"Molly invited me to go to Romania with her,", started Lilian, and Daphne can smell more troubles than just Harry's absurdly burnt coffee. She shoots one look at Lilian.
"And I'm being asked permission, or am I being asked for clearance to go, since you two already made plans without my knowledge again?", Daphne asked, and Lilian shrugged, blushing slightly. Good.
"Well, Molly's dad said that you could come too, mum, but it's apparently a Weasley thing? In a dragon resort?", Lilian shrugged once more, and Harry choked on his coffee. "Wait, you're going, father?"
"Percy did invite me, yes, but I thought about skipping. There's a rather interesting case in the office...", he trailed off, and Daphne wondered if she could fake being just the ex in front of Harry's entire family. Besides, dragons - the dangerous, fire-breathing creatures? Really? That was the sort of fun, family vacation the Weasleys took?
"Is it because of the dragons during the Tournament?", Lilian asked, a smile playing on her face, and Daphne chortled. Of course Lilian would have gone as far as the Triwizard Tournament. Perhaps her daughter should have been a Ravenclaw, instead of being a Slytherin/Gryffindor Hatstall of sorts. "How was fighting against a Hungarian Horntail? The photos didn't do it justice. Did you really have a race against it?"
Daphne wondered how her daughter could say that with a straight face, smiling, almost as if she was going to take a notepad and a quill from thin air and starting writing them down, almost like a baby journalist. She repressed a chill.
"Very dangerous, wouldn't advise that you did the same, no matter how good in a broom you might be,", Harry hummed, and Lilian huffed. "Being a Seeker in the reserve team is no grounds for that. At your age, I was the youngest Seeker in the century, but I'm sure you already know that."
Lilian seemed surprised, eyes going from Daphne to Harry and to Daphne again. Daphne shrugged, washing her hands from the blame.
"It wasn't me who told it, it was your brother, James. Apparently, he thought that your play in the Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw game was better than your actual Seeker was,", Daphne answered the silent question Lilian asked, and shrugged. "According to Harry, however, there were several, ah, more colorful words to describe the current Seeker, some boy named... Oliver?"
"Yeah, Oliver Wood,", Lilian spat, and Harry choked. Was that name of any importance? She couldn't remember. Was even there an Oliver Wood during her school years? Was he a friend of Harry, to have him choking on his bitter coffee? And why the hell was he drinking burnt coffee, anyway? The fact Lilian didn't notice all this was funnier, though, as she kept ranting, and Harry kept choking in his coffee. He seemed to be turning blue, Daphne thought. "He thinks he's good because his dad is Puddlemere's Keeper, but he's not! He'd be a better Beater! I tried telling Isadore that, but it's like talking to the f - "
"Language,", Daphne interrupted, at the same time Harry raised his hand.
"Hold up one moment, Lilian,", Harry called, voice choked, forcing Lilian to stop talking for one moment. "Oliver Wood ?"
"Yeah, that's his name. And his dad's name, too, apparently. Who knows.", Lilian shrugged, and Harry's smile seemed impossible to take off his face. "What's wrong?"
"No, nothing. His dad used to be my team captain, when I played for Gryffindor.", Oh, now that made sense. That was why Harry was choking on his own spit. The son of his old captain was a lousy Quidditch player. Yeah, Daphne could see the fun on it.
Still, that wasn't the subject at hand, at the moment. Daphne shook her head and took a deep breath.
"Tell your friend Molly I'll have to decline. There have been some things in the office…", that was as far as the Unspeakable spell allowed her to go; they were referred with that title for a good reason, after all. Truth was, the most recent batch of a theoretical potion had had interesting, to say the least, effects on their living subject tests, such as extra limb growth and clearness of the bone matter. All very curious stuff. Lilian deflated visibly, and she rose an eyebrow.
Perhaps her daughter had been looking forward to that? Or, perhaps, like any child, she had been looking forward to the small possibility of having both her mother and father with her?
Merlin, that'd need a bit of work. Daphne raked through her brain for an excuse to have at least a weekend out, and the idea that came out was so good it made her laugh.
Lilian perked up at that, and while Daphne wondered how, exactly, the Hat hadn't put her in Slytherin. She picked up cues so easily.
