"You are late." Daphne observed.

"You are pretty." He replied, making himself comfortable. She rolled her eyes.

"Stop stating the obvious. Have you been useful?"

"Define useful." He challenged and she just shook her head and gave up.

Daphne Greengrass was not actually frustrated. She had accepted Harry Potter's cheek a long time ago and learnt to ignore it when he was in the mood for it.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" she asked, rummaging through her carefully organized table for a particular file. He shrugged.

"As long as it takes, really. At the rate I'm going, it might even be a couple of years."

Daphne looked up from her search, stared at him for a moment and then shook her head and got back to her search again.

"You know it's no fun if you don't play the surprised and impressed fangirl anymore." Harry complained as he threw a stray ball of paper on her table, which landed on the file she was looking for.

"Thanks." She said, picking up the file. "But you will have to ask the Unspeakables for a powerful time turner to get that back."

"Spoilsport."

"Move your arse, Potter. We were supposed to meet the minister five minutes ago." She admonished.

"Oh relax. Like Kingsley will fine me for being late."

"No, but he can fine me." She pointed out and he grimaced. With a greatly exaggerated show of getting up, he reached out his hand and she grabbed and apparated away.

"Hey Alicia. Is Kingsley in? We had an appointment." Harry greeted his old quidditch teammate, who smiled tiredly.

"Yeah he is waiting for you. You can go in." she nodded at Daphne who returned the same.

Together, they entered the chamber of the Minister of Magic, who seemed to be dozing off in front of a stack of parchments. Once, Daphne used to be flustered to talk to the Minister in person and always tried to be extra courteous in the Minister's presence. That was also the time when she was a rookie Auror, newly partnered up with the Saviour of the Wizarding World, Harry Potter, Order of Merlin First Class, The-Boy-Who-Lived, Magical Britain's Most Eligible Bachelor and multiple times Winner of Witch Weekly's best something or the other, she couldn't remember now. To say she was impressed and overwhelmed would be an understatement. Harry was everything she couldn't wish to attain: incredibly powerful, incredibly rich, incredibly charming and generally incredible overall. She was so infatuated that she didn't even notice the jokes made in her expense all around the office. She was the mascot of the Harry Potter fan club, founded by Colin Creevy (Merlin bless his soul) and Ginny Weasley, and carried on by everyone who needed to rile up Harry.

However, as time went by, she realized that Harry was also incredibly fucked up. It was not really his fault. Not totally, anyway. A content or happy Harry was every girl's ideal man. A grumpy Harry was incredibly difficult to get along with and an angry Harry was a straight up nightmare. He was an excellent Occlumence, which meant he expressed his negative emotions by being a complete and ginormous arse. When confronted, he blamed Severus Snape for it. It was also the reason that Harry had remained single for a long time. No one could put up with him for long, and he knew it wasn't fair of him to ask anyone to do that either.

Fast forward a few years, Daphne had gotten used to Harry. And everything that happened around him. She often found herself talking to the Bulgarian Minister of Magic about his carpet options, thanks to being around Harry. Her ex-boyfriend still hung out with Harry every now and then (mostly to ask favours) and last week, Daphne's neighbours almost fainted with envy when they saw her hosting a party for some of the world's most influential wizards and witches. All thanks to being around Harry Potter of course.

"Knock knock." Harry said as Kingsley looked up, startled.

"Hey Harry, Daphne. Come on in. Have a seat."

Once they settled in their seats, Daphne handed Kingsley the file she was looking for earlier.

"Here is the final report. We think we know Guily's hideout location. We have to move fast and in small teams. He is a twitchy bugger."

Kingsley went through the file quickly while Harry helped himself to an apple sitting on the desk.

"This is as promising as we can hope for, seems like." Kingsley commented. "What are you waiting for?"

Daphne was surprised. "Do you want us to take this?" she blurted out. "Because Harry-"

"Is very excited for this mission. Let's go Greengrass." Harry finished for her and dragged her out of the chair.

Daphne put her hands on her hips and tapped a foot on the floor, waiting for an explanation. Harry dropped down to her couch and closed his eyes.

"I'm waiting for an explanation." She said irately.

He opened his eyes. "Oh you are still here?"

"It is my office as well." She pointed out.

"Meh." He replied articulately and tried to go back to his nap.

