30) Future's made of virtual insanity... Or, bash away bash away bash away all!
A/N (Written summer 2022... just found it as I've a day off and was cleaning up my drive.)
I've read a lot of fic lately (hey, it's vacation for me.) A lot of it has crazy amounts of bashing. This is my challenge to myself to put as much bashing in one stupid little story as I can. Gosh, this was fun.
~~ get the hankies ready ~~
The sun shone down on the crowd in the graveyard in Ottery St. Catchpole. It was a beautiful day in May. It was a terrible day in May.
It should have been a cloudy, rainy, dreary day. She was so young, so very beautiful. And she was dead, taken before her time.
The man, so recently a groom, now a widower, stood at the graveside: his posture stiff, his face drawn.
There was no sadness, anger, or even grief on his face. It was blank, as though he had pulled his hard-won occlumency shields down and nailed them in place. The reporters were there, hoping for a story. The bride had died alone under mysterious circumstances. None knew what took her. She had been alone in their cottage – her husband spent his weeks in Italy studying for and working toward his masteries in international law and defense. She had spoken to her mother and her coach the very evening her lifestone cracked.
Less than a year ago, the sun had shone on the nuptials, making the girl a Lady. The only girl born to the Weasley clan, a chaser for the Harpies, the wife of the Man Who Won was dead at 19, and no one knew why.
The family turned back to the Burrow to gather one last time. The reporters could not cross the wards so the family could mourn in peace.
But the mystery – and speculation – would remain.
~~ go back, tell what happened ~~
Harry Potter decided, like Hermione Granger, that he wished to finish his Hogwarts education. The year on the run, with the books from the Black and Potter libraries at his fingertips and no other entertainment to be had - had given him patience and a thirst for knowing that he'd not had previously.
He took OWLS in runes and arithmancy before loading his schedule for his eighth year with core subjects and electives.
He had a life to live, and he wanted to be prepared.
He turned down Head Boy and quidditch: he only wanted to find a place in normalcy.
Through the year, the auror academy beckoned. He was a shoe-in, just as his friend Ron was already a cadet. But Harry wanted more. He wanted to be known for what he did, not what was done to him.
Through the year at Hogwarts, he became closer and closer to Ginny. The two of them sailed through their NEWTS and she planned their wedding.
Harry loved Ginny. He knew he did. There were times when it was hard to think of anything else. But he couldn't shirk responsibilities. The goblins had seized his vaults for the break-in. He had nothing. He shouldn't have had nothing – when he found they had taken his vaults and were going to confiscate his money from the Order of Merlin, he confronted the goblins. He told no one, but he'd need money to support a family. And he was done paying for other people's mistakes.
When McGonagall was out of the head's office, he took the sword of Gryffindor and asked for parlay with the goblins. He spoke with a goblin under a truth ward and told his story. He had been betrayed by a goblin – a goblin who owed Harry a life debt. Voldemort would have won had he not got into Bellatrix LeStrange's vault.
The goblin council heard his oaths, viewed his memories, and saw the truth. They revoked enemy status at that time and swore they would not go after his reward money or any other money he was able to earn or was given. With that peace brokered, Harry left Gringotts and returned to Hogwarts.
He accepted an apprenticeship with a former hit wizard and current law wizard in Switzerland, where the ICW was located. To say that Ginny was displeased with this was an understatement. But she understood that he wanted to make sure their life together wasn't as stressful as her parents: he needed to be able to provide for her, and status as a junior auror wouldn't provide the funds.
They married in July, shortly before his twentieth birthday.
While he was away studying with his new mentor, he entered his second magical maturation (three years late). It was a cataclysm, with potions pouring out of him, cracks of bonds and other dark spells breaking. Had he not been under a healer's care (his mentor had recognized the potential signs and had prepared), he would have died. As it was, besides doubling his already strong magical abilities, his maturation cleared his system of potions, curses, hexes and bindings. When he woke and realized that he was obviously dosed with loyalty, attraction, love, lust potions… and he had no remaining love (or anything like it) for Ginny, he was destroyed.
And since he was in a magical marriage, he was also trapped.
