The frustration of the previous week had not left her, though it had settled into a dull, persistent ache behind her ribs. A trail of embarrassed whispers had followed her through the corridors, and the way the students looked at her felt like a physical weight against her skin. She had spent so much time building a version of herself that was strong and independent, yet a single moment of perceived weakness had made the facade crack. Now, she stood in the quiet of the library, her fingers tracing the edge of a heavy parchment stack. The silence was not empty; it was filled with the expectation of her next move.
Harry walked into the room with his usual heavy tread, his footsteps marking a rhythmic pattern against the stone floor. He looked tired, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than they had been during the last duel. Harry did not look at her immediately, instead choosing a seat at the table that was just far enough away to maintain a polite distance. He had been avoiding her since the rumours had peaked, and the distance felt like a physical gap that neither of them knew how to bridge.
"You are staring," Harry said, not looking up from his book.
"I am observing," she corrected him, pulling her chair closer to the table.
"It is the same thing when you do it," Harry muttered, finally lifting his gaze to meet hers.
He looked wary, as if he expected her to cast a spell or demand a wand in exchange for a favour. Their history was a mess of disarms and stolen magic, a cycle of one person taking and the other trying to reclaim. She watched the way his hands rested on the table, the knuckles slightly scarred and the skin tanned from the Quidditch pitch. He was always so certain of himself when he was casting, a stark contrast to the way he hesitated when they spoke.
"I am not looking for a duel, Harry," she said, her voice steady despite the fluttering in her stomach.
"Then what are you looking for? Because every time you look at me like that, a wand ends up in your pocket or a debt is named," Harry replied.
"Maybe the trades are getting stale," she said, leaning forward until the edge of the table pressed against her stomach.
He let out a short, dry laugh that lacked any real mirth. Harry was not a man who enjoyed being played, and she knew she had played him well enough times to earn his suspicion. She wanted to offer him something else, something that did not involve the clever manipulation of a duel or the sharp edge of a witty retort. She wanted to offer him the truth of her, the part of her that felt unanchored and adrift.
"A trade needs to be worth the effort," Harry said, his eyes searching hers for the trap. "You usually ask for something that makes you feel powerful, or you ask for something that makes me feel small."
"What if the trade is not about power?" she asked, her voice dropping to a lower register.
"Then it is a different kind of trick," Harry said, closing his book with a soft thud.
She felt the urge to reach out and touch his hand, to see if the warmth of his skin was as real as the tension in the air. She wanted to tell him that she was tired of the games, tired of the way she had used her magic to build walls around herself. The truth was a heavy thing, and she was not sure if she was ready to lay it at his feet. She watched him, seeing the way his jaw tightened as he waited for her to continue.
"I want to offer you a real trade," she said, the words coming out more breathless than she intended. "Something that is not a game of wits or a display of skill. Something that actually means something to me."
Harry went very still, his gaze fixed on her face. The library was silent, the heavy shelves of books standing like sentinels around them. She could see the way his pulse jumped in the hollow of his throat, a small sign that he was as affected by the sudden gravity of the moment as she was. She wanted to give him her vulnerability, to hand him the part of her that she kept hidden behind the sharp lines of her Slytherin robes.
"What is it?" Harry asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"I want to give you the thing that makes me feel most like myself," she said, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Without the armour. Without the sarcasm. Just the raw version of me, before the world decided what she should be."
Harry did not move, and for a moment, she feared she had overstepped the bounds of their strange, jagged-edged connection. She had offered a piece of her soul, a trade of substance rather than a trade of objects. It was a dangerous thing to do with a man who had spent his entire life fighting for what was real. She saw the moment the realization hit him, the way his eyes darkened and his breath hitched in his lungs.
"You want to give me your stillness," Harry said, his voice thick with a sudden, sharp understanding.
"Is it that obvious?" she asked, a small, pained smile touching her lips.
"It is not just the stillness," Harry said, leaning back in his chair as if to create distance. "It is the part of you that is actually quiet when there is no one around to perform for."
"It is a lot to ask for, isn't it?" she asked, her eyes searching his.
"It is the most expensive thing you could possibly offer," Harry said, and she saw the way he looked away, his expression turning guarded once more.
She watched him, seeing the way he struggled to find the words to accept or reject the gift. He was a man who lived in a world of loud magic and bright, flashing colours, and her silence was a terrain he did not yet know how to navigate. He looked as though he wanted to reach across the table and take her hand, but the hesitation in his eyes was a wall she could not scale.
"You can take it," she prompted, her voice a soft plea. "You can take the silence and keep it."
"It is too much," Harry said, his voice rougher than before. "If you give me that, there is nowhere for you to hide when things get difficult."
"I am tired of hiding," she said, though the lie tasted bitter on her tongue.
"I know you are," Harry said, his eyes returning to hers, "but refusing you is the only way he knows to say it."