Captain Bligh and the Mutineers

by Rico Perrien

After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

1. Letters from an Escapee

Captain Bligh and the Mutineers: Letters from the Escapee

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, the Easter Bunny, the Brooklyn Bridge, or property on Long Island. This writing is for my own amusement, and hopefully that of others. Additional characters are my own inventions, need to flesh out my imagining of 'what happens next'. No money made, no free flights to Tahiti, nothing.

Timeframe: Post DH, ignoring the epilogue

Rating: M

Warning: Consensual Polygamy

Author's Note: Two reviewers demanded the warning above. Given the number of Harem Harry fics, I do not think it is needed, and to my knowledge, are the first-ever requests of this type. The M rating should suffice to indicate that mature themes are being considered. Further, as the point of the polygamy is that one character refuses sex outside marriage, and that the marriage is a way to indicate (magical) permanent commitment, I do not think that this is warranted.

Synopsis: After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

January 27, 2002

Dear Ron,

It was good to hear from you again.

Congratulations on the twins. I am sure that you and Lavender will be happy with them and your mother will be ecstatic to have two more grandchildren to spoil. Nice touch with the names – we miss Fred too. I have to ask if Frederica is going to be called Freddy or Ricky. I assume that Septimus is going to be called 'Tim', just like your grandfather. I remember you telling me that he had thought 'Septimus' was too grand for everyday use.

Glad to see that the Order of Merlin money is being well used. Your parents are finally having some well-deserved comfort, and you and Ginny will have a good nest-egg after your active playing days are over (pro quidditch is a rough sport, and looking at the statistics, the average playing life is only three years). Your family really deserves better than just having to barely get by on a civil servant's pay.

I hear that you have taken my advice and retained Nutgrabber as your financial advisor and fund manager. He has done pretty well by me, being as I can't be there myself to run my own affairs. He's got us (myself and some of our friends) into some nice investments that the Ministry hacks can't touch, on top of George's operations at the Wheezes. One good one you might check into has been Neville's string of greenhouses supplying rare potion ingredients – Luna works part-time for him gathering specimens in her travels. She is still looking for those elusive Snorkacks – turned out that Caribbean nargles infest nutmeg trees, and 'The Orchard' in Grenada has a spectacular infestation, or so she says.

I have to tell you though, the actual translation of Nutgrabber's name is much more vivid than the one most people use. Over the years, I have become sufficiently fluent in the Goblin tongue to work out his full name and title. He tells me that Hermione and I are two of the only four magicals in the last century to (roughly) master their language, and Bill and Fleur are the other two. He and the rest of the Gringottt's staff I have spoken to find the usual wizards' name for their language (Gobbledygook) is as insulting as the rest of their treatment by what used to be our society.

Sorry we couldn't come to the wedding or the christening, but with two of us having a price on our heads, we really can't come back to England any time soon. You would have expected the wizarding society to be grateful that I offed Voldemort for them, but it was still amazing to me, even after long experience with Skeeter, to see them turn on us so fast when we tried to make changes for the better. Save their butts, and they love you for the moment, but interfere with their cushy lifestyle and their petty self-importance and they're on you like a cornered rat.

I still find it hilarious that the stuffy prigs in the Wizengamot refer to each other as 'Lord This' and 'Lady That'. Not one of them has a letter patent from the crown granting them a peerage, any more than Voldemort himself was a Lord. The whole 'Ancient and Noble Family' crap is just another example of how they believe they are the crown of creation. I mean, any family is an ancient one, dating back to when we all left Africa about fifty thousand years ago or so, but Noble? Not as far as anything I've ever seen! Self-interested, self-aggrandizing, self-impressed, you bet your ass!

As you know, my parents and Sirius left me with a fair bit of money and property, and the Order honoraria added to my holdings for a bit, so I'm quite comfortably off. I think I mentioned last time that 'Jeannie Barns' is staying with me, at least for the few years until the statute of limitations runs out or they come to their senses (I'm not holding my breath on that last). She's doing quite well on her investments as well and doesn't need to, but…..

I think I told you that the Potters and the Blacks made a lot of their old money in the sugar trade in the 17 and 18 hundreds, which means that some of the properties they held (at least partially since the independence of England's former colonies and a lot of the land was parcelled off to the actual inhabitants who were mostly decedents of the slaves they used to own) used to be plantations in the Caribbean. Since the bottom fell out of the sugar trade (even before France and the rest of the EU started subsidizing overpriced farmers raising sugar beets), some of the old properties planted nutmeg and cinnamon trees, among other things. However, they still keep up some sugar production, if only to provide a supply of molasses for the rum factories which were part of the properties, and which remained rather profitable.

Anyway, we're at one of their (I guess, now my) properties in the Canadian prairies – a lot of British aristocrats bought properties for cattle ranches, and before the muggle's First World War, they got rid of a lot of useless younger sons out here – what they called 'Remittance Men' as they basically kept up their lifestyle from money remitted to them from 'the Old Country'. A lot of them went 'back' to Europe in that war and didn't make it back.

In my last letter, I mentioned that you might find the story of the mutiny on the Bounty (His Majesty's Armed Transport 'Bounty') of interest. On its own, it is an interesting bit of history (even though most of the people involved were muggles, although there were some Tahitian witches involved). Part of the reason I suggested it was that it turns out that the Blacks and the Potters were the ones who put up the money for the voyage (and the subsequent more successful one) to bring breadfruit to feed the slaves on their plantations in Jamaica (the later trip was a success, but then the slaves refused to eat it). It also seems to have some parallels to my own life as well. More about this after 'Jeannie' does some more research (yeah, she's still at it, even after she quit that 'Scottish school' so suddenly - I still haven't found out why).

As I mentioned in my last letter, we are trying out a farm place in Saskatchewan in Canada for about a year. It is a grain farm with cattle which has been leased out to a neighbour family for years, and I think I may just sell it to him and his family, as I am finding that the winter here is more than I or my companions can take – it was even worse than Scotland. I can't tell you exactly where we are, as this letter may get intercepted, but the farm is located about midway between one small town called Biggar, and another called Burstall. After the first few months there, 'Jeannie' blended the names and dubbed the place 'Bugger-all', because coming from densely populated southern England, that's all she could see from the windows – there is a prairie joke that if your dog runs away, you can see him going for four days.

After just lately weathering two prairie blizzards, and losing a couple of cattle that froze to death (locally referred to as 'cowsicles' – for the last couple days it's been below -20 Celsius with high winds and wildly blowing snow – we have one snow drift about 5 metres high against the barn), we have decided that the more southerly properties sound like a much better idea for the winters. However, the tropics get too hot during summer for us temperate climate types, so I suspect that I (and possibly we, if it continues to work out that way) will come north during the summer and maybe help out at the farm.

It turns out that the family who have been working the property here, under lease for the last many years (through the local Bank of Montreal, which is affiliated with Gringott's of Canada) are a family of wizards who came here from the Ukraine in the early 1900's. We're staying in a disillusioned house, which Bob says they have called (in English translation) 'The Lord's House', on the property since some of the Black family came to visit a hundred years ago. The weather drove them away too, but I guess after winters on the Ukrainian steppes, Saskatchewan is not too bad, and the Melnychuks have stayed and thrived.

Anyway, when we arrived, we were welcomed by my 'tenants', but not very warmly until I told Bob and Katrina that I had no intention of putting them off the land. Bob is actually named Bohdan Melnychuk, but he says most Anglos (as they call us Brits) can't get the pronunciation of 'Bohdan' correct, so to us he's 'Bob'. Anyway, Bob and his brother Roman have farmed the land for the last half-century, and were very worried that us city-slickers were going to come in and ruin things. When I told him that I had no plans on that, and in fact because of my life with the Dursleys, I would not mind working around the place as a gardener and handyman, things improved sharply. He jokes that I am probably the only prairie 'Hired Man' who is a millionaire and doing it for fun – frankly, he thinks I'm nuts.

Bob tells me that the Canadian Ministry of Magic has been located in Montreal since the days when the country was under the French crown. Gringott's Canada has its headquarters in Toronto, which is the biggest city and the commercial centre of Canada. He says that, between the obsessive linguistic in-fighting between the French (here called Francophones) and the English (called Anglophones), and their general inability to acknowledge the many other linguistic groups in the country (or speak their languages), the Ukaphones (as he and his family jokingly call themselves after a comedienne, on a wireless show called the 'Royal Canadian Air Farce', coined the term) get pretty much left on their own. Katrina says that part of it is that the two dominant groups of wizards cast their spells in a form of low-caste Latin, while the Ukaphone wizards use old Slavonic, and the Ministry types don't really pay attention to their magic. So, no problem with underage magic, and such.