"Any funny ideas, Daphne?", Harry asked, a smile playing on his lips.
"Well, even though we can't go see dragons, we could go spend a day out in the old family manor…", Daphne started, and Lilian perked up even more, like a small puppy being shown the outside world. "It's not well kept, really, but there should be something interesting there."
"I thought you had sold all of the Greengrass properties?", Harry asked, and if Lilian had a tail, it would be wagging. It was sort of cute to watch.
"Oh, I did. I sold the vacation manors, but I kept the old family house. Astoria might have wanted to go back, but I mean, what love did we have for the manor in Greece? The American one? Or the one in Siberia?", she shrugged, and Harry nodded. "It's not like me and Astoria were ever allowed to leave Portree, anyway, so why keep it?"
"Why did we have so many houses?", Lilian asked, and she and Harry exchanged looks.
Lilian did know she was a pureblood - there was more pure blood than Muggle in Lilian, and thusly, pureblood -, but Daphne had never really explained that it meant with having some riches. What use did they have for her, anyway? Daphne was financially stable enough, and it wasn't three additional houses that said that.
"Purebloods have a habit of showing off.", Harry started, slowly, and Daphne snorted, that was a gentle way to put it. "Your uncle Draco used to have albino peacocks, for example. Three houses that were only used once in a while is a way to show that, I suppose."
Daphne did remember the bloody creatures - they seemed to hate Daphne, especially so after that one Christmass party. She had no idea why, and had been very, very happy when Astoria had told her Draco had decided to not replace them, after some weird winter cold that killed them.
Lilian nodded, quietly, and looked to her mother.
"When are we going?", she asked, a bright smile on her face, and Daphne sighed. "And can I still go on Molly's vacation?"
"Well, as long as you don't mind wearing an emergency portkey and firecall me every day…", Daphne let the words hang in the air, and Lilian gave a happy little yell. She smiled, and Daphne held Harry's hand under the table.
"I'm packing two bags!", Lilian jumped from her place at the table, running to her room, and Daphne laughed, look into Harry's green eyes. She was going to say something when Lilian's voice floated down. "And don't be gross, I'm just a room away!"
Daphne was almost sure she shouldn't let Lilian go on Molly's vacation after that little commentary, but decided to let it slide for now.
"So, your family house, hm?", Harry wondered, kissing her and rising up, mug in hands. "Don't think I've ever heard about that."
"Perhaps because I never spoke about it.", Daphne suggested, shrugging, drinking the last, lukewarm dregs of her tea. "The family house was always cold."
"Then why you're going back?", Harry asked, burning the coffee. Daphne didn't even raise her eyes, hexing him away from the machine and having it clean itself.
"The elves asked.", Daphne didn't want to keep the elves, but she figured it'd be a good idea to have something watching over the old mansion, other than the old family portraits. Daphne plain refused to have a portrait of any of her ancestors on her own house - she wasn't going to subject Lilian to them, like she and Astoria had -, and as such, the house elves had been the only option she had. Well, better two pairs of living eyes in her old house than none.
Daphne had a few theories on why the elves had called her, but she wasn't planning on sharing them with Harry anytime soon.
One: her father had died, and now they needed Daphne to hire them for the family again. It seemed plausible - how much longer could they last in Azkaban, anyway? There were happiness-sucking creatures there, for Merlin's sake.
Two, the family portraits had finally worn them down enough to ask for Daphne to come and threaten them with a good old dose of fiendfyre. That usually shut them up for a few years - the last time Daphne had to do that was when she had assumed the control of the family's assets, and old great-great-great-uncle Elias had been mad she would be selling the Siberia house. They had had a screaming match, and when Daphne threatened to burn him off the family registry and the painting, he and the other portraits had politely agreed with her. After that, they hadn't bothered her anymore with anything. Well, not until now, at least.
"There should be something interesting there, though. Maybe some old family albums. That'd be interesting to show Lilian.", Daphne looked up, and set the machine to make coffee. Harry had the kindness to put some water to boil, at least. "The family library, too. We have a few originals from Greece…"
"Originals?", Harry asked, at the same time Lilian popped up in the door.
"We're from Greece?", she asked, short hair messed up, and Daphne smiled.
