Nothing is mine.

Harry goes to visit his girlfriend and makes a tasty fruit tart... (no prizes for guessing what colour the fruits are xD)

I Vex My Heart Alone

The Leaky Cauldron overflowed with the sound of chatter; it spilt out of the ajar, diamond-patterned glass windows into the scorching midsummer heat and across the sweltering cobbles of Diagon Alley. Within the shade of the pub's whitewashed walls, half of magical London seemed to be sharing a drink over the eclectic collection of tables and mismatched chairs and stools, their laughter reverberating through the building, filling every space beneath the beams. From where Harry stood, breathing in the faint tang of wood smoke from the fire, Umbridge's ghastly, gaudy pink box of Floo powder in his hand, they all felt somehow held at a curious distance, as if the fire and box in his fist were all the world.

'Getting cold feet, baby cuz?' Tonks thwacked her head on a low beam. 'Ouch! I swear that wasn't here last time.'

Harry laughed, pushing his glasses up his nose with two fingers. 'What, you think they came and added a new one just for you? I thought I was meant to be the blind one.'

'Yes.' She levelled a suspicious stare at the barkeeper. 'It's a conspiracy.'

'I'm pretty sure it was there the whole time,' he said. 'They can't go adding new beams, the old ones would get jealous you're not walking into them anymore.'

'Go see your girlfriend and take that hideous pink thing with you,' Tonks ordered. 'Before I walk you into one of these beams to cheer myself up.'

'Doesn't even make sense,' Harry retorted with a laugh. 'How are you going to walk me into them?'

'Ask you to walk past them and then take my t-shirt off.' A huge grin settled on her face. 'That ought to work as many times as I want it to.'

Harry stuck his tongue out at her and tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the flames. 'Whitefern Oast,' he whispered.

The emerald flames yanked him from the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace and threw him out into the cool stone corridor.

'Is that Umbridge's Floo powder box?' Daphne's voice drifted down the corridor from the top of the steps to her oast tower and the inside garden there.

Harry tucked the box back into his jeans as he strolled down the passage past the empty rooms. 'Yes. I should really get a better box, but honestly my cousin hates it and it's very funny.'

A hint of a smile flitted across Daphne's rose pink lips; she hovered on the top step, lingering before her room of red flowers, her slim figure framed by blooms of dark maroon, crimson and claret.

Harry drank in the sight of her like a glass of cool water after a day of digging out Aunt Petunia's garden in an August heatwave.

That fluttering, rogue lock of golden hair before the clear spring sky of her eyes swayed just out of time with the crimson crescent swinging from her right ear, and all the rest of her hair fell free over her shoulders, a cascade of blonde, half woven into slim braids tied with the twisted stems of small, spiky-petalled dark-red dahlia that shone like amber in the enchanted lights in the oast tower ceiling above. The deep ocean blue of her skirt whispered about her bare knees as she shifted her weight from one bare, crimson-nailed foot to the other, and, when she caught him staring and folded her arms, pushing the swell of her chest up, the charcoal-dark buttons of her steel grey blouse strained a little.

'Er… Daph?' The butterflies rustled their wings within Harry like leaves in the summer breeze. 'You're doing the arms folding thing that makes me feel very unchivalrous again…'

A hint of pink rose on her cheeks. 'You were staring.'

'Guilty,' he confessed. 'But, I mean, we are going out, so if anyone gets to stare, it's me, right? And you doing that arm folding thing might maybe have the opposite effect to making me want to stop staring...'

The colour climbed a little higher, turning the tips of her ears red, but she said nothing, and all the butterflies swept from wherever they'd been waiting inside Harry, swirling around in a fluttering cloud somewhere just beneath his heart.

'Okay, I'm just going to…' Harry took a step forward, his gaze dipping to her lips.

A fierce, fey little spark sprang to life in Daphne's bright blue eyes and she stretched up onto her tiptoes to meet his mouth with hers, melting against him as his hands slid to her slim waist and drew her close. Her kisses came with just the slightest hint of hunger, and the way her fingers curled into fists in his hair to hold his lips hard against hers until the last gasp of her breath was spent sent little shivers down his spine and a whisper of heat racing through his veins.

