Chapter 3: Me? A Hogwarts Professor?
I awakened gradually, the haze in my mind registering alien sensations of touch and musky, flowery scent that, though familiar, was a bit off. The Bond. Across it, I felt my mate's right breast cupped, the pad of a thumb stroking the areola. Gentle fingers traced upward along her inner thigh.
Now more awake, I took matters in hand on my side of the Bond. In my mind, I conjured images of my beloved, her face flushed with passion and buried in the pillow, her lips swollen, parted. My teen-aged body needed little more encouragement. We started to move in unison, our hearts racing, as we accelerated toward an end.
A blunt jab in the back of her/my throat shattered the moment and we both gagged.
I heard a tinny voice through ears that weren't mine. "What's the matter, Mollywobbles, soft palate thrust again?"
"No, it's not that, Arthur. It's just... I don't think Harry is a good boy for our Ginny. Don't ask me how I know, but I think his mind is very dirty."
The gorge rose in my throat and I almost didn't make it to the loo in time.
"You should slay her; that would be the most expedient option. Mothers-in-law, like muggle-born, are a breed best exterminated." Tom's voice in my head was genuinely excited at the prospect. "It's highly doubtful that the Bond at this stage would remain beyond death."
I had strong suspicions about what had happened and would need to talk with Albus posthaste. Fortunately, I was able to muffle my connection with Molly to the point where I didn't think she could hear Tom and me.
"Mothers-in-law?" I used a towel to wipe the bile from my mouth. "Who talks like that?" I'd fought an hour-long battle with Voldemort in my mind last night. After the stalemate, we'd established a weak truce, a working arrangement that would keep us out of each others' affairs. One which lasted only a few hours until my tag-along decided to channel his inner advice columnist.
"It's proper grammar, you imbecile."
"Fine, but when you say it, it sounds like you've got something large and unpleasant crammed up your arse."
He sputtered for a moment, unable to formulate a retort, then hissed, "You shall address me with respect! I am the Dark Lord!"
"You were the Dark Lord. Now you're a just parasitic infection, crab lice on the brain." In the back of my mind, I felt that Molly had dressed and was preparing breakfast for Arthur and her two youngest. I stole a quick glance through her eyes at Ginny, who was falling asleep into her muesli--Gin's never been a morning person.
"You are as depraved as you are misguided, Potter" He did the mental equivalent of flexing his muscles, feeling for an advantage.
I laughed, twirling my finger languidly in real life and slapping him down in my mind. "And I should be concerned about offending your sense of propriety? I've seen inside your head enough to know how hollow your insult is."
"And I've seen enough inside your head to know that you know absolutely nothing about relationships, Potter. Small wonder you're alone."
"And you're so much better?" I smirked. "Oh, this should be good. Do tell."
"A gentleman never tells," he said smugly.
I coughed, "Liar."
"I'll have you know that I was quite the charmer in my youth."
"Whatever." I said, returning to my room. In my mind, Molly was berating Ron for shirking his chores. Something about Bill's and Fleur's wedding and his needing to scrub some irrelevant something-or-other to immaculacy.
After a long, uncomfortable pause, I broke the silence. "So..."
"So." Tom replied, making a dramatic pause and showing me an image of a comely brunette, short, with large brown eyes and closely cropped, curly hair. "Sarah Underhill, my first, was one of the others in the orphanage where I spent my youth. She had an arse so tight, it could have belonged to a young boy..."
Without warning, he sprang a powerful attack on my distracted mind, one that reminded me of his attempt to possess me in my fifth year. I fell to my knees as my hands went to my forehead, blood draining from my curse scar, only just scabbed over from our tiff last night.
I thrust my magic into my Occlumency and the barriers rocketed into place, bringing his assault to a full stop. "Hah!" I panted, hearing a distracted grumble from his end.
Leto's labia, he found the seam fast! Every set of mental barriers, no matter how strong, must have a weakness. It's a fairly straightforward matter of applied metaphysics and how, metaphorically speaking, Occlumency amounts to stretching a flowing, two-dimensional membrane over a blob of thought. Even with magic, there's no way to close it off without a seam or weak spot--unless, like Luna, you insanely shape your thoughts into a torus. Muggle mathematicians, in a fit of accidental humor, named this the "hairy ball" theorem. The trick to doing a possession is to find this weakness and drive a wedge into the barrier, cracking it open and ramming one's consciousness through the gap.
