The Dark Lord’s Daughter
Part the Nineteenth
The argument made it into the “Society Section” in The Daily Prophet. Harry’s mother looked it over the next morning at breakfast and then looked at him sideways. “There were over thirteen witnesses.”
“Are they counting the maître d’?” Harry asked glumly.
“No idea.” She returned to the paper, reaching down to scratch Aurora’s ears. “They have copies of your engagement photograph.”
Harry sighed. “At least photographs aren’t allowed inside the premises of The Wicked Stepmother.”
“That doesn’t keep people from gossiping,” his mother told him. “Purebloods gossip just like anyone else.”
“They should protect their own,” Harry griped. He smothered jam on his piece of toast before ripping off a corner for Aurora. “I wonder who reported.”
His mother, however, wasn’t listening. “Did you actually accuse Uncle Marvolo of having a face that looked like a snake?”
Harry looked to the ceiling, asking Mother Magic for help. “I might have.”
His mother glared at him.
Holding up his hands, he cried, “She called you deformed! You are not—”
“—deformed,” his mother supplied. “You made that quite clear at The Wicked Stepmother.” She reached out and cupped his cheek. “Harrogate, I don’t need you to fight my battles. She’s a silly schoolgirl. I can handle her prejudices.”
Harry placed his hand over hers, holding it to his cheek. “Mother, if I don’t defend you, who will?”
His mother sighed. “Is the engagement off?”
“That’s how we left it.”
“Then you should put it in writing,” she told him, glancing down at Aurora who was holding up her paw. “Leave Magnolia in no doubt. You should also send a copy to The Daily Prophet so all of Britain knows.”
Harry paused. “Isn’t that a little much?”
“You’re separating houses. It’s not too much, darling.” She took a sip of her tea, the black veins on the right side of her face showing in the lamplight. The kitchen was in the basement so there was no natural light.
The floo lit up to signal that someone was coming through, so Aurora barked and Lady Maia quickly stood and rushed to the stairs in order to hide herself. Aurora ran up the stairs after her, and Harry cursed Magnolia under his breath. Magnolia had done this to his mother. Just two days ago, Maia had remained in the room when Magnolia had flooed through, and now she was running from the fireplace.
Harry remained in his seat and sipped his tea as his dad—James Potter—materialized from the flames.
Perhaps it was a good thing that his mother had hidden herself.
Harry was struck by how much his father looked like he did. An inch or so shorter than Harry now who had received the Gaunt height, James Potter stood tall with messy black hair (though James had to mess up his hair to make it look like he had just landed from a flying broom). His hazel eyes were sharp behind rectangular frames, his face a little rounder than Harry’s, his cheeks a little fuller, but still the same countenance, the same forehead, the same nose, the same chin. Both Harry and James stood tall with similar frames, strong shoulders, Quidditch toned bodies, slim from playing Seeker and Chaser respectively.
Standing to show his full height, Harry greeted, “Dad,” his voice dark. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Are you breaking it off with Magnolia?”
Harry scratched the bridge of his nose. “Yes,” he admitted. “She flooed in and Mother was here, and she wouldn’t even acknowledge Mother and then—this. Calling her deformed.” He sighed. “I won’t have my wife calling my mother ‘deformed.’ I live with Mother. If I have to choose, I will choose Mother every time.”
James deflated. “Leaving your mother aside, thank Mother Magic. This past year and a half I’ve been feeling queasy about this relationship. I know Gaunts marry other Gaunts, and Maia loved her Uncle Marvolo and—”
“I respect Uncle Marvolo,” Harry put in for form. “He’s my uncle unlike Uncle Vernon.”
“Right,” James agreed, looking down briefly. “I probably deserve that. If you respect Uncle Marvolo, then I am sure that is only right—but marrying You-Know-Who’s daughter. What if his face is catching?”
Harry thought about it for a moment and considered Magnolia’s face, the flickering in her cheek and forehead. “I’ve been wondering that, actually,” he admitted.
“You have?” James said hopefully, taking a step forward.
“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “Not that it matters anymore. Magnolia and I are through. Mother wants me to write to Magnolia and make it official. She also wants me to write to The Prophet.”
“Very sensible,” James agreed, taking another step forward. “Now, your mother.”
“What about her?” Harry asked defensively.
“How badly did the vined ring curse her?” James looked at him carefully.
“What does it matter? It’s not like she’s going to see you. You have no business prying into her private concerns.”
“Harry, I’m her—”
“—ex boyfriend?” Harry supplied, ocean blue eyes hard. “Because that’s what you are. You were her boyfriend eighteen years ago. You weren’t even co parents.”
