Nothing is mine.

Harry goes to Hogsmeade...

Be the Green Grass Above Me

Dark, dust-veiled shelves rose from the cold, smooth stone floor to the inky murk of the ceiling above; glass orbs of countless different sizes nestled like eggs upon each shelf, glowing with soft white light as if full of thick, shining vapour.

Harry wound his way along the cold slabs, tasting the old must hanging in the air with every flicker of his tongue, slithering up the steep, narrow steps into a corridor of black stone as smooth as glass.

The golden, slitted eyes of Nagini stared back from it.

Bemused, Harry watched the floor glide by with each silent ripple of his muscles as he pondered why on Earth he found himself a snake and, since his weird dreams were usually Voldemort's fault, why Voldemort thought that a snake would be a good way to steal a prophecy when it had no arms. Laughter bubbled up within him at the image of the snake pushing the glowing white orb along the floor with his nose like a seal and its inflatable ball.

A faint noise echoed down the corridor and he slipped down to the right, coiling on the steps between simple stone benches overlooking a tall archway hewn from the same glass-smooth dark rock as the floor and walls. Silver hung between its columns, a veil of it as thin as silk, finer even, as fine as the threads of Harry's invisibility cloak, and as restless as thick winter fog hovering above the cold grey waves of the sea.

The snake slithered away, the quiet scrape of its scales across the stone receding into silence, but Harry hung there before that threshold, pinned upon the steps by a staring eye he could not see — but he imagined its gaze as gold and red orange and pink — all the radiant dying light of the setting sun as it bled its last out about a slit of the sharpest darkest black — and white, as pale a white as bare, bleached bone and the delicate thorns of midwinter frost.

A little shiver rippled through the veil as Harry stared and somewhere, from some slim little crack within him, came a whisper as soft as snow, drifting to his ears like the first few huge white flakes carried on the winter wind; it swelled like chill dark water bubbling out of the bottomless black of some vast lake, spilling into the silence like all the ink bleeding from Tom Riddle's diary.

And on the other side of it, he felt all the rest of the snow still to come — every last frozen flake, more than he could imagine counting even if he spent every second of his life at it, piling up and up and up until their cold had swallowed not just the sun, but the stars beyond it.

Harry opened his eyes to the still red and gold hangings of his bed with a buoyant sense of cheer, grinning at the little chink of light flashing in his eyes.

'If only Voldemort had been the heir of someone who liked animals with hands, or arms, or literally any way of carrying small glass orbs.' He laughed to himself. 'At least his convoluted plans are going about as well as they normally do. Maybe he'll have to send a minion to get it, and someone will notice and add many suspicious murders to Death Eaters, and finally get four.' Harry rolled out of bed and dressed, still smiling as the sun broke through the grey clouds above the Forbidden Forest, falling in bright shining beams of gold across the dark green pines. 'To Hogsmeade, I think.'

A lazy Sunday morning quiet dozed all through the castle, the docile, content air hung in the Gryffindor Common Room like the smell of freshly baked bread and spread, like that warm, fresh soft fragrance, away into the world.

Hermione waved at him from one of the study tables, so he strolled over with a smile. 'Have you read the paper?' She waved her copy of the Prophet. 'Have you seen this?'

'I can't read it while you're moving it, so no.'

'Sorry.'

Harry tugged it out of her grip and skimmed the short column beneath the sickly smile plastered across Umbridge's flabby face as she stood in the Ministry Atrium, preening in the flashes of the cameras. 'What on earth is a High Inquisitor?'

'The Ministry is racing the Pure-bloods back to the Dark Ages, that's what,' Hermione muttered. 'But she's been High Inquisitor for a few weeks; these new decrees give her even more powers, Harry. She already fired Trelawney.'

'Oh, so it's a good thing,' he replied. 'Do you think she'll fire Snape for being a vampire? You'd think she would've noticed that, given her entire textbook seems to be on them.'

A snort of laughter burst from her. 'That's probably why she wouldn't recognise it. Not that he is a vampire.' She sighed. 'This is really bad, Harry. She was only destroying one course before, now she can get stuck into the entire school. This is our whole education she's ruining.'

'Well, only for a year.'

'What? These powers are permanent, Harry.'

'Yeah, but she's the defence professor, isn't she?' Harry grinned. 'She'll be gone by the end of June.'

'And then they'll just send someone else!'