Tom did and in a span of about three seconds, it felt like my skull was splitting open. Fortunately, I'd prepared long ago for such an eventuality: nobody, I mean nobody, possesses me again. Really. Nobody.
Tom's consciousness found itself trapped just inside, where his avatar was summarily chained to the wall, dressed in G-string and collar. In short order, he was thrust face-down onto a thick, shag carpet as Dolores Umbridge, clad in hot pink fetish-wear, strapped on an appendage. Beside her stood an Engorged house elf, his long fingers holding a tin of petroleum jelly and a muggle drain snake.
Silently, I thanked the twins of my former life for their high-quality hallucinogens--I doubt I could have conceived the trap without the trip. Wrapping a towel about my head and a fresh set of robes over my shoulders, I Apparated to Hogsmeade just as Tom's screams became louder than those of his dying Horcruxes. I didn't blame him.
Dumbledore would have tried redeeming him. Not me--I'd settle for making Riddle my bitch.
My appearance hidden by a Glamour, I pushed through the Hogsmeade crowd celebrating Voldemort's fall and jogged toward the castle. On the way, I spotted Minerva and the other professors entering Rosmerta's pub and I realized that I could get answers from Albus if I hurried. Molly was already working herself into a tizzy with wedding preparations and I wasn't sure how much more I could survive--I mean, thirty minutes fussing over the lace beneath the guest book? You can't make this stuff up!
Before I knew it, I'd arrived at the gargoyle outside the Headmaster's office. "Puce polywogs." It slid aside. Phineas had become quite the spy for me, now that I'd promised to hang his portraits in the Ministry, Gringotts, and the dressing room of his favorite brothel.
I approached my mentor's portrait, the familiar figure in half-moon glasses and garish robes dozing. "Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak, time for the barmy one to speak," I whispered, rolling my eyes at the bad rhyme. He stirred and cerulean eyes blinked open.
"Harry, dear boy, what a delightful surprise. I trust, since you were able to activate the painting, that you've dealt with the matter of Tom Riddle?"
"Yeah, took Voldemort down the night of your funeral."
His eyes widened. "Did you manage to find..."
"Yeah, I got the Horcruxes. Ravenclaw's diadem was in the castle, Fawkes snagged the cup from the Lestranges' vault, and the locket was at Sirius's all along. You know about the ring and diary. Oh, and we dropped Nagini in a volcano."
He stared at me aghast, his mouth opening and closing a few times in succession.
"How...?" he asked trailing off.
I closed my eyes and silently cast one of my favorite Glamours to make irises red, my pupils, mere slits. Opening them, I leveled a stare at the man and hissed, "Why, by embracing the Dark Arts, Dumbledore. As a great wizard taught me, there is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it." His image paled and he slid off of his chair and onto the floor, mumbling to himself, "I knew he was one, I knew it."
"Gotcha," I winked, returning my appearance with a laugh. "You should have seen the look on your face." I noticed that the other paintings in the office were chuckling as well. "Actually, I just used Gryffindor's sword. Handy thing, that."
He clutched his chest and climbed back into his chair with a forced laugh. "An admirable prank, Harry. Again, you amaze me with your resourcefulness. But how did you know? I myself did not know of these things at the time of my demise and I apprised my painting daily."
"That's actually part of why I'm here. I've come back from the future." Molly had a sharp intake of breath as the Headmaster shook his head, a grave expression on his face, and opened his mouth to speak.
I interrupted. "Don't lecture me, Al. I've heard it all from you already--just before you and I started making the spells to come back."
He harrumphed. "You deprive me of my favorite pastime, Harry: lecturing on that which I am somewhat knowledgeable." Deflated, he muttered, "Why did we do it, Harry? Why today?"
I felt a moment of crushing sadness. "We won, but the cost was far too high, for me especially. I lost Ginny, my wife and love, and couldn't continue." On Molly's end of the bond, I could feel Molly gasp as the rawness of my feelings bled across the bond. "Why today? You and I both know how crappy my childhood was--you'll understand why I didn't want to go back any farther than I had to."
He nodded. "Harry, one of my greatest failings..."
