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James is never sure, exactly, when he realised that, to his daughter, Potions was more than just a hobby: that Harriet would do anything, everything for Potions.
Perhaps it was the first time they found out that Harry had snuck through the floo—not to Archie’s, or to the sweet shop, but to the bloody apothecary, because Daddy, I just wanted to look at the ingredients—
Or maybe it was when she’d invented her first potion, Potter’s Portable Protection, and the way her eyes had lit up when he’d given her the labels he’d so carelessly scribbled out a design for one late night at the office—like this was the greatest gift he’d ever given her.
If he were truly honest, it should have been the tears when he’d used her first stirring rod as a fire poker. It should have been—
But even if he’d guessed then, if he’d been able to set aside jealousy-fuelled childhood grudges and a husband's bitterness at his wife’s wounded betrayal; even if he’d supported her and guided her and done everything a proper father should, he doesn’t think he’d ever have been able to guess this.
It is odd to him, that despite a thousand little clues and years of lies piling atop one another, the moment of realisation comes down to a single, achingly familiar gesture at a moment Harriet is too distracted to notice.
***
James doesn’t think she remembers those early days, after that one play date gone wrong when she was small. How her magic had spun around and out of control in short bursts before settling back beneath her skin, more explosively each time. How he’d struggled to calm her, but was always too late.
Lily has often told him how she feels calmer around him; more in control. How she feels that the wildness of her magic and the precision of his are like they were made for each other. James has never known how to tell her that it has little do do with the precision of his magic, and everything to do with his aunt.
His parents didn’t know . They’d had him late in life, even by magical standards, and all their friends had long forgotten what it was like to have children; how impressionable a child’s magic was. No one thought twice about leaving James with Aunt Dorea, even if she went a little odd at times. After all, she would never hurt him, not little James, his parent’s pride and joy.
James doesn’t know what might have happened. He only knows what did, which is this:
The first time Aunt Dorea lost control and her magic lashed out, his own magic reacted to protect him, in accord with his desire at the time. He’d seen her growing agitation, and even before her magic burst out and picked him up he’d been thinking I want Auntie to be calm and happy again and that was what his magic did. Child magic, even as light and precise as that of a Potter, was capable of extraordinary and bizarre feats; and perhaps this task was perfectly suited to a light-natured core anyway: the crisp control of emotions and precise erasure of a single memory.
Aunt Dorea, smiling and just slightly dazed, never remembered the incident; but James did. The next time he saw her growing agitated his magic rose up in him like a little pulse; soothing her so gently she never even noticed. It became a habit; to instinctively send out a wave of calming magic whenever he sensed a lack of control.
When he met Lily, his magic immediately responded to her swirling, wild magic—soothing and calming and tangling with her own. Lily’s magic was thrilling, glorious, and with all the self-assurance of a Potter he flung himself at her feet and begged her to marry him.
It did not go over well, but her fierce response only made her more interesting.
It was a long time before Lily conceded that he might not be so bad after all; but from the start he had the knack of managing her magic. Lily has always been mercurial but fundamentally open, and he has never had any trouble reading her moods and knowing when to soothe her.
Harriet is an entirely different story.
She is quiet, and self-possessed, and in those first days after the incident she kept her magic wrapped so tightly that he couldn’t sense it—he had no warning or indication of when she’d next explode. James spent haggard days and sleepless nights on edge, waiting for the next outburst—Lily filled with guilt, he with crushing helplessness, neither of them able to utter that awful word, their worst fear—
Obscurial.
Nine out of ten are muggleborns with overwhelming, wild power. He thinks, sometimes, about Lily’s darkened eyes when she remembers her childhood, and wonders how close she came—if his habit of calming her, if her once friendship with Snape had made all the difference. It is these times that he most loathes his old rival, because it is these times that he most comprehends the depth of Snape’s betrayal, and Lily’s pain.
He does not let himself think often of that year, or of the fear that choked their every waking moment.
The answer came, as answers sometimes do, almost without him realising it. He was holding Harriet after a meltdown, her tiny frame shaking and tears dripping down her round cheeks. He held her tiny hands in his, and found himself singing an old nursery song, counting off her fingers.
“One, two, three, the hallows be
One for death in victory
Two for grief and three for peace
Stick, stone, and shroud shall set thee free.”
Though Harriet was only three she learnt the hand motions quickly: one, two, three fingers tapped, repeat, then two fingers together for the stick, a circle between index and thumb for the stone, then a flat palm for the shroud.
It was an old hand game the Potters had passed down for Merlin knows how long, and so simple that James had all but forgotten it, having long since relegated it to the corner of his mind marked boring, why bother.