'Surely Voldemort will have won by then.' He patted her on the shoulder. 'It's okay, Hermione; Voldemort got an award for special services to the school and he was a Prefect just like you also aspire to be. He'll take education very seriously, I'm sure. You can get an internship at his evil lair and learn how to disappear Muggle-bor—'

'Shut up,' Hermione growled. 'This is the same nonsense, Harry. Ministry-approved practises and stamping out superstition and rumours.' She blinked and snatched the paper from his hand. 'Harry, someone told her.'

'Told her what?'

'About the DA?'

'Is that what we're calling it?'

'Yes,' Hermione snapped. 'They gave it a stupid name, but I am not using it and making things worse so it's the DA. The first decree means everyone has to get her approval for any extra-curricular activities. Someone must have told her.'

'Oh well.' Harry shrugged. 'Maybe she can come and learn something.' He laughed to himself. 'She's going to really hate me being the teacher though.'

'But now we can't meet!'

'We can't?'

'No. It's against the rules.'

'Oh, right, we might get expelled, or maybe we'll get lucky and just be—'

'If you say killed, you will be, Harry.' Hermione glowered at him, a fierce gleam in her brown eyes. 'I was eleven.'

'It's still funny.' Harry chuckled. 'Anyway, I'm going to go to Hogsmeade.'

'Why?'

'Because I can and because I don't like Halloween,' he replied. 'And also because I kind of want to see Fred and George's shop; I did pay for it.'

'You did?'

'Triwizard winnings,' Harry said. 'Didn't really want to keep it, since, you know, Cedric had just been murdered and Voldemort was back, which rather made it feel like I hadn't won anything at all.'

'Oh,' Hermione murmured. 'That was very nice of you, Harry. A thousand galleons is a lot of money.'

'Yeah, well, I still have enough money to go to Honeydukes and buy chocolate frogs.' He grinned at her. 'Do you think I could charm one to look like Trevor and eat it in front of Neville?'

'Harry, that's horrible.'

'It's still chocolate.'

'Not that. You'd be eating Neville's pet alive in front of him!'

'Oh, yeah, actually that does seem a bit mean now you mention it.' Harry glanced at the paper. 'Try not to stew over that all morning if you're not coming with me.'

'I'm not. I need to find out somewhere we can meet secretly.'

'The Chamber of Secrets?' Harry suggested.

'What?'

'It's… secret, Hermione.' He nodded as wisely as he could manage with a huge grin on his face. 'The clue is in the name. Although, that basilisk is probably rotting, so it must stink, and it was like forty feet long, so there won't be space. Maybe we should go somewhere else after all.'

'And we can't just be in a classroom after these decrees—'

'Wait—' Harry raised his hand to forestall her tirade '—I know. Dobby?'

Dobby appeared with a loud crack. 'Master Harry Potter Sir needs Dobby?' Adoration shone in his huge green eyes, so much of it that Harry half-expected it to pour out like tears and soak his curious costume of mismatched knitwear. 'Dobby is happy to help!'

'Yes… Right. You still work here, don't you, Dobby?'

'Dobby does.'

'Speaking entirely hypothetically… Is there a secret place where about thirty people could practise magic and Umbridge couldn't find out?'

'The Come-and-Go Room.'

Hermione flushed. 'Please tell me that room isn't what it sounds like it is.'

'What?' Harry frowned. 'I don't get it.'

'Never mind then.' Hermione turned an even brighter pink. 'Where is it, Dobby?'

'Dobby bes showing you.'

'Show Hermione,' Harry said. 'I have an urgent task of utmost importance somewhere else.'

'Of course, Master Harry Potter Sir.' Dobby held out one thin, skinny hand, bobbing his head. 'Good Dobby knows the way.'

Hermione sighed. 'Thank you, Dobby.'

'Have fun!' Harry called after her, shattering the still of the Common Room. 'Don't do anything to any vulnerable Muggle-borns!'

She jabbed her wand at a stack of paper on the table as she passed and it rose into the air, crumpling into a dozen balls and streaking forward at him. He laughed as they bounced off across the floor and ducked the last one, letting it sail past into the fire.

Heading out through the passage and halls into the overcast grey sky toward Hogsmeade, Harry ambled down the hill onto the main street, peering in the window of Fred and George's small shop at a stack of brightly coloured snackboxes as he made his way in.

