The Dark Lord’s Daughter
Part the First
She had always been “Lily” to Harry. To his brother and sister, she was “Mum,” but to Harry she was not. When he was a child, Harry didn’t think to question it. When he got older, he began to realize he was different. Where Jonathan had auburn hair like their mother, Harry had the black messy hair of their father and incredibly blue eyes that came from some relative no one would name.
When he received his Hogwarts letter, Lily didn’t throw a party like she had for Jonathan or she would for Violet three weeks later.
Instead, his dad pulled him aside and gave him a lopsided smile.
“It’s time I told you about your mum,” James Potter opened with, walking with Harry in the field behind their cottage in Godric’s Hollow. James looked at him with hazel eyes that Jonathan had inherited, glasses perched on his nose.
Harry looked up at him and his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You mean Lily?”
“No, Harry,” James breathed out carefully. “Your real mum.”
Harry paused and took a steadying breath. “Lily’s not my mum.”
“No,” James agreed, placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Your mum was an incredible witch. Her name was Maia.” He looked into Harry’s eyes. “She was in Slytherin.”
“But Slytherins—”
“According to Lily,” James argued firmly. “Maia and her entire family were Slytherins. She was—” He paused for a moment. “Maia was descended from Salazar Slytherin if the family stories were to be believed.” He looked away from Harry and placed a hand on his back, guiding him forward to continue their walk. “Slytherin is a noble and ancient House. There is nothing wrong with cunning and ambition.”
“But Slytherins are Death Eaters?” Harry asked carefully, a lilt to the end of his sentence.
James paused. “While many Death Eaters come from Slytherin House, you have to remember that our Secret Keeper in the War, Peter Pettigrew, was in Gryffindor. Death Eaters can come from any house.” He took several more steps and the father and son fell in line together.
“Is that why Violet and I don’t have the same birthday?”
“Yes,” James agreed. “I loved your mother—desperately. But I was married and her family decided that I should raise you…” His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. “I regret nothing. I will never regret you, Harry.” He turned to him and his eyes shone with unshed tears. “You are the last piece I have of your mother.”
Harry took this all in and swallowed. Picking a piece of grass and rolling it between his thumbs, Harry turned this all over in his head. “Is—is my mother also a pureblood like you or a Muggleborn like Lily?” He felt a little afraid to ask but even Harry knew that if he ended up in Slytherin, it would be social suicide to be anything but a pureblood.
James looked at him as if he knew what he was thinking. “Maia was a pureblood. She was a Gaunt.”
“Is that why you named me Harrogate Gaunt Potter?”
“Yes. Harrogate for the place where we—where we were last together.” He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Gaunt for your mother. She had some notion of naming her eldest son ‘Mordecai,’ but I couldn’t do that to you.” He smiled wryly. “I thought that would be unusually cruel to a child. ‘Mordy’ is a horrible nickname.”
“Yes,” Harry agreed, considering. Mordy did sound particularly bad. Jonathan was always beating on him when no one was looking, although Harry was incredibly fast. How much worse would it be if he were a Mordy?
James looked down at him. “Maia was the sweetest witch I’ve ever known. She was clever. She had what the Muggles call ‘street cred.’ I remember she and her friends used to Muggle bait in the local village.”
Harry gave his dad an odd look.
“Exactly what I thought when I found out,” James laughed. “She was undoubtedly a blood purist but she was also kind. She was loyal. She had her Uncle Marvolo wrapped around her little finger. She had every wizard in Slytherin wrapped around her finger,” he remembered fondly. “She could have had any wizard she wanted but she wanted me.”
“Why—” Harry began but then thought better of it, looking away.
James put a hand on his shoulder and coaxed him. “Why what?”
“Why did you marry Lily and not—Mother?”
