246 Chapter 246: Of Curious Herbs

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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27 August 1994, Greengrass Manor, Greenwich

Daphne Greengrass laid in her bed and completely refused to come out for breakfast. Because going out meant acknowledging what was coming.

To say she was nervous would have been an understatement. She was nervous for almost a whole week. Why hadn't she fought this more? Why hadn't she put a stop to her parents' obvious schemes to embarrass her?

Her younger sister, Merlin curse her, was practically skipping all over the manor, absolutely gleeful at the evening ahead. She wanted to hex her so badly, and it was only her parents' disapproving, yet amused looks, that stopped her. That and the fact that it was rare to see the younger girl with so much energy.

Someone knocked on her door, and Daphne ignored it. She was safe in her bed. Nothing could touch her there…

Unfortunately, whoever knocked did not seem to be deterred, "Daphne Greengrass, I don't care what you say, but you will not spend the entire morning in bed."

The blonde flinched at the sound of her mother. Out of her two parents, Anastasia Greengrass was, by far, the scarier one. Her father was often calm, his anger turned into cold fire. He could be cruel, even to his own family. However, as long as they did not damage the 'family name' and ruin the 'Greengrass legacy', he often didn't care at all. He was one of those very traditional wizards who never truly let go of the fact that they weren't nobles anymore.

She had learned that when she was very young. Cyrus Greengrass did not care about them, not truly. Daphne, as his 'heiress' – Merlin, that sounded pretentious – had seen his true priorities. He cared for only one thing, and that was for the Greengrass family to improve, to become a synonym of power.

He was doing a good job politically, gaining significant influence over the conservative faction of the Wizengamot, and his company was often regarded as one of the major producers of high-quality potion ingredients in the country.

He had hoped to make a few international deals during the Quidditch World Cup, but that quickly fell through with the attacks. He had been very angry that day.

She was never able to truly able to unravel her father. Her mother often told her that he cared, he simply did not know how to express that. It was just very hard to see or notice.

Daphne knew that he loved them, in his own way, she knew that. He had proven that in the Quidditch World Cup, creating a giant forest and fighting off hordes of vampires, hoping that they would return. She did not know if it was under an obligation or affection, but she hoped it was the latter.

Nevertheless, she loved him. He was still her father, but she disliked his ambitions and his priorities, especially after he gave up on Astoria.

Her mother, though, she loved completely with all her heart. Because she cared enough for both of them. Speaking of her mother, she opened the door to her room and entered it without a care to the world, "Daphne. It's almost noon."

Yes, if there was one way to describe Anastasia Greengrass, it would be that she was caring. She had the common Scandinavian look, being ice pale as ice, with beautiful golden wavy hair behind her. It was what Daphne loved the most about her own look, the fact that she inherited her mother's hair.

Still, that didn't mean that she would leave her bed, "I don't want to…"

"Stop being childish right now. You don't want a repeat of what happened last time you didn't leave your room, do you?"

Just like that, Daphne jumped out of bed. Yeah, her mother cared, but she was also ruthless. One time, Astoria had pranked Daphne by changing her hair to bright glowing red. She had refused to leave her room, but they had a few guests coming. Her mother had literally created a small ice age in her room until Daphne finally came out. The sad part is the fact that the ice did not melt for almost a week and her mother refused to do it for her, claiming that the lesson would stick better if it all went away naturally.

"I'm up! I'm up!"

"Good," her mother replied while smiling warmly at her, "We'll need to prepare you to impress your little crush, after all."

"He is not my crush," Daphne replied while blushing.

"Oh, Daph dear, just stop pretending. Astoria knows. I know. Your friends know. Hell, even your father knows."

The younger witch did not dignify that with a response. Maybe she had a tiny crush on her friend, one she had for years… Honestly, it was hard not to. He was the first person who really cared, who listened to her dreams and did not dismiss them. Even her mother looked at her in pity when she told her of her ambition of becoming a healer. She saw it for what it was, a desperate attempt to save Astoria. No one thought that she could do it. No one but Harry.

And now, her family had invited him to the Manor as thanks for ensuring their safety during the Quidditch World Cup.

She did not know if her father had sent the invitation out of true gratitude or the network with the ward of Arcturus Black, but her mother and sister had jumped at the opportunity.

Daphne sincerely hoped that they wouldn't show her baby photos.

Her mother's look turned warm, "Tell you what, I'll ask the house elves to bring your breakfast to your bedroom. This way, we'll have more time to work on your outfit."

Daphne smiled slightly, "Thank you, Mum."

"Now, Snowflake, I think it's time for you to really tell me about Harry."

She gave her mother a curious look, "I thought you already knew everything…"

"I know what other people say about him. I know he's a brilliant young man, obviously ambitious, and that he had personally rebuilt his family fortune in just a couple of years. I know that he and Dumbledore did not like each other and that he's cheeky enough to embarrass the man in his own tournament. But all that tells me is what he did, not who he really is or why you like him."

The younger witch tilted her head, "There's a lot more to Harry than people think, I guess. People always see the prodigy, but they rarely ever see the motivations behind them. He doesn't really crave power or want to rule anything. His main goal is to be remembered and to explore magic as much as possible. Somehow, he always knows when I feel bad and comes to comfort me. He knows exactly what I need and when I need it."

