Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the affiliated works. This is a work of pure whimsy and fun, and I am not making any money off of it. If any representative of J.K. Rowling happens to read this, please tell her to suck my balls. I'm serious. Inform her that she is cordially invited to give my big hairy nuts a good one over.
Number 12 Grimmauld Place was hidden to most people. The average eye moved from number 11 to number 13 without noticing, much, the discrepancy. There was a very good reason for this: number 12 was home to a wizard who did not like uninvited company. This wizard remained awake, despite the clocks having just passed two a.m.
The wizard sat at the table in his large, homey kitchen. His name was Harry Potter. He was recently 18 years old, average height, skinny, with wild black hair and round glasses. Coarse stubble covered his face and deep, dark bags lay under his green eyes. He was wearing pyjamas and a bath robe with a steaming cup of tea in front of him, in addition to many scrolls, papers, and books in disorganized piles. A plate of various biscuits – baked that afternoon by Kreacher, Harry's house elf and friend – was by his left hand. In his right was a letter. Harry wished he could say the letter was the cause for his insomnia, but he hadn't slept well for the past three months, since he ended the war.
The war against Voldemort had ravaged wizarding Britain for almost 30 years. In the early 70's, whispers of a new Dark Lord were starting to be heard, along with a number of disappearances and unsolved murders. Within a few years, there were open attacks on muggleborn and half-blood homes and businesses. By 1980, Voldemort sympathizers had infiltrated parts of the Ministry of Magic and the war took a dark turn. Many were dying or being spirited away every day, and no one knew who to trust. Then, on Halloween night, 1981, Lord Voldemort himself attacked the home of James and Lily Potter, and their one year old son, Harry. Voldemort easily dispatched the two adult spellcasters, but when he turned his wand on Harry, his spell rebounded, and Voldemort spent the next 13 years as a shade – a cursed being, half-alive and filled with pain and hate.
Harry, meanwhile, had been sent to live with his aunt and uncle and their son. They were muggles, non-wizarding folk, and, to put it generously, were not fond of magic. Harry was glad to be shot of them for the rest of his life. At 11, Rubeus Hagrid, a half-giant, rescued Harry from his wicked family and whisked him away to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry learned magic, made friends, played Quidditch, and faced off against Voldemort or his shade more times than he could remember without writing some of them down. As Harry was learning how to be a wizard, Voldemort was recovering his strength, and in the May of 1994, he rebuilt his body before Harry's very eyes in a dark ritual. Three years later, after countless battles and countless corpses, and unimaginable damage done to every facet of the wizarding world, Harry emerged victorious. He was bloody, bruised, and battered, but he greeted that bright, red sunrise standing over the corpse of Lord Voldemort and, for the first time in his life, breathed freely.
That had been three months ago, and since then Harry had realized a simple truth: stuff doesn't stop happening.
It started with Ginny Weasley. They had dated for about three weeks at the end of his sixth year before he left for ten months to hunt down artifacts – Horcruxes, the darkest magic which allows a wizard to put a severed piece of their soul into an object, and so cheat death. Harry succeeded in destroying the Horcruxes, with some help, and then destroyed Voldemort. Ginny had stayed at Hogwarts, even after their headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, also known as the Leader of the Light, had been killed by a colleague, who had then become the new headmaster. Snape, the new headmaster, had ultimately proved to be a spy against Voldemort, but he still had to play his role as a loyal servant of the Dark Lord. The rules were strict and punishments were severe, but not evenly meted out. Loyal purebloods could practically get away with murder, while everyone else had to walk around on eggshells, lest they offend Voldemort's favourites and be used to practice the Dark Arts.
It was a dark year and Ginny, who is passionate and argumentative to a fault, got into a lot of trouble. She and a few other students had chosen to revive a Defence Club - Dumbledore's Army - they had formed a few years previous, except with the new mission to sabotage the new Death Eater rule of the school. As a consequence, Ginny had been cursed more times, and in more ways, than she could remember, and had spent many nights cold, hungry, and in pain due to the new, cruel punishment policies, which included removing food and blanket privileges. At the final battle at Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny had reunited, and they got back together after the dust settled. But, very quickly, they could tell things weren't the same. The year apart had changed them both, they couldn't read each others' reactions anymore. Ginny grew more and more distant, and, after a painful two weeks, she admitted she resented Harry for leaving her at Hogwarts.
"I know it's not fair of me," Ginny had said. She was a small girl a year younger than Harry, with a mane of fiery red hair and many freckles covering her pretty face. Her voice was shaking and Harry knew that, if he could see them, her brown eyes would be red and watery, but they were glued to the flagstone path beneath their feet. She had asked to speak to him outside of the Burrow, ancestral home of the Weasley family. What she was saying sounded prepared, and Harry felt like a long-expected dagger was slowly being plunged into his guts. "But I can't help it. I know we talked about it, we agreed that you should go and I should stay, but…"
"That was before," Harry mumbled.
Ginny nodded. "That was before," she said. "I'm sorry, Harry, but, Merlin, those nights…" She shivered and Harry, after a moment's hesitation, stepped forward and embraced her. Despite their incredibly recent break-up, he still loved her and still wanted to comfort her. She sniffed. "I was alone," she whispered, shakily. Harry suspected if she spoke louder, she'd start crying, and Ginny hated to look weak. "I was cold and in pain and you weren't there. And… and I don't think I can forgive you for that."
