The Infant-Who-Survived, The Man-who-Lived, and Frustrated Friends
It was summer, nine years after the defeat and death of Lord Voldemort.
The extended family was having a swim and a picnic at Harry's place in Cornwall. Molly and Arthur had arrived in the morning to help, Ron and Hermione and their kids had come over to the Manor in the morning, Bill and Fleur and theirs were coming over in the later afternoon, while George and Angelina and kids were coming over mid-day. Even Percy and Penny were coming over with their kids.
Andromeda Tonks was bringing Teddy over in the afternoon to play with Victoire and the other older children, and Luna Lovegood and a number of other old friends were planning to show up when they could.
Nev and Hannah Longbottom were going to arrive late, as they and their children were checking out the new vintage at some of Neville's vineyards in New Zealand, as well as visiting with the very short race of people who had recently rented out their villages as movie locations and were now adding a booming tourist trade to their usual bucolic lifestyle. For Nev's family, it would be an early breakfast, as the wizarding world had not yet found an effective treatment for floo-lag.
Although entitled to the title (due to the permanent incapacitation of his father), Neville refused to use the title of Lord Longbottom while his father lived (if it could be called living), except during meetings of the Wizengamot as the official representative of his House.
Everyone was to be on the south lawn by six for a picnic supper.
Harry had done his best to follow the dictates of the marriage laws which had imposed two wives and two concubines (so far) on him in order to repopulate the wizarding world. He still resented the fact that it was a legal obligation, but was making the best of it. The hardest part seemed to be when Ron and Hermione came to visit with their brood, keeping track of which small person belonged to what mother.
Hair colour and characteristics helped. If the hair was red or brown, and bushy, the kid definitely one of Ron and Hermione's four. If the child had red unruly hair, Ginny was the mother (the unruly hair was part of Harry's inheritance from his own father). Very light blondes could only belong to Fleur. However, there were a number with straight red hair, or dark smooth hair, who might belong to anyone. As the children had played together since birth, and there were now so many of them (seventeen, between Harry and Ron's families alone), it became a difficult if pleasant task to sort them out. However, while comforting a crying child was a shared responsibility, discipline was solely a parent's job, and sometimes Harry had to make sure which little witch was which.
Headmistress McGonagall kept in touch whenever any of the family produced a new family member, and the book of magical births recorded that all of the children born to the extended Weasleys or the Potter amalgamation were eligible for enrolment at Hogwarts. As the children started showing signs of accidental magic, they were taught simple household spells, but when you have a room of six kids throwing tantrums and causing furniture to fly around, things could get a bit hairy.
Ginny had partially followed her mother's example, and had produced twins with her fifth pregnancy (instead of her fourth, as Molly had done). Having been at their castle in the highlands when her time came due and 'womb service gave the check-out notice', her newest son got named Robert Bruce, and the girl was christened Heather Fiona, adding to the four she already had. Little Athena was now only a year old and still nursing when the twins were born, but Ginny had also followed her mother's example in her physical development and managed to nurse all three.
Pansy had just presented Harry with her fifth child (Madeline), while Daphne and Tracey had finally started 'fulfilling their obligations' as concubines in the House of Black, delivering Thorin (Daphne) and Mariposa (Tracey).
The extended family was relaxing around the pool at the manor, which over the years had been substantially enlarged to have a hot tub, a large wading pool for little legs to splash around in, and an Olympic size section with lanes for the serious swimmers. Harry, Ron and George were assigned to watch the waders (joined by six year old Marcus, Pansy's first), when the ladies were all called over to their respective infants for 'lunch on mum'.
Harry was just pulling Morris (Hermione's) and Tammy (Pansy's) out of the deeper water where the two-year olds had just fallen face first, when he was confronted by two upset little red-headed six-year old girls. They were trailed by their usual entourage of cousins. The most obvious identities were red-haired Jimmy and black-haired Johnny, as both had inherited their father's emerald eyes and myopia (hence the thick glasses) as well as the unruly hair. Behind them was little three year old Rosemary, whose eternal expression of utter amazement always made Harry think that, had he not actually watched her emerge from Ginny's body, he would have sworn she must have been Luna's daughter.
