Black coffee, with sugar

Chapter 14

The schedule they worked out years ago somehow allowed for Harry to be present the morning where Lilian's Hogwarts letter arrived, almost five years after the two had met.

Lilian, if Daphne could say, had grown up a good girl. She was smart, polite and generous, but also horribly innocent. Perhaps Daphne had sheltered her too much, but what parent hadn't, after the war?

Still, maybe Daphne had done a too good of a job about it. It was almost as if Lilian hadn't been raised by a Slytherin - which would make her parents have a screaming fit, had they even known about Lilian's existence -, and while Daphne was half-glad about it, she was also half-horrified. However, in a post-war world, which child needed tact and cunning to survive in a snake pit?

The owl hooted, and Lilian, dressed up for the day already, picked the letter, taking Daphne from her thoughts. Harry smiled softly at his daughter, and the girl, who looked as excited as Daphne had ever seen, cracked the familiar red wax seal, picking up the parchment pages and trifling through them for a second, passing to Daphne the materials list and keeping to herself the acceptance letter.

"'Dear Ms. Greengrass...'", Lilian started reading, the words Daphne once read for herself familiar and comforting. The only difference was that the ambient Daphne had been in wasn't in any bit similar to Lilian's.

Daphne had been raised in a Manor, with distant parents. Her letter, from the moment she turned eleven, had been awaited with great anxiety, many disapproving looks, and several catty comments that perhaps the accidental magic she had displayed was Astoria's. The arrival of her letter, during breakfast, had been a relief. Daphne had read that letter as if her continued existence depended on it - because it did. Had the letter never arrived, Daphne would have been considered a Squib and cast out.

She couldn't help but wonder, casting a sly look at Harry, who seemed proud of Lilian, as well, how his family received the news. He never spoke of them. Sure, Daphne knew he hadn't been raised by his parents, but information about them was never a thing he shared beyond the very basic - they were Muggles, and that was it. She couldn't help but wonder how they had reacted. Had they been happy? She hoped they were. Still, if Harry all but refused to talk about his Muggle guardians, perhaps they had reactions that weren't the norm.

"Ah, looks like I can take a cat with me! You hear that, Salem?", Lilian hummed, and the fat black cat Daphne had given Lilian years ago barely rose its head, meowing for a second before falling back asleep. The name was awful, but Lilian had chosen it, even though Daphne almost begged her to pick literally any other name. In the end, Salem won the moment Lilian suggested putting the cat's name as Hermione, and Daphne, wondering in which House her daughter would be sorted, conceded defeat.

"No owls for you, then?", Daphne asked, eyeing the material list. Almost nothing had changed, just books being offered in their most recent editions, but it was familiar enough for Daphne to smile. Some things never changed, but she hoped others did.

"But then I can't take Salem,", Lilian pouted, putting a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Did you have an owl, mum?"

Daphne had had a toad. It was her most well-kept secret. She had kept it in an aquarium on her trunk with artificial lighting and took it, during second year, to live a free life near the Black Lake. At home, she claimed her sweet little toad died, and her parents, using that as an excuse, saw fit to give her no more pets, and that was it.

"No, I didn't.", she replied, in the end, shrugging, and Lilian frowned for a moment. "Hogwarts had a few in their Owlery, and I didn't write much to my parents. You, however, have to write to me at least twice a week, you hear me, young lady?"

"Sure, mum," Lilian replied, green eyes focusing on Harry. "What about you, uncle Harry?"

"I had a snowy owl. A gift, you see.", he replied, eyes far away and something in his voice Daphne couldn't place. Daphne could remember his owl, pure white and soaring in the Great Hall, and she had seen it once or twice in the Owlery. A pretty creature, one that Daphne had no idea what end it had. Perhaps it had died naturally. Daphne hoped it so.