Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Gringotts, the Leaky Cauldron or anything else in JKR's wonderful world. Except for the little pebble just to left of the front doors of Hogwarts. I put that there. I might own that. Maybe. But probably not.

Revelations

She awoke with the suddenness that signified an enervate had been used on her. The fact her arms appeared to be stuck to the wall behind her seemed to reinforce that assumption: she'd been unconscious, stuck to the wall and then awakened. She was surprised to find she could stand flatfooted quite comfortably however. Considerate captors were not something she would have expected.

"Awake? Good. Considering what you did to Malfoy's nose in third year, if you give me your word that you won't try to hurt me in any way I'll let you down from there."

Her eyes found the owner of the voice: a tall, slender blonde with waist length silver-white hair, ice blue eyes and high cheekbones, beautiful in an ethereal sort of way. She had always thought that with high pointed ears the girl would have been a perfect example of a high elf. She had shed her robes and was just wearing her school uniform as she leaned back against a desk. Anger rose in her as she looked at the girl. "Greengrass you bitch!" she snarled. "Ron was right about you after all: finally showing your true colors, just like your friend Malfoy and his cronies. Waiting for them to get here and start the party?"

One perfect eyebrow rose. "Well, for an insult like that I may just leave you up there for a while." The girl named Greengrass said in an unperturbed voice. "Being compared to Malfoy in any way, shape or form makes me feel like I just crawled out of a sewer."

"Hexing me in the back, bringing me here and sticking me to a wall would certainly make for a good reason for the comparison." She growled.

"I had very good reasons for doing what I did to get you here, Granger." The blonde replied.

"Like what?"

"I needed to be able to talk to you without Potter or the weasel around." The girl stated. "I don't want Potter knowing about this just yet and I don't want the mouth knowing about it at all. I knew you like to spend Friday nights in the library when there are very few people around so I just intercepted you on your way there tonight, stunned you and brought you here."

"I did this for two reasons: one, if I were seen or caught by Potter then word would've gotten back to my house and I could've passed it off as a plot to do something to you to hurt him, thus protecting my cover in my house. I could have then tried again later."

"Two, by doing it this way I avoided having to get a message to you in some way shape or form and hope you didn't bring your two friends with you. I also avoided having to stand around in some hallway for a while trying to convince you to come with me while hoping no one saw us talking and word getting back to my house, especially to Malfoy and his damn inquisitorial squad. I really don't want to put up with all the shite I'd have to go through if that got found out."

She scowled at her even though she could understand the other girl's reasoning. "Nevertheless I'm still standing here stuck to a wall…"

"Which I offered to let you down from." Came a reasonable reply.

She had to admit the other girl had offered to let her down. "Just what is it you want Daphne?" She asked in a more conciliatory tone.

She suddenly grew nervous as the other girl… smiled at her. It was a slight smile, one with a promise of… something, accompanied by half lidded eyes as she crossed the space between them in a slow sensual glide. She brought her arms up and placed her hands on either side of her head on the wall behind her. Ice blue eyes stared into chocolate brown ones as she leaned in close and spoke. "What do I want Hermione?" She said in a soft, sexy, husky almost whisper, totally out of character for the conversation they'd been having. "In my dreams and fantasies I want you."

Her eyes opened in stunned shock at the totally unexpected words, words that continued as she stared back into those ice blue eyes.

"I want you to command me, to rule me, to put a collar and leash around my neck and own me." Daphne's face moved even closer, but didn't touch as her lips stopped just away from her ear. "I want you to strip me naked, put me to my knees and make me do deliciously naughty things to your body with my fingers, lips and tongue."

Daphne's breath wafted over her ear as she almost whispered the amazing words. This was the Slytherin Ice Queen? Saying things like this to her? She was frozen in disbelief.

Daphne sighed and pushed herself out to arm's-length again before speaking in a normal tone of voice. "But in the real world I would settle for a really strong friendship."

She let out the breath she found she'd been holding. So the other girl hadn't meant what she said. She wasn't like that and couldn't believe the other girl might've thought she might have been.

So why had her nipples gotten hard?

"There are better ways of doing that than by kidnapping me Daphne." She said sarcastically. "Let me down."

Daphne flicked her wand at her and murmured finite. Her arms came free of the wall and she shook them to restore some of the circulation. "That was an interesting way to get my attention, what you said."

