Chapter Text
The dust motes in Room 114 drifted lazily in the afternoon sun—right up until Harry Potter sneezed and accidentally summoned something close to a miniature hurricane.
“Fantastic,” he muttered, wiping soot off his glasses. He shoved Curious Curses and Peculiar Pacts back onto the desk with the kind of resignation only a Hogwarts student could muster. All he’d wanted was a charm to organise his Herbology notes. One stuck page later, he was elbow‑deep in a ritual calling for three wand turns, a pinch of Floo powder, and an incantation that sounded like a dying kneazle.
He lifted his wand. “Nexus Conjunctio—”
The door slammed open.
Daphne Greengrass swept in, balancing a tower of Ancient Runes textbooks tall enough to violate several building regulations. She looked ready to hex anyone who dared breathe in her direction. Three steps in, she missed an uneven stone tile, tripped over her own immaculate robes, and flung her arms out.
“Merlin’s—!”
Harry reacted on instinct, swinging his wand to catch her. Unfortunately, his wand met Daphne’s elbow mid‑air.
CRACK.
The room erupted in violent magenta. A blast of scorching heat threw them both backwards—Harry crashed into a pile of textbooks, and Daphne landed squarely on top of him like a very offended, very aristocratic bowling ball.
“Potter,” she hissed, her face inches from his. “If you ever cast something that sounds like an illegal hex at my feet again—”
CLANG.
They both froze.
A glowing platinum band snapped onto Harry’s left ring finger. Another locked onto Daphne’s. Wedding bells—cheerful, off‑key, and unbearably smug—rang through the room.
A scroll of parchment materialised, unfurled, and blasted confetti straight into their faces.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEWLYWEDS!
By decree of the Ministry of Feudal Binding (Section 4, Paragraph 2), Mr. H. J. Potter and Ms. D. Greengrass are hereby joined in Holy, Unbreakable Matrimony.
Warning: Attempting removal of matrimonial bands will result in spontaneous eyebrow loss. Have a magical life!
Silence. Thick, suffocating, catastrophic silence.
Daphne stared at the ring. Then at Harry. Her expression wasn’t angry anymore—it was the hollow, calculating look of someone mentally measuring the drop from the Astronomy Tower.
“Potter,” she whispered, dangerously sweet. “What. Did. You. Do.”
“I was trying to find a spell to help with my Herbology notes,” Harry squeaked.
The parchment rolled itself up with a smug little pop and vanished, leaving behind the lingering scent of stale church incense and doom.
Daphne stayed straddling him, glaring at the ring like she could incinerate it through sheer aristocratic fury.
“Right,” Harry wheezed. “Could you maybe get off? My ribs are taking the brunt of the ‘death do us part’ clause.”
Her icy blue eyes locked onto his. “If I get off you, Potter, we are going to have a calm, civilized discussion about how you managed to activate a twelfth‑century marriage bond while doing Herbology.”
“It was a multi‑purpose chapter! The pages were stuck together with centuries‑old beetle juice!”
“Nexus Conjunctio literally means ‘bind thy soul unto the nearest breathing nuisance.’”
“I didn’t know that!”
“I am a Greengrass,” she snapped. “We have lineage charts back to the Norman Conquest. We have alliances with three continental courts. I’m supposed to debut at the Ministry Yule Gala as the epitome of aristocratic grace. And now I’m magically tethered to Hogwarts’ premier attention‑seeking missile because you thought it was a great idea to try a spell you couldn’t even read properly.”
“Hey! My eyes were watering!”
“Your stupidity is watering mine!”
Before Harry could respond, the door handle rattled.
Pansy Parkinson’s unmistakable nasal whine drifted down the corridor. “Blaise, if Draco stole my silver‑nibbed quill again, I’m feeding his owl to the squid. I think she went in here.”
Daphne went rigid.
In one impressively athletic motion, she scrambled off Harry, grabbed him by the robes, hauled him upright, and shoved him into the broom cupboard.
“Inside. Now.”
“My glasses—”
“If Pansy sees us, I will personally feed you to the squid.”
The cupboard door slammed shut just as Pansy entered.
Harry found himself wedged between three broken mops, a bucket of sentient floor wax, and a very confused toad.
“Daphne?” Pansy sniffed the air. “Why does it smell like potpourri and cheap champagne?”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Daphne said coolly, smoothing her skirt with frantic precision. “I’m researching advanced spatial runes.”
“In a room that smells like a wedding chapel?” Pansy stepped closer. “Is that confetti in your hair?”
“It’s dust.”
“It’s silver foil.”
“Pansy, if you mention this, I will hex your eyebrows off.”
After a tense back‑and‑forth, Pansy and Blaise finally left.
Harry cracked the cupboard door open. Daphne looked ten years older.
“Coast is clear,” he whispered. “You know… technically we’re bonded now.”
The door opened again.
Daphne shoved him back into the cupboard so hard he bounced off the sentient floor wax.
Pansy reappeared triumphantly. “I knew it! You dropped your silver quill. You never drop anything. You’re hiding something.”
Harry winced, tangled in a mop.
Daphne didn’t flinch. She slipped effortlessly into pureblood‑princess mode, angling her hair to hide the ring.
“I dropped a quill, Pansy. Alert the Prophet.”
Blaise sighed. “She thought you were meeting Viktor Krum’s cousin. I’m only here because she promised me a pasty.”
“It smells like a registry office,” Pansy pressed. “Are you burning incense? Is this a ritual?”
“It’s an atmospheric purification ward for Flitwick,” Daphne lied without missing a beat. “It failed. My robes smell like a church. Are you done interrogating me?”
Pansy scanned the room, found nothing, and left.
Harry eased the cupboard open again.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he said. “You lied to Pansy like a seasoned criminal.”
Daphne groaned into her hands.
“Shut up, Potter. Now help me scour every magical book in this castle before Pansy figures out what church incense actually smells like—or we’re both jumping off the Astronomy Tower.”