"Some original writing from Greece, not used anymore, and yes, we're greek. Were. It doesn't matter anymore. We moved here maybe in the 1700s, 1800s, perhaps.", she waved the words away, as if they didn't matter - because they didn't. Her family had a British surname now, anyway. "If you can read greek, feel free to read them, Lilian."
"I have three days to learn greek, then?", Lilian said, and Daphne wondered how, exactly, her daughter had gotten that impression.
"Please don't,", Daphne managed to say, feeling exhausted. It was barely eight in the morning, and she was already regretting ever telling Lilian that she would visit the old family house.
In the end, Lilian did not learn any sufficient greek by saturday morning, sleepily yawning as Daphne buttoned up her own traveling robes.
"I told you to not try and learn greek in three days,", Daphne said, while Lilian yawned. "Do you want to go later? It can wait for you to take a nap, sweetheart."
"No, I'm fine,", Lilian muttered, stifling a yawn, and Harry, by her side, messed up her short hair. "We can totally go now."
Daphne sighed, and picked up the portkey - a little bracelet, iron-wrought and simple -, putting it in her hand. Harry and Lilian moved for it at the same time, and when Daphne was sure they were touching it, she activated the portkey, quickly feeling as if she was being put through a straw.
When the portkey spat them out, she was in the familiar entrance to the market, the stalls already bustling with life, even if it was so early. Still, the market wasn't her focus, today. She turned to the road she knew would take her to her would family home, and wondered if maybe she should rent a horse for the time being. Or, perhaps, since she was in town, she could call the elf to bring her - but she'd need to put Harry in the guest book. Lilian could enter the wards based solely on her blood, but Harry wasn't a Greengrass neither by blood or marriage.
Yes, perhaps the elf would be a good idea. They were supposed to obey her, now that she was the current lady Greengrass, but the real question was - would they? Her parents were still alive, after all.
"Kiki.", she called, not really expecting the elf to appear. Alas, the elf appeared, still looking like she remembered it - bug-eyed, waifish and thin, and wearing the rags one of Astoria's childhood dresses had become after one of the Malfoy's Christmas parties had gone wrong. If Daphne wasn't too mistaken, it had been the one between Mrs. Zabini's third and fourth husband… Probably. She had no idea.
"Yes, miss Greengrass?", the elf asked, its voice already getting on Daphne's nerves. It was grating.
"Could you take the three of us to the manor?", she asked, and the elf looked from Daphne to Harry. "To the entrance, so I can put him in the guestbook."
The elf snapped its spindly fingers, and Daphne landed in the grounds in front of the mansion. It still looked like the Georgian architecture nightmare from her childhood, white stone yellowed with time, several windows in a grid, and a magnificent Versailles-style garden to greet visitors. It looked great from a distance. The elf snapped its fingers once more, and the iron gates (good for keeping the fae out) opened with a hefty groan. Kiki then disappeared inside, going to do whatever house elves did when no one was looking.
She turned to Harry and Lilian, both of them staring at the house.
"You grew up there?", Harry asked, seemingly surprised. "It seems so… Cold."
"It's so big!", Lilian chirped, amazed by it. Daphne couldn't really get it, but if it made Lilian happy, then well...
"First, that's because you're not in the guestbook, and second, mine is the smallest house between my friends.", Daphne shrugged, and looked at the elf. "I'll get some breakfast ready, and you, Harry, wait here while I make it so you can enter. You'll know when that happens. Lilian, you can come in, but if you want to explore the gardens, feel free to."
Lilian nodded and went off running, and Daphne turned to Harry, touching his hand for the briefest of moments.
"I'll be right back. If I'm not, teach Lilian fiendfyre and burn the mansion to the ground.", a death by fire was better than whatever her ancestors could have planned, and Harry offered her a look that clearly said he was having way too much fun with this already.
"I'm not sure you should be so drastic, but duly noted,", Harry replied, smiling softly and looking around.
Daphne took a deep breath and Apparated inside the old manor, arriving in the old entrance hall, dark and quiet, candles being lit when she stepped on the ground, illuminating the priceless antique decorations. Everything seemed spotless: there wasn't a mite of dust in the air, and part of her expected her parents to come in at any moment. Life had been frozen still in her house, and Daphne sighed, pressing the bridge of her nose. They weren't at home anymore.
