AN: Thanks, guys. You rocked. Loved the reviews. Yeah, this is an overexploited genre, but I have high hopes I'll turn it to something else that might just stand out. High Hopes. Haha. Anyway, one thing, folks, I'm clearing at the very first. There's a reason why this Story has the name of "White Nights." Yes, I derived the name from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel, and no, the plot isn't copied. But I loved the setting especially, and I have just poorly attempted to re create the same ambiance here. I just figured there the entire description of the nature around Hogwarts was severely unexploited, and there is simply something to the moonlit prowlings of Harry in the Hogwarts halls. That's where this Romance would be based. No, the action would follow, but I'm not concerned with action, not quite. This story is exclusively a Romance, and it's gonna be that first and foremost. I just, well, dream of me being where Harry is in this story, and yeah, you get this story Wow, that's really almost a lecture! Now, on to my splendid reviewers:

Adharsh: Thanks. Keep up the good work and review!

Aastha: Thanks to you too. It's for readers like you all this art of writing gains its sweetness. Keep up the reviews

sRxAfrikaner: Thanks, but don't worry. I'm too engrossed in the pair to let it be a one-shot. It'll never be an overly-long story, but it won't be too short either, so rest easy. Thanks for the review, and keep reviewing!

wolf970: Yes, I'm going someplace with this, it's not a one-shot. Rest easy. Keep reviewing

Nourney: I quite agree with you. Keep up reviewing more, and it might be nicer more and more. Thanks. :D

ultron emperor: Yes, one of my most favourite pairs are also Harry/Daphne, that's why I decided upon this. Well, whether he seems to be more intelligent or not, is up to you. Read, and tell. Thanks for the review, keep reviewing :D

Fl4mekill3r: Thanks! Of course, this will continue. :D Keep up the reviews!

Vi38: Thanks for the encouragement. Keep reviewing :D

123irish: Thank you, yup, future's gonna be interesting. Keep up the reviews :D

Pawnstorm: Thanks a lot :D you said just what I'm trying to do over here, so really thanks for getting my point. Keep encouraging :D and reviewing :D

AVS: Thank you. Keep reviewing! :D

And onwards, readers, to White Nights: Chapter 2!

"Isn't this a rather bad habit of yours, Potter?" Sixth year Slytherin, Daphne Greengrass, famously known by the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the Ice Queen, said in an annoyed tone as a messy-haired, emerald-eyed bespectacled boy materialised next to her, shrugging of a curiously thin cloth, fashioned like a cloak, which caught the streaming moonlight through the fifth floor expansive window and emitted a bedazzling glow.

"What?" Harry Potter, sixth year Gryffindor, famously known by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the Boy-Who-Lived or as they called him now, The Chosen One, said distractedly as he managed to almost trip over his feet which got caught up in that strange cloak of his.

Daphne looked highly affronted for a moment at Harry's half-attempt to reply her, but shrugged and folded her arms across her chest, looking on with a resigned air of amused condescension as Harry Potter struggled to stuff his Invisibility Cloak into the pocket of his trousers.

He finally did manage to complete that task, for his frown vanished as did his cloak, and he looked up at Daphne, and said rather cheerfully. "Don't mind. It's the bloody cloak."

"What made you think I did?" Daphne asked.

"Dunno." Harry said, his cheerfulness slowly decreasing. "You just huffed and looked like Hermione when she is in the verge of giving us a lecture."

"Really, Potter," Daphne said exasperatedly, "I didn't know you were that much of a lover boy that you'd see Granger in even me."

At the next moment, she really looked concerned for a moment, for Harry looked like he was having an aneurysm. Though, he recovered, and started laughing manically. Now, Daphne was really getting worried. She didn't know if Potter really had managed to lose his marbles at last.

Harry doubled up with laughter and said, "Oh, Merlin! Hermi-Hermione an-and me!" This led to another renewed blast of laughter, and irritated, Daphne sent a foot-tripping hex at him to knock some sense into him, at which he promptly tripped, and astonishingly, managed to trip through the window and fall out.

Daphne gave another annoyed sigh. "Oh, bugger." And she leaned out of the window, and muttered, "Wingardium Leviosa." And Harry Potter stopped at mid-fall, hovering a foot above the ground. He looked up hopefully at Daphne, and asked in his sweetest voice, "Would you please lift me up?"

In response, he was deposited on a heap on the ground.

Harry could swear he could hear her laughing at that accursed window.

He shouted, "Look, I would really really love to go up to the Tower! And the doors to the Hall are closed! So do you really mind giving me a hand over here?"