Her mother looked at her sceptically, "That sounds a little too perfect, Daphne. In my experience, men rarely are."

"Oh, he's not perfect, not by a long shot. He's secretive, like a lot, but sometimes it's not him hiding anything, he just forgets to tell people. He always assumes that you're keeping up with him. He can be very pragmatic and not care about other people's feelings. As much as he doesn't like to admit it, he's very prideful, especially when it comes to his intelligence. He likes to lord it over others if they're being antagonistic towards him, humiliate them using their own words, and so on… But he's also very loyal. Did you know that the whole mess with Dumbledore snowballed because of me?"

"How so?"

The younger witch shrugged, "He was a little hands-off with the whole Chamber of Secrets thing. He knew more than he liked but chose to trust Dumbledore to deal with it. Until I was petrified, that is. He dropped all forms of anonymity, just went down to the Chamber of Secrets, killed the beast and defeated whoever was responsible, giving Dumbledore the opportunity and motivation to go after Harry, which led to the Guardianship Hearing, and then the tournament… Harry sacrificed his own anonymity, something that he treasured immensely, for me."

Daphne's mother's eyes were widened after the confession. She had never told her mother this, but for some reason, she wanted to show her just how good Harry really was. The Greengrass Matriarch then snickered slightly, "Oh, that almost sounds like a romance novel dear. Tell me, what do you do together, when it's just the two of you?"

"We started learning curse-breaking together. I wanted it mostly to understand Astoria's condition, but I've grown to like it. Sometimes, we duel each other. Sometimes, we just stay near the Black Lake, lay down under the shade of a nearby tree, and just talk…"

She did not mention that Daphne had progressed so much in her curse-breaking that she sent Astoria a bracelet charmed to reduce the progression of any curses on a person. It was her seventh iteration of the seventh charm she tried. She often broke into her sister's room during the night and analysed the curse.

Blood curses were very rare, to say the least. She hadn't found much about them, just a few theoretical works on their progression. One of the papers held a fascinating charm about analysing blood curses and creating data points to see how they worked.

However, while Blood curses were finicky and very weird, they were curses in the end. There were a lot of charms to halt the progressions of a curse's effect, and Daphne often tried them out on her sister in the middle of the night and analysed the effects of the curse. She had found, oddly enough, that the druidic spell that was created to stop people from being forcefully transformed into a tree, had slowed down the blood curse marginally and so did the measures against curses that siphoned magic. She was able to combine the effects after some effort, and her seventh iteration seemed to work wonders.

She had tried it on her sister, and the curse, while still growing, halted significantly. She had not told anyone about this, not her sister, not her parents, not even Harry. She had simply charmed a bracelet like Harry told her to, infused it with the spell, and gave it to her sister, asking her to never take it off.

The effects were not immediate, but Astoria had more energy. Her magical education improved very quickly, and she had even made a few friends.

It wasn't anywhere near enough to cure her, but she had bought her sister years, maybe even decades of life. That was enough of a first step in her books, and the evidence of true progress toward her dream was more than motivating enough…

Daphne's thoughts were broken by her mother's laughter, "Oh, I have a feeling that this young boy is probably as enamoured with you as you are with him."

The younger witch blushed but did not reply. She hoped that this would be true.

Of course, her mother had to ruin it by continuing, "Of course, I'll make my full judgement during the evening. After all, I need to be sure he's worthy of you, my dear."

"Mum!" she yelled out in mortification before steeling her expression, "He might not even like me."

"Then he's an idiot and I'll freeze him solid."

Daphne snorted, "He's definitely not an idiot, and he taught himself ice elemental magic a while back. He's probably as good, or even better at it than you. He even taught me the basics. It's why I did so well in the duelling tournament."

Her mother stiffened and Daphne grimaced when she realized why she did. Her mother was under the impression that it was her own inherent gift that made Daphne so skilful at using ice magic. It had contributed, of course, but it came mostly from Harry's tutoring. Learning true elemental magic, the way she did, without a magic crest was almost unheard of. The time required to recreate every possible half-spell, which would be combined into true manipulation, would have taken decades of work at the very least. Harry had done it in years.

The older witch had probably thought that it was an odd mutation between her own crest and her husbands that modified itself in their daughter. It did happen if the two crests were dominant and there were no other heirs. Shards of the crest of each parent sort of included itself in the one their child would inherit.

It was the only reason why political marriages could be considered in very rare cases. It was often seen as barbaric and cruel for the children, but no one said anything when their offspring held a crest far more powerful than either of their parents.

Her mother's response was almost robotic, "I want you to marry that boy."

"WHAT?" Daphne screeched.

Her mother blushed slightly in embarrassment, "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

She did not have any time to say anything further because, that was when her sister yelled out from across the room, "Daphne! Harry's here."

What in Merlin's name was this timing?

She couldn't help but feel some trepidation about the gleam in her mother's eyes. This evening was doomed to end in nothing but her embarrassment, wasn't it?

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.