“Are you an idiot, Potter?”
He tried not to wince at the coldness in Daphne’s tone, but couldn’t hide how much her refusal hurt.
Is this what rejection feels like? They weren’t in what could be considered a genuine relationship - partially due to the marriage contract and all that - and so he was belatedly trying to take the next step. The problem was that Daphne was being every bit as forthcoming as Aspasia and Astoria warned she would be.
Between ignoring his existence entirely and rarely lowering herself enough to be in his presence, it was hard for Harry Potter to get her attention for most of the summer. But he did have something going for him, in that some of her attitude towards him had changed since the World Cup.
The blonde didn’t seem to hold outright contempt for him in every waking moment anymore, having little problem with sitting next to him at meals. Sure, she was still uptight and her responses clipped when he addressed her, but didn’t show outright distaste anymore. Small as it might be, it had emboldened him to try and take the next step, approaching her like a freshman might approach the hottest senior on campus, putting his pride on the line in hopes she would agree to go out on him.
And yet, when he asked Daphne Greengrass to go on a date with him to Diagon Alley, he had immediately been shot down. And not just refused, but his own sanity was questioned in the process, making him feel even worse.
“Um… Do you mind if I ask why?” He was well aware of the sweat running down his brow, feeling more anxious than ever. This was uncharted territory for him, and a misstep might set whatever relationship they had back months.
She frowned and crossed her arms, as if the simple question greatly inconvenienced her.
“You are, without any effort on your part whatsoever, the most sought-after wizard in Britain. If the two of us are seen sharing a meal anywhere with fellow wizards in attendance, there will be a very particular kind of article in the Prophet by Sunday morning, and a rather worse one in Witch Weekly by Tuesday. After that, I will spend the rest of the year being asked whether I seduced you, potioned you, or simply used the Imperius curse.” Her lips thinned. “I would prefer none of those conversations take place. So, no.”
She’s brutal. He shivered slightly at her cold and analytical response. “Would it really be that bad?”
“If that’s not enough, then I should say that the last thing I want to do right now is be seen with you after that article Skeeter wrote.” She stated.
“So nowhere in Diagon Alley, or even Hogsmeade?”
“Obviously.” She rolled her eyes. “Where else would we go on an outing such as this?”
It was a good question, and a sudden, radical idea occurred to him then. In a way, Daphne wasn’t outright refusing to go on a date with him, but rather avoiding the publicity that could potentially come with it. If Harry could avoid the attention and press entirely, then the problem would be solved.
The idea he came up with then was the perfect solution, but would take some work to actually pull off. However, there was glaring issue, being whether she would agree to go along with what he was about to propose. Meaning he might get shot down again, and earn himself a more scathing retort in the process.
“How about somewhere muggle?”
“Muggle?” She voiced the word as if it was a foreign concept, akin to someone being asked if they wanted to dine in space.
“Think about it.” He pushed, internally jumping for joy that she wasn’t outright refusing him this time around. “I’ll take you somewhere nice, we can eat dinner, and head back to the Manor afterwards.”
The blonde seemed to ponder over it, looking away as she brought a hand to her chin in thought.
“We would have to portkey there and back.” She idly mused, eventually letting out a sigh as she seemed to come to a decision. “It certainly is an unprecedented proposition… Why not?”
It was nearly all Harry could do to not let out a whoop of victory.
/////
It struck him as he waited in the Greengrass foyer on the night of their date, that Harry Potter truly hadn’t gone on a genuine date before. Sure, he had gone on some outings with Aspasia, and spent time with Astoria for a bit at the World Cup, but never this.
He believed that was likely more to do with the two women falling into his lap, having no problems with being with him. For Aspasia, the older blonde witch had little time for romance in her life, and was only too eager to take advantage of a younger lover. He was someone who could fuck her silly, worship her body, and cast aside those doubts she had about her age. For Astoria, the brunette already had a crush on him to begin with, and held little back in her teasing since he arrived at the manor, until he eventually fell victim to her advances.
As for Daphne, he had to actively try to woo her, otherwise risk her cold indifference for the rest of his days. It was as the others told him, that he had to work to break through her icy exterior to get to the warmth underneath, which would take genuine effort.
He didn’t expect much to come out of their date, with his betrothed likely to put in minimal effort. If anything - he was prepared for her to dump him in the middle of it - to come crawling back to the Manor on the knight bus in the aftermath.
What he didn’t expect, however, was the amount of work she put into her outfit. His jaw literally dropped when she walked down the steps to the large foyer wearing a stunning red dress. Her hair was let loose and polished to a bright gold shine, face done up with makeup. Whatever expectations he had for the evening then were suddenly shot out the window at this turn of events.