'Jeannie' has been going into town to the local Anglican church (the local affiliate of the Church of England), and sings in the choir. It's what they call 'Low' Anglican, rather than the 'High' Anglican that she was raised in, but you work with what you have locally. She could apparate into one of the bigger centres, but we are trying to maintain a low profile, magically. As the Dursleys never took me to church, I really don't know the difference, but some people seem to think it's important. She has a nice voice, and she is getting me to try singing as well. I'm to the point where the cows don't run away when I serenade them, but not much better.

She has also been spending a lot of time with Katrina and Maria (Roman's wife) learning all she can about the Ukrainian forms of magic. If there is something more to try to learn, she's on it like botrytis mold on a ripe grape.

At Christmas, we had Bob and Katrina, and Roman and Maria and their kids and grandkids in for Christmas dinner. The night before, we had gone to midnight service at the church, and then spent the day preparing. 'Jeannie' arranged the house while I prepared the feast (I swear that girl could burn water). A week and a half later, they invited us to midnight mass at their Ukrainian Orthodox church, and then over to their place for another Christmas feast. The Ukrainians keep to the old Julian calendar, so Christmas to them is like January 6th to us.

One surprise was that our petite blonde friend, who for the moment I will call 'Selena Bonamour', arrived to visit over the holidays (not that there is much holiday on a working farm with cattle). She had put together a number of wildly nebulous clues, somehow figured out where we are, and popped in (and I do mean 'popped'). She apologised (after regaining consciousness after being hit by two stunners – the old 'constant vigilance' is still working) for the popping sound and noted that she still hasn't got the hang of silent apparation. Apparently, she had written some articles in the Quibbler that annoyed some very powerful and narrow-minded people, so she's on the run too, and figured we could use the company, being all in about the same situation.

It turns out that Selena has a beautiful high singing voice, and is fluent in Ukrainian after several trips with her father looking for the remaining woolly mammoths on the Russian and Ukrainian plains – at their Christmas service, she sang the hymns perfectly along with our neighbours (in Ukrainian, which impressed them mightily). She and Katrina had a lot of fun comparing the different dialects from Selena's recent exposure to modern Ukrainian, while Katie spoke in a pattern which is as it was when their ancestors lived under the Tsar, and then evolved here for the last hundred years. She says it is quite common in Canada, having had waves of immigrants from various times, for groups to insist that they speak the 'pure' language and all the others are mangling their beautiful tongue of their ancestors. In a way it sadly reminds me of the old wizarding families in what used to be home, fighting to stay as they were a couple hundred years ago.

Selena and Anastasia (Roman's youngest granddaughter) have gotten along very well, and now that the temperature has gone up to above minus 20 Celsius (the battle cry of the prairie Canadian – "But It's a Dry Cold!") they are out exploring the jackalope nests a couple kilometres south of here. Unlike their more common cousins, the rabbits and jackrabbits (actually hares), the big jackalopes can't burrow underground and so they nest on the surface of the ground. When they cluster together, from a distance their antlers look like scrub bushes, which makes them harder for predators to find.

'Selena' says she has an affinity for many creatures with long ears, which is why her patronus is a rabbit. You know, that girl continues to amaze me, even after all these years. I can't decide whether she is just brilliant beyond my ability to comprehend, completely insane, or for her own amusement she just says strange things to keep me off balance – she once told me that petite creatures (as she thinks of herself) often use distractions to keep predators and other threats away.

I should sign off now, as I have been told to go out and clear the drifted snow off the driveway into the house (about 200 metres from the main road). Stasha (Anastasia) and Vlad (Bob's grandson) suggested I bank it all on top of the barn, and we can use it as a ski hill. With hard-packed snow, I can levitate the chunks, but if the drifts are soft, all you get is clouds of snow which settle back down from where you just picked it up. The tractor has a nice bucket attachment that I can move about half a ton at a time, and not be totally exhausted (magically and physically) by the end of the day.

Once we get a little better at skiing, the families have asked us to join them at Easter for a ski trip to the Rockies west of Calgary, before the year's planting starts.

Later.

Love to all.

'Jim Evans'

April 18, 2002

Hello again Ron.

Thanks for the pictures of the twins. It looks like Tim is going to inherit the Weasley red hair, but little Ricki is going to get a mix of Lav's blonde and yours, coming out to be a strawberry blonde. Either way, she's going to be a beautiful girl like her mother, and Timmy looks like he is going to be as handsome as his dad (Hermione's comment).

We enjoyed your comment about the name of our little house-in-the-boonies. I guess you didn't notice that Hermione apparently learned to swear (bet you didn't know that our little bookworm had quite a mouth on her after a few, which is one reason why she doesn't drink much). She tells me that her Dad served in the Royal Navy, and that he taught her to curse (and to drink rum), and her mother tried to teach her not to. It seems Sally Granger felt that her daughter cursing like a sailor would not be 'becoming' as she turned into a proper young lady. Guess she never met the rest of the girls from Hogwarts.

You will also notice that I have dropped the use of the pseudonyms. We had an interesting visit from the Royal Canadian Magical Police (sort of the national aurors). I guess when Voldemort's people were in charge of the ministry back in our sixth and what would have been our seventh year, a lot of countries threatened to break off diplomatic relationships with ours, and some actually did. Since then, they have been keeping a close eye on things at 'home', and the Canadians are very unhappy about the way things are going – nice to know I'm not alone in this opinion. They told me not to worry about the international warrant and the extradition request. Canada, the States and a lot of other countries are making a great show of searching in places that they are well aware have no hope of success, and sending reports back to the idiots in London. The RCMP have known where I was the whole time (I guess with current security issues, they keep close track of magical foreigners who arrive unannounced), but somehow have neglected to inform Britain of that fact.

However, we are trying not to make their illusion too difficult, in case one of the ministry's bunch decide to check things out for themselves. I suspect that their welcome will not be what they imagine, as Constable Delacour (yes, he is a distant relative of your sister-in-law, whose family has been here for over three hundred years) told me that they are not keen on what he called 'external interference'. They have already caught a number of hit wizards trying to sneak into the country looking for me. Needless to say, they were not welcomed with open arms, and the ones the States picked up are currently spending an involuntary holiday in Cuba without their wands, as suspected foreign terrorists.

Turns out that the Melnychuks knew who we were all along too. They has a magic-compatible computer and cable telly (why couldn't we get stuff like that in Britain – another point of how backward British wizarding society is, I guess), and they watch the news from overseas. Our faces have been on the news from England enough time that they recognized us (particularly once they started putting up the 'wanted' announcements). We explained the situation, and after laughing about it, Roman said it sounded a lot like why his granddad came over from the Ukraine (their version of 'the old country'). Bob said that, in their eyes, we were refugees not fugitives, and not to worry about them.

All of our places still have the disillusion charms on them, so although you and Lavender and a very select few others know how to find us, we will remain hidden from most. If any of our other acquaintances contact you about wanting to get in touch, they can send it through Gringott's – we check in with their local outlets, but even they are not told where we are located at any given time (although I am sure their security goblins have a pretty good idea). You know, it's amazing how cooperative the goblins are when you show them respect instead of trying to order them about, like the ministry and the late unlamented Voldemort and his posse used to do as their standard procedure.

Ron, I am sorry to have to say this, but until your psychotic sister and your obsessive mother get over their delusion that I am coming back to England to make an 'honest witch' out of Ginny, I am keeping my head down. When Ginny sent her note through you (I very much doubt you read it, and strongly suspect it was written under your mother's stern eye) announcing that she was pregnant and so I was supposed to return and marry her as your mother promised her since infancy (neglecting the fact that I had not been in her presence, intimate or otherwise, for at least two years at that point, and never have been 'intimate' with her, and yes I know that the gestation period for witches is just the same as for muggle women), and your mother's note with it telling me that if I came back and apologised to the Wizengamot for being naughty, all would be forgiven, I could marry Ginny, Hermione could immediately give up her job so she can marry you and have lots of Weasley babies, and we would all be one big happy family again, I decided that, in spite of all the care and support that your family has given me over the years, I don't think I will be seeing them any time soon. Certainly not until your mother quits getting all her so-called facts from the Daily Prophet.

Actually, Ginny's claims were so ludicrous, I am not sure she wasn't slipping something past your mother, and letting me know that she was in on how ridiculous the situation was. Your sister is pretty sharp, and is almost as much a prankster as George and Fred were (and I am sure George still is. Or the old Marauders, for that matter).

At the moment, I am catching up on correspondence while my ankle heals. The ski trip was fun for the first few days, and skiing deep powder is kind of like quidditch except the skis are attached to your feet instead of up in your crotch, and there are trees sticking out through the snow. Well, the fourth day, one of the trees and I had a sudden and rather painful meeting. Fortunately, the resort (Sunset Village) has a resident healer on staff, so other than a bad sprain, I was patched up almost as quickly as Madame Pomfrey used to do. I gather that the division between the muggle and magical worlds are a lot looser here, particularly at a ski resort where everyone is there for a good time (and half the people are probably not using their real names anyway).