Harry pulled back, his head spinning a little as he gathered his breath, and dipped a hand into his back pocket; he pulled out the enchanted mirror, admiring the web of sellotape holding its red wrapping paper together with a rueful grin. 'I tried to wrap it because it felt like a present and, you know, you said I missed your birthday ages ago, but…'

'Thank you.' She turned it over in her hands and tapped it with the tip of her scarlet-painted forefinger, her ice-blue eyes full of curious cheer. 'It is thin? And hard? And cool?'

'It's a mirror,' Harry said. 'Wait, was I meant to not say? Oops.' He laughed. 'Sorry, it wasn't really meant to be a surprise, I just wrapped it on a whim to make it a proper present.'

'A mirror,' Daphne murmured; her blue eyes burnt with a wild light that sent the butterflies into a frenzied flutter all through Harry's stomach. 'I will open it a little later.' She reached out and took a firm grip on his t-shirt, dragging him down into a long, hard kiss. 'There are other things I want to do first. Come with me, Harry.'

He wandered after her down the steps along the steaming stream and through the red flowers, the small acacia trees with their almost crimson leaves and the burgundy-edged fronds of the ferns. 'Is Astoria here this time? Or your parents?'

'No.'

Harry laughed. 'I'm starting to feel you only invite me when you know they won't be here.'

Daphne paused halfway down the terrace beside the young girl dancing on the pale stone vase and its marble flowers. 'There may be some truth in that.'

'You haven't told them?'

She hooked the rogue lock of blonde hair back behind her ear with her little finger. 'No. Astoria knows from gossip we have been spending time together a bit at Hogwarts, but that is it.'

'Well, I guess that's your choice to make. I'm dating you, not your family.' He caught sight of the sauna. 'Are we going in there?'

A small flush crept across Daphne's cheeks. 'Unlike Fleur Delacour, I do not have a pretty silver bathing suit, Harry, and you did not bring one with you either, so…'

'I think you would probably have a red bathing suit rather than a silver one.' Harry managed a laugh over the tight, hot ball of trembling tingling butterflies that seemed to have settled, very unhelpfully in his opinion, right at the top of his chest, with just one rogue butterfly perched lightly upon the tip of his tongue. They liked the idea of Daphne in a dark red bathing suit; it sent all their wings into a tingling frenzy of fluttering. 'I guess we haven't been dating quite long enough for that,' he joked. 'Maybe next time?'

The corner of Daphne's mouth crooked, then she burst into that impish little grin, her dimples bright upon her cheeks. 'You are ridiculous,' she murmured. 'But you should be careful, suggesting things like that—' a flicker of that wild yearning danced like flame amidst the mirth glowing in her blue eyes '—it would not be wise to tempt me overly much.'

'Maybe not wise,' Harry conceded, thinking, with more than a little rush of heat to his face, of Tonks's promised contraceptive charms and all the things that might one day happen. 'But definitely fun.'

Daphne lingered for the briefest moment at the edge of the sauna, the steam drifting past her bare legs and crimson toenails, swirling past her deep blue skirt. 'We are going to the kitchen, Harry,' she said. 'Now.'

'Yes, Lady Daphgrass,' Harry replied, saluting and following her between the dark grey granite counters and the racks of gleaming copper pans hanging from the walls. 'What are we doing there?'

'It is a kitchen, Harry, we are making food.'

'I mean, I had assumed that much…'

She laughed, that soft sounding chuckle that snatched almost as much of Harry's breath away as the heat of her kisses and left him lost in a tingling cloud of butterflies. 'Today is Heol Gwyl Céimnyth, The Feast of the Waning Sun—' Daphne cocked her head and that lock of her hair slipped free from behind her ear, swinging before her blue eyes '—and the day after your birthday.'

'Feast?' Harry scratched the back of his head. 'I am a functional cook, I'm not sure I can do a feast without help.' He rather felt that when Daphne said feast, it would involve not just food, but food arranged into some amazing, beautiful piece of art that involved flowers, very likely red flowers.

'I am here to help,' she murmured.

'And command,' he quipped. 'Oh no, I've just realised that I escaped Hermione's tyranny only to run headfirst into yours.'

Her lips twitched. 'I rose just before dawn, today—'

'But couldn't manage to sneak in to wake me up, for once.' Harry grinned. 'A narrow escape for me.'

