The Laws of Concubinage

A moderately pregnant Ginny Potter was sitting in the gazebo with her extremely pregnant co-wife. Over the last few years, Ginny and Pansy had come to like each other's company, having had a rocky beginning learning to trust each other and the other's love for their joint husband. Ginny still thought that Pansy was sometimes a conniving bitch, while Pansy often thought Ginny was a sentimental fool, and both knew that Harry needed both of them, and their skills and talents, in his life. Ginny was the one who came up with the term 'swife' (short for sister-wife) to describe their relationship with each other. How the rest of the family's were now related was still a bit of a puzzle, partly as Ron had a lot of problem getting past his and Pansy's school affiliations.

With them was their pregnant sister-in-sort-of-law (as Ginny put it), Dr Hermione Weasley (PhD Chemistry and Potions, as well as LL.D.) who was due in about fortnight. Also due in a couple weeks was Florie the house elf, who was serving refreshments to the ladies. Sitting with them, drinking tea, lemonade, or chilled white wine (from one of Harry's Australian vineyards) were three happy soon-to-be grandmothers (in Molly and Elly's cases, for multiple times), and an elder respected Scottish witch.

Ginny had just explained that she always timed her pregnancies for a summer delivery, so that she could play out the quidditch season before her balances was too far off, and then get back into shape afterwards for the start of the fall season. Her team captain had her play Chaser until she was about 5 months along (with heavy protective charms to prevent injuries), then switch to Seeker for the remainder of the season and the playoff, as that position had less risk of collisions.

Headmistress McGonagall had just informed the group that she had checked the Hogwarts book of births, and all of their children had been registered, indicating that they were all magically gifted. Pansy was surprised when Minerva (as she demanded they call her, now that they were all adults) told her that one 'Tamara Alexandra Potter' had been registered in the book, even though she knew of no such child. Pansy smiled and said "That's the name Harry and I chose for this little lump", pointing at her enlarged belly. Minerva looked stunned and said "She is going to be a very powerful witch then, because I have only known of one other child who was so powerful that they was registered even before they were born, and that was Albus Dumbledore."

The gazebo was located in the middle of what Harry had called 'The Ladies' Garden', which had plants which were either special to, or representative of, the women he thought most important in his life. He had planned this out with Bruce (Florie's husband, and primary garden elf) to make sure that the soil and sun exposure would be appropriate for the various plants.

Ginny told Headmistress McGonagall that Harry was becoming fascinated by the flying insects he watched as they were getting the garden planted, and then when it was modified as the family increased. He was now studying entomology by correspondence through the Open University, specializing on bee and butterflies – he said he had never seen anything at Hogwarts as magical as watching as a fat worm-like creature went to sleep for a couple weeks and woke up as a creature with beautiful wings. Ginny wondered if Harry saw parallels between his treatment as a child being told he was worthless (the worm), and then McGonagall's getting him into an honoured position in quidditch (the butterfly), and this might be why he loved flying so much.

Near the back were a row of olive trees, at the foot of which were several varieties of lilies, and bands of marigolds - when Ginny's first daughter was born, Harry looked at the little pink face surrounded by an aura of strawberry-blond fuzz, and decided that Marigold would be a suitable name, at which point Molly asked how he had known that was her favourite flower, so the flowers served a double function. Lining the sides of the garden were rows of juniper bushes (Harry admitted to Ginny that it wasn't quite an accurate Dutch translation of her name, but he hoped she wouldn't mind). There were beds of pansies and periwinkles (Hermione's favourite flower). The areas of the juniper and pansies were carefully and specifically kept to an equal size. There was a small patch of pink and purple lupins (Tonks had never told him what flowers she like, but she had loved a 'Lupin'). There was a small patch of moonflowers, for a family friend and sister-in-arms. There was a newly planted palm tree (surrounded by a suitable warming spell) for little 'Tamara to come' (Pansy's first, due to be born very soon), and a section of the leafy herb for Rosemary (Ginny's second, who had followed James Arthur Sirius). There was a small bush of orange 'Little Flame' roses, in honour of Ron and Hermione's Rosie (Harry, Ginny and Pansy's god-daughter), who had definitely inherited her father's hair colour.