Rosemary was a bit of an anomaly, even for the Potter family. With three red-headed grandparents, she had little choice in her hair colour, but she had inherited her paternal grandfather's spiky hair style – Ginny had kept Rosemary's hair long to help smooth it down. It also appeared that she had inherited James' animagus nature (as a cat), although it hadn't developed fully yet. Ginny had noticed it first when she was nursing Rosemary, and heard and felt what she thought was purring. Rosemary was toilet-trained by the time she was six months old (practically unheard of) and her finger and toe-nails grew much more rapidly than those of the other children. When Hermione brought Crookshanks to visit at a time when Rosemary was only a year old, the toddler had hissed at him. One time when the girl was about one and a half, she came up to Ginny complaining "bum hurt!" – when Ginny took a look, she found a short furry tail (ginger coloured of course). Minerva McGonagall was consulted, and was helping train the little witch, so that she could better manage the transitions. It was inevitable that her nickname would be 'Kitten'.
Rosie and Marigold had been talking, and marched up to Harry looking as ferocious as two little red-heads could. Rosie asked in an angry voice "Uncle Harry, why do you want to jump on my Mummy?", while Mari said "And why does Aunt Miney want to jump on you?" Rosemary jumped up and down, laughing "Daddy jump! Aun' Miney jump! Jump, jump, jump!"
Harry responded in his time-tested way of answering women of all ages when he didn't have a clue what was going on. "What?"
Marigold responded "Mummy Pansy say you want to jump Aunt Hermione's bones." And Rosie shouted "And Tante Fleur says that 'ermione want to jump 'Arry!" closely mimicking her French-born aunt's speech. Harry sputtered and blushed profusely, while the assembled nursing women (who were clearly overhearing the interchange) all burst out laughing, causing some disturbance to their small temporary pectoral attachments.
Harry looked at his audience and tried to gauge how to phrase the answer that he was obviously required to provide. The ladies on the porch all leaned forward to hear him try to get out of this one, or to see what material they would soon have for future teasing.
He asked "Do you know what that means?"
Marigold shook her head, but Rosie said "That's when you want to hug someone really tight." Marigold looked at her cousin in shock, and asked "Mummy-Daddy hugs?" Rosie nodded "Yup!"
At the look of bewilderment on the faces of the younger cousins, Marigold turned to them and announced in a stage whisper (in the way of all big sisters demonstrating her vastly superior knowledge of the secrets of the world to her younger siblings) "That's when a mummy and daddy take a nap together, and you can tell that they are not sleeping. Sometimes, they are making babies!" If it were possible for Rosemary's eyes to have gotten wider, they would have.
The two girls spun around and looked at Harry. Marigold looked at her father and announced, "You can't give mummy-daddy hugs to Aunt Miney. She belongs to Uncle Ron!" Rosie was equally indignant "And Mummy can't hug you. You belong to Aunt Ginny and Aunt Pansy and Aunt Daphne and Aunt Tracey, not to my Mummy!"
Harry nodded vigorously. "You are absolutely correct! It would be very wrong for Hermione and me to give each other that kind of hugs."
Rosie looked at Harry and said, "But sometimes, when we come over and swim without our swimming suits, your pee-pee sticks up when you see my Mummy, and her points stick out when she sees you. That's what happens when Mummy and Daddy want to make babies!"
He lowered his voice, as if telling the girls a secret. "You know, Hermione and Ron are my oldest friends. I love them both, as friends. But you know Rosie, your mummy is a beautiful woman, and sometimes people's bodies don't think about right and wrong, and when I see your mummy, sometimes my body just thinks how beautiful she is. Apparently, she thinks I look good too."
"There are times when our bodies want to do something, and we know we shouldn't. Like when you are hungry, and want a cookie just before dinner. You know you shouldn't, but your body wants to. To go have a cookie would be the easy thing, but it would not be right."
"How you deal with your wants makes you the good person I know you both are, or can make you into a bad person if you always give in to your wants. We have brains to control what we do, but it can't always control what our bodies want. We are intelligent, good people and so we do what are brain tells us is good."
He looked at the two girls (and the crowd behind them), and asked "Is that okay with you?" The girls looked a little confused as if they had just gotten more information and a bigger lesson than they had been prepared for, and that they would have to do some serious thinking about it. Both nodded reluctantly.
Most of their cousins had, by this time, gone off to other things. Bruce (the house elf) and his eldest son Micky had set up a sprinkler on the lawn, and the children were running through it. Daphne looked over and conjured a couple of small rainclouds to provide extra opportunity for water games, given the large number of small people trying to run through a single sprinkler.
Harry went over to the porch, opened a cider, and muttered, "How the hell did I get myself into that?"
Hermione was sitting with the women she now referred to (following Ginny's invention) as her 'swisters-in-law'. She looked at Harry, batted her eyelashes at him, and asked "So now I'm a cookie?" The group all broke into laughter. Pansy said "I thought a girl on the side was 'a bit of crumpet'". Hermione straightened up and with mock dignity announced "I will have you know I am not 'a bit of crumpet'. Harry has declared I am a cookie!"
