NOT MINE

by davidplayz32

NOT MINE

1. Chapter 39-44

Chapter 38 Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text Harry could barely hold his wand up. He felt drained, like a pumpkin squeezed to pulp. Amelia had done what he could not. Sacrificed herself so that Voldemort could not take her and use her to control magical Britain.

It was an act of sacrifice, of civic duty, one that took his breath away and turned his blood to ice.

But it was only worth it if he could survive his encounter with Voldemort.

Britain could not lose Amelia Bones and Harry Potter on the same day.

Voldemort's Polyjuice dissipated as he walked in, leaving Harry look at a hybrid of himself and the snake-faced monster. Cat-like pupil slits hovering within Harry's green eyes, until they glowed red once more.

Red with rage, as the Dark Lord stared at the fluttering veil.

"She took a coward's route."

"She held a bravery that both you and I do not hold." Harry answered quietly.

"Brave? To choose death?" Voldemort shook his head. "I would not have harmed her."

His face turned to chalk-white, he simply sauntered past a wary Harry. To the stone dias, to the veil. "A pathway to death. To the next world." He murmured.

"Does it frighten you?" Harry asked curiously.

Voldemort drew himself up imperiously. "Why fear what I have conquered?" His eyes narrowed as he looked back at Harry. "And you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The next great adventure, as Dumbledore says. No, I don't fear it. Why, you think I've conquered it as you have?"

Voldemort's unnaturally long fingers twirled his wand thoughtfully. "Who knows, Harry Potter? After all, you hold the power unknown." He reached into his robes and retrieved the glowing white prophecy ball.

He touched his wand to it and a voice began to play. A voice that Harry realized he knew. Professor Trelawney's voice, only it was unlike he'd ever heard her.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

Harry frowned as Trelawney's voice died out, as the power of the prophecy lay uncomfortably in the room. "Power the Dark Lord knows not…" He muttered. What was it? His harem ritual? Yet Tom know of the bond he'd created…but perhaps it was more abstract, like Tom couldn't know of the extent of the power.

It was a foolish man who obsessed over prophecies.

Voldemort studied him. "What secrets do you hold, Harry Potter?" The Dark Lord gave him a swift, piercing look, but Harry blocked the intrusion into his mind with ease. Harry knew the feeling of Tom's slippery Legilimency intimately, had built his mindscape specifically to defend against it.

They both laughed, oddly, two elite wizards reduced to playground tricks.

"Neither can live while the other survives." Voldemort said, abruptly.

Harry gripped his wand. "Yes."

"Prophecies are foolish, aren't they?"

"Yes." Harry turned so his side profile was slim.

"And yet…"

"Indeed."

But as Harry was about to throw the first curse, Voldemort only sighed and walked past him. Harry watched in confusion as the Dark Lord stopped at the door.

"Come, little Harry Potter." His smile turned silky. "Even with all my years, I still feel the need to display my dominance in front of an audience. Amusing, isn't it? With death conquered, magic bending at my whim, I am yet to defeat the concept of the ego."

Harry watched him disappear, heard the cheers of the Death Eaters outside. He understood — Voldemort had bled in Hogsmeade, bled a lot. An immortal made man. Now he had to prove his might in front of his doubting men.

And Harry had nowhere to go. He glanced back at the fluttering veil. Magic had its mysteries. Maybe Amelia was in a better place, a better world, a better time.

Or maybe she was just dead.

He thought of his girls, of Hermione, of Narcissa, Apolline, Helena and Hannah, Marie.

He wasn't ready to join Amelia.

He still had so much to do.

Harry stepped out into the wide chamber containing the time-stream.

Voldemort stood in the stream itself, eyes closed as the white ethereal light swam around him, casting his skull in an incongruent angel glow. And beyond, the Death Eaters, clapping slowly, features bathed in excitement.

Hermione stood at their front, Bellatrix's faces cast in a fanatic glow. What turned her from the girl Narcissa spoke of, her sweet excitable sister full of drive, to this mad bitch? Even Narcissa hadn't been able to tell him.

It didn't matter.

One thing at a time.

"Come, Harry. Feel the power of the time stream. Pure magic, a ley line torn in two so it could be studied."

Harry stepped into the vapour stream — having conquered the time of it, he simply stood, feeling his magic buffered and renewed, his reserves rejuvenated. He felt powerful.

Voldemort cracked open red eyes. "They built the Ministry over this ley line, centuries ago. It lay here like a dusty wand, power untapped, and what greater sadness is there? But a single quarter century ago, I had enough influence in the Ministry to push them to rip it up and study it." He smiled with those papery thin red lips.

"I didn't know then that it would take fifteen years to see the fruit of my labour." The Dark Lord chuckled. "But nothing about that fateful night could be predicted…my faithful Death Eaters, new and old, they wondered how I could be hurt by this boy, by this old magic."

Voldemort smiled, shuddering as the magic filled them both. "This is why I'm grateful to duel you here, Harry. Powered by the ley line, you will feel the limitless reserves that I do, joined in brotherhood by my loyal Death Eaters. Do you feel it?"

Harry vibrated, the sensations intense. A warm heat in his core, fingers twitching, the scent of something indescribable. Magic most pure.

"Here, we are equals." Voldemort declared. "But only one of us can walk out of here. Dumbledore cannot interrupt us—"

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing." His tongue slithered out to lick his lips. "The Supreme Mugwump attends the International Confederation of Wizards — a closed chamber, four hours of discussion between governments and schools across the world. As ever, Dumbledore is his own worst enemy. Bellatrix?" He called leisurely.

To Harry's right, Hermione checked a pocket watch and bounced from foot to foot. "One hour left, my Lord."

"Can you survive for a whole hour, Harry?" Voldemort trembled with excitement.

Let 's find out.

Harry's chest felt light, adrenaline flooding him. This was a bad fight — no allies, a duel where his opponent set the rules. And worse, it was what the dueling community called a full canvas. An environment where there was nothing to use — nothing to Transfigure, nothing to Animate, no material to create into cover.

A blank canvas was a room in which two great mages could create a beautiful duel, one that could go for hours, desks into dragons, water-pipes wrenched from the ground to spout ice warriors into armies, walls torn to form trenches.

A full canvas duel could last less than a minute.

"Expelliarmus." Voldemort said mockingly. The watching crowd laughed.

Harry batted it away with his wand, eyes flicking around the room. The walls still held many clocks, hundreds of time faces staring down at him, taunting him with how slowly they ticked. But he didn't have the time to create another clock guardian or another 'big fan'.

Harry flooded the stones at Voldemort's feet with a pool of water and electrified it just to make the Dark Lord move. He dodged a Cruciatus and deliberately took a Cutting Curse into his hip so he could turn the resulting gout of blood into bubbling ooze that sank into the stone-cracks. Blood magic, the unique art that Tom had learned by delving through Aztec pyramids in Mexico — it was powerful but it needed an unpleasant source.

A shield to block an Entrail-Expeller, a flock of birds to throw themselves into the flock of daggers Tom threw at him. A fiery whip to snap against Tom's hip — yes! The Dark Lord jumped back and laughed as his skin was burned, his black robes seared.

Voldemort clapped his hands together, hands steaming and frozen in blue blocks, hands that wrapped around Harry's fire-whip and pulled him closer.

Harry scowled. He needed distance, buying time for his blood-magic ooze to slide through the channels between each stone tile, a red goo in slow motion. The time stream was an endless source of power — there was no magic too intensive to cast, but it was time itself that was the limit.

Stones torn from the floor to form a guardian, but Voldemort interrupted his animation. Harry scythed off his own robes to create a fluttering black-cloaked monster, like a Dementor, but Tom set it alight and banished it at his own Death Eaters, who laughed as they destroyed it.

Voldemort was in his element, showing off to the audience. Batting away Harry's spells, flying in the air to dodge his concoction of arrows-melded-to-Bludgers. And then when he floated back down to the ground, so did an acid rain cloud from above that Harry hadn't noticed, green rain drops that sizzled into his clothes, into his skin.

But Harry's blood ooze wobbled closer, and when Voldemort's feet touched the stone, they rose up to form a symbiotic jelly-like pair of hands, hands that seized at the Dark Lord's legs.

Voldemort thought he was victim to a trick both of them favored — creating a third party to seize the feet, holding them still for a single second to receive an overpowered finisher. Harry had done it to Bellatrix, to Rodulphus. Tom had done it all across Germany's dueling circuit.

But the blood-monster rose from the stone as Voldemort cast spell after spell at it, growing from hands to shoulders to torso, until it was not just hands but man. Harry grinned — the Dark Lord had fallen for it, empowering his blood-guardian with panicked spells.

Two Harry's stood, one man, one man-made, a globulous mixture of bloodied flesh and fleshy blood, like a statue carved from fresh human remains. The blood guardian seized Voldemort, but his touch left flesh-melting imprints on the Dark Lord, like Harry's hands on Quirrel all those years ago. Skin burnt to a raw red, shiny.

The real Harry cast spell after spell, using his advantage — but most of his chain dissipated into the blood guardian accidentally blocking the Dark Lord.

Voldemort shrieked and shrank back. Since magic only bolstered Harry's creation, he imprisoned it instead, stone shackles from the ground to freeze it. A swish of his wand to shift his acid cloud over the blood monster. A flip of his wand and Tom performed a complex self-Banishment to push himself twenty feet back, creating space.

The Dark Lord's eyes were furious, but he was laughing. "Blood magic, Harry? I can safely assume that Albus was not your teacher, then."

"I stand on my own two feet, as I told you." Harry said firmly.

"Your secrets will unravel with each drop of blood." Tom snapped off a Killing Curse with contemptuous ease.

Harry's answering curse met it in midair. Suddenly, his wand vibrated with a familiar electric surge, his fingers seizing up.

A beam of gold light connected from wand to wand.

Priori Incantatem.

His feet lifted from the ground, as did Voldemort's, until they were high in the cavernous chamber. The single thread of golden light splintered, the beams arcing, refracting, from wall to wall, until they were a thousand strong, a web of gold. A dome. A cage. A shield.

The first time their spells had met in midair since the graveyard. Harry had almost forgotten — brother wands. Echoes of their most recent spells, screams of pain and rage.

But as Harry floated in midair, he saw the clocks in greater detail. There was still so much time to go. Help wasn't coming any time soon.

But the power of the time stream flowed into them both, that river of white passing through the web of gold.

If only I could speed time up. Harry thought. He was in the time stream. The Unspeakables must have a way to control it, to change variables as they studied. But as his body strained and shuddered with the dual magics of the stream and the Priori Incantatem, he could barely look around.

There was no console, no lever. There were only the clocks on the wall, clock faces embedded from floor to ceiling. Not for decoration, Harry realized.

One of them must be a device to control it…a Time Turner in the wall. Clocks small and large, some wood, some gleaming gold, but how could he recognize it?

He needed the magic of time. But he only knew two spells that dealt with time. Priori Incantato, forcing wands to show echoes of the last spells it had performed. And…the healing spell he'd used on the Unspeakables, used by Egyptian mummifiers to rewind the damage they'd caused to the skull after draining the brain.

Voldemort laughed from across the golden cage, their wands locked as the beam pushed and pulled between them. "A moment's reprieve, Harry Potter, before your death!"

Harry thought. Only a fool made a spell in mid-battle. But if he used the mummifier's spell, twisted it, inverted the intent…could he push time forward, use the power of the stream to his advantage, so he pushed his whole body into the future? Inverting spells…it had been done.

A Banishing Spell that worked on one self. The Momentum-Reversing spell was an invert of the Slowing Charm, used by Aurors and Mediwizards to catch suicide attempts, sending those falling from windows hurtling back through them.

Harry let himself lose the duel of wands. Echoes of the victims of his spells, but he hadn't cast the Killing Curse, so none were ripped from their realm to the mortal plane.

Voldemort smirked. "You have power, young Harry, but will is the difference between us. The will to be great, the will to kill—" The Dark Lord cast the Killing Curse once more.

This time, Harry answered it with the time magic of Ancient Egypt, his wand twisted, his mind focused as he tried to invert the spell's intent. "Hatshepsut alhayaa altarjie ankh-sut." The white spell was almost lost in the glow of the river, but it met Voldemort's curse once more, just before it ended Harry.

The golden beam again. Their feet lifted into midair. "You do this again and I will have no choice but to have my Death Eaters rip us from it!" Voldemort yelled over the rushing magic, like a waterfall embedded with the beat of war-drums.

Harry wasn't looking at his opponent. He was looking at the wall.

At the clock-hands that span, faster than he could see.

It was working. The hours span, a thousand faces turning faster than he could see, a blur of colors. Harry's head threatened to split in two, dagger-sharp pain in his scar, and his forehead must have been bleeding, for his sight was covered in red.

The chamber was vibrating. Stones fell from the wall. The clocks were…going up on the wall, rather than falling. Harry could not turn his neck, a strain on his muscles like he was flying fifty thousand feet in the air. But from the corner of his eyes, there were people. Echoes. Misty figures.

Voldemort laughed and laughed in mania. "I don't need my wand, Harry." He screamed — and then his eyes narrowed.

Once more, Harry's head pounded, invaded, that silky slithering presence of Tom's feather-light Legilimency. But Harry was shaking as time blurred, his mind not able to defend itself. His body was breaking.

His mind was breaking.

Magic filled them, that endless reserve from the time-stream, but whereas before it rejuvenated, now it simply powered their fall into madness.

Harry choked. Closed his eyes…and re-opened them.

Not two eyes, but four.

His head split with pain…but his sight split with two visions.

In one, he panted, kneeling on the cold stone floor, looking at Voldemort opposite, shaken himself. The time told him that salvation was still very far away.

And in his other vision, he knelt in an empty chamber, the time-stream gone. Two vast runes on either side of the chamber, walls stripped of their clock-faces. The runes were seals, Harry realized, his cold blood curdling inside him. Seals for the ley lines.

Harry swallowed the bile that rose.

He hadn't gone forward in time, but back.

And yet when he rose to his feet, he did so in two worlds. The world he knew and the one he didn't. Voldemort's attack of his mind had splintered it, and the astonishing power of the time stream had amplified his time magic spell, so that he'd sent some part of himself back in time.

And remained in his own timeline too.

Harry groaned from two mouths.

"Don't fuck with time magic, moron." He muttered.

Voldemort gasped a laugh in the modern timeline. "The time stream is more powerful than I could imagine. For a moment, I thought us travelling back in time, thought you'd escaped me once more."

Tom didn't know, Harry realized. Didn't know that Harry was there and yet not there.

It was a nightmare, he knew, one that filled him with fear. Fear that he would be stuck, two parts of a whole, mind as garbled as Lockhart's, unable to be with his girls.

And yet.

And yet.

An opportunity, too. Split in two, perhaps one half of him could help the other escape Voldemort.

Voices in his head. No, not in his head. Five senses had become ten, but he heard strangers speaking.

He Disillusioned himself, thankful that he held his wand in both timelines. Two Unspeakables entered the chamber.

"—all I'm saying is that it ain't easy to just undo the seals on these ley lines."

"Someone once unleashed them to power the Ministry."

They stood and studied the large seals. "Someone put a tiny crack in them, that isn't the same thing. Then they sealed ninety percent of that crack with runes Merlin himself would probably struggle to figure out."

"Can't you ask Ying Yue? She's the runes queen."

"I can't, with the new rules and these new walls. No interproject talk. Soon, I won't even see her. I have to do it all myself."

"We're hiring runes and charms people. Monk's doing interviews all day. We'll figure it out." His colleague assured him.

Harry's mouth was dry. He was fifteen or sixteen years in the past, where they looked to unleash the ley lines.

In the future, Voldemort snarled and wrenched up thick vines from the stones, but from each vine stemmed a thorny plant-mouth that spat Cruciatus curses.

Harry lit it up in torching flames — and had to stop himself from torching the Unspeakables with his wand-hand in the past.

This was going to get confusing. But he had to make sure he wasn't seen back here — nobody liked a time-traveller. He scarpered from the main chamber and into the Death Chamber.

But here, there was no veil. It was a room in thought — a stone dias half-constructed, a ring of yellow safety barriers around a pit in the floor. An empty cup of tea flattened down papers of diagrams of a dias Harry had already seen built.

It was surreal. The chamber around them was half-built too, enormous stone blocks layered to waist-height. The vast floor was beginning to be segmented all around, chambers in construction everywhere Harry looked. The brain chamber, the library of prophecies, another with a huge beating heart. A sleeping Nundu in another.

Harry wondered. A plan sketched itself in two minds, a diagram began in the past and finished in the future.

In the future, a distracted Harry barely survived, screaming as a bubbling purple spell corroded his shoulder away.

In the past, he slightly corroded a stone in the wall, a curse of decay linked to a time-delaying rune. Each stone block was thicker than three men, because magic this powerful had to be contained.

The block fortified with linking runes and wards, each block charmed together, an impenetrable and inescapable chamber.

But if the stone was broken at its core, before any charms or runes or wards…

In the future, he jerked his head back before Tom's stone-serpent could snap its jaw down. To his side, Hermione-a-trix giggled. Harry rolled away and darted for the Death Chamber.

A gout of fire lit his arm up as he yanked the door open, but he slipped through and locked it.

Harry frowned. A Switching Spell on the stone dias and the stone he stood on — Voldemort would be slowed down by the whispering veil in his face.

The moment of truth.

Harry chained a dozen spells at the stone block he'd sabotaged fifteen-odd years before. Decayed over time, the block disintegrated easily. A hole to freedom.

Two Harrys smiled. Two Harrys left the Death Chamber. One scurried through like a rat, fingernails digging through stone to pull himself into another chamber. A little illusion charm behind him, so Tom didn't notice his tunnel immediately. He was getting the fuck out of here — Tom would clear out when Dumbledore arrived with a clutch of Aurors, Unspeakables and Professors, those too afraid to enter without Dumbledore at their side.

At least he hoped Tom would leave — his plan to make Harry a villain only worked if he wasn't found skulking around, and he'd gotten his objective, mostly. The prophecy and Amelia's death.

The other Harry simply walked out, back through the time chamber, all the way back to the elevator.

Two Harrys took deep breaths in the calm of the elevator. Their heads throbbed, hearts pounding, scars red raw.

What a life I lead. How am I going to fix this?

He bit his lip hard, if only stop himself from sinking into despair. He wanted to tell himself it was going to be okay, but he didn't feel it.

In the past, in an elevator that was newer, bronzed wood panel gleaming, the door opened.

Someone walked in — a redhead in a gray pantsuit, tugging nervously at their jacket.

"Lucky number seven, please." Her laughter was a little high.

Harry stared in wonder. Had his madness sunk in? He wanted to laugh, cry, break down, sleep.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes narrowing.

Green eyes.

His mother's eyes.

Harry gaped at her, his mind awash, a beach littered with plastic debris, more and more with every wave. She was here, alive. Of course she was…it was what? 1980? She was young, nineteen, twenty…out of Hogwarts and—

"Are you okay?" Her voice was soft, her eyebrow raised. "I'm sorry, I really need to hurry, I have an interview—"

"Right, yes, sorry." Harry said flatly, jabbing the button for floor seven. The elevator rose from the atrium, over a lobby of gleaming tiles, the fountain of gold statues.

Below, Harry caught sight of a different flash of red hair, a woman in a strict pantsuit and a tight hair-bun, marching through the lobby and juggling thick binders as she tried to keep up with her boss. A younger Amelia, making a name for herself in the Ministry.

He shook himself. He couldn't miss a single second with his mother.

"Y-you're interviewing?"

"Yeah. You too? Probably the same position." Lily blew out a long breath that pushed her hair from her eyes. "Think I might throw up." She shot him a sardonic smile.

Harry pinched his palms, taking a shuddering breath. He was not going to sob in front of his mother.

But she looked so beautiful, so full of life. Warm and vivacious, the way he'd imagined her, the woman from the photos in the book Hagrid had gifted him, only she stood an arm's reach away.

An orphan's dream made reality.

"You'll…you'll do great." He said quietly.

"It's just difficult to be everything they want you to be." Lily sighed. "It was only a couple of years ago I was doing my NEWTs and that's so much easier. Only one right answer. Now I need to be independent but also work in a team, self-assured but not make out I know more than the boss."

"Confident but not arrogant." Harry added.

"Right!"

The elevator was rising too quickly. The lights flashing on the panel.

No. Harry didn't want this to be over so soon. A twist of his wand and the elevator lurched to a slow crawl.

Lily frowned. "Oh, no! They've got elevators like Hogwarts' stairwells. Minds of their own!"

Harry's smile was tremulous. Could he reach out and touch her, just once? To know she was real and not a figment of a very long day?

"Are you okay?" Lily was peering at him.

"Yeah, yeah." He shook himself. "Tough day. Stomach feels funny."

"Mmmph!" Her eyes went wide as she foraged in her bag. "I know just the thing." She retrieved a small jar and poured green berries into her hand. "Mistletoe berries. Eat, eat!"

"Aren't mistletoe berries poisonous?"

"No, no, no. The mistletoe itself is but the berries are good for the stomach." Lily paused in thought. "In small doses," she amended.

"Reassuring."

"Relax," she grinned. "My friend Alice gives me them, helps with morning sickness."

"Oh, you're—" Harry swallowed.

Pregnant.

Pregnant with him. "You'll…you'll make a great mother."

"You think?" Lily popped a berry into her own mouth, staring down at the magical sights of the Ministry in motion. Her lips twisted. "I…I hope so."

"I know so." He said firmly. He wished he could tell her how amazing she'd be — how she would sacrifice everything for her child, grant the old magics of love to protect him from the most evil of magics.

But anything he said might change the foundations of the future — and he couldn't risk that. Because now he had his own loves to worry about, his own family.

Harry opened and closed his mouth a dozen times. What should he say to the mother he'd never had? There weren't words enough. "You…you thought about names?"

Lily snickered. "James — my husband, you look a little like him, funny enough. He wants an old name, like the royals. Like George."

"The names of the old kings, huh?" Harry smiled. "Edward?"

"Oh, no." She pouted. "Everyone would call him Ed. That's the problem with the classics. William becomes Bill."

"Elizabeth becomes Lizzie." Harry chimed in.

"Charles becomes Charlie." Lily nodded. "Maybe Henry."

"Henry?" Harry crossed his arms. He couldn't be named Henry. Henry Potter was not a mighty mage — Henry Potter was a broom salesman or a bureaucrat.

"Henry becomes Harry." Lily said softly. "And Harry? That's a kind name. You got kids?" She looked at him, taking him in properly. "You look young but with the war and all—"

"No kids, but," Harry stopped himself from staring at her. He thought of his girls, imagined Hermione round with child. "Soon. Yeah."

Lily gave him a reassuring grin. "You'll get there. I was worried too — am worried, I should say. My mum and dad, they were so focused on the idea of being good parents, they never really managed it, you know? Like it was a roleplay…perfectly kept gardens, food on the table."

Harry drank her in as the elevator crawled higher. She'd be gone soon and he still couldn't thank her, for giving him the life he led. Words tumbled from his lips, like each word would extend their time together. "I know, I know you'll do great. It's all about—" He cut off, his throat dry.

He couldn't say sacrifice. He couldn't put that idea in her head. What monster would he be? A child suggesting sacrifice to his own mother? He hated himself, suddenly, a burning disgust that ran from vein to vein.

"Sacrifice, right?" Lily nodded. "That's what I've read in this parenting book. Love is sacrifice and life is about taking every opportunity. You know, everything's in a book." Harry choked, hearing Hermione's catch-phrase come from his mother's lips. How alike they were.

"Y-yeah." Harry squeezed his eyes shut to stop himself from crying and then opened them once more. He couldn't miss a single second of her. The elevator dinged for six — he only had moments left.

"Hey…Lily. I…just want you to know. Everything is gonna be just fine, you know? Not at first, but in the end." His voice cracked, his stomach so twisted that he had to hold it. "It's all gonna work out. I swear."

Lily frowned, head tilted to the side in confusion. But her frown became a smile. "You're an odd one, stranger." She tapped her nose conspiratorially. "But I like the odd ones."

The elevator reached seven.

"T-thank you." The words bubbled from his mouth, because it was either talking or crying. "For…the mistletoe berries."

His arm stretched between them, hanging uselessly, half a bridge between two cliffs. He couldn't hug her, like he'd dreamed of. A mother's embrace, because they were strangers in an elevator, because she was a woman who'd been unfathomably understanding of his creepiness already.

She turned to leave and he closed his eyes firmly, willing himself not to cry. Her heels resounded as she walked out…and then back in.

"Hey?" Lily said.

Harry blinked wet eyes open.

"I shouldn't help the competition." She sighed. "But, don't mean to be rude, you look like you need it." Her hands feathered into his messy hair. "Let me try and fix your hair, because nobody will hire you like this. My husband's got the same problem but, well, you're not Lord Potter."

Harry watched, eyes wide, holding a breath that he never wanted to exhale, because even a breath might break this moment. His mother's soft hands swept through his hair, smoothing it down, trying to tame it, all while she admonished him for looking so unkempt.

He took her in, because he felt he'd never get another chance. The sparkling gleam of her emerald eyes, holding so much life. The way she nibbled on her lips as his hair bounced back to messiness.

Her exasperated sigh, her rolling eyes, toss of her hair.

"Alright, that's the best I can do." She swept a strand behind his ear and Harry closed his eyes, feeling her magic, the warmth of her hand, fingers trailing across his cheek. A mother's touch.

"Boys." She tutted. "They always need to be mothered. Good luck out there, okay?"

"Yeah." He croaked. When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

Harry cried.

###

His torn mind swam, a blaring cacophony of sensations mixed together, a cooking pot with too many spices, stirred by two chefs instead of one.

He wept from four eyes. He didn't know what to feel. He didn't know what to do.

But he knew, whenever he was sad or low or confused, he always went to one place.

He hadn't the energy to separate himself, so two Harrys Apparated to Malfoy Manor unthinkingly.

One Harry found wards but these were dated, old. Magic advanced quickly and especially under threat — these were top of the line wards for two decades ago, but Voldemort had broken through wards such as these easily. They were like the Greengrass wards before he'd paid for new ones.

He didn't even think before shooting through them.

In the future, in the living room, Harry found Narcissa in a panic and hurled himself into her embrace, feeling like a little boy and ashamed all the more because of it.

"Ssh," She soothed him, drawing him down to the sofa, into her lap. "You're safe. You're here, I'm here." Harry scrunched up her peach-colored sundress with his fingers, shaking as she stroked his hair.

Just like Lily had.

In the past, he found the living room empty, but for a host of discarded wine glasses on the side tables, on the mantelpiece. But a hubbub of voices sounded from elsewhere in the manor. And a figure emerged from the doorway behind him.

It was her.

Bellatrix — but not her, all the same. Young and lithe, her long thick shiny dark hair gleaming and full, as she toyed with as it fell over her amused smirk, over her lidded black eyes.

"They're in the kitchen, you know. Or through the garden. You don't need to…skulk."

"I'm not skulking." Harry protested, drinking her in. "Who's in the kitchen?"

