Daphne squirmed under him, his surprisingly muscular body pressing down against hers, trapping her with his weight and pressing her into the mattress.  That somehow only made her more desperate for him, and as his lips trailed hot kisses down along the slender column of her neck, she swore she felt like she was on fire.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, nibbling on her earlobe. “I should have noticed you years ago.”

He nipped at her pulse point, and Daphne gasped, making him chuckle as he moved up and smiled down at her.  Cupping her cheek, he stared into her eyes, and she wondered not for the first time, how she’d never noticed just how gorgeous his vibrant green orbs were.  He pressed his heavy length against her core, the sheer size of him making her breath hitch, and she nodded, wanting him inside her more than she’d ever wanted anything in her entire life.

“Do it,” she breathed. “Fuck me, Harry.”

Daphne woke with a gasp, sitting up in bed and staring out at her dark room in mortified shock.

“What in Merlin’s name is wrong with me?” she thought to herself, the memory of her sex dream replaying in her mind over and over again.

With a huff, she got out of bed, fully intending to go splash water on her face, but as she walked, her thighs brushed against each other and her knees almost buckled as she felt her insides clench pleasurably.  Her eyes went wide as she stared down at herself, her brain catching up to what that meant slowly as she desperately hoped she was wrong, but when she pulled her nightgown up, staring into her full-length mirror, and noticed just how see-through her simple white panties were, any hope she had of denying the truth disappeared instantly.

“I’m not just wet, I’m soaked,” she thought to herself, grinding her teeth together, and she glared at her own pussy in the mirror. “Get ahold of yourself damn it!”

A voice that sounded suspiciously like her sister’s giggled in the back of her mind that she could do just that, if only to relieve the pressure, and she scowled at the thought.  She wasn’t some wanton whore completely incapable of controlling herself and she wasn’t about to demean herself by going back to bed and rubbing herself raw until she cried, certainly not while the image of a specific, very annoying green-eyed wizard was still firmly locked in her mind.

“Stupid Potter,” she thought to herself, scowling. “I was never like this before he stumbled into my life.  Stupid Potter with his stupid, surprisingly strong body, and his stupid gorgeous eyes, and his stupid, positively equine...don’t go there.”

She clenched her eyes shut and barely resisted the urge to grab one of her pillows and scream into it.  It had been a week since the date that completely ruined her ability to think straight and she still found her mind drifting back to it again and again.  She’d stuck her foot in her mouth, she knew that, and the fact that Potter truly hadn’t known who she was until she screwed up continued to annoy her deeply, but that was nothing compared to what the memory of how the date ended did to her.

Why she’d actually taken him into her mouth, she still couldn’t say.  The cold, logical part of her wanted to insist that it was just a purely practical thing; that wanking him was taking annoyingly long, and she knew he’d cum in seconds once he felt her mouth around him, but she couldn’t shake the idea that it was a lie.  That entire episode had been the single most arousing moment of her life, and by the time she sank to her knees and felt the weight of his thick cock on her tongue, she’d been hotter and wetter than she could ever recall being.

Every aspect of sucking his cock, from the feeling of him on her tongue to how she’d needed to stretch her lips around him because of his girth to the surprisingly clean, pleasant taste of him to how he’d looked down at her to how he’d sounded as she sucked him off, had been intoxicating for reasons that she couldn’t begin to fathom and really didn’t want to think about, not that she was having much luck stopping herself.

“I can’t fancy him,” she thought to herself. “It would be bad enough in general, given everything, but with the Dark Lord around and his victory seeming all but inevitable this time around, I’d be signing the death warrants of myself and everyone I hold dear if I actually developed feelings for him and acted on them.”

He was good-looking; she could acknowledge that, and there was something undeniably alluring about his general intensity.  She hadn’t noticed it in the moment, but the way he looked at her when she slipped up and mentioned his name had made her heart flutter for more reasons than one.  It was an attraction, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing that needed to have any impact on her life whatsoever.

“I haven’t seen him since that night and probably won’t see him again until Hogwarts,” she thought to herself, trying to take comfort in the thought. “Once we’re there, I’ll just need to find a way to subtly inform him that breathing a word about what happened would be very bad for his health, and then we can both go on with our lives.”

She’d continue her studies, graduate, and be married off to whoever her parents decided would be most advantageous, and he’d muddle on until the Dark Lord got him.  That particular thought was...unpleasant, but some things were inevitable, and she’d not been raised to be the sort of person who dwelt on impossible fantasies.

“Just carry on and those dreams should piss off in time,” she thought to herself, pulling her nightgown up over her head and walking into her bathroom.  As she drew a bath for herself, figuring that she might as well start her day, she pulled her panties down and tried to ignore the fact that she had to physically peel them off of her slick nether lips.

She bathed quickly and went downstairs, finding, to her surprise, that her parents and sister were all seated together in the kitchen, eating together.  Family meals, when they happened, tended to be restricted to the evening, and the sight of them all together made Daphne instantly wary.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, her eyes going straight to Astoria, who shook her head. “It’s not her, at least.”

“We’ve barely seen you over the past few weeks,” Cyrus said flatly, and Daphne barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she grabbed a fresh basked scone from the table and sat down.

“I’ve been busy,” she replied.

“Daphne, we understand that you’re upset, but given the state of the world, spending all your time outside of the manor is more than a little inadvisable,” Anastasia said diplomatically. “Where have you been going anyway?”

“I’ve been working,” Daphne replied as she finished buttering her scone, and both her parents looked at her curiously.

“Working?” Cyrus asked.

“Yes, you know, performing tasks for money,” Daphne replied dryly, and his eyes narrowed.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Cyrus muttered warningly.

“I hadn’t heard that you were seen working anywhere,” Anastasia said. “I commend you for that, as people would talk, but...where have you been working?”

“In a muggle establishment,” Daphne replied, forcing herself not to smile as both her parents’ jaws dropped.

“A mugg...have you lost your mind?!” Cyrus exclaimed.

