A/N: Here is where the story starts to come together a little bit, remember it will be a slow burn but it will bring the story together and the characters closer. Thank you for voicing your concerns in the comments!
J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, not me.
Chapter 02
The light shining through the drapes hit Daphne in the eye in the early morning, making her groan and turn in her bed. It was too early for her sake and she covered her face with her pillow.
"Miss Daphy, mistress says to wake up early to have breakfast with master and other miss" A tiny house elf named Wonky said beside her as the elf opened the drapes.
"Five more minutes Wonks" Daphne said muffled by the pillow, but still understandable.
"Master says now miss Daphy" Wonky snapped his fingers and the pillow flew from her face.
Daphne groaned louder and stood up heading up to the bathroom to prepare, "You're getting sassier Wonks".
Daphne had a quick shower, asked Wonky to dry her hair magically, and looked herself in the mirror.
Daphne did not think herself as beautiful, but she definitely was pretty. She did not stand out in school and that was perfect for her. She had a slim frame, was of medium height, her hair a dirty blonde. Her body was normal, her chest a medium size and her bottom as well. She was as plain looking as they came. Apparently, the assets of the family skipped her and went directly to Astoria, her little sister. Daphne thought her greatest feature were her eyes, which were a gray color, which made her seem aloof from time to time.
Daphne got ready and went downstairs. The ancestral home of the Greengrass family was enormous, but she did not like it one bit. She would prefer to have a smaller home, with warm rooms and a close family. She did not mind only having one sister, but sometimes she wished for more siblings to play or to confide in. Daphne loves his little sister, but as they grew up, they became different and talked less. They still trusted each other more than anyone, they just had different interests in life. Astoria wanted to follow the family business whilst Daphne wanted to become something else, she did not know what but she wanted something different.
Jonathan and Aurora Greengrass were hard on their children. Aurora more than Jonathan, seeing as he wanted to have fun with his little girls but when the time to do business came, he was never in the house only to be seen from time to time. Aurora wanted their daughters to behave like the perfect ladies, seeing as she was brought up that way. Daphne abhorred this and rebelled constantly against her mother, Astoria being the more compliant one. Daphne loved to get her hands dirty, doing actual work, playing outside and just living. Her mother was against this, treating her as porcelain.
As Daphne approached the kitchen she noticed that her parents were dressed for long travel and would probably not take them to the station for Hogwarts. Daphne sometimes loathed that they left them alone in their big mansion, in order to visit other banks in the world.
The Greengrass Company was a banking company that benefitted from both the magical and muggle world. Since they were travelling by muggle plane, they had to leave for prolonged periods of time seeing as they could not travel by portkey.
"Good morning daughter" Aurora said not looking up from the paper, as well as her husband was doing.
"Morning mother and father" Daphne said as she sat down and poked Astoria good morning, Astoria asleep with her eyes open at being called in the morning. She never had been a morning person, unlike her bigger sister who started her mornings early. Daphne liked to have a full day, simple as that.
"We will be travelling to Moscow today so Wonky will take you both to the platform" Jonathan said and he looked at both his daughters with a smile on his face.
"Please be good this year darlings" He said with a wink at Daphne and Astoria, who giggled.
"We always do father!" Astoria said and started to pick up food for her plate.
"I know but it is not bad to repeat it once or twice" Jonathan said and started to eat as well.
"How long will you be travelling and to where…" Astoria started asking, interested in the business, eager to learn more as she would love to work there.
Breakfast progressed with business talk, Astoria learning more and more. After breakfast both parents said their goodbyes to the children and swiftly left to finish packing. No word from their mother throughout breakfast, but they knew that she expected them to behave as the proper ladies they were.
To their mother they were dolls to be sold to the highest bidder, to enter into a marriage contract with wealthy wizards and better the stock of the family. Jonathan thought ill of this and advised secretly to his daughters to pursue their hearts. Aurora had been in talks with several families for when the time came, they could take any of their daughters. This made Daphne nauseous just thinking about it, since she hoped to marry for love.
She wanted a man that was honest, hardworking, and that liked her for herself not her money. Men like that were far and few in between. Blood purity did not matter to her that much but would prefer a pure-blood man because she would have nothing to talk about with a muggleborn or a half-blood. But if that were the case, she guessed she could cope—anything for love.
"Misses ready to leave?", asked Wonky as he apparated at the breakfast table.
Both girls nodded and they went along towards the entrance, their trunks already apparated there.
