DAPHNE GREENGRASS: NO MARRIAGE FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND THEN SUDDEN COURTSHIP WITH HARRY POTTER? PREGNANCY SCANDAL
The daily prophet read.
"She twisted a conversation I had with her at an ice-cream parlour when we caught up. I told her I wasn't planning on a legal marriage for several years and she thinks just because the tabloids say I'm pregnant with your kid, this is a sign it really was true. Because of how against it I was at that meeting. Look, she claims she's an inside source and a little birdie told her this..." Daphne was livid. She was ordinarily calm and collected but now she was pacing on the spot and pulling the paper up to chest level to read again, before dropping it on the side, walking a little, turning back, picking it up again, and so on as she alternated between rereading the contents and complaining about it.
"Why does the Daily Prophet publish this sort of nonsense? The tabloids I can understand, this..." Harry tried to find some reason in it.
"Because Celosia's working her way up in journalism. She's the newest and best journalist of the wizarding world. She won lots of awards despite only starting formal work this year, her first year out of Hogwarts! She probably hopes to use this piece to make her career, break out-" Daphne said.
"Why were you catching up with her at an ice-cream parlour?" asked Harry.
"I have to. She shared my dorm at Hogwarts and it's just...a complicated mess of socialite engagements. It would've offended her if I didn't, sent her the wrong message, and then things would've soured between us," she said.
"This isn't things being sour between you?" asked Harry with raised eyebrows.
"This is just her doing her job. She takes a lot of pride in her work, honestly, she's always been like this. And she probably thinks I enjoy it, some people like gossip and things spiralling around about them. She might even feel this is just how the world works, how it should be. That I'll have to accept being written about, because I'm a prominent pureblood and it's just the way it is," Daphne said.
"Well at least Rita Skeeter's gone," said Harry.
Daphne looked at him very slowly. "Celosia couldn't resist boasting to me that Rita Skeeter's in azkaban because they found out she was an unregistered animagi and did the trials after the war. It is actually quite an offense to be unregistered for a period as long as her, especially as she used it to find out other people's secrets and things. Thing is, Rita Skeeter loves journalism I think, she's as dedicated to it as Celosia is. Maybe even more. And I'm not sure how she'll like competition..."
"So you're suggesting we get her out of azkaban in order to...outcompete Celosia?" said Harry.
"Well Celosia won't have all the influence in the papers. Maybe Rita will dig up some dirt on Celosia to make her name go down and remake her way on the top. Maybe Rita will purposefully write against what Celosia says. Either way, Rita Skeeter seems like the very opposite of someone who wants to take on the same angle as someone else, especially a newer younger star whom Rita most likely sees as inferior to her and doesn't want to take up her position. She's still able to outcompete Celosia in the career. Witches and wizards hold careers for longer than muggles, we could bring her back..." Daphne murmured.
"I'll think about it," said Harry, "how though? She's in azkaban?"
"Remember when I said that wizarding law was at the bare minimum? It's developed a bit after the second wizarding war, stricter and tighter too, but still developing. We could find some case to counter Rita being put in azkaban, review the evidence at her trial, and call for a retrial, say it wasn't enough to incriminate her. We could do it. I...I know someone that might be able to...they've done it once. To," Daphne swallowed, "Draco Malfoy should technically be in azkaban. So should his parents. A good chunk of us purebloods know that. He was able to just about get out of it, because of a very skilled person in law. I...it's not crazy to think we might have some influence over Rita's retrial."
"So we're unleashing one chaos onto another?" asked Harry.
"If you really can't stand Celosia's articles..." said Daphne, "which I can't. Oh but I shall have to talk to her soon after this. I shall have to pretend everything's alright...we will have tea and cakes, pretend nothing has happened, and go on our merry way. That is actually the only way of remaining in her good books, so nothing worse will happen to us. It's...the normal way of pureblood socialites. We have to be friends."
"She isn't a pureblood socialite," said Harry.
"She was in our dorm. A Slytherin. For many years. We...are closer than complete strangers. I even...liked a part of her personality and her company to an extent. I can't...we're still socialites to a degree," admitted Daphne.
