magnolia12

The Dark Lord’s Daughter

Part the Twelfth

Barty Crouch Jr. came and found Harry when he was finishing up his N.E.W.T. level essays for sixth year.  Magnolia was elsewhere, having long ago completed her homework for fifth year, so Harry had the whole of the children’s school room to himself.

“Ah, there you are,” Barty said, coming in and closing the door behind him.  “The Dark Lord has a task for you.”

“Really?” Harry asked, finishing up his sentence and then putting down his quill.  “What can I possibly do to help Uncle Marvolo?”

“You had full access to the Order of the Phoenix up to last summer, is that correct?” Barty asked, bringing a piece of parchment over and setting it before Harry.  “How accurate is this list?  We’d also like the names of the incoming members.”

Harry glanced at Barty, noticing he had the grey eyes of a Black, before looking at the list.  “This is outdated.”  He picked up his quill and began crossing out names.

“How outdated?” Barty asked. 

“This would have been accurate when I was four years old!” Harry told him, crossing out another name, pausing and considering, before moving on.  Then he began to scratch in some new names.  Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, for instance.  Fred and George Weasley had certainly signed up as well.  He continued to make notes and when he ran out of room, Harry turned the piece of parchment over and began to use the back side.  He put on Hermione’s name because as Jonathan’s girlfriend, she would have access to Headquarters.

He looked up at Barty.  “I’m not putting Vesper Snape’s name on there, even though she’s been to Headquarters since before she could walk.”

“No,” Barty agreed.  “Of course not.  She was brainwashed.”

“I think she’d say I was the one who was brainwashed,” Harry muttered as he added Ron Weasley’s name to the list with a question mark next to Ginny Weasley, her age (fifteen) written next to her name.  He also included Ilona Lupin, Professor Lupin’s daughter, who was going into seventh year.  Harry had always wondered if she was a werewolf or not.  He put that as a question. No one knew who her mother was, not even the Potters.

He flipped the page back over and scanned the names, checking them.  “I think this is complete, or as complete as I can get it.”

Barty looked over his shoulder and then picked up the parchment.  “This will do very nicely.  Thank you, Harrogate.”

“I don’t know where Headquarters is now that I’ve kicked them all out of Grimmauld Place.”

“Vesper knows,” Barty told him.  “Snape will get her to tell him, one way or another.”

Harry looked at him oddly.  “He will?”

“You don’t trust a father’s love and authority?”

“Not on Vesper, I don’t,” Harry told him, thinking of all those years growing up with Violet.  “James Potter could never control her.”

“I doubt he tried to control her,” Barty argued.  He rolled up the parchment and saluted Harry.  “Thank you, Harrogate.”

“Thank my father.  He’s the one who betrayed me and pushed my hand.”

Barty gave him a sad look.  “I have a father like that,” he admitted.  “I always had to be the perfect son, but he was never there.  Perfect scores, perfect pureblood.  He found Apricot to be wanting even though she was a Selwyn.”  He seemed to be faraway as he said this, as if remembering something. 

“Who could ever find Madam Crouch wanting?” Harry wondered, remembering the woman from the floo.

“Indeed?” Barty agreed.  With that he was gone, leaving Harry to his studies. 

By the end of August, Harry was drafting the petition to the Wizengamot for the following summer for his name to be changed to Gaunt.  Magnolia hovered behind him, changing the wording in several places.  “We need a professional calligrapher,” she decided, when the final draft was decided upon.

“A professional what?” Harry asked.  “What’s wrong with my handwriting?”

She smiled at him and bumped her nose against his in affection, her eyes nonetheless sharp in warning.  “Nothing, Harrogate, but this is a formal petition.  I would suggest Father’s calligrapher, but his handwriting might be recognized.”

“Surely there must be a spare Death Eater,” Harry suggested. 

She thought, her lips pressed firmly together, and then she picked up the parchment and went up to her father’s study.  She breezed right in without knocking, and then stopped, pushing Harry back out the door although he was right behind her.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Mother and Father are in there,” she said by way of explanation.  “We’ll go to Malfoy Manor.”

They were allowed to use the floo indiscriminately, and they fell into the green flames, walking out the other end.  They couldn’t find Draco, even though Iolanthe was off with her tutor.  “Uncle Lucius?” Magnolia called, climbing up several stairs until she was coming up to a door, which showed his private library. 

Harry was allowed to follow Magnolia into this room, and he adjusted his glasses and saw Lord Malfoy in sky blue robes flipping through a book.

