The Dark Lord’s Daughter
Part the Sixteenth
Draco got a copy of The Daily Prophet. Harry rarely paid attention. He was not really a morning person before his first two cups of milky tea, and if there was anything of interest, Draco would tell him.
Harry couldn’t help but notice, however, when his brother Jonathan’s face was splashed across the front page.
“What is that?” he demanded.
Draco looked it over and then gasped. “He’s escaped from Azkaban!”
“Azkaban? Escaped?” Magnolia questioned. “That’s impossible!”
Harry grabbed the paper directly out of Draco’s hands and began to read. No one knew how it was done. Jonathan had been found missing in his cell the day before and he could have been gone for up to a week.
“Do you think he swam?” Harry asked in confusion.
“Must have,” Draco agreed, grabbing the paper back. “The only way to or from the prison is by boat.”
Harry groaned. If Jonathan was out, he’d be gunning for Harry—and quite possibly Magnolia. Thinking of her, Harry grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“He can’t come here,” Draco was now saying. “It would be suicidal.”
Harry glanced up. “When has Jonathan not been suicidal?” The very thought of his brother being out made him feel sick to his stomach. “He’s stupid and reckless and—”
Magnolia put a calming hand on his arm. “I’ll write Father.”
What’s he going to do? Harry wanted to demand, but he didn’t voice his concerns.
He took a deep breath and poured himself another cup of tea.
Violet purposefully got him alone the next day, after the Dementors arrived.
“Why do you think the Dementors are here?” Violet asked, her onyx eyes wide and scared.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Harry told her. “He threatened Magnolia, and I put him in prison for her. He now has a vendetta against us. If we have to, we’ll go behind the Fidelius of Riddle House and get tutors until he is caught.” He smiled sadly at the witch who used to be his little sister. “He won’t hurt you, Vi.”
“But he’s sure to be angry at me. I’m Professor Snape’s daughter!”
“That’s not your fault,” Harry told her firmly, taking her by the shoulders. “It’s Lily’s fault for having an affair with Professor Snape. You’re the innocent victim in all this. And you’re still Jonathan’s little sister. You have the same mum. He’s never going to hurt you.”
She bit her lip worriedly. “Can I come with you?”
“No, Vi. It’s better you stay here. As I said, Jonathan is never going to hurt you.”
Tears formed in her eyes and she threw herself into his arms, crying. Harry carefully ran his fingers through her hair like he did the time she had a nightmare when they were small children, and she’d come to him instead of to Lily and James.
“He’s not going to hurt you,” he promised, again and again. “Jonathan’s never going to hurt you.”
Harry was aware of her calming down, but then he realized—at some point—she had fallen asleep in his arms. Casting a featherweight charm on her, he picked her up in his arms and carried her in the general direction of the Gryffindor Tower, although he’d never been there.
“Thomas!” he called out, seeing the student up ahead. Harry hurried up and caught up to him. “Vi was upset and fell asleep. I thought I’d get her back to Gryffindor Tower.”
Thomas looked down at her and his face softened. “She was scared when the Dementors arrived.”
“Aren’t we all?” Harry agreed, following Thomas who led him into a bright red Common Room. Harry found a couch and stared down a couple of firsties who were sitting on it before laying Violet down on the crimson cushions. He summoned a quilt from her dorm and tucked her in, before asking Dean to watch over her until she naturally woke.
When he got back to the Slytherin dungeons, Magnolia asked, “Have a good time with Snape?” with a certain meanness to her voice.
“She cried herself to sleep,” Harry answered honestly, coming and sitting down with a bounce. “I never knew her to be the girly type to cry.”
Magnolia looked up at him through her lashes. “She cried herself to sleep?”
“She’s scared Jonathan will be angry at her for not being a Potter, and the Dementors don’t help.”
“You shouldn’t indulge her,” Magnolia told him straight out. “She’s not a Potter.”
“No, but she was.”
“You’re not going to even be a Potter in a couple of months,” she reminded him.
Harry did a double take and looked into her ocean blue eyes. “You will no longer be a Riddle. Are you supposed to forget your father and mother?”
