Looking back at history, spotting critical turning points seems easy enough for most people. The assassination of an Archduke in Sarajevo led to the start of the muggles' First World War. You know, things like that. However when you are living in the middle of all that tumultuous history, it's easy to miss them. That was certainly the case with Percy and Pansy's wedding. It was one of the great turning points in my life. But I was too busy with other, more trivial matters to notice it at the time.
What kind of trivial matters? The "trying to save Pansy from her own wedding" kind. Ever since I first suggested a marriage alliance between the Potter and Parkinson families to her father, I had been racked by feelings of guilt. I even had nightmares about the whole mess. Not only was I ruining Percy's life, but Pansy's too since I thought she was in love with Draco Malfoy. I felt I had to do something.
Something like sneaking into the witch's lavish bedroom under my Invisibility Cloak to "save" her on the morning before the wedding.
(In case you were wondering, everything at the Parkinson's endless mansion was lavish. Even the loos. Pinching out a loaf on a seat made of solid gold—it's not a comfortable experience. Especially when you have a bony arse like mine.)
"Potter, what in the name of Merlin are you doing here?" Pansy asked when I appeared out of nowhere.
For a moment I was too preoccupied to answer her question. The fact that her wand was pointed at me wasn't the problem. No, Pansy herself was the problem. She was wearing nothing but a lacy set of white knickers, and she was wearing them well. The pug nose was still Trollish, but the rest of her Exceeded Expectations. Not Outstanding, but close.
Maybe Percy does know what he's getting into, I thought.
"Er... I'm here to help you escape," I told her once my eyes stopped wandering over her shapely body. "I can take you to Malfoy Manor, if that's what you want."
"Why would I want to go to Malfoy Manor?"
"I don't know? Maybe because you're hopelessly in love with that blonde prat, Draco?"
"Potter, I know the Dark Lord and his minions damaged your little brain, but this is ridiculous."
"His name was Tom Riddle, and I'm being serious. If you want out of this wedding, I swear I will help you in any way I can."
"You're such an idiot. I was never in love with Draco. I was just pretending to be because my father was forcing me to marry the annoying shite. Now I have to marry Ignatius. If I don't, my father will disown me. Then he will divorce my mother, and find a new wife to give him a new heir."
"So you are going through with this just for the galleons?"
"No, I am going through with this for a massive pile of galleons. I have no wish to be poor like my future in-laws. Besides, if could be worse. I could be marrying you."
That stung. It really did. "You'd rather have Percy than me?"
Pansy put down her wand, turned back towards the large oval mirror, and resumed brushing her short black hair. "Ignatius is a reasonable wizard. As long as my father supports your new political party in the Wizengamot, he has agreed not to touch the Parkinson vault at Gringotts. He also agreed that after our two children are born I will be free to take a lover, as long as I'm discreet about it. Which I will be. Flaunting your lover is so plebeian."
"That's outrageous," I sputtered. My Aunt Petunia had raised me to be a middle-class prude, and I found this aristocratic decadence to be offensive. That would soon change.
"And you wonder why I don't want to marry a twit like you," Pansy replied as she continued to brush her hair.
"Fine, if that's the way you feel."
"It is."
I turned to leave, but stopped short. "I'm curious: why are you calling Percy by his middle name?"
"Percy and Pansy Weasley? That's simply ghastly. No, Ignatius and Pansy Parkinson sounds much more pleasing to the ear."
"You expect your husband to change his first and last names?"
"No, Ignatius will do that voluntarily after he reads a copy of my father's last will and testament. Now if you are done leering at me, I think you should leave. The bridesmaids will be arriving soon, and Granger will throw a hissy fit if she finds you in my bedroom. Normally I would find her reaction amusing, but we don't have time for it this morning."
Yes, Hermione—who hated Pansy even more than I did—was one of the bridesmaids for the upcoming wedding. That was another reason I was so distracted. The whole concept of bridesmaids was freaking me out. Bill and Fleur's wedding had been pretty normal. Well, at least as normal as it could be with an insane Dark Wizard waiting out there to kill us all.