But Harriet seemed to like it well enough, because she stopped crying, and for days afterwards he’d see her fingers going tap tap tap against her legs. It wasn’t until they went a week without an explosion, for the first time in six months, that he realised he’d been instinctively reaching out to soothe her magic whenever he saw her fingers twitching: he’d given her a tell.
As the years passed Harriet’s outbursts happened with less and less frequency, and he rarely saw her play out the little hand game, though sometimes he’d catch her humming the tune absentmindedly to herself.
He would never have guessed how such a small thing could change everything.
****
The organisers of the tournament, in recognition of the fact that their champions would be in no state to be feasted and feted after the final task, have prudently set the awarding of the cup for one week after the task. In deference to Archie’s wishes, the family didn’t watch the last task, though by Merlin the things James has heard—
In any case, they are all there for the award ceremony. James is honestly relieved that everything is over, but he can’t help but notice that Archie seems unusually tense.
He’s only half-listening to Riddle, chief of the Cow Party, bull through yet another self-aggrandising, bigotry filled speech; he’s too busy watching Archie, looking for some trace of his happy-go-lucky nephew in this regal, tense young man. That’s how he sees it: the tiny, twitching gesture of the left hand that drowns James in memories and rips his world apart.
Because that—that right there—it’s not his nephew, it’s his baby girl and somehow a thousand ignored oddities and neglected doubts seem to fall into place and paint a horrifying, impossible, appallingly inevitable picture.
James can’t breathe. He’s drowning in the truth; in the recognition of his utter failure as a parent and the vast chasm that has sprung between him and his daughter without him even realising. There are a thousand questions churning in his mind—he can’t even begin to fathom how but he is absolutely certain that it is. The same certainty he had when he was eleven that this is the girl I’m going to marry holds him in its grips but my halfblood daughter is masquerading as her pureblood cousin is a far less appealing thought.
He feels as though he stands on the precipice of disaster, and a single wrong word or expression on his part could bring the whole charade down, as surely as a house of cards made with Exploding Snap. The only thing he can do is watch: watch as Riddle finishes his speech, and beckons forth the Rod of Zurial, a satisfied smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. Watch, as Harriet reaches out to claim the staff, wearing an expression he recognises as concealed distaste.
Watch, as his daughter’s fingers curl around the rod and she collapses like a marionette whose strings were cut.
Riddle is surprised, a distant part of him notes, even through the absolute uproar and commotion. He didn’t expect this, and now he’s worried. James sharply checks his instinctive urge to go to Harriet’s side; instead he retreats into the professional detachment of an Auror trying to control the crowd. He desperately wants to be at his daughter’s side, but Harriet can’t afford that, not while the world thinks she’s Rigel Black.
He manages to grasp Sirius’s wrist, however, and sharply reminds him, “Careful!” Sirius looks at him with rage and panic and betrayal, but then some of the wildness recedes, and he nods curtly. His eyes are still bright with anger and fear, but James knows that he will check his temper and avoid throwing rash accusations in front of the entire Wizarding World—even if James suspects they would be true.
And so it is not until much later that James manages to escape his duties, and find his family in the Hospital Wing. The scene is oddly quiet, a fierce conversation being held in tense whispers. James thinks it a trifle absurd, considering that the problem is that Harriet won’t wake up, but after the headache-inducing noise of the near-riot in the Great Hall, he’s desperate for a respite.
There are still too many people here for James’s peace of mind. His family, yes, but also Madame Pomfrey, and Albus Dumbledore, and Lucius Malfoy, fucking Snape, and—
Riddle.
James wants to kill Riddle, because he knows that this is all his fault, somehow.
He thinks Riddle can tell, because when he meets his gaze the older wizard stills, wariness taking over his features. The tension between them manifests in a pool of silence, slowly spreading even to the harsh, whispered fight between Pomfrey and Padfoot.
“I don’t care if he won’t let you do a diagnostic charm, I’m his father and I say you can—“
“It’s not the legality of it, I cannot perform the charm. His magic is creating some sort of barrier—“
“What do you mean—“ Sirius breaks off, noticing James, and the undoubtedly murderous expression he wears. “James. What-“
James ignores him. He’s only interested in one person right now, and it’s the bastard responsible for this mess. He stares Riddle down, and when his voice emerges it is quiet and deadly.
“I do not care what excuses or denials you have ready. You will tell me what that staff was meant to do, or I swear I will kill you here and now, and there will not be enough left of you to fill a matchbox.”
