We know it only seems to affect the women of the family, since the characters it canonically impacts are Astoria Greengrass and Cereus Greengrass, and Cereus inherited it from her Father who was unaffected. Presumably Daphne Greengrass is also impacted, although seemingly to a lesser extent, meaning there is some variation in how this chronic/terminal curse impacts people. Cereus' mother, Aquila Greengrass, is also dead although that's apparently unrelated.
I tried to see if the name meanings might have anything to do with it, but Greengrass is a surname relating to agriculture, so I wasn't sure that that had much to do with it. Astoria has two possible meanings, either coming from the Latin "astor" meaning hawk, or being derived from the Greek "Asteria" meaning stars. Considering her line of the Greengrass family uses a lot of Greek names such as Daphne and Hyperion, I'm more inclined to think it relates to the Greek. Cereus' family line is a little different, since her Father's name is Gareth, and her name is Latin, specifically meaning "wax, candle". This is where we get the word "ceramic" from, I believe, although Cereus is pronounced with a K sound.
Aside from that, Asteria and Daphne do actually have something in common. They were both chased down be a God, Asteria was chased by Zeus (Dios) and Daphne was chased by Apollo (Apollon). Asteria turned herself into the Island of Delos to escape Zeus (Dios) and this is also where Apollo (Apollon) was born, along with his twin sister Artemis. Daphne was turned into the laurel tree in order to escape Apollo (Apollon). I also think it's worth noting that Skorpios, the monster Astoria names her son after, was created by Artemis with the explicit purpose of killing Orion because he wouldn't leave ladies alone and he was hurting the wilderness. He was also placed among the stars to protect the Pleiades from Orion, who wanted to get with them and that's why Orion disappears from the night sky right as Scorpius appears. So, I do think the curse probably originated from a man being upset that a woman was saying no to him.
Something else I'll note, the surprising link to Sun gods, Light gods and Cereus' name literally meaning candle. I have to assume this means the curse involves some form of burning up and/or hiding from the Sun, kinda like vampires, since Daphne was literally running from Apollo (Apollon) and we know Astoria ends up isolated in Malfoy Manor, unable to leave.
It is also specifically a blood curse, so I imagine the curse probably targets the cardiovascular system first. Either through various blood diseases or heart conditions, maybe it's a blood curse because they have to consume blood, I don't know, they're already maybe hiding from the Sun. Of course, vampires do already exist in Harry Potter so maybe that's just a coincidence JKTERF didn't think of. Of course, if the blood curse involves burning up like I suspect, I could easily see it being that their blood literally starts to boil. It would certainly help explain the very violent death Astoria goes through that Scorpius has to witness. It would also help to explain Gareth's desperation to find a cure for his daughter, although he does it in a very backwards way and ends up killing himself so maybe he should have just let his daughter be disabled.
I did consider that perhaps the Greengrass blood curse involves turning into plants, especially since their name has an agricultual meaning, but I feel like they wouldn't explicitly call out Astoria as being extremely sick and dying if she was just changing form. So, I don't think this is some plant variant of the maledictus curse Nagini has. Although it would be sick if they turned out to be related. Don't know how it would work since I'm pretty sure Nagini is Indonesian, and the Greengrass's do not appear to be Indonesian, but sometimes family trees get interracial like that.
Something else worth calling out is that the curse explicitly gets worse over time, meaning the Greengrass girls are dealing with chronic illness and disabilities from the beginning of their life, just in very mild forms. Astoria dies while in her late thirties, and the worsening does appear to accelerate with age, but the curse also affects Cereus while she's very young, meaning it's definitely a constant and permanent thing. The fact that pregnancy exacerbates things for Astoria also means there's likely a link to their fertility and/or sexual anatomy. Which doesn't help the indication that maybe the curse came from a man who doesn't like being told no.
The link to pregnancy also makes me wonder if periods are worse for them, since periods are literally when the body is losing a lot of blood, and in severe cases people who experience periods can need to visit the hospital for blood transfusions every time they have one. It does also make me wonder if there's anything gastrointestinal going on, since the amount of nutrients being absorbed by a baby might course issues for someone whose digestive system doesn't work properly 100% of the time.
