Bab 16: Ch 8 Uptight Ass Part 2
Daphne was late.
She was supposed to meet her sister more than an hour ago to take her out of the hospital wing, but she'd been so engrossed in a recent addition in the library named "The New Ancient Curse 3" that she had lost track of time, and now she was having to rush as fast as she could so that her sister didn't throw too much of a tantrum.
The hallways were mostly empty and she barely met any students along the way as most of them were either on the grounds soaking in the Sun or they were in their rooms packing their things so that they could depart immediately after the end-of-year feast.
And to be honest, Daphne was quite relieved that she didn't meet any of her housemates as she knew that there would be only one thing that they would want to discuss after the reveal on the front page of the Daily Prophet that morning and she was not ready to have that conversation yet...
Especially not so soon after the Fathers of many of her housemates got thrown into Azkaban as she didn't think it would be very healthy to tell them while their emotions were heightened that she still wanted to remain neutral regardless of last night's events...
So she had been cooped up in the library since before even the first one in her house had woken up so that she wouldn't get dragged into the lively discussion her housemates were surely having at the moment in the common room about who was going to join 'the group' and who would dare become a traitor to their crusade to kill all the so-called 'filth' of the wizarding world...
Sigh
There hadn't been too many times in her Hogwarts years that Daphne ever regretted not having many friends, or alliances as the Slytherins like to call it, as she did during this period... She felt that this all would have been a lot easier if she had some friends to guard her back or to take her side so that she didn't feel so... lonely.
After all, Potter had already proved that time and again that having friends was very useful. Just last night he had somehow convinced five of his fellows to go on a suicidal fight against adult Death Eaters in the Ministry...
Oh, their names hadn't been mentioned explicitly in the paper, but such was the prowess of Hogwarts rumour mill, that even before the morning paper arrived... most people had somewhat of an inkling about what the golden trio and their friends had been up to at the Ministry last night...
But alas, even if she wanted to, she knew that it was too late by now... after all, over the years she had always ignored all the offers from her housemates and her classmates to gather and mingle among like-minded people. Besides she didn't think that it would be a good conversation starter to tell them that she only wanted them so that they could be good canon fodder and take the heat off of her.
Thankfully, unlike her, Astoria was quite the happy kid and had many good friends in all the houses despite her... disadvantages.
But sadly, Daphne knew that these friendships wouldn't last very long because soon lines were going to be drawn in Hogwarts... and since most in their house were on the extreme side of how their society should be run, they would surely be forced to see things their way.
But Daphne, like her father also believed that being neutral was far safer and economically better for their family... not that they would have much of a choice in the future if things went the way that the news in the morning prophet was implying.
But in the end, she didn't care too much about it... she didn't care about the Purebloods, she didn't care about the muggles, she didn't care about the agendas or the mission from either side of the war, she didn't care that a lot of her housemates were going soon going to join the same secret group as their parents, she didn't care that most teenagers in Hogwarts were soon going to be embroiled in cruel war...
All she cared about was whether her sister and her family survived the upcoming upheaval, that's all.
She knew that the moment even a whisper of war was heard, her father would take the sisters out of Hogwarts and then out of the country without hesitation... and she agreed with him on that.
Of course, she'll be a bit sad that she wouldn't have access to the massive library of Hogwarts, or that she wouldn't get to prepare for a Mastery in Charms and Wards under Professor Flitwick, which would mean that her chances of becoming a successful Curse Breaker would become much thinner... but as long as the few people she loved were safe, she didn't care.
Finally, she reached the Hospital Wing about ten minutes later and after taking a deep breath she opened the front door.
The moment she entered, her eyes immediately went towards the only occupied bed. She could see that Granger had her eyes closed and that she was deep in sleep, probably recovering from last night's escapades, so she ignored her.
But after only taking a few steps towards her sister's bed, Daphne froze as she heard more than one voice coming out from behind the curtains.
The moment she realised that the voice was that of an older boy, Daphne immediately became alert and took out her wand... while she knew that they were quite safe inside Hogwarts and especially in the Hospital Wings...
She also knew that there were more ways to harm someone other than just the physical or magical ways.
She slowly and silently stepped closer to the curtains and just as she was about to enter, she heard her little sister's delighted laughter ringing out of the curtains... Daphne's expression became weird as Astoria sounded more joyful than she had heard in quite a while.
"Don't laugh!"
She heard the male voice say as she sneakily lifted the curtains sideway and when she saw who it was sitting on the chair beside the bed, most of the tension left her shoulders. She knew that red hair and Gryffindor were far better and easier to deal with than anyone from Slytherin, not because she thought that Gryffindor couldn't be evil if they wanted to... but because they wouldn't be too sneaky and smart about it.
While she could see that her sister was fine, Daphne still decided to be on the safe side and placed her wand on the Gryffindor's back before asking, "What is happening here?"
"Eh! Sister, you're here," Astoria said with a grin on her face as she finally stopped laughing after suddenly seeing her sister's face.
"What is Weasley doing here? Was he bothering you, Tory?" Daphne knew that Potter's red-head lackey wasn't the kind of person who was capable of doing anything wrong to children... but then again she about knew about his well-known distaste for the "Slimy Slytherins" as he called it, so she still wanted to be on the safe side.
"Hmm, let me think..." Instead of immediately helping her new friend, Astoria placed her hand under her chin and took on a thinking pose as if debating on what to answer.
"Uh...Pipsque—I mean, Astoria, this is not a joking matter," Ron gulped as he felt the distinct sensation of a wand on his back. While he knew logically that there was very little chance of the Slytherin behind him using any lethal spell on him, he also wasn't ignorant of the kind of things people here could achieve with just a piece of wood so he didn't want to take any risk, "You should quickly tell your sister and clear the misunderstanding here before..."
"But why would I do that? Weren't you very mean before, and making fun of me?" she replied in a sly tone.
But Daphne had already taken her wand off of Ron's back the moment she saw that her sister was just teasing.
"Sorry, Weasely." She nodded without a change in her expression before going to stand beside her sister's bed.
"N-No problem," Ron replied as he hurriedly got out of the chair and went to stand in front of the window before glaring at the Pipsqueak who just stuck her tongue out at him, "Um, Daphne, I was just talking with her and I didn't mean her any harm—"
"I believe you, Weasley," Daphne interrupted the Gryffindor with an indifferent expression on her face, "But I would still prefer it if you didn't talk with my sister after this."
"Oh." Ron let out with a somewhat hurt and awkward expression on his face, "You don't have to—"
"Yes, sister. Ron and I were just talking and he's—"
"Shut up, Tory," Daphne silenced her sister with a single glance before turning her ice-cold eyes towards Ron, "I am sure you understand what you and your friend's action in Ministry yesterday implies to everyone in Hogwarts... And I don't want any of my housemates to misunderstand and make it hard for my sister in Slytherin."
"I-I understand." Ron nodded his head before turning away from the green emotionless eyes of the big sister to the sad blue ones of the little one and said, "Then, I'll see you—Or I guess I won't see you...later." he said awkwardly, "Bye then." he said before leaving the Greengrass girls.
"Why did you have to be so mean, sister, he was such a funny boy and—" Ron heard from behind the once again closed curtains as he walked towards his bed.
"Shut up, Tory. And quickly pack up your things, we are leaving."
"Humph! He was completely right about you being an uptight ass."
"An uptight What?!"
Ron instantly jumped off of his bed and ran towards the bathroom... making the decision to not come out until much much later...
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