Capítulo 49: Nightmares
Daphne suffered nightmares for weeks. Most featured giant spiders eating Harry whole, while she looked on, helpless, before they exploded in a sea of spider guts. Then she'd wake up, sweating and shuddering. Thankfully, she hadn't had one for five days now, so she probably wouldn't have to ask Harry for help. That would be embarrassing. She already owed him far too much.
Today was the twenty-first of June, the summer solstice, the first mandatory Wizengamot of the year, and the day they'd decided to solve their Book of Names problem. By breaking into the office of the most powerful wizard in the world.
"You ready, Daph?"
She stood by the Greengrass Manor sitting-room floo, wearing her brand-new, emerald-green, formal Wizengamot robes. The highlights were silver. Harry was dressed in new Hogwarts open-robes and muggle clothes. She fingered the silver, lightning-bolt ring on her right pinky.
She nodded. Her hands were sweating. "Get in. Alert you when Dumbledore starts the session. Warn you if he leaves."
Harry smiled. "That's about it." He took a deep breath. "Right, I'm off then." He turned to leave.
"Wait."
The boy she was to marry one day turned back to her.
She hesitated, then hugged him. Despite their close relationship, she'd never felt comfortable enough before. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close.
Harry also hesitated, but then relaxed and returned her hug.
"Don't get caught, Harry."
"…I won't."
"Promise me."
"I promise. Focus on your task, and I'll focus on mine. Together, we'll pull it off."
Her parents entered the room, both wearing full Wizengamot regalia, and highly amused smiles. She broke the hug, cheeks tinting.
Harry grinned.
"You ready, young lady?" asked her father.
"Yes, Dad."
"Good." They joined the two pre-teens by the floo.
"Now remember, you are a guest. Best behaviour."
"Yes, Dad."
Her father looked Harry up and down, taking in his Hogwarts open-robes and muggle clothes. He smirked. "Don't study too hard, Harry."
Harry returned the smirk. "Wouldn't dream of it, Jacob. That would just be confunding."
Despite her worry, she groaned. Her mother rolled her eyes. She turned and marched into the floo. "Ministry of Magic Atrium!"
...
A half-hour later, Harry hovered a foot above the still waters of the Hogwarts Black Lake. The invisibility cloak billowed in the Scottish highland wind. He was sure it would have looked cool if anyone could have seen it.
That was unlikely.
He was both disillusioned and under the invisibility cloak. He'd silenced himself, and had been practising wordless and wandless tergeo spell casting for weeks. He could now vacuum up all his dead skin-cells and hairs while running. That sorted out the smell problem. It wouldn't be good if a trained animal, animagus, or werewolf could identify him. It did take all his concentration to pull off that trick though.
The wards welcomed him with open arms, overwhelming his senses. His occlumency departmentalised the sensations. He pushed his hand through the wards, and noted a new taste added to the detection ward. His own. His identifier tasted of oranges. He smiled wryly.
A few moments later, his taste was deleted from the detection ward. He nodded, satisfied. Now he just had to wait.
...
Daphne stuck to her mother's side while they made their way through the packed throng of lawmakers in the corridor outside the main Wizengamot room. As the betrothed of the mysterious Lord Slytherin, she was getting a lot of attention.
"Ah! Lady Greengrass!" a voice called.
Her mother turned.
Daphne saw an older, shorter wizard, with a full gray beard.
"Lord Ogden. A pleasure to see you again." Her mother motioned to her. "Have you met my oldest daughter, Daphne?"
She remembered Lord Ogden from her lessons. He was Gray, and likely the sixth richest person in Magical Britain.
Lord Ogden smiled all the way to his eyes. "No, I don't believe I've had the pleasure, although I know I've seen her at the edges of your parties, Lady Greengrass. But, of course we all know about you, Miss Greengrass. Betrothed to our favourite masked Lord, aren't you. Any idea when he'll finally grant our august body an audience?" His eyes danced with mirth.
"I couldn't possibly speak for Lord Slytherin, my lord."
His deep laugh rang out across the hallway. "Of course not." He turned back to her mother, and lowered his voice. "So, what do you think of this new legislation?"
Her mother sighed. "This is just a re-run of what they tried to push two years ago. And I don't think our position should be any different to what it was then."
"I quite agree."
A gong sounded and the double doors to the chamber opened.
"Oops, that sounds like our cue."
They all walked into the chamber and Daphne broke off from her mother to climb the stairs to the visitor gallery.
Half way up, she caught sight of someone she definitely didn't want to see. Lord Slughorn was busy talking to a group of wizards whom she thought belonged to the Light. Before the spiders, that man had been the subject of most of her occasional nightmares.
He spotted and leered at her.
Daphne shuddered. She continued to climb as fast as she could while maintaining her dignity. Lord Slughorn was a key-stone of the Gray. She knew they had to deal politely with the man, but that didn't mean she had any interest of being within a hundred miles of him.
She was sure the man secretly wanted to pry her away from Harry. It had only been some fast political tap-dancing that had stopped him jumping ship from the Gray when her betrothal had gone through. She was sure it had been him that had leaked their betrothal to the Prophet.
Daphne found a seat and sat down. The other seats were filling up fast. No one wanted the semi-annual mandatory Wizengamot session to go on any longer than it had to. There were too many magical rituals and ceremonies that required the solstice.
The grand warlock entered the chamber, and briefly caught her eye. She braced for a legilimency probe, but it never came. Harry's memories had shown the headmaster was quite liberal with his legilimency, but Harry also suspected the old wizard only used it on muggleborns and half-bloods from newer families. Those he thought couldn't defend themselves. Seems Harry was right.
Dumbledore stood at his podium and banged his gavel three times.
"Good morning Lords and Ladies, wizards and witches, of the Wizengamot, and welcome to the 1473rd summer solstice since the establishment of the Albion family magics…"
Daphne pushed a minute amount of magic into her lightning-bolt ring. It made a single vibration.
.....
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