Chapter Sixty-Two: Flowing with the Current
Learning Occlumency turned out to be a real pain for Daphne. Though she did try to focus on something meaningless every night in bed before falling asleep, it was exceptionally difficult for her. Harry seemed to have a much easier time of it, but then, he wasn't burdened by 'divinatory indifference' like she was.
It frustrated her immensely, because she also had to deal with her regular homework and helping Harry with his preparations for the second task. At least his presence eased her bad mood somewhat, despite him apparently being the reason she wasn't able to shift her 'focus in emptiness'.
"It's just so…boring," she said that Friday morning. The next session was planned for that evening, and she had a very bad feeling about it. "I'm trying to focus on something pointless, like a quill, but I…I guess my subconscious doesn't see the importance, or something, and I'll get distracted. I mean, I can read or do my homework or whatever just fine, but focusing on a stone…"
"Well, isn't that exactly the point? Snape did say it had to take a conscious effort because you shouldn't get distracted," Harry said.
"Maybe visual imagination isn't the right way for you?" Hermione suggested.
"Meaning?"
"You can try petting Nyx, if she'll let you. Sometimes when I'm stressing over homework I'll just stroke Crookshanks for a while, focusing on nothing but the feeling of his fur under my fingers. Maybe if you do that often enough you'll be able to call up the tactile memory whenever you want."
"I'll give it a try, I suppose," Daphne said.
She wasn't really sure if it would work, but she had nothing to lose. At the rate things were going now she'd have graduated by the time she learned Occlumency.
Well, she'd solve that problem when she got to it. First, she'd need to get through a double Potions class with Snape no longer inclined to let her get away with talking back.
When she sat down, her anticipation was apparently quite visible.
"You're not usually this excited for Potions," Tracey said. "Is it because you get to take 'remedial' classes with Potter, now?"
Daphne grinned. "Nope. More that Snape has finally decided he won't tolerate me talking back to him anymore, so I'm wondering what's going to happen instead."
What ended up happening, however, was something even she could never have predicted.
Snape strode into the classroom which, as usual, fell silent immediately.
"We've been studying antidotes for some time now. Your previous attempts at brewing them, however, were by and large abysmal. Today, you will therefore be brewing another antidote. The poisons are, naturally, unblended and are considered uncommon, but are otherwise unmarked. As many of you failed to even identify your poison last time, we shall go over that process first. What are the very first things you look for in a poison?"
As usual, Hermione was the first one to raise her hand, but Snape would just ignore her–
"Miss Granger?"
Hermione was so surprised Snape actually called on her that she didn't respond for a second, and the rest of the class was equally stunned.
"Er, yes, color and consistency," she said.
"Correct," Snape said.
Most teachers would have given points to Gryffindor for that, but Snape not making a sneer about an answer Hermione gave was probably worth more to the Gryffindors than even a hundred points would have been.
"Because color and consistency can be safely observed from the outside of the container — provided it is a clear container — they can be used to rule out a large number of possibilities right away. You will find that poisons of similar color and consistency tend to contain similar ingredients as well, even if their effects are vastly different.
"However, this alone is not enough to determine with certainty what kind of poison you're dealing with. Now, by Paracelsus's Second Principle of Toxicology, we know that an indicator potion can be used to further narrow down the range of antidotes to look for. Following the Second Principle, what would I need to add to the basic indicator potion if my poison is bright green and moderately viscous? Mr. Malfoy?"
"Purified doxy venom?" Malfoy guessed.
"Sadly incorrect. Miss Granger?"
"Alcohol and four — or more, depending on brightness — pinches of powdered borage flower, sir," Hermione said, instantly this time.
"Correct. And why?"
"The alcohol dilutes the poison and lowers its viscosity, allowing the ingredients of the indicator potion to interact with it easier. Purified doxy venom does the opposite and increases viscosity. The borage flower is necessary because the green color of the poison often indicates the presence of lady's mantle, which is highly reactive and needs to be neutralized first to make the indicator potion reliable."
