Snape and Lily's daughter

Slytherin captain

At the end of breakfast the other day, as Grace was leaving the Hall, Harry ran into her.

"Grace, can I talk to you?" Harry asked.

He was with Ron and Hermione.

"Sure."

She already knew what he wanted to talk to her about. The three of them followed the corridors until they found an empty room.

The four of them followed the corridors until they found an empty room.

"Malfoy is a Death Eater." Harry said.

The three of them stared at her, expecting a reaction of surprise or something.

"You already knew, didn't you?" Hermione spoke.

"Yes... Please don't tell anyone about this. He specially asked me not to." Grace said.

Harry seemed to be really angry with Grace. "How can you still go out with him after all this? Our mother was killed by one of them, Grace."

"I-I know..." she said, now starting to cry. "But you wouldn't understand. He is not doing any of this because he wants to. He had no other choice. If you knew a little bit more about his family, you, I mean, you would all understand. It's the only way he can protect his family."

Hermione was the first to hug Grace as soon as the girl started to cry.

"Please, I just ask you to try to understand. Everything he is doing is out of obligation. He never wanted any of this." Grace begged.

It would be the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Snape as teacher. Grace didn't know whether to be worried, anxious, or proud. She followed the other students into the classroom and everyone sat down.

"I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention." said Snape. "You have had four teachers in this subject so far, I believe. Naturally, these teachers will all have had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion I am surprised so many of you had good grades in this subject. I shall be even more surprised if all of you manage to keep up with the O.W.L. work."

Snape walked around the room.

"The Dark Arts," he said. "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defenses," he said, a little louder. "must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures" - he indicated a few of them as he swept past - "give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse" - he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony - "feel the Dementor's Kiss" - a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall - "or provoke the aggression of the Inferius" - a bloody mass upon ground.

"Has an Inferius been seen, then?" Stella Chandler, a Hufflepuff, asked. "Is it definite, is he using them?"

"The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past," said Snape, "which means you would be welladvised to assume he might use them again. Now..."

He set off again around the other side of the classroom toward his desk.

"This year you will learn more about the use of counter-jinxes and defensive spells. What is the difference between a counter-jinx and an anti-jinx?"

Some students raised their hands.

"Very well - Miss MacDougal?"

"An anti-jinx is a type of spell that prevents the effects of a jinx, and a counter-jinx is a type of counter-spell that ends the effects of a jinx." Isobel MacDougal, a Ravenclaw, answered.

Later in the week, Grace was meeting with Harry, Hermione and Ron on the Hogwarts grounds. Draco had commented that he needed to do something related to the Death Eaters, and in fact that was more why Grace was meeting with the trio.

The girl was lost in her own thoughts when she heard Hermione. "Or herself," she commented irritably. "It might have been a girl. I think the handwriting looks more like a girl's than a boy's."

"The Half-Blood Prince, he was called," Harry said. "How many girls have been Princes?"

"I'm lost. What are you talking about?" Grace asked them.

"Ah, Harry didn't have the Potions book and ended up using an old one that was already in the room. The book says it is from the Half-Blood Prince. Slughorn asked us to make the Draught of Living Death potion, only Harry from the whole room could do it." Ron explained.

"Just because he followed the instructions that the owner of the book wrote." reminded Hermione.

"And you are trying to find out who is the owner?" Grace said.

They nodded.

"Can I take a look at the book?" Grace asked.

"Of course." Harry said, handing her the book.

Grace opened the book and flipped through a few pages. When she saw the handwriting, she recognized it immediately: that book belonged to her father.

She didn't want to say anything, so she expressed no reaction and handed the book back.

"This morning we have the Quidditch tryouts!" Astoria said excitedly.

This year would be a different year, but a great year for Grace. She had become captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Coincidentally, it would be the first year that Harry would be captain of Gryffindor.

Everyone who wanted to try out for the quadribol team went to the field. Each team had a scheduled time for tryouts. Grace was the first to start tryouts. The only players remaining on the team were Crabbe and Goyle, who had replaced the beaters Derrick and Bole last year. The three would evaluate the prospective players.

First Grace asked everyone who signed up to fly a little with the broom. Those who were not used to flying were already disqualified.

As chasers, Grace chose Vaisey and Urquhart. Vaisey was a fourth-year boy, while Urquhart was also in fifth-year like Grace.

As keeper, Ella managed to surprise Grace and won a spot in the team.

And to replace Draco as seeker, Grace chose Astoria.