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As the Greengrass heiress and a notable descendant of House Selwyn, Daphne never had a lack of public attention. But if you asked people privately what they thought of her, they would describe her in ways that most people wouldn't approve. Perhaps it went without saying that Daphne didn't put a lot of stock in approval. She was talented, and smart, but above that — at least according to everyone that looked at her — she was beautiful, and being gifted approval for something that had been handed to her by some fortuitous arrangement of her ancestry, instead of earned by her two hands wasn't something she felt necessary to idolise or condemn. She didn't rail against her looks, but didn't give thanks for them either. She simply used them like any other tool, like a hammer or a shovel or whatever else was necessary to complete the requisite task. Besides, disapproval was nothing worth thinking about. Whatever others wanted to call her, at least Daphne was authentic. She was real, even if her greatest hobby was playing with other's falsities.
Really, there was nothing more dangerous than a woman that knew her own worth.
Unsurprisingly, she was very accustomed to getting what she wanted. She had a magical speciality so effective that if she kept it to herself, which she generally did, she would get top marks in every class at Hogwarts without effort. Her aunt Emmeline described her nature as an Empath, a devourer of emotions, an incomplete statement at best. For most people, thoughts tended to follow the path of their emotions, and while Occlumency could suppress one's reaction to one's emotions, it did nothing to keep those emotions from forming in the first place. For Daphne, who was a connoisseur of the entire emotional spectrum, it made things easy. If people weren't on their guard at all times, she could talk them into anything. Too easy? Sometimes, yes.
That didn't mean Daphne didn't like a challenge.
It was boring, though, convincing people of things they already believed. Those in the know believed her powers were similar to Legilimency, but Daphne knew better. She was smart to begin with, which meant convincing people to do precisely as she wanted had to be considerably challenging for her to break a sweat. Quite naturally, she was also eternally in search of entertainment, and therefore, Draco had to say very little to convince her to go with his harebrained idea of going after Potter while taking advantage of the chaos and discord all around.
"You're joining me then?" Draco had asked her.
"Presumptions are dangerous," she had said, feeling Draco's interests. Draco was very similar to her father in many respects — both had tunnel vision in regards to everything they considered important, and ignored the nicer subtleties of life. She doubted Lucius Malfoy would have cared to tell his son about what was about to happen, but given his false bravado, it was equally likely that Draco knew he wouldn't be touched. Operating from the faith of being Lucius Malfoy's son as a default setting was oddly interesting.
"I thought you wanted revenge on Potter," Draco had said, befuddled at her words. "Come with me. We'll teach Potter a lesson he'll never forget."
Poor fool. For Draco Malfoy, it was probably a game. But what he didn't understand was that more interesting than the game were the players. More accurately, the game was different depending on the players.
Still, she had followed him. A smart girl was a curious creature, and wanting to see what Potter would do was always good enough to engage her.
"This way," she had said to Draco, walking in the direction of the burning stadium.
She hadn't even bothered answering him how she knew Potter would be inside. Draco wouldn't understand. Daphne could always tell whenever Harry Potter was nearby. For one thing, there would be huge amounts of magic around him, knots of it, tangled, and they seemed to arise in bursts, like flames. For another, his emotions were less guarded when he was relaxed and busy with his own schemes.
Penetrating his heart, on the other hand, was always difficult. His power did little to hide his emotions, but there was always this… tangibility about them, kind of like the difference between water and oil. But the same couldn't be said about the women he interacted with, especially when half of their thoughts were dominated by the sheer need to jump his bones.
There were times she had imagined just playing into Harry Potter's games and letting him fuck her. A tad boring for her tastes, but she'd have done it. His lust had risen at least once upon seeing her, and Daphne was certain he would have made a direct attempt if he had assumed it was necessary. From watching him work his fingers into Aunt Emmeline's snatch, Daphne had no doubt he knew how to work his hands. She'd probably even have offered him a fuck or two, but what good would that be? An orgasm, surely, but what good was that? An orgasm she could get on her own without being a conquest to the famous Boy-Who-Lived. If she was going to spread her legs and give up her virginity, it needed to be for power or entertainment.
Besides, Harry Potter was far more interesting than Daphne's usual meals.
It was why she had followed him around ever since she spotted him at the World Cup. Her invisibility cloak, a damned useful gift that her aunt Adriana had gifted her on her thirteenth birthday, was proving quite useful in that regard. And Potter, she had to say, had been quite the busy bee since his arrival.
