Chapter 2: They Are A-Changin'

Rating: M AU Post-Hogwarts

Disclaimer: The usual – I own nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, I was not even here. Just playing in JKR's sandbox again.

Author's Opening Note: This is sequel to 'HP and the Laws of Love', which is itself a sequel to 'Pansy Invictus'.

In another story, some reviews objected strongly to the idea of polygamy. However, as I stated in my profile, I do not agree with the concept of polygamy either, but in conflict there are stories to be told. This is one of them.

Warnings: Some serious nastiness is apparent

The Paradigms, They Are A-Changin'

At three o'clock the following Tuesday, Harry Potter and his two senior wives stepped from the floo in the back room at the 'Pork and Prime Minister'. As Harry adjusted his balance, through the closed door to the rest of the pub, they heard a loud collective "Say! No! More!", followed by loud and drunken laughter.

Sitting in two armchairs were Lord Ogden, owner of the Ogden distillery, and a middle-aged (for a wizard) man wearing Healers' robes.

Ogden rose and shook hands with the three. "Lord Potter, Lady Potter, Lady Black. Welcome, and may I present Healer Michaels. Henry, I do not believe you have met these fine folks."

Healer Michaels rose and shook hands with the three, saying "Call me Henry, or Hank, please," after which the three new-comers asked to be addressed by their first names as well.

A knock came on the door, and Ogden pulled his wand, and after waving it in a pattern the three younger magicals did not recognise, called out "Enter".

A youngish and quite pregnant witch entered the room, whom the trio knew well but hadn't seen at family gatherings for several months, ostensibly because of long hours at her office. She was carrying a muggle-style briefcase. Ogden smiled and said, "Hermione, I do believe you know these people?" As she smiled and hugged the three in turn, turning to allow for necessary space, she added, "Hello, T.J. Hi, Hank. Thanks for including me in this confab."

Harry started to ask, "Lord Ogden,..." when the older wizard interrupted him, saying, "Lord Potter. Harry. I will explain, but first...", and he waved his wand around the room in patterns which Harry and Pansy recognised as privacy, anti-listening, high security and anti-intrusion spells. Ogden then nodded, and stood up.

The old wizard raised his hands into the air, and clasped them together. In what was apparently a ritual opening, he opened his hands and spread his arms. As he did this, he announced, "What has been closed is now open. What was hidden is now to be revealed. As the Senior Officer present, I authorize this disclosure of secret matters."

Harry looked at the older wizard questioningly. Ogden smiled, and said, "Lord Potter, Lady Potter, Lady Black, you are now participating in a meeting of staff of the Department of Mysteries. By the way, would you like some refreshments? We have coffee, tea, butterbeer, wine, cider and ale."

Ginny looked at the old wizard. "What, no firewhiskey?"

Ogden laughed. Actually Lady Potter, I never touch the awful stuff. We in the department sell it, and many other things, to fund our operations. The Ministry funding only covers about ten percent of what we need, and they would be horrified by some of the stuff we get up to, so like many secret organizations we just raise our own money, and don't bother telling our official masters what we are doing. By the way, it was your great-great grandfather who invented it; when he came up with it, he cried out "We have got to get this into the hands of teenagers! Intoxicating, illegal, blows steam out their ears! They would go crazy for it!" You see, he was about to get married to your great-great grandmother whose family was very stuffy, and it wouldn't do to have his name linked to the new 'demon drink', so I took it on. Your paternal line has been pranksters from way back. George Weasley was my mentor in the Department when I started after I graduated from Hogwarts, class of '56, it was."

Pansy looked suspicious. "You were at Hogwarts in 1956 and worked with Ginny's great-great-grandfather? Impossible. Aren't you a little old for that?" Being of a suspicious nature, her paranoia started rising.

Ogden smiled. "Lady Black, it was 1856. I'm not that young, and it has been some time since I was at school, as you can imagine. George and his sister Charlotte, named for the king and queen of their day, became good friends even though they were almost a century older than I was."

Ginny turned, and looked towards Hermione, accusingly. "You work for the Department of Mysteries. I never knew that."

Hermione smiled at her sister-in-law. "You were not supposed to know. That's part of the mystery."

