Nothing is mine.

Harry takes an exam (not very seriously).

No Winter Without Spring

A great sigh of relief rose from the hall as the slow and steady tick of the clock above the door was broken by a loud chime, and, with a rustle of papers and the small cacophony of clinking ink bottle tops, the History of Magic exam came to a close.

'Leave your papers on their desks with the assigned exam quills and ink pots,' the stern witch at the front ordered, patting at her tight bun of grey hair with one hand. 'Exit the room quietly and sensibly and without talking.'

Harry set his quill down and massaged a little life back into his hand, glancing around. Beneath the clock, the doors swung open, and he spotted Ron's red hair amongst the first dashing out into the corridor. Hermione lingered to one side of the arch, gesturing at him with one hand.

He drifted across and let her drag him by the elbow into the Great Hall. 'What?'

'How did you find it?' Hermione demanded. 'You were writing really fast for the first hour and then you spent most of the last hour taking a nap!'

'I chose the first essay question about goblin rebellions and wrote all about how the ICW's attempts to impose restrictions on traditions and parts of culture they consider dark led to the goblin rebellions. And then I took a nice nap.'

'That's not what Professor Binns talked about! He said there were tunnel skirmishes, and the disputes over the price in gold, and wand laws, and—'

'Honestly, I haven't even seen him since about January, so who knows what he would have said,' Harry replied. 'I thought he might have been exorcised so I stopped going to his lessons.'

'He's been there every lesson!'

'Ah well.' He laughed to himself. 'They only mark you on how well you argue the point, so I'm sure I'll be fine. I had a point, I made loads of arguments about it, what's not to like?'

Hermione chewed her lip. 'We have the practical part of Defence now…'

'Which should be easy.' Harry wagged his finger at her. 'If you don't do well, Miss Granger, you'll be in remedial classes with me after school.'

'That just sounds like a really sleazy professor hitting on his underage students,' she retorted. 'I'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about; you might just decide to go off on one of your weird experiments and fail. Like the Potions exam.'

'I don't think they're going to fail me. It didn't actually say you have to follow the recipe in the textbook, it just asked to describe the process of making it and what you'd expect to see. I did that.'

Hermione groaned. 'Why can't you just be normal?'

'Because—'

'Don't blame Voldemort!'

Harry crossed his arms and sulked. 'You just have to suck the joy out of everything for me, don't you, Hermione?' He glanced around the Great Hall at the stacks of snack food. 'We should probably find Ron, before he gets carried away trying to eat all of this and forgets about the exam.'

Hermione peered along the Gryffindor Table. 'I can't see him.'

'I'll find him.' Harry pulled his wand from his sleeve and tapped his throat. 'Would Ronald Bilius Weasley please come to the front of the Gryffindor Table—' his voice boomed across the hall '—and his care-minder would also like to remind him to stop ogling Lav's legs and think about his exam.'

A wave of laughter rippled across the hall.

'But he has great taste!' Lav yelled from somewhere in the huddle of Fifth Years.

Ron slunk out of the back of that group, crimson from neck to the roots of his red hair. 'Mate… I swear if you ever do that to me again, I'll kill you before You-Know-Who can.'

'Make sure to brag about it to him,' Harry replied. 'It'll be hilarious. You'll definitely get murdered, but it'll be very funny first.'

'We have—' Hermione checked her watch '—oh, we actually have a few minutes still, I thought because the exam ran over it would be really tight.'

Ron took a slow, measured bite from the cupcake in his hand. 'You mean that wasn't at all necessary?'

'I just did what Hermione asked,' Harry chimed in. 'She had the gleam of tyranny in her eye, and nobody's seen Dennis Creevey for months now…'

'He's standing ten feet away,' Hermione muttered, pointing past Ron's shoulder.

'It's a clever impersonation, but I can tell the difference. The real Dennis Creevey wouldn't be able to stand with his back to his tormentor, he'd be carefully watching the dangerous Lady Something-Made-Up-Granger in case she struck again.'

Ron sniggered. 'She's going to hex you, mate.'

'Not right before an exam,' Harry replied. 'She might hex me later. With dark magic, probably. I'll have to get Daphne to undo the curse.'

'With true love's kiss?' Hermione asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

'Well…' A little heat crept to his cheeks as he imagined her crimson-smeared lips and the fierce spark of yearning in her bright blue eyes. 'Sometimes she does look very kissable. Do you think her lips taste like redcurrant blood pops all the time?'

'Oh my god.' Hermione groaned. 'Let's just go to the exam, Harry. It's first come, first served, remember.'

