Gabrielle had fallen asleep within twenty minutes of supper. She always did this, anywhere, in any mood, and Fleur had long since stopped finding it remarkable and started finding it convenient. Her sister was curled up in the bed at the far end of the room, silver-blonde hair over her face, completely unbothered by the world.
Fleur was glad of it. Some of what she needed to talk to her mother about was not for Gabrielle's ears.
Apolline sat across from her with a cup of tea going cold in her hands, her own silver-blonde hair loose around her shoulders, watching Fleur the way she always did when she suspected her daughter was leaving something out.
"The trial went as well as it could have," Fleur continued. "Flint's family hired a capable solicitor who threw every procedural challenge possible at the Wizengamot, and it still didn't matter. Azkaban." A small, satisfied curl came to her lips. "The evidence was simply too thorough to dismiss."
"I am relieved," Apolline said. "But I am still furious that I could not be there."
"I know."
"No, Fleur." Her mother set the tea down. "I want you to understand what it actually was. I contacted the International Confederation. I wrote to the British Minister's office. I was told each time that a veela presence during proceedings that involved veela testimony could compromise the trial." The word came out sharp with contempt. "The implication being that I might somehow enchant the entire Wizengamot."
"A backwater bureaucracy," Fleur said.
"With pretensions," Apolline finished. "Your grandmother would have had a great deal to say about it. These people are frightened of what they cannot control, so they make rules to keep it at arm's length, and then they congratulate themselves on their progressive attitude toward magical beings."
"The pureblood families make everything worse," Fleur agreed. "The Flints have been in Britain for centuries. Old money, old connections. I genuinely believed he would walk out with nothing worse than a fine."
"But he did not."
"No. But it would not have gone that way without 'Arry."
Apolline's expression shifted as her eyes sharpened. "You have mentioned this young man three times in the past hour. Tell me about him."
Fleur considered how to begin. Then she decided her version of the story was simpler than evasion, as it usually was with her mother.
"He stayed with me for a while after the attack," she said. "Most people would've kept their distance. Even the Beauxbatons girls barely checked on me, and those who did weren't sure what to say either. 'Arry stayed with me until they called him. And he listened." She looked briefly toward the dark window. "He didn't try to fill the silence with useless words. Didn't treat me like I was fragile. When I eventually started talking, he listened properly."
"What does properly mean to you?"
"Like what I was saying actually mattered to him. Not false politeness. He remembered details and asked the right questions." Fleur turned back. "And then, when Augustus Flint confronted us outside the courtroom... Marcus Flint's father, old Death Eater, the sort of man who genuinely frightens people, 'Arry stood next to me like a wall. Calm. Didn't flinch, didn't escalate. Made it clear enough that Flint thought twice." She paused. "And he did it without stepping in front of me. Without making me feel like I needed saving."
Apolline knew her daughter well enough to understand what that last part meant. "So he stood beside you," she said. "Not in front."
"Exactly."
She left out the part where Harry had quietly maneuvered Flint into that corridor, giving the whole situation the push it needed. That was his business, done for her sake, and she had no interest in explaining his methods, even to her mother.
There was a short moment of silence before Apolline asked, "And how did his name end up in the Goblet in the first place? You mentioned he didn't put his name in."
Fleur met her gaze evenly. "The investigation is still ongoing."
Apolline studied her for a moment, suspecting there was more to it. But she let it go. "The scores. You mentioned them. Karkaroff gave the young man a zero."
"For a task where he faced a fully grown Horntail and outperformed every one of us." Fleur's irritation was genuine. "Diggory didn't even finish. Krum was good. I'm satisfied with my own score. But 'Arry was on a completely different level, Maman. The way he handled that dragon, the creativity of it, the control. There was no justification for a zero. Karkaroff is a coward who doesn't want a non-Durmstrang champion at the top of the board."
Apolline was quiet for a moment. Then, carefully, she said, "Fleur. You have told me about Beauxbatons over the years. About Madam Maxime. About the professors you have there, and even about what Wizarding France has to offer despite its many, many flaws." She paused. "You have never spoken about a young man like this."
