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Author’s Notes: Thank you so much for reading an reviewing! Here’s a nice long chapter that’s a continuation of the last two chapters. Harry’s having such a long day. I had fun writing this, but I’m always unsure about everything I write. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Please review, they make my day!

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters or world in which this fic resides, nor do I own the main plot. I just decide the way in which the words are arranged. The rest belongs to J.K Rowling and co.



Duality: A Curious Case Continued


oOo


“What was Dumbledore thinking when he let him have the Defence Against the Dark Arts position,” Harry fumed as they walked away from the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. He was quite happy to get out of there. He probably would have gotten another detention from Snape if he had stuck up for Neville, who set a desk on fire trying to nonverbally cast a stunner. Hermione, luckily, kicked him in the shin when he opened his mouth to say something.

Snape was making his favourite class – or what used to be his favourite class – the bane of his existence. The great bat lorded over everyone and, when he was in a particularly foul mood like today, barked at them when they made mistakes. Especially Neville.

“Well,” Hermione feebly responded, “he knows his material.”

“Come on, Hermione,”- Ron rolled his eyes –“even if he does know what he’s talking about, he doesn’t bloody well know how to teach it. Dumbledore’s nutters.”

Harry nodded in concurrence and paused when he passed Daphne, sitting in one of the alcoves. He’d barely noticed her out of the corner of his eye.

“How was the lesson?” she asked, staring up at him, her hand was delicately stroking a very content Crookshanks.

Ignoring the questions in his head about Hermione’s cat in her lap, he grumbled, “Complete and utter...” he trailed off not being able to think of an irritating enough word.

“Bollocks?” Daphne supplied.

“Yeah.” He felt Hermione and Ron join him on each side.

“Crookshanks!” Hermione scolded, rushing forward to pick her cat off Daphne’s lap. “Where did you find him? I’ve been looking all over.”

Raising an eyebrow, Daphne stared at her. “I found him under my bed, actually. He and Millicent’s cat decided to bunk up and have a brood of kittens. There’s afterbirth all over my robes, which they decided to make a nest out of.”

Harry couldn’t hold back the amusement that spilt all over his face. Hermione, on the other hand, looked torn between being delighted and horrified, which was Ron’s choice of expression. “That thing had kittens?” Ron spluttered, pointing at Crookshanks.

Hermione sent a particularly icy glare toward the redheaded Gryffindor. “Crookshanks can’t have kittens, Ron. He’s a boy.” The cat mewled nastily to back up its owner. “And I’m positively delighted that he started a family.”

“But that leaves us the problem of informing Millie that your cat defiled hers,” Daphne said with a smirk. Harry could tell that she was thoroughly entertained. “Not to mention the five little kittens that are hiding under my bed.”

“Well…” Hermione said in a slightly breathless voice. “We can move them to my dormitory and I can take care of them.”

“They’re nursing, Granger,” Daphne pointed out, standing up to face Hermione, though she looked quite intimidating since she was a head taller than the Gryffindor. Harry didn’t even realize the height difference until they were standing head to head.

Daphne continued, “And, Millie won’t be happy about her cat’s predicament – she loves that bitchy little thing – but I might be able to keep it a secret from her somehow until you take the little heathens underneath my bed away.” She paused and examined her nails as Harry looked back and forth between the two girls. The tension was palpable. “For a price.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not afraid of Millicent Bulstrode.”

“You haven’t met her right hook,” Daphne retorted.

“You’re quite forgetting that I’m a witch,” Hermione said pointedly, wincing as Crookshanks dug his claws into her arm to seemingly get comfortable.

Daphne laughed. “That really doesn’t matter. When Millie holds a grudge, she’ll get you – and she’s faster than she looks. Trust me.”

Rolling her eyes, Hermione sighed. “What’s your price then? Just so I can weigh the options.”

“Restricted Section passes. Since you’re a Prefect, you can get the unlimited ones without question.”

Harry’s brows furrowed. “Why would you…” he started nearly at the same time Hermione ‘hmmed’ contemplatively.

“I’m researching,” Daphne explained to him with a wave of her hand. “I’ll keep the cats secret until they’re weened, and everything will be tickety boo.”

“What are you researching?” Hermione inquired with that glint in her eyes that Harry recognized immediately, though it held a certain amount of suspicion.

