She had always been scolded for being too free, like a fairy drifting aimlessly among the clouds. Her mind was wont to wander, and she would find herself bumping back into reality with no sense of what had been said to her. Her daydreams were numerous and varied - sometimes she was the princess of fairy tales, awaiting the handsome prince to rescue her. Other times, she wore armour and wielded her wand as the most powerful witch of all time would. But she liked the dreams of flying the most - on dragons, on winged horses, on broomsticks. Up amongst the clouds she found shapes in, with no one telling her to come back down.

Her family, even her beloved sister, warned her against trying out for the Quidditch team. There had been no female player on the Slytherin team for many, many years - perhaps never, records were notoriously unreliable. They wouldn't let her press longingly against the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, but forced her to keep moving, tripping along the cobbled street, longingly dreaming of a crowd with upturned faces cheering her name, her broom streaking through a burnished blue sky after the Snitch.

Curled in an armchair in the Hog's Head, terrified, she hears the whistling she dreams of overhead, and goes rushing to the window, ignoring the shrieks of those guarding every entrance for her to stay away from possible entrances. A collection of brooms flash through the dark sky, flying in a perfect, precise formation, and she smiles even as Daphne drags her back from the window, shouting.

When it's over, as the dust still hovers in a thick mist above the wreckage and the wails of those discovering the lives lost over the night echoing like thunder in the air, she wanders through the splintered, crumpled castle, letting her fingers trace cracks in the walls and heedless of the shrapnel pressing sharply into her feet through her slippers. The splintered remains of a broomstick are scattered like confetti on the ground, a hunched-up man lying nearby, and her heart stops at the sight. His face is turned away from hers - she can't tell if he's dead or alive.

And then he moves, and she lets out a shrill scream that brings a collection of those helping to treat the wounded running towards her. A dark-haired girl screams, "Oliver!" and conjures a stretcher, helping the man upright.

He gazes at her with dazed eyes, and smiles. "Your eyes are Puddlemere blue," he says softly. And, despite the circumstances, Astoria can't help the image of soaring high over a peaceful world, her arms wound tightly around his waist.

So, I've lately been thinking about writing longer stories surrounding the drabbles in this collection - in the same vein as I did for Narcissa/Hagrid. In particular, I've een thinking of Arthur/Andromeda and Lysander/Voldemort. What would any readers I still have think of that?