The dure Scottish Headmistress had uncharacteristically teared up when she realized the meaning of the olive trees.

The garden has many paths, and there was room for further plantings, as they became necessary. And in the middle of the garden, surrounded by the fragrance of the flowers, was the gazebo where they would often sit out in the evening talking and watching the stars.

Alexandra Parkinson ('please call me Sasha') was telling Minerva and Molly about a funny event that had happened when she was at Hogwarts, when Minerva was still a junior member of staff, when a large barn owl approached and landed in front of Pansy. The bird held out her leg, so that Lady Black could retrieve the letter attached. Pansy looked at Florie and asked, "Could you please arrange for something for our guest?" Florie smiled and nodded, disappearing and immediately reappearing with a plate of uncooked bacon and what looked like a couple of freshly dead mice. The owl spread her wings, squatted and bowed her head towards Florie and then to Pansy, then gobbled down the treats.

Sasha had never seen her daughter be courteous to an elf before, and none of the women had even seen an owl curtsey before.

Pansy asked to be excused for a minute (again amazing her mother with her politeness, noting that Harry and Ginny were definitely having an effect on the younger witch), and opened the letter which turned out to be from her dorm-mates Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass. She read it, then with wide eyes read it twice more, and then put the note in her pocket. She looked at Ginny and said "Sorry, we need to go in for a minute. Family business." She looked at the older ladies and asked "Would you please excuse us for a short while? Thank you. Hermione, can I ask you to come in with us, and Florie, can you please find Harry and ask him to join us in the study?"

Harry and Ron had gone flying over the Potter estate, and then were wandering around the apple orchard, looking at the developing fruit. Ron had a bottle of butterbeer, while Harry had some of his estate's cider in hand. Ron was commenting how Hermione had taken the book that her parents had given them, and also one that Parvati Sharma (née Patil) had sent her as a wedding present.

Ron said, "Mate, you know how Hermione loves to study and learn new things? She started reading these books, 'The something of Sex', and Parvati's book 'The Camel Suited' or something like that – Hermione insisted on learning Hindi so she could read it in the original language. Couldn't make heads or tails of it myself. All about different ways to make love. Harry, if they had had these at Hogwarts, I would have been a much better student!"

Harry laughed at his chum and asked, "So how are the studies going. What Elly called 'the lab work'?"

Ron grinned widely "Fan-bloody-tastic! You've seen a couple of the results running around playing with your lot."

Florie appeared, and said that Mistress Pansy would like Harry in the study, please.

Harry told the elf he would be there momentarily, and asked Ron to excuse him for a bit. He suggested that Ron take a look at the pastureland just over the hill to the west, and give his opinion of developing the valley as a quidditch pitch, now that Ron had made it up to lead keeper, and assistant coach of the Cannons.

Harry walked across the orchard to the house, being as it was too nice a day to just apparate, and the message did not include any of the family code words intended to indicate urgency without alarming guests.

Harry arrived to find his wives and his best female friend all giggling wildly. Ginny looked up and said "Welcome to the Potter stud farm! Now entering the ring, the prime bull!" Harry grimaced and thought 'What the hell have I gotten myself into now?'

Pansy handed the letter to Harry. Reading it, he found that Tracey and Daphne, having spent their years at Hogwarts among some of the worst excuses of masculinity to be found anywhere, had eventually given up on men entirely. Their friendship, closeness and mutual support in the Slytherin dorms had blossomed into something deeper, and they were now completely and permanently committed to each other. However, England in general, and the wizarding world in specific, did not recognise gay marriages, and there was no way through the marriage laws that they could be recognised as each other's beneficiaries and heirs.

In order to commit 'all their worldly goods' to each other, Daphne and Tracey had formed a company 'Davis Greengrass Holdings'. The letter stated that the corporate name had been chosen to indicate the principal activity of the company. Harry smiled, and saw his wives grinning back at him. As Hermione looked puzzled, Ginny explained the family in-joke that Harry had this habit of approaching them from behind and hugging them, cupping their breasts in his hands as he did so – Pansy had started pretending to pick up a muggle telephone, and announcing in a 'corporate' voice, as if answering a client, "Potter Holdings, Pectoral Developments Department."

