# Chapter 67
"Daphna, could you stay a moment?" I caught my fiancée just as the rest of our group finished saying their goodbyes and cleared out of the library.
Another round of joint homework and studying — this time from a reading list our mentor had compiled herself, with extra material supplied by a few Ravenclaw upperclassmen she'd recruited for the purpose — had finally wound down.
We were all tired enough by the end of it that even Luna and Ginny didn't linger before heading back to their respective common rooms. Though Luna, I suspected, had simply picked up on my wish to talk to Heiress Greengrass and left us effectively alone on purpose.
"Harry? Did something happen?" My fiancée straightened at once, clearly catching the serious note in my request. The privacy charms I'd put up against eavesdropping seemed to wipe away even the visible tiredness from her eyes and posture — she pulled herself together that quickly, shifting into a much more focused mode.
"Nothing specific, but… what are you planning this time?" I asked calmly, which made the girl's eyes widen in open surprise.
"Me? Planning?" Daphna's surprise seemed entirely genuine, though I caught the briefest hesitation cross her pretty face. She clearly had plans of some kind — including ones involving me — but apparently none of them led to this particular conversation, which explained the surprise. I chose not to dwell on that brief hesitation, for now.
"It's about the Patil twins. I mean — you haven't gone and signed them up as my mistresses or something, have you?" I asked carefully, watching her reaction closely. Just in case.
"Oh, so that's what this is about." Daphna visibly relaxed, closing her eyes for a long moment before giving me a soft, encouraging smile. "No. I'm not planning to let them anywhere near you just yet. But that's not the only thing bothering you, is it? So I'll just say it outright — yes, they're interested in you, and no, I'm not planning to chase them away from you directly."
"Mm, got it. Now, could you explain it for the magical illiterate in the room — what, how, why, and what's in it for us?" I asked, weathering her confirmation of what I'd already suspected with as much stoicism as I could manage.
"Well… you're the one who left me the position of first wife. And that's exactly what you did, leaving me to decide the twins' fate on my own. So I decided to take the role you gave me seriously, and started looking into your potential future mistresses myself," the blonde said with a faintly mischievous smile, drawing close enough to press right up against me and wrap a comforting arm around my shoulders.
"Oh, sweetheart, when exactly did you grow these little fangs of yours?" I half-joked, half-groaned, not bothering to deny that the role of senior wife in my household had indeed settled onto Daphna by now. She wasn't telling me anything new there. "But where is all this… consideration coming from? I don't recall ever saying I wanted to build up a staff of mistresses. Or did I miss something in my own words and actions again?"
"No, you definitely didn't hint at any new mistresses to me," Daphna said, shaking her head, looking straight into my eyes with quiet satisfaction. "But the twins themselves did. And they made it quite clear they're prepared to fight for your attention, even around me if necessary."
"And what's so unusual about that? They're hardly the first, and they won't be the last. You know perfectly well how much attention I get. Right now, the only one in Hogwarts who outshines me is Cedric. And even that's not universally agreed on," I said with a small shrug, still studying my fiancée's face seriously.
"That's where you're wrong. Other girls look at you wanting to steal you for themselves. Padma and Parvati came to me first — to negotiate, as your fiancée. For their country and culture, that's a much more normal approach than it would be in modern Britain. And you're an extremely good match for them. Their family won't be keeping either of them at home — they have too many older brothers — and they might even be married off to different husbands entirely. Unless the girls find a match worthy enough, soon enough, to convince their relatives to accept their choice instead," she explained, calm, measured, and even, laying out a whole side of the situation I'd never even heard whispered about before.
"And? Am I really that good a match?" I asked, mostly to buy myself a little time to process the new information. Which, admittedly, wasn't all that surprising. If I was honest, I'd half expected something like this.
"A good match. Not the only one," Daphna said, immediately catching the real point behind my question and letting a new smile spread across her face. "As far as I know, they'd also been eyeing the Weasley twins, considering one Slytherin boy, and thinking about a couple of Hufflepuff friends. But you came out ahead for both sisters. Especially since, by that point, you already had something close to a fully formed harem."
"Is that last part actually a plus?" I frowned slightly — though I quickly found a few reasons why having other girls around might, from an Indian perspective, actually work in my favor. I'd started picking up on some of the local society's quirks by now, and I'd heard a thing or two about the Indian magical community as well.
"For them, yes," the witch confirmed with confidence. "After all, you and I both carry rather prestigious names. And Ginny comes from a respectable house too, even if it's fallen on hard times lately. Sharing a harem 'rank' with her would be something of an honor for two recent immigrants from India. Their parents would absolutely approve, and they're unlikely to force either girl into a match with someone else after that."
"I see… From what I understand, things are a lot stricter for Indian wizarding families on this front than for us?" I asked, mostly a rhetorical question — I already knew the answer. And it was, oddly, a little reassuring, even if I still wasn't sure what to do with any of it.
"For Indian families generally, yes. For the Patils specifically… also yes, but less so. Or rather — the Patils deliberately sent their younger daughters to Hogwarts specifically to find husbands among the British elite. So until they graduate, no one back home is going to pressure them about it. But after that — if they still haven't found anyone…" The Slytherin girl simply shrugged, leaving the obvious conclusion unsaid.
