Buying Amaryllis

Title: Buying Amaryllis
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Pairing: Draco/fem!Potter, James/Lily, Lily/OMC
Fandom: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 9k
Warnings: slavery, pureblood culture, bigotry, classism, racism, different timelines, age discrepancy (14/16)
Summary: Draco heard someone say, “Potter,” but it wasn’t said with derision.  He turned and saw a witch with auburn hair and grey eyes—and he knew his life would never be the same again.  HP4 AU.

There were two Potter children.

The first everyone knew about: Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.  He was the child of pureblood James Potter (son of famed potioneers Fleamont and Euphemia) and Lily Evans, a Muggleborn.  Each had given their lives to save him the fateful night of 31 October, 1981 and somehow, when Voldemort had lifted his wand to kill the child Harry, the curse rebounded on him and the young Mr. Potter became the Savior of Wizarding Britain.  His parents had been married just out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Harry’s closest relative was his mother’s sister, Petunia Dursley, who herself was a Muggle (she had no magic).

The second was Amaryllis.  She was two years older.  She had been dearly loved by her pureblood father Reynard Potter (child of Charlus and Dorea Black) and a Muggleborn who had married him just out of Hogwarts, even though Reynard, himself, was old enough to be her father.  Amaryllis was treasured and loved and the little family stayed quiet and neutral in the war that raged around them.  One day Amaryllis was running toward her mother, and Lily Potter had fallen into ashes before her eyes.

Amaryllis was four years old.

They had the same auburn hair, the same shaped eyes (although Amaryllis’s were the gray eyes of a Black), the same chin.  The older Amaryllis grew, the more she looked like her Muggleborn mother.

When she went to find her father, the ash of her mother under her fingernails, Reynard had looked at Amaryllis as if he had never seen her before.  He had never met Lily, his supposed wife.  Reynard looked into the child’s eyes, however, and knew that she was his.  It took them another two years to discover what had happened.  Lily and Amaryllis had traveled from another timeline and Lily, who was dead here in Reynard’s world, could no longer exist and so had crumbled into nothing while young Amaryllis had lived.

Reynard had brought Amaryllis up as a pureblood as that was the only life he had known.  Her mother, they said, was the American Katharine Diplow, who had died in a Death Eater attack a few years after the war had ended.  Soon, Amaryllis began to believe it herself.  They never commented on how closely Amaryllis looked like the wife of Reynard’s distant cousin, James Potter.  Reynard hoped no one would notice as they wouldn’t be looking.  Still, they would think Amaryllis was a pureblood—and so she was one.  She was still young enough to be told she had pure blood and still believe it.

Lily Potter was nothing more than a beautiful fairytale and tragedy of her youth.

Harry and Amaryllis never met when they went to Hogwarts.  Somewhere in the back of her head, Amaryllis knew they were more than just fourth cousins, but she didn’t think on it.  They were just Potters.  He was famous and it vexed her.  Her life would go on without any contact with him and when he was sorted into Gryffindor when she began her third year in Slytherin then, well, so much the better…

Draco Malfoy liked to think he was observant.  He took in the little insignificant details around him that could prove useful later.  For instance, Daphne’s hair changed color.  The first two years he was at Hogwarts he thought it was blonde and, if she was tolerable, she could possibly be a candidate for marriage.  Then, one day, her hair was lighter than it had been.  So, he carefully watched her and realized that every two moons or so the shade would change subtly.

She was dyeing it.

The reason was still a mystery, but Draco decided he wasn’t going to probe.  He had no particular attachment to her.  It was no loss.

He enjoyed watching Potter and trying to find weaknesses.  It made baiting him easier.  That’s when he heard it—“Potter.”  Draco was sitting in the Slytherin Common Room, but the name wasn’t said in derision.  Tilting his head to the side, he saw the most beautiful girl he thought he’d ever laid eyes on.

She was tall for a pureblood, with long legs, her eyes as gray as his own.  They flashed as they looked up, briefly catching his, her head cocking to the side in question, before moving on.  Her face was heart shaped, beautiful pale skin with a spattering of the palest freckles.  Her lips were a soft peach, her eyelashes pale, but that was only to be expected.  The witch’s hair was the most intoxicating shade of auburn he had ever seen, twisted on the back of her head to show that she was a pureblood.

“Is it true?” the girl who had spoken to her asked.  “Seximus Selwyn asked you to go with him?”  She was, of course, another pureblood, but she didn’t catch Draco’s interest although she was blonde. 

The enchanting witch blushed ever so slightly at her companion.  “Really, Apricot, calling me ‘Potter’?  How long have we been mates?  Also, Seximus is your cousin.  You’ve known him your entire life.”

Apricot smoothly sat down across from the girl.  “We could be related one day.”  Her hazel eyes seemed to catch a faraway look.

The girl rolled her eyes at her friend before glancing at Draco for some reason, as if she knew he was listening to them.  “Thank you, Apricot, for that assessment.”

And it was true.  Pureblood relationships in Slytherin were never taken lightly.  They weren’t marriage contracts, but a certain amount of expectance went along with them.  That’s why it was so important to get it right.  That’s why Daphne Greengrass’s hair had been of such interest.  Draco couldn’t afford to waste his time on a witch who wasn’t an actual blonde—except for her.  He would do anything to possess her.

Draco would just have to find a way to introduce himself and get her full name.—And grow a bit taller.  Fortunately, his father, Lucius, Lord Malfoy was a rather tall wizard.

At the end of third year, Draco confirmed that her name was, in fact, Potter—and she didn’t seem to be related to Scarhead in any way.  Draco and Potter had been playing kneazle and mouse for months.  When his friends would be absorbed in their work, Draco would turn to her in her corner, whether she was alone, with Apricot Selwyn, or a wizard he assumed was Seximus Selwyn.  Sometimes Potter didn’t seem to quite notice, which was to be expected.  She was an upper year and he was a lowly third year.  No matter how well connected he was, Draco was still beneath her notice.

