Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JKR

AN: This chapter is not betaed, so all mistakes are mine, and I like to keep them.

Shunned

The bell rang, and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everybody packed their bags and swung them onto their shoulders.

Professor McGonagall called over the noise, 'Potter—a word, if you please.'

Assuming this had something to do with his latest confrontation with Ron and Hermione, Harry proceeded gloomily to the teacher's desk.

Professor McGonagall waited until the rest of the class had gone, and then said, 'Potter, the champions and their partners—'

'What partners?' said Harry.

Professor McGonagall looked suspiciously at him, as though she thought he was trying to be funny.

'Your partners for the Yule Ball, Potter,' she said coldly. 'Your dance partners.'

Harry's insides seemed to curl up and shrivel. 'Dance partners?' He felt himself going red. 'I don't dance,' he blurted.

'Oh, yes, you do,' said Professor McGonagall, irritably. 'That's what I'm telling you. Traditionally, the champions and their partners open the ball.'

Harry had a sudden mental image of himself in a top hat and tails, accompanied by a girl in the sort of frilly dress Aunt Petunia always wore to Uncle Vernon's work parties.

'I'm not dancing,' he said.

'It's traditional,' said Professor McGonagall firmly. 'You are a Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter. '

'But—I don't—'

'You heard me', said Professor McGonagall, in a very final sort of way.*

Harry kicked a pebble out of his way as he stormed down the path that led to the Black Lake. Professor McGonagall's order had destroyed what little appetite he had these days.

He had to ask out a girl.

A squirming nest of worms seemed to settle in his stomach at the mere thought, and he groaned. Could his life get any more complicated?

Not even two weeks ago, with the first task ahead of him and the knowledge he would have to face a dragon, he would have thought that impossible. Now he was not so sure.

He had to ask out a girl!

Gods, he felt like throwing up.

Had Professor McGonagall not paid attention to what had happened to him ever since his name had come out of this thrice-cursed goblet? Every single student at Hogwarts thought he had cheated his way into the tournament. Even his two best friends thought so and had turned away from him

A sharp pain stabbed his heart at the thought of Ron and Hermione. He ignored it, not yet ready to deal with the memory, and hurried forward on his way through the icy November day.

If Professor McGonagall had not put her foot down, his so-called family of fellow Gryffindors would have cast him out of the tower.

Things had become even worse after the first tournament.

He'd been terrified to face the Hungarian Horntail, but thanks to his Parseltongue abilities he'd had no problems persuading the dragon to give up the egg, and had completed his task with no injury to himself and the animal, and in record time to boot.

Despite that, he'd ended last, for "using dark magic," as Headmaster Karakoff had pointed out. As if the Severing Curse Krum had used on his dragon wasn't dark magic, either.

Skeeter, that damned woman, had lapped it all up, and now all students and most of the magical population thought him the next Dark Lord in the making. Even his best friends—

No, he wouldn't go down that path once again, it hurt too much. He gritted his teeth and kicked another pebble out of his way. No girl in the castle would consider being his date for the ball, so much was sure. Even Ginny Weasley, who'd acted even more like a fangirl around him ever since he had rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets, had stopped sending him adoring glances across the common room and now almost ran from him whenever he came near her.

Maybe he should ask Professor McGonagall to be his date? If he explained his predicament to her? Would she come to his aid, for the sake of not embarrassing Hogwarts and Gryffindor?

A snort escaped him as he imagined the reaction of the stern professor to that.

He'd reached his favourite spot at the lake over his brooding. His mood slightly lifted, he slumped down on a rock on the small beach. His breath came out in ragged gasps from his run and hung before his face in white clouds in the frosty air as he looked at the castle at the other side of the misty lake. The sight never failed to delight and enchant him. His breathing, heavy and ragged from his run, became light and even like that of a child relaxing under their mother's touch.

He lost all sense of time, taking in the beautiful view, framed by the naked, frost covered branches of the trees that hid his hiding spot from the path around the lake. A small sound, like the wail of a cat, made him whip his head around.

At the foot of another rock, maybe twenty feet away, sat a girl. She had her arms slung around her propped up knees and leaned with her forehead on her knees; her face obscured by long, blonde hair.

Heat crept up his neck, and he gritted his teeth. Damn! How had she found his secret hiding spot? Was there no place in this school where he could be alone? He cleared his throat to get her attention. She wouldn't want to be alone with an aspiring Dark Lord, and he would have his much-needed solitude.

