A/N My endless apologies for the wait on this chapter! There was a death in the family and it was one of those things where I'm only just starting to get back on track. My classes have been my first priority, and we're reading Machiavelli in one of them, so I'm both really enjoying myself and developing a much greater appreciation for Astoria.

As per usual, credit must be given where it is due- the characterization of Daphne Greengrass is entirely from user Relic of Elegance, a good friend and an incredible writer. We've RPed the sisters, and she was kind enough to allow me to incorporate Daphne into this fic. Daphne is her baby.

A brief warning: things are about to get dark. Which I suppose you could have expected, but things are going to get REALLY dark. The relationship between Alecto Carrow and Astoria Greengrass may upset some readers; Astoria is involved in a lot of situations which can only be described as "psychologically abusive". I'll warn for every chapter, but if you stop reading because you're not up for this or interested in a storyline that's quite this dark, I won't be offended.

Thank you all so much for reading, and special thanks to everyone who's messaged me and left me reviews! You are, all of you, the greatest.

Everything seemed endless.

She would later be described as squat and ugly, but the fact remains that regardless of how historians paint her, Alecto Carrow had the kind of beauty that could start a war. To say her face was angelic was an understatement; she could look at you through those white eyelashes and curl her beautiful red lips up and you would do anything she asked. The more poetic called her a goddess made flesh. The way Alecto saw it, she had been made the personification of sin.

"It's been a long time, Veronique."

"That it has, cousin." At Veronique's side, Astoria stared up at this strange woman with the envy of a girl who believed herself to be plain. Alecto took a seat, her black skirt smoothed over her swaying hips, her legs stretched out and crossed. Even under her stockings, she looked carved from marble. "You remember my daughter, Astoria?"

Alecto's eyes dipped over the girl's frame and Astoria shifted nervously, suddenly naked and vulnerable under her guest's gaze. "She's grown nicely. She looks like you."

At this, Astoria swelled with pride; her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, as far as she was concerned, and if this woman saw something of Veronique in her…

Veronique took a seat, gesturing for Astoria to do the same, and leaned forward. "It's true, then? He's returned?"

"He returned a year ago, cousin, but none of you wanted to listen to Potter. You should have. You're going to have to make a choice: are you with Him, or against Him? There's no such thing as neutrality."

What were they talking about? Then Astoria saw it, the thick, dark outline of a serpent-tongued skull beneath the silky white sleeve of Alecto's blouse. Alecto caught her looking and grinned, all teeth and spread lips and pure ice.

"Not with my husband this ill. Neutrality has to exist. I can't. I can't leave him. You know this."

"What of your girl?"

Veronique hesitated, just enough that Astoria knew that they weren't talking about Daphne, even if her mother pretended they were. "She's not mine. She refuses to be mine. She wouldn't take the Mark if her own life depended on it; she thinks it shameful."

"I'm not talking about his girl, Veronique. Don't play games with me. I want my own blood with me when He kills the boy. How old are you now, Astoria?" she asked sweetly. Her voice was low and husky, made of ash, sex in speech, and Astoria felt her skin crawling.

"Fourteen, Miss Carrow."

"Call me Alecto, darling. We're family." Alecto leaned forward as well, setting both feet on the floor. Her voice fell to a whisper, and she raised one eyebrow as if making a joke only she understood. "She's got your fire, Veronique. I can teach her. I can train her." She stood and made her way to where Astoria sat, taking the girl's chin in her long-fingered hands and tipping it up. "Have you ever wondered what kind of greatness you could achieve, my girl?"

Veronique reached across to take Alecto's hand. "She's just a child."

"She's old enough," the blonde insisted, taking a step back and letting her eyes wander across Astoria's face. "Let's see what she wants."

Did they mean her to take the Dark Mark?

"She's still mine, and she's still a child, Alecto. And branding the Malfoy boy like that… it was foolish."

"The Dark Lord seems to think he shows promise," Alecto murmured, taking her seat again and looking agitated. "He wants to prove to that sniveling coward that his son is twice the man he'll ever be. You should look into that, chit," she added, pointing at Astoria with a wicked grin. "Make the Malfoy boy your pet and you'll not make the same mistake Narcissa made. He seems to show the kind of promise that Lucius could never fulfill."

What on earth was going on?

"Let us see how the Malfoy boy does. I'm not having my daughter Marked when she doesn't have protection at school, and Malfoy cannot keep her safe with this task on his shoulders." Veronique stood, signaling the end of the discussion, and gestured for Astoria to stand as well. She did, and Alecto moved to embrace the other witch, her arms tight around her cousin.

"I've missed you, Veronique. Make the right decision. When we succeed, our little D'Argentcour heir will live up to her name." Astoria tried not to flinch when Alecto reached for her and tipped her chin up again, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I look forward to the day you're mine," she murmured, brushing her fingers through Astoria's curls before turning and walking from the room. She didn't look back.

"Alecto Carrow is your cousin?"

"My maternal grandmother was her mother's sister. She was not of D'Argentcour blood, but of Devereux," Astoria explained, ignoring the pang of loneliness in her chest when she thought of Alecto's long fingers in her hair. She'd wondered time and time again why anyone would try to diminish the Carrows' beauty, before realizing the simple truth: accepting that such an angel's face could have guarded a demon's heart would have been too much to bear.

If you can't trust the angels, what have you left?

The woman had an American accent, probably from somewhere further down south, if the drawl was any indication. Her name was Irene, her hair was cut short, and she was killing time before meeting someone called Nebraska.

Of course, that wasn't his real name, but that was where he was from, and Astoria hadn't bothered to ask for any name other than Nebraska. The two, it seemed, had met while Irene was backpacking across Europe before heading home to the States for schooling.

