The writing in Daphne's arm is lopsided and rude, and she has no idea who'd dare speak to her like that until she met her soulmate.
Don't talk to me like you own this place, bitch, it said, and Daphne wondered what she could say to warrant such an answer. Daphne spent most of the time wondering, watching from the sidelines as everyone she knew found the love of their lives and Daphne stayed behind. Draco is the first, finding Harry Potter and making everyone become jealous of their stolen soft spoken moments, then Pansy and Ginny Weasley with their broom chases and mock duels, then Blaise Zabini and Hermione Granger in the library reading. Daphne's lopsided scrawl stared at her and she took to wearing long sleeves all year by the time she was twelve.
Pansy would snicker at her long shirts, the writing in her neck simple and clean - Parkinson, you shouldn't be here - and mocking her.
"I wonder what wonderful first impression you'll give, Daph,", Pansy would say, for example, a smile more fit for a shark than an human in her mouth. Daphne wanted to hex Pansy, but the thought of her soulmate watching her made her stomach turn. She didn't want to be a bitch, she wants to be Daphne.
Still, life goes on, and Daphne watched her friends fall in love with their newfound soulmates - Tracey and Ron Weasley playing chess in silence, Lily Moon and Cho Chang discussing runes, Goyle and Lavender Brown trading recipes. The writing in her skin persists, and Daphne wondered if it could be scratched out. Soulmates can't matter that much - just look at professor Snape's mark, fancy calligraphy carefully bled out. Daphne wanted to ask him if it was death who took his soulmate, or if he erased it himself, but she lacked the courage; her soulmate could see the faded words and tell her the words she dreaded to hear.
Daphne finds her soulmate during the middle of the war. It's unexpected, really, and it's all her father's fault.
Her parents had divorced years ago, when Daphne was a year old, when her father, having found his soulmate in a muggle he somehow bumped into, and fled to France with the woman, leaving Daphne to be raised by her mother - Daphne had never visited her father, having gotten the heavily censored letters once or twice a year, and as such, she didn't care much for the man. So when her mother tells her that her father and her stepmother are dead (car accident, whatever it is, her mother says, nonchalantly, eyes set on the tiny, one-word mark of her soulmate bled out) and that her half-sister Astoria is moving in out of pity her mother has for her father, she receives the news gracefully, wondering how this half-sister will be. She hopes the girl is nice, whoever she is. A nice little sister who won't mind the bitch written in her arm.
As such, when Daphne arrives from a study trip to Theodore's house to find a girl smoking inside the house, windows closed, carelessly dropping the ashes in the rug, Daphne's first thought isn't hey, are you my sister? or perhaps you shouldn't do that.
"You're disgusting for smoking inside, and you should get an ashtray.", Daphne says, putting her books away and going to open the window, conjuring an ashtray.
"Don't talk to me like you own this place, bitch.", the girl said, and Daphne froze. The girl noticed. "Don't tell me."
"I'm afraid so.", she replied, not turning, and hearing the girl sigh, bit her lip.
"I'm Astoria.", the girl says, and that makes Daphne turn. "Who are you?"
"Your half-sister. Daphne.", it's her reply, and the soft spoken oh, shit is enough. Daphne looked around, and didn't trust the paintings around them. "Could we perhaps talk somewhere without prying eyes?"
Astoria rose up, nodding her head, and Daphne couldn't take her eyes out of the soft curve of her sister's neck. It's wrong, she knows. It's expected out of Daphne to find a proper soulmate to marry, and her half-sister isn't proper marriage material.
They head to Daphne's room and sit on her bed, hands touching the littlest bit as they try to find what to speak about, and Daphne's eyes can't leave Astoria - a redhead, so unlike Daphne's black hair, eyes as green as Daphne's, face full of freckles which go down on her neck, disappearing under her way too much Muggle clothes and Daphne cannot - will not - dare to think if they expand through Astoria's body. Daphne can't help but wonder if this is some sort of soulmate magic that makes her think of her sister like a - well, like a soulmate.
"So, soulmates. Can we pretend this isn't a thing?", Daphne asked, hand over the covered skin where her mark is. She can see Astoria's naked arms, seeing the remark she had made in her own calligraphy.
"Don't think so.", Astoria replied, shrugging. "We can pretend we aren't, but fate will do anything it can do make sure we are reminded about it on every possible moment."
"So we will have to be lovers?", Daphne asks, horror ringing in her voice. Astoria shifted, uncomfortable. "That's wrong. We're sisters."
"Half-sisters, and other than that, we don't know each other that much, do we? I mean, I didn't even know who you were.", Daphne wanted to puke, but Astoria's pale, freckled hand touched the hand that was over her mark. "If you want, you can pretend I'm someone else. Pretty girls like you aren't single."
"Nobody wants the girl with bitch on her arm,", Daphne muttered, and Astoria bit her full red lips. Lipstick, Daphne figured, biting her own pale pink. "Kiss me."