I cut him off. "Please, I've heard that too. To get back to your question, we chose today because the plan was for Fawkes to bond with me and the best time for it to happen was right after your funeral--last time, it almost didn't happen in time and I wouldn't have killed Voldemort without him. We figured that my coming back would give some of the stray phoenix magic something to latch onto."
The Headmaster's face brightened. "So my familiar has chosen you as my successor? How extraordinary!"
My eyes flicked to my shoes for a moment. "We're not exactly bonded, but we were able to defeat Tom nonetheless. I'm here because when I came back, there were... complications. Some of the magic affecting me in the future followed me back."
He gave me a knowing grin. "You refer to your excellent Bond with Miss Weasley?"
"You knew about our Bond, sir?" I'd forgotten how annoying his secret-keeping was.
"Of course, Harry," he said in a patronizing tone. "It was evident to any who knew to look. I believe that when I met my demise, you were already well on your way toward the miracle of a Soul Bond. Your saving Miss Weasley's life her first year and your actions in the Ministry last year, where you also inadvertently saved her again, undoubtedly strengthened your Bond. I take it that you have found that your Bond exists in this timeline as well?"
I swallowed, nodding and remembering saving Molly the night before. "Sort of. Is it possible for the Bond to get confused and connect with someone else instead?" Molly gasped, the implications of what I was asking finally becoming clear.
Albus's image stilled for a long moment. "Alas, such a thing has been recorded. Myrridin, whom you know as Merlin, and his twin sister, Ganieda, shared a Bond that became confounded by the former's repeated time travel. As I understand it, after one particularly eventful journey, it settled upon Morgana instead, an event which led to difficulty for all parties involved. May I ask who is the lucky recipient of your Bond?"
"Um, Mrs. Weasley," I said quietly.
For the first time in the several years I'd known the man, he threw his head back and laughed deeply, a long, rumbling belly laugh. Great. Santa in pink paisley, mocking my pain.
Molly started to rage, her mind-speech every bit as loud as her real voice. I blocked her as well as I could, but I couldn't hear Dumbledore's voice over the din. "Mrs. Weasley, please, I'm trying to get answers here!"
"...was most unfortunate. Sadly, it led Myrridin to take his own life..."
I blinked. Molly gasped, then started shouting again.
"Molly!" I yelled in my head. "If you want to throw yourself under the Knight Bus, fine. Be my guest. But if you'd just shut the bloody hell up, I might be able to learn something here!"
"Why I never! I ought to..."
I cut her off by sending an image of Ginny's bum, post coitus. I felt her withdraw, retching.
"You are a sick, sick man, Harry Potter," she seethed as her consciousness slid as far from mine as she could manage.
"...modest library in my chambers, you'll find a definitive reference on magical bonds, including Soul Bonds. Unfortunately, not much is known of this type of magic, as those in a Soul Bond often find they lack a common point of reference with those not in such a bond."
"Thank you sir. I'm sure it will come in handy."
"You will find what you seek in there, if anywhere," he said, starting to chuckle again. "Oh Harry, one other thing, if you don't mind. Now that Voldemort is dead, I would consider it a personal favor if you could ask Severus to speak with me at his earliest convenience."
"Yeah, about that, sir..."
"You killed Professor Snape." It was a statement, not a question--the man always had an uncanny ability to read my expressions.
"It wasn't intentional! I sort of had to kill all of Voldemort's Inner Circle."
He sighed and pursed his lips. "Very well. I believe we're finished here. Good day. I must retire." He closed his eyes and feigned sleep.
"Sir?"
"Good day, Harry."
As I gathered the tome, I couldn't help but notice that I hadn't gotten a chance to talk with him about Tom.
The next few weeks were busy, though surprisingly boring. I attended my Order of Merlin ceremony and saw a stiffly formal Hermione off on holiday with her parents. I filled out a bunch of paperwork at the Ministry that absolved me from prosecution for destroying Tom and his Death Eaters. Then, I sat for photographs of shaking hands with the Minister and other VIP, suffered a few press conferences, made bland speeches about unity and the need to rebuild our world, and dealt with a torrent of mail, much of it from unattached (and some attached) witches who mistakenly though I had a Knut to my name. Tom amused himself by noting how many of the witches he had "known" in his youth. He was particularly keen on our following up on one proposition that involved a ménage à trois with Cho Chang and her Great Aunt Pei.
