Be My Escape
Harry woke up to a hand trailing through his hair. He leaned into it with a sigh. His pillow was soft and warm, periodically rising and falling. It was a relief from the cool air that stung the exposed skin on the left side of his face.
A giggle came from above him. Something, or someone, blew lightly into his hair.
Cautiously blinking his eyes open, he jerked his head back into something hard when he saw Daphne staring down at him with a cheeky smile.
The warm, soft pillow he'd been resting on was her collarbone
"Is that your shoulder?" he groaned. "Why are your bones so hard?"
"I'm just that tough," she boasted. "Call me Miss Muscles."
"I think there's a difference between a bone and a muscle."
She wrinkled her nose at him, lightly scratching the side of his head with the hand still in his hair.
"Rubbish. You're no fun."
Harry had no idea how she did it, but her touch did funny things to his insides that he'd rather not admit. Her teasing would be relentless.
"Please tell me you're wearing something beneath this," he muttered, feeling the soft fluff of her bathrobe against his neck.
"You're such a prude, Harry," she retorted as she shifted slightly. "We're going to be married soon, in case you forgot. How long do you plan on protecting my honour?"
"Until my dying day," Harry replied sarcastically.
Daphne raised an eyebrow at him.
"Better not be," she warned.
His eyebrows shot up at her statement. Rather than stammering something embarrassing, he stayed quiet as her melodious laughter filled his ears.
"You're so pure," Daphne cooed and patted his cheek as if she was talking to a small animal.
It irked him.
"Isn't this usually the other way around?" Harry complained, letting his eyes drift shut again.
"Hush," she whispered. "Let me enjoy it while it lasts."
Daphne tightened her hold on him, causing Harry to grumble, but he made no effort to escape. The cool metal of her engagement ring brushed against his scalp.
I can't believe this is happening, he thought.
Disregarding the chaos of the past week, Harry almost couldn't believe how his life had changed. The little stability he'd previously had came from Sirius, and that had been taken from him far too soon. He wouldn't count his relatives as remarkably stable either. Their behaviour was the furthest thing from it.
Daphne had miraculously stopped him from falling into a deeper, darker place. He felt indebted to her. Their circumstances had pushed them together quickly, but he knew it was for the better. Without Sirius, he didn't know what he would've become.
"I owe you so much," Harry mumbled.
"Are you okay?"
He blinked, confused at her reaction.
"It's unlike you to get sappy," she explained, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
"It's not sappy," Harry defended, "it's just being grateful. You should try it."
Daphne smiled down at him like she knew something he didn't. Her thumb came up to rub away the furrow between his brows.
"Harry is grumpy," she sang, grinning widely.
"Daphne is strange."
"And you're normal?"
He couldn't help but smile back, his mock irritation quickly fading.
"Not really," he admitted cheekily. "There's this someone I know that can apparently convince me to do anything. I must be insane."
"Excuses, excuses," she commented airily, but her shining eyes gave her away.
They lapsed into silence for a moment.
"You look so tired."
Harry looked back to find her staring intently at him. Her joyous expression had morphed into one of concern.
"I'll be fine, it's you I'm worried about."
He rested a hand on her stomach. Daphne shivered.
"Does this feel fine now? Are you cold?" he asked, knowing the pain potion that Tracey had brought him before she'd gone downstairs would be wearing off soon.
Harry suspected that the girl was trying to give the two of them some alone time, or felt uncomfortable intruding on them. Relations between her and Daphne would most likely be strained for the foreseeable future, but that was to be expected.
"Your hands are cold," she grumbled but placed both of hers over his to prevent him from pulling away.
He looked at Daphne strangely, ultimately deciding not to comment on the action. She seemed to need the contact.
"What's going to happen to my family?" she eventually asked quietly, her expression softening.
"I don't know," Harry admitted. "Where are they?"
"The Greengrass Estate, in South Yorkshire."
"If worst comes to worst, we could always try and bring your mother and sister here. That would be assuming that they're okay with me."
"They would be," Daphne responded quickly.
"How do you know?"
Her expression reflected her inner turmoil.
