The layout of the Greengrass manor was strange to say the least. While similar to Hogwarts in that regard, it still took Harry some time getting used to. First of all, the building was much larger from the inside than from the outside. Harry knew that wasn't so strange for magical dwellings as according to Ron, even the Burrow had some magically expanded rooms. It was an extremely cheap way to increase the size of your house without needing a larger plot of land. As a result, almost everybody used it.
However, the more unusual thing with Greengrass manor was that the rooms weren't where one would expect them to be with mundane logic. For example, one could seemingly walk in straight path from one side of the manor to the other and still see the same vista from the windows. Journeys between two rooms sometimes took much more time in one direction than in the other. Finally, there were all the instances of walking up multiple flights of stairs and yet somehow ending up in the dungeons instead.
It therefore came as no surprise to Harry when Daphne led them upstairs to the highest floor, only so they may enter the ancient cavern-like system beneath the Greengrass manor. Daphne had told him all about it, of course, but so far Harry never had a chance to see it for himself.
"Press your palm against the wall, Harry," the girl instructed after she stopped them in front of a perfectly ordinary looking wall segment in one of the plain looking and sparsely utilized corridors.
"Me?" Harry asked, surprised she'd ask him instead of doing it herself, but then obliging her. Harry experienced a brief tingling sensation where his hand touched the wall. A moment later he gasped in shock as he watched his arm sink into the wall like it wasn't there anymore. He was familiar with the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts but this was clearly something else. More like the brick wall at King's Cross station, perhaps.
"Let's go," Daphne beckoned him forward and took his hand. Before Harry could overcome his surprise and ask more questions, they went straight into the wall.
"It's really just like the platform nine and three-quarters," Harry deduced after they passed the wall and he saw darkly lit corridor in front of them.
"Yes," Daphne murmured her agreement. "Except only Greengrasses can enter," she said before smiling at Harry cheekily, "And also you... ever since our little adventure in the woods."
Harry smiled back at the memory. The night he utterly surrendered to Daphne in the ritual circle still haunted his memory in a very pleasant way. He hoped it would always do. In any case, not only were the house elves unable to tell apart their magical signatures, the same was true also for the wards and various protective enchantments around the manor. The only exceptions were the devices recognizing blood instead of magic. But those were few and far between as nobody liked to have their hand pricked for a blood sample on a daily basis.
"Thank you for trusting me," Harry told her as they walked forward together. And he didn't mean just now, for showing him the secret Greengrass vaults, but for everything that'd happened between them so far... and everything that was going to happen in their future life together.
"Always," Daphne replied with absolute certainty.
It wasn't long before they reached the first of the many cavern rooms, each of them serving as a storage space for items so valuable or dangerous (or both) they couldn't be stored anywhere else.
"Welcome to the Greengrass vaults, Harry Potter," Daphne announced with pomp as Harry eyeballed the vast room in wonder. There were too many things for him to take in all at once and they didn't exactly have time for it right now. "What we're looking for is way in the back," the pureblood girl told him before pulling on his hand.
As Harry dutifully followed her deeper into the vaults, he noticed the content of the rooms gradually becoming more strange. At the very beginning, there were books and scrolls. He also saw some potion vials, jewellery, weapons, precious stones and metal ingots – all the things Harry would've expected to see in a secret vault.
His impression quickly changed as they went deeper and Harry got to see glowing crystal balls of light which reminded him of the hall of prophecies, stuffed animals he'd never seen before, human skulls with active magical auras around them and many more items he wouldn't even know how to describe. Some of them possessed strange shapes and dimensions that either made him want to look away immediately or they threatened to captivate him as he felt compelled to stare at them in mindless reverence.
If it weren't for Daphne's hand pulling him forward impatiently, he would've stopped countless times, asking questions about what he was seeing. But his girlfriend was adamant they keep moving. "We're almost there, Harry," she insisted and he followed, halting only when they passed an alcove with possibly the weirdest sight yet and he simply had to ask.
"W-what is THAT?!" he stammered while staring at the thing in the alcove. It looked like a huge frozen ball of glowing fog, with a... humanoid shape floating inside. Whatever it was, Harry would never call it human. And yet despite its grotesque appearance, the most shocking part was the power and incessant rage Harry could feel radiating from it with his magical senses.
