chapter four,
lily of the valley

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  DAPHNE IS VERY LATE.

  In all fairness, she's not exactly revered for her superb time keeping, so who can blame her for skills she doesn't have? Only the great talents and beauties of the world know the divine art of being fashionably late to just about everything — the secret is that everyone else is simply early. Besides, the mechanisms on her godforsaken alarm clock had gone all wonky ever since she hexed it in a fit of early morning rage about a week before. ( And she may or may not believe that all schoolwork is heinous and has been putting off her tutoring sessions to the best of her ability ).

Her watch tells her that it's around eleven o'clock, but it always reads a few minutes later than it should so she quickens her pace. The halls are almost completely deserted, which Daphne supposes is working in her favour because her hair is twisted into a disheveled bun at the nape of her neck and yesterday's mascara smudges stickily beneath her eyes. When she woke up a good twenty or so minutes before, she chucked on the first jumper she could find, a flowy green skirt that skims her ankles and a pair of doc martens that she had yet to break in. She's in agony!

Romeo nips at her heels, following her bouncily down the corridor with scuttling paws and a waggling tail. Daphne presumes that he's been following her about because Stevie is still sleeping in a near comatose state, but she isn't too certain on what the library's policy for animals is, so she scoops him off the ground and wedges him in her bag, the top unlatched slightly so his little brown nose can poke out. The jingling of his collar against her various trinkets still garners the unwanted attention of Madam Pince, but Daphne likes to think that she's done a fantastic job of hiding him. She throws her a smile for good measure.

  Hogwarts has a library that wasn't nearly as austerely organised or frighteningly clean as the one Daphne is accustomed to, but it still has an inviting warmth that she's grateful for. There's constantly a pungent smell of ancient parchment, and buttery light from the dusty lamps illuminates the shadowy nooks and crannies where the sun fails to reach. Wizened marble busts follow the every move of whoever strolls past, their mouths clamped down for everyone's sake whilst their eyes glare with unmistakable venom.

The details for where she's supposed to meet this Lily Evans are cryptic, and the library is designed like a fucking labyrinth, so Daphne wanders about solemnly as though she's haunting the dusty shelves. Merlin, that might just become her reality if she doesn't find her way out of the godforsaken maze she's stranded in! She shudders at the thought.

Eventually, she stumbles upon a desk that's compacted tightly against an arched window. The girl sitting amongst her own organised clutter is familiar to Daphne, flicking through one of the thickest books she's ever laid eyes on, a weathered book mark wedged in between two pages near the end — The Count of Monte Cristo. It must be a muggle book, since she's never heard of it. Cascading auburn curls rest on Lily's shoulders, tethered by little purple bobbles that are embellished with tiny charmed flowers. Her mossy eyes grow wide when she spots Daphne, a barely noticeable blush painting the apples of her cheeks.

  "What's the matter? Have I got something on my face?"

  A beat of silence flies by. They watch one another suspiciously, something inexplicably cold dulling the flustered glint on her face.

  "You're late," she says curtly, and a bit too quickly.

  "I know," Daphne breathes, slipping into her chair with a graceless thud. "I'm so sorry, but I slept through my alarm and everything was just going completely wrong—"

  "Oh, Merlin's socks," Lily groans. "Save it. I've heard that same excuse hundreds of times. Let's just get on with this."

Daphne raises an eyebrow, slinging off her bag and yanking a pen from it's front pocket. The stuff laying haphazardly inside slants to one side, startling Romeo from where he'd dozed off, his furry little head peeking out of the gap in the zipper completely. He barks, a sharp and resounding sound that echoes around the shelves. Fuck! Daphne's eyes widen, shushing him futilely as his tail thumps loudly amongst the contents of her bag.

  Her eyes widen. "What is that? Do you have a bloody crup in your bag?" She lowers her voice urgently. "Are you mental?"

  "Since when were we playing twenty questions, Lily?" Daphne snaps tersely. She's usually not so rude, but something about the way she's being spoken down to just agitates her.

  Lily squints accusatorially. "Madam Pince will crucify you if she sees that," she warns.

  "Then let's just hope she never has to find out, yeah?" Daphne grins sanguinely.

A frown, eyebrows knitted anxiously. "Oh, whatever," she murmurs, toying with her amazonite bracelet. "It's your funeral. Let's just get on with this."

Daphne bites her tongue before she can say something snide again, grappling for the Potions textbook that Lily had lobbed at her. The grandfather clock standing by them ticks away impatiently, turning minutes into hours before they can even register it. She sits and doodles on her worn jotter while everything she's being told goes in one ear and out the other, scrawling complex butterfly wings and sharp constellations across the crinkled paper. Romeo snores in her contentedly lap, paws twitching as he dreams of something more thrilling than revision, maybe pursuing a rabbit or snapping at insects in a meadow. Her magpie feather quill goes flat on the table as she peers over at the hardback cover poking out of Lily's bag, attention span going taut and snapping abruptly.

"What's that book about?"

Lily peers at her exasperatedly. "Are you even listening to me anymore?" she scoffs.

"I promise I'll pay more attention after you tell me," Daphne replies, rolling her eyes.

"No."

"Go on, Evans. I'm all ears."

She purses her lips, hesitating. "Well... alright. It's about this man, Edmond Dantés, who's falsely imprisoned just before his wedding and when he's locked away, he finds out about this big thing of treasure on the island of Monte Cristo—"

  The beginning is told begrudgingly, but Daphne notices that when she really delves into her storytelling, there's a kind of glitter that sparks in the depths of her eyes — wedged in between those layers of bright makeup and long lashes. She gets swept up in the descriptions that she constructs, her words an art form, the flow of it all coming naturally to her. The way she phrases everything is enrapturing, treating every lilting syllable with the same adoration that a painter holds for their most treasured masterpieces.

  "—and then he can get revenge on the lads that framed him all those years ago. It sounds a bit silly, really, but it's my mum's favourite book and it's very special to me," she defends, as if challenging Daphne to mock her for it.

"You don't have to explain yourself. I think it sounds wicked," she says softly.

A furious pink blossoms on Lily's face, her expression like a deer caught in the headlights before she clears her throat very pointedly and gestures to the textbook. "We need to finish going over this chapter. It's important to know it for your exams."

  And just like that, the nice moment goes taut and snaps like a strand of spider silk. Daphne's lips twist bitterly. She doesn't exactly understand why Lily keeps shrugging off her attempts to kindle some kind of friendship between them, seemingly determined to keep her at an arms length. It's exhausting!

More and more people begin to fill the empty tables around them, nosying around the different books and spoiling the ( crumbly, fragile ) concentration Daphne had once grasped in her palms. It's getting to her tutor as well, by the looks of things: her knee bouncing up and down agitatedly, the twitch of an eye whenever someone was too loud near her, the barbed glare that she shot at anyone that sashayed towards their section in search of something. Maybe it wasn't the additional distractions, perhaps it was the back and forth arguments that they volleyed in between paragraphs. Whatever the case, she decides to stop all together.

  Lily sighs viciously, wrenching her book shut with a bang. "Meet me here next week. Same time, same place. Don't be late."

  Therefore, Daphne plans on being very late.

author's note!

i just finished reading the daughter of the moon goddess by sue lynn tan and it was sooo good i loved it 😍😍 ordering the sequel rn xoxoxoxoxo

i feel like in my writing whenever i'm writing descriptive paragraphs i have to spend 90% of it talking about the light but lighting is very important imo and i will never stop!!!!!