Pansy had other ideas though. Her bridesmaids were chosen because they were ugliest witches in Slytherin. The dresses she picked out for them were covered with moving patterns that make you nauseous if you looked at them for more than a few seconds. And their makeup and hair... let's just say that no professional stylist did that bad a job unless she was deliberately trying to humiliate her clients.
We were all shocked when the group of poor witches first appeared in the garden—they looked dreadful. That was especially true for Hermione. My friend had matured into a beautiful witch, but that day her bushy brown hair looked like it was exploding out of her skull in all directions.
"Do you want me to fix it for you?" Fleur asked as they stood around waiting for the ceremony to start. Pansy had given the Veela an ugly old hat crowned with a stuffed crow, and insisted that she it to the wedding.
"No," Hermione growled. "Pansy wants me—the filthy little mudblood—to make a scene, but I won't give her the satisfaction. If this is what she wants her bridesmaids to look like, then that's what she's going to get."
"But why would she do something like this?" I asked.
"For the same reasons we have to wear these stupid hats," Ginny said. Her hat—also a gift from Pansy—was crowned with a stuffed red squirrel. "If all the other witches looked bad, it will make the bride look better in comparison.
"Really? She would sabotage her own wedding party out of spite?"
Hermione nodded. "Muggle women do it too. I've been to several weddings, and the bridesmaids usually look bad. Not as bad as us, but bad enough."
"You look beautiful to me," Ron quickly told her. He had been complaining about the wedding for weeks, but his concern for Hermione finally distracted him. "And nothing Pansy does will ever be able to change that fact."
We all smiled as the pair made lovey-dovey eyes each other, but Ginny's face went blank when she saw her mum berating Mrs Parkinson across the garden. This was the vital clue I should have noticed, but my attention was elsewhere.
To be fair, Molly Weasley wasn't acting particularly out of character as she bellowed at the mother of the bride. She had lived her life as a house-witch on a rundown farm, not as an aristocrat overseeing a mansion with an army of servants. Sure she was loud and overbearing, but raising seven children by herself on the edge of poverty required that kind of personality.
However there among the wealthy élite of the magical Britain she stood out, and not in a good way. At the time I didn't realize how humiliated Ginny was by Molly's crass behavior. Nor did I realize how Pansy's many snide remarks served to amplify those negative feelings. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
Once the bride arrived the ceremony went off like clockwork. The purebloods weren't pagans—in truth they were too narcissistic to follow any religion—but they did like to ape the forms at important occasions like weddings. A colorful "druid" was presiding, several "ancient gods" were invoked, and "offerings" were made. It was farce from beginning to end. A sign of how shallow our culture had become during our long isolation from the muggle world.
During the year after the wedding three important events occurred in a very convenient order. Back then they all seemed natural enough, and totally unrelated.
One, Molly Weasley died of the Dragon Pox. The disease often strikes older witches and wizards, and the recent war had taken a toll on everyone's health. (Plus Molly wasn't exactly in great shape to begin with.) As a result no one—including the healers who treated her at St Mungo's—suspected a thing.
Yet another funeral left us all distraught, but it hit Ginny the hardest. In desperation I proposed to her that night as she wept in my arms, and she accepted. Even now I can't bring myself to regret that rash decision. Having James, Al, and Lily Luna in my life was worth any amount of pain.
Two, only six months later Arthur Weasley married Andromeda Tonks. The widower and widow had been thrown together thanks to their relationship with yours truly. I spent hours playing with my godson Teddy on the floor at the Burrow while Arthur and Andromeda retreated to the kitchen for tea and biscuits.
None of the Weasley children objected to their father's quick remarriage. Instead they were all happy for him. I found it a little odd at first, since Arthur was kind of homely and Andromeda was such a beautiful witch. But then I remember that the pudgy Ted Tonks hadn't been handsome either, and thought no more about the subject.
And three, the Minister of Magic died four months later of the Vanishing Sickness, which is caused by the poisonous bite of a rare magical insect. Since Kingsley Shacklebolt was a relatively young and healthy wizard the Aurors investigated his death thoroughly, but they found no evidence of foul play. Instead it was ruled a tragic accident.
As a result of these seemingly unrelated events Arthur became the new Minister of Magic. Would that have happened if his first wife Molly—the country bumpkin—was still alive and glued to his side?
