Chapter 32

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"Did you get that contract back from the twins," Molly demanded as he entered the room with the letter from Harry still in his hand. "Give it here."

"The contract was negated Molly," Arthur said softly, holding onto the letter for the time being.

"If those boys destroyed that offer I'll ..." Molly began.

"The twins had nothing to do with it. There was no prank. They never broke into the drawer, you just assumed they were guilty because you wanted them to be," Arthur told her firmly.

"I'll get the truth out of them," Molly said getting up.

Arthur caught her around the waist. "Molly, Harry is betrothed to Susan Bones. Their betrothal negated the offer you and Ginny had for him. The information was in the letter he wrote to Ron." He handed over the letter for her to read.

"What! He can't be!" Molly exclaimed. "How could he do this to Ginny!"

"Ron said he'd been dating someone in secret most of the year. Though Harry wouldn't tell him the witch's name, Ron did know he'd been dating someone seriously and they'd been talking about getting married if he survived the war for months now, and he wrote in his letter that Susan had an offer in her vault from his parents. You know how Harry feels about his parents, it's not so surprising that he would want to use one of the betrothal offers they made for him, even if he hadn't been dating Susan already. I don't think that he even knew about the offer Dumbledore made," Arthur explained calmly.

"Why didn't Ron say something when he read the letter at dinner?" Molly asked.

"He was trying to be tactful. He knew how upset Ginny is going to be and he didn't think she deserved to find out in front of everybody like that. He also expected you'd be angry about Harry choosing someone else since Ron told me that you've been encouraging Ginny to ignore Ron and the twins when they tried to warn her that he wasn't interested in her as a potential girlfriend, especially after you and Ginny both were annoyed that he was going to be staying with the Longbottoms, even though you hadn't invited him here instead when he agreed to visit Neville. Ron thought that it would be better to tell you both separately and he tried to but you didn't give him the chance tonight," Arthur replied.

"Oh Arthur, Ginny's going to be heartbroken. What are we going to do?" Molly asked.

"There isn't anything we can do. Harry isn't just dating Susan Bones and he didn't propose the muggle way where they can change their minds without restrictions, from what he wrote to Ron they signed a legally binding betrothal agreement written by both sets of parents before they were killed. They are going to be married. We need to accept this and be happy for Harry," Arthur said.

"But Ginny..." Molly began.

"Will get over her crush and be happy for her friend, if they are truly friends," Arthur said firmly.

"But she loves him," Molly said.

"No, she doesn't! Harry was quite clear to her that he barely knows her except as Ron's little sister. She can't possibly know him well enough to have anything more serious than a crush, and to be honest I think she's crushing on the imaginary Harry Potter from her children's books more than the real Harry," Arthur said sternly. "I regret buying her those books. Harry had no reason to believe that Ginny is going to be any more heartbroken than any other little girl who grew up reading those books and dreaming of marrying the hero in them."

Molly looked like she wanted to keep arguing but uncharacteristically shut her mouth and looked away.

"Molly, did Ginny know about the betrothal offer?" Arthur asked.

"So what if she did? I told her the truth, that there was an offer, it wasn't a secret," Molly replied.

"Did you tell her it was probably only one of several hundred betrothal offers that Harry probably would have waiting for him when he turned seventeen? Did you warn her that having sent an offer was no guarantee that he would choose to accept it or any other offer. Almost every family in Wizarding Britain and probably a good part of France and Western Europe with an unattached daughter anywhere near his age would have made him an offer in the weeks after he defeated You-Know-Who as a baby, and Harry has been raised by muggles. Muggles haven't used betrothal contracts or arranged marriages in several generations, he will have grown up expecting to be able to choose his own bride," Arthur reminded his wife.

"This contract was different, it was drawn up by his magical guardian," Molly insisted.

"It was still only one of probably hundreds of offers, not a binding contract which meant that his guardian didn't have the power to bind him to a contract and it would have been just as easily dismissed as the others compared to the offers his parents made and conditionally accepted for him, and Harry didn't grow up with his magical guardian, they don't have the sort of relationship that would make his wishes important to Harry, the original contract with Susan Bones was drawn up by Harry's parents," Arthur said sighing. "I'm going upstairs to talk to Ginny. She deserves to hear it from us before it's leaked to the 'Daily Prophet'. I'd hate for her to read about it in the papers before being told."

"I should tell her," Molly protested.