"It's an archon," Daphne explained, pausing in her step to stand next to Harry in front of the alcove. The blonde clearly wished to keep going but sensing Harry's intense curiosity, she elaborated more. "I've told you before the dementors are a failed experiment to obtain more magical power by merging two souls together," she reminded him and Harry quickly nodded. Daphne then became solemn as she said, "Well, the archons are a somewhat more successful attempt. According to the legend, they were made as a final and desperate attempt to win an unwinnable war. They are capable of... significant destruction."
"Is it intelligent?" Harry asked, staring into the thing's eyes which were glowing like two angry suns.
"More sentient than dementors but less so than we are," Daphne answered cautiously after a moment of thinking.
"It's still alive... but frozen," Harry deduced by using his magical senses. His right hand instinctively went towards his wand.
"Not completely," Daphne clarified and stroked Harry's back to calm him. "Researches theorized it would take an infinite amount of magic to stop time entirely. But reversing time or slowing it down so much it's almost like it's frozen? That we can do."
Harry managed to pull his eyes away from the archon and turned toward his girlfriend. "You mean, it's still moving... only really slow?"
Daphne nodded. "Yes, exactly. Allegedly, it was the only way to stop them after the war was won and they'd served their purpose," Daphne explained. "Archons burn themselves out eventually, but before that they are nigh unstoppable," she said quietly and followed Harry's gaze which had shifted to the Archon once more. "This one is said to still have enough power left to slaughter the whole of Britain if it ever got free," she told him and Harry looked at her in alarm.
Daphne noticed his distress and quickly assured him. "Don't worry, Harry. The time dilation spell it's trapped in is being powered by the archon's own magic. It'll never get free unless we set it free."
"Incredible," Harry mumbled as he took it all in. After a moment of thinking, he frowned and said, "But haven't you said it was impossible to successfully combine two human souls?" he asked, recalling the times they'd discussed the topic and the few books he'd read while researching soul magic.
"Yes, I've said that," Daphne admitted quietly before looking straight at him, the blue light from the fog reflecting in her equally icy blue eyes. "But I never claimed the archons were made from human souls, did I?"
Harry swallowed nervously but didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he took her hand in his and they resumed their walk, leaving the grotesque creature behind. None of them spoke for a while until Daphne suddenly broke the silence.
"Do you believe me now, Harry? Do you see why it's better for everyone to have mudbloods living under our guidance?" she asked and Harry gave her a confused look, unsure how it related to what they just experienced. But as the pureblood girl spoke next, it became obvious, "Can you imagine what would've happened if someone like Hermione Granger were to find an archon somewhere?" she asked and Harry actually shuddered at the thought. "You know what nonsense she's been spouting about the house elves! How long before she'd decide the archons were also poor discriminated creatures that had to be treated equally?!"
Harry sighed in response. He never liked hearing his girlfriend justifying the oppression of muggleborns, something he thought was fundamentally unfair. But it was hard to argue against it with all the dark magical legacy surrounding them. Harry wasn't sure whether Daphne was right about muggleborns. He didn't think he would ever be. But he was certain about one thing – if Hermione had been permitted to enter this place, she would've most certainly died or caused someone else's death. Warning her of the danger wouldn't have helped either. Hermione never would've believed them and would rather assume they were trying to keep magical knowledge from her. And due to lack of physical magic in their bodies, the muggleborns wouldn't even instinctively sense the archon's power and rage the way Harry and Daphne did.
"One thing I still don't understand," he said after a while. "Why do you..." he began and then took a deep breath before correcting his words, "... why do we allow things like the archons to exist? Why not just destroy them and eliminate the danger for the muggleborns? For everyone?" he asked. "They could be destroyed, right?"
"Yes, Harry. The archons could be destroyed," Daphne admitted.
"Then why?"
"Because," she answered, "The enemy they were made to fight might return one day. And if that happens... they will be needed again."
