The morning sunlight streamed lazily through the wide glass windows, golden rays warming the living room and spilling across the couch, where Harry and Tonks were thoroughly preoccupied.
Their intimate moment was one of their precious bubble of normalcy that Harry had come to treasure over the years.
Harry's hand was deeply tangled in Tonks' soft, bubblegum-pink hair as the kiss deepened before it slid down her back. Before grabbing her shapely ass, she moaned as he fondled her ass. After a while, they broke away from their kiss at the sound of footsteps, announcing the arrival of the others.
Both of the other girls had finally gotten up from bed and come down to meet them both.
Daphne stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking utterly flawless for someone who seemed to have just gotten up from bed, looking as though she'd stepped off a high-fashion editorial, her silver-blonde hair perfectly sleek and her face entirely devoid of sleep lines.
Anya, on the other hand, was the picture of a freshly woken up person, still rubbing sleep from her eyes with the heel of her hand and yawning widely as she trudged behind.
Tonks gently pushed away from Harry, her cheeks flushed, and turned to look at Daphne with a frustrated sigh. "I will never understand how you do that," she said, still catching her breath from their kiss.
Daphne paused her slow, elegant descent. She raised an elegant brow, a subtle smirk playing on her lips, enjoying the envy. "Do what, Nymphadora?"
"Don't call me that, and I mean how you wake up looking like that! It's unnatural! You're cheating!" Tonks threw her hands up in exasperation, her pink hair briefly flickering purple with annoyance.
She knew Daphne didn't use any magic for her appearance, that's what was really annoying her. The first time she'd joked about it, her using magic just to not look rough in the morning, Daphne had scoffed, saying "true beauty requires no magic," and adding that magic wouldn't even help those who lacked it naturally.
She had thought the girl was joking, but it turned out she wasn't. It was a point of deep, hilarious frustration for Tonks, a Metamorphmagus who had to consciously maintain her current look, while Daphne's perfection seemed entirely innate.
Tonks had tried for a year to catch Daphne looking like a zombie, only to realize the girl truly had beauty hax. No matter what Daphne did, pulled an all-night study session, or was up late planning, she always woke up looking like a princess.
Daphne only smirked again, ignoring Tonks' melodramatic groan as she walked past them with a lazy sway of her hips. "You either have it, or you don't. And darling, I have it."
"Ugh," Tonks moaned, dramatically collapsing back onto Harry's lap, settling her head on his shoulder with a theatrical slump. "It's unfair. I'm dating a supermodel and I'm a mess."
Harry chuckled softly at their usual morning routine. Daphne ignored them both, moving to an empty chair with practiced grace. Immediately, a steaming cup of dark-roast coffee appeared in front of her. She took a slow, deep sip, sighed in utter satisfaction as the caffeine hit, and gave Harry a small, relaxed smile that reached her cool eyes.
"You feeling awake now, my Queen?" he teased. He often wondered how she survived Hogwarts with her intense need for morning caffeine.
"Mmm. Almost," she hummed, taking another sip.
Meanwhile, Anya, having completed her long-suffering descent, had simply plopped down on his other side, half on his lap, half against his chest, eyes already closed again.
Harry rested a hand on her head, running his fingers through her hair, and she instinctively leaned into his touch with a soft purr. Once, she had looked like she was the epitome of a brave, disciplined warrior, a proud knight, all sharp angles and readiness. Harry had even gotten the impression of someone like erza from her, but after spending time with her, now, she was like a lazy house cat seeking the warmest spot of sun.
Starting a relationship with her had been a total surprise, truthfully, he had not really been the one to seek it out. He'd been content with just Daphne and Tonks, believing he had found his balance with just the three of them.
But one night, the three girls had shared a few too many drinks, and they all woke up the next morning tangled together, leading to Anya's initially panicked reaction. The subsequent days involved awkward apologies and hesitant confessions, but ultimately, the two other girls had accepted her into their circle, and Anya, realizing she was deeply in love with her King, finally confessed her feelings when the other two had pushed her to confess.
Harry, who had started relying on her loyalty and had come to admire her spirit after the time passed between them, had readily welcomed her. He'd never regretted trying with her, she had become a vital, warm presence in his life.
He was happy and fulfilled with them, but he had been clear, three was his absolute limit. He knew other Campiones, like the wandering Salvatore Doni, maintained vast harems, and that there were others out there seeing it as a perk of a god-slayer to have many women.
But Harry felt it cheapened the depth of the commitment he craved. He wanted depth, not volume. He put his foot down firmly and told the girl that they were enough.
If others wanted to shout 'it should have been me' about his life, they should go out and slay a god and find girls of their own. He was content with what he had.
"So what are you gals doing today?" he asked, setting down his empty coffee cup.
His days were unstructured, often spent indulging his hobbies or, on rare occasions, simply flopping onto the couch to enjoy Muggle television. His partners, however, weren't content to let him just provide for them and do nothing, they demanded their own purpose.
Tonks grinned and then pouted, stretching a languid arm over his chest. "I've got Auror paperwork to bury myself in, courtesy of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's current disorder."
She meant the total administrative collapse following Harry's takeover and purge of the old Ministry structure. It seemed even after all this time, there were still issues, as was expected to be honest, you don't just destroy an entire government and people's way of life and expect that everything will just keep moving smoothly. It was a bureaucratic nightmare, and she was doing the hard work of rebuilding it into a functional, non-corrupt body, but as always, they were still fools who were trying to push back.
Maybe she should ask Harry to visit the office with her, she was sure that that entire day would be filled with nothing but yes to everything she says.