She sighed, leaning against the fridge door so the coolness of the metal could soothe her. She hid her face in both hands and sobbed for a bit. A few small silvery streams of tears making their way down her face. Harry rushed to get some tissues and gave them to her. "I'm sorry," he tried to be comforting.
"I...didn't want this life. Why...why does everything have to happen to me?" Daphne sobbed a little, "I didn't want to be born into it..."
Suddenly what sounded like a few hundred slips of paper plonked onto the carpet through the door. Harry looked up, a vein throbbing in his temple. "That's more mail," he said, "it sounds like something heavy is arriving. I better go see what it is."
"I'll come with you," said Daphne. She threw away the tissue, smiled and tried to appear more normal as she followed him by his side, as if shrugging on a new person now that she was walking and doing something as opposed to standing there wallowing in her own misery. She tried to look happy about going through the motions as they arrived at the door. It scared Harry how many letters there were. At least several hundred and they made a knee-length pile at the door. The thought of throwing them all away also made his stomach churn. Just how many were there? Why did the so many people who read it become so angry at them? A few howlers were even spotted among the letters.
"Oh no, let's get out before it starts," said Harry as he waved his wand a bit and then pulled Daphne through the door, "I made it so objects in the house can't get out of the wards now. I changed the wards to that setting."
As they entered the gravel driveway and headed down to the mailbox (which had lots of piles of mail) the howlers threw themselves at the slot in the door but could not make their way through, screaming in the general direction of Harry and Daphne. There were a lot of voices that reflected general people in the wizarding world whom they didn't recognise. It was not good.
However, once they reached the mailbox, Harry saw a tall and large figure flying through the sky towards them.
"Expelliarmous-" he shouted on instinct, blasting the wand out of the man. It was a man a little taller than average, but stout with long limbs and a bit of weight around the middle. He wore a black tophat that was shiny, and a velvet green coat with long coattails, vest and grey pants, with shiny black shoes. He rode there on what appeared to be a large five-seater broom that was probably used for some specialised purpose because there were faded red seats built on it like a saddle to a horse. The brush end was huge and the broom appeared very solid and sturdy, thick, like it was used for some industrial purpose.
A wand jot out of his hand, the man drifted to the right rapidly, but then regained his sense and within seconds had touched on with his broom landing upright beside him. He had muttered something wordlessly for his wand shot back into his hand and now he was on guard and Harry knew it was harder to disarm him than before.
"Father-" said Daphne as Harry felt his blood run cold. What was Mr Greengrass doing there and why had things screwed up to that level?
"I had an empire - Greengrass Wheat. We're one of the only families who still have a family business and trade attached to their name. I spent my whole life working on it, building it up, maintaining it, managing the profits. And now it's gone. Many customers have cancelled their order to the Greengrass Wheat now. They're getting their wheat elsewhere. I tried to salvage as much as possible but we will suffer heavily from this for years. You are to move out," now Mr Greengrass was really angry. He stopped his rabid raving for a minute and stared clearly at Daphne, "we won't formally disown you because that will be known and it will do us worse. But I do not want you to think you still have a place among our family with such poor management of affairs as this. You live on your own now and don't bother us. The three of us will recover by ourselves. Don't even talk to us."
He waved his hand and a trunk fell out, probably containing Daphne's belongings. After that he turned around and disappariated in a huff. Harry supposed he'd only flown here on broomstick in order to find out where he lived, most likely due to all the owls flying in his direction. It would've been hard to miss.
In fact...
"Looks like more than just your father followed the owls here," said Harry as a team of photographers emerged from the woods. It looked like they had been hiding for some time and were now snapping pictures at the house but seemingly not seeing either Harry or Daphne.
"It's the wards," explained Daphne through tears that were fast streaming down her face now, "they prevent anyone who hasn't been invited or is a blood relative from seeing anyone from within the property line. We're still on the garden side so we're protected by them. The reporters could see Mr Greengrass leaving and they'll know we're here."
"When will the reporters leave?" asked Harry, "come on. Let's go inside. You can stay for as long as you want. It's my fault you got kicked out. You must. There's nothing we can do about the reporters now, it's best to just go inside and...sort things out then..."