Fleur said nothing.
"You used to say British men were uncivilized brutes with terrible fashion sense and an inexplicable fondness for overcooked vegetables."
"...I may have said something along those lines."
"You called Britain a backwater country that had somehow convinced itself it was the center of the magical world." Apolline picked up her tea, found it cold, and put it back, unbothered to reheat it. "And yet here you are, telling your mother about a British young man's bravery and integrity and the way he sat with you in silence when you were vulnerable."
Fleur straightened slightly. "I can acknowledge when I was wrong."
"Of course you can." Apolline smiled, and it was entirely genuine. "You are perfectly capable of revising your opinions when the evidence demands it. I am simply noting that this particular revision seems to have made quite an impression."
"He is remarkable," Fleur said, and saying it plainly felt easier than she'd expected. "He is younger than me and carries things that would have broken most adults I know, and he does it without complaint and without performing it for anyone. He's funny, sometimes unexpectedly. He's sharp. And he is one of the very few people I have met who treats me like a person first."
Apolline was watching her with an expression Fleur recognized from childhood, when Fleur had done or said something that quietly delighted her mother without quite meaning to. She hadn't seen it directed at her in some time.
"Our allure doesn't work on him," Fleur added, almost as an afterthought. "He has strong willpower. It is why he can be around me without losing his head, and why I can be honest with him about everything without wondering whether the honesty is the allure talking." She paused. "You know how that goes. Most people around us are... not entirely themselves."
Apolline nodded slowly. She knew. "And this young man sees you clearly."
"I think he always has. From the first conversation." Fleur looked at her hands for a moment. "It is more disarming than you might expect."
"Fleur," she said. "Are you in a relationship with this young man?"
The question sat between them. Fleur held her mother's gaze.
"It is... complicated."
"Uncomplicate it for me."
"He and I... we have an understanding... of sorts. Which is to say that I am not the only woman in his life, and he is not pretending otherwise, and neither am I."
Apolline blinked once. "Go on."
"There are two others. Daphne Greengrass, who is a Slytherin in his year. Brilliant, very composed, very proud. We did not like each other at first." Fleur hesitated. "At all. And then there is Regina Parkinson, who is her own category entirely. Sharp tongue, enormous personality, afraid of nothing."
"And he is with all three of you."
"Yes." Fleur kept her voice steady. "Not casually. Not the way some boys treat girls when they think they can get away with it. He is genuinely with each of us. It has to do with a runic ritual he underwent, which has certain effects in terms of connection. But beyond the magic, he treats each of us with the same respect he'd give anyone he actually cared about." She paused. "Which is more than most men can manage with one woman."
Apolline sat with that. Outside, something moved on the grounds. The carriage felt small and warm.
"Three women," she said, turning it over without judgment. "All of you knowing about each other."
"From the beginning. No deception. And if any other woman gets involved, we'll all know about it."
"And the others... they're accepting?"
"More than that. Regina finds the arrangement genuinely suits her. Daphne took longer, but she understands now that what 'Arry has with each of us is its own thing. It doesn't shrink by being shared." Fleur said it slowly, still working through it herself. "I expected jealousy. Or resentment. Especially from Daphne, because we did not start well." She looked at her hands. "Instead, I found that being with all of them together feels more complete than I would have thought possible."
Apolline studied her carefully. "And your veela nature," she said. "You are not territorial with the others?"
Fleur thought about it honestly. "I was, at first. The instinct is still there. But it is different with 'Arry. When I am with him, that part of me is..." She searched for the right word. "Quieter. Like it recognizes something that satisfies it more than possessiveness would." She shook her head slightly. "I cannot explain it better than that. And when all four of us are together, it is different still. The others feel it too, I think, in their own way. Something that is simply larger than what any of us would have alone."
Apolline nodded slowly, as though this made more sense than Fleur expected it to.
