Hey everyone! I have 72k words of this fic already with about four scenes left to write. It should be smooth sailing with updates every Tuesday.
This fic will have BDSM in the later chapters but has a relatively solid plot. I will mark chapters with BDSM smut at the top, but we have a while to go. Klaus is solidly dark in this (think Tom Riddle vibes but with none of the racism and a solid love interest; very Travelers-esque if you've read that fic of mine), so please be aware of that before you dive in.
Thank you to honestgrins and klarolinedrabbles for beta heroism, to arrenemris for the beautiful cover, and to coveredinthecolors for being so patient with me. This fic is a gift for her. Happy late birthday!
Hope you like it!
Prologue
"Hi, Dad," Caroline greeted, holding the mobile floo in front of her to see her father's head floating in the miniature flame. "How are you?"
"I'm doing good," Bill said with a smile. He was practically beaming, and it was setting Caroline on edge. He wasn't usually this happy. "I have news."
"What kind of news?"
"I might have secured an arrangement for you."
Her heart sank to her stomach. "An arrangement?"
He nodded. "I just spoke to Bartholomew Castle. His son is interested in a match."
Caroline worried her lip between her teeth. She knew that this had been coming. She was sixteen, almost of age, so it made sense that her father was looking for a match for her. Her family's line of work made it imperative that they secure someone socially acceptable to help her run the business when she inherited it. She'd been raised to be a socialite, but she'd secretly been hoping that it might be possible to push off having a match for long enough that her father would let her run the business herself.
Not to mention the whole loveless marriage concept. She just couldn't shake off the desperate want to marry someone for love. Someone who chose her, instead of choosing her wealth and pedigree. She didn't want to be miserable for the rest of her life, stuck in a cold partnership, and that's what a match would lead her to.
Especially with Lucien Castle, the definition of skeeze personified.
"Dad..." she started, trailing off when she saw his face. "Lucien?"
"He comes from a good family. They were on the right side of the second war but won't have a problem with the family business."
"So he's super shady but not a pureblood supremacist. That's a great bar to set."
He sighed. "Caroline..."
"What? I don't like him. He's creepy."
"Well, from what I understand, Bartholomew's spoken to him and he's fully prepared to go forward with the match. You won't have to marry until you're of age. Give him a chance. Maybe you'll be surprised."
Caroline wrinkled her nose, her instinct to resist more fighting with her knowledge that she had to do what was best for the family if she didn't want the business to slip through her fingers. And she wanted the business. She wanted to prove that she was capable and strong despite what everyone thought of her. Maybe if the cost was marrying a total creep, she could take the hit?
After all, arranged marriages often were basically business arrangements. She wouldn't necessarily have to spend any time with him. Her parents had barely shared a wing of the house before they separated.
"Maybe."
"I have a meeting with him next week to talk it through a bit more. Just think about it."
"Okay," Caroline agreed with a reluctant nod. "I'll think about it."
He rewarded her with a beaming smile, one that made her insides clench with guilt at her reluctance. "That's my girl."
Gag.
"Is there anything else?" she asked, wanting to get off the floo as soon as possible so that she could scream into her pillow and wallow in her misery.
"How's your first week back? Excited to get some use out of the robes you got for Christmas?"
At least he was making an effort to pretend to care.
XXX
"I just don't think I'm getting the wand movement right."
"Then try harder," Klaus shot back unsympathetically, not looking up from the spellbook he'd gotten from the restricted section, courtesy of Professor Slughorn. He was such a trusting old coot.
It was ridiculous how inept they were, honestly. His wandless magic was good enough that he didn't even have a need for a real wand anymore, and he still knew how to do it. Over the years, he'd learned that his roommates were talentless nuisances at best. As soon as he'd sufficiently earned their loyalty and fear, he'd been free to treat them as he wished, and it had been a relief to be able to voice his discontent with their incompetence. They begged for his help with everything, and it was trying.
"I don't know what to do," Maddox whined. "How am I supposed to try if I can't even get the wand movement?"
"If you get it right will you stop talking?"
"I mean, if I can practice-"
"It's a simple flick, mate. See?" Klaus asked, grabbing his fake wand and flicking it, turning the pin cushion into a hedgehog and flicking it again to turn it back. "Try."
Maddox obliged, sparks flying out but not quite reaching the pin cushion, and before Klaus could show him again, Lucien entered the room, a bounce in his step. "Evening," he greeted, nodding at all of them, his head dipping a bit more when he saw Klaus.
"What's got you in a good mood?"
"Just got word from my father that he's found a match for me after Hogwarts," Lucien said with a broad smile, his teeth glinting in the light of the torches.
Klaus rolled his eyes, preparing to go back to his book. Pureblood traditions were ever so messy. Barbaric, practically. Who would bother?
"What unfortunate twit did your father fool into marrying you?" Tristan drawled from the corner.