Then, sometimes, her eyes would cut to him.  A knowing glint always shone out of the pale gray color of them, as if she could guess why he was appraising her and was just waiting for him to come and speak to her.  As a pureblood maiden, she would never be so presumptuous as to approach him unless for official business as the badge on her chest declared her to be a prefect, but he couldn’t bring himself to get himself into trouble on one of her rounds.  He had his pride to consider.

No, Draco, was biding his time.

Potter also held a distinct though unpublicized dislike for Harry Potter, which pleased Draco.  He could tell she listened to the gossip about him although she never made it obvious.  She would just position herself close to whoever was telling the latest piece of news, relaying the latest duel between him and Draco, a slight turn of her lips into a frown whenever Scarhead was mentioned.  It seemed she couldn’t even bear his name.

Not that Draco could blame her.

Draco was glad he had a growth spurt between third and fourth years.  He was now just as tall if not taller than Potter.  When he was employed with a few other charms experts to create the Potter Stinks buttons, he created one that read “Harry Potter Stinks” for his Potter.

He was quite proud of himself.  The Harry was still visible without the original design being too compromised.

Finding her when she was sitting alone, Potter was working on her NEWT level work.

“Potter,” Draco greeted.

She looked up with her impossibly gray eyes.  Potter smiled at him slightly.  “I was wondering when you would claim kinship.”

Draco was momentarily stunned.  Was that why she watched him?  Some form of kinship?  Still, he rallied.  “The eyes,” he realized.  “My mother is a Black—who is it for you?”

“My father’s mother,” she admitted, putting down her quill.  “Father has the eyes as well.”  Shrugging she looked at him.  “Malfoy, right?”

“Heir Draco,” he admitted. 

She held out a delicate hand, clearly meant for spellwork.  “Mademoiselle Amaryllis.” 

He took her hand, lifted it beneath his lips, never touching, before releasing it.  It was an old pureblood nicety that was rarely practiced at Hogwarts, even in Slytherin, but Draco had taken a gamble on Amaryllis—Amaryllis!  Wasn’t that such a wonderfully pureblood name?—Her hair was always perfectly coiffed, even late into the evening when most pureblood witches had let their hair down into braids.

“I brought you a gift,” he told her, retrieving the button.  “The words are too small for the mass production version, but I thought you would appreciate it.”

Amaryllis took the button and watched it as it cycled through the words until the final message came up.  Smiling, she turned toward him.  “Thank you, Malfoy.  This is thoughtful.  Not even my boyfriend can understand why I’m so upset by the turn of events.”

Indicating a seat near her, Draco waited for permission to sit.  “I can only imagine,” he admitted.  “I don’t have any shameful relatives, even distant ones.  Well,” he almost whispered, “there are a few Blacks, but they have a different surname.”

“I know little of the family,” she admitted.  “Harry Potter, though, has plagued my existence.  I understand you two are rivals.”

“We are.”  He moved closer as if he were telling her a secret, although the entire school knew.  Their duels were watched by everyone, detailed in gossip the very next hour.

“How can you bear it?” she whispered, clearly interested. 

Draco paused, wondering how to answer this.  “I’ve always been taught to attack,” he admitted.  “A good politician always goes and stays on the offensive.”

“Am I not a good politician then?” Amaryllis asked him quite sincerely.

Smirking at her, Draco turned his head.  “No, you’re a wise woman,” he countered.  “You’ve chosen not to engage at all.”

A laugh erupted from her, as if she couldn’t hold it in.  “A wise crone and still at Hogwarts!  What would Mother say if she were still alive?”

This surprised Draco.  He hadn’t known that Amaryllis was partially orphaned.  This was undoubtedly a sadness in her life, and he wished to reach out to her and touch her—but he could not.  He did not have that right.

However, she was so beautiful.  Draco could not imagine any other woman he’d rather hide in a closet with.  He was too young to think about children except in the abstract, but he knew he wanted to see Potter with her hair down, to touch her cheek, to even kiss her lips.  He loved her in a way only a first love can love: pure and sweet—And Draco knew with certainty that he could hold onto this love and make it last.

There was just one problem.

Seximus Selwyn, however, was the sixth of eleven children.  He came from a good family, one of the best (though not as good as the Malfoys), but from a lesser offshoot and, while his robes were clean and tidy, Draco doubted his dress robes were new.  So, Draco approached him carefully, and after a fortnight of careful negotiations, bought Amaryllis Potter.

Selwyn was a shorter wizard, taller than Amaryllis, or at least the same height.  He had watery blue eyes and sandy blond hair that he wore around his ears.  His face had not completely lost its baby fat although he was in his seventh year—unlike Draco whose face, although pointy, was at least mature at the age of fourteen.

(Draco did have to admit that this was something to worry about.  He was very young for his fourth year.  Amaryllis was at least two years older than him if not up to three.  It was unusual, except in the case of pretty widows, for women to marry significantly younger men.  Three years was not significant out in greater England—but at Hogwarts, it could be everything.

(On the other hand, this Selwyn chap was at least a year older than her.  He’d approached her, Draco’s third year, her fifth.  They’d already been going for nearly a year.  They had history.  Draco may have broken into Professor Snape’s files one evening to find class standings for Selwyn’s year, and he’d been rather unimpressed.  There was no need to check up on Amaryllis.  He knew nearly everything about her, even though Draco could never seem to find a reason to contrive to speak to her before he made her the button.)

Draco slapped down his moneybag on a table in front of Selwyn for effect.  “Let’s be honest,” he opened in a lazy drawl, “you may be going with Potter now, but as soon as you leave, she’ll realize just how pathetic you are.”

“Piss off!” he demanded, but Draco just took a seat.

“She’s gorgeous,” Draco enumerated, “intelligent, cunning from what I can tell, need I go on?”

