Astoria Greengrass, the morning of her birthday
A loud knocking noise echoed through the third-year Slytherin girls' dorm, causing a figure to stir on one of the beds. The last remaining occupant groaned, before opening her eyes and shooting a rude sign at the merman outside. Astoria Greengrass knew that she would be in for a major lecture on manners and other stuffy stuff if Daphne had seen her, but her sister would never lower herself to entering any dorm other than her own.
Astoria turned onto her side, causing a spasm of pain seize her in her chest. A litany of curses spewed out of her mouth, unheard by anyone other than her, thank Merlin. She had forgotten that it was her birthday! This day brought up conflicting emotions inside of her. When Astoria was younger, she loved her birthdays. Her parents would shower her in presents and even Daphne would crack a smile and ruffle her hair, saying that she was 'one step closer to being a lady'. She looked forward to each one, knowing that each passing year brought her ever closer to being able to attend Hogwarts. Even after she started school, her birthday was a great source of joy to her. Her friends in school, of which there were many, threw a massive party, a grand spectacle to remember. Gifts were piled up to the ceiling, and Astoria thanked her creator for every single one, for how fortunate was she, to have so much happiness and companionship in her life?
But then, her twelfth birthday changed everything. That year, she had woken up screaming. It hurt, as if someone had woken her with a cruciatus curse and was holding it, for each agonizing minute after minute. Her parents had come to pick her up with grim looks on their faces, and their healer had confirmed their greatest fear: Astoria had been the unlucky member of her family to contract the deadly blood malediction that had plagued their line for centuries.
There was no cure. The healer had mitigated the symptoms the best they could, but the curse would come back, year after year on her birthday, until it would become strong enough to overcome the shackles put in place by her healer and stop her heart forever. They didn't think she would ever make it to her twenties.
Now, she cursed her creator for dooming her to such a slow and painful execution. She tried to keep up appearances, but maintaining a façade drained much of her energy. She went outside less and less, and one after another, her friends deserted her.
A mere shell was now all that remained of Astoria Greengrass. She went through the motions of eating, sleeping, and attending classes, all the while stepping closer and closer to the gallows. The only thing she had left was…
The door of her dorm slammed against the wall. An exuberant voice sounded, heralding the arrival of her 'bodyguard' and best friend.
"Presenting STACEY DAVIS! Come to celebrate the wondrous occasion of the great lady of Greengrass' fourteenth birthday! CONGRATULATIONS on doing nothing other than surviving another year!" Her friend had a wide smile on her face. She flopped onto Astoria's bed and hugged her tightly.
"Oww, Stacey! Too tight…"
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Stacey released the hug as if she had been burned.
Astoria laughed at the mortified expression on her friend's face. "Don't worry, Stace, it doesn't hurt that badly. I'm just glad you're here."
"Glad that I'm here? Or relieved because no one else can stand your smelly, shut-in ass?" said Stacey. The two girls loved trading barbs and jokes because it was an effective way to get Astoria into a good mood.
"Ha, as if! At least I'm better smelling than your fat mouth, with all the shite it spews!"
"Only because I know you love digesting that shite I spew!"
"Oh my god, Stacey! You are terrible!" said Astoria, laughing.
Stacey was giggling as well. "Yup. That's why your parents assigned Tracey to Daphne and me to you. Daphne deserves better than me, but you don't!"
"That's because Tracey's older than you!" Astoria scratched her chin in mock thought. "You can kind of tell, since your eyes barely go up to her neck."
"Ha!" Responded Stacey, "Your attitude is enough to tell me exactly how old-, or rather young, you are."
Astoria rolled her eyes and groaned. "Ugh. You win."
"As you (I) always do," the girls said simultaneously. They looked at each other and grinned. Stacey got off the bed and started hauling Astoria off as well, careful to avoid touching her chest. She only succeeded in getting her mistress to sit up.
"C'mon," said Stacey. "Up you get! Before you end up spending your entire birthday in bed."
"Do I have to?" Astoria whined.
Stacey sighed, her face becoming serious. "Unfortunately, yes. Mistress Daphne's orders. Draco is throwing you a party for your birthday," she explained. "It would be bad manners not to attend."
"Draco?" asked Astoria. "Who's that again? Why would someone throw a party for me?"
"Draco Malfoy," said her friend. "From the most powerful political family in Britain? Silver hair, gray eyes, wants to marry you? That ring a bell?"