“Hardly,” Daphne scoffed. “You cut me off; I needed money, and I couldn’t exactly be seen working for it in our world, lest people start to wonder if we were having financial difficulties and start asking uncomfortable questions, so I looked further afield.”

“You were just about to point out that Daph being seen working would be bad for us,” Astoria chimed in, looking at her mother, who scowled.

“Daphne, that’s inappropriate,” Cyrus muttered. “What are you even doing?”

“It’s a muggle pub, not unlike the Three Broomsticks,” Daphne replied, half-lying. “I take peoples’ orders and bring them their food.  Is it a little below my station, yes, but no one there knows me and no one I know would be caught dead in the place, so it’s an easy way to earn some coin without making people wonder why the heiress of House Greengrass suddenly needs to work for a living.  Our businesses are doing well enough, so they’d know it’s not that.”

“Dear, if anyone were to see you…” Anastasia went to say.

“It would be no different than if I were seen working in Diagon Alley, except that no one worth a damn goes to this particular place,” Daphne replied. “I was furious when you cut me off but I do understand why.  Certain parties need to be paid off to keep us safe, given the current state of things, and that’s left us rather strapped for cash.  None of us want the ministry looking too closely into where our money is going right now, lest they actually win this conflict.”

“I trust that’s not a threat, dear,” Cyrus said warningly, and Daphne merely smiled.

“I’m not an idiot, Father,” she replied. “What happens to this house effects us all.  As things stand, you have no reason to worry about my finances for the rest of the summer, so your initial plan can go on without any complaints from me.”

“What’s this place called?” Anastasia asked.

“The Crown Jewels,” Daphne lied, figuring that that particular name would get her fewer questions than Hooters.  It was a pub not far from her workplace, and one she’d walked past a few days earlier when she decided to actually look around the area.

“Well, that sounds relatively high-end, I guess,” her mother said, and Daphne had to bite her cheek to keep her face blank, having gotten an explanation from Darla about just what the name referred to.

“I want to see this place,” Cyrus muttered and she took a deep breath, preparing to give the explanation she’d planned out weeks ago for if it ever came to this.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Daphne replied. “As things stand now, I’m the only witch or wizard who’s been there and I’m pretty good at appearing like a muggle.  If more of us showed up, it would only increase the chance of us being caught and, again, none of us want the other nobles learning that I’m doing this.  Alternatively, you could just restore my allowance.”

“Daphne, if that is what this all about…” Cyrus growled.

“Father, I’m just working to make up for the lost allowance,” Daphne sighed. “I’m not looking to blackmail you into restoring it early or anything like that, and if you hadn’t asked me, you never would have learned what I’ve been doing for work because I’ve been so careful in keeping it private.  Mother, you yourself said that you’d heard no such rumors about me, yes?”

“None,” Anastasia nodded.

“I’m making money that doesn’t have to come from you and that you don’t need to have anything to do with in a way that no one in our world ever needs to learn about,” Daphne said gently. “I even set up runic perimeter wards on the front door that make this band on my wrist vibrate if someone some passes by it with a wand on them.”

“Truly?” Cyrus asked, genuinely impressed.

“I had to empower the runes here and then put them up individually, which was far from ideal, but it vibrates every time I pass by it with my own wand,” Daphne nodded. “If another wizard or witch comes in, I’ll know about them and slip out the back.  I promise you that I’m being careful not to get caught here.”

“Well, it seems like you’ve put a great deal of thought into it,” Cyrus muttered, his blue eyes softening a little. “I’m sorry that it came to this.”

“We all need to make adjustments at the moment,” Daphne shrugged. “Now, unless there’s something else, I should get going.”

“You start work already?” Anastasia asked.

“No, but the shops in Diagon Alley are going to be opening soon, and I’ve not been able to go shopping in ages,” Daphne grinned. “Being seen buying things like normal will also help convince people that nothing has changed for us.”

“Right, right,” Cyrus nodded as she turned to leave.  Just outside the kitchen, she heard him say, “I still don’t like this.”

“She’s being very careful about it from the sound of things, and she does have a point about how unlikely it is that she’d ever be spotted by anyone important in a muggle pub,” Anastasia replied. “I was wary too, but I think this might actually be good for her, and you were saying just the other day how nice it was that she hadn’t continued bothering you about money after our conversation with her weeks ago.”

“I had started to wonder about that,” Cyrus murmured.

Daphne smiled to herself and left, convinced that she’d handled that about as well as she could have.  It was inevitable that her parents were going to start wondering where she was spending her days and also why she wasn’t continuing to pester them for money.  She was rather used to getting her way, a consequence of how she’d been raised, and they were always going to find it suspicious that she didn’t try to get them to change their minds, something she didn’t have the time or inclination to fake.

“I figured if it just made clear that I was taking this seriously, being careful, and that my working would ensure he didn’t need to hear from me, that would work,” she thought to herself. “Now I just need to stop by Diagon Alley first in case they have me followed.”

Under no circumstances did she want her family to find out where she was working, especially after learning that not all muggle establishments were like it.

*****

“How the hell did I never notice her?” Harry thought to himself, far from the first time, as he walked over to Hooters.

Daphne Greengrass wasn’t just hot; she was stunning, and the fact that someone that beautiful had been in the same year as him for five years and he’d never realized it was bizarre.  He knew he could be a bit thick when it came to girls, and her being in Slytherin wouldn’t exactly help matters, but still...she was so fucking hot.  It had been a week since that day, and he’d wrestled with himself about whether or not to return.  On the one hand, he’d gotten his cock sucked for the first time in his life, and he wanted more of that almost as much as he wanted Voldemort dead, but on the other hand, Daphne hadn’t seemed to particularly like him.

“She was perfectly nice before she decided that I really did know who she was,” he thought to himself, remembering how much he’d genuinely enjoyed the date up to that point.

