Snakes and Souls by Maddyson Ruby
Pairing: Harry/Daphne
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit from this. All characters you recognise belong to JK Rowling.
AN: This is the second chapter and it was great fun to write! Keep reviewing please! Also the Umbridge speech is from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I will be taking certain bits from the books at times but will be mentioning it in the note at the top.
This does start slowly, I apologise, but I want to show the other sides to Daphne and the Slytherins because as much as I love Harry Potter and JKR, the snakes I love always seem to be painted as the bad people in everything I read. The next chapter kick-starts the rest of the story really so… enjoy and review!
(I have corrected errors pointed out to me and those I noticed – 13th January 2013)
Chapter 2
We climbed into a carriage together, me and my friends. Pansy and Draco had taken a separate carriage to the school and it seemed they were in an on again part of their complex relationship but I wasn't going to hold my breath that it would last too long.
It was quiet in the carriage with only an occasional disturbance of the silence by Crabbe or Goyle who both seemed to be far more repulsive than I remembered. I wasn't sure what it was but they suddenly seemed to be in a whole other realm of revoltingness since the end of last year. I sat next to Blaise on the velvet seats of the carriage and we quietly spoke of our summers, his spent in his villa in Italy whilst mine was in the dreary English countryside that I saw all year round at Hogwarts only it was a fair bit colder at school. Conversation shifted from our summers to school subjects and the classes we were taking to the events of the previous year. I looked on Blaise as nothing more or less than a brilliant friend despite our parents intentions we had never seen each other in any way other than platonic regardless of the assumptions they may have drawn at the gathering weeks previous.
The sight of Hogwarts felt amazingly like home to me despite the fact that I loved my family and the manor we lived at. The stone of the walls and the glow of the torches filled me with hope for the new year ahead as well as a feeling of safety that you never realise you've been missing until it's there once more. I sighed in contentment and caught the other Slytherins in my carriage doing the same as we each to a moment to revel in the peace we felt. I could see the lights of the first years on the lake as they travelled by boat to the shores of Hogwarts, their little faces full of both shock and fear but I could see excitement on some of the faces and smiled to myself, thinking back on my own boat ride to the school.
The Entrance Hall was alight with the reassuring glow of the torches that hung from the walls and the chatter of excited students, both new and old, was a refreshing thing for me having spent my summer holidays almost completely on my own, save for my sister.
We all filed into the hall as always, heading for the head of the Slytherin table, the green of the banners proudly displayed above us. I scanned the head table, looking to see any new additions to the staff that could be our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. That was when I spotted it. Sitting next to Albus Dumbledore was a pink mass of… something. What it was, I couldn't tell you until it turned away from Dumbledore to face the crowds and I came to the realisation that it was, in fact, a woman. She had large bulbous eyes and thin, calculating lips. She looked like a transfiguration accident, in my opinion.
Chatter reigned in the hall until the first years were escorted in by Professor McGonagall and the sorting hat began to sing its song. We all went quiet as the hat sung about Hogwarts history and the qualities each founder had wanted in their house. It then went on to warn us all about outside forces that threatened both us, the students, and the school we loved, our Hogwarts. When it finished and the claps died down, the sorting began with the first boy being sorted into Gryffindor.
We got a good few newbies this year but there were one or two first years I did not like the look of. They looked shifty and twitchy like they were on alert constantly and I felt more certain that if you turned your back on them you'd find yourself dead quicker than you could yell 'Merlin!'.
We were encouraged to eat and the spread put on by the house elves this year was grand and I relished tucking in to the treats as Dumbledore ordered.
"So, who's the pink… thing?" Blaise asked me with a nudge from where he sat next to my right, ignoring Draco's flair for the dramatics down the bench.
"I have no idea," I replied, observing the… woman with distaste hoping not to be put off my dinner.
"Mother wants you to visit again this Christmas," Blaise said, changing the topic of conversation with relief. "She claims she hasn't seen you in so, so long and how you could be betrothed and she wouldn't even know."
I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped me; Blaise's mother had always been a tad melodramatic, I was somewhat glad that hadn't changed. "She saw me at the gathering," I whispered back.
Blaise scoffed, "That didn't count you barely spoke to her."
"I did. I said 'Lovely to see you again, Lady Zabini'," I remarked to my friend bumping shoulders with a laugh.
"Oh, and that counts, does it? Your Aunt Selene would skin me alive if I so much as tried that," he teased back with a chuckle.
