A glade of golden flowers as soft as satin glowed at Harry's feet; they gleamed and glimmered, half-veiled by shimmering amber motes, every petal shining as if spun from pure sunlight. The forest was full of the fragrance of them, a rich odour that reminded him of not just roses, but the countless crimson flowers of Daphne's garden all woven into a single splendid bouquet that lightened his heart a little more with every breath. Tiny sparks rose, floating on the faintest of warm breezes across the smoking, ink-black stream, to the slender silver trunks and branches, and on higher to the vivid, verdant green leaves above. Beyond it, borne on that same soft wind, drifting to his ear with childish laughter, came a song so sweet it left his heart stinging.
He felt it draw near, felt it like the warmth of the sun kissing his skin as he stepped from the shade into the summer heat, felt it like waking to the dozy comfort of the fragrance of red flowers, the scent of spearmint, and the fading dawn chorus.
Every note sent butterflies fluttering through him in a trembling storm of wings as it meandered closer; there was something in it that reminded Harry of the taste of strawberries — sweet, cool ones cut into two little heart-shaped halves and held up to his lips by Daphne's fingers — and sunlight — dappled across endless branches and boughs bedecked in green, and spilling across countless scarlet flowers; all the soaring splendour of a midsummer morning.
And there upon the bank, where a cluster of crimson blooms burst from amidst all that glimmering gold, stood a girl, a girl of gold and blue, of sweet and simple summer colour, who fulfilled at a glance all the promised beauty he'd so briefly glimpsed in dreams before.
Just the sight of her stole the breath from Harry's lungs, snatched it away in a flash of blazing blue eyes as warm and bright as the summer sky, as endless as those long, warm days who waned with such long shadows, only to rise again the next every bit as beautiful as before.
The same golden flowers that bloomed beneath her bare feet adorned her short, gleaming, cloud-white dress; her crown of slim golden braids shimmered with all the very same motes of amber magic as the glades around her, but her hair glowed brighter still, bright as the midday sun itself. Her skin was the soft bronze of children months at careless play in the sun, and in her eyes, all the endless blue of a summer sky's paradise shone with such careless delight it swept Harry's heart right up into the warmth of the heavens with her.
Everything of the glade, from the tallest trees to the smallest blade of grass, yearned for her light, following after her like sunflowers turning their faces to the sky.
In a soft whir of wings, the wren landed in her cupped hands, hopping about across her fingers and chirping its own hopeful little song back to her.
Sunlight poured through the slim silver branches above them, falling past her slender shoulders to dapple on the motes of magic there like glowing golden wings. Harry knew her name, knew it without having to hear it, knew it as if everything around her had breathed it out in reverent murmur, knew it as he knew Summer from the touch of its warmth upon him.
'Étayn ,' he whispered.
And she smiled.
The little dimples that danced so innocently upon her cheeks held all the resplendent beauty of the Summer sun rising high up in the heavens, all the promise of ephemeral paradise, of wonder doomed to wane, such hopeless, heartstopping beauty that Harry had to turn away to blink back tears.
He woke with those tears clinging to his lashes and damp upon his cheeks; Harry brushed them away with a quiet sigh of longing, pressing trembling fingertips to the sweet stinging pain in his breast and smiling at the fading recollection of that girl whose beauty seemed too sweet to be any less than just a dream, but caught by the strangest sense of familiarity, for, somehow, even with the swiftly waning memory of the waking mind, there had been a little of Daphne to her — just a touch, no more than a single brushstroke's worth within a painting, but he'd felt it, sensed it, as if a single spark of that resplendent sun shining in the blazing blue of the girl's eyes somehow still shone in Daphne's too.
Kicking the hangings of his head back to stare out across the dappled orange, yellow and red leaves of the Forbidden Forest, Harry let his heart steady and watched the sun creep up above it all.
He rolled out of bed and dressed, slipping his wand back into the sheathe under his robes and wandering downstairs with a long yawn as he fumbled his glasses from his pocket and onto his face.
