Nothing is mine.

Unmindful of the Thorn

The post-lunch slumber filled the Leaky Cauldron, settling through it in much the same way, Harry felt, as he might sink into a warm bath after a really long day gardening during a cold, damp autumn. A few lone figures, armed with pints of something that smelt a lot less sweet than butterbeer and various slightly stained copies of the Daily Prophet, sat along the bar and in the quiet corner tables.

Harry squinted at the back of the nearest paper, pushing his glasses up his nose a little. 'Escaped convict Bellatrix Lestrange emulates former master in terror raids.' He glanced at Tonks. 'What has your Auntie Bella been up to, Nymphadora?'

Tonks wrinkled her nose and swept their plates to one side of the table, leaning forward and lowering her voice. 'Auntie Bella went after Gawain Robards a couple days ago.'

'Who's Gawain Robards?'

'First-class auror,' she murmured. 'Remember I told you that Britain has about twenty of those that aren't in the Graal-Kynak?'

'Yeah.'

'He's one of them. A good one. He's Bonesy's deputy.'

'So he's still alive?'

'Bellatrix's raid took place when he was unexpectedly working late. She found his family.'

'Oh.' And somewhere where there were sometimes butterflies, Harry found frost instead, little needles of it like the hoarfrost of all those winter photos in Aunt Petunia's gardening magazines. 'So I take it she…'

Tonks frowned. 'No. There's no honour in slaughtering his wife and children, Harry. She threw the Dark Mark over his house to give him a scare and left them unharmed.'

'Huh.' The ice melted into a small grin. 'I kind of expected red crayon.'

'What?'

'Voldemort's rather macabre approach to sculpture,' he explained. 'He does it with such deep thought; it reminds me of watching Dudley trying to choose a crayon for his colouring books when he was younger.' Harry finished the last sip of his butterbeer. 'He's very caught up in it; it feels like art in a very weird way. He pulled off all of Karkaroff's arms and legs and then stuck them back onto him as wings. And at Ynys y Cedairn, he cut the faces off some very unfortunate wizards and poured all their blood into a big bowl, no—' Harry laughed to himself '—Voldemort was very clear; it was a grail. And then he made all the corpses into the shape of one of those old stone circles and a doorway thing.'

Tonks studied him with a small frown. 'I didn't realise Dumbledore tells you so much?'

'Oh he's been avoiding me,' Harry replied. 'Sometimes when I dream, I see things. And sometimes those things are real, and sometimes they're not, and sometimes I think they're dreams, but they could be real. Honestly, it's entirely unhelpful; I wish I could just dream about pretty blonde girls and food like Ron.' He laughed to himself. 'I've actually stopped trying to keep track of it, it just gets confusing.'

'Well, Gawain is fine. His family are very shaken up, but unharmed. I doubt others will be so lucky when Bellatrix comes for them,' Tonks said. 'This is why I'm teaching you how to keep yourself safe; they have spies inside the Ministry and maybe even the Order of the Phoenix, so if they do come for you, it might be when I'm called away.'

'I do owe Bellatrix the rest of our duel,' he said. 'And now I can do the really unfair Agwyd thing, so it's my turn to chop up completely innocent benches for no good reason.'

'You can't form a blade, Harry.'

'Oh.' He chuckled. 'Yeah, that is a bit of an issue for bench-chopping, isn't it? But maybe she won't be able to chop me up, at least?'

'I'm going to test the strength of your Agwyd itself soon,' she promised. 'You're getting the rest down better and better each time, and if your Agwyd can stop anyone around you apparating, then that's even better. Actually—' a sharp gleam welled up in her grey eyes '—make sure you learn how to apparate this year when they offer you the option at Hogwarts; there's no better way to escape than apparition. I'd secretly teach you myself even though I'm not qualified, but this Agwyd stuff is more helpful and I'm probably the only person who can teach you it, whereas a lot of people can teach you to apparate.'

'You could teach me both?' Harry suggested. 'How hard can it be?'

'Apparition usually needs lots of practice,' Tonks replied. 'And everything I'm teaching you for Agwyd is tiring; you really don't want to be trying to learn to apparate when you're tired.'

'What if we finish all the Agwyd stuff?'

'If we do, then sure.' Tonks tapped the folded piece of parchment beside his arm. 'Do you want me to post that for you while you're off doing all sorts of exciting teenage things with your girlfriend?'

'I would say yes, but I still haven't finished writing it.'