"Oh." Now she remembered. A rat, that's what he was. A charming, wealthy, powerful rat, but that didn't change what he was inside: a rodent, scurrying from place to place trying to find anything that could benefit himself. Astoria didn't want to marry him, but she knew her parents were happy with the idea. Astoria was a depreciating asset: one that would fade until it finally disappeared in a few years. It made sense that they would try and extract value from her before she was gone. She didn't really blame them. What comparison was there between the happiness of a girl who wouldn't even live longer than the next decade and the power of her millennia-old house?
Still, that didn't mean that she would give in without a fight. Having at most six years left, Astoria didn't care much about the power of her name. She didn't want to be chained for the remainder of her years on the planet.
Having decided, she spoke. "No, Stacey. I do not wish to go. I think that we should stay here. We could have a party of our own: just the two of us."
"Well…" Stacey looked torn. She wanted to make her friend and mistress happy, but Daphne's orders had more authority. Sadly for Astoria, she chose responsibility over emotion. "Sorry, Ria," she sighed. "Orders are orders. Don't make Daphne come drag you out of here herself."
Alas, it was too late. The door swung open again, and Daphne stepped in. "What are you two still doing in here? The party is in four hours!"
The two girls jumped as if shocked by lightning. Stacey, still trying to get her mistress to get up, stumbled and knocked her head against the foot of the bed but hastily assumed a stance that could almost count as dignified.
"Ah, Mistress Daphne, hello," stuttered Stacey, an visage of fright upon her face. "Err… Mistress Astoria, well…"
Astoria, pitying her friend, chose to interrupt. "I have decided that I am not going to go to this party. Stacey and I are having a party in here instead. You can join us if you wish."
Daphne's expression was thunderous. "Wish? There is no wishing here, just reality and responsibility. Our family will not be embarrassed by your petty desires!"
"Petty?" Astoria was beginning to get angry. "How dare you? You have more than a hundred years ahead of you; I only have five! You know what that means? What I want is twenty times more important to me than what you want is to you!"
Daphne crossed her arms. "Be it so, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the individual, no matter the weight the individual assigns to their desires. In order to better our house, we must each make our own sacrifices. We benefit greatly from the prestige and resources provided by the name of Greengrass. This is our repayment." Her voice was moderate and level, but her icy tone was more effective than any increase in volume.
Astoria refused to budge. "Well, maybe the house will have to make a sacrifice as well! I am not going to torture myself at some 'party', then spend the rest of my life as a bird in a cage!"
Daphne's eyes softened marginally. "I understand that you do not want to marry Malfoy," she said, lowering her voice for her next admission. "I do not want it to happen either."
Astoria, in the middle of staring sullenly at her sheets, lifted her head with wide eyes. Daphne's expression, however, remained as composed as ever, as if she hadn't just revealed that she wasn't an emotionless puppet of the Greengrass house a few seconds ago.
She considered Astoria, fixing her with one of her patented stares. At last, she sighed and made her sister an offer. "How about this? Malfoy said that the celebration would be held as a masquerade party. Since it is held in the dungeons, lighting will be low as well. Why don't you attend, stick in the corner with Stacey, and take your mind off your pain by partaking in the food? When it's done, we can just tell Malfoy that the two of you must have passed each other by without recognizing who the other was."
"Hmm." Astoria knew that this was probably as good of a deal as she would ever get from Daphne. Still, it didn't stop her from pushing. "How about we tell him what you said, but I don't go?"
Her sister rapidly shut down her plan. "That's not going to work," she stated firmly. "Malfoy will station his bodyguards at the doors to check everyone's identities: ostensibly to make sure 'no Gryffindors and other filth dirty the occasion'. I know what he really wants. He will have them check for you, then report back to him and tell him what your mask looks like. He will know if you do not appear. The masks are charmed against removal for the duration of the party, but we can pretend to put them on, then swap them once we're in. Malfoy will not be able to find you then."
"What about you, mistress Daphne?" asked Stacey. "Won't Draco end up talking to you since you're wearing Astoria's mask?"
"Malfoy is easily handled," Daphne replied. "I will simply inform him that his bodyguard mixed our disguises up. With their intelligence level, there is no doubt that he would believe me." She turned back to Astoria with a slight smirk. "Is this an acceptable arrangement, little sister?"
"Ugh," said Astoria, defeated. "Fine. I'll go."
"Excellent. I'll leave the process of procuring a dress to Stacey." Daphne turned to the girl in question. "I believe that I can trust you to do an adequate job?"
"You can bet all the stars in the sky that my job will be fabulous!" said Stacey, jumping up and down. The girl had always loved her dresses.
