If I Lose Myself

Chapter Seven: Astoria

Chapter Seven: Astoria

November 1996

The Hogwarts Library had been some sort of third home to Astoria, Hogwarts itself being the second. It had everything, and it was far more extensive in histories than the Greengrass family library.

When she arrived at Hogwarts at the age of twelve, the library was the very first thing that she fell in love with. So when she was feeling sad or upset or just plain bored during her free times, one would constantly find her hiding there – just reading, sometimes browsing titles. It was her constant companion in her first year when she couldn't make any proper Slytherin friends due to her muggle-tolerant view. And it still was, even now, as she still didn't have her own set of friends in her year.

Astoria had been in there all week since the little Amortentia mishap during one tutoring session with Draco. Everything that had happened was still burned in the back of her mind, and whenever they caught each other's eye in the Great Hall – he would just grin at her mockingly as if she didn't need any more reminding of what had just happened. But they never spoke of the accident since; which was good on her end. She didn't exactly want to delve into what just happened that time despite her burning questions. Thankfully, they were both wise enough to save each other their embarrassment.

She tried to push these thoughts away, though, as she attempted to concentrate on one of the books she's managed to smuggle out of the Restricted Section with a permission slip from Professor Snape. It was odd how he hardly questioned about the book that she was trying to get from the section, but she decided perhaps that maybe luck was just on her side at that time.

The Dark Arts in the Pure-Blood Society was a book she had only discovered lately after one little Defense against the Dark Arts class. The only reason she even wanted to read it was to go back far into her family tree. It had been weeks since she last spoke to Professor Dumbledore about her uncommon illness and she hadn't had any luck since on the Greengrass family tree until now. Well, that is, until she opened the book and hardly found a trace of the Greengrasses in it – just as much of a dead end as the records in their own library at home. Though despite her frustration of finding little to nothing on her father's side of the family, she decided to read through her mother's; the Shafiq's.

The Shafiq's were a Pure-Blood wizarding family and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight still extant to this day – the last male bloodline stopping in the 1930's and only a female line since then has existed. To keep the Shafiq's family name at large, the women gave birth to children with their significant others; though they did not bother to marry them so that their children would bear the family name. They had hoped they would be able to bear males to resurface their continuous bloodline, but in record since then, there was no living male Shafiq. The misfortune of only bearing daughters continued for quite some time now, until the tradition was ended by its most recent family members: Cressida Shafiq and Cassandra Greengrass (nee Shafiq).

Cressida and Cassandra were the daughters of Helen Shafiq and Oellius Selewn. Helen's daughter Cressida was born a barren, while her other daughter, Cassandra – after so many generations of unmarried Shafiq women – married Cepheus Greengrass (another Pure-blood line) and had two daughters with him, namely Daphne and Astoria Greengrass. It is now currently in record that Cassandra Greengrass's daughters are attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland.

"What an interesting book you're reading." A familiar dreamy-like voice of a girl said, and Astoria looked up to find, surprisingly, Luna Lovegood staring at her. The blonde wore her hair up in a braid and she was clad in an odd Witch Sisters t-shirt and a pair of luminous jeans, almost the color and sheen of a mermaid's tail.