Posted 7/28/2015
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This is a work of fiction, based on the book series by J.K. Rowling. Neither do I claim ownership nor do I intend to.
Chapter Seventy-Three - His Story
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With a jolt, she woke up. Harry was gone, and his side already cold. Ignoring to not mull over when she had started thinking about him having a side of the bed in his own room – admittedly a double-sized bed in the main bedroom – Daphne got up. A quick spell told her it was still technically night, which made her wonder where Harry had gone so early or long.
She could get used to it, she mused. For three nights in a row, she had come up to stay with Harry, and although they had done nothing more than cuddle before drifting off to sleep, she had a feeling it was good for both of them. For one, she had noticed he had seemed considerably happier the last few days. He had also thoroughly beaten Daphne and Hermione during their last training; while humiliating, it had convinced Daphne that he could actually do a lot.
Putting on a dressing gown, she frowned as she thought about the previous day. She had been too tired to really think about it, but with a clear head, her suspicions returned. She was very happy Harry was made of sturdier material than his peers or he wouldn't stand a chance against the Death Eaters in the future, but the more she saw of him, the less he seemed like a teenager. Realistically speaking, he really shouldn't be that good. Realistically speaking, he shouldn't have half the skills. Something was off about him.
Maybe he just wanted to keep his true power a secret, Daphne tried to convince herself. It made sense to not let others know just what he could do and surprise people. Maybe he had a simple reason for not wanting to reveal too much. From what she knew of him, he saw the war as his responsibility. It would make sense that he'd only hand out what people needed to know to do their part. Or maybe it had something to do with his upbringing. From what she knew of his childhood, he'd had to rely on himself a lot. Maybe he had never learned to trust others. Or maybe he didn't want to get people's hopes up. Granted, people could use a little boost to their morale, from what Daphne knew. Or maybe he simply feared the wrong kind of people learning about his secrets. As far as Daphne knew, he had allowed only his closest friends a glimpse at this power. His closest friends and her, Daphne amended after a moment, grinning as she thought about it and deciding to find her boyfriend to give him a big hug.
Maybe he really didn't want news to go around, even if not wanting people to know didn't explain why Harry could fight as well as he could in the first place. They were at war, and that meant not letting the enemy know what you could do or where you were planning to strike next.
Except, Daphne added, frowning as she couldn't ignore the obvious any longer, that Harry did seem to know a lot about the Dark Lord's movements. He knew what the Dark Lord would do; he knew how the Dark Lord would act. In fact, his current plan for the fight against the Dark Lord relied on Harry knowing what would get the Dark Lord out of hiding. True, keeping Hogwarts from becoming a training grounds for future generations of Death Eaters made sense and would necessitate some kind of response, making the school a reasonable strategic target, but Harry had gone on about the personal meaning the school had for the Dark Lord. He hadn't guessed, he had known. And if Weasley and Hermione's lack of contradiction was any indication, then they knew Harry knew what he was talking about, which meant that those three had some secret source.
Or rather, Daphne thought with a huff, Harry had, and Weasley and Hermione knew better than to argue against it.
So not only was Harry a suspiciously competent fighter, he had also access to the secrets of his enemy.
Maybe Professor Snape had told Harry? It wasn't entirely unthinkable, but Daphne doubted it. The Dark Lord's fondness for his old school didn't seem like something he would share willingly.
Daphne made up her mind. She needed to talk to Harry about it. Something about him wasn't right, and something not being right about those close to her unsettled her quite significantly. Something about him made her very nervous the more she thought about it. Something about him made him an unknown to her. Who was he? She had thought she knew him. She had thought she had understood who he was and how he had come to be, but ever since he had revealed his plans for the final fight, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing a crucial part of his story. Why was he actually as capable as he was? And did she have to worry about it? How had the boy-who-lived gone from mediocre student to the weapon he had become? And who had made him into that weapon? For what reasons?
Granted, the most obvious answer was Dumbledore to create a weapon for the fight against the Dark Lord, but at the same time, Dumbledore had been far more lenient and forgiving, from what Daphne knew. So unless the late Headmaster had been deceiving everyone and secretly building up a more aggressive army of which Harry seemed to be the only one really taking to the lessons, then Dumbledore likely hadn't made the warrior Harry Potter.
Moody perhaps? But if it had been him, he should have been more supportive of Harry instead of dropping in once or twice every few months.