“If I could only see her—”
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Harry asserted. “If she did, she would be standing in this kitchen.” He breathed out through his teeth. “I think you better go so she can come and finish her breakfast.”
James looked crushed.
Harry sighed. “If she tells me she wants to see you, I’ll send for you. Until then, please respect her privacy. She’s in seclusion.”
“Lucius Malfoy was saying just the other day at the Ministry,” James tried, “that his brother Roman has seen Maia.”
Blinking at him, Harry looked at his dad. “I think Uncle Lucius was trying to make you jealous,” which was probably true. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
James looked at him carefully before he nodded. Leaning back, he shouted, “I will never stop waiting for you, Maia,” before he turned and took a bit of floo powder. “Tell her I would like to see her, would you?”
“After that?” Harry questioned.
James sighed and then flooed out.
Harry called Kreacher and sent him to find his mother, who carefully made her way down to the kitchen with Aurora on her heels, retaking her seat. “Did you hear any of that?”
“Some of it,” she admitted. “I heard shouting.”
“Dad trying to get your attention,” Harry admitted, picking up his reheated tea. “You don’t ever have to see him if you don’t want to.”
His mother’s ocean blue eyes held his, a silent message. She didn’t want to see James Potter. Too much had passed between them and away from them. Harry completely understood.
Harry did write the letters later that day when his mother was out in the garden with Aurora. He sent the first to Magnolia and then went to Diagon Alley to rent a second owl to send to The Daily Prophet, which had Headquarters in London. He felt like lead had settled in his stomach as both of the owls went out. He was almost certain he wasn’t going to see Magnolia back at Grimmauld Place, but he doubted she would remain silent.
When it hit The Daily Prophet the next day with a large photograph of him testifying against Jonathan Potter, with an inset of Magnolia, Harry felt like his insides were frozen.
The owls began to flood in. From every corner of England, Wales and Scotland, allies in Slytherin and the other three houses wrote to either offer their support or to withdraw their friendship. He ended up making two piles of letters in his study and writing up a two column list of everyone.
Violet didn’t send a letter. Instead, she came to see him.
His mother, once again, retreated to the third floor and her rooms there as soon as she realized someone was in the house. Harry would have to see about restricting the floo.
“Does Professor Snape know you’re here?” Harry asked.
“He made me promise not to ask you out,” Violet confesed. “I have a boyfriend. Cormac McLaggen.”
“Good.” Harry couldn’t imagine those exact words “ask you out” coming out of Professor Snape’s mouth, but then again he was a professor. The strange phrases he must hear would probably make a unicorn’s mane curl.
“I’m sorry about your mum,” Violet was now saying. “I can’t imagine having a cursed mother.”
“She’s not cursed,” he clarified. “Her vined ring punished her. She’s scarred.”
“Scarred,” Violet repeated. “Still, I’m sorry. Is she here living with you?”
Harry gave her a look.
“Sorry!” Violet squeaked, putting her hands up. “Just curious if she was now living with Dad—James, that is.”
“She’s not living with Dad.”
“Oh.” Violet looked around the Tapestry Room. “Whose family tree is this?”
“The Blacks. The Gaunts and Potters—that is, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter—aren’t on it. A Charlus and Dorea Potter are on it. They had a son, Reynard.”
“Huh,” Violet murmured as she leaned down and inspected the tapestry. “It’s rather moth eaten.”
“I’ve got to have Kreacher do something about it.” Harry shrugged his shoulders. “It might be permanently stuck to the wall, which may be why it’s still here.”
Violet looked back up at him. “So what are you going to do in Slytherin? You’re going back seventh year and you’re not going to be engaged to Riddle anymore.”
“No, I suppose I won’t be,” Harry agreed, biting his lip. “I might have to start looking over my shoulder again.” That wouldn’t be fun, but he was used to it. “Maybe I’ll get to talk to Theo again.”
Violet looked at him, confused.
“My friend, Theodore Nott III. Magnolia didn’t think he was grand enough.”
“She made you give up your friends?” Violet scoffed.
Harry sighed while thinking Professor Snape made Violet give up her friends, too. “Magnolia made me do a lot of things.”
“Well,” Violet said, taking a seat on one side of a couch, Harry claiming the other, “you can date again, if you want to.—Not me,” she qualified. “Even I know that that probably won’t be a good thing what with Mum and James Potter. Do you have a crush on someone? Jonathan was mad on Ginny Weasley and then strangely went for Hermione Granger.”