There was silence, and Daphne stuck her head out of the window, and regarded him coolly a bit. Harry sucked in a breath. The moon shone out from behind a cloud, and its light struck Daphne and gave her a sort of pearly glow. For the first time, Harry saw her laugh, a sort of laugh he would listen all day long without a complaint. Her eyes lost some of their coldness and looked unguarded in her joy. Harry presently wondered why he had never noticed Daphne Greengrass. He also wondered why he always noticed people like Malfoy and Voldemort and never people like Daphne. Must be a problem with him, he privately agreed, and resolved to never let that sort of a blunder happen again.

Presently though, the object of his contemplation was laughing at him uproariously, strangely tickled by the comic sight of the Chosen One of the Wizarding World standing at the ground and shouting up at her in his futile fury at her little tripping trick. Daphne had to give Potter that, he was really different from what she had always seen him as. A bit noble, largely isolated, and sometimes the very incarnation of moodiness. In fact, she often held the private opinion that Harry Potter in his best state often resembled a moody muggle soap opera hero. But even though she laughed, Daphne marvelled at the sight which greeted her as the moon shone down on the Boy Who Lived. His hair was even more messier then before, and the saving grace of it was simply the moon giving a bluish tinge to its jet black, and casting a pearly light over his skin, making the contrast sharpen, and Daphne tried not to think, but still thought, that the moonlight threw his already amazing emerald eyes into even more emphasis that even in their apparent fury they looked rather beautiful.

She sighed at him, and knowing she would regret that decision, whispered, "Accio Harry Potter's Firebolt."

Down below, Harry glared up at the window, and saw Daphne look out at him again, and she said, "Don't even try to crib anymore from my homework today, Potter." He tried to shout a snarky retort, but saw stars in his eyes as a broomstick suddenly descended on his head, not even letting him curse at the sight of it being his own Firebolt.

Harry Potter did the only thing he could do. He collapsed in a heap on the cold ground.

(line break)

She really wondered why that git hadn't shown up yet. He had already demolished her homework for the last full moon that they had, she thought. Yes, she'd done the homework, but distracted by Potter, that didn't even reach an Exceeds Expectations. One of the reasons she dropped the broomstick on his head. But she thought that he'd recover all right by now. She was starting to get worried.

The banisters of the Astronomy Tower threw the roof into intersecting shadows as the moonlight spilled onto the parts where it could, and this included Daphne. She looked around her, and smiled. It was really, rather beautiful. Though by no means the highest point of the school, still, the Astronomy Tower was always one of the best places to see the moonlit beauty of the Hogwarts grounds from. Coupled with the moonlight, the slow breeze, and the silent ambiance, this was an ideal spot for meditating and thinking. Which was why she did her homework here. And she didn't know what Potter did here and obviously meant to do here, today, again. There were much better places to sleep, after all. Shrugging, she turned to her homework, this time a Defence Against the Dark Arts essay, and found it missing. Suspicious, she turned around, wand out, ready to hex Potter into oblivion if her homework suffered again. She did not find him on the roof. Undeterred, she looked under the parapet, and there he was, the idiot, floating on the air and looking over her homework. She huffed. She knew she couldn't risk hexing him in such a position like this.

Harry did hear her huff, and looked up. Smirking at her, he drifted towards her and landed on the roof. She snatched the essay out of his hands, and he said to her in his best Professor Snape voice, "That will be only an Exceeds Expectations, Miss Greengrass. Work harder next time."

"Oh, he he. Very funny." She snapped. "Like you know enough to even understand the essay."

"I turned in that essay already." Harry said, stretching his limbs. Hating the way the slight ripple of quidditch-defined body not so strangely appealed to her, Daphne said, "But you never turn essays early, Potter!"

"Oh, I do." He took off his glasses, and wiped them on his robes, and put them on. "If I get a chance to make that man vexed by getting my homework early. When I really know the answer, I really do love making Snape hear it early." He smirked proudly at his small victory over the ex-Potions master.

"I see." Daphne said, and then, "But then, what did I miss out on the essay? I've defined everything on Dementors already, what more is there to say on the workings of the Patronus charm?"

"You forgot one thing. "Harry said ,"you have to say about how you use the happy memory to cast the charm."

"It can be any-" Daphne started, but Harry interrupted her.

"No. Do we all walk the same way? Do we all talk the same way? We don't." Harry continued, "So each of us have different ways to make the happy memory work. Just thinking of happy memories and speaking the incantation will give not even the mist."

"I can get the mist, "Daphne said, biting her lips, "But-"

"But you don't get a corporeal patronus, do you?" Harry completed for her. She glared at him.

Harry regarded her for some time, and then said, "Come. I'll teach you."

Daphne's eyes became guarded immediately, and she backed off a step. Sensing her distrust, Harry just raised his wand. Daphne raised hers, but Harry just spoke,

"Expecto Patronum."