Your note raised an interesting point which I hadn't thought of for a while. Hermione still hasn't told me (or anyone else, it seems) exactly why she quit Hogwarts so suddenly. When I asked her about it, she just said that she decided that it wasn't for her, and to please let it go. At the time, I thought it was partly that, having spent the previous year in the tent hunting the horcruxes, she just had a different viewpoint or was now at a different point in her life than the rest of the students, but she seems deeply embarrassed about it, so that can't be it. It was also about that time when things started to get dicey with the Ministry, so I didn't think much of it at the time. But now that you mention it, it seems strange, because she won't talk about it.

You also raised a good point, that I hadn't explained why we left England in such a hurry. You know that your mother gets all her news from the Prophet, and believes most of it. I still don't understand that, given the way the prophet lied about me for those years, and she knew better, but when the only other newspaper is the Quibbler, I guess over time you forget the poor quality when the only option is worse. And although I love Luna as a friend, her Dad's paper really is dreck!

Anyway, what happened is this – I had taken my family seat in the Wizengamot, with your Dad as my proxy in the Black family seat. Hermione was working at the ministry as a (lowly) researcher in the Muggle Liaison office attached to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. In the Wizengamot, I had moved that her department be directed to research a new law promoting better equality for magical beings, and it passed. I think this was shortly after the defeat of Voldemort, and I was still the Golden Boy. Once the law was drafted, I presented it in the chamber, and moved its passage. At that point, all hell broke loose.

It seems that by that time, with old Commodus Parkinson (Pansy's dad – you know he was one of the marked Death Eaters who claimed the Imperius curse after the first war) as the Chief Warlock, the old fogeys in the chamber had started to work their usual old politics, and wanted to get back in command. It seemed that allowing a law that recognised muggle-borns to have equal rights to pure-bloods was about as far as they were willing to go. Recognising muggles are fully human with rights (such as a right not to be obliviated by a pure-blood anytime they felt like it) was too far, and declaring house elves to be people with rights, and forbidding the abuse of them, was just way over the top.

They started off by accusing Hermione of trying to subvert the society, and declaring that as a muggle-born (three actually used the term mudblood) she should not have the right to even work at the Ministry. They accused me of treason, and when it was pointed out that I was also studying to be an Auror, declared me to be inciting mutiny (what for an outsider was sedition, if you're an employee it became mutiny).

I quickly found that the 'old guard' was stronger than we had known (there are a lot who, although they didn't support Voldemort openly, certainly were sympathetic to his plans). They immediately introduced a bill declaring Hermione and me to be traitorous outlaws, that Hermione, as a muggle-born, should never had been awarded the Order of Merlin and demanding she pay back the honorarium, and then demanded that because I was the sole cause of all the damage in the war against Voldemort (on the incredible logic that, if it hadn't been for me, the war would never have happened), I should personally pay for all the damages. In conclusion, they demanded that the Ministry seize all my assets including the Order of Merlin honorarium, and all the family holdings.

This in spite of the fact that I had already spent the honorarium building hospitals and providing scholarships for war orphans.

Fortunately, the chief warlock postponed the vote until the next session the following week, which I honestly did not expect. The slimy bastard said it was to make sure that the wording was legal – I suspect to make damned sure that they could actually enforce some of the more spurious demands.

As Hermione's parents were (and are) still in Australia, she had little to leave behind. Over time, we had managed to develop a very good relationship with the goblins at Gringott's, so we put a freeze on access to our vaults by anyone except those we had specifically named, and arranged for access through their overseas branches. We got their security goblins to remove all the tracking charms that been attached to us and everything we had (87 separate spells, including a few on Hermione's underwear). We then quickly left the country. As far as I can see at this point, it will likely be permanent, unless things change a lot.

The next week, the law passed, and the Ministry went to rob us blind, and when the goblins refused to turn over even a knut, they demanded that international warrants be immediately issued for our arrest and immediate imprisonment (neglecting any mention of the need for a trial). They did it before to Sirius, so I knew they could and would do it again.

As far as I am concerned, this proved to me that we lost the war against Voldemort. Everything we fought for, bled for, what Fred died for, gone!

Of course, the Daily Prophet decided that we were thieves, mutineers, terrorists, and all manner of nastiness. Luna sent me a copy of a (supposedly) unsolicited letter to the editor, that claimed that it was from a five year old witch who had seen me kicking bunnies. When it comes to that level of drivel, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

So, we're not coming back any time soon. If your mother thinks for a moment that I would 'apologize', or even that an apology would cure all the issues, in my opinion she is sadly and totally mistaken. Ron, I love your mother, but British wizarding society is all she knows, and I cannot be part of it any more. I gave my life for it, actually dying for it for a few minutes, and this is my reward. No thanks! Not bloody likely!

I would think that, the way they treated your father for those many years, she would have a more cynical view, but I guess not.

My ankle is starting to throb again (the medi-witch at the ski resort was not as good as Madame Pomfrey, and was a bit rushed because of other injuries coming in at the same time), so between the pain and my residual anger, I had better sign off. We're heading down to one of the plantations for the winter, either in Grenada, Jamaica or Barbados (haven't decided which one yet). You and the family would be welcome to come for Christmas. Nev and Sue and Hannah are coming, as well as the Melnychuks, so it should be a good gathering.

Nev told me that when he and Sue started to get serious, she informed him that Hannah and she had shared everything since they were toddlers, and they had decided he was going to be one of them. They all seem happy, and as the (presumptive) Lord Longbottom (there it is again, this overinflated sense of importance of the rich and powerful, not that Nev had ever claimed it himself, that's just the way the Wizengamot addresses him), he is apparently entitled to multiple wives. I gather this kind of thing has happened a number of times in European history, usually after wars when there was a sudden and serious shortage of marriageable men. Apparently, the wizarding powers-that-be found they liked the custom, and held onto it.

Regards from Hermione. Luna asked me to send her best wishes before she left on another one of her excursion to find things we've never heard of (Brazilian flibbety-jibbets, this time, whatever those are).

Love to all,

Harry Potter

June 5, 2003

Hello Ron,

It was great to see you and the family at the Ocho Rios place over the New Years. We were happy to see that the twins are growing like weeds, as one-year olds do given half a chance.

Congrats on the birth of Scarlet Amber. You're going to have to wait for her hair to grow in to decide which you're going to call her (imagine, the possibility of a blonde Weasley) I was sorry to hear that it was a long labour, but our best wishes are with Lavender and you as always, and were glad to hear she has recovered. A five kilo baby is just too big for a small girl like our Lav. Luna says that there is a technique that the Americans and French use called a Caesarian apparation which you might ask the healers about next time (if there is a next time, as I suspect there will be).

Nev, Sue and Hannah and what Nev calls 'the sprouts' (I swear you can take the boy out of the greenhouse, but…..) stayed for most of January. He and the girls spent a lot of time wandering around in the highlands, looking at various rare plants. Luna commented that she thought she had spotted a Jamaican foofer (whatever the hell that is), twice and wants to go back and see if she can track down its nesting area.

We're back on the farm in Saskatchewan, and have just finished the planting of the summer crops. The agriculture folks figure that it's going to be a bad year for grasshoppers (sort of like locusts, but smaller. They still can do an awful lot of damage to crops). We can cast the spells to keep them off our crops, but if we do too good a job, and all the rest of the locals had a rough time of it, people get suspicious (Statute of Secrecy and all that).

Bob says that they usually work it so that they give their own crops only partial protection, but feels that with me and Hermione to help, and Stasha and Vlad old enough and back from the Kananaskis Magical Academy (in the mountains, easier than on the prairies for hiding broom flights) for the summer, we may be able to go through the wider neighbourhood casting the protective spells over a wider area so the lack of damage will look like more of a general regional thing. Things are hard enough for farmers without the 'hoppers', and this will help the wider community get a better crop this year. In the country, you look out for your neighbours (magical or not), and here, the 'local area' would cover the area on an entire English county. This country is huge.

We're glad to hear that Ginny has started dating Viktor's little brother. I don't know if I told you, but we met Antonin and Viktor when the Bulgarian team did the demonstration tour of the Caribbean last January. If you have the pictures from their tour, or the Krums ever show them to you, take a close look at the seeker for the Grenada-Barbados-Grenadines regional team. I thought I looked silly with black makeup and dreadlocks, but the disguise seemed to pass inspection. We hosted the Bulgarians and reconnected with Viktor (swearing him to secrecy of course). Toni's seems like a good kid, and almost as talented a chaser as his brother is a seeker.

It's also great that Ginny (according to her letter) realizes that she has been trying to live your mother's dream, and not her own. I think of her as my little sister, and wish her nothing but the best, but I am glad she has come to her senses about me.

You asked how we ended up on the Prairies, as both H and I are (or were) city people. I thought I had told you about that, but I guess it slipped my mind, or it could be Hermione told Lavender, or I told Bob, or whoever told whoever. After you tell a story enough times, you're not sure who knows what.