Harry felt all strength leave his arms and he stepped away from Ginny. She was staring at him now, her eyes were watery and red-rimmed, but defiant and challenging. Harry knew then that she wanted a fight. He was sick of fighting.
"I'm sorry, Ginny," he said. "I wasn't there. I couldn't be there when you needed me." He nodded and took another step back. "I, er, I guess I'll see you around." He turned and walked towards the ward boundaries. It was rude to leave without saying goodbye to his hosts, but the Weasley family would understand. He didn't look back and Ginny didn't call to him. Before he disapparated, he heard the door to the Weasley kitchen slam shut.
In addition to the heartache and guilt Harry felt about the relationship, it had another unfortunate side-effect: Ginny was the only daughter of Harry's favourite family in the world. Harry had met the youngest Weasley son, Ron, on their first train ride to Hogwarts and they became fast friends. From the summer after their first year, the Weasleys took Harry in like another son, without any expectations or pretense. For Harry, who literally grew up in a cupboard, their love and acceptance of him was revelatory. Though Molly, the matriarch of the clan, assured Harry he was still welcome in their home after his break-up with Ginny, Harry really did not want to be around his recent ex-girlfriend and figured it'd be pretty shitty of him to spend time in her house. So Harry stayed away from a group of people who meant the world to him when he needed them most. He let Molly come by once a week to drop off a pile of home cooked meals, and he visited George at his shop whenever he was in Diagon Alley, but he really did miss the Weasleys.
He also missed his two best friends. He, Ron, and Hermione Granger had been inseparable since Harry and Ron had saved Hermione from a mountain troll on Halloween of their first year. They had grown up together and, though they had their fair share of adolescent angst and arguments, when Harry said he was leaving school and safety to hunt down the Horcruxes, Ron and Hermione did not hesitate for a moment to say they were coming with him. Since Ron and Hermione had families who they loved and who would be in danger if they openly struck against Voldemort, those families had to be protected. Ron's family were already considered blood-traitors and were, more or less, seasoned warriors, but Hermione's parents were muggles with no defences against the dark forces at Voldemort's beck and call. Hermione and her parents decided the safest route was to use magic and change her parents' names, erase Hermione from their memory and their lives, and fill them with the insatiable need to relocate to Australia.
Hermione decided to track them down as soon as the necessary funerals were over and Ron, who had recently accomplished his years-long mission of winning her heart, decided to go with her. Despite the fact that they were magical, it was difficult finding two specific dentists in a country as large as Australia when you only have the names "Monica and Wendell Wilkins" to go off of, so the two had spent the past 5 weeks abroad. They were owling regularly, but Harry desperately yearned to have his best friends with him. He had other friends – he had been seeing Neville a few times a week, Luna whenever he could, and the other lads from their dorm room regularly – but Ron and Hermione were closer than family.
Besides the infuriating status of his interpersonal relationships, Harry was also dealing with the goblins. The Goblin Nation controlled the wizarding world's economy and, unfortunately, one of the Horcruxes was hidden in a goblin bank. The meticulously planned break-in and widely improvised, and wildly destructive, escape broke, by Harry's estimate, every law the goblins had, both written and unwritten. The post-war Minister for Magic, Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, assured Harry that everything had been smoothed over, but Harry soon learned that, with goblins, 'smoothed over' still required rigorous application of sandpaper.
While no direct action was being taken against Harry as a consequence of the break-in, the Potter Vaults were being fully audited. This meant that all of the Potter finances, dating back to the formation of the family bank account in 1052 AD, were being examined in minute detail and Harry, as the only surviving Potter, had to answer for the financial inconsistencies of distant ancestors he never before knew existed. It seemed that every other day he had been summoned to Gringotts, the very bank he half-destroyed, suffered the glares and threats of the goblins, and sat through hours of monotonous and degrading meetings that seemed to chip, slowly but surely, away at his family's wealth. Since Hogwarts didn't provide maths classes, and Harry didn't take arithmancy, he didn't have a solid handle on the higher level, and often theoretical, mathematics that steered wizarding finances, but he was pretty sure that, if these meetings continue as they were, his vaults would soon be empty and he may even end up owing money to the goblins, which would be an absolute nightmare.
There were a thousand other things weighing on his mind – he worried about Andromeda and Teddy, he mourned Fred and Tonks and Remus, he struggled with his feelings about Snape and Dumbledore, he tried to reconcile himself with the idea that he had accepted he would die, not to mention the fact that he had, actually, physically died and spoken to people on the Other Side. His brain never stopped, no matter how tired he was or how much he willed it to pause. And, besides all of this, he had fought and won a war. He had killed people, seen his friends murdered beside him, and witnessed some horrible feats of magic. There were many images that would not leave his head, that would surprise him when he closed his eyes to sleep.
However, none of this had anything to do with the letter in Harry's hand. The letter was from the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Dear Mr. Harry James Potter,
I apologize for disturbing you, Harry, on your well-deserved sabbatical. I hope you are well. We have finished the repairs at Hogwarts, and will be ready to reopen for the new term on September 1st. It is for this reason I have written.
