Chapter Text
Death was a stubborn mistress. Her master, however, was twice as so. The boy-who-lived had never considered the consequences of his actions. It had been with the utmost virtue and righteous disposition that Harry had done the unthinkable.
He cast dark magic.
The darkest that he knew of. Not just evil, the evilest. Not vile, the vilest. Not deadly, the deadliest.
“Avada Kadavra!” His voice came out in a choked, partly-muffled breath. The blood in his mouth tasted like iron. It had been there before he needed to bite on the inside of his lip to stay conscious. He was ready to bite down on his tongue if the situation got any worse. He would never let Voldemort take him alive.
Hermione and Ron were nowhere to be seen. By the time Sirius and the Order had come to rescue them, he’d already lost track of them in the heat of battle. By the time Sirius had fallen down into the Veil, Harry had lost track of any and all he would consider an ally. They weren’t all dead. No, the fighting he could hear through the walls was far too loud, far too crowded to offer victory on either side.
Harry was still in shock, still too rattled by the death of Sirius Black—and the consequences of his own actions—to care enough about the morality of intention. His godfather’s death hadn’t broken him, but it had done something. A crack. A gap from which anger could grasp and claw it’s way past his inhibitions, beyond his sense of justice, and fit snugly between temperance and temptation. A veritable wall of red fury that cut off the rational thought processes for long enough to let him swell with a vortex of dark magic, and unleash his loathing at the first enemy he saw.
One of a half-dozen enemies that all turned to him as soon as the bolt of green struck a masked figure in the back—dropped like a heavy sack.
He was falling before he knew what hit him. Falling down into the gentle cradle of the same dark abyss that had taken his most beloved guardian. The Veil, yes. But also a madness. A sick and twisted state of mind by which he had gone and broken his own code of honor. The ideals he lived by, shattered by the cold grip he had twice before refused to take in his hand.
But Death was a stubborn mistress. And her stubborn master would come to love her regardless of if he wanted to or not. It was only a matter of time.
And this time, she would give him everything he ever wanted.
———
He woke with a start. Sucking in a load of bitter cold air, his lungs felt leaded and stiff. The water vapor escaping his trembling lips and chattering teeth crystallized in the dense, deep darkness surrounding him. Harry couldn’t move. Locked in a muscle-tight paralysis, there was only the slow, thumping beat of his heart that acknowledged his not-yet dead state of being.
“You only live because I wish it so.” Her voice was hard. Staccato in the sharp consonants and plosive sounds that came from an otherwise relatively feminine tone. “It would do you well to keep that in mind.”
He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see anything, for that matter, but he could sense where she was. It wasn’t a far off sensation from that of his wand—an object so integral to his sense of self, so connected to his source of magic, that Harry could feel a pull or tug toward it if he concentrated enough. She was more than that. A tidal wave ebbing and flowing, guiding him with unimaginable force further into the darkness.
It felt amazing.
“That isn’t incorrect.” Harry felt something touch him. Hard, sharp. A fingernail, he soon understood, being dragged lightly across his open palm. “I am yours, if you so wish.”
Her hand enveloped his, thin fingers interlacing with his own and clasping down. She was frigid. Inhumanly so. Yet, the warmth of magic that flooded him as she held his hand was all-consuming. A pleasure, suffused so deeply into his bones, that it eased the wire-tight tension of his corded muscles.
His lashes finally fluttered open. The light was still dim, barely there at all. Still, he caught sight of her as soon as his vision cleared enough to focus.
Ghostly pale. Her skin was that of a shade of ice, contrasted further by long, tousled locks of pure black. She was in the nude, a body both young and old. Timeless, she appeared to him as both his peer in age, but also his elder. It was strange, as if some illusion of light switched his perspective with every blink of his emerald eyes.
“W-who are you?” His voice was hoarse. Harry could hardly recognize it himself, and the dry, painful feeling of his throat made him quickly decide that one sentence at a time was more than enough.
“I am yours.” She simply replied.
“Who.” He stated more plainly. A demand, because something about the way she eyed him with those silver orbs made him feel as though it would be more effective a tactic than questions would be.
“Death.”
She looked it. Like Death. Dark circles around her eyes. A rather morbid visage. Gaunt, though not entirely unseemly so. There was beauty in death, he’d recalled someone say once. They were right.
“I’m dead, then.”
“You are not.” She confirmed again. “I’ve seen to it that your life be spared of the inevitable.”
“Why?”
