EVICTION NOTICE

This serves as notice that you have been evicted from the premises, effective immediately. Please speak to the landlord to begin the process of removing your belongings. Your presence on this property without permission of the landlord is a crime, and the authorities will be called.

I tear the offending piece of paper off my front door.

"Fuck!" I mutter, furiously ripping it up. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"That's not really going to make any difference," Ginny points out unhelpfully.

I glare at my best friend, holding up the torn pieces in my hand. "What should I do, then? I've been kicked out of my own home!"

"I don't know," Ginny shrugs, "perhaps get a job?!"

"I had a job - a perfectly good job until that bitch fired me."

"Well, you shouldn't have shagged the chef in the larder then. It's unsanitary. And not to mention all the angry customers wondering where their food was."

"Bollocks, it had nothing to do with that. Cho had her eye on him for months." I snarl. "Jealous cow."

Ginny rolls her eyes, clearly deciding not to comment any further on the subject. "Look, let's just get you inside and we can collect your stuff. In the meantime, you'll just have to move in with me and-"

"FUCK NO!" I splutter. "I'M NOT LIVING WITH YOUR BASTARD OF A HUSBAND AFTER HE PUT MY FATHER IN AZKABAN!"

"Harper, you're my oldest friend and I love you," Ginny says patiently, "but you know Harry had no choice. Your father did murder a lot of innocent people."

"He was coerced." I sniff, but I'm not sure I even believe that anymore. My sister certainly never did.

I feel so angry. Angry at the world. My father, Coriolanus Snow, is to me a wonderful man (murdering people aside). He had been a doting father to me and my older sister, Dolores. He had brought us up single handedly after our mother, Effie, was killed in a freak broomstick accident when I was just a baby. He was good and kind. And he loved us to pieces.

And then Harry bloody Potter had to go and take him away from me, also confiscating our vast family fortune, rendering Dolores and me parentless, knutless and homeless.

"He was a Death Eater by his own choice," Ginny unnecessarily reminds me. "He killed lots of innocent people over the years, most of the deaths ordered by himself. He was the monster who caused the fatal blow to Hogwarts, killing my brother in the process."

Oh, how I hate it when she plays the Dead Fred card.

Pouting, I retrieve my wand and blast open the door, pushing myself inside my pokey flat.

Ginny follows, muttering under her breath as usual about the mess. I can't help it. I am used to having a house-elf do all the work. Another luxury I can no longer afford thanks to Harry Potter.

I should have done a Dolores and fucked off to the other side of the world as soon as the war ended seven years previously, disowning our father, and disowning me for standing by him. But I couldn't leave him, he needed my support throughout his trial. So, I got a job as a waitress to help pay the legal bills. And then, after my father was sentenced to life imprisonment, I just got kind of stuck in a rut, partying and shagging my problems away while my friends around me all settled down with marriage and babies. The fools.

"Look," Ginny sighs, wading through the mess and using her wand to gather everything up into bin bags. "At least let me give you some gold for a deposit on a new place."

"No!" I snap. "I refuse to touch a single knut of Potter's blood money. I will just find another job, one that pays better than working at Cho Chang's All You Can Eat dive."

Sighing, I throw myself down on my possibly fifth hand sofa and begin to sift through today's copy of the Daily Prophet - purchased with my last knut.

"Ooo, a sudoku - I love them," I say, getting my wand out to Accio a pen.

"Harper, you are supposed to be looking for a job, not playing puzzles. Merlin, you're twenty-four years old. Start acting like it and take some responsibility for once."

I don't need a mother to know what having one is like. I have bloody Ginny Weasley. Well, I suppose Ginny Potter, but I hate thinking of her as that.

So, I sulkily turn the pages until I reach the correct section.

"Huh, there's a job going at Hogwarts: caretaker wanted." I mutter. "Damn, guess old Filch has carked it then."

"Are you going to apply?"

"Fuck, no. I have some standards."

"Well, it would certainly sort out your living situation." Ginny says thoughtfully as she continues to pack up all my things. "You can go and live back in Hogwarts."

"I'm not doing it, Ginny. Can you imagine: me, a caretaker?"

"Beggars can't be choosers."

"I'm not a fucking beggar." I roar. "I'm a Snow!"

I continue to scan the adverts, wrinkling my nose at the shit offerings. Ice cream scooper, cleaner at Gringotts bank, Knight Bus conductor. Every single one of them minimum fucking wage.

