Work Text:
A/N: I wrote 95% of this fic over a year ago, but never finished or posted it. Some time later, my good friend Namz (tpobaw on FFN/Ao3) put the finishing touches on it. Despite this kindness, I continued to neglect it. Tonight, for some reason, I decided to put the finishing touches on his finishing touches and finally post it. I hope you enjoy this short one-shot based on the old (and controversial) Dead Island trailers.
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Princess of the Apocalypse
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"You don't suppose there's anywhere left to run, do you?"
Harry shook his head, answering the question Daphne already knew the answer to.
"I'm afraid not."
From outside, the cries of the undead grew louder, and Daphne flinched. Harry pulled her into a kiss, gently covering her ears with his hands. He knew she hated the sounds the creatures made, that after all these months their sickly screams still terrified her. She sobbed into his chest through many sleepless nights with those howls as their only backdrop, Harry's voice growing hoarse as he told stories to distract her.
"So this is it?" she asked, big blue eyes welling up with moisture and becoming reflective.
Daphne's sensitivity was one of the countless things he loved about her, but the quality was a detriment when the dead came back to life.
"This is it," he confirmed.
They'd been so strong for so long, forced to be strong for each other, but even stone erodes under a constant rain.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, a tear running down her cheek. "I told myself I wouldn't…not at the end…"
Harry brushed the streak away with his thumb.
"Don't apologize, Daph. You've been brave long enough. We can let go now. Both of us."
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Harry ran through the hallways, using the Marauder's Map to guide his steps. It revealed the names of those he could still save; the ones who had run faster, hidden better, or simply gotten luckier than their peers.
He'd lost count of how many he had already escorted out of the deathtrap that was once their school. A dozen or more, but it wasn't enough. Every time he checked the map, another one of the few remaining names disappeared, scrubbed off the mortal coil and the parchment along with it.
By now there was only one name left in his general vicinity, much closer to his current location than the others. He hated making the call to choose one life over another, but when calamity struck, practicality answered.
'Daphne Greengrass'
Harry dashed down the stairs to the dungeon, taking them two at a time, hoping he wouldn't be too late to save the girl he couldn't remember speaking to once in over five years of school together.
In his haste, he forgot that the names of the dead didn't show up on the map.
"Gah!" he yelled, dodging out of the way just in time for a corpse wearing Slytherin robes to fly past him. The creature landed behind him and scrabbled on all four limbs, gearing up for another leap, but it never got the chance.
"Diffindo!"
With a sickening spray of blood, the monster that was once his schoolmate crumpled to the floor, its severed head joining it a moment later. Harry pushed down the guilt and resisted the urge to vomit; in his limited experience from the past few hours, beheading them was the only thing that worked.
He shook the thoughts from his head and lowered his wand, dashing into the Potions classroom where he had first seen the girl's name. He found her standing in the center of the room, not even attempting to hide or defend herself; evidently, she'd fallen into the 'lucky' category. She was surrounded by three of the infected, but they closed in on her slowly. They were shamblers, as he called them, not sprinters or leapers.
Three more spells sent three more heads falling to the floor, and he called out to the frightened girl cautiously.
"Are you bit?" he asked. "You can lie to me, but then we'll both be dead."
She stared at him, frozen with wide eyes and shaky legs like a baby deer. This was a pattern he recognized. She was in shock, and would need to be dragged out of the school by force. On the bright side, he was now relatively certain she wasn't bitten. With the way this girl was acting, anything that got a bite in would've gotten the rest of her too.
"We need to leave now," he said, approaching her slowly so as not to scare her. "The school isn't sa-"
"Harry!"
He only had time to process the shift in her facial expression and the sound of his name from her lips before he was tackled from behind, pushed to the floor with the inhuman strength of a sprinter.
