(Word Count: 1,953)
Catching up to the two girls was easy. He just flew to where his horned serpents were telling him to go, and he found them not too far off. Harry perched up on a thick branch, just behind them, and transformed back.
The two girls were hiking confidently, unconcerned that they were wandering into the forbidden forest with the sunrise still about an hour and a half away. It wasn't too dark, as the sky was starting to lighten up, but there were still plenty of creatures out and about at this time. What surprised Harry the most, was that Daphne wasn't as poker faced as she usually was. She was actually smiling.
"Well, this is a surprise. I wasn't expecting to see the two of you out here," Harry called out to them.
"Eep!" They both let out a little yelp and whirled around to see who it was. They saw Harry sitting up on a branch, legs swinging, looking at them with an amused smirk.
"Harry!" Daphne scowled in embarrassment.
"Jeez, Harry! You shouldn't sneak up on us like that!" Tracey scolded him, but she was also blushing.
Harry jumped down, rolling to reduce the impact, then popped right back up to his feet. "You know, you should really keep a closer eye out walking through the forest like this, especially at this time of day. What are you guys doing, anyway?"
Daphne drew herself up, lifting her chin imperiously. Her previous unguarded self was gone, and she had her poker face again. "You should already know that it's Imbolc today. I assume you're out on a nature walk today as well?"
Harry blinked. 'Ah, right. Imbolc.'
Imbolc was the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It marked the early signs of Spring. It was a simple holiday, associated with spring cleaning, reconnecting with nature, and making resolutions for the season to come. It was also connected to the Goddess Brigid and fire, so it was common for people to have bonfires, or just candles. With any holiday, it was also common to eat a lot and dance. In modern America, this became groundhog day.
Harry just nodded as if he hadn't forgotten. "Yup. Just out enjoying the morning air."
"Do you want to join us?" Tracey asked.
"Tracey!" Daphne hissed at her quietly, but Harry could still hear.
"What? Since we're all out here, he might as well join us," Tracey whispered back.
"You know I can hear you two, right? If I'm not wanted, I can always just leave," Harry said.
"No! It's not that," Daphne quickly corrected herself. "It's just…" She scowled at Tracey.
Tracey just laughed at her friend's awkwardness. "She was hoping she didn't have to keep up her political mask today. See, look! It's already back up," She sighed dramatically.
"Tracey!" Daphne squeaked.
"Man, what are they teaching you?" Harry ran a hand through his hair. "You know you're just a first year, right? In school? You don't need to be thinking so politically all the time. At the ball I can understand, since that's meant to be political, but at school? Besides, I don't really care for that sort of stuff anyway. It's not like I'll be holding anything against you when we get into the Wizengamot."
Daphne took a deep breath, and aimed her poker face at him now. "That's just it, though. People will remember the things we do in school even years down the line. The things we do here and now will reflect on our entire political career for the rest of our life. Not only that, our actions reflect on our houses. Why do you think so many of the Slytherins fawn over Malfoy all the time?"
"I think you might be overthinking this, Daphne. Just make friends with the people you like and let the adults worry over political stuff," Harry said. "Anyway, the point is, that you can at least be sure that I won't hold it against you. Still, I can understand if you want this to be just you and Tracey. I didn't mean to impose on your plans, I was just worried to see you two out here."
"No. It's okay," Daphne sighed, her poker face dropping, and she scowled at him, a bit irritated. "You can come along. Besides, the sun's going to come up soon, and I want to get to the clearing before then. Since you're here, it'll be faster if you carry this," and she slung her knapsack at him.
Harry caught it, and easily slung it over his shoulder. It did have some weight to it, but it wasn't too bad.
"Come on, let's go!" Tracey cheered and started marching onwards. Daphne and Harry followed after.
'$Hey guys, some of you stick around us to make sure no creatures try to sneak up on us,$' Harry sent out to his snakes.
'$Roger roger!$'
"So, what did you want to do before sunrise?" Harry asked curiously.
"We were going to light some candles! Then burn away our worries and make some new resolutions for the coming spring!" Tracey said from the front. "We don't have to do it before sunrise, but if it gets too bright then the candles won't have the same ambience to them and won't look as good!"
"Yeah, it's always better to light candles in the dark," Harry nodded in agreement.
"I heard there were unicorns in this forest," Daphne commented. She seemed to be lost in thought.
Tracey squealed excitedly. "Oh! Do you think we'll be able to see one today?"
"Probably not. They're much deeper into the forest, in centaur territory," Harry said.
"How do you know? Did you see them?" Daphne asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. They ran off as soon as I saw them though. There's a whole herd."
"Lucky!" Tracey said. She was staring wondrously into the distance, imagining a whole herd of unicorns surrounding them.