"Who else?" Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "The happy couple and the extended family. Blacks and Malfoys and a hundred other hangers-on. Amazing how much family turns up when there's free food."

Harry paused. Bellatrix was here, in Malfoy Manor. She'd have no reason to be here but for…a party celebrating Narcissa's marriage to Lucius. Or their engagement. Or their child. That thought made his stomach turn.

It was probably the latter — if Lily was pregnant, so was Narcissa.

"Which side of the family are you?" Bellatrix demanded, crossing her arms. She wore a dangerously high black skirt and a white blouse — Narcissa had told him she was trouble before she got married.

"Maybe I'm neither." Harry rose a brow. "Maybe I'm an intruder, using the party to scout the place before I rob it."

Bellatrix snorted. "Good stuff is in the cellar, be careful of the curses." She wandered into the room, twirling a wine glass. From the flush in her cheeks, she'd already had a few.

He just looked at her.

"What?" She growled. "He's just another rich asshole. Cissy would never have married him if she hadn't been pressured. Now she's got a bun in the oven and stuck for life."

"Cheers to the happy couple." Harry scooped up a half-drank wine glass and toasted her.

What was he doing?

"What are you doing?" Cissy asked as she watched his arm move oddly from where he lay in her lap. "Come back to me, my love." She stroked his cheek.

Harry blinked, looking up into her blue eyes. "I…had a fight with Voldie in the Department of Mysteries. There's…this ley line open, this, like, bleeding cut in our timeline, with so much power. And, and, he had me cornered and I had to try something, so I tried this time spell, but he was in my mind, Cissy!" He swallowed heavily.

"It's okay." She stroked his hair, holding him tightly, blinking away her own glistening eyes. "We were worried. There's a lot to talk about — they say you attacked the Ministry, that you killed Amelia. There's…there's witnesses. Peter's in a panic trying to stamp out fires, Rita Skeeter is trying to get in contact—"

"Cissy, you don't understand." Harry breathed out. "I'm in two places, two times. I'm here but I'm also back in ah, 1980, maybe? I'm talking to your sister, to Bellatrix, at a party you and Lucius are having."

She blinked back at him, mouth agape. Harry blinked too and he was watching the oldest Black sister cross her legs as she downed her wine glass and reached for another. "Mother and Father aren't pleased with me, of course, haven't been since she got married. It should be the eldest sister that gets married first, per tradition." She rolled her eyes.

"Who cares about tradition?" Harry said absently.

Narcissa touched his cheek. "So you're talking to big sis right now."

"Yes."

"She's there."

"Yes."

"What's she wearing?"

"Little black skirt, white blouse."

Narcissa's lips twisted. "Always the cocktease. Do you like it?"

"What?"

Her head dipped down to capture his lips. Her hand trailed down his body to take hold of his cock. "Do you want to fuck her?"

"No, Cissy, she's your sister. I love you, I don't—"

"I know you do." Cissy breathed out, smiling. "You love getting a family back together, don't you?"

Harry blinked again. Bellatrix huffed as she threw her long bare legs over the side of the armchair. "Like marriage is…grotesque as an institution. A lifetime bond to someone who couldn't even beat me in a duel, someone less educated, less intelligent, less ambitious—" She sighed in frustration.

"But you'd be okay with it if he was smarter, more powerful." How old was she? He couldn't sense the Dark Lord on her…but she wasn't just out of school either. Twenty-ish, or nearing thirty? Decaying without a magical tutor, and knowing it, about to fall for the promise the Dark Lord gave her?

Bellatrix scowled at him. "As if anyone is. It's not about being okay with it, but at least there's an order to it, you know? Power begets power. Sooner or later, every wizard and witch hits a wall — the wall of what you can learn from the library."

"You need a teacher."

"Back in the day, the husband was the teacher." Bellatrix pointed her glass at him. "Like, nobody's fucking Merlin because of his great beard, right? But Morgana lets him get dirty because, helloooo, world's greatest wizard."

"I'm not sure that's in the history books—" Harry started. How much alcohol had she consumed?

She sighed. "I wish I knew someone who could help me with my weak points—" Bellatrix began.

Harry blinked and looked up at Narcissa. "Cissy, what was she bad at? Magically?"

"Charms and runes. She loves curses and Transfiguration."

"I'm a Charms master." Harry boasted. "Used to do archaeological digs in Egypt too, because of my Runes knowledge."

Bellatrix's eyebrows drew together. "Nobody asked, weirdo."

Harry shrugged. "Just saying."

"Well, whatever. I'm just saying, maybe then it would make sense. But even then it's like, the ambition, right? If one part of the marriage wants to have a bunch of children and the other wants to—" Bellatrix swigged her wine glass.

Harry looked through his other set of eyes. Narcissa was breathing heavily, biting her lip and his. "Cissy," He pushed her away, even as she moaned. "What's her greatest ambition?"

Cissy bit her lip. "At that age? She wanted to tear down the world. The Ministry was ruling against everything the Dark Lord apparently favored, trying to stamp out a movement but only making it bigger. They outlawed artifact creation, public duels, dark magic books, they outlawed international dueling tutors — they made one law against international academies that stopped her from going into a Spanish academy for duellists, because they were so frightened about the brain drain. People escaping Britain."

Harry turned back to his past self. Bellatrix wasn't meeting his eyes. "I just want the world to be different." She growled.

"Me too." Harry agreed, all too aware of the sudden phantom sensation of his cock getting sucked by an eager Cissy, fifteen years in the future. "The Ministry needs tearing down completely, like anything else that's not fit for function. These laws recently? I imbue objects with my magic and that's suddenly outlawed 'artifact creation'? I want to have a friendly duel with my friends in Hogsmeade? Nope, can't do that!"

Harry sighed heavily, placing his wine glass down with a thump. "Half my family library is now illegal, suddenly. My old tutors are losing their jobs. I'm just grateful I managed to get through MISCAT before they made studying abroad illegal. Excuse me, before they paused studying permits temporarily." Harry snorted. "It's like they want people to join the Dark Lord."

Bellatrix almost fell off her armchair. She bounced into the seat, black eyes wild with excitement. "Wait, you went to MISCAT?"

Harry took a slow sip of his wine. "The Magical International School of Catalunya? Yeah, just one of my tutors."

Bellatrix twisted her hands together like she was in physical pain. Her eyes wide, with a touch of the fanaticism he'd see in her permanently, fifteen years later. "You have to tell me everything."

Harry smiled as the fish took the bait. In two timelines, he settled back into the sofa.

Cissy moaned around his cock. "There's — mmmph — so much we need to do." She lathered his cockhead with her spit. "Need to stop the Prophet from publishing their story tomorrow." Her tongue swirled under his mushroom head. "Need to talk to Peter, figure out how to do damage control. See if we can convince anyone we know to run for Minister."

Harry pushed her hair from her face as she looked up at him with swollen lips, her eyes lidded in desire. "But it's so hot, Master. Helping you get into the panties of big sis, when she's so young and vulnerable." She panted eagerly, dribbling a long string of saliva onto his cock deliberately. "Is that what you want, Harry? Do you want Andromeda too, complete the family set?"

Harry arched his hips as she throated him, bobbing happily. Through all of his eyes, he looked at the sisters Black. One slobbering on his cock, the other who kept crossing one leg over the other, fidgeting with giddiness. He couldn't tell which one was more crazy.

He'd rendered his mind in two. He was trapped in a timeline, caught between getting back to his own time safely and the glint of an opportunity, of possibility.

The possibility of taking Voldemort's woman, his most favored, his most loyal. And bending her to his will.

He was a mummy's boy, after all. And his mother had said it best.

Love is about sacrifice.

And life is about taking every opportunity.

Bellatrix shifted in her armchair as she listened intently to his lecture on dueling. Her skirt rode up her thigh. She uncrossed her legs and revealed…

A flash of her pussy.

A glimpse of the barest thatch of black hair.

And an undeniable exposure of opportunity.

Notes:
Two minds, one wand - but not the two minds you expected. How will Harry survive, fractured, in the past and in the present? Can he affect the past without destroying the future? Can he take Bellatrix away from Voldie? Can he take off some 80s high-waisted jeans from the past-hotties? Next chapter next Friday, as always.

Want to read how Harry navigates past and present, see saucy Hermione artwork, and read a few chaps ahead, along with exclusive salacious artwork of Susan, Daphne, Fleur and more from this story, as well as fun little sexy story scenes? Check my Linktree below.

Chapter 39 Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text "Do you understand, Cissy?"

Narcissa smiled at him, her gaze a little dizzy, as they always were when she was cum-addled and lovestruck. They were waiting for Rita Skeeter in a rented room in the Leaky Cauldron. Cissy had the bright idea to pass the time in a more pleasurable way — pressing her large tits together while he fucked them, begging him to coat her in his love. "Yes, my love."

"Talk to Hermione. Get everyone here, I need plans, I need solutions. No excuses, this is top priority."

"Yes, darling." She swiped a little glob of his seed from her lips with her finger and sucked it in, shivering.

"Is she coming?" Harry said impatiently.

"She said she'll be here shortly."

Harry paced up and down, running his hands through his hair. "Fuck, this is bad."

Narcissa frowned. "What's wrong? You were so excited earlier. An opportunity that the Dark Lord doesn't have."

Harry scowled. "That was before I got stuck over there. I was in the past, Cissy, and I couldn't reach here no matter how much I tried, how much I blinked. You didn't notice because you were sleeping, but I was just sitting here like a frozen Inferi, my eyes awake but nobody was home. Because me, my brain, my soul, my mind, whatever, it was in the past."

"But why?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "The further we get apart from each other, the more diverging locations, the harder it is for me to find myself. Like, when we're both in this house, in this room, it's easier, but…I don't know." He picked up a Butterbeer and downed it. "There's so much about time that I don't know."

"We'll figure it out." She promised.

There was a knock on the door. Cissy blew him a kiss and strode into the next room, closing the door behind her.

Harry needed to do this alone. He opened the hotel door and there she was — Rita Skeeter, a woman as foul as any Dark Lord, but much more useful to him. She gave him an oily smile as he waved her in and carefully closed and locked the door.

"My, my, what a lucky woman I am. Alone in a hotel room with Harry Potter." Rita smirked. "That was, until he decided to invade the Ministry and kill the next Minister."

Harry was unamused. "Cut the crap, Rita. You know as well as I do that wasn't me. It was Polyjuice Potion."

Rita smacked her green lips together. "Do I? A hundred plus witnesses say very differently. Harry Potter declaring himself as the Leader of the Light, promising to wash the corruption of the Ministry away."

"The corruption which Amelia Bones would have done away with, right." Harry rolled his eyes. "Why would I endorse Amelia and then kill her?"

Rita grinned. "That's just one of many questions that tonight's special edition paper will ask." She tossed her curls and withdrew an acid green quill from her bag. "Don't be dull, Harry. Play the game."

Harry clenched his fist. "You mean the game that your special edition will destroy. The game of, oh, I don't know, the fragile existence of wizarding democracy as we know it?"

Rita's eyebrows drew together as she examined her crimson nails. "I'm afraid that all I heard was the insane ramblings of the Boy-Who-Massacred-The-Ministry?" She paused. "That's a mouthful, scratch that." She made a note with her quill.

"Rita, this is serious."

"As am I." She sucked on the end of her quill, examining him. "You're a paper-seller as a hero, Harry, but the fall of a hero makes for big sales too. I would look the other way if you were caught fucking a Muggle or called someone a Mudblood, but this story makes you into a Dark Lord. This story goes international."

Rita shrugged. "Besides, at this point? The story gets written without me."

"Did you get any pictures of Voldemort at the Ministry? Witnesses?" Harry asked desperately. Tonks must have come through for him, shapeshifted into looking like the Dark Lord.

Rita collapsed onto the sofa opposite him, pushing off her high heels with a sigh. "I can neither confirm nor deny."

"Really?"

"What? There's ten times more witnesses saying you were there. Besides, if Voldie was there and you were there, then that just makes your Polyjuice claim look worse, right?"

"Voldemort attacking the Ministry is still a story." Harry argued.

"Not half as big." She waved her hand dismissively. "Voldemort is meant to attack things. You're meant to smile and kiss little babies. Play the game, Harry."

Harry gritted his teeth. She was infuriating. "Fine. What do you want?"

Rita shrugged as she picked up a bottle of Butterbeer from the table. "What have you got? I need page turners, not cute little secrets."

Harry had…secrets, so many he was beginning to forget what he was hiding from who. Horcruxes, his harem, insights into the Pureblood students of Hogwarts, Snape's whole thing. But there were few secrets he was willing to give away, except for the thing he'd agreed with Narcissa.

Harry ran his finger around the rim of his beer. "Narcissa Malfoy—"

"Got caught buying lacy panties in the Alley." Rita yawned. "Not a story — she probably got tired of wearing the chastity belt she had to wear to keep creepy Lucius off."

"Narcissa is my mistress." Harry said simply.

Rita rose her eyebrow. "What, do I look like I'm born yesterday? I know I look great but I'm a lot older than you think, kid."

"I…" Harry wasn't going to say she looked old. "I'm serious."

"Bullshit." She snorted. "Her husband just died."

"In mysterious circumstances. A story that," Harry gasped in mock shock. "Only I knew and told you about. Remember, I wanted you to write that I killed him?"

"Get outta here with this Quibbler bullshit." Rita scoffed. "What, Cissy was so full of grief that she shacked up with a Hogwarts student?"

"Narcissa loves me and was grateful for the protection and security of being the Mistress of The Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter."

"Pull the other one, Potter. I'm not buying your dragon dung." She shook her head. "Giving me this shit just to stop the biggest story of the year, it's pathetic—"

"Cissy!" Harry called loudly.

The bathroom door opened. Narcissa walked out, wearing a short white satin nightie that barely reached her thighs. Her breasts threatened to spill from the top. Her hair was coiffed elegantly into long curls, long tassel drop earrings almost reaching her neck. She was applying a deep red lipstick carefully. "Yes, my love?"

Rita's eyes went wide. "Polyjuice." She said instantly.

"You were an intern at the Prophet when you covered my wedding, Rita." Narcissa chided as she strode towards them, sinking into the seat next to Harry. "You thought you were drunk from the champagne, but your editor switched your glasses with the non-alcoholic. You were just giddy."

Rita gaped in disbelief. "Impossible. Narcissa Malfoy is a sophisticated woman, queen of high society. She'd sooner die than be the bedtoy of a teenager." The reporter snapped her fingers. "This is a prank, revenge for something I wrote. Narcissa, this is beneath you."

Harry sighed as he settled back onto the sofa, tangling his hands behind his head. "Cissy, on your knees, sweetie."

"Yes, My Lord." Narcissa gave him a smoky look as she slipped to the carpet, crawling between his thighs, hands reaching to unzip him.

"Narcissa Malfoy would never—" Rita's words died in her throat as Narcissa pulled Harry's cock free and ran her tongue slowly from base to tip.

"Never," Narcissa agreed as she tied her hair behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at Rita. "Unless it was for love."

As Narcissa descended, so too did Rita's jaw.

Harry gently stroked his Cissy's hair as she lovingly licked his cock, her eyes wide and adoring. "So, Rita…is this a big enough story for you? Interviews with both of us, a piece on how Cissy fell for me, a photoshoot with a new glowing and in love Narcissa Malfoy? You can do a puff piece on mistresses throughout history." Harry paused. "You might need something on how Cissy escaped her abusive marriage and how she felt so guilty at the relief she felt when he died at the Dark Lord's hand."

Rita could say nothing — she simply watched, stunned.

Harry smiled as Cissy nuzzled the hand he put against her cheek, cheek bulging with his cock as she worked it into her throat. She'd come so far to be able to take so much of his shaft. It was a real achievement — though probably something best left out of her interview.

"Oh," Harry snapped his fingers. "I'll talk about I learned of Lucius' death early, told Narcissa and offered to shelter her from the public eye and be her ward and protector while she grieved."

Narcissa gurgled approvingly on his cock.

"We agreed to keep it a secret so she could mourn in peace, but when I met her each week to have dinner and advise her on how to manage the estate, we fell in love." Harry smiled down at his Cissy. "I was entranced by her grace, her sharp wit, her strength under pressure, and of course her beauty."

Cissy blinked up at him through long eyelashes. A tear ran down her cheek. Her desperate tongue stretched towards his balls as she choked herself.

"What do you think, Rita?" Harry looked at her challengingly as he arched his hips up, feeding his cock all the way down Narcissa's throat. "That's a lot of headlines, when this Ministry dust settles. Do you think she's a…oh, yeah, with your tongue…do you think she's a page turner?"

###

Hermione coughed heavily as she stumbled out of the Floo. She'd wanted time before she met the rest of Harry's girls, wanted his whole attention and the ability to pretend it was just the two of them.

But Hannah's message had been clear. Harry was in trouble and she needed to Floo to Malfoy Manor.

Of course Harry was in trouble — everyone knew something happened in the Ministry. Hermione didn't know how Harry had ended up in that mess — he was meant to be at the Veela Court. Hermione had spent the whole day feeling jealous and angry and insecure, and then feeling guilty for feeling all those things, and then writing a mental script to ensure that Harry didn't see her inner turmoil.

Only Harry had done what Harry did, and got himself into real trouble.

She brushed the smoke from her eyes and blinked to see the Malfoy living room. Only, instead of holding Narcissa Malfoy, it held all of Harry's girls.

Narcissa greeted her first, wearing a mauve sleeveless dress that looked like it cost more than Hermione's parents had ever earned. In heels, stockings, necklace and earrings, the older woman looked like was going on a dinner date, rather than fretting over their joint lover.

Hermione supposed Harry quite liked the trophy wife aspect to the Malfoy mother — he didn't get the chance to show off as a child, bless him.

Narcissa's lips curled as the woman ran her eyes up and down her Gryffindor uniform. Hermione resisted the urge to quail — Harry had chosen her, taken her, loved her, which meant she belonged. "So, you're his best friend."

"I am."

Narcissa tossed her hair behind her, smiling. "I was Harry's first lover, you know? The first to take his mark. He lived here, over summer. I suppose I'm like his wife, in many ways."

Hermione nodded politely. The woman would have to do better than that. "But not actually his wife, of course. He'll marry younger, newer, right?"

Narcissa's smile faded.

Beyond her sat Harry. But Hermione quickly realized what trouble he was in — he sat, eyes open, but unresponsive, unblinking, a blankness to his gaze. What had her Harry done now?

"'Arry is not harmed, his mind is just elsewhere." A voice explained. Apolline Delacour, Hermione realized.

She had to blink to take her in — a beauty of beauties, silvery-blonde hair over a slightly tanned body that looked like it had walked out of a teenager's wet dream.

Ron would have been tongue-tied. Seamus would call her a MILF. She was wearing a pink floral print dress, showcasing long legs and big breasts. Hermione couldn't imagine that Harry had needed much convincing to claim the stunningly beautiful Veela mother of Fleur Delacour.

Hermione hadn't forgotten how the boys had gone goo-goo over the Triwizard contestant — somehow, Harry and his mates had bonded over their shared lust for the beautiful girl. Hermione imagined Harry was really struggling with not being able to tell the guys that he was banging Fleur's mother.

"A pleasure." Apolline purred. Even her voice sounded sexy. "'Arry says he would not have survived his adventures without you."

Hermione smiled thinly. It would have been easier if the Veela knockout was unkind. "And you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." She said honestly.

"Hardly." Narcissa sniffed from behind them.

Apolline put a hand under her hair to fluff it in mock-embarassment. "'Arry does seem to…enjoy me."

Hannah snorted from where she sat on the sofa, nose buried in a book. The girl was wearing her Hufflepuff uniform. "Harry likes anything exotic for a quick tumble, but when he wants comfort, he comes to Hogwarts. To me."

"Comes on you, you mean." It was another girl that answered, her voice sharp. Hermione recognized her as a leggy tanned brunette, a French girl with a rich accent. Fleur's friend Marie, the one Harry had told her about.

Hermione had assumed her to be a girl that Harry had taken purely to get to Fleur, a stepping stone to the Veela. But Marie was drop-dead gorgeous in her own right, with the sort of easy confidence that came with great beauty, but wasn't usually found in one so young.

Harry's got a beautiful French brunette, he doesn't need you. A voice in Hermione's head said, but she ignored it. Harry had spent all his recent days loving her, the happiest days of her life, two hearts connected and talking in their own love language.

"My grand-mere would call you a gourgandine." Marie continued, distaste in her voice. "I don't know how you take pride in being physical relief. Harry appreciates brains, class, elegance, la grâce."

Narcissa laughed at that, as she stood behind her sitting daughter and began brushing her hair. Hermione did a double-take at the sight of the Malfoy daughter — Helena was every bit the beauty that her mother was, a pureblood noble's features with kind eyes that seemed incongruent.

"Just because you're French doesn't mean you have class." Narcissa said primly. "Didn't you blow him in a Muggle night club?"

Helena gaped at the Beauxbatons girl. "Really? With everyone watching?"

"You can hardly talk," Marie snapped. "Is eating Harry's cum from your mother's gaping chatte classy?"

Helena went red. Narcissa froze. Apolline hid her laughter behind her hand.

"Perhaps," Hermione began slowly, wondering what she'd walked into. "We should calm down and talk about Harry. Is he in trouble?"

"Yes, thank you." Narcissa dropped her hairbrush into Helena's hand. "What would we do without Hogwarts' brightest to tell us to calm down? We've already talked, we have plans."

"Clearly not. Didn't Harry ask for me specifically?" Hermione said sweetly. "Or don't you do what Harry asks?"

Narcissa glared, her stare imperious. "Do not question my love or loyalty to Harry. I would kill myself if he asked."

Hermione's smile broadened. "One must hope he suffers no slip of the tongue. What's wrong with him?"

Narcissa sighed, but it was her daughter who answered morosely, playing with the hem of her black pleated skirt. Her blood-red tunic was thick and lined with belts and buckles — Hermione imagined it had to be thick, in Durmstrang's cold. "Harry fought Voldemort in an unleashed ley line, a time-stream, he called it, in the Department of Mysteries. His mind is split between our present and the past of the eighties."

"The eighties?" Hermione repeated, furrowing her brow. How did Harry get himself into these situations? She parsed through the implications — she knew more about time than most, thanks to her misadventures with the Time Turner in third year. "Stupid question, but since it's the Department of Mysteries, I'll ask it anyway…is he sure it's our time, our timeline, I mean. Not another?"

Narcissa sat down in a huff, stressed — she'd bitten her manicured nails. "He said he escaped Voldemort by sabotaging a stone in a chamber in the past and removing it in the present."

Hermione glowed — her man was so clever. Nothing turned her on more than seeing him use his brain. "Then he'll need to be careful not to interfere or interact — he should stay out of sight until we can bring him back. In my third year, Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with time. Loads of them ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake!"

Narcissa winced.

"What?" Hermione frowned. "What's he doing now?"

Hannah sighed. Apolline giggled. Helena hid her mouth with her hand.

Narcissa bit her lip. "He's…he's trying to fuck my sister."

Hermione stared. "Your sister."

"Yes."

"Bellatrix."

"Yes."

"The Dark Lord's insane right hand."

"She…had a challenging childhood."

Hermione thought her mind was going to short-circuit. Her beloved Harry was devoid of a brain. "I…why?

"She hasn't joined the Dark Lord yet, she's quite innocent." Narcissa blushed. "Harry's going to put her on the right path."

"Our Harry's such a cad." Helena couldn't stop giggling, flexing her toes as she rested her feet on the ottoman.

All eyes turned to her.

"What?" She said defensively. "He's such a boy." She swooned.

"He's in danger." Marie reminded. "Half his mind is stuck in the past — he needs our help to bring him back."

"How did this even happen?" Hermione worried at the sight of comatose Harry. "He was meant to be at the Veela Court with you." She glanced at Apolline, who drew in a big breath.

Apolline looked affronted. "Maybe he wouldn't be chasing women in ze past if you 'ogwarts girls could use the large amount of time he spends at the castle actually satisfying him, non?" Her accent became stronger when she was angry.

Hannah tugged on her pigtail — her white blouse was so unbuttoned that her huge tits were straining to spill free. "He seems very satisfied when he fucks these, thank you very much." Hannah grasped her own breasts and shook them.

"Oh?" Narcissa waved a glass in her hand wildly. "And has he done that much since the new girl?"

Hermione gave her a withering glare. "I'm not the new girl, thank you. I'm the old girl, the first girl, the only girl. Nice to meet you."

"If you were that important to him, he would have taken you first. Or fifth." Narcissa snarled.

Apolline tugged her falling dress strap back on her shoulder. "I must admit, I zink 'Arry could do better — I have many friends that would be more, ah, agréable."

Hermione's irritated response was interrupted by Marie. "Harry's lusts are not to be guided." The brunette said knowingly. "He reminds me of ze famous poem Chansom d'automne. And I go, where the winds know, broken and brief, to and fro—"

"Oui, Marie, clearly French poetry is what is needed here." Apolline rubbed her forehead.

The two French women began bickering back and forth in high paced unintelligible French, and Hermione could only look on, bewildered, able to pick up only a word or two. The women were all stressed, worried about Harry, and with no idea how to fix it.

But, as clever as she was, she had no idea how to fix them, to seal the developing cracks in their pseudo-harem. They were all based around their love for Harry, but when he was gone, they had no leader, no commonality, bouncing around aimlessly like Chocolate Frogs out of their packet.

Hermione sat in a chair, resisting the urge to cover her ears with her hands, like she'd done when her parents argued. Her hidden fear — confrontation. It was why her proudest moment was punching Draco in the face.

Draco's sister, Helena, sighed and put aside her hairbrush. She exchanged an exasperated glance with Hermione before she suddenly slunk off the sofa, bare knees in the plush cream carpet.

She crawled between Harry's legs, pulled his trousers down and slowly, carefully, lovingly began suckling on his balls.

"W-what are you doing?" Hermione stared, uncomfortable. Just the thought of another girl with Harry made her shudder, but actually seeing it…the ease with which the blonde beauty had done it, the comfort. The adoration — was that she looked like, Hermione wondered.

Helena's lips smacked together as she let one heavy ball slip from her mouth. "If Harry's not here, and he's in the past, maybe it's because we're not enticing enough. Mother told me that we must always look our best for him, always be attractive and submissive and loving. And always obey. Arguing isn't doing that, so I thought I'd do something productive."

The arguing stopped. Each of the women looked at Helena as she knelt, her loud suckling filling the room.

"I…" Narcissa took in a deep breath. "Who wants a cup of tea?"

There was a chorus of assent as they made their way to the kitchen, ready to start afresh. Hermione gave Helena a warm smile. She didn't know how that had worked, of all things, but maybe they had a hope of getting him back after all, if they could work together.

"Ze English and their tea, huh?" Apolline elbowed Marie, snorting.

"What tea does Harry like?" Helena wondered out loud.

Hannah's eyes sparkled. "Milky, like my breasts."

"Noire, comme son oeil si elle n'arrête pas de parler de ses gros seins." Marie muttered to Fleur's mother.

