A/N:

Hi, new chapter!

Slightly short and slightly weird one.

Thanks for reading so far, I hope you continue to enjoy this story.

One of the few joys in Argus Filch's life was watching people suffer.

In fact, they didn't even need to be people. So long as they suffered, and they weren't either him or his dearest cat Mrs. Norris, he was happy.

And it was for that reason the caretaker took a short break from greasing the gears in the Hogwarts Clock Tower one morning, heading down towards the kitchens to watch the house elves struggle through the breakfast rush.

"Dobby needs a refire on bacon for tables 24, 32, and 51!" Dobby called.

"Yes chef!" the cooks replied in unison.

Filch nodded in satisfaction as he peeked into the kitchen; today, as usual, the house elves were struggling to keep up. He continued to watch with mild interest as a little house elf ran up to Dobby.

"Chef, may I? Winky burned this morning's bread again. What should we do?"

Dobby sighed. "Dobby will speak to her. For now, eighty-six the toast and pull the emergency loaves from the freezer."

"Yes chef!" the elf replied, scurrying away.

Filch smiled. He especially loved it when things went wrong.

"Winky!" Dobby called.

A few moments later, a woozy little house elf stumbled into view. "Yes chef?"

"How many times does Dobby have to remind you to set a timer when you bake the bread?"

"Sorry chef," she replied. "Winky forgot."

Dobby slapped himself in the forehead. "Of course Winky did. Why don't you stay away from the kitchen for now and go refill the students' water goblets instead."

"Understood chef!" Winky said, saluting Dobby and running off.

The little elf collected the necessary things and ran past the loitering Filch with such haste that she almost knocked him off balance. Winky herself stumbled, quickly stopped to pick up the things that had fallen out of her arms, and then went back to running as she shouted an apology over her shoulder.

"Apology rejected!" the man shouted back, his good mood completely ruined by the incredibly minor inconvenience.

He bent down to gather his materials, planning to leave the uncivilized kitchen and return to greasing the Clock Tower, when he noticed his jar of grease was gone.

"Oh dear," he muttered. "We are in trouble."

"Harry," Daphne started. "Does your water taste different today?"

He took a sip from his goblet and shook his head. "No, why?"

"Mine tastes remarkably good."

Harry narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her goblet. "It doesn't just taste like water?"

"No," Daphne replied, drinking the rest of the liquid in one gulp. "It tastes so much better."

"Huh…"

Harry was about to continue his line of inquiry when he felt something touch his foot. He moved away, assuming it was just Neville's toad running around the Great Hall again, but a moment later he felt it again.

"Um, Daphne?"

"Yes?"

"Are you kicking me?"

"No."

Harry looked under the bench, and sure enough, Daphne's two loafered feet were kicking his two sneakered ones.

He looked back up at her and raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure you are kicking me."

"I'm not kicking you," she said with a smile. "It's called flirting, silly."

Harry's brain completely ceased working as he saw his girlfriend smile. He liked her default aloof look just fine, but the loving expression on her face struck him like a lightning bolt straight to the heart, robbing him of all ability to form a cohesive thought.

It was a substantial time later that he finally pulled himself together enough to say aloud what his brain had subconsciously registered several seconds earlier.

"Daphne, you're smiling?!"

"It's not a big deal," she blushed. "Girls do that when they talk to the boy they like, you know…"

Harry's heart skipped a beat. Daphne just blushed.

Daphne didn't blush!

"Are you feeling okay?" Harry asked, concerned. "Is something broken?"

Daphne pouted. "Only my heart when you ignore my attempts to play footsie."

Now Harry was very concerned. Daphne didn't smile, didn't blush, and she certainly didn't pout. More importantly, she was using contractions and saying things that sounded suspiciously like jokes.

"I wonder if they have any more of this yummy water?" Daphne mused, holding her empty goblet and looking around cluelessly.

Harry's jaw dropped. Was it possible…?

"Daphne, can I see that goblet for a second?" he asked.

"Will you get me more yummy water?"

"Uh, sure," he lied, taking the cup from her hand.

He raised it to his nose, and sure enough, whatever was in that goblet a few minutes ago was definitely not water. He was almost expecting to smell something fermented and fruity, but instead it smelled…greasy?

"Yummy water!" Daphne yelled. "Yummy water!"

Harry cringed as students from other tables started to peer over at them and the scene Daphne was causing.

"Daphne," he started. "I'm not sure how to say this…but I think you're drunk."

She quirked her head at him and almost fell over. "You're silly, Harry. I can't get drunk. I'm a robot!"

He took in a sharp breath and looked around in a panic. Fortunately, no one seemed to be paying too close attention to what she was saying, and Daphne's rather earnest revelation went unnoticed by their peers.

"That's supposed to be a secret!" he whispered urgently. "You need to keep your voice down!"

She smirked and winked at him. "Then maybe we should go someplace where we can be as loud as we want."

Harry just stared at her, blushing and at a total loss for words.

"Rawr," she added, pawing at him from across the table.

