Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. This work is also includes references to non-consensual activities & plots for more of the same. Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: [smashes prompts together] Sorry. Can't hear any complaints over the noise.
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Tell My Story (Y); Best Stories (Y); La Vie Boheme; Not the Mama; Fix-It Felix (Y); My Favorite Things; Gryffindor MC; Ravenclaw MC; Slytherin MC; Magical MC (x3); Neurodivergent (x2); Rian-Russo Inversion (x3); Ethnic & Present (x2); Small Fry; Claimed; Setting Sail; Gwen's HP Bribery (Y); Hold the Mayo; Go Fluff Yourself; Colors Galore; Lunar Era; Old Shoes (Y); Alpha & Omega; Inks & Stinks; Short Jog; Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 12
Subject (Task No.): Sociology (Task#1: Write about someone getting married.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [13](Doing something extreme out of desperation); 365 Prompts [311](Getting Married); Scavenger Hunt [34](Unspeakable)
Other MC4A Challenges: SuB [5B](White); AU [5B](Musician); Ship (Heroic Shadow)[SpMed1](White Knight)/[SpMic1](Omegaverse)/[SuMed1](Fake Relationship)/[SuMic2](Purple)/[SuMic2] (White)/ [Bingo](1A - Waxing Poetic); Chim [Xylit](Omegaverse AU; Protection; Royal Purple); Hunt [Su WD](Atheist)/[Su Set](Government Building)/[Su Set](Tattoo Parlor); [Su Set](Wedding)/[Su Items](Guitar); Garden [Chores](Crying/Sobbing)/[Chores](Painting/Drawing)/[Chores] (Writing/Reading); Fire [Med](Hands on Deck)/[Easy](Touch Feast)/[Hard](Loving AU)
Representation(s): Desi Harry Potter/Blaise Zabini; Seer Luna Lovegood; Harry Raises Teddy; Omegaverse AU
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Brooms Only; Lock & Key; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Mother Hen; Nightingale; Unwanted Advice); Chorus (Endless Wonder; Odd Feathers; Pear-Shaped; Wabi Sabi; Bee Haven; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade); Demo 1 [x2](Uncivil Obedience; Suddenly Audrey); Demo 2 [x2](Strange Potatoes; Tied & Died)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Intercept); FR (Affirmation; Satisfaction); War (Orator; Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui)
Word Count: 2099 words
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For the Benefits
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No one had told Harry about secondary sexes. He found out about them like he had found out so many things about the magical world. Well, actually, that was probably not true. After all, there was no one actually trying to kill him this time, at least not in the physical sense of things.
He wasn't so certain about how he would fare mentally if Mrs. Weasley got her way and he was forced to actually marry Ron.
To be perfectly honest, Harry was glad that he had never broken the habit of listening to other people's conversations. He had started it with the Dursleys, where it usually gave him a bit of warning about the family's moods. It had helped him avoid or lessen a lot of punishments over the years. Doing so had also helped at bit at Hogwarts, which had made the habit hard to even think about breaking.
When Harry had stopped to listen to the late night conversation between the Weasley parents, he had been expecting some minor complaint about Harry's refusal to return to Hogwarts or maybe how he was taking on too much responsibility by choosing to raise Teddy. Maybe Mrs. Weasley would be voicing how utterly disappointed she was that Harry had decided to learn how to play the guitar rather going into the Auror Academy like everyone seemed obsessed with him doing (no matter how thoroughly sick he was of fighting in general after the war). He was shocked to hear what he had.
Or rather, he was shocked as soon as he fully understood it. At the time, all he had understood was that the Weasleys were keeping something from him again with the same excuse of it being for the best. Just like always, Mr. Weasley wanted to tell Harry everything while Mrs. Weasley made the final decision that Harry didn't need to know anything until after things were settled.