Daphne leaned back against the desk, crossed her ankles and leered at her. "I meant every word of it."

She stared at her wide eyed, frozen. She meant what she said? She actually wants me to do those things to her? "So you're a…"

"A witch's witch?" The blonde said with a slight chuckle. "Yes, I am. Boys don't do a thing for me."

"And you like me? You want me to…" She started before she realized what she was about to say. "Why me?" She asked confusedly.

"Because I like intelligent, beautiful women." Replied the other girl. "It's a big bonus that you're commanding and sexy as hell, too."

She shook her head in denial. "I'm not any of that. Well, I guess I'm intelligent but I'm not beautiful or sexy or even commanding."

Daphne laughed softly and walked over to her. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?" She asked. "Your skin is flawless, you have the most exquisite bone structure in your face, the most beautifully expressive brown eyes I've ever seen, your hair has stopped being bushy and has smoothed out into a soft wavy cascade that I just want to slide my fingers through, and your body has filled out in all of the right places to just the right sizes. Your smile has improved greatly since you've gotten your front teeth fixed and when you do that," and a slim manicured finger came up to lightly touch where she was chewing on her lower lip, "you make me so wet imagining you biting my lip, among other places on my body."

Her eyes widened at the words and she stepped away from the other girl her heart pounding in her chest and her breath in short panting gasps. How was she doing this to her? She wasn't like this, but her nipples were hard again and she could actually feel moistness between her legs. What was wrong with her?

"But you want me to make… I'm not commanding."

Daphne's left eyebrow rose up. "Oh really?" She said inquiringly. "You get Potter and the Weasel to do what you want, from what I've seen every time something needs done you're the one that takes charge and does it and Potter may teach the DA but you're the one that runs it and believe it or not that I find that 'bossy know it all' attitude you sometimes have incredibly sexy." She leered at the brunette with a sly smile. "I find you have a very commanding presence."

She looked at the smirking girl warily. "It seems like a long stretch of the imagination considering your reputation."

"As the Ice Queen you mean?" Daphne shrugged. "It kept the boys away from me and if my true disposition had come out I'd have been the house whore years ago. Not something I would have enjoyed considering which way my inclinations lay and just who's in my house." She suddenly grinned wickedly. "Now, if I'd been in your house with you…" She waggled an eyebrow suggestively, smirking all the while.

She's just trying to have me on but I'm not going to fall for it. "Still I find it hard to believe that you did all of this just to try to seduce me."

"You're right, I didn't." the blonde said, suddenly all business. "I brought you here because I have a problem and I need Potter to help me solve it but to get to him I figured I had to go through you first." She smirked. "Seducing you was just a spur of the moment thing."

This was more like it, a subject other than her. "What kind of problem could you have that you need Harry to solve it?"

Once again the blonde leaned back against the desk crossing her arms in front of her. "I'm a girl."

This time it was her eyebrows that rose. A quick glance at the long legs, a bust line that while not large was suited to her slender frame, a beautiful face and long silver white hair before she looked her in the eye again. "I never would've noticed. What's the problem?"

There came a deep throated chuckle before she got her response. "First, let me tell you that I love my father, I really do. But there are times when I just want to take a beater bat upside of his head. My problem is I'm not a boy. I can't pass the Greengrass family name on and my father is pushing me to correct that. Doing it with the Lord of a most ancient and noble house would just sweeten the pot in his eyes."

She was starting to see where this was going now and was somewhat surprised to find that she was disturbed by it. "But if you married Harry your children would be named Potter. How does that fix your problem?"

"I can't marry Harry." Explained Daphne. "What I would like to have from him is a consort contract."

She didn't recognize the term but since she had never looked into any of the wizarding world's marriage laws that wasn't surprising. "What's that?"

"Do you know what a marriage contract is?"

"It's an old pure blood custom of arranging marriages between houses."

Daphne gave a quick nod. "Simplistic but that works for us. Think of a consort contract as an arrangement for a temporary wife, with many of the same benefits as a marriage contract but usually for a specific purpose or purposes and for a specific term of time. It's usually used by one family that has only female children to beget a male heir for the family. There would be in the contract a clause stating that at least one male child from the union would have the last name of the mother's family thereby continuing that name. At the end of the contract the two would go their separate ways."

