Hogwarts, the headmaster's office (local time: 8:19 AM)…
"Ah, ladies! There you all are…!"
"AH-HAH!"
The twenty-three fifth-year witches who had just come through the floo into Albus Dumbledore's office could only stop before they turned as one to see a very unwelcome sight standing by the main door: Delores Umbridge, who had a devilish smile on her face and her wand out as she aimed it in the general direction of Harri Evans. "Oh, hello, Professor Umbridge," Harri then said with a smile as the floo flared one more time. "I'm glad you're here! The Minister wanted to thank you personally."
The DADA professor and High Inquisitor of Hogwarts blinked before her eyes focused on the very well-dressed man in the three-piece suit that just came in from the international floo terminal near Gatwick Airport outside London. "Ah, Delores! How good to see you again!" the Canadian minister of magical affairs, William Devon, said as he walked over to take her hand in his own, and then he placed a courtly kiss on it, which made Delores blush. "As lovely as ever, my dear!" Delores' blush deepened even more on hearing that. "Thank you so much for helping train these wonderful students of yours!" he then declared as he waved to Harri and her companions. "They were of enormous assistance when the Urusians came to challenge all of Earth in that game of tag! Even caught two of those suicide bombers that tried to kill Miss Lum after Mister Saotome defeated her!" He indicated a blushing Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. "Why, Miss Brown and Miss Patil here even helped expose their leader so that a sniper team from one of the militia regiments there could strike him down! They'll BOTH be getting Meritorious Service Crosses for their actions! Matter of fact, all the others have been nominated for the Meritorious Service Medal for their work! And it was all because of YOU, my dear!" he then said as he waived to her.
"M-m-m-ME?!" Delores eeped as she pointed to herself.
"But of course!" the Canadian minister stated. "I was actually going to head over to see Cornelius right now to tell him what happened! All the members of the European Magical Council have been waiting patiently to hear what happened! Come along, my dear! Albus, would you mind if I used your floo straight to Cornelius' office?"
"By all means, William!" Albus stated with a more-than-noticeable twinkle in his eye. "I'll be sure to be there when you report all this to the ICW later this week!"
"You better be, sir!"
And with a whoosh! of green flames, the Canadian minister and the British senior undersecretary were off to London. As soon as the flames dissipated, Harri then looked over to one corner of the room. "Okay, Uncle! You can laugh now!"
A roar of laughter echoed from nowhere as an invisibility cloak came down to reveal Severus Snape, who now had tears in his eyes as he shook with merriment. "T-t-ten p-p-points to all h-h-houses…" he then sputtered out. "I know you all…"
More laughter stole his voice as a side door opened to reveal the other heads of houses. "Well, welcome back, everyone," Minerva McGonagall stated as she gave them all a pleased smile while Pomona Sprout went over to hug those of her Hufflepuffs that had been on the trip to Welland and Filius Flitwick nodded greetings to his Ravenclaws. "And what's this about you two getting medals from Canada? Lavender? Pavarti?"
"Grandpapa, would you mind if we borrowed your pensieve for this?" Harri then asked.
Albus nodded while Severus was STILL laughing…
An hour later…
"So Miss Moroboshi married Miss Lum, thus helping create an emotional — and hopefully soon, blood — bond between the Avalonians of Earth and one of the more politically powerful of the old Imperial Houses of Uru," Albus concluded as everyone relaxed around an expanded desk, tea in hand as they all relaxed. "Did any of you discuss this matter with any of Miss Meinyak's friends who have considerable knowledge about politics on Uru before you came back? How will this eventually play out in future relations?"
"All we can really figure out is that since all the three main sides of the Urusian political spectrum — the Imperials, the military Unionists and the Democratic Reformists — see Lum as the focus of their future goals for the whole of the Union, this will clearly dump some cold water on the radicals that might want to push things in a direction we don't want them to go," Lisa Turpin replied. Of the coven now formed around Harri as their "elder mother" figure, the sunflower-blonde Ravenclaw with the blue-green eyes was normally tasked to maintain links with the senior Avalonian leadership, not to mention the various unofficial intelligence-gathering groups worldwide (and elsewhere) that kept a weather eye on the galaxy beyond. "They're all afraid that if they anger Lum too much, they lose her support. Hurting Tariko in any way, shape or form is guaranteed to get Lum angry, so they'll back off and leave her be. But, given what they ALSO discovered just before the tag race began…"
"The possibility of that dunderhead Ōgi trying to find some way to retrieve all his people's 'slaves' back, you mean," Severus stated.