In a maneuver he would accredit to years of quidditch practice, he managed to twist and land on his back, pushing at the thing's forehead as its teeth gnashed inches above his face. The effort was futile. He'd been caught, and he knew he didn't have the strength to break free before he was bitten. He only hoped enough of his head was destroyed before the sprinter was finished so that he wouldn't come back as one himself.
"Run," he wheezed, closing his eyes and praying that by some miracle the girl would find her legs and get out of there while the monster was still distracted.
Realistically, he knew she was doomed, but optimism was all that remained to him in his final moments.
…And then Harry waited for a death that didn't come.
It was seconds later that he finally realized the pressure on his body had lightened up, and he opened his eyes not knowing what he'd see when he did. To his surprise, the body of the sprinter lay curled in the corner, having clearly been thrown against the wall. Its head still rolled a short way next to it.
A sob from behind broke Harry out of his stupor, and he turned back around to look at the girl he'd come to save and been saved by instead. She was clutching her wand tightly in her left hand, using the right to wipe ineffectually at her face as she cried.
"She…she was my roommate," she said through her tears.
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Harry and Daphne walked down the trail to Hogsmeade, continuously scanning their surroundings for any sign of the undead. They were hoping to find some of their surviving classmates in the village, as it seemed to be the most logical place of shelter for those who had escaped Hogwarts.
"Thanks, by the way…"
He turned to look at her. She hadn't spoken much at all since their first encounter, except to tell him that she needed to find her sister before she could leave the school. At that point he'd shown her the Marauder's Map, which contained only two living names apart from their own, and she handed it back to him without another word. By the time he looked back down at the map again those names were gone too.
"Don't mention it," he said. "I figure we're even now. That sprinter would've gotten me if it weren't for you."
Her sad eyes flicked up at him. "Sprinter?"
"It's what I call the fast ones," he replied. "The slow ones are shamblers, and the ones that jump are leapers. If we discover more types, I'll name those as well."
"Why…?"
"Because it's easier to think of them as 'sprinters' and 'shamblers' than as my old classmates."
Daphne closed her mouth and didn't speak again until they reached the village.
They approached Hogsmeade tentatively, not sure what to expect. Harry couldn't imagine the entire wizarding village had been overrun in a matter of hours, but no signs of life came from the usually bustling settlement.
"Where is everyone?" Daphne asked, mirroring his thoughts.
"They could be deeper in the village," he replied, though he didn't much believe his own answer.
Disheartened by the absence of people but nonetheless encouraged by the absence of undead, they slipped through the village gates as quietly as they could. The streets were devoid of life, and even the homes and shops they peeked into were empty.
"What are you doing?" Daphne asked as Harry filled a small bag with snacks from one of the deserted shops.
"Collecting rations," he replied. "If everyone really did abandon the village, the store won't be needing these as much as we do."
"And if we find the villagers further in?"
"I'll give them back."
Daphne looked at Harry for one more moment before fishing around in one of her pockets and pulling out a small pile of coins. Harry didn't comment as she placed them on the counter by the cash register, and they both walked out together.
By the time they reached the town square, they still hadn't seen or heard a single person besides each other.
"Harry, don't you think it's strange th-"
"Shh!"
He clasped a hand over her mouth, silencing her. Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but she didn't resist.
"Do you hear that?" he whispered, glancing around.
She shook her head.
"The groaning?" he asked.
She shook her head again.
Harry took his hand off her mouth, and they continued deeper into the square without making a noise. Soon enough, Daphne could hear the sound as well; a collective vocal rumble that set her teeth on edge.
She glanced at Harry and he gave her a tentative shrug, skulking onwards and peeking around the next corner. He froze, and the stiffening of his spine told Daphne he didn't like what he saw. Against her better judgement, she moved to join him.
A breath caught in her throat and it took everything she had not to choke. In a smaller annex of the town square, dozens of the creatures stood in rows, swaying gently like some horrific approximation of a wheat field in the wind. They moaned and squeaked quietly, all staring sightlessly through dead eyes at a small orator's platform at the other end of the square. Atop the dais was one more creature, only dissimilar to the rest in the stillness with which it stood. It didn't make a sound, but there was a disturbingly intelligent glimmer in its eyes as it observed the ranks before it.
