AN: Thanks to Red for betaing this chapter. As always you can check out the Pat reon at /libjax if you'd like the next chapter of this story early and/or check the links in my profile for a couple of discords if you'd like some people to chat nerdy with.
Enjoy!
Daphne:
Evelyn Knight?
Jorge's big dumb face would be a lot redder once she got her fingers around his neck.
Where Evelyn was the purest of assholes, Daphne was kind and affable. Depending on who you asked. Blaise didn't count.
But one didn't get very far in business by murdering your potential contacts. Her father had neglected that lesson, so it was a good thing she'd worked it out herself.
The lesson on soothing wounded egos and crumbling pride, however, was no less irksome, for all its familiarity.
A small part of her wondered, with as quiet a voice as usual, what it'd be like to let him flounder. Would he stammer and grow even redder — though he looked about to pop already — or would he start to grovel at her feet?
Did she want that?
Certainly not from him.
The doors of flirtatious appeasement needed to stay closed, no matter how easy a resolution it would be. Ease now meant trouble later.
Her mouth twitched and Daphne forced the smile to stay put. If she couldn't smile at a dunce, she might as well go ahead and disown herself; save her father the trouble.
That wondering wandering voice tugged at the strings of her attention to where Harry Potter, of all people, stood watching the exchange.
Of everyone who would want to avoid the pageantry of high society, she had placed him near the top. With Longbottom. Who was examining a fresco on the furthest wall possible from Jorge's awkwardness.
A deep breath in solidified her smile and quieted the bored voice.
"Daphne Greengrass."
Simple.
But…Potter listening was less simple. It picked at her concentration with little insistent fingers until she batted them away with something that sounded suspiciously like her father's disappointment.
Jorge apologized and she nodded as she should, habits taking over as the treaded back into safe territory.
"It's not your fault he's off doing who-knows-what in every seedy casino in the world. Every family is bound to occasionally produce a black sheep."
He brightened at that, some of the shame lifting from his features. When he relaxed, the family resembalence was obvious. Lucia was almost as well known for her appearance as she was her hard-assed tactics in trade negotiations. With a little exercise and some muscle, Jorge could carry himself well. Quite well, if he learned to manage his nest of dark hair.
But without confidence…
"The Flamel flamily…family. Nicholas and Perenelle. Donated this. As you probably know."
No, the flirting door was very closed. Locked and bolted.
Harry winced in her periphery.
She smiled and nodded appropriately as Jorge rambled about the Philosopher's Stone, the simplest of ingratiating tactics.
Just listen and pay attention.
He trailed off, but before she could speak, Harry's voice — his shockingly deep voice — cut her off. He'd caught her off guard with it after the feast, and she'd reflexively shot back a sarcastic reply. Had it really been so long since he had spoken near her?
"I bet your family was pretty interested in the Philosopher's Stone."
Louder and far more insistent, the voice yanked her head to look at him and they locked eyes, before he turned his attention back to Jorge.
Harry responded to something Jorge said and she turned in time to see their guide relax some from his lingering embarrassment. She let out a breath, brought her absent thoughts under control, and focused on the boy next to her.
"My family talked of it in a similar way," she said, "though it would have been somewhat less…globally useful if applied to the reagent market. My mother and father were interested, but never pursued it too seriously."
Her father had spit fiendfyre when he'd heard it was destroyed. Her mother…well, she had accepted it by then.
She let out a slow breath at the memory of her mother and put that box back where it belonged.
Jorge relaxed further, the obvious tension finally leaving his voice. "They'd sit up for hours working on ways to make the limited supply stretch. Theorizing on how they could distribute it equitably throughout Europe. The world too, if more could have been made."
"It's unfortunate the Flamels couldn't continue their work. It could have been the beginning of a golden-age of health for the world," she said.
Something in Harry's expression caught her eye, and she watched as he swallowed down something he'd been about to say. Before anybody could respond, a bell rang throughout the halls of the school.
