they were just kids [draco malfoy]

Year 3 - 37

"Well, mine was rubbish!"

Astrid widened her eyes a little bit in shock. She had never heard Tracey being so passionate about something.

Although it was just a passionate recital of how horrible her holidays had been, it was still something new.

It was their first day back after spring break and the girls, having finished their classes of the day, were now back to unpacking their stuff while discussing whatever had gone down during their Holidays.

Daphne had just finished her tale of going to Italy with Mrs Zabini and how that had been the best week of her life. It was easy to tell Yamaya Zabini was what Daphne looked up to the most. By the descriptions that had been given to Astrid, the two were ridiculously similar. Money, fashion, high-class events, and most importantly, seducing and manipulating men being the top of their interests.

The two had spent the week shopping, lounging on the beach and drinking cocktails bought by fine gentlemen while Yamaya had been giving Daphne a hand-on lesson about everything the woman knew. But still, wherever they had gone, whoever they had gone with, the soft sparkling of the golden necklace around her neck never disappeared.

"I spent the whole bloody holidays locked up in my room!"

Astrid thought about what Tracey was saying and her own thoughts jumped to what she had done over the holidays. 

Astrid too had spent her break mostly lounging in her room, except for the occasional outing with her family or when she wanted to go out for a relaxing bike ride. The girl had listened to music almost for the whole week and when she wasn't singing, dancing or imagining herslef in differnet situations, the girl was thinking. More than once her thoughts had returned to the shack in the woods and she couldn't help but wonder what it all meant.

She hadn't dared take a book home from the shack, although she had wanted to, out of sheer fear of her father finding it and thinking she was crazy. For one thing, she didn't read. For another, this wasn't any lightweight schoolwork. With info like this, one could do powerful things. Or so Astrid wished...

But there was one thing that Astrid had realised over the holidays. The one thing that kept itching at her brain, repeating to her that she was waisting every second standing there unpacking instead of going and analyzing the shack further. 

She had spent so many nights thinking of the weird amount of empty notebooks and the fact they indeed did not look fresh, new and just bought to be ready to use. With that had come the realisation that perhaps the notebooks hadn't actually been empty but were instead charmed to appear so to anyone but the one who had written in them. That was her guess and she was itching to find out if it was true.

"Mum wanted me to knuckle down and study hard because she thought I wasn't doing enough. Never mind I'm among the top 10 smartest students in our year. No..." Tracey laughed aggressively slamming the pile of books she had just taken out of her suitcase and onto her bed. "Who spends their whole holidays studying? Reckon my parents have gone a bit mad if you ask me. They took away my bloody violin! Can you imagine that?!"

"Why would they do that?" Daphne asked sympathetically making Tracey stop her harsh movement and plump down on her bed instead.

"Orchestra is distracting you from school. School is more important than anything!" Tracey mocked imitating the voice of her parents. The girl was pissed.

"Can't you just transfigure yourself a guitar?" Astrid suggested optimistically. "Boom-pow and problem solved."

Tracey looked upon her as if she was a gum stuck to the sole of her boot.

"Oh how smart!" the girl droned her voice cold and filled with sarcasm. "How did I not think of that!"

"What's the problem then?" Astrid crossed her arms. She was not liking the girl's new attitude.

"I've been banned from orchestra practice. They won't let me join without a parent's slip, bimbo."

"No need for insults! I was just saying that it's not the end of the world."

"Yeah, easy coming from someone like you who can get away with anything. Bear in mind, not everyone is as privileged and lucky as you are."

The room had gone still. They were used to Tracey being bitchy and negative but it had always been in this simple more so mocking manner. They had never seen her really arguing with anyone but Rosier.

"What are you even talking about?" Astrid frowned. She hated where this was going. And above all, it wasn't like Tracey really knew anything about Astrid's homelife. She didn't have it hard, no... but that doesn't mean Tracey knew enough to try and insult her like that.

Rosier had sensed the upcoming argument and knowing what her best friend was capeable of, she decided to interrupt them.

"What about we fake the parent's slip?" the girl sugested, then adding with a smirk. "You know I'm good with documents."

Nobody in the room had any idea as to what Rosier was hinting at but Tracey. She was talking about how she had faked Astrid's agreement documents in being a volunteer to trying out her inventions, but of course the girl actually involved didn't know of those.

Despite herself, Tracey smirked, before shaking her head to wipe the silly grin off her face. The girl then turned to face Rosier glaring once more.

Just like that the two fell into one of their usual forever banters.

Being finished with most of her stuff and not wanting to involve herself in any further conversation with the angered girls, Astrid left.

She snaked down the hallways checking time form time if anyone was looking or if anyone was following her. Before she knew it, the girl was already stepping into the Forbidden Forest.

It was the middle of April but the mid-spring sun wasn't particularly warm that day. The girl strutted her way over to the shack more confidently than she had done all the previous times, only stopping her determined pace once she stepped through the door and into the house.

Her eyes narrowed, she looked around the room. The girl was sure - if the notebooks had been charmed to hide something, so could many other things be. She knew she had to read into details more carefully.

Standing in the middle of the room, slowly turning round in circles, for the first time, Astrid realised how odd and out of place the fireplace looked in the whole scheme of things. Not only was the shack entirely wooden which would make having a fireplace extremely dangerous, but also the size of it was way out of proportion and much bigger than such a small space would've needed.

She also noticed the empty portrait once more as realisation dawned upon her that it wasn't usual for a portrait to be empty, especially when it didn't have any nearby portraits. She didn't know what it meant but it must've meant something. The girl wondered if it had been charmed in some specific way too.

Astrid walked up to the table and pulled out a notebook out of one of the drawers. She held it in her hand, feeling the weight of it and inspecting its damaged covers, the biding scratched and a little broken, and the pages that by the bends and wrinkles in them looked like they had been richly used. The girl had almost no doubt in mind that her theory was in fact true.

Astrid kept doing what she did and exploring the place more carefully. Upon her search and with the help of a little reducto Astrid had also found a hidden compartment right behind the drink cabinet. She had found the key to the 'untouchables' cabinet - to something she had no interest in touching - as well as some other fallen over books and little objects.

Time from time, when she got a moment free from schoolwork, the girl liked returning to the small house and reading about what the person who had lived there had been trying to do. She found out both more about the 'untouchables' and the potions that had been stored in the vials. 

The girl couldn't figure out all the whos, whys, and whens, but what she could partially follow through with were the many of the experiments that had been performed in the house before her.

All was terribly fascinating to Astrid Ninomae.