Merit and Inheritance
Chapter Twenty-four
Studies
"When we're done with all this courtship and getting-to-know-you, buttering you up will be one of my most important functions."
Harry looked across at Daphne. He was sure he was getting only the surface, with no nuance whatsoever. He took a deep breath, and decided to disregard any negative consequences as they were doubtlessly something to be expected at this early stage.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Harry said. "Enlighten me, please."
Daphne took her time answering, raising her coffee cup, taking a sip, then swallowing.
"Harry," she began. "Everyone has reverses. I do. You do. All the witches and wizards meet challenges that they can't overcome, or could overcome if they'd been prepared but they weren't, or they simply run into something that they have to struggle against, for weeks, or months, or years. Anyone can get discouraged in that kind of situation. Buttering you up, in your homely phrase, will be the least of the supporting acts I may need to do for you. When I do it for you, I do it for me. I do it for us. When you're calm, at ease, doing what you're good at and comfortable doing, it's a very nice feeling, just being in your company."
"You had your wand pointed right between my eyes not that long ago," Harry said.
"Yeah, I got a little hot, didn't I?" Daphne admitted. "But you got me out of that and fairly quickly, too. When you shared your Greengrass financial plan and why you'd done it the way you did, not to mention your vision of our roles in the whole thing, I became very warm and fuzzy."
"Aha," said Harry. "So that's when…"
"YES! Harry Potter," said Daphne. "That's when it occurred to me, in a flash, that a wizard who'd go to that much trouble to help out, not only me, but my whole family, a wizard smart enough to conceive it and with the substance to get the goblins on his side, that wizard might be what my core, the Greengrass inside me, had been waiting for. Even if we did have to abide by our agreement to do business first and personal later."
"We waited, what? How long from the time we left Greengrass Manor?" asked Harry, trying mightily to stifle a grin that ignored his efforts.
"Not the point," said Daphne. "I needed some help, you gave it, the place inside opened up in expectation of a call from Potter. Did you feel yours open?"
Harry flushed.
"It's been open," he said his voice so low it was almost a whisper, "Has been for years. I'd just learned to live with it, open, never expecting it would welcome a guest."
They stared across the table.
"Has she seen the master suite, Harry?" asked Regulus.
So much for the most precious Greengrass-Potter moment to date.
"I will cover you guys up and let you out once a year, on your birthdays, I swear, so help me Merlin," said Harry.
Daphne pushed her chair back and stood.
"Nice, while it lasted," she observed. "There are whole chunks of the house I haven't seen though, so why don't we walk around while I'm here so you can show me?"
Daphne had to watch the time but Harry managed to cover the whole house. Some stops were along the lines of, "This was Sirius' room when he lived here. This was Regulus' room…"
The dungeon still awaited the considered attentions of Harry and Kreacher, obviating the need to visit right then. There would be time for more thorough explorations.
During the next few weeks, Daphne monitored Cyrus and Cordelia's domestic account closely.
"How are you, Mum?" Daphne asked, each time they met. Cordelia could take her choice of areas where Daphne might have concerns.
"Fine, Daphne, as you undoubtedly know," Mrs. Greengrass would answer.
Cyrus and Cordelia were adapting well to their new circumstances.
"We could use a little more flexibility," Cordelia might say.
"You'll get it," Daphne would answer. "Maybe not this week."
"Would Harry…" Cordelia tried.
"Mother, I want you to listen to me," Daphne said. "You and Father and Astoria and Harry and I are all part of this. We work on it together. Harry helped me analyze the problem but that is all he is—a consultant. I think I can say, fairly reliably, that if you want to go back to the way you and Father were doing things, Harry would expect you to budget in the repayment of his loan."
That got Cordelia's attention. She was a very astute witch who had shown early promise as a scholar before she married and reduced her interests to her daughters, tea and backgammon with her social group, and alcohol. She knew they weren't far enough along in the Greengrass recovery plan to take on retiring the lien on the manor. She also knew Harry Potter was more than her daughter's business consultant.
"What have you and Harry been doing?" Cordelia asked.
"He came over last night and helped me clean, so I fixed us something to eat, and then we read a little bit before he went home," Daphne said.
Cordelia heard Daphne's words and was wise enough to know they actually said, "Harry came to my flat and honored me with the gift of his time and labor to make my nest clean and comfortable so I presented him with a food offering from my personal larder which he graciously accepted and then we studied magical married life together."
Cordelia knew they were reading family grimoires and books on the theory of family magic.
"Deep," said Cordelia.
"Oh, I don't know," Daphne said. "We'll see how it goes."
Cordelia's knowledge of family magical theory came from lots of little conversations with her mother, her student days and hundreds of hours of social conversation with some very learned witches. Daphne didn't fool her.
Cyrus wasn't uncommunicative, but he was subdued. The voluble, glad-handing former businessman and quidditch player had disappeared, replaced by a quieter person, one who observed the social niceties, but who also sat staring for long minutes without saying anything.
