Lips curled into a sneer, Marvolo stared at the little cottage with disgust.
This was where the line of Potter chose to reside? They had an estate with wards and protections that were centuries old, and yet they chose this dinky little cottage in Godrics Hollow. This only confirmed the fact that the old man was trying to lure him into a trap. Who in their right mind interviews a potential school professor in a pub of all places, and that the interviewee just so happens to be a seer who gave a prophecy at said interview made matters even more foolishly unbelievable. Not the mention the fact that the supposed prophecy could be one of millions of children around the world.
There was also the fact that unlike those prophecies which in the past had proven true, the one overheard by Severus Snape was quite clear on the 'details' where other prophecies where known to be more vague and mysterious.
And yet, here he was.
He couldn't help himself really, he wanted to see what this ploy of Dumbledores was.
What was it the muggles said? Curiosity killed the cat? Well, he was no cat, no, he was a snake and whilst he would admit to allowing his curiosity to lead him into more than a few troublesome situations he was not someone who could so easily die.
The wards were pathetic, even for light wizards. Not even a minute later and he was strolling sedately up the garden path, listening to the young Potter lord yelling for his wife to flee.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll hold him off!"
Hold him off? With no wand? Worthless, utterly worthless.
He intended to leave the Potter lord alive, if only to preserve the once great pureblood linage, but seeing the wand-less fool before him it was clear there was nothing worth saving in this wizard. With a silent flick of his wand, a flash of green filled the room with it's light before flying towards the Potter lord. The fool didn't even make an attempt to dodge, simply stood there standing mouth agape.
Eyes narrowed he stared at the still form of the man he'd just killed. Something wasn't right.
He had fought with the Potter lord before, and watched him fight more then once. His behavior just now was not how the auror typically acted, potter was a confident and fierce battler, one he'd attempted to recruit more then once in the past, yet he drew no wand and acted as though he were more a muggle then a wizard.
Waving his wand in the mans direction, he hissed in annoyance. The man acted like a muggle, because that was exactly what he was, a muggle disguised as the potter lord.
Turning his attention to the noises he heard upstairs he pondered why the woman had not simply apparated away. Unless she too were a muggle, which considering his recent discovery was likely.
A quick spell showed his thoughts to be true, yet there was a magical presence up there, a strong one though it lacked the refinement and control of a grown wizards magical core.
Surely Dumbledore wouldn't? He was a fool, but surely he would not leave a babe behind in the care of the muggles he was using as decoy potters would he?
Making his way up the stairs, he found the muggle woman who wore the face of the muggle-born witch the potter lord married trying to barricade herself and the babe in what was clearly a nursery. Entering the room, he sensed something was off almost immediately.
Magic prickled along his senses, and if not for the years spent studying the art of runic magic under the guidance of his adoptive father, he would not of felt the faint feel of the dormant ruins beneath his feet.
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
The sobbing pleas of the red haired woman grated on his nerves, and interrupted his focus as he tried to focus on the ruins he could feel. Raising his wand, he was about to release a curse when the words of his father flew into his mind.
"Never use magic around unfamiliar runes or runic schematics, son, that's how you end up with your damned head blown off, or worse."
Ironic really, for his father had died doing exactly that. Well, his entire body was blown apart, but it was basically the same thing as having ones head blown off. If only the old man had the decency to pass on, as opposed to haunting his former workshop and Marvolo's study, until he'd crafted a golem for the ghost to possess so the old man would stop bothering him every five minutes about his unfinished projects.
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead."
Kill her instead? Interesting choice of words, add to that the woman's belief that he was here to kill the child he began to suspect that he was right to be hesitant to cast any magic in the room.
Pulling a round orb from his pocket, he flung it towards the woman who shrieked as it shattered releasing a white mist which engulfed her. As the woman slumped to the ground, he heard a small whimpering from the crib and turned his attention to the wide eyed babe who sat with his face pressed against the wooden bars staring at the red haired woman's body.
"Worry not child, she is not dead. Though, neither is she your mother." He murmured, gaze falling on the muggle woman's unconscious form.
Where were the potters, and why had they left their child here in the care of these muggles?
Pondering this as he turned his focus back to the runes that he could feel pulsating with magic beneath his feet, he walked to the centre of the room where the runes felt the strongest. The crib sat at the centre of the rune schematic, and seeing the large rug he used the toe of his boot to roll up one corner.
With a hiss, he released a shocked breath at the site of the blood red ruins that were revealed. Slowly, he rolled up more of the rug, lifting the crib up just enough to remove the carpeting from beneath it. He didn't dare move the crib or the babe from within the schematic, not yet knowing if doing such would activate this foul piece of magic Dumbledore had concocted.
"Well kid, I guess this answers the question as to where your parents are." He murmured with a sigh, staring down at the mass of blood runes carved into the floor.
