true loves poison • james potter

91

Having a newborn was a unique experience for Lorelei. Although perhaps some of the uniqueness Lorelei was feeling was due to the situation that she and James were forced to raise their newborn in.

Regardless, she wouldn't describe being a parent as 'difficult'. Being in hiding was difficult, being unable to leave their house was difficult, and having a murderous dark wizard running around Europe was difficult.

But Harry was perfect. She was surely biased as his mother, but everyone who was able to sneak into their house to meet him told her the same.

She imagined raising a child was more difficult for muggles, considering they didn't have magic to clean up after the baby and to diagnose it when it cried. It was a fun thought experiment when she was feeling particularly cooped up: What would a muggle do in this situation?

Mostly, she felt if she didn't have magic, she would cry a lot more. 

She cried plenty already. With every new news of the Death Eaters and Voldemort, and every time she thought of Harry Potter and his possible future. 

It was clear to Lorelei that the future of her son was not in her hands. In a world of magic and power, she had neither when it came to fate. The only thing that made her feel better was perhaps the only thing she should ignore.

Blood magic. 

Whenever she had a moment, be it when Harry slept or when James was watching him, she would pour over the scant few books she had on blood magic. There had to be a solution somewhere. 

"I think he's teething." James announced, pulling Lorelei out of her book. 

"What?" She asked, placing a bookmark in her book before walking over.

"Let him chew on your finger, you'll feel it." 

Sitting next to James and Harry on the floor, Lorelei placed her thumb against Harry's bottom gums. "I don't think it's broken through yet." 

"But you can feel it, right?" He asked, a smile growing on his face before he looked at Harry proudly, "He's all grown up!"

"He's a quarter of a year old, James. We have years and years ahead of us before he's 'grown up'."

Giving her a playful look, James leaned forward. "How many years before I convince you to have another one?"

Bursting into a laugh, Lorelei stood and returned to her book. "Keep dreaming, Potter."

"Go on Harry, tell her you want a baby sister." James said to their son as if he actually could. 

Harry, oblivious as a baby should be, gurgled happily.

"See!" James laughed.

Smiling at her husband making funny faces at their baby, Lorelei smiled softly. "I'll think about it."

"Oh, did you hear that, Harry? You're not going to be an only child!" 

Shaking her head, Lorelei opened her book back to the page she'd abandoned. 

The scholar, Itarré, argues that blood magic can be used in ways that are not inherently dark. "While in the past, blood magic has been adopted by demons to use and distort for all manner of dark purposes, I believe it's important to remember that blood magic has not always been used for evil. We should not consider it 'dark magic'." Professor Itarré argues, "For example, blood magic was used by ancient wizards to call on rain during droughts. It has also been recorded to have been used during times of famines, diseases, and many other tragedies and disasters. I believe there is a preconceived notion by many wizards that blood magic, because it is outlawed, is on a similar level of evil as an unforgivable curse. That is factually untrue. Blood magic was only outlawed within the last hundred years, and it is my professional and my personal opinion that the only reason blood magic was banned was due to fear. Blood magic can be very powerful, and while, yes, that can make it very dangerous, there are many powerful spells or potions that can be equally as dangerous."
[Interviewer] "Do you have an example of a blood spell or potion that you feel could be used for the greater good?"
[Professor Itarré] "Yes. Many, in fact. Salazar Slytherin details in his personal diary quite a few spells that I would love to study in greater detail if the law was lifted. Such as the spells that imply their use can protect the castor from spells even as powerful as an unforgivable."
[Interviewer] "I was unaware such spells existed."
[Professor Itarré] "I don't believe we have record of these spells being tested against an unforgivable, considering both spells have been made unlawful by the Ministry and testing it would require endangering the wizards involved. But imagine how different the wizarding world might look if we could prove that there was a spell that could protect the wizard or witch that cast the spell?"

"Lorelei," James called from the kitchen, "Would potatoes be alright for dinner, love?"

Lorelei blinked. She hadn't even realized James had left the room. "That sounds perfect." She called back, proud her voice didn't shake before she looked back at the book in her hands.

Following the annotations at the bottom of the page, Lorelei stood abruptly. Rushing up the staircase, she rummaged through the stack of books on her bedside table. Finding the book was easy, considering her familiarity with it, and once she had the book wiggled from the stack she flipped frantically through the pages. 

She had flipped through the book, a copy of Slytherin's diary, hundreds of times. Skimming the spells, studying the drawings, and yet, she had never heard of the spell professor Itarré detailed. The page, over halfway through the book, had been a page Lorelei had studied before.

There was a large drawing of an ox being sacrificed on a cross, with markings burned into the wood symbolizing a healthy pregnancy for the witch that preformed the sacrifice. Three slits along each of the legs of the ox, before nailing it to the cross and placing it in a cave.

She had studied the page, not because she would ever consider preforming the sacrifice, but because the drawing was haunting. While Lorelei wasn't exactly a vegetarian, brutalizing an animal for the sake of preforming a ritual was a line she felt shouldn't be crossed.

But it seemed her fascination with the drawing had distracted her from the actual useful spell on the page. It was written in almost comically small font in the lower right corner of the page. The title of the spell simply read, Protection of Shared Blood, with the incantation and directions beneath it. Only an annotation, written in by one of the editors of the copy of the Diary, suggested the spell indicated its use might be applicable to forbidden curses.

The spell would only work if it was used on the wizard casting the spell, or a direct blood relative of the wizard. In the case of casting on oneself, the spell required the castor to use a separate spell to collect the blood before using the blood to coat the castor's hands before reciting the spell. In the case of casting the spell on a relative, the blood would only need to cover the hands of that which the spell would be cast upon.

Grabbing the book and bringing it to the kitchen, Lorelei set it gently on the table before walking to the oven, where James was cooking. Harry was sitting in a highchair, playing with pudding if Lorelei could guess correctly.

With his back facing the doorway, James hadn't noticed her yet. "The snitch is really what you need to remember, Harry. It's this cheeky little ball, about as small as your fist now that I think about it. But this ball moves faster than a hummingbird, and you have to catch it in order to end the game."

Leaning against the doorframe, Lorelei fought a wave of unexpected emotion as she watched James explain Quidditch to Harry as the baby shoveled pudding into his mouth.