Leaving the Weasleys. Meeting the DMLE Director and her little niece. Meeting Mother and Father. And then that curious performance by the Bulgarian veela was any clue, Potter was on his way to become something interesting. She had followed him right after, carefully ensuring that the veela princess never so much as sensed her presence as she followed her after Potter. Feeling her emotions as Potter fucked Narcissa Malfoy of all people was exhilarating. Narcissa Malfoy was a risky target, but there in the throes of ecstasy, her mental defences had all but vanished, enough for Daphne to pull out a single, relevant emotion.
Freedom.
Something was about to happen. Something terribly significant. And both Narcissa Malfoy and Harry Potter were in it together.
Delicious!
Harry Potter had no way of knowing it, but his methods actually made things easy for Daphne to follow, what with all the sex he was having. Sex was so easily uncomplicated and primal. A straightforward return on baser instincts. Because thoughts, however malformed or misshapen they might be because of the act, could not be readily protected during something so chemical, and they always, always went hand in hand with emotions. Good sex was never mindless, or at least, that was the impression Daphne got from feeding upon others; it merely meant concentration was elsewhere, not gone. Daphne knew her craft well enough to know that, and thus, she knew she had succeeded the first time she had been in his room when he was fucking Aunt Emmeline, slipping something in the latch of his emotions so that she'd always be invited in.
She had kept her distance afterwards, an excruciatingly difficult task to be sure. She had definitely missed that time when Mother had been alone with him, discussing his little deal with Father. Just the direction of the halfblood secretary's emotions told her that Harry Potter was playing an intricate game with his parents, and that Mother was just as much a vital piece in the picture as Father.
She had seen him do something impossible. Potter had nursed her mother's desire for her, making her crave him like an addict. One drop and she would go too far. She gave in readily, easily, perilously, like madness. Daphne was certain that had Broderick Greengrass said no to his wife, there was a big chance that Anastasia would have murdered him in cold blood. Her mother had been hungry, ravenous, desperate. Potter had played her with an ease that spoke of an eternity of practice. His magic of sex, the animation, emotions becoming tangible and alive at his touch, it mesmerised her. She was already addicted to it, and she knew it.
And then at night, the things Potter had done with her father's emotions….
The remembrance nearly gave her a shiver, or would have, if she were less responsible with her own control.
She had stepped in, followed by Pansy, Draco, and his pet goons.
Stepping into the burned remains of the Quidditch World Cup stadium, Daphne had been forced through one of the worst sensations she had ever experienced. Emotions were her food, and something, or someone inside the burning stadium had twisted those emotions into becoming something else. Daphne didn't know what it was, but attempting to feed on the supernatural vestiges of the dead made her feel like someone was making her choke on her own vomit.
And then she sensed him.
Potter! She turned to her left, and found him fallen to the ground. His power was still blazing, but there was something else there, something that was tainting him. Daphne tasted agony in his soul, and it tasted of bitter gourd. Whatever had transpired here, it had affected Potter deeply.
"Well, well, well," said Draco, crouching down. "Look what we have here. Looks like Saint Potter fainted at the sight of a little death."
For a moment, Daphne feared if she had been a little too hasty with her little game.
"Ugh, why are you here?" asked Potter. His eyes grasped her presence, and suspicion radiating out of him, warping irreparably in the air between them.
"I was feeling a bit peckish. And it was about time. So, I decided to pay you a little visit." Draco ignored whatever Potter was about to tell him, and instead dug his wand at his chest, forcing him to stay down. Potter tried to grab for his wand, but Draco pinned it down with his boot.
"They say vengeance is best served cold, Potter. I think they're onto something there."
Daphne took a closer look at Potter's eyes. The look in them….
It was not the sort of look that a person gave another person that they despised.
It was not the look of a person that was being rushed into making a terrible decision.
It was not a gleeful grin of an unstable murderer either.
Instead, it was the look of a person merely pressed for time. One that knew that he had to make a decision soon. The sort of look that one gave to an annoying pest that had gotten in his way.
It excited her, in ways she didn't know she could be.
"Draco," said Pansy suddenly. "I really think we should leave."
The sudden reaction from Parkinson caught Daphne by surprise. Pansy had long since stopped using her brain, and preferred to let Draco make her life's decisions for her,
"Leave?" asked Draco, surprised. "Have you gotten barmy?"
"But Draco," Pansy stressed, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Look at the bodies around! Surely Aurors will come in. And if they find us like this then…."
'Stop being such a pansy!" Draco mocked, and laughed, much to the girl's embarrassment. Daphne narrowed her eyes,
Unknown to Malfoy, she followed Potter's gaze, and found it centred, not on the fool, not on her, not even on Crabbe and Goyle. Instead, he seemed to lock his gaze somewhere around Pansy's temples. Pansy was no Occlumens, so it was child's play to tap into her emotions and translate them into thoughts.