For my part, I balanced the next few weeks between studying to retake my N.E.W.T.s and translating Albus's text to become the world's expert on magical bond esoterica--Tom's knowledge of runes helped here. Molly spent the time driving me insane with her endless fretting over Bill's and Fleur's wedding. I offered her the services of Kreacher, whose dry wit I'd come to appreciate, but she was having none of it. Instead, I got to put up with a housewife humming Cestina Warbuck songs as she dusted shelves of preserves in the cellar. Hey, someone might look!
After a long conversation, during which I convinced Molly that I did, indeed, love Gin, we arrived at an agreement of sorts, where we'd work together, try not to aggravate the other, and not tell anyone else about our Bond until she or I could figure out what do do about it. Fortunately for me, Molly stopped being intimate with her husband--I guess she was put off by the voyeurism. Arthur wasn't taking it well though, judging by the flowers he kept buying Molly, and I felt a little guilty. But not enough that I wanted a repeat of that morning. I mean, I loved the man like a dad, not an uncle.
The worst part by far was watching Colin court my wife. He apparently passed the "brother test" with flying colors--after Bill removed the blocks on all their memories, they took a more liberal stance on whom Ginny chose to date, "not Harry" becoming the main desideratum. That Gin was far stronger physically and magically than the diminutive photographer didn't hurt either. For his part, Colin offered to photograph the wedding, which even brought him into Molly's good graces.
Late one evening, a few days before the wedding, Molly was interrupted from scrubbing the underside of the sink by a loud "bang" outside. I leaped from my bed, wand in hand, and prepared to Apparate to the Burrow.
"Relax, Harry. It's only the Knight Bus. Ginny and Colin are back from their date."
"Oh," I said, Tom stirring in my head and then settling back asleep. I could hear muffled voices downstairs through her ears. "Are you sure everything is okay? I could go check the perimeter--it's no trouble, really..."
I felt her smirk as she said, "Harry, I'm sure, I've done this before. I'll just give them a few minutes before I go down--enough time for a quick snog, but not for any funny business."
I sighed and slipped back into bed.
"Harry?" she asked. "Do you mind my asking why you're so hung up on Ginny? There's plenty of other girls in the world."
How could I tell her? I gathered a bundle of memories of the last time timeline, my greatest treasures, and passed them them to Molly through our link: Of how I fell in love with her daughter and my first, fumbled attempts at conversation as I pined for her. Of how I took her in my arms and we kissed for the first time in the Gryffindor Common Room. Of our long walks around the Hogwarts lake as we became the closest of friends. Of our wedding day, when I first laid eyes upon my angel, our Soul Bond reaffirming the rightness of the moment beyond question. Of our last tender embrace before I left to destroy Riddle. Of my beloved, lifeless in my arms in the midst of celebration. Of long years of loneliness, weeping over a photograph of the only woman I'd ever truly loved.
"Oh, Harry!" she cried at last, devastated.
"It's just me, Molly. It's who I am," I said, my voice cracking. Finally, someone who understood. I sent her a grateful hug through the bond.
She sniffled. "You've loved her all this time?"
"Yeah. She was more than my wife. She was my soulmate." I heard a giggle downstairs through Molly's ears. "Fat chance of that happening in this timeline though."
"Well, you two are still young." She thought for a moment. "She is, anyway. Too young, in fact, for what you are looking for."
"Huh?"
"Ginny's not even sixteen, Harry, and you're what, thirty?"
I sputtered, "I'm only a year older than she is!"
"Not where it counts, dear," she said. "You're pining after someone only half your age--you should be ashamed at yourself for looking at a fifteen year old girl that way! You really are touched in the head and not in a good way."
I heard a faint moan through Molly's ears, followed by some frustrated mumblings about difficulty working a clasp. "Oh my, look at the time! I'd better go break those two up."
For everyone's sake, I obscured our connection--I had no interest in seeing through Molly's eyes just then.
"An interesting, if diabetes-inducing story, Potter. But I still shall destroy you in the end."
"Go back to sleep, Tom."