Within the small, cramped downstairs of the shop sat a little labyrinth of bookshelves and display cases, heaped with all sorts of curious and colourful items, each of which was labelled in bright pink loopy handwriting, and all of which, Harry rather suspected, did more than they let on.

'Harry!' The twins chorused from behind the counter. 'What can we help you with?'

'Take your pick—' Fred waved a hand at the shelves '—anything you like.'

'No charge,' George added. 'Not for you, right, brother?'

'Quite right, brother,' Fred said. 'Completely right, in fact.'

Harry surveyed the shelves. 'What do you have?'

'Mostly just small stuff,' George admitted. 'Right, George?'

'What?' Harry glanced between the two of them. 'I could've sworn you were George.'

'I am,' George said.

'Right. Well, moving on from that, before this gets any more confusing. Do you have anything that will let me vanish a person? They're about the same height as Ginny, but they wear a lot more pink and are a lot more annoying. Probably, I don't actually know how annoying Ginny is.'

'Er… we're not really planning on branching out to assassinations, Harry.'

'Could be a lucrative market.' Harry laughed to himself. 'Voldemort would pay you handsomely. Maybe. I assume he has loads of gold; he might actually be broke, though, he was dead for ages.'

'How about colour-changing lip gloss?'

'Tempting,' Harry said. 'What does it do?'

'It changes colour, Harry.' The twins grinned at him.

'And…?'

George sniggered. 'If you kiss someone, it might leave a mark for a long time.'

'A very long time,' Fred said. 'And that mark might have the person's name written in it and almost nothing will get it off.' He dug out a slim stick of it. 'We better not see Gin-gin with marks, Harry.'

'Oh, no, I actually don't want it. I already foiled Secret-Project-Little-Sister.' He laughed. 'Thanks, but no thanks. I have no idea what I'd even use it for. Maybe to draw on people?'

'A picky customer, huh?' Fred said. 'Well, what about our newest invention, you eat it, and then it simulates severe menstrual cramping.'

'Why would anyone even want that?' Harry wondered. 'Can't you just pretend to have them?'

George frowned. 'Actually, that's a good point. We should probably stick to more obvious symptoms.'

'What would happen if I ate it?' Harry asked. 'Or any guy?'

'I have no idea,' Fred mused. 'Want to try it and find out?'

'Why not. What does it taste like?'

'Grapefruit.'

'Nope. Hard pass.' Harry shook his head. 'It's a point of pride that I don't eat anything that tastes like grapefruit.'

'I told you we should have made it banana flavour,' Fred accused. 'You never listen to me, brother mine.'

'Your banana flavour tastes a lot like pear,' George replied.

Harry spied a rack of shining golden vials. 'Are those banana flavour?'

'No that's fake Felix Felicis,' Fred explained. 'We never could brew the real thing, but we did by accident make this. You feel lucky but actually you very much aren't. It's very funny to watch. George tried to ask out Alicia after taking it by telling her that if he tossed a sickle and it landed on the edge, it was the universe telling her to date him.'

'It worked!' George protested.

'Did it?' Harry asked.

'No, he got a lot of heads and tails, and he was so focused on it working that he didn't realise Alicia had said yes before he even got to the coin part.' Fred snickered. 'And then he tossed the coin really high, got hit in the eye, and fell down the stairs and got both his arms stuck in the trick step.'

'And did my twin take pity on me?' George asked. 'No, he didn't. He tested the lip gloss on me instead.'

'I would expect nothing less from you, dear brother,' Fred said. 'And might I remind you that Alicia said you looked very dashing with it.'

'You drew a dick on my face from chin to forehead; it took three hours of scrubbing to get off.'

'And balls,' Fred corrected. 'Don't downplay my accomplishments, brother mine. I worked hard on those balls.'

'Can I have some of the fake Felix Felicis?' Harry asked.

'Oh yes.' Fred and George nodded, gleeful grins spreading across their faces. 'We won't ask questions about who you intend to trick into drinking this, generous benefactor; none at all.'

Fred plucked two vials from the shelf and pressed them into Harry's hand. 'Anything you need, Harry,' he said. 'Seriously. This was our dream and you made it come true. We're not drowning in gold, but we're getting by doing what we love most.'

'I'm glad.' Harry pocketed the vials. 'And I know just the person for these.' He chuckled to himself. 'I really want to give one to Voldemort, but I don't think he'll drink it.'

'It doesn't seem likely,' Fred agreed.

