The cave she was in was definitely not natural. It had clearly seen ample, and rather unsubtle, use of powerful Expansion Charms.
The ceiling soared to an almost ludicrous height, at least two hundred feet if Daphne had to hazard a guess. There wasn't even a hint of the usual commodities one normally needed to, you know, live.
No furniture, no fireplace, not even a discarded teacup. It was exactly what Harry, in his infinite capacity for melodrama, liked to call his "home away from home." Daphne just snorted derisively at that.
The prat just enjoyed being overly dramatic, and given his current… condition, and his rather unique… abilities, it unfortunately fit his persona all too well.
Daphne mentally shook herself out of her critical thoughts as she approached what appeared to be a sheer, featureless wall of rock.
She wished, not for the first time, that she could just cast a simple lighting charm, but that might cause Harry to wake up… rather violently.
An unfortunate, and often dangerous, side effect of the war was that unexpected weird lights or sudden noises near him while he was asleep tended to trigger his paranoia, and his equally potent defensive reflexes. Not a fun experience for anyone in the immediate vicinity.
She pressed her gloved hand against the supposed wall and felt the unnatural, almost glassy smoothness she had expected. She stepped back a few paces and felt around the uneven, icy floor for a sizeable rock.
Eventually, her fingers closed around a jagged, heavy piece of stone. She hefted it in her hand, judging its weight, and deemed it heavy enough for her purposes.
She reared back her arm and, with a grunt of effort, chucked the rock as hard as she could against the smooth, dark wall.
"Oi, Potter, you lazy git, wake up!" she yelled at the unmoving wall, briefly wondering if anyone who might stumble upon this scene would think she had finally, completely lost her mind.
She waited for a few tense minutes, the only sound her own ragged breathing and the distant, mournful howl of the wind outside the cave entrance.
Then, the unnaturally smooth wall began to move. Not just move, but shift and ripple in a way no self-respecting rock wall should ever be able to move.
It quickly became quite clear that the "wall" was not a wall at all, but the immense, scaled side of a truly colossal creature that had just woken up and was now slowly, ponderously, moving to look at her.
Daphne soon found herself face to face with a giant, pitch-black dragon, its intelligent, slitted eyes a shockingly familiar shade of emerald green. And this wasn't just any dragon, either.
This was, unmistakably, a Hungarian Horntail, the same breed Harry had faced in his fourth year. Except this one… this one was bigger. Far bigger than any Horntail ever recorded, bigger than any dragon she'd ever seen or read about.
There were theories, Daphne knew, that modern dragons had actually gotten smaller in size over the centuries, evolving to better hide themselves from Muggles and wizards alike.
That being said, it was entirely possible, and even widely thought by some more eccentric magizoologists, that this particular specimen was the actual, original, terrifying size of the dragons of old.
So, of course, it only made perfect, logical sense that this monstrous, ancient-looking beast was the unregistered, highly illegal, and utterly mind-boggling animagus form of one Harry James Potter.
"Hurry up and change form so we can actually talk, Potter," Daphne said, her voice remarkably steady despite the sheer, awe-inspiring (and slightly terrifying) presence of the dragon.
Dragon-Harry just blinked its massive, emerald eyes at her slowly, an expression that was a comical mixture of tired annoyance and begrudging acknowledgement on its draconic features.
Then, with a sigh that sounded like a distant thunderstorm, it moved once more, its colossal form shifting, shrinking, and reforming, until it was back to his normal, human, and thankfully much smaller, size.
Daphne immediately started casting a series of soft, ambient lighting charms around the now considerably less dragon-filled cave, giving herself the ability to see properly now that he was awake and less likely to incinerate her for an unexpected flash of light.
"What do you want, Daph?" Harry said, his voice rough with sleep and tinged with some annoyance as he walked over to her, running a hand through his perpetually untidy black hair. "I was in the middle of something important. Like sleeping."
Daphne glared at the twenty-something-looking man, who, despite his nap, still managed to look infuriatingly handsome and annoyingly unbothered.
"You don't get to give me attitude, Potter," Daphne said, her voice laced with a little more snip than was probably strictly necessary, "not after I made the absolutely hellish trip all the way up here to come see you in this freezing, gods-forsaken cave at the top of these equally gods-forsaken mountains."
Harry sighed, the annoyance draining from his face, replaced by a more familiar, weary resignation. "Alright, fine. You're right. I'm sorry," he said, sounding at least somewhat sincere.
"It's… good to see you, Daph, even if you did wake me up in the middle of my much-needed hibernation." He waved his hand casually, and two surprisingly comfy-looking plush armchairs conjured themselves out of thin air, complete with a small, smoking side table between them.
Daphne looked on with a familiar flicker of annoyance at the effortless ease with which he performed such an impressive magical feat, but she said nothing, merely sinking gratefully into one of the chairs.
"So…" Harry said, easing himself into the other comfortable chair with a contented sigh. "Why have you decided to grace me with your presence this time? Has the world ended again?"
"The ICW would like to meet with you, Harry, as soon as your… schedule allows," Daphne told him, getting straight to the point.
"Oh?" Harry asked flippantly, not even bothering to open his eyes as he rested his head back against the plush headrest of his conjured chair. "What is it this time? Are they finally declaring me an up-and-coming Dark Lord, or do they need my invaluable help crushing another wannabe poser?"
