Daphne looked out of the window as the train pulled in at King's cross. The station was packed as usual. Parents and guardians stood on the platform, ready to greet their children after the term. There was an eerie atmosphere and a relief on every parent's faces as they saw their children.
'Come on, Daph,' she heard a voice behind her, 'Let's get going.'
She looked back to find Theo who smiled sympathetically at her. It was then that she realised the train had stopped in its tracks. She nodded at him before she took her trunk and walked out of the compartment, followed by Theo and Tracey.
She turned to her left, looking at the various students that walked out of their respective compartments. She started walking in that direction.
'Where are you going?' Tracey asked him.
'Tori,' she replied without sparing a glance at her. It was after she had slithered past two groups of sixth years and a group of first years who had grown up slightly from the midgets they were that she found Astoria. She was with her friends, visibly more relaxed than Daphne was.
She smiled at her as she approached her, 'Daph, ready to go home?' she asked cheekily.
'Sure,' she replied coolly.
They then together got off the express. Astoria waved off her friends as Tracey turned to her.
'Will you be alright?' she asked her, her voice laced with worry.
'Of course,' she replied not giving it a thought, 'Why wouldn't I be?'
'Well, see you next term then,' she being used to her cold behavior did not question her further but hugged her as she tensed at it and Astoria before she went to find her parents. Theo just gave them both a cheerful smile before he followed Tracey.
'Let's get home then.'
It was after a minute that they found their parents waiting by a stone wall as they talked absentmindedly.
'Mother, Father,' Daphne and Astoria greeted as her parents took notice of them.
Her mother came forward in greeting as she kissed both of her daughter's cheeks in a fake greeting and she smiled warmly at them, which only looked creepy to Daphne's eyes.
'How was the year?' her father asked him.
'Fantastic.'
Father glared at her but did not say anything as he motioned them to go through the wall. They appeared on the other side, in Muggle London. Her parents walked warily among muggles as they walked past a corner and ended up in an abandoned alleyway. Neither of them tried to converse with each other.
'Hold my hands,' father said gruffly and they complied. She felt the awful tug at her navel before she felt plane earth beneath her feet. She almost fell to the ground lest the arms of her sister grabbed her shoulders before she could crash her face into the gate that blocked their path.
'I'll be leaving,' Father told her mother and nodded curtly at them, and was gone with a crack.
Mother swished her wand which she had just taken out of the holster tied around her waist and the gates opened wide before them. They walked inside the estate. The bushy gardens and the trees did not comfort her. The garden hoisted all sorts of flowers from Marigold to white roses.
A small stream streamed along the left hemisphere of the estates, it went straight through the barren grounds harshly before it recoiled its pace as it reached the fields and continued in soft and smooth waves as it whistled music in the rhythm Daphne had grown up loving before it converged into a small pond, highlighted by big boulders. Neither of these comforted her.
They approached the door. It was a double door with handles and Slytherin's crest engravings on it. Mother opened the doors and they walked inside. The hall was lit with several chandeliers. On the left side of the hall was the well-decorated living room with the royal couches and all, the right side of the hall led to a staircase that led to their rooms.
Daphne choose the left way and Tori followed her.
'Be down for lunch,' her mother spoke sternly and Daphne and Tori nodded without looking back at her.
'Daphne! Astoria!'
'Here we go,' Tori mumbled slightly so only Daphne could hear her and they turned back to look at their raging mother. Her mother was glaring at them through her black eyes which Tori had inherited. Her blonde hair which Daphne had inherited except that hers was much more straight, resembling her father.
'You will look at me when I talk?' she spoke, 'Do you understand?'
Daphne felt Tori shudder behind her before they both replied 'Yes' in unison.
'Very well, you can go then,' mother said as the both of them turned around to ascend the stairs.
Daphne and Tori's rooms were in the same hallway, just across from each other. The hallway was large with several candles lighting their paths. Portraits of her various ancestors were hung up on the walls. They had to greet each of them to go on without any fuss.
Daphne turned to rotate the knob of the door to her room while Astoria turned to go inside her room.
'We can leave if something bad happens,' Daphne told her yanking her door open.
'That seems very likely,' Tori said and shut the door. Daphne walked inside her room and plopped down on the bed. The bed was soft and large with the fluffiest mattress, the walls in her room were painted green and Slytherin banners hung on the walls. Posters of Muggle cricketers were plastered on the walls with a permanent sticking charm on them. She loved cricket, more than she loved quidditch. The fact helped in spiting her parents more, the posters only added to that.
The Greengrass family sat for dinner.
Father sat at the head of the family table while the others sat across from each other.
'The Dark Lord is back,' Father said out of sudden as he kept the fork in his plate down.
Only her mother looked gleeful at that news and she looked at Daphne expectantly.
