Prompt by u/StrikingExplanation7: Lord Potter-Black-Perevell-Gryffindor-Slytherin decides to be child-free. All those family lines, pure of blood with much power and tradition, gone.
Letter of the Law
"That's fine. I have no opposition to any of these women. However, you should know, I'm asexual."
"You're only attracted to acromantulae?"
"No. I have no interest in sexual activity whatsoever. In fact, it violently repulses me."
They stared at Harry. Harry stared at them.
"You. . . what?"
"No. Sex. Not going to happen. No matter who, what, or how."
"Umm. . . Excuse me please, one moment."
Harry smiled politely and waited.
They would look over the contracts and stipulations meted upon him, and find the same thing he had. He was required to marry. Certain houses required him to marry with certain other houses. There were rituals for the bindings, and there were stipulations for which children could inherit.
There was no rule saying he had to *have* children. It was a social expectation, something everyone knew and no one bothered to put into law.
After all, with a beautiful pureblood witch soulbound to you, what man could resist? What man would want to?
And it was just the magical world's misfortune that they wasted all that potential on him. So many bloodlines, so many hopes and desires, stupidly thrust upon the one man who wanted nothing to do with it.
He would live well and long, he would act in the best interests of the families for whom he was responsible, but he refused to change who he was. He refused to pretend otherwise. If they wanted to give him power, he would use it as he saw fit. And if they sought to manipulate him with the ties of loyalty he'd accepted, they were welcome to try.
Harry Potter-Black-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Selwyn-Ravenclaw-Monroe-Hufflepuff was far too important, too powerful, and too well-connected. They would eventually come to the same conclusion, though they fought and blustered every step of the way. No attempt at revising the laws would go through. No creative re-interpretation of the contracts would suffice.
He would do as he wanted; they couldn't do a thing about it. And what Harry wanted was something far deeper than the mundane and the physical. Children would be nothing but a distraction.
He may be married on paper to more heiresses than any reasonable man could want, but in the end the ties themselves mattered to him more than the women. His bloodline mattered little when weighed against his knowledge. Magic was a far greater responsibility than any societal contract, any unspoken law.
His heirs would not be his descendants, but his students.
And if half the pure-blood families in Great Britain were truly stupid enough to have tied their fates to his whims, then they deserved to watch as they lost everything.