Harry felt a chill at her words of dark and ancient doom. But the blonde's beautiful smile and her presence soon warmed his heart and spirit as she beckoned him forward. "Come, my love. We're almost there."
The final cavern looked more like a storage room of a museum with many ancient looking artefacts arranged in cardboard boxes.
"Here we keep all the items from Atlantis we're not actively using," Daphne explained. "Most of them are mundane and while priceless beyond measure given their origin, their value is mostly historical," she continued before reaching for one box in particular. "With notable exception of this."
She opened the box and Harry saw about dozen or so small objects, few of them made entirely of the brass colored metal while others only plated with it in few places.
"This is all the orichalcum we possess that we haven't admitted to the others," Daphne informed him.
"That's all?" Harry asked in surprise even as his fingers touched the small orichalcum bead lying in the box.
"Yes, that's all Harry," she said, looking at him with a deadpan expression. "While my family was considered noble in Atlantis, we were still what you'd call a middle class today. We'd never possessed the secret of manufacturing orichalcum and had to buy it from the highest ranking families," she explained, finishing with, "It paid for itself a hundred times over by now but at the time, purchasing the Trident cost my ancestors most of our family's fortune.
"I didn't know..." Harry whispered, never realizing until now his suggestion to use the orichalcum in their plan was so costly. However, before he could express his sentiment and suggest that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea after all, Daphne spoke again.
"This might work," the pureblood girl declared as she picked up a beautiful pearl ring from the box.
"That's really orichalcum?" Harry asked with doubt as it did not look like the other items.
"The ring itself is silver but there's an orichalcum bead embedded inside the pearl. See?" she said and put the ring closer to his eyes.
Harry finally saw it. In the center of the precious stone, there was indeed a tiny brass-colored bead. He had no clue how it'd been manufactured but it gave the pearl a very unique and beautiful shine. "Would that be enough?" he wondered.
"We'll have to do some calculations but I think so," Daphne said after a moment of thinking. "In fact, it might be a little too much. Our target is quite isolated but we'll probably need to make some arrangements for the nearest muggle settlement," she explained and Harry nodded, happy Daphne actually thought about how the muggles would be impacted by their actions.
"Have you come up with any ideas how to deliver it?" Harry asked next. It was the one problem they couldn't find an answer to during their earlier brainstorming sessions.
Daphne smiled broadly at his question. "Well... it just so happens there's a tradition of a noble pureblood lady gifting her future mother-in-law with a jewelry item. Common choices are earrings or bracelets but rings are not unheard of."
Harry returned her smile. "And Astoria would be okay with that?" he questioned with slight uncertainty.
Daphne shrugged. "We'll have to talk to her but I don't think she'd be opposed," the blonde told him. "My sister hated the dark lord even when she thought he was a pureblood."
"Good for her," Harry quipped and Daphne nodded stiffly. The fact she had supported Voldemort in the past was a source of great shame and regret for his girlfriend. Harry wished he could make it easier for her but knew he couldn't. And in this case, perhaps he even shouldn't. It was one of the few things Daphne had to come to terms with on her own.
"We'll also have to run few tests beforehand to see how the goblin's potion works," Daphne said, changing the uncomfortable topic. She collected both the ring as well as the small orichalcum bead from the box. "We'll scrape few atoms from the bead and try to detonate them to get an exact estimate on how destructive this'll be," she suggested.
"Agreed," Harry replied immediately. It would certainly be a very bad idea to take Griphook at his word without extensive testing.
After walking away from the room with the orichalcum items, Daphne didn't lead them straight to the exit. Instead, she took Harry to the room containing racks with the glowing crystal balls he'd seen earlier and thought they resembled the prophecies.
"They're not prophecies," Daphne told him. "These are goblin memory jars. More specifically, memory jars of their kings and generals we'd defeated in one of the rebellions."
Harry looked at the display in wonder. He'd asked Daphne about the term after hearing her use it during their conversation with Griphook. According to her explanation, while goblin souls are able to return back to Earth after death, they do so without any memories of their previous lives. To circumvent this limitation, their kind had invented the memory jars to store a copy of all their memories which they could then collect in their next incarnation.
