Chapter 9
The Hogwarts Express was making its long journey south to King's Cross station in London. Most students were sitting together with friends, excitedly discussing their plans for the winter holiday. Daphne Greengrass, however, sat in the very back of the train by herself. This entire term had been a disaster but the days since she and Tracey's last fight had been the most miserable. It had taken that additional threat of permanently cutting off their friendship to have the reality of it truly sink in for Daphne. Tracey had been right about her, she wouldn't be able to deal with life at Hogwarts without their friendship. It was this fact that had ultimately stopped Daphne from going to Umbridge and exposing Potter's knowledge of Sirius Black; she knew Tracey would blame her.
As the sky turned dark, the train pulled into King's Cross station. Once they stopped, Daphne levitated her trunk down and made her way to the exit. Scanning the platform, her eyes fell onto her mother, Roxanne Greengrass, and her sister, who had gotten off ahead of her, and went to join them.
"Hello mother, Astoria." She greeted.
"Hello Daphy." Astoria smirked, knowing Daphne hated that nickname.
Daphne grit her teeth, she loved her sister deeply but she could be a royal pain in the arse sometimes and was currently not in the mood for it.
"Call me that again and I'll fill your mouth with flobberworm guts and freeze it shut." She snapped at Astoria.
"Girls, enough." Her mother cut in before Astoria could retort. She took one hand off each of her daughters and apparated the three of them to the front steps of their home.
"Blinky." Her mother called out and a house elf appeared.
"Yes mistress?" The elf asked.
"Please take the girl's belongings to their rooms." She ordered.
"Right away mistress." He replied.
With their trunks moved, they entered the main foyer and removed their coats.
"Astoria, please go up to your room to unpack, dinner is in an hour." Her mother requested.
Astoria gave her mother a curious look before leaving. Roxanne then turned to Daphne.
"Daphne, I need to speak with you privately, would you please join me in the sitting room?" Her mother asked.
Unsurprised at the request, Daphne followed her mother and joined her at a small table with a pair of teacups already laid out.
"What would you like to speak with me about mother?" Daphne asked, already knowing the answer.
"I would like you to explain why your cousin and best friend, Tracey, is not staying at Hogwarts and not attending our family Christmas celebration." She said pointedly.
Daphne had been expecting this, her letter she had written her parents informing them of this had included no reasoning for Tracey's decision to not come home.
"She's upset with me because I've been trying to stop her from making an idiotic decision." She said sharply. She really wasn't I'm the mood to discuss this but had no other choice.
"I see, and what decision might that be." Her mother inquired.
"Potter, the arrogant sod, formed a secret group with several other students to learn the spells we should be learning in Defense Against the Dark Arts in violation of Professor Umbridge's decree that places a ban on student groups. Tracey decided to join and risk losing the right to my protection in Slytherin house as well as face potential expulsion if caught." She said annoyed.
"I see, and why did she decide to join this group?" Her mother asked
"It's our O.W.L. year and Professional Umbridge is, admittedly, not the best teacher." Daphne gave a half truth.
"Well that certainly is troublesome, but I assume you're practicing such spells on your own, I'm certain Tracey could have joined you for that if she had no other reason to join." She stated.
Daphne sighed and then gave the rest of the truth. "Tracey wants to fight against the dark lord and wishes to associate with Potter as someone who will be at the center of the fight."
"And tell me, what was it you did to try and stop her from joining this group?" She asked.
"At first I tried to talk her out of it once I found out." Daphne answered.
"And when that didn't work?" Her mother prompted.
"I…. may have captured Potter and tried to force him to have her removed from the group." She admitted.
"I see, should I assume Tracey found out and took it poorly?" Her mother guessed.
"Yes and yes." Dephne responded.
"Now, tell me why it's so important to you that she not be a member of this group?" This question annoyed Daphne as she felt the answer was obvious.
"Why? Potter is being targeted by Umbridge and the ministry, if his group is caught the best possible fate for Tracey is expulsion. If she's not expelled she'd become anathema in Slytherin; you know as well as I do that Potter isn't lying about the Dark Lord's return. If I can no longer use my status to protect her with him in power….." Daphne didn't even want to think of what could happen in such a scenario.
Her mother had been listening intently and while her daughter struggled for words she followed up with another question.
"It's her choice is it not? She's not risking anyone other than herself. Why go to such great lengths when it doesn't affect you?" Her mother asked knowing it would set Daphne off.
"Of course it affects me!! She's my best friend, I've always tried to protect her and I'd be devastated if she got hurt. If she just kept her head down I could keep her safe even if the Dark Lord gained power but she's not listening to me!" Daphne had raised her voice, getting more and more frustrated at her mother's questions.
Her mother, unexpectedly, laughed softly at Daphne's rant which only served to frustrate her daughter more as her face turned beet red.
"What could possibly be funny about all that!?" Daphne nearly shrieked.
Her mother caught her breath and replied. "Just seeing you beginning to learn a lesson most people don't learn until they become parents." Daphne looked confused.