'Hush, Harry.' A faint smile hovered on Daphne's face. 'At dawn on Heol Gwyl Céimnyth, we burn the first fruits of Summer to thank Étayn for the long days and the fruits of the harvest, and then we feast to celebrate them.' She swept a stack of paper across into the corner and pulled a pair of dark-red oven gloves out from under them. 'Since I was up early, I made all the pastry and did the filling already when it had cooled.'

'Oh?' Harry drifted around behind her toward the stack of paper, caught by a twist of mild curiosity. 'Pastry and filling for what?'

'A tart.'

'There's a joke about Lavender in there somewhere,' he said, laughing to himself. 'Good thing Ron's not here, he'd probably not be entirely happy with it.' Harry considered that. 'Also, he'd eat all the tart we made. And it'd be weird us kissing in here with him watching too.'

Daphne's quiet chuckle felt like it filled all the kitchen with how it swept his heart from a steady beat up into a stammering mess. 'If Brown did not want the attention of making her skirt that short, she would not do it. Weasley ought not to take offence at the jokes she is deliberately courting.'

Harry turned the first piece of paper over.

Four figures, a little less than silhouettes in smooth, pastel hues of green and blue and brown stood upon it.

'You paint?'

Daphne spun on her heel, her blue eyes flicking to the page in his hands. 'Yes,' she admitted, turning ever so slightly pink. 'I like to draw and paint.'

Harry turned the whole stack over and turned through them one by one, the same four figures appeared, always green and blue and brown, between pages of red flowers in watercolour and sometimes vivid stark oils, and pencil and charcoal sketches of familiar trees, flowers, flowing water, and what seemed like every inch of the inside of Whitefern Oast.

'Do you like them?' she whispered, stealing a few steps closer. 'I taught myself to draw and paint; I always wanted to charm them, but…'

'No wand.' He reached behind him. 'You can borrow mine, you know. I think it's a bit late for connotations since we're dating.'

'No.' Daphne shook her head. 'Offering me your wand is… more of a—' the colour rose higher and higher on her cheeks, but her blue eyes burnt with a wild, fey flame '—proposal.'

'Oh.' Harry let his hand fall. 'I thought it was more of a, you know—' the word love stuck in his throat, lost somewhere in a tight, trembling ball of butterflies '—really like someone thing.'

'You are offering to share your key to the Veiled World with me,' she murmured. 'That the fate of our souls be intertwined.'

'Maybe next time,' he decided. 'Sauna dip first though.'

The corner of her mouth crooked.

'These four people you keep drawing, they're you, Astoria and your parents?' Harry asked, hoping that a swift change in subject would distract both him and the treacherous butterflies from imagining anything involving Daphne, the steamy steps of the sauna, and a very red version of Fleur Delacour's bathing suit — and realising it was already too late.

'No.' She leant against his shoulder, reaching over his arm to touch the two figures in green. 'My parents.' Her finger drifted to the one in green and blue. 'My sister.'

'And you?' Harry studied the brown figure. 'I would have thought you'd make yourself red, though.'

'I do not paint myself,' Daphne whispered. 'That is Tracey. My sister's first and best friend. Mine too. She used to live nearby and we would meet her when we were little girls.'

He chuckled. 'Astoria is still quite little. Is Tracey in Slytherin? I swear I've never seen her before this picture.'

'You have,' she murmured. 'You have seen her on the memorial vase in my garden. Tracey is dead; she died just before her eleventh birthday.'

'Oh. Well, that does explain why I haven't seen her. Unless Trelawney spotted her in my teacup or she's floating around as a ghost somewhere.'

'She did not join Those Who Dream in Death.' Daphne tucked the sketches back into a neat stack and turned them over. 'The last thing she would ever have wanted was to be one of them.'

'Yeah, better to move on,' Harry said. 'Better to change and become part of everything—' a distant dream of green rose from the back of his mind, like the fresh verdance of budding spring flowers pushing their way from dark soil '—I think I'd like that much more than being stuck as a ghost forever.'

'Nestra caillte, cwbl ach chyñch — nothing is lost; all is but changed.' She drew him to the oven, pulling open the door and lifting the slim wooden tray from within. 'Here. I tucked it back in the oven to keep it safe, but it is not hot.'

He took the tray, admiring the elegant, glazed pastry crust as he inhaled a sweet scent laced with just a hint of almonds, for Daphne had, somehow he couldn't quite envisage, fashioned it into a wreath of flowers. 'I feel like I shouldn't touch this or I might ruin it.'