Somehow I doubt it.
Instead he now had a new aristocratic wife who knew how to play the role of a pureblood hostess perfectly, which made the transition to his new job much smoother. The newlyweds moved into the renovated Grimmauld Place in London—I signed the deed over to them as a wedding present—and they often threw tasteful dinner parties for the political and economic élite of magical Britain. They were pleasant hosts, and little Teddy's budding abilities as a Metamorphmagus made him a hit with their many guests. Would Arthur have lasted for so many years as the Minister of Magic without Andromeda's loving support?
Somehow I doubt it.
Let me say again that no one suspected a thing while all this was happening, and that included me.
While Ginny, Luna, and Hermione returned to Hogwarts in the autumn of 1998 to complete their educations, Ron and I decided to join the Aurors. The war had decimated the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and they needed wizards who were free of the corruption Tom Riddle had spread throughout Ministry of Magic during his disastrous reign.
The practical side of Auror training was a joy for me. Show me a spell, and I will be able to cast it. Maybe not right away, but there is nothing I can't do with a wand during a duel. Being a natural athlete also helped, as did my size. A small target is harder to hit, and for once in my life as was happy to be shorter than average.
I also did well when we covered the more theoretical aspects of being an Auror in a classroom setting. That Christmas I took the Defense Against the Dark Arts NEWT on a lark, and scored an Exceeds Expectations. Over the years I earned six NEWTs in total, an achievement which never ceases to amaze me.
Ron didn't do nearly as well. He struggled with both the practical work and the theory, but given who his best friend was the trainers let him pass where they might have failed another wizard. Oddly enough he turned out to be a better Auror than I was. Ron loved to shoot the shite, and that's usually the key to good investigative work. I could out-duel any of the criminals we came across in Knockturn Alley, but he was the one who got them to spill their guts during the long interrogations back at the Ministry of Magic.
The next spring after graduation, I married Ginny and Ron married Hermione. The weddings were small and very private affairs. The four of us ended up having the Burrow to ourselves. Arthur had moved to London with Andromeda, Bill lived at his seaside cottage with Fleur, Charlie returned to his dragons in Romania, George lived in the room above his joke shop in Diagon Alley, and Percy moved in with the Parkinsons. He and Pansy had a whole twenty-room wing of the mansion to themselves, complete with a staff of four house-elves. Yes, Percy was clearly the most intelligent of the Weasley brothers.
That short time at the Burrow before the first of the children were born... it was idyllic. That's a terrible thing for a father to say, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, I love my children beyond reason, but the freedom of those years were something I always treasured.
Hermione—ever the idealist—join the Ministry of Magic after graduation, but my wife decided to become a professional Quidditch player for the Harpies. That surprised me, because unlike Ron she wasn't in love with the game. When I asked Ginny about it, her blunt answer was an even bigger surprise.
"I want to make some real galleons before I get pregnant."
"Ginny, you've seen my vault. We're rich."
"I know, but you can never be too rich."
Every time she received her salary (which was the highest on the team) and every time she got another endorsement deal (Mrs Harry Potter had over two dozen in total) we traveled down to my vault at Gringotts and made a deposit. I asked Ginny if she wanted a separate vault, but she refused. Even so, she kept her growing pile of galleons over in one corner away from my larger pile of galleons. And the two piles never intermingled.
The four of us worked hard at our respective careers, so during our rare vacations we indulged ourselves. A well-crafted portkey can take you anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes if you're strong enough to make one. And I am. During those early trips we tried to do and see everything.
Swimming the Great Barrier Reef using gillyweed? Check. Apparating to the top of Mount Everest to take in the stunning view of the Himalayas? Check. Running with the manticores in Pamplona? (It's harder than running with the bulls, and Ron has a wicked scar to prove it.) Check. Exploring the Hidden Pyramids built by the wizards of Egypt and Guatemala and Cambodia? Check, check, check. Hunting down a village-destroying Nundu on the plains of the African Serengeti? Check. Racing on a broom through the Grand Canyon by the light of a full moon? Check. Attending Carnival in Rio de Janeiro? Check. Attending Mardi Gras in New Orléans? Check. Getting drunk on some random tropical beach? Hell, we did that pretty much every weekend Ginny wasn't playing a Quidditch match for the Harpies.
