A Summer Exchange
Harry and Daphne
Chapter Four.
It was a warm, sunny day when Harry and Daphne were left alone while the Dursley's visited Aunt Marge. Having quickly finished their chores (Daphne doing more than her fair share) the two teens locked up the house and spent the remainder of the afternoon in the local park. It was while the two sat in the shade of a tree eating ice-cream when Daphne finally turned to Harry and asked what she'd been wondering from the moment she arrived.
"Do they know who you are?" she asked him.
"No, they don't know. Even if they did, they wouldn't understand," Harry said with a shrug.
"Maybe if you told them then they'd stop treating you like a house-elf," Daphne suggested to him.
"Because it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference" he told her knowingly. "Dumbledore got some friends to talk to them after my godfather died, didn't result in anything," he informed her. "Oh, actually, it stopped the last bits of violence they used to show me. Other than that, I've always been treated the same way," he added.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Daphne asked him. "You're our world's saviour, surely you should be living the life of luxury" she pointed out.
"Maybe I would have if my parents or godfather had lived, but they didn't and you have to play with the cads you're dealt with," Harry told her with a shrug. The two sat in silence, both thinking over what was said. "You know I used to sneak over here after school," Harry revealed as he looked up at the clouds rolling by above them. "Only managed to stay here for about ten minutes before I had to head home, but I always loved those ten minutes, of being just a normal child. It made all the other times seem more manageable," he revealed, his eyes closing as he remembered the better parts of his childhood.
"I've never been at the park before," Daphne revealed.
"What? Why?" Harry asked shocked.
Daphne shrugged. "There aren't any public parks like this in the wizarding world and I doubt my parents would blend in well in a place like this," she said indicating to the handful of mothers and their over laden prams and pushchairs dotted around the park.
"I guess, but there are some eccentric people in the muggle world too, you never know, they could have visited a park and blended right in," Harry said with smile before standing up and offering his hand to help Daphne up. "We better head back or there will be hell to pay when the Dursley's get back to find that we're not there," he told her as they made there was back to the house.
"Why? I would have thought they'd be thrilled not to have 'freaks' in their house anymore," Daphne pointed out as they rounded onto Privet Drive.
"Maybe, but once they realise they'll have to do their own cooking and cleaning they'd probably miss us," Harry pointed out, smiling at the thought of his aunt and uncle getting dirty doing chores.
"Maybe it'll do them some good," she said deadpanned as they entered the house, much to the amusement of Harry, who spent the rest of the night with the amusing image of Vernon Dursley wearing an apron and cleaning the bathroom.
It was late in the night when Harry finally made it to bed that night, exhausted after spending the entire day clearing and cleaning out the Dursley's garage, he was ready to collapse on his make-shift bed and sleep for days. But when he finally entered the room, somewhat bleary eyed, he was surprised to find himself falling onto his empty bed as Daphne sat up in discomfort, clutching at the foot that Harry had stepped on. "What are you doing on the floor Daphne?" he asked looking down at his roommate.
"I was sleeping," Daphne remarked as she rubbed her ankle. "Why are you coming in so late?" she asked.
"I had to finish with the garage," Harry told her. "Why are you on the floor?" he asked her again.
"It's your bed," she pointed out to him as though he didn't already know that fact.
"I know. But when you arrived I told you that I would take the floor and you could take the bed, remember?" he reminded her.
"Well it was so uncomfortable and was starting to hurt my back, I need to sleep on the hard floor for a while before my back gets too bad," she told him, her tone not nearly as disparaging as her words suggested. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to go back to sleep. Sorting out all your aunts beige clothes made me really tired," she told him before rolling back over, leaving a confused Harry looking down at her.
"Right," Harry said with a shrug before settling down in bed, sleep claiming him as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Daphne continued to sleep on the floor, going to bed much earlier than Harry, ensuring that he would take the bed every night, much to his annoyance. Finally one night, after hearing Daphne toss and turn on the uncomfortable floor, Harry sighed, sitting up in bed just as Daphne turned over once again to face him. "Get in the bed Daphne," he told her.
"What?" Daphne asked sitting up and looking over at the other boy.
"Get in the bed," he told her again. "The floor is horrible to sleep on. Not that you're actually getting any sleep from the sound of it. The bed might not be very big or the most comfortable, but it's better than the floor. So grab the blanket and get up here," he told her, moving against the wall to make enough room for Daphne.
Standing up with a sigh and slight groan Daphne grabbed the blankets from the floor and slid into the bed next to Harry, the two teens lying on their backs, staring up at the ceiling as they contemplated just how weird the situation was. When they both started this summer exchange, neither one thought for one minute that they would end up sleeping next to each other, and they both highly doubted that this is what Dumbledore meant when he decided he wanted to encourage understanding and acceptance between the students.
Just a small one to tide you over. Thank you so much to everyone that's clicked on the favourite/follow/review button. It means so much to me.