Daphne was scanning the group for a Slytherin robe about the same height as her sister when Harry gently pulled her away.
"We have to get out of here," he mouthed silently.
Before she could protest, the eyes of the elevated monster flicked up, and for a moment she swore they met hers.
They turned and ran and didn't look back until the village was far behind them.
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"Where are we going?" Daphne asked.
"London."
"Is it safe there?"
"I don't know. I know just as much as you do. But I'd bet the muggle military has contained the outbreak to some extent, if the infection has even reached them at all."
"You think it hasn't?"
"I know as much as you do," Harry repeated. "But for all we know, this nightmare could've started and ended in Scotland."
Daphne would've liked to believe that, but she was pretty sure neither of them actually did.
"And how will we get to London?" she asked.
Harry gestured to the train track they were currently walking along. "By following the yellow brick road."
Daphne's jaw dropped. "Wait. We're walking to London?"
He resisted the urge to smile at the expression on her face; it was the first one he could remember seeing on her that wasn't fear or sadness.
"Do you have any better ideas?" he countered. "The Express isn't running, we don't have brooms, and I'm pretty sure you can't apparate. I can't either, so walking is our next best option. At least if we follow the tracks, we know where we'll end up on the other side."
Daphne glanced around at their surroundings as if some better solution might fall out of the sky. One didn't, and eventually she turned back to Harry.
"But…where will we sleep?" she asked. "And what will we do for food?"
"We'll make do with what we've got. We should have enough magic between us to build something vaguely resembling a tent, and we can find food to supplement what I took from Hogsmeade along the way. It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best I've come up with."
Daphne didn't have anything better, so she continued staring at the tracks instead. She tried counting the ties for a while, but the overwhelming stress mixed the numbers up in her head.
"What about water?" she asked after a few more minutes, hoping conversation would stave off despair.
"Luckily, there are spells for that."
"Those spells aren't taught until seventh year," she said, furrowing her brow. "Even I don't know them."
"Luckily, I read ahead."
That surprised Daphne, and she told him as much.
"I skim the material and practice the stuff I think might be able to save my life," he replied. "I'm not a bad student, just a selective one."
She gave him an appraising look, and wondered—not for the first time—if she really knew Harry Potter at all.
"I suppose I'm lucky to have found you," she said.
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The nights were the hardest part for Daphne. Her and Harry had managed to develop a system of spells that constructed a makeshift tent, protecting them from the cold while maintaining a low profile, but the silent waiting wore on her psyche in a bad way. Sleep barely found her even when the day's walking left her tired enough to collapse, and the thoughts that cycled her mind in its place drove her near to breaking. It was around that time when Harry first started telling her stories.
Through the first few nights of their trip he had kept watch outside of their tent for any sign of the creatures, but he soon gave it up, telling her it was unnecessary in such a remote area. She knew he was lying though, because his eyes still shifted to the flap of their tent every few seconds. She never called him out on it.
Instead, as her body trembled and she hyperventilated, he'd tell her stories. He told her stories about his life before Hogwarts, anecdotes of his parents that he'd picked up over the years, or even just comical moments from his daily life at school with his friends. He sat on the other side of the tent as he spoke, and his calm voice soothed her frayed nerves just a little bit.
It became their routine for the remainder of the trip; they would walk in silence during the day, and Harry would tell her stories at night. He didn't stop even as panicked sobs escaped her lips, and he never mentioned them either. She was immensely grateful to him on both counts. She was almost certain she'd break entirely if either of them acknowledged her panic attacks out loud.
By the time they reached London, Daphne was almost loath to lose their routine and the tiny modicum of comfort she derived from it. But the hastily erected ramparts they saw in the distance were too tempting to ignore, and the prospect of seeing real humans again was something they both craved. Neither even complained as a soldier met their approach with a gun drawn, demanding they strip and comply with a search for bite wounds.