And then something finally catches my eye.

"Ah, wait, here's one that sounds promising: Surrogate required. The successful applicant will be generously compensated and will be provided with free living quarters during the process. To start immediately. Pure Bloods only."

"What, that's crazy!" Ginny splutters from where she is in the kitchen, unplugging all my appliances, "you do know what a surrogate is, don't you?"

"Well, duh. It'll be easy! Sitting around for nine months and being generously compensated to push out a baby for some posh tart. I'll be laughing."

"Giving birth is anything but easy. I'm still traumatized after having James. And you'll have to give the baby up at the end of it. Do you know how emotionally painful that will be?"

"But it won't be my baby," I shrug. "And I won't have to deal with shitty nappies and all that dreadful screaming."

Ginny stops what she is doing, staring at me dumbfounded. "Harper, please don't tell me you are seriously considering this? The things your body will go through during pregnancy. Not to mention how you will literally tear yourself in two giving birth."

"Your body looks alright to me," I say, quickly scanning her svelte figure, "and you've been through it all."

"What type of surrogacy are they asking for?" Ginny asks, frowning. "It could be one when they want to use your eggs. In which case that baby would be yours biologically and therefore even harder to give up."

"It doesn't say, but it does give a number. I'll give it a call." I say, sliding out my phone from my jeans' pocket and begin to dial. "Won't hurt to find out more details."

"Harper, no-"

A woman answers almost promptly, as though she were waiting for this exact call.

"Astoria Malfoy."

Oh. I know her. And I also know who her husband is. Tasty little ferret.

"Oh, um, hi," I stumble, trying to get over the shock from expecting a much older couple. "I have just come across your advert for a surrogate and I would like to know a bit more. My name is Harper Snow, by the way. I was in the year above you during Hogwarts."

There is a brief silence as I hear Astoria sucking in a sharp breath. "Oh, yes wonderful, I remember you. Tell me, are you enquiring for yourself or on behalf of someone else?"

"For me. I'm currently in between jobs and thought I'd tackle something new."

"Oh, that's wonderful." she says, sounding genuinely pleased. "Of course, there will be an application process. We need to make sure we choose someone suitable for the task. There are many factors which need careful consideration before we can come to any sort of decision, you understand."

"Absolutely." I say, throwing a thumbs up to Ginny who just rolls her eyes and tuts.

"To begin, I will require a face-to-face meeting where you will need to provide me with all your medical information, certificates, proof of blood purity etc." she explains. "From there I will decide if you are suitable to meet my husband."

Okay, a bit odd. But understandable, I guess. No point in involving him at this stage.

"I wanted to ask," I say, recalling Ginny's question, "what sort of surrogacy are you looking for?"

"It would be partial, using the surrogate's eggs. But we can discuss all the details during our meeting." Astoria says. "Are you available say at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon? We can take tea out on the patio."

"Okay, sure, yes," I gush feeling a flutter of excitement.

Sharing her address, she says goodbye and hangs up.

Ginny is looking at me expectantly, biting her lower lip.

"You'll never guess who the fuck that was?" I gush, tossing the phone back down onto the sofa. "Only Draco bloody Malfoy's wife!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Right, that settles it." Ginny says. "You can't possibly agree to this now."

"Why not? They're Malfoy's! They're proper loaded."

"But, Harper," Ginny implores, looking almost green. "He and his family were Death Eaters. They tortured Hermione and locked up Luna in their cellar."

"My father was a Death Eater, too, remember?" I snipe, feeling suddenly defensive on Draco Malfoy's behalf. "And you just offered me a place to live with your husband and kid. Besides, Astoria said it is just a partial, using the surrogate's eggs, so that's good, isn't it?"

"That's worse!" Ginny gasps, running her fingers through her hair. "That means it will be your baby."

I shrug. "Nah, not really. They're just eggs that I've no need for at the end of the day. Besides, I hate babies. Trust me, I will have no issue handing it over."

"Harper, please," Ginny says, her expression begging. "Please think about what you're doing here."

"I've got no money, no job, and no longer a home. I don't really have much choice."

"There's always a choice, Harper." Ginny says darkly. "I am giving you one now. Please don't make the wrong one."

I make my choice all right.

And it is that very choice which finds me, the next day, standing at the gates of Malfoy Manor.

*****