Hermione's smile froze on her face as she slowly translated Marie's comment. Her French wasn't good, but thankfully her listening was much better than her speaking. Black, like her eye if she keeps talking about her big tits.

"What did that skinny bitch say?" Hannah murmured to her as they took seats around the kitchen island.

Hermione brushed her hair out of her eyes, giving Hannah her easiest smile. "Huh? Oh, I think she said that she was jealous that you knew what tea he liked. She thought Harry would like black, because who likes very milky tea, right?"

Hannah paused, considering her truthfulness. "I guess even Harry's not perfect. At least he doesn't add three sugars like Ron." She grinned finally.

Hermione sighed in relief when the girl turned away. Where was Harry? She couldn't deal with any more intra-harem politics.

"Good save." Helena leaned over and muttered.

"You too."

"Friends?" The young girl said bluntly, brushing a platinum blonde hair out of her eyes.

Hermione gave her a surprised look. "Just like that?"

"You love Harry more than breathing, right?"

"Yeah-yes." Hermione corrected.

"Good." Helena hooked her arm through hers. "We have so much in common. After we get him back, I'll tell you this trick Mother taught me to make him cum super hard." She looked over at Hermione expectantly and she realized that the young Malfoy daughter was waiting for an equal gift.

"Uh, thanks. I'll…well, I know how to make him laugh, guaranteed. It involves Gobstones."

Helena smiled at her, a warm and true smile, the sort of transforming smile that Harry would have fallen for. For the first time, Hermione felt like sharing Harry wouldn't be so bad.

Now they just had to get him back. Where was he? And with who?

###

"You uncomfortable?" Harry said as he knelt between Bellatrix's legs. He adjusted the woman's foot stance. "Right foot's too inward, that's costing you a half a second."

"I'm not uncomfortable, you're uncomfortable." Bellatrix argued childishly. "I'm just thinking I should invoice you for getting so hands on."

"You're the one getting hands on training." Harry reminded. They'd met up after the Malfoy Manor party — they stood on an empty green hill, one of many in Dorset's verdant land.

It was just the heavy breeze of the wind and nobody around for miles — some people thought Britain ugly, Harry thought, and those people were fools. Every shade of green, rolling hills as far as the eye could see, fields both faded and fresh, each with four walls of dense dark bushy trees, like the sheep wool of nature.

Some of those trees now bore sizzling magic scars, but training had its price. Bellatrix was powerful, clearly, even if she was a poor student.

"Can't you teach me something more fun?" She whined.

"You know what's fun? Winning? Fix your stance and your duelling will improve." Harry said firmly.

He kept his eyes set on hers, even as the strong winds whipped her skirt up for a long second, revealing lacy black panties. Bellatrix had refused to wear anything more than the short skirt she was in, and then chastised him heavily if he looked below her neck.

"You just want to grope me more." She growled. "I am a lady, you know?"

"Clearly." Harry said, amused. "Again."

Bellatrix began casting against the trees, scores of curses, many of which were far from the mainstream curriculum. Someone had been showing her stuff, and Harry suspected it was Voldemort.

She didn't wear the Dark Mark, hadn't joined him, but Harry knew that Tom's seductions took years, sometimes. He'd begin by offering books, tips, duelling training. Avenues to power, until he'd hooked them with magic that felt good to use, that wanted to be used.

Nobody was ever satisfied with a little power, a little agency. Become the wizard or witch you were meant to be, he'd say. Every job in this world is given to the mightier wizard, he'd say. Imagine a world where you could be powerful and free, he'd say.

Harry couldn't recall how long Bellatrix had taken to recruit, or when she'd joined him. But if she was standing here now, eager for training, then there was still time. He wasn't really sure why he was doing this.

She was attractive, no doubt, hypnotic eyes framed by lush black hair, Pureblood nobility with an aristocratic slenderness.

And, he could admit, she was fun, even if she was crazy. She pushed her ass back against his crotch when he brought his arms around her to correct her wand-hold, accused him of assault, demanded a duel, and then flashed her skirt above her waist teasingly when she lost.

She was all sorts of trouble, too much trouble for him to be doing this. Hermione would have called it his saving people thing, trying to rescue her before she was tainted by Voldemort's evil. Narcissa would tell him it was devious and brilliant to steal Voldemort's right hand before she became it.

But Harry wasn't sure either of those things were true, not really. He knew, at an intellectual level, that he shouldn't be here — messing with his future by interacting with anyone in his past.

He knew, too, that fucking around with time was a short path to madness and sadness — stealing Bellatrix away from Voldemort was just as likely to mean Voldemort took another as his enforcer, someone more lethal, or even seducing someone more kind, like Sirius.

But he was here anyway. Perhaps for the same reason Tom had been — because she was a lot like him. Them. Harry and Tom. Bella knew she was capable of great things, but she didn't know how to reach it. Desperate for any shortcut, any route to power, Harry and Tom had chosen the darkest of bonds, magic to subjugate and dominate.

Bellatrix was a kindred soul. Tom had seen in her a formless clay to mold, someone so eager to be somebody that they'd cling to the promises and affection of anybody. Harry had seen that too, but he saw something more, saw the spirit of her younger sister Narcissa.

Bellatrix had gone off the rails to free herself of the strict structure of clan Black. Narcissa had stuck to it rigidly. He'd shown Narcissa a little light and watched her bloom into someone incredible. What would Bellatrix become?

He wanted to find out.

"Can you show me how to cast better Unforgivables?" Bella pouted.

He crossed his arms. "Why do you need to know?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because they are incredible pieces of magic, duh."

"The Unforgivables aren't a joke, Bellatrix."

She scowled at him. "Don't be such a stick in the mud, Harry — what is your surname, anyway?"

He ignored her. "You going to risk life in Azkaban for cool spells?"

"What are you, Minister of Magic?" She teased, flouncing down into the grass. She muttered a curse and a thousand grass blades split in two.

"Yeah, the Minister would teach you the Entrail-Expunger." Harry said sarcastically.

"If you teach me one, why not teach me the other? It's not like I don't know how to use them, I just can't do them right." Bellatrix shrugged, absently pulling her blouse-shoulder down to itch at her skin.

"Because…" Harry trailed off. Because…there was no real reason. Or if there was, he hadn't found it. Because he was only refused because of the thought in the back of his mind.

The thought that he was being stupid, teaching a dangerous woman to become an even more dangerous enemy in the future.

"Let's wrap this up." Harry decided abruptly. "We'll meet again in a few days."

"Bored of me already?" Bellatrix laughed, but there was something odd in her tone.

"No, not at all." He put his hands on her arms and casually slid them up to her shoulders so her blouse's sleeves rode up. Still no Dark Mark. "Let's meet tomorrow, even. I want to see you."

Her face colored. "Don't be a creep, Harry. You want a girl to fuck you for magic tips, find a Mudblood. The world has plenty of fools."

"Hey, don't use that term with me." He frowned.

She looked taken aback. "Mudblood? Are you—"

"I'm half, but I don't need to be half not to like it." Harry said firmly. "Inbreeding will make us all into morons like the one your sister married, and I don't like the Ministry's laws and our changing culture any more than you do, but that doesn't mean we should be taking it out on the people with the least power in our society."

Bellatrix's nose wrinkled, but her reply was quiet. "Alright, alright, Merlin, no need to stand on your trunk and give me a speech." She sniffed and tossed her hair. "You go to one continental school and you think you're all sophista-mi-cated now, huh?"

He poked her in the chest, nose in the air. "You're right, I'm now a European gentleman come back to lord over the parochial Brits."

"A gentleman wouldn't keep staring up my skirt."

"A lady would wear a longer skirt in strong winds, or at least charm it down."

"I must have wanted you to look, is that the accusation?"

Harry stepped forward so his breath exhaled on her face. "Not just the accusation, but the truth."

Bellatrix smirked. "You're fun, Harry, but a little teasing doesn't mean anything. A bit of duelling knowledge doesn't make you powerful, and a nice smile doesn't do it."

Harry smirked. Without looking away from her, he brought his wand up. He didn't even say an incantation — and the trees that she could only scar imploded.

Bellatrix looked, agape — he didn't need to, because the bark and splinters rained down on them.

"Power makes me powerful, Bellatrix." He rumbled.

Her eyes met his, and he saw through her without Legilimency. Her shock, her awe, the slight shiver of her body. The arousal.

"I weakened the trees for you." She tried, with an impish smile.

He snorted. "Same time tomorrow?"

"What do you get out of it?"

Harry ran his eyes over her slowly. "We'll find out."

Bellatrix smirked, but he'd seen her swallow the lump in her throat. "Nice try, but you can't fool me. I don't think you can handle a real woman. You're a big softie at heart."

He grinned. "No, I've checked and I'm pretty damn hard." He winked and Apparated away. Not having the last word would drive her mad, he knew.

He Apparated to Malfoy Manor, staying in the acres of the garden. Being in the same place as he was in the future would help him to revert back to 'real time'. He hadn't been able to feel his present mind, to connect to it, which meant that the girls were probably worried.

He'd asked Narcissa to assemble them all, so they could get to work on helping him handle his time-split. But there was a worry at the back of his mind as he taught Bella, that none of them would get along, hens pecking each other over the rooster.

He settled down in the Abraxan stables, cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and sank into his mind.

Present-time, present-time. He repeated, as if that was how it worked.

Harry blinked.

And found himself in dreamland.

Sitting in the Malfoy Manor living room, where Marie was slowly lavishing his cock with saliva, a gentle rhythm of a bobbing head. And beyond her, a peaceful family.

His girls wore just their bras and panties. Cups of tea steamed up, ignored for books. Hermione lay on the chaise-lounge, kicking her feet behind her, nose-deep in a thick tome. Narcissa and Helena sat at the table, almost hidden behind a column of books. Apolline was unraveling a dusty scroll. Hannah was drinking a glass of milk through a straw so she didn't have to look away from a book larger than her head.

Harry smiled at the sight. "Hi, girls."

"Harry!" They chorused.

"You're back." Helena hugged herself happily.

"I'm surprised to see you all getting along so well." Harry admitted. Marie gurgled as his cock hardened.

"Of course," Narcissa raised an elegant brow. "We'd never argue when it comes to your wellbeing, my love. Right, Hermione?"

"Never." Hermione agreed, nodding her head quickly.

Harry settled back in the armchair, sighing in relief. "Well, ain't I the luckiest man in the world?"

"Aren't I, Harry." Hermione corrected immediately.

Helena pushed a butterbeer into his hand.

"No, you're Hermione. I'm Harry."

Helena giggled as he pulled and released the waistband of her panties, snapping it against her skin. "You're in a good mood."

"I'm back where I belong. With you." He said simply. He took a swig of his beer. "So, where are we?"

Apolline raised her hand.

"This isn't school, honey. What did you find?" He said.

"I have found my old Beauxbatons uniform, waiting for a good time." Apolline said idly. "But I didn't find something to help us cheat time." She sighed. "'ermione did."

"My walking library." Harry looked at his best friend fondly.

"You explain, Apolline. You're much better at it, I'll just recite the book." Hermione offered graciously.

The older Veela looked a little sour, but she nodded anyway. "In Greece, archaeologists will use Time Turners to rewind before zey accidentally destroy something valuable while digging, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Some archaeologists were exploring a way to hide some historic finds before the looters got them. The sort of treasures too big to move. They went back in time with a Time Turner, Vanished the treasure, and when they returned to the present, the treasure was still in the vanished void."

"Unaffected by the timeline." Hermione added.

"It's like the Vanishing Spell, the magic of the void itself, it's a different world." Hannah commented.

"Space and time." Harry muttered to himself. Two conjoined planes, but could they be separated by magic?

Narcissa had shifted to stand behind him, tangling her hands in his hair to massage his scalp. "That doesn't help bring you back though. And that doesn't help you fuck my sister without destroying our timeline, though, does it?"

Harry grinned, even as he was faced with sets of eyes amused, unamused and in the case of Helena, fond. "No, it does not—oh, fuck." He gasped and bucked his hips as Marie did something with her tongue.

"What did she do?" Helena demanded, darting over.

Marie popped him out of her mouth and slurped up the string of saliva. "Fleur is teaching me things in exchange for Harry's seed." She said triumphantly. Her smile faded at the faces of the other women. "I…I will show you later."

"Good girl." Harry murmured, stroking her hair.

Marie pumped his cock, keeping her eyes firmly on his as she gave his shaft a languid lick from base to tip. "Fleur's primed for you now, mon cheri. She's coming to Hogwarts tomorrow."

"What? How?"

"Just for a day, as an excuse to meet you. She's taking advantage of an old charter between Beauxbatons and Hogwarts that allows students to take out books from each other's libraries." Marie rolled her eyes. "She spent three days figuring out what book Hogwarts could have that Beauxbatons didn't."

"I will be very glad once you take her, my Lord." Apolline said. "I couldn't breathe last I tried to enter her bedroom to re-dose her pillow, she's been working herself so frantically."

"I found three sets of spare panties in her bag." Marie giggled.

"Poor girl." Harry said fondly. "I'm looking forward to it — but I want to see her beg."

"Getting back on track," Hermione frowned. "You can't Vanish a person." She paused. "Well, maybe you could, Harry, but what happens to the person when you try to…retrieve them?"

"Eww," Hannah said.

"It's a good tree, keep barking up it." Harry praised. "What else have—" He was interrupted as an egg timer rang, vibrating on the table.

Marie groaned in disappointment as she detached herself from Harry's cock, kissing his cockhead gently and rising from between his knees.

Harry blinked in bewilderment. Were his girls taking turns on him?

"My turn! Watch and learn, mes amies, I know far more than my Fleur." Apolline unhooked her bra to reveal her large plump breasts, pink nipples hard already. She dove between his legs and, showing off, sank every inch of his cock down her tight throat.

"Merlin." He gasped, closing his eyes to enjoy the sensations of her wriggling, twirling and wrapping-around tongue.

Marie wiped her mouth. "At least I can tell you what I have found." She grimaced. "I've been studying a French book on the mind arts."

"I already know Occlumency."

Marie shook her head. "No, this is different. It's about Luc Millefeuille, a French pâtissier who would deliberately poison Muggles with his pastries."

"Devious." Harry stroked Apolline's hair away from her eyes, rewarded by the Veela's redoubled efforts. "Maybe I could get Voldie to eat a poisoned carrot cake."

Hermione froze. "Does the Dark Lord like carrot cake?"

"He does." Harry had many a memory of the evil man eating it.

"But I like carrot cake!" She whined.

"I don't think you're on the path to evil, Mione." Harry assured her.

"Who doesn't like carrot cake?" Hannah added helpfully.

"Not me." Helena held her hand up nervously. "It's either too dry or has too much icing."

"I make Harry carrot cake every week." Cissy said proudly.

"Maybe Bellatrix does it for Voldie too." Hermione said darkly.

"Désolée, but can I finish my story?" Marie huffed.

"Sorry, Marie." Harry grinned — he quite liked having all his lovers together.

"Luc was a schizophrenic wizard who used his imprisonment to learn to control his multiple personalities." She tapped a thin purple hardback. "And he wrote his methodology in here."

Narcissa's eyes narrowed. "Harry does not have multiple personalities."

"In a way, he does." Hermione snapped her fingers. "Even putting aside all the Tom stuff, now there is a Harry in the past and a Harry in the present, even if they have a single connected mind. The more time they spend apart, the more they could, in theory, develop different personalities."

Marie cleared her throat. "Anyway, I'm hoping if you study it, you'll be able to flip between past and present at will, and be yourself without thinking."

"Thank you, sweetheart."

Hermione stuck her hand up like she was in Potions class. "Harry, can I tell you off?"

Harry chortled. His Hermione. "That is one of your many roles, beautiful."

"Don't compliment me so I'll go easier on you." She said severely.

"I'm sorry in advance."

"This was easier when you didn't have a Veela fellating you, you know." She glared.

"I'm sorry for that too."

"Maybe the past you can learn to give sincere apologies."

Harry gave her a roguish grin, blinking rapidly. "I've just had past Harry complete an apology course. Please forgive me, fair lady, kind-hearted maiden—"

"Stop! It's okay that you've ended up in a-a—"

"Clusterfuck?" He said helpfully.

"Thank you." Hermione said automatically, before growling. "How did you get me thanking you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Ah!" She reached into her hair, pulling it. "Okay, listen. It's okay that you got into a clusterfuck. That happens to you. It's not okay that you've got us all frantic, in a panic, searching for any solution to a problem you won't define."

"You shouldn't speak like that," Cissy scowled. "Harry's under a lot of strain."

"It's okay, Cissy." Harry gave her a reassuring smile. "Mione's got a free pass for life. Keep going."

Hermione huffed. "I'm not chastising you, Harry. I love you. But you haven't figured out what you want. Do you want us to research how to return you to the present time? Do you want us to figure out how you can bang Bellatrix Lestrange without destroying half the world, which you want to do for a reason even Merlin's bulging brain couldn't figure out?" Hermione took a breath to continue her tirade. "Are you trying to live there and here at the same time? Are you even slightly aware of the madness that comes with causal time loops, of paradoxes?"

Harry painted his Hermione into memory. He loved her always, but she was so hot when she was angry.

"Yes, is the answer."

"W-what?"

"Yes, I want to know how to figure out how to get back here, to the present. Yes, I want to fuck Bellatrix before I go. Yes, I'd love to be able to persist there and here simultaneously." Harry went silent for a long moment. "I saw my mother. She tried to fix my hair." He wanted to say more, but something blocked his throat. Apolline ceased her ministrations.

"Oh, Harry." Hermione blinked away wet eyes.

"And I'm fully aware that I'm asking you to do the impossible." Harry said raspily. "To understand time itself, to give me a way to act recklessly back then without fucking up this blessed life I have with you. I'm fully aware that most experiments with time end up with wizards either dead or mad."

Harry twitched his nose to stop himself from crying. "But I can go into the Atrium and watch my mother have a sandwich. I can walk past her and smell her. I can see her when I close my eyes now. Do you know what it's like to try and remember your parents and not be able to? Or worse yet, to remember them as Tom saw them, dying at his hand?"

"Harry," Narcissa said softly.

"So, please," He shivered. "It's not healthy. It's an obsession. It'll end badly. But do it for me. Do the impossible. Give me a way to take Voldemort's most loyal away from him. Give me a way to hug my mother, without un-aliving myself. Give me a way to come out of this shit smelling like roses."

Hermione was silent for a long moment, and then her face broke into a watery smile. "Tell your mum about me, when you can?"

"I'll tell her I've fallen in love more than I deserve, and am loved more than I can believe."

Hermione wiped her cheeks. "You're not fair, you know. You know I love being given extra-credit assignments." She laughed, crying at the same time.

"Isn't he so sweet?" Helena swooned.

"Seeing you vulnerable makes me so wet." Hannah admitted. "I know that's weird."

"I get it." Marie muttered.

"Our 'Arry is so wonderful." Apolline paused as she held his cock. "Ah, what if we could find a way to send the bond back in time so you can fuck me as a teenager?" The Veela lit up at the thought. "You can take me in two different timelines!" She deepthroated him again, with even more passion.

"You must forgive my past self if she is…unkind, my love." Cissy said quietly.

"I'm deliriously happy with the present versions of you, thank you, ladies." Harry said bemusedly. He had to speak louder over the loud glurks and slurps of Apolline, who was working him to a close finish, her hands kneading his heavy balls, her throat tightening in a perfect rhythm to her bobbing head.

The girls could sense his growing lust. Hannah 'accidentally' spilled her glass of milk over her chest, her blouse parting in a explosion of buttons to reveal her glorious milky tits.

In the chair opposite, Hermione simply spread her legs, ostensibly reading her book, but she was biting her lip. Narcissa continued her scalp massage, resting Harry's head in her bosom. Marie crawled beside Apolline to capture his balls in her mouth.

But it was Helena who pushed him over the edge. She innocently rubbed his arm as she stood at his side. "Harry, are you trying to fuck my Auntie Bellatrix? Do you…do you want me to lick your cum from her pussy too?"

Harry groaned as he popped, gripping Apolline's head as he bucked up with the sheer intensity of his orgasm. He held her tight, holding her silky hair, drinking in Hannah as she played with her own tits, the sight of Hermione's snatch outlined through the wet taut panties of her spread legs. Marie suckled balls that lightened as they unloaded into Apolline's eager, swallowing, whimpering mouth.

When he was finished, he was breathing heavily, laughing tiredly. "Minxes, the lot of you." Harry chuckled, holding his chest as Apolline cleaned him dutifully.

"We love you, Master." Helena kissed his cheek, though she was watching Apolline intently. Harry thought she'd make notes, if she could hide a notebook in that skimpy bra.

"I don't know how she takes your massive thing so easily." Hannah complained.

Apolline winked up at him and withdrew with a shuddering breath — her eyes had watered, makeup smearing, hair wild. "Nothing easy about it." She took another harsh breath. "Being a Veela doesn't stop you from needing to breathe, you know?"

"Harry does like to…restrict airflow." Narcissa said fondly.

Hermione snorted from where she was apparently reading her book.

"I'm out of breath too, somehow." Harry chuckled. "Where were we? Oh, what happened with the Prophet?"

"See for yourself." Hannah held up the newspaper. The picture showed Lord Voldemort pacing imperiously through the Atrium. The headline read 'DARK LORD POLYJUICES TO SMEAR OUR HERO HARRY, ATTACKS MINISTRY, KILLS AMELIA BONES AND MORE'.

"Merlin, our hero Harry?" He barked a laugh. "That's even more sycophantic than I thought Rita could be. I'm almost embarrassed."

"Whatever you and Narcissa did worked." Apolline said, as she nuzzled her cheek against his deflating cock. She always said it was important to practice after-care.

"We paid a price." Cissy said. "But we had to, in order to protect Harry. I'll be revealed as Harry's mistress soon, sooner than we'd hoped."

"Is that bad?" Helena said uncertainly.

"It means that even more of Lucius' estate will pull away," Harry explained. "They were dealing with Peter Greengrass because they felt comfortable dealing with someone else who operates around the outskirts of the law. But when you're announced as my mistress, they'll know exactly who's funding them, or who's buying."

"Why does that matter?" Hannah asked.

"Because continuing to do business with me means crossing the Dark Lord." He said. "Voldemort became feared by ensuring that those that weren't with him knew that he was very much against them. Businesses get burned down, relatives get threatened. Even the little things — back in the day, he got some Death Eaters to burn down a shipment of fabric going to Madam Malkin, all because Dumbledore praised her tailoring in the paper."

"It seems…infantile when you put it like that." Marie noted. She pronounced it the French way — en-fan-teel.

"It works, whatever it is. But it's worth it." Harry reached behind him to find Narcissa's hand, smiling. "My mistress will be able to accompany me to the social events, guide me through high society and the politics."

"He just wants to show me off and dress me in something indecent." Narcissa sighed with exasperation, but she couldn't hide her beaming smile.

"That too." Harry agreed. "I'm glad Rita did the right thing, no matter the cost."

"I'm surprised she did." Hermione muttered — she'd always had a grudge against the beetle Animagus.

"It turns out that having the recently widowed Malfoy matriarch become a very loving Mistress to a rival family, of House Potter no less, is a big story." Narcissa smiled in satisfaction. "She'll release it when the Ministry fallout dies down."

"I bet she couldn't believe you." Hannah giggled.

Harry tried to control his smile. "She did need…some convincing."

Narcissa's hand tightened around his. "Yes, well," She said primly. "Anyone for more tea? Oh, Harry, I'll get you some Cockroach Clusters." She stalked out of the room.

"What's with her?" Marie asked.

Harry shrugged, amused. "Hannah…I know I should have asked before, but I didn't want to think about it…" His smile dropped. "So, how is she? How is Susan?"

Hannah hugged herself. "Not good." She admitted. "A lot of crying. She keeps blaming herself for silly little things." The Hufflepuff looked teary herself. "Is Auntie Amelia really gone?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry." He gave her a wan smile. "I know she was close to you."

Hannah sniffled. "I spent half my time at that house and she was…" She wiped her face, drawing a large breath. "I'm okay. How did she go? Was it…bad?"

Harry shook his head. "Through the veil in the Chamber of Death. It's a magic artifact, a veil to…somewhere. But nobody comes back, I'm afraid. We don't know that she's dead, but…I hope she's at peace."

"Maybe she'll come back." Hannah said hopefully. "Magic advances all the time, right? Maybe they'll figure out where this veil goes?"

"Maybe." He gave her his best smile. "I did see her though, in the past."

"Really?" Hannah lit up.

"Yeah, she's young. So pretty, just like Susan. Working in the Ministry, figuring out how to conquer it, just like she did."

"But if she's there!" Hannah began. "Like, maybe, if you took her to the time-stream, or, I don't know, like Vanished her, or—"

"Han, sweetheart." Harry tried. "I'm…listen, I know you loved her, but I can't bring people back from death. I'm not a god."

Hannah swallowed a lump in her throat. "I know, I'm sorry." She trudged over to him and sat herself in his lap, burying her head into his neck, crying the tears she'd been hiding from Susan. "You're our Harry, which is all we'll ever need." She told him. "But if we're already trying to do the impossible, maybe you can too?"

###

Voldemort clenched and unclenched the toy in his hand. It wasn't a stress toy, like one Mrs Cole had given him all those years ago, in the orphanage, trying to convince him he was a stressed child rather than just better.

She'd given him a small white squeezeable ball, with a smiley face drawn onto it.

The squeezing motion helped both then and now — he used to imagine the ball was her eyeballs, that one day he'd squeeze it so hard that the woman's beady little eyes would just pop.

That ball was long forgotten, so now he used a dried piece of tendon, something he'd excised from a Muggle or a mudblood. He couldn't even recall what body part he'd taken it from. But the muscle was perfect — it bent but never broke.

He didn't need to be stressed, of course. He could admit that his plan had been a failure, to an extent. Potter hadn't taken a hit to his reputation, so the fickle sheep that made up Britain still thought him wondrous.

Voldemort had hoped him ostracized, perfect for recruiting or simply using to destroy the factions that opposed him. It'd be enough, even, to destroy Dumbledore's morale, his last great hope dashed on the rocks.

The Daily Prophet wasn't playing ball. He'd have to investigate how they got an image of him at the Ministry, when he'd been Polyjuiced as Potter the whole time. For a second, he wondered if someone could have Polyjuiced as him. No…it was unlikely.

But Potter was capable of the unlikely — he'd escaped somehow, when it was certain that he was cornered. The boy acted like he was permanently imbibed on Felix Felicis.

None of it mattered.

He'd done enough. Amelia Bones was dead. None ever returned from the veil in the chamber. That should be a lethal blow to the Ministry — a sign that any candidate couldn't be protected. It wasn't certain who'd replace her, or who would even run in the postponed election, but it didn't really matter.

It didn't even need to be a candidate that Voldemort controlled. It just needed to be a fool.

He squeezed his stress-tendon and smiled. And he always said — the world has plenty of fools.

