Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or make money off of them, I just write for fun and put them into strange situations
Written for the School of Prompts Challenge
2-3: Pink (as the tone for the story)
As in the tone and theme of Valentines Day, after the 8th year Yule Dance, first time Harry and Daphne are together as a public date
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Tracey woke up bright and early on the day. It was Valentines day, and she was looking forward to spending it with her new boyfriend. She imagined the general good times that would come from going to Hogsmeade with him. Eating lunch at the Three Broomsticks, shopping through the new WWW that opened up over Zonko's, snogging in the back al-
Tracey's thoughts were disrupted by the sounds of moaning and groaning in the bed next to her, punctuated occasionally by a coughing fit and lots of sniffling. Tracey stepped over to Daphne's bed and pulled back the curtains.
"You look awful!" Tracey stated as she stared at the extremely pale Daphne shivering under three layers of blankets. Daphne attempted to muster up a glare at Tracey, but it just caused her to groan a bit more and break into another coughing fit.
"I feel awful." Daphne croaked out.
Tracey pulled out her wand and cast a few spells. She had spent most of this year helping out Madam Pomfrey, looking to get a head start on her healer training.
"Poor Harry."
"Poor Harry?" Daphne groaned out. "What about me?"
"Poor Harry losing his date to the common cold." Tracey ignored Daphne's groans and protests.
"Well, I'll go tell Harry that your first date after coming out at the ball is off and I'll get you a potion for your symptoms."
Tracey set a warming charm on the blankets, but Daphne continued to shiver in the blankets. No amount of warming charms and layers of blankets seemed to help her.
Daphne was just depressed that she got sick today. She too was looking forward to a regular date with Harry and friends, not the clandestine meetings they had all through 5th and 6th years. She also hated being sick because it made her feel weak and dependent on others.
Tracey came back in a short while later. With a swish and flick Daphne felt herself levitated out of bed. Tracey collected Daphne's wand from under her pillow and walked off with the blanket-cocooned Daphne.
"Tracey what are you doing?!" Daphne feebly asked. She just wanted to huddle in bed all day.
"I found Harry in the Great Hall, he refused to let you spend the day alone in bed, so he asked me to take you to him."
"But I look miserable."
Tracey just rolled her eyes. She walked out of the Slytherin Common room to find Harry waiting there for them.
"Here you are, one miserable Daphne, and her wand for when she feels better. Make sure she gets plenty of rest."
Harry took over the levitation and accepted the wand. He thanked Tracey and reassured her that Daphne would be well taken care of.
"Enjoy your day together! Alone. In a room. No one to bother you two." She shot Harry and Daphne a wink before skipping down the hall. Daphne just growled weakly at the retreating form of Tracey.
"You don't have to do this Harry."
"I want to do this."
Harry marched off levitating Daphne in front of him and after a short while they found themselves in front of the Room of Requirement. Harry paced back and forth three times and walked in.
Daphne was pleasantly surprised at the homely setting. A comfortable bed sat in one side of the room, next to a couch and a few armchairs arranged around a cozy fireplace, a few bookshelves lined the walls. The other side of the room was a comfortable, compact kitchen.
As soon as they walked in Harry levitated Daphne into the bed and Harry slid her under the blankets, adding a fourth layer to her cocoon. Harry then cast a warming charm on her. This time her shivering did lessen. Her brain said that it was because Harry was a stronger spell caster than Tracey—though a warming spell generally had nothing to do with strength—while her heart said it was something else entirely.
"You still don't have to do this." Daphne repeated
"Just rest, I'll take care of you for the day."
Daphne, too tired to argue drifted off to sleep. When she awoke her nose managed to barely pick up the smell of something sweet nearby. Her groaning alerted Harry as she wormed her way out of her cocoon. Harry set his book down on the table and got up from the armchair he was sitting on and made his way over to her bedside. He sat down on the edge of the bed as Daphne blinked sleepily around her. Her nose was still runny and her throat was still sore, but at least she wasn't as cold now and she wasn't coughing nearly as much now.
She noticed that Harry was trying extra hard to suppress laughter as he stared at the top of her head. She was suddenly aware that her hair was an absolute mess. "If you say anything about my hair, I will end you." Harry's shoulders started shaking in silent laughter. Daphne's glare was significantly less scary with her hair looking like a scarecrow with stiff straw sticking out the top of the head.