Her head flew up so fast that he could almost hear her neck crack, and she turned a pale, blotched face towards him. Her big, blue eyes flitted to the side, as if looking for a way out, and her tongue flicked across her lower lip, in a way that reminded him of a cornered animal.

When she realised he was blocking her way to the path back to the castle, her expression became even more panicked.

His stomach sank. While he had expected a negative reaction, this seemed extreme. She reminded him of how he must have looked and acted when Dudley and his gang chased him. Nobody should ever have to feel that way next to him, if he could help it.

He got up and went to a rock about a yard away from the place where the overgrown path ended in the small bay.

'You can leave if you want. I promise I won't curse you.'

At the sound of his voice, her tense posture relaxed.

'Oh, it's you, Potter. Sorry, I didn't recognise you, and I thought—' She bit her lips and turned her head away.

Harry's eyes became wide with surprise. So, his reputation did not intimidate her? That had to be a first. A small grin appeared on his face, probably the first-ever since his name came out of the goblet.

'Thank you, it's very refreshing to find someone who doesn't cower in fear when the Dark Lord Potter approaches.'

Something like a snort escaped her, and she looked back at him. 'Potter, you might be a Parselmouth and frighten a lot of the idiots at this school, but I can tell you, there are people much more intimidating than you. Getting cursed by you is the least of my problems, besides, I'd give back as good as I would get and maybe even teach you a trick or two.'

His grin became deeper. She seemed to be a feisty one. Who was she? He took a closer look.

She wore a green and silver scarf around her neck. However, there was no "Potter stinks!" badge on her robes. Her face seemed somehow familiar, even though the skin was still blotched and her eyes red-rimmed. Had she been crying?

He sucked in a sharp breath when he, at last, recognised her.

Daphne Greengrass, one of the prettiest girls at Hogwarts, although right now she didn't look like that. Seamus had pursued her at the end of their third year and got a Freezing Hex in the bollocks when he didn't accept "no" for an answer.

Dean had thought it hilarious and dubbed her "The Ice Queen", a name that stuck and soon carried over to the whole student body.

Had the name hurt her? Most likely.

Harry's cheeks burned, and he lowered his head to hide his face. While he'd inwardly cheered for Greengrass for showing the cocky Irishman his limits, he'd done nothing to help her when her justified act of self-defense was turned against her. True, he'd had other things to worry about, a supposed mass-murderer being after him and those cursed Dementors hovering around the castle were already enough to make his plate full. Yet, he could have said something when Dean came up with that name in their dorm and kept it from spreading.

He'd kept his mouth shut because he didn't want to risk a fight with Ron over defending a Slytherin against a Gryffindor. The same Ron who'd dropped him like a piece of hot coal when his name came out of the goblet.

Was it more embarrassing that he'd been loyal to that prick or that he didn't have the courage to stand up against bullying?

Yet the nickname oddly fit. Greengrass always kept to herself, he'd never seen her hang around with either Malfoy and Parkinson—or one of the other Slytherins. Their house travelled in packs, but Greengrass always hung back. He'd never seen emotion on her bland face, either—until today.

There was more to Daphne Greengrass than just a pretty face and a haughty demeanour.

Harry bit his lips. He'd fallen into the same trap as everybody else, he'd made assumptions about Greengrass and had judged her by her appearance and what people said about her, without knowing the girl. He'd done exactly what he resented happening to him. He was a right bigot, wasn't he? Well, no time like the present to change that. She hadn't sneered at him like most Slytherins. Maybe she'd like to talk a bit? Merlin knew he'd love to talk to someone other than the professors these days, and if it was just a Slytherin he met in his hiding-spot.

He raised his arm and motioned across the small bay with his hand. 'You can stay, if you like, I don't mind sharing my hideaway with you. I just came down here to get some space and think about something Professor McGonagall told me I had to do.'

Her eyebrows went up at that, and she gave him a somewhat wry smile. 'Thank you, Potter, that is very generous of you. I don't mind sharing my hiding-spot with you, either. May I ask what has you so rattled about your talk to Professor McGonagall?'

Harry shrugged. 'You may. It's not like it will stay a secret for long, people will find out soon and have fun with it.' He took a deep breath. 'She told me I had to find a date for the Yule Ball and open the dance with her. You see where my problem is?'

'Oh.' Greengrass' eyes went wide, and she nodded. 'Crystal clear. With your reputation, you'd have a hard time finding a girl that would listen to you and not run away at your mere sight.' She ended the sentence with a small chuckle.