And how had Harry learned so much about the Dark Lord? People had been shocked to learn the Dark Lord wasn't a pureblood. In fact, most people chose to not believe that part of Potter's interview in the Quibbler. Lovegood's magazine wasn't known for its accuracy, and Rita Skeeter wasn't the most honest person around either.
So how had Harry learned that much about the Dark Lord that he could make educated guesses about his weak spots or plans?
In the end, she found him sitting in the kitchen, nursing a cup of tea. Hermione was skimming over some parchment, writing the occasional comments down.
"All right," Hermione said with a nod, "this looks promising. I think we're ready to do some test runs so see whether the Portkeys work as intended."
Knowing enough about enchantment to know mixing them could lead to unexpected, potentially lethal results, Daphne couldn't help but agree. Portkeys were already tricky and advanced. Animated Portkeys would be worse. Animated Portkeys that needed to follow orders – depending on how they planned to get the attack part done, another spell that could cause trouble and a mess – had to be even worse than that. And knowing Harry's penchant for showing off like he had done with wandless magic or portable wards, there was a good chance he would add something else to the mix to improve the plan even more.
"Well, we've got a bit of time, don't we?" Harry argued. "We know what we want to do; as long as we start moving before school lets out, our plan will work."
"We still lost our eyes and ears at school," Hermione reminded him. "As far as we know, Riddle might have sent someone else to establish control there."
"I seriously doubt he cares that much for Hogwarts," Harry laughed.
"You said he wouldn't let you take it from him," Daphne spoke up.
"Morning," he greeted her, turning in his seat to face her. "Well, he won't let that stand, no. But this is different. Losing the school entirely? No, that cannot happen. But some students messing things up? He's sent people there. Half the teachers are on his side now. Not the brightest, true, but... Well, Riddle's got other matters to attend to."
"If he's trying to recruit at school," Daphne tried, but he waved her off.
"As long as people follow, he doesn't have a reason to demand loyalty," Harry told her. "Riddle wants service. For that, he needs loyalty or fear. The former requires work. The latter comes with being incredibly powerful while also a cruel psychopath. As for Hogwarts, it's practically his now. Neville, Ginny, and Luna might have caused trouble, but more for Riddle's stooges. If anything, he'd be furious with them failing him and making him look bad."
"Like you did?" Daphne asked, raising an eyebrow. "By showing he can't keep those in his employ safe?"
"Hogwarts is a lot easier to control, though," Hermione argued. "A lot fewer people travel to and from Hogwarts, so news about Neville blowing up some offices of Luna flooding the dungeons –"
"Or releasing all kinds of aggressive wildlife afterwards, yes," Harry chuckled.
"The point is, the general public won't really learn about that," Hermione continued. "And what they don't know can't cheer them up."
"Maybe we should do something about that?" Harry wondered, glancing at the ceiling. "You know, we could print leaflets and drop them in Diagon Alley or something. That way, people would learn that Death Eaters aren't unopposed. It might give them the courage to stand up to the Death Eaters as well."
"And get in trouble," Hermione reminded him. "We have a safe house to hide in. Most people don't have that luxury. Or the training to actually stand a chance if they ever stood up for themselves. The moment the first one dares to speak up –"
"Yes, yes, I know," Harry interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Oh well, we don't really need them to win, do we?"
Sensing a lull in the conversation, Daphne cleared her throat. "Harry? Think we could... talk about something?" She glanced meaningfully at the stairs.
Finishing his cup, he stood up. "Lead the way," he told Daphne, adding with a turn to Hermione, "We should probably look into what kinds of birds are the best at dive-bombing. You know, birds from above, us from the front... It seems like a good idea to attack the Death Eaters from more than one direction, and unless you can grow wings –"
"We do have brooms," Hermione told him with a pointed look. "Mind you, I won't volunteer for that part, but..." She shrugged.
Daphne led Harry to the empty dining room on the ground floor.
"So," he began, "sorry I left. I woke up; you were sleeping – did you know you drool occasionally? Anyway, I ran into Hermione and we –"
"Harry," Daphne interrupted him, lifting a hand to stop him from continuing. "I've been thinking. There's something about you that doesn't make sense. There's... you told me about your past. Part of it, actually. About your family, for example, and about your adventures at school. Bits and pieces, at least. But lately, I couldn't help but notice it still doesn't add up. You're really good at fighting."
"Thanks," he laughed.
