It was on the six month anniversary of Captain Charles death that Harry saw Daphne again. He hadn't been thinking about the specifics of the date before he stumbled inside the bar - Ginny was having a candlelit dinner with Luna and he really wasn't in the mood to be a third wheel, so drinking until the moon was high in the sky was the way to go -, but when he saw her, sitting alone and drinking at the bar, he was reminded of that.
She did say six months was the custom. He didn't expect for her to follow to the letter. With a soft sigh, he slid by her side, and Daphne simply rose up an eyebrow at her.
"Auror Potter." She drawled. There was a slight slur to her words, and she was playing with a half-empty glass. "Fancy meeting you here."
"It is the bar half of the Auror forces go, ma'am." Harry replied, and Daphne smirked, as he signaled for the bartender to give them both shots of firewhiskey. "Might I ask what a widow does in such places?"
"Charles always brought a woman from here to sully my doorstep. Perhaps I was wondering if I could do the same." With the clothes she wore- a tight black dress, high heels, the hair she usually had worn piled up in a bun now down like a dark cape around her shoulder; Harry was tempted to take on her offer. If, of course, she was offering him anything. "Might you be so inclined to take this poor widow home?"
The dress was familiar, but from where? He strained to remember, as he kept speaking with Daphne.
"I don't know, I may need some more convincing." Harry smirked, and she grinned - ear to ear, like a cat that was in the process of getting the canary out of its cage. Harry wondered if he was the canary, for a moment. He drank his firewhiskey, and she watched, stormy eyes hungry. "Do tell me, you came here because you wanted revenge, or to shock half of the force? This is the bar most of us come, after work."
She sipped her firewhiskey, shrugging delicate shoulders, and Harry simply chuckled.
"What if I wanted? It is my want, after all." She replied, and looked at him, side-eyed. "I do have my free will back, after all."
"And what have you been doing with it?" Harry asked, truly curious. Daphne merely smiled.
"It's been years since I've had my hair down, so that's nice." Daphne mused, smiling like a child, and Harry finally realized where the dress was from - it was from that party, so many years ago. As he heard Daphne speak about the present, he went down a trip to memory lane.
It had been Captain Charles' turn to host the annual Christmas party of the Auror forces, and Harry had been just promoted within the ranks. Sure, he had learned pretty quickly after the fact of the Captain's true intentions with his promotion, but a party was a party, and really, Harry wasn't able to refuse.
The idea he might be able to see Daphne once more had also been a factor, but he silenced that line of thought pretty quickly. She was married, probably to his boss (not that he had ever been able to just slide next to his boss and ask about his wife, as if it were casual), and the idea of a love triangle really, really revolted him.
As such, he invited Luna (Ginny was out of town, and Luna had just arrived; why not give her an opportunity to baffle some Aurors? It'd make for some good fun for them, really, and Harry was going to need the most fun ever), and off they went.
He hadn't expected to be greeted by Daphne, and yet - there she was, glittering against the soft light of the roaring fireplace, the long dress she wore tight and punctuated by diamonds, high heels adding to her height - the hairstyle she wore, a braid piled up in a bun, helped matters, as well. On her gloved finger, the runed ring, the runes glittering like sapphires.
"Welcome to the Queensbury household," She said, voice quiet and soft, and utterly alien, eyes empty and glassy. "We have a coat room at the left, if you might need it."
"This is the biggest concentration of Wrackspurts I've ever had the pleasure of seeing." Luna declared, and that stunned Daphne long enough for the ring to stop glowing. "Oh, hello there."
"Hello." Daphne said, and nodded to the two of them, smiling politely, assuming her role of a perfect hostess once more, now sans magical, glowing runes. "Please, feel at home, and thank you for coming."
"It is our pleasure." Harry replied, and she gestured for them to go on. Luna and Harry simply looked at each other, obeying, and going into a large foyer, where people were already either dancing or drinking. Luna simply stared ahead, her dress - blue, to her knees, with little white points that reminded Harry of a night sky - was infinitely simpler than that of the others, but Harry felt it was prettier.
Perhaps with one exception, but Harry wasn't going to say anything. The two settled at a quiet table, and made polite chit-chat with Ron and Hermione - Hermione, who seemed more stressed than never, and Ron, who seemed oblivious to it all -, watching the others go by as they drank. Luna invited him to dance, and he politely accepted, but his eyes were kept on the hostess, who seemed to stay, silent, like a statue, by Captain Charles' side, eyes down and no personality whatsoever showing.
