Chapter 1
Daphne
Daphne Greengrass struggled to put words on precisely how she was feeling. Her final year of schooling was over! Yet one could hardly call the previous year an acceptable standard of magical education. Honestly Daphne felt positively cheated by her time at Hogwarts in general, but this last year was an entirely new level of terrible from start to finish. She hadn't even gotten the opportunity to take her N.E.W.T.S! Mind you, Between how start and stop her entire education had been, and the abysmal standards this year in particular, she supposed she should be grateful she wouldn't have the opportunity to shame her family even further than she had with her mediocre showing at her Owls in 5th year.
Damn Potter, damn the Dark Lord, and damn the ministry. While they were all throwing fits and demanding the wizarding world's attention, Some witches and wizards just wished to get an education and fulfill their duties to their families in peace! The last war had taken decades to really get going, this one consumed the entirety of her most important school years! Daphne considered her situation further. Perhaps Daphne could ask her father to hire Daphne some private tutors over the summer, and she could try for her N.E.W.T.S next year. She didn't really need many, just two or three so as to not look like a fool at the many society functions that were sure to return now that the idiotic war was over. As her Father Cyrus Greengrass' eldest daughter, and with no younger brother to carry on a pureblood tradition going back centuries, she knew her duty. Father had reminded her of it nearly without fail every time he wrote to her since she reached puberty. There would be a Greengrass heir to Greengrass Manor after her. All other concerns were secondary to living up to that tradition. That history. That responsibility.
Honestly as she considered it, some time with just her family and perhaps a tutor or two might help her tremendously. The situation in pureblood society was far to chaotic at the moment for any good hunting to be had, and with just how many Lords and heirs of the sacred 28 looked to be headed for Azkaban or worse, her pool of Suitors was presently looking like Longbottom or Malfoy, and there was simply no way she was going to reward the Malfoy family for the devastation they had wrought on Purebloods by backing the Dark Lord. As for Longbottom, even if the thought of him as a romantic partner didn't still make her gag more than a tad, she was certain he'd have no time for anyone who didn't participate in his stupid little martyr brigade this year.
"Look where father's prized neutrality has gotten us now!" Daphne thought bitterly to herself. They'd had a terrible row back during the Christmas Holiday over it. Daphne had not wanted to return for the remainder of the term. It had been getting so exhausting to keep the likes of Crabbe and Goyle interested, while not actively participating in the harassment of the other houses like Parkinson. To not fail at any of the new classes under the Carrows, but not stand out as fully backing the new regime. Come to think of it, her father gloating he had been right not to fully embrace the Dark lord's followers may just be the worst thing to look forward to upon her return home tomorrow. What good was that though when she had still pissed off her fellow pure-blooded Syltherins with her standoffish, yet will receive no credit from Longbottom or Potter for not being Malfoy or Parkinson. Daphne wished he understood just how impossible a position her fence sitting had placed her in. What good was not being actively hated by the newly victorious muggle lovers if she was still eyed by them with suspicion? What power or wealth could she get her family from those who are unlikely to give Daphne so much as the time of day? How was she ever to find an acceptable match now? If only…..
" Thank Merlin's saggy left nut old Slytherin had the foresight to stick us in the dungeons!" Daphne's last real friend, Tracy Davis, interrupted. "I heard nearly all of the Gryffindors' stuff went up in flames during the battle. Honestly what they get for needing a bloody tower for a dormitory! As my Grandmother always says, 'see the price of pride on the tall poppy'. I think I'd positively die if I was being sent home with nothing but soot and rags!"
" Tracy, honestly! Dozens of people are ACTUALLY dead! Maybe choose a different turn of phrase just now?!" Despite herself, Daphne always smiled a bit at Tracy's horrible sense of humor. She supposed a dark idea of comedy was natural given her best friend's position as one of the only half bloods in Slytherin. But this time it really was too far. " As much as Parkinson was a cow for calling attention to all of us like that, I'll have to get her the best birthday present of my life for getting us out of the line of fire like that. Whether she meant to or not. Do you think I would ever want to have to identify your body in the great hall? To lose the only true friend I have? It'll surely be decades before the country and the school fully come back from this devastation, and you are joking about it?!"
Tracy looked appropriately mollified. " I'm sorry Daph, of course you're right," she said in a placating tone. " I guess it just hasn't really fully sunk in for me that this is all real. The Dark Lord gone again, Potter alive, so many dead, all of it just seems so strange to wrap my head around." Daphne sighed, " I understand, I do Trace. I'm not really angry at you. This year just hasn't gone how I had thought it would at all." Tracey actually snorted at that. "I'm pretty sure NO ONE thought this year would go this way, or it wouldn't have ended how it did. But no, I'm sorry you'll have problems finding someone to court. That certainly is the biggest inconvenience of the year." Tracy's voice positively dripped with sarcasm. Daphne was surprised she didn't drown in it. Now it was her turn to look to her feet. " No you are right, of course. I should be grateful things are not worse. At least Astoria might actually get a normal last two years now. Though I'm not sure who was hurt more by the canceling of year end exams, her not taking O.W.L.S , or us with no N.E.W.T.S" " Oh, her for sure. We just get to return home and start adulthood. Even if 5th year wasn't the best, we do have O.W.L.S, I'm not sure what they'll do for this year's poor lot." Tracey responded.
As they turned their chatter to more mindless topics, Daphne suspected Tracey's true purpose in the dark joke of pulling her from her funk had been mostly a success. They both agreed to make an appearance only as long as was socially required at the memorial being held the next day before apparating to their respective families to see what the 3rd new regime in as many years had in store for them. Swearing to keep in touch on the precipice of adulthood, the girls finished packing and settled in for one last night at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They had not discussed the lack of any of the Malfoys in the Dungeons, nor how their own families had both not arrived for either the battle, or to see if they even were still alive. Cyrus Greengras and Tracey's grandmother both had the same opinion on what it meant to be a properly ambitious Slytherin. Both had drilled those notions of survival and benefit from any situation into the girls from young ages. They knew their families not only expected their survival, but that they already were working to find room for profit or power under this new order. And her fear of failing her family was Daphne's greatest fear, as Tracey well understood. As she drifted off to sleep, Daphne wondered just how smug Potter, Weasely, and Longbottom would look in the morning. She supposed it couldn't be worse than Crabb or Goyle had been this year. She really hoped Father had a plan, though of course, she reminded herself, "A Greengrass always has a plan."