A/N: Hello everyone, hope your doing good and everything's going alright. I want to say thank you for all of the support, I appreciate it. Now without further ado, on with the story!
"Why'd you lie to Daphne?" A voice came from behind him. It had been two days seen that morning they had broken up. Turning around he saw the person he knew had spoken.
"Oh hi Tracey, I'm great thanks for asking. How about you? Oh that fantastic!" Harry answered his voice practically dripping sarcasm.
"Look, I didn't come here for you to be an ass okay?" Tracey retorted.
"Then why did you come here?" Harry asked being as rude as possible.
"Because I want to know why you lied to Daphne!" Tracey snapped.
"What're you talking about?"
"I've been thinking about it since she told me you broke up. I couldn't put my finger on it… until she told me something else. That you almost told her you loved her, but you stopped. You told her you couldn't, that you couldn't love her." Tracey explained.
"Well I'm sorry but I can't." Harry replied simply before shrugging as if saying too bad.
"You keep saying that. You don't say that you don't love her or that you won't love her. You say you can't or that you couldn't. Which could very easily mean two things. You can't, like it's not possible for you too. Or that you can't because if you did, it would oh I don't know put her in danger." Tracey drawled out.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Harry kept up his act.
"Don't try to lie, your friend told me the truth."
"No, none of them would've told you. I know my friends, they wouldn't."
"You're right. They didn't, I overheard Neville talking to Luna." She smirked.
"So what're you going to do with this information? Tell Daphne?" Harry questioned.
"As much as I want to, I can't. She's gone." Tracey admitted.
"What do you mean, she's gone?" Harry questioned curiously.
"As much as you think breaking up with her was going to protect her, you were wrong. Being with her was protecting her." Tracey informed.
"I'm not following."
"Look, you being her was enough for her father to be able to get her out of a marriage contract." At his cocked eyebrow, she continued. "When in negotiations, you can deny negotiations if the heir or heiress that the contract refers to is with or is dating someone. Thing with this negotiation was that it was family binded. Which means it was created as a general contract one or more generation ago. Only comes into effect if one side is uninvolved and sixteen, and the other side doesn't matter unless they're married. Everyone has been smart enough to be in a relationship from the time their sixteen to the time their seventeen. Then the contract passes until the next generation is in the same situation. It continues like that until either one House dies out or it's gone through the numbered amount of generational rotations." Tracey explained.
"But why would Cyrus tell them she's not dating anyone, he wouldn't want that for her."
"A meeting is held between the two heads of houses. One when she's the fifteenth, one when she's sixteen and one when she's seventeen. In this meeting they have to tell the current relationship status of the heir or heiress. They can't lie, it's impossible. The meeting was held yesterday as it is only a few months until her 17th birthday. So you being with her, protected her from that. From a person like twice her age, a bad man Harry." She stressed causing him to begin pacing.
"Great so what do I do? How do I fix it?" He questioned.
"Cyrus can only tell it as far as he knows. And he heard you broke up from a letter from Daphne."
"Meaning he heard we broke up and that's all that mattered. When does the contract become enacted?"
"My guess? As soon as that man can get it. He won't want anything interfering." Tracey guessed.
"Then that's exactly what we're going to do." Harry stated firmly.
"And how are we going to do that?" Tracey wondered.
"As long as she's not dating or involved with someone at the time of the wedding, it can go through, right?"
"Normally yes, is this going where I think it's going?"
"We just have to find her before they sign the papers. And hope that we're in time." Harry explained before taking off down the hall with Tracey on his heels. They made their way to the room of requirement, where Harry stopped and wished for a room with a working floo. Running in, he grabbed some floo powder shouted his destination and disappeared into the flames with Tracey barely a step behind him.
Falling out of the fireplace, Harry landed on Cyrus's office floor. Before he had the chance to move, Tracey came out of the fireplace, landing right on top of him. Once they both stood, they left the office in a rush, looking for someone that may be able to tell them where to go.
Running through the house, Harry came to an abrupt stop after seeing something out a glass door. His stop caused Tracey to slam into his back. Looking out the glass door they realized it was Alexandra walking out to the gates getting ready to leave. Realizing this was their only shot, Harry tried to open the door only for it to be locked. Waving his hand he tried to perform an unlocking spell on to find that it had no effect.
"The doors and windows here only unlock to Greengrasses and a limited group of people. And when they are all absent from the house, it's practically impossible to find an unlocked door or window." Tracey explained quickly.
