Phonebooth

Prompt: Harry x Daphne - Phonebooth
for Anon

Six months. That's how long the craziest relationship of Harry Potter's short, overburdened life had been going.

Twenty-six weeks. A weird paradox, where time seemed to flash by and stretch out into forever, all at once.

Half a year. A considerable amount of time for anyone only just out of counting their life in terms.

One hundred and eighty-two days. Yet, it was a secret. Still.

Harry had never kept anything from Ron and Hermione for that long before. Even when he had given himself the trouble to try, it hadn't been possible. Harry had tried to convince himself that his actions stemmed from the frivolity of this attachment, but his words seemed hollow, even in his head. A far more believable reasoning was that telling Ron and Hermione would burst the bubble that he had constructed around himself - and, he supposed, around them. His friends would have questions, and Harry couldn't blame them for that, he would have been the same if the situation were reversed.

It went against every instinct that he had, but Harry fibbed, he misinformed, he fabricated, and he falsely alluded to things that did not exist - overtime at work that couldn't be avoided, calls to people he hadn't spoken to in months and obligations that he dreamed up out of nowhere. All so that he could get home and respond to the latest message, and ponder what to do next.

Sometimes the fact that Hermione and Ron believed him so readily made his guilt so unbearable that Harry was sure the words would tumble from his mouth without his permission. But they never did. He buried them deep and decided to worry about it another day. He was good at that. He'd had a lot of practice at putting uncomfortable to the back of his mind to worry about later.

You've lied, Harry thought to himself, as he recalled one of Hermione's disappointed shrugs at another dinner missed. But he couldn't use the word. Whenever Harry even thought about it, he would unconsciously rub the back of his hand. The bumps that he found there still felt fresh, regardless of the years that had gone by. Lies was still a dirty word to him. People spoke of it as if it was nothing, but not Harry. Somedays, he thought he was more likely to drop an Unforgivable than to call into question someone's honesty. The allegation meant something to him. It had to; it was a lesson he had been forced to learn. Liar was a brand he never wanted to have.

Yet, he was, telling lies that is.

It had started during a storm with a misdirected owl. Something that seemed too made up to be believed, even in what had become a life that was so messy it was already fabled to some. Harry didn't hold much stock in prophecy, but he felt a tug of fate with the events of that night. His message that had been intended for Hermione - a short note asking if she had one of his jumpers she was prone to favouring - had come back with a reply that was certainly not from his longtime friend. Curiosity - and maybe, if he was honest, a dash of loneliness - had gotten the better of him, and hadn't been able to help himself, he'd replied.

Six months.

Since that fateful beginning, they had been corresponding back and forth without ever disclosing who they were. The notes had been short, tentative and cautious, and then they had morphed, lengthened and became more frequent as they grew into each other comfort zones. They had exchanged ages and so much else, but never who they were, nothing that would give too much away. It was secret even to them.

Harry had been uncomfortably reminded of his time in the second year, and of the relief and safety he had found in pouring himself into parchment. Except, this time his correspondent displayed none of the red flags he could now see clear as day when he thought back to his 'talks' with Riddle's echo.

Six months.

In that time, it had become the most essential relationship Harry had ever had. He didn't know whether to find that elating or depressing. He had joked about how they had become his port from the storm, and from those messages of comfort blossomed a sprig of affection and the promise of so much more.

And now they were meeting.

It had seemed like a ridiculous idea at first, but as soon as Harry had thought of it, the concept wouldn't go away. Like so many other things in his life, it followed him around like his own personal rain cloud until he found himself suggesting it at the end of one of his many letters, then sending it off - the ink barely dry - before he could give it another thought and tear it up.

He had waited for two hours for a response, though it had felt like longer at the time.

The last week had been filled with talk of their meeting, and it was a chance for them to air some of the tensions they felt before they were face to face. Then, finally, they had set a date and a time, and there was no more stalling to be done.

Harry had suggested meeting by a Muggle phonebooth, both because it was likely to be unused and because it would give them a chance to adjust to who they were before they apparated to the restaurant he had booked.

He was struck by the notion that he had never actually booked a restaurant before. Surely that was unthinkably odd, considering he was now nearly nineteen, but he had never had the chance. Going out with his friends meant Hermione always did it, going out on dates with Ginny, briefly, had meant never knowing what she would have prefered and so he had fallen into letting her do it by default.

So, Harry made a plan, forcing himself not to overthink every element. What he hadn't anticipated was the weather; it was pouring down. Something else that appealed to the glimmer of something in him that believed in fates. As a person who had seemingly beaten a prophecy and reversed his own, he thought he could think on those arts however he liked - as long as Hermione never found out about it.

As he was ten minutes early Harry decided to step into the dilapidated box and wait it out. It would give him a chance to siphon off some of the rain that had soaked through his jacket and wipe his glasses. He wasn't waiting long. The rickety door pulled open only two or three minutes later, and a wet, beautiful and unfairly familiar face walked in.

"Potter?"

The use of his surname in that clipped, decidedly posh tone that he barely even remembered - he couldn't recall if she had ever spoken to him directly before - snapped him into life. He stood away from the wall of the confined space and took a step closer as if nearness would change the reality of the person standing in front of him.

"Greengrass?"

"Shit!"