A/N: Hey look, it's after Thanksgiving! In fact, it's 2 weeks until Christmas. This chapter took forever to write, until I started writing Luna. I've never written Luna as a character before, and it was interesting enough to re-inspire my brain to focus on this story again. I hope you enjoy!


September 1 saw three sixteen-year-olds silently Apparate onto Platform 9 and 3/4, unnoticed entirely by the bustling witches and wizards thanks to the lack of noise announcing their arrival. Pulling their trunks along behind them, they made their way onto the forward-most car not reserved for Prefects, where they stowed their luggage.

"Alright, you two get to the Prefects' carriage," Harry said. "I'll wait for you and put up a Weasley-deflecting ward. We don't want that 'conversation' to happen here."

"You're forgetting, Potter, that the particularly gittish one is a Prefect, and there's no way of knowing that Dumbledore didn't make the Weaselette a Prefect for her year as well," Draco said. Harry smirked.

"Do you really think I forgot to account for that? Both of them will be deflected from speaking to you until we reach Hogwarts, I promise," he said, and they felt the tingle of his magic wash over them. Hermione shivered.

"I didn't know you could ward a person like that," she said.

"Technically, I just warded your robes," Harry replied. "It's temporary, only until we get to Hogwarts, though I could probably sew the runes on there to make it permanent if things go badly."

"Break out your sewing kit tonight then," Draco said. "It will go badly."

"Stop being such a pessimist," Hermione reproached him as they left Harry alone in the compartment to join the Prefects. Harry, for his part, cast the ward once again on the door to his compartment and waited for his friends to turn up. He snickered as Ron was forcibly moved past the compartment five times before he took the hint and fumed off towards the Prefects' Carriage. Ginny, he noted, got it immediately and headed off in search of another place to sit, meaning she hadn't been made Prefect. Idly, he wondered why; it wasn't like she was a major rule-breaker, as far as he knew, although being possessed by Lord Voldemort was perhaps enough of a black mark to prevent her selection. He wondered how disappointed Mrs. Weasley had been.

"What's got Ron in such a tizzy?" Neville Longbottom asked as he slid open the compartment door with no issues to sit across from Harry.

"I warded the compartment against him and Ginny," Harry said. "I really don't want to talk to them here."

"Why not?"

"Ron is less-than-likely to be pleased about Hermione's and my current living arrangements," Harry said. "Ardent Slytherinophobe that he is."

"What makes you think he won't just confront Hermione and Malfoy in the Prefects' Meeting?" Neville asked. Harry grinned.

"I warded their robes the same way. He'll be forced to ignore them until we get to Hogwarts," he said.

"When did you become such a proficient warder? And how did you make an anti-Weasley ward anyway?"

"I told my magic what I wanted and I cast a spell," Harry said. "It's more about my intent than any specific spells, really."

"Oh," Neville said, rather uncomfortable. There was about a minute's worth of awkward silence before the Longbottom Heir spoke again.

"So how are your current living arrangements, if you don't mind me asking?"

"They're good," Harry said. "I've never slept in a King-sized bed, much less with two other people, but it's surprisingly spacey."

"Just sleeping?" Neville teased his dormmate. Harry barely flushed.

"Of course not, Neville, we're unsupervised teenagers," he replied. "There's not a night that goes by that we don't shag at least twice before bed and at least once before breakfast."

"That might be what the Muggles call T.M.I, Harry Potter," a dreamy voice came from the entrance to the compartment. Luna Lovegood stood in the threshold, radish earrings dangling while she stared at him with her head tilted slightly to the left. "Congratulations on your Choosing."

"Thank you," Harry said, waving her into the compartment and shutting the door again behind her with a wave of his hand.

"How'd you do that?" Neville asked.

"Subterfuge," Harry replied. "You didn't notice, but my other hand was grasping my staff, which provided the actual magic to close the door. The hand I waved did nothing but wave."

"A most impressive trick," Luna noted. "It's nice to see Draco Malfoy has managed to bugger some seriousness out of you."

"Now who's giving out T.M.I?" Harry retorted. "I think you've broken poor Neville."