The International Conference of Wizards' Educational Oversight Committee has concluded their investigation into the situation on the British Isles. They consider the past year of tutelage to be entirely useless, and in many ways detrimental, and so have recommended that every student repeat the year. You will find in this envelope the book list for Seventh Year and your ticket for the Hogwarts Express, which will leave from Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross Station at 11 am on September 1st.
I hope you will consider joining us, Harry. I understand that Minister Shacklebolt has offered you a position in the Auror Corps, but it would be very beneficial for your future to you finish your education.
Sincerely yours,
Professor Minerva McGonagall
Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Harry had read through the letter a few times since he had received it two weeks previous, but he realized he should actually deal with it. McGonagall was correct, he had been offered a position with the Aurors. Shacklebolt had approached him soon after the battle. Between the ministry purges and the war, the Aurors – the highly-trained defenders of the wizarding world against dark wizards – had been devastated. Harry had wanted to join them when he was younger, but that was before the war. He had been working with them off and on since the battle to help bring in some of Voldemort's followers that had evaded capture, but there wasn't as much to do as Harry would have thought. Almost all of the stalwart dark art users had been killed or captured, and the petty criminals and lowlifes that took advantage of the dark social times had slunk back into the shadows when Harry emerged victorious. Granted, there were still mountains of paperwork and administrative issues that had to be sorted out, but the Aurors didn't need Harry. Nobody needed Harry. Harry didn't need to do anything. He was having a difficult time dealing with this fact.
Harry's entire life had followed a set script, following a prophecy that had been given a year before his birth. The prophecy said that Harry would be the one with the power to defeat Voldemort, and that "neither could live while the other survived". Voldemort learned of this prophecy and, in trying to stop it, had attacked the infant Harry Potter. As a consequence of this attack, Voldemort and Harry's lives were forever intertwined until one of them permanently died. Harry had realized since the end of the war that he was truly free of the madman, but that also meant that he was free to decide, for the first time in his life, what he really wanted. And he discovered quickly that he didn't have any clear idea. For so long, the future only contained pain and war, so Harry avoided looking at it too closely. Even if he did, he could not look past the final encounter with Voldemort. Everything depended on that moment, and Harry had no idea what the world, or his life, would look like on the other side.
Now he was on the other side and, as he yawned loudly, he realized that, more than anything, he was tired. He was tired of fighting, tired of worrying, tired of losing, and tired of mourning. He was tired of dealing with dark wizards and goblins. He looked at the letter again. Harry's time at Hogwarts had been far from relaxing, but with the war over and Voldemort dead, maybe things would settle down a bit. He smiled as he remembered Quidditch practice and Sunday breakfast at the Gryffindor table. Even the thought of stressing about something as ordinary as exams made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Harry reached over and grabbed a roll of parchment and an ever-ink quill, and wrote out a quick response to McGonagall. He folded it into an envelope and left it on the table for Kreacher to deliver in the morning. He then went upstairs and, for the first time in almost a year, fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
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The flat above the corner store on Main Street had been abandoned for almost 20 years, according to the residents of Ravenglass, a small village in Cumbria county. Every so often, someone would ask the proprietors of the store about it, and they'd shrug and say they only bought the lower floors. They had enquired about the flat when they bought the store 10 years ago, but the real estate agent explained the building was divided and the owners of the top floors had no interest in selling. No one really knew why, but these owners never appeared, and so the abandoned flat remained a minor curiousity for the folk of Ravenglass.
These folk had no way of knowing, but the flat had, in fact, been occupied for more than a year. With cunning spellcraft, the flat still looked the same from the outside, and no sound was heard from within, but two young witches had taken up residence the previous June, though one had left three months ago. The two witches were Astoria and Daphne Greengrass, sisters and the only two surviving members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass. They were similarly tall and slim, and they shared the same large, blue eyes and sharp chin. Daphne, the sister who remained, was the elder at 18, and had chin length white blonde hair. She was trying to decide what to wear for a coffee engagement with a classmate, for which she was absolutely terrified. She dashed around the small, four room flat she had shared with her sister until recently, trying to find a pair of jeans she hadn't worn for a year.
The flat was a safehouse, to which her father sent her and her sister when the war took a dark turn. The Greengrasses were an old and very wealthy pureblooded family, but they held little love for the Dark Lord and his methods. They did have a certain bourgeoisie disdain for the lower-class, of which muggleborn were inevitably members due to the outdated and draconian laws that ruled Wizarding Britain, but the idea of bloodshed and warfare turned the stomach of Tucker, the Lord Greengrass, and his Lady Wife, Esther. When news reached his ears of the murder of Albus Dumbledore by a treacherous colleague, Lord Greengrass immediately pulled his daughters out of Hogwarts and sent them to the safehouse. They were directed not to leave under any circumstances unless they were absolutely certain it was safe.
