Chapter 8

Harry peered at his reflection in the mirror, trying to work out if the robes he had bought looked good or not. It wasn't really for him to decide, he knew, but he didn't want to turn up looking stupid. The enchanted mirror assured him he looked "very dashing", and, though he wasn't sure how much to trust an inanimate object when it came to fashion, his first inclination was to agree.

The robes and trousers were a rich dark blue which went well with both the white of his shirt and the dark brown of his tie and his shoes. They were pointed and made his feet look too long as far as he was concerned, but they were still much better than the stupid patterned ones the man in the shop had tried to convince him to buy. By far his favourite part of his outfit, though, was the silver watch – it was expensive even with the discount, and it looked it.

Overall he thought he looked quite grown up, though whether that was a good thing remained to be seen. Tom certainly thought it was. Sirius would more than likely bemoan the absence of brightness were he to see it, and Harry held no illusions that Dumbledore would be showing him the memory in a pensieve at the first available opportunity. Dumbledore himself was likely to be shocked regardless of his outfit, especially as he and Daphne would be eating at the same table as him. The fact that Karkaroff was going to be at the table too wasn't lost on Harry either.

It was going to be a very, very strange evening.

Mind you, the day up until that point had hardly been usual. The first difference from his usual Christmas was that he had stayed up all night until, at nearly half past three in the morning, a pile of presents materialised beneath the small tree that had appeared in his living room a week before. He had immediately started combing through them until he came across a large, thin box wrapped in shiny silver paper. It had been big – maybe two feet by one and a half feet – but couldn't have been much more than an inch tall, and it was surprisingly light too. Harry had had absolutely no idea what it was.

He had known without checking that this was from Daphne, but nonetheless he had grabbed the little tag that dangled from the edge and lifted it into the dim light of the now dying fire.

To Harry,
Happy Christmas!
From Daphne

The tension had vanished from his shoulders so quickly he felt breathless. She had got him something, just like he had got her something. The box back had been gently set back amongst the others before he made his way towards his bedroom, knowing that he would need all the rest he could get to get through the ball. Sleep, however, hadn't come as easily as it should have.

Christmas had always been a bit of a strange time for him; he had never got anything at the Dursleys and had in fact spent the Christmases of his younger years hurrying around, cooking the turkey, cleaning up and otherwise trying to avoid angering any of them, and therefore avoid punishment for ruining such a special day more than his existence did already.

By the time he got to Grimmauld Place he really had very little regard for the concept of spending the holidays with family, and he had never really wanted anything either. Clothes, toys and other common gifts held absolutely no attraction for him, and as he already had access to almost the entirety of the Black family library books were mostly out too. He had never felt any eagerness to find out what was beneath the wrapping paper.

Not until now, anyway. Now he seemed completely unable to think about anything other than what Daphne might have gotten him.

He had barely been in bed for ten minutes before he stomped back out into his front room and dragged the box back out from beneath the tree. He had spent a few seconds looking at it and guessing what it could be, but he had quickly admitted defeat.

Carefully, he had peeled the silver paper back and found, to his shock, a painting. His lips had curved of their own accord when he looked down at the towering dragon as it belched great bursts of flame at the icy forms of the approaching wolves, bears and owls, and behind that horde of white stood a little black-robed figure.

Him.

It wasn't photorealistic, nor was it trying to be. The him in the picture looked positively tiny when compared to the dragon's humungous form, and the features of the dragon had been exaggerated slightly to make it look even more fearsome than it actually had been. Its yellow eyes seemed to glow with inner light as it glared at the tiny figure and his summoned beasts, but as the spell stepped forwards it's expression slowly wilted until fury became fear. It stayed that way for several seconds until the painting jumped back to its starting position, and then the whole process started again.

A letter had fluttered to the ground when he lifted the painting from the wrapping paper, intent on sticking it to the wall, and he had set the painting gently on the sofa before he crouched to pick it up.

