Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Listen closely men and I'll tell to you,
about the defeat of You-Know-Who;
and also hear this warning true
of why you should take your potions,
and check your witches too…
-o0o-
It was nighttime at an exclusive school in Scotland where a fifteen year old boy was pondering his troubles. Unlike many melancholy teenagers this boy's problems were actually serious in scope as well as difficulty. This boy's name was Harry Potter and in the manner of men and boys everywhere he was doing the bidding of a girl to avoid the potential bitching if he didn't.
In this case he was sitting in his bed with a notepad on his knees scratching away at a list with a muggle fountain pen he had purchased mail order and then enchanted to link up to an ink well (he had thrown a screaming fit in transfiguration several weeks ago after McGonagall had explained the applications of the switching spell and had been coaxed into an aside about the benefits of charms or runes to anchor or continue the effect. Harry thought the two hour detention was worth venting his frustration in front of an audience about how he'd not have needed to use an inkwell and quill if he'd known this earlier). He was writing out an itemized list of all the skills, abilities and effects he and Voldemort had, ostensibly to be organized into a Vin diagram or cross-referenced index in hopes of isolating a piece of magic that would allow him some measure of victory over the clearly obsessed dark wizard.
Harry realized that: Voldemort would never stop hunting him, he would always be relying on luck if he didn't plan for more of these eventual attacks, he wasn't very good at planning, and Hermione wouldn't even bother to give any of these ideas credence if he didn't submit them (in writing) to her in a somewhat organized fashion. So to save on the inevitable bitching and moaning and extra work if he did it wrong the first time, he was writing down every ability he had in exhaustive detail.
Currently he was detailing the nature of their connection. He had been receiving visions from Voldemort and had continued receiving them even after the disaster of his Occlumency lessons; he realized that he would probably never be able to block the visions. Since his lessons with Snape he had actually been experiencing the visions more often and with greater frequency although not always with the same clarity. He was lucky if he went longer than two days without some out of body experience, be it hearing things Voldemort heard, feeling things Voldemort felt, strong bursts of unrelated emotions, and in one particularly disturbing instance sitting down to fish and chips and tasting Voldemort's shepherds' pie.
It was apparently very good pie according to Voldemort.
Applying a little wizard logic (the kind that would drive ancient Greek philosophers to kill in violent rages) it stood to sense that Voldemort was also on the receiving end of Harry's emotions and otherwise. Due to the connections growing when introduced to a magical discipline regarding the mind: it stood to sense that the presence of magic was what facilitated the transfer. This theory had borne out explanations regarding the heightened emotions and their resulting magical surges as being at fault for the early connections. Further, sleep: the unconscious and uncontrolled mind, was a much better receiver being much more susceptible to (apparent) internal magical influences than the conscious mind's controlling presence.
Harry, no mental midget himself, thought Hermione would agree that it would be possible for some level of magical transfer through the scar. If that were the case then he would be able to move further along on his tentative plan, outlined on page two of his notepad.
He had gotten the idea from some history revision for his O.W.L.'s about the effects the locations of WWI battles had on the magical creature population. Harry's book was silent on the cause but Harry thought it was the use of deadly gasses as weapons on the battle field. It hadn't taken long to see his first idea (the advent of the machine gun) shot down upon learning that the shield they learned in third year DADA could stop bullets as long as it was up leading to a vacancy of reasons for why so many wizards, witches and magical creatures were wiped out in the immediate areas. He had determined that it had likely been the deadly gasses; a shield that would filter the air around the wizard as well as stop projectiles would have been considered overkill beyond reason (and quite beyond their abilities in most cases) for the arrogant magicians who were without a muggleborn's good sense to stay away from the battles or any of the common decency to not go out of their way to witness a slaughter.
This insight had been dredged up in response to the reluctance Harry had for directing malignant magic internally. There was no guarantee that the magical connection could handle transference of a curse and he had no desire for one to backfire in his forehead. He came across the idea of the army gassing an area and then leading a charge with gasmasks secured – and though it hadn't worked out very well for the armies Harry was extremely interested in something that could harm Voldemort without risking himself even if it did backfire.