The train ride proved to be a little boring for Daphne. Theo and Tracey were recounting their summer adventures as they had traveled together to Tunisia. Theodore Nott and Tracey Davis were Daphne's best friends even before school. They had gone to social events in the same circles and they hung around. They were betrothed since birth and therefore came to an understanding to be friends whilst at school and later they would marry. Daphne was not allowed to leave the country, so she just asked questions of their great travels.
"How was summer Daph?" Theo had asked her.
"Same as usual Theo. I couldn't get out of the country as you so I just tended to my house and my duties as future Lady Greengrass. The odd ball here and there and the common Tea Party. Kill me please!" Daphne said as she buried her face on her hands, wanting desperately to have a different life.
"Don't worry Daph, it will get better…" Tracey started.
"When Trace? My mother wants me to find a man this year to start negotiations! I am expected to marry a snotty man and be his arm candy!" Daphne exclaimed and buried her face again.
"Calm down Daphne! We will help you right Theo?" Tracey said rubbing Daphne's back, whilst looking at Theo to say something.
"Of course, Daph, anything for our friends" Theo said and that earned him a smile from Tracey, and she grabbed his hand to show her thanks.
"Ugh…you guys have it easy already being betrothed. You're lucky Theo is a nice man" Daphne said and smiled at both of them.
The train ride went rather smoothly from there, only hearing Malfoy grunt as he left a compartment to the right after some discussion, but that had become a yearly event.
"I hate Potions" Daphne lamented as she walked towards the classroom along with Tracey.
Theo was behind them talking with Blaise Zabini about some charm they were struggling to keep up with.
"That is only because you are atrocious at them" Tracey smirked as she entered the classroom and sat beside Theo.
Daphne chose to sit next to them, next to Zabini. The dark boy was civil towards them and kept mostly to himself. Daphne was glad of this since she was not in a mood to talk, and Blaise was actually proficient in Potions. Daphne turned then towards Tracey to keep talking while the classroom filled.
"Then there's also the issue that Snape hates me!" Daphne exclaimed whilst taking out her book for the class.
"He doesn't hate anyone Daph. Maybe just Potter", Tracey said and chuckled along with Theo.
"I am the only Slytherin that he takes points from and gives detentions to! How can you explain that?" Daphne said as she remembered the past instances that this had happened.
Snape was not as open with Daphne's hatred as he was with Potter's, often asking her to stay behind rather than doing it in public. It had started on her first year when she failed to pour some crow's feathers into the potion—a feat that Malfoy had also forgotten to make—and had gotten points off. Then Snape asked her to stay a few minutes behind and she had gotten her first detention. Throughout the following years the same even had happened with various degrees of punishment, often house points as well as weekly detentions. In private Snape had the same tone he used with Potter, which was strange for Daphne. She could not fathom what made her a target of Snape's disdain.
Daphne was interrupted from her musings when Snape entered the class abruptly and stood at the front of the class and started to give out instructions for the first potion they would make that day. It seemed like a review from a potion they did last year. Daphne was trying her best alongside Blaise and seemed to be doing well.
"Hey Daphne, would you like to accompany me sometime to Hogsmede?" Blaise said suddenly, making Daphne look agape at him.
She turned around with such force that she knocked over a dragon's eggshell into the mix, making it blubber and emit a dark red smoke.
"What?" Daphne said her expression surprised, thankful that Snape was admonishing another student whilst this had happened.
"Would you like to accompany me to Hogsmede on the first weekend there?" Blaise said with a hopeful tone, looking at her with a puppy-eyed look.
Daphne liked Blaise as a friend and had not considered him as something more. He came from a foreign pure-blooded family that was wealthy, his mother being a foreign advisor for Egypt's equivalent to the Ministry, an ambassador of sorts. Her mother would certainly approve of them, already hearing her mother's praises she gave Blaise a fake smile.
"Blaise, that would be lovely", Daphne said and turned back to the potion, avoiding Tracey's eye on her.
As she turned around she gasped as she encountered the disapproving face of the Potion's master. His wand pointed the cauldron and the blotched potion disappeared.
"My office this afternoon" Snape said simply and walked away towards Malfoy's cauldron to give him a helpful tip on how to do the potion correctly.
Daphne just slumped in her seat, Blaise looking at her with an apologetic face. Tracey and Theo both had sympathetic looks and turned to finish their respective potions.
Daphne found herself walking alone towards Snape's office. The afternoon was perfect for walking outside with her friends but her sudden invitation to Hogsmede prevented that from happening. She did not blame Blaise, seeing as he was not at fault for inviting her. She blamed herself for reacting poorly, but the surprise was evident.