'Ruin it?' Daphne pointed at the granite worktop and closed the oven door with her bare right foot. 'It is meant to be eaten, not kept forever. Things aren't meant to last forever; they are meant to wane and change, and then return reborn.'

'True.' Harry set it down where she'd indicated. 'Are we putting things on top of the yellow, custardy bit?'

'Summer fruits,' she murmured, reaching into the cupboard behind him. 'Those gifted to us by Étayn in the early Summer as she brought its paradise to us without doubt, fear, or dread.' Daphne set another white pot down and slid it between them. 'Everything in here needs to go on, but when you put a strawberry on, you need to cut it in half.'

Harry flashed her a bright grin. 'Yes, Lady Daphgrass. Thy will be done.'

Her lips twitched and she produced a pair of small, yew-handled knives from the stand in the corner. 'Here, Harry.'

'Thanks.' He took one and lifted the top off the pot.

A small heap of red summer fruits shone inside, still gleaming with the water from their washing. Harry spied bright crimson redcurrants, raspberries, strawberries and deep red cherries there before Daphne's slim fingers dipped in and plucked a raspberry out, setting it atop the yellow custard-like filling of the tart.

'Just, however?'

'You will need to put them close together to fit them all in,' she said. 'We do not want any pieces of fruit on top of each other.'

'Got it.'

Harry arranged the red summer fruits across the tart with due diligence. 'There's no dancing this time?'

Daphne's impish little grin sprang to life; her dimples and all their bright cheer tugged at his heart. 'Not this time. But we can dance together whenever we want here, Harry. You are free to visit anytime, just ask through your enchanted mirror to make sure I am ready first.'

'I might want to come see quite often,' Harry confessed. 'You… you know I really like it when we're doing things like this together; you always show me amazing things.'

A small blush coloured her cheeks. 'Then come and see me quite often,' Daphne whispered. 'I said anytime, did I not?'

'You did. I just… I wanted to check.'

Daphne slipped her arm through his, leaning her head onto his shoulder as they decorated the tart one piece of red fruit at a time. 'Traditionally, as the evening comes, we are meant to start our first day of mourning today.'

'Mourning?' Harry inhaled the faint, crisp, cool sweet scent of spearmint from her hair.

'For Étayn Marv, Étayn the Doomed; we tell the first part of The Tragedy of Étayn on the first day of mourning, usually in the evening as the sun sets, but you will be gone by then, so I thought I would do it now.' The tips of the little red dahlias in her blonde hair tickled his neck as she shifted her head on his shoulder and took a deep breath. 'You recall what I told you before, that Briganti gave birth to Étayn and when she did, she was born with her golden hair dyed red with her mother's blood. Étayn grew into a daughter of such beauty and grace that when she became a woman and unfurled brilliant wings of pure summer splendour, her mother declared that she could not possibly be more beautiful than she was in that moment. And Étayn, fearing this might be true, asked her father, Beal, to look ahead and prove her mother wrong. But she was told instead that her beauty would indeed wane and a goddess would die. For much of the long Summer after, Étayn put it from her mind, but, at the moment they celebrated all that she had given them, Étayn began to fear her father's foretelling would start to come true, that in giving, she had lost of herself, and would then wane.'

'And she must, right? Because after Summer comes Autumn.'

'Hush, Harry,' Daphne murmured. 'Étayn, much afraid of what would become of her as she waned, beseeched both her mother and father for aid in avoiding her fate, but they could not help her. And so Étayn began to search out for a way on her own, and as she grows more desperate, the dwindling days of Summer grow shorter and shorter…'

Harry held his breath for a moment, but Daphne remained quiet. 'Does she find a way?'

'We only tell the first part of The Tragedy of Étayn today, to tell the rest would be… wrong.'

'Fair enough,' Harry said. 'I guess the rest comes at the next celebration?'

'Amzyr Rwuz, The Time of Crimson,' Daphne whispered. 'Yes. We tell the second part of The Tragedy of Étayn then.'

'I can wait,' he promised, plucking a cherry from the dwindling handful of fruit left and finding it a small spot near the crust. 'If we run out of space, can I eat the cherries that are left? I do love cherries.'