The only "bright" spot on the horizon what that he wouldn't be bringing a child into the situation. Sirius had taught him how to make it so he wouldn't be a father unless he wished to be. Aside from contraceptive charms, Harry needed to render all of his cells incapable of replicating outside himself. He had worn the rune necklace – hidden to all but him – since Sirius told him that someone could make a child be his in blood and magic using skin or hair or blood or semen in a potion. He'd planned to take it off once he had his mastery and could afford a child. Now, he imagined he'd wear it until death.
Harry's acting abilities were never strong, but over the first few months of his marriage, they were pushed to the limit. He visited his wife when she wasn't playing and he had a weekend off. But he couldn't force himself to have sex with her often. It took a lot of drink or serious mental gymnastics to feign attraction for the literal harpy who strongly resembled his own mother. But he was in no position, at that point, to figure out a way out of his marriage. And completely spurning her would have the Weasley clan turn on him. That would certainly be heard throughout all the lands, and he'd be back in the Prophet, again, as a cad.
It wasn't worth it. He could close his eyes and think of England, as millions of women had to do in the past. He did find that his respect for sex workers was at an all-time high. How they could constantly bed people that disgusted them… well. He was never more thankful for the thousand or so kilometers that separated him from his blushing bride on the regular.
Toward the end of the summer, Ginny began to complain that they needed more privacy (she thought that perhaps having to meet in their tiny flat with its paper-thin walls was having a negative effect on her Harry's libido.) Harry didn't need to read the marriage contracts to know he was required to provide her a home, and as her salary paid the rent, he had to ante up when she asked. No matter that he had almost no money – and she thought he had less than he had! She didn't care. She just demanded. Her resemblance to his mother waned then in his mind – to be overtaken with shades of Molly Prewitt.
With that image in his brain, Harry wondered if his gonads would ever descend from his abdominal cavity again. No amount of imagination…
Harry went to Gringotts to see if he could get a loan for a shitty cottage. What little of the marriage contract he remembered said he had to provide home. It didn't have to be a nice one.
His account manager, Grimsneer, awaited him with decent news. After their last meeting, when Harry had allowed the goblins to see all of his memories and realize that his actions had almost certainly saved the nation, they had decided on recompense to Harry. The honor of the nation demanded it.
Further investigation – with information provided by Grimsneer – proved that Phalynx of clan Hook (who had been vault manager to the Dumbledores) had conspired with Albus Dumbledore to steal from many orphan vaults – especially the Potter vault. From most, he took coin. But because of the loopholes in the Potter will, Dumbledore had been able to empty the heirloom and investment vaults before Harry had even been at the Dursleys' house for a week. He had also kept the proceeds from the basilisk that Harry had killed.
There had been an entire hidden Dumbledore vault worth more than the entirety of the Potter vaults at the time of James and Lily's deaths. Since they allowed theft, and Harry's actions had certainly saved Britain, Gringotts decided pay Harry back by allowing him to retain Dumbledore vault contents in replacement of the trust vault they had confiscated. Additionally, they would grant access Black vaults they had withheld from Harry, the rightful heir Black.
Harry was silent as he looked at the ledgers for the two families. He was stinking rich. All of that bitch's planning could come to fruition.
"I realize that you have already been extremely generous with me, but I would ask a boon. Can you put the reclaimed Potter funds under the Evans name?"
"Why?" Grimsneer asked suspiciously.
Harry had nothing to lose and no pride left. He handed over the parchment that held the list of potions and spells identified as having been pulled from his system with his maturation. The account manager grunted with dissatisfaction. Had this child no one to rely on?
"It shall be as you ask. This is why you are here today?"
"No, I am – was here – to apply for a small loan. I wish to purchase a cottage for my wife. She wants a residence. I'm required to supply it, based on our marriage contract."
"We could certainly help you with that purchase. You wish for somewhere near her family's ancestral lands? Yours?"
Harry shook his head. "No. I actually have a property in mind. It's currently owned by muggles. It's a primitive little cottage about 45 minutes travel from Cearbhag – an extremely remote muggle village – in the farthest reaches of the northern highlands." The grin on Harry's face showed he knew what he was about. That area had strange properties and was not very settled by muggle or magical. "Comes with a fair bit of ocean-accessible land. It also goes over some crazy ley lines, so should be pretty easy to ward ."
