Songs for a Carousel, Part 1: Menuet Antique, daphne/zacharias, draco/astoria
Pairing: Daphne / Zacharias, Draco / Astoria
Summary: Daphne is bound to the past by faded memories and her unwillingness to let go.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: For _____faith. This is the story Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is supposed to be part of. It is likely that it will be dropped in the middle of it. Yeah, I know, multi-part fic. Imagine.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Part 1: Menuet Antique
Daphne knows that magic is not only in her blood, it is also in the things she touches. She can infuse an inanimate item with magic and make it come alive. She can transfigure a teapot into a mouse, she can make a birdcage sing, she can even force iron gates to bow to her. She sneers at them now as she enters the deserted amusement park. It had only taken a flick of her wrist and they had bent over on their rusty stalks like cattails in the wind. Daphne finds little satisfaction in this though and it makes her angrier as she stomps across the dusty grounds.
This anger drains her, makes her tired and by the time she reaches the carousel - the park’s once crowning feature - she has no energy to do what she came here to do. She knows she wouldn’t have done it anyway. Daphne knows that magic can’t restore everything. She could use it to turn the carousel but it wouldn’t revive her youth or bring back her parents. She knows that if she goes up to the carousel and touch its once golden trim, it will be cold under her hands - all of what was once magical about it drained away in the ravages of time and war.
Zacharias Smith had the audacity to follow her here once and he had touched it, sending up a cloud of dust that had him sneezing and coughing. Served him right. She doesn’t understand why he continues to court her. Of course she knows of her own appeal - she doesn’t need a starry-eyed Muggleborn to tell her she’s beautiful. Generations of careful pureblood breeding had insured that she would be tall and elegant. She has her grandmother’s wide slanted eyes, her mother’s slender hands, her great aunt’s smooth jaw line. She used to regret the long slightly off-centered nose she had inherited from her father but now that he is gone, she carries it proudly. She has decided that it gives her otherwise flawless proportionate face character.
But Smith - today he had asked her how she had gotten that nose. He had said it in a jeering way that suggested her nose did not fit her. The wizard not only doesn’t have any right to court her, he does a slop job of it. She had glared at him and stalked down the opposite wing of the hospital. This forced her to take the roundabout way back to the ward she was supervising and when she finally got there, she was breathless, irritated and moreover, thinking too much. She tried to go through her usual routine but she kept thinking about her father and how as a child she used to climb on his lap and touch his nose. It was longer than hers and more crooked but it fit his long aristocratic face, and he would say to her, This, this we will always share. When she nearly cast a warming charm on a child with Augurey flu, she decided to call it a day. She had the misfortune to run into Smith again as she was signing out.
“Leaving so soon?” he had asked, leaning against the counter close to her even though she made a point of ignoring him. She realized at that moment that one of her problems with Smith is that he isn’t a starry-eyed Muggleborn like the other boys in school who tried to capture her attention by groveling at her feet and showering her with flowers and chocolates. No, he did not bow to her but openly leered at her. He would come up to her while she was with her Slytherin friends and command her to go to Hogsmeade with him. He would, since learning they were rotating through the same hospital together, shadow her and not give her a moment’s rest. She always discouraged him with her most hateful looks but he didn’t seem discouraged.
“Hey Daphne!” His voice carries on the wind and she sighs. He has only followed her here once before but she is not surprised he has done so today.
He continues calling to her but she does not turn around. Instead, she keeps her eyes trained on the dusty memorial of her childhood. A few meager bars of Menuet Antique play in her mind but she cannot grasp the far-off memory. It is too bright and happy, like her time here as a child.
“You’re here again.” He is always stating the obvious, too. Nothing interesting to say.
“So are you,” she replies dryly.
There is a silence that the wind fills in with harsh gusts that wrap around the carousel. Daphne’s hair whips around her in a brown haze but she makes no move to right it. She can’t see him, hasn’t even turned towards his direction yet, but she can feel his unease like the wind. She is not uneasy, only irritated again.
“There’s one just like this in Paris. This was probably modeled after it,” he says almost congenially. “I should take you there sometime.”
She wants to laugh even though she does not find either of his suggestions humorous. “How do you know it’s not the other way around?”
Smith drops his friendly attitude and sneers, “Us poor Muggleborns don’t know anything about the magical world, do we? How could we have seen this and modeled anything after it?” In her peripheral vision, she sees him throw one end of his scarf over his shoulder before adding, “Why do you care so much about this useless piece of rubbish anyway?”
She turns on him swiftly, grabbing the collar of his shirt with one hand. Her other hand is holding her wand and she points it between his startled blue eyes. “Don’t,” she hisses, “presume you know anything.”
She lets go of him and he stumbles back. Turning, she leaves him in the wake of her dust. She knows that Smith’s entire family had survived the war, that most of his friends were unharmed. He has bragged about it in his too loud, too proud voice. He has no right. He does not know about grief and loss and broken carousels. About things and people you put your hands on that no magic can restore. And maybe, this is her biggest problem with Zacharias Smith.
