HP Rare-Pair Challenge Justin/Astoria, part 1.
Title: Love songs for the smart, the lost and the messy
Character Pairing: Justin Finch-Fletchley/Astoria Greengrass
Prompt: A house is not a home
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1814
Summary: "Suddenly she realizes who the man is. She is listening to Justin Finch-Fletchley, a rising political star, as The Daily Prophet calls him."
Author's Notes: This is chapter one of what will be a longer story. I will be posting more chapters as I finish writing them. Thank you so much to kiertorata for being my beta! Any remaining mistakes are mine. Here's also a piece of cover art I made for this story.
Link to Prompt Table: Prompt Table Justin/Astoria
It’s a hot day in August, unusually hot for Southern England. Astoria feels drops of sweat running down the back of her neck as she tries to find her way out of the noisy crowd. The courtyard in front of the university entrance is packed with new students. Someone hands her a leaflet - “Join the student council today and be the change of tomorrow” - and she folds it in a desperate attempt to use it as a handheld fan. A wizard in a colorful summer cloak bumps into her and almost pushes her over, and a round-faced witch laughing loudly blocks her way. “Would you mind,” Astoria says, reservedly polite, and the witch moves - and finally, she steps into the blissfull cool of the entrance hall.
At the back of the hall is her friend Stewart Ackerley, engaged in hectic conversation with two girls who are apparently promoting a new international exchange program between wizarding universities.
“Stew!” Astoria yells, raising her hand into a little wave. Stewart turns around and a smile spreads across his face - he says something apologisingly to the girls and walks up to Astoria. One of the girls - short, cute and brown-skinned - eyes Stew longingly behind his back, and Astoria smiles to herself, half amused, half sorry for the girl.
“What are you laughing at?” Stew asks, as he leans closer to give Astoria a hug.
“Nothing,” she smirks. “Just that you’ve got a new admirer. I think you should start wearing a sign on the front of your cloak that says, “I’m only into wizards”, or something. I believe it would save many a girls’ heart.”
“That’s absolute bollocks,” Stew says. He gives out a charming laugh and looks extremely pleased with himself, as he always does when someone shows interest in him. Astoria looks at the young man in front of him, his handsome black curls and eyes as blue as the cloudless August sky. She remembers the day he arrived at the Ravenclaw common room as a trembling, scared-looking 11-year-old, a year after she had started Hogwarts. It had taken them a couple of years to get to know each other and become friends, but ever since, he had been her best friend.
“I’m so glad you came,” Stew says, and before he says anything else, Astoria already knows what he’s going to say.
“You have to go somewhere and you can’t spend time with me,” Astoria says, her voice a little accusing.
Stew cringes. “I’m so sorry. I really am. I know I promised we’d have lunch together. But it turns out, they really need me at S.P.E.W. You won’t be angry at me, will you?”
Astoria pouts her lips like a little girl. Stewart is involved in at least seven university societies and ever since he joined the Student Division of S.P.E.W., he has barely had any time for Astoria.
“Fine,” she says finally. “But you owe me one. I know you’re still studying here, and I love the fact that you’re so into all these community activities, but the only reason I came here today - on the orientation week, above all - was because you asked. But since you’re my best friend, I’ll forgive you,” Astoria adds mercifully.
“You’re a darling - I have to go now,” Stewart says, looking apologetic, and leaves.
When Stewart is gone, Astoria steps into the nearest corridor, leans against the cold stone wall and closes her eyes. It’s been almost three months since she graduated from here - from Faithstone Magical University, the oldest wizarding university of Europe. After six years of studying, at the age of 25, she’s now a Master of Magical Arts - her MA thesis was called Fragmentary Self - Postmodern Representations of the Witches’ Psyche in Eduardo Salvavelas’ collection The Void.
She does absolutely nothing with her degree.
She realized this about a week after the graduation ceremony. There are only a handful of jobs in the wizarding UK she’s qualified for and these include a) continuing academic studies further and becoming a professor (she’s not entirely sure that’s what she wants), b) working in the only wizarding art museum of the British Isles (they’re currently not hiring) or c) working for her parents in Greengrass Inc. (which is something she’s definitely not going to do). Since her graduation, the only thing Astoria has done is move out of her lovely little student apartment in the wizarding town of Faithstone and back into Greengrass Manor. She lives in the Manor, but it’s not a home. This is the first time she’s she’s visited the university since graduation and she feels out of place - she doesn’t belong here anymore. She doesn’t know any of the younger students and the frantic cheerfulness of the orientation week only seems to emphasize her role as an outsider.
