A/N:
Hi, new chapter!
Thanks to everyone who's been reading so far.
Credits list at the end as always :)
Hermione Granger had a problem.
No matter how she looked at it, one of her best friends was dating a robot, and she didn't know what to do about it.
She didn't think it was her business to tell Harry outright, but on the other hand, she really felt he ought to know something like that about someone he was dating. To be fair, Daphne hid it well, but Hermione had been observing her very carefully for the past six years and she was now quite sure her hypothesis was correct.
As far as Hermione knew, Daphne had never made a mistake on an exam, or even got less than perfect marks on an assignment since coming to Hogwarts. While at first that angered Hermione, that anger gave way to suspicion in her third year, when Daphne easily kept perfect grades across all twelve classes while still managing to keep clear and healthy skin through the awkward teenage years. Since then, Hermione had been keeping track of any detail that might give her a clue as to how Daphne could possibly be so…flawless.
This year she had narrowed her guesses down to either 'alien' or 'robot', but the final piece of the puzzle had come the other day in Arithmancy class. When she walked past her desk, Hermione could've sworn she heard Daphne make a soft whirring noise while staring out the window, watching Harry fly around the quidditch pitch with some first year students.
Isn't she clearly a robot!?
Neville Longbottom had a problem.
He had a massive crush on one of the prettiest girls in the school, and he didn't know what to do about it.
Even though many of his friends were interested in Daphne Greengrass, and Neville would readily admit she was certainly beautiful, her aloof and expressionless nature had always made him a little bit uncomfortable. Instead, he spent his last few years with a hopeless crush on Sabrina Laveau, an outgoing and incredibly popular girl from the year above him.
While Sabrina wasn't the brightest witch in the coven, her bubbly and exuberant personality paired with her stunning good looks made her frighteningly popular, and she was dubbed the 'Queen of Hufflepuff' by many.
"I think I'm just going to go for it," Neville said to his friends one morning. "The worst she can do is reject me."
Neville's friends looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Sure, Neville was a nice guy, and he was even the captain of the Hufflepuff quidditch team, but he was also rather plain, if not a bit homely.
"Maybe you should, um, aim a little lower…?" Steve said helpfully.
"Yeah," Edmund agreed. "If you want a girlfriend, why don't you ask Sally-Anne? I'm sure she'll say yes."
Neville frowned. "That's not a very nice thing to say, Edmund. Besides, it's not that I want any girlfriend, it's that I want Sabrina to be my girlfriend."
Neville's friends cringed. How were they supposed to tell him that he was simply way too far out of Sabrina's league?
"Hey," Kenny chimed in. "Why don't you ask Harry Potter for advice? You guys are friends, right? He must know a lot about girls — he's dating Daphne Greengrass, after all."
Neville thought about that. "Yeah, that's not a bad idea!"
And like that, after breakfast, they all followed Neville on a quest to find Harry Potter; Neville hoping for some good advice on how to ask out Sabrina, and Neville's friends hoping Harry would have better luck convincing Neville to give up on his hopeless crush.
Harry was sitting in the library with Daphne when Hermione Granger approached them.
"Hi Hermione!" Harry said, looking up at his friend. "Do you need something?"
"Um, yes," Hermione replied. "But not from you. I was actually hoping to ask Daphne a question."
Daphne looked up from her homework. She made eye contact with Hermione, but didn't speak a word.
Hermione hesitated a bit. "Er, hi. I was having trouble with a question in a supplemental Arithmancy workbook I found, and I was wondering if you could help me?"
"I do not mind. What part were you struggling with?"
"It's this part here," Hermione said, pointing at the book in her hands. "I need to find the square root of the product of the first ten prime numbers divided by the sum of the cubes of the first five Fibonacci numbers."
"That is simple," Daphne replied. "The answer is 3.204 147 051 769 921 519 083 285 391 268 575 320 270 579 257 215 443 932 785 143 108 969 108 843 666 655 992 87-"
"Wow!" exclaimed Hermione, feigning surprise. "It's incredible that you're able to do that advanced calculation so quickly all in your head."
Hermione felt bad manipulating Daphne like this, but she really did think Harry deserved to know his girlfriend's secret, and she knew he wouldn't believe her if she just told him outright.