"As you see, Mr. Potter, outstanding claims against the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black have reduced your holdings to little more than the one property and a few other illiquid assets. You have a trust vault, which contains two thousand three hundred and forty two Galleons and no other monetary reserves." The ancient goblin pushed a folder across the expansive marble desk. "And, as we discussed, the Noble House of Potter was dissolved and its fortune divided among its claimants when the Head of House and sole remaining member of the family suffered the misfortune of a most untimely and tragic end."
"You mean when I died."
The goblin coughed, uncomfortable. "Yes, Mr. Potter, though we generally do not speak of it so bluntly, out of respect for the, er, survivors."
I nodded to the Goblin. This much was the same as last timeline. An accident of archaic magic and even more ancient legal precedent meant that when I was struck by the Killing Curse, it was legally equivalent to death, silly as the premise may be to modern scholars of law. Even though I'd survived, technically, in the eyes of inheritance law, I still died. The Greengrasses and Parkinsons, my distant relatives and major claimants to the Potter fortune, enjoyed handsome windfalls while I was sent to be locked in a cupboard for reasons having as much to do with financial expediency as personal safety. It's part of why I couldn't really hate Albus--with Sirius out of the picture, he didn't have much choice where to place me growing up.
I took the documents and concluded our meeting with the customary Goblin platitude, "Thank you, Skullrutter. May thy coffers fill with thine enemies' fingerbones and daughters' dowries."
Skullrutter grinned, exposing rows of dark, serrated teeth, his face lit up at finding a client apprised of Goblin custom. "And you, Harry Potter, may thine heir's dagger blood itself first not in thy back, but in thine enemy's."
I made a fist with my right hand and pounded it heavily upon his desk. "And may thine enemies tremble before thee. And may their wives break their hips from thine own powerful pelvic thrusts!"
Skullrutter stood, eyes wide, and leered at me. "And may the life blood of thine enemies flow in champagne fountains at thine exclusive Country Club during the wedding reception of thy first born daughter!"
I leaped upon the desk and roared, "And may thy chiropractor learn his weirding ways from a gentle and at least moderately competent instructor! And may he keep his fingernails trimmed!" I kicked the Goblin hard in the face, splitting his lip.
He staggered to his feet, spit blood upon the floor, and flourished a blackened scimitar. "And may thy love interest keep an open mind in the bedroom!" He swatted me hard on the left shin with the flat of the blade. "And may he or she swallow when called upon!" He struck the other shin.
I withstood his blows with quiet stoicism--Goblin etiquette is not so much about the words exchanged as one's composure; to make a sound would be the gravest of insults. We glared at one another in silence for several seconds, then relaxed.
"Good day then." I stepped down.
"Good day to you, Mr. Potter. And Happy Birthday."
Give them credit--Goblins don't get much work done, but they have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
"Harry, dear, why don't you stop this silly Auror nonsense and come live with us at the Burrow? We can't offer you much money, but you are welcome to stay with us and help with the wedding preparations, at least. I'll have a talk with the boys and get them to stop harassing you until school starts."
Molly and I were on much better terms after I'd volunteered two days of my time helping her, Fleur and Apolline, Fleur's mother, fit dress robes and, to my horror, bridesmaids' gowns. I'd wanted to get back into the family's good graces and they'd needed someone whose brain wouldn't turn to fuzz at having two Veela, emotional and not entirely in control of their auras, pinning and tucking and measuring inseams and the like. It seemed a good idea at the time, though I didn't think I'd ever get the polyjuice taste out of my mouth, nor get over how disconcerting it was turning into a menstruating Ginny.
"I don't really need Hogwarts, Molly, and I couldn't cover the tuition fee anyway."
"Moreover, wench, to slave for you and your expansive brood would be an insult beyond tolerance," Tom added from the recesses of my mind, braving exposure to Molly for the first time. Apparently, he was still flying high from some of the potions they'd administered earlier as part of my Auror testing.
"Harry! Who is that?"
I sent him the mental equivalent of a glare. "An alter-ego or sorts. Don't mind him."
He sneered back at us and muttered something about the indignity of sharing space with a mental cripple and a nitwitted house elf.
"Wha-what?"
"Tom, be nice," I said, hoping to deflect the blow-up. "Molly, I'm a grown man who wants to make his own way in the world. You and Arthur, whom I love and look up to as surrogate parents, wouldn't respect me otherwise."
