Chapter Sixteen: Career Advice

"Life shouldn't be this busy," Daphne ground out as she looked over her Transfiguration notes at breakfast. The hall was buzzing with its normal activity, but around her, there were pockets of stress, little bubbles of scraps and tantrums that indicated quite plainly that the exams were almost upon them.

Great.

She was falling behind and she knew it. Prefect duties were taking up more and more time as Zabini kept disappearing. It wasn't unusual, he'd never been one to take anything seriously, and whenever she questioned it he merely smiled and winked at her. Clearly, he'd been enjoying his newfound freedom far more than anyone had expected it. It would've been heartwarming if it didn't mean she was climbing into bed in the early hours of the morning exhausted and irritated.

Harry was busy with Quidditch and planning. Plans with Sirius, plans for the Defence Club, plans for the stupid, annoying, pointless Slug Club that Dumbledore was insisting he attended. The bumbling professor apparently knew something about Horcruxes that he wouldn't share with Dumbledore, so who did he call? An Order member, a qualified adult, a Ministry official? No. A fifteen-year-old boy with far too much on his shoulders already. A very cute boy that she wished had more time for hasty meetings in the Room of Requirement, but who was just as tired and exhausted as she was.

"Tell me about it, I haven't slept for three days," Tracey grumbled, trying to massage a knot out of her shoulder with the base of her spoon. "Who killed Gripthar the Unforgiving?"

"Buldfrik, sixteen-seventy-five," Daphne recited, "using the hammer of his grandfather, which was deemed a crime by the Goblin court due to its nature as a tool rather than a weapon and he was burned alive on… on… was it the first? No. Don't tell me. I know this. I know… nothing. I'm an idiot, I am a complete and utter - Second, it was the second of January."

"Loser."

"Just because you hate History."

"I hate Binns and stupid goblin wars," Tracey muttered darkly.

"Anti-clockwise twist or two clockwise flicks in," Daphne checked her notes. "The reversal of accidental animal transfiguration?"

"Two clockwise flicks. Easy. Give me something harder."

"That was hard."

"For total Transfiguration dweebs, maybe," Tracey grinned as she turned her neck causing a loud crunching crack to disgust the second-year closest to them. "Who cares about a load of wars that don't matter anymore? Transfiguration's cool. Okay, Defence. Let's see. What is the incantation for the tongue-tying curse?"

"Er -"

"Mimblewimble."

"I hadn't even guessed!"

"An er is stalling. You need to know this."

Daphne glared at Tracey, she wasn't wrong, but she hated her for it. This needed to be reflex. She needed to know the answers, but confidence had never exactly been her strong suit. It hadn't even been a mildly okay suit. She hated exams. Harry had tried to be her studying partner, but his brand of kind supportiveness had led to a lot of stressed shouting, swearing and crying from Daphne who by the end of the evening was convinced she was going to fail all of her exams. From then on, Tracey had taken the brunt of the testing. Harry usually followed up with reassurance and kindness afterwards.

"When's your careers thingy?" Tracey asked as the hall began to slowly fill up around them. Despite Daphne's aversion to mornings, which had been somewhat curbed by her early morning dates with Harry, early morning breakfast had its perks. No Malfoy for one. That was definitely something to be celebrated. The blond-bellend had, since his father's questioning, been unsettlingly quiet. There was only so much time Daphne and Tracey would be allowed to exist in peace and she was going to savour every last second of it.

"Ten, you?"

"Two," Tracey grinned. "It'll be easy."

"For you maybe."

"You've been set on being a Curse Breaker since you about ten," Tracey said dismissively. "What's not to know? Wait, you're not saying you don't wanna be a Curse Breaker?"

"I don't know," Daphne shrugged. It was a career she'd picked out for its excitement, for the sheer interest in runes and how they were crafted. She'd dreamt of travelling the world, discovering the previously unknown, but the more she'd looked into it the more it felt as if they were just used for unlocking doors for other people. Christmas had been the real indication that something wasn't right, because instead of falling into her Runes homework she'd dedicated herself to Harry's painting. She'd poured hours and hours into it and had soon realised the reason she loved her Runes work wasn't breaking them, it was crafting them. Creating something, and breathing life into it, was far more exhilarating than uncovering a bunch of dead secrets.

She'd only half-mentioned the idea to Harry, who had then thrown her when he mentioned that he was putting up her painting in his new house with Sirius. The whole idea felt bizarre.

"I want to make something. I don't want to waste my time finding the lives people wanted to protect from the outside world."

"Have fun convincing Snape that's a good idea."

