34Silence is Golden
With an exhausted groan, Harry fell face first into an armchair in the common room. Hermione, previously absorbed in a book about time magic theories, let out a startled squeak when Harry all but fell over and/or on her legs. It was late in the evening, far after curfew. So far in fact, that Hermione had initially been worried if he'd ever come back tonight. What with his intention to set out and about in order to woo that Chang girl, Hermione had feared the worst. And there had been two "worst" for that one. One would have been her shooting Harry down like she had with just about everyone else. The other... well, Hermione knew there were better girls for him.
"How was it?" she asked. It was a thinly veiled question, asking if he had... bedded her.
Harry groaned loudly into the fabric of the chair. That didn't answer her question. So either he hadn't, or he had and it went... bad. She set her book down.
"Harry," she began with her most imploring voice. "Stop talking to the chair. You either tell me or you can try your luck with Ron." That was playing dirty. They both knew Ron had the emotional range of a teaspoon (if that) and all he would do was probably laugh.
He turned in the cushions, glaring halfheartedly at her. "No thank you," he huffed.
She rolled her eyes. "It couldn't have been that bad," she said. "I mean, how much experience could Cho possibly have had here at school and you are just sixteen, Harry, no one expects you to-"
"Hermione!" he interrupted, pushing himself out of the chair. "I didn't go to Cho with the intention of shagging her!" His cheeks were glowing red, but if that came with the firelight or the embarrassment, Hermione couldn't tell.
She huffed. "Well, you could have said so! I most certainly didn't think of it as anything but! It isn't like you go to her for her stellar personality!"
He opened his mouth, face twisting into a frown, before closing it again, not saying anything.
"Thought so," she mumbled to herself. "Why are you even doing this? Are you truly this vain? Or is it that puberty has such an iron grip on you, that when it comes down to it, all you do is think with your-"
"I get it!" he all but shouted. "I get it. I don't know what I thought," he admitted. "Maybe I did think with my dick, is all."
She scrunched her nose, cheeks reddening. "Coarse," she said, "Coarse but true."
He glared at her. "That is not helpful."
She threw a couch cushion at him. He caught it without blinking. Right, this seeker thing was good for that, at least. "Still true," she sighed. "You really should go about this differently."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "How? Because I'm not asking Ginny. Again."
Hermione snorted, shaking her head. "I'm not saying that. But the Yule ball is coming up. Try asking someone, and try not to do it by appearance alone."
"Are you suggesting I ask Milicent?" he asked dubiously.
"Merlin no," she denied quickly. "I say think with head and heart, not with you... your..."
"Penis," he finished flatly.
She felt herself blush. "Do you have to?"
He nodded. "Absolutely," he said seriously.
Daphne Greengrass had been minding her own business. Not like she was ever doing anything else, but it was good this way. People avoided her like the plague and those who didn't left her alone after a blank stare in their general direction. That applied to everyone, even Malfoy, who had learned his lesson in second year after finding his face frozen to the workbench in a potion lesson. That and other rather important bits.
But as she was minding her own business - looking into curse breaking - someone approached her in her corner of the library. She didn't so much as look up, leveling a stare in the general direction of the newcomer while she kept reading in her peripheral field of vision would be enough, but the pair of feet remained standing. That was a first. So Daphne raised her gaze fully to the face of one Harry Potter, who almost meet her stare head on. Almost, because he was obviously nervous, but he didn't wilt, which was more than she could say for every other male student at Hogwarts.
She tilted her head to the side in question.
"Can I... sit with you?" he asked. She didn't count the slight pause as a stutter and was impressed. It had been a long time since someone approached her with at least a shred of confidence.
She nodded. Why not? Potter had a reputation, an almost comically good one at that (if one ignored Malfoy like she did), and was most certainly pleasant enough to look at. Daphne didn't know why he was suddenly making contact with her, but it didn't exactly matter, as social interactions had never been something she rightly cared for.
