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Daphne did her best to hold back to wear a fake smile as she watched Hermione leave. Unlike what someone else might expect, she wasn't annoyed because she watched the father of her baby fuck another woman. That would be absurd, considering she was the one who pushed Hermione to her place as she left to take a shower.

What annoyed Daphne was, as usual, Hermione's attitude.

As much as it bothered Daphne to admit, Hermione was her biggest rival. Though, most people assumed that her distaste was about Hermione's heritage, at least not anymore. She had listened to her parents about that issue in the beginning, but watching the way Death Eaters ruined their world despite all their claims to protect it, all in the orders of a monster that casually tortured his followers, it was truly solved.

That didn't change the intensity of Daphne's distaste for Hermione. A part of was the know-it-all attitude, smug like she was better than everyone else. Daphne would have ignored it, but every single attempt of hers to dethrone Hermione from her top student status failed, forcing Daphne to face that, at least when it came to classes, Hermione was better.

Not an easy admission for Daphne.

Then, everything with Harry happened. While Daphne would have loved to make some changes to the sequence. Ultimately, she was happy about her pregnancy. Strong, domineering, and possessive, Harry was simply the best father Daphne could imagine. The only problem was the number of lovers he collected, but Daphne had been sure that she would come on top.

After all, with the advantage of raising his firstborn, Daphne had an incredible head start. She expected Hermione to realize that — she was too smart to miss that — and panic.

Unfortunately, only the first part happened. Hermione understood the implications, but rather than accepting the inevitable or trying to nag Harry, she attacked a different way, using reinforcements.

And, as far as reinforcements went, an exotic veela that was also capable enough to represent her school in the Triwizard tournament and get a job in Gringotts was impressive. More impressive than anything she could call.

"You look exhausted, honey. Do you want to take a nap?" Harry said kindly. For a moment, she thought that there was a mocking edge to his tone, but it was gone the next moment, confirming that it was just her paranoia, and Harry was just mindful of her stress.

It was not lost yet, not even close. She just needed reinforcements of her own.

"No, it's just that I have a lot in my mind," Daphne admitted.

"Tell me," he said.

Daphne paused an appropriate amount to highlight the importance of the issue before speaking, though she also used the opportunity to slide down the towel as well, drawing Harry's eyes to the reward. "Don't worry about it. I don't want to add more to your stress with everything you have to do," Daphne said, doing her best to sound noble and self-sacrificing.

Neither came to her naturally, but she was still a good enough actress to trick him. He reached to her side and hugged her gently. "Nonsense. You're my woman now. I'm not going to let you keep your concerns hidden. Tell me!"

Daphne still made a point of sighing, showing her great reluctance to share her concerns despite the importance. "I'm worried about my friends," Daphne admitted with a long sigh. "I have a couple of friends that want to get away from everything, but need a safehouse."

Harry chuckled. "It's not even a concern," he said before he waved his hand and created a portkey … which sent Daphne's arousal going overdrive despite everything they had done. She was turned on by power, and what Harry did was enough to trigger her arousal intensely. A portkey was not an easy item to create, with only a minority of wizards even having the ability to cast one… And Harry did it wandlessly and in one try. "This will bring them into a secure room, and Kreacher could then make their security checks and bring them to see you."

Then, he chuckled darkly, just the perfect mixture of joking and threatening. "Assuming there's no male friends there, of course. I can be a bit … possessive," he said. Daphne opened her mouth to answer, ready to confirm that there was no male friend — after all, she was not an idiot.

Harry didn't let her get out a word, with his hand already around her hair to pull her into a long, searing kiss that left her hair a mess and her toes curling.

Daphne barely managed to keep her position by holding onto her bed, the pleasure enough to shuffle her world, barely paying attention to her towel that had slid to her waist. She took a deep breath, trying to recover so that they could continue.

"I need to go downstairs to be seen, and there's a mission I need to handle. Meanwhile, you can write to your friends. After all, friends are important."

One more kiss, and he apparated away before letting her answer, leaving her panting and aroused. "Bastard," Daphne growled, realizing that she had been left on the edge.

"That's what you get for using friends as an excuse against Gryffindors," Daphne murmured to herself as she quickly wrote a letter to Tracey, one that she filled with several additional instructions. For a moment, she thought whether he left her on the edge deliberately as a punishment, but she ignored it immediately.

That would require him to realize she was manipulating him — like any good wife would to her husband, just like her mother had taught her — and that was simply not possible. She might have other faults, but she was a master when it came to manipulating others.

It was just a side effect of using her friends as an excuse.

With a sigh, Daphne finished writing the letter and sealed it. She just hoped that Tracey could handle the mission.

Daphne needed all the help she needed. And, if Hermione was using Fleur to help her, Daphne just needed to be more creative…

***

Harry couldn't help but chuckle as he apparated way, amused by Daphne's thoughts about playing him, which was obvious even without his mind-reading abilities. However, he said nothing even as he punished her by leaving her on the edge.

It was far more entertaining than the alternative, especially with both Hermione and Daphne being too concerned about being a winner and would escalate the situation to an even more incredible point.

He just needed to make sure none of their plans had reached a truly dangerous level — a point that his legimency excelled. Without it, he wouldn't have dared to play the two against each other.

Of course, he was careful reading their minds, avoiding certain pieces of information, which was less about respecting their privacy and more about keeping the surprise. For example, he was able to read Daphne planning to bring some reinforcements, but he had no idea who. Tracey, he could guess easily, but who else, he had no idea.

He would see that later.

For now, he had a lot of visits to accomplish, mostly to Death Eaters, though some other targets were also included. During sex, he had read Daphne's mind in great detail, and learned a lot of interesting things about Death Eaters and their business connections.

A wealth of information about connections and contacts, most he wouldn't be able to attain any other way, including Daphne explaining everything honestly. Mind was a wondrous thing, a lot of information being locked in its depths, impossible to be touched by the conscious mind.

Only due to his incredible — and still growing — skill of legimency, he was able to delve deeper into her mind more than she could even imagine — helped by the fact that her orgasm lowered her defenses into nothingness. Discussions of other people in the common room, random scraps of paper she had seen once, even the discussions her father had with his Death Eater pals when Daphne was too young to remember anything.

Combined with all the information he received from Amelia yesterday, he had a much better idea of what could be done to pull the trick he had been trying to pull with Grindelwald.

Unfortunately, it required a lot of travel, both around Britain and Internationally.

Luckily, he had an in with a pretty high-ranking government employee.

Her incredible booty was just a bonus, though he had to see whether he could somehow convince her to make a move again without Tonks and convenient shapeshifting to create an excuse…

He had some interesting ideas.