Phrased like this, his predicament sounded rather funny, and he joined her laughter. 'Precisely. I already thought about explaining that to Professor McGonagall and asking her to be my date for the ball.'

That had her laugh out loud. 'I wish I could see that!'

The laughter blew away his last misconceptions about the "Ice Queen". She was a girl easy to talk to, someone you could have fun with, just like Hermione—

A pang went through Harry at the thought of his best friend. No, not like Hermione, Hermione had abandoned him and refused to talk to him these days. Maybe Greengrass would turn on him, too, but for the time being, it was nice to enjoy her company. She'd made him laugh. There hadn't been a reason for laughter for him ever since Halloween, so maybe it was time to return the favour and help her with whatever sent her to this place and made her cry?

He cleared his throat. 'Uh—I couldn't help notice you are upset. Is there something I can help with?'

Her face became stony, and she looked to the ground.

Harry's heart sank. Damned, he'd bollixed up. The next moment she'd give him an icy stare, leave, and never talk to him again. He raised his hand and rubbed the back of his neck. 'I'm sorry, Greengrass, I didn't want to pry. It's just—I mean—' Heat shot into his face. Now he turned into a rambling mess on top of being an insensitive git. What must she think of him?

She raised her head and smiled. 'You're sweet, Potter.'

His face became even warmer if that was possible, and he fiddled with his tie. Gods, he must look like a beacon. Yet, something warm settled in his centre and made him sit up a bit straighter. Nobody had called him sweet before. Freakish, unworthy, cheating and dark were the words he was more accustomed to associate with himself.

Greengrass' smile softened. 'You're not used to compliments, are you?' She sighed. 'Well, neither am I. I came down here because I didn't want anyone to see how upset I was about the announcement of the ball, given that nobody will ask me out. The girls in my dorm were already ganging up to rub it in as soon as I would be back in my dorm.'

Harry's eyebrows shot up, his head jerked back in surprise, and he could barely prevent himself from gaping at her. She must take the Mickey. Greengrass was one of the prettiest girls at school, he'd heard Seamus and Dean commenting about her assets more than once. Surely the boys were already lining up to ask her out.

'Are you kidding? You're one of the prettiest girls at school, the blokes in Slytherin probably are already fighting over who gets to ask you out,' he blurted out.

Great, Potter! Now must think him one of those boys who only looked for a pretty face. The heat seemed to creep from his face down his neck and shoulders, and he looked to the ground once again.

'Thank you, Potter, it's nice of you to say that, but the boys at this school aren't interested in me, they'd rather give me a wide berth.' Her voice sounded resigned.

He raised his head and stared at her. 'That's not true! I heard Seamus and Dean talk about how pretty you are, and what they want to—' He bit on his tongue and evaded her gaze. Oops, he'd better not reveal Seamus' and Dean's fantasies about Greengrass, or she'd hex him into the next week.

Greengrass sighed. 'Oh, them. They don't count.'

Harry stiffened and pressed his lips together. 'I should have known that a Halfblood and a Muggleborn aren't good enough for a Slytherin!'

'What?' Her voice went up a notch. Her whole body stiffened, and she glared at him with icy eyes.

Ice Queen, indeed.

Harry's hand crept for his wand, just in case.

'No, that's not what I meant," she said with a vehement shake of her head. 'While it's true that my father would prefer I'll marry a Pureblood wizard one day, he doesn't insist on it. For him it's more about respecting our culture, only very few Muggleborns or Halfbloods do that. The decision with whom I want to be is up to me, and I don't care about blood status, I want a boyfriend who respects me and doesn't treat me like his property. Finnegan and Thomas don't belong to that category, I'm afraid. They don't treat us girls very nice, you know.'

She gave him an almost pleading look, the frost-bite in her eyes gone.

The tension left Harry's body, and he exhaled. For a moment, he'd been afraid she'd be what he had come to think of as typical Slytherin and share the blood prejudice that seemed to rule the house of the snakes. Her objections against Seamus and Dean, however, were based on their behaviour towards girls, and he couldn't blame her. Both of them thought they were Merlin's gift to girls.

He gave her a weak grin to show he was sorry about his misconception. 'Can't find you at fault there.'

She replied with a blinding smile, and a weight seemed to roll off his body. Crisis averted; he would have hated it if she had stormed off in a huff.

