Eight
"Are you sure this is the spot?" Daphne asks for a third time. She huffs a cloud of smoke to the side, nonchalantly resting her hands on her hips. There's a 1940s detective air about her as she toys with the cigarette between her fingertips, acting like she's thirty-five years old.
Truth be told, she wasn't much of an explorer. The forest was her sister's thing. It was miraculous how Lorelei never got lost. As soon as Daphne stepped into the maze of flora, she knew that if not for Lorelei's guidance, she would've never stepped out. It was impossible to tell the difference from one tree to the next; everything looked the same wild shades of nature. They had been there for a hot minute, and Daphne already wanted out.
The ground was nothing but mud and leaves, no special or different thing to change its appearance. Was this what Lorelei had been walking in last night, dragged in? Daphne half-expected a drastic scene, something, anything, to signify what had happened. Cracked branches, dishevelled bushes, but there was nothing. The forest remains just as pristine, even after the chaos of Death Eaters walking through it. She, the forest, remained indifferent. She did not care about some child turning into a Death Eater. How cruel, Daphne thought as she looked around. How could you love something so cruel?
"Yeah," Lorelei replies after a while. It had taken her so long that Daphne nearly forgot the question she asked in the first place. Lorelei clears her throat and hides her hesitancy with a reassuring nod. "I remember the tree."
Her eyes lock onto an average-looking wooden column with protruding stumps and branches on its side. It looked like every other tree they passed. Daphne pretended to understand what Lorelei meant.
"It should be around here somewhere," Lorelei sighs. She spins around, her face contorting, unsure of what expression to wear. Daphne recognises all too well the feeling Lorelei fights. The forest is a blend of green she can no longer differentiate. Leaves and bushes intertwine, and mud and tree roots join in a floor she can no longer travel on. All because of a single moment. Daphne watches as Lorelei's eyes gloss over, her body freezing. Her mind is dragging into itself; instead of losing herself in the forest, she's losing herself in her thoughts.
"You alright, Lorrie?" Daphne's voice pulls Lorelei back to her senses before she can fall any further. The nearby stream suddenly sounds much closer, as if someone had muttered an amplification charm. "Lorrie?"
"Yeah, yeah," Lorelei shakes her head, but there are fractures in her facade. She wipes the palm of her hands against her dress and her sleeves slip up. Daphne catches a glimpse of the black tattoo on her arm. The snake's tail reveals itself and Lorelei pretends to know nothing.
"Um, yeah, I – uh, I wanted to thank you by the way. Like, thanks for coming with me. It means a lot," she managed to get out. Daphne nods. They were sisters, she would have helped her in whatever universe they were in. Favours came with the deal of sharing the same blood.
"Did you sleep alright last night?" Daphne asks. Lorelei's eyes watch her like a hawk as she puts out her cigarette. Daphne acquires a long stick from the ground and starts poking it through some bushes. Her attempt at searching. "You were tossing and turning a lot, thought you'd wake up but you didn't,"
"Yeah, I guess." Lorelei shrugs. She goes to search the other bushes. "I didn't dream about anything. No dreams, no nightmares, just darkness and then I woke up. Honestly, it just felt like someone told me to close my eyes for five minutes…"
Daphne nods again, hearing her but not really listening. A question sits on the tip of her tongue and she uses all the energy in the world to hold herself back from asking it. The frustration is thick in the air. Heavy and dense, like the trees of a canopy, like a pressure against your lungs making it harder to breathe, suffocating you until the ultimate decision is to release it all.
"Just spit it out, Daph," Lorelei sighs, not bothering to turn in her sister's direction. "Just ask,"
"What're you gonna do now? You and Draco, now that you're Dea–" Before Daphne can finish, Lorelei cuts her off.
"I dunno," she swallows roughly. Daphne stills. The stick feels rough in her hands, heavy. Memories of her sister's twitching body, displayed on the edge of the table, suffering, screaming, with the pain of getting branded like an animal, resurfaces. It had never really disappeared. Daphne knew it would stay in her mind, fresh as Lorelei's scar. It would stay there for a while before she could forget. Maybe she would never forget – Lorelei sure as hell would not. None of it felt real. It was one sick joke, terrorising two teenagers for a laugh. In any other situation, the cruelty would have been comical. At least, that was what all of them tried to convince themselves was true.
"I mean, we know that you have a mission, we just don't know what it is," Daphne continues. She does not know how to stop, the line between curiosity and concern blurring even more by the second.
"And I'm not telling you any time soon,"
"Lorrie–"
"No, Daph. It's bad. It's really fucking bad. It's so bad I'm considering running away and completely abandoning the fact that the Dark Lord ordered me to help Malfoy." Lorelei's breath hitches. "If we ran away now – all of us – if we left the Malfoys to deal with all of this alone and just escaped to Europe or something, maybe I'd have a chance – maybe we all would have a chance. Maybe the Dark Lord wouldn't be able to catch us out there, maybe we could just wait the war out and return when all this bullshit has died out,"
There were too many maybes and not enough certainty. Daphne needed certainty. She needed to know that one day, her sister wouldn't randomly die on her, that one day, she'd never return from the forest or return home to knock on the door.
