1523: A Daughter – Prologue

Title: A Daughter
Author: Lady Lilith La Belle
Media: Books / Movie
Topic: Harry Potter
Genre: Romance/Angst
URL: Prologue
Critiqued by Lyle

Hello, lovelies!  Welcome to another sunny/rainy/windy/weathery Monday!  I know, I know… another Harry Potter fic?  I can’t help it – when I need a badfic, that’s one of the best places to find one, and I haven’t riffed a Harry Potter fic in a while.  This week we’re going to start in on a fic called “A Daughter.”  As usual, the summary is what caught my eye so let’s just start with that and dive right in.

She is a pureblood. She is Slytherin’s princess. He is a pureblood. He is Slytherin’s prince. She is beauty and strength. He is envy and charming. She comes from a twisted tragic birth. He is a miracle child. Both in the same houses but different minds and hearts.

It sounds a lot like we might be getting a couple of OCs here.  My Sue-sense is tingling.

This thing is listed as a “Romance” so I’m guessing these two are love interests of each other, but that’s a bit awkward if they’re the prince and princess of Slytherin.  I know old timey royalty often married cousins, but unless you’re part of the ancient Egyptian monarchy, siblings were off-limits.

Severus Snape.

*blinks*

He was a good friend and admirer of Lily Potter. He was a master of the dark arts. He was always drawn to to the dark arts. He taught defense against the dark arts. He was the potions professor at Hogwarts. That man was a lot of things.

Right, okay.  Is this a story or is this a character profile?  So far all we’ve gotten is a random list of things that Snape accomplished during his life.  Based on him teaching DADA, this must be sometime around Book 6?

But most importantly, he was my father.

*Bewbewbewbewbew*

And there’s the Sue-alarm-

*the sound of scuffling, intermixed with the angry roar of a T-rex sounds in the hallway.  Confused, Lyle opens her door and pokes her head out.  Gumdrop is currently attempting to step on a DRD agent.  Both pause as Lyle clear’s her throat sharply*

What the hell is going on here?  That wasn’t the redundancy alarm!

DRD Agent: Really?  You’re positively sure?

Uh, yeah.  DRD Alarm goes “A-whoo-gah” when I’m riffing.  Sue-alarm is “bewbewbew.”

DRD Agent:  Oh.  I am embarrassed in a most disconcerting way.  What should I now do now?  I’m scheduled on the roster to be here right now.

Gumdrop can take you to the kitchen and whip you up some lunch until we need you, if you’d like.  If some redundancy happens, I’ll send him a text and you two can pick up where you left off.

DRD Agent:  I am thankfully grateful for your solution.  Shall we?

Gumdrop: Gumdrop make tiny repeating man sandwich and then stomp him?

Yes, yes.  *makes a shoo’ing motion and closes the door as they head for the kitchens*

Snape did not love my mother, but she did love him.

I’m sure this is important to the story somehow?

She had a deep respect for him and admired him when they were in school together. She even grew to love him as the dark lord rose to power and she was obsessed with getting close to him.

She was obsessed with getting close to the Dark Lord while growing to love Snape.

Her infatuation had no boundaries. But that story is for another time.

Then why the fuck are you telling us this now?

I didn’t not know who my father was until my fifth year at Hogwarts. My mother was a tough love kind of person. She never showed much emotion towards me when others were around. I know the she loves me and that she wishes the best for her only daughter.

Jesus on a pogostick… are you done barfing exposition at us, yet?

She began teaching me spells and potions before I was 5 years old.

Of course she did; you’re a Sue.  Narrator-Sue showed magical ability long before wizarding children ever start to show their magical ability.  It usually kicks in a little later when they start making tea cups fly and windows disappear, and they’re not usually able to start controlling it very well until they’re 10-ish.  But Narrator-Sue is Speshul, so naturally she started learning around the same age most children are struggling to learn to tie their shoes.

I had a rare talent you see, I can do magic without a wand and without verbally saying a spell.

… Okay, I guess we will need one of these after all.

*pulls out the box of spare parts and some super glue*

Let’s see here…

Snape’s daughter *taps buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 1

Started learning to do magic at age 5.  *taps buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 2

Can perform magic without a wand and without verabilization, something that takes powerful wizards years of magical study and practice to actually accomplish.  *taps the buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 3

We’re two paragraphs in, people.

It actually runs in my family. A lot of rare qualities run through my family. Magic was one of my many talents and she saw to it that I got the best educational advance I could before even going to Hogwarts.

As far as I know, being able to perform spells without verbalization or wands isn’t a genetic thing.  I might be mistaken, though.

And what does she mean by “many talents?”  *hovers hand over the buzzer*  I’m watching you, Narrator-Sue.

