IronOwl
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A Gaunt's Coven Ch. 16
🕑 Added 2023-12-01 21:27:52 +0000 UTC(I will be upping all of the characters ages to where Hogwarts starts at 18. Idk if I will update the earlier chapters.)
It was surreal, even after being bonded with Daphne for months it was still a surprise when I awoke to the feeling of her magic next to me. It was comforting, as if, even though she didn’t sleep in the same bed, she was still next to me.
Of course she did sleep in my bed from time to time.
After Daphne’s and I sudden Bonding/Confession, the entire Greengrass household knew of it. Even the father Leovon knew, he had given the both of us a disapproving glare. No doubt having some absurd notion that we would wait until we were properly married legally.
However we were now in a Coven, married in the Old Ways, so he had no authority to stop us from meeting.
Thankfully unlike the Greengrass family the Gaunt family was vastly more discreet. After the first few probing questions they had laid off, and ignored it when she would Floo over to some fun.
Because of it though, Astoria was no longer allowed to be alone with me. They wanted all their girls to wait until they were of age like Daphne.
For Tracey’s birthday her mother took her to her grandparents for the weekend, but I made sure to gift her with some cookbooks from both the magical and mundane world.
In my bedroom I raised my hand, my wand lying beside me.
“Lumos.”
A weak light lit up the tip of my finger. I could feel the magic wasted in the spell, it was unconcentrated, dispersing easily.
“Nox.”
The light disappeared.
Sitting on my bed I thought for several minutes on how to empower my wandless spells. Accidental magic was pure emotion, fear, anger, happiness. However as our minds developed those emotions were no longer as prevalent as our critical thinking grew, and as we started to use more standardized magic, our magic itself grows accustomed to that.
I didn’t want to try and rely on that for wandless magic, as accidental magic was mostly uncontrollable. Instead I was trying to use both my insane magical capacity and the blood of the magical creatures I absorbed as a focus, like house elves do.
At the moment I was better at silent levitation, but my limit was around three kilograms.
An idea came to me. A wand was a focus, the aged wood and magical component was only one part of it. One thing that stood out to me when I held my wand was the heat it seemed to emanate and the texture of the wood.
Grabbing my wand I transfigured a pen into a knife and levitated it to me. I poked the blade at the tip of my index finger, seeing a small bead of blood swell up. The pain was slight, not enough to lessen my thinking, but enough that it was a constant reminder and easy to focus on.
Then I thought about the components of my finger. The nail, the skin, the fat, the blood, the bone.
The pain and imagery helped me focus completely on it.
Pointing my finger forward I spoke.
“Lumos.”
A bright light shone from the tip of my finger.
“EEEE TTTT,” I said in a alien voice.
A hiss next to me made me stop.
Nessy the garden snake glared at me.
“Stop this blinding,” she said.
“Oh, my bad Nessy,” I apologized dismissing the spell. “Better?”
“There is a spot in my eye now, you have maimed me.”
I rolled my eyes.
“It will go away.”
The stomping of feet followed by sniffling sounded out from beyond my bedroom door. I frowned and stood opening the door.
Lissy was stomping to her room, her arm rubbing her face as she threw open her door and slammed it behind her.
I scowled, she had gone to see Ron Weasley today. I had been iffy when I heard that she was bethrothed to the boy. Every fanfiction ever painted Ron as a shitty friend that dragged Harry down, his only accomplishment being winning a chess match in his first year. They blamed him for Harry getting bad grades.
Of course the truth was that he was an eleven year old boy and despite being a magical school, Hogwarts was still a school. For a child that grew up in a magical household it could seem like a bother. So when he acted like a brat I didn’t blame him, but he was an adult now. He shouldn’t be making his fiance cry, especially my sister.
I knocked lightly on her door, hearing her muffled cries.
“Go away!”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“Vetoed.”
I tried the handle, but it was locked and I forgot my wand in my room. Deciding this was a good chance to try wandless magic I pointed my finger to the doorhandle. The blood on the tip now dried, but the pain remained.
“Alohamora.”
The door didn’t open. For a moment I thought that I failed, then I remembered that our doors were enchanted to not be opened by simple spells. I shrugged, then went back to my room and grabbed my wand, transfiguring the knife into something else along with another pen.
