This a long time coming like a comet pass;
Got 'em all fired up from the rocket blast!
And if I fall on my sword turn my bones to ash...
Let it clog up the sand in that hourglass.
We're in the title fight, blow for a blow!
And you can reap the benefits of what I have to sow.
'Cause I'm about that worth of which you don't appear to know-
So you can take the scene while I take over the show.
A S T E R I A
C E C I L Y
F R E Y
third year │ gryffindor │ muggleborn
Aster stomped down the stairs, reflexively nodding her head to the song she was listening to. Her earbuds had rarely left her ears since she'd gotten home. She stalked into the kitchen, scrambling into a stool at the counter, swinging her legs the way she had been since she was a kid. After all, she was about to turn thirteen. She was a teenager. Aster had been eagerly anticipating this excuse to be horrible for what seemed like her entire life. Her father was leaning against the counter, reading the paper, and her mother was calmly preparing an omelette.
"Mum, I want one," she requested, removing one bud from one ear. Her father, without looking up from his paper, reached over and yanked the other one out as well. "Dad!" she yelped. "Don't!" He looked up at her, and Aster's stomach twisted at his very, very, unhappy stare. Oh s**t. Her parents had been normal since she'd gotten home, if a bit more quiet than usual. She hadn't really thought much of it, but now she was certain there were two possibilities. Possibility one was that they had found about the Hogsmeade thing that had happened last year. Possibility two was that this was about her 'forest excursion'.
"We're going to have a discussion," her mother spoke up calmly. "As a family." Aster hurried to do damage control as quickly possible. "Mum I-,"
"Asteria Cecily Frey, what in God's name were you thinking?" her father roared. "Sneaking out of your room in the middle of the night with some other hooligans, leaving the school, going into some God-forsaken forest?!" Aster was simultaneously amused by his use of the word 'hooligan', relieved this wasn't about the Hogsmeade thing, and terrified for her life. Couldn't they have just yelled at her as soon as she got off the train?! What sort of psychos waited until several days later to explode?!
"Bart," her mother said reprovingly, then went off herself. "Honestly, Asteria; if they call the forest 'forbidden' I would assume there's a good reason for it!" Aster winced; not only did it sound like they were just getting started, she was missing the chorus to the Wolfmother song she'd been listening to. "And you had the nerve to talk Pamela into it! I'm never going to be able to look her mothers in the face again!" Cecelia shrieked. "It'd be bad enough if you went alone, but you had to go in a group like some- like some gang! You could have been killed!"
"We didn't even get that far in," Aster retorted furiously. "All we saw was a unicorn and a bloody ghost! It was lame as hell!"
"Language," Bartholomew snapped. "We've spent the past few days discussing how to handle this- and your nonchalant attitude about it, miss." Aster was in shock. Her father was never this severe with her; he spoiled her rotten. Her mother was less indulgent, but still rarely raised her voice like this.
"When we send you off to school every September, we expect you to act your age," Cecelia continued irately. "Not like an entitled little brat who flaunts in the face of the rules left and right! You're lucky you weren't expelled!"
"You're lucky we're letting you go back in September," Bartholomew advised grimly.
"They weren't going to expel me," Aster scoffed. "We didn't even get in that much trouble." She realized the stupidity of that statement the moment it left her mouth. Her parents exchanged a look, before her mother snatched her phone, earbuds and all, away from her. "Starting now, no phone, no music, no computer, no telly, no anything until well into August for you. Since we clearly can't trust you, you're not going over to Pam's either, and if she wants to come over here there'll be a parent present the entire time."
"This is mental," Aster snarled, not about to meekly agree. "You can't do that! I've gone all year with no tech, you can't take it all away now! Why can't I visit Pam?! It was my idea, not hers!"
"Oh," Cecelia snarled right back, and for the first time Aster realized who she got her glare from. "We can, and we will. You're about to have a lot more chores, young lady."
"I hate you," Aster seethed, and her father looked taken aback, but her mother shoved a plate in front of her and said coolly, "Eat your damn omelette."
It's a long way down when your head is in the clouds...
And all around the sirens play; don't get in my way!
Don't tell me I should bow, 'cause I'm no clown;
And this is not a game, don't get in my way!
Poisoned by the snakes in the grass...
Hoaxed by the rats out the maze...
Shoulda never poked the lion as she passed;
'Cause now it's two hawks in a cage.