Daphne lifted a strawberry from the pot. 'I prefer strawberries because when you cut them in half—' she sliced the stalk off and halved it down the middle, leaving drops of red juice clinging to the short steel blade of the knife '—it kind of looks like a bleeding heart. See?'

'I see it.' The butterflies in Harry's stomach stirred at the flicker of fierce yearning in Daphne's blue eyes. 'I think cherries taste nicer though.'

'Maybe you should try again, Harry,' she murmured, lifting half the strawberry to brush his lips. 'Just in case you might change your mind.'

Harry let her slip it into his mouth and enjoyed the sweet full flavour of the fruit. 'It's good, but—'

Daphne's lips found his in small hungry kisses and her knife clattered to the granite counter. 'You taste like strawberries,' she whispered between them. 'Like little red hearts bleeding on my fingers.'

'Those can't taste great.' Harry laughed to himself and placed his knife a safe distance away. 'Not that I would know, though, maybe we should ask a vampire? It must kind of taste similar, right?'

She smiled into a long, hungry kiss, the tip of her tongue tracing his strawberry-stained lips. 'There are no vampires in Britain, Harry. A few have tried to return permanently, but the Lords Pendragon always swiftly oust them one way or another.'

'What about—' Harry managed a breath in the brief moment Daphne's mouth left his '—jampires?'

She drew back, that impish little grin on her face and her dimples beaming at him. 'If I see any, I will ask them.'

Harry chuckled, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her close. She was warm against him from where her skirt brushed his legs to where the swell of her chest pressed against his, and soft, soft even where she tangled her fingers into his, clutching his hands close to her hips.

'No,' Daphne murmured, stealing a small kiss. 'I need—' she turned her lips away '—to breathe for a moment.'

'Sorry,' he said. 'You seemed to want it…'

'I do.' Her blue eyes blazed with a wild near-wicked yearning as she untwisted the wrapper of a blood-pop and slipped it into her mouth, and all the butterflies exploded into a swirling storm somewhere just beneath Harry's navel. 'But I wanted to ask you something too.'

'Ask away.'

Daphne crunched on the sweet, the rise and fall of her chest steadying. 'You mentioned your cousin. Are you staying with her?'

Harry let the butterflies settle for a moment. 'No, she comes by to see me. We usually go to the park together.'

'Together.' She cocked her head to one side like a crow. 'And do what?'

'Er…' A little heat crept to his cheeks. 'Mostly she likes to torment me one way or another. Either by teasing me in her mini-skirt or by flirting outrageously.'

Daphne's blue eyes froze over, cold and sharp as icicles.

'She's my cousin,' Harry reminded her.

'So?'

'Well, she's family, so she's just messing…'

Some of the ice melted from her gaze. 'We do not quite have the same leeriness as Muggles do when it comes to cousins.'

'Oh.' Harry shrugged. 'Well…'

'You like short skirts,' Daphne murmured. 'I have seen you noticing Brown's attempt to show everyone her underwear every time she bends over with half her skirt rolled around her waist. And now your cousin…'

'In my defence—' Harry hurried to find one '—I think most guys do?'

'Is that your entire defence?' she demanded.

'Er…' He considered it. 'Yes. Sorry?'

'I would like to meet her.' Daphne's eyes still held an awful lot of winter. 'Your cousin, not Brown.'

Harry sensed thin ice beneath his feet and nodded. 'Sure. Did I mention that she's about seven years older than us? And that she's not really there just to visit, but because she's a first-class auror and is helping me to stay safe by keeping an eye out for anyone attempting to kidnap me again and teaching me to fight a bit?'

'Nymphadora Tonks.'

'Yes?' He frowned. 'How did you know that?'

'She is the only first-class auror witch that you are closely related to other than Bellatrix Lestrange, and Bellatrix Lestrange is unlikely to be visiting you or flirting with you.'

'Well—' Harry felt the ice thin a little further as the winter crept back into Daphne's eyes '—no, I mean, she doesn't visit or anything, and she'd be trying to kill me if she was, but she did kind of flirt maybe a little bit.'

The chill in her gaze sharpened.

'To distract me, so she could kill me,' he added.

'What is your cousin teaching you?'

'Are you less mad at me now for whatever it is I did wrong?' Harry asked.

Daphne folded her arms and turned her pretty nose up at him.

'So yes, but only just?'

The corner of her mouth twitched, but she fought it.

