A/N:

Written as part of an assignment and for the February Event (Teamwork) over on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)

Task: Write about someone who is closed off emotionally (Charms)

Prompt: (Pairing) Blaise/Daphne

Teamwork Prompts: (Colour) Baby Pink, (Dialogue) "Just because you're beautiful doesn't mean you can treat people like they don't matter."

1000 Word Challenge: Gap

Word Count: 775

Why Care?

Blaise stormed into the Slytherin common room with a look of blazing fury written all over his face.

He had been comforting his younger cousin for the better part of two hours whilst trying to pry the truth out of him. It had taken a while but he had finally admitted the truth to him, and Blaise was far from impressed about what he had discovered.

"How dare you Daphne?" he hissed angrily as he marched towards the blonde haired girl in the corner.

Daphne lifted her head from her studies, stood up and closed the small gap between herself and her boyfriend.

"How dare I what Blaise?" she replied in a bored voice, folding her arms and staring at him with cold, empty eyes. "What am I supposed to have done this time?"

The witch rolled her eyes to the left and smirked at her fellow fifth year knowing that it could be a whole host of things that had made him cranky.

"You know exactly what you've done so don't even think about denying it. You roped my little cousin into taking the blame for you after that stunt you pulled with that mudblood first year, didn't you?" he roared, placing his hands on both of her shoulders and shaking her slightly.

Daphne's eyes betrayed no emotion as she shrugged off his rough grasp and moved back towards the small round table where she had been working before Blaise's entry.

"You know just because you're beautiful doesn't mean you can treat people like they don't matter," Blaise exclaimed loudly, grasping her wrist and spinning her back around to face her. He couldn't believe how cold his girlfriend was being. "My cousin is impressionable. You had no right to involve him and exploit his crush on you. Why do you keep doing this?"

Daphne took a step back away from Blaise. No one had ever cared about her enough to call her out on her the way she treated other people, and why would they?

If there was one lesson that she had learnt very early on in her life, it was to look out for number one. Her parents had ensured that she understood this in the way that they constantly palmed her and her sister off onto the nanny at every opportunity so they could go out and socialise.

She could vividly remember sitting on the bottom step of the staircase at home when she was six years old waiting for her parents to come home so they could celebrate her birthday. She had worn her favourite baby pink dress with a bow in her hair and stared at the front door for hours, and they hadn't turned up, instead preferring to take an impromptu vacation. She had cried for weeks on end and had been inconsolable, and when they had finally dried up she had vowed to never allow herself to feel that pain again.

She figured if her own parents couldn't give a damn about her, then no one else would, so why should she care about anyone else.

"I don't know any other way," Daphne informed him coolly, her eyes displaying no emotion at all. "And you have always known what I'm like; I don't know why you keep expecting more from me."

"Because Daph," he sighed as he ran his hand through his short jet black hair. "I know you are better than this."

"Well guess what Blaise, I'm not," she hissed at him. "And it's about time you realised that, otherwise you and I aren't going to work out."

Blaise's eyes fell to the ground as he pondered her words. He loved Daphne dearly, but her lack of emotion and consideration for other people was disturbing even by Slytherin standards.

She would never care for him as he did for her, and if she did she would never show it.

"Then I guess we're done, and if you think I'm going to allow my cousin to continue taking the blame for you, then you are sadly mistaken Daphne," he told her before turning his back on her and marching out of the common room to search for the Transfiguration professor.

"You say that like I should care," Daphne whispered quietly to herself as she slumped back into her chair and returned to her work.

The fifth year was completely unfazed by the fact that she had just lost the only person who would probably ever love her and give her an ounce of affect. Nor was she bothered at all by the prospect of getting detention or whatever fresh 'hell' McGonagall would have in store for her.

A/N:

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