Starlit Promises: Chapter 2 - The Silent Slytherin

The greenhouse smelled like rain-soaked moss and something faintly metallic — the sharp, green tang of life growing too fast, too wild. Humid air clung to Harry’s skin as he stepped inside, the door closing behind him with a dull, wet clunk. It felt warmer here than it should’ve been for October.

The walls sweated. Condensation streaked down the inside of the glass like the building itself was exhaling. Somewhere near the back, a fluttering noise — wings or leaves or both — stirred behind rows of overgrown plants.

Harry’s shoulders were still tense from Defense Against the Dark Arts.

No, not Defense, he corrected himself bitterly. Just “Theory of Ministry-Approved Magical Reactions.” Or something equally useless.

He hadn’t even raised his voice — just pointed out, as politely as he could, that diagrams and copywork weren’t much use when hexes were being flung at your head.

Umbridge had smiled at him like he was a stubborn stain.

“Another detention, Mr. Potter. I do hope you enjoy botany.”

He didn’t.

But at least it didn’t involve blood this time. Probably.

The back of his hand still bore the faint, raw line from the quill she’d given him weeks earlier. I must not tell lies — a sentence etched into skin. The scab had only just peeled off. His knuckles still itched when he remembered the sting of the ink.

He hadn’t expected the greenhouses. Honestly, he didn’t expect anything from her anymore, except that somehow, it would always feel personal.

Professor Sprout was crouched beside a crate of root bundles, her sleeves rolled past the elbow and gloves already stained with soil. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps.

“Ah, Potter. Punctual,” she said, standing with a grunt and brushing dirt from her apron. “That’s more than I can say for your last partner.”

Harry raised a brow, halfway between confusion and concern.

“You’ll be helping with the Screechsnap repotting,” Sprout continued, already moving toward another bench and gesturing vaguely with her wand. “They’re in their aggression phase this time of year. Territorial. Loud. Try not to antagonize them.”

Harry sighed. “Can’t wait.”

She gestured toward the long workbench near the far wall. “Tools and gloves are laid out. Your partner’s already started.”

“Partner?” he repeated, blinking.

But Sprout was already halfway out the greenhouse, muttering about mandrake migration and compost rot, her boots squelching faintly over the mossy floorboards.

Harry turned.

And froze.

At the far end of the bench, framed by creeping vines and steam-clouded glass, stood Daphne Greengrass.

She hadn’t noticed him yet.

Or maybe she had and didn’t care.

Her sleeves were rolled with military precision. Her goggles were snug against her pale face, and her braid hung like a silver cord down the back of her robes. Her gloves were spotless. Even her stance — upright but fluid — made it seem like the chaos of the greenhouse bowed slightly around her.

Her wand hovered over a pot of writhing vines, dancing in rhythm with the plant’s slow, agitated pulse. She murmured something — a charm Harry didn’t catch — and the plant flinched but didn’t resist.

The Screechsnap looked like some violent cousin of Devil’s Snare: thick, veined stems twisted together like cables, studded with twitching thorns and puckered mouths. Its color shifted with mood — sickly green when calm, flushed red when agitated, deep plum-black when enraged.

The one Harry was assigned looked very plum.

He eyed it warily and reached for the dragon-hide gloves on the bench.

“You?” he said flatly.

Daphne didn’t look up. “Try not to fall behind.”

Harry pulled on a glove. “Nice to see you, too.”

She handed him a trowel over her shoulder — casual, precise. “I’d rather we finish without casualties.”

He took the trowel, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, and moved to stand beside her. She shifted to accommodate him — one foot. No more. No less.

The plant in front of him rustled violently the moment he touched it.

A vine lashed up at his wrist with a sound like an angry straw being snapped in half.

“Oi—!” he flinched back, jabbing the trowel into the soil.

“Don’t stab it,” Daphne said, voice flat.

“I wasn’t—”

“You were. And it hates that.”

He gave her a glare. “And you're suddenly a plant whisperer now?”

