Astoria is small and sick, but that's okay. Her disease is not one that wizards recognize, and only comes in bouts during winter, when the weather is gray and muddled. Luna - her cousin and best friend - says the muggles know what she has, and Luna helps in the most Luna way possible, saying sunbaths and weird owl-like glasses will get her away from episodes where she either spends her day in bed, with barely any energy to do anything, or when she eats her heart out.

It's little, what Luna can do, but Luna's smiles are sometimes as bright as the sun, even when walking barefoot through the snow - Astoria did offer to help find the people who had taken Luna's shoes, but the girl simply shrugged and told her it had been the Nargles, and they'd give it back in due time. Astoria frowned, but knowing Luna, the girl truly believed in those odd creatures. Astoria, while half believing and half not buying it, just wishes Luna accepted the help.

However, it's thanks to Luna, who always tries her best to heal Astoria, that Astoria decides to get into healing. Someone's has to do it, especially when Luna's adventures with her father during summer have her going through forests to some creature or another. It starts small - Episkey and Ferula, going through these with Luna several times a month, during school, so Luna could remember them during her travels. Astoria still worries, which just makes her go through the library to find more healing spells, occasionally ordering a book or two to the point it makes her mother chuckle and her father sigh.

It's alright, and Astoria keeps learning more.

It does come handy her sixth year, when war is raging around her, and Astoria has to sneak through the darkness to heal Luna and her friends in the resistance. Astoria, who never rebelled a day in her life, now works for what her father calls "bloodtraitor, mudblood lover scum". Her perfect sister reproves, but says nothing, and Astoria is glad for it.

One day she is caught, by no one less than Draco Malfoy. Astoria knows him, but from far- he is one of her sister's friends, and Daphne barely aknowledges her for speaking with "Loony", as everyone seems to know her as. Astoria would curse them to oblivion, but what curses does she know? She is no Weasley with a Bat-Boogey Hex, and healing spells don't cure a nasty personality.

"Where are you going?", he asks, holding her by her arm. She looks offended at him, and his grey eyes try to read her expression. Astoria is not a book to be read, however.

"I do not recall it being any of your business, Malfoy,", she snarls, wrenching her arm away from him. "Get lost, Draco."

"You have been walking too much with scum.", Draco says, scandal written in his pale face. She smiles as inocently as she can.

"I could say the same, Malfoy,", Astoria gives back, and straightens her robes, marching away. Draco quickly caughts up with her, which just makes her feel like she lost something. At least, this time, he doesn't grab her.

"You should be more careful. They are talking, as I'm sure you know,", he whispers. Astoria just shoots him an odd look.

"So? Let them speak, it's not like they weren't talking already.", Astoria rolls her eyes. Did he think she was deaf? That she had no tact? Of course she knew, but she was a pureblood aristocrat whose father worked for the Dark Lord. Astoria couldn't be touched, and she did her best to use that in Luna's favour.

Draco shakes his head, displeased. So this wasn't the answer he was looking for. Astoria was so shocked she didn't even blink at his reaction.

"You know what the Carrows speak reaches our Lord, right?", he speaks, fear tinting his voice. Astoria manages to control an eyeroll.

"I am young, not stupid. I know they speak about what supposedly I do,", Astoria replied, and Draco sighed.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

She tells him to kindly suck a dick, and storms off, right to the resistance base, where people look at her carefully, trying to see her for the slimy Slytherin she never truly identified as.

Still, her father told her she'd better be a Slytherin or else, and Astoria was never truly in the mood to find what else meant. Probably a Crucio.

Astoria finds the meaning of else later, on her way home for Easter break, when Luna is kidnapped in the train by Death Eaters in front of her, Astoria mid-spell, too dazed to do anything, trying to heal some awful gash Weasley doesn't want her mother to see. Her father, wearing his Death Eater robes, lingers a tad too long, as a silent "this is else.", and Astoria wants to tear his throat out, but she knows no spell for that.

Weasley blames her, and kicks her out. Astoria gathers the shambles of her dignity as she rises up, cleans her robes, and goes to cry in the bathroom.

When she passes Draco, she quietly tells him off, and the look of pity he gives her is infuriating. She does nothing, still, fot there is nothing for her to do.

At her house, things aren't much better, and Astoria manages to last three and a half hours before her father makes a harrumping comment on "Lovegood's bloodtraitorous ways" getting them in trouble, her mother not even looking to Astoria.

She smiles sweetly, and goes to her room, where she tells the house elf to pack her things.

Astoria flees to her aunt Sophia's house, full of crystals and books, and if she tells the woman to not tell her father where she is, no one needs to know.

Without Luna, even the clear sky seems dark, and Astoria lets herself fall into lethargy, staying in bed all day, eating like there's no tomorrow at night. It's a bout of her strange sickness, in the middle of spring.

It all changes when a letter arrives for her, the seal of Malfoy family in silver wax making her raise an eyebrow as she opens it. Aunt Sophia ignores her, as always, and Astoria starts reading it.