"Lorelei, you can't be serious," Daphne whispers as if the trees had ears that would relay everything they heard back to the Dark Lord himself. She wasn't surprised if that was true, the son of a bitch may not have had a nose, but he sure was nosy. It takes a while for Lorelei to reply.
"… Yeah, you're right," Lorelei laughs, removing her glasses and cleaning them on her shirt. She did that every time she was about to lie, a nervous habit – unless her glasses actually needed cleaning. Lorelei pushes them up her nose and clears her throat. She was about to lie. "I'm joking, I'd never want us to run away. Can we change the subject?"
Bullshitting Daphne is a feat not many can accomplish. "Lorrie, I'm serious,"
"So am I," Lorelei sighs. She runs two hands through unruly curls and Daphne examines her, searching her eyes for the truth. Lorelei looks away before Daphne finds out that it doesn't exist. "Just drop it, Daph. You got the information you wanted."
Footsteps scurry towards them and capture their attention. Daphne prepares herself for a running escape, thinking about all the dangerous magical creatures she's ever learnt about in Care of Magical Creatures. She would have shit herself if some bloody Acromantula appeared out of nowhere, but it was only Astoria carrying something that looks like it could have weighed twice her body weight.
Mud smeared almost every surface of it and you could barely tell that it was a briefcase.
"Oh my god, Astoria!" Lorelei squeals as the sound of Astoria's ringing giggles fills in the forest's gaps of silence. She sets Lorelei's briefcase on the ground just as Lorelei picks her up and twirls her around. For a second, all that mattered was that the briefcase had been found, nothing else. Not some pale Dark Lord, not some stupid black tattoos, not the threat of Death on their door. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"You owe me now," Is all Astoria says when Lorelei releases her. Classic. No one would have expected otherwise. It was always a relationship of reciprocity with Slytherins, worse with the younger ones.
"Yeah sure, whatever," Lorelei sighs. Her eyes glisten with a gratefulness nearly impossible to declare in real life. "I just – thank you… "
Daphne coughs and clears her throat, preparing to speak. Her lips were getting restless and she had left all her shit back at the manor. They got what they came for and there was no point wasting any more time loitering around with some random plants. It wasn't as if any of them were going to tell them how to defeat the Dark Lord. "Alright, can we start making our way back now?"
Turns out, getting the girls to leave proved to be a much more difficult task than Daphne had anticipated. Lorelei had to gather some of her stupid materials, Red Mud or whatever. They were already in the forest and she might as well have gone now that she had found her briefcase. Daphne's last strand of patience wavered thinly in front of her, about to snap until Lorelei finally appeared from between the trees.
"Alright, let's go," she nods, not needing a moment to orientate herself. She easily weaves through branches and bushes, already steps away from the girls. Daphne and Astoria rush to keep up with her, the fear of being left behind fuelling them. Daphne is about to open her mouth, to warn Lorelei to slow her pace, but the sound of Astoria speaking first stops her in her tracks.
"I overheard Mummy and Mrs Malfoy talking last night," she says as if it were completely normal to reveal such a thing. It works though because Lorelei stops and Daphne and Astoria can finally catch up. They walk in their trio, pace significantly slower, thoughts significantly more confused.
Daphne scoffs and leans forward to send Astoria a look. "Literally, when? I was with you the entire time last night–"
"Yeah, whatever, that's not important," Astoria brushes off the statement and continues. She knew too much to be fourteen, then again, you always did if you were a part of the Wizarding World. It was just the way it was. "Anyways, they were talking about some arranged marriage?"
Daphne and Lorelei look at each other, eyes uncomfortably wide and in unison say, "What?"
"An. Arranged. Marriage," Astoria repeats herself, stretching the words like her sisters needed help understanding them better. Daphne swallows a lump in her throat and a sourness replaces it. Lorelei doesn't speak, apparently lost in thought, so Daphne takes over.
"Yeah, no, we heard you the first time, care to expand on that?"
"I think they want you and Draco to get married," Astoria reveals, eyes forward as if she can already see the wedding in her mind. Daphne cannot let her entertain the idea.
"Me and Malfoy?" She asks carefully, eyes shifting in Lorelei's direction. There were many unspoken rules, many sentences and secrets none of them had to say to know that they were already obviously in the air around them.
"You think?" Lorelei asks, her voice eerily steady. She sounded like she had just finished a nice smoke. Daphne tries to read her features but they don't tell her anything, nose, eyes, eyebrows.
"Okay, whatever. I know. They literally mentioned Daph and Draco," Astoria sighs in exasperation as she looks around; it seems like she isn't the only one who feels as though the trees are listening in on them. She furrows her eyebrows and starts listing what she heard on her fingers. "Something about power in numbers, sticking together, not being alone and staying close? I dunno, it was all a bit fishy if you ask me. Sounded like something a Gryffindor would come up with,"
Daphne and Lorelei exchange glances. Daphne may have been shit at reading expressions, but a look was a look.