The corridor is empty and quiet except for the subdued voices coming from a lecturer room at the other end of the hallway. The door to the room is ajar and Astoria can hear a man’s voice coming from inside. She walks to the door and slowly pushes it open. The room is almost packed with students and on the stand, there is a young man speaking. He has brown hair and he looks a little rugged - something about him reminds Astoria of her first year Dark Arts teacher in Hogwarts, Remus Lupin, who later became a war hero. The man speaking is younger than Lupin though, and in Astoria’s opinion, better looking - at least he looks healthier than Lupin ever did. His voice is intense yet calm and he seems to have a good hold of his audience.
“-so when we look at how the muggles’ political system works, it really isn’t that different from the the wizarding society’s political system. For example, there are countless similarities between how the Ministry of Magic and the muggles’ government in the United Kingdom are organized. As I state in my most recent article-”
Astoria glances over at the chalk board, where a piece of magical chalk writes notes on the board by itself, and suddenly she realizes who the man is. She is listening to Justin Finch-Fletchley, a rising political star, as The Daily Prophet calls him. Astoria doesn’t know much about him - all she really knows is that he was in her sister’s year in Hogwarts, but since he was a Hufflepuff (and a muggleborn), Daphne wasn’t very close with him. Astoria tries to remember what The Prophet said about him - he studied Wizarding Politics in Faithstone and he did an exchange period in a magical university in the US. Apparently, his victory march towards a political career had started after the exchange, and now he was working in Faithstone, doing research about Muggle Relations and muggleborns rights.
Astoria sits down to listen. Justin Finch-Fletchey is talking about his new article in which he compares the muggles prime minister to the wizarding society’s Minister for Magic, claiming that from a political point of view, there are a lot of similarities between both leaders and their governmental systems. Astoria remembers that The Prophet mentioned the article having caused some controversy among the academics, as some had seen Justin’s intention as encouraging closer cooperation between the muggles and wizards. Astoria is fairly familiar with the muggles’ society on a basic level, her best friend being a muggleborn, but she has never really looked that much into their politics or how their society is organized.
She has been listening to Justin talk for about ten minutes, when the door behind her is suddenly slammed open with a loud bang.
Astoria turns to look and for a few seconds she thinks it’s the War again. The witches and wizards barging in are wearing masks and for a moment Astoria feels like she can’t breathe. Then she realizes that the masks on people’s faces aren’t Death Eater masks - they’re more simple, grey masks, made of cardboard. People in the audience look around, confused, but no one seems scared.
“Save the Statute of Secrecy!” yells the tall wizard marching at the front of the newcomers and all the masked people repeat after him, “Save the Statute of Secrecy! Savet the Statute of Secrecy!” Astoria notices them holding signs that say things like, “Wizards and muggles don’t belong together”, “You can’t have the best of both worlds” and “The International Statute of Secrecy must be saved”.
“Keep the worlds apart!” the wizard continues and again the masked people chant, “Keep the worlds apart! Keep the worlds apart!”
“Quiet!” It’s Justin’s voice now, magically strengthened, so that it’s louder than the chanting crowd in front of him. “What the hell is this? I’m trying to have a lecture here, for Merlin’s sake!”
Astoria pays attention to the funny way Justin mixes muggle expressions with wizard expressions when he talks and smiles a little.
“This is not a bloody lecture,” says the tall masked wizard, who seems to be the leader of the crowd. “This is demagogy! You’re trying to manipulate your audience into believing your twisted ideals.”
“What ideals?”
“You want to join the wizarding world together with the muggle society, so that the muggles will have access to all our magic. You want to make us slaves for the muggles,” the masked man says matter-of-factly.
“That is certainly not true. I repeat, this is a university lecture, what I’m presenting here is academic research, I have no time or desire to listen to some ridiculous pseudo-political protest. And for Merlin’s sake, take that idiotic mask off, I know it’s you, Wayne Hopkins.” Justin says, clearly frustrated, but still maintaining his calm authority, which impresses Astoria.
Even with a mask Wayne Hopkins manages to look utterly outraged.
“How did you-?”
“We shared a dormitory in Hogwarts for six years, Wayne, of course I know it’s you.”
What’s visible of Wayne’s neck underneath the mask turns bright red. The masked people behind him have stopped chanting, clearly unsure what to do.
“Will you allow me to continue my lecture or do I need to summon a guard to escort you off the premises?” Justin asks.
Apparently too offended to answer, Wayne turns around, waving his followers to move towards the door. The masked wizards and witches start to move, but before they’re out of the door, someone in the audience in front of Astoria stands up. A furious looking witch points a wand at Wayne Hopkins, screaming, “Death Eater scum!”
“We are not Death Eaters! All we want-,” but Wayne doesn’t have time to finish his sentence, because the witch throws a curse towards him.
At the same time Wayne yells, “Stupefy!”
There is moment, shorter than a blink of an eye, when Astoria, caught between the witch and the masked people, realizes that Wayne is really bad at aiming and the spell comes straight towards her. Then everything goes black.
