Epilogue
Voldemort takes every opportunity to tell people that, “Yes, my son is the founder of the first Preparatory School For Magical Children. I am very proud, of course- yes Atticus, you are proud too.”
Atticus just smiles sweetly and looks happy whenever Harry is mentioned, and Voldemort is not completely sure whether Atticus knows that he did not actually birth Harry himself.
“He does,” Avery confirms later, “he has a little photo frame in hos room of himself and Harrywith the words ‘Me and My Nephewe’ engraved on it.”
Being the founder of magical Britain’s first official elementary school means that Harry is very busy, and has to arrange for administration, teachers, and the various day to day tasks of running a school.
“Start small,” Voldemort advises gently, when Harry comes home one day and puddles on top of him. “A half day school on the weekend only. Start with the next batch of first years. Don’t overwhelm yourself.”
“But I can’t run this, I can’t teach history, and civics, and make it fun, dad,” Harry whispers. “I’m not like you.”
Voldemort blinks in surprise. “You think I am… a fun teacher?”
From the other armchair, Avery snorts in disbelief. “I don’t think half our year would have survived our OWLs or NEWTs if you hadn’t hosted mandatory tutorials after classes.”
“Oh! Dad, would you care to host a class or two? We can set up a monthly rotation, so you would only have one weekend a month! I- I could ask Mrs. Weasley, and Hemione, and Remus, and-“
Voldemort watches Harry excitedly flesh out his plans, while Avery nods along and offers gentle suggestions. They eventually come up with a plan for the four weekends per month - History, Culture, Magical Creatures, and Herbology - all things the children could really understand and participate in.
“Your papa could teach history,” Avery nudges Harry, who turns gleaming eyes onto Voldemort. “You’d have to find teachers for the rest, though.”
“That’s such a great idea? Oh, would you do it? Please, papa?” Harry asks delightedly.
And really, Voldemort is only so strong, and cannot deny his son when he asked so little of him.
***
Molly Weasley is delighted to be asked to teach Herbology, while Remus is pleasantly surprised to be asked to teach Magical Creatures. He vows to show up to classes in his coziest, most beige cardigan and corduroy trousers.
Harry recruits none other than Draco Malfoy to teach wizarding culture - with a vow to have his lesson plans checked over by Hermione for any dormant bigot undertones.
Eventually, they have only one problem left. As they stand in the one-room school in their first floor loft that was rented in Diagon Alley, Harry turns to his father. “Dad, what are we going to call this school?”
Voldemort blinks in surprise at being asked, and hesitates before replying, “I have actually given this some thought. I had thought it… indelicate to suggest it, though.”
Harry presses, and Voldemort caves. He has never seen his son smile so widely, and Voldemort’s heart is filled with the same pride and joy that his son is feeling at that moment.
***
“You would be proud,” Voldemort says quietly, his words lost to the wind, “to see him now. He is so smart, so kind, and so genuine. He is the blessing I did not deserve.”
The headstone of Lily Evans Potter is silent in front of Voldemort, who sighs and sits on the patch of grass in front, directly over her casket. “I wonder constantly, what it would be like if you had lived. If he would have been better off with your love.” He pauses, his gaze settling far away. “We will never know. I make him happy, I think, as he makes me.”
The wind continues to blow gently, rustling the blades of grass, running through Voldemort’s dark hair. “The school opens next month. Harry named the school today. We put up the signboard for the ‘Lily Potter Memorial School for Wizarding Education’.” Voldemort pauses, swallows past the strain in his throat. “He cried so much when we got home. He clung to me, and I told him that I loved him. I can only hope it is enough.”
“It is,” a voice sounds from behind Voldemort, and he is three curses in before he recognizes that it is Sirius. “Circe’s tits, would you calm down?” Sirius groans at him from where he is sprawled on the ground. “Which curses were those, I feel like an elephant went doggy style with me.”
“Don’t be crass,” Voldemort mutters, and heals Sirius with a wave of his wand. “A new coccyx-crusher curse,” he reveals. “I have been experimenting with Severus again.”
“Ugh, that git,” Sirius mutters sourly, crawling over to lie down, his head on Voldemort’s knee. “Oh, give over, my cock is crushed.”
“Coccyx, Black. Not your penis.”
“Feels like the same thing.”
“Your knowledge of anatomy is galling.”
Sirius hums tunelessly for a while, before speaking. “I didn’t know that you came here.”
“To my last, greatest nemesis,” Voldemort sighs. “Lily Evans. And to think, we now love the same boy enough to give our lives for him. Not that I can, though. What with the horcruxes.”
“Haven’t made any more of those, have you?” Sirius asked. “Nasty business.”
“No, I’ve learned my lesson,” Voldemort groaned.
“So… you come to hang out with Lily? No judgment from me, I come to see James all the time and talk to him. Sometimes, there’s this bumblebee that comes over, buzzes around my head, and bumps into my nose,” Sirius sighs. “It might be him, doming to tell me that he loves me.”
“Or,” Voldemort says slowly, “it could be the bee’s nest on the willow tree two rows away.”
