In regard to the question of finishing other stories, yes, but most of them stalled because they ran out of steam so it's a struggle to pick them up again. Heritage can probably be wound up quickly so I'll probably try that one first. And I've got readers in another space who for some reason want me to finish the hung stories there too.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will provably be changes in the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out the way I wanted.
Questions about the Peverell part of that were cut off by Lily making her goodbyes, but the portrait stayed uncovered as Gringott asked Harry if he'd share the memory he was talking about in regard to the woman, girl and boy who were standing over him and…. Mione as they died. He talked him through the process of extracting the memory and putting it into the goblin version of a pensieve that was set up on the table, but most of the people around the table, and James and Lily in the portrait, started swearing as they recognised older versions of Molly Weasley and her two youngest children standing over an older version of Harry and a brown haired girl, mocking them as they died, and laughing about what fools Arthur Weasley and his sons had been. The watchers' stomachs turned as they chortled about how tragic it was that they had all been killed with the rest of Harry's friends in that Death Eater attack because they'd stayed to help clean up after the happy couple left at the end of Ronald's wedding.
While as incensed as the rest of them about this though, Minerva looked thoughtful as she asked Gringott to play it again, slower if he could. Age hadn't dulled Augusta's wits any more than it had Minerva's, so when it was done and Minerva sat back she said. "You recognise that girl, don't you Minnie?"
Minerva nodded. "Yes Augie, I do. I went to see a Muggleborn witch late last year when she turned eleven. She was a clever little thing, she would have given Lily a run for her money, and quite possibly beaten her, her name was Hermione Jean Granger, does that ring any bells Harry?"
He stared at her as the full name triggered more memories. "Yes! Yes, that's her! That's my Mione!"
That made everyone look at each other, and Lily lean forward eagerly in the portrait.
"What do you remember Harry, will she be my daughter in law?"
They were shocked by the anger and loathing that crossed over his face at that. "No Mum, it's that fucking cow who was standing over us laughing who was your daughter in law, Ginny Potter! I had to marry her just before I left Hogwarts because she was pregnant. I didn't know what it was about her, most of the time she just drove me around the bend, but other times I couldn't get enough of her. Mione married the walking stomach just after we finished Hogwarts because she was pregnant too. It was the same thing with them, most of the time she was crying her eyes out about how much he infuriated and disgusted her, but other times she'd be all over him. Of course once we were married it was too late, because then we found out that there's no such thing as divorce in Magical Britain when there's a baby. That scene you watched was soon after Mione had her baby, my dear mother in law had great fun telling us that now that Voldemort was gone and they had the Heirs they needed to seal their claim to both our houses, so they just killed us off at the same time…." He hesitated as talking about this had made him suddenly remember something else.
"Professor McGonagall, Mione isn't strictly speaking a Muggleborn. Dumbledore had us do inheritance tests in our last year at Hogwarts and we discovered that she was the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and the Most Ancient Druid Houses of Bodhmall and Rhys. Dumbledore told us that we were too young to accept our titles, I know why now though because the family magic would have protected us against whatever they were doing to us, and I'm pretty sure he removed our memory of it afterwards, because it's only coming back to me now. We need to get her in to do the inheritance test… actually I should as well because we also discovered that I was the Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell, the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin and the Most Ancient Druid Houses of Le Fay, Emrys and Kyffin, and Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black…. so with the Houses of the Greengrass, Lovegood, Bones and Longbottom families we have all twenty houses of the original Wizard's Council between us….. And by the way, those friends who they were laughing about being killed in that so called Death Eater attack?... Luna, Neville, Susan and Daphne were among them, my dear mother in law had insisted that I take my pregnant wife home to look after her as the wedding had worn her out so I wasn't there to help them."
Everyone was staring at each other, wondering what in the seven hells was going on. Augusta started to whisper something about the Fates when Lily's portrait suddenly started spewing language that certainly wasn't ladylike, saying that that fucking Weasley bitch must have been poisoning her baby with love and lust potions! Minerva and Poppy looked at each other as they realised that she was right, but it took a while to shut up Lily long enough to tell her that.