He smiled, albeit a bit subdued, and sat down in the armchair to her right. He had obviously seen that the one to her left was occupied. Tracey had left and was going to grab a bite for them. How she always smuggled food past Mrs. Pince was a mystery in itself but Daphne didn't question her.
They sat in a strangely comfortable silence Daphne had only ever experienced in the company of Tracey, and said silences were exceedingly rare, given that Tracey was a chatterbox of the highest caliber and obviously trying to compensate for Daphne's lack of speech. Not that Daphne couldn't speak, no. It was just... she didn't.
She glanced over at Potter, who was reading a book about... was it ritual magic? It could have been about curses and shields but it was hard to tell from where she sat, barely able to make out two words on the parchment. Maybe she should have brought her glasses. He caught her eye, smiled uneasily, and returned to reading. It didn't so much as earn him a nod from her, but Daphne was not especially expressive. People called it blank, frigid and finally icy. The "Ice Queen" moniker was not of her own creation after all. Tracey thought it was funny, Daphne didn't, so it stuck around anyways.
Out from the corner of her eye, she caught Potter, obviously about to say something but Tracey and her impeccable timing choose this moment to show up.
"Hey Daffy! Guess who got the last of the cake from-!" She faltered abruptly when she caught sight of Potter but in less than a second she carried on.
"But I see you got a boyfriend now and don't need me no more so poor old Tracey will go her own ways now and fight for survival in the pits of Slytherin all by my lonesome without you to scare everyone off but you just have to invite me to the wedding because who could write you vow but me ' cause you most definitely won't say a peep of it if push came to shove so you need me anyways so I might as well stay here 'cause we need to discuss names for your children and all that."
All that she managed in one breath and sat down with a cheery smile opposite of Potter.
Remarkably, he didn't appear baffled. He laughed, actually. "You know," he said, "You're a lot like my friend Hermione. She, too, tends to talk with neither dot nor comma, but only when it comes to academics." He held out his hand in greeting. "Harry Potter, by the way."
Tracy's eye roll was about as dramatic as Professor Snape's entrances into first year class rooms. "I don't look surprised, do I? Because I'm surely not. Not knowing who you are is some sort of crime these days but anyways, I'm Tracey." She shook his hand energetically, almost erratically, then looked over at her.
Oh oh.
"And that's Daphne," Tracey said, grabbed Daphne's hand from her lap and squashed it against Harry's. His skin was warm and callous, his grip strong but not oppressive and not the slightest bit hesitant.
He shook her hand too, almost gently. "Uhm, yes," he said, smiling sheepishly, I knew that."
"Ohohoo!" Tracey exclaimed, leaning over the table right in Harry's face. It gave Daphne the chance to retrieve her hand before she'd begin trembling. "How come, how come, Mr Potter?"
He blushed almost immediately. Daphne tilted her head as she observed him. It was adorable.
"Ah! I know a crush when I see one!" Tracey laughed loudly, which was followed by an annoyed noise from Madame Pince somewhere from the front, and nudged Daphne's side. "Come one Daffy, look at him! He's heads over heels!"
Daphne merely stared back at her with an impassive expression. Potter meanwhile managed an impressive as well as endearing shade of red. "I, uh-! I'm not-!"
Tracey stood, the plate she had brought with her forgotten on the table in between them (the cake had somehow already disappeared) and slapped Potter hard over the back, turning his stammering into a surprised cough. "Oh how adorable! I'll leave him to you, Daffy, just don't freeze his bits off too!" She laughed maniacally as she exited the library and Daphne observed impassively as the librarian actually pulled a wand out of her robes in pursuit of her friend.
Daphne was left with Potter as he rubbed his back, avoiding her gaze and coughing nervously. "So uh," he began," That was, uh, embarrassing."
Her expression, unchanging as it was, seemingly didn't put him off as it had the first year class earlier this month, which had been reduced to tears in a matter of minutes. Tracey had found it hilarious.
She nodded a tiny nod in his direction and then tilted her head in question. Why had he approached her in the first place? A crush, really?
