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Lady Jamie Potter looked like death warmed over. She covered her mouth with her hand in a futile attempt to stifle her sobs. Her eyes were red and puffy and the bags under them were almost as black as her hair.
The official notice arrived by owl at 2:17 a.m, but she had already known for almost an hour by then. Both of her parental bonds had snapped one after the other, waking her with a scream of agony behind Locked and Silenced bed curtains. Her parents, Lord Charlus Potter and Lady Dorea Potter née Black, had died of a sudden illness the night before.
The black lace mourning gloves that she wore itched her face, but Jamie wouldn’t remove them. She couldn’t.
“Mum and D-Dad are—” Jamie bit her lip viciously, but it couldn’t change the truth. Her parents were dead. She was an orphan.
And, with their passing, she was now Lady Potter, Duchess of the Eternal Eyrie.
Swallowing back tears and bile, because her headache from weeping still pounded behind her eyes despite the pain potion she took, Jamie pinned a black lace veil into her hair. It hung in front of her eyes, level with the bottom of her nose. It did nothing to hide how haunted and heartbroken she was.
The sound of Miss Lily Evans rousing caused Jamie to straighten her back so much that it hurt. She didn’t want to see anyone; she didn’t want to face reality. She didn’t have a choice.
As Heiress Potter, she had been free to do so much that she no longer could—such as run to Heir Sirius Black for solace and comfort. After reading the official notice, she had thrust her shaking feet into her slippers, prepared to sneak into the boys’ dorm and curl up at his side, safe with him. Heiress Potter could get away with such things because they were childhood friends and no one would ever dare to suggest anything inappropriate had occurred.
Lady Potter, on the other hand, had to follow a plethora of laws, customs, and traditions that did not apply to a mere heiress. At sixteen, she was the Lady of a Most Ancient House. The truth cut her heart to ribbons.
Jamie crossed the dormitory and left before Lily could get out of bed and see what had happened. She couldn’t bear to hear anyone’s condolences, no matter how sincerely they were meant. She didn’t want to talk about it.
There wouldn’t be any more pranks. There wouldn’t be any more detentions for back-talking or joking around. “There won’t be any more Quidditch,” Jamie breathed. She was the last of her bloodline now. She couldn’t participate in anything dangerous that might harm her and chance wiping out her family forever. “No more broom racing. No more Abraxan riding. No more dueling tournaments.” With each truth Jamie spoke, she felt the walls close in around her. Until she bonded and bore a child to carry on her bloodline, her life might as well not be her own.
Jamie pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. No more sleeping in Sirius’s bed when she had a nightmare. No more safe, warm hugs whenever she wanted one. No more strong arms wrapped around her waist or hands at her back to guide her. No more studying curled up at his side. No more jokes from her mother about Potters being unable to resist Blacks.
The sun was rising. Jamie wished it wouldn’t. Why should the world go on, as if hers hadn’t just ended?
“Jamie, you’re up—”
She dropped her hand to her chest, squeezed it into a fist, and rasped, “Don’t call me that.”
Sirius’s exuberant footsteps halted. The common room was painfully silent. “What’s wrong, Jamie? What ha—?”
Jamie wanted to curl in a ball in his lap and cry harder than ever. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. She straightened her posture even more, as if she were in the presence of the most stringent etiquette tutor, waiting to pass inspection as a worthy pureblood lady. “Please don’t refer to me so familiarly.”
Sirius made a sound that was a mix of outrage and a puppy’s whimper. It tore Jamie’s heart even further. Pushing him away … there was nothing in the world that could hurt him more. Jamie didn’t have a choice.
“Heiress Potter, I—”
It took everything Jamie had not to flinch away. Sirius had never called her that in their lives. And the first time he did, it no longer applied. “Wrong again,” she whispered. She dropped her hands to her sides, so he could see the mourning gloves.
“No. No. No . No!”
Jamie turned from the window to face him. Sirius took a stumbling step forward. Then, he ran across the room to her, grief and disbelief raw on his face. He reached for her shoulder. For the first time in her life, Jamie deliberately dodged his touch. Her stomach roiled as she did so. Her family honor was the only thing keeping her from throwing herself into his arms—the one place she always yearned to be.
“I name you Gryffindor Quidditch Captain in my place. I apologize for the inconvenience of deserting you mid-season.” Jamie hated each word that left her mouth. It was too formal, too distant, too not her-and-Sirius.
“I don’t care about Quidditch!” Sirius snapped. “I care about you!”
“Thank you for your consideration,” Jamie stated, words falling from her lips by rote. She didn’t want to say that. She wanted to say how much she loved him. Jamie wanted to beg him to hold her. She wanted to find a Time-Turner and change the past.
“Your mum asked me to wait until we graduated,” Sirius whispered. He reached for Jamie, but she took another step back. They both flinched. “She’ll have to forgive me. I won’t leave you alone and untouchable for over a year. I won’t. I don’t care about the title. Regulus can have it. I’ll forsake my house and name for yours.”
Jamie’s heart stuttered in her chest. Was he truly—?
Sirius knelt and offered Jamie his wand. “I would rather rot in Azkaban for a decade than be unable to hold you in my arms everyday and give you all the love in my soul. Bond with me, Lady Potter. Please,” Sirius begged.
Jamie’s already cracked façade crumpled. She collapsed in his arms and implemented the quickest bonding ceremony she knew. She stabbed a lance of her magic through both their hearts, joining them together. “Bound by magic, never to part—”
“May I ever live in your heart,” Sirius finished, completing the vows.
The new Lord and Lady Potter clutched each other desperately, trembling, and huddled on the floor. Their first kiss was wet with tears.
“I thought I lost you, too,” Jamie whimpered. “I thought I lost all of you at the same time.” She clung to him with raw desperation. “I wanted to die.”
“Never!” Sirius kissed her fiercely. “You’ll never lose me.” His eyes were haunted and his hands shook. “Let’s leave Magical Britain and retreat to Avalon. Let’s get away from the war and the Dark Lord. Please, Jamie. If anything happened to you … I—”
Even though the Honorable and Most Ancient House of Potter was famous for standing firm in the face of adversity and not retreating, Jamie understood her lord-husband’s point-of-view all too well. Losing him to a war they didn’t have to fight in would destroy her utterly. So, Jamie conceded without a fight. “As you wish, my lord. Let’s go home.”
They retreated to the Dukedom of the Eternal Eyrie, and grew their family in a place the Dark Lord could never touch.