Grimsneer nodded, looking at the map that Harry showed him. A grim sneer was beginning to show on the goblin's face. Perhaps this human wasn't as stupid as he once seemed.
"It is also so remote and so magic-soaked… It's almost impossible to apparate anywhere directly except someone with extremely high power." Harry confirmed what the goblin thought might be the case.
"Well, it does suit, and the price is very low. But even without our settling of the honor debt, you could afford better."
Harry shrugged. "With my finances and prospects, I couldn't get much of a loan. We'll have to work hard to make it our own. But I've never been allergic to hard work. And if I'm going to be in this marriage for life, she might as well see the lay of the land early on."
Grimsneer peered at his client. "You should look at the fine print a bit more. You might be free to end the marriage if no heir is got in a certain time period. You could also enact the fidelity clauses, if the old form was used." Harry looked puzzled for a moment. He'd been… discouraged from reading the contract thoroughly. "You do have access to the contract?"
"I can get it." Harry called Kreacher to get the contract from the safe at the burrow, but not to let any of the Weasleys know. Kreacher grinned – he'd never liked the redheads – as the goblin and his very angry master went over the contract's heir requirement and currently-disabled fidelity clauses. A few drops of blood quickly saw that status change.
"Mr. Potter, the first time Mrs. Potter is unfaithful will be last." Grimsneer nodded. It shouldn't be necessary, but some humans weren't worth gruztub.
Re-reading that Ginny would need a baby to fully solidify the marriage bond within the first two years of marriage (and he had no intention of giving her a baby), Harry figured he'd be free of the marriage by hook or by crook.
As he sat, plotting with the Potter (Evans) vault manager, he was summoned by another goblin. Pratorian, the Black vault manager, wished to speak with him.
"Sit Mr. Potter, Heir Black." Harry sat, then looked up at the goblin on the other side of the desk with a clear, steady gaze. "I have finished purchasing the last homes on the block of the townhome. Do you wish to continue with plans?"
This gave Harry pause. "Plans?"
"Your godfather had plans. Since both Potter house and Potter cottage were lost to you, he decided to make the townhome a place you could retreat. He wished to purchase all of the homes on the block as they went derelict. He then wished to make a park. On the entire block," the goblin pointed to plans on the desk, "he arranged for warding: muggle repelling, notice me not for wizards. Number12 is currently under war wards, and is still secure.
Harry was flummoxed. "Didn't the death eaters break in?"
"They tried but that actually triggered the war wards. Word is at least 4 of the ploshtun perished in that attempt – the LeStrange brothers among them. Your godfather kicked Bellatrix and Narcissa out of the family, and took back the dowries. Breach of contract. That's actually what paid for the purchase of the surrounding land."
"Huh," Harry managed, studying the diagrams. It could be a real home for him. He'd need more elves – garden elves, elves for the manor… but it could be his retreat. "Yeah, keep with the plan that Sirius started."
When he left Gringotts, Harry made haste to Number 12. Upon entry, he called Kreacher to himself and asked for help locking the place down. He crossed all and sundry out of the ward book. On the advice of Kreacher, Harry hired Winky, her twins Wilby and Dinky a few other elves who became homeless with the fall of Voldemort. They, with Kreacher, would take care of Grimmauld park and place. Harry had never told Ginny that he had Kreacher and Winky as his elves. The Weasleys hated the use of elves, almost as much as Hermione did. He let them all believe that the elves simply chose to work for Hogwarts.
Over the next few months, Harry worked on his crappy cottage on weekends with his wife. They would work magically and physically until they were both exhausted. Harry used this as an excuse to not push his own physical needs on his fragile flower of a bride. He bought second-hand furniture from thrift stores throughout the islands – searching up and down for the best value for his galleon. The time it took to fix and furnish the cottage was extended, even though they did the improvements with magic. Ginny couldn't apparate there herself, and Harry spent most of his time working with his mentor.