"Bloody hell," She groans, and she wishes she hadn't put out that cigarette.
"How can they be so selfish?" Lorelei whispers, more to herself than anyone. "So much is going on and they still manage to find a way to talk about bullshit like this? Is finding ways to maintain a pureblood bloodline more important than the fact that the heir might literally die?"
Daphne doesn't hear what Lorelei says because her thoughts had been racing louder. "Oh my god, if that's the reason–"
"What do you mean?" Lorelei asks, a curious desperation about her.
"What if – what if Narcissa wanted this arranged marriage because she's afraid Draco will die before she has any grandchildren!" Daphne's eyes stare into her, frantic, restless. "Soooo, they're going to make me marry him and he's going to get me knocked up before Voldy ultimately kills him! Oh, bloody hell, I'm going to be like one of those teenage pregnancy stories–" Daphne gags "–Oh, Morgana, save me, I am not shagging Draco Malfoy – I am not shagging anyone–!"
"She alright?" Astoria asks.
"It's probably the buzz," Lorelei mutters before rubbing Daphne's back. Daphne clutches her stomach like she actually might throw up. The idea of sex is something she did not want to let simmer in her mind.
As they walk back towards the manor, an eerie silence surrounds them. The air feels heavy with unspoken thoughts and emotions, making conversation impossible. Their footsteps squelch in the mud, adding to the awkwardness. The burdens on their shoulders weigh them down, and all they can do is focus on returning to the gates. As they come out of the forest, they notice a figure waiting for them by the entrance. The day couldn't have gotten any better.
Draco Malfoy.
Just who they had been hoping to see. Daphne approaches him, her stomach ache abandoning her. She half-wished it'd return so the probability of her getting sick all over his leather shoes would increase.
"Oi, Malfoy!" Daphne pipes up. She's striding towards him, her steps determined, purposeful, unlike what they had been in the forest, lost, restless. Lorelei and Astoria jog behind her to keep up. Draco watches them, arms folded with the numb expression of a corpse.
"Ladies," he says, Daphne can't read his tone. His height strips away some of her confidence, but she doesn't let it affect her flow.
"Yeah, whatever," she brushes her blonde hair off her shoulder and mirrors his body language. She gets straight to the point. "Did Narcissa tell you anything about a possible arranged marriage between our families?"
Draco is caught off guard. "Excuse me?"
"You, me, arranged marriage?"
"Was that a proposal?" He quips. The way his lip is pulled to the side, no one could tell if he was genuinely entertained or disgusted.
"No, ew," Daphne shudders for added effect. "I think I'd rather slip into Greyback's knickers, thank you very much,"
"Yeah, I thought so. Besides, blondes aren't my type. Light hair gives me the creeps." Draco's eyes flicker in Lorelei's direction. Brunette. She's standing behind Daphne with a look of intense concentration in her eyes. Somehow, behind her glasses, they appear a richer shade of brown. Her face is etched with deep lines of unease and another emotion that he can't quite discern.
"Says the man with platinum-fucking-hair," Daphne snaps. Draco takes his attention off Lorelei and focuses it on Daphne.
"Alright, Elder Green, don't get all defensive just because a man told you he wasn't into you." Draco shifts, he sticks out his chest ever so slightly. Daphne clenches her jaw.
"Do you hear yourself? Have your balls not dropped low enough? Is that why you're trying to compensate by having a big ego?"
"Daphne!" Lorelei warms from beside her, placing a stern hand on her shoulder. Both a reminder and a warning.
"Woah, I'm remembering that one," Astoria giggles. Daphne mentally curses herself, so much for being the role model. That title was doomed from the start. Who's stupid idea was it to title the chronic smoker the most responsible out of the three sisters?
"Ugh, fuck it," she groans and pushes past Draco to walk through the gates.
"I'll pass, thanks," Draco replies loud enough so she can hear. Daphne flips him off, not bothering to turn around.
Draco Malfoy was an insufferable twat, how Lorelei managed to maintain a friendship with him was beyond anyone's understanding. Daphne slows her walk and turns around to wait for her sisters. Lorelei shakes her head as she walks past Draco, bumping purposefully into his shoulder in the process. There's a smirk on his face now, the closest level of happiness he will ever reach. Draco doesn't react, instead leaning down to say something to Astoria as she walks by him.
"Are your sisters always this mean? Imagine getting stuck in an arranged marriage with them! I'd rather sleep with the Giant Squid, wouldn't you?" Draco claims. Daphne and Lorelei turn to face him, their expressions sharper than Godric Gryffindor's blade.
"I dunno," Astoria hums. She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Might be a bit too wet, don't you think?"
Mouths drop.
"ASTORIA!" Daphne and Lorelei gasp in unison, looks of disbelief stretching their expressions. Draco doubles down, barking mad with a laughter no one has heard in a long time.