Daphne agreed. She was terrified. She had been scared ever since her fourth year at Hogwarts, when her classmate Harry Potter emerged from the Triwizard Tournament covered in blood and holding the corpse of his competitor, screaming that the Dark Lord had returned from the grave. She had spent the next two years in abject horror as the world she loved turned darker and darker, and her friends became more and more bigoted. Pansy's casual blood purity became more pronounced and vicious as the world outside Hogwarts fell further under the Dark Lord's sway, and Millie began seeing herself as a soldier, and trained to stand at his side during his massacres. Daphne's fear came to a head the night the school saw the Dark Mark – the ghoulish symbol that Death Eater's paint against the sky above every corpse they leave – above the astronomy tower and spent the next hour in blind panic as they waited to find out who had died. When they found out it was Headmaster Dumbledore, the Leader of the Light and the one person in the whole world the Dark Lord feared to cross wands with, Daphne stonily returned to her dormitory, pulled the hangings around her bed, cast a silencing charm, and sobbed. The war was over. The Dark Lord had won. He would destroy everything that made magic great in his quest to prove it was. Her world had ended and the future was nothing but blood and pain. She sobbed and she screamed and she lamented at the world she was forced to live in. No one heard.
The next morning Lord Greengrass came to Hogwarts and pulled his two daughters out of school, and Daphne was beyond grateful that at least she and Astoria would be safe. The flat was a bit small, but they each had their own private bedroom and bathroom, at the very least. They had a house elf, Vonny, to cook their food and do their cleaning. The illusion of abandonment around the flat meant that, though no one could see in, they could still see out. They opened the windows and Vonny created a patio on the roof. There was a small library and a collection of games. They had everything they needed, and they were completely miserable.
Daphne had never followed the news before the war, but during her self-imposed imprisonment, she absorbed news of the outside world voraciously. Vonny could get them the Daily Prophet and they had a Wizarding Wireless receiver. She would spend most of her days poring over the paper and broadcasts, parsing the propaganda and trying to figure out the truth behind the statements she heard. Three months into their exile, soon after the Ministry of Magic was taken over by the Dark Lord's forces, the sisters heard the news they were dreading: The Lord and Lady Greengrass had been declared Blood Traitors, for harbouring mudblood scum and conspiracy to commit treason against the Ministry of Magic, and so had been executed.
She spent a long time wondering what their crimes actually were. She loved her parents, but knew they would never stand against the Dark Lord. Her father would roll over and show his belly at the slightest prompting – it was the reason why neither he nor their mother knew the location of the safehouse – and Daphne knew, through the bank statements Vonny still managed to get to her, that her father had drained the Greengrass accounts dry to appease the Dark Lord. No, the Lord Greengrass must have done everything the Dark Lord wished, and he was still murdered, along with their mother.
Astoria was angry. In contrast to Daphne's white blonde hair, Astoria's was a deep brown, and it fell to her lower back, but other than that, the sisters could have been twins. Daphne was almost glad she had to deal with Astoria for those few weeks – it distracted her from her own mourning. Astoria wanted to go out and kill the motherfuckers responsible for their parents' deaths. Daphne needed Astoria to stay put and safe in the flat. They had many arguments, exchanged many cutting insults and hexes, but Daphne managed to keep Astoria from leaving the property, and so they stayed. They read the paper and listened to the news of their world being destroyed. They heard, twisted and refracted through the propaganda, about Potter and the rest of the Resistance striking against the regime. Astoria had a fire in her eyes while they discussed these incidents and tried to determine what actually happened. Daphne worried that Astoria would try and sneak out to join their hopeless war. She started to put up warning spells around the doors and windows at night.
After many months, Daphne stopped thinking about when things would return to normal, and started to wonder if she would ever be able to leave the flat. The days passed monotonously, the only variance in the degree of horror she read or heard about. Despite the fact her days were filled with very little, she was exhausted from hearing about the state of the world and keeping an eye on her little sister. She started, idly, playing with her magic. Back in third year, when they were taught glacius in Charms, she had been the first to successfully cast the ice charm. Theodore Nott, the prat turned war criminal, immediately dubbed her the 'Ice Princess', which, unfortunately, stuck. Despite the nickname, she held a partiality for the spell, but she was always so busy with school and her social life. With little to do and too much time to do it, Daphne began exploring the limits of her favourite spell. She delighted at the small, crystalline figures she could create out of ice. She laughed as she filled her room with light, fluffy snowflakes that swirled around her and caught on her eyelashes. When she was feeling especially stir-crazy, she would freeze the floors of the flat and dance around on her white figure-skates. She started to adore the spell; she relished in the chills that would erupt along her body as she cast it. Through the snow and ice she filled her world with, she started to love magic again.
She always used to love magic. As a child, her life was filled with floating books and flashing lights and beautiful creatures. Her parents told her that they were blessed to have the gift, and that most of the world was not as lucky as they were. That had made her unbearably sad. The family would go into the muggle world and she had felt as if she was walking through a crypt – compared to Diagon Alley, the busiest and most colourful muggle London street was drab and lifeless. She never hated muggles, she only ever felt sorry for them, but the social reality of Slytherin was that, unless she wanted to be a pariah, she had to agree with a lot of what her classmates were saying. She found it strange that, as Slytherin, as a whole, was falling further under the sway of the Dark Lord and blood purity, she was becoming more disillusioned with it. She didn't become a muggle lover by any account, but she saw the ways the Dark Lord was destroying the magical world – the world she loved more than anything else. She was seeing her beautiful, whimsical magic turn darker and darker until it was unrecognizable and horrific. Glacius returned the magic of magic to her.