She looked at her mother. "Daphne and Regina are not easy people to like at first, and they would say the same of me. But all of us made the effort. And what we have now..." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I would not trade it."
Apolline was quiet for a long moment, still processing it all. "The Greengrass girl. Is she the one you attended the Yule Ball with?" She asked.
Fleur chuckled. "Yes."
"You have opinions about that?"
Fleur looked away briefly. Daphne in midnight blue, her expression carefully held and yet more open than usual as the evening went on. The two of them forced together, the animosity slowly hollowing out, something else settling in where it had been. Them rebuffing boys who thought they could have a chance with either of them. It had been... fun.
"I have mixed feelings about all of it, if I'm being honest," she admitted. "When Daphne and I first met, we hated each other. Not the polite kind of dislike. The active kind, where you are always looking for opportunities to score points." She nearly smiled at the memory. "The first time we interacted, I didn't have good things to say about 'Arry, and she was genuinely pissed with me. When we had a proper conversation, it turned into an argument about whose score in the first task was the more legitimate achievement. Then it became an argument about 'Arry. Then about each other. Then we were sitting in a room drinking firewhiskey because 'Arry had arranged for us to spend an evening together without him to referee."
Apolline raised her eyebrows. "Resourceful young man, isn't he?"
"Infuriating, more like," Fleur said with a fond smile. "The thing is, by the end of that night I understood something about Daphne I hadn't before. She does not show people what she is actually like until she decides they are worth it. Once she decides, she is very loyal. She is funny in a dry way that catches you off guard. And she is one of the few people I have met who can match me in an argument without resorting to cheap tactics." She paused. "I don't want to give her a big head, but I respect her enormously. I think I am actually fond of her now, which I would not have believed possible three weeks ago."
"You are friends," Apolline said, gently.
"I think we are. Yes." Fleur tested the word. "Still competitive. We still bicker. But it is different now. Less like enemies and more like two people who enjoy the friction because we are well-matched." She met her mother's eyes. "We are more similar than either of us wanted to admit. That's probably why we clashed so badly at first."
"Two proud, brilliant girls each accustomed to being the most impressive person in the room."
"With the same standards, the same stubborn streaks, and the same reluctance to show vulnerability." Fleur nodded. "When 'Arry pointed it out, I wanted to argue with him. Then I thought about it and couldn't."
"And you both love the same boy," Apolline added.
"And we both love the same boy," Fleur agreed quietly.
Apolline sat with that for a moment.
"I would like to meet them," she said. "All of them. This Daphne. This Regina. And the young man who's stolen my dear girl's heart."
Fleur laughed softly. "I thought you might."
"You say he is remarkable. You say Daphne is someone you respect more than most. You say Regina has made you laugh in ways that surprised you." Apolline spread her hands. "These people have made my daughter feel less alone in a foreign country during what should have been a very difficult year. Of course I want to meet them."
"They are not exactly conventional company," Fleur said.
"Neither are we," Apolline pointed out. "Fleur, we are veela. Conventional company finds us unsettling and territorial and slightly frightening. I stopped caring about conventional company before you were born."
Fleur felt something warm settle in her chest. "When you put it that way..."
"Besides," Apolline continued, and now there was a glint in her eyes that Fleur recognized easily, "I am very curious about a boy who can keep three witches content and a veela from tearing the competition apart with her bare hands." She paused, let it sit one beat too long, and added very smoothly, "Perhaps he has some capacity left for a fourth."
Fleur's mouth dropped open.
"Maman."
Apolline's expression was serene, as if she'd not just said what Fleur had heard her say.
"I am a veela who has been alone for a very long time," her mother said, with an entirely straight-laced expression on her face. "I am allowed to be curious."
Fleur stared at her mother before she saw her lips twitch a bit.
"You are absolutely terrible," she said, though the giggles were already surfacing against her will.
Apolline laughed, and Fleur could only shake her head as she joined in, mother and daughter laughing together.
