Chapter Text
Dear Harry,
I have been watching you for a while. Now don’t take this the wrong way, but after seeing you getting entered into this tournament I have decided to take a chance and reach out. No, I do not believe that you entered into this tournament on purpose. I am very good at reading people and could see in your expression that you did not choose to be in this tournament. Now you may be asking why I even sent this letter instead of speaking to you in person. The honest answer is that I couldn’t. Not for lack of courage, but because of the complicated nature of the world in which we live. You’re who you are and I’m who I am. A conversation in the hallway would raise questions neither of us needs to answer at this time.
Instead, you’ll receive a letter from someone with no ulterior motive or agenda with no interest whatsoever in adding to the chaos of your year.
Just someone who thought you deserved to know that not everyone has settled on what they think of you.
I hope that counts for something.
Regards,
Harry set the letter down on his desk and didn't even know what to say. Somehow it had left him more speechless than his name getting pulled out of the Goblet last night, which was saying something, considering he'd spent most of that evening being interrogated by angry adults while the whole school decided he was either a cheat or an attention seeker.
He picked it up and read it again. Slower this time.
He glanced around. Ron was still asleep, one arm hanging off the edge of his mattress. Neville was gone already. Nobody was there.
He folded the letter carefully and tucked it into the front pocket of his robes. He wasn't sure why, he just knew he wanted to keep it close. He assumed this was written by a Slytherin just by how they wrote and the fact that they wanted to keep their identity a secret. He figured he should probably tell Hermione about this so she could help him figure out if it was just a prank from Malfoy or if it was actually an honest letter from a possible ally or even a friend…
He walked down the stairs and saw an empty common room except for Hermione sitting on a couch by the fire. Waiting for him, and she didn’t look happy.
"You're up early," Harry said, even though he knew she wasn’t just there by chance
Hermione looked up from the book in her lap "I wanted to talk to you before breakfast. We need to talk about last night."
Harry sat down in the armchair across from her. "I didn't put my name in, Hermione."
"I know," she said quickly. A beat too quickly. "I know you didn't. I just think we need to be smart about this. There are rules, Harry, magical contracts once your name came out of the Goblet there was no taking it back, which means whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing and we need to figure out–"
"Hermione." He stopped her. "Do you believe me?"
She paused for a second before resuming her rant "Of course I do. I'm just saying we should approach this logically and–"
“Save it, I understand” He interrupted her “I am hungry, so I am going to go to breakfast now. Please just let me eat in peace, and then I will talk with you later”
She watched in shock as he walked out of the common room and started to head down to the great hall.
As he walked into the Great Hall he saw a group of Slytherin girls sitting at their table but ignored them as he walked to his table and sat down. The Hall was quieter than usual for a Friday morning, or maybe it just felt that way. A few Hufflepuffs shot him dirty looks from across the room. He ignored those too.
He loaded his plate without really thinking about it, pushing eggs around more than eating them. The conversation with Hermione sat uncomfortably in his chest. I know you didn't. Her pause said everything she didn’t.
Almost without thinking, he reached into the front pocket of his robes and pulled out the letter. He smoothed it flat against the table beside his plate and read it again for the third time that morning.
Just someone who thought you deserved to know that not everyone has decided what to think of you.
He stared at that line for a long moment.
He didn’t notice the glares coming from the Slytherin table. Didn't notice Pansy Parkinson's eyes narrowing as she nudged the girl beside her. Didn't notice the whispers rippling down that end of the bench.
But one girl at the Slytherin table wasn't glaring at all. She had gone very still, her fork paused halfway to her plate, her eyes fixed on the folded parchment in his hands with an expression nobody around her noticed.
Harry wasn't a hundred percent sure why he didn't tell Hermione about the letter, but he figured it had something to do with the fact that she didn't seem to fully believe that he had no idea how his name got into the goblet. She hadn't said it out loud,
Hermione was too careful for that, but he'd seen it in the short pause before she answered him.
It shouldn't have bothered him as much as it did. Hermione was his friend, and at least she hadn’t left him like Ron had. She was still ready to help, but still doubtful. Somehow that made it worse. Because if Hermione, who knew him better than anyone,
doubted him. Then what was the point in telling her about a letter from someone who had no doubt in him at all
Whoever had written the letter didn’t need proof to believe him. They'd just said they believed him and offered their friendship.
He picked up his fork and actually started eating for the first time that morning.
After breakfast, he decided to sit down and draft a reply to his unknown correspondent.
Dear,
Thank you for your letter. It feels nice to know that at least one person actually believes me. For what it's worth, you're currently ahead of roughly the entire school, including one or two people who should probably know me better by now. So whatever your reasons for writing, I want you to know it meant a lot.
I don't mean to be nosy, but I have a couple of questions if that's alright.
I'm assuming you'd rather not just tell me your name, and that's fine. But would you at least let me guess? I'm not going to push if you'd rather I didn't, but I'd like to have some idea of who I'm talking to. It feels a bit strange writing things onto parchment for someone who's completely anonymous. Especially when you know exactly who I am.
Also, and this is the part where I'm probably being too honest, how long have you been watching me? You said you could tell from my expression that I hadn't chosen this. Most people in that Hall last night had just decided I was a liar and a cheat.
Anyway, I hope this finds you well,
Harry
Daphne Greengrass was feeling incredibly nervous. She had had one of the Hogwarts house elves deliver her letter onto the desk of none other than Harry Potter and was just hoping he would hear her out.
It had seemed like a reasonable idea at two in the morning. Most of her ideas were done at two in the morning, which was why she didn't usually act on them. But something about watching him walk out of the Great Hall the night before, shoulders tense, completely alone in a crowd of people who had already decided he was a liar and a cheat, had made her put a quill to parchment before she could talk herself out of it.
And then she had seen him at breakfast, sitting at the Gryffindor table with the letter beside his plate, reading it with an expression she couldn't read from across the Hall. Pansy had said something beside her that she didn't care to pay attention to.
She had been watching him for years. Since their second year to be precise. She had seen how he had been shunned by the entire school, but unlike her housemates, she could tell he was telling the truth. Just like how she could tell he didn't want to be part of this tournament, even before he could fully comprehend that his name had come out of the Goblet.
She had had a crush on him for almost as long.
It was not something she advertised. Daphne Greengrass did not advertise anything, least of all something as inconvenient as developing feelings for a Gryffindor, and The Boy Who Lived at that.
She had managed it for years. Watching from a distance, telling herself it was nothing, that she was just an observant person and he was worth observing. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation and she had almost believed it.
Then the Goblet had spat out his name and she could tell immediately that the whole school would turn on him overnight and something in her chest had felt different in a way that was very difficult to explain as just observation.
So she had written the letter. And now she was walking back to the Slytherin common room trying very hard to look like someone who had not just done something completely insane.
She was reasonably certain she was failing.