To Harry

Happy Christmas! I hope you like your present. I had to beg Tracey to let me have it – she's been painting it since the first task and only finished it a few days ago. I'm sure I made her a suspicious, but as everyone will be seeing us together tonight I don't really care as long as you like it.

I have a backup gift, for if Tracey didn't want to give the painting to me or if you don't like it, but I figure you already have more than enough books as it is. You'd probably have it already. And besides, I want it too. We can share as long as my toes survive the ball unscathed. If not, I'm holding it ransom.

Daphne

He had laughed quietly as he hung the painting from his wall with a sticking charm and then returned to his room with the letter in hand. The other gifts didn't hold nearly as much interest for him, and he had folded the letter neatly before placing it into his bedside drawer and sliding into bed. Sleep had come much easier that time.

The rest of his gifts had been pretty much what he expected: books on various subjects, a new titanium cauldron with matching stirrer and, from Sirius, a box filled with an array of sweets, chocolates and practical joke supplies, as well as notes on ways the Marauders had found to get around some of Hogwarts' enchantments. Harry had never used any of said supplies when Sirius had given them to him before, but that didn't stop Sirius from trying to turn him onto the path of mischief. He would probably end up giving it all to Daphne for use on Malfoy.

Except the sweets, of course. He was a teenage boy with teeth that didn't rot.

He didn't bother going to either breakfast or lunch, knowing that if he did he wouldn't be able to eat at dinner, though he did peek into the Great Hall as he wandered around the castle. He had to say that Christmas at Hogwarts was just as impressive as Sirius had claimed, even if he was willing to bet that this one was more impressive than most. Statues and suits of armour had sung carols in the hallways, the house elves had gone about their duties in full view and dressed in green uniforms with pointed hats, and there had even been charmed mistletoe floating through the corridors.

Though, there was significantly less of that by the time Harry had returned to his rooms seeing as he had incinerated any that came within six feet of him.

The rest of the afternoon had been spent either relaxing – which was to say worrying about the ball – or deciphering his egg. He had finally succeeded in figuring out that the runes were a detection sequence keyed to water that did… something, and so he had conjured a bucket so large it may as well be called a bath and cast aguamenti until the water was high enough that the egg could be completely submerged.

But, when he had opened it underwater so as to hopefully avoid the screeching, nothing had happened. No screeching, no, but nothing else either, and when he pulled it out of the water the screeching had been exactly the same.

Cursing, he had checked his translations and hadn't seen any obvious errors so, for lack of a better idea, opened the egg underwater once more and then stuck his head underwater too. Instead of the expected screeching, however, he got a song. After listening to it a few times he pulled his head out of the bucket, sending water splashing across his living room floor, and then started cursing even more scathingly than before.

The clue itself wasn't too troubling – he would have an hour to retrieve something precious to him from somewhere underwater, presumably the Black Lake. What was annoying was that he suddenly understood that the screech had been a clue. It had been what Mermish sounds like above water.

'Blatant favouritism towards Hogwarts,' Tom had spat. 'They're the only ones who live next to a lake with merpeople, so obviously they are the only ones that might recognise the sound. A screech is not a clue by itself. A lot of things screech; merpeople screech, yes, but so do banshees, mandrakes, owls and bloody housecats! It's ridiculous!'

'You don't need to convince me, Tom,' he had replied, amused despite himself. 'I agree with you.'

Tom had grumbled a bit more before they had started trying to work out what would be taken from them. There weren't many options really – there were quite a few things he'd miss, yes, but not sorely. Books could be replaced, as could most of his other possessions. The only things he could think of that he'd miss sorely were his wand, which obviously they couldn't take from him; his results book, which no one but Daphne knew about; and his invisibility cloak, which was extremely useful and almost impossible to replace given how rare they were. So, once he made it near impossible for them to take his invisibility cloak from him, what would they take?

'Who cares what they take? We'll just get it back.'

