AN: I do not own the world of Harry Potter, that is JK Rowling's possession. I am not earning a single sickle for this story.
Thanks goes to HAVELOCKED for beta'ing this for me, and helping me reword things.
SILVERED HEARTS SPARKLING GOLD
STORY: Silvered Hearts Sparkling Gold
WC: 1875
SCHOOL And YEAR: Hogwarts, Year 6
PROMPTS: Champagne (Drink) Lighting A Candle (Action)
THEME: From Enemies to Lovers, Christmas Engagement
It began rather suddenly. One moment Neville Francis Longbottom was a coward of a Gryffindor, quivering at the first sight of a Slytherin. The next moment – at the start of their seventh year – Daphne noticed that he he no longer shivered and quaked in his boots. Instead, he stood proud and tall whilst Alecto Carrow used her wand to caress the young wizards cheek. Expression set firm against her purring insinuations that he was no wizard, no man.
Daphne Greengrass remembered sitting near the back with her friend, Theodore Nott. An unreasonable feeling of jealousy had washed over her as she watched the thin, aquiline witch direct the tip of her wand down the stoic Gryffindor's chest. The rattle as wood met the metal buckle of his belt resounded mendaciously through the room.
"I take it back," the fierce witch smirked. Cruel, dark eyes glittered with glee at her discovery. "Per'aps there is something to be proud of as far as thee are concerned. Sure that some young filly will be stabled by you, if one 'asn't already."
Again, all Daphne could do was sit there helplessly and watch the one person in their year considered a wreck, the one who had no fortune, luck or talent. What he did have though, in that personal defining moment of self-realisation, was what even her closest friend lacked: Courage!
The roar of the lion was tempered and quiet, yet she could hear it thrumming through the floors, shaking the walls of the class room. She could hear it in her own strengthening heart-beat, pulsing through her ears. Her fingers were shaking. Whatever was happening to her she could not stop it. Did not wish to stop it.
Neville stood tall as a king, graceful whilst being mocked. She turned to the other side and witnessed Pansy almost moisten her lips. If Pansy was suddenly interested then Daphne would have to save him. Now the vile excuse of a teacher was stepping up close to him and was about to do something that Daphne was quickly becoming sick of. She looked at the others in the room.
Ernie McMillan, Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Zacharias Smith and something Cornfeet… All of them were quite visibly angry; Hannah was incandescent with rage. Daphne wondered if she may have to talk to the girl, find out what was going on.
Shortly, her eyes swung to the back of the room, the side nearest the windows where the Ravenclaws sat. Anthony Goldstein was already twirling his wand underneath the desk. Terry Boot sat in an aisle seat also rubbing his wand on his thigh under the table. Padma nodded to Mandy who was rather unfortunate to be sitting at the front next to Seamus Finnigan.
On the other side of Seamus, Lavender Brown was scowling fiercely at their teacher and, Daphne was pleased to see, so was Parvati. Yet Daphne knew the world itself could be scowling and their (so-called) Professor would blithely carry on in her vindictive manner.
How was he communicating his roar? Why did no one else feel the vibrations? Carrow now had her small, sharp fingers digging into Neville's shoulder. A pale leg peeking out from the slit in her silk skirts, she was wrapping her knee around…
"STOP!" Daphne suddenly bellowed standing up, blue eyes flashing rage and fire. When Neville's eyes connected with hers he was flabbergasted at the way this Slytherin had displayed courage, and for his sake. "PLEASE, I BEG YOU, STOP!" she shouted at her teacher. The strength she felt within her grew and flourished. Whilst the two students seemed to have eyes only for each other, Professor Carrow withdrew her claw-like nails from Neville's shoulders and her leg slowly slipped down to the floor. Had the heat been turned up?
"What did you say, Miss Greengrass?"
Daphne was starting to feel an attack of vertigo, yet she could remain stoic. "He does not deserve that treatment," she managed to stammer out.
Then Alecto sashayed her hips and waist; Gregory Goyle's mouth hung wide open at the feminine display as she passed by his desk. A cloud of intoxicating perfume trailed behind her, causing even Zacharias Smith to tilt his head and observe her backside.
The closer she got to Daphne the more afraid the girl had become. Reluctantly she tore her gaze from Neville's and settled on the dark, stern gaze of Alecto Carrow. Never had she felt a need for water more than now as her lips cracked. Her throat was like sandpaper scratching against the walls of her neck; her tongue as arid as the Sahara parched from panting and fear.
The roar again reverberated inside her. It was as if Neville was parsing some of his courage, sharing it with her. Suddenly, she knew what to do.
Daphne squared her shoulders and stood straight, eyes facing forward, arms pinned by her side, legs still. Stomach in, chest out, chin jutting out in defiance. Snakes had to make a stand in their lives too. Here she was making hers.
"Miss Greengrass," Alecto licked her lips as she walked around her the same way she'd had with Neville. "What is that you are wearing on your robes? Your badge?"
"A serpent," Daphne said firmly.