Arriving back at the door I knelt, the two steel pieces of metal I tranfigured going into the lock and quickly picking it.
The door swung open with a squeak and Lissy turned around, scowling at me.
“I said no Reigis, how did you even open the door?” she asked.
She wore a short dress that stopped mid thigh, and had her hair done up in an elaborate bun. Her mascara trailed down her face, and she quickly rubbed the snot from her face with her arm.
“Magic obviously,” I said, moving to sit next to her.
Her scowl deepened, but she sat up and threw herself at me a moment later.
“I hate him! I don’t know why grandfather had me betrothed to such a prick,” she said, sobbing into my shoulder.
I rubbed her back, ignoring the growing wetness on my shoulder as she cried.
“I can kill him.”
She pushed off me, looking into my eyes.
“You can?” she asked hopefully.
I laughed.
“I mean yeah, but why don’t you tell me what happened before I go off killing some brat.”
She glared at me, offended that I wouldn’t just murder someone because she wanted me to.
“Fine. Well, I never told you this because I didn’t want to make you angry or sad. The first time we met he called me his “Slimey Wife.” at the time I didn’t know what he meant, and just thought it was a nickname. Turns out its because I’m a Gaunt. He doesn’t like our family, and for that matter we don’t like his so it makes no sense that we’re together.”
I grimaced.
“Grandfather saw that the Weasleys were gaining power due to Molly Weasley having so many boys, so he… wanted someone on the inside.”
It was one of the things I asked the old man during one of our meetings. Incidentally I had also used accidental magic to destroy the chair I had sat on at the time.
Lissy’s normally cheerful face twisted into a snarl.
“That…” she looked like she wanted to use every curse she knew, but hesitated, he was the patriarch of the family.
“Selfish cold-hearted bigoted cunt?” I supplied.
“Yes!” she seethed.
I kissed her on the top of her head.
“So he called you his Slimey Wife, is that it or is there more.”
She turned her scowl to me.
“Not saying it's an okay thing to say to your betrothed, but you said he’s been calling you that for years. What happened today?”
“So you know how the Weasley Sunday dinners are.”
Lissy had complained about them extensively.
“Yeah, entire family, very boisterous and someone is always fighting with someone. Good food though.”
She nodded.
“Yeah, so we were there, the boys had just gotten back from Hogwarts and invited their entire Covens. Ron had his two other bethrothed with him as well. Anyways I was sitting next to Ronald, which was a first as he usually had the other two flank him every time. Fred and George sat across from us, and you know how weird their Covens are.”
“Yeah.”
The dynamic duo that was the Weasley twins shared everything, including Coven members.
“They were getting louder and louder, throwing jinxes and all that before Molly started screaming at them. It went on and on for what had to be hours before she said something about, acting more mature, and because I was across from them she compared them to me, and how I would make sure my children were raised to be respectful at dinner and well, then Ron decided to speak up.”
Her nails dug into me as she mocked Ron in a high pitched whiney voice.
“Hah! As if I’d let this slimy snake have any of my children. She’s gonna be a nice bedwarmer though.”
I felt my face fall as my emotions seemed to cool to ice.
“Everything got quiet for a moment, and one of the twins, don’t ask me which, decided to lighten the situation with a joke, a completely inappropriate one of course. He said, Oh? Maybe she could warm my bed then too, my feet get cold so easily.”
While that was the wrong thing to say at least the twin had alluded to cold feet rather then fucking my sister. Which is why I knew exactly where this was going.
“Then Ron said, sure, you can take Gaunt as much as you want, its not like shell get pregnant from you either.”
Lissy was trembling with rage now, tears once again pooling in her eyes.
“I-I left immediately, but I could hear the screams of Mrs. Weasley and a few others as they yelled at Ron. I… I went to grandfather, and begged him to annul the bethrothal, but he refused and sent me away without explaining.”
She began to sob, and I pulled her into my chest, rubbing her back as I whispered in her ear.
“It’s okay Lissy, it will all be okay, I’ll find a way to annul the contract.”
“Reigis, its cold.”
I looked down at her confused, and saw small flakes of snow falling into her hair. Scanning the room I saw that I had accidentally started a small snowstorm in my sisters room.
“Sorry.”
She snuggled into me, still crying.
“Its okay brother, you’re warm.”