Summary: Daphne is bound to the past by faded memories and her unwillingness to let go.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: For _____faith. This is the story Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is supposed to be part of. It is likely that it will be dropped in the middle of it. Yeah, I know, multi-part fic. Imagine.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Part 1: Menuet Antique
Daphne knows that magic is not only in her blood, it is also in the things she touches. She can infuse an inanimate item with magic and make it come alive. She can transfigure a teapot into a mouse, she can make a birdcage sing, she can even force iron gates to bow to her. She sneers at them now as she enters the deserted amusement park. It had only taken a flick of her wrist and they had bent over on their rusty stalks like cattails in the wind. Daphne finds little satisfaction in this though and it makes her angrier as she stomps across the dusty grounds.
This anger drains her, makes her tired and by the time she reaches the carousel - the park’s once crowning feature - she has no energy to do what she came here to do. She knows she wouldn’t have done it anyway. Daphne knows that magic can’t restore everything. She could use it to turn the carousel but it wouldn’t revive her youth or bring back her parents. She knows that if she goes up to the carousel and touch its once golden trim, it will be cold under her hands - all of what was once magical about it drained away in the ravages of time and war.
Zacharias Smith had the audacity to follow her here once and he had touched it, sending up a cloud of dust that had him sneezing and coughing. Served him right. She doesn’t understand why he continues to court her. Of course she knows of her own appeal - she doesn’t need a starry-eyed Muggleborn to tell her she’s beautiful. Generations of careful pureblood breeding had insured that she would be tall and elegant. She has her grandmother’s wide slanted eyes, her mother’s slender hands, her great aunt’s smooth jaw line. She used to regret the long slightly off-centered nose she had inherited from her father but now that he is gone, she carries it proudly. She has decided that it gives her otherwise flawless proportionate face character.
But Smith - today he had asked her how she had gotten that nose. He had said it in a jeering way that suggested her nose did not fit her. The wizard not only doesn’t have any right to court her, he does a slop job of it. She had glared at him and stalked down the opposite wing of the hospital. This forced her to take the roundabout way back to the ward she was supervising and when she finally got there, she was breathless, irritated and moreover, thinking too much. She tried to go through her usual routine but she kept thinking about her father and how as a child she used to climb on his lap and touch his nose. It was longer than hers and more crooked but it fit his long aristocratic face, and he would say to her, This, this we will always share. When she nearly cast a warming charm on a child with Augurey flu, she decided to call it a day. She had the misfortune to run into Smith again as she was signing out.
“Leaving so soon?” he had asked, leaning against the counter close to her even though she made a point of ignoring him. She realized at that moment that one of her problems with Smith is that he isn’t a starry-eyed Muggleborn like the other boys in school who tried to capture her attention by groveling at her feet and showering her with flowers and chocolates. No, he did not bow to her but openly leered at her. He would come up to her while she was with her Slytherin friends and command her to go to Hogsmeade with him. He would, since learning they were rotating through the same hospital together, shadow her and not give her a moment’s rest. She always discouraged him with her most hateful looks but he didn’t seem discouraged.
“Hey Daphne!” His voice carries on the wind and she sighs. He has only followed her here once before but she is not surprised he has done so today.
He continues calling to her but she does not turn around. Instead, she keeps her eyes trained on the dusty memorial of her childhood. A few meager bars of Menuet Antique play in her mind but she cannot grasp the far-off memory. It is too bright and happy, like her time here as a child.
“You’re here again.” He is always stating the obvious, too. Nothing interesting to say.
“So are you,” she replies dryly.
There is a silence that the wind fills in with harsh gusts that wrap around the carousel. Daphne’s hair whips around her in a brown haze but she makes no move to right it. She can’t see him, hasn’t even turned towards his direction yet, but she can feel his unease like the wind. She is not uneasy, only irritated again.
“There’s one just like this in Paris. This was probably modeled after it,” he says almost congenially. “I should take you there sometime.”
She wants to laugh even though she does not find either of his suggestions humorous. “How do you know it’s not the other way around?”
Smith drops his friendly attitude and sneers, “Us poor Muggleborns don’t know anything about the magical world, do we? How could we have seen this and modeled anything after it?” In her peripheral vision, she sees him throw one end of his scarf over his shoulder before adding, “Why do you care so much about this useless piece of rubbish anyway?”
She turns on him swiftly, grabbing the collar of his shirt with one hand. Her other hand is holding her wand and she points it between his startled blue eyes. “Don’t,” she hisses, “presume you know anything.”
She lets go of him and he stumbles back. Turning, she leaves him in the wake of her dust. She knows that Smith’s entire family had survived the war, that most of his friends were unharmed. He has bragged about it in his too loud, too proud voice. He has no right. He does not know about grief and loss and broken carousels. About things and people you put your hands on that no magic can restore. And maybe, this is her biggest problem with Zacharias Smith.