If I Lose Myself
A NaNoWriMo2016 entry by EMPG22HoPe
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PART ONE
BEFORE THE WAR
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Chapter One: Astoria
August 1996
"Mum, dad, look! Look! Look!"
Mornings in Greengrass Manor were nothing short of quiet, not with her sister Daphne running about at the crack of dawn like some Cornish pixie. Sometimes it took most of Astoria's self-control not to cast a little muffliato at her sister to keep her mouth shut. And she did mean most of her self-control, though admittedly, she wasn't allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts. She wasn't planning to take the risk anyway; not with the news the Daily Prophet's showing.
Astoria unwillingly threw her blankets off of her with a disgruntled groan. She rose from bed and began trotting downstairs towards the dining hall where she supposed her sister was at, along with her parents. The manor around her felt cold despite the month's summer heat. The soft green colors of the walls looked a bit chipped and the paintings of their ancestors were looking very dead, lifeless, even; which was a surprise considering how most wizarding portraits moved at the sight of a live human being walking about. If there was anything to the whole manor, she hasn't felt at home in it for quite some time now.
As soon as she reached the bottom stairs, she saw Daphne's head pop out from one of the opened double doors down the hallway. Her sister's blonde locks bounced in the small light of the hall as she approached her with a sly grin on her face.
"Daph, do tell what you're on about?" Astoria asked her sister as she yawned, though jolted slightly awake by the feel of Daphne's arm looping around hers.
"It's our Hogwarts letters! They've come!" Daphne said in a sing-song voice as she dragged the younger Greengrass towards the dining hall. "I never thought they'd come, to be honest; especially with the whole You-Know-Who being back and all."
"I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't arrive." Astoria shook her head before seeing her parents already seated on the long table.
"They shouldn't have arrived at all!" Her mother, only a few years touching towards the age of 40, exclaimed as she slammed her teacup against the redwood table. Cassandra shot her husband a disdainful look before going on, "Cepheus, this is absolutely ridiculous! It's not safe for our daughters to come back to that wretched school. I'll be damned if anything happens to them."
Her father, Cepheus, looked up from reading the latest paper of the Daily Prophet to acknowledge his wife. "My dear, I'm not surprised you share certain sentiments."
"Sentiments?!" Cassandra screeched with cheeks flushed, rising from her seat. She took from the table what appear to be two white envelopes with the Hogwarts emblem glistening against the early morning sun. "Do you remember the last time the Dark Lord came to power? We damn near lost everything! Do you honestly expect me to sit here and have my daughters sent into a castle already marked as a slaughterhouse for his Death Eaters?!"
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If I Lose Myself
FanfictionIf there's anything worse than death, it's losing one's self. 19 years after the Second Wizarding War, we only managed to hear snippets of Draco Malfoy and his wife, Astoria (nee Greengrass). Eventually, then, the untimely death of the witch. We onl...
