Trigger Warning: Vague hints of abuse
The train trundled over rickety tracks, the hum and buzz of chatter under its scarlet roof not enough to drown out that clackety noise. Students from all houses mingled and laughed, raced down the corridor past glass doors, and munched on candy from the cart or smuggled on up sleeves and in boots. In one such compartment sat a tall Asian girl with a book close to her face, a pile of sweets heaped beside her (obtained the proper way), and on her other side was Astoria Greengrass.
The dark-haired girl stared out the rain-streaked window, propped-up chin digging into her palm.
"Ready to go back home?" queried Linda without looking up from her book, startling Astoria out of her thoughts.
Her stomach dropped at those words, at the thoughts that came with it. Back to the house imbued with chilly silence. Back to the house where she spent most of her time in her room, distracting herself with books she'd already read and reread.
"Not really," she admitted, and Linda's eyes raised to meet hers at last. She steeled herself for the questions. Even after two years of knowing Linda, of sharing a room with her, of sharing every last secret except this one, she couldn't bring herself to talk about her greatest failure.
Instead, she asked with a curious blink of those umber eyes, "What were you thinking about?"
The barely-there tension uncoiled from her shoulders with those uncharacteristically unpushing words, and she was so surprised that the words tumbled out of her mouth without permission, "Draco Malfoy."
A Few Weeks Ago
"You're doing it wrong. Do you know any other way to do it?" that voice sneered, cracking over her head like a thorny bramble, stinging even after the words had faded.
She glared at him over her shoulder, her dark hair tossed by sass and by the wind, and adjusted her grip accordingly.
"No, not that way either. What, are you only a fledgling raven?"
"Then teach me, Malfoy, don't just yell at me," she very nearly growled, if she hadn't caught herself in time. Ladies don't growl.
He scowled, circling over her like some weird bird of prey (a buzzard, fumed Astoria vehemently), and came to a light landing. He swung himself off the broom, his acrobatic grace exaggerated, and her brow furrowed with annoyance as she realized he was doing it on purpose. Typical Malfoy swagger. It's probably genetic.
When she'd asked him- as a favor- to teach her to fly, she'd meant for him to teach her, not- not- whatever he thought he was doing. It had taken her a long while to think of a proper way to utilize the favor she could take from him, but well... Then her mother dusted off her pale skirts and informed her in an offhand way that Quidditch was a reckless, rash sport. A way for guzzling thieves to win more money off children batting balls at one another.
And in a reckless, rash fit, Astoria asked Malfoy to teach her how to fly. She would get on the team. She'd be a Beater. Because in the moment she asked him, watched his pale eyes narrow in surprise, she didn't care if she stepped on her family's toes. She didn't care if she cut across Slytherin's guidelines. Because right then she had felt like Astoria the Lady no more, but Astoria the Rebel, and it had felt good. She'd surprised Malfoy and she'd surprised herself, and it felt like a rebellion to even like it; and she liked not just the realization that she did not have to do what she was told, here at Hogwarts, but also the rebellion itself. It was a chin-thrust-out, eyes-flashing, hands-on-hips kind of rebellion, and Astoria liked that defiant fire that licked at her insides when she'd marched up to him, tapped his shoulder, and asked him ever-so-politely to teach her to fly. The surprised silver brow that shot up, turning his sullen expression comedic, hadn't exactly hurt either.
Even if now, as he dismounted his broom and shot a scalding glare her way, she was having second thoughts in her choice of a teacher.
He strode towards her, sleek blonde hair almost silver in the sun's dying light, and reached impatiently for her hands. She jumped slightly at the unexpected touch, nearly jerking her hands away from him, and he snarked without looking at her, "You're skittish as a hare, Greengrass. What, does your father throw things at you for fun?"
Astoria pressed her lips together, anger roiling in her gut, before she remembered that to wield rage as a weapon was the fiery Gryffindor's approach. But to beat a Slytherin...
Before she could reconsider, she lowered her voice slightly, taking on a serious edge, as she answered ever so softly, "Sometimes. Not for fun, but- Sometimes."