Once inside a few howlers pelted themselves at them, they had mostly let out the contents of their letter but still had some steam left. A letter of acid sloshed out onto Daphne's hand and the skin melted of in a way that if magic hadn't existed, both of them would've freaked out.
"Dammit, I didn't think to order any potions ingredients. I only sort of have a muggle first aid kit," said Harry as they entered the kitchen once again.
To his surprise Daphne pulled out her wand with her other hand and muttered some curses. The skin sowed itself back together and filled itself out, as if the acid had never happened.
A few letters that weren't howlers but mail all the same flew through the corridor at them.
"Evaneso," Harry muttered and they disappeared. He then levitated the other letters to the fireplace in the living room and the house was noticeably warmer after that.
There were a few from Hermione, Ron and Ginny that he'd kept.
"Order some later then, just in case. But luckily acid mail is something that's relatively common in the wizarding world. So are a lot of other nasty things in the mail. It's like muggle spam mail but on steroids I guess, so I'm familiar with the countercurses and healing measures for many. The reporters might be there until they can get at least one good picture of us or something," said Daphne, "for their stories. I bet they made a field day with the picture of my father outside our residence. It really does look like I've been kicked out because of a pregnancy. If they get nothing after several days they will leave though."
"What's going to happen when you don't show? Are they going to then lie about a miscarriage or something equally scandalous?" asked Harry.
"That or something scandalous. Probably scandalous. I think I'd better stay well out of the public eye for a bit. Most people would figure that we've just been a bit close and that the rumours about us dating or the pregnancy are just tabloids. But it still affects us. There are families outside of England who order my father's wheat and they really did cancel a lot of the deals based on this. It gives us a bad name and they're the type of families that care a lot about name. That was how we even got business from them in the first place," said Daphne, "Greengrass wheat isn't really all that profitable or common. It sort of just breaks even some years, sometimes doing better, sometimes doing worse. We kept it because it's been in the family for generations. It might go away some day and we'll just be like the other families whose surnames once was related to a trade, but likely not in my lifetime. There'll still be our ownership of the farms around for years."
"Should we stage something? Make it better? An interview of sorts," Harry was nervous, "which journalist can we trust to write about an interview correctly?"
"Not Celosia. Even if she wanted to do a good job I'm not sure she can resist exaggerating things. I think it's time we get Rita Skeeter back in the game," said Daphne.
"Anything to make this better," said Harry.
They spent the rest of the afternoon with Harry responding to some letters. No one owled Daphne. "My pureblood friends and Slytherin friends know it's all bullshit, but they're not going to give any interviews to the media because it'll just make things worse. We laugh about it sometimes, all the stupid tabloids. They'll think I know they'll think it's such a joke they won't even bother to mail me to say they're sure. I know they hate the tabloids enough they won't believe it. But..." Daphne cried again and again, "I don't want this. Why did I have to be born into this? I didn't want this. I didn't get to choose what family I was born into, what name we had, what profits people made at our downfall. I didn't want this. This misery, this pain...I didn't want it."
There was nothing Harry could do but hold her, and hug her. He felt his pain flow through her. It was unfair how the purebloods were treated in the wizarding world. Although the press mostly left them alone they went wild with scandals like this. He could imagine all the money being made of them. How helpless they were. What was Daphne to do but cry behind castle walls? Or in this case, Harry's barely furnished lodge?
Daphne cried some more but towards the end of the afternoon when she pulled herself back together and attempted to begin cooking dinner with a smile on her face, all she said was, "I wish Astoria was here. Sometimes, she's good for this sort of thing and I feel less alone..."
Harry only wished he could get Astoria for her. Summon her right there with a tap of his wand. But alas, Astoria was most likely told by the family not to talk to Daphne and he didn't want to screw things up even further between them. Daphne would see Astoria hopefully someday, but it wasn't soon, or likely to be in public, for a very long time...
Author's Note: In response to a review, Harry's working very hard at auror training and doing a good job so he's not that stupid but I agree he doesn't have the best portrayal in this story because most of it takes place outside of his auror training so we don't get to see that. Would you like some more scenes of him at auror training and stuff like that? To add more flavour of a competent Harry to the story?