"Still waiting for that explanation."

Once again, he opened his eyes and frowned at her. "What explanation?"

Daphne closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew he was being an arse because he was frustrated and shouting at him would only fuel his snarky attitude.

"How about the one where you explain how you plan to go on a raid mission without being able to do magic?"

"I will have a hot bodyguard to protect me." He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I am not going to be your bodyguard." She hissed.

"Not with that attitude. Although, I like the fact that you automatically assumed that you are the hot person I am talking about." He commented.

"Are you trying to tell me you have an actual bodyguard now?" she asked incredulously and Harry smiled mysteriously in return.

"We shall find out, won't we?" he smiled cheekily before giving up on the hopes of a nap. "Should we move now, or?"

"Now sounds good. Where is your bodyguard?" she enquired, only half kidding.

"Dunno. Could be anywhere." He shrugged and held out a hand. "Come on, let's go."

Daphne resisted the urge to bang her head on a wall and grabbed his hand and apparated.

They landed in a dark alley a kilometre away from their target. It was a bit cautious, but Guily, their target was very twitchy, and a close apparation may make him alert.

"You sure you don't want to wait outside?" she asked him, casually walking beside him but alert to her surroundings. Harry snorted in response.

"I'm not even going to pretend to have heard that question." Kicking a stray piece of rock which knocked off an orange from a fruit shop.

"So how do you plan on being helpful or even useful when you can't use magic?" she asked, observing the fruit shop owner picking up his orange and looking for the source of the stone.

"Who said I can't use magic?"

"You already mastered wandless magic?" she asked, impressed. He shook his head.

"Nope, not there yet. But it will happen sooner or later." He commented. She shrugged, having learnt that Harry does not believe in impossible, and impossible loved Harry. Many times. Also, he loved to be cryptic. And blamed Albus Dumbledore for that particular trait.

"I still think locking up your wand only and making it openable only with your magic was pretty fucking stupid."

"It was the only way to really motivate myself. Necessity is the mother of inventions." He said pompously. Daphne snorted again.

A few weeks back, Harry had this crazy idea that he should master wandless magic. Many powerful wizards have been known to perform wandless magic from time to time, but Harry wanted more. He wanted to be a master at it, so that he would never have to use his wand again. After trying normally for a few days, he locked away his wand with a ward that can only be opened with his magic. So he needed to learn wandless magic to retrieve his wand. So far, he had been unsuccessful. He could cast a few spells wandlessly, like Wingardium Leviosa and a bit of very basic spells. But nothing that would work in a real life, let alone in a fight which was, as an Auror his day duty.

"So you're telling me I can trust you out there?" she asked just to be sure. Harry had a habit of being unpredictable, so it never hurt to double check with him.

"Have you ever not?" he asked curiously.

"Not after the first ten missions, no." she replied honestly.

The first few missions were absolutely crazy for her. She used to be a rising star among the Auror corps and all her previous missions were organized, well-planned and not very action packed. When she was offered to be the partner of Harry Potter, she was very excited, but also wary. Potter had a reputation of going through partners more frequently than his mood swings. And usually it wasn't him who decided to change the partners, it was usually the partners themselves. So when a 23-year-old Daphne Greengrass came into Harry Potter's office, she expected a crazed maniac. Of course, having spent seven years of school with him, she didn't have the same hero worshipping attitude most of the Ministry had. But she was still very much intimidated by his reputation. So when she discovered that Harry Potter was actually one of the most charming men she has ever met, she was pleasantly surprised. His reputation didn't make any sense to her. Why wouldn't anyone want to work with him?

She had her answers in their first mission together. Harry Potter didn't prepare for a mission. He read the reports and then apparated right on top of the target and just did his thing. There was no briefing, no plan and no pep talk. In their first two missions, Daphne didn't get to cast anything other than binding charms on already neutralized targets. In their third mission, she managed to cast a stunner at a target.

After the mission, Harry asked her to stay back in their office.

"Alright what the hell was that, Greengrass?" he asked in a patient tone. She looked surprised.

"Er… I'm not sure I understand."

