There was a knock at his door far too early in the morning, if it could even be called that. There was only a faint stream of moonlight shooting into the bedroom, giving just enough light to make out shapes. Harry stirred, groaning groggily as he tried to keep his eyes closed so that he didn’t wake up too much. But then there was another, more incessant knock at his door.
Beside him, Daphne brushed her blond hair away from her face as she stretched her arms high above her head. Her bare breasts slipped out from under the duvet, and she quickly snuggled up closer against Harry’s side, resting her head against his chest.
“I know you’re awake in there,” Sirius’ voice rang out through the door.
“Only because of you,” Harry bit back. “Let us go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” Sirius replied casually. “I guess I’ll just wait until you’re good and ready to let you know that we’ve found whose vault has Voldemort’s horcrux in Gringotts.”
Harry sat up suddenly. Daphne’s arms flailed for balance as her head slipped off of Harry’s chest.
“It’s not even three in the morning yet,” Daphne whined as she looked at their bedside clock. “Come back to bed. It’s not like the horcrux is going anywhere.”
Harry hesitated in the midst of throwing on one of his dressing gowns. “This is really important. We’ve spent days trying to track down whose vault this is, and now that we know, we can start planning how to break in.”
As Daphne sat up, the bedsheets pooled around her waist. “Do it for me. Please.”
He wanted so badly to go see Sirius right now and hear what he had to say, but he also knew that he’d been a bit of a shitty boyfriend lately. He’d promised Daphne that he wouldn’t push himself too hard, and yet he did it anyway with that ritual. It was hard not to notice the worried looks Astoria and Daphne would shoot him every so often.
Voldemort needed to be defeated—it was the only way that he’d finally be able to live his life freely—but he couldn’t just put everyone he was fighting for to the side. Not always, at least.
Holding back a grimace, Harry turned to the door and called out loudly. “This will have to wait, Sirius. I won’t be any use to you when I’m exhausted. I’ll be up in the morning. You should go to bed and get some sleep too.”
“I can’t sleep now,” Sirius replied. “Come on, Anastasia and Cyrus are up too. We’re talking about how we can—”
“Save it for the morning,” Harry said more firmly as he slipped off his dressing gown.
He started to feel better about his decision when he crawled back into his warm bed beside Daphne. She quickly snuggled back up against him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she murmured as her eyes fluttered closed.
Harry kissed the top of her head and let his head rest against the pillow, but he couldn’t fall back asleep. His mind was racing with the possibilities of whose vault it could be. It was a speculation that they’d all gone over countless times in the past week and a half. They’d resorted to going through old newspapers to see if they could identify any of the old necklaces, rings, and other jewels that he’d identified in his vision. There were plenty of dark families whom it could belong to, and Harry replayed their names in his mind over and over again as though that would somehow impart into him the knowledge of who was behind it.
Eventually though, the names began to blend together, and Harry’s tiredness won out. He nodded off and awoke several hours later when light was streaming in through the window. The change in his breathing must’ve woken up Daphne too, because she quickly stirred and greeted him with a smile.
“You stayed the whole night,” she said.
“Are you surprised?” Harry replied with a playful snort, only realising half a second too late that she was. It brought a slight damper on his cheery morning mood, but Daphne took one of his hands in hers and kissed his fingers softly.
“What I am is happy,” she told him sincerely. “It’s the little moments like this that matter so much to me. Before I met you, I always imagined that I’d live a life with a man I didn’t get to choose. Maybe I’d have found a way to love him or maybe not, but I never once believed that I’d get to have moments like this feeling as happy as I am now being by your side. I love you, Harry, and I always will.”
She kissed him then, and Harry was delighted to just hold her against him, relishing in this moment while it lasted. It was moments like these that he was fighting for.
“Can I be just a little bit more selfish today?” Daphne asked him when their lips finally parted.
“Of course,” Harry said.
“Can we shower together?” Daphne asked.
“A shower or a—”
Suddenly, Daphne’s hands slithered across his belly and down to his flaccid cock. She wrapped her fingers delicately around it and gave it a couple of pumps.