He was now searching for something that the dark lord would not likely have much experience with but could be transmitted magically and hopefully subtly and/or attached to a benign emotion or experience. So far he was coming up with a big blank. Anything that could be harmful to Voldemort was something serious enough that it would cause a pretty hefty surge of emotions from Harry and he didn't think that they would be anything other than extreme fear or anger. He was pretty sure that drinking a magically transmitted poison would scare him enough to transmit the effects but it would be instantly obvious to Voldemort whatever his state was. The panic he could expect waiting for the antidote would be ample clue for someone as smart as Voldemort was reputed to be and for him to work backwards from to form an antidote of his own. Then, after any failed attempt, the option would no longer be viable as he would surely take steps to neutralize the link or try something similar in return.
Still, the basics of a workable plan were drawn up as was a list of known skills his enemy possessed as well as a decent accounting of his own skills and that would be enough to get others involved, which was his goal from the beginning.
-o0o-
The solution to Harry's difficulties with poison choice was actually solved in a totally unrelated incident. Emotions were running high amongst the fifth and seventh years as their government standardized tests were approaching. He actually thought that if Umbridge were less of a heinous bitch to him, then he might actually be in the same dinghy crossing the sea of stress.
Just how high these emotions were running was hammered home to Harry when he had to escort a seventh year Slytherin witch to the Hospital wing after she had a nervous breakdown right in front of him.
After getting her to Madam Pomfrey (and celebrating his successful ducking of Umbridge's class), Harry hung around to make sure everything was going to be alright. Once the rather pretty seventh year had been force-fed a very strong calming draught and eagerly gulped down a cheering solution, Harry found himself on the receiving end of a very enthusiastic thank-you snog.
So enthusiastic in fact that it elicited a joking warning from a passing Hufflepuff to remember to use the contraceptive potions. Harry blushed (though not nearly so bad as when Sirius had given him the talk) and watched in appreciation as the witch's casting abilities drove off the interloper. It was obvious to Harry that the girl was deeply affected by the potions when she winked at him and told him not to worry about it: that she was already on the contraceptive and clean of STDs. This time Harry did manage to top his embarrassment with Sirius by blushing a deeper red and standing there stuttering with his mouth hanging open.
It didn't hit him until several minutes after the giggling brunette had left him standing there like a gibbering moron. Some STDs were fatal even in the wizarding world without treatment. Voldemort was not likely to be having sex at any point in the future and so would not be dosing himself for those diseases. The philandering of magic users under the influence of some seriously heavy magic in the dim mists of the past had resulted in some seriously hideous mutations of STDs that were transmitted from magic to magic. Many of these resulted in damage directly to a wizard or witch's magical core. Nearly all of these had easy effective potion cures due in no small part to the near-universal phobia of losing one's magic.
But perhaps most importantly: Voldemort wouldn't suspect anything malign from a teenager having sex even if said teenager was worrying about something involved in the process. Voldemort would probably be much more interested in just who Harry had shagged and if she was important enough to use as leverage in their next encounter, certainly not interested in anything involved in the activity itself.
Eyes shining brightly with the thrill of impending victory Harry spun on his heel and marched right back to Madam Pomfrey for an in-depth lecture on the evils of unprotected sex.
-o0o-
Harry was now walking the halls of Hogwarts both more traumatized by and more eager for sex than he'd ever felt… ever. He was looking at the world through new eyes and seeing things he'd never expected to see. The magical world had regained all the wonder that five years exposure to it had ground off and yet more wonder was revealed underneath.
It was like someone covering a cake in an old yellowing Tupperware… and then being opened for a late night snack to discover… inside that old, worn packaging wasn't just any cake but a seven-layer, devil's food, ultra-rich, chocolate-raspberry cake with chocolate mousse icing.
This year was a year for revelations, Harry decided.
First, he didn't need to keep dipping his damn quill! That all by itself would have restored wonder to the world.
He had found his missing cake!
Second, he had found a likely way to destroy his greatest threat and he'd done so by leaving the thinking to his second head. This too would alone have restored his faith in all things magical.
And he could eat his cake too!