###

Harry sat in the Atrium, on the stone bench, watching the world go by. The fountain water streamed up and down, a soothing bass to the loud hubbub of voices. Civilians seeking directions to obscure departments, businessman carrying proposals and heavy trunks, trunks that would carry lobbying 'gifts' just underneath the legal cost limit for political gifts. Overhead, paper planes flew charmed messages back and forth.

And through the golden statues, between the wizard and the witch, there she sat, munching contently on an over-sized sandwich, because she was eating for two.

His mother, Lily.

Harry knew it wasn't healthy. He couldn't bring himself to talk to her, so he just watched.

As a child, in the cupboard in the stairs, he'd often imagined what his parents would be like. The reality was so much better.

Her eyes sparkled when she took off her heels. She pouted when a tomato dropped out of her sandwich and onto her pantsuit. She giggled when a paper plane overhead flew through the fountain and drizzled water on her.

She was everything. The mother he'd always wanted.

A shadow passed in front of him. Someone sat next to him.

Harry frowned. He'd charmed this bench to be narrower, so he wasn't disturbed. But when he glared at the stranger, he realized that it wasn't a stranger at all.

Another redhead. Amelia Bones, sipping on a coffee and holding another. She sighed in relief when she took off her heels, rubbing at her feet.

"Sorry," She saw his gaze. "They haven't invented comfortable heels yet."

"It's okay." Harry swallowed. Two redheads in the Atrium, two dead women who he owed a lot to.

Amelia was stunning as a young woman — with the light copper hair, the same curves as Susan, but with the maturity of a woman who'd learned to use them gracefully, rather than a girl embarrassed.

As an older witch, Harry had thought her cold and businesslike, but today her eyes twinkled. "See something you like?" Her eyebrow rose challengingly.

"Sorry," He blushed.

"I do look pretty good, don't I?" She brushed her hands over her pencil skirt, over her stockings. "Skirt's a bit shorter than appropriate, but one has to flaunt it while you have it, I suppose."

"Uh-huh." Harry didn't know what to say to that. Young Amelia was weird.

"I got a second coffee for my boss, but he's out all afternoon. You want it?" She offered.

"I…sure. Thanks."

"It's black, but it's not too bitter."

Harry took a sip. It was good, warming. "Thanks."

Amelia smiled. "I'm not going insane, am I? The coffee is better back in the eighties, isn't it, Harry?"

Notes:
Oh, fuck. What has the veil done? How is she here? Hope you enjoyed Hermione meeting the whole gang of girls, it was fun to write. Do you think the story Harry gave Rita is a fair trade? Next chapter next Friday, as always.

Want to see what Amelia's deal is, read Fleur come to Hogwarts, see saucy Hermione artwork, and read a few chaps ahead, along with exclusive salacious artwork of Susan, Daphne, Fleur and more from this story, as well as fun little sexy story scenes? Check my Linktree below.

Chapter 40 Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text Harry spluttered, hot coffee spilling over himself. He sat up ram-rod straight, staring into Amelia's knowing eyes.

"What-how?"

"How what?" She smirked.

"You should be dead. I watched you die. I watched you walk into the Veil."

"Did you cry? A real tragedy like King Lear."

"Not funny, Amelia." The giddiness she had was unlike her, but of course she was different; she'd escaped certain death.

"I thought I was walking into death's embrace. But I learned what decades of Unspeakables failed too. The Veil is not death. It's an opening into a thousand realms, a rip in space and time and every other dimension we don't understand."

"But…nobody ever comes back."

She shivered. "I saw the path. I don't think I could ever describe it properly, but…like the stars were torn from the sky and swam in a lake, a lake I could walk over. But the stars were windows. It's like the veil shows every other time and place where someone has ripped open a void? Every other time a wizard has messed with forces we don't understand."

"I don't—"

"A wizard before Hogwarts, before civilization, maybe. I swear I saw Merlin himself. I saw a tribe…the Mayans, maybe? I saw a great king, a pharaoh?" Amelia's eyes blurred over. "Every time we create a tear in the fabric, the fabric folds, like a pair of folded jeans. A-and the veil? It's like, it's like—" Amelia struggled.

"Lasagna?" Harry suggested.

"Exactly." They exchanged glances, the absurdity overwhelming, chuckles turning to guffaws. Two people out of time, out of place. "Lasagna." Amelia confirmed. "But you can step from layer to layer, from beef to cheese."

Harry shook his head. "I…but you should have died. Nobody comes back. Nobody reports back. If people went back in time, we'd hear from them. We execute criminals in the Veil, right?"

Amelia nodded, watching the people pass by in the Atrium. "Why did we think oversized robes was a good look back in the eighties?" She fidgeted. "Most of those layers were certain death — stepping out in front of wizards who'd shoot first. Stepping out into inhospitable environments, languages unspoken. I think some of the layers were even," She swallowed. "The death realm, somehow. It's where I was heading, until…"

Harry wiped his lips, still trying to believe what he was seeing. He held a hot coffee, but his hand was cold. "Until?"

"Until someone opened up another path. A rip in time right in front of me." Amelia favored him with a smile.

"I did this." Harry rubbed his forehead, understanding washing over him. He'd fucked with the time-stream, with the ley line, creating a door for Amelia to walk through. "But…this is the past, isn't it?"

"It is." Amelia smoothed down her skirt. "But, through the veil, I haven't time travelled, not like you. I stepped into the Amelia of this time-line. Straight into her — my — chunky boots. Used to love them. Wish I'd never sold them." She grinned at him, but he wasn't amused.

The implications alone. He was glad she wasn't dead, but she wasn't necessary alive either, not when it mattered. She was an Amelia — a young, attractive Amelia — with all the knowledge of the future. He could go back, because a version of him existed in the future. But her?

That was a reality he didn't need to drop on her. "I-I've got people working on it, how to get us back to the future. To the present, I mean. I'm there but here as well. Two Harry's."

Amelia looked at him, startled. "You're over there and over here? And you can…talk to each other?"

He scratched his ear. "We don't have to talk, we're like…one mind. I'm there and here simultaneously." He exhaled. "It's a lot."

She took that in slowly, tugging at her lower lip, the same way Susan did when she was having trouble with something in the DA meetings. "I went through the veil. There's no coming back for me."

"You don't know that. As you can see, I'm here when I shouldn't be." Harry gestured to the Atrium, a vision of wizards and witches in surreal clothing. The magic world wasn't completely impermeable from Muggle influences; long flowing skirts matched with black or white cowboy boots.

Others were influenced by the punk rock scene of London: one girl wore fishnets and a black leather skirt, a studded belt to cinch in a white tanktop. She looked a little like Tonks.

Amelia elbowed him and pointed at one woman. "Blouses with puffy sleeves. Thank Merlin they died out."

Harry snorted. "She looks like the Michelin Man."

"Stop it!" She giggled. "I like some of it. I used to dream of a fur coat around this age."

"That famous Witch Weekly cover? Arthur Weasley had a vintage copy in his shed, well hidden from Molly."

"What's-her-name in a fur coat and nothing else, leaning on the doorway." Amelia nodded wistfully.

"Better than the shoulder-pad dresses." Harry frowned at a passing woman. "And the high-waist denim jeans."

Amelia sniffed. "Oh, that's kind of cute. Look at her. You're just saying that because you want all the eighties' girls to be in miniskirts."

Harry eyed a passing blonde lasciviously. "It was the decade. Leopard print minis, whatever happened to you?"

"I found a few neon ones in my closet." She admitted. She took a deep breath, her hand reaching out to take his. But her grip wasn't flirty, it was deathly tight, her knuckles white. "Harry, I don't want to go back."

"What?"

"Don't you see what this is?" She turned to face him, her eyes wide. "A chance to make up for all my wrongs. A second chance at a career that was good but never great. A chance to fix everything wrong with the Ministry—"

"Amelia, do I really have to explain the dangers of time and paradoxes to you. Like, you know the story of Eloise Mintumble, the Unspeakable? She came back from the past and, like, thirty people disappeared—"

"Oh, hush—"

"Hush, who says hush?"

"We said hush back in the eighties." She pushed his arm. "People go mad when their past self sees their time-travelling self. I don't have a past self. And I'm not returning to the future, remember, so—"

"It's not your mind that you'll break, it's the rest of Britain, it's the future that, newsflash, your niece is living in—"

"It's a future I'll fix!" Amelia growled. "Imagine how great I can make magical Britain. I can make Minister before Fudge comes into power, I know every dirty secret, I know every wheel that needs greasing. I can stop the Dark Lord from returning—"

"Or you'll change things so far that he never dies." Harry snapped. "Don't be ridiculous, Amelia. Think of Susan, you could make it so she never existed, or so she dies, or she never gets to know you, or a thousand different possibilities for—"

"She does exist." Amelia's nails dug into his hand. "She's one of the oldest in your year, remember. She's a baby, right now." She said softly. "And while my parents were murdered before I returned, hers still live. There's still time to give her the childhood she deserved."

Harry scoffed. "She had a childhood, with you. Erasing that makes her into a different Susan."

"A safer, more loved Susan, who didn't have a guardian who spent more time in the Ministry than her home." Amelia tore her hand away. "Why can't you see this? Imagine how great we can make Britain, together."

"We don't belong here, why can't you see that?"

"We can, we can." She urged. "You fought him at his most experience, you can beat him this young. We can fix everything." Her face reddened, her knee bouncing erratically. She pointed across the fountain, where Lily was finishing her lunch. "Don't you want to save your mother? James too? Don't they deserve that?"

"It's not that simple—"

"We can make the Aurors unafraid of the Death Eaters. We can allow them to use the Unforgiveables this early. We can put me in power before Fudge is even a thought in the public's eye."

"Bagnold was strong, she's got years ahead of her. She sent half the Inner Circle to Azkaban—"

Amelia's eyes held a mad glint. "Under me, they'd never even make it to the safety of Azkaban."

"This isn't you, Amelia."

"Isn't it?" Her knee slid over his. "I thought you were a visionary. I thought you were like me, that you'd do anything to make Britain strong."

"What are you doing?"

Her fingers stretched to his chest. "You're in the future. I'm in the past. I have to know if the laws I put in place, the changes I make, if they work. Imagine," Her eyes glimmered, but she wasn't really looking at him, lost in a vision of her own making. "The ultimate politician. Able to see the mistakes and correct them, to see the finished building as I lay the bricks. Fairness, equality, peace." She shook her head, refocused. "I need you."

"Amelia, this is crazy." His chest felt tight. A second chance at life had shown her a new path, but it wasn't a path he could walk down with her. He had a future, a life with his loved ones, a life with fears and dangers but undeniable happiness.

He couldn't let Amelia jeopardize it, no matter how attractive her vision was it. That way, madness lies.

Her hand dropped suddenly to his thigh, knocking over the coffee he held in his hand. The cup rolled, the brown spilled over the floor, unnoticed, because Amelia drew circles on his leg. "I could introduce you as a European noble. Make you Lord Bones." She thrust her chest out, tossed her hair back. "I'm not unattractive, am I? Whatever you want, I could make it happen."

She was the opposite of unattractive — a curvaceous hourglass, blouse straining to contain her bust, pencil skirt cinched tight to contain a full-figured woman, legs shaped by black stockings. Glossy copper hair that made everyone take a second glance.

But her eyes, those green eyes, they had the glint of fanaticism. A woman unable to admit that she'd lost all that she'd built, because magic had conspired to set her down in front of the construction site.

He could understand her, because he wanted it too. To be reckless in a playground of the past, rescue those that they'd lost, fuck over Voldemort in ways he couldn't comprehend.

He blinked, as the coffee pooled against his shoe. "I am a visionary. I do want to create a better future." Harry said softly. "But my vision is to create a better future for those that deserve it — the ones who struggled through the next few decades, that fought, sacrificed, feared and lost. I can't undermine their struggle by taking it away."

"That's stupid—"

"I can't stay here, living in the past…" Harry bowed his head. "Trying to fix coffee that's already been spilled."

Amelia clenched her fist, unable to hide her frustration, her anger. She sighed and hid it, the cold professional veneer returning, the veneer of an Amelia Bones she'd grow up to be. "I'll be here, making a difference. For Lily, for Susan, for you. Don't try and stop me."

Harry didn't, couldn't argue. So they just sat together for a long moment, legs against each other, pressed together but so far apart.

After a long silence, Harry shifted. He had places to be. "I got times to be." He joked.

"…yeah." She said slowly. "How…how is she?"

He hesitated. "N-not good. She's crying a lot."

"T-tell her something." She took a breath, blinking rapidly. "Tell her if…if she wasn't real, she wouldn't be able to cry."

"I don't get it."

"She will."

"Okay. Take care of yourself, Amelia. Don't—" Harry's sentence broke off as he stood up. What words could he give to a woman who wouldn't listen? "This isn't your fight, you fought your whole life. Now it's up to us. You don't have to fight any more."

"Wouldn't you?" She stared down at her lap.

He had no answer. As he walked away, he couldn't think of a reply, because they both knew that he would.

###

"I can't believe it." Helena sighed happily, clutching her pillow to herself as Hermione carefully painted her toenails. She laid back on her bed in her bra and panties, the bedroom that Mother had demanded she have.

She spent most nights sleeping with her mother, but Mother had told her that Harry would like taking her on her own bed. And he did — her Harry enjoyed debasing her while in the soft pastel-pink chamber. It felt rather taboo.

"I can't believe you punched my brother. That's so cool." She continued.

Hermione giggled. "Stop moving — I don't have any practice with this. I get my dorm-mate Parvati to do mine, usually."

"Do you think Harry will like it?" Helena bit her lip, peering down at her newly shaded lavender toenails.

"He will, although he probably won't notice unless he's holding your ankles and folding you up." Hermione said dryly.

"Stop!" Helena broke into giggles. "I can't believe he does that to you too."

"Oh, he loves it." Hermione smiled fondly. "Last time, you know what he did when he had me like that?" She blushed.

"What? Tell me!"

"He, well, finishes on my face—"

"He's such a caveman." Helena said affectionately.

"Right? And he, y'know, covers me, of course. And you know that thing he does where he just sort of…admires what he's done to you."

"He's so smug!" Helena nodded, glowing.

Hermione rolled her eyes, red-faced. "He smirked at me and he says 'look, honey, I put your head into an ankle sandwich and I even gave you some mayo for the filling'".

Helena roared with laughter. "Oh, he's so awful."

"He's such a crass pervert!"

"He's lucky we love him."

"So lucky!"

"What did you do?"

"I mean, after I cleaned him, I was a bit frosty with him before he gave me a cuddle." Hermione winced as she heard herself. "We're pushovers, aren't we?"

"Yes." Helena smirked. "But we're the luckiest girls, even if he is a complete cad."

Hermione blew on her new friend's toenails, drying them. "We are." She agreed. "But he was even more of a cad to you. I can't believe he pretended he was Tom Riddle, of all the names."

"Oh, no, it was perfect." Helena swooned, squeezing her pillow. "He pretended to be a wealthy pureblood to sweep me off my feet, but he is all he said he was. And so much more." Her lips parted, hand on her heart. "He gave me a family, my mother, this home, his heart."

Hermione cleared her throat. "Speaking of your mother, is it true that, uh, he…like, well, I mean, you and your mother—"

Helena covered her face with her hands, red-faced. "Oh, no! How does everyone know?"

"I'm sorry, you don't have to—"

"It's true." Helena admitted, peeking through her fingers. "Harry…loves it. My first time, Mother was there, holding me open, helping me through it."

Hermione gaped.

"Don't judge me, please." Helena begged.

"I'm not, I just can't…Harry—"

"You'd do anything for him too, though, right?"

"Of course. I just," Hermione shivered, thinking of the young Malfoy daughter in flagrante with her stacked mother. It was a powerful image. No wonder Harry liked it. "I can't imagine."

"She teaches me how to please him. Mother knows all his dirty fantasies."

"Really?" Hermione said eagerly.

"Oh, yeah. W-when we're lonely, we…touch and help each other, and Mother tells me everything she's learned."

"Merlin." Hermione swallowed, feeling hot. "I keep thinking when Harry's going to make me…do things, with another girl."

Helena bit her lip. "Maybe it'll be with me."

"I…" Hermione squirmed. "There'd be worse options."

Helena's face peeked from between her hands. "I think he'd like us both together, like that."

"I certainly would." Harry rumbled from the doorway.

"Ah!" Hermione shot to her feet. Helena squealed.

"Harry!" They chorused.

"Sorry to interrupt, girls." Harry leered at the girls in their skimpy underwear. Helena was in soft blue boyshorts and a polka dot bra, while Hermione wore a very see-through chiffon black bra and thong.

"I didn't buy that for you, did I?" He mused.

Hermione hugged herself demurely. "I borrowed it from Helena."

"Mother bought it for me."

"I'm glad to see you two sharing already." He said teasingly. "I came to see you, Mione. I need you right now."

Hermione looked at him with an open-mouth. "H-here?" She glanced at Helena. "I mean, of course, if you really need me—"

Harry laughed. "Not like that, sweetheart. I need to talk."

"Oh." Hermione flushed.

"Come." He pushed them forward and within seconds, he was between the two stiff girls on Helena's bed, his hands roaming and pawing.

"Harry!" Helena giggled, batting him away from his fingers trying to quest under her waistline.

"Harry!" Hermione gasped as he cupped her ass and then spanked it hard, making her cheeks clap together. "I-I thought you wanted to talk."

"I do. I need some advice. Two things. First, I have another letter from my mysterious blackmailer. Another riddle. Solve it for a kiss? The note said 'Where is the only place where today comes before yesterday?'"

"Someone's blackmailing you?" Helena worried.

"It's okay, nothing major." Harry assured her. "They saw me and Cissy getting naughty and that's releasing in the press soon anyway."

"But if they saw you a long time ago, already amorous, well before Lucius' death was announced," Helena wondered.

Harry winced. "Yeah, doesn't look great. But that's why Miss Smarty-panties is going to help me jump through their hoops until they reveal themselves."

"Where is the only place where today comes before yesterday?" Hermione repeated. "Hmm, maybe it's a trick, a riddle within a—ooh, Harry! It'd be easier to figure out without two fingers inside of me!"

Harry pulled his fingers out with a wet pop and held them up to Helena, who was well used to his taste-testing manipulations from his threesomes with her and her mother. She licked them dutifully, even as Hermione watched on aghast.

"Mmm," Helena said, blushing. "The answer is the dictionary, by the way. That's a child's riddle."

At the shocked look on his Mione's face, Harry guffawed, holding his stomach.

"S-shut up!" She jabbed him. "I would have gotten it, I just need a second. And you were distracting me!"

"Sure you would've." Helena smirked before Harry gave her a long victor's kiss, leaving her panting and breathless.

Hermione scowled, crossing her arms, accidentally squeezing her breasts higher. "You try solving riddles while getting harassed in such a manner."

"It's okay, my love." Harry assured her. "You're still my number one smart girl, okay?" A kiss took her frown away.

"I don't know," Helena said leadingly. "I am top of my class in four different subjects."

Hermione sniffed. "Durmstrang is hardly comparable to a Hogwarts education—"

"Yeah, we only have a broader range of subjects, actually learn magic that your Ministry bans, duel weekly—"

"Ok, easy, ladies." Harry snorted, bringing them closer to him with a firm ass-grasp so they nestled at his side. "You're both very clever and beautiful and loved."

"Agreed." Helena gave her bushy-haired competitor a cheeky grin. "Some more than others."

"Harry came here for my advice, remember? I was just about to give him the answer—"

"Harry is short on time, so maybe you should be sharper in wit."

Hermione harrumphed. "Harry always has plenty of time for me, maybe he uses you for quickies."

"Because you take plenty of time to get him off," Helena challenged, her hand dipping into Harry's trousers to find his hard cock. "I blow his mind, just like Mother."

Hermione stilled when she saw Helena fish out his cock and began pumping him, a deer in headlights. She gave an anxious look to Harry, who stroked her hair comfortingly.

"It's okay, Mione. You never need to do anything you're not comfortable with." He promised.

"N-not yet, okay? I'm still getting used to—"

They were interrupted by a sloppy choked gag from Helena as she enveloped his girthy shaft. The platinum blonde beauty wettened his cock and then rose off it, smiling with watery eyes. "Here's another riddle. Where is the only place where Harry's pleasure doesn't come first? Answer, Hermione's head!"

Hermione snarled. "How presumptuous of the pureblood bimbo. We'll see if you're still around in five years, because I've seen them all come and go—"

Helena smirked, her bait working. "Come and go is what Harry calls your bedroom, right?"

"My bedroom is where Harry fucks me and stays the night — your bedroom is where he goes if it's dark and he can't find your mother's."

Helena glared at that, a nerve touched. Hermione tossed her hair back and grabbed hold of Harry's cock, both hands stroking him fast. His shaft was so big that both girls could stroke simultaneously, rhythmic and synchronised, even as they glared at each other.

"You'll just make it worse for him. Harry thinks I'm just as good as blowjobs as Mother." Helena jabbed.

"Probably because the only time he can keep your mouth shut is when his dick is in it." Hermione quipped, scowling.

"Uh, girls," Harry said, amused and more than a little turned on by his brilliant fiery girls. "I did actually come here for advice."

Hermione sniffed imperiously. "I can listen and pleasure you at the same time, my love."

"We'll relieve any problem," Helena promised, her tongue darting out to rim his cockhead. "No matter how big."

Harry lay back and enjoyed the show, absently Engorging the pillow he lay on so it would prop him up. He wanted to see everything. And it was a sight to see — two beauties, two English roses, stroking his cock, delicate tongues working on each side of his cock. Their silky hair streamed together, brown and blonde, two waterfalls pooling down to his groin.

Only they acted like two curtains, parting occasionally to give him glimpses of their naughtiness. Hermione's tongue lapping eagerly at his tip, drinking up the precum that oozed from his head. Helena tilting his cock toward her so she could dribble saliva down to their hands.

Hermione's whimper of frustration. Helena's gurgle of triumph. Harry could only groan as the two girls battled away, swirling tongues on his cock, four hands jerking him to rock-hard stiffness, his cock so hot it felt it was burning.

Helena snapped her bra off smoothly. Hermione just pulled hers down, raising an eyebrow at the Malfoy girl. Helena slithered her tongue down his veiny cock and slobbered noisily on his heavy ball, just like her mother had taught her, but when she returned, it was to find Hermione triumphantly bobbing on his cock, pushing herself down it.

An arched eyebrow from the Gryffindor girl, but the impression of prim arrogant victory was lessened by the bulge in her mouth and the tears in her eyes.

"Good girls." Harry murmured, arching his hips up.

Hermione choked, taking in more than she intended, more than she was capable of. She'd been blowing Harry a lot, partly obeying his commands and partly to keep his monster away from her pounded, protesting pussy. But deepthroating him for any length of time was a challenge, and soon she was coughing, gasping for breath.

She blinked and Helena was slurping up the strand of cum-saliva between his dick and her lips, her eyes closed in pleasure.

Only the beautiful blonde kept coming, until their lips were suddenly touching, an accidental kiss that broke apart suddenly, leaving Hermione stunned and Helena blushing.

Harry's balls boiled, tightening. "I'm almost there, girls." They'd barely started, but the sight alone had him on a trigger.

Helena took advantage of her friend's shell-shocked state, sinking all the way to Harry's base, because Mother always made her practice on him or the cucumber in the fridge. A kiss on his groin to leave her lipstick there, like a flag on a mountain summit.

"Gurk-gurk-gurk—" Helena throated him, hands kneading his balls, feeling the heavy load inside. But in her head, she was sighing, because Hermione was still sitting there uselessly, drawing shaky breaths. Didn't the clever girl understand that Harry wanted both of them? She grabbed Hermione's hands and brought them to her own head.

Almost unthinkingly, Hermione's fingers tangled into her soft tresses and began, as she'd hoped, forcing her up and down his cock. Harry groaned at the sight, aroused like Helena intended.

Hermione was more forceful though, far more than expected from the prim and proper girl, and soon Helena's tears were dripping more than Harry's precum, choking and gurgling, trying to breathe though her nose, but her nose was full of Harry's thick seed.

When Hermione finally gave her respite, pulling her off, that was Helena's chance. She rubbed at her throat and leaned forward to whisper into her friend's ear. "Big finish."

Understanding dawned in Hermione's eyes and they turned as one to smile at Harry. Together, they jerked him closer, slick wet jerks. Their jiggled their tits and pushed them around his cock. Their tongues battled around his cock, fighting for every drop of cum, or lapping the rim of his mushroom-head while the other slurped.

"Please, Harry, give it to me." Helena begged. "I deserve a big creamy load all over my face."

Hermione bit her lip. "Aren't I your oldest friend? Please, Harry, make me as white as a Patronus." She smiled at him knowingly. "I know you want to."

"Fuck!" Harry gasped as he went over the point of no return. The girls cooed happily as he came, unloading a huge load of cum. Thick ropes of hot white seed coated both their faces as they pressed together, cheek to cheek like they were posing for a photo.

"Thank you, my love." Hermione glowed as her forehead was glazed, globs drizzling down to pool against the ropes already on her nose, cheek and lips.

Helena just beamed happily as she was hosed down, gently working every last bit of cum from his cock, milking him empty.

Harry mumbled nonsensically, looking down at his joyful girls. They were a mess, almost unrecognizable under one of his biggest loads ever, eyelashes unable to bat through the thick cream, makeup smeared.

They both knew what he wanted. Fingers to wipe drips into lips. Harry never wanted any of his seed wasted, but as they threatened to drip from their chins, they had to work together. Helena slurped up a hanging rope from Hermione's chin, but when their faces pressed together, it created accidental cum-strings between them.

"I suppose this was inevitable." Hermione sighed, giving Harry a chiding look.

"Harry always gets what he wants." Helena agreed.

Then they leaned forward and kissed each other, a cum-coated kiss.

"That's so fucking hot." Harry muttered to himself as the girls moaned into each other's mouths, fingers smearing cum onto their lips, a never-ending reward for their voyeuristic lesbian kiss. Their panting made their chests bounce, their pink hard nipples sliding against each other.

They both felt Harry's cock judder between them. "He likes it." Helena said into Hermione's eyes, licking some jizz from her nose.

Hermione cleaned her friend's cheek. "He's always encouraged me to get along with others."

They kissed and sucked and hoovered, cleaning up each other and then Harry's cock.

"Oh," Hermione shivered as Helena cleaned the cum on her collarbone, and then another drop on her nipple. Privately, she thought Helena was going a little far, but she couldn't deny Harry's excited gaze. "You wanted some advice, Harry?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah." Harry said, distractedly watching Helena suckle on Hermione's breast.

He told them about Amelia, about how she was determined to change the past, no matter the consequences.

Hermione hummed, glancing over her shoulder as Helena turned her around on the bed, so her tight bottom was in Harry's face. Helena smirked — her friend was compliant, distracted by Harry's problems.

"So Amelia's going to change everything before we can even figure out how to stop your actions from having a ruinous effect here." Hermione surmised. "This is really dangerous — she could unalive people, bring others back, rewrite history itself."