Ron stood before the fire, his arms folded across his chest and a deep scowl on his face. Across from him, scowling and with her arms folded, stood Ginny. Behind her lingered a rather sheepish Dean, and the early-risers of Gryffindor House scattered across the sofas or leaning against the walls in little huddles watched on.
Katie Bell caught his eye and winked at him. 'Drama,' she mouthed, grinning.
'Look, mate,' Dean said, stretching out his hand.
'Don't care,' Ron snapped. 'Ginny's going to do her own thing, I know that, and I'm not going to do anything while she's happy. But if you upset her…'
Harry sidled around the sofas and flopped in beside Hermione. 'Is this the end of your malicious Project Little Sister? I feel like this should be the final nail in the coffin.'
She snorted. 'Just because Ginny has decided to date someone doesn't mean you can't date her if they break up, Harry.'
'I have a girlfriend.'
Hermione wrinkled her nose. 'I don't think Ginny really likes Dean all that much,' she whispered. 'I think she's just trying out her options and hoping to catch the eye of someone else now she's a bit older…'
'The someone else you're implying is me, right?' Harry frowned. 'Daph isn't going to like that.'
'Tell her having more than one girlfriend is okay for whoever commits genocide for her cult.'
He laughed. 'Yeah… I don't think that would work. And if I did, I'd do it for Tonks, or, wait, what other blondes are there?'
'Lavender.'
'Nah, Ron would be mad.' Harry watched Ron stomp off to breakfast as the crowd dispersed. 'I think he's mad already though.'
'Astoria?'
'Her sister?'
'Saviours are above normal social conventions,' Hermione replied, her tone dry as dust. 'But if the idea of dating two sisters at once doesn't appeal to the primitive male brain within, what about Fleur Delacour?'
'Oh, I forgot about her.' Harry feigned a long and wistful sigh. 'And her bathing suit. I think she's probably busy though. Fleur never did write to me, but, well, I kind of forgot to give her my address so that may be slightly my own fault.'
A little snort of laughter escaped Hermione. 'I bet she's just crushed that someone three years younger than her isn't trying to flirt with her via what's basically carrier pigeon when you get right down to it.'
'Big words from a girl who's not made it to either the flirting or the kissing stage yet, Her-My-Ow-Knee. And you don't even have a pigeon.'
'I…' She flushed. 'Okay, fine, I guess I was just asking for that. What about… Katie Bell?'
'She's not very blonde.'
'She has magical highlights sometimes. She looks blondish in the sun then.'
'I actually do quite like Katie,' Harry confessed. 'She's fun.'
'She's very flirty.'
'Fun. Yes.'
'For the record, I would absolutely support you dumping Greengrass for Katie.' Hermione glanced around. 'She might say yes, too.'
'Okay, so Tonks. Fleur. Katie. And Daph.'
'A veritable harem of blondes,' Hermione quipped.
'That's… not the proper collective noun for blondes.' He laughed. 'Or girls, I assume.'
'Thankfully it is not. But either way you're not going to get much sleep.'
'That means fewer dreams.' Something of his dream surfaced, a glint of breathtaking gold and the faint echo of hopeless, peerless beauty. 'Which… I'd miss some of them actually.'
'Did you dream of Voldemort again?'
'You make it sound like I'm pining for him.' Harry chuckled to himself. 'No. I dreamt of a very beautiful blonde girl—'
'No.' Hermione crossed herself. 'Stop talking. I don't want to know what you're dreaming about blonde girls doing.'
'I don't think Daph can be warded off by a cross.' Harry chuckled under his breath. 'Do you think I should tell Daph about Ginny?'
She sighed. 'I really want to say no, because Lady Culty de Fascisme might get mad and dump you, which I really think is probably a good thing for you, but yes, Harry, yes you should.'
'She isn't culty .'
Hermione shot him a long flat look.
'Okay, maybe a bit. But mostly she just reveres things all decent people find beautiful. Like Spring. Flowers. Drawing. Painting.'
