Harry Potter and co, and the world they live in do not, I repeat, not, belong to me, and so I am only borrowing them while my muse has a day out.

Most of this one is written but if you want more, you'll just have to review, won't you? The rating is for a later chapter that is quite nasty. You have been warned.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin . . .



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A Father's Love



Aline smiled down at the sleeping baby girl curled into the crook of her arm. It had taken a lot of work to get this tiny beauty into the world, but she'd managed it. At last, tired but happy, she gazed on her daughter's wrinkled little face.

'Welcome to the world, little one,' she whispered, kissing the top of the red forehead.

The door creaked open slowly, and her husband stepped into the warm room. She beckoned him to sit on the bed, and he sank into the pillows beside her, with an audible sigh. His eyes went straight to the child, who gave him a long stare. With a jolt, he realised he had two identical pairs of eyes regarding him. A warmth spread through him. This was his daughter, and for only the second time in his life, he felt love.

'She's beautiful, my love,' he breathed, for once almost looking human again. Long gone were the days when he could look at her without even a trace of his other persona marking his expression. The evil acts he had committed for years had left their taint on his soul.

He gazed into Aline's eyes, and wondered, for the hundredth time, if she could bear the sorrow he would have to inflict upon her. Or if he would have to do what he must to ensure the child's survival.

'My love, you know we cannot keep her with us.'

Aline's cinnamon eyes widened in shock.

'What?' she hissed. 'You cannot be thinking of taking her from me? Not so soon?'

She shrank back on the bed, the small bundle cuddled tighter in her thin arms. Her husband sighed in exasperation.

'You knew it would come, my love. You knew she would have to be hidden.'

'Why? Why must my daughter be taken from me, when millions of mothers can hold their tiny ones close without fear of separation?'

'Because she is my daughter, Aline. Were my enemies to discover her existence, they would use her against me.'

'And are my feelings to be unaccounted for?'

'If need be, yes. She must be hidden, with or without your consent.'

The man leant across and stroked her hair. Aline stiffened at the tender touch.

'You are not the man I married,' she said, turning away from him, and swinging her legs off the bed. She set the child in the cot nearby.

'Where are you going?' he asked calmly, not sounding surprised at his cold reception.

'I'm leaving,' Aline informed him, pulling out a bag, and filling it with clothes for both her and the baby. 'I'll go where no one knows me, where you haven't even been heard of. We'll both be safe there.'

He stood and stared coldly at her, his eyes ripping into her fragile form, burning with an unearthly light.

'That would not be wise, my love,' he said, coming to stand between her and the door. 'The child is to be my heir, and she must remain within reach where I can get to her without effort when the time comes.'

Aline glared at the man she had once thought to be the love of her life.

'Over my dead body,' she hissed.

A cruel smile curved his thin lips.

'If that is your wish, my love.'

Only then did Aline realise that he held his wand in his hand, and the tip was pointed directly at her. She scarcely heard the fatal words, her lifeless body crumpling to the floor without a sound.

As the wizard bent over the cot to lift the happily oblivious baby into his cold embrace, the door opened and a small wiry man scuttled in, falling into a clumsy bow before him.

'You called for me, my lord?'

'Yes,' he cradled the girl in his arms, watching her chest rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing. 'You are to take my daughter and deliver her to the house of Lucius Malfoy. She will be brought up as his daughter there, until her time comes to take her place at my side. Do not fail me.'

He placed the tiny bundle in the shaking man's arms, and watched as his only living kin was taken from his home. A strange pang gripped his heart, an organ he had long since given up on for all the emotion it provided him. It was almost as if he would never see her again.



*~*~*



The wiry man hurried through the darkness, his precious package clutched close to his chest. Darting anxious glances into the bushes by the side of the road, he failed to notice that he had entered the one place where his magic would not work.

A figure stepped out of the greenery, coming to a halt before him.

'Well, well,' he said. 'If it isn't Gregory Crabbe.'

The messenger spat at the unwelcome newcomer.

'James Potter,' he snarled.

James bowed, and straightened, gesturing towards the bundle held in Crabbe's arms.

'For me, Crabbe? You shouldn't have.'

Crabbe backed away, determined not to fail his master.

'Stay away, Potter.'

He drew his wand, and brandished it high, taking care not to drop the baby. James laughed scornfully.

'And what do you think that's going to do? In case you hadn't noticed, you're on Hogwarts' property. That stick won't work here.'

Crabbe swore, and slowly laid the child on the cold wet grass. She began to squirm in her blanket, emitting a high-pitched wail. James looked astonished.

Under the cover of his surprise, Crabbe rushed him, bearing the man to the ground and knocking his wand from his hand. They rolled about, fists flailing. James fought to remove Crabbe's rapidly tightening grip from his body, kicking wildly at the desperate man. Finally his grip was broken, and James threw Crabbe back, away from him. Crabbe fell backwards, and landed heavily, his head falling with a sickening crack on a rock by the side of the road. He convulsed for a moment and then was still.

James lay on the cold ground for a few minutes longer, breathing heavily, fighting to regain control of his lungs. He crawled over to Crabbe, and lifted the man's head. It fell back with an odd squishy sound, like fish being de-boned, and James looked in horror at the blood that stained his hand.

'Oh, God.'

Just as the contents of his stomach were about to take a trip to the outside world, a thin mewling sound drew his attention from his guilt to the tiny bundle by the side of the road. He knelt beside the blankets, pulling a fold away to reveal a little red face, screwed up with the effort of crying. He lifted the baby, and jogged her about, cooing softly under his breath. She was barely hours old, he realised. Slowly she quieted, gazing at him with the adoring stare a newborn will give anyone with time to spend with them. James looked back, a small smile tugging at his lips.

'So you're the Dark Lord's little one, then?'

He removed the body from the roadside, and hurried across the grounds to the school, the child pressed close to his chest.



*~*~*



The anxious father gazed out through the scratched glass of the window, waiting for news of his daughter. A disembodied voice spoke to him from the fire, where Lucius Malfoy's head danced among the flames.

'You summoned me, my lord?'

'Yes, Lucius. I trust you have received my daughter favourably?'

The dancing face looked confused for a moment.

'My lord?'

'The baby, Lucius, the child Crabbe was sent to deliver to you.'

His voice took on a strained edge.

'He has not arrived?'

'No, my lord.'

'Then where is he?'

The sudden shout echoed off the walls of the empty chamber. Lucius winced, though did his best to cover it up. Slowly the father gained control of himself.

'Thank you, Lucius, that will be all.'

The face nodded to him, and disappeared into the crackling flames.

Left alone, the man raised his wand and muttered an incantation into the fire. An image appeared, of two men talking on a darkened road. He watched in silence, as James and Crabbe fought. He showed no sign of loss when he found that Crabbe had died, feeling his blood boil as James took his daughter to Hogwarts, to that interfering old busybody, Dumbledore. His face darkened in anger as the images faded. He could feel the fury coursing through his veins.

With anger in his heart, the Dark Lord Voldemort sat in the isolation of his room, the body of his dead wife cooling on the carpet, and his thoughts were on revenge. Revenge on James Potter, the man who stole his only daughter before she even had a name.