Blowing air between his teeth, James looked down at Harry and then away before he got down on his knees. He looked Harry dead in the eye. “I made a mistake,” James told his middle child. “A horrible mistake, the kind of mistake that is difficult to unmake. There was not only my marriage to consider but Jonathan and, within two months of realizing that Maia was no longer within my reach, there was an unborn child—your sister Violet—to consider.” He looked earnestly in Harry’s eyes. “When you came along, I made it a condition of my staying that you become an undisputed member of the family. Maia was lost to me, but I was never going to lose you.”
James reached up and brushed Harry’s messy hair out of his ocean blue eyes. “You remind me of Maia in so many ways. You take my breath away every day.”
“Where is she?” Harry whispered, suddenly feeling desperate.
James sighed and stood up. “I can only imagine she’s in Yorkshire at the family estate. You can only enter with an invitation—it’s a variation of the Fidelius. All my owls have gone unanswered since before you were born.”
“Did she send a letter—with me?” Harry looked up at his dad with his ocean blue eyes.
“No,” James told him quietly. “I received an owl from her Uncle Marvolo. We met here, in Godric’s Hollow, where he surrendered you to me without any warning. There was a birth certificate that only had you listed as ‘Baby Boy’ and Lord Marvolo threatened me with an orphanage if I didn’t take you.”
Harry looked up, afraid.
“Of course, I would never have let that happen. I know Maia would never have let that happen if she had not been under her family’s control. Extramarital affairs are anathema in pureblood society.” He swallowed uncomfortably. “She has most likely been in seclusion for the last eleven years.”
Harry nodded slowly. A thought was forming in his head.
That night he took out parchment and quill and wrote the first of many letters to “Lady Maia Gaunt, the Gaunt Residence, Yorkshire.” The owl was gone several days, so long that even Lily noticed. When the owl did come back, it was without the letter.
Harry smiled into his porridge.
He wrote another letter the night before he went to Hogwarts, this time sending his new owl Hedwig.
When he was sorted into Slytherin, just like his dad had predicted, Harry sent another owl. In the letter, he told his mother all about being sorted and his new friend Theodore Nott who was from a pureblood family, just like he was. He never received a letter back. Then again, Harry’s original letter never returned either. Harry liked to think that somewhere in Yorkshire his mother was reading his letters and thinking of him.
Harry even sent a letter the night before he met Magnolia Riddle.
Jonathan Potter never stopped roughing up his younger brother, of course.
Jonathan was the Boy-Who-Lived with a jagged scar on his forehead and the distinction of having survived the Killing Curse. Lily Potter had been out with friends the night it had happened. Harry’s crib, as he was only a two-week-old baby, had been left undisturbed. James never said what had happened, but he showed residual spell damage from the Cruciatus Curse.
Jonathan now contended You-Know-Who didn’t bother with Harry because he was the quintessential Slytherin and Jonathan took every chance he got to throw a spell Harry’s direction. Fortunately, Theodore Nott was a real brick and two against three (Cormac McLaggen was always with Jonathan along with one of the Weasley twins) was always better odds. Harry, also, was fast and often got away around a corner or behind a tapestry, much to Jonathan’s frustration.
Harry and Theo had just got back from the infirmary from a minor cutting hex when they saw Malfoy sitting with his cousin, a pretty witch by the name of Riddle. Riddle’s mother was Malfoy’s aunt if Harry had the right of it, although Riddle’s hair was a deep chestnut brown unlike Malfoy’s platinum blond hair. The two looked nothing like each other despite their Malfoy heritage. The two, however, could always be found with each other.
Malfoy whistled at him. “Oi! Potter!” he called and Harry looked over at him in confusion.
Malfoy beckoned him over.
Harry looked over at Theo, who shrugged and went over to their usual table.
Walking up to the cousins, Harry looked between them. “Can I help you?”
“Remind me of your name,” Malfoy commanded, his voice leaving no other choice.
“My name?” Harry asked in confusion. “Harrogate. It’s somewhere in Yorkshire.”
Malfoy and Riddle shared a look. “And?” Malfoy prompted.
