❛ASTERIA EDWARDS was your average, typical eleven-year-old child stuck in a pandemic with her mother Isabella Diggory until she found out where she truly came from.. and where she truly belonged...❜
[extended summary inside]
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harry potte...
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It was unlike herself, but Asteria Edwards wished she could never sleep, ever again.
All this time, she had thought a good, healthy slumber would solve many of her problems somehow, when it was quite the opposite case. She had realised that just now, some minutes ago.
If it could get rid of whatever she saw while she slept, she would gladly never sleep again.
She had appeared again.. her mother.. by herself or brought in her dream by Carrow, it didn't matter.
What mattered was that her eyes were hollow despite her affectionate voice.. that it was the only thing that felt real even though she had hugged Ria tight and brushed her hair with her fingers.
The voice.. that she remembered, that was etched fresh in her mind only because she had opened that letter several times and still hadn't gotten to the end— or even the middle.
The voice that she feared she would forget once it recited the letter— which would then turn to ash.
But God.. how she yearned to hear her say more once again.. more than what she always said in her nightmares.
That was the only thing that had made her go to the Astronomy Tower on her own that night, after months.. hoping she would find solace in her father's memory instead, underneath the stars.
Instead all she'd found was the truth of how frail she was, how pretentious— how false she was and had been all this time, as she sat in the dark, feeling her grip on the Obscurus weaken.
Her friends who she put in danger? Those who could be easily used against her?
The mark on her forearm— Azrael's mark— that she had concealed a month or two ago? So she wouldn't get distracted and keep doing what was necessary?
The grudge with her mother who only tried to protect her and suffer on her behalf?
The letters she stubbornly wrote to her father?
The words Carrow whispered in her ear?
She held on to all of that.
They could make her bleed to death, and she would still refuse to let go.
She had pretended for a while.. that she could be free of them. That she couldn't be affected by them anymore, but..
'Knowing everything, but doing nothing.. that was what you were trying to prevent, weren't you?'
'You could've tried harder.'
'I'm a hopeless destruction.. so right about that.'
'Poor little lamb.. always helpless. What would you ever do on your own?'
'What a shame, Asteria Edwards. You were graced with such gifts, and yet.. such a pathetic case you turned out to be.'
She held them a bit too close to her heart and mind. They were all both poisonous and soothing in their own cruel ways.