But her career path was the last thing she was worried about when considering being locked in a room with her Head of House. There were far more Death Eater-y concerns to be had, not to mention his general hatred of Harry and his overall distasteful personality.

After another hour of going over revision, Daphne dragged herself to the dungeons. Customarily, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was stationed much higher in the castle but Snape, being the batlike dungeon dweller that he was, refused to move. Slughorn had taken a cushier office and everyone was happy, all except Daphne who loathed Snape's office. There were too many disgusting things in jars for it to be normal.

Most people probably looked forward to career advice sessions, she reasoned as she descended. Most people probably had a handle on their life and what they wanted to do, who they wanted to be, where they were going. Granger did. Tracey did. Even Harry, who traditionally did very little planning, did. She'd thought she did. She'd always known it, but the last couple of years had changed things. Had changed her. She wasn't the girl who longed for adventure because adventure had found her, it loomed over her and threatened to spill into everything she did. Once Voldemort finally built the army of his dreams, the war would crash over them all and she wasn't ready. She'd never be ready.

The Curse Breaker lifestyle wasn't what she wanted, not anymore.

Her knock at Snape's door was met with an almost bored "Enter." The former Potions Master sat behind his desk, quill in hand and a stack of students' homework to one side. He didn't look up as Daphne took the seat he gestured to before his thin-fingered hand retreated back to the parchment he was reading.

He didn't say anything. Not a word. Not a single damn thing. He just sat there, reading the work of other people as an hourglass trickled and ate through their time together.

"Well." She never had been very good at holding her tongue.

"Yes?" Snape said, still not bothering to look at her as he selected another piece of parchment from the stack and placed it in front of himself.

"This is my career's advice session, aren't you, you know, going to give me advice?"

He didn't even so much as pause. "No."

"And why not?"

"Because, Miss Greengrass, you will ignore whatever advice I give you." He put the quill in an inkwell and then slid across a stack of pamphlets. "You can find meaningless platitudes and mundane banalities in these pages. Do not waste either of our time believing you require me to furnish you with anything else."

"This is about Harry."

"Potter is not my concern," Snape said, retrieving his quill and crossing out a line from the poor student's essay before him. "However, your continued infatuation, while nauseating, is indicative of a mind that cares little for the opinion of others. Therefore, I will not be providing career advice. You do not require it."

Finally, he looked up from his notes and instead of loathing she saw something far more unsettling. It was a look he saved only for Malfoy and one she'd never wished to see. Pride. "Ambition, cunning, determination. These are the qualities our House was founded upon. So many within these walls forget that. So, if you are done seeking pointless platitudes, allow me to extend the only advice you need."

Daphne, who was far too thrown by the entire conversation, could only nod.

"The Dark Lord's forces grow stronger, his patience wearing thin. Only so much time remains before he decides to press his advantage, when he does, it will be swift and without mercy."

"Why're you telling me this?" As far as she knew Snape's whole job was to be a spy for the Order, he was a pretty rubbish spy if he just told anyone about Voldemort's plans. "Why me? Why not the Order, or Dumbledore?"

"The Headmaster has heard my warnings," Snape said as impassively as he could, but it was impossible not to detect the smallest hint of disdain at the corner of his voice. "I would not have the past repeat itself."

"Which bit? The part where Harry killed Voldemort or where you were a Death Eater?"

Ink splattered the pages as the quill he'd been using snapped. For a trained Occlumens and professional spy, it was upsettingly easy to get a rise out of Snape.

"Your choices define you," he said simply before banishing the ink stain with a wave of his wand. "I allowed mine to be clouded. I advise that you do not do the same."

"We already know I've made my choice. But thanks for the pamphlets." She snatched them up and headed for the door, not daring to look back at Snape. Not because she loathed what he'd said or because she dreaded his retribution but because of the look on his face. It had not been anger, it had been understanding. It was the kind of implication she wanted to think about, but it was impossible to escape the plain and simple fact that, somehow, Snape had been in love.

He was right though, about all of it. The career's advice seemed far less important as she wandered the halls of Hogwarts, not really sure where her feet took her. The war was coming. Anyone could see that. The Ministry's investigation, as thorough as it was, had revealed nothing about Death Eater activities because there were none. Everything was quiet, as if Voldemort were biding his time, waiting for the public to get bored and forget he was back.

The trouble was, people were. Sirius's trial had taken up all the front pages, Pettigrew's 'suspected' survival dominating headlines, but not because he'd been there in the graveyard, but because of what he'd done when Harry's parents had died.