We stopped our chatting when Dumbledore rose to speak and the food disappeared, he began with his usual warnings about the Forbidden Forest, the banned items before moving on to staffing changes with Professor Grubbly-Plank for Care of Magical Creatures and Professor Umbridge for Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Dumbledore continued, "Tryouts for the house Quidditch teams will take place on the-"
A sharp and false "Hem, hem" sounded from the staffing table and we all looked on in shock as the bulbous pink transfiguration accident stood from her seat and waddled to stand beside Professor Dumbledore, "Thank you, Headmaster," she leered, "for those kind words of welcome."
The shock on everyone's face was felt in the air, this woman did not belong at Hogwarts and myself and the other Slytherins were looking forward to watching the woman get put in her place.
"Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!" she cried after falsely clearing her throat once more. "And to see such happy little faces looking up at me!"
We all felt startled and I caught myself looking at all the faces I could see from my seat and none of them looked remotely happy, a lot of them looked offended and horrified, if I was honest. "I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"
I barely supressed a smirk at her cheery, childish attitude, she was pathetic and I was very much looking forward to undermining her authority every way I could. She was going to pay, of this I was certain.
She cleared her throat with another faux cough and it grated on my nerves before she began speaking like the snake I had suspected her of being all along, "The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed with careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them for ever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."
She took a moment to bow to those on the head table whilst I took the pause to absorb all that she had dared to say, "Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress' sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognised as errors of judgement. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practises that ought to be prohibited."
She sat once more and Dumbledore led the hall in applause whilst we students clapped half-heartedly. We didn't like Umbridge, not a single one of us did, quite 'rightly so' too.
"So, what did you think of her?" Blaise asked with a frown marring his Italian looks.
"I can't wait to see how the DADA curse gets rid of her," I whispered back smirking; her demise was something I looked forward to. I wasn't normally sadistic but this woman brought out the worst in me.
"Hmm… I suppose there has been a bit of a track record hasn't there? The first one had You-Know-Who on the back of his head, the second lost his sanity-"
"Not sure he ever had it," I added.
Blaise carried on undaunted, "The third was a werewolf and the fourth never even made it to teaching and was locked in an enchanted trunk for the year. So, how do you think this one will go, then?"
Before I could reply we were excused from the hall and we made our way down to the old dungeons that were our home for the school year. To anyone else they would be cold and uninviting, dank and dreary but we found them warm in their own way, protective and nurturing, making some of us feel the safest we had ever before in our lives. That was the magic of Hogwarts though, it guarded its students from whatever might befall its walls whether that was a magical army or an abusive father did not matter.
I headed straight to bed with a call of "Goodnight," to the other snakes. A chorus of "Night, Daphne," came from around our common room and I smiled back at my fellow Slytherins and nodded in parting. My dorm room was spacious, as all the Slytherin rooms were. Snakes didn't like to share their space too much. My dorm room housed only Pansy, Millicent and myself within it, each of us having a four poster bed with green silk curtains hanging down. The room was warm and cosy so I burrowed down in the luxurious green blankets and I found myself asleep quicker than quick, a small smile spread upon my face.
The next morning I awoke with the sunrise, washing and dressing quickly I sat in front of my armoire and styled my hair into its usual sleek waves and applied a coating of liner around my eyes, the smudge-proof variety. My uniforms bore the crest of Slytherin and the green trim of my house making me grin to myself. I strapped on my low heels and made my way down to the common room, greeting others as I went. I sat in a velvet silver armchair, awaiting the company of one of my friends. I was unsurprised to see Pansy Parkinson next, her pug-like face now caked with make up as if it were to enhance her beauty. It was far too obvious to have the subtle, alluring affect she was going for and I wanted to tell her that to her face but my inner Slytherin would not condone such a thing. That was the action of a Gryffindor, thoughtless and inept.
Pansy and I walked side by side up to the Great Hall; we were some of the first students there considering the early time. Walking together to the hall was both for companionship as it was for protection. Being a Slytherin had gotten exponentially more risky since my first year when Harry Potter joined the school. Ever since then, becoming a Slytherin has immediately singled you out as a dark wizard and either a future Death Eater or a future Mrs Death Eater. Really it just meant we were more ambitious and cunning than the average wizard or witch, but that was my own perception of it. Really, we shouldn't be judging people by their houses, it wasn't only childish but immature. People weren't going to be sorted into houses for the rest of their lives, we'd have to learn to gage another person's characteristics and judge for ourselves whether we wanted such a person as a friend or acquaintance. I didn't judge others on their houses but it seemed like they rarely didn't follow the stereotypes associated with their house.