“That answer your question?” Daphne smirked.
“It does, but now it’s time for me to be a little selfish,” he grinned back at her.
Daphne squealed as Harry grabbed her hips and lifted her up. The bedsheets fell away from both of them, and Harry nestled her right in between his thighs as he leaned back against the headboard of the bed. Her ass was pressed right up against his crotch, and he leaned her back so that her back was against his chest.
“You don’t know how much I love your body,” Harry murmured into her ear as he let his hands roam.
Daphne’s smooth skin was always a delight to touch. Just the simple act of his fingertips running along her every curve was enough to bring a shiver of delight down her spine. The excitement of him touching her meant that her breathing started to pick up a bit, and he could practically feel her lungs inhaling with each breath she took. He took his time wandering, almost teasingly slow, before he started moving his way to her more erogenous zones.
As he began to kiss her neck softly, one of his hands slipped right between her thighs. He could feel the wetness beginning to build on her labia as he gently ran his fingers down her slit. He brought that lubrication up to her sensitive clit and began to slowly circle it while his other hand possessively grabbed one of her breasts. He began to knead it softly, feeling her nipple harden against the palm of his hand.
“Oh, Harry,” Daphne moaned softly as she rested her head back against his shoulder. Her eyes fluttered closed in delight and her lips were just barely parted as he kept up his ministrations. She looked so adorable when she got like this.
The more Daphne got worked up, the more direct pressure he applied to her. His fingers started pressing more firmly on her clit without completely overwhelming her. Her neck was starting to get marked up from where he was kissing her, but he knew that magic could fix that later.
“You’re so gorgeous when you melt against me like this,” Harry whispered to her, not wanting to speak over her breathy little moans.
“Merlin, I need you inside of me so bad,” Daphne gasped.
“Like this?” Harry asked teasingly as he brought his fingers back down to her labia. He gently pressed his index finger inside of her, and her walls clung to him instantly. He felt around for the right spot and then curled his finger as his palm pressed against her clit.
“Fuck, Harry,” Daphne quivered against him. She bit her lip as she held back a louder moan. “Get us to the shower right now.”
“Are you sure you don’t want more of this?” He asked as he continued pressing her g-spot and lightly pinching her nipple.
“Now!”
Chuckling, Harry retracted his fingers and slipped out from behind Daphne. Her legs were trembling a bit as he helped her to her feet, and she gladly accepted the bathrobe he handed her. The two of them quickly threw on their bathrobes and escaped out of Daphne’s room and across the hall to the bathroom itself. The second they got inside, Daphne slammed the door shut behind them and ripped off her bathrobe. Harry mirrored her actions and turned on the shower.
“How hot do you want—” he’d begun to ask, turning around, only for his mouth to dry up as Daphne dropped to her knees in front of him.
His cock had gotten quite hard from teasing Daphne, and with the way her ass had been rubbing up against him, there was a thick bead of precum forming on the tip of it. Daphne looked like a woman possessed with the purest lust as she unhinged her jaw and took his length into her mouth. Harry watched in amazement as she gobbled him down, letting his cock slide straight into her throat in a single motion. She ended up with her lips sealed around the base of his shaft, and as she stared up at him through her long eyelashes, she ever-so slowly teased her lips back to the tip of his cock.
“Bloody hell, Daphne,” Harry groaned as Daphne pushed forward again. Her tongue was lathering his cock lovingly, ensuring that it was thoroughly coated in a thick layer of saliva.
After just a few more seconds, she pulled back and gave the tip of his cock a kiss before she climbed to her feet, stepped into the shower, bent forwards, and spread her ass cheeks apart to show off her dripping wet pussy to him.
“Well?” Daphne raised an eyebrow when Harry didn’t move.
The only reason he didn’t move was because he was so in awe of this woman. “Sorry,” he said quickly as he hopped into the shower behind her.
Hot steam swirled around them as Daphne planted her hands against the shower wall and stuck her ass out towards Harry. He quickly lined himself up behind her, catching the spray of water against his back, and pushed forward.
