Entry for Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Team: Cannons
Position: Chaser 2
Extension Used: None
CHASER 2: Write a setting you've never written before
Optional Prompts:
(word) homemade (object) knife
22 July 2018 - UPDATED TO A REVISED VERSION! Since I wrote this for a competition, it was fairly rushed and I thought of elements at the end that weren't worked in well earlier... It was so well received that I wanted to give it the care it deserved! S/O to my sis for looking it over for me. Any mistakes remaining are my own.
Thanks for reading! *throws flowers up in the air*
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"Potter, I swear to Merlin," Daphne gritted through her teeth. She whipped around to face Harry, who was casually leaning a hip against the counter. His hand, which had been stretched out for one of the mini desserts cooling just out of reach, was now frozen as Daphne's very sharp knife was pointed directly in Harry's face.
"WOAH, Greengrass!" Harry said as he held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright, just...put the knife down…" He carefully pushed the blade away from himself with a finger until Daphne huffed and turned back to the counter.
"You know those aren't meant to be eaten yet," she said. "I'm not making all these extras just to replace the ones you're sneaking."
If anyone had told her back at Hogwarts that one day, years after they had graduated, she would be baking last minute desserts for her sister's wedding, she would have believed them easily. If they had added that Harry Potter would be standing next to her being a pest, she would have been confused but possibly believed them. If they had then gone on to say that he was there as Draco Malfoy's best man, then she would have known they were mad and not listened to a word.
Yet here they were, in her parent's kitchen, the day of the wedding, and Potter was there. In a waistcoat sans jacket, attempting to nick her desserts.
"What are you even doing in here?"
There were servers and caterers buzzing about the kitchen, other staff bringing things through on their way out to the marquee outside; she really didn't need one extra person hanging about.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry shrug and start wiping some crumbs off the counter, into his hand.
"I'm helping."
Daphne scoffed at that. She knew he was making that dopy lopsided grin of his without even looking. He may have been the Savior of the Wizarding World, but he seemed to always be just hanging about. She couldn't count the number of time she'd thought 'No wonder he needed Granger and Weasley at his side.' He seemed a bit of an air-head - though less of the mad scientist version and more relaxed and charming, she'd admit.
It seemed like he was always wandering into rooms and then forgetting why he'd gone in there. Well, at least she had witnessed it happen a seemingly inordinate amount of times. He'd walk in, see her, then stammer about for a few moments before remembering the empty glass in his hand, or grab something off a table and wander out again. The first time he had done it, when they were all just beginning to spend time together, Harry had walked in the room, spotted her, stared for a determinedly rude amount of time, then turned and walked back out without saying a word. Nothing like that had happened lately - they've had plenty to talk about with wedding preparations the last few weeks. In fact, she'd found herself venting to Harry on more than one occasion over last-minute changes and her mother driving them all up Quidditch poll.
Daphne set her knife down on the counter, leaned her palms against the tile, and closed her eyes for just a moment. Hearing the slightest movement next to her, she took a deep breath, centering her magic. On the exhale, she flicked her wrist, aiming her finger for the offending arm.
"Oi!" She heard Harry bang into the cabinets from his recoil and muttering to himself. Smirking and opening her eyes, she saw him shaking his hand out. "What was the stinging hex for‽"
"I told you not to touch them."
"Did you do that wandless‽"
Daphne smirked.
"Fine, fine." Harry rolled his eyes. Assessing his hand truly uninjured, he reached up into the cabinet, pulling out two glasses. He crossed the kitchen, pulling out more things out of cupboards and asked "Why are you making this at the last minute, anyway?"
Daphne hung her head, still leaning against the counter, and let out a long breath. She heard clinking and pouring behind her but decided not to look. As long as Potter wasn't breaking anything or getting in her way, she didn't care what he was doing. Helping or otherwise.
"Because," she began slowly, "Tori decided last minute that she wanted our grandmother's homemade turkish delight for dessert - not just the wedding cake."
There was a rare moment of silence in the kitchen, and Daphne could hear Harry walking back across the room.
Her head hung, carefully breathing in and out, she saw a crystal tumbler appear on the counter beside her hand. Her family has had that set of crystal for as long as she could remember. She smiled, remembering when she and Astoria were still little and they had broken one of the glasses. It happened just on the other side of the kitchen where Harry had just been. Their father had whipped out his wand and put it back together again in seconds.
That was one of her earliest memories of magic. Of not understanding it at all but being fascinated. Like everything in her life at that age, it was new. There was so much to experience and learn. Then the world had darkened. Then the man standing next to her now, who had just been a boy, made choices, made a sacrifice, saved them all.
Life had continued, and here they were: in a day shining with joy, hope, and love for her family. Life was so bright it was blindingly so. And that boy who had made a sacrifice was a ridiculously annoying git of a man. Most of the time. Not always.
She picked up the glass, letting the beads of condensation roll down her wrist. The coolness permeated her hand and the ice clinked against the glass as she brought it to her lips. With raised eyebrows she turned to Harry.
"How did you know?"
He just shrugged as he took a sip of the dark amber liquid in his own glass.
For the first time, possibly ever, Daphne looked closely at the man in front of her. No longer a school boy her classmates gripped about, but one they cared for. For the love of Circe, he was here as Draco's best man. He had made her favorite drink perfectly, although she couldn't recall ever even mentioning it to him. He was an Auror, after all. Perceptiveness must come with the territory. Noticing details. There had to be something in him that Draco saw of value…
For a moment she wondered, as she stared into his bright green eyes, what it was… Until her thoughts were interrupted because Potter was playing with the knife on the counter.
"What are you doing? You're going to cause an accident!" she practically shouted as she snatched the knife away from where Harry had been using one finger to swing the handle back and forth. Daphne put down her drink and turned back to her ingredients.
"I'm actually fairly good in the kitchen, you know," Harry replied, deftly snatching the knife out of her hand. "How do you make turkish delight anyway?" he asked, setting down his own drink. "I'll help."
Daphne's eyebrow rose as she crossed her arms and looked up at the tall, thin, Harry Potter standing in her childhood kitchen as if any of this was completely normal.
"Do all of you do that?" Harry chuckled.
Daphne's arms fell, her brow creasing slightly.
"The eyebrow thing," Harry continued, pointing the knife between her perfectly shaped brows. "Do all Slytherins do that? Is it something you all teach each other? Or just the blondes, maybe?" he teased.
Daphne rolled her eyes. "Give me that," she said, reaching for the knife but Harry backed away out of her reach.
"Come on!" he pleaded. "Let me help. I mean it, I know my way around a kitchen and while I'm happy playing bartender, I think we should probably finish this dessert before we continue drinking ourselves through this weekend." Daphne snorted at that, turned and pulled out another knife.
"Fine," she said, tossing a bag of walnuts in front of Harry. "Chop those." A chime went off, and she turned around to pull out some pans out of the oven. Harry poured the nuts onto the counter and began chopping.
"I didn't think there were nuts in turkish delight," he said, pushing a handful aside and pulling another towards him to continue chopping.
"There's not," Daphne replied, putting down the pans on the stove. She pulled out her wand, casting a mild cooling charm over the confection. "But if we don't make it look like we're busy, you're going to get pulled into something like setting up chairs and centerpieces."
Harry shook his head, mumbled something that sounded awfully like "Slytherins" under his breath and continued chopping.
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