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DISCLAIMER OF DOOM: I DO NOT OWN THE HP FRANCHISE, ASTORIA GREENGRASS, DRACO MALFOY, OR ANY OF J.K.R.'S OTHER CHARACTERS. I DO OWN CRESSEL, TAYBUR, ELMER, ROSALIE KING, AND ANYONE ELSE YOU SEE WHO DOESN'T APPEAR IN THE ORIGINAL STORY. SO BACK OFF.

Aw, I wrote in all caps again 'cause I was so excited. You guys are the absolute BEST!!!

Letters
by Shu of the Wind

***

Dear Father:

Astoria Greengrass shifted her parchment over the large flat stone she'd spent most of the morning finding. Before that, it had taken her most of the night before to decide to write a letter to her parents, asking whether she would be welcome home. She doubted she would even get a response, the way they adored the Dark Lord, but it was worth a try. She couldn't stay in the Forest much longer, not with the danger she was putting the centaurs in.

The Carrows have probably written you a badly misspelt letter by now regarding my actions as of late. I stand firm by my position, the way you raised me to be – adamant in my beliefs that what I am doing is right. I offer no more information than that, nor will I tell you where I am in case this letter is intercepted. I only hope you can forgive me for going so against the other things you taught me – pureblood supremacy, blood-based bigotry, racial prejudice.

I hope that I will be allowed to visit the house for a short amount of time in order to collect my things. I am severing my ties with the Greengrass family, though I will not go so far as to change my name; I fear that would be too humiliating for you to bear. If I am not free to return, then send no reply.

I offer you my love and the hope that you will understand.

Astoria

Astoria studied the letter for a long moment. It would send both her parents into hysterics, and probably result in her being blasted off of the family tapestry, but it was something that needed to be said.

Not quite yet. She rolled the letter up and tucked it into her rucksack, so she could post it at a later time. Right now, she had to plan where she was going to go.

She wondered how much longer she would be able to stay in this Forest. Taybur and Elmer were right in that they could keep her a secret for a while, but she wouldn't continue putting them in danger by staying here. If the Carrows or the other centaurs discovered they were hiding her here, then their lives would be forfeit. It had been a miracle Firenze had escaped from Bane and Ronan without getting his chest kicked in.

She had no friends at Hogwarts she would have turned to, no relatives who would accept her if she turned up on their doorstep. She had no one, except the centaurs, and she was putting them in danger every moment she was with them. Astoria bit the end of her quill thoughtfully, worrying it between her teeth.

She could always go on the run, she supposed, but – call it vanity, but she wanted to have a place where she could at least wash her hair semi-regularly. She had money, but she doubted she would be allowed access to it; there were Death Eaters all over Gringotts. And she had heard of the Snatchers, those witches and wizards and less savory individuals who wandered the countryside, searching for people to claim as fleeing Muggle-borns. She had absolutely no intention of being caught by any of them. She could go to a Muggle household and pretend to be in Muggle trouble, but she didn't know enough about Muggle society to pull that off.

There was always the Chain, that group of half- and pureblood witches and wizards who smuggled Muggle-borns and 'traitors' out of the country. She had no connection to the Chain, however, and no way to find out how to contact them in the first place; if she simply showed up on their doorstep, she'd most likely be taken for a spy and traitor and thrown out on her heels.

"Astoria."

Astoria glanced up from her parchment, her wand already in her hand, but relaxed a little when she saw that it was one of the younger colts. Cressel, one of the more curious ones, was smaller than the other centaurs, even though he'd reached adulthood; their eyes were almost even. His pelt was pure black, and his eyes so light a grey they looked almost silver; a color guaranteed to make her very uncomfortable. But she rose to her feet anyway, bowing a little. She knew that no Polyjuice Potion could have made a witch or wizard take the form of a centaur without grievous damage to the original body. It was precisely why she had thrown herself on the mercy of the rebel herd; she could trust them as she could no other creature in the forest.

"Cressel." She said. "Good morning."

"You are troubled." He said. Astoria cursed the level of perception that all centaurs seemed to possess and faked a smile, shrugging a bit.

"I haven't had a particularly good morning, myself, if that's what you mean."

"One wonders why."

"I can't stay here." Astoria spread her hands wide. "I love this place, I can't love it enough. But it's too dangerous for the herd for me to remain here. I place you all in danger, from wizards and Ronan's band alike. I have to go, but I can't think where."

Cressel's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. "Have you no herdmates?"

"None that would take me in good grace."

He hesitated. "That is regrettable. But there is no need for you to leave the Forest as of yet. None from the school have ventured inside to find you. The thought of the spiders and of the giant hold too much danger for them."

"But they also hold danger for me, Cressel." Astoria said. "I might be an adult by centaur standards, but at the school, I'm only a child. I don't know enough defensive magic to repel them if one comes after me. Witches and wizards I can fight, but acromantulas…" She trailed off delicately, unwilling to study the images of her fricasseed body surrounded by enormous, crackling spiders. "They would be…difficult."

