ASTRIA REGULUS BLACK left the greenhouse with many things lurking in her mind, and after the conversation with Draco, she had almost forgotten about the newspapers Neville had shown her all together. But the second she was in the halls, where students could see her, forgetting was no longer an option.
They did their whispering as she passed, her and Harry's names being dropped all around her. But she kept forward, ignoring the gazes. Part of her couldn't blame them, sure they had no right to her personal business but it's hard to call it personal when it's plastered on the front of every news outlet. Not that she knew that for sure, but she could only imagine.
Even with the dusting of snow on the earth's ground outside the castle, she still left the building and its students behind. Astria wasn't sure why she was so drawn to the forest today, well she was always drawn to the forest. But it felt like a different pull, instead of it being something that had to do with her Green Magic, it was more like a yank, tugging her towards the tree line.
On the topic of Green Magic, she had been thinking about that a lot lately. Yes, when she was younger that's what Dumbledore had called it. But Dumbledore likes to take issues and wrap them up in pretty bows and keep the truth to himself. The name almost felt like a cover-up, and when she thought about it, it had done its job. She grew up not questioning her nature-based powers, the nights in pain from the forest fires, and everything else that came along with it. And that's what was irking her, Dumbledore was a liar, that was known by anyone with two eyes and a brain that worked at least a little bit. So maybe the 'Green Magic' title was a lie too. Of course, Astria had done her research, it did fit the description as an underestimated version of her powers, and at the time he could have told her that and got away with it. He did get away with it. But her powers were growing, her senses changing, she could feel the earth on her skin and its breathing like her heartbeat. Every gust of wind, the rain before it fell, plants as they grew, she felt it all. There had to be more to the story.
