Why the long face Greengrass?
It was her Fourth Year at Hogwarts and Daphne Greengrass was already exhausted beyond limit.
One of those was the school itself.
Daphne, with a sarcastic smile on her face, made a list and categorised everything.
Hogwarts despite containing multiple unique experiences and classes, had its negatives.
- She was tired of the late-night Astronomy classes affecting her sleep schedule.
- She was tired of the constant spills of ink on her robes and essays.
- She was tired of Binns and prayed that a Muggle fanatic would find him and exorcise the Professor. (Or the actual Muggle word, Daphne was too tired of this ghost to care).
- She was tired of Peeves and wished he was also exorcised.
- She was quite tired of the presence of House Bias among the Professors, most of whom were slightly against Slytherin.
- She was quite tired of the dull decor of the dungeons, the mould festered there coming back from every removal like the headmaster's red chicken.
Daphne brushed her blonde hair from her blue eyes as her thoughts moved on from what made her tired to what made her pissed off.
- She detested how three-quarters of the entire school treated her for being in Slytherin.
- She disliked her parents for sticking to political neutrality while also being partial to the traditionalists.
- She protested them more for showing signs of favouritism to Astoria when she became 5.
- She hated how they were considering a marriage alliance with the heir of the House of Nott. Daphne didn't have anything against Theo, the guy was a nice, albeit a bit quiet friend but he had seemed to fancy Zabini more than her, which was fine because she didn't like them in that way.
- She hated Malfoy for being a loud ponce with no matters, for a Pureblood.
Daphne sighed painfully as she could hear Malfoy ranting again in the Common Room. Parkinson's wasn't any better, her pug face and shrill voice murdered her sleeping hours as the Girl's dormitory was never silent as long as Pansy was in there. Professor Snape had to come into the common room and scold everyone at 3 am. She suppressed a giggle thought, her Head of House had a very colourful sleeping hat with polka dots and a tag "From Lily" attached to it.
Where was she? Ah yes. Pansy. She and Draco were one of the main hobgoblins that were responsible for Slytherin's negative reputation. She facepalmed as both of the duo had struck a feud with BLOODY BOY WHO LIVED 4 years ago. The gossip mill was similar to Rita Skeeter's so much that Daphne thought the ring once used to be called "Skeeter's Fan Club". Parkinson's voice never stopped to remove itself from her head. Forgoing the sake of Slytherin's unified front, she even harassed her friend Tracey because Tracey was a half-blood. Given the state of her childhood, Daphne lost interest in blood-supremacist beliefs.
Daphne sighed once more as she began to think of what happened to her. She picked up an old family photograph. Her parents and her 3-year-old Astoria all happily waving at the camera. She used to be kinder, and nicer, her relatives told her she had a bright future ahead of her. Her 5-year-old listening didn't know that this couldn't be far from the truth. Daphne had become one of the top students at Hogwarts with an unmatched drive for success. She later realised that part of this was due to her house's presence.
Slytherin House had a massive interior divide caused by politics and influential families. You simply either succeded and got along with the more powerful families like Malfoy, Avery and Parkinson or face consequences. Daphne could see how it was beginning to influence her friends. Theo had been increasingly more withdrawn and thrust into ideological conversations with Malfoy, Tracey had her confidence shrunk while Zabini went from a prankster rivalling the Weasley twins up to his Second Year to being almost like Theo.
Daphne sometimes found herself lost and standing in front of the mirror in the bathrooms or even during the feast due to the silver plates. The smile marks had smoothed and almost vanished, and her pale white face, and crystalline blue eyes that betrayed no emotion earned her the moniker, 'The Ice-Queen of Slytherin'. Her looks and outfit had to be without fault and fault she remained on the outside, a statue, an icy, cold statue.
She wished that she could have been a statue, as she would have never felt such internal turmoil. Exiting the bathroom, she failed to realise that she was on a collision course with another student.