“No one seems to be here.”

“No,” he agreed, looking up at Magnolia with a smile.  “No one is at home today, not even me.”

“Is Uncle Roman still a professional calligrapher?” she asked, indicating the parchment in her hand.  “We have our petition for the Wizengamot and need a calligrapher.”

Lord Malfoy looked at the scroll and came and took it from her, opening it up and reading it.  “I’ll see that Roman does it.  You need signature spaces for the two of you and both your parents?”

“Yes,” Magnolia agreed. 

“Who is Roman?” Harry asked the room at large.  “I seem to remember him vaguely from Vesper’s blood magic.”

“Your uncle,” Lord Malfoy told him.  “—your Aunt Aloysia’s younger brother.  There are four of us Malfoy siblings.”

“Oh,” Harry sighed.  “I didn’t realize.”

“Uncle Roman likes his piano music and is often somewhere—else—playing his piano,” Magnolia explained.  “He doesn’t like us children being under foot.”

“No, he certainly doesn’t,” Lord Malfoy agreed, grimacing.  “I don’t think he knows about you, Harrogate, not that it would matter to him.”  He turned to Magnolia.  “Leave this with me.”

Of course, what Harry wasn’t expecting was for the petition to be hand delivered, and on the Hogwarts Express of all places.  He was going to the toilet to change, Magnolia and Genevieve having returned, when a hand came out of a compartment and grabbed him, a large hand coming over his mouth.  Harry dropped his uniform and reached for his wand, but a voice whispered in his ear, “Is that any way to greet family, Harrogate?”

Harry stilled and looked up into the handsome face of a wizard with platinum hair and violet eyes, so like Draco and yet much older.  The wizard carefully lifted his hand off of Harry’s mouth and said, “Are we friends now?”

“I remember you!  Who are you exactly?”

“Roman Malfoy,” the wizard introduced.  “Your uncle, if Lucius is to be believed.”  He looked over Harry carefully from his messy black hair to his tall frame and large feet.  “Although you have no Malfoy blood in you.”

“My Uncle’s wife is a Malfoy,” Harry told him.

“Yes, my dear sister Aloysia,” Roman agreed, sighing to himself.  “I tried to talk her out of that marriage, but she wouldn’t listen to me.  Then again, I was barely a schoolboy at the time.”

“She’s a great friend of my mother’s—” Harry began to explain.

“And who is your excellent mother?” Roman asked.

“Lady Maia Gaunt.”

A hint of sadness entered Roman’s gaze.  “A dear friend.  She was always so kind and sweet.  I danced with her at both Aloysia’s and Lucius’s weddings.”  He looked over Harry again.  “You have Lady Maia’s eyes.—I see now why you want to take the Gaunt name.”

“Magnolia and I want nothing more—” Harry began to explain, but Roman laughed.

“My niece is thinking for you then, is she?” he sighed.  “Sounds like her.”  Roman looked at him again, hard.  “Can you think nothing for yourself that Magnolia or the Dark Lord doesn’t tell you first?  Your father is an Auror!  Surely you have a brain!”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“—what I’m talking about, yes,” Roman agreed, before he grasped Harry’s face with his hands and kissed him full on the lips.

Harry’s vined ring began to hum but only gently vibrated against his skin.  Harry was so stunned by the kiss, he didn’t react for a full moment before he was hitting Roman with a stinging hex straight to the heart.

Roman jolted back, a happy half-smile on his face.  “Anger, good.  At least you feel something.”

“At least I feel something?” Harry parroted back.  “How dare you touch me like that!” Harry roared, hitting Roman with a slicing hex across his chest and drawing blood.  “What is wrong with you?”

“Oh, nothing much is wrong with me, other than daring to think outside of the Death Eater box,” he claimed, rushing to the window and opening it up.  “Enjoy your petition, Harrogate!” he called before falling out the window and into the air below. 

Harry ran across the compartment to see where he fell, but saw nothing but empty train tracks.

Breathing heavily, he slid closed the window and touched his lips hesitantly.  Harry could still feel the pressure where Roman had kissed him.  How did his vined ring not punish him?  How was that even possible?  Shaking off his confusion, Harry bent down and picked up the petition and opened it, seeing the beautiful calligraphy that only needed the magical signatures of everyone involved.  He’d collect those during Winter Hols. 

He left to go get changed into his uniform.

When he came back to the compartment, he was clearly still out of sorts because Magnolia asked him about it.  “Oh, nothing, just Lord Roman,” he said, holding up the petition.  “He got on the train and gave it to me.”

