ASTRA WAS FURIOUS at Ron the next day, though seemed to brood quietly and calmly, and the people who knew her best knew that that was the worst kind of anger.
Hermione and Ron didn't discuss the argument that Astra had heard about and were oddly formal to each other.
Astra simply didn't talk to Ron, but seemed to get the message across that her threat from the year before was still there.
However, Marlene did come with important knews that she had discovered the night before.
"Rita's an animagus."
"What?" Astra's head snapped around to where the blonde was floating, surprised by the sudden announcement.
"I should have told you yesterday," Marlene said, "But Rita's an animagus. I saw her transform but then she listened in on one of Hagrid's conversations and... well... it's not good. She'll probably have an article coming up soon."
Astra of course knew what Marlene was talking about. Not many people thought of it but she had learned from James that Hagrid was a half giant. She also learned that half-giants were often discriminated against, just about as much as werewolves.
And, of course, Rita knew.
"What form?"
"A beetle."
Astra snorted. Rita Skeeter was a beetle. That made quite a bit of sense, actually. However, that also made it really easy for her to eavesdrop and really hard for Astra to catch her. Blackmail would probably work the best in this situation.
"Do you know where she is now?" Astra asked.
"Well, she was in her flat earlier today but you know we can't track people in their animagus forms."
Astra knew that. It was what made catching Wormtail so hard the year before and it was once again playing against her.
"I'm gonna go now," added Marlene as she was lost in thought, but just before she popped away, Astra said one last thing.
"Sure, but don't stalk Mad-Eye. It's creepy."
Marlene sighed, but nodded, "Yeah, Dorcas agrees."
Astra didn't know how big of a mistake she had just made.
***
It was time now to think of the homework they had neglected during the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling rather flat now that Christmas was over, though Astra was mainly slightly disappointed. She still hadn't shown her animagus form to the boys yet; she had planned for them to know during the Yule Ball.
Still, Astra was a Black and felt the need for dramatic entrances, so she was waiting for the best time to pull it off.
Now, however, the most important thing was to try and figure out Harry's next task.
She knew that he was lying about getting everything done, but also didn't want to pressure him so much. Astra desperately wanted to tell him what the task was, and thought of trying to find an excuse for knowing it, but that was a last resort.
If he didn't figure it out in a week, she would tell him.
Nonetheless, she had been researching the best ways to stay underwater, and found nothing. There were spells that were way too advanced, even more so than the animagus process. Astra had looked through that and potions, even muggle options, but found nothing.
In addition to that, spirits could not touch actual objects, making it impossible for them to research by themselves, and they clearly did not have any good options.
Astra's dad had sent a letter back, but also couldn't think of anything that could help.
Glancing at Harry on the other side of the common room, vigorously shaking his egg, she couldn't help but chuckle. It was absolutely idiotic.
However, he seemed to hear her and turned his head, promptly flushing bright red.
"You really think shaking it is gonna work?" she said, sitting down on the chair beside him with a new book (she was now looking into some plants that could possibly work).
"Oh! Er- maybe? I'm -uh not really sure -"
"Have you ever tried anything with water?"
Astra cursed herself internally because Harry's face was now suspicious, for reasons she didn't exactly understand but it was much better when he was flustered.
"Um, no, why would you think that?"
"The last task was dragons, so fire, right? So the opposite of that is water," she lied smoothly, now congratulating herself.
"Oh, yeah," Harry was now smiling fondly. At first, of course, he had been flustered at Astra sitting next to him (something he really needed to work on), then suspicious, but now completely in awe of the girl he fancied. It actually made a lot of sense, so he would probably try it, especially with what Cedric had said as well.
"You know what, I think I'll do that now," he said in a peppy tone, taking the egg and heading to the portrait, accidentally stumbling over an armchair on the way. He walked out without looking back, now cursing himself internally due to the mishap.
