Secrets of Convenience

7th year: Daphne

There was no answering Patronus to Theo's.

Daphne read the Daily Prophet, knowing that if the Dark Lord had any reason at all to suspect her of Bellatrix's untimely demise, she'd be one of the first to know – and not because of an article in a newspaper. It was, eventually, Snape who called her into his office to tell her of the Dark Lord's rage.

Bellatrix died because of the poison inherent to a werewolf bite, that much was certain. What wasn't certain was the lack of any visible wounds. Later that week, Snape interrupted the seventh year's Potions lesson with Slughorn just to stare daggers at Blaise. It would have actually been quite entertaining, if the general tension in the room hadn't been so distracting.

"Honestly," Blaise whispered to Daphne as she cut a pickled flobberworm into a spiral, "you'd think a headmaster of a school would use his words to ask for a sample of the potion, though I guess legilimency would work?"

Daphne rolled her eyes. She didn't dignify him with an answer. "Bring me the fresh rowan berries. And you know it's my turn with the book, so you might give me that as well."

Blaise blew her a kiss and did as she asked. The potion turned out fine, and the weight of Hogwarts: A History was a comfort Daphne allowed herself to cling to. A hope that maybe, just maybe, everything was alright.

Instead of taking notes, she worked fresh Runes on the edges of the pages, folding a message into the magic. When Hermione activated the Runes on her copy, the chosen letters would glow.

The next morning, her Runes were undone and new ones in their place.

Safe. Healing. Alive.

So Hermione's words read, and Daphne quickly charmed her bed curtains closed and sent her otter Patronus to ask Blaise and Theo to join her in the girl's dormitories. They'd miss breakfast. And get strange looks for sneaking into the girl's dormitories, but no one had ever stopped them before.

H & R are too suspicious
Secrecy keeps us safe
Sorry
H has a plan for the next soul piece
Risky, no plan B, but I will Fiendfyre the next Death Eater who tries to fight us
No worries.

Daphne traced the letters with her fingertips.

Theo and Blaise invited themselves to her bed, undoing and redoing the charms on her curtains. The room was empty, so breakfast must have begun already, but Daphne couldn't find it in herself to care. She shoved the books in Theo's hands and threw her arms around Blaise. She didn't try to hide her misty eyes. Everyone needed a good cry sometimes, especially if one was as stressed as she was this year.

"She's okay," Daphne told her friends.

"Yeah," Theo said softly, and handed the book to Blaise so he could see for himself.

They lay beside each other on top of the sheets, just breathing together.

And if they all missed morning classes, nobody dared to comment on it. The lines between trusted Head Girl and scary Death Eater were well established this far into the term, but they existed nonetheless. Daphne tried not to think about how they'd ever go back to being just teenagers at magic school, how any of the destruction could ever be undone. First, they had to survive a Dark Lord.