“Do you have a crush on someone?” Harry asked, turning the question back over to Violet. “You have potentially more social currency in Gryffindor, or do you have less since Professor Snape is the Head of Slytherin House.—You also mentioned—Cormac McLaggen was it? He’s mad on Quidditch.”
Violet tossed her strawberry blonde hair. “No, Uncle Severus gets mad respect in Gryffindor House. You wouldn’t believe. But Cormac and I rub together. Uncle Severus likes him because he’s a pureblood. He doesn’t so much like the Quidditch.”
Harry’s eyebrows arched. “But you’re a one witch cheering squad. That will certainly turn out well.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And,” Harry noticed carefully, “being a pureblood is only a good thing. Surely. Professor Snape is friendly with Lord Malfoy who is Sacred Twenty-Eight.”
“Yes, I know,” Violet agreed darkly. “The few times I’ve seen Lord Malfoy he’s lectured me on pureblood etiquette or pureblood blood politics or the importance of the purity of blood.”
Harry imagined Lord Malfoy and that did make sense. His mind then turned to Roman and his expressive violet eyes.
“What are you thinking about?” Violet wheedled. “You’re positively blushing.”
“Am I?” Harry asked, feeling the side of his face with the back of his hand. “I’m not blushing!”
“Yes, you are,” she disagreed. “I know you, and I know when you’re blushing. You are most certainly blushing. Who is she?”
Harry cleared his throat.
“It’s not Malfoy’s little sister, is it? She’s two years below us. Lacy, was it?”
“Lacerta!” Harry exclaimed. “Certainly not.”
“Hmm,” Violet hummed. “Well, I will get to the bottom of it. It would have been easier if it were two years ago and we still lived in Godric’s Hollow, but now we have different parents, and you live here, while I live in Spinner’s End.”
“Do you see much of Dudley?”
“No, I avoid him,” Violet confessed.
When they had gone over to the Dursleys’, the Potter children had to pretend to not be magical. Jonathan hated pretending to be a Muggle. Harry didn’t mind. Jonathan could only chase him with his feet and not a wand. Of course, “Big D” liked to “Harry Hunt” as well, which was Harry’s bad luck.
“How did they take the divorce? Do you know?”
“I saw Grandma Evans on the street. She said she always had a ‘feeling’.” Violet rolled her eyes. “You know her feelings and her T.V. psychics.”
Yes, Harry knew Grandma Evans and her T.V. psychics. She spent so much money one month on T.V. psychics that Grandpa Evans had to take away her credit card. That didn’t stop her from stealing his out of his wallet, though.
“Well,” Harry murmured, “I guess nothing has changed.”
“No,” Violet agreed. “I suppose nothing has.”
Violet left after an hour. Harry had forgotten to ask how she liked being called “Vesper.” It would have been interesting to know. He still couldn’t think of her that way. He’d known her as “Violet” for sixteen years. It was difficult to teach a hippogriff a new trick. Still, he managed to call her “Vesper” in Slytherin House, for Professor Snape’s sake.
In the end, Magnolia did want to meet him, but this time not in such a public place.
“Hyde Park?” Harry wondered to himself as he read her letter. He’d have to dress like a Muggle.
After carefully picking out black jeans, a black Henley, and a black suit jacket, Harry went to meet Magnolia. She was waiting by a weeping willow in a black Illyria dress. Magnolia didn’t remotely resemble a Muggle. That was the one problem with purebloods: they couldn’t blend in for the life of them.
As Harry approached her an owl swooped over his head, and Harry caught the letter it was carrying. It was from Lord Roman. Harrogate, I observed a vulture flying northwest from Godric’s Hollow. I will attempt to follow it. RM.
“What is it?” Magnolia asked.
“Jonathan,” Harry answered, putting the letter in his jacket pocket. “He’s an animagus and he’s left his hiding spot.”
She snorted. “Trust Jonathan to have that trick up his sleeve. How did he learn?”
“Does it matter?” Harry asked, lifting his shoulders. “What do you want, Magnolia?”
“You know what I want,” she answered, pulling him closer by his lapels. “I want everything to go back to the way it was. This is all just a big misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” Harry questioned. Bloody unlikely. He had his way out and he was taking it. “You called my mother ‘deformed.’ You won’t even speak to her—Unless you are willing to receive my mother and live with her once we’re married, we’re at an impasse.”
Magnolia’s face was an utter blank. “Don’t you think you’re the one who needs to be apologizing to me? You said Father resembled a snake.”
“A turn of phrase,” Harry admitted. “I’ve already written and apologized.” The Dark Lord had conspicuously not written back, but he had also not sent a Death Eater after him, which was a good sign.
“Harrogate,” she wheedled.