Ron grumbled something about ‘Slytherins’, ‘obvious’, and ‘evil gits’ as he gazed down the corridor, away from the girls’ negotiation.

“Hogwarts,” Daphne stated. Hermione’s eyebrows rose in interest. “I need a couple of really old volumes of Hogwarts, A History, which are only available in the Restricted Section.”

Fervently, Hermione shook her head, the middle of her forehead creased. “There aren’t any old volumes of Hogwarts, A History in the Restricted Section.”

“Yes there are,” Daphne argued. “They’re in the Library-Use-Only part in the back.”

“Why would they be there?” Hermione mused.

Harry’s stomach gave a lurch of hunger and he squinted toward the clock at the end of the corridor, which told him that dinner had already started. No wonder Ron was getting antsy and paying a lot of attention to the clock.

“Why don’t you just go on to dinner?” he whispered to Ron as the Hermione and Daphne’s conversation took a turn onto the numerous volumes of Hogwarts, A History and where they were located in the library.

“Yeah,” Ron muttered with a nod. “Aren’t you coming with?”

Harry shook his head. “No, you go on ahead.” He really wanted to ask Daphne how she got through the wards, if she went to London like Zabini had said.

Ron took off without another word toward Gryffindor Tower to drop off his stuff, as fast as his legs could carry him without running.

“But why do you need those specifically?” Hermione was starting to get irritated, Harry could tell by the volume of her hair alone. When she was exasperated, it puffed up to incredibly heights.

“Because they must have censored a lot of stuff in those volumes out, considering that they’re in the Restricted Section and not the History Section,” Daphne drawled.

“But there’s no need to censor anything! Hogwarts, A History is incredibly thorough.”

“Well I imagine, Granger, that there may be something they don’t want us to particularly know. I doubt that anyone had checked out the Restricted Section for Hogwarts, A History. Perfect place to hide something like that because it sounds absurd. I only know about it because Blaise told me.”

Hermione let out a long sigh. “Then we’ll just have to get those Restricted Section passes, won’t we?” Daphne smirked but it faltered when Hermione continued, “And I’m definitely joining you.”

“Whatever, Granger.” The Slytherin girl reached into her pocket and pulled out her silver case and a gold rectangular lighter that Harry hadn’t seen before. Daphne lit up and exhaled slowly. “Think you can get them by tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Hermione said with a curt nod. “I can get them tonight even.”

“Good,” Dapne drawled, “meet me in the library at seven if you can get the passes by then.”

Hermione’s determined gaze met Daphne’s pleased expression. “Oh, I will.”

Daphne nodded politely and looked over at Harry. “Where’d Weasley run off to?”

“Dinner,” Harry said with a shrug. “I wanted to ask you something, before…”

The three started walking toward the Gryffindor Tower to drop off their book bags. Hermione was staring avidly at Harry, petting her cat lightly on his head, while Daphne stared at him expectantly.

“Did you go to London today?”

Daphne nodded. “Yeah… why?”

“You left school grounds?” Hermione interrupted.

“I’m sure you’ve broken a lot of rules over the years too, Granger,” Daphne muttered to the Gryffindor girl.

Harry disregarded the interruption and picked up the former train of their conversation. “How did you get through the wards?”

As they ascended the stairs that led to the seventh floor, Daphne looked around as if gauging the surroundings for any listeners. Harry walked closer to her.

“I don’t think I should say anything with a Prefect in the vicinity.”

Hermione scoffed. “I not inept at keeping secrets, Greengrass.”

“Alright then,” Daphne said quietly. “I used a signature duplicating potion to get through the wards.”

“How would that get you through the wards?” Harry asked, trying to think of how duplicating one’s signature could possibly do that, unless it increased your magical power twofold and allowed you to break the wards or something. But the school would have been alerted if there was a noticeable breech in the wards.

Hermione was staying oddly silent. Wasn’t she supposed to be rattling off useful information right about now?

“I used Dumbledore’s signature.” Daphne stuck her cigarette into her mouth and dug through her pockets, pulling out a small vial of purple twinkling liquid.

“Of course,” Hermione breathed. “The Headmaster can control the wards. And it wouldn’t set the wards off if they thought you were him.”

Harry reached for the bottle and Daphne gave it to him. It felt very warm and tingly in his hand, a bit like very faint static burns. The magic emanating from the bottle licked over his skin and down his arm. “But that’s Dark Magic,” Hermione blurted out, staring at the Slytherin accusingly.