Selwyn had crossed his arms like a petulant child.  He rather reminded Draco of his youngest sister Iolanthe when she was four and no one would give her lemon cakes.  That was a good point—

“You,” Draco continued, “however, are petulant, unattractive, certainly not wealthy so you can never offer her that inducement—all you are is your name.  Now, the savvy wizard would use his name as his best asset, but I don’t think you know how to do that.  You’re not Head Boy or Prefect.”  Draco indicated his chest where there wasn’t a single badge.  “How would you like a new set of dress robes for whatever occasion we need them for?  You can take that cousin of yours and have a grand time and tell your grandchildren about the time Lord Malfoy bribed you into giving up Lady Malfoy.”

Selwyn, however, had something to say.  “We’ve rather fallen in together, Amy and I.”

“I doubt Amy finds that romantic.  Have more respect for a witch!  We both know her father never named her that.”

At least that seemed to chasten him.

Draco picked up his bag and took out a single galleon.  He lifted it so Selwyn could see and placed it on the desk between them.  Neither moved.  So, Draco left.  He noticed the galleon was missing ten minutes later when Selwyn was sitting at the table with his cousin Apricot. 

It was strange.  Selwyn seemed to spend more time with Apricot and Apricot with him than either did with Amaryllis Potter.  Draco wondered if he could exploit that.

Smiling to himself, Draco knew that he had started the process of bribing Seximus—and wasn’t that sweeter than any of the twelve uses for dragon’s blood?

Of course, Draco came back six more times, research in his hand.  Blaise Zabini, it turned out, liked to watch people in a rather singular way.  He knew the name of every witch, what her father was worth, and who she was going with, secretly snogging, or if she was single.  Apparently it was “protection” (in case he found a wife) against his mother, the Black Widow.

“Alodia Rowle,” Draco suggested.  “She’s only a fifth year, but she has a younger sister and her father doesn’t seem inclined to give his fortune to his nephew.  The boy’s an idiot in Hufflepuff.  She’s also rather pretty if you like that sort of thing.  I know Rowle’s not going with anyone.”

Again, he left the one galleon and again it was gone.

Potter was in the library at the time of this bribe.

It wasn’t until the sixth time he sat down that Selwyn held out his hand.  “Two,” he demanded.  “Then I’ll dissolve it and put in a good word for you.”

“Two,” Draco agreed conversationally.  He easily took out the two galleons and instead of handing them directly to Selwyn, he placed them on the table.  The two wizards’s eyes met.

“You,” he whispered in shock.  “You have her eyes.”

“Yes,” Draco agreed.  “Families, even distant, are strange like that, aren’t they?  I haven’t looked it up quite yet.  Still, pleasure doing business with you, Selwyn.  Seven galleons for a woman.—Not just a woman, but a witch.  You think you would have held out for more.”  Draco cocked his head to the side in a supposedly shared joke, although it was clear that Selwyn was now furious.  “Remember the agreement.”

He rapped his knuckles against the desk, startling Selwyn, and then walked away.

Now he had only to wait for Potter … and he didn’t have to wait long.

“You could have just asked,” Amaryllis stated in a dead tone as she came up to him and his associates in the Slytherin Common Room four days later.

Everyone looked up at her, at her beautifully spun hair, her cold gray eyes, and her tall figure. 

No one said a word.

Blaise took out a small book, green cover, well worn, that he often thumbed through, and opened up to a particular page.  He then looked up at her attentively.

“Did you hear me, Malfoy?” she demanded.  “You could have just asked me to go with you—stated the reasons why you thought it was a good idea—instead of buying off my boyfriend who then said he was giving me to you.  You can’t give a person in a society where slavery doesn’t exist!  Do I need my father to call yours out?”

Pansy’s dark eyes flashed viciously in disappointment.  She had been angling to go with Draco all year and he would have none of it.  He had carefully placed it about that only true blonde hair interested him, and it was clear that Amaryllis did not exactly fit that profile. 

Blaise was writing in that damn book of his.  It must be his book of eligible women—his “protection.”

“You’re as much of a carrot top as the Weasleys,” Pansy remarked coldly.  That was hardly fair.  Where the Weasleys’ hair really was nearly carrot colored, Amaryllis’s hair was as dark as molten flame.

“This prank is as worthy as either of the twins!” she spat back coolly, her eyes never betraying her true emotions.  “I would expect it from them.  I would not expect it from a kinsman.”

It looked like Pansy was about to speak again and ruin everything, so Draco put up his hand to shut her up, and looked at Amaryllis with every ounce of respect he had for her.  “I know you cannot be bought.  Seximus Selwyn, however, can be.”

“Why would you do it?” she asked desperately.  “My father approves the match—”

“He shouldn’t,” Draco put in.  “If a man can be given such a low sum to give you up, then clearly he isn’t worth it.”  He hadn’t been worth it before the bribe.  The bribe merely proved what scum he was.

“And a wizard who would buy me for this low sum?” she asked with Slytherin cunning.

Draco watched his associates out of the corner of his eye.  Their heads moved from one to another, clearly watching them as if they were a tennis match, and he and Amaryllis were paired against one another.  “I would have paid much higher,” he announced, holding her gaze.  “Surely you could guess that.”

“We’ve spoken once,” Amaryllis reminded him.  “Once, Malfoy.—How am I supposed to guess anything more than you’re strangely kind to a distant cousin and that we playact pureblood manners with each other?”

Her eyes flashing with anger, Pansy sat up taller in her seat on the sofa which rather pulled one into it, as if it were Devil’s Snare. 

Draco moved closer to her, wanting to speak to her privately.  “Please, Amaryllis.  Is there somewhere we can go?  This is not the best conversation to have around others.”

At first, she seemed as if she would hold her ground, but when he got up and moved up to her and she had to glance up into his eyes, she let him guide her to a little used bookcase in the Common Room where they at least had some privacy.  She opened up the glass door as if she wanted something to distract herself, taking out a volume and blowing the dust off of it.