His mentor did visit the British Isles once. He helped Harry raise a new fidelius over number 12 Grimmauld Place; Harry decided to be his own secret keeper. The park – with the tender care of several elves – was beautiful even in winter. The house – visible only to those elves and Harry – was gutted, redesigned, and filled with Potter and Black items from the vaults in Gringotts. Dumbledore had been quite the hoarder, apparently, and kept the contents from the Potter vault and houses like a dragon kept treasure.
Only the library was different – expanded – to contain all the books that Dumbledore had accumulated (among the bookplates were Potter, Fenwick, Young, Bagshot, and other families that had been wiped out in the two blood wars) alongside the Black collection.
Most had forgotten the Black townhome at Grimmauld place. It was, after all, a harbinger of sadder, darker times. It had been the headquarters of a war effort, and now that that war was done, none really cared to remember the grim manor. But there was one feature of the house that at least one Weasley (to be) recalled with some fondness. At one family dinner, Hermione cornered Harry.
"Harry, what happened to the order Headquarters? Do you know? I'm wondering because there were some books in that library that I could use for my apprenticeship. From what I remember, it was a rather vast library for such a house."
Harry blew his bangs up from his forehead and shook his head. "I don't even remember where headquarters was. Do you?"
"It was…" Hermione's brow furrowed in concentration. "Mrs. Weasley, do you remember where headquarters was?"
Molly and Arthur looked at each other, both shaking their heads. "No, dear."
"Someone must have put it under a new fidelius," Ron realized.
"But who?" Hermione demanded. She really wanted access to those books.
Harry shrugged. "Snape could've told anyone about the place, and Bellatrix and Narcissa both had blood access."
"I suppose it's gone then," Ginny sighed. It would have been a good house for them to live in. Well, not good. But better than the stupid cottage that was all Harry said he could afford. If only she could force him to endorse products!
Harry hid his grin behind occlumency shields, knowing that he had a secret and none of these controllers could do anything about it.
The winter passed that way: Harry spent most of his time with his mentor, pretending to wish he could spend more time with Ginny. Ginny did training with the Harpies throughout the week and stayed at the Burrow the weekends she wasn't with Harry working on the cottage.
At another family dinner, Ron confronted Harry on what he was putting Ginny through. "Couldn't you have gotten her something better? Closer to home? We can't even apparate there!"
"Look, Ron, that cottage was all I could afford since the Potter vault went was confiscated by the goblins. I didn't hear you complaining about that when they didn't force payment from you."
"Come off it, you still have the Black vault." Ron didn't like being reminded that he had taken all the credit but none of the blame when it came to post-war reconciliation.
But Harry had his rejoinder ready for that argument, should anyone put it to him, "You don't think that Bella and Cissa left the Black vault untouched while they had access and I was public enemy number one?"
"Well, I think the cottage is nice and homey, and there is so much land!" Molly cooed, trying to get everyone back on an even keel. She didn't want to confront Harry – at least not until his marriage bond to Ginny was settled.
Later in the afternoon, Harry was in the shed with his father-in-law when Arthur confronted Harry. "Son, Ginny came to me not Molly. Why aren't you trying to get an heir on my daughter?"
"Arthur, I'm barely making ends meet. The cottage is muggle, and we're doing what we can, but I can't afford to raise a child right now."
"It's your duty." Arthur hissed at the boy. "You owe my daughter that much."
Harry's polite, regretful façade fell, and the bitterness in his eye made Arthur step back. "I owe her? Your family owes me so much – I saved your daughter, I saved Ron, I saved you. And you repay me by potioning me into a marriage I never would have wanted."
Arthur knew it to be the truth. He leaned back against the workbench behind him and sighed. "It happens a lot in the magical world. Do you think I wanted Molly? What's done is done. Make the best of it."
"Go fuck yourself." Harry looked with disgust on the man in front of him, turned, and walked out of the shed. He had, at most, eighteen more months until his contract could be challenged. If she didn't have a sprog by their second anniversary, he'd give her the cottage and walk away, a free man. Harry concentrated on that end game as he walked through the orchard, calming himself.
Meanwhile, Molly was working with her daughter in the potions room. "Are you sure you don't want to give him a little nudge?"
"I can't, mum. He tests his food and drink – part of his training. I just don't know how to administer anything else!"