I had met Severus Snape before I was able to talk, but my mother called me her niece whenever he or anyone else came to visit her.

If you couldn’t talk yet, there’s a damn good chance you won’t remember having met him.  Children usually start verbalizing coherently when they’re about a year old.  Simple words, yes, but then by the time they’re 2, they’re talking in basic concepts.  It’s often garbled and very difficult to understand, but if you learn how to speak Toddler, you can make out what they’re saying.  So if she met her father when she was younger than 2, she is not going to remember it.

She was strict about me calling her my aunt when we were in public and around him.

Because a toddler is going to remember to do this.

It seemed that I was her precious little secret.

Except you weren’t.  Because people knew about you.

Snape would observe me whenever I was near. I think he was not very fond of a toddler staring at him and rummaging through his bags when he had business to conduct with my mother.

This is weird.  Usually when a hooker has her children around, the client is the one being called an Uncle, not the mother calling herself the an Aunt.

I learned obedience and manners. I never set a bad example of my mother’s parenting.

Which wouldn’t be called into question if everyone thought she was babysitting her niece.  They wouldn’t question her parenting abilities on a niece, unless she told everyone she was raising you.  There is no indication that that’s part of her lie.

The day I got my letter, my mother sat me down and explained to me who I would be going to school with.

Her mom has a copy of the enrollment list?

Harry Potter, the boy who lived.

Oh.  Okay, I guess that’s pretty common knowledge.

She worried that I would get too close to the boy since she had heard all that happened in his first year. She worried that I would be put in Gryffindor with Harry Potter. But I knew and told her that it was more than likely that I would be in Slytherin. My mother was a Ravenclaw.

Her being in Ravenclaw has nothing to do with your house placement.  Nor does it have anything to do with you being pretty sure you’d be in Slytherin.  The cause and effect is completely absent in this blurb.

She then told me that my father was a pure Slytherin and that was something rare.

*slow blink*

I’m sorry, you wanna run that by me again?  What the fuck does that mean?  “Pure Slytherin?”  That makes it sound like you can jump houses like a Zebra Spider can jump bushes.  You’re not a Hufflepuff on Wednesdays and a Ravenclaw every other Saturday.  Once you’re in a house, you stay in that house.

Learning this I wanted to ask her who specifically my father is.

*smacks Narrator-Sue upside the head*  Tense!

The only thing she told me was that he was alive and he did not know about me, and I couldn’t tell him that I am his daughter should I figure out who he is.

Why not?  Will it herald in the End of Days if he found out his… uh… fling?  One night stand?  Bad decision after one too many shots of patrone? resulted in illegitimate offspring?  We’re not getting an answer to this, are we?  *sighs*

On the day it came for me to ride the train to Hogwarts, I already had my pet owl and a black cat to keep me company when my owl would stay in the owl keep.

*smacks the buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 4

Sure trait of a Potter-verse Sue when they have more than one pet, when their acceptance letter clearly states they may only bring a single pet with them from the acceptable list of animals.

There was no emotional goodbye between my mother and I at the station. We said our goodbyes before we even came to the station. I wore our family locket and my lace knee high black dress.  I noticed that in the car my mother directed me to go on, there were many kids who wore dark clothes like mine.

Please don’t be an Emo-Goth train car… I had enough of that crap in “My Immortal.”

So, I knew I wouldn’t have to look for the right people to sit with.

Because appearances are much more important than the personalities of the kids you’ll befriend at school.  Anyone want to bet this author is in high school?

I chose to sit in a random booth with a pale kid with platinum blonde hair on one side and two chubby boys on the other.

Did she board a train or ask to be seated at Denny’s?

After an older kid helped me place my smooth black suitcases in the upper compartments that I was without a doubt.

Either someone turned over two pages at once or our narrator just turned into a luggage rack.

Too short to reach, I sat beside the pale blonde kid.

Too short to reach… a different seat?

He immediately looked at me with confidence and surprise.

*attempts to look both surprised and confident*

*pulls a facial muscle*

Ow.

He eyed me up and down, but I saw approval in his eyes.

“A first year dares to sit with 2nd year Slytherin’s?”

Second year Slytherin’s what?

*smacks Luggage Rack upside the head*  Numerals do not belong in prose!

I nodded and proceeded to take off my lace black gloves. My medium length black nails tapped on my lap as I crossed one leg over the other.

I do believe this is the first time I’ve heard a nail length described in the vague terms of “medium.”  According to Uncle Google, they might be this length:

Or maybe this length:

Or it could be this length:

Here’s the problem with using such non-descriptive terminology as “medium.”  Not even Uncle Google knows what you’re talking about.

The boys looked at me as though I came out of Beauxbatons Academy. Smiling gently and polite as ever, I introduced myself.

