Daphne Greengrass, Heiress of the Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass, sat in a garden chair, bathing in the mid-morning sunlight, practising her occlumency. It helped her focus and she needed the distraction. The feelings of helplessness had been getting stronger, like a fist squeezing her heart.
"Daphne, we have a guest for you to meet."
She looked up to see her mum leading—no, walking with…
"I already know John Potter, Mother," she said, disdain etched across her face.
The boy continued walking right up to her. "I assure you, Miss Greengrass—"
Miss?
"—although I may look like John Potter, I most certainly am not John Potter." He held out his hand, and, creating an over whelming sense of déjà vu, took her hand as she reached out, and brushed his lips against her knuckles.
This certainly wasn't John Potter. Daphne's eyes trailed over a very obvious lightning-bolt shaped scar on the boy's forehead. So, who was he?
"Harry is taking a break from business with your father and I suggested that since you are the same age, and will be going to Hogwarts together, you might show him around the gardens?"
She looked over the boy. Something wasn't quite right. "Harry who?" she asked.
The boy smiled. "Just Harry for now, Miss Greengrass. My family name is a Greengrass family secret."
Daphne's head whipped around to her mother who just nodded.
She returned her gaze to Harry and narrowed her eyes. If this boy was going to be all secretive then she had no reason to be familiar.
"Very well, Mister Harry. Would you follow me?"
"Lead on, Miss Greengrass."
The pair walked away from the patio and into the garden proper. It was a big garden.
Daphne couldn't help stealing glances at the boy walking beside her. Something about him was different. He walked with confidence, but he didn't strut, like many of the other boys did. He wasn't talking much, but it wasn't shyness — more a comfortable silence. She'd never seen him at family parties, but his clothes were very rich.
"Mister Harry, what kind of 'business' do you have with my father?"
"We were working on a plan for something he's doing in the Wizengamot."
She scoffed. "There's no way Father would ask for help from children like us for his Wizengamot work. You're a liar, Mister Harry. What were you really doing with him?"
They'd reached the top of a ridge overlooking the flowerbeds.
She expected him to react angrily to her comment. Any of the other boys would have, especially after being caught in a bare faced lie, unless they were timid, which the boy didn't seem to be. Instead, he smiled at her. It was quite a nice smile.
"Miss Greengrass, in the wizarding world, you have to accept that sometimes everything is not quite what it seems. This is a nice place isn't it," he said, turning to the beds.
"Wha? Er. Yes. Wait, what was that before supposed to mean?" She glared, putting her hands on her hips and tried to look indignant like she'd seen her mum do when her dad was failing to be funny. It didn't seem to be working.
"Care for a seat?"
Now she was just confused. "There are no seats."
Her eyes widened when the boy produced a wand from somewhere, and her jaw dropped when the boy silently conjured a large, comfy looking garden chair for her.
"W-w-w-w-wha-what. H-how?"
Boys weren't supposed to be able to do that. She'd never even seen an adult wizard do that, but this boy had just done it.
"Like I said," the boy said, conjuring a second chair for himself and seating himself with a loud Whumpf, "things in the wizarding world aren't always what they seem."
The boy was looking at her expectantly and she carefully sat down in the chair, as though expecting it to disappear the moment she trusted it to hold her weight.
"Your garden really is very nice, do you come out here a lot?"
Daphne was being thrown. Somehow she'd lost control of the momentum of the conversation. And the boy still hadn't answered her question, or gotten angry.
"Y-yes quite a lot. I—" She hesitated "I like the outdoors."
He smiled that annoyingly nice smile again. "I like the outdoors too," then his smile faded, "there's nothing worse than being trapped inside."
Silence descended on them again, and again, the boy didn't seem to mind. He stared out over the grounds, and she couldn't help think how mature he looked. Was it possible he'd been serious before?
"Um, Mister Harry?"
"You can call me Harry you know."
"Okay, Harry," she said, belatedly realising she'd just happily accepted his permission to use his first name, when she was the one who'd decided to snub him with the honorific. "How do you have a wand? We're not supposed to have a wand until we go to Hogwarts."
"That is one of my own family secrets."
She harrumphed. "I wish I had a wand. We have lots of old ones, but Father won't let me use them."
"You are practising wandless magic though, aren't you?"
"What? No. Only really powerful wizards can use wandless magic."
"That's not true. You were practising occlumency before weren't you?"
"I… that doesn't count."
"It really does you know. Being good at occlumency is the first step in being able to learn wandless spells."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. And there are lots of other types of magic for which being a good occlumens is important — like transfiguration, and becoming an animagus."
Daphne sighed. "I so want to become an animagus." She looked up at the birds flying around the gardens. To be free like them, what she wouldn't give.
"Yeah, me too," the boy said. He paused before continuing, "tell you what, when we're at Hogwarts, why don't we learn it together?"
She widened her eyes again. "Can we do that?"
"Sure, why not, just don't tell your parents we had this conversation, Okay?"
She smiled. The boy, Harry, may be keeping secrets, but he didn't seem too bad. And if his skill with a wand was any indication, he'd be a useful person to have around. "Okay."
.
.
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