Daphne finally looked up, just slightly — enough for one brow to lift beneath the rim of her goggles. “They respond to rhythm and intent. Yours is erratic.”

“It bit me.”

“Because you're loud. And defensive.”

He let out a frustrated breath — not quite a growl, but close. “Glad to see you're enjoying this.”

“I’m completing a task,” she replied, returning to her pot. “There’s a difference.”

Harry grumbled under his breath, something about Slytherins and arrogance, and tried again — slower this time. He watched her hands out of the corner of his eye.

Her movements were deliberate. Efficient. Like she’d done this before, or like she simply refused to get it wrong. She trimmed a vine, bound a root, turned the pot three degrees — all without speaking.

There was a steadiness to her. Not grace exactly — it wasn’t soft — but control. Like everything about her had been measured twice before being allowed to exist.

Harry matched her tempo. Just enough to avoid another shriek from the Screechsnap. The thing twitched but didn’t scream this time.

The silence between them held — not comfortable, not tense.

Just... suspended.

Ten minutes passed.

Harry wiped the back of his glove across his forehead. His hair stuck slightly to his skin. “Think she forgot us?”

“No,” Daphne said.

He glanced at her.

“She’s giving us space,” she added.

“To bond?”

Daphne deadpanned, “To suffer.”

A laugh burst out of him before he could stop it — dry, surprised. Too real to feel rehearsed.

Daphne didn’t smile. But her next vine binding was noticeably more gentle.

They kept working.

And while they didn’t speak again, the silence wasn’t quite the same as before.

~HP~

The Screechsnap didn’t like him.

That much was obvious.

Its vines recoiled the moment Harry reached in again — not from fear, but fury. One lashed out, aiming straight for the seam of his glove like it knew exactly where the protection ended. He jerked back with a hiss as the thorn grazed the thin skin of his wrist.

The plant shrieked — a sharp, petulant wail like a kettle at full boil. It thrashed in its pot, flinging clumps of dirt across the bench, some landing squarely on Harry’s robes.

He cursed under his breath and tried to wrestle the root bundle back into place.

“Hold the base,” Daphne said, without even glancing over. Her voice was as crisp as the air outside. “It reads your grip as aggression.”

“I’m not gripping it,” Harry grunted, struggling to pin the roots without getting stabbed again. “I’m containing it.”

“It disagrees.”

Another vine snapped toward his elbow — fast and mean. He flinched, too slow to react.

Daphne wasn’t.

Her wand moved in a tight arc, sharp and exact. The vine froze mid-swing, quivered for a breath, then curled in on itself with a shudder like a scolded animal.

Harry blinked at her. “How did you—?”

“They respond to rhythm,” she said, already back to her own pot. “Yours is erratic.”

He shot her a sideways look, jaw tight. “Thanks for the review.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, completely without irony.

The air in the greenhouse was thicker now — not just warm but heavy. Oppressive. Sweat gathered beneath the collar of his shirt, and his back stuck uncomfortably to the inside of his robes.

The plants around them rustled. The faint buzz of magic — low, tense, like insects beneath glass — seemed to press in closer. Harry had the odd, creeping feeling that the Screechsnaps were listening.

His own pot let out another shriek as he reached in again — too fast. The base tilted dangerously.

The pot wobbled once, twice—

Then toppled.

Soil exploded across the bench in a messy spray. A nearby container tumbled to the ground and cracked, the sound sharp and final.

Daphne finally turned her head.

“Is this how you handle everything that doesn’t do what you want?” she asked, evenly. Not annoyed. Not smug. Just… flat.

Harry dragged a sleeve across his forehead, smearing dirt across his temple. “Is this how you talk to people you barely know?”

“Only the ones throwing soil tantrums.”

He let out a sharp breath and muttered something halfway between a laugh and a growl. “You’re not exactly the model of human warmth, are you?”

“I’m not required to be.”

“Well, you’re not required to be here either,” he snapped, tossing a broken root into the compost bin with more force than necessary. “So why are you?”