"But you never told me," complained the red-head.

Hermione smiled more widely. She looked at her two colleagues, and added with a smile, "No I didn't." Together and smiling, the three chanted in unison "We don't speak about it."

The three Unspeakables laughed at the stunned look on the faces of their guests at their in-joke.

Ginny looked at Hermione, and very obviously stared at her expanding belly. "So, you and Bill then?"

Hermione shook her head. "Nope. It was a very generous offer from Bill and Fleur, but I couldn't do that to Ron. No, it's all Ron. Well no, it's half Ron and half me." She looked over at Harry and asked "Do you remember when you were trying to get Daphne and Tracey pregnant. I told you that what were called 'other methods' could work if the wizard was injured." She looked at the Healer, and asked, "Hank, can you take it from here please?"

Michaels nodded. "Muggle had developed methods they call In-Vitro Fertilization, when a couple cannot conceive normally - it's also known as 'doing it in a dish'. In this specific case, as there were some rather serious injuries, and hence no sperm available, we took some cells from Ron and using magical and muggle methods, forced the cells to undergo meiosis, which is the process where the cells divide but in a way to have only half the usual number of chromosomes, becoming the cells needed for sexual reproduction. We mixed the so-called gametes with eggs we extracted from Hermione, and implanted some of the viable combined cells into her womb. As with muggle IVF, you use multiple cells, because the implant success is not perfect, so there is always the risk of multiple births. In her case, there is going to be another set of Weasley twins in a couple months."

Pansy looked sceptical. "You used muggle techniques? I wouldn't have thought that this was allowed by the Ministry, in a Ministry department."

Hermione smiled. "That's why the Ministry thinks that Bill is the father, and we would like to maintain that delusion. Both methods fall under the old pure-blood laws but this way it makes it seem like, for all my mudblood status and progressive ideas, I am holding to the 'old ways', like a proper little pure-blood wife. Little do they suspect that the old laws can be taken in ways they would never have thought of. The idiots."

Harry smiled at his sister-in-law, and nodded towards the Healer. "I see you have found a nitch for yourself when other people will lecture us as much as you do. Congratulations."

Pansy turned to look at the Healer, and her eyes narrowed. "I thought you had been murdered by the pure-blood supremacists!"

Healer Michaels nodded and smiled. "Another deception. You were supposed to think that. The Department confirmed the inbreeding trend many years ago, and tried to get the information out through the ministry, but the old fogeys kept suppressing it. So we published a paper in the Healer's literature, and then I disappeared, as if I had been killed. It was hoped that the murder of a Healer would shock people into taking it seriously, or at least push the more thoughtful into some action, by blaming the Purists. Word got around among the Healers, and was starting to have an effect. It was working, but very slowly, and then Voldemort returned, and there were more immediate issues with the supremacists. Issues which Lord Potter here handled as well as could be hoped given the power that the Death Eaters had, both physically and politically."

Pansy shook her head at this very long-term strategy. "But that would take too long to have results."

Ogden smiled. "Ah, yes, you indeed raise a point I wanted to bring to your attention. Part of the reason that we don't speak of our work is that we do keep an eye on what is happening in the muggle world, to the extent that quite a few in the magical world would try to shut us down, or worse, if they knew. So we make sure they don't know."

"We research new things, and old. Some parts of magic are very deep, and some beliefs our people hold are, quite frankly, stupid! Certainly, over the years, if the Wizengamot had known what we do, they would have shut us down, and probably had us executed for treason. To them, admitting that muggles could do things they couldn't, or even that muggles were human, was a treasonous thought. So we just don't tell them about it."

Harry decided to get to the point. "Then why tell us?"

Michaels smiled. "That kind of leads into the problems we wanted to talk to you folks about."

The three Unspeakables looked at each other and nodded. Lord Ogden began.

"Lord and Lady Potter. Lady Black. Harry, Ginny and Pansy. You have all fallen into some conceptual traps, and are making some bad decisions because of it. Some of those decisions have long-term consequences that we in the DOM have decided that we cannot allow to occur."

"A minor one, Harry, is that you're getting very tired, and are starting to make mistakes about people. Tell me, would you describe Augusta Longbottom as a radical, or as a conservative?"

