Nothing is mine.

Gweld marv yr heol céimnyth.

I Am the Gentle Autumn Rain

Above the desks, floating in gleaming glass bubbles, thick, glass jars, or coated in a thin veneer of shining copper, numerous grotesque dead creatures drifted in the gloom. Harry spied a Grindylow, its bones bound together by countless thin bronze pins, a bowtruckle, a fanged, finned thing he thought might well be a merman, and all sorts more humanoid things he couldn't name from bones alone.

'Potter,' Snape drawled. 'While your instruction in this subject has been truly lacking for all your years at this school, it doesn't matter how excellent the teaching is if all you do is stare at the ceiling.'

'I mean, if you didn't want people to stare up there, why did you put all those things there?' Harry asked. 'Because you're not exactly making it easier to stay focused.' He considered that for a moment. 'And where did you even get all of those from? Please don't tell me you just have them at home lying around. Or that you made them yourself, that's even worse.'

'When I want advice on how to present my classroom from you, Potter, I will let you know.'

'Well,' Harry reckoned. 'I wouldn't wait too long, you really need the help.'

'If you have quite finished attempting to quench your insatiable need for attention, Potter, we do have a lesson to return to.' Snape fixed him with a long stare, his dark eyes cold as ice. 'A lesson of increasing importance in these times.'

Harry laughed. 'Sorry, sir. That's actually very fair.' He zipped his lips shut. 'I'll give you the interior decorating tips after the lesson.'

Snape sighed. 'Returning to our rather more pertinent discussion of dementors and lethifolds in general. Few among you are equipped to repel such terrifying creatures.'

Harry grinned to himself.

'What?' Hermione hissed.

'He's going to try and teach the Patronus Charm,' he whispered. 'But I've already taught it to like half the class.'

'Half the class and Greengrass,' Hermione muttered. 'Why isn't she here?'

'Daph doesn't take this class,' Harry replied.

She snorted. 'Probably too busy learning the Dark Arts to care about defending against them.'

'But only the mildly evil ones.' He added a long, wiggly tongue to the hooded face of the dementor in the textbook. 'Bellatrix offered to teach me a spell that ties intestines into knots, actually.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'But you said no because she wasn't blonde enough?'

'Exactly.' Harry paused. 'Wait. No. It was because it seemed really unnecessary. She's an Agwydkleze; she doesn't need spells like that, she can just slice everyone up into sashimi.'

'Can't Tonks?'

'Yes.' He frowned. 'I still haven't heard back from her yet, actually. I was kind of hoping she'd tell me what to teach everyone who can't conjure Agwyd.'

Ron reached across and turned their textbook to the next page. 'We're meant to be writing about lethifolds.'

'Are you actually going to?' Hermione demanded.

He shrugged. 'Yes.'

'Hell has frozen over,' Harry whispered. 'Ronald is working in Snape's lesson.'

'What has frozen?' Ron asked.

'Never mind,' Harry declared. 'All is as it should be.'

A snort of laughter escaped Hermione.

Ron slowly scrawled bits and pieces of the textbook onto a page of notes.

'Harry,' Hermione murmured. 'While Greengrass isn't here, can I ask you something?'

'Yes.' He raised one finger. 'But it better not be another thing about grieving processes. Or anything to do with her betraying and murdering me. Or, worse, include more than one mention of or quote from Hogwarts: A History.'

'No.' She pinched the bridge of her nose. 'None of those. Just shut up.'

'Ask, then. I'm going to see her after this lesson so if you tell me anything funny I can pass it on.'

'All that stuff Greengrass goes on about—' Hermione lowered her voice to a whisper '—you know it's all nonsense, right? All of it. It's just outdated explanations for what people didn't used to understand about the world and magic.'

'I mean, I wouldn't say that.'

'Harry!'

'She isn't all wrong, Hermione.' Harry tapped her textbook. 'Look at how you approach magic sometimes. Books. Incantations. Wand motions. You used a time-turner to study twice as much and didn't even bat an eyelash at how amazing such a thing really is; you didn't even think about what else you could do with it until Professor Dumbledore outright told you. There's magic and there's magic; I think it's a good thing to respect it when it can do such amazing things.'

She chewed at her lip. 'You don't need any of what Greengrass goes on about for that. None of that Pure-blood cult genocide extremism she actually believes in.'

'It's not like that,' he murmured. 'They see the world in… in circles, I guess. Like, the cycle of the year and life is how all things work. And I don't think they're wrong, really. We're born part of a family, our parents die, we have our own families, we die. Nothing is really lost, is it? Things just change as the cycle goes around.'

