I do not own Harry Potter or gain anything from writing this other than the opportunity of expanding on an already brilliant universe for my own entertainment, and hopefully yours.
The Curse in the Secret Room
The room looked different from anytime Daphne's seen it before. Even through the vision of the room she saw while in Voldemort's mind, while there were similarities, it looked different. The biggest difference was the lack of light, it was dark; not quite pitch black, but enough to make her second guess everything she was seeing. The piles of junk were there, that much she could make out, but the details were shadowy and difficult to make out. To find a crown in a massive room like this might be too much, but she wasn't about to give up now.
More than the dark, what made her think that turning back might be the best course of action was the feeling of foreboding that shivered through her. The room felt wrong. Not dissimilar to the feel of the golden cup that was a Horcrux, but more, all encompassing. Like she was standing in deep water struggling to keep her face above the surface, only there was no water around her. It was difficult to breathe, difficult to even move, to take that first step; but after only a moment's hesitation, she did make that first step, and once she began it was easier to keep going. The unicorn horn she held tight to her chest helped. At least she thought it did, she wasn't willing to put it away to test the difference.
There was no sign of the wraith of Voldemort insofar, but she had to assume it at least noticed a door opening and closing. A shifting shadow ahead of the path she chose made her choke down a gasp, but after watching it pass by she realised that couldn't be Voldemort. It looked more like a bat or something, but the way it hovered didn't look like any bat she'd ever seen. It did nothing to quell the nervousness building inside her, but she walked on, careful to keep her steps silent from underneath the Invisibility Cloak.
The tall piles of junk made aisles that she could walk through, and as she did she tried to see any sign of the dresser with a bust of a man atop it, with the diadem inside one of its drawers. She worried that she'd need to light her wand, but didn't dare. It seemed the wraith was none the wiser that she was here, so she didn't want to draw attention to herself.
That thought came to a screeching halt as another shadow passed ahead, this one moving far quicker than the slow float from the bat-sized whatever it was. This one she knew what it was, even if she could only see a vague shadow. She could hear it too, a rumble of magic like a rock-slide from a great distance away. Only the wraith wasn't that far from Daphne at all. She stood stock still and held her breath as it passed her again, and she got the impression it was searching for her, passing through the lanes one by one in hopes of locating the intruder, and it was getting too close for comfort.
She'd only just entered the room and she was already panicking; she'd have to let Luna and Harry know they were wrong about her supposed bravery. Still, she didn't turn and run for the door. Instead she huddled into a little alcove made by a pile of cauldrons on the side of her aisle. And not a second too soon. The wraith came suddenly, barreling down the middle of where she was just standing, a vague ghostly voice reaching her ears as it passed.
'Pooootterrr!' It hissed.
As soon as it was beyond her she moved ahead a bit hurriedly, immensely thankful it couldn't sense her in some way while under the Invisibility Cloak. She clutched the unicorn horn in her hand tightly as she jogged ahead, hoping she'd stumble on what she was looking for quickly so this nightmare could end for good.
A sudden bang preceded a stream of light. She whirled, preparing to run, but the silhouette she saw was not the wraith of Voldemort. Even though she could only see its outline, she knew exactly what it was.
'Lumos Maxima!' his voice cried.
Bright light exploded into the room, making her shy away from the sudden brightness. When she was able to look back, she saw confirmation for what she feared. But even if the sight of him flying rapidly into the room on a broom made her scared for him, she couldn't help but feel relief to see him. Relief that she wasn't here alone. That if she was caught, he would be there to help her. Though that was beneath the fear. Because how would she help him?
'POTTER!' The cry was absurdly loud, forcing Daphne to cover her ears desperately, though she didn't release the unicorn horn.
If Harry was affected by the shout he didn't show it, she saw him accelerate hard away from the approaching wraith, a stream of shadowy darkness that didn't seem to be illuminated by Harry's spell at all. Daphne thought frantically for how to help him, what spell she could use to hurt or contain the wraith. She came up with nothing, nothing she could do to the wraith anyway. The Horcrux. If the Horcrux was destroyed then the wraith wouldn't be a threat to anyone.
Still, she couldn't take her eyes away from Harry and the wraith for a time, she had to make sure he was right, that he could outrun the wraith on a broom. The wraith was fast, faster even than the broom Harry rode, but just like in the corridors outside the Great Hall, it couldn't adjust very quickly if Harry turned sharply. The stay out of reach mentality Harry was keeping looked like it would work, he had been right about that, but there was no way he would be able to search through the piles of things to find a Horcrux while on the run. If he'd tried this without Daphne, he wouldn't have succeeded. Though Daphne probably wouldn't have managed without him either. Together though, together they could do this.
