Reconciliation (Harry's Version)
"I don't have to be friends with the daughter of the man who killed my mum!"
"Of course you don't have to, mate," Ron said. Harry felt the other boy's hand settle onto his shoulder. "But you know you're allowed to, right?"
And that was it. The anger drained from him, leaving in its absence a sad emptiness gaping like a lethal wound in his chest. "No," he said. "I'm not."
How could he be? Delphi was Voldemort's daughter. She was the daughter of the man who had killed his parents, tried to kill him twice, and ruined who knew how many other lives. It wasn't right to be friends with her, and it certainly wasn't right to think about her the way he did. He couldn't have a crush on Voldemort's daughter. The very idea was sick.
But Hagrid shook his great bushy head. "Yeh are," he insisted. "Yer not jus' allowed. Yer encouraged. You-Know-Who killed yer mum and dad, an' they were good people. Great people. Some 'a the best damn kids I knew. An' he got me kicked outta Hogwarts. Got me wand snapped in half. Even if he'd never gone on ter do nuttin' else worth worryin' over, I'd still never forgive him fer that. Never. But what's that got ter do with our Delphi, eh? What's that got ter do with her? Not a ruddy thing. Yeh can keep her as a friend 'a yers or not, Harry, but either way, she's mine."
"Me, too," Hermione said, a fierce look on her face like she was daring anyone to say otherwise. "You're my friend, Delphi. The first one I made at Hogwarts. This doesn't change that. There's no reason it should."
"And me," added Neville. "You're still my friend, too."
Harry felt bad. Guilty, even. But it was different for them, wasn't it? They didn't have as much to lose as he did; they could walk away. Hermione might be a muggleborn, and Neville might have lost his parents to Delphi's mum, but Voldemort hadn't marked them the way he'd marked Harry. Not just literally; it wasn't just the scar that tied them together. It was the future. Voldemort would be back some day, Harry knew that. Voldemort would return sooner or later to try to kill him once again; it was inevitable. Hermione and Ron and Neville could move on and save themselves if they wanted to, but Harry would never get that choice.
And neither would Delphi. Just as Voldemort would never stop trying to kill Harry, he might never stop trying to get his daughter on his side. Or worse, he might stop. He might decide that she needed to die every bit as much as Harry did. He might decide she was too dangerous--too shameful, even--to let live. And if Delphi was his friend--or if she ever became more than that--then it felt almost guaranteed.
Really, avoiding her wasn't even just about his feelings, was it? It wasn't just about his shame over being tricked by Riddle or his fear that maybe Delphi was tricking him too; it wasn't just about the horrible gnawing he felt in his gut when he thought he'd hurt her feelings or the way his heart beat faster when she smiled at him. It was that being her friend was signing her death warrant. Staying away from her might actually save her life.
But... he didn't want to stay away from her, did he? He really liked being around her. She was smart and nice and really pretty, and her attention made him feel good in a way that Ron and Hermione and Neville's didn't. Before all this happened, he'd even started wondering what it might be like if maybe he kissed her; he could just imagine the look on Malfoy's face if he did. He'd thought about holding her hand; he'd considered sending her a valentine; he'd imagined over and over what might happen when he showed her that he'd found her real father for her and she'd be so grateful that maybe she'd make the first move. And instead Riddle's stupid face in that stupid memory inside his stupid diary had ruined everything.
Voldemort had taken yet another person from him, hadn't he?
"Harry?" Hagrid pressed finally. Harry must have been lost in thought for too long. "Anythin' ter say?"
"I..." Harry couldn't bear to look at her. He hated that he'd seen her cry, hated that he'd probably been the reason for it. More importantly, he never wanted to see her cry again--and yet she still looked like she might burst into tears at any moment. "...I don't know what to say."
"Delphi?" prompted Hagrid.
"I miss you," she said, the words so soft that Harry almost didn't hear. "I miss you all so much. But I know... I know it's not right. It's not right for me to be your friend. It was bad enough that I'm a Sytherin and a Parselmouth. Now I'm the Heir of Slytherin and the Dark Lord's daughter, too, and I... I don't want anyone to have to choose. You guys should just be Harry's friends, not mine. I don't mind."
"No one's choosing," Hermione said rather crossly. "Or at least I'm not. I'm going to be friends with both of you, even if you're not friends with each other. Right, Neville?" He nodded. "Then it's settled. We're friends, Delphi. So please stop trying to convince us otherwise!"
They moved so fast that Harry almost missed it. One second, they were nowhere near each other; the next, they were hugging fiercely the way only girls ever seemed to. Harry stared at them, trying to pretend he didn't wish he was the one hugging Delphi instead.