“It’s on the border.” Daphne shrugged.

Dark Magic…

The danger of the potion in his hands hit him like a ton of bricks and the unbearable weight on his shoulders felt a half ton heavier. He swallowed thickly.

“What if Voldemort got a hold of this?” Harry said just above a whisper, panicked by the thought. “Where did you get it from?”

“I made it. The recipe’s in Magick Moste Evil,” Daphne answered, taking the potion from him. She stowed it back in her pocket. He itched to have it back into his hands to keep it safe. “Kind of a rare book,” she reassured.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” Hermione said. “Though I wouldn’t put it past Voldemort to get his hands on it.”

“But maybe he doesn’t know about it,” Daphne paused for a moment, “it’s not like there’re Death Eaters trying to break down the front door. And, since it only takes a month to brew this potion, they would’ve been here a while ago.”

“But what if he finds out somehow and is brewing it right now, or next month – or the month after,” Harry said in one short breath.

“You have to get Dumbledore’s DNA to make the potion.” Daphne looked at him with her eyebrow sharply raised. “It was astonishingly harder to procure than I thought. He does his own laundry. Getting any trace of saliva from his dinner materials is out of the question. Sneaking up on him to get a piece of his hair was even more difficult – he’s a lot more aware of his surroundings than he seems. Had the gall to tell me it wasn’t wise to run with scissors.” Daphne rolled her eyes.

“In the end, I had to sneak into his private chambers,” she whispered through her teeth.

“Well that’s… comforting,” Hermione commented as they stopped in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. The portrait glared at first but then seemed to relax back in her chair, asking for the password.

Harry’s heartbeat had calmed considerably. Thank Merlin it was difficult to get Dumbledore’s DNA, but still… it was possible if Daphne could do it. “Dilligrout,” he said to the portrait, who didn’t seem to notice Daphne there with them.

The portrait hole opened and Daphne climbed through after them, not seeming to worry about being in public with two Gryffindors. The Common Room was empty anyway.

Hermione was staring apprehensively at Daphne again and Harry wanted to ask “What?” but held his tongue. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what it was this time.

They separated in silence. Hermione went up to her dormitory and Harry went up to his, Daphne hot on his heels.

“We’ve come full circle,” Daphne mused as he set his book bag down on his trunk.

Brows furrowed slightly, he asked, “What?”

“Back at your dorm. It’s actually rather nice.” She was staring around the room. “Maybe a little too red for my tastes…”

Harry’s stomach gave an audible gurgle that interrupted her and he smiled sheepishly when she stared at him. “Hungry,” he explained.

“Dinner – right,” Daphne muttered, turning out of the room. Harry stuffed the Marauder’s Map into his pocket. He still liked to keep an eye on Malfoy, even if the Auror’s were going to take him away.

They walked in silence and parted long before they reached the Great Hall. Daphne said it would look suspicious if they entered together. She was already at her spot beside Zabini when they got there. It must have been a Slytherin thing to stare down their food because Daphne was boring holes into her salad.

“Practice again tomorrow, Harry?” Ron interrupted his staring and Harry turned to look at him.

Harry nodded and reached for his goblet of pumpkin juice as Ron led him into a discussion about Quidditch tactics. Thankfully, Ron didn’t go into a pity fest on how pathetic he was playing as of late. Harry really wasn’t up to dealing with that at the moment. His eyes were focused as much as possible on Daphne and he only paid half attention to Ron’s long explanations over chaser formations and how he could best defend the hoops.

There was tension over at the Slytherin table, he could tell. Though, that probably had to do with the blonde-headed git sitting across from Daph, who was rarely spotted during mealtimes. At least he didn’t need the Marauder’s Map at the moment. He could keep a good watchful eye on Malfoy from the Gryffindor table.

Ron turned the subject over to how the Cannons were doing so far in the season, which was as usual (abysmally), while Harry observed Daphne bending the handle of her fork in half with her hand. Her eyes were sneaking inconspicuous glances all round the Slytherin table, which made him certain that something was up.

But her abrupt departure afterward didn’t look too suspicious. Regardless, he itched to follow her.

Harry watched Zabini. If Zabini left after her, he would, but the Slytherin boy didn’t move. Instead, Zabini’s jaw set and he fixed a dangerous glare on Malfoy.