He laughed sheepishly. "Well, uhm, I'm not sure if I know what you are asking but, if, uh, you are asking about the crush... well, I guess that's right."
Daphne tilted her head in the other direction. Why did he admit that so freely? And how did he understand her like that?
He stared at her, obviously not sure this time. "I, uhm... say, I'm not sure this time," he admitted. "Is it... about why I came here?"
That was about as good as any question to be answered, so Daphne nodded.
"Well," he began, scratching his cheek, "I guess because you always look so lonely."
Hermione was hiding. Hiding and spying. From and on her best friend. Not something she usually did but since Harry couldn't be left to his own devices without immediate medical care within arms reach, she thought it better to... make sure he was okay. While he was... well, trying to get a girlfriend? She wasn't sure, actually. He had been wandering through the school, looking around, not even at girls specifically, until he suddenly kept staring at the Slytherin table earlier this day. Apparently he had thrown an eye on the pure blood queen in person, the Ice Queen of Slytherin and most severe looking girl in all of Hogwarts, even outdoing Professor McGonagall in the severity of her facial expression. First years fled at the sight of her and every boy that valued his bits made a big circle around her at any time of the day.
And yet... Somehow Harry was having a conversation with her. An absolutely one sided one, but apparently fully functioning conversation.
Then suddenly someone tapped her on the shoulder and Hermione almost jumped through the book shelve she had been peeking through.
A strawberry blonde girl put a finger to her lips, winking. Was that...? "Davis?" she whispered. The girl had runes with her.
She nodded. "How're they doing?" she asked.
Hermione blanched internally. "Uhm, how is who doing? I don't-"
"Oh shut it," Davis dismissed, "How's your golden boy holding up with Daffy?"
"Oh uhm." Hermione glanced through the book shelve. "They- I mean, Harry is still talking so... Okay, I guess."
"Amazing, huh?" Davis crooned, before she suddenly entered rapid fire mode.
"He's, like, the first guy that ever approached her without groveling. And he somehow gets what she means, which took me forever! Match made in heaven, I tell you; now I just need a partner myself; you wouldn't happen to be free? No, never mind, I forgot I don't swing that way, well, unless you can convince me otherwise, you sure are cute enough... Anyways, have you studied for runes yet? I need the diagrams from last Friday and Babbling will kill me if I don't turn in that assignment."
Hermione blinked owlishly at her. "F-Friday? Uh, Yes, I have those," she managed after mentally shaking herself.
Wait, had she just been flirted with?
The yule ball was getting ever closer and even though Harry knew he wanted to ask Daphne, he did not manage to gather his wits about him and just ask, for Christ's sake! He kept meeting her in the library and she had yet to say a word to him, but Harry had gathered that she didn't talk to anyone, not even Tracey, who supposedly was like the girl's sister. From Hermione he had heard that Daphne's actual little sister didn't talk either.
Harry wondered why. It didn't seem to stem from a disability, so he guessed it was either a mental thing, or actually magic. A curse of some kind. Not that it seemed to bother Daphne (or her sister), but then it was pretty tough to tell what the two of them thought about in the first place. As beautiful as the two of them were, they were equally blank faced at any given time.
As it happened, when Harry hopped off the stairs that had just begun swinging away from the second floor, he almost jumped right onto Astoria Greengrass, who had obviously attempted to catch the staircase Harry just jumped off. Even though he almost knocked her over, having to reach out and grab her as to not throw her back down the stairs she had come from, Astoria did not make a sound. She stared unblinkingly at him, even as she found herself cradled in his arms as he crouched in the landing.
"Uhm, Sorry," he offered sheepishly.
Astoria just nodded. Ah, she actually blinked. She curiously peered up at him again. She looked a lot like her sister, but her features were a bit... rounder, not as refined as Daphne's. She and her sister had the same shade of ashen blonde hair, the same icy blue eyes, even the same nose now that he had the time to observe from a short distance.