Something else I will bring up, the curse does also explicitly affect men. Not super obviously, but Gareth Greengrass carried the curse and unknowingly passed it onto his daughter, meaning that Scorpius Malfoy also definitely carries the curse. Scorpius is also shown very clearly to be much weaker physically than his peers, being very easily overpowered by Albus, who isn't really shown to be all that physically imposing in literally any other scene. It's not obvious, maybe it's a Scorpius specific thing (intersex headcanon is popular because of this), but it does seem like the curse still affects men in some way. This does also mean that if Scorpius had a daughter, she would be cursed with the same thing that killed his mother in front of him.
Also, something more theoretical that I don't think is canon, but I kind of want to throw out there, is the idea that perhaps the curse makes the Greengrass women tragically alluring. Like, they look like anyone else, but if the curse originates from a Greengrass woman saying no, it kinda makes sense that as punishment a lot of men would be lured in by the curse. And like, if you subscribe to the Malfoy's have Veela heritage headcanon, that would provide some interesting parallels between Astoria and Draco. Also, it would definitely explain why the entirety of the Cursed Child character list all have the hots for Scorpius Malfoy. Like seriously? Albus, Rose, Myrtle, Polly and Craig??? I know he's got autism rizz but it's definitely more than that. It just feels like something that kinda makes sense, but there's no real evidence for it. We don't know anything about Astoria's love life aside from marrying Draco, so it's hard to say for certain that she dealt with any sort of allure, especially since Daphne doesn't appear to have dealt with any of that, we'd know since she's in Harry's year. But IDK, the curse also just impacts her less in general. It would certainly assist in explaining why Astoria in particular is so hated by purebloods and why she's viewed as impure despite being a pureblood. Just an idea, doubt it's canon.
So, to summarise, I think the curse was inflicted upon the Greengrass women because a one of them said no to a man and he didn't like it. The curse involves various cardiovascular issues that they will deal with from birth, and get exponentially worse until they have no immune system, and their blood boils, eventually killing them in an excruciatingly painful manner. Men will carry the curse, possibly making them weaker although fanon may dictate that it has more to do with intersexuality and blurred sexual anatomy confusing the magic, and if they have a daughter she will be given the curse. The curse also, for whatever reason, is worse for some women than other's, possibly just meaning the curse is taking longer to kill Daphne than the rest of her family. There does not appear to be a cure, and we get no indication that the women affected by it even want one. The only mention of a cure comes from Gareth deciding he wants to cure his daughter, and failing spectacularly while also putting Harry Potter in the situation to make an Unbreakable Vow to help her, leaving her an orphan instead with Harry Potter's weird promise to fix her in the air. Yeah, adult Draco's disdain for adult Harry makes more and more sense the more I look into things.
But uh, I don't know, I think vampire Greengrass's would be cool as Hell, but this is definitely what's more accurate to canon. Gotta love Astoria, the only canonically disabled/chronically ill character from the main gen, and yet she gets glossed over and ignored or outright mischaracterised because people don't like Drastoria.
Hello! I wanted to ask about your Greengrass family tree.
From Daphne and Astoria's grandparents, uncles and aunts until Cereus and Scorpius.
Also if Gareth is a cousin of Daph and Tori or if you have another type of family vincule for them.
And what's your main three ships for Cereus ^^
Wishing you a good week!
I’m always happy to talk about my Greengrass family headcanons. It's easier to convey the family tree in screenshot form, so I'll do that and then put all the wordy explanation under a cut.
I've talked about this briefly before, but I think the Greengrass family curse is likely a result of a scorned lover, and this man cursed this poor lady and the rest of the women in her bloodline to die an early death, and due to it being called a blood malediction and characters having names that reference the Sun (Daphne, Hyperion, Asteria) and warmth (Cereus means "candle") that the curse slowly boils your blood. I also imagine it impacts the body in other ways, although those ways are slightly more individual. So while Florence, Astoria and Cereus all need canes to walk, and Cereus sometimes even needs a wheelchair, not every Greengrass girl experiences mobility issues. They do all have immunodeficiency in some form and Daphne, while not experiencing mobility issues, does experience severe lethargy. This is also something I've implied in fanfics, but never outright said, and I also don't even know if the fanfics I've implied it in were posted, but I like to imagine it was someone from the Carrow family that cursed the Greengrass's, since I gave Amycus and Alecto a tendency to cast a Blood Boiling Hex on people and Flora Carrow (Astoria's classmate) an intellectual fascination with blood.
