In Ink and Inheritance (Book 1)

Chapter 5 - A Legacy I Never Chose

Harriet Potter's POV

I hadn't told anyone.

Not Hermione. Not Ron. Not even Professor McGonagall - though there had been a moment in Transfiguration where I thought about it. She'd looked at me with that stern, perceptive expression of hers, the one that always made me feel like I was being seen through. Like she knew something was off.

But I stayed quiet.

Because how do you explain to someone that your future - your life - might've been written for you a hundred years ago in someone else's ink?

I sat at the edge of the Black Lake that morning, knees drawn to my chest, the scroll heavy in the pocket of my cloak. The air was crisp, and frost still clung to the grass in silver threads. I liked it here. It was the one place I could hear myself think.

The contract hadn't changed. Every time I reread it, the same words stared back at me like they were carved in stone:

A bond of betrothal, to be honored by the eldest unmarried heirs of both lines within seven generations... the bond is now active.

It sounded final. Irrevocable. Like a spell already cast.

I didn't know how to feel. Angry? Not exactly. It didn't feel cruel - just... unfair. Like being handed a riddle you didn't ask for and being told to solve it with your future.

And Oliver.

Merlin.

He was older. Almost an adult. And I wasn't stupid - I knew what the older girls whispered about him in the dorms. The dreamy Quidditch Captain. Tall, serious, handsome. But I hadn't seen him like that until this. Until he looked at me like I was something real.

He didn't laugh when I said I was scared. He didn't treat me like a kid. And he didn't make promises either, which somehow made me trust him more.

Still, the age difference sat between us like a chasm.

He'd be graduating in a few months. I was only thirteen. Barely out of second-year robes. He had callouses from years of training; I had scars from things no one could see.

And yet... the magic still named us.

I drew the scroll from my pocket and ran a finger over the edges. There was no blood ink. No spark or glow. But it thrummed faintly when I held it. Like it knew.

Like it was waiting.

I needed answers. Not just about the contract, but about the Potters. I barely knew anything beyond my parents' names and how they died. I didn't know what kind of people they were. What their house stood for. What it meant to be born with this name.

So I made a decision.

After classes, I'd go back to the library - to the dusty old lineage books and bloodline scrolls and crumbling archives Madam Pince hated to see touched. I'd find the Potters. I'd find the Woods.

I'd learn what this legacy meant.

Because if fate really was calling me by name...

I wanted to know who I was before I answered.