When we left England, we travelled as muggles. Most wizards (and you know you're one of them) can't imagine spending any time as a muggle (and honestly, my friend, I have seen you try, and you do a lousy job of it). We had our papers issued by Gringott's (handy folks to know, goblins), so they showed our names as whatever we wanted them to be at the time. After very visibly booking a flight from London to Istanbul (visible at least to the pair of Aurors who were shadowing us by that time, apparently just waiting for the warrants for be issued), and a couple others they didn't see but might look up, we took a train to Glasgow, then a flight from Glasgow to New York on September 11th. That was the day some muggles seized some airplanes (the muggle flying machines your Dad would love) and crashed them into some buildings in the States, killing more people than there are wizards in all of London. Even the muggles have their wars and terrorists.

As a security measure, all flights over North America were immediately grounded, so instead of landing in New York, we landed in the Canadian province of Newfoundland. The locals (who call themselves 'Newfies', and are wonderfully hospitable people) immediately adopted us all, and we were housed in a number of very small towns in the houses of the locals. Some magical, some not, but we were pretending to be muggles, so we did not reveal who we were. After all, we didn't yet know that the Canadians were not that sympathetic to the Ministry's shenanigans, and we were trying to stay, as they say, 'under the radar'.

We were bussed a couple of hours to a little town called 'Come-By-Chance', which Hermione thought sounded very appropriate considering the circumstances. We were there for the better part of two weeks, until they had done security checks on everyone (no outstanding security watch for Hamish Black or Jane Farmer), and then bussed back to Gander to continue our flights. A lot of our fellow passengers had fallen in love with Newfoundland, and asked to stay longer, so we were given open tickets (from Gander International Airport) and our records were cleared from the boards.

Figuring that the Ministry's goons might have managed to track us that far, we took a train to St John's, and on the trip, Hamish and Jane ceased to exist. Our passports now said we were Australians named Fred George and Molly Arthur (please thank your family for the temporary use of their names), and we flew to Calgary through Montreal to get closer to the farm. We had actually booked the flight from Gander through Toronto to Los Angeles, but flew from St John's into Montreal, booked the flight to Calgary (and two to other locations, under different names and nationalities, handy things passports issued by goblins) and just didn't show up for the other flights (leaving the bookings active, so there was no hint that we changed destinations). In Calgary, I purchased a car, and also booked a train trip west, which we didn't take either. After that, a short plane ride to Regina, at which point the Australians disappeared into the Prairies, and we proceeded to the farm, where Jim Evans and Jeannie Barns took up residence in a house that no muggle has ever seen. A week or two later, I apparated to Calgary and picked up the car, driving it back to the farm – getting out of Calgary as a bit dicey at first because they drive on the right side of the road here.

We had figured that if the Ministry's boys and girls picked us up or got the Canucks involved, we had laid enough false trails that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find us. We still kept our wands handy, in case. I figured, it was only money, and if they found us, they would try to take it away (that is, steal it) anyway, so why not spend some making it harder for them.

I think that's another reason I felt the connection with the Mutiny on the Bounty story. After being called mutineers, we left everything we knew, and went looking for a place where they would never find us.

Oh, last Christmas you also asked about using magic in the Caribbean. Most of the people in the islands descended from the slaves that were brought from Africa. Although most are now Christians (and very devout, at that), they still have some of the 'old ways' that they brought with them. It was something of their background that they kept in spite of their slavery, and they kept it hidden from the white overseers and owners. Since those days, they're more open about it, and it's something that they proudly keep alive as part of their lost heritage. If anything, they have a bit of the prankster attitude about it that your brothers and sister would appreciate (putting something over on the authorities).

One other thing I found interesting about magic in the Caribbean. In Great Britain, there is only about one wizard or witch per thousand muggles, as there are about 50 thousand magicals in the UK. In the Islands, it's about 20 to one or less. Talking to some of the locals, in the slave days two hundred years ago, having some magic was a definite advantage for the involuntary immigrants (Darwinian selection at work, I guess Hermione would call it) and the population ratio shifted. It may also be that in Africa, magic wasn't despised as it was in Europe, and the original population may have had a higher ratio as well (gives Hermione something more to research in our travels).

We're getting along well with the locals, at all of the locations we've been. In a way, it's like our relationship with the goblins. If you respect them, they return the respect.

Hope to see you in the islands again this year. I suspect it may be a bit larger group this Christmas, and I'll let you know where we are going to be.

Regards and best wishes,

Harry and Hermione

November 3, 2003

Hello Ron,

You may have noticed that we are back on the Bad Boys and Girls list with the Wizengamot. The longer we stay hidden, the stupider they look, and the more people start to think that the way things are is not what they want. Maybe they are even remembering that some of the lies they are being told just don't jibe with what they themselves remember happening – one can hope that the sleepers may awaken. Lee Granger (Hermione's dad) suggests looking at muggle history, showing that when things get really bad, there is often a revolution (or what he called a coup-d'etat).

Our contacts have told us that there is evidence that our friends (and that includes you) are under increasing Ministry surveillance. At Lee's urging, I have decided to use my connections (and money) to do something about it. The ministry's budgets may find they are getting audited more often, and that the accounting may show some discrepancies that they had wished to keep hidden (even if we have to insert some). Again, some good relations and help from some short, oppressed, and rather pissed off people, of two races, comes in handy.

I suggest you talk to George about arranging for some diversions for the ones they have tracking you and your family. I have arranged for 'accidents' for those tracking some others of our friends – nothing lethal, you understand, just enough for them to remember who and what they are dealing with. After all, we (all of us) were the ones who took down the Death Eaters when the Ministry couldn't (or wouldn't).

Because to the enhanced 'scrutiny', we have modified the holiday plans. If you and the family still wish to come, we have arranged for International Floo connections, at my cost of course. Go to Gringott's and talk to the one with the scar which destroyed his right eye. He or she (with goblins, it's hard to tell) will conduct you to their floo connection and give you some documents. At your next stop, you will meet someone you know, who will accompany you to the next transfer point, and so on. I won't tell you who, where or how many stops you have, but I have arranged for transportation, food and lodging at a number of places, most of which you are not going to.

Things are getting ugly, and I fear they will get worse before they get better.

As I mentioned, some of this is because of discussion we have been having with Hermione's parents. Sally commented that I seem to be hung up on the Mutiny of the Bounty thing, with us cast as the mutineers. She suggested that we revise our outlook, and consider ourselves as Captain Bligh. He didn't give up and moan about how he had been kicked out by people who wanted to protect their cushy lifestyle. He took command and control, and led his loyal people across a thousand leagues of hostile waters, through his intelligence, his skills, his leadership and his personality.

Once he got back to England, he resumed an illustrious career, and when he was governor of New South Wales in Australia, he had another mutiny when he tried to clean up the corrupt government there. By the time he died, he was a vice-admiral, the second highest active rank in the navy. She suggested that we did have our problems, but if we just give up, then 'they' had won. The way she put it was that we should get off our butts and flight back – we have the resources, we just need the will.

It also turns out that most of what people know about Captain Bligh was based on a 'diary' written by one of the (supposed) mutineers while he was in prison wanting for his court-martial, where they could have sentenced him to death. It was in his interest to make Bligh out to be an unspeakable tyrant, and himself as an innocent victim of his superiors (Fletcher Christian and the others) plotting against this monster. The muggle books and the movies are based on this diary where he wrote quoting 'verbatim' from conversations supposedly held three years before, and half a world away (and being a muggle, this without a pensieve to 'jog' his memory). This made a great story, and the papers ran with it.

How amazing, the newspapers printing lies because it made a good story. That could never happen, could it (haha!)? I have learned, through bitter experience, to not always believe the 'official' story.

It also turns out, from more respectable sources, that Bligh was actually much more lenient than was typical for a captain in the day, and his major problem was that the crew, after spending half a year enjoying a luxurious life (including what was termed 'sexual hospitality'), really didn't want to get back on an uncomfortable boat and go back to a strictly disciplined life on the way back to England. This was probably the first time they had ever enjoyed anything in their lives, and they weren't keen to give it up.

Anyway, Bligh and a bunch of loyal men were put in a small boat, where through discipline and his absolute brilliance as a navigator, they sailed for over three thousand miles of open ocean to safety.

Sally suggested that we look on ourselves as Bligh – brilliant people (I think she was talking about Hermione here – she couldn't possibly mean me) set adrift by our society who didn't want to (as she put it) straighten up and fly right!

Lee suggested that we were just (as he put it) spinning our wheels, and that I was just sitting on my inheritances, instead of doing something about it. He said that I should get over my sulking about how they didn't appreciate me, and do something. He has a point, so I am starting to put together plans – I think the mutiny is going to come home to the tyrants after all. I didn't run away before, and I guess it's time to stop running now.

