Excentryke's Musings

The Dark Lord’s Daughter

Part the Fifteenth

“How is Lady Maia?”

Harry startled and turned around.  He was looking out the window at the snowdrifts in Wiltshire to where Magnolia, Lacerta, and Iolanthe were engaged in a snowfight.

“I thought you believed children got underfoot,” Harry answered, trying not to show his nervousness.

Lord Roman stepped up next to him to look out the window.  “They are children, aren’t they?  Why aren’t you out playing, Harrogate?”

Harry looked over at him.  Roman seemed like a much younger version of his brother, Lord Malfoy.  His hair was the same platinum blond, though cut to the shoulders, his eyes an unearthly violet color.  He was built more like a swimmer than a boxer.  He was undoubtedly all pureblood elegance.

“You’re our age,” Harry guessed carefully, and Roman turned to him, smirking.

“I’m a decade older.  I was out of Hogwarts for at least three years before you entered.  I’m the youngest of Abraxas’ children.”

“Madeleine Kingsley,” Harry remembered, “Uncle Lucius, Aunt Aloysia—”

“And then me,” he agreed.

“Why didn’t Uncle Marvolo marry Madeleine?” Harry asked carefully, keeping his eyes on the witches playing happily in the snow.  “I know he and Uncle Abraxas wanted to join their two households…?”

He turned to Roman in question.

Roman looked back, arching an eyebrow.  “You are the clever one.  As far as I know Draco, Lacerta, and naturally little Io have never questioned it.  Magnolia certainly has never questioned it.”

“I question my parents all the time.”

“And well you should,” Roman agreed.  “There is a great deal to question.”  He sighed.  “Madeleine was brought up with the Dark Lord as her uncle.  When she was presented with a marriage proposal, she could not reconcile the idea of marriage to how she saw her beloved uncle.  Aloysia was brought up with the knowledge from a very young age that she would always marry the Dark Lord, so she never questioned it.”

“Smart,” Harry murmured, watching as Io launched herself, laughing, at Magnolia.  When silence fell between them, Harry answered Roman’s original question, “I’m trying to convince Mother to move to Grimmauld Place when I’m of age.”

“Is she in seclusion?” Roman asked carefully, turning toward him.

Harry caught his eye.  “Yes.  That does not mean she needs to be in seclusion at Grimmauld Place.”

“Has James Potter agreed to sign your petition?”  His voice was light, uncaring, but Harry knew it was a serious question.

“Everyone’s signed it.  Dad’s signed it to give me permission to give up the Potter name, Uncle Marvolo has signed it to give me permission to use the Gaunt name, Mother has signed it to give me her blessing to use her name, Magnolia has signed it to give her consent as my future wife, Aunt Aloysia has signed it for form—”

“How did that come about, by the way?” Roman wondered aloud, looking back out at the witches, who had now been joined by Draco, who had taken Io’s side against Lacerta and Magnolia.  “How did the Dark Lord’s precious daughter’s eye land on you?”

“She’s a Gaunt—I’m a Gaunt—Gaunts marry other Gaunts—”

“Dear me,” Roman sighed.  “How terribly pureblooded of you.  I always thought if she were blonde, she would marry Draco, but her coloring is rather unfortunate.”

“Draco is rather happy with Genevieve Selwyn.”

“Sacred Twenty-Eight.  Lucius will be pleased.”  He looked at Harry from the corner of his eye.  “You’ve had four months.  What did you think of my proposal?”

Harry turned to him, stunned.  “You mean the kiss you stole?”

Roman elegantly shrugged.  “’Stole’ is such a harsh word.”

“I’m engaged—”

“What does that matter?”

“You can guess what happened to my mother.  How can you think it doesn’t matter?”

The playful expression on Roman’s face softened.  He took Harry in and asked, quite sincerely, “Is she very badly hurt?”

“Yes,” Harry told him carefully.  “Mother was in a magical coma for the three years after my birth.  She’s badly scarred and she can barely use her left hand—her wand hand.”

Roman closed his eyes in sympathy and then reopened them.  “I did not know.”  He returned his attention to the cousins who were playing outside.  “I do not think you are a child.  I do not think you’ve been a child for a good many years, and I do not need to marry unlike my elder brother who had to carry on the family title and name.”

Harry realized that somehow Roman had somehow gone into negotiations.