They only shared a regretful look when they were told they would be separated for an isolated quarantine period.
As they were guided apart, Harry promised to find her afterwards, and Daphne moved her mouth ineffectually to reply. A little noise came out, but her voice was rough from disuse and sore from the constant crying.
Fortunately, Harry got the message and smiled.
"Next time we meet, you'll tell me one of your stories, okay?"
She managed a small nod, and then he was gone.
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"You seem to be fitting in nicely," Harry said, walking over to where Daphne was folding laundry in one corner of the camp. "You look like a proper princess of the apocalypse."
Daphne rolled her eyes. "Even I'm capable of folding clothes, Harry."
The two had been at the London camp for a little over a week, and both had taken to helping the people around them where they could. The makeshift refuge consisted of a few city blocks in either direction, with armed soldiers stationed at any possible entry point. From what they could pick up from the other survivors, the military had reacted swiftly when the outbreak first reached the city, containing the infection with what they referred to as 'extreme force'. The result was an uncomfortably dense population surviving and sleeping side-by-side on one of three gymnasium floors, while the rest of London was still being reclaimed.
"I still think what you're doing is risky," Daphne said.
Harry shrugged. "They won't let me join the expedition team, so I want to help in any other way that I can. Even if that means using magic."
Pretending he had medical experience, Harry had taken to helping the old and injured, sneaking his wand out of his sleeve when he thought no one was looking. He was pretty sure some of them were catching on to him by now, but none said anything.
"They'll burn us if they find out," Daphne warned him.
"Maybe. But they all seem quite happy to believe I'm just some sort of prodigy at the moment."
Daphne shook her head, rolling her eyes again at the cocky smirk on Harry's face. She'd come to understand him well over their past few weeks together, and she knew she wouldn't be able to change his mind on the matter even if she wanted to. And despite her protests, she was proud of what he was doing, and wished she had the mental fortitude to do the same.
He must've seen something on her expression that she didn't realize she was showing, because he sat down and started folding clothes next to her.
"Everything counts," he said softly.
She leaned her head on his shoulder as she continued to work.
"Thanks, Harry."
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On the night of their second full week at the camp, whatever peace Harry and Daphne had managed to find there was shattered into a million tiny pieces.
"Harry, wake up!"
He blinked groggily awake as thin arms shook his shoulders. He'd been helping the medical team late into the night, and had only fallen asleep an hour ago.
"Daphne?" he said, slowly sitting up. "What's going on?"
"We have to leave. The camp isn't safe anymore. The walls have been breached."
Harry shot up, and the fog instantly cleared from his mind.
"What? How?"
"A 'leader'," she said frantically. "Like the one we saw in Hogsmeade. It was guiding a pack—thousands of them—through the walls. We won't be able to stop them, Harry. Not that many."
He paused, and she saw countless thoughts flicker behind his eyes.
"We have to help-"
"No!" she insisted. "Harry, we have to leave. We can try to warn everyone as we go, but we can't save them all."
Before he could reply, sirens began to blare. The people around him started to wake up, and an evacuation notice sounded on the intercom. Already, a moderate panic was beginning to build around them.
Harry shared one more look with Daphne, grabbed his things, and together they slipped out of the gymnasium.
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The two teenagers were able to flee London with relative ease; the gunshots and the screams behind them served as a terrible but efficient distraction. Without another word, they returned to the train tracks.
"What now…?" Daphne asked, not having planned this far ahead.
Harry didn't know, and a large part of him wanted to sit down and give up. But he didn't only have himself to look out for anymore, so he kept his face impassive.
"We'll head back along the tracks," he said. "Get away from the cities. There was game and forageables off the trails, and we won't have to worry about getting lost. We'll play it by ear and see if we can't catch any sign of the magical community. With any luck, they fared better than the muggles."