Daphne deadpanned at the utterly uncaring man but continued with professional patience. "Oh, please, Potter. As if anyone in their right mind has the actual balls to openly try and declare you a Dark Lord these days. Something about you being hailed as the 'second coming of Merlin' tends to keep most people in line, funnily enough. No, they actually plan to give you a reward this time."
Harry still didn't bother showing any discernible interest in the conversation. "Are they now?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "And what, pray tell, have I done to deserve such a prestigious honor?"
"The Dragon Pox vaccine?" Daphne said, trying to jog his apparently hibernating memory. Harry finally opened one eye and looked at her, but his expression was still one of profound, almost insulting boredom.
"Oh," he said, as if just vaguely recalling some minor, insignificant event. "That."
"Yes, Potter," Daphne replied, her voice dry. "That."
"When do they want me to go?" Harry asked, finally sighing and sitting up a little straighter, a sign he was at least partially engaged.
"I got the distinct feeling they wanted to hold the ceremony as soon as humanly possible," Daphne informed him.
"They have been pressuring me, rather relentlessly, I might add, for about two weeks now to come and find you to let you know." Annoyance was definitely back in her voice now.
"I'm surprised you didn't just curse them all and be done with it," Harry remarked, a hint of amusement finally glinting in his emerald eyes.
"Yes, well, some of us can't get away with simply cursing anyone who gets on our nerves, Potter," Daphne responded blandly, though the thought had certainly crossed her mind more than once. "Some of us must rely on tedious things like tact and diplomacy."
"Psh. Lame people, maybe," Harry said, waving off that entire line of thought with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "Is that all you woke me up for? Because if it is, then I'm going right back to sleep." He made a move as if to stand up.
"Well, that's the most important thing, at least," Daphne said quickly. "But Hermione also wanted you to come over to her and Ron's place sometime soon."
"Why's that?" Harry asked, pausing.
"Because you're their friend, Potter, I would assume," Daphne said, stating the obvious. "And I also happen to hear, through the grapevine, that you haven't actually visited them for… quite a while now."
"That's preposterous," Harry scoffed. "I visited them just… hm." He frowned, trying to recall. "When was it again? A few months before I went to sleep, I think. Yeah."
"Harry," Daphne said patiently, "that's actually quite a bit of time. If my calculations are correct, that means you haven't seen them since sometime in July. It's the end of December now."
"Ah," Harry said, looking mildly surprised. "Well, I mean, we both have busy schedules, right? It makes sense that we see each other less often than we used to."
"That's true when you're awake, Potter," Daphne pointed out. "But you do know that you're not an actual dragon, despite your impressive party trick, so you don't actually have to sleep through the entire winter season."
Harry shook his head, a stubborn look settling on his face. "Nah, that's something I love way too much to ever give up. Imagine the most restful, deepest sleep you've ever had in your entire life, and then double that feeling. That's what hibernation is like for me. Pure bliss. Plus," he added, stretching out languidly on the conjured chair in an effort to get even more comfortable, "I work my arse off all year round. I think I more than deserve the extended rest, don't you?"
"Well, at least try to actually wake up when Winter officially ends this time, Potter," Daphne demanded, her voice firm. "No more of your ridiculous mid-Spring wake-ups, got it?"
Harry just grunted in response, a noncommittal sound. "That was one time," he grumbled, clearly annoyed at the reminder.
"One time too many," Daphne said back sharply. Harry didn't respond, but his face soured considerably.
"One other thing…" Daphne said, her tone shifting, becoming more serious. "I… I heard you've been poking around the Veil of Death again. In the Department of Mysteries. Can you tell me why?"
That caught Harry's attention immediately. For the first time since she'd arrived, his eyes cleared completely, losing their sleepy, bored glaze, and he looked at her with a sharp, focused intensity.
Daphne's official job title was an Unspeakable for the Ministry of Magic. Unofficially, she also helped out quite a bit with Harry Potter and his various, often highly secretive and occasionally dangerous, magical projects.
Most of her Unspeakable colleagues knew this, or at least suspected it.
So, when they had seen Harry himself poking around multiple times near the ancient, whispering Veil earlier in the year, they had immediately, and with considerable concern, asked herwhat he was doing.
Daphne hadn't known what to tell them at the time. Harry hadn't mentioned anything about it to her, and he'd gone into his "hibernation" before she'd had a chance to ask him directly.
Daphne herself was deeply concerned about it. Harry had never struck her as the suicidal type, not since the dark, tumultuous time right after their Hogwarts years when the weight of the world had nearly crushed him.
One thing she would say about him, though, one undeniable truth, was that he was very, very lonely.
He hadn't been on a proper date with someone, let alone been in a serious relationship, for more than fifteen long years, not since he had abruptly, and without any discernible explanation, ended his relationship with Gabrielle Delacour.
When pressed by the ever-nosy wizarding press at the time, Gabrielle had tearfully said she had no idea why her ex-fiancé had ended things, claiming it had come completely out of the blue, shattering her heart.
Harry, true to form, had never said a single word about why he'd ended the relationship, not even to those closest to him, like her, Ron, or Hermione.
This long, self-imposed isolation, combined with his recent, unsettling interest in the Veil of Death, had led to Daphne feeling more than slightly worried for her enigmatic, powerful, and profoundly lonely friend who spent almost all of his time alone, sequestered away, doing research for one obscure magical topic or another.