“My father is a Gaunt—”
“Of course,” Harry griped. “One standard for you, and another for me. I must cut off my right arm, but I can’t even question when your cheek flickers.”
“It was the light—
“—flicker of light, yes, yes,” Harry agreed, getting up and letting his eyes rake over Magnolia’s face. He was lost for words. He turned away and went toward the boys’ dormitories.
“Harrogate!” she called. “Don’t walk away from me.”
He kept on walking.
“Harrogate!”
He ignored her and took the winding steps down toward the sixth year dormitory. Sitting on his bed, he looked at the photographs of his family and picked up the group photograph of his mother and her friends.
Less than two minutes later, he heard someone follow him into the dormitories, and he put the picture down. He looked up to see it was Draco.
“Come to check up on me?”
“You know walking out on Magnolia is not the smartest idea you’ve had today—and that includes letting Vesper Snape cry all over you.”
Harry blinked at him and dropped his head on his pillow, lifting his legs up onto the bedspread.
“What? Nothing?” Draco asked.
“Have you ever noticed that Magnolia seems to be wearing a glamour of some sort?”
Draco paused, as if considering. “All right, I’ll bite. Why would the most beautiful girl in Slytherin have to wear a glamour?”
“That’s what I’d like to know before I marry her.”
Draco dragged a hand over his face. “I don’t think Magnolia is wearing a glamour.”
“That’s what I would have said about Vesper until I took the glamours off of her.” He pushed himself up so he could look at Draco. “I was right about Vesper, and I’m right about Magnolia.”
Draco came and sat down on the edge of the bed. “You can’t just shove a wand in her face, and expect her not to defend herself.”
“No,” Harry agreed. “I also don’t like her controlling every aspect of my life. Vi was my little sister. How I interact with her when she’s scared and alone is my business, not Magnolia’s. I don’t question her closeness with you.”
“I haven’t kissed her,” Draco argued.
“No,” Harry agreed. “You have Genevieve.” Harry thought of Roman. “Keep a secret?”
Draco looked intrigued. “What kind of secret?”
“You have to keep it first.”
Taking out his wand, Draco placed a cross over his heart, and then looked up questioningly.
Harry leaned over and murmured, “Your Uncle Roman, of all people, has asked to be first in my affections once I marry and have my own line and family. Your father knows. He caught your uncle—proposing. Can you call it proposing?”
Draco’s gray eyes widened comically. “Uncle Roman said that?”
Nodding, Harry leaned back. “I can’t get him to stop—declaring his intentions whenever I see him—or by owl for that matter. He sent one just this morning. It was the letter Magnolia was trying to read over my shoulder.”
“That owl this morning was from Uncle Roman?” Draco checked before swearing. “Whenever Uncle Roman gets an idea in his head, there’s nothing that can stop him from getting what he wants.”
Harry swallowed nervously. “Mother said he’d have to stop once I’ve married Magnolia.”
“Let me see the letter.”
Harry looked at him for a long moment and then opened his bedside table and pulled out the beautifully written letter.
My darling Harrogate, it read, Dreams of you have overtaken my nights. You haunt me like an apparition, both unearthly and beautiful. I long for the moment when you say we might be together, when I might have part of your days and some of your evenings. Until that moment comes, I am forever yours, RM
It was Draco’s turn to swallow. “My father has never mentioned my uncle being in love before this.”
“How old is he? Thirty?”
“Twenty-nine,” Draco corrected. “This is all my fault. I sent him to Godric’s Hollow with Marcus Flint. He had no reason to know you existed before then. I just thought I’d get him away from his piano for a little bit.”
Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “That explains this.” He went back to the drawer and produced a score of handwritten music. This was written for you and you only, my darling, RM, was scrawled across the top.
Draco took it and stared. Carefully folding it, he put it into his trouser pocket. “Do you still have your invisibility cloak?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well then. Hop to it.” Draco got off the bed and waited for Harry before he ran up the steps toward the Common Room.
Magnolia was waiting for him. Harry stood close to Draco’s shoulder, looking over at Magnolia who was clearly annoyed. “Well?” she asked.
“You’re right. Harrogate thinks you’re treating him like property,” Draco drawled, “which you do. If you want to rule your husband, don’t marry a Gaunt—or a Potter for that matter. Snape is always going to be his little sister, no matter what she tries on him, because they grew up together and he feels protective of her. It’s to his credit. He’s loyal.”
