A Decision Made

A/N: This newest chapter means that Chapter 9 went up over on my P atreon today. Chapter 8 will be released next month when Chapter 10 goes up over on my P atreon and so on and so forth.

Enjoy!

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"No."

His succinct response causes both Daphne and Hermione to start. It's clearly not what either of them was expecting, and for a moment Harry feels a pang of annoyance at the fact that Hermione had thought so low of him. Still, after a beat of being surprised, his long-time brunette friend gains a look of satisfied vindication across her face. Daphne's response is a lot more negative, with the Slytherin Ice Queen narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms over her bust as she pouts and glares in equal measure.

"No? What do you mean 'no', Potter?"

Staring right back at her, his emerald eyes flashing, Harry doesn't take that lying down.

"It's Professor Potter to you, Ms. Greengrass."

Daphne flushes and averts her gaze. Shaking his head, Harry lets out a sigh.

"You must think I'm an idiot. Which, all things considered, I'm not surprised you got that impression. I did not always make the most… thought-out decisions during our years at Hogwarts. In fact, from afar, some of my best decisions must have looked utterly insane from your distant perspective."

Daphne frowns at that, and so does Hermione. His friend even looks a little outraged on his behalf, and perhaps irritated with both him and Daphne for thinking so little of him. But Harry wasn't incapable of self-reflection, and not all of his decisions had been the best ones. Hindsight, as they said, was usually twenty-twenty. There were things that, if he could go back and redo them, Harry would happily do so in a heartbeat.

"Perhaps you thought that because I'm a man, you would have an easier time getting into my pants. If this is a gender thing, I don't blame you. I've certainly noticed how my peers drool all over our female counterparts, and you get more than your fair share of admirers."

Daphne smirks a little at that, even tossing her hair back over her shoulder in acknowledgment of the compliment. Hermione scowls and crosses her arms over her chest now in a huff. Perhaps she thought he should be complimenting her as well at the same time? Or maybe she just didn't want to see him complimenting Daphne whatsoever.

Harry wasn't blind to the Slytherin witch's good looks, however. He was denying her in spite of her gorgeousness, not because she was ugly.

"Unfortunately for you, Ms. Greengrass, I am not an idiot led so easily by my dick. I'm not so foolish as to fail to notice the one-eighty you've gone through since class earlier today. You've done a one-eighty, to borrow a muggle phrase. Do you have a good reason for going from condescending and haughty to an eager slut ready to jump my bones at the earliest convenience?"

Both Daphne and Hermione blush at that. With her arms still crossed over her chest, Daphne sniffs indelicately. Then, she leans forward and her whole expression turns lecherous as she gives Harry a view down her top, her crossed arms now slipping UNDER her bust in order to push it up further and give her even more cleavage than she already has.

"Perhaps the duel changed my view of you, Professor Potter. After all, you handed Granger and I our asses most firmly. Mayhap my maiden heart has swooned because you have shown yourself to be a valiant manly man in battle. Perhaps I wish to only submit to a wizard who proves himself my better, and all of these years at Hogwarts I have never encountered such a man until now."

As she speaks, her tone is husky and beside her Hermione looks downright mortified and somewhat scandalized as well. The brunette bookworm is blushing like crazy by the time Daphne is finished, and if Harry didn't know any better, he'd say that Hermione was taken in by Daphne's explanation. Possibly because it fit with her, or something like that? But no, that was ridiculous.

As for Harry himself… he looks Daphne right in the eye and lets out a particularly derisive snort.

"Horse shit."

Hermione gasps at that, but far from looking angrier or more put-out, Daphne just snorts right back, seemingly amused as she sits back in her chair again, going from a sexy goddess eager to put out back to a disobedient young witch, bored with being here.

"The real reason if you please, Ms. Greengrass."

For a long moment, Harry expects her to clam up and refuse to answer. He wouldn't be all that surprised, and frankly, he wouldn't be all that upset either. If she didn't want to tell him the real reason, let her keep her secrets. He'd let the detention continue as it was meant to and leave it to rest. But Harry couldn't deny that he was a bit curious. What would cause a girl like Daphne Greengrass to all but throw herself at him? The Ice Queen of Slytherin, suddenly pretending to have thawed to try and get him to fuck her?

It seemed unlikely that she was hoping to get him fired by alleging that he'd forced himself on her or anything like that. Harry couldn't imagine why Daphne would have it out for him THAT much. Unless the duel earlier had the exact opposite result of what she'd already insinuated, and she now did hate him so much she wanted to hurt him in that way.

The problem with that was, Hermione was here to act as witness, and there were all sorts of ways of discerning the truth through magic. The least of which would be putting memories of the encounter into a pensieve to show that Daphne was the one who propositioned him in the first place. Of course, pensieve memories COULD be faked, Harry had personal experience with that, but there was also truth serum and a dozen other ways of finding out if someone was lying or not.

At the end of the day, just why was Daphne Greengrass suddenly so eager to get into his pants? As silence drags on, Harry sighs and opens his mouth to speak, consciously setting the matter aside as he prepares to tell the two witches what they'll be doing for detention. However, before he can do so, Daphne finally pipes up.

"It's my father."

Furrowing his brow, Harry cocks his head to the side at her. Next to Daphne, Hermione does the same, blinking owlishly.

"Your father?"

Looking a bit more vulnerable, but also like she wants to appear as anything but (which in turn helps to sell that this is all more real than her previous acts for Harry) Daphne swallows and turns her head away.