“Why’d you do it?” she whispered, looking at the book and not at him, which saddened Draco.  “Why do you think you did it?”

“Because I’m supposed to care about witches with blonde hair, but I knew when I saw you I’d never care about a single one of them again.—I know what disappointed hopes look like.”  Sort of.  Aunt Bellatrix was a case in point although he couldn’t remember her.  “A wizard desperately wanted my father to marry his eldest daughter, and he had enough standing to try and force it through, but Father wanted to marry her little sister.  It caused quite the scandal.”  He gave her a small smile.  “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”  Not to me.  “No disappointed hopes, except perhaps yours and not if I can help it.”

“I’m not a thing.  I’m not a house elf, an employee.”

He took the book from her, and haphazardously put it back.  Taking her hands in his although they were now dry from the book, he tried to catch her eye.  “If I thought you were, I would have bribed you.  I merely freed you from all obligation.  Amaryllis—I thought when we looked at each other across the Common Room, it meant something.  Was it merely kinship?”

Licking her lips, she glanced at him hesitantly.  “It was gratitude,” Amaryllis stated in a hard voice, “for putting Potter in his place.  He gives us Potters a bad name.  We were neutral—until Mama died.  That is, until you started looking back.  Then I wasn’t quite so neutral anymore.”  She bit her lip but once again looked away.

Never letting go of her hands, his thumbs gently caressed them.  Her confession had been baldly honest, especially for a Slytherin, but he appreciated it.  “That’s why I freed you,” Draco confessed.  “Because it wasn’t gratitude—not really.”

Silence fell between them.

“Is it too soon, Amaryllis,” he whispered, trying to catch her gray eyes, “but will you go with me?  I assure you I’ll be more devoted than Selwyn who never seemed to spend any time with you—”

Looking at him sadly, she interrupted, “I’ve heard you talk—about Death Eaters.  Papa told me that Death Eaters killed Mama.  I don’t remember—though sometimes I think—”  Her eyes unfocused as she went into a memory.  “Never mind.”

“Hey,” Draco murmured, catching her chin beneath his finger, glad for once he was so tall.  His gray eyes looked into hers.  “Those were rogue Death Eaters, not that the ones at the World Cup weren’t rogue.”  He knew he and his friends had a bit of a fascination with the World Cup.  “But I have no doubt that your mother was a good pureblood woman who upheld pureblood ideals.  I can tell just by knowing you.—They had clearly gone mad, Amaryllis,” he pressed.

Draco didn’t even realize he was holding her shoulder, one of his hands still clasping hers, to steady her until she whispered, “Don’t let me go.”

“I’ll never let you go,” he promised.

“Mama let me go.  She turned to ash and let me go—”  She walked out of his arms and turned away.

Unsure of how it was left, Draco just stood there as he watched her walk away.  She moved to her usual table where her books were spread out and Apricot Selwyn was sitting across from her with her own essay and inkwell on the table.  Selwyn looked up with a question in her eyes and Potter made a motion with her hand, and Selwyn only nodded, turning back to her work.

An unsteady truce, then.  Draco could live with that.  He’d have to start in with the giving of pretty presents, which was on the agenda anyway.

He made his way back to his compatriots and saw that Blaise had put away his book.

“Well?” Pansy asked.  “What did she want?”

“To put me straight—which was her right as my kinswoman,” he added hastily when she opened up her mouth to speak again.  “Potter and I both have Black blood.”

“How can a Potter have Black blood?” Theodore Nott asked in curiosity.

“Just because James Potter—a pureblood—sullied his blood, doesn’t mean all the rest of the Potters followed his example,” Draco defended.  “Their blood is pure enough to marry into the Sacred Twenty-Eight.  Our Potter is case in point.”  He threw a look over his shoulder to see that she was peeking out at him from under her hair.  Draco smiled at her.  “We have the real Potter down here in Slytherin,” he added.  “Gryffindor has the knock off.”

Crabbe looked thoughtful, which was a rather odd look for him.

That night, Draco sent away for calorie free dark chocolate.  He had a catalogue and chose the ones that looked like roses and smelled of rose water.  He timed it so they would arrive during breakfast and he was sitting with Theo when the owl swooped in from Fairy Confections with the box for Potter. 

He leaned forward slightly to get a better look and saw her pick up the box and tear off the purple paper and read the card.  Her eyebrows rose in surprise, and she looked down and then up the table until their eyes connected, and Draco nodded to her. 

A small smile spread over her face and she opened the box and chose a chocolate, eating it whole and then taking a sip of her tea.

Good, she liked chocolates then.  

Fairy Confections had a whole catalogue Draco could choose from.

He was a little put out when Potter let Apricot Selwyn choose a chocolate, but he supposed it was only normal she would share with her best friend.  At least she didn’t pass them around to her other sixth year friends.

“Fairy Confections,” Blaise complimented as they waited outside of Charms.  “Which flavor did you choose?”

“Why do you want to know?” Draco asked back.

“I’m recording Potter’s reactions from one to ten for future reference.  Research.”

“You’re researching my—”  Draco paused, uncertain what to call Potter.  “Potter is unavailable to you from now until your death, Zabini.”

Blaise was flicking through his worn green notebook, but he looked up suddenly with his expressively dark eyes.  “Of course she is.  But I’m using her as a litmus test.”

Draco’s breath suddenly came easier, as if he hadn’t accidentally swallowed a puffskein.  Those pesky creatures got everywhere, even into wizards’ ears if you weren’t careful.  “Rose water,” he answered, “and calorie free dark chocolate.”

Blaise hummed.  “May I suggest the dark chocolate and coconut next?”

Looking at him oddly, Draco didn’t answer.

