My name is Astoria Greengrass and I'll tell you a story - but it won't really make sense. Until you get to the end, where it might make sense. But then again, I'm still here today trying to figure it all out.
Once upon a time there was a muggle girl called Antoinette Cleopatra Windsor. In what seems like a world away witches and wizards would laugh with the swinging of the chandeliers above an elaborate dining room; clinking their wine-filled glasses in glee as they nitpicked all the vices of mudbloods and filth. But instead of living life disgracefully like the mudblood she was supposed to be. She lived in a sprawling mansion with gilded gold mantelpieces, servants at every beck and call, meetings with the prime ministers, parents who seemingly had everything in the world to give her, and parties to die for.
Antoinette might have been my muggle equal. Named after figures who had significance in the muggle world, loved and cherished like a character at the apex of muggle society, she ought to have scoffed and rolled her eyes in her lofty manner, at the mere thought of witches, wizards and magic. But instead of doing that, we meet one day through a secret passageway between our mansions, broke the ice with a tea party among stuffed animals in the garden outside, and dress-ups of girly clothes. Curious questions beckoned at our lips. We gradually shared more of our family lives and soon it was apparent that even though we were worlds apart we were quite alike, and unlike some muggles who wished to exploit witches and wizards; Antoinette sought to protect me so that I could never be made into a freak show if anyone discovered I was a witch, and together we hung out at her mansion as normal people.
Expect Antoinette is fake, and although it all started as a childhood fantasy I made up one day to spite my mother when she was unexpectedly busy and couldn't play with me like she'd promised - where she jokingly said where were all the imaginary friends these days, and if kids had gotten about them entirely - where I made up an imaginary friend she was sure to disprove of. But now, there was a lingering sort of wistfulness at this childish fantasy that did not quite leave me alone no matter how much I wish it did.
My name is Astoria Greengrass; I'm 11 years old and I ought to have been one of the most happiest girls on earth. I was born into a Sacred 28 family, one of the only true pureblood families alive. A lot of great witches and wizards came from pureblood families, well, more than the amount that came from mixed ancestry families. We had considerate wealth - enough to make the majority of witches and wizards jealous, we also had a good reputation among political wizarding circles - of being cunningly neutral in a way that made others fear us. Daphne and I were supposed to be the two girls everyone was most jealous of; born into riches and wealth any other kid could only imagine, and at the end of it all - guaranteed a lovely Sacred 28 husband of equal wealth and status and so the cycle repeats.
A series of happily ever afters one after another. Where our kids will continue living in prosperity and happiness and we all realise we ought not to have worried for anything. That we were already made in this world.
It was a sweet lie - very sweet - I used to believe for the longest of all times.
Some days when I look back it seemed like everything of my life was crafted to follow that lie. From the lavish pretentious Greengrass Manor we lived in, to the exceedingly exorbitant decorations we had. To our social life consisting of many balls and parties for little reason except to keep out those too poor to attend and for something to do. Of the fake manners most purebloods had, as if acting and talking in such pretentious ways made us better than everyone else. Reaffirmed our thoughts.
I believed it, and although I don't know the depths of Daphne's deepest thoughts, from what I was able to gleam of her on the surface - Daphne did too. But soon...I began to have some doubts.
In a history lesson with my governess when I was 8. She walked us down the Gallery of the Greengrass Manor and talked of our ancestors and what they did to become notable. Most of their life's accomplishments didn't seem that great for a family line that was supposedly one of the most magical and wealthy, better than average, but not terribly impressive, with many having their greatest accomplishment being marrying into the Greengrass family from other families who'd been sniffing around the pureblood families for a very long time.
To when I was 9 and doubled back to check on the Gallery after a brainwave, when I'd realised that some of the missing spaces weren't due to early deaths or mysterious magical circumstances like I'd thought, but simply Greengrass children who'd married outside of the family. To the fact that it seemed the Greengrasses married all the other Sacred 29 families at roughly 7 generation intervals. Just about the amount of generations you could marry a relative and not have inbreeding take effect.
To the realisation that despite our Manor being large in space, it was quite small compared to the Malfoy, Parkinson or Nott Manor. Some rooms were more sparsely decorated than it felt they ought to be. And I began to feel that we were quite shabby in comparison to the rest of the Sacred 28 purebloods and that much of our house's decor was just for show in particular rooms.
Also the realisations that we didn't particularly go on as many holidays or splurge on as much expensive treats, outfits, everything, as Pansy or even Millicent appeared to. To the realisation that we still had a job - father still ran the family farm (Greengrass wheat, a wheat with magical properties that witches and wizards wanted which didn't really turn much profit but the Greengrasses still ran the farms out of tradition), and that a lot of the Greengrass Manor's large space could be said to be taken up by the farm near the back...
To the horrifying realisation that my own mother was an extraordinarily attractive woman who'd used her looks to seduce my father and marry her way into the Greengrass family because her entire family had practically idolised being pureblooded and Sacred 28 ever since she was little. Ever since her grandparents generation.