'Culty .'
'It… can be useful?'
'How?' she demanded. 'How can it be useful?'
Harry wracked his brain for something feasible. 'I mean, it helps that I know it, so I know what Voldemort is up to and why. And the whole ICW thing. We knew nothing about that and it turns out it's a pretty big deal.'
'You don't need to do anything with Voldemort, that's for Professor Dumbledore to decide,' Hermione replied. 'You have to get that memory from…' She blinked. 'Wait. I've had an idea.'
'To get the memory? Please share? It's getting to the point when I might have to ask Dobby to terrorise Slughorn or something.'
Hermione squirmed, rubbing at a small stain on the arm of the sofa. 'You aren't going to like it; I really don't like it.' She jumped to her feet. 'But it might work. Let me research and think it over for a bit.'
Harry watched her bustle off, almost certainly, he imagined, toward the library. 'Well, I might as well go and get some breakfast. Maybe see Daph, too.'
He wandered out, waving goodbye to Ginny — who slid her arm around Dean's shoulders the moment she caught his eye — and laughing to himself as he strolled down the steps and through into the Great Hall.
A light tug came at his sleeve.
'Hmmm.' Harry stroked his long imaginary beard. 'Is that a pretty jampire or her little sister?' He spun on his heel.
Daphne hooked that rogue lock of blonde hair back behind her ear and flashed him an impish little grin; her blue eyes were bright as the spring sky and her dimples danced on her cheeks, sending all the butterflies flitting about inside Harry's stomach.
'Good morrow, Lady Daphgrass,' he greeted. 'To what do I owe the pleasure of your mildly evil association on this day?'
She stole a step closer and kissed him hard. 'You spoke with my little sister.'
'I did…' Harry tasted the lingering sharpness of redcurrants as she drew back. 'Am I going to get jampired for it? In my defence, you already gave everything away when you decided to kiss me in the Slytherin Common Room in front of everyone, so she was bound to find out. Have your parents said something? Please tell me they haven't told you that we're cousins. Or, worse, that I have had a secret Pure-blood marriage agreement to Astoria this entire time and, for reasons I can't quite fathom it ever would be, it's unbreakable and we die if we don't do it.'
'You are so ridiculous,' Daphne whispered. 'I love you so much.'
'Is that a yes or a no on the marriage thing?'
'No.' The corner of her mouth twitched, but her heart shone in her blue eyes, huge and fragile and bright, like the full moon hovering above the spring morning mist. 'She came to talk to me—' Daphne's lower lip quivered '—she called me Daphne again.'
'Oh.' A small soft smile crept across face; it settled somewhere beneath his ribs like a drop of molten sunshine. 'Well—' he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close, breathing in the faint fragrance of spearmint '—I'm happy things are better.'
'I love you.' Daphne buried her face in his chest. 'I love you. I love you so much. Thank you. '
'I mean, I didn't do that much really. I just told her what you did.'
'Astoria did not know,' Daphne whispered, leading him toward the wren-marked wall. 'I thought I was at least helping her a little bit, but I was not. Fís y fygrwen .'
The wren burst into flames, rising as a soaring phoenix, and the wall melted open.
'She knows now.' Harry grinned, ducking into the passage after her. 'I think she likes me.'
'She does.'
'Well, at least that will make the arranged marriage thing easier.'
Daphne's soft chuckle sent the butterflies swirling about in a small storm of fluttering, tickling wings and legs. 'You would only have many sons with Astoria. The mark cannot be removed once applied. Not by any magic we can manage.'
'I don't mind having sons.' He let himself see it as she led him through the gloom and out into the cool, Autumn forest — golden-haired little boys with bright dimpled little grins and blue eyes tottering around giggling and babbling to themselves. 'Yeah, no, I actually really do not mind at all.'
A spark of hunger flared to life in Daphne's eyes and her hand slid between her hips — lingering on the white of her blouse, but Harry saw it upon her fair, bare skin and the spiralling scarlet runes marked there. 'I cannot,' she said in a very small voice. 'I am sorry. I cannot.'
