AN: Yes this chapter was a tad delayed. It was actually chapter 5 that I wasn't able to finish on time, but I don't post here until the next chapter is ready on the pat reon. Had a bit of a major water emergency in our house that ate up absolutely all the time last weekend I had set aside for writing just so we could have running water again. The ever exciting side of home ownership, woo.
Problems aside, I had fun with both this chapter and the next, so hopefully you enjoy! If you want the next chap early, it's on the pat reon. Which you can get to with /libjax tacked on the end.
There are also a few discord links in my profile if you'd like to join the community. There's ours, flowerpot (my main server outside our own), and haphne. Hope to see you there!
As always, enjoy!
Harry:
"So help me Ron, I will hex your legs off and withdraw you from this tournament myself if you don't at least try to figure out what the first task will be."
"You just try it. See how you like hauling a legless boyfriend around."
The noise that burst from Hermione set Harry's nerves on end, firing off every single one of his well-honed danger senses.
He didn't think his friend was capable of such a chimeric noise. If the chimera was part squashed house cat and part bird-of-prey, with some good old Hermione rage sewing it all together.
Using his feet, Harry pushed his chair back from the library table they had commandeered, and didn't stop until he had moved around the nearest of the two-storey bookshelves and out of sight.
He found a much quieter table, where he'd be able to skip the inevitable lashing from the Beauxbatons librarian. Madam Pince was a stern but fair woman who liked her peace. Her counterpart, however, was a man who looked older than Merlin, but with a voice like twenty Hagrids.
No matter how loud you were in his library, he would be louder. And then you'd find yourself banned for a day with ringing ears to boot.
Harry didn't think his ears could handle too much more.
Ron and Hermione either agreed with him, or had entered the silent feud portion of their argument. Then it'd be angry whispers, then angry whisper-yelling, then they'd split up to cool off and by the time Harry saw them again, it'd be as if it never happened.
The specific workings of their relationship remained a puzzle with at least a quarter of the pieces missing. He'd known them both for over half a decade — a significant portion of their lives — but how they could argue like a pair of offended hippogryphs and then be caught kissing in a hall an hour or so later just didn't fit together in Harry's brain.
The skin on his chest tingled, reminding him of own odd little spar a few weeks before.
Even now, after turning it over and over in his memory, the way she danced around their conversation would have — should have — been infuriating.
So which part of his stupid brain was aching to do it again?
Three days after his exchange with Daphne, he'd almost gone looking for her. Not that she'd be too hard to find with the Slytherin hall across from their own inside the bird-thing. But he hadn't even made it out of his miniature bed before he changed his mind.
Searching her out felt like losing, and a much larger, much louder part of his brain found that idea to be unacceptable. So the last week and a half had gone by without paying much attention to that particular desire.
Indistinct whispers wafted towards Harry, the specific words obscured by the wall of old books between him and his friends.
Whether they were just arguing to let out tension — a piece of the puzzle that had taken Harry years to uncover — or actually upset at one another, he knew Hermione's point was the one that would win out. For all his competence, Ron would be at a monumental disadvantage if they couldn't learn anything about the first task, and they were nearing the end of their shallow well of ideas.
While Harry knew Madame Maxime had no qualms about passing a hint or two to her champion and he didn't expect the new Durmstrang headmaster to be any different, Professor McGonagall had made her position as sharp and clear as could be.
It had been a long time since he'd felt like some second-year caught out after bed, but the dressing down she'd given him after asking for a hint had been equal parts nostalgic and painfully enlightening.
He wondered if Hermione knew they could be failed out of NEWTs before ever sitting them.
So it seemed they were on their own. At least for the time being.
His imagination flashed Daphne's smiling lips and turquoise eyes behind his eyelids.
For all her stumbling with their guide, she was likely well-connected at Beauxbatons.
At least more connected than they were.
He had to wonder if his mind had been waiting to pounce on the first possible opportunity to try to see her again.
Whatever the reason, he folded the idea into an excuse shaped envelope and tucked it away for later.
There were a few people he knew outside of the other Hogwarts students. Maybe he could guilt Fleur into choosing her future brother-in-law over the Beauxbatons champion.
Besides, it'd been years since she'd been in school, but she'd be running into Ron for the rest of her life.