"I see." Cressel brooded for a moment. "If you find a solution to your problem, I offer you my assistance in accomplishing it."

Astoria blinked a few times, taken by surprise at the proposal. She couldn't think of a way to decline it without being totally rude. "Thank you, Cressel. I accept your offer of assistance."

Cressel flicked his tail, looking pleased with himself.

"Have you no friends up at the school?" He asked after a moment, as Astoria rolled up her parchment again and capped her ink bottle. "None you can turn to if you need it?"

Astoria's hands stilled on the parchment, and she stared at the rock, feeling angry at herself. "No, Cressel. I don't. Not even my sister will have anything to do with me now. And I trust none of my Housemates to not turn over the information I send them to the Carrows immediately. They all know where their loyalties lie."

"No mate?" He sounded puzzled. Astoria laughed.

"No, Cressel, I don't have a mate. I don't really think I'm suited for it. No one has ever seen me that way –" She pushed away the image of Malfoy, reaching forward to touch her hair "– and they probably never will."

"You are troubled again." Cressel inclined his head. "I apologize."

"No, it's not your problem, it's mine." She let out a long breath. "I never realized how truly alone in my…society I was until I came out here."

It was a clinical statement. It shouldn't have been something to make her cry. But she could feel tears filling her eyes anyway, and she wiped them away roughly on the sleeve of her shirt. What was it about her life that was so incredibly horrible?

Well, first of all, she'd brought it on herself. That seemed to be enough of an answer.

"Have you no one that matters to you?" Cressel asked finally.

Astoria hesitated, blinking slowly at him with blurred eyes. Then she dropped down on the ground again, fumbled out the parchment, laid it flat on the rock, uncorked her ink bottle, and began to write another letter. She knew that it was totally mad to even think about doing it, and even more mad to think about sending it, but if she didn't keep the connections she had now, she was going to end up totally alone.

***

Draco Malfoy swore badly as the tawny owl landed on the Slytherin table in front of him, barely rescuing his goblet of pumpkin juice before the beast knocked it all over his robes. He didn't recognize the owl, but he could already tell that this letter hadn't been tampered with – at least, not by the Carrows. They weren't exactly subtle about leaving broken seals, and this one was perfectly fine. The creature had somehow evaded the mail check, and was looking quite pleased with itself; it preened its wing for a few moments before holding out its leg, to which a tightly rolled scroll of parchment was tied. In its beak, it carried a letter, addressed in sharp green handwriting, to Rosalie King.

Draco hesitated. It was clear which one he was meant to take, and it was equally clear who the handwriting belonged to. Was the fool absolutely mad? She knew the consequences if the Carrows found her. She knew the consequences to him and that girl in her dormitory if it was discovered she was writing to them. And she'd risked it.

Maybe she should have been in Ravenclaw after all.

I'm such an idiot.

Draco pulled the scroll from the owl's leg, and it blinked golden eyes at him before taking off again, coasting down to the other end of the table to drop off the envelope with Rosalie King. She caught it with a puzzled expression, tucking it away into the inside pocket of her cloak to be opened later; she clearly didn't want to read it with half of Slytherin slavering over her shoulder.

He'd sat away from the rest of the Slytherins for a reason. Draco didn't look either direction as he popped the seal on the scroll and unrolled it, devouring the words.

Malfoy:

If you say a single word about this letter, I will kill you, I swear by Salazar Slytherin.

I feel so bloody stupid for writing this. I've had to work it through several drafts, because I've just been too frustrated to finish a sentence without crossing it out a dozen times, and I know you're going to laugh at that. You like to laugh at people not succeeding at what they try to do.

And I know that what you're going to say when you receive this is probably the most sense I'm going to hear in a while – no matter how much I hate to think it – because while you might be a lot of truly negative things, Malfoy, you're not an idiot. I know I'm taking an incredible risk, but a possible friend reminded me a few moments ago that I have to keep the relationships I have. So as completely convoluted and sick and absolutely wrong as ours is, I'm planning on keeping it, no matter how much you and I both hate it.

I won't be writing down where I am and who I'm with. I still don't trust you, after all. I've wondered once or twice, in the week and a half I've been gone, how many times you've considered going to the Carrows and telling them everything you know about me. Or if you already have. After all, now that I'm gone, there's no one to keep you feeling guilty; there's no one to keep pressing what they see as the right thing to do into your head. You and I both know that that is true.

But there are times when lies and guilt are all we have left to hold on to. I'm sure you'll agree. I have lied this school year, and yes, I have felt guilt (though what I felt guilty about will probably remain my secret). I have felt pity, remorse, anger, fear. Happiness is something that's escaped me so far. I've understood, and I've loathed, and I've cried, as much as you might hate to have me admit it.

