by any means pv d. prince

Astra had exhausted all her resources. Re-researching through every book she could get her hands on, scouring through them time and time again, her thoughts consumed by the darker side of magic under the single burning question of what was going on in the magical world? Once more focused at Hogwarts, yes, of course, the sudden disappearance of all Heads of House (excepting the demotion of Professor @Lesmana Asmaralaya back to Potions), and the persisting problem of Twinkle- she still had stacks of hag-centric papers in her dorm- but now also focused on the world at large. Because Aunt Aces was dead. And that simply wasn't right. Because Aunt Aces had too much to live for to simply walk through the veil as the investigators supposed.

Astra respected the library. She had not broken many rules there, except perhaps to keep a book too long past it's due date. Today, there was to be a change.

Yes, the child was finally going to attempt to access the restricted section.

It could be said this event was long overdue, it could be argued that the recent death of her aunt drove her to a heightened rebelliousness, that the emotions of grief had already reached that infamous stage of anger. Believable theories, but wrong.

Astra suspected foul play. Of course she did. Far too many coincidences were masterminded for this not to be. Aunt Aces had worked with the most secretive and dangerous of magics, so if Astra was even going to begin to understand what had happened, she must first explore beyond what was allowed her to know. And, well, she wanted to know so many things that she wasn't quite allowed to. This was logical, this was a right and reasonable course of action.

So here she stood at the back of the library, with an invisibility cloak that was likely too old to be useful, but here goes nothing.