'Oh well,' Harry said. 'I'm going to get something weird from Honeydukes to wind up Hermione now, so I'll see you about.'

'Bye Harry,' they chorused.

Harry strolled out, skirting the small group of Gryffindors girls a year or so below him who made a beeline for the love potions in the other window, and headed for Honeydukes's door across the street.

Daphne lingered in the open entrance, staring up at the sky with an almost wistful expression as the sun crept back behind the clouds, her hands full of bright red blood pops and the green-and-silver-striped line of colour down the front of her school summer skirt. The little rogue lock of gold that usually fluttered across her face was tied back into a neat ponytail with the same stem of the single, crimson poppy that held it together, and in place of the crescent moon and golden sun he'd seen swinging from the lobe of her ear in past lessons, a chain of tiny red tulips hung, woven together by their stems.

'You changed your hair,' Harry blurted, the words bursting right from the heart of the cloud of tingling butterflies swirling in his stomach. 'It looks really nice.'

Her winter-sky blue eyes held his gaze, brimming with that bright little gleam, as cool and clear as some small bubbling brook.

'I mean—' Harry summoned his most haughty expression '—good morning, Greengrass.'

'Potter,' she murmured, slipping the sweets into her pockets. 'Good morning.'

'You know, I've never seen anyone eat those,' he said. 'Even Ron doesn't.'

'They do not actually taste like blood,' Daphne said. 'These ones are raspberry and redcurrant. Redcurrant is the best; it is sharp and sweet and tingly on your tongue.'

'I mean, I assumed they didn't actually taste like blood. Otherwise, the only people who'd buy them would be vampires, and the ICW banished them all in the Dark Ages so you wouldn't sell any to anyone but Snape.' Harry paused. 'Actually, don't quote me on that; Voldemort told me about the vampire banishment thing, and he might have been lying.'

'No true Pure-blood would lie.' Daphne dipped her fingers into her pocket and pulled out a blood pop, unwrapping it with a deft twist of her fingers and slipping it through her lips. 'Lies offend our gods and our ancestors; they are an inelegant, easy, lazy way of concealing the truth. If something ought not to be spoken because it has power, then it ought not to be said, and its power should be respected enough not to replace it with something lesser.'

'So you never lie? Ever? Not even when Snape asks you if you've done your homework? Just because a bunch of things in the Veiled World might get upset?'

'Never,' she murmured, but the gleam in her cool blue eyes sharpened. 'Did your friend, Granger, go research our ways?'

'She did,' Harry confessed. 'Apparently, it was really hard to find anything, even in the Restricted Section.' He laughed to himself. 'And she really didn't like what she found, either. Which, you know, I can't really blame her for, because it seemed like some weird Pure-blood cult that worships the fact the world is dying.'

'It is nothing like that.'

'Isn't it, though?'

The group of Gryffindor girls appeared from Fred and George's shop and Daphne's eyes flicked past him to them. She ducked back into Honeydukes', retreating three steps down the centre aisle between the rows of gleaming chocolate bars stacked high upon the shelves.

Harry followed her in.

Daphne crunched the blood pop between her teeth with a little shiver.

'Er… aren't you meant to suck those until you get to the fizzy bit in the middle?'

'Yes.' The corner of Daphne's mouth curved upward. 'But I prefer to bite them.'

'Fair enough.' He scratched the back of his neck. 'Do you really think the whole world is dying, Greengrass? That sounds like such… such a depressing thing to believe. Isn't everything kind of pointless if it's all going to die anyway?'

'You do not even know what death is,' she replied. 'You and Granger and Weasley, and all the Muggle-borns and Muggles are so short-sighted and selfish. Life only matters to you when it is your own. Death is not your end. Death is not an end at all. It is change. It is part of life.' A wild glint sprang up in Daphne's bright blue eyes like the first flash of flame from a cold hearth, and a touch of pink crept across her cheeks. 'You are not some single isolated thing that just begins and ends, you are part of a greater world. When we die, we do not disappear; our magic and our souls pass into the Veiled World, and our bodies become part of the ground. Death is just winter, and when spring comes, life returns; it might not be us, but we are still part of it. We die, and then from our death, new life arises. We are a small piece of all the wonders of the magical world, great or small.'