Molly Prewett had had quite a reputation at Hogwarts because it seemed that every time you turned around she was being caught with some boy or another (or man, as she was caught with several of the teachers as well), from first year on. There had been more than a few comments made about love and lust potions in regard to her and she'd almost gotten expelled for using love potions on Arthur in seventh year, but Dumbledore had somehow gotten Arthur to say that it had been his idea so the matter was dropped. They looked at Amelia with sympathy when they were discussing this, because she had been Arthur's girlfriend before Molly Prewett got her hooks into him.
While they were contemplating that, Augusta got to say what she started to say before. "Harry's right, we must get Hermione tested and if it shows the same thing again, get her to accept her titles, but I think this is bigger than Harry and Hermione, because if we have all twenty of the Most Ancient Houses between us so and Harry has been sent back with that knowledge to make another attempt, the Fates are definitely taking a hand in this! I would not be at all surprised to find that Hermione has been sent back with her memories of what happened as well to try and make sure that we get it right this time."
With that, Minerva stood abruptly, looking at Gringott. "Do you have anyone who can escort us who won't stand out in the Muggle world Gringott?"
Gringott nodded. "One of my nephews can go with you Minerva, Snorri." Snorri gave him a goblin salute and then a split second later, a middle aged human in a suit was standing in his place.
Minerva nodded with a smile. "Yes, Snorri will do nicely thank you. I will attempt to get permission from her parents to escort Hermione to get her school supplies, using the excuse that I happened to be in London on other business and thought that making sure she got what she needed while there was a chance would be a good thing. If I can, I'll bring her here to get the inheritance test done, and see whether she recognises Harry. If she does, I think we have to presume that Augusta is right, and the Fates do indeed have a plan for these two."
Snorri escorted her outside, and then Minerva took his elbow and side-along apparated him to the Grangers' street. It took longer than she'd expected to talk Hermione's parents around because they seemed reluctant for her to get her magic supplies early, it was only then that Minerva remembered that they had seemed quite relieved when she reminded Hermione that she would not be allowed to practice magic when she was at home because she would get into trouble. That in turn reminded her of what they did seem enthusiastic about though, so she changed her tack, making as to leave and saying that she'd just thought that getting her books and supplies early would have helped their daughter do better, and that was what was needed to get their agreement.
As soon as they agreed, Hermione raced off to her room to get dressed to go out, determined to get out of there before they could change their minds. Minerva took her hand and apparated them both to Diagon Alley while Snorri returned on his own. Hermione was frightened when the quiet man who'd been with the Professor suddenly turned into a goblin warrior, but Minerva squeezed her hand and told her that he'd come along to keep them safe.
With Snorri, all the guards deferred to them as they headed straight to the Head Goblin's office. Once inside, Minerva saw that Kingsley, Pomona, Filius, Septima and Poppy had left, but Efa and Luna Lovegood were back and Daphne and Astoria Greengrass, Susan Bones and Neville Longbottom had been added to the group, and the adults looked angrier than they had before. She saw what looked like a contract on the table in front of Gringott and remembered what James' portrait had said about a marriage contract…. yes, if that was what she thought it was, she could understand why they would be angry.
They made an effort to be push those reactions down and be polite and welcoming as they were introduced to Hermione (without titles), but Hermione froze when Harry turned, putting out his hand and saying hello, whispering. "Harry?"
They were too busy hugging one another to hear Augusta say "Well that's it then, the Fates do have some plan that we're meant to get right this time!" but everyone else did, and nodded.
They all went through the formality of doing the inheritance tests again, and when they confirmed what Harry had said for him and Hermione (and that the dormant Ancient Druid House of Ifan was reactivated in Neville), Harry put the Slytherin and Kyffin House rings on to give Hermione an example of what the effects were, then she put on her four House Rings. She got so excited about all this new knowledge she had that Harry just had to hug her again, because this was his Mione.
Gringott explained to Luna, Daphne, Astoria, Susan and Neville how the Head of House and Heir rings would give them protection and knowledge through the family magic, and at Xeno, Cyrus, Edessa, Amelia and Augusta's urging Luna accepted the Lovegood Heiress' ring and Cathbad House Ring, Daphne accepted the Greengrass Heiress' ring, Astoria accepted the Yowann Heiress' ring, Susan accepted the Bones and Owain House rings and Neville accepted the Longbottom and Llewelyn Heir's rings and the Ifan House ring.