“Harrogate’s not a damn Hufflepuff,” she sighed.
Draco stepped closer and murmured to her, not quietly enough for Harry not to hear them but quietly enough for the room at large to be unaware of what they were saying, “You know how far it takes to break that loyalty. You’ve seen it break with Jonathan. You’ve seen it break with his own father. You’ve seen it not break with Vesper Snape. You have to walk a very fine line, Nola.”
“What are you saying?” Her ocean blue eyes flashed darker.
“I’m saying that I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re not the only one receiving proposals of marriage—”
“—I made him—” Magnolia seethed.
“Yes, but now he’s made and other people are noticing, and not just Vesper Snape. Harrogate is the Gaunt heir in his own right. Watch your back—and watch your glamour.” His grey eyes connected to Magnolia’s ocean blue gaze, and Harry’s throat constricted. There was a glamour then. There was something he wasn’t seeing, and he was afraid it was the scaly skin and serpentine nose of the Dark Lord.
“All right,” she breathed. “I’ll wait for him to come back up. I do love him, you know.”
Draco’s face softened and he placed his hand assuredly on Magnolia’s shoulder. “I know, Cousin. You have to make sure he realizes it.—If Genevieve comes to find me, tell her I’ll be back in an hour. Hopefully Harrogate will have appeared by then.”
The cousins shared one last look and then Draco was taking strides across the Common Room, exchanging pleasantries with other students, before he had gone out the door, Harry directly on his heels.
“Keep it on,” Draco murmured before setting off down the dungeons.
At first, Harry thought they were going toward the Great Hall before they veered off to the left and up several flights of stairs into the North wing of the castle. Draco then opened up a door and Harry found himself in a small room with an upright piano in the corner.
Taking off his cloak, he mentioned, “I’m not sure this is the type of piano Lord Roman had in mind.”
“No,” Draco agreed. “But this is the only piano I know of that’s enchanted to play sheet music.” He walked up to it and sat down on the piano bench before turning. “Well, are you coming?”
Harry quickly came over and sat down on the bench as Draco took out the sheet music and set it out on the music ledge, one page after another, as if he were reading it himself.
“First note is an A-flat,” he read before he looked down at the keys and then played a black one.
Then the piano began to play on its own.
The piece was quiet and soft before it began to play over itself, one note over another, gentle, soft, romantic, almost sweet. Harry stared at the piano in wonder and could not believe the piece was written for him. When the final note was played, he looked at Draco and blinked.
“My uncle is quite gifted,” Draco murmured.
“I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“No,” Draco agreed. “What’s this called?” He looked at the music. “Hmm. ‘Dawn.’—He can hardly hope to share a dawn with you.”
“No,” Harry agreed with him, thinking. “I don’t even think I like—”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
“I can’t help but think about it,” Harry murmured. “It’s so strange.—But I am devoted to Magnolia.” He said it because he was so used to saying it.
“Or are you used to Magnolia?” Draco asked perceptively. “You know, your mother will protect you from the Dark Lord’s wrath.”
Harry looked over at him, his ocean blue eyes shining hopefully. “Do you think?”
“The Dark Lord holds the Lady Maia in great esteem. He also was unable to save her. He would want to help her son, even if it meant temporarily going against his daughter. You also were not raised to the Dark sect unlike the Riddle or Malfoy children.”
Blinking, Harry asked, “Why are you helping me?”
“Magnolia is my cousin.” Draco paused, gazing at the music. “Roman is my favorite uncle.” He shoved Harry in the shoulder, making Harry laugh. “Then again, the Gaunt line does need to continue—but that is a question for another time.” They grinned at each other.
It was easy enough to sneak back into the dorm, deposit the musical score into his warded drawer, and then reemerge as if he had never left.
Magnolia was all large blue eyes, reaching out for him and pulling him close to her and snuggling into his side. He pulled her close to him, resting his chin on her head as he read his Potions textbook, and put everything else out of his mind.—everything, but how uncomfortable he felt with Magnolia in his arms.