'I don't remember, actually.' Harry poked his wand back up his sleeve with two fingers. 'But that's why I have you, so I don't ever have to remember anything important.'

'Just all three of your jokes.'

'I'm sure I have more than that. Ronald, back me up.'

Ron screwed his face up into a frown. 'Hermione hating Muggle-borns. Hermione going dark. Me and Lav. I think that's it.'

'Wow, I'm really getting good mileage out of those,' Harry mused. 'Guess I'm putting all my eggs in just a couple of baskets, though. Maybe I should give some new ones a whirl.'

'What?' Ron's frown deepened. 'Eggs? Whirling?'

Hermione sighed. 'Muggle idioms.'

'Oh. How many of these damn things are there?'

'Loads.' Harry grinned at him. 'Hundreds.'

'The English language is surprisingly reliant on them,' Hermione conceded. 'But here's one you do need to know, Ron. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.'

'I don't get it,' Ron said. 'What does it mean?'

'It means the other thing always looks better, even if it's not.'

Harry chuckled to himself. 'Sometimes the grass is also mildly evil, is I think where Hermione is going with this.'

'Huh.' Ron shot him a blank look.

'Grass is greener. Greengrass. Daphne.' Harry patted Ron on the head. 'It's okay, Ronald. I know you're hanging on in there when it comes to idioms, but if you keep your chin up and go the extra mile, you'll soon find idioms just a piece of cake. They're not rocket science.'

Ron shook his head. 'I hate you, Harry.'

'Get up on the wrong side of bed this morning, did you?'

Hermione buried her face in her hands. 'Stop tormenting Ron with idioms, Harry.'

'But it's actually quite fun.'

'We have an exam.'

'I can do both,' Harry replied. 'If they let me.'

'Oh just come on.' She grabbed them both by the arms and dragged them back out and along the corridor, releasing them only as they reached the small huddles of students along the walls outside the spacious Charms Classrooms.

The corridor was full of low and nervous muttering; it brimmed with it, like the anxious tremble of an overfull cup of tea rattling upon its saucer. With a broad grin, Harry recalled Aunt Petunia's tentative serving of tea to the new arrivals to Privet Drive — the very nicest tea and a box of expensive shortbread Uncle Vernon had been gifted by his boss, one of Grunning's senior partners — and how she had struggled to maintain the façade of her feigned near-simpering hostess-role as the couple had talked with such enthusiasm about Gordon Brown.

'Why are you so cheerful?' Seamus asked. 'We have another exam.'

'I was just remembering some happy moments with my doting aunt.' He laughed to himself. 'And exams aren't so bad; you just go in and do your best. Easy. Nothing else you can do other than that. Nothing to worry about.'

'You can go first then,' Dean said, wiping sweat off his palms onto his robes. 'Because I think I've forgotten everything we learnt this year.'

'No you haven't—' Harry flashed him a huge grin '—because this is the Defence Against the Dark Arts exam, we haven't learnt anything this year.'

A ripple of laughter swept through the corridor as the door creaked open and an old wizard poked his head out. He had a long, wispy white beard, and so many wrinkles and little red veins and liver spots that Harry wondered if he'd just met the only person alive older than Professor Dumbledore. Behind him, the room was empty, all the desks and seats pushed back against the walls save for the professor's at the front.

'Remember what we did in the DA and you'll be fine,' Harry said. 'Other than hexing Neville. You won't get marks for that, unfortunately.'

'Who's up first?' the old wizard wheezed.

'Harry?' Dean laughed. 'After you?'

'Sure.' Harry stepped in after the old wizard and pulled his wand from his sleeve with two fingers. 'What's first?'

'You can shut the door if you want,' the old wizard said. 'My name is Professor Tofty, though, in truth, it has been some time since my teaching days.'

Harry glanced at the faces of his friends peeking around the frame and chuckled under his breath. 'It's fine to leave it, right? It's not like it's cheating.'

'Potter loves an audience,' Malfoy drawled somewhere outside in the corridor. 'He'll be heartbroken if the door is shut.'

'It's not really cheating,' Professor Tofty conceded. 'The practical part is about application not memorisation.'

'So what's first?'

'A Shield Charm, if you please, Mr Potter.'

Harry flicked his wand, raising a glowing white wall of magic around himself.

'Excellent,' Professor Tofty croaked. 'And now if you could demonstrate three counter-jinxes for me.'

Harry swept through them one after the other with a smile as Professor Tofty scribbled on his clipboard with a large white-feathered quill.

'The Boggart-Banishing Charm.' Professor Tofty lifted a large wooden box from behind the professor's desk at the front of the room. 'Please give the boggart a few moments to take a shape.'