Gringott and Augusta then explained that what was in most of the books only applied to the Ancient and newer Houses, there was a different set of rules for the Most Ancient Houses, and the seven who were about to begin Hogwarts were riveted, because not even Neville had heard any of this from his Gran before.
They explained how the Charter for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been written and accepted by the Druids Council of thirteen guiding families (which in turn led to the Druids Council's expansion into the Wizards Council, because Witches and Wizards were the accepted terms for Magical folk by that stage and the Druid Lords had been becoming much more prominent as they were instrumental in establishing Magical people's rights with the Non-Magical rulers, so the expanded and revised Wizards Council was made up of two groups, with the now seven Druid Lords forming the upper houses and the thirteen High Druids forming the lower houses to preserve the magic numbers) in the early Eleventh Century, but as the Council controlled the school and the four Founders of the school had been added to the Council when they became Druid Lords, a number of benefits and protections specifically relating to the members of the Council were written into the Charter, making it into the first set of legal rules for Magical Britain.
They'd described these benefits and protections as applying to the 'Most Ancient Houses' that had guided the Druids for over a thousand years, referring to the Druid Lords as Noble Houses and the High Druids as Druid Houses. They took the terms of succession for these Houses from the nobility of the time and severe penalties for any actions against significant members of the Most Ancient Houses were written into the rules (this was where the definitions for what applied to the Head, Heir, Consort, Concubine, Betrothed, Dowager, Regent, Steward, Champion etc of the Houses became part of the rules for Magical Britain).
The Hogwarts Charter, including the rules of the Most Ancient Houses and foundation laws of the Wizards Council, had been ratified as being immutable and incontrovertible, taking precedence over any and all later amendments, at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century when the official Charter for Magical Britain was written and accepted after the Magna Carta had been confirmed as law in Non-Magical Britain. They were confirmed again in the early Fifteenth Century when the Wizengamot was created, but while the rules for the Most Ancient Houses were once again asserted to be immutable and incontrovertible, the distinction was made that the rules for Ancient Houses (defined as those Noble or Druid Houses which were founded between the Norman Conquest and the creation of the Wizengamot) and later houses would be defined by the Wizengamot. They also added the definitions of Minor Houses for the Gentry (those with hereditary titles such as Baronet, Laird or Banneret which did not qualify as Noble), and Families for Commoners at that time.
The Hogwarts Charter and rules for the Most Ancient Houses were ratified as being immutable and incontrovertible yet again when the Ministry of Magic was created at the start of the Eighteenth Century, so no-one could argue with the rights that were granted by the Hogwarts Charter.
Why they were going into all of this came out then. The Hogwarts Charter stated that the Head or Heir of any Most Ancient House had the right to require private quarters and facilities for them, their retinue and staff, no-one could expel or impede any of the Most Ancient House retinue or staff in their duties, the Head or Heir of a Most Ancient House had the right to be accompanied by their champions and guards anywhere they went and the Head or Heir of a Most Ancient House could leave Hogwarts whenever necessary to attend to their Houses' business. Other rules in the Hogwarts Charter applied to all students, but the rights of the Most Ancient Houses made these less problematical too, for example while any student had the right to employ a private tutor for any subject where they believed that the education offered by Hogwarts regular classes didn't meet their needs, if existing facilities weren't available to them, only the Heads and Heirs of the Most Ancient Houses had the right to require them to be created, or to leave Hogwarts when they needed to to seek instruction elsewhere.
Hermione reminded Minerva that they were supposedly getting her school supplies. Gringott sent his people out to pick up the books, cauldrons, potion supplies and the like and the goblin tailors were making up their robes, so what it came down to was that all they really needed to get was their official wands. They all went out under glamours, including Ulfr and Snorri, and waited until no-one else was in Ollivanders before they entered, immediately securing the shop and throwing up privacy, notice me not and aversion wards.
That was when they discovered something rather interesting about Mister Olivander, as he seemed to be able to identify humans at least through glamours that worked with others because he greeted Harry with a delighted. "Ah, Mister Potter, I was wondering when I was going to see you!" soon after he walked in the door.