It seemed a silly tradition, to wander about aimlessly in an unfamiliar continent, but Astoria supposed it wasn't any different than the way D'Argentcour boys toured Europe before finding a career or getting married.

Irene seemed surprised to find a fourteen-year-old girl sitting alone outside a coffee shop in London. She had no idea that Veronique was a shop over, speaking in hushed, angry tones ("If I wanted speculation I'd be asking my daughter's friends from school. As it is, they probably have more reliable information. Tell me what He's planning; we're all being sucked in now.")

"You okay, sugar?" she asked, and Astoria looked up and nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. Irene sat across from her, tapping short nails along her collarbones and setting her coffee cup down on the table. "What're you drinking?"

"A macchiato," Astoria answered carefully. She had no idea what it was but so far she liked it. The Muggle money her mother had left her felt almost like it was burning in the pocket of her cardigan. She reached back to tug at her braid, and Irene laughed.

"You like it?"

"Mhm."

Irene's eyes searched her face, and Astoria tried to ignore the discomfort of being so exposed. "You okay, baby?" she asked, and Astoria nodded. "You got a story?"

"Everyone's got a story," Astoria mumbled, and Irene laughed, delighted.

"Out of the mouths of babes!" She clapped once, her stack of bracelets clanging together, and leaned forward. "I'm Irene. Who're you?"

Giving out her real name felt like too much of a threat, and so Astoria shrugged. "Emily," she heard herself say, and Irene grinned.

"Mind if I sit with you, Emily?"

"Not at all."

Irene didn't ask her about herself anymore. Instead, she talked about Nebraska. She talked about how they were getting married in a few months and that right after the wedding, she'd be due with their baby. She didn't know if it would be a boy or a girl, but she'd picked out a few names just in case. On a whim, Astoria laughed and suggested her own name—her real name—and Irene paused.

"Astoria. I like that. That's real pretty. Where'd you hear it?"

"It's a family name," Astoria answered, only half lying.

"Well, I like it, sugar." Irene beamed, and she launched into another story about her adventures backpacking. They must have been sitting there for an hour or more when Veronique returned.

Irene stood when Veronique stood behind Astoria and extended her hand, grinning widely. "I'm Irene. Are you Emily's mom?" With a quick glance at Astoria, Veronique nodded, and Irene's grin somehow managed to grow. "She's a great kid, ma'am. I should get going. See you around, sugar." She waved cheerfully before taking her now-empty cardboard coffee cup and her bag and walking down the street.

Veronique looked at Astoria with quiet amusement as she gathered the notebook and pen she'd brought with her. "Who was that?"

"Just some American," Astoria murmured, changing the subject quickly. She didn't know how to react to Irene, and doubted her mother would know better. "What did you find out?"

The corners of Veronique's mouth turned downward and she set her jaw. "Nothing we didn't already know." She looked at her daughter curiously. "What are you thinking, little bird?"

"I'm going to have to take the Mark, aren't I?" she asked quietly, and Veronique didn't answer.

What a shame, she would think years later, that even at fourteen she had known that she would be putting something more important than her life on the line.

She started walking into the nearby village to read the morning newspapers from London. When she found Irene's wedding announcement—and how strange it had been, to see Nebraska's name written out, but she'd never think of him as anything other than Nebraska—she felt her eyes burning and she was oddly grateful that her brief friend had found what she'd wanted.

When she found Irene's name among the dead listed in the Daily Prophet, months and months later, she dropped the paper and sobbed for reasons she couldn't quite articulate. There was an emptiness she didn't know how to name carving its way through her chest and her bones felt hollow.

Later, she'd be able to identify it as 'grief', but the thought that she could grieve for some woman she'd barely known terrified her. If this kind of emptiness could be found through an hour's friendship, what would happen when she lost someone who really mattered to her?

Veronique tried to make Astoria forget about Alecto's visit, but there was something about the way she'd spoken that Astoria couldn't shake from her mind. When she'd been sorted into Slytherin, she'd been almost disappointed that she'd done as every single other member of her family who had attended the school; still, the idea that she had the cunning and ambition to become the kind of person she wanted to be made her ache with desire. The morning before she and Veronique went to Diagon Alley to pick up her supplies for the year she scribbled out a quick note that she'd send via post office when her mother wasn't looking. It made her ill to imagine lying to her mother but there were things that she had to know that Veronique wouldn't tell her.

What did you mean when you said that I had my mother's fire? What can you teach me?

-Astoria Greengrass

Alecto's response came barely an hour before they left for King's Cross. In the confusion of the morning she was able to grab the letter and slip it into her coat pocket when her mother wasn't paying attention; Daphne caught a glimpse of the flurry of parchment and raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow without saying a word. Not for the first time, Astoria wished that she and her sister were closer so that she would have someone in whom she could confide.

She kept her hand in her pocket, her fingers brushing against that letter, until she got onto the train and took a seat in one of the empty compartments closest to the back, her free hand closed around Millicent's and her eyes focused on everything and nothing at once. In a breathless hush she begged Millicent to keep watch, promising to explain everything as soon as she could, and pulled the letter out from her pocket as Millicent closed the compartment door.

My dear girl,

Your mother and I grew up together, closer than sisters. My summers at D'Argentcour Manor were the best of my youth. If anyone knows your mother's fire, it is I, without a single doubt.

The question isn't what I can teach you, but rather, what you're willing to learn. You have the potential to achieve the kind of greatness unheard of in our day; you can become the leader we'll need to help usher in a new age under a stronger and greater power than what any of us could ever dream.

Veronique is right, though: let your studies take precedence this year, and next summer you and I can begin our real training. In the meantime, we can continue our correspondence. I've already grown quite fond of you and look forward to seeing you grow from girl to woman.

I remain ever-faithful, your blood and your bones,

Alecto