“Don’t,” Daphne said, before he’d made a sound. “Make this strange.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Your face was about to, and that’s enough for me.”
“I can’t completely control my expressions, you know.” He fought with himself for a moment before speaking again. “Just never seen you like this before.”
“Tracey helped me.” Daphne answered quietly. “She’s half-blood, so knew what I should wear for a… muggle outing.”
Tracey did more than that. He thought, realizing he needed to thank Daphne’s best friend for pulling one over on her. Tracey had most likely lied to Daphne about what muggle girls wore, giving her this outfit that would have her standing out no matter where she went. Clearly her best friend had taken advantage of the blonde’s ignorance, much to his own benefit.
If anything, Harry would have to do his best not to get distracted during their evening, and maybe even fight other suitors off in the process. As for the dress itself, it hugged and wrapped around her hourglass form perfectly - almost scandalously so - exposing enough cleavage that his cock twitched at the sight of her heavy breasts.
She daintily wrapped her wrist around his arm, as was customary, before he clutched the portkey that Aspasia had prepared in advance for them. It would take them to an area near the restaurant he had made reservations at - which Hedwig was able to help pull off somehow - as he spoke the passphrase causing it to activate in a twist of magic.
As was usual, he landed in a clump of limbs while his date didn’t so much as stumble coming out of the portkey. He looked up to see they were in an alleyway in the city close to the restaurant, with the sounds of muggle cars and pedestrians nearby.
Standing up and shaking off the dirt, he led his date out to the road and made to continue, only for her to freeze up mid-stride.
“Wha-” Daphne stared at the muggle vehicles around them with wide eyes, before her gaze snapped to some of the lit-up streetlights and neon flashing signs on the businesses nearby.
“Never been to muggle London?” He asked with some amusement, to which she mutely shook her head.
“What are those things?”
“Cars.” He answered, watching the busy intersection across from their spot on the sidewalk. Clearly the blonde witch didn’t know much about muggles, and was clearly ignorant about how advanced they really were. “Let’s get moving, I’ll explain on the way.”
His date agreed, moving on with a mutter about ‘muggle studies’ and how it might not be a complete waste of time. Sadly, Harry didn’t have the heart to tell her that Hogwarts’ muggle studies class was several centuries out of date, and wouldn’t help in today’s day and age.
They soon walked into the restaurant to find the place was something beyond posh, fancy enough to make Aunt Petunia faint, filled with men and women of high society. He picked it because it was the perfect place for his snooty date, and her reaction showed it.
“This is not what I expected.” She admitted with wide eyes once they were seated, studying the menu with a fair bit of intensity.
“Better or worse than you thought?”
“Undecided.” She turned a page of the menu, before eyeing the muggle world outside the nearby window with some interest.
To help her further understand, he spoke about how the cars worked, about the lights and the various muggle businesses around. While Harry didn’t grow up in the city, he had visited and seen enough on television at the Dursleys to have a good enough understanding of it all.
In a way, the most uncomfortable part of the evening for Daphne seemed to be when she realized the waiters would be normal people and not house-elves. Too used to fancy pureblood establishments, it seemed those magical restaurants had few wizards that actually worked there.
Harry was just glad that their conversation at dinner didn’t die out like he expected. When he wasn’t explaining muggle technology or idiosyncrasies, Daphne filled the gaps with talk of her own life.
She spoke about her Slytherin housemates some, about the garden parties she attended over the summer along with the Wizengamot seat she would one day inherit from her mother. Aspasia had told him some about the tangle of alliances she held together, and Daphne was much more informed and familiar with the subject.
However, a sore point for him came as she was speaking casually. “~half of the ancient Houses are so terrified of losing standing to mudbloods and blood-traitors they’d rather burn the whole system down than adapt it.”
He knew he should’ve ignored it and moved on, but it still hit hard and sudden. He thought of Hermione and Malfoy’s taunting visage lording over her, backed up by his lackeys in Slytherin House. Beyond that, he remembered their second year, Tom Riddle and the diary along with his threat to exterminate all ‘mudbloods’ in the school. He had fought a basilisk and nearly died in the process to end it all, and the subject was still a sensitive one to him.
While Harry had adapted much to pureblood life - made easier by Aspasia’s lessons - there was still much about the Greengrasses he wasn’t used to.
“Don’t call them that.” He said, quieter than he expected, but with an edge underneath it he couldn’t hide.
Daphne stiffened, genuinely startled by the shift in his voice. “It’s simply the term they use-”
“I know that, but it’s wrong to say. Just… don’t say it around me.”
She studied him for a long moment, something recalculating behind her eyes, and to his mild surprise she didn’t argue with him. He expected their nice evening to end there, but it surprisingly didn’t.