Harry looked affectionately at his girlfriend. "You're so smart, Daphne."
"Thank you, Harry."
"…"
Hermione stared at the couple, dumbfounded. Harry just watched his girlfriend imitate a calculator, and thought she was able to do it simply because she was smart? Clearly, Hermione would have to be a little more heavy-handed.
"Oh, okay. Thanks, Daphne," she said. "I had another question as well though. I'm writing an essay on potion ingredients, and I need an alphabetized list of Berthelot's 300 essential constituents."
"Very well. Abraxan Hair, Aconite, Acromantula Venom, Algae, Amethyst Dust, Angel Tears, Arcane Moss, Ashwinder Eggs, Astral Bloom, Auguery Feathers…"
Harry and Hermione sat in silence as Daphne rattled off dozens of potion ingredients, in alphabetical order.
Eventually, it started to get awkward, so Hermione cut in. "Thanks Daphne – that's a huge help. It's really impressive that you remember every single ingredient on a list that hasn't been taught in the curriculum for over a century. You must study a lot."
Hermione looked over at Harry, hoping her hints were well received.
Unfortunately, he was just smiling blankly back at her.
"I do not study much," Daphne replied.
A small part of Hermione died in that moment.
I'll cry about that later, Hermione thought. For now, I still have one last resort.
"That's cool," Hermione said, trying to prevent her voice from breaking. "Anyway, I'll leave you two alone now. I just wanted to say, Daphne, I'm really glad that you guys finally got together – Harry's been talking about you for years."
Whirrrrr
There it was! It was faint, but now that Hermione knew to look for it, she was sure she had just heard Daphne whir.
"What was that?" Hermione asked, faking puzzlement. "Harry, did you hear that whirring noise?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't think so. Maybe it was a bird?"
It wasn't a bird, Harry! It was obviously your girlfriend! Hermione shrieked in her head.
Daphne stood up from her seat abruptly. "I must take my leave now. I will see you later, Harry."
Hermione watched as Daphne walked out of the library, and started to feel a bit bad about what she had just done. Hermione knew she had a bad habit of getting involved in other people's business, and this might have been another instance where she should've just stayed out of it.
"Hermione, do you dislike Daphne?" Harry asked after a while.
"It's not that at all," Hermione replied a little guiltily. "If anything, I'd say that I've always wanted to be her friend. It's just, don't you ever suspect that maybe there's something a little different about her?"
Harry shook his head. "Not really. She has her quirks, but at the end of the day she's just a perfectly normal sixteen year old girl."
Hermione sighed internally. Harry may have been oblivious to her true nature as a robot, but he clearly really did love Daphne for who she was.
I guess it's fine for now…
Neville and his friends finally spotted Harry sitting by himself in the library, so they made their way over to him with haste.
"Hey Neville," Harry said as the group approached. "What's up?"
Neville looked down embarrassedly. "I was hoping I could get some girl advice…"
Harry raised his eyebrows. He had never been asked for girl advice before, nor deemed himself fit to give it. Sure, he was dating Daphne, but she wasn't a particularly standard female specimen.
"Um, okay…" Harry replied tentatively. "What did you need to know?"
"I want to ask out Sabrina Laveau, but I'm not sure how to do it," Neville admitted.
From behind him, Neville's friends made gestures to Harry, trying to communicate their insistence that Harry dissuade the boy.
Unfortunately, Harry didn't speak Hufflepuff body language, so he just ignored them.
"Hmm," he said thoughtfully. "Sabrina, huh? She's quite popular, if I remember correctly…"
"Yeah," Neville sighed. "She is. Be honest with me – do you think I have a chance?"
Harry looked at his friend. From behind him, there were several boys crossing their arms in the universal sign of 'no', but Harry didn't really understand what weird Hufflepuff game that was, so he ignored them.
"Of course you do!" Harry replied honestly.
Neville's friends groaned. They loved Neville, but they also knew he could be pretty emotional, and they really didn't want to see him get hurt when Sabrina inevitably rejected him.
"Love is a complicated thing, and to reduce it down to 'leagues', 'levels', and 'chances' is counterproductive. If you like her, just go ahead and tell her – you never know what might happen!"
Neville nodded, inspired, while his friends winced and cringed. The advice may have sounded good, but it was simply way too optimistic.