"So basically it's a legal way to continue a family name without being actually married while avoiding any connotations of bastardy in the family."

"That usually what it's used for but it could have other purposes as well. It just depends upon what's happening between the two families."

Well that certainly made sense but she did have one question. "Why Harry? If you just wanted a male heir couldn't you do it with any man?"

Daphne laughed. "That's where daddy and the beater bat come in. As I said he insists that any arrangements I make be with a noble house, the more powerful the better. There's nobody in Slytherin that I would even consider and while I've known Neville Longbottom for years and he's nice enough, he's starting to get in with Hannah Abbott and I really don't want to interfere with that. And for a boy Harry's not that bad. He's a powerful wizard, not bad looking, he's kind and gentle and he stands up for his friends. I can like and respect him for that. That's definitely more than I can say for most of the others. The ones my father would pick are as old as he is or even older and thoroughly aware of what their rights would be under such a contract." She gave an exaggerated shudder. "At least with Harry I could probably convince him to go at my speed." The girl suddenly leered at her again. "And besides if I get Harry I get you too."

Ignoring the leer and the jibe, she said, "Daphne, I hate to burst your bubble but in case you hadn't noticed Harry is not a Lord."

Daphne flicked her fingers as if that was inconsequential fact. "Well of course not now but on his age of majority he will be."

She felt her eyes widen and her jaw drop. "What!?" She burst out incredulously.

Daphne stared back at her dazedly. "You mean you didn't know? He hasn't told you?"

"I don't think anybody has told him!"

It was Daphne's turn to stand there wide-eyed and slack-jawed. "How could he not know that he's the heir to the ancient and most noble house of Potter?"

"Uh, excuse me? Muggle raised by relatives who hate him enough they never told him anything about his family except they were drunks who died in a car crash and hardly anybody in the magical world talks to him about his parents much less his ancestry." She pointed out. "How would he know?"

"But who's his magical guardian? They should be telling him things like this and teaching him what he needs to know, his privileges, his responsibilities as a Lord."

"I don't know for certain, but if I had to take a guess I'd say it's the headmaster considering the way he's always taking such a big interest in Harry's life." She told the girl. "And considering he's not even teaching Harry how to fight Voldemort, why would you think he'd be teaching him about anything else?"

Daphne fell back into one of the chairs, disbelief evident in her face. "Well, shite!" She exclaimed.

"Why didn't you ever talk to him about it? Other than being in Slytherin I would've thought you'd find some way to get in touch with him before now."

Daphne shrugged. "I just assumed he knew." She said. "I just figured he was holding himself up as the better man when Malfoy was always insulting him or causing problems."

"Okay, I'm not meaning to sound like the gold digger I've been called in the past but just how rich and powerful is the Potter family? I'd always just assumed they were your average middle class family."

"Well, politically Harry has a seat on the Wizengamot and has not only the Potter vote but a bunch of others that were from families that were allied to the Potters before they died out. That makes him very powerful and he'll have a lot of people trying to get him as an ally. As for money, the Potters are an ancient and most noble house so they've been around for a very long time. If you believe some of the rumors I've heard over the years they could probably buy the Malfoy's out of their pocket change."

She sat quietly thinking over the ramifications of what she had just heard. It wasn't until she saw Daphne leering at her slightly that she realized she was chewing on her bottom lip again. "Stop that." She said irritably as Daphne just laughed. "The votes in the Wizengamot, what happens to those if there's nobody actually sitting in the seat to cast them? Do they just sit idle or what?"

The other girl thought for a moment before answering. "Well, if it's just a case of the seated Lord simply not being there then yes they do just sit idle. But in the case where there is no Lord seated to cast them then they come under the control of the chief warlock to be cast as they…" Her eyes suddenly narrowed as she realized what she was saying.

"And I will bet you that right there is why Dumbledore never told Harry about it." She said, jabbing a finger at the other girl. "He has control of all those votes; why would he want Harry finding that out and maybe appointing somebody else to cast them?"

"Just how much is he interfering in Potter's life?" The question came out low and dangerous, almost a growl, and she was glad that her ire wasn't aimed at herself.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." She said as she sagged back into her chair. "This is just another item to add to the long list of things that he's done over the years. But there's nothing we can do about it right now so I'm just going to add it to a list of things that I want to look into later."