Harry finally recovered from his amusement and adopted a more serious look. "Madam Pomfrey came by and gave me this potion. She also said that you need to get some fluids in you." Harry held up the potion that Daphne eyed wearily. She grabbed it and then downed it in one shot. She then proceeded to retch as the acrid potion made its way down her throat. She wondered if Pomfrey had mixed up her potions that tasted like mucus. Harry immediately handed her a glass of water that she downed immediately, grateful to wash the flavor off her tongue. Harry then held up a bowl of soup. Daphne went to grab the bowl and Harry just pulled it away.
"Nope. You rest."
"I can feed myself."
"You'll probably spill the soup all over yourself."
"I can feed myself." Daphne growled out through grit teeth.
"I will put you into a partial body bind to do this." Harry smirked at her.
Daphne glared at him. Harry's smirk didn't change.
Finally she relented.
Harry brought the soup back in front of her and spoon fed her. The soup warmed her up and filled her with a gentle heat that stopped her shivering altogether. "This is really good!"
"Thanks, I cooked it myself." Harry stated proudly.
"Kreacher didn't cook this? When did you learn to cook?" Daphne thought Harry had Kreacher cook everything for him.
"Oh I used to cook for my Aunt and Uncle, its much better when you cook for someone you care about though." Daphne felt another wave of warmth course through her, she hadn't had the next spoonful of soup though. "Besides, after Kreacher stocked up the kitchen in here I told him to enjoy the day off. I imagine he's hanging out with Winky right now."
By the end of lunch her cocoon was two layers thinner, and she was asleep again. Harry got up and set the dish in the sink and returned to the armchair to go back to reading.
The next time Daphne woke up she urgently tossed the blanket aside. Harry was by her side in a moment. She got up and stood up on shaky feet. She looked around the room and spotted a door fairly near her that wasn't there before.
"Here let me help you."
"I can take care of myself."
"You are barely standing."
Daphne scowled at Harry, then tried to walk towards the door—only to stumble. She was prevented from sprawling out on the floor by Harry's strong arms catching her. She begrudgingly let Harry support her to the door. Inside was the bathroom she expected.
Harry patiently waited outside, making sure that if Daphne needed any she just needed to call out. A short while later Daphne reemerged from the door.
"Can we go to the couch?" Harry just nodded in response and moved helped her to the couch. He gently laid her out on the couch and accio'd a blanked for her.
Harry sat down and Daphne scooted over so that her head was resting in her lap. She slowly dozed off again. Harry just smiled and gently stroked her hair as he went back to reading. This definitely wasn't a bad way to spend Valentines day.
That evening Daphne returned to her dormitory feeling much better. She got to her room and found Tracey there.
"Did you two actually go at it? You are practically glowing."
"What? No. Harry was just..." Daphne trailed off. "really nice," she muttered
"Knew you'd enjoy it!" Tracey cheered, before returning to a more serious expression. "So how did you get sick?"
Daphne's face immediately reddened. "We err- That is Harry and I uh..." Daphne paused, finding the ground extremely interesting.
"Spill!"
"We ended up pranking each other at the same time. In the same way."
"So?"
"So we ended up in a snowball fight in only our underwear." Thankfully no one else was around for that, otherwise it would have been truly embarrassing.
~==Pink==~
WC: 1523
A/N: Have some sugary sappiness for something? I think there is a spelling mistake or something somewhere in here that I missed because I hit auto-correct by accident on something. This is also slightly longer to make up for the slightly shorter previous chapter.
Some of you may have noticed that my summary for this doesn't actually match what I wrote. I wrote the summary for this expecting myself to write about a regular date and stuff, and then my brain just steered me in a completely different direction. Pink is symbolic of love, compassion, and nurturing. So I think I hit all three of those here.
Anyways that's it for the color prompts. I may write the pranking incident mentioned just above later. Most of these are dependent on the prompt I get. I probably got these out faster than usual just to be the first person to graduate the basic education level.
As a side note, this will probably not get an update in a couple of days as I work on A Study in Magic (my other story go check it out /shameless self-plug). For people who are here because they are DaphnexHarry fans, I will tell you that at some point that story will feature this pairing too, although both Harry and Daphne will have slightly different personalities from the ones here also, they won't actually be shipped together until much much much later. They'll be friends and they are both main characters of that story though.
Edit: 6/26 replaced Dobby with Kreacher cause canon things.