"It might already be happening." Harry confirmed.

Helena was being mischievous — she had her face next to Hermione's ass, her fingers in the girl's thong, unpeeling it slowly, a present for Harry.

"There is one thing you can do." Hermione murmured. "Hey, what are you doing back there?"

Helena unpeeled Hermione's soaking wet thong — it was incredible. Panties so wet they could hear the squish as they unpeeled from where they were stuck to her grooly, enflamed pussy lips. Harry watched with wide eyes at the strands of girl-dew stretching between pussy and panties, at the pooled glistening cream in her thong, and the flooded, eager little pussy of his best friend.

Helena giggled. "You once told me I had the world's wettest pussy. Look at her."

"Take yours off and we'll compare." Harry ordered. His girls were driving him wild. He had things to do, places to be — he needed to meet Fleur, meet Bellatrix, meet Peter Greengrass, deal with Daphne, reply to his blackmailer…but soon he was met with two wiggling asses, swaying from side to side. Two peachy asses, just begging to be groped and spanked, thighs streaked from the sheer dripping cunts.

"What's the one thing I can do, Mione?" Harry muttered as he knelt behind them, cock hard, palming their jiggly cheeks and wondering which of them to fuck first.

Hermione smiled at him, that loving smile she did when she thought he was being stupid. "Oh, Harry. She's a wrecking ball, how did you not think of it already?"

"What?"

"Take her." She rolled her eyes. "Fuck her. Bond her. Make her your good girl, just like we are."

"We're such good girls." Helena dipped her back, arching her ass higher.

"It might be the only way to stop her from destroying the world." Hermione said. They both gasped as he spanked them both, their faces pressed into the bedsheets, their eyes meeting one another. Sisters in debauchery. Helena held her hand, squeezed it.

"Are you okay?" She mouthed.

Hermione squeaked as Harry's cock slowly slid into her. "I'm-I'm-I'm—" She chanted, eyes rolling back in her head as he bottomed out in her.

Helena never did found out what she was, as Harry began hammering her, balls clapping against her, the room filled with Hermione's orgasmic shrieks.

But she heard Harry. "Yes," He mumbled. "Fuck Amelia to save the world."

###

Harry whistled cheerfully as he wandered into the library. Helena and Hermione had left him very drained, but he felt better for having a plan. He felt somewhat bad for pushing Hermione's boundaries, but really, it had been Helena who'd pushed the girl into it.

And, he told himself, Hermione had been very vocally happy by the end of it. He hummed thoughtfully — he may have gone too far when he forced his bleary and exhausted Mione's face into the gaping just-filled cunt of Helena.

The library was where Fleur was supposedly taking a book back to Beauxbatons, her poor excuse for meeting him. But Harry walked into a mad house.

Fleur wobbled on a high ladder, reaching for the books on the third storey of the bookcases that climbed from skirting board to ceiling. And below her was a gaggle of boys, very obviously staring up her pleated white miniskirt.

"A-are you confiante that zis book is here?" Fleur called down. Harry was impressed — he'd never seen a girl climb a ladder in five-inch heels.

"One hundred percent." Seamus grinned.

"I saw it there just yesterday." Neville mumbled, adjusting his jeans.

"It's a little bit to the right." Ron added.

Harry crossed his arms, amused. "Alright, lads?"

"Harry." Dean nodded, looking more than a little sheepish. "Just helping Fleur find this book. She's come specially for it."

"I see that." He smirked. "What's she looking for?"

"Moste Potente Potions." Seamus said, distractedly, not looking away.

"Uh-huh." Harry rubbed his nose, taking in the view. Fleur was wearing a delightful set of red panties, though it was difficult to see them, hidden as they were by a thick pair of peachy ass-cheeks. "And, boys, do you think that a dangerous restricted book on Potions would be in the section of, what is it, historical Herbology?"

Neville went red-faced.

Ron cleared his throat. "Seemed a good start, y'know. Couldn't find Hermione."

"I see."

"Can you boys not get zis for me?" Fleur stomped her foot in frustration as she reached higher, her blouse peeling up her back.

"We told you, we have very bad Quidditch injuries!" Ron called.

"All of you?!"

"I have a shoulder injury. I'm a keeper for Gryffindor. Haven't lost since I started." Ron added unnecessarily.

"I have wrist injuries." Dean lamented, grinning. "Too much…Exploding Snap."

"I have a bad groin." Seamus said sadly. "I'm proper scarlet 'bout it.

They each stared at Neville, who stammered. "I have a stiff…" He trailed off.

"A stiff?" Harry prodded.

"Back?" Seamus suggested. "You can't say that, ya chancer, I've already said that." He whispered.

"You can't say wrist, either." Dean frowned.

"Or shoulder." Ron murmured — he was almost dribbling as he stared up Fleur's skirt.

Neville was in a panic, looking between each of them. "I have a stiffie." He whispered miserably. They each followed his gaze down to his crotch, where his jeans were peaked uncomfortably.

"Perfectly normal." Harry clapped his shoulder.

"I'd be worried if you didn't." Seamus mumbled.

"I zink eet is not here." Fleur called. "I'm coming down."

"All good things must end." Dean muttered. They watched her ass wobble as she descended.

"I think, before just now, I've never really known true happiness." Ron said slowly. "Is that sad?"

"That's beautiful, Ron. You fucking eejit." Seamus shook his head.

"Hey, you were the one that was almost crying—"

"Oh, 'Arry!" Fleur said as she stepped off the ladder and whirled around. "Zis is a pleasant surprise."

"I could say the same." Harry smiled. "What are you doing here?" He asked, as they exchanged cheek kisses.

"Oh, I need zis book only 'Ogwarts has to get extra credit in class." She pouted. "But je ne sais pas, I cannot find it. These nice boys were trying to help me."

"They're so nice." Harry said dryly.

"Erm, maybe we can 'ave a moment alone, oui?" Fleur looked around at the crowd of disappointed boys.

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind." Harry raised an eyebrow at his friends. "Right, guys?"

"Of course." Ron muttered. They slunk away, though Harry was completely certain they were listening from behind a row of bookcases.

"Listen, 'Arry," Fleur took his arm and pulled away. "I was theenking, I was rude to not follow up on our little zing the other night." She crossed her arms behind the small of her back, sticking out her chest — a white button-up blouse strained.

Harry stared at the top button for a second, wondering if it was going to pop off. He didn't want to lose an eye.

"It's okay, Fleur. I'm, well, she's probably told you. I'm exploring this thing with Marie…"

"And she's great!" Fleur said hurriedly. "J'adore Marie." She swept her silvery blonde hair over her ear, pouting with deep red lips. "I just theenk zat you and I could have more fun, non?"

Harry smiled politely. He could see the wildness in her eyes — Marie and Apolline had done a good job driving her crazy. Just how far could he push her? He hadn't been lying to his girls — he really wanted to see the proud Veela beg. "I don't know, Fleur. I'm really old-fashioned — I'm all about monogamy and being loyal."

From behind a bookcase, he swore he heard a snort.

"Oui, I understand." Fleur's tongue ran over her lower lip. "But maybe zat is because you 'ave not seen what a Veela can offer, what I can offer." She stepped closer to him, her knee sliding against his thigh, fingers on his belt. "With me, 'Arry, you wouldn't need to be full of monogamy, oui?" Her eyelashes fluttered. "I am," Her foot slipped from her heel, rose up his ankle. "Very, very, how do you say? Understanding?"

Harry swallowed — if Hermione and Helena hadn't drained him completely, she might well have gotten him hard. "Fleur, you are gorgeous, but I don't want to betray—"

Fleur huffed, breaking away. "Marie cannot do what I can." She insisted. "You do not know so you cannot say."

"I—"

"Give me a date, so I can prove eet." Fleur crossed her arms, chin raised.

"A date?"

"A chance to show you what it is like to 'ave Fleur Delacour as your girl. You will not believe it." She said proudly.

"Fleur," Harry had to stop himself from laughing in her face. He didn't expect this from her — begging him for a date and still acting so arrogant. He couldn't wait to see what she'd be like when they were alone.

He wanted to ruin her, to have the biggest cocktease of his life, the bane of his fourth year, the fantasy of a hundred wanks, the unattainable untouchable treasure, on her knees and begging for his cum.

He took a deep breath. It wasn't easy not to take her right now, not to give into her demands, not to take her to the Room of Requirement and fill every one of her holes until she was overflowing.

He could resist — it was easier to resist when he'd fucked her mother so much, had the older version of her so thoroughly.

"Fleur," He said again. "What's all this about? I didn't expect this from you, of all people."

She blushed, looking down, pride punctured. Only for a second, for she tossed her hair back, giving him a smoky look. "Je suis une fille arrogante, 'Arry. It takes me a while to change my mind, when I 'ave made a mistake. But," Her arms slid around his neck, her long bare legs stepped in between his, her thigh rubbing against his groin.

Fleur smirked at him as she felt a jolt of life from his groin. She breathed him in, trembling. And then she whispered into his ear, her hot breath making him shiver. "I am not afraid to beg, 'Arry."

And then she was gone, strutting away, her heels clapping on the Hogwarts stone. She tugged at the hem of her skirt, because she knew he'd be watching. "Don't make me wait too long, and say merci to your friends." Fleur called over her shoulder, because of course she knew what she was doing the whole time, because that was she offered.

The power to have the hottest cocktease at his beck and call, the envy of all his friends. She wanted his friends to jerk themselves silly over her, because it only increased her value.

Harry watched her leave, smiling in admiration. Even desperate, cum-crazy and willing to demean herself for his attention, she was clever and prideful. He couldn't wait to have her.

The boys slipped out of where they were hiding, watching her go. "I hate you so much, Harry." Dean told him fervently.

Neville brought his hands together like he was at church. "Teach me your ways, Lord Potter, please."

"Sorry for earwigging, boyo." Seamus told him. "You're gonna do her, right?"

Dean looked at him seriously. "If you turn her down, I swear I will never talk to you again."

Ron glanced about, as if Hermione was going to appear from nowhere. "Listen, Harry." He said quietly, so quietly they all had to lean in to hear him. "I'm not proud of this, but, like, on a scale of one to ten, how weird is it if I give you my Omnioculars to record it?"

"Ron!" Seamus said, shocked. "…I'll pay forty galleons."

Dean grimaced. "I'll pay twenty, but I can get Ernie to give you like, two hundred."

"He won't need to." Neville said firmly. "House Longbottom has coffers enough for this."

Harry guffawed, tears coming to his eyes. "N-Nev, I don't think that's what your parents had in mind for your trust fund—"

"You don't know that—"

"Nev's right, you don't know that." Ron agreed.

"Listen, lads," Harry put a hand on Neville and Ron's shoulder. "I'm not giving you footage, but I'll get you a photo, okay? Not a tease, not a dance, a bare-all photo. Deal? That's your Christmas present for the next ten years, for all of you."

The boys grumbled and glanced at each other, before they cleared their throat.

"House Longbottom accepts this generous gift and shall not forget it." Neville said seriously.

"House Thomas is more of a semi-detached two up, two down, kind of property." Dean said cheerfully.

"House Finnegan barely has a roof." Seamus cracked. "But who needs a roof when you've got a working wrist and a photo of Fleur feckin' Delacour."

Ron was silent, for a long moment. He shook his head, smiled. "Harry, I love you to death and I'll always be there, but sometimes it's really hard to be your friend."

"I get it." Harry said sympathetically. "I'm sorry, for what's it worth."

"It's okay." Ron patted his back. "Thank you, brother. You're a real one. I know just giving us a photo goes against your hero ethics."

"What ethics?" Seamus muttered.

"You know, the Harry from the papers. Kissing babies and hugging old grannies." Ron rolled his eyes.

"I was endorsing the Bones election campaign!" Harry protested.

"Whatever, I saw Rita Skeeter's election supplement, I remember the headline. Easy charm of Potter gratifies the grannies."

Dean snapped his fingers. "I saw that! Now I remember the photo. You dipped that old broad like you were ballroom dancing."

"They're a key demographic." Harry said. "Young people don't vote."

"You're a pussy-hound, Harry." Seamus teased. "Even the old women aren't safe from Potter the Pensioner-pounder."

"That's not a nickname I have, don't try and make that a thing." Harry pointed a threatening finger.

"Stay away from my Gran, Harry." Neville warned.

The boys descended into elbow-jabbing and name-calling for a minute, something Harry was always grateful for. A chance to be Harry with the boys, not Master with the girls, or Lord Potter with the problems.

"Hey?" Ron realized suddenly. "You meant a photo each, right? I'm not sharing with Neville."

"Neville's photo won't last a week." Seamus joked.

"Neville won't last a week, you mean. He'll look like a skeleton." Dean jabbed.

"You know that's what Dementors are, Nev?" Ron grinned. "Just wizards that wanked too much."

"Oh, fuck off, all of you." Neville groaned, his pudgy face red. "It's not like you guys are going to frame it to your wall, is it? I hear your bed squeaking, Seamus."

Seamus roared with laughter, unrepentant. "What about you, Harry? Do you even have to touch yourself these days?"

The boys went quiet — Harry knew that it wasn't cool to bring up details. The guys didn't really want to know about their friend Hermione, or even any confirmations of the whirling rumors about Hannah and more.

They just wanted to live vicariously through him, know that he was living his best life, taking advantage of being the fame and the money.

Harry considered what to say.

"No, I don't jerk it anymore." The girls would be upset if he did. Jacking off to Daphne while she worked her plug inside her world-class ass had been a one-off, but he couldn't stop himself.

"But for Fleur Delacour? I think, even if I fuck it up, which, let's face it, I definitely will—"

"Guaranteed." Dean nodded.

"Even you." Neville agreed.

"—I'll still be jerking off to the thought of her when I'm a hundred years old."

"She'll still be fit." Ron said confidently.

"My Gran's not far from a hundred years old." Neville said absently.

"And she's still got it." Harry wiggled his eyebrows.

"Harry!"

"What?" He wrapped an arm around his nervous friend. "Why'd you think I made an alliance with House Longbottom?"

Seamus nodded sagely. "I knew it. Potter the Pensioner-pounder."

Notes:
There's no shame in it - grannies need love too. Amelia's back, but Harry's realizing that she's a true crusader. Has Harvey Dent become Two-Face? He might need to take Hermione's advice and cock-control her. Next chapter next Friday, as always.

Want to read Fleur's big date with Harry, see saucy artwork of 80s Bellatrix, and read a few chaps ahead, along with exclusive salacious artwork of Susan, Daphne, Fleur and more from this story, as well as fun little sexy story scenes? Check my Linktree below.

Chapter 41 Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text Harry stepped in cautiously. He'd never been in the Hufflepuff dorms for any other reason than dipping his quill into Hannah's inkpot. Today, though, he had to be more than a horny teenager.

He had to be a good friend.

Behind the curtains of her four-poster bed, he could hear Susan's soft crying.

"Susie?"

A gasp. A gulp.

He drew the curtains back slowly, giving her time to gather herself.

Susan looked at him, pajamas rumpled and hair in disarray, red-haired and red-eyed. She sniffled.

"Hey, you." Harry gave her his best attempt at a warm smile.

Tom's mind-merge had given him power, confidence, a lifetime's worth of knowledge.

It had not taught him to comfort a crying woman. Tom had a lot of experience with crying women, but they only cried because he was there, and Tom's solution involved a bright green light.

Harry would have to solve this one by himself.

Susan trembled.

"I'm offering free hugs today." He shrugged. "Thought you might be interested."

She wiped at her eyes, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I'm a mess, don't look at me."

"I can hug without looking. I'm a pro." He settled gently on the edge of her bed.

"C-can I ask you something?"

"Of course." Harry wiggled his eyebrows. "But in my defense, I didn't know it was illegal in Scotland."

Her hand reached out to grab his. Tightly.

"D-did you have anything to do with it?"

Harry flinched. But her eyes bore into his. He knew what she was asking, because despite Rita's article, there were still eyewitnesses insisting that Harry Potter had really attacked the Ministry, rumors swirling about him, roaches crawling out of the woodwork to attack his character.

He wanted to decry her question, to throw a tantrum on how could she attack his character, use their years of friendship as defense. But he knew the truth — he had thought about killing Amelia, if only to stop her from being taken by Voldemort, her life kept as a bargaining chip for decades.

Only Amelia had sacrificed herself, because she was smarter than him, one step ahead of him. He hadn't killed her, he reminded himself. He wasn't going to, even if she hadn't made it so he didn't have to.

He was going to defend her to the death. He could look into Susan's eyes and tell her the truth.

"No." He said simply, squeezing her hand. "But I understand why you asked."

Susan stared at him. Harry wondered when she'd stopped trusting him — probably when he started trying to get in her panties at any cost.

"I w-wish I could—"

He cut her off. "In fact, she told me something to tell you, just before she went through the Veil. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I…needed time."

Her wet eyes became large, but he could see the doubt in them.

Harry took a deep breath. "She told me to tell you that, uh, if you weren't real, you wouldn't be able to cry."

She stared at him, open-mouthed. For a second, he thought Amelia had told him something nonsensical, to ensure Susan cast him aside.

But then Susan sobbed and launched herself into his arms. She wailed, shaking. Harry blinked, awkwardly rubbing her back.

"There, there." He muttered.

He could do this. This was nice.

Bellatrix had cried in delight when she was under Tom's Cruciatus, which probably didn't help the Dark Lord's unique method at comforting women.

Tom might have become semi-normal if he 'd ever had to encounter and comfort a crying woman who wasn't a psychopath.

Harry buried his face in Susan's hair, to hide his amusement at his own thought.

Susan drew back, wiping at her own face as she sniffled. To his relief, she was smiling. "Thought I was all out of tears." She patted at his wet shirt. "I might drown you."

"You're good — I once spent a lunch break with Moaning Myrtle."

He caught the look in her eyes. "Not like that!" Harry insisted.

She giggled wetly. "Can't put it past you." She sighed. "Auntie always loved Alice in Wonderland."

"Is that what she meant?"

Susan nodded. "Tweedledum and Tweedledee try to convince Alice that she's not real. Auntie said when she became upset or emotional in the Ministry, or during a speech, her colleagues or journalists would try to paint her as faking tears, that she couldn't possibly care as much as she did."

"So—"

"But Alice knew that because she was crying, she was real, because she wouldn't cry if she was just a dream character. And Auntie knew she only cried when it was something that really mattered." Susan took a wavering breath. "So whenever I was upset, she told me to cry it all out, that every tear was a reminder that I was real, that it mattered, that I was going to be okay, just like Alice."

Harry rubbed her shoulder. "I can't pretend I get it, but I'm glad that it helped. She really loves you."

"Loved me." She leaned her cheek against his hand. "I'm all alone now."

"Not completely."

She gave him a weak smile. "You just want to…do me."

"Oh, Susie." He wrapped her up in a tight embrace, feeling choked up himself. "I can't pretend that's not true. But, it's not completely." He stroked her back. "I was your friend before I was your suitor." He used her shoulders to tilt her back, so he could meet her eyes. "If I ever made you think that I wasn't your friend, first and foremost, then I'm sorry."

"Oh, Harry." She wiped at her nose.

"I know I came on too strong. I wanted you too much and I made you think I was creepy like Cormac."

She laughed into his chest. "I never thought you as bad as McLaggen."

"It's a low bar to clear."

"Maybe I thought that a little." She admitted. "I've been…a bit wary of you."

Harry smirked. "Wary like Malfoy is of Hippogriffs."

She groaned and buried her face in his shirt. "I just wanted to marry well. Marry someone Auntie would be proud of you, someone who wasn't…using me to get to her." Her voice was muffled, her face hidden, but he could see her ears turn red.

He kissed her forehead. "I want you. I always have. Always will." He said truthfully. Even without having a Minister of Magic for an aunt, he wanted her for her. Susan was bright, powerful, witty, kind. Beautiful, too.

In another world, in another timeline, he'd want to bring her home to meet his mother.

"Okay."

"Okay."

"E-even though the rumor mill says Fleur Delacour came to Hogwarts just to see you." Her fingers dug into his shirt.

Harry smiled into her hair. The Hogwarts girls hated Fleur. Last year, she'd come to the castle as a woman while they were still girls, and the girls had never forgotten how the boys had flocked to her, dozy sheep falling over themselves for a hint of her smile.

"Who's Fleur Delacour?" He joked.

He felt her roll her eyes.

"I want you." He repeated, tightening his gasp, breathing her in. "I won't push. You'll need time to mourn, to grieve. I'll be here as your friend. Whatever you need, I'll make it happen. Believe it or not, I know what's it like to be the only one left of a Noble House."

He traced her back. "I can have my people set up a funeral. Look over your estate. Talk to Gringotts to make sure the goblins don't start playing games. Remind your dependents to make their payments." His chin dropped to whisper into her ear. "But, when you're ready, if you want me, I'll be here."

"You will?"

Harry was silent for a long minute. The intimacy of the moment changed from new to comfortable, a warmth that became familiar. He stroked her hair, imagining a future where he could do this every day.

A future he couldn't let her Aunt destroy by changing the past.

"Remember how Alice in Wonderland ends?" Harry said, his voice raspy. He imagined he was back in the cupboard under the stairs, the book closed in his hands, but his mind very much alive. The spider that crawled over his arm no longer frightened him, because he could imagine the spider with a smile, a personality, a silly voice.

Most of the books he stole, he returned to Dudley's dusty bookcase, just in case their absence was noticed.

This one, he kept under his pillow.

Harry continued. "When Alice is ready, she shatters the dream. She grows up, and even though she becomes a woman, her loving heart never changes."

"I remember." Susan said weakly.

"Her sister thinks that when Alice has children of her own, Alice will tell her about all her crazy adventures, share her sorrows and joys."

"I like that."

"Me too." He let his chin rest on her head. "Wouldn't we have the best adventures to share? Basilisks and Umbridge, Dark Lords that we banished together, Sirius Black and dementors. A tale of two houses coming together to rebuild, and rebuilding Britain while we're at it."

"That sounds like a dream." She admitted, sniffling.

"It does." Harry bit his lip, feeling his heart tighten. The worst thing about having two minds was having two moral compasses, such that anything he said, he was never sure whether it was genuine or manipulative. Whose tongue flickered? "It really does."

###

Harry waited at the coffee shop, in the past. The cafe embedded into the Ministry atrium was a favorite of Ministry workers in the past and present too. It had never changed, because it didn't have time to — it had a steady stream of patrons from opening to close.

Espresso Patronum was the name, though everyone just called it Patro's.

He cradled his coffee, though this time he wasn't waiting for a glimpse of his mother.

Instead, Amelia Bones walked in, looking stressed. Her high heels clipped on the floor, the sort of beauty that made the whole coffee shop take a second glance, at her long legs, at her straining blouse.

To her credit, she only raised an eyebrow when she saw Harry.

"Poor Lily is going to get paranoia if you keep stalking her." She joked as she slid into the chair opposite him.

"It's you I'm waiting for, actually. Got you a coffee."

"I don't think you can change my mind, Harry." Amelia said firmly.

"I'm not trying to." Harry sipped his coffee. "I've changed my mind. Let's do it. Let's change the world."

She looked at him skeptically. "You've changed your tune." She gulped her coffee, staring around at the busy cafe. "Wish this coffee shop would change their tune."

Harry smirked. "They play endless Celestina Warbeck in the future too, you know."

"Didn't like it then, either." She grumbled.

"I've got a cauldron full of hot, strong love—" Harry sang, to the radio's backing tune.

"Please don't."

"—and it's bubbling for you!"

Amelia looked unamused. "My lunch break is short."

"Time is one thing we do have, Amelia."

"I have to work twice as hard to rise up the ranks twice as fast." She reminded him.

"Then let me shoulder half the burden. That world you spoke of? I want it." Harry lied. He didn't want to lie to her, but he had to stop her from making irreversible changes to the timeline, changes that could hurt or even remove the people he loved, could make Voldemort even stronger.

He reached out to take her hand, on the table. "Let me help."

"You're not going to try and change my mind." Amelia said suspiciously.

"No,"

"Even though I'm going to try and change the future."

"You won't fuck things up if I can tell you how your changes are working out." Harry told her. "This is what you wanted, right? A boyfriend stuck in two timelines, able to help you become the ultimate politician."

"A boyfriend, huh?" She sipped from her coffee again, her eyes evaluating.

"Unless you don't want me…" Harry withdrew his hand.

"It's not that." Amelia said hurriedly. "I…it's been a long time since I cared for…that side of human interaction."

Harry laughed. "Stop flirting, you. You seemed pretty interested in interaction, last we spoke."

Amelia stared at him flatly. "I'm an old woman in a young body, Harry. I'm running hotter than any cauldron Celestina sang about."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You are. Susan said she wasn't sure about you, that you liked to play games."

"You think I'm playing with you?"

"I think you're a teenager who knows how to play at being a man."

"Ouch."

"I'm not being mean, Harry. I want you—"

"Because I'm the sounding board from the future to help you change the world."

"Not just that. You are…highly desirable."

"You'll make me blush. But?"

"But I want a partner, an equal in life and in marriage. I never married because I never found the one."

"I don't know if I'm the one, Amelia."

"And you don't have to be. I have a lifetime of regrets, a rocking body and a second chance at life. But I want to make sure I'm not just another one, that you're not playing games with me."

"I can't be chaste from two decades away."

"And I wouldn't expect you to. I'm just asking that you stick with me, that you commit to this." She gestured to the world around them. "To changing this world, our world."

"How can I prove myself?"

"Be there. Be here, I mean. Tell me what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong. It'll take me a while to make any meaningful changes, while I rise up the ranks. I'm still low on the totem pole."

Harry smiled and nodded, even as he seethed inside. If only he'd accepted her advances the first time, maybe he could have seduced her to bed.

But Amelia was just like her niece — the Bones women had the most undroppable panties in the world, past and future.

How long would she string him along, using him as a mirror to reflect her timeline alterations.

"And then?" He asked.

"Integrate yourself. Introduce yourself as a pureblood from Europe, make your wealth. Become someone who I can marry. Let's become a power couple to change the world." Amelia toyed with her collarbone.

Harry stared at her, judging her. She was too smart. Maybe he could seduce her, take advantage of her lusts. He only had to bed her once to bond her.

But maybe she would keep him exactly where she needed him. At arm's length, trying to prove himself.

He couldn't walk away — she was too dangerous for that.

"You'll need to make this worth my while." Harry said simply. "I'm a teenager, after all, right?" He threw her words back at her.

"In good time." Amelia bit her lip, her fingers playing with the button of her blouse until it came undone, revealing the creamy flesh of the tops of her breasts, a hint of a green bra.

Celestina Warbeck's voice warbled over them. "Oh, come and stir her cauldron, and if you do it right, she'll boil you up some hot, strong love, to keep you warm tonight."

Amelia smirked at him. "Drink your coffee, Harry. Us Bones girls? We're worth the wait. And just imagine, if you play your cards right, I'll tell you what you need to say and do to get my Susan to drop her guard." She squeezed her chest together and leaned forward. "You can have me in the past and Susie in the future. Isn't that worth any trouble?"