"Your problem however is something a bit more immediate that we can take care of. I can talk to Harry about it for you but I don't see why you just didn't go to him first. He wouldn't have had any problem talking with you."

"Regardless, you need to tell him to get down to Gringotts and have the goblins tell him about his House and Lordship. He needs to know about that stuff. As for talking to you first it is customary, not to say polite, to talk to the lady, or in your case future lady, of the house to get her approval before discussing a consort contract. After all if she's against the idea she could make life hell for all three of them if she felt like it."

Her eyes blinked rapidly for a second, caught completely off guard. "Umm… What… I mean… Lady?… I'm not… What are you talking about Daphne?"

Daphne stared at her blankly for a few seconds. "You and Potter. The two of you are going to be Lord and Lady Potter, aren't you?"

Confused by the question she looked back at the other girl. "Why would you think that?"

The blonde gaped at her obviously dumbfounded by the question. "Why would I think that? It's what everybody thinks! You two have been as close as ink on parchment for the past five years. You've done everything together; you've been inseparable and anybody who looks at him can tell Potter's in love with you."

Harry was in love with her? "You're mistaken about that Daphne. We're best friends, have been ever since he saved me from the troll back in first year. He's got a thing for Cho Chang right at the moment and quite seriously I doubt Harry even realizes I'm a girl."

Daphne snorted in a very unladylike manner. "You can tell yourself that all you want Granger but I'd be willing to bet good money that he does love you. He may be like you and not realize it, but he does. And believe you me I know that he knows you're a girl."

"How can you know that?"

Daphne smirked at her again. "Remember the last Hogsmeade weekend? You came out of Scrivenshaft's and dropped one of your packages?" At her nod she went on. "Tracy and I were coming towards you and I saw you bend over to pick it up. You bent over, from the waist mind you, right in front of him. Unless he's gay and really doesn't think of you as a girl you sure couldn't prove it from the way his trousers tented up." The blonde leered at her again. "I can't say I blame him; you've got a really nice looking bum, especially in a tight pair of jeans."

"As for Chang forget about her, she's just on the rebound from Diggory trying to find out everything she can about him and what happened in the tournament. If you tried a little bit you could knock her right out of Harry's thoughts."

She could feel herself blushing and knew she couldn't do anything about it. It irritated her and made her want to do something about it. "Well, that would all seem to be perfectly fine but right at the moment I'm trying to have a relationship with Ron."

The blonde stared blankly at her for about three seconds before exploding. "Are you out of your freaking mind?" She snarled angrily.

She took a surprised step back in the face of the verbal lashing before stepping forward once again in reply. "Excuse me? This is my life we're talking about here and I think I have the right to go out with whoever I please."

"Of course you do but I cannot believe that you're doing it with Weasley!" The other young woman said heatedly. "I mean, did somebody give you a stupid potion or something? How could you of all people go out with him?"

"I beg your pardon?" She replied just as heatedly, ready to defend her friend. "Just what do you mean by that?"

"I mean he eats like a pig, and I say that knowing that's an insult to pigs everywhere, he's lazy, arrogant and self centered, he's a jealous fame whore, I doubt he would be passing any of his classes without your help, he insults and argues with you all the time, and on top of everything else he is as big of a pureblood bigot as Draco Malfoy!" Daphne was pacing off the width of the room as she listed Ron's faults. "I can't believe you would think of him as boyfriend material with the way he treats you, not when you've got Harry right there beside you!"

"And just how would you know so much about him?" She asked angrily in return.

Daphne stopped pacing and spun to face her. "Hermione, you live with the two biggest gossip queens in this Castle! They see and hear everything that goes on in the Gryffindor tower and there's not a girl above second year in this entire school who doesn't know everything there is to know about Ron Weasley!"

She had to admit the truth in that. Parvati and Lavender were the minds and mouths of the Hogwarts gossip and rumor mill and were more than willing to talk about anything that happened in the common room or the tower. "Maybe so but he's not a jealous fame whore like you say."

Daphne planted her feet shoulder width apart put her hands on her hips tilted her head slightly and said, "Oh really? Last year, Halloween? What was the first thing he did when Harry's name came out of the goblet?"