With the piles of junk now nicely lit by Harry's spell, Daphne could inspect them more closely, looking for that dresser that held the diadem. There was so much to sort through, so much space to cover, and all the while Harry would be desperately running for his life. She worried with every aisle she passed she missed what she was looking for, but at the very least she was careful not to check the same aisle twice.
One of Daphne's best attributes, at least as far as she was concerned, was her memory. She was no Hermione Granger – the amount that girl could recall of something read from a textbook was ridiculous – but she was good at remembering spells that were taught once, even with never using them for years after learning them. Potions, their ingredients and required quantity were more difficult to recall all the time, but with some repetition those textbook instructions stayed with her. Directions were easy, whether based on nautical instructions or landmarks, she could remember them well.
She was making notes in her head as she ran, things that stood out as odd, even in the highly odd room. A pile of six cauldron's, teetering but not falling; a massive collection of empty sherry bottles in a large pot that must have housed something especially dangerous in Herbology at some point; broomsticks in rough and rougher shape, sticking out of a wash basin of sorts; a giant old telescope with a broken lens on the end, each end resting atop a precarious pile of books, making an unsafe archway for her to run under. A list was compiling in her mind of where she's been, to ensure she wasn't retracing her steps, yet still she couldn't find what she was looking for.
Part way through her search she heard another sound apart from the rumbling avalanche that was the wraith of Voldemort that was hunting down Harry Potter. A voice, quiet and cautious, but she soon realised it was meant for her.
'... tell me I'm not crazy and you're actually …' she heard as Harry passed overhead, the wraith not far behind him.
She waited until he made a sharp turn and was aimed in her general direction to reveal her upper half from beneath the Invisibility Cloak. His eyes widened when he saw, immediately accelerating to get her. Making sure the wraith was still looking the other way, she gestured wildly in a way she hoped conveyed the hastily made plan that had a chance of working before covering herself again. Whether he understood or not, he growled in frustration when she disappeared – but then his focus was back on avoiding the wraith, and Daphne's focus was back on finding the Horcrux.
There was so much to search through though that it wasn't solved quickly. Worried that Harry would get caught while worrying over her, she sped up a little, moving as fast as she could without revealing herself from under the cloak. She found that the source of the slow moving floating shadow in the dark turned out to be a failing Fanged Frisby that was tossed out into the room at some point, saw that there was one mountain made completely of long tables that were not dissimilar to the ones in the Great Hall, even noticed a series of portraits of completely nude witches and wizards that had no place in a school, but not the dresser with the bust she was looking for. She reached the end of the room at one point, having to double back and accidentally repeat a pair of aisles before she found the next one she needed to search in the opposite direction of the centre where she began.
It was as she was passing a dead potted tree that was decorated with socks that she heard the smash. Daphne whirled to look at Harry, worried he was caught somehow, but caught the tail end of the source of the noise. A pile of bookshelves with no books on it but reached nearly all the way to the high ceiling was falling towards her, undoubtedly due to the disturbance of the angry wraith that just passed it by. Ignoring the Invisibility Cloak blowing back by the wind, she ran, bolting as hard as she could to get out of the path of the accelerating mountain of wood. She screamed when a crash of splintering wood sounded out directly behind her, debris launched from the aggressive breaking into her back, sending her rolling forward on the ground. Desperately she stayed huddled, covering her head until the sound of falling and breaking wood ceased. Only then did she look around.
The bookshelves left a line of impassible debris between her and where she just came from, dust still falling from the disturbance. When she pushed herself to stand she saw her hand land on a potions textbook, the hand that was just holding her unicorn horn, the hand that was now visible. She saw Harry in the distance, could tell he was looking at her, knew his face was terrified even if she couldn't see it clearly. She raised her hand to let him know she was OK. Though she wouldn't be for long, not without her Cloak. She scanned the ground around her, there was rubble everywhere from the fallen mountain of bookshelves, a shattered stone back the way she came mixed in a mess of blonde hair, tangled with something shiny.
With a gasp, she came to her feet, and rushed towards it. The blond tangles of the wig were caught in it, but she recognised what it was, it felt the same as the cup felt, yet she didn't even hesitate. Her hand closed around it and pulled it away from the mess of hair. The Horcrux.
A shrill cry had her looking up sharply. The wraith wasn't chasing after Harry any longer. It was looking directly at her as she held the final fragment of its soul. It charged at her, and she turned and ran even harder than when the bookshelves were falling. She managed to outrun it before, for a while at least, before it retreated to the room; she just needed to take a page out of Harry's book and cut the next corner. Or better yet, she needed her unicorn horn.
At that thought she saw something pure white laying on the ground ahead of her. She bared down, her focus locked on the unicorn horn, even though the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end from the approaching wraith. Her only hope was to make it. The next inhuman cry came from directly behind her. The scream caught in her throat. Then suddenly the wind was pushed out of her lungs. Her vision blurred from the force of the impact and she gasped, desperately trying to catch air, even though it was somehow blowing heavily into her face.