Astoria tilted her head, a quiet, maybe questioning hum ringing softly in his ears.
Right, he was still holding her. "Uhm," he mumbled to himself, helping her up, releasing her in the process. "Sorry about that."
She looked around, trying to re-orientate herself. Somehow that didn't work out, for her gaze returned to him. Harry remembered that Astoria was a first year, four years younger than her sister, and in Ravenclaw rather than Slytherin.
She kept on staring so he decided to just ask, "Where do you need to go? I'll get you there. It's my fault you missed the stairs, after all."
Harry might have imagined it, but despite the ever so remarkably blank expression, when she nodded just a trad faster than before, she seemed almost excited. Then she pointed over to the West corridor of the second floor.
"Transfiguration?" he tried and was rewarded with yet another excitable nod. Gosh, that was awfully cute. The fact that she was almost a full head smaller than the average eleven year old only ever added to that.
"Alright," he nodded, "Let's get going then."
A staircase swung by just as he turned around. If he remembered correctly this one would bring them to the other side, to the east corridor but the walk around the entire stairs was shorter than waiting for the one staircase that got them to the west corridor anyways. The moment he stepped onto the stairs, Astoria grabbed his hand, walking close to him.
He glanced down at her. She was staring straight ahead, but... were the tips of her ears red? He must have imagined it. The walk to the transfiguration classroom was uneventful, though Astoria held onto his hand the entire way, even as they ran into the class that was currently leaving the class. It just so happened to be the Fourth years Slytherins. The Ravenclaw first years were probably assembled as well, just to the other side of the door wee Astoria would have come from had she caught the stairs.
Daphne, with Tracey in tow, appeared almost as suddenly as if she had aparated to his side, nodding once in acknowledgement before bowing down to her sister.
"Aww, isn't that cute," Tracey cooed, eyes darting from his face to the hand Astoria was still holding. "She never does that. You must be something real special, Potter."
He expected the little girl to deny that fervently, but Astoria actually nodded with what Harry assumed to be excitement. It was hard to tell, really, but her ears were almost entirely red. Her face, however, didn't show her blush at all. Curious...
The two sisters didn't exchange a single word, yet it seemed like they were having an entirely silent conversation with barely noticeably nods and soft hums from Astoria.
"Cool, huh?" Tracey commented. "They can do that even when it's dark. There's that thing they can do with-"
"Potter!"
Harry groaned. He did not need Malfoy right now. He barely turned his head to see him stalk up to them with the two trolls in human form at his side, that pompous strut of his all but forcing Harry's eyes to roll.
"What ever kind of business could Dumbledore's Golden Boy have with the noble house of Slytherin?" Malfoy drawled, flicking a non-existent speck of dust from his silken robes. "We have-"
He abruptly fell silent before Harry could so much as sneer in his general direction and stared at Daphne with wide, terrified eyes. Harry's eyebrows rose almost into his hairline as he watched the blonde ponce slowly back off, opening and closing his mouth without any coherent words coming out of it.
Tracey, standing right besides Harry, leaned forward into Malfoy's personal space and said "Boo!"
Draco almost jumped out of his skin, rapidly spun around and stalked down the hall at a pace so close to sprinting, it made the picture all the more ridiculous.
This, Harry absently noted, was the first time a confrontation with Malfoy had ended without him ever even opening his mouth.
"Wow," he said, a smile creeping onto his stunned face. He turned to Daphne, who had yet to blink, smiling widely at her. "That was awesome!"
Daphne merely tilted her head in response. However, Harry imagined to have seen her mouth twitch into the tiniest of smiles for a even briefer moment.
The rest of the day, Harry didn't find a single moment to not think about Daphne's tiny smile. Though he still thought he might have imagined it. And then, when he got back to the common room at the end of the day, he remembered that he still hadn't asked her out to the yule ball.
"Shit!" he cursed suddenly, startling Hermione so badly that she dropped the tome she had been reading right onto his foot. Clamping his mouth shut and jumping out of his chair, Harry neglected to listen to Hermione's reproaching apology and hobbled out of the common room instead.