Ginny began giggling "You know, that furry blue monster on the telly who always wants cookies make much more sense to me now." There was much giggling among those who had been watching the television show with their offspring.
Harry smiled and looked at Pansy and Fleur. "Why did you tell the girls that?"
Both women shook their heads. Pansy said "Harry, you are so thick! Anyone with eyes can see that there is some unrequited lust between you two. Ginny is not entirely happy about it, but she knows that it was from before you and she got together, and that you both are so damned honourable that nothing would ever happen."
Hermione said in a quiet voice, "You know, Harry, that winter in the tent, you didn't try anything, ever. You didn't make any suggestive remarks, or compliment me on my body or anything except for my intellect - I have more to my body than just my brains. Even when we shared the bed, it was just to hug away nightmares, or for warmth in the cold. They say that nothing makes you more sexually hungry than being in fear for your life, and you never gave me any indication that you wanted me in that way. Harry, I really wanted you to love me, I was desperately lonely, but I didn't do anything about it because I was afraid it would scare you away. It really hurt my self-esteem as a young, healthy woman. For a while, I thought you must be gay, but you didn't seem to want Ron that way either." She laughed, but there was obvious pain behind the laugh.
Ron had come to terms (in his own mind) with Hermione's yearning for Harry during the winter on the run, partly because he had had no right or claim to her at the time, having abandoned the both of them, and he still carried the guilt for that act. But there had been much water under many bridges since then.
Harry sputtered and blushed at this evaluation of what he had hoped at the time had been honourable behaviour, not taking advantage of a friend in a stressful situation.
Ginny spoke up. "I think I can provide the reason for it, although it was really Luna who figured it out."
At this moment, the fireplace flared green, and the lady herself emerged. She smiled and asked "What are blaming me for, this time?" She looked around at the nursing mothers, and calmly removed her silk blouse and blue satin bra before sitting down. She looked at Harry and Ron, whose eyes looked about to pop from their heads, and remarked "This seems to be the dress code today." She waved her wand at her long hair, which formed itself into a long braid down her back, making it certain that her bare breasts remained visible.
Ron choked on his butterbeer.
Florie and a younger female elf appeared at Luna's side. "What would Missy Luna like?" Luna looked over at Harry, and said "What is it that you call the apple-flavoured mead you make?" Harry answered, "I use the old muggle name for it, cyser." Luna turned to Florie and said, "May I have some cyser, please? Chilled?"
Florie nodded and the two elves disappeared, reappearing together a moment later. The younger elf carefully presented Luna with a chilled glass of amber liquid. Luna thanked the elf and asked her name. Florie beamed with pride and said, "This is my daughter, Minnie. She is learning to serve, as is the way of our folk."
Hermione looked over at Harry and smiling, asked, "Are you paying Minnie properly?" Before Harry could answer, Florie said proudly, "No Missy Hermione, I am sub-contracting her! Master Harry insisted I pay her, so she gets a flower a month, which is one-quarter what I am paid."
Luna smiled at this exchange. She looked over the additional buildings and the extension to the swimming pool, which were obviously magically built. She then looked over the crowd of children playing on the lawn, and remarked (carefully timing her remark to the instant that Harry was going to swallow some of his cider), "Harry, I see your wand is getting a good workout." At this, Harry choked and spit cider all over the flowerbed. Ginny gave Luna a thumbs-up sign and whispered in a faked soft voice "Good one, Luna" as the other ladies laughed.
Luna grinned at Ginny and then asked, "What was the topic again?"
Ginny grinned at her husband and said "Your analysis of why Harry didn't hump Hermione in the tent." Both Hermione and Harry choked and blushed. Ginny grinned – she was always ready to pull a prank wherever and whenever she could.
Ron choked on his butterbeer.
The short blonde witch said, as if it was a trivial and obvious point, "Ah yes. That. It is actually quite simple."
Harry leaned forward "Luna, please explain. I thought I was trying to be a good person, and not hurt my friend. Actually, both my friends, because Ron and Hermione were sort of together, and then Ron left us, and Hermione was devastated. I didn't want to hurt her further."
Luna said "Harry, it goes deeper than that. Much deeper into who you are, or rather, who you were. It has to do with why you were so angry when people didn't believe you about the Goblet of Fire. It has to do with why you broke up with Ginny, after Dumbledore's funeral – you said to yourself, and to her, that it was to keep her safe while you carried out your mission, and that was certainly part of it."
"Harry, deep in your heart, in the innermost reaches of your mind, you were convinced that you were unworthy to be loved."