Tracey and she had talked about what happened and they had agreed for Daphne to give Blaise a chance. Blaise was polite, handsome, and came from an influential family. Daphne wrote a quick letter to her mother making her aware of what had happened and was already dreading the happy response from her. Her mother would be ecstatic, her father would find out how she really felt when they saw each other. Daphne loved her father more than anyone, they understood each other.
Daphne's father seemed to be the liberal out of both parents, weirdly enough. He came from a long line of tradition and seemed to have no trouble by breaking it from time to time. Jonathan made his daughters laugh, he played with them whenever he could, and listened to them. He had advised Daphne to always listen to her heart, not her mother. He told her the story about the betrothal contract he had been in, and how even though he came to love his wife, he wondered how it would have been to have gone out with his true love.
This was what Daphne was thinking when she almost crashed against Snape's door. She woke herself from her daze and knocked on the door.
"Come in", Snape said from behind the door and Daphne entered.
The smell of the office wafted on Daphne's nose and she scrunched her nose a little bit. The Potions master took his work to his office, and several ingredients had a repugnant smell in the closed space of the office. Snape pointed towards one of the chairs, motioning her to sit down.
"We will wait for another student and we will proceed with the punishment" Snape said not looking up from his parchments.
Daphne only nodded and looked at her hands in order to entertain herself. The hands were calloused from gardening in her house, enjoying the hard work alongside her house elves. They protested against Daphne working with them, but she told them she enjoyed the work and they gladly let her help. She enjoyed getting her hands dirty by either gardening, woodwork, or anything to do with her hands. In secret of course, her mother would be appalled at the idea of one of her precious dolls being roughened up.
A knock was heard and Snape reacted the same way he did with Daphne. Daphne did not look up to that person, only turning a little bit to see who it was as he sat down next to her.
Ron Weasley apparently had detention with her as well. That would be either a disaster or a catastrophe. The Weasleys were known for their hatred to anything green and silver. She tensed beside him as she listened to Snape's instructions.
"You will both serve detention in the Potion's classroom sorting through every ingredient and labeling them according to their weight, their color, their importance, and their availability. I normally do not do detentions together but you both have botched those potions so much that I had to make an exception. Go now!" Snape finished and went back to writing on the apparently important parchment.
Daphne did not wait, only nodded and stood up, Weasley on tow. The boy was taller than anyone in her year so it was not hard to notice her presence behind her. Weirdly enough his steps were quiet, making no sound, as if he often walked without wanting to be heard. They continued along in silence until they arrived to the Potions' room.
The strength that took Daphne to not vomit whilst smelling some of the ingredients was just enough to distract her from looking at Weasley. The boy had started to sort through the top shelves, the one's that she could not reach and started to sort on a nearby table. All this whilst in silence, which made her nervous.
This was Potter's best friend, the friend of the Boy-Who-Lived. If rumors were true, this wizard beside her was a powerful one, a smart one, and –as the several banters with Granger proved—hot-headed. So, she did not say anything to him and bent down to work on the shelves of the bottom, grabbing a nearby table, and sorting through the ingredients. A sudden crash of glass made her jump and look towards the sound.
"Fuck" Weasley said as he bent down to pick up the ingredients he had accidentally dropped.
They were only oak roots so there was no harm on picking them up or the spillage did not affect the air.
"Need help there?", Daphne said to him in a normal tone of voice.
"No", the boy simply answered in a harsh tone, with red ears, and bent to pick down the roots.
Daphne looked taken aback by the harsh tone and harrumphed, turning back towards her table. Apparently, the stories of his rudeness were true, which disappointed Daphne a little bit since she had also heard that Weasley was one of the funniest and most outgoing persons in their year. His apparent hatred towards her house was evident.
They worked in silence for almost an hour, only sorting through few of the seemingly endless ingredients. If they had worked together they would've done much more, but Daphne did not think that would be possible. She was scared by the sudden clearing of a throat next to her.
"I am done for today", Weasley said not really looking at her, only talking towards the room. With that he left and said nothing more.
Daphne could only stand up and put her work on the shelf, noticing that Weasley had correctly sorted through his side. He was known for being bad at classes, but apparently when concentrated could accomplish things correctly.
It would be a long two weeks of detention alongside a person that hated everything she represented, everything that she was without the intention of being like that.
Maybe if she talked to him, they could finish this detention before the allotted time. Daphne started to feel mixed emotions about the prospect of this idea.
The last emotion she felt was anger. He was a pure-blooded wizard, and no matter his economic standing, he surely had been taught good manners. He had disrespected her and he would hear from her the next day when they met. No wizard treated her like this and got away with it.
A/N: Here is another chapter! This one is in Daphne's POV and the POVs will change throughout the chapter depending on how I write them.
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