"So it's back to camping for now?"
"I'm afraid so," Harry replied. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Her voice was small and she shrugged. "I never did get used to having so many people sleeping around me anyway."
And they began to walk back down the tracks to Scotland, trying to ignore the thoughts of the people they had left behind to die.
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In the next month of camping, Harry and Daphne only came across one other group of survivors. They had said they were heading to Edinburgh, where a safe zone had been settled, but Harry didn't trust them. The men had the rough and tumble look of thugs, and the way they eyed Daphne made both of them uncomfortable. They continued separately from the group despite their insistence that 'kids shouldn't be left alone', and Harry had to cast a few charms before the men finally stopped following them.
Apart from that, Harry and Daphne fell into the same routine as their first time along the tracks, albeit at a slower pace. They would wander along the countryside while keeping an eye out for good places to rest, as well as streams where they might be able to find fish or other wildlife. Neither was a terrific cook, but Harry was growing proficient at scaling fish and they were easy to cook over a fire.
"Our diet doesn't have much variety, does it?" Harry observed one night.
"Maybe not, but everything tastes good when you're hungry."
"So you don't mind fish?"
She stared down at the little trout in her hands. "I kind of hate it, actually. But unless you're hiding pancakes in your bag, I'll take what I can get."
Harry raised an eyebrow at her and barely suppressed a chuckle.
"Pancakes?" he asked. "Is that what you're craving right now?"
She lowered her head and blushed. "I'm always craving pancakes…"
This time Harry did laugh, and after a moment she joined in too. It was a magical sound; the first one he remembered hearing from the girl. He passively wondered what he might have to do to hear that laugh again.
"Well, we don't have much to work with other than fish around here, but let's add pancakes to our list of long-term goals for now."
"I think we have more important things to focus on than pancakes, Harry…"
"You don't sound very convincing with your mouth watering."
"It's not watering!" she protested, wiping at her mouth with her hand just in case. "It's…it's…it's just because of the fish!"
At that moment, they both simultaneously looked at the fish in her hands, slightly charred and with its disgusting little head still intact, and they broke out laughing once more.
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For what felt like months but could've been more or less as they quickly lost track, Harry and Daphne roamed the countryside with nothing but their meager belongings and each other for company. There were still moments in the evening where the reality of their situation came crashing down on Daphne and she felt frozen to her cot, but Harry was always there to tell her stories and distract her.
Sometimes, when Daphne was feeling brave, she would shimmy over to his side of the tent and squeeze his hand while he spoke. He never complained, nor did he push for anything more. On her good nights she would tell Harry stories as well, taking him through the highlights of her rather boring life from infancy to present. Her little anecdotes were banal compared to many of his more adventurous tales, but he always seemed excited to hear them nonetheless, and she liked telling him about herself.
They were hovering around an area with a bountiful river and good visibility of the surrounding region when they finally encountered life again. Until then, they had been skillfully ignoring the pressing question of what to do next, but the intention of rejoining society had always been in the back of their minds. So when they stumbled upon a small hut in the nearby woods that showed signs of magic around it, they felt greatly encouraged.
"Hello?" Harry called, stepping into the small yard where crops were being watered by animated watering cans. "Is anyone home?"
A few moments later the front door opened, and a familiar man neither he nor Daphne were expecting to see walked out.
"Harry Potter?" Professor Flitwick stared at him disbelievingly. He peeked around Harry's shoulder and spotted Daphne. "Along with Daphne Greengrass…did you come on the train?"
Harry shook his head, and Daphne moved to stand beside him.
"We've been wandering along the tracks for a while now, but we've never seen the train," he said. "I didn't even think it was still running."
Flitwick let out a tiny sigh, and Harry saw the last glimmer of hope die in the man's eyes.
"I don't believe it is," he said. "But that leaves a cabin full of students unaccounted for."
Harry and Daphne shared a look.
"What do you mean, sir?" Daphne asked. "Do you know where the rest of the students are?"