Mate, don't ever get Hermione mad at you. She has started making lists (big surprise, right?) and plans of who to go after, and how to make their lives a living hell. I've seen some of her ideas, and I think she would be in the running to be the next Dark Lady, if she put her mind to it. Smart people can be scary!

I think we may need some Weasley input on some of her ideas. Between experienced pranking abilities and some rather special work connections, your family also has their own long-term bones to pick for the way they have been treated

Can you please check with Bill and Fleur to see what they know about casting the Fidelius charm? I think it would be rather a lot of fun to have some of the bigwigs suddenly find they can't remember how to get home (or to a bathroom), or find Gringott's and their money (or for that matter, the Ministry offices), don't you? I mentioned this to our contact at Gringott's local branch, who said he would pass on the suggestion.

Ron, you never want to see a goblin laugh. Trust me on this.

On a somewhat lighter note, I found out a little more of why Hermione dislikes/hates flying on a broom. She laughs about it now, but it was really painful to her at the time, in several ways.

Do you remember our first lesson with Madame Hooch? We were marched out into the school courtyard in our school uniform robes, and told this was our first flying lesson. No instruction on how to control a broom, how to turn, or land, or whatever.

Hermione tells me that, for muggles learning to fly an airplane, they spend weeks in what is called 'ground school' learning the principles of flight, before ever taking the controls of an actual machine. She says Madame Hooch's approach was like you driving your Dad's flying Anglia the first time, and being told to drive down a major highway in heavy high-speed traffic.

Hermione has told me that she thought at first that this was another example of bias against the muggle-born, because children with a magical family (like yours) would have had lessons on basic broom flying. Then she saw Neville's disastrous first flight, and realized that even most of the pure-bloods had no idea what they were doing.

She says that that's when she started to realize that, in spite of her anticipation of the magical world being a wonderful place where she could excel with her abilities and she would learn wonderful things, Snape was not an exception and, other than McGonagall and Flitwick, the quality of the teaching at Hogwarts was uniformly abysmal. They may be good at things themselves, but they couldn't teach a fish to get wet! Makes you wonder what it takes to get a Mastery in various magical arts. It also called into question how incompetent Dumbledore had to be, to have hired and keep all these morons on staff for years

This was on top of the way you, and to my shame I have to admit, I and the rest of the students, were treating her at the time. She was devastated.

On top of this (and this is what took so long for her to accept as a bit ironic), you will remember that the girls' uniforms included skirts. When they mounted the brooms, some of the girls tucked their skirts up between their legs, so they had a bit of padding against the broom handles, and some didn't. With the skirt tucked, the additional material allowed a firm grip on the broom with their legs. If they did not tuck, the broom handle was in direct contact with their knickers if they were wearing any (Hermione has implied that some of the girls didn't. I won't mention any names. I didn't ask).

Hermione was a non-tucker. When the broom began to move as she tried to kick off (to use Madame Hooch's phrase), the handle slipped a bit. Her broom had not been all that well maintained, and she got a lot of slivers in her backside. Because people had been making fun of her and generally being nasty, she didn't want to complain, and so she was in serious pain through the whole lesson. Every time she moved, the splinters dug in deeper and deeper. She was in agony, but because of how she was being treated by even other Gryffindors, she didn't want to appear weak and so she was stumbling around in pain, crying quietly.

At the time, she didn't really know where the hospital wing was, and by that time she was having trouble walking anyway. Finally, a prefect found her crying in the hall with blood running down her legs, and helped her to see Madame Pomfrey. There she found that the slivers had nailed her underpants to her bottom, and she needed to go to the bathroom quite badly by this point, and couldn't get them off, or even sit for that matter. Pomfrey had to cut her pants off her to get at the wounds and apply the appropriate healing salves and spells.

While the salves soaked in and the wounds healed, she lay on her stomach with her bare bum exposed to the air, and to (she thought) the world. Every time the door to the infirmary opened, she was terrified that someone might see her in that position, and says she hasn't blushed that hard since.

The ironic part is that it was only later when the spells had worked their magic that she could look around and see that Madame Pomfrey had put screens all around her bed, and that she had been at no risk of exposure. She said that, there she was laid out for the world to see, working up the best embarrassment and humiliation she possibly could, only to find it was completely wasted.

Hardly surprising that she had no strong desire to ride another broom. Every time she thought of giving it another try, the pain and embarrassment came back to her mind

This all came out while Luna was passing through. She had been watching the telly and seeing what she thought was a documentary of witches in America. It was a fictional (we think) comedy show called 'Bewitched' about a witch who marries a muggle, and he has to deal with her bizarre relatives (think of your Aunt Muriel, or Luna's dad) while hiding the truth from their muggle friends and neighbours. On the introduction to the show, they show the witch riding her broom side-saddle. Luna had to try it (rum had been definitely involved that evening) and she kept falling off, of course with all of us laughing uproariously. Hermione tried it and found it quite easy to do – I gather that having both legs on one side of the broom allows her a stronger grip.

Hermione figured that she could get a side-saddle like 'ladies' use to ride horses, and modify it, something like the saddles we use on quidditch brooms for better control. She says that she always felt inadequate not being comfortable riding a broom when all her dorm-mates were quite proficient, because all the muggle stories of witches (which she read when she was a little girl) showed witches riding brooms, and she felt that to be a 'proper' witch, she should be able to do so too.

That's our Hermione. She feels incomplete if she can't do everything others can, and better.

We got hold of a side-saddle from one of the equestrian supply places, and she worked on it for almost a week. Now, when I go out for a fly, she's right there with me. She's not up to quidditch standards of agility, but she's comfortable, and is enjoying it.

Luna tried the side-saddle and is quite proficient at it, but says she still prefers the 'straddle' position. She says that, when she leans forward at just the right angle, it feels Really! Good! I didn't ask why. You don't ask questions when you're really not sure you want to know the answer.

Hope to see you over Christmas. Luna says hi.

Best wishes,

Harry and Hermione

February 2, 2004

Hello again Ron,

Well, things have certainly changed for me. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but you remember how clueless I was with girls.

Hermione and I are engaged to be married.

Now, to make a short story long, Lee and Sally Granger stayed with us at the Queensland place for a week or so after you all left, and we had some really deep and disturbing discussions.

The first bit of rather shocking news is that, in their hearts, the Grangers don't really consider Hermione their daughter! The obliviation had robbed them of any real emotional connection with her. They say that, intellectually, they can accept her, but they don't have that visceral connection that a parent would with a child.

Sally says she has no recollection of giving birth to Hermione, nor having a little girl running around the house, growing up and going on holidays when she came home from Hogwarts. Nothing!

Lee said that, when they first got to Australia, they understood that they were in some kind of witness protection program which was why they had different names than they remembered having had before. With that in mind, they made no effort to connect with anyone in England.

When Hermione first contacted them, they were extremely leery of her. They worried that somehow, the gang they were fleeing from had found them, and that they were going to be killed. The fact that this young woman seemed to know a lot about them just indicated that the gang had good information gathering skills. Hermione's reassurances and descriptions of the situation were taken as them being set up for a fall.

However, the more time she spent with them, the more her stories seemed to have some basis in reality. Apparently, the way Hermione laughs is exactly the same as Sally's laugh. Her bushy hair looked like Lee's when he grew his hair longer in the late 60's, and I gather looked like his mother's bushy hair. One day, she dropped something, and cussed under her breath, in exactly the same way that Lee did and like some of his old shipmates had done.

They told us that, like Captain Bligh (sorry, but this keeps coming up over and over in my life), they felt like they were cast adrift. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that Hermione wanted nothing from them except their acceptance, even though they felt no inherent connection to her.

Lee told me that he has a really hard time with what Hermione had done to them. It was (in his opinion) the ultimate betrayal that a child could do to her parents. He said that he could understand intellectually why she had felt she had to do it (after all, the Death Eaters had some pretty powerful mind readers among them, and we couldn't be sure that a mere memory block would do the job that was needed) and that they had agreed to it at the time, but he also said that he had to admit that, in his guts, he still hates her a bit for doing it. He said that, although from the evidence he had seen she apparently was his daughter (in part reserving judgement on that), she has effectively stolen his daughter and a good part of his life from him.

Sally said (through tears) that being a mother was one of the most important things in a woman's life, and Hermione had stolen that from her, even with the best intentions and for the best reasons. She quoted the old saying that the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and it would have been easier for them (not better, just easier) if Hermione had never come back to re-connect with them.

As you can imagine, this devastated Hermione. I think she cried for a week solid.

I think we have come to the point where they like her for herself, even if they are really not sure that she actually is their daughter. We can be friends, even if not family. She is just going to have to accept that there are residual issues from the war – I suppose it's better than if I had to show them her grave, but by how much, I'm just not sure any more.

Another issue came up in our discussions. Us. Hermione and me.