"Simple execution is ineffective with goblins as they come back after time," Daphne explained. "By forcing them to make memory jars and then withholding them from their kind for all eternity, my ancestors at least made sure the rebellious goblin leaders could never reclaim their past identities," she continued. "Only one copy of the same memories can exist at the time, you see."
"Can we view them?" Harry asked with interest. "In the pensieve, I mean." He reckoned it'd be really interesting to view the memories of goblin kings of old.
Daphne shook her head. "No. Goblin minds are too different from ours. You can't even read them with Legilimency," she told him before pointing at the memory jars. "In fact, other than keeping the memories away from them, all of this is completely useless for us... nothing but a monument to my ancestor's pride."
Harry looked into her eyes then, the icy blue meeting the emerald green, thoughts exchanged between them without words and agreement reached.
They both pulled out their wands at the same and pointed them at the racks.
"Incendio!" Daphne and Harry cried in unison.
Bright orange flames flew out of their wands and hit the racks. The fire immediately started to hungrily devour the racks as well as the items they contained. The last memories of ancient goblin kings bleeding away from the world forever. The two of them watched the flames burn with supreme satisfaction while also making sure the fire wouldn't spread anywhere else. At last it was over and the pureblood girl put out the last flames with a quick application of Aquamenti.
"That felt really good," Daphne finally spoke for the first time since the fire started.
"Agreed."
"Thank you, Harry..."
"For what?"
Daphne turned towards him and put her hands on his arms. "I really thought I could've done this without you. At the beginning, I figured I could defeat the dark lord without your help if I had to... I was a fool," she said while looking into his eyes.
"Daphne..." he wanted to protest.
"I was a fool," she insisted, getting teary-eyed as she spoke. "Between my father dying, the dark lord being worse than a mudblood and now the goblins plotting to destroy the world... I would've fallen apart without you," Daphne admitted before adding the final bit. "Thank you so much for being with me."
Harry hugged her tightly after that.
They were nearly at the exit when Harry felt an inexplicable and yet strangely familiar pull to one of the alcoves.
"Is that the-" Harry asked as they stopped at a stone pedestal with a familiar looking wand lying on top of it.
"Yes... the Elder wand," Daphne confirmed.
The two of them stepped closer while holding hands. "Are you going to leave it locked here forever?" Harry asked, still thinking about the archon. Given the infamous history of the Elder wand, one could argue this innocently looking piece of wood was just as dangerous, probably more so.
"I was going to," Daphne answered contemplatively before staring right at him. "I wish to try something. Do you trust me, Harry?" the pureblood girl asked suddenly.
"Always," he echoed back her earlier words, already lost in her beautiful blue eyes.
Daphne smiled at his answer. "Then pick it up," she ordered him next, beckoning towards the wand with her hand.
"Oh... alright," Harry agreed and was about to pull the cloak of Invisibility out of his robes to put it on. He was carrying it at all times ever since they accidentally discovered it could protect him from Voldemort's mental intrusions. Such protection was more and more important as they approached the D-day. The second his scar started to twitch these days, Harry would immediately put the cloak on. He even took to sleeping in it at night.
"No... without the cloak," Daphne instructed him when she saw him fumbling with his pockets.
This time, Harry looked at her with doubts. "But the wand will affect me... tempt me," he told her with worry.
Daphne shook her head. "I want to try something... trust me, Harry," she reiterated her earlier plea.
Harry swallowed nervously but then did as she asked and picked up the Elder wand. As soon as his hand closed around the handle, he could feel the power again. People sometimes fantasised about what they might be able to do if they had power to do anything. Well, holding the Elder wand was exactly like that. It was the fantasy come true in a sense it made Harry certain he could do anything. All he had to do was wave his hand and the reality would bend to his will. He knew it!
"Can you feel it, Harry?" Daphne asked and Harry glanced up to find the girl looking at him eagerly. "Can you feel all that power at you fingertips?"
"Yes..." Harry replied, trying to suppress the nagging fantasy as much as he could, knowing it was morally wrong. What right did he have to impose his will on the world?
"Good... good," Daphne hummed and Harry looked at her in confusion only to see her look turn smug. "Now, get down on your knees and give me the wand!" she commanded.