Daphne nodded, then made to leave. "I'll meet the two of you in my room a half-hour before the party," she said, pointing a finger at Astoria for emphasis. "Be ready."
The next six hours were a whirlwind of measuring, fabric cutting, measuring again, then fitting and some more measuring for good measure. By the end of it, Astoria's entire torso was in pain – whether it was from her illness or from constantly getting whacked by the magical measuring tape, she could not tell. Regardless, she had to admit that Stacey had done an excellent job of creating a new dress from scratch. Despite her oddities, Stacey was truly one of the most talented witches of her generation, beaten only by her sister and Astoria's own sister Daphne. The only problem was…
"Why's it so fancy? I thought I was going to try and lay low? Won't these sparkles catch peoples' attention?"
"See, that's the thing," said Stacey, "Draco has been watching you for years—"
"Oh Merlin, that is so creepy!" shrieked Astoria, disgusted at the actions of her suitor. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Stacey cleared her throat, ignored her mistress' question in favor of continuing her prior explanation. "Ahem… anyway, Malfoy's been observing you, so he knows that you're kind and outgoing, but never one to outright desire attention. However, he only sees the surface. That means that your façade of happiness has fooled him. I'm not sure what he thinks about you staying in your room more often, but I'm pretty sure he still thinks of you as the girl you were before your twelfth birthday."
"Okay, but are we going to talk about this guy watching me from before I even hit puberty?" said Astoria. She was ignored, again.
"That means," Tracey kept going cheerfully, "that when you wear an eye-catching dress to the party, he'll never believe that you would wear it. Think of it as a bit of muggle 'reverse-psychology'. He thinks you'd never seek attention, so the gaudier your dress, the less he'll look at you! Then, he'll never be able to accuse you of hiding!" Stacey looked very proud of her reasoning, but Astoria was too distracted to share in it.
"'The less he'll look at you.' It's too late! This… this rat has been creeping on me since I was a child and you just let him? And you didn't even think to tell me?"
"Well…" Stacey dragged her feet on the answer.
Astoria could tell that she wasn't going to like what she was about to hear, but she wanted to hear it anyway. "Just spit it out," she said, tired of her friend's constant hemming and hawing.
"Well, I… Ithoughtitwasromantic!" said Stacey, her words blurring together in her haste to speak. It took a moment for Astoria to parse through her meaning.
"I can't believe you!"
"It's just that he's so popular and handsome and rich and powerful," gushed Stacey, all shame forgotten. "He could have any girl in the school, but he chose you! He refuses any romantic relationship, even with people like that Parkinson girl throwing themselves at him. That means he truly loves you. I had hoped that you would notice it yourself!" Astoria made a disgusted kind of noise, but she softened a little. Stacey was such a hopeless romantic she probably couldn't help herself.
"I may be the second daughter, but I'm 'rich and powerful' too, you know? It's not like I'm a waif that a prince has taken a fancy to," said Astoria sternly, though in her heart she knew Stacey hadn't meant anything by it. "Okay, fine. I forgive you. I just wish you had told me earlier."
It was nearly time for Daphne to appear at the door, so Astoria began putting on the dress that Stacey had made. It fit perfectly. All the while, Stacey prattled on.
"It's so awesome that someone loves you like that. I really wish you wouldn't be so against the idea of marrying Draco. It would be such a shame if you lived a life without experiencing romance!"
"Is stalking little girls and studying their personalities a part of this 'romance', that you're talking about?" Astoria cut in.
"Err… I wouldn't call it stalking," said Stacey, hesitantly, "but I guess that technically that is what the male leads do…"
Astoria laughed and clapped Stacey on her back, then stood up and twirled around in front of her, hiding a wince when the pain increased at the sudden movement. "What do you think? Do I look like a princess from one of your novels?"
"Oh Merlin, yes! I did a splendid job, if I do say so myself! You'll be the belle of the ball, and Draco will never even think that you're you!"
"I'm sorry Stace, but your dress will be sitting in a dusty corner for the entirety of the party" chuckled Astoria, "Also, it looks like you'll have to find new reference material. I'll never be like anyone from some romance novel. They're too idealistic for me." A spasm of pain made a hand shoot to her chest, causing Stacey to look on in concern.
"Are you alright?"
Astoria grimaced and waited for the pain to subside. "Yeah. Let's go meet Daphne before my pain decides to keep me in here forever."
"That's the spirit! Your very own romance awaits!"
"Shut up!"