Still, despite sending the dark chocolate and coconut chocolates with a small bouquet of amaryllis the next Friday, Potter did not approach Draco.  She caught glances of him every other day or so, but she just did her schoolwork at her usual table either with Apricot Selwyn or one of the other sixth year girls.  At the beginning of December, Draco directly ordered hazelnut milk chocolate and approached her table one afternoon, and placed it in front of Potter.  “I’m now the owl mail,” he apologized.  “I thought I’d see if you liked it myself instead of guessing from your reaction.”

She looked up from her writing and set aside her quill.  “I don’t have tea here.”

Draco was slightly confused.  “Do you need tea to enjoy chocolates?”

“Don’t you?” Potter asked back.

“No,” he answered, pulling out a chair and sitting. 

“Oh,” she replied, taking the box and unwrapping it to reveal the sweets.  “I like chocolate with tea.”

“Perhaps we could go down to the kitchens—”

“This wouldn’t be a ploy to get me alone,” Potter checked. 

“Of course it would,” he disagreed with her with a small smile.  “And I couldn’t rightly bring tea up here.”

“I could always save the chocolates for dinner,” she argued back.  Potter looked up at him through her gray eyes.  “I still don’t know why you bought me.”

“I thought that was obvious,” he murmured.

“It’s not—”

“—I’m mad on you,” he whispered a little desperately.  “I’ve been mad on you since I first laid eyes on you.  I’m not supposed to be mad on witches who don’t have blonde hair, but I frankly don’t care.”  Draco wanted to reach out and grab her hand, but he was afraid she’d pull away and reject him. 

Her gray eyes were wide, and Draco breathed out through his nose.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, Amaryllis,” he apologized.  “But I’m a fourth year.  The only way I have to get your attention is my family’s wealth and position in society.”

Her face softened slightly. 

“Seximus is poorer than a castle mouse,” she agreed with a sigh.  “My dowry is all we’d have to live on.”

“I don’t care about your dowry,” Draco told her honestly.  “I wouldn’t care if you were poorer than a castle mouse.”

“Most wizards wouldn’t turn down Potter Abbey.”

“I’m sure it’s a lovely property,” Draco told her honestly.  “Our second son can live there.”

Potter laughed a little.  “We’re not even going.”

“According to you—”

She laughed again, and Draco smiled.  When Potter calmed down she turned back to her work, setting the chocolates aside.  Draco summoned his Quidditch Quarterly and sat with her happily until it was dinner time.  He kept on catching glances at her.  Potter really was the prettiest witch in Slytherin.  With her auburn hair pulled back neatly at the base of her skull, her high cheekbones were shown off in relief in her smooth face.  Her chin slightly pointed, her nose was rather adorable and rather defied description.  She was, in a word, breathtaking.  And Draco wanted her all to himself.

He wanted her smiles, her laughter, her attention—her love.

He had her attention, if the way she caught glances at him was any indication.  She was beginning to give him her smiles.  He’d been given one or two of her laughs.  He just needed to continue conquering her the way he already was.  Seximus Selwyn had just been the first of many stepping stones to the heart of Amaryllis Potter.

It was then that Draco upped his game.  He approached Apricot Selwyn and bribed her into giving him Potter’s schedule.  “Why do you want it?” 

He gave her a look.

She sighed before she promised to make a copy before lunch later that day. 

Next time Draco had a free period, he was waiting outside of Double Potions in order to escort Potter to lunch.  Snape looked at him oddly, but didn’t comment.  Draco approached Potter, took her bag, putting it over his shoulder, and walked beside her.  She looked over at him with a small smile on her lips before she turned to Apricot Selwyn and discussed the latest potion.

They were climbing up the stairs to the Great Hall, and Potter tucked her hand into Draco’s arm, making him smile to himself in triumph.  When her discussion naturally finished, Potter turned to him and murmured, “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“We are going, Amaryllis,” he teased.

“Are we?” she asked.  Potter sounded contemplative.

However, they didn’t quite make it to the Great Hall.  When they were entering, Scarhead was going in as well, and he looked up and noticed the couple.  He visibly startled and, for once, didn’t draw his wand at the sight of Draco.

“Malfoy?” he asked in confusion.

“Potter,” Malfoy puffed out.  He turned to his Potter.  “I’ll see you inside.”  Handing Potter her bag, which was a rather elegantly stitched leather, Draco was surprised when Scarhead made a motion for them to stop—

“Are you an Evans?”

Potter stopped in confusion and looked at Scarhead.  “Pardon?”

“Are you related to Lily Evans Potter?” Scarhead asked again, startling Draco.

“I’m a—Potter,” she answered carefully.  “The daughter of Reynard Potter and Katharine Diplow.”  She took her bag from Draco.  “I’ll see you inside.”  Then she left.

Scarhead just stared after her.  “Do you know who she looks like?”

“Katharine Diplow?” Draco drawled, pretending not to care.  “She certainly looks nothing like you.”

“She looks like Mum.”

Draco scoffed.  “In your dreams.”  He pushed Scarhead out of the way and followed Potter into the Great Hall. 

Potter was serving herself steak pie and had picked out the latest chocolates Draco had sent her from her bag.  “Who was Lily Evans?” she asked as he sat down next to her, his bag being passed down to him from Blaise.

“He’s delusional.”  That was all that had to be said.  Potter looked nothing like Scarhead’s mother.  Still, what a bizarre thing to say.

When Draco was next free, he went to the Hogwarts library and looked up a basic book on Scarhead.  The Hogwarts library unfortunately had several.  He looked at early pictures of James and Lily Potter, and he could certainly see a passing resemblance between Lily Potter and Amaryllis.  They had the same auburn hair, a similar facial structure, but Amaryllis seemed to be much taller and her eyes were the undoubted Black grey.  Scarhead was clearly grasping at kelpie.

Putting the book back, he went to look up British wizarding families and couldn’t find a reference to the Diplows. He expanded his search to Ireland and France, but found nothing.  On a lark, he looked at America, and found a reference to the Diplows of California.  They were only third generation.  Barely respectable, but respectable enough.  Potter’s mother was American, then.  How unusual, especially during a time of war.