Other than Ginny (who had heard this before), the group gasped. Pansy thought it through, and nodded, biting her lower lip as she did so.
Harry looked shocked, angry and puzzled. "What do you mean?"
Luna smiled at him. "Harry, you have always been unaware of how good a person you were. You would have done anything, including dying yourself, to prevent hurting Hermione during that winter on the run. And we all love you for that. Take a thought about when you proposed to Ginny – you delayed the announcement so that you did not upstage Ron and Hermione. Your concern for your friends and loved ones touches everything you do."
"But one of your first memories was of your parents being killed by Voldemort, in order to protect you – you came to understand that they were killed because of you. Your godfather was killed in a fight to prevent Voldemort from getting the prophecy, and you moped for months because you felt he was killed because of you. Your Aunt and Uncle kept telling you that you were a freak that no one could love, and that no one would be friend with – they told people you were going to a school for the criminally insane. The reason you broke up with Ginny, and you didn't want Hermione and Ron to come on the quest, was that you were convinced that everyone you loved got killed, because of you."
"You and Hermione could have made love in the tent, for mutual support and comfort as well as warmth. You could have been there for each other, and no one would have had anything to say against it. You couldn't do that, because you couldn't believe that she could love you, and that if you tried anything, she would object to your advances and leave, because you were unlovable. You needed her in the quest, and as apparently almost your only friend (not knowing that Neville and I were reactivating the DA back at Hogwarts), and you couldn't risk losing her by her rejecting you for what you thought you were."
"When Ron didn't believe you about entering the Tri-Wizard championship, you were furious, because you felt that he was only your friend because of your glory, and not for you."
"You hated the glory of being "The Boy-Who-Lived" because you had done nothing to achieve it, except watching the parents you loved getting murdered!"
"Harry, one of my greatest pleasures has been watching you grow out of this deep chasm since you killed old Moldy Shorts. With your wives and your friends, and your children, you have become comfortable with who you are. The good man that you has always been, the man who taught us 'Defence' against Umbridge and her hangers-on, who led us and fought beside us at the Department of Mysteries, who cried over each one of us who was hurt, who killed Voldemort and then cried over each and every one of our injured or dead schoolmates."
"Harry, we all love you, because of who you were and who you are now. You are worthy to be loved."
Luna sipped her drink. Her eyes glazed over slightly, as was her normal expression when she thought deeply. Looking at the glass, she said "You know Harry, your cider and mead making projects, and your study of bees and butterflies, are the only things you have ever done in your entire life, purely because you wanted to do them, not for the benefit of others. You have given yourself the freedom to do them."
Harry sat stunned. "They are not. I play quidditch, and I married these wonderful women and have great kids."
Luna shook her head. "No. You started playing quidditch because McGonagall dragged you up to meet Oliver Wood, even if you found you like it and people respected you for your abilities. You got married because one, you had to by law, and two, Ginny and Pansy chased you down, and Pansy arranged for you and the girly-girls here" (she smiled at, and nodded in the direction of, Daphne and Tracey, who grinned at her description) "to get together. Again, you had kids because the law said you had to do so. I am not saying that you haven't enjoyed these things. But it was not purely, I say purely, because you wanted to."
Hermione quietly added, "Luna, you forgot that he tends to save the lives of girls that he hardly knows, like Ginny and Gabrielle." She lowered her eyes, and then looked at Harry with a grateful gaze, "And me!"
Luna considered Hermione's remark and said, "'Miney, my dear friend, I know that you are the beneficiary of Harry's 'saving-people-thing', as you call it, and that you are eternally grateful for it. Even devoted, as you and Ginny and Gabi all owe a life-debt to Harry because of it. But I don't think it is purely by his own volition. I believe that, in a way, it is a consequence of the life-debt he owes his mother for saving his life from Voldemort. I suspect you will see this again. Sometimes life-debt magic is like that, particularly if there is no way you can repay it – sometimes the debt is paid by being passed on, through affecting the debtor's own future actions."
He thought through his life, and nodded, seeing it for the first time from Luna's perspective. It is easier to see things from outside than when you are in the middle of things.