Harry shook his head at this apparent change in direction, and said "She's about as conservative as anyone I have ever met."

Ogden nodded. "Harry, she supports the changes you and her grandson, and others like our Hermione here, are making. She is uncomfortable with the pace of the change, but she is behind you all the way. She knows your heart is in the right place, and you have helped her grandson become the man she wants him to be. She has been my friend for over a hundred years, and I can tell you that she, and many other conservative witches and wizards are not your enemies. But you are starting to see them as such. A tired man makes a lot of assumptions, and makes mistakes. People are generally uncomfortable with change, particularly if they have been a certain way for a long time. People get comfortable with what they know, what they grew up with. With a long lifespan, that really limits change. Which leads me to my next point."

"The main problem comes from the fact that Hermione here, and Harry were raised by muggles"

Harry started to stand up enraged, when Hermione and Lord Ogden raise their hands to halt him.

Hermione spoke. "Harry, the issue is that you and I were not exposed to one of the basic assumptions in the magical world. The issue is the fact that we live much longer than muggles typically do. It is not a matter of magicals being better, or any such thing, but a lot of magical society is based on lifespans of many more years. In some cases, like T.J. here, of almost two hundred. "

Ogden continued. "Lord Potter, your problem with the laws about the virility of Ancient Families is part of this fact. You have been trying to repeal the laws where a Head of House is emasculated. The fact is, like evolutionary theory, the basic laws about Ancient families are based on the need to produce the later generations. The basic essence of Magic itself does not care for the individual, but only for the continuation of the species, or specifically, the family. Given this essential fact, if the Head is no longer fertile, he is no longer, genetically, acceptable to 'Magic'."

Given this fact, the laws were passed to make the punishments for creating this situation, extremely onerous. Killing the Head of a Family was acceptable. Historically, that happened all the time. But creating a situation where a family was headed by a non-fertile person was unacceptable, to Magic itself!"

"In our work, we have found that magic, and we think of it with a capital M, is not just something we do, but an all-encompassing force of nature. Like gravity or evolution. A popular muggle movie from some years back talked about 'The Force' as a universal essence which has its own rules and features. Big 'M' Magic is like that, and the continuation of a major family gets woven into the fabric of Magic. That's why the designation of an 'Ancient' is so significant. 'Noble' may be a matter of opinion, but 'Ancient means that your family has become part of Magic itself. We suspect that this is one factor why your mother's sacrifice to protect you from Voldemort was so powerful."

Harry scowled. "But why was this horrendous punishment limited to injuries to wizards only?"

Michaels looked at his colleagues. "This one is mine. When these laws were instituted, it was in the 1200's. For one thing, society was even more patriarchal then, if that can be believed, and it was very rare that a witch was considered the Head of a family. Perhaps as regent for under-aged children if her wizard husband was killed, but that was about all. But more importantly, if a witch, as the rare Head of a Family, was injured to the point where she's was no longer fertile, it was very unlikely, at the time, that she could or would survive the injury. The combination of situations was sufficiently rare that essentially it was ignored."

Hermione added, "Harry, you may not be able to repeal the entire law, as you are facing the resistance of the Essence of Magic itself, but you could make it more fair. Propose that, now that Healers can treat injuries which would have been terminal in former times, witches be given the same legal protection and status afforded to wizards. And get rid of the references to pure-bloods only – that's just wrong! It may not seem much of an improvement, but it is a start. It may not cure all the wrongs we want to cure, but it does cure another, which is part of what we have been trying to do for a long time."

Harry looked at his two wives, and they nodded in agreement. It was not what they wanted to accomplish, but it was indeed a start. More, it did not address the problem of the 'Three Sisters'.

Ogden nodded as well. "This addresses the issue, which may have occurred to you, of why Dark Lords don't last very long."

Ginny looked puzzled. "Isn't it a matter that good people finally stand up to them, and overthrow them? Like Dumbledore did with Grindewald, and Harry and the rest of us did with Voldemort?"