Draco put the book away and returned to Slytherin House with the confidence that Scarhead really had lost all sense of sanity the night the Dark Lord had attacked him.

Scarhead wouldn’t let up, though. 

The next breakfast he was waiting for Potter.

She looked at him cautiously before sweeping past him, but he was like a kneazle with catnip.

“You’re a Potter?”

She paused and looked at him.  “My father is Reynard Potter, yes.” 

“Why wasn’t I left with you, then?”

Draco saw her grey eyes flash at him.  “How am I supposed to know?  Who were you left with?”

“My mother’s sister.”

“There you have it.  A closer relation.”  She held up her hand and moved away from him.

However, that wasn’t the only time. 

Draco found Scarhead pestering Potter outside of Charms.  “This really is enough,” he put in, physically placing himself between them.  “Get away from her or I’ll hex you, Potter.”

“She’s my kinswoman.”

“She’s my kinswoman,” Draco argued back.  “We’re both Blacks.  The relationship is much closer than any Potter kinship you may share with her.”

Scarhead reared back.  “That can’t be true.”

“Can’t it?” Draco argued.  “Her father is my mother’s second cousin.  Her father is your father’s fourth cousin.  See?  Amaryllis and I are much closer.  Out of the way.”

Scarhead blinked.  “Amy—”

“Amaryllis,” Draco corrected.  “What is it with people calling you ‘Amy’?” Draco asked turning around.

“Haven’t the faintest,” she answered.  “I never give permission.”  She reached out and put a hand on Draco’s arm.  “Come on, walk me to class.”

Draco took her bag and waited for her to tuck her arm in his, before checking Scarhead in the shoulder and walking away.

“This isn’t finished!” Scarhead shouted.

“Isn’t it just?” Draco murmured to no one in particular.

A duel frankly wasn’t enough to get Scarhead to stop, so Draco went to the source of authority.  Normally, he would write to Scarhead’s father on Potter’s behalf, but James Potter was dead.  The next best thing was Professor McGonagall.  Gaining an interview with her was cat’s milk.  He just had to be sure Potter didn’t know he was doing it.

“Yes, I had noticed Amaryllis Potter’s passing likeness to Mrs. Lily Potter,” Professor McGonagall admitted as she served Draco tea.  “It is extraordinary given that the two ladies are unrelated.”

“You understand I am going with Amaryllis,” Draco told her, accepting a biscuit.  “Harry Potter is causing her a great deal of distress.  She is not related to Mrs. Potter in the slightest.”

“No,” McGonagall agreed.  “Who is her mother?”

“An American witch, Katharine Diplow.  She has no Muggle heritage,” Draco stressed.  “I know this is unimportant in Gryffindor but in Slytherin—”

“No, I quite catch your meaning,” McGonagall agreed.  “I myself am a fourth generation pureblood.  Not strong enough to get into The Wicked Stepmother, mind you, but strong enough.”

Yes, The Wicked Stepmother.  There were dark rumblings that the Dark Lord had invented a potion to circumvent the wand colander—though to what end—and Draco would have to get access to his former headquarters and his private notes.  Draco’s children would have every advantage and they would not suffer from their American grandmother’s lack of purity in blood.  They would have access to the pureblood club.

“No one would doubt your magic,” Draco complimented.  “You have everyone’s respect in Slytherin House.”

McGonagall tittered slightly.

“Do you think you can speak to Harry Potter?  Can you convince him that the two witches in question just have similar auburn hair?  I’ve looked up pictures of Mrs. Potter.  I agree there is a passing resemblance—something about the turn of the face—but it is surely coincidence.”

“Undoubtedly,” McGonagall agreed.  “You must understand that Harry never knew his parents and is grasping at kelpie.  Potter has his name.  She has auburn hair and is undoubtedly lovely.  His mind is pulling all these facts together and coming to incorrect conclusions.”

“You think he would focus on the fact they are Potters more than anything,” Draco mused.

“I remember when Amaryllis first came to Hogwarts,” McGonagall reminisced, taking a sip of her tea.  “It was before your time, of course, but I was expecting a little girl with messy black hair and hazel eyes, like Reynard and James.  However, there was this quiet little girl who was quite the little witch.  And Slytherin like Reynard and Dorea!  She does her father proud.”

“What are her hopes for being Head Girl next year?” Draco asked.  “I want to throw her a party at Malfoy Manor.”

“I would say they’re quite good,” McGonagall told him.  “I would be very much surprised if she were not named.  Well, I think that was done quite nicely.—On another note, there will be a schoolwide announcement tomorrow that I think you and Amaryllis will like.”

“Announcement?”

“That’s all I’m going to say,” McGonagall said, leaning forward.  “Goodnight to you, Mr. Malfoy.  Tell Amaryllis not to worry.  I will take care of everything.”

The announcement, when it came, was for the Yule Ball.  Now Draco knew why he needed the dress robes and he wondered what Potter’s looked like.  He caught her at lunch and he asked her, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Will you go with me?”

Amaryllis looked confused.  “We are going, Malfoy, at least I thought we were.  There was that whole incident with Seximus and I let you escort me to class—”

“No, Potter,” he said, taking her hand.  “Will you go with me to the Yule Ball?”

Her grey eyes lit up.  “Is there to be a Yule Ball?”  She looked at him happily.  “Truly?  We get to dance?”  She looked around and grabbed Apricot Selwyn’s sleeve, who was passing them to go further down the table.  “Did you know there was a Yule Ball?”

“Were you daydreaming?  Flitwick announced at the end of class.”  She tipped her blonde head.  “Really, your mind was half out the door.”  She then walked over to an empty space.

Potter sighed and turned back to Draco.  “When is it?”

“Christmas Eve.  Then we can go home the next day if we want.”