It was only after nearly an hour and a few dozen wands tried that they finally found the wand that properly matched Harry. Ollivander had a slightly troubled expression on his face as he watched Harry's magic flare with the wand, and he muttered. "Curious, most curious!"
Harry was exalting in how the wand felt so right, but he heard the man's comment and remembered how this had gone last time. Glancing at Angela and Sirius, he decided not to go into that because he knew it would just upset them, Angela especially, and with any luck they'd get this resolved before it became an issue this time, so he just smiled at them.
The others didn't take anywhere near as long, but with six of them it was still well over an hour, and when they had all been matched to their wands, Angela asked. "How much to we owe you for the wands Mister Ollivander?"
Ollivander smiled. "Seven galleons each of course, like every other wand Miss Fawley."
Angela nodded and was getting the coins out when he said something that stopped her. "I'll just prepare the wands, oh Albus will be so excited to hear that young Harry was chosen by a wand with Fawkes' tail feather…."
She cut him off. "NO! Dumbledore is not to know anything about Harry's wand!"
Ollivander faltered, but he was adamant. "But the Headmaster must know! It is imperative that he knows!"
Angela shared a look with Amelia and Alastor, the man was suspiciously adamant on this point, and there had been a notable shift in his terminology as well, as if the words were no longer his own. Angela turned back to Ollivander and reached out to look for compulsion and memory charms.
"Mister Ollivander, why do you think you are compelled to tell Headmaster Dumbledore about Harry's wand?"
He faltered, aware that something was wrong here, but not sure what. "What? What do you mean?"
Angela had seen what she was looking for when her prompt triggered the charm. "You should be interested to know that your good friend Headmaster Dumbledore has cast Compulsion charms on you to inform him of what wand Harry was paired up with and memory charms to cover up what he did to you Mister Ollivander."
"What? No! Albus would never do anything like that to me! We have been friends for well over half a century!"
"Why don't we just go to Saint Mungo's and have the healers there tell you what your friend has done to you Mister Ollivander?"
Ollivander froze at that. He had sold Miss Fawley her first wand when she was eleven and, like young Harry's parents and others who showed great promise, he had followed her illustrious path through Hogwarts and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She was a young lady of considerable intelligence, integrity and skill, and he knew that she would not say this unless she was certain of what the healers at St Mungo's would find. He looked at Madam Bones and she nodded grimly.
"No! How could Albus do that to me? What would make him do such a thing?"
Angela reached out and drew Harry to her with a sympathetic look. "I'm afraid, Mister Ollivander, that we have discovered that Albus Dumbledore is quite capable of and willing to do anything that he believes would further whatever plans he has for his future, no matter what the cost to others is, especially when it comes to our Harry here."
Ollivander was shocked and horrified by her words, but he can sense the truth in them. "Can, can you remove these charms from me? Please?"
Angela nodded sadly, because he was obviously devastated by this betrayal, but she looked at Amelia. "You're better at this than I am Amelia, can you do it?"
Amelia in turn looked at Ollivander "Is this what you wish Mister Ollivander?"
He said. "Yes…. yes please!"
She did as he asked and with his permission, looked further than the compulsions keyed to Harry, finding others which had been keyed to Neville, Susan and Daphne, along with a number of other children of people who opposed Dumbledore. Along with the compulsions to tell him about their wands, she discovered other commands to place tracking, blocking and confounding charms on the wands so that Dumbledore would be able to monitor where they were and hinder their performance as well. She of course removed these other compulsions as well, and then they went over the note (in Dumbledore's handwriting, of course) with the instructions for the other charms, getting angrier because they saw that some of them were actually designed to make their wands fail when they needed them.
Ollivander hadn't done anything to their wands as yet, because luckily he had been so excited about having Harry Potter in his shop that he hadn't done anything else. It was a rather despondent Garrick Ollivander who agreed to leave even the charms for tracking underage magic that had been made mandatory as of a few years ago off their wands and offered to put some of the extra charms planned for their wands onto the wands of staunch Pureblood's children to throw Dumbledore off track.