He hears a stifled gasp, and knows that he’s shocked them. He’s played his hand a bit too far in a gamble that could lose him everything—but it’s his daughter’s life that’s at stake—and should they discover her deceit, it would be her soul.
Riddle is taken aback, though he hides it behind calculating eyes. “You assume that you could, Potter.” James bares his teeth in a savage grin.
“Oh, in a straight duel I’m sure I couldn’t. But Aurors don’t catch dark wizards by playing nice. ” In a practised sleight of hand, he unsheathes his special dagger, the glistening tip drawing all eyes as it gleams in the light.
“Basilisk venom—how?” Snape breaks off weakly. James’s smile takes an even more vicious turn.
“You’d be surprised what the Ministry can get its hand on, when it’s in the mood.”
Riddle’s face is pale. Even the most powerful of wizards is helpless at the venom of the basilisk, and while James suspects that Fawkes would save him, he doesn’t think Riddle would be willing to count on that.
He’s right. Riddle tilts his head slightly in assent, and James can’t help the shudder of relief that runs through him. He doesn’t truly want to become a coldblooded murder, but he is honestly unsure if he would have gone through with it had Riddle called his bluff.
He keeps the dagger out, though, just in case.
“The Rod of Zurial,” Riddle says slowly, in a low voice, “contains a controlling force. It was meant to, ah, put to sleep a wizard's mind and render it more willing to...accept suggestion. He should not have been able to resist—it should not have made him fall asleep.”
“You would dare— “ To James’s surprise, this comes not from Sirius, but from Regulus, whose presence he hadn’t even noticed. “You would dare attempt to subvert the House of Black!”
“The boy is uncontrollable!” Riddle snaps back. “He refuses to heed his betters; gives no thought to the motivations behind plans older than he is, plans he tramples through and tears to pieces, heedless of the consequences! He would not come willingly, no matter what I offered, and so he must be brought to heel.”
“You speak of my nephew—the pride of the House of Black—as though he were a common cur,” Regulus spits, unable to see his older brother’s semi-incredulous, offended look.
“You—none of you understand what’s at stake. I speak of the continuation of our world, the very lives of our children! The wizarding world hangs in the balance, and this—this child does not care; he does not think that his actions lead to the utter destruction of all we hold dear!”
“You’re wrong.” Her voice is weak, but clearly audible. Harriet shifts herself into a sitting position as they all turn to look at her, exhausted but clearly awake.
“I know—I know what you are trying to do, what you are trying to prevent. But you can’t do it, not like this. Some prices are too high.” There is something inexplicably old in her voice; old and full of sorrow.
“Prices? You know nothing of prices, of sacrifices. You are nothing but a spoilt, selfish child.”
“And you know very little about me, Lord Riddle. You haven’t even questioned what sacrifices might be necessary for me to defeat Zurial.”
That gets everyone’s attention, and James realises with a sudden horror that the staff she’d been clutching was gone. Just like the Dominion Jewel, a small voice in the back of his mind whispers.
“Where..?” Riddle asks hoarsely. Harriet smiles painfully, and taps her head.
“In here. He’ll always be in here now.” The bleakness in her face and voice makes James want to kill Riddle again.
“He?” Riddle questions, looking sick.
“ He. Magic is intelligent, Riddle, and you should know enough by now not to mess around with magic you don’t understand.” Harry’s voice is sharp as a knife and Riddle actually flinches minutely at her words.
Then he rallies himself and his face hardens. “I’m afraid, Mr. Black, that we shall continue to disagree on what constitutes ah, an acceptable price. Now, I must take my leave of you, so that the public might be reassured that their champion is alive and well.”
“You just admitted to attempting to coerce my son!” Sirius all but growls, wand drawn.
“Ah, but you see, I only admitted such a thing under a great deal of duress. It would be such a shame if word got out that the Head Auror would threaten a civilian’s life...and of course, since Mr. Black recovered under his own power, there’s no evidence of any truth to my confession.” Riddle’s smile is all steel, without a trace of smugness. Sirius furiously starts forward, but James grabs him by the arm.
“He’s right, Sirius. I’m sorry.” Riddle inclines his head, and sweeps out of the room, leaving behind a tense silence.
Sirius is the first to speak. “That was incredibly stupid of you, James.” As if given permission, a clamour erupts as everyone begins to vehemently express their opinions. James winces, his headache from earlier returning with a vengeance.
“Stop, stop, everyone just be quiet! ” Harriet’s voice cuts through the noise, and she is again the centre of attention. “D-dammit, James, what did you do?” James feels pinned by his daughter’s gaze, his mouth too dry to speak.