“So we miss Yule and we miss Christmas?” she asked in astonishment.  “I guess we’ll have New Year’s with our family.  I’ll have to write to Grandmama.”  She turned pensive and Draco wanted to lean forward and kiss the pout away from her lips.  The thought surprised him.  Fortunately, Potter didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong with him.  “What color are your robes?”

“Black.”

“Good.  Mine are violet.”  She smiled.  “We’ll have to get someone to take our photograph for Grandmama.  She’ll have nothing less if we’re to miss Yule.”

“I’m sure Theodore will oblige,” Draco promised, taking her hand in his and entwining their fingers boldly. 

She looked down at their joined hands but said nothing.

Draco smiled at her, squeezing her hand before letting it go and serving her pumpkin juice.

Of course, students started asking each other to the ball.  Draco watched Blaise as he started thumbing through his book at every opportunity and taking notes.  Theodore asked Daphne Greengrass.  Draco took him aside and informed him about Daphne’s hair.  “What color is it really?” 

“No idea.”

“Doesn’t she have a sister?”

“Does she?”

Potter always stayed in her corner with her piles of essays.  As far as Draco could tell, she would outline three ways to answer an essay, decide on the best one, and then write it up.  It was terribly time consuming, but it would make her Head Girl and a shoo in for the Ministry, if that’s where her ambitions lay.

Partway through December, Draco took Potter for a walk in the courtyard on a Sunday afternoon, her hand tucked in his arm.

“I’m an only daughter,” Potter told him, “and the laws are changing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Harry Potter is a half-blood and from an offshoot.  My grandfather holds the Potter seat in the Wizengamot.  By the time my father holds it and it falls to his heir, I might very well be that heir.”

Draco looked at her with a new respect.  “What about until then?”

“Well, what do you intend to do until you get your seat?”

“I—I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Use your influence?” Potter suggested.  “Live your life as an heir?  Have children?  Do your father’s bidding?”  She wasn’t incorrect.  She smiled up at him.  “Not everything is the Ministry.  There is the judiciary as well.”

Draco looked down at her lovingly.  Although he was a good two years younger, he was well over two inches taller than her, and she was well over five feet nine inches.  He was the tallest boy in his year and possibly the tallest boy in Slytherin.

“I hope when you leave Hogwarts,” Draco told her carefully, “you will have agreed to marry me.”

“You will be barely sixteen,” she argued.

“I’m fourteen now.  It doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want.”  He looked at her with grey eyes.  “We Malfoy men tend to be decisive.”  He gave her a self-deprecating smile he would hide from the rest of the world, including his younger sisters. 

“I don’t know what I want,” she admitted.  “The world is changing.  I can feel it.  It’s not just the Death Eaters at the World Cup.  It’s more than that.  It’s—”

But Draco didn’t let her finish.  He leaned down and kissed Potter gently, her lips slightly chapped from the cold December air that permeated the dungeons.  She whimpered slightly, so Draco kissed her again and ran his fingers over her left cheek.  Drawing away, he opened his eyes to see that hers were still closed.

“Let me ground you,” he begged.  “There’s nothing we can’t face together.”

“The world is so large—”

“And yet it can be so small if we make it that way,” he promised her.  “It can be just us.”

“Just us,” she repeated.

“Just us,” he murmured, as he leaned forward and kissed Potter again.

They stayed outside well after dinner had started in the Great Hall, entwined around each other, only letting the cold drive them back into the castle when it had gotten dark.  They moved inside the Great Hall and Draco took off his cloak and put it over the one already on her shoulders.  There were only seats at the end of the table, but that didn’t matter.  What mattered is that they were together, and that Potter belonged to him.

Of course, Scarhead couldn’t just let them be happy.

Draco heard about it within twenty minutes of it happening.

Everyone knew that giggling gaggles of girls were asking Scarhead to the Yule Ball.  It was ridiculous but Draco was glad that Scarhead was being ritually humiliated.  Then, though, then Scarhead had to actually ask someone himself—and he asked his Potter.

Draco knew exactly where to find him.  He didn’t even bother with his wand.  He marched up to the line of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs in front of the Divination classroom and punched Scarhead right in the nose.  “Is that answer enough for you?” he spat.  “You couldn’t leave well enough alone!  She’s not your mother so you want her to be your girlfriend?  Well, she doesn’t belong to you.  Do you hear me, Potter?  She doesn’t belong to you!”

Scarhead was clutching his nose, but he got to his feet and pushed a worried looking Pavati Patil and Weasley away from him.  “You don’t own her, Malfoy!”

“Neither do you!”  He reached forward, but arms were holding him back.  He tried to fight them off, but he was dragged backward.

“You and your ownership.  She’s a Potter!  Not a Malfoy!”

“She’s my girlfriend, you halfwit!” Draco shouted.  “You just stay away from her!”

The corridor went quiet.  Scarhead was breathing heavily, blood spurting from his nose and he had somewhere found a handkerchief to shove up the left nostril.  “She’s your what?”

“Potter and I are going,” Draco repeated as if Scarhead was a halfwit.  “I have every intention of marrying her despite her mother being American.  Stay away or I will meet you at dawn.”

If it had been quiet before, now you could hear a pin drop.  Scarhead stared at him.  “You’re engaged?”

“As good as,” Draco replied pompously.  “All we require is her father’s consent, which we will have by Christmas Day.”  They also required his father’s consent, which would be difficult to get because of Potter’s coloring, but Draco had several arguments already lined up.  Draco had already started a campaign of letters to his mother on the subject.

“Leave it alone, mate,” Weasley was now saying to Scarhead.  “You don’t want to mess with a wizarding engagement.”

Good, at least someone had a pumpkin on his shoulders.

Scarhead looked torn but he eventually broke Draco’s gaze and turned back toward the divination trap door, which had yet to open.

Draco had won the argument.

Of course, it was all over Hogwarts before a kneazle could sneeze. 

