For the society columns on both sides of the Atlantic, the news of Lord Peverell's nuptials had been a shock of the year, when news broke that the fifty-three year old wizard had married his pregnant assistant. Most who knew the man were soon aware of what a good match the former Ms. Evans was to the aloof and abrasive Lord, a man over thirty years her senior. The couple entertained regularly and the young woman was vivacious, stunning, talented and incredibly intelligent, a good foil for her husband's sarcastic wit.

Entertaining his oldest friends at the Manhattan Warlock's Club on Central Park West on his return from London, Tom spoke of the match making of his good friend Madam Channing.

"I arranged with Olive to find me a suitable assistant, expecting her to employ a confirmed bachelor, like myself; over fifty, workaholic and very no-nonsense. To find the woman had hired a young recent graduate of Hogwarts of the opposite sex. The young lady had six NEWTS, all Outstandings with distinctions, was top of her year, Head Girl and yet could not get an apprenticeship or even a job within Magical community in Britain. I was more than willing to employ Miss Evans, who had fantastic references from Professor Slughorn and three employers in the City."

The man smiled as he sipped his armagnac. "By Halloween, I knew my days as a single man were numbered. I thought I was well past the age for siring a child and here, I will be a father by August. Miss Evans also proved to be a reluctant bride, the brainwashing of the blood purist faction at her school made her think she was only good enough to be a concubine at best. She expected me to sack her after our tryst. I fear her previous love affair at school had not ended well, the man dropped her as he was contracted to a stranger. I doubt the witch he married is half the woman Lily is. To think I am now acting the love struck teenager because my titian haired wife." It was the truth, he had never been enamoured with carnal pleasures but he was addicted to the touch and attention of his wife. He wondered if Lord Potter had arranged the match not to legitimise his heir but to matchmake a more than suitable wife for his distant cousin and leige lord.

…..

On the evening of his 55th birthday, he was dressed and ready for the Ministry Ball, happy to watch his lovely wife prepare. He watched her dress after her bath. The woman well aware her nude form aroused him. Tonight there was no time to interrupt Lily as her pale skin was covered by the softest of water silk robes, plain but expertly cut to her willowy figure. Her red hair dressed in an elaborate braid, with clasps of gold and clips adorned with emeralds and diamonds. On her wrist the entwined snakes of the Ancient Slytherin Bonding bracket and around her throat the family locket. Returned to him after he became the financial saviour of the Smith Family. He had widely publicised that his bride was a descendant of the Druid-mages of Snowdonia. A Druid warrior priestess was the perfect image for Lily Evans. How she had laughed that the mud blood daughter of Harry Evans was now thought of as mythic royalty.

The 1981 New Year Ministry Ball was the social event of the winter season, this year hosted by Lucius Malfoy and the ballroom in the Ministry of Magic deep below London was resplendent with tasteful decorations. The guest list included Lord and Lady Potter and Lord and Lady Slytherin-Peverell. With the death of Charlus Potter at Halloween, the money, prestige and holdings of the Peverell Regency passed to Tom Marvolo Riddle and his heir.

Watching his wife of a year dance with other Lords, was excruciating, his possessiveness and jealousy evident in his penetrating observation of the dancers every move. His wife was charming all, the great and good hanging on her every word. The witches coy and demure mask in place, the lady despised them all. Every witch and wizard here would have ignored her before her marriage.

The dowager Longbottom approached to make small talk. "You have travelled home without your son."

"Hadrian is quite precocious. His accidental magic is prestigious if upset, easier on all of us leaving him with his nanny, his playgroup routine and with my good friend Madam Zelda Goodman playing grandmama. The loss of Charlus has hit us all hard, he was like a father to me, as you know both Lily and I are orphans."

The matriarch still controlled the family holdings as her son had chosen to be an Auror, she missed her old friends Charlus and Dorea deeply. "You never warmed to young James. The boy thinks himself above his elders. Married that heiress without consulting his father, shocking behaviour. Marrying for money, it's not like the potter's are poor. Their farms make enough I keep the man in the standard his father was accustomed to. The Potter's have never flaunted the Peverell wealth for good reason they were regents not lords. As you can surmise My hobby is genealogy. You finding a magical descendant of Cadwaladr has been a welcome renewing of an ancient bloodline long thought lost."

"Squib descentants are discounted from all Ancient and Noble Lines, I would not be surprised if all Muggle-borns were actually all related. Squibs can still see and sense magic, some can even brew potions, divine and study arithmancy, runes and astronomy to Mastery level and most can excel at herbology or care of magical creatures. To exile thirty percent of our small community just because they cannot match a wand to transfigure, hex or cast charms, is such a waste of potential. Look at Marius Black, cast from the family at eleven, yet a confirmed true seer, honoured at the Temple of Hecate in Delphi. We cast them out and create our own problems with reintegrating their descendants. Muggle borns go back to the world they were raised in, leaving the Pureblood lines to intermarry and weaken." Tom let out a slow breath, his mother had been little more than a squib. The Riddles, by pure luck had been cursed to show no magic, until they married into Morgana's bloodline. Genealogies only went back as far as the founding of Hogwarts, so either the Peverell's or the Gaunt's were the last heirs of the greatest witch of the Dark Ages. "Forgive my outburst, but my own 'muggle' father was a squib of an ancient, long forgotten family. From him I inherited a library of scrolls in ancient tongues predating Hogwarts and my Slytherin forefathers."

….

Lily had worked hard at her marriage, become the seductress, the diplomat and the perfect housekeeper. Not for one minute did she regret her decisions. Tom was a wonderful father and a husband many were jealous of. He often scoffed that James Potter was the biggest fool in the world for letting her go. Now, she was his and how he treasured and spoiled her. She had been afraid that her son would be only tolerated as a heir and nothing more, but her husband doted in his adopted son. She was glad the boy favoured her and his Peverell heritage, she wondered if the differences were due to Tom blood adopting the child. James had looked so like his father, but Hadrian, while with a slight resemblance to his Potter grandfather was very like Tom.

This night, no one had called her a mudblood, all had been polite, even the Malfoy's. Narcissa discussing her son, only slightly older than Hadrian, like the pair would become best of friends at Hogwarts in ten years time. Lily was damn sure she taught her son the truth that Hogwart's produced back stabbing, nasty and cruel bigots. Even James had fallen into that category in the end. Tom saved from that fate by finishing his schooling in America.

As she sipped the glass of fruit punch with her husband she glanced at but did not remain in eye contact with her one time best friend, Severus Snape. She would never forgive him his casual termination of their childhood bond in fifth year. Oh, she would be polite to his face, but by then end of tonight all she spoke with would be well aware he was the son of a penniless muggle, who had died in jail after murdering his wife of twenty years, a Pureblood Witch, in a drunken rage. Snape had spent his years at Hogwarts pretending to be a impoverished halfblooded heir of House Prince, upholding Pureblood ideals and down playing his past, making most think his mother had raised him as a single parent, Tobias Snape handily forgotten. The vaults and assets, his grandfather had bequeathed to St. Mungo's rather than give a knut to the son of his daughter's murderer.