"I didn't mean it as a compliment," she told him. "Sure, you might be a prodigy. It could be true for all I know, even if your performance in class didn't indicate any extraordinary talent for magic. Not enough to explain why you are as good as you are."
"It's actually a lot about reactions," he explained with a shrug. "It doesn't really matter whether it's a tiny golden ball or a spell that's coming at you, if you can react fast enough –"
"I get that," she said. "I get that your Quidditch training in the past has given you incredible speed to the point that you're acting without thinking. I've seen you play enough to know just how fast you can be. But this is ore than that. Wandless magic? Or suddenly being an expert at runes despite not taking it in school?"
"Some people learn better from books," Harry answered, but he didn't quite meet her eye, instead pulling out a chair to hand to her.
"Harry, please," she told him, sitting down. "This is... Well, I know where you came from – how you grew up. And I know where you are now. But there's something missing between those two Harry's. I want... No," she corrected herself, glancing off to the side. "No, want isn't... Look, we're close, aren't we?"
He nodded.
"Well, good. So we're close, but there's something about you I don't know. And I get the feeling it's something big. Something important. There's this mystery you carry around about why you are so good at fighting – why you're so dangerous to your enemies." Trying to catch his eye, she found him staring at her attentively.
"And mystery and danger don't mix too well for you," he guessed, sighing.
"It's not that I –" she began, but he chuckled.
"Well, no, it's... hmm. No, not all right, actually. It's a bit of problem, to be honest, but I can see where you're coming from. Knowing what I do about you," she could feel her face heating up as she felt herself shrinking under his gaze, "I can see why you'd worry –"
"I didn't say I worried about it," Daphne defended herself unconvincingly.
"Be that as it may," Harry told her with a smile, "you do like to know who you're dealing with. Some mysterious danger about me, someone who is arguably close to you..."
"It's not about you, really," she tried. "But the more I thought about it, the less it made sense. I can see there's something missing there, but... Well, I tried convincing myself you might not consciously try to conceal it. People don't share every little detail, you know? Except this isn't really a detail, is it? The best reason I could come up with is that you don't want people to know what you can do. A surprise for your enemies? I mean, I can understand it, kind of. As long as there are wrong hands that information could fall into, you might want to keep a close eye on who knows what. But despite knowing all that –"
"You can't help how you feel," Harry assured her. "The problem is, you are right. I do not want people to know. I do want to keep my skills as much of a secret as possible for now. What to do?" He sighed once more, running a hand through his hair. "I mean, I could... Hmm." He pulled a face that, as much as she didn't want to think too much about it, Daphne couldn't help but find endearingly cute. "Maybe... Hmm," he hummed, scratching his chin before locking eyes with her. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," she shot back immediately. Then she realized she had spoken, and a moment of blinking later, Daphne blushed. "I'm sorry," she told him, looking off to the side, unable to look directly at his soft smile. "It's –"
"Feelings aren't always rational," Harry assured her. "I get it, you want to believe me, but you can't shake the feeling that you're missing something important. It's a battle with your fears feeding your uneasiness and your... Well, something else trying to find the answers to calm your mind." He bit his lip in thought. "Well, the truth is, I'm really good at reacting. I'm fast on my feet; I put in a lot of work to train myself up to this point. Apart from that, it's learning spells and keeping track of my surroundings, the latter of which I'm already familiar with from Quidditch, leaving me more time for the former. Defensive magic just comes naturally to me. I've been very good at it all through school, actually. I learned the Patronus in our third year. I've battled Basilisks and dragons. I duelled Riddle at the end of the Triwizard Tournament and got away. How many can say they've crossed wands with him and survived?"
"Based on that," Daphne argued, "don't you fear he might already know enough to not underestimate you? He's seen you fight already. If he isn't stupid, he'll expect you to have gotten better, so unless you've got some surprise for him –"
"I'm working on that," Harry interrupted. "Granted, it's a bit tricky coming up with surprises for him, but –"
"That!" Daphne shouted, pointing at him in triumph. Surprised by her own outburst, she flinched back in her seat. "What you just said," she continued, careful to keep her voice steady, "that it's tricky to surprise him. How do you know?"
"Well, he is rather knowledgable, isn't he? Dark Lord or not, he is a powerful wizard, no denying that, and he does have a lot of people working for him." Harry shrugged. "It just makes sense that –"
"You know, though," Daphne told him. "About him, I mean. You know a lot about the Dark Lord. You know how he thinks and acts. You know what's dear to him. That's why you chose Hogwarts. You know things hardly anyone knows about the Dark Lord. It was you who told the world he's a halfblood."