Even the steam couldn’t compare to the sweet heat of Daphne’s pussy. The tip of his cock parted her labia and stretched her walls wider to accommodate his thick girth. It was a wonderful sensation that Harry would never tire of. She was wet enough that his cock slid deeper easily, up until the moment his hips pressed against her plump cheeks.
Daphne loved having sex in the shower almost more than in their bed. He’d asked her about it once, and she’d explained that the heat of his cock inside of her felt even better with the hot steam warming her skin. Growing up, beach vacations had been her favourite, just lounging in the hot sun. She made him promise that he’d take her to somewhere nice and hot after they’d won their fight against Voldemort. He wondered if she’d love being fucked on the beach in the midday sun as much as this.
Daphne’s walls squeezed his cock tightly as he stabilised his footing, ensuring that he wouldn’t slip once he started to thrust. Then, he started to fuck her.
The sound of his hips smacking off of her ass was muffled by the splattering water striking the floor as Harry thrust out of the path of the water. Then, when he pulled back, the water rained down his body again before he pushed back into Daphne’s perfect pussy.
Harry developed a steady rhythm quickly. He knew that he’d already worked Daphne up almost to the breaking point, so he took things at a slower pace than usual so that he could build up to his peak too. It was always so fun to try to cum at the same time as his lovers. Sometimes, he just couldn’t help himself when they made him feel too good, but he wanted this morning’s session with Daphne to be special.
Daphne’s moans came back quickly as Harry thrust hard into her pussy. Her hands slipped down the wall a couple of times, but she kept bringing them right back up. Harry kept a tight grip on her hips just in case she actually slipped so that he could catch her, which seemed to give Daphne the confidence to do what she did next.
Suddenly, Daphne hoisted her left leg up and knocked a bunch of bottles of soap, shampoo, conditioner, and various other toiletries off of a shelf. The bottles clattered around Harry’s feet, but he was more distracted by the sight of Daphne’s leg lifted so high up. She twisted her body so that she was almost sideways and stared back at him with a wicked grin on her lips. With her leg up like this, Harry could shift the angle of his cock slightly and fuck her pussy even deeper than before.
With a matching grin, Harry did exactly that.
Waves of ecstasy washed over Harry as he fucked Daphne deeper until he couldn’t go any further. Daphne’s legs were both trembling as she used all of her core strength to maintain this position. The excitement of this unusual position made both of them lose themselves even further to their lust.
“So good,” Daphne let out a whimpering moan. “I’m so close.”
Harry let his pace pick up as fast as he dared so that he didn’t accidentally knock Daphne over, desperate to catch up to her. Seeing her pleasure-filled face and beautiful eyes staring back into his helped him quite a bit as his cock rammed inside of her.
“Harry, I’m…!” Daphne screamed as her body began to shake. Her voice reverberated around the room as her pussy clamped down hard around his thick cock, trying to squeeze the life out of him. Her arms slipped, and it was only thanks to Harry’s tight grip that she didn’t fall and smack her head.
Groaning with pleasure, Harry spun Daphne around on his cock and wrapped his arms around her back. He hoisted her up into the air, mashing her breasts against his chest as he bounced her atop his cock as she continued to cum. She bit his collarbone as she cried with delight, and that little sting of pain mixed with all of the pleasure he was feeling set him off. He came deep inside of her pussy, spraying a thick load of cum that painted her inner walls white.
In the breathless moments that followed, Harry shifted himself so that both he and Daphne would get sprayed by the water. When she caught her breath, Daphne lifted her head up with a goofy smile and kissed him sweetly.
“That was perfect,” she told him.
Now that they were a bit sweaty, they took their time getting clean in the shower. Daphne let Harry do his favourite activity: lathering up her perfect body with plenty of soap. They nearly ended up going for round two after that, but they knew that it wouldn’t be long before people came looking for them. So, they restricted themselves and just finished getting clean before they got out, dried off, and got dressed for the day.