Greengrass fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. 'No Pureblood or Halfblood raised in the magical world will ever ask me out, no matter which house. Even your friend Weasley would reject me if I were ever desperate enough to ask him.' She blushed. 'Oops, sorry, I shouldn't have said that about your friend.'

'You're wrong.' Harry shook his head and dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. 'He's not my friend anymore, and I tell you, he'd jump at the chance to go out with you in a heartbeat, I've heard him talking about you.'

She tilted her head at his response as if she would like to find out more about his fall-out with Ron, but just said, 'No, he won't, he's been warned of me, just like every other boy who grew up in the magical world.'

'Huh? What are you talking about?' He frowned.

Now it was her turn to look puzzled. 'But you surely know, even though your mother was Muggleborn, your father came from a respected Pureblood family, and you are the last of the Potters. Your guardians must have told you to stay away from me.'

Harry rolled his eyes. 'I grew up with my Muggle relatives and didn't even know I was a wizard until I got my Hogwarts letter, so I don't know even half of what those who grew up in the magical world know and take for granted.'

'That explains a lot,' she said with a thoughtful nod.

'What?' He couldn't help the belligerent tone of his question. He hated to be left in the dark about what was general wizarding knowledge, but no-one ever bothered to tell him.

'That you handled the Heir of Slytherin affair and your Parselmouth abilities so poorly. You stumble through everything as if you do not know how the wizarding world is working.'

'I don't.'

'I gathered that much,' she said with a shake of her head. 'It's a shame. You, Potter, are a descendant of Ignotus Peverell, whose only child Isobel married Harold Potter in the thirteenth century. The Peverells, as everybody in the wizarding world knows, were descendants of Salazar Slytherin and inherited his knowledge of Parselmouth. Isobel Peverell was a known Parselmouth, although nobody ever dared to call her dark, given her connection to the Potters. It's generally thought that the ability to talk Parselmouth died out with Isobell. Then again, there have always been rumours about Potters who could talk Parselmouth. Ralston Potter, for example, who sat on the Wizengamot in the seventeenth century. The Potters always were a light family, so it's not surprising they kept an ability to talk Parselmouth under wraps.'

'What?' He squeaked and gaped at her, his eyes almost bulging out of his head. 'You mean, all that rubbish about me being the Heir of Slytherin in our second year, it was true?'

She tilted her head to her side and considered his words, then shook her head. 'Not likely, I think. Your ancestor Ignotus Peverell was a younger son. We know he had at least two older brothers. One of them is at the bottom of the Gaunt line, which is supposed to have died out in the thirties. However, there was a daughter who is rumoured to have run away, and nobody knows what became of her. There's very little known about the second Peverell brother, so there are likely descendants of the two older brothers out there whose claims are more valid than yours. Also, Ignotus could have had older sisters who were never mentioned in the old records.' She winked at him. 'Sorry, Potter, but I think this claim to more fame for you is slim.'

Harry laughed. 'Well, that's a relief.' He narrowed his eyes at her. 'That's all nice to know about my family, Greengrass, and expect me to ask more questions in the future, but you evaded my question. Why won't nobody ask you out for the ball?'

'You miss little, do you?' She cast him a resigned look. 'It's because of that damned curse, of course.'

'Huh?'

'Your eloquence is beyond comparison.' She shot him a small smile to take the sting out of her words. 'Come on, Potter, even you must have heard about the horrible Greengrass Curse, as it is called these days, although it comes from my maternal grandmother.'

Instead of an answer, he just shook his head.

'It happened when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother. There was that wizard, Samael Selwyn. He'd been one of my grandmother's suitors but she rejected him in favour of my grandfather on my mother's side.' Greengrass looked out onto the lake while she spoke. 'Samael didn't take kindly to that, even after their marriage he tried to persuade my grandmother to leave my grandfather and hook up with him. He was out of his mind when my grandmother was pregnant with her first child and cursed her in the middle of the street. The curse was meant to kill the baby, but my grandmother's magic somehow took the brunt of it and my mother survived, although she was always ailing. When she reached puberty, the healers advised her never to have children. While she could deliver a child, the pregnancy would kill her in the long run. Even worse, the curse upon her would carry to a daughter and the daughter's daughter, and so on. The healers couldn't find a cure against the curse, either, since it was old Selwyn family magic.' She still didn't look at him, and her shoulders had slumped.

Harry gasped. What a horrible thing to do. 'So, they want nothing to do with you because you carry that curse?'