Shaking his head, he got to his feet and left the library out the back entrance, furthest away from Ron and Hermione, whose argument had finally gained the attention of the librarian.
Turning towards where he thought the fountain was, he lamented his lack of a Beauxbatons Marauder's Map. Maybe he'd run into someone who could point him in the right direction.
At least Beauxbatons didn't have stairwells that liked to deposit you three floors higher than you were hoping for. A quick search shouldn't take too long.
—-
"Why would she still be here?"
Gabby's question landed like a tornado on Harry's plan.
He'd even worked out a really good but not over-the-top guilt-inducing argument for his case.
But of course she wouldn't still be at Beauxbatons. She had a job to go to, a fiancé to live with, a wedding to plan; a thousand things more pressing than lingering at her old school for no reason.
Which meant she likely knew nothing about the tournament at all, let alone the specifics of the tasks.
"Harry?"
With effort, Harry focused and looked down at Gabby's curious face.
"I thought she might know something about the first task," he explained, dropping down onto one of the benches lining the charms hall.
Coincidence put him in her path — and a little bit of poor directional sense — but he was still no closer to even a tiny clue to help Ron.
Gabrielle plopped herself down next to him, the edges of her Beauxbatons-blue robe brushing against his side. "Have you tried…I don't know, spying on the other schools?"
He grinned. A trip back to Hogwarts for his invisibility cloak had crossed his mind, and remained on the very short list of options.
"You belong to one of those other schools, you know," he pointed out, which made her twist her nearly perfect features into something nearing a grimace.
"Matteo has always been horrible. His younger brother is in my year, and they both act the exact same."
"He was good enough to be chosen over anybody else."
She leaned back and let her back thud against the wall. "I didn't say he was a bad wizard. It just means they'll both be even more impossible to be around." She turned her head and grinned at him. "I wouldn't mind watching Ronald beat the smug jerk in every single task."
"You can call him Ron, you know. He's going to be your brother-in-law here soon."
A shudder rolled up Gabby's back and this time her face was undeniably set in a grimace.
"It's so weird," she muttered. "It feels like she only moved away from home a few months ago, now she's getting married."
"I'm sure she'll say the same when you're the engaged one."
Gabby's cheeks turned an odd shade of pink and she shot up onto her feet.
"Come on," she said quickly. "It's my study period next. Let's see if we can find some champions to spy on."
Harry stood and looked down the hall with a sigh. "I don't actually know where I am."
Some of the color faded from her cheeks when she smiled. "You got lost?"
"My tour was…lacking."
Her eyes went wide as could be, showing every bit of her pale blue irises.
"I'll show you around! We can watch for the champions while we're walking and get both things done at the same time."
Before Harry could answer, she grabbed his hand and was tugging him back the way he'd come.
"It'll be easier if we start at the top and work our way down," she said, taking a right hand turn into a stairwell he hadn't noticed. "The second and third floors will be pretty empty until later."
The tour that followed was thorough, though compared to Jorge's tour, a trip to the toilet would show off more of the school than he'd seen on that first evening.
Gabby seemed insistent on tugging him from one Divination room to another — she hadn't been able to explain why they needed two — and from the Astronomy room to what could only be described as the Ancient Runes Workshop. It was a half an hour before he could pry her away from the cluttered workbenches; only managing to do so by luring her into a conversation about the things she was excited to learn when she could finally take the class.
She had moved from her interest in permanent runic wards to the more quality of life applications by the time they started down the stairs at the end of the hall. The descent grew more and more humid with each step, until it became nearly unbearable once they stopped just outside the greenhouses.
Harry wiped his free hand across his forehead, grimacing when it came away wet. "Doesn't it bother you?"
Gabby shrugged and looked up at him. "I like the heat."
"Well I don't," he said, nodding towards the opposite end of the hall. "What's down there? Hopefully something cooler."
"A few lecture halls, and down to the right is the Potions classroom."
Jorge's morning hideaway.
Weren't they on the opposite side of the school?
A tug on his hand pulled him into motion as she dragged him down the hall, showing him all four magically placed greenhouses as they passed them.
The Potions hall seemed oddly nice, even if it looked just like the rest of the school. Maybe it was the fact it wasn't in a damp dark dungeon underground that made the difference.
