Something flickered in his green eyes.
For a moment, his face seemed to soften.
After what felt like an eternity, he spoke.
“Daphne… living at my side would be very dangerous.”
“I don’t care!” She gripped him tighter.
“You know you wouldn’t be the only witch in my life.”
“I don’t care!” she repeated fiercely.
“I trust you. I’ll do anything you want—just don’t let him have me… please…”
They remained locked in silence for a long moment.
Then Harry gently disentangled himself from her embrace and walked toward the door.
He paused on the threshold.
“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be back soon.”
≤○≥
Daphne sat alone in Harry’s office.
She had been there for hours.
The thoughts refused to stop.
Over and over, her mind tormented her with terrible images: Harry walking away in disgust, changing his mind, her parents demanding terms he wouldn’t accept, them reversing their decision, deciding Lord Slughorn was the only viable option, Harry being unable to afford her bride price, the family magics rejecting the contract… or, or, or…
She had tried retreating into her Occlumency training, but that only made the nightmare scenarios more vivid and unbearable.
Somewhere deep in the manor, a clock struck the late hour.
She was growing tired now.
All her energy had been spent on worrying.
For the first time since entering, she truly looked around the room.
Why did Harry even have an office in the manor?
Come to think of it, she had never received a proper answer about what business he conducted with her father.
Daphne rose on shaky legs and approached the desk.
She ran her fingers lightly along its edge, brushing over scattered letters and papers.
Her gaze fell on a stack of sealed envelopes in the out-tray.
The top letter bore a wax seal with a familiar crest.
A shield with a serpent.
It looked exactly like the Slytherin crest she had studied in heraldry lessons.
Why would Harry be sealing his letters with the Slytherin crest?
There had been that mysterious visitor a month ago, but Harry looked nothing like him, and the man had been too young to be his father.
Something nagged at the back of her mind, but she was too exhausted to grasp it.
She searched for a seal stamp but found none, and she wasn’t about to rummage through drawers.
Daphne looked back at the letter.
The seal was small, the crest incredibly intricate.
She turned her hand over and pressed the back of one finger against it.
Her finger didn’t quite cover the width, but it was close.
A signet ring?
Strange.
“Ahem.”
Daphne spun around, face burning, heart leaping into her throat.
Harry stood in the doorway, looking casual and smiling.
In his hand he held a very ornate parchment.
“All signed and official,” the boy said, as if he had simply returned from a trip to the Alley.
“We will become Lord and Lady in our fifth year at Hogwarts—eight years from now.”
Daphne crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat and threw her arms around him, hugging him as tightly as she could.
“Thank you, Harry. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she sobbed, struggling to hold back fresh tears.
For a long moment she clung to him.
Harry supported her weight effortlessly.
Eventually she pulled back, wiped her eyes with her robe sleeve, and looked up at him with a mischievous glint.
“So,” she said after a quick sniff, “am I finally going to learn what kind of Lady I’m going to be?”
Her new betrothed grinned.
“I thought you might have figured it out already from snooping on my desk.”
“No. I only saw the Slytherin crest.”
Harry raised his hand and wiggled his fingers in front of her face.
A distinctive ring gleamed on one of them.
Her eyes widened.
“Seriously, Harry! You’re the heir of Slytherin?” she exclaimed.
“Yep. Well… actually, I’m a bit more than that. I hope you can handle the limelight, because you’re going to be right in the middle of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘a bit more’? And… how can we become Lord and Lady Slytherin if there’s already a Lord Slytherin?”
“You remember what I told you during our first conversation in the garden? Things in the wizarding world are not always what they seem.”
Daphne remembered.
She doubted she would ever forget.
“Now that we’re betrothed, there are quite a few family secrets I refuse to keep from you. Your parents are waiting downstairs. We’re going to have a long conversation about many things.”
“Will that include what you’ve really been doing with Father?”
“Yes. Though I suspect you’ll be able to piece most of it together from tomorrow’s Daily Prophet.”
Daphne looked into his vivid green eyes.
Somehow—Merlin only knew how—she had dodged a Killing Curse and found the Philosopher’s Stone.
She was going to be Lady Slytherin, married to a boy who, in the short time she had known him, had proven himself strong-willed, understanding, mature beyond his years, and impossibly powerful.
She had walked through hell… and emerged into sunlight on the other side.
“Lead on, my future Lord Slytherin?” she suggested with a shy smile.
“After you, my future Lady Slytherin.”
≤○≥
[May 1989 – Five months after Harry and Daphne’s betrothal]
Hermione Granger lay upside down on her bed, head and shoulders hanging off the edge just an inch from the floor.
A thick book was pressed close to her face, her long, curly brown hair spilling out like a wild halo.
It was a position only a true book lover could sustain, and Hermione knew she was one.
“Hermione,” her mother’s voice called through the closed bedroom door, “he’s here.”
She sighed, snapped the book shut, rolled off the bed, and scrambled to her feet.
“Ready, Mum!” she called back.