Harry took his coffee and clinked it against hers. "To bubbling our cauldron."

"To making a world where Celestina is hopefully less popular." Amelia agreed, her eyes sparkling.

He'd play along for now. But as they chatted idly, a new Celestina song began to play, something more fitting.

"You charmed the heart right out of me, to my whole life you hold the key, you cast your spell and suddenly, I cannot forget you!" She sang.

Harry smiled inside his mind. That spell Celestina sang about — it wasn't just a metaphor. Harry knew the incantation.

"I've seen her grades, you know. Warbeck's." Amelia confided. "She couldn't cast a Disarming Charm, let alone a love spell. Her wandwork was terrible."

"I'm not surprised." Harry replied, his mind busy.

He knew what Amelia didn't, the one thing that would lead to her downfall, eventually, hers and Susan's too. The spell of love wasn't cast by a wand.

It was cast with his cock.

###

The silver knocker on the black door vibrated. The door slammed open and Bellatrix stalked out, screaming something behind her. She slammed the door again and paused on the top of the worn steps, her fists clenched.

Harry watched from the street. The ancestral home of the Black family was an odd one. Grimmauld Place wasn't the typical manor of a pureblood family, but it was large inside.

Sirius had cleaned it up nicely in his free time, in the future.

But in the past, it still held Bellatrix's awful aunt, Walburga. Sirius' mother. On this day, given Bella's obvious rage, it likely held Cygnus and Druella, her parents and an eternal source of frustration for her.

Bellatrix wore black robes today, from neck to toe, though she'd cut a long slit in them, so he could see all the way from a bare ankle to a provocative bare hip. She did so love to anger her elders.

As she bounced down the steps, her lidded eyes widened in surprise.

"What are you—"

"Waiting for you."

"But how—"

"Wards don't stop me." He boasted. He snapped his fingers. "Come, time for training." He boldly wrapped his arm around her and Apparated them both to their training field in the hills of Dorset.

"You can't just—" She spluttered.

"I'll do what I want, up until the point you can stop me." He said evenly. "Problems at home?"

She glared. "Just my parents being losers. They don't get it, get anything. They still treat me like a child."

"Maybe you still act like one."

"You can't provoke me that easily." She said, although her nostrils flared.

"Can't I?"

She ignored him. "They think I'm Cissy. Content to whisper in the ear of real power, frolicking around in dresses and heels."

"But?"

"But I'm not." She crossed her arms. "I know what power is. It's not being a socialite. It's not parties and politics. Power has to be taken."

"It can also be given." Harry pointed out, gesturing to himself. He threw a Disarming Charm at her, just to get her ready to spar.

She sidestepped, scowled, and replied with a Cruciatus.

"You're not giving me power, you're just teaching me until I'm useful to you." She argued. "Probably to get your wand wet."

"Am I?" He turned the blades of grass to ropes that slithered up her legs. "Then why are you still here?"

Bellatrix scythed herself free with slashes of her wand. Another slash sent a black cut at him, a cut in the world itself. Harry conjured a desk purely to see what the spell would do to it. The desk cut into two neat pieces, pieces which he assembled into an animated creature that ambled towards the dark witch.

"I'm here to take your power, since you're dumb enough to give it away." She tossed her hair back.

"So there's no good in what I do?" Harry said with amusement. "No kindness in the free lessons?"

She sneered as she lit his desk-creature into flames and projectile-blasted it back at him. "There is no good or evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it."

Harry froze at the familiar words. Voldemort was teaching her too, working her way into his mind, seducing her with power until she'd take his Dark Mark, become the Bellatrix of legend.

He'd known it, in the back of his mind. But now it was beyond doubt.

He was running out of time. He shouldn't take her, seduce her, until Hermione and his girls had figured out how he could do so without changing the future irreversibly. But once she took the Dark Mark…she'd be beyond his reach.

The flaming desk smashed down on him, but he blew it into pieces. He was done playing. He rose up in the air, flying without aid, above Bellatrix's awestruck eyes. He batted away her curse and landed on her with a knee to her chest.

"Your curses are too slow. Someone is teaching you new spells, dangerous spells, but your fundamentals aren't up to scratch. Your stance, your footwork, it's low level." Harry said simply.

Bellatrix snarled from where she lay in the grass, holding her ribs. "I'm not talking to anyone else."

"I'm not angry." He said. "I just don't want my teachings to be undone by some amateur."

"He's not an amateur!" She insisted, ignoring his hand to haul herself up. "He's powerful beyond measure. Dangerous, lethal. Strong. You wouldn't understand."

"Wouldn't I?" Harry said idly. "Does he hurt people? Kill people? All these new curses you're showing off, they're just new ways to cause pain. They aren't useful in a duel. You're not being taught to be stronger, you're being taught to be fearsome. Is that what you want to be?"

"You don't know what—"

"Do you want to be a mighty witch or a scary headline?"

Her face reddened, her growl unbidden. "He could beat you!"

"Could he?" He crossed his arms.

"He does actual fights. Not duels or tournaments, but real life or death displays of power."

"Any fool can hurt Muggles or citizens."

Bellatrix pushed him away. "He can change the world."

"In one way, only. By making the weak fear him. By killing all that oppose him. You think your sister is weak for playing the socialite, for playing politics, but that's the way to create lasting power across the whole base. Killing people works up until there's a bigger fish."

She shook her head dismissively, her eyes cold and mocking. "Spoken like another weak man. If you could do what he could, you wouldn't care about politics either."

"If I could do what he could?" He snorted, grabbing her arm tightly. "You stupid girl, why can't you see what's right in front of you?"

"Stop, you're hurting me—"

"If I could do what he could." He muttered again, jerking his wand as he cast spells. He ripped the grass from the ground, Transfigured it to faceless masks. Stuck them to her face and his, so they were anonymous, green-shell masks covering their identities.

He Apparated them both. A second later and the whipping wind of the Dorset hills was replaced by the loud buzz of a crowded Diagon Alley. Mothers pushed their children along. Families queued at Fortescue's ice cream parlour, every table full, redundant umbrellas shading them from the sun that was already behind the clouds.

A gaggle of teenage girls pointed and laughed at the ugly dress robes of the mannequin in Madam Malkin's window.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Bellatrix hissed, trying to shake free of his firm grasp.

"I'm trying to teach you, dunderhead." Harry snapped. "Any fool in this world can hurt and pain, it doesn't make one powerful. Power is knowing when to use it."

"Let me go—"

Harry's wand danced. Madam Malkin's mannequin came to life and leapt through the window, arms extended to attack the teenage girls. Fortescue's sign exploded from his parlour and embedded like a sword in the cobbled alley.

Harry muttered a spell and the alley's road tore from the ground, cobbled rocks pinging away like buttons from a blouse. The street rose up, curling high, a peeled potato made of cement and stone.

Another chain and the peeled street shook, stretched — and walked, made into a monster, a shadow that rose up over the screaming masses.

The crowds had only way to go, and they ran, laughter turned to fearful screams. Tables were crushed as his street-monster stomped ahead. Canopies torn from the shops, chairs disintegrated, the sheer shockwave of its steps causing the windows to shatter.

The Aurors were quick to respond, appearing from nowhere, but their spells bounced uselessly against the animated cobbles.

Harry held his gaping dark witch with one tight arm as he flew high into the Alley, content to watch the destruction. The Aurors tried to fight him, but he was here to prove his power.

And power was his proof.

An Auror took the metal splinter of a lamppost and cast it at him. Harry switched the projectile with a fallen icecream and caught the cone.

"Vanilla." He tasted. "Not very you, Bella." He placed the cone in the cleavage of her robes, because she was too stunned to stop him.

Spells shot at him, too many to count, but he was no longer there. He settled down on the highest tip of his peeled street monster and, with a muttered spell of ice, slid down it like it was a frozen surf wave, Bellatrix in arm.

On the beach of his surfed wave, the Aurors lined up. A wave of his wand to pull the sun umbrellas from every table of the ice cream parlour, another to meld them together, one more to layer it with his strongest shields.

As he and Bellatrix walked forward, their melded sun-brellas became their shield, a pink fabric dome emblazoned with the symbol of Fortescue's mustache. Harry held Bella's hip and pulled her closer to him, as their umbrella glowed with the color of ineffectual spells.

"Do you feel powerful yet?" He whispered into her ear.

She looked up at him, her arms covered in gooseflesh, her eyes wide and wild. She was panting, trembling.

Harry realized then that he'd misjudged things, taken Cissy's word for truth. Of course Narcissa would be biased. Of course she'd believe the best in her sister.

But the truth was that this was Bellatrix. She was a power-hungry psycho. It was the only language she spoke.

And the only language she'd listen to.

He flicked his wand and every umbrella retracted, drew in, until it was just one stack of melded poles. The Aurors blinked in surprise as they were suddenly face to face with their green-masked attackers.

"Engorgio." Harry murmured. The melded umbrella poles grew as large as a sequoia tree trunk.

"Run!" One bright Auror shouted.

"Too late." Harry whispered into Bellatrix's ear, palming her breast as he settled his chin on her shoulder, a chin-rest so he could watch the show. "The sun's come out."

He flicked his wand — and the engorged umbrella flicked open in an abrupt explosion. The umbrella was massive, a trampoline given propulsive force. The Aurors had no chance — they were bounced like dolls. One flew into the third floor of the Daily Prophet. One's head smacked into a lamp-post so hard that the light broke.

Two Aurors flew so high that Harry thought they'd land in Knockturn Alley.

They'd live, all of them, but Diagon Alley was suddenly empty. Harry turned to Bellatrix.

"Do you understand, now?"

She shivered, holding herself. "I d-didn't know. I didn't know." She repeated nonsensically.

"I can do anything I want in this life. Wards, Aurors, the Dark Lord, they can't stop me." Harry took his finger and thumb over the bump of her nipple in her robes and squeezed it. She just stood there as his hands descended down her body.

Over her hips, squeezing her asscheeks. And then, slipping through the slit in her robes, between her thighs. Pulling aside her wet panties.

"If I wanted you," Harry told her. "I'd just take you." He jammed his finger into her soaking cunt roughly, working it into the tightness of her pussy.

She let him, staring at him, speechless. He fingered her in the middle of the alley, until all she could hear was the sound of distant crying and the squelches of her pussy.

"I understand." She admitted finally.

"This is power, see? So when I tell you that there are better ways to conquering, to ruling, than killing and fear-mongering, believe it."

"What are you going to do with me?"

He pulled his finger free, brought it to her mouth, let her suckle it clean. He saw the madness in her eyes, the fanaticism that was more pronounced twenty years later.

He met her gaze evenly, confidently. "Whatever I want."

###

"I have it! Harry, I have it!"

Harry looked up as the bedroom door swung open, pausing as he lapped up the chocolate sauce that Narcissa drizzled onto her bare breasts, lowering her hard nipples into his mouth.

Hermione squeaked as she entered. "Ah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'll come back later."

"It's okay." Harry lay back on the bed and patted Cissy's ass. "Cissy."

"I'll get started on dinner." The demure mother blushed. She pressed a kiss to his lips, pulled her discarded apron back onto herself, slipped back into her heels, and strode off without a word.

Hermione fidgeted as the Malfoy matriarch passed her. "Did I…come at a bad time?"

"Not at all. I was just having lunch." Harry grinned. "Strawberries and chocolate, but we got carried away."

His best friend looked back at the open door. "You've really screwed her mind up, Harry." She hissed quietly. "I caught her this morning deepthroating a cucumber."

"Oh, no, she's just in love." Harry smiled wistfully. "Isn't it great? Anyway, what did you find?"

Hermione vibrated with excitement. "I have what you asked me for." She peered over at the sheets, trying to find a clean spot, and then perched herself down on the mattress primly.

"You do?"

"The way to…take Bellatrix and steal her away from Voldemort, without ruining our timeline. Without people coming back to life, without others dying, without changing everything."

Harry sat up, breathless. "Seriously? I knew you could do it."

"You haven't been too reckless in the past already, have you?"

He paused, thinking back to his splashy attack on Diagon Alley. Tearing the street up, bouncing the Aurors into the sky like a Saturday morning cartoon. "No, not at all."

"Hmm."

He coughed. "How did you figure it out?"

Hermione blushed, taking his hand in hers. "It was so perfect. It was just like in first year. The big Eureka moment came by way of a Chocolate Frog card, just like Nicholas Flamel."

"Huh?"

She showed him a pentagonal blue card, on which an old wizard glowered, stroking a mighty white beard and squeezing a serpent in one hand. "Herpo the Foul."

Harry took the card and read the back. "Herpo the Foul was an Ancient Greek wizard and the first known creator of the Basilisk. I know about Herpo, I told you about him, remember?"

Hermione nodded rapidly. "You did. You told me about what Voldemort had done to himself, about horcruxes. The horcruxes that Herpo invented."

"Right." Harry said uncertainly. Where was she going with this? "He's like the Merlin of the Dark Arts — all the evil things you can think of, Herpo did it first. That's why they call him Herpo the Foul."

"Tell me again." Hermione bounced on the mattress, squeezing his hand. She ignored his erect cock, dripping with chocolate sauce.

Harry sighed. "Well, it's like I said. I Tom had buried the memories of his Horcruxes so deep that they only broke free in my mind recently. We were at breakfast, we were talking about those tabloid articles about Cedric and the rentboy. You were saying he should be called a sex worker, not a whore—"

Hermione huffed. She eyed the chocolate sauce that was running down the veiny of his girthy shaft. "I'm not wrong. It's derogatory."

"Right—"

"I suppose Cissy enjoys being called a whore."

"I mean, she just likes it because I like it—"

"I can do anything she can." Hermione said suddenly.

"I know you can, sweetheart, you don't need to—"

"I suppose I shouldn't argue about semantic correction when I debase myself so easily for your enjoyment." Hermione said, her hand taking grasp at the base of his cock.

"I'm not going to call you a whore, Hermione." Harry reassured.

She gave him an exasperated smile as her tongue lapped away the sauce from his cock. "If the shoe fits, I suppose. Don't let me stop you."

"R-right," Harry stuttered as she took his cock into her wet warm mouth, slurping away. "So Fred said that the whore is the crux of the issue, and that triggered the memory. Tom murdered and split his soul in order to seal the splinters of his soul into objects. Just like Herpo did, originally."

Hermione pulled off his cock, licking her lips. She held his shaft straight, threw a leg over his lap, and settled down onto his throbbing dick. She closed her eyes and squealed as she sank. "So big, so big, so big." She chanted, biting her lip. "You're — oh, Merlin — what on earth. That's not right, it's not normal, it's rubbing against my heart, I swear—"

"Hermione?" Harry groaned as he was embedded deep inside her. She was indescribably tight.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." She moaned, rocking back and forth.

"Uh, Herpo the Foul?"

"Right." Her eyes flicked open, embarrassed. She braced her hands on his thighs. "I read everything you told me to read, all those tomes you've taken about horcruxes and the bonding spell you've used on us."

Harry held her hands as she held them out, letting her use him to pull herself forward and back, grinding herself slowly. "I'm not going to split my soul, Mione."

She smiled at him dazedly. "Not your soul. Theirs."

"What?"

"When you bond us, you take our hearts and our souls, my love."

"But—"

"So that's the secret to taking Bellatrix safely. You bond her and splinter her soul into an object. Your bond, the part of her soul that you own, it goes into the object." She gasped and pulled his hand up to her breasts, making him palm them roughly.

"And then—"

"And then, in the future, in the now, I mean." She bit her lip as she rocked. "You break that object open — the splintered soul feeds back into them. An unstoppable unimaginable reminder of your bond, their love for you, their memories of your time together."

"Is…what? Would that work?" Harry's mind worked as he parsed through her words. A horcrux without a murder. A piece of soul that was not meant to revive a life, but to revive a bond.

Bellatrix, bonded but unknowingly, the part of her that belonged to him sealed away. She'd carry on with her life, her servitude to Tom.

A sleeping secret agent, ready to awoken in the here and now. He'd break the sealed object, awakening her to her true purpose.

All of a sudden, she'd be his. Tom's most trusted, Harry's most loyal.

It was madness, magic volatile and dangerous. But…it was viable.

It could work.

It would work.

Hermione whimpered as she rode him, her blouse pulled down under her breasts, her skirt hiding their joined connection. Harry pulled her forward so she fell on his chest, so he could hold her back and thrust forcefully into her pulsating, sopping pussy.

"It's brilliant." Harry told her, pulling her hair back so he could kiss. "You're brilliant."

She moaned and came, squirting all over his cock, thighs trembling uncontrollably. "Yours, yours, yours." She mumbled.

"My whore, my slut, my love?" He tested.

"Anything as long as I'm yours." Hermione promised.

He fucked until he finished inside her, and then he held her to his neck, breathing with her, sweaty skin stuck together, her hips still circling to make the sensations good for him.

"I'm so proud of you, my Mione." He told her.

Hermione tossed her hair back and smiled at him tiredly. "You are?"

"I've never been more so."

"I didn't really do anything. We don't know it'll work, not for sure. You still need to figure out how to split a soul without killing."

"It will work." Harry said confidently. "And then, one day, you'll get your own Chocolate Frog card."

She beamed at him. "Do you really think?"

"I do." Harry smiled mischievously. "Hermione Granger. The inventor of the Whorecrux."

Notes:
Perhaps not the fame Hermione dreamed of, but it's an achievement that could change the world. Can Harry bond girls back in the 80s without screwing up the today? And can he do it before Amelia ruins everything? Both Bones girls seem to be immune to all his tricks. Next chapter next Friday - Fleur gets her big date out.

Want to read how desperate Fleur gets on her date, see saucy artwork of 80s Bellatrix, and read a few chaps ahead, along with exclusive salacious artwork of Susan, Daphne, Fleur and more from this story, as well as fun little sexy story scenes? Check my Linktree below.

Chapter 42 Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text Fleur smacked her lips, turning in the mirror. People thought beauty came easily to her, and so it did. But that didn't mean it didn't have to be worked on, because beauty came in many forms.

Different makeup, different hairstyles, different outfits — she could make herself cute. She could make herself gorgeous. She could make herself elegant. But today, she needed to be sexy, to make balls ache, heads turn, fists clench. She needed to make Harry want to bend her over.

"You can do this." She breathed through pink pouty lips, watching her mirror-self smirk and wink. She just had to keep herself sane, to stop herself from descending into her…carnal thoughts.

Harry did things to her, things she couldn't control.

But she could acclimatise herself to his power, his scent, his magic. She'd fingered herself before she dressed, legs thrown wide, eyes closed, diddling herself to another orgasm, imagining his hands in her hair as he used her.

Marie had a sweater of his, and she'd cut off a snippet of the cuff, enough to breathe in his scent, to try and build up a resistance.

Never had she thought that she'd be the one trying to build a resistance to him. Who was the Veela here?

"Incroyable." Her mirror self told her, smoothing her hands over her tight dress.

It was true, but incroyable might not be enough.

Harry, somewhere, somehow, had grown up. He'd changed from a maybe to a fuck yes. At the Torurnament, he'd been an obvious up-and-comer. Now, he was a come-on-over.

"And a cum-all-over." Fleur murmured, smirking to herself, remembering how he'd coated her face in this very bedroom, glazing her in thick globs of seed. If only she'd taken her chance then.

It didn't matter.

She'd take her chance now. His best and worst quality was the fact that he obviously knew his worth. She'd have to be charming and clever, enticing and enchanting. She'd probably have to degrade herself, more than a little.

But Fleur Delacour always got what she wanted.

She raised her head, set her jaw. "'Arry is lucky to have a minute of your time." She told herself. "You are Fleur Delacour."

Her mantra didn't strike true as it usually did, because her mind played memories she couldn't deny. She'd whimpered and begged just for the chance to slurp Harry's seed from her best friend's swollen cunt. She'd licked his cum as it trickled down to her friend's rosebud. She'd let Marie rub her pussy all over her face, like she was a dirty wash cloth.

But Veela knew more than any other that power was not set in stone. Dynamics could change.

Fleur smacked her lips again, ensuring her lipstick didn't color her teeth. She pulled her hair away from her chest, so her cleavage caught the eye.

Besides, she thought, there are worse places to be than on your knees for Harry Potter.

###

"Georgie, darling, are you ready?"

George sighed as he saved his game on his Game Boy. He'd told Mom several times, he was George. Georgie was a kid, and George was no longer a child. He was in high school. His best mates from primary school were now smoking, drinking, flirting.

George wasn't there just yet, but he was trying to be. If only his family would recognize it. His best mates were spending their Christmas holidays trying to get served in pubs and hanging around outside the off-licenses, paying older guys to buy them a six-pack.

But George was here in Italy, on holiday with his family, walking endlessly to the dullest of historical tourist sites. He'd hoped at least for a glimpse of topless sunbathers on the beach, but the most he'd got was a naked Roman statue of some royal bird.

Even that had given him a boner that he'd had to use his bucket hat to hide.

"Georgie?"

"I'm ready, Mom." He stood up with a sigh, peering round the door to see his impatient parents. Dad's belly was straining against his tuxedo shirt. Mom was glowing, though. He reminded himself that it was her birthday.

"Oh, don't you look so handsome." She beamed. "Shall we get a picture?"

"The taxi's waiting, sweetie." Dad said.

"Oh, yes. Later. Let's go, Davis clan!" She bounced ahead, practically vibrating.

George looked at his Dad, who shrugged. "It's her birthday, son. Let her have this."

"But the opera, Dad?" He whined. "It's like…three hours."

"You can have some of my red wine."

"How about a vodka and coke?"

Dad raised his eyebrow. "You really want your mother to know you're drinking vodka and coke already?"

George sighed. "Red wine, it is."

Dad laughed and pushed him out of the hotel room. "Relax, son. There'll be plenty to look at. These opera singers always have the biggest chests."

"Dad!"

###

Harry whistled as he strolled through the Verona night. Fleur had sent him a date and a location, and he just had to make sure he was suited up. The Roman amphitheater was lit beautifully, each arch of the arcade marble glowing a warm orange, a beacon against the dark night.

The arena was only two levels of arches, but it still stood taller than any of the Verona buildings, a perfect circle in the ancient city. Beaming floodlights crisscrossed above the arena, a light for the crowds to follow as they teemed into the arena.

Harry blinked as he strolled towards the arena, realizing that he'd been here before. Tom, briefly, recovering an artifact that lay under the arena itself.

What was it? A great gladiator had been buried here, a tribute to his achievements during the Roman ludi games. Tom had come here to take the man's helmet — the secret to the gladiator's accomplishments had been his enchanted helmet, the Squib gladiator unknowingly wearing a performance-enhancer.

Trading the helmet had ensured Tom won an apprenticeship with a Venetian dark wizard — the canal waters of Venice were still polluted from the rituals those two had done together.

Harry shook his head. He was here on a happier occasion today. It didn't take him long to find his date — Fleur always stood out, even surrounded as she was by a crowd of eager suitors.

Since she hadn't spotted him, at turns flirting and chiding her entourage of handsome men, he took a moment to drink her in.

She was the stars — a long opera gown of the darkest blue, but patterned with shimmering golden stars, like she'd ascended to the night sky above and torn a piece of it to wrap around herself.

The bodice was two sharp triangles, to hide her chest but not cup it, so it gave the impression than by leaning forward and peeking over, one could see all of her creamy decolletage.

She coyly tugged at the sheer tulle of her long opera gloves in matching blue, cocking her hip to display every inch of the long bare leg that peeked from the slit in her widening dress.

Harry pushed through the crowd of men. "Excuse me," He grabbed her hand. "I'm looking for some entertainment for the night. How much do you cost?"

Her eyes clouded over, even as she smirked.

"You can't talk to her like that—" One of them tried.

"I suppose we could negotiate." Fleur said, nibbling at her deep red lip, her eyes smoky.

Harry winked as he pulled at her hand. "I have a piece of gum."

"Do I look zat easy?"

"No, but from prior experience…" He trailed off.

She laughed, rich and loud. Her hand found his chest as he tugged her away from the grumbling men. "'Arry, a man so young should not be so confident."

"A woman so young shouldn't be so striking."

"Moi?" She batted her eyelashes. "I wore ze first dress I found."

"You might cause a riot." Harry pulled her through the crowds to the arena's entrance. People moved out of their way, but that wasn't new.

She shrugged her bare shoulders. "I 'ave to impress my date, non?"

"I wasn't expecting the opera."

"You are not a fan?"

Harry paused. Was he a fan? Harry wasn't. Tom had sat through some — before Lucius Malfoy, there had been a long line of wealthy patrons that he'd needed to charm, beguile and manipulate. Wealthy lonely women had been Tom's specialty, for a while.

"Depends on the opera." He said finally. He caught sight of a banner. "Samson and Delilah is a bold choice." He bumped her shoulder as the gaping attendant tore her tickets.

"Too much?" She said innocently as they walked into the arena. The crowds were thick and loud, but she parted them easily, because nobody could deny her.

"A woman seducing a man for three hours?"

Fleur giggled as his hand traced the bare skin of her back. "I zought it appropriate."

"Delilah is manipulative and ruthless, trying to figure out where Samson's strength comes from."

Her hand found his as they sat. She perched primly on the padded cushion of the seats in the floor of the arena. Around the sides, tourists were less comfortable, sitting on the original stone steps. "Oui," Her thumb rubbed circles. She swept her long silver blonde hair over one shoulder, revealing more of her bare shoulder as she looked at him through lidded eyes. "I am manipulative. Oui, I am ruthless. Zat is why I am a good partner for you."

"And not Marie?"

She sniffed. "Marie is good for bedding only."

Harry snorted. "Isn't she your best friend?"

"Oui, she is." She smiled fondly. "Marie is a darling, my best friend since childhood. Zat is why I will be 'appy to share our bed with her."

He shook his head. This girl — he'd never tire of her arrogance. "How gracious of you."

"Oui." She smirked, leaning against him as they waited for the opera to begin.

"Samson tells her eventually, right? That his strength is in his hair, of all things."

"Not where your strength is." Fleur agreed. "Or mine." She took his hand and placed it on her bare thigh, shifting her knee to open the long slit of her dress.

Harry swallowed as his hand was dragged slowly up her skin, and then froze as she tugged her dress back over his hand. She leaned over and whispered into his ear. "Between my thighs, I have great power, non? And…I 'ave no hair down zere."

She giggled at the look on his face, resting her head on his shoulder. "Enjoy ze show, 'Arry."

###

George clapped along as the curtains fell, the intermission beginning. But his attention wasn't on the stage, but on the devastating blonde a row in front, six seats to the right. He'd not been able to take his eyes off her, not since he saw her outside of the arena, not since the opera began.

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. A vision of perfection. Her hair shone in the light of the stage, and he'd bit his lip every time she swept her locks over her ear.

Her and her lucky bastard of a boyfriend must have been sharing salty peanuts, or something, because he kept giving her his fingers to lick clean. And when her eyes closed, when she cleaned his fingers, George thought he was going to mess his jeans.

