A knock, then the door came open a fraction. The assistant stepped in, clipboard tight to his chest, eyes careful.
"Mr Wood, the President of the National Quidditch Association would like a word."
Oliver did not answer at once. He looked at the whistle on the table, then at her.
"Go," she said. "Pansy's waiting for me."
He nodded, small, contained. "Right."
The assistant stepped back. Oliver followed him. At the door he turned once, eyes finding her again, brief, uncertain, almost like a man checking if what he'd seen was real. Then he was gone.
The door clicked shut. The room held the shape of him for a second, then let it go.
Daphne picked up the whistle, set it in a straight line, and put on her coat. The corridor outside was half lit. Somewhere a shower ran, then stopped. She walked, heels quiet on concrete, and the smell of wet pitch came in through a cracked service door, clean and sharp.
The stadium opened into night. The stands were dark, the charms on the hoardings glitching to black. Wind moved the rain in thin lines across the floodlights. She tucked her chin into her collar and crossed the concourse.
She saw Pansy first.
Black coat, red mouth, chin high. The scarf at her throat shifted with the wind.
Neville stood pressed against her, one hand at her waist, the other lost in her hair. They broke apart fast, breath still uneven.
When he noticed Daphne, he nearly tripped over himself trying to look composed.
"Good evening, Daphne," he said, voice too formal, collar askew, mouth still flushed from the kiss.
Pansy turned to see what he was staring at, her smile immediate and wicked.
"Oh, relax, Longbottom. She's seen worse. And yes, she knows we shag, you don't have to leap away like you've been caught defiling the last relic of Rowena Ravenclaw."
Neville froze, colour flooding up to his ears. "Pansy…" he hissed, mortified.
She only smiled wider, slow and triumphant, like a Niffler that had found something shiny and wasn't about to let it go.
Daphne's laugh came before she could stop it, light, quick, real.
Her hand went to her mouth in surprise.
Pansy's tone softened, almost fond. "It's all right, Daph," she said quietly. "You're allowed."
The warmth stayed in her chest.
Pansy looked at her properly then, businesslike again. "You saw him?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"He is tired," Daphne said. "So am I."
Pansy inclined her head, satisfied. "Fatigue we can work with," she said. "Go home. By Floo. You look cold."
Daphne breathed in, tasted the metal of rain and old magic. The stadium hummed, winding itself down for the night. "You two go first," she said. "Before someone takes a photograph."
"Married and smug is not a crime," Pansy said, then the corner of her mouth lifted, "unfortunately."
Neville cleared his throat. "Goodnight, Daphne."
"Goodnight," she said.
They moved off together, the sort of together that had edges and heat and the promise of a fight that would end in hands on faces and clothes misbuttoned. It did not bruise her to see it. Not tonight.
Daphne crossed to the staff arch, where the stadium's exterior Floo burned low in an iron basket. She stepped into the grate. Soot rose round her shoes.
"Greengrass Manor," she said, steady.
Green flame took her. Stone and light spun, then stilled. She stepped out into the manor's great hearth, ash along her hem, heat at her back. The lamps lifted themselves. The portraits along the corridor tilted towards one another and whispered, the pleased hiss of those who had waited too long to say they had been right.
A house-elf appeared, bowed, vanished without a word. She unwound her scarf, set it on the table by the door, and went upstairs.
Her room was cool, the fire sunk to embers. She added a log, watched the charm bloom, watched yellow creep into the black, soft and slow. The window showed the willow as a darker shape against the sky. The glass ticked as it took the heat.
She washed her face, pulled on a long shirt, turned out the lamp. The room eased into a gentler dark. She lay on her back and let the quiet come.
Sleep was thin. It arrived in sheets, slid away, left her on the surface again. She listened to the house. Pipes knocked, settled. A far door lifted in its frame and sank back. Somewhere lower down a clock took up a slow count she could not hear during the day.
It was close to two when she woke fully. Not with a start, just with certainty. The sort that made you turn your head towards something you could not yet name.
She pushed the covers back and stood. The air was gentle, not from the fire, but from the steady charm that had lingered in her room for weeks now. A quiet, careful heat that meant only one thing.
He was there.
She held her breath, then let it out. The warmth stayed, steady and deliberate, like him.
She turned the handle carefully and opened the door a little, then more.
He lay on the floor to the right, back against the wall, one arm folded under his head, the other across his ribs. Shoes still on, jacket set as a pillow. His face turned slightly towards her door. As far as he could come, no further.
For a moment she did not move. The breath rose and fell under his shirt. The bruise at his wrist where the referee's charm had grazed him sat dark against skin. A damp curl lay at his temple, missed by the towel hours ago. He looked large and wrecked and careful all at once.
She went to her knees beside him. The boards pressed bone. She did not touch him immediately. The house seemed to hold still, as if it recognised the weight of a choice.
"Oliver," she said, barely above breath.
His eyes opened, slow. Not clear at once, then clear.
"Princess," he said, voice rough from sleep and the day. Not a question, not an apology, a fact.
She held out her hand.
He looked at it like a man looks at water when he has gone too long without, wary, aching. Then he set his palm in hers.
She stood, drawing him up. He came, careful, stiff, as if every part of him remembered impact. He did not step over the threshold until she tugged again. Then he did.
Inside, she let go and pointed to the far side of the bed. He glanced at the bed, then at her. A muscle in his jaw moved. He nodded.
He bent, untied his laces, slipped off his shoes, setting them quietly beside the bed before lying down on top of the covers, facing away from her, shoulders tight, like a man trying to take up less space than his body insisted on.
She stood for a moment longer, measuring the distance, then went to her side.
"Nox," she said, and the lamp died. The fire took the room, small and steady.
They did not speak. They did not reach.
The gap between them was not empty. It was placed. It existed because she had put her hand out and he had taken it, and that was enough for one night.
His breathing steadied. She found herself matching it, not quite, but close, the way you match steps on a long walk without meaning to. In, out, in, out. The mattress settled. The walls eased. The ember charm hummed the soft sound of work being done without being watched.
She kept her eyes open until the dark made a pattern, the willow in the mind, the ridiculous smear of red on Neville's jaw, the sound she had made when it left her without hurting. She let each piece pass, and when it came to the shape of his hand in hers, warm and unsure, she held that one a little longer.
He shifted, a fraction, as if testing whether he was allowed to be comfortable. She said the only word that fitted.
"Sleep."
A sound that meant yes. After a while the weight in his chest seemed to fall. The room breathed with him.
She did not touch him. She did not need to. She only turned her face towards where his shoulder would be, and let herself know it was there.
This was not forgiveness, it was not a promise, it was not everything they had lost returned.
It was small, and it was true.
For the first time in months, she had reached out instead of retreating, and for the first time in months, he stayed where she could feel him breathe.