Only they barely felt like her own.
They'll come any moment! I need to leave! Draco's already been arrested once and he only got away because his mother dealt with Potter. And now look at him! Tangling with Potter yet again!
Daphne almost, almost had a mental orgasm. She had long since accepted the fact that the human brain could always, always trace an idea's origins, because true inspiration was impossible to fake. And the moment the mind recognized that it was feeling something from a foreign stimuli, it reacted back violently, often in widely irrational ways that destroyed the entire subtlety involved in the legilimency. Just attempting to plant the simplest idea into a victim's mind via thought inception was so terrifyingly difficult that it was considered impossible.
Daphne circumvented the issue by reading others' emotions. As an Empath, she knew perfectly well what the emotion tasted like. Just a little nudge in the right direction, and it was child's play to make a person think in the way she wanted.
But even her way was limited to her understanding of the person, their body language, and her victim's skill at Occlumency. And even so, she could only give a nudge to existing emotions.
Potter? He was creating new ones.
It wasn't the Imperius curse, dominating over her will.
It wasn't any form of spiritual possession either.
Potter raised no wand, he cast no spell. Yet, what he did was something far simpler, deeper, deadlier.
What did I expect? Him to understand? I need to escape! I need to escape! They promised me the Ladyship of Malfoy, and instead… What am I? A pawn. A plaything.
Daphne shuddered at the way the new emotions… no, new sensations were forming in Pansy's mind.
Erosion.
Fatigue.
Depletion.
All those were slowly manifesting upon her features. Her hands were shaking, a tick forming above her left eye. Her pupils were constantly shifting around, and her lips were dry. Pansy had this habit of chewing her fingernails whenever anything remotely worrisome bothered her. But with Draco Malfoy present, she couldn't even do that.
"Draco…." Pansy breathed heavily, perspiration clouding her features. "I don't like this! I don't like this at all! I don't want to get caught by the DMLE and get arrested! Let's just get out of here!"
"Oh shut up!" said Draco. "Nothing is going to happen!"
What was I thinking? Even with the betrothal, I have got no say in my own life.
Potter's magic now took a sharper form, almost akin to a sharp blade. No, not a blade. A bladed chain that was slowly entwining around Pansy's mind and heart. Daphne had no doubt Aunt Emmeline had informed Potter of what she was. And if despite that he was being so very blatant, it could only mean that he didn't even care if Daphne was seeing what he was doing. That he wasn't bothering to conceal it could only mean that he had no intention of hiding his thoughts, in which case, he was choosing to draw a line.
Which was too bad, not only for the obvious reasons, but also because it meant Daphne was mistaken. She had taken him to be the sort of man who admired when a girl took control of a situation instead of deferring to him to do the work. Emmeline Vance, Narcissa Malfoy, Hestia Jones, and unless she was dreadfully mistaken, even Amelia Bones, not to mention her own mother — all ladies holding various positions of power in various strata of British society.
Surely he wouldn't mind her having a little fun and testing his mettle a little?
Meanwhile, Pansy grew restless by the second.
If the DMLE finds out, they'll chase me, hunt me, follow me to the ends of the world. I know this. I know it all. They'll send me to Azkaban. They'll administer the Dementor's kiss on me. They'll —
"You know what?" Pansy snapped. "I'm leaving! You can do whatever you want! Keep me out of this!"
—destroy my life! It'll be over. Finished. And Draco would just get a new bitch to play with.
Pansy turned around to leave, only for Draco to grab her arm and pull her back. She cursed herself for being so weak before her own heart. She could never say no to Draco when he asked nicely and —
SLAP!
Pansy fell down on the ground, reeling from the slap on her right cheek. She tasted a coppery tinge inside her mouth and on her lips.
"Stay in your limits, Parkinson!" snapped Malfoy. "I'm not letting you make me look bad in front of Potter, of all people. Now shut your trap and let me deal with this filthy half-blood."
Daphne turned around and looked down at Potter, who wasn't even looking at Pansy any longer. Did his technique not require eye contact? Even the most basics of Legilimency required eye-contact, and Potter was operating on a far deeper level.
"What's the matter, Potter?" asked Draco. "No big words this time? Last time you got lucky, that's all. Not so lucky this time. This time, all of us will hear you scream."
He lifted his wand.
Potter still did nothing. For a moment, Daphne almost decided to intervene, but her curiosity stayed with her wand. She wanted to, no, she needed to see where this would go. Just how far could Potter push Pansy before she bent to his will? Would she bend, or would her twisted loyalty to Draco and her sense of self-preservation win? Or would she break like a china doll?