Astra chuckled fondly, before taking out her book again. It was only a few minutes of quiet reading before coming up with the answer.
"Gillyweed."
***
Astra supposed that she was still entitled to the use of the Potter invisibility cloak, seeing as Harry had never specifically broken their agreement back in third year about the Marauders' Map, which is exactly why she was now creeping to Snape's office with both in hand.
She had thought about going as an owl now that she had that disguise, only that Snape knew her owl form, and his office was in the dungeons.
It really wasn't the ideal situation.
Luckily, however, she was able to steal a few batches of the gillweed, making sure over and over again with Regulus that it was the right one, and sneaked back up to Gryffindor tower with a triumphant look on her face.
She didn't know whether Harry had already figured out the clue, though Lily had said that he was in the Prefect's bathroom earlier.
If he did, then the golden trio would surely be set to research, and she would be in the perfect place to suggest gillyweed. Astra, being the mysterious person that she already was, would hand it to him and he probably wouldn't even question it.
That was one of the moments where she thanked herself for not being as social in her first two years.
But for now, she wouldn't have to worry about the tournament and let Harry remain his oblivious self.
"Zonkos?" she asked Luna, who was in third year and now able to visit Hogsmeade with Astra.
The blonde nodded, letting Astra lead her to her favorite part of the whole village. She had to cut out the echos, which she did quite often now because they were constantly filling up Hogwarts due to the Triwizard tournament.
They spent quite a bit of time in the joke shop as Astra showed her all around, gathering a few of her favorite prank objects that would be great for Minnie (which she had an ongoing prank battle with during the summers, even though the teacher wouldn't admit it) until Marlene had come in stating that Rita Skeeter was in the Three Broomsticks.
Astra had really been hoping to make it dramatic and catch the journalist in animagus form, but she supposed blackmail would have to work in this case.
She pulled Luna out of the joke shop as soon as she payed, explaining the situation along the way.
"Do you really think blackmail is professional?" Luna asked and Astra gave her a look of shock. She had hoped that she had been enough of a bad influence for Luna not to ask these questions anymore.
"Not that it's a bad idea, I simply thought that your dramatic version seemed a lot better."
Astra breathed a sigh of relief; clearly, Luna had not turned into a second Hermione.
"Yes, well, I think we can start off with blackmail, and if she does anything worse I'll do some research in bug catching."
They arrived in front of the Three Broomsticks and Astra was glad to see Rita Skeeter there just as expected, though she was clearly in conversation with Hermione, Harry, and Ron.
"How about giving me an interview about the Hagrid you know," Rita was saying, and Astra could only suspect that she was talking about Hagrid. "Harry? The man behind the muscles? Your unlikely friendship and the reasons behind it. Would you call him a father substitute?"
Hermione stood up very abruptly, her butterbeer clutched in her hand as though it were a grenade.
"You horrible woman," she said, through gritted teeth, "you don't care, do you, anything for a story, and anyone will do, wont they? Even Ludo Bagman -"
"Sit down, you silly little girl, and don't talk about things you don't understand," said Rita Skeeter coldly, her eyes hardening as they fell on Hermione. "I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl...not that it needs it -" she added, eyeing Hermione's bushy hair.
"Let's go," said Hermione, "c'mon. Harry - Ron..."
Astra desperately wanted to talk with Hermione, though this probably was her only chance of blackmailing Rita Skeeter, so she had to use it.
"Rita?" she said in a sweet tone with a falsely polite smile, as if they were old friends. "I was hoping that I could talk to you for a moment."
Rita looked at her with a slightly suspicious look before plastering on a grin and saying, "Of course, come right over here."
Luna and Astra were brought over to a table where Rita was now judgingly looking at Luna, specifically her sense of fashion, though Astra cut straight to the chase.
"Beetles are interesting creatures, aren't they?" she asked, giving her a bit of deja vu to seeing Wormtail for the first time.
The smirk was quickly wiped off of Rita's face.
