Chapter Thirty-Four: Bracing Words

The next few days were quite awkward for Daphne. The story of her boggart — much like Neville's — had spread quickly. Malfoy hadn't mocked her about it yet, which made her suspicious as to when he would.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron hadn't mentioned it to her, and Daphne hadn't said anything about it, either, making this probably the first time she didn't immediately tell her friends what was bothering her.

But what was there to say? She was clearly afraid to lose their friendship, mainly Harry's, and that in itself wasn't new. The only thing was different was that now, everyone knew it was her worst fear.

Much like she'd done after Harry had confronted her, she'd sat with Ginny at meals a couple of times, but she felt awkward around her now, too.

It was driving her nuts. Every time she was with her friends, it felt like an invisible thing was with her, and on Sunday afternoon, she'd had enough of it. She made her way over to the Gryffindor common room.

"Password?" the Fat Lady said.

"I need to talk to Harry," Daphne said.

"That's not the password, I'm afraid."

"I don't care. I'll just wait here until someone shows up."

"Suit yourself," the Fat lady said with a shrug.

Fortunately for Daphne, the first people to show up were Fred and George, who had no problem letting her into the Gryffindor common room.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron were working on their homework by the fire, and Daphne walked over to them.

"Hey," she said.

"Daphne! The castle isn't under attack, or something, right?" Ron said suspiciously.

Daphne shook her head. "Not that I know of, no," she said with a faint smile. "It's just…we need to talk. This awkwardness is beginning to drive me insane. So I'll just say it outright: I am absolutely terrified of losing you as my friends. The three of you were the first people I really trusted. Lupin suggested that after that Defense class, and I think he was right. The thought of losing that, especially you, Harry…well, as you've heard it scares me more than anything else. Maybe that's why I act the way I do. I don't know. Now, you might think that's stupid or ridiculous or–"

"It isn't," Harry said. He smiled sheepishly. "I was…pretty surprised when I heard the story. I thought Malfoy was just telling tales again. But then I found it was true and…I just couldn't imagine anyone being that afraid to lose me as a friend. It was…weirdly flattering, or something? I wanted to say something about it, but for the life of me, I wouldn't know what. So…back to normal?"

"Yes, please," Daphne said gratefully.

Even though they really hadn't gone into it, simply telling her friends how she felt had taken the weight off, and things actually went back to normal.

It was a good thing they did, too, because classes were beginning to pick up in difficulty. Divination was still a chore, though Daphne imagined Harry had it worse than she did. At least she only had to endure the stifling heat and heavy perfume. Harry would get his death predicted just about every lesson. He'd told Daphne that McGonagall said that it was a habit of Trelawney's to predict a student's death each year, but that probably didn't make it any less annoying.

Hagrid had scaled back the intensity of his Care of Magical Creatures lessons a bit, but he still kept them interesting. To tease Harry, Hermione, and Ron, he'd shown them Cornish Pixies in one lesson, which Lockhart had attempted to show them the year before.

Unlike Lockhart, however, Hagrid wasn't foolish enough to let them out of their cages, instead explaining that despite their mischievous nature, they could bestow luck on those they liked for small periods of time. Befitting their nature, however, they would usually use that ability in an ironic way, tormenting someone first before giving them a bit of luck so the person came out ahead, anyway.

The assignment of the class was to get the pixie to like them. The pixie Daphne, harry, Hermione, and Ron were practicing on was extremely foul-mouthed, which kept giving Daphne fits of the giggles while Hermione looked scandalized.

To everyone's surprise — including Ron's own — it was Ron who eventually managed to get the pixie to be more or less civil for a few moments, by offering to introduce it to the gnomes in his garden, who knew many excellent swear words.

After the pixie thanked Ron and called him something that rhymed with Berkshire Hunt — again giving Daphne the giggles — it snapped its fingers in his direction.

Mere seconds later, Malfoy was poked in the eye by his pixie. Hagrid had evidently noticed it and gave Ron ten points for managing to placate the pixie, meaning they were all in a good mood when they headed back to the castle.

"I'm never doubting Hagrid as a teacher ever again," Ron said fondly. "After Lockhart's class last year I never thought I'd ever like a Cornish Pixie."