Ogden shook his head. "Unfortunately not! A number of people have commented on how our people tend to act like sheep. We have been lied to and led by the nose, so many times, that we have let Dark Lords and Ladies, and corrupt politicians for that matter, run roughshod over us. Personally, I blame Hogwarts and in part, Albus Dumbledore."

At the shocked looks of the younger folks, he added, "Let me explain that comment. At Hogwarts, we become accustomed to having the Headmaster and the Professors telling us what to do, when to get up and so on, and basically having total authority over us. So when we get out into the world, we are used to, we have been trained, to blindly following instructions by powerful leaders."

"In the case of Dumbledore, partially by his own achievements, and partly due to his multiple powerful positions, almost nobody questioned anything he did. Harry, when you first put the kibosh on Voldemort, we in the Department were extremely curious, professionally, about what happened. I personally spoke with Minerva McGonagall, who had objected to Dumbledore leaving you with your relatives, but he said it was for the best, and in spite of her misgivings, she let it go. Dumbledore had spoken, and that was all there was to it. As a people, we have been trained not to question, not to rock the boat, not to rise up in anger."

Harry asked, "Did Professor McGonagall ever say who told everyone about me and what happened? Within the family, we have all wondered who let the word leak as to what happened, and what I looked like. Even to describing my scar in such detail. I could never figure out who let the story out. I mean, Hagrid couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it, but I think he would have been very upset if he had told people, particularly when Dumbledore said not to. How did I become so damned famous when supposedly only four people saw me after the event, and Sirius was immediately thrown into Azkaban!"

Ogden smiled. "None of them, as you phrased it, leaked the story and description. Remember, you live in a magical society. When one of the Ministry's chief seers, Madame Anne Roebuck, announced Voldemort's downfall and what happened, and this is confirmed by eight other respected seers and clairvoyants, the news was out, and the 'Boy-Who-Lived' had become a hero to our people."

"No Harry, the reason that Dark Lords, or Ladies for that matter, is that their ambitions are contrary to Magic itself. As I said, Magic doesn't really give a rat's ass about the individual, but for the continuation and the evolution of the magical people. The ambition of a Dark Lord is almost always for personal power, for just the one person. This is contrary to what Magic 'wants', if we can call it that. Now corrupt politicians with dynastic ambitions is something else, but a witch or wizard in it for only their personal power is against what Magic itself is about."

"No, Dark Lords don't last because Magic Itself intervenes. For the most part, Dark Lords don't exhibit a lifespan longer than for muggles, and often much shorter. I have to admit, sometimes this is assisted by their followers when those followers realize that the power he promised them was not forthcoming. They also seem to fall prey to muggle diseases that most magicals are immune to, like diabetes, syphilis, arthritis, and other degenerative diseases including most dementias."

"Healer Michaels here," nodding to his colleague, "did the autopsy on what was left of Voldemort's body after you first killed him. The name Riddle was rather appropriate, as the body was riddled with tumours, which would have killed him in a year or two anyway. We think the only reason he 'lived' if that is the correct word, to an age of seventy two was the years he was a disembodied spirit. It seems that those years didn't count against him."

"However, given our long lifespans, this is not to say that the influence of dark Lords cannot continue for a long time. And this, I am very sorry to say, is the essence of what brings us here today. Hermione, please?"

Hermione opened her briefcase and pulled out a number of picture frames, and passed them to Harry and his wives. The pictures showed a small group of late teenage and twenty-something people, surrounded by Death Eaters in full costume. The first frame showed the group being tattooed on their left forearms, by Voldemort as he was before his October 1981 banishment. The second showed the group showing off their new Dark mark tattoos, and the third showed them being given their black robes and masks. All three pictures were marked 'Marking Day, June 1981'.

Harry looked at the pictures in disgust, and turned to Hermione. "Where did you get these, and why are you giving them to us?"

Hermione looked like she was going to break into tears, and said simply, "Look carefully at the young couple on the left hand side. They are twenty seven years younger than when we saw them first, and when we saw them last. I'm so sorry, Harry. She fooled us both. I guess we now understand what she meant when she talked about dying for what she believed in."

Smiling as they were issued their Death Eater robes and masks were the mother and father of Harry's three young concubines.

Lord Ogden asked softly, "Harry, did you or Hermione suggest that you marry the three girls, or did their mother do so?"