"I know your secret," Astra said quietly, Luna nodding along with a solemn face, "And you try and write any more rubbish about me or my friends or any false relationships, then you'll be in Azkaban before you can pick up your quill."
Rita scoffed, most likely about to make some sort of comment about how Astra would know all about Azkaban, but ended up not being able to say anything as Astra's glare was intensifying.
She gulped, nodding and saying with a false tone of superiority, "Well, I'll find better things to write about, not needing any of your silly friends."
Rita stood up quickly and left the pub, leaving a very satisfied Astra Black and Luna Lovegood.
"Still liked the dramatic version better."
***
"It's the Black Lake," said Harry proudly in front of where Astra, Hermione, Luna, and Ron were sitting in the library. However, his smile vanished as he explained further, "And I need to figure out how to breathe underwater for an hour."
Astra and Luna didn't look surprised at all, though it honestly didn't look suspicious as they both weren't the most emotional people, but Hermione and Ron's jaws dropped.
"Of course, the ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or something," Hermione said. "If only we'd done human Transfiguration already! But I don't think we start that until sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don't know what you're doing...."
Astra chuckled, but quickly turned it into a cough, remembering she still hadn't told them about her successful animagus transformation.
"Yeah, I don't fancy walking around with a periscope sticking out of my head," said Harry. "I s'pose I could always attack someone in front of Moody; he might do it for me...."
"I don't think he'd let you choose what you wanted to be turned into, though," said Hermione seriously. "No, I think your best chance is some sort of charm."
"Really?" Astra inputted cleverly. "You know, I think I'm going to check in the Herbology section."
"Herbology? How's that supposed to help us?"
Astra sneered at Ron; she still wasn't completely over the Yule Ball incident. "There might be some sort of plant that could help us."
So, they put their head into research, Astra taking a bit of extra time than necessary to make it look realistic, occasionally making a comment every now and then.
"Hey, did you guys know that the Black Lake wasn't called the Black Lake before the 1970s? It used to be known as the Great Lake?"
"What? But why would they just change the name like tha-" Ron was cut off by Harry bursting into laughter, understanding what had happened.
"He actually did that?"
"Yeah!" Astra was chuckling now as well. "Apparently, it was a combined effort from him and my uncle, and they even got Andromeda into it because she was Head Girl that year."
"Andromeda?"
"Another cousin, she was also disowned. Married a muggleborn Hufflepuff, Ted Tonks. They now have a daughter, Nymphadora, who's an auror."
"I'm still confused," said Ron, needing Hermione to explain it to him, though he was laughing too when she finished.
They continued researching for a few minutes before Astra randomly found gillyweed, giving her classic smirk to Ron who looked quite defeated. She promised Harry that she would be able to steal it that night, obviously not saying that it was already in her dorm.
***
A/N: Okay, I think I might do these more often, not sure, but I like them. Really, this is just to explain a few things that I wanted to make clear. You've heard of the butterfly effect? You probably have. Well, it's very obvious here, and I just wanted to point out a few of them.
1. Astra tells Marlene to stop stalking Moody (I love Marlene so much), which leads to her not finding out about his true identity.
2. Astra leads Harry to go to the Prefect's bathroom earlier, which means that he doesn't run into Moody and Snape.
3. Astra confronts and blackmails Rita Skeeter earlier, meaning that she won't be able to publish that article about Harry later, which sets the foundation for the ministry issue in fifth year. Obviously, that whole issue won't be completely resolved (because Fudge is an idiot), but I do have some things to make it more interesting.
I would like to say that I have skipped multiple chapters in the real book, simply because of these butterfly effects, and I'm trying to skim over a bit of this, seeing as it's not that important.
Thanks again for all the support on this! It's incredible <3
P.S. The headcannon about the Black Lake is something I found hilarious and saw somewhere on Tiktok; I just loved it and needed to put it in somewhere.