“Magnolia,” he deadpanned. “She’s not just my mother, she’s your cousin. Show some compassion.”
“Lady Maia doesn’t care.—and she can go back and live at Riddle House once we marry. She has the North Tower.”
Harry arched an eyebrow. Magnolia couldn’t possibly think that his mother didn’t care that she was cut dead in her own home. He also wasn’t putting his mother back in a tower. Taking in a deep breath, Harry declared, “I’ve made my decision. It’s over.”
Magnolia’s face flashed white and Harry felt a wave of fear. Her ocean blue eyes nearly flashed a deep crimson. “I made you, Harrogate Potter,” she declared. “I can unmake you.”
A pit of resolve sank in his stomach and Harry’s jaw clenched. “Unmake me then. I’ve received dozens of letters of support since yesterday’s article in The Daily Prophet. You don’t have everybody under your thumb.”
“I have every witch under my thumb,” Magnolia threatened.
A curl of satisfaction swept through Harry. “Really? Every witch? Who says I want a witch?”
Magnolia reeled back and slapped him, the sound resounding throughout the park, not that Harry cared. His head snapped back but when he looked back at Magnolia, he was sporting a small smile.
“You can’t get to everyone. Not everyone is afraid of you.”
“Well, everyone should be. I’ll have this wizard turned out of every pureblood club, barred from every society event—”
Harry just raised an eyebrow. “You’d do that to your own uncle?”
At first it was clear that Magnolia didn’t understand. Then the meaning sank in, and she screamed, her fingers going for Harry’s eyes. Harry was only a couple inches taller than Magnolia, so he leaned back, knowing that he couldn’t reach for his wand because they were in a Muggle park, and he felt Magnolia push him over.
They landed with a thud and Harry hit the back of his head against the hard ground. He felt dazed for a few moments, but as soon as he felt Magnolia’s hands slide down his body, he quickly regained his focus. Magnolia was squirming on top of him as she reached for him, perhaps trying to grab his wand, but Harry’s middle finger began to warm and, when Magnolia’s knee hit a certain spot, he felt his middle left nail peel backwards.
“Ack!” he squawked, looking down at his bloodied finger. He immediately pushed Magnolia off him and she landed with a whoosh!—but she wasn’t paying attention. She was holding her left hand closely to her.
It was strange that their rings were punishing them for the intimacy of fighting even though Magnolia was wriggling on top of him before she got him in the groin.
Standing, Harry looked down at her, noticing a shiny whiteness to her hairline. “Maybe now you’ll feel more sympathetic to Mother’s situation now that your ring has punished you for a mere nothing,” he spat at her, straightening his suit jacket.
“My finger! My finger!” she cried.
Feeling a twinge of guilt, Harry sighed and bent down, taking her hand in his. It seemed like the entire finger was bent backward at a sixty-degree angle. “That looks like it hurts,” he agreed. “You better go to St. Mungo’s.”
“Harrogate!” she demanded.
Harry looked around and saw that Muggles were definitely noticing, so he picked her up, settling her back on her feet. Magnolia leaned against him at an awkward angle, cradling her hand against her chest.
“Do you want me to try and bend it back?” Harry offered, only half seriously.
Magnolia turned to him viciously, fire in her ocean blue eyes. “All right, all right,” he told her, taking her arm and leading her out of the park.
Deciding to call a Muggle taxi instead of the Knight Bus, which would be more conspicuous to wizards and witches, Harry took Magnolia to St. Mungo’s. However, they never got in the doors. Just as Harry was paying the taxi, Magnolia waiting on the pavement, Harry heard a screech and the sound of feathers. Turning, he saw what must have been a large vulture attacking Magnolia.
Crying out in panic and not caring that Muggles were around, Harry immediately took his wand out of his shirtsleeve and pointed it at the bird. “Confringio!” he cried, but the bird flapped its wings and darted out of the way for such a large and clumsy creature.
“Jonathan!” Harry screeched, as he cast another blasting curse at the animal, but the vulture was tearing at Magnolia’s hair, which strangely remained in two looped braids at the back of her head. They should have been torn to shreds, but they remained nearly perfectly intact.
Afraid of hitting Magnolia, Harry grabbed the vulture’s wing and pulled, but the bird held onto Magnolia, this time biting down on her middle finger.
She screamed and Harry looked on in horror as her third finger became a bloody stump. Her vined ring clanged to the pavement, the stub of finger left intact inside of it, separated from her hand.
“Help me!” Harry cried, trying to gain anyone’s attention. “Help me!”