Sighing, he looked back to see the progress Alexandra had made, they were running out of time. "Screw it." He muttered while taking a few steps back before slamming into the glass window, effectively going straight through it, shattering it. On the ground, surrounded in glass Harry picked himself up off the ground, and ran to catch up with Alexandra.
Getting over most of her shock, Tracey followed shortly behind him. They shouted out to her, eventually she heard them and turned to see them approaching quickly. Stopping, she waited for them to get there.
"What?" Alexandra asked confused.
"When and where is it taking place?" Tracey huffed in between breaths.
"The signing?" Alexandra guessed only to receive to nods in return. "Well in about twenty minutes, as for where, in the LeStrange garden. What exactly do you to plan to do?"
"Wait did you say the LeStrange garden?" Harry asked not sure he heard right. Alexandra nodded sadly.
"How are you getting there?" Tracey rushed.
"By portkey, which leaves in about five minutes. So if you two wish to tag along for whatever your reasons, we must make it to the gates." She didn't even wait for a response before turning and leaving the pair quickly, which had to jog to catch up with her. They made it to the gate with a couple minutes to spare before the portkey activated and they all vanished.
Landing, Tracey stumbled in which Harry caught and steadied her. Looking around they were about to determine that they were standing at the end of the gardens which contained a gazebo in the center. The only thing between them and the gazebo was a 15 foot tall maze of bushes.
"Why the hell would someone want a maze in their backyard?" Tracey remarked before realizing they were down a person. "Um where did Alexandra go?" She questioned looking around trying to spot her. Her comment caused Harry to follow her gaze. Realizing Tracey was right, he sighed.
"Probably was transported straight to the gazebo. Come on, if we want to get there we have to make it through the maze." Harry answered before rushing into the entrance of the maze with Tracey behind him.
Once they came to a fork in the path they looked to each other before nodding and going there separate ways. Harry went right while Tracey went left.
Going through the maze, twisting and turning as fast as he could Harry kept running to dead ends.
"I wonder…" He mumbled to himself before pulling out his wand and pointing it at the latest dead end. "Bombarda." He whispered shooting the spell at the wall of bushes. It hit the wall square in the middle and rather than putting a hole in it, on impact the wall shimmered a light blue before returning to its normal state. Warded. Sighing, Harry turned back and continued searching the maze for a way through at a jogging pace.
After what seemed like endless turns and dead ends, Harry made a right turn only to to face with another dead end. Frustrated, he walked up to the wall and leaned against it not knowing what to do. As soon as he made contact with it, it began shimmering. Seeing this he backed away and looked on surprised. The wall of bushes vanished and he could see the gazebo standing about a 150 feet away.
Daphne, Cyrus and Alexandra were standing at the gazebo with their backs facing him. They were unaware of him. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, he saw LeStrange speaking with someone at one of the other maze outputs that led to the gazebo.
Realizing he had very little time, Harry took off sprinting in the direction of the gazebo knowing he had to do something fast once he reached it. Reaching it, he stopped once he reached Daphne and spun her around so that she was facing him and without thinking he cupped her face and crashed his lips into hers.
It took a few seconds for Daphne to get over her shock but she responded once she realized who it was. Not caring what had happened between them, all she cared about was the fact that he was there. They stayed in the lip lock until Harry was ripped away and thrown through the air right back to where he came from, except he crashed into the wall of bushes that was previously open and fell to the ground. Tracey had exited another output of the maze just in time to see the ending of the kiss and Harry flying through the air and slamming into the wall of bushes. Seeing him hit the ground, Tracey rushed over to him to check on him.
Everyone had whipped their heads in the direction of the person that had cast the spell. LeStrange had his wand out and a smirk on his face as he strode towards the gazebo with the person he was speaking to before following behind.
"Ah, now we can begin." LeStrange remarked as he walked in and under the gazebo. "Oh I don't think so." He taunted when he saw Daphne looking at Harry with desperation in her eyes.
The man LeStrange was talking to before walked over and stood in front of them, on the opposite side of the table that was in the center of the gazebo.
"We are gathered here today to recognize the signing and acceptance of a familial binding magical marriage contract. This contract has been passed through generations for the pass five years, and it was one generation away from becoming void. This union today will fulfill the contract and its requirements. You arrived as two separate families, and you will leave as a united whole, one family. It is time to sign." The man finished and a paper appeared on the table.
Only two signatures were needed to sign the rest of their independent lives away and nobody could interfere.
IMPORTANT A/N: Hey everyone so some of you may already know, I have a poll open on my profile. If you want to way in on what I write next, vote! Hope to see your votes, the poll will remain open for an undetermined amount of time. Thank you and happy reading! -DS