Like a doll, he noticed. A pretty porcelain doll that sat, quiet, looking straight ahead, doing nothing at all, not even when her husband left and did not return. She did rose up when people started to leave, however, playing the smooth, quiet role of a perfect hostess once more.
Luna, who had been by his side, baffling others with tales of the creatures she had found (Hermione would later scold them, saying that "the weird creature that eats toes in a previously undescribed Amazon river isn't exactly polite party chattering, Luna, and Harry, you shouldn't have asked Luna to describe it in more detail!", to which Luna and Harry simply giggled, like the school children they weren't), elbowed him when the number of people in the room thinned out, just Harry, Luna, a bunch of other too-drunk Aurors, and Daphne, at a corner, half-hidden by shadows.
"What?" He hissed, and Luna grinned, pale eyes looking in Daphne's direction. He knew what she wanted. "No, Luna."
"She's the lonely, possibly being cheated on, wife of your boss." Luna said, as if reading from a book. Harry looked at her with half-lidded eyes. "And you are her knight in a shining armor."
"Luna, I'm going to beg that you stop reading romance books." Harry replied, rising up nonetheless, and shushing Luna when she merely grinned at him. He pretended not to see, cautiously walking until he found himself side by side with Daphne, nodding at her.
Her eyes didn't seem clouded anymore, just quiet, and the wedding ring definitely didn't glow anymore. She looked at him for a moment, and the smile she had seemed forced.
"Already going, and leaving behind miss Lovegood?" Her voice was polite, quiet, and her eyes traveled to the staircase her husband had disappeared through. "Didn't peg you as the type to leave a lady behind, Harry."
"I'm not going now, not without talking with the hostess." Was his reply, and Daphne sighed. "Unless, of course, my presence bothers you."
"No, of course not." As if to punctuate her words, Daphne shook her head. "You're the first person to speak to me as if I'm… You know, alive. Most of them are just trying to curry favor with Charles through me."
"Is the Captain aware of it?" He asked, and she shrugged, like she didn't care. In truth, Harry felt Daphne pretty much didn't.
"If he is, he is very good at hiding it. If he's not, then I'm not the one who's going to tell him that." Daphne shrugged once more, and Harry simply nodded. "Besides, you know, it's not like I care. He's going to die, one day, and this… This won't matter. I'll never see these people again."
She waved to the ballroom, as if to punctuate her words, and smiled to herself. Harry looked to the empty ballroom, men sitting on tables drinking and women gossiping (Luna, the sole exception; she was chattering with a man, and by the look on his face, he was baffled. Maybe it was the toe-eating Amazon creature again...), and turned his eyes back to Daphne.
"If I'm included in that affirmative, I must say I'm hurt." At that, Daphne giggled, like a child. Harry couldn't help but smile. "Very hurt. I'm not even trying to curry favor with the Captain."
"Oh, really? Who are you trying to curry favor with, then?" Daphne poked, inclining herself to be near him. "Poor little me?"
"Why not? Say, when the Captain dies, I'll take you somewhere nice." He offered, even though it was almost like cursing the man. However, Harry couldn't really care about it. "Like, let's say…"
"Take me drinking, that's all." Daphne interrupted, and Harry looked at her with one raised eyebrow. "He doesn't let me drink. It looks… Enjoyable."
That was one way to put it.
"Sure."
The only thing Harry had been sure was that he had forgotten it until now, but there was a very, very high chance Daphne had forgotten it as well. Back to the present, he drank with her, quietly speaking about the things she wanted to do and see, and, at one point - her face flushed pink from drinking, a lazy smile playing in her lips -, she pointed at him.
"Won't you take me somewhere nicer?" She said, and Harry smiled, taking out money from his wallet and sliding it through the counter, the bartender appearing as if out of thin air to take it.
"My house is sadly occupied, but I assume yours isn't." Daphne simply smiled, taking his hand, and leading Harry out. She was less drunk than expected, or maybe Daphne just knew how to walk in those high heels. A third option was that the drunk one was Harry, and he was starting to consider it seriously. Perhaps it was him. Perhaps it was both.
Daphne, as if reading his mind, simply smiled at him like a cat that had eaten a canary, and pulled him further into her grasp, kissing him. He wasn't even aware it was possible to fall more for her, but it seemed he learned something new every day.
The morning after, Daphne disappears. Harry isn't sure where she is, or where she was, but, as the lingering smell of her disappeared from his skin, he was sure she was free. Logically, he knew he should be more worried, perhaps a tad disappointed - but it was her choice, after all, and he'd patiently wait until she came back.