We also know that the curse actually does impact the men of the family, just not the same way it impacts women, since Gareth was able to pass the curse onto Cereus despite not experiencing any major symptoms of it himself. I headcanon that a lot of the Greengrass men also experience disability and immune system weakness, just to a lesser extent and not to the point of being terminal. So, Jeffrey experienced semi-frequent episodes of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar), Romulus had an irregular heartbeat, Mortimer had Von Willebrand Disease, Hector had an irregular heartbeat and Gareth had trouble developing muscle. I've talked about the headcanon that Scorpius is intersex, specifically having Klinefelter Syndrome (or XXY chromosomes) that led to him developing a slightly more severe, but still not terminal, variant of the curse, and that he also eventually needs to use a cane.
For a chronological order of events, the Greengrass family did everything correctly for a while, didn't like having daughters because of the curse, a lot of the men overcompensated for how the curse minimally impacted them, and fulfilled their duties. They kept the family blood curse a secret, not wanting it to impact their marital prospects, and also not letting it negate the pureblood responsibility to marry and birth an heir. A lot of the women in the family were somewhat silently rebellious, as the ones most impacted by the curse they often had much less of a desire to marry or have children because of the family they knew they'd be leaving behind, but duty often outwayed any rebellion.
Romulus, Mortimer and Florence didn't get along at the best of times, Romulus being the oldest and therefore shouldering most of the familial responsibility, Mortimer not caring all that much and slacking off and Florence being sick and very against the idea of an arranged marriage. Romulus fell in love with Horatia Accrington, the youngest of her siblings, and though she was initially engaged to someone else the two of them decided to ignore their betrothals and marry each other instead, causing quite the scandal. Sometimes I imagine Horatia's initial fiance was Lucius, to create some Malfoy-Greengrass dislike and explain why Lucius would marry someone quite a few years younger than him (according to my headcanon), sometimes I imagine it was Nereus Goyle (Gregory's father), it's really up to my mood.
Around this same time, Mortimer had actually followed through with his betrothal to Angelita Selwyn, not a marriage of romance but definitely of friendship, which saved their family a little bit because the Selwyn's are quite respectable. Mortimer also ended up being the one to have children first, Angelita giving birth to two sons, Hector (canonically doesn't have a name but this is what I call him) and Gareth.
Florence Greengrass died shortly thereafter, having overdosed on the potion she needed to take to help with the pain of her blood warming. And just a week before her wedding day too. It was never clear if it was an accident, the pain of her curse causing her to not realise how much she'd drank, or if it was on purpose, to avoid marrying a man she did not love or even like.
When Romulus and Horatia finally had children after years of struggling, they only managed to have daughters, Daphne and Astoria. Pureblood society blamed their lack of sons on the mishandled nuptials, claiming that their betrayal of traditional ways led them to only have daughters. This meant that Mortimer, someone who'd never had much responsibility and didn't know how to handle it, was suddenly shouldered with all of the responsibility for keeping the Greengrass name relevant and unsullied.
Hector, Gareth, Daphne and Astoria were all sorted into Slytherin when they attended, Hector in the same year as Cedric and Cassius, Gareth in the same year as Cho and Katie, Daphne in the same year as Harry, and Astoria in the same year as Ginny and Luna. There were minimal issues to start off, none of them seemed to stray too far off the path, and Daphne even inherited a less severe strain of the curse, so the Greengrass family thought perhaps their luck had turned around.
Until Astoria, the one with a slightly worse variant of the curse, was caught kissing a boy. Oh the impurity. Oh the horror. A teenage girl was kissing a teenage boy. It created a scandal and Astoria was quickly labelled an impure girl to be with, and no one would dare arrange a marriage with any of the Greengrass's because of it. She developed a blood-traitorous and rebellious personality because of this, ending up spending most of her time with the Hufflepuffs, Hannah Abbott, Rolf Scamander etc., instead of at her own table where she was mocked.
Upon the second rise of Voldemort, Hector spoke with his Uncle Jasper Selwyn, someone who had been a known Death-Eater, and requested help to join their ranks. As the heir to the Greengrass name, it was his responsibility to set things right, especially with how Astoria was acting, and this was what he believed to be the best method. Gareth never joined, he did not see a need to, although he did spend time around the Death-Eater families and this was how he got closer to Aquila Dolohov (her maiden name is unknown, but I like to think it's Dolohov), the daughter of Antonin Dolohov.