'And killing everyone like me?' Hermione snapped. 'All the Muggles and Muggle-borns. How is that just the cycle going around?'

'Daph doesn't believe any of that,' Harry replied. 'She doesn't like it when Muggle-borns treat magic as their tool without revering the amazing things it can do, but she just wants her sister to be saved and she thinks there's only one way it will happen.'

'From heterochromia?' Hermione scoffed. 'Did she check her humours? Give her enough leeches to remove the bad blood?'

'I don't think leeches will be able to suck out the malediction,' Harry said. 'Which, you know, is a very very real thing, Hermione. Astoria is only lightly-touched; it can be a lot lot worse than that.'

'Did Greengrass tell you that or did you actually see it?'

'I saw it.'

'Oh.' Hermione squirmed a bit. 'Well, I guess that sort of makes sense then. Why she wants to believe all of that.'

'Yeah, the reverence of magic is just fine,' Harry said. 'You should revere magic and all the amazing beautiful things in the world, but the rest…'

'The rest is horrible.' She shuddered. 'All that stuff about the world dying. You know what it will be. It's like Hitler; first they blame the Muggle-borns for everything people don't like, then they promise to make laws against them and protect everyone from them if they give them power...'

'Yeah… I wouldn't worry.' Harry offered her a cheerful grin. 'It seems much more likely that Maerdrid comes back from South America, and murders Voldemort and everyone who supports him.'

'That's not better!' Hermione hissed. 'This is nearly the twentieth century, Harry. Britain should be a proper democracy, not some mediaeval feudal autocracy.'

'Technically it is sort of a democracy.'

She huffed. 'I researched how the Ministry of Magic functions; we're a devolved democratic state beneath the absolute rule of a single patriarchal family.'

'Better than just being ruled by Voldemort as part of a religious cult.'

'Theocracy,' Hermione said. 'It would be a theocracy.'

'I'll keep my devolved whatever, thank you.' Harry picked up his quill, considered writing anything Snape was waxing strangely poetical about at the front of the room, then put it right back down again. 'And my girlfriend.'

'Just… be careful, Harry.' She glanced around. 'If she really thinks you're the one who's going to save her sister, then she's not dating you with her head screwed on straight. I know you're not the sort of guy to take advantage, but…'

'It's okay, Tonks tells me how to be a good boyfriend.' Harry paused. 'Actually, you know what, I'm not sure that's reassuring me, let alone you.' He chuckled to himself. 'I do try, though; she really is amazing.'

'Amazingly close to facism,' Hermione muttered. 'Blonde-haired and blue-eyed too.'

'Hey,' he objected. 'I've yet to see her raise her arm in the air or speak any German.'

'Just Brythonic.'

'Yes.'

'Do you even know why she thinks it's you?' Hermione asked.

'Not really,' Harry confessed. 'There are signs, apparently, and some of them fit me. But, to be honest, they're really rather vague and can fit just about anyone. Some of them fit you; you're the last branch of your family tree as an only child, aren't you? I'm not at all worried, really. If I was going to worry about anything, which, you know, I'm not, because it doesn't seem like any fun, I'd worry about my dreams.'

'Because of the connection?'

'No, not those ones.' He grinned. 'Those are just funny, mostly. Watching Voldemort take a toddler-esque approach to art, but with a wand and lots of dead people instead of a crayon. It's the other ones that are strange. You know how you're meant to get weird dreams around our age if you're sensitive to magic?'

'I read a bit about it,' she admitted.

'Yeah, mine feel really real. Really real. Sometimes they seem more real than when I'm awake; more vivid.'

'They're not, though. Dreams are just dreams, Harry. You'll get used to your own magic and it'll all settle down. I think it's a part of puberty, you know, hormones and intense feelings that you haven't had before messing with your magic.'

'I know. It's starting to get a bit confusing, though. I sleep and I see things that are real. Things that aren't real. But they all feel real and the not real things feel more real than the real things. And then I wake up and everything seems less real than my dream, and I kind of want to go back.' Harry tickled Ron's ear with the tip of his quill's feather and tucked it behind his back when Ron twitched. 'Tonks said she had them when she was younger, but grew out of them after a couple of years. Apparently mine were nicer than hers; she had nightmares.'

'What do you have?'

'Flowers.' A soft sense of longing stole up on Harry. 'Flowers and green and magic. Not like we have here, though; it was more… I can't really describe it, it was just really beautiful.'

'Doesn't sound so bad,' Hermione said. 'Not compared to the Voldemort dreams.'