When a Gryffindor sees a Slytherin, they are quick to insult or glare at us as though the sight of us turned their stomachs. When a Ravenclaw saw us, they giggled and looked down at us because they were a rather uptight group. When a Hufflepuff saw us, they stammered out apologies and ran off. In my five years, that was always the way it happened.
"So, did you sleep well?" I asked, beginning the conversation slowly as my brain finished waking up.
"Yeah," she murmured, "I've missed Hogwarts."
I just nodded in agreement, Hogwarts was home, and it always would be.
I watched as the rest of the students filtered into the hall in dribs and drabs. The sight of Harry Potter and his friends emerging caused the Ravenclaw fourth years to huddle together and scamper off to the safety of their table as though he were a dragon. Normally the sight of a Slytherin would be the cause of that response, so, it was weird seeing it as an outsider.
Snape came down the bench with his usual flair of robes like a bat straight up from the dungeons, a comparison that wasn't out of place with the menacing potions master. Delivering timetables and asking about classes and the like, he worked his way up the bench to where I was sat.
"Miss Greengrass?" he asked, his black brows arched as he looked down his hooked nose at me.
"All the core classes with Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures," I requested.
"Very good choices, Miss Greengrass," Snape commended. "Work hard in Potions this year; you have the potential to get an O in your OWLs."
"Thank you, sir." Compliments from Snape were hard to come by but I couldn't help but feel proud that I had managed, for Potions no less.
After checking over my timetable I found that I had History of Magic first, so I said my goodbyes and left for my dorm to pick up the required textbook before heading to the classroom. The lesson was always boring despite the fact that the history of magic is rather interesting to learn about, the most exciting thing that happened in Professor Binn's classroom was when he entered through the blackboard at the beginning and as I was in my fifth year that was getting quite old too.
The next class was double Potions, a subject we snakes shared with the Gryffindors and I loved it in some respects – the subject, the teaching, my friends, whilst similarly I hated it with a passion. We were looked down upon all because of the house insignia we wore by the Gryffindors. There was a reason Slytherins travelled in packs, it was dangerous to be caught alone.
Goyle was a disaster in this class, managing to produce a potion so… unstable, it boiled straight through the flask and set his robes on fire. The rest of us Slytherins managed with Snape giving us his idea of a smile as he noted our grades. He made an example out of Harry that left me feeling so sorry for him but I wouldn't dare show it, he was so often led around by Granger and Weasley that the boy had barely any time to think for himself or study enough to pass on his own merits.
I was one of the first to arrive on the seventh floor for Arithmancy and was greeted with a smile by the professor. The Arithmancy room had always been one of my favourites since I started the class in my third year, with its view of the Black Lake that sparkled in the daylight. Professor Vector's gentle mannerisms were also a bonus for me, she was fair and I admired her for it. She always insisted on no house rivalries being brought into her classroom as it had no bearing on how we learnt. That was something else I found admirable about her.
"So, how many of you have done the required homework?" she asked and unsurprisingly her statement was met with groans from the rest of the class. Only Hermione and I remained silent as she looked us over with her hawk-like stare.
"Daphne? Hermione? Have you completed the required number charts for me?" she asked as she walked along the aisles of the desks, her gaze still fixed upon the two of us.
"Yes, Professor," Hermione called loudly before directing a condescending gaze on me when I didn't scream my reply to the class.
"I have completed it," I told her with a small smirk at Hermione's sour face; "My aunt passed it along when she visited you last week."
"Ah…" the teacher remarked with a small smile, "Be sure to pass along my regards, will you? She's such a dear."
The lesson moved along quite slowly for some reason, most of it spent going over OWLs and what would be required of us before she gave us a twelve inch essay to complete on the use of Arithmancy in the Middle Ages and its various applications to the magical world now. In short, it was dull, a real surprise considering how much I actually enjoy Professor Vector's lessons.
By lunch my brain felt like it had melted as I sunk onto the wooden bench of the Slytherin table with a sigh of relief and a happy grin to my fellow housemates. Millicent slid into the space next to me with a small smile as she began to eat. I felt too exhausted to eat and dozed lightly, content that nothing bad would happen as I had Millie by my side and she was actually quite loyal despite popular beliefs held by other students, namely the Gryffindors.