"Correct again. As you should all be able to tell by now, identifying the poison is itself an involved process, which is often the most difficult part of creating an antidote. Once the poison has been identified, the antidote is usually a matter of following the correct steps in the instructions, difficult though that might be to some. Now, the instructions are on the board. Reference pages in your books are on the right. Collect your vial of poison and begin. Note that handing in a bezoar, while technically correct, is not allowed."
Slowly, the class got in motion. Everyone, Daphne included, was stunned that Snape, of all people, had given an actual explanation and had even allowed Hermione to give the correct answers without sneering at her, not to mention supplying reference pages on the board.
Daphne glanced at him from the corner of her eye when she went to collect her vial of poison, but his expression was unreadable. That in itself was odd, as he would usually be scowling.
By the end of the class, Snape graded everyone's antidotes, and while he did subtract points from some of the Gryffindors for misreading instructions or identifying their poison wrong, he was far milder than usual, and gave far fewer gratuitous points to the Slytherin, though he did reward Malfoy's antidote with ten points, despite pointing out it was for the wrong poison.
Daphne actually scored five points for identifying the poison correctly, though she'd taken so long to do that that her antidote was still incomplete by the end of the class.
Harry, surprisingly, didn't get any points deducted, nor did Hermione or Ron, and when they left the classroom they immediately turned to Daphne.
"What did you do to Snape?" Ron asked. "He's never been this…good of a teacher before."
Daphne shrugged. "I don't know. I got pretty angry with him, but I expected him to simply ignore me and carry on as usual. I wonder if he'll keep this up. If so, I might actually end up being somewhat decent at Potions."
That evening, Daphne and Harry reported to Snape's office again for their Occlumency lessons. Daphne had attempted, between dinner and the lesson, to follow Hermione's advice and had spent a good ten minutes doing nothing but stroking Nyx, who appreciated the attention she was suddenly getting.
This time, Snape did test Harry first, and was apparently satisfied with his progress, because he had very little to say about it. Then, he cast the spell on Daphne again, who had her eyes closed and tried to focus on the feeling of Nyx's soft fur beneath her fingers.
As before, thoughts began to flash in front of her mind's eye, but she poured all her attention into the memory of petting Nyx. It seemed to work, a bit longer than she'd been able to do previously, in any case, but then her thoughts switched back to Harry and she got swept up in the stream of images again, only blocking Snape out when he once again found the clearing.
"It was better," Snape said. "But your attachment to Potter is still too strong. It overpowers your focus and allows me to drag you along. This means that I, and not you, can steer where the flow of memories goes, until I reach the one that I want by following your own chain of associations.
"You will now both take out a piece of parchment and write something on it, then place it facedown on my desk. I will attempt to extract the information on the parchment through Legilimency, and you will prevent me from doing so. You will find this kind of attack to feel different from before, because I'm looking for something specific. As before, you may use any means available to you to shut me out."
Daphne had a very bad feeling about how she'd perform in the test and focused once more on Nyx while she wrote down a sentence on her parchment.
'Good Potions lesson, sir.'
She put it down on Snape's desk and waited for Harry to put down his parchment as well.
"Potter, you first," Snape said.
Harry nodded, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Ready, sir," he said.
Snape aimed his wand. "Legilimens!"
Right away, Harry seemed to struggle a lot more than before, appearing physically strained as he weathered the assault. Then, Snape withdrew of his own accord and Harry groaned.
"A decent effort," Snape said. "However, I did break through. 'Practice the Wronski Feint'. Very…ambitious, Potter."
Harry grimaced, but mostly at Daphne, who giggled. Even in a lesson given by Snape, Harry found a way to work in some Quidditch.
"Your weakness was that you had the secret actively in your mind. By attempting to hide it, you highlighted it for me and I was able to direct my attack efficiently. However, your focus was decent and it took me several tries."