Ginny spoke, "You know that one of the hardest things is a child's life is discovering that her parents are not the infallible gods that she believed, but flawed human beings with their own hopes and dreams and failings. When I was little, there were marvellous stories about 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' and how he saved our world and what wonderful powers he must have. Mum told me that, if I wanted to hard enough, I could marry this boy once I had grown up. I was basically instructed to fall in love with this demi-god, so I did. Then I met Harry. For the first year or so, I was stunned speechless being in the presence of this divine being. Then I slowly discovered that 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' didn't exist. There was this underfed, scared and scarred boy who was bewildered at why he was famous when all he had done was watch his mother get murdered. Mum had told me lies, or at least tall tales – maybe she wanted to believe the dream herself. Then Ron told me of how Harry had insisted they find Hermione and warn her about the troll, and ended up saving her from it. The next year he saved me, not because I was this ravishing creature that I am today, but because I was his best friends little sister, I was possessed by his eternal enemy, and it was the right thing to do. The next year, when Harry was forced to risk his life in the Tournament, he went out of his way to save Gabrielle. I getting to know the 'Boy-Who-Was', and I began to fall in love with the reality, not the fiction. And look what trouble that got me into" as she looked lovingly at the infants now sleeping in her arms.
Luna then smiled at the group, and directed her gaze at Harry and fluttered her eyelids at him in an exaggerated way. She spoke in as seductive a voice as she could manage, with a little of the dreamy quality she always had, but with a bit of a prankster's smirk, "Harry, if you have room in your harem, and you can persuade these witches to agree to it, I am still available. You are worthy to be loved. And I would very much like to be part of your family."
Ginny looked over at Luna. "But you are part of our family."
Luna looked back at Ginny and shook her head. "Unfortunately, that's not really true. Ginny, you grew up in a large family, so you may not feel the difference. Since my Dad died, I have been alone. Remember, I can see the flow of emotion; that's why I have my job as a high-level negotiator. I look at you mothers nursing your babies, and I can see the flow of love and commitment. I look at the children playing, and I can see the love and shear 'belonging' flowing between you and them, and between them. I see muggles, and the love is certainly there, but it is so much less intense than when magic is part of the mix. And I don't have that. I want it. I am hungry for it. I am desperate for it. And having a shot at playing bedspring-bouncy with Harry doesn't sound too bad either."
"Yes, I am the unrelated Aunt to the children. But I am not really part of the family. When the party or the picnic is over, I go home. When work is done, I return to my flat in Brussels, alone. I don't have a child coming into my bed to have the fears hugged away when there is a thunderstorm. I even envy you changing dirty nappies, because the baby whose nappy you are changing is a product of your love and commitment."
"I want to be part of that love and commitment. I am willing to make that commitment. So I am formally requesting to join your family. Here, I will even use the same application form that Pansy used." She stood up, hiked her skirt up, took down her blue satin knickers (being rather exposed both top and bottom until she smoothed down her skirt again), and handed them to Harry. She stated formally "I am hereby applying for the role as a concubine in the Ancient and Noble House of Potter."
Ron choked on his butterbeer.
Harry smiled and then looked over at his wives, but particularly Ginny and Pansy. "Luna, I don't mean this as an insult to you that I do not answer directly. I am very much inclined to accept this application for a position on my staff. However, as you know, Lady Potter and Lady Black have veto power over all such critical decisions affecting the family. Okay, ladies, what do you think?"
Ginny looked at Harry, and then at Luna. She thought of how Luna had been her best friend ever since primary school, and had been one of the most ardent supporters in the DA, and a valiant fighter in the battle of the department of Mysteries, as well as at Hogwarts. (At one point, Ginny had jokingly suggested to Luna that she would make a great Valkyrie. Luna took on the dreamy look she got when she was reminiscing, and said that she had looked into it, being just tall enough to meet the height requirements, but that they also required their recruits to remain virgins, so she had lost interest in that career path. Having grown up with the twins, Ginny suspected that Luna was pulling a prank, but with Luna, you just never knew.) After Luna's mother had died in the tragic laboratory accident, Molly Weasley had sort of taken over as a maternal figure for Luna, taking her shopping (at WarlockMart) with Ginny for their first bras and supplies of tampons, and the little blonde witch was as close to a sister as Ginny had.
Luna was at least as brilliant as Hermione (although not in the aspects of book-learning, which had gained Hermione praise, while Luna's brilliance was just considered strange being of a different nature). Part of Ginny didn't want to share Harry more than she was already doing, but she also loved her friend. She looked at Harry, smiled and nodded.
Pansy said laughed at Harry's phrasing and Luna's method of applying for the job, and then with a smirk she looked Luna up and down, like she was buying livestock, "Well Harry, you know you don't have any concubines for the House of Potter yet. The law people say you need to do so. Seems like a good candidate. Looks young, fit, pretty, smart. Agreed."
Harry smiled at Luna. "I guess this is another one of my non-choice choices. Luna, there are some formalities and ceremonies to go through, but welcome to the family."
Luna smiled and said "And then I can jump your bones?" The children playing on the lawn looked over at their elders laughing on the porch. All was well, and Luna could see a wave of contentment spreading over the property.