A window or two really helped. Or maybe it was that he hadn't spent five years here being glared at by the professor.
Gabby was tugging him towards the stairwell at the end of the hall, when a door near the end swung open just before they passed.
Jorge stepped out first, his head turned away from them and speaking to whoever was behind him.
Even before she appeared, something in him knew it was her.
He suspected it was his danger sense.
Where Jorge hadn't noticed them in the slightest, her eyes were locked on him the moment he entered her view.
Now if only he could decipher what her slow smile meant.
Before it could fully form, it faltered when she glanced down to where Gabby still held on to his hand. Her brow furrowed and she looked back up at him, confused.
Whatever Jorge had been saying cut off when he finally noticed they had company. "Oh," he said after a silent moment. "Have you also come for a supplementary tour?"
Harry shook his head and removed his hand from Gabby's. "No, she showed me around pretty well."
Daphne's eyes flitted over to Gabby, then back to Harry for just a moment before her thin eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"You must be one of the Delacour girls," she said.
Harry nodded down at his future sort-of-sister-in-law. "Daphne, this is Gabby. Gabby, Daphne."
"Gabrielle."
If he hadn't been watching, he would've missed the twitch of Daphne's lips. Since he was, he made sure to look elsewhere before she noticed.
Heat rippled through his middle when her eyes met his and he struggled not to let the world narrow down until she was the only thing he could see.
Her outfit wasn't all that different from what she'd been wearing when they arrived, but her shirt was tight enough for the buttons to strain slightly across her chest, and the lack of tights showed off pale — and almost definitely soft — legs beneath her skirt.
Gabrielle's voice expanded his attention back to include both her and Jorge again. "We need to get going."
Close as they were, he could see that Daphne's turquoise eyes had turned dark and curious.
Maybe…maybe they didn't have to leave right away.
"You're not easy to find," he said, smiling a little at Gabby's annoyed huff. "I haven't seen you since the tour."
"Been looking, have you?"
Jorge pointed to the Potions classroom. "She's been here with me most mornings. I help Professor Doyle get the ingredients and tools ready for his afternoon classes."
"Wow," Harry found himself saying. "For two whole weeks?"
"I didn't have any other engagements."
He had to stop looking at her mouth. And her neck.
Not her legs, either.
"I thought you had plans this year."
Her eyes widened and he watched a reluctant smile fight its way across her lips.
"Nothing so interesting it couldn't be put off until later."
Well damn.
Thankfully, instead of letting him flounder, his subconscious prodded at the little envelope marked, 'Excuse.'
And in smaller letters; 'Emergency only.'
"Actually," he said. "We were hoping to run into someone like you."
Gabby's head whipped around to look at him. "No we weren't."
Daphne said nothing.
"Ron and Hermione haven't had much luck getting any info on the first task."
She raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"And since none of us really know anybody here-"
Gabby made a noise that sounded like a muffled grunt and Harry nodded towards her.
"-present company excluded, we thought you might…I don't know…know somebody."
"'We thought?'"
He grit his teeth to keep his own reluctant smile from forming. "I thought."
Satisfied, she relaxed and blew out a breath. "I ran into Hermione last week. She didn't seem too agitated to me." She paused, then tilted her head. "Any more agitated than normal, anyway."
"It's been a tense week."
Daphne nodded. "I only caught a glimpse of her a few days ago as she left the headmistress's office and she seemed to be on some sort of crusade, but I assumed her tutoring had gone poorly."
"Nope. It was all Ron related."
"I see."
A silence fell over the group that made Jorge shift his weight from foot to foot and Gabby gesture to the stairwell with her eyes.
"Well," he said after another moment of ignoring Gabby's increasingly more insistent 'hints,' "do you know anybody?"
"I'm thinking," she said, then crossed her arms. "I might, but I'd need to check."
"You need to check to see if you know a person?"
"No, genius. I need to check to see if the person I know has anything to do with the tournament." She paused, and the tension between them snapped back into place when she straightened and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "And what do I get in return?"
"What do you want?"
Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been that, and she deflated a little.
"To be determined," she said, then jumped a little when the bell started tolling noon.