It was only later, when Apolline had gone to bed and Fleur lay in the dark listening to Gabrielle breathe, that the thought her mother had planted refused to sit still. Her mother deserved happiness. She'd raised two daughters alone after their father's death, built everything out of her own quiet strength, and she'd never complained once, but Fleur wasn't blind. She'd seen what it cost over the years, in the stillness behind her mother's eyes at the wrong moments, in the way Apolline's laughter always seemed to come a half-second later than it should, like she'd remembered she was allowed to.
Fleur had always assumed her mother was simply private about this. Comfortable alone. She'd never pressed, because pressing was not how they worked with each other.
But watching her mother's eyes tonight, the way they'd sharpened whenever Fleur described Harry, the particular quality of the question she'd asked about him... Fleur had seen something she recognized. Curiosity with an edge to it. The kind that comes from wanting something you'd convinced yourself was out of reach.
And who better, she thought, to make someone realize it wasn't out of reach at all than the man who'd already done exactly that for Fleur herself?
She pushed the thought away. It was ridiculous and premature and she was absolutely not going to lie here constructing speculative scenarios about her mother and the boy she loved.
However, despite her best efforts, it came right back.
She fell asleep still turning it over, her mother's voice echoing in a place she couldn't quite silence.
-Break-
The books from the Restricted Section were spread across his desk in the arrangement Daphne had built, notes beside each one, flags in the margins, and a running list of questions in her neat handwriting on a separate parchment. It was the research system of someone who'd been thinking hard about one problem for a very long time.
He moved to the second book, an even older one, bound in something he'd decided not to examine too closely. Inside were diagrams that looked drawn from memory rather than theory. Ritual circles annotated in three different hands. A table of blood interactions that turned his stomach once he understood what he was reading.
"This one has practical notes," Harry said, tilting it toward Daphne. "Someone actually used it. These annotations aren't the author's."
Daphne leaned over. Her hair fell forward and she tucked it behind her ear without thinking, her eyes moving across the text. "Medieval period, before the Ministry regulations existed." She traced the annotations carefully. "Whoever wrote these had direct experience with blood curse intervention. Look at this. The patient must be present and conscious at the point of ritual contact. That's very specific, not someone theorizing something."
"Astoria isn't conscious."
Daphne went still. Just briefly. "No," she said. "She's not." She straightened. "But the coma is a consequence of the curse itself, not a separate condition. If we disrupt the curse's mechanism, there's a path where consciousness returns as the suppression lifts." She said it like she'd rehearsed it. "The healers implied as much in the conversation I overheard. They just couldn't pursue it."
She moved to another volume and opened it to a flagged page. "This one describes the structure of a blood curse in more detail than anything else I've found. But it explains the mechanism without addressing how to intervene once it's active." She tapped the paragraph with her quill. "Like reading a book on anatomy that describes a broken bone in perfect detail but never mentions bones can be healed."
Harry leaned in. The ink was faded to brown at the edges, the handwriting fast and cramped. "What about this?" He pointed to a footnote at the bottom of the page. "It references another text. Lineare Sanguinis by Corvinus Gaunt."
Daphne frowned. "We don't have that one."
"I can get it." He made a note. "What does the Gaunt name tell you?"
She thought. "Old family. One with dark history. It's rumored they descended from Slytherin himself, but not a lot of people believe it. They're long gone, and there's not much known about them. A Gaunt writing about blood magic isn't surprising, but it's potentially very useful. They were obsessed with bloodline purity, which means they studied blood curses in depth, whether to avoid them or weaponize them."
"Either way, they'd have wanted to understand them." Harry added the title to his list. "What else?"
Daphne sat back and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired, and not just from the reading. "This is where it gets difficult. Two of these texts reference ritual blood work that could theoretically address a dormant curse affecting a magical core. Both involve contact with the curse at its most active point. In Astoria's case, that's her own blood."
"What does that mean in practice?"
"It means whoever performs the ritual needs direct access to her blood while the curse is active. They'd have to map the curse's pathways and disrupt them from within." She said it the way she said things that frightened her, stripped down and clinical. "The healers at St. Mungo's know this approach exists. The reason they won't attempt it is the legality."
