Draco met his eyes seriously, his voice low enough for only Harry to hear, he murmured. "Be cautious. She's incredibly perceptive. She's a pureblood so she has plenty of reasons to approach you. She's ambitious but a bit more unrestrained in how she may chose her actions since her mother gives her that freedom. I highly doubt she wants to ambush you though."
Harry just raised an eyebrow in response. Draco wasn't telling him anything that seemed to warrant this level of concern. And while he was trying to keep away from feeling or sounding arrogant, Harry had serious doubts about her able to hurt him unless she caught him utterly off guard.
Draco frowned, realizing he wasn't getting his point across, then his eyes narrowed. "Be careful with her. She'll hear much more from the words you speak than what you intend, so don't give away more than absolutely necessary. If its possible to infer something you don't want known from what you say, there's a damn good chance she will."
Harry nodded slowly and then shrugged again, "I'm sure I'll manage just fine." He headed through the door that she had just gone.
He entered the door to find Daphne alone in the middle of the room. She stood like a statue with an unreadable expression on her face as he entered the room. Harry glanced around noting, that they seemed to be in one of the numerous empty or abandoned classrooms in the school. There was a handful of desks along one of the walls and Harry could see in occasional places where the stone had darkened from spells. Harry assumed that it was from people practicing.
His perusal brought his gaze back to meet the dark blue eyes of Daphne Greengrass who was watched him silently.
After a full minute's hesitation she seemed to lose patience and slid her wand out of her robes. Harry tensed slightly as one of his own wands left his holster. If she so much as twitched her wand towards him, she would be silenced, stunned, bound, petrified, and hanging upside down from the ceiling before she finished any incantation. Instead all she did was she cast several silencing spells on the door. If she saw his change in posture when she drew her wand, she never acknowledged it. Once she was finished, she focused her gaze upon Harry again, though this time her gaze was thoughtful and speculative.
After nearly a minute of meeting her gaze evenly Harry finally spoke, "You asked to talk to me, Miss Greengrass. If all you wanted to do was stare at me, I have other things to occupy my time than to stare back."
Daphne frowned a bit at the bluntness of the comment, though it was to be expected as she had not yet spoken and had requested the meeting. She had thought out several different ways to start this conversation, and different ways in which the conversation could play out. All of her strategies would ultimately lead to the same end goal, but Harry's bluntness seemed to throw her off.
"I know you were the one who cast those wards this morning," she said, and instantly struggled to keep the grimace from her face. Whatever plans she had initially made to confront him, paint him in a corner with inconsistencies, and bargain for his aid had just been completely ruined by the blunt way she herself had shown what knowledge she currently possessed. However his unnerving directness had her on her heels.
"Oh?" Harry said in a disinterested tone. "What brought you to a conclusion like that?" Harry kept his expression bland, but was wondering what the point of announcing it like that might be.
Daphne frowned and seemed to gather herself. Her aloof expression returned as she studied Harry for several moments before she replied. "Several things. Firstly, your own room was untouched."
Harry shrugged a little bit, while he once more examined the walls of the classroom with more interest, before his attention returned to her. When he finally spoke, his voice had a tinge of surprise and disbelief in his words, "You know the exact circumstances behind my own room's lack of visitation last night? They may have simply not have had the chance. Their night's activities seemed to have been disrupted last night. That is certainly not evidence that I was behind the wards cast last night."
Daphne frowned, and leaned back against a desk. She slowly crossed her legs and simultaneously arched her back and chest forward as she spoke, her movements were calculated to get his physical interest, and to distract him. Distracted people gave away more than they intended.
After several moments she replied, "I hear things. You did not make friends last night with Bole. He doesn't appreciate it when people talk back to him."
Harry snorted dismissively. Bole wasn't even on his radar in the last world, and from what he'd seen so far, the 7th year was all talk in this world. "I don't see how you think that means that I was responsible for this morning's… entertainment."
Daphne's piercing eyes remained on his, though she was somewhat disconcerted to note that his eyes never left hers, despite her provocative pose, "You challenged him. You have a name that has every pureblood and any halfway decent student of history turning their heads to keep one eye upon you. He and his friends wanted to take you down a few pegs and teach you your place in the hierarchy."
A flicker of amusement at that thought crossed Harry's face. The idea of a seventh year trying to teach him "his place" after he'd spent years doing all he could to enrage a Dark Lord who held a grudge, and had no sense of humor. The games schoolchildren played to inflate their egos were of no consequence to him.
"Then why didn't they come after me last night?" His reply was clearly amused.
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