Daphne placed her cup down, the clink soft against the saucer. "I'll be heading out. I heard that there are these gemstones that conduct magic very well and could be useful for enhancing the spatial structure I have been working on."
Daphne had wanted to be a healer back before, but that had been for her sister, but not anymore, now she had taken to her passion, enchanting. Her ambition had shifted from healing to the craft of artifact creation, something Harry found immensely stimulating.
Anya, still half-asleep, mumbled, "Association meeting… I'll report back later…" before promptly falling asleep again. She had become someone with a voice in the association,
Her role was crucial, she was his voice in the mundane and magical world, ensuring the Campione's will was enacted without Harry having to deal with every minor detail, along with Evelyn. She was also pushing herself to grow stronger and more knowledgeable to be of more use to him in battle, something he deeply appreciated.
Harry chuckled, kissing the top of her head.
Tonks leaned in and pecked his cheek. "Try not to cause any more problems today, yeah? I'm busy cleaning up the paperwork for the last one."
"No promises," he replied with a wide, mischievous wink.
The three women left one by one. Harry stood, stretching, then made his way down to his private study.
The door opened to reveal a room that was impossibly larger on the inside, his own personal creation, inspired by Hogwarts' Room of Requirement. It was easily three times the size of the original inspiration, its internal structure shifting fluidly to meet his current need.
Bookshelves filled every wall first, reaching dizzying heights, heavy with tomes on every form of magic imaginable, from normal magic to forbidden rituals, and obscure scrolls he'd personally collected from different places, going about whenever he heard of something that interested him.
He had become what his girls teasingly called a magic maniac, and the library alone could rival that of the Ministry.
He had come to love his hobby very much. It was about understanding. About building and creating something new, something that satisfied the deep curiosity in him.
His current long-term obsession was creating a new system of magic. One that didn't depend on wands. His idea was to see if he could recreate the magic circles, like how it's done in Fairy Tail or Type-Moon's magecraft system of magic, and see if it would work for others.
He was actually making headway, honestly, he was not doing it for some deep obsession or something, just trying to see if it were possible for other people to use these types of magic, it keeps him busy, and besides, this wasn't his only hobby.
Harry moved deeper into the room. As he did, the environment shifted seamlessly, responding instantly to the change in his intent. The scent of parchment and dust vanished, replaced by the sterile smell of oil and polished metal.
The towering bookshelves dissolved into polished metal walls, engines, and enchanted vehicles. Rows of cars and bikes gleamed under suspended lights.
This tinkering hobby had started when Sirius brought him his enchanted motorbike, wanting a project to share with his godson, and it had spiraled into an obsession.
He figured out that he loved tinkering with cars and bikes, like magic, it just helped him relax. He had come to own a personal fleet of magically enhanced machines, a classic Ford Mustang enchanted with permanent cloaking fields, a mistake he made, and now, like Wonder Woman, he had an invisible ride too. And there was a bike that ran like the Knight Bus in speed. Made the mistake of trying that out when he first made it.
Let's just say up to now, his girls still bring up that moment to embarrass him.
But today wasn't for mechanics.
He headed back toward his alchemy lab, another seamless transformation away. Here, the walls were obsidian and quartz, centered around a crystalline chamber that pulsed faintly with light. Inside floated the half-finished shell of a humanoid structure, of a homunculus, a magical imitation of life.
The project had been sparked by a casual conversation when one of the girls commented they should hire another house-elf, leading Hermione, who was visiting at the time, to argue the ethics of it and that why can't they do the work themselves or find something else. Anya's casual suggestion to "just make one" somewhere in the conversation had immediately lodged in his mind, and his mind immediately thought of the Type-Moon verse.
It was an amazing and incredibly challenging aspect of magic, the imitation of life. The difficulty was precisely why he chose it; he needed a puzzle that would challenge him and keep him busy for a while.
A spark of magic danced across his fingertips as he meticulously adjusted a rune circle etched onto the quartz table, ensuring the power flowed correctly into the body.
This process was agonizingly difficult, requiring him to stabilize the volatile magic that was going into the doll. Creating a homunculus was very difficult, and even those in anime had years to create and perfect it.
It was like cloning, but magically, and while it may seem easy when hearing about it, it most definitely was not. The Einzbern in Fate had spent years perfecting the process, and in the end, even their failed homunculus were better than some mages, as it was said. That's what he wants to make. Just to see if he could, anyway.
He was so deep in concentration that he didn't hear his phone ringing until the fifth buzz.
He sighed, wiped his hands on a nearby cloth, and answered. "Hello, Anya."
Her voice, usually bright and direct, was calm but held an unnerved tone. "Harry, I have some news."
"Go on," he said, leaning against the table. She started with routine updates, which she normally gave when she called him. She didn't always give this every time she called, just once every 4 days to keep him updated.
But then, the updates stopped. There was a beat of absolute silence on the line, she was hesitating. He narrowed his eyes. What could make her nervous to tell him
Harry dropped the cloth instantly. Bad news, that was the only thing. "What is it, Anya?" he asked, his voice holding a bit of worry.
There was a moment of hesitation, and when she finally spoke, her tone shifted entirely, no longer that of a lover, but of a loyal knight addressing her sovereign.
"My King… the Black Prince has been sighted. In London."
Silence.
Harry froze, his green eyes darkening instantly, and the divine power within him flared.
An oppressive, crushing wave of power poured out of him that made the polished metal walls of the lab groan and the quartz crystals in the homunculus chamber dim and flicker wildly.
His expression twisted from annoyance to anger, his teeth grinding together so hard they threatened to crack.
"That bastard," he growled. The phone in his hand nearly shattered from the pressure of his grip. "Where? Where is that bastard now?"
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