He nodded solemnly.
"I'm afraid they're in front of me right now."
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The three of them sat around a small table in Flitwick's hut, each holding a steaming cup of tea. None of them drank from it, simply holding it to warm their fingers and give their shaking hands something to hold on to.
"Within the first hour of the outbreak at Hogwarts, I led a large group to evacuate the castle. It was the arrangement I made with the other professors; they would get the students out, and I would keep them organized on the other side." Flitwick raised his teacup, as if debating taking a sip, but put it back down a moment later. "The system seemed to work for the first few batches, but I lost contact with my colleagues soon after…most of the students that came to me after that said they were escorted by Mr. Potter here."
Harry couldn't bring himself to feel any sense of pride from that statement. The man's earlier words still weighed heavily on his mind.
"But what happened after that?" he asked. "When me and Daphne left the castle, there was no one in sight as far as we could see. Where did everyone go?"
"A few from my group had relatives in Hogsmeade, and parted ways with us the moment we cleared the school grounds. At the time, I thought it was a good idea…but when I returned to the village a few days later it was-"
"Overrun," Harry interrupted. "It was the first place we tried after escaping the castle."
Flitwick nodded gravely. "In hindsight, it became clear that Hogsmeade's first encounter with the plague was in line with Hogwarts'. The students were likely walking into a village that had already been evacuated and left with nothing but infected."
"Sir?" Daphne spoke up tentatively. "By any chance, was my sister in that group? The one that went to Hogsmeade?"
He shook his head, finally taking a slow, regretful sip from his teacup.
"Astoria was in the second group; a dozen or so students who took the Hogwarts Express back to London. The station was clear and the train was running, and once more, I saw no reason not to let them go."
Daphne's body slackened as the man spoke, and Harry reached over to squeeze her hand. Her fingers were limp in his grasp, and he was startled to notice how cold they felt. They'd travelled the tracks end to end and not spotted the train once. If it ever reached its destination of London, it had disappeared some time after, leaving its passengers in a city with a month left to live.
"And…what about the remaining students?" Harry asked eventually. "The ones that followed you?"
Flitwick stared into his cup for over a minute before replying.
"We set up camp in the hills while I tried to get in contact with the authorities. Governments were dropping every day, and after a week I decided we'd be safest staying where we were. It went well for a few months, with our pooled magic and knowledge meeting our basic necessities of food, shelter, and water, but towards the end we started to come under attack from the infected." He shivered as he lost himself in the memories. "At first it was just a few, like they were testing the waters. We had a diligent rotation on the night watch, and we were able to defend our little camp for the first week with ease. But then they came in larger groups, with the fast ones and the strong ones as well. We had no clue where they were coming from or how they found us, but night after night they assaulted our makeshift fortress relentlessly. It was as if they were led there by someone, or something, but I still don't know what it could've been…"
The man fell into silence again, and Harry had to urge him to continue. He knew where the story was headed, but he needed to hear it for himself.
"We were finally overrun about a month ago," Flitwick said, his voice quiet now. "Some of the infected were impervious to spell casts, and we didn't know how to handle them. We had nowhere else to go, and I was the only one who could apparate. I stayed until the end, trying to fight…but eventually I had no choice. I came here, setting up a place to live by the train tracks, hoping that one day the Express would reappear…"
Harry let him sit on that thought for a moment before asking the question that had been on his mind since the beginning of the story.
"Were…were Ron and Hermione with you, sir?"
He nodded, so faint it was almost imperceptible, but Harry caught it immediately. He felt Daphne's eyes flick to his face, and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He could tell she was waiting for something, some kind of reaction from him, but he showed nothing.
There would be time to grieve later.
"So what now?" he asked instead. "Do we have a plan?"
Flitwick shook his head. "There's no plan, Harry. There's nothing left."
Harry's face threatened to drop at the hopelessness in the man's voice, but Daphne was still watching him so he held it in.