"He'll get over it," Luna said, not even bothering to look at the older Gryffindor boy as she conjured a small jug filled with water over his head and overturned it, breaking Neville out of his stupor with spluttering accusations.

"Do calm down, Neville, it's only water," the Ravenclaw replied to his incoherent questions. "You should hardly be surprised at that revelation, anyway. Those with eyes could see this relationship coming years ago, though perhaps not the specific circumstances that brought it together."

"How did you see Draco, Hermione and I getting together?" Harry asked, curious.

"Well, with you and Hermione, she's clearly the most important woman in your life. You don't trust any other females as much as you do her, and it would take something serious to break you apart and prevent any romantic feelings from coming to the forefront. It likely would have happened this year for you two, and once that happened Draco's long-harbored feelings for you would have snapped and he would have forced his way into your romantic life," the Ravenclaw said matter-of-factly. "Appearances aside, I'm sure he's a wonderful top. Do you enjoy your joinings?"

"Well, yes, he's rather fantastic," Harry said. "Hermione agrees, apparently, though as far as I know they've only been alone together once. Joinings?"

"Intercourse is such a dreadfully clinical word, and you can't really call male-on-male sex copulation because there is no chance of procreation. Since you are joined by the act, joining is an apt descriptive word."

Harry stared at her for a moment, head quirked to the right. She, in response, quirked hers to the left and stared back.

"Merlin I'm glad I'm not in Ravenclaw," Harry finally said.

"Ravenclaw is glad you aren't in her either," Luna replied. "But that's because she hasn't seen you naked and doesn't believe what Myrtle said she saw in the Prefect's Bath two years ago."

Neville groaned. "Please stop before I have to drink all of Seamus' contraband firewhiskey tonight to forget about this conversation."

"Do you not find the ghost population's opinion of Harry's genitalia fascinating?" Luna asked, before tsk'ing Neville. "Gryffindors. So limited."

The conversation was mercifully stopped temporarily by the train's departure from King's Cross. When Neville resumed it, it was on a topic he was certain neither Harry nor Luna would be able to turn into further discussion of Harry's sex life or genitalia.

He was, naturally, wrong.

"So was it weird, having an ice pop there?" Luna asked.

"Not as weird as you might think," Harry said, ignoring Neville who had gone to banging his head against the windowsill in a half-hearted attempt to knock himself unconscious. "The oddest bit is the difference in temperature, and you have to make sure to have an ever-cool and a preservation charm on it so it doesn't melt."

"Naturally," Luna said. "And you said this was something you picked up in the Muggle world?"

"I heard a couple people discussing it on a bus once," Harry said. "I was a combination of confused, aroused, and horrified."

"Yes, because for Muggles it would always melt, which would be very sticky and awkward for later activity," Luna said.

"Exactly," Harry said, before the conversation was interrupted once again by a knock on the compartment door.

"Hello, Harry, Luna…why is Neville trying to knock himself out?" Hermione asked once Harry released his magical lock on the door.

"They won't stop talking about the weird things you three get up to in bed," Neville helpfully supplied. "Please make them stop."

"Harry James Potter!" Hermione exclaimed, drawing her wand and sending a series of Stinging Hexes at the young Grey, three of which connected and drew yelps of pain from Harry before he managed to shield himself from the rest of them. Hermione stormed all the way into the compartment and shut the door behind her, glaring Harry into submission before turning a kinder expression towards Neville.

"I'm so sorry, Neville. Would you like me to Obliviate you of the conversation or merely look the other way while you raid Seamus' trunk tonight?"

Neville's eyes widened at the offer of Obliviation. Given what had happened to his parents, the idea of someone meddling with his mind was quite off-putting. Not to mention a small part of him wanted to keep some of the images Harry and Luna's conversation had placed within his brain.

"The latter," he squeaked out. Harry grinned a knowing grin behind Hermione's back, while the Light Lady merely said, "If you're sure," before taking a seat next to Harry.

"Where's Draco?" Harry asked.

"He's doing his rounds, supposedly with Ron but Weaselbee hasn't been able to get within ten feet of us and every time he opened his mouth to shout nothing came out," Hermione said. Harry's grin became a full-blown smile.