“Oh wonderful,” Magnolia declared, picking it up and admiring the calligraphy.  “I told you he was the best.”

“I’ll get Dad to sign it and if he gets cold feet, I’ll entice him with Mother being in the same house for a sense of occasion.  Emotional blackmail.”  It was the least he could do.

“Good thought,” Genevieve agreed from where she was sitting, now a seventh year prefect.  “Obviously get Lady Maia’s permission first.”

“Obviously,” Harry agreed, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.

“I wonder that Uncle Roman didn’t come see any of us,” Draco wondered.  “He doesn’t much like any of us, but there are Malfoys and Riddles on this train.”

“He seemed—strange,” Harry hesitantly commented.

“What did he do?  Say you weren’t thinking for yourself?” Draco laughed.  “He’s always saying that.”

“Glad I’m not the only one he says that to.  He claimed the whole petition was Magnolia’s idea.”

Magnolia looked up with her ocean blue eyes.  “It was, initially.  I hope you want it, too.”  Strangely, she sounded like she didn’t care, one way or another.

“I don’t want any connection with Jonathan,” Harry declared.  “I know he’ll probably be convicted of attempted rape and get two years in Azkaban later this Autumn, but I don’t want to be confused with the blighter.”  He looked down at his Gaunt ring on his right pinkie finger.  His dad wore the Potter ring, much to Lily’s chagrin.

“When’s the trial?” Genevieve asked Magnolia.

“November.”

“It’s a slam dunk.” This was Harry.  “As soon as they had my memory evidence, Jonathan was arrested.  The trial is just a formality.”  He reached for Magnolia, seeking her approval, and interlaced his fingers with hers.  “We’re eradicating the Potters.  Jonathan Potter will be in prison.  I will be a Gaunt.  And Violet is now Vesper Snape.”

“Who’s she sitting with?”  Genevieve looked about the cabin.  “I didn’t see her on rounds.”

“Neither did I,” Magnolia agreed, having been made fifth year Slytherin prefect.

“I did,” Draco said.  “She was with Granger and the Weaslette and Patil.  They seemed to be having an argument.”

“Patil wouldn’t be seen dead with Granger—and probably not the Weaslette,” Genevieve declared.  “The Patils, while always polite, are blood purists.”

“Then why would she be seen with Vesper?” Harry asked, remembering Violet and Pavati Patil being together at James and Lily’s kidnapping trial.  “Vesper is and always has been a half-blood.”

“But she’s the right sort of half-blood now,” Draco drawled disinterestedly.  “She’s Professor Snape’s daughter.  Her grandmother was Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

Harry bit the inside of his cheek.  Despite having spent several holidays with the Riddles and the Malfoys, it still didn’t seem right to him.  His Potter blood was just as clean, thank you very much, and Professor Snape was a half-blood, even if he was masquerading as a pureblood.

Changing the subject, Harry pointed out, “Iolanthe is a first year this year.”

“Yes,” Draco agreed proudly.  “I say Slytherin, but Lacerta says Hufflepuff.”

Magnolia scoffed.  “Slytherin surely.  She has everyone wrapped around her little finger.”

Draco looked down at his left hand where a diamond and onyx vined ring crawled up his middle finger up to the nail.  “She certainly has me wrapped around hers,” he laughed.

The four friends laughed together and ate sweets for the remainder of the trip, and they all shared a horseless carriage up to the castle.

If Draco was a little nervous about his sister being sorted, Harry, Magnolia, and Genevieve kept up the conversation until the first years appeared with Professor McGonagall, and Draco pointed out little Io to Genevieve, even though Harry was almost positive Genevieve had been invited to Malfoy Manor at least once over the Summer Hols.

They had to slog through the A’s and the B’s, and then the C’s, and there were quite a few F’s, but then the L’s were done and Professor McGonagall called out, “Malfoy, Iolanthe!”

Iolanthe, with her golden braid and grey eyes, shot up at the sound of her name and came over to sit on the stool.  McGonagall dropped the hat over her head and it completely covered her face, coming to rest on her shoulders.

“Hmm, here’s an interesting one,” the hat laughed before it began its deliberations.

At the ten minute mark, Draco was so antsy that Genevieve had to lay her hand on his shoulder, but still the hat sat there, making faces with poor little Genevieve lost to sight.  Finally, the hat said, “Yes, that is a consideration.  Are you sure?  You know you could be very happy in—Well, then, if you think so.  Better be—SLYTHERIN!”