"I heard they don't like boys very much. You're lucky they didn't try to gore you," Daphne said, but she sounded a bit jealous.
"Heh, you're just jealous. There was even a small golden foal," Harry gave her his smuggest smirk.
"No way!" Tracey gasped. "I'm so jealous!"
Harry looked at Daphne, and she pouted jealously and marched ahead to catch up with Tracey. He laughed to himself and trailed after them.
They didn't have to go much further, and came into a small clearing. Coincidentally, this was the same clearing that Harry used to first summon his horned serpents. Daphne took the bag from Harry and took out seven candles, arranging them in a circle. Meanwhile, Tracey took her own bag and pulled out a large blanket and spread it out onto the ground to give them a sitting space.
"Okay, we've got some candles. Here are your paper slips, Harry, though we only brought two quills, so you'll have to wait your turn," Daphne said, passing out some paper slips.
"That's okay, I've got my own pen here," Harry opened the trunk he keeps on his necklace like an amulet and summoned a fountain pen. Harry was all for maintaining some of the magical traditions, but that didn't include using some subpar writing tools. If it was an enchanted quill, then it could perhaps work, but as it was, a normal pen was far easier to write with.
They each wrote out one worry and resolution on their slip of paper, and burned it using the candle's flames.
"Do we tell each other what we wrote?" Harry asked.
"We don't need to," Daphne said quickly.
"But we can!" Tracey said. Daphne shot her another scowl. "What? Anyway, I wrote that I was worried about the tests at the end of the year, and I wrote that I wanted to do better in my classes because of it. Simple, right? What did you guys write?"
Harry looked at Daphne, but she didn't seem too eager to speak. "Well, for my resolution, I wrote that I was going to start looking into some animating charms. For my worries, I don't really have anything too pressing, so I just wrote that I was worried for my godfather, Sirius. He's not too big of a fan of politics, so I wished him luck in that."
Tracey looked at him, impressed. "Wow! You're getting into animating charms already? Isn't that a Newt's subject?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, sixth year."
They both looked at Daphne. She groaned and looked down at her hands, which were pulling at some of the grass next to her. "Alright, fine. My worry was for my sister. She's sick you see," she looked at Harry and explained. "It's a blood malediction. My resolution is to search the entire library to try and find a cure for her."
Harry didn't say anything to that, only nodding sympathetically. Both Harry and Hermione had seen her in the library often, combing through the books. In the study group, she had already made her intentions to become a mediwitch clear, but this gave the reason why. Of course, Harry had already known that, but he didn't want to say anything until she told him herself.
"You don't seem surprised. Did you already know?" Daphne asked sharply.
"Yeah," He admitted. "You should know the rumors about me already, that I'm a seer."
Tracey gasped. "That's right! You're taking divination ahead of time!"
"Yeah… I wouldn't call it a vision, but I did see Astoria in one of them. I won't say anything more, but yeah, that's how I knew. I didn't want to say anything until you told me yourself," Harry said.
Daphne turned to look at him, an almost desperate look in her eyes. "You had a vision about her? Tell me what you saw, please!"
Harry looked away uncomfortably. Honestly, he didn't have an actual vision. It was just the cursed child, and he really didn't want the cursed child to be canonical. It probably wouldn't happen anyway, what with the butterflies wings and all that. It was too far into the future to be reliable. Still, it wouldn't be good to tell her that Astoria died in that. Was she around 30 when it happened?
"Easy now… It was nothing bad, okay? She was married and had a kid. No, I won't say who she married," Harry tried to play it off.
'Actually, now that I think about it, I have a quest to cure Nagini's blood malediction. Doesn't that mean I could do the same for Astoria?' Harry thought to himself.
"But what about the malediction! Does she get cured? Will I succeed?" Daphne crawled over and grabbed his shoulders, getting right into his face.
"I don't know! That's all I saw," Harry said.
"Easy there, Daph," Tracey said gently and pulled her off of him. "If she had a kid, then that's something, right? Maybe you succeeded."
Daphne collapsed against Tracey and smiled. "Yeah. Hopefully." She looked back at Harry. "Sorry for grabbing you. Thank you."
Tracey looked back and forth at them, then pulled out some tarot cards from her bag. "So you're a seer, yeah? Do you think you can do some readings for us?"
Another common practice for Imbolc is to perform some divination readings to get some guidance for the coming season. If Samhain was the perfect time to consult the past, like speaking with one's ancestors, then Imbolc was the perfect time to consult the future.
Harry gave a wry grin. Since it had gone around that he was a seer, a lot of students had come to ask for their own readings. He usually sent them away. This time, well, it was Imbolc, so why not?