Harry read his way through several books on the theory of family magic. Lacking both grandparents and parents meant that Harry did not get the skeletal structure, the underlying theory, which is best acquired a little at a time from the family elders. Nor did he hear the illustrative family stories that put the meat on the bones of theory.
Harry felt the absence of that background information like a physical sensation. He came close to irritating Daphne with his questions and requests for clarification. His focus paid dividends. He looked up footnotes and references, then the footnotes in the references he'd gotten from the footnotes. Harry paid a courtesy call on a famous alchemist he'd learned about from a reference book. He wanted to talk about the alchemist's studies and raise questions he'd formed from readings in his Black and Potter grimoires. The alchemist was flattered by the attention, as he was normally left alone by his magical colleagues. He indulged Harry for a quarter of an hour before trying to redirect the conversation to a first-hand account of Harry's duel with Voldemort.
Harry did know enough to face Dieter Berg at Potter Manor and invoke the Potter family magic in defense of Daphne and himself. It would be decades before Daphne told Harry that she heard a voice coming from inside herself say, "Oooo…" when Harry shrank the petrified Dieter and put him in his pocket. She said that was the Greengrass magic speaking to her. Harry suspected his Great-Grandmother Dorea had just as much chance of being the origin as did the Greengrass magic, but by that time he had greater control over his impulsive responses and the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
Keeping his mouth shut at Greengrass Manor was not very challenging for Harry. Cyrus would talk to him about quidditch, which Harry enjoyed, but little else. Daphne and Cordelia had two to three hours of pent-up discussions by the end of the week. As long as Harry didn't initiate conversation they left him alone.
Daphne and Harry traded invitations for meals. There wasn't anything like an agreement but when they slept over they tended to alternate between Harry's townhouse and Daphne's flat. The frantic madness surrounding Romilda's arrival and Harry and Pansy's intervention in Morag's life dissipated. Harry and Daphne kept one another focused on their studies.
"Still interested in this stuff?" Daphne asked one evening. They'd finished a chapter in one of the family magic texts and were going to break for tea.
"Daphne, I'm up to my eyeballs in your Greengrass family business," said Harry. "Staying interested is no longer optional. I do like working through the books with you. The different theories are starting to stand out now. My appreciation for the field is orders of magnitude bigger than it was. You?"
"Oh, me, too," said Daphne. "I'd just scratched the surface. I knew, of course, that a wizard defending a witch will make the witch feel positive feelings inside. Muggles experience that, too."
"Positive feelings?" Harry asked.
"Of course," said Daphne. "Individual exceptions aside, women are overall physically weaker than men. A man putting himself between a woman and danger will generally evoke warm feelings. I suspect it goes back to the savannah."
"Magic is the great equalizer, though," Harry said. "How does that figure?"
"Probably something left over in the DNA from proto-humans," Daphne explained.
"Well, anyway, where are we?" Harry asked. "Do we sign up for classes at some point, or some form of counseling? Get outside confirmation we are just what the other one needs?"
"Harry," Daphne said. "You're in tut-tut territory. We don't have to do anything. Most people don't."
"True, but most people don't have a very high probability of achieving happiness in their personal lives."
"Okay, I can't fault you there," Daphne said. "We've probably outworked ninety percent of witches and wizards already. We don't have to push it. Are you unhappy with the way things are?"
"On the contrary," Harry said. "I'm very happy."
"I like my job and the amount of time I have available to devote to it," said Daphne. "I haven't felt the need to start blending a demanding Young Magical Matron dimension into my activities. How is your business coming along?"
"Great," said Harry. "I'm really enjoying myself. Neville and I are looking for a fresh venture to bring in under the umbrella of the LLC. Mort and Daisy have been doing a lot at Potter Manor. You need to come along and take a look."
"Fine," Daphne said. "It sounds to me like we're agreed. We continue the way we are until something tells us it is time for the next step.
"On a related matter, can you come to Cyrus and Cordelia's for Saturday tea? The Malfoys are coming. It looks like Cyrus is resigned to the loss of the Selwyns and the Malfoys to the acquisition of Astoria."
"The Malfoys, ah…" said Harry. "You see, there is something."
"Harry, this isn't you and Draco from the sorting ceremony, is it?" asked a very skeptical-looking Daphne. "Old quidditch beefs that never got settled?"
"Oh, no," Harry said. "That was school nonsense. This is…well, I knew I'd have to talk to you about it sooner or later. Maybe it's meaningless, or I've got it wrong, but here it is."
Harry hadn't made his presentation on his and Narcissa's moments to anyone before, so the initial one was probably a little jerky and not well-thought-out. Quality aside, the content was what it was. Daphne took it well, or as well as could be expected. She listened, face in neutral, reserving comment until the end.
"I see," Daphne said. Harry hypothesized that her comment was strictly rhetorical, and she really didn't see much more than the most obvious, superficial aspects.
"I've got some reading to do," Daphne said. "Maybe a little consulting, too."
Harry left it alone.