~Astra~

Little Star,

I don't think there's a way to say any of this that will paint me in a good light, so I will simply tell you the truth.

Yes. I did. I regretted it before it had even been done, but it didn't seem like I had another choice at the time. Voldemort had threatened to kill me if I wasn't loyal to him, and I knew my mother would kill me if he forgot. If I ran, I thought they would find me. So, when I was told to go take care of a couple they thought was in the Order of the Phoenix, I went. I didn't want to, but I suppose what you want doesn't matter a lot when it doesn't line up with what you do.

They didn't feel any pain. I wasn't crueler than necessary. But I wasn't expecting a child to come down the stairs, calling for her parents. I was supposed to kill anyone in the house, but she looked like she was twelve or thirteen. And crying. And so scared. Of course. Her parents were dead, and I was standing over their bodies, holding a wand and looking at her.

I think I told her to run. I can't remember. But she didn't run, just pulled out her wand like she was going to fight me. I ran before she could. And I decided then what I should have decided long before, that none of that was worth it and I would rather run and die than be part of Voldemort's cause.

I found out much later that the Havernas weren't even in the Order, anyway.

The face of Elaine Haverna still haunts my waking nightmares.

I'm sorry I never told you this. I'm sorry you heard it from someone else, though I suppose your professor is the best person it could've been. Harry Potter told me it wouldn't be wise to bring that up, not yet, not until you were older. He thought it would be too complicated for you to process with everything else going on. Of course, I am not saying it's his fault. I agreed with him.

I'm very sorry, my dear. I know this is a lot to think about. And I know telling you that I am not the same man I was 25 years ago is not enough in light of what I did, but it is true.

