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A/N: Orchid: "Love; beauty; refinement; beautiful lady; Chinese symbol for many children, mature charm". Fem!Harry.
Summary: They could only love her so long as they didn't know her real name. Rabastan and Rodolphus can never know her true face… but someday the dream will end. AU. Fem!Harry.
Dark Garden
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Chapter One:
Explaining Orchid
She was highly regarded among the Light, and why wouldn't she be? She was a Potter, a Hufflepuff, talked to all the right people, and even had muggleborn friends. Hell, she was betrothed to Barty Crouch Jr., son of the Minister of Magic. There was no reason to doubt her loyalties. Even Fawkes, the Headmaster's phoenix, liked her. Of course, her muggleborn friends were the best and most powerful of their age; she had a reputation to upkeep. Hermione Granger, for instance, was a brilliant muggleborn much like her own mother, and had started following their customs once it was explained as an important part of the culture. Later Ginny Weasley had joined them. Weasleys were, of course, only ever light. Besides that, Orchid was a Traditionalist.
Her mother, Lily, had had to learn all their traditions from her father, and ensured that she grew up knowing the customs because of the difficulty she'd had. Dumbledore had rid Hogwarts of classes on Wizarding Society long ago; the year before her parents started attending, she believed. It was the reason so many had been drawn to Voldemort's cause, in fact, an outrage to the Old Families at the time. Under Dumbledore's teaching few knew the goals of Lord Voldemort, thinking it all about muggles and muggleborns; it was a lot more political than that. Of course the conventionally Light Families had fallen in with Dumbledore's side regardless of their own beliefs – well, most of them, her father included.
Her grandmother, Dorea Potter nee Black, had been extremely vocal against this change but had died soon after. Her grandfather, Jonathon, had quit the Auror Corps soon after, and managed to make it until Orchid was seven years old. From the sound of it she would have liked her grandmother. She was a renowned Traditionalist, up there with the Longbottoms under Augusta's reign. People often commented on their likeness in belief, actually. Orchid was glad to share that with her grandmother.
She wasn't just well-known for being Light, though. No, that wasn't the reason for her fame at all, although it did help. Not only was she the Potter Heiress – the first Heiress in the history of the Potter Family – but she was also an international model and the height of fashion. She was one of few wizarding celebrities, up there with Victor Krum, Aiden Lynch and Gabrielle Delacour, all of whom she was familiar with. It didn't hurt that she'd learned to speak all their languages (and Aiden spoke Gaelic along with English). She was known for beauty, intelligence and demure charm.
Her parents didn't really pay much attention to her. Her father was an Auror and her mother (despite supposedly being a housewife) an Unspeakable, the fighting elite, not to mention raising her other three siblings. Controlling the business end of things (stocks and the like) was mostly left up to Orchid, who was busy in her own right, and she spent a lot of time on the kids. Still, she wasn't yet a warrior during wartime. Her parents had responsibilities to the war and the Order. She was, however, double apprenticing under Poppy Pomphrey and Filius Flitwick to become an Auror Field-Medic. Kingsley planned to sponsor her into the program – which was much more lax these days, sadly, Aurors being more needed – and had taught her a lot of what she'd need to know.
"Hello luv," he smiled, kissing her cheek.
"Barty." She leaned easily back into his embrace. "What brings you by?"
Barty was handsome and a rather good friend, but that was all there was between them. After his engagement to Lorena Fawcett had fallen through she was there for him, and she had agreed to marry him if Barty didn't find someone else by the time that she turned seventeen. James was rather easy to convince to marry her off in the old tradition; she had handpicked the husband, after all, and he may have been generally oblivious to her doings and life in general, but he did know what tradition meant to her. And it looked good in the papers, particularly since they had long been friends. She had met him as a child at a Ministry function and hit it off almost immediately, the Potter Heiress and the Minister's son making the news without delay. The age difference didn't matter to wizards. Besides, they had together brought Charlotte McKinnon to their side; that had only enhanced their image.
As long as he was discrete, an affair wouldn't bother her; they were more friends than lovers, after all; so long as there was no bastard child to cover up and it didn't make the papers she was fine with whatever he did, in fact. It would reflect badly on her, that she supposedly couldn't pleasure her husband, and bastard children were (no matter the class, but particularly among the upper-class) a media disaster and a disgrace waiting to happen. There were Contraceptive Charms for a reason. The British Wizarding World was much behind the Muggle World in their views on marriage and other things of the sort. Divorce was only applicable in the event of rape, abuse, infidelity or infertility. The parents of children born out of wedlock were both ostracized, except in the case of rape, although the child itself was accepted in most cases (manner of birth not being the child's fault). Those who weren't Scarlet Women didn't wear skirts above the knees, and unless you were an Auror or Quidditch player, or involved in some other sport, women wore skirts or dresses or robes under their outer robes.