Daphne never picked a side, although Astoria rather vocally sided with the Order, and this eventually led to her emancipation, where she cut off all contact with her family and moved in with a friend. Either the Abbott's or the Scamander's, but probably the Abbott's. As tensions rose, Daphne was treated worse by her peers for her little sisters misdeeds and began to resent the girl she'd spent her entire life wanting to protect, while Astoria joined Dumbledore's Army and helped Neville, Ginny and Luna with keeping everyone safe.
After the final battle, Hector was arrested, with zero marital prospects, another stain on the Greengrass family name, while Gareth became an Unspeakable and married Aquila.
Astoria dropped out of school and got an apprenticeship at Madam Malkin's, becoming a seamstress by trade and having minimal contact with Daphne, as she had hope Daphne would see reason but also fear that Daphne also hated her. Daphne had indeed begun to hate her a little bit.
Astoria gained somewhat of a reputation for being 'down for anyone and anything' because she dated a lot of people, usually for very short periods of time. She wanted a romance like the ones Jane Austen wrote, but she also didn't think she deserved one because it was always going end in the tragedy of her early demise. It was easier to be the crazy ex girlfriend or the arm candy for asshole men than it was to accept genuine care.
Astoria and Draco met on accident, and while Astoria had never been fond of Draco, him being part of the friendgroup that mocked her and her sister, she also had begun to think he wasn't all evil after his trial and decided to give him a chance at friendship. He was in the process of figuring out who he was now, having cancelled his engagement to Pansy, betraying his families values, saving Harry Potter, but still having no place among the heroes of the war. They found comfort in each other, and Astoria saw the side of Draco that just wanted to be a kid while Draco saw the side of Astoria that did kind of want the white picket fence and screaming kids.
They didn't mean to fall in love, it didn't start out that way, and when it did become love Astoria tried to push Draco away, the two of them even getting into a horrible fight because she didn't want to hurt him, but it didn't stick. Astoria loved him too much to stay away, and he loved her too much to let her ruin her own life. So they began dating, got married even. This didn't result in Draco necessarily being cut off from his family, they still spoke, but his family always talked about how ashamed they were and how annulment was still an option, so their relationship became very strained.
Gareth and Aquila had their daughter first, Cereus, and Gareth wasn't sure if the curse would pass on initially. He'd been told that if he returned glory to the Greengrass name, it might not, but after a few years, he realised it in fact did pass on to her, and he quickly began treating her like she was made of glass.
Two years after Cereus's birth, Astoria found herself pregnant with Scorpius, and she and Draco decided to keep the child after a long couple of conversations, even though they'd never initially planned on having one. This was the final straw that led to Daphne cutting all ties to Astoria. Pregnancy would make her condition worse, and she knew this, and it didn't matter how many times Astoria explained that she wanted to be a mother and she wanted Draco to have family left once she was gone, Daphne refused to watch her little sister kill herself.
Cereus and Scorpius had no contact with each other growing up, they were only vaguely aware of each other. The first time they met was when Aquila Greengrass died for unclear reasons although maybe she was sick too in a different way, going to her funeral to share condolences with Gareth and Cereus. This caused a scene as Astoria had not technically been invited, and they were promptly kicked out.
After the death of Aquila (and I believe Hector also died but I'm not sure), Gareth became terrified for the day he'd lose his daughter, having virtually no family left, and through himself into his work to find a cure despite never asking Cereus if she wanted one. He became distant, cold, cruel, Cereus looked too much like her mother and she would die a cruel death, abandoning Gareth. He despised her for it. He eventually joined a group of dark wizards called The Unfoundables, making the Unbreakable Vow to keep their secrets and do their dirty work if they helped him find a cure. He also had a false persona, Edward Scot, who was the Lead Liaison Minister for the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and deceived a great many people.
A rumour eventually started circulating that Scorpius was the illegitimate son of Voldemort, his late birth being attributed to Draco and Astoria having trouble conceiving, and instead using a time turner to travel back years and have Astoria sire the heir of Voldemort, so that the Malfoy heir might be as powerful as possible. Draco was greatly disturbed by these rumours, and repeatedly requested that Harry Potter do something to quell them, while Harry claimed that giving them attention would only make them worse. Astoria's condition was also worsening at this point, and she began needing a wheelchair from time to time.
