feeling as she tried to remember the sensory experience of walking into the A-frame house on Rowle Ridge and seeing tiny Delphi cry in distress and hunger. When her quill met the paper again, Astoria took a deep breath, knowing that it would be the last thing she wrote for Pariah.
We're all matter, all from dust
Born of love or born of lust
Left without a hand to trust
Star's creation, nebula's wonder
Held my sky when I went under
Waves of anger, saving thunder
Gospel of Pisces
Hymn for daughters
Suns and novas
Shoreless waters
Steam and soul
Return to cloud
World once ended
You're my vow
Endless lies for one truth
Mouth to cry, hand to soothe
In disguise I still know you
Death of old and birth of new
Angel from the sky's womb
Healer of my eyes' wounds
Gospel of Pisces
Deny their future
Hostile prophecies
Tear duct suture
You are the author
Of your own nature
Givers failed you
Be the taker
Bring rain, bring rain
(I will save you)
Bring rain, bring rain
(I will meet you)
Bring rain, O Mother
(I will love you)
Bring rain, O Sister
(Who am I, to whom do I belong)
Bring rain, O Daughter
(Who am I but daughter of song)
Gospel, gospel (Child author)
Pisces, Pisces (Winter water)
Sing to me, lovely (Pisces child)
Sing in your way (End of winter)
Sing to me loudly (Gospel author)
Sing unafraid.
Rhiannon was the latest riser of the group, and when she awoke to the beautiful sound of light rain, Hestia was already sitting up in bed with the morning paper in front of her, creased in hilariously nonsensical ways.
"Mornin'."
"Good ten-minutes-left-of morning, Rhi," Hestia sniggered, kissing her head. "Want tea?"
"Tryna uncrust my eyes first."
"Take your time," Hestia smiled, rubbing Rhiannon's back in a way that was going to put her straight back to sleep.
Rhiannon didn't want to go back to sleep. She had been having plenty of unwelcome dreams about Malfoy being in their house lately. In one dream, Draco walked into Rhiannon and Hestia's bathroom to pee whilst Rhiannon was in the shower. In another, he drank the household pumpkin juice straight out the carton. In the one she just had, Draco came into their room whining that he had a nightmare and hopped into bed with them. It was a damn good thing he hadn't been there when Rhiannon woke up.
It wasn't that Rhiannon was unhappy for Astoria and Draco. (If they hadn't been able to get engaged, Rhiannon would never have heard the end of it). There just seemed to be a lot of rich-folks' problems going on with the engagement. Malfoy was a bad name now, so Astoria was caricatured as a little rebel by her family. Rhiannon felt that Astoria was at perfect liberty to marry whoever she wanted after what she'd been through. It wasn't exactly convenient that she'd picked Draco Bloody Malfoy, but that wasn't up to Rhiannon. Astoria and Draco loved each other. She knew that now.
"You look like you've had another Draco dream," Hestia said, ruffling her half-origamied newspaper.
"He crawled into bed with us after he had a nightmare," Rhiannon said.
"Ooo, we'd make dreadful Narcissas," Hestia said devilishly.
"I'm gonna made a dreadful witch-of-honour at this wedding."
"It's not anytime soon."
"True. D'you really think Astoria'll be going by the name Malfoy?"
Hestia shrugged, "She might or might not. Just depends on what the name means for her. Although 'Astoria Malfoy' does sound nauseating, doesn't it?"
Rhiannon cringed. Everyone knew Voldemort himself had lived in Malfoy Manor. To have a Death Eater's name tacked on to her friend seemed unfair. Astoria had relentlessly fought for the right side in the war.
Like in Muggle culture, the standard was for wives to take their husband's names, but in Wizarding culture, it wasn't unusual — and it certainly wasn't considered wrong — for it to be the other way around. Problem was 'Draco Greengrass' sounded as outlandish as 'Astoria Malfoy' sounded revolting. (Well, maybe the problem was that Rhiannon felt their name choice was her business).
Rhiannon watched Hestia take a barrette out and put it back in somewhere else. Hestia was still in her pyjamas, the kind soft enough to hold out your arm to all your friends and say, "Hey, feel how soft this is." Rhiannon wiggled her way over to rest her cheek on Hestia's thigh. With all of Astoria's chatter, it was difficult not to imagine how things might eventually go for her and Hestia.
Rhiannon Carrow.
Oh, what a lovely thought. Too lovely. Rhiannon felt the need to hide her blush from her own girlfriend. And that hiding was part of why she knew they weren't exactly ready yet. There wasn't anything wrong, but they needed more time to grow together. And grow they would, from girlfriends to fiancées to wives to crabby old crones.
