It was Astoria who finally woke her, since the elves would not incur her hormonal temper, and Lord Greengrass had given his daughters a wide berth ever since their mother's passing. After a volley of "wake up Daffy wake up wake up wake up" and "go away Tory, or I'll turn your hair white and wrinkle your face like Aunt Hyacinth", Daphne was finally defeated by the threat of having Bertie set on her.
After dressing and straightening her hair with a hurried charm, Daphne appeared in the parlour for breakfast. The elves had prepared a vial of pepper-up for her, tactfully refraining from commenting on Missy Daffy's terrible eyebags. Astoria sat uncomfortably with her legs partially dangling, mashing her eggs with her fork.
"Eat up, Tory, or you'd never get your growth spurt."
"But I'm not hungry. I'm sure Bertie's hungrier than me."
Indeed, Bertie was eyeing Tory's sausages attentively, but Daphne had long taken on the onerous burden of ensuring Astoria's nutrition, and shooed him away. Bertie mewed in annoyance and pranced off to pout with his tail in the air.
"So are you going to tell me where you went yesterday? You know Father never tells me anything. But it sounded important."
Straight to the point, then. Daphne inwardly sighed. It was always a thin thread that separated protecting her sister against terrible truths from coddling her naivety. But she was drained, and found that she lacked the energy to evade Astoria's pushiness, and simply said, "I met with Lord Slytherin."
Astoria put her fork down and looked at her intently. "You're serious, right?"
"Yes, Tory."
"Did he want something?" What could he possibly want from you?
"I can't say… no, don't look at me like that, I really literally can't say. He made me take an unbreakable vow." Daphne's excuse had the merit of being entirely true, and surprisingly sufficed to placate her sister.
Several minutes passed in awkward silence as Daphne ate her breakfast. Astoria commendably forced down two bites of sausage after reducing her eggs to yellow paste, before announcing that she had to pack. Daphne was not as fussed – she had been ready for days, and in any case knew that if ever needed she anything from home, she could just call an elf. She settled for idly flipping the Prophet until the time came to leave for London.
As though she needed further reminding, Potter's face was plastered over the front-page again – a stock photograph of him at the Tri-Wizard Tournament two years prior, accompanied by an unflattering headline. This time, he was being lambasted for breaking up with his girlfriend Cho Chang over the summer (Daphne was long past wondering why news like this was considered front-page-worthy), a decision evidencing a callousness that "makes us shudder at how such an uncaring Casanova can face down the dreaded You-Know-Who." The editorial (in the loosest possible sense) ended on a hopeful note that "as the new school year begins, a well-bred witch of good senses will tame the Boy-Who-Lived, and in doing so save the future of the Wizarding World." Daphne choked on her tea.
An hour later, Daphne found herself on Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station with her father and sister (and Bertie grouchily in a travel crate), having flooed to the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London five minutes away. Although the Greengrass Woodlodge was in the Fens, it had been an unbroken tradition since 1830 for even pureblood witches and wizards to take the Hogwarts Express from London on the 1st of September – a tribute to the Ministry's Herculean efforts in commissioning and transporting the locomotive, which involved the largest concealment charm ever performed in England.
As the train horn sounded, Lord Greengrass took his eldest daughter aside and silently put up a privacy bubble. "Professor Snape has informed me of your meeting with Lord Slytherin last evening, and the nature of his… request."
"Yes, Father."
"He was clear that I cannot learn the specifics of what you have to do, but that does not mean I will not endeavour to help. Our House does not want of resources, nor our library of knowledge. If you need anything, I'll always be an owl away."
"Yes, Father."
"Daphne," said Lord Greengrass, and he paused, as though the words had met a dam. "If there was any other way…"
"I understand, Father."
Lord Greengrass gave her a rare smile. "Know that you are a better daughter than I a father."
With that, Lord Greengrass bade his daughters farewell and watched Daphne dutifully fussing over Astoria's trunk as they boarded the train. When Daphne looked out of the window, he was already gone.
Daphne was so tired by the time she reached her dorm that she simply summoned her pyjamas without bothering to unpack her trunk.