“Lord Roman,” he protested, “I’m engaged—”

“I know, but hear me out.”  He took a deep breath.  “I don’t want you because you’re a Gaunt.  I’ve always been close to the Riddles, of course, but I did not meet you until recently.”  He gave him a small smile.  “I would offer you not just devotion to a bloodline, but a devotion to yourself.”

“You don’t know me—” Harry argued.

“I was enlisted to help keep an eye on your brother Jonathan.  I took a peek at his memories of you, Harrogate.”

Harry blushed in shame.

“None of that,” Roman murmured, lifting Harry’s chin so Harry was looking into his violet eyes.  “I will not protest your marriage; I understand the purpose of it.  I would, however, like to be first in your affections.”

Harry stared at him in astonishment. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Roman murmured as he leaned slightly forward.  Harry was dazed, but he slipped his wand into his hand and held it aloft just as someone shouted—“Roman!”

The curse faded from Harry’s tongue and he turned to see Lord Malfoy standing a few feet away in the hallway.

“I knew you were a dilletante and a rogue, but I did not take you to be a seducer of schoolboys!”

Harry took several steps back.

Lord Malfoy took him in.  “I’m not angry at you, Harrogate, but perhaps you should find yourself somewhere else.”

Nodding, Harry glanced up at Roman before he went down a side hallway and made his ways to the library, shutting the door quickly behind him.  What had Roman been saying?  He needed to talk to his Mother.  This was definitely more than a ring not punishing him.

Of course, Magnolia noticed his peculiar mood.

“I fell asleep in the library and had a weird dream,” he explained away.  “Did you have a good snowball fight?  Who won?”

“Draco and Io, of course,” Magnolia griped.  “Draco always wins.  You should have come out.  With you on our side, we would have been more evenly matched.”

Harry ran a hand over her braids and felt a heavy gaze on them.  He turned and saw Roman staring at them from a chair and looking over a copy of The Daily Prophet.  Harry quickly glanced away, but not before he saw the heat in Roman’s violet eyes.

He got time to speak to his mother privately his last day of Winter Hols.  They had gone, once again, to Grimmauld Place with Aurora, ostensibly for privacy, but also because Harry wanted to make the address feel lived in.

Kreacher was happy to have his pureblood masters back and prepared a rose tea for them with strawberry and cream cheese sandwiches. 

“It’s so nice to see you in the sunlight,” Harry told her as his mother sat in a window seat.

“I get sunlight in my turret room.”

“Indirect sunlight,” he argued.  “You’re too pale.”

“It’s the vined ring—”

“Not completely,” Harry suggested.  “It’s a good sixteen years of no sunlight as well.”  He took a deep breath.  “So, Lord Roman.  What do you think?  I’ve never heard of anyone like him.”

“That’s because it’s not discussed in polite society.  He is offering generous terms.”

Harry looked at her oddly.

“You can have your wife, your address, your children, your line.  He just wants to be first in your affections.  He would have no family or line of his own.  Very good terms.”

“I don’t want terms.”

“No, of course not,” she agreed after a moment, clearly thinking.  “I’m just commenting on Lord Roman.  He wants you desperately.”

That certainly didn’t help matters.

“Then he won’t stop?”

“Once you’re married and make your position clear—that your wife will always be your first priority, he should get the message.”  She took up a sandwich and removed the strawberry to give to Aurora.  “Right now, he has hope because you are only engaged and you haven’t established yourself.  He believes there is room to maneuver.”

“Strange man,” Harry commented.

“I never knew he was a homosexual,” his mother noticed.  “I mean, I never thought of it one way, or the other.  When Aloysia was married, he was barely Hogwarts age.  Ever the charming boy, though.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“You might have been charming, Harrogate,” his mother reminded him.  “We will never know because we did not have the privilege of knowing each other.”

“That is Uncle Marvolo’s fault—” Harry reminded her.

“And your father’s.  Your father never contacted Uncle Marvolo to my knowledge.”

“I should have grown up at Riddle House, with you instead of Dad and Lily,” Harry murmured, reaching out and patting Aurora.  “I don’t pretend that Uncle Marvolo would have been the best influence—but anything would have been Jonathan and Vesper—”

His mother put down her cup.  “You said she wrote you.”

“Yes, I didn’t tell Magnolia.”  He paused for a moment.  “She apologized.  She promised she wouldn’t kiss me again.  She also said she would love me to the end of time and if I ever broke up with Magnolia, she would always be waiting.”  His voice left little in doubt of how he felt.  “I can’t get over that my own sister—”

“But she isn’t your sister.  You were merely raised together.”