"No Molly, I'm the head of this family," Arthur said. He didn't trust Molly to be as firm as she needed to be that Harry's betrothal needed to be accepted by the whole family and was not to be interfered with. Depending on the conditions on the contract it was probably unbreakable. He had no way of knowing for certain that it was, but he did know it was written to keep the young couple safe from being taken advantage of in the possibility that they were orphaned and their guardians couldn't be trusted to act in their best interests, therefore it would have been designed not to be able to be broken by a third party or through the use of compulsion charms or potions.

Arthur knocked on Ginny's door and she called for him to enter.

"Hi Dad, what's up. Did you get that silly prank with the twins sorted out?" Ginny asked lightly, but Arthur could see what an effort it was not to demand answers or snap at her brothers.

"I'm afraid that there wasn't a prank Ginny. Bill was correct, the flash came from the destruction of a conditional contract offer because the conditions can no longer be met by the other party," Arthur replied.

"But what other contacts were in there? Does it affect me?" Ginny asked desperately.

"Your mother assures me that there weren't any other contracts, conditional contracts or contract offers in the drawer. In fact, I wasn't aware of any valid contracts or betrothal offers. I had always wanted you children to be able to choose your own partner in life," Arthur said.

"But marriage to Harry is what I want Dad. Can't you see that were meant to be together?" Ginny said.

"I'm sorry Ginny but that's not what Harry wants," Arthur began gently.

"But Harry can't have destroyed his copy of the contract. It's in his family vault. He won't have access to it until his birthday, and he can't destroy the contract without talking to you and Mum," Ginny interrupted.

"There wasn't a confirmed betrothal contract between you and Harry, Ginevra. It was only ever a betrothal offer that your mother and Albus made for Harry to choose whether to accept or not, Albus didn't have the power to sign it on behalf of House Potter. It was probably one of hundreds of offers that would have been waiting for Harry to choose between when he was able to access his family vault. Yes, it was a slightly unusual because it was made between your mother and Dumbledore instead of being made by your Mother and I and Uncle Ross as the head of House Weasley as it should have been, but the offer still came from your mother, not from Harry or from the Potter family and it was made after his parent's death, without Harry's knowledge or consent. His parents did not make a betrothal offer for you to marry their son. The offer your mother made, like all the other unaccepted offers, that parents across the country made for Harry, was destroyed today when Harry's girlfriend accepted the betrothal offer James and Lily Potter had made to her family. Harry knew she was going to accept it and they had planned for her to do so as soon as Voldemort was defeated and it was safe for him to have a public girlfriend or betrothed. He wrote to Ron that it was a mutual decision. Harry is betrothed and he seems perfectly happy about it."

"Harry doesn't have a girlfriend," Ginny scoffed. "He hasn't even taken anyone to Hogsmeade or escorted anyone to class. Let alone been caught snogging in a broom closet."

"Well I'm glad to hear he hasn't been behaving badly like that, but Ron assured me that Harry was in love with a witch he wanted to marry. He said they were very careful not to get caught dating to protect her from the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who," Arthur replied.

"Who is she? Why would Harry want to marry a coward who waited until Voldemort was dead to accept him. She's as bad as that bloody Bones who told her suitors she wouldn't tie herself to anyone until she had a chance to see which one of them made it through the war in one piece because she had no intention of being stuck with a cripple for the rest of her life," Ginny exploded.

"Susan Bones is head of her house, which puts her in a very vulnerable position to be pressured by suitors to accept them instead of having the buffer of her Patriarch or Head of House like most girls. What you heard sounds to me like Miss Bones was making excuses for not accepting a contract from one of the classmates she was talking to, without being able to tell them that she didn't wany to marry them or that she was in a relationship or causing offence or a potential family feud by telling them she had already eliminated his family's betrothal offer from her consideration," Arthur said chuckling, allowing himself to be side-tracked into defending Harry's betrothed for a moment.

"But from what Harry has said to Ron, he was the one that insisted on waiting to formalise their betrothal, to avoid making her a target for the Death Eaters, he wouldn't even tell Ron his girlfriend's name until today in order to protect her but he was clear in telling Ron and Hermione that he loved her and intended on marrying her if he survived the war," Arthur said, deciding to let Ginny get over the fact Harry was betrothed and her dreams of marrying him wouldn't have a chance of coming true before he tried to ask her to accept the girl Harry had chosen.

"That's what he said to me too. That he didn't want to put a target on my back by dating me," Ginny protested.

"Is that honestly all he said to you?" Arthur asked, surprised that Harry hadn't made his disinterest clear if he was seriously involved with someone else even if it was secretly.

"Ginny?" He asked again sternly, seeing from her expression that there was more but she didn't want to admit that.