Third, relating directly to the second, he had discovered girls. Truly discovered them this time not just idly noting the differences in packaging like a bored mail clerk might do with envelopes. He was now equal parts happy and frustrated to be led down the hallways by his very interested pecker. Further, he was just as eager as it was awaiting the opportunity for it to pop out and greet some good looking witch and have it be welcomed in turn.
That was some damn good cake.
Fourth, he had discovered the joys of charmed objects. He knew he had barely scratched the surface of this lovely branch of magic but he could now say for certain that he was going to be an enchanter when he finished school. The Aurors could totter on without him. His fountain pen was his entry into the field but it was his glasses that would cement the path. They were now charmed to show him the auras of his classmates in response to an ever growing number of diagnostic charms including the charm that identified those with STDs. A quick tap of his finger on his frames and some quiet mumbling could now tell him a great deal about his classmates; perhaps the most oft activated of these snippets of information was what his female classmates looked like without the barrier of their robes. He was fairly sure that this was the reason Dumbledore wore glasses and why his eyes twinkled (though this did call into serious question the number of times he and the Weasley twins had been in the Headmaster's office).
And lo, he did find another cake hidden behind his lost cake!
Fifth, it was possible that he was smarter than he gave himself credit for. He was still waiting for the results of his destroy-Voldemort plan before he allowed himself to believe it, but he was rather impressed by all that he had managed to learn in these last short weeks. Going from never taking a runes class to becoming proficient enough to enchant his glasses was no insignificant feat.
And he could eat this cake too!
Finally… Sex. That was probably all that needed to be said but Harry was astonished at the extremes such a little word represented: passion, anger, love, lust, disgust, romance, beauty, revulsion. Seemingly every human emotion could be encompassed in a three letter word. Harry was in awe.
-o0o-
It took another week to find a suitable candidate and when he did he felt like beating his head against a wall.
As far as he could tell there were three girls that fit his qualifications when looked at objectively: Pansy Parkinson, Lavender Brown, and Megan Jones. The three are attractive, promiscuous and most importantly carrying the magical disease he needed.
Pansy was out immediately. She might have grown into a very good looking girl but she was Malfoy's through and through. While he was willing to be the second wizard to the goal he still had some standards and arriving behind Malfoy was totally out of the question (though it did beg the question of why Malfoy was still reading as clean of the disease, he'd been very eager to confirm the blond ponce was fast approaching squib-dom and disappointed in the extreme when his glasses showed the git clean).
Megan Jones was out as well after some careful consideration. He probably hadn't said much more than two words to the Hufflepuff since starting school. The effort involved in cultivating a relationship to that level without arousing suspicions he would rather do without was both daunting and time consuming. He did make a note to have Dobby slip some of the potion cure into her food for the next couple weeks however. He'd never heard anything bad about her except for her loose definition of who was acceptable to lay with and he didn't think his conscience could take knowingly allowing someone to lose their magic.
That left Lavender Brown. The whore of Gryfindor, was among her many other salacious titles. But she was very good looking: blonde wavy hair that ran most of the way down her back, brown eyes that were neither light nor dark and flecked with gold, a dimpled smile that looked innocent and promised things that were anything but, very curvy if not a little top heavy especially the way she kept her stomach and legs trim. She was, in short, wanking material.
The only problem was her attraction to Ron. It had started soon after Umbridge had started in on him with the detentions. The Golden Trio had been having their bonds stressed by the pushing and pulling of general opinion and Harry's detentions. Ron was still on shaky ground for his performance during the Triwizard Tournament and his slight exclusion by Harry and Hermione was exasperated by Harry frequently getting detentions and being kept away from his friends. It was in this unconscious exclusion that Ron had found Lavender as an ear that was willing to listen to him complain, sympathetic as she was early in the year still believing that Harry was a delusional liar.
Though the situation had been somewhat resolved (mutual hatred of Snape and his utterly unfair lessons binding students together tighter than glue) with Ron back to being included and the DA proving to Lavender that if Harry was delusional he was at least capable of backing up what he claimed. So, harmony was reestablished and Harry was unwilling to risk his miniscule slice of peace for a quicker potential conclusion to a problem he'd been, somewhat safely, ignoring for years.