“But we were told we had the same dad.”

“True,” his mother agreed.  “But she knew differently, even if you didn’t sense it at the time.  We don’t fault Lord Roman for his attraction to you, even though we may fault how he expresses his attraction.  We should not fault Vesper Snape for her attraction.  Don’t you think that Magnolia has her admirers?  As the Dark Lord’s daughter, she must be inundated with marriage proposals and offers of relationships.  She doesn’t inform you, most likely, because she views these offers as beneath both of you.”

“Then I needn’t tell her about her Uncle Roman,” Harry decided.  “I don’t want to create strife in the family even if they don’t have a relationship.”

His mother looked at him with ocean blue eyes.  “Is that all it is?”

“What else would it be?”

She shrugged.  “I couldn’t begin to guess, Harrogate.  However, I feel it’s somewhat different because Lord Roman is a pureblood.”

They closed up the house until Harry would occupy it the following August, and they walked to the nearest apparition point.  It was better not to floo with Aurora, she tended to get sick, and apparition was much safer.

After Harry had escorted his mother up to her turret tower, the Death Eaters giving Harry and his cloaked companion a wide berth, Harry found he had an owl waiting for him in his bedroom.  His trunk was already packed with only a few last minute items lying around the room.

He didn’t recognize the owl, but he directed it to the owlery after giving it a few owl treats, and took the package from his leg.

The letter read: Harrogate, it is customary to give a witch a ring for an engagement.  Undoubtedly you have some ring in mind for Lady Magnolia.  This is for you for our future relationship for I hold it as no less than a marriage.  RM.

Harry had a sinking feeling in his stomach and opened the box to show an ivory ring with a ruby set in the center in a decidedly masculine ring.  He saw a flash in the inside of the ring and looked at it to see that it was inscribed, Roman Tiberius Malfoy.

How did Roman Malfoy think any engaged or married wizard would wear such a ring?  It boggled the mind.

Carefully he folded the letter into the box with the ring, and he put it into the darkest corner of his trunk where he would hopefully forget about it.

Harry then made his way down to dinner.

Of course, everyone was gossiping at Platform 9¾ . Vesper Snape had been spotted and everyone knew it.  Draco came into the carriage after his rounds and declared, “I’ve seen her!  She’s sitting with Pavati Patil and Faye Dunbar.”

“Does Vesper like to gossip?” Genevieve asked as she took out a book from her trunk.  “I thought Patil and Brown did nothing but gossip.”

“Brown,” Magnolia added, “if the rumors are to be believed, is dating the Weasley boy.”

“The reserve on the Quidditch team?” Harry asked in interest.  Cormac McLaggen was the regular keeper but he had gotten food poisoning before their last match against Hufflepuff and Weasley had to take over, much to Hufflepuff’s benefit.  “She could do so much better.”

“You know who Brown is?” Magnolia asked him, looking slightly worried.

“Well, no,” Harry admitted.  “But anyone can do better than Weasley.”

Magnolia seemed mollified.

Harry was actually trying to remember what this particular Weasley was called.  He remembered Fred and George, the twins, but after that it was all just a blank.  When he got up to go change, he took the letter from Violet and went in search of the Gryffindor compartments.

They were further along the train, and Violet was definitely with Patil and another witch who must be Dunbar.

“Vesper,” he greeted, opening up the door.  “You can’t send me letters like this.”  He held it out.

“Oh, Harry,” Violet breathed, looking over at Patil.  “You didn’t like my apology?”

“I liked your apology just fine.  It was the rest of it I had a problem with.  Do you honestly want Magnolia Riddle to find this?” He held out the letter again.

She stepped up carefully and took the letter.  “No,” she agreed carefully.  “I wouldn’t want your girlfriend perhaps reading it.”

“Then you promise not to send me any more letters like this.”

Violet looked up at him with onyx eyes.  “Does she read your post?”

Harry stared at her with his ocean gaze.  “Yes,” he admitted.  “You’re lucky she didn’t read this one.”

Looking cowed, Violet clasped the letter to her chest.  “All right, Harry,” she agreed.  “I won’t write you any more letters.”

“Thank you, Vi,” he murmured quietly into her ear, before turning around and leaving. 

He walked down the compartment and took a deep breath.  He felt like an orphan.  His brother was in Azkaban.  His sister was a Snape.  And his father was lost to him.  Harry felt completely out to sea.  The only thing keeping him from losing himself completely was Magnolia Riddle—and she was a nightmare.