"House Greengrass has never had a Lady Greengrass that actually stood at the head of the family. It's always been a Lord Greengrass. My father has decided he's not about to let that change. Over the summer, he informed me that I will not be inheriting his position at any point in my life."

Hermione gasps, covering her open mouth with one hand as she stares at Daphne, appalled.

"B-But… that's so sexist!"

Snorting derisively, the blonde witch gives her brunette counterpart an unimpressed look.

"There's a reason that it's called the 'Wizarding World', Granger. It's run by wizards. Oh sure, there have been female Ministers, female Headmasters, and even female Wizengamot members, but the vast majority of all of those positions have always, and likely will always be held by men. Did you think just because I was a Pureblood, that I didn't face discrimination in other ways? Did you think just because there was so much focus on blood purity, that there wasn't also plenty of misogyny to go along with it?"

Hermione looks taken aback, and ultimately abashed. Daphne has very clearly taken her to task, though Harry doesn't really think that the Pureblood witch has the right to do so. It's not like she wasn't still a spoiled brat. Regardless, he stays quiet, not wanting Daphne to shut down now that she's finally willing to actually talk about these things. This ultimately pays off as she turns back to regard him coolly.

"My father has decided that he's young enough to wait for a grandson born of me or my sister. He has intentions of selling me off to some rich cousin on the mainland. Once we're married, I will be pumped full of fertility potions and he'll take some virility potions, and then we'll get to work fucking until I pop out an heir for him. The second son I give birth to will be my father's heir, the next Lord Greengrass."

She sounds enraged by her own words; her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. To be fair, Harry likes to think he'd be pretty pissed off if he was in her shoes. He's not of course and can't truly empathize… but he can certainly sympathize.

"Of course, if I am in any way soiled before then, it will be much, much more difficult for my father to sell me off. If I were to be defiled… say by my Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, then it would certainly throw a wrench in my father's plans. No one wants used goods, after all. I may not be my father's heir, but at least I will be free."

By the time she's done speaking, there's a certain savage glee in Daphne's voice that can't be denied. She seems utterly pleased with herself and what she came up with. Hermione, meanwhile, looks troubled, almost like she wants to say something, but also clearly still mulling over the dressing down Daphne gave her previously. However, it seems the Pureblood witch isn't entirely done.

"I worked all my life to try and prove worthy of him despite my gender. I've embraced the role of Slytherin's Ice Queen and foregone any true friendships in favor of working on bettering myself. Only Granger here has come even close to my efforts. I've beaten out the entirety of our year of Ravenclaws, year after year, term after term. I've showed nothing but results. And yet, he doesn't care. He'll never care. I understand that now. I understand that I will never be good enough for that bastard. So now, I'm going to be bad."

Daphne's grin is conniving and her eyes flash as she says that last bit. Honestly, it's pretty fucking hot. It's also a lot more truthful than everything before now. This is the real Daphne Greengrass, laid bare for all to see. Desperate and eager to… not please, or whatever.

Harry sits back in his chair and contemplates the Pureblood witch sat across from him. At least now he has all the facts, or so it would appear. Daphne Greengrass was trapped between a rock and a hard place. She was hoping he'd think with his dick and ruin her so that her daddy couldn't sell her to some wizard twice or thrice her age across the sea.

He wasn't sure how well that would have worked. To be fair, he was still incredibly new to Pureblood politics. He was technically Lord Potter and Lord Black, but Harry had barely been able to dip his toes into what that really meant for him so far. Did people like Daphne's father and the wizards he was trying to sell her to really care that much about her coming to them as a virgin? Would one quick fuck really save Daphne from such a life?

Because yes, Harry was already thinking about helping her. Or rather 'helping' her. Inwardly, he chuckles to himself. Daphne Greengrass was a beautiful witch. Now that he knew WHY she wanted to jump his bones (and he was fairly certain that she was telling the truth this time, his bullshit-o-meter wasn't going off so strongly anymore) he could admit that he wouldn't mind fucking her.

But at the same time, did he really want to involve himself in House Greengrass' bullshit? He was here at Hogwarts to be the DADA Professor. He was NOT here to fuck and deflower young witches, even if two women in particular had already made their interest known. Andromeda Tonks… was probably more than enough for him, right? Even if Nymphadora also wanted a taste of him, the Hogwarts Headmistress had all but staked her claim.

Harry glances around, half-expecting Andromeda to come leaping out of a broom closet or something now to keep Daphne and him from fucking. But no, the Headmistress is nowhere to be seen. In the end, it's just him, Daphne… and Hermione.

A glance at the brunette shows that she's currently incredibly conflicted and showing every bit of that all over her face. She's flushed red, and her eyes are darting back and forth between him and Daphne, as if she's waiting for him, the authority figure in this situation, to make a decision.

Daphne has also fallen silent, and the faint bit of hope in her eyes makes it clear that she realizes he's actually considering her predicament. Harry can make or break her in this moment, and they both know that.

So… the only question left is… what is he going to do? Is he going to take Daphne up on her offer and get stuck with the Greengrass family drama? And what about Hermione? Invite her to join them? Tell her to leave them so it's just him and Daphne?

Nothing had really changed, except for Harry's knowledge. He now knew a lot more about Daphne's reasonings, and instead of being the patsy, he would be in on sticking it to her father. So… was he going to get involved here, or not?

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