"Okay Daphne, here's what's going to happen," Harry instructed, leading his girlfriend to their first class of the day. "You're going to sit at the back of the class, and you're not going to say anything while you try to recover, okay?"

"Yes master."

"Okay perf- Wait, what did you just call me!?"

"I called you master," she explained. "That way, it sounds like I'm your personal robot assistant. I thought you'd like that since you have a robot kink."

Harry tried to blink away his confusion. "Since when do I have a robot kink?"

Daphne stopped walking, and looked up at him with the saddest expression he'd ever seen in his life.

"You don't have a robot kink?" she sniffled.

"No! I mean, I don't think so? No, definitely not, I just like you, and you happen to be a robot. But those things are totally separate."

"So you have a Daphne kink?" Daphne asked.

Harry sighed. "Sure. I guess you could say that."

"Ew! My boyfriend's a Daphne fetishist! What a weirdo!"

Despite her words, the girl seemed rather pleased by that thought.

A moment later they walked into class, and fortunately, Daphne did as she was told and kept quiet as they headed to sit at the back of the room. Harry had a hard time focusing on the lecture as he was too busy stressing about his robot girlfriend who was apparently drunk (from oil?), but apart from that, things went surprisingly well as the class progressed.

Until Daphne nudged Harry's shoulder and handed him a note.

He reluctantly took it and read.

'Do you love me? Yes/No'

Harry looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Circle it," she mouthed silently.

Harry sighed quietly, circled 'yes', and then handed it back to Daphne.

Whirrrrr

Daphne's whirring seemed a bit louder than usual today, and he pretended not to notice the looks from the people in front of them as they turned around to find the source of the noise.

A few peaceful and uneventful minutes later, Harry got another note.

'This class is boooring. What's up?'

How was he supposed to respond to that?

He shook his head at Daphne and tried to mouth something along the lines of 'in class, can't talk', but she was having none of it. She affected another dangerously cute pouty expression and mimed a heart breaking in her hands, until Harry was eventually forced to pen a short reply just to get her to stop distracting the people sitting beside them.

'Not much. Just trying to focus on class.'

He handed the note back to her and she read it over a couple times before smiling and rolling her eyes. A minute or so later, he got another one.

'You don't need to focus on class. I'll teach you everything you need to know later. Besides, I think you'll find my private lessons *far* more compelling than Professor Binns' lectures.'

When he looked up at his girlfriend, she was eyeing him and biting her lower lip suggestively. Harry regretfully turned away, not wanting to validate her behavior, but also admitting to himself that this aggressively flirty version of Daphne was kind of exciting.

He had to keep reminding himself that the things people said when they were accidentally intoxicated were not to be held against them at a later date.

Class was almost finished when he got his final note. He considered not opening it, but she was batting her eyelashes at him, her hands pressed together piously like she was silently begging him to read it.

Sighing, he unfolded it.

'Would you still love me if I was a worm?'

They made it through their morning classes mostly unscathed (Harry's heart had seen calmer days), and made their way towards the relative sanctity of the Great Hall for lunch. Surprisingly, Daphne hadn't spoken since they left class.

"Daphne?" Harry asked eventually. "Are you doing okay?"

She blinked at him a few times and mimed zipping her lips shut. She even threw away the key for good measure.

"Um… You're not speaking?" he guessed.

She rolled her eyes and mimed handing the key that she had thrown away over to him.

"Oh! Because I told you not to say anything while you try to recover," he realized, thinking back to his earlier instructions for the girl. "You can speak again now."

"Thank you master."

Harry tripped over his own feet, and a few people around them in the hallway gave the couple strange looks.

"Daphne!" he scolded. "You can't say that in public!"

"So I can say it in private?"

"No! I mean, I don't know? Anyway, that's not the point!"

Daphne blushed and fidgeted shyly, pressing her forefingers together in a mock demure gesture. "Would you like it better if I called you da-"

"Daphne."

"Yes?"

"Don't finish that sentence."

She looked down at her shoes, chastened. "Daphne's a bad girl…"

"You're not a bad girl," Harry sighed. "But apparently you're quite the handful when you're drunk…"

She looked back up at him with a smile. "Oh, if you wanted a 'handful', you could've just asked!"

Harry stared back at her for a long moment, and the smile fell off of Daphne's face. Even before saying it, she knew that one was a stretch.

"I take it back," he amended. "You are a bad girl."

"And bad girls get punished?" she asked hopefully.

"…"

Harry was trying to figure out how he could possibly reply to that when a voice sounded from behind him.

"Um, Harry?"

He turned and saw Neville walking with his girlfriend Sabrina. They were both looking at him with rather horrified expressions on their faces.

"There are first years in this hallway," Neville continued sheepishly. "You guys should probably save this kind of thing for when you're alone…"

Harry looked around and noticed that indeed, their conversation had drawn more than a few morbidly curious pairs of eyes towards them. He looked back at Daphne, mortified, but she just smiled innocently at him as if this whole thing wasn't entirely her fault.

"Sorry about that," Harry said after a moment. "We were just heading to the hospital wing, anyway."

"We were?" Daphne asked.

"Yes."