*taps buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 5

She’s going to be absolutely gorgeous.  Just you watch.

“Hello, my name is Selene Melinda-Belynda Serpentine.”

*snort-giggles and smacks the buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 6

Amelia Bedelia called and wants her gimmick back.  Also, Serpentine.  Of course.

All three of the boy’s eyes widened and looked at me closely. The two boys across from me stared in awe. The one beside me looked intrigued and understood why I was so alluring. Did I not mention that the Serpentine family is part Veela?

*headdesks onto the buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 7

So we have Slytherin-Style carbon copy of the Delacours.  Lovely.

“You are a Serpentine?”

No, she’s a luggage rack.  Pay attention, random and unattributed voice.

My mother’s last name is Serpentine.

I thought she wasn’t allowed to mention her mother.

Our family is a known Slytherin pureblooded family.

That’s not a thing!  You’re either a Pureblood, a Half-Blood, or a Muggle-Born.  There aren’t any families that determine their blood by a Hogwarts house!  And even if there was, you wouldn’t be a “pureblooded Slytherin” because your mother was a Ravenclaw.

*smacks the luggage rack upside the head*

Legend has it that my family is related to the wizard Merlin and maybe Salazar Slytherin himself.

If you’re a *snort* Pureblooded Slytherin, I doubt you would be related to Merlin.

Thus, there has been many talented witches and wizards in my bloodline. It could be why I have abilities in magic that are not common. Doing magic without a wand is almost unheard of for such a young witch and performing spells without saying them is something 5th years learn to do.

No, actually, that isn’t part of the typical repertoire of 5th year wizarding students.  And I’m giving you another count for repeating all the stupid crap we’ve already been told about you.

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 8

“Yes, I live with my aunt who is also a pureblood. My mother and father are dead. They died the night I was born. I’m sure your families have told you the story. It was rather tragic. From your finely measured clothes…. I’m willing to bet that you three are purebloods as well.

I’m sorry, but what in the world are you rambling on about?  I wasn’t aware of any witch whose family died the night she was born.

*smacks buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 9

That’s for being the topic of a some sort of well-known wizarding world news.

And a fine cut of clothing has absolutely nothing do with being pureblooded.  The Weasleys are purebloods and just about everything they own is second hand and patched!

Now, enough with the depressing story, do tell me what you are called so that I do not call you platinum blonde boy with bright blue eyes the rest of the year.”

…His eyes are gray.  See, right here from the Wiki:

The boy beside me smiled with perfectly white teeth,

“I am Draco Malfoy. Pureblood. These two are Crabbe and Goyle. We are 2nd years in the Slytherin house. It’s a shame, you’d make a great Slytherin but your family is known to be Ravenclaws for the past few generations.”

*points upward at previous statement*

Which is why she cannot call herself a “Pureblood Slytherin.”

Shrugging, I observed Draco and his friends,

He never said Crabbe and Goyle were his friends, only that they were in the same house as him.  Being in the same house does not automatically make you besties.

“My aunt believes that I will be a Slytherin.

No, you said you believed you’d be in Slytherin.

She had me assigned to classes that 2nd years usually take.

*growls and hovers hand over the buzzer*  Wait for it…

She would’ve had me take more advanced classes, but there is a limit to how far ahead you can proceed without taking OWLS. I began my studies far sooner than expected. I spent more time doing magic than playing with other children. I’ve even met the Potions teacher here on occasion.”

*smacks the buzzer*

Yup, that’s a Sue!: 10

Draco looked impressed,

But he was just faking it.

“If you are a Slytherin, maybe we’ll get the most points for our house this year. Those bloody Gryffindor’s stole it from us last year. I’m sure that you will be a great addition to our house.”

You only have what she’s said to go by, Draco.  Actions speak louder than words and, so far, all she is is a braggart.

The rest of the train ride, Draco and his friends told me about the school. They told me which professors were boring and that a famous author would be our new defense against the dark arts teacher. I also learned of Draco’s serious dislike of The Boy Who Lived. When the time came for us to change in our robes, I knew that I had 3 new friends…. well I had Draco, and I hadn’t even set foot in Hogwarts yet.

Wee-haha.  Whoo.  Yay.  *waves tiny flag with the enthusiasm of a slug faced with a pile of salt*

XXX

Dear God, I hope not.  The protagonists are 11 and 12.

Update times will vary

Oh, that was a scene break.  And we’re faced with yet another author who seems to think that they’re on some sort of deadline and, thus, feels the need to let everyone know they won’t be adhering to said deadline.

That’s it for this week, everyone!  I’ll see you in couple weeks when we explore just how many times I can smack a buzzer in a short period of time.  Ta!

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