“Oh?” Lady Sunny Greengrass took his arm and gently steered him toward a quieter corner of the shop.
“Our position is weakening. In the last year alone we’ve lost Parkinson to Malfoy and Abbott to Potter. How much more can we lose before there’s no one left fighting for a sane world?”
“We’re doing everything we can, my love.”
Jacob sighed.
He knew it was true.
He was exhausting every resource to hold together the fragile Neutral faction, no matter how distasteful some of the alliances felt.
“How did Daphne take the news?” he asked.
Sunny’s smile faded.
“She was… less than pleased.”
Jacob winced.
He adored his daughters with every fiber of his being, and forcing this situation on them tore at him.
But what choice did he have?
If the Neutral bloc collapsed, the Greengrass family would be finished—politically, socially, financially, and quite possibly physically if they backed the wrong side in the coming conflict.
A thousand years of history, erased.
All because of him.
Desperate for a change of subject, he asked, “How was your talk with Black?”
“Oh, the usual loud nonsense.” Sunny smirked, glancing toward the Light faction.
“Though it seems he’s having some trouble with his darling daughter.”
“Oh?”
“Apparently she’s developing some dangerous ideas.” Her smirk grew.
“She keeps asking questions about the morality of magic—why some spells are labeled Dark and others Light.”
Jacob’s lips twitched into a smirk as well.
“A Black treading the path of Dark magic? Perish the thought.”
“His greatest fear is that she’ll be sorted into Slytherin and he’ll lose his precious little girl forever.” Sunny was barely containing her laughter now. Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
Jacob peered over a nearby shelf and spotted the distinctive long black hair of Alexandra Black.
While the Potters, Blacks, and their Weasley hanger-on laughed loudly together, the Black heiress stood apart, browsing a distinctly less Light section of the bookstore.
“It would be too much to hope we could pull her into our camp,” he mused.
“She’s only a year below Daphne and a year above Astoria. If she ends up in Slytherin, it’s not impossible.”
“I just hope we last that long.”
“We will.” Sunny leaned in and kissed his cheek.
Ten minutes later, after purchasing the book, Lord and Lady Greengrass made their way down Diagon Alley toward the Leaky Cauldron.
Jacob had just stepped into the pub and was reaching for the Floo powder when a hooded man approached him.
“Lord Greengrass, of the Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass?”
“Yes?”
The man’s face remained hidden beneath his hood.
“I was wondering if I might request a private conversation with you in the near future. I have something of great interest to discuss.”
Jacob was about to refuse the stranger when the man casually brought his hands forward and rubbed the back of one, deliberately drawing attention to the ring that materialized on his finger.
Jacob’s eyes widened in shock.
It was a Head of House ring—but not just any ring.
No, he thought, his mind reeling.
The line has been extinct for centuries.
Yet there was no mistaking that crest.
Every student who had ever spent time in the Snake Pit could draw it from memory.
His brain finally caught up, and he remembered the most likely candidate for the Slytherin line.
He swallowed hard.
“No, I am not he,” the man said calmly, apparently noticing the fear that had slipped past Jacob’s Occlumency.
“…But you are…?” Jacob stared at the ring again. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Yes.”
“What do you wish to discuss?”
“I am aware of the difficult position you face in the Wizengamot. I believe I hold the answers to many—if not most—of your problems.”
Jacob studied the man more carefully.
His black robes, accented with green and tastefully embroidered in silver, were made of the finest Acromantula silk.
Beneath them, glimpses of dragonhide boots spoke of wealth, power, and refinement.
“I would be honored to welcome you to my home tomorrow at two o’clock, if that suits you.”
“It does, Lord Greengrass.” With a short, respectful bow, the man turned and walked away before disappearing with a sharp crack.
Jacob stood frozen for a moment, staring into space.
He suddenly remembered that Sunny was probably losing her mind on the other side of the Floo.
Though that would be nothing compared to her reaction when she learned they would be hosting Lord Slytherin in less than twenty-four hours.
≤○≥
Harry stood inside his hidden cave-vault and examined his reflection critically in a full-length mirror.
His brief excursion to Diagon Alley the previous day had stirred complicated emotions.
On one hand, the sight of the Potters strolling down the street had nearly shattered his self-control.
The deep, festering bitterness from ten years of Azkaban and dementor torment still burned hot inside him.
On the other hand, seeing his brother looking so smug and content with Ginny Weasley hanging on his arm had stayed his hand.
It served as a delicious reminder of how satisfying it would be to tear the two apart and bend Ginny to his own desires.
John Potter was still just a child for now.
He wouldn’t travel back in time from his first death in the graveyard for several more years.
The knowledge that John would lose Ginny not once, but twice, filled Harry with dark satisfaction.
He looked forward to the day the so-called Boy-Who-Lived woke up on his eleventh birthday to discover that the girl who had obsessed over him since childhood now belonged to his dark, dangerous twin brother.
Then there was Alexandra Black.