Draco jumped up on his feet and began cheering, and the rest of the friends weren’t far behind him, all clapping and shouting for joy.

The hat was taken off of Genevieve’s head and she looked so relieved and happy as she jumped off the stool and ran toward the Slytherin table, almost tripping over herself in her haste. 

“I have to write Father!” Draco declared at the end of feast.  “Io should be allowed to get settled into the dorm, but I’ll write Father and let him know.—Magnolia, could you write Uncle Marvolo?  He should be told as well.”

Magnolia opened up her mouth, but Harry interjected.  “Magnolia has prefect duties.  I’ll write Uncle Marvolo and Mother, as well—she will surely like to know.”

“Wonderful!” Draco declared.

The evening was spent by the fire with Harry and Draco letter writing, Little Io happily chatting with the first years and even hugging her “Uncle Sev” when he came to greet the new students.

There was much talk of Violet in the dungeons that night as everyone had heard through the grapevine about her kidnapping and everyone wanted to get the story straight.  That meant everyone came to Harry, as her supposed half-brother.

“Why isn’t she in Slytherin?” Peregrine Everett asked.  “As Professor Snape’s daughter she has right of place—”

“I think it was thought,” Harry said carefully, “that the hat put her in Gryffindor for a reason and she had so much bad blood with the Slytherins, with hexing firsties, for instance, that she would be safer there.”

“She would be safe here,” Annabelle Thornthwaite declared.  “We would never hurt a Snape.”

“But will she stop hurting us?” Januarius Montague wondered aloud, which is what Harry had wondered himself.  “What if she’s resentful of Professor Snape for sending her mother to Azkaban?”

Harry’s eyes met Rowle’s and he knew their thoughts traveled down a similar path.

It was about six days into term when Harry found Iolanthe crying with a huge blister on her cheek.  They were down a side corridor, and Harry took her face in his hands and turned it to see the bruise.  “Who did that to you?” he demanded.  When she said nothing, he sighed and got down on his knees so that he was more her height.  “I won’t tell Draco right away if you don’t want me to, but I need to know who’s hurting you.  If they’re hurting you, they could be hurting other firsties or second years.”

“No,” she whispered, “I think it’s just me.”

“What grudge does he have against you specifically?  You’ve been here less than a week!”

She bit her lip but didn’t say anything.

“Does he know the Malfoys?”

Iolanthe nodded her head.

“Then I definitely need to know.  He should have taken up his problem with Draco or with me or with Magnolia—not with you.  You’re eleven.  Now tell me, who did this to you?”

Iolanthe looked to the side and Harry thought she wasn’t going to answer again.  Then she leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Vesper Snape.”

Harry looked her in the eye.  “Is she trying to send a message to Draco or to the Professor?”

Iolanthe bit her lip.

Harry sighed and put his hand at the small of her back.  “Come with me.”  He led her down to Snape’s office and knocked on the door.  Fortunately, it was after hours and fortunately he was in.  “This is a message from your daughter,” Harry greeted, leading Iolanthe in.

Snape looked down at Iolanthe and then held her chin to the side to see the blister.  “A stinging hex,” he concluded, going to a shelf and taking down a salve.  “Rub this in now, before going to sleep, and then once you wake up.  If it’s not gone, come see me at lunch.”

“Thank you, Professor,” she whispered, curtseying to him. 

He smiled at her.  “Now go while I speak to your cousin.  Tell your brother I wish to see him.”

Draco appeared not twenty minutes later.  “What happened to Io’s cheek?  She said to ask you.”

“Vesper,” Snape told him outright while offering him a seat.  “Mr. Potter said it was a message for me.”

“According to Io,” Harry stipulated.  “When I found her, that’s what she said.—or didn’t say.”

Draco swore under his breath.  “We cannot let this go unpunished.”

“I ask that you let me talk to her first, and that you do it here so that I can treat her immediately afterward.”

“That takes the element of surprise away,” Draco complained, although he did not outright refuse. 

“Are you sure we should give her the illusion of special treatment?” Harry asked, looking over at his professor.  “I know she’s your daughter, but you’ve had her for a month.  I’ve had her my entire life.  She’s spoilt and entitled.  She’ll hex me one week and come crying to me the next. I don’t want to make her entitlement worse.”