Daphne shook her head. She had to find the guestbook, not a gateway to memory lane. If she wasn't mistaken, it should be in her father's old study. Daphne went there, making a point to ignore the paintings of long dead family members, and they only watched her, eyes the same shade of grey as hers and hair in a myriad of colours.
She stopped only briefly in front of her favorite dead aunt - Ianthe Greengrass, who never interacted with the outside world and passed her days swinging on her swing, just enjoying life after death. She never bothered Daphne with anything, and was an example to a child who was bored to death with family history. Why worry about anything, if you could just swing eternally? Needless to say, the painting was kept in a place Daphne couldn't reach so easily, but she managed. Daphne nodded to her long-dead aunt, and kept moving.
Her father's study, when she opened the door, was exactly as she remembered - dark and barely lit, bookshelves filling the walls with tomes considered too dangerous for the library, the heavy desk that had no papers anymore, and the closed curtains that she knew gave way to a veranda. On a corner of the table, the guestbook, thick and foreboding, a quill laying on top of it, the inkpot by its side glowing ominously. Daphne had no idea why it felt that way, or why the pot of ink glowed. Maybe to scare people, she guessed.
Daphne crossed her father's old study - now hers, in theory - and opened the guestbook, eyes passing through the names of people long dead at the beginning, until the names she recognized started to pour in.
She found an empty space in the parchment pages, and wrote in Harry's name carefully, the ink starting blood red and drying into brown quickly, her wrist stinging a bit. Daphne raised her sleeve, revealing a thin cut, and healed herself with a muttered spell. She had no idea the guestbook worked on blood magic, but it at least explained how all Greengrasses could enter with no problem. There was so much she didn't know about the functions of her own family house, but how was she even supposed to know? Her father had never thought Daphne would be the one to inherit the title; he had mentioned, once or twice, perhaps, that she'd have to find a husband willing to take in the surname, a second son or something, someone not as important.
The joke was on her father, though; the surname had passed on without Daphne ever marrying. That issue would be on Lilian, if she so choose to pass ahead the Greengrass surname, but if she didn't, Daphne wouldn't mind being the last of the Greengrass.
Daphne shook her head, driving away the depressing thoughts that had been sprung on her, and took a deep breath.
"Kiki,", she called, the elf appearing almost automatically. Daphne straightened her back, and did her best to imitate what she could remember from her father, as shudder-worthy as it was. "Please tell Harry Potter, on the entrance, that he is welcome to come in, and prepare two rooms. I'd also like lunch to be ready at one, and dinner, at nine, breakfast at seven. If the food can be eaten on the go, better. We will be staying here until sunday night, so please see for these to be done."
The elf seemed ready to cry - how long it had been since it had received orders? Hadn't it been when Daphne had left her home to live in her current apartment, just after she got her job as an Unspeakable? -, and Daphne changed the weight in her feet, uncomfortable.
"Yes, miss Greengrass,", the elf said, disappearing, and Daphne let go a breath she didn't know she was holding. Passing a hand through her hair, Daphne decided to get screamed at by her ancestors now was better than to wait until sunday - not like they'd let her wait that long, anyway.
Daphne went to the place where she had had her lessons about family history, a small hallway whose wallpaper was paintings, a little ways from her childhood room - which she was sure still looked exactly like before, suffocating and dark -, but stopped just shy of the entrance, already feeling eyes on her. Daphne had not even wandered inside, by Merlin's sake.
Still, she had been called home for some mysterious reason. Daphne entered the hallway, walking until she found the portrait she was most familiar with, and looked into old Markos Greengrass' eyes, the man who was the oldest Greengrass on record staring back at her.
"I'd say my pleasantries, but I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible.", Daphne crossed her arms, and she saw the man struggle to keep off a smile from his face, as the other portraits started to whisper. Had she been a little child, she'd be half afraid they'd tell her parents, but her parents weren't home anymore. "What do you want?"
The whispers grew, but Daphne stood her ground. She wasn't that scared little girl anymore.
