dead of night

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Daphne Greengrass finds her baby sister lying in a horizontal position on the hallway in front of her London flat at three thirty in the morning.

Daphne had been entertaining a few friends- her old Slytherin friends- and they were talking, chatting, pouring a few drinks, getting reasonably drunk and as they help her pack up the drinks until they heard relentlessly knocking on the door. Confused, Daphne went to answer only to wound up seeing her sister asleep on his doorstep, her long dark hair pooling on the dirty floor with more of her body showing than appropriate, reeking of cigarettes and alcohol and a stranger's aftershave. 

"Tory," Daphne uses the nickname she reserved for Astoria, "What the fuck?"

She raises her head off the ground and cracks one eye open to give her a bloodshot glare, giving her the finger at a wonky angle, "Piss off, Daph, I'm trying to sleep here."

"Daph?" The voice of Draco Malfoy slither through the muggy darkness of Daphne's apartment hallway. "What's up?"

Then Draco sees the mess on Daphne's floor, eyes widening when he sees the young Greengrass in a skirt that hikes up her succulent thighs and the exposing crop top that exposes her toned midriff and her ample cleavage spilling out of her top. "Jesus."

"Just help me, will you?" grouches Daphne, "And get Blaise here; she's gonna be heavy."

Draco nods and retreats back into Daphne's apartment to retrieve Blaise. Blaise emerges out of the sweet lightness of Daphne's apartment and out into the darkness of Daphne's dimly lit hallway, "Is that-"

"Yeah, it's Tory," sighs Daphne. "I'll get her head but you two get her legs."  

Together, they bend down and lever Astoria into their arms then slowly ease back into the apartment, making sure not hit a loose limb into any of the furniture, then toss her rather unceremoniously into Daphne's white sofa. Irritatedly, Daphne pushes her blonde hair out of her face and gaze down at her little sister, who has barely woken up at being carried and dropped. Instead, she just rolls over to display a smooth expanse of a white back, crisscrossed like scars the designer rips into her top. 

Daphne bends down once again and digs into the pockets of her mini skirt until she finds a packet of cigarette and a lighter. "Throw this out for me, will you?" she asks Draco, handing him the items. He nods speechlessly and she feels slightly better when she watch him stalk across the room and toss them into a bin. 

"Thank you," Daphne says graciously, "I'm so sorry-"

"It's fine," Draco says, waving dismissively. "She is your little sister, after all."

"How much has she been doing this?" Blaise whispers through the darkness; he knows of the little Greengrass's reputation since the sixth year, who has gained herself infamous attention since she was in the fourth year- the little slutty Ravenclaw, which seems like the biggest paradox yet, who drinks and dances with all sorts of medicated habits. She sleeps with anyone who calls her pretty. Now she has just graduated out of Hogwarts, much to the surprise of everybody, and it seems like she hasn't changed. Sadness fills him- the same sadness Daphne feels when she looks at her little sister despairingly, wondering where she has gone wrong- and he thinks about how long Astoria has before everything catches up to her.

"Quite a lot," Daphne runs a tired hand through her hair, "She's been going out more frequent now that she's out of school." She glances at the clock, "Jesus, it's almost four. You lot better go back."

"If you need anything else,"  Draco says as they are about to exit the front door, "Call us."

Daphne jerks her head into a quick nod and hears the click of a door being closed. She marches over to the front door, locks it then brings the bin from across the room and puts the bin to stand underneath her face, just in case, then she lets out an exasperated air and returns to her bedroom. 

-

By the time Daphne wakes up once again, Astoria has already disappeared into thin air. 

It's not hard to retrace her steps and surmise the chain of events she left in her wake. From the vomit-filled rubbish bin leaning against the wall to the four mugs with lipstick stains on the rim and dregs of black coffee at the bottom, the mess of cornflakes all over the kitchen counter and the whiff of cigarettes and booze filling up the place, she knows Astoria must've made herself at home, taking whatever food and drinks to cure her hangover and leave the minute she's done. 

Daphne ignores the bin and takes an experimental sip of the remainder of one of the mugs, wincing at the bitterness and the strength of the coffee therein. Daphne doesn't understand how Astoria inhale so much of the coffee she makes, which is black, dark and thick, and Astoria could probably drink five of six cups of the thing and not feel anything while Astoria's coffee usually gave Daphne the caffeine jitters later in the day, even after one cup. 

Daphne sighs as she collapses into her sofa and pulls out her muggle cell phone to call the cleaning company. Then she rings Astoria, only to find voicemail. She even tries to track her via Floo Network but was unsuccessful in finding her. Where the fuck could that girl possibly go? She groans. She would ring her parents but they'll come up with the excuse, "She'll turn up eventually". Daphne knows Astoria will, she always does; there have been so many occurrences when Astoria has slipped through the cracks and her fingers and emerge out of the darkness once again to either crash at her place or bum money off her, but there's always that nagging worry that one day Astoria will turn out...well, dead. 

Especially with the way she's going.  

So Daphne flips through her contacts and begin texting all her friends, warning them to be on the lookout for her sister. 

-

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STELLAR LEGENDS [HARRY POTTER- ASTORIA X BLAISE]Where stories live. Discover now