"How should I do it?" Neville asked hopefully. "I really want to make a good impression."
Harry hummed, trying to think back to how he had confessed to Daphne at the start of the semester. "First, ask her to go out with you."
"And that'll work?"
"No," Harry replied. "Then she'll reject you."
Neville and all of his friends looked at Harry in complete confusion.
"She's going to reject me?" Neville repeated hesitantly.
"Yes," Harry confirmed. "But then you're going to tell her that knowing her secrets wouldn't change the way you feel about her."
"Um, and then what?" Neville asked.
"Then she's going to say yes."
Neville's friends stared at Harry, dumbstruck. That was possibly the weirdest and most specific advice they had ever heard, and had absolutely no chance of succeeding; it even sounded vaguely like blackmail.
"Alright!" Neville said, feeling motivated. "I'll go ask her now!"
Neville's friends buried their heads in their hands as they followed him out mournfully, preparing to comfort their friend after his first real heartbreak.
Sabrina Laveau had a problem.
No one knew what she was truly like, and she didn't know what to do about it.
Since her first year at Hogwarts, she had always presented a fun and bubbly exterior, and people loved her for it.
Only, she couldn't remember the last time she actually felt fun or bubbly, or even happy.
She had been through a lot over the past few years, and between her situation at school and her situation at home, she had no one to talk to about it. She had even tried to get real with some of her friends recently, but none of them would take her seriously — some of them even got mad at her for not being the cheerful Hufflepuff poster girl all the time. In fear of losing her friends and eventually becoming legitimately alone, she stopped trying soon after.
She was walking through the courtyard, a fake smile plastered on her face, when a boy from the year below her that she recognized as a quidditch player approached her.
"Um, hi," he said nervously. "I'm Neville Longbottom. Would you by any chance, er, like to go on a date with me sometime?"
Sabrina suppressed a sigh. This was par for the course for her; another boy asking her out, hoping to get the pretty, fun, and slightly airheaded girlfriend they thought her to be.
"Sorry Neville," she said with an empathetic smile. "But I've decided not to date anyone right now."
It was the excuse she always used. It didn't hurt anyone's feelings, and kept her housemates happy knowing that their 'Queen of Hufflepuff' would continue to belong to everyone equally.
"Oh, okay," Neville said dejectedly. "Sorry for bothering you…"
As Sabrina started to walk away, Neville called out to her one last time. "Um! I just wanted to say that knowing your, well, secrets, wouldn't change how I feel about you!"
Sabrina froze.
"What secrets?" she asked.
Neville blushed. "Well, I'm not really sure to be honest," he replied. "But I mean, I like you a lot, and I think whatever I come to learn of you in the future would only give me more things to like about you."
Something about those words touched Sabrina's heart. Lately, she had been dreaming about meeting someone who would accept her for who she was and not who she seemed to be, and something about the boy's earnest expression and thoughtful words gave her a glimmer of hope.
Neville made some small apologetic sounds and turned to leave, and in that moment she decided to take a chance.
"Okay, Neville," she said. "Let's go on a date sometime."
From where they were hiding in the bushes watching the proceedings, Neville's friends' jaws dropped.
"That line seriously worked?" Steve whispered incredulously.
"Sabrina seriously agreed to go on a date with Neville?" Edmund whispered back, equally consumed by disbelief.
Kenny nodded knowingly. "Harry Potter is a genius."
"You're right…" Steve replied, realization dawning on him. "It went exactly how Harry said it would."
"Harry Potter isn't just a genius," Edmund stated, looking as though he had just had a religious experience. "He's the Love Genius."
Kenny nodded knowingly. "Harry Potter, the Love Genius."
"I think Hermione is suspicious of you," Harry said that night at dinner.
"I have deemed it a possibility," Daphne admitted. "Her questions in the library were undeniably leading."
"What are we going to do about it?"
"We will continue the denial protocol."
Harry nodded. "Is that the protocol you use when you tell me you're not a robot?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to practice?" Harry asked. "It's been a while, and I kind of miss it."
"I am not a robot. I am a perfectly normal sixteen year old girl."
Harry smiled, but his expression turned thoughtful a moment later. "You know, you always say that, but you know you can be both, right?"