Angela thanked him for that, and also suggested a minor amendment to the underage magic charms for the ones he'd been compelled to sabotage and Muggleborn and Half-Blood children's wands which would turn them into one-shot spells. Like most Aurors, she'd all too often been sent to arrest children after their second offence of performing underage magic, but she realised that she had never been sent to arrest any Pureblood children, so this was obviously just another tool used by the Pureblood bigots to try and force Muggleborns and Half-Bloods out of their world. And while they had Ollivander on their side, it was the perfect opportunity to try and strike back against that practice.
Before they left the shop, Amelia made further use of Garrick's changed loyalties by getting him to agree for them all to use their wands to locate the most compatible backup wands and buy them. While it was strictly speaking illegal to carry backup wands, the type of people they would be opposing often did and none of them trusted the motives of the ones who'd pushed those laws through any more, not even Garrick, and after all it was the Director of the DMLE who requested it.
Once they'd paid for their wands and thanked Garrick, they headed back to Gringotts. The silver lining to this was that Garrick would have a few weeks to put those tracking charms onto Pureblood students' wands, and hopefully most of this year's crop of new Muggleborn and Half-blood students' wands would be getting that one-shot modification to the underage magic tracking charm that Angela had suggested to protect them a little. Another benefit was that Garrick had probably sold as many wands to them as he would to the rest of the students starting Hogwarts this year.
Hermione had to be getting home, but she was a little wistful that she hadn't had a chance to look for a familiar. Efa had seen the bond between Hermione and Harry though and felt that it should be strong enough for what she had in mind to work, so she suddenly grabbed the two of them and popped them to Potter Manor.
Just about every elf on the estate recognised that the master was home the second he appeared within the wards, and so did those raised to be Potter familiars, so they all homed in on the master. Efa had a satisfied smile on her face because it looked like her idea was working when the first of the Mngwas that arrived bonded with the Mistress straight away, giving her his name. Harry didn't last more than ten seconds before he buckled to the pleading look she gave him and laughed. "Of course Mione! I don't know what makes you such a special cat that Efa would bring us up here like this to see you though Crookshanks."
Efa rebuked him. "You are not listening to your ring Master Harry! Crookshanks is not a cat, Crookshanks is a Mungwah! If Mistress puts him down, you will see!"
That got a frown, partly because she didn't want to put him down, and partly because she wasn't really happy with the idea of being called Mistress, but she put him down and he trotted off a little way before looking back at the master and the mistress. He could see confusion and doubt colouring the mistress's and, to a lesser degree the master's aura and agreed with the elf, they had to see, so he changed into his full Mngwa form. The initial spike of fear in their auras as they were surprised by the sight of him was almost immediately replaced with awe and admiration and Hermione came forward to stroke his fur. "Oh you're such a clever boy Crookshanks, so beautiful too!"
It was a disconcerting sight, a ferocious looking donkey sized brindled panther purring and rubbing his head up against the girl who hardly came up to his shoulder, but she just wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. After a while, he nudged her with his head and stepped away when she released him, changing back into his cat form before leaping into her arms and getting hugged again.
While Harry was watching this with a smile, a beautiful snowy owl landed on his shoulder, he reached up to stroke Hedwig, because they'd bonded the moment she landed on his shoulder, and this time looked into the family memories to find out what she was, because he doubted that she was just an owl.
"Ooh…. you're impressive too, aren't you girl?"
When Hermione asked. "Well, what is Hedwig Harry?" they both froze, as he hadn't said her name out loud.
'How did you?'
'I don't know, it's like we're linked!'
As an experiment, he pushed 'Hedwig's a Devil Bird' through the link but she spoke out loud then. "Devil Bird, what's a Devil Bird?"
Harry smiled up at Hedwig. "Would you like to show her girl?"
Hedwig nodded and took flight, changing in mid-air. She was glad to see the spike of fear that Crookshanks got from the Mistress when he surprised her with his change didn't come, she just got the awe and admiration…. and rightly so, because she was magnificent! All of the Potter Devil Birds looked like Snowy Owls in their bird form, but in their Devil Bird form they looked like small Veela, and aside from not being able to throw fireballs they were almost as dangerous.
