Black coffee, with sugar

Chapter 5

He was hallucinating, a consequence of his running fever. In Harry's feverish mind, they were back at Hogwarts, in their eighth year, but it went back and forth between then and their first year on a terribly cramped apartment. Daphne could work with that.

"You're too much work", she told Harry, almost joking as she watched as he ate. It had been a day since he had appeared bleeding in her kitchen, and while he was not bleeding anymore, he was still running a high fever, which was troubling. At least he wasn't anemic anymore.

Harry laughed, the blush that dusted his cheeks pretty, if not worrying. Daphne decided to keep an eye on it.

"Haven't I always been?", he asked, looking at her. "Don't you remember that time in Snape's class when I told him he could call me sir?"

Daphne laughed, shoulders shaking, and he smiled at her. She hadn't been present, but the rumor made its rounds quickly, and she hadn't believed it, not until Harry had confirmed it, one night.

Her laugh was careful, however. She hadn't been in that class. If he was hallucinating she was, she'd have to correct him. Daphne also needed to change his shirt - the one he was wearing was already soaked through. Maybe after he ate, however.

"I thought he was going to explode,", he continued, eyes unfocused and hazy. Daphne nudged the spoon, and he seemed surprised to see it there. "It'd be messy, now that I think of it."

"I'm at least glad he just didn't whip out his wand and kill you on sight,", she told Harry, watching him eat. It was a simple chicken soup, but it'd help him heal. "Honestly, he hated your guts."

"Dad's fault,", Harry said, and Daphne didn't press. He looked around, sighing. "Was your dorm room always this dark? Wasn't there that lake light?"

Ah, so they were back at Hogwarts in Harry's head. Yes, her dorm faced the lake, providing a cool green light over everything, washing them in light as if under the sea - and no teacher cared much for rules that year, trying to rebuild, so they lazed around her bed as much as they could possibly get away with -, but for Harry to go back to there was... Odd. What could make that happen?

"It's night,", she lied. Harry nodded, leaving the soup aside, and Daphne sent it away. He lied down, and Daphne made a move to rise up, get a new shirt for him, but he held her back. "You've sweat through that shirt. Let me get another."

"Alright, but then we're sleeping together. I miss the way you felt in my arms,", he said, and Daphne paused. They... Weren't at Hogwarts anymore, in Harry's mind, then? She'd have to tread carefully. "I don't sleep well if you're not with me. That's why..."

"That's why you come so early?", she asked, gently freeing herself from his grasp. Harry nodded. There were shirts in the dryer, probably, but her mind was far, far away, sitting back on the mattress. "Because you can't sleep?"

"Not without you, never since we parted ways,", he said, almost confession-like, and Daphne leaned down, her lips cool against his, Harry's mouth opening and letting her tongue pass through.

Daphne felt as if she was eighteen once more, without the weight of the war in her shoulders, aware her Death Eater parents were far, far away from her, aware that the Dark Lord wasn't a shadow looming over her head. His mouth was still like she remembered, the same pit in her stomach being created and destroyed at the same time.

She missed it. Daphne missed Harry so much it hurt, and she had never noticed the pain until that moment. She let go of his lips, trying to will away the tears that stung her eyes, and rose up.

"I'll... ", her voice cracked, and Harry - all love and adoration and feverish eyes - didn't seem to notice. Daphne took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice. "I'll be right back."

Daphne grabbed as many shirts as she could, carrying them into the laundry room, and allowed herself to silently and bitterly cry as she stuffed his clothes into the laundry machine, grabbing the one Harry had been wearing when he had come to her kitchen.

He couldn't sleep without her. That wasn't something she expected, but now that she gave it some thought, Daphne could remember the dark bags under his eyes, the small sounds of an invisibility cape moving around before he appeared out of thin air when her dormmates weren't there to whisk her away to another bed. How didn't Daphne notice that? Was she so selfishly egotistical she only had cared about herself? If that was the case, wasn't she still like that, by avoiding to tell Harry about Lilian?

She should tell him. She shouldn't tell him. The question swirled in her mind, and in the end, when she heard a weak Daphne? call her, Daphne rose up. She'd tell him when he was better, she decided as she picked a clean towel.

The promise Daphne had made barely five minutes before mocked her when Daphne arrived in her bedroom, because Harry had picked up Lilian's portrait, and was studying it carefully, his eyes the same as when he went over a case.

"Harry?", Daphne called, approaching carefully, playing with the folded shirt in her hands as she sat on the bed. She placed on hand on his back, and Harry's eyes, so similar to Lilian's, focused on hers. Daphne gulped, and silently started to take off his shirt.

"Who is she?", he asked, putting the portrait back into proper position. "She looks like you."

Tell him.

"It's a photo of Tori as a kid.", the truth was stuck to her tongue just like the sweat clung to Harry's skin, and she couldn't tell him. Harry hummed as Daphne quietly dried him. "Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking it'd be nice to have a family with you, that's all.", his smile could outshine the sun, and Daphne's throat was full of words she couldn't speak as she finished changing his shirt. "A kid, no, maybe two kids, a cat... You'd make a lovely wife."

Daphne could see it, and the ugly part of her kindly reminded her Harry already had all that - with his real family, with his real wife -, but for one moment, Daphne could see it as well.

"How utterly domestic, Harry. Wouldn't have pegged you for the type.", he laughed and laid back, eyes still on Lilian's photo, her precious little girl twirling in a seafoam dress. "Rest. Dream that life."

Harry nodded, laying down, and Daphne held his hand, sitting near him, sharing body warmth.

When she thought Harry was asleep, he spoke up.

"Weren't Astoria's eyes blue?", he asked, and Daphne smiled softly, pushing the photo away, into the darkness.

"It's a trick of the light, Harry,", Daphne told him, and Harry, with a yawn, nodded. Daphne's shoulders only relaxed when his breath evened out. That had been close. Too close for comfort.