His pale fingers stopped rearranging hers into the proper grip to lock his eyes on hers for a moment, and Astoria felt triumph begin to bloom in her gut as she realized she'd struck him speechless. If only for a moment, but she'd done it.
She grinned. "I got you."
Malfoy pushed away from her with a huff, eyelids lowering sardonically, "You're a regular comedian, Greengrass."
She snickered (ladies don't snicker, Astoria!) and stuck out her chin. "Serves you right."
"Are you going to learn, Greengrass, or just laugh at me?" he threw her words back at her with a twist, watching her with a decidedly unamused expression on his face.
"Maybe I could learn, if you were a good teacher." Who knew one could tease a Malfoy without having their head bitten off. The grin that bloomed across Astoria's face was brighter than the riotous color of a sunset.
"Maybe you could learn if you had half a brain."
Oh, that's not funny.
She glared at him, mirth gone. "Maybe you could teach if you weren't so awful at it."
He snorted. "That doesn't even make sense. Aren't Ravenclaws supposed to be clever?"
She flushed. "Aren't Malfoys supposed to be good at everything?"
He smirked, the confidence radiating off him tripping up Astoria's own force. "I am good at everything, Greengrass. You're the one who's as earthbound as a clod, and about as sharp as one."
She shut her mouth and glared at him, cheeks red. She couldn't beat him at his own game. For every inch of ground she gained, he pummeled her backwards, effortlessly.
He made it look so easy to strike people down.
And she wanted to be the one to strike him with some of his own medicine. She wanted- She'd wanted to be the one who would stand up to him, no matter what, and she could deal with defeat some of the time, if only she were able to knock him off his feet every once in a while, too.
So when Astoria found she had failed yet again, proven by that ever increasingly smug face, she dug in her heels.
Dug them in hard and strangled that wooden handle in her grip.
And when she pushed off the ground, she pushed off as hard as a baby turtle pushing for the sea.
She soared.
The wind rushed past her ears, her heart pounding with a battle-cry beat, her long hair swept on like a black banner. The ground rushed away from her, her feet dangling in open air.
She squeaked and clutched the handle, leaning forward until the wood lay flat against her abdomen.
That was a mistake.
She shot forward like a spear, spurred on by the wind, and gasped as she pelted for the stands. Wooden beams swallowed her vision and she couldn't brake- she had no idea how- Her heart beat out of her chest, fear flaring bright, and she slammed her eyes shut-
Crunch.
Pain exploded, slamming into her, pummeling her, squashing her flat against a wooden beam. A cry wrenched out of her and she fell, another hard plane crashing forward to meet her. She thudded against the ground, pain shooting up her palms and reverberating through her hip and shoulder. Something cracked and a fresh wave of agony enveloped her, starting at her wrist and rippling outward, ragged edges biting into her.
Sobbing, Astoria ripped her eyes to the point of fiercest pain. Her wrist... Her hand...
She stared at it, momentarily shocked out of crying.
It was bent at such a strange, grotesque angle, her fingers useless. The joint throbbed and Astoria screwed her up her eyes against it, choking on another sob that fought to rip from her.
Feet thudded against the ground near her and she looked up through watery eyes at Malfoy, who was staring at her, his face white.
White as a cloud, white as a sheet.
She was so dizzy.
"Astoria!"
His voice was so loud. She flinched away from him, but her body screamed in answer and a wail tore her throat.
Then he was gone. A receding speck in her wet gaze and she could do nothing but cry and wonder why he was gone, and wonder why she had expected him to do anything else. Malfoys wait for no one.
She curled up over her injured wrist, her muscles shrieking, and gasped for breath. The rough slide of air down her throat felt like metal scraping against sandpaper.
She didn't know how long she was there. Long enough for the sky to grow dark, the sun slipping behind the hills. It chose to abandon her, too, the light unwrapping its slender fingers from her and receding as soon as it realized she was weak, weak, weak.
So weak.
She shuddered, everything throbbing, but there was only so long she could stay there before she began to focus less on the pain and focus more on pitying herself.