To the fact that absolutely no one in the world seemed to want to even talk of these topics like 'marrying one's way in' 'everyone's married into this family for their own gains' 'it's all just an image, we're not as wealthy or great as we thought'. My governesses did not seem open to those topics. My mother wanted to stick to the life script and simply wanted Daphne and I to marry well. My father was not really present most of the time, he was at work or preoccupied with his own magical experiments - that also never seemed to make profit or go anywhere. We were mostly living of inheritance and pretend prestige.
That I realised the point of pureblood families was simply for witches and wizards afraid of death or the chaos magic could bring and wanted some more security, to achieve it by having fully magical ancestors for generations. Because they somehow believed by being more magical than the average witch or wizard, they were better equipped to handle anything the magical world could throw at them. Because they wanted power, glory, and once they married into those families, they didn't want to let it go. Couldn't bear to watch their legacy crumble or their empire fall.
Because everyone was afraid of something, running away from something. How witches and wizards could look at pureblood families, think we were so great, want to marry in, and spend several generations marrying progressively more and more magical people until they thought their ancestry was good enough they could make the jump into a pureblood family. How they married for the idea of safety or wealth that a pureblood family represented. It all felt like snakes jumping and squirming for any opportunity to move up. And when the snakes had successfully married in - like they carried out their own fantasies, lived their own lives, for themselves, did their own bidding, and like we merely pretended to be a happy family to put on a front.
It was this sense of fakeness, that permeated underneath everything, all my interactions with the wizarding world from that point on, that made me unable to feel the same way again.
It was also the fact that magic was something which was still largely undiscovered, untapped into, no one truly knew how all strands of it worked. The Ministry of Magic contentious in many circles, some of whom were wealthy or influential enough to potentially do real damage to the Ministry of Magic and take it down or turn them into a puppet government if they weren't doing so already.
The fact that witches and wizards were still people at the end of the day, desperately trying to survive that...
I have a blood curse. My grandfather from my father's side was an unusually cantankerous man, considered an eccentric by many. He couldn't stop himself from picking fights in bars, mostly over being pureblooded. He got cursed by someone and if the blood curse activates in any of his descendants then their magic will slowly disappear by the time they are 11. Usually the age at which one's magic surged a little - just in good time for Hogwarts.
I have the blood curse, I have known what it was since I was 6. And because even magical kids weren't allowed to do magic at home, I did not have many memories of accidental magic before it all wore away, and now...the reality that I was once magical is merely like something of a faraway dream. A hidden world that I used to go to and cannot assess anymore.
It also made Antoinette and the muggle imaginations seem all the more real. Suddenly I wished there was an Antoinette I could play with and perhaps a muggle palace that could accept me as one of my own so I could continue my lavish life there and never risk getting caught.
Unfortunately there is a price to pay if anyone knows my secret - that I am essentially a witch turned squib - and in such a world where there are cunning snakes out to get everyone, or use any advantage they could get their hands on to their own needs, my family has sworn to protect my secret at the highest cost. I must keep my lips zipped otherwise all of what my parents sacrificed to keep my secret secret would be for nothing.
If you wanted to know as much as I do - my mother told me when I was 10 that she slept with Theo Nott's widowed father, just a night of passion with a women that was one of the most desirable (a pureblood witch (or close enough pureblood) from a Sacred 28 family) and supposedly untouchable, witches in all magical social circles, in exchange for my marriage to Theo Nott. A boy who although is a menace and a twisted bully behind closed doors, would benefit from a guaranteed marriage with a member of a Sacred 28 family, and would protect my secret. (Once he found out). He doesn't know but there was a clause in the marriage contract that protects me once the truth is out, which apparently is for me to reveal.
A boy who I do not want to be married to. Do not want to live under his thumb forever. Do not want to feel trapped or suffocated with. A boy who knows of the future betrothment and already treats me with entitlement. A boy who my parents act like I'm supposed to be thankful for and Daphne would think of me as a good girl if I were to simply follow what my parents say and act like I'm already in love with him...
I guess you could say all of that helped me see the hypocrisy and lies of a happy Sacred 28 pureblood family.
And also the fear of death. I was apparently also going to die an early death with this curse - they said I'd be lucky to live past 40. I didn't know what lay beyond death's doors and I was no less afraid than anybody else. The mystery about blood curses - there's almost no research, nothing, about them and especially my kind in the wizarding world. My feelings of unhappiness with society and everything...
I wanted something different. A whisper for change. A yearning for something new in the breeze. A way to find some cure or solution for my ailment. All without relying on anybody else because like how most purebloods were all on their own, and had their own agendas and did their own bidding - I didn't trust anybody and nobody trusted anyone else either.
I wanted to achieve power and my life goals on my own.
The bit of what I've pieced together that doesn't make sense is the fact that nothing has happened yet. I've done nothing. Feel like nothing is going to happen. But the bit I'm trying to figure out, is whether I can change my own destiny or the structures of the wizarding world, because the more I age, the more I sense I'm not the only one who's currently very unhappy, and very uncomfortable, with the status quo of everything in the wizarding world - from the politics, to society, to Lord Voldemort and how he may affect everything.
I do wish for the simplicity of my childhood's lies sometimes though.