"W-what?" Harry asked, totally lost. He really didn't think this was the time for their favourite game...
"You heard me, Harry!" the blonde repeated her order and stomped towards him. "Kneel before me and let me have the Elder wand!" she told him dominantly with her hands on her hips. Her magic was coming of in waves from her, making Harry feel like she was looking down on him despite being a little shorter than him.
The Elder wand was still whispering in his mind. But as Harry looked into Daphne's icy blue eyes, its influence was completely drowned out. The pureblood girl's very countenance overrode whatever desire he might ever have of listening to the insidious whispers. He fell down on his knees in front of Daphne Greengrass and extended the hand holding the Elder wand towards her, asking and waiting on her to claim it.
But the blonde didn't do anything.
"Do you feel any desire not to follow my orders?" Daphne questioned while looking down on Harry with pride. "Any at all?"
"No... not really," Harry answered truthfully. Obeying the girl in front of him was his dream and he would gladly do anything she asked, even giving up the most powerful wand in the world.
Daphne smiled in victory. "I think you're the most amazing man in the world, Harry. Possibly the only one in history with power to really tame this thing," she said, glancing at the wand with obvious desire in her eyes.
"Don't you want to take this?" Harry asked, offering the wand to her again exactly as she demanded.
"I do... very much so," Daphne admitted. "But I also know it'd rule me too much... destroy me from within like it did my ancestor," she told him and Harry immediately yanked his arm down, attempting to hide the wand from her sight.
Daphne giggled at that. "You don't have to do that, Harry. I've no intention of taking it from you... ever."
"Daphne..." Harry asked, still on his knees before her. "What were you trying to prove?" he asked in confusion before adding more to himself. "Why am I still on my knees?"
His last remark made the girl giggle again; a music to his ears. "What you've said about orichalcum got me thinking... perhaps the Elder wand coming into our possession was also meant to happen. I thought it was too dangerous to use but now I realize I've been thinking only about myself and my perspective," Daphne admitted with a cute frown that Harry had observed in the past on her whenever realizing she had been wrong about something. But at least Daphne Greengrass was able to admit such a thing, which was more than Harry could say about some people.
"What're you saying?"
"I am saying... you can use the Elder wand... and I think it'll be safe for you to do so," Daphne told him and put her hands on his arms again, beckoning him to stand up. "It's safe for you... because what you truly desire is not the absolute power it can provide but the submission to me. As a result, the Elder wand has nothing to tempt you with," the blonde said, leaning forward and whispering into Harry ear. "I'm all the temptation you'll ever wish to fall to, Harry Potter."
"Daphne, I-" Harry whispered back and was going to hug her and snog the hell out of her to prove her words right. But Daphne wasn't done speaking yet as she leaned back.
"And I know I'll never try to take this from you," she told him, her hand brushing his fingers still holding the Elder wand. "Whatever desire I might've had of ruling the world, it pales in comparison to my desire to rule you," she explained as her eyes turned misty. "I want you so much Harry Potter... I want you more than I ever wanted to rule the world."
Harry smiled and brushed her cheek with his other hand. "So what you're saying... we're perfect for each other," Harry summarized and when Daphne nodded, he waved his hand dismissively. "I knew that before," he said in bored voice, earning him a punch from Daphne before he pulled her into a hug and they kissed passionately. At one point during their make out session, Harry wasn't sure when, the Elder wand had slipped from his grasp, unwanted and forgotten for the moment. Instead, Harry used his hand to feel her silky blonde hair, the warm skin of her cheek, the shapely curves of her body... yes, ruling the world seemed absolutely bleak and boring compared to having her. To having Daphne Greengrass rule him.
It was only when they separated that they both noticed the Elder wand lying on the floor.
"You know... it's a real shame we don't know where the Stone is," Daphne casually mentioned as she watched Harry lean down and pick it up. "To watch the master of the Elder wand kneeling at my feet is one thing. But to actually have the master of Death at my command?" she said and laughed before seeing the way he froze at her words. "Harry? What is it?"
In that moment, Harry felt like kicking himself. How could he have forgotten about that?!