The situation was looking very frustrating indeed.
-o0o-
It turned out that the situation was not frustrating at all. The very night that Harry was sitting in the common room plotting ways to break up Ron and Lavender that would keep Ron as a friend and get him into Lavender's knickers; their relationship exploded.
Harry wasn't sure how it had started but he did hear references to how close the unicorns would allow Lavender to get at the beginning of the year, and how close Ron loudly speculated they would stay away from her now. He also heard something about gross exaggeration while bragging and how it was ruining an already precarious reputation. All in all, how it started wasn't very important to Harry; he was mostly concerned with how it ended. It ended in spectacular fashion in the middle of the common room where nearly all of Gryffindor and Harry himself witnessed it.
In a yelling match Harry hadn't seen the likes of since he last saw his Uncle Vernon; Ron and Lavender exchanged such niceties as to forever eliminate all possibility of getting back together as anything more cordial than casual acquaintances. Ron escalated to yelling starting with something about her being unfaithful and ended, face crimson, screaming about her slutting herself up and whoring around. Needless to say Lavender returned fire with a constant stream of vulgarities and infractions that, beyond nearly turning the air around her black, would bar Ron from ever having a girlfriend should even half the accusations prove true.
At the end of this Ron stormed up the stairs to his bed and Lavender rushed out the portrait with only minutes till curfew.
"Hermione, I'm going to go after Lavender. Could you try to calm Ron down and get the truth of it?" asked Harry in the resultant silence.
Hermione was much too shocked by the tide of vehemence that had flooded the common room to respond. This was probably a good thing as she would have then wondered why Harry appeared to side with Lavender over his best mate.
It didn't take long for Harry to catch up to the buxom blonde. She hadn't gone very far before collapsing into tears. Harry, plan forefront in his mind, mustered up his courage and went to comfort the sobbing blonde. He'd barely put his hand on her shoulder to let her know he was there for her before she'd launched herself from the floor and into his arms.
"Hey Lav, don't cry. It'll get better, I'm sure that Ron didn't mean what he said. He's just got a short temper that's all." Harry murmured. He was stroking her hair as he said so, trying to get her to calm down.
Lavender clutched onto him even tighter but her crying did slow and eventually stop. She looked a little surprised that Harry was the person she'd just been clinging to. Obviously she expected that Harry would be taking Ron's side unquestioningly and Harry had and discarded the question of who might have come to comfort her if he hadn't.
"Thanks Harry. I know Ron is your friend but sometimes he can really bollocks things up," Lavender murmured, still quiet and somewhat subdued after her crying jag.
"Don't I know it." Harry chuckled. "He's usually a great bloke and after Hermione he's probably my best mate but sometimes he says things, in the heat of the moment that you just about want to strangle him for. You didn't deserve what he was calling you… then again he probably didn't really earn all the sins you laid at his feet tonight either."
Lavender looked a little sheepish at this. She had no way of knowing that Harry had a near foolproof method of knowing that she and Ron hadn't gone that far, but she did acknowledge, to herself, that she didn't have all the requisite knowledge to make the claims about his wedding tackle or his sexual performance which she'd bandied about the common room at full volume.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a bit; which truly astonished them both when they thought about it later. Lavender, still leaning up against Harry's chest, and Harry, still encircling his blonde companion in his arms, stood there comfortably for several minutes lost in their own thoughts.
They burst apart from each other hurriedly when they realized this and a bystander might have been very amused with the intensely awkward shuffling they did afterwards. They looked at each other furtively and would blush and immediately avert their gaze every time they made eye contact.
'Geez, I'm acting like a little schoolboy with a crush. Remember the goal here! You're just trying to get shagged… just like every other boy in the castle over third year. Harry grumbled to himself.
"Well… um… We should probably get back before curfew," stammered Harry.
"Yeah… We should… wouldn't want to get caught by Filch," agreed Lavender.
Harry, mindful once again of his eventual goal, placed his arm around Lavender's shoulders and guided her back to the Gryffindor dorms.
