astronomy • marlene mckinnon

thirty four

Astraea Black sat in one of the chairs in front of the table in Dumbledore's office, tracing random shapes on the wood with her finger, the sole of her boots tapping against the floor beneath her as her leg continued to shake.

The seventeen-year-old was well aware of the portraits in the room having their gazes flicker to her occasionally, their conversation drowning in hushed whispers as if they were scared that the Slytherin would get to know some deep secret- and as if she really cared about anything that was going on around her.

What she really cared about was the question of why the headmaster had asked her to show up at his office at three in the afternoon when he wasn't even going to be there.

She let out another sigh of annoyance as she sat up straighter, her grey eyes flickering around the office. Not far away from the portraits of the previous headmasters and headmistresses, there were many tables with silver intricate objects she had never seen before, there was a closed cupboard right next to them, and a lunascope next to the fireplace.

She truly had no idea what Dumbledore does with the large variety of possessions he has, but she still let her eyes flicker over each one of them. She let her gaze linger on the sorting hat for some time as she wondered how different her life would have been if she had been sorted in Gryffindor with Sirius.

Would she and Regulus have been as close as they are right now? Would she have been good friends with Isabella? Would she also be disowned when Sirius had been? Would she still be stuck in an arranged marriage with Evan Rosier? Would she have been friends with Marlene since the beginning?

She didn't know that, but she did know that if she had been in Gryffindor, she wouldn't be sitting right where she was, the dark mark imprinted on her arm, waiting for the headmaster to show up and give her the tiniest bit of information which was safe to hand over to the dark lord so that she wouldn't get killed.

In the end, she didn't know if what she was doing was still right, was she truly standing up for a noble cause if she was handing over some important knowledge that could lead to the fall of the Order of the Phoenix, all so that she wouldn't be caught in the act of being a spy.

She didn't know what she was doing, but she supposed it was better than being forced into getting the dark mark and doing nothing.

Her eyes wandered away from the sorting hat and moved across the room to the pile of ashes resting at the same place where she had seen a phoenix the last time she had visited.

She heard the door open behind her and she immediately stood up and turned around, her hand reaching for her wand but letting it go as she saw Professor Dumbledore enter the office.

"Professor," She nodded, acknowledging his presence before she turned around and sat back down in her seat as the headmaster made his way around the table to his chair.

"Miss Black," Dumbledore greeted, "My apologies for being late, I got stuck in a staff meeting with the other teachers."

"Of course," Astraea grit her teeth, she remembered seeing Professor McGonagall in the hallways giving detention to a group of fourth years on her way to the headmaster's office.

"So," The headmaster began, "I assume there's a death-eater meeting soon, or have you come to warn us against a future attack?"

"I could warn you against an attack with a letter," The raven-haired spy spoke up, an unreadable glint flashing in her eyes as Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

She hadn't warned the order against a lot of attacks during the summer, mainly because she didn't want the dark lord to suspect that there was a spy within them. She had a lingering suspicion that Dumbledore knew that she hadn't warned them purposefully, considering the way he continued to look at her with a raised eyebrow.