“It’s where my parents—”
“Yes,” Malfoy agreed. “There’s always been a rumor you’re a pureblood though Potter,” and here he spat the name out, “and the younger Gryffindor Potter are half-bloods.” Malfoy looked Harry up and down. “Is it true?”
“Yes,” Harry said carefully, knowing how delicate the situation was. His parents were unmarried and being illegitimate was almost as bad as being a Mudblood in Slytherin. He swallowed.
“So,” Malfoy asked, glancing at Riddle. “What’s your name?”
Catching the drift of the question, Harry took the free seat near them and leaned in. “Harrogate Gaunt Potter,” he informed them.
Malfoy and Riddle exchanged another glance, much longer than the previous ones.
Licking her lips, Riddle asked, “Which Gaunt?”
“Which Gaunt?” Harry asked, slightly confused. “Do you know the Gaunts?”
Malfoy shoved Harry’s shoulder. “You heard the lady. Which Gaunt?”
Harry looked into Riddle’s eyes, which were just as blue as his. “Maia,” he answered carefully. “Lady Maia Gaunt. I understand she’s in seclusion in Yorkshire.”
Annoyingly, Malfoy and Riddle exchanged another look.
“Father,” Riddle stated carefully, “told me as much.” She gave Harry a long glance. “Grandmother Merope was a Gaunt.”
Harry stared at her. “Do you know if Lady Maia receives owl mail? I’ve been writing to her since I came to Hogwarts. The letters never come back—”
“I don’t know,” she admitted carefully. “Father rarely speaks of Cousin Maia. When he does, he’s not best pleased. I know better than to ask. Do you know what she did?” Riddle looked up at him expectantly.
Malfoy was watching him carefully.
“Er—” Harry hesitated.
Malfoy shoved his shoulder again.
“I got the message the first time,” he complained. Turning back to Riddle, he told her, “She and Dad were going to run away together even though—” he took a deep breath “—even though Dad was already married.”
Riddle looked him up and down. Malfoy was regarding him coolly.
“I see they didn’t wait for an annulment,” Malfoy observed. “Though how Potter could have gotten an annulment when he already had a son by his Mudblood wife is a sticking point…”. He looked over at Riddle. “Do you suppose Lady Maia’s in the North Tower?”
She shrugged. “Must be. It’s heavily warded and we’re not allowed to go there.”
Harry glanced between them. “So my mother is your—”
“Cousin, yes,” Riddle agreed, turning her attention back to Harry. She reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of parchment. At the top she wrote “Marvolo Gaunt” and then drew two lines diagonally down from it. The first read “Morfin” and the second “Merope.” Beneath “Merope” was a downward line that read “T. Marvolo Riddle” and from that was a line downward that read “Magnolia.” From the name “Morfin” was a downward line down that read “Mordecai” and then another downward line that read “Maia,” directly across from “Magnolia,” and then another line down, which read “Harrogate Potter.” She turned it around and slid it over to Harry. “It’s rough but you get the idea.”
He looked at it. “You’re–?”
“Magnolia Gaunt Riddle,” she confirmed.
Harry glanced at the family tree again. Then he realized, “Your father is ‘Uncle Marvolo’? He’s the one who brought me to Dad.”
“Did he?” Riddle asked, looking Harry over again. “I’m not surprised. Uncle Mordecai didn’t want Cousin Maia and left her in her crib, unattended, for nearly a month until Father found her, alive only because of her innate magic. Father then took her and raised her as his own, long before either of us were born.” Her blue eyes flicked down to the family tree. She turned it around and started filling out names.
She drew a line across from Maia’s name to “James Potter” and then another line from “T. Marvolo” to an “Aloysia Malfoy.” She wrote “Lucius Malfoy” next to her name and then connected “Aloysia” and “Lucius” by drawing a line above them, showing that they had the same parents. Beneath “Lucius Malfoy” she drew a line down, splitting into three, and wrote “Draco,” “Lacerta,” and “Iolantha.” A line up from “T. Marvolo Riddle,” she connected “Merope” to “T. Riddle.”