'Struggling to tell Hermione you've moved on?'

'No I blamed you for that.' Harry flashed her a grin. 'I replied to all the bits of her letter except the really long bit at the end about being very worried about me and Daphne, and you, and how I'm getting on after Sirius's death, and whether my relatives are letting me write letters because I didn't reply to the last one for a week. Oh and Voldemort.'

'What did you say?'

'Well…' He shrugged. 'I don't really have anything else to say, that's the problem. There's nothing for her to be worried about. I'm fine, I've just been busy getting touched every morning by my hot but much much older cousin. I tried to tell her that nothing is lost; all is but changed…'

'She won't really get that.'

'I know. Hermione's not a huge fan of magical faith. She thinks it's all evil and culty; it's why she doesn't much like Daphne.'

'Well, some of it is definitely culty,' Tonks admitted. 'But not all of it.'

'Daphne's actually very sweet,' he murmured. 'She just wants to save her sister from a life of being cursed and afraid, and she thinks there's only one way that will happen.'

'A saviour.'

'Dwyr Sy'n Tystio.'

Tonks shook her head. 'Don't say that loudly, Harry. Not here. You're famous, have a Wizengamot seat waiting for you, and one day you might be influential. If Pendragon learns of you saying things like that…'

'What's he going to do, threaten to kill my parents?'

Her grey eyes were bleak as granite. 'Kill all your friends. Their families. Take Daphne and whore her out to whichever retainer he fancies or every last one of them until there's nothing left of the girl you love at all. Take me and do the same. Nobody can stop the Graal-Kynak and Maerdrid, Harry, not if they want to do something like that enough to just force it. Speak quietly, for their sake if not your own.'

'I'd stop them.' All the butterflies in the pit of his stomach froze, their wings bristling like countless cold, sharp razors. 'I've stopped people doing bad things before.'

'I'd say that even more quietly,' she whispered. 'Because you've managed a miracle before, they might believe you. There is nothing more dangerous than someone so powerful with an inexplicable fear, Harry. Be careful; I'm asking you very nicely, please.'

'I'll try,' he promised. 'But Hermione says I'm terrifyingly reckless and have such an outrageous disregard for my own wellbeing that it takes everyone who means me harm by surprise.'

'I think she might well be right.' Tonks waved a hand at his letter. 'Finish that; it's almost time for you to leave.'

'Right.' Harry pulled the quill out from between his glass and the salt and pepper pots with a frustrated sigh. 'Yeah… I really don't have anything to add, I'm just going to end it and send it, and hope she gives up.'

'You're made of some pretty tough stuff, baby cuz,' Tonks said, opening the envelope for him. 'Most kids aren't, even if they try and act like they are. Takes a few knocks most don't really take until they're grown up to learn to really be that tough on the inside. She's worried about you, let her be; means she cares.'

'I know,' Harry admitted, 'it's just the letter writing isn't much fun.'

'Suck it up, little cousin,' she replied. 'Not everything about being friends with someone is fun. Sometimes it's standing back to back against everyone else.'

He dug out Umbridge's pink box. 'Off I go, then. Watch out for the beams when you stand up; I think they moved them all around again.'

'Shut up,' Tonks retorted. 'I'm going to buy you a better Floo powder box than that as well. Consider it a late birthday present.'

'Not quite as good as that getting to know your cousin better thing you mentioned, Nymphadora, but I'll take it.' Harry tossed a pinch of powder into the flames and ducked the balled up napkin she hurled at his head. 'Whitefern Oast,' he murmured under his breath.

Harry stepped out, catching himself with one hand on the cold stone wall of the oast.

Daphne sat cross-legged in the entrance to the arch, staring into the lap of her garnet-hued skirt, her bare toes curled against the cold stone floor and their nails painted a vivid vermillion. Small scarlet roses adorned her hair, blooming from the slim blonde braids tumbling over the shoulders, bright against her cream blouse, as bright as the claret buttons running down its front, and with each quiet breath she took, the crimson petals trembled and that rogue lock of gold fluttered at her lips like a silk ribbon. She turned a slim stick of charcoal over in her fingers, spinning it 'round and 'round past her red nails as she studied the small sketchbook propped in her lap, her ice-blue eyes soft and full of brimming thought.

Harry hunted for something to say that suited the storm of butterflies that burst through him. 'Wow,' he blurted through a mouthful of trembling, tingling little wings and legs.

