The Express was packed. It was probably just her nerves, but Daphne felt like she couldn't get even a second alone to collect herself. She deposited her trunk in a compartment full of Third Years, not wanting to find Pansy and then having to explain why she couldn't stay. No, she thought while ducking into a washroom to check her makeup one last time, she could find her friends after she introduced Harry to the new and improved Daphne Greengrass.
That turned out to be an even more difficult task than she'd anticipated, retracing her path through the train cars after spotting neither hide nor hair of Potter her first time through. Maybe he'd stayed at the castle for the holidays?
Unlikely. Hardly anyone stayed, excepting rare occasions when a student's family was overseas or had some other pressing engagement. Even mud- muggleborns, she corrected herself, had families to spend the holidays with. So where was he?
Passing by a compartment, she looked through the clear glass windows and caught sight of Looney and the Squib. They both had gravitated into Potter's circle this year, a group that had grown noticeably since the school year began, now that she thought about it.
She slid the door open, standing in the entryway. "Hello," she awkwardly started, unnerved by Longbottom's hard stare, and Lovegood's vacant expression. "I hope you both had happy Yule tidings. I was looking for Harry, but I don't-"
Longbottom rose from his seat, surprisingly graceful amid the rocking of the Express and took two steps to the compartment door, where she waited with what she hoped was a friendly smile. He slid the door shut, and the shades closed a moment later.
'Shite' This was going to be harder than she expected. Well, nothing to do but wait, she thought, wandering off to find Pansy.
It wasn't until they had double-potions the next morning that she spotted him, sandwiched as usual between Weasel and the- and Granger. Daphne had recognized, even without Elysant's prompting, that she'd need to change the way she interacted with the rest of the student body at Hogwarts. Nobody, Harry included, would take her seriously if her attitude changed only with regards to him.
Still, she thought as she masked a smile with her hand when Professor Snape lit into Weasley over some smart-aleck remark he'd muttered, old habits die hard.
"Come on, what's taking you so long?" Pansy asked once class had ended. "I want to dump my books in our dorms before lunch since we're already in the dungeons."
"Uh, you go ahead, I wanted to ask Professor Snape something about today's lesson."
"You're not worried about OWLs, are you? Come on, why would you really want to take NEWT Potions anyway?"
"Just go on ahead, I'll meet up with you." 'Merlin, can't she take a hint?'
The reality of how much of a balancing act this was going to be until she and Harry were official was starting to settle in. She needed time for her Housemates to leave, then rush to catch up to Potter and- and what?
Maybe just say 'did you have a good Yule?' Yea, that would work. Just something to get his eyes on her, really soak in her changes. He was a wizard, she was an attractive- no, a beautiful witch, he didn't need any reason to want to talk with her!
The last Slytherin finally left - honestly, could Nott be any slower? - and she grabbed her bag, intent on running after the Gryffindors when a hand fell on her shoulder, and her Head of House asked, "I believe you had a question for me, Miss Greengrass?"
'No! Not now!' "Err, well I was just wondering, um..."
"Well? Out with it."
"Why don't you ever assign partners for brewing?" It was the first thing that came to mind, likely a result of her musing during the lecture how much easier it would be to talk to Harry if she could pry him loose from his friends. Snape's eyes narrowed, probably assuming she was criticizing his teaching, so she hurriedly added, "I just mean, it might help some of the students who are total disasters, if they weren't always working with their friends."
Snape didn't say anything, and Daphne kept rambling, eager to make her escape. "It was just- I don't know, something I thought. Sorry for bringing it up, I have to go, I'm really hungry, I'll see you next class, sir!" And with that, she ran.
'Please, don't let him already be in the Great Hall!' she pleaded to any higher power that happened to be listening. Approaching Harry and even flirting with him was one thing, but doing so in front of the entire school? Her stomach bubbled with anxiety at the mere thought.
The gods must have been smiling upon her, for as she rounded the final corner, there he was, still with Weasley and Granger, talking to Zacharias Smith of all people just outside the entrance to the Great Hall.
Smith had just finished asking about some meeting, and Harry grimaced. "We'll send word the same way we always do, but for sure not tonight. I have, uh…" even from here, she could see his jaw clench. "I have Remedial Potions with Snape."
"Remedial, eh? Wow, never heard of anyone being so hopeless that Snape gives extra lessons. You must be a right hazard to everyone in that classroom, Potter!" Laughing, Smith turned to enter the Great Hall.