“They’re all M’s,” Harry realized. “Dad said Mother wanted to name me ‘Mordecai.’”
“Can’t see why,” Malfoy observed, “considering Mordecai Gaunt almost killed Lady Maia.” Then he shrugged. “Maybe she was feeling sentimental. Pregnancy magic is strange.”
Riddle looked between Malfoy and Harry. “We’re all related.”
Malfoy gave her an odd look, but she was instead staring at Harry.
“Does Potter beat you up because you’re in Slytherin?” Riddle inquired.
“He’s been doing it long before Hogwarts,” Harry admitted, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “He’s always realized I was different. Violet’s always known, though she’s never said. Although I was too small to tell, Lily’s always treated me as—lesser.”
Malfoy snorted. “She’s a Mudblood. You’re a Gaunt.” He made it sound so obvious. “You’re related to—”
Riddle looked at him sharply.
Malfoy cleared his throat. “You’re Death Eater royalty.”
“I am?” Harry asked carefully. “Dad did say Mother liked to Muggle bait.”
“Did she?” Malfoy drawled. “Interesting.—but we’re going to have to do something about Potter.” He shared another look with Magnolia. “I assume that’s what you want.”
She didn’t answer but Malfoy nodded.
“Leave it with me.” He gave Harry another long look and then stood. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Riddle didn’t make any answer, but instead was regarding Harry with interest. “We have the same eyes.”
“Yes,” Harry agreed carefully. “I did notice when I sat down.”
“They’re Gaunt eyes,” Riddle elaborated as she shifted closer. “Father has them. Mother’s eyes are ice blue. Gaunt eyes are deep blue—like the depths of the ocean.” She looked into Harry’s eyes for a long moment. “I take it Mrs. Potter doesn’t like your eyes.”
“No,” Harry agreed. “I look almost exactly like Dad except for the eyes. Same hair, glasses.” He shrugged.
“But Potter and the younger Potter—what did you say her name was?”
“Violet—” Harry put in.
“Violet,” Riddle agreed. “At least it’s a wizarding name unlike Jonathan. They have different hair. Like Mrs. Potter, I suppose?” She was looking at him hard again.
“Yes,” he agreed carefully. “Jonathan has Lily’s hair and Violet almost looks like an exact copy of Lily except with strawberry blonde coloring.”
“Does she?” Riddle wondered. “Violet, as you say, is very comely. I can see why even a pureblood would feel a passing attraction—” Her voice trailed off. “Lady Maia is beautiful, I understand.”
Reeling from the change of topic, Harry tried to catch the drift of the conversation. “I don’t have a picture of her.”
“Your father doesn’t have one?” she asked, completely surprised.
“I don’t think Lily allowed him to keep any. She certainly wouldn’t allow me to keep any.” He shrugged. “I didn’t even know for sure until I got my Hogwarts letter. That’s when Dad told me.”
Riddle was staring at him again, her deep blue eyes wide in astonishment. “I’ll write to Mother. As I said, I don’t bring Cousin Maia up to Father, but Mother might be able to do something. That is, if you want—”
“Yes,” Harry agreed instantly. “Thank you.”
She looked at him carefully. “You must be wondering what I want.”
Harry’s mind flipped again and he realized he was in a negotiation of some sort. Riddle would get him a picture of his mother, but for some price. The fact that she was going to come out and just say it was unusual. Usually there’d be a game of give or take, or guessing.
“This family tree is deceiving,” she explained, utterly confusing Harry.
“Oh?” he asked carefully, glancing down at it again. There, plain as day, was his name, written in beautiful cursive beneath his mother’s and his father’s. No one had ever written his name in a family tree before.