Then Harry got to the gist of the letter. Tracey and Daphne wanted children. As neither the muggle or magical worlds accepted their lifestyle as suitable for adopting, and making a public announcement or fight over it would likely get both disowned by their pureblood families, they were asking their old school 'chum' (Pansy indicate this was pushing the definition a bit) to ask her husband if he would be willing to be a sperm donor for them both.

Pansy indicated that, as this affected the entire family, she felt that Ginny had to be part of the decision (which was deeply appreciated by her swife). She also thought there could be legal implications, and although Hermione was now working in the Ministry's legal department and was forbidden to take private clients, they would appreciate Hermione's input.

Harry sat for a while, in deep thought. Finally he asked, "Hermione, can you check on what rights of inheritance such children would have? How would it affect our current children?"

Hermione said "When I was looking up the various things about the marriage laws for you a couple years ago, I found a number of items on the topic. If you do not acknowledge them as yours, they would have no rights of inheritance – they would be considered by wizarding society as fatherless bastards, and would be outcasts. If you acknowledge them, they would have the same rights as any of your other children, except they could not inherit your titles."

"However, even if you do claim them as your own, their mothers would lose any social status they had in wizarding community, being considered no better than whores. They would very likely be disowned by their families. I have met Daphne's father and he is one right piece-of-work."

Pansy added, "I have met her dad too. He is just as likely to find her and beat her to death for dishonouring the family, and more importantly, denying him the bride-price he would get for marrying her off to some rich pureblood."

Harry sat back, putting his hands together and touching his index fingers to his lips as he thought for a couple minutes.

Finally he said simply "No."

He paused, while his wives and friend looked at him in surprise. The man who seemed ready to put his own life at risk for people he didn't even know, was unwilling to do a simple, if pleasurable, act for some school acquaintances and friends of one of his wives.

Harry looked at the women, apologetically. "I cannot. I was an orphan and an outcast. I cannot, I will not, inflict that on an innocent child. I had to put up with the scorn from pureblood society, most of whom were trying to kill me most of the time, and lying about me the rest. I didn't know Daphne or Tracey at all at school, but I cannot do something that would subject them to that level of scorn and personal danger."

He looked at his two wives, then to Hermione. "Hermione, what difference would it make if their mothers were married to me, as my concubines?"

Ginny and Pansy were shocked at this turn of events. They had not thought of this possibility, although it was always part of the whole legal nonsense that began their joint marriage.

Hermione thought for a moment. "If you took Daphne and Tracey as concubines, assuming that they would agree to it, they would be recognised as your wives, but of a lower status than Ginny and Pansy here. For example, they could not sit as members of the Wizengamot in the family seats in their own right (however, you could install them temporarily, by appointed them legally as regents for your other children who are not yet of an age to take their seats). However, they would fall under all the legal protections of the Noble Houses. The children would be in line of succession, but only after the children of your 'primary' marriages. In years past, this would have put your 'primary' children at some personal risk if one of the 'secondaries' got ambitious and wanted to improve their chances of inheriting."

Harry went back into his deep thoughts. Then he sat up and looked at his wives. "Ginny, you told me years ago that you were going to have veto power over such decisions. Pansy, I say that you too have veto power over this. I propose that I marry Tracey and Daphne as my concubines, as the wizarding society's stupid laws seem to require of me – I think we all knew this day would have to come. Pansy, you seem to think enough of these two to even have considered it to the point of bringing it to my attention, and I will trust your judgement on this. If, and only if acceptable to you two and to them, I will provide the sperm for the conception of their children, and I will acknowledge those children as my own. They do not have to live in this house with us, as I have many other properties where they can reside – in fact, if either of you want a secondary residence for your own, it's yours. I will not interfere with their relationship. But any children I help create will have my protection, and no woman will be disadvantaged because of it. Otherwise, no. What do you think? Do you agree?"

Pansy and Ginny looked at each other, and at Harry. Ginny said "Can I have a little time to think about it?" Pansy nodded. Harry smiled, and said "My dear wives and loves, of course, as much time as you want. Just let me know your decision, and we will let them know as well. Now we have guests who are probably waiting to find out what the fuss was about. I think we can trust them all to the point where we can tell them about this, but Gin, I want to be far away from your mother and her temper when you let her in on it."