As trying to guess all the possible options was boring and, as Tom had kindly pointed out, pointless, they switched to brainstorming early ideas on what could enable them to breathe underwater for an extended period. A part of him wondered if he even needed to – could he drown? It was another test to add to his list.

The obvious choice was the bubblehead charm, but that was so boring that it was discarded without even being considered, and they hadn't got much further before the time came to get ready for the ball. Tom had grumbled a little more about going but it was muted, distracted as he was by the second task. Hopefully that meant he would stay quiet throughout the ball itself.

So that was how Harry found himself here, wearing robes posher than anything he had ever dreaded wearing and wondering for the hundredth time why he was doing this to himself. And, for the hundredth time, the image of the little smile Daphne had worn when he had said yes appeared in his mind to answer.

Having a friend was strange.

He checked his watch before he left his room and made his way quickly through the corridors, his quick pace as much to avoid the gawking masses as it was to make sure he wasn't late. Unfortunately, he couldn't avoid them once he reached the bustling entrance hall. A hush fell as he walked down the steps, one hand in his pocket so that no one could see the nervous clench of his fingers, but he felt that nervousness abate slightly at the flirtatious looks he received from several girls.

So he did look good. Excellent. Neither he nor Daphne would be embarrassed then.

The silence shattered quickly and was replaced by a low murmur of excitement, though as Harry picked his way through the crowd towards the other champions he heard more than a few comments about him and his still mysterious date.

Krum grunted in a way that could almost be called a greeting as he approached while Delacour's eyes danced over his form in suggestive approval, seemingly ignorant to the boy next to her as he stared at her with glassy eyes and an awe-filled expression. Diggory, ever the Hufflepuff, stuck out a hand with a friendly smile on his face.

"Almost thought you weren't going to turn up, Potter," he grinned as he gave Harry's hand a firm shake before gesturing to the girl next to him. "This beauty next to me is Cho, who has granted me the honour of being her date."

Cho blushed but nonetheless smiled as she leaned slightly on Diggory's shoulder. Harry's bland nod probably wasn't what Diggory had been hoping for judging by the slight fall of his smile.

"And who is your date, 'arry?" Delacour asked entirely too innocently before an inviting smirk appeared on her face. "Do you think she can be persuaded to switch?"

"No, she cannot," said a familiar voice from behind him, and when Harry turned he momentarily forgot how to breathe.

Her blonde hair hung down in gentle waves, swaying around the sapphires that dangled from her ears and flowing over her exposed shoulders. Her dress was a dark, royal blue that clung to her sides before flaring out just slightly a few inches above her hips into a cascade of falling silk with a slit up one side. Harry knew he spent several seconds too long staring at the leg that peeked out, but for some reason he honestly couldn't force his eyes away.

When he finally managed to drag his eyes to her face Daphne looked distinctly pleased with herself. Her eyes were sparkling and her lips were quirked in a knowing, self-satisfied smirk – and was that lipstick? – but her expression quickly soured into a cold glare when she looked at Delacour.

"Do you not have your own date, Miss Delacour?" Daphne asked sweetly.

"It was a joke," Delacour said, though from the venomous look on her face Harry very much doubted it was.

The two girls glared at each other for a few more seconds before Delacour turned and stormed to the other side of the room with her date following after her like an adoring puppy.

"Well," Diggory said awkwardly, "I'm Cedric, and this is Cho."

"Daphne Greengrass," Daphne said with a clearly well-practised curtsy.

"I remember," Diggory smiled. "You were in my potions class for a while until Snape realised that you could brew better than we could with one hand tied behind your back."

Daphne blushed. Harry really liked that blush.

"I'm not as good as Harry."

"Yes you are," Harry said without thinking, "I just studied more with a better teacher."

Diggory looked shocked by the admission, and even Daphne looked a little surprised. Nonetheless, she practically beamed at him and took an extra step into his side. Harry wondered whether he should start talking without thinking more often if it got her to smile like that.