I was out walking with Lee on day, and he asked me point-blank if Hermione and I had slept together. I mentioned that we had shared a bed occasionally, mostly just hugging to stave off nightmares. He looked at me with a disgusted face, and asked if I had banged her yet! I sputtered, while he laughed at me. He asked me what I thought was wrong with her then that I hadn't, or alternately, what was wrong with me!

When I (continuing to sputter) said I didn't want to risk losing my best friend by doing something wrong, he paused and looked at me closely.

He then said "Harry, I have been watching you two closely, and I've listened to what Hermione has said about who you were when we were getting together. You know our reluctance to accept you and Hermione at face value, given what has happened and what you have told us, so I have been carefully watching what you do and how you do things since we met. As a dentist, my training included the signs to look for, and you show them all. The way you will do anything for a friend and ask almost nothing for yourself. The scars on your back that I saw when we went swimming."

"I can see that you were an abused child who was not allowed to have friends. When you went to school, you were lied to, lied about, and mistrusted. Now, the wizarding society, which you thought was going to be wonderful, has betrayed you. You are almost completely unable to trust anyone, and would kill yourself rather than risk the friendship of someone you do trust. Harry, she loves you. She wants you, as a friend, as her companion, as her husband, as her lover. But she will not push you, because she cannot risk you pushing her away. She lost us, she lost the magical world that she expected so much from, she cannot afford to lose you either. You are both emotionally paralyzed by your fear of losing the other. Harry, go to her."

It turned out that Sally was telling Hermione essentially the same things, except with a bit different slant. Hermione said that her mother started off by asking if she had shagged me yet. When Hermione blushed and started shaking her head, she asked "Why the hell not? He's hot. He's available. He's rich. You've been essentially living together for almost seven years. You're not getting any younger, and I can see he loves you but he's terrified of hurting you. God, if I wasn't married to Lee, I'd jump his bones myself! Get on with it, girl! Hermione, I can see that he loves you, but he is scared. He needs your help to see that you love him too."

Hermione and I had a long talk, actually, a couple (okay, a lot) of long talks (all the while being laughed at by the Grangers).

As I said, we are now engaged to be married. Hermione wants a church wedding, and the church in St George requires a six month residency in the parish, so we are looking to go to the "The Orchard' on Grenada next summer to live there for the necessary time, and then marry in the little church while everyone is there at Christmas.

Please come. Ron, I would be very honoured if you would be my best man.

One bit of strangeness about this. When I let the Melnychuks in on the news, it turns out that they had been under the impression that we already were married, and Hermione has just kept her own surname. Stasha Melnychuk sent a note saying that, if she had known that we weren't married, she would have proposed to me herself. As it is, she says she wants to invoke a time-honoured farming practice of bringing in a neighbour's prize bull to 'service' the cows and improve the breed. As she thinks I might miss the point, she stated quite explicitly that, regardless of the impending wedding, she expects me to father a child or two with her. She even says that her family agrees – I gather that, in 'the old days', it was quite common for the local nobility to have their way with the daughters of the peasants. Whether or not it was in keeping with what the nobility said their religion believed, that was just the way it was for the lower classes.

I don't think I have been this flummoxed since Hagrid showed up at the Dursleys' and knocked the cottage door off its hinges – I am not sure whether to be offended or flattered. I showed the note to Hermione, and I still haven't figured out how she feels about it – I think she feels I should be completely offended by the idea, and is upset that I was more amused than annoyed. I get the impression it is something that we are going to have a long talk about at some point. A very long talk.

Love to Lavender and the kids,

Harry and Hermione

October 31, 2004

Hello Ron,

There is an old curse. 'May the gods grant your wishes.' Ho boy, were they right! Not that that is all bad, far from it, just really unexpected.

As ever, October 31st is the day when things change in my life. Although now, I have to add September 7th to the list.

Hermione and I are at 'The Orchard' for the summer and to fulfill the residency requirement for the local church. We have booked it for our wedding two days after Christmas, so that Hermione can have her church wedding in an Anglican Church, as she dreamed of as a little girl.

We came down in June, leaving the farm in Saskatchewan this year, but inviting the Melnychuks for the wedding and a winter vacation. I gather this is a big trend with muggles, what they call a 'destination wedding'.

By August, I was getting seriously bored with island life. The staff on the farm had things well in hand, and the summer heat and humidity was more than I was used to. I started wishing for something to happen. Well, I got what I wished for.

In August, the old wizard of what they now call 'African descent' that they called 'The Weatherman', died. I gather he was around two hundred years old, and had been the main man doing weather spells for the last century (after his own father passed over). Consequently, there had been only one hurricane hit Grenada in the last century, and that was when the Weatherman had been sick. Well, Hurricane Ivan came to visit in a big way.

Ninety percent of the buildings on the island were damaged or destroyed, and more than thirty people were killed out of a population of only 100 thousand. About eighty percent of the nutmeg trees (one of the main sources of income on this island, and according to Luna, one of the world's best nargle infestations) were destroyed.

The national prison was destroyed and most of the prisoners were running loose for a couple weeks until most of them were rounded up (I have been helping the locals with some security wards and such). One thing that might seem weird is that about 20 years ago, they had a totalitarian revolution, and the Americans sent in a military 'intervention' (political-speak by the victors for an invasion). The only prisoners who stayed at the destroyed prison were the ones who were there for 'political' crimes during the revolution, whose appeals would have been thrown out if they had run away.

Shortly before the hurricane struck, Luna showed up in a total panic. She insisted that we do the protective spells to save the Grenadian nargle population, which apparently are unique in the world and in serious danger of extinction (by the way, last year, she achieved her Mastery in Cryptozoology). It turns out that the Lovegood family has been involved with weather magic for generations, and Luna considers some of the weather elementals as personal friends – she only has to demonstrate influencing a major weather event to earn her Mastery in Climatomancy as well.

She knew that I had not returned to Hogwarts for seventh year, but that Hermione had (for a while) and expected Hermione to be familiar with the weather spells that they taught in seventh year advanced charms. To deal with a hurricane would take a group of the most powerful wizards and witches working together, and in her mind, we three were the ones to do it. She was very shocked when Hermione admitted that that class was precisely why she had quit Hogwarts suddenly!

The next several hours were filled with intense conversation, during which I learned, among other things (I am using point form to try and summarize what was a very complicated and confusing day):

In her childhood Hermione was taught by the church that sex outside marriage (they call it fornication) is very wrong – this in spite of the founder of the Church of England being quite adept at it. I guess hypocrisy is one of those constants of human behaviour, particularly for those in power.

From her parents, she learned that sex outside marriage happens frequently, as long as it is during a loving relationship (often shortly before marriage). Usually forgivable, and the full-sized 'premature' baby delivered shortly after the wedding is just an example of how efficient new brides can be.

Also from her parents, she learned that sex outside love was Wrong (with the capital 'W' very strongly expressed to her). This in spite of, or perhaps because of, their coming of age during years when 'free love' was not uncommon. Sally has said (in my presence) that in her experience (or rather that of her friends) free love can turn out to be extremely expensive. She didn't elaborate (but of course Hermione is now extremely curious).

Consequently, even though Hermione and I have shared a bed many times, we have not 'slept together' until recently. I know, too much information.

In the muggle world, in most including Britain but not all societies, marriages of multiple people together is officially frowned upon. However, it is also common for a married man to have mistresses (more hypocrisy). Same goes for married women.

In the magical world, in the higher society families and most pure-bloods (as far as I know, except for your family – I don't know much about the families of other magicals) it is common for marriages to be arranged, and for the most part be relatively loveless affairs set up to keep property and status in the families. The wife in such a marriage has to make sure that any offspring are definitively from her husband because of the property and succession laws, but the man can fool around, and can acknowledge one of his bastard children as his legitimate heir is he feels like it. Use of contraceptive spells is very widespread in an effort to find love if the arranged marriage does not provide it.

As the head of two families (the Potters and as Sirius' heir, the Blacks) in the magical world, I will be required by law to have two wives, one for each House. As Head of the House, I could also have mistresses or concubines, bound to one or other of the houses, but not both. Same reasons as above.

This requirement will make trying to live in both the magical and muggle worlds complicated, to say the least.

Hermione was rather unhappy about this.

Hermione had returned to Hogwarts to finish her seventh year, not because she needed her NEWT levels to get most jobs, but because she would need them to pursue her Mastery in any of the subjects.

While she was attending Hogwarts, she was also applying for various research or professional level positions at the Ministry, and other organisations in the magical world. It soon became very apparent (sometimes explicitly so) that, as a muggle-born, her chances of getting a good position or advancing to a senior position were nonexistent. Her chance of getting an apprenticeship towards her Mastery would be limited to finding a Master who would accept her – she was informed that this would be unlikely, because other than a very few, any Master who took her on would harm his or her own reputation. This, of course, reduced the point of continuing to get her NEWTs.

The advanced charms course dealt with very powerful charms, including spells involved in influencing natural events such as weather. These spells required direct contact and communication with nature elementals, which are sort of the spirits of the forces.

