Challenge: Screaming Faeries the Lyric/Quote Drabble/Oneshot Challenge on HPFC

Characters: Daphne Greengrass, Kevin Entwhistle

Prompt: 14. "Fate fell short this time, her smile fades in the summer. Take your hand in mine, I'll leave when I wanna." -Feeling This, Blink182
34. "Love is the red, the rose on your coffin door. What's life like bleeding on the floor?" -Thank You for the Venom, My Chemical Romance

Word count: 1,519

A/N: I've never considered Daphne as a character, really, and until recently I figured Kevin was a universally accepted OC, not unlike Hamish in the BBC!Sherlock fandom. But it turns out they're real, and I figure some purebloods are kind without being ex-communicated by the rest of the community, so here you go.

Love is the red, the rose on your coffin door
What's life like bleeding on the floor?

Thank You for the Venom - My Chemical Romance

The war was over, the Battle of Hogwarts won. Daphne seemed to be alone in her happiness, though, now that she was back home with her father and the family house elf. Even Astoria put in an appearance, though she'd claimed the family place in Albion for her own as soon as she'd graduated from Hogwarts two years earlier, and since her glee was an act, she had no real reason to be back home at all. She was more dignified in her 'happiness', too, refined, even; but that seemed wrong to the younger Greengrass girl.

Daphne was different from her family members. She had pale skin instead of tan, blonde hair instead of chocolate brown, and she was very short for her age, almost half a foot shorter than her sister. She had the same dark green eyes as her sister and father, but otherwise could easily have been mistaken for a member of some other family. On top of that, she was kind as well, soft-spoken, and her best friend and boyfriend, much to the dismay of her pure-blooded family, was a muggle-born Ravenclaw by the name of Kevin Entwhistle.

It was her kindness that caused her to tell the elf to get itself something to drink while she got the door herself. The chiming bell could be heard all through the mansion. Daphne wore an eager smile with the Ravenclaw team shirt that Kevin had given her for her sixteenth birthday, opening the door happily.

It was surprise and concern that affected her next, overtaking her glee as he fell into her arms. His blood, as clean and red as her own, dripped down onto the navy shirt, pooling across her small breasts.

"Kevin!"

"Snatchers," he gasped, clutching her as a drowning man would cling to a life raft.

By the time Astoria, the house elf and their father reached the door, he had passed out and Daphne had begun to hyperventilate as she wept.

"What in Salazar's name – why is that mudblood bleeding all over my floor?"

"Father!" Astoria scolded, before moving on to bark orders at the house elf. It moved to take the younger witch's hand, to apparate her and her friend to St. Mungo's, but it wasn't fast enough. Daphne heard her older sister scoff.

"And that's why you'll never catch me bothering with a mudblood. Loving that dirty blood will just bring misery, and she'll die depressed. Just alone and broken, her life bleeding out on the floor like some pathetic half-breed."

Fate fell short this time
Her smile fades in the summer
Take your hand in mine
I'll leave when I wanna

Feeling This - Blink182

"I'm not going to die alone!" Daphne snapped at no one much later, pacing in a pale green room on the Spell Damage floor of St. Mungo's. The outburst was unusual for her, because she simply didn't get angry. Daphne Greengrass was the safe Slytherin, the quiet one, the forgiving one. That she hadn't spoken to Astoria in three weeks was a first: it meant that she was holding a grudge.

Kevin had never really been perfect, not in the universal sense of the word, but he'd always been handsome, at least in Daphne's opinion. His nose was straight, unlike most pure-bloods – he hadn't been punched in the face for being an insufferable jerk, and it had survived Quidditch – and his mouth, weirdly small for his face, was thin-lipped. His eyes were dark brown, like his hair, and he had a good, strong jaw, along with wonderfully tanned, smooth skin. Daphne knew all of this, because she had basically dated him all through their sixth year, and for part of their fifth, after they had been forced to kiss under some enchanted mistletoe hung by Peeves. Even Umbridge's regime couldn't upset her after that.