Jorge let out an impressive Spanish curse and frowned up at her.
"I completely ruined the tour," he said, eyes darting from her over to Harry and Longbottom, who had come back from his self-imposed tour of the opposite side of the room. "Come find me if you need help getting anywhere. I'm helping our Potions teacher in the mornings. You can find me in the office on the second floor, east wing."
Practice kept her relief from showing. This had not been the introduction to one of the most influential business families in Magical Europe she had planned, but she could make up lost time when she didn't have an audience. An invitation to do so made it all the easier.
Where did Potter get off sticking his nose in, anyway? She picked the two most unlikely people to interrupt her plan for a reason.
One problem at a time.
"I may very well take you up on that," she said, making sure to smile, even if forcing it was making her cheeks ache. "Besides, I'd really been looking forward to seeing the fountain anyway. Everything else was secondary."
The fountain had been impressive the first time she'd seen it. Not so much the tenth. Fifteenth?
She'd lost count of the times her mother had taken her and Astoria to her alma mater.
Jorge left with Longbottom not far behind, but Potter, infuriatingly, lingered. Curiosity loosened her hold on her impulses and she let herself turn to face him.
He twitched when he noticed her looking and his mouth turned down into a frown.
"What?"
"That was…" she trailed off. What had she been expecting? "…quite adept."
He looked up from where he'd been staring — at her mouth? — and cleared his throat.
A surge of smug satisfaction rippled through her with no warning at all.
Little prickles of pleasure wormed their way up her skin at the attention. From Jorge it was both predictable and understandable. From Harry it was…tense. And thrilling.
Something else to file away for later.
"The guy was nervous," he said. "He just needed something he was comfortable talking about."
"I know how to talk to people, thank you," she heard herself say, earning a grin in response. How could one man find her sarcasm button so easily?
"To young men who find you wildly attractive and intimidating?"
An involuntary laugh escaped as she felt herself grin. "Especially to them."
Harry looked away and shrugged, breaking the eye contact with a jolt of cut electricity.
"Judging by the way you needed help recovering, I'm not so sure."
Her spine straightened in response, even if she could see the smile hiding in his eyes.
He spoke again before she could reply. "What are you doing during the tournament?"
His question drew most of her processes to a halt.
With effort, she restarted them. Staying off balance in such a simple conversation was swiftly becoming a matter of pride.
"The…whole year? I'm doing schoolwork, same as everybody else."
His lips turned up into a crooked smile that leaked mischief out of the lifted corners.
"We both know that besides NEWTs we've got next to nothing to do this year," he said.
Damn.
"I need to use this opportunity to connect with people I might otherwise not get the chance to."
"Like the head of Spanish Magical Export's son?"
"To start."
She'd never make it in the business world if she misevaluated people this badly.
His reply was building behind his glasses and behind those green eyes of his, but she couldn't give it time to finish. A long stride drew her closer, into his space.
"You surprise me. I wouldn't have thought you'd be the social type. Same friends for seven years, rarely reaching outside your own house. I expected you to be the straightforward, no-nonsense sort."
The set of his jaw said she was right before he even spoke.
"I am the straightforward, no-nonsense sort."
His voice only caught when she took another step forward, but made sure they weren't quite touching. His nostrils flared but he didn't move.
"Yet you converse with skill and motive. You listen; pay attention."
Tension rippled through his body and she leaned forward a fraction. No, he hadn't been prepared for this.
"I didn't realize I gave off the impression I didn't know how to have a conversation."
She had to look down to suppress her smile, then snapped her gaze back and leaned back when she saw just how close her chest was to his crossed arms.
"You'd be surprised how many never reach beyond the basic niceties."
He didn't answer, the bastard. He could at least do her the courtesy of playing by the rules.
No matter. Even stone walls had spots of crumbling mortar.
For most it took only the delicate press of a finger.
She lifted her hand and tugged on one of his sleeves, ignoring the warmth of him beneath her fingertips. He tensed and let out a quiet breath, and satisfaction pulsed through her.