"They're not bad people," she explained, stroking through his hair again. "I told you before that I don't blame my mother. It's my father that's the issue. My sister also doesn't seem to hate me as much as I thought, and I hope that she comes around eventually. I think Mother would like you."
He could only hope the same. Daphne deserved much more than what she got.
"It'll work out," Harry reassured. "And if for some reason it doesn't, then we'll have to make it work out."
The tightness in her face faded away as she considered his words.
"That's all I can ask for," she said with a small smile. "Now sleep, you're tired."
He sighed. It would be no use arguing with her.
"You're the one that's meant to be resting here."
"Says the one that looks like a raccoon," Daphne retorted.
"Okay, okay," he muttered, resting his cheek back against her.
As much as he felt oddly vulnerable in his current position, the fatigue was quickly catching up to him. It was normally unlike him to cave in so easily otherwise.
Just as Harry felt he was about to doze off, Daphne shifted again, startling him.
"Tracey?" she asked from above him.
He looked up, irritated at being interrupted. Tracey was peaking her head around the door.
"Daphne! How do you feel?"
Daphne ran her hand through Harry's hair once more, a smile tugging at her lips as she glanced down at his still form. The action was deeply soothing for her. She loved that she could bring him comfort from something so simple. It was obvious that he'd not been resting properly, and she worried for him as a result - he'd been through just as much as her. Being submerged in ice-cold lake water for multiple minutes didn't make matters better, either.
He must've finally fallen asleep again.
"You really care for him, don't you?"
She met Tracey's curious gaze from where she sat on the chair that Harry had left vacant next to the bed.
"I do. I love him."
Her former best friend glanced back down at her lap.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I thought I could make everything right. I saw no alternative."
"Tracey…" Daphne let out a breath. "What happened, happened, and nothing can change that. You won't be able to move on if you keep talking about it. You're obviously not the same person now that you were then, because you essentially saved us based on what Harry told me. I appreciate that."
The other girl looked deep in thought.
"You're right," she eventually responded, folding her legs underneath her on the chair. "But that's no excuse either. I promise to do better."
"That's all I can ask for," Daphne reassured her, looking down to make sure she hadn't woken Harry.
"Thank you."
"Where are we, by the way?" she asked.
Tracey looked at her oddly for a moment.
"Grimmauld Place. Did Harry not tell you?"
She recalled Harry saying something about the 'Black Library'.
"Is this Harry's godfather's house?"
"Was," Tracey corrected. "It's his now. He told me that he wasn't able to access it before he was emancipated."
Oh, she remembered, that whole thing.
"Is that your doing?" Daphne asked with a smirk, pointing to a small Christmas tree in the corner.
It was covered in tinsel, with ornaments hanging off each branch. Compared to the one that usually stood at the Greengrass Manor, the tree was tiny and looked glaringly muggle. Daphne didn't think that was a bad thing, though. She didn't have the greatest memories of Christmas there. A wrapped package rested beneath it.
Harry's, she thought happily.
"Both of our doing," Tracey corrected, "but he insisted that we shouldn't finish it without you."
It was only then that Daphne noticed the few bare branches near the bottom, as well as the star ornament that lay by the base of the tree. Her hand momentarily stalled in Harry's hair, before she pulled him a little bit closer.
Tracey must've noticed her wide smile because she matched it with her own.
"Sweet, isn't it?"
"He is," Daphne confirmed warmly.
Tracey rolled her eyes, earning a light laugh from Daphne.
Her mood dimmed as her thoughts drifted back to her family and what had transpired at Hogwarts.
"Have people come looking for us yet? Is anyone after us?"
"I don't know the full extent, and neither does Harry. This entire estate is unplottable, even though it's in the middle of London, so we can't get any outside mail unless it comes through Harry's owl."
She'd not seen Harry's owl — Hedwig, she recalled — very often, as he rarely received or sent letters, but she'd also never seen him fail to spoil it with a good share of his breakfast when it did visit him in the Great Hall.
"We'll need to find out. I doubt it's anything good."
Tracey nodded her agreement.
"If the past few days have taught me anything, it's that there's always a way out."