Ginny didn't want to admit what else Harry had said but like always when her father took control, she caved to the pressure, "Harry said he didn't see me like that, that I was only Ron's little sister. I said that dating might be a good way to get over thinking about me as a sister and finding out that he could see me like a girlfriend if he gave it a proper chance, but he said no. That's when he told me it wasn't worth the risk. That being his girlfriend would make me a target. I tried to tell him that I was already a target and that I thought it was worth it but he wouldn't listen," she said sobbing. "And now you tell me that he had a girlfriend the whole time and didn't want to tell me. Nobody else told me either. I thought that they were my friends."

"Would you have believed Ron or Hermione if one of them told you they believed Harry was in love with someone else? When neither of them could or would tell you who it was or if they were officially dating? Would you have accepted that and the need for secrecy, or would you have tried to find out who he was dating and potentially exposed his girlfriend and put her at risk? Harry kept who he loved a secret to protect her, if he didn't even tell his closest friends why should he tell you?" Arthur asked gently.

Ginny remained silent, scowling at the reminder that Ron and Hermione had both been trying to tell her that even after the war when Harry felt it was safe to date, she wouldn't be the person he asked out.

"What am I going to do?" Ginny asked.

"Well, that depends on whether you want to be friends with Harry and his wife. Harry's a good friend of your brothers and I so it will be a little awkward if you don't want to at first, but I'm sure Harry will understand. But if you want to be his friend then all you can do is be happy for him," Arthur said gently.

"But we are destined to be together," Ginny said desperately. "He saved my life in the chamber."

"He saved just about everyone on the light side's lives when he defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a baby, Ron says that he and Harry saved Hermione's life before they were even friends early in their first year and Harry saved the whole school towards the end of his first year and your life wasn't the only one saved when he killed the Basilisk and prevented You-Know-Who from using your lifeforce to resurrect himself in that Chamber, saved Ronald's life in third year, the French champion's little sister during the Triwizard tournament and Ron's, Hermione's and Luna's at the battle at the ministry and my life when he saw the vision of the snake attacking me at the ministry," Arthur gently reminded her. "He didn't save you because he had feelings for you. He did it because that's who he is, he's a hero, because he was destined to fight You-Know-Who and because Ron asked him to."

"But I love him," Ginny said crying.

"You have a crush on him," Arthur corrected gently but firmly. "It can be difficult to see the difference at your age but you haven't got to know him well enough to be in love with him. Love takes time and commitment, and real genuine communication of your innermost thoughts and feelings. If you truly loved him then you'd be happy for him that he's going to marry the girl he loves. His happiness would be more important to you than the fact that you are hurt that it isn't you that he loves."

"But how do you know he's meant to be with her? That she will make him happier than I would?" Ginny demanded.

"None of that matters now that they are betrothed, Ginny. This was a contract written up by his parents, and apparently they were already dating and Harry proposed to her before she found the contract. Regardless of what you think of their relationship they are happy and they will be getting married. You cannot interfere with that," Arthur tried to convince his daughter.

"There must be something we can do to make Harry see that he's making a mistake," Ginny begged desperately.

"There is no reason to believe that he is making a mistake, and even if he was, trying to make him doubt himself like that would be the cruellest thing you could do. To take away his happiness. He doesn't deserve that from you or from anyone. Let him be happy with his wife and their new family," Arthur said.

"But he's making a mistake, isn't it a friend's role to point that out to him before it's too late?" Ginny asked determinedly.

"It is already too late for Harry to change his mind. His betrothal agreements have been signed and since they were written by their parents for the children's protection during the war they will be as binding as any marriage contract would be. Even if you managed to destroy his happiness and damage his trust in his betrothed, he would still have to marry her, all you would have done was make him miserable, when he doesn't deserve it and neither does his betrothed," Arthur replied. "And to be honest you aren't thinking of Harry, you don't know that she isn't perfect for him. You just want to think that you'd be better for Harry because that's what you want. That's not the actions of a friend, or of someone who loves him, you're not trying to protect him or trying to act in his best interests. It's your own disappointment speaking and to believe it and act on that would be selfish."

Arthur was as firm as he could be, Molly had been coddling their daughter too much, encouraging her to keep dreaming of marrying 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' in spite of Harry's clear lack of interest and now she needed a sharp wake up call before she damaged Harry's relationship with their whole family and her own reputation. As down to earth and humble as Harry was, he would be the Head of not one but two ancient and noble families and his betrothed was Head of a third. Any interference in their betrothal would be taken extremely seriously.

"But.."

