daphne got to attend the ball, but not how she would have liked. she didn’t get to put on a nice fancy gown, wear a beautiful glittering mask, or even get to dance. oh how she longed to dance, even if it was just with her father, in the kitchen of a safe house they were staying at, even if she only wore some old worn out socks and her usual clothes. she would give anything to go back to those days. but alas, she was here, at the masquerade ball, but she was just to be paraded around. the death eaters had been bragging apparently, and now they got to show the rest of the wizarding world that they held neville longbottom’s daughter captive and could do with her what they would like. she was thin to the point of being emaciated. they fed her yes, but not tons and she barely had the will to eat most days now. once her eyes had been full of light, and hope, and dreams of a better future, but now they were sunken and had no spark in them. they were now just dull blue things staring at seemingly nothing most of the time, just like now. they wanted her to serve drinks, but daphne had never been very graceful when she wasn’t dancing. it only took her a minute with the tray to trip (although perhaps it was that foot someone stuck in her way that did her in). the drinks were saved by a nearby wizard’s wand, but she was not so lucky. she hit the ground, hard, harder now that there was less to cushion her bones from it. while she was in no rush to stand, she was in a rush to get away from the foot that now poked at her, and as such, she scrambled to her feet and bee-lined to the nearest corner of the room. she couldn’t leave the party, the death eaters made sure of that, but she could hide out in a corner for a least a few minutes, or at least she hoped she could.