Harry digested that, half stung by the fierce gleam in her eyes and the ring of the word selfish in his ears, but half caught up in the strangely bittersweet idea that somewhere in the world all around him, his parents thrived; not snuffed out by Voldemort but instead a part of something bright and beautiful: something green; something great. And for an instant, they no longer felt so far away, not just old photos and stories, nor even ghosts behind the cold glass of the Mirror of Erised; it brought a small smile to his lips.

Daphne unwrapped another blood pop and crunched it between her white teeth with a small shudder; the red of the sweet turned her lips and tongue a red as bright as blood. 'But you all think the world revolves around you. The world only has meaning while you are in it. So when you die, well, then it is all just over. Who cares about anything or anyone else?'

'I do care,' Harry said. 'But don't you think it's all dying or something? So…'

'It is dying because if you do not believe, your soul and its magic cannot cross over to the Veiled World; it gets stuck, and the more that gets stuck, the further away the Veiled World is pushed from those who do believe. And now, nobody can reach it at all…'

'But you said gods,' he murmured. 'So there's more to it than that, right?'

'Of course there is more. But that is all I am telling a Blood-Traitor who just wants to mock what he does not understand.'

Harry laughed. 'Actually, I was just curious. Voldemort keeps trying to murder me, and the more I think about it, the more I would kind of like to know why.' He paused, recalling the strange dream he'd had. 'Although, he did say he wouldn't be my enemy if I didn't choose to be his. I might have just dreamt that, though, I have loads of weird dreams; it could still be all murder attempts from here on out, especially if the Ministry keeps denying everything.'

'You are so…' Daphne bit her lower lip, smearing crimson blood pop fizz across it like smudged gloss. 'Ridiculous.'

'Thank you.' He tugged his eyes away from the red marking her mouth before the little voice wondering what redcurrant tasted like got any louder and grinned. 'You're such a great friend, Greengrass.'

'It is not a compliment.' She sniffed and turned her pretty nose up at him. 'And we are not friends.'

'Well, if we were friends, I would invite you to the DA.' Harry waved a hand at Hogwarts. 'And say that if you were hoping to pass your OWL exam despite Umbridge's best efforts to make us write out thousands of words about cartoon vampires, it might be a good thing to come to. Hermione is making me teach, though, so while it will probably be better than Umbridge and there will be fewer vampires than Snape's lesson, it might not be amazing.'

'Snape is not a vampire,' Daphne murmured. 'Why are you so fixated on vampires?'

'Umbridge's textbook,' he admitted. 'I kind of want to see just how not like that useless book they are.'

'Nothing like it says.' Her fingers strayed to the string of tiny tulips hanging from her ear. 'Nothing like it at all.'

'I like your earring,' Harry ventured. 'The other ones were nice too. The little golden sun. And the red crescent moon. And the poppy's nice.'

'Thank you, Potter.' Daphne's small smile turned all the cold winter in her eyes to soft, warm spring and suddenly Harry's heart was hovering somewhere in his mouth.

'Harry,' he said.

'Potter.'

'Just Harry will work. I promise.'

The corner of Daphne's mouth crooked, and the bright breathtaking light in her blue eyes lingered just long enough to turn everything inside him into some strange sort of tingling squirming jelly. 'You are very annoying, Potter.'

'That was a smile,' Harry accused. 'Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes, the DA. You should come. Then you have a real excuse to stare at me, because I'll be trying to teach things; it's perfect for you.'

'I do not stare.'

He snorted with laughter. 'No. Right. Of course you don't.'

'Potter.'

'Greengrass?'

Her lips twitched. 'Stop it.'

'Stop what?'

'You know what.'

'Do I, though?' He laughed. 'I'm going to walk back to Hogwarts now, so, seeing as you object to walking anywhere with me, I'll see you around, Greengrass.' Harry eyed the shelves. 'Actually no, I've changed my mind, I want some ice cream; it's kind of sunny, right?'

Daphne's blue eyes flicked past his shoulder. 'It is very sunny now; it has come out again.' The strangest gleam of longing swallowed that glint of spring, swallowed it like the red of the sunset spilling out across the evening sky. 'I do love the sun…'

'It's perfect ice cream weather. And we should make the most of it, because it won't last long, soon it'll be the cold wet part of autumn.'

'It has been Autumn for a very very long time, Harry,' she breathed. 'But soon it will be Winter. And after Winter… Spring.'

AN: The linktree for those who want to read a couple of chapters ahead for free on Discord, or who want to support me, read all my original stuff and twenty chapters of my first drafts!

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