Disclaimer: I do not own the world of Harry Potter. Just playing with it's characters.

Challenges: 100 Little Things by halffictionalprincess. The If You Dare Challenge.

Prompt: (#11) Hold Hands. (#466) Fire Hazard.

Fire Hazard

Or

Slytherin Girls DON'T Cry

Tracey didn't handle emotions well... or rather... feeling emotional.

She'd said it herself... but to an extent she believed that she was an emotional cripple. Something she was sure she had in common with the majority of her housemates.

But what was to be expected from the House that was known for it's cunning? For it's manipulations. For it's strong sense of self-preservation (which she was sure most would like to call selfishness but Tracey saw it more as a primal instinct that everyone had, Slytherins simply being fare more pragmatic about it).

As such... Tracy didn't handle hurting well.

Even physical pain was too much weakness to tolerate showing. But emotional pain... emotional weakness?

It was simply unthinkable. It was … disgusting.

As such... one of her methods for handling emotional hurting was to become angry... anger was so much more acceptable- most people didn't even realize that anger was a weaknesss, and Tracey nor anyone else who knew it as such, was in any rush to point it out when used as a smokescreen to cover utter heart-ache.

Tracey wasn't even sure why she was so... hurt. She'd thought she'd become jaded to this kind of thing already... but then she supposed, even jaded Slytheirns weren't made of ice as stone, much as they might wish for it.

X

Harry felt the sinking of his stomach as he stared at the pretty, dark-haired girl, knowing instantly that something was monumentally wrong.

For the most part, and much to Harry's surprise, Tracey Davis was not like other girls he'd met, much less what he'd become used to expecting from the Slytherin girls.

Tracey was a very clever girl, with dry wit, and was for the most part, easy-going and surprisingly low-maintenance.

She was petite, and slim, with large dark eyes and dark-brown hair that had strands of dark, fiery red hidden amongst the dark strands of brown.

She never really seemed to become upset; was blunt and honest somehow without being too hurtful; and she didn't shy from doing exactly as she wanted, no matter what other's would say.

Harry wasn't sure exactly how it happened... how they became almost friends, and then quickly became so much more than that. In part, he knew the latter part was more due to Tracey's initiative than anything he'd done himself... he supposed that was Slytherin determination for you.

The first part... well that was the unexpected outcome of them both accumulating three weeks worth of detention with Hagrid due to a Weasley Wizard's Wheezes- related mishap.

"Umm... what are you doing, Tracey?" Harry asked, trying not to startle the seemingly fuming girl who was tossing things into a hole in the Forbidden Forrest, while her robes were covered in dirt along with her hands, as if she'd dug the- very deep hole- with her own two hands.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she snapped, snarling at him and raising her voice, and Harry was sure he'd never seen Tracey so angry before, though he'd known the girl for only six months and had been dating her for only half that time.

"I don't know..." Harry said cautiously, even as he momentarily tore his eyes away from his girlfriend and peered briefly into the hole.

He wasn't sure what to make of the assortment of items tossed inside the hole, but he was sure he saw letters and perhaps pictures along with books and even... a plushie snake.

If Harry didn't know any better... he'd think Tracey was getting rid of keepsakes of a past boyfriend... but then, as far as he was aware, Tracey had only ever dated one boy, Theodore Nott, and that was only for an extremely short period of time in their fourth year which had been two years prior.

"I'm getting rid of a bunch of garbage!" Tracey snapped, even as she whipped out her wand and startled Harry when she suddenly lit the pit of items on fire, her beautiful face twisted into a determined scowl- which didn't detract from her beauty, but did scare Harry a bit.

"Do you usually light things on fire when you're upset?" Harry asked trying to sound calming.

Tracey to snap her head towards him, her eyes flashing from the blaze which seemed to rocket up. Harry was almost impressed, Tracey's ability with fire seemingly putting Seamus' pyrotechnic skills to shame.

"I'm NOT upset! I don't get upset! I get angry!" Tracey snapped, her words coming out loudly, even in spite of her clenching her jaw.

Harry put his hands up, palms out.

"Okay... you're not upset. Why are you angry then?" Harry tried.

Tracey's face momentarily spasmed as if she was in great pain and she steadfastly turned away, trying to use her long, wavy locks of hair as a shield from his gaze.

"He's getting married! Married!" Tracey yelled, but Harry was completely nonplussed, unsure who she was talking about.

"Who-" he started to ask, but Tracey was getting well into a rant that she did not hear him.

"He hasn't even been divorced for three months! The ink was probably barely drying on the page when he got his marriage license! Who does that? What kind of pig, does that?" Tracey went on. "He left us... for a girl who's not even ten years older than me! And he's going to marry her. And you know what's worse?!"

Harry wasn't sure what to say, already his stomach squirming extremely uncomfortably, even as he continued to remain completely lost while Tracey's eyes seemed to become exceedingly shiny. And for a moment, he feared that all her anger had somehow morphed into something that would soon have her wailing, and Harry didn't know how to deal with crying... his neck was already burning at his ineptitude with handling such an emotional outburst.

"She's pregnant! She's almost bursting!" Tracey went on, not noticing or perhaps simply not caring, about Harry's discomfort. "They're going to have a baby- He's..." and here her voice cracked and lost volume as she stared at the ground with a heart-broken expression that made Harry feel like he couldn't breathe... because he didn't know Tracey could be so hurt. Because she'd always been so strong, and cavalier and...

"He's replacing me," she almost whispered. "He's... he's finally getting what he wanted... a wife... a child … who don't freak him out and scare him. Normalcy. He'd going to forget all about me!"

And Harry felt that he was beginning to understand... Tracey was talking about her father...

She almost never mentioned him before.

"I'm not a pureblood! Well..my mother is, but my dad's a muggle... my grandparents disinherited my mother for marrying him..." and that was as much as Tracey had ever said about her family... and only because she wanted to disabuse him from his assumptions that all Slytherins were pureblood and pureblood supremacists.

Harry wasn't sure what to say as Tracey lapsed into silence, gasping for breath as she attempted to breathe and turned away from him, hiding her face as she angrily wiped at her eyes.

"It doesn't matter," Tracey went on after a moment, her tone rough and hard, as Harry remained frozen and incapable of offering anything... because he didn't know what it was like to be in Tracey's shoes... because he didn't know enough about her home-life to even be able to offer simple platitudes... and just what kind of a boyfriend was he?

"I don't need him!" Tracey went on, and Harry was sure even despite her voice, that she was still trying to convince herself of that as she stared at the still burning flames. "I don't... I'm fine on my own... I'm a Slytherin..."

And Harry wondered, because the words sounded so much like a mantra, how often Tracey said those words to herself.

Without being able to take it any longer, Harry slipped his hand over Tracey's.

He wanted to draw the girl into a hug, but he doubted she'd be receptive to even the slightest touch, and settled for this... his bigger hand wrapping around the clenched fist at her side, her smaller, cold hand, burning his skin, branding it.

She flexed her hand, Harry thought she was shaking him off and held firmly- he was surprised, when she turned her hand and gently squeezed him back, though she would not look at him.

She couldn't, Harry understood. She wanted to be strong... but she was letting him do this much for her, and showing in her small way, that she was letting him in a little.

And Harry thought, he might just love her that little bit more and that maybe, he wasn't such a failure as a boyfriend after all.

~FIN~

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