Astoria obeyed, her mouth tasting of cigarettes and desperation, like some longing that had never been satisfied until that moment. Daphne kissed her back, tongues exploring each others mouth until they needed to surface to breath again. Daphne separated from Astoria and wondered.
She had kissed Theo once - Theo's soulmate long dead, if the faded words in his eyelids were any indication, stay away from me! in quiet small letters -, and it had felt wrong, like they had created a monster out of their kiss that they could not control. Kissing Astoria had felt like coming home after a rainy day, sitting in front of the fireplace with a mug of hot cocoa in her hand. It was warm and nice, compared to Theo's cold, inherent wrongness.
"That was nice,", Astoria said, and Daphne nodded, interlacing fingers with Astoria.
"That was nice,", she repeated, head fuzzy. Daphne didn't want to think on what her father would say, but right now, she had other matters to think. "Could you kiss me again?"
"Sure,", Astoria hummed, kissing her again, passing a hand through Daphne's dark hair. She could worry about the fact her half-sister was her soulmate at other time, but now she wanted to know the girl who had written bitch in her skin.
Astoria, as she came to find out later, when their lips were swollen, laying in bed without a care in the world, was a Beauxbatons student, transferring to Hogwarts, brightest of her class, third-best dueler in her year. Astoria took smoking because the french smoked liked chimneys and because she figured she'd never met her soulmate unless she smoked, and Daphne told her to stop. Astoria laughed, bright as a sunny day, and Daphne's heart did somersaults, something between anxiety and love fluttering in her ribcage as Astoria grinned and told her not to worry her pretty head.
At least they'd spend the year together, Daphne going over her seventh year as Astoria actually went through her sixth, and they'd need to be careful. Her luck, as little as she had, was that Astoria went to Slytherin, and didn't hesitate to hex anyone who asked to see her mark.
"My soulmate died, bitch.", she told Pansy Parkinson, wand glinting with a spell, and Ginny Weasley hissing something to Pansy. "Don't try to see what she said to me, that's private."
"Curious how you use bitch a lot, Greengrass junior,", Pansy hissed, rising up. "Trying to get in your sister's bitchy good graces?"
"Suck my dick,", Astoria said, hexing Pansy. Some of the more open Death Eaters stared at Astoria, and when she started to leave, Daphne sent a fake apology to Pansy with her eyes before going after Astoria, pinning her against the wall of a dark corner. Astoria grinned, looking like she was older than she was. "How you dealt with those people for so long is beyond me."
"You learn to deal with it,", Daphne answered, kissing Astoria. It's a public place, but Daphne does not give much thought about proper snogging locations until Draco slides in front of her one morning, blushing.
"Daphne, can we speak?", he asked, and Daphne nods, looking at him. "Privately."
Astoria perked up her head, and shrugged when Daphne looked at her. Draco doesn't miss this, as she learns minutes later, when he takes her to a secluded classroom.
"Is Astoria your soulmate?", Draco asked, and Daphne freezed. Draco sighed. "Don't worry, I'm the only one who knows. I… I sort of caught you two snogging, a few days ago."
Daphne blushed. Draco smiled, just a little, and Daphne noticed it was the first time she saw him smile since Harry left to - do something. No one was sure what, and Draco didn't tell, but Daphne was almost sure it had to do with the war.
"Don't tell anyone. It's already bad enough.", she pleaded, and Draco shrugged.
"It's not my place to tell,", he grabbed her hand, soft and pliable. "Just - I will have your backs, whatever happens."
"Thanks, Draco,", Daphne replied. He shows her a map harry owns - mischief managed - and she takes notes in the pointers he gives, making note to buy something nice for his birthday. He deserves it - the Death Eaters thought he knew where Harry was, and thought torturing him would make him give it up. It didn't.
When she tells Astoria what Draco wanted to speak about, laying on Astoria's bed after sneaking there, under the strongest privacy spell they could manage, Astoria laughed.
"What a sweetheart, hm? You got nice friends, Daph.", the way she says Daph is intoxicating, smoky and with a tinge of sweetness. "Well, except Parkinson. Fuck Parkinson."
Daphne laughed and buried her face in the curve of Astoria's neck, her half-sister's hand on the small of Daphne's back.
"Don't fuck Parkinson, Ginny's going to kill you,", Daphne muttered, and Astoria's laugh vibrated through her body.
"No, she's a hag."
They laughed and giggled and kissed, and fell asleep entangled into each other. Daphne couldn't complain.
War came to darken their doorstep personally, and Daphne - Daphne tried. She told Astoria to stay back, but Astoria snarled at her.
"I'm not staying back and cowering when I can do something, Daph,", she said, pulling from Daphne's grip, over Astoria's mark. "I'll come back for you, don't worry."
Astoria ducked into the fight, and Daphne was able to caught Draco's eye for enough time to see him mouth "I'll keep an eye out" and disappear in the crowds.
Daphne knows, logically, she should fight too, clutching her mark. But she can't - she's too much of a coward, so she stays back, sitting in the dungeons, one hand in her mark, the other holding her wand with an iron-tight grip, trying to convince herself to go up there and fight, for once.
