𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝗼𝐧 | 𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙋𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧

𝑋𝐼𝐼𝐼 - 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻

Ginny shook her head and Luna was too busy skipping from puddle to puddle with Astria to hear.

However, Astria always heard Neville, after all the years she could almost sense when he was about to talk. So she ran up next to him, wet hair clinging to her back.

"Hyades right?" The Lupin-Black girl tilted her head to the side, Scottish accent painting her words for she couldn't say the name in her forced English one, "The nymphs known as rainmakers?"

Ginny looked at them both dumbfounded but Neville nodded happily. Astria had always loved Greek mythology, ever since she was little. Remus told her Adaline used to read her stories of Theseus and Ariadne, or others like Medusa and Athena. Though she didn't remember the women telling the stories, Remus picked up the mantle when her adoptive mother passed.

Every child has a first memory, when they realize they are alive, a breathing, seeing human, with the ability to love and cry. Astria's first real memory was the night Lily and James died but that was the and everything horrible that came to pass after the fact. Sure she remembered a thing or two of Sirius and Adaline, but nothing big. But she didn't see those as the first, even if they weren't technically . The memory she cherished as the start was Remus telling her the story of Astraea, the goddess of stars, the same one this was named after.

She tried to ask why her name was spelled differently, and Remus would gain a longing twinkle in this eye, like a painful nostalgia. And he told her Astraea was a goddess of the stars, but Astria meant star. And Sirius always called her his star, and he wanted her name to mean that. To show the world that she was bright and beautiful, and would touch the hearts around her. Remus had seemed to get caught up in the story as if he was back there. But then he would come back to the present and his hand would drop from the necklace around his neck and his face would fall. Astria would smile and hug him, well she was only 3 or 4, and the best she could do was climb on his lap and fall into his chest. She remembered trying really hard to pronounce his name and make her father feel better.

So she always loved Greek mythology, it was part of the first good thing she could remember.

"Astria?" Luna said from where she now stood next to Ginny, hands linked, "Your name is from Greek mythology, yes?"

Astria pushed some hair away from her face, the wet curls stretching long down her back, "Yes, along with most of the other Blacks in Sirius's family," She said nonchalantly. But the way the children walking around the group looked at her made her think that might not have been the best idea.

"Oh yeah! Sirius was Orion's dog," Neville pointed out loudly, then shrunk under the intrusive glazes from people around them.

"I'm pretty lost right now," Ginny explained, "But isn't that kinda weird? Because Sirius's dad is named Orion?" She acknowledged, looking back and forth between her friends as the rain continued to splashdown and thunder quaked in the distance.

"Trust me Gin, that's one of the least weird things about the Black family," The Lupin-Black girl herself vowed, Neville and Luna, nodding along.

They kept walking, the four children drenched and dripping with rainwater. The rain kept coming down, and Astria found it grounding, the way it hit her face and drowned out all the voices of anyone other than her friends. She liked the feeling, not being able to hear children whispering her name and all the horrible things they must be saying, now that Sirius was running about. She was long drained after the train ride, trip down memory lane, fainting, and being around Harry Potter. Which none she had mentioned to her friends, she needed answers before she did that.