Harry pushed open the classroom door with his elbow, arms full of Honeydukes loot.
"Truce offering," he announced, stepping inside.
She was already at the worktable, sleeves rolled and wand balanced between two fingers as she stirred their latest trial base. Her school robes hung open over her blouse and skirt, her tie barely done up and loose at the collar. Her legs were tucked under the stool, socks folded neat at the ankle, and Harry looked for a second longer than he meant to before dragging his eyes up like he hadn't.
Totally normal. Just legs. She had legs. Moving on.
He dropped the bag onto the table with a dramatic thud. "Two packs of Fizzing Whizzbees, one box of Sugar Quills, and a raspberry Chocobomb, which, for the record, I almost had to fight a third year for."
Daphne glanced up, and for a second, Harry blanked. Her lashes looked darker, eyes sharper. Her lips were red. Not just "ate-a-strawberry" red but actual lipstick red. It didn't look like something she'd done for class.
"You're forgiven," she said easily, plucking the Chocobomb from the pile.
He rolled up his sleeves, and joined her at the workbench.
Yeah, things had changed.
Somewhere between Attempt 6A (The Porridge Disaster) and that time she'd nearly singed off his eyebrows with a miscalculated stirring charm, they'd stopped being awkward study partners and just… started working. Like properly working. Talking without the weird pauses, calling each other out without the eggshells. And Harry had figured out something important: Daphne Greengrass had a serious sweet tooth and very little patience for dramatics unless she was the one causing them.
"You run the test with silverroot yet?" he asked, grabbing a clean vial.
"Tried it last night. Stabilized for twenty-three seconds before it started to spike. Nearly blew a hole through my desk."
"So… not the winner."
"No," she said, tossing him a pinch of dried valerian. "But it ruled out cross-reaction with fluxweed, which is useful."
They moved easily now, ingredients passed back and forth without needing to ask. Stir, check the color, write it down. The rhythm of it had become familiar. Predictable, but not boring.
Harry slid a few finished vials onto the cooling rack and finally said, "Got the Gringotts letter."
Daphne didn't look up. "And?"
"Eleven vials of basilisk venom."
That made her pause mid-stir.
"You're joking."
"I wish. That's not even the half of it." He pulled the folded parchment from his pocket, already a little wrinkled, and spread it out on the table. "Hide, bones, fangs. Some weird crystallized magic they scraped off the Chamber walls. Total value's over two hundred thousand."
She whistled low. "Alright, Potter. You're officially a one-man potion cartel."
Harry snorted. "Yeah, well. I don't want to sell most of it. Especially not the venom. That's for this."
"Obviously," she said, already scanning the list. "We built this formula assuming we'd get it. That's the whole point of the third phase. Water base was just to keep things safe until we knew how the venom might interact," she said.
"Which we don't," Harry pointed out.
"Not exactly," Daphne admitted. She tapped the side of the cauldron with her wand. "But dragon's blood is the closest thing we can get. Similar volatility, similar magical weight. If we can get this stable with that, we've got a real shot when the venom comes in."
Harry leaned forward, brow furrowed. "Isn't that insanely expensive?"
Daphne smirked, already stepping closer. "Then we should be glad that you're so riiiich… right?"
She gave his arm a little squeeze and Harry felt his brain do a full stop.
He blinked at her. "Oh my god. I cannot believe you just did that."
She grinned like she'd just won something, biting the inside of her cheek. "What? I'm just appreciating our generous financier."
Harry tried to look unimpressed but couldn't stop the stupid smile tugging at his mouth. "Fine. I'll get the dragon's blood."
"Thank you, Harry," she said, almost sing-song, and gave his bicep another smug little pat before going right back to stirring the potion like nothing happened.
Harry shook his head as he reached for the jar of powdered hellebore. "You weren't even mad."
Daphne didn't look up. "Sure I was."
"You cornered me like I'd kicked your cat. Accused me of ditching you for 'fame and butterbeer.'"
"I stand by that phrasing," she said sweetly.
Harry rolled his eyes, scooped the powder, then paused. "Seriously though. You gonna tell me what that was really about?"
She didn't answer. Just tossed a pinch of something into the cauldron and gave it a sharp clockwise stir. The potion hissed, then settled again.
Harry set the spoon down, circled the bench, and leaned forward, hands braced on either side of her notes. Close enough that she had to glance up.
