Daphne shrugged the covers off her bed as she slowly rose up to begin another day of her seemingly endless sixth year at Hogwarts...the year all her future plans had officially gone sideways.

Her family had always walked a delicate tightrope, remaining as neutral as possible in the insipid and pointless wizarding wars over the last two centuries. The Greengrass goals were simple in concept but complicated to maintain: continue to enjoy the societal benefits that come along with upholding the pureblood traditions while simultaneously reaping the financial benefits of doing business with muggles.

It was her great, great, great grandfather who had been smart enough to recognize the muggle advancements taking place during the industrial revolution. Muggle processes consistently improved his ability to buy low from the muggles and sell high to wizards not interested in dealing with boring non-magical necessities such as foodstuffs, clothing, and building materials. Slowly but surely the business grew. And grew. And grew.

The muggles continued to advance as the wizarding world, if anything, stubbornly regressed. Muggle advancements were leveraged over the last 150 years to make the Greengrass family one of the richest wizarding families in England. Her family had hit on the perfect economic storm of consistently reduced costs with no need to significantly reduce their own sales prices.

Her parents' plan had been laid out to her at an early age. Go to Hogwarts and be the paragon of pureblood supremacy outwardly but quietly. Carry yourself with impeccable manners and focus on your studies and leave the loud posing and posturing to the pureblood idiots that her family profited from. Whether she actually became proficient at magic for practical purposes was irrelevant in the big picture. Her crucial practical learning would take place during holiday breaks and through owl post as her father imparted the real family magic: business acumen, emotional manipulation, and knowledge of political relationships.

So she would graduate from Hogwarts hopefully at the top of her class and join the family business, eventually taking over for her father. Her father's ultimate desire was for her to join the business and marry, in his words, a "non-idiot pureblood". Knowing those seemed to be few and far between he was willing to settle for a "non-idiot". Ultimately the choice was up to her. No awkward courting, no forced betrothals, just a non-idiot regardless of blood status. As long as Daphne was happy her father would be happy.

Daphne eagerly agreed to the plan for two reasons: She was ambitious and loved a challenge and her agreement meant her younger sister Astoria would not be burdened with any family obligations. Freeing her sister of those responsibilities was the least she could do given what Astoria was facing. Best not to think about that.

Unfortunately for Daphne the imminent war, to put it simply, had been bad for business. One need only see the closed shops strewn across Diagon Alley this past summer to see the impact of You Know Who's confirmed return last June. But the reduced profits were a minor short-term problem.

The real issue was as the war escalated the demand for clear sides to be taken by "proper purebloods" grew to a fever pitch. The number of "business meetings" her father was forced to take with respectable pureblood (Death Eater) dignitaries over the Yule holiday break made it clear how much pressure was being brought to bear. Her father was skilled enough to deal with the idiots so far but eventually, something would have to give. Her family was in desperate need of another "Potter miracle" - her father's words again, not hers - to send Voldemort away, hopefully permanently this time. Hoping for another one-year-old baby to banish the dark lord did not seem to be the most prudent of strategies and if the sixteen-year-old Potter really was "The Chosen One" he needed to stop dallying and get to it.

She was broken out of her thoughts as a pillow forcefully struck her head. She turned her head to see her best friend Tracey Davis' annoyed expression. "You're worrying about things you can't change again aren't you?"

"Of course not," she replied automatically before another pillow made contact.

"All right fine," Daphne answered resignedly as she stood up. "I can't help it and you know this yet you continue with the pillow throwing."

She headed toward the bathroom door before yet another pillow landed, this time to the back of her head. "What. was. that. for." she gritted out, too tired and too tense to deal with the nonsense.

"Fun?" Tracey said with a shrug. "Things are very tense these days you know and it's important to always have fun when one can," she continued on with a smirk as she pulled her hair back in a loose ponytail. "Now stop brooding and get ready. I'm hungry."

After getting ready she and Tracey headed to the Great Hall for breakfast as she always did, posture perfect, head held high and straight ahead, pointedly ignoring the glances of the male students which seemed to grow every year. It was a new participant in the staring that had piqued Daphne's interest recently.

"He's doing it again," Tracey said quietly as they sat down and began to fill their plates. Daphne glanced up discreetly to confirm the 'he' in question was who she suspected: The Chosen One himself Harry Potter.

When she noticed his gaze on her the first time several weeks ago she had been taken by surprise as he had seemingly never been interested before. Throughout her first five years at school, Potter had always seemed too bewildered, angered, depressed or focused on other things to spend time sussing out pretty girls. On the rare occasion where he was distracted he blatantly gawped at Chang. Most of his staring at the Slytherin table this year had been spent subtly observing Draco. Between her sister and Potter, she wasn't sure who watched Draco more.

The most peculiar bit was that the looks he gave her were nothing like she was used to. There was no gaze of longing or of want...just a dispassionate evaluation of her. It was as if she was an arithmancy problem to be solved.

Although she was loathed to admit it Potter was one of the few boys at Hogwarts she wouldn't mind looking at her that way. Was she really interested in Potter or only interested because he didn't seem interested? She had no clue. Hormones were confusing.