Nods all around. "A pity the Noukiites didn't capture that monster when they attacked the Phentax system," Pomona stated. She, like Filius and Severus, had been late-comers to the growing body of wizards and witches in Britain now aware of the alien bioroids now living amongst them; what had happened during second year very much guaranteed that. And like her fellow heads-of-houses, she had taken the news about the Avalonians and what they wanted to do for Earth — regardless of how overwhelming some of this information could be at time — with her usual Hufflepuff outlook on life. If a race of over two billion former slaves were bent and determined to ensure Earth — a planet literally stuck between FOUR major intergalactic powers and ONE alliance of smaller intergalactic powers! — would be able to determine its future, then all had to be done to help them. Especially since six of HER badgers were now Avalonians thanks to "the good Slytherin" (as many people across the board at Hogwarts often called Harri Evans).
"Are there people trying to track that vile Sassenach down?!" Minerva growled. "Say this Nassur fellow, his wife or Miss Shogai?!"
"They all keep their ears to the local galactic pulse, Professor," Lisa replied. "With what just got discovered on the Kashin with the murder of that one serviceman by the fellow who tried to cripple the Fort Erie, that'll give them extra information to track down whatever networks might have been set-up by the surviving Ōgi-aligned Lumites since the Liberation. Once either Nassur or Dakejinzō get a bite…"
"They won't bloody hell let go until they track th' bastards all down an' run 'em all tae th' ground," Mòrag MacDougall finished for her sister eagle, speaking in her usual heavy Highland brogue.
"Well, that's good enough," Albus stated. "Now…"
The floo then flared. "JUST A MINUTE HERE!"
Everyone turned to see a shivering Delores Umbridge now standing there. The Avalonians in the room were quick to sense the confusing storm of embarrassment, anger and confusion in their DADA teacher's heart. "Oh, hello, Professor Umbridge," Harri said. "How was the meeting with Minister Fudge and Minister Devon?"
Delores focused on the smug, crimson-haired tomboy with the glasses wearing the colours of her old house — the girl that DARED declare that You-Know-Who had somehow returned to life at the end of the Triwizard Tournament the previous spring when Amos Diggory's poor son was mysteriously killed; the girl that DARED get away with using some weird type of magic to repel two Dementors when they were sent to silence her near her adopted parents' home in Surrey; the girl that DARED to smash down all of Delores' attempts at restoring the natural order of things at Hogwarts; the girl that DARED to make sure her male classmates (especially her housemate, Draco Malfoy!) would not bow to peer pressure from senior students to ensure the natural order of things would not be restored to the way they should be; the girl that DARED to question what the Ministry of Magic had decreed about life in general — and then she pointed at her.
"DETENTION, MISS EVANS!"
Harri didn't react. "And how many more blood quills are you going to break trying to scar me?" she then wondered, her voice cool and controlled.
Delores' face instantly turned a deep shade of puce on hearing that…and then she jolted on feeling a sudden surge of magic wash over her from the person now seated behind the headmaster's desk. "Now, Delores," Albus then stated coolly as his blue eyes bored into her like twin icy drills. "What is this about blood quills?"
The DADA professor gulped as she found the other professors glaring at her as well, even Severus Snape. Unseen by her, all the Avalonians in the room smirked…
An unused classroom near the Potions laboratory (local time: 10:49 AM)…
"How do you feel now, Ginevra?"
"I am still not functioning properly, Harriet."
"Explain the nature of your malfunction."
Now in the chair in the middle of the room, Ginny Weasley sat erect, with her back straight, legs at perfect angles to the floor and her hands folded in her lap. She was dressed in her proper school uniform, which only differed from that of the woman now standing before her save for the different house colours and the fact that Harri Evans preferred thigh-high socks over anything that didn't stretch over the knee. "I still find myself not properly accepting you as you were physically converted into prior to your commencing attendance at Hogwarts, Harriet," she answered in a cool, emotionless monotone that normally would mark what an Avalonian — a "pure-born" Avalonian who had not existed as a previous type of sentient being (as Harri and Ginny had done) — would sound like immediately after being taken out of a gestation tank and woken aboard the bioroid factory, which was now hidden in orbit over the Moon. Ginny then shifted her eyes to gaze directly at Harri. "I see you as Harry Potter, my intended husband."