“Mhm. Yeah,” Harry muttered, only half listening for the times when Ron expected him to talk. He shovelled some mashed potatoes into his mouth and swallowed without really tasting it.

Ron kept talking.

Hermione, on the other hand, noticed that Harry wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes narrowed and she glanced over her shoulder. When she gave him one of her, “What in the world are you looking at?” expressions, he shrugged in response. He’d probably need to talk to Zabini again to understand – after dinner.

Without much left to do, Harry settled into his food, keeping close watch out of the corner of his eye on Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini.


oOo


“This is starting to get old,” Zabini muttered to him, after he had pulled Harry into an unused classroom when he was caught following the Slytherin boy.

“You know stuff, I don’t,” Harry replied with a glare, “get used to it.”

“If you weren’t fucking Daphne, I’d curse you right about now.”

As would the average Slytherin, Harry knew that, but he’d rather cut to the chase. “Is there something going on between Daphne and Malfoy?”

“Aside from trying to ‘knock him down a peg or two’…” Zabini drawled with a shrug, pulling out his pack of Davidoff’s and lighting up.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Then what was with the steamy looks you were giving him all throughout dinner?”

“Ah.” Zabini breathed out a puff of smoke. “Why would that be any of your business?”

Closing his eyes to scrounge up a little patience, Harry sighed. “I just have a feeling like there’s something going on and I know nothing about it.”

Merlin, he was turning into a control freak wasn’t he? He always had control over what he was doing when he worked with Ron and Hermione. The Slytherins just wanted to take over for him. The whole loss of control was driving him mad. Maybe he was reading into things that didn’t mean anything. However, the lack of trust certainly didn’t help – he definitely didn’t trust Zabini and Zabini didn’t trust him. He wasn’t even sure he trusted Daphne, considering that she blatantly lied to him this morning. How many other times had she lied?

Zabini was staring at him in an appraising way, his eyes searching. “Perhaps there is something going on that you know nothing about.”

That response definitely didn’t help with his current trust issues.

“That’s why I’m asking you to tell me what it is!”

Zabini gave a short laugh, smoke billowed from his mouth. “Gryffindors. You lot have no sense of subtlety or manipulation.”

Harry didn’t respond. It didn’t even deserve a response. Why did he have to play those games with Zabini when he could just ask for the information?

“If I have to manipulate information out of you,” Harry bitterly replied, “then I can assume that we aren’t on the same side.”

“Now there’s your Slytherin sneaking out to join us,” Zabini said, his smirk firmly in place. It only further grated at Harry’s irritation. “Yet, those ‘steamy looks’ – as you so deemed them – had nothing to do with the reason why we have aligned.”

Fair point. Harry tried to scrounge up a reason for why Zabini should tell him something that the Slytherin was obviously guarding.

“I know that there’s something going on with Daphne and Malfoy has to be involved.” Bloody hell, that was a weak response. Why was Zabini so cooperative this morning? Maybe it had something to do with Zabini’s speculation about Daphne’s methods of getting out of the wards… He needed information from Harry. That had to be why.

“An explanation would involve telling you information I am not permitted to disclose.”

“Why the bloody hell not?”

He was a bit worried about her, though she did provide him with distractions to forget that worry. Dumbledore’s signature potion, sex… information on Malfoy. It all covered up that he had noticed over the course of the week, she decided to go a bit mad. It couldn’t have just been Trelawney’s sherry and only change in events involved Malfoy. She also couldn’t have been sleeping properly in the last week, considering the dark circles under her eyes. The feeling in the pit of his stomach, which was right most of the time, told him it was Malfoy.

Zabini let out a long breath, as if he were annoyed. “It’s up to Daphne. I don’t even know much about it.”

“Just tell me,” Harry calmly enunciated. “I’m… concerned.”

“As you should be.” Zabini paused while Harry’s eyebrows furrowed, not expecting that type of response. “Daph’s a lot to handle and you’re just getting to know her. She’s all these secrets wrapped up in a bundle of mad.”

And to think Harry thought it was so simple in the beginning.

Zabini took a long drag off his cigarette, scrutinizing Harry with his eyes. “Ask her about her left shoulder – it’s injured,” he said cryptically. “From what I understand of piecing together bits of information, it may lead you to some answers.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Harry asked incredulously. She could have slept on it wrong or somehow injured it when she was threatening to rip Ron’s bollocks off with her bare hands this morning. Or maybe she had hurt it when she tried to go through the wards earlier today.

