astronomy • marlene mckinnon

fifty two

Here's the thing, Astraea Black sucked at making decisions.

Somehow or the other, no matter how hard she tried to make the right decision to keep everyone around her happy, something just had to go wrong and someone she cared about always faced the negative consequences of her actions. She had always blamed her terrible decision-making for the same, but as she stared at the blank piece of parchment with her quill in her hand, she realised that whatever decision she took, it was going to be a bad one.

And whoever would end up facing the consequences would immediately put her at blame. Hogwarts gets attacked, and she's at fault for letting the death eaters in by breaking the spell which protected the castle. Hogwarts doesn't get attacked, the dark lord never learns the spell and she is yet again at fault for not revealing the enchantment when she knew what it was.

On both sides, people she cares about end up hating her.

It was past midnight when she decided to leave the dorm and move to the common room instead because she couldn't stand to look at Isabella's peaceful sleeping form knowing that she had the power to ruin it all and also because Victoria Malfoy had come back, looking like she just had sex with someone and Astraea did not want to engage in any conversations with her. For a second she thought she should pass a vile comment of her sleeping with someone else when she was engaged to the supposed love of her life but stopped herself, realising exactly how hypocritical it was.

She huffed in annoyance as she laid her eyes on her younger brother and his not-so-secret boyfriend on the floor, right in front of the fireplace. They saw her too, because she had huffed way louder than intended, and their laughter had abruptly stopped.

"Don't mind me," she shrugged, "I'm leaving."

"You don't have to," Regulus said and Astraea was about to snap at him for his rude tone but then it hit her that there was no rudeness and what he said was truly what he meant.

The raven-haired girl narrowed her eyes at him but didn't say anything as she went to sit on the floor, completely on the opposite side of the two boys, leaning against the wall and resuming her staring at a blank parchment.

"What are you doing?"

Astraea almost jumped as her younger brother's voice interrupted her trail of thoughts, catching her off guard. She looked at him with a blank look, "Contemplating if I should or should not make this parchment into a ball and throw it at your head."

The sixth-year scratched the back of his neck, shrugging slightly, "Yeah, I kind of deserve that."

The girl scoffed, noticing that Barty was now nowhere to be seen but didn't pay much attention to that as she put her focus on her annoying younger brother who was being an absolute little bitch who she missed more than anything. "You think?"

Regulus sighed, "I hate fighting with you. It's not us, we're supposed to stick together, especially with everything."

"Why did you say yes?" The raven-haired girl turned to him with a raised eyebrow, a stern expression on her face as she clarified, "To take the dark mark?"

The younger boy looked down, "I don't know. Mother really wanted me to do it, I didn't wanna stand by when Barty had put himself in such danger, you were a part of the group. And I guess I just wanted to show you that I could make decisions on my own and not need your help."

Astraea let out a short laugh, "Everyone can make decisions on their own, Reg. It's making the right decision which matters."

"You think you made the right decision?"

"Oh hell no! I get the award for the worst decision-maker. I didn't tell you about the mark, because I knew something like this would happen. I regret my decision and thought that maybe I could get you out of the house before all of that. I didn't want you making the same stupid decisions that I did."