Love, Orion.

~~~~

"I can't do this."

"You can," Ciara insisted, sighing. "You just have to believe you can."

"That's the worst advice anyone could ever give, Ciara."

"Well, in this case it's true. You won't be able to resist the Imperius Curse until you think you can do it."

I rolled my eyes and leaned back. Maybe that made sense, but I was still frustrated. I was making no progress, two full weeks in. Or maybe I was. It wasn't like we could test it. Not that I'd actually suggested it, but Ciara was staunchly refusing to cast the Imperius Curse on me to see if I could resist it, or even to let Colette do it. Which made sense, I guess. I didn't want anyone doing anything illegal. I just wasn't very confident that I could actually do it.

Ciara sighed again. "I know it sounds ridiculous, all right? I get it. But it does work. I promise."

"It worked for you."

"Yeah? And we're cousins. You can do anything I can, can't you?"

"More than that," I muttered. I was trying to annoy her, but I wasn't sure why. I really didn't want her to give up on me and leave, but I was trying to make her do that. I think I just didn't want to think about any of this.

Ciara just laughed at me. "I can do nonverbal magic too, now, actually. And last I checked, I've beat you to the Snitch a couple of times. I think we're getting even."

"Well, I can't do this, so," I said. I tried to think of an implication, but couldn't. For a moment, it just hung in the air.

"With that attitude, yeah," Ciara said. She shrugged. "Honestly, if you want to let your mind be controlled by anyone who feels like casting the Imperius Curse, that's fine. I'd thought that idea would make you angry enough to want to do something about it, but I guess I was wrong..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ciara put her hands up, the picture of innocence. "Oh, nothing. Just that the Astra I know would be really angry if someone was trying to control her."

I glanced at her. What the heck did that mean? I was angry literally every day. "What do you mean, I'm not angry?"

"Are you?" Ciara raised an eyebrow. "I can't tell."

"Do you want me punching through a wall every time I'm angry?"

"No. Just channel it into trying to change something. If you're actually angry, don't just be resigned to your fate if you can do something about it."

"But I don't know if I can."

"If you're upset enough, you won't have to worry about that."

I sighed. "I am. Really."

"I can't tell," Ciara repeated. She shrugged. "That's the trick, though. You get angry when it happens, angry enough to resist it. And then it's easier."

"If you say so." Somehow, I was having a hard time believing it would be easier.

I guess it was nice to be working towards something, though. Everywhere else, I was either hitting dead ends. Or, worse, simply watching other people do things. Wren, slipping away to go spy on her uncle and bring him down from the inside. Colette, making spells with Haverna that the DA could use. Faith, churning out articles bringing attention to all the things people were trying to forget.

Gideon and Vinnie had become pretty popular, too, it felt like. They were getting bigger stories. The past time or two we'd had a Hogsmeade visit, they'd been out of town, covering something or other in London or wherever the hottest news was. We had to keep reminding Colette that we weren't supposed to act like we liked them.

Their latest article was over two big parliament members, Cecilee Hardins who was over the Improper Use of Magic Department, and Justus Purdue, from the Muggle-Worthy Excuses committee. Apparently, they had founded a new committee ("absolutely brilliant," Vinnie called it) called the Purity Board. In between gushing about their brilliance and leadership skills, Vinnie threw in a couple facts about this committee that was dedicated to preserving British wizardkind against all threats, whether they were muggle, foreign, or otherwise. Everything for our safety, of course.

Within the week, Faith had an issue dedicated to this committee no one had ever heard about. It was registering all wizards and witches in Britain, and particularly keeping track of the ones who interacted with muggles, potential DA members, or foreigners. Not so brilliant.

Honestly, this was like setting another fire in a house that was already burning down. I hardly reacted.

Colette, Albus, Poppy, and I had not totally abandoned our quest to find out as much as we could about the missing children and all the murders no one was talking about. Later that week, Mr. Potter called me up to his office to pass along a package Teddy had asked him to give me. Inside were copies of the files he'd managed to pull from the auror office. Hope this was worth all the trouble, his note said. It looks like there's missing information.

"Things are getting covered up?" Colette asked when I read the note to the others. She always sounded excited. "I knew it."

"That's not super helpful for us, is it?" Poppy asked. "We already suspected that, and now we're just at a dead end, aren't we?"

"Maybe," Colette conceded. She reached for one of the files I'd spread out on the table. "I suppose we'll see what's in here that we didn't know before."

"Let's see." Albus pulled out the sheet we'd started calling the masterlist, our best compilation of every missing child and the relevant information we could find about them. "We're at almost four dozen now, as of last week."

"I'm not sure if Teddy got the file for that case last week," I said. "The rest should be here, though, if he could find them."

It took five hours for us to read through each file. It took three more days for us to compare all the information. We didn't learn very much new, exactly. However, we weren't just keeping track of what information we did find, but also what information we didn't find. Namely, there were five children whose case files weren't included. Not just that they were missing large chunks of information, but that they were completely gone.

One of the children was Cassie Williams, a little girl who had disappeared about a year ago, and had been one of the first, I think. Her name had been in the paper, Colette said, which was why we knew it. Then there was a boy named Ryder Portland, who had been missing for only a few weeks and had been mentioned in the Quibbler. The other three were children we hadn't been able to find names of, who had essentially been erased from existence. Empty photos, children's rooms with no explanation, that kind of stuff. I'd been hoping we would get a few files with names we didn't recognize, to match them, but no such luck.

Poppy started cross-checking those five against everyone else, to see what was different, but we couldn't figure it out. The three who had disappeared completely made sense, but why the others? The only interesting things about Ryder and Cassie were that Ryder was the oldest we'd found so far, at 12, and Cassie had been the first.

"But none of this makes sense," Albus said, putting his head on the table. "We still don't even know why Stillens cares about a bunch of muggle children. You'd think if he waned leverage, a few would be enough. I think threatening to kill one child is alarming. Why go to the trouble of having forty-six?"

"Maybe he just has a bunch of perverts that work for him," Colette suggested.

Poppy's mouth dropped open. "That's horrible, Colette. Oh my gosh. I don't want to think about that."

"But thinking about children getting kidnapped after their families are murdered is fine?"

"Oh, shut up."

I shook my head. "The why isn't as important. I just want to know where they are. If we can find some clue that might help us find them, maybe the DA can save them."

"I don't know if we're going to be able to find that," Albus said. "They've got the government covering their tracks."

"There's got to be something we're missing," I argued.

"I mean, if we could get internet access here, we'd be able to see if the Muggle news outlets covered any of these stories," Poppy said. "I know they get a fake story, but at least they can't really be censored. Maybe, with so many cases they let something slip that they didn't intend to."

"How do we get internet access?" Colette asked.

"Sneak out to Hogsmeade, I suppose," Poppy said, shrugging.

"That's not a bad idea," I said, raising an eyebrow.

Colette frowned. "I don't know. I'm not sure they'll have any information that's different than we do."

"What else should we do, then?" Albus asked. "It feels like we're at a bit of a dead end, otherwise. This sounds like it's worth a shot."

We decided to sneak out to the Hog's Head that Sunday. Saturday would have been better, but the Gryffindor Slytherin Quidditch match was Saturday, and that would complicate everything no matter who won. Albus and I would either be expected to party in the common room till dawn or commiserate with the rest of the team. Poppy and Colette could sneak out on their own, of course, but Albus and I wanted to help, so Sunday made more sense.

Among other news, Albus and James found out about all of Lily's boyfriends since Elmer when she broke up with the third one. This one was a Hufflepuff fourth year, and she broke up with him because he was "too focused on grades," which was ironic considering the last one "hadn't been focused enough," according to Ciara. I didn't remember Ciara and Lily being friends, but I guess Quidditch had brought them together. They were in the same House, anyway. It might just have been Slytherin gossip.

Albus and James got together and tried to stage an intervention, because Lily was clearly not acting wisely if she'd broken up with three guys in six months. Lily just got angry and cussed both of them out, I guess, and they weren't talking anymore. I didn't really care, which is kind of horrible, but the Potters were more than capable of making up when they felt like it. I didn't have the energy to meddle like I normally would have.

I didn't have energy for a lot of things lately. Most of them were Wren, which made me feel bad. I knew she wasn't having the easiest time, because she never was, but I wasn't, either, and didn't always feel like I could put up with her. And she was always around, it felt like. Not too close, but close enough that I knew she was there.

Something had shifted, though. After I'd told her she was ruining everything, she'd backed off almost completely. She said good morning, always had a smile. When we sat next to each other in class, it wasn't like she ignored me. But she'd stopped pushing. She'd stopped expecting me to answer anything she said, it felt like. She hadn't stopped talking, but the pressure to respond had disappeared. I didn't know how to feel about it.

The thing was, I'd gotten so used to being frustrated by her that I wasn't sure how to stop now. Even though she wasn't actually doing anything that frustrated me, her presence was annoying. Not that I wanted her to leave. I was scared she would, honestly, and I wouldn't have blamed her for it because I was being a crappy friend and I was fully aware of it. Every time I ignored her hello, I could tell it hurt. Every time I got frustrated at nothing, I could tell she was confused. Every time I saw her and got annoyed, I knew I was wrong. But I couldn't stop. Something kept making me push her away, lash out at her, blow everything she did out of proportion.

But she kept coming back, too. I wasn't doing anything right, of course, so that was no testament to how I was acting. More of a testament to the fact that she was a much better friend than I deserved. I knew that. Somehow, it only made me more frustrated.

James was starting to get annoyed with me. I cared a little less about that, because we had always been in and out of being annoyed with each other and eventually he'd get over it. Well, if I started getting over things, I supposed. I was causing all my own problems, wasn't I? So why couldn't I stop?

But, yes, James was getting annoyed. I could tell he was trying, but he was getting colder, only really hanging out with me when he had to, like for Quidditch or because he was with Wren, and she was with me. I suspected he was only trying to be civil because Wren was asking him to, which was absolutely fantastic. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded just fighting, outright. Maybe something inside me would release amidst all the chaos and I could go back to normal.

Albus was the one I was ranting to about Wren and James, lately, because he didn't really answer at all. He just listened, and sometimes lightly suggested that maybe I consider their feelings, until I glared him into silence. It wasn't that I didn't talk to Colette, of course, but she tended to just encourage me when I was ranting, which was satisfying in the moment, but only made me feel worse afterwards. I ended up saying a lot of things that I didn't mean. Well, I did mean them, I guess. I didn't want to admit them. If I did, I had to face the fact that I was being a completely horrible person to my friends who had been putting up with me for so long and only wanted to help and I didn't have the mental energy to face that thought.

I knew the four of them talked about me. I knew they were comparing this to second year, when I went a little mad trying to find information about my mum. I knew they were worried that all this was getting to me, that I was reacting exactly how Stillens wanted me to. They didn't say it to my face, not anymore. But I knew. And maybe they were right. I was doing the best I could, though. Well, I wasn't, I suppose. I was being unnecessarily irritable. But even when I tried, I couldn't stop. It was easier to not try.

On top of that, I had started having these weird dreams. And I know I have a lot of weird dreams, and there are a lot of different types of weird already, but these were a new type of weird. Actually, I'm not sure that they were that weird, in and of themselves. Everyone dreams that they're falling once in a while, and wakes up disoriented with their heart beating quickly. But I don't think that happens every night to most people. The thing was, I could never see anything around myself when I was falling. It wasn't like I was falling off a building, or even through air. I never saw the ground coming. It was blackness all around, like One's void, but even darker. And of course I remembered them, but I had a feeling they were so simple that I would remember them whether they were "important" or not. I didn't know what to make of them. Maybe someone was going to push me off a building in the near future. Maybe I was just stressed. I decided to avoid cliffs, but otherwise not worry about it.