A blur of motion burst from the box, sweeping up into a twisting, writhing ball of shadow.

Harry reached out and poked it with his finger. 'Weird. I think it got stuck.'

Professor Tofty frowned. 'Cast the charm anyway; perhaps it is confused by my presence… although in all my years, it never has been before…'

He imagined that ball of shadow blossoming forth before a bright pale moon that shone so full before the stars it seemed almost to be the entire sky, imagined her stepping out under the veil of that shade, and felt her smile, spreading wider and wider. 'Riddikulus.' Harry laughed, swishing his wand.

The boggart's shadowy shape faded back into the box.

'Strange,' Professor Tofty muttered; his eyes drifted to Harry's forehead. 'Well, I suppose that only leaves the Patronus Charm. I have heard you can perform it…'

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and thought of the sun rising over the rustling green leaves of the Forbidden Forest, thought of the redcurrant on Daphne's lips and the bright gleam of hope in her blue eyes; the two images blurred together, folding into one another, scattering Daphne's impish grin and dimples through such youthful vivid verdance it stole the breath from Harry's lips.

'Expecto patronum,' he whispered.

A ripple of silver flame swept from the tip of his wand, swirling together into a vortex of brilliant light and bursting into a towering phoenix. It shone as bright as the full, pale, winter moon above the smooth white veil of snow, each sweeping beat of its wings trailing starlight like the tail of a comet.

A low murmur rippled through the corridor outside and Professor Tofty stared up at it with wide eyes, his jaw slack.

'Incredible,' he wheezed. 'A phoenix.'

'Is that it?' Harry asked.

'I — er — yes.' Professor Tofty scribbled a hasty note down. 'All done. Send in whoever is next, please, Mr Potter.'

'Sure.' Harry drifted toward the door. 'Who's up now?'

'I'll go,' Susan Bones declared, staring past him; the light of his Patronus shone in her blue eyes, filling them with blazing starlight. 'I'll go after Harry.'

'Good luck,' he said, stepping out. 'Hermione, I'm going to go and celebrate something with someone mildly evil, please don't get too cross and take it out on Ronald. He deserves it for his constant treachery, but that's beside the point.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'You and your weird little dates with Greengrass…'

'They're not dates.' Harry grinned to himself. 'Daphne said so quite firmly. She said if I kept saying such things it will not end well for me.'

'Of course she did. She's as ridiculous as you.'

'I am much more ridiculous, thank you.'

He set off along the corridor, weaving through the students on his way back.

Daphne leant against the wall between the two sets of armour flanking the passage, all her blonde hair tied back into a smooth ponytail save for that one rogue lock falling over her pretty nose and fluttering at her lips. A handful of butterflies stirred their wings in Harry's stomach.

'Harry,' she murmured, the corner of her mouth crooking up into a faint smile. 'Did you take your exam?'

'I did. Did you not?'

'No.' Daphne pressed her thumb against the small carving of the wren and whispered the password. 'I have no wand and no need for OWLs to work for them.'

'Fair enough, I guess,' Harry replied as the passage opened behind her. 'Where are we going?'

'To the spring.' She vanished into the gloom. 'Today is Baendyth Gwyl Beal, The Feast of the Blessing of Beal.'

Harry strained his eyes into the dark, following Daphne's faint silhouette as the wall slid shut behind him. 'So what's this one? It has a much more pronounceable name than the last one.'

'The passing of Spring into Summer,' Daphne said. 'The fulfilment of promise. The paradise that waits after Spring.' She took a left, climbing up dust-veiled steps toward distant bright light. 'The ICW have tried to stamp it out by any means they can manage, but they have yet to succeed.'

'They made it illegal?' Harry sped up as the light brightened, quickening his stride until he was a couple of steps behind her, level with the hem of Daphne's skirt and the bare back of her knees between it and her long green-and-silver-ribboned socks. 'Banned it?'

'It is illegal to publicly celebrate it,' she replied, cocking her head to one side as she neared the top of the steps. 'But the ICW knew that just meant we would celebrate it secretly, so they have worked hard to turn as many people away from the truth as possible.'

Harry followed her out of a narrow gap between two rocks into the sun, basking in the warmth that washed over him.

'Oh,' Daphne murmured. 'The sun…'

'It's nice.' He surveyed their surroundings, dragging his eyes away from the little garnet fang swinging from Daphne's left ear and the smooth curve of her neck where it ran down to the loose collar of her white blouse.