“Because I am yours.”
“Tell me why.” He near-enough ordered.
“Because you did not want to die, yet. I merely did your bidding, master.”
Master. He hated the title immediately. It reminded him of house elves, or the way that death eaters cowered under the watchful eye of their Lord.
“Don’t call me that.”
“I must.”
“You won’t.”
“I shan’t, if you so command.”
He didn’t. He should have. He didn’t.
“Then you will be my master? Truly?”
Harry paused. This girl—or embodiment of death, as she claimed—held a glint in here eye for the first time since he’d laid sight on her. It looked like a trip, sounded like it. The way her grip tightened just that much more as she waited on his answer, it felt like a trap too. She was a danger. He was in the clutches of danger. He should have said no. He should have refuted her conclusion. He should have let death silently take him. He didn’t.
Harry nodded. “I am.”
“You are.”
He felt his flesh rip from his bones, and the silence of his shrieking mind echoed only in his thoughts as he faded from consciousness.
———
“Harry?”
His eyes shut to the sudden flash of brightness, or that of a properly lit room in actuality. The pain of it had him clutching his head in his hand, afraid to brave the fearsome candle light assaulting his dilated pupils.
“Harry!” He recognized that voice. The slightest quiver of worry in her tone gave her away. He peeped through his fingers, rough and calloused—something not quite right about them, not that he had the sense of mind to worry about it just then.
“Is it another headache? Do you want me to accompany you to the infirmary?”
Hermione was a sight for sore eyes. More so than usual. He was quick to realize there something about her that appeared different. A blush to her cheeks, a rosy tint to her lips. She was wearing makeup. Well-applied, demure, yet appropriately striking in all the right ways. She looked, loath as he was to admit it, beautiful.
Why was he loath to the idea? It struck him that he shouldn’t be. It struck him that he very much liked it on her.
“No. Er… Maybe. I think I’ll be fine. Maybe just a rest from…” He looked down at the books they were evidently studying, daring to pull his hands from his face. “…Arithmancy.”
36 inches of arithmancy, to be precise. He’d never written 36 inches of anything before. Yet, as he quickly skimmed the essay, he recalled every detail of it and understood the concepts remarkably well.
“For once, I agree. Only you could exhaust a Ravenclaw, Harry.” Hermione smirked at him, giggling to herself idly as she closed the four separate texts she had been perusing simultaneously. Harry drew his eyebrows in, giving her a quick once over as she stretched her arms lazily above her head and cracked a joint or two somewhere along her spine.
No crimson and gold. No sign of Gryffindor whatsoever. She had her usual robes on, as per Hogwarts dress code, but in stead of red was blue. And where their should be gold, was bronze. It terrified him, suddenly, to look down at his own clothes, and the warm scarf he felt insulating his neck.
“Any luck getting Malfoy off your back? I’m so sorry you have to share dorms with the git.”
His eyes shut again as his head ached a sharp, stabbing pain. A crown of thorns, it felt like, spearing into him from all around his pounding skull.
“Harry!” Hermione yelled, jumping out of her chair just in time to see him collapse onto the ground unconscious.
———
“Thank fuck you’re awake…” Someone sighed beside him as he stirred, aiming to sit up as he rubbed his heavy eyelids open with the back of his hand.
“No, no! Down, boy.” He felt a hand press against his chest. Small, delicate, long nails digging into his jumper slightly. He gave, falling back onto the bed he ashamedly recognized as one in the hospital wing.
“Pomfrey will kill us both if she sees you awake at this hour.”
Again, Harry recognized that voice. Vaguely, he sensed that he should hate it, despise that uppity, posh tone. But he didn’t. Far closer to his heart, he was fond of that voice.
Aroused by it.
“What are you doing here, Pansy? Actually, what am I doing here?” He turned to her. Pug-face was an insult, but nothing more. In reality, she was gorgeous. Small, cute, prim and proper. But there was something lustful about the way she presented herself. A mature innocence. Salacious, sultry, and oh-so seductive.
“Do you have any idea who you are? I more surprised seeing you walk out of the boys dorm in the morning rather than back in from the hospital wing or whatever other grand adventure you’re on, Harry.”
He really should hate his name coming out from between her lips, and yet, it only aroused him further. It didn’t help that she’d taken off her robe while watching him sleep, or what else she might have been doing by his side as he rested. Reading, it seemed. She still wasn’t in revealing clothes, by any metric, but her figure was there, visible in form if nothing else. A trim waist, feminine hips, a rear he couldn’t see, but somehow knew was second to none in all 7 grades. She was petite otherwise. Still, she was unfairly fit. A polished jewel among gems.
