Power Isn’t Everything Ch.5 (Harry Potter)

Read Chapter 4 here

It’s been a few days since Daphne had her wards broken by Harry. She had already hired warders to replace them, but that wasn’t what was on her mind right now.

It was on the woman Daphne was staring at across the street.

It hadn’t taken her much effort to find out where Adriana spent her time. In fact, Daphne could get that information within a few minutes after Harry had left her flat. However, finding out the topics Adriana was interested in, and more importantly, how she acted, took longer.

Two days longer.

Finding out if Adriana was healthy wasn’t as simple as looking at her complexion and declaring her affected by malicious sex magic for being too pale or ‘tired-looking.’ Those could be one of the symptoms, but since Daphne was meeting Adriana days after she slept with Harry, there was a chance she looked normal.

A more precise way to find out, without a healer involved, was by comparing Adriana’s whole demeanor with what she was like previous to her night with Harry. Some symptoms would be an almost unnoticeable slurring of the words, a difference in the quickness of their reaction, and a noticeable drop in magical power in the worst cases.

For Daphne to have even the slightest hope of seeing all these differences, she had to source the memories where Adriana did a little of everything. It made Daphne sound like a depraved stalker, but she was confident that even Adriana didn’t know as much about herself as Daphne. The thorough pensive watching session had made that possible.

Besides, this was an opportunity to wear the cute muggle outfits that usually collected dust in her wardrobe. If Daphne had to pick what she liked about accepting muggle culture in her effort to seem more moderate after her parents were sent off to Azkaban, it was the numerous outfits she now owned. Wizarding robes would always hold a place in Daphne’s heart, but the form-fitting clothes that muggles made looked fantastic on her fit body.

It was nowhere as scandalous as some muggle women walking around with tops that almost bared their tits. Still, Daphne thought it was a relief to not be swaddled in robes on a nice day like this.

She smoothed her skirt before crossing the street to walk into the cozy coffee shop, making a beeline to the table where Adriana was waiting for her order. Daphne found it curious that she chose a muggle shop like this instead of something like Café Abringer. Then again, the French were always odd.

“Mind if I take a seat?” Daphne didn’t wait for an answer before sitting across from Adriana.

The silver-haired Veela looked irritated until she saw who had rudely interrupted her.

“Madame Greengrass?” Adriana asked with a shocked tone.

Daphne had to hold back a grimace at being called that familiar title. That was what she went by in the French Ministry. While it made Daphne seem like someone with a high position, she was constantly reminded of Longbottom’s grandmother.

Nonetheless, Daphne smiled slightly and said, “Adriana Gaudreau, correct?”

“… Oui?”

“Fantastic,” Daphne visibly relaxed, a tactic she often used to disarm others, “It would have been terribly awkward if you weren’t.”

Adriana was still looking at Daphne owlishly.

“Do you mind if I give us some privacy?” Daphne asked, quickly following it up when Adriana seemed to get cautious, “I have an offer for you that would need to be kept secret.”

Daphne knew what Adriana’s ambitions were, and because of that, she already knew the answer she would get.

“Ah… Zat would be fine,” Adriane still looked a little wary until Daphne finished casting discreetly and putting away her wand.

“Now,” Daphne switched to French, not wanting to hear any more of Adriana’s butchered English, “I’ve been hearing you’re interested in working with our ministry?”

That wasn’t exactly true, but Daphne had learned that Adriana was foolishly trying to get a senior position in the French Ministry purely on merit. The blonde found it overly naive to not use every bit of advantage possible to get ahead. If you were too principled, the only option would be to get sidelined until giving up.

“Your ministry?” Adriana was a little stunned, “You must be mistaken, madame.”

“Please,” Daphne waved off her formality, “Call me Daphne. Well, that’s not what Harry told me a couple days ago. Was he mistaken?”

“Harry Potter?” Adriana started to breathe heavily, “He talked about me?”

Daphne nodded in confirmation. Harry only said one or two sentences about her, but Adriana didn’t need to know that.

“He did. And you were highly recommended,” Daphne closely observed her reaction.

“Bastard! He thinks that I need his pity!”

Daphne blinked, not exactly expecting this.

“Does he think he owes me something? Tell him that he isn’t special, and I’m not some fangirl who needs a consolation prize!”

“Ms. Gaudreau!” Daphne cut off her rant sharply, “Your temper is attracting attention.”

Even though the muggles around them wouldn’t clearly hear what they were talking about, Adriana’s clearly visible anger would make that a moot point. And that was without mentioning the out-of-control Veela allure.

Luckily, it seemed that the Veela understood that and closed her eyes to try and gather herself. After a long minute, it looked like Andrea had it under control.

“Sorry,” Adriana looked sheepish, “I promise that isn’t usual.”

“Is something wrong?” Daphne asked with concern, latching onto the topic.

