"Daphne Greengrass and the no-good, terrible, very bad years."

Where Daphne's faith in her parents is sorely tried… and she ends up married.

By An Orc, This work is an alternate point of view for 'Not with a half-blood.' Daphne Greengrass would be mortified if anyone read it, and under no circumstances is her husband to hear of this.

Chapter Nine: Hot Fuzz

It was a nice day. Buttercup had been a little slower today, but she was, Daphne had to admit getting old. Potter had been polite all morning and… at breakfast he'd looked at her over his cup of tea with a crooked smile that – It had been indecent. He had clearly been thinking about committing indecencies upon her. How was a respectable witch expected do get work done when her husband smiled at her like that! The smile had not been as indecent as the things… the glorious things he'd got up to after reading that, rather informative book. Daphne concentrated on reading letters from tenants. Black books could run without her today, and really if she barged in on the Carrows today, they'd start to expect her to solve all their problems. They had Tracey as a slightly strange source of solutions instead. That printing cash-register was a marvel. How the muggles did it without an animation charm on a quill, she had no idea, but the time taken to do a clients accounts was now so small that the… capacity of Black Books was growing far faster than the number of staff.

Suddenly Harry popped into the office in messy muggle clothes.

"What?" said Daphne. Oh god, had he become insatiable?

"We're being searched by muggle Aurors" said Harry rather disappointingly. "I'll Lock the floo, you charm the fireplaces to look like gas; I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to burn coal."

Searched by muggles. Muggles in her house! "Just Obliviate them, confound them and send them away" said Daphne. Honestly they were just muggles.

"They know our house has a lot of hot fires" said Harry "They have records on computers. We can't memory charm them away."

"How?" asked Daphne. Why did muggle Aurors have a computer, let alone more than one. The one they were making for Gringotts was huge. Though Pot- Harry had shown her the picture of the sleek silver writing box that was a 'proper computer' It was far smaller than her calculator, and apparently replaced the ledgers, calculator and also played games. Though, if you had that much spare time, thought Daphne why wouldn't you ride your horse. Or… your husband.

"They have a thing for finding hot buildings. From a… flying machine. Helicopter" said Harry.

None of that made any sense at all, and she was SURE she'd have seen a muggle dirigible. The muggle studies book had shown a picture of one, and they were the size of a block of townhouses. Daphne shrugged.

Harry disappeared with a crack, leaving her to … what had he wanted her to do? Charm the fireplaces to look like gas ones. Daphne apparated to the dining room and imagined a gas fire in the fireplace, and cast an illusion over it. It looked mostly plausible, but the flames looked… well fake. Daphne finitite-ed it and re-cast with small, regular blue flames. Like the photograph they'd seen on the high street of a muggle stove lit up. That looked… believable.

Daphne apparated to the drawing room, and cast an illusion on the fire there- which wasn't lit so that was easy. The only fireplaces made up were hers and Harry's, so she apparated to hers, cast an illusion on it, and then went with a crack to Harry's room. Which smelled faintly of Harry, but she concentrated and cast an increasingly easy illusionary gas fire into the hearth. Oh, and Astoria's room and the nursery. Daphne stopped to catch up with herself. She felt a little dizzy from apparating over and over, all to fool muggle aurors. Who would be in her house at any moment. Daphne felt… unwilling to lead aurors about in her jeans, so she walked to her room, and quickly got into a tweedy dress instead of her jean and shirt, and apparated into her office. And eyed her calculator and all the parchment. Which Daphne realised suddenly, didn't look muggle. She imagined having a shiny modern computer, and just a ledger for historical reference, and cast an illusion on her desk. All the parchment and ink and quills were suddenly gone, the silvery computer-thing where the calculator was, and the ledger. Daphne pursed her lips in annoyance. Her desk was miles tidier, and computers could print things out- that was a major thing in the new one for Gringotts. She sat down and tried to look slightly bored.