When the Hogwarts letter arrived, Gareth did not let Cereus attend, instead keeping her locked up at home and having the house-elves tutor her, where he could keep an eye on her and ensure nothing bad happened. Around this same time, he attacked five promenant figures in Wizarding Britain, Genevieve Bladt (who worked for the Department of Magical Artefacts), Kit Gerrard (a reporter for The Daily Prophet), Timothy Hale (a records officer for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement), Penelope "Nel" Padgett Fawley (an Auror for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement) and Riya Patel (also an Auror for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement). They became known as the London Five, having all disappeared at around the same time inexplicably. They were all cursed to be trapped inside paintings, and some of those paintings were transfigured into other items. Their missing persons cases all ran cold and they were declared officially dead.
Three years after the initial disappearance, sometime close to Scorpius's first year at Hogwarts, Grim Fawley, an Auror turned Unspeakable who worked for Gareth, created a spell as revenge for his wife not being found, known as The Calamity. As The Calamity Investigator (player character, I call them Calypso/Callum/Calli Innsmouth, usually Callum though because it's the most similar to the word) began figuring out what had happened, he and Harry Potter and the rest of the Aurors also figured out that Gareth Greengrass was involved. They wanted him to tell them everything he knew about The Unfoundables, and he forced Harry to make an Unbreakable Vow that if Gareth gave up what information he knew, he would ensure Cereus's safety and help her find a cure for her curse. Harry agreed, but in giving up the information Gareth broke his first vow, and died shortly thereafter.
The London were mostly all found, although I'm not super sure of when in the timeline, Genevieve was dead, Timothy had amnesia, and it's not super clear what happened with Kit, Riya and Nel, although I assume Nel at the very least was found and returned to her family. They also discovered that The Unfoundables were headed by one Constance Pickering, an Auror working with them on the case who wanted to remove the divide between muggles and wizards. Constance and Grim seemed to not face very much punishment for their crimes, although Grim is remembered as the first dark wizard from Hufflepuff in history, even if Constance technically started her group first, and I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they were mostly let off the hook. This greatly upset Draco and Astoria, as Harry was perfectly willing to interfere with rumours of villainy, and in fact actual villainy, when it came to people he liked, but he wouldn't tell the truth to help a defenceless young boy. Astoria also didn't like that Harry promised to cure a cursed (disabled) young girl who'd never asked for one.
Astoria wanted to get custody of Cereus after both of her parents had died, as she had the same curse and she wanted Cereus to know she didn't need a cure, there was nothing for her to be ashamed of, and she could live a happy and fulfilling life despite it all. She never ended up getting custody of Cereus, and instead Cereus went to either Daphne Greengrass or a member of the Dolohov family. Depends on how angsty I want to go, but I would usually say Dolohov's. She was also finally allowed to attend Hogwarts after this.
Astoria dies in front of Scorpius, and he meets Cereus again when at her funeral. Cereus has questions, but Scorpius isn't emotionally stable enough to answer them for her. The two aren't close, they never got the chance to be, but they desperately wanted to be. They were family, they'd both experienced incredible loss, everyone was saying horrible things about their fathers, they just could never get it right.
The Cursed Child happens, I'm not going to run through the whole plot, but just know Scorpius goes missing, comes back, goes missing again, comes back, gets properly kidnapped, watches a classmate die, almost dies himself, helps contact Harry, Ginny, Draco, Hermione and Ron to come save the day, and meets his other cousin with an evil dad. Lot's of those in this family. He feels distinctly bad for Delphi, knowing that she had a very similar life to Cereus, and even him a little bit, and much like with Cereus, he wished he'd gotten the chance to be her cousin before things got so messed up. Maybe she wouldn't have been so desperate for a family if she'd just had access to the one she had that didn't know about her? It's also worth noting that the whole reason Cursed Child happens is because Lucius hears the rumour about Scorpius, thought a time turner like that would be cool, commissioned one from Theodore Nott, and then those time turners were the ones used in Cursed Child.
After all of that, Scorpius starts making an actual effort to be closer with Cereus, because she's also an orphan trapped by circumstance, and he doesn't want her to turn out like Delphi.
I know, the Greengrass family lore is HEAVY. But it's kind of what happens when you have to discuss terminal illness, pureblood supremacy and the sheer amount of crime that goes on.
Daisy and Lucy because I headcanon them to be the same age and I think a trio of mentally ill sapphics is a great premise for a ship, Albus because if Scorpius is going to date his cousin, Albus should get to date Scorp's cousin, and Melody because she's the child of Grim and Nel and the forbidden romance of it all is too good.