If only he could look at her without seeing Riddle, maybe this would be easier... It had been so weird, seeing someone who looked so much like his crush but older and a boy... and now it was horrifying to think about who that boy had really been. That handsome teenager, the one who pretended to be an orphan hero who saved the school from evil, was Lord Voldemort himself. And now that he knew it, Harry couldn't help noticing things, things that made him squirm with shame and discomfort inside his own skin. An orphan hero who saved the school from evil? A dark-haired boy who could talk to snakes? The Sorting Hat had even wanted to put him in Slytherin last year, telling him that the house would've helped him become great. Was that what had happened to Tom Riddle? Had he just been a regular person until he'd been put in Slytherin and gone Dark? And if it could happen to him... could it happen to Harry, too?
Harry didn't even want to admit it to himself, let alone to anyone else (let alone to Delphi), but... the similarities scared him. What if the Sorting Hat was right? What if the Hufflepuffs were? What if everyone that had ever seen the worst in him was right about him all along? What if he really was like Voldemort?
And what if being friends with Delphi made it even worse?
But in that case... he owed it to her, he supposed, to tell her the truth. "The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin," Harry said. Delphi startled, eyes going wide. Ron and Hermione looked horrified—even Neville and Hagrid looked shocked—but Delphi stared at him, seemingly transfixed by his confession. He wondered what she was thinking. Did it scare her the way it scared him? Or would she have preferred to have had him in her house? What would have happened last year, if they'd both been Slytherins? "And I can talk to snakes, just like you and Slytherin and Voldemort. He offered to let me join him, you know." Hermione let out a horrible gasp. "Last year when I got the Stone. I don't think he really meant it, but... now I'm wondering if maybe he did. I've been thinking this year, you know. Worrying about it more and more. Everyone already thinks I'm the Heir because I can talk to snakes, and no one knows why Voldemort tried to kill me, and I would have been a Slytherin if I hadn't told the hat not to put me there... and Riddle's diary completely fooled me. I didn't suspect him at all until you found out who he really was."
"Harry—" Delphi started, perhaps to defend herself, but he cut her off.
"But all this time," he went on, "it was you. What I've been worrying about... it happened to you instead."
Now, there was outright horror on Delphi's face. Harry would've given anything to hear her thoughts now. "Why didn't you say anything?" she demanded. "We would've told you, Harry. We would've told you it's impossible. Of course you've got nothing to do with the Heir of Slytherin or the Dark Lord. You're nothing like them."
"Before the diary," he said, "I would've said the same thing about you."
"Woah!" exclaimed Ron. "Hold on. Harry, what? You're joking, right? The two of you—bloody hell. You're both a right mess, you know that? Mate, she's right. You're nothing like You-Know-Who. Not even a little bit. So you can speak to snakes—who cares? I'm not saying you should be shouting it from the rooftops—it would've been better if no one had ever found out—but it's not actually that big a deal. So what if there's rumors about you? Ernie and those Hufflepuffs are a bunch of duffers, and who the hell cares what they think? We know you're not the Heir of Slytherin. Even she—" Here, he jerked his head toward Delphi. "—isn't really the Heir. She's related to the Heir, sure, but she's not the Heir, and neither are you. We all know it, and so does anyone else with a brain. What do you mean, you've been worrying about this?"
Harry felt the need to defend himself. "We're a lot alike, and—"
"No, you're not!" Hermione interrupted. "That's the whole point, don't you get that? Delphi's like him, you're like him... But neither one of you are really like him at all. Your similarities are all superficial, don't you see? It's... it's noble, honestly. Romantic!" Harry blinked at her, baffled and bewildered. Hermione seemed to realize she'd confused them all, because she wilted slightly. "I mean in the literary sense. You know, like the poets. It's Romanticism. You both have very passing similarities to You-Know-Who, and now we know you both have a connection to him! But that's not important! What's important, Harry, is that when he offered to let you join him, it didn't even matter whether or not the offer was genuine—what mattered was that I'm sure you didn't even consider it! You're both a bit like him, but you're also nothing like him; that's meaningful, yes, but it doesn't mean what you're afraid of! You turned him down because you're a good person. Both of you are. Whatever else you are—related to him, similar to him, or nothing like him at all—you're good. You're good."
There were tears glistening in Delphi's eyes again, and Harry politely looked away while she dabbed at them with the edge of her sleeve. "But—"
"No," Ron said firmly. "No arguing. I'm right, and Hermione's right. The two of you are mental. I mean, I was mad as hell at her when I thought this was just about her going to Dumbledore behind our backs. But I would've done some crazy shite too, if I'd just found out that I was You-Know-Who's kid. Honestly, Harry, I think it's time to make up and move on. Besides—" He looked over at Delphi appraisingly. "This could really work in our favor. If there's two Heirs of Slytherin running around, we probably want at least one of them on our team."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ron."