~~~~

Dear Father,

I wish you had told me

"No," I muttered, crumpling up that one, too. I tossed it over my shoulder onto a comically large pile of rejected letters. The thing was, I had no idea what to say to my dad. Murder isn't the kind of thing you can write off easily with an "oh, yeah, that's fine!" I didn't know how I was feeling about any of it, so I hardly knew where to start.

Dear Father,

I don't know what I'm feeling. Or thinking. About anything in general, but especially this. I'm sorry. It's just a lot.

I know you've changed, and you're not the same person you were back then. I just don't know how to process any of this. There's not a category in my head for "My dad is a murderer" to fit into

I groaned and crumpled that sheet up, too. That one had been going good, it felt like. Why was this so hard?

It had been five days since I'd gotten the letter from my dad. Five days that I'd had to formulate some kind of response. I waved my wand and sent all the crumpled letters to the fireplace, then put my parchment and quill away. Today was going to make six days, and tomorrow would likely make seven. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know how I was supposed to react.

So here I was, falling back on my recent favorite: doing absolutely nothing and hoping the problem resolved itself. Success rate was zero percent so far. Because the only person who might remotely understand and know how to help me was the one person I'd been avoiding talking to for months. I'd been building a wall for months, I guess, and I didn't know how to knock it down now.

~~~~

Question of the Day: Thanksgiving was pretty recent for my American followers. What are you guys thankful for right now?

Answer: I'm thankful for so much. God recently placed a few amazing friends in my life, which is good because college is rough and sometimes really lonely. Also, I only have one final exam left before Christmas break, which is fantastic!

Vote and comment!

~Elli