"Feel free to stay here as long as you wish," the man said eventually, pushing himself off his chair. "I won't be needing it anymore."
He said his final goodbyes and retrieved his wand from a nearby table.
"Wait. Where are you going?" Harry asked with a frown.
"I'm leaving," he replied with a sad, empty smile. "As I said, there's nothing left."
And with a flick of his wand, Filius Flitwick was gone.
0 - 0 - 0
That night, Daphne cried harder than usual. As if the day's revelations had hit her all at once, the moment the sky began to darken she started to bawl into Harry's arms, sobbing uncontrollably in a way that made him want to break down as well. But he didn't, because he was more afraid of facing his feelings than facing the horrors of their new reality.
"What are we going to do?" Daphne asked as she cried big ugly tears. "What can we do? Harry, we're on our own…"
He led her to the small bed in the corner of the hut and sat her down. He didn't answer her question, since he didn't have an answer in the first place, but he whispered nothing and rubbed circles on her back in an attempt to calm her down.
"It's okay, Daphne. I'll figure something out. We're safe here, for now. Get some rest, we've had a long day."
Eventually her weeping tapered into a gentle shaking, and Harry continued to whisper empty words of comfort until she finally fell asleep.
Only then did he allow a couple tears of his own to fall down his cheek.
0 - 0 - 0
Daphne woke up the next morning and instantly regretted it. There was a moment between sleep and consciousness where she almost forgot all that the world had become, and as her head cleared, the memories returned like countless bricks on her shoulders. Society had fallen, her friends were dead, and her sister vanished. When they finally found hope in the form of Professor Flitwick, he too had abandoned them. There was nothing left.
"Are you up?" a cheery voice called out to her. "Good! I think you'll like what I found this morning."
Daphne turned her head to see Harry standing in the hut's tiny kitchenette, holding a pan over a magically conjured flame. She rubbed her eyes, trying to see what he was doing.
"Are those…what I think they are?" she asked.
He smiled. "Yup! The pantry is stocked. I saw everything we needed to make pancakes and figured we deserved some."
Daphne was so shocked by Harry and the pancakes that she almost forgot about her troubles for a moment.
And that was enough for her.
She joined him in the kitchen, and after casting a few spells to freshen up, took the only risk she had left to take and pulled him into a kiss that lasted long enough to hurt. It was their first kiss, but it wasn't their last, and by the time they separated the pancakes were already burnt. They were still the most delicious pancakes either of them had ever eaten.
"What do we do now?" Daphne asked once they were finished. The question still felt like a weight, but it no longer felt like she was carrying it alone.
"I don't know," Harry replied honestly. He gestured to their empty plates. "With this done, we've crossed off the only item on our to-do list. We can do whatever we want now. We could hit the road, go back to wandering…or we could just stay here. I don't think it matters much either way."
"...I don't think it does either," she agreed.
Words passed unspoken between them as they cleaned their plates and washed up from breakfast. They unpacked their belongings and settled into the hut, knowing it would likely be their final home. They were tired of traveling, tired of dreaming, and tired of not knowing what came next. A house with a garden not too far from a lake sounded like the perfect place to end their journey.
And ultimately, the only thing left that mattered to either of them was each other.
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Harry and Daphne were afforded a month of peace before the undead finally found them. It started with just one or two, as Flitwick had said, and Harry dispatched them without telling Daphne. But a few days later more arrived, and unfortunately, she saw them first. The wards around their hut held strong against the half-hearted assault, but not before giving Daphne a terrible fright in the garden. Even though the wards extended out in a generous perimeter around the property, she stopped watering the flowers after that.
Two weeks later and their number grew too great for Harry to handle alone. He instead drew the curtains across every window in the hut, trying his best to forget what lay beyond them. It didn't work; the ranks of undead were burned into his mind like a tattoo. Flitwick's wards were strong, but even they had their limits. An ocean of hungry, lifeless husks shuffled in place around them, moaning and groaning and waiting for that moment of weakness when they would inevitably be let in.