There was a beat.

She didn’t respond at first. Just pressed the soil gently around the base of her Screechsnap, hands steady, precise. Not in a rush. Not bothered. Almost like she was deliberately not reacting.

“Maybe I enjoy long evenings with hostile flora,” she said at last — softly. Not sarcastic. Not flirtatious. Just... quiet.

Harry frowned. “So... you’re here voluntarily?”

She glanced at him sideways, barely a flick of the eyes. “Aren’t you?”

“I’m not exactly choosing detention,” he muttered.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

She set her trowel down, brushed the dirt from her gloves in quick, efficient strokes.

“You seem to collect them.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, well, it’s that or let Umbridge keep pretending she’s teaching.”

“You don’t seem to mind the consequences.”

That made him pause.

He turned to look at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Daphne didn’t flinch. Her lips curled — not a smile, not really — more like a crease of thought.

“You keep showing up,” she said. “Detention. Confrontations. Headlines. For someone who hates it so much… you’re always at the center of it.”

Harry stiffened. “I don’t enjoy being punished.”

“No,” she said. “But it’s still attention.”

She looked up now, eyes sharp but calm. Not accusing. Not amused. Just watching.

“And it’s yours. All of it.”

The words weren’t cruel. They weren’t wrong, either.

They landed heavier than he expected.

Harry didn’t respond right away. His hands had stilled over the pot, fingers curled into the soil like it might ground him. His heartbeat tapped too loudly in his ears. He didn’t like how her words made him feel — like she’d seen something he hadn’t named aloud.

And hadn’t run from it.

The silence stretched.

Then — her voice again, softer now:

“Why do you care so much about what they think?”

His eyes flicked to her.

She wasn’t smirking. Wasn’t pushing. Just… waiting.

Steady. Still.

Like the question wasn’t a challenge. Just a knot she hadn’t decided whether to untangle or leave tied.

Harry looked away.

His first instinct was to throw it off — turn it into a joke, snap something back, keep his walls up.

But he didn’t.

He just stared at the dirt under his nails. At the plant twitching under his palms. At his hands, roughened by the scrape of her words.

“Why do you pretend you don’t?”

That stopped her.

The scissors in her hand stilled over a stem. She didn’t turn. Didn’t look at him again.

But she didn’t answer either.

And somehow, that said more than if she had.

The only sound after that was the whisper of vines shifting in their pots — restless, listening. The occasional snip of metal, the creak of a bench, the distant shuffle of something leafy that didn’t like being ignored.

They didn’t speak again.

Not for the rest of detention.

But something had cracked — thin and quiet and permanent — between the potting soil and the silence.

And after that, neither of them worked in silence quite the same way.

~HP~

The last of the Screechsnap had been potted and pinned, their viney limbs twitching faintly in their new homes like creatures reluctantly tamed. A few leaves shivered in protest, but the worst of their shrieking had faded.

The greenhouse had settled into an unnatural quiet — not calm exactly, but exhausted. Like even the walls were tired.

Harry stepped back from the workbench, fingers aching from constant tension. He flexed his knuckles with a grimace. Dirt was packed beneath his nails. One glove was torn across the palm — the other was wet with sap, sticky and faintly acidic. His sleeve bore the greenish streaks of something that had oozed after being pruned incorrectly.

He rolled his shoulders until something popped, stretched his back until he felt vertebrae click into place, and blew out a long breath. His whole body felt tight — but the kind of tight that came after something, not before.

He made his way to the copper sink along the far wall, steps slow, deliberate.

Daphne was already there.

She stood in profile, sleeves still rolled, hands moving under the stream of water in calm, practiced rhythm. The light from the torches glinted faintly on the lenses of her goggles, which she’d pushed up into her braid. Her hair was pinned back tightly, no stray strands falling loose — not even now, after the mess they'd just wrangled.