Then, late at night, on May 1st, an emergency broadcast went out on the Wizarding Wireless. Months previous, Astoria had figured out a secret code in the crossword of the Quibbler that was the pass code to the Resistance's broadcasts on the Wireless. The Quibbler was an 'alternative' newspaper that, prior to the war, exclusively covered imaginary creatures and conspiracies, then had spent several months providing the unvarnished truth of the new regime, before, inevitably, going out of print. 'River', the host of the show Potterwatch - who Daphne was pretty sure was the former Quidditch commentator at Hogwarts, Lee Jordan - announced that Harry Potter had shown himself at Hogwarts, and urged every sympathetic wand across the country to join in what would be the final battle to decide the fate of Wizarding Britain.
Astoria grabbed her wand and bolted to the door, but Daphne, with speed that surprised her, got there first. "What are you doing, Daph?" Astoria yelled. "You heard River!"
Daphne felt tears prickle her eyes. "We have to stay," she said. "Father –"
"Father's dead!" Astoria yelled. "He was murdered! By those… monsters! And you want to –"
"I need to!" Daphne yelled, her voice choked by phlegm. Tears were streaming freely from her eyes. "This is a war! I can't have you die, too!"
Astoria glared at her sister, tears gathering at the corners of her own blue eyes. "I'm going to fight," she said. "I don't care what you do, but I'm going."
Daphne shook her head. "You can't," she said. "I'm not letting you walk into a warzone."
Astoria took a step back and raised her wand with a shaking arm. "Stand aside, Daph," she said. Her voice was also shaking.
Daphne raised her own wand. "I'm sorry, Tori," she said in a quivering whisper.
Daphne was never a duelist. Like her parents, she abhorred violence and the idea of hurting another person filled her with intense anxiety. Still, she was two years older than her sister, with two years more education, so the duel was short. Astoria was bound to the couch in the sitting room and Daphne sank heavily into the arm chair.
Astoria glared at her with hate- and tear-filled eyes. "Coward," she hissed.
Daphne winced. "Better a coward than dead," she said and gagged her sister. She then turned her attention to the Wireless, where 'River' was continuing to broadcast the Battle of Hogwarts.
Daphne and Astoria listened through the night. 'River', for all his anti-Slytherin sentiments during their Quidditch matches, was proving to be exceptionally brave by maintaining his broadcast through hours of hell. Astoria glared at Daphne on and off, and Daphne tried not to care. She wanted to scream at her sister, "Just listen to what's happening! You want to be there!? You couldn't even beat me in a duel!" But she didn't. She drank tea and listened, hoping with every ounce of her willpower, praying to every spirit she ever held sacred, that Harry Potter would win and the Dark Lord would die.
Daphne swore her heart stopped when 'River', through choked sobs, announced Hagrid carrying the corpse of the Boy Who Lived in a procession led by the Dark Lord back to the castle. Daphne thought she had lost all hope in the war after Dumbledore's demise, but there had always been Harry Potter. Harry Potter had been responsible, apparently, for the Dark Lord's disappearance for 13 years, and was apparently equally as responsible for his resurrection. They had called him the Boy Who Lived and had celebrated him for vanquishing the Dark Lord. Then, when the Dark Lord reemerged, rumours abounded about Potter being the Chosen One to defeat him once and for all. Daphne considered that to be a bit of a joke; in most classes, Potter was unmotivated and mediocre, and though he was definitely top in their year in Defence Against the Dark Arts, he was, in no way, in the same league as the Dark Lord. Still, the rumours persisted, and, after the Ministry of Magic fell and the Dark Lord's puppets moved into power, Potter and his cohorts eluded capture for months, despite being public enemies 1, 3, and 4 of a despotically brutal and extreme fascist regime. And it wasn't like the boy was lying low in a safehouse like Daphne. It wasn't often, but every few weeks they would hear of one of his escapades, or of a sighting, or a skirmish. No, Daphne didn't believe Potter could really defeat the Dark Lord, but as long as Potter was out there and still alive, there was doubt in Daphne's mind about the true power of the evil wizard.
But that last remnant of hope was snuffed out and Daphne sank into her chair. She wept bitterly. She, on a certain level, deep below the despair she was feeling, wondered at their next steps. She wondered if she was brave enough to kill herself. She looked up at Astoria, who was glaring at her with unbridled fury and hate. Daphne dismissed the gag in her sister's mouth with a wave of her wand.
"I hate you," Astoria whispered.
Daphne only nodded. She couldn't disagree.
She reached with her wand to turn off the Wireless. The Dark Lord was gloating about his victory, and Daphne did not want to hear it. "Don't," Astoria said.
"It's over," Daphne said. "Potter's dead."
She was about to tap the speaker when the Dark Lord's boasts turned to screams of fury. Other screams were heard - similar to the screams they had been hearing for hours - along with the sounds of spellfire. The battle had resumed. Daphne stared at the Wireless in shock. Why, in Merlin's name, were these fools still fighting? Potter was dead. The war was over. They had lost. They should be running and hiding, or begging for their lives.
"It's not over," Astoria said. Daphne could barely hear her over 'River's' announcements. Longbottom had killed the Dark Lord's snake, a friendly giant had joined the Light's side, the centaurs were attacking the Death Eaters, Potter's body was missing, the house elves were rising up. "Not until Voldemort is dead and his followers are captured. They're not going to stop fighting until that happens."
