𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐃-𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐨.𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝

PROLOGUE

DELANIE'S ARC TO HATE QUIDDITCH BEGAN IN JUNE OF 1983. June 14th to be exact; her seventh birthday, to be even more specific.

Perhaps if Vincent Jones decided to 'accidentally' miss her sixth birthday everything would be okay. Even her eighth would've been better. But not the first birthday she'd have since the death of Evelyn Jones.

The first birthday after the loss of a mother and he missed it.

That was it. He left he house before the sun could even peak over the horizon and he returned an hour after the party, at 9:24 pm, faced to meet her grandparents who tried their best to keep the little Jones girl happy through the day because her goddamn father missed her birthday for quidditch.

If anyone were to ask Delanie, back then, if she had cared, she would've said no. She would've told them that her dad was a good guy who makes mistakes and blah blah blah. Maybe because part of her was too young to realize he had actually ditched her to take out Mason Skipp, the son of his new girlfriend, to see some quidditch game. Or perhaps it was because part of her little seven year old heart still looked up to her father as her hero. Her idol and inspiration who she wanted to be just like one day.

There was a time when Delanie Jones felt the utmost passion for quidditch. When the little girl inside her who loved to fly from the moment she mounted her first broom at four years old was still alive. But that was gone.

The process was slow. It went from him missing his promised quidditch sessions with her to him moving them across the country to live with Priscilla Skipp and her son, Mason.

From buying Mason new quidditch gear and the best supplies for school while he couldn't bother to even get a present for Delanie when she turned eleven; but hey, at least he showed up this time.

It wasn't until she started her time at Hogwarts had she really begun to truly see her dad in his new light.

First it was getting sorted. God forbid that the daughter of the famous Vincent Jones, Ravenclaw's golden boy, got sorted into to Hufflepuff.

'Oh Lanie, why couldn't you get sorted into Ravenclaw like Mason... they already have an amazing quidditch team with him on it'

Then it was when she made the hufflepuff team. You wouldn't have been able to get Delanie off that pitch even if you tried with every ounce in your body... and they did try. She thought that maybe, just maybe, she made it because she was extraordinary enough to make the team as a first year, but she realized it was because of the Jones legacy after all.

'Ah you made the team because you're my daughter of course. You think they'd pass up the opportunity to get the daughter of THE Vincent Jones on their team.'

It piled up through the years; the reasons to hate quidditch... the reasons to hate her dad. She was never going to be quidditch star, Mason Skipp or anything but the daughter of Vincent Jones. And although she had grown to embrace that fact through the years, she couldn't help but feel hostile to it as well.

There was, of course, the thing that pushed it over the edge. The stab that purely killed any trace of the quidditch loving, little Delanie Jones still living inside her.

First game of second year. The most vivid yet forgettable night of her life...

"Never in my entire life have I ever seen a worse game of quidditch."

His words carved into her head, and her heart, like a permanent tattoo.

"That was a disgrace to the Jones name. I am utterly embarrassed, Delanie."

"I'm sorry-"

"I'm sorry? Fucking hell," he spat, "you missed over half your shots and you were slow. And how dim could you be to get hit by that bludger!? God! and to think I skipped work for this-"

Delanie could still remember the way her blood boiled every time another word slipped out of his mouth. She remembered the way her head pounded and how her dad refused to let her rest until he was done yelling at her.

"What do you want me to do, Dad?" her voice cracked. It was weak and quiet but loud enough to be heard in the near empty hospital wing. "You want me to be Mason? I'm sorry that I wasted the ONE time you've EVER made time for me in the last six years. I'm sorry for getting hit in the head by a fucking bludger one of Mason's bloody teammates hit at me."

"You watch your language! You do not speak to your father like that-"

"Father?" Delanie scoffed, shaking her head, "I'll speak to you like one when you start acting like one."

"Don't be difficult, Delanie." Vincent huffed, rubbing his temple in frustration, "I don't have time for any of this. I need to go find-"

"Mason?" she finished. By then she had already felt her eyes brimming with tears that she withheld. Her voiced cracked as she could hardly make out her dad's dimly lit face anymore. "You don't have time for me, your daughter, because you need to go and find Mason, your step son, and congratulate him on what? his loss against Hufflepuff where I got concussed by a bludger? yeah alright."

"Don't be like that with me, Delanie. You know if Mason was in your position-"

"You'd say it's all fine and that whoever hit him was a bloody menace?"

"No. He wouldn't be acting out like you are."

Delanie bit her tongue as a singular tear rolled down her cheek. She felt her lip quiver and she couldn't help but thank the lights for being off as he would've been able to see her tears if they weren't. "Well why don't you go make him your kid then..." she whispered ever so faintly with a crack in her voice, "you treat him more like one anyway."

And Vincent did nothing but let out a sharp sigh, grumbling he shook his head and turned to walk out. "I don't know what to do with you anymore..." was all Delanie could hear him say out of sheer mumble before he disappeared out the room and around the corridor. It wasn't until then had she allowed herself to drown in her tears.

That, perhaps, was the one of the only things she could remember from that night past her concussion. She remembers drifting off to sleep as she cried in the dark and empty hospital wing. She remembers waking up to a damp pillow in the middle of the night from the sound of Madme Pomfrey leaving the room after nursing the boy next to her. And she remembers the feeling she felt as she stared at her broom that rested across the room.

She had never felt such animosity for something she loved so much. The mere sight made her want to snap it in half. She hated it.

Delanie Jones used to love quidditch. Past tense. But now it was simply just another thing she hated. Another thing she would come second to.

She was never going to be good enough. She wasn't Mason or this goddamn sport that would always be more important than she ever would be in her dad's eyes. She accepted that fact the moment she watched him walk out of the hospital wing... but it doesn't mean it didn't hurt.

Sure, she hated quidditch; and one could say she hated her father more. But frankly, no matter how much she hated either of those things, not one of them could even compare to how much she hated embracing the truth.

The indisputable and undeniable truth that no matter how hard she tried, Delanie Jones was always just going to be the second-best thing.