Bit of an announcement up front this time: For the next two weeks or so, there will probably only be a chapter a day. I've got a tournament in Sweden next week, so I'll be gone over that weekend, but I'll be preparing chapters to go up on those days. Since I won't be able to actively write in that weekend, I need to build up a bit of a backlog. Once I'm back and actively writing again, I'll resume posting chapters as I finish them.

Chapter Thirty: Misperception

The next morning, Mum did manage to get Harry talking about Quidditch, and before long they were in the garden, wearing Quidditch gear, where Mum put Harry through his paces. Daphne leaned back in a chair and enjoyed the show.

"You're a Seeker, so we'll start simple, probably a bit like you practice in school," Mum said. "I'll throw these balls, you catch them. I'll make it more difficult with every catch so I can see what your level is."

Harry nodded. "Got it," he said.

Both of them kicked off from the ground and Mum threw a small ball, which Harry easily caught. As Harry was beginning to make better catches, Mum started using her wand to speed up the ball, eventually even making it move quite a bit like the real Snitch — and Harry caught every single one of them.

"Amazing," Mum said. "You really are talented. McTavish can pack it in; you've got him beat. And on a Nimbus Two Thousand, too. If the Two Thousand has one weakness, it's that at high speeds, the turns become a bit jerky, but the way you shift your weight compensates for that beautifully."

Harry grinned, and Daphne saw his face flush a bit. "Thanks, Mrs. Greengrass," he said.

Mum grinned evilly. "But that means I'll need to see the limit of what you can do… I'll set up a course for you to fly. Along the course, you'll need to catch several 'Snitches', and you'll need to complete the course within the time limit. Every missed catch or missed turn earns a time penalty. Think you can do it?" she asked.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, maybe trying to feel if it was windy at all. Then he said, "I'm ready."

Mum quickly conjured up a set of wide rings, some narrower ones, and let loose a pair of Bludgers. Daphne gave her an incredulous look, but Mum was completely focused on her obstacle course, while Harry hovered nearby, waiting for the signal.

Mum explained the course to him, and told him the time limit, and Harry nodded slowly. He looked just as determined as when he'd been staring down Voldemort himself. Daphne still couldn't really believe that anyone could be this into a sport.

Mum counted down, and Harry set off like a bolt of lightning. He blew through the rings, easily avoided the Bludgers, caught the Snitches that came at him, and Daphne had to admit it looked very impressive. With her flying skills, she'd probably have smashed into one of the rings, and then been beheaded by a Bludger.

Harry finished the course.

"Three seconds over the limit," Mum said, and Harry sighed.

"I knew I took that last corner too fast…" he muttered.

"Harry, do you have any idea what you just did?" Mum asked.

Harry shook his head. "Fail to beat the time limit?" he said.

"Fail to beat a limit most professional players can't beat, either," Mum said. "This course is the most advanced course I let our Seeker do at practice, and his personal best is one second over the limit. Usually, he's slower than that. There have been Seekers on the national team who couldn't have flown this course that fast, and this was your first attempt. I think the fastest I've ever seen this course being flown was four seconds under the limit and that was on a Nimbus Two Thousand And One. Give it four more goes, and we'll see if this run was a fluke or not."

Harry nodded and flew back to the starting position. After four more runs, he was sweating like mad and had improved his personal best by just over a second, but each attempt he'd been close to the target time. Even his worst attempt, his last, was only a second slower than his first run.

Mum was ecstatic. Daphne couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen her so jubilant.

"Harry, with your skill, you could be one of the best players England has ever had. Please go professional after Hogwarts, at least for a while," she said when they were back on the ground. "I'd love to see you play in a team built around you…"

"Built around me?" Harry repeated. Mum nodded.

"There are several ways to construct a team, depending on the players.

"You can build a team around the Chasers, where everything is focused on making as many points as possible to make catching the Snitch less of an issue.

"You can build a team around the Beaters, where they actively chase the Bludgers to disrupt the opposing team.

"You can build a team around the Keeper, where not giving away any points is your primary goal…or you can build a team around the Seeker, where everyone does all they can to enable their Seeker. The Chasers spend more time blocking opposing Chasers than scoring, the Beaters will prioritize defending their Seeker, and the team matches their flying so the Seeker has all the room in the world to look for the Snitch. Such teams are designed to get the Snitch quickly and tend to struggle the longer a match goes, but they often allow their Seekers to really show what they're capable of.

"Of course, most teams switch between these strategies as needed, but there are a few teams that can really only work in one formation, and they will live or die by it."

When Harry went for a shower, Mum turned to Daphne and said, "Marry him."

"Mum!" Daphne shouted, feeling her face heat up. "We're not even– I'm not– Harry's–"

"Just teasing you," Mum said with a smirk. "But should you ever develop feelings for him…know that you have my blessing."

