A/N: Most characters and the main plot belongs to J.K Rowling.
The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, and Harry had just woken up. He felt the morning breeze on his face, it didn't bother him, he just wasn't used to it. The sun was glowing in his eyes, so he kept them shut, and turned his head the other way. But when he did, he felt something beneath his chin. He quickly opened his eyes, and noticed Daphne's head resting on his shoulder, sleeping. As his head hovered over hers, he could smell her vanilla perfume, and he found he quite liked the smell. Nobody was awake, so he decided to go back to sleep, not did he want to wake Daphne up either. He kept his head facing away from the sun, and eventually fell back to sleep.
When Sirius woke up, he felt a little stiff from the position he had slept in. The sun had risen, but nobody seemed to be awake. When he took a second look, however, he noticed Harry's and Daphne's sleeping position. At some point, Daphne had rested her head on Harry's chest, and cuddled up to him, and Harry had laid an arm around her. Sirius didn't want to miss this opportunity to tease Harry in the future, so he summoned his camera. He got up, and took one picture purely for reading purposes, and another that was actually nice, with the rising sun in the background.
He regained his seat, and noticed that Remus was beginning to stir. Sirius allowed him enough time to wake up normally, before he jumped towards his childhood friend. "Remus !" Sirius whispered as to not wake everyone up. His friend looked towards him questioningly, so Sirius motioned towards Harry and Daphne.
"They've been in a similar position since last night. Do you think Harry sees it ?" Remus asked his friend.
"No he doesn't, but Tracey and Hermione see something, did you see the looks they were sending each other last night when Harry and Daphne had a conversation together, and the fact that Tracey pushed Daphne towards Harry right from the beginning ?" Sirius asked. Remus only nodded, and observed as Hermione began to stir.
She looked confused at first, as if trying to guess where she was, and then she saw the rest of them, and she seemed to remember. As she saw Remus and Sirius, she smiled at them in greetings. A faint pop was heard, and a few seconds later, Veppy came up to them. "I's hopes you had a good sleep, would you's be liking anything to drink ?" she asked the three who were awake.
"Hot chocolate for me please" Hermione said, and Sirius could tell she still wasn't sure about house elves, however, he let it slide.
"And usual for us please Veppy" Remus said with a smile. The elf bowed, walked a few meters away, so she wasn't heard as much, and popped away. She reappeared a few seconds later with the drinks.
Daphne soon began to stir, and she could hear quiet conversation. She felt comfortable, warm and safe, and she had only felt like that once before. She didn't want this moment to end, so she kept her eyes closed, and tried listening to the conversation which was being held, however that seemed impossible, as she was listening to something that sounded like music to her ears: Harry's heartbeat. She didn't know why it was so pleasing to listen to, it was as if she didn't expect him to be alive. She quickly put that to the side, she didn't want to think about it. It was at that moment that the mint and cardamom scent reached her nose again, well that's when she noticed it anyway, it had been in her nose for most of the night she guessed.
However comfortable she felt, she decided it was time to show some sort of life, so she yawned. The people who were speaking ceased immediately, and she felt all of their gazes on her. She slowly opened her eyes, and she was right, the three people who were talking, that is to say Hermione, Remus and Sirius, were all looking at her with smirks on their faces.
She slowly lifted her right hand, and lifted a particular finger towards them, and the three of them burst out laughing. She slowly removed her head from Harry's chest, but left his arm around her, and remained close to him, if he asked, she would just say she didn't want to wake him up.
"Had a nice sleep there Daphne ?" Hermione asked in a teasing tone.
"Oh shut up Granger" she replied, although there was no seriousness in her voice. Hermione began laughing again, as did the other two. A light pop was heard once again, and Veppy brought Daphne a hot chocolate.
Slowly, more people began to stir, all of them making a remark towards Daphne, even Neville, and that can't have been a good sign, he was normally as clueless as Harry, although she did have to admit, it was hard not to see something happening there, they were after all quite close together. Everyone had woken up except for Harry, so she decided to wake him up.
"Come on Thunderbird, time to wake up" she said more gently than she had thought possible. Instead of waking up, he snuggled up closer to her. She liked the feeling, but knew she had to wake him up before either of them got too embarrassed to even look at each other ever again. This time when she tried, she saw his eyes open a little, before closing again because of the yawn that came from him.
As he opened his eyes, he noticed his position, and turned bright red, quickly removing himself from it. "S- Sorry, did- didn't mean to" he stumbled, and Daphne wanted to laugh at how embarrassed she was, and would have had it not been to her, he was apologising. As soon as he had removed his arm, she missed it, it was like it was meant to be there, it felt right.
"Don't worry about it Harry, you were sleeping." she responded, her cheeks also red. The two of them didn't look at each other again until it was time for her to leave, and even then it was only for a quick hug. As she arrived home, she quickly hid the smile on her face, it wouldn't do for her father to think she'd had too much fun, he would think something had happened, and she didn't feel like answering a bunch of questions.