Harri tried not to sigh. Ginny had learned the truth about what had happened to the Boy-Who-Lived near the end of her first year at Hogwarts deep within the Chamber of Secrets, while the horcrux shade of Tom Riddle within his old high school diary had been confronting Harri Evans with the basilisk that had been placed down in the hidden grotto a millennia before by Salazar Slytherin. In the wake of that, Ginny — who had, with some encouragement from her mother, always dreamt of being the future wife of the Boy-Who-Lived — nearly suffered a nervous breakdown when she found out her childhood hero was now and would forever be a WOMAN. That situation — augmented with a hurried oath of secrecy forced on her by Albus Dumbledore before she could spill that secret to her parents, much less anyone else — had festered in the poor girl's mind for the following two years, finally exploding the previous summer when Ginny had broken through that oath Albus forced her to make and blurted out to everyone in the Order of the Phoenix about Harri Evans' true identity.
Of course, a quick investigation thanks to Severus Snape, Filius Flitwick and Poppy Pomfrey had revealed that Ginny's magic — when she had been under the influence of the diary horcrux — had transformed her lifelong dreams about being Harry Potter's wife into a mad obsession that could ruin everything Harri Evans had done since she had returned to the wizarding world if it got out of control. And while turning Ginny into an Avalonian (that had been done just before the start of the school year) had helped matters, there had been many relapses. Especially given the fact that Ginny had been able to retain a lot of the knowledge that had been forced on her thanks to Tom Riddle.
"Ginevra, explain your actions while I was gone to Canada with my coven-mates."
"I was researching gender-changing potions in the restricted section of the library."
"Explain your reasons for those actions."
"It is imperative to restore you to your proper gender."
"Ginevra, how many times have we mind-melded since you became an Avalonian?"
"Nineteen times."
"In each of those times, have you EVER detected any thought I might have concerning returning to being what I was before my aunt's pet nearly killed me?"
Ginny tensed. "I…"
"Ginevra, answer the question!" Harri snapped.
Ginny jolted, and then she shuddered as tears appeared in her eyes. "No…"
"They why persist in this behaviour?"
The youngest Weasley's head snapped up so she could stare directly into the older woman's eyes. "Because you cannot give me a child in your current state!"
"And what is so imperative about you bearing my child?"
"Because it will guarantee that we will be together forever. As we must be."
Harri sighed. This was the fifteenth time these sorts of questions had tilted in this direction. "Ginevra, what if I decided that I would share my bed with Draco Malfoy? You are aware of his interest in me. Why should I refuse him?"
"Because it is not who you are! You are a man, not a woman!"
Harri took another deep breath, and then walked over. Grabbing Ginny's hand, she allowed the younger girl to reach up and squeeze one of her breasts. "Does THIS feel like a man to you?" she asked. "Does THIS?!" she asked as she took Ginny's other hand and allowed it to squeeze her other breast. "Well?! Answer me!"
Ginny shuddered as her eyes began to tear anew. "You…must be…changed back!" she said, her voice halting and full of pain. "You cannot…I…come back…please, Harry! I need you…we need you…you must…!"
Her voice then dissolved into sobs as she collapsed against Harri. The older woman could only sigh as she allowed Ginny to weep, only drawing her wand to whisper a spell that would free the young Gryffindor's mind from the controlling mental programs that were always placed in an Avalonian body and eventually be allowed to fade over time. Ginny's sobs began to shake her body as she held onto Harri tight, moans of, "I'm sorry, Harri…I'm so sorry…please don't hate me…" escaping her as she shook her head and allowed her heart to vent out her pain and frustration at what her magic — in effect, the very core of her being — was making her do towards someone whom she dearly loved and respected, yet who also had clearly broken all the moulds that Fate had forced on her when she became a woman and elected to chart her own path.
By then, the door to the classroom had opened, revealing a sad-looking Hermione Granger. As Harri gave her a grateful look, the bushy-haired Gryffindor came over to help the weeping Ginny back to her feet. As she moved to follow her housemate out, Ginny then sniffed before she stared apologetically at Harri. "I love you…"
Harri said nothing as the other girl was walked out of the room, and then she sighed as she moved over to sit down at another desk, her hand reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose as she slipped off her glasses. "Oh, Lyna, why me…"
"Because a half-blood bastard child of a dark lord couldn't let himself see the damned forest for all the trees in front of him. Don't you know that by now, Harri?"
