Getting Back to Azkaban
A/N # 1: Obviously I write AU. If you want canon turn back now because you are going to be severely disappointed.
A/N#2: I appreciate you helping with fixing errors and asking questions. Luna is currently front runner for the title of Duchess of Azkaban. If you would rather some other lady be Harry's Duchess please let me know.
Chapter 10: Some of Azkaban's History
Petunia began with explaining how she came to be the heiress. She was a direct descendent of the Azkaban line and the story as she knew it began with her grandfather Leopold Pendragon, the 42nd Duke of Azkaban.
Leopold Pendragon, Lord of Azkaban, was only another failure who had been trying practically all his life to end the curse of Azkaban. He had become Lord of Azkaban long before he was supposed to due to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba in 1898. His father who was on an ambassadorial mission for the British government had been on the boat to mediate discussions between the United States and Spain trying to head off the Spanish American War.
It was rather disheartening to actually become a lord the second you were born, but his esteemed father had become a casualty some four months prior to his birth and left him to sort out the family's problems without any help from the previous generation except all the journals from the previous Dukes and what Lady Aziza had told him regarding the situation.
Leopold Pendragon had been a late-in-life child, a real surprise actually. He was the result of a tryst between Aziza Grindelwald, mother of Gellert Grindelwald, who would later become famous as a dark lord trying to take over the world, and the rather reclusive Umberto Pendragon, sometimes Statesman for Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, and Duke of Azkaban the 41st.
Not a terribly exciting pedigree unless you got a kick out of being a bastard. His mother did love him though and often spoke of his father as being thrilled to know that he had a son on the way even if he had not managed to live long enough to greet him.
Lady Aziza raised Leopold to be a proper lord of Azkaban. She had been welcomed as the Duchess of Azkaban even though she and Umberto had not wed and she carried out her duties thoroughly and with joy. She often took Leo with her on her rounds when she dealt with the citizens of Azkaban Island as his Regent so that he would know his people and their ways. She taught him to observe their customs along with his three "Rs". And, finally, she instructed him on the duty of providing Azkaban an heir to the Lordship.
Aziza's only disappointment in Leopold was that he was unable to break the curse on Azkaban. But, since he did not speak parseltonge there really was nothing he could do about it.
Leopold hated to disappoint his mother so he decided that if he could not break the curse then he would attempt to produce a child who had a better than average chance of speaking parseltonge. That involved finding a wife who either had the trait in her family or could speak the language herself. Research indicated that there was one such female available although slightly used. And for a man who was raised around dementors, she was not even too terribly ugly. They were married in June of 1929, and settled down to connubial bliss while working on obtaining a couple of sprogs.
His luck being what it was only seemed to compound problems already going full tilt. The lady he had taken to wife had turned out to be a bit of a nutcase even if she came from a 'pureblood' wizarding family. It had surprised him to find her sobbing into her sherry glass one evening as she confessed that only the previous year she had given a muggle a love potion and tricked him into marrying her. Then after she stopped administering the potion to the man he had deserted her and left her to bear their child alone and survive as best she could.
Leo asking what had happened to the child only caused Merope to dissolve into further histrionics as she began drinking straight from the wine bottle. It took him grabbing the bottle away and pouring a goblet of chilled water over her before she regained enough of her sensibilities to explain that the lady at the home she took shelter in told her the child had died.
His asking about the funeral arrangements had Merope crying hysterically again and sobbing about being a horrible person for not making any arrangements regarding the child. Merope was forced to admit that she had sold her last valuable to Caractacus Burke for ten galleons sometime prior to going into labor and she had been completely destitute by the time she had entered the home and begged for help. She had simply walked out of the home the minute she had the strength to do so and had never looked back.
Leopold did not take further issue with Merope's confession. He held her while she sobbed her heart out and whispered things that healed her shattered soul eventually. They did not love each other yet but the seed had been planted when he kissed her tear stained face and told her he wished he had found her in time to save her the heartache of going through childbirth alone and then losing the child. He would do what he could to make things right for her, and that included going back to London and putting a marker on little Tom Marvolo Riddle's grave.