Once the Master and Mistress were suitably impressed, Hedwig changed back into her bird form and returned to Harry's shoulder for some much deserved attention, but Hermione was asking how she and Harry could talk to each other in their heads like they could with their familiars, and why they could talk to both familiars for that matter.
Efa just looked at her, confused, saying. "Because you are bonded to the Master of course Mistress! That's why I brought you here, they are all Potter familiars here, but they can bond to you because you are a Potter too. We can all see it."
Hermione's eyes went wide at that, and she said that they needed to go back and ask Professor McGonagall about this, they could all see that she was worried about this so Efa took their hands and popped them back to Gringott's office.
The adults were laughing when they returned, but the sight of the familiars stilled that laughter, because they all knew about Potter familiars. Luna gave a cry of delight and went to rush to pet Crookshanks but Amelia grabbed her to stop her. "Wait Luna! Potter familiars aren't what they seem, you need to be properly introduced to them first."
Luna just looked at her. "Of course they aren't Auntie Ami, that's why they're so lovely!"
Amelia didn't think she understood so she turned to Harry. "Harry, could you show her please?"
Harry turned the first part of this over to Hermione, using their link to ask her to get Crookshanks to show them what he was. Hermione linked with Crookshanks and then opened her arms to let him down. Sue and Astoria squealed when he changed and he shook his head at them, grateful that the Mistress was made of stronger stuff than them. When Luna, Daphne, Astoria, Susan and Neville were led over to stoke his fur, to convince themselves that he was real and so he would identify them as friends of his master, Luna hugged him much like Hermione had and he licked her face approvingly before changing back into his cat form. Then Hedwig hopped from Harry's shoulder to the back of one of the chairs at the table, changing into her Devil Bird form as she did so.
Susan squealed again and Hedwig shook her head at her too, agreeing that the Mistress was much better than this one. Harry and Hermione were amused by the comments coming back from their familiars, but Hermione was still concerned about the 'Mistress' thing, so as soon as they'd gone through the same process with her, he introduced Hedwig by name, and then Crookshanks, as Hermione's familiar.
That made all the adults turn and look at Hermione, because had been proven that these were Potter familiars and as such they would only bond with Potters. They had presumed that Crookshanks had accepted Hermione as a friend of his master's, which was what they'd been trying to do with the other children, but actually bonding with a Potter familiar? That was something else entirely!
Hermione read their expressions and nodded. "Yes, that was what we wanted to ask you. Harry and I can talk to each other the way we can to the familiars, and when I asked how that could happen Efa said that it was because we were bonded of course, and they could all see that. What is she talking about?"
Minerva shares looks with the other adults, then turned to Emyr. "Emyr, we're not questioning what Efa says, but can you see this too?"
He just nodded, saying "Yes Miss" in a tone that said he couldn't understand how they couldn't see it.
She turned back to Hermione. "I'm sorry Hermione, it looks as though the Fates may have decided to make sure that their plan works this time…." She stopped "Or did they?…. How did you feel about Harry before you came back? And how did that compare with how you felt about Ronald Weasley?"
Hermione hesitated. "I don't know…. It always felt that I was where I was meant to be when I was with Harry…. I felt safe, comfortable…. loved. I never felt anything like that with Ronald, but I was compelled to be with him, by the love and lust potions obviously."
Minerva nodded musingly and turned to Harry. "Harry?"
"Pretty much the same Professor, the only times things were really right in my world were when I was with Mione and she was happy."
She looked back at the others. "I don't know much about soul bonds, but it sounds as though they may have been bonded before they came back. That may have been why the Fates chose to send them both back."
The others were nodding thoughtfully, and Amelia responded. "It does sound like that, and that makes it all the more important to protect them from that bastard's machinations… Sit down you lot, we were discussing a few things while you were away and we obviously need to do something about them now."
Once everyone was settled, with Hedwig perched on the back of the chair beside Harry, she went on. "Ted was working on the paperwork to formally register Angela and Sirius as Harry's guardians in both worlds, using James and Lily's wills, when Minerva remembered something worrying, you see the Headmaster is automatically made the magical guardian for all Muggleborn students. Obviously we can't expose Hermione to that, so we were looking for a trustworthy person with a close enough link to Hermione to make a good case for them to be made her magical guardian and we discovered something interesting... bloody astounding really, you see mister soft and cuddly here" hooking a thumb at Alastor "is actually your great uncle in the Hufflepuff family tree Hermione. So, if you're comfortable with it, we'd like to formally register Alastor as your magical guardian?"