'Nope, I saw that.' Harry grinned. 'I'm off the hook.'

'You are so ridiculous,' she murmured, leaning back into his shoulder. 'But you did not answer my question.'

'Oh, some stuff to do with fighting and Agwyd.' The wings of the stirring butterflies whispered in Harry's ear. 'Would you like to see?'

'See?'

Harry flashed her a mischievous smile. 'You'll see.' He closed his eyes, picturing the silver stars pushing back the deep and patient dark waiting to swallow them, holding back that endless shadow for every moment they could muster, and let his magic shine.

Silver starlight filled the kitchen, shining off every copper pan, sending gleaming bars, spots and lines of light dancing all across the granite as his Agwyd flickered like a pale flame.

'Gwiscañich é solas den dymain Goanv mar a faintlín,' Daphne breathed. 'You are an Agwydkleze, at sixteen.'

'You're not going to tell me what that first bit means, are you?' Harry sighed and shook his head with a little smile, letting his Agwyd fade away. 'How do I learn Brythonic so I understand your little jokes?'

'Carefully and secretly,' she murmured. 'It is not illegal to know or learn, though learning is discouraged by the ICW as best as they can, but it is illegal to teach it without a qualification from the Ministry. You can imagine how often people manage to pass that…'

'If I ask you really nicely?'

'No.' Daphne acquired a smooth white china plate ringed with a pattern of gold and red leaves from a cupboard and slid the cake off the tray onto it. 'I would teach you, Harry, I promise, but I do not know how to teach it and—' a little flush blossomed across her cheeks '—I am not actually able to speak, read or write it; like most of us, I just know some phrases and sayings.'

'Well, I would probably be a terrible student anyway,' Harry replied. 'I'd always be trying to distract my extremely pretty teacher to do other things...'

'We should eat this,' she murmured. 'Before we get distracted.'

He admired it. 'It does look really good. How did you even do the pastry?'

'Carefully.'

'And presumably with lots of skill and practise,' Harry added. 'Oh well, I shall do as I am instructed by Lady Daphgrass and leave the important bits to her.'

'Come on, Harry.' She lifted the plate off the counter, swiping her discarded, strawberry-stained knife off the granite, and led him back through to the table in the hall. 'Let us eat.'

Harry took a seat beside her and watched as she sliced the tart into neat pieces, his mouth watering at the sweet scent of the custard-like filling, pastry and fresh fruit.

Daphne pulled her chair close beside his and rested her shoulder against his, spilling her blonde braids and their dark-red dahlias down his arm. 'Try some,' she murmured. 'It is good, I hope.'

He took a slice and bit off the strawberry and redcurrants at the tip. A wash of sweetness filled his mouth, light as the sugar of the strawberry and the custard-like filling with a hint of sharp redcurrant and the faint, almond-edged flavour of the crumbling pastry to finish.

'Good?' she whispered.

Harry swallowed. 'Very good.'

'Good.' Daphne stole a kiss, that small spark of hunger smouldering in her blue eyes again. 'Food is life. It ought to taste good. It should look good. We should celebrate it as we consume it.' Her lips found his again, each kiss a little hungrier than the last; her tongue brushed his lips then slipped into his mouth. 'I can taste the strawberries,' she murmured between more kisses. 'It is good.'

'You should eat some of it yourself,' Harry suggested, picking up a slice for her.

Her gaze dipped to it, flicked to him, and lingered, a little wild spark shining amongst the blue of her eyes; she parted her rose-pink lips.

All the butterflies burst to life beneath his breast, but Harry did his best to ignore their fluttering and tingling, and took her hint, feeding her a bite of the tart, all raspberries and cherries and redcurrants. Daphne smiled as she swallowed, a little crimson juice lingering on her lips, and caught him in a hard kiss, crushing her mouth against his, catching his lower lip between her teeth and giving it a light tug.

'More?' Harry offered the tart.

'Yes,' she breathed; her blue eyes burnt wild and fey and fierce, and the butterflies shrank into a tight hot ball, trembling in the pit of Harry's stomach. 'More, Harry. I want more.'

He picked the strawberry half that hung at risk of slipping off the bitten end of the tart and raised it to Daphne's lips. She took it from him with a flash of white teeth, her lips lingering on the tips of his fingers for a moment until she swallowed.