Daphne tilted her head to the side. "Explain."
"Well, I know you're a robot, but I also know you're a perfectly normal sixteen year old girl."
"How can I be a perfectly normal sixteen year old girl when I do not share the most fundamental trait that all sixteen year old girls have in common?"
"I don't think being a human is the most important part of being human," Harry replied.
Daphne stared at Harry. "I will have to spend more processing time later to understand that."
"That's okay."
Daphne Greengrass had a problem.
No matter how she looked at it, Hermione Granger knew she was a robot, and she didn't know what to do about it.
"Daphne, I know you're a robot."
Possible Emotion Detected: Anxiety
"I am not a robot. I am a perfectly normal sixteen year old girl."
Hermione raised an eyebrow at her.
Printing Thought Sequence: I can continue to deny it as much as I want, but clearly she will not be convinced.
The two girls were sitting in a corner of the Arithmancy classroom alone, Hermione having asked Daphne to stay for a while after class. Already suspecting what it was about, Daphne's suspicions were confirmed when Hermione told her she knew about her secret.
"I don't actually care whether you're a robot or not," Hermione sighed. "I just think you should tell Harry – if you're going to get serious with him, he deserves to know."
"Harry knows all that there is to know about me."
Hermione paused. "Really? The robot thing too?"
"I am not saying that I am a robot," Daphne replied. "But hypothetically, if I was, Harry would know."
"..."
"..."
"If you're going to admit it anyway, why did you say it in such a roundabout way?"
"It is in my programming."
Hermione sighed. If Harry already knew, that would actually explain a lot. In fact, she was rather cross with herself for not having realized earlier.
"Does anyone else know?" Hermione asked. "Besides me and Harry, I mean."
"Only my family and those that aided in my construction."
"Huh."
"It is a secret, and I would prefer to keep it that way."
Hermione nodded in affirmation, but a thought came to her a moment later. "Daphne, do you not have any friends?"
"I have my sister, and I have Harry," she replied neutrally.
"But one of those is a family member, and one of those is your boyfriend. I guess what I'm asking is, do you have any regular friends?"
"It seems as though using your categorical restrictions, no, I have no friends."
"Ah. Do you want to be mine?"
Possible Emotion Detected: Excitement
Printing Thought Sequence: Hermione wants to be my friend?
"You want to be my friend even though you know about my situation?" Daphne asked.
Hermione nodded. "As I said before, I don't really care what you are. You're a nice girl, and you're my only real academic competition."
Possible Emotion Detected: Confusion
Printing Thought Sequence: What competition? I am always first place.
It was a testament to Daphne's social growth that she didn't ask that question out loud.
"I look forward to being your friend," she said instead.
Harry Potter had a problem.
People had been coming up to him all week asking for love advice, and he didn't know what to do about it.
"What's going on lately?" Harry asked Ron. His breakfast had just been interrupted for the third time that morning, when he had to field a fourth year girl's desperate inquiry about how to attract a boyfriend.
Ron shrugged. "Last week you set Neville up with Sabrina, and now everyone's calling you the 'Love Genius'. I've even heard some people saying that there's no love-related problem you can't fix."
Harry stared at his friend. "Seriously? I've just been giving people super generic advice all week."
"Whatever advice you've been giving, it must be working," Ron said. "Apparently you've already helped form at least half a dozen couples in the past few days."
"What!?"
"Anyway," Ron said a little sheepishly. "Maybe you could help me too? Things are still going fine between me and Lavender, but she doesn't want to go on any dates, and she's gotten more short-tempered with me as well. Any ideas how I can bring back that old spark?"
Harry thought about his friend's dilemma, and as he had been doing all week with his advice, tried to relate it to what he would do if he was having a similar problem with Daphne.
"Have you tried turning her off and then on again?"
A/N:
One of my goals for this fic is to be less critical of my writing, so I am trying to post chapters even if I'm not totally satisfied with how they turned out. Having said that, I'm always open to praise or constructive criticism so I can continue to improve, so feel free to let me know what you thought :)
Idea Credits:
YoyoSs and LynxRaven: Hermione tries to expose Daphne's secret to Harry.
techRomancer: Harry giving incredibly skewed love advice (HB: I stole your punchline, plz forgive me :3 )