As much as Daphne wanted to agree, her anxiety over her family was mounting. Namely at whatever her father would do next, now that she had completely escaped from his tyranny. Her mother and sister were not so lucky, however. She hoped that they were okay. Half of her wanted to jump out of bed, find a fireplace, and Floo home right that moment to make sure, but she knew that was irrational and far too dangerous. Her father had aligned himself with some of the most dangerous members of their society.
Violence was never something Daphne would condone, but she recognised that there was no way out for Harry so long as he remained in Magical Britain. Voldemort had chosen him. Where other wizards and witches shivered at the mere mention of his name, Harry had refused to be beaten down and killed. Although she didn't have too averse of a reaction to the Dark Lord's name, it still made her shiver.
She wasn't sure how Harry did it, but he'd always been anything but ordinary to her.
Does he even have any good memories?
The man had been after him since he was a baby, and she knew that he hated his relatives. She did too.
His experience at Hogwarts was just as bad, if not worse than her own. The realisation made her thankful that they'd left, but it brought her straight back to the question that had lingered in her mind since she'd woken up.
Where do we go from here?
They had no school and near-total independence. Tracey had run from her father just as she had. Harry had lost Sirius barely half a year ago. Her father had greatly endangered what remained of her family. Magical Britain was undoubtedly looking for them.
She suddenly found herself greatly missing her trips with Harry. They both needed more happy memories.
Harry tugged the collar of his coat up further, attempting to shield his face from the biting cold of winter. He walked quickly, with his hands in his pockets and his head down. Although it was early morning, heavy clouds overhead cast a dark shadow over the soaked city of London. Pedestrians passed him on either side, the edges of their umbrellas briefly shielding him from the perpetual drizzling. A fine mist seemed to hang in the air as a result of water being flicked up by passing cars.
Nuzzling deeper into the dark scarf that hung around his neck, Harry darted into another alleyway and apparated away for the second time, keeping a tight hold on the items under his coat.
He'd received the scarf the previous day from Daphne as a Christmas present. The material was luxuriously soft, keeping him blissfully warm from where it rested beneath his coat. She'd even made it by hand, which only added to its sentimental value in his eyes. It was a tender gesture of affection from Daphne to make something to keep him warm and comfortable; a direct reflection of her care and concern for him. He couldn't ask for anything more.
She'd finished it weeks ago, before everything else had happened. It felt like an entirely different era.
Maybe it was, he mused as he walked up the steps to the Black ancestral home, taking the rolled-up newspaper and box of fine chocolates for Tracey out.
The latter was a late Christmas present; he thought the poor girl deserved at least something.
No one should go without a Christmas present, Harry thought, recalling his many years with the Dursleys.
He'd given Daphne a small pendant that he'd picked out around the same time. As a whole, however, their Christmas was quite mellow. The wards around the property stopped any mail from getting in, so they only had each other. As a consequence, Tracey seemed quite uncomfortable the whole day, but he couldn't blame her for that when she had quickly become the third wheel of their group. She also hadn't been able to participate in giving and receiving a present. As much as he was inclined to sympathise with her, Harry also found the situation quite humorous — Tracey had made a habit of wrinkling her nose at any open display of affection, and Daphne seemed to delight in winding up her friend. He wasn't complaining one bit.
The damp newspaper unfurled as he tossed it onto the ebony dining table, now reluctant to open it. A moving photo was looping on the front page, below a bold heading.
It was the entire reason he'd finally left Number 12. They'd all agreed late last night that they needed to know what the fallout of their actions was, and that enough time had passed for them to risk it. Harry had volunteered, purely on the basis that he had an animagus form that no one but Daphne, and now Tracey, knew about. As much as Daphne had wanted to come with him, he'd made the point that she would be in far more danger than him.
"Harry?"
Daphne's voice rang out from upstairs as she began to descend the staircase.
"Is everything okay?"
She was now behind him, but Harry didn't turn around. The box of chocolates thudded onto the table in front of him.
"Harry, what is it? Harry!?"
At some point, he'd realised exactly what the blocky lettering Daily Prophet's front page spelt, and who was in the photograph beneath. He'd not looked when he'd grabbed it from a table at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor — it'd been rolled up and abandoned. Now, though, he felt the dread pooling in his stomach.
BOY-WHO-KILLED REMAINS AT LARGE! MINISTER UNDER FIRE!