The first day of classes were over. They had been enjoyable aside from Potions. Harry was somewhat aimlessly walking the walls of Hogwarts to get better acquainted with the layout when he saw a garter snake was slithering towards him . When it was directly in front of him, it stopped slithering and spoke up in a serpentine voice, telling him to meet someone it called the Grassmistress and that he could show him the way.
Harry obliged the snake and let it slide up and around his arm. It told him left and right at each junction, and kept repeating "up" when he was on the stairwell until he'd arrived at the sixth floor, where he was directed to an empty classroom. Inside, a pretty blonde-haired girl was sitting expectantly behind the teacher's desk.
Harry strolled up to the desk and set his hand down on it so the snake could slither off of him.
"You're the grassmistress?" He asked bluntly.
The girl laughed genuinely and shook her head. "No, I'm Daphne Greengrass."
"And you can talk to snakes too?" Harry asked, getting his burning question out of the way off the bat, not bothering with introducing himself. She must know who he was already anyhow. She cocked a single eyebrow at him, a bodily function he was never capable of doing himself. It was both eyebrows at once, or nothing at all for Harry.
"You're asking me if I'm a Parselmouth? No, I'm not."
"Well, you sent a snake to give me a message. How else would you do that if you couldn't speak snake- I mean, Parselmouth?"
"Parseltongue, Harry, the speakers are mouths and the language is a tongue. I'm guessing you are a speaker?"
"How did you give the snake a message if you can't talk to it?" Harry asked, bluntly avoiding her question.
"That snake is my familiar, we get along because I am a sneaky snake myself." Daphne said, flicking her tongue playfully in and out of her mouth. "It's like how a post owl understands where to take your letters. You don't need to speak their language, you just have an understanding with each other."
"Well, how was the snake supposed to give me the message if only you could understand it?" Harry asked.
Daphne waved her hand. "Enough questions, and since you ignored one of mine, I'm going to ignore one of yours and get to the reason why I wanted you here." Then she drew herself up in her seat as if she was about to make a proclamation.
"You and I have a hate contract." Daphne announced regally to Harry.
"What is that?" Harry asked simply.
"We're contracted to hate eachother." She responded in equal simplicity.
"Could you elaborate?"
"Certainly, Mister Nemesis. A love contract is generally in the form of a betrothal, and enforced on pain of death or magical loss. You don't have to marry, but you probably won't like the consequences of contractual breach." She explained lightly, then leaned forward and crossed her hands together under her chin, gazing at Harry before continuing her speech.
"A hate contract is the opposite, you and I are obliged to be enemies, but love does beat hatred. If we were to get married, the hate contract would be nullified and we wouldn't be executed for not hating eachother." Daphne finished.
"That just seems like a more convoluted way to get the same result as a marriage contract. Obviously anyone would just choose to get married rather than being mortal enemies." Harry replied with confidence, but the slight hint of uncertainty was evident in his tone.
"Is that so, Mr. Potter?" Daphne asked with mirth and playfulness in her eyes. Then she giggled gaily. "So how long until I can expect my invitation to your nuptials with Lord Voldemort?"
"You know, I heard you were supposed to be a cold and aloof girl, not some playful vixen." Harry shot at her.
"I don't act this way with everyone, but you're my nemesis. How could I not love my greatest enemy?"
Harry rolled his eyes and attempted to change the subject. "So, can I see the contract?"
"No. It doesn't really say anything useful besides what I told you, and I'm not in the habit of helping my enemies." Daphne answered, while she smoothed out her robes for no discernible reason.
"Then why tell me anything at all?"
"Well, I had to let you know you were my enemy, otherwise, how would you know? Plus I'd just look like a bitch if I treated you terribly without you knowing we were enemies." She wrinkled her nose at the thought, then as an afterthought, she said: "Like Snape."
She saw the expression on his face at the last comment, and grinned devilishly. "I think I've given you enough to think about for now, Harry Potter." She elegantly rose and strode away, only to turn back from the door when she had her hand on the knob.
"Oh wait, I nearly forgot that I'm supposed to make my enemies suffer." She tapped her fingers against her chin in thought. "But how do I accomplish that when you're clearly acclimatized to suffering?" After a moment her eyes widened as though she'd thought of something. She went for her wand, but didn't even point it at Harry. She merely held it up in the air.
"I swear on my life and magic that I will have Harry Potter call me a pure-blood bitch and strike me down in the Great Hall within the next hour, so that everyone present can see him for the bully that he isn't really, so mote it be." A light flashed signifying the oath had been accepted. Harry felt the magic resonate in the room and knew it wasn't a trick oath made with a silent firecracker spell or something else that could replicate that light.