Dad elbowed him in the side. "You alright there, son?"

"Yeah," He croaked, blinking as the lights came on.

"She's a smokeshow, huh?"

"I…" George nodded. "I think I'm in love."

Dad snorted. "Listen, son, you gotta shoot for the stars, that's how I got your mum. But well, maybe aim for somewhere in this galaxy, right?"

"She's not of this planet, that's for sure." George muttered.

At his words, though the angel couldn't have heard him, she looked over her bare shoulder. Met his eyes. Gave him a small smile.

Mom was still clapping. "Isn't it great?" She enthused. "Who wants ice cream?"

"I've got to queue at the bar for the wine." Dad said.

"I-I'll get the ice cream." George jumped to his feet and pushed out of the row before they could argue.

He needed a better look at her, to meet her, to know anything about her. But the crowds were thick, and composed almost entirely of old people walking slowly. So when he'd finally got free, and found an ice cream attendant selling overpriced little pots at the back of the rows, he couldn't see a glimpse of that strange silver blonde hair.

He sighed with disappointment. Bought three pots of chocolate ice cream.

But when he turned, he almost tumbled into her.

He stuttered, mouth opened but words not coming out, his eyes coursing over her figure. She was unearthly, long legs, slim waist, bountiful cleavage. "H-hi."

She raised an eyebrow as she dug her pink plastic spoon into her ice cream. She'd gotten it already, somehow — maybe she just wished for it and the heavens granted it.

"Hi."

"I'm uh, um, George."

"Hi, uh, um, George." She sucked a chunk of vanilla off her spoon, making it spotlessly clean as it emerged from the whitest of teeth. "I'm Fleur."

"A-are you enjoying the show?"

She didn't answer, just studying him, like he was an animal in a zoo, while she ate her ice cream. But the vanilla ice cream slipped from the little spoon and landed on the top of her breast.

George stared.

"Whoops," Fleur simpered. "I am clumsy, non?"

"Fleur." Her boyfriend was at her side as she swiped her fallen ice cream with a finger and licked her finger clean.

George hated him. He was wearing glasses. He wasn't even all that. But his hand rested confidently on Fleur's ass, even as he glanced past George, as if he didn't even matter.

"Let's get you something to eat." The man said.

"Okay, 'Arry. Nice meeting you, George." Fleur's eyes dropped to his crotch, to the bulge in his trousers. "Enjoy ze show."

George stood there for a long time, replaying the interaction in his mind. Wondering if he'd made a fool of himself, or if there was something he could have said, to make her walk at his side instead of her stupid boyfriend's.

"Harry." George repeated the name with disdain. "Ugh."

He gave his parents the ice cream, trying to hide the fact he was hard.

"I'm just gonna hit the bathroom." He mumbled.

"It's gonna start soon." Mom frowned.

"I'll be quick." He darted out of the row, past the line of people coming back to their seats, and looked for the bathroom.

Thankfully, it was empty, so he could splash his face with cold water.

He studied himself in the mirror. "Stupid." He muttered.

The door of the cubicle opened. In the mirror, George watched as Fleur stepped out, licking her lips.

She tugged the top of her dress up, startling as she spotted him. But her smile only widened.

"Oh, George." She beamed. "Be careful, oui? Zat ice cream is messy."

Behind her, her boyfriend stepped out. He pulled up his zip.

George stared.

Fleur walked out. Harry patted him on the shoulder as he walked by.

###

The opera ended. The curtains came down. George clapped hard, because even if he hadn't been watching the stage, he'd seen a life-changing show. He could never again be happy with the girls at school, not when he knew there were women like this in the world.

Mum cheered and whistled as the performers bowed. "Did you like it?" She shouted past Dad.

"It was brilliant." George nodded.

Dad snorted. "Yeah, Georgie found it really stimulating."

He flushed red. Dad was never going to let this go, but it was worth it. Just a glimpse of Fleur was worth it. He watched her all the way, as her boyfriend walked her out of the arena.

How did he do it? He palmed her ass, walking her like a toy, while she just herself be man-handled.

Outside of the arena, Mum fretted. "We're never going to get a taxi with all these people."

Dad frowned. "George, we're going to the taxi stand on the other side of the arena. Don't move, okay?"

"Okay." He said blankly. But as soon as they were out of sight, George took off, following the beautiful couple. Fleur's dress glimmered, the stars of her dress sparkling like the stars in the sky.

They glided over the cobbled streets and turned into a dark alley. George followed guiltily, peeking around the corner.

There she was. Her bare leg was raised, trying to wrap around his waist. Both hands clutching his shirt while she mewled and whined, pressing desperate kisses into his collarbone.

"'Arry." She moaned.

"Fleur." He said patiently.

"Come back to my home. Or take me somewhere. Oh, et puis merde, take me in zis alley."

"Fleur."

She raised a threatening finger. "Do not pretend you don't want me, 'arry. C'est impossible."

"It's not a matter of—

She grabbed at his bulging crotch. "Zen you want to play games, non? I can play too."

"Fleur." Harry held her arms firmly. "It's not a matter of your beauty or how much I want you. It's…look, committing to you would…close off certain political paths. Avenues in my life. Other girls don't like you, Fleur." He said simply.

George watched with wide eyes. How could he turn her down?

She huffed. "Because zey cannot compete."

"They can compete in political power. They can become wives, creating voting blocs."

"Putain!" Fleur stomped her foot in frustration.

She whirled around and caught sight of George. "George!"

He gulped and hid himself behind the wall.

"Come 'ere!" She snapped.

He stepped out, red-faced. "I-I'm sorry, I was just looking—"

"Nobody cares." She growled. "You see this?" She pointed at the street, by the bins, where there was a muddy ripped cover of a dirty magazine, the type that George and his friends would search for in the forest behind the school.

The headlines blared up at them. DICK TRICKS TO MAKE YOU SICK.

BIG 'N' BOUNCY - ANNIE BARES ALL.

ZEST-TEST YOUR GIRL.

"Y-yeah."

She crossed her arms. "You've read these magazines before?"

"Y-yes." He admitted slowly.

"What do you find in the pages?"

"Huh?"

She scowled. "What is sexy? What are ze girls wearing?"

"Um, like…underwear—"

"And?"

George trembled. What was happening? "Outfits and stuff."

"Outfits." Fleur said flatly.

"Nurse outfits or like schoolgirl?"

Fleur nodded with satisfaction, turning to Harry. "Keep going."

"Umm…like stockings and like, burlesque stuff?"

"Keep talking."

George stammered. His mind felt like it was caught, a fly in a spider's web. Despite himself, his feet wouldn't move, his lips just kept flapping. "A-and they have like articles from girls talking about…their first um, backdoor stuff."

Fleur caressed Harry's cheek. "Uh-huh."

"O-or like their first threesomes or orgies. Or how to like, tie your girl up."

"I see." Fleur said, not looking away from Harry's eyes. "C'est compris, 'Arry? You understand?"

"Fleur." He said softly.

"Every male fantasy, I can be." She leaned forward to nibble at his earlobe. "You will want for nothing."

Harry said nothing.

She tutted and then finally sighed. "A second date, oui? I 'ave much more to show you. I am not too proud — zere is not a single part of Fleur Delacour that you will not cover in your cum."

She kissed him then, while George watched, a long and sensuous kiss that left her panting.

Then she turned and walked past George, not even looking at him. He heard a pop from behind him, but when he turned back to the hubbub of the main Verona street, she was gone.

Harry coughed politely, adjusting his suit trousers. He made to walk past too.

"C-can I just ask?" George asked desperately, his hand up.

"Huh?"

"Can I ask?" George swallowed. "Your secret, man? What's your secret?"

"My secret?" Harry said blankly.

"Fleur. H-how? I mean like…how?"

Harry laughed and then suddenly became serious. He scratched his nose. "I'm not the best judge of this, but I think, at the end of the day, you have to be able to do three things to get a great girl. You with me?"

George nodded eagerly.

"You have to be able to pay the bills. You have to make them laugh. And then," Harry rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "You have to be able to fuck them, real good."

George stared. "I can't imagine lasting a single second with her."

"Neither can I." Harry joked. "Good luck, mate."

"T-thanks."

"Learn some French, too?"

"French?"

Harry nodded thoughtfully as he walked on by. "French girls, they're really dirty."

George stood there for a long minute before he walked back to the arena, where his parents were waiting with a taxi. Dad was scowling and Mum was shouting at him, but he wasn't really listening.

In the taxi, the city swam by. Street lights illuminating the crowd that left, laughing and joking. It felt like a different world to the one just hours ago.

Mum jabbed at his side. "Still with me, Georgie?

"Huh?"

She smiled at him. "I said, thanks for going to this opera for me. I know it's not your favorite thing, but," She sighed happily. "It was the perfect end to our little Italy getaway."

"It's okay. I liked it."

"Good." She patted his knee. "What about it, Davis clan? Where shall we go for our next holiday?"

George cleared his throat. "Mum, can we go to France?"

###

Harry grimaced, pulling at his tie as he Apparated back into Malfoy Manor. Before he could even loosen it, Narcissa's hands had taken over.

"I told you not to wait up." He grumbled.

Cissy smiled softly as she undid his tie, her large breasts straining from her white pleated babydoll. "As if I wouldn't wait for you, my love. How did it go?" Her hand dropped to his erect cock through his trousers, even as she undressed him.

"Good." Harry took her into his arms, his touch rougher than usual. "She wanted me to take her."

Narcissa rose an eyebrow as he pawed at her. "But she's not ready."

Harry groaned as she stripped him naked, her hand stroking his hard swaying cock. "Not yet. She's still trying to seduce me, to manipulate me. I want her broken, begging."

"So cruel, darling." Narcissa teased, kissing him. "Was she really that bad of a cock tease last year?"

Harry nodded, closing his eyes to enjoy her hands. "She knew exactly what she was doing. It's stupid, I know. But I want her broken and mindless before I make her mine. I want her to know how it feels."

Cissy tutted in appreciation. "You are worked up."

Harry grunted. "She blew me and I'm still ready to fuck the night away. She's the biggest cock tease I've ever seen — I almost caved for her."

"Well…" Narcissa sang. "I did think about that." She led him to their bedroom and opened the door.

Inside, Apolline looked over her shoulder, on her hands and knees on the bed, clad in the smallest, tightest, Beauxbatons uniform. Her blue skirt didn't cover her panties, her thighs bulged from the top of her stockings, and her tits spilled from her white blouse. A Beauxbatons blue tie sat between two large creamy breasts.

Harry gritted his teeth. She looked like Fleur — a fuckable, submissive, full-figured Fleur, his to use all night.

Apolline blinked long eyelashes and tittered coquettishly. "Oh, 'Arry, I've lost my wand. Do you 'ave one I can use?"

Harry growled.

Narcissa kissed his cheek, smiling broadly. "Enjoy, my love. You deserve this. I'll send more girls in as you need them."

###

In the past, Harry wandered. He was giving Bellatrix a few days to think through his show of power, as well as buying himself some time to figure out how to create a Whorecrux without murdering. Hermione's proposed invention of a Whorecrux, as he'd come to term it, had changed everything. He could conquer a woman here, without changing the future. He could seal her bond into an object and if needed, break it into the future.

It was a solution which still had issues. He'd have to seal their bond into an object on the first time he bonded them, which meant that he couldn't create a proper relationship without creating big changes to the timeline.

But it made every woman he saw here look like an opportunity.

He hungered.

At the Ministry, he watched the gossiping friends of his mother. Lily hung about with two beautiful women, meeting up for lunch in their work break.

One, Mary McDonald, a sweet little black-haired Scotswoman, her smile impish as she teased Lily, her long patchwork plaid skirt twirling.

The second was Alice Longbottom, the round-faced brunette an undeniable cutie in her high-waisted jeans and checked blazer. Eighties fashion still wasn't for him, but Alice had a thick tight bottom that her jeans cradled.

Neville's mother was an absolute no-go, Harry told himself. A violation of the bro code, not a step over it but a massive leap. To seduce a married woman and fuck her while Neville-the-baby cooed in the other room? It was morally unacceptable.

Except…Harry told himself, in the event that it might heal her. In the future, Alice suffered from a broken mind, thanks to the Cruciatus Curse. She was deemed insane. But, he thought, with a surge of memories and the bond from an opened Whorecrux, it might rejuvenate her brain, give her something to center herself on. Him, namely.

Would Neville forgive him if he returned his mother to health?

Harry bit his lip. He knew now why Dumbledore always spoke of the greater good — it was the ultimate justification for all sins.

He shouldn't, he told himself.

The thought of Neville made him Apparate to St Mungo's Hospital, because everyone came here, one day or another. It was a good place to people-watch, so he set up on the bench outside the main entrance.

Harry watched as his future classmates were born. Mothers cradling huge stomachs waddled in. Tired or crying mothers came out holding babies. Some came back with their babies, getting check-ups.

Harry shifted, feeling somewhat guilty. There was Peter Greengrass, hand-in-hand with Cynthia — she was stunning, Daphne's grace and pureblood pose attached to an ass that Harry knew Daphne had gotten from her mother.

He shouldn't.

A beautiful Chinese woman cradled a young baby Cho, who sucked on a pacifier as her mother argued angrily with her cold husband. Cho's mum was so slim it looked like she'd never been pregnant, wearing a red-and-white cheongsam, so elegant it looked like she was at a wedding rather than a hospital.

Harry hummed.

If Cho wouldn't spread her legs without a ring on her finger, maybe her mother could change her mind.

He shouldn't. Not one of them, not any of them. It wasn't just sex. They were power-increases, an army created in the past that, thanks to the Whorecruxes, could be unlocked in the future. Mothers and daughters, fighting alongside each other.

He shouldn't.

There were other things he could do, in the past. Even without dramatically affecting the future, he could create a list of names and locations of Tom's growing base of Death Eaters.

He could check on the locations and security precautions of Tom's horcruxes, weakening them for future-Harry to take.

He could explore the world, find international magics, visit Tom's tutors that had since passed away.

He could plant seeds that would bloom in twenty years.

Cho spat out her pacifier. Cho's mother sighed and bent over to pick it up.

Harry stared. He wasn't proud of it, but Tom and Harry both always liked a challenge.

And what more of a challenge was there than the married mothers of his classmates?

###

Amelia groaned as she kicked off her heels and collapsed onto her bed. The Ministry was as exhausting as ever, even if she had the head-start of knowing roughly what her days would bring, even if she'd done this job before.

It would be worth it, to make Britain into Great Britain. For the greater good.

She stared up at the ceiling, still clad in only her work clothes, blazer, blouse and skirt. Her feet ached.

For a second, she considered sending him a message.

Harry. He could rub her feet, her back, and go from there.

But not yet — she couldn't trust him. He had his own motives, certainly, just like Susan had set. Still, she was glad he was here. And, Amelia considered, she could trust him more now she was in this body.

She had something to offer him, something to control him with. She ran her fingers over her breasts, taking a sharp breath as her nipples hardened.

Amelia hummed. Had she always been so sensitive?

She smirked to herself. Young people never appreciated what they had until it was gone. She was so horny all of the time, now.

She'd forgotten what it was it like to be so young, so limber, so…charged. She bit her lip, spreading her legs, shifting her panties to one side. With a mutter, her wand began vibrating.

It felt good. Soon, she'd run herself a bath, make herself some food. But for now, she let herself enjoy the thoughts of Harry. She wanted to ride him, to tighten her grip in his black locks while she worked her frustrations out. She wanted him to worship her heavy breasts while she ground on him.

When he was ready. Harry would need the carrot, before he could give her his stick.

She'd need to make sure he was well trained, before she let him take her. Men needed proper guidance.

She worked herself quickly and then rolled her hips, letting out a cry as she came.

Amelia cleaned herself, straightened her skirt, patted her face clean with a wet wash cloth.

"Food." She told herself firmly. She climbed down the steps into the basement. Frozen food would have to do the trick — she didn't want the house elves to see any of her secrets.

In the basement, the two freezers whistled. She'd need to reapply the charms, soon.

Amelia shivered suddenly — the cold had made her nipples harden.

"Stupid body." She murmured.

Her need to work her frustrations out were increasing. She'd had to dip into the Ministry bathroom at lunch time, just to clear her head.

For a moment, she wondered if she was going mad.

She snorted. An old woman in a young body — who could blame her?

What a gift she'd been given. Everyone knew about the dangers of time, but she had a unique opportunity to sidestep them.

Harry warned her, fretted about it — even now, she suspected he was just going along with her plan so he could waylay her. But the dangers of time were overstated, she was sure.

People went mad when their past selves saw their time-travelling self, but Amelia didn't have a past self.

She opened the freezer on the left. A pale face stared back at her, green and lifeless. Her own eyes.

Yes, she didn't have a past self.

She'd taken care of that.

For the greater good.

Notes:
Amelia is mad, Fleur's horny and Harry's living his best life. But he may not be able to stay under the radar when the Daily Prophet next releases...and Voldie's sniffing trouble too. Next chapter next Friday - and Harry's secrets are coming into the limelight.

Want to read Fleur's plan to get herself laid, see new saucy artwork of Daphne, and read a few chaps ahead, along with exclusive salacious artwork of Susan, Hermione, Fleur and more from this story, as well as fun little sexy story scenes? Check my Linktree below.

Chapter 43 Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text Fleur yawned as she picked at her breakfast. Her black coffee hadn't woken her up, and even her usual breakfast tray of bread, jams and fresh fruit wasn't giving her any energy.

Marie snorted as she gracefully slunk into the chair beside her, startling Fleur from her daze. The hall of Beauxbatons was busy now, abuzz with students tucking into their breakfast.

"What's funny?" Fleur glared.

"You look tired." Marie noted, stealing her uneaten yogurt.

"I'm fine." Fleur dismissed.

Her best friend snatched her wrist as she reached for another slice of the fresh baguette, examining her fingers. "Pruned fingers."

Fleur blushed. Thoughts of Harry had kept her awake all night. "I spent too long in the bath."

"Sure you did." The brunette girl mocked. "So, how did it go?"

"How did what go?" She replied casually.

"The latest in your attempts to steal my boyfriend away."

Fleur flinched, gaze snapping to her friends. "I'm—I mean, I didn't, I don't—"

Marie rolled her eyes. "Relax, mon ange." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I let you clean me after he takes me, did you think I didn't know you'd go for more."

She felt her face redden. She should have known her best friend would see straight through her.

Marie continued. "You once brought a team of stylists to school because that older boy complimented me instead of you, remember?"

Fleur ran her hand through her hair at the memory. She had been angry. She grasped for Marie's hand. "Am I an awful friend?"

"Oui." Marie squeezed her hand, bumping her shoulder. "But you're the best I've got, so it's okay." Her smile was teasing. "And I was never going to be the only one in Harry's bed anyway, non?"

Fleur sighed in relief. She couldn't lose her best friend, her Marie.

"So, how did it go?"

"'Arry is infuriating." The Veela girl tugged her hair hard. "Intoxicating, certainement. Powerful."

Marie looked at her knowingly. "Did you stay strong? Did you make him work for it?"

Fleur blushed, wrapping her hair around her face, so it would hide her. She peeked out between strands. "I…gave him une pipe in ze toilettes."

"Fleur!"

She winced. "And I let him touch me for ze 'ole show…"

"And?"

"And I licked his fingers."

Marie threw her head back laughing. "That sounds like Harry. He doesn't do traditional romance." She leaned closer conspiratorially. "Last time I was on my knees, there was another girl's lipstick on his cock."

"Non!"

Marie nodded. "And he told me he wanted to go deeper than the ring of lipstick."

Fleur choked. "Putain!" She shivered, just imagining it. Harry was so dominant.

Her best friend blushed. "But after, he gave me some paper roses, and he had written the lines from these poems I told him about, all across the petals." She sighed. "It was so sweet, I could not breathe. Je suis amoureux." She admitted.

"It is weird, non?" Fleur dropped her hand under the table, to grasp her friend's knee. "That we both…perform on the same man?"

Marie shrugged. "Wizards of power…you are Veela, you know this."

"I do."

"But it's not love for you."

Fleur bit her lip. "Non. But I cannot deny how I yearn for him, how I think of him always. Your silly poetry has meaning, now."

Marie squeezed her knee. "I'm happy for you." She raised her eyebrow. "So he didn't take you home and pound you like a prostituée Parisienne."

Fleur sniffed. "He says that I would close off political paths for him, zat other girls don't like me."

"Non!" Marie cackled, spewing some of her juice from her lips. "Can you imagine?"

Fleur glared, even as girls passed by their table and scowled at her. "I am very likable."

"You are." She wiped at her wet eyes. "Désolée."

The Delacour daughter clenched her jaw. "I 'ave a second date." She said proudly. "I will show a new side to myself."

Marie looked at her skeptically. "What did you do on the first date?"

"I took him to ze opera in Verona, to show I could be his trophy." She pulled her hair around her shoulder, looking around at the other Beauxbatons girls, all inferior. "Zat in the highest clouds, highest classes, I would still be a shining jewel." She struggled to find the English word — Marie had insisted they converse in English regularly, now she was dating Harry. "Elégante, oui?"

"Very élégante to suck him in the toilettes." Marie teased.

Fleur harrumphed. "He needed me. It worked, pas de problème. The men barely saw the stage. The women drew blood with their nails in the skin." She smirked. "A Non–magique boy will think of me until he dies."

"What will you do on the second date?"

She stroked her chin, idly tugging her tank-top down to show more of her cleavage to a gawping boy across the hall. "I will show zat I can be la fille d'à côté."

"The girl next door?" Marie raised her eyebrow.

"Oui." Fleur said confidently. "We will visit 'Arry's friends. His boys already want to fuck me, but I will show him zat I can befriend them. 'Arry will feel like a king, with a girlfriend zat everyone wants but only he has."

"That could work." Marie conceded.

"It will work. And," Fleur exhaled a heavy breath. "I will do ze hardest thing. I will make his girl friends like me."

Marie choked, snatching a glass of water to stop her coughs. "Good luck!" She spluttered.

Fleur eyed her friend with irritation. "I can make girls like me." She received a disbelieving look.

"There was a girl last year who tried to stab you while you slept."

She toyed with her silvery hair innocently. "My skirt was tucked into my panties when I left ze toilettes, it could 'appen to any girl, non? It's not my fault her boyfriend fell in love with me from just seeing my derriere." She scoffed.

Marie shook her head. "Our Quidditch instructor tried to curse your broomstick, Fleur. She was trying to kill you."

Fleur shrugged. "I did not know ze stable boy was her boyfriend. I just let him watch while I changed into my jodhpurs to ride ze Abraxan. He was ze pervert!"

Marie stared at her incredulously. "You stripped naked to get changed."

"I 'ad to lotion my dry skin!"

"Everyone else wears robes to ride."

"I am not everyone." Fleur said proudly. "Du coup." She fluffed her hair larger — that bitch Camille was watching her and Fleur knew the girl was insecure about her thin hair. "You should not victim blame."

"What about those three girls from the year below?"

"Huh?" Fleur examined her fingernails. One of them had chipped — she hoped it hadn't got stuck in her pussy. She had been rather vigorous last night.

And this morning.

"They were found brewing a potion that would make you cough your lungs up." Marie hissed.

Fleur blushed. "Zat was my fault, but they were mean to Gabby when she visited." She pointed her finger at Marie. "You were involved too!"

Marie scoffed. "You said we were going to bathe together, I didn't know you'd invited their boyfriends to watch!"

She bit her lip. "I should 'ave stopped there and not given them photos too."

"Wait, what?"

Fleur waved her hand dismissively. "Je m'en fou. These girls do not like me because they zink their men will leave them for me—"

"They did leave them for you—"

"But 'Arry is too strong-willed for zat." She nodded to herself. "He would not leave you for me, par exemple. He would just have us both."

Marie shivered. "Don't say it like that. Your fingers are already pruned." But under the table, her hand crept up Fleur's stockings, onto her bare thigh.

Fleur checked the clock in the hall. "But yours are not."

"We'll be late for class." Marie argued.

"It's just Potions, non?"

Marie licked her lips. "I'll meet you in the toilettes."

Fleur leaned to whisper into her friend's ear, making sure she blew a hot breath that vibrated through Marie's body. "S'il te plaît, put a finger dans le derriere? I need to be ready for 'Arry, if he wants to."

Marie looked at her, open-mouthed. "You'll need a fist to be ready for him, but if that's what you want…"

Fleur hugged her friend's arm, giddy all of a sudden. "Do not worry, mon ange. I will eat your pussy like a starving woman." Across the hall, a boy dropped his whole plate.

"You did that on purpose."

"Did what?" Fleur said cheekily. "From now on, Fleur Delacour will be ze greatest of friends, oui?"

"Fleur Delacour should stop talking about herself in the third person."

"And in return," Fleur sidled up closer. "You will ensure I am 'Arry's only blonde bombshell girl." She patted her arm. "You shall be his brunette and I shall be his blonde and together we will live." Fleur nodded to herself happily.

Marie smiled hesitantly, even as she nodded. But her eyes were on the owls that flew in, and the newspaper that dropped alongside their baguette.

She unrolled her copy of The Daily Prophet — Marie had insisted on paying for the expensive international subscription once she was with Harry.

Marie's smile flickered. "Uh, Fleur, you should see this."

###

Astoria hummed to herself thoughtfully, ignoring the way her classmates looked at her. Loud humming, stealing way too much of the bacon, her feet tapping on the stone hall floor — it didn't matter how annoying she was, when your sister was Daphne Greengrass, and when your family was protected by Harry Potter.

She was almost untouchable, and she wasn't afraid to play some games now she had the leverage. The Sorting Hat had put her in Slytherin for a reason, after all.

Everything always went her way, with a push or two.

She had to hum, anyway — she had a lot to think about. She'd dropped in to see Mother in the morning, taking advantage of the Healer's Note she'd manipulated Madam Pomfrey into giving her. "I…I need to see Mummy about my body, now I'm becoming a woman." She'd blubbered, and the older woman had fallen for it easily.

Now, Tori could Floo home whenever she wanted, which was mostly whenever she wanted Mother and Father to buy her something. It was fun, sometimes, being the younger sister.

This morning, though, Mother had barely noticed Tori. She was humming happily, flicking through fashion magazines, writing letters to handymen and gardeners, blathering about relandscaping their garden or the cost of gazebos.

Tori knew there was only one thing that could make Mother this happy.

Marriage.

And Tori wasn't getting married, not this young, not before Daphne. Which meant they'd signed a betrothal agreement for Daphne…and the only eligible bachelor who'd come to dinner recently, the man that made Daphne act all weird, the man that had saved their whole family, was Harry Potter.

Daddy was working on the Potter accounts. Mother was planning on rejuvenating the Greengrass gardens.

Daphne was getting married.

Only, Tori realized, her older sis didn't seem to know it. That wasn't uncommon — Daphne wasn't one for a traditional romance, and Harry probably didn't want to sour his attempts by letting her know that he'd already given their book an ending.

But…he also couldn't let her go. Tori sighed happily. That was so romantic.

