Witches Are. Witches Do.

Chapter 8

The Daily Prophet didn't mention Harry by name, but it did pretty much list everything else about her that made it easy for people to figure out who the article was talking about. They plainly said that Riddle was romancing a fifth year Gryffindor student whose parents were an Auror and a Healer.

Yeah, that didn't leave anything up to the imagination, now did it?

Harry ignored the many stares she got that day as best as she could and went about her day, glaring at everyone who so much as looked like they wanted to question her about the article.

The next day the Daily Prophet ran an interview they had with Riddle about his alleged romance. Riddle didn't make a big deal of any of it, but simply explained that he'd taken on an apprentice for a duelling Mastery. That apprentice turned out to be a parselmouth, which brought them closer together and led to Riddle proposing to her.

Riddle did a great job in making the whole sordid ordeal sound like a fairy tale romance. As it turned out, Riddle had a real talent for making up stories that weren't even remotely true.

"Would you rather people knew what had really happened?" Regulus asked that evening, when Harry was hiding out in her uncles' quarters to get away from all the curious looks she was getting from not only her fellow students, but also from most of the staff now that Riddle had officially confirmed they were engaged to be married.

"No." Harry buried her face in her hands and groaned. How was she supposed to deal with all of this?

"You'd best get used to seeing your name in the paper," Severus said without a shred of sympathy. "You're to be the Minister's wife. For the rest of your life the people of wizarding Britain will have an unhealthy fascination with anything and everything you do."

Harry groaned louder and leaned forward a little more, rubbing her face even harder. "I know," she finally whispered as she sat up again. "At least, I knew that in theory. Suddenly being at the centre of everyone's attention is a lot less pleasant in practice."

"Hold your head up high, Harriet," Regulus said with an encouraging smile. "Make it seem like all of this is exactly how you were planning to lead your life."

"Act as though you yourself planned the whole blasted relationship," Severus said in clear agreement with his husband. "Do not give anyone the knowledge that this wasn't your own choice. Don't expose your weaknesses like that."

A part of Harry, a small part perhaps, loathed the idea of having to spend the rest of her life living a lie. But a bigger part of her did understand the necessity to keep the real origins of her relationship with Riddle a secret. The last thing she wanted was for Riddle's enemies to use Harry's impulsiveness and poor judgement against herself and her future husband.

And would it be so bad, to pretend that she'd always wanted to marry Riddle?

At this point, Harry didn't hate the idea of marrying Riddle anymore, if she were perfectly honest with herself. She liked him as a person, though she was well aware he was far from perfect. She enjoyed spending time with him and she was definitely attracted to him.

It wasn't an epic romance, but then again, Harry had known her whole life that she probably wouldn't have an epic romance, given that she'd been meant to carefully choose at least three husbands to create her own coven with.

Nowadays her and Riddle did have a solid foundation for a marriage together, and the more time they spent together, the more they'd start to care for each other. Love would grow from that eventually, Harry was sure.

So yeah, the more Harry thought about it, the more she realized she could go along with the lie that she was over the moon with her upcoming marriage and that she'd planned the whole thing from the very start.