"I could just let you die." Harry told her bluntly.
"Could you? I'd be cautious about letting me die, contract law can be tricky. Sometimes an enemy dying isn't the same as an enemy being defeated, and defeating me is the way out of the contract, whether by diplomacy or not." Daphne answered. Her joy was gone from her eyes, replaced with a searching gaze, but she didn't seem to harbour any worry. She held out her hand for him to hold. "Come, Potter."
They held hands as they silently walked together towards the Great Hall, where supper was in session at the moment. Just before they entered, she spoke up. "When you hit me, make it hard enough that I fall to the floor, I think that should qualify as striking me down."
Harry Potter said nothing as they opened the doors. As usual, the diners glanced over to see the new entrants to the hall, but because it was Harry Potter holding a girl's hand, their gaze didn't immediately return to their plates. Harry had stopped, frozen in place and didn't seem to be making his move. Daphne leaned over and whispered in his ear.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Potter. How are you ever going to get me to love you if you can't even hit me?" He turned his face to look at her and she saw an unexpected smirk on his lips, but it quickly transformed into a passable attempt at feigning rage. Good enough to fool onlookers, anyway.
"How DARE you tell me my parents deserved what they got, you pure-blood bitch!?" He shouted at her. Then, with a crack, he smacked her across the face very hard, and Daphne didn't bother trying to remain standing after his blow. She wasn't overly keen on dying, after all.
In an instant, she realized it was her who was going to be the one everyone hated after tonight, no one would put up with her insulting Lily and James Potter, except maybe Slytherins. She really did have a worthy nemesis. Her head pounded with pain, so much so she couldn't even smile at the thought.
Suddenly, her head was splitting for another reason. A brown-haired girl was rattling off a million questions at once to her.
"Oh my goodness, he hit you, didn't he? Why did he do it? Why did you say those things about his parents? Are you okay? What's your name? Can I help you up?"
Holding her head with one hand and using the other to help herself up, she looked around and saw that Harry was nowhere to be seen. So she let her eyes rest on the interrogating girl before her. Her cold demeanor returned. "I'm Daphne Greengrass, and you are?" She asked in haughtiest possible tone.
The girl's eyes narrowed and she answered with venom. "I'm Hermione Granger."
"Well, Miss Granger, I'll have you know I didn't say a thing about his parents."
Hermione threw her hands up in the air. "We just heard Harry say less than a minute ago that you insulted his parents."
"Well, I'm not Harry. So unless you heard me say anything about his parents, perhaps you shouldn't be jumping to conclusions." Daphne answered coolly. With that, Daphne, Mortal Enemy of the Boy-Who-Lived, also took her leave from the Great Hall.
It was the next day at breakfast before Harry brought up the hate contract with his friends at Gryffindor Table. Ginny Weasley was sitting nearby, but was still somewhat sullen from the heavy punishment her and Ron had received for taking a flying car to Hogwarts instead of the train. Luna Lovegood had joined them from the Ravenclaw table, in an attempt to cheer her friend up with her presence.
"Harry, how do you know she's not just making this up? Did she show you the contract?" Hermione asked with clear ire in her voice towards Daphne.
"Why would she make this up?" He asked.
"Well, maybe she wants to date you." Hermione theorized.
Harry snorted. "Coming up to someone and telling them you are enemies isn't the best way to start dating."
Hermione disagreed, in face and words. "Actually, it's not so bad, if a girl overtly came up to you and asked you to date, you'd probably turn them down because you'd think she's after your fame. But now, you're actually going to try your damndest to make sure she likes you." She spun towards Neville. "Have you ever heard of a hate contract, Neville?"
He looked slightly uncomfortable with the attention, but replied regardless. "Well, I haven't exactly, but a contract can be for anything. You and I could agree right now that I have to forcefeed you toast every morning or else we lose our magic. So a hate contract could be real."
Luna spoke up at that moment. "You can forcefeed me toast if you want, Neville, I'm not very good at eating toast by myself."
Neville looked taken aback for a moment, but then mischief started to appear on his features as he reached for the stack of toast at the breakfast table. Luna started to shriek when she realized he was actually going to do it. Her dreamy voice was gone.
"No, no Neville, I was just kidding-keep away from my mouth with that!" She said with scandal evident in her tone as she shied away from the toast. Neville smirked and drew his hand back from the tower of toast.
"Usually no one takes me seriously." Luna pouted.