At least there had been one conversational victory.
"I will be seeing more of you," she said, taking some pity on him and stepping back. "That's what I will be doing this year."
She spun on her heel, letting the satisfied smile she'd been hiding bloom.
Warmth ignited around her wrist, halting the click of her heeled boots on the tile mid-step.
It was gone as soon as it came, and she spun to find him tucking his hand behind his back like a little boy who'd been caught sneaking chocolate frogs after bed.
But it was the man in front of her that sparked a flutter in her chest. Maybe it has something to do with his cute, awkward laugh.
Many, many things to think about later.
"Something wrong?" she asked.
The flicker of embarrassment across his face planted a seed of desire to see more. He seemed so…unflappable before.
Her heel clicked again against the floor, now somehow drowning out the conversation of the students flowing through the courtyard.
That curious voice in her head tugged her marionette strings until the fabric of her shirt brushed his and the heat of him leeched into her skin. Almost close enough to breathe in his exhale — if he were breathing — she stopped, locked in place by the light behind his now dark eyes; by the electricity of his full attention.
It ran tingly fingers up her spine.
Locks and bolts meant nothing when you were the one with the key.
And yet, with her hand firmly on that doorknob, the awkwardness flowed off of him with all the grace of dropped silk; as if the tilt of his smile and squared shoulders let him tower over her, no matter their near even height.
She felt her teeth dig into her lip.
His voice was soft enough to hide his words from the passersby, but it filled the air between them, leaving her breath short and quick.
"Why wait till later?"
Both she and the not-so-quiet voice threw open the door. Business Daphne had her place. It wasn't here.
But business or pleasure, he wasn't going to catch her flat-footed.
The tide of students had slowed to a trickle, and she lifted a hand into the minuscule space separating them. Her fingers spread out against his pleasantly unyielding chest. His pulse drummed into her palm.
With only the slightest pressure, she pushed him back a step and smiled when his eyes flicked down to look at her lips, then her hand.
"Waiting is half the fun."
But only her stranglehold on her pride seemed to think so, while the rest of her was being pulled, bit by tiny bit, into his bizarre Harry gravity.
Calling him Potter, even in the silence of her mind, felt disingenuous to…whatever was spinning between them.
His mouth opened to reply, but she turned again, and this time her wrist remained woefully cold.
Hufflepuffs bumped their way past her, their noise and friendly cheer not nearly the grating irritant it usually was. MacMillan led the little pack and only faltered slightly when he caught sight of her.
He clearly hadn't forgotten her little lesson that he was not, in fact, a gift from Merlin himself to the witches of the world.
The admittedly attractive but thick-headed boy caved almost instantly beneath just a little pressure.
Not like Harry had.
Daphne's jaw creaked as she ground her teeth and MacMillan paled, then hurried his little group along and around back of the bizarre mechanical bird they used to fly to Beauxbatons.
No matter how she had tried, Harry refused to get into the box she had tried to stick him in for later examination. Even in her mind, he was obstinate, firm, and as unyielding as the steps beneath her feet when she couldn't use proximity to her advantage.
The interior of the bird did her no favors.
Her peers milled around in their respective hallways, save for those in her own house, who tended to linger in their cabins rather than join in any noisy socializing.
Noisy socializing which, to her mounting irritation, made it next to impossible to focus.
She had a schedule. It had been perfect and coordinated and was going to be shot straight to hell if she couldn't get herself under control.
The alarm spell and body bind hex she'd placed on her cabin door vanished with a flick of her wand and she stepped inside. Another quick spell untied the laces of her boots and she kicked them off, stretching her toes in relief before sitting down at the tiny desk opposite her tiny bed.
If some fancy witch or wizard could expand the inside of a fifteen foot tall mechanical bird to fit an entire class of students, it'd stand to reason they could have made the cabins slightly larger than a luggage trunk.