To her disappointment, Adriana refused to give more details, “It’s personal. Excuse me, I have somewhere to be.”

Daphne didn’t bother to stop Adriana’s abrupt exit. She had gathered all the information needed... and the conclusion was something Daphne had never expected. The blonde was well-aware of the eyes of all the men, and most women, followed the Veela as she scurried off.

Adriana had somehow become more magically powerful after the night with Harry.

[Break]

“Damn it!”

Harry’s progress in the last few hours disappeared in a flash. He could feel his magic once again feed the weak allure that appeared around him.

Harry was trying to use his rudimentary occlumency skills to help control his unwanted ability, but it was like trying to block flowing water with his hand. It worked for a brief moment before it found another path.

At Harry’s current progress, he couldn’t see how it would get any better in a short amount of time. He could clamp down on the allure for around an hour before it started to leak. One of the easiest ways to fix the problem was to ask a Veela for help, but how was Harry supposed to explain how he had the allure?

Honestly, sleeping with Adriana gave Harry an unneeded complication. It would have been better if it had never happened. It had caused a few days without progress in strengthening his magic since Harry had spent most of that time fretting about the allure.

He itched to get back to his usual habit of picking up women. Luckily, clamping down the allure for an hour should be enough time for him to close the deal without his future target’s mind being affected.

Unfortunately, he had to move out of the Delacour Manor to make sure his struggle with the allure wouldn’t be discovered. Place Cachée was a quick floo trip from there compared to the hotel Harry was in. Even with apparition, there would need to be a bit of walking to get to his destination.

Harry rummaged through his trunk and pulled out the clothes for the evening. It was a choice between muggle clothes or wizarding robes, and since Harry’s goal was to score tonight with a witch, the latter won easily.

A couple of minutes later, Harry appeared at the designated apparition site with a soft pop.

"D'accord, continuons d'avancer!"

Harry glanced at the man that seemed beyond fed up about his job and kept repeating the same sentence like a recorder. He didn’t know a lick of French, but with the movement of the man’s hands, Harry could guess what was being said.

Harry gave him a nod, stepped out of the area, and looked around for a brief moment before his jaw dropped in shock.

“Ron?!”

Of all the people Harry might have thought to come across, his oldest friend wasn’t even in the running. It had been years since Harry had escaped Magical Britain and equally as long since he had said a word to Ron.

“Bloody hell, Harry!” Ron looked as shocked to see Harry, but for a different reason, “What happened to you? You... You look like a model!”

Harry couldn’t help but burst out laughing. He expected Ron to say many things when they met again. Even a punch was expected, but commenting on his looks didn’t come to mind.

“Hey! I’m being serious!”

Harry held up a hand and tried to contain his laughter, “I know, I know. Sorry, mate. I just missed you.”

“Yeah?” Ron smiled slightly, happy that Harry seemed glad to see him, “You know I was waiting for a letter... something from you all these years? Not just me. Hermione was devastated when you left without a word.”

The amusement quickly left Harry after that. He noticed the looks they were starting to attract and realized that this wasn’t the best place to catch up. Harry would prefer to be in a private area, but he felt drinks would be needed for the talk ahead.

“This would be better done in a pub,” Harry muttered as he glanced around the growing crowd, “Come on, mate. It’s not far from here.”

Ron just noticed the people gathering around them, some being as unsubtle as possible as they pointed at Harry. He had no objections to Harry’s suggestion and followed him to a place called Griffon Buveur.

It wasn’t something Ron would call a pub but more of an upscale bar. However, it would do. They took a corner booth and put up some spells for privacy.

“What’re you doing in France?” Harry couldn’t help but ask.

“Obviously looking for you,” Ron looked at Harry as if he was slow, “Why else would I be in this stuffy place? Didn’t think I’d find you so fast, though.”

“Huh,” Harry tried not to look as pleased as he was, “Well, you found me.”

“Yeah...” Ron nodded before blurting out, “Seriously, how are you taller than me now? And you have muscles!”

“Thanks for noticing,” Harry laughed it off, not wanting to explain the bizarre reason behind it, “I decided to take care of myself. I guess this is what I would have looked like if I hadn’t mucked about in Hogwarts.”

“Mucked about?” Ron frowned, “Is that what you think we did?”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that. Tell me I wasn’t a lazy git for most of the time there. I’d probably have failed most of my OWLs if it wasn’t for Hermione pushing us.”

“Yeah,” Ron gained a dopey look on his face, “She’s brilliant, isn’t she?”

“So that’s still going on, then?” Harry teased, “I’m surprised she hasn’t kicked you to the curb.”

“Oi!” Ron glared, “I’ll have you know I’m a catch. I’m a war hero and the Head Auror in Britain! You’re not the only one that’s been improving the past few years.”

“Are you?” Harry was genuinely surprised, not having kept up with what was happening back home, “Congratulations, mate!”