"I can hex him for you if you like," Weasley offered. Daphne agreed with the sentiment but tried to focus, taking a deep breath, squaring her shoulders, and starting the walk towards them. This was it; the first time that Harry would be introduced to the new Daphne Greengrass, the one that was going to steal his heart. The first step to saving her sister from-
"Hi," came a quiet voice, and Harry turned. "How was your Christmas?"
"Hey," Harry replied, sounding a bit breathless as he awkwardly smiled at Cho Chang. Daphne half-turned, pretending to dig around in her school bag while she eavesdropped. "It started rough, but I think it got better. How about yours?"
"Quiet, like always," she said, clasping her hands behind her back and bobbing back and forth from her toes to her heels. "Did you see they announced the next Hogsmeade weekend?"
'No!' "No, I haven't had a chance to look."
"It's on Valentine's Day," Cho said expectantly, aiming a ridiculous doe-eyed look at him.
"Really? Then, ah, you'd want to-"
"If you do, then I do, yea."
This was painful to listen to, and not just because that stupid slag Chang had got to him first. Merlin, how did she ever land Diggory if this was the extent of her charm?
Mercifully, it seemed that Harry was either too dull or too cowardly to take her up on her obvious offer. "I-, uh," he started to stutter, and Chang gave a sad smile.
"It's not a big deal, really. I'll see you around, Harry." She turned, heading away from the Great Hall, and Daphne tried not to let her sigh of relief be too audible as Chang walked past.
Giving up the ruse of 'looking in her bag', Daphne slung it over her shoulder and prepared to make her move, only to nearly be bowled over by Harry himself as he ran right past her. "Cho! Hey Cho, wait!"
It wasn't like he had to run to catch up with her, the Ravenclaw was walking ridiculously slow, likely to try and make him feel bad. Daphne didn't bother turning around to watch, merely listening to him boorishly ask that… that… no-good snob out for Valentine's Day, and for Chang to obnoxiously accept.
Daphne walked into the Great Hall, collapsing into a seat at the nearly empty Slytherin table. Besides Vince and Greg, all of her other Housemates had followed Pansy's example and went back to their dorms to leave their books behind, so Daphne felt no qualms about locking her gaze on Harry, as he blushed at Granger's knowing smirk and accepted congratulatory slaps on the back from Weasley.
He'd ran right past her. Even with the potions, the creams, the oils and lotions. Even losing almost two kilograms in a single week, he'd ran by her like she wasn't even there.
She had to pull it together. This wasn't over.
It seemed like dinner had barely begun when she observed Professor Snape push his plate forward, standing from the faculty table and departing the Great Hall. That was the signal she'd been waiting for, and she was proud of her attentiveness as she observed Harry's head turn to watch their Potions Professor leave.
"I've got to go."
Pansy lowered her fork, eyeing her suspiciously. "Where?"
"I'm going to head back to the common room, I'm not very hungry and I need to add a bit more to my Transfiguration homework. You know how McGonagall is with the essays she assigns over break."
"Right," her best friend said slowly, watching as Daphne pushed her empty plate away and stood from their table.
Pansy had not been very impressed with the changes Daphne had made over the holidays. In fact, she'd been almost hostile ever since laying eyes on her during the trip back to Hogwarts, giving short and succinct answers about her break and the Malfoy's ball, with none of the usual gossip that Daphne had come to expect.
No matter. She had more pressing concerns than Pansy's bad attitude. He answered on the second knock. "Greengrass? What is it?"
"Can I speak with you, sir?"
"I'm busy," he replied shortly, moving to close his office door.
"Wait!" She stuck her shoe into the crack of the door, preventing him from fully closing it. "I heard you're giving remedial lessons to Potter."
"What of it?"
"I could use the extra help, too."
Snape opened the door fully, regarding her suspiciously. "No."
Her jaw dropped. "But- why?"
"Should I come back later?"
Snape looked over her shoulder and Daphne whipped her head around, taking in Potter, dressed in his baggy and threadbare muggle rags, watching the proceedings with a raised eyebrow.
"Harry, uh, hi." Somehow, all of her preparation flew out the window when she was actually face to face with the person that so much depended on. He seemed… different from the way he'd looked that morning, now that his green eyes were staring at her. More- more fiery, forthright, driven. Suddenly, it wasn't such a mystery why more and more students were gravitating towards-
'Focus!' Remembering Elysant's lessons, she kept her eyes downcast and idly toyed with one of her bangs, making sure to arch her back to emphasize her bust. There was a rustle as he stepped closer… and then right past her, carefully avoiding so much as a brush against her to move into the classroom. Daphne was outraged. That was twice he'd ignored her. The coquettish smile she'd plastered on her face melted away into a scowl, and she turned once more, seeing her normally stoic Head of House watching her with a baffled expression.
