Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Intrigue
She was hardly the matriarch of the family yet, but the head of the household at 12 Grimmauld Place was in charge of the tapestry that hung in the drawing room of the London residence. She stood before it, her face aged prematurely with the trials and tribulations her two grown sons had put her through. The noise of children attempting to contain their noise production floated from the kitchen, a familiar enough sound in the house. Walburga was not one to give into any stirring in the blood-pumping organ buried deep within her chest, but it was a pleasant feeling, she thought, to have children running through 12 Grimmauld Place again, even if they were children of blood traitors.
Her second cousin Cedrella Weasley was missing from the tapestry, for she had been fool enough to marry the eldest of the Weasley boys and had in effect rendered herself a blood traitor. But now she was here, aged at an even faster rate than Walburga had, having come to her senses at last.
Cedrella's niece and nephews were arranged primly in the kitchen, itching in their formal clothes and holding back the sobs of childhood. Walburga simpered, pleased that her house still intimidated the innocuous. She had moved to the doorway of the kitchen, watching the eldest try to keep the youngest quiet, the twins entertained by another brother, and the other two paired off miserably.
"Certainly an efficient operation you have here." Walburga drawled, and Cedrella rolled her eyes.
"This isn't the time for petty politics, Walburga. Like it or not, these children are bound to the custody of the House of Black." Cedrella retorted, trying to hold her head high.
Walburga flashed a thin smile. "You certainly can't expect any member of this distinguished family to take on such a great lot of blood traitors."
Cedrella smirked in return, and Walburga took note of this seemingly genetic facial expression. "Given the losses this great family has suffered, I would think, Walburga, that the custody of purely-bred children, all at a malleable ages, would be a high commodity."
Walburga's lips pursed in delight. "Do you really expect me to believe those two boys there won't have heard and believed the fatal political choices of their foolhardy parents?"
Cedrella was not stumped, but she seceded to this point. "I'm already burned off the tapestry, so I'll take them. Septemus and I can handle older children, anyhow."
Walburga quirked an eyebrow. She had to admit, the Black family had lost many of its valuable younger members, and the remaining five blood traitors could, with the proper upbringing, revitalize the strongest family in the wizarding world.
Coldly, Walburga led Cedrella to the tapestry. "Barty, Jr. just inherited his father's fortune, and married that barren Burke girl. They could use a couple of sons."
Cedrella smiled sinisterly. "Percival is 5, and Ronald is 18 months."
Walburga nodded curtly. "And as I'm sure you know, Augusta Longbottom has foolishly lost all of her own family and still firmly believes in the maintenance of pure blood, so I'm sure she can handle those twins. In fact, I'm confident she would appreciate some redemption after raising a son like that."
Cedrella nodded, understanding Augusta's situation. Augusta had married into a good family, as had Cedrella. They were both clever enough to know better, and know where their loyalties should ultimately lie, but they were also raised to be servants to their husbands. Giving these children to Walburga was Cedrella's redemption; Augusta's adoption of the three-year-old twins would be hers.
A wail erupted from the kitchen, and the two women could hear the eldest boy try and soothe her. Walburga's face lit up. She'd forgotten about Cedrella's niece, and visions filled her head of the debuts of her own nieces, Bellatrix and Narcissa, both of whom had made very profitable and powerful marriages.
Those two girls were the only ones left with the means and the politics to take on the last of the Weasleys, and Walburga knew better than to put the girl in the Malfoy house with an eligible husband and raise them as siblings. But Bellatrix was thus far childless, and if her fervent support of the Dark Lord was any indication, she may continue to be. For now, Walburga would accept that and use it to force Bellatrix into adopting the girl in the kitchen. Trix was stubborn, and her only trace of family loyalty was devoted to the maintenance of purity, and Walburga would use that.
For now anyway. Walburga expected more heirs from Trix. They could use her strident belief in the cause.
It was settled in under a week. The eldest two remained Weasleys. Percival and Ronald became members of the Crouch family, and the twins became the wards of the Longbottom family. The girl; however, was the shining jewel of the exchange. Even Bellatrix looked happy with the arrangement, stroking the tiny blood-red curls of her new daughter, casting a charm for them to always stay that way, and so, the legend of Ginevra Lestrange began.
On the afternoon of the first of September in the ninety-seventh year of the nineteenth century, the sole debutante of the noble house of Black found herself in Compartment C of the Hogwarts Express, headed to Scotland. The other occupants of the compartment were rambling on about their upbringing, much to their facilitator's delight. The last heiress of the house of Black; however, did not find this to be a subject she could particularly contribute to.
