Quietly, still somewhat aglow from the earlier afternoon, Daphne made her way to the Slytherin common room. As she rounded the corner to the stone gargoyles, the glow subsided, hid its face, and a terribly tiring, stifling foreboding settled in its place.
It was, to be honest, a dreary place; had always been dreary, but was yet more so following the battle. And yet it was inhabited by over half the students, none of whom had been collected from Hogsmeade- or rather, it was perhaps because of that. For most of the students' parents were killed, injured or under investigation for their role as Death Eaters, and she could almost touch the despair and confusion in the air, what do we do now where do we go who will take us why why why.
Even Millicent Bullstrode, whom she had assumed had little potential for feeling anything other than spite, had receded in the past few days, her face so silent and walled that it almost physically pained her. She herself could not escape that tiny, gnawing feeling that her parents, too, would be discovered- not that they had actively fought as Death Eaters, but they had supported the war, had allowed the Dark Lord and his followers to access certain areas of the Ministry by their purposeful oversights- and she was not sure whether she dreaded more that their acts would be discovered, or forever unknown.
"I hope they're caught," Astoria had said viciously, the night the Dark Lord fell. The edge in her voice brought the blood to Daphne's cheeks, and she had stared at her little sister, at the dark, empty hurt behind her tear-filled eyes. She had been sitting by the Ravenclaw table, holding the broken, twisted hand of a boy ravaged (she assumed) by Greyback, and it was such a strange thing that she should be there that Daphne did not even register her words, did not stop to consider who she was speaking of, what she meant.
"She's with Ciaran Bradley," Astoria's pale friend, Cassandra, had squeaked, when Daphne had demanded, shrilly, wand in hand, where her sister was.
"Ciaran Bradley who?" she had half shrieked; my sister doesn't know a Bradley, our family doesn't know any Bradleys, until Cassandra had pointed at the Ravenclaw table and, in the seconds when Daphne turned around, fled.
While it seemed foolish that such a small thing should twist and bleed inside when people were dying and families were broken, that she had not known that her sister should mourn a sandy-haired Ravenclaw boy was something that sat as comfortably as broken glass in Daphne's abdomen.
"I hope they're caught!- our parents! I hope they're caught!" Astoria had repeated, slightly louder, and her shoulders had begun shaking then, as Ciaran Bradley's hand slid from her grasp.
"Astoria!" Daphne had gasped, the joy of finding her sister alive alive alive suspended.
Astoria's half-wild, snarled reply- "They let this happen, they encouraged this to happen!" still jarred her, even in her memory, and nothing, nothing could ever remove that searing betrayal and pain when her sister had whispered those words, those horrible words that made her feel old and tired- "I hate them."
She had slapped her sister, then- slapped her, and screamed at her and then cried, and they had clung together and cried in the bloody hall of broken bodies and empty families and pain that screamed and echoed in the smallness of the hearts of those who could not feel or celebrate the end of the war.
Even now, she did not know what to think. That they had funded the terror of the past year, that they had housed and hidden Death Eaters and provided forums where plans would have been made for attacks on Muggle-borns was undeniable- that they had spent the past year working against people like Astoria's boy (like Seamus) was undeniable- and yet- Cressida Greengrass had taught her how to dance, had kissed her in bed at night, had smiled and taken her shopping when she received her Hogwarts letter, when she constantly placed in the top three in all her subjects and she was Mother, and Aegeon Greengrass, narrow minded and as prone to anger as he was, was her father, and that she should want them taken, tried, imprisoned -
She realised she had been standing, immobile, by the entrance for nearly five minutes.
"Hogwarts stands," she murmured, thankful that the Hogwarts staff had re-set the password and broken the dreary years of blood-related passwords. (She had written a paper on the ways in which Slytherin passwords had likely impacted the indoctrination of generations of blood discrimination but had been afraid to present it; perhaps now, perhaps in this new world- if she was not silenced for so being Slytherin. If Mother and Father-)
The passageway opened, and she ducked inside, weaving around the lounge to avoid Pansy. Despite the long years of sitting beside each other and Hogsmeade trips, friendship with Pansy took effort, and she felt neither patience nor energy at this point, not now (not here).
Instead, she took the corridor to her dorm, the sound of the lake a pleasant thrum, comforting- almost pre-natal, she had thought once, and had laughed herself awake. The darkness of the lake, of the dormitories, was comforting (and out there, above, and somewhere to the side, Seamus kissed me, Seamus said he liked me)- and now, now, the smile was coming back, and the glow was returning; the foreboding slithered, oozed away, and thoughts of that foolish Gryffindor boy- her foolish Gryffindor boy- began to form, take shape, take voice.
"I saw you snogging him," said a voice to her side, and she swung up blindly, grasping for her wand.
A light emanated from a candle, and a pale, drawn face was by her bed, with dark, haggard features.
"Astoria!"