“Gaunts,” Riddle told him carefully, “marry other Gaunts traditionally. Great-grandfather Marvolo married his niece Melaina, for example. There apparently was a notion for my grandmother Merope to marry your great-grandfather—her brother—Morfin until she had other plans. Ideally, Father would have married Lady Maia, but both were disinclined from the notion since he essentially raised her.” Her eyes flicked to his boldly. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Why don’t you marry Malfoy?” he asked in confusion, looking down at the family tree where Malfoy’s name was proudly written across from her own.
“He’s a Malfoy. He’s not a Gaunt. I don’t want to purify the Malfoy family line. I want to purify the Gaunt line.” She pointed to her name and then pulled her finger down and across to his. “We’re second cousins once removed, if consanguinity bothers you. Perfectly legal.”
It was perfectly legal, and magic would allow it.
Harry swallowed and picked up the family tree to look it over.
Glancing over the top he argued, “You forget. I may be a Gaunt through my mother, but I carry the name Potter.”
“We will petition the Wizengamot. Lady Maia and your father will sign a waiver, I’m sure, granting their consent. I know Father will sign one for me.”
Harry pressed his lips together and looked at her hard.
Magnolia Riddle really was very pretty. With chestnut hair pinned on her head and deep blue eyes in a pale face, she was the image of pureblood elegance. Their children would have dark hair and blue eyes. It was assured. The only question was whether or not they would require glasses.
“You assume I want a photograph of my mother very badly.”
She smiled coyly at him. “Potter, I am your access point to your mother. It’s not just a photograph. As my suitor, you will have access to Riddle House, to the grounds, to my father. You will have his good will. You could petition him upon your seventeenth birthday for Lady Maia’s blessing. This is only just the beginning.” She leaned forward and placed her elbow on her knee. “As an added caveat, the upper year Slytherins at this very moment are chasing down your brother and threatening him at wandpoint to within an inch of his life. I can guarantee your protection not only here at Hogwarts but during the summers.”
Harry blinked at her. “How can you guarantee my protection during the summers?”
“Why,” she stated coyly, looking up at him through her dark lashes, “you’ll spend part of the summer hols with me, part of them with Draco, and I’ll assure that Slytherins who have use of their wands will be roaming Godric’s Hollow when you’re there. I have the whole Death Eater network at my disposal.”
Harry shivered. He was very much aware of the Death Eater network in Slytherin House. He had even been approached once or twice, despite the fact that his father was an Auror and his brother was the Boy-Who-Lived.
“But I do understand that it is unseemly for a witch to propose marriage,” Riddle murmured, though her eyes never left his. “You have to forgive me for seeing dynastic possibilities.”
“What year are you?” Harry asked, genuinely curious. He was in his O.W.L. year, along with Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy, but he knew that Magnolia Riddle was not in their year. She had never been in any of their classes.
She blushed, which was strangely endearing. “I’m a fourth year, though I was born in November. I understand you were born in the summer of 1980?”
“July 31st, according to my birth certificate,” Harry agreed. “If you had been born a few months sooner, or I a month and one day later…” He let his voice trail off.
“Yes,” she agreed, a slight laugh in her voice. “Draco is June. We were brought up together. It was horrible when he went to Hogwarts a full year earlier than me.”
Harry turned and let his eyes scan the room until he found Malfoy sitting in an armchair by the fire, his attention clearly on them and not on the book in his hand. “He knows what you’re proposing, doesn’t he?”
“Of course he does,” Riddle scoffed. “He’s more than a cousin and more than a friend. He’s practically my brother. He knows how important blood purity is to me. He’s the one who remembered from a roll call second year that your name might have been ‘Gaunt.’”
“Wonders never cease,” Harry murmured, wondering if he should punch out Malfoy for getting him in this bizarre situation. He turned back to Riddle. “I need to write Mother. She never writes back, but it would be wrong for me not to ask her advice.”
“Of course,” she murmured. “I completely understand. Ask your father, too, if you like. He may know the Gaunt customs.—I will see about your photograph whatever you decide—for now.” Her dark blue eyes flashed dangerously. “You’ll agree with me in the end.”