"Draco!" Pansy snapped. "Have you gone crazy?" She pushed herself up. "You already got into all that trouble for casting the Unforgivable once. And now you want to do it again?"
For a second, Draco hesitated. But the game had been played too far for it to end prematurely now. While it was absolutely abhorrent for a playwright to be part of her own play, exceptions had to be made.
Like now.
"Draco," Daphne purred. "I'm getting bored now. Do what you came for."
That challenged his ego, burning him further. The sensation tasted like absinthe, a strange and arousing flavour. Being admired was golden, maple-sweet. Being despised was a woody, sulphuric aroma, smoke in one's nostrils, something to choke on, when done properly.
Sort of like the aroma oozing out from Pansy right then.
Really, people were such fragile playthings.
But I can stop this. Prevent it from happening.
Ah. Self-righteousness. Daphne would've called this droll if it was a Gryffindor doing this. But from a cowardly little bitch like Parkinson, it tasted almost exotic.
I can turn the scales.
Throw in a little ego boost.
All I need to do is… raise my wand.
Blood and madness were coursing inside the Parkinson girl. The smell of fire. Ah, rage. Vindication. Anxiety. What a delicious mix!
Raise my wand.
Her arm shook. Her fingers clenched tighter. The wand moved up.
Cast the spell.
Unforgivable, perhaps? Give Draco a taste of his own medicine? A tad cliche perhaps, but it would do.
Raise my wand.
Pansy was one the last verges of hesitation. She watched as Draco Malfoy idly held his wand and pointed it at Potter's face. Daphne wondered if the oaf realised how differently things could've gone had he just hit Potter with a blasting hex in the face instead of bragging like an idiot. Silently, Daphne rubbed her heir ring, activating a localised notice-me-not, and stepped to one side.
Potter hadn't even lifted a finger. He had barely even drawn breath. He just tugged at her emotions and twisted her to act according to his wishes.
What kind of devilish power was that?
Cast the spell.
"REDUCTO!"
The blasting hex hit Draco,Crabbe and Goyle from the back, bodily hurling them into the air. All three boys hit a pillar straight ahead, and dropped down to the floor, unmoving.
A second passed by.
Then two.
Three.
Pansy just stood there, her wand raised, the freshly cast spell's effects in front of her own eyes.
Then it hit her.
"Dr— draco!" She croaked. "Dra— draco!"
She looked at the fallen, bloodied form of her fiance and his goons, then at her own wand, still clenched between her shaking fingers. She looked at Draco again, and then at Potter, who was still lying down, not even having spoken a word since the start of this fiasco.
Then her eyes met Daphne's own.
"Run," she suggested.
"I — I —" she tried, still unable to move. "I — I didn't —"
"Run!" Daphne snapped, tugging at her anxiety which had already crossed all limits of irrationality. Pansy obeyed, running into a wall to her right. She hit her head, and was thrown back, but it did nothing to lessen her panic. Flailing, she rushed up and left the stadium, before Daphne heard her footfalls escape in the field outside.
She closed her eyes, sighing as she did, and raised her wand. That Potter stiffened for a moment almost made her smile. Instead, she calmly crossed over to Malfoy's fallen form, and cast the basic healing charm on them, before stunning them for good.
"That," she said at last. "Was a monumental waste of time. Potter, kindly get up! Stop pretending to be a weakling. It's downright embarrassing!"
"Tch!" At her prodding, Potter pushed himself up on the floor. The next moment, his power instantly flared up for a second, before he cloaked it away. "And here I thought you were having the time of your life, Greengrass."
"I was," she admitted. Potter was being facetious, of course, merely proving a point and not genuinely asking, which was a pity, as the answer would have been decently silencing. For starters, he could have made things so much better. Perhaps by making Draco actually cast the spell, only for Pansy to attack him right after. Or if he wanted, he could've just made her kill Draco and then commit suicide.
Potter stiffened.
It made her smile.
"Yet again, you surprise me, Potter," said Daphne, walking towards Potter. "All these years, I thought you weren't the power-seeking type, and now, look at you."
The assertion was so accurate as to be unremarkable; Potter was the reacting type, and never one to take initiative, at least until his Gryffindor buttons were pressed. That kind of attitude did not lend itself to the hypermale braggadocio of businessmen, which he was currently playing at.
Not for the first time, Daphne wondered if the person in front of him was truly Harry Potter.