A month and a half later, three weeks after the Daily Prophet announce that the Man-Who Conquered had been presented with a daughter by his second wife Pansy, it had a further announcement that Harry Potter had taken the beautiful former Daphne Greengrass and the former Tracey Davis as concubine-wives. It did not announce that the two new Potter ladies would be living in a separate dwelling in a small town just outside London, as this information had not been released to the press.

During one of the several family picnics in the fields behind the Manor, the topic of family politics came up. Ginny asked her new swives how they had gotten together, and how they managed to stay out of the Death Eater faction, as they had both been in Slytherin with Draco Malfoy and his cohorts. Pansy had already explained how her own affiliation with Draco had been part of her family's attempt to cosy up to the Malfoy family's wealth and power, and that the pure-blood dialogue had essentially been camouflage in order to fit in; her relationship with Draco had been as much to keep his co-horts from treating her as their plaything, as occurred with a lot of her classmates.

Daphne started "As to the politics, my dad was very ambitious, but he saw the Death Eater group was being led by Lucius Malfoy, who was really power hungry. Dad is what they call a control freak, and he didn't want to be part of any group unless he was in charge. With Malfoy around, even before the Dark Lord came back, that wasn't going to happen, so he wanted no part of it. We were sufficiently wealthy to manage without the connections, but we had never bought into the pure-blood bigotry bullshit which was the 'party line' – one more reason to keep out of it."

Tracey said "In my case, it was fear of Harry." When the group looked at her with questioning expressions, she continued "This was just after the end of the first war with Voldemort. Dad heard all the stories about the Boy-who-lived, and he saw the rise of the Death Eaters who managed to buy their way out of Azkaban; we all knew who they were. He figured that sometime in the future, they were going to go after Harry again, in revenge, or perhaps seeing him as a threat to them replacing Voldemort (if he didn't come back). He also figured that if a fifteen month old baby could blow away the most powerful dark wizard of the last century, when the kid grew up he was going to obliterate Voldemort's followers, either in revenge for his parents, or just because they pissed him off themselves. As it turned out, it was a bit of both, besides old Voldy himself coming back into the game. Anyway, good reasons to keep out of it, on top of the pure-blood nonsense. You have to remember, us Slytherins are sorted for our cunning, not as it often seems, for stupidity."

Tracey started by saying "As to our getting together, I don't know how it was in the Gryffindor tower, but when we first got to Hogwarts, a lot of us were away from home for the first time. We were lonely, and desperately homesick. The second night, as I was lying in bed crying my eyes out, Daph crawled into bed with me and hugged me for comfort. She was crying too, and I hugged back. As winter came on, the additional body warmth was appreciated, too. Those dorms were damned cold. We became best friends."

Daphne commented, "At the same time, a number of the seventh year Snakes were telling the firsties and second-year girls that they were expected to sleep with them, supposedly out of loyalty to Slytherin House. Why loyalty to the House meant we had to screw them, I never understood, except that it was a great excuse."

Ginny commented, "In Gryffindor, some sevenths (boys and girls) made the same comment, but it was always laughed off as just a way to tease the younger girls. Nothing really came of it, although in second year Lavender did start going with a seventh year boy shortly after. She said it was by her choice, and that he was her first."

Daphne shook her head, "In Slytherin, it was not a tease or a joke. They meant it. That's how Tracey and I lost our virginities; I think Pansy told you that there weren't many virgins in Slytherin. If the emotional coercion didn't work, physical force did. One way or another, it was rape. Maybe this is what started putting us off men. Trace and I were fortunate, if you can call it that, that our first-timers were quite gentle. Millicent wasn't so fortunate, and she was in the hospital wing for almost a week. I gather you know that Madame Pomfrey was threatened when she tried to report it."

Hermione asked, "How did you manage to fend it off. You are both beautiful women, and I suspect prime targets."

Tracey nodded and laughed sadly "well, between Poppy Pomfrey, my Mum, and Daph's mother, we learned some useful, and frankly, rather nasty charms and hexes. Most importantly, we both learned the 'Contracepta' to keep from getting preggers. We also learned the 'Contracepto', which temporarily made the guys sterile, and the 'Contramax' which made them impotent. The really good ones were the 'Jokichu' which made the guys have intense itching in their crotches, and the 'Clapto' which prevented their urinating without pain for about two weeks."