But he didn’t even notice that she had injured her shoulder. His mind moved through every image he had of her over the last few days. There were no signs!

“Draco’s involved, but don’t worry your pretty head too much, Potter. Daphne’s a big girl. She can handle herself.”

Before Harry could respond, Zabini was gone and he rolled his eyes. Gryffindors were so much easier to work with. Slytherins were confusing.


oOo


The map in his pocket pointed him straight to the library; Daphne was sitting at the table furthest to the back, fifteen minutes early for her meeting with Hermione. He spotted Daphne when he went around the Arithmancy section, where she was seated with a few heavy tomes in front of her, smoking up a storm. It was a wonder why Pince wasn’t swooping down on her.

“I don’t think you can smoke in here,” he whispered.

Daphne’s brow unfurrowed when she looked up from the book she was studying. “No, I can’t, but Pince can’t see me, so I’m good.”

“You put a spell on her?” Harry asked, looking around for the librarian as if she were going to pop out of the shelves at any moment.

With a shrug of one shoulder – Harry noted that she didn’t even move the left one – she answered lightly, “Mild – nothing that won’t wear off. I needed a quiet place to study and whatever.”

He took a seat across from her and looked down at the books before looking back up at her. “I didn’t even know that this place had Muggle books.”

“These are mine from home,” she explained. “Did you come for the Hogwarts, a History debate that’s going to ensue between Granger and I?”

“Um-” Harry hesitated. “-no. I was wondering about dinner.”

Daphne smiled in an amused, yet doubtful, fashion. “Are you asking me on a date?”

Shaking his head, he continued, “You left quite… abruptly.”

“Right,” she muttered. “It was a bit stifling and I wasn’t very hungry – but I have good news.” She paused. “I caught Vincent Crabbe in front of the Room of Requirement Polyjuiced as a first year. So I took him to McGonagall and he’s probably going to be expelled.”

“So that was what that was for!” Harry said in a loud whisper. All those first years he kept running into… A huge bottle of polyjuice wasn’t plausible if it were simply for Malfoy to use to skip out on detention during Hogsmeade. That made so much more sense: He was using it on Crabbe and Goyle so they could warn him if people were coming near the Room of Requirement.

“There’s another thing,” Daphne said in an odd voice. “Draco was in the Room of Requirement, yet he also appeared at dinner. I think Greg was sitting in his place.”

He should have checked the map. Harry silently cursed himself for not checking.

“I think we could probably catch Greg at it during some meal time during the week, but – I have to say – he’s pretty good at acting like Draco so it’ll be difficult,” Daphne whispered.

Pulling out his map, Harry grinned triumphantly. “It won’t be so difficult with this. Polyjuiced forms and even anamagi show up on it. If Crabbe gets expelled for using Polyjuice, it’ll be easy to get Goyle expelled.”

“And then Draco will have no more minions to guard him. Though Vince did confirm that he was repairing something for the Dark Lord.” Daphne flicked her ashes into a small bowl-shaped ashtray off to the side and took another drag.

“We must have not looked hard enough then.” They combed the entirety of the Room of Requirement and all they got out of it was a dead bird and the location Trelawney’s stash.

A very familiar scoff interrupted them and Harry regretted not bringing up what originally had brought him there. However, talking about and planning the whole Malfoy take-down gave him tunnel vision more often than not.

Harry gritted his teeth. Daphne and her blasted distractions, once again.

“You’re not allowed to smoke in here,” Hermione stated plainly, raising an eyebrow toward the fag dangling from Daphne’s fingertips.

“Fine,” Daphne said with a sigh, stubbing the cigarette out in her ashtray and vanishing the lot. “Happy?”

Hermione glared and took a seat beside them, gazing over at Daphne’s reading material with a faint frown. “Russian?”

“My grandparents are visiting for Christmas hols – I’m rusty,” Daphne explained, closing the books. “Do you have the passes?”

Hermione shoved a roll of parchment forward. “Of course.”

Daphne smiled. “Great, your cat problem is fixed.”

Harry interrupted, wanting to get Daphne alone for a couple minutes. “Hermione, do you think you could go get the books?”