And when that happened, she lifted her head, errant strands of dark hair cutting her vision into stripes.
Get up.
She shifted slightly, the first movement she had made in a long while, and the pain renewed itself in a punishing lash. She grit her teeth, another tear squeezing out from her eyelids as she slammed them shut. But she refused to stop. There was no one here, no one but herself, and defeat was unacceptable.
I am not defeated. Not now, not ever.
It was these words that she repeated to herself, over and over again, as she unfurled further and further. Everything hurt, tiger's claws and jaws that sank past flesh and into bone.
"Astoria!" called a new voice, blessedly familiar, though mangled by fear. "Tori!"
"Daphne?" she asked, looking up hopefully, and sure enough, there she was. She ran across the field faster than a thestral taking flight, Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall close behind her. Another figure, slender and straight, strolled across the field behind them, but Astoria only had eyes for Daphne.
Then she was there, jasmine's sweet scent enveloping her as Daphne flung her arms around her and pulled her close. She buried her face in her hair and Astoria shut her eyes, relaxing against her. Daphne was here.
"Move aside, dear," said a gentle, firm voice, which Astoria recognized hazily as the nurse's.
She felt Daphne's body tighten briefly with hesitation, before she moved aside, giving Madam Pomfrey a clearer look at her.
"What did you do, darling?" she asked, business-like as her eyes darted with professional certainty from the mangled wrist to the bruises surely blooming like mangled orchids all over her.
"Crashed," she said, her words distorted by thickening saliva, and she swallowed in order to be understood. "I crashed into the stands."
"What were you doing flying in the first place?" asked McGonagall sharply.
"Practicing," she murmured, leaning against Daphne. "I want to be a Beater."
"A Beater?" asked Daphne, the end of the question rising in higher pitch than the rest, surprise thick in her voice. "But you know Mother doesn't want you to play Quidditch, Tori! And I can see why!"
A tiny spike of annoyance punctured through the shrieking complaints of her body.
"I can play!" she defended herself in an instant, pushing away her sudden doubt. "Just because I crashed once doesn't mean I can't play at all!"
Daphne opened her mouth, her expression taking on the forbidding, older sister face that would likely lead to her trying to order her not to play Quidditch anymore, but Astoria was saved the lecture when Madam Pomfrey directed her wand at her wrist.
"Episkey," the nurse said firmly and before her eyes, her fingers straightened, the crack sealed, the pain fading to a vicious memory.
"Thank you," she said quietly, flexing her fingers, and watched as the nurse waved her wand to wipe away the other traces the beating had left on her. She opened her mouth to say more, to ask how they knew she had needed them, when the figure striding across the field made her words dry up.
Malfoy had come back.
Daphne leaped to her feet, sparks fairly flying off her blue eyes, thoroughly startling Astoria. With a squeak, she lost her balance and had to slap a hand against the earth to steady herself.
"What?" he had the gall to ask, raising an eyebrow at the furious Greengrass.
"What?" she repeated. Astoria looked between the two of them, as nonplussed as Malfoy.
One silvery brow was fanning upward, the rest of his face utterly immobile. "If you have something to say, say it."
"You left her!" she spat at him, and Astoria's eyes grew big at the sight of her elder sister losing her composure so thoroughly. In front of a Malfoy, no less. Her rapidly rising annoyance must be silencing her worn-out cautions that this was Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.
"How else was Madam Pomfrey supposed to get here?"
She blinked, her anger tripping before it finished boiling over. "That- Was you-?"
He rolled his eyes, a sneer twisting his lips in a manner that was all too familiar. "Madam Pomfrey, did the crash somehow addle her brain, too?"
She bristled, opening her mouth to throw something that would very likely be equally insulting in his face, before Astoria took things into her own hands. She seized Daphne's hand and hauled herself to her feet, eliciting a gasp from her sister, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her. She squeezed her hand, hard, and it halted the curling lash of sass on her tongue. Daphne looked at her, her blue eyes fulminating, but Astoria's onyx ones were the balm to her jagged edges. The same message: This is a Malfoy. He can try to ruin us, and he might very well succeed.