Thick swathes of gorse and heather covered the steep slopes of the hills overlooking the sparkling surface of the Black Lake, bright with all their yellow and purple flowers in the warm light of the sun, and humming with the cheerful buzzing of large bumblebees.

'This way,' Daphne said, starting up the hill towards a familiar cluster of blackthorn trees.

'Ah, we're here again.' Harry patted the sharp gorse thorns with one hand. 'At least it's warmer this time so the spring water won't feel so chilly.'

'We do not touch the spring for Baendyth Gwyl Beal,' she murmured. 'We celebrate Summer with fire, with the eternal and pure flame of Briganti; She of the Rising Sun, of the Dawn, of the coming Spring, and she who brings forth the long warm days of Summer.'

'So when it's cold, we touch the cold water and when it's warm, we make a hot fire.' Harry laughed. 'Makes perfect sense.'

'Briganti's fire purifies us, we pass through it, a rite of passage from the youth of Spring and into a long and fruitful Summer. Just as Briganti blessed Beal, Firstborn son of Winter, God of healing and of foresight, with a single, golden-haired daughter, Étayn, the Princess of Summer and the Sun.' Daphne paused at the grove's edge, touching her fingertips to the sharp, dark thorns protruding from the clusters of green leaves. 'Even despite the best efforts of the ICW, many still make fires to celebrate the coming of Summer. Some festivals are still known in the Muggle World, if distorted by time and the insidious influence of the ICW.'

'Like which?'

'Walpurgis Night. Walpurga was a servant of the Lords Pendragon, of the ICW, who was instructed to further the spread of Christianity among the Muggles in Britain so as to turn them from their faith, and encourage its words and ways to dwindle and fade. She came to realise the truth and fled Pendragon's retribution to what is now Germany, taking shelter in lands belonging to their bitter rivals, the Jarls Volsung, and attempting to reintegrate the principles of faith back into the spreading new Muggle religion and undo the work of the ICW. She is considered special to Muggles and also to us, for many followed her example and their actions are a great part of why our faith survives. In those lands she fled to, they celebrate this festival by her name.'

'Good for her,' Harry said. 'It would be… a shame, for something that's kind of beautiful to have just disappeared.'

'Nestra caillte, cwbl ach chyñch,' Daphne whispered. 'Nothing is lost; all is but changed. All the ICW have accomplished with their attempts to oppress our faith is to ensure the whole magical world knows it, and knowing is the first step to believing. They must think they have almost won, now we are so few, now that Britain is the last country where these traditions still openly cling on, that soon the families of the ICW will be unassailable, free to pursue their own ambitions in the endless struggle for position and power in Atlantis; yet they do not understand that the falling of leaves does not mean our defeat, but heralds the coming of the Winter we have waited so long for.'

'And the saving of your sister,' Harry said, in as soft a tone as he could manage.

Daphne stared back at him, her blue eyes full of bright, near-desperate hope, shining with it like the sun in a clear spring sky.

'Which would be good,' he blurted, 'because your sister seems really nice, if a little shy and scared about what people say if we're seen spending time together.'

'Yes,' she murmured. 'Dwyr Sy'n Tystio will come and lift the curse upon our bloodline, and my sister will no longer have to live in fear of it.'

'I really don't think Voldemort will care enough to do that,' Harry said. 'But I guess he might do it just to fulfil a sign so all those people who know about your prophecy believe it's him and do whatever he wants, like murdering loads of Muggles. It will be a time of great red crayoning.' He laughed to himself. 'Ken y tyachtfech.'

'Come on,' Daphne said. 'It is Baendyth Gwyl Beal. The birth of Summer. We should honour it as it deserves.' She stepped into the grove, standing before the statue of Briganti and its pale stone lantern of flickering white flame. 'Follow me. We walk sun-wise, in the path of the sun waxing to its Summer zenith.'

Harry placed his feet in her footsteps through the long grass as they circled the spring. 'Too much of this sun-wise walking and I'm going to get very dizzy.'

'Hush, Harry,' Daphne murmured, drawing a short, yew-handled knife from the inside pocket of her summer robes. 'We must make an offering to those of the Veiled World for a long and bounteous Summer. A gift of blood to honour Étayn's birth, for Briganti brought her into the world scarlet-haired with Briganti's own ichor, so that they know we are grateful for all their gifts to us and spare us their wrath.'

'This is the bit where you stab me and betray me to Voldemort, isn't it?' Harry chuckled. 'Who knew that Ron was right and you were more than mildly-evil the entire time?'

Her lips twitched. 'You are ridiculous.'

