Daphne looked at it in a little awe before giving Harry a kiss. She said, "Thank you."
"You're, as always, very welcome," he replied.
After a last good night but sweet kiss, he bid her sweet dreams and headed back to the Ravenclaw tower, making it with a few minutes to spare.
Tracey was sitting on her bed in her pyjamas trying to read a novel but failing. She thought she must have read the page she was on at least half a dozen times and still couldn't remember what it said. No, her focus was on the door to their dorm from the outside hallway.
At a few minutes before curfew the door opened and Tracey was both happy and relieved to see her blonde friend walk in. She could see the girl had a grin from ear to ear, so obviously the 'date' had gone well.
"Let me quickly get changed and I've got something to show you!" said Daphne before Tracey could even ask her a single question. Tracey was just about bouncing in excitement waiting for her friend to ready herself for bed.
After she'd quickly removed her jewellery, unravelled her hair from it's bun, cleaned away the little makeup she wore and changed into pyjamas; which Tracey swore she took longer to do than normal; Daphne closed the curtains around her bed and gestured for her friend to join her.
Both girls then cast the Silencing and Do-Not-Disturb Charms on the canopy and curtains about them Harry had taught them the previous year, when they'd complained about Millicent's snoring keeping them awake.
Sitting on the bed the girls sat opposite, Indian-style. And Daphne showed her friend the mirror Harry had loaned to her. Opening it, Daphne gently whispered, "Padfoot." onto the mirrored surface and waited.
A few moments later the image changed to one of her mother, Isabel.
"Hi Mum!" squealed the girl, happy.
"Hello sweetheart!" replied Isabel. "I heard Harry planned on taking you on a bit of a date, tonight."
Tracey quickly came around and sat alongside her friend instead of opposite and both stared into the mirror.
"He did! And it was amazing!" gushed Daphne. "The best day of my life! Let me tell you what happened..."
Daphne showed her the twined roses she found that morning when she first awoke, what Neville did at breakfast - with Tracey showing off her miniature white rose - all the way through to them dressing up for dinner and how special Harry made the dinner they privately enjoyed.
Though both girls should have been asleep much earlier than when they finally went to bed properly, the girls spent almost two hours reliving how special the day was; and just engaging in 'girl talk'.
Before she signed off, due to how late it was getting, Daphne promised to send her mother some memories of the highlights of the day.
As Isabel sighed after the connection was broken, and folded the mirror back away; from where he had been listening in from out of sight, Cygnus said, "It sounds like Harry made it truly special for her."
Quickly grabbing a tissue to dab her watery eyes, Isabel replied, "Yes, he did. He really wants to allow her the experience of courting while they're at school. He's such a good and thoughtful boy."
After the excitement of Valentine's Day the school returned to normal activities. It was still bitterly cold outside but the Seven made a lot of use of the Come and Go Room.
Daphne, as she had said she would, had approached Professor McGonagall and the stern but romantic at heart professor was quite happy to permanently transfigure the twined roses. She transfigured them into a small metallic brooch with a glazed ceramic coating about two inches high. Daphne had taken to wearing it all the time on her robes
Harry was using his practicing against the target dummies as both a way to get fit, improve on his use of combat magic and cast more accurately. When he wasn't actually using the target dummies for himself, he was happily teaching the others how to do the same.
Though he didn't understand why, and left the explanation as 'because it's magic', everyone was also quite a bit faster in their movements and motion. Daphne had said his wand hand and wand almost became a blur it was moving so fast.
By the end of March they were all able to keep their magic effusing from themselves while casting, dodging and being otherwise distracted. As a result of their private training they were all becoming quite fit.
Neville was rapidly losing his lingering baby fat and both boys were becoming quite toned. The girls loved how it was making their own bodies look and were looking forward to when they would finally start to develop, as Hermione called it, 'shape'. However, Susan had already begun since before Christmas.
On hearing some of this talk, Neville leaned over to Harry and whispered, "Boobies." That had both boys blushing and sniggering.
The girls were not happy when they worked out what had the boys snickering to themselves.
Over the next half hour, both boys found themselves happy they'd spent a lot of time dodging and avoiding curses the target dummies had been throwing at them; as that training helped them to avoid a lot of the Stinging Hexes and similar the girls threw at them in retaliation, while shrieking imprecations about them being 'such boys' as they ran about the room ducking, weaving and dodging. Harry's logical argument that, as they were boys, being 'such boys' wasn't actually a bad thing, apparently fell on deaf ears.
As spring bloomed outside, Daphne had gone looking for Harry one weekend for lunch and found him in earnest conversation with the Weasley twins and a couple of the Gryffindor chasers.
As she joined them, Alicia Spinnet was singing the praises of the Cleansweep 7 over the Nimbus 2000 as a Quidditch player's broom.
"It's better at manoeuvring, it's sturdier, it's better at taking hits, it's just better," she said.
"Now, that might be a good thing for a beater or a chaser," replied Harry. "But speed is essential for a seeker. The Nimbus 2000 is a much faster broom and still excellent at manoeuvring when you need it to. And I think the Comet 260 should be the broom of choice for a keeper."
"Our Cleansweep 5s may not be as fast as the newest model," said one twin, cutting in.
"However, they're more than adequate for the job as beaters' brooms," said the other.
"Not if you wanted to press the seeker," disagreed Harry. "A seeker on a Nimbus 2000 will render that strategy useless. He or she will just out fly you if you try."
"Yes, but they'd do that against any other broom bar the Cleansweep 7," said Alicia. "Hence, why it's the better broom. It allows the press yet retains the sturdiness needed for a beater."
"Why a 260 for the keeper?" asked Daphne.
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