"Blood magic."
"Classified under the Magical Practices Regulation Act of 1749. Updated in 1921 to include any blood manipulation during a cursed state. The Ministry's argument is that someone doing blood magic on a cursed person could exploit the compromised state without consent." Her voice went flat. "A real concern when the practitioner is malicious. But when the person is trying to help..."
"The law doesn't distinguish," Harry said.
"The law does not distinguish. The moment we attempt ritualistic blood work on Astoria, we are committing a crime. If caught, it's not expulsion. It's prosecution. A direct ticket to Azkaban."
Harry turned his quill between his fingers. "What about her healers? Not bringing them into the ritual itself, but having them present."
Daphne looked at him, waiting for the catch. "You think their medical authority provides some cover."
"I think a licensed healer who witnesses an emergency intervention on a dying patient and doesn't report it is making a professional judgment call. Whereas two students doing blood magic in a hospital room with no supervision is a much harder argument."
Daphne was quiet for a moment, running the angles.
"The problem," she said, "is that if I go back to them now and say I've found a possible approach using blood rituals, the first thing they'll do is report it. Not cruelty. Obligation." She pressed her fingers to her forehead. "There are healers in St. Mungo's who push against the legal limits, who work with experimental methods. But I don't have contacts there. I don't know who can be trusted."
Harry thought of Amelia Bones, asking him to do something thoroughly illegal on her behalf while smiling pleasantly from behind her desk as the head of the DMLE. The gap between what the law allowed and what was right was well-populated. He just needed to find the right people in it.
"Then we find those contacts," he said. "That's a solvable problem. One step at a time."
Daphne looked at him. He could see her fighting the instinct to deflect. "You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. It's just manageable." He reached across and closed his hand over hers where it rested on the open page. "And not a single step of it is one you're taking alone. Do you understand me?"
She held his gaze. She'd spent a long time not relying on anyone, and he could see exactly how hard she was working against that habit. "I understand you," she said quietly.
"Good." His thumb moved across her knuckles. "Because I meant every word."
She looked at him for another moment. Then, in a voice that was quieter than her usual tone, she spoke, "I tried once. Going back to her healers on my own. Last summer, before the year started." She hadn't mentioned this before. "I didn't tell them about the books or the research. I just asked, hypothetically, whether blood ritual intervention had ever been considered for cases like hers. Whether it was something that existed." She paused, staring at Harry who gazed back intently. "The healer I spoke to looked at me like I'd suggested something obscene. Told me that such practices were firmly in the category of dark magic and that any practitioner suggesting them should be reported." She exhaled through her nose. "I didn't go back."
"That's why you didn't want to bring them in," Harry said.
"The ones I know of are not the ones we need." She looked back at the books. "We need someone who understands the practical side of this. The actual mechanism, not just the theory. Someone who has done blood work before and knows what it looks like from the inside."
"Give me time," Harry said. "I know people who might know people. We'll find who we need."
Daphne was quiet for a moment. "Alright," she said with a nod. "Then we keep researching what we have in the meantime, and we build a picture of exactly what the ritual would require. So that when we find the right person, we're not starting from nothing."
"That I can help with tonight."
"I know you can." She picked up her quill and turned back to the parchment. "That's why I'm here."
The lamplight was warm. Outside, the castle was quiet. Daphne looked down at their joined hands, and something in her expression changed. The careful composure she wore everywhere loosened at the edges, the same way it had the night she'd told him about Astoria. Not breaking. Just easing.
"I don't know what I'd do," she started, and stopped.
"You'd figure it out," Harry said. "You always do. But you don't have to."
She looked up at him with the look she kept for when she was sure they were alone. His hand was still over hers, and she turned hers over and laced her fingers through his.
"I hate this, you know," she said. Not bitterly. Just stating it. "Needing people. Trusting them with things that could hurt Astoria if they went wrong."