Harry thought back the seven years to that stressful day. "It was their mother. It was Edna Groffle who suggested it. She said it was the only way to keep them from being executed with her and her husband. And then she smiled at me when I agreed." He hung his head and shook it side to side.

Harry turned to Hermione again. "Where the hell did you get these?"

Hermione was having trouble speaking, so Ogden spoke in her place. "Harry, you remember that Ron and Hermione were given quite a lot of the possessions of the Groffles when they were executed. Restitution. Their money and stuff was divided among the families of those he killed with his bomb, and the Weasleys got, among other things, a small sealed chest which was highly decorated, which indicated it was rather precious to them. The chest had some very elaborate wards on it, which is what brought Hermione into the Department in the first place. She asked for help getting into the chest to see what was in it. It took several years to break the wards and curses on it. Those were inside, as well as some other repugnant items."

"However, there was also this." Ogden handed Harry a parchment. It appeared to be written orders to all Death Eaters, and on it was written the words "The Potter Family is to be exterminated, by any means at our disposal. They have defied me, and this cannot to be tolerated! It is not to be tolerated! They have gone into hiding, but I have a traitor in their midst and we will find them. Whoever finds them first is to destroy them utterly. If it is possible, spread rumours to destroy their reputation. All respect for these muggle-loving blood traitors must be destroyed with their bodies. If you find them before I do, bring their bodies to me so that we can display them so that all will know our power and that none can hide from us." The parchment was signed 'Lord Voldemort'.

"And this." Ogden handed Harry a diary, written in a very different, and apparently feminine hand. The last few several pages, written just the blast that injured Ron and killed several of his teammates, detailed what the Groffles intended to do to kill the Weasley families, and all others of Harry's friends and allies. The last entry said simply, 'If we can't do it ourselves, the girls can. I will arrange it. Those naive bastards who killed Our Master can be fooled into accepting that the children were not involved. How better to take the mudblood and the blood-traitors down, than from inside their 'oh-so loving' family.' "

Harry looked like he was going to be sick. "How can this be true? If they were Marked, why weren't they at the Battle at Hogwarts. They obviously weren't there!"

Michaels shook his head. "They weren't at Hogwarts because they were both in hospital at the time. According to the diary, and I confirmed it, she was in Romania trying to recruit the dragons, and came down with a virulent case of dragon-pox. She was supposed to be back in England to take part in the battle, but was laid up for more than a month. The hospital records showed that at the time of the Battle, she became hysterical, yelling that she had to get back to her Master because he needed her. Of course, it was in English, so the local medi-witches had no idea what she was going on about, and thought it was just the fever, so she was heavily sedated "

"You know that Michael Groffle was the one who planted the bomb that was supposed to kill Ron. Just before the battle he was at a terrorist training camp learning about explosives. Just like the one that was supposed to kill Ron (sorry Hermione), he wasn't all that competent, and he was badly injured and was laid up in hospital with injuries that would have attracted official interest if he returned to England. Just like his wife, he was screaming that he had to get back, and was holding his left arm as if he was in pain, even more than from his injuries. We know now that they were being summoned through their Marks, but could not respond."

Ogden resumed his explanations, shaking the diary in his hand and flipping to earlier pages. "There are a lot of entries detailing how the two older girls and the son were trained to follow in Voldemort's footsteps. Some truly digusting stuff, and many of us who read it were sick several times. One very good point, if you can call it that, is that the youngest sister doesn't seem to be in on the plot. This entry here, about a year and a half before the bombing, started calling her a weakling and useless. One entry even calls her a disappointment, a traitor to her own family and a traitor to the Dark Lord. It doesn't detail why. Still another entry comments that she (the mother) would rather the third daughter had not been born, and she would like to kill her as a disgrace to wizarding kind, but didn't dare because the 'blankety-blank' Aurors were getting too close and if a daughter disappeared, things would be discovered which they could not allow to be seen."

Harry was shaking his head. He couldn't believe it. "How can this be? It can't be. They were just kids."

Hermione, who was in tears herself, said "Harry, there was a religious order, the Jesuits, who used to say that if you gave them a boy until he was seven, he was theirs for life. Elizabeth and Katherine were that and older."