Once they grabbed their wands, they headed downstairs.
They found everyone gathered inside of the dining room in the middle of breakfast. Sirius was nursing a big mug of coffee while Anastasia and Cyrus sat beside him, quietly eating their plate of eggs, sausages, fresh fruit, and toast. Astoria sat across from all of them, turning around with a bright smile to greet Harry and Daphne as they walked into the room.
“Good of you two to finally join us,” Sirius said sarcastically. “How was your beauty sleep?”
“Lovely, actually,” Daphne replied, shooting him a look to quiet down.
“You’re just in time actually,” Anastasia interjected. “Albus is on his way.”
Harry took a seat beside Astoria and gave her a quick peck on the cheek as Kreacher popped in to prepare some tea for him and Daphne. “I figured that he’d be too busy with stuff at Hogwarts to come again so soon.”
“Once we told him what we’d discovered, he assured us that he’d make time,” Anastasia said.
“So,” Daphne began as she sat down on the other side of Harry. “Who’s vault did Harry see?”
From within his robes, Sirius plucked out a newspaper clipping and placed it on the table right before them. The colour of the page was very faded, and there was a photo at the top of the clipping entirely in black and white. It showed a stuffy-looking couple standing beside each other with a conspicuous distance kept between their bodies. The only place they were touching was where the man was holding the woman’s hand to show off an ornate ring.
Harry recognised it instantly as one of the many items within the vault. It all came flooding back to him: that ring had been on display atop a small marble pedestal along with several other pieces of jewelry.
“Congratulations to Lord Caerwyn Lestrange and Lady Prunella Wilkes on their impending nuptials,” Daphne read aloud the script beneath the photo. She glanced back up at everyone. “So, the horcrux is in the Lestrange vault then?”
“Exactly!” Sirius grinned as he leaned back in his chair. “I bet Voldemort gave it to my dear cousin, Bellatrix, to keep safe. He gave his old diary to Lucius to keep a hold of after all.”
“It’s hard to get much safer than Gringotts,” Astoria pointed out. “And the Lestrange vault is bound to be on one of the lower levels. They’ve been around forever. Our vault is number 211, so there’s has to be in the hundreds, if not lower.”
“At least now that we know whose vault it is, it’ll be easier to come up with a plan to break in,” Harry offered.
Still, it would be far from simple. In the time that they’d been researching whose vault the horcrux was in, all of them had been brainstorming ideas on how to break into Gringotts. Astoria had poured through old history texts that covered the Goblin Rebellions and any events where the Ministry tried to invade Gringotts, but any time that witches and wizards had broken into Gringotts had been done through full-scale war or other violent means. None of them wanted to kill innocent lives or cause another Goblin Rebellion by being too overt. Besides, if they broke in and Voldemort found out about it, then he’d be sure to safeguard his remaining horcruxes promptly.
Sirius, Anastasia, and Cyrus had put their heads together to try to find subtler methods of sneaking in. Sirius recommended contacting Bill Weasley, Ron’s oldest brother, to see if he could find or draw up a map of the vaults and the labyrinthine tunnels that connected them. If they could get that, then Anastasia had suggested going down to the Greengrass family vault and using the Imperius Curse on the goblin that brought them there to take them further to whoever’s vault the horcrux was in and open it for them. Of course, then they’d have the Thief’s Downfall to contend with. That magical waterfall would negate all enchantments and magical concealments.
But that was the best plan they had so far. It would take a bit of work to shore it up, but it could work. Or maybe there was another idea that they could come up with.
Just as Harry started to muse about other possibilities, Kreacher popped into the room again. “Albus Dumbledore has just arrived,” he announced before disappearing again.
A few seconds later, Dumbledore came walking into the dining room with a small smile on his face. His eyes were bloodshot and he had deep bags under his eyes, but otherwise he seemed perfectly fine. “Good morning to you all.”
“You look awful,” Sirius blurted out.