-o0o-
It was about a week later that Harry felt he could safely move forward with his plan. He'd been hanging around Lavender trying to put forth the impression of a concerned potential friend that would be a good rebound. As he knew nothing about how to put himself forward in that format, he ended up learning a lot about the gossip around Hogwarts. It wasn't a total loss though, quite the contrary, he knew how to spin rumors in his favor now and who to go to about hearing those rumors in the first place or spreading the modified versions of them. No longer would he be the ignorant butt of vicious gossip.
It was interesting to Harry to learn how much he didn't know about people he should have known living with them most of the year for several years now. He resolved that, success or failure, he would continue to hang around with his year mates more often. Harry had learned more in the last week about his classmates (both true and embellishments) than he had learned in the entire rest of his time at Hogwarts.
Harry was currently scouting his prey in the common room. They had just recently returned from a DA meeting and Lavender was sulking off to the side of the common room, a result of Ron's sudden bumbling fascination with Hermione. Harry wasn't sure how he felt about that possible relationship, he was totally sure it wouldn't work out but he wasn't going to touch that with a pole a score of meters long.
Harry was hoping that Lavender would keep to form tonight. Every night that Ron would sidle up to Hermione and try to strike up a conversation without chess, Quiddich, or Harry in it Lavender's face would close down and she would leave Gryffindor to go wander the halls until curfew. Then, after making it back just before she would get in trouble, she would immediately rush up the stairs into the girls dormitories.
Sure enough, Ron soon moved over to Hermione to begin bragging about how his Patronus was just nearly ready to take a recognizable form. It was apparent that he was expecting praise for such a difficult accomplishment but Hermione took it instead as an invitation to pick apart what Ron might not be doing right and lecturing him on how he could get it done the next time. Harry chuckled a little bit at the look of chagrin on Ron's face, but broke off when he saw Lavender heading for the portal exit.
The black-haired fifth-year hopped up and followed right behind, paying just enough attention to his appearance to look nonchalant and not like he was rushing after the blonde who'd just left.
-o0o-
It didn't take long for Harry to catch up to her and he followed along just out of sight until she entered an empty room. Harry thanked, not for the first time this year, that a structure purpose built for housing armies didn't convert smoothly to housing school children, even with magic to help. As such the castle had a great many rooms in its keep that did not translate into useful educational gathering points and as such remained empty and gathering dust and illicit rendezvous.
Harry eased into the room after Lavender… and nearly got his head taken off by the spell she'd thrown at him. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to follow someone he'd been spending a significant portion of the school year training to react violently to a perceived threat (such as a stalker).
"Oh my God Harry! I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you, I was worried it might be the Inquisitional Squad," apologized Lavender. Harry actually started laughing softly at the picture. The previously ditzy blonde had looked more like an avenging harridan when she'd thrown that spell (which he hadn't been able to identify) and now she looked so sheepish. She had her hands up covering her cheeks in embarrassment, her wand still in her hands at least, that last which pleased Harry to know that he'd managed to train the DA members well.
"It's alright Lavender. I should have expected you to react something like that. I have been going on and on this entire year about learning to defend yourselves," admitted Harry with an amused shake of his head. "I probably would have been disappointed if you hadn't thrown a spell at me after I stopped to think about it. Speaking of, what spell was that?"
Lavender blushed. "It was a cosmetic charm actually. It's supposed to put make-up on your eyes but Parvati and I discovered that if you overpower it you can cake someone's eyes shut and it's rather painful to get in your eyes. We figured that it would be good to learn to use the spell we already know well instead of learning new spells and having them not work." She trailed off a little bit as if ashamed before admitting, "I haven't been doing very well in the last couple meetings."
"Well, maybe you just need to practice some outside of the DA meetings. I know that I have to work on the spells I teach you all several weeks in advance of the meetings, even if I already knew them before I decided they would be good to know." Lavender looked shocked that Harry had admitted to not knowing all the spells he'd been teaching the DA long in advance.
They lapsed into silence again for a bit. This was something that Harry wouldn't have pictured from Lavender but he'd learned that the gregarious girl needed some quiet time on occasion, though her social tendencies made it so she would like to spend this time in the company of another despite the silence. Not wanting this to just be another quiet time to ponder life's vagaries, Harry started the conversation rolling again.