"You can tell me," he said, and this time his voice wasn't teasing. "Whatever it was. I'm not a mind reader."
Daphne met his eyes, her mouth tightening like she wasn't sure if she wanted to say it or make another joke.
Then she sighed. "It was stupid."
"Let me decide that."
She gave him a look. "I just… didn't like not knowing where you were."
Harry blinked. "I was just hanging out with Ron and Hermione."
"I know," she said quickly. "It's not that. You're allowed to have other friends. Obviously. It's just.. this thing we're doing? It matters to me. More than I expected. And when you vanished for a few days without saying anything, I… I don't know. Thought maybe you were done."
He stared at her for a beat. "Daphne, I skipped three afternoons. Not the rest of my life."
"I said it was stupid," she muttered.
"It's not," Harry said. "It's actually kind of… not."
She tilted her head at him, wary. "Are you making fun of me right now?"
"No. I'm saying you could've just said something. You didn't need to go full dramatic monologue outside the Great Hall."
She narrowed her eyes. "Wouldn't have gotten me candy though."
"Ah," Harry said. "So that was the goal."
"A partial goal."
Harry snorted. "You're ridiculous."
"I know," she said, tossing her hair over one shoulder.
Harry let out a breath and looked down at the mess of parchment spread across the table. Half her notes were neat and underlined, the other half looked like a chicken with inked feet had run a marathon across the page.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered, dragging one clean sheet toward him. "Alright. Let's actually figure out where we are, because on my end? It's a pile of maybe-this and probably-not."
He grabbed his quill, dipped it, and started scribbling.
"Okay… stable base with sage, valerian, and knotgrass. Fluxweed's fine. Silverroot's a nope. Stirring pattern works best at four-count, counterclockwise. Hellebore still moody. Dragon's blood next, since it's the closest thing to the venom."
He paused to shake ink off his fingers and kept going.
"If that holds, we test it with the current base. If it doesn't try to kill us, we move to micro doses of the real thing once it arrives. No more than three ingredients at a time until we know what reacts how."
He sat back a little, scanned what he'd written, then looked over at her.
"Anything to add?"
Daphne leaned on one elbow, totally smug. "No, Professor Potter. That was spleeeendid."
Harry rolled his eyes and grabbed the last couple of filled vials. "Professor Potter," he muttered under his breath. "Right."
He crossed the room, nudging the cabinet door open with his foot. The hinges squeaked like they hadn't been oiled since the seventies. Inside, their work was lined up in uneven rows. Clear glass marked with uneven handwriting, a mix of Daphne's perfect script and Harry's half-legible scrawl.
He slotted the new ones into place, reading off labels as he went. "Nine-A, stable. Nine-B, the one that fizzed. Nine-C, still smells like burned socks. Nine-D… probably cursed, honestly."
Behind him, he heard Daphne snort.
He smiled without turning around. Something about the sound always caught him off guard lately.
When he turned back around, she was watching him. Elbow on the table, chin in her hand, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.
At the beginning, Daphne had been all tight shoulders and measured words, like she was always two seconds from deciding this wasn't worth her time. Now? Now she leaned into him when she talked. Rolled her eyes at his jokes. Threw sugar quills at him when he got something wrong and told stories like she forgot to be guarded.
"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," Harry said before he could talk himself out of it.
Daphne blinked like she hadn't expected him to say anything serious. Then she smiled, softer this time. "Yeah. I am."
She nudged her Sugar Quill aside and leaned in slightly, voice dropping like she couldn't hold it in another second.
"But wait, I didn't tell you what happened last night… So, Pansy really acted nasty against Millicent…"
~~~
The stairs up to the Owlery were as drafty and uneven as always, but Harry barely noticed. He had the letter clutched in one hand, fingers still slightly smudged with ink from rewriting it twice. The other hand stayed stuffed in the pocket of his dark green jumper one of the few nice things he actually liked wearing, even if he still wasn't sure how to stop feeling weird about it. Jeans, boots, nothing fancy. Just enough to feel like himself.
Percy had scribbled the name of the shop on a scrap of parchment a few days ago when Harry cornered him near the Prefects' bathroom.
"If you're looking for regulated alchemical suppliers, Breccius & Co. is the one most of the Ministry people use," Percy had said, all puffed up like he was giving top-secret advice. "Reliable. Boring. The goblins respect their paperwork."
