👫 + daphne
Four Headcanons for @sawtruth:
The first witch in her year that Tracey met was Millicent Bulstrode. The second was Daphne Greengrass, who made less of an impression on her than Millicent had done with her terse smile and perfunctory (but strong) handshake. Within hours, that initial assessment had shifted: it would have taken a much less observant girl than wide-eyed and wonder-struck Tracey Davis to detect the hierarchy in Slytherin House, and who was at the top. Not understanding the pattern behind it, and realizing quickly that no one else was as awe-struck by the castle as she, Tracey resolved to keep her mouth shut until she figured it out – and once she did, it didn’t take a genius to realize that Daphne Greengrass was the girl to watch. Not as mean as Pansy Parkinson but on or at least near her level socially, it was Daphne whom Tracey tried to emulate; Daphne whom Tracey made a point of eavesdropping on. She soon gave up her attempt to mimic the more refined, old-fashioned style of speech that the pure-blood students (and many of the half-bloods) demonstrated, figuring that anyone with brains could spot her for an imposter when she tried, but the rest of it – the attitude? The opinions? The casual blood-supremacy? All of that, Tracey drew from Daphne – her unwitting guide to Slytherin House.
She watched Daphne for her cues in Flying Lessons, too. Of course their first day of lessons was horribly botched due to those stupid Gryffindor boys -- the one who fell, and the one who started a fight with Draco Malfoy. But that was only the first lesson; there were many to follow, and Tracey was transfixed. Magic was amazing, of course, all forms of magic -- but this was flying. There was nothing like it, nothing like it in the world -- but after those first few giddy, heady moments of being airborne, she realized that Daphne, floating a few feet over, looked almost bored. Flying was passe to her, commonplace. Ordinary. Feeling like she’d just swallowed a pint of poison, Tracey dragged herself back down to earth and shoved her elation off to the side where it wouldn’t be seen, where it wouldn’t get her teased. She kept her eyes on Daphne instead, mimicking the other girl’s casual attitude and lackadaisical flight-style as best she could. Eventually it stopped being a pretense, and by the time she was old enough to try-out for the Slytherin team Tracey had convinced herself that it wasn’t worth bothering -- not because she was ashamed at her lack of experience or worried that she wasn’t good enough (although both were true), but because it wasn’t all that interesting after all. Daphne didn’t seem to think so, anyway -- and Daphne was surely right.
When Daphne complimented Tracey’s dress robes in fourth year at the Yule Ball, Tracey thought she could have walked on air for the rest of the night, no wand required – until she walked past a second time and saw Daphne, Pansy, Draco, and his two bookend-bodyguards laughing their heads off. Maybe they weren’t looking at Tracey specifically; maybe it wasn’t her robes they were mocking. But that’s what it felt like. Tracey retreated from the dance floor (it wasn’t like she knew any of the music anyway – although she had been enjoying listening to the unfamiliar songs, trying to memorize as much of them as possible for her later reference) and kept her distance for the rest of the evening, shooting back down to her dungeon dormitory as soon as the dance was over and stuffing her horrible robes into the very bottom of her trunk where nobody (especially not gorgeous, fashionable, elegant Daphne Greengrass, prettier than anyone else there save for only the Beauxbatons champion herself) would ever see them again.
People say Daphne is creepy. People say Daphne knows things she shouldn’t know. Tracey doesn’t think that’s creepy at all; she thinks it’s clever. Given that she’s spent the last few years collecting as many secrets as she can get her hands on for insurance purposes, she can’t blame Daphne at all -- in fact, she envies the other girl. If only there was a way for her to convince Daphne to share whatever it is she does -- but Tracey doesn’t think that the pure-blood elite regularly share their esoteric non-curriculum-approved magicks with mudbloods-- with squib’s offspring like her. She keeps watching, though, as much as she can; makes note of the flecks of red around Daphne’s nails, the dark vials tucked in her pockets, the trace of strange smoke that clings to her hair and robes. Maybe she can learn something from all of that, eventually; she’s learned so much about everything else from watching Daphne, after all.