“Mighty confident, aren’t you?” he teased.
“Of course, I am. I’m a beautiful pureblood and even without being a Gaunt, I’m the best match at Hogwarts. Every wizard worth his wand would die for a proposal of marriage from me.”
This certainly had Harry interested. “Why?”
“I would argue,” she whispered as she leaned toward him and murmured in his ear, “that my father has more influence than Bartemius Crouch, the Minister for Magic.”
Harry leaned back and looked at her incredulously.
“Ask anyone,” she dared. “You’ll see I’m right.”
Harry didn’t have to ask, however. He saw how everyone treated her. Everyone got up to give her the best seats. She had only to look your way, and every witch or wizard, even in Hufflepuff, got up and asked her what she needed. Within a day, Jonathan was in the infirmary with a concussion with no idea who had knocked him out. Cormac McLaggen had been similarly befuddled along with Fred Weasley.
Within two weeks it had gotten so bad that Snape asked to see him during his free period.
“Yes, professor?”
“I know the answer to my question,” Snape snidely commented, turning and beckoning a surprised looking James Potter into the room. “I know when my Slytherins have a vendetta, I know who starts it, and I know when the winds are turning. Your father evidently does not have the same information.”
James Potter sighed. He and Snape had never been good friends, although Snape and Lily were the closest of confidants. Snape only tolerated James for Lily’s sake. He tolerated Jonathan and Violet for Lily’s sake. He supported and encouraged Harry for reasons he never gave anyone, including Lily Potter.
“What’s going on?” James asked Harry, drawing him away from his Head of House.
“Jonathan angered the wrong Slytherin,” Harry told him honestly. It was true. Jonathan had angered Riddle and Riddle was showing her power. “He should perhaps not pick on students unable to fight back.”
James sighed, perhaps knowing it was the truth. “He hasn’t roughed you up too badly recently?”
“Not since this all started,” Harry answered truthfully. “I need to talk to you about something else. I didn’t want to put it into a letter in case Lily saw.”
James looked over his shoulder at Snape who had retreated to a desk. Pulling him further toward a couch, he murmured, “What is it?”
“I received a marriage proposal.”
“At your age?” James asked incredulously. Then he sobered. “Who is the young lady?”
“A Gaunt.”
This drew silence between them. “She’s not your—half-sister, is she?” James seemed genuinely worried.
“No,” Harry answered. “We’re second cousins once removed. She drew out the family tree. She says that Gaunts marry other Gaunts and she’s concerned for the purity of our House.”
James breathed through his nose. “Well, it’s true, Gaunts marry other Gaunts. Your mum, in other circumstances, would have been expected to marry a Gaunt, which is why I wondered—”
“So it’s normal—”
“Yes, very,” James agreed. Leaning down, he looked into Harry’s eyes. “But you’re only fifteen. If you don’t like her—”
“No, it’s not that,” Harry disagreed. “She wants us to petition the Wizengamot to change our name to ‘Gaunt.’”
James blew air out of his nose. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Jonathan can always carry on the Potter name, and your mother is a Gaunt—I hope I get to meet the young lady.”
“Of course,” Harry agreed. “I haven’t decided.”
James squeezed his shoulder. “No need to decide yet, though, is there?” he asked hopefully.
After he flooed out, Snape looked up from his desk and stated, “Well. Lady Magnolia proposes marriage and gives Potter a concussion as an engagement present. How positively Slytherin of her.”
“You won’t tell Lily, will you?” Harry asked worriedly.
“Decidedly not,” Snape promised. “What happens in Slytherin, stays in Slytherin. Besides, it wouldn’t do to anger Lord Marvolo, would it?”
Harry blinked, but nodded and left the room.
That night he wrote again to his mother, not expecting a reply. In the morning, he would tell Riddle that he would marry her once they came of age.