After leaving Astoria with her friends, she had spent the journey patrolling the carriages with her fellow prefects, too busy calming excitable first-years and confiscating contraband to worry about her troubles. Draco had looked strangely sullen, and unusually, was not to be found at the Sorting Feast. Nothing else of note had happened, save that Professor Snape had been replaced by a balding, rotund wizard named Slughorn (her father had mentioned him in passing, but she would have to write him for more details). Her Head-of-House and newly minted Defence professor had given her a knowing look as she escorted the first-years back to the dungeons, the cause of which had considerably dampened her spirits.
Daphne changed out her school robes, and was all but ready for bed when a fourth-year named Jessica Milbank poked her head in and told her that her presence was requested by Professor Snape. Cursing, she flicked her wand and pried open her closet with more far more force than necessary, summoned her school robes, and changed out again. Fortunately Snape's business with her was entirely mundane: Draco was unwell, and the seventh-year prefects were busy settling in the first-years. Daphne would therefore have to take his place on the year's first patrol.
She fought off her creeping fatigue and climbed up the three flights of stairs to the Great Hall, where she was to meet her partner for the night. Not for the last time she cursed the school's restrictions on apparition, and she was greeted by a swirl of tangled auburn hair when she arrived.
"Granger." Potter's friend. Fortune smiles upon those who get out of bed. Come to think of it, it's strange that Potter is not a prefect.
"Good evening, Daphne. Let's start with the Pitch? The weather's nice."
"Yes, the dungeons are clear, I just came from there."
They set off on their rounds, and more than once Daphne tried to broach conversation – the easiest and least suspicious way to Potter would be through her friend. She immediately realised that she had not spoken two words with Granger in five years, and had no idea where to begin. Not that she had any quarrel with muggle-borns (nor with anyone, really; as her father would say, quarrels are bad for business), but appearances must be kept up. Granger began humming to herself in the evening breeze and seemed to be perfectly content in silence. The House of Greengrass, however, had not gained its fortune by cultivating unsociability.
"Have you wondered how the Pitch is kept in such good condition all year round?"
Granger looked at Daphne. "No, actually, I have not. Come to think of it, it's strange that nobody's ever mentioned that." Her eyes drifted slightly, the gears turning in her mind. "Is it the school elves?"
"That's half-correct, actually. In the very old days it was the elves who trimmed them with magic, but it was time-consuming and hard to do with larger pitches. But my great-grandmother cultivated a special type of grass in the Fens, which has certain aquatic magical properties that allows for the use of charms to control the rate of growth. It's now used for every quidditch pitch in England, and for most of them in Europe."
"And there must be at least a hundred quidditch pitches in England alone, so…"
"Yes, and my great-grandfather was the merchant whom she met selling it all across Europe, and together they made a respectable sum." Daphne caught herself smiling. Her heritage always filled her with pride, and it was her ambition to leave her own name in the annals.
"You know, the muggles have a type of special grass for pitches too. Many muggle sports also need pitches, and they use a type of synthetic grass called Astro Turf. But it doesn't feel as real," Hermione said, digging her shoes into the grass to make her point.
"That's fascinating." And Daphne meant it, despite her usual usage of that phrase. She had never heard of synthetic grass (or synthetic anything). "Are you saying it's not real grass at all?"
"No, it's not. It's made of a material called plastic, which really is an umbrella term for a whole category of synthetic materials. Plastic is made from oil, and is used everywhere from containers to bags…"
And so it went. Daphne found herself enjoying their conversation, so much so that she had no desire to bring up Potter (though she justified this to herself by pointing out the risk of bringing him up so early). She was surprised at Granger's depth of knowledge beyond the curriculum, dispelling the widely held notion that she was a mere attention-seeker with a chip on her shoulder. It was a pleasant evening, and she reminded herself that Lord Slytherin had not technically given her a deadline.
The rest of the patrol passed much more quickly than Daphne realised, and upon bidding Granger goodnight, she could not help but smile wryly at the irony of it all: acting upon Lord Slytherin's orders had led her to her first muggle-born friend. They could not, of course, be seen associating in public outside of mandatory prefectorial duties, but Daphne could not remember the last time she had a conversation that intrigued her to this extent. Upon returning to the dungeons, she carefully rearranged the Slytherin patrol timetables to put herself with Granger as often as she could, and almost allowed herself to be optimistic about the year ahead.