'Or that utterly terrifying nightmare of the snow I had last summer,' he added. 'Anyway, I'm going to abandon ship and meet Daph, see you later.'

Hermione frowned. 'Class doesn't end for another twenty minutes, Harry.'

'It's okay—' Harry flashed her a grin '—I have prepared a genius escape plan.'

'Oh no…' She released a long exasperated sigh. 'Just… do whatever stupid thing you're going to do, please.'

'Professor Snape!' Harry hopped off his stool. 'I've deduced the secret you've been trying so hard to hide.'

Snape stared back at him. 'Potter, sit back down and at least try to apply what little brain is left sharing space inside your skull with your ego to your work.'

'Oh no, I've seen through your ruse.' He drew his wand from behind his back and pointed it at Snape. 'Long black robes. Sucks all the joy out of everything around it. You're a lethifold in disguise!'

Hermione groaned.

'Potter, you can ruminate on your absurd stupidity in deten—'

'Expecto patronum.' Harry thought of Daphne's dimples dancing on her cheeks as they made fruit tarts together and unleashed a towering phoenix formed of shining silver radiance.

A low murmur rippled through the room as he tiptoed out of the door as obviously and slowly as possible.

'Daring escape. Check.' Harry slipped his wand back into its sheath and strolled down the corridors as the bright silver light of his patronus faded. 'Find unbelievably pretty girlfriend—'

A light tug came at his sleeve.

'Check.' He paused. 'Unless it's Astoria. In which case, you didn't hear anything that I just said about my unbelievably pretty girlfriend, I was purely hypothetically speaking about Fleur Delacour and her bathing suit.'

The tug came again, rather sharper.

Harry spun around.

Daphne stared at him with narrowed eyes, the rogue lock of golden hair fluttering before a gaze as cold and sharp as icicles. 'The French veela girl?' A small scarlet butterfly swayed beneath her left ear, the long ebony, velvet trail of its wings brushing against the arch of neck as it spun in slow circles.

'She was the only other person I could think of who fit unbelievably pretty and wasn't immediately nearby to disprove my story?' He tiptoed a little further across the very thin ice he felt himself upon. 'Sorry?'

She turned her pretty nose up. 'You are never sorry.'

'I… not really, no,' Harry admitted. 'Sometimes it makes you smile. Or turn your nose up at me. And both times you look so pretty that I kind of forget to feel sorry or do anything but stare at you, so… sorry but not really sorry?'

A touch of pink blossomed across her cheeks. 'You should not say things like that to me.'

'You're my girlfriend,' he objected. 'And it's true. Of course I should say it.'

The colour rose a little further, reaching the tips of her ears. 'We are supposed to be celebrating Amzyr Rwuz, The Time of Crimson,' Daphne replied. 'If you keep telling me things like that I will have to kiss you and then you will keep kissing me and I will not be able to resist.'

'How terrible,' Harry mused. 'So if I kiss you now…?'

'Hush, Harry.' She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the corridor.

He let her lead him on, past snoozing portraits of old wizards and witches, over the trick steps of the Astrology Tower stairs and through one of the small NEWT classrooms to a little window overlooking the roof of the Great Hall.

'Out here.' Daphne bent the bolted iron latch away from the wall with one hand and pushed the window open.

'Well, I guess we know which one of us is going to be opening all the jars,' Harry quipped. 'Which, you know, actually makes a lot of sense. Of course a jampire has to be strong enough to get into jam jars.'

'You are ridiculous,' she murmured, ducking through the window and dropping down to land on the tiles without a sound.

Harry estimated the distance to the stone ridge where the slate tiles met the edge of the tower. 'That looks like it's about five metres, Daph.'

'I will catch you.' She held out one hand. 'Take a leap of faith.'

He shrugged. 'I suppose it's a win-win for you. If you catch me you still have a boyfriend and if you don't, you get a jam snack.'

Daphne's dimples flashed across her cheeks as her impish grin graced her lips. 'Jump, Harry.'

He clambered out, holding himself leaning over the sill with one hand. 'Ready?'

'I have been ready for you since before I met you.'

Harry laughed and let go.

Daphne snatched him from the air by the front of his robes in a fierce jolt with a loud ripping noise.

'I see your game,' Harry said, feeling the breeze sneak through a new hole around about his midriff. 'This was all to get me out of my clothes.'

She set him down on his feet with a faint smile. 'You would get cold up here.'

'It would be worth it—' the butterflies stirred, coaxed into a soft fluttering by the tremble of the crimson-winged earring in the wind '—I'd sit up here naked in winter if you took your top off again.'