"What was that stunner for?" he asked again, his tone clipped and impatient. Daphne was outraged inside. If he didn't want his partner to cast any spell why not go alone? But being a former Slytherin, she managed to keep the emotions off her face and replied in a steady, normal voice.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was appointed as an Auror to stand there and look pretty." She said with a smile. Harry looked confused.

"Why would you stand there and look pretty? I mean you can look pretty doing anything, but that's not your job." Daphne fought the blush hard.

"Then why don't you want me to cast a spell?" she enquired. Harry almost fell off the chair.

"What? Why would I want that? What even makes you think that?" he asked disbelievingly. Now it was her turn to be confused.

"What are we talking about then?" she asked, bewildered. Harry shook his head.

"I wanted to know what the fuck were you thinking when you cast a stunner at a wizarding criminal? I mean against a muggle criminal stunners are absolutely fine. But we are in the magical world. Any third year student can revive a stunned opponent. What are you doing casting that in a mission like this?"

"Oh." She faltered. "I… er… thought there was no one to revive him." She tried to explain. Harry gave a dry laugh.

"Don't assume that the coast is clear just because it appears so. Stunner on a battlefield is practically like saying time out to the other side. It's unbelievably easy to block, even a child can counter it, and is one of the brightest spell to ever exist. If you are going to cast something, try to be more effective and subtle." He finished gently.

She nodded and sat silently for a while, absorbing his words. Then, with a little hesitation, she carefully asked, "Why don't you let me fight?"

She expected him to deny such a thing, but was surprised by his answer. "Because you would probably leave in a few weeks and there is really no point of placing you in more danger than necessary."

"Why do you think I'll leave? Do you want me to?"

"No one stays in this office for a long time. The longest partner I had lasted two months. I was in St. Mungos for a month of that time." He explained with a humourless chuckle.

"Why?" she asked, already aware of that fact. "Why does no one want to work here?"

Harry took a while to compose his answer. "I think there are a number of reasons. One is that I am difficult to work with. Another is that the missions make no sense from a regular Auror's point of view. And lastly the missions themselves are not worth whatever they pay you."

"But you are still here." She pointed out and he nodded.

"Yes, I am. But it makes sense to me. I somewhat enjoy doing it, and I don't have to deal with myself, so it's much easier for me." He said with a grin.

"I am still not following you." She confessed.

"It's… complicated." He started to explain. "The missions that are assigned to this office are not something Aurors deal with. You have been a good Auror. How did you operate from the start of a case to its completion?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Well, at first we categorized the case to see if it concerns any other departments or any foreign organizations that we need to inform first." She started listing off. "Then we had to run a background check to see if there is any available information on any of the parties involved in the case. After that we would set to investigate the case and then, if necessary, dispatch a strike force to attack or whatever actions are required on the field. After the guilty party is apprehended, we submitted a full report detailing on everything on the case and after the getting the accused party's trial date, we would close the case until otherwise needed."

"Wow, you are thorough." He commented, causing her to cheeks to give a hint of colour. "But now tell me this. Have you seen me doing any paperwork? Like ever?"

Daphne chose not to comment on the fact that she knew her only for a week and a half and that wasn't a lot of time for 'ever'. Instead, she shook her head dutifully.

"And you never will. The cases that come in our office are not regular ones. They are the ones that are almost impossible to predict. Preparation is not going to work in these cases. You just have to make decisions while clashing wands with a criminal. There is no pre planned strategy that can help you. If there was, the case would've gone to the Auror's office." He explained quietly.

"Does that mean we are not Aurors? What are we even?" she asked, very confused.

"Officially, we are still Aurors. You can consider yourself a special branch of the Aurors if you want to. Officially, we don't have a separate name or even any indication that we are different. We just get cases every now and then, take care of it and be done with it. You may have noticed that your pay is close to double of what you used to make. Apart from the missions, this job is the most desirable job one could ask for, but the missions themselves are what make people quit."

Daphne took a moment to process it all. "Alright, I get all that, but why are you still here? I mean, if it is as horrible as you say, you could literally ask for any job in the whole continent and would probably get it before you can finish your sentence. What I'm trying to say is, is it your magical power or your skills that makes you perfect for this particular job?"

