𝑺𝑶𝑳𝑺𝑻𝑰𝑪𝑬 [𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑹𝒀 𝑷𝑶𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑹/𝑻𝑾𝑰𝑳𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻]

𝐼𝑉𝑌

The night came to an end with Daphne taking her leave, though quite tipsy, Gwen knew a threat when she heard one and sobered up quickly. But despite the threat passing, they figured it would be best to continue the night at Gwen and Alex's place; where Alex so generously offered Gwen's wine collection to everyone.

Though, she did not mind at all, seeing as she as they each took a bottle and Astoria built up the bravery to open up to them. Gwen hardly knew anything about her, just that she was a Greengrass, one of the ancient pureblood families in Britain. Normally, this would have made her quite suspicious, seeing as most of the pureblood families had been advocating to achieve a more "separate" government like the Ministry of Magic had before with magical species. But Neville had personally vouched for Astoria, and that was good enough for her.

"I wanted to change..." Astoria said quietly, as she took another rather long sip of her bottle. "I was raised to believe that we were better, that our bloodline was better. That it made us better people..." Astoria paused as she pushed her dark hair behind her ears. "I looked up to my sister, I wanted to be everything she was; the perfect daughter, the perfect student. She was my role model. And so I mimicked her. I tried to be her. I was friends with her friends, I lived my life so ignorantly..."

"Standing up to your family is the bravest thing you can do," Alex said, as Gwen looked at him with worry. He was never one to share what had happened with him and his own family.

"That's how I lived my life for the first 14 years," Astoria scoffed at herself.

"You were raised in a different environment" Cho chimed in. "My family wasn't that extreme, but they did believe in everything the Ministry said. They were always afraid to step out of line, which they passed on to me. It took me until I was out of Hogwarts to really grow out of that."

"You were in the D.A your sixth year" Gwen pointed out. "I wouldn't write you off as not growing before you left Hogwarts. You believed Harry without question."

Cho nodded, looking embarrassed but also, smiling slightly.

"Neville said you were alright" Gwen said, as she looked back to Astoria. "He vouched for you, and that's good enough for me."

"What she said" Alex added.

Astoria smiled warmly, before it faded once more, "Before my fifth year, my parents sat me and Daphne down. Of course I didn't believe Harry Potter when he said Voldemort had returned. I didn't want to. I didn't want to see what was right in front of me...But deep down, I knew something was changing. I knew that my parents were going off to secret meetings, and Daphne walked around with Parkinson, Malfoy, and the rest as though they knew something we didn't. But I stayed quiet. I obeyed...My friends were gone...Well, I guess I couldn't really call them friends. But they were my classmates. They had been my class partners in Charms, Herbology...and then they were gone. Because they were Muggleborns. I couldn't quite believe it. I couldn't..." Astoria paused as she took another drink, closing her eyes as though she were recalling a horrible memory. "I remember my sister got braver. Every upperclassmen did. And they began to serve the Carrows... I didn't know what was going on. The press...Everything was confusing. There were less students so they bumped us up a year to join the sixth years...And every day, more and more students would go missing. More and more were showing up with bruises. Cuts..."

"I remembered my parents had been acting funny for some time. Going off to meetings in the middle of the night. Even my sister had a different air about her. All of the upperclassmen in Slytherin did. It was like, they knew something we all didn't. And then, something came over me one night. Something that had been building up in me. And so, I followed my sister."