As expected, the news of Harry being a Campione was spreading like wildfire, the news being passed around in panic and disbelief.
What began among the Wizengamot Lords had now reached every corner of the magical world in a mere few hours.
Parents were sending frantic owls to their children at Hogwarts, warning them, and letters to get close to the tyrant king if they could, to help their families.
News of that was spreading everywhere, and then there was news that the two greatest Dark Wizards of the age, Grindelwald and Voldemort, had died in a fight with Dumbledore.
It seemed these past few days, news after news, it was nothing but shocking revelations one after the other. The war people were preparing for with the return of Voldemort had ended before anyone even knew what happened, and now, before people started to even start celebrating, news that the Boy-Who-Lived was a campione dropped, and now it was chaos.
What else could it be if not chaos. Chaos everywhere. The myths they had grown up with, the scary stories told to their children, were apparently true, and now one of theirs, a wizard, was one of these monsters. Nobody could be blamed for freaking out.
Hogwarts was in chaos.
The Gryffindors were stunned and strangely proud, the Ravenclaws were frantically debating the mythological and historical precedents of God-slayers, looking for anything and everything they could find out about them, and the Hufflepuffs were mostly just terrified.
But for Slytherin, the news was not just shocking, it was soul crushing for a lot of them, those whose families had once again put their faith in the dark lord.
They had placed their faith and their families' futures on the promise of the Dark Lord's ultimate victory, of a return to absolute Pureblood dominance. Now, that promise was dust, Albus Dumbledore had defeated the dark lord and crushed those hopes, and if that wasn't bad enough, one of their greatest enemy, the sole reason the dark lord failed in the first war, Harry Potter, was now a Campione.
The Slytherin common room was, for the first time in memory, louder and rowdier than Gryffindor's. Shock, confusion, and underneath all that, fear mixed into a storm of anxious chatter.
The Dark Lord was dead, and now, their supposed enemy, the Gryffindor golden boy, was revealed to be a Campione. How were they supposed to take this news.
Draco Malfoy sat motionless, paler than Daphne had ever seen him. He looked like a statue carved from stone, slumped heavily into a velvet armchair. He was trying his hardest to appear nonchalant, a pitiful defense mechanism, but the cold sweat beading on his temples betrayed him.
His world had just ended thrice. His father was gone, his master was dead, and now, the boy he had mocked and antagonized for five years was a god slayer.
Draco's mind was a frantic, useless loop, everything he had ever been taught about power and lineage was now meaningless before the reality of a Campione.
For him who had all but spent nearly every waking moment in Hogwarts looking for Potter's trouble, he may have well have signed his death sentence long ago.
"Holy mother of Merlin," Tracy Davis breathed out beside Daphne, her own face reflecting a mix of shock and morbid fascination. Her voice was barely a squeak.
Daphne couldn't even bring herself to respond. Her normally composed, unreadable expression was gone, replaced by complex turmoil of emotions. A Campione. Harry. Her Harry. Her boyfriend was a Campione. The revelation felt more like the floor dropping out from beneath her reality. She was dating a god slayer.
Tracy, always observant and prone to teasing even in the face of serious situations, elbowed her gently. "I'm guessing he never told you," she whispered, the corner of her mouth twitching.
Daphne quickly composed herself, her face snapping back into that familiar, elegant mask of indifference. She shot Tracy a glacial glare that promised swift, unpleasant retribution. "I just asked," Tracy whispered, raising her hands in surrender and retreating slightly. "Geez, can't even try to joke when the world is ending."
Daphne sighed internally, her exterior remaining granite. She looked back down at the letter in her hand, her mother's letter. It had started innocently enough, asking how she and Astoria were doing, then moved to the triple deaths of the wizard titans. But it ended with the part that had made Daphne freeze, that Harry Potter was a Campione, and the grave warning, Stay clear of him, Daphne. Do not draw his attention. House Greengrass does not need to be entangled with a campione, stay away from the eye of the storm.
Daphne's fingers tightened on the parchment, crumpling the fine paper. Stay clear of him. Her mother's advice, while rational, was completely useless. Too late for that. She was practically dating the storm itself.
Quite the irony.
She wasn't sure how to feel. Surprised? Definitely, how could she not be. A sense of hurt settled in her chest because he hadn't told her. But angry? No. They hadn't been dating that long, and it would have been monumentally stupid for him to spill this world-shattering secret to anyone, let alone her, when they just got together.
Still, she couldn't help but feel slighted, but that was natural.
She wanted to rush out, find him, and demand a conversation, an explanation from the boy who gave her smiles and worried about her when they were together. But he wasn't in Hogwarts, she knew that, she was sure of it.
People were looking for him everywhere, but she knew her boyfriend was not in the castle. He hadn't said anything, but after not seeing him for a while and things started going like how they had happened before when he vanished, she knew he wasn't in the castle.
She sighed. She would have to wait. And when he came back, he owed her a long, arduous conversation, followed by a very expensive and apologetic date for leaving her without so much as a word. She allowed herself a brief, internal pout at the thought of the chaos.
"Daphne!"
Astoria's voice, bright and far too loud, snapped her out of her thoughts. Her little sister came rushing at her, a huge, delighted, and utterly unconcerned smile plastered on her face.
"How could you not tell me your boyfriend was a Campione!?" Astoria shouted, the sheer volume and content of the sentence drawing immediate attention.
Daphne didn't need to look around to know that every single eye in the common room, from the paralyzed Draco to the prefects themselves, was now pinned on her.