"So what upset you in the common room?" asked Harry. Alright so the master of subtleties he was not.
"Oh, it's just Ron again." She seemed depressed at this. "Argh, it just irritates me that he can drop me and immediately start slavering after Granger!" she raved, apparently forgetting for now who she was addressing. Harry tried to look sympathetic without appearing to disregard his friends, he would definitely stand up for them but he did think Lavender had a point here.
"It's like he never even cared about me!" Lavender continued. "We've been dating for months and less than a week after he dumps me in a jealous fit it's like I was never even there. It wears on a girl. You think you're attractive and a good girlfriend and then this happens." Harry was thankful she'd explained that, other than it being in bad taste to go from one girl directly to the next Harry wasn't sure how it would have affected Lavender. "It's more than a little discouraging," she ended in a sad whisper.
Harry, moved by this outpouring, gathered up Lavender in his arms. She leaned up against him, drawing comfort from his presence and they lapsed into silence again.
Harry couldn't help himself any longer, he tilted his head forward and inhaled Lavender's scent. He was a little amused that it wasn't lavender, but it was in its own way intoxicating. She stiffened up a little at Harry's actions but relaxed back into his embrace soon after. Harry continued to nose around in her curly blonde hair. Lavender soon started to wiggle and writhe around in his embrace. Harry would have let go were it not that Lavender was clearly pressing closer against him.
Things were beginning to heat up when Lavender pulled away slightly. "What are we doing Harry?" she asked looking up into his eyes. "Are you interested in me? Is that why you've been hanging around me for the last couple weeks?"
"I am interested in you Lav, probably not like I should be or the way you might want. I do like you, you're a great friend and I'm sorry I haven't gotten to know you better, but you must admit you are an attractive witch. Which healthy teenage guy wouldn't want you?" Lavender blushed a little but considered him for a long, silent moment. Harry was just glad she hadn't pulled away or run out of the room. He figured that her still being in his arms was a good sign if not the end hoped for goal.
"I must be out of my mind," whispered Lavender, "to even be considering this. I want to be attractive Harry, prove to me that I'm desirable."
She leaned back into the embrace and tilted her own head now to place a feather-light kiss on his neck. Harry eagerly responded.
Soon robes and uniforms were scattered around the room as they were discarded. Wands came out and coordinated charms and transfiguration that may have earned them points for any other purpose were spread around the room.
To anyone outside the room the sounds would have been suspicious before they abruptly cut off.
-o0o-
Harry stirred slightly from his very comfortable position. He was warm and there was a comfortable weight pressing against his chest. He didn't need his glasses or a glance down to know that blonde hair currently covered his chest. A different part of him stirred when he realized exactly what the two very soft but irregular lumps were that pressed into his side and he had to fight the urge to continue what had so exhausted him the previous night.
They really hadn't meant to stay away from the Gryffindor rooms the whole night but one thing led to another and soon they were too worn out to move. He was actually glad that they hadn't because he suspected that something about the situation had contributed to his first night with no strange dreams or nightmares in years. That fact alone caused him to clutch his bedmate closer to himself. Whatever else happened this year he was going to repeat this.
His already ear-to-ear grin stretched into Cheshire proportions when he remembered that his plan had been a success. He would have still called this a victory of the highest sorts even if his original reason for doing so didn't pan out but it, as far as he was able to tell, did.
Shortly after starting Harry's emotions were certainly high enough to transmit to Voldemort and he knew that the snake-faced bastard had gotten an eyeful of frolicking teens. More evidence to that conclusion was that during their first coupling he was able to detect a rather sickly feeling draw on his magic which he promptly shuffled over the wide-open connection between himself and the dark voyeur.
All this led to the disturbingly wide smile that adorned Harry's face. It would probably take some serious effort to remove the smile and he was under absolutely no pressure to do so. He was actually smiling so much that even after only being awake for a quarter of an hour or so his face was actually becoming sore. He actually giggled a bit, giddy at the idea that he was smiling so much it hurt.
His giggling caused a stirring in his partner and he tried to silence himself to let her sleep. It was to no avail though and she was soon lifting her head from his chest to look him in the eye.