"You need to solidify the marriage bond by producing a child. You're not even pregnant yet. People are talking that you're infertile."
Ginny sighed. "He's got no sex drive, mum. He barely sleeps with me. I knew I shouldn't have let him pursue a mastery. Between that and the work on the cottage, he is exhausted, grumpy, and not in the mood."
"Hush, child. All you need to do is collect his hair and get some blood while he's sleeping. Get yourself pregnant – you know when you're fertile – with another wizard. You're beautiful; it'll be easy enough to hoodwink someone else into the job. It's an easy potion. We'll blood adopt the baby; it will register as a Potter. Once it's done, you can require him to come back home and do what you wish him to do: you're the pureblood in this relationship."
Ginny sighed. She'd wanted the boy hero as long as she could remember. She thought he'd come with riches and fame. Well, he had the fame, even if he wouldn't use it. The riches – she blamed those filthy beasts for stealing her fortune. But the world owed Harry, and she'd see that he collected so she could get what she truly deserved.
A few weeks went by. They finished the cottage and moved in. Well, Ginny moved in. Harry visited on weekends, but was colder and more hands off than ever. He did make her a permanent portkey between the cottage and the burrow, so that she could easily get to either place. But no one could use the portkey with her. Ginny monitored what would be known among the muggles as an ovulation cycle. She paid a fee to have an emergency single-use two-way portkey to her cottage – for her mother, she said - and the apparition point on Diagon, and she went on the prowl.
The night of her greatest fertility, she died fucking Michael Corner. As he poured his seed into her, he noticed that a bright light spun out of her, and she collapsed. He didn't know how his lover died, but he wasn't going to be blamed. He used his wand to vanish the evidence of their tryst and the portkey to get back to Diagon. And he took the next assignment overseas.
~~ well, that's what happened. Now the fallout ~~
Hermione went up to her former best friend as he stood outside the burrow, staring into the distance. "You don't look grief stricken."
He didn't look down or in any way acknowledge Hermione's presence for a moment. But then he inhaled sharply through his nose. "You know, I though Dumbledore would be the one I hated most. He stole my childhood. But Ginny…."
Hermione had a sinking feeling – a suspicion that he knew more than he had told. "How did she die?"
Harry looked down into Hermione's eyes. His own were cold and bitter. "She died because she was fucking someone else."
Hermione was furious. But she wasn't furious for Harry. "You enacted fidelity clauses?" She whispered, horrified.
"Only when I found that I had been potioned into that marriage." There was no surprise on her face, and he realized that she, too, had been in on the plot. "You have no problem that they tried to steal my future and my family name?"
"You needed guidance," Hermione insisted. She was like the worst amalgam of Dumbledore and Molly right then.
He laughed bitterly. "I should have figured that you'd fit right in with the weasels. After all, you're living off the hard work of others yourself."
"What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded.
"How are Monica and Wendell these days?" Harry asked, snarkily. Hermione blushed. She lived in her parents' house, paid the bills with what remained of their investments, and had left them in Australia. She'd settled them well. They were happy. She didn't know what Harry's problem was.
"The worst of all of this," he mused, "is that I have to admit Draco was right. There are certainly some families that are better than others. At least I'm shot of this one!"
He shook her hand off his arm, strode a few steps away, then apparated. The cottage and land were sold to a muggle hotel (Harry had done all the improvements so that it could easily go back to being muggle), and Harry disappeared from public life in Britain. Some thought it was because he was heart-broken.
The Weasleys knew better.
Hermione told Molly what Harry had done. It wasn't illegal, and if they tried to bring it up, Ginny's memory would be seriously tarnished. If anyone dug enough, they might find out that Molly and Ginny forced Harry into that marriage through potions. There was no way for them to come out ahead if they pushed the issue. So, Harry "got away with it," as Hermione bitterly believed.
Several years later, they read the birth announcement – via muggleborn surrogate (Hermione took great pride in describing in great detail the muggle process, to the absolute horror of Molly and Arthur) of Evan Harris Potter and Eridanus (Dan) Orion Black. The twin boys were already demonstrating accidental magics and were very healthy.