We were young and stupid and we had our magic. And most importantly we had earned it. Or so we believed.
That youthful arrogance soon lead two of us astray.
Thanks to some blackmail material Hermione had on Parvati Patil, we were able to get four tickets to the Imperial Occamy Races in Uttar Pradesh. The local Maharaja and his predecessors had ruled over the wizards and witches of northern India for two thousand years, and they had bred Occamys for nearly as long. The Maharaja's great social cachet meant the races were one of the premier sporting events of the year—not just for magical India, but for the entire magical world.
Now don't get me wrong, an Occamy is a majestic creäture. The long serpentine neck, the five meter wingspan, the silver beak and talons, the gorgeous feathers... if I had the ability to become an Animagus (which I do not—thanks mum), an Occamy would have been my animal form of choice.
That being said, watching them fly laps around an aerial obstacle course is pretty boring. Everyone knows this, but they still came anyway. Why? Because the Imperial Occamy Races offers you the chance to dress in your finest clothes and wear your most expensive jewelry, and then show those clothes and jewelry off to your jealous rivals. Plus you get to gorge yourself on expensive food and wine at no cost. According to Ron that was the best part of the whole deal.
For me the best part were the saris the Indian witches were wearing. They came in an endless variety of colors and patterns, and they draped over the younger witches in very seductive ways. When Ginny saw my interest in the local dresses she insisted on buying one at the temporary shopping pavilions that surrounded the racing grounds. Hermione rolled her eyes, but she went along too.
The more conservative saris covered a witch's entire body, but one Ginny bought was more daring. The green silk outfit had two distinct parts: one that covered her small breasts and slim arms, and another that fell from her tiny waist down to her feet. The rest of her body was left bare.
Now some wizards are instinctively drawn to a witch's legs, while even more are drawn to a witch's breasts. Others still are suckers for a nice arse. Me? I'm a wizard who loves a sexy midriff. When a flat stomach is on display I can't help but stare. And those gentle curves were a witch's hips narrows to her waist—those curves drive me crazy.
Ginny knew this, so she bought a sari which showed off her firm assets. Like a good husband I leered for a while, but I couldn't help but notice that Hermione also looked good in her periwinkle-blue sari, which was similar in cut to Ginny's. The curve of her hips had grown more pronounced over the years, a fact which she usually hid with baggy clothes and old-fashioned swimsuits. Hermione noticed that I was sizing her up, but she didn't chastise me as was her usual habit.
Instead she just smiled.
Luckily Ginny was too drunk to notice our subtle flirting, but to be fair we were all pretty drunk. As the Occamy races continued, we stuffed our faces with the exotic dishes and washed them with a wide selection of magical wines. Adding to our good mood was the strange purple haze that hung heavily in the air.
(When I later asked Rolf about that hazy smoke, he grinned. "You should consider yourself lucky. When it's purple, you know it's the good stuff." Luna—who was also grinning—agreed with her husband's professional assessment.)
Rather than risk a portkey accident, we brought along our tent for the night. (We had upgraded since our wartime camping trip, and the interior of our new tent was nicer than the old Burrow.) Ron and Ginny barely made it to the loo before they started vomiting. Either the food or the wine (or that purple haze) had disagreed with their delicate constitutions, and the siblings spent twenty minutes praying at the porcelain altar before passing out on the floor. After levitating them into bed, I plopped down on my favorite recliner in the living room. Hermione joined me, and she still had on that damn periwinkle-blue sari.
"We're never coming back to India again," I told her.
"Don't be so melodramatic," Hermione said as she sashayed across the living room. "We enjoyed ourselves, and so did Ron and Ginny... for the most part."
"That's the problem. I think you and I enjoyed yourselves a bit too much today."
"Yes, I know."
That sly look in her brown eyes told me what was going to happen next. The connection we had made earlier in the day was still there, but now it was a hundred times stronger. She wanted me, and to be honest I had wanted her for years. I used to tell people I loved her like a sister, but that was a lie.