'Harry,' she murmured; her gaze flicked up— chill winter blue turned to soaring spring, melting away in less than a second — and a small smile hovered at her lips. 'I was drawing while I waited.'

'What did you draw?' he asked drifting across.

Daphne rose to her feet in one smooth, fluid motion, slipping her sketchpad under her arm and tucking the stick of charcoal behind her ear. 'It is not finished.'

'I guess I don't get to see until then, huh?'

'No.' She hooked that rogue lock of hair back beside the slim dark piece of charcoal. 'I was planning on making an afternoon tea for us, but—' her toes curled against the stone '—we will have to make the raspberry coulis ourselves.'

'You wanted to cook with me again.'

'I did not have time to do it myself.'

'You were far too busy drawing and waiting.' Harry grinned at her. 'I see.'

Daphne turned her pretty nose up at him, pink blossoming across her cheeks. 'Are you going to help or not?'

'I'll help,' he promised.

'Good.' She drifted down the corridor.

Harry trailed Daphne, admiring her bare legs, the subtle sway of her hips as she walked and the roses hanging in her bright blonde hair from where they crowned her head to just above the small of her back.

The hem of her skirt fluttered a handful of inches above her knees, and, as she descended the steps and her blouse rippled at the drop down, Harry glimpsed the rolled up waistline.

All the butterflies stirred at the sight, crawling around inside whispering the only reason he could think of as to why she might decide to do that all of a sudden when, he felt, she had seemed rather against other girls doing it in the past.

'I can feel you staring, Harry,' Daphne murmured.

'You look extremely pretty,' he confessed. 'It's making it very hard not to stare.' The butterflies took wing, swirling up inside to perch upon his tongue, and the tingling rustle of their little wings spilt out as words. 'You changed your skirt.'

Daphne paused among the red flowers and their pots, resting one hand on the arm of her chair; the tips of her ears turned pink among the red roses in her hair. 'You said you liked it,' she whispered. 'And I am your girlfriend, so it should be me you like.' Daphne turned, her blue eyes full of fragile hope, delicate as fine morning frost clinging to the soft petals of a flower. 'Do you like it?' Her fingers crept to her waist, turning it over and lifting the garnet hem an inch higher up her thighs. 'I can…'

'No.' Harry stepped close to her and bent to press a gentle kiss to her lips, breathing in the faint spearmint fragrance that clung to her like the cool morning mist of a Spring still clinging to Winter's chill. 'I didn't mean you had to do it, you know. I just admitted I like it. I don't want you to do things you really don't want to do.'

Daphne's fingers twisted one more turn out of the waistline. 'Is that even better?'

He leant back and let his gaze slide down over the roses, her slim blonde braids, the swell of her chest beneath that cream blouse and its claret buttons to where her skirt hung a little more than midway down her thighs. 'I think you look amazing.' A rueful grin spread across his face. 'But I always think you look amazing.'

'More amazing, then?'

Harry wrestled the butterflies into a tight, small ball. 'I'm fairly sure that the less clothing you're wearing, the more amazing I think you will look. It just sort of seems to go that way, which, I mean… I feel like I should maybe be slightly sorry?'

'But you are not.' Her lips twitched and she stole a kiss. 'We have raspberry coulis to make, Harry.'

'We do.' He took her hand with a little laugh and let her lead him through her flowers and down past that small steaming stream to the doorways beside the sauna. 'It sounds like it's red?'

'It is.'

'Surprise, surprise.'

Daphne kept a hold of his hand as they entered the kitchen, clutching it tight and pressing his arm against the fine silk over her warm stomach; she pulled two small bowls out of the coldest cupboard one at a time with her free hand and set them down. Small pieces of shattered white meringue and sliced red strawberries sat in thick, pale double cream, accompanied by halved cherries, raspberries and bright little redcurrants.

'We need to make the coulis to go over the top,' Daphne said, sliding a white ceramic pot of raspberries toward him. 'These need squishing. You know what to do.'

Harry retrieved his pestle. 'Yes, Lady Daphgrass. Thy wish is mine command.'

An impish grin flitted across her face and the shadow of her dimples hovered on her cheeks for just long enough that the breath caught in his throat.

'I will find the chambord and sugar, then we will mix it all up together.' Daphne stretched onto her tiptoes to steal a kiss, then glided a few paces away, tugging on his hand to retrieve a round bottle from among the cluster near the sink and the sugar pot from the cupboard above.