Eventually Merope bore Leo one daughter whom they named Daisy Jane. Her disappointment at not producing the male parseltonge child he needed caused her fragile psyche to fracture again and eventually she became as batty as any dementor that roamed the island. He took her to St. Mungo's and employed the best mind healer he could find.
When Leopold took Merope away from Azkaban he had hoped that the medical staff at St. Mungo's would be able to heal her mind and they could return to the island. Merope had responded well to the course of treatment until the day she sat down to the table with him to eat breakfast and saw the headlines of the paper: LAST REMAINING HEIRS OF SALAZAR SLYTHERIN FOUND GUILTY OF MUGGLE GENTRY'S DEATHS. The Daily Prophet went on to say that Marvolo Gaunt and his son, Morphin Gaunt, were facing prison terms for killing muggles and resisting arrest.
Merope broke down and had to have her mind wiped of the incident. Leopold then spent the next several years trying to help his wife recover.
Daisy Jane was eight years old when she saw her mother attempt committing suicide. There was nothing else for Leopold to do except obliviate his traumatized daughter also and remove them from Azkaban permanently.
Leopold settled them in a slightly shabby but genteel section of a small town called Spinners End and began easing his wife and child into the non-magical world with the hope that they would escape the madness that seemed so prevalent in women associated with men of the Pendragon bloodline.
Leo and Merope were successful at raising Daisy Jane as a muggle and in 1955 when she married a wonderful man by the name of Robert Evans they gave her a nice nest egg so she could start her married life more comfortably and headed back to Azkaban to maintain things as best he could while waiting for the next generation.
During one of their frequent visits to Spinners End after Daisy Jane's marriage, Leo and Merope had taken a small skiff out on the river and an accident occurred. Leo managed to get Merope back to the shore and to the hospital, but she contracted pneumonia and about a week later she passed away. The Daily Prophet reported Merope's death and carried a small obituary stating that she was survived by her husband of some thirty-two years, a daughter, her husband, and two granddaughters.
Thomas Marvolo Riddle saw that obituary and decided that he would find the truth. The women at the orphanage had told him repeatedly that his mother died right after giving birth to him and naming him. The picture the Daily Prophet carried of the woman who from all indications was his mother was not completely unfortunate. It just irked him beyond measure that she had left him to rot in an orphanage while she lived the high life with a Duke. He determined to solve the conundrum.
Meanwhile, Lord Azkaban had not been disappointed with Daisy when two years after her marriage she had produced a lovely little blond haired, blue-eyed girl. He was even more pleased when two years after the birth of Petunia, Daisy Jane sent her father another birth announcement; this time for a red-headed, green-eyed daughter whom they named Lily.
Leopold descended on his daughter's house with a heart full of hope both times, and rejoiced both times because the girls were magically strong and both were parseltongues. His optimism knew no bounds after discovering that fact. He was ecstatic to move back to Spinners End during the summers so that he could teach the girls about magic.
Leo's luck ran out completely when Tom got back from his last great magic searching odyssey in 1974. Leo was starting to feel his age even if he was still in good health. He missed Merope's quiet presence and never really recovered from losing her. They had not been a perfect couple, but they had been comfortable friends as well as occasional lovers; it had been a good working relationship which had been too awkward to replace.
When Tom showed up on Azkaban Island and demanded an audience with him, Leo had no reason not to see him. Tom was already rather insane from using so much of his soul to form horcruxes that when Leo did not recognize him as the next duke he immediately whipped out his wand and cast the aveda kedavara on Leo.
Tom did have the blood of Salazar Slytherin in him. He could have actually been the one to lift the curse if things had gone differently; he had the power, the parseltonge ability, but he did not have that certain something that would make him the perfect dark lord.
It took Regulus Black breeding into the Evans-Pendragon line to create the perfect dark lord. What had been missing from Tom Marvolo Riddle was the ability to lead. Harold Sothis Black was capable of leading. His instinctual knowledge of morality, combined with compassion, was a very good thing.