Harri looked up as a smiling Pansy Parkinson entered the room. "I know. I know. But sometimes…" She took a deep breath as her raven-haired, brown-eyed classmate walked over to sit down beside her, slipping an arm around her shoulders so that Harri could rest her head on her housemate/lover/best female friend's shoulder in return. "When Uncle Severus, Uncle Filius and Madame Pomfrey told them about what had happened to Ginny, both her parents told me to use the Life Debt from the Chamber to make her stop loving me." A shake of the head. "I can't do it, Pans. Not to a sweet girl like her. Doing that would be just as bad as using mavan'shagh to make her my bond-mate just like that!" She snapped her fingers in emphasis. "Why…?"
"We're wizards and witches, Harri," Pansy said as she gazed into the other girl's eyes. "We're all too lazy because we have magic. It's not like the normal world where we have to use our brains and hands to make things happen, after all." She drew out her wand. "Just a swish and a flick…and all your problems go away."
"Along with your self-respect and another person's freedom to choose…"
Pansy laughed. "Harri, you're doing the right thing. Don't worry about it. Ginny'll come around sooner or later. She can't deny what her eyes, her hands and her own inner eye to the Te'a tells her no matter how much her heart wants to think otherwise. And deep inside of her, part of her is in awe that you are willing to fully embrace being a woman and a witch even after spending ten years as an 'icky, sticky boy!'" Both of them laughed at that before Pansy leaned over to kiss her. "You have a dream. You have the ambition and the cunning to see that dream come true no matter what. You have the morals that will attract so many people to your side. By the touch of Fate, you got a whole bunch of people watching your back. Not just all of us you saved back in second year, but a lot more other people. And you're striving to make others feel welcome under your banner. Look what you want to do for Draco's mother. Look what you just did for Draco's aunt, your own godfather's cousin, when many people would've written her off as just another crazy witch to be put down like some rabid werewolf! Hell, look what you tried to do for the Um-bitch earlier today!" She leaned over to allow her forehead to rest against Harri's. "And we all love you for it."
"Thirty worlds…"
"And they all can support magic, so there'll be places for us to go, too…"
"Not to mention a lot of people that have to move out of crowded cities…"
"And countries…"
Both then fell silence before they laughed, and then they kissed again. "Hey!"
"What?" Pansy asked.
"Let's go find Drake, get a closet reserved and have fun for the rest of the day."
The Princess of Slytherin then hummed. "I was actually thinking…"
Harri's eyebrow arched. "Room of Requirement? The boys are there practicing."
"They won't be there forever."
"True…"
The Room of Requirement (local time: 11:41 AM)…
"Okay, guys! Let's break!"
Hearing that from Neville Longbottom, both Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley paused, and then they stood to attention before saluting each other with their wands before they holstered them. Around them, the other male fifth years all relaxed themselves as they nodded to each other; it had been a free-spar with their wands and physical combat this free period. "Good match, mate," the youngest Weasley son stated.
"Slick moves, my friend," the scion of the Malfoy family mused as he walked over to take Ron's hand in his own. "What happened to Ginny?"
A sigh. "Researching gender-changing potions. What else?"
"Still?!" Blaise Zabini demanded as he and Terry Boot walked up to join them, both drinking down some spring water to replenish their bodies.
A nod. "Yeah!" Ron breathed out as Seamus Finnegan came up to hand him a bottle of water. "You know Harri won't use the Life Debt to snap Ginny out of it! She hates that sort of thing, especially now that Ginny's like all the other girls!" A shake of the head. "Can't believe that Mom AND Dad told her to do that!"
"They're too used to simple answers, Ron," Justin Finch-Fletchley stated as everyone moved to sit down on some spectator benches the Room had created for them so they could relax and wind down before they would head off to lunch. "WE know life's not that simple — especially after what the girls went through back in second year — but no one ever taught any of THEM that, even when they were fighting Riddle!"
The other boys nodded. "Imagine what it could've been like hadn't Harri become an Avalonian?" Vince Crabbe then asked as he exchanged knowing looks with his best friend, Greg Goyle. "If we had never heard of them in the first place?"
"I don't want to even THINK about it, Vince," Zacharias Smith stated as he shook his head. "Please! Don't talk about it, okay? Let's just look to the future!"
Ernie McMillan smiled as he toasted the others. "To the future!"
"THE FUTURE!" the other men chanted as they hoisted their drinks.
Draco smiled as he took a deep sip of his drink as he relaxed himself. Who would have ever thought something like this could have happened five years ago? Back then, he was the pampered only child of one of wizarding Britain's richest families, a devoted student of the pureblood way and willing to defend it from the newest wave of mudbloods and blood-traitors soon to desecrate Hogwarts with their presence.
That had died a very quick death when he had met one Harriet Jamie Evans.