“It is true that James Potter indulged her as did—Lily,” Snape agreed carefully.  “That is why I am not asking you not to show the full retribution of Slytherin House.”  He took a deep breath and held it.  “Although I hate to make a comparison, Vesper is like a badly trained Abraxan.  She needs to be broken before she can be retaught.”

This analogy certainly startled Harry and he looked over at Draco who had grown up with Pegasi his entire life. 

“I want to question her myself,” Draco decided.  “Io is my sister.  I offered her the full hospitality of Malfoy Manor.  And this is how she decides to repay me?”  He paused.  “Harrogate will stand surety.”

Harry didn’t like the sound of that, but he wasn’t going to refuse.

“Very well,” Snape agreed, standing and going to a portrait in the corner of the room. 

Snape distributed glasses of elven wine while they waited, but a heavy cloak of silence settled over the three wizards.  Harry could feel the shadows lengthen even though there were no windows in some strange form of magic, and then Violet finally arrived.

“You can’t just call me when you want, Uncle Severus,” she demanded when she entered the room, “just because you’re my father.”

“I can call you whenever I like as your professor, Vesper,” Snape argued back, his black eyes flashing.  “Now what is this I hear from Iolanthe Malfoy?”

Draco turned his head toward her to take in her tightly wound frame, her clenched jaw, her strawberry blonde hair falling down her shoulders.  “Why that little—”

“What?” Harry asked.  “You think she wouldn’t say anything?”  He took a sip of his elven wine.  “She didn’t.”

“Then how did you—?”

“I know you, Vesper,” he told his once-sister.  “I know your patterns.  I know your handiwork.  You love casting stinging hexes on first year Slytherins.”  He glanced over his shoulder at her, his ocean blue gaze meeting her onyx one.  “You should really mix it up a bit if you don’t want to get caught.”

“Well, thanks for the advice, Harry—”

“Harrogate,” Snape corrected.  “We’ve had this discussion before.  In pureblood culture we use wizard’s correct names.  Mr. Potter is ‘Harrogate.’”  He looked at her firmly.  “But that is neither here nor there. What possessed you to attack the sister of one of your summer companions?”

“She’s a Slytherin—”

Snape held up his hand.  “That excuse no longer works for you, Vesper.  We’ve discussed your mother’s and brother’s prejudices.  You should not be holding yourself to such bigoted standards.”

“It’s tradition in Gryffindor to—”

“Then,” Snape said, “I will be petitioning the governors to remove you from such a house.  We’ve had this discussion before.”

“No!” Violet gasped.  “You cannot.  It’s my home!—My friends.—”

“Miss Patil will still be friends with you if you are in Slytherin, I am sure,” Snape placated.  “Now,” he stood, “I’ll be in the next room.”  He pointed his wand at Violet and murmured Expelliarmus! Her wand flying from her sleeve into his grasp.  “Don’t do too much damage, gentlemen.”

Harry wanted to groan.

This seemed almost antiseptic and he disliked it immeasurably.

Snape strode from the room, leaving a slightly terrified Violet behind him.  Draco stood with his wand in his hand.  “A stinging hex for a stinging hex,” he suggested.  Violet turned and ran in the other direction, but Draco caught her in the knee and she tripped, catching herself with her elbow.  Draco shot another hex out of his wand, this time catching her shoulder, and she slumped forward, trying to get away from the pain.

Harry watched dispassionately as his sister was tortured, not contributing, but toppling a chair she tried to climb up at one point.

When Draco had finally seemed to have enough, Harry went and got Professor Snape before he left the room, his stomach feeling slightly sour.

“You weren’t much help,” Draco noticed. 

“No.  She was trapped.  I don’t crush wingless birds,” he murmured, walking down the corridor before taking a corner.

Draco made a sound in the back of his throat.  “It’s so much easier that way.”

“Is it supposed to be easy?” Harry asked sincerely.

“Perhaps not,” Draco agreed up to a point.  “It can be fun.”

Harry looked at him out of the corner of his eye.  “How far would you have taken it?”

“Honor would only allow so far—”

But Harry knew that was only a non-answer.  There would be situations when honor would not be in play, when Muggles and not wizarding children would be the targets.  How far would Draco go then?  How long would the torture last?  How creative would it be?  Would Draco forgo his wand and use his hands and other natural talents?  Would he sully his blood to punish a Muggle and leave a child behind?  Would his ring let him?

Harry’s ring had let Lord Roman kiss him—how? why?  He still didn’t know.  It confused him.  Lord Roman could never be his husband, so it could not be that… then what?

A letter to The Pumpkin Carriage was in order.