She washed like someone raised to do everything with purpose. Not rushed. Not lazy. Efficient. Rinsing, rubbing, turning. A chore repeated until muscle memory had outlasted thought.

Harry reached for the second tap. Warm water spilled across his fingers, carrying the grit away in slow swirls — earth and sap and bits of plant pulp running down the drain like memory.

The soap was sharp on his skin — mint, maybe, or some variant of dragon root. It bit at the tiny cuts he hadn’t noticed until now.

They didn’t speak.

But this silence was different.

Not awkward. Not hostile. Not even the quiet of pretending the other didn’t exist.

It was… full.

Like they were both still digesting the weight of something that had been said — and not said.

Harry caught himself glancing sideways. Not to break the quiet. Just to see.

She was still there. Still composed. Still silent.

That same calm she’d held while the vines screamed and snapped. While they exchanged clipped jabs. While he’d challenged her with questions she never answered.

He rinsed his hands clean, shook them once, then reached for the towel — old and overwashed, stiff with use. It smelled faintly of nettle oil and whatever antiseptic charm Sprout used on the benches.

As he dried his hands, his eyes lifted — and met hers.

Not directly.

In the reflection of the windowpane above the sink.

The glass was slightly fogged, blurred from inside heat meeting October air, but he could still see her watching him.

Not starring. Not expecting.

Just… watching.

There was something in the way she looked at him — not measuring, not judgmental — but like she was waiting to see if the shape of him would change now that the noise had died down.

He didn’t look away.

“You’re not like the others,” he said.

It wasn’t meant to be anything — not an olive branch, not a compliment, not a test. Just a thought, raw and half-formed, spoken before he could decide whether it was wise.

Her head turned slightly at the sound of his voice.

She looked up at the reflection, her gaze meeting his in the blurred glass.

The torches behind them cast long shadows. Their shapes looked like outlines more than people — uncertain at the edges. Unfinished.

“Neither are you,” she replied.

Her tone didn’t rise or fall. She just said it — simple, direct. Without the sharpness she usually wore like a badge. Without evasion.

Harry stared at the reflection a moment longer, searching her expression for… he didn’t know. Mockery? Disdain? The twitch of a smirk? None came.

Just stillness.

Then she turned away.

No dramatics. No farewell.

She peeled off her gloves — slow, clean motions — and laid them on the edge of the bench. Not dropped. Placed. Carefully, like everything she did.

Her fingers lingered just briefly against the cracked leather, then slipped back into her sleeves.

She glanced toward the greenhouse door, then toward the plants — still twitching faintly in their pots.

Harry didn’t say anything else.

He thought about it. For half a second, he almost did.

But the moment didn’t need more words.

She walked to the door. Her boots clicked softly against the stone floor, and her silhouette passed through the last beam of golden torchlight like a page being turned.

The door creaked open. Closed.

She was gone.

Harry stood there for a little while longer.

The warmth from the tap had faded. The air smelled of damp roots and dragon roots and silence.

His hands were clean.

His thoughts weren’t.

He wasn’t sure what had just happened — not exactly. It hadn’t been a peace offering. It hadn’t been connected. It wasn’t the start of anything he could name.

But it was something.

A thread pulled loose from the wall between them.

And for the first time in what felt like weeks, something hadn’t felt like a fight.

~HP~

The air outside the greenhouse hit colder than expected — sharp and clean, with the smell of damp stone, turned earth, and the bitter tang of autumn just past its peak. Harry stepped out into it slowly, letting the heavy door creak shut behind him, sealing away the warmth and the strange peace he hadn’t expected to find inside.

The sun was gone now, fully surrendered to the night, and only a wash of silver dusk lingered above the Forbidden Forest. A line of enchanted lanterns sparked to life along the cobbled path, each one casting flickering halos of gold that stretched long and thin across the mossy flagstones.

He flexed his fingers. The thorn scratch on his wrist throbbed faintly beneath the glove, and the cold made it sting sharper. His robes were still marked with plant sap and soil. His back ached from crouching. He felt scraped down — not physically, but like something inside him had been lightly sanded raw.