Daphne shook her head. "They're fools," she said, as 'River' declared that Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's top lieutenant, had been killed in a duel by Molly Weasley, of all people. Despite herself, Daphne felt her heart lightening, and the despair lift from her shoulders. The Dark Lord and his forces were being pushed back; they were on the retreat. Three of the finest duelists of their time – McGonagall, Shacklebolt, and Slughorn – were fighting the Dark Lord.
Then, through the deluge of sound coming from the speakers, a lone voice called out, "Protego!" Daphne knew the voice – she had heard it in class for the past six years – and her heart soared in her chest. On the battlefield, they were coming to the same conclusion she was: Harry Potter was alive.
Astoria and Daphne listened, spellbound, as Potter engaged the Dark Lord in conversation. They spoke, at length, but no one interrupted and no one was fighting. 'River' had stopped his commentary, but he kept on broadcasting. Daphne imagined every magical ear in Britain was listening to this conversation, as Potter revealed the deepest secrets of the Dark Lord's past. Potter spoke about the Horcruxes – which sounded like magic at its most foul – and the Dark Lord's halfblood heritage. Potter spoke about how the treacherous, and apparently murdered, Professor Severus Snape had betrayed the Dark Lord because he still loved Potter's mother. Potter explained the trap Dumbledore had set up, the wandlore and deep magic the wise old wizard had delved into to assure Potter's victory.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" Potter whispered, his voice nonetheless carrying throughout the crowd and over the Wireless. "Does the wand in your hand know its last master was disarmed? Because if it does… then I am the true master of the Elder Wand."
The two wizards shouted their spells, there was the sound of an explosion, and then silence. Daphne held her breath, her heart was pounding so hard she wasn't sure if it would ever calm down again. Then, the speaker exploded with noise.
"He did it! He did it!" 'River' yelled. Daphne gasped, tears flowing freely down her face. "Harry Potter has killed Voldemort! I repeat, Voldemort is dead! Voldemort is dead!"
Daphne sank back into her chair. She couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, or hit something. She waved her wand at Astoria and the ropes that bound her fell away. Astoria stood up, glared at Daphne one more time, and stalked out the door.
That was three months previous. Astoria hadn't returned. A few hours after she left, she summoned Vonny to bring her things to the house of a school mate of hers. Daphne sent a note with Vonny, begging her to come back, but Astoria did not reply. Daphne then contacted the mother of the friend Astoria was staying with. She didn't ask for her sister back, she only requested updates on how she was doing. The mother agreed, and Daphne stayed in her flat. She had taken baby steps in rejoining the outside world, but it was clear the year of paranoia and isolation had affected her. The first time she snuck out of the flat – she still wanted to maintain the secrecy of the safehouse – she had a panic attack walking down a residential street, and almost cursed the kindly old woman who tried to help her. She realized, quickly, that she really didn't like being in open spaces anymore, and crowds stressed her out. Ravenglass was close to the sea, though, and Daphne appreciated that. She still felt exposed, and she kept a hand on her wand, but she would walk and explore the trails along the coastline. She continued practicing her magic, she found that playing with ice was soothing to her anxiety and lonely heart. She stayed in this limbo for more than two months before she got the letter from Headmistress McGonagall.
Daphne wasn't expecting an invitation to return. When her father pulled her out of Hogwarts, she assumed it would be the last time she would ever see the castle. She was grateful she had not been forced to attend last year. Since the war, the Daily Prophet and the resurrected Quibbler were filled with stories about individual struggles, and many involved the situation at Hogwarts. Her Slytherin classmates, along with other select pureblood students, had been trained to be Death Eater Youths and had tortured the other students who were not so lucky. Slytherin had always been disparaged by the other houses for producing more that its fair share of dark wizards and blood purists, and, unfortunately, the Dark Lord's reign proved these fears to be true. Daphne had half-expected all of Slytherin House to be expelled and the house removed from the school altogether, but the Headmistress's letter explained away these suspicions. Slytherin had always been a part of the school, and will always be a part of the school, despite the blow its reputation had suffered. There were further assurances that the remaining members of Slytherin would not suffer any ill-effects from the regime, but Daphne highly doubted that. Children have long memories, and people dressed like her had been torturing them for a year. She'd be lucky if all she got was shunned by the school for returning.
However, Daphne's practical side won out. She needed a job, after all. While she had a personal account that only she was able to touch, and so had avoided the pillaging of the rest of the Greengrass accounts, the amount she had remaining was not enough to live off of. Sure, she could live comfortably for a couple years – her account was not insubstantial – but it was far from enough for the rest of her life. She had her OWLs, but, as the heiress of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, she expected to coast through life and marry some snobbish pureblood and have his children, so she never really tried in school, and so her marks were mediocre. Besides, the only jobs available for someone with OWLs were menial labour or entry positions at the Ministry. She didn't really have a clear idea of how she wanted her life to go, but she knew she didn't want to work at the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department for the rest of it. If she was to have any sort of life she could be content with, she would need her NEWTs, and, since she no longer had enough money for private tutoring, for those she would need to go back to Hogwarts.