The folders she'd requested from her father sat spread out across the top of the desk; dossiers filled with the sorts of small tidbits and pieces of information that fueled familiarity and conversation.
With one finger, she closed the Marino file, hiding away the picture of Jorge's brother being thrown bodily out of a casino in Milan. The blurry figure put a hand to his nose and turned to yell silent curses at the two burly men who had returned to their posts outside the door.
Adino. Baginold. Marino. Walser.
She flipped open the last one, even though leafing through it was unnecessary. Memorizing little details wasn't the difficult chore it used to be.
The Walser family had become ridiculously wealthy through the sale of magical textiles and other enchanted items.
Some of which, she suspected, included contraband flying carpets.
She grabbed the quill from its inkwell at the corner of the desk and added in a new note about his championship status. Watching the tasks had been low on her itinerary — put squarely in the 'time permitting' column — but if it'd help gain her a few icebreakers with the Beauxbatons champion, all the better.
He would be difficult to approach, no doubt. No less than five little sycophants had crowded around him before he'd been selected champion. By now there'd be at least twice as many hangers-on.
She replaced the quill and dried the ink with a wave of her wand before closing the file. She needed an introductory moment before the Ball; one that, ideally, didn't paint her as a dewy-eyed fan.
Matteo would be a good contact one day, but his father was young and unlikely to give over control of their family any time soon. The man would also undoubtedly be visiting the Yule Ball to see his son; the champion.
Her little closet lit in her mind like a beacon, the dress hanging inside glowing almost as much as she had when Astoria pointed it out to her in the window of Selfridges.
It was a cruel cosmic joke that the girl could get anything she wanted with a sad little frown while Daphne had to do hours upon hours of research just to start a conversation.
The dress wasn't ugly, like some of the ones she remembered from their fourth year, but it was…breezy.
But balls and dates and damnable dancing could wait. There was still work to be done to secure her an introduction to the ones with genuine power and resources.
With a sigh, she put away thoughts of her dress and of a firm chest beneath her hand, and flipped open the Baginold dossier.
Maybe some memorization would help get her runaway mind under control.
Daphne stuffed her growing irritation into a box: an iron box that she shoved into a chest. Which she locked.
"Since you had only moderate success with the Marino boy, we should look for an opportunity to try again; get a bit more familiar before pushing any further professionally."
We?
The chest was heavy, but she hefted it into a trunk, which she locked and sealed with enchantments.
"His parents will be at the Yule Ball. I, of course, cannot make it, so you must represent me in my absence. You need to ensure that you're the one he escorts to the event."
Then she kicked it overboard and watched it sink to the bottom of the sea.
She nodded once to the green flaming head of her father, as was expected. No doubt becoming Jorge's date to the Yule Ball would be easy. Being his date, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.
An introduction to Lucia could be arranged without needing to court her son, and so long as she got the results she needed, what her father didn't know would't hurt him.
The room was silent when she returned from her thoughts and she nodded again, hoping he'd not said anything that required elaboration.
Knowing him, it was some obscure fact about Lucia Marino that she already knew.
Nodding seemed to be the right move, as he moved on to something about a shortage of kelibi tusks up in the Arctic Circle. It was almost insulting the way he assumed she didn't pay attention to their supply chains.
But, it was mostly tiring.
She listened with half-an-ear to information she'd already gleaned from the foreman at the northern shipyards.
Hadn't he been the one to drill competency into her skull since the very first formal dinner she'd been forced to attend? Whether she wanted to be or not, she was damn good at what she did. At whatever she did.
Most of the time.
As was his annoying habit of late, Harry tried to creep back into her thoughts. She hadn't seen him in the few days since…whatever had happened between them, nor had she made the time to orchestrate an entirely coincidental meeting.
"Are you listening?"
Well shit.
She straightened and glanced at the massive closed door of Madame Maxime's office for effect. "I'm sorry, Father. I thought I heard someone at the door."
Her father's floating green head turned, looking at something she couldn't see.
