AN: if I remember correctly the Potters were from Wales, but I wanted to Minerva to feel homely so I changed that to Scotland.
AN: I am not English, Scottish, French, Welsh or Italian so I hope I did not put my foot in my mouth by either saying something insensitive or wrong. I just knew that there is a fair amount of noble families from France in Brittan, so I made up an origin for one person based on that. I also knew that the Romans were unable to defeat the Clans living in what is now Scotland and therefore building the Hadrian's Wall, so I used that part for an Origin too. Maximus Thrax seemed to have accomplished something noteworthy, with becoming an emperor while originating from no noble family so I used his name too.
Harry was quite astounded. He and the group stood in front of an iron gate bearing the Potter crest. The walls around the gate were made from black bricks of undistinguishable nature and were easily ten meters high. The walls bore no signs of any decoration, besides the small obelisks cut from the same black material and bristling with enough magical power to be perceptible by the groups newly enhanced magical senses. The magic emanated from the obelisks felt aggressive were the magic the wall itself emitted was purely defensive.
Behind the gate a paved path led up to the castle, which throned upon a cliff overlooking a Scottish loch that could have been copied from some documentation.
Harry stepped forwards to the gate, opened his pocket dimension and pulled out the key adorned with the same crest as the gate, only to look for a lock or key-hole that wasn't there. It took him a few seconds to see the small dent on top of the crest. The crest on his key had a small hole there, he deducted from this that he had to press the key onto the same spot. As he did it his key slid halfway into the crest and turned itself abruptly, drawing a small amount of blood from his hand. A faint glow surrounded the crest and the gates opened, after releasing the key again. It would have dropped on the ground, if it weren't for Harry reflexes catching the key and stowing it away again into the pocket dimension.
"Well this looks like an invitation." Harry chuckled and walked forwards onto the path set out in front of him. Behind the gate a paved path on both sides limited by hedges led to a rondell from which three other paths led onwards. The hedges obscured the view onto anything but the castle and the monoliths that seemed to be placed every 50 or so meters. The Rondell consisted of a few granite benches surrounding a bronze statue of a dragon, the statues pillar was again adorned by the Potter crest.
"Does one of you know how to say which of the paths leads to the Castle?" Harry half joked.
"I know quite surely that if we take the wrong one, we will be lost in the maze for quite some time." Narcissa said.
"Why so?" Penelope asked.
"That's a wandering hedge. These things are semi conscious and shift as soon as you turn the wrong corner." Narcissa answered.
"Additionally it's bred to be spell resistant." Andromeda added.
"You know this plant?" Amelia asked.
"Black manor has this too. It's a security feature that most ancient manors have. Nowadays you are not allowed to import them from what was originally Sparta." Narcissa answered.
"What about flying over it?" Harry asked.
"If you want to get toasted by those monoliths give it a try. They surely aren't there for decorative purposes." Amelia said.
"So we have to walk through the maze and if we go the wrong way we are royally screwed?" Harry asked.
"Language Harry!" Minerva said.
"Why that? I am not a child." Harry exclaimed indignantly.
"We have to train you now. Otherwise you will start cussing in front of the children and we can't allow this." Minerva explained with a smirk.
Harry who was a little bit annoyed by that stared at the statue in the middle of the rondell and as he saw that again the crest was missing a piece which was depicted om the key. He took the same out to test if he again could use the key. Immediately after turning and drawing blood two of the three paths closed themselves and the remaining one straightened out so that only it remained and led directly to the castle's front gate.
"Well do you want to see where we are going to love ähm live of course?" Harry asked.
"Freudian slip?" Andromeda grinned.
"Maybe it was one, right now I really want to see the castle. Could you all stop teasing me?" Harry asked and walked into the direction of the castle.
"What's a Freudian slip?" Narcissa asked her sister.
"He said what he thought instead of what he wanted to say. That is a Freudian slip." Andromeda explained.
"Oh Harry you naughty boy." Narcissa said teasingly.
Harry tried to ignore it, but turned beet red.
From Harry's viewpoint the castle seemingly had a circular outline. The Massive gate in front of the group wasn't adorned and if not for the arch which span about 7 meters it would not been distinguishable from the wall around the gate. The castle walls were made from joint-less white granite. The windows in the walls were sunk about 50 centimeter deep into the walls. There was only one tower which was not part of the castle walls but stood in the middle of what supposedly was the castle's central court. It was about thirty to fifty meters higher than the highest tower of Hogwarts. The castle itself neither had merlons nor had it any of the obelisks which had been on the outer wall. The top of the castle walls was protected against intruders by making them a steep slope, so that anyone who tried to land on top of the walls would immediately slide down back into the maze. Against magical aggressors the Stone possesed the ability to absorb any magic thrown at it or used in its proximity, thereby strengthening the wards, runes and offensive capabilities originating in the central tower. Therfore pairing a nearly perfect defense with and reflective offense that was quite dangerous for itself.
Arriving in front of the gate Harry looked for the crest to repeat the trick again, but failed to find anything.
"Damn it, I hoped it would have been that easy, but seemingly I was wrong." Harry cussed only to earn himself a slap on the back of his head, this time it was from Penelope, who started giggling about his scandalized look.
"No cussing Harry and what did you hope to be easy?" She asked as she had herself back under control again.
