This was written for the Femslash February challenge on HPFC. T for mild swearing, but mostly just to be safe, and I don't own Harry Potter. I'm very curious to know what you think so please leave a review! Even if you think it sucks, I'd like to know so I can improve.
It's two A.M., Ginny's gone again, and Daphne's done.
She's turned the stereo – she doesn't know what song, but it's fast and loud and that's all that matters – up so hard all the neighbours will come complaining within the hour, but she can't care less; she needs the beat to drown her thoughts out as she grabs her clothes and throws them at the tangled heap already in her trunk.
Daphne looks like a train wreck pretending to be a girl – messy hair, forearms covered in tiny crescent moons from where she dug her fingers in the flesh, shirt stained, make-up all bled out – but she's past caring. There's no one to look pretty for, anyway; she's not doing this anymore.
Ginny used to be perfect, but now she's never got time (because Quidditch, because Hogwarts, because friends, because anything but Daphne) and she's never sober and she's never there.
Ginny can go find herself a girlfriend less broken, because Daphne sees dead girls in her sleep and she needs someone to check for monsters under the bed, not someone who goes straight from Quidditch to the pub and comes home too hammered to remember she's supposed to be quiet because the new sleep medication doesn't work and the old ones make her want to jump off something high.
Fuck her – no, actually, let her go fuck herself.
You've left me one too many times, love, Daphne thinks wryly before taking another swig of the bottle of Firewhiskey in her hand, and then realises it's empty. Oops. A voice in the back of her head wonders what Ginny will miss first – her girlfriend or her liquor – and before she knows it, the Slytherin has flung the bottle at the wall. Breaking glass, she concludes, is a very satisfying sound; even better than the knowledge the redhead will be picking shards out of the carpet for days.
Daphne is barefoot, but she's not too drunk to be careful, and even if she does step on glass the blood will be even worse to clean, so that's okay. Ginny will be even more drunk than Daphne when she comes back, though, and she will cut her feet and maybe Daphne should clean it up, or stay a little while longer, or- No. She's done.
Ginny can go look like a goddamned sunset somewhere else – Daphne happens to be afraid of the dark, so she'd rather keep the sun up high, thank you very much. Fuck Ginny, and the freckles on her back that look like a heart if you connect the dots, and her stupid apologies that she never means anyway.
Daphne is a lot of things – at the moment, that includes a little more drunk than she thought, she notes as she nearly trips on her way to the living room – and while delusional may have been one of them for a while, stupid certainly is not. She knows Ginny doesn't mean to do this, but she also knows that she's not trying very hard; that even though she misses Fred she does not realise how much Daphne is haunted by her sister. She knows that this is not enough, and never will be.
(Astoria is not a ghost but sometimes Daphne sees her anyway, staring eyes and bloody robes and why didn't you come back for me you said you'd come back for me – this is why Daphne does not sleep.)
Ginny does not know because Ginny never asks, and Daphne is done done done. She's dragged the trunk to the bookcase and frowns at the titles. Some are technically Daphne's but have been read by Ginny so much they are now owned by the both of them, or the other way around, and some are Ginny's old favourites, but the vast majority is Daphne's. She tosses the ones that don't remind her of the redhead too much in the trunk, not even noticing that she's getting the pages all folded.
She wonders if Ginny will apologise, when she's sobered up and finds out she's all on her own now. Maybe she will; maybe she'll even mean it this time, and everything will go back to the way it was. She won't. Stop stalling.
A sweeping look of the apartment teaches Daphne three things. One, she's made quite a mess – everything is covered in stuff she's not taking with her, glass fragments and spilled Firewhiskey – but it's not her problem anymore, so that's fine. Two, it is now three A.M. and Ginny is still not here. Three, she's done packing. There is nothing left here.
It's a sobering thought. The next thought is I need another drink (God knows Ginny will be having plenty), so she checks if her wand is still in her pocket, grabs the trunk and stalks out the door.
She leaves it unlocked.