“I know that look…” She eyed him warily, but Harry could see something growing there. A clouded, glassy stare forming behind the concern and care. “We can’t…”
She was right, of course. Pansy was a Slytherin, and he was a… Slytherin. Yes, that was right. He was once a Gryffindor, long ago. He had those memories, or where they dreams? Nightmares? It was hard to tell. But reality was easy to distinguish. This was reality. Pansy Parkinson, ragged of breath at just the intensity with which he stared her down, was reality. Her protests were the game of cat and mouse. No, serpent and prey.
“Come here…” He hissed. She shivered something fierce from head to toe at the sound of his sibilant speech. The clueless look in her bunched up brow made him smirk at her and he cleared his throat.
“I want you now. Here.” He admitted.
Pansy licked her lips, soft and welcoming. He could see her swallowing, aching to feel something similar as soon as possible. She nodded ever so slightly, eliciting a low hum from Harry in approval.
“Good girl.”
She shivered again at his words, standing and pulling the fashionable green cardigan off of her to give just that much better a sight at her perfect figure.
“W-what do you n-need, master…”
Master.
Then you will be my master? Truly?
The words tore through him, crippling pain flooding him deep inside his chest. All-too-invasive, changing something there, further down within him than he thought possible. A gap, a crack, pulled apart and shattered.
Pansy screamed bloody murder as he passed out again.
———
Harry was freezing. He’d kill for a blanket.
He really would.
“You’ll have all the blankets in the world when you awaken, master.”
He opened his eyes. The room, which he now realized was a copy of the bedroom he had in the Dursley’s house, was as dimly lit as before. The girl, Death, was lying on the bed beside him.
Hogging the blankets.
“That’s greedy.”
“Yes.” She replied, not bothered.
“Care to share?”
“If you will it.”
“I do.”
Death shuffled under the sheets, pulling them off of herself and pushing them over to Harry.
“Er, thanks. But we could’ve shared.”
“You do not share.”
It struck him that she was right, if only because he was so used to not having much of his own, but he didn’t care to admit it.
“I could…”
“You can’t. You won’t. The Master of Death shares not with others.”
He thought for a moment. There was just too much to unpack regarding this girl and his connection to her. So he focused on the more immediate conversation.
“Why?”
“You are greedy.”
“That’s not a good enough reason, Death.”
“None else are worthy to take from you.”
“Why?”
“It is simply so.” She continued before he could ask for clarification. “Do you remember yourself?”
“Which one?” It was a valid question, he thought. Her small nods seem to be indication that she agreed, but not that she understood.
“Both. How unfortunate.”
“Those were dreams?,” he mused.
“Possible realities. Time within the mortal realm built for your… pleasure.” A ghostly smile played on her pale lips.
“I can’t. I need to go back.”
“You cannot, master.”
“Because I died?”
She nodded. “There is only forward for your spirit now. Free of your curse, you can live any life you wish to lead.”
“My… curse?”
“The taint latched onto you. A leech. It is gone.”
“What was it? How did I get it?”
“A part of Voldemort. A piece of his spirit latched onto yours back when you first encountered him.”
It made him feel dirty. He’d been carrying that with him the whole time. The invisible counterpart to the lightning bolt on his forehead. Both marks of his intertwined fate with Voldemort. But, not anymore.
“Fate remains unchanged, master.” Death corrected. “Yours is still a shared fate, regardless where I take you. But the power he knows not will only ever grow as you learn to wield it.”
“Is that you?” It made sense that she would be. After all, Voldemort had never known Death. He feared it.
“Yes. And all that I have is yours to use.”
He considered her again, and what wielding death entailed. It wasn’t a power he could take lightly. And just a week prior, he would have never entertained dipping into such taboo magic. Now, however, everything had changed. He had killed. He had felt dark magic surge within him… And how deliciously terrible it was. How unabashedly tempting it could be. And he wasn’t ready to lose anyone else again. He would do anything to make sure of it.
“Why do you want me to forget?” Harry had a gut feeling about it. The way those dreams made him want to be someone else, and leave the old Harry Potter behind. It was an intriguing thought, but not one he was willing to entertain. He couldn’t forget. He needed to remember all of his past. History would not repeat itself on his watch.
“It would heal you. Your mind is… fragile.”
“I will not forget.”