“I—“ he swallows, and tries again. “I threatened to kill Riddle if he didn’t tell us what he did to you.” Snape, looming by Harriet’s bedside with his arms crossed, scoffs audibly.
“You did more than that, you imbecile, you waved a basilisk venom impregnated dagger in his face .” Harriet screws up her face at this, but clearly decides to ignore it.
“Why on earth would you do that? I had everything handled.”
At this bit of painful obtuseness, James can’t help but wonder how they’d never guessed that it was Harry getting into scrapes and not Archie. With a will he reigns in his temper, lest he say something that would give her away.
“We had no way of knowing that,” he says simply. “Riddle was the only one who could give us a clue about what was going on, and the only thing he values above his machinations is his own skin. I considered the risk worth it.” I was panicked, he did not say. I was terrified for you and I panicked.
“James—“ Dumbledore begins in that wise, sorrowful voice of his, and James, still on edge and vacillating between fear and anger, interrupts rudely.
“I don’t know, Albus. If he pushed me I don’t know what I would have done. I’m just glad we didn’t find out,” he says grimly.
Harriet is looking at him like she’s never seen him before, and perhaps she hasn’t, not like this. She’s never seen him on real duty—not the glittering balls and society events, but the gritty, adrenaline-fuelled dealings with criminals of the worst sort—and she has no conception of the lengths he’d go to protect his family. Dying is easy. Killing is harder.
“So what now?” Lily asks, her first words since James entered the room. He meets her gaze and finds in there only grim acknowledgement. Lily, for all that she fits seamlessly into the glittering world of wizarding Society, grew up in a Muggle slum. She’s the one who’s always patched James up after a mission gone sour, and she knows the darkness in James better than anyone, even Sirius. “Will Riddle squeal?”
“No,” Sirius says, mouth twisting. “He’s got James backed into a corner, but if he goes in for the kill, he won’t come out smelling pretty. Archie’s the darling of the Wizarding World right now, and even an accusation of trying to harm him would be political suicide.”
“He has already damaged his position,” Regulus says, drawing attention to where he and Malfoy stood beside Snape: the three SOWs in the room. Malfoy looked deeply troubled, and Regulus’ grey eyes were glittering with fury. “I have long supported Lord Riddle, in his defense of our culture and way of life. That he should dare to strike at the House of Black and attempt to control its Heir strikes at the heart of our society. I cannot condone such an act, nor continue to support him in his arrogance.” James is torn between delight at the younger Black’s defection and distaste at his pompous reasoning. Judging by Sirius’s expression of affectionate disgust, his friend feels much the same way.
“I will admit to some...concern… regarding Lord Riddle’s actions.” Lucius Malfoy’s tones are smooth as usual, but James can hear the underlying unease. “That he should disregard the autonomy of a pureblood heir is deeply troubling.” It’s not a clear statement, by any means, but coming from a Malfoy it’s practically screaming discontent. James doubts Malfoy would split from the party—unlike Regulus with his warding business, the Malfoy’s reputations and business affairs are far too entrenched—but he’s sure that Riddle will find less support in his own party than he expects.
“Severus?” James winces at the hopefulness in Lily’s voice. After all these years, he thinks angrily, she’s still holding on. The silence stretches, growing more painful as Snape’s face remains still, expression cold and unreadable.
“Professor.” Harriet’s voice is quiet, almost gentle. “I won.” A shudder seems to pass through the potions master.
“I know. I have thought of little else for the past week,” Snape says finally, voice barren as winter.
“I don’t understand,” his daughter says plaintively, and James is shocked to see Snape give her a small, bitter smile.
“Can you not?” Harriet stares at him for a long moment, then purses her lips and narrows her eyes in a moment of obvious comprehension.
“With all due respect, Professor, don’t be an idiot. Riddle never thought you actually hold to the party line of your own accord, so you’d be a pretty awful spy, and since I’m your apprentice he’d never tell you anything he has planned for me, not when he knows you’d be bound to protect me. You’d do more good shoving your resignation in his face, especially if you doused it in liberderria first.”
James chokes, being—like any good prankster—intimately familiar with that potion, and its salutary effects on slow bowels. He watches, amazed, as Snape’s expression contorts from shocked anger to reluctant amusement.
“I will admit the thought is tempting.”
“Severus?” Lily’s voice is soft, and all the amusement drains from Snape’s face as he looks at her.
“I—“ the potions master stops, stumbling over his words like he hasn’t since they were children. The silence stretches, but he seems unable to continue.