Something flashed through the hungry light blazing like the sun in the blue sky of her eyes. 'I… I will be back in a moment, Harry. I just have to go to my bedroom for a moment; I will take your gift with me, as well, so I do not forget to open it later.'

'Okay.' Harry wrestled with the butterflies as they flared up at the mention of her bedroom. 'I'll be here, eating all of this tart before you get back.'

Daphne's lips twitched and she darted into the kitchen, gliding without a sound across the stone floor on her bare feet, then vanishing through the other door. The quiet thud of a closing door echoed down the hall.

Harry took another bite of his tart, enjoying the taste as he admired the paintings hanging on the walls. Some, he felt from the way the paint had cracked and the golden frames had faded, were old, but others he reckoned were newer — Daphne's own work with their backgrounds in watercolours, but the red flowers in thick, stark, vivid red oil paints, countless hues of crimson daubed across the canvas in a hundred small brushstrokes. Above them, above the enchanted lights floating over his head, the ceiling was painted too, in pastel blues and whites, a swathe of fine cloud and spring or summer skies, but bereft of a sun.

Daphne slipped back in, her cheeks bright pink; she straightened her skirt with one hand, smoothing out the front of her blouse, and, where she found a button had come loose, she flushed even deeper until the tips of her ears glowed and did it back up with a twist of her fingers.

'I didn't eat all of it,' Harry promised. 'I got distracted by the paintings.'

'I was only gone for a few minutes,' she murmured, some of the colour fading from her face. 'I have put your enchanted mirror under my pillow, so I will know if you want to speak with me.'

'I pretty much always want to speak with you.'

Daphne's blush returned, blossoming across her cheeks as she took a bite of her fruit tart, but her blue eyes were full of an unreadable light. 'Harry… I want to tell you something. Something important now we are going out.'

'Don't tell me that you actually are being arranged to marry someone really old and horrible,' he said. 'I wouldn't like that—' the butterflies held their breath, the wings still and sharp as steel razors '—at all.'

The corner of her mouth curved up into a faint smile for a moment, then vanished. 'No. My family has a malediction of blood. A curse.'

'I know, Astoria has it a bit; it's why she has one green eye.'

'It is,' Daphne murmured. 'We do not share the story with outsiders lightly, but… I want to tell you now, because now we are together. One of my ancestors, a very powerful witch, yearned to be the one who would save our world and bring Winter so that Spring might return. She, in those times past, beseeched the Veiled World, and offered her unborn twin daughters to Death in return for being chosen as Dwyr Sy'n Tystio.'

'I take it that didn't happen?'

'No. My ancestor's yearning to bring the life of Spring was her undoing, and her twin daughters' undoing, and the undoing of any daughter of her bloodline who happened to be touched by the curse.' She stared down at the red summer fruits on her plate. 'We have a piece of magic, one that, if they knew the full truth of it, the Ministry would forbid and the ICW surely condemn, to ensure that anyone of our blood or married to it will bear only sons and not daughters. My father, having not had a sister or known of any daughter of the bloodline for generations, chose not to tell my mother about it or use it, and so, instead of sons, he had me, and later, Astoria.' Daphne's fingers brushed his arm, intertwining with his and clutching his hand tight. 'Just after Astoria was born, when I was about two, he told my mother about it all. Fortunately for them, they wanted no more children after my sister, so mother never had need of it, but I… I have it on me already and so does Astoria.'

'On you?' Harry frowned and set the tart down. 'What do you mean on you?'

Her hand slipped down to cup the point between her hips. 'The magic is tattooed onto us with enchanted ink, traditionally the same day or the day after we have our first blood. To make sure we bear no daughters to be cursed.'

'Can you take it off?'

'I cannot,' she murmured. 'Someone with a wand could, but I cannot. But that does not matter.'

'I feel like it does matter.' A tiny spark of anger soared up from somewhere inside, landing on the tip of Harry's tongue to glow there, hot as an ember. 'If you don't want that mark on you, then…'

'It is my dearest wish,' Daphne whispered, 'my dream, that Astoria will one day not have to live in fear of the curse or of passing it on. That she can one day remove the mark of the charm and never ever have to think about it again.'

'What about you?'

'Maybe I will be lucky too,' she whispered. 'I have just a single hope.'

AN: Loads more to read of this and many other things via the link!

linktr . ee / mjbradley