"You'd say that for anyone who's good at Quidditch," Daphne said, still feeling the heat radiating from her face. "Or even anyone who's passionate about it. You'd like Ginny Weasley, too, if you'd seen her at last year's Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match."

"Marry her, too, I don't judge," Mum said with a grin.

Daphne sighed. "You're hopeless," she said with a shake of her head.

"And you're hopeless on a broom, but you don't hear me complaining about that."

"Then what are you doing right now?!"

"Driving you to madness, what does it look like I'm doing?"

Daphne groaned. Why couldn't her parents just be normal?

Having Harry over for the vacation was a lot of fun, despite Mum's occasional teasing. Daphne helped him out with some of his homework and explained to him how he could open his Monster Book of Monsters without getting bitten.

"How'd you figure that out?" Harry asked, when the book was docilely lying on his desk.

"Hagrid told me. I met up with him in Diagon Alley to buy him a new wand, y'know, to make up for being expelled and sent to Azkaban while being completely innocent," Daphne said.

Harry gave her an amused look. "I like how straightforward you are with those kinds of things."

"Hey, I asked Dumbledore for permission and everything," Daphne said. "So…how're you holding up? Knowing a deranged killer is after you, and all," she went on.

Harry thought for a moment. "Honestly, not nearly as bad as I thought. It helps that I'm here — I mean, I've got plenty of distractions to keep me from thinking about it too much, but…I'm really not that afraid of Black. I've stood face to face with Voldemort twice in the past two years and…I just don't think Black would be worse than him."

"I remembered where I heard his name before," Daphne said. "Hagrid mentioned him in our first year. The day you found out your Dad used to bully Snape."

Harry's eyes widened in recognition. "Of course! I'd forgotten it because of that. Didn't he say that they were a bit like Fred and George?"

He shook his head. "Can you imagine Fred selling out George? I just can't fathom what could drive someone to do that."

He looked at Daphne. "I can't imagine one of my friends selling me out, either. Not Ron or Hermione, not you…"

"I will never betray you," Daphne said fiercely. "I'd sooner die."

Harry smiled. "I know…but please don't."

Then he seemed to find something very interesting to look at in the garden.

The rest of the vacation flew by. On the last day, Daphne and Harry would meet up with the Weasleys and Hermione in the Leaky Cauldron, and they'd go to King's Cross from there. On the evening before they were due to go to London, Dad called Daphne and Harry into the dining room.

"There's a couple of things you need to know before going back to Hogwarts," he said.

He looked at Harry. "Given that Black is still at large, it's been decided that extra security measures will be implemented at Hogwarts. Those security measures will be in the form of Dementors, the…creatures who guard Azkaban."

Daphne felt chilled, but Harry mainly looked confused. "What is a Dementor?" he asked.

"They resemble very tall people in dark cloaks, and they can drain happiness away from their surroundings," Dad said. "They feed on it, leaving their victim with only despair. They're an important reason no one has ever broken out of Azkaban, and it's one of the reasons Black is considered to be so dangerous. He didn't lose his mind, even after twelve years near the Dementors. If it's at all possible…stay away from them. Amaranth and I will go with you to the Leaky Cauldron tomorrow so we can discuss this with the Weasleys as well. I know Arthur, at least, is aware, but still."

Daphne and Harry left the dining room, and Harry asked, "Have you ever seen a Dementor?"

Daphne nodded. "Once, when I was very young. Dad had to take me to the Ministry — I can't really remember why — and a Dementor had been brought in to stand guard over a trial. We ran into it in the hallway and…everything seemed to go cold and dark, and I felt like I was never going to be happy ever again…"

She shook her head. "It's…not nice. I hope we won't have to see them at Hogwarts."

When Daphne lay in her bed that night, just like the year before, she was a bit sad the vacation was over. She'd gotten used to hanging out with Harry, and even the constant Quidditch talk and practices in the garden didn't bother her anymore. If Harry didn't win every single match this year after all that practice she'd be seriously surprised.

But while she was looking forward to seeing her friends again — and resuming her attempts at getting Harry and Ginny to talk — a part of her wished it could just be her and Harry for a while longer. Well, it wasn't like she wouldn't hang out with him at school…too bad he wouldn't be able to go to Hogsmeade…

The next morning, they met up with the Weasleys and Hermione in the Leaky Cauldron. While Mum and Dad were talking to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ginny stood next to Daphne and said, "Your Mum looks familiar."

"Er, well, she was a professional Quidditch player, long ago…" Daphne said.

Ginny's eyes lit up. "Really?!"

Daphne grinned. "Hey Mum," she said. "Remember I told you you'd like Ginny Weasley? She seems to recognize you."

