Excentryke's Musings

The Dark Lord’s Daughter

Part the Third

Harry was surprised Friday morning to be called into a private study after breakfast.  He and Magnolia had been tangled against each other trying jams on homemade breads that the house elves were feeding them when a Death Eater had arrived and summoned him.

“Max—Maximus,” Magnolia breathed in his ear playfully.  “You’re all right with him.”

Harry looked at her and she gave him a sly smile.  Her ocean blue eyes shone brightly at him and she nabbed his half eaten piece of toast with fig jam on it.

“I was eating that!” he teased.

“Were you?” she asked delicately, licking her thumb. 

Harry glared at her, reached around her to pick up his teacup, drawing her in at his elbow as he took a sip, before getting up.

Magnolia fluttered her eyelashes and then turned back to her breakfast.

Harry approached the Death Eater—Maximus—and waited patiently.  Maximus was regarding the two of them carefully but immediately held a hand out for Harry to proceed him, and Harry ascended the stairway up to the main level.

The study Harry found himself in was well appointed.  James had a study in Godric’s Hollow, which was covered in parchment and half opened books.  This study was much more organized and certainly more grand. 

There weren’t any portraits on the wall.  Instead there were landscapes of what Harry recognized as the Cliffs of Dover and what he believed was Orkney.  There were two photographs on the desk, but they were turned away from Harry.  He supposed they were of Lady Aloysia and Magnolia, but he couldn’t be sure.

The Dark Lord was sitting behind the desk in an ornate chair and in front of him was clearly a standalone cheque laid out on the blotter.

Harry waited in the doorway and wasn’t startled when Maximus closed the door behind him.

“Harrogate,” the Dark Lord greeted, indicating the seat across from him.  “I understand the Potter family calls you ‘Harry.’”

“Everyone in Slytherin calls me ‘Harrogate,’” Harry said as a non-answer, taking the seat and doing everything not to look at the cheque.

Harrogate was a village in Yorkshire.  Those outside of Yorkshire pronounced it Hahr-oh-gate with all three syllables stressed.  Everyone in Yorkshire pronounced it HAHR-ah-get.  Lily said it as if she were a common Muggleborn.  James used the Yorkshire pronunciation as did all of Slytherin.  Magnolia used the correct pronunciation.  Harry rather liked the way she said it.  It was one of the few aspects of his engagement that he actually liked, apart from Jonathan gaining black eyes and concussions.

“As they should,” the Dark Lord agreed.  He paused for a moment.  “Magnolia came to me for permission to go look at vined rings.  She mentioned your predicament.”

“I don’t want charity, Uncle Marvolo,” Harry stressed, using the familial terminology so as to force a familiarity between them.  “I’m sure I can arrange something with my father—”

“You misunderstand me.”  The Dark Lord looked him over.  “Of course you won’t accept charity.  You’re a Gaunt.  Gaunts never accept charity.  When I was a schoolboy your age, I had next to nothing and I found other ways.”  He paused and glanced out the window toward the garden.  “I brought up your predicament to your mother.”

Harry sat forward, unable to hide his eagerness. 

The Dark Lord’s slits of ocean blue eyes settled back onto Harry.  “Maia’s dowry has gone untouched.  It is also quite substantial.”  He touched the cheque.  “This is a draw for five hundred galleons on her bank account.  It is made out to The Pumpkin Carriage, but you need to co-sign it for it to be valid.  If, for whatever reason, this is not a substantial enough sum, you can put this down as a deposit and The Pumpkin Carriage can apply to me as trustee for a further sum.”  He paused.  “I do not think you are extravagant, however.”

Harry paused, uncertain what to address first, but the Dark Lord put up his hand to stay him.

“I have written to The Pumpkin Carriage.  Both you and Magnolia will go to The Wicked Stepmother today and have your magic checked and, as you are betrothed at the age of fifteen, you will hopefully be getting your vined rings by the end of the winter holidays.  I trust Magnolia implicitly but I was young once.  A vined ring is a protection against slander—for you both.”

Harry considered.  “How will my mother know my choice?”

“An excellent question.  You shall have to send her one of your many descriptive letters on the subject.”  He pushed the cheque forward.  “I hope this meets with your approval.”

“You will thank her for me, I hope.”

“Of course.  Your acceptance of the cheque is your implicit thanks.”  His ocean blue eyes flashed almost black. 