Character Pairing: Justin Finch-Fletchley/Astoria Greengrass
Prompt: A house is not a home
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1814
Summary: "Suddenly she realizes who the man is. She is listening to Justin Finch-Fletchley, a rising political star, as The Daily Prophet calls him."
Author's Notes: This is chapter one of what will be a longer story. I will be posting more chapters as I finish writing them. Thank you so much to kiertorata for being my beta! Any remaining mistakes are mine. Here's also a piece of cover art I made for this story.
Link to Prompt Table: Prompt Table Justin/Astoria
It’s a hot day in August, unusually hot for Southern England. Astoria feels drops of sweat running down the back of her neck as she tries to find her way out of the noisy crowd. The courtyard in front of the university entrance is packed with new students. Someone hands her a leaflet - “Join the student council today and be the change of tomorrow” - and she folds it in a desperate attempt to use it as a handheld fan. A wizard in a colorful summer cloak bumps into her and almost pushes her over, and a round-faced witch laughing loudly blocks her way. “Would you mind,” Astoria says, reservedly polite, and the witch moves - and finally, she steps into the blissfull cool of the entrance hall.
At the back of the hall is her friend Stewart Ackerley, engaged in hectic conversation with two girls who are apparently promoting a new international exchange program between wizarding universities.
“Stew!” Astoria yells, raising her hand into a little wave. Stewart turns around and a smile spreads across his face - he says something apologisingly to the girls and walks up to Astoria. One of the girls - short, cute and brown-skinned - eyes Stew longingly behind his back, and Astoria smiles to herself, half amused, half sorry for the girl.
“What are you laughing at?” Stew asks, as he leans closer to give Astoria a hug.
“Nothing,” she smirks. “Just that you’ve got a new admirer. I think you should start wearing a sign on the front of your cloak that says, “I’m only into wizards”, or something. I believe it would save many a girls’ heart.”
“That’s absolute bollocks,” Stew says. He gives out a charming laugh and looks extremely pleased with himself, as he always does when someone shows interest in him. Astoria looks at the young man in front of him, his handsome black curls and eyes as blue as the cloudless August sky. She remembers the day he arrived at the Ravenclaw common room as a trembling, scared-looking 11-year-old, a year after she had started Hogwarts. It had taken them a couple of years to get to know each other and become friends, but ever since, he had been her best friend.
“I’m so glad you came,” Stew says, and before he says anything else, Astoria already knows what he’s going to say.
“You have to go somewhere and you can’t spend time with me,” Astoria says, her voice a little accusing.
Stew cringes. “I’m so sorry. I really am. I know I promised we’d have lunch together. But it turns out, they really need me at S.P.E.W. You won’t be angry at me, will you?”
Astoria pouts her lips like a little girl. Stewart is involved in at least seven university societies and ever since he joined the Student Division of S.P.E.W., he has barely had any time for Astoria.
“Fine,” she says finally. “But you owe me one. I know you’re still studying here, and I love the fact that you’re so into all these community activities, but the only reason I came here today - on the orientation week, above all - was because you asked. But since you’re my best friend, I’ll forgive you,” Astoria adds mercifully.
“You’re a darling - I have to go now,” Stewart says, looking apologetic, and leaves.
When Stewart is gone, Astoria steps into the nearest corridor, leans against the cold stone wall and closes her eyes. It’s been almost three months since she graduated from here - from Faithstone Magical University, the oldest wizarding university of Europe. After six years of studying, at the age of 25, she’s now a Master of Magical Arts - her MA thesis was called Fragmentary Self - Postmodern Representations of the Witches’ Psyche in Eduardo Salvavelas’ collection The Void.
She does absolutely nothing with her degree.
She realized this about a week after the graduation ceremony. There are only a handful of jobs in the wizarding UK she’s qualified for and these include a) continuing academic studies further and becoming a professor (she’s not entirely sure that’s what she wants), b) working in the only wizarding art museum of the British Isles (they’re currently not hiring) or c) working for her parents in Greengrass Inc. (which is something she’s definitely not going to do). Since her graduation, the only thing Astoria has done is move out of her lovely little student apartment in the wizarding town of Faithstone and back into Greengrass Manor. She lives in the Manor, but it’s not a home. This is the first time she’s she’s visited the university since graduation and she feels out of place - she doesn’t belong here anymore. She doesn’t know any of the younger students and the frantic cheerfulness of the orientation week only seems to emphasize her role as an outsider.