The vulture, however, wasn’t done. It continued to beat its large wings and scrape its talons against Magnolia. Her Illyria dress was coming off in tatters, large scratches on her upper arms. Harry kept on casting blasting curses at the vulture, catching a feather here, a feather there—
And then the Aurors came. Harry saw his dad among them and they swarmed the area, one grabbing Magnolia and trying to pull her out from under the vulture, while a net was shot from a wand over the bird. With one final breath, Harry pointed at the vulture and shouted, “Revelo!” The bird shivered and transformed into Jonathan, the wings becoming arms, the talons stretching into legs, the beak folding down into a stub of a nose.
The spell, however, reflected off of Jonathan’s beak and landed on Magnolia who screamed as it hit her face.
Harry looked on in horror as Magnolia’s face and hair melted off her head, leaving the scales and face of a snake. She truly looked like the Dark Lord’s daughter, her ocean blue eyes no more than slits, her head balding scales, her nose sunken in.
“Oh, Magnolia,” Harry apologized.
Large tears escaped from her slits of eyes and she hid her face in her hands, trying to hide from the world. Harry ran up to her, ignoring Jonathan, and taking off his coat, he placed it over her head so that she could hide herself away.
“Are you happy?” she whispered desperately. “Are you happy now, Harrogate?”
Harry’s eyes connected to James’s hazel gaze. You did this, Harry’s ocean blue eyes accused. If it hadn’t been for James Potter hiding Jonathan, this never would have happened.
Jonathan was carted away back to Azkaban, and Magnolia was admitted to St. Mungo’s as a patient. She was given a private room with security; only approved visitors allowed in. Harry sat by her bed for more than twenty-four hours, thankful when Lord Malfoy came and recast the glamour on her.
“She should know how to do it,” Harry murmured. “It’s unfair that she’s beholden to others.”
“Yes,” Lord Malfoy agreed, “but it is exceedingly complicated magic.”
Harry turned back to Magnolia and took her hand.
The Daily Prophet got a good shot of Jonathan as a vulture, but only a skewed image of Magnolia under Harry’s jacket. It was reported that she was seriously injured but receiving medical attention.
The healers said they couldn’t replace her middle finger. The magic wouldn’t allow them.
An auror came and brought the vined ring back to her (without the inside finger), but Magnolia refused to look at it. The ivory and sapphires mocked Harry every time he looked at the ring, which matched the ivory ring he had on his middle finger. He remembered the day they had gotten them together. He had been so nervous, but so hopeful that his mother would be proud of him.
The magic of the vined ring was such that Magnolia could never have it sung on another finger, even the middle finger of her right hand.
“I don’t suppose you will marry me now,” Magnolia asked just as Harry was preparing to leave for Grimmauld Place the day after the attack.
“No,” Harry answered. “Nothing has changed.” He reached for her mutilated hand, but she pulled it away. He closed his eyes in pain. “I am and will always be your Cousin Harrogate.”
“What, like Draco is my Cousin Draco? You know Uncle Lucius has forbidden him to marry me because of my face, and the fact that I’m not blonde. I’m not pure enough for the Malfoy family.”
Harry sighed. He hadn’t thought of that. “I thought Gaunts marry other Gaunts, or at least that’s what you told me.”
She looked away from him, tears forming in her eyes. “You know what I think about that. You’ve always known what I’ve thought of that.”
“Why won’t you accept my mother given—everything?” Harry asked, genuinely curious.
“I won’t have two curses on our bloodline,” she told him viciously, sinking down the pillow, still looking away. Her dark chestnut hair, a glamour, was perfectly coifed on the top of her head, barely disturbed by the pillow. Harry was going to check on that glamour and try to make it better. He was decent at charms. He could afford to devote years to perfecting this glamour.
Harry only sighed out in sadness before he left. He decided he wanted to walk home to Grimmauld Place as he needed the air.
The world had come full circle. He knew the mystery of Magnolia and it was what he had always feared. He was the Lord of his own House. He was his own wizard. He was going into his seventh year. His older brother was in Azkaban for at least the next decade (though his dad had told him Hermione, herself only a seventh year, was pregnant). His little sister was not his sister. His dad would never see his mother again, and that was as it should be. His dad was also facing disciplinary actions for being an unregistered animagus and for aiding and abetting an escaped criminal. Professor Snape was now courting a pureblood with auburn hair and green eyes…
When Harry got home to Grimmauld Place it was to find his mother having tea with Roman Malfoy.
“You’re home,” his mother greeted, kissing him on the cheek. “Lord Roman was worried for you.”
“I tracked Jonathan as far as outer London, but then lost him—I am so sorry—” Roman apologized, but Harry silenced him with a kiss.