No, I loved Hermione Jean Granger Weasley in every way imaginable.
Her seduction was swift and silent, but then she didn't need to make much of an effort. Not with me. We made love right there on my recliner with Ron and Ginny passed out in the next room. Afterwards we were both out of breath, and she leaned her sweaty forehead against mine.
"Why?" I asked.
"I love you, Harry. I always have, and I always will. That's why."
"No, you love Ron. You chose Ron. Remember the wedding? I know I do."
"I chose Ron because it was the only way to keep you both in my life. If I had married you, Ron would have broken off contact with us, and I couldn't bear the idea of losing him forever."
Her logic was sound, if morally dubious. But then Hermione had a nasty tendency to think like that. Back during our second year at Hogwarts she stole valuable potion ingredients from the school to brew an illegal batch of Polyjuice Potion. During our third year she used a Time-Turner to help a wanted criminal escape from justice. And during our fifth year she disfigured another student for ratting us out to a teacher. The witch could justify any action if she put her brilliant mind to it.
"So where do we go from here? What does this mean?"
"It means that now I have you both, just like I always wanted," she said with an infuriating smile.
I shook my head. "No, this will never happen again."
Hermione smile grew wider. "Yes, it will. That we shared was so intense, so perfect. You can't deny it. I won't let you."
As usual, she was right. The sex had been more intense than anything I experienced with Ginny. Was it because we had secretly loved each other for so long? Or did the forbidden fruit always taste better? Or were we still under the influence of that purple haze? I can't give you an answer, because I don't know myself.
What I do know is that Hermione and I met in secret once a week without exception until she passed away many years later. Thankfully Rose inherited my mother Lily's auburn hair, which was enough to fool Ron. It wasn't enough to fool certain other people though.
My long affair with Hermione, my betrayal of Ron, and the fact that I fathered Rose Weasley (but not Hugo) are the three great sins of my life. So why am I telling you about them? I have my reasons, and they boil down to the mystery of my endless ambition.
Ginny had always wanted the Boy-Who-Lived, but that wasn't enough for her. I defeated Tom Riddle during the war, but that wasn't enough for her either. No, she wanted more titles, more honors, more of everything for me. It was her destiny to be the wife of the greatest wizard in the entire world, and she wasn't going to settle for anything less.
Hermione wasn't interested in mere titles. Instead she wanted to change the world in more substantive ways. However given the political realities of the magical world that was an impossible goal for a muggleborn witch. She needed a powerful and popular wizard to do the dirty work of pushing her reforms through a corrupt system. That meant she needed me, and now she had me.
Personally I would have been happy to live out my life searching for mythical creatures with a certain blonde witch, but that simple life was now out of reach. Give up Ginny? That I could have done. Give up Hermione? It would have been harder, but I still could have done it. Give them both up at the same time? Never. The scared little boy who had been locked in the cupboard beneath the stairs wouldn't let me. I was trapped by my own insecurities.
That meant I was caught between a pair of ambitious witches who constantly expected more from me. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, as the poets would say. So you want to know why I driven to do all the insane things I did? There's your bloody answer.
Every parent thinks their children are special, and that's what I thought at first too. But looking back from old age I can see that wasn't the case. My four children were all above average—perhaps even gifted in Rose's case—but none of them were cursed with greatness like I was. That's why I won't bore you with the details of the next few years of my life. They were important to me and my extended family, but they're irrelevant to you.
As we went through the pregnancies, the deliveries, the nappies, and the late night feedings the political situation in Britain was progressing at a slow but steady pace. Arthur's goal was to drag our primitive government into the twenty-first century, while the purebloods desperately wanted to return to the first century. The fights between the two sides in the Wizengamot were endless and endlessly boring, but we won more than we lost. That was mostly thanks to Susan Bones.
Now the "plan" had been for me to succeed Arthur when he stepped down as the Minister of Magic, but Susan's growing popularity put the kibosh on that. I had quickly risen up through the ranks to the position of Chief Auror, but I wasn't suited for politics. People sensed how uncomfortable I was in public, and they correctly assumed that I didn't want the top job.
