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The pub smelled like cider, cocktails, and bad decisions. In other words: Gryffindors.
Daphne Greengrass hovered just inside the doorway, questioning every life choice that had brought her to a 'Girls of Hogwarts Reunion Evening', undeniably one of Lavender Brown's worst inventions.
"Come on," Tracey hissed, tugging her forward. "If I have to come, you have to come."
Daphne allowed herself to be pulled along, whispering quietly, "I'm still not entirely sure why you think you have to come. You've only been dating Weasley for a few weeks."
"It's been four months, Daph." Tracey shot back. "I've met her friends, now she has to meet mine."
"So, bring Pansy. They'll all hate me anyway." Daphne hissed back as they got closer to the table.
Tracey laughed loudly. "One. You think they'd prefer Parkinson? And two. She's not my friend. You are, and now you're here, and you're going to sit and talk politely for two hours."
She wasn't opposed to meeting Tracey's girlfriend and new friends. She just preferred if it was at a polite distance with structured discussion topics and seating charts. Not over bottom-shelf firewhiskey and the kind of shrieking reunion energy that could probably be heard in London.
The women had taken over an entire stretch of tables near the back. Witch hats were strewn everywhere. Half the girls were already tipsy. Susan Bones looked like she was one bad song away from hexing a jukebox. Lavender's sequined top was fighting a losing battle with her cleavage. Hermione Granger was wearing something sensible, naturally, as she talked with Hannah Abbott and her excellent eyeliner.
"Babe!" Ginny called when she spotted Tracey. "You finally brought Daphne! I was starting to think you'd never convince her to come!"
Heads turned to look at her. She expected contempt. Or fear. Or, at best, disinterest.
She didn't expect ... eagerness. Daphne waved weakly, a nervous half-smile on her lips.
Padma Patil was the one who broke the silence. "Daphne! It's been too long! Come sit with me and help me convince my idiot sister why she should consider learning runes!"
And just like that, the spell was broken. Not with anger, or shouts. With an invitation.
She gave a polite nod and smoothed her dress as she sat down beside Padma, careful in how much she engaged, not wanting to push these women to abandon her.
She had come prepared to endure an evening of forced cheer. She had not prepared for loud, witchly bonding rituals.
"So," Lavender announced, slamming down a rolled up magazine with the same energy one might use to slap a writ of citation on a table. "Wand. Core. Compatibility."
The Gryffindors squealed. The Hufflepuffs giggled. Even the Ravenclaws leaned in with curiosity, which Daphne supposed was on brand.
Lavender unrolled the Witch Weekly spread with dramatic flair. Ginny groaned beside her. Daphne refused to react, which was difficult because the headline was: ARE YOUR WANDS DESTINED FOR EACH OTHER? with subheadings like Phoenix Tails and Dragon Hearts, and Oak-and-Yew matching cycles.
Hermione Granger made a tight noise. "This is absolute nonsense."
"Yes, thank you, Hermione," Lavender said sweetly. "But what does the nonsense say?"
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. "It says some wand cores have complementary magical resonance patterns, which some people interpret as romantic compatibility."
Parvati leaned over Daphne, tapping the article. "Well, it says here that if two people can use each other's wands, it's a sign of emotional and magical alignment."
Tracey snorted into her drink.
Daphne rolled her eyes. Loudly. Internally, she noted the Greengrass library had entire bookshelves of this sort of thing. Wand balance as an indicator for courtship, magical blending, and future offspring viability, along with records of every Greengrass wand compatibility going back generations. Complete rot.
Probably.
Hermione took a sip of her wine. "Honestly, it's silly. Harry and I used each other's wands for months. It doesn't mean anything."
Silence.
"Months!?" Lavender shrieked.
"Oh, sweetheart," Parvati cooed.
Padma choked on her cocktail. Ginny's eyebrows shot up so fast Daphne briefly worried she might launch broomlessly into the air. Even Tracey perked up.
Hermione froze, realizing too late that she had dropped a conversational exploding rune on the table.
"It wasn't... No... Absolutely not what you're implying. Stop looking at me like that!" She sputtered.
Daphne sipped her drink with the calm of someone pretending she wasn't fascinated.
"Sharing wands is intimate, Hermione!" Lavender insisted.
Hermione groaned. "It was survival! And Harry can use lots of wands!"