Nervous that she was making a gigantic mistake, Daphne penned an acceptance to the Headmistress and requested to know who else from her year in Slytherin would be returning. Daphne had seen the names of many of her classmates in the papers and heard them on the Wireless, but she couldn't keep track of who died, who was imprisoned, who had left the country, and who could possibly return. McGonagall responded saying that only two of her year mates in Slytherin would be returning: Blaise Zabini and Tracy Davis.
Blaise was an Italian pureblood whose mother was located in England. Daphne suspected he had moved to Italy to escape the war. They had shared a similar position in Slytherin – neither were among the more outspoken blood purists, but they belonged to respected families and didn't cause trouble. Daphne wasn't sure why he was returning to Hogwarts, but she was grateful there'd be at least one friendly face.
The other name genuinely surprised her, because Daphne had honestly thought Tracy Davis was dead. Tracy was the only muggleborn in their year in Slytherin, and the only one within three years on either side. Tracy was subsequently vilified within their house for six years – her stuff was stolen, she was attacked, and rumours were spread about her. The girl had gone through Hell, and Daphne was ashamed to say she never thought twice about her for the past year. Daphne assumed that she had been caught up in one of the Ministry's purges, or hunted down by a Death Eater. Tracy had made enemies of pretty much all of Slytherin, and definitely all of Slytherin who would go on to become Death Eaters, just for having the gall to exist.
Once Daphne's shock at Tracy's survival subsided, it was replaced by guilt and anxiety. The two witches would be sharing a room, and Daphne had never treated Tracy well. There were four girls in their year in Slytherin and they had shared a dormitory since first year. Daphne was part of Pansy Parkinson's clique along with Millicent Bulstrode, and so was party to the abuse Tracy had experienced. She never initiated it herself, but Tracy had suffered from Daphne's actions, and Daphne was sure Tracy hated her for it. Daphne thought for a couple of days, despite knowing what she should do immediately, and, in a burst of bravery, wrote a letter to Tracy, asking to meet before the term started.
And it was this coffee engagement that had Daphne absolutely terrified and in a panic. Not only was she meeting with a woman who hated her, but it was the first time she'd actually talk to someone who wasn't her sister or Vonny for over a year. She finally found the jeans in Astoria's previous closet – she must have stolen them at some point – and shimmied them on. She ran back to the mirror, completely aware the minutes before her meeting were slipping through her fingers. She sighed in relief. She was glad she found the jeans, they were the only pair she had, and she was determined not to look like a pureblood. She generally wore dresses and skirts, but they were far more formal than how halfbloods or muggleborns usually dressed. She frowned a bit at her reflection. The jeans were comfortable, and made her legs look fantastic, but she wasn't used to them. They were too tight. She looked back at the clock, checked her appearance again, and disapparated from her safehouse.
She appeared in an alleyway in muggle London – it was the closest apparition point to the coffeeshop they were meeting. She quickly straightened her blouse and walked out of the alley. She tried not to wince as her senses were assaulted with harsh voices, garish signs, and offensive smells. She hated muggle London, and by the frowns on the muggles that crowded the streets, she wasn't the only one. She tried to calm her beating heart and made her way to the coffeeshop. She successfully made it and, seeing Tracy had yet to arrive, ordered a cup of tea and took a seat on the patio outside. She might not like the streets of London, but she had found she had trouble staying in a strange building for more than a few minutes at a time.
Daphne burnt her tongue on her too-hot tea and put it down on the table harder than she wanted to. The tea sloshed and spilled onto the table and, with a sigh, she wiped it up with a napkin. She sat and tried to relax, her fingers played with the handle of her wand in her purse. She picked up her tea again, blew on it, and took a sip. She winced. It wasn't good. Vonny's tea was much better.
"Greengrass?"
Daphne looked up sharply at the person who had spoken, her wand half out, when she realized it was the woman she was meeting. Daphne quickly got to her feet, offered a small curtsy - the effect lessened without a skirt - and got a look at Tracy. Tracy was significantly shorter than Daphne, but just as slim. Her auburn hair was cut very short and the sides were shaved. Her eyes were dark and narrowed in suspicion. There was a deep scar across the bridge of her nose, and her arms, exposed by the tank top she wore, were corded with muscle. Her left arm was also covered in tattoos, all of various flowers.
"I almost didn't recognize you," Tracy said with a nod. "I'll go get a cuppa."
Daphne sat back down as Tracy walked into the coffeeshop, blood rushing to her face. She had been so surprised she didn't think to say anything, and Tracy had changed so much in the past year. During previous years, Tracy had always been in the periphery, angry and impotent at the abuse she suffered. She'd fight back, sometimes, and she was always tough, but she was powerless. The Tracy she saw now, she suspected, would never be powerless again.
Daphne had successfully resumed her regular colouring when Tracy returned. She took a deep breath and, before Tracy could speak, launched into the statement she prepared.
"Miss Davis," she said and, as she looked Tracy in the eyes, she found tears stinging hers. "I would like to formally apologize for any and all damage done to you, your person, your possessions, and your reputation by myself. My actions were absolutely abhorrent, and I apologize vehemently. I do not expect forgiveness, and I fully expect that you hate me, but with everything that I am, everything in my heart, I am so very sorry."
Tears were streaming from her eyes by the time she finished, along with snot from her nose. Her voice had hitched at points, but she had made it through without looking away from Tracy. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose with a napkin, and took a sip of her awful tea to wet her parched throat. She didn't look back at Tracy.