A touch of pink coloured Daphne's cheeks. 'Hush, Harry.' She glided along the peak of the roof where the slate tiles met in a thin ridge, her skirt flying above her bare knees, and plucked a small basket covered in a red cloth from the shadow of the crenellated facade of the hall.

Harry strolled after her, chuckling to himself each time the wind tugged him toward the edge. 'Can you imagine Voldemort's face if I fell off here and died on a date with you?'

'It is not a date, Harry,' she murmured, taking his hand in a firm grip. 'We are celebrating Amzyr Rwuz.'

'Ah, you had it all planned out,' he said, peeking at the basket. 'Were you that confident you'd lure me up here out of that window?'

'I knew you wouldn't be afraid,' Daphne whispered.

'It's not much fun,' Harry agreed.

She drew him down to sit with her, tugging her skirt down toward her knees and setting the basket on her lap. 'How was your lesson?'

'Very entertaining.' Harry flashed her a bright grin. 'Snape was reciting something about the dangers of the Dark Arts again; I think he writes poems about it in his spare time. And he's finally decorated his classroom, but it's really morbid and a bit creepy.'

Daphne pulled his arm closer and rested her head on his shoulder. 'Did you sneak out?'

'No—' he breathed in the faint fragrance of sharp, sweet spearmint and smiled to himself '—I came up with a genius escape plan. I revealed the fact that Snape is secretly a lethifold and Patronus-ed him, then I got away in the confusion.'

Her soft chuckle sent his heart somersaulting about beneath his ribs. 'You are ridiculous.'

'Oh, and Hermione very seriously warned me that I should be careful with you.'

Daphne's chuckle faded. 'She is blind to the true beauty of the magical world.'

'She finds it hard to separate religion from religious extremism in the Muggle world,' Harry replied. 'Muggle history is a bit darker when it comes to that sort of stuff. Well, not really darker, I guess, because Voldemort seems to be trying to do the exact same thing.'

'What is extreme about wanting to be saved from a world so close to drowning in the mud that everything beautiful about magic has been smothered?'

'I think something about it just being lies to let dangerous people seize power.' Harry considered that. 'Which, to be fair to Hermione, is exactly what the ICW would do. And what Voldemort's doing right now.'

'They are just leaves,' Daphne whispered, 'destined to fall in Autumn, to pass into the Winter that Dwyr Sy'n Tystio will bring to the world and on into Gwell Gwer Gwanwyn.'

'What are we celebrating today?' Harry tactically sidestepped that whole issue. 'Something cheerful?'

'Nothing yet.' She pointed up at the sun as it hung, bright and warm above the Forbidden Forest. 'When it starts to set, we tell the second part of The Tragedy of Étayn.'

'So we're waiting?'

'We are supposed to,' Daphne murmured. 'We are supposed to wait and watch as the last day of Summer wanes; when its last dies, Autumn and the time of sacrifice is upon us.'

Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gazed out across the Forbidden Forest. Among the dark green firs, the first hint of gold and red leaves dappled across the expanse of trees stretching off into the distance, and, when they rustled in the breeze, he could almost feel them changing as if they were just waiting for the right moment to fall.

He let his eyes slide shut and held Daphne close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. 'I really love you.'

Daphne buried her face in his neck with a quiet noise of contentment.

Harry cracked one eye open to watch the crimson-winged butterfly catch in her blonde hair and tremble in the wind. 'You know, my cousin has an animated piercing on her belly-button; I could try and make you an earring one?'

She nodded.

He reached back and drew his wand from the sheathe across his back. 'I don't really know a spell to do this, so I'll just have to wing it.' Harry grinned. 'Because it's a butterfly, see, Daph?'

Her lips twitched against his collarbone. 'You are so ridiculous.'

Before the eye of his mind, the scarlet wings of the butterfly unfurled like a crimson flower blooming somewhere amongst the vivid verdance of glades Harry could only see in dreams; they trembled there like the wings of a little wren, drifting through the trees down the winding way of that dark and smoking stream like the floating motes of shimmering amber magic.

A cluster of tiny butterflies burst from the tip of Harry's wand, swirling in a small ball about the slim silver stud of a flower that spun into existence there, settling upon it and the wood of his wand, sunning their wings, and fluttering aloft once more.

'That worked rather well,' Harry said. 'Daph?'

She leant back and admired them with wide blue eyes. 'For me?'

'Unless there are any other absurdly pretty jampires up here.' Harry glanced all around and lifted the basket up to check underneath it. 'No, I think it must just be you.'

Daphne pulled the slim black thread and the crimson butterfly from her ear, and tilted her head toward him. 'Put it on me?'