"I understand. And I've got the picture now," I said, nodding easily at the girl studying me with such interest. "I just still can't see what *you* get out of all this. And don't tell me you're worried I might run off with the twins. I won't believe that for a second."
"Well, fending them off, if it came to that, could genuinely get tiresome. Especially since one of them is in your house, in your year," Daphna said, looking at me with an expression that managed to be both thoughtful and completely sincere at once. "Besides — I'm honestly glad to see that you do recognize what's in it for you here, and you're not even trying to deny it."
"Daphna. Let's drop the games for a second. It's a bit late to accuse me of being a shameless womanizer who built himself a harem before even finishing Hogwarts. Sirius already made every possible joke about that over winter break, and didn't shy away from repeating a few of them," I said with a heavy sigh, my tone making it clear I wasn't interested in letting her steer the conversation sideways. This was a serious question, and I'd asked it seriously.
"All right, all right. If you want to know what's in it for me, I'll tell you honestly — I don't fully understand it myself," Daphna admitted, with something almost like a guilty smile. "Their request to 'join the family' came as a genuine surprise to me too. But I think… I liked that those two sisters accepted me as the one in charge without question. Unlike Ginny, who's perpetually jealous, or Luna, who keeps her own counsel but somehow still ends up closer to you than almost anyone."
"I see. So you decided to use them to shore up your own standing in our little group?" I asked, without any mockery or teasing — just naming the fairly obvious truth, once you looked at it from the right angle.
"That's about right," Daphna admitted after a few seconds' pause, nodding easily. "At the time, we hadn't worked out the structure of our future arrangement with Ginny and Luna yet. So I was worried someone might try to steal you out from under me entirely. But it's too late to chase Padma and Parvati off now either way. They've settled into the group well, and they're putting real effort into making you like them."
"I noticed," I said quietly, and honestly, I gave the twins real credit for their tact. Despite everything, they'd fit into our group remarkably well, and they hadn't tried anything ridiculous or distracting from training in their attempts to get closer to me. Every interaction with them had been almost painfully... pleasant and considerate.
"So-o-o, what do you think about them?" the Greengrass heiress asked, a little tense, seeming to be working through the question of what to actually do about the twins herself. Personally, she didn't need them anymore — but actively handing her future husband a pair of gorgeous, exotic twin sisters on a platter was apparently still just a little bit too much, even for her.
"I don't know yet. I haven't even recovered from your and Lady Agatha's little Christmas performance. I still can't quite believe Molly Weasley actually agreed to hand over her only daughter to my harem," I said, shaking my head, making it clear that I genuinely had no answer to give.
"So you're not going to rush a decision?" the Slytherin girl asked with a small smile, though she seemed a little worried for her friends as well.
"I'm not," I confirmed, then immediately found what seemed like a fairly convenient way out of the whole situation. "We barely know the Patil sisters yet. And they've still got plenty of time left. Maybe they'll find someone better before they finish Hogwarts."
"…And it wouldn't bother you, giving them up to some other man?" Heiress Greengrass asked, with an openly provocative little smirk — which faded almost immediately. She'd apparently realized she was working against her own interests again.
"Well… I won't pretend the twins' combined charm doesn't get to me a little. But that alone probably isn't enough for me to actively try to pull them into the family," I answered, somewhat evasively, realizing with some surprise that I didn't actually want to let the Patil sisters go.
And no — I didn't feel love, or even serious affection, or even jealousy where they were concerned. But some illogical, greedy little part of me didn't want to hand over girls who were practically walking into my hands to some other guy. It felt strange, somehow — giving away something that could so easily become mine. Even if that thought had a distinctly unpleasant edge to it. I hadn't noticed that particular streak of "greed" in myself before. No, I really hadn't.
"So we just let things run their course for now?" Daphna asked calmly, accepting my answer.
"Yes. Let's get to know the twins better and give them time to really think it over again. And if things do work out, and we end up genuinely closer… then we can talk about bringing them into the harem," I said, feeling something in my own head seize up again at my own words.
"And how long are we 'getting to know them'? I don't want to leave the Patils hanging either," the Slytherin girl pointed out — a genuinely fair question — before pecking me quickly on the lips and flashing me an increasingly familiar mischievous grin. Lately her expressions had been getting steadily more varied in that particular direction.
"Until the end of fifth year," I said, the answer coming to me quickly. "You can tell them as much, if you like — if they haven't changed their minds by the end of fifth year, and nothing's gone seriously wrong between us in the meantime, I wouldn't be against… at least trying to build something romantic with them."
"Understood. I'll pass along your decision, husband," the insufferable little brat said, sketching a mock-respectful bow before breaking into laughter — though it was clear enough she really would deliver the message to the twins.
And Daphna herself seemed satisfied with my decision. Still a little jealous, despite her own actions, words, and the whole pile of contradictory emotions running through her — but otherwise, she didn't seem to object to any of it. If anything, she looked almost happy for her friends.
Where, I wondered, had that prickly little snake gone — the one who'd once watched with such relish as I dragged Ginny into one scheme or another?
Spending less time around Draco and the rest of that nest of vipers in Slytherin was clearly doing the girl some good. Though I'd never really thought much about it before, simply taking Daphna's attachment to our group for granted. To everyone else, after all, she was still the elegant, ice-cold princess of Slytherin — right alongside her little bandit of a younger sister.
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