“Thank you, Uncle.”  Harry picked up the cheque and read it.  It was indeed made out for five hundred galleons.  It also held his mother’s magical signature—Maia Persephone Gaunt.

Harry and Magnolia took the floo to Diagon Alley, the cheque safely folded in Harry’s breast pocket.  Maximus Wigman was escorting them and was a looming figure everywhere they went. 

Their first stop was to The Wicked Stepmother, which was partway down Knockturn Alley.  There was a broken-down door off to the left with a hanging sign of wood with scratches on it that left much to be desired, but Maximus showed them in confidently, Harry walking in with Magnolia on his arm.

The inside was entirely different from the outside representation.  Oak floorboards shone in a wide entryway and there was a maître d’ waiting patiently to the side.  “Ah,” he greeted in a deep voice that seemed strange given how small he was.  “Lady Magnolia.  Your father owled.”

“Yes,” she greeted, holding close to Harry.  “Do you know my intended, Harrogate Potter?”

The little wizard bowed.  “Mr. Potter.  Your esteemed father is a member.”

“Is he?” Harry asked.  “He never said.”

“He used to come in with Lady Maia,” the wizard told him as he escorted the young couple over to a stand which had a wooden cone resting on it at an upward angle.  “And Heir Sirius Black, of course.”

“Of course,” Harry agreed, recognizing the name of his godfather.  He hadn’t known, however, that he was the heir to one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.  His father had never told him.

“Ladies first,” the little wizard said, drawing Harry out of his thoughts and indicating the cone.

Magnolia took out her wand and inserted it into the cone.  At first nothing happened, and Harry almost glanced at her, but then the cone began to spin counterclockwise.  Then it began to spin faster and faster.  Soon Harry could hardly tell it was moving, it was turning so fast.  A small tickertape was busily chattering out of the base of the cone and the little wizard was reading it until the cone groaned and suddenly stopped.  Magnolia immediately took her wand back.

“Into the dark greens,” the little wizard declared.  “Very dark, Lady Magnolia.  I’m sure your father will be most pleased.”

Magnolia seemed to stand a little taller.

The tickertape was cut off and placed to the side and then the little wizard indicated that Harry should put his wand in.

Carefully, Harry took out his wand and inserted it into the strange wooden cone.

The cone didn’t move for a full minute.

Harry tried not to tense, but he could feel his shoulders stiffen.  He knew Magnolia could tell as well because she rubbed his arm with her hand, soothing him.  It was more annoying than soothing, but Harry didn’t stop her.  Harry had almost given up on his wand and was about to ask the little wizard what he should do when the cone suddenly started to whir to life, first clockwise and then, after two minutes, counterclockwise.  The tickertape began to shudder out of the cone and the little wizard began to read it, his eyebrows arching into his hairline.

“My, my!” he cried.

Still, the cone turned faster and faster until finally, Harry almost had had enough and was about ready to take his wand back, but Magnolia rubbed her hand back across his arm as if she could sense what he was thinking.—though it only served to stress Harry out more.

“And there it is!” the little wizard declared as the cone suddenly stopped and spit Harry’s wand directly out of it.  “A black card, just like your uncle, young man!”

“A what?” he asked, ducking to catch his wand.

“The blackest of magics,” Magnolia complimented, if indeed it was a compliment.  Harry wasn’t sure how his dad would take it if he ever found out.  Jonathan would certainly say his soul had always been black and proceed to beat him to a pulp.  “—Only Father has a black card of any wizard alive!”

“Only Uncle Marvolo?” Harry asked in shock, swallowing.  He looked between Magnolia and the little wizard who was now carrying the two lines of tickertape over to the podium.

“Why don’t you young things have tea while I make up your cards?” the little wizard suggested.  “I’ll put it on your father’s account, Lady Magnolia.  Your escort is welcome to be imposing here in the entryway.”

Harry blinked.  He had completely forgotten about Maximus.

“Yes.  Let’s,” Magnolia suggested, rubbing Harry’s arm again.  Harry tried not to clench his teeth.  “Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea, Harrogate?  This is an awful lot to take in.”

“Yes,” he agreed distractedly as sparks of magic started at the doorway and Magnolia pulled him toward it.  They followed the sparks down a hallway toward a tearoom where everyone was chattering and then immediately became quiet at the sight of them.

Magnolia acted like that was normal.  Perhaps it was for her.

Their cloaks had been taken from them on the way and Harry pulled out Magnolia’s chair before sitting down himself. 