"Not really a secret," Harry reminded her. "He did straight-up tell me in the graveyard. And people did know Tom Riddle was a halfblood, they just didn't know he calls himself Lord... Well, you know, that he'd taken a new name. And some of his followers probably were well-aware of his ancestry before I revealed it in the Quibbler. They probably just chose to go along with the incredibly skilled and powerful wizard that promised to push back Muggleborns forcing unwanted changes in society."
"Still, you do know," Daphne insisted, not willing to give up quite yet. "You know things very few would ever have heard about. And I'm not talking about some minor things the Dark Lord never got around to telling anyone, but big things. Or are you telling me he also confided in you how much he loved his old school? That you two had a little heart-to-heart? A lot of your plans depend on you being correct about the Dark Lord. We both know that, yet you're willing to risk it. Since Weasley and – Well, since Hermione accepted your word on it, there has to be more than guesswork there. She's far too smart to put her faith in wild guesses. She'd need proof or something to reassure her. I..."
She broke off, looking away with a sigh. "Look, Harry," she tried, "I trust you, I really do. But the Dark Lord isn't the only one who has some attachment to the castle. My friends are there right now. Your plan puts them at risk. Others are at risk as well. I trust you, but can I trust what you think you know about the Dark Lord? You could be misinformed or may have miscalculated. There is so much at stake here, more than any teenager should feel comfortable with –"
"I'm not really your average teenager," Harry laughed humourlessly.
"I worry, all right?" she admitted. "There are too many things that don't add up for it to make sense. I can see there's something missing; I want to understand why you're so certain you know what you're doing. I want to understand you."
"It's... not that easy," he told her evasively. "I... there is something I should probably tell you," he began, but added, "well, no, I probably shouldn't. But I think you deserve to know this."
"So you shouldn't tell me, but want to," she summarised. With a heavy sigh, she said, "Perhaps you should listen to your head, then, not your heart." Why did her stupid conscience have to get in the way just as she was about to get what might offer her the peace of mind?
"Perhaps, but sometimes, it's better to take a risk," he said. "Moreover, it might be better if you hear it from me now instead of coming up with some theory based on whatever snippets you might hear somewhere. It should also clear up some of the questions you might have. I know how it is to be obsessed with finding out what is going on, especially how hard it is to stop yourself from keeping an eye open. I also know it can lead to you second-guessing what you think you know. I don't have time or energy for that right now, and fighting you over it is... Well, I can think of better uses of our time, quite frankly." He smirked, and she had a fairly good idea what he was thinking about.
"I don't think I need to tell you," he continued, "but this is something that needs to be kept quiet. Ron and Hermione know about it. They are my closest friends; they needed to know. Just like you are now, it wouldn't have worked keeping it from them. They'd have noticed something was off. And, well, if I trust Ron despite his struggles with Occlumency...
"Dumbledore knew about it. He had been there, but he took the secret to his grave, of that I'm sure. I know about it, naturally, and once I'm finished, you will about it as well. I'm sorry I won't go into all the finer details –"
"That's how war secrets work, isn't it?" she guessed smiling slightly.
"Something like that, yes."
"I can live with that," she told him and found to her surprise that she really could. The mere fact that he was willing to share some of it, that he was willing to include her and treat her as part of his life meant a lot more than him being completely open.
"Well, this will be a bit tricky to explain, so please listen, all right?" He asked of her. She didn't mind, and he began with carefully weighed words, "Do you know what a Pensieve is?"
Daphne nodded, remembering seeing one at St. Mungo's during the sessions.
"All right, so you're aware of how memories work. Or how they can be made to work, I should say," Harry chuckled. "They can be extracted, viewed, and stored.
"When the self-proclaimed Dark Lord attacked my family and was defeated, when he failed to kill me, he left something behind. He couldn't keep himself together, you could say, and broke apart, which is why I brought up Pensieves. Though completely unintentional, he left... an imprint of himself behind with me. In me, to be more precise."
"He made you a Pensieve?" Daphne gasped, adding a moment later, "Wait, is that even possible?"
"I didn't say he made me a Pensieve," Harry explained. "But if it's possible to store a copy of a memory in a bottle or a bowl, would it really surprise you memories could be put elsewhere?"