I don't understand why I'm writing this to you, the one person I've hated the most this year. I need to talk to someone, even silently, and maybe you were the only one I could actually afford to write at the moment, because strangely, I trust you. Maybe because you're also the one person I've begun to understand this year, really, far more than I can understand myself. I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know where I'm going, but wherever I am, I can think of you, remaining in Hogwarts, letting the crimes pass you without caring to glance at them, because they might just make you open your eyes, and know that I've made the right choice.

I've written a letter to my father, severing my ties with the Greengrass family. At least, that's how I've written it. I haven't sent it yet. I've probably already been disowned; to send a letter of familial rejection at this point seems superfluous. And I already know what you're going to say about it – you, the person who doesn't care a jot for anyone except his parents, and their teachings of the importance of blood ties. Why reject my family? Why force them away? Why act like I never knew them? My answer? You may share blood in common, hair, eyes, noses, ears, fingers, toes – but simply because you share those traits doesn't mean you're a family.

I have seen parents destroy their children from the inside out, and parents who smother their children with too much affection. Parents who are friends, and parents who are rulers; parents who nurture and parents who mangle their child until there is nothing left but someone who can't handle the world without feeling that every action they make will be the wrong one. It's a lesson I've learned the hard way, that parents are like us – flawed and real and human. Some misjudgments feel all the more unjust when put in that light, and in some families, that simply strengthens the relationship, but not in mine. You, of all people, should understand that, as you've seen the memories I have of mine. (I'm never letting you in my head again, by the way. I don't like the idea of you completely skirting my idea of privacy.)

But now that I've torn myself away from my family, I have nowhere to go. That's not some nauseatingly sentimental request for assistance, either. I literally have nowhere to go. I have no family to turn to; no friends; no passing acquaintance to impose on for a month or three. I've made it that way, on purpose, never wanting to make any connections outside of what I already knew. And sometimes I wish I hadn't done it – I wish I hadn't put myself in the place of the Patils, and that I'd made a different decision that night, or that I'd chosen to handle the detentions and stick it out, let the world know that I'm a traitor – but like you, Malfoy, I don't like pain. And I'm a coward.

That's a funny thing to admit, isn't it? That I'm a coward. That I fear pain, betrayal, humiliation. Out of everyone I know, I think you're the one who can understand that. There are things about me that you understand, somehow, and it drives me mad; that the one person I can talk to is the person I absolutely have to stay away from. But it's unequivocally true, and as much as I hate it, as you can see, I'm embracing it,.

I never liked you, even before last year. You were arrogant and spoiled; a bullying, big-headed, overbearing, conceited, vain little peacock, and even though I never told you so, I hated you for it. You were the one person I could hate, besides myself, without feeling guilty about it – the one person I knew truly to be reprehensible.

And then so many things changed, and I began to pity you, instead. And now here I am, writing this, feeling an idiot and very glad that you are far out of spell range, because I'm sure you're going to want to kill me after reading all of that. That's what you are, Draco Malfoy – you're spoiled, you're arrogant, you're confused and angry and miserable and frightened and, most of all, guilty. I know it. I know you feel guilty, Malfoy, because I've seen it.

We all have our flaws, our strengths. I'm flawed. I would be a fool to think that I was the most perfect being on Earth. I'm rash and hateful, fickle and impatient. I'm full of myself, and reckless to the point of suicidal.

Which is why I helped the Patils. And I can practically see you rolling your eyes, so stop it. (He had been about to roll his eyes; Draco kept them firmly fixed on the page.)

Somehow, however, I think I can do more good out here, out with the rest of the world, than I can stuck in there with the Carrows. The Gryffindors can get on without me. I know, now, from writing this, what I have to do, and I know where I'm going to go – or, at least, where I'm going to try to go.

And now I'm done being so repetitive, annoying, and mawkish. If you haven't torn this parchment up by now, you are being incredibly patient this morning.

Don't expect me to contact you again. This is the last time.

There was no signature. He didn't need one to know exactly who the scroll was from, and he knew right then that if he ever saw her again, he was going to strangle her. Somehow, without intending to, he had been able to hear the fearful gallows humor she'd put in every syllable of the damn thing, and for the first time, he actually understood that the feeling he'd been sitting on for the past week and a half was worry – he was worried for Astoria Greengrass.

Idiot. He thought furiously, closing his hands around the parchment scroll.

After a long moment, however, he unclenched his fingers, rolled the little scroll up even tighter, and tucked it into the inner pocket of his cloak. This deserved digestion and thought before destruction. Besides; if he tore it up here, everyone would be able to see him doing it.

Draco left the Great Hall, the worry slowly fading, just the tiniest bit, and tried to remember what his life had been like without the tempest called Astoria Greengrass.

So yeah. The letter was long. Sue me. ^.^

Hope you enjoyed! I don't know about this chapter, personally...not my fave. But my fave is definately coming up soon...*triumphant cackle*