"Sleep well?" asked Harry with a smirk. He was so giddy he was feeling cheeky. His outrageously satisfied smug look elicited a giggle from the nude blonde snuggling up to him.
"Very much so, thank you. I can see you're pleased with yourself," Lavender returned. Harry just nodded vigorously and she giggled again at him thinking he looked like a rather eager puppy. She shifted against him to better enjoy his body heat and in doing so pressed up against another part of his body that let her know exactly how attractive he viewed her as. Her salacious grin conveyed exactly what was going to happen between them even to someone as near blind as Harry without his glasses.
-o0o-
They ended up skipping History of Magic class and finally rejoined the school around lunchtime. It was clear to them both that the rumor mill was going full-bore and running smoothly when even before they'd made it to the Gryffindor table questions and accusations were being fired at them.
As if to taunt the rumormongers they found space for them to sit together between Parvati and Hermione, neither of them needing to split up to sit next to the friend that would demand answers the most stringently. Parvati and Lavender immediately fell into whispers exchanged so fast that a silencing or muffling charm would have been unnecessary due to nobody being able to keep up anyway. Hermione looked at Harry as if he'd taken leave of his senses but her doubts of his sanity didn't preclude her from running over Harry with rapid-fire questions.
It took till there was only five minutes left for lunch before Harry was allowed to even attempt to get something to eat. After Hermione's initial questioning, he'd needed to endure the verbal abuse from the combined front of Ron and Ginny. Harry wasn't actually sure that Ginny really had a say and after the rather jealous look in Ron's eyes Harry hadn't been all the keen on listening to the male redhead either.
Finally able to grab some food they needed to rush to DADA in order to not be late. During the run there Harry managed to distract Hermione with a random question relating to the O.W.L.'s they would be taking in a couple days.
-o0o-
It would be two more weeks until the results of Harry's gamble showed a remarkable dividend. The day after Harry's encounter of the naked kind, he'd gone to Madam Pomfrey about the potion cure he needed. Once she'd confirmed that Harry had the disease she'd dosed him to the gills and Harry had given her Lavender's name on the promise that she would be discrete.
It turned out that the disease worked gradually eating away at a person's magic, the more magic a person had the faster the disease worked. However, the disease was a strange form of all or nothing because if it was caught and cured before a witch or wizard had become a squib their magic would gradually return until they made a full recovery. This meant that Lavender, being under its effects for several months, needed a full week to recover all her magic but that as soon as she did she was able to produce a fully corporeal Patronus (a longhorn bull, after producing which she gave Harry a very telling wink before she and Parvati burst into giggles).
He noticed that his visions from Voldemort were getting progressively weaker. In fact, during his History O.W.L. he'd developed a splitting headache but he'd only been able to see a shelf full of dusty glass balls. Thinking it wasn't important right away, he waited till the end of the test before telling Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna and Lavender. They had congregated as the senior officers, or at least the closest things to them, that ran the DA. They wanted to discuss whether or not the defense club would continue next year.
With Umbridge running things it could be dangerous but they all suspected, now that Harry wasn't the only person getting a significant number of detentions with her, that she would soon overstep her boundaries and be sacked. Already Lavender's skill with rumor dissemination meant that the entire school knew what to expect in a detention from Umbridge. Though Professor McGonagall had been sent to St. Mungos for the stunners she'd intercepted, all the other teachers were up in arms about her treatment which the rumors of the evil ministry hag's detentions only fanned the flames of discontent.
-o0o-
It was two days before school was due to let out when the ultimate result of Harry's actions was brought to the attention of magical England.
Numerous prominent purebloods noted for their suspected support of the dark wizard Voldemort had been acting and looking very sickly for several days. In a culmination of this spontaneous outbreak, fifteen members of the Wizengamot dropped dead, stripped of their magic, during a regular session of that august body.
The uproar was tremendous.
The news hit Hogwarts first that their own potions Professor had died in his quarters between classes. Then the extra helping of dismay, that several of its students were suddenly missing family members. Although none of them were outright orphaned it was still a devastating blow to the morale of the school and if anyone noticed that they were all the children of Death Eaters then at least no one was crass enough to point it out (it had taken some effort from Harry and Hermione to silence Ron).
