Daphne was lost and she could not find the way.
All she could find was mist. Damp and cool, it left droplets on Daphne's skin and sent shivers down her spine. It was dark, save for a twinkling line of fairy lights seemingly strung from thin air.
She stepped closer, hand held aloft as if to grab them.
But they were just out of her reach, and all she managed to do was brush the flickering incandescent beams with the tips of her fingers.
Lowering her hand and lowering her gaze, Daphne was startled to see a pair of blue eyes, brilliant as sapphires, staring back at her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but she could not get a sound out before the words fell away, and the mist with them.
It was not mist this time but smoke. Wisps of it winding their way around her, engulfing her in their tendrils. Hazy and indistinct, she could hardly even make out her hand as she lifted it, inches away from her face.
Her heart pattered, skipping a beat.
Where on earth was she?
Last she remembered, she'd been…
She'd been -
She'd been -
Merlin, she had no idea.
No recollection of where she was nor how she'd gotten here.
Daphne narrowed her eyes, searching for any sort of clue. But all she could see was the smoke, endless in every direction as she spun in a full circle, watching, waiting, but to no avail.
Her breaths were slow, careful things. Quiet, tentative, for who knew what was lurking in this hazy, unfamiliar abyss?
The sound of a sigh, the unmistakable reveal that she was not alone, had her on the tips of her toes.
A hand, gentle and cautious, left a feather-light touch on her arm.
And then Daphne woke up.
She was shaking. Shaking and stiflingly warm, and there was some faraway sound ringing in her ears.
One of her legs was wound so tightly in the sheets they could have been a tourniquet, the other hanging limply off her bed.
Groggily, she extricated herself from her blankets, sitting up and attempting to blink away the phosphenes from her eyes.
"Daphne!" Astoria's voice was chipper, almost too bright to bear. "Come on, we're going to be late!"
It was only then that Daphne remembered what today was.
September first.
Her eyes landed on the clock, squinting against the morning light.
"We're going to miss the train, Daphne!" Astoria said shrilly.
Right.
The train.
Because today was September first, the first day back at Hogwarts.
Daphne splashed water on her face in a futile attempt to wake up, stumbling out of the bathroom and getting dressed in a daze.
The sunlight may have been radiantly bright as it streamed in from the windows, illuminating the room she and Astoria shared, but Daphne's mind was dark and nebulous, laden with midnight mist.
She tried to shake herself from her stupor as she followed Astoria downstairs.
For she had better things to do than dwell on muddled dreams.
"Sorry, I didn't see you there."
The boy was a mess of blond hair and haphazardly fastened robes as he swept past Daphne in a rush.
"It's alright," she called after him, offering a polite smile as he turned around.
Her heart all but stopped as a pair of sapphire eyes met hers. Piercing blue, and unmistakable.
"Hello," he said, all previous signs of being in a hurry gone. "I'm Theodore."
Daphne crossed the distance between them, that indistinct mist finally fading away. Those vivid eyes shone with bold intensity, a spark of clarity so bright it was like a solar flare.
"Hello," she replied, the words automatic, natural, as though she'd practiced them a thousand times before. "I'm Daphne."