"As you can see, I have to begin my lesson," he said.
Daphne didn't care how it made her look, she wouldn't give up. "It's not fair! You can't give certain students extra help and deny it to others!"
The look he wore- Daphne wasn't sure whether he'd laugh in her face or strike her. Instead of doing either, he stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind him.
"Your scores in my class have never dipped below and Exceeds Expectations. You are not in need of remedial lessons. What is this about?" Daphne mumbled an excuse about OWLs, but it was nonsensical even to her ears. "Look at me when I'm talking to you."
She met his beady black eyes, and maybe it was the stress of the day, or having skipped dinner, but a headache started to form. "Well, it was worth a try."
"Indeed," he said, his voice lacking the impatience and irritation present before. "Goodnight, Miss Greengrass."
Dejected, she made her back to the dorms.
It wasn't until four days later that she tried again, this time a wholly different tact.
Daphne had selected Arithmancy and Ancient Runes as her electives by default. There really wasn't much choice, given her interest in avoiding the oafish groundskeeper-made-professor, disbelieving the merit of teaching magical children about muggles, as well as being relatively sure that she was not, in fact, able to tell the future. While Runes was a bit dull, sort of a linguistics-focused history class, Arithmancy just clicked for her.
Besides her own passion for the subject, it also was a class that Pansy did not take, and Hermione Granger did.
This was the ploy that Elysant had suggested following her humiliation, twice in the same day, by the Boy-Who-Lived. Did he think because his name was in the papers that he was Merlin's gift to wizardkind or something? Or was he so hung up on Chang that he couldn't even recognize someone far better looking and of a much better bloodline?
Honestly, it wasn't even like Chang was that pretty… or so Daphne told herself.
Regardless, her ancestor had noted that if Harry wasn't willing to reciprocate her attempts to engage with him individually, he would still be forced to acknowledge her through his circle of friends. While Harry seemed to be expanding his social circle this year, everyone knew that he had two best friends above all others. Obviously, Weasley was out - the last thing she wanted was for him to think she had any romantic interest in him.
That left Granger, and Merlin how her past was coming back to bite her. While Draco and his friends were certainly the most antagonistic towards the Gryffindors, Daphne had joined Pansy in teasing the- the muggleborn on a fairly regular basis over the years, running across her semi-frequently while she was alone in the library.
So when Professor Vector opened the door that morning to allow the Fifth Years inside for their first class of the spring term, Daphne shouldered past Padma Patil to take the open seat next to Granger. She knew it would draw attention, and a quiver of concern ran up her spine as she observed Tracey Davis gawking at her from across the classroom.
Granger, though, showed impressive restraint, lining up her parchment and quills, unscrewing her inkpot, and preparing to take notes on their lesson. She showed absolutely no curiosity or interest at the Slytherin next to her, despite Daphne's glances over to her throughout the lecture. At last, Professor Vector instructed them to open their books, assigning the equations they were to complete for the rest of the period, and she had her opening.
"Fancy working together on this?"
Other than an unfathomable look, the bushy-haired Gryffindor simply ignored her, writing down the problems on the back of her notes. Honestly, Daphne couldn't really blame her.
"Listen, Granger - I haven't always been very polite to you over the years," she watched the girl's fingers turn white, clenching around the quill in her hand, "But I'd like a chance to start over, you know, maybe actually give being friends a go."
This was quickly turning awkward. What was it with everyone? Well, when in no doubt, go the tried and true route. "Your hair looks nice today. Did you do something dif-"
Granger snorted, finally meeting her eyes for the first time. "You must be dim if you'd think that would work, after how many times you and your little friend made fun of how I look." Daphne winced. "To answer your question, no, I didn't do anything different. It's the same hair that Parkinson called a bird's nest, the same hair you suggested the school use as overflow if the Owlery got too crowded."
She'd said that on the last day before Yule Break. Pansy had laughed about that line for hours; Daphne remembered feeling happy, feeling like she'd done something good.
"So no, Greengrass, I don't think I'll 'give being friends a go' with you. Is this really the best you could come up with? Tart yourself up over break, and then try to spy on us by acting all chummy?"