"Well, no, but a person?" She stood up, pacing. "That's kind of... Well, I don't know what it is, actually. It's just so far removed from anything I've seriously thought about... Your life is really strange, you know that?"
He chuckled. "Magic is weird that way, yes. I was unaware of what had happened or what was hidden in my head, and for the longest time, no one knew about it."
"That's why the Dark Lord is after you!" Daphne shouted, slapping her forehead. "He wants to – Why are you shaking your head?"
"It's highly doubtful Riddle knows about it," Harry told her. "Not once has he made any attempt at reclaiming any memory or even investigate whether there was anything to reclaim in the first place. Like I said, no one knew about it. But the consequences were there, I just didn't recognize what it was.
"I am a Parselmouth, because he is one. Whenever I spoke to a snake, it was in truth this imprint's ability I was unknowingly using."
"I didn't know that's possible," Daphne said, blinking. "I mean, does that mean if the Dark Lord made a copy of some memory, his Parseltongue is in there as well?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that," Harry replied, pausing to collect his thoughts. "Maybe it'll become clearer when I finish my story. I... During my studies into mind magic, Occlumency and magic as a whole, I finally became aware of that imprint Riddle had left with me. It took a while, but I understood for what it was. I spoke to Dumbledore about it, and we decided to see it as a gift of sorts. This imprint was more than just the snake language I had been using."
"The memories!" she whispered, wide-eyed. "You found some way to extract it!"
"No, although that might have been a good idea," he admitted with a thoughtful expression.
A shiver ran down her back. If they hadn't known how to remove it, what had happened then?
"But you're not entirely wrong. You see, this imprint was a completely separate entity within me, locked away in my head. So there was this imprint – an entity with Parseltongue and his memories – and there was Harry Potter, a boy he had once tried to kill. There was basically a present waiting to be unpacked lying around for over a decade. No, we didn't extract the memories. We initiated a merge. Yes," he stalled her interruption, "you didn't know this was possible, but it's actually in the book about Occlumency. It's what is done when someone accidentally fragments his or her mind – a Summersby-Tsareva Bridge. Is it risky? Why yes, very."
"And yet, you still did it?" Daphne groaned. "'It's risky. Huh, let's do it.' Honestly, Harry? Do you have so little regard for your own life?"
"Well, I wouldn't have died, technically. Or," he scratched his cheek, "I guess it depends on how you define life, but we're not here for a philosophical discussion of where one person ends and another begins.
"We went with the merge. Dumbledore assisted; it was part of a hushed-up operation."
"And if it had failed –"
"It worked," Harry said, looking a bit uneasy, "and at the end of the procedure, I was, well, maybe reborn is the right word. Again, not really here to split hairs, so let's say the old Harry began anew with the imprint now part of him. Of me, I should say. It didn't quite work as planned; we weren't merging two parts that were meant to be together in the first place. It might be best if you imagined it as Dumbledore tying two strings together and leaving the rest to me."
"Strings?" Daphne asked, laughing despite the severity of the situation.
Harry shrugged. "Well, it's about the basic idea. Dumbledore tied the memories of Riddle's past had to my own, but they weren't mine yet. That's why I said two strings tied together. For the last year, more or less, I have been working on completing that merge, but now I'm done with that."
"And these memories?" she asked with a fearful glance. She couldn't believe it, but it made as much sense as anything in the crazy world Harry seemed to be part of.
"They are there. They are clear as a picture. I remember his childhood, his enemies and their fate. I remember the time when he was nine and had two of the children follow him to a hidden cave or the time he first entered the Slytherin common room."
She saw something flicker in his eyes; it reminded her of a night months ago. "And you remember a story about a boy who kept away from others, who liked to play by the river. A boy who went down the river without anyone minding him. He was there, wasn't he? He was part of that story?"
Harry sighed, but nodded. "Yes, I was talking from his experience and memories. I remember the day he got his invitation to Hogwarts and the day he discovered the chamber. I can recall each and every one of his lessons; I can remember his first murder and every one after that. I can see him torture people and recall how he felt."
Daphne felt her heart go out to him. If what he said was true, then she knew what he dreamed about at night. If what he said was true, then he also remembered killing his own parents. It also explained why he felt responsible for the war. In a way, he knew more than anyone else about the Dark Lord and held the key to the Dark Lord's downfall.
