Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, as much as I wish I did. I also make no money from this work.
AN: Another chapter within a week, as promised. This one is dedicated to Tatsu (no, wait, I'm being serious- if you make one more Padfoot joke I'm going to defenestrate you), for always being there… watching like the creepy stalker no one wanted. Some alternate perspectives as the story advances towards Hogwarts, one more of which is to come.
Lord Henry Davis paced in his study as a fierce storm raged outside, flashes of lightning illuminating the room from the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk. The ferocity of the storm reflected that of the tumultuous one in his heart, one he had struggled to contain over the last year.
Really, as his wonderful and lovely wife had reminded him, he should have expected this eventually… but so soon? He had awoken one morning with the shocking knowledge that he was no longer the center of his little girl's universe (hadn't that hurt), but the true shock was realizing that his little girl was madly in love while she was still that, a little girl! Tracey was 11, for goodness's sake! Much too young to even be thinking of boys, much less as deeply as she did now!
An unexpected crash of thunder briefly made him falter in his pacing. No, he must remain calm- it wasn't his precious Tracey's fault. No, his only child wouldn't do that to him- it was that rascal's fault. He had dropped into their lives abruptly, appearing one day in their garden (he had never figured out how he pierced their wards, and neither had the curse breaker he hired to investigate) while he and Julia were out, only to grown like a weed and take root in Tracey's heart, roots that now ran so deep that his daughter couldn't imagine life without him, as if he had always been there for her (like me, her father).
It's not as if he treated her like anything other than the perfect princess that she was- Henry could tell that Harry revered every minute in her presence, and every smile she graced the boy he treasured as if it were an angelic gift. It only made Henry resent Harry more though- The way his daughter's face lit up when Harry arrived every morning, how her face fell every night he left… Once upon a time, it used to be him, her beloved father, that caused that, but now it was an eleven year old boy.
When he had voiced these thoughts to Julia, she had laughed and simply shaken her head at his silliness. She admonished him, a grown man, for being jealous of a little boy. She hadn't shared his concerns- about how fast their bond had grown, about how deep their so-called 'friendship' ran, and that alien, unnatural, and unnerving feeling that blasted boy's magic left. His wife's and daughter's magic was warm, caring and loving, his friend Cygnus's was jovial but unyielding, and then this- this thing's magic felt like a frigid blast of uncaring, indifferent inevitability. It was so out of place, so… different, it made him fear for his daughter's future.
Almost as if summoned by his dark thoughts, his eyes jumped up at the sound of the door closing to see his wife enter the study, a disapproving frown already formed on her lips. Henry sighed, knowing he was really in trouble now…
-Something else that seems suspiciously like a line break-
Lady Isabella Greengrass had never lived a more entertaining year, even more so than the year after meeting her future in-laws.
Her eldest, Daphne, had a difficult year, and it was all a single boy's fault. Daphne was… a special girl, one who sought solitude and quiet, like her Slytherin father. She'd also inherited her incessant need for control from him. Not at all like her sister, little Astoria, who was already a hyper ball of sunshine and energy (definitely inherited that from her Gryffindor mum, and that mother was proud of it), much to Daphne's chagrin. Daphne had figured out at a young age that if she used her flawless beauty and sharp, intelligent mind, she could turn the Pureblood Heirs to putty in her hands and finally be left alone in those dreadfully boring grown-up parties. This strategy had worked for all the young boys that passed through her home, until her best friend Tracey had brought her new best friend to meet her other best friend.
Harry had been near-enthralled from the start, yes, but with the wrong girl. Daphne had been shocked when Harry hadn't offered her his slice of cake- no, he'd offered Tracey his slice first. Daphne's ten-year-old mind couldn't grasp the concept of a boy being more focused on another girl, and had sulked the entire tea party while she and Julia shared knowing smiles. She and her friend had spent a majority of the year organizing play dates for their own amusement, watching her eldest get increasingly frustrated and desperate in her attempts to make the boy submit. But Harry's deference to Julia's daughter was near religious, and he'd easily ignored or deflected poor Daphne's attempts. Her own conversations with Julia, her only friend in the nest of venomous vipers and backstabbing scarlet women that were the Pureblood housewives, had focused on the intriguing boy and his worship of her friend's only child, joking about the future wedding and Daphne's growing jealousy.
She chuckled softly as she heard her daughter ranting in her room about the unfairness of Tracey getting a good choice of a husband before her. Maybe this could help break her daughter's cold shell; If it did, perhaps she could provide some tips to her daughter. After all, she had gotten the best catch of the Slytherin boys, so she knew a trick or two. Well, a handful would need to wait- she was only eleven, after all. Maybe when she's thirty.