In Care of Magical Creatures class, Draco was pleased to see that Professor Grubbbly-Plank was back.
"Where's Hagrid?" Harry asked.
"Never you mind," said Professor Grubbly-Plank.
Draco leaned toward Harry, unable to resist the opportunity to knock Hagrid. "Maybe," he said, in an undertone that most people wouldn't be able to hear, "the stupid great oaf's got himself badly injured."
"Maybe you will if you don't shut up," said Harry, out of the side of his mouth.
"Maybe he's been messing with stuff that's too big for him," Draco said, trying to hold his smirk while noticing that Harry looked like he was sickened. Draco walked away, realizing that Harry had enough to worry about, but not showing it.
He found it odd that Harry did not seem to know about the rumors surrounding Hagrid, but then it occurred to him that maybe it was not so odd. His father was more likely to mention important stuff when Astra was not in the room. This did not seem too important, but he probably knew that Astra and Harry were friends. Astra, Draco, and their mother tried to hide that from him, but his father had a way of hearing about things.
Minutes later, he was talking to some of his fellow Slytherin's. He kept his voice down, not wanting Harry to hear. "Father was talking to the Minister just a couple of days ago, you know, and it sounds as though the Ministry's really determined to crack down on sub-standard teaching in this place. So even if that overgrown moron does show up again, he'll probably be sent packing straightaway."
He hoped that Hagrid would be gone. He was a horrible teacher.
Astra and Heather had managed to hold their tongues while Professor Umbridge spoke to the class in Defence Against the Dark Arts class, while her words filled them with rang. Afterwards, they quickly got out of there, along with Starbeam and Samuel.
As they approached the great hall, and could not help but stop when they noticed Harry and Angelina.
"How come you've landed yourself in detention for five o'clock on Friday?"
"What?" said Harry. "Why… oh yeah, Keeper tryouts!"
"Now he remembers!" snarled Angelina. "Didn't I tell you I wanted to do a tryout with the whole team, and find someone who fitted in with everyone! Didn't I tell you I'd booked the Quidditch pitch specially? And now you've decided you're not going to be there!"
"It's not his fault," Astra said.
"Exactly," Harry said. "I got detention from that Umbridge woman, just because I told her the truth about You-Know-Who."
"Well you can just go straight to her and ask her to let you off on Friday," said Angelina fiercely, "and I don't care how you do it. Tell her You-Know-Who's a figment of your imagination if you like, just make sure you're there!"
Angelina turned and started to storm away.
Astra raised her wand. "Impedimenta," she uttered.
Angelina let out a yelp, as she tripped and fell to the ground. Harry and Ron laughed, as Angelina got up and stormed back up to them.
"It was me," said Ron.
"He's lying, it was me," Astra said, surprised at how readily Ron had taken the rap for her.
"No it was me," Heather said.
"They're all lying," Harry said. "I did that."
"No, I did it," Hermione said.
Angelina glared at them, and stormed off again.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Astra and Heather all laughed, and then they went into the great hall and sat down.
"You know what?" Harry said, as they entered the Great Hall. "I think we'd better check with Puddlemere United whether Oliver Wood's been killed during a training session, because Angelina seems to be channeling his spirit."
"I hope not," Astra said, concerned. She had never met Oliver Wood, but she still hoped he was not dead.
"That was a joke," Hermione explained.
"Oh," Astra said, feeling silly.
"What d'you reckon are the odds of Umbridge letting you off on Friday?" said Ron skeptically, as they sat down at the Gryffindor table.
"Less than zero," said Harry glumly, tipping lamb chops on to his plate and starting to eat. "Better try, though, hadn't I? I'll offer to do two more detentions or something, I dunno…" He swallowed a mouthful of potato and added, "I hope she doesn't keep me too long this evening. You realize we've got to write three essays, practice Vanishing Spells for McGonagall, work out a counter-charm for Flitwick, finish the Bowtruckle drawing and start that stupid dream diary for Trelawney?"
Ron moaned and for some reason glanced up at the ceiling.
"And it looks like it's going to rain."
"What's that got to do with our homework?" said Hermione, her eyebrows raised.
"Nothing," said Ron at once, his ears reddening.
Scorpius soon delivered a letter to Astra. She opened it, and recognized Draco's handwriting. She read it, and then handed it to Harry.
That evening, Hermione went to go work on homework. Meanwhile, Astra, Starbeam, Heather, Samuel, and Ron went out under the cloudy sky. Astra and Ron had grabbed their own brooms, along with some quaffles, and Heather had taken a school broom. They headed out to the Quidditch pitch.
"Ron, would you like to use my firebolt?" Astra offered. "I won't need it during Quidditch tryouts or matches."
Ron's face turned red. "But, everybody will know."
"I'm sorry," she said. She had been trying to be nice, but now she felt bad. "Forget I offered." She also felt a bit embarrassed about being rich, and the fact that everyone in her family had a firebolt.
They soon forgot about that, when they went up into the air. Astra and Heather threw quaffles at Ron, and he kept blocking them. Suddenly, he missed a few that Heather threw. He gave her an odd look. "Are you doing something?"
"Yeah. Fleur taught me how to have some control over my veela magic. I never thought I'd want to do anything other then weaken it, but I thought if I tried to use it to distract you, you'd learn how to focus better and be a better keeper."
"Alright. Keep doing it."
Ron was eventually able to block Heather's throws, but Heather looked exhausted. Astra wondered how much effort it took to control her veela magic.
Voldemort was taking turns staying at his followers homes. Narcissa had asked that he not take a turn at her home, until her children were away at school. Fortunately, he had been alright with that. Shortly after dropping them off at the train station, he had arrived to stay at Malfoy Manor.
A few days later, they wanted to have some death eaters over for a meeting. Narcissa was invited, but said that that would be weird, since she was not a death eater.
She went over to Andormeda's house. She figured that this would be less awkward and concerning then when her children had been with her. The last time she was here, she had been very concerned about Astra's anxiety, which they had clearly noticed. She had also been a little concerned about the fact that Draco just did not have much of a filter, which hadn't really been a problem.
At the dinner table, Narcissa mentioned how frustrating it was to have Voldemort in her home.
"Maybe if you told him that Astra a werewolf, he would not want to have anything to do with your family anymore," Nyphadora said.
"Dora," Andromeda scolded. She looked at Narcissia. "I didn't tell her, I swer," she said.
"My daughter has never changed into a filthy werewolf, and Voldemort finding out would probably get her killed," Narcissia said, slowly, clearly, and with get irritation. Voldemort did have some werewolves working for him, but they did not belong to pureblood family, and if Astra ended up having to work for Voldemort then that would also be horrible.
"If you didn't tell her," Narcissia asked, "then who did?"
"Sirius and Remus," Nyphadora replied.
Narcissia just starred at her, in shock and horror.
"Sirius, didn't betray anybody to Voldemort," Andromeda said. "He was framed."
"But, how would he have found out?"
"From his godson, Harry Potter."
"Please tell me that Sirius's hasn't had any contact with my daughter."
"But, he was framed," Ted said.
"He still turned his back on his family," Narcissa's yelled.
Andromeda starred at her, and crossed her arms. "Oh, like you turned your back on me, years ago."
Narcissia tried not to cry. "It was either that or turn my back on Mum and Dad."
"I wasn't blaming you," Andromeda said. "I was just trying to make a point."