"So, Daphne," Millie said, drawing my attention to her, "how was your summer?"
"Fine," I agreed, rising into a sitting position with a yawn, "Not much really happened, I suppose. I saw my Aunt, that was fun."
She turned to face me more fully and asked, "Your Aunt Selene, right?"
I nodded to her before asking, "How was your summer? Any more issues with those… people?" I wouldn't dare say 'muggles' at a table full of Slytherins, despite the fact that virtually all of them held very little ill will toward the non-magic communities, we had an image to uphold. Millicent had been having issues with some muggles in the area she lived in, picking on her and such, I'd offered to take care of it but she wouldn't let me. It was a pride thing, I guess.
"Eh… It was okay, they never really said much to me," she told me, avoiding my eyes but just as I was about to call her out on it Blaise sat down on my other side with a sigh, immediately grabbing at the lunch in front of him with an eagerness I'd only ever seen in wild animals and Ron Weasley. When he paused long enough to breathe he spoke, "So, I'm not the only one thinking that lessons are being a real drag, am I?" Before either Millie or I could answer he was talking again, "I mean, I know they aren't exactly 'fun' but I can normally manage to keep my eyes open."
Before Blaise could launch into another tirade I spoke up of my agreement, "Yeah, we've already been given two essays and a chapter to read already, it's been horrendous!"
Blaise nodded in agreement, his attention being recaptured by the food on his plate and a glance up and down the table showed most of my male housemates were similarly occupied. I joined them and ate my fill, taking particular delight in the sugary delights on offer to us before Pansy sat down with her posse in tow making me glad I had eaten before she arrived with the way her high nasally voice was grating on my nerves and turning my stomach.
"So," she started drawing our attention to her, "what are we going to do to celebrate Daph's birthday?"
"Why should it be any different from the way we always celebrate?" Draco asked, raising a fine blonde eyebrow at the pug on his arm.
"Drake-" the girl cried in outrage only for Draco to cut her off.
"It's Draco, Pansy. You know this," he told her coolly without so much as making eye contact.
The girl snorted before turning back to me. I really wish she would refrain from making sounds reminiscent of barnyard animals. But there definitely appeared to be trouble in paradise, "What do you think, Daphne?"
"I don't mind, Pansy," I said trying to placate her before she threw a tantrum of epic proportions, she was used to getting her way having been the apple of Mr Parkinson's eye since she fell out of her mother.
"You should, you know. I have an idea, let's throw a party in here!" she enthused, trying to get us excited about her idea but Blaise apparently felt the need to burst her bubble.
"It's great, Pansy. But, let's put aside the issue of Daphne isn't one for big fusses, Dumbledore would never okay this, and you know it."
"Fine," she spat, "we'll just have a party in the common room."
I smiled thankfully at Blaise, glad that he'd saved me from the terror that was Pansy Parkinson, a bell went and we filed out of the hall and left for the DADA classroom with apprehension hidden in our eyes.
Done! When I was writing this chapter, it stretched to over five thousand words so I cut it down and it's still a decent length chapter. The next part will be uploaded shortly but before then, what do you think of this? The action really starts next chapter, hope you don't get bored!
Here are my responses to your reviews:
To Kairan1979: Thanks for the review, glad you like the story!
To jerackme (anon): Thank you for the correction, unnecessary as it was, in the world of purebloods, they care about social standing and their image. 'Daphne and me' is informal so wouldn't be approved of in my AU world of purebloods. And, I could have done without the sarcastic 'Sorry mom' comment. Grammar corrections don't bother me; your attitude about it did, however.
To MaudeLebowski: Thanks for the compliment! I hope I continue to live up to your expectations. Here's an update!
To LordXeenTheGreat: Thanks! Enjoy the story !
To GoldenSteel: Sorry it's taking so long to get to the real action but that will pick up next chapter with Daphne's inheritance.
To Sk8ernv: Thanks, here is the next chapter and the third shouldn't take too much longer either.
To amata0221: Here is more!
To nymlover: Thank you!
To Hivedragon: Here is more of Snakes and Souls, hope you enjoy.
To QHLuver: The spelling errors were corrected before your review and I can't see them so can you tell me if this is still happening? Thanks for pointing it out though.