"I- I wasn't-"
"Neville and Harry told me you've been skulking around. Really, you'd think a Slytherin would have the cunning to be even a little bit subtle! You should run back to Umbridge and see if she can't find a particularly obedient crup to do her dirty work; I'm sure that it would be smart enough to think of a better plan." Her devastating rant complete, Granger let out a deep breath, tucked a strand of curly hair behind her ear, and returned to the equations assigned.
Now, even Vector was staring at her in stunned silence. Her cheeks burning with humiliation, Daphne opened her own book, pretending to work on the assignment, but in fact consumed with despair.
This week had been a crushing reality check. If someone had asked Daphne a month prior about how her classmates perceived her, she would have guessed she was relatively unknown. For five years, she'd basically existed within Pansy's shadow, the quiet girl of the bunch. Sure, pureblood students likely knew of her family's wealth, as well as their ambiguous character, but Daphne had assumed she largely went unnoticed. To learn she not only had a reputation, but a bad one…
'Stop it' she instructed herself. There was no point in feeling sorry for herself, what was done was done. Wallowing in self-pity wasn't going to help Astoria; in fact, maybe she was going about this all wrong. Maybe the answer to tricking Harry- no, Potter into loving her wasn't going to be found in being good.
She'd need to speak with Elysant, and she'd need to plot out a new course of action. Why had Granger mentioned Umbridge?
"You've been awfully quiet today," Pansy remarked casually, while the two of them waited outside the Potions classroom for their afternoon class.
"So? Not much to tell you since we talked at breakfast."
"Are you sure?"
Daphne's mind flashed to Tracey Davis whispering to Pansy outside the Great Hall before lunch. "Yea, I'm sure."
Her friend gave her a flat stare in reply but said nothing more. The door unlocked, then opened on its own and the group of Fifth Years filed inside to the laboratory, today being a brewing session for the potions they'd learned about on Monday.
"Silence," Professor Snape hissed from the front of the class, his sibilant tones immediately cutting through the chatter as everyone took their seats. "Starting today, for the rest of the term, I've decided to initiate a change in brewing procedure."
There were confused and concerned looks exchanged among the students. It was extraordinarily rare for Snape to have any remarks on brewing days beyond 'the instructions are on the board', much less to have what appeared to be a prepared speech.
"As this is your OWL year, and many of you," at this, his gaze lingered on the Gryffindors, "have proven time and again to be woefully incompetent at brewing even the most simple of potions, I will no longer allow you to work with partners of your own choosing." There were a few indignant murmurs at that. "I will not have my teaching abilities be called into question because of a few dunderheads that can't tell the difference between a paring knife and a stirring spoon! Therefore, for the rest of the term, your partners will be as follows. Take your seat when I call your name."
For the most part, there were few surprises. Finnegan and Thomas, Weasley and Longbottom, Brown and Patil, Malfoy and Zabini, Parkinson and Nott, Goyle and Davis, Dunbar and Perks, Bulstrode and Moon. It was exactly how one would expect a class of rival Houses to be divided, with a few minor exceptions.
"Crabbe and Granger." After the way she'd tore into her in Arithmancy, Daphne couldn't repress a vicious satisfaction at the way Granger's face fell at that assignment. Preoccupied with her spiteful glee, she nearly missed the last two names that Snape read out.
"Greengrass and Potter."
She shouldn't have been surprised; if she'd been paying any attention at all, it would have been obvious that theirs were the last two remaining names. Nonetheless, a shock ran through her body, all the more so when Pott- no, for some reason, he was Harry again, looked in her direction and nodded to an empty cauldron station.
"Hi," she said, unsure of herself after the disaster in Arithmancy. "This is a bit of a surprise, 'partner'." Good. Something light, disarming.
"Yep," he agreed, swallowing a grimace and glancing reluctantly towards where Granger was staring at the two of them. "Guess I'm all yours for the rest of the term."
Daphne laughed, letting out genuine peals of happiness at his words. If only he knew. Harry Potter was going to be hers for a lot longer than that.
A/N: Oh Daphne, you silly goose.
Have to give a shoutout to budhayes, for making me laugh out loud with his review of the last chapter. Nailed me!
Gosh this story is easy to write. Probably because there's nothing particularly unique or surprising about it. Oh well. Review if you're enjoying! Thanks!
Stay safe, healthy, and happy! ~Frickles