I actually really wanted to get the concept of Xenogamy to work. I tried another variation of whitetigerwolf's 'Animagus Lover' challenge, and another story loosely inspired by RobSt's story Don't Look Back in Anger. But I found that the energy and creative momentum weren't there. I didn't want to write a modified novelisation of Batman: Arkham Asylum. I'd tried and failed to do that with Yin and Yang.

But then, I had inspiration. I had considered using it before, but the challenge in question didn't lend itself immediately to a plot, at least at first. It's one of my own challenges, 'Lord of Arkham'. I think you can guess what it's about from this extract. And, of course, I couldn't resist doing another riff on the tried-and-tested Blood Brandy Las Vegas challenge, though as you'll see, Harry and his new wives actually have known each other for some time before their Las Vegas wedding.

It's also one of my few fics to be written in the first person, from a snarky, jaded post-Hogwarts Harry. Hopefully, you'll get a fully published version of the story before long.


XENOGAMY (REVISED)

CHAPTER 1:

THE BEGINNING IS THE END IS THE BEGINNING

I have to admit, I'm glad I never developed a drinking habit. I'm not a fan of waking up with a throbbing headache, a lack of coherent memory of the night before, and a traffic cone in bed with me. I don't think anyone would have blamed me, given all the shit I went through, but while I've had the occasional glass of Firewhiskey and other alcoholic beverages, I've never had the desire to turn drinking into a habit, good or…well, there are no good drinking habits, are there?

I open my eyes, only to shut them, as someone was using daggers of light to stab me through the eyeballs into the brain. I groaned in pain, only for someone to press a glass into my hands. "Drink up," said a voice that was quite the sultry purr, even when the tone was all-business. "We have much to discuss."

I did so, and found the taste surprisingly sweet, and pleasantly so, vaguely fruity. Whatever it was cleared the headache and most of the cobwebs away pretty handily, and I could open my eyes without it making me wish I was dead. Only, my eyesight was blurry. A green blur gently pressed what felt like glasses into my hands, and I unfolded them and put them on my face. And I beheld my saviour, of a sort.

Now, my brain was still a bit slow on the uptake, so when I saw a rather gorgeous red-haired woman without a stitch of clothing on, I didn't recognise her initially, even though her skin was a very distinctive green colour, which I knew was not normal. There was something vaguely familiar about her, though I couldn't quite pin down what it was. She was peering at me with some small concern with those green eyes of hers, which glowed gently. "Hmm…looks like that hangover cure needs some fine-tuning. I doubt you have a headache by now, all the toxins causing them have been nullified and will be flushed from your body soon…but mental acuity is not back to normal. And I did avoid the temptation of mixing in any of my pheromones. How do you feel, Harry?"

Ah, yes. Actually, that was my name. Harry Potter. I did remember that now, and I was beginning to remember pretty much everything else, save for what happened last night. That remained annoyingly elusive. But, I knew more or less where we were, at least in terms of the city…though the immediate surroundings were somewhat unfamiliar to me.

It appeared to be a rather swanky hotel room. The opulent and garish décor, what remained of it, reminded me that we were in a hotel in Las Vegas, though some of the damages done to the room, well…I have to say it improved it. And I knew who the verdant goddess in front of me was. "…Like I woke up in a room with a pair of fugitives with little idea how I got there. Speaking of which, where's Harleen?"

Thankfully, my snark went down well. The rather literally drop-dead gorgeous woman in front of me gave a sardonic smile. Merlin, those cheekbones, you could cut yourself on them. "Taking a bath. Prison showers in Arkham may be hygienic, but they're not exactly luxurious. Besides, of us three, she was the most injured, thanks to what the clown did when he broke out. She needs more time to soak away the remaining aches and pains. Your potions may be a miracle cure, and so are some of my own concoctions, but they don't help everything. Besides, we…had something of a marathon session last night."