"Caroline Forbes," Lucien said, his tone dripping with smugness.
Klaus stiffened. Caroline, his Caroline, was to be betrothed to Lucien? "Caroline?" he repeated, putting down his book slowly, his eyes glittering.
Lucien froze, obviously recognizing the tone for the warning it was. He swallowed audibly. "Yes. Caroline. She's in sixth ye-"
"I know who she is," Klaus snapped, feeling his magic surge through his veins. He closed his eyes to rein it in, taking a deep breath. "And you've made the bargain already?"
Lucien looked confused. "Err...No. My father still has to draw up the contract. It isn't going to be signed until next week, most likely."
Klaus's lips thinned as he pressed them together. Caroline's family was powerful, the Forbes dynasty having more galleons than they knew what to do with and enough influence to buy legislation if they cared enough. They were philanthropists when it suited them, and the less savory businesses they held, the ones everyone pretended not to know about, traded in a great many things he was interested in.
If that wasn't enough motivation in and of itself, she was quite the creature. A quick-witted and pretty thing, if a bit vain. Her laugh was infectious, and she had a knack for accomplishing anything she set her mind to. A true force of nature. He'd decided quite early on that he was going to have her, had developed a plan for the spring to draw her in by plying her with his attention. He'd visit her at her father's antique shop over the summer, ingratiate himself even more, and set up a courtship, hoping she'd mature a bit by the time she graduated. That way, he wouldn't have to tolerate her on a daily basis, but he'd show his affections for her by sending her pretty trinkets as surprises and taking her for dates on Hogsmeade weekends. She'd be eating out of the palm of his hand in no time, and he'd have access to her family's fortune and collection of priceless dark artifacts.
He hadn't had any idea that her father was looking for a match for her, however. He knew her mother was muggle-born, though from a powerful muggle family, and it hadn't occurred to him that they followed the old traditions. That was a complication.
If he knew her at all, and he liked to think he'd done his research well, Caroline wasn't all that fond of Lucien. She thought him a bit of a prick, and she wasn't wrong. She was also a bit of a hopeless romantic, and he had no doubt that she'd been hoping to marry someone she actually held affection for. Lucien was likely not an ideal candidate. However, she was also the loyal sort, and would likely soldier on for the good of her family. He couldn't acquire her if she wasn't available, could he?
No, this wouldn't do at all.
XXX
Caroline and April stilled in the hallway when they heard a chorus of panicked yells from a room down the corridor, and they drew their wands, hurrying over to investigate. It wasn't quite curfew, but they had the first shift for patrol and had met at the library to walk over to the Prefects' Lounge to check in before their shift.
Caroline got their first, her jaw dropping open when she saw what was going on. "Oh my god!"
Lucien was gasping on his back on the stone floor, his lips blue from lack of oxygen as he flailed, his hands grasping frantically on the gills that had sprouted on his neck.
"Hold still," Tristan said impatiently, waving his wand at his friend. "Aguamenti."
Caroline felt her heart leap to her throat when she watched the jet of water from Tristan's wand give him back a bit of color, though he was still clearly in a lot of pain.
"Can one of you make yourselves useful and get a teacher?" Tristan snapped at her and April when he noticed them in the doorway. She nodded, trying to figure out whether she had a better chance of getting to the teacher's lounge one floor up or if she should go to Professor Sprout's office in the other direction and hope that the professor had lingered. When she turned on her heel she caught the eye of the only calm-looking person.
Klaus was leaning against the wall, twirling his wand between his fingers, looking almost bored. He watched Lucien splutter and cough without any sympathy or fear, apparently completely unbothered by the spectacle in front of him, by one of his roommates writhing on the floor in agony as he struggled to breathe between shots of water to his face.
Her breath stalled in her lungs, and she felt her face pale, a whimper falling out of her as what had clearly occurred hit her like a punch to the stomach. Klaus apparently heard the noise, stiffening and turning to look at her, his face shifting from apathy to surprise, his expression softening into concern when he saw her fear.
"Are you all right, Caroline?" he asked softly, and she shook her head, backing up on unsteady feet before fleeing through the door and hurtling down the hall to take the stairs to the teacher's lounge, her head spinning.
From the very beginning, Klaus seemed to effortlessly fit in anywhere he went. He always knew the right things to say, his dimpled smiles and liberal use of pet names making him a hit with the girls. But she'd always suspected his affability and effortless charm was only skin deep. There had always been something about Klaus that rubbed her the wrong way.
She still couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe it was the fact that no matter how much his veneer of neutrality stayed put in public, she could always feel the bubbling rage beneath his skin at any slight or misstep by people around him.