From the stairwell she could hear deep murmurs then Harry saying "… all that's left of our family."

Then the sound of people moving about. She resisted the urge to go and peer down the staircase.

A little later, there was the sound of feet on the stairs. A large number of heavy feet.

"Now if you'd follow me to the first floor" said Harry from the stairwell.

Daphne panicked and cast a door-closing charm on the office door, which shut softly. She sat in her chair, holding her wand, while on the stairs was a large group of muggle Aurors. Searching her house. Aurors would not dare. Especially as her husband was THE Harry Potter.

Daphne eyed the door, and her wand. Bother. She slid her wand into her right pocket, and wondered how muggles, well, respectable ones dealt with muggle aurors in their houses. The textbook had indicated that they were probably going to come in one's front door. But even real aurors weren't treated like guests. Hoping they wouldn't make a mess as they searched, Daphne hoped.

Outside her office door, she could hear Harry's muted voice, then the sound of people moving past her office.

Some time later, someone knocked on the study door and opened it. It was Harry, and for some reason he had frozen, then jerked his head at her desk. Oh, the illusions had confused Harry.

"Charms" said Daphne quietly.

"Daphne, Dear, the Police" said Harry. 'Police, that was what they were called' she reminded herself.

Daphne stood up and a large man in what looked like Auror armour, over trousers and a jacket came in. He had insignia of some kind on his uniform, and seemed, until he looked Daphne in the eyes, to be in charge.

"Um… Mrs…" said the Police man, looking rather pleasingly like an Auror stopped by pre-war Narcissa Malfoy. Daphne suddenly realised that she was technically the female head of the Black family who were these days, … the most important family in magical Britain.

"Black, Daphne Black. I see my husband is showing you around. This will go faster if I assist" said Daphne. The policeman had a badge that said his surname. 'Greaves'

"Harry, Potter you said your name was" said Greaves to Harry.

"Harry Potter-Black" said Daphne, coming out into the landing, which had several more police standing around making the place look untidy. "Honestly Harry" she said icily. "As If I'd have married Harry Potter."

"Quite, Dear" said Harry, in an extremely sarcastic tone he would be paying for later.

"Sergeant Arthur Greaves" said Greaves awkwardly to Daphne.

Harry was given the other two, called Potts and Vaisey, who stood around on the landing aimlessly.

At least she had the senior one. The other two were younger, and would doubtless ogle.

"Harry, I will show … Sergeant Greaves the third floor. You take... yours, this floor, fourth and the attic" said Daphne.

"Visitors bedrooms" explained Harry, opening the first bedroom door.

Daphne pointed to the stairs and started climbing to the third floor. Blasted muggles and their inability to apparate.

Greaves stopped and looked at the runic circle hanging on the wall.

"That's unusual" said Greaves.

"Harry's mother made it. It's unique" said Daphne.

"Is that writing?" asked Greaves.

"Runes" said Daphne.

"Cor. Looks quite magical." said Greaves. "Must catch dust though."

"Fortunately we have a servant for dusting" said Daphne. "The third floor?"

"Right, where shall we start?"

"This floor is for family. My room is at the back, the rooms at the front are for visiting family. Well unless it's my sister." said Daphne, heading towards the maze of front bedrooms.

"Unless it's your sister?" asked Greaves.

"She has a room on the second floor. That way I don't have to share a bathroom again" said Daphne, turning right down the narrow hall to the rightmost room.

"Bedroom" said Daphne, opening the door.

Greaves, Sergeant Greaves went in and lifted the lace to look out the window.

Daphne opened the adjacent door to the next room.

"What's the door behind you?" asked Sergeant Greaves, giving the bedroom a cursory look.

"That's the nurse's door to the loo to my right" said Daphne, and she opened the door to the Victorian loo, and the vacant nurses bedroom.

"Oh. Where's the bathroom?"

