B.Q. Book Two: Black Princess Ascendant

Chapter 6: Meeting with Her Master

Here is the second and last plot twist I foreshadowed in Princess. Honestly, I'm a little nervous about how this chapter will be received. It's... different.

Disclaimer: Did Voldemort immediately accept Snape back into the Death Eater fold despite not knowing which side the potioneer was really on? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.
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James tapped his fingers against the table in a rapid, irregular beat as he waited. Around him, various members of the Order chattered in the time before Dumbledore arrived and began the meeting, but at the moment he was not concerned about that. He already knew the reason for gathering the group so soon after their previous get-together, and he knew who was to blame, too.

Not directly, of course, but one who definitely had a hand in it.

The door to the Longbottoms' formal dining room silently swung open, the movement catching his eye, but his bloody-minded eagerness faded again when he saw that it was just Sirius, accompanied like last time by Malfoy. Oh, she might claim that she and her husband had split, and Sirius might have been an idiot enough to believe her, even, but he could see the woman's plots as clear as day. If Malfoy hadn't reported everything she heard at the last meeting to her master, he would eat his broomstick.

He grimaced. Well, I'd eat my broomstick if I still had it. Two Firebolts and a Nimbus 2001 lost in less than a year, and no chance we'll be able to replace them any time soon. The Potter family, while rich enough to qualify as a Noble House ever since his... less than respectable ancestors had 'collected' their wealth from a number of other Houses, was not rolling in galleons like the Malfoys, and certainly not like the Longbottoms or the Blacks. Their cozy cottage was a total loss, and between buying another house, furnishing it, warding it, replacing all their clothes and books...

Money was going to be a little tight for the foreseeable future, especially since neither he nor Lily had had to work since leaving school. His wife did a little brewing on the side, outsourcing for J. Pippin's Potions on Finans Alley, but that had always been more of a hobby of hers than a real job, the gold she earned from it going right back to the apothecaries for the ingredients she would need for her next batch. Maybe she could scale up some while he worked as a tutor? He had always been a deft hand at Transfiguration, and many Houses hired tutors the year before their children's first year at Hogwarts so the kids could have some practice with wand motions and simpler spells before they were surrounded by their peers.

Yes, that could work. Danny would be off at Hogwarts, which was already paid for, and...

Turning his eyes toward the Blacks, he barely withheld a scowl. Dumbledore had been less than helpful that summer on the custody front. He understood that stopping an insane Dark Lord was more important in the grand scheme of things than returning one teenager to her real family, but still! Jenny was his daughter, and yet she was within the Malfoys' sphere of influence. Who knew what honeyed lies that evil witch was pouring in her ears?

Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done for it at the moment. Sirius's cousin Andromeda, the woman he had said many times during their teen years was the only member of the family he could stand, was married to a solicitor if James remembered right. Ted Tonks would have barristers he knew who would jump to represent an Ancient and Most Noble House. He and Lily, on the other hand, no longer had the funds necessary for a drawn-out legal battle.

He was just thankful that Sirius had unintentionally strengthened their claim that very morning. Blood did not lie, and it was now a matter of public record whose daughter she was.