Work Text:
Heiress Harriet Potter walked beside Professor Regulus Black, grateful for his silent escort. Ever since she had become a prefect, back in fifth year, he had always joined her at the end of her rounds to guarantee her safe return to Gryffindor Tower. She never asked why he—the Defense Professor—always found her, but she wasn’t going to complain. If he felt compelled to watch out for her, then she wouldn’t interfere. Extra protection wasn’t something to shun.
When the sound of giggling and moaning reached her ears, Harriet grimaced.
Having to interrupt canoodling couples made her extremely uncomfortable. She had even requested that Professor Minerva McGonagall assign a different female prefect—so that she wouldn’t be forced to see her fellow students behaving shamelessly, clothes in disarray and hands groping at each other intimately.
Professor McGonagall had refused, insisting, “You’re the person best suited for this position, Miss Potter.” Harriet hadn’t spoken to her outside of Transfiguration lessons since.
Harriet’s steps slowed as the giggling and moaning increased in volume. She wrapped her arms around herself. How could they justify such behavior? Harriet didn’t understand! Such intimacies should remain between bonded spouses in private, not occur in public places where anyone might stumble on it.
Regulus sighed and sneered in the direction the noises were coming from. “I’ll handle this, Heiress Potter,” he said.
He had offered Harriet the perfect out, but she couldn’t accept it. As long as the blasted Head Girl pin was on her chest, and Professor McGonagall refused to reassign it, she was obligated to fulfill her duties, whether she wanted them or not.
“Unfortunately, Lord Black,” she said with a grimace, “this is my responsibility.”
He opened his mouth, as if to refute her statement, but then shut it again and hung his head. Regulus looked disgusted and displeased at the situation. Harriet knew he had always been against pureblood ladies serving as prefects for this very reason; just like her, he didn’t think they should be unwillingly exposed to such things.
Harriet took a deep breath, smoothed her face into as neutral an expression as she could manage, and followed the noises against her better judgment. When she reached a corner, it took all her Gryffindor bravery to force herself around it.
Then, Harriet saw something that she would never be able to unsee.
Harriet’s wand fell from her nerveless fingers and clattered on the ground, though it didn’t interrupt the couple before her. Tears streamed down her face as she lifted a shaking hand to her mouth and retreated. She backed right into Regulus’s chest, but she couldn’t bring herself to move away from him, apologize, or anything of the sort. Her eyes slammed shut, but it didn’t help at all. The image was engraved in her mind, and it played across her closed eyelids like a replay on a pair of Omnioculars at a Quidditch match.
Mister Romil Vane had a witch pressed against the wall. But that wasn’t the part that made Harriet wish someone would Obliviate her; that wasn’t the part that made her want to curl up in her bed in Potter Manor and lock down her personal wards for a year, so that not even the house-elves could get in.
Vane’s hand had been inching up the witch’s shirt, as he licked down her throat. Her hair was unbound, and his other hand was fisted in it. The witch’s hair was blood red—the same blood red hair that Harriet had inherited from her mother.
Mister Romil Vane, a Gryffindor pureblood, was touching and defiling someone Polyjuiced as her. The thought of any male knowing what it was like to touch her hair, kiss her, lick her neck, and stroke her stomach without her consent was— If she hadn’t missed dinner because Lady Eva Selwyn required assistance with a delicate matter, Harriet knew she would’ve thrown up everything she had eaten.
How had anyone gotten some of her hair? She always made sure to be careful with it.
Harriet hugged herself so tightly that she knew she would bruise, but she didn’t care. She desperately wished for her father’s Cloak of Invisibility, which was up in her trunk, because she wanted to fade away and never be seen again. For anyone to see her like that without her permission was— Harriet bit her lip and sobbed.
She tried to back away farther, but Regulus blocked her path.
Harriet had almost forgotten that Regulus was there, but then his magic erupted from his body. It was said that a Dark Lord’s magic was the darkest, thickest, headiest power anyone would ever feel. Harriet couldn’t imagine magic more lethal or addictive than Regulus’s. It brushed past her in sharp, pointed lances of power.
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel its form. It was a knight in Dark Magic armor, jousting to the death.
“I-I’m s-sor—”
Harriet flinched again as the impostor spoke with her voice. Did she really think that “I’m sorry” would earn her forgiveness? How could anyone be that foolish? How dare anyone steal all that was sacred to her?
Vane had to know that he was engaging in illicit intimacies with someone Polyjuiced as her; no pureblood could be imbecilic enough to believe that she would ever— The tears streaming down her face increased in number, and Harriet found it difficult to breathe. She had never felt so disrespected, so betrayed, so used in her entire life.
“Mercy, please!”
“I swear it’ll never happen again!”
“As Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, in light of the overwhelming evidence which cannot be refuted, I find both of you guilty of identity theft—a case which could have resulted in line theft. Under law, the punishment is death,” Regulus said, voice booming like thunder and electric as lightning.
Between one breath and the next, Harriet smelled blood. The cloying scent flooded her nostrils, and she could almost taste iron on her tongue.
“Open your eyes.”
Regulus’s tone was more persuasive than the Imperius Curse, but Harriet had always been especially skilled at resisting it. Harriet didn’t want to see her wanton copy. She might lose her mind if she did.
“It’s over, Heiress Potter. I promise. Now, open your eyes,” Regulus said as he cupped her shoulders.
Harriet opened her eyes.
Blood coated the corridor, splattering the walls and ceiling, with puddles of it on the floor. Vane’s hands lay severed, some distance away from his body. His eyes were missing and blood poured from his mouth, streaming out of the stump of his tongue. Not far from him was a smoking, twisted heap. If she hadn’t known that two people were in the corridor, she wouldn’t have guessed that the steaming lump had once been human.
“Thank you. It’s … beautiful.” Very few people would be able to stare at such gore and find it beautiful; before tonight, Harriet wouldn’t have been such a person. For this event alone, though, she would make an exception.
“You don’t need to thank me,” Regulus stated. His grip on her shoulders tightened before he released her. “I’m a very selfish man, Heiress Potter. The sight was more than I could bear.”
As his magic retreated from the sanguineous slop, Harriet grasped it with her own and pulled it close. She held it fast, though it didn’t struggle against her.
“Heiress Potter?”
Harriet turned to face Regulus; his gray eyes were still alight with rage, and the magic that she didn’t have wrapped around her rippled with murderous intent. Though the Potters were a Light Magic family, Harriet couldn’t ignore what Regulus had just done for her. Grandmother Dorea had been a Black by birth, so Harriet was well versed in Dark Magic customs.
She could’ve pretended ignorance. Harriet could have feigned innocence, and acted as if she had no clue what Regulus meant by his actions. Except for two things—Potters were eternally honorable, and Harriet was impressed. She had never imagined that any wizard would care so deeply for her.
A blooded death—by Dark Magic—for her honor and virtue.
Harriet knelt before Regulus, her gaze never straying from his as she picked up her wand from the floor. A quick flick was all it took to send her hair tumbling down. His magic vibrated in her grasp as the blood red strands covered her body. She picked up a lock of her hair and reached her left hand toward his. Regulus offered his own left hand, never blinking, as if he feared she would vanish if he closed his eyes for even a moment.
With steady fingers, Harriet tied her hair around his wrist.
Regulus’s eyes shone brighter than starlight as he helped Harriet to her feet. He pressed a lingering kiss to the lock of hair and said, “I take thee prisoner, Lady Black, until thy heart should cease to beat.”
Harriet folded herself more deeply inside his magic and prayed that day would never come. Then, she took a breath and sealed her fate. “I surrender, Lord Black, to a bonding won with blood.”