Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Placing: Throughout the years of the books and further.
Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt: (quote) No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up. 1413 words. Gryffindor, Hogwarts.
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sSsSsSsSs
NO MATTER HOW YOU FEEL
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Daphne Greengrass lived her life, following the motto she had heard in her childhood when she had been lost in the muggle world: 'No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up'.
When she had been in Hogwarts' first year, she had been sorted into Slytherin together with a girl she had gotten to know on the train, Tracey Davis. Tracey was a half-blood and because of that had a very unkind start in her new life as a boarding school student.
Of course, one of the reasons was that she showed that she was a half-blood. Her hair was braided in pigtails – something a pureblood would never be seen in; they had their own kind of hairstyle, a kind of braid, consisting of three interwoven braids if they wanted to go traditionally and a lot of other, simpler ones for school. Pigtails on the other hand were looked upon as too muggle. No self-respecting pureblood girl would wear pigtails in any way or form.
She was wearing trousers beneath the robes, just like the muggle girls sometimes did when they weren't in uniform – something a pure-blooded girl would never even look at – and her shirt was rumpled, her tie loosened – unacceptable in pure-blooded eyes.
Her manners also showed her muggle upbringing and her speech – some things she said quite freely, a pureblood heiress would blush for and hide.
She was the exact thing a lot of Slytherin students despised – so they decided that she was the perfect victim to mock and to bully as long as the door to the common room had closed behind them. Even they weren't suicidal enough to try it out-doors, because Snape would kill them if they did show their hate towards one of their own to the school in any way or form.
"What are you even doing here, mudblood?" One of the older students asked Tracey just a day in.
"Yeah," another one said. "You are destroying our reputation just by being here!"
"We don't want you here!" Another one cried and Draco Malfoy laughed when they showered her with some kind of green goo that felt icky to the touch.
When they left Tracey crying, Daphne stepped forward, helping her up from the floor and then into the showers.
"Never give up," she told her new friend. "No matter how you feel, get up dress up, show up and never ever give up!"
When they finally had removed all that goo from her friend, Daphne got to work. The next morning Tracey stepped into the common room, wearing her school robes, but beneath it she wore the traditional clothing of a pure-blooded heiress to a lesser house. Her hair was braided in the complicated traditional way – something normally only the mothers were able to do, meaning that in school they simply went for simpler pure-blooded hairstyles – and her bearing that of a true heiress with icy eyes and an expressionless face.
Then one of the older students spotted the young girl.
"Oh, the mudblood," he grinned and Tracey fixed an expressionless stare on him until he started to tremble under her gaze.
"Did you want something, Heir Pucy?" She asked him coolly and Daphne took her place next to her friend, showing her support, while inwardly being proud of the other's acting skills and learning abilities. Tracey hadn't needed a long time to understand what Daphne was explaining to her the day before. "Do you maybe want to forgo your own upbringing and continue with your disgracing act towards an heiress to a lesser family?"
Tracey's voice was icy, her bearing regal and her body language nearly none existing.
She was the perfect heiress, the perfect pure-blooded girl.
"And here I thought that Slytherin house's common room was a room we could relax in," Tracey continued, damming her tormentors with her eyes. "It seems like it's untrue, in the end. If I had known that I had to be the perfect heiress inside and outside the common room, I would have never made the mistake and relaxed here yesterday. My apology, Heir Pucy, it will not happen again!"
In the end, the student gulped and averted his eyes while Tracey strode past him as if she had no care in the world, the Slytherin ice princess Daphne Greengrass at her heels.
No one dared to mock her again when she returned to 'relaxing' within the common room after that.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up.
And the years went by.
In Daphne's fourth year, she found a crying Hermione in the hallways, just days before the Yule Ball.
Normally, Daphne wouldn't interact with the girl, a Gryffindor and muggleborn to the boot, but no one was around, so she guessed that she could relax her guard at least a bit for now.
"What happened?" She asked and Hermione, not even looking at her, answered her with her head buried in her hands.
"Ron didn't even notice I was a girl until now!" She cried. "He asked me out to the Yule Ball because he had no date still and not because he wanted to go with me in the first place!"
Daphne frowned at that, but decided that she could handle something like that.
"Never give up," she told the other girl. "No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never ever give up."
When Hermione looked up at that, Daphne extended a hand, holding it out to the other girl to take. For a moment, Hermione just stared at the hand and at Daphne, then she took it. Daphne smiled and led her away.
"I know how to make sure that the Weasley boy will regret that he hasn't thought of you as a girl for forever," she promised. "Don't worry, when I'm done with you, the whole school will turn around and look at you!"
Daphne always held her promises.
On the night of the school ball, Hermione Granger was the most beautiful girl in the world. Ron Weasley's face was riddled with jealousy that night and even when the night didn't end like Hermione had hoped for, she still came to thank the Slytherin the next day.
"Thank you, Daphne," she said and Daphne smiled.
"Don't worry," she answered instead. "If you truly want to pursue that idiot, give him some time. He'll recognise that he's jealous one day."
And the other girl smiled when she heard the word 'jealous'.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up.
Time went by, and in the end the Dark Lord returned, brought war and lost.
The last battle would be something forever remembered in wizarding history.
Tracey lost her life that night in May.
The nights after, Daphne would cry herself to sleep, missing her friend like she had missed no one ever before.
In the end, she forced herself to continue to live her life to the fullest.
"No matter how you feel," she told herself every morning. "Get up, dress up, show up and never give up."
She lived that motto for years, always remembering that Tracey had lived that motto as well, always remembering that it had been this motto that forged their bond to begin with.
"How are you feeling, Daphne?" Others would ask her.
"How are you doing? Are you happy?" They would question when they met her.
"Your sister is getting married!" They would say. "How does it feel to know that your younger sister will marry before you do?"
And she would laugh and smile and lie, lie, lie.
"No matter how you feel," she would tell herself. "Get up, dress up, show up and never give up."
Life would go on, five years after the battle, nine years, twelve, nineteen, twenty…
"Daphne!" Hermione said surprised when she bumped into her while shopping. "I haven't seen you in years!"
And Daphne would smile at her, her eyes clear from the grief and sorrow that had plagued her for so long.
"Hermione," she would say. "How are you? I heard you've gotten married to Ron?"
"We've got children as well," Hermione would reply. "Do you have some time? We could grab a coffee and talk?"
And Daphne would go with her smiling and watching her talk.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up.
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Just a little idea
Hope you liked it
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