Harry looked at her critically before asking, "You want to know what qualities you have to have to keep this job, don't you?" Daphne was a little embarrassed to be read that easily. But she nodded anyway. Harry gave her an appreciative smile before answering. "It is not any skill or power. I mean those qualities would certainly help you, but that is not what this job really asks for. It asks for instinct. Pure, raw and strong instinct. I am used to taking difficult decisions under pressure and that is my largest asset in this office. Not that I always make the right decisions, but I am brave enough to face the consequences of bad decisions, and that is probably why I am still in this office."

Daphne bit her bottom lip. That strangely made a lot of sense. If your job was to handle unpredictable and dangerous situations, you had to make decisions on the fly. And you needed to keep a cool head and take decisive actions in a moment's notice. Daphne always had good instincts, but it was very limited. She would always trust her gut on when to take up an offer and when to decline, but this was a completely new ballpark.

"Do you want me to stay?" she finally asked and Harry laughed.

"Daphne I welcome any partners I have at the moment, but from my experience they don't want to stay here. So yes, I want a partner who I can trust to have my back, but I have long given up on any real hopes of having one. Don't let that stop you from trying your best, though." He finished cheerfully before waving at her and disapparating away.

As a former Slytherin, Daphne had a lot of ambition and drive to achieve her goals, and in that moment, she decided to try her best to stay in this job.

So she rebuilt herself. Every day she trained to forget her old training and started to fight based on pure instinct. On their next mission, she took decisions on the go. Just like Harry said.

Unfortunately, all those decisions were bad ones. She would've almost dies if Harry didn't, by some unexplained miracle, swat off a killing curse aimed at her at point blank range. But Harry encouraged her with a smile.

The next mission went pretty much the same and so did the one after that. She started to think that maybe this wasn't exactly her thing, and there may come a time when even Harry Potter wouldn't be able to save her. So in the next few missions, she observed Harry. She rented a Pensieve to watch Harry fighting and analysed his each and every move. And around their eighth mission together, Daphne realized one thing that didn't make any sense at all.

No matter what the situation was, Harry Potter always won. He seemed incapable of losing in the field. And if you trusted Harry Potter to watch your back, you didn't really need to worry much. When she came to this realization, suddenly the job made a lot of sense. The office didn't have a different name because you cannot exactly pinpoint or put a label on what Harry did. They simply found situations that was impossible, and gave it to Harry Potter. Short of calling it the Department of Harry Potter, there was no suitable name for it, really. And Harry would resign immediately if anything else was named after him.

Slowly Daphne learned how to work with Harry Potter. She learned how to not to get in his way. Once she mastered that, she started learning how to be useful to him. And when she learnt that lesson as well, she started on getting to be someone Harry could count on. She couldn't be sure if that was the case because their method of communication mostly involved cheeky banter and shameless flirting (both from Harry, first used to get Daphne to become comfortable around him, later turned to a habit) and sarcastic replies and narcissistic comments from Daphne (because that was her natural state).

"I think I saw a couple of-" Harry started in a casual but low voice.

"I know." She responded easily.

"And those three-"

"Yep."

"Good." He nodded, satisfied. Of course, he trusted Daphne with his life, but it never hurt to be sure. He was pretty sure she had spotted four separate tails they have picked up, and did not bother to inform her of those.

"Can you take the tail with the grey cloak?" she asked nonchalantly. He looked affronted.

"What the fuck do you mean by can I?" he asked with outrage. She rolled her eyes.

"I mean you don't have a wand." She answered.

"What's that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing. I'll take the perimeter while you use your charm or whatever to neutralize him." She said but he stopped her.

"How about you take care of the three others while I take this one and the perimeter?"

"Stop being such a drama queen." She said as they split ways and went to work.

They met again in a few minutes and gave the all clear to each other. Alert and quick, they moved towards the building that was in sight now.

As they were entering, Harry ducked suddenly as a spell flew over him and Daphne yanked the attacker and slammed him against the ground, where he remained still. They could hear a commotion inside as the residents were apparently trying to escape but were trapped in the anti-travelling wards that Daphne set up earlier.

Three men charged towards them with spells flying and Harry threw a sharp piece of stray rock towards one of them, which went on to knock the wand off his hand and then embed itself in his shoulder. Meanwhile, Daphne threw the rock-embedded man towards the other two, who tumbled down and fell to Daphne's follow up spells.