Harry hadn't told him what it was for, just nodded, thanked him, and walked off before Percy could ask more questions. Now the letter was sealed, addressed neatly to Breccius & Co., with all the official wording he could manage. A small request, dragon's blood, certified pure, for academic use under Hogwarts supervision. He'd even asked McGonagall about using the school's delivery registry to avoid delays. She'd raised an eyebrow but signed off when he added that it was just for a potion project.
It was pricey stuff seventeen Galleons for a vial but apparently not rare. Turns out, dragon blood was used in enough advanced potions that the shop kept small amounts in stock for research buyers.
The Owlery door creaked open under his push. It smelled like straw and feathers and that strange musty scent that never quite left. The rafters were full of owls, tucked into beams or perched along the edges, silent and watchful. A few rustled when he entered. One large barn owl looked at him like he was late. Which was good because he couldn't find Hedwig.
"You'll do," Harry muttered, stepping forward. The owl tilted its head as he tied the letter to its leg with careful fingers.
"Diagon Alley. Breccius & Co. Don't drop it, yeah?"
The owl gave him a dry look and launched off the perch, wings flapping hard before it caught the wind and vanished into the clouds.
Harry adjusted the strap of his bag as he made his way back down the path from the Owlery, boots crunching over scattered leaves. The castle loomed in the distance, all grey stone and warm windows against the dull October sky, but his thoughts weren't on the weather. They circled back, again and again, to the journal.
The first few times he tried, it was useless. His brain wouldn't shut up, just constant noise. Random memories, half-finished thoughts, stuff he hadn't even realized he was carrying around. It made him realize how loud his mind actually was, all the time.
But last night was different.
For the first time, he'd managed a stretch of real quiet. Not perfect, but minutes passed without any thoughts barging in. No drifting off. No sudden flashes of anxiety or his brain dragging him back to something he forgot to do. Just stillness.
And in that stillness, he felt it.
Not a thought. Not even a feeling. More like… pressure. The surface was calm but that calm only made it clearer how much was moving underneath.
Something old. Something waiting.
And now that he'd touched it, even for a second, he knew the hard part wasn't clearing his mind.
It was what came after.
He rounded the corner by the greenhouses, absently dragging his hand along the cold stone wall. He wasn't in a rush to go anywhere.
"Harry," said a voice beside him.
He nearly jumped. Luna Lovegood was walking just a few steps behind him, no sound of footsteps, as usual.
"Oh. Hey, Luna."
She smiled like always, soft and far-off, and matched his pace without asking. Her arms were wrapped around a dog-eared Quibbler, like it was some kind of pillow she'd forgotten to put down. They walked a few steps in silence.
"I wanted to ask you something," she said eventually.
Harry glanced at her. Luna didn't usually ask. She just said things, and you either caught up or you didn't.
"Sure," he said. "What's up?"
"Professor Flitwick said you asked about me."
That caught him off guard. "Oh yeah. I just… I dunno, you seemed a bit off lately."
She nodded like she'd already expected that answer. "He thought maybe I was upset about something."
Harry scratched the back of his neck. "It wasn't just me. Ginny mentioned it too. Said you'd been kind of… quiet. Not in your usual way. More like pulled back."
Luna looked thoughtful. "I didn't notice."
"You've just been different," Harry said carefully. "That's all. Not bad. Just… different."
"I've been thinking more," she said, her eyes fixed ahead. "Spending time with new people."
"Anyone I know?"
"Caleb Selwyn."
Harry stopped walking.
"I like talking to him," she said simply, almost to herself. "He listens."
Harry didn't respond. His feet eventually moved again, but his mind was already spinning. Something didn't feel right. Not at all.
She hadn't drifted off mid-sentence once. No strange metaphors about nargles or shimmering doorways to alternate realities. Just Caleb Selwyn, and "he listens."
Harry glanced at her again, more curious than anything. "So… what do you two talk about?"
Luna shrugged. "Lots of things. He's quiet, but not in a boring way. Just… careful. And kind. People don't expect that from him."
Harry hummed. "Yeah, I guess I don't really know him."
"You don't," she said, like that settled it.
That made Harry look at her properly. She still wasn't looking back, but he could see the way her fingers tightened a little around the Quibbler, just for a second.
He didn't push. He didn't want to interrogate her. Whatever this was, Luna wasn't being cagey. If anything, she was more direct than usual.
"You know," Harry said, "it was Ginny who asked me to talk to Flitwick. She's been worried about you."
