The Plague Ship
Synopsis: What might have happened if Sirius had been a bit more proactive after the dementor attack on Harry and Dudley? AU, and Hermione had not gone to Grimmauld Place, deciding to spend time with her family. No super-powered Harry.
Timeframe: Starting early August 8, 1995, then continuing afterwards
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Potterverse, so quit asking for loans or donations.
Warning: Discussion of marriage contracts, good and bad. Some people get their knickers in a twist about this kind of thing, so you have been warned! So there.
Chapter 11: Minerva's Farewell Lesson
Professor McGonagall shook her head and asked, "Mr. Potter, may I ask you exactly what is wrong with Miss Bulstrode's marriage contract, and why you are so keen to overturn it? I would have thought that she was one for whom you would wish nothing but ill, and yet you wish to help, or to do something that you think will help. With your best intentions, of course, but what is it that you find wrong with it? What precisely is wrong with it, in your eyes?
Harry Potter looked shocked at this statement from his Head of House. He looked at her and said, "Aren't all marriage contracts bad? They force people to marry people they aren't in love with. That's bad. Isn't it?" He looked puzzled.
McGonagall smiled sadly. "Is it? Mr. Potter, I know that we have failed you in many ways during your time here at Hogwarts. There are some of us who had forgotten that, for all your fame in our world, you were raised apart from the society which should have been your birthright. For most magical children, they are taught the ways of our society as they grow up, but you were denied this early education, but people assume that you would know it all anyway. If, as we here seem to feel, you must leave the place which I hope has been your true home these four and a half years, this may be my last chance to make up for at least some of these failures.
"Had the world been kinder to you, your parents would have taught you many things that your relatives definitely would not have, and did not do. You have had so little time with your godfather, who himself seemed to have little time for the formalities of our society, due both to his nature and the fact that he was disowned from his family at fifteen.
"Harry, we magical folk live longer lives than our non-magical counterparts, and families have had time to accumulate great fortunes or at least many heirlooms, be they of great value or no. Marriage contracts are very common among us, as they are in many cultures around the world.
"I know that the Patil sisters, for example, have marriage contracts arranged for them by their parents. Their parents consulted them about the arrangements, and they definitely had the right to refuse the choices of future mates. Moreover, their parents took the future happiness of their children as the essential feature of the contracts. Were they wrong to do so? In Indian society such contracts are very common."
Harry shook his head, rejecting this argument. "My parents married for love. They didn't have a contract. The Weasleys didn't have a contract!"
Minerva smiled. "Are you sure about that?"
Harry again was shocked. "I would have known. I would have been told, wouldn't I?"
His Professor smiled and shook her head. "Harry, as with many things since you came back to our world, people might have thought you already knew."
Then taking pity on the boy she added, "No, your parents (may they rest is peace, for I miss them still) married for love, without a contract. The Weasley and Prewitt families did make up a contract, but only after Molly and Arthur had fallen in love here at Hogwarts."
"Harry, marriage contracts are how many of the old families maintained their property and set out lines of inheritance. When a wizard might live for a century and a half, and particularly if he has married a muggle woman (yes, it does happen, although not often in the more problematic pure-blood families), he is likely to outlive her, and might have a second family by a second wife. Without contracts to lay out expectations, responsibilities and inheritances, fratricide was quite likely and unfortunately did occur frequently.
"If you take a look at the lines of succession in old Royal families such as the Ottomans and the Mogul empires, you would see that the lives of younger brothers tended to end abruptly and painfully, or else the younger siblings were married off in far countries never to return, or else they might be blinded or crippled so that they would not represent any threat to the head of the family who was to inherit the throne.
"Contracts were also a way of announcing that families had strong common interests or were allied politically. The contracts serve a similar function to a last will and testament, but were in effect while the people were still among the living."
"Now, Harry, I agree with you that Miss Bulstrode's marriage contract is an abomination, but not solely because it is a marriage contract. In her case, she was not consulted on the matters. The contract was set down to require the eldest boy of either family and the eldest girl of the other. If the late Vincent Crabbe had had an older sister, then it would have been Millicent's older brother Michael who would be bound be the contract. This was purely a matter of the family alliances, with no regard for the wishes of the young people bound by the terms. In fact, her contract did not even refer to the current generation, but it is only now that the Crabbe family had sons of marriageable age and appreciable magical power at the same time as the Bulstrodes had a daughter with similar characteristics – the contract was actually written over a hundred and twenty years ago.
"Unfortunately, such contracts are common among the so-called high-born families. Even the 'sexual training' clauses that she told you about are not at all uncommon.
"No, the worst part of her contract, and I must say the one between the Malfoy and Parkinson families, which now requires the marriage of Draco Malfoy and Pansy's younger sister Nasturtium, should they both survive until her seventeenth birthday (which given Mr. Malfoy's recent actions is doubtful), is that they are terrible in terms of the genetics. The Bulstrode and Crabbe families have intermarried multiple times over the last three centuries. The Malfoy and Parkinson families have also inter-married almost exclusively for the last five centuries. The only reason that Lucius Malfoy wed Narcissa Black was that they only surviving female in the Parkinson line at the time was a squib, and so the contract allowed for alternatives (I must point out that the poor girl seems to have completely disappeared, and I fear foul play may have been involved, sparing the pure-blood family the social embarrassment).