"Ladies first?" Harry offered at the front door and Daphne winked at him before summoning the first man she slammed against the ground and banishing him into the room, where he was immediately met by two killing curses. Daphne pierced the eyes of one offender and jumped to a roll to avoid two spells coming her way and then used the now-blind man as a shield to eat up a few more curses at her and took out another one from a hole in the stomach of her now-dead shield. She turned to the other attacker in the room but he was already dead. She turned at Harry, who was standing at the door, looking around in a bored fashion.

"I am having a dejavu. Is this what I looked like in our early missions together?" she asked curiously as they moved inside. Harry snorted.

"Oh please, I have already killed three men and a woman. You were more likely to kill me than an enemy back in those days."

Daphne rolled her eyes, but mentally agreed. Also, she was immensely curious about how Harry defeated so many people without magic if he didn't use wandless magic. He wasn't particularly gifted in hand to hand combat and although he was an expert marksman, there were only so many wizards and witches you could kill by throwing a piece of debris.

Daphne disposed of a few more enemies while Harry provided the occasional support whenever he felt like it. Capturing Guily was not very difficult after he worked himself to a corner with no escape and Harry slapped a portkey on him to the holding cell of the ministry.

"Hey, having to do most of the work alone isn't as bad as I thought." Daphne commented as she finally relaxed. "I used to think that you were really-"

Without a warning Harry jumped and put his hand between Daphne and a green curse zooming towards her. His hand glowed for a moment and he was knocked off his feet, taking Daphne with him. Unfortunately, Daphne's wand was knocked out of her hand when he jumped over her and now she had a wand pointed at her heart with her own wand out of reach. The assailant, who came forward from hiding, grinned maliciously at her. Harry was stirring in the ground.

"Just so you know, after I kill you both, I am going to enjoy this smokin' hot body of yours." He said in a raspy voice. Daphne ignored him and was frantically looking for an escape. Harry's lids were fluttering.

"Avada-"

That was as far as he could go before he just dropped dead.

From apparently nothing.

Harry's eyes were open and he was breathing fast. Daphne lent him a hand and he gingerly accepted it to sit up. With some effort, he stood up and looked around carefully. Daphne retrieved her wand and cast every detection spell she knew. Harry held out his hand and she gave her wand to her and he cast a few more detection spells. When they were absolutely sure that they were clear, they apparated away.

Back in the office they shared, they remained silent for a while. One of the perks of this job was the complete lack of paperwork. The only paperwork they had to do was if they wanted to make notes or reports for themselves. Usually Daphne did some light notes after a difficult or close mission and the occasional report when the Minister wanted an update. Daphne wasn't in the mood for it today.

She stared at Harry for a while and when he caught her eye, Harry looked away. She finally broke the silence.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine."

Harry shook his head. This was a secret he has kept from every living soul. But for some reason, he wanted to share it with her.

"It's a bit absurd and kinda unbelievable." He warned.

"As opposed to the perfectly normal phenomenon of absorbing a Killing Curse with your hand or killing someone without being fully conscious?" she asked in a forced calm voice. Harry admitted that it sad a good point.

"I assume you have read the popular children's story "The tale of the three brothers?" Seeing her nod, he continued. "Well, I don't know about the whole story, but part of it was quite accurate."

Daphne's eyes widened. "You mean the three brothers actually existed?"

"Yes. They were from the Peverell family. I am a descendant."

Daphne thought hard for a moment. So your cloak of invisibly is actually from the story and it allows you to hide from death?"

"I don't know about hiding from death, but it certainly is the one the story refers to. However, do you remember what the last part of the story said? After all the brothers were dead?"

Daphne tried to recall the story she hadn't heard since she was five. "It was something about uniting the three objects. Together they were called..." she trailed off, trying to remember.

"The Deathly Hallows" Harry quietly supplied.

"Yes! Whoever united the Deathly Hallows would be the-"

Suddenly she stopped cold and stated at Harry with wide eyes. Harry offered her a small smile which died pretty soon when she didn't react and seemed to be frozen.

"Err... Daph? Are you alright?"

She seemed to be in a trance as she nodded and sat down with her hands cupping her face and elbows rested on her knees.

"Should I come back later or..."

"No it's fine." Her voice was brittle and a little unsteady, but she was recovering fast. "So you are the Master of Death?"