"What does he wear on his robes? His badge?"
"A lion," she answered.
"Due to that, what do you think he is called?"
"Neville Longbottom," she replied. A quiet gasp flittered throughout the room as Daphne avoided the term the majority thought would be her natural response. "His name is Neville Longbottom."
Suddenly Daphne felt her hair in Alecto's grasp as she yanked the girls head back. Pulling harshly on the careful braid the witch had charmed her hair into after her shower. The class watched on helplessly, aghast and astonished.
"He is a filthy blood traitor, Miss Greengrass. Unless you are wishing for a world of pain I would sit down and hold your tongue in the near future – lest you are tarred with the same brush."
She reached her hands up to Alecto's arms and dug her nails in, dragging them down causing the older woman to hiss as they grappled: Daphne for freedom, Alecto for control. The younger witch winced as Alecto stuck her knee in Daphne's back, causing the student to collapse on her knees, her chin hitting the edge of her chair. Her skin scraped and scuffed as a throbbing pain zig-zagged through her body, then Alecto was dragging Daphne up by her hair.
"Better a blood traitor than to bear the mark of a maniac!" Daphne exclaimed through gritted teeth.
"The Dark Lord is fair, just and wise, Miss Greengrass. By the end of the year you will be proud to serve him."
"This snake shows no humility to anyone, least of all him," Daphne managed to speak though it was through her teeth. "I would rather be friends with Harry Potter than be a minion to He Who Must Not Be Named!"
"Well," Alecto said rather coolly, her cruel smirk matching the ire in her dark eyes, "we shall see – won't we?" With that she pulled her wand from the holster she'd always worn around her waist.
Before she was able to utter a spell, she found her wand arcing in the air. It was caught by a staunch Neville, who not so carefully placed it on the desk behind him.
"Sorry, Carrow, but blood traitors stick together and hexing in the back is bad form. I remember that much from various professors and friends." He stood even taller, folding his strong arms across his chest. "Whilst I have your wand," Neville said as he turned around to pick it up, "you cannot teach us. Says so in Hogwarts: A History – Fourth Edition I believe. Want to know where I got that piece of information? My best friend, Hermione. You know, they've been snapping muggleborns wands; how about we do the same to theirs? See how they like it!"
He held up Carrow's wand, hands clutching either end. "Go on, Neville, break the banshee's wand!" Seamus encouraged standing up and clapping.
"Yeah!" Anthony Goldstein stood up, raising his fist in the air: "Break the Wand! Break The Wand! Break The Wand!"
Mutiny rang through the air as nearly twenty pairs of hands beat on the wooden desks. Nearly twenty pairs of feet stomped rhythmically in synchronicity to the drums. Nearly twenty voices shouted in proud chants, urging their leader on to do as he seemed to want to do. Neville smirked, basking in the charge that he proudly led, and as he bent the wand the class watched, stunned that he was actually doing it. The crack echoed ominously throughout the class room, splinters flew in the air and then Neville held up the two pieces in triumph.
*1*
That was it: the moment Daphne knew she had to make a stand. After she was released, due to Alecto's surprise and shock that someone dared destroy her power source, Daphne rushed to Neville's side, declaring to everyone that this was where she belonged now. She was no longer counted as a privileged Slytherin but went into hiding along with the group.
It was in hiding that she got to know the man that Neville had become.
"Daphne, you and I started off in a rather unorthodox circumstance," Neville said as he was on his knees in the quiet little restaurant. "Please, drink your champagne."
Humouring her lover, Daphne took the flute in her hands and drank down the fizzing alcoholic liquid, almost draining the glass. When she reach the bottom, Neville's eyes sparkled and twinkled as he lit sandalwood candles that sat in the centre of their table with his wand.
"Daphne Greengrass, my Christmas gift to you is an eternal promise that I shall love you, cherish you, honour and obey you. Please, will you marry me?" He widened his eyes into the puppy dog stare she'd yet been unable to resist.
"Of course I will, Nevvy," she sighed as she framed his face with the tips of her fingers, leaning down placing her lips over his mouth.
Through tears of joy, Neville tipped up her champagne flute and whispered the cancellation spell, and there Daphne spotted an engagement ring. Gold and silver twining around each other made the band; the front of the ring held two intertwined hearts, one of gold, the other of silver. Three emeralds were in the gold, and three rubies in the silver.
"I had it specifically made." He was quivering with joy.
"It's beautiful, Nevvy," she gushed.
"I love you, Phi."
"I love you too, ever since the moment I heard your lion's roar in Carrow's classroom."
Thus started another type of revolution. After their wedding it opened the door to other happy union's between the houses that once despised each other.
There was no way to describe it other than it felt, that Christmas, like a curse over both houses seemed to have been truly lifted. Echoing through parallel universes and beyond.
The headlines went with:
Silvered Hearts Sparkling Gold.
So it was that Neville and Daphne re-wrote history, fixed Hogwarts, and peacefully united the wizarding world for many decades to come.