"There are a group of about seven of the supposedly high ranking magical families who have been interbreeding to the point where it is rare for one of their children to be both intelligent and magically gifted. They often have but one child, or none. Of course, they deny these facts, and infanticide is not uncommon, although never mentioned in polite society.
"All these supposedly superior families have been breeding themselves into extinction, or at least stupidity. Inbreeding works to strengthen the bloodlines to a point, but these families passed that point about two hundred years ago. Many of your Slytherin classmates, who have caused you so much grief over the years here, are the results.
"Miss Bulstrode's contract is a continuation of this insane practice. That is why it is a bad thing, in my considered opinion.
"Harry, our ways are different than what your relatives brought you up to believe. I would think, given how they brought you up, you might see this as a good thing. You know our magical world is different from the one you grew up in, and at one time you saw this as being wonderful. I have myself hear you say that you loved magic.
"I believe there is a muggle saying about throwing out the baby with the bath water. I know that we have a lot of work to do in curing our society of its ills, but please make sure that you preserve the good in our world at the same time. It is your world as well as mine, and I happen to like some of it."
She then straightened up to her full height, said sadly and more formally, "Harry, I have enjoyed having you as a student. However, your presence at Hogwarts not only puts your own life in danger, but those around you as well. A poorly aimed killing spell might miss you and harm others. As your Head of House, Deputy Headmistress, and the one who sent the letter inviting you to come to Hogwarts, it is my sad duty to have to ask you to leave." With this, the normally dure Scottish witch burst into tears and held out her arms to Harry. Not knowing what else to do, he went to her and gave her a heartfelt hug.
Harry turned to Dumbledore and asked, "But where can I go? I can't speak French very well, and my German and Bulgarian might as well not be mentioned at all. What school will take me like this?"
Dumbledore's eyes took on their usual twinkle. "Funny you should mention that. I have had a chat with Olympe Maxime at Beauxbatons, and she had agreed to accept you as a student. I believe you have some friend enrolled there already. Oh, and you may need these."
The Headmaster handed Harry a small booklet and a card. Dumbledore smiled and said, "The General passed those on to me to give to you. It seems that, when you were given asylum, you were also granted French citizenship. It's your passport and your official government identity card."
Harry shook his head. "But I just pointed out, my French is terrible. I won't be able to understand the lessons. What's the point? I might as well go to America or to Canada."
The thought of Harry actually going overseas obviously horrified the senior wizards and witches. The colonies, indeed.
Harry smiled – another example of the British sense of superiority. France was at least another European country with a long history, but the Americas had not 'history' unless you were willing to accept the magical practices of the native population, and that just would not do.
The Headmaster's eyes twinkled again. "Harry, you may not have heard about a Mastery level spell, that someone leaked in some books that the muggles thought were what they call Science-Frictional books, or something like that. It is a charm that allows you understand any language, by coupling a speaker's surface thought to your auditory nerves. In the books, they accomplished this with a creature called a Babel Fish, which you stuck in your ear. The spell allows you to hear only the surface thoughts, so it is nothing like the Legimency spells which probe the deeper mind. And unlike the Babel Fish, it also allows you to pick up a new language within a week or two, and Madame Maxime has arranged for you to have an immersion course in the French language for the first couple weeks of the winter term, to be taught by some rather pretty ladies of your previous acquaintance. Will that help?"
Harry Potter nodded reluctantly. If he had to go, he would need all the help he could get. Dumbledore drew his wand and made a series of intricate movements, and finally said, "There, done. Minerva, if you would?"
Harry had never heard his Head of House say anything so obscene and profane in his time at Hogwarts. He was shocked that his favourite professor would say such things, or even that she knew such words! He exclaimed, "I thought only the boys in the dorm said things like that!" His elders laughed at this rather precise observation.
Hooch and Moody looked puzzled, while McGonagall and Dumbledore smiled. While Dumbledore laughed, Professor McGonagall smiled at Harry's fiercely blushing face, and said "You obviously understood me quite well. What I said was in Highland Gaelic, and was rather typical of the kind of thing said by the sailors and fishermen in the village where I grew up. My mother told me often that they were rough men and that their language was not for the ears of a young lady, which of course made a young lassie the more eager to hear what they had to say. It was not until I was older that I understood some of the more, shall I say, anatomical terms."
She reached over to him again, and gave Harry a firm hug. "Harry, your mother was one of my favourite students, and her death hurts me very deeply even to this day. I hate to lose you too, but go you must. Take care." With that, she turned and left the room sobbing.
Harry sadly nodded, and with his head low and following Minerva McGonagall, left the room to pack his few belongings and leave Britain for the foreseeable future.