Harry nodded. "Yes, sir," he said.
Snape now turned to Daphne, who closed her eyes as well and focused as hard as she could on Nyx. Again, she felt the flow of memories starting up, but this time it wasn't random. There was a pressure exerted on it, shifting her thoughts first to Harry, then to the Occlumency class, and then to the parchment she'd written on only a moment ago.
"Thank you for the compliment, Miss Greengrass. Sadly, I'm not able to say the same about your defense against my incursion into your mind. 'Good Potions lesson, sir'."
Daphne nodded in embarrassment. That had been even faster than her first attempt a week ago.
"Did you feel how I made use of your weaknesses?" Snape asked.
Daphne nodded. "Yes, sir. You nudged my thoughts toward Harry and then followed the chain, like you said."
"Precisely. Because of your fixation on Potter, I'm able to use him as a base and then navigate at will. I was hoping that a focus on something not emotionally charged would be able to override it, but I think it will take some more time than that."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you why he's on my mind so much," Daphne said, feeling a bit uncomfortable.
Snape shook his head. "No, that won't be necessary. It is not the attachment itself that is the problem, but rather its place in your mind. I have looked into the combination of Divination of Occlumency, and the 'focus in emptiness' the centaurs speak of is something almost uniquely divinatory, which often settles initially on a romantic partner. Shifting it at will can, in many cases, take years even for an adult attempting to learn Occlumency, and until then their defense tends to remain relatively weak.
"However, it can be worked around somewhat. You can push back against my influence and push me into another memory, which leads away from where I'm trying to get. While it will not stop a persistent attacker who knows you well, it can sufficiently delay someone unfamiliar to break the connection a different way.
"As you have your one secret memory that does trigger you to push the invader out, a risky option might be to force them towards that memory and allow your natural reflexes to expel them — but this does carry the risk of revealing your secret if you fail. Alternatively, stall for time and reuse memories if you can. Now, let's try again, using this method…"
Daphne nodded and readied herself once more.
Again, she felt the pressure being exerted to shift her thoughts to Harry, but she quickly thought of Quidditch, which Snape redirected to the match he had been refereeing in first year, so Daphne shifted to dueling practice, which Snape steered to Hogwarts's Dueling Club, from where Daphne went to lounging in her back yard with a drink, which Snape shifted to a school meal, and then Daphne went back to Quidditch…
It went on like that for a while, until she slipped up and Snape once again reached the parchment memory.
"Much better, Miss Greengrass. I shall lend you the book I have been reading, and your homework for the next lesson will be to study ways of shifting your focus in emptiness. Potter, we shall attempt the same attack again. Your homework shall be to steer your own mind away from what you are defending, while focusing on your Patronus. This will take practice, so do not expect to succeed immediately."
"Yes, sir," Harry said.
They went through the exercises a couple more times, before eventually being dismissed.
Snape gave Daphne an immensely thick book, which appeared to be titled Annotated Theory of Potion Brewing.
"To reveal the real contents, use Revelio. Obfuscato will change it back into a Potions book," Snape said.
Daphne nodded, and she and Harry left the office. "Apparently, finding out Snape's secrets makes him a good teacher," Daphne said. "I should've done that much sooner, I guess…"
Harry chuckled. "Well, better late than never. Hey, er, if you want me to help you with that book…we can study together tomorrow," he said.
Daphne smiled. "Thanks. I think I could use every bit of help I can get…"
The book, to Daphne's great annoyance, turned out to be extremely dense and hard to get through. The relevant chapters mainly spoke in very vague terms of attachment and freedom thereof, but neither Daphne nor Harry could make much sense of it.
Soon, however, Daphne's irritation at the book was replaced with worry as Harry's second task drew nearer. He'd succeeded in mastering the Bubble-Head Charm, and was now even capable of casting spells while maintaining the bubble, though he hoped he wouldn't have to use too much magic during the task, as repeated casting interfered with his ability to refresh his air supply.
