DPASW: The Foundation of Power

Interlude - Daphne Goes Down to the Village

Daphne Greengrass stared at the parchment-work in front of her. Her bedroom desk groaned under it. Some of it was important. Some of it was useless, and quickly found its way into the bin beside her. But most of it occupied the frustrating space in-between — probably too important to throw away, but probably not important enough to read — and impossible to tell one way or the other without committing oneself and possibly getting it wrong.

Outside her open window, soft, fluffy clouds melted into blue summer sky. Birdsong gently tweeted away in nearby trees. A faint breeze ruffled the lush grasses, wafting up through the window and playing with a long strand of Daphne's blonde hair, flicking it this way and that — a constant reminder that she was in here and not out there.

Daphne hooked the errant strand around her ear. "Milly!"

A small, female house elf popped into being beside her. She wore the Greengrass house elf uniform — a neatly pressed tea towel emblazoned with the Greengrass crest. "Yes, Mistress Daphy?"

"Has there been any word from Harry?"

"No, Mistress Daphy. There has been no more word from Lord Slytherin since last time you asked."

Daphne sighed. "Thank you, Milly."

Milly nodded and popped away.

Daphne stared, once again, at the piles of parchment in front of her.

Urgh.

She glanced at the perfect weather outside and then back at the pile of parchment again, then back to the open window.

It called to her. The outside — it called to her in a voice she knew well — the call to adventure — to explore. She'd had just about as much of the parchment-work as she could take.

Daphne turned and her gaze fell on the fluffy snake Harry had given her during the winter festival, still coiled around her bedpost. The toy snake met her gaze and tilted its head as though in question.

But Harry wasn't here right now. He was off — somewhere — doing Lord Slytherin stuff — and without him she was stuck inside, bound to the familiar — to those places she already knew well — the manor, Diagon Alley, her friend's houses, those places with a friendly floo connection — those places to which the only journey was a boring ten to fifteen minute whirring about inside a bland grey pipe.

Daphne returned to the parchment and was halfway through reading the latest update on the mandrake supply crisis when she snapped, threw the parchment down, pushed her chair back, and stomped over to the window.

Why!?

Daphne stared out over the forest that protected Greengrass Manor.

Why? She'd done so much in her first year at Hogwarts — had battled a troll and tangled with the dark lord. She and Hermione had helped Harry break past the best defences Albus Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel could devise, and would have succeeded in claiming the philosopher's stone, if Flamel hadn't used a fake. Why then, was she sitting here like a delicate flower, waiting for an escort from her future husband? Was she so weak that she couldn't even conceive of doing something as simple as... as even stepping outside the manor's front gate?

The thought stilled her. Harry had taken her to the moors of Dartmoor and the forests of Brazil. She'd flown across Scotland and travelled under the North-Sea in a muggle-built magical submarine. But just beyond that front gate was almost unknown territory — unknown territory, which she at least knew contained a muggle-cum-magic village that she couldn't ever remember visiting.

Daphne nodded to herself. That's what she was going to do. She was going to go down to explore the village — to find out what was there for herself. She was old enough. She had wandless magic. She could protect herself. There had to be loads of other wizarding children her age that did it all the time. There was absolutely no reason why she couldn't.