Greengrass junior, it starts, beautiful penmanship showing itself off. Astoria keeps reading, and the next lines make her drop the parchment in the table.

Loony isn't dead. She's at my house, in fact. I'm sure you remember it, but did you know it had dungeons? I didn't. The more you know.

Is Loony being tortured? Of course, she's under Bellatrix Lestrange's care, I'm sure you've heard of her. Just to reiterate, your precious little cousin isn't dead. I told you you'd be punished.

I'll try my best to not let her be too tortured. I'm sure you recall what happened with Longbottom's parents.

There's no signature, and Astoria has no time to lose. She tells the house elf to brew some fresh tea, and dives into studying healing, leaving the quiet aunt Sophia behind.

It's the least she can do for Luna.

In the end, when she tells Longbottom - now alone, Weasley and Luna gone - she can help, she can still heal them, the other members of the resistance boo her.

"Who do you think you are? You're just a Slytherin, you probably sold Luna off!", someone cries, and Astoria panicks, excuses flying out of her lips.

Longbottom, weak willed Longbottom, who knows pureblood lineage as well as she does, says nothing. She wants to dare him to prove them wrong, to let them know Luna is as much of her friend as she is theirs, but nothing.

In the end, Astoria gives up and goes out of the resistance hideout, controling the tears that threaten to leave her eyes. She manages to make it to the closest corner before bawling like a baby. Somewhere between her sobs, company approaches her and sits by her pathetic side. She doesn't aknowledge whoever it is.

When her tears dry and her face is puffy, Draco silently offers her a handkerchief. She accepts it silently, blowing her nose and cracking the smallest of the smiles when he refuses to take it back.

She scourgifies it and puts it in her robe pocket. Since he didn't want it back, it is Astoria's now.

"How is she?", Astoria asks, and Draco shrugs.

"Alive. A bit roughed up. She'll live,", Draco answers. "I managed to convince our Lord that, when he wins the war, he can have her as a scholar or something. He wasn't very sure about it."

Astoria nods quietly.

"Thanks. I guess, I mean, it's still Luna being tortured in your house, but at least she isn't going to become some old lord's bride,", she says, and Draco pales. Astoria flinches, automatically so. "It was considered."

"Yes. She did make a great impression of herself by playing…. Well, loony. I do have to admit that our Lord's face when she told him about Nargles was quite something."

Astoria simply stares at nothing, and Draco falls silent. They stay like that for what seems like an eternity.

When she rises up to go to her room, he doesn't follow, and Astoria walks alone for what feels like the first time in forever. She is ignored by the students in the Common Room, who she is sure don't even know her name. Her sister doesn't look at her, and Astoria extends the exact same courtesy as she makes a beeline for her room.

If she cries, no one needs to know.

Hours turn into days which turn into weeks, and one day, while she quietly walks in the darkened halls, not even sure what day is today, a hand touches her arm. She turns and finds Luna, Longbottom behind her seeming embarassed. Astoria pulls Luna into a hug, and if she could, she would melt.

"How?", she asked, and Luna smiled softly.

"That's a long story. I feel like we have some cookies waiting for us, though.", Luna waved for Neville to accompany them, and the boy did.

Astoria could've told Luna what he didn't do, but she didn't have the guts for that. Instead, Astoria and Luna instead traveled through shadows to the resistance base, and talked in hushed tones between glances to see if anyone was coming on their way there.

Astoria fell quickly back in her healing schedule, until one day. Astoria would only learn the date years later.

While she healed a recently-Crucio'd third year, when Harry Potter and company came in through the portrait. She cursed under her breath and readied her wand, waiting for the spells that were never thrown to her.

Potter and company are looking for something, and Luna, smiling to Astoria ever so briefly, tells she knows who knows where it is. As soon as Luna is gone, Astoria slids herself out and pretends she knows nothing. She goes to the Great Hall, and eats her food - it tastes bland, anyway - quietly.

It's not like she has anyone to talk with.

Hours later, Astoria is hushed to the dungeons, the war breaking out in the gardens of Hogwarts, and Daphne says her goodbyes in the most affectionate way she ever spoke before joining the fight. Which side Daphne fights for, Astoria cannot know, and as such, she sleeps through war.

When the Dark Lord's voice ressonates through every corner of Hogwarts, it wakes her up, and Astoria wonders, while he speaks, if it has been hours, days, or weeks.

I should get a better grip on time, Astoria thinks, reading her wand, ready to throw any curse out - if she knew any curses. She was better suited to heal the enemy than maim them.

She finds her way to the Great Hall, where the sick and dead congregate, and starts doing what she knows best. She sees Daphne running to what looks like Blaise Zabini, but keeps her head down, working. Astoria speaks briefly with Luna, and flees when she hears the Dark Lord telling all to head over to the court.

She stays with the sick and the dead, casting colorful spells for the kids until all shouts of war become shouts of happiness, and heads back to the Great Hall to see the Dark Lord dead.

Astoria blinks, looking through the crowd to see how the little Death Eaters in school were reacting to the Dark Lord's death, and finding it odd she didn't see Draco there.