"Now what are you giggling about?" Hestia beamed.
"Oh, just a thought."
"Hm, seems like a thought I'd enjoy sharing!"
"Well, I was thinking about what it would be like, y'know, eventually, if we, y'know, do that too. Get married," Rhiannon said. "Eventually."
Hestia dropped the disjoined pieces of the newspaper on the floor by the bed, since they were no longer a shape that would fit on the bedside table.
"I may have thought about that, too, y'know, for like, eventually," she jabbered.
At those words, Rhiannon's mind went wild. They would have a summer wedding. The Greengrasses would gladly let them use the gardens at Quennell Park as a venue — Hestia never shut up about those gardens — and it wouldn't be too big of a wedding, but the food selection would be enormous. And nobody would even blink that they were both girls because everyone was a freaking wizard, and Hestia would have a beautiful, quirky gown, and Rhiannon would actually feel fine dressing up for once. Rhiannon would do the proposing, for sure, not because she thought she'd be especially good at it, but because Hestia deserved to be proposed to. She could see their owls coming in with letters addressed, Mrs. & Mrs. Carrow…
"It's funny, I always thought we'd get married at the Three Broomsticks," Hestia's voice intercepted the fantasy.
Rhiannon lifted her head from Hestia's soft pyjamas.
"Three Broomsticks? You serious?"
"Yeah, I mean," Hestia said nervously, "Hogsmeade is like, my favourite memory. I never got to do much independently, but Hogsmeade was amazing with you."
Rhiannon took a chunky pink eraser to the ideas she'd sketched in her head. She'd get Hestia the world, but if the Three Broomsticks was all she wanted, Rhiannon would do that, too.
"Actually, you're right. That'd be perfect. Nice and cosy," Rhiannon said, thinking of how many Greengrasses would become overinvolved if she tried to marry Hestia by their fountain.
"I'd love to see you in a suit, Rhi," Hestia blushed, playing with her fingers. "It'll be so nice when I can finally — I mean, er, eventually — be Hestia Clarke."
No.
"Clarke?"
"Yeah," said Hestia brightly. "Hestia Clarke. I just like the sound of it."
No.
That was such a horrid downgrade. 'Rhiannon Carrow' had a fancy, witchy ring to it, for sure, but it went far beyond that. Rhiannon always thought she'd be able to drop her father's name if she ever got married, and Hestia was just the person to take it away from her.
"Well, er, I was kinda thinkin' I'd be Rhiannon Carrow—"
"Oh, no," Hestia shook her head vigorously. "No, no. Hestia Clarke sounds much better. You don't want my name."
Rhiannon sat up.
"I do. I do wanna take your name, Hestia. I don't want my dad's name no more if we're married. I sure don't want to give you his stupid name."
Hestia's feet squirmed under the blankets.
"I could say the same thing ten times over, Rhi. Carrow's a horrible name to have. The only thing worse would be Lestrange or Riddle. I'd sooner have us just keep our own names than make you a damn Carrow."
"But your own dad at least—"
"It's not about Dad," Hestia cut in. "There's a million Clarkes out there. 'Clarke' doesn't mean anything in society, Wizarding or Muggle. I know your dad alone was worse than my whole situation."
"No, I really don't want you to compare, Hestia—"
"Look, the only thing I have ever associated with the name of Clarke is you, Rhiannon. And really, all of Wizarding Britain knows the Muggle-born Slytherin was Rhiannon Clarke. You're a name of hope, Rhi. I'm not. There's only one House of Carrow. There was only ever one House of Carrow. You can't take on that name. And I'm not asking you to rid me of it like that's my main goal here. I love you. I'll marry you when the time comes. But there can't be any more Carrows. This name has to die with me and Flora."
Clearly, Hestia had talked to Flora about this at great length. Rhiannon rubbed her forehead. She had hoped to metamorphose out of her father's name, but it wasn't as deep an issue as Hestia's relationship with the Sacred Twenty-Eight thing. Rhiannon's father hadn't been around for a long time; she didn't even think about him often anymore. But Hestia was reminded of her aunt and uncle every time she wrote her name on something. Rhiannon took Hestia's hand and rubbed it gently.
"All right, Hestia. You can be Hestia Clarke if you want to so bad," she smirked. "Eventually."
"Eventually," Hestia puckered her lips.
Flora had already taken care of her own breakfast situation at a normal hour, so Rhiannon and Hestia got ready to go for lunch in Diagon Alley. It wasn't a high-stakes date, so Hestia suggested they bring along Flora, who had been cooped up in her room since early morning.
"Oi, Flora!" Rhiannon called, knocking on her door. "You wanna get lunch with us?"