It had been leagues better than his attempts to date Cho the previous year and for a little while there, he’d actually felt something other than the all-consuming dread and grief he’d been mired in for weeks by that point.  That was why he was returning, why he wanted to see if any part of her was interested in them getting to know each other better.  It was a bad idea, he was sure, for numerous reasons, but he didn’t care.  He liked her, really liked her, and despite the fact that there were so many differences between them and possible problems that could arise of them even being spotted together, he wanted to see her again.  Of all the possible problems, though, one he hadn’t even considered quickly made itself known as he approached the front door.

“Eleven?” he asked aloud, wincing at his own stupidity at having figured the place would already be open.

Checking his watch, he grumbled to himself, not wanting to stick around for a full hour just to ask someone when her next shift was, and he was about to turn and leave when he noticed movement inside and leaned against the glass.  He knew at a glance that it was her, her long blonde hair and incredible figure giving her away immediately, and he felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of her. Smiling uncontrollably, he tried to temper his expectations, reminding himself that she might very well not want to see him at all, yet even still, he knocked on the glass.  She turned around, looking annoyed, though that annoyance quickly turned to fear at the sight of him, and his face fell as he watched her visibly pale.

Daphne marched over, opening the door as quickly as she could, and grabbed him by his shift, pulling him in and behind the one set of blinds she hadn’t raised yet. “What are you doing here?!”

“I was going to see if I could figure out when your shift was,” Harry replied, and she grimaced, trying to ignore the fact that her heart rate spiked at his words.

“Figure...Potter, I’m…” Daphne went to say, and he sighed.

“A Slytherin and a pureblood, I know,” Harry said. “I’m sure I’m just about the last guy you’d have considered dating…”

“We can’t date,” Daphne sighed, shaking her head. “I couldn’t be caught in public with you.”

“You couldn’t be caught working here either,” Harry pointed out, and her eyes narrowed. “Look, Daphne, I had a really good time the other week…”

“I’m sure,” Daphne muttered.

“Before that, too,” Harry said, smiling as she blushed. “Coming here, meeting you and taking you out that night, that was the most fun I’ve had in a very, very long time.  If you were a muggle girl I’d just happened to meet and go out with, I’d have come back already…”

“I’m not, though,” Daphne sighed.

“Just...answer me this, please: before you let slip that you were a witch that night, were you having as much fun as I was?” Harry asked, and she hesitated.

The word ‘no’ was right on the tip of her tongue, a simple lie that might very well get him to bugger off and leave her alone, and yet as she looked up into his eyes, the earnest affection and obvious hope in them made her melt.

“Despite everything, including the fact that I spent the whole time wondering if you were going to try to blackmail me, I did actually enjoy myself,” Daphne admitted. “You are surprisingly good company, and I...did enjoy it.  It has to be a one-time thing, though.”

“Does it?” Harry asked.  As she went to reply, he cut in, adding, “I know we can’t go for a stroll through Diagon Alley together, and I wouldn’t want to endanger you, but...we could date in the muggle world.  The kind of people you wouldn’t want to see us together wouldn’t exactly bother us in places like this.”

“To what end?” Daphne asked. “We could not be together in our world?”

“To get to know each other, to have fun, to focus on something other than the nightmare that is our world for a while,” Harry replied, sounding more like he was asking her than anything. “Daphne, the only reason we met is because you were pushed into working at bloody Hooters because of all the shit going on right now.  Would you have been caught dead in here otherwise?”

“No, admittedly,” Daphne sighed.

“I know that, despite the fact we’ve gone to the same school for five years, we only just met,” Harry murmured, rubbing the back of his neck as she glared at him, “but I like you, and I think the other night, you found me eminently tolerable too.”

Daphne couldn’t help but smile a little at that, saying, “Someone’s being presumptuous.”

“I know it can’t go anywhere and it wouldn’t last past the rest of the summer at most, but meeting you and taking you out the other day was the most fun I’ve had in a depressingly long time and I’d like to spend more time with you,” Harry murmured. “If you don’t want to because of Voldemort, that…”

“I didn’t mention it the other night, but could you not say that name?” Daphne asked, and he sighed, feeling more than a little disappointed.

“You didn’t flinch, so I figured you weren’t scared of it,” Harry muttered.

“It’s not so much that the pseudonym is scary as it is that he could easily put hist taboo back on it,” Daphne replied and, when he just stared at her blankly, she rolled her eyes. “Does Dumbledore not teach you anything?”

“What’s a taboo?” Harry asked. “I’m assuming we’re talking about something magical.”

“It’s a dark curse that, if put back into place, would allow him to know when and where anyone in the world says the name,” Daphne replied. “I don’t need to tell you how bad that would be.”

“Wait, so he’d be instantly drawn anywhere that someone said it then?” Harry asked. “Why the hell did no one tell me that’s why people called him You Know Who and the like?”

“I don’t know if everyone knew why they did that,” Daphne shrugged. “I only did because I bothered to ask my father why people found a dumb, vaguely French-sounding word so scary as a girl, and he deigned to explain it.”

“I guess that’s one of the reasons he stopped going by Tom,” Harry chuckled, trying to imagine how annoying it would be to be alerted every time someone on Earth said a name that generic.”

“Tom?” Daphne asked.

“Tom Riddle, his actual name,” Harry replied, and she just blinked at him. “His full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle and if you scramble the letters you can get it to spell out I am lord...you know.  I think I’ll just call him the dark wanker or something.”

“Hold on...Riddle’s not a wizard name,” Daphne murmured. “It’s certainly not the name of one of the pureblood houses.  I thought he was a descendant of Slytherin.”

“He definitely is, but his father was Tom Riddle, a muggle man,” Harry replied.

“Why the hell is that not common knowledge?!” Daphne exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how much support he’d have lost in the years since that Halloween night?”

“I honestly don’t know, really,” Harry murmured, wondering if he shouldn’t try blackmailing Skeeter into publishing it.

“Getting anyone to publish it now would be all but impossible,” Daphne muttered. “I doubt even Lovegood would be that nuts.”

“She’s actually really nice if you get to know her,” Harry replied, and she rolled her eyes.

“I meant her father, and I’ll take your word for it,” Daphne sighed.