Professor McGonagall took that moment to emerge from a side chamber and beckon them over. She appeared quite surprised to see him, and even more surprised when she saw who his date was.

"Champions, please line up with your partners."

Harry and Daphne ended up at the back, behind Delacour and her gormless date. She was still shooting flirtatious looks over her shoulder at him, and Daphne was still glaring at her as if she wanted nothing more than to immolate her on the spot.

With a sudden smug grin Daphne wrapped her arm around his possessively, clasping his hand in hers. If Harry were to guess Delacour would have glared or even sneered, but he was far too busy worrying over the sparks he could feel shooting up his arm to give her a moment's thought. Had he been cursed? Maybe someone had stuck a transferable curse on Daphne, knowing that she would touch him and thus pass it on?

It took him a few moments to realise he couldn't feel any of the tell-tale signs of a curse. There was no bleeding, no discolouration of the skin, no heat. Well actually, there was heat. His entire body felt flushed and jittery and warm, but curses were supposed to burn, weren't they? This wasn't burning. This was… nice.

He was so distracted that he barely remembered to start walking when they were led into the Great Hall. There were audible gasps from all sides when those present set their eyes on him and Daphne, and when Harry caught Dumbledore's eyes he looked positively gleeful.

Unfortunately, as he and Daphne were the last of the four pairs to enter they got stuck with the only two chairs left. Even more unfortunately, said chairs were sandwiched between Delacour and a red-headed, pompous looking wizard who immediately started going on about how much Mr Crouch trusted him. Harry bore the brunt of that particular monologue given that Daphne had made sure that she was the one next to Delacour, even going so far as to yank the chair out from under him before he could sit down.

Strangely, Harry found himself rather liking how possessive she was.

"Do excuse me, Mr Weasley," Dumbledore said from his seat beside the pompous fool, thankfully interrupting a speech about something or other Mr Crouch had said.

The fool – Weasley, apparently – looked at Dumbledore in confusion, and then the headmaster flicked his wand. Weasley's chair slid silently backwards before Dumbledore's own chair slid into its place, and then Weasley's moved into the space previously occupied by Dumbledore. All those present stared at the headmaster with undisguised shock. Harry was sure that that was a breach of whatever etiquette rules were in place at a ball like this, but Dumbledore seemed entirely unconcerned.

"Good evening Harry," he said, as if they had just happened across each other on the street, "and good evening to you as well, Miss Greengrass."

"Good evening Headmaster," Daphne said politely,

"Call me Albus, Miss Greengrass. Harry still refuses to use my name, but I insist you at least try it."

"Of course, Albus," Daphne said, though Harry could tell she was rather off-balanced, "and in that case you must call me Daphne."

Dumbledore beamed, seemingly ignorant to the scowl on Weasley's face and the gaping expressions on everyone else's.

"Excellent," he said, turning twinkling eyes to Harry. "Now, you simply must tell me how this all came about. I hadn't thought the two of you knew each other all that well."

They got through their pre-prepared explanation without any problems, having gone over it repeatedly in the past few days. Harry had known that Dumbledore would be curious, but he was still surprised by just how curious. Dumbledore seemed to be able to take anything they said and twist it into another path of conversation. It was almost like being interrogated, yet somehow… not. Dumbledore wasn't trying to pry or pick things apart, he just seemed to take an exorbitant amount of joy from the fact that they knew each other.

Harry didn't understand it at all.

And then, finally, it was time to dance. Harry didn't understand why his hands were suddenly sweaty – they had never been sweaty in his lessons – and he didn't understand why his heart rate jumped by a factor of ten. He just concentrated on the feel of Daphne's hand as they walked onto the dance floor, and on the undeniably happy sparkle in her eyes when she looked at him.