“Noted.” She said instead of pushing back, simply leaving it there and ready to move on.
He nodded with some gratitude, their meal continuing as if nothing had happened. Dinner was mostly polite and not as uncomfortable as he thought it would be. But eventually he found himself asking a question he had been wondering about for a while.
“Did you ever think you would end up in a position like this?” He asked, then elaborated at her questioning look. “In a marriage contract.”
It was a question he had asked her before, but had never gotten a clear enough answer for his tastes.
“Yes.” She admitted easily, and his brows rose at the answer. “Just not to you.”
“Then to who?”
“Likely to an offspring of one of my Mother’s allies, or even one of our classmates.” Daphne shrugged. “The Greengrass family is considered an ancient House, and it is not unusual for a House such as mine to wed through contract. The only real question was when, and to whom, along with how favorable the terms would be when it happened.” She paused as if reflecting back to earlier years. “I assumed, for most of my life, it would be someone from within our own circle. A Brown, perhaps, or an Abbott cousin, someone whose family had been trading daughters and alliances with mine for centuries. I had made a kind of peace with that potential outcome, but had not made any peace at all with the idea of House Potter.”
“So you wouldn’t have predicted this outcome.” He mused more to himself.
“Any Slytherin from our year, I could have easily predicted and managed, adjusted accordingly. I would have known the family, the expectations, the type of the life waiting for me behind closed doors. Yet you bring something else to the table, whether it be familial history, expectations, or precedent. The only thing your name guarantees the opinions of strangers and certain factions that will have opinions about me for the rest of my days.” She idly picked over her food using her fork. “It isn’t personal, Potter, I want to be clear about that. I simply prefer to know what I’m walking into.”
“That’s fair.” He said after a moment. “I’d rather know what I was walking into too, rather than sudden surprises. Nobody’s ever bothered explaining much of anything to me before it happened.”
“For what it’s worth.” She said after a moment. “There are considerably worse names a marriage contract could have carried than your own.”
I guess that’s the best compliment I’ll be getting this evening. His lips quirked up in triumph, even as she glared at him for his reaction. “That is not an invitation to be smug about it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Your expression says otherwise.”
“It’s just my face, not my fault.”
/////
Dinner ended as they walked out of the restaurant, Daphne once again on his arm as he made to walk back to the same alleyway to portkey back. But the blonde seemed to have something different in mind, nudging his arm and guiding him somewhere else.
“This way, I’m not ready to back yet.” She said quietly, picking a direction that took them higher up to look over the city.
It seemed she didn’t want to go back to the Manor quite yet, to face whatever teasing Astoria had in store or whatever faces Aspasia would make. It meant she wanted to spend more time with him, and that realization made his heart leap in happiness, glad that it wasn’t just him moving their date forward, but Daphne who seemed to be putting in effort.
“You just want me all to yourself.” Daphne glared at his teasing deduction, but he guessed he was right.
She led him up to a tall balcony under the night sky looking over the city at night along with the river below. They weren’t the only couples up there, many sitting and drinking or kissing under the moonlight, as Daphne led him to a more private area off to the side.
They turned a corner on the edge of the balcony, walking along a more quiet stretch along the railing before she suddenly turned around. Harry had to stop himself quickly before he could run into her, nearly slamming into her front. It left her lips close to his own, light breaths brushing against his chin.
“I’m not ready to go far with whatever this is.” She whispered, her blue eyes not overly confident but rather seeming vulnerable. “Not as far as Astoria or mother.”
So she knows about them. “We don’t have to.”
Agreement flashed in her eyes, and they moved to sit down on a nearby bench to enjoy the view of the river running through the city under the stars. Something had changed between them that night, a closeness that wasn’t present before, as demonstrated by how comfortable his date suddenly seemed.
“I had a good time this evening.” Daphne said to him, her blue eyes glinting in the moonlight, and he swore her cheeks sported a light blush.
“I did too.” Harry was feeling particularly bold. “But I know what could make it better.”
His betrothed didn’t outright nod, but instead took action, leaning in to give him a fleeting kiss. It was quick and proper, yet he still got a taste of her lips in the process. Even if he had experienced intimacy before, it still left him sitting still in place like an idiot, giddiness mixing with disbelief.
“It’s just a kiss.” She justified quickly when it was over, turning away with her chin held high as if he shouldn’t think anything of it. “Merely an… ordinary requirement for marriage.”
“If that’s how you want to justify it.” He couldn’t help but tease.
“Quiet, Potter.” The Ice queen was suddenly back in place. “Don’t make me regret this entire evening.”
“Even if you regret it, I won’t.” His words actually made her blush this time, as he temporarily broke through the ice.
Disclaimer: All Characters are over the Age of 18