"No there aren't any buts. Harry is irrevocably betrothed to his girlfriend and he is very happy about it. You need to support his future marriage or to keep quiet about it. You do not have the right to object to Harry marrying the witch he loves. He never led you on or made false promises to you, your own daydreams have done that. To attempt to interfere with his betrothal is a crime and the act of an enemy. Believe me you do not want to be an enemy to the House of Potter and the House of Black, as a family we cannot afford to be his enemy, Ginny and I'm ordering you to leave his betrothed and their betrothal alone. Do not cause trouble for them," Arthur stated with the weight of the patriarch of the family in his voice.

"Who is she?" Ginny asked, still angry about the situation.

"I'm not going to tell you tonight. You need to grieve the loss of your daydreams and come to terms with the fact that Harry is not going to ask you out. Telling you her name now will only let you focus on resenting the witch instead of sorting out your own feelings," Arthur replied sensibly. "I want your word that you will not try to contact Harry in any way this summer until you have accepted his betrothal."

Ginny flinched as she felt her father invoke the family magic to force her to obey and not contact Harry directly.

"Your word Ginny," Arthur repeated expectantly.

"I won't contact Harry this summer," Ginny replied.

"And you will do your best to accept his betrothal," Arthur added sternly.

"I'll do my best to accept that Harry is betrothed," Ginny whimpered.

"You'll get over this crush on the Boy-Who-Lived and see that Harry Potter is not who your imagined him to be, and one day you will meet and fall in love with a witch or wizard who can love you back the way you deserve to be loved," Arthur said gently.

Ginny turned away to hide her tears and managed to avoid sobbing until her father left the room. She didn't want him to try to comfort her after he'd dashed all her hopes of being with Harry. In her heart she knew that it wasn't her father's fault but she was too angry with him for refusing to allow her to even contact Harry and try to get him to see that she was the one for him.

-o0o-

"I had a question about the reciprocal agreements. How were they supposed to help? The betrothal agreement might say the date it was written but the other offers wouldn't disappear until the offers were rolled together so the person trying to pressure you into a betrothal would know that you'd just become betrothed," Susan asked her aunt.

"It doesn't matter, once the contracts had been rolled together you would be betrothed, and therefor protected from being forced to accept any other offer, and the fact that there was a reciprocal agreement on file meant that in the event of your parents' deaths, your guardian couldn't accept or make a totally binding agreement without a clause allowing you to cancel that contract in favour of one of the reciprocal agreements and you couldn't be forced into marriage before you came of age to make the decision for yourselves," Amelia replied.

"But the person trying to force the betrothal would still know that I accepted the other offer after they demanded that I accept theirs," Susan said.

"Yes but there is a difference between what someone knows and what they can prove, or what you could be penalised for," Amelia replied.

"Not being able to prove that you chose not to accept their betrothal offer isn't going to stop a Death Eater from killing your betrothed or wiping out your entire family for defying him," Susan said bluntly.

"Your parents weren't thinking about Death Eaters killing whole families, maybe they were naïve but they believed the war would be over long before you were old enough to be trapped into marriage, they were concerned about someone taking advantage of the fact you were orphaned to write a contract that took control of your house away from you or intimidating you into signing a contract you didn't want to sign," Amelia admitted.

"They were the good guys, they didn't have any idea how ruthless the Death Eaters would be," Harry said.

"You mean it's like my friends thinking that they could call the Aurors and hide behind their normal household wards or hold the Death Eaters off with schoolgirl spells until the Aurors arrived," Susan said.

"Yes. You know how they wouldn't listen when you tried to tell them that they needed to learn to defend their lives. Until you experience it in person, people can't imagine the full horror of a Death Eater attack, and unfortunately not enough people live to learn those lessons and tell others, and even when they try to tell their friends most people don't want to listen, or they think that it doesn't relate to them because they won't be attacked like that." Harry said.

Susan nodded. "I wanted to think that my parents were smarter than that," she complained.

Harry chuckled. "I would have liked to think mine were too, but they died because they trusted the wrong friend and didn't ask for an oath that he wouldn't tell the secret of the Fidelius," he admitted. "A correctly worded oath would have meant that he couldn't betray them even by accident or be tortured or potioned into telling. It makes so much sense I can't believe nobody thought of it."

"Yes you're right, the secret keeper themselves is the one weak point in the Fidelius. It's fallen out of favour since your parents were so famously betrayed," Amelia said.

"That's the other thing I don't understand. Sirius Black was never my parent's secret keeper, he pretended he was as the decoy but nobody bothered to ask him when he was arrested," Harry said sighing.

