A/N: Written for Inlovewithlaughing's one shot a day challenge.
Quote: "Try not to think about it."
Bad Habit
He was a man now, but he wasn't acting like it, at least not like the man Harry thought he would turn out to be. He thought he would be a good man, a decent man, a man who was strong when it counted and could live up to his responsibilities.
Instead he was weak, a man who gave in to his bad habit over and over again.
He was the kind of man who was risking causing pain, heartache and devastation to the people closest to him, the people he loved most in the world. He was the kind of man who went sneaking around under the cover of darkness and moonlight to cheat.
Harry Potter was having a secret affair whilst married to Ginny Weasley.
He didn't want to lie or cheat or hurt anyone; but he couldn't seem to stop what he was doing.
He was there now, standing outside her door, letting himself into her penthouse apartment that overlooked the River Thames because he couldn't stop himself. She was a bad habit, and like most bad habits she was addictive.
She was different and exciting and sexy and too hard of face to be called pretty but striking nonetheless. She hadn't known him very well during their time at Hogwarts even though they were in the same school year. She had been a Slytherin, probably one of the reasons he had steered clear of her. He'd had a lot of negative thoughts about Slytherin's back then.
The door closed behind him with a quiet click. The lights were low inside the apartment and there was soft music playing. That didn't necessarily mean she was waiting for him to appear and join her in bed, she liked music and she liked the darkness. She was the one person he knew who really liked the dark. She said you could be anyone or anything you wanted to be in the dark; he only wanted her to be her.
She had laughed lightly when he had told her that, her hand stroking his cheek gently. She had told him he was the sweetest man she had ever met; he had blushed after that.
Sometimes when he was with her he felt like that same boy who had been forced to dance the traditional champions dance at the Yule Ball all those years ago; shy and awkward. Sometimes he felt like a tongue tied teenager she rattled him so much and was so utterly different from the women of his acquaintance.
But he was not that same boy. That boy would not do what he was doing now Harry was sure of it; in his bones he knew it. He had fallen far from grace where that boy was concerned and his younger self would not recognise his older self.
Harry dropped his keys on the small glass table in the hallway and followed the music into the spacious living room. She lay there, stretched out across the clean white sofa, her bare feet dangling over the arm and a glass of wine on the table. She didn't lift her head or move in any way but she greeted him warmly.
"Evening, Mr Potter."
"Evening, Miss Greengrass." Harry came around the sofa and stood looking down at her. The curtains had not yet been drawn across the large glass doors of the balcony and the moonlight came in at the window, slanting across the thick, cream carpet to touch gentle fingers to her hair and her face. Her blue eyes gazed up at him framed with thick golden lashes; she blinked slowly as though she didn't want to close her eyes even for a fraction of a second when he was stood there.
His eyes travelled over her face from her high cheek bones and slender nose to her full, ripe lips all ready to be kissed. Harry dropped to one knee beside her and ran a hand through her rich, blonde hair. It fell through his fingers like watered silk and those lips turned up slightly at the corners. Harry touched a finger to her bottom lip, tracing what was full and plump and familiar.
"Try not to think about it," Daphne advised, her hand coming up to cup his cheek, her thumb stroking his jaw lightly.
She saw the shadow of guilt in his eyes, she always saw it and it made her heart ache. It shouldn't, Daphne knew, she was the other woman, she was not the one he was lying to day after day, night after night. But she was not the one he went home to either; she was the one who had to watch him leave, watch him return to the life he lived without her; a life in the sun, in the daylight hours with laughter and family and friends.
She had once told him she liked the dark, she had told him you could be anyone or anything you wanted to be in the dark. In the dark she could pretend she was the one he went home to.
Harry closed the gap between them and kissed her; it was an exciting exhilarating kiss and so familiar that it made Harry ache with both guilt and longing.
He was guilty over Ginny.
He longed for more from Daphne.
Her long, elegant fingers always topped with the perfect manicure, curled around the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer, pulled him down where she could feel the weight of his body on her pressing her back into the soft cushions of her overly expensive sofa.
It shouldn't hurt to love someone, but it did. It always hurt to love someone who could never completely be yours and Daphne had first hand experience of that.
"You're a bad habit you know," Harry said against her lips.
He felt her smile into the kiss. "You know what they say about bad habit's, don't you?"
"No, what?" He sighed softly when long slender legs curled around his waist.
Her voice when she answered him was almost a purr. "They are very hard to break."
Harry grinned and kissed her again, relishing the slightly bitter taste of wine that lingered on her tongue. She was right, Harry found it utterly impossible to break his Daphne Greengrass habit.
Daphne knew about bad habits from experience too; Harry Potter was her bad habit.