Slytherin was playing against Gryffindor when the Dementors came onto Hogwarts grounds. The day was gray and the Captain had Harry fly high when the Dementors swarmed the match and Harry felt a sense of cold run down his spine. The cloaks of gray and the scabbing hands protruding from them were like something out of a nightmare.
He thought he heard his mother screaming somewhere in his head, when there was a sharp white light and then the roar of a wolf.
“What was that?” Harry asked after the match, having caught the snitch after they were one hundred and ten points up. “I thought I saw a wolf.”
“You did,” Draco confirmed. “Someone was saying it was a patronus. Seventh year magic.”
“A seventh year did that?” he asked in confusion.
“No,” Yates said from his locker. “Lupin. Figures since he’s the Defense Professor.”
“He’s not teaching his students very well if none of them produced a patronus,” Draco snidely put in. “There should have been dozens of patronuses. Not just the one.”
Harry was inclined to agree.
He heard, though, after the Slytherin Celebration, that Violet had fainted. He wondered if it was at all serious.
He stayed after his next defense class to speak to Lupin.
The man was thin with graying hair and a weak chin. He wasn’t the handsomest of men, but he was a werewolf. That would explain the patronus. No one knew if he had ever been married, but he had a daughter in seventh year named Ilona. Harry also had no idea, even though Lupin was in the Order, how much the moon affected Ilona.
“You know my half-sister, Vesper Snape,” he said to Lupin. “She’s in the Order of the Phoenix with her mother, Dr. Lily Evans.”
“Yes,” Lupin agreed. “I remember you, too, being out and about during meetings when you were a small boy.”
“Vesper fainted,” Harry confessed, “during the match. I don’t know why. She was out of the hospital by the time I found out and I haven’t managed to talk to her since—” He paused, looking at Lupin. “I know when the Dementors come close, I can hear my mother screaming in childbirth, something I shouldn’t remember but which I do remember whenever the Dementors come close. I don’t know what Vesper hears.”
“We relive our worst memories when Dementors come close. They feed off of our best memories, leaving only the ones that cause us pain,” Lupin confirmed.
“Well,” Harry said, “I know it’s seventh year magic, but could you offer to teach Vesper—?”
“You do not ask it for yourself?” Lupin asked, confused.
“Why would I ask it for myself?”
“You said you remembered your mother screaming in childbirth. I’m assuming it’s an incredibly painful memory.”
“It may be painful,” Harry admitted, “but I would not give up a single memory of my mother for all of Mother Magic.”
Lupin straightened, looking Harry dead in the eye. Harry, for some reason, believed that he had just risen in Lupin’s estimation of him.
“I ask for Vesper—”
Clearing his throat, Lupin told him. “Professor Snape and I have been enemies since we were at Hogwarts. He would not appreciate it if I offered private lessons to his daughter. He would find it highly suspicious.”
“But I’m the one asking—”
“It would not be welcome—” Lupin argued.
“Is it because you’re a werewolf?”
Lupin looked up, completely startled.
“What? Lily let it slip when we were children. Jonathan, Vi, and I all know.” He shrugged.
Lupin ran a hand down his face. “Dr. Evans never should have told you.”
“Be that as it may—”
“You can understand—knowing what you do—why Professor Snape will want me nowhere near his daughter in private.” He lifted up his hands in defeat. “My hands are tied. I can do nothing. I cannot change the way Professor Snape sees me. I have tried for decades and have failed every time.”
“She’s my sister and she was afraid of the Dementors before this happened.”
“Then perhaps Professor Snape can teach her,” Lupin suggested. “I believe he knows the magic, at least in theory. He is more than capable. Now, if there is nothing else, I bid you good day.” He pointed toward the door.
Harry looked at him in frustration and ground his teeth. They seemed to be at an impasse. After several minutes of just glaring at Lupin, he picked up his bag to leave, only to find Magnolia waiting for him.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he told her.
She looked up at him with her ocean blue eyes and let it pass. “I don’t like seeing you angry.”
“He’s the most pig-headed man I’ve ever met,” Harry complained. “He won’t even try to be helpful.”
“Odd, for a professor,” Magnolia admitted, taking Harry’s arm. “Perhaps Professor Snape can help.”