Nature spirits must be addressed while in a natural state, that is, nude.

The classes required the students to gradually become comfortable being nude in mixed groups. Then the fun started.

For the weather charms, there are six levels of intensity:

For the first level, which involved things like finding out what the weather was scheduled to be (elementals apparently have work plans assigned to them to follow – union rules), the supplicant must be nude.

For the second level, to access the more powerful spells, the witch or wizard must bring themselves to a state of sexual excitement, with the spell cast before or without orgasm

For the third level, the spell is cast at the moment of climax. I gather this takes some practice, as one (according to Luna) tends to get distracted.

For the fourth level, two witches, wizards or a mixed pair excite each other to orgasm, but do not engage in intercourse. Again, the spell is cast during climax.

At the fifth level, they engage in intercourse. Contraception can be used at this level.

At the sixth level, more than two are involved. Contraception spells cannot be used at this level. This level is only used to directly influence a major natural event, such as mitigating or stopping a volcanic explosion or very serious weather phenomena. In order to operate at this level, the practitioners must be open to all the forces of creation, including procreation.

Hermione was very uncomfortable with this entire process. Luna seemed to accept it, having heard about the practices from her mother (another important difference between the muggle and magical worlds)

During the class where they were to learn level four, Professor McGonagall assigned partners arbitrarily (apparently, her earlier demonstrations of proper technique had been very explicit, which Hermione found very embarrassing coming from the witch she had respected so much). She said that, to be proficient in the case of emergency situations, which is when these spells would be used, students needed to be able to work with whoever was available, and this is where they learned that skill. To the students, this meant that they might be required to have intercourse with someone that they might not even like (or couldn't stand).

Before the classes to practice the next level, Hermione overheard some of the young wizards in the class. Apparently, their families were not pleased that we had defeated the Dark Lord and his bunch, and they had lost a lot of prestige and power because of it. They were joking about 'shagging the muggle' and not using contraception, and how pissed off I would be when my mudblood found out what is was like to have a 'real wizard' between her legs and had a pure-blood bastard, or how they should take turns with her. I gather Draco had not been that unusual after all.

This is when Hermione went to McGonagall, informed her that she was withdrawing from Hogwarts immediately, and that the comments of the other students had shown her that the magical world was not worth the price we and they had paid the previous year, because it was obvious to her that Hogwarts was still infested with the bigotry and hatreds that we had fought and bled for, that Fred Weasley had died for, that she had now lost all respect for the witch who had been her favorite teacher, and goodbye!

McGonagall sat there with her mouth hanging open as Hermione left her office.

After several hours, and many tears, with me sitting on our couch in the gazebo by the pool, holding two weeping witches, I felt Luna stiffen, and sit up. I could tell she had come to a conclusion. I also could tell I wasn't necessarily going to like it, and I could predict that Hermione wasn't going to either.

She then proposed a plan to address all the problems. She offered herself as my second wife, and Hermione's first (I gather magicals are more accepting of this sort of arrangement than muggles in a lot of the world. Given what I have seen of how people treat each other and the way most of my life has gone, although it's not really my thing, why would I begrudge anyone finding any sort of happiness in their life). That way, we would be married in the magical world, I would have the two wives I would need to placate the old Ancient House rules, we would not be having sex outside marriage, and we would have the three most powerful magicals on the island to try hold off the coming storm.

She pointed out to Hermione that she was not intending to be her rival, but her helpmate, as she proposed to marry, or pledge herself, to Hermione as well as to me. If nothing else, Hermione had talked me into (or coerced me into, depending on your viewpoint) starting the DA and teaching her how to fight, and this saved her life so she figured that, even if she hadn't liked Hermione (pointing out that she most certainly did, as Hermione and I were two of the only people who had always treated her with respect), she owed Hermione big time.

I was in a bit of shock, but Hermione was shaking her head, saying that's not how it is supposed to work! Another problem of trying to exist in the two worlds.

Myself, my home life had been so screwed up, with my first and formative impressions of married life being Vernon and Petunia Dursley (and the idea that anything had to be better), that I was willing to consider it. I figured that if I have to have a second wife, Luna would be a lot better than most of my alternate options (imagine me proposing to Pansy Parkinson, in an attempt to get in good with the pure-bloods).

All that evening, I could see that Hermione was mulling it over in her mind. I saw her glancing at Luna, and have a brief smile, and then shake her head, and then repeat the process looking at me, and then again at Luna, and so on. The smile stayed a bit longer each time, but she still ended up shaking her head. She looked like she was slowly talking herself into it. I knew she liked Luna, but this much?

About midnight, Hermione sat up straight, and looked at Luna and me, and said that she accepted Luna's suggestion. When I shook my head and said that she did not have to do this, she gently nodded, and told me that she herself chose to accept. She pointed out that, when she did not tell her parents the whole story about the troll in first year, she had chosen the magical world over the mundane one. At that time and later, she put aside rules of the muggle world, such as the fact that cars and brooms can't fly, when people die they go away forever (or until they are reincarnated, according to some religions – anyway they don't hang around your school), that elves and fairies and dragons didn't exist, and even if your classmates hated you their parents were not planning to kill you. She said that the 'one man-one woman' rule might be another of those rules.

She also pointed out that, as I was a 'wanted criminal', the powers-that-be in Britain were probably looking for any excuse to overturn my designation of Teddy as my heir (ruling my will and my accepting Andromeda back into the Black family as invalid – those guys make a habit of making the 'illegal' legal), and should some accident befall me without a 'true' heir, the Headship would fall to the next nearest Black relative, that is, Draco Malfoy.

I mentioned that from what I had heard, Draco had been behaving himself, to which she pointed out that being a Slytherin, was it more likely he had turned good, or that he was just collecting enough friends in high places to drive through what he really wanted? If so, Teddy's life would be in even more danger than it already was.

Then she smiled, and said that Luna had always been kind of fun to have around. She looked at me with big puppy-dog eyes and stating that Luna had followed us home, asked if we could keep her.

How could I refuse?

She turned to Luna and asked what we needed to do to perform the ceremony and cast the spells. Luna explained the simple but beautiful magical binding ritual, and we all stood holding hands and chanted the invocations, and we spoke the pledges of lifetime bonding (pledging ourselves to the others in good times and bad, in good health and poor, in times of plenty and times of little, in times of hope and times of despair, and so on).

Just an hour later, Ivan arrived as a Category 3 hurricane and continuing to strengthen. When the front eyewall of the hurricane went over and the eye was over the island (in the eye, the winds are calm, and some people figure the storm is over, not knowing that the back wall has even higher winds and it is even worse), we went outside to survey the damage.

I found that nargles lose their ability to be invisible, when they are dying.

We wandered for a couple minutes among the torn down nutmeg trees, looking at the piles of small furry bodies littering the ground. Luna was crying at the loss and Hermione looked sick. Actually, I was just as upset by the deaths of all the nargles – I guess the 'people-saving-thing' applies to non-humans as well. I know it did with Dobby.

We stripped, and went through the spells (of an extremely personal nature) to insist the hurricane stop. As a result, I could hear 'his' voice talking to us.

'Ivan' turned out to be a really nasty piece of work (imagine Mad-Eye Moody with a really bad hangover, and then being angry as well, and then having someone kick him in his good leg and other areas). 'He' agreed to reduce the additional damage to Grenada by half of what he had originally planned (I gather he meant to sweep it completely clean of people and vegetation), at the trade-off of strengthening to a Category four. 'He' said that, because we had not only performed the rituals properly, but had in addition sacrificed two virgins to accomplish it (Hermione blushed when he mentioned this), he would veer away from Jamaica a bit, and limit his damage. He had been intending to become a category 6 (I didn't know that the scale went beyond 5), and to outdo his sister Catarina and his younger sisters Katrina and Rita (who are scheduled for the next year) but because of our efforts, he would not.

We then went inside quickly, as the rear eye wall was starting to come over the island.

After 'he' left, we assisted on helping clean up some of the damage, and cast some security spells because of the escaped convicts. Hermione insisted it was the least she could do, given that her original reticence and the delay had probably contributed to the severity of the damage as we had been too late to redirect the storm completely away (whether or not we could have done so, I think that girl is going to need a lot of hugs in the near future to get over her feelings of guilt). That's how we spent the rest of September and the early part of October.

We then apparated over to Jamaica to help with some of the clean-up there. Today while shifting fallen trees and such, Luna cut her arm on some downed branches, and said she hadn't felt really well for a few days either. So we went to a healer for treatment and a checkup. When she and the healer came out of the cottage, she had a small smug smile on her face, and announced that the healer had informed her that, because of our spell activities, she now had 'a bun in the oven', to use the muggle phrase. While she and Hermione hugged at the news, the healer looked mildly offended, and said that in Jamaica, they didn't eat buns – they eat 'patties' (remember those spicy pies you had last time down here).

