Light in the Darkness

Chapter Six

Astoria had hardly spoken to the lot of them. Once she had gotten home on New Year's night, she'd expected to receive a long, agitated, venomous lecture. However, her mother had simply glared at her, and waved her hand, as if too tired, too irritated to order her thoughts.

Daphne shook her head in the same exasperated manner and headed off too, without a word.

Her father, the softest of all of them, followed suit. That was what really hurt Astoria -- even he was drawn thin with patience for her.

In the following days, she hardly left her room, bar going downstairs to eat lunch and dinner.

And with each passing day, the ring, now unyieldingly cemented to her hand, mocked her more. She tried everything; the hex her mother used couldn't have been that complicated, could it? She didn't even use an incantation -- just an angry wave of her wand and the ring was unmoving. If she could just work out a counter spell. . . . But, no. She was going off four complete years of schooling -- she was nowhere near apt to change this.

The next weekend, they were expected to appear at another party, this time, hosted by the Notts. The Notts were almost as bad as the Malfoys -- just as radical of pureblood supremacists, just as radical of Death Eaters. And their son would be courting her sister.

She shivered at the thought, and as if on cue, a few light knocks sounded at her door.

She didn't say anything as the door opened, Daphne walking into the room. Sitting next to Astoria on her bed, she said, "Happy Birthday." She wouldn't have even remembered it was her birthday if it wasn't for the looming date of January 6 being the day she'd have to go to the Nott's.

"You said that already earlier," Astoria said, picking at her gray painted nails.

"I know but I'm saying it again -- stop doing that --" she swatted at her sister's hands.

"What did you need?" Astoria said, her voice level and disinterested.

"I wanted to talk to you. . . ."

Astoria shrugged, her lips pursed, as if to say, the floor's all yours.

Sighing, daphne angled her body more toward her sister. "Don't disappear tonight. Just, please, don't --"

"Fine," Astoria said in an offhand manner.

Daphne sighed again, and tried to find words to continue with. "You just need to understand that we all have a certain image we need to maintain -- you disappearing and never being present is just --"

"Fine!" Astoria snapped.

Clenching her fists, Daphne said, her voice even and low, annoyance drenching her tone, "If you would just let me speak --"

"I don't need to hear it --"

"You clearly do --"

Astoria huffed and shot up, standing before her sister. "What? That I'm just embarrassing the family further? That I'm ruining your life even more? That I'll -- what were the words you used? I'll never understand the luxury of only being responsible for myself -- and that I don't have actual things I need to worry about?"

Her tone scolding and cooing simultaneously, Daphne said, "Astoria, that's not --"

"Trust me, you made it all quite clear on Christmas. So I don't need another rendition -- because I understood perfectly --"

"Ugh!" Daphne stood, meeting her sister's stature, but Daphne had more commandment, more poise in her venomous stance. "You say you understand but you don't! You don't -- because if you did, you wouldn't be regurgitating my words back to me, you'd be apologizing! You're trying to make me out to be some villain but you will never get it -- because you live in this little bubble -- a bubble where you run off during parties and get to wear fake engagement rings and act like a child!"

"Then stop treating me like one!"

"Stop being one!"

"Maybe I'm not being a child, maybe I'm just -- I --" she stumbled over words, trying to piece together what to say.

Daphne watched her, tauntingly. "You're just what?"

Huffing, she said, "You say I don't understand -- but you don't! You'll never know what it's like -- what being sick and, and --"

"Oh, but I do understand. Because we all have to suffer because you're dying." The words pierced the air in that way only Daphne could. She didn't say them with any remorse, with any sorrow, but with resentment and bitterness and venom.

Astoria froze, her eyes wide with affront, with anger, with hurt.

Their glares challenged each other's for a while, before Astoria hissed, "Get out."

Another pause in which Daphne's eyes softened, ever so slightly, and she cooed, "Astoria --"

"Get out!" She shrieked, pushing her sister in the sternum. With an unreadable expression, indignant yet sorrowful, hardened yet soft, angry yet placid, Daphne turned, walking swiftly from the room.

Astoria crumpled to her bed, feeling tears press behind her eye, tickle in her nose. She pushed them down, pushed them down into her fluttering stomach. She would not cry. She would not let Daphne see the tears on her cheeks or the redness in her eyes. She would not grant her that power.

Yet Daphne did possess that power. For the past nineteen years, Daphne had yielded insurmountable power over Astoria. She was her sun and her moon and all the oceans and land to her. Her best friend, her only friend. And now she was gone. Astoria had lost her and felt completely helpless against it. She could see in her eyes, hear in her words; Daphne's resentment ran deep, and no matter what Astoria did, how hard she tried, some things were out of her control. She would never not be sick. She would never lift this burden from her sister. Not until the day she died. The thought struck her like a knife to her heart.

She pushed it down. She pushed it all down, and began to dress herself for the Nott party.