'Yes, and no.' Greengrass sighed and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. 'When my dad fell in love with my mum, she told him about the curse. He didn't care, he loved her so much that he couldn't imagine his life without her. However, when they married, they agreed that my mother could never bear a child. My dad needed an heir of his blood, so they found a way around that. A Muggleborn surrogate mother who looked very much like my mum conceived and carried me, with my dad as the natural father.'

'Wow!' Harry tried to wrap his thoughts around that. Greengrass' story sounded like something out of the soap operas Aunt Petunia loved to watch on the telly. 'Then, why are they giving you a wide berth? You don't carry that curse.'

'It's simple, they don't believe it.' Greengrass shrugged and turned her head to finally look at him. 'Two years after my birth the unthinkable happened, mum became pregnant with my sister Astoria. Mum refused an abortion, the damage was done, anyway, and I think she hoped for a boy. However, it was another daughter, and mum died shortly after giving birth. Astoria is the one who carries the curse, but since we both take after our dad and she looks like my spitting image, the whole wizarding world believes we have both the same mother.'

'I see,' he said with a thoughtful nod.

'Besides, my parents never advertised that I was carried and delivered by a Muggleborn woman they had hired for that task, considering the Greengrass family is supposed to belong to the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and are doing a lot of business with the—uh—more traditionalist families.'

Harry snorted. 'Is that an euphemism for alleged former Death Eaters and Pureblood Supremacists?'

Her face pinked, and she gave a sheepish nod. 'Yeah. Sorry about that, Potter. Our family business is the import and trade of magical luxury goods, like Acromantula silk or rare magical artefacts. You won't find many Muggleborns or first-generation-Purebloods who have the gold for that. In the wizarding world, the gold is with the old families, and they are almost all Purebloods.'

He acknowledged that with a nod of his head. There were still a few things around the Greengrass Curse he didn't understand.

'Why do magical parents warn their sons to stay away from you? Even if you had the curse, you could always decide not to have children, or adopt one, or do what your parents did.'

Greengrass sighed. 'It's because there are so few of us. Magical families don't have many children, one or two are the rule. There's also a great number of Squibs among them. It is of great importance for the old families to reproduce and hand the family magic to an heir, preferably a male one, and have a daughter as a bargaining chip for alliances with other families. So, choosing a spouse who is not only fertile but will bear healthy magical children is of utmost importance for them. The curse Samael Selwyn cast on my grandmother made sure the Greengrass family will never again have healthy daughters, and he made sure the whole magical world knew about it. It was his way to get back at my grandfather.'

'Nice fellow.' Harry made a face. His thoughts were racing as a plan of how to help them both out of their predicament formed in his head. His heart jumped in his throat and stayed there, thumping hard. How would she take his idea?

'Greengrass, do you want to be my date for the Yule Ball?'

Her face lit up and became stony again the next second. 'Are you asking me out of pity?' she asked, her voice laced with suspicion, and her hand fingered her wand.

'What?' His stomach lurched. Merlin, she wouldn't hex him the next second, would she? 'No, of course not!' he hurried to say. 'It just looks that we're in the same boat, both of us not likely to find a date for the ball and in for more ridicule from our classmates for that. I just thought we could help each other out and show them.'

Her face softened. 'Oh.' There was a slight pause, then she smiled. 'I'd love to be your date for the ball, Potter. As friends, of course.'

An avalanche went off his chest, and he reciprocated her smile. 'Of course, I wouldn't have expected anything else.' As if a smart and beautiful girl like Greengrass would ever consider being his girlfriend.

'Then that's settled.' Her smile deepened. 'Won't you call me Daphne? Friends don't call each other by their last names.'

'Certainly, Daphne, but only if you call me Harry.'

She chuckled. 'I think I can manage—Harry.' Her smile faded, she gave him a fleeting side glance and fiddled again with the hem of her sleeve. 'I don't know about you, but I enjoyed your talk, so would you mind doing this again?'

'I'd love to.' He couldn't help the broad grin that appeared on his face.

'Brilliant!'

She looked at the silver watch pinned to her robes. 'I'm afraid we'll have to return to the castle, afternoon classes will start soon. See you in the library after dinner, Harry? You'll find me at the very back of the library, there are a few alcoves with tables for studying built into the walls. Few students ever go there because the light is so poor.'

His heart made a happy somersault. 'I'll be there.'

The End

*Taken almost verbatim from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter 22, and slightly adjusted to fit into my story.