Harry looked at the group. "What do we do now?"

Ginny and Pansy looked at Harry. Ginny said "If this is all true, then I don't want them anywhere near my children." Pansy added "Nor mine. They are a threat that I, and I see Ginny agrees, will not tolerate."

Ogden grimaced. "Lord Potter, we in the Department have the means for removing people. That is one of our Mysteries. "

Harry shook his head. "No! You can't. It's like with Sirius. They haven't had a trial, and you're just going to kill them?"

Ogden continued. "Potter, they were convicted under our laws when their parents were convicted. They have had their trial. And Harry, as the Head of their family, and their husband and guardian, under wizarding law you have the legal right to dispose of them."

Harry was getting irate now. "No! They were innocent kids. I married them to keep them from being executed! And that is one of the laws that needs to be changed – it is wrong! Completely wrong."

Now it was Hermione who spoke, pointing at the diary. "Harry, we were both taken in. Both of us. They were not innocent. You married them under false pretences. If you remember, their mother was the one who suggested that you marry them, and when you agreed, she was smiling. Sadly, now we know why she was smiling."

"Harry, as the Head of the Family, the law allows you to void your marriage to a concubine, when it is found that the conditions of such a marriage was a fraud. We were lied to and you were taken in by people who were very skilled at lying. We were convinced, primarily by our own prejudices but also by their Death Eater mother, that the girls were innocent. That was a lie, and we believed it. The Groffles lied by withholding the truth from us."

"And if I void the marriage?" Harry asked.

Hermione grimaced. "Then the original order of execution will be carried out. They will be sent through the Veil."

Harry shook his head again. "No! I cannot accept that as a solution!"

He turned to his oldest friend. "Hermione, you have told me that magic is based on the intent, yes?" She sadly nodded. He then continued, "In that case, the marriages were and are valid. They may have entered them under false pretences, or rather their mother arranged it under false pretense, but I did not. My intent was honest. That alone would, or should, make it valid."

Ogden shook his head while grimacing at Harry. "Potter, I think you are a naive sentimental fool. You are an idiot. I have lived through the rise and fall of five Dark Lords, well six if you count Voldemort's two tries for power as two. You need to get rid of them, permanently."

"Dark Lords are like cancers. Are you familiar with the disease?"

Harry indicated he knew of the disease, but did not understand the reference. His two wives know of the ailment, and did not understand either.

Healer Michaels entered the conversation again. "Cancer is a very nasty muggle disease, that we wizards and witches seem to be immune to as I mentioned before. Certain cells in the body mutate or break down, and start to grow uncontrollably. Parts of the primary tumour can break off and infect other parts of the body, eventually killing the sufferer. Most Healers believe that the way magic permeates our bodies prevents the mutations."

"What Lord Ogden is suggesting is that, like cancer, the followers of a Dark Lord will recruit others, the way a cancerous tumour can spread, or technically, to metastasize. So like a cancer, you have to either cut out the tumours, or kill them. Muggles have a range of chemicals, and radiation therapies, and surgery if the tumour is accessible. None of these treatments is pleasant, just like what we have to do with Dark Lords. And their minions. They have to be cut out, or killed. Otherwise they infect the entire population."

Ginny and Pansy looked at each other and nodded. Ginny said, "Harry, you know we love you and would support your decisions. But on this one, no! We will not have these girls, these monsters, anywhere near our kids. Your kids. They are threat we will not accept. Either they go, or you will never see your children again."

Harry and his wives looked at each other. "Well, I won't have them killed. Too damned many people died because of Voldemort. I had to kill too many myself. Those girls are victims of their parents' hatred, and their lies, victims of Voldemort's lies and his madness, just as much as my parents and all our classmates at Hogwarts. Victims of his hatred, just like me! Ginny, just as much as Fred. Perhaps, not by his own hand, but by the poison he spread. I can't. Their parents may have chosen the Dark Mark, but they had no choice. There's got to be another way. There has got to be!"

While Ogden shook his head, Hermione looked at her two colleagues, and quietly said "Aurora." The two other Unspeakables paused for a moment, and then nodded.