“But-”
“I will not!” He sat up, staring her down as she peered up at him with those cold, silver eyes of hers. Something hot was boiling his blood. Anger. Red-hot, a poison that lay dormant within him.
“So greedy.” She taunted, but nodded in deference. “As you command.”
He relaxed, pressing his back against the mattress again and looking up at the cruddy ceiling. “Do I have to be a Slytherin?”
“What did bravery ever get you, but suffering?”
“My best friends.”
“Nowhere to be found in your final moments.”
“I’m pretty sure they were busy at the time.” An understatement. It was chaos at the Ministry.
“Nothing is more important than you, master.”
A foreign concept, to say the least. He was used to sacrificing his whole self for the benefit of others. For the greater good. “Me, or the version of me you desired?”
“All of you, whatever you make of yourself.”
There was a warmth to her voice that belied her cold exterior. He pondered on everything. So much to take in, so quickly. He was being given a second chance, with a power at his back still unknown to him, but undeniably his. Power, he was aware, corrupted. And in his “fragile” state of mind, he wasn’t sure what it would do to him.
Still, he could not allow himself to forget his past. Refused it. And from the sound of it, he still had a Dark Lord to fight. He needed all the experiences of his past life. Every possible advantage.
If that meant giving into temptations, breaking his morality, and becoming a rotten Slytherin, then so be it. He only needed to trust in that he was a better man than Voldemort.
“Yes. A far better man…”
Harry didn’t have time to process her parting words, as the world spun in darkness and Harry Potter began his new life as a Slytherin.
———
4th year. It was the day after his birthday, and Harry was on the brink of starting his 4th year at Hogwarts. Again. A year he knew would be nothing but trouble, all starting at the quidditch world cup. But he’d be ready for it.
Harry stood in front of a mirror in his room. He was… not himself. Or rather, he was a different version of himself. Barely 14, he stood near enough 6 feet tall already, scared to even think how tall he’d become when puberty was all said and done. He was a bit on the gangly side, tall and thin, though he did notice a heft in his musculature that should not have been there. His time at the Dursley’s wasn’t the most nutritional.
But he wasn’t at the Dursley’s home. His room was well-lit, clean, and in no disrepair. He wouldn’t place it as particularly unique, but it appeared an average, if antiquated, teen bedroom. No, this was, in truth, a very familiar room once he stripped the modern arrangements from it in his mind.
Grimmauld.
He didn’t reach for his glasses. He didn’t need them. Wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans over his tall frame, he burst out of his bedroom and stamped down the stairs, jumping onto the landing with a loud thud.
To his surprise, he didn’t find Sirius in the living room. Not immediately. As Harry looked up, his eyes locked onto the steely blue eyes of a blond girl sat between two others. The man to her right was a pudgy fellow. Curled mustache, dark brown as his reseeding hair was, sat primly beneath a rounded nose. He sported a fancy two-piece robe that failed to hide the roundness of his belly.
On the other side of the blond girl was a similarly blond woman. She was taller than the girl, eyes a darker brown in comparison to the man’s and girl’s cold blue. She was also ten times the beauty than he was. The girl shared that trait. The two ladies a sight to behold sat together, a dream for any man or boy alike.
“L-Lord Potter!” The man stood as if by instinct, shorter than Harry by a good three inches, evident even at the distance. “We were unaware you were visiting your godfather.”
“He stayed the night, Greengrass. Not that it’s any of your concern.” Sirius rounded the kitchen corner, Kreacher pouting beside him with a tray of tea in his hands. “Harry, I thought I’d let you sleep in, but I guess you’re feeling better?”
“I feel fine.” He did. Better than fine. He felt remarkable. No aches. No pains. No grunting and protesting joints. And most of all, he felt powerful. Physically, he felt strong, agile. Magically, however, he’d never felt so connected to the energies of the world. It wasn’t as if he were channeling of any of it. It simply felt present, as if at any moment he could tap into a limitless pool of pure magic and make the impossible a reality.
He had testing to do later.
“What’s all this about?” Harry questioned. He recognized the younger blond girl now that Sirius had revealed the older man’s surname. Daphne Greengrass. He never interacted much with her before. In this life, that was only slightly different. They’d talked somewhat. Not enough to be friends. In fact, now that he tried to actively remember his Slytherin relationships, he didn’t actually have any friends. Not just in Slytherin. There wasn’t one person he would truly call a friend. Not Neville, not Ron. Hell, not even Hermione. He needed to change that.