The brilliant, silver stag bounded from Harry's wand and ran circles around both of them, leaving a watchful Harry and a transfixed Daphne in the midst. Then it slowly cantered to Daphne, and nuzzled her hand. Daphne felt the solidarity of a promise of trust as her hand touched the stag, and immediately…hope, or something akin to it, blossomed in her heart. She looked into the silver eyes of the animal, and they turned emerald green as its mouth opened and a question issued in a familiar voice.

"Trust me?"

The stag evaporated, and she saw Harry holding out his hand. She hesitantly put her hand into his, and relaxed at the warmth of his hand which enveloped him. He smiled at her, and said, "Come, let me show you a place you've never seen." And he swung her over the broomstick and sped off. Daphne was shocked for a moment before she immediately started beating her hands on his chest, yelling to put her down. He only smirked at her. She really started regretting her decision, when Harry took one of her hands from his chest, and put it on the broomstick handle. Grasping it with a death grip, she managed to regain some colour to her dangerously pale face, and buried her face in his chest instinctively as the wind whipped around them.

It was not a rock-hard chest like she had expected from such a physically fit person. Neither was it too soft. It was soft just for her to sink her face into it, but hard enough to hold onto. She felt…..protected over there, and immediately sharply rebuked her mind for making her think so. Then, she felt his other hand, which he kept free of the broomstick, come round her, and hold her in a protective, yet awkward one-armed hug. She felt awkwardly snug.

The ride came to an end as they touched down on a hard surface, though Harry still held her to him. She kept her face buried in his chest, afraid to look up and get the fear of heights back again. Harry softly whispered, "Open your eyes, Daphne. I won't let you fall."

Opening her eyes, her first sight was his overpowering brilliant emerald green eyes, which she hastily drew back her eyes from, and looked around, as her breath caught in her throat at the sight around them.

They were standing on a small plain surface on the highest bannister of the Astronomy Tower, where nobody could get up to, except the two people who had just done so.

Here, they were above all. Above Hogwarts. From here, the moon really looked close. Harry looked at Daphne looking at the scene in front of them, and smiled. Somehow, he knew not to speak and disturb the self-fulfilling beauty of the moment.

The Black Lake rippled as the Giant Squid slowly swam across it, with lazy strokes, its black shadow casting a curious contrast with the molten silver that the Lake had seemed to have been transformed to by the moonlight. The Hogwarts Towers rose up into the sky, majestic, like they wanted to kiss the stars and the sky goodnight. The pale moonlight beautified each and every thing it fell upon, even the two of them. Down below, the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts, Hagrid's Cabin, seemed to glisten and jut out proudly from the ground like ships among a sea of silvered everythings. A lone nightingale sang somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, and the balmy wind took up the song and reverberated it across the grounds, to them.

"By Merlin," Daphne said. "This…..this…..I never thought anything could beat the view from the astronomy tower!"

"Well," Harry said, "We come to know new things, in time." There was a smile in his voice that didn't go unnoticed by Daphne.

She also noticed that he still held her, and she really didn't mind. They stood on the highest point of Hogwarts, bathed in the moonlight, and there was so little space for them to stand, Harry had to clasp her to him. Daphne wondered if this was what the legendary honour of the Boy Who Lived meant. He had promised not to let her fall; and his promise seemed infallible.

"Try it now." He said to her.

"Wha-What?" She asked distractedly.

"Try the Patronus Charm." Harry said.

"But-"

"You have a memory. And I think you've always known how to do the charm. You just needed the right moment." Harry smiled encouragingly.

Daphne took up her wand, and closed her eyes. She let the experience of that ride upto the current position they were in flood her mind, her heart, her very soul, and the hope that had blossomed when she had felt Harry's patronus and the comfort she had felt when she burrowed her face into his chest mixed, and she felt the doubts vanish as she whispered, "Expecto Patronum." And opened her eyes.

A doe floated in front of her, looking up at her demurely. With wonder, she reached out a hand and touched it. Again, her best memories flooded her, including the memory she had used. With a spark of sliver, a stag joined the doe, and both the Patronuses stared at each other with wonder, before both dissolved into the moonlight. Daphne smiled at Harry, when they came down and landed on the Astronomy Tower at last.

"You'll be sleeping here?" She asked.

"Yup." Harry smiled.

There was an awkward silence, and then Daphne said, "well, goodnight then, Harry."

He smiled at her use of his name, and then turned away and strode to the side of the tower, looking out at the grounds, his hands in his pocket.

The door shut, and Daphne disappeared.

When Harry turned back towards the door again, a silver doe was standing before him. He smiled at her, and kneeled before her. The doe's silver eyes turned a familiar sapphire, except the coldness was absent there.

"Thank you, Harry." A familiar voice said, and the doe vanished.

Harry smiled, and looked up at the moon, who seemed to be smiling at him also. He whispered, "You're always welcome, Daphne."