They could see from Hermione's expression that this had overridden her confusion and apprehension about the bond issue, and she confirmed that when she smiled mischievously and asked. "I would like that, if it's okay with you…. Uncle Alastor?"
He tried to hold his stern expression when others laughed at that, but he broke and smiled back at her. "I would like that too Hermione. Actually…. I'm the last of my line, so I'd like to make you my heir as well if you wouldn't mind?"
Her playfulness was gone as she answered. "It would be my honour Uncle Alastor!"
The other adults thought that hell must have frozen over then, because the fearsome Mad-Eye Moody went across the room to hug her for that. Ted immediately started on the paperwork for the magical guardianship (the actual process was simple in the magical world but the paperwork defined the terms), but Gringott and Augusta obviously had something on their minds. Gringott spoke first. "Alastor, Hermione, something else that you may want to consider is a blood adoption. Sirius did that with Harry when he made him his heir, partly because it renders any challenges to the inheritance moot, but it would also give Hermione access to any of the Moody family magic that is restricted to those of Moody blood and it may even give her something of whatever it is that makes you so impressive Alastor…. I must warn you though Hermione, blood adoptions get more difficult for the recipient as they get older, so the ritual may be uncomfortable for you."
He didn't realise that he'd said the magic words for Hermione, if this could mean access to more knowledge of course she'd take it! She nodded eagerly to Alastor's questioning look and he said. "It appears that we have agreement Gringott, could you make the necessary arrangements for us please?" Gringott nodded with an approving smile in Hermione's direction and called for what was necessary.
As he was doing that, Augusta brought up her point. "I hate to say this, but I believe that we should also consider entering all the children into betrothal contracts with each other as well. Hermione, Susan, Daphne, Astoria and Luna in particular are at risk so long as there's a chance that someone can find a way to register a betrothal contract with them, and as the head and heirs of six of the most powerful houses, so are Harry and Neville. But what I can't see a way past is how to do that without effecting the Bones, Greengrass and Lovegood lines…."
Ted looked up for a moment. "I think I may know something that can help there Augusta, Gringott, could you get someone to dig up the wizarding rules for female line betrothals and marriages please?" Gringott nodded and sent Ulfr to get someone onto that.
By then, Snorri was back with the goblins and accoutrements they needed to do a blood adoption ritual and they got started. Gringott was correct, it was quite an uncomfortable experience for her, but as their familiars had noted, Hermione was made of strong stuff. She had recovered enough to pay attention by the time Ulfr came back with documents on female line marriages.
When Ulfr brought the documents back, Ted went through them and once he'd confirmed that he'd recalled this properly, he explained it to the others. "You see we have two types of betrothal and marriage contracts in Magical Britain. There's the normal one which is intended to continue the male line of the Houses, but there's another one which was passed into law back in the days of the Goblin Wars to continue Houses via the female line where no male heirs survived. In these female line contracts, the children take the name of the mother and continue her House's line, but there is a caveat on these which allows for both male and female line contracts to be entered into for the same couple and where that is used the issue will alternate between the Houses. The last instance I know of where that caveat was used was Arthur Weasley's betrothal to Molly Prewett so that the Prewett name would be continued."
He shook his head at the questioning looks. "Fabian and Gideon Prewett weren't going to be continuing the family line unless they were dosed with love and lust potions like Harry and Hermione were because they were gay, and while we know that their sister was quite capable of doing that, she probably wanted to control both family lines herself. Her Great-Aunt Muriel knows enough of the old ways to have set up the male and female line betrothal contracts for them and she didn't approve of the twins being gay.… That's why Charlie, Fred, George and Ginny Weasley are actually Charlus Prewett-Weasley, Fredericus Prewett-Weasley, Georgius Prewett-Weasley and Ginevra Molly Prewett-Weasley…. they generally just treat the Prewett as a middle name rather than their surname. Charlie is actually Baron Prewett, Head of the Noble House of Prewett but I don't believe that he's claimed his titles?" He looked a question at Gringott, who sent Ulfr off to find out.