Kevin's skin wasn't smooth any more, instead being riddled with cuts. Some Snatchers had nabbed him during the horrid last year of their lives. It had been late in the year, probably less than a week before the final battle, and they hadn't had enough time to turn him in. They'd spared nothing in torturing him, though. Crucio. Various hexes, curses. Knives – some infernal pure-blood anti-muggle supremacist had, disgustingly, taken a blighted blade to his face, in a sick form of muggle torture. The irony wasn't lost on Daphne: she was quiet, not stupid.

What was unusual was that she had imagined the deaths of every wizard who had ever laid a hand on Kevin Entwhistle, Ravenclaw muggle-born. Every death, dealt to faceless people she didn't know and to friends of her family alike, people she knew had sympathised with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, was played out in her mind in painstaking detail. Maybe it was a good thing that some members of the Order of the Phoenix had been the ones to apprehend the Snatchers: she wasn't sure that she could control herself if she had found them first. After all, just because she didn't use them, didn't mean she wasn't well-versed in the use of the Dark Arts.

"Just because I haven't yet, doesn't mean I won't."

She threw herself into the chair at his bedside, strangely reminded of her mothers' deathbed before she'd started at Hogwarts. As she had then, she didn't bother to wipe away her tears: there was no point. She knew they would only fall harder with her efforts to quell them.

"I wish you'd wake up, Kevin," she moaned, taking his unmoving hand in her own cold one. "That used to work back in Hogwarts, remember? You got smashed by a bludger back in fifth year, and I sat beside you – just like this, actually – and I took your hand, and I kissed it, and I asked you to wake up. And that's exactly what you did; you woke up, and you told me that you heard me while you were unconscious.

"And then when I said that I'd tell my father about us, you panicked, and it was adorable, probably the sweetest thing I've ever seen. You told me not to, and I called you a coward, and said that it was no wonder you weren't in Gryffindor, you weren't reckless or brave enough. But you didn't let me joke, you wanted to be serious, for once. You said that you were afraid for me, of what he'd do to me if I 'polluted his bloodline'. Of course it was all fine. It's not like I was his favourite before I fell in love with you, anyway." She trailed off into silence, the smile that came with the warm memory fading away. The tears were starting again, unheeded by her; harder and faster than before.

"I know you're going to wake up. Logically, I know that the healers know what they're doing. Intuitively, I know that you'll be okay. But I also know you'll never get this last year back, this horrible year of hiding and fearing and not knowing whether or not you're going to be safe the next day. I'd say that fate cheated you, only I know you only took divination for a laugh and then only because I wanted to keep at it, and you wanted us to have some classes together.

"I'll say it isn't fair, instead. I'll say I want more time with you. I'll tell you that we should both go back to Hogwarts next year, but that's not … I'm afraid. I'm so afraid that this time, things will change between us. My kind – pureblood supremacist jerks – they're always, always, going to look down on you. And why? For no better reason than because you grew up in a different world to them. It's absolute rubbish, Kevin, and I hate it, but I don't – I don't understand why you'd ever want me. Not when my world will always try to hurt you. I just – I don't see why you'd stay."

She was yanked forward without warning, pulled so that her nose was pressed against Kevin's chest. She gasped slightly in surprise, but didn't protest: she was far too relieved for that.

"Shut up, Daphne."

The pretty blond, despite her low self-confidence, nodded, more agreeable than any other Slytherin ever seemed capable of being.

"Don't talk down about yourself like that. You are smart, kind, pretty. So what if you make a bad Slytherin? It's not like being a Slytherin is necessarily a good thing, anyway. You're a wonderful woman, and a talented witch. It's not your fault that your father is a pompous git and your sister a snotty cow. I'm a good person, just like you. And not only can you have me, you've already got me."

She looked up slightly, green eyes meeting brown ones that were just as dark. She nodded slowly, feeling slightly braver. "And you've got me, too, Kevin. I promise."

"Good," he said, with an air of finality. But he added an afterthought anyway, "If I want to leave you, I will, and not a minute sooner or later. But you don't have to let me go."

Daphne hesitated for a moment, then squeezed his hand slightly. "I don't think I'll be letting you go, actually."