Fruit device
Chapter 6
Daphne awoke with sore eyes from crying the night before. Immediately the memories flooded her and she had to choke back the familiar feeling in her throat as her thoughts permeated her mind. How did I mess up being prefect a MONTH into school? It’s gonna be so humiliating when the rest of the school realizes. At least it’s the weekend so I don’t have to deal with classes right now. Her pity party was quickly interrupted by an owl knocking on her window though. She took the letter and curiously observed it bore the Hogwarts seal. She opened it and realized it was from Snape.
Dear Mrs. Greengrass,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am aware this is short notice but a decision has been reached about your prefect position, so please come to my office as soon as possible to discuss the matter.
Severus Snape
The familiar feeling of dread overcame her. He couldn’t have just told me I'm not a prefect anymore through a letter? He just had to put me through a meeting huh. She got ready begrudgingly and made her way to his office.
Snape was grading papers but after hearing the door open he redirected his attention. “Good morning Mrs. Greengrass, please take a seat.” Daphne just sat silently, and when it was evident she had nothing to say, he continued. “After talking it out with the other professors, we’ve decided you shouldn’t lose your position because of one mistake, even if it was a very telling one.”
Daphne’s head shot up almost instantly. “Really!? Thank you so much professor, I promise i’ll stay on top of my duties from now on, I’ll- ”
“Yes, yes Mrs. Greengrass, I know you will because one more slip up and I doubt we will be so kind again. Your lucky Granger vouched for you.”
The last part caused Daphne to freeze, her heart beating in her stomach while the hole in her chest got replaced with embarrassment. “I'm sorry- come again?”
With a raised eyebrow, Snape replied. “Oh you weren’t aware? That's surprising, honestly for a second we thought you were the one who put her up to it. After you were dismissed Granger put the pieces together then came back and convinced us to let you keep your position.” Daphne was nodding her head staring blankly ahead but all she could hear was Oh you weren't aware? The only reason you now have a position you likely don’t deserve is because one of the most perfect students at Hogwarts had to step in and save your irresponsible arse! Shortly after she left the room, immediately rushing to find Granger. After a trip to the Great Hall and then the Quidditch Pitch and still no sign of the target, she made her way to the last place she could think to find Granger besides her common room, and was quite relieved when she succeeded. Of course she's WILLINGLY in the library on a Saturday morning she thought.
“Granger!” Daphne barked out in a whisper-shout as she made her way through the aisle to the secluded bookshelves she was at.
Hermione reluctantly set down the stack of books she was carrying on a nearby window sill so she could properly address Daphne. “Greengrass. What's up?” she replied simply, leaning on the wall.
“What's up? What's up is that you went behind my back to help me like some sort of charity case! Do you often stick your nose in everything?”
Granger's face adopted a look of confusion which quickly turned miffed. “Okay first of all I didn’t think you were gonna find out about that, and besides I think you could react a little more thankfully. I basically secured your perfect spot y'know!”
“That's the damn problem! I wanted to keep this spot on my own merit okay, not because I had to be saved. And if people find out-”
Granger had to scoff, cutting Daphne off right as she was flailing around her hands, “Oh so you don’t really care about the merit, it’s more about how you look huh.”
“What? NO! Well- I don’t know, it’s just both okay! That’s not even the point! Why did you even do it without telling me, was it because of some type of Gryffindor-savior complex where you just had to be the hero?” She spit back, making sure to mock the ‘Gryffindor’ part.
“Actually, princess,” Granger mocked right back, “Contrary to how you were probably raised, the whole world DOESN’T revolve around you. I wasn’t concerned over you or thinking you were some charity case. I was thinking about the fact that if a Slytherin prefect spot opened up, that Snape already has someone in mind, and I’d be damned if I had to spend the rest of the year working with Malfoy’s bigoted arse and having to watch him on a power trip!”
Daphne stood frozen stiffly with her arms crossed, hoping Granger confused the redness on her cheeks for her previous anger over her current shame. Still, she was too petty to admit fault and the subtle smug look on Granger's face only exacerbated that. “Whatever, you just better not tell anyone.” It crossed her mind for a second that things were going pretty well with her potions partner, and that it was quite helpful to have Granger as a partner in a hard class, and that she might have just sent that all down the drain. Oh well, she’d figure it out later.
“Wasn’t planning too. I don’t know why you're so worried anyway. Things like this don’t really affect people like you.”
“People like me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Daphne shot back defensively. And Granger was about to answer but they got interrupted by a little chime… a chime coming straight from Granger's wrist. Daphne stared at it inquisitively, but couldn't make out anything since Granger had let her arms fall to the side, forcing her jumper sleeves to cover whatever she was trying to hide. Daphne glanced back up at her face, which was now a bit paler. “Uhm, what was that?”
Granger hurriedly grabbed her books and tried to leave. “None of your business. I don’t know what the hell you wanted to gain from this conversation, but it’s over now.” But as she was turning around, curiosity got the best of Daphne and she snatched Granger's arm, pulling it towards her and lifting her sleeve while ignoring her protests. She stared perplexed at the device below, it looked like some type of bracelet or watch, but unlike anything Daphne has seen before. Its strap was metallic instead of leather and the face was square and black, but glassy. Granger was still trying hard to pull her arm back and with the movement the black screen suddenly turned bright, startling Daphne and causing her to drop her hold, but not before she caught a glance of the tiny calendar illuminated on the screen. “Oh and I'm the nosy one.” Granger said weakly.