Daphne tried to take a deep breath, but it caught in her throat halfway through.
"I'm scared," she whispered.
Harry cupped her cheeks in his hands. She'd been crying again, ever since the first one had appeared, and he was running out of stories to tell.
"Me too."
Daphne let out her breath and leaned into Harry's chest. The wails from outside were getting louder, more excited. The wards were growing weak and they could sense it. Harry and Daphne could sense it too.
"I'm…I'm glad it was you," she said, looking up at him. "I want you to know that. I'm so, so glad it was you."
He pulled her in closer, feeling her warmth. He couldn't find the words, but there was agreement in his embrace. Whether by fate or coincidence, they'd found each other right at the end. The time they'd had together was bitterly short, but it was also more full than either of them could have ever expected.
"I'm sorry it has to end like this," Harry said.
Daphne raised her head and kissed him, slowly and gently.
"Don't apologize. I was never your responsibility." She smiled. "I'm just glad you took care of me anyway."
"I'd do it again," he replied without hesitation. "And I will."
Daphne's smile persisted. "Then…would you tell me a story?" she asked. "One last time?"
The fragility of that smile made Harry's heart ache, and he swallowed heavily. "What kind of story?" he asked.
The groaning from outside grew louder and more excited and they felt another crack in the wards. Daphne flinched, and her eyes instinctively flicked to the window. She looked back towards Harry with a brave face, but he could see that she was trembling.
"One with a happy ending."
Harry didn't have any more stories to tell; had long since told Daphne everything there was to know about him. From his earliest memories to his final years at Hogwarts, there was no piece of him he wasn't willing to uncover for her. By now, there was only one story left, and it was the only one that mattered.
"There was once a little boy," he began, his hands running down her back, "who grew up searching for love. He never found it at home with his family. Never found it in school, or anywhere else he might've thought to look."
Daphne choked down a sob and Harry held her tighter.
"That little boy turned into a teenager and made friends, and even found people who cared for him, but he still never knew love. He began to convince himself that he would never find it. That he didn't deserve it. He began to believe what his family told him growing up."
There was a sound akin to shattering from outside as their wards began to crumble, but Harry didn't stop talking.
"Then…some stuff happened, and somehow he wound up alone with a classmate he had never actually spoken to. He saved her life and then she saved his, and then they did that over and over again. They kept doing that until eventually they couldn't do it anymore."
The noises from outside were crescendoing into a fever pitch, and Daphne buried her face into his chest.
"How is this a happy ending?" she asked.
Harry kissed the top of her head. "Because at the end, he did find love."
Daphne looked up at him, brilliant blue eyes shining in the soft light of their little home. It was the first time he had used that word, but he knew that he meant it.
"I love you, Daph," he said.
"I love you too, Harry."
Her arms snaked around his neck and she pulled him down for one last kiss. It was long, and relaxed, and it didn't care about the monsters that lingered just outside their door. Nothing else existed in that moment.
Just them.
Then the final wards shattered, and exalted screams sounded from outside.
Daphne pulled herself away from him. "I don't want to become one of them," she said. Despite her fear, her voice was defiant, hard.
"And we won't," Harry replied. "Whatever comes next for us, it won't be that. And, maybe…"
They heard the first body thud against the hut.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe I'll find you again."
"I'll look for you," she promised.
"Good." Harry wiped the last of the tears off Daphne's cheek. "And next time we meet, you'll tell me one of your stories, okay?"
She nodded resolutely.
The panes of glass began to crash around them as the first of the creatures broke inside. The door splintered, and more still flooded in. Harry held his wand up, the tip of it glowing.
"I love you, Daphne," he said, one final time.
"I love you too, Harry."
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A great pillar of fire rose from the Scottish countryside, killing everything in its radius and painting a picture of destruction for leagues in every direction had anyone been around to see it.
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Fin.