Mum looked at Ginny with a wide smile. "Really? You know the Yorkshire Yetis, then?"

"I know they had one Chaser keeping the entire team afloat," Ginny said. "But her name wasn't Greengrass, I think…"

"Pyrites," Mum said.

"Yeah, that's it!"

Mum grinned. "Amaranth Pyrites is my birth name. I didn't think anyone your age would know it, though, or the Yetis as a team at all."

"I have six brothers, so I need to know every good female Quidditch player to put them in their place. You could've played for the Harpies, right?" Ginny asked.

Mum nodded. "Yes, but I hate Gwenog Jones. She and I do not go well together at all. It's also why I was never in Slughorn's club. She was there, so I refused to be."

"Slughorn?" Ginny asked, clueless. Daphne had no idea what she was on about, either.

Mum shook her head. "That was before your time," she said.

Leaving Mum and Ginny to discuss Quidditch, Daphne joined Harry, Hermione, Ron outside. Hermione and Ron still needed to buy their school supplies, so the four of them set off into Diagon Alley.

Once Hermione and Ron had their things, Hermione decided she wanted to get an owl, and Ron needed to get his rat Scabbers checked out, so they went to the Magical Menagerie.

Daphne looked around the store, which was filled with all kinds of creatures, while Ron was being helped by the witch behind the counter.

Then, out of nowhere, a very big and orange cat launched itself from a high cage, landed on Ron's head, and then launched itself at Scabbers.

"NO, CROOKSHANKS, NO!" the witch yelled, but Scabbers shot away and dashed like mad for the door.

While Harry and Ron chased Scabbers, Daphne and Hermione remained in the store.

The witch behind the counter sighed. "Crookshanks is a bit of an oddball," she said. "He's been here for a while, but he doesn't like a lot of people, and the feeling is often mutual. He's very intelligent, though. Part-Kneazle, you know."

"He's beautiful," Hermione said.

Daphne wasn't sure if she agreed. Crookshanks looked like he'd run headfirst into a wall more than once. Still, now that Scabbers was gone, he seemed quite content.

"He's for sale, if you want him. I think he'll be glad to get out," the witch said.

A short while later, Daphne and Hermione rejoined with Harry and Ron. Ron wasn't happy at all that Hermione had bought Crookshanks, and, given that Crookshanks had introduced himself by jumping on top of Ron's head and attempting to eat his pet, Daphne really couldn't blame him.

When they got back to the Leaky Cauldron, Ginny came up to Daphne and said, "Your Mum is amazing! She told me all about her Quidditch career, and–"

"Hey, you know who loves Quidditch?" Daphne interrupted. "Harry. I only watch it to support him and I don't care for it beyond that."

She pulled Harry in front of her. "Why don't you two discuss the intricacies of team composition?"

Ginny turned bright red when faced with Harry, and seemed to struggle to even say a single word anymore.

"Isn't that a bit cruel?" Hermione asked.

Daphne shook her head. "All's fair in love and Quidditch," she said.

"Isn't it just a crush?" Hermione asked.

"It is now," Daphne said, as if that were obvious. "But if they get to know each other…"

Hermione gave her a sideways look. "And you're sure you wouldn't mind that?" she asked.

"Of course," Daphne said quickly.

Why did her face feel so hot? Mum's teasing over the past month must've made her overly sensitive to jokes like that. Hermione gave her a maddeningly knowing look and Daphne quickly made an excuse to go and check if all her stuff was packed.

That evening, they all ate dinner together in the Leaky Cauldron. For some reason, Daphne found it a bit awkward to have her parents and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the same room, knowing how different their lifestyles were, but they seemed to get along just fine.

After dinner, Mum and Dad prepared to go back home.

"Harry, it's been fun having you over," Dad said.

He looked at the Weasleys and Hermione and went on, "If you'd like to come to visit too, just let us know, you're always welcome."

"Keep up with the practice schedule I gave you, okay? And let me know how your matches go. I doubt Daphne will give me any details other than the scores," Mum said to Harry.

"Isn't that the most important part?" Daphne asked.

All the Weasleys and Harry winced.

"Okay, fine, I guess not…" she mumbled.

"Don't get in trouble with the Dementors," Dad said. "I don't care what the reason is, just stay well away from them."

Daphne nodded. "I will."

"But have fun all the same. Have a good school year," Mum said.

After hastily hugging both of them — and feeling very watched by everyone else — Daphne said goodbye to her parents for now and went up to her room at the Leaky Cauldron. As she lay her in bed, she thought about what Hermione had asked her about Harry and Ginny becoming a thing. She wondered why Hermione thought she liked Harry like that in the first place. Surely she would have known about that, right? Hermione just hadn't seen it properly, that was all. Yeah.