I'm sure most of you have heard, but Tyler committed suicide a few days ago. I don't care what he did to us, but that's terrible. That he was in such a bad situation that he thought that was his best option. Those of you who are Christians, could you take a moment and pray for his family and friends? This must be hard on them as well. Thanks.

~~~~

My favorite spell is Accio (the summoning charm) because I am a very lazy person and if I could just summon everything I needed in the morning right to my bed I would be happy.

So, as I start writing this it's still Thanksgiving, and I rarely start the next chapter the day I publish the last one these days. Strange, yes? I always have so much time during the holidays that I don't know what to do with myself. Might as well write ahead, right? That means that once I finish this, I'll have more time to plan out the next book.

~~~~

I slammed another book shut, getting more discouraged with each one I put back on the shelf. Why was this so hard? Why couldn't finding information about my mom be easy? Why couldn't wizards have Internet? My mom was alive twelve years ago; surely she had Facebook, or Instagram! I'd be able to get on the Internet at the public library in the muggle world over the summer, but I just couldn't wait that long.

Maybe I needed try again to convince Madam Pince to let me see the records. If I could just see those, my search would be so much easier.

It had been almost a month since the invisible assailant tried to steal the Cloak, and now that the Quidditch season was over, I was skipping as many practices as I could without Jaycee exploding. Most of my free time had been spent in the library; I'd even stopped helping with the Quidditch lessons, much to James and Fred's disappointment. I'd gone through four entire bookshelves. Four out of dozens, perhaps hundreds. I tried not to think about that.

I sighed as I put the book back on the shelf and stood up. My legs had fallen asleep from sitting on the floor for so long, and I cringed as I felt the prickling feeling in them as the blood rushed to them. After a minute, when I trusted that they wouldn't simply give out, I walked over to the front desk.

I paused a few feet away, fixing my most innocent smile on my face. After a second, I stepped up to the desk. "Madam Pince?" My voice was sweet, and I hoped it didn't sound as fake as it was.

The librarian looked up at me, obviously suspicious. "What? Did you hurt one of my books?"

I blinked. "No, I didn't. I was just wondering if I could look at the records of students-"

"And why would I let you do that?" Madam Pince asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Well, you let Rose Weasley see them a few months ago, and she let James Potter see one, and they're still just how they were."

Madam Pince glared into the distance. "She let James Potter even look at one of my records?"

"Yes, so if he didn't hurt it, surely you'll trust me..."

Madam Pince wasn't paying any attention to me anymore, though. She was grumbling to herself about the Potters, I think, and people in general. I always felt like she'd prefer that the library were simply banned from students.

I slowly wandered back to the bookshelf I'd been working at and sat down again. It only took a second to find where I'd left off, and soon I was back to work.

I worked my way down the row, carefully scanning the references in the back of each book. I didn't really notice the passage of time, so it was a bit of a shock to see Albus appear behind me.

"Astra? The library's about to close," he said quietly.

"Oh, is it?" I frowned as I noticed that there was no longer sunlight pouring through the windows.

"You missed supper."

"Oh," I said, pulling another book down. "I can eat tomorrow."

"Um... No." Albus crouched down next to me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" I skimmed the references of the book I was holding. Finding nothing, I put it back.

"Astra, you've been up here since eight this morning."

I finally glanced over at my friend. He looked worried, which was touching, but I didn't see what there was to worry about. "What? I had lunch."

"A few chocolate frogs you managed to sneak in here don't qualify as lunch," Albus said. When did he get so sassy? Maybe being around me so much was changing him, after all.

I sighed. "What do you want me to do, then?"

"Come to the kitchens and get something to eat. You're going to make yourself sick, Astra. You've skipped dinner all week."

I knew I wouldn't be able to convince Albus to leave me alone. When he was worried, he could be very stubborn. I slowly stood up and followed him out of the library.

We took a detour to the kitchens, though we didn't go in. There was a house elf waiting for us with a plate of food, which was just as well because we only had a few minutes left until curfew. We ran up to Gryffindor Tower, trying not to spill any food.

After I'd waited about thirty minutes, and managed to eat all of the food the house elves had provided, I slipped away from Albus and went in search of James. Luckily, he was doing homework by himself.

"James? Can I borrow the Cloak tonight?"

James looked up from his book, frowning. "Why...?"

"To go to the library, of course."

"You've been there all day! You need sleep, not more books."

I frowned. "Oh, come on, James... I won't be gone long..."