"He was arrested, so crippled with grief and guilt that he could barely speak and crying that your parents' deaths were his fault," Amelia tried to explain.

"Which should have been proof he didn't betray them. You can bet that Peter Pettigrew didn't shed a single tear about Mum and Dad being murdered," Harry retorted.

-o0o-

"You can't charge me with anything I did during the last war. I've already been pardoned," Severus declared sneering.

"We are aware that we cannot charge you for being a Death Eater during the last war or any of the crimes you were pardoned for. But you are still a Death Eater are you not? Are you honestly telling me that you haven't done anything against the law since you-know-who was resurrected?" Dawlish asked. It had been decided to keep Kingsley well away from Snape's interrogation in the slight hope that the potion's Master would continue to trust his fellow members of the 'Order of the Phoenix' if he couldn't be convicted at this time.

"I was spying for Albus Dumbledore, he vouched for me. He will again," Severus said confidently.

"We could release you, we could also release the details of the deaths of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his four closest supporters. They were killed with a little known dark cutting curse named after its incantation 'Sectumsempra'," Amelia threatened casually.

The already sickly pale dungeon dweller paled further making Amelia wonder if it were possible for a man like that to die of fright.

"It can't have been," he moaned.

"Oh, it was. You and your fellow Death Eaters don't have to take our word for it. We could also release the pictures, though they are a little disturbing for general viewing. The Sectumsempra curse cut the bodies up quite distinctively," Amelia said. "It's odd that my seventeen year old niece knew such an obscure and clearly dark curse but she and her friend told me that you invented it. Thanks to Dumbledore's misplaced faith in you, you weren't actually pardoned for the murders committed during raids in the last Wizarding war because he refused to believe you'd murdered anyone. You were only pardoned for being a Death Eater. Now that we can tie that curse back to its inventor we've quite a few unsolved murders that we can hopefully find closure for. Of course, if you taught the curse to someone else back during the last war, then you need to tell us who else could have used it to kill those victims and perhaps we can exonerate you.

The problem was, he hadn't taught it to anyone. He's been quite possessive of the spells he invented unless the Dark Lord himself asked him to teach one to someone. "Several people saw me casting the curse against objects while I was inventing it, and could have learned it that way," Snape said thinking quickly. If he could just get released from the ministry he'd have a chance at disappearing before the more loyal Death Eaters caught up with him and Dumbledore could get his hooks into him again. His possessions at Hogwarts would have to be left behind unfortunately, but Snape was too far into survival mode to mourn their loss at the moment.

"Who?" The Auror demanded eagerly as if believing the possibility. It might even be true, either way it would give them more people with a reason to be pulled in for questioning and an excuse to dose the Potions Master with Veritaserum to confirm his story.

"Mulciber, Avery, Evan Rosier, Wilkes, Rabastan LeStrange possibly a few others. It took weeks to get the spell to work the way I wanted," Severus replied.

This was one of the openings the Auror was looking for. "I'm curious, how exactly did you want the spell to work? Like this?" He showed him a pensieve photograph of Lucius Malfoy with his face badly cut up with clearly survivable injuries. "Or more like these," she said laying down photos of the victims who'd been killed with this curse during the first Voldemort uprising. "Or perhaps this is the perfected form of the spell, did you intend it to do this?" she added laying out the photos of Rodolphus Lestrange with his wand arm cut up until it looked like diced meat from the butcher.

Snape paled further and the Auror pushed a glass of water at him urging him to drink. "Who had the power to use Sectumsempra to do that? I doubt anyone in Britain except the Dark Lord or Dumbledore have the power and as far as I know, neither were familiar with this spell."

"Any idea where Lady Susan Bones or Harry Potter learned that spell? It's hardly appropriate classwork for sixth years," the Auror said, giving the impression that Potter had either been there or taught Susan Bones the curse.

Severus barely stopped himself from cursing the Potter brat's name out loud. He knew the boy had been holding back in class but if he had that much power at his fingertips then none of his little snakes would be safe. Suddenly the story of damaging Draco so badly with a poorly aimed Expelliarmus were more believable. But where could the brat have learned it?

"I didn't teach it to them or any other student," Severus declared firmly.

"You going to need to prove that," the Auror said.

Amelia's suspicions were raised when Severus nodded calmly.

"He's a potions master, I think we need to give him these first," the head of the DMLE, Amelia Bones, said entering the room and holding out two vials of the strongest flushing potions and a temporary magical suppression potion.

Severus looked at the potions in horror before trying to object.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.