Of course, he knew pretty well how – the Resurrection Stone likely being inside the golden snitch Dumbledore left him was something he realized literally minutes before their capture. Not believing the Hallows were real, Hermione had immediately shot down that idea... just as she'd been shooting down everything he had to say for months. The sheer frustration with her behaviour was a large part of why he'd finally yelled out the dark lord's name like an idiot.
And then they were captured and so many things happened he simply forgot all about it. It made him want to pull his hair out in frustration but what was done was done.
He looked sheepishly at his girlfriend. "Daphne, love... about the Stone," he said, thinking hard about how to phrase this and not sound like a complete moron. Finally, he went with, "There's something I forgot tell you..." and instantly realized he managed to do just that. He looked at her and smiled innocently.
At first Daphne looked at him with total confusion. But her mind was sharp and the bond between them allowed her to perceive his feelings easily. Finally, her eyes widened and her look narrowed at the same time.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!"
Daphne stared at the golden snitch lying on her table before looking up. "Report," she ordered the woman standing on the other side.
"We've tried every magical as well as mundane method to either open or destroy the object. The exterior shell appears to be standard copper plated with gold. However, there's a monolayer of enchanted neutronium separating it from our space time. As a result..." the servant continued to drone on and on for several more minutes but it felt like eternity to Daphne. Finally, she could no longer take it.
"You can't open it," she summarized from her long speech.
The woman shrunk under her chastising gaze. "The enchantments evaluate the outside conditions every 2.7 seconds, but..."
"You can't open it!" Daphne repeated forcefully. "You can't even tell what's inside!"
"No, my lady. Not at this time," the servant finally admitted. "The spells seal the snitch in an indestructible shell until pre-determined conditions are met. At that point, it'll likely open on its own. But until then, there is nothing we can do. Not without additional research."
Daphne frowned at her words. Only the fact Albus Dumbledore had enchanted the snitch stopped her from sacking her servant for incompetence. Like the rest of her pureblood peers, Daphne Greengrass had no love for the former headmaster on account of his strongly pro-muggleborn and pro-muggle tendencies. However, she couldn't deny the old man had been a genius and one of the most powerful wizards to ever have lived. Overcoming any of his spells was bound to be difficult, especially when they appeared to be a unique design of his.
"But what about the message?" Harry spoke next, picking up the snitch and pressing it against his lips. A second later, he once again showed them the words that appeared on its surface.
I open at the close.
'Dumbledore sure enjoyed his riddles...' Daphne thought with annoyance as she once again tried to elucidate what those words might mean.
"There's a surge of magic every time Mister Potter does that," the woman informed them, having taken out her wand and started scanning the snitch. "But sadly, the protective shell remains unchanged."
"Can I have that?" Daphne asked him after few moments and the boy immediately complied, handing the snitch over.
"You... keep scanning," Daphne ordered the woman. She then waited until the inscription faded away before pressing her own lips to the snitch. Again, the words appeared.
I open at the close.
"The same surge happened with you, my lady!" the servant reported and Daphne nodded, fully expecting that result. It seemed Dumbledore's spells put on the snitch were keyed to Harry's magical signature and like with most such spells, they could no longer tell Harry and her apart.
"I've killed Voldemort... it's over," Daphne then whispered towards the snitch before looking up at the woman and asking her if there was any change. Unfortunately, the woman shook her head no.
"W-what are you doing, love?" Harry asked her in confusion.
"Trying to guess the trigger for this thing," Daphne explained before giving it another shot. "I'm about to confront Voldemort," she proclaimed.
But again, there was no reaction. Daphne frowned and then made one last attempt. It was farfetched but she'd had that gnawing suspicion for a while now. She put the snitch close to her lips and whispered. "I'm dying..."
"There was a massive surge, my lady! Unlike anything we've seen before!" the servant reported at once.
"And is the protective shell gone?!" Daphne asked eagerly.
The woman did another spell and shook her head. "No. It's unchanged."
At last Daphne put the snitch down in disappointment. "Thank you, Sarah. You may go now."