"I wonder if you can keep them as pets," Daphne mused. "Although I doubt my parents would like the constant swearing. By the way, Ron, did you ever ask Bill about curses of misfortune?"

Ron nodded. "I did, actually, but I'd completely forgotten about it. He said those kinds of curses are extremely difficult to break. Even the easiest method is a very involved ritual, and it would destroy the magic of whatever object or person it was used on entirely. He said he'd try to get in touch with someone who might be able to help, but I haven't heard from him yet. Probably hard to get a hold of."

"Why did you want to know about curses like that, anyway?" Hermione asked.

Daphne sighed and looked around to see if Malfoy was nearby. "You know Isaac Moore, the Slytherin Prefect who got Petrified last year? Yeah, that was because of a misfortune curse," she said. "So when I heard Bill was a curse breaker, I thought he might be able to help."

Harry chuckled. "Is there anyone you're not trying to help?" he asked.

Daphne shrugged. "Anyone who isn't my friend, basically. I'm not that altruistic," she said.

"Well, S.I.N. helps people you don't know, doesn't it?" Hermione said.

"Yes, but I started that because I was tired of Slytherin being hated by everyone. Helping people is a side effect there, not my main reason," Daphne said.

"Still, you better be careful they don't give you another award for services to the school," Ron said with a grin. "They might make you a Prefect in a few years otherwise."

Daphne grinned back. "No one in his right mind would make me a Prefect," she said.

S.I.N. was something else Daphne had begun putting some more time into, now that the year was underway again. They were trying to get some of the first and second-year students to join in as well, especially since Gemma, Isaac, and Freddie were now all seventh-years.

Elsie had actually been named Prefect, meaning they now had three Prefects in the group in total, giving them quite a wide reach within the House. As a result, instances of bullying by Slytherins had dropped significantly, though of course people like Malfoy were still around in fairly large numbers. Still, Daphne was happy with how things were going.

Defense Against the Dark Arts had become one of her favorite classes. Lupin showed the class many interesting Dark creatures, and for the first time in three years of magical education, she actually felt she was learning things.

Snape, however, had become ever more vindictive after the story of Neville's boggart had spread, and not even Daphne was able to get him to be any fairer to the Gryffindors. It seemed to her, though, that Snape's anger was more at Lupin than Neville, as she often caught him glaring in his direction during mealtimes, wearing the sort of loathing expression he usually reserved for Harry.

At the beginning of October, Harry's Quidditch practice started up again. After the first practice, he'd come to Daphne, grinning widely and telling her that Wood was ecstatic over his progress over the summer, and jealous of his chance to train with her Mum. Wood was convinced that they'd have the Cup in the bag for a second year running, and given that it was his last chance, it was obvious he wouldn't settle for less.

And then, near the end of October, the first Hogsmeade weekend was announced, meaning Daphne would finally be able to buy Harry a belated birthday present.

In the runup to the weekend, though, she had some other things to do. "So, the Hogsmeade weekend is coming up," she said to Ginny one morning.

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me," Ginny said sourly. "It's not like everyone's been going wild over it, or anything."

"Well, there's one person in our year who isn't going," Daphne said.

Ginny sighed. "I know," she said. "Believe me, I know. Colin Creevey has been talking my ears off about it for days. He wants to try and get Harry to hang out with us."

Daphne winced. Colin wasn't a bad person, but he was, well, incredibly irritating. "That's…not going to go well," she said.

"You don't say," Ginny deadpanned. "Look, I'd love to talk to Harry, but I don't think I'll get much of a chance. And even if I do…well…" She looked away, a frustrated expression on her face.

"You can always get kidnapped again," Daphne suggested playfully.

Ginny gave her a glare so cold the hair in the back of her neck stood up.

"Sorry, stupid joke," Daphne said hastily.

"Very," was the stony response. "But no, being a damsel in distress isn't really my thing," Ginny went on in a normal voice.

She sighed. "You know, I'll just try to talk to him. It's probably going to be an embarrassment, but hey, you got your biggest fear spread around the school and you still dare to show yourself, so I'll probably be fine."