He slowed his steps enough to ensure that they were the last couple in position, which gave him time to glance at each of the other couples. His lessons covered hand placement, obviously, but that was still the part he was most concerned about. He knew from the Hogwarts gossip network that Diggory and his date were officially a couple, so Harry supposed his hand should be slightly higher up than Diggory's was. That seemed… proper, somehow. He didn't know anything about Krum and his date, and there was no point thinking about Delacour's date seeing as his hand was half on her arse already.

Harry restrained a sneer at the sight. How disgusting could some people be, doing that sort of thing in public? And how weak must the boy be to fall victim to his hormones and a slight magical compulsion?

The music started, familiar and yet not at the same time, and then they started dancing. It took a little more concentration than it usually did to keep to the proper time, but Harry put that down to the hundreds of eyes that were locked on him. Still, all those hundreds of eyes didn't seem to have much effect when compared to Daphne's two.

By the time the music stopped he had just about forgot anyone else was there, and so it came as a bit of a surprise when everyone suddenly started applauding. They all bowed, and Harry just caught sight of a beaming Dumbledore before students and teachers alike flooded the dance floor.

The following songs were very different to the previous waltz. Much more energetic and far less formal, and, in what Harry saw as a stroke of mixed fortune, there didn't seem to be any proper steps. Everyone just seemed to kind of move.

He found himself muddling through it by cherry-picking movements from the idiotic dances others were doing. It was slim pickings – unsurprising considering how stupid the average person seemed to be, and especially when most of them were children – which meant that he ended up having to use moves that brought Daphne a bit closer to him than he would have preferred. It made him feel very strange to have her that close to him, which made absolutely no sense at all considering they often sat just as close in their room.

He tried to avoid those ones, really he did, but all the other ones just looked so stupid! No more, he told himself during their fifth song. Or was it their sixth? He seemed to have lost count, which was obviously because the music was so repetitive. Either way, he wouldn't do it again. He didn't want to give anyone the idea the idea they were a couple. That was just preposterous.

Damn it, that was another one. Maybe he should just let her lead the next song? God, was he really planning on dancing even more?

Frankly, he had expected to dance a few songs at absolute most. Daphne had never said anything about enjoying dancing, and he certainly hadn't, but here he was, five or more songs in and Daphne didn't show any signs of wanting to stop. In fact, the only times her face changed from the wide smile she had worn since the beginning was when Delacour came within sight.

Dancing, Harry decided, wasn't quite as bad as he'd expected it to be.

Still, all admittedly okay things had to come to an end. Dancing was thirsty work, after all, but Harry had barely had time to sip his very definitely alcoholic non-alcoholic punch before they were accosted. Daphne's sister headed the little group, looking like she was just about ready to explode in sheer excitement, while Tracey and Blaise followed behind her at a more sedate pace, if only barely.

"You're dating Harry Potter?" Astoria cried as soon as she got within earshot. "Why didn't you tell us? How did he ask you? Was it romantic? Was there flowers?"

Harry would have corrected her if his brain wasn't too busy rebooting.

"We're not dating," Daphne said very, very quickly, and with the brightest blush Harry had ever seen.

It was kind of eerie how three people could raise their eyebrows in the exact same way. It looked strange on Blaise's otherwise neutral expression, but Harry found he liked it even less when paired with the smirk that Tracey wore. Astoria on the other hand seemed to discard the answer entirely as she continued to watch Daphne expectantly.

"So…?" she said slowly. "How did he ask?"

"He didn't," Daphne said after a few more seconds of expectant staring, the blush just barely starting to lighten, "I asked him. He wasn't going to come."

Harry really didn't understand why Astoria gasped in a mixture of shock and glee before she turned her attention to him. If he was honest with himself he found her stare quite unsettling, especially with Tracey and Blaise both watching him silently over her shoulders.

"But you changed your mind just for her?" Astoria asked.

Harry nodded slowly, not quite understanding why she sounded so excited. That was what friends did right? Go out of their way for each other?

"Oh, that's so romantic!" she squealed.