“What is this place?”

“A pureblood club,” Magnolia told him.  “It tends to favor pureblood politics.  It’s not necessarily for or against one side of the war or other, but like minds tend to flock together.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed as he picked up his menu, but only because Magnolia was looking hers over.

She seemed to realize Harry was lost because she touched the teapot with her wand and ordered “Earl Grey Supreme and shortbread cookies.”  The teapot whistled three minutes later and the cookies melted onto the center plate in front of them.  They placed their menus in little placeholders to the side.

“It’s nice to think my mother and Dad had somewhere they could go,” Harry observed as he picked up his tea and sipped it, letting it warm him. 

“Mother and Father couldn’t come here,” Magnolia answered, letting her eyes flit about.  “By then my father was too recognizable.”

“I imagine,” Harry agreed.  “But not always, surely.”

“No, not always,” Magnolia murmured.  “He used to look just like me.”

Harry glanced at her.

“Tall, well, he is tall.  Blue eyes.  Chestnut hair.  If you saw his Hogwarts portrait, you would see how incredibly good looking he is.”

“Why then—?” Harry asked carefully.

“I don’t know,” she told him, looking him in the eyes.  “He’s never told me.  I don’t know when it happened or why.  I do believe it was by design.”

Harry hummed.  “I think Mother walks the back garden at night.  I see a light but there’s a house elf in front of my door so I can’t go check.”  He looked over at his intended.  “Do you have a house elf?”

“Always have.  I’m not allowed to wander the house at night.”  She shrugged.

“And we can’t get to the North Tower,” Harry checked.

“Decidedly not.  Draco and I tried once when we were twelve—by accident.  Father was terribly angry at us and the wards burnt our hands and faces.  We were scarred for weeks.”

Harry looked at her in horror.

“Something similar happens if you go near the dungeons,” she warned.

“What about climbing out the windows?” Harry checked.

“How would we do that?  We’re not allowed to use our brooms in case Muggles see.”

Harry didn’t answer.  He was, however, thinking.  He had his bedsheets and there was a linen closet down the hall from his room, which he could raid.  He could certainly climb out the window the Muggle way as long as the windows weren’t warded. 

When they had finished their tea, they were presented with their membership cards.  Magnolia’s was indeed a deep green.  Harry’s was midnight black.  They each had their full name written out in white and then, upside down in blue and crossing the lettering, The Wicked Stepmother was written out.  No one could now doubt that Harry was a sixth generation pureblood.

Maximus escorted them to The Pumpkin Carriage next.  The jeweler had an entire private room just made up of vined rings.  As soon as they presented their cards, they were ushered into the back and left to browse.  Magnolia gravitated to the gold rings, but Harry liked one that was pure ivory with no other adornment.  It looked like bone. 

Calling over a pretty young shop assistant, Harry asked to try it on.  The ivory ring was placed on his left middle finger and set at the base running up to the knuckle where it separated in two directions so Harry could bend his finger, and then circled up to just beneath the fingernail.  It barely needed to alter in size for him using magic.  It was a near perfect fit.  Harry looked at the vined ring from several different angles.  It was entirely unadorned.  Inspecting at the card that came with it, he saw that it cost four hundred and twenty galleons, well within his price range.

Magnolia came over and looked over his shoulder.  “It looks like bone.”

“It’s ivory.”

“Muggles think it’s cruel to kill an elephant for its tusks.”

Harry considered that for a moment, but he still found the vined ring entrancing.

Magnolia looked down at the counter and pointed to a ring in the same case and the shop assistant pulled it out.  Slipping it on, Magnolia inspected it before placing her hand beside Harry’s. 

Magnolia was wearing an ivory vined ring that similarly came up to the nail.  The only difference was that it was adorned with four small sapphires.

“They look like your eyes,” Harry murmured.

“Our eyes, you mean,” she argued.  “I think they look well together.”

“You wouldn’t rather get gold?” Harry checked.

“I think we should match,” she argued.  “We’re to marry.  Witches’ rings are also more ornate so it is only right that mine is bejeweled.”  She entwined her fingers in his so the two ivory rings were crossed with each other.  “How does that look, Harrogate Gaunt?”

He looked over his shoulder at her and smiled.  “Quite perfect, Magnolia.”

She made a signal to the shopkeeper, who nodded to them before leaving briefly to call the head spellcaster.