So, to end this overly long letter, October 31st, my life has changed again. It will be another month before we find out whether 'Patty' is going to be a Patricia or a Patrick, but I am finally going to have a family (or two) of my own. I am married (in the magical world at least) to two very beautiful, very brilliant and very powerful witches, my wives each have a wife and a very confused husband.

And if you think Hermione's plans to revise the British magical world are scary, you should see some of what Luna is coming up with!

To make things legal in the muggle world, Luna and I got married by a justice of the peace in Jamaica, and Hermione and I will be married in the little church in St George at Christmas time, almost as originally planned. Thank you for agreeing to be my best man.

And I finally found out why Hermione quit Hogwarts, the place where she thought she would fulfill her dreams but discovered the unpleasantnesses of our world.

So, a normal life? It seems I have no idea what constitutes normal, and am unlikely to find out any time soon.

Love from Harry, Hermione and Luna (now Mrs. Potter-Black)

June 10, 2005

Hello Ron,

You recall when you told me that fatherhood would change me and I laughed? Well, I have changed, and I have added a new word to my vocabulary. Diapers! And here I thought the 'Scourgify' spell was just for washing dishes.

The in-joke went on for so long that it became 'official policy', so I am letting you know that Patricia Selena Hermione Potter-Black was born last week. Luna was attended by her husband, her wife, a local witch-midwife, and three house elves. The delivery room was very crowded. Patty and Luna are doing well.

When I came out of the birthing room, Luna's Dad (Xenophilius 'Call me Phil' Lovegood), Hermione's parents, and the Melnychuks were there with bottles of champagne. Sally and Lee are still not too happy about Hermione being part of a plural marriage, but understood the reasons (and I think are a bit delighted that Hermione refused to engage in 'that sort of behaviour' outside the bonds of marriage, however weird they are in our mixed worlds). Sally even whispered to me that this may finally convince them that Hermione is really their daughter. I think they are pleased to have a grandchild, sort of.

Hermione has come to terms with having an extra wife, as she has found that Luna is in no way a rival. The two spend a lot of time discussing all manner of stuff that I have no clue about, and seem to enjoy each other's company a lot. Also, with Luna still travelling a lot (until the last few months when it became inconvenient and uncomfortable), she still had exclusive use of me most of the time.

Also, Hermione has a bit of a smug grin a lot of the time, and her diet now includes pickles on top of ice cream, which I am told is a common sign of impending motherhood. She says she is just practicing with Patty (when Luna is away). She says that her casting the lactation spell has worked quite well (as well as being rather attractive to her husband), she enjoys nursing the baby, and she is looking forward to having her own as well.

I told her that, if it's a boy, I would like to name him 'Sirius Lee James Potter' – when she asked me why, I told her that Remus said that was one of my mother's favourite saying when she got exasperated with my Dad (try saying it fast). This way, we would acknowledge my godfather, his two grandfathers and my mother, all at once.

You know, my attitude about the British wizarding society is also changing. If it was just me they were after, or trying to rob, I might just walk away and say 'screw them' (in spite of all our previous and current plans, which would satisfy the latent vindictive potential Dark Lord that they seem to think I am). But I see now that they are trying to steal my children's heritage and their future as well. That is unacceptable!

I also have to tell you that Stashia Melnychuk has been looking at me with a predatory grin, the like of which I have not seen since I watched them put some mice in the enclosure with my old friend the Burmese python. Hermione and Luna both laughed at me when I made this observation.

It should be obvious that we are back north at 'The Farm'. We have been requested to come back to Grenada during hurricane season, but I had promised the Melnychuks to help during the growing season. We have set up the floo to go between 'The Farm' and 'The Orchard', if needed, with the covert cooperation of the Canadians and the Grenadians to set up an international floo link without informing the Customs and Duties branches of either government (and certainly without the knowledge of the British Ministry).

I find that I am starting to think of Britain as 'someplace else', and not really home any more. However, we have roots there, and interests which I am not really willing to give up without a fight.

We have been working towards some more ways to make life difficult for the purists and rich idiots 'back home', and ways to spread the news of things people can do to assist. I was thinking that it would be hard to go with word-of-mouth, as you and our other friends are under surveillance by the Ministry, and the Prophet is firmly under their thumbs, when Luna suggested using the Quibbler.

Hermione guffawed at this, saying that everybody knew that the Quibbler was a load of rubbish. Luna smiled and handed her a copy. Hermione looked over the articles concerning the Great Muggle Conspiracy and the kraken sightings off the Cornish coast, when Luna took the paper from her hands, turned it upside down, and handed it back. The text had changed!

Luna smiled and pointed out that the upper class idiots (her terms were a little more scatological – Hermione has me practicing bigger words) were so hide-bound that they would never think of turning a newspaper upside down, but the more intelligent of the wizarding world knew that the Quibbler was charmed to show the real news that way. She reminded us that when we first met her, she was holding the paper upside down but had explained to us that she had learned to read it that way when her parents read across the table from her. She pointed out that, having just met us, she had not known yet if we were trust-worthy.

And Ron, before you say that you and your family had never been told about this trick, Luna pointed out that your family had been in the Order of the Phoenix since before you and I were born. Luna stated that her father had been tracking the various people in what he had called 'Dumbledore's private club' for many years. He (and she) didn't know how much information was shared, and Dumbles might have trusted them, but the Lovegoods sure didn't (would you have trusted Mundungus with your secrets? I certainly wouldn't – give the man enough beer or gold, and he would have told the Death Eaters the size of your underwear and your wife's bra size.) They also knew that Voldie's bunch had some pretty potent legilimens in it, and the Death Eaters were pretty well informed as to who was in the order. I gather occulmency is a pretty specialized skill, and I know you never mentioned that your family practiced it. Consequently, no one connected with the Order in any way was told about the reversing paper spell.

Luna also suggested that with some of the odd things that went on (such as not giving me any special fighting training, leaving me in an abusive household with the Dursleys, not telling me about the prophecy or the horcruxes until it was almost too late, letting Umbridge torture me, etc.), her father had started to wonder what Dumbledore's real agenda was, or if the old man had just gone completely senile. I gather that there was a lot of respect there, but for a man over two hundred years old a wandering mind was not out of the question. When you looked at Dumbledore's actions, or rather inactions, it starts to look very very suspicious (Constant Vigilance!). Again, who would you trust with your life?

Her father had carefully nurtured a reputation for being a bit of an oddball during the first Voldy war, to hide in plain sight. When the bad guys cannot see you as a threat, you are less of a target. Merlin, wizards are dumb! (Hermione says her Dad used to use the phrases 'dumber than a bag of rocks', 'sharp as a hammer', 'as clever as sheep shit', and more colourful ways of saying the same thing).

Anyway, we have been consulting with the goblins at Gringotts (Jamaica and Calgary branches) and have put articles in the Quibbler, suggesting ways that wizards and witches can shield their galleons from Ministry 'interference'. Nothing blatantly seditious, but certainly having an interesting effect on Ministry revenues.

Like many upper-class muggles, most of the hierarchy of the wizarding world have been living on debt, borrowing money to support their lavish lifestyles. It is to the point where the sources of the loans are as dependent on the charade continuing so the whole house of cards doesn't collapse – either that, or they consider the influence they buy from the powerful worth the investment. I have started buying up some of this old debt, such as the mortgages on their houses, and so on.

Hermione was managed to get in touch with the cultural leaders of the house elves, and yes, they have their own societies. It turns out that house elves only require an hour of sleep a day (or night), and so have a lot of time when we are asleep (which is when they cleaned up at Hogwarts). From her efforts at the Ministry working to eliminate house elf abuse (after discovering that elf 'bondage' is not actually slavery but their magical need to bond and to work), there is a lot of good will there. We have been hiring quite a number away from their previous owners. Sometimes, some trickery is involved, where an abused elf will request their owners clothing so that they can clean them properly (such as after a wild party), and their 'master' unthinkingly frees them (we had one elf show up still holding his ex-masters' official Ministry robes, leaving the fool sitting naked in his office).

Consequently, we have an interesting collection of wizarding clothing here. Seeing some of the stuff that the elves show up with, you really have to wonder about the tastes (both sartorial and sexual) of some of the magical society. I don't know what kind of party Draco Malfoy attended before he drunkenly released his body-servant, but we now have a lacy suspender-belt in Gryffindor colours. (Luna suggested that Hermione might want to claim it for herself, but the look on her face had us laughing for days).

I suspect that within the year, we should be able to drop the subtlety. At that point, we think we can have enough elves freed that the high-class twits will be starving (I doubt most of them can even find their kitchens, much less recognise unprepared food), and the Ministry and most of the upper crust will be bankrupt. I personally look forward to foreclosing on the Malfoys and the Parkinsons!

Let the Mutiny begin in earnest. I now have a family to protect, and Captain Bligh is coming back with a vengeance!

Love and hugs to all

Harry