"Yes, I suppose we've run over time a bit," he said, turning back to her. "Remember, work on the Marino and Welser boys and search out more potential contacts. We're fortunate the tournament was held again so quickly. Don't squander this opportunity."
"I won't."
"Good. Give your sister my love."
Without waiting for a reply, his head disappeared in a little puff of smoke and the flames returned to their normal flickering hue.
"She's not even here," Daphne muttered, getting up from where she'd been kneeling and shaking some feeling back into her legs.
Next time she'd conjure at least a pillow, since the only chair in the room was out of the question. There was no way she'd be able to sit in the Headmistress's chair without looking every inch the child her father seemed to think she was.
With a sigh, she turned and walked to the only door to the room, glancing at a grandfather clock next to it that was so tall, she had to crane her neck to see the hands.
They really had gone a bit over her allotted time, but Madame Maxime was hardly the type to allow herself inconvenience for proprieties' sake. The headmistress would have shooed her out had their meeting become an inconvenience. She doubted anybody had noticed.
What waited for her on the other side of the door, however, was a collection of books piled on one of the two wooden benches outside the office, with their owner sitting cross-legged on the other, her nose buried in a small, paperback book.
"Hermione?"
The girl slammed the little book closed with what sounded to be a muffled squeak of surprise and shot to her feet, smoothing out her robes as she stuffed the book into one of many pockets.
"Daphne!" Hermione said, her voice so high-pitched and winded that Daphne had to bite back a laugh.
She looked at the small library of books piled on the bench, her heart thudding with longing as she read a few of the titles.
"Celestial Bodies and Their Runic Counterparts," she muttered. "Kepler's Advanced Orbital Theories and The Thousand Brightest Stars by Luminance?"
Hermione nodded, producing her wand and lifting the books into the air with a flick.
A tingle of desperate jealousy snaked its way up Daphne's spine and down to the tips of her fingers.
"So you're the fifth-year tutor?" she asked, her own voice far more calm and collected than her rival's had been.
"It's a shame you couldn't do it," Hermione said, frowning.
Over the break, she'd almost forgotten how good the Gryffindor girl was at accidentally rubbing salt into a wound.
"Well, priorities and all that, but-" She trailed off and forced herself to tear her gaze away from the books. "I can reschedule my meetings. Just because I can't do it is no reason to make you late."
"That'd be great, actually," Hermione said, her frown fading into a sigh of relief. "I'd like to meet up with Professor Sinistra before each lesson to make sure what we're going over coincides with the things they're learning in class."
Their own fifth-year classes lifted to the surface of her memory. Where she and Hermione had started sharing books and dueling with perfect essays and high marks. That was the first year she managed to sneak ahead of Hermione.
"Oh!" she said, snapping her fingers. "I brought along my copy of Galactic Chronology if you'd like to borrow it. It would only take me a few minutes to get it from my room."
There was a small library of Astronomy books stuffed into the drawer beneath her little bed, but Hermione wouldn't need all of them.
Besides, then she'd have nothing to fall asleep reading.
A laugh escaped Hermione and she shook her head. "We won't be going that deeply into the physics of the stars for a few more weeks. Maybe then?"
"Just let me know. I'm happy to help."
Rather than a pleased smile or an emphatic thank-you, Hermione's eyes narrowed for a moment, scrutinizing Daphne with the same pinpoint concentration she'd seen hundreds of times during exams.
What was with that little friend group's sudden intensity? Next she'd find out Weasley was secretly watching her too.
The expression vanished a moment later.
"Thanks," Hermione said, sending her books through the open office door with a wave of her wand. "I'm sorry, but I've really got to go."
Daphne stepped to the side, watching the books float in a single-file line to the fireplace.
"I don't want to keep you. Tell Astoria I said hi."
Daphne pressed her knuckles against her chest as she walked the halls, weaving her way through the hoard of students moving between classes.
What she wouldn't give to be able to sit the Astronomy NEWTs early, just for the chance to work with the stars again.