"The day you become a parent and hold your child in your arms for the first time is a feeling of joy that is truly impossible to describe, there's nothing else like it. There is no feeling of love more fierce than that of a parent towards their child; that first time you see them, so small, fragile, and innocent, you want nothing more than to lock them away and keep them safe from the horrors and dangers that lurk out there in the world." Her mother explained.
She continued. "At first it seems so simple, they depend on you for everything and, for the most part, do as they're told. But then they start to grow up, they learn, they become independent, they begin to make decisions for themselves. As a parent, your first instinct is always to protect them, you can't help but want to save them from making mistakes that you are so sure will lead to them getting hurt, but there comes a point where you have to allow them to make those mistakes anyway. It is the most difficult lesson you learn as a parent, that you can't always protect your children from the world; if they don't experience making mistakes they'll never grow into their full potential and if you try to take away their choices they will come to resent you. You can offer advice to try and guide them, you can try and explain your point of view but you cannot make their choices for them."
Roxanne placed a hand on her eldest daughter's knee. "I know that there's few people you care about as much as Tracey, she is as good as a sister to you, and you've always worked hard to protect her after you both got sorted into Slytherin and she knows and appreciates the sacrifices you've made for her. But right now it's clear she's made a decision, I know you don't like it and you're scared for her because it's risky but it's also important enough to her that she's prepared to take that risk anyway. It's ok for you to worry, but you can't keep trying to stop her, she has made a choice and you have to respect that. The best thing you can do for her now is support her no matter how much you disagree because if you keep trying to force her to stop all it will do is tell her that you don't trust her to think for herself and that you don't respect her."
Daphne had a few tears running down her cheeks at this point and she sniffled while wiping her eyes. She desperately wished to tell her mother she was wrong, that Tracey's decision to join Potter's defense group was too great a risk to allow, but she couldn't because deep in her heart she knew what her mother said was right. The voice of doubt in the back of her head had been making her think the same thing but she'd ignored it, refusing to accept the truth because she was afraid. As she internally admitted all this to herself the full reality of how she'd been acting began to weigh down on her. She had broken Tracey's trust, but that was barely the tip of the iceberg when thinking about the actions she'd either had committed or been willing to while trying to protect Tracey. She'd attacked and kidnapped a fellow student in Potter, she'd stalked and intruded on private conversations, she'd been willing to get other students expelled, she'd been willing to sentence an innocent man to the Dementors kiss and tear apart an orphaned boy from the closest thing he'd ever had to an actual parent. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed with guilt and began to sob, as she did her mother embraced her.
"Shhhhhhh, it's all going to be alright." Her mother said, trying to comfort her.
"I'm a monster." Daphne cried.
Her mother rubbed her back while continuing to hold her tight. "No sweetheart, you're not. You thought what you were doing was right and lost sight of everything else in pursuit of that. Sometimes that happens and good people make big mistakes but that doesn't make you a monster, it makes you a human."
Daphne just sat there being held by her mother for several minutes as she cried and began the process of coming to terms with both Tracey's decision and her own actions in response. After a while she began to regain control of herself. She dried her eyes with a small handkerchief and took several deep breaths until she felt calm enough to speak.
"I think I owe Tracey an apology." She said softly.
Her mother smiled and nodded. "I know you probably don't want to hear this but you probably owe Mr. Potter an apology as well."
Daphne cringed a bit at that, her mother was right of course as she'd come frighteningly close to losing her temper and seriously injuring Potter, but she wasn't sure how he'd react given what had happened the last time they'd come face to face. It was at that moment she was reminded of what she'd overheard he and Tracey discussing the last night she'd spied on them.
'Sirius Black is my godfather and he is innocent of everything he's been accused of'
"I think I can offer him something better than just an apology. Is father in his study?" Daphne replied.
Her mother crooked an eyebrow and nodded.
Daphne began to leave but stopped and turned back around. "Thank you mother, for your help."
Her mother just smiled at her as she walked out and made her way to her father's study. When she arrived outside she knocked on the door.
"Father, it's Daphne, may I enter?" She asked.
The doors then opened all on their own, taking that as a yes she walked through and the doors slowly closed behind her. Entering she saw her father, Cyrus Greengrass, at his desk scratching away at a letter with his quill and took a seat at the front of his desk, waiting for him to finish what he was working on. As he finished, he set his quill in the ink pot on his desk and looked at his daughter, giving her a warm smile.
"Welcome home Daphne, I trust you've spoken with your mother already?" He asked.
Daphne nodded, knowing he would've been equally as curious about the reason for Tracey and Roger's absence from the Christmas fathering. "Yes father, I am sure mother will fill you in on everything we discussed but I could use your help to remedy the situation. I have learned about a major miscarriage of justice that occured many years ago and I believe that your position on the Wizengamot could go a long way towards righting this wrong."
Her father looked at her intently and saw the seriousness in her eyes. "And what is it you have found?"
With no hesitation, she replied. "Sirius Black, who was never given a trial following his arrest in 1981, is innocent of the crimes he's been accused of and was framed by the true culprit, Peter Pettigrew."
It wasn't often that Cyrus Greengrass was surprised but his daughter's words had made him drop his jaw open.