"We've heard from Heike Nott that you have a daughter.", said one of her more illustrious ancestors, one Petros Greengrass, who also had a portrait in a long forgotten hallway near the Wizengamot. Ah, so that was how they were getting their gossip. She made a mental note to tell Theo and Pansy that their portraits were leaking, and stared at the eyes of the man who had been dead for, perhaps, a hundred years. "We'd like to know why wasn't she raised as a proper pureblood, like she ought to."
"I thought I, a proper pureblood, could raise another.", Daphne replied, one eyebrow rising. So that was what it was about? Lilian?
"It's not proper unless it's on the manor grounds,", one painting insisted, and Daphne didn't even glance in the voice's direction. "There's mudbloods outside! What could have they taught her, when you were not keeping an eye?"
"You do know we lost the war, right, Selene?", asked Markos, and Daphne silently thanked him. At least he was sensible. She wondered how he knew. "Perhaps 'mudblood' isn't the term you should be using."
"Oh, please, Markos, don't try and be correct after you died,", said one painting by his side, huffing and puffing. "We all know what they are."
What had been Daphne's reason to not burn them all again? She was struggling to remember. Soot and ashes did match the decor...
"Yes, but have you considered that Heike also told us that he didn't know who the father was? It might have been a… Muggle.", the gasps that echoed through the hallway after Markos' declaration were bordering on the ridiculous, as if Daphne had committed high treason. She wondered why she just didn't brick this hallway and end this.
Accusations were thrown at her, at other ancestors for not doing a proper job raising Daphne, and Merlin and other powerful wizards, Daphne had enough.
"I will burn you all in five seconds if you don't shut up and let me speak.", Daphne said, not even raising her voice, but it was as if she had screamed - silence reigned, in that little cramped hallway. "Good. Whoever is my daughter's father is of no concern to any of you, and if I am called here once more to discuss Heike Nott's gossip, I will burn all of you."
"But we are your ancestors!", Selene shrieked, and Daphne pressed the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache start forming. "You cannot burn our paintings. We have to stay, to teach future generations about our story. Your story."
"As the current head of the Greengrass family, I say that I can do that myself, thank you very much for the kind offer.", Daphne rose her eyes, letting go of her nose, and not bothering to face the painting. It was petty, perhaps, but Daphne really didn't want to do anything that was more work than speaking. "I will spend the weekend here. Any of you tries to talk with my daughter, I will burn you. Any of you looks in my direction, I will burn you. I hope this is understandable."
"It's perfectly understandable, lady Greengrass.", Daphne was sure Markos was doing his very best not to laugh, but even the portraits could notice his failure, if the dark looks they sent him were any indication. "We will keep our distance."
Daphne noticed movement from the corner of her eye, and turned to see Harry waving minimally. Daphne smiled, but knew she should keep a firm pulse with these paintings of old, spoiled purebloods, or else they would repeat their old habits.
"Thank you. I'll be going.", she didn't wait for an answer, walking out of the oppressive, filled to the brim hallway, and into Harry. "Hey."
"Hey,", he greeted back, smiling and touching her softly as Daphne allowed herself to bury her head in his chest, shoulders sagging. Merlin, she hated these paintings, she hated that hallway, and she fully understood why Ianthe Greengrass plain refused to interact with anyone else. Swinging was so much fun, compared to this. "Do you want to hear what Lilian is up to?"
"Please.", Daphne could swear she could feel Harry's heartbeat, and closed her eyes, resting for a moment. She wondered how much he had heard. Not a lot, she hoped.
"Well, she's going through what I'm almost sure is your old room. There are some pretty frilly dresses there.", that snapped Daphne into action, stepping back, picking Harry by the hand and going in the direction of her old, stuffy room. Oh, by Merlin's name, the frilly dresses were hiding her childhood photos, and in the middle of those was that ridiculous photography of Astoria sneezing and doing accidental magic that changed her hair to a garish pink. She had to run and stop her daughter.
As she rose the stairs, Daphne was almost sure she saw Ianthe Greengrass wave at her, but it probably was a trick of the light. Ianthe never interacted with anyone - but still, Daphne offered a small wave back, just in case.
I initially wrote this chapter as the end, but I was really bothered by it, so I wrote more chapters. Remember how I said I'd go wild with timeskips? Yeah, next chapter it gets worse.