"I didn't know I had to tell you everything about my boyfriend," Daphne said coolly, her tone like ice. She didn't want to have a conversation like this here, but it seemed Astoria was not going to allow her to just end the conversation there.
"Oh, come on, Daphy, don't be like that," Astoria pleaded, plopping down beside her and shaking her arm like a persistent house-elf. "Tell me everything! You've already been making sure that I don't get to meet him!"
"Yes, please tell us more about your boyfriend, Greengrass," Pansy Parkinson's voice interrupted, cutting in with a tone too sweet.
"I'm sure a lot of us want to know more about him. For clarity's sake, naturally." Her voice was laced with a forced, sickly sweetness.
Astoria fought a visible scowl. Pansy's stupid interference was enough to make her sister close up immediately. Daphne's expression cooled further, her eyes locking onto Pansy.
"If you're that lonely, Parkinson, why don't you get yourself a boyfriend so that you don't need to be interested in others' relationships?" she said flatly, looking at Pansy with utter disdain.
Pansy scowled, looking ready to argue, but Zabini leaned in, his expression one of diplomacy. "Come on, Greengrass. We're all just interested in Potter, that's all. Knowing a campione is here, in Hogwarts, is something big after all, you just can't leave us hanging like this." Blaise's tone helps a bit of edginess.
"I can, and I will," Daphne said, pulling out a book as if the most pressing issue was reading about Ancient Runes.
Astoria quickly snatched the book from her. Daphne gave her a death glare, but her sister only smiled, refusing to back down.
"Please," Astoria tried again, her voice softening. "I know it's none of our business—"
"Yes, it's none of your business," Daphne cut in.
"—buuuuttt," Astoria continued, ignoring her. "Would it really be a bad thing to know more from you? Just… a little context?"
Even Theodore Nott, the normally quiet boy who preferred to remain unnoticed in his corner, moved closer, a genuinely intense look of curiosity on his face. "I would admit I am interested too and wish to know more," he said softly. "The historical accounts of Campiones are always filtered through fear. It's said that they have never been a wizard who has ever become a campione in the stories, so this is fascinating." His eyes were wide with hunger.
That was true, from all the stories of campione, they had never been a wizard who became a campione, that was one of the reasons people didn't really believe in them, after all, a muggle killing a god, what utter nonsense that was.
Daphne looked around the ring of faces surrounding her. They were desperate, clinging to her, the girlfriend of the campione, the king's queen if you will, as their only way for information.
Even Malfoy was keeping a close eye, they all wanted to know, yet...she could not see the normal Slytherin pressure that they would normally have tried to apply to someone when the house wanted something from an individual. Guess they were afraid of what would happen if they tried that with her.
She snorted in her head.
She sighed, the drama of the situation finally wearing her down. "What's there to tell? We only started dating not too long ago. How are you even sure I knew any of this? How are you? He would have told me anything even if I asked?" she countered, keeping her voice level.
Tracy snorted again, but this time, Astoria joined in.
Daphne raised an eyebrow, a clear warning in her eyes.
"Sorry, it's just," Tracy chuckled, struggling to control her grin. "Have you seen the way he looks at you? The way he acts around you? It's sweet, sometimes sickeningly so. I doubt he'd hide anything from you if you asked him."
"She's right, Daphy! You go all… misty-eyed when you talk about him, too," Astoria chimed in, leaning close and whispering conspiratorially, "And you smile a lot when you're with him. You're going soft, big sister. mushy, not terrifying as you used to be." She laughed at Daphne.
Her sister, who once froze a boy's bits off when he asked her out, was now acting all lovey dovey.
Daphne felt a flush creep up her neck and fought hard to suppress the involuntary, tiny smile that Tracy's comment about Harry's sweetness had provoked.
The mere thought of his earnest, green-eyed gaze was enough to momentarily melt the ice around her heart. She shot a killer glare at both of them, but they just grinned back, impervious to her usual intimidation tactics.
"The only thing terrifying right now is the sheer idiocy in this room," Daphne snapped, pushing herself up quickly. Her voice cut through the common room, silencing even the whispers in the far corners. "It wasn't my place to tell anyone, regardless of how it might affect your family's futures."
"Where are you going?" Draco spoke up, his voice sharp and demanding, finally finding his voice, a voice still laced with entitlement as if he had the right to command her to obey him. He just couldn't help himself, always acting like he was top dog, even with everything that has been happening.
"I'm going to find some peace and quiet away from the sound of your whimpering," she answered, her tone flat.
"We are not done," he shouted, trying to assert some kind of control he didn't even possess.
"I don't recall there being anything to discuss, Malfoy," she said, looking down at him with a cool disdain that made him bristle. She could see he wanted to argue, to physically stop her, as she watched his hand go for his wand, but Zabini placed a warning hand on his shoulder, quietly stopping him. Blaise seemed to have understood that provoking her now was no longer something they could do less they risk the ire of the King.
Without another word, Daphne turned and walked out, Tracy and Astoria following close behind. As they made their way through the corridors of Hogwarts, the atmosphere around the school was very different from usual.
The usual hustle of students was replaced by hushed whispers. Students from other houses, even older students, stared at Daphne. They seemed to have concluded that she wasn't just Daphne Greengrass anymore.
She was Harry Potter's girlfriend, and that alone gave her a massive reputation.
She ran her hands over her temples, embracing the inevitable headache that would no doubt be plaguing her for the rest of the day or even days.
Harry had better come back soon and bring something to soothe her, because he was causing her problems even when he wasn't here, and she intended to be paid back with a nice date and more when he returned.
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