He found her in their living room. She was sat there on their couch — ever the lovely, regal wife — with some magazine in her hand and a glass on the table. Her hair was dishevelled, with her legs tucked under her in a way that was sure to become uncomfortable before long, lacking the lovely colour she would add to her cheeks whenever they were with friends or family. Harry took a moment by the door to admire his wife. Even after decades, he still found her breathtaking.
She was also wearing this morning's pyjamas, the very same ones she'd worn the entire day before. Harry chuckled. Daphne Greengrass-Potter wouldn't let anyone else see her that way. None save her husband and her children. But they were away for the weekend; he had seen to that.
"Have you forgotten what I told you yesterday?" he asked her as he approached from behind, hugging his wife and kissing her forehead even as she shooed him away. "The reservation is thirty minutes from now."
"Can't we cancel? I'm almost done with this one." She didn't even pry her eyes away from her current page.
Harry merely scoffed. He had reserved a month in advance for the occasion.
"I'll make it up to you," she added, in possibly the unsexiest voice she'd ever used for such words in almost twenty-five years of marriage.
"Let me get this straight," he began, taking a seat on the sofa across from her. "You are willing to cancel our Valentine's Day celebration just so you can finish a magazine faster. An evening that I have been planning for months mind you, using my fame in order to get our reservation and pulling a favour with Ron to have the kids at their place for a whole weekend. That what's happening?"
At long last, his wife tore her attention away from the latest Potions Monthly publication, and pinned him with her well-worn stare. "I was thinking a buggering," she told him eventually, like someone discussing dinner plans.
"You wound me, Daphne. I'm much too old for such depraved ploys. In the spirit of compromise, however, I have no issue with taking you to La Cocarde Rouge in your current attire."
In an instant she was up and heading towards the bathroom, the magazine laid on the table by the half-empty wine glass. "You should have led with that," she shouted from the bathroom.
Harry smiled to himself as he took the glass and gulped down its contents. She wouldn't mind. He then went to her and leaned against the door frame, watching his wife undress hastily before she stepped into the shower. "I'm glad with the way I approached the situation, considering what I got out of it."
Daphne laughed, taking the time to turn towards her husband. She was just as old as him. She'd never stopped looking perfect. "Such a masterful plan, Mr Potter. It bears all the traits of your brand of planning."
She cut him off before he could give a smart retort along the lines of daring and brilliant and always successful. "Relying predominantly on your outrageous luck," she said, before beginning to shampoo her hair. "Take me to dinner first, husband."