“Well, after being awoken in the middle of the night by your floo call, I did not get any beauty sleep,” Dumbledore replied, his eyes twinkling with amusement. Daphne shot Sirius a smug look before Dumbledore continued. “But it was for the best. I managed to reach out to a few contacts I still have within the Ministry for information, and I believe that I’ve come up with an excellent plan as to how to get in and out of the Lestrange family’s vault with minimal risk to ourselves and of Voldemort discovering our plans.”
“We’re all ears,” Cyrus said as he gestured for Dumbledore to take a seat. “You’ve already heard the best plan we’ve come up with, and it honestly isn’t great.”
“No, it is not,” Dumbledore chuckled. “But I believe that this will be a much subtler plan. Tell me, Harry, do you remember who purchased your school supplies this past summer?”
“Err… it was Mrs Weasley,” Harry said as soon as he remembered. “I was at the Quidditch World Cup then.”
“And how did she pay for your supplies?”
“With gold from my vault.”
“And how did she access your vault?”
“With my key,” Harry answered.
“That’s brilliant!” Astoria exclaimed as she leapt to her feet.
Dumbledore smiled warmly at her. “I knew that you would catch on quickly. Yes, Molly Weasley was able to access Harry’s vault because she had his key. And that is exactly how we’ll access the Lestrange vault.”
“Albus,” Anastasia frowned. “I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but most families have special protections in place with Gringotts. There’s usually a list of approved people who can access family vaults. The key is just the first step.”
“Indeed,” Dumbledore nodded. “As established in the 1811 Goblin Accords, each vault was allowed the option of creating a list of designated individuals who could access the vault if they had the key. I do believe this was in response to a young Potter lad taking out thousands of galleons and having what we now call a ‘wild bender’ across Europe.”
Everyone turned to Harry, and he put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, it’s not like I did that.”
“In any case,” Dumbledore chuckled again. “Because this was an imposition that the Ministry was placing on the way the goblins operated, they also included a number of caveats. One of which being that if the head of the family ever died or ended up imprisoned by the Ministry of Magic, the list of approved individuals would be no more after thirty days. Then anyone with the key could enter the vault. The list could, of course, be allowed to remain in place by a new head of the family, but the only two remaining Lestranges were both imprisoned.”
“So, the list was wiped clean and anyone with the key can just walk up and be allowed access into the vault?” Daphne asked for clarification.
“Precisely,” Dumbledore said. “Goblins will always follow the agreements they have made with the Ministry, even if they can be persnickety at times.”
“Then all we need to do is find the Lestrange vault key,” Anastasia murmured. “Wouldn’t the Ministry be in possession of it? I do remember it being quite the topic of discussion when the Ministry began seizing property from the imprisoned Death Eaters in order to pay for their debts they accrued to the families they victimised.”
“They were indeed, up until four days ago,” Dumbledore answered.
“Let me guess, Lucius had something to do with it,” Harry said, already knowing the answer.
“Unfortunately,” Dumbledore dipped his chin. “It is a somewhat complicated story made much clearer by some ministerial contacts of mine. As some of you might recall, the old Lestrange Estate was one of several seized properties that the Ministry attempted to transform into a rental property in order to generate income since the Ministry had its own rules which prevented it from accessing the vaults of pure-blood families. To pay for the Lestranges and others’ debts, they tried to advertise these homes to witches and wizards from across the world as a temporary vacation home. However, the prices they set were too exorbitant for normal families to afford. Only wealthy witches and wizards or diplomats rented there, and within a few years, these properties all fell into disuse. The Ministry still retained the deeds though and tried to sell the properties.”
“Which no one but the richest families who already had manors and estates could afford,” Cyrus pointed out.
“And yet, as of a few weeks ago, the Ministry no longer owns any of the property they seized, whether it be homes, gold, clothes, or vault keys,” Dumbledore announced. “It just so happens that a few transfer documents somehow bypassed the normal checks and balances and magically ended up buried within the records at the Ministry. They were all transferred to Lucius Malfoy.”
“Why would Lucius do this now?” Anastasia asked with a puzzled look on her face.