She dropped the hand back down at her side and slid between two chattering Beauxbatons girls who barely noticed her passing between them.
Elegant or not, Beauxbatons lacked the space Hogwarts possessed in surplus.
Her feet carried her to the east-wing stairwell while she let her favorite subject fade from her thoughts.
She needed to figure out a new approach to Jorge and his nervous disposition.
Outright flirtation was off the list. If the boy didn't immediately combust, he'd never let the idea of dating go. Which meant that building a…somewhat genuine friendship was out for similar reasons.
She took the stairs at a slow trot, careful not to let her skirt sway too much. Not for the first time, she wished trousers didn't feel so damn…constricting. Her father was almost certainly to blame, dressing her in dresses and skirts since before she'd been old enough to walk.
Her mother had too, she supposed, but it was rude to speak ill of the dead.
The herd of students thinned by the time she made it to the second floor, which she had been expecting.
Most of the magical plants growing in the greenhouses at the end of the hall weren't much good until they'd had enough sunlight to activate their magical properties, so classes didn't start until after lunch.
And she had to admit, it was smart having the greenhouses and potions classes so close together.
Why they had chosen to place both on the second floor was beyond her, but it was undoubtedly a chance for some long-dead wizard to flex his magical prowess.
The earthy, humid air of the Herbology hall spun around her as she walked, the smell of soil and magic pulling her back to the first time her mother had brought her to visit.
Maybe Old Miss Wettaker was still the potions master.
The potions master was not, in fact, the old gray witch she remembered, but was instead a relatively young man with only a few silver hairs littering his well-kept head of auburn hair.
The classroom smelled like she remembered though; spicy and earthy and smokey, with none of the wet mildew that clung to the dungeon walls at Hogwarts.
But what the classroom had in droves — cauldrons, reagent bottles lining the walls, reference books on shelves, and leather-wrapped toolkits on clean desks — it lacked in Jorges.
"You must be Daphne Greengrass," the potioneer said, wiping his hands on a white towel slung over his shoulder before extending one to shake. "I'm Professor Doyle."
Daphne shook the offered hand, and before she could exchange the requisite pleasantries, he spoke again.
"I sent mister Marino on an errand to fetch me some frogs' eggs from the pond out back. He should be back shortly."
"He told you I'd be coming?"
"It was the first thing out of his mouth," said the professor. His thin lips turned down into a frown. "He's a good lad. Has a good head on his shoulders and heart in his chest."
The gaze he leveled on her made the tiny hairs on her skin prickle and her stomach turn with the stirrings of shame.
At least something fit easily into its box.
"Is it okay if I wait here for him?" she asked, sliding herself onto one of the tall stools and adjusting her skirt so it hung over her knees.
Professor Doyle grunted and returned his attention to what he'd been working on; dicing a sprig of mature doteroot, if she remembered correctly.
Professor Snape hadn't bothered too much with the vocabulary of the art.
The snap of the bronze knife through the root filled the room for a time, each slice slow and methodical. A painfully sweet odor filled the room as he neared the end, only growing stronger once he finished and began dicing.
"Are you here because you're interested in him," the professor said, "or because of who he is?"
Her instinct to toss out a quick, sarcastic reply flared, but she tamped it down with a practiced hand.
"Business."
Professor Doyle nodded, swiping the diced root into a jar.
"I know who you are," he said. "More than half the non-herbal reagents in this room came from your family's business."
He paused and she searched for something to say.
What was he looking for? A thank-you?
"Make your intentions clear to him," he finally said, wiping the knife on his shoulder-towel. "That's all I ask."
She nodded once, while her mental picture of her schedule shifted even further back.
Flirting with the boy was still out of the question, but there was no doubt he'd respond poorly to a direct…statement of intention.
It also wouldn't do to alienate a client as regular as the potion master of one of the most prestigious European schools. She could already hear her father's rant echoing around his office.
Hurdles were to be expected, though. She would navigate them the same as she did everything else.