Harry may not know what an omega was or why being one meant that Mrs. Weasley felt that he was going to marry Ron instead of Ginny (not that Harry was interested in even dating either of them at the moment), but he didn't need to in order to know that there was no way he was going to fall in line with her plan (no matter how willing to go along with it Ron seemed as he agreed with his mother). He had had his life dictated by others too often already. With the prophecy fulfilled, Harry was supposed to be free to choose his own fate.
Reading about what all went into being an omega just made everything Mrs. Weasley was obviously planning so much worse. Apparently the weird sense he had of others—like how some people were best to appease while others were more welcoming—was not the holdover of lessons from managing the Dursleys like Harry had thought (in the few brief moments he had bothered at all). It was the instinctual responses of his secondary sex. The way that everyone seemed to organize themselves into a hierarchy by some means that he never could fully figure out was also connected.
Beyond observing how a child acted, there were apparently tests that could be done to determine what their secondary gender was going to be, even long before it presented (typically around the time they're fifteen). Harry didn't need any tests, however, to understand that Ron was an alpha while Ginny was a beta, not after reading about how each gender normally acted. While betas made up the majority of the wixen population, only alphas and omegas were capable of naturally forming magical bonds with one another during an omega's heat. And while there were ways to prevent the bond from forming, there wasn't any way to break a bond after it had formed.
Mrs. Weasley was planning on making sure that Ron was there when Harry went into heat for the first time. Ron would bond Harry to himself and through him, to the Weasleys. Just like she had once mentioned to Ginny and Hermione, Mrs. Weasley was treating the whole idea as just a gentle nudge. All they had to wait on now was Harry to finally have a presentation heat.
(Harry had never thought he would be grateful for the Dursleys starving him to the point that he was still catching up with his peer group. If he believed in any kind of deity, he would have thanked them for that small mercy.)
Suddenly, Mr. Weasley's meek subservience to his wife looked a lot different to Harry. It also was a horrible portrait of what await Harry if he didn't take action to prevent it. Not only did Harry not like the idea of living his life like that, he now had Teddy to think about as well.
And any future children he had, a thing that he had never thought about before and wasn't certain how he felt about right then.
After his study session, Harry went the tattoo parlor that Luna had apprenticed to instead of returning for her seventh year at Hogwarts. The woman currently on the register didn't stop drawing up what the client in front of her was describing. She just pointed towards the consulting offices instead of asking what he needed help with. Harry and his guitar were common enough sights around the parlor for her to already know.
He was a bit surprised to find that Luna was with a client as well. Unfortunately, he hit the door frame trying to back out through the open door. Both Luna and the client looked up at the sudden thrum of the guitar case hitting the door frame. The client's royal purple eyes widened at the sight of Harry who could already feel the embarrassed flush darkening his cheeks.
Of course the client was none other than Blaise Zabini.
As if Harry needed any more proof that the universe was a fickle bitch who hated him.
The wizard that had been the subject of much ranting the last month or so from both Ron and Hermione. Due to the final battle wrecking the school two months before the end of the school year, NEWTs and OWLs had taken place at the Ministry itself. Much to the annoyance of both of Harry's friends (a title that Harry didn't know if Ron truly deserved anymore), Zabini had barely turned his last exam paper over to the proctor when he had been offered a position as an Unspeakable. Harry didn't understand what their issues with it were, despite having listened to everything that both of them had had to say about the topic.
"I just—" Harry started only to cut himself off when he caught the hints of something in the air. It smelled really nice, and a part of him really wanted nothing more than to just wrap it around himself like a blanket. He shook his head to clear it a bit. "I just had a few questions, Luna, but I didn't mean to interrupt you with a client. I can come back later."
"It's alright," Zabini said smoothly as he closed his black notebook. He rose from his seat with a grace that Harry could barely manage on a broom let alone moving on the ground. "I was just leaving."
"Take Harry with you," Luna said. Her voice had that odd echo to it that it sometimes got, like she was speaking from down a very long hallway. Her normally gray eyes had paled to a white that was barely darker than the sclera surrounding the iris. "There will be a bonder available by the time you get there."