His presence always made her hair stand on end, gave her a chill that she couldn't explain. It had stopped bothering her around the middle of her fifth year when he'd begun to talk to her more, to show more of an interest in her, but that had just made her more wary. He'd seemed to pick up on her distrust about halfway through the year before, and he grew warmer towards her than he was with anyone else. Some of the girls had giggled and ribbed her about it, teasing her and saying that she was so lucky he seemed to have taken a liking to her. She'd always scoffed, brushing off their claims.
It was overwhelmingly obvious to her that Klaus didn't like people. He liked power. His followers-she refused to call them friends,, since they seemed to be trapped in some cult of personality with him-were weirdly subservient. They all seemed scared of him, and it made her nervous that he had that kind of control over the pompous dirtbags she'd hated for her entire childhood. When he ordered them to do something, they executed it. No questions asked. She'd known those boys her whole life, and if you'd asked her before she got to school for first year whether they'd all start blindly following some random muggle-born from Wales around like lost puppies, she would have laughed in your face.
Maybe there had been something to the gentle teasing from her roommates, she thought with a twist of nausea. Klaus had been even nicer to her lately, had taken more of an interest. And Lucien was his roommate, he'd likely told him of their planned engagement. It seemed insane, her suspicions, but even as she tried to talk herself out of it she knew it was true, even if no one would believe her.
Klaus had tried to kill her fiancé.
XXX
They'd only been back at school for two weeks after winter break and Caroline was already exhausted. Because of the accident, patrolling assignments had been increased for the next few weeks. She hadn't realized how draining it would be. Walking around a route from ten to midnight with April Young three times a week had not been her version of a fun time before the increase, and now they were running out of things to talk about. The other girl was nice and all, but it was just...so boring. She hoped it would get better with time. Or maybe she could ask Rose Weasley, the head girl, to switch up their partners.
The only good part was that prefect patrol pairs had to be two students from different houses, so at least she'd never end up walking around at night with the serial killer next door.
The more she thought about it, Caroline grew more certain that what had happened to Lucien the week before had been anything but an accident. Even though Lucien swore up and down that it had done it to himself, there was no way that he had been powerful enough to pull off the partial fish transfiguration on his own. Klaus was one of the most powerful wizards she'd ever met, the pure magic rolling off of him in waves anytime he got the least bit emotional. He could have easily pulled it off and made it look like an accident. Plus, not to be arrogant or anything, but he definitely had motive. The only thing that had stopped Lucien from drowning on air was Tristan holding a steady water charm on him as they rushed him to the hospital wing. It all added up.
It had taken her days to get Bonnie to sit down long enough to listen to her "crazy conspiracy theory" about how Klaus had been the one to do the charm. It was clear that her best friend didn't believe that it was purposeful, but at least Bonnie was willing to concede that Klaus had probably done it and had Lucien lie to cover for him. It was immensely frustrating that the facts were right in front of the entire school that Klaus had clearly tried to murder his roommate, but no one would believe it.
She still kind of couldn't believe he managed to pull it off when it seemed so obvious to her, no matter how charming he was.
Caroline watched as the laughing boys by the fireplace all went silent immediately upon Klaus's arrival in the common room, waiting for him to approach them. Instead, he glanced around the common room before his eyes landed on her, and she felt herself freeze up as he approached, stiffening, feeling like a deer in headlights. He smiled slightly, sitting down on a chair at her table and turning to face her, his body turned completely towards her to give her his full attention.
"Caroline," he greeted with a nod and a dimpled grin.
"Hi."
"I was hoping you'd do me the honor of accompanying me to our last Hogsmeade weekend before Easter break?" he asked, somehow managing to sound earnest and hopeful.
She swallowed. All of her suspicions coming together at once. God, he wanted to date her. How was she supposed to answer that?
"Um, I'm...engaged. Actually," she said, feeling the heat fill her cheeks. "To Lucien Castle."
"Still? Pity that," he said softly. "Well, if you change your mind, do let me know."
She nodded, every inch of her screaming to run as fast as she could, only relaxing when Klaus returned to the fireplace with his followers.
That night, she got a call from her father, who seemed to be in a foul mood. "What's wrong?"
"The Castles have called off the engagement. Something about finding a better match," he said, his teeth gritted. "I hope they know that they've made an enemy of us."
"Dad, calm down," Caroline said, her heart racing in her chest, feeling a bit lightheaded. "It's not a big deal."
"It's an insult," Bill basically spat, still clearly angry. "Don't worry, Caroline. We'll find you someone."
"Oh, no rush at all. Seriously," she said with a bright smile that was completely fake. "I'm not worried."
It was true. She wasn't worried. She was terrified.
Thank you so much for reading this! I hope you like the rest. Please, please review. It's the only thing that gives me any sense of how popular the fic is and whether people want me to focus on it. Did you have a favorite line of dialogue? A favorite pieces of prose? Do you like Klaus's darkness in this? Any predictions?
Please tell me what you think! Reviews are what inspire me to keep writing :)