"Harry?" she called after him. "Where are you going!?"
But the portrait of the Fat Lady closed behind him before he could bring himself to respond.
For the briefest of moments, Harry considered that he actually had no idea whatsoever where Daphne would go after classes, but somehow he doubted that she would be anywhere but the library.
And that was exactly where he found her. She sat at the very same table with Tracey where he had talked to her over the last week, when the yule ball had been so blissfully far away.
"Uh, hey," he greeted lamely, awkwardly approaching the table.
Tracey immediately jumped out of her chair and all but threw him by the hand into the free, third one. "Oh! Hey! Harry!"
"Uff, ah, hey," he managed, arranging himself into a more dignified position.
She turned to Daphne, who's remarkably blank expression wold probably never cease to amaze him.
"So I'll be leaving you to your date then 'cause I'd be baggage anyways but I need you to take your notes with you when you're done snogging him stupid but don't you dare come back and ask me for the potion 'cause I might just have to kill him then unless of course I get to name the baby so I guess it's fine if you shag right here and now but Mrs. Pince won't like that but she could of course be some kind of weird voyeur fetishist so you should probably-"
Daphne had obviously had enough and put a gentle finger to Tracey's lips, who immediately fell silent.
Harry had meanwhile taken to darkening his facial complexion to a level of redness he hadn't achieved before and remained in his embarrassed silence and wished for his invisibility cloak to suddenly fall over him.
Tracey grinned deviously at him, obviously very amused. "Oh, poo! I'll be on my way then! Ta-ta!" She... playfully bit Daphne's finger and left the library with a spring in her step, only looking back over her shoulder once to make a kiss face at him. He only reddened further.
Daphne, as expected, did not seem affected at all and returned to her book, but not before wiping her finger on the armrest of her chair.
It took Harry almost five minutes to get all the heat out of his face before he cleared his throat to get her attention.
And then, as she looked up, Daphne brushed a strand of hair out of her face and behind her ear. She tilted her head lightly to the left, like she always did when "asking" a question. Her bright eyes peeked through long eyelashes and even though her expression never even changed, Harry was suddenly awestruck.
"Gods," he breathed, awe tinging his voice as he covered his mouth with one hand. "You are so beautiful."
Silence followed as both of them digested his words. Harry had come to the conclusion that his social skills were so bad he should probably go and drown himself in the Black Lake this instance, while Daphne... nodded. But then he caught it: Her mouth curved the tiniest - the absolute tiniest humanly possible - bit and her ears, the tips, darkened by just a shade, barely noticeable in the dim candlelight. But Harry noticed. Harry noticed and felt like he could do three back flips and cast a Patronous with his left buttock.
Butterflies? No, his stomach was assaulted by winged elephants, if anything, what with the emotional sucker punch he just received.
He found a strange sort of strength in it, this feeling. "Daphne?" he said quietly. "Would you be my date for the yule ball?"
She lifted her head again, tilting it and looking utterly nonplussed by his question before she nodded once.
"Great!" he exclaimed, immediately followed by a hiss from the librarian, so he repeated again, quietly, "That's great!"
She nodded again but he noticed that she wasn't returning to her book this time.
Okay, he thought to himself, she was obviously expecting something more. But what? Confess that he was probably having a lethally hard crush on her? No, nu-uh. Not while he had even a shred of shame on him and, one must be be assured, there was a lot left.
"So," he continued, "You, ehm, wouldn't happen to know how to dance?"
So dancing lessons with Daphne were awesome. As in, how could slow dancing with a beautiful young woman be anything but awesome for a young man like Harry? Well, there was the presence of Daphne's little sister, who had apparently insisted on being present. And on being danced with. All that without so much of a word, of course, but now Harry was in the awkward position of trying his hardest not to anger the cute little first year, who despite the lack of any facial expression still managed to pout at him the moment he danced more than one short song with her big sister.
Girls were just that terrifying.