"A Gryffindor halfblood," Astoria continued, her voice painfully light, as she lowered herself to Daphne's bed. "If they aren't caught, Mother and Father will be awfully pleased- he symbolises so much of what they will say they supported, doesn't he?"
The sharp, grating flare in Daphne's stomach was so sudden, so painful, Daphne wondered that Astoria did not seem to hear it.
"Get out of my room," she said coldly.
Astoria stared back defiantly, chin raised. Then her face crumpled.
"He's-" her voice cracked a little. "He's not the most attractive boy you could have chosen, Daphne. You're definitely too pretty for him. But he- he seems nice. Ciaran said that he once tried to help him escape from the Carrows; brought him to the Room. They- they once joked- about Irish loyalty."
Even in the darkness, she felt her sister swallow with difficulty, the lump that, if touched slightly, might burst, and without thinking she felt her body move, stand, felt her arms go about her sister.
"I'm so sorry I didn't know," she whispered, and Astoria laughed, an old, cracked laugh that Daphne hated to hear.
"I never told you," Astoria said, drawing back and pressing her hands to her face. She laughed, half wildly, closed her eyes, opened them again. "I never told you- I didn't even want to tell myself. I was so afraid Ciaran would say something, then terrified that he would say nothing and I would never know- and there was a war going on- and then he told me, told me he liked me, right before the battle began, right before he stupidly sneaked back. "I promise I won't take you to Puddifoots", he said that, right before he told me. And I'm so glad he told me- so glad- but I wish he never had, because I wouldn't know, wouldn't need to care."
Daphne did not know what to say to that. Were there any words that one could say?
"I think," she said slowly, "it is better to know. I think- at least- I would rather have known."
Astoria looked at her, her face tired and twisted even in the dim light.
"And all I could think when I saw you was how jealous I was," she whispered, staring somewhere behind Daphne's left shoulder, her words so soft they almost blended into the soft current of the lake. "How angry, how jealous. Angry with Mother, with Father, with You-Kn- with everyone. Even with Ciaran, for putting that burden on me, and for doing it so very, very late so we didn't even have time to be stupid teenagers, time to fight, make it work or realise that we'd have been dreadful together."
"I should hate you for saying that," Daphne said, trembling, afraid to let Astoria's words sink in and take root and multiply in hurt and envy. "I should hate you."
"But you don't," Astoria whispered, and her voice was hoarse and high and full of tears, "you don't hate me, and I don't hate you, I can't. You're my sister. And I want to hate you, what you have with Seamus, but I can't."
"I don't have anything with him yet," Daphne whispered back, hands softly tracing Astoria's dark waves, "I hardly know him."
"But you're with him," Astoria said, a twisting yelp in her voice. "Why, if you hardly know him? Why?"
Why?
Daphne let the question twirl, reached out, tugged at it.
"I- I don't quite know why," she said, half frowning. "I'm tired, though. Tired, and sick of things the way they are now. But Seamus- he makes me feel slightly less tired. As though there is hope, and things might change. And he's not so slow as I thought he was." Astoria made an unearthly noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh and a sob. "He listens to what I say- and he challenges me on it. And I like that- I like him."
She felt Astoria's arms around her tighten, felt the pressure of her small body pressed against hers.
"What you said about being tired," she said, her voice tremulous and tiny, almost fracturing under the weight of the air. "Do I-"
"Do you what?"
Astoria's words were so soft Daphne felt, rather than heard, them.
"Do I make you tired?"
Her first instinct was to coolly, sarcastically, make some retort but as she looked down, she saw with some surprise that Astoria had raised her face and was staring at her, half urgently, with a very real, painfully physical fear in her eyes. So she reached out, touched Astoria's face, and something in the smallness of her face, the deep darkness in her eyes, tugged at her.
"Dearest," she said, "you never make me tired."
Relief and hesitation warred in Astoria's eyes.
"You don't just have to say-" she began, but Daphne cut her off.
"I am so afraid that you feel tired, too," she said, lightly tracing Astoria's forehead, cheeks, tapping her chin. "I never wanted you to have to feel tired. But you never make me tired. Never, Astoria Greengrass."
"I love you, Daphne," Astoria's voice whispered, and Daphne smiled, smoothed Astoria's hair, placed a lock neatly behind her ear.
And even as Astoria's anger I hope they're caught I hope they're caught rose in her mind, even as she held them there for Mother for Father even as Astoria's bitterness and jealousy stared and crumpled against her, she held onto Astoria's shaking frame, pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.
"I love you, too," she whispered, and meant it.
-
A/N: This has been kicking around in my mind for the better part of a year. I apparently have a lot of Greengrass sister feels. Didn't intend on giving Astoria a love interest, let alone another Irish boy, but she formed her attachments and politely informed me of them tonight when I sat down to write a little drabble. Said drabble is no longer little, nor a drabble, but it is unedited. Hence, feedback concerning the length and quality of this would be hugely appreciated!