"You, you think of me as a mother?" she asked, touched, then her mood soured as Tom snickered at us. "Harry, your alter-ego, this Tom, is extremely rude."
"Tom was my birth name, you knot-headed ignoramus. I despise it like I did my Muggle father and blood traitors such as you. I should rightfully be called Lord..."
"Enough! Tom, why don't you leave us for awhile." I gave him a not-so-subtle mental shove in the direction of the Umbridge room. He got the point and scuttled away.
"Lord Whatsit?" Molly asked.
"Lord Tom," I said quickly, grateful that the door opened before me, providing a distraction.
Jacques Leveque, Assistant Department Head in charge of of Auror recruiting, gestured me into his narrow office and beckoned for me to sit upon a worn chair facing his desk. The round-faced man pushed aside a few strands of straw-coloured hair and glanced at the folder he had been handed by his assistant. As he leafed through the pages, his eyes widened.
"Mr. Potter, I must say that it's truly an honor to meet you. Like all in the Department, I've viewed your memories of the final battle with You-Know-Who and I believe I speak for all of us by saying that we're highly impressed. Your N.E.W.T. scores are outstanding, especially considering you took them a year early, and I don't believe we've ever seen a candidate with perfect marks on his entrance examination."
His assistant, a squat man with a dark, pencil mustache, leaned down to whisper something in his supervisor's ear.
"Bloody unbelievable!" he exclaimed, studying the paper in his hands more closely. "You sat for the Auror exit examination and aced it? Robbins, this can't possibly be true."
The smaller, effeminate man nodded. "It is, sir. He finished the course in record time, too. I think we could partner him with one of the senior Aurors as early as next week and begin his field training."
I cracked an innocent smile, one which caused Tom to sneer in my head. "I always wanted to be an Auror, sir. I guess studying hard and preparing to fight Voldemort paid off." Tom scoffed and Molly clucked at him in my head. I couldn't help but smirk inwardly—I figured that having a decade of experience as "top dog" Auror shouldn't hurt my chances at making the Corps.
"That it did, son, that it did. Well, we just have one last thing, a formality really."
"Oh?"
"You need to sit for a psychological examination and security questionnaire. Robbins here will escort you to Madame Stitchcrown, our resident Mind Healer." My apprehension must have showed because he continued, "Really, son, don't worry. It's just a formality and you'll get the antidote to the Veritaserum straight away." He added, chuckling, "I mean, about the only thing that would disqualify you would be if you are hearing voices inside your head or something."
Lovely.
Madame Stitchcrown, an ancient crone with skin and hair the color of cherry cola vomit--from some kind of spell accident, I hoped--seated herself across from me and watched as my body became slack from the influence of the magical truth serum.
"Comfortable, Mr. Potter?" she croaked.
"Yes, mostly," I intoned, slightly disoriented.
"Alrighty, let's begin. Are ye now or have ye ever been a member o' the Communist Party?"
"Huh?"
"Standard boilerplate on all o' Her Majesty's employment questionnaires. Just answer the question."
"No ma'am."
"To the best of your knowledge, do ye house, co-habitate, or associate closely with a member o' the Communist Party."
"No." Tom prodded me in my mind. "Hold on a second--let me think."
He admitted sheepishly, "Back in the War, I joined the Party to infiltrate and organize the resistance to the Dark Lord Grindelwald."
"Bloody hell, Tom! She said 'to the best of your knowledge.' Why'd you have to tell me this? Now I have to tell her!"
"Harry, language!" Molly said, scandalized. You'd think, with six boys and a daughter who, when upset, curses like a Goblin sapper, the matron would have built up a tolerance.
"You believe that you're the only one affected by the Veritaserum, Potter?" He grumbled, "I still cannot fathom how a nincompoop like you ever managed to defeat me."
"Mr. Potter?" the examiner asked.
"You fought against Grindelwald, Lord Tom?" Molly asked, impressed. "Harry, how is it that your alter-ego is over seventy years old?"
"It's a long story, Molly. You see..."
"Damn and blast, Potter, just tell her already! Idiotic woman, I'm Lord Voldemort!"