'Yes, father,' she replied trying not to be cold.
'When you both turn seventeen, I would like you to join his forces like your brother.'
Tori dropped her fork down on the floor in haste. Her mother exclaimed, 'Silly girl!' and smacked her head hard. Daphne winced at that.
'Your brother has brought us a great name before the Lord by joining the ranks.'
'Hercules is a git-'
'Hold your tongue,' Father replied, setting his spoon on his plate. 'That is your brother you are talking about. You will do as I like.'
'Sorry, father,' Astoria said, her face red. 'We would not like that.'
'Do not use that tone with me, girl,' Father said standing up from his chair and Daphne and Tori reflected on that action, 'You will do as I say!'
'We won't do as you say,' Tori said bravely before she ducked behind Daphne.
'Do not talk back with me,' father said taking out his wand and pointing it at them.
'I saw the posters of muggles you put in your room,' mother said glaring at her.
'Oh, good. I wanted you to see it.'
'Muggles?' asked father, his nose scrunched up.
'Yes,' mother told him, 'Playing some sort of game with a bat called cricket.'
'Bloody muggles!' father scoffed, 'Names their games after insects.'
'You put a poster of the mudbloods in your room?' He turned to her.
'With a permanent sticking charm,' mother told him.
'Crucio!'
Daphne dropped to the floor. She felt a thousand knives stab every corner of her body. She could not see anything much. She felt a pair of arms around her. It was Tori. She was saying something to her father but she could not quite place what she was saying.
It must have been after an eternity that she felt less pain coursing through her. Her head throbbed like it had been split open. Tears were coating her face and sweat perspired in beads from her forehead down her cheeks. Tori was holding her. She looked around, her parents were gone.
'Daph,' her sister said through tears, 'I am sorry.'
'Don't.. be,' she said as she pressed her hands against the floor to pick herself up. Tori helped her stand up by holding her shoulders tightly.
She carried Daphne to her room, Tori set her down on her bed.
'This is worse than last year,' Tori said sitting in the chair by her bed.
'All because of Voldemort,' she replied and Astoria shuddered.
'Don't take his name.'
'Don't be daft, Tori. It's just a stupid name.'
'Don't worry,' Daphne said after a while, 'The moment I turn seventeen, the both of us will be out of here.'
The summer was indeed the most awful of all. Daphne has had seven sessions of the Cruciatus curse, two of which were Astoria's. Astoria has had three sessions herself, despite Daphne's defense. Last year, she only had three sessions and Astoria had none. Of course, starvation was pretty normal, and she would get a few slaps here and then but she would face them all with her icy eyes. But it was bearable, so they stayed.
Once an evening when Daphne sat in the living room with Astoria and read a book, the floo lit. A smiling blond came out of it.
'Little sisters,' he said cheerfully, extending his arms.
Daphne closed her eyes for a second, then took a good look at him.
'What are you both staring at?' He asked, grinning broadly. 'Hug me, come on.'
'What are you doing here?'
'To meet you both, Daph.'
'Why don't you go and meet with your Death Eater friends?' She replied, her voice a hiss.
A dark look came over Hercules as his hair fell before his eyes. 'You are still on about that?' He asked, his voice calm. 'Can't we move on from it, now?'
'You backstabbed us,' Astoria said to him, wiping her eyes over and over.
'I did not do anything like that.'
'You can talk to us,' Daphne's voice took a soft note, 'If you have been threatened or father-'
'Father,' he whispered, brushing his fringe back. 'Father, father. Don't you see it? I joined on my own accord, this has been my dream for years. To see the deserving pureblood's rule over the disgusting mudbloods.'
'You are lying. You always liked the muggles-'
'Never,' he replied. 'It was all an act. I couldn't keep hating those sick people at school too, right under the old haggard Dumbledore's nose.'
'Ethan is dead,' Daphne told him.
'I am the one who got him killed,' he replied and she could see it now. There was a hunger in his eyes, a lust: bloodlust. 'Because I always hated him. This is how I was initiated into the Dark Lord's ranks.'
'I am so proud of you,' Mother had walked in from the garden with a beam. She gave Daphne and Astoria a loathsome look, 'Ignore these two brats.'
'They will come around mother,' he kissed her cheeks. 'They will realise it with time.'
'I hope so,' she patted his cheek. 'Otherwise, your father would be more than glad to get them married and be rid of them.'
'Of course. In the end, women are meant to carry babies anyway,' Hercules said to her.
'What the fuck are you saying?' Daphne stood up, her eyes wide.
'Girl!' Mother raised her hand to slap her but Hercules held it.
'Don't fret over it,' he said. 'Women come around in the end.'
They both walked away.
'Did his head land up in a mule's ass or something?' Astoria mumbled.