Unlike me Susan was a natural at politics, and the other two members of the Golden Trio just enhanced her sunny appeal. Neville was not only the Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts and the Head of House for Gryffindor, but he had also been appointed as the Deputy Headmaster when Sprout became Headmistress after McGonagall's death. Meanwhile Hannah had taken over the Leaky Cauldron, and her job entailed a lot more than being a simple bartender. Everyone who came to Diagon Alley—especially the muggleborns—got a smile and a lot of friendly advice from Hannah Longbottom. She soon became the unofficial mayor of magical London.
The political situation came to a head when my godson Teddy finally went off to Hogwarts. Arthur and Andromeda had lived hard lives, and they wanted to enjoy their retirement while they were still healthy. Arthur was fascinated by the tales of our travels around the world, and Andromeda promised to show him all the muggle tourist traps he dreamed about seeing.
"Dad is going to announce his retirement soon," Ginny told me one night after we put the children to bed.
Another fight with my wife was the last thing I wanted, so I continued to stare out the window at green valley below. After James was born we moved out of the Burrow, and bought a beautiful home in the Lake District. I thought putting some distance between Hermione and me would cool our affair, but even after ten years it was as emotionally and physically intense as ever.
"Harry, I know you despise politics, but Susan isn't up for the job. She's still too young."
"She's seven months older than me."
"Alright, she is too bloody nice," Ginny growled.
"Dad is one of the nicest wizards I know, and he's been a wonderful Minister of Magic. Besides if anyone even thinks about hurting Susan, Neville will stomp all over them and then feed them to his pet Devil's Snare."
"Dammit Harry, you've earned it."
"No, I've earned the right to turn down the bloody job."
The fights went on in this vein for weeks and weeks. Ginny may have despised Molly, but she had inherited all of her mother's stubbornness. Out of desperation I offered her a compromise. Percy came up with the idea, and I went along with it in hopes of saving my marriage. And my sanity.
(Arthur and I were the only ones who still called him Percy. To everyone else he was Ignatius Parkinson. Of course Ginny and her other brothers used the name as a way to take the mickey out of poor Percy. They had a hundred different ways to pronounce "Ignatius", and all of them were insulting. This amused Pansy to no end.)
The direct approach never worked with Ginny, so I had to go at the problem from an angle. One morning I casually sat down for breakfast and mentioned that Ambassador Ogden was being treated at St Mungo's for some unknown illness.
(I know, it was another convenient coincidence that I failed to notice. What can I say, I was truly naïve back then.)
That small bit of gossip was all Ginny needed to hear. "There is no obvious candidate to replace Ogden as the British Ambassador to the International Confederation of Wizards. No obvious candidate but you."
Technically Ginny was a Quidditch reporter for the Daily Prophet, but in reality she used her job at the newspaper to gather intelligence for the Potter/Weasley/Parkinson clan. I worked at the Ministry of Magic sixty hours a week, but my wife knew more about what was going on there than I did. George sometimes called her Rita Skeeter Junior, but never to her face. Even he wasn't that brave.
"Knockturn Alley has been quiet for the past few years, so I think I could safely cut back on my hours at the office. And think of all those diplomatic parties we would get to attend in Switzerland."
Ginny didn't particularly like going to parties, but she did like being seen at them. And when our pictures appeared in the newspapers and magazines the next day... that she liked best of all. Her collection of scrapbooks was vast and comprehensive.
The vote in the Wizengamot was a foregone conclusion. The purebloods were thrilled to ship me out of the country, if only for two or three weeks a year.
Being an ambassador to the ICW turned out to be incredibly boring. I mean I thought the Wizengamot was bad, but the ICW was even worse. In desperation I designed a charm that temporarily projected a pair of realistic eyes on the front of my glasses. These "eyes" kept moving around and even blinked several times a minute. Between my glasses and a trusty Alarm Clock Charm I was able to get some much-needed sleep during the long and tedious debates.
This trick only failed me once. Instead of waking to a soft humming noise, my ears were assaulted by dozens of screaming wizards and witches all around me.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked the Mexican Ambassador in a groggy voice.
"No one is quite sure," she whispered. "But according to the news reports we just received over the Wizarding Wireless, New Zealand no longer exists."