Harry barely noticed the blush that came over Daphne's cheeks. Romantic? How was that romantic? Romance was rose petals and chocolate, starry eyes and kissing and all the rest of those silly, pointless things Sirius had gleefully lectured him about. Not simply helping your friend out because she asked.

Admittedly a case could be made that a ball was romantic, but then Tracey and Blaise had come together and they weren't a couple. Well, he didn't think they were at least. They weren't holding hands or anything. Besides, he was sure there were loads of people just here as friends. Really, the ball alone couldn't possibly indicate romantic interest.

He wasn't quite socially dense enough to actually ask why Astoria thought it was romantic, but even if he was he wouldn't have got a chance before Daphne was dragging him away from them and back towards the dance floor. Unfortunately, Tracey caught her arm before they could slip past.

"We'll chat later," she said with a smile that didn't match with the resigned look that appeared on Daphne's face. "At least now I know why you wanted my painting."

Her expression suddenly shifted to become almost vulnerable as she turned to look at him.

"Did you like it?"

"It's really good," he said honestly. "It's on my wall."

'Soft,' Tom muttered disdainfully.

'Fuck off.'

Oblivious to Harry's sudden irritation, Tracey beamed and turned to Daphne.

"You have my permission," she said, and then she winked before she led Blaise and a reluctant Astoria away. Daphne blushed and led him determinedly to the dance floor without looking at him.

It took several minutes of dancing before Daphne was willing to speak again. Harry knew he probably should have spoken first seeing as she was feeling awkward, but he really didn't want to bring up what had just happened. They had thought they were dating! Him and Daphne! That was a topic he didn't want to speak about, and he certainly didn't want to be the one to bring it up. It was different if she brought it up instead of him. Somehow.

"I'm sorry about them," she said eventually. "Well, I'm sorry about Astoria. Tracey and Blaise just watched."

"That's okay. Your sister's very… excitable."

"It's alright, Harry," she said, smiling slightly, "you can say that she's annoying."

"She's not annoying."

It seemed like the right thing to say given how much he knew she loved her sister. He kept back the thought that she wasn't annoying in the same way a lightning strike wasn't annoying, in that she was energetic, sudden and very, very loud, and there didn't seem to be much you could do to stop her.

He had to admit to being confused by her though. If what he suspected was true he didn't understand how she could be so lively. He might have considered that he could be wrong if he thought that at all possible.

They ended up dancing for more or less the rest of the night, and by the time the last song was called the hall was almost empty. At any other time Harry would have commended Daphne for spending so long in heels, because even he knew they hurt, but he was far, far too busy staring over her shoulder and trying to keep his heart in his ribcage.

The band was playing a slow, melodic number that, were he at all interested in music, Harry would have said mourned the end of the night yet celebrated it at the same time. He wasn't interested in music though, and more importantly he was thoroughly distracted by the head that was resting on his shoulder as they swayed, and he was very, very aware of his hands as they rested on the small of her back.

Harry was thankful that Daphne seemed content to stare into his collarbone, because right now he wouldn't have been able to meet her eyes. This seemed very… coupley. Very very coupley. In fact, he had seen at least half of those still swaying on the dance floor kiss at some point during the night, and that was literally the definition of coupley. It was clear even to him that this dance was a coupley thing, but they weren't a couple, were they?

No, of course they weren't, he told himself. He would know if they were. He wouldn't have missed that, surely? Had he given her the wrong idea then? It was the wrong idea, wasn't it?

As much as it pained him to even think it, Harry knew he would have to talk to Sirius soon.

The song finally came to an end and Daphne reluctantly pulled her head from his shoulder. There was a flash of… hope? in her eyes when she looked up at him before it vanished. Harry didn't think much on it, because she looked so happy in that moment that he couldn't think of anything that she could have hoped for him to do to make it better.

Most of the students and teachers alike had left long ago, and most of the students still around had very little desire to leave their dates and go back to their dorms. The only adults still present were Dumbledore and that fool Bagman, and Harry was sure that the only reason Dumbledore was still here was so that Sirius got a complete pensieve memory.