James closed his book as I sat down next to him. "Oh, really? And I expect that if any invisible attackers come for you, you'll be able to handle them?"

"James, really? The attacker only knew the Cloak was with you because he saw you stuff it in your bag! He won't even see me."

"Yes, and I suppose books magically floating off shelves all on their own won't raise an alarm with him? And certainly not when the books put themselves back where they belong, either."

"Now that's not fair-"

James put his hand on my arm in a brotherly way. "Astra, no. You're spending way too much time in the library as it is. Anyway, Dad's right about not sneaking out. If Pouri can turn invisible, I'm sure he has ways of knowing when students are out after hours."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't argue anymore. If he was going to be stubborn, whatever. I stood up without another word and walked away.

I really was tired. I stumbled up the stairs to bed and barely even noticed the worried looks my friends gave me as I passed. I was fine! My friends were all just going mad. I was asleep before I even knew it.

"Sissy, I promise, you'll be perfectly fine while we're gone."

It was hard to take in surroundings while focusing on a person speaking. Luckily, I recognized where we were. It looked like an older version of Platform 9 3/4.

The girl who had just spoken looked like she was about my age, with black curls to her shoulders. She was wearing a very old fashioned muggle dress. Whatever time period this was, that dress had to be out of style.

The girl she was talking to was nine or ten. Like her sister, her dress looked old, and her long blonde hair was in a very complicated braid that I would have loved to try on Mara's hair in the days that braiding was my only enjoyment.

One other girl was there, with shoulder-length brown hair. She looked like a first year, maybe. Probably the middle child.

"Father would never hurt you," she was saying to her younger sister, while hugging her.

"He... He's hurt you two..."

"But you won't be stupid, and you'll obey him, like you always do, right?" the oldest girl asked. "Annie and I got in trouble because we broke the rules."

The youngest sister didn't look convinced, but nodded. "I'll miss you..."

"It'll be Christmas before you know it," Annie said. "I'll send you an owl as soon as I know what House I'm in, okay?"

The oldest girl laughed. "Like she even has to wonder. You'll be in the same House everyone in our family is."

The youngest stared at Annie with wide eyes. "I hope I'm in your House, Annie, when I go to Hogwarts. I'll be with you at school the longest."

The older girl frowned. "Don't talk that way. We'll all be together, right? And in a few years, you'll get the honor of welcoming our cousins."

The younger girls both smiled at that. Whoever these younger cousins were, they were apparently inspiring good memories.

I woke up the next morning, a little reluctantly. I wanted to keep dreaming. That had been a nice dream. I'd dreamed about those girls before, I thought. I almost woke Rose up to tell her, but decided against it.

After breakfast, I went immediately to the library once more. Weekends had turned into my favorites times, since I didn't have classes. It gave me almost the whole day to work. Today, though, I'd at least try to go down for lunch. I didn't want anyone to worry about me, really, and I had felt a little sick yesterday from the lack of food.

Try as I might, I lost track of time once again. When I looked up, it was almost three o'clock. I sighed and stood up. Might as well go get a snack, then. Then I wouldn't have to take an hour to eat dinner, and Albus would be happy since I'd eaten.

I skipped down to the kitchens, where we'd come last night, before realizing I had absolutely no idea how to get in. There weren't any doors! I sighed and sat down against the wall, across from a painting of a bowl of fruit. Maybe one of the house elves would show up.

"Hello?" I called after a minute. "Any house elves...? Or food...?"

Immediately, there was a loud pop, and a house elf appeared. "You called?"

I stared at the creature in surprise. "Uh... Oh, right, yes, could I have a snack or something? I missed lunch."

"Right away," the house elf said, bowing. With another loud pop, he disappeared.

I stared at the spot where he'd been for about a minute. House elves were weird.

Before long, he came back, bearing a tray with a bowl of fruit on it. I smiled my thanks and took it, popping a grape in my mouth as I headed back to the library.

When I reached the doors, I remembered that food of all sorts was strictly forbidden in the library, so I quickly shoved the rest of the grapes in my mouth and placed the bowl in the crooked arm of a suit of armor. I'd take it back to the kitchen tonight.

When I walked in, I was surprised to see Rose. Well, not surprised to see her, since she was in and out of the library a lot. I was surprised that she seemed to be waiting for me.

"Astra!" she said, putting on a smile that seemed a little too big to real. "Want to come study with me?"