"Not mine." Ginny interjected. "Mom nearly cried the day she learned I couldn't use his and he couldn't use mine."
"Oh my," Tracey whispered gleefully.
Hermione buried her head in her hands. "It wasn't like that!"
Daphne allowed herself a small smirk. Chaos. Predictable. Comfortingly not at all because of her.
She truly believed that. Right up until the pub door opened and Harry Potter walked in.
He looked like he'd been blown in by a friendly gust of incompetence, hair windswept, shirt rumpled, already apologizing for an offense he hadn't given yet.
Typical.
Ginny waved him over. "Oi, Harry! Over here!"
The table fell silent in the way a predator goes silent when prey steps into a glade. The predatory gleam in Lavender's eyes was deeply concerning.
Hermione muttered. "Please, no one say anything." Which immediately guaranteed someone would say everything.
Harry reached the table and smiled in a way that made half the women swoon nostalgically. "Evening. Didn't know there was a party happening tonight!"
"Harry," Ginny said sweetly, tapping the Witch Weekly article with a fingernail painted murder-red. "We were just discussing wand compatibility."
Harry blinked. "Er... Okay?"
"So tell us," she continued with all the subtlety of a bludger, "can you really use lots of wands and it's just mine you can't, or is Hermione's special?"
Hermione audibly strangled on the air.
Potter, sweet summer idiot that he was, didn't catch anything. "Uh... yeah? If they're similar enough, or if the magic's familiar. Happens quite often I suppose." He shrugged. "Why?"
Daphne wanted to slide under the table on Hermione's behalf.
But then-
Harry reached for a wand lying near Ginny's elbow. Daphne's wand, that Tracey had held onto so Daphne couldn't apparate away early.
Before Daphne could voice a protest, he lifted it without ceremony, inspecting it with a curious tilt of his head.
"Oh, this one's nice." He said casually, like he wasn't committing her to be scrutinized for the next hour.
And then he flicked it.
A perfect, effortless wisp of magic sparked from the tip. Clean and precise, an elegant arc of water extinguished a dripping candle at the end of the table.
Daphne's stomach dropped further than Tracey's jaw.
Oh no.
Oh absolutely not.
Every head at the table swiveled towards her in synchronized, horrified, gleeful realization.
Lavender pointed dramatically. "OH MY GOD!"
Parvati shrieked. "WAS THAT DAPHNE'S WAND!?"
Hannah made a soft, awed sound, like someone watching a unicorn be born.
Hermione put her forehead on the table and did not get up.
Daphne's heartbeat hammered under her ribs. This meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. Harry Potter had always simply been abnormally good at practical magic. It was not... significant.
A traitorous sliver of her brain, which she would excise immediately if she could, quietly whispered 'He looked good doing it, though.'
She ignored the thought. Or tried to. Or failed spectacularly.
Tracey leaned over, voice wicked. "Core compatibility, Daph. Congratulations."
"Shut up." Daphne hissed, mortified heat blooming on her cheeks.
Harry finally noticed the tension. "What? Did... did I do something wrong?"
Lavender opened her mouth, ready to ruin Daphne's life forever, so Daphne shot her the deadliest glare in her arsenal.
Harry held up the wand. "Sorry, whose is this?"
Daphne raised her hand stiffly, like she was confessing to a crime. "Mine."
"Oh, sorry." He said. He stepped closer, near enough that she caught a hint of soap and wand polish, and held it out to her. The smile he gave her was sheepish and warm in a way that made her pulse stutter. "I should have asked. It's really nicely balanced though."
He said it as though he hadn't just launched her reputation into orbit.
She took the wand back. Their fingers brushed.
A faint spark jumped between their fingertips. Soft, warm, and unmistakable.
Or maybe it was just the final remnants of her sanity rupturing.
"Merlin," Tracy whispered. "You actually sparked."
"We did not," Daphne said too quickly. "Static. Dry air. It's perfectly normal."
Harry blinked at her. "Is everything okay?"
Absolutely not. She would need to commit a murder. Or never leave her house again. "We were discussing compatibility." She managed, somehow, to level her voice to neutrality.
Harry nodded, still oblivious. "Right. Cool. Well... Yours felt really nice."
Parvati looked moments from self combustion.