And what were they doing? Going to classes, worrying about exams, all the while a lunatic was just waiting to kickstart a war. Well, there was one thing she could do to help. One disgustingly upsetting, outrageously annoying and day-ruingly bad thing she could do. The first part was easy, they'd agreed to meet in the library, so dragging Harry away from books he didn't want to really read anyway wasn't impossible.

"Dumbledore wants you to talk to Slughorn," Daphne said once they had found a quiet classroom and she'd cast any number of charms she could think of on the door.

"Good morning to you, too."

"Not the time. Be cute later."

"So, I'm cute now?" Harry smirked. Daphne rolled her eyes and continued her ferocious pacing. "What's this about Daph?"

"Just go through it with me. Please. What did the note say?"

"Okay. Sure. Erm. Right, he just asked me to talk to Slughorn about Horcruxes, because he wants to know what Slughorn told Voldemort." Harry finished, he appeared to be on the edge of something so Daphne let him think. Besides the obvious courtesy, he was more than a little cute when he was concentrating. "The diary."

"What?"

"Remember second year, the Chamber?"

"How likely do you think I am to forget a gigantic snake going 'round petrifying people?"

Harry smirked, but continued, "Ginny had a diary. Tom Riddle's diary."

"I'm guessing it wasn't a 'oh, Mildred is so wonderful, I wonder how I can sleep with her' type thing?"

"More like, if you write in it, it writes back."

"Creepy." Daphne's lip curled at the idea of writing in any kind of link to Voldemort's subconscious. Just, ew.

"It showed me Hagrid getting expelled too and then it took control of Ginny and made her open the Chamber. That's how the Basilisk got out. And when I got down there, I saw him…" he trailed off, his brow knitting. "I thought it was a memory."

"Nope, just a weird link to a past version of him. Probably did the ritual when he was," she shrugged, "how old was he in the memories?"

"Not much older than we are now."

"He started young then." It was hardly surprising. He was a Dark Lord, what depths would he not stoop to? She wondered what he'd have to do, what was so terrible that you could literally split yourself in half? Another intrusive, and rather unwelcome thought, made her wonder if this was what Harry had thought all Slytherins were like.

"What're you going to do with Slughorn?"

"I dunno. I'd ask, but he's not going to tell me anything, is he?"

"Which is why I wanted to talk to you. He'll just assume you're working for Dumbledore," Daphne agreed, "which judging by the fact he's asked you to talk to him in the first place, I'd say that'd blow up right in your face. But what about me?"

"You?"

"I can be nice."

"You sure about that?"

"Not funny."

"What's going on, Daph? Really?" He moved from the desk he'd been perched on and placed himself before her, shoulders square, gentle hands touching her arms. Every fear and anxiety that her meeting with Snape had inspired jostled for room, fought for space and precious real estate in the ever-shrinking space her consciousness allowed.

"Snape. I spoke to Snape. You know the stupid career thing, it doesn't matter. What does matter is… he said, well, he said, erm, stuff. You know, bad stuff. He reckons Voldemort's getting sick of waiting. He thinks I'm making a mistake, with you, with all of this. Which, I'm not! Oh God."

"Just breathe, it's okay. I'm here."

"Right." Daphne tried to do what he'd said, failed miserably and instead ran a hand through her blonde hair. Finally, she blew out a long breath so that Harry's messy hair writhed in the sudden flux of air. "Sorry. I'm not good at this. Okay. Okay. Breathe." Another one, longer this time. "He got me thinking about what can we do, more specifically, what can I do? I'm not good at fighting, I'm not a Dark Arts expert, but I can talk."

"I noticed," Harry smiled.

"Prat." But her own laugh betrayed her. "I think. If you go, he'll just shut down, but me, to Slughorn I'm just a lost little pureblood that looks like a whole lot of leverage. For you, my dad, my family. And I want to help, really. I want to do something that isn't just sitting around worrying whether I'm getting an Acceptable or an Outstanding or whatever. I want to make a choice that defines me."

"But you hate Slughorn."

"I do. But I hate Voldemort more, I hate the idea of a world where being who you want is something you should be ashamed of. If this is what I can do to stop that world from being a thing then I'll do it."

They debated what to do next for a long while before Harry said something that made every cog in Daphne's very un-Gryffindor mind begin to whir. Sometimes, it really did pay to not be an honourable lion. With a few minor modifications and grumbling from Daphne, they set about working on their next steps.

They waited for the next party, which Daphne's ploy meant they had to attend. Not that she was happy about it. She could think of better things to be doing. Running from a dragon, for example.