I looked at her flatly. I did feel tired and sore in certain places, but, well, having sex with this woman? That seemed downright suicidal, given her reputation. "…You're kidding, right? How drunk was I?"

"Very. If it makes you feel any better, I was too, though it takes a lot more alcohol to affect me, and that's when I dial down my own natural defences against poisons. Harley, despite her own tolerance of poisons, is pretty much a lightweight in comparison to either of us, so don't feel bad. Unfortunately, it's what happened prior to that that has me worried. You see, I woke up first, and spent the time metabolising the congener chemicals, as well as the acetaldehyde and acetic acid, that were causing the worst of the hangover."

"…Did we have a good time?"

"A veritable riot," she said in a deadpan tone. "Well, Harley, as you well know, was contributing most of the noise, but you…I didn't think you could be so cheerful and loud. Makes me wonder what would happen if we got the Batman drunk. It'd either be horrifying or hilarious. Or both. We actually stopped a heist at the casino. Inadvertently, of course, but still, the owners were grateful. This is one of the casinos here not run by a mafia gang, and we foiled them. Had to admit, it was good doing that, if only to show up a bunch of idiots who use their guns as substitutes for both their brains and their penises. After that, well, we started doing some gambling, both with some of the complementary chips we were given, as well as some of your own money. We actually won quite a lot more than we lost, so…we were given this comp room. And then, Harley had one of her patented bright ideas. It involved a chapel, an Elvis impersonator with a licence to wed, and, of course, these things."

To illustrate the point, the green-skinned goddess held up a hand, revealing a golden band on a finger. And with a sinking feeling, I checked my own hand. Yep, golden band there too. Well, fuck all kinds of duck. And then, another horrible and complicating thought came to mind. "Harleen…she…?"

"Has one too, yes. Don't worry, I made sure we used protection, though with my biology the way it is, pregnancy may be a moot point for me. Then again, your magic might just sneer at such a thing." Dr Pamela Isley, better known to all and sundry as the eco-terrorist Poison Ivy, sighed in annoyance, which is frankly better than her wrath. "So, hero, how the hell are we going to get out of this one?"


Now, I'm going to stop right there. Just to give you a taste of things to come. The thing is, what happened in Las Vegas was the culmination of a year spent in Gotham City, a city not inaccurately described as one of the worst in the United States of America. And yet…it was probably the most fulfilling ones of my entire life, not least because I was finally in control of my own destiny.

I'm wondering, if you're reading this, how much you know of my life before this time. I know my friend Hermione wrote a series of books under a pseudonym, changing the names to a degree to protect us, and they tell a fairly accurate tale of what happened during my time at Hogwarts. Some parts were toned down, particularly in the earlier ones, or glossed over. But they don't tell you what happened afterwards. Of course, if you're from the magical world, well, you'd know something of my story, even if I doubt you know the truth.

When Voldemort fell…well, it wasn't a fairytale ending. I was a soldier, just coming out of a war. Dumbledore had shaped me into a soldier, an obedient pawn who did his bidding. True, he hoped I could survive to have a life afterwards, but his training was inconsistent, and I think he wanted me to be his successor.

Fuck that.

I hated politics. I hated much of Magical Britain, the nepotism, the snobbery, the sheer unfair nature of it all. It was magical for me when I first started out, but in truth, I realise that magic has this uncanny knack of amplifying the follies of people. The prejudice, the xenophobia, the patronising, the superiority complex…well, more of a simple. Magicals seemed worse than Muggles because the magic brought out their worst qualities. Voldemort's death hadn't gotten rid of the problem, it just removed the main unifying force. The Blood Purist's snobbery and xenophobia were still there. And so were other problems.