Then, the evening before the task, they were in the library, mainly so Daphne and Harry could spend as much time together as possible, when Tracey came up to the library.
"Daphne, Snape wants to see you in his office. He didn't say why, but it's probably important," she said. "Hi, by the way," she added, raising a hand to Harry, Hermione, and Ron, who all returned the greeting a bit sheepishly.
Daphne sighed. "Well, guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow at the task, then," she said.
She leaned over and gave Harry a quick kiss — it was getting less and less embarrassing to do in front of others by the day — and then got up.
"In case I don't see you before the task, good luck. You've got this," she said.
Harry grinned at her. "Thanks," he said.
She could see that he was nervous, but he looked far less troubled now than he did before his first task. With a wave at Hermione and Ron, Daphne followed Tracey to Snape's office.
"He didn't mention anything?" she asked as they headed over to the dungeons.
Tracey shook her head. "Nope. He seemed a bit more grim than usual, but nothing beyond that."
Daphne frowned. Could it have something to do with her lessons? Maybe Snape had discovered something that could be of use to her, though she didn't think that would be so important he'd call her over immediately. Or had he decided it was too risky for her to know the secret, and he was going to Obliviate her after all?
With some trepidation, she knocked on the door. To her surprise, it wasn't Snape's voice that replied, but Dumbledore's.
"Come in."
Daphne stepped into the office. Snape sat behind his desk, while Dumbledore stood in front of it, smiling benignly as usual.
"Thank you for coming," he said kindly. "I believe you are aware of the nature of Harry's task tomorrow?" he asked.
Daphne nodded uncertainly. "He needs to retrieve something the merpeople have taken from him," she said.
"Indeed, though his task not to retrieve something, but someone," Dumbledore said.
"Excuse me?" Daphne said, though she'd heard Dumbledore perfectly well.
"His task will be to rescue a 'hostage' from the merpeople. This hostage needs to be the person who means the most to him, and I don't think I'm mistaken when I say that that person is you."
"You want me to act as a hostage? Wow, good thing I practiced the Bubble-Head Charm as well, then," Daphne said, shaking her head.
"Though I applaud your work ethic in learning that charm two years early, it won't be necessary in this case," Dumbledore said, still smiling. Daphne wondered idly if he ever tired of that.
"So…what will happen? Harry also said he only had an hour, and though I have complete faith in him…my friends get rather upset when I risk my life like it isn't worth anything," she said with a quick glance at Snape, whose own expression was inscrutable.
"You will be perfectly safe," Dumbledore said. "I will place you in an enchanted sleep, from which you will wake the moment your head breaches the surface of the lake. The merpeople will see to it that any hostages who could not be rescued by the champions are safely returned to the surface after the task ends."
Daphne sighed. "Okay, but do me a favor and at least tell Harry that I'm not in any actual danger. He really doesn't like it when I endanger myself. The feeling is mutual, by the way, so I guess I should be happy I won't be stressing out during the task like last time…"
"You agree to be Harry's hostage, then?"
"Of course I do," Daphne said, then quickly added, "sir."
Dumbledore gave a satisfied nod, then drew his wand and conjured up a camping bed. "If you would lie down, please, I will perform the spell," he said.
"Already? Isn't the task tomorrow morning?" Daphne asked.
"Indeed, but the hostages will be taken to the lake tonight," Dumbledore said.
Daphne took a deep breath, suddenly feeling very nervous.
"Okay…" She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Dumbledore muttered a spell.
Daphne was walking in the oddest park she'd ever been in. The trees were tall and thin, their leaves facing upward and swaying slightly. The sunlight was a strange blue-green color, and it felt quite cool. She walked down the lane, taking in her surroundings. She was heading towards a village that lay beyond the park, where she'd meet Harry.
She passed Fred and George, who both took their top hats off with a flourish as she walked by.
She knew the village wasn't far away, and she wanted to get there quickly, but her movements were slow and floaty. It annoyed her a bit and she tried to move faster in spite of it.
