One Shots

Whenever War Is Waged

Delphi stood by the door, clothes spilling out from beneath her arms, trying to keep little trinkets from falling and breaking. "One more thing," she questions.

"And Rodolphus. Dad. Lestrange. Just how many dragons had you fought off by the time you were my age? How many fears, losses, failures? How many wars?"

"Just one," he replies slyly, not changing the tone in his voice. Euphemia was glaring. It only fired up Delphi more.

"What a pity because I could've sworn you've been imprisoned more than once and you, Euphemia, aren't you already in rough waters for that incident back at Hogwarts in ninety-ninety seven, I believe it was-"

"And I know much more from where that came from..."

"Get out," Euphemia says as she points to the door, "Get out you godforsaken child!"

"Perhaps you're right," she mutters, "Rodolphus if news were to get out..."

"At least the dementors are gone."

She successfully won and her own worries somewhat alleviated, Delphi disapparated again before they could start throwing curses and hexes on the spot.

*

Afterall, it was their fault, they started this. They were the ones who told me about The Prophecy, the infamous "gold" they would call it. Told me how it was perfect and how it came to be. Eventually why I was left in their care and how I had to bring back the dead to solve my problems even though they would be the farthest from solved. It was their fault I was in this situation in the first place. It was always what I had to do and how I had to do rather than what I wanted to do. And I should've been doing "normal" things and not staying imprisoned at the shy age nineteen, well- almost twenty now since I've lost track of the date and I was never good at maths. And here I am stuck with little to no education, in a room smaller than the bane of my existence, and I still don't have a family, no matter how hard I try to find one.

Not to mention the levels of abuse I've experienced at such a young age, including, the Cruciatus curse, many more which I can't place the name of. I'm pretty sure not one thing they've done is legal but that's not the worst part, it's that they lied in court, trying to give me a life sentence but there wasn't that much evidence.

Of course I was sentenced to only half but I still feel the fire that raged inside me the day of my trial. I remember not being able to breath and needing to drink water every five seconds. The stress of it all caused me to have a panic attack in the showers. I mean- if I have the chance to blame them for it all, I'd do it everyday, all over again, in a constant loop. But that wasn't the chance I was offered, I had to earn trust first to even begin down that road.

So here I stood, trying to answer the question I never thought would come, "Do you want help, Delphi?" I didn't think anyone gave a shit, but clearly in just this one scenario, I was wrong.

"Thank you," I repeat.

"It's a kind offer, I'm just not sure if I'm ready."

He nods slowly, "I understand and I'm sure this is out of the blue but I want to help."

"I'm an auror, it's what we do," he replies.

"But you never had in the past so... I guess my question is- why now?"

"Why not?" He asks, comfortingly with a smile.

I shake my head, "Delphini?" He asks once more.

"It's just Delphi," my own voice came out strong and sure. A good thing, that, because I certainly didn't feel it.

When Draco had gotten his auror assignment, it had taken constant berating from the Ministry to finally accept it, he didn't want to revisit the trauma that took a toll on his family, rather he couldn't but he managed to put that beside him. It wasn't like he'd had a whole lot of time to question the implications of it all. If he'd had time to think about it, though, he still wouldn't have known what to expect, really, and now he was faced with Delphi and he didn't know how to feel. He knew he had to be there for her; they were family by blood not by choice. Beyond that, he was, if he did say so himself, a master at changing, he had all the experience in the world. He learned the do's and don'ts of forgiving and revenge and anything in between. So she'd picked up a few more tricks in between and a better understanding as well. You couldn't believe everything you were the same, though. Draco was the example; maybe Delphi had a chance in this world or at least the next.