Daphne took the longest sip of her drink in recorded history, refusing to look him in the eye or engage with anyone, or any whisper of compatibility.
It was nothing. Completely meaningless.
Damn it all.
Parvati clapped her hands. "Since you're already here, test our wands."
Daphne could almost kiss her, if she leaned that way.
A tidal wave of excitement rolled through the group. Harry blinked like he'd been hit by a stupefy made of pure estrogen.
"Uh... sure, I guess. How?" He asked.
"Like you did Daphne's." Lavender said, winking so dramatically Daphne considered hexing her eyelid stuck. "Just a spell or two, for scientific reasons."
Suddenly there were wands being shoved at Harry from seven different directions.
He laughed. Laughed. Like it was fun for him. And took the nearest one. Susan's.
He flicked it, it sparked a bit. "Bit stiff," He noted. "Resisted the movement. Definitely not as natural as yours, Daphne."
Daphne's lungs forgot how to function.
Parvati's was next. "Good wand, strong focus, but it pulls upward." Then Hannah's. "Feels heavy. Like stirring through molasses." Padma's "Too tense, like a spring pulled tight."
Daphne contemplated if she could fake her own death.
He took Ginny's wand next. Not even a faint lumos. "Yeah, just like last time. Doesn't work at all. Like it's just a wrong match."
Then Harry took Hermione's wand. His closest, oldest female friend. This would end Daphne's torture. "Yup, this one is actually really close." Hermione preened a little, modest but pleased. "Still fights me a bit though. Daphne's didn't fight me at all."
She passed peacefully. Expired gracefully at the age of twenty four beneath an avalanche of feminine energy.
The girls squealed so loudly the barman flinched.
She slumped in her chair, certain nothing worse could possibly happen.
And then-
"Here," Harry said, almost absently, holding his own wand out. "You lot can try mine." How could he make it so much worse, so easily?
Silence.
Every eye at the table swung like a compass needle toward her.
Daphne froze. "No."
Parvati grinned. "Daphne..."
"Absolutely not."
Lavender leaned in. "Scared it'll be compatible?"
Tracey bit her lower lip. "Sweetheart, this is destiny-level research."
Hermione, traitorously gentle. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
But then, Harry looked at her. Just an open, curious expression, like he honestly had no clue what everyone else was losing their minds about.
"Just if you want to." He said. "No pressure."
Daphne wanted to tell him to shove his wand somewhere anatomically unpleasant.
But she was a little curious.
Fine. FINE. She could just try it. Once. And then quickly ascend into the astral plane.
She took his wand.
And...
Oh.
Not like this.
Magic rose under her fingers, smooth as breath. Familiar and responsive, like her own wand, but somehow warmer, like it anticipated her intent.
She flicked.
The spell bloomed perfectly.
Too perfectly.
Daphne Greengrass, who prided herself on self-control, let out an embarrassingly quiet, "Oh."
And the table detonated. Of course it did. The universe hated her personally.
The windows rattled under the sound barrier being violated.
Parvati nearly fainted. Lavender climbed to stand on her chair. Hermione buried her face in her hands. Tracey cackled herself pink.
Daphne stood there in front of what felt like the entire pub, Harry Potter's wand in her hand and her soul leaking out through her ears.
She shoved the wand back at Harry. "No. No. That... Your wand must be broken. It's broken."
Harry, his cheeks pink, rubbed the back of his neck. "Er... was that bad? Looked like it worked pretty well for you."
Daphne wanted death.
But the other girls, now wild with curiosity, began grabbing for his wand.
Hannah tried. It sputtered.
Susan tried. It gave a single spark, and then started smoking like an offended tobacco pipe.
Parvati tried. It made a weak pfffft like a deflating balloon.
Ginny tried. It refused to spark at all.
Hermione took it last, and even she grimaced. "Heavens. I forgot how much it's like pushing a cart with a stuck wheel."
And all of them stared at Daphne.
Daphne fixed her eyes on the floorboards, bargaining with them like an old friend. Please, just one tiny sinkhole.
Lavender leaned into the table, stage whispering, "Oh. My. Actual. Merlin. She's wand-compatible with Harry!"
Daphne pinched the bridge of her nose. "I hate every single one of you."
Harry's eyebrows knit together. "Is that bad?"
The witches screamed again.