The investigation this phenomenon launched was a first both in breadth and scope. Specialists were called in from every corner of magical Britain's influence to determine the cause. It was soon found that their magic was drained from them through the Dark Marks on each of the so called 'upstanding members of magical society'. With this development the investigation took a new turn, one decidedly against the wishes of the current magical administration.
Eventually the source of the drain was discovered in the form of the rapidly decaying body of Voldemort himself. Without his own magic to sustain his unnatural existence he had begun forcibly ripping the magic from his followers and when they could not provide it he soon died. His body, a magical construct itself, soon fell apart without the magic necessary to keep it together.
The Fudge administration was out on its ear the next day. Without the imminent threat of terrorists like Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the inevitable changes in policy (to stop this from ever happening again) and personnel were stable and well thought out. They also decidedly favored the traditionally light-sided doctrines due to the absence of a majority of dark-aligned or hardliner traditionalists to oppose the new laws.
The discovery of Voldemort's resurrected corpse marked the beginning of a new age of magical governance that prominently featured such names as Hermione Granger, Terry Boot, Percival Weasley, and a great many other young Hogwarts graduates whose only common trait had been going to school with Harry Potter.
Surprisingly Albus Dumbledore never recovered from the political assassination perpetrated against him by the Fudge administration, in the history books it would be considered one of the only casualties of the second war of Voldemort.
-o0o-
Epilogue
-o0o-
Harry Potter's grin once more stole across most of his face as he opened the doors of his Hogsmeade store in preparation for the first Hogsmeade weekend. He was pushing 80 now but he'd done exactly what he said he would that day in his fifth year. He was the wizarding world's foremost Enchanter. He'd switched from Divination to Ancient Runes that next year at school and he'd never looked back. His decision to open a small specialty store in Hogsmeade that sold his mass-produced fountain pens and other bric-a-brac that he made during the slow times was typical of his decisions – not very popular for someone of his stature accompanied by his total disregard for whatever those same people had to say about it.
He figured that he was happy, his wife was happy and their kids, while they'd lived at home, were happy; he didn't need anyone else's approval. He flipped the sign to read open and waved at the still rather awed hired help in the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes store just across the street. Harry chuckled, if those twins were going to hire the most innovative Hogwarts graduates they should at least stop putting all those who took the runes class in the store across from him.
He heard footsteps and turned just in time to embrace his wife of 57 years. Her blonde hair was going grey but he maintained that it was just lightening as they got older and soon she'd pass for a Veela. He was always well rewarded for that sentiment.
If someone would have told him that he'd eventually marry the girl he'd had sex with in fifth year for the purpose of getting an STD he would have believed that person crazy. Still, even after a great many different partners all through Hogwarts and afterwards they'd both kept coming back to each other.
Lavender noticed his eyes shining with a great deal more mirth than the desperate muggleborns fighting over his pens usually elicited.
"What are you thinking about luv?" she asked.
"Just amazed that in the magical world a man can make the most important decisions of his life using his second head. I suppose we call it the magical world because things like that work out in the end here," he finished with a guffaw. Lavender Potter could only shake her head at her bizarre husband and she took his hand to lead him back to the counter.
"You are just a randy old man aren't you? What would the world say if they knew some fifteen year-old thinking with his pecker was the one who killed the greatest Dark Lord of the age?" she asked with a smile they both shared.
~The End
AN: I don't remember which story I read but it was something similar to this. I don't think it was STD's I believe that they were going to use sex as a weapon against Voldemort after learning that he was severely hurt by possessing Harry. Anyway this is kinda crack but I didn't think Lavender was getting enough love.
Update 11-3-2010: As some helpful reviewer pointed out to me the fic I forgot the name of that very much resembles this one is called 'An Old Friend Comes Out to Play' and it's by J. Carax. A very funny and interesting fiction that I fully hope that everyone who read this will go and peruse. There were several other fictions that used sex as a weapon for Voldemort there's one with Tracy Davis and Harry using sexual rituals to power him up enough to kill Voldemort and some others that dance to a similar tune.