"I'm sure it will be easier the next time you do it. It's a hard spell, though." he reassured her. She nodded closed her eyes again, still not feeling strong enough to do much else. Harry watched her, wondering if she was about fall asleep. But a few minutes later she opened her eyes again stretched.
"I'm feeling much better now. Hope I didn't scare you too much." Harry laughed and shook his head, glad that she was ok.
"Greengrass, I was wondering. Would you like to go to the Yule Ball with me?" Harry asked, surprising even himself with the question. It had been on his mind all day of course, but he had not had any intention of asking her when she came into the room. Daphne's head swiftly turned in his direction, and Harry was quite happy to see a small smile on her face. But as quickly as it had appeared the smile faded and was replaced by a look of worry. He knew bad news was coming when she turned her head away and looked at the floor.
"I can't." she answered simply.
"Oh." Daphne looked back at Harry and could see the disappointment clearly on his face. She wished it didn't have to be this way, angry that they could not even say hello to each other in the halls without it being looked at suspiciously. In that moment, Daphne made a decision.
"What I meant was, I can't answer you right now. There's something I have to do first. Can you wait a couple of days?"
"Did you already say yes to someone else?" Harry asked. The disappointment had faded from him, but was replaced with confusion and a little bit of hope.
"What? No, it's nothing like that! I'll explain as much as I can in a couple of days, ok? Please just leave it at that for now."
"Ok, I won't ask anything else right now."
"Good. Could you help me up? It looks like I have things to do." she stated. Harry stood and helped Daphne to her feet. She took a few steps to make sure she was ok to leave and found she was. "Thank you, Potter. For everything. I'll talk to you soon, ok?" Harry nodded and she walked out of the door, leaving Harry to speculate as to what was going on. He sighed with a little bit of frustration, realizing he would just have to wait to find out.
.....
The next day Harry tried desperately to keep his mind focused on other things, but it kept coming back to Daphne. He thought often about their conversation the previous night and found it more and more confusing every time he mentally replayed it. The only comforting fact he had found was that Daphne seemed to want to go to the Yule Ball with him, even if other things might make that impossible. Harry wanted nothing more than to find her and get her to explain what was going on, but he had promised to let her handle the situation alone. Doing nothing was not a thing that came easy to him, he would much rather be rushing into action and facing whatever came his way head on. He laughed, knowing that if Daphne could hear what he was thinking she would mock him for being too much of a Gryffindor.
After dinner Harry had decided to read for a while instead of going to the third floor room to train. Earlier in the year he might have thought time spent reading would not help him face whatever challenged lay ahead, but he had eventually realized how stupid that idea was. Lots of types of knowledge can be useful, not just knowledge of spells. And so he was lying down on a long sofa in front of the fireplace with a beginner's book on Ancient Runes on his chest. The subject was more complicated than he expected it to be, but clearly could be very useful. He mentally chided himself for deciding to take Divination, which as far as he could tell was absolutely useless, instead.
Harry had made it through the day without giving in to his urges telling him to take action, but he hadn't noticed that his efforts had taken a toll on his attitude during the day or that his friends had noticed. Hermione in particular could tell that something was bothering him, and so after seeing him in the common room had decided to ask him about it. Harry did not notice that she was even in the room until she sat down on the sofa near his feet. He looked over the top of the book to see who had distracted him and after finding that it was Hermione he set his book down on his lap.
"Since when are you interested in Ancient Runes, Harry?" she asked, noticing the book he had been reading.
"I was just curious about what I was missing. Is it too late to drop Divination for something else?"
"No, but if you started next year you would probably have to be in the class with the third years. I could help you study if you wanted to try and catch up with our year, but it wouldn't be easy."
"Hmm, I'll have to think about it. Divination is a complete waste of time. I am sure Trelawny will miss being able to predict my death every class though." Harry added with a laugh.
"If you are going to do it, you need to decide soon. We only have a year and a half before our OWLs! I've barely even started on my study schedules for the next year, at this rate I will never be ready on time." she said, obviously worried. Harry laughed at his friend, knowing that she would probably end up with O's (the highest score) on every exam she took. Hermione frowned at his laughter, knowing that he did not take her concerns seriously.
"Relax, Hermione. You have plenty of time." Harry said, trying to talk his friend down from her self induced panic. "There's no need to worry about it yet."
"Fine, let's talk about other things then." Hermione answered, seeing her chance to turn the conversation towards what she originally wanted to know. "What's going on with you? You've been in bad mood all day."
"Have I?" Harry asked, surprised he had been that obvious. "Let's just say I have a lot going on right now. Tournaments, dates, golden eggs, dancing, figuring out who put my name in that damn cup, training, being slandered in the press… What else? I am sure I am forgetting something."
"Probably, but most of that was going on yesterday and you were fine then. So what is it?" Hermione looked at him, waiting for a response that wasn't coming. Deciding she would have to figure it out on her own, she started thinking about what possibly could have happened. Then an idea struck her. "Oh! Did you ask someone out and get turned down? It was Cho Chang wasn't it?"
"What? No, I did not get turned down and I did not ask Cho Chang." Harry answered, noting that technically it was true. Daphne may say no, but she had not yet. "Why would you think I would ask out Cho Chang anyway? I don't think I've ever even talked to her besides saying hello a few times."
"Oh, well I heard you and Ron talking about her a few months ago. And she is quite pretty."
....
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