Harry took a moment to center himself before he entered the compartment.

Magnolia looked up with a question in her ocean blue eyes and Harry just shrugged it off.  “Where have you been?” she asked a little dangerously.

Harry snuck his arms around her gently and rested his chin on her shoulder, curled in on her.  “Vesper sent me a—letter she shouldn’t have.  I scared her into never sending me another.”

Magnolia pulled back and took Harry’s face in her hands.  “You Slytherin, you,” she complimented, leaning her forehead up against his.  “I shan’t ask what you did.  Knowing that you did it is enough.”

Holding himself back from releasing her too soon, Harry simply held her there in the compartment. 

They hit the ground running when they reached Hogwarts with their N.E.W.T. works, but there seemed to be some internal conflict in Gryffindor.  Both Harry and Draco had wandered into internal skirmishes, two involving both Violet and Ginny Weasley, and one got so bad that Draco reported it to Professor Snape.

“Ginny Weasley and Vesper are dueling in the corridors?” Snape asked.  “Why?”

“We don’t know, sir,” Draco answered.  “We’ve just caught them at it enough times to know there is a definite problem.”

Snape sighed and looked over what seemed to be a schedule. He called to one of the portraits on the wall and demanded he find him a student immediately.  Then, of course, they had to wait for the student, and then they had to wait for both Vesper Snape and Ginny Weasley to be found.

“So,” Snape asked them, “why are you dueling?”

The Weaslette turned red and looked away, but Violet just looked determinedly at her father.

“No takers?” Snape wheedled.  “Is this about young wizards?”

At this, the Weaslette’s head snapped around.

“I see that I’m right.  Well, Miss Weasley, you are going with Blaise Zabini and have been for nearly a year.  Vesper, your romantic affiliations have been star-crossed so far, but hopefully you will have better luck in the future.”

The Weaslette snorted.

Draco rolled his eyes.

“Do you have something to say?” Snape demanded of her carefully.

“She’ll never have any luck if all she does is fancy her brothers,” the Weaslette put in unkindly.  “Thing is, she wishes everyone the same unluck she has.—Just because Blaise is in Slytherin doesn’t mean he’ll drop me.”

Harry was beginning to see the problem.  Violet was attributing Harry’s rejection of her to his placement in Slytherin House.

“Jonathan would have rejected you just as strongly, Vesper, and he’s in Gryffindor.”

“He’s my brother,” she argued back.

“We thought I was, too,” he told her simply.  “You seem to wipe our whole childhood clean and forget the fact that we grew up in the same house, and that you liked hexing me when we were children—”

“I only wanted—”

“For me to notice you, yes.  Bad way of going about it.”  He shrugged his shoulders.  “Leave the Weaslette and Zabini alone.  Just because you’re unhappy in love, does not mean they’re unhappy in love.”

The Weaslette looked up at him in shock.  And well she might.  Harry was never the champion for the Weasleys.  He was, however, the architect of this romantic situation, and he was going to see it through. 

“Zabini is very happy in love,” Draco added for emphasis.  He was no doubt thinking of the potion they were feeding the Weaslette.

“I think,” Snape said, “this is now a conversation for me, my daughter, and Mr. Potter.”  His onyx eyes flashed up to the Weaslette and Draco.  “You both are dismissed.”

Harry felt slightly uncomfortable as his friend filed out, but remained where he was leaning up against a couch.  Violet looked torn from where she was standing, but Snape ushered her to sit down on the settee and poured them each a glass of pumpkin juice.

“Why, Vesper, do you insist on holding onto this futile crush?” Snape asked her.  “I told you how hopeless it was with me and Lily—”

“But you’ve been having an affair with her for sixteen years—” Violet put in, clearly continuing a conversation they had already had many times before.

“Which is not a position I want for you.  Lily is—was—married.  She had children by another man.  I always came fourth in her affections after you, Jonathan, and James Potter.”  (Harry noticed his name was conspicuously absent from that list) “And that was with a childhood friendship in place.  You have no such common ground with Harrogate Potter—”

“We grew up together—”

“Happily?” Snape asked her.  He turned to Harry, “Did you have a happy childhood, Harrogate?  Do you have any happy memories of Vesper?”

“No.  The only happiness I had was writing to my mother.”

Violet looked up to him in shock.

“Don’t look at me like that, Vesper.  You knew Jonathan was cruel to me.  You knew Lily neglected me.  You did everything you could to walk in their footsteps.”