Not for the first time, changing in the dormitory was more than a little awkward. Pansy's open hatred was easy enough to deal with before the Defence Club, but since her arrival and then rather abrupt exit, her reverting back to type was both disorientating and disappointing.

That was what she'd been expecting when she opened the door. Jibes, taunts, stupid comments and snappy remarks, what she didn't think she'd walk in on was Tracey holding a crying Pansy Parkinson in her arms as the two girls sat in the middle of the room. Daphne froze, not sure whether to leave or say something, but the choice was made for her when Pansy's dark eyes flashed up to look at the intruder.

"Hi," Daphne tried. "I was just, you know what, it's fine, I'll go. Tori can -"

"No!" Pansy yelled. The door wrenched itself from Daphne's grasp and slammed itself back into the frame. Accidental magic. Wow. Purebloods valued control over magic more than anything else, letting accidental magic slip through the cracks of education was up there with dating muggleborns.

"It's okay," Tracey said, not letting go of Pansy but nodding for Daphne to sit on the bed opposite them. "It's okay, Daph won't say anything. Will you?"

"Not a thing." This was beyond weird, but doing as she was told, Daphne edged slowly towards the bed. Being tracked by a slowly sobbing Pansy was beyond strange. It was like walking into a dream or Pansy's nightmare. Like the wounded animal she was, Pansy pulled away from Tracey, forcing herself to her feet.

"This was a trap, wasn't it?"

Tracey looked stunned. "What? No. Pansy, I didn't -"

"You did!"

"No!"

"She's right," Daphne interjected, trying desperately to help whatever the hell was going on. Pansy rounded on her instead of Tracey, who had leapt to her feet during Pansy's tirade. "I just wanted to get ready for the party, that's all." It was a statement of how depressingly little the school thought of Slytherin that only Pansy and Daphne had ever attended Slughorn's parties from their dormitory. "I didn't even know you guys are, what, talking? Friends?"

"We're not friends!" Pansy shrieked.

"Okay, not friends. Cool."

"I've been helping -"

"NO!"

"Pansy, Daph can help."

"She can't! You can't! I shouldn't have…" More tears were forming in her eyes. Daphne shared a look with Tracey that quite clearly said this wasn't unusual, which was somehow more unsettling. "I can't do this."

"You can. We're going to get you through this," Tracey said kindly, putting an arm around Pansy's shaking shoulders. "I'm going to tell Daph, okay? Anything you don't want me to just interrupt, but I think it'll help."

There was a long pause as Pansy regarded the two girls, first searching Daphne and then Tracey's eyes. Finally, she nodded, sniffing as she did so and wiping the tears that were dragging makeup down her cheeks with the sleeve of her robes.

"Okay, it's okay," Tracey whispered, squeezing Pansy with the arm she'd draped over her shoulders. "So, you know how Pansy's dropped out of the Defence Club?" Daphne nodded, promising herself to stay as silent as she could so as not to trigger an eruption from Mount Pansy anytime soon. "Well, I noticed. I know you've been busy with prefect stuff and the trial and everything, so I thought I could try and see what happened.

"Pansy shut me down at first. Then again and again and again," she almost laughed fondly, but managed to muffle the sound. "Anyway, after a while, we got talking properly. It was 'round about the time of the trial. I think seeing Black get free kind of made you wonder, right?" Pansy nodded, unable to look at either of them.

"Wonder what?" Daphne asked, trying not to let her question come out harsh but it probably still did. She'd never been very good at masking her own doubts and in that moment Pansy was a walking talking red flag. Her father was a Death Eater and she'd abandoned the Defence Club, probably on his orders, it wasn't difficult to see a sudden change of heart as a threat.

"If I could be free too," Pansy muttered, sniffing again.

"Yeah, that," Tracey confirmed rather lamely. "Do you want me to -" Pansy shook her head and Tracey fell silent, but never letting go of the girl until Pansy stood up straight and moved away.

"My father is a Death Eater." Her voice shook as she spoke but it didn't stop her. "He has been for as long as I can remember. I was told every day of my life that service to the Dark Lord is something to aspire to, that he would create a world where we didn't have to hide anymore. I wanted that so badly. And then you happened."

"I didn't realise I was an inspiration." She regretted it as soon as the joke escaped her lips, but miraculously, Pansy didn't explode. Instead, she laughed. Not with humour, but a hollow sort of dullness invaded everything about it.

"I wish you weren't. I wish I could hate you, I want to."

"What's stopping you? Because a lot of people do."

"You don't remember?" Daphne frowned and was about to say 'no' when a cog clunked into place.