I was fined pretty heavily by Gringotts because of our break-in. The Goblins would have demanded my being handed over to them for execution if it weren't for the whole Horcrux saga. Ungratefuk pricks. People who say the Goblins are honourable warriors are full of shit. They believe honour only belongs to themselves, and financial warfare was a perfectly good form of war, which basically means royally sodomising people every way they can financially. In short, finding perfectly legal ways to rob you blind. Then again, they did see fit to give me a share of the vaults of a number of the Death Eaters I put paid to, spoils of war and all that, and I wasn't left impoverished, but I learned that my father had siphoned off or sold many of the family's assets to fund the Order of the Phoenix's war chest during the last war. I wasn't poor, I was still fairly rich, but still…the only reason I had that much money was that the Goblins were canny investors.

As for my love life, well, there was a lot of speculation. Some people thought I'd marry Ginny Weasley, but we'd broken up shortly before the Horcrux Hunt, and frankly, the Weasleys understood. I was young, and I wasn't looking for a bride yet. I actually wanted to finish my education first, something Hermione encouraged, naturally.

Hermione and I…we tried a relationship, but we decided to stay in the friends category. Same for Luna. Then again, they had their own problems. Hermione's parents hadn't taken too kindly to their daughter's unilateral efforts to keep them safe, and she was in a bad way for some time, while Luna…what happened in the basement of Malfoy Manor would stay with her for years, probably the rest of her life.

As for me, well, I decided on a degree in medical science. Not a medical doctorate, I should hasten to add, but medical science. I was curious about the differences between normal and wizard biology, and I thought this could be a stepping stone to something more. But shortly after graduating, I was called to Gringotts about something interesting, in the cursed sense of the word.

My maternal grandmother was a descendent of a Squib line of a magical family of some small infamy, one that had died out for the most part. In fact, the most immediate heir died shortly after I graduated, though apparently he didn't want anything to do with his family's holdings. He considered them cursed. I couldn't blame him one bit. The holdings had something of a dark reputation, even before these days. And yet…I pondered this, and began to think, I could do something with this.

Hermione used to say, rather exasperatedly, that I had a 'saving people thing'. I don't have as much of a martyrdom complex as I used to, but…I had this notion, a vision if you will, of the place I had just inherited becoming more than its reputation. People knew it mostly as a joke, a macabre revolving-door joke of a place that seemed to be cursed. And yet…I was idiotic to believe it could be so much more than that. That maybe a few of the people there could be saved.

Maybe I had inherited some of the infamous madness of my ancestor. You see, back in the Twenties, he'd turned his family's mansion to a psychiatric hospital, an asylum specialising in the rehabilitation of the criminally insane. But after his family were murdered by an infamous serial killer…well, he went loopy himself. Rumour had it that he accidentally used too much electricity during an ECT session against his family's killer.

The asylum had gone to seed until about nine years ago, when some pompous arse of a politician campaigned to have it renovated and re-opened. This was shortly after a certain vigilante began his own campaign against crime. And thanks to the city's antiquated laws, it became a de facto repository for the infamous criminals who filled its buildings, even if they had a nasty habit of escaping.

I think you can guess what I'm getting at now. My little property was in Gotham City, or rather, situated on an island, isolated from the main part of the city. And it was called, you guessed it, Arkham Asylum.

You'd think I'd be scared. Me…well, while I was apprehensive, I had this notion I could make a difference. You know, being young, impulsive and foolhardy after all, with a fresh windmill to tilt at.

More fool me…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, we've had a Blood Brandy-style beginning…but what's this? Harry has been hitched to the crazier two-thirds of the Gotham City Sirens? And they're okay with that? They're actually on good terms with each other? How the hell did that happen?

The chapter title is a reference to a song by the Smashing Pumpkins, which, fittingly, was on the Batman and Robin album, along with The End is the Beginning is the End.

Before you ask, Hermione didn't use a pseudonym of JK Rowling and write the Harry Potter books. She wrote a similar series, true, and under her own pseudonym, but she changed the names. I'm not the only one to have that conceit. If I recall correctly, White Squirrel did the same for The Accidental Animagus. Only, Hermione wrote the books while still a Hogwarts student.

No numbered annotations this time.