A/N: A character sketch of sorts. Not exactly uplifting.

(I changed the rating from T to M for later drabbles and one-shots which are dark and have sexual references, strong language and triggers. Warnings have been placed -I hope appropriately- but let me know if there's anything I should add.)

Daphne Greengrass.

Pureblood, Sacred Twenty-Eight and heiress to a fortune.

She was elegant, sophisticated, grace itself. Her hair was like spun gold, her eyes the clearest blue, and her skin was smooth porcelain. She was a princess, she was perfection but most of all, she was untouchable.

Or so she'd thought.

As it turned out, there was more to life then tea parties, balls, small talk and money. There were grades to think about, allegiances to make, power balances to consider and a war looming ahead. A war she'd never asked for, yet somehow had found herself swept up into the middle of it all the same.

Well, she wasn't completely blameless, she hadn't exactly resisted… but that didn't matter now. She couldn't possibly have foreseen what would happen, how awful it would get. No one could have done.

She'd seen horrible things, things that kept her tossing and turning at night, things that plagued her mind – her ears- with deafening shrieks and twisted screams, things that conjured malformed silhouettes that danced on the walls, here one second, gone the next. Yes, she'd seen such terrible things, torture, murder, abuse, people falling apart, breaking down, drifting away – she had seen it all. She'd watched it unfold, stood back and done nothing.

Sometimes she was sure she'd gone insane. Other times the remorse and guilt she felt would come pounding down on her, threatening to swallow her whole.

What a cruel irony, she thought, that she was suffering alone. Like so many, she was a prisoner in her own mind. Her pain was, she felt, just. She'd caused so much agony and loss, wasn't it only fair that she should suffer the same fate in solitude?

Fate.

An interesting idea. You could say that it means some omnipotent force that controls your life, but that's not exactly right.

No, Daphne had seen enough to know that there was more to fate than passive inactivity. Fate was not set, in her mind. There were too many possibilities, too many little factors that could have changed the course of events. Factors that could have changed everything.

Besides, to believe in fate to such a point where everything that happens is inevitable and has nothing to do with your actions was wrong. It took the blame away from perpetrators, from people who could have – who should have- stood up and done something, anything.

But certain things were down to chance, certainly.

Daphne Greengrass was born a Pureblood, Sacred Twenty-Eight and heiress to a fortune.

She'd never asked for it but it was thrust upon her anyway. So she held her head high, because she was elegant, sophisticated, grace itself. Her hair was like spun gold, her eyes the clearest blue, and her skin was smooth porcelain. She was a princess, she was perfection but most of all, she was untouchable.

Untouchable because she was no longer naïve, because not everything is down to chance, but most of all, terribly, because she'd survived.