"Slughorn's party. I told you to stop hiding behind hatred."

"Guess it wasn't the muggles I was hiding from."

"It was your dad," Daphne guessed, it wasn't hard. She'd known as long as they'd been at each other's throats that Pansy wasn't speaking for herself, she was spouting what she thought she should. For Malfoy, for her father, for her family. She wanted so desperately to please them that she'd abandoned herself along the way.

"So I joined your stupid club. I did what you said and what did it get me? I'll give you a clue, my father earned a one-way ticket to Azkaban."

Daphne gaped at them, at both of them. There was no hint of a joke in either of their faces, just the bleak honesty of a tortured girl and the only person who'd been bothered enough to notice. And all that time Daphne had just dismissed it as nothing, as Pansy just running back to her father.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Pansy glowered at her. "I don't want your pity."

"No. I'm sorry I didn't notice." She'd been so wrapped up in the trial, in her prefect duties, in stupid bloody homework that she'd not even imagined that something could be wrong. Yet there it had been, sleeping a few beds from her every night, a girl who'd wanted to change but couldn't. A girl so trapped she'd reverted to hiding a world that hated her, because trying to escape was somehow worse.

And how had she not noticed? Because her own parents weren't like that. Wherever she'd felt lucky before suddenly felt tinged with an odd sense of guilt, just because she was lucky enough to be born to parents with an open mind didn't mean everyone was. Well, that wasn't going to happen again.

"You don't have to go back there. Not if you don't want to."

"He'll disown me!"

"And?"

Pansy almost choked. "I knew you were a callous bitch."

It was an easy mistake to make, but one Daphne tried to pride herself on being false. She wasn't callous, just blunt when she needed to be. Platitudes weren't the answer, even if she cared enough to give them.

"No, I'm not. I'm just asking why it matters? Why stay in a family that doesn't even want you?"

"Daph," Tracey said warningly.

"No, it's true."

"Not the time though," Tracey pressed.

"Right, when is? When she's gone back to that psycho or when she winds up in a ditch somewhere?" Pansy let out a sob. Okay, maybe a bit much. "Sorry."

"I think that's enough, Daph."

"Would you?" Daphne asked her friend. "Seriously? Would you go back there? 'Cause if that's what you'd have wanted you'd have sucked up to Malfoy for years."

"No," Tracey conceded. "I'd come live with you."

"That's alright for you," Pansy wept. "Where would I even go?"

"You're seventeen in what a few months?" Daphne asked, trying and failing to remember when Pansy's birthday was. Sixth year was always a pain for figuring out when people became 'adults', like not finishing your education was an appropriate time. "My advice, take your money and run. You've got a trust fund. Rent a flat somewhere, I'm sure there'd be someone who'd help…" There was a very obvious and well-known someone who knew exactly what running away from home when they were a teenager felt like. "In fact, I think I might know the perfect person."

Tracey stared. "You're not talking about -"

"Why not?"

"That's not a reason to ask."

"He loves me."

"He loves Harry."

"Same difference."

"Black," Pansy breathed. "You're talking about Sirius Black."

"He's a friend," Daphne shrugged. "Who else would be reckless enough to rent a flat for you?"

"My mum," Tracey ventured.

"My dad, to be fair," Daphne added. She could just picture her father excitedly becoming some kind of charitable genius, alongside everything else he had to do. "Dumbledore probably. Now there's a man who likes to make himself look good. The point is, there's plenty of people who'd help. You just have to look outside the little hierarchy we've made for ourselves. Look, if you didn't want to leave you wouldn't have let Trace talk to you. For what it's worth, I kinda liked the new Pansy."

Tracey raised an eyebrow, smirking. Daphne had barely ever said she liked her best friend in the entire time they'd known each other, but these were trying times

"I can't go back there," Pansy managed to say.

"You don't have to," Daphne said.

"Yeah, we'll help," Tracey confirmed. "Promise."

Pansy sniffed again and then did something incredibly un-Pansy, she hugged Tracey. An actual full-blown bone-crusher that would've knocked the wind out of the poor girl.

"Not a hugger," Daphne said quickly, sticking out a hand before Pansy could round on her too. The poor girl laughed, an actual human laugh, and grabbed the offered hand so hard Daphne was sure it'd fractured somehow. The conversation descended into details of what Pansy should do next and before long, and realising quite how late it was, the three girls hurriedly worked on helping Daphne prepare for Slughorn's little party.

Daphne just hoped the party would go as well as this little ambush, but she had a horrible feeling it wouldn't.