The conversation lulled for a moment before Ron jumped right to what he was rearing to ask. “When are you coming back? You’ve been avoiding us long enough, I think.”

Harry shifted awkwardly, “I was going to come back soon. It would have been a month at the most, I swear.”

“Right,” Ron clearly didn’t believe him, “So you wouldn’t have been running around shagging every witch you see if I didn’t come here?”

Harry blinked in surprise. “How did you know about that?”

“Harry, we’ve been trying to find you since the day you left. We were finally able to track you when you arrived on the continent, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t get an idea of what you were up to. Mate, with the trail you left, how could we not find out what you were doing?”

“Huh,” Harry scratched his cheek with a bit of shame, “I suppose I wasn’t trying to hide what I was doing.”

“Obviously,” Ron said with a roll of his eyes, “You were so blatant that we were able to make a file predicting the type of woman you would sleep with next.”

“A file,” Harry repeated dumbly.

“Yeah, you should have seen Hermione’s face when she saw what you were doing. The rant she went on was legendary.”

“Er, is she still angry?” Harry wasn’t sure if he should be angry or embarrassed about his closest friends knowing about his escapades.

“Nah,” Ron said with a wave of his hands, “She got over it and keeps muttering about research whenever you’re mentioned. That might be worse for you, to be honest.”

Harry straightened up, alarms ringing in his mind, but before he could think more about it, Ron dropped a bombshell that distracted him.

“I don’t get how Greengrass didn’t succeed with her mission,” Ron revealed without hesitation, knowing that keeping it a secret could potentially enrage Harry, “You were in a blonde phase when Kingsley sent her.”

Harry’s thoughts screeched to a halt.

“Daphne?” Harry asked before widening his eyes in surprise, realizing what Ron meant, “Wait! She was a honeytrap?”

“Honeytrap?” Ron frowned, not familiar with the muggle meaning.

“Someone that was supposed to seduce me,” Harry paused, confused if Ron was mistaken, “But Daphne couldn’t be. She didn’t even try. Hell, she even called me a trollop.”

Ron choked on the beer he was sipping as he burst into laughter. He gasped out between chuckles, “She’s not wrong.”

Harry ignored Ron’s hysterical laughter and went over his interactions with Daphne. No matter how he looked at it, Harry couldn’t see how Daphne was trying to seduce him. She was like a mate, one that was a ridiculously attractive woman, but still a mate.

However, Daphne did show up at a muggle airport at a suspiciously convenient time. A time when Harry was in the same line as her.

“Why would Daphne agree to do this?” Harry knows for a fact that while the Greengrass family wasn’t wealthy like the Malfoys, they still had the same type of pride instilled in them.

“I dunno,” Ron shrugged, “Something about getting her family reputation out of the gutters. Merlin knows why purebloods do what they do.”

Harry rolled his eyes as Ron spoke as if he wasn’t one himself. What he found fascinating was that finding out what Daphne was doing didn’t make him angry. Instead, Harry was curious to see what she was up to.

“So, mate,” Ron snapped Harry out of his thoughts, “When do you think you’ll come back to Britain. Kingsley’s been harping about it almost daily. It’s driving me a bit mad.”

“What does Kingsley want?” Harry curiously asked, “He can’t need my popularity anymore.”

“You don’t know?” Ron was surprised when Harry looked clueless, “The situation in Germany isn’t much of a secret anymore. How have you not heard about it?”

“Uh, I’ve only been in contact with the wizarding world for a couple months?”

“Huh,” Ron mumbled, “I suppose that could be why.” He suddenly gained a sharp look that had frightening intensity and continued, “Some wankers are running around claiming to finish what Grindelwald started. We took it as a joke until they started gathering a surprising number of followers.”

Harry was frozen in his seat, almost unable to believe what he was hearing. The only reason he did was that it was Ron saying it. The redhead knew the horrors of what they went through and would never make a joke about this.

“Why are we getting involved?” Harry immediately hated himself for asking that, but why should the British get involved if it was a German problem. They had already gone through a Dark Lord without any help from the outside.

“Yeah,” Ron chuckled darkly, “I asked the same thing. Kingsley saw the danger of those lunatics before any of us. They started to recruit from the countries surrounding Germany. We think this would become a disaster worse than Grindelwald’s war if it’s not nipped in the bud. Hermione mentioned that muggles have nuclar thingies that would kill all of us.

Harry’s already pale skin somehow paled even further. If Hermione thought nuclear bombs could get involved, then there was no option but to get involved.

“Fuck me,” Harry ran his hand through his hair in frustration, “Who is the dickhead leading this one?”

“We’re not sure yet. The bastard is a slippery little shit and knows we’re hunting him.”

Harry sighed as he leaned back into the seat. Thoughts about Daphne or even about going back home were shelved. If Harry had to deal with another Dark Lord, then this time he would make sure he wasn’t jumping into his death.

Read Chapter 6 here