"…This is for that kidnapping suggestion, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You're scary."

"You better believe it."

Finally, the day for the trip to Hogsmeade had arrived. In the leadup to it, Hermione and Ron had been bickering a lot about Scabbers and Crookshanks, but their pity for Harry had reunited them, and they and Daphne had promised to bring him a lot of souvenirs. They said goodbye to Harry in the entrance hall — Harry's attempt to act casual fooled none of them — and after being thoroughly inspected by Filch, they set off for Hogsmeade.

"Where should we go first?" Hermione asked, looking at what appeared to be a touristic map of the village.

"Well…I still need to buy Harry a birthday present," Daphne said sheepishly.

"His birthday was in July," Ron said disbelievingly.

"I know, I know, but I didn't think I'd be able to reach him, and then we had to go and get him from his relatives and I…just didn't think about it for the rest of the vacation, and you know he wasn't going to mention it," Daphne said.

"Well…there's Spintwitches Sporting Needs," Hermione said, checking the map. "Maybe something Quidditch-related?"

Daphne looked at Ron. "Please tell me you know a lot about Quidditch, because I don't."

Ron laughed. "Don't worry. I think we'll find something," he said.

It was a lot of fun to hang out in Hogsmeade with Hermione and Ron. They visited the sporting goods store first, and Daphne found something that looked to be pretty useful: a simple, leather bracelet that would keep the wearer's hands from getting numb in cold and bad weather. Given what the weather had been like, she figured something like that might come in handy in the upcoming match against Slytherin.

Hermione had given her an amused look when she selected it, and Daphne had dutifully ignored her. It was useful, and nothing more.

After that they'd had lunch in the Three Broomsticks, enjoying the Butterbeer, and then they'd visited Zonko's and Honeydukes to buy more gifts for Harry.

By the time they got back to Hogwarts, they'd seen just about everything Hogsmeade had to offer. Hermione and Ron went to get Harry in the common room, and Daphne sat down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall to wait for them. She felt strangely nervous, though she wasn't entirely sure why. She was just giving a — very late — birthday present, after all.

A few minutes later, her friends joined her, just as the Hall was beginning to fill up for the Halloween feast anyway. Harry was telling Hermione and Ron about the potion he'd seen Snape give to Lupin. Despite a potion being a likely way to poison someone, Daphne seriously doubted Snape would do such a thing, but she knew better by now than to dissuade her friends from hating Snape. After all, she'd never been able to make him stop hating them, either.

Harry turned to Daphne and said, "You know what else happened? Ginny actually talked to me. You wouldn't happen to have had anything to do with that, would you?"

Daphne was elated. "She did?! Finally! What'd you talk about?"

Harry grinned. "Nothing much; it wasn't a very long conversation. She just asked if I was ready for the Quidditch match next week and I said yes, and then she hurried off, but it's a start."

"I'm so proud of her," Daphne said, beaming.

She really was — but there was a weird sting in her chest all the same, which she forcibly pushed away.

She was just about to mention the birthday present when Dumbledore opened the feast, and everyone's attention was only on the food. When the ghosts performed a bit of entertainment afterward, it was very late when the feast finally ended, and Daphne decided — a bit disappointedly — she'd give Harry his present tomorrow, and said goodbye to them for the day.

She wasn't even in her bed yet, however, when Snape called all the Slytherins back to the Great Hall, where she quickly rejoined her friends.

"What's going on?" she whispered.

"Sirius Black attacked the Fat Lady," Harry said grimly.

"He's in the castle?! But how? I thought the Dementors were guarding all the entrances," Daphne said.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know."

At that moment, Dumbledore announced that the teachers would be conducting a full search of the castle, and that everyone would have to spend the night in the Great Hall. He conjured up a great number of sleeping bags, and Daphne, Harry, Hermione, and Ron pulled theirs into a relatively quiet corner.

"Do you think Black's still in the castle?" Hermione wondered.

"Dumbledore obviously thinks he might be," Ron said.