Harry would be the perfect addition to the family — and the most powerful foundation to ensure Tori could continue being the spoiled brat for years to come.

Next to her, Tracey stabbed her fork into her bacon, glaring at the Gryffindor table as she did most days.

Tori frowned at her. If Harry was going to be family, that meant family protection had to go both ways. Tori loved Tracey, but she wasn't family. So if Tracey had a problem with Harry…

It might be up to Tori to snip away her sister's sweet sapphic relationship before it became a real problem. Tracey's love for big sis was adorable, but not if it came between the marriage that would solidify the Greengrass family for generations to come.

Astoria cleared her throat. "Mother says hi, by the way. I saw her before breakfast."

Tracey turned away from boring holes into Harry's skull. "Oh, how is Auntie? I haven't seen her in ages." She let her auburn hair fall over her face. "I miss practically living at your house for half of summer."

"All things change, I suppose." Tori said lightly. "But she's good. Glowing, actually. She's ordering things by the dozen. Chairs, tables, gazebos, tablecloth, buffet tables."

Tracey stared down at her plate, barely listening. "Oh? She's planning the next Greengrass summer social already?"

Tori stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "She's ordering everything in white."

"That'll look nice."

The youngest Greengrass daughter pinched the bridge of her nose. Tracey wasn't usually this dense. "I've never seen her this happy, maybe Father signed a big deal."

Tracey's head snapped around. "What sort of deal?"

She shrugged. "Maybe they signed some sort of pre-agreement for Daphne. She's at that age."

Tracey's jaw cycled open and closed. "B-but they'd tell her first, wouldn't they?"

"I'm sure they would." Astoria smiled reassuringly. "Daphne would be furious if they made a betrothal agreement without telling her, wouldn't she?"

"Of course she would, she wouldn't sign anything without telling me—"

"Then it can't be that." Tori agreed.

"It can't be." Tracey stewed, crossing her arms. "Unless…oh, that fucker." She muttered. "He thinks he can take her away from me, he thinks he can just throw his money around and make her his wife."

"Huh?"

"He's gone over her head, made a deal with your parents." She shook her head. "Over my dead body." Her fork clattered to her plate. "Over my dead body." She repeated.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." Tracey grabbed her napkin and wiped her mouth, then tossed it aside. "I'll take care of this."

Tori put her hand on her arm. "Don't do anything stupid, Trace."

"I won't." She stood up suddenly as Daphne arrived for breakfast. Tori watched as the auburn-haired girl marched past her confused sister.

Daphne sat down, rubbing her bleary eyes. "What's she mad about?"

Tori shrugged. "No clue." She smiled to herself. Tracey would take a shot at Harry, who'd smack her down, leaving the girl with no illusions as to her ability to keep Daphne all to herself.

It was better this way — Tracey would be too mad to plan anything smart, and Harry was too powerful to be hurt by her. She hoped Harry wouldn't hurt Tracey too badly, but golden hero Harry would never do that.

Tori nodded to herself, sipping her pumpkin juice noisily, ignoring the glares of her classmates.

Everything always went her way, with a push or two.

###

Harry felt Hermione's hand stilling his bouncing knee. He was nervous, which was unusual. The Great Hall was buzzing with the sounds of breakfast, every bench full, every table chatting away.

There was a lot to talk about — was Harry the hero or the villain of the Ministry attack? Who would replace Amelia Bones in the delayed election? Would the Ministry crumble away?

But he knew that the morning's paper, when it arrived, would turn the buzz into a mania. Rita had owled ahead to warn him. Today was the day.

He could barely eat his toast.

"…all I'm saying is," Ron shook his piece of toast threateningly. "Malfoy's not half the seeker Harry is, and their team is only competing because of brooms and Beaters. We miss Fred and George. Next year, our Beaters will be a year more experienced, we're going to crush them. Maybe we'll even get better brooms."

Neville wrinkled his nose. "Malfoy will just buy his team the newest ones."

Ron scoffed. "Now Daddy's gone? They'll be tightening their belts. I wouldn't be surprised if that whole family falls away."

Neville shook his head. "Noble Houses never fall away, as much as I hate to say it. They're too big. Narcissa Malfoy is the queen of high society, she'll keep them at the right dinner tables."

Dean gulped down his pumpkin juice. "No idea what high society you guys are on about, but I'd like to see her bent over a dinner table. She is gorgeous, even if she does look at you like she can't believe you're allowed to breathe the same air. She bumped into me before the train last year, and I apologized to her!"

Harry stayed silent as Hermione used her thumb to circle his hand under the table.

The owls were flying through the window.

The papers dropped.

Every hand reached out to take it.

Harry winced as he saw the front cover. The photo of him and Cissy. Narcissa wore a small white dress that showed plenty of skin, her head tilted up to gaze at him lovingly, while he stared at the camera firmly, his arm wrapped around her waist.

Rita had said she must have a photoshoot to convince people. On the cover, Narcissa reached up to stroke his jaw, a choker of red and gold around her neck. The Potter colors. Harry's House Ring was on the finger of the hand that tightened possessively over her waist.

The headline was loud. POTTER MISTRESS NARCISSA MALFOY: HOW LORD POTTER HELPED ME GRIEVE AND I LEARNED TO LOVE AGAIN

Underneath that, the sub-headline advertised an exclusive twelve page insert. Interviews with Narcissa and Lord Potter, the guilt she felt on losing her abusive husband, how Harry told her of Lucius Malfoy's death months ago and protected her health and estate.

Little enticing quotes ran along the left of the front cover — Rita had gone all out.

HARRY: She Is The Guide I Needed Since I Lost My Mother.

NARCISSA: I Will Follow The Lead Of Any Wives He Finds.

THE INTERVIEW YOU HAVE TO READ TO BELIEVE — "He Taught Me What Real Love Was, Inside The Bedroom And Out"

MISTRESSES - The SORDID truth and the SILENT advisors — The Hidden SEXY Side Of Pureblood Families

HARRY: What I Say Goes. She Won't Change My Values.

THE PHOTOSHOOT — NARCISSA BLOWS MINDS, HARRY BREAKS HEARTS

The hall exploded, but even over the sound, Ron's yell of "Holy shit!" resounded around the room.

"Harry, you sly dog!" Dean gasped.

"Fuck me sideways." Seamus shook his head. "You are a secretive bastard, Harry, there's never a dull day."

Ginny looked sick.

Ron scrunched his hair up, his eyes wide. "Is it true, Harry? Are you really banging Malfoy's mum?"

Harry smiled uncomfortably. "The article is true."

At the High Table, Dumbledore was patting his beard clean of the coffee he'd choked out, while Professor McGonagall was shaking her head. Snape looked like he'd taken a bite of something rotten.

Neville's fingers traced across the cover photo, the boy struck silent.

Across the hall, the Slytherin table was in uproar. Daphne was reading the article closely, using the papers to hide her face. But all eyes were on a shocked and pallid Draco, who was staring, unmoving, at the cover of the Prophet.

His cup of tea spilled over his lap. Pansy was trying to say something to him, but he wasn't moving. Finally, Goyle splashed him with a glass of water.

Only then Draco look around, his face reddening. He stood up but he couldn't look over at the Gryffindor table, couldn't meet Harry's eyes — he ran out of the Great Hall.

Ron was rocking back and forth. "This is the best day ever. You're fucking Draco's mum."

"Language, Ron." Hermione chided.

Ron looked at her, bewildered. "Language? You don't have anything to say? Harry's with Narcissa Malfoy."

Hermione shrugged. "I hope that her…neediness doesn't affect your grades, Harry."

Ron goggled.

Across the hall, Harry could feel girls watching him speculatively.

Narcissa had told him that they'd think this was good news. They'd be glad to see someone so experienced would be able to manage the House, so that they, as the wives, could focus more on the prestige of the position and lollygagging at endlses parties. And, if Narcissa Malfoy herself was willing to be his mistress, what did that say about his value as a partner?

Cho was eying him up. Susan looked taken aback. Even Pansy Parkinson was staring at him.

Neville clinked his glass of pumpkin juice against Harry's. "I hope that you won't let her change you, Harry. I don't mean any disrespect, and I'll always have your back, but I don't trust anyone from that family."

Harry smiled at him ruefully. He thought about the last he'd seen Narcissa — stretched out over Apolline's well-fucked and passed out body, looking over her shoulder as her babydoll rose up over her bubblelicious behind. "My love, would you like me to clean up or…aren't you finished?" She'd asked seductively, arching her ass up.

"Don't worry." Harry told Neville. "She's had…quite a change of heart."

###

Tracey stepped out behind the statue as Draco walked closer. The boy looked tired, his eyes puffy, hair messy, tie askew.

"Not now, Tracey." He mumbled.

"It has to be now, Draco." Tracey said firmly. "We have a common enemy, so we need to talk."

Malfoy scowled at her. "We have an enemy we can't touch, you fool. He fights the Dark Lord. Are you a Dark Lord? No, you're a fucking half-blood and he's a fucking monster."

Tracey smirked at him. He was angry — that was where she wanted him. "Monsters still have to sleep, Malfoy. He's right here, in this school, in the same classrooms, in the same bedroom. He walks these same corridors. He eats the meals we do, drinks the same juice."

"What's your point?" He snapped.

"There will never be a better opportunity that right here, right now. The Dark Lord doesn't attack him because the Dark Lord isn't his schoolmate. We are."

Draco looked queasy, shaking his head. "I'm not looking to die like my father. You got us to attack him once and he made us look like fools."

Tracey nodded. "We didn't know what he was capable of, then. We'll have to be sneaky, we can't duel him. But I have a plan—"

Draco paused, running his hand through his hair. "I can't…there's no beating him."

Tracy sneered. "Then you'll submit, just like her mother. Where do you think he goes, at lunch times? Do you think she sucks him off while he eats the meal she prepared—"

"Shut the fuck up, Tracey—"

"Do you think he coats her face?"

Draco growled, pulling out a wand that shook in his hand. "Tracey, I swear to Merlin—"

Tracey held her defenseless hands up. "I'm just saying, Malfoy. She chose to bend over rather than fight. At the next big social, when the men go into the Smoking Room for cigars after dinner and the wives stay outside. The men always bring their Mistresses in, right? You know what happens in those rooms, don't you? It's a show-off, it's a status thing. Everyone will see her."

Draco looked like he was going to be sick. "Stop it, stop talking." He took heavy breaths. "Okay…what-what did you have in mind?"

###

"Cockroach Clusters." Harry told the stone gargoyle, waiting patiently as it moved aside.

Inside the Headmaster's office, Dumbledore waited with two cups of steaming tea.

Fawkes chirped happily at the sight of him, his scarlet feathers glowing faintly in the dreary gray of the winter day.

"Harry, my boy, thank you for coming to see me."

He shrugged. "I'm sure you're concerned, Professor. I wouldn't want you to worry."

The Headmaster's eyes twinkled, even as he looked sheepish. "I have prided myself on seeing the best in everyone, Harry. But over the years, Narcissa Malfoy has made that difficult."

"I can appreciate that." Harry stirred his tea. "I had plenty of reservations too, at the beginning. But when I heard of Lucius' passing, it was appropriate pureblood etiquette to inform her."

"And?" Dumbledore said skeptically.

"And," Harry sipped his tea to hide his face as he thought back to their first encounter, making her dress up for him in her finest lingerie so he could make love to her. He'd filled her so fully her stomach bulged with his cock and seed. "I found a woman unlike my expectations."

"Oh?"

"In a…changed environment, set free from Lucius, she is kind, intelligent, warm." Harry pondered. The other night, while he'd slept next to the sticky form of her debased daughter, Cissy had crept in to place Chocolate Frogs next to the bedside table, in case he woke up hungry. "She's very thoughtful." Harry finished.

"I'm merely worried about her effect on you. She might encourage your…less compassionate side, should it even exist, my boy."

Harry coughed. Cissy had encouraged him to throat-fuck Apolline while the Veela slept, which wasn't very nice. "Rest assured, it is I who affect her, bringing out the lighter side of her. She's helping me rebuild House Potter, and I need her guiding hand."

"It's an admirable goal." Dumbledore admitted. "I…it is not my place. I am trying to stay out of things. I still see the young you, I still see you as the baby in Lily's arms. But I have to say, Harry, that I'm not sure that this…arrangement is what James and Lily would have wanted."

Harry didn't take offense. It was true, after all. "I'm sure they wouldn't. But they would have wanted me to bring House Potter back to strength. For centuries, we stood as a bastion of Britain's magic and power, a symbol too, before the Boy-Who-Lived was even coined as a term. I have to bring it back and to do that, I need a…"

"A learned hand?" Dumbledore suggested.

"I like that."

"It is her whispering tongue that worries me."

Harry laughed. "She's not going to turn me dark, Professor. You know me better than that. The real benefit is that she'll give me a seat at the table with those that would rather shovel dragon dung than be seen with you, Professor."

The Headmaster chortled, adjusting his spectacles. "There is a large element of society who could be talked round, I suppose. I have failed, at times, in reconciling with the more conservative faces."

"Narcissa will get me in the room with them, at the very least."

Dumbledore held his hands up. "Then, my boy, I shall submit to your greater wisdom."

"It was you who showed me that everyone deserves a second chance, Professor, so your wisdom informs my own."

Dumbledore sighed. "Spoken like an adult. The curse of teaching, Harry, is that all your students grow up so fast."

"And use your lessons to walk on different paths." Harry nudged.

The old man looked a little embarrassed. "I admit that I'd hoped you'd romance a light family, with a good girl to fatten you up, like Miss Weasley."

"I'm eating plenty, Professor." Narcissa had even fed him a sandwich while he pumped into Helena, recently, holding her daughter's legs up and wide while he ate. Harry had given her something to eat too.

"It's not my place—"

"As you keep saying—"

"But when I hear of stories like Miss Delacour coming to Hogwarts libary in order to see you…" Dumbledore shook his head. "There are a lot of temptations out there, Harry, and there are unknown powers behind each of them. A pincer behind every treasure."

"I know." Harry agreed, amused. Fleur was trouble even if she wasn't, as Dumbledore thought, being egged on by the manipulative Veela Court. "But when you were a boy, ten centuries ago—"

"It was only five, thank you." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.

"Would you have foregone such temptation?"

Dumbledore peered sternly over his half-moon glasses. "You will not tempt me, as I know you want to do, to discuss the attractive merits of Miss Delacour, no matter how good a story it will make when you retell it in The Three Broomsticks."

"Guilty—"

"But I can imagine why a teenage boy would be attracted to a woman, yes."

Harry tilted his head. "Am I still a boy?"

The Headmaster sighed. "You could be fifty years old and still be a boy to me, Harry. That is the curse of old age."

"And I will always think of you as old." Harry raised his tea in cheers.

"You were less impudent when you were younger." Dumbledore chided him, but he was smiling.

"Narcissa is corrupting me already."

They sipped their tea in unison.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there." The Headmaster said suddenly. "At the Ministry." He looked out of the window, his smile wry but bitter. "Too many hats, as people keep telling me. I am in too many places wearing too many hats."

Harry shrugged. "It is what it is. Tom planned it that way. But we need to stick together when next he attacks. Together, we can kill him."

"Yes." Dumbledore said, but he didn't meet his eyes.

Harry studied him. The old man had many secrets, but there was one that rankled. "The prophecy was revealed to Voldemort and I both, at the Ministry."

Dumbledore looked pained, every bit his age. "I'd feared as much."

"You didn't tell me, but you knew."

He looked tired. "I did. You heard the full prophecy?"

"Yes."

Dumbledore joined his hands and looked directly at Harry. "Can you forgive me? Can you forgive me for not trusting you? I feared…I feared so much."

"You should have told me. Trained me."

"I'd hoped I could give you a childhood. I thought I owed that to James and Lily."

Harry hesitated. He wanted to believe the best in the Headmaster, but experience told him differently. Tom's and Harry's both. "Is there anything else you aren't telling me?"

Harry knew Dumbledore knew of the horcruxes, that he suspected Tom had created them. How else could Tom have revived himself?

But why did the Headmaster hide it?

"I'm telling you everything I knew for certain." Dumbledore told him simply.

Harry couldn't trust him, because behind the twinkles, there was so many secrets. Fawkes chirped.

"We'll be stronger together, next we fight." Harry let his tea cup clatter down on the saucer. "I'd like to fight with a wand I can trust, side by side with the greatest wizard of our time."

Dumbledore gave him a proud smile, his gaze wistful. "I'd like that. I'd like to fight by your side before I reach the next great adventure."

"But you know," Harry looked to the window, to the lake and the mountains beyond. "The world I make with my power won't be the world you seek. I want rights for Muggleborns, for minorities, for goblins and centaurs and everyone else, but the noble houses are important to me too."

"Purity of blood matters not at all, Harry." Dumbledore frowned. "You know this. It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."

"I know that. I also know that Houses, pureblood Houses, they can be the power that changes society, where the Ministry fails. Amelia believed in institutions and so do I. I think my House and others are institutions of genuine power."

Dumbledore looked at him, baffled. "Institutions that should do what?"

"My House alone can sponsor a whole class of Muggleborns into Hogwarts. My House alone can source potion reagents Britain doesn't have. My House, alone, can shelter, fund and employ a dozen Muggleborns when they leave Hogwarts."

"Your support comes with many stipulations, my boy." Dumbledore said sourly. "The practice of Muggleborn researchers working for Pureblood houses is…rife with problems."

"It's not perfect, but power is never perfect."

Dumbledore sighed, looking up at the portraits that decorated his walls. "On that much, we can agree. I had hoped that education would ensure that Muggleborns and half-bloods were just as capable as any noble student, and change would come from that."

"It has, and it will."

"Has it? Miss Granger is attached to your House, isn't she? She is the brightest of the year."

"And she'll be the brains behind the most powerful House. These institutions are to be worked with, Professor. When war comes for all of us, the noble Houses will stand together. Dragon-hide clothing for every wizard that fights. Funding for the hospital. The best brooms for the Aurors." Harry stood up abruptly, marching to the window, to look out over the Hogwarts green and blue.

"You don't know…" He lost himself in Tom's memories, of all the Death Eaters he'd recruited. "You don't know how much of Tom's allure is by promising riches, employment, freedom. His greatest tool is a struggling economy."

Dumbledore stood too, his chair screeching on the floor. "How do you know how Tom recruits?" He said seriously. "How do you have such power, Harry? Will you tell me?"

Harry turned to him, his face solemn. "I won't."

"Is it the power he knows not?"

"Perhaps. And it's safer with me, because I know you hold secrets too."

Dumbledore's hands set upon his desk, his magic aura vibrating. "And as long as we both hold secrets from the other, we cannot stand side by side, two great minds and two great wands."

"But we will anyway, when it matters, because we share a common enemy." Harry told him.

"I hope we always will." Dumbledore said, lines of worry etching his forehead. "Before power ever came to you, you already held the greatest courage and the most true of hearts, my boy. Don't lose it, please. Surround yourself with good hearts, like Miss Granger."

"And Fleur Delacour?" Harry jabbed playfully, his eyes squinting.

Dumbledore laughed, the tension from the room punctured. "Perhaps. I have spent my life alone, because my ideal of good was too narrow."

"I'm finding the good in people that have been written off, giving them their redemption, the way you taught me. Like you did with Snape."

Like I'm doing with Bellatrix in a way, he thought to himself.

"Professor Snape, Harry."

"On that, we'll have to disagree." He said cheekily.

"I had hoped your newfound maturity would extend to Snape."

"No, I still think he should fall asleep in a bathtub." Harry admitted.

"Harry!"

"But I won't criticize your redemption projects if you don't mine."

Dumbledore shook his head. "I see now that you've led this conversation masterfully to your conclusion. It is less amusing, being on the other end."

"In my defense, I was only improvising."

"In my defense, I still see the boy in you, who needs many lessons still."

"The boy in me would spend the whole Christmas break in Fleur's manor in France, and probably the term too." Harry grinned. "It's the man in me that realizes I have responsibilities."

Dumbledore watched him as he stroked Fawkes' plumage. "Whatever your power he knows not is, I'm grateful that it has matured you as well as empowered you. Will you be here for Christmas break? The castle will be more lonely than ever, this year."

Harry paused. "I'll be here, some of the time. I have some people to visit."

In truth, he was planning on spending Christmas being balls deep in as many girls as he could. Maybe he could break Fleur in time for Christmas Day. Cissy had promised him a Christmas to remember, regardless.

"I'd like some socks, if you're buying. If you now have the Potter and Malfoy fortunes, perhaps you could spring for the finest silk, or bamboo." Dumbledore said innocently.

Harry snorted. "I'll see what I can do. I owe you for my first real Christmas — the cloak was the greatest gift ever."

"In retrospect," The Headmaster stroked his chin. "I should not have gifted an Invisibility Cloak to a young boy, even if it was yours by right. You haven't misused it, have you? In my old age, I'd forgotten these teenage years are a tempestuous time for girls and boys."

Harry looked at him with an chaste smile. He had spent the last few weeks tormenting Daphne. Catching her masturbating on her bed sometimes. Wanking himself off into her panties. Shrinking her whole wardrobe. Perving on her while she showered, if only because she was so beautiful when she was angry.

"Don't worry, Professor. I haven't done anything my father would disapprove of."

"An admirable deflection. Good afternoon, Harry."

"Good afternoon, Headmaster."

###

Voldemort had not visited Spain in a long time. He had forgotten what it was like to live here, the cycles of sleepy hours hiding from the sun and the roaring buzz as the city came to life in the dark hours.

The Spanish knew better than to have cities that never slept — they slept well and ensured that when they lived, they lived large.

That was true even in less youthful cities, like Granada. Granada was beautiful, even if he didn't recognize it like he had in his youth. Train stations and taxis, an infrastructure that turned from serving its people to serving the tourists that swarmed over its stones old and new, exploring a city perfectly laid before the snowy tips of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Every tourist would come to visit the Alhambra, the palace meets fortress complex that stood on the highest hills of Granada, peering out over the city, reddish walls the foundation of an architecture these tourists would not find in any other Western hotspot.

It was Islamic architecture at its finest, walls and floors tiled in gleaming mosaics, courtyards lined with mirror like pools, peaceful gardens now punctuated with the click of a hundred cameras.

But the man that Voldemort had come seeking was not in one of these buildings, but the other less celebrated palace inside the complex, the one built by Charles V to celebrate the triumph of the Christian Reconquista campaigns.

He called himself Ibn Mawt, the son of death, and he was one of Voldemort's earliest tutors. Dumbledore had once spoke of him as the gateway to evil, which Ibn had been quite delighted by. He was a Persian dark wizard who was the teacher to every dark wizard, at one time or another.

Ibn Mawt was a master of nothing at all, but he had dabbled in every magic that every Ministry now censored or destroyed; blood magic, possession, animation, bone divination, lifelong curses.

As a young man, Voldemort had soaked up his lessons like a sponge dipped in blood, and had always been grateful to have a teacher for his first steps into the darkest of the arcane.

Voldemort looked up at the palace, letting the memories wash over him. Once upon a time, this place had been his home, his world. The floor at the top was veiled by magic — Ibn Mawt hid himself in the Renaissance palace, because it amused him to conquer the Christian building.

"Tom," Ibn would say to him, his teeth stained with powdered tobacco. "Look at me. I am a king with a palace, and I teach my magic to the orphans of this world. Am I not gracious?"

"Yes, Master." Tom would answer, without rolling his eyes.

Ibn Mawt was an odd man, but he was one of Tom's only tutors who still lived, one of the few he hadn't fallen out with, hadn't had to kill.

Which was why he was here today, floating gently up to the highest floor of Ibn Mawt's hideout.

Because Harry Potter had used blood magic, a whole creation of blood, a simulacrum of himself made from flesh and copper red. A blood guardian.

Dumbledore would not have taught him such a thing.

But Ibn Mawt would.

The top floor of the palace was still and somber. It still looked the same, the furniture a typical Renaissance mix of red velvet and palatial walnut, foregone by Ibn Mawt for the Persian carpets that lined the floor, surrounded by cushions for his complaining apprentices.

But the chairs were layered by deep inches of dust and when Voldemort walked on the carpets, his shoes kicked up clouds more.

Against the wall, there was one carpet rolled up, which he unraveled with a wave of his wand.

The carpet unrolled and with it came the body of his former master, more bone than flesh. His skeletal fingers held a plaque loosely, the message written in blood. NEVER STOP LEARNING.

Ibn Mawt's old catchphrase, immortalized with him.

Voldemort looked closer. The man was dead, without marks or wounds.

The Killing Curse, then.

He snorted. "One of your students came back for you, Ibn. This is what happens when you teach boys to be monsters."

He felt oddly disappointed, like he'd been robbed.

Was this what loss felt like?

No, it was only that it should have been he who killed his former master.

Ibn Mawt had been a good teacher, but not a kind one.

It had taken many years before Voldemort lost the scars of the man's teaching, the words etched in the skin of his back. NEVER STOP LEARNING.

Ibn Mawt would not go down in history, but if he did, it would be as the inventor of the blood wand. Every spell that wasn't perfect, the wand scarred the words into his skin.

It was a fast way to learn.

But not, it seemed, the way Harry Potter had learned.

Voldemort sighed, ascending to the rooftop of the palace to admire the rest of the Alhambra and the mountains beyond.

It made sense — the prophecy said it was the power he knows not. Ibn Mawt knew nothing the Dark Lord had not surpassed him in.

But there were few that could teach Harry Potter the power he now held, and not in such a short space of time.

Which left things not of this world.

Paintings, perhaps. It wasn't unheard of.

Rituals, certainly.

Possessed artifacts, similar to his own diary. Voldemort had once spent a month learning from a chess board possessed by a Russian wizard of renown. The chess board sought to corrupt him, but Voldemort had long since been corrupted. Eventually, the chess board begged to be destroyed.

Three ways to gain power, but all were doubtful.

Harry Potter was so powerful. Voldemort had taken years of blood, sweat and tears to get this powerful, even if those fluids had rarely been his own.

That left one other way.

Time.

Voldemort had watched his duel with Potter in the Ministry, in his Pensieve.

He'd studied it over and over, because he was a Dark Lord and a ruler and a visionary, but he'd always prided himself on being a student without equal.

The scene played in his mind.

Harry's eyes darted to the clocks on the wall, knowing time was running out. He was trying to speed time up, so he muttered a spell, a spell they both knew, an Egyptian spell, even if it was not meant for such a thing.

Nothing had happened.

Unless it had.

If Harry had gone back in time, then, Voldemort considered, it could be ruinous for him. What man could fight back against the mistakes of his past?

Time was one of the only ways Harry could have gotten so strong, so quickly.

And certainly, time was the power he knew not. Nobody understood time.

Voldemort smiled to himself as he watched the tourists queue, for palace entry and beverages both. These fools did not know they stood under the greatest Dark Lord who would ever live.

He was great because of what he'd learned, what he'd been taught.

And what he'd learn in the future…or the past.

If Harry had gone back in time, so could he.

"Never stop learning." His serpentine smile grew.