Harry poked the silver pin of the flower stud through her ear and watched the end blossom into a second flower. 'Huh. I did not realise it could do that.'

'True magic does not come exactly as we expect,' Daphne said, a small smile on her lips. 'A little mystery makes it more beautiful.'

The tiny scarlet butterflies flitted through her blonde hair, alighting on the silver flowers, and swirling about the lobe of her ear.

Harry watched them as the shadows lengthened and the daylight dwindled, feeling every flutter and tremble of their wings somewhere inside his stomach.

'I think I can start now,' Daphne said as the sun dipped at last beneath the distant trees.

'I'm all ears.'

She slipped a hand under the red cloth and drew out a clear bottle of pale golden liquid.

'That better not be more Felix Felicis, Daph,' Harry said. 'I'm still crushed that the last lot didn't work as I wanted.'

'It is wine.' Daphne twisted the cork out of the top with a pop and tucked it back into the basket. 'Young, sweet wine aged only beneath the sun of a single Summer.'

'How strong is it?' Harry eyed the drop. 'You might have to carry me back if you don't want a jam-boyfriend.'

'It is light,' she whispered, raising the bottle to her lips.

Harry watched her crimson-glossed lips as she took a long drink, admiring the arch of her throat as she swallowed; mesmerised.

'Here.' Daphne held out the bottle.

He took a swig.

It tasted sweet, as sweet as strawberries, sweeter even, full of a faint tingle, like the gentle warmth of the summer sun on the back of his neck.

'Do you recall the first part of the story?'

'Yes.' Harry nodded. 'Étayn was trying to find a way to escape her prophecy; maybe she should have tried murdering a baby?'

'Hush, Harry.' Daphne tilted the bottle toward his mouth. 'Listen.'

'Yes, Lady Daphgrass.'

'All Summer she sought a way, but none proved successful. Still she endeavoured, unwilling to embrace her single hope, and see herself take her mother's place and inherit her beauty in place of that of waning Summer. But still, it all came to naught.'

Harry surrendered the bottle back to her and watched her take a small sip.

'In the end, desperate and despairing, she journeys to the realm of her father, Beal, whose foresight was unsurpassed. Yet he could offer her no more than she had already heard, not even speaking of her single hope. Believing him to be deceiving her for Briganti's sake, Étayn imprisoned him within his own palace and demanded he find a way other than to take her mother's crown as her own.'

Harry frowned. 'Why can't Briganti just abdicate?'

'Because as it was foretold, a goddess would die.' Daphne pressed the bottle back into his hand. 'And, after all her father's words had but wasted time, and all but the last day of Summer had waned, she felt utterly betrayed. Furious with her father for his failure, she slew him, and, furious with her mother for the doom placed upon her, Étayn snatched her mother away.'

'Uh oh.' Harry took a long drink, letting the sweet taste linger on his tongue.

'Étayn, consumed by rage and fear, attempted to imbue herself with her mother's beauty, draining the blood from Briganti's veins and drinking it.' A small spark of hunger burst to life in Daphne's blue eyes. 'But Étayn's attempt to escape her fate and transcend summer to become a goddess of eternal youth and beauty by consuming her mother's life failed. Her golden hair is dyed red by Briganti's blood, growing back crimson even when she cut it off. She is cursed; left equal parts fair and foul.'

Daphne drained the last of the wine from the bottle and set it down between her knees. 'All those that had loved her so dearly during Summer come to revile her when they see the mark of her kinslaying upon her hair. They scorn her when she crowns herself in her mother's place and spurn her authority, hiding from her gaze and hoping instead for Briganti's eternal youth to see her somehow reborn.'

Harry watched as she lifted a small bottle of deep red out of the basket. 'Please tell me that's not blood, I'm not a jampire, Daph.'

'It is wine, Harry. Wine bottled upon the Autumn Equinox and coloured with the last of summer's fruits.' Daphne held the tiny bottle out to him. 'The Summer wine we drink to mourn the waning of Étayn and the red we drink to mark the kinslaying of Beal and Briganti, and the ascension of Étayn Marv.'

Harry took it. 'Half?'

She nodded.

He took a small gulp of strong, sharp wine, shivering as the tang flooded over his tongue.

'Gweld marv yr heol céimnyth,' Daphne murmured, easing the bottle from his fingers. 'See the doom of the waning sun.'

And the sun set beyond the Forbidden Forest; the last dying light of it spilt across the sky, Summer's final scarlet gasp.

'Gweld marv yr heol céimnyth,' Harry whispered.

AN: Loads more of this story and many others via the link!

linktr . ee / mjbradley