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"Queenie," Astoria murmured, tears in the corners of her eyes, falling down her long dark lashes and onto her cheeks. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, trying, failing, to get rid of every tear, and climbed up onto Daphne's four-poster bed. "I did something wrong."
There was a sinking feeling in Daphne's chest, a small one, a tired stone making its way to the bottom of her stomach. It knew the way quite well, just as Daphne knew the dance she and Astoria would play time and time again. A dance between a darling little sister with a temper and a grudge against the world, Slytherin enough to get away with things but not enough to know not to do something terrible in the first place, and an older sister who's been cleaning up the younger's mistakes for almost two decades, ever since her two year old self decided there could be no one more perfect than the baby her mother and father brought into the world.
(Later, long after Astoria's birth, Daphne met a girl with flaming red hair and freckles everywhere and Quidditch player muscles and a temper as fiery as her sister's but kinder and gentler, one that doesn't destroy but creates. A temper that made Daphne truly think after she called someone a mudblood in Ginny Weasley's presence. A girl who can't stand her not because of the color of her tie but because of her parents' and her sister's and even her own allegiances. A woman so lovely, so perfect, so much the girlfriend of the Man-Who-Killed-The-Dark-Lord.)
"What did you do?" Daphne asked, her voice as cold and heartless as Astoria's ever heard it, because they're both too old for Daphne to keep cleaning up Astoria's mistakes. Astoria flinched, but Daphne could almost convince herself that she didn't care. Daphne was not two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Daphne was eighteen and a former potions apprentice of the late Severus Snape, and her magic's forever stained by the potions they made for the Dark Lord, and she can't look at Draco Malfoy again because of the things they did during the war. Astoria's the child who stayed at the Greengrass manor for the duration of the war, the innocent one, the one who still has a chance of grasping happiness by its wings.
(Ginny Weasley's magic was pure and wonderful. Daphne sometimes couldn't tell if she was jealous or happy that at least some people could avoid the stain of the war.)
(But then she thinks of the twin who died and clutches Astoria and her parents closer to her heart. You don't have to approve of someone to love them so desperately it hurts.)
(Daphne doesn't approve of Harry Potter. Not because of whom he killed, but because of whom he kissed. But she has no say, no say at all, in who Ginny kisses. Potter is light and male and everything Ginny ever wanted.)
Astoria clutched Daphne's hand, her long, pale fingers cold and shaking. "I cursed the Weaslette," she said. "And I'm not sorry. She doesn't even know it was me."
Her voice was firm, a stark contrast to her earlier tears. A contrast to Daphne's heart, which can't quite get back to normal, and that's not allowed. Astoria was too close, too near, she would notice something. If she hasn't already, Daphne thought, and once again wondered if her sister noticed her forbidden thoughts, if the reason Ginny was cursed was because Astoria couldn't find another way to say she disapproved.
"Why are you here?" Daphne asked instead of asking why. She wanted to know, but it didn't quite matter. What mattered was that Astoria was in trouble, and so was Ginny, and Daphne couldn't imagine something worse than that combination. Because no matter how much of an idiot her little sister can be, she was still Daphne's little sister. Daphne's to love and shelter and care for.
(And Ginny was. Ginny was. Ginny was magical like Hogwarts wasn't, because Hogwarts was cold and lonely sometimes, while Ginny was determined to drive the cold away.)
"It's a Greengrass family spell and she isn't waking up," Astoria replied. "I just wanted her to shut up for once. It's disgraceful for her to be so poor, honestly. And it's not like she's even that pretty. Potter can do so much better than her."
"Like you?" Daphne drawled, and dammit, she's spent too much time around Draco. She doesn't even touch on Astoria's opinion of Ginny, because her baby sister must not have any eyes.
Astoria twitched a little. "Ew. No."
But her cheeks were the slightest bit pink, and her eyes were just a bit dark, and her hatred of Ginny made a bit more sense.
What a pair we are, Daphne thought but would never say, both in love with one half of the Golden Couple. Wouldn't mother and father love to see this stupid spectacle?
But the curse… "It needs a Greengrass to be undone, and you don't want to do it. Or can't."
"I can!"
"Of course. Which is why you're here, of course," Daphne answered.
Astoria drew her arms together and glared. "Are you going to help me or not? Because I can ask Mother."
Mother and Father are trying their hardest to make sure our family is implicated in nothing. They're working every day to make sure no one remembers anything – or can't say anything, even if they do remember, Daphne didn't say. They can't help you, you stupid child. Daphne had already done her part. Snape'd had ten apprentices working to complete all the potions the Dark Lord wanted. Six had died in the war along with their master. Four, including Daphne and Draco, agreed to Daphne's oath to never speak of their tasks (duties, honors, crimes, atrocities) again.
"I'll help you," Daphne replied. They both knew she would. "As long as I get your oath that you'll never involve yourself in Potter and Weasley's relationship again."
"Queenie! You can't. You just can't."
Astoria's pleas fell on deaf ears once Daphne steeled her heart. It was surprisingly easy, but then she was only trying to preserve her family's honor.
(And leave Ginny to live her own life, full of fairy tale princes and happiness and a half dozen children and everything Daphne could never give her.)
Once she got Astoria's vow, one that would last until Daphne released her, Potter approached her himself, or Daphne died, she headed to the hospital wing under the shadow of invisibility. She hadn't heard anything about Ginny's curse earlier that day, but she'd seen her at lunch, so Ginny hadn't been cursed for too long. Astoria had probably snuck into the hospital wing just a few hours before. Daphne probably was retracing her steps right now.
It was depressingly easy to breach the hospital wing, but as easy as it was to breach it, it was harsh to see Ginny Weasley's unmoving body on the first bed Daphne saw. She was just lying there, unmoving, so terribly still. Only a few months after the battle, Daphne could easily imagine Ginny as a victim of its too many battles. As someone who'd joined the dead, both dark and light, in the next life.
Sometimes, she wished she had. She gave into the darkness inside her and wished Ginny would have no one, have nothing, if Daphne couldn't have her. Maybe that was the same darkness that caused Astoria to curse someone she'd likely never even talked to.
Daphne knew the countercurse, knew it by heart because she'd studied her family's grimoire until her eyes burned, hoping against hope for a way to make things better for her family. Yourself first (and she'd gotten a position easily overlooked but one where she wouldn't be scorned by the older followers for doing nothing), your family a close second – that was the Slytherin way.
And Ginny, beautiful, lovely Ginny, wasn't a Slytherin. She would understand devotion to family, but would never go down the path of darkness just because it was her family's way. She would never understand why Daphne sided with the Dark Lord and why she would never regret that decision.
Slowly, Daphne leaned down, closer than she had ever been able to get, and kissed the air above Ginny's cheek. Then, still invisible, she ended Astoria's silly spell. She watched Ginny's pretty brown eyes fly open, watched her look around for her friends, watched Madam Pomfrey's ward become alert, and left before the mediwitch could come back.
Astoria would still be pouting on Daphne's bed when Daphne returned, her parents would still be absent, and Daphne would still be in love with Ginny Weasley.
But this way, when Daphne woke up the next morning, she could look forward to seeing Ginny at breakfast, safe and unharmed, happy and cheerful as ever. And that was the best she could hope for.