She knows the Heimlich she won't choke, not Daphne (farsick) wrote in caged, @ 2013-11-02 13:47:00
Who: Daphne & Astoria Greengrass. What: Sisterly bonding over bad news. Where: In a corridor not far from Slughorn’s office. When: Saturday, 2 November 1997. After lunch. Status: Complete narrative.
Daphne had shoved her hands down into the pockets of her trousers while Slughorn was speaking to her and Astoria, and only now realized that they were still in there and losing feeling fast. Drawing them out sharply, she sighed and glanced over at Astoria, whose silence was ominous considering she generally suffered from an inability to stop yammering. She should have known when Slughorn had approached them both at lunch that it was nothing good. Her first thought had been that this was something to do with Slug Club. But then, Astoria had no part in that, and Daphne thought she’d seen Sprout and Flitwick solemnly taking a few of their own aside.
As he’d led them to his office in relative silence, Daphne didn’t know if she’d ever seen her head of house looking so somber. This was far from the jovial, chuckling professor she knew, and by the time she and her sister were taking a seat in front of his desk, she was sure something was wrong. Even when they were settled, he’d drawn it out, seeming unsure of what to say. He offered them both a bit of his prized crystallized pineapple with an indulgent smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Daphne didn’t want the sweet, because her stomach was tight and she just wanted to know what this was about. Astoria, still blithely unsuspecting, took a bit and was chewing merrily when Slughorn cleared his throat, folded his hands over his great belly, and told them that their mother had been admitted to St. Mungo’s with injuries sustained during an attack on the Ministry of Magic.
The lack of detail he was able to offer hadn’t been comforting in the least, though Daphne thought his hands must be tied. He’d done his best, extracting a fancy little hanky from a desk drawer when Astoria started crying and offering Daphne an awkward, bracing squeeze of the shoulder as he stood to release them when their chat was done.
It wasn’t life-threatening, but Irene was likely to be in for a bit of a stay; there was head trauma involved; she’d been found unconscious under a collapsed desk after the fighting subsided. Their father and little sister were at the hospital now. Slughorn said he wasn’t sure if they would be allowed to join them - he doubted it, in fact, he was so sorry to say, dear girls - but assured them that if there was anything either of them needed, that he would do his utmost to see it done.
So, that was it. Now, hovering awkwardly in the hall as Astoria sniffled and roughly wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, Daphne wasn’t sure what to do, or think. This wasn’t the way in which she expected the war to come to them. She wondered who else had been called into an office this afternoon, and what they’d been told, and if it was worse. It had to be worse.
“Squirrel,” she said quietly, over the sound of Astoria’s attempts to look as if she’d not been crying at all. Daphne reached an arm around her sister and drew her into a hug. For half a minute she held her silently, then ventured, “Want to go back to the common room? We can write dad and Cee. They can tell us more than Professor Slughorn was able to.”
Against her shoulder, Daphne could feel Astoria shake her head viciously. “No. I want to be with mum. This is shite. What good’s a letter going to do?”
While it seemed Astoria had gotten the tears out of her system, Daphne knew what to expect of her sister next - hostile, petulant unreasonableness. The hallmark of a girl who was used to always being given what she wanted. That would likely last a while, given the circumstances.
“Well.” Daphne paused and rubbed Astoria’s back gently before drawing her arms back and holding one of her hands instead. She tried to get Astoria to look her in the eye, but her sister was refusing to make eye contact and was staring furiously at her shoes, red-eyed and frowning.
Daphne tried to sound gentle, but her own nerves were getting the best of her and set her voice on edge.
“Well, we can’t be with them right now. So you need to be sensible about this and be grateful that we can write a letter at all.” Daphne felt that this was much easier said than done and knew that her relative calm now did not bode well for later, but it was what Astoria needed to hear. She sighed heavily, and when she spoke again it was with the tone of apprehensive tenderness she had missed before. “I’m sorry. I know. It’s shite. But I think you’ll feel better once we get in touch with dad and find out more.”
Astoria looked thoroughly unconvinced and glared up at Daphne as if this had somehow been her doing. A few moments later her expression softened and she nodded glumly. “Maybe.”
In order to keep this from continuing longer than it need, Daphne grabbed Astoria firmly by the hand and began to lead them off toward the common room entrance. It wasn’t far, and hopefully once they wrote she could get Astoria to have some tea, and think of a way to distract her, lest she catch her sister trying to fly to Mungo’s on a broom. She seemed to enjoy indulging her poor moods sometimes, and Daphne did not think this was an ideal moment for such behavior.