"Jesus," Tracy mumbled after a moment. Her suspicion had faded early on in the apology, and now she looked uncomfortable. She took a deep sigh. "I never hated you, Daphne." Daphne looked up sharply at that. Tracy sighed again, and looked a lot older than she was. "You made me sad, but I never hated you. Pansy and Millie? I fucking hate those bitches. But you? You were just going along with it. It pissed me off, and made me sad, but I couldn't really blame you."
Daphne shook her head. "I have no excuse, I should have –" she said, but Tracy cut her off.
"Done what?" Tracy asked. "Stood up to the rest of the house to protect someone you don't even know?" Tracy sighed again and took a sip of her tea. "I lied. I used to hate you, just as much as Pansy and Millie, but not anymore. You're not like them, and you never were. You were just a little girl afraid of losing her friends. You never hated me or… my kind." Daphne knew she meant muggleborns, but they couldn't really talk openly about that in muggle London. Tracy chewed on her lip for a moment, then, once again, sighed. "Look, Daphne, I… don't know if I'm ready to forgive you. I may not hate you, and I may understand why you did what you did, but you still hurt me. A lot." Daphne nodded. She expected as much. "But I know you're going back to school, same as me, and we're going to be sharing a room. We're going to be spending a lot of time together, and I'd rather not hate the experience."
"I –" Daphne said, not knowing what to say. "Thank you."
Tracy nodded and drained her tea cup. She stood to leave, and Daphne stood as well. Tracy looked surprised at the action, but nodded again. "See you on the train," she said, and walked away.
Daphne watched the other woman walk away, and then noticed a few of the other denizens on the patio were watching her. She realized she was still crying. She grabbed her purse and rushed back to the apparition point.
For anyone wondering, the title of this story is indeed a reference to the finest anime ever made, K-On! I decided to call it that while I was editing and noticed how much tea my characters are drinking. Seriously, almost every scene there's a cup of tea. It wasn't even on purpose.
This first chapter kind of got away from me, I admit, but it seemed like there was a lot I wanted to cover before the Hogwarts Express next chapter. You may notice my Daphne is kind of different from fanon Daphne. One of my biggest issues with the GreenPot pairing is how god damn bourgeoisie it gets, so I tried to remove that element as much as possible. I also wanted to strip some of the more Mary Sue elements of the character - she's not a political mastermind, she's not a genius like Hermione. She's an emotional young woman who was forced to make some hard decisions and she's suffered for it. I am going to admit, a minor inspiration for my Daphne is TheUnrealInsomniac's Daphne from their The Amalgamation Agreement, who is probably my favourite Daphne on this website.
Another aspect of the GreenPot pairing I cannot stand is the inevitable Ginny bashing. I love Ginny Weasley, I think she's my favourite Harry Potter character, but for GreenPot to work, she has to be out of the way. I hope I struck a good balance here of making her reasons both sympathetic and important for ending things. I kind of figured the war was traumatic, and some times things change. I want Ginny to be a character in this story outside of being an evil or pitiable ex-girlfriend. A story that I think did this aspect very well is Novocaine by StardustWarrior2991, another GreenPot story that I love, despite some aspects that make me want to pull out my hair.
I clearly tried to do something different with Tracy. Fanon Tracy is fantastic, and I want to bring her back to that point, but my Tracy had a different experience in Slytherin and didn't have Daphne by her side. I'm not 100% sure where I'll take the character, but she's already one of my favourites.
If you made it this far in my notes, congrats! The secret code is Vagabond.
I will admit this first chapter is pretty melodramatic, and you may have noticed this is tagged as a comedy. I try to be funny, and from here on out, things will (probably) be much lighter. It turns out its hard to make a war that decimated a generation and destroyed a world fun. Who knew? But now that the backstories are, kinda, out of the way, hopefully later chapters won't have to deal so much with the psychological effects of surviving a war, and more to do with hijinks at Hogwarts.
And, yes, this is a light comedy focused on teenage relationships and a character-driven plot. I realize my previous story, Rogue's Bet, was also about these things, and had a GreenPot focus. This is intentional. Rogue's Bet is still one of my favourite things I've written. Despite the many many problems it has, it still makes me laugh every time I read it, and I never shook the feeling of wanting to revisit it. The problem there is the many many problems I mentioned before - if I wrote a sequel, I'd have to acknowledge all those mistakes and write them away or incorporate them into the further story. I could attempt to rewrite it, but I'm not interested in retreading ground I already covered. And, it may just be my fondness for the story, but I feel like all those mistakes and problems and strange tonal shifts were part of what that story special, at least to me. So, call this a spiritual... twin of Rogue's Bet. They'll be pretty similar in many ways, but I am hoping that it will be stronger and less problematic.
Finally, and this is a problem I had with Rogue's Bet, but please, please don't send me reviews saying you don't agree with how my characters are acting. I know my characters will make unreasonable decisions and do stupid things. They're all 17 and 18 years old and have just survived a very traumatic experience. They are allowed to be dumb and they are allowed to hurt each other. That's... what the story is.
And, to reiterate, I am one hundred percent serious about what I said at the top. Rowling is foul demoness that destroys happiness, and not in a cool way.
edited on 18/11/2020 for readability