“Nothing.”
“Politics.” Sirius eyed the elder Greengrass, defying him.
“R-right. Yes, well, isn’t any socializing an opportunity to politic in this day and age. A good lesson, Lord Black. One you should take to heart, Lord Potter.”
“Lord Potter-Black, if you know what’s good for you, Greengrass.”
“Y-yes! My m-mistake, Lord Black. Lord Potter-Black.”
“What kind of politics?” Harry ignored the tension in the room.
“Nothing you need to worry ab-”
“Marriage.” Daphne Greengrass spoke, a soft, but confident tone to her voice—that of silk so artfully threaded together that one could lean their entire weight on it and be sure they would not fall.
The teens locked eyes again. Her steely gaze grew a shimmering glint to it, almost like the one he’d seen Dumbledore and Hermione get from time to time. A glimmer of extreme intelligence, of mannered cunning, and of deep interest. She was hiding both a ravenous and playful mind. Her pushing the ball on their court to gage a reaction was evidence enough.
“Where do I sign?” Harry smirked. Daphne, to her credit, held his gaze with only the fainest color tinting her high cheeks.
“You don’t,” Sirius said flatly. “I will not be selling my godson off to a spineless house of pick-me cowards.”
“Lord Black, that is quite enough of that slander!”
“It isn’t slander if it’s true!” Sirius yelled, staring down at the mustached man.
“And if Lord Potter-Black wants me?”
“Daphne!” The other blond woman slapped her daughter’s arm, but Harry was still locked on the girl’s eyes. She was fighting to keep her eyes on him through the bickering around her, but what hindered her efforts the most was Harry’s emerald eyes staring back at her. They were electric with magical power. A green not like she had ever seen on anyone else, and—she now noticed—with faint webs of black within the jeweled green. His presence was immense, and with every passing year, he grew more and more attractive a prospect and man in her eyes.
They didn’t talk, she understood. Not really. But Harry Potter didn’t talk to anyone. Apart from Pansy Parkinson—who was more into verbally spewing insults at him than anything else—Daphne was the person he engaged with most at Hogwarts. And she hung on every last word he spared her. She had done since their second year when he slew the basilisk. Yes, she knew, but she would only ever reveal that secret to him. The power she had basked in that radiated off of him after that battle was enough to shake her down to her core. It had awoken feelings for him she hadn’t previously considered, and now she was no longer patient enough to continue holding back.
She had needs, selfish as they were. But she’d prove herself the most formidable lady at his side, if he gave her the chance.
“That… Well, that would be-”
“That would be accurate.” Harry silenced them all with that. Daphne bit her lip, blushing hard now as she finally failed her mission and broke eye contact, her fingers fiddling on her lap.
“Harry? Are you sure? You know, magical marriages aren’t the same as muggle ones.”
“I’m aware.” He wasn’t. Not even slightly. But he could imagine. Some strange rituals, odd lineal bull crap, maybe a bit of blood letting to let people know they were super serious. All that mattered was that Harry needed alliances. And marrying the princess of Slytherin, heiress to the gray family and leader of the neutral faction, was an alliance and a half, if he’d ever seen one.
She was also beautiful. And Harry, he was beginning to find out, had more testosterone and teenage hormones in his little finger than he had in all his malnourished body before he had died. He wasn’t about to waste his second life ignoring worldly pleasures again. And from his recollection of his new life, Daphne Greengrass was a luxury any man would beg for the chance to admire. Yet, here she was, presenting herself to him instead.
“He’s… aware.” Daphne finally settled, peering into his eyes with a mischief behind hers. “We would all do better with our time than to insult Lord Potter-Black’s intelligence.”
Sirius sneered at no one in particular. “I wasn’t insulting him, miss Greengrass. Unlike you, I actually know Harry, and he-”
“Is his own man, and can make his own decisions.” Daphne smiled prettily at Sirius before aiming her pearly whites at Harry. “Something I feel confident he will do to the utmost standard with myself in his care. Hence I am so eager to be his lady.”
“Really? If care is what you want, I’m sure Malfoy has more money than I do.” Harry accepted the challenge.
“He does not!” Sirius scoffed. “You haven’t seen our vaults, Harry. As soon as you become Lord Black, Malfoy’s fortune won’t be a drop in the bucket for you.”
Both Daphne and Harry’s brows disappeared into their hairline. They knew the Black family was sickeningly rich, but to be that rich was almost impracticable. Almost, if goblins weren’t so good at managing it all.