"Excellent. And Ickle Gin-Gin didn't turn up to be a Prefect, right? I saw her heading the opposite way from Ronnie when they got bounced away from the door."

"No, she's not. I imagine Molly was most disappointed."

"Well, I never heard any berating shrieks from my house, so she can't have been too upset," Luna offered.

"So, who's excited for another delightful school year?" Harry asked.

"I wouldn't imagine you," Neville said. "Dumbledore and Snape are undoubtedly going to do their best to make your life even more difficult unless you submit to the Headmaster's will again, and that's not even accounting for the reaction you'll get from the student body for pulling both Draco and Hermione."

"I only submit to one man," Harry said. "And it sure as hell isn't Dumbledore or Snape."

"Aren't you a little worried, though?" Neville asked.

"No," Harry said. "Neither of them are any real threat to me, and I've got a plan that will see Voldemort gone by the end of the year."

"Really?" Neville asked.

"Really," Harry said. "He has to be dealt with this year so I can really enjoy at least one of my years at Hogwarts."

"And by enjoy, you mean…"

"Enjoy, of course," Harry said. "Of course, I know the Expansion Charm and the exact number of broom cupboards in Hogwarts, so how I go about enjoying might be different from how you would."

"You can say that again," Neville mumbled. "Why can't you just prank the Slytherins endlessly like Fred and George?"

"Because I'm shagging one of them, Neville my lad, and it would be incredibly rude of me to exempt him from the prank, but doing so might lose me sex privileges. You see my dilemma," Harry said.

"No, because there's only two Slytherins I would even consider putting myself in your shoes for, and both of them are already contracted," Neville countered.

The rest of the trip to Scotland was filled with similar banter, until Luna accused Harry of behaving like Captain Jack Harkness, which shut him up because he didn't want to draw any similarities between himself and a fictional character who killed space aliens with handguns and shagged Welsh tea boys. On the other hand, the immortality was a plus, but it didn't offset the Welsh-tea-boy-shagging.

Draco rejoined them as they were crossing the border, while Hermione left to take her turn roaming the train in search of mischief and misbehavior.

When they arrived at Hogsmeade, Draco and Harry reunited with Hermione and along with Neville and Luna quickly found a carriage to bring them up to the castle. This year everyone could see the Thestrals, an event which was marked soberly and not commented on further.

Crossing over the threshold of Hogwarts, through the great wooden doors and into the Entrance Hall, Harry froze upon seeing what was between him and the Great Hall: a highly incensed Ron Weasley, with a nervous Ginny behind him.

"What the Hell d'you think you're playing at, Potter?"

"I beg your pardon, Prefect?" Harry asked, his eyes narrowed and his voice cool.

"What in Merlin's name possessed you to kidnap Hermione and force her to shack up with you and that ruddy snake Malfoy?" the redhead asked, looming over Harry, who was mentally cursing the Dursleys for ensuring his short stature. "How could you turn her into a brood mare for you and your Dark pouf butt buddy?"

Now both Draco and Hermione's eyes narrowed, and both reached for their wands until Harry held up a hand to stop them.

Ron, on the other hand, continued. "How could you do that to your friend, Harry? Friends don't let friends fuck Malfoys."

"Makes you a shitty friend then, doesn't it?" Harry replied calmly.

"What?"

"We've both been fucking him for two weeks without any interference from you," Harry said. "If you were our friend like you claim to be, we wouldn't have been able to do so."

"I had no idea where you were!"

"Well a real friend would have moved heaven and earth to find his two missing friends if he was truly worried about them doing the nasty with Draco Malfoy, instead of sitting around bitching about his crappy Quidditch team's continuing failures while other people did all the searching, for all the good it did them," Harry said, a grin developing on his face as he saw the effect his words were having on Ron.

"You dirty son of a bitch!" the Gryffindor Prefect shouted, pulling his wand. "I'll –"

What, exactly, Ron would have done was a mystery for the ages, as he fell unconscious to the ground. Harry looked quickly at Draco and Hermione, both of whom still had their wands stowed away in their robes. Looking forward once again, he saw Ginny with her wand raised and pointing at her brother's back.

"He always was as big a git as Percy, even if he expressed it in the complete opposite way," she said softly as she approached Harry.