'Daphne! Are you alright?'
Still winded, Daphne looked up into the eyes of the man who was holding her. It wasn't the wraith who caught up with her, but Harry. He was holding her on the front of his broom with a strong arm around her middle. Relief that it wasn't the wraith that passed through her made her collapse onto his chest while she caught her breath, managing a strangled, 'I'm OK,' while Harry continued his flight to avoid the wraith. It was behind them, catching up, but Harry was keeping one eye on it and dipped into a dive and arched around it smoothly, putting some distance between it and them as it turned.
'You have it!' Harry said, noticing the crown still clutched in her fingers. He turned sharply for the door. 'Let's get the hell out of –'
'No!' Daphne cried. 'My unicorn horn! I dropped it!'
It somehow sounded so childish the way she said it. She didn't want to leave yet, she accidently dropped her precious piece of jewellery and she refused to leave without it.
'And I picked it up!' Harry cried impatiently.
Daphne looked at the hand wrapped around his broom, and saw it there, pinned between his hand and the broom.
'Then what the hell are we waiting for?!' She swung the diadem hard into the horn, connecting them with a metallic ding before Harry's words reached her. 'WAIT BEFORE YOU –'
The diadem in her hand started to glow a bright white, becoming hot in her hands. She tossed it away with a startled yelp but watched it dissolve into nothing but white light. A strangled cry made her turn her attention behind her at what Harry was already looking at. The wraith no longer chased, but writhed and shook, the darkness that was consuming it seemed to be dripping off of the creature and onto the rubbish below. Then the black mass began to expand, groaning like a strained pipe right before it burst.
'Bollocks,' Harry cursed, diving hard for the still open door at the entrance to the room.
The dark mass expanded further, like a balloon being overfilled. Any vague sign of facial features were completely gone, all that remained was a swelling darkness. Daphne pulled out her wand, though had no idea what she could possibly do if that thing popped, or what effect it would have on them. A shield charm felt like it would be severely lacking for the situation.
As if her thoughts caused it, the mass suddenly exploded with a deafening bang. Daphne watched from over Harry's shoulder as the darkness that left it rushed towards them, more frightening than an explosion of fire ever could be. They passed through the doorway, and in desperation to put something between the explosion and them, Daphne slammed the door closed with her magic. The door trembled dangerously, a muffled version of the exploding darkness rumbling through it. Then it began to fade, and all that was left there was a blank wall.
After a while of staring at the wall and gasping for air, she realised their flight had stopped. They were sitting on the floor against the corridor wall, Daphne in Harry's lap, her legs squeezed tight around him, her arms around his neck. His cheek was warm against her cheek as he too stared at the blank wall, struggling to catch his breath. When they looked at each other, she let out a nervous laugh. A slow smile grew on her face when she realised what they'd just accomplished. It was over. Harry was free of the person responsible for most of the hardships that have plagued him his entire life. They did it. Together.
Harry's smile wasn't a smile though. In fact, he looked quite angry at the moment. Which didn't make sense at all considering everything.
'What the hell were you thinking going in there?' he asked in a trembling voice. 'What if it saw through your Cloak? Why did you do it?!'
Daphne couldn't help but notice how tight his grip had become around her as he yelled at her. His body was shaking as much as his voice, and he looked on the verge of tears.
'It worked out, didn't it?' she asked quietly.
'Only because I happened to see you on the map!' he snapped. 'And only because we got lucky! I told you I wouldn't let anything happen to you and you –'
She couldn't stand it anymore, it was all just too much. The way he held her, worried over her, trembled at the mere thought of what could have happened to her. His tirade was cut off firmly when her lips pressed against his. There was an instant of surprise, then his grip pulled them even tighter together, and his lips pushed hard into hers, desperately. Wrapped around each other they snogged heatedly on the corridor floor. It was over. And now there was time for anything else they wanted. Now there was time for this.
When he stopped kissing her his lips didn't quite leave hers, and his group didn't go loose. He looked directly into her eyes, breathing in her breath, shivering when her hands ran up through his hair.
'And what made you think I'd let anything happen to you?'
Her words made him close his eyes, maybe trying to hide the fresh tears that squeezed through his eyelids. He kissed her this time. Thoughts of anything else were distant; of Ginny Weasley and the Daily Prophet and what the future would hold. Never before had she been so sure of something as when he kissed her. For so long she's been fumbling her way to becoming the witch that she is, lost and worried but managing down a path that in hindsight she knew was right and good. There was no stumbling here, no need for that clarity of hindsight. For this, her path was clear, and along that path she would walk. With him.
'Thank you.' The word only barely made it out of his mouth before he was on her again. 'Thank you.' He managed once more.