Then:

“What were you doing with her?”

The voice wasn’t loud. But it was immediate. Tense.

Harry turned.

Ron stood a few steps away under one of the lanterns, arms folded tight across his chest, eyes shadowed. His expression wasn’t angry — not really — but guarded. Uncomfortable. Like he was bracing for a fight he didn’t want to start but couldn’t stop thinking about.

Harry blinked. “What?”

Ron nodded toward the greenhouse. “I saw you. Through the glass. You and Greengrass.”

The name hung there, brittle and cold.

Harry’s spine straightened almost imperceptibly. “It was detention.”

“I figured,” Ron said. “Just didn’t know you’d been paired with a bloody Slytherin.”

Harry let out a slow breath, misting in the air. “Neither did I.”

He started walking down the path, boots crunching lightly against the gravel. The castle loomed ahead in the distance, glowing softly across the grounds.

Ron hesitated, then fell into step beside him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it didn’t matter.”

“It’s a Slytherin,” Ron repeated, incredulous.

Harry stopped short.

He turned to face him fully this time. “Right. And?”

Ron fumbled for a response. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Harry’s voice dropped. “Or do you just want me to be angry at someone because they wear green?”

Ron winced at that. “That’s not fair. I just—Slytherins aren’t exactly—trustworthy.”

Harry looked at him for a long moment, then turned and kept walking.

“She hasn’t said a word about Voldemort. Or the Prophet. Or me,” he said, eyes fixed ahead. “She didn’t flinch. Didn’t sneer. Didn’t look at me like I was about to explode. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people lately.”

Ron was quiet for a few paces, then muttered, “I’m not saying you can’t talk to her, alright? It just… caught me off guard. Everyone’s already talking.”

Harry gave a dry laugh. “They’ve always been talking, Ron. Since Cedric. Since the graveyard. Since I said he was back.”

The gravel crunched beneath their feet.

“Do you know what it’s like,” Harry said slowly, “to come back from watching someone die — from nearly dying yourself — and hear your name on every wireless, read your face on every paper, and have your friends pretend it’s all business as usual?”

Ron frowned. “We weren’t pretending.”

Harry kept walking. His voice was quieter now — not cold, just tired.

“I was locked in my room at Privet Drive like I was contagious. The Dursleys didn’t even let me have Hedwig for the first two weeks. No letters from you. From Hermione. Just silence.”

Ron stiffened. “Dumbledore said it was safer—”

“Yeah,” Harry snapped. “Safer to isolate me. Again. To make me feel like everything that happened wasn’t real. Or worse — didn’t matter.”

They stopped again near the curve in the path where the castle came into view, distant and warm and unreachable.

“You think I wanted to get paired with Greengrass?” Harry continued, more quietly. “You think I planned this? It just happened. She didn’t treat me like I was poison. That’s all.”

Ron was silent. His jaw clenched.

Harry gave a bitter huff and looked away.

“You and Hermione wrote to each other all summer. I got one note. Telling me to stay put. Like a dog.”

“That’s not fair,” Ron said again — but it came out hollow.

Harry looked at him. His voice was softer now, but not gentler.

“I’m not saying you abandoned me. I know there were prefect meetings. I know there were things you couldn’t tell me. I get it. But you don’t get to act surprised when I feel like I stopped being your friend and started being... your responsibility.”

Ron looked down at his boots. “You do matter, you know.”

Harry didn’t answer at first.

Then: “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

The words weren’t meant to wound. They just were.

The silence between them stretched, long and uncomfortable, until finally Ron exhaled.

“I’m trying, mate,” he said. “I’m not good at this. I don’t always know what to say. But I’m trying.”

Harry studied him for a moment.

Then gave a single nod. Not an agreement. Not forgiveness.

Just… acknowledgement.

And it was enough, for now.

They walked again — slower this time — the castle lights drawing closer.

Neither of them noticed the figure lingering in the shadows behind the greenhouse.