Of course, Ginevra Lestrange was considered by others to have one of the most fascinating childhoods in the wizarding world. Her fellow Slug Club member Blaise Zabini had just said that to the curious Melinda Bobbin, in an effort to divert her attention from his own glamorously empty background.
Ginevra was raised the only daughter and eldest child of the Lestrange's, and had been her mother's special project in the years Bellatrix had been housebound. Bellatrix had also brought two sons into the world, Abraxas and Altair, but they were the pet projects of Rodulphus. There seemed to be a few clear things that brought her mother joy: purity, beauty, family, and the maintenance of all three in her daughter.
When the conversation turned to the distracted Slytherin sixth year, she managed, with her wonderful ability to candy coat and conceal, to say that she had been raised traditionally and apart from her brothers, though she loved them very much.
Her cousin Draco smirked at her response, until he'd been asked to share his own home life.
Bellatrix had devoted much of Ginevra's earliest years to instilling in her scion the importance of beauty and lineage. "You're a Black, my dear, and you must look it."
This wisdom had been engrained in Ginevra's mind, for it had been repeated to her on many occasions, and was usually the answer to any otherwise unfathomable event Ginevra remembered. Why had she constantly spent time in the Tugwood wing of the fourth floor at St. Mungo's? "You're a Black, my dear, and you must look it." Why did she have to take a potion with her breakfast that tasted like dung and seemed to deepen the shade of her hair every month? "You're a Black my dear, and you must look it."
Ginevra did concede that her father was not an attractive man. He was neither an endearing man, but he was a charming businessman and had never deprived Ginevra of anything she'd ever wanted. She wondered then why her mother, who Ginevra had assumed to be quite a desirable choice of bride in her day, would have selected Rodolphus to be her husband. She'd never asked, but merely assumed the devotion to her family and her ideals had made Bellatrix's choice for her.
The conversation had taken another dip, and at that point had split into a conversation about Quidditch (Blaise and Draco, and presumably Harry Potter and Cormac McLaggen if they'd deem to get over their Gryffindor snobbery long enough to talk to them), and the boys at Hogwarts. Ginevra found both subjects boring and exhausting, and had eventually left Melinda to talk to Slug about the rising cost of beetle's eyes and wings due to some famine in Egypt.
Though at Black family gatherings, Ginevra proved to be an apt flier and a fine athlete capable of creating, understanding, and administering excellent plays, Quidditch bored her. It wasn't a subject that came up very often in her time with Bellatrix, and by the time Bellatrix had gotten cabin fever and returned to whatever it was that she loved better, her two younger brothers had been too consumed to help her understand the allure of the subject.
Her Uncle Sirius sincerely thought that she ought to try for the house team, or so he said whenever he got to spend time with Bellatrix's children, which was rarely. He had even said as much to the Minister of Magic one year when he'd taken Draco, Ginevra, Altair, and Abraxas to the Quidditch World Cup. He told the Minister that Ginevra could give her brothers and cousin, who were fairly talented themselves, a real run for their Galleons if she cared.
Ginevra liked her Uncle Sirius. He was not often welcomed into the family for some of his actions before she'd been born, but over time, he'd been allowed back in. He took the children to every World Cup, and one of his friends had told him he would've been an excellent father given the chance. When Ginevra had relayed this story to her mother, she'd laughed cryptically and said, "If he'd been married, he would've had fatherhood forced upon him."
Of all the members of her family, Ginevra, with all the surgeries, most resembled her mother and her uncle. There was a joke about it within the family, but the Blacks were not the Parkinsons, and could find other people to reproduce with to maintain the lineage. Sirius's mother Walburga had said the Blacks were too irresistible.
Harry Potter rolled his eyes as his housemate Cormac dug himself another hole in his argument with the Slytherins over Quidditch. Cormac's theories were based on the press accounts of the latest World Cup, and of the passengers in the compartment, he'd been the only one not present at it.
Zabini and Malfoy snickered as Cormac went on, and for a second, Harry felt solidarity from them. Harry had actually gone with Malfoy to the Cup this year, for Malfoy was his godfather's nephew, and his parents had been working this year so he couldn't go without Sirius.
"How're your brothers?" He said suddenly to Ginevra Lestrange, who shook herself out of her stupor.
Ginevra shrugged. "Fine, I suppose. Abraxas is very jealous of my new broomstick, but he'll get his after his O.W.L's. He got a hawk owl when he received his prefect's badge. Altair is foolishly starting Divination this year; I told him a thousand times he's more suited to Arithmancy, like me."
"What broomstick did you get?" Harry asked, rather proud of his own, which was a Firebolt he'd received when he'd been made a Gryffindor prefect. His mother hadn't approved at all, and his father was thrilled that Sirius had given it to him, so he wouldn't be to blame.