"I know."
"But I trust you." She said it as plainly as she said everything important. "For what it's worth."
"It's worth a lot," Harry said.
She looked at him for a moment before she let out a breath, slow and quiet, and whatever had been held tight in her finally went loose.
"Harry," she said emotionally.
He was already leaning forward.
The kiss started the way it always did between them. Her free hand came to his jaw, her palm warm, and Harry felt everything else around them go quiet. He shifted, pulling her toward him, and she came without resistance. A book slid off her arm. Her fingers curled around the back of his neck, and the kiss deepened, slow and sensual. His runes hummed low in his chest, reacting to the heat building between them.
She stood from her chair without breaking the kiss. His hands found her hips and she moved forward until her back was against the edge of the desk. She looked up at him for just a moment, and then pulled him back down by the collar.
The kiss became the kind that shut thinking off. Her hands traced the lines of his chest through his shirt. Harry's fingers slid under her jumper to the warm skin of her waist, and she exhaled against his mouth. He moved his hands over her back, teasing the strap of her bra, and she arched slightly into his touch.
"Desk," she murmured.
He lifted her onto it with both hands at her waist, and she wrapped her legs around him at once. Her hands went to his hair and tugged, and the heat that shot through him was immediate. The runes flared. Daphne made a low sound and pulled him closer.
He kissed her jaw, her throat, the spot below her ear he'd learned could make her completely lose her train of thought. She proved the point by exhaling his name like she'd half-forgotten it was a word.
"Off," she said, her fingers already at his shirt buttons. She had them undone in moments and pushed the shirt off his shoulders. Her palms went flat against his bare chest and slid across the runic engravings. The runes pulsed under her touch the way they always did, a flare of warmth shooting from the contact point outward.
"They still do that," she said quietly, watching her own hands.
"They know you. They recognize you."
She looked up at him. She said nothing, but the look was enough.
He reached for her jumper and she raised her arms without being asked. Then it was gone and she was in just her bra in the lamplight, with the expression on her face that she saved for when she felt completely safe.
"You are so beautiful," he said lovingly.
She reddened, the color rising and making her skin flushed.
"Shut up," she said, softly.
He kissed her collarbone and trailed down instead of arguing. Her breath caught audibly as she reached behind herself. She unhooked her bra and let it drop, and his hands immediately moved over her breasts, his thumbs drawing slow circles over her nipples.
She made a low, quiet sound of pleasure, her lips parted and her head thrown back as he feasted on the swells of her breasts.
He kept going, varying the pressure, until the sounds she made weren't quiet anymore and her fingers had tightened hard in his hair.
"Harry." Her voice was different now, lower, and much less composed. "Come here."
He came back up to her mouth and she kissed him deeply, her hands framing his face and her bare body pressing into his. The runes pulsed steady and warm against her skin. He lifted her from the desk and she instinctively wrapped her legs around him. He carried her to the bed and laid her down. She looked up at him in the lamplight, her blonde hair spread around her, her cheeks flushed, and she held out one hand without a word.
He took it and came down beside her.
They took the rest of their clothes off without hurrying. He'd learned by now that Daphne liked this part slow, each thing intentional, no rushing ahead of itself. He unclasped her skirt and slid it down, then hooked his fingers into her knickers and she lifted her hips without being asked. He took a moment to just look at her, laid out in the lamplight, because that was always worth taking.
"You're staring," she said.
"Yes," he agreed, and she laughed quietly, which was better.
He kissed his way down her stomach, her hip, the inside of her knee, and she shivered at each place his lips landed. Her fingers were light in his hair. When he moved back up to her mouth, she pulled him in and kissed him properly, deep and slow, her hips already rising against him.
"I want to feel you," she said against his lips. "All of you."
He reached between her legs first. She was already warm and slick, and she inhaled sharply the moment his fingers found her clit, her hips pressing up into his hand. He worked her slowly, varying the pressure, the pace, watching her face for every small reaction. He pushed one finger in, and she was so slick and wet he pushed another in, curling them just right and rolling them against her inner walls.