So, by the time Harry led Daphne by the arm towards the Slytherin common room the corridors were more or less empty. They didn't speak, and Harry noticed that Daphne was walking much slower than she usually did. Her heels must be bothering her, he realised. Silently, he slowed them to a stop and cast a cushioning charm between the shoes and the sole of her feet, and he absolutely did not look at her legs when he did so.

Strangely, the charm didn't seem to help.

She didn't seem surprised when he led her straight to the supposedly secret entrance to the Slytherin common room. They just stood there for a second before Daphne tuned to look at him, reluctantly untangling their arms to do so.

"Thank you for tonight, Harry."

Harry nodded and spent a second fumbling for a response, because somehow "you're welcome" didn't seem right.

"I had a nice time too," he said eventually.

Daphne smiled as if she was aware of his thoughts before she took a step closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Harry was struck by a split-second of sheer panic, because surely she wasn't going to kiss him, was she? He didn't even have enough time to react, nor to work out what his reaction would have been before she had pulled him into a hug.

It wasn't the first time he had been hugged, obviously. Sirius had done so before, though not often and not in years. Harry suspected that was probably because of his lack of reaction. He supposed Sirius might have been hurt by it, maybe felt rejected, but really it was just that Harry didn't see the point in it. He certainly hadn't been hugged at the Dursleys.

But this was the first time he had been hugged by Daphne, and maybe that explained why this was so different. Those he didn't really have any feelings for either way, but this he liked. He liked it a lot, actually, not that he knew why one would be so much better than the other. They had been very nearly as close to each other barely a few minutes ago as they swayed on the dance floor and he had felt… not at ease, but certainly not like this. This was different. The sparking warmth from the very start of the ball was back and burning cheerfully in his chest, and Harry found that he really didn't mind at all.

Eventually she pulled back and smiled the gentle, almost shy smile she had smiled when he first said he would go to the ball with her.

"Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, Daphne."

Slowly, she turned and entered her common room, and Harry remembered absolutely nothing of the walk back to his rooms.

~Scene Change~

"Daphne, please calm down."

It was at that moment that Harry was reminded of one of the less disgusting moments in Sirius Black's version of The Talk: never tell a woman to calm down.

"Calm down?" she hissed, glaring at him as if this was all his fault, which, he supposed, it was. "How can you expect me to calm down when I'm looking at this!"

She punctuated her statement with a furious stab of her finger towards her copy of their results book. The smooth flow of ink that rose from the inkwell seemed to quiver under her anger, and even the numbers that were scribbled across the page seemed to shake.

They had started the blood-boiling experiment late the previous morning, and given that they had no idea how long it would take for him to counteract the curse they had decided that they would need to set the book up somewhere no one would find it in case they needed to leave it running for a while. Harry had volunteered his rooms for use – or, more accurately, his bedroom.

No one else would go in there, after all, but Daphne had blushed crimson when he suggested it, and it had taken him a second to realise why before his face had coloured to match. So, after a little bit of stuttering on his part to explain that obviously that wasn't what he meant, they had settled on using his living room. The only person who could get in there without permission was Dumbledore, and it was unlikely he would, but nonetheless Harry had cast a few enchantments that should hide the book even then.

It had taken a while to get started, mostly because Daphne had kept on finding excuses to stall. She had checked the charms on both him and the quills no less than six times, checked the linkage charms on the books a further three times, insisted that a dozen inkpots might not be enough and then insisted they get more. When all that was done and she had finally raised her wand she had been unable to cast the spell, and Harry hadn't been sure whether her magic just refused to hurt him no matter how hard she tried or whether she was actively sabotaging herself.

"Daphne," he had said eventually, "please cast it. You know how big this could be – how necessary it is – not just for my curiosity but magical medicine as a whole. You said as much at the very start."

"But what if I hurt you?" she asked, her voice wavering.

"That's entirely the point."