That aside, Daphne was a great teacher. And very direct.
So in their first lesson, Harry awkwardly entered the classroom - followed by the insistent but ever silent Astoria - still coming to terms that he had actually and straight faced asked Daphne to teach him in the first place. And all the while he hadn't even wasted a thought on the fact that he was about to get very close to her. Daphne obviously had no such reservations. She flicked her wand at a positively ancient looking music player, stepped right through his personal space and into the intimate space, put his hands into appropriate position and then began to softly sway her hips, locking eyes with him.
Harry instantly willed each and every single drop of blood in his body up into his head, even if he'd get nosebleed from it and his face caught fire, if only so his traitorous teenage body would stay the hell down. That somehow worked out just fine and he managed to move his body to the rhythm Daphne dictated. All the while he became increasingly aware of two things: One; Daphne smelled like sweet honey and lemon grass, and two; Astoria's stare would probably drill a hole through his body if left unattended for more than half an hour.
After the obligatory "dancing" with her little sister, Daphne claimed him back and they began working on steps. Non verbally. That was the one thing that hadn't been so awesome. He may have stepped on her toes a few times but was never entirely sure, given her lack of response. The first lesson ended with another dance for Astoria and a possessive hug from her.
Great, the little sister of his crush was crushing hard on him. There was just no way this could turn into a drama. Not like they were movies about that kind of stuff. Then he remembered that the girl was eleven, for fuck's sake, and got his mind out of the gutter.
The second lesson started with those simple steps again, then Daphne introduced the fact that she could seamlessly twirl out of his arms and back in again while all he did was hold her hand, and Astoria got to twirl as well. She was literally bouncing after that.
By the third lesson Harry suddenly didn't think that dancing was all that hard anymore and by the fourth lesson, the lessons themselves were probably unnecessary. He was ashamed to note that he had totally missed that Astoria had not shown up for the fifth and by the sixth, it were no longer lessons, but rather just Daphne and him meeting up to sway to soft music in each others embrace.
So when the yule ball actually rolled around, Harry was still a nervous wreck.
"Hermione!" Harry shouted, bursting into the mostly empty common room, "Can you fix my tie!?"
Having leaned against the wall between the stairs to the dorms, Collin Creevy took a startled step to the left and fell into the girl's staircase, only to immediately slide down again. Hermione, sitting in a chair next to the hearth, almost dropped her "light reading" - a.k.a. the thickest tome you'll ever see - and turned an accusing look to him.
"Harry, stop shouting," she chided, "There's barely anyone here."
He blinked owlishly at her. "Huh," he made, "You do look great, Hermione." Her hair was tamed into a beautiful braid, her body hugged by a deep blue, strap-less dress that had been embroidered in such a way that it looked like someone had cut a piece out of the clear night sky.
She coughed into her hand, blushing furiously. "W-Why thank you," she stammered before catching herself. "You don't look too bad either. It's mostly the haircut that does it, though."
Harry pushed a hand through the trimmed hair on the side of his head. "Oh, well, I guess it was long overdue." Then he remembered the tie in his other hand. "So, uh, my tie?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, her gloved hands snatching it from him. "What do you want?"
He stared at her incomprehensibly. "Uh, I want it... tied?"
She sighed in exasperation. "Right," she said, throwing the tie around his neck. "Chin up," she instructed and not half a minute later, the tie rested comfortably against his neck.
"Thanks!" Because whatever he did with the thing came closer to suicide than dressing. He was about to storm out of the common room to meet up with Daphne and Tracey when he remembered something. "Oh, right! Who's your date, Hermione?"
She smiled, still blushing. "You'll see soon enough. I'll come with you, anyways."
Harry nodded slowly. He was headed for the dungeons. So Hermione was going with a Slytherin? "As long as it's not Malfoy, that's cool," he said aloud, opening the portrait. "After you."
She slapped his chest as she passed. "Prat," she muttered under her breath.
"But I don't see Ron anywhere?" Harry returned, grinning.