“What in Merlin’s beard is that? How’d you make it? Why did you make a tiny calendar?” Daphne asked accusingly, because somehow she knew it was something more than just a calendar the way Granger tried to cover it up.
“None of your business.” Granger replied as she scrambled to pick up her fallen books and leave. Daphne could tell this was obviously something Granger wanted hidden, so she decided to try a little threat to see if she could get an answer out of her.
“Either you tell me about it, or I tell Dumbledore.” She tried to appear confident as she said this, but Granger only scoffed after looking offended.
“Okay, tell them, and I tell everyone why you're still a prefect. Besides, how do you even know the professors don’t already know about this? They authorize things for loads of students y'know.” She replied looking as if she had won this little battle between them, But Daphne couldn’t handle losing right now so she stood steady in her bluff.
“Hmm…” She pretended to be debating this in her mind in a sarcastic (and admittedly rather obnoxious) manner, tapping her finger on her chin mockingly. “Don’t care. You already said nothing would happen to a ‘person like me’. And if they already know it shouldn’t be a problem if I go tell them now, right?” She challenged Granger and started to walk out, but was secretly begging to be stopped. She could bluff all she wanted but it wouldn’t change the fact she was terrified of Granger telling everybody that she needed to be defended like some toddler. Her idea would work. She knew it would, she already faked having the upper hand. It would work. Hopefully.
Finally, after the most painful 2 seconds of Daphne’s life, Granger pulled her back. “Wait. Okay fine! I’ll tell you what it is but, please, don’t tell anyone.” She looked back at Granger's face, at her eyes. Merlin, they were so pleading, so soft, so genuine. Even if Daphne didn’t have anything to lose, how could she say no to her? She agreed, then listened intently after Granger pulled them to the very back of the library (even though Daphne thought their original spot was fine given it was already pretty far back and barely anyone was here on a Saturday morning) and began to explain. “This is called an apple watch-”
“You made that out of Apples!? Did you somehow transfigure it or something?” Daphne asked, shocked but also impressed. But what was puzzling was that Granger only froze before breaking out into a smile, and then a small laugh. Daphne blushed with embarrassment; what had she said that was so funny?
“No, I didn’t make it out of apples, I didn’t make it at all actually.” Granger noted Daphne’s still bewildered expression, “Just let me explain everything, and then you can ask questions in the end.” She said as if she was a teacher introducing a new topic to her class. “It's called an Apple Watch because that’s the name of the company that made it. And they don’t make things out of fruit or transfigure anything because… well because it’s a muggle company. It's a muggle invention. I figured out how to get some to work without the magic here messing them up.”
Daphne slowly processed the information, if what Granger was saying was true, she was much more skilled than already appeared. “How’d you manage to do that?” She asked, forcing a tone of awe to mask her jealousy.
“I experimented with Protego a bit until I could make, like, a more concentrated variant of the shield charm. One that actually lasts forever, like becoming a part of the device itself. Then I just infused it with some strengthening charms and hoped for the best.” The way Granger explained this all so casually left Daphne unsure of whether or not the girl really knew the implications of this… not only did Granger create her own spell variant, she made it strong enough to override the magic of Hogwarts itself. And only as a fourth year. The potential she held was something to be cultivated. She dared not say anything about it though; she felt Granger's ego had enough to feed off already.
“And why exactly did you go through all that trouble?”
“Well it’s helpful, like with reminders and stuff. You can add stuff to your calendar and then it notifies you when that task is near. You can track your exercise or your monthlies, or record lectures…. ” Granger went on as she showed Daphne the quite helpful functions of her fruit device. It was pretty marvelous the way this was apparently made without magic (according to Granger) but could still work more effectively than magic.
After a while of being enamored with the watch, Daphne made her conclusion, “I can’t believe you’ve been cheating all this time.”
Granger snapped back, looked appalled at the suggestion of any fraudulent activity being associated with her, “Excuse me? How’d you figure that!”
“Well you’ve got an unfair advantage when it comes to school or whatever, that others don’t… while you're hiding it.” She said signaling to the watch exasperatedly. “That’s like the literal definition of cheating.”
“It’s not like it’s doing my work for me.” Granger said defensively.
“No, but it probably helps you stay on top of it.” Daphne replied back bitterly, thinking about how she surely would have remembered her perfect report if she had one for herself. “Unfair advantage.” She emphasized.
Granger wore a mixed expression of shame and anger, “You don’t understand. That’s not the main thing I wanted this for.” The anger in her face tried to stay present, but was drowned violently by defeat and longing. “It’s my only connection to home.” Now they both sat silent for a moment. Daphne didn’t understand completely, but Granger looked a bit sullen now and obviously didn’t want to expand, so she didn’t push. She didn’t know what to say about it either. So she just let a few minutes pass until Granger started getting up to leave again.
It was now or never for her proposal she was sure to get rejected. No matter, she’d figure out how to convince her eventually. She had to. After standing up and brushing off dust from her pants, Daphne uttered her appeal.
“Granger. I want you to show me how you manipulated the magic on it and around Hogwarts.”