Orchid had drawn the attention of photographers first by being the first Heiress in the Potter line, particularly since she wasn't made Heir Regent once her first brother was born, but had kept their attention for other reasons. There was rarely a week when she wasn't in the Society Pages in her youth, and that hadn't changed as she aged. She used the old styles and brought them back. Not the overly lacy disasters of before, of course, but true Elizabethan dresses and the like. Under her direction, elegant gowns of Greek and 1850s fashion graced the papers, crinolines, bonnets and all.
It didn't hurt that she was the Black Heiress as well, Sirius being an infamous playboy. Walburga had died when she was about five or six, but she had seen Orchid as an acceptable Head of the Family in case of Regulus' death, Sirius informally disowned and she being his goddaughter. The Blacks, unlike the Potters, had had Heiresses before, Walburga being just one example. That put her in the good books of the Dark Families as well. Lily Potter had insured that her daughter had friends on both sides growing up, her power making her be seen as an exception to the general anti-muggleborn view. Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass had been her closest companions growing up, along with the older Istria Nott.
"Thought I'd help you out around the house," Barty replied. "Maybe take you out when the kids get up to do their schoolwork."
Her siblings, their mother not having time to home school them like most wizards were, went to muggle school, learning much more than the basics maths and writing that most mothers taught, a house elf tutoring them in the summers. Likewise she had been schooled in muggle subjects, and would be able to attend any muggle Uni she wanted, if she so desired. Not that she would; Orchid was already an EMT-Paramedic, and that was all the muggle education she needed.
Samuel was thirteen to her sixteen, and James Jr. (better known as Jim or Jimmy) turned eleven this year and had just gotten his Hogwarts letter, but Oleander was nine and not yet ready for magical schooling, though Orchid had taught her a bit on the Healing and Potions end in preparation for Hogwarts.
"That would be nice," Orchid smiled, flipping the pancakes. She was a very good cook by force, of her parents only James knowing how to cook at all and it being a traditionally female skill in the Wizarding World. Besides, her papa was rarely home to do more than sleep, and he really appreciated it when she cooked. "I could use a day off."
"I know. Same courses as last year?"
"Yeah."
It was a busy schedule, but she could handle it. Muggle education, Hogwarts, apprenticeship to Poppy and Filius and later Paramedic certification with modeling and showings at Balls and other High Society events, family and business responsibilities was a bit much, but she'd been able to cut down on it this year and things weren't so hectic.
She was finished with her muggle education and Paramedic training and rushed her apprenticeships. That meant that she only needed to attend gatherings, do a photo shoot here and there, handle the Potter businesses, stocks and her siblings, and James did most of the work in business as Potter Family Head. So it was down to family, Hogwarts, photo shoots and social gatherings now, and she was far ahead of the Defense, Charms and Healing classes under Filius and Poppy.
For Hogwarts, Healing, Defense, Arithmancy, Runes, Household Magics, Rituals, and Divination (earning her a Time Turner like Hermione had once had, making it all much easier) were pretty much taken care of, and Charms was in the bag. She struggled in Transfiguration, definitely, and Herbology, not having the touch for it, but was average in the classes, and Potions were covered with Healing.
She had dropped Astronomy after her OWLs, not seeing the need since she was taking nine classes and they had covered what she'd need to know. Orchid wasn't perfect, far from it, but she was a perfectionist. Her singing voice left much to be desired and she sucked at History, which was why she'd dropped that class. Regulus handled the Black end, thankfully, or even with the Time Turner she'd be screwed.
Her schedule, which had been mailed with her Hogwarts letter, went something along the lines of this:
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Arithmancy – Divination
Transfiguration
Ancient Runes
Charms – Healing
Rituals
Household Magic
She was definitely dreading her NEWTs. Summer homework was a bitch; she didn't even want to imagine what that would be like.
Normally students only took seven classes, two being electives. Orchid, however, had decided to take as many electives as she felt were useful, and it being wartime there were a lot more to choose from than usual. Dumbledore and McGonagall had expected her to eventually drop a few, but keeping the Time Turner was too much a temptation to pass up. She h thought that they'd probably forgotten that she had one, so busy with the war effort and the Order, which would only help her. She planned to keep it if possible; that or steal one from the Department of Mysteries when she visited her mother for one of their rare lunch dates.
Breakfast for them and the kids was soon over, thankfully, and she trusted their one house elf to keep them in line, so she said her goodbyes and left with Barty. To her surprise, he took them out to Muggle Manchester.
"Though we'd see a flick," he explained.
Orchid smiled.
Barty was her best friend for a reason. They could nearly read each others' minds, and he always knew exactly what she needed.
***