By the time it was over, she'd said a hurried goodbye to Jorge, who was doing a lousy job of hiding his disappointment, and she nodded at Gabby, who replied with a glare that seemed designed to try to sink Daphne into the floor.
As the twelfth toll faded, she squeezed through the small gap between him and Gabby, whispering as she passed.
"Don't worry. Next time, I'll find you."
Then she was off, leaving only the swirl of her floral perfume behind.
—
"You have one week left."
"I know."
"And none of you have figured anything out."
"We know."
"And one of your best friends is about to do the first task completely blind."
"I know, Lupin."
"Just checking."
The green monochrome of the floo was terrible at expressing emotion, but Lupin's crooked smile was plenty visible through the flickering green flames.
"Why'd you call me then?" Lupin asked, his head fading from view for a moment before returning. "I've got a lot of essays to slog through. First-years can barely spell Hogsmeade, let alone the five different types of Fae."
"You're the one who told me to check in from time to time."
"And we both know I expected maybe two letters maximum from you, not a floo call."
Sirius hadn't been so annoyingly perceptive.
"We might have a lead, but she's not come through yet."
"She?"
Maybe necromancy was an elective he could take somewhere.
"Yes, she," he said instead. "I don't know her very well, but I thought she'd come through."
Lupin looked at him for a moment without speaking, then shook his head. "Well have you gone looking for her? Maybe she forgot."
Inferi probably weren't so bad, once you got to know them.
"No," he said, frowning. "And she didn't forget."
"Either you're lying to me about knowing her well, or you're lying to me about finding her. Which is it?"
"Go grade your papers old man. Leave the gossip to your students."
"Again, you called me."
"It's the last time it'll happen too, don't worry."
Lupin's floating head nodded and fixed Harry with an indecipherable look through the flames.
"How's the list coming?"
A set of conversations that felt like a careful tango sprang to mind.
"Okay," Harry said instead. "Haven't checked anything off yet, but that should be easier after the first task. Especially with the Yule Ball coming up."
"I seem to remember you telling me how much you hated the last one."
"Of course I did. I was in way over my head and I couldn't dance. Parvati only started talking to me again after we got rid of Voldemort."
"And is this mystery girl going to be your date?"
"Don't you have something to do?"
Harry ended the call with a promise to at least write, then rose from his spot in front of the fireplace.
All the fun he was supposed to be having at this new, exciting school had culminated in a preoccupation with a woman he knew almost nothing about and witnessing at least a half-dozen spats between his two best friends. So far, it wasn't worth the cost of being so distant from his…whatever Lupin was.
Helping teach little Firsties about pixies and jinxes was starting to sound more and more like a missed opportunity.
The massive clock behind him let out a chime and he hurried to the door. Even with Death Eaters and Voldemort in the not-distant-enough past, he wasn't keen on being on the wrong side of the Beauxbatons Headmistress by taking up too much of her office time. Especially when there was so much side to be on.
Madame Maxime was waiting for him out in the hall, her elegant flowing robes almost touching either side of the hallway. He thanked her for allowing the floo call, and taking care not to tread on the edges of what appeared to be an expensive glossy fabric, he slid past her and ran through his budding mental map of the school.
It shouldn't be too far to get to the library. If he was remembering right, anyway.
After wandering into a classroom that had been converted to a storage room sometime in the 1800's and promptly forgotten, then finding himself somehow back in the fancy marble entry all, he vowed to owl Lupin and see if he could make his own version of the Marauder's Map.
Hogwarts was like a labyrinth. How could a three-storey château be somehow worse?
The dinner bell rang through the school; a loud, single note, as if someone had struck a triangle enlarged to be as big as a person, and Harry turned away from the front doors. The dining hall was right around the corner. It would be impossible to get lost.
He tried to look normal instead of relieved when he joined the flow into the dining hall.
With a motion that had been routine since their fourth year, Harry scanned over the crowd for the top of Ron's head. There was a pair of Durmstrang boys who seemed to have an inch or two on Hagrid, but no Ron or Hermione that he could see.
Either their argument had run long, or it hadn't, and they were up to the sorts of things he kept squarely behind the 'don't think about it' wall. How they could snog somebody they basically grew up with was beyond him.
At least Ginny hadn't been at their side for almost every class throughout their entire schooling career.
