when they became villains [draco malfoy] {book 2}

216

Daphne Greengrass had always loved extremities. She loved being rich. She loved being pretty. She loved drinking her cocktails while sunbathing at the back of a yacht on the Mediterranean coast of Italy. She loved simply existing. But even more than that she loved reading the critical reviews of the book she had just published; not because she loved the praise but simply because she loved the idea of inspiring others as a simple book had once inspired her. 

Not everyone could have a role model as she had once had. Not everyone could have her odd and often challenged set of friends that she long since considered family. Not everyone could live through the traumatic events she had lived through. Not everyone could live with dread in their heart for the next traumatic event that Daphne knew would be her sister's death when the girl's already poor health would completely deteriorate. Not everyone could have those things and neither should they have experienced all of them. But Daphne had learned a thing or two along the way and she had found a way to capture and express those reflections in a way that would be available to all.

It wasn't really a memoir, neither was it fiction, or a self-help book of any sort, but the best way Daphne could describe it was that it was a little bit of it all. Mostly, it was a story about growing up and valuing whatever you have and striving for the better things in life. She talked about mistakes she had made and what she had learned from them, people she met and what she had learned from them. But she gave them different names, despite the fact that anyone with a brain would probably be able to guess who was who, and she depicted them in ways she knew wouldn't hurt their image if it ever came to it, even if sometimes that meant not being entirely truthful in her writing.

Her book was important and was an instant sell-out at bookstores mostly because of what group of individuals exactly it was about, yet the Witch Weekly she had picked up, instantly killed her initial excitement when she saw their report because in the title of the article they wrote for her book they decided to call her "one of the most desired rich bachelorettes". To say Daphne felt insulted and objectified would've been an understatement. They did say she had written a book, they did write a good review and added attention-attracting critic reviews, but that didn't change the fact she felt rather disgusted. The book had nothing to do with her being rich or single.

Illustrated by one of her oldest friends, often seen out in the wild party scene of London, Pansy Parkinson, and dedicated to"those brave souls who inspired it but will never read it" as Daphne Greengrass says herself to describe her late friends, Tracey Davis and Maggie Rosier.

"Ms Greengrass, is everything alright?" a voice interrupted her glaring contest with the paper and she looked up at one of the three young women catering for her on the yacht. 

"Bring me another Paloma, darling, will you please?"

"Of course," the pleasant brunette skipped off, and Daphne leaned back in her sun lounger, exhaling a long breath. 

Years had passed and yet the news never dropped its bashing attitude. Yes, let's discuss Pansy's private life choices rather than highlighting her fantastic cover art - a fantastic, abstract portrait painting of my side-profile in which my blue eyes shine the brightest somehow with both pain and excitement. At least that's what Daphne thought... though she might've been biased because frankly, she thought whatever Pansy made was absolutely stunning. 

And also the dedication... her heart still lay heavy whenever she thought about it. Life truly was short. If the time spent with loved ones went unappreciated, it was even shorter. One might just start losing them left and right - a painful truth she had also expressed in her book. She had spent every day for almost a year with her little sister who wasn't so little anymore after she had given birth to beautiful little Meredith, the dark-skinned baby girl who looked much more like Astoria's husband Sebastian Daley, her tiny black hairs curling at the edges pretty much the moment she rolled out of her mother's womb. She was the most beautiful baby Daphne had ever seen and her only hope was that she'd turn out twice as intelligent, too. Like her mother. -like Astoria who, even if she had recovered from the complicated birth so much to start working full-time again, was counting her days. There was little chance the young woman would live to be thirty and every day Daphne wished it was her not her sister who was counting off the time.