Potter found him after his next class, leaning against the wall, her bookbag on the floor.  As soon as Draco saw her, he knew he was in trouble.  Blaise came out behind him, saw Potter, and slapped him companionably on the shoulder.  Draco could have sworn he saw Pansy smirk as she passed them.

They waited until the hall was clear.

“I am not your possession,” Potter opened with.

“Of course not,” Draco agreed.  “You’ll notice I didn’t buy you from Scarhead, though I well could have.  I challenged him to a duel instead.”

“I’m not a thing,” she implored him.

“We’re going,” he argued.  “You’re mine to protect.”  He had stepped forward, dropping his bag on the way, and now could feel her breath on his cheek.

“I don’t need protecting!”

“I thought I promised never to let you go,” he told her desperately, feeling the weight of this conversation.  “Potter may be the opposite of a Death Eater, but he wanted to take you away.”

“I never would have let him,” she told him sarcastically.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.  He’s the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“—who is a stain on the Potter name.”

They fell silent.

“He has no wizarding pride,” Draco told her.  “Any wizard worth his pumpkin pasty would never ask a witch to a ball when she’s already going with someone else.  I was well within my rights—”

“Rights?  Who cares about rights?  I am not a house elf—”

“If you were a house elf, I would have dragged you away and cursed him.  I wouldn’t have thrown down my glove.”  He pushed his fringe off of his forehead.  “Can’t you see that I’m mad about you?”

“You keep telling me that!  And then you act like a caveman!”

“I am well beyond shooting sparks from my fingertips, thank you,” Draco told her, doing just that to make a point.  “Perhaps it’s because I’m mad about you that I act like I care.  If I didn’t care, I’d walk away like Seximus Selwyn.”

Her grey eyes turned pensive.  “He’s taking Apricot.”

“What?”

“He’s taking Apricot to the Yule Ball.”

“Oh.”  Draco honestly didn’t care.  “We can all have a cup of punch together.”  Not that he wanted to, but he knew how close Potter and Apricot Selwyn were.

“Do you think I want to be anywhere near Seximus?”

“Well, no,” he agreed.  “I thought you’d want to spend time with Apricot.” 

She breathed out through her nose.  “Well, it’s all done now.  You’ve threatened Potter.  We’re not dancing with Apricot, and I want to be nowhere near Parkinson.”

“Agreed,” he promised, reaching out and taking her hand.  “I never went with Parkinson.”

Potter’s eyes flashed.  “She wishes you would.”

“Wishful thinking,” he told her outright.  “She’s not blonde.”

She looked at him oddly.

“Old excuse,” he told her, half truthfully.  Draco reached out, took her other hand, and tucked it in his arm.  “Let’s get out of here.”

They shouldered their bags and did just that.

The Yule Ball was just around the corner, when Professor Snape asked to see Draco in his office.  Not entirely sure what it was about, he reported in his free period, only to find his father waiting for him.  Snape was standing behind his desk. 

Lucius Malfoy was nothing if not an impressive wizard.  Standing taller than even Draco, his Aquiline features were in stark contrast with his platinum blond hair cut in the Roman fashion and his ice blue eyes that saw through any lie.  He was dressed expensively in the latest cuts and always carried a walking stick, which many (incorrectly) believed held his wand.  “I’ve gotten a disquieting report.”

“How is it disquieting?” Draco asked his father, not liking the early turn of this conversation.

“Well, you’re going with a witch who is not blonde and it appears to be serious.  You even threw down the glove over her.”

“You would have, too,” Draco responded, rubbing his thumb over his lower lip.  “Scarhead was out of line.”

Lucius nodded to Snape who left the father and son alone.

“A Potter?  Really?”

“Reynard Potter is the son of Dorea Black,” Draco argued.  “He’s the son of Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

“But who is her mother?  I’m told this girl is the exact copy of Lily Potter.”

“Lily Potter is a Mudblood who married into the Potter family.  Any resemblance is merely superficial.  Amaryllis’ mother was an American pureblood.”

“Of good standing?” Lucius asked carefully.

“The Dark Lord found a way around that.”

“No one knows how and no one knows why,” Lucius argued passionately.  His ice blue eyes flashed in the firelight.  “Give this up.  She is not what is required of you.”

“I will not give her up,” Draco told him sternly.  “I’m in love with her.”

Lucius scoffed. 

“You cannot force me,” Draco told me.  “The laws that would have allowed you have all been struck down by the Wizengamot.  I remain your heir even if you cast me from the house, even if you stop my allowance and I have to go on scholarship.  I keep the name Malfoy no matter your disapproval, even if I married a Mudblood.”

“Draco!” his father ordered sternly.

“I don’t care!” Draco murmured in the face of his father’s anger.  “I’d do anything for Amaryllis.”

Grabbing his son’s chin, Lucius looked into his son’s gray eyes for several long moments.  “No,” he whispered.  “Not a compulsion.”

“You won’t even meet her during break?” Draco asked.

“No,” Lucius told him.  “You will come home, though, after the Yule Ball.  I assume you are taking Miss Potter?”

Draco inclined his head.

“You will come home, you will be doting to your younger sisters, and you will return.  Your allowance will be slashed.  Hopefully, you will regain your senses.”  Lucius looked over his son.  “I cannot stop you from this foolishness, but I can make it difficult for you.”

Bowing his head, Draco didn’t bother to argue any further.

“I would give her to Harry Potter, if I were you.  I hear you already bought her off of a Selwyn,” Lucius sneered, before he went up the floo and exited the room.

A hollowness entered Draco’s stomach.  Still, it didn’t matter.  He had Amaryllis, and he would keep her.  He would gain Reynard Potter’s approval and he would enter the Ministry if he had to and earn his living.  Dorea Black was kin.  She would surely be sympathetic.  He would curse Scarhead if he ever came near them again.  And he would win.  He would not sell the witch that was so hard won because, after all, as Amaryllis Potter was so often telling him, she was not a possession.

The End