I stared at her. "Um... I'm actually doing some-"

"Perfect," she said, looping her arm through mine. She pulled me through the library towards the study tables in the back. I rolled my eyes, but went along with it. Whatever this was, it would probably be entertaining. Because even Rose would never smile that much about studying.

Rose led me to a table that already had several people around it. James and Albus were sitting on either side of the empty chair that Rose made me sit in. Around the rest of the table were Scorpius, Luna, Arthur, Luke, and River.

"What's going on?" I asked, a little unnerved by all the weird looks they were giving me. Well, not weird, exactly. It looked like they felt bad for me, which was weird because there wasn't much wrong in my life right then.

"Astra," James said, in a very serious voice, "we're worried about you."

"What? Why?"

James held up his hand. "I'm getting to that. Anyway, where was I?"

"You just said you were worried about me."

"Right." James took a deep breath, then said, "Astra, don't argue until I'm done, please." He paused, so I shrugged and motioned for him to go on.

"Okay. We're worried because this... This obsession with finding out more about your mum is taking over everything." What? "Obsession"? Wouldn't he want to know everything about his mum if he'd only just learned her name? I opened my mouth to argue, so James sped up. "You're ignoring your health, and you're not eating enough, and we don't want you to get sick, Astra-"

"If you haven't noticed, I'm perfectly fine," I shot back.

"You aren't, Astra," Arthur said. "You've lost weight; I can tell by just looked at you."

"You haven't spoken to anyone except James and Albus for days, either," Luke added.

"If you get sick, you won't be able to go to the library at all," Luna pointed out.

"But I'm not going to get sick! I'm perfectly fine!" How could all my friends think this?

"Astra, we just want you to dial it back a little, that's all," Albus said. "Finding out about your mum is all well and good, but not if it becomes an obsession like this..."

"How can you say that?" I asked, staring at him in disbelief. "You, of all people, should know how much this means to me!"

Albus bit his lip. "Look, maybe you could just-"

"No!" I said, louder than I intended. Luckily, we were far enough away from the front desk that Madam Pince didn't seem to hear. Lowering my voice, I said, "You don't understand!"

"No, Astra, just listen," James said, sighing. "We're all here because we care about you, and we hate seeing you like this. Devoting every second to this isn't healthy, Astra."

I couldn't believe he was saying that. I couldn't believe all of them agreed. But no one contradicted him. I stood up, trying not to cry. "If you don't care enough about me to let me find out who I am, fine! Maybe you'll do better without me!" With that, I turned and walked away.

No one came after me, which meant they were either shocked or didn't care, and in my upset state of mind, I latched onto the latter.

I don't need them. They don't care about me. I can handle this myself. Over and over I repeated that to myself.

This wasn't fair. Didn't they understand? No, of course not. All of them knew who they were and where they came from. Couldn't they see that I needed that knowledge, too?

I wasn't paying any attention at all to where I was going, so when I ran into what looked like a walking bookshelf, I fell over along with all the books.

Colette didn't fall over, but immediately started picking her books back up. For some reason she didn't get mad at me, so I assumed it must have been her fault.

"Watch where you're going," I said, much louder than I meant to.

Colette looked up at me. "You can't tell in the library."

"Oh, I can't?" I rolled my eyes, keeping my voice at the same volume. "Prat."

"Shut up or you'll get both of us kicked out!"

I was kind of surprised that that was all she was doing. Last time we'd run into each other, we'd almost dueled. I didn't give myself time to think about it, though, before storming off once more, back to my shelf.

Why would my friends try to take away the one thing that could help me find out who I was? Well, they're not your friends anymore, I reasoned. Amy feelings of remorse instantly got shoved down. I was the victim here. They were all just trying to ruin my life and keep me in the dark. And I wouldn't talk to them again until they apologized.

~~~~

I can already feel the upset comments I'm going to get from you guys. I promise, I was cringing on Astra's behalf when I wrote this. But if Astra never did anything where you were screaming at her to turn around and start over, she wouldn't be very realistic. If Astra never made any mistakes, she'd be a Mary Sue, and I can't have that.

I have a secret. As I publish this, I'm working on Chapter 24. So, the next few chapters will probably flow better than any of the previous ones, because I'm editing them all at the same time. Unfortunately, school has now started again so I can't keep writing nonstop.

Question of the day: Which movie was your favorite? Which book was your favorite? Why? If they're different, explain that as well.

Vote and comment and send in questions for the Q&A!

~Ellie