But Harry wasn't paying attention to her. He was looking only at Delphi now, watching her while she refused to look at him. She looked so miserable, didn't she? She had been looking so miserable lately. And he felt bad about it, he really did. He'd felt bad about it as soon as his temper had cooled and his anger began to wane; but that bad feeling had kept him away from her. He knew he had hurt her feelings, and he hadn't wanted to face that; he'd been hoping that something and dramatic would happen that could bring them back together, like what had happened last year with them and Hermione and the troll on Halloween. He hadn't wanted to have to apologize or own up to the terrible emotions weighing on him; he'd wanted things to just work out like magic, maybe with him saving her from the basilisk or both of them being confronted by the Heir or something else. Something that would be so big that it dwarfed everything else that had happened; something so big that it could stand in for this awful confrontation that Hagrid and Hermione and Neville had tricked them into having instead. Something that could bring them back together without words; something that would make them both realize that doing something heroic together was much better than feeling really bad apart.
But that hadn't happened. The only choice they had now was to talk—and Harry was terrified that it wasn't going to be enough.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Harry said at last. Delphi's gaze shifted; she was still mostly turned away from him, but he could see her watching him now. "I know I've been giving you a hard time when you've been going through something awful." Going through the very thing he was afraid of, really—except her version was even worse. "I just can't believe it. I was so mad when Dumbledore showed up to take the diary, and it just kept getting worse—first, Riddle turned out to be the Heir and I felt so stupid—and then I thought you just didn't want to be my friend anymore at all—and now Voldemort's involved..."
Delphi's Slytherin friend, Lilly, made a little noise. "Not really," she said, and Harry stared at her for a moment, baffled. "It's just his diary right now, I mean. So you've got time to sort things out before he actually shows back up again!"
How the girl could be so chipper about something so awful, Harry had no idea. "I just wish we'd never found that diary, honestly," he admitted, turning back to Delphi. "I never guessed when I picked it up that all this would happen. And I wish I'd never figured out how it worked." That was perhaps the thing he wished most fervently of all. If he hadn't figured out how to talk to the diary, he would never have felt so ashamed of himself—so betrayed by Riddle—and he never would've taken it out on Delphi.
"It's not your fault, Harry," she said. She was looking right at him now, no longer determinedly facing away. He saw her hand twitch at her side for just a second, as if she were about to reach for something, and he wondered what she might have been about to do. "I don't blame you. Really. I don't blame you for any of this, and I don't blame you if—if—"
If you don't want to be my friend. That's what she thought—but that wasn't it at all. Harry wanted to be her friend—wanted it desperately. He just didn't know if he should.
But getting out the words... it felt like trying to force caramel through a keyhole. He was so embarrassed, so conflicted. At this point, he almost wished Voldemort would just burst into Hagrid's hut to fight them, so they could each show each other that they were still on the same side. Anything to avoid having to talk about it like this.
"Can we just forget it?" Harry tried. "All of it? Not, er—I don't mean we just pretend you aren't, you know, who you are. I just mean... can we just stop being mad?"
But Delphi didn't seem willing to let him go that easily. "I'm not mad at you, Harry," she said, her voice so gentle it was painful. He needed her to stop being so nice to him. Needed her to stop acting like he'd wounded her. He needed her to be mad at him, maybe, or—or to be so relieved that he wasn't mad at her that she didn't want to talk about it anymore. "I was never mad at you."
"Then are we, er, good?" he tried hopefully. "Are we friends again?"
Hermione, for whatever reason, looked just shy of furious, but Delphi's whole face lit up like he'd just granted her wildest dreams. "You mean that?" she asked breathlessly. "You really mean it?"
"Of course," Harry said, feeling very awkward—and then it got worse.
He barely had time to register that Delphi was moving toward him before she was already there; he felt her arms circle around his torso, and his face burned with embarrassment. It wasn't the first time she'd hugged him, but this one felt different. She'd hugged him fiercely last year, when they'd said goodbye before the summer pulled them apart; now, though, she was hugging him even tighter than that, and Harry didn't think he'd ever been more uncomfortable in his life. She was a bit taller than he was, and he could feel her chin brushing his shoulder through his robes—and she didn't let go, either. He counted his racing heartbeats—one, two, five, ten—and then finally gave in. He wrapped his arms around her, too, careful not to pull her any closer to him that she already was, and held her long enough that his heart finally started to calm.
Her face was very close to his, Harry realized. Close enough to kiss her, if he wanted. He didn't think that would be a good idea right now—especially not with all of the others right there—but he could.
And so what if suddenly he was imagining the look on Riddle's face if he kissed her instead of Malfoy's? That didn't make him a bad person, he didn't think.
At last, Delphi's arms slackened, and she slipped out of his embrace. She wasn't as red as he feared he was, but she had definitely gone a bit pink. And there was a funny sort of excitement in her eyes as she looked at him, still standing very close. For a single, insane moment, Harry wondered if maybe she was going to kiss him after all—and then she stepped back, smiling faintly, and Harry felt his shoulders sag with relief.
Hagrid coughed, and Harry pretended not to notice that it sounded like he was covering up a laugh.