Sirius frowned. “Killjoy. Anyway, I find it odd that you talk to Lily. As far as I know, only Atticus can actually commune with the dead.”
“I cannot speak to her in the way Atticus does, and annoys her. Astral Necromancy is a rare gift in the Lestrange family. Atticus is the last known practitioner in the British Isles. No one else wants any part of it due to the stigma surrounding death,” Voldemort explains. “It will be lost in this part of the world unless Atticus passes on his genes.”
“Atticus needs to sleep with someone?” Sirius asks. “Does he know how?”
“…I am not certain.”
Sirius barks out a laugh and in doing so, startles the bees flitting about. “Oh, damn. At least James’ spirit likes him.”
“Yes. Although, it is draining for Atticus to reach out. I… I worry for him,” Voldemort admitted. “But I am, after all, to blame for Harry not having his parents, and Atticus’ sojourns into the Beyond are Harry’s only connection to his parents.”
“He has you,” Sirius says quietly. “You’re his parent.”
“Hmm.”
“He loves you,” Sirius insists, even as Vildemort turns away. “No, listen to me, you gigantic pile of tubers, oh, that got your attention, didn’t it? Harry. Loves. You. He loves his mum and dad, and he loves you. It’s the same. They gave their lives for him, and you gave up your life for him.
“Where’s the dark lord now? Right, dead. You are, for all intents and purposes, Lord Thomas Gaunt, of the Elder House of Slytherin. You are the loving papa of Harry Potter, defender of wizarding tradition, husband to Jonaquin Avery, mentor to Weasleys and Grangers, and best friend of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.”
Voldemort blinks in surprise at Sirius’ lecture. Then, “I’m your best friend?”
“Apart from Remus, yeah,” Sirius shrugs. “What, you’re surprised? You’re only over for tea every other day, talking to Remus about all kinds of swotty nonsense and giving me financial advice.”
Voldemort fell silent, pondering on Sirius’ words. “He killed me, then. Harry, that is. Killed the old Voldemort.”
“Yup,” Sirius says, popping the ‘p’. “And he loves you. Because you know him, and care about him, and secretly want to be the best damn papa in the world. It’s mutual, Vold.”
The two men let the silence hang between them. The sun was setting, bringing a crispness to the air and a magnificent red-gold gradient to the sky. Ironic, Voldemort thought wryly. Gryffindor colours.
“I cannot regret it. Not now,” Voldemort murmured. “Not with him.”
“Then don’t,” Sirius replied simply. “He’s happy. You’re happy. We’re happy. We can be sad for the past, and still live out our present.”
They fell silent again, and in time, stood to leave. Voldemort conjured a pretty bouquet of wildflowers and placed it on Lily Potter’s grave. Sirius did the same, conjuring a vine of tomatoes to drape over James’ headstone. “James loved tomatoes,” he said. “He would eat them like apples.”
“My god, Harry does that as well!” Voldemort realized, and looked down at James’ headstone, glinting cheekily in the light of the setting sun. “Potter you absurd persimmon, your genes prevail!”
Sirius laughed out loud as they walked away, his laughter echoing around the still graveyard, delighting the honeybees above.
****
The school takes up most of Harry's time. Voldemort is beyond proud whenever he sees Harry poring over lesson plans, creating admission lists, or making field trip plans.
The children adore him, and follow Harry around, talking to him, eating with him, and falling asleep on him. Student numbers grow, and so does staff, with Lovegood joining in the fracas as permanent staff. The children think she is cool, and nothing that Voldemort says will dissuade them.
It is no surprise, therefore, that Atticus is a big of a hit as he is with the children. They clamber over the couch and onto his lap when he speaks about divination, or shows children how to do palmistry, tasseomancy, or even haruspicy.
Atticus loves that his army of childrene is growing, and one fine day, decides to wreck Voldemort’s sanity by saying, “I should very much like to have my own childe.”
Harry is delighted at the prospect of a baby cousin. Snape, who was trying to take his tea, nearly downs in his teacup.
Later, Voldemort carefully asks Atticus whether he knows how he is going to make a child. “You will have to sleep with a woman, Atticus,” he explains, “and not just sleep. You will need to perform intercourse. At the very least, you need to ask a lady for permission to use her eggs and womb to greatest your child.”
Following this, Atticus shatters Hermione’s will to live by asking her if she wouldn't mind “loaning him some of her egges, and possibly renting out her wombe.”
“Not her, Atticus,” Voldemort groans, even as Ron tries to revive Hermione, who has fainted. “Surrogates should ideally have had a child before. Do you know of no other women?”
“I know Narcissa,” Atticus says brightly.
Narcissa and Lucius are stunned when Atticus asks them, but they do some quick maths, which can be represented in the following equation:
Lestrange sperm + (Black x Malfoy) egg = Continuation of Malfoy influence in the Sacred Twenty-Eight + Wizengamot Seats
Lucius and Narcissa tag team a squealing Atticus in bed, and the lady comes away pregnant, while Atticus runs to Voldemort to complain that Lucius was very rough with him. “I thought that intercourse was supposed to be the gentle coming together of two souls! Lucius turned into an angry Hippogriff! Now my Little Lestrange and my bum both hurt!”