Daphne didn't seem to appreciate that.

"But," he continued before she could speak, "I trust you not to hurt me badly, and I trust that, if I don't heal for whatever reason, you'll figure out some way to fix it."

Truthfully, he didn't knew where those words had come from. They didn't sound like the him he knew, and they certainly didn't sound like Tom. In fact, Tom had been muttering about the pointlessness of reassuring her and about her contemptable emotional weakness. Harry didn't much care where they came from, though, because all the fear on her face seemed to be forced back behind a wall of belief, and the weak smile she gave him was unlike any smile he'd ever seen.

Thirty seconds and a deep breath later, she had finally cast the curse. It was weak almost to the point of failure, but it had still raced across the few feet between them and struck him squarely in the chest. He had felt heat spread through his body, not painful but so very different to the pleasant heat he'd felt at the ball the previous night, and then after the agreed five seconds Daphne had cast the countercurse.

Initially the quills had taken measurements every few seconds, but that time had gradually lengthened until now, after nearly thirty hours, they were taking measurements every fifteen minutes. They might as well have been coming in every fifteen hours, though, because almost nothing had actually changed.

Harry was only slightly ashamed to admit that he was freaking out a little. Even Tom was unnerved by the lack of progress, but Daphne was a level beyond that. That didn't make all that much sense to him considering it was him that was going to have to live with the damage if he couldn't heal from curses – 'which,' Tom had said, 'will dramatically reduce our ability's usefulness if true' – but he nonetheless did his best to calm her down.

"But my magic is working on it, look," he said, pointing at one of the columns, "and there's even been a little bit of progress since the last measurement."

"Progress?" she asked shrilly, "your arterial wall index has gone up by point five! Not five, point five! Even five units progress wouldn't be all that significant!"

Clearly, his best wasn't very good.

"Daphne," he said calmly, "I'll be fine. Even if it keeps going at this rate, I'll be fine eventually."

She huffed and continued to glare at him, and Harry was startled when a tear trickled from the corner of her eye. That put him into more of a panic than his lack of healing did, especially as Sirius's only advice for crying women was to run.

"I… what if you just… aren't?" Her voice was quiet, and she refused to look at him as she spoke. "What if you hit a point where your body can't heal anymore, and you have this injury for the rest of your life and it's all my fault?"

This was not Harry's area of expertise. In fact, it was about as far from his area of expertise as he could get. How did you comfort someone? He didn't think this was like Sirius and Remus, who would usually crack some stupid joke and then start drinking, especially considering the fact that he couldn't actually get drunk.

"Well," he ventured slowly, "even if that did happen, it wouldn't be that bad. A lot of the long-term problems are because people can't take potions, but I can heal from all the stuff that they'd need potions for, so really it wouldn't be much of a problem."

"You're forgetting about the significant internal damage to every single one of your organs."

There was anger laden in her voice, almost as if it was her organs that were damaged, and again Harry puzzled over the enormity of her panic when compared to his own. He wanted to reassure her, but the trouble was that he couldn't think of anything to say to that when it was true.

"I'm sorry," she said, rubbing stubbornly at one of her eyes and trying and failing to hide a sniffle behind a cough.

"It wouldn't be your fault, you know," he said suddenly, causing her face to whip up to look into his own. "If I end up having some damage for the rest of my life. Well, technically some of it would be seeing as you cast the curse" – Harry realised that he shouldn't have said that when her face fell and ploughed on with his thought, hoping to would repair the damage – "but you wouldn't have cast it if I hadn't first taught you it and then asked you to cast it on me. Logically that would make it my fault, because it would have been impossible for it to happen without my repeated insistence, especially as I should be able to just heal myself."

She laughed weakly and gave him an equally weak smile, but there was a little light back in her previously cloudy eyes, and Harry considered it a victory.

AN: This one took a while. Life gets in the way and all that, though I did also spend time writing other stuff as well, none of which are released yet. Anyway, let me know how you found this one.