She went from quiet to not quiet with very little warning, her breath quickening, her hand fisting in the sheets, and the line of her neck exposed as her head tipped back, her mouth open in a silent 'O'. When she made a sound that came out broken at the edges, he kept exactly what he was doing until her whole body was taut.
"Harry," she said, and it wasn't a request anymore.
He pulled back his hand and she made a small, frustrated noise. He kissed the corner of her mouth while she glared at him.
"Do not tease me right now," she said.
"Wasn't teasing," he said, and positioned himself against her. He rubbed the head of his cock all over her pussy, teasing her this time, and he grinned when her glare intensified. "Just a bit," he teased before his grin vanished as he pressed forward and eased into her in one slow, steady movement.
She exhaled, long and full, every bit of held tension going out of her at once. Her hands went to his back and pulled him in closer. He pushed until he was buried to the hilt inside her and held still for a moment, letting her adjust, watching her face.
"Okay?" he asked.
"More than okay," she said. "Move."
He moved. Carefully at first, testing what she wanted, adjusting until the sounds she made matched what he was aiming for. The runes burned steadily with every thrust, the heat of them spreading outward through his chest. He could feel everything, every small shift in her breathing, every place where she tightened around him, every time her nails went from light to sharp against his back.
He changed the angle and she gasped, immediate and sharp, her mouth pressing against his shoulder to muffle it. He stayed right there. She made a low, broken sound and her fingers dug in.
"There," she managed. Barely a word.
He kept that pace, kept that angle, and let everything else follow from it. As he thrust inside her, he watched her because it was worth watching. The composure she wore everywhere was long gone, dissolved back at the desk. What was left was just Daphne, flushed and dark-eyed and entirely present, with none of the careful management she usually kept between herself and the world.
Her legs wrapped tighter around him. Her back arched, pressing herself closer. She whispered his name once, plainly, nothing theatrical about it, and that plainness hit him harder than anything else could have.
He reached between them, found her clit with his thumb, and began moving it in slow firm circles. She made a sound she didn't bother muffling this time, one that came out clear and unguarded, and she didn't seem to care.
"Let go," he said, planting his knees on the bed and furiously hammering into her, his mouth clamping on her neck.
She did. Her whole body tightened and then released, his name breaking in her mouth, her hands gripping his shoulders. He followed her over with a few last deep thrusts, his face in her neck, hands gripping her shoulders firmly, everything narrowing down to her warmth and her voice and the way she held onto him like he was the only solid thing in the room.
Afterward, they lay still. Her fingers traced slow patterns on his chest, his arm around her. The lamplight flickered. One of the books had slid off the desk at some point and lay open on the floor. Neither of them moved to retrieve it.
Harry lay there, listening to her breathe, feeling her settle fully against him once the last of her tension had drained out. This was the part he'd come to value in its own right, not just what led to it, but this particular quiet. Daphne in her composed public life was formidable and a little unreachable. Daphne like this, with her cheek on his chest and her sweat-slicked body against his, with her guard entirely down, was something different. Something he didn't take lightly.
"You know," she said after a while, her voice soft and slightly rough, "I used to think research was something I'd do alone. Everything to do with Astoria. All of it."
"I know."
"I'd convinced myself that keeping people out was protective. That if no one else knew, no one else could be hurt by it, or use it against us." She paused. "I hadn't considered that it was also just... incredibly lonely."
Harry pressed his lips to her temple, saying nothing, because nothing was required.
"We'll find a way," Harry said after a moment.
Daphne traced one of the runic engravings on his forearm. "I know," she said. Then, quieter, she whispered, "I believe you."
She said it plainly. No dressing it up. He pressed his lips to her temple and felt her relax fully against him.
Lineare Sanguinis was still on his list. The medieval annotated volume was still full of questions. Astoria Greengrass was still in a bed, and two years had already gone.
But they had a direction now. And Daphne wasn't alone in it.
TBC.
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