Black coffee, with sugar

Chapter 2

When Harry appeared the following morning, he looked like he had never gone home, his hair messier than usual, his shirt undone and scruffed with dirt, and he kept trying to man the goddamn coffee machine. Merlin, Daphne should just get rid of it for once and save her the bother.

"You're doing it wrong,", she told him. "Move."

"You're the boss, ma'am.", he smiled, and she gave him a stealthy look. He seemed defeated - the telltale slump of his shoulders told Daphne all she needed to know -, and Daphne made his coffee. On the upside, she had caught him before he burnt the coffee at all.

"What happened?", she asked, over the buzzing sound of the machine heating its old, groaning engine. Harry sat on her counter, and Daphne stood by his side, keeping an eye on the old machine, a spell bringing his mug to her.

Harry stayed silent for a second, and Daphne could see the thoughts swirling in his emerald eyes. Being an Auror, as she had learned in those first few days - before she found out she was pregnant, before they broke up -, was how stressing it was, especially during the post-war. There were a diminishing number of houses to be raided, paperwork to be filled growing exponentially, and no energy was spent, at all. Harry had grown restless, and she could see he wished to go back to - go back to whatever he did that year where he had disappeared. A job as an Auror, they both knew very well, wasn't the action-filled days he had hoped for. Instead, it was mind-numbing boredom.

It was what he had chosen to do, however. They had spoken about it, once, under the stars, the soft sound of the Black Lake muting the rest of the world and making it seem like they were the last persons on Earth. Daphne had told him he'd make a great professor, maybe DADA; Harry had laughed and told her that he wouldn't be able to be one, since he never had a proper example. She had insisted, and he had insisted on being an Auror until he kissed her and she forgot all about their conversation. She noticed the coffee was ready and waiting for Harry.

"I'm... Tired, I guess,", he started, and Daphne nodded, passing him the mug. He grabbed the sugar with a spell, and kept talking. "An Auror job is just paperwork. I guess I got too starstruck. I mean, my dad was an Auror, my godfather was one... In a way, I think I wanted to be like them."

He sipped at his coffee, and Daphne stared at him. She never knew who his godfather was - he had never told her, at least, but what she could piece together told her that his godfather had never really known him well, that he idolized him, that his godfather had been the most important person in his life for a while, and that he had been responsible for his godfather's death -, and as such, she couldn't comment on it.

"I told you to think well about your life choices,", she pointed, and Harry laughed, the sound make his shoulders shake. "I meant it. I told you to not be an Auror, to be a professor, to be literally anything but an Auror."

"You always knew better, didn't you, Daph?", he murmured over the rim of his mug, and Daphne rolled her eyes. "Why did we even break up?"

Because I was pregnant , Daphne thought, the words frozen in the tip of her tongue. Because we never saw each other anymore, because when we saw each other we fought. Because when I looked at you I was afraid of everything I'd do to make sure you were happy. Because I took the decision I thought best for me and the child I carried. Because I didn't want to be called a gold digger just because my family had gotten poor after the war. Because you were suffering because your friends saw your love for me as a betrayal of everything they fought for. Because my family had Death Eaters and you are The Boy Who Lived. Because I am, fundamentally, a coward.

"Because our schedules were incompatible,", Daphne decided to tell him, and Harry's soft smile was a blessing and a curse. "Don't tell me you don't remember how many times all we did was kiss because one of us had to work at the same time the other arrived?"

"I do remember a few times I did get late when going to training, yes, with a few more bruises than the day before.", Daphne sighed, loudly, and Harry laughed again. She allowed herself to laugh, but it came as dry, as if she hadn't laughed for the past six years.

He looked at her, emerald eyes glinting as he left his mug on the counter, getting off it to touch her face softly. His hands now had calluses, from gripping to his wand too much, and Daphne allowed herself to lean into his touch, to be comforted by his familiar warmth, to forget about his heavily pregnant wife, waiting for her husband to come home from a rough night at work.

When he spoke again, his voice was soft, as if they were still those two kids under the starry sky.

"Are you alright, Daphne?", he asked, too close, as if they still were together. "You can always talk to me, you know. I still..."

She heard Lilian stirring in her bed, and pushed Harry away. The look of confusion on his eyes was ignored, just like the look of hurt. They both knew, very well, what he was going to say.

"Go home, Harry, Your wife is waiting for you.", Daphne told him, and Harry nodded, letting go of her face, his fingers letting a blazing trail of fire where they passed. She took a deep breath and ignored him as he went away, picking up the things for Lilian's breakfast, not noticing that he, too, had heard someone stirring in their bed, not noticing the hurt on his eyes. At least, that was what she told herself. If Harry, the married man with children, wanted to be jealous of his ex-girlfriend to which he had no relations with anymore, she'd let him. Maybe that would make him learn how to brew his own goddamn coffee.

Lilian was her secret. Lilian was hers. Harry didn't need to know about her. Not now, not ever.