“Out of curiosity, how many more Slytherins feel like you do about him?” Harry asked. “I honestly thought you were all like Malfoy and Parkinson.”

“There are a few of us, though we keep our mouths shut for obvious reasons,” Daphne muttered. “We wouldn’t change any of their minds, and we are greatly outnumbered.”

Part of Harry wanted to grumble about her and those like her choosing to do nothing while good people suffered, but he kept quiet.  He understood all too well it was like when your entire house turned on you, and in no case where it had happened to him was there any chance that they’d kill him or his loved ones, and it wasn’t like Daphne was going to kill Voldemort herself or anything.

“I need to finish getting the place ready,” she murmured after a moment. “It’s the whole reason I’m here so early, and we’ll be opening in twenty more minutes.”

“Right, of course,” Harry nodded. “If your shift starts this early, does that mean you’ll be getting off early?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone,” Daphne quipped, only to flinch as Harry suddenly looked pained. “What?”

“It...nothing,” he sighed. “You’ve seen me go after snitches before, I’m sure, so that shouldn’t be too surprising.”

“Comparing me to a snitch are you?” Daphne asked with a slight smile.

“Your hair’s almost as golden,” Harry replied, not knowing what to say, and he blushed the moment the words left his mouth.

“I’ll be done at six if you want to come by,” Daphne murmured, smiling in amusement at how embarrassed he looked. “Muggle stuff only, of course.”

“How about a movie?” Harry asked, and she just stared at him. “They’re like plays captured in screens.”

“Why not?” Daphne asked. “This is stupid, really, really stupid.”

She knew that she should have said no, putting an end to this then and there, but she didn’t want to.  Potter was nothing like the arrogant boys in her year, whom she’d always thought were more like puffed up peacocks than anything resembling men.  His interest in her wasn’t because of her name or her lineage, but because of how much he enjoyed her company and how clearly attracted to her he was.  She’d felt desired before, but never quite like this, and certainly not in a way that she actually enjoyed.

“I’ll come by around six,” Harry smiled. “See you then, Daphne.”

“See you then, Potter,” Daphne replied and he chuckled.

“Call me Harry, please,” Harry murmured, and she smiled, brushing her hair behind her ear.

“Harry,” Daphne said. “Now, I really do need to get back to work.”

Harry nodded at that and left, smiling widely as he left Hooters.  Figuring that he could take a walk to calm his racing heart, he turned right and started walking, only to immediately be stopped by a sudden voice.

“So how long has that been going on?” Tonks asked, and he froze.

“What the hell?” Harry hissed, not bothering to look for the clearly invisible auror.

“You’re being kept under guard for obvious reasons,” Tonks replied. “Just keep walking; there’s a park not far from here.”

“What did you turn your mouth into to get a laugh out of us over the summer?” Harry asked.

“A duck bill,” Tonks replied. “One of my go-tos.”

Harry nodded at that, feeling reassured that his spy actually was who she sounded like, and he quickly found the park she’d mentioned.  Sitting down on the nearest bench, he turned and looked as the pink-haired woman emerged, seemingly from behind a thicket of trees a moment later and sat down.

“I met her the other week and asked her out,” Harry replied. “Didn’t know who she was, as you clearly do.”

“I recognized she was a witch from the mokeskin pouch on her hip and was about to take her down when she grabbed you before it became clear that, out of the two of you, she was the one who was freaked out,” Tonks replied, subtly drawing her wand and casting a silencing charm around them. “She looks familiar but only vaguely.”

“She’s Daphne Greengrass,” Harry replied, “something that I’d like you to keep to yourself.”

“What the bloody hell is the Greengrass heiress doing working in Hooters?” Tonks asked.

“Her father cut off her allowance, and so she decided to get a job,” Harry replied.

“Why Hooters of all places?” Tonks asked.

“It was the first one she found, and she assumed that all muggle establishments must just be like that,” Harry replied, smiling when the metamorphmagus burst out laughing. “Struggled not to do that myself when she told me.”

“Harry, you have to know that this can’t work out,” Tonks replied. “The Greengrasses aren’t Death Eaters...that we ever suspected, anyway, but they’re not on our side either.”

“I didn’t think she was a witch when I asked her out,” Harry murmured. “I like her, and yeah, I know she’s not an ally, but she’s not an enemy either.”

“Are you sure?” Tonks asked. “This could be a con.”

“Yeah, the dark wanker set a trap for me by sending a witch I’d never spoken to before to work at a muggle restaurant I’d never eaten in in the vague hope that I’d ask her out,” Harry replied sarcastically and Tonks’ ears turned as pink as her hair. “If she wanted to turn me over to him, she could have that night.  She knew who I was, and I genuinely thought she was a muggle, and I clearly had no guards either.”

“Yeah, I’m going to need to investigate that,” Tonks muttered. “What time and day was that?”

“A week ago in the evening,” Harry replied and she nodded, filing that away so she could check the schedule record later. “I’m not expecting her to become my girlfriend or anything, but...when I look at her, spend time with her, I don’t think about what happened to Sirius or what’s going on with the dark wanker or anything like that, and for the summer, at least, I could really use that.”

“I understand that, really I do,” Tonks sighed, “but you are taking a risk just going out and about like this, even if we can trust Daphne.”

“She has no love for the death eaters and was genuinely stunned when I told her about Tom’s actual name earlier,” Harry said.

“I heard,” Tonks chuckled. “For the record, I don’t know how much publishing that information would actually help.  I don’t think his followers would actually believe it, for one thing.”

“You might be right,” Harry sighed. “The Prophet wouldn’t dare publish it as well, and I wouldn’t want to endanger the Lovegoods by using the Quibbler.”

“If we could copy and distribute a number of anonymous pamphlets about it, that might work,” Tonks murmured. “It’s something I’ll bring up with the others during the next meeting.”

“Thanks, Tonks,” Harry nodded. “About Daphne…”

“I won’t interfere, and I wouldn’t expect any of the others to either, but...you are watched almost constantly for your protection,” Tonks murmured.