“He suggested that.” He paused and then look at Magnolia. “Did you hear anything when the Dementors swarmed the Quidditch pitch?”
She looked a little confused. “No. I just felt like I was out in the Yorkshire snow with no coat on and that I would never be happy again. Like both Father and Mother had died, and you were somehow lost to me.”
Harry gave her a small smile. “I heard my mother screaming in childbirth.”
“How could you hear or even know what that sounded like?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know it was her, and I know it was the moment of my birth. I could feel the vined ring punishing her.”
Magnolia pondered this for a long moment. “You have every reason to be angry with James Potter, Harrogate. What he did was unforgivable.”
Harry nodded. “I wrote him to come to Hogsmeade next weekend, though,” he admitted. “I want to find out as much as I can about the Dementors being here as possible.—He may also know something about Jonathan.”
She smiled at him, and Harry leaned his forehead against hers, a hollow feeling in his stomach.
Harry agreed to meet his father at Godric’s Hollow despite Hogwarts rules that he couldn’t leave Hogsmeade, after they had a bit of a disagreement by owl about meeting at Hogsmeade. Harry hadn’t been to Godric’s Hollow since his sixteenth birthday nearly nine months earlier and it felt eerie being in the unlived cottage.
“They can’t get you here,” James promised, giving his son a cup of tea. “I have extra security precautions.”
“You’re not hiding Jonathan then?” Harry checked, more than half-serious.
“Not at the moment,” James told him, which gave Harry a wrenching feeling in his gut.
“So you are hiding him.”
“Harry—”
He held up his hands. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“You’re my son—”
“Second son—Second born—Second best—That’s how it always was and that’s how it always will be—I’m glad Mother won’t take you back. You don’t deserve her.”
James pulled back his arm and slapped Harry across the face.
Harry just stood there and took it, breathing in deeply. “Do you hate being a pureblood that much?” he asked into the quiet.
“Harry, I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me. You practically gave me away to Uncle Marvolo when you got the chance. You never would have given Jonathan or Violet away to Aunt Petunia or Grandma and Grandpa Evans.” His voice was cold, dead, everything he felt in his heart at the moment. “It’s because I’m a pureblood. You hate being a pureblood and Lily makes you feel better about yourself because you’re being progressive. Would you have ever really run away with Mother? Or did you just tell her that to get her into—”
James slapped him again, hard. “Don’t talk about your mother like that.”
“I actually love my mother. I actually love my House. I don’t hide away with the Order of the Phoenix when my own flesh and blood is related to the Dark Lord of Britain. How could you? Why didn’t you take me and set up shop in Little Hangleton until they let you in? It would have taken three years, but Uncle Marvolo isn’t heartless.”
“Three years?”
“You put mother in a coma for three years,” Harry seethed, “or didn’t she tell you?”
James looked gobsmacked.
“Mother was in a coma and you were playing house with Lily,” Harry accused. “By the time Jonathan was five and I was three, he was already beating me up and you were already looking the other way.” He set down his teacup, which had survived James Potter slapping him twice. “Tell Jonathan I’ll kill him before he touches Magnolia.”
“She’s not worth—”
“She’s not worth what? My protection? My loyalty? Simple common decency?”
“The name Potter,” James clarified.
“Well, she won’t be getting the name Potter, she’ll be getting the name Gaunt.”
James looked to the skies. “Have you decided on a name then? You can’t be Harrogate Gaunt Gaunt?”
“Mother was thinking of naming me ‘Maximilian’, so Harrogate Maximilian Gaunt.”
“Not Mordecai then?”
“She changed her mind.”
James looked like he was about to curse something, quite possibly Harry.
“What, you still have your heir. Once they catch Jonathan and put him back in Azkaban for the full five years plus an extra two for escaping, he’ll be out of there before he’s thirty. Plenty of time to convince Hermione Granger he’s a reformed man and have children.”
“You know that won’t happen, Harry. Jonathan will never go back there if he can help it.”
“Well, then, they can have a secret wedding ceremony and he can beget heirs while on the run.” (A strange, thoughtful look passed over James’s face.) “Great, just great,” Harry seethed, as he walked out the door and apparated away.