"Ugh," Hermione groaned. "You're impossible." She offered her arm to him. "Now escort me properly or I'll tell Daphne on you."
Harry gasped with mock outrage. "You wouldn't dare!"
They both laughed as they descended the castle into the dungeons.
Daphne stared her sister down as she tried to slip out into the common room for the eighth time this evening. Astoria should long since have gone to bed, but she stubbornly insisted on at least seeing Harry when he'd come by to pick her up. Astoria met her gaze head on and everyone in the common room shuffled out of their line of sight, which basically meant that either everyone fled the scene or retreated back into the dorms.
Tracey, however, was lounging in a chair right in between them. "So, will we actually step out anytime soon? Because I doubt Potter knows where our common room-"
"Uhm, hey."
Daphne spun on her heel to see Harry and Hermione stand in the small corridor one used to enter the Slytherin common room. How did he knew where it was?
"Oh, you know," he said, shrugging, "Spying on Malfoy did have some good side effects aside from my sever dislike for him."
Tracey snorted and hopped out of her chair, all but jogging over to Hermione, kissing the girl's cheek. "Evening, luv. You look delectable."
Judging from Harry's wide eyes and raised eyebrows, Daphne concluded he hadn't known about that. Well, he was a bit naive when it came to these things. She nudged him with her elbow, nodding towards Astoria, who was still lingering at the stairs to their dorms.
He smiled, squeezed her hand and walked over to her. Astoria met him halfway in a desperate hug. Gosh, she had become so very attached to him. But Daphne was no hypocrite so she would not call her out on it.
After Astoria had squeezed a few more head pats out of Harry, she reluctantly retreated back into the dorms, finally leaving him to Daphne. He had cleaned up nicely and that devilish haircut of his almost had her lick her lips. The white dress shirt, black vest and short black robes made him look all the more mature. That and he smelled good, some kind of cologne, maybe.
Daphne did her best to convey her appreciation of his outfit, letting her eyes roam over him languidly. His face heated almost immediately. It was just too adorable. But when he brazenly returned the gesture, it all but set her ears on fire. She swatted his arms. The dark green dress may hug her form like a second skin and the neckline was somewhat sinful but still!
"Okay, okay," he laughed nervously. "No staring."
She swatted his arm again, tilting her head upwards. Oh, he could stare all he wanted, but he had to be discrete about it. She pulled her shoulders back, her décolleté all but jumping in his face.
He swallowed but kept his eyes on her's. Not too shabby. She hooked her arm into his and got as close to him as she decently could without outright jumping him. Unlike Tracey, she had at least some tact!
"You know," he said as he led her out of the common room, "I'm still too damn nervous."
Daphne bumped her hip into his while walking, shaking her head. There was no need to be.
"Yes, well, I still am nervous. People always look at me and I've avoided this ball like the plague last year."
She shook her head again. Last year had been boring anyways.
Harry squeezed her arm, smiling nervously down at her. "So... I'm really glad I got to go with you."
Daphne let slip a tiny smile, impeccable if one didn't search for it. Harry had obviously caught it, for his eyes brightened considerably.
Harry was in no way surprised. Much unlike his peers, who had probably never even seen him talk to Daphne. So when he wasn't busy gaping, he took the moment of stunned silence to discretely vanish Collin's camera. Well, he thought to himself, all the attention he got at least made Hermione's coming out a very quiet one.
He sincerely hoped that it had been Tracey's fault, not Ron's and his because that would just be horrible. He wasn't repulsive enough to sen Hermione to the other shore, right?
Once everyone was finished gaping at him, he led Daphne to their table (one he reserved, like a true gentlemen) and exhaled sharply. He really didn't like being stared at like that.
Daphne squeezed his hand, her eyes conveying an apology.
He shook his head. "Oh, don't worry. They would have stared anyways." Swallowing, he licked his lips. The music had just started to play. "So, uhm, would you..grant me this dance?"
She nodded, mirth shining in here eyes.