“Meaning that you won’t be the last to spot her,” Harry sighed, knowing how Daphne felt about the idea of non-muggles learning about this.  No one in the order would tell anyone she knew about it, though… “Snape’s never one of my guards, right?”

“Do you really think Snape would willingly spend time looking after you?” Tonks asked incredulously.  When he just gave her a flat stare, she said, “No, he’s not one of them.  Moody, Fletcher, Doge, Diggle, Shacklebolt, and I handle your protection in shifts.”

“And none of them would breathe a word about seeing me with her to anyone she might know, right?” Harry asked.

“We don’t gossip about you, Harry,” Tonks chuckled, “and the Greengrasses don’t have very many close associates in common with us.  Dumbledore will be made aware of this, but that’s about the extent of it.  Her parents won’t learn about it if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m more worried about the dark dickhead and his followers learning about it,” Harry muttered. “By the way, why did no one ever tell me about the taboo?  I thought the refusal to say his name was the dumbest bloody thing I’d ever heard.  I didn’t know that there was, at any one point, a real reason for it.”

“To be honest, not many knew the technical details of it,” Tonks replied. “Back during the first war, from what I’ve heard, people just eventually learned that bad things happened to those who dared say his name out loud.”

“Fucking lunatic,” Harry muttered, and she chuckled.

“I’m glad you’ve found something or someone, in this case, who can take your mind off of all the shit we’re going through,” Tonks smiled. “We all need something to keep us sane.”

“Thanks for being supportive,” Harry smiled, and Tonks nodded.  She was scheduled to continue looking after Harry for the rest of that day, so she’d be certain to keep a close eye on Daphne later, but from what she’d seen so far, and what she knew of the family, she really didn’t think he had much to fear from her. “By the way, Tonks...um, I said I’d take her to a movie, but I don’t even know what’s playing right now.”

“There’s a theater not far from here that we could walk to and look at the list of films playing there,” Tonks replied, and he nodded, feeling instantly relieved.

“Thanks, Tonks,” Harry replied, standing up. “If you have any advice…”

“Ignore your instinct to suggest some over-the-top spectacle,” Tonks murmured. “She’s never seen a movie before in her life and will spend the whole time wondering how muggles managed to capture magic, missing the entire story.  My suggestion would be to pick something romantic and then spend the whole time working your way up the snog ladder.”

“Snog ladder?” Harry asked, and she grinned.

“You know,” Tonks replied. “You start out by moving in a little closer, your leg touching hers, then you fake stretch and try wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and then, if she’s good with that, move in even closer so you can kiss her.  I’m guessing you didn’t get that far on your first date, given that she’s a pureblood princess.”

“We didn’t kiss, no,” Harry replied, blushing as he remembered what they did do.

Tonks, misinterpreting that as him just getting flustered in general, chuckled at his naivety and stood up.

“I’ll be your guard for the rest of the day so you don’t need to worry about the others, and I’ll keep a respectable distance on your date,” Tonks promised. “Just forget I’m even here.”

“Thanks again,” Harry smiled, watching as she turned and left to find a spot where no one could see her so she could disappear again.

*****

“Wow, you look...you know, I didn’t get a chance to ask last time, but how is it that you’re able to figure out what muggle clothes look like without issue when practically every other pureblood screws it up?” Harry asked, and Daphne chuckled.

“I actually bothered to pay attention to how muggles dress and copied them,” Daphne replied, making him snort. “I guess, putting it like that, it does seem rather silly that most of our people don’t even put in the most basic effort to not draw attention to themselves in this world.”

Harry smiled at that, taking another moment to admire his date.  She was wearing a simple dark blue blouse and a black skirt that came to her knees.  It was rather conservative compared to how he’d seen some muggle women dress, but she was so effortlessly beautiful, and her body was so incredible that she still looked sexy as hell in it.  On a whim, he offered her his arm, and, smiling in obvious amusement, she took it, letting him lead her along.

“There’s something that I need to tell you, and I know you’re not going to like this, but please don’t freak out,” Harry said, and she stopped immediately, glaring at him.

“What is it?” Daphne asked tersely.

“You know how you said that it was weird that I didn’t have any guards the other day?” Harry asked. “Well, it turns out today I do.”

Daphne’s blue eyes went wide as saucers, and she looked around frantically, tempted to flick her wand into her wrist.

“Relax, luv,” Tonks said, completely invisible again. “I don’t mean you any harm.”

“Potter,” Daphne growled, tearing her arm away from him.

“She’s not going to tell anyone about you, I swear,” Harry said, taking a step back.

“It’s not like we have many associates in common anyway,” Tonks muttered. “Not ones that wouldn’t gut me like a fish for being what I am, anyway.”

“A muggleborn, then,” Daphne thought to herself, feeling a little bit of her tension slip away at that.  Some random muggleborn claiming that she saw Daphne Greengrass out with Harry Potter would be ignored, ridiculed, or attacked by the sort of people she feared would learn about this. “You won’t tell me your name, I’m sure, but I’d appreciate knowing a little bit about the woman spying on me.  I assume you’re an auror, given that you have this job despite your obvious youth.”

“Suffice it to say that I’m fully qualified for the job,” Tonks replied. “You’re both safer with me around than you’d be otherwise.  I’m not going to go around gossiping about this or tell anyone other than Dumbledore, who probably already knows, I promise.”

Daphne took a deep breath at that, realizing that she was probably right about Dumbledore already knowing.  The old man always seemed to know everything.  The fact that Harry hadn’t had a guard around to object to her presence during their first date had been weird, and it had left her a little complacent.  If she wanted to get to know him over the summer, which she increasingly did, putting up with his guards would be part of that, and as she mulled over that fact, she quickly came to a conclusion.

“If this is a deal-breaker for you, I understand,” Harry sighed when she went a full minute without speaking.

“Are you a regular part of his rotation of guards?” Daphne asked.

“I am,” Tonks replied, and she nodded.

“I don’t mind the idea of this one particular woman no one I fear would trust knowing about this, and I’m sure Dumbledore does already, but no others,” Daphne said firmly. “Don’t come by my workplace or even think of asking me out unless she’s your guard for the day, got it?”