“I thought if you just noticed me,” she murmured, tears beginning to fill in her onyx eyes.

“Then perhaps you should have been kind.  Then I would have felt more than just a tenuous familial obligation to you,” Harry told her flat out.  “I don’t want you, Vesper.  I have no tender feelings toward you.  I see you and I see my horrible little sister.  You’re a symbol of how my dad betrayed my mother.  I hate you.”  His ocean blue eyes flashed darkly.  There.  He’d said it to her face.  There was no way she could get around it.  “Now, I’ll always be polite to you because you’re Professor Snape’s daughter, but that is about the extent of it.”

Violet’s chin quivered, but he frankly didn’t care.

He set down his empty pumpkin juice and thanked Snape before standing.

“This has to end, Vesper.  This really has to end.  If I have to matchmake you with someone to make it end, then I’ll set someone on the task, but this ends now, today.”

Violet nodded into her pumpkin juice.

Harry turned from them and walked out the door, hoping this was finally an end to it. 

“Let’s match Vesper with someone just to get her off my back,” he suggested not two hours later in the Slytherin Common Room.

Genevieve looked up and grimaced.

“Cormac McLaggen,” Draco suggested right off.  “I don’t think matching her with a Slytherin will help.  McLaggen is a pureblood.”

“She’s not Quidditch mad,” Harry answered carefully.

“But Jonathan was Quidditch mad,” Magnolia reminded him.  “So are you.”

“I’m not Quidditch mad.  I just enjoy the game.”

She looked up at him indulgently and ran her fingers down his cheek.  It felt like a warning.  “If you say so.”

A letter was sent to McLaggen with a meeting time in the library for the next day and Genevieve asked to tag along because she was in McLaggen’s year.  Magnolia disliked Violet in the extreme and so chose to have nothing to do with the matter, though she supported Harry entirely in his pursuit to rid himself of his youngest sister’s admiration.

McLaggen was a good looking wizard with wiry blond hair and bright green eyes.  According to Draco, his family was big in the Ministry.

“Malfoy,” McLaggen greeted, taking Draco’s hand firmly in a handshake.  He nodded to Harry and Genevieve.  “I was surprised by your note.”

“McLaggen,” Draco said.  “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”

“Well, I tried to take Granger out to Hogsmeade—” (This certainly surprised Harry as Hermione was a Muggleborn) “—but she said she was remaining true to your brother, Potter.”  He looked straight at Harry.

“Half-brother,” he corrected nonchalantly, waving a hand as if it meant nothing.  “She mentioned something to me on the subject, of her and Jonathan.  I told her to take all the time she needed to decide.  Jonathan isn’t going anywhere after all, and it’s not as if he can make demands on her time.”

Draco, however, moved in.  “That surprises me, though, McLaggen.  A Muggleborn.”  (Here, Harry was surprised that Draco didn’t call Hermione a ‘Mudblood.’). “I thought your family was about purity of blood.”

“They are,” McLaggen agreed, “to a certain extent.  It is only one needs a little practice now and again.”

Harry was startled and looked down at McLaggen’s middle finger where he was not wearing a vined ring.  He exchanged a look with Genevieve.

“I wanted to do a favor for the witch who was brought up as my sister,” Harry began carefully, “Vesper Snape.  She’s having trouble adjusting.”

“What?  You want to give her a boyfriend?” McLaggen asked.

“She always followed me and Jonathan playing Quidditch,” Harry said by way of explanation.  “She doesn’t fly herself, but it is an interest of hers—”

“And,” Genevieve put in, “as the daughter of Professor Snape, she can only associate with purebloods now.”

“Snape is Sacred Twenty-Eight, isn’t he?” McLaggen questioned.

“Yes,” Harry put in.  “His mother is a Prince.”

“Shame about Vesper Snape’s mother’s filthy blood—”

“It need not be forever,” Draco wheedled, “just two or three years.  But think of the caché of dating someone Sacred Twenty-Eight.  Plus, Potter here—and Riddle by extension, if she feels like it—will owe you a favor.”

“She does look prettier now the glamours are off her,” McLaggen mused.  “I suppose Snape has rules about dating his daughter.”

Genevieve leaned in.  “You would be going with her, McLaggen, not dating.  Think of that.”

This definitely made his bright green eyes light up.  “I think we have an accord,” he murmured, reaching out a hand to Harry this time.  “Potter.”

“McLaggen,” Harry agreed, shaking his hand.  It was done, then.