"Your attachment is slowing you down," Hermione said from atop her chariot drawn by unicorns.
"Harry is waiting for me, though," Daphne said.
"He will wait for you regardless. You and he are bound by ties stronger than time or distance."
"But I need to get to him soon. He's in danger," Daphne said. She wasn't lying. The skrewt battalions were approaching from the north.
"Have faith in him," Hermione said. Then she took up the reins of her chariot, raised one arm dramatically, and shouted, "The future is in the past! Onwards Aoshima!"
The chariot raced off, leaving a trail of rainbows in its wake.
Daphne wanted to shout at Hermione to take her along for the ride, but the chariot was already gone.
Not much later, she passed Ron, who was on a broomstick backwards, yet seemed very comfortable as he floated along.
"Shouldn't you be helping Harry against the skrewts?" Daphne asked.
"Of course I'll help him," Ron said. "I'll get there tonight, I think. He'll be able to save himself until then."
"The village is the other way, though."
Ron shrugged. "Depends on the village you're going to, I'd say. But don't worry, I'll get to the right one. Well, better get going again…"
The broomstick took off, moving sideways like a crab, and disappeared between the swaying trees.
Now Daphne was really getting annoyed. Didn't her friends understand that she had to get to Harry? The skrewts were coming! Why wouldn't they just help her get there?
She forced herself forward, but the more force she exerted, the slower she went. There was a loud rumble to her left as Nyx barreled past beyond the trees. She was nearly the size of a building, but did stop running briefly when Daphne called her name. Her eyes went from Daphne to somewhere in the distance, where Daphne knew the village was located. She looked at Daphne curiously, as if she wanted to ask what the problem was. Then she turned away and sprinted off again, followed, painfully slowly, by Daphne.
"The current is too strong," Ginny said. She was wearing her dress robes and walking the other way.
"Everyone else is getting there," Daphne pointed out.
"So will you, but you need to let go first," Ginny said.
"No, if I do that…something bad will happen," Daphne said.
"You are rooted by the fear of loss," Ginny said. She held out her hand. "Let's dance."
"But Harry is–"
"He will come back to us," Ginny interrupted. "He always does."
"But what if he doesn't?"
"Believe that he will. Come on, let's dance."
Again, Ginny held out her hand. Well…it was fun to dance with her…
Daphne reached out and grabbed Ginny's hand, and they danced. Even the trees swayed to the music, and though they were moving away from the village, Daphne knew that it would be okay, and that she'd get to Harry in time, before the skrewt battalions came over the hills.
Daphne felt lighter and freer now, dancing with Ginny, and even the color of the light changed, and then they reached the village from its other side.
Harry stood in the village square, accompanied by Fred and George in their top hats, Hermione in her chariot, and Ron on his broomstick. Nyx sat on a building, lazily flicking her tail.
Harry grinned when he saw Daphne and Ginny approaching. "I'm glad you came here," he said. "By the way, the skrewts aren't coming. Hagrid fed them to each other and he tamed the last one."
And indeed, Harry had hardly said the words, or Hagrid came over the hill, riding the last skrewt, which had two legs in slings.
Daphne smiled widely. Everything was fine, and the sun was still getting brighter…
The first thing Daphne became aware of was that she was very wet and very cold.
The second thing was that she was surrounded by around twenty merpeople.
The third thing was that she wasn't the only one being carried, somewhat awkwardly, by Harry. The other person appeared to be a young girl with silvery-blonde hair.
"Isn't she a bit young for you?" Daphne asked.
"Fleur didn't turn up and I couldn't just leave her there, could I?" Harry asked.
Daphne laughed. "Harry, we were never in any danger," she said. "Dumbledore told us we'd be fine. Clearly, he didn't relay that to you. I did ask him to, so you'd know I wasn't risking my life for no reason again…"
"But the song said–"
"Yeah, to get you back inside the time limit. Which, given that you waited for Fleur, apparently, is probably long expired by now…"
"Never mind that. Are you okay?" Harry asked, and Daphne saw he looked a bit sheepish. Apparently he had taken the song seriously. It was kind of adorable.