The transaction was easy.  Magnolia had an account that well took care of her five hundred and forty galleon ring.  Harry handed over his cheque and was given a cheque for eighty galleons in receipt.  Their vined rings were sung onto their left hands and they left with Magnolia walking on his arm.  Harry tried not to notice how her body brushed against his.

Lady Aloysia was so pleased when they arrived back at Riddle House, cooing over them.  Now that they had their vined rings, an engagement photograph could be taken for The Daily Prophet and they had an appointment with a photographer their final day of winter holidays.  Harry honestly wished they would wait.  Wasn’t this happening a little too quickly?

Harry still watched the back garden at night and had stolen a great deal of linen.  As soon as he retired on the thirtieth, he made short work of the sheets and tied them in a daisy chain onto the frame of his bed.  Hoping that everyone had gone to bed by two and seeing that the light was still there, he dropped the sheets out the window and climbed down, shivering a little in the cold. 

The light popped off and he looked around wildly.  He ran into the garden, gazing around desperately and not caring that he was wet with snow and without his cloak.  Then, when he turned a corner, he ran into someone and fell.

“Oomph.”  He instantly clawed his way up and whispered, “Mother?”

The entire night went still.  All Harry could hear was his chattering teeth and then a cloak fell over his shoulders.

“Harrogate,” a soft voice chided.  “What are you doing outside without a cloak?”

“Mother?” he asked again, looking about.

A light shone from the end of a wand and Harry looked up to see a pale face etched in black veins and ocean blue eyes.

“Mother?” he asked in horror.  He reached out to touch her scarred cheek but quickly pulled back.

“Hush now,” she sighed, lowering her wand until it was between them.

Harry looked over his mother’s face.  Her hair was blonde, falling in tresses down her back.  Her skin was pale, her eyes an ocean blue.  However, the left side of her face was scarred with black veins as if the blood had turned to black ice.  Her entire left side of her neck was similarly covered in black veins and her left hand, which was holding her wand, was scarred with the black veins, her silver vined ring shining against her skin.

“What happened to you?” he asked in desperation.  “Who hurt you?”

She reached out with her right hand and touched his hair.  “Oh, Harrogate.  I did this to myself.”

When he continued to look at her in confusion, she held up her left hand, the wand shining, and turned her hand back and forth so her silver vined ring shone in the wandlight.

“Your ring did that to you?” he asked in horror.

“It was worth it,” she told him into the quiet.  “You were worth it, Harrogate.”

He continued to stare at it, tears forming in his eyes, a ringing in his ears.  Her fingers continued to stroke his hair and he reached for her and carefully hugged his mother for the first time as if she were fragile and he could easily break her.

“Let me take you away from here,” he begged.  “We can go away and be the Gaunts.”

“The magic won’t let me leave,” she apologized.  “I am safe from myself here.”

“You don’t need to be safe from yourself,” Harry said savagely, ripping himself away and looking directly into his mother’s eyes. 

She lifted her left hand, the ugly veins shining in the wandlight.  “The evidence says otherwise, darling.”

“That’s Dad’s fault,” he argued.  “It’s not yours.”

“It’s not your father’s fault,” she told him gently.  “We were in love.  Are in love, or at least I like to think so.”

He sighed and hugged her close again.  “He still loves you, Mother,” he promised.  “He never stopped loving you.”

She pulled away and traced his face with her fingers.  “You look so much like him.  My Harrogate.  But you went to London yesterday.  Did you and Magnolia get your rings?”

His stomach clenched at the thought of what had happened to his mother, and he lifted up his left hand.  “Magnolia’s has sapphires.  It looks like our eyes.”  His derision must have shown in his voice because she ran her fingers slowly down his cheek.

Carefully, his mother inspected the vined ring and smiled at him sadly.  “Everything is as it should be.  The next generation is taking its place.”  She sighed and reached up to brush his hair out of his face.  “I hadn’t expected to meet you until you turned seventeen.”

“My father is a marauder. I have other ideas.”

“Ah, yes, the marauders,” she laughed.  “Those misfits.”

He looked at her imploringly.  “Won’t you tell me what happened?”

“You’re cold—”

“Please, Mother.”

She sighed.  Placing an arm around his shoulders, she led him through the garden to the side door Harry had noticed and into an antechamber that had a stairway leading upward. 

“Is this where they keep you?”

“This is my home, Harrogate.  I was born on the grounds, as were you.”