Daphne laughed with a wicked smile "Strangely enough, Madame Pomfrey couldn't seem to find a cure for these 'ailments', and word quickly spread that the two of us were both infected with something really virulent, and that anyone who insisted on our 'participation' was going to have unpleasant consequences. By spring of first year, they were leaving us alone. We started teaching some of the other girls (or at least the ones we liked) the spells. Unfortunately, there weren't many in our house that we liked that much."

"We didn't care for Pansy much until about fifth year, when we finally saw through her strategy, and got to know the determined but frightened girl who was started to see the consequences of her family's alliances, but was now in too deep to get out safely. We are really glad she made it okay." Looking around the estate, Daphne added, "Pansy, doesn't look like you did too badly, after all. Hopefully, your dad feels this alliance worked out as well as the Malfoy one would have."

Over the next year, Tracey and Daphne kept rigorous track of their cycles, and were regularly checked by their healer for their peak fertility points, at which point Harry did his husbandly duty via a test tube. It didn't work.

The healers checked both women with every diagnostic spell and test known to magical and muggle science, and both ex-Slytherins passed every hurdle, except the most important one of becoming pregnant.

Rumours started to spread about the feared 'pureblood curse'. Harry had not heard about this and asked all his wives, as well as Hermione. The 'curse', if there was such a thing, was that pureblood families, of the highest ranks of society, seldom had more than one child, and it appeared that pureblood families were, as a group, becoming sterile. The only wizarding families with large families were either mixed bloods, or purebloods of lower class who would often marry with muggles or muggle-borns.

Hermione reminded Harry and 'his ladies' of the law she had found years before, about a possible legal cause for 'the curse', although that didn't apply to any of them (which was fairly obvious given the little red-haired children running around the house, and the little dark-haired baby nursed contentedly at Pansy's left breast).

Hermione had spoken to her medical associates, and had found some disturbing news which was kept as a 'Healer's Secret'. There had been a research paper written by a well-placed healer named Michaels, which concluded that the pureblood families, who kept to their 'own kind', were so in-bred that their children tended to be non-magical or idiots. Such children were often seen as a disgrace to the families, and infanticide was often suspected in the disappearances or deaths of such children shortly after birth. Only the rare magical pureblood children seemed to survive infancy, and very few of them would qualify as geniuses. Shortly after this paper was sent to a healer's journal for publication, Healer Michaels disappeared and was never heard from again.

The suspicion that Healer Michaels had been murdered by purebloods infuriated both Hermione and Harry (although it did explain how Voldemort had got so many purebloods to buy into his plans, and did explain the apparent stupidity of a number of Slytherin classmates). This however, was a fight for another day.

What Hermione found in the texts on the laws of inheritance were strange enough.

When she met with the extended Potter family to explain her findings, she announced "This law is really weird. It essentially forbids artificial insemination. It says that, in order to maintain proper respect for the dignity and 'marital rights' of the wife and both families, the transfer of the husband's seed from himself to his wife must be in the 'natural way'. A nationwide spell has been put in place so that any 'seed' transferred by other means will be non-viable. Apparently, this is to prevent pureblood wizards spreading their sperm all over the place, and having lots of children all claiming their inheritance – this is seem as an attack on the dignity (such as it is) of the pureblood families, as well as being a legal nightmare of conflicting claims to the family property. There is a strange clause though, where if the wizard has been injured in such a way that the 'natural way' cannot work, other assisted methods are allowed and the 'seed' will be viable." Harry thought about the implications of such injuries, and visibly cringed, as Hermione laughed at his grimace, and said "Don't worry Harry, if you lose your dinguss playing quidditch, the old turkey baster will come to your rescue!"

At this news, Tracey turned to Daphne, held her hand, and said "Dear Heart, it looks like we're screwed." Daphne looked over at Harry and smiled, and then with a wicked smile on her face she turned to Tracey and said "actually, not yet Heartsong, but if our beloved husband feels that he is up to the task, I suspect we will be soon!"