"But," Harry said, "I also remember his lessons and studies. I can create and destroy wards with the ease of a master at work because he learned it and I breezed through the practical part thanks to his experience. I know the darkest magic wizardkind has imagined in centuries, but I also know counters to those spells. I know of magic only a handful have ever encountered. I know the names and faces of his followers and the protections around their houses."
"So you can pay them a visit at night," she guessed, tensing up as a wild mix of feelings bubbled in her that she couldn't sort out.
"I can. With his knowledge turned against him, something he doesn't know about, and the reflexes born from years of having to dodge fast-flying balls and catching the tiniest, most elusive of them, I have some surprises up my sleeve he will not expect. Surprises to win a war, I think. And I do intend to come up with some more. I mean, we are preparing and planning for a fight we know is coming, aren't we?" He sent her a smile. Perhaps he had seen how tense she was.
Her mind slowly catching up, she realized something she had missed earlier. "You were struggling. Back when I came here, I thought there were two sides to you. I thought... I was right, wasn't I? That's it, you were trying to work it out inside your head."
"I named that part Tom for clarity's sake," Harry agreed. "It's less confusing than speaking about what I remember doing, even if it wasn't technically me doing it. This way, I can say that, for example, Tom learned a particular spell while still knowing it. Maybe a bit like saying the husband bought something because he made the decision while it's still technically owned by both partners. However, while I do reference him sometimes for simplicity's sake, there is only Harry – a Harry who failed with first dates so horribly it might as well be forever remembered in Hogwarts's history."
"And yet you also remember all of his, of Tom's dates," Daphne pointed out, not really sure whether she wanted to know the answer to the unspoken question left hanging in the room. Instead, she focused on what she had actually learned.
So Harry did know what he was talking about. He knew how the Dark Lord thought, and he did know a lot more than he let on. More than that, though, he had opened up to her. He had trusted her with something enormous, and she knew without a doubt that she would lock it up, hide where no one would ever find it. As much as she consciously knew now that Harry was a weapon far more dangerous than she had thought, she felt little fear. Instead, she saw him with new eyes and a lot of respect. Ignoring the queasiness at thinking about tampering with his mind to such a degree, he had taken great risks in the war and had earned a great gift that he had used to make himself into a weapon that could deal the lethal blow. In fact, Daphne suspected the war would have been lost without that strange stroke of luck.
"During our duels," she said, still thinking about what she had learned, "you could have easily defeated me at any time you liked."
"Asleep and with both hands tied behind my back," he admitted. "But that didn't matter. By trying to keep up with me, you're now more than able to hold your own in a fight. Not against Riddle or me or someone of that level, true, but few are. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't stand a chance against you."
She wasn't sure how truthful that answer was, but she found herself smiling nonetheless.
"Well," he said, "now you know."
"It's a lot to take in," Daphne admitted.
"I guess I'll leave you some space to sort it out in peace," Harry told her. "I should go see how Hermione's doing. Unless you've got some other questions?"
Daphne shook her head, biting her lip. Her mind was in turmoil. The longer she looked at him, the more she realized just how momentous his action had been. The information could very well decide the war. He was right not to trust people with it. And there was also the matter of responsibility. He had done something enormous back then –she assumed it aligned with his behavioural change around Valentine's Day last year. Whole essays could be written about it, but what would happen once people learned he had effectively gained – what, three decades? – of magical knowledge?
And he'd told her about it.
A wave of heat washed over her. A fire burned in the pit of her stomach, and her chest felt like it was filled with boiling water.
She'd opened up to him, exposed herself and shown her bleeding, torn heart. He'd understood.
He'd opened up to her. He'd let her in and shown his undying trust in her. More importantly, despite everything she had learned, she still couldn't see him as anything but the boy she had gotten to know. He was still her Harry, strange as he was. And she understood and knew what the fire and boiling water in her meant. That moment of shocking realization, of finally accepting the complete truth was enough.
Harry was almost out of the door when the words burst from her mouth, echoing through the house.
"I love you!"
Time seemed to slow down – seemed to stop in shock as much as Daphne did, actually – with Harry frozen on the spot.
Somewhere downstairs in the kitchen, some piece of china broke.
Petrified in horror at her outburst, Daphne stammered unintelligibly.
Turning around, Harry closed the door. "I guess," he told Daphne, "Hermione can wait a bit."
It had originally been a part of the previous chapter, but I chose to make it a seperate chapter of rehashing. Next time should have a bit less talk.