While the history of the Prewett line didn't really interest him, Cyrus looked very relieved to hear about the caveat Ted mentioned, and he answered the unspoken questions at his reaction. "Edessa and I have had Lucius Malfoy trying to pressure us into accepting betrothal contracts between his son and both our girls. It's been getting increasingly difficult to hold out with what he's been bringing to bear on us but the idea of our girls being under their control is horrifying."
That was enough for Augusta and Amelia, and with Neville and Susan's consent they accepted male line betrothals for the Heirs to the Houses of Longbottom and Llewelyn and female line betrothals for the Heads of the House of Bones and Owain, because they were the simplest to complete. The situation with Harry and the other four girls wasn't as simple, and there was also the issue that Cyrus had just raised about how hard it had been to resist the pressure that a rich and powerful house like the Malfoys could bring to bear.
They quickly agreed on the best solution to their houses being pressured and Cyrus and Andromeda swore homage and made the formal oath of Fealty to make the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass and the Noble House of Tonks vassals of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and Xeno swore homage and made the formal oath of Fealty to make the Most Ancient Druid House of Lovegood vassals of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter. This meant that they were protected by the two richest and most powerful houses in Magical Britain, so if anyone like the Malfoys came after them again, they'd get stepped on.
With that sorted, they started on the betrothals.
They covered Hermione's first, as the adults and other girls agreed that she was obviously the Head Wife, whatever that was, and Sirius and Alastor accepted male line betrothals for the Houses of Potter, Gryffindor, Slytherin and Kyffin and female line betrothals for the Houses of Boghmall, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Rhys.
Then came Daphne and Astoria, Sirius and Cyrus accepted male and female line betrothals between Harry, as Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Le Fay, and Daphne, as Heiress to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass. They also accepted male and female line betrothals between Harry, as Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and Astoria, as Heiress to the Most Ancient Druid House of Yowann.
Finally there was Luna and Sirius and Xeno accepted male and female line betrothals between Harry, as Duke Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Peverell and Luna, as Heiress to the Most Ancient Druid House of Lovegood and between Harry, as Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Emrys and Luna, as Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Cathbad.
This meant that between the seven of them, they had twenty betrothal contracts, but they and all their houses were covered.
While they were covering all these details, Amelia brought up the fact that Harry and Hermione still had no-one with the authority to officially speak or vote for their Houses, so they went through the process to formally register their guardians as the regents for all of their Houses.
It had gotten rather late by then and Minerva really had to take Hermione home, but they'd achieved an incredible amount in one day. They had to laugh when Harry revealed all his rings, because he now had seven House rings, an Heir's Ring and Betrothal rings for eight other houses, and all of these were for Most Ancient Houses. Angela had seven Most Ancient Houses' Regents' rings and the Black Consort's ring on her fingers. Hermione had her four House Rings and four Betrothal rings for Most Ancient Houses, plus the Moody Heiress' ring. Alastor had his Moody House Ring, plus the Regent rings for four Most Ancient Houses. Daphne had her Greengrass Heiress' ring and Le Fay Betrothal ring. Astoria had her Yowann Heiress' ring and Black Betrothal ring. Luna had her Lovegood Heiress' Ring and Cathbad House ring and Peverall and Emrys Betrothal Rings. Susan had her Bones and Owain House Rings and the Longbottom and Llewelyn Betrothal rings, and Neville had his Longbottom and Llewelyn Heir's rings, Ifan House ring and the Bones and Owain Betrothal rings, while Amelia had the Bones and Owain Regent rings, Augusta had the Longbottom and Llewelyn Regent rings and the Longbottom Dowager ring and Sirius had his Black House Ring, so they had all twenty of the Most Ancient Houses locked down.
A/N: In the world they came from, Dumbledork had survived the war, so he was still playing games with Harry's and everyone else's lives. He manipulated key people's memories so that he got the credit for vanquishing Voldemort and he was behind Arthur and the others being killed in the faux Death Eater attack at Ron and Hermione's wedding. After that, Percy became Head of the House of Weasley and Ginny became Baroness Prewett. Harry and Hermione were miserable up until they were painfully killed with poison by Molly and her children.