They heard Flora blow her nose. When she opened the door, her face was red, but she otherwise carried herself the same as always.
"Can you bring me back a box of whatever lunch special there is?" she asked.
"Sure," Rhiannon shrugged.
Flora reached in her pocket to get the money, but Hestia started digging through her purse, saying, "No, I'll treat you, Flora! I have — I think I have — yes — wait, wait…"
In the likely event that Hestia did not have money for two in her purse, Flora kept a hand ready in her pocket. Then she gulped.
"Hestia, er, do-do you remember anything about, er, around when—"
"Ah — Whoops!"
Hestia accidentally spilt her Galleons everywhere. Rhiannon's first instinct was still to bend and help her gather them up, but Hestia was raised a witch and simply knew to use her wand. She counted the gold as it glittered its way back into her purse.
"Sorry, sorry! Yeah, looks like I can treat you! Anyway, remember what, Flora?"
But Flora used the distraction to change her mind. She cleared her throat and asked, "Remember the time that crab got Amycus's foot at the pier?"
"How could I forget? That was priceless!" Hestia exclaimed, falling for it in a way Rhiannon did not. "Dead old bastard!"
"Yeah," said Flora. "Here, take the money for my lunch, please."
"Flora, I have the money! You never let me treat you to anything!" whinged Hestia. "We're on the same money anyway! Let me get you lunch!"
"No, it's okay, just take it."
Hestia reluctantly took Flora's payment and went to grab her hat and cloak. Rhiannon lingered a moment. She didn't wear hats, and unlike Hestia, her body had enough insulation to not need a cloak in August.
"Flora, what's going on? You all right in there?" Rhiannon asked, but Flora shook her head dismissively.
"I'm fine. You two enjoy your date."
"Last chance to be our third wheel," Rhiannon joked.
"That's all right. I need to talk to Astoria when she gets back."
"Ah, well, good luck gettin' her to talk about anything 'sides Malfoy, babies, and nebulas."
Flora shared a knowing look with Rhiannon, but a lot of Flora's looks had been just that: looks. Rhiannon knew something was weighing her down, and in retrospect, maybe it was always there. But Rhiannon and Flora had a long history of saying the wrong thing to each other. And Flora had her own long history of not saying.
When Astoria went home for the week, she couldn't find the others at first. Rhiannon and Hestia must have gone on a date, so she walked to Flora's room. The door was open. Flora was in there, though it wasn't how Astoria expected to encounter her.
Flora had set up what looked like a tall spice rack on her wall, but instead of pepper pots and jars of dried herbs, it held thin, clear phials with labels that made no sense to Astoria. There was a large box on the floor and postal paper strewn about. On Flora's desk was a large… salad bowl? Flora was sitting with a notebook next to the bowl and one of Rhiannon's ballpoint pens in her hand.
"Hello, dear. What's all this?" Astoria asked.
"Hi."
Astoria drew closer. Flora seemed to be working on the track "Infantile Amnesia." The track was most notable for the heavy bells that sounded through the song, which had all been Flora's work, as they had to "sound a certain way." She tapped the end of the pen to her head and then scribbled some more words. She turned round in her seat and groaned.
"Merlin, Astoria, if you can't do this one, I can change it."
"No," Astoria said. "If you change what you write, it won't give you any relief."
Flora wet her lips and nodded.
Astoria thought Flora might wish to change the subject, so she said, "I had trouble finishing that one for 'Nautical,' but I finished this weekend."
"That's good, that's good," said Flora. "I think I'm finished with this one, too. I think I've said what I needed to say."
Flora pointed her wand at the salad bowl, which wasn't a salad bowl at all.
"Oh, is that a Pensieve?" Astoria asked, though by the wispy stream that Flora pulled out of the bowl with her wand, she already knew the answer.
"Yeah, I got it with money from the reissues. Just came in the post this morning. I've been here since."
Flora put the memory in a glass phial and corked it. Pensieves were prohibitively expensive. Many of the old families kept one for parlour games and family reunions. For many a pure-blood child, the instrument became more tempting each time elders said "don't touch that!" The Ministry owned more than one Pensieve, though. In fact, some of Astoria's memories had been subjected to Pensieve scrutiny in order for the government to declare Rabastan dead. Flora's purchase couldn't have been solely to write a song, and Astoria had a fair guess that Flora intended to use it to work through her trauma. It was unconventional to say the least.
Seeing Flora mess with a Pensieve stirred up one of Astoria's memories, too. Astoria had spoken with Flora about seeking real therapy before, but like everything else, Flora had the last word each time. Their most fraught discussion had begun with Flora walking into Astoria's room at eleven at night without knocking:-
"I can't sleep. I can't get over how they actually tried to kill Hestia. They never treated us well, but they were really going to kill Hestia. I hated them, but I never, never once felt our lives were in danger before. Never."