“All I mean, Lord Potter-Black, is that I am after the man that you are, not that money you have. I, you may be aware, have never wanted for anything in my life. I have it all. All, that is, except for a proper man to bear children with.”
“Daphne Greengrass, cease this instant!” Her mother yelled in outrage. Her father raised his hand, making Daphne recoil on instinct. Instinct she shouldn’t have. Instinct Harry had because he’d learned it through the need to survive.
The moment that Lord Greengrass brought his arm down to strike, his hand was severed at the wrist, the wound cauterized immediately from the scorching wave of magic that sliced through, preventing any blood from spraying down on the beauty beneath.
Regardless, she was in his arms a brief moment after, pulled out of her seat and pressed against his chest as he wrapped an arm around her trim waist. She was almost a head shorter than him, but fit so snuggly against him that she hoped she never grew another inch, or that he had several more to grew along side her. Judging by his age, he likely did.
An odd thought to have at the time, she admitted to herself, but Daphne didn’t care for her father, and she held no value for the things that she did not care for. Her father’s severed hand was one such thing she’d sooner pile into the garbage than worry over.
His screams of terror, however, were not to be ignored. Sirius was shocked. The result of the magic was one thing. He knew Harry had grown in a troubled home. That he was abused. Sirius knew that pain as well. A girl as pretty as Daphne should never have been subjected to it.
It was more-so where that magic originated from that shocked him. Wandless, wordless, and yet clearly not accidental. And the power that oozed from him, that wrapped around Daphne like a protective shell, told him all he needed to know about how much he evidently cared for the girl. And, hateful as the idea was, a girl that knew the same pain as Harry would make for a patient, and understanding wife.
“Get out of my house, Greengrass, and take your wife with you. Don’t forget the stick up her you-know-what either.” Sirius turned to Daphne. “You can stay. You should stay, actually. Take him to his room and calm him down, will you? I’ll take these lot to St. Mungos, but not before make sure they don’t talk about any of this. We can discuss about you and Harry later.”
Daphne nodded, taking a half step toward Sirius, but feeling Harry quickly pull her tight against him right after. She looked up at him. The intensity in his eyes, staring daggers at her father. Hatred. Vile hatred. She knew it well. She’d had those eyes after a beating, lying in a pool of blood and tears. Aching. Afraid. But she had Astoria. Harry had no one. If he knew that pain, but had nothing to rely on to get through that pain, than he was either completely broken inside, or far stronger than she previously believed. Either way, she was willing to stand at his side.
“You must bring my sister. Please,” She directed at Sirius.
He gave her one short nod. “Go.”
Daphne pulled Harry away, feeling him stiffen up as she tried to move him. She rubbed small circles on his back, assuring him gently that she was fine, and he finally looked down at her.
Harry had seen red. He’d already promised it. That those he cared for would not be harmed again. And while he couldn’t say that he and Daphne were close—they weren’t—he did believe that she was imperative to his future plans, and a perfect bride to be, if his preconceived notions about her were right in any way.
The issue he faced was how possessive he’d become. One life of abuse was one thing. Two? The combined memories were traumatic. He’d had so little, that every last possession was precious to him. People were precious too.
People were possessions, in a way.
That thought process was dangerous. Unfortunately, at some point down the line of his second life, it had become a thought ingrained into his very being. Add another life of suffering, and it was something he would always believe. A possessiveness born of every greedy fiber within him.
Daphne had offered herself to him. He had accepted. She was his. Nothing would ever hurt her again.
Her touch soothed him. It made the red fade into a serene, calming blue, like that of her eyes. He peered into them. Care, concern. Something else. Fear perhaps. Admiration, certainly. Respect. A kindred spirit. Meant to be.
“Sirius will take care of everything down here, but I’m tired, Harry. Won’t you take me to rest with you?”
Using his first name worked like a charm. Lord Potter-Black was too long, too impersonal. In proper settings, she would always use it, of course. But alone? Together? He was Harry. He craved to be just Harry.
He put himself between the commotion and Daphne, guiding her upstairs as he smiled sweetly at her. “Oh, right. Er, yeah, it’s just up here. We should probably talk alone, right?”
“We should. I was hoping to get the chance later tonight, but now is better.”
They shuffled the rest of the way up the stairs, and Harry stopped in front of the door to his room. “Sorry if it’s a little messy.”
She looked up at his bedraggled hair and smiled. “I like messy.”