"Beside my room, straight off the hall. As we came up the stairs, directly in front of you" said Daphne. Greaves was, it seemed interested in checking the rooms weren't concealing some secret spaces. Andromeda hadn't mentioned any, Daphne felt fairly confident.

Greaves silently paced out the nursery, with its dark old cot and small beds, and reacted oddly to her bathroom.

"Um, couldn't you get your husband to install a heater?" he asked. "He was doing DIY when we um…"

"Knocked on the carriage-house doors?" suggested Daphne.

Greaves looked in the nurses bedroom, and asked "What's with the scrolls in the library?"

"They're a thousand years old, Harry's studying them." said Daphne.

Greaves coughed "A thousand years?"

"Well, give or take fifty" said Daphne blandly.

Greaves turned to stare "Shouldn't they be in a museum?" he asked.

"Well they're his family records, so no" said Daphne.

"But… controlled temperatures and gloves and stuff" said Greaves.

"They spent a thousand years in a stone room in the dungeons of a castle" said Daphne "This is an improvement. There's no food or drink allowed in the library."

"But he's…" said Greaves.

"Well no. But he was orphaned and raised by his aunt and uncle in Surrey. His mother's family had fallen on hard times, and forgotten they were even related to the man who left the scrolls behind."

So he's … like the descendant of some noble family?" said Greaves.

"Scion" said Daphne "Is the term for that." said Daphne. Greaves fidgeted "Doesn't the um, national trust have to get involved with that sort of stuff?" he asked.

"Our families and the monarch have a long-standing arrangement" said Daphne "She leaves us to our own… activities and we don't make a fuss."

"Oh migod" said Greaves "Are you like a countess or something?" his eyes were bulging.

Daphne couldn't help scoffing and lifting her nose "My great-grandmother is a countess. I'm just a simple girl from Appleby." she said.

"Your great-grandmother?"

"Hungarian." said Daphne.

Greaves… grimaced. "um… some other room then?" he asked. He looked thoroughly uncomfortable.

Finally, Daphne opened the door to her bedroom, and went in, and put her hand in her right pocket and gripped her wand. One out-of-place remark or gesture and the muggle was getting stunned.

"This is my bedroom." said Daphne. "You can see my parlour, and to the right, my boudoir"

Daphne glanced right, and saw her jeans tossed on the bed, and her muggle platform trainers on the floor. Blast.

Sergeant Greaves peered in the door at her parlour and eyed her bed. "Um" he said sounding awkward.

"What?"

"I just… I need to pace it out. Just to be sure there's not a hidden room." he grimaced "Procedure, maam."

Daphne backed up to the window onto the back garden, and waved her left hand, her right holding her wand, ready to pull it out and cast a stunner.

Sergeant Greaves paced the length of the room and left, and paced out the landing.

"Your bedroom is um, the best one in the house" he said.

"Oh course" said Daphne.

Greaves nodded and said "Well, maam, sorry for insisting on a tour. What do you do?"

"I'm the property manager for the family's rentals, and manage our book-keeping firm" said Daphne.

Greaves fidgeted "You're awfully young for that. Or to be married even." he said.

"I was engaged to Harry for years" said Daphne "And my father taught me property management as a child. Until I married Harry, I managed my family's tenants. Well, when I wasn't at school."

Greaves went a little pale, and gave her an odd look "To the manor born then?"

"Well yes" said Daphne, confused "Harry's got other properties but the family, well they're all derelict, except for the nice ones, which have squatters."

"Squatters?"

"Yes, his adoptive great-great-grandmother's family gifted her a Chateau in the Dordogyne. My helper in France has confirmed that it has well-entrenched squatters, and all the other houses in France are either derelict or again, squatters." said Daphne, and as she'd hoped, Greave's face went slack, and he looked around hastily, then eyed Daphne. "Oh blimey" he said.

"I was ropeable" admitted Daphne. "And we don't have the funds to deal with the houses in Britain, let alone France."