She had no defense for that. Ron had immediately accused Harry of cheating by putting his name and the goblet and then berated him for not telling him how he did it so he himself could do it. Their friendship had taken a serious battering over that incident.

But Daphne wasn't finished. "And what was the first thing he did when Harry beat his Dragon and got the egg? Gave some half arsed apology and then basically said 'hey look at me I'm Harry Potter's best friend'. If that's not what you call a jealous fame whore then I would really like to know your definition."

She was really feeling conflicted now. Ron was her friend but she couldn't deny the other young woman's arguments about him. So she decided to change the direction the conversation was going. "What did you mean by a pureblood bigot?"

Daphne actually sighed. "Hermione you're smarter than this. What are his feelings about muggles?"

"He doesn't understand them and doesn't want to have anything to do with them." She said quietly.

"Think he'd like to spend a nice relaxing week with your parents?" At her disturbed look, knowing he wouldn't because she'd already asked him, Daphne said, "What about doing anything in the Muggle world? What about letting his wife being anything other than a stay-at-home mom, cooking and cleaning and having babies?" At her wide-eyed lost and confused expression Daphne sighed. "Hermione, do you ever listen to gossip?"

She shook her head. "No, listening to gossip and rumors is just a waste of time. I have better things to do with mine."

Now it was Daphne's turn to shake her head. "It's no wonder the hat put you in Gryffindor." She muttered. "No Slytherin instincts at all." Looking back up at Hermione she said, "Rumors are embellishments wrapped around a kernel of truth but gossip is for the most part truth surrounded by a shell of outrageousness and wishful thinking. There's a lot of information in gossip and information is knowledge and knowledge is power. Even some rumors have a level of truth. Some of that information has been that Weasley has been overheard to say that you are his and nobody is going to take you away from him including Harry."

A small feeling of irritation ignited within her that Ron just may have said that. To think that he may just actually believe it just made it worse. "I don't belong to anyone." She stated quite forcefully. "If he thinks that he's crazy."

Daphne crossed her arms and leaned on her left leg. "Ever hear him ranting at Harry about being famous and rich, with all the girls that he could have and all of the opportunities for being in the spotlight? What if he thought that by getting you as his girlfriend he was taking something away from Harry? It would go a long way toward satisfying his jealous fame whore tendencies."

She found herself standing in open mouthed shock. She had heard him say just those things in the past. Could everything the other girl was saying be true? She told herself she loved Harry like a brother but there were times lately when she found herself thinking of him in a slightly more…carnal way. He was everything she wanted in a man, kind, intelligent, sensitive, witty, honest, polite, helpful, good looking and willing to do the right thing and not what was easiest. Looking at him next to Ron and Ron was…everything Daphne said he was.

Sagging in her chair her mind boggled at the revelation she'd just received. What had she been thinking? She'd decided to try to be with Ron because she had thought Harry didn't see her as desirable and didn't want to take a chance of hurting her relationship with him if she'd made a play for him and he rejected her, no matter how politely he might do it, and Ron had at least been showing an interest in her.

She shook herself. No, she had started trying to get with Ron because he was safe. Being rejected by him wouldn't hurt like she imagined it would if Harry did it, though she didn't expect Ron to say no.

But if Harry does think of me like that…

"Oi, Granger! You still with me here?"

She jerked her gaze and attention back to the other girl. "Sorry. What did you say?"

"You were kind of off in another world. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, you're just hitting me with a lot of new information and it's going to take a bit of adjusting to." Her eyes narrowed. "This might change things you know."

"You might not want to share?" Daphne said knowingly. "Understandable, but you might think about what the two of you might gain."

"I'm listening."

"First of all, an alliance with House Greengrass. We're not the highest of ranks but we're not among the least either, plus Daddy is a pretty shrewd politician and businessman. He can teach Harry everything he needs to know about navigating the shark infested waters that are the Wizengamot. Believe me; the others will eat him alive otherwise."

"Harry is for the Light, he won't be neutral." Best let her know that right away.

Daphne merely smirked back at her. "Yeah, I know." Somehow she had the feeling that smirk wasn't at her or Harry but her own father; a bit of father/daughter disagreement on the alignment of their house perhaps?