"Miss Greengrass," said Harry Potter, standing up now. With a flick of his fingers, his robes turned clean and well-pressed, like he had just stepped out wearing them, and not standing in the middle of a burning stadium. "I cannot imagine I seem like much at all, given this is the first time we're even talking. Now, if you'll allow me, I need to leave."
Leave? Did he not care that she was privy to his secret arsenal? That she knew what he had just done and could do? If Daphne hadn't already been aware of how little men cared for evidence of female frustration, she might have grimaced. His indifference, especially in light of the previous demonstration, felt oddly unhelpful.
"I have questions," she said at last. It felt like losing. Almost.
"So do I," said Harry Potter. "Most pressing of which would be your presence. You are aware of my ongoing deal with your father, no? Seems like a foolish thing to join Draco's little entourage just to have a bit of… what shall we call it, harmless fun?"
A shiver ran down her spine. Harmless, only because he had willed it so. She was certain it could have ended in a bloodbath, and something told her that Potter wouldn't even have batted an eye had things turned differently.
"What can I say?" she shrugged. "Draco can be incredibly persuasive."
"Even in the middle of… all this?" Potter gestured at the burning building all around them.
"A big event, which will likely have all sorts of reactions," said Daphne, nodding her head. "But ultimately, it will be overshadowed by another big event, I'm certain. Happens all the time. All these people dead, all those people fighting all around. Fires in the middle of the forest. No doubt many, many things will happen tonight. Things far more relevant than a burning stadium."
Daphne felt a surge of impatience rising from him. He was jittery. In a hurry. He had a reason to keep her alive, and keep her in the know, and yet at arm's length. More mysteries, yum. Maybe he believed he had already given away too much, or simply wanted her to believe he had. Whether that was intentional or otherwise was still unclear.
"You wanted me to know, Harry Potter," she said, trying a direct approach for once. Maybe it would favour a reaction from the Gryffindor he was supposed to be. "I don't think you are careless or brazen enough to tangle with the Greengrass family, or deal with your associates without keeping an eye on things. You want me to know, but not to act. Why? What are you truly after?"
There was no panic, no frenzied concern on his face.
Potter's features gained a wistful expression. "Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it."
"Don't lie, Potter," she said slowly. "You're skilled, talented even. But you're swimming with sharks. This lazy, pretentious game you've got on, it's like you aren't even trying to win. And you won't, if you don't up your game."
A lazy smile formed on Potter's face. "I'll keep that in mind. But either way, I really must go. It's been quite interesting, meeting you in these circumstances, Miss Greengrass. Perhaps you could take care of loose ends, you know, as an apology for participating in that little harmless fun? Preferably before someone from the DMLE comes in and sees you here."
That's it? That's all he was asking? No way. There had to be more. There always was.
"Well then, good night," said Potter. "Oh, you'd better learn the disillusionment charm soon. Invisibility cloaks don't tend to last very long, you know."
And then he left.
Daphne watched him go, resisting the urge to swear. Whatever plans Potter had with Auntie Cissa, they were no doubt derailed by the stadium detonating like that. She had estimated that after months of careful planning, after carefully ensuring that Broderick was in his pocket, thanks to whatever strings he was pulling at the DMLE, he would be utterly devastated to see his plans go up in fumes because of this surprise detonation. Hell, if rumours were correct, even Amelia Bones, the DMLE Director, was inside when the stadium had gone up in flames.
And now with everything else in chaos, and the Death Eaters attacking and striking terror and fighting whatever remained of the DMLE….
Daphne just stared blankly at the space left vacant by Potter's absence, a disbelieving frown on her lips.
"It… can't be."
She remembered how he had described things. A dog chasing cars. From a neutral point of view, it looked quite similar to that. Spending vast amounts of family fortune on Sleekeazy. Agreeing to his father's subpar deal. Twisting Malfoy's emotions to make him cast an Unforgivable in public. Potter's connection to the Black family. His under-the-table deals with Aunt Narcissa.
She remembered what she had called him. Lazy.
Of course he wasn't trying to win.
He had already won.
Daphne hadn't seen it. She had been focussed on playing checkers, while he had been playing chess all this time. It didn't matter if Draco stayed out of prison. It didn't matter that the DMLE was crippled. It didn't matter if the explosion took place.
It didn't change the outcome.
He was being lazy, because he could afford to be lazy.
"... fucking Potter!" She whispered. Exhaling, she turned around, ready to memory-charm her fellow associates, when his last words came to mind. Almost instantly, she drew her hand next to her pouch and summoned her invisibility cloak and —
—nothing answered.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
"POTTER, YOU FRIGGIN' PRICK!"