"Harry!" Molly yelled in my mind. In reality too, as back at the Burrow, she belted out to her family at the luncheon table, "You're possessed by You-Know-Who!" Yep, that'll help me with Gin and her brothers.
"Calm down, Molly. I'm not possessed." My voice trailed off. "More like, er, merged. I'm a horcrux."
"And you didn't think to bring this up before now? I can't believe I'm sharing a Soul Bond with a schizophrenic paedophile housing a Dark Lord in his head!" At least she only shouted this in her head--luncheon conversation at the Burrow had already turned awkward at her earlier outburst.
"Molly, please..." I said.
"Ferme la bouche, you knock-headed boob!"
"Well, I never." She swatted him in my mind--I didn't even know you could do that! "Dark Lord or no, I will not stand for such rudeness, speaking of my bosom like that in that dreadful language!"
I stepped between them, metaphorically speaking--there must be more tension with Fleur and her family than I was aware of. "French is a lovely language, Molly, and I'm quite certain that Tom wasn't talking about your enormous, well proportioned tits." Truth serum to the rescue!
"Harry!" she scolded, then smacked me through our bond, causing me to yelp in pain, both in my head and in the examination room. "You're not supposed to notice! It's bad enough that I fantasize about you when I touch myself..." She did the mental equivalent of covering her mouth with her hands.
"Well, they are expansive and surprisingly well proportioned, wench, one of your few redeeming qualities. In truth, though you are approaching middle age, I do not hesitate to view your impressive bust whenever the opportunity arises." Tom added, not to be outdone in his Veritaserum confessionals.
"I use a lightening charm on them daily--I didn't want to sag," she added. Shocked at what she said, she turned back to Tom and struck him repeatedly. "I expect you to learn some manners, Mr. You-Know-Who!"
"Mr. Potter? Is something the matter?" My examiner asked again, impatient.
I cleared my throat, trying in vain to tune out the duo, who were shouting at one another. "Um, nothing, nothing's wrong, ma'am. I do house, sort of, someone who used to be a member of the Communist Party. But he's dead now."
"A ghost?"
"More like a spirit. He's mostly harmless and hasn't tried to indoctrinate me. Not as a Communist anyway."
"Okay...." She scribbled a note on a parchment.
The magical drug impelled me to babble on. "But the other voice inside my head is harmless." I winced as Molly struck at Tom, but missed and hit me instead. "Mostly harmless. Except when she's upset."
I blinked, the fog in my head lifting as the buttery-tasting antidote melted on my tongue. I flexed my mental shields back into place and regarded the two quiet entities in my head.
"Um," I said.
"So," Tom said.
Molly cleared her throat. "About that," she said.
"Yeah about that," I said.
"Perhaps..." Tom started.
"Can we not speak of this again?" Molly said quickly, with a blush that we all felt.
The Mind Healer ambled into the examination room and seated herself across from me.
"Feeling better now, Mr. Potter?"
I nodded.
"I've reviewed your results from the examination and I'm terribly sorry..." she said, shaking her head.
"Ma'am?"
"She fidgeted with her knobby hands. "I'm grateful for your service, I am at that. But ye failed--worst I seen in years. Merlin's knobby staff, if you weren't a hero, I'd recommend we chuck ye into the bughouse with your noggin touched as it is." She took a deep breath, then coughed violently, her breath smelling of cabbages. "I'm afraid the only government job ye can safely hold in your condition is Hogwarts Professor. I can put in a good word with my grand-niece, Minnie, if ye like, maybe get ye the Defense position they never can fill...."
"Me? The Defense Professor at Hogwarts?" I sat back into my chair, stunned. When I was younger, I'd dreamed of such an opportunity.
She nodded, her wide smile showing all three of her teeth. Tom chuckled in my mind, reminded of his own interview for the job, then hid as Molly bustled to the fore, her booming alto drowning out all other thought. "Harry, I really think you should take her offer. You'd make a lovely Professor."
I shrugged her off and turned to the Mind Healer, my voice strained, "I... I'm not sure what to say..." Actually I did. "Obliviate."
Molly's mammaries--no way was I going through life as a teacher.
A/N: The "hairy ball" theorem is real. Google it.
Again, thanks to Alpha Fight Club for their help hammering the prose into shape. See chapter 1 for disclaimer