"I'm fine. Had a bit of a weird dream, and I'm really cold, but no more than that," she said.
"Can you give me a hand with her? I don't think she can swim very well," Harry said, still looking embarrassed.
"Yeah, sure."
Together, they dragged the girl, who had to be Fleur's sister, through the water, accompanied by the merpeople, who were singing in the same screeching tone the egg had made when Harry had first opened it.
They reached the bank, and Daphne saw that Fleur was trying to free herself from Madame Maxime's grip, while in the background Cedric, Cho, Krum, and, to Daphne's surprise, Hermione, were being tended to by Madam Pomfrey, all of them wrapped in thick blankets.
Madam Pomfrey saw them arriving and came over, pulling her and Harry towards the others, where she wrapped them in the same kind of thick blanket and force-fed them a spoonful of Pepper-Up Potion.
"Hey," Daphne said to Hermione. "Didn't expect to see you here."
"I was called just after you had left. Viktor enjoyed our conversation at the Yule Ball so much that he apparently asked if I could be the hostage."
"Elsie did mention she had a very nice evening with that Beauxbatons guy," Daphne mused.
She looked at the stands, where Ron was looking at Hermione and Krum with something of annoyance in his face. Hermione, however, was talking to Harry, and not interested in Krum's attempts to point out a beetle in her hair at all.
Daphne took a step closer to him and said, "I'm pretty sure she and Ron are a thing," gesturing at the stands with her head.
Krum looked over and spotted Ron quite quickly. "I suspected it," he said. "Yet I have no one else to vhom I am close here. I hope he…does not mind too much. He seemed eager to meet me, at the ball."
Daphne giggled. "I imagine. He was supporting Ireland but still bought one of your figurines at the Cup. You should go and talk to him once you're allowed to leave. He's a bit insecure…has five older brothers, y'know…"
Krum nodded. "I vill talk to him," he said.
Daphne gave him a thumbs-up and rejoined Harry, who was currently receiving Fleur's heartfelt thanks.
"You saved 'er," Fleur said breathlessly. "Even though she was not your 'ostage."
"Yeah," Harry said. He looked like he still felt like an idiot.
Fleur bent down and kissed Harry twice on each cheek. To her own surprise, seeing that didn't bother Daphne at all.
Fleur then looked at Daphne. "And you too…you 'elped," she said.
Daphne smiled. "Only a bit. Harry's the real hero. It's his thing…"
Fleur smiled back, and to Daphne's surprise she kissed her as well. Perhaps it was just a French thing? Harry and Daphne exchanged a look and grinned at each other.
Fleur walked away, and Daphne jokingly said, "If you're going to say she's a better kisser than me, I'm going to hurt you. Though she's certainly softer than you…maybe you need to start shaving."
Harry chuckled. "Relax. You're the one I'd miss most, remember?"
Daphne blushed a bit, despite how cheesy that remark was. "Well, okay, then."
Bagman then announced the scores, and not too much later, Harry was officially in the lead, tied with Cedric. His next task wouldn't be until June twenty-fourth.
"That'll save me some stress. Good thing too, with those Occlumency lessons…" Harry said.
"Hey, at least you're making progress," Daphne said. "Although…"
For some reason, the odd dream she'd had in the lake kept coming up in her mind. Especially the part where Ginny had said she was rooted in fear of loss.
She smiled. "I think I might have some ideas…"
I couldn't resist the Gravity Falls reference, and since Daphne isn't going eat bleventeen packages of illegal Smile Dip, I had to do it this way. The dream sequence was trippy as hell anyway.
Also, yeah, still downplaying the jealousy. I don't care much for it, either IRL or in fiction, so if I can mitigate it by having people talk things out, I will.