HP and the PH

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Hermione asked.

"The good news," Harry decided.

"Your parents are dead," Hermione said solemnly.

"Yes," he said curiously, "I'm pretty sure of that. I was there when they died."

"I know," Hermione replied, "I just thought you might have gotten your hopes up that they were still alive and gotten angry because they abandoned you if that was true."

"Well, I haven't," Harry assured her.

"OK," she said, relieved. "The bad news is that despite your parents having died over eighteen years ago, you have a dozen younger half-sisters."

"My father donated sperm?" Harry guessed.

"No." She shook her head. "Do you know what happens when you cut a lock of hair off someone under polyjuice?"

"It reverts back to their original hair? No, if that was true it'd be a standard check and it's not. If you die under polyjuice you remain in the form, so I'm guessing bits that get removed remain in the new form."

"That was an impressive piece of logic," Hermione admitted.

"So...half-sisters even though my parents are dead…polyjuice…if a man takes polyjuice his sperm remain in their new form once, um, you know. So someone knocked up a dozen women using polyjuice containing my father's hair."

"Not your father's," Hermione said carefully.

"OK, so someone polyjuiced as my mum, took a sex-change potion and knocked a dozen women up?" Harry asked doubtfully.

"No. A dozen women polyjuiced as your mother were impregnated," Hermione slowly told him.

"Wouldn't the egg revert once the potion wore off?" Harry asked.

"Once fertilized, the egg starts dividing at an exponential rate. That one cell with the woman's original DNA would be buried under a tide of the polyjuiced replicates if it did revert, and I can find no evidence that it did."

"OK, so I have a dozen sisters. Do they have the same father?"

"It's Snape," Hermione admitted, waiting for the explosion.

"OK, let me see if I've got this right," Harry said slowly. "Snape regularly had sex with hookers polyjuiced to look like my mum."

"Yes, though I don't know why they're all girls, or what possessed him to impregnate them," Hermione admitted.

"Side effect of an infatuation potion," Harry replied. "If the target is male, all the children are boys, and if female, girls. It also neutralizes all of the standard contraceptive methods."

"How do you know that?" she asked, surprised. Hermione was used to being the one with all the answers.

"It came up in the Weasley case," Harry admitted.

"Sorry." Hermione winced.

"Not mine," Harry chuckled. "Molly repeatedly dosed Arthur because she's insecure. Arthur knows and we gave him a purgative and got a signed statement that he doesn't mind."

"So Ginny dosing you…"

"I forgave her," Harry assured her. "I still divorced the loon, but I forgave her. Dumbledore should have had her looked over by a mind healer after the Diary fiasco."

"I'm not going to have to bail you out of jail for desecrating Snape's grave again, am I?"

"He just gave me a dozen new family members," Harry said happily. "That buys a lot of forgiveness in my books."

AN: What, you thought Harry would blame the children and reject them?