"That was upsetting enough for me to see, so I can't imagine what you're going through, Flora. It's going to be on your mind, understandably. Are you certain you don't want to make an appointme—"
"That whole ward is waiting for my last name to show up."
"Flora, I doubt they have time to care about things like that. What if Hestia or your father sought treatment? You wouldn't stop them."
"Well, they ought to go."
"And why not you? You all went through it."
"Dad's memories are messed up. My problem is that my memory's way too good. And Hestia went through it differently. I just can't talk about it like Hestia can. I'd sit there in stone silence. It'd be a waste of money."
"If you need help with the bill—"
"Don't. God, Astoria. I have money from the Unspeakables, and I'm already living in your house. Just don't."
After that conversation, Astoria realised how little Flora wanted to go to therapy and how much she wanted to open up to her instead as a friend. So Flora was doing things her own way, and Astoria tried to understand her healing process. She watched Flora tenderly swirl her freshly bottled memory round to see all the different ways the light would glimmer against the ethereal substance.
"This is why Hestia and I are different. Even though we're identical. Even though we've been through everything together. It all comes down to a tiny bottle," Flora said.
She rattled the memory to make it sparkle more. After an awkward pause, Astoria said, "It almost looks like the inside of a snow globe."
"It's not quite liquid," said Flora.
"Yeah," said Astoria.
"Yeah. Can we go outside?"
"Yeah, let me just grab my cloak again."
Flora always seemed to have warmer cloaks than Astoria. The weekend had been far warmer, but the wind was stinging now. Flora led the way with purpose. They walked down the steps of the back balcony, down past the fire pit, across the stone path through the grass, and all the way to the end of the dock. Astoria expected Flora to fling the phial in the water, but she didn't. She continued to roll it in her hands, close to her chest, as if it would get cold in the autumn air.
"I've seen Thestrals for most of my life," Flora said, her voice held firmly against any risk of trembling. "Hestia couldn't. She once asked me about her Magical Creatures lesson with the 'invisible horses.' She decided I see them because I was born second and must have seen Mum. Everybody plays up that 'seeing death' thing. The real point is that you have to understand that what you're seeing can't be fixed. I was three years old, almost four. I could name my colours. I could count a little bit. I could understand what 'gone' meant."
Flora breathed deeply, thumbing the cork without opening it.
"Hestia's much happier thinking what she thinks, so I never corrected her. Me, though, it'd take half the Department of Mysteries to make sense of. But I guess you do."
"You consider me as good as half the Department of Mysteries?"
"I consider you as good as family," Flora said seriously.
Astoria leaned in closer, and they both watched how the memory glimmered with the lake's ripples behind it. It looked just like any other memory, really.
"Dad, he absolutely would've remembered, but he's completely muddled. So it was always just me. If I get rid of this memory, I'll just recall what I wrote. And I'll recall me and you doing this here. But it won't be so vivid anymore. It won't be first-hand."
"Right."
"Right. Well."
Flora reached past her cloak, into her pockets, and drew out a ballpoint pen and a sheet of parchment. Squatting down on the dock, she folded it into a little paper boat. She wrote on it. Her breath hitched. She kissed the phial, uncorked it, and drew out the contents. After snuggling the memory closely against the high edge of the paper, she charmed the boat afloat in the water.
"We're all put here just to die," Flora stated. "You grew up with a religion. I'm not trying to be rude, but how'd they explain that? What'd they tell you?"
Astoria could barely grasp the reasons she had been told. In fact, some of them tensed her muscles as if she were still watching bodies drop around her on the Hogwarts grounds.
"How they explain things doesn't always apply."
"Then what could possibly be the point?"
Astoria wondered that herself, watching Flora's memory drift lonesomely across the lake. Something within her still reached for it.
"Maybe we're put here just to live."
Flora tried Astoria's response on her own palate, "Just to live."
"Yeah," said Astoria. "I mean, just living is how I met you."
"Yeah… It's how I met you. I'm glad."
"Yeah, me too."
The paper boat was slowly starting to soak.
"Do you know how to pray?" Flora asked.
Astoria hadn't prayed in over a year. Not since the hotel.
"Well, er, there's no one way. It just depends on what you believe."
"I don't believe in anything. I just want something for this. Could you — sorry, could you please say a few words? Do you… mind?"
"I don't mind, Flora," Astoria uttered, for this was more than the funeral of a memory. "Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen."
"That's nice, thank you."
When the tiny boat was halfway between the dock and the island, Flora set it alight. Her shoulders relaxed.