"It's very lucky he picked tonight, you know, Hermione said as they all settled into their sleeping bags fully dressed. "The one night we weren't in the tower…"

Daphne tuned out the conversation while she tried to come up with a way Black could have entered the castle. Hogwarts was a very strongly magical place that couldn't just be flown or Apparated into. All the regular entrances were guarded, and Filch knew many of the secret ones as well…but did he know all of them?

Even Dumbledore hadn't known about the Chamber of Secrets, so what if there were hidden passages that remained unguarded? If Sirius Black and James Potter had been anything like Fred and George in their school years, like Hagrid had told them in their first year, then they might very well have known about passages even Filch didn't.

Reasoning the other way, that meant that, possibly, Fred and George might be aware of at least some of those passages. It was too late to ask them now — Percy was, of course, taking his duties as Head Boy extremely seriously — but she resolved to ask them first thing in the morning.

At around three in the morning, when Daphne had begun to doze off a bit, she was woken up again by footsteps approaching. She glanced at her friends, seeing their open eyes reflecting in the faint light of the ghosts floating around and the stars on the magical ceiling, and quickly closed her eyes again when she saw Dumbledore coming over to talk to Percy, who was very close by to where they lay.

Dumbledore and Percy briefly discussed the whereabouts of the Fat Lady, and then Snape approached the two, at first only to report they hadn't found Black. But then…

"Have you any theory about how he got in, Professor?" Snape asked.

"Many, Severus, each of them as unlikely as the next."

"You remember the conversation we had, Headmaster, just before, ah, the start of term?"

Snape seemed to be trying to hide some information from Percy.

"I do, Severus," Dumbledore said warningly.

"It seems…almost impossible…that Black could have entered the school without inside help. I did express my concerns when you appointed–"

"I do not believe a single person inside this castle would have helped Black enter it," Dumbledore said, with such finality that Snape didn't even bother to argue.

"I must go down to the Dementors. I said I would inform them when our search was complete," Dumbledore said.

"Didn't they want to help, sir?" Percy asked.

"Oh yes," Dumbledore said coldly. "But I'm afraid no Dementor will cross the threshold of this castle while I am Headmaster."

Dumbledore left, and Daphne opened her eyes just a little bit to see Snape's expression. As she expected, he looked resentful.

She didn't really feel tired anymore as she went over the conversation several times. Snape had mentioned expressing doubts about someone's appointment. There were only two appointments, and one of them was Hagrid, who had always been here, so he had to have had doubts about Lupin, who had already admitted to being in school with Harry's parents, meaning he'd also been in school with Sirius Black. Had they been friends as well? Was that what Snape was hinting at? Another thing she had to find out.

She opened her eyes once more to look around the now mostly silent Hall. In the sleeping bag next to her, she saw that Harry also still had his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Hermione and Ron, though, seemed to be asleep.

She wanted to turn onto her side to get some sleep as well when she felt the small package still in her pocket. She glanced around again. All of the Prefects were in different parts of the Hall. Their section was pretty much empty.

"Harry," she whispered, taking the package out of her pocket.

Harry gave her a questioning look.

"I've got something for you. A bit late, but, er, happy birthday," Daphne said, handing him the package.

Harry grinned at her. "A bit late?" he whispered back.

Then he silently opened the package. His time at the Dursleys had evidently given him some skill in handling paper silently, because even Daphne barely heard him.

When she saw that Harry had taken the bracelet out, she whispered, "It keeps your hands from going numb in bad weather Quidditch matches. Thought it would be useful against Malfoy."

Why on earth was her face heating up saying that?!

Harry smiled at her, but looked a bit surprised, too. And was it her imagination, or was there a bit of a glow on his face as well?

"Thank you, Daphne," he whispered.

Daphne smiled. "You're welcome."

She lay down again and closed her eyes. They really should camp out in the Great Hall more often. It was fun.

Cheesy? Yes. Sue me. I love stuff like this and I'll keep doing it if I get the chance. I'm just too much of a rabid shipper not to start throwing this kind of stuff in. I'm champing at the bit to make it more overt, but again, it'll be quite some time yet before that happens.

Oh, and Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt) is where the word 'berk' comes from and is cockney rhyming slang for exactly the word you think, though 'berk' is obviously not considered to be quite as heavy a word.