“We'll get you a cushion and some hot soup,” Voldemort soothes him, as he throws a comforting blanket over Atticus, and sends Harry over to read books on dream interpretation to him.
***
Sirius is tickled pink when he hears of Atticus’ escapades, and his soon-to-be child(e).
“Cheers Atticus,” Sirius says, raising a toast to a beaming Atticus and a very swollen Narcissa. “Here’s to a happy and healthy baby. May they be just as vague and unintentionally cute as you.”
“Have you thought of names?” Remus asks.
“I rather like the name Cassandra,” Atticus hums happily.
“What if it’s a boy?”
“It’s not.”
Narcissa beams at the thought of having a tiny baby girl to dress up and be genteel with, and steals Harry away to plan the nursery and discuss colour palettes, crib designs, and other womanly things.
***
The birth of Cassandra Lestrange is, in short, traumatizing. For Voldemort, that is.
First, Narcissa’s water breaks as she is sitting next to Voldemort, and leaks onto his good robes and his shag carpeting. This is followed by the floo network being blocked, which leaves them no way to get to St Mungo’s, resulting in Voldemort’s home being surrendered for a home birth.
The only people present are, of course, Voldemort and Harry, because of course they are. Luckily, Voldemort has previously assisted at births, on account of growing up in an orphanage with many teenage girls in the forties coming and delivering in the back room.
Of course, nothing goes to plan, and the baby’s head gets stuck because its head is too big. Voldemort gags as he frees the child’s head, while Harry grips Narcissa’s hands for support.
Cassandra Harriet Lestrange is born at five past ten in the morning of August 5th, 1999. She is small, pink, and has Atticus’ spacey gaze. She also refused to cry, instead opting to stare and blink at Voldemort in the same manner that her father does.
“Here, she’s refusing to cry, you try,” Voldemort says, and hands her over to Narcissa, where Cassandra then lets out a small, “Ah,” and falls asleep. She wakes up breifly to do her first poo, which causes Voldemort to nearly faint, so rancid is it.
Eventually, the floo block is lifted, and what seems like the entirety of Britain tumbles into Voldemort’s home.
“Oh egads,” Voldemort grumbles, as he is put to work, making tea and scones for the guests. “I cannot believe that I have been relegated to pastry chef from dark lord.”
“You love it though,” Harry smiles impishly, putting another pot of tea on the hob. “You brought literal life into the world.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Voldemort grins. “My god, but I hope to never touch a labia again. Not even the sweetest perfumes of Arabia will cleanse these hands. Out, out damn placenta!”
Voldemort’s gripes of touching labia majora and minora are put to rest for good once he goes upstairs to the nursery, to see Atticus holding his child. Father and daughter are staring unblinkingly at each other, but with such tenderness that it causes Voldemort gas.
“She is very beautiful,” Atticus whispers, looking up at Voldemort. “I think that she has Narcissa’s colouration.”
“She has your eyes,” Harry smiles. “Congratulations, Uncle Atty.”
“Thank you, nephewe,” Atticus beams dottily, before holding Cassandra out to Voldemort. “Here you go, she is yours too.”
Voldemort receives his tiny package with some confusion. “Atticus, genetics do not work like that.”
“I know,” Atticus hums, “but bonds are forged through the heart, and the bond of godfather and godchild is on par with parents. After all, you choose each other.”
Voldemort has so many emotions that he carefully hands the baby to Harry before locking himself in the washroom and running himself a hot bath. Of course, Atticus comes in and continues to talk, because that man has never met a boundary that he did not understand.
***
Harry ends up temporarily moving back in to help with the baby, helping to set up Narcissa and her bags upon bags of items for her postpartum care.
“We can just floo to your house,” Voldemort points out to her. “You do not need all of this - is that a handbag rack?”
“It is to hold Cassandra’s bibs, my lord,” Narcissa lies, and does not even bother occluding.
Narcissa is not the only one who goes overboard for the baby. Harry is Suspect Number One when flower crowns and decorative onesies in red and gold start appearing in the house.
“Stop dressing her in Gryffindor colours, she is my godchild and is born of two Slytherins,” Voldemort says to his giggling son, and wandlessly changes the onesie to a Slytherin green.
Voldemort spends hours holding the baby as she sleeps, or in a move that mirrors her father, stares vacantly at him. She also, as Atticus is prone to do, follows Voldemort around everywhere, including the bathroom.
Harry delights in being a cousin/big brother, and is intolerably sweet with Cassandra. Even Draco loses some of his pointiness, softening as he watches Harry play with Cassandra, change her, and rock her to sleep.
Voldemort also delights in seeing his children - yes, the baby is his too, she lives under his roof, and Atticus is going nowhere in a hurry - so happy and at peace.
He is, however, totally going to smack Sirius when he sneaks up on him and goes, “~oooh domestic fulfillment oooh~” like a pesky ghost.
Still, seeing his family gamboling about his house, in his kitchen, his bedroom, and his bathroom, Voldemort cannot bring himself to regret a single thing.