Without his friends or Gabby — who had offered her services as tour-guide two more times since stomping away after his last conversation with Daphne — Harry wandered over the unofficial Hogwarts section of the room, although it was becoming less and less so as more Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students joined them with each passing day.
Who knew international cooperation started over a school meal?
Pain burst through his shins when a chair to his left shot out and rammed into his legs. Cursing, he whirled to find Daphne sitting on the other side of the table.
She inclined her head to her impromptu weapon and smiled.
"Join me."
"I would, but I might need to go to the infirmary."
"Only if you've got twigs for bones. Sit. I have news."
If he felt the tiniest little spark of vindication for sticking up for her to Lupin, he kept it stuffed deep down.
"And have you decided what this news is going to cost me?" he asked, taking the offered seat.
She tilted her head from side to side, letting her blonde hair spill over the edge of her shoulder to brush the tabletop.
"Can't I just want our school's champion to succeed?"
"Which is obviously why you offered with some sort of vague statement like 'to be determined' instead of saying 'nothing thanks. The satisfaction of helping a fellow student win the tournament is enough for me.'"
What little poise she had affected vanished when she wrinkled her nose at him. "Your impression is uncanny."
He nodded.
"So," he said, leaning back in his chair. "What'd you find out?"
She blew out a breath that pushed a few of her loose hairs from her face and she tucked them behind her ear with a finger.
"Have dinner with me first. Annoyingly, I've been getting more and more curious about you."
He'd sat down expecting another set in their conversational tennis match, but she seemed…normal. Whatever that meant for her.
"How about you tell me so I can let my friends know, and I'll still have dinner with you."
She pursed her lips — red today — and he tried to focus.
"If that's what you want. I really do just want Weasley to succeed. I have no motive other than that."
"Says the woman with poor Jorge tied around her finger."
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I'm not leading him on, if that's what you're wondering. I made our relationship perfectly clear."
"Which is?"
Pleasure flitted across her attractive features. Features that, along with the rest of her body, tried to steal his attention away from their conversation.
There was a small mole, just next to her left ear.
"Business. I offered to help him hone his social skills and help him with his memory problem in exchange for introducing me to his mother."
Well aware of the irony, Harry asked anyway. "Memory problem?"
She nodded. "With names, mostly."
A joke about Evelyn Knight — whoever she was — leapt onto his tongue, but he kept it locked away. There had been real fury behind her smile at the mention of that woman.
Food appeared on the table between them, and Harry grabbed a plate filling it with a few pieces of the salmon and a small helping of the mixed vegetables. Daphne, on the other hand, filled half a plate with the vegetables, and half with a helping of fruit.
"A vegetarian?" he asked, pulling off a piece of salmon with his fork.
"Hardly," she said. "I just don't like fish."
"Have you ever-"
"Yes I've had fresh fish," she snapped, then stuffed a piece of broccoli into her mouth.
He swallowed his bite and, listening to the tingle of his instincts, dropped the topic. "You still haven't told me what the task is."
"I don't know if you'll be relieved, or disappointed," she said. "No dragons or drowning in a lake this time."
"I didn't drown."
"I was there. You drowned a little bit."
"Inhaling a little water isn't drowning."
She smiled and shrugged, then set down her fork, pulled a small bag from below the table, and produced a small notebook. One by one, she flipped through the pages until she hit a dog-eared page near the end.
"My contact said it's going to be a test of wit first. Some sort of multi-layered magical test."
Harry's fork paused halfway up to his mouth.
"What's that even mean?"
She flipped a page and scanned what was written before answering. "He didn't know exactly, since the actual tests inside were created after his involvement, but the idea was to give the champions multiple ways in which to finish the task."
"That's really vague."
The notebook snapped shut and she tossed it back into the bag, then fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare.
"It's a hell of a lot closer than you were two minutes ago. When I said I didn't want anything, I didn't mean you could avoid a 'thank you very much, Daphne.'"
He quickly swallowed his bite of broccoli and suppressed the grimace as it slid sideways down his throat.
"Thank you very much, Daphne."
She raised an eyebrow. "'We couldn't have done it without you.'"
"We couldn't have done it without you."
She hesitated, then relaxed her glare into a slow half-smile. "Good boy."