Hermione’s brows furrowed as she looked over at him. “Sure, Harry. I didn’t know you were curious about this.”

Harry smiled sheepishly toward her, not wanting to correct her assumption. Otherwise Hermione would stick around and that probably wouldn’t be the best. The bushy-haired girl took the passes and Daphne stared over at him, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Deciding to cut to the chase, he said, “I talked to Zabini.”

Daphne exhaled a small breath that he could barely hear.

“He mentioned… your shoulder.”

Daphne’s eyes met his, solid and expressionless. “My shoulder?”

Harry nodded warily. Her eyebrow rose.

“So it’s a bit sore.”

“And it has something to do with Malfoy, doesn’t it?”

Her jaw set, but she kept staring at him with her rather piercing blue eyes. There was something there, but whatever it was, it perplexed him. He didn’t know whether it was a misunderstanding or if he should be angry, or if he needed to hex something or someone.

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t see why any of that matters.”

Harry let out a sigh. “It matters because if he hurt you…”

“Hurt me?” Daphne interrupted. “What made you come to that conclusion?”

“Well,” Harry said, testing his patience for a second time in the last bloody hour. Bloody evasive Slytherins. “Your shoulder is injured, Malfoy is apparently a violent git,” – considering the necklace incident – “something happened at dinner, and both Zabini and my gut feelings are pointing to Malfoy.”

“Interesting deduction, Sherlock,” Daphne sardonically intoned. “Anything else to add?”

“No, I think that covered it,” Harry curtly replied. Why couldn’t she just tell him already? What did she have to hide?

Maybe it was completely ridiculous for him to trust Zabini over Daphne, but she did lie to him. He was still quite sore over that, even if he did get distracted by her method of getting out of the wards. There was just something going on with her.

“Right.” Daphne ran a hand through her hair and closed her book. “I don’t know what to tell you, Harry.”

“You just don’t want to tell me.”

“No, I don’t, actually. Why should I?”

“Because I’m concerned.” Irritation was starting to nip and claw at his nerves.

Daphne seemed to be taken aback by that. Her mouth opened as if she were going to say something but then it snapped shut. “It’s not something I talk about. And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to keep it that way.”

The small – almost broken – tone of her voice softened his nerves, as if they were bathed with a calming drought. “It’s just your shoulder,” Harry pointed out.

“And what would you do if I told you that your suspicions are correct?” Daphne asked blankly.

Harry’s brows furrowed. “How did it happen in the first place? Did it happen earlier today? Or while you were spying on him, or what? Are you trying to protect him or something?”

He felt the urge to use the nastiest spell he knew on that bloody ferret clinging to the dregs of anger in his veins. The bloody git hurt her. And she wasn’t denying it!

“Quite the contrary.” Daphne paused. “You wouldn’t understand it if I told you.”

“Told me what?”

“What I got myself into in the first place,” she explained. “I’m pretty capable of handling it.”

“Okay, then,” Harry said, leaning back in his chair. “What did you get yourself into?”

“That’s none of business.” Her tone was blank again and he had a feeling he wouldn’t get anything else out of her.

Harry’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I really don’t understand you, Daph.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Well at least it’s better than you lying to me outright, like this morning,” Harry responded bitterly. She said she wouldn’t go too far and yet she went all the way to bloody London. With every terrible thing that was mentioned in the Prophet as of late – disappearances, deaths, nine-year-old children bewitched into killing their entire families – he had a right to be, at least, concerned.

“I didn’t lie. Simply didn’t tell you the entire truth.”

“That’s a lie, Daphne,” he said slowly. The familiar betrayal of being lied to seeped in, but it was so insignificant that it wasn’t enough to get angry about. It just stung a little that she couldn’t be completely truthful.

He could hear Hermione’s voice in the History Section, just over the far shelves, chatting with Terry Boot.

“My mother’s house was unprotected,” Daphne answered plainly. “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if anything happened to her.”

Guilt trickled across some of the bitterness, dulling it. If he had Muggle parents, he’d probably be doing the same thing. Unfortunately, he could hear Hermione getting closer and Harry got up before she could rope him into staying for the Hogwarts: A History marathon. “You know can tell me anything, Daph.” Harry paused. “But I don’t know if I can trust you if you keep things from me.”

And he didn’t look back again as he walked away, avoiding the History Section.

oOo