Acknowledging the dismissal, the woman curtsied to them and then left the room. When they were alone Daphne turned to Harry who was sitting next to her the entire time. "As difficult as it is to believe, it's keyed to open when you die," she told him. "Or at least, it's one of the triggers. The problem is the spells are also actively scanning the environment... that's what those surges are. So we can't fake it with the right words because the magic then verifies their veracity."
Harry listened to her carefully before shaking his head in utter bewilderment. "Why? Why would Dumbledore do something like this?" he demanded to know before crying with frustration, "Why make the snitch open upon my death?!"
"I don't know, Harry. I don't understand it anymore than you do," she admitted, "But there are wider implications you're not going to like," she warned.
"Tell me..."
Daphne signed in resignation, knowing the boy would take her following words poorly but they had to be said. "I don't have any specific proof, Harry," she admitted. "It's more of a feeling, but... I don't think Dumbledore planned for you to survive this war."
Harry started to protest, no doubt thinking she was slandering his mentor.
"Stop, hear me out!" she pleaded. "I'm not saying he was trying to kill you or wanted you to lose," she assured him, wondering how to best explain this given the fact she didn't understand it herself. "I'm positive Dumbledore wanted you to defeat the dark lord... but at the same time many of his actions only make sense if he believed you'd die in the attempt," she finally spoke her suspicion aloud.
Harry thought that over and shrugged. "Well, the odds were never in my favour."
Daphne nodded at that albeit unhappily. She noticed strange discrepancies in Dumbledore's plans some time ago and like Harry right now, she'd simply concluded the headmaster must've been covering for all possible results, including Harry dying in some final battle against Voldemort. "But considering what we've learned from Snape and now this thing," she said while briefly glancing at the golden snitch lying innocently on her table. "It's almost like Dumbledore was actively aiming for such a result, and not just taking precautions... and I can't figure out why! It just doesn't make any sense!" she cried with frustration.
Harry took her hand in his. "Does it really matter, anymore?" he asked. "We're decisively not following Dumbledore's plan at this point. And even if we were, there's no way he could've accounted for you, my love," he said and kissed her hand lovingly.
Daphne smiled happily at his gesture and words. He was right too. Whatever Dumbledore's intentions might've been, they were rendered irrelevant the moment she and Harry teamed up. "Yes, I suppose that's true. Perhaps one day, we'll figure out how to open it. But if we don't... the stone will be something for our children and grandchildren to worry about when we're gone. Assuming it's really in the snitch, that is," she added. That was the most frustrating part in her opinion – they couldn't even be certain the stone was inside the snitch even though they both believed it was.
"That's actually a nice thought," Harry said dreamily before shaking the thought away and looking at Daphne. "Sooo... you're not angry anymore?" he asked cautiously.
"You mean angry for forgetting to mention to your girlfriend you technically possess all three Deathly Hallows?" she hissed at him but then laughed when Harry looked at her like a whipped dog. "No, I'm not angry anymore," Daphne assured him and Harry visibly relaxed. She'd been furious at the time but soon realized it honestly had just slipped Harry's mind after the whole clusterfuck surrounding their capture.
Also, no harm had been done as unlike the Wand or the Cloak, they had no immediate use for the Stone. She imagined Harry might want to use it to speak to his parents or godfather. But it wasn't exactly a healthy habit if the stories were to be believed and both Harry and she were wise enough to see that. As for Daphne, she certainly wouldn't mind giving her father piece of her mind about following the whims of a mad halfblood bastard his entire life. But while that would feel really good, it once again wasn't something necessary for their immediate plans.
Daphne then gave Harry a knowing and very wicked smirk that made the boy look cautions again. "With that said, I intend to make sure you're not hiding anything else from me. To that end, I'm going to conduct a thorough interrogation tonight," she whispered to him and grinned at the way Harry's eyes widened at her words. She leaned towards him and whispered her promise, "You will confess everything to me, Harry Potter..." she said while sucking on his earlobe.
"Y-you won't get anything out of me!" Harry whispered back in trembling voice, already assuming the role he'd be playing soon.
"Good... very good," Daphne purred happily. "I always enjoy breaking you... and tonight, I'll take extra time with you," she murmured her dark promise.