"Hi Gin," Harry said. "How was your summer?"

"A great deal less interesting than yours," she replied.

"Pity," Harry said. "I take it you don't agree with what Ron was yelling about?"

"Of course not!" she said, seeming hurt that he could think she would think he would do any of the things Ron was accusing him of. "Only a bloody idiot would believe Dumbledore's bullshit story about you and Malfoy abducting Hermione to turn her into a brood mare to continue your Family Lines while you fucked each other silly…though that second part is a delicious mental image."

Harry thought he saw Draco preening out of the corner of his eye.

"No, however you got together and why, it's not for whatever he thinks. I heard a little of what you spent August doing, and I want you to know that I'm behind you, regardless of whatever position the rest of my family takes," she said, before dropping to one knee and raising her wand to point at Harry.

"I, Ginevra Weasley, do swear fealty and service to Harry Potter, in repayment of a Life Debt incurred June of 1993. I swear to use my person and skills to help him achieve his aims until such a time as he considers the debt repaid, or until my own death. May Magic Bless and Guide Him."

A golden light shot out of her wand and hit Harry, who responded "I accept the service of Ginevra Weasley, and offer her my personal protection, that those in her Family who fail to see reason may know that she may not be harmed."

A golden light left his staff and hit Ginny, who rose with a smile. The spells faded and she embraced him in a hug.

"Congratulations, Harry. I would have rather it had been me you married, but I can't fault Magic's choices."

"Thank you, Ginny," Harry said. "Shall we stop holding the rest of the student body up and head into the Great Hall?" This suggestion was met by a grin from Ginny and raucous applause from the students that had surrounded the confrontation. Harry and Ginny entered the Great Hall, while Hermione and Draco lingered in the Entrance Hall near the unconscious body of Ron.

"Remember, Draco," Hermione said, touching the blond's arm before heading for the Great Hall herself. "Only maiming."

"Yes, dear," Draco said. "I'll see you and Harry after the feast." Hermione nodded and entered the Great Hall, leaving Draco alone with Ron.

"Reennervate," he muttered, pointing his wand at Ron, who awoke with a start. Draco then levitated him so that his feet were dangling a foot off the ground, and picked up the redhead's wand from where it had rolled from his lax grip.

Fear was present in Ron's visage as he saw Malfoy holding his wand. Draco gave serious consideration to snapping it, but settled for banishing it down the corridor that lead to the dungeons. With all the dark shadows and crannies, he wished the Weasel best of luck in finding it.

"I am very displeased with the words that came out of your mouth a few minutes ago, Weasley," Draco said. Ron whimpered.

"In fact, I would be well within my rights as a Lord of Magic, and bond-mate of two others of equal or higher rank, to kill you in any way I desire for the insults you heaped upon us," he said, starting to circle a Weasley that had begun to panic.

"You know who my ancestors are, of course," he said, completing one circuit around Ron and looking up to see pure fear. "You know very well that I know what some would consider an unholy number of ways to murder you in a fashion most ghastly."

Ron whimpered again and nodded.

"Fortunately for you, the Lady Granger has forbidden me from killing your worthless ginger arse. But I am permitted to maim you, or otherwise non-fatally harm you. So I shall," Draco said. "But how…" He tapped his wand-point to his chin several times while watching Weasley squirm against the levitation charm and begin to openly panic.

With the speed and viciousness of a cobra, Draco struck. Five spells left his wand, and he entered the Great Hall as Ron Weasley collapsed to the ground bleeding from the severed tips of his pinky fingers, covered in boils while his body hair arranged itself into several amusing and slightly homo-erotic shapes, one of which was his lower-back hair lengthening and shaping itself into a large sex toy that probed at the offensive Weasel's arse.

As much as he wanted to join Harry, Hermione and Harry's new vassal at their table, protocol demanded that he sit with his House and attempt to placate their anger with his new allegiance.

WOW A LINEBREAK WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?

