Witches Are. Witches Do.

Chapter 6

Harry's body felt hollowed, as though there was now only a void where her heart and soul should be. She didn't feel anything as she shuffled through Hogwarts' empty corridors aimlessly. She was still completely in shock by what she'd just learned.

Minister Riddle had magically created Harry to be a parselmouth. Or something.

Riddle was behind Harry's current predicament in more ways than Harry could ever have imagined.

And the strangest thing about the whole confrontation had been that Riddle seemed so proud of his achievements. He'd looked as though he expected Harry to praise him for his efforts. Harry had merely mumbled some nonsense tokens of agreements before excusing herself since it was already well past curfew.

It only now dawned on Harry that there was something wrong with Riddle. That the man fundamentally lacked some very basic human traits. He'd honestly and genuinely hadn't seemed to expect Harry to be upset by anything he'd said. Like he couldn't even imagine it.

For all that Riddle was an incredibly intelligent and powerful man, he somehow seemed to be clueless when it came to navigating common human emotions, in both himself and in others.

Harry didn't realize she'd wandered to Regulus and Severus' quarters until she knocked on their door.

"Harriet?" Regulus looked her up and down when he opened the door before waving her inside quickly. "What happened? You look as pale as a corpse."

Without saying a word, Harry sat down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands. She felt like crying, but she was too empty inside for tears to come.

"What's Riddle done now that made you once again despair over your future?" Severus asked with his usual tact when it came to teenage girls and their daily relationship dramatics.

"He cursed me," Harry muttered, face still pressed against her palms, shoulders shaking.

"Seeing as he's teaching you how to duel that shouldn't come as a surprise," Severus drawled as he poured them all cups of tea from a pot quickly delivered by a house-elf.

"No," Harry sighed, finally looking up at her two uncles. "I mean, he modified a blood curse and basically cursed me through his own blood to become a parselmouth so he could marry one."

Regulus tilted his head as he took that information in. "That is quite ingenious, when you think about it."

"Really?" Harry snapped, glaring at the man's audacity to not take her suffering seriously.

Regulus honestly seemed puzzled as he stared at Harry. "Harriet, you already knew something had awakened the ancient talent of parseltongue in you. Now you simply know what it was that did so."

Harry opened and closed her mouth a few times as she let Regulus' words sink in. "No, no, it's not that simple," she finally said, jaws clenched as the emptiness inside of her was finally replaced with fiery anger. "He purposefully ruined my life, don't you get that?"

"Not really, no," Severus said, leaning back in his seat to sip his cup. "What do you expect to happen to him now that he's told you this?"

"I want him to pay for what he's done!" Harry said as she stared at Severus in disbelief. "He should be arrested for cursing me. Blood curses are illegal, aren't they?"

"They are," Regulus agreed quietly while giving Harry a challenging look. "But Riddle didn't curse you with a real blood curse. He modified it, very cleverly, to awaken ancient magic in your bloodline. That's not something anyone is going to arrest him for, especially when it turns out the curse hasn't affected you negatively in any other way."