"Don't push it."
She laughed lightly and tucked her bag back beneath the table. "So, now that you know Weasley isn't going to be in any mortal peril, how about you satisfy some of my curiosity."
"In return for your help, you mean?"
Her smile faltered down into a frown. "I don't know why you're so fixated on trading information or whatever it is you've got in your head, but would you drop it? I helped because I wanted to help. I want to know more about you because I want to know more about you. The two don't have to be related."
"I'm sorry that both times I've seen you, you've been working some sort of angle."
"Yes, I have. With the same person."
Stubborn heat rose in his chest but he beat it back down as best he could. "My fault," he said after a moment. "I suppose I did make a few assumptions."
Her face relaxed and she nodded a slow agreement. "Well, you're not the only one."
He scooted his plate to the side and folded his arms across the edge of the table. "What's got you so curious about me?"
"Nothing if you don't try to sound a little less smug about it."
"I'm very interesting."
"What you are," she said, pushing her own plate to the side and matching his posture, "is not at all what I expected."
With her shoulders bent forward like they were, the open top button of her blouse allowed a glimpse of the pale skin of her chest.
"People have lots of expectations about me," he said.
Where he expected more questions, he got only silence, save for the background noise of the people around them. Her eyes searched his, lacking the dark intensity they had during their previous interactions. Even without it, a piece of him was being pulled towards her more and more with every minute that passed in her company.
"What do you want to know?" he found himself asking.
His words jolted her away from whatever she'd been looking for, and she chewed absently on a lip as she thought.
"What was it like defeating Voldemort?"
He almost laughed. "I'm actually surprised you'd ask. It's what everybody asks."
She pursed her lips and looked off somewhere to her left. "Well pardon me for being curious about the biggest event of the last four generations."
"So that's what you were wondering about me?"
She returned her gaze to him and shook her head. "No, not really. Well, that's not all of it, anyway."
He let out a sigh that ruffled the checklist in his mind. Zero for two so far, though it was unreasonable to expect to never have to talk about what happened. It'd been dumb to put it on the list.
"Do you want the honest truth?"
She sat up straighter, an undeniable light of interest peeking through features he could see straining against her control.
"Obviously."
People always wanted to hear about the duel, or where he, Ron, and Hermione had been. They liked to poke when he obviously skipped over mentioning the Horcruxes or, in Dean and Seamus's case when they were back in the dorms, prod about all the attention he was surely receiving from women.
Would Daphne become one of those people; so entitled to the story of their 'living legend?'
His stomach knotted. Only one way to know.
"I felt nothing," he said, sparing some of his attention for the other people at the table, who had yet to notice their shift in topic.
Her only reaction was a slow inhale and a slower exhale.
"Interesting," she said eventually. "Why do you think that was?"
What sliver of attention he'd let linger on their neighbors snapped back to her as she again pulled the world in like a blanket and wrapped it around her.
A thousand times he'd been asked that question and he'd come up with hundreds of answers when he learned the truth was far too boring.
But this was new.
And like the other new things she pulled into his life, it made his pulse sprint with the thrill of it.
"I…don't know," he admitted. "I don't think I believed we could actually do it."
She let out a breathy snort of laughter. "That's grim. Weren't you the only one who could?"
He couldn't help but mirror her smile. "Maybe. Lucky for everyone else, I got him before he got me."
"Indeed," she murmured, leaning forward. "How lucky for me."
The shift in her voice was like a switch.
No. It was like the weather; when the cows lay in the grass and the cats all run inside, but the people are too stupid to see the lightning hiding in the clouds.
In the light of that storm, it was all he could do not to be swept away. Especially when a growing portion of his mind tried to pry his fingers from their handhold.
Her gaze drifted from his, wandering down until she was looking down at his arms. A flush to match her lipstick crept up the sliver of skin he could see below her collarbones.
With a jolt, she drew in a breath and sat up straighter, glancing over to the people sitting nearby.
"Remember the way to the fountain?" she asked.
He very nearly burst out laughing at the drastic change in topic, but…
But the pull was still there, her eyes were still dark, and her lips were parted just slightly.
"Hard to forget."
Her mouth curled into a smile. "Good answer. I'll see you there at midnight."