Her mark starts to bleed at the same time Voldemort paused the fight, and it's the pain that makes her roll up her sleeves, watching as the lopsided scrawl bleed from her skin, red and raw. She practically flied up the stairs, looking for her Astoria, and finding her being nursed by a also-roughed up Draco, Harry by their side looking serious and forlorn.
"Astoria,", she breathed, falling to her knees as her sister smiled, shining with sweat, a gaping wound being carefully healed by Draco as she bunched up her robes, dirty with grime and blood. "You're alive, I thought…"
"That I had died?", Astoria grinned, and Draco shushed her. "I'm not leaving you so easily - hey, you bastard, that hurt."
"If you keep quiet, it won't hurt,", he replied, and Daphne sat by Astoria's side, sending Harry one worried look. "Good, keep her quiet."
Daphne looked around briefly, just to assure herself no one was watching, and kissed Astoria quickly, but Astoria simply smirked, trying to deepen the kiss until she hissed in pain.
"When I said I needed you to keep her quiet, Daphne, I didn't mean to make her squirm,", Draco hissed, and as Daphne half-heard Astoria and Draco discussing, she watched, curious, as Harry rose up and nodded at her, leaving quietly.
She hadn't heard the terms Voldemort had asked, too busy in trying to find Astoria, but she knew it had to be something bad, if the way Draco reacted was anything to go by. Daphne tactfully pretended to know nothing.
Whatever Harry had decided was his own business, but she helped to calm Draco down as he started to babble, Astoria quietly putting up a privacy ward, holding hands behind Draco's back. It was all they could do, in that moment.
When Draco gasped, his somehow still white shirt becoming stained with red over the place his mark was, Daphne knew that Harry's decision hadn't been approved by Draco. She couldn't just ask what Voldemort had asked, but she could guess.
A truce for Harry's life. A chance to heal their injured and mourn their dead. Draco's sobs wracked through his body, and Daphne noticed, distantly soothing Draco, if it hadn't been for him, she'd be the one in his place. When Draco gives a particularly painful sob, however, he pauses, frowning, and put a hand on his chest. Daphne frowns, and when he opens his shirt to reveal Harry's messy handwriting saying sorry for that, he laughs. Astoria starts laughing, too, and Daphne wondered how that may have happened, before remembering Draco's soulmate is the Boy who Lived, after all.
Draco rose up, fire in his eyes, and he set to healing people obsessively, leaving Astoria and Daphne behind in their privacy bubble. If they use those precious minutes to kiss and make promises, no one needs to know.
It's when Voldemort's presence - like a Dementor - sucks them into the courtyard, Harry's body in tow, that undoes all of them. Astoria stood straighter, even with a recently-healed wound, and Daphne fell a step. Draco gripped his wand tighter, and when Neville - who lost his soulmate to a Dark Curse barely an hour ago - discourses, Daphne thought she could, perhaps, join the fight.
She couldn't. Harry flew from Hagrid's arms, suddenly alive, and the dizzying array of spells that followed made her head spin. Daphne did what she thought best - she grabbed Astoria and ran.
Astoria, to her surprise, didn't protest, only speaking with Daphne when they had hid inside the Slytherin Common Room, vacant for the first time since Daphne could remember.
"I'm sorry,", Daphne started, and Astoria shook her head.
"Don't be. I'd be killed, in this state,", Astoria replied, touching Daphne's face carefully. "Kiss me. Make me forget."
Daphne obliged, closing her eyes and forgetting about her own, half-bled mark, forgetting about Astoria's wound ("I fought with a particularly nasty Death Eater. I almost lost my stomach,", Astoria had said, while they laid under the glass ceiling in the Common Room, clothes strewn around themselves, pretending the glint of light the dark waters showed once in a while wasn't spellwork,", but he lost his neck."), forgetting about the war.
When things calmed down, the show of spells in the lake gone, they met Draco and Harry again, Draco holding Harry's hand, not seemingly want to let go, everyone in the Great Hall ignoring the corpse in the middle of it.
"You seem fine, Potter,", Astoria greeted, and Harry smiled.
"I am."
"You should've seen Draco, then,", Astoria slid by Harry's side, and Draco looked at Daphne, both of them half-hearing their soulmates chat up like they hadn't fought a war.
"What it's like to have two marks?", Daphne asked, and Draco smiled faintly, eyes looking adoringly at Harry, and she couldn't help but wonder if she looked like that at Astoria.
"It's odd.", he eyed her own mark, out in the open for what seemed like the first time in forever. It looked like an ugly little thing, bled and lopsided, but Daphne was proud of it. "Seems like we both have duelers with us."
"Oh, yes.", Daphne smiled, and, like they could sense it, made Harry and Astoria turn to them.
"Are you trying to steal my girl, Malfoy?", Astoria whispered, and Draco rolled his eyes, which made Harry laugh.
"Oh, yes, sure I am. Harry, dear, I'm so sorry.", Harry laughed, and Daphne smiled, and held hands with Astoria over the table. Not one of them seemed to notice the bitch in Daphne's arm had been bled out completely.