“I can make myself known when I’m around,” Tonks said. “If that means you do want to actually go on your date still, we already checked out the theater, and the screening rooms all seem to have only one entrance and exit each, which is probably a fire code violation, but it means that I can just guard the door and give you two your privacy.”

“Shall we?” Daphne asked, taking Harry’s arm again, and he smiled so widely she couldn’t help but smile back. “What are we watching anyway?”

“Something I had never heard of before, but I think it looks good,” he replied, beyond thrilled that she hadn’t run away the second she learned they weren’t alone.

*****

Harry had taken Tonks’ advice to heart, looking through the list of films available that night and picking the one that looked the most romantic.  He hadn’t noticed the rating for it, as he really wasn’t used to going to the movies, and might have been told about it by the cashier, but Daphne stepped in as the woman moved to speak and told her to just get their tickets, using the runic light compulsion charm sewn into her dark blouse to get her to comply.  Because of this, neither of them really knew what they were getting into, and while they sat together in the mostly empty theater at the start of the movie, both thinking about the conversation they’d had with Tonks about half an hour earlier, that was just about the last thing on their minds within fifteen minutes of it starting.

“Uh, uh, uh, ahh!” the woman on the screen moaned as her boyfriend went down on her.

Harry sat in muted shock, having never seen a sex scene this explicit before in his life, while Daphne sat next to him with her jaw dropped.

“This...muggles call this entertainment?” she whispered, and he gulped, suddenly quite thankful that she’d taken out one of her runic charms, one designed to muffle the sound coming from around them, and set it up on the back of the seat in front of them.

“I’m sorry, Daphne,” Harry winced, looking around to make sure that no one heard her say the word muggle.  The theater was incredibly empty, something that he should have taken as a sign when he noticed, and the only other few people there were all seated far closer to the screen than they were.

The blonde just sat there, completely stunned, feeling her body grow rapidly hot.  She’d spent the whole day thinking about her upcoming date, her mind returning to what happened last time and the filthy dreams she’s had since, and she swore she’d only become more aroused as time went on. When she finally saw Harry, she felt excited in a way she couldn’t recall feeling before, and so instead of reacting with revulsion at the sight, as her mother would have and would have expected of her in turn, she felt amazement instead.

“What’s he even doing to her?” Daphne whispered, and Harry’s jaw dropped as he realized that she wasn’t offended by this at all.

“What I offered to do to you the other week,” he whispered, leaning in close and resting a hand on hers, making her whip her head over to look at him. “Returning the favor.”

Daphne shivered, feeling hot for reasons that had nothing to do with the summer heat as she stared into his eyes.

“Are we alone?” she asked, and Harry looked over at the empty seats to his left.

“Are we?” he asked, whispering as loudly as he could.

Tonks didn’t reply, still guarding the door for them, and in the dark, with so few people around and none anywhere near them, it felt like they were locked away in their own little world.

“She did say she’d give us our privacy,” Harry murmured, snaking an arm around Daphne’s shoulders and making her shiver.

“Ahh!” the actress on the screen cried, writhing about as she pretended to cum, or at least he assumed she was pretending.

Daphne felt his hand on her shoulder and swore she could almost hear her heart hammering in her chest.  On some level, she supposed that she’d always been a little intrigued by the story of Harry Potter.  She’d never read any of those stupid books as a girl, but she’d heard the story about the boy who survived the impossible long before coming to Hogwarts and wondered what he was like. They were sorted into different houses, and he seemed so slight and unimpressive as a boy that she’d quickly forgotten that old interest and never looked back.

“He’s still nothing like the idiots of our world thought he was back in the day, but there is something truly fascinating about him,” she thought to herself.

Draco insisted that he was entirely full of himself, a truly laughable assessment, given the source, and that he was practically addicted to attention, but she’d never thought that that seemed to be the case, even with the little attention she ever paid him.  He had only two true friends, from what she’d seen, and seeing him during the summer, he’d seemed...lonely and lost, two things that she could well understand, loner that she was.  Tracey Davis and her sister were her only two friends, and even them she often kept at arm’s length, preferring solitude over the endless chatter that came from crowds, and deep down, she felt like Harry was much the same.

“You’re nothing like people say,” Daphne murmured, leaning her head against his arm for a moment as she stared at him.

“They seem to change their collective mind every other year,” Harry muttered, making her snort.

“People are idiots with very few exceptions,” Daphne whispered, looking over at the movie and gasping when she saw the man pull the covers back over his head and start lazily kissing the woman’s thighs.  Her full brown bush was on full display, and the blonde shook her head.

“I really didn’t know that these could be so downright...explicit,” Daphne whispered.

“I’m sorry again,” Harry murmured. “I had no idea what this was like this and just thought you might prefer something more romantic to something action-oriented.”

“I think next time I must prefer a walk in the park, to be honest,” Daphne whispered.

“Do you want to go?” Harry asked, and she shook her head.

“We’re alone in a dark space, able to talk at length since there’s almost no one else here and the dreadful music in this thing is so loud,” Daphne whispered. “Tell me something about yourself. Something that no one else knows.”

“Well, this isn’t something no one knows, but there are very few who do,” Harry murmured. “I actually did kill a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“I meant something real,” Daphne scowled, and he chuckled.

“I have the scar to prove it,” Harry whispered, pulling his arm back from around her shoulders and tugging his shirt to the side to expose his right shoulder. “Feel it.”

“There is no way in hell that you…” Daphne muttered, letting him move her hand towards his shoulder and freezing when she felt the rough, distinctly round shape of the scar there.  Recognizing at once that it had to have come from a tooth, and a big bloody one at that, her eyes went wide as saucers, and she hissed, “How the hell did you survive?  How did you kill it?”

“I stabbed it through the roof of its mouth,” Harry replied. “I only survived this because Dumbledore’s phoenix, Fawkes, was there to cry in it.”

“Why in the world have you not shown this off at every opportunity?” Daphne asked, knowing that just about any other guy would have.