Harry ground the pestle into the raspberries, squashing them in small circles as he worked his way across the bowl.

'Done?' Daphne poured what Harry assumed to be chambord in with a critical eye and then heaped several spoonfuls of sugar in after it. 'Mix it all together,' she instructed, pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. 'When the sugar has all dissolved into it and it is all one thick sauce, it is ready.'

He mixed, squishing the last of the raspberries and stirring until it thickened and the last sugar crystals vanished. 'There?'

Daphne wrinkled her nose at it, leaving him with a slow, soft kiss as she plucked the pestle from his fingers; she gave it a swift stir and watched it settle. 'That will work. Pour some of it on.'

'Yes, most ancient and noble Lady Daphgrass.' Harry drizzled it as best he could across the meringue, double cream and red fruits.

'I am not ancient,' she murmured, tucking a spoon into each bowl.

'Or noble?'

'Honour is important,' Daphne whispered. 'But no, Harry; I am not so noble as you, I am afraid. When I know what I want is within my grasp, I will do what I must to take it; even when I know that I should not.'

'I noticed,' he accused. 'Pestle thief.'

She flashed him her dimples and that impish grin, snatching his breath away with a soft little chuckle and stealing a kiss from his lips. 'It is my pestle, Harry.'

'True,' he conceded. 'Kiss thief, then.'

'You are my boyfriend,' she said. 'And you did not object.'

'If I did, it would only be to tell you that you were meant to kiss me again,' he confessed.

Daphne flushed. 'You are… very sweet.'

Harry cursed the treacherous butterflies in his heart, but they paid him absolutely no attention, swirling faster and faster inside as Daphne licked thick, bright red raspberry coulis off the end of the pestle with the pink tip of her tongue. 'Is it nice?'

A little colour climbed her cheeks as she dabbed the pestle onto her lips, staining them crimson; she leant in and kissed him, a little harder than before, a little hungrier, her soft lips moving against his. Daphne's tongue slipped into his mouth, bringing the sweet tang of raspberries with it.

'It's very nice,' Harry murmured, between kisses.

'We should eat.' A wild spark smouldered in her blue eyes as she drew back, swiping one bowl from the granite counter. 'On my seat. Together. Where all my red flowers are.'

'If you want,' he replied. 'I'm happy wherever you are.'

Daphne left him with another lingering kiss, taking his hand and leading him out of the kitchen back up past the scarlet leaves of the acacia trees, the dwarf pines and the red edged fronds of the ferns. Every few steps up the steaming stream she slipped back into his embrace to press her mouth to his and, when they reached her seat, she set her bowl down upon the arm, dragging the crimson cushions into place and pushing him down onto them.

'There,' she murmured, squeezing in beside him.

Harry held his breath as her garnet skirt slipped halfway up her thighs and her bare knees brushed his leg. He took a spoonful of meringue, raspberry coulis, cream, and a single sliced strawberry, enjoying the sweet taste as the butterflies settled themselves down.

Daphne's fingers curled into his t-shirt in an iron-grip, pulling his mouth down to hers. 'More,' she whispered, setting all the butterflies to fluttering their wings again.

He kissed her again. 'You're the sweet one, Daph.'

She clung to him, stealing small hungry kisses between swift, shallow breaths; her blue eyes were full of fierce fey light. Harry abandoned his bowl, his hands drifting to Daphne's waist as she slipped into his lap in a gentle wash of cool, sweet spearmint. She crushed her lips against his, pressing herself against him, clutching every part of him she could hold closer.

'I just want,' she whispered. 'I need…'

The butterflies stole the words from Harry's lips but one. 'Daphne,' he murmured, trying to resist how the hot little flutter of their wings raced through his veins like fire. 'Daph.'

She kissed him harder, nipping his lower lip with her teeth.

Harry's hand drifted a little further, trailing over the rolled waist of her garnet skirt and over her thigh; his fingertips lingered there on the warm, bare skin of her knee.

'More,' Daphne whispered. 'I—'

'More?'

She caught his lower lip between her teeth, the trembling tip of her tongue tracing along it. 'I need more...'

Harry slid his hand higher, the ball of his thumb grazing the inside of her thigh as his fingers slipped beneath the hem of her skirt. All the butterflies tangled themselves into a tight, hot little knot of tickling legs and wings somewhere beneath his ribs, trembling with each beat of his heart.