"Does it bother you that much? I am still the same old Harry you know."

"I don't know. I mean, I know you are the same person, but you have to know how freaky and scary it sounds." She pleaded.

"Oh no, I know. When she first showed up I nearly shat myself." Harry assured.

"Death is a she?" Daphne asked, surprised. "Wait, is she the hot bodyguard you were talking about earlier?"

"Yep. That's her. You wanna meet her?"

"FUCK NO!" She shouted. Harry grinned.

"Relax, you would not die. And she does not meet with humans easily anyway."

Daphne sighed in relief and gave a weak chuckle.

"So you are immortal?" she asked and Harry barked in laughter.

"Fuck no! I can die whenever I want to."

"And death… really listens to whatever you say?" she asked.

"Not really, no." he shook his head. "Usually she is very happy to take away lives, but it's sparing death that she is not a fan of. I mean I wouldn't die unless I ask her to take me, but she informs me if someone else close to me is about to die and unless I am prepared to pay a price, she will take them anyway."

"What kind of price?" Daphne asked, almost scared to know the answer. Harry smiled sadly.

"Life. The only currency death accepts."

"So you exchange the life of a loved one for a bad guy?"

"No. I have to exchange the life of a loved one with the life of another loved one."

Daphne was horrified. How could you make a decision like that? And how could you live with yourself if you didn't make a decision at all? "That's a pretty horrible deal."

"Well, you can't expect any deals with death to be nice, can you?" he replied with a grimace.

Daphne nodded. She didn't know what to think. She couldn't even comprehend the whole idea of Harry being Death's master, let alone think about their deals. It was a little too much to handle at once.

"So does that mean you have united all the Deathly Hallows?" she tried to change the topic.

"I did. Right before I defeated Voldemort. He had the Elder Wand before me. Dumbledore found the Resurrection Stone from Voldemort and I inherited the cloak from my dad." He explained.

"Can I see the Elder Wand? Wait, have you locked away your Elder Wand?" she almost shouted in realization.

"Nope. That's my regular wand. I don't have the Elder Wand anymore." He confessed.

"What? Who has it then?" she asked, familiar with the Elder Wand's notorious history.

"Death. I gave it to her as part of a deal. By taking the Wand away, she will be ensuring that she has no master ever again. She regrets giving them out in the first place."

"What deal could you possibly make that would cost the Elder Wand?" she asked, bewildered. Harry grinned.

"Immunity from death until desired."

"But you are already immune, aren't you?"

"I am. It's not for me." He explained.

"Oh." Daphne went quiet. She didn't want to ask who was so important in his life that he would give up the Elder Wand for. That was incredibly personal, and although they were very close friends outside work, Daphne didn't really want to intrude on his privacy like that.

"Well, thank you for saving my life today. I was sure that I was not going to live to see the next day." She said sincerely before kissing his cheek and engulfing him in a hug.

"If I start counting my thank you kisses for each time I saved your life, you would have to make a dozen clones of yourself and make them all sleep with me together." He said cheekily, and to his surprise, Daphne blushed. "Hold on! Am I seeing this right? Daphne Greengrass blushing again? After so many years-"

"Oh shove it Potter." She swatted him playfully before grabbing the back of his head and pulling him to a proper kiss. Harry was shocked at first, but quickly recovered to kiss her back.

From a dimension unknown by the living souls, the entity known as Death rolled her eyes as the future mapped out in front of her. It looked like the two human beings she wasn't allowed to kill would be spending a lot more time together.

"Should've asked for the Stone as well." She muttered to herself.

A/N: So that's that. I want to say that I am writing once again, but I am afraid that this one-shot was more of a spur of the moment idea put to writing in an unexpected day off from work. I was going through the reviews in my last one-shot "The Dark Side of the Sun", and many reviewers liked the Master of Death angle I used there, so I thought I could do another one of these. Also, I wondered how I could portray a badass Daphne in a Powerful!Harry story. I am not sure how that turned out to be.

It would mean a lot to me if you review the story, and although I might not be able to respond to each and every review, know that I will most definitely read them and cherish them.

Also, I have written over 100k words of the Harry Daphne story that I promised at the end of "New Friends, Old Friends", but I am stuck and can't seem to find the time to work on it. I apologize. As soon as it's done, I will post it.