“Contrary to what Snape and half your house thinks, I really don’t like attention,” Harry replied, and she smiled, still ghosting her fingers over the rough, scared skin. “You don’t much care for it either, I suspect.”

“We have that much in common,” Daphne murmured, blushing when she realized she was still touching him and pulling her hand back.

“Perhaps it’s for the best we can’t date openly then,” Harry sighed. “You’d be inundated with it.”

“And howlers from angry girls, I’m sure,” Daphne muttered.

“What girls?” Harry snorted, and she looked at him incredulously.

“Potter, you’re good-looking, presumably wealthy, famous, and a star seeker in our school,” Daphne muttered. “Half the girls in Gryffindor would throw themselves at you at a glance, I’m sure.”

“They haven’t yet,” Harry muttered. “My prior dating history includes a date to the Yule Ball in our fourth year that I should really apologize for and a few attempts with Cho last year that did not go well.”

“What made you so bold as to ask me out then?” Daphne asked, and Harry shrugged.

“I felt oddly comfortable with you, and every time I looked at you as I had my lunch that day, I just...stopped thinking about everything I don’t want to,” Harry sighed, and she smiled.

“I…” she went to say when a sudden, sharp cry from the movie drew her attention and she looked over in disgust as she saw the woman from before clearly having sex with a different man.

“That’s not the same guy she was with before,” she muttered. “She’s a whore.”

“To be fair, we’ve barely paid attention to anything else that’s happened so far,” Harry chuckled, and she rolled her eyes. “Tell me something about you.”

“My best friend is the only half-blood in Slytherin,” Daphne replied, and his eyes widened. “Tracey is her name, since I’m sure you haven’t noticed her either.”

Harry winced at that, though her tone stayed so light that he figured she wasn’t actually too upset about it still.

“How in the world has she managed to get by there as a half-blood?” he asked.

“People know that I’m her friend, and between my family’s reputation and an incident in our first year where I nearly made a eunuch of a sixth year who was bothering Tracey, no one wants to bother her,” Daphne replied, and his eyebrows shot towards his hairline. “I lobbed a freezing curse at him, figuring a little frostbite would get him to bugger off, but my aim was off a touch and I didn’t hit the spot I meant to.  I’m surprised you didn’t hear his screams all the way up in the Gryffindor common room.  Madam Pomfrey managed to save him from any permanent damage, but he was so terrified that he transferred to Durmstrang for the next term, and everyone’s stayed clear of my wand since.”

“What did Snape do?” Harry asked.

“Told me to work on my aim once I explained that I hadn’t meant to do exactly what I did,” Daphne replied. “At the end of the day, there was no way he was going to bother punishing a first year who got in a fight with a sixth year and won.”

“He would have if it had been a Gryffindor,” Harry chuckled. “So you’re proper terrifying, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you forget it,” Daphne grinned. “Admittedly, much of that terror comes from people’s lingering memories of hearing Warren scream for his mother while clutching his crotch and writhing on the ground, and if I actually made an enemy of my house, they’d come for me anyway, but so long as Tracey, Astoria, and I keep to ourselves and don’t bother anyone, the rest of our house keeps their distance.”

“Oh, God!” the woman on the screen cried out, and she looked over again, feeling her insides clench as she saw that this other man she was with now had his head between her legs as well.

“Morgana,” Daphne breathed, her mind racing as ideas she’d never truly contemplated before became all she could think about. “What would...that...even entail?”

“You mean if I did what I offered to last week?” Harry asked, his voice low and rumbling as he snaked an arm around her shoulders again. “Licking you there, from what I’ve heard.”

“You...were willing to do that?” Daphne asked, and he grinned, leaning in until their lips were nearly touching.

“Still am,” Harry replied.

Daphne’s heart raced in her chest, and the heat that had formed low in her belly before their date even began flared sharply.

“I should have said no the last time we were together,” Harry murmured, staring into her eyes. “I was so taken aback by your offer and so desperate to feel your touch that I didn’t, but you didn’t need to touch my cock to get me to keep quiet about you, much less go even further.”

“I know,” Daphne breathed. “I believe you but...I didn’t suck your cock to keep you quiet, Harry.  I sucked it because as I was stroking you, I started to want to.”

“Well, I want to repay the favor,” Harry grinned, resting a hand on her knee, only to stop when he felt that she was trembling. “If you don’t want me to, though…”

Daphne tried to respond but found that words failed her, and so, instead, she did the one thing that she was sure she still could: she kissed him.  They both froze as they felt the other’s lips on their own, unsure of what exactly to do next, and Harry was the one who moved first, kissing her again slowly.  She moved her arms around his neck, hugging him to her as they continued to make out softly, and barely resisted the urge to whimper as she felt her insides clench again with need.  This was so unlike his experience with Cho a few months prior that Harry almost couldn’t believe it was the same thing.

Kissing Daphne wasn’t tainted by mutual grief, confusion, and guilt, and it was so much better for that.  He kept things slow, not wanting to move more quickly than she wanted to or to start getting sloppy, and when he felt the tip of her tongue brush against his lower lip, he almost didn’t believe it at first, but when she did so again, he opened his mouth further and met it with his own.  The blonde pulled him closer, forgetting for a moment that there were other people in the building at all as she lost herself in the kiss, and by the time the two of them pulled back for air, they were both more turned on than they could remember.

“Let me do it,” Harry whispered in her ear. “Let me pay you back for last time.”

“Here!?” Daphne squeaked, looking down at the rest of the theater.

From their vantage point at the very back of it, they could see everything, and it seemed like a few people who had been there had walked out.  Only one other pair remained, seated so far away from them that they likely wouldn’t notice them if they turned and looked right at them, and Daphne gasped as she realized that they could actually get away with it.  Harry’s bodyguard was still by the door, unable to see them directly, and they were very nearly alone otherwise, with a charm keeping any sounds they might make from escaping their immediate vicinity.

“Why the hell is the thought of doing this in public so bloody hot?” Daphne wondered, genuinely confused by her own body’s reactions.

