Paid In Blood - Revised

Chapter 16

"Don't you remember me, Daddy? It's me, Lilian Daphne Potter...your daughter."

"WHAT!?"

"How can that be?" Daphne asked urgently, not taking her eyes off of the child.

"They'll explain it all soon," Harry replied as he looked fondly at the little girl...her child. Their child.

"But...I thought we had no children," she said distractedly.

"We didn't," he replied, turning back to her. "It's true that we never produced any children of our own, but thanks to Millie, we had our daughter. We had her," he added, gesturing to the little girl in the memory.

"But...how?"

"Patience, my love," he said, and although she wanted answers now, Daphne turned back to watch her daughter, who at the moment was standing in front of a stunned, and very confused memory Harry.

"How?" he whispered, closely studying the child's face.

"How can this be? It's impossible."

"You left her with us, remember, Harry?" implored Millie, causing memory Harry to turn and look at her.

"You brought her to us the day you went to take your revenge for Daphne and asked us to raise her, should anything happen to you."

She was pleading with her eyes and making a rolling gesture with her hand, which Harry took to mean that she was asking him to just go along with it for now. The little girl had lowered her head and appeared to be quietly sobbing, so Tracey decided to help back Millie up.

"Yes, Harry, don't you remember the huge fight we had when you decided to surrender yourself, instead of escaping so you could raise your daughter? You told us you wanted to set a good example for her and your godson, to show them how you needed to always take responsibility for your actions, remember?"

"I..." mumbled memory Harry, not really understanding what was happening. He didn't care for the idea of being made a fool or manipulated, but there was no way that the child wasn't Daphne's, and she unquestionably had some of his own features too.

"But...isn't Daphy Uncle Blaise and Aunty Millie's daughter?" asked Felicia, the female Nott child.

"No honey, Daphy is Uncle Harry and Aunty Daphne's daughter," Tracey replied to her confused daughter.

"In order to protect her from Harry's enemies, we hid her identity using an enchanted necklace that made her look like a Zabini. We kept it a secret from all of you children as well, except for Cyril," added Blaise, nodding purposefully to his son, who got the hint.

"Yes, Uncle Harry. I was there when you arrived that day and asked us to protect her if anything happened to you. You told me to be a big brother to her and always watch out for her."

"Don't you remember, Harry?" asked Millie, practically begging him.

Real Daphne could see that her friends were under considerable distress, as if they were afraid of how Harry was going to react and what would follow. They had done something, that much was certain. Something big, and most likely dangerous. Something that involved this child...their child. Hers and Harry's.

"My...daughter?" he questioned quietly as he knelt down in front of the little girl, who was looking up at him tearfully. There was no denying it. There was no way he could look at her and not see Daphne, his wife and one true love.

"Don't you remember me, Daddy?" she whispered, as her father tentatively caressed her cheek.

"You're my daughter?" memory Harry asked again, addressing his question more to the adults in the room.