The corridor is empty and quiet except for the subdued voices coming from a lecturer room at the other end of the hallway. The door to the room is ajar and Astoria can hear a man’s voice coming from inside. She walks to the door and slowly pushes it open. The room is almost packed with students and on the stand, there is a young man speaking. He has brown hair and he looks a little rugged - something about him reminds Astoria of her first year Dark Arts teacher in Hogwarts, Remus Lupin, who later became a war hero. The man speaking is younger than Lupin though, and in Astoria’s opinion, better looking - at least he looks healthier than Lupin ever did. His voice is intense yet calm and he seems to have a good hold of his audience.
“-so when we look at how the muggles’ political system works, it really isn’t that different from the the wizarding society’s political system. For example, there are countless similarities between how the Ministry of Magic and the muggles’ government in the United Kingdom are organized. As I state in my most recent article-”
Astoria glances over at the chalk board, where a piece of magical chalk writes notes on the board by itself, and suddenly she realizes who the man is. She is listening to Justin Finch-Fletchley, a rising political star, as The Daily Prophet calls him. Astoria doesn’t know much about him - all she really knows is that he was in her sister’s year in Hogwarts, but since he was a Hufflepuff (and a muggleborn), Daphne wasn’t very close with him. Astoria tries to remember what The Prophet said about him - he studied Wizarding Politics in Faithstone and he did an exchange period in a magical university in the US. Apparently, his victory march towards a political career had started after the exchange, and now he was working in Faithstone, doing research about Muggle Relations and muggleborns rights.
Astoria sits down to listen. Justin Finch-Fletchey is talking about his new article in which he compares the muggles prime minister to the wizarding society’s Minister for Magic, claiming that from a political point of view, there are a lot of similarities between both leaders and their governmental systems. Astoria remembers that The Prophet mentioned the article having caused some controversy among the academics, as some had seen Justin’s intention as encouraging closer cooperation between the muggles and wizards. Astoria is fairly familiar with the muggles’ society on a basic level, her best friend being a muggleborn, but she has never really looked that much into their politics or how their society is organized.
She has been listening to Justin talk for about ten minutes, when the door behind her is suddenly slammed open with a loud bang.
Astoria turns to look and for a few seconds she thinks it’s the War again. The witches and wizards barging in are wearing masks and for a moment Astoria feels like she can’t breathe. Then she realizes that the masks on people’s faces aren’t Death Eater masks - they’re more simple, grey masks, made of cardboard. People in the audience look around, confused, but no one seems scared.
“Save the Statute of Secrecy!” yells the tall wizard marching at the front of the newcomers and all the masked people repeat after him, “Save the Statute of Secrecy! Savet the Statute of Secrecy!” Astoria notices them holding signs that say things like, “Wizards and muggles don’t belong together”, “You can’t have the best of both worlds” and “The International Statute of Secrecy must be saved”.
“Keep the worlds apart!” the wizard continues and again the masked people chant, “Keep the worlds apart! Keep the worlds apart!”
“Quiet!” It’s Justin’s voice now, magically strengthened, so that it’s louder than the chanting crowd in front of him. “What the hell is this? I’m trying to have a lecture here, for Merlin’s sake!”
Astoria pays attention to the funny way Justin mixes muggle expressions with wizard expressions when he talks and smiles a little.
“This is not a bloody lecture,” says the tall masked wizard, who seems to be the leader of the crowd. “This is demagogy! You’re trying to manipulate your audience into believing your twisted ideals.”
“What ideals?”
“You want to join the wizarding world together with the muggle society, so that the muggles will have access to all our magic. You want to make us slaves for the muggles,” the masked man says matter-of-factly.
“That is certainly not true. I repeat, this is a university lecture, what I’m presenting here is academic research, I have no time or desire to listen to some ridiculous pseudo-political protest. And for Merlin’s sake, take that idiotic mask off, I know it’s you, Wayne Hopkins.” Justin says, clearly frustrated, but still maintaining his calm authority, which impresses Astoria.
Even with a mask Wayne Hopkins manages to look utterly outraged.
“How did you-?”
“We shared a dormitory in Hogwarts for six years, Wayne, of course I know it’s you.”
What’s visible of Wayne’s neck underneath the mask turns bright red. The masked people behind him have stopped chanting, clearly unsure what to do.
“Will you allow me to continue my lecture or do I need to summon a guard to escort you off the premises?” Justin asks.
Apparently too offended to answer, Wayne turns around, waving his followers to move towards the door. The masked wizards and witches start to move, but before they’re out of the door, someone in the audience in front of Astoria stands up. A furious looking witch points a wand at Wayne Hopkins, screaming, “Death Eater scum!”
“We are not Death Eaters! All we want-,” but Wayne doesn’t have time to finish his sentence, because the witch throws a curse towards him.
At the same time Wayne yells, “Stupefy!”
There is moment, shorter than a blink of an eye, when Astoria, caught between the witch and the masked people, realizes that Wayne is really bad at aiming and the spell comes straight towards her. Then everything goes black.