Albus Dumbledore surveyed the returning students' entrance with narrowed eyes, especially as Harry and Hermione entered arm-in-arm, with Ginny Weasley in tow, followed shortly thereafter by Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood and the rest of the student body. Draco Malfoy did not enter until well after the rest of the students, and Ron Weasley didn't enter at all. What else he found interesting was that Malfoy still made for the Slytherin table, and did so without even the slightest acknowledgment of Harry and Hermione.

As he settled at the Slytherin table with perfect Pureblood grace, Minerva's Patronus approached Albus and asked him to send Poppy out to the Entrance Hall without any elaboration. She rose immediately and headed out, an action followed by the eyes of Potter and Granger, who immediately shifted their gaze to Malfoy, who simply nodded and grinned, then tapped his wrist where a watch would normally be. Both nodded back and returned to their conversations with Ms. Weasley and Mr. Longbottom.

Neither Ron Weasley nor Poppy had returned to the Hall by the time Minerva entered with the First Years, nor did they return by the time he rose to give his few pithy words that cued the house elves to send the food up from the kitchens.

"What did you require Poppy for, Minerva?" Albus asked his deputy quietly as he picked out a small selection of food.

"Somebody had viciously cursed young Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said. "Removed both of his pinky finger-tips, covered him in boils and cursed his body hair to arrange itself into most vulgar and offensive shapes."

"I see," Dumbledore said. "I shall have to investigate this. I believe I know the culprit, but it would be nice to hear his side of the story."

"I'm not sure if there's anything that can justify those actions," McGonagall said.

"We shall see," Dumbledore said, before returning to his dinner.

HEY REMEMBER I PROMISED SOME VOLDEMORT IN THIS CHAPTER?

The vaguely-man-like-substance known as Lord Voldemort sat lazily on his throne decorated in skulls, idly sending low-to-mid-level torture curses at the Muggle that was slowly revolving over the long dining room table in the Manor's Formal Dining Room. His dinner sat mostly unfinished as he was lost in thought concerning the events of the last few weeks.

Starting the night he had intended to Mark Lucius' brat when the child had dropped to a knee screaming Potter's name before being enveloped in a black light and disappearing. Severus reported that Potter had disappeared the same night, though Dumbledore was trying to keep it quiet.

Then, at the end of the week, he'd felt a sudden weakening, like a large amount of his power had been siphoned off. Meditation told him that it wasn't any of his innate power that he'd lost, and he still had a substantial amount, but most of the extra power he'd received from his Judgment Ritual was now gone. A reference check of the book where he'd found the Judgment Ritual informed him that the only way such an event could occur was if another in Britain underwent the Ritual and was granted his rank. Furious that another would claim to be a Lord of Dark Magic, he'd killed two house-elves and a Muggle before calming down.

Then, Potter – along with Malfoy and Granger – appeared before the Wizengamot for Potter to take his family's seat, clearly Marked as survivors of Judgment Rituals. Potter had come out as a Force, a Grey Force no less, which had Voldemort slightly worried. He would have had difficulty overcoming a Force with all of his power, weakened as he had been by Potter's Dark – the Malfoy brat – he was worried it might not be possible.

Lately, Potter's actions had been almost entirely anti-Dumbledore, and he had seemed to ignore Voldemort. This confused the descendant of Salazar Slytherin, especially as the boy had previously been quite focused on thwarting his every plan, in league with Dumbledore.

He knew more research was needed, especially into the excuses Potter had given the Wizengamot to counter Dumbledore's objections, to get to the bottom of this situation. Right now, Potter seemed intent to ignore him, so Voldemort was going to take full advantage of this to find out everything he could about the changes in his teenaged nemesis. The Death Eaters had grumbled about the scaling back of operations, but he'd cursed them until they'd agreed.

Killing the Muggle, he called Nagini in for her dinner as he headed back to the Library to begin anew his search for information about Chosen Trios.


A/N: So, that's that! Unfortunately, I can't give you any concrete information about Ch. 10, because I'm posting this just after I finish it and have not started even conceptualizing the next chapter. If I had to hazard a guess, though, judging by the hints I dropped in this chapter, the Trio will meet up, Dumbledore will talk with at least Draco and maybe all of them, and Voldy will try to get in touch with his inner Slytherin and be clever.

I hope to have the next chapter up before Valentine's Day. We'll see.

Until then,

Phoenix II