Luna didn't stop walking, didn't even slow down. But something changed. Her face didn't move much, just this tiny change in how she was holding it. Like she was trying not to let something show.
It looked like fear.
Just for a second. Gone before Harry could be sure he'd even seen it.
Then she smiled again, all soft and dreamy like always. "I know," she said. "That's why I asked you."
Harry frowned a little, watching her closer now.
He waited for her to say something else. One of her usual Luna things. Something about moon beetles or lost ghosts that hum at sunrise. But she just kept walking.
"I'm going to the library," she said over her shoulder. "Thanks, Harry."
And that was it.
He left the corridor and Luna behind, still feeling that strange unease curling in the back of his head. But there wasn't anything he could do right now, not really. He didn't even know what to name the feeling. So he shoved his hands into his pockets and headed for the common room.
The Fat Lady barely had time to fully open entrance before Ron's voice hit Harry like a Bludger to the ear.
"Harry! Help me!"
He stepped into the common room and spotted Ron by the fireplace, looking like he was either going to hex something or throw himself into the flames. Hermione was standing across from him, arms folded so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
"I told her we went to the kitchens to get some cake between classes," Ron said, jabbing a thumb at Hermione, "and she started asking questions and now she's lost the plot!"
"I am not losing the plot," Hermione said, glaring. "I'm just thinking critically. You should try it sometime."
Harry dropped his bag on the nearest chair. "Okay. What exactly did you say to her?"
"I said the house-elves made everything," Ron said. "Because they do! And then she started grilling me like I've personally enslaved them."
"I asked one question," Hermione said. "Then three more. And then it spiraled because apparently no one's ever thought about how awful it is."
Harry sat down and leaned back like he was bracing for impact. "Alright. Let's hear it."
Hermione turned to him, eyes blazing. "Did you know they don't get paid?"
Harry gave a small nod. "Yeah. I figured."
"No breaks. No time off. No wands. No rights. They cook, they clean, they handle every inch of this castle and no one even says thank you."
"I said thank you!" Ron cut in, voice high with frustration. "I thanked them, Hermione. I told them the tart was excellent."
Hermione looked like she wanted to throw something at him.
"That's not the point, Ron! You thanked them for doing something they never agreed to do in the first place! They're born into it! They've never been given a choice. And you're acting like it's all fine because the tart was warm."
"I'm not saying it's fine!" Ron said. "I'm saying I didn't think about it! We've been eating their food since first year! What, now I'm the villain for liking snacks?"
Harry scratched the back of his head. "No one's saying you're a villain."
Hermione shot him a look like she might be saying it, just not out loud yet.
Ron threw his hands up. "It's not like I invented house-elf labor, Hermione! I just wanted cake!"
"That's exactly the problem!" Hermione said. "You didn't even stop to think about it! You just took what they gave you and walked off like that was normal!"
"Because it is normal!" Ron shouted, and a few first-years near the window flinched. "It's always been like that! At home, at Hogwarts, everywhere!"
"Then maybe it shouldn't be," Hermione snapped.
Ron turned to Harry, clearly hoping for backup. "Come on. You knew about it too, right? You didn't think it was some kind of crime ring."
Harry held up both hands. "I knew. I just didn't… think about it much. I mean, they've always been there. I didn't know what the rules were."
Hermione looked like she was two seconds from exploding. "That's the thing! There aren't any rules! No one talks about it! They're treated like background furniture that happens to breathe!"
"Okay, calm down," Ron said, which was the wrong thing to say and he realized it immediately.
Hermione's voice turned cold. "Don't you dare tell me to calm down."
Ron sat down slowly, like backing away from a triggered magical trap.
"I'm just saying," he said carefully, "you might want to do a little more research before you burn the whole castle down."
Hermione let out a breath through her nose. "Oh, don't worry. I plan to."
Harry sat down next to him. "Yeah… but you know how Hermione is."
Ron looked over. "I wasn't trying to start a debate. I just said the house-elves were nice. They were nice."
"They were," Harry said. "But I think she's looking at it from a different angle."
Ron groaned. "Of course she is."
"I mean… I don't really know much about house-elves. Do you?"
Ron didn't answer, just rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the floor.
Harry leaned back. "Same."
They sat like that for a bit.
Ron finally muttered, "She's definitely gonna make it a thing, isn't she."
Harry grinned. "Oh yeah. Big thing."
Ron sighed. "Brilliant."