'Yes,' Daphne murmured, curling her hands so tight into fists in Harry's hair that a little pain bit at his scalp. 'More.'

'Even more?' He held his breath and edged his hand a little higher, his heart pounding in his chest. Each hammer of it sent the butterflies bursting all through him in a wave of tingling sparks. 'If I go a couple more inches higher than this…' A small smile crept through the frenzy of fluttering. 'I'll be touching even more of you than Lavender likes to show off in her customised school skirt.' Harry's fingers slipped a little further up. 'I will if you want,' he whispered, pressing his lips to her bare shoulder. 'A little part of me wants to cover every inch of you in kisses.'

'Every inch of me?' A small shiver swept through her and all the hairs on her skin stood up. 'You can kiss almost every inch of me,' she promised, pink rising on her cheeks. 'But not every inch. Not… not yet.'

'Which inches aren't I allowed to kiss?' Harry pressed soft, gentle kisses along the smooth line of her collarbone. 'Is here okay?'

'There is good,' she breathed, tilting her head back to let his lips reach her neck. 'There is even better…'

He brushed the collar of her blouse aside, trailing little kisses down the curve of her throat to where the swell of her chest rose and fell in eager gasps of breath. 'Here?'

'Yes.' Her hands dropped from his hair, brushing past the small red roses blooming from the weave of her slim blonde braids to the claret buttons of her blouse. 'More.'

Harry's kisses meandered down her sternum as she tugged the first button free; his lips grazed the gentle curve of her breasts.

Daphne drew back; her blue eyes burnt with yearning, smouldered like the dying light of the setting sun, consumed by the flames of a wild craving. 'I want— I need—' she took a trembling breath '—I need to go to my bedroom.'

She scrambled from his lap, gliding down the steps through the steam and vanishing through the arch.

The butterflies flailed their little wings and legs in dismay, wriggling about as if they thought they might somehow find her. Harry took a deep breath until the last of them had crawled off, steadying his racing heart.

'Well,' he said, to the crimson cushions piled around him and all those red flowers in their terracotta tree-root pots, 'I must have done something wrong there. Again.' Harry frowned down into the bowl, scooping a raspberry up on his spoon and studying it as all the struggling little butterflies writhed somewhere deep inside. 'Maybe I should ask Tonks? She'll probably laugh at me a lot, but she'll probably also tell me what not to do.'

He ate his dessert in slow, small spoonfuls, the taste of the sweet red fruits, double cream and light meringue lost on his tongue as he waited, the seconds crawling by one after the other.

Daphne drifted from the arch, skirting the sauna. Loose red rose petals clung to her blonde hair, but some of the small flowers that had adorned her slender braids were gone, leaving little golden gaps. She slipped in beside him again, doing the top button of her blouse back up with a deft twist of her fingers and straightening the strap of her bra beneath the cream silk.

Harry smiled as she leant her head on his shoulder, breathing in not just the sweet, crisp, cool smell of spearmint that sent the butterflies flitting and fluttering around inside his stomach, but the smell of fresh-crushed rose petals, and a softer scent of some gentle musk and almost fevered heat.

'You smell amazing,' he murmured.

Bright pink blossomed across Daphne's cheeks. 'You should not say that, Harry,' she whispered. 'You are far more amazing than I am. I am cursed; you are an Agwydkleze at sixteen.'

'Right now I think I would be very tempted to trade all of that to have kept kissing you for a little bit longer a few minutes ago,' Harry confessed. 'Another couple of buttons and I might have seen even more of you than I have of Lavender.'

The tips of her ears turned pink too, a very appealing hue that left Harry's stomach a tingling squirming mess. 'Would you have liked that?' she whispered, picking up her bowl. 'I wanted you too, but…'

'It's okay,' Harry promised. 'If you aren't sure, we don't have to.' He waved his spoon. 'Just give me a couple more minutes to cool down while I eat this before there's any more kissing. Or I might be too tempted to not try and tempt you.'

'Be careful, Harry,' Daphne murmured. 'You should not be tempting me.'

'I'll do my best,' he vowed, 'but, well, you are very pretty, so pretty that sometimes all the other thoughts I have in my head kind of disappear, and then I might forget not to try and tempt you.'

Her lips twitched, then she flashed him that impish little grin and all the bright beauty of her dimples. 'Well,' she breathed. 'If you do try to tempt me, remember; I did try to warn you not to.'

More of this and many other things via the link!

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