'I don't mind,' Harry promised, pulling her close and pressing a kiss to the tip of her pretty nose. 'I could never be happy with anyone less amazing than you. That mark you have, I hate what it means for you, but… a little part of me loves it, because it always reminds me how amazing you are and why I love you — beyond the fact you're unbelievably pretty.'
'It means they can give you things that I cannot. If they did… would you… would you want to…? With them?'
'Well,' he teased, 'there is always Project Little Sister.'
Daphne's eyes narrowed and cooled. 'There is what? Do you mean Astoria?'
'Oh, no.' Harry laughed. 'I would never, Daph. Hermione and Ronald have been plotting for years; they would like me to date Ginny, because Ginny would like to date me and they think I would be happy with her. It's because she looks like my mum so she would just naturally balm my deep-seated need for her. Or something like that, I don't remember; she doesn't actually look anything like my mum really.'
'Granger.' Daphne's gaze frosted over. 'Is the Weasley girl pretty?'
'I mean, she's not ugly,' he admitted. 'But she's not you . You're… you're so pretty that I still sometimes think I must be dreaming when I'm with you.'
A touch of pink coloured Daphne's cheeks, but her eyes remained cold and sharp as icicles. 'The Weasley family are Blood Traitors; they do not care for the Old Ways. They do not value what we value. She would—' her voice shrank smaller and smaller '—she would probably do anything that a boy might want his girlfriend to do for him.'
'But she can't show me amazing things,' Harry reminded her, tiptoeing across the thin ice. 'Not like you do. Don't be silly, Daph.'
'Sorry,' she breathed. 'I am sorry. I worry you will leave me. I know I am cursed; I know I cannot give you things that most boys want. I just want you to stay.'
'I'm staying,' Harry promised, drawing her out to where the sun filtered through the golden leaves to press a soft, long kiss to her lips. 'You make me happier than any other girl could, even with amortentia or… going, you know, further than we have together.'
'Further.' Daphne's hand dipped into her pocket, scooping out a fistful of blood pops; she twisted the wrapper off one, crunching on it, staining her tongue scarlet. 'Would you… do you want to?'
'Yes.' Harry offered her a rueful grin, but the butterflies poured out past his tongue into words. 'I actually haven't thought about it that much. A bit, because, you know, you are very pretty, especially in short skirts and those socks, and even more especially when you've taken off a lot of your clothes, and I can't not think about it sometimes, but—'
'Hush, Harry.' She kissed him, harder than before, crushing her lips against his, and the sharp, sweetness of redcurrants flooded his mouth as her tongue slipped past his lips to tangle with his. 'You should stop. Please, Harry.'
'Stopping.' He swallowed all the butterflies back down.
Daphne took a big step back and unwrapped each of the five blood pops left on her palm one by one, cramming them all into her mouth and taking a long deep breath as she crunched them to pieces. Yearning smouldered in her blue eyes; it burnt there like a flame, hot and bright and hungry.
Harry watched her crimson-stained lips as she swallowed, mesmerised. 'Do you want to… you know?' He laughed a little. 'Have a nibble?'
She shook her head. 'I can resist.'
'You don't have to.' He took her hands, pulling her back in close. 'If you want to, you can.'
Daphne's cheeks coloured. 'No. I should not. Do not tempt me, Harry.'
'Why not?'
The tips of her ears turned pink. 'Because you did things that my boyfriend should do for me last time and I did not do anything for you at all. It is not fair for me to only get what I want all the time.'
'It's not the same, Daph,' Harry murmured. 'I promise, I don't mind. If you want to…'
'I want to,' Daphne whispered. 'But…' A shy light crept through the craving blazing in her blue eyes. 'I want to do this first.' She eased her hands free from his and tugged the buttons of her blouse open from the top.
All the butterflies burst through Harry's stomach. 'Well, I think I would have to be completely insane to tell you to stop.'