With the amount of blood needed for such a large and intricate schematic, and the addition of the runes for familial sacrifice, it was clear the potter couple were dead.
"Uh, Ma," the babe sobbed, hand reaching out through the bars of his crib.
To his shock, the babe reached for him and not the still prone form of the muggle wearing his mothers face. He stared at the child, remembering a rather similar scene, though the child reaching for the robed man was older and clutched the crushed form of a tiny green garden snake in his hands.
Slowly he reached out, picking the babe up from where he sat in the crib and placed him on his hip. Much in the same way his father had lifted him up on that day so very long ago. He'd been an orphan then, raised in a muggle orphanage and unknowing of his heritage, but that had changed the day Silvia had been killed, and he set fire to the building where the orphanage was housed. His adoptive father who was nearby, had sensed to the strong wave of accidental magic and decided to investigate, which led to him being found in the garden behind the burning building whispering in parseltongue to his dead friend.
He was no longer worried about activating the runic schematic by removing the boy, the runes would only be activated if he cast a spell at the babe whilst he lay within the crib. The death of the muggle would have added to the runes power, making it even more potent activating the compulsion component to the runes, which would have compelled him to curse the babe.
Pulling a second orb from his pocket, this one glowing with scarlet flames that swirled about in an aggressive manner, he walked towards the door of the room, tossing the orb over his shoulder as he left. It shattered, and a wave of heat pressed against his back as he jogged down the stairs, the child clinging to his hip staring with wide eyes at the flames which chased them.
Passing through the room with the male muggle, he barely spared the man a glance as he left through the still open front door. Tapping his wand against the door frame, he removed the masking spell he'd placed over the alert charm with Dumbledores signature, before disappearing with a swirl of magic.
Staring down at the babe who sat by his feet, gnawing on the stuffed snake he'd transfigured for her to play with his mind swirled with all he'd discovered.
Firstly, the potters were dead, used to form the runes Dumbledore had attempted to use against him. Secondly, the babe who'd been announced as the Potter heir, named Harry Potter, was not a boy, but a girl, an heiress as opposed to the heir they'd claimed.
Why had the Potters lied about their child's gender? It was indeed their child, as that had been the first thing he'd checked upon glancing over as the house elf changed the babes diaper and finding the babe lacking a certain part of the male anatomy.
It didn't make any sense, the Potter family had no inheritance laws disallowing for female's to inherit the lordship, so why claim the babe to be a boy? Even more so, begin dosing her with the potions required to see her become exactly that. Such potions were illegal for use on a child. Those wishing to undergo a gender change needed to wait until their core stabilized at the age of seventeen in order to safely consume the potion without causing damage to their core. It was also a lengthy process, requiring small doses of the first potion to be taken over the course of a year, before taking the second potion to finalize the process.
What could they think to gain from doing this, aside from damaging their child's core? Staring mutely into the flames which filled the hearth of his studies fireplace, he tried to recall everything he knew about the Potter lord and the muggleborn he married.
Ah, the muggleborn.
Looking back down at the girl by his feet he waved his wand over her head for several moments before a faint glowing crest appeared above her head, and he leaned back into his chair now that his suspicions had been confirmed.
Before marrying his muggleborn, the Potter lordling had been betrothed to Selena Rosier, signed in blood and magic by Dorea Potter nee Black, and Fia Rosier. After the death of his parents and his accession to lord, James Potter had eloped with the muggleborn who up until then, was thought only to be his mistress in a premarital fling, not uncommon for young pure-bloods wishing to taste the delights of flesh before being wed.
The Rosier's had been outraged at the slight, and Selena had retreated from the public eye in shame at having been cast aside for a muggleborn. The only thing preventing a blood feud, was the interference of the council of lords, who decreed that the betrothal contract pass down to the next generation born of both lines, that had children capable of fulfilling the contract. It seemed the Potters wished to default on fulfilling the contract, as he knew the Rosier's had a son who recently entered his sixth year at Hogwarts. It was clear they were trying to hide the girl, and thought to solidify it by feeding her the gender change potions.
He snorted, doing such would have only made things more difficult for the child. The Potter couple had both signed the new contract, and as such the girl's magic would compel her to fulfill it, regardless if she became male or not. Only when she mixed Rosier blood with her own during the marriage bonding would the contract be deemed satisfied.
This revelation changed things a little. Originally he'd planned to keep the boy, he never put much thought in the matter of family before. He knew from the healers that he was unable to sire his own children, and intended to adopt an heir at some stage. When he brought the potter boy home he'd decided now would be as good a time as any, Dumbledore's little scheme had given him the perfect way to put an end to the Voldemort facade he'd built over the last several years.