Greaves walked down to the ground floor, and stood around, and went back and gazed at the family portrait, and eyed Daphne again. "That's not your little one."

"Edward is Harry's godson. Andromeda" Daphne pointed "Is Harry's adoptive aunt, and she was a Black before she married."

The other two police and Harry came down the stairs, and Harry led them out, Daphne stopped in the kitchen, and waited, trying not to look nervous.

Harry returned little later and gave a quiet nod.

Daphne sat at the table "That was most… unwanted" she said, feeling utterly wrung out.

"Kreacher, bring us a drink" said Harry, and sat down also.

"Drinking in the kitchen?" said Daphne.

Kreacher appeared with a bottle of port and two small glasses. Harry frowned.

Daphne poured. "Port" she said.

Harry sipped, and blinked. He sighed. "I was lucky to keep them out of the library."

"Greaves asked about the scrolls, so I told him they're a thousand years old, and you study them" said Daphne. "He nearly had kittens."

"Any trouble?" asked Potter.

"He… entered my bedroom. Wanted to verify the room occupied the whole end of the house." said Daphne.

The tendons of Harry's neck tightened "Was he inappropriate" he growled, in a sexist, defensive way. Which was rather amusing. As if she couldn't stun a muggle.

Daphne snorted "I had my wand in my hand in my pocket the whole time. I'd have stunned him and had you fix it later. I'm flattered you're getting all protective of me."

"I'm not" said Harry tightly. "They were… inquisitive about our separate bedrooms. I simply told them you snore."

"I do not!" retorted Daphne. The nerve of him! How Dare he!

"It is quite soft, but you do" said Harry. "And that I sound like a … muggle and you sound posh." he added, looking at the floor.

"What did you say?" asked Daphne, feeling strangely … like Potter might need a pat on the back or something.

"That my family died, and I was raised in Surrey by relatives" said Harry "It's true."

"It's not like Potters are sacred twenty-eight" said Daphne, taking a sip of port.

"Peverell are more pure than that" said Harry "And Mum was Slytherin of some sort"

Daphne drank port, it wasn't bad… but she wished she had some cheese to go with it.

"Why'd you get changed?" asked Harry after finishing off a glass of port. "Nice work disguising your desk."

"Because muggles would ogle me in jeans" said Daphne. Those were her husband-ogling jeans, not some random muggle, she thought. And immediately wondered if she'd drunk too much.

"You look very nice, very lady-of-the-manor" said Harry. Was he hitting in her again? She wondered, feeling a faint blush on her cheeks.

"Because I am" said Daphne, then shaking her head. No manors for her, just this.

"I do know where there's a manor house... I think… cousin Tom owned it… he died… It's probably mine" offered Harry. What, who was cousin Tom?

"I've never heard you talk about a cousin Tom?" asked Daphne.

"Yes I have, Tom Riddle, cousin up through the Gaunts and Peverells" said Harry. MERLINS BEARD! And then some port went down the wrong way.

Daphne coughed. "He was your cousin?" she asked.

"Oh come on, we're all related" said Harry, waving a hand dismissively. "Magical in England; even you're a distant cousin, I'd bet."

"Mother checked" said Daphne "You're like an eighth cousin. Probably the least related person I could have married." And had bloody gloated about it, and said that she expected extra grandchildren. She could be so annoying sometimes.

"Well, look, we did that right" said Harry, with a quick crooked smile. Daphne felt her stomach flip-flopping, he looked so… unfairly handsome. And then he smiles crookedly. What was a respectable witch to do! Genealogy is boring, I'll recite Genealogy.

"Much closer through the Blacks. Only two hundred years since a Black married a Greengrass" said Daphne. "She became a Black." she added.

"Well, so you don't have much Black blood?" asked Harry.

"No. Just you" said Daphne, and had a big swig of port. I'm not getting drunk and trying to snog him. What if he turns me down?