“My dear friend, I do believe that you have kept your silence long enough.” Dumbledore’s voice is serene, but his eyes are sad.
Snaps looks away, some combination of emotions warring in his face. Finally, his shoulders slump a little, and when the man looks up again, he is missing some of the harsh pride that has stiffened his features for as long as James has known him.
“To put it briefly,” Snape begins, voice soft, “Lord Riddle approached me and asked me to join the SOW Party in my fifth year of school. I told him I was uninterested, but after some time he made me an offer I could not refuse. I managed to strike a bargain with him, and in return for my loyal service all these years he has refrained from certain actions. At the beginning of this year, Mr. Black made his own bargain with Lord Riddle, in return for entering and winning the tournament. As the terms of his bargain supersede mine, I find myself unexpectedly...free from obligations to the Party.”
James looks at the man he’s hated for so many years; first out of spite and jealousy over Lily, and then in righteous anger over Lily’s grief at Snape’s defection—an anger only intensified by his own friend’s betrayal a few years later. But while Peter joined the SOW Party for entirely selfish reasons, for the first time James recognises that Snape’s motivations were entirely different. While his account was sparse, James has been in the game long enough to read between the lines: a story of blackmail, extortion, back-dealing, and ultimately a pig-headed, stubborn sacrifice for his friend—for Lily, because throughout this entire speech Snape has not taken his eyes off her face.
James knows something about pig-headed, stubborn sacrifices.
Swallowing his pride, swallowing years of jealousy and resentment and bitter hatred—James holds out his hand.
Snape looks at it, mouth twisting in undisguised loathing, and the tension in the room is palpable.
But then his hand is grasped in those long, pale, potions stained fingers; a swift shake and a hasty removal. He and Snape rapidly avoid each other’s gazes, which is pretty easy because Dumbledore is beaming and Sirius is flabbergasted, and Lily’s eyes are shining with tears and Harry—
His daughter’s face is hungry and wondering, like she’s discovered something new and is desperate for more.
Snape’s been her teacher, her head of house, for four years, James realises. How it must have hurt, to have her father and her mentor so at odds. Harry’s reaction solidifies something in him. He wants to do better, he wants to close the distance between them, the disconnect that allowed her to pull off this insane ruse. He will do anything to protect her and to keep that smile on her face—even make nice with Severus Snape.
James feels exhausted and overwrought, all the shocks and revelations of the day giving everything a vaguely unreal feel. But he clutches onto this promise, the foundation on which he will rebuild his world. He will do anything, everything to protect his daughter.
Nothing else matters.
******
Of course, it isn’t that simple. There are arguments to be had and plans to be made, and Madame Pomfrey refuses to let them hold a war council by Harriet’s sick bed any longer. Harriet is obviously displeased but there is no arguing with the Healer’s iron rule.
All in all it is some time before James manages to sneak back into the Hospital wing and speak to his daughter alone. Harry is asleep when he enters, but when he starts warding the bed for silence she wakes up, hand immediately flying for her wand.
“Hush, it’s me,” James says, and she peers at him through the dimness before relaxing slightly, although she keeps her wand out.
“Tell me something only you would know,” she demands.
“When you were nine years old I found you sneaking out in the early hours of the morning to practise your chasing, because Archie bet you he could hit more bludgers than you could score quaffles. Lily would have thrown a fit if she knew you were flying at night unsupervised, so I snuck you back inside and we made hot chocolate.”
Harriet grows very, very still. Then, in a bare whisper: “Dad?”
James can see panic in her eyes, and it hurts him to think that she doesn’t trust him with this, with her life.
“Harriet,” he says gently, and her expression crumples.
“I—I—“ she falters, unable to find the words to even begin to explain. He cups her face in his hands and presses his forehead to hers.
“It will be alright. We’ll make it alright,” he promises rashly, and she lets out a choked sob. He feels a bit like crying, himself.
“I’m so sorry,” she says unsteadily. “I didn’t think it would be like this. I didn’t know.” James wants to be angry, but he burned out all his anger in the confrontation with Riddle. All that’s left is guilt, and cavernous grief.
“I know,” he says, because he can’t say anything else. I’m sorry and how could you and I forgive you and a thousand other things rise up and strangle each other in his breast. There’s too much too ask, too much to say, and all he can do is pull his daughter into his arms and hold her tighter, and promise—
“We’ll make it alright,” he says again, hoarsely. “Everything in my power.”
James doesn’t know what that is, yet—he doesn’t know what he’ll say to Sirius, to Lily—but as his daughter cries her sheer, overwhelming relief into his shoulder, he thinks that this might be an alright start.