She hated being afraid of him as much as Daphne did.
Teasing and playful jabs were one thing, but this was thin ice. And if her sister was the fire that would burn wherever it touched, she would need to be the water that could glide easily over that icy, delicate surface.
"Thank you, Draco," she said simply, her cool facade of Astoria the Lady sliding back into place, and Astoria felt Daphne's hand tightened into fists over hers. They should not have to grovel to anyone. "For-" she stumbled slightly over her next words, sorting out which her pride would stand. "-retrieving Madam Pomfrey."
He scoffed and tucked his hands into his pockets. "Of course, Fledgling."
Astoria's dark eyes snapped at him, but as always, the dark-haired, different Greengrass bit her tongue and said nothing.
Present
"How could you?" she burst out, turning to glare at Astoria, who flinched. But she lifted her head, resigned, and watched her sister storm towards her.
"How could I what?" she asked tiredly, hoisting her suitcase off the carpet and onto the sleek wood floor, unzipping the silver snake of a zipper, and removing her clothes. It was the first time they had been alone since that day, when they arrived home at last. There had been parents to deal with, other students on the train, and it was only when she had tried to escape to her room that the ever-fuming Daphne pounced. She forced the full story out of her on the train, and Astoria was rather regretting that decision now, watching her sister practically breathe fire.
"You gave in to him! Practically cringed before that pompous, pure-blood prince!"
Astoria gave her a sharp, searching look. So her lovely, wild-hearted sister would not mentally scrape and bob before him as she had believed she did. It was a relief, one that settled against her chest and kept her warm.
"He did save me," she said, having to pry the words from her tongue. I would have gotten up on my own. I would've found a way.
"No, he didn't," she answered, stung. Perhaps because it was the truth.
Astoria shut the clothes in her drawer with a snick of wood against wood. "Now you're being petty."
"No," she said contrarily, digging in her heels against the fact that Malfoy wasn't to blame. "He left you on the ground!"
"To go find Madam Pomfrey!" Astoria protested, exasperated, exhausted, unsure why she was even defending the boy who had nothing for her but cruel smirks and unrelenting jibes. "What are you even so angry about, Daphy-Taffy? What's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter!" she cried, her voice rising.
"Really?" asked Astoria sharply, standing to face her, her own anger rising in answer. "I don't believe you. You've been angry, and brash, and rude, and far more likely to blow up than usual. What's wrong?"
"Nothing!"
Astoria stepped closer, putting her hands on her hips, and glared at her. To her surprise, Daphne didn't meet her eyes. It only reinforced her suspicion that something was very much the matter.
She reached out a hand and let it rest against Daphne's slender, bare shoulder, her thumb brushing against the thin strap of her summer dress. "Daphne. It's just me here. Tell me what's wrong. Please."
Daphne lifted her eyes to Astoria's, and for a moment, Astoria thought she saw a fleeting vulnerability in those bright blue depths, but it was gone in a moment. Only pricker bushes and red sparks and stubbornness as high as the mountains their home resided in.
She batted Astoria's hand away. "I told you there's nothing. And even if there was," Daphne turned her nose upward, a resurgence of the cruel girl Astoria had helplessly watched her sister turn into over these past few months, "I'd hardly tell you. You groveled before him. Believe me," she hissed, snapping a hand up to blockade Astoria's protests, "I know we have to maintain a balance with the Malfoys, but we also have our own pureblood pride to think about, and you ignored it."
Astoria went cold as Daphne's eyes turned to ice.
"You disappoint me."
A/N: Quick time for me to jump in and say that when this chapter hinted at abuse in a...joking manner, that is not coming from me. It's supposed to show just how messed up of a situation Astoria is in, I'm afraid, and I thought it was ugly enough to fit and she was naive enough to not notice. :/ I mean no offense. :(
This chapter gave me issuuuuues. Real hard to write, for some reason. So hard, in fact, that I have to split into two parts. I know I've been laying out each chapter as each year that Astoria grows older, but the next chapter will pick up where this one left off.
Also, thank you to all of you who have reviewed/favorited this story! I really appreciate it!