The two of them walked briskly down the hallway, Harry pulling her along gently by the arm, and the remaining spectators watched them go with mild horror.

"What do you suppose they're going to do in the hospital wing?" Sabrina asked tentatively, as if she really didn't want to know the answer.

"I think it's better if we never find out," Neville replied, matching her sentiment exactly.

Harry led Daphne into the hospital wing, pulled back the curtains on an empty bed, and sat her down.

"I think it's better if we stay in here until you sober up," Harry said. "I feel like we were risking expulsion out there."

Daphne fell back onto the bed, adjusting the pillow under her head. "My battery is draining suspiciously fast, so I guess I wouldn't mind a nap."

Harry sighed and sat down next to her on the edge of the bed. It seemed as though she was cooling down, and he was grateful for it. Admittedly, it had been immensely enjoyable to see all of the facial expressions that he normally didn't get to see on his girlfriend's face, but her constant teasing was wearing on both his blood pressure and willpower in equal measure.

He thought she might've instantly fallen asleep, but after a few seconds of silence she reached over and tugged on his sleeve.

"Harry?"

"Hm?"

"Are you annoyed with me?"

He glanced over at her, and the vulnerable look on her face almost broke his heart.

"No, of course not," he said softly, putting a hand on her knee over the blanket. "You haven't done anything wrong, and it's not your fault that you were accidentally pushed into day drinking."

"So you won't break up with me?"

"Never. You know that, Daphne."

"Maybe," she said. "But I still get nervous sometimes. I spent my whole childhood without friends, and I thought it would be like that for the rest of my life. Now that I've found not only a best friend in you, but a lover as well, I'm kind of terrified that you'll leave one day."

Harry brushed some of Daphne's hair out of her face so he could look her directly in the eyes.

"That's not something you have to worry about," he promised her. "We're a team now, and until the end."

"And if the end comes sooner than we thought?"

"I'll make sure it doesn't."

Daphne stared at him for a second longer, but saw something in his eyes that made her relax back onto the bed.

"Sorry for bothering you today," she murmured.

"I already told you, you weren't a bother at all," he replied, lifting the blanket up to her chin. "Just a little too…stimulating for school hours."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Her worries abated, Daphne allowed her battery to reach 0% and she turned off.

Powering On…

Battery Status: 100%

Good Morning, Daphne! Love, - Mom

Daphne blinked away the default programmed 'good morning' message even though her internal clock told her it was still the middle of the afternoon. She took a moment to look around, saw Harry still sitting by her bed, and the memories of her day came flowing back.

"..."

Possible Emotion Detected: Mortification

Simulating Physiological Response…

Printing Thought Sequence: 01001111 01101000 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100001 01110010 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked, noticing her open eyes. "Better now?"

"Yes. There is a light rhythmic pounding in my head, but it is a small matter."

"That's a relief," he sighed.

"However, the shame I feel over my actions today is something I might never recover from."

Harry grimaced. "I take it you remember everything?"

"Everything. Never in my mechanical life have I behaved so immodestly. I apologize profusely for my behavior."

"You're overreacting," he laughed. "It wasn't a big deal, and it was sort of fun — I got to see a new side of you. I didn't even know you were capable of smiling until today."

Daphne nodded. "It is within my capabilities, of course; I have perfect control over my facial muscles."

"Really?" Harry asked, surprised. "How come you never use them?"

"Having perfect control over every single one of your facial muscles is double-edged; I am capable of producing most emotional countenances, but the miniscule adjustments necessary to master micro expressions and transitions has proven incredibly difficult, even for me. As a result, I do not use them, for fear of appearing uncanny."

"Can I see?"

Daphne smiled up at him.

To be fair, it was a great smile, but Harry had to admit that she had a point. The unwavering expression was a bit creepy in how inflexible it was, and definitely had a distinctive inhuman nuance.

Her face quickly and awkwardly transitioned back into the default, neutral expression she always wore. "I hypothesize that the inebriated state I found myself in today allowed me to use my artificial muscles more naturally by blurring my control over them. It is an interesting concept, but I do not believe I would be able to replicate it while sober."

Harry thought about that for a while; it made a lot of sense in some ways, but not a lot of sense in others.

"Well anyway," he said, giving up on trying to solve the mysteries behind his robot girlfriend. "We'll have to find a time soon to catch up on the classes we missed today; winter exams are coming up soon, and I definitely didn't retain anything even from the morning lectures."

"That is no problem," Daphne replied. "I have had the content memorized for years. I already told you I would help you, and as I said this morning, I believe you will find my private lessons very compelling."

Harry looked down at Daphne.

Daphne looked up at Harry.

"Do not misunderstand," she said. "The grease may have 'loosened my tongue', so to speak, but I still meant everything I said today."

Harry peeked his head out of the curtains to make sure they were still alone in the hospital wing. Satisfied, he closed the curtains tight and turned back around to face his girlfriend.

"We've already missed the last class of the day, and there's still a couple hours left until dinner," he observed. "Why don't we stay here for a bit?"

Whirrrrr

"As you wish, master."

A/N:

Remember kids, don't consume grease! You're not a robot, so it won't be fun!