Daphne Greengrass stood partially obscured by a hedge, her arms crossed, braid catching the faint glow of the lanterns. Her expression was unreadable — not judgmental. Not surprised. Just... aware.

She hadn’t meant to overhear.

But she hadn’t walked away either.

And now, as their voices faded into the fog, she finally turned and slipped away — back down a smaller path, silent as the mist curled at her heels.

By the time Harry and Ron reached the castle steps, she was gone.

~HP~

The path had emptied long before she moved.

Daphne stood behind the low hedge near the greenhouse, half-shrouded by the curling mist and the shadow of a leaning tree. Her arms remained folded beneath her cloak, hands tucked tight beneath her sleeves, the fabric warmed slightly by the friction of her knuckles pressing together.

She hadn’t meant to stop.

She’d been cutting through the path to avoid the main corridor — instinct more than plan — when she heard voices. Familiar. Tired. Edged in the kind of honesty people only allowed themselves when they thought no one else was listening.

That tone — not the words, not yet — had rooted her in place.

So she stayed.

Just long enough.

The lanterns behind her flickered in the rising fog, casting shapes that danced in and out of focus. The warm light blurred through the mist, making silhouettes seem further away than they were.

Now, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are gone — two fading outlines swallowed by the weight of the night and the promise of castle stone. No more voices. Just the hush of settling air and the distant creak of a door shutting behind them.

Daphne exhaled, quiet and steady.

It wasn’t eavesdropping. Not really.

She hadn’t moved toward them. Hadn’t leaned closer. She had simply… paused. And the world kept talking around her.

Enough was said that even without trying, she understood.

It hadn’t been a fight.

It had been a fracture.

Hairline, maybe. But deep.

Daphne stood still for another moment, letting the silence settle back in. It felt heavier now — not uncomfortable, just full. Like the pause after a revelation no one wanted to speak aloud.

She didn’t know what to make of Potter.

Not yet.

The Boy Who Lived. The Boy Who Lied. The Boy With the Headline Name and the hurricane eyes. The boy who’d looked at her across a pot of Screechsnap like he was searching — not for a weakness, but for something real.

And now this.

That voice — raw, cracked at the edges — talking about a summer of silence and isolation like he wasn’t supposed to admit it hurt.

He hadn’t said anything especially clever.

But he hadn’t lied, either.

Being looked at wasn’t the same as being seen.

She knew what that meant.

More than she’d like.

Her expression didn’t change, but something behind her eyes shifted — not sympathy. Not alignment. Just understanding. The kind that didn’t need a word to bloom. The kind people rarely noticed unless they were watching for it.

Daphne turned toward the dungeons. The path curved away from the greenhouses and slipped down into darker corners of the grounds, where footsteps echoed longer and whispers vanished into stone.

She walked without rush.

Quiet. Always quiet.

She didn’t like mess — not in her routine, not in her thoughts. Emotional clutter was dangerous. Control was safe. Clean lines. Clear roles. Rules unspoken but ironclad.

And yet…

She’d spoken up for Longbottom.

She still wasn’t sure why. Not because she liked him. Not because she cared. But because Pansy’s laugh had scraped something inside her too sharply. Like a fork dragged against porcelain.

And in the greenhouse — she’d warned Potter. Not because he needed help. Not because he’d asked. Just because she could see the outcome before it happened, and some part of her — the part she usually ignored — had chosen to interfere.

That wasn’t like her.

She peeled her gloves off one finger at a time, tucking them into the folds of her cloak.

And she hadn’t walked away from the glass in time.

She stood there, listening.

Still as a shadow.

Daphne pressed her lips together as she reached the edge of the courtyard. Ahead, the walls of the castle loomed in soft golds and browns, like a storybook illustration — a lie, if ever she’d seen one.

Whatever this was — this slow, strange gravity pulling her attention toward Harry Potter — it didn’t mean anything.

Not yet.

But she would keep watching.

She always did.