A Rose's Thorns

Chapter 8

He supposed it was because she had shown scarce magical ability throughout her childhood and early to mid-teenage years. Growing up with that many muggles must have suppressed her magical ability a little bit. So he had decided to slowly release it. He knew she was very powerful. She was a Potter after all, and not even he could deny the power that ran in their veins.

He had first decided to teach her Wingardium Leviosa. After giving her a brief history of the spell along with a few of its many uses, he decided to move on to the practical aspect of it.

He made her repeat the proper pronunciation a few times, along with the hand movements. He had also gone as far as holding her wand holding hand while she said the chant in order to show her how the charm works.

She was doing it properly. So, he released her hand and asked her to try out the spell all by herself.

Big mistake.

She spoke the words clearly and properly. There was a slight problem with the swish and flick wand movement, however.

As in, when she swished the practice wand, it flicked right out of her hand.

Long story short, the House Elves were currently disposing of the remains of a six hundred and seventy-seven-year-old ancient Egyptian handcrafted vase that was worth millions of gallons. Sadly, the vase could not be fixed with a reparo considering that it had been encoded with runes that wouldn't allow it to be. After all, according to the logic of the old, if one could simply repair something, why would they bother to buy anything new?

Rose had managed to look sheepish and had proceeded to immediately apologise for the vase, but it wasn't like it would change the situation.

After that, he had decided to start with the most basics of spells- Lumos and nox. He had also had the foresight to put a simple gripping charm and sticking charm on her hand.

"Rose, calm your mind," he said in a soothing voice. "Magic... it's instinctive. It is like the sea. It is unpredictable, dangerous and beautiful. It cannot be commanded, it cannot be restraint. Channel your magic through your body, let it flow."

Rosalie Dorea Potter nodded obediently and closed her eyes, taking in and letting out deep breaths.

She opened her pretty eyes with determination on her face, before chanting the spell.

And it worked.

There was light at the tip of the wand. It wasn't dim and it wasn't blinding. It was just right.

Rose looked so excited and happy that it actually worked, she could do magic!

She started doing a 'happy dance'- throwing her hands up in the air and jumping up and down like a bunny on drugs. And him being him, of course, he had to put a damper on her happiness.

"You do realise that Lumos is the easiest spell, right?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Rose's dance came to an immediate, abrupt halt and she looked at him with wide and horrified eyes.

"Easiest?" she whispered, shocked.

Tom took great pleasure in nodding.

Rose let out a drawling "This is impossible" before dramatically theatrically falling to the ground.

Tom stared at her form blankly for a few seconds before speaking, "Go and prepare yourself for dinner. Tomorrow, I shall teach you some basic potions."

She instantly perked up, "Potions? Like a cauldron and weird ingredients and green smoke? Like they show in the telly?" she asked excitedly.

"On second thought," he added upon seeing the look on her face, "I am not sure it is a good idea to teach you such an intricately beautiful art that involves the use of poisonous ingredients, considering you were unable to even hold your wand properly."

She pouted, "It's not my fault that the stupid stick-"

"Wand"

"-is very slippery! Besides, potions is like chemistry, right? I'm really good at Chemistry, and not just the kind they teach in school..." she finished with a wink and flirty smile.

He gave her an unimpressed stare, before leaving the room with his expensive dark robes behind him.

Rose Potter had slept on Friday evening in one of the many guest bedrooms. A House Elf had woken her up and at breakfast, he had been greeted to the sight of the Elf crying that "The great Rose Potter is so kind! So great, to treat it as an equal" and the girl herself trying to calm the House Elf.

After clearing up that matter with a -quite literally- look of his eyes, breakfast was a quiet affair apart from a short conversation between himself and the girl-who-lived.

("Did you know that the word Saturday comes from the Latin phrase, 'Saturni dies ' or 'the day of Saturn', who was the ancient Roman titan of agriculture?"

"Yes, now shut up or I will hurt you.")

Both of them had left early in the morning to visit Mr and Mrs Dursley and inform them about Rose's ... situation. It had actually been Rose greeting her parents, telling them how much she loved them and then going upstairs to her bedroom to pack her belongings; and had hence, left 'Marvolo Slytherin' to explain her situation to her parents.

He had placed a wordless Muffliato in the room, thus restricting Rose from eavesdropping on the conversation.

After that, he had then proceeded to threaten the couple, and then explain that Rose would be staying with him and would occasionally visit them for a few hours during the weekends, and if they told anyone about it, he would brutally murder Rose and her blood would be on their hands.

In fear for the life of their daughter in everything but bio, the couple had proceeded to act like everything was completely fine when Rose came downstairs after packing and even encouraged her to have fun and learn magic.

Vernon and Petunia Dursley had hugged her long and hard, with tears in their eyes, explaining that they were crying because they would miss her very much.

After giving a breathtakingly frightening smile to the matriarch and patriarch of the Dursley household, the Dark Lord had side-apparated Rose to the Slytherin Manor where she then proceeded to 'anti peristile' or vomit her guts out due to apparating.

He had allowed her to excuse herself to go get changed and Nagini had followed her. He wasn't exactly sure what Nagini had said to her while they were alone, but when they had returned, Rosalie had been confident and very... flirty.

When he had asked Nagini for insight about their conversation, Nagini had stubbornly refused to spill the details, mentioning something called the 'girl code'.

Nagini wasn't very fond of Bellatrix Lestrange or Alecto Carrow and had found Narcissa Malfoy to be borderline bearable.

Apparently, since Rose Potter was female, Parselmouth and was 'very amusing' (her words, not his), his dear snake had grown quite attached to the girl-who-lived in a very short amount of time.

It had only been 18 hours, and his own snake had chosen her over him.

Morgana, how he wished that the girl wasn't his Horcrux.