'Says the girl handing me over to die because I assume Voldemort has kidnapped your family or sister.' Harry considered it. 'Astoria was here this morning, though. Maybe Hermione was right and you're just part of an evil cult after all.'

Daphne's dimples flashed across her cheeks as she drew the tip of the blade across her palm.

Red clung to the knife's edge.

'Blood,' she whispered. 'The nectar of life.' Daphne flicked a few drops into the white flames of the lantern and watched them sizzle into smoke. 'Now you.' She handed him the blade.

Harry poked the tip into his palm, ignoring the faint sting of pain. 'Do I have to be mildly-evil and creepy about it?'

'No.' Her dimples made a brief but breathtaking return. 'Just cast it into the fire so that those of the Veiled World know your pledge of gratitude.'

He shook a couple of drops off the knife into the lantern and watched them burn away. 'That's it?'

Daphne dipped a hand into her pocket and drew out a small glass vial in the shape of a teardrop. 'Not quite.' She tugged the stopper free and dabbed the few drops within onto the tips of her middle and forefinger. 'This is the dew of Baendyth Gwyl Beal's morning; it protects against the sun and the wrath of Étayn.'

'So you won't get sunburnt?'

'Or freckles,' she replied, with a hint of a smile.

'Another joke!' Harry laughed. 'I'll make a sort of sociable mildly-evil person of you yet, Greengrass.'

'Perhaps you will,' Daphne murmured, daubing the dew in a zig-zag down her forehead. 'Étayn's Summer is the golden zenith of life—' a spark of hunger smouldered in her blue eyes '—and this dew has drunk deep of its magic, it has a subtle power to it, but a precious one.'

'Do I get to do it?'

'It is for maidens only, Harry.'

'Sexism,' Harry chided, wagging a finger. 'Wait, what does it do?'

'It will keep you beautiful, maybe it will even bless you with a higher chance of getting pregnant this year.' Daphne's dimples shone on her cheeks, as bright, the butterflies in Harry's stomach asserted in a storm of tingling, tickling little wings and legs, as any sun could ever hope to be. 'Tempted?'

'Er…' Harry eyed the vial. 'Might be a little bit inconvenient. Ronald's not ready to be a father. Neither's Hermione. You keep using it, it's clearly working very well.'

She blinked. 'I am very clearly not pregnant.'

'I meant the beautiful bit, actually, because, yes, you're definitely not pregnant; there's no way you could hide a bump in that summer uniform. Maybe in the winter robes, because they're full length not waist length, but you look much nicer in the summer uniform anyway.' Harry clamped his jaws shut on the treacherous butterflies. 'I mean, what now?'

A touch of pink coloured Daphne's cheeks as she tucked the vial away. 'We return—' she drew a small stick of wood from within her robes '—and light our fires from Briganti's flame, so that her purity and warmth imbue our homes with her power, and so Étayn knows she is welcome to bring her Summer to our hearths as if they were her own. On the Summer Solstice, in late June, we will honour Étayn again.'

Harry glanced around. 'Do you have another stick?'

'You can use your wand.'

'Oh.' He pulled it out and scooped a small tongue of the dancing white fire from the lantern with its tip. 'Why don't you have a wand, Daphne?'

'My family is… unusual,' she murmured. 'It is simply how we do things. My role does not require a wand.'

'Don't tell me they're going to marry you off to some really old crusty Pureblood the moment you turn seventeen or something like that,' Harry said. 'That would—' the butterflies' wings turned sharp, razor sharp, as if a thousand knives swirled in his stomach '—be something I wouldn't like very much. It's not fair to you, I mean.'

'I will not be married off,' she whispered. 'I will not be married at all. I will serve my family as best I can in their affairs until I die. Astoria will fall in love, marry, and have children; she will have cute little boys and a family of her own…'

'You could run away,' he suggested. 'Find someone for yourself.' The butterflies suggested, with unquenchable optimism and determination, his own name, but, since Harry felt they clearly couldn't be trusted to say anything helpful, he ignored them.

'No.' Daphne shook her head, her voice less than a whisper. 'It is the role Destiny chose for me; I must play it. But perhaps, where all those others in my bloodline have been unfortunate, I will not be. When Dwyr Sy'n Tystio comes, there will be no need for my family's ways.'

'Oh, it's the blood malediction thing,' Harry said. 'Astoria has it, so she can't run the family stuff. I'm sorry...'

'There is still hope,' Daphne murmured. 'A single hope… for those at their own hand cursed.'

AN: Follow the linktree below to find Discord for a couple more chapters to read, or any of the other links for like 20 more chapters of this, and a million words or so of my original works!

linktr . ee / mjbradley