Harry knew, and he hated that he could see it coming. Fighting against Voldemort and his forces these past couple years had given him these flashes of understanding. He was learning to think the way that Voldemort would.
“Voldemort’s going to break his followers out of Azkaban,” Harry told everyone with a frustrated expression. He knew it and couldn’t do a thing about it. The Ministry was too corrupt under Lucius’ leadership to expect anything less.
“I fear that may very well be the case,” Dumbledore agreed solemnly. “With the Ministry officially positioned against Hogwarts and Lucius’ hold on the Ministry secured, there is no need for Voldemort to wait any longer to reveal himself. His pride will bring him to the fore, and Lucius will help him gain control over Britain. Even if the Wizengamot tried to stop him, it would already be too late. Voldemort will have his forces back, and the next generation of Death Eaters seem emboldened to fight for him after the death of Draco.”
“Then we need to get the key and break into the vault before the Lestranges get out of prison,” Astoria said.
“No,” Daphne shook her head. “If they get out and check their vault and realise that the horcrux is gone, they’ll tell Voldemort. We should wait until they’ve gotten out to do this.”
“Do they even know what they have is a horcrux?” Harry asked. “Lucius didn’t seem to know what Tom Riddle’s diary was, otherwise he wouldn’t have given it away so easily.”
“I would agree that is likely the case,” Dumbledore chimed in. “Voldemort is not the type of man to share his secrets, even with his most devout followers.”
“But surely they might notice their gift from their lord gone,” Daphne pointed out.
“We run the risk of that happening anytime after we steal it,” Harry replied.
“Either option is sensible,” Dumbledore told them gently. “Regardless of the path we take, it carries great risk. What should take priority in consideration is whether it would be easier to try to steal the key from Lucius Malfoy or from the Lestranges after they’re freed.”
Lucius spent his days in the Ministry, the very place that was most dangerous to Harry at the moment. He was a wanted man, and sneaking in would be risky. They could always try to get Lucius at home, but that also came with its own risks of dealing with his manor’s wards and any other protections he had. There could also be other Death Eaters, or even Voldemort himself, residing at Malfoy Manor at this very moment.
The Lestranges would certainly be weakened after spending so many years incarcerated in Azkaban. Harry could still remember how poorly Sirius looked when Harry first met him. The big concern in going after them though was that they too could have other Death Eaters move into their old home, or they might not even move back in there. For all Harry knew, they could stay somewhere else, maybe at Voldemort’s side as they recover.
Was it better to hunt the devil you knew or deal with an unknown?
“Albus,” Harry spoke up after some thought. “Do you know the state of the wards on the Lestrange Estate?”
“No,” he admitted. “Though, whatever ancestral wards the Lestranges had in place were sure to be removed by the Ministry and replaced with some much more normal ones. Some that would protect muggles from entering its grounds and perhaps some that would afford some minor degree of protection.”
“You spoke of Voldemort’s pride, but what about the Lestranges?” Harry asked. “Are they the type of people who want to reclaim what was taken from them by the Ministry?”
“Who wouldn’t?” Sirius snorted. “Being trapped in Azkaban for that long… they’ll want everything that was taken from them and more.”
That settled it.
“Then we’ll wait until the Lestranges are freed,” Harry decided. “We’ll sneak into their estate while they sleep and steal the key right from under their noses, rush to Gringotts and claim the horcrux for ourselves, and then bring the key back before they wake up.”
“That could be dangerous—” Cyrus began tentatively, but Harry cut him off.
“Every option is dangerous,” Harry said. “We’ll have to be quick and confident, but I know we can do it. It’s the best option we have.”
“I agree,” Astoria quickly said, taking one of Harry’s hands into hers.
“And so do I,” Daphne nodded, taking Harry’s other hand.
“It seems like it’s settled then,” Dumbledore smiled. “I trust you all to be careful with this. And in the meantime, I’ll continue my search of Hogwarts for the horcrux that’s hidden there.”
They were so close now. Harry took in a deep breath and gently squeezed his loves’ hands.