"Hey, I still have to ask that, right?"
Harry was barely not blushing when she glided out of her chair and to his side, a lot closer than strictly necessary.
Though Daphne had never ever even said a word to him since they met, he felt that she could convey so much more than other's ever spoke to him. He could somehow understand why people were so confused he had shown up with Daphne of all people and, honestly, so was he. There were a lot of things he didn't actually know about Daphne, simply because she did not talk. Hell, he wouldn't know her name if not for roll call. And just like he knew very little on one side, he knew a lot on the other.
He knew for one that she loved to dance. She loved to twirl and spin around the room with only the music to accompany her. Or him. She didn't care about everyone else in the great hall as she danced around him. Her face was still perfectly composed but Harry couldn't help but laugh when she hopped in and out of an elegant twirl.
Harry figured that he didn't need to know all those big things if he knew all those tiny ones by heart. He'd never asked if her family had aligned with Voldemort when he had been around, but that didn't matter because someone that was probably going to get a mastery in Care for Magical Creatures and was friends with a half blood (Tracey) was very unlikely to do anything but frown upon the pureblood supremacy.
They were barely halfway through the first dance when Daphne abandoned her entrancing movements and stepped closer to him, looping her arms around his neck. Harry didn't know the first two things about her, like her birthday, but he knew the rest of her. So he figured that things like her birthday would more or less announce themselves. He'd meet her parents eventually, maybe they'd actually have names to them by then.
He spied the flustered Hermione dancing close to Tracey, who greatly enjoyed nipping at Hermione's ears, which visibly made her jump every single time. But not once did Harry catch her reprimand Tracey for it. He shook his head. Wonders still happened, didn't they?
They didn't leave the dance floor even after the third song began. Why would they? He didn't think it wold be appropriate for Daphne to sit in his lap and he could be as close as he wanted to be to her here on the dance floor. At some point Daphne had begun to smile. No one would ever notice. No one but him. Harry noticed a lot of things that night.
He noticed that he felt the strong desire to make her smile so much more. He noticed that he wanted to see that smile so so much more. And he noticed that he would probably hate himself forever after if he didn't at least kiss her once.
And he did. He did kiss her that night. And about five minutes of heated blushing later he did so again. And then again when he brought her back to the common room. When they met again the day after, so often during the following weekday that he lost count and then so much more that he couldn't really remember very single one. Though there were a few more memorable, like kissing her in bed, kissing her without so much as a single piece of clothing to them, kissing more than just her beautiful face and then some after that.
Of course he'd remember the kiss he got when he went down on one knee an presented a ring to her years later. But in the same breath he remembered Hermione slapping him because he had lied to her about proposing. And he remembered Hermione being proposed to by Tracey about five seconds after she had slapped him. That had been a wild day.
Harry remembered that Daphne had laughed, if not out loud, when her father fainted without so much of a word while her mother had fallen around his neck, absolutely silent as well, when he told them about the marriage. He remembered hugging the inconsolable Astoria and promising that she would get to carry the rings. And he remembered running himself ragged to achieve a mastery in DADA so he could later teach at Hogwarts, for which he got lots of kisses as well.
Of course he remembered holding his daughter for the first time, just as silent as her mother. The doctors had been concerned, but Harry had been confident in his little girl. He remembered kissing little Dorothea on her brow, named after Daphne's grandmother (and his own, as it turned out), and he remembered being happy. Happy as he could be. He remembered loving and being loved. He even remembered the day Astoria suddenly called him an idiot, after she caught him and Daphne in the act, and never spoke a word to him again. That was a sore spot.
What he didn't remember, however, was when he had all but stopped speaking. He never truly stopped, but became almost as silent has his family in-law. He couldn't have continued to teach if he were mute, after all. Maybe it had already happened the night he first kissed her. Or maybe it was after they had exchanged their vows and Dumbledore blessed their union.
Harry never remembered that. But he figured that it didn't matter.
After all, Speech is Silver, but Silence is Golden.
