I do not own Harry Potter, the Wizarding World, or any canon characters.
Daphne Greengrass never had high expectations for her life. With half her body covered in permanent burn scars that serve as a constant reminder of the fire that claimed her home and family, she had long grown accustomed to a life of solitude.
-0-0-0-
The title Ice Queen was even more cruel if you knew her.
She certainly looked like the appellation. She had fair skin, pale and smooth from what one could see. Her hair was snow white and fell past her shoulders, one half fell over her face, covering it like a curtain. She wore gloves on both hands. Her robes were well made and also long, covering her limbs with room to spare.
She rarely spoke, only from necessity. The professors were used to it, barely asking her for questions knowing that they would receive barbed replies. Her classmates avoided her. She was barely polite to people of authority and held nothing back when she had to speak to her so-called peers. It only took a day for her to earn her nickname, one given scathingly. The Pure-Blood that did not demean herself to speak with others. A heart of stone, a soul of ice. Cold eyes and colder features.
Only one person seemed to tolerate her presence. Only one was not bothered by her frosty demeanor. He did not bother her per se, aside from being there when she wanted no one to be there. Yet she saw something in the incredibly thin, messy black-haired boy. Something that felt familiar despite never meeting him before.
She wanted nothing to do with him.
-0-
He saved her life.
She was wondering about, avoiding the Halloween feast like the plague. She was drawn to the sound of sobbing in the girl's bathroom. It was the kind of sobbing she was familiar with: despair and lonliness. She saw the bushy brown-haired girl from the same House as the boy, driven their by cruel words and actions.
Much like her.
She was tempted to leave the other girl to her solitude. Her hesitation left her there with the Troll. It attacked the two girls and during the attack, the other girl saw the Ice Queen's face without her hair in the way. The shock almost killed the crying girl from inaction.
He came and saved them. Distracted the monster, knocked it unconscious. He had come looking for the brown-haired girl, but was not unhappy to see the white-haired one.
The Ice Queen learned that the crier was named Hermione, she had learned that the boy was Harry.
She reluctantly told them her name was Daphne. She made Hermione swear to never reveal what she saw.
-0-
Daphne was irritated. Despite her best efforts, Hermione and Harry had remained friendly. They had willingly spent time with her since the incident. A whole year passed and they continue to insist that they were friends.
She did not want friends.
Friends meant connections. Connections meant pain waiting to happen. Pain delayed cut deeper and left her feeling lonelier than before.
Yet, when she learned that Hermione was petrified and that Harry had gone down to fight said monster, she felt something else besides irritation. She felt fear. Instead of fear of them, fear for them.
Fear for herself, for losing them.
-0-
She sat with him in the Infirmary. He had protected her. Draco Malfoy had managed to enrage the Hippogriff and had pushed her into it to take the consequences. Harry dove and save her.
His back had been slashed open for his efforts.
Trying to stop the dreadful bleeding, feeling her gloves become soaked from his blood, she saw scars upon scars on his back. She felt them through the blood and leather. Some were made from ugly shapes. Others looked horrifically similar.
That afternoon, in relative privacy, she asked him about them.
He told her his story. A tale that was the exact opposite of what people thought of him. Not a remotely happy nor healthy life. One full of pain similar to hers, injuries like hers. Except in his case, they were dealt by those that were related to him. As he spoke, she realized what she felt those years ago, the familiarity.
Kinship.
She hated it.
-0-
"I'm glad you believe him," Hermione said to Daphne. "I wish more did."
"They are idiots, believing nothing despite the evidence in front of them," Daphne said. "He said he did not enter the tournament, but idiots believe what they want."
"It's just, if you stand with us, everyone will be against you," Hermione said weakly.
Daphne turned her head to look at Hermione, exposing just a hint of what laid below the pearl curtain that was her hair. "I'm used to it," Daphne said flatly.
-0-
"Do not blame yourself," Daphne said to the grieving Harry. "It was not your fault."
"How isn't it my fault?" he replied brokenly. "He wasn't there, I was tricked and he came for me. He died because of me."
"He died for you." Daphne looked at him. "There's a difference."
He looked at her. "You sound like you've gone through this before."
She sighed, deeply afraid. She made a decision, to finally listen to Hermione's often given opinion. She told Harry of her childhood, of the fire that took her home and her family. How her parents had protected her to the last without protecting themselves. She pulled her gloves off, pulled her hair back.
She showed him the dark burn scars on her skin. How despite all the years, they never faded. She showed him along her face and neck, her hand and arm, her leg. She waited for the inevitable reaction. The disgust, the revulsion. Or worse: pity. She waited to feel the ache of abandonment and loss one more time, as inevitable as the tide.
Harry smiled sadly. "You're just like me. You suffered but you survived."
She gaped at him. "They are ugly," she said as she scratched at them.
He took her burned hand in his without a second thought. "Nothing about you is ugly."
She felt her icy demeanor thaw. She felt something else deep in her chest, where loss and loneliness normally was, relief.
She craved it.
-0-
She stayed by his side. They tried to stop Malfoy together. Went on the run together. Broke the Horcruxes with Hermione together. She braved the Fiendfyre for him and for herself. She tried to follow him into the Forest but was denied. She fought with him at the last battle, lost people with him, bled with him.
Years later, she walked around without gloves on. Her hair was shorter, showing her neck and jaw. She did not notice the looks from others, from those that did not know her. She only noticed the looks from her friend Hermione, from her family, from Harry.
She sat in the garden, watching her children play. Named for her and his lost family, they laughed full of life. She listened to Hermione and Harry argue about something from work. She let the laughter and words fill her.
She loved it.
She felt warm, and she did not try to flee from it.