"Second," the other girl went on, "I will teach you how to get along in the deadly dull, boring, complicated and sometimes totally useless world that is pureblood high society. I'll teach you the ins and outs, the rules as it were, of how to act, what to say and when to say it, what you can and cannot do or say and why you can't and why things are done the way they are."

"What if I don't want to play by their rules?"

Daphne waggled a finger at her as she shook her head. "No, no, no, that's the wrong kind of attitude for an uppity mudblood to have." At Hermione's angry scowl she placed her fisted hands on her hips and leaned forward. "Admit it Granger! That is exactly how a lot of them are going to think of you even if you are married to Harry and you know it. It's their ballroom and if you don't dance to their tune then they are going to ignore and ostracize you and you will never get any kind of social change accomplished. Plus, it will affect the way people treat Harry as well. If you want to change the rules you have to know what they are. I will teach and train you to act like a pureblood Lord and Lady and with our brains and Harry's power and fame we will change the magical world for the better, from the inside."

On the face of it she could see where the girl was coming from. "Why do you want to change it?" she asked. "I'd think as a pureblood heiress you'd have everything going your way."

The blonde quirked a pale eyebrow at her in a questioning way. "Which is why I have to play broodmare to satisfy my father's desire for a male heir?" She asked sarcastically. "It's a man's world out there Granger and very few women get any kind of power even over their own destiny. I want that kind of power and with an alliance and blood ties with House Potter I'll be on my way to getting it."

She frowned. "That sounds rather callously like you just intend using Harry for your own ends."

"I'll admit it sounds that way," the other girl said, "but being like I am I doubt I will ever love Harry in a romantic sort of way. I do however admire and respect him for the way he behaves and some of the things he's done, even if some of them were massively stupid. I'm just trying to set up a win-win situation here."

She had to grin at that as well as admit the truth of it. Harry had done some massively stupid things and lived to tell about them… fortunately. "This is all still contingent on whether or not Harry feels toward me the way you say he does, and whether he survives the war. He does have a psychopathic madman trying to kill him you know." She bit her lip for a moment, thinking. "And we'd have to have a good long talk about our future…living arrangements."

The smile directed at her was one that hinted at a sly and cunning future. "Even more reason for the two of us to get together: with your organizational skills and knowledge of spells and my knowledge of how the Pureblood magical world works, we can train and get Harry ready to fight the Dark Lord and win."

Hermione thought about that for a few seconds then held out her hand. "Sounds good to me."

((((((OOOOO))))))

She peeked down the stairs to see Harry sitting on the end of one of the couches in the common room reading a class book he had sitting on the arm. Good, he was alone in the room. Making certain she had her load ready she put her plan into action.

Walking down the stairs she stepped over towards Harry, a stack of books in her arms with a sheaf of parchment on top. Just shy of the couch she pretended to stumble. She kept control of the books but the parchment kept going, sliding off and scattering all over the floor. With an exasperated sigh she said, "It's alright, Harry, I can get it. Thanks anyway." as the boy started to lean over to help pick the parchment up.

She set her books on the table in front of the couch then leaned over to gather the errant writing materials from the floor, facing Harry. Raising her eyes slightly she could see his eyes and they weren't looking at hers. She'd taken her tie off and left the top two buttons of her blouse undone and bent over as she was this let the garment hang down, giving Harry a view straight down the inside clear to her waist, and she'd made sure to wear a pretty lace bra that day.

Pretending not to notice where her best friend's attention was focused she turned to retrieve the last pieces of parchment exposing the back of her legs where the three year old, to short skirt she'd never taken out of her trunk and changed into not ten minutes before had ridden up almost to her knickers. Making sure to fumble just a little to give him a good long look she straightened up and turned back around to see him sliding his potions book over onto his lap, obviously in an attempt to hide a particularly large bulge there. Oh yes, he definitely thought of her as a girl!

With that good news she put the parchment with her books and sat down beside Harry. Then, to Harry's obviously great surprise, she reached up and took his face in her hands, pulled him to her and kissed him, something she'd been wanting to do for a very long time. He froze for a few moments, sitting very still, and then responded, taking her into his arms and returning the kiss with passion.

When they finally had to breathe they were both smiling. Still holding his face in her hands, foreheads touching, Hermione looked into his eyes. "Harry, we need to talk."