"I hoped to open the front door the same way I unlocked the gate and the maze."
A droning noisy voice then intoned from nowhere. "Would using the same key for three doors not be an idiotic idea? No the Potters always had an incredible mind for puzzles. Who would think to neutralize two hindrances who work completely different the same way? Exactly no one, but if you have gotten that far you would automatically look to open the third hindrance the same way, so you have to change the modus operandi, to make the puzzle safe again. But there is also something else. Sometimes a puzzles solution is hidden inside the puzzles you have done before. Try thinking outside the box Harry you've got everything you need to solve the puzzle and prove yourself a real Potter."
Absolutely flabbergasted Harry asked. "Who are you? Where are you?"
Minerva got an idea. "Harry I think you ask the wrong question, I think you rather have to ask what are you. "
"You've got a clever mate there Milord." The voice replied.
"So what are you then?" Harry asked.
"Milord you know that Magicians are able to copy the personality of a Person into a picture. Why do you think the only place you can copy a personality into is a picture?"
"So you are a person's mind and personality copied into something else? What are you copied into?" Harry asked.
"Yes I am the personality and mind of the architect of Potter castle, exactly said I am the personality of the third Lord Potter, Lord Maximus Potter, to your service. I control the wards and protections of Potter castle. Together with my father Hadrian Potter second Lord Potter and my grandfather the first Lord Potter Pasqual Potter we have been the instructors and guardians of the Potters for centuries. Each and every Lord and Lady Potter and his or her heirs have learned from our knowledge, our deeds and our mistakes."
"Pasqual and Maximus seem not to be very Scottish names and Hadrian also seems to be an unwise choice for a Scottish Lord." Minerva noted.
"My Grandfather was a French nobleman who fought besides his distantly related English family and for his deeds, namely the destruction of an enemy's army here at this loch. He was awarded the title Lord of this area by the king under whose command he had fought. His wife was a witch from Rome and could trace her line back to the wizards that fought in the roman legions so all of us got named after roman emperors. Father was named after Hadrian as she thought it fit. I was named after Maximus Thrax, the emperor from common origin, as my mother was not of noble origin, but my father loved her for her brilliance and in my grandmother's outdated views she was unworthy of her only son." The now identified voice said. "But if you don't want to stand in the storm that is brewing right now I would suggest for you to solve the final puzzle and get your and your bonded wives into the entry hall. We can discuss your or mine ancestry in the comfort of the main office or main sitting room."
Harry saw the truth in it and got to work, trying to solve the puzzle, which was the entrance to Potter castle. While he did so his wives knowing that he had to solve the riddle for himself started questioning the voice.
"How did you know that we are his wives?" Narcissa asked, intrigued by the idea of a fully sentient castle.
"I can sense the Lordship rings and keys in his and your pocket dimensions. It's a feature for the current Lord to know how important his guests are even if they try to hide it. I can sense the lineage they belong to. I also was able to sense that they were matching. Now may I ask you a few questions?" Maximus asked.
"Of course you can." Narcissa immediately answered trying to get every bit of information out of the guardian,by humorin him. But still she feelt a little bit stupid while talking to empty space.
"Are that dragon forms I sense on each of you? Am I right in the assumption that all of you are pregnant with milord's children? And why does his magical signature nearly match the one of the grand wizard Merlin?"
"That answer to all of those questions belongs together.
Merlin was appeased by the butchering of the mind of the dragons of old and therefore used a ritual that sealed his descendants magic for the next 400 lives to create a counteragent to the spell used to butcher the mind of the dragons.
He created the agent by using the skeleton of the last dragon of old. The skeleton would fuse with the first magical child of his descendants and therefore create humans with the ability to become dragons.
This ability was designed to breed true. The motivation for the next thing he did was to weaken his guilt.
He felt remorse for taking his descendants' magic and therefore made sure that the ones that inherited magic would have a life as long as a dragons and a live-long relationship with a person they truly love.
The only way he knew to do so was to create a soul-bond between any person his descendants would have sexual intercourse with and also giving them the abilities his descendants have.
Harry's mother was the first witch of that line in which the magic resurfaced, but somehow the dragon's bones and she did not fuse. Harry on the other hand did and voila. He became the first human with the ability to change into a dragon and inherited his ancestor's magical signature partially. That answered two of the three questions.
The one about us being pregnant is also related to the dragons. Harry had been cursed with a curse that forced him either to have sex for three days constant or die. The evil thing about the curse was that it also switched of any inhibition he had, so he would have raped anyone coming close to him if they would not have done so willingly."
"Rapiet tibi femina triduo mortis poena?" Maximus asked with disgust in his voice.
"Yes that one. To my shame I have to say that my son was the one who had cast that curse and the family magic of house Black either left me the choice to die or submit to Lord Blacks will completely. At this point the only thing in Lord Blacks mind was copulating so, as i was unwilling to die, I submitted myself to his will. The other four had submitted themselves freely to cure Harry from the curse and were also having sexual intercourse with him. None of us knew that he had gained that ability and he was in no position to tell us.
The magic giving us the ability to transform too ensured our fertility and counteracted the effects of any potions we had taken. Therefore we became pregnant and bound to him in marriage." Narcissa concluded her explanations, just to be startled by the exclamation of Harry.
"I got it."