The Voldemort and Death Eaters ploy was only ever intended to shake things up enough to allow him and his allies to make some changes to the ministry, getting rid of those who stood in the way of needed progression and keeping those such as Dumbledore distracted while they worked on things of much greater import. His plan had been for his alter identity to 'defeat' Lord Voldemort, in order to gain himself some sway over the masses, just as Dumbledore had done when he 'defeated' Grindelwald.
He still intended to put Voldemort to rest, his 'Death Eaters' had all been informed that Voldemort would soon meet his downfall, and had instructions for how to act out the subsequent disbandment of the death eaters. Using his own mark, which connected to those acting in the role of followers, he'd alerted them to his 'defeat' before dissolving the marks on his true faithful.
There were many who had flocked to 'Voldemort's' side, and who truly wished to take part in what his alter ergo claimed was his cause. Those would be left with the mark, though faded, to allow for the auror force to feel like they were actually useful. They weren't people of any importance, and the few who were, had no place in the society he intended to build. Better to cull them out now before someone actually decided to try their hand at being a real dark lord and collected them.
"Bah, ga, raah," the enthusiastic babbling of the babe who was bashing her toy snake into the gold lion brought his attention away from his wondering thoughts, and he watched the snake toy 'kill' the lion, a raven and badger already laying on their sides having already fallen to the snakes might.
He was a little surprised she hadn't favored the lion considering who her parents were, though it was a good thing she understood the strength of snakes even at this early age.
Staring at the girl he fought back a sigh of disappointment, he'd never planned on a daughter, when he thought about adopting an heir, he'd imagined finding a young boy and taking him in just as his father had him. Leaning down, he picked the child up, setting her on his lap facing him as he stared down into her bright green eyes for several long moments.
He could send her away, give her to one of his followers who lacked an heir, or even send her to the Rosier's to raise. She was going to marry their son after all.
He grimaced at the thought, such a waste that would be. The girls magic was strong, even for a babe of only one year, for her to be married off to the Rosier boy whose magic core only just reached the minimum threshold for attendance at Hogwarts was akin to tossing a diamond into a garbage can full of trash.
Small hands grabbing onto the front of his robes, the girl leaned forwards relaxing against him with a yawn and he sighed. It simply wouldn't do, he'd have to to break the betrothal magics hold on her. While he intended to blood adopt her, as it would be necessary for her to be his heir or in this case heiress, the standard blood adoption would not be enough to break the magics hold. Not that he planned to use the modern blood adoption potions, but he was concerned that if he used the more archaic form of blood adoption, the contracts magic might cause issues with the adoption rite.
Salazar Slytherin's biggest fear was his bloodline dying out, along with that of the pureblood lines and with them magic itself.
Which was why he'd created the adoption rite, which would unlike modern adoption potions that only added to the child's genetic parentage, magically rebirth the child using the blood and magic of the new parents.
In this way newborn non magical children could be brought into the magical world, and be adopted into those families without heirs or which had died out, if the family had stored samples of blood and magic.
His father had not blood adopted him when he was a child, as the man was a recluse and very sensitive about his privacy, as a highly sought after rune master he'd not wanted people to try using Marvolo to reach him. So he'd hidden his relation to his father, playing the role of a muggle raised half-blood throughout his school years.
When he'd found the ritual in a hidden vault within the chamber of secrets, he'd shown it to his father who spent several years researching it and after his graduation they performed the rite. There was no way to get his real mothers blood, nor did she have any magic to provide to the rite, so instead they'd used the blood and magic of Marlena Slytherin. Though before doing so, in order to create a realistic family tree which would prevent any from discovering his 'mother' was in fact the daughter of Salazar Slytherin, they'd taken some of his uncle Morfin's blood and that of Lucille Celdera a French pureblood disowned from her family, to add into the ritual after making some minor modifications. In the eyes of blood and magic, he was Marvolo Charis Morte, Son of Charis Arthur Morte and Marlena Gaunt.
Perhaps, something similar may work for the girl. The magic of the contract would be nullified once the Potter and Rosier lines were joined. If he blood adopted the girl into the Rosier line before performing the ritual, then the contract should be deemed fulfilled. Though would the babe be able to handle going through not only the changes brought on by the blood adoption, but also the adoption rite? She was already suffering due to the effects of the potions the potter couple were feeding her.
There was also the matter of whose blood and magic to use in place of the girls mother. Relaxing back into the cushions of his chair, with the girl still sleeping against his chest, he spent nearly an hour contemplating his choices before settling on one.
Selena Rosier.
She was the best choice, by using her the girl would have Rosier blood thus voiding the contract, and by using a woman still living would mean the girl would have a proper female figure in her life. If she were a boy he would not concern himself with such things, but he didn't know the first thing about raising a little girl. He wasn't worried that the woman would refuse him, Selena had suffered greatly when potter rejected her, by being at his side she would not only be able to reclaim her former status among the pureblood ladies, but rise well above it.