He looked down at her.  She was reasonably tall, but not as tall as him or even Magnolia. 

There was a small bench to the side, and she led him over to it before casting heating and drying charms on both of them. 

“Your father didn’t notice me until after he was married—” she began carefully.  “He was an Auror and he had business at Hogwarts.”

Harry looked at her in shock.

“He was two years above me,” she explained.  “Both he and—Lily—were.” She said Lily’s name carefully. 

“Aunt Aloysia told me you tore up all the lilies the day Dad married her.”

“I did,” she agreed with a smile, as if in a private memory.  “Uncle Marvolo was so angry.  Lilies were his mother’s favorite.  There are still no lilies in the garden.  I won that argument.”  Her ocean blue eyes flashed.  “—James came and I was a sixth year, but seventeen.  He was recently married.  I believe he had a baby on the way.  Jonathan, from your letters.”

Harry nodded.

“Of all the names for that witch to name a pureblood’s heir—Jonathan!”  She rolled her eyes.  “I’ll never understand her.—I was already in love with James.  I had been for years.  He was on the grounds and he saw me calm the Whomping Willow.”  She smiled at Harry.  “Apparently it was love at first sight.”

Harry stared at her.  “You managed to—”

“It’s easy.  There’s a spot that you press—”

“I know,” Harry agreed.  “No one but Remus Lupin is supposed to know.”

She looked at him in amusement.  “It’s not that difficult to figure out if you like flowers and trees.  You notice I have a garden.”  His mother looked at him knowingly.  “He then would come to see me.  I should have cared that he was married, but the Wizengamot is sympathetic to purebloods.  He took me out for a Hogsmeade weekend my seventh year and asked me to run away with him—we were going to run away.  We went to Harrogate—”  She smiled sadly at Harry.  “The ring did nothing to me at first.  I snuck back to Riddle House to get my dog, and that’s when it occurred—the conception.”  She looked away then.  “Uncle Marvolo found me convulsing on the floor.  The ring had done its worst.  I was in St. Mungo’s for months until they realized what had happened.”  She reached out and cupped his cheek.  “Magic protected you, my darling.  James didn’t realize that I hadn’t backed out until Uncle Marvolo placed you in his arms.  I haven’t had contact with the outside world since I left James in Harrogate.  To this day I don’t know how long he waited.”

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted.  “He never told me.  When he told me—” He licked his lips nervously, “that Lily wasn’t my mum, he said you were in seclusion.”

“Which is the truth,” she agreed.  “How I should have liked to have seen you grow up, my little magician.”

Harry smiled at her sadly.  “I always knew, deep down, Lily wasn’t my mum.  She would always look at me differently.  I could never call her, ‘mum.’”

“Which was wrong of her,” she told him firmly.  “All pureblood children should be treasured.—But I am glad you are all mine and I don’t have to share you with her.”

Harry bit his lip.  “Dad’s coming.”

His mother looked at him cautiously.

“Aunt Aloysia invited him for dinner, supposedly to see the family tree.”

“It is just like Uncle Marvolo to want to combine both Gaunt lines,” she mused.  “I would not doubt that he initially put the idea in your Magnolia’s head.  That man is obsessed with blood purity.”

Harry looked up at her in question.

“Have you never wondered how his face got the way it did?”

“Magnolia doesn’t know.”

“Hmm,” she wondered.  “His father was not—correct, I’m not sure how.  Riddle, though, by all accounts is not Sacred Twenty-Eight.  Then again, neither is Potter.  Uncle Marvolo purified his blood and he did it to such an extent that he purged everything that was Riddle about himself.  His hair.  The shape of his eyes.  His nose.  All that’s left is the color of his eyes—which is pure Gaunt.  Tell me, does Magnolia look like me or does she resemble someone else entirely?  Aloysia perhaps?”

“She looks like no one in the family except perhaps for her eyes.”

His mother hummed again.  “She must take after the Riddles then.  I wonder how Uncle Marvolo took that when he first realized.”

A clock sounded the hour.

His mother squeezed his hand.  “It is time for you and I to be in bed.”

Harry looked at her desperately, sure that some magic was at work.  “I will come again,” he promised.

“I will not hold it against you if you cannot,” she told him, leaning forward and kissing his forehead.  “I love your letters, my darling.”  And then with a swish of robes, she had flown up the stairs until the end of the hour had sounded, leaving Harry all alone with only her cloak.