“Do it,” she breathed. “I’ll keep watch.”

Harry grinned at that, having thought about this since that night in her friend’s house, and he quickly got out of his chair and onto his knees, crawling between her legs and moving under her skirt.  Daphne squirmed and whimpered, feeling things she’d never imagined before.  She was so hot, and she was sure she was soaking wet, something that Harry confirmed a moment later when he brushed a finger across her soaked panties, making her gasp.

He’d overheard enough things in the dorms to know the bare basics of a woman’s body, and he knew for sure that Daphne being as wet as she was was a good sign.  He couldn’t see anything, but that was hardly a new thing for him, and so it didn’t bother him at all.  Pressing his hands against her thighs, he marveled at how soft and warm her skin felt as he spread her legs further and leaned in.  The moment he brushed his lips against the soaked fabric clinging to her heated flesh, she let out a sharp cry, and he froze for a moment before remembering her charm.

“I need to pull these down,” Harry whispered, and Daphne nodded, grasping the armrests and shifting upward enough to let him pull her panties down.  The feeling of his large, warm hands on her plump ass made her quiver, but that was nothing compared to how it felt a moment later when he pressed his lips against her pussy, kissing her sensitive folds gently.

“Oh, shit,” she gasped.

“You okay?” Harry asked, and she nodded before remembering he couldn’t see her.

“I’m okay,” Daphne replied. “Unless I say otherwise, assume I am.”

“Okay,” Harry nodded, pressing the flat of his tongue against her incredibly wet flesh and dragging it upward, making her cry out.

She tasted very mild, he thought to himself, tangy, salty, and just a little musky.  It wasn’t a flavor he minded at all, and as he started licking her experimentally, deciding to explore every bit of her and see what she seemed to like best, he imagined that he’d quite happily do this often if she liked it as much as she seemed to already.

*****

Deep within Malfoy Manor, Lord Voldemort sat on his throne, mulling over his next move.  The failure of his idiot followers back in June still made him furious, and it wasn’t due to inability on his part that he hadn’t broken them out of Azkaban yet.  The prophecy had been denied to him yet again, and worse than that, his return had been exposed ahead of schedule.  The fact that Dumbledore had managed to fight him to a draw yet again was maddening, but it was his failure to possess Potter that truly infuriated him.

“At every turn that irritating boy interferes with my plans,” he thought to himself. “I could throttle Lucius for letting mere children stop him from acquiring the prophecy for me.  I’m still running blind and…”

“Agh!” Voldemort cried as a sudden burst of pain racked through him.

He stood up at once, shuffling forward and clenching the table in front of him.  It was a sharp pain, sharp and very intense, focused on his groin, and he gritted his teeth as another wave of it nearly made his legs give out.  He was no stranger to pain, as while people thought he was invincible today, he hadn’t always been so, and he could deal with it normally, but not knowing where this was coming from or why sent a chill down his spine.

“This is just like a week ago,” he thought to himself. “What in the world is going on?”

If this had happened a year ago, he might have assumed that Wormtail had somehow managed to make a mistake during the ritual despite his oversight, and yet he’d been entirely stable for over a year at that point without issue.  He made a point of purging any connection to shed skin and blood regularly, so there was no way that this was a blood curse of some sort, and if it wasn’t his body or a curse, that left one possibility, much to his fury.

“Potter!” he thought to himself, clenching his fist until his nails dug into his skin.  It had to be the connection between them he was sure of it, and yet knowing that and knowing what could be done about it were two very different things. “This can’t be something he’s doing intentionally; he’s too weak and weak-willed to employ the only kinds of magic I could imagine causing pain like this from so great a distance.”

It went on and on, just like the last time, and became so intense it was downright debilitating.  The first time it happened, he was willing to write it off as a one-time thing and research it at his leisure. As he suffered it again, though, he realized that he didn’t have that luxury and attempted to do something that he hadn’t dared since his failure at the Ministry.  Focusing on the bond between them, he tried to reach out to Potter, desperate to find out what his young nemesis was doing or at least interrupt him, yet as he closed his eyes and tried to get a sense of what the boy was up to, all he got was darkness and a mild taste of salt.  He tried to look more deeply, to get anything else, and almost immediately, he felt like he was physically thrown back and cried out, falling to his knees and accidentally hitting his head on the table.

“M...my lord?” one of his servants called out from behind the door, and Voldemort’s crimson eyes flashed dangerously as he glared in the man’s direction.

“Leave!” he shouted, and the Death Eater fled at once, knowing better than to disobey him.

The pain continued to rack through the Dark Lord’s pale, almost skeletal form, and he just stayed in place, trying to use occlumency to block it out instead.  As he felt a cold trail of liquid reach his lips, he wiped his nose and glared down at his fingers when he saw blood.  He needed to figure out what terrible magical means Potter had started using against him.

*****

“Merlin’s...beard,” Daphne panted, still shaking like a leaf as she came down from what was easily the greatest orgasm of her entire life.  If not for her runic charm, the couple down near the screen and Harry’s bodyguard would have all heard the scream she let out when it hit her like a charging hippogriff, and she blushed heavily when she remembered just how she’d sounded.

“Oh, fuck,” Harry groaned, moving awkwardly as he stood up and sat back in her seat, looking like he was bizarrely uncomfortable.

“Did you strain your jaw?” Daphne asked, confused and he shook his head.

“I...as I was licking you I...kind of…” he stammered, clearly embarrassed and she cupped his cheek.

“Harry, after what you just made me feel, there’s nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you,” Daphne chuckled, and he smiled.

“I came,” Harry said quickly, and she just stared at him in shock.

“You came...just from licking me?” Daphne asked slowly. “I couldn’t wank you to save my bloody life last week.”

“I felt guilty about that, and that got in the way, but, Daphne, the sounds you were making, the way you were squirming in my grasp, and even the way you tasted were all so hot, I couldn’t help it,” Harry said, and before she realized what she was doing, she’d leaned in and kissed him hungrily, not minding in the least that she could taste herself on his lips.