"Oh, a Firebolt. Abra thinks it isn't fair, since I'm not that into Quidditch and I'm not even on the house team." She was an excellent mimic for the middle Lestrange's whiny voice.
"Why would you even want one?" Harry asked, noticing the height of Ginevra's cheekbones.
Ginevra frowned at him. "Why wouldn't I want one? It's the best broom in the world."
Malfoy let out a raucous chuckle. "That's a Black for you."
Ginevra flushed a little at the idea that she'd been caught talking to Potter. She remembered how infuriated her mother had been when she'd heard that Potter had accompanied them to the World Cup this year. Sirius had been called foolhardy and accused of disobeying the family's terms to his re-entry into it, but in the end, Sirius had said something to please Bellatrix, and when Altair asked if he were allowed to talk to Harry Potter in the future, their mother had taken a very high pitch and said, "Of course. Why wouldn't you?"
But Ginevra knew better. Draco's eyebrow was now quirked, and he'd nudged Blaise. Though Cormac had launched into yet another poor analysis of the plays administered at the Cup, the Slytherin boys were watching Harry Potter become one of the hundreds of Hogwarts boys to become infatuated with the very idea of Ginevra Lestrange.
They joked about it later at the Slytherin table, and Ginevra frowned.
"My mother always said that it was Aunt Bellatrix's evil plan to make Ginevra so desirable she'd have just about anyone in her wake." Draco sneered, and Ginevra rolled her eyes at him.
She sat on the other side of Prax Harper, a boy in her year, from Tracey Davis, who spoke up with a screeching and malicious tone. "Aw, Gin, embarrassed to be a mommy's girl?"
Ginevra smiled calmly at Tracey, brushing her hand over Prax Harper's knee beneath the table and succeeding in seconds at what Tracey had been attempting all evening in getting his attention. "At least my mother's name can be spoken at this table, Davis."
The Slytherins laughed obediently, and Millicent Bullstrode laughed a little too loudly, catching Ginevra's attention and a cool sideways look. "You of all people shouldn't be laughing, Millie, in case you thought we've all forgotten about your mother."
Blaise, who sat on her other side, squeezed her knee hard. "Be nice." He hissed.
Ginevra gave him an once-over. He was one of Ginevra's friends, and Head Boy to boot, but Ginevra's sharp tongue rarely spared anyone. In that way, one could say she was indiscriminate. "No girl in Slytherin ever got anywhere being nice, Zabini, and you would do well to remember the handicap of my sex."
It was stories like these that made Slug Club meetings difficult for Harry Potter. Everyone knew that despite her manners, charm, talents, and beauty, Ginevra Lestrange was a spoiled, mean person. And yet he really couldn't find anyone else at the meetings and parties he'd rather be talking to. A shy but smart Gryffindor girl in his year had enviously asked him to describe everything in great detail every time he returned from the potion master's fêtes, but Harry found them extremely boring. He got to meet interesting people, but most of them he'd already met before through his parents or their friends.
The most fascinating part of all the Slug Club business was getting to know Ginevra Lestrange. He shared his mother's fascination with the archaic world Ginevra was clearly poised to rule, and wondered if she were one of those purebloods that believed she was honestly better than anybody else. The rumors about her seemed to say as much, but Harry had learned from Sirius that just because someone was a pureblood did not mean that they felt more entitled to learn magic than the next person.
Maybe Ginevra only spoke to him at Slug Club events for lack of better person to speak to. Harry certainly wouldn't volunteer to be friends with a Slytherin out of anything other than necessity, and he wasn't confident they were friends at all. But the subject of Quidditch was always inevitable, and as fascinated with it as he was, he couldn't help but rescue the girl from boredom.
The morning of September 2nd, he watched her at the Slytherin table, straightening Altair's tie and solving one last Arithmancy problem for Abraxas. She almost managed to smile at him without smirking, before pinching his cheek teasingly before they left for their classes. Malfoy remarked on something and she stepped on his feet before prancing off to class, and Harry couldn't help but smile.
In addition to preparing for his N.E.W.Ts, Harry fully intended on getting to know the legendary Ginevra Lestrange. Little did he know that the girl was an endless enigma, and his quest would land them both in more trouble than they could handle.
Coming up in The Legendary Ginevra Lestrange:
Harry frowned. "Yes." He followed her into the dark, and they alternated states of illumination as they passed portraits. "Come on, we have duty."
"Oh, come on… haven't you ever wanted to be alone with me in the dark?" Ginevra teased, and suddenly, Harry felt the hem of the sleeve of his robe being gently tugged towards her.
"Of course, but we have duty." Harry whispered, and the distance between them closed. Harry felt the lithe curves of her body against his.