It was now a few days after Harry's party, and they were back to training. It had taken a lot of energy out of them to get back into it, especially the waking up part of it, Sirius was the one to have struggled with that the most.
They had resumed their old timetable, and it seemed to still work well, although they reckoned Harry would soon need more time for his physical exercise as it didn't seem to be doing much for him.
Practice was getting harder now, they were moving on to more difficult spells now, and Dumbledore was getting more ferocious with strengthening Harry's mind. Harry was exhausted at the end of every day, but he had to train hard, in a couple of weeks time, he would be at Neville's, and he wanted to get the most training possible done before then.
"Come on Harry, a bit more !" Sirius told him as he was running around the majors garden, he was about 3/4 of the way, and Sirius didn't want him to give up. So, Harry gave it all of his energy left, and pushed forward, finally making it to the end a little while afterwards. "Well done pup, well done" Sirius said, a smile present on his face, which was also dripping with sweat.
"Thanks Padfoot" Harry replied.
"Come on, time to take a small break before you go start your lessons with Dumbledore." Remus said, who was also really sweaty.
Harry continued pushing himself to his maximum in every aspect of his training, he knew there would be limited time for it back at Hogwarts.
At dinner that night, The three men were eating dinner relatively quietly, they were all very tired, and it seemed that talking took quite a bit of energy. Halfway through their meal, Veppy popped in.
"Master, you's just received a letter, it be from Gringotts sir" the little elf said. Harry looked on in confusion, wondering what business the goblins had with him. He pulled the letter towards him, and broke the seal.
Dear Mr. Potter,
I hope you are well, and I only wish to bring you some good news. I've managed to get you an appointment in the Ministry concerning our plans for the Quidditch world cup, I know you was going to go yourself, but it seemed as if you didn't have much time for that, so I set one up, it will happen tomorrow. They already know the topic of the conversation, I will join you in the meeting, hopefully my expertise will help. We have found land suitable enough to build both the hotel and the pitch, we only need confirmation from the Ministry that they would use it.
Also, you will be happy to learn that you and Lord Black can still live very much happily even after the dispenses of the aforementioned topic.
You will also be pleased to know, that our ventures with Mr. Dengar have been a major success. You have made a lot of profit, and he is eagerly awaiting you, so he can fit you with a fine set of armour.
If you have any other business ventures you would like to invest in, please do not hesitate, I am always looking for business.
May your blades never dull,
Ragnok.
Harry had completely forgotten about the Ministry business, it had left his head the second he had walked into this house. He had also forgotten about his armour fitting he was meant to have with Mr. Dengar. He decided he would do it all at the same time, tomorrow. He was happy to see that the business was going well.
With the letter from the goblin bank, it reminded Harry that he wanted to check out the Potter vault in the house. He shared his plans with the other two men, and they agreed. They would visit the Vault after dinner. Harry was really nervous about this, he knew there was going to be a lot in there.
The three men quickly finished their dinner, and went off towards the Vault door. As they approached, a small circle hole appeared in the door, and Harry looked at it confused, but quite sure what to do. Put the Potter ring in it, it won't open for anyone but the Head of the family. So, Harry did just that, and a few seconds later, the door opened.
The initial thing that shocked him, was the amount of cold air that came out of the room. Harry was now getting both nervous, and a bit excited. The lights on the inside lit, and Harry got his first glimpse of the contents of the Vault. It was stacked with gold, books, stacks of clothes, and many more things, but the thing that caught his eye, was the book in the middle of the room. It was on a sort of pedestal, and it looked to be very old, yet it didn't look like it was in bad shape. Harry walked up to it, completely ignoring the rest.
The book in itself looked to be old, it even had some writing which Harry didn't understand, probably Latin he guessed.
"The Potter Grimoire" Sirius said walking up to him. "It holds a lot of your family history, the Potter family spells, business ventures and other things, I think you'll find it very useful, only I wouldn't take it with you to Hogwarts, this is invaluable, as much as the other family Grimoires, they represent the family's legacy."
Harry nodded at this. He decided he would come here alone tomorrow, after his meeting at the Ministry, to see what was in the book. He looked around a little more, and found some books that looked quite helpful, so he took them. The three men spent a bit of time in there, finding a few odds and ends, until they decided that it was bedtime, tomorrow was possibly going to be quite a long day after all.
A/N: Thank you all for being patient with the updates, I've nearly finished, so I'll be updating regularly again soon.
Replies:
Yes Corona, I thought it fit our time quite well, so decided I'd pop it in there, no other reason really.
Glad you're all liking the Haphne moments
No, sorry, I'm not going to make a pairing between Harry/Daphne/Susan, it's not the type of story I like.