"Luna?" Harry asked, because she couldn't be saying what he thought she was saying.
"Of course I will be happy to keep Teddy during your heat," she said as if answering a question. "I'm sure between me and Andromeda, we should be more than adequate substitutes."
"Luna," Harry tried again, because it really did sound as if she was having a completely different conversation. The tiny blonde blinked her gray eyes at him as if she was waking from a dream. "Hi there. Are you back with us?"
"I believe so," she said, and she did sound more present than she had a moment ago. "Unless this is a dream as well, of course. That sometimes happens." She looked between Harry and Zabini. "Shouldn't you two be going to get bonded?"
"I'm sure that Zabini has better prospects than me," Harry protested. Zabini's expression went from politely blank to intensely focused. Harry felt his heart lurch at being the subject of the other man's attention. Something he was still getting familiar with told him that Zabini was as alpha as they came.
"Do you really not see yourself?" Zabini said, barely sounding like he was asking. "Even setting aside your victory over the Dark Lord, your status as the Last Potter comes with enough titles and wealth to appeal to even the likes of Malfoy and his ilk. And as a final tour de force, you match a beautiful soul with an equally lovely form and scent. Believe me when I tell you that any alpha would consider himself blessed beyond all measure to have you even consider them for bonding."
"Trust me," Harry groused bitterly, "I am already aware."
"Pardon?" Zabini asked. Luna's voice as a touch distant again when she answered before Harry could.
"Mrs. Weasley is plotting to poach him," she explained. "She's going to slip him a potion to trigger a presentation heat and lock him in a room with Ron." Zabini looked torn between being sick and like he was going to destroy something. Luna blinked at him beatifically. "He needs bonded before then."
"Of course," Zabini agreed, nodding like it all made complete sense. Harry wanted to purr, because so many of his friends brushed Luna aside and dismissed her as loony. Yet here was someone who treated her blunt declarations as perfectly reasonable, who accepted her as she was. Zabini turned his royal purple gaze back to Harry. "If you'd like, we can stop by your barrister for a marriage contract before heading to the Ministry. Even a basic boilerplate one would offer you a great deal of protection."
"Won't the bond be enough?" Harry asked, a bit confused. Zabini's face went frighteningly blank. Harry swallowed hard and dropped his gaze. He still kept the man's clenched fists in his sight. "Sorry—I just—Sorry."
"I believe you misunderstand," Zabini said, his voice calm even as the scent of him seemed to be surging in the small space of the consultation room. His hands were clenched so tightly that the knuckles had paled to almost the same tan as Harry's skin. "The bond will protect you from outside harm. The contract is to protect you from inside harm." Harry raised his gaze back to Zabini's face, gaining a smile that was mostly done with his eyes. "It's to protect you from me, and seeing how unaware you are of the potential danger, I am afraid that I must insist on you taking the precaution."
"Oh," Harry breathed, uncertain how to feel about that. No one had ever offered to protect Harry from themself before, especially not when planning to do something that was essentially a favor. And to take it one step further to insist on Harry's safety? It felt like he had just drank an entire bucket of hot chocolate in one go. "Okay."
Three hours later, they were standing in front of the Ministry bonder who looked like he was more than ready to clock out. Luna had gotten Andromeda and Teddy while Harry and Blaise were finalizing the marriage contract (which had turned out to be slightly more complicated than a basic version, but made simpler by Blaise not arguing with anything that Harry wanted to add). Teddy was crying a bit, being due for a bottle. Andromeda looked regal in her pale purple robes, her stormy gray eyes watching the proceedings with great care.
With a wave of his wand, the bonder sent forth seven ribbons of yellow light that wrapped around Harry and Blaise's clasped hands. Then the light sunk into their arms, fading from sight even as Harry felt the connection snap into place. Harry could feel how protective Blaise felt over him with a clarity that was jarring after a lifetime of having no one to count on for that.
All it did was cement how right this idea had been.