To those privileged to know the truth, the Girl-Who-Was-The-Boy-Who-Lived.
Of course, remembering that remarkable afternoon on the Hogwarts Express as they took their first trip to the enchanted castle in the highlands of western Perth, Draco could only smile at the redhead's cunning use of her empathy and touch-telepathy to get a full feel of all those she had met — himself, Vince, Greg, Hermione, Ron and Neville — so she could better project as positive an impression of herself onto everyone around her. To Hermione, she was the fellow newcomer to the wizarding world, ready to explore all its wonders but also remembering from where she had hailed. To Neville, she was the sympathetic quasi-sister figure who was also unsure if she was worthy of a place like Hogwarts. To Ron, she was the potential Quidditch star who wanted to know everything about the great game on brooms. To Draco, she was the orphaned child of a mixed-blood couple, mindful of her status, respectful to those who had lived full-time in the wizarding world, but willing to stand on her own two feet. And to Vince and Greg, she was the brainy but not pushy girl who was willing to help two not-so-intelligent fellows make their own way in a strange new world.
It was a no-brainer for the Sorting Hat to make her a Slytherin.
And in that first year, Harri proved she was willing to do anything to make all around her see that there was more to school life than perpetuating ages-old feuds and painful rivalries that really had no place in the modern world and had, in many ways, contributed to the awful tragedies of the previous decades. She was happy to work with people from other houses in the classrooms, respectful of older students (she had been a personal favourite of Ron's older brother Percy when he had been a prefect and later Head Boy), willing to stand her ground against those who wanted to put her into her place (and had the magic to back her up, not to mention her Avalonian psychic powers), and happy to push her limits to be the best she can be. And she did it with a smile that was so damned infectious, even the normally morose Theodore Nott became one of her more ardent fans by the time the whole insanity with the Philosopher's Stone and a Dark Lord-possessed Quirinus Quirrell was resolved near the end of their first year.
And then came second year…
The Chamber of Secrets…
A thousand year-old basilisk…
The Dark Lord's most well-protected secret…
…and the truth about the girl born a boy named Harry Potter.
The Hospital Wing, mid-November of the second year…
"Merlin! I can't believe…!"
"Believe it, Poppy. This is what saved Harri's life in the end."
As the four heads-of-houses, the headmaster and the school matron watched, a moaning grunt escaped the girl in the cotton pyjamas. As her dark brown eyes fluttered open, Harri — who had been seated beside the bed holding the girl's hand — sniffed back her tears before she leaned over to gaze into her housemate's eyes. "Wake up, Pansy!" she urged. "It's morning! You slept in too late! Professor Snape's gonna be mad!"
Of course, said professor was trying not to smile at his young charge's urgings, though his three counterparts were all giving him knowing looks. As Pansy moaned, she pushed herself onto her elbows before she looked around in confusion. "The Hospital Wing…?" she began before she turned to stare at her housemate. "Harri, what…?"
She then stopped as a weird non-voice seemed to whisper something into her mind before she felt her hands rise up to touch the sides of Harri's face. With just the slightest concentration, she felt herself push into the other girl's mind…
…and then her eyes went wide as a bloody afternoon in Surrey replayed itself from the view of the victim of that horrid scene.
A victim that wasn't as dead as reports from the previous summer had stated.
A victim who had been forced to change his — now HER — life in a way very scant few wizards or witches ever had to face even under the best of circumstances.
And a victim who had vowed the first day of her new life that she would not allow ANYONE else to be a victim if she had the power to stop it.
Just like she had done for one Pansy Isabella Parkinson…
And…
"Oh, my God…I don't believe it…!"
"What, Hermione?!"
Pansy then sighed as she pulled her hand away from Harri's face.
"Well, we can't call her 'the Boy-Who-Lived,' can't we?" she asked the other girls, who had all got up when they had sensed Pansy awaken and mind-probe their year-mate.
The other girls all exchanged looks, and then Tracey Davis smiled. "Guess we can't."
Laughter then filled the chamber…
A cold bottle of butterbeer then touched Draco's cheek. "HEY!"
"Hey! I've seen a gorgeous man like you somewhere!" a familiar woman's voice then said as the bottle was placed down beside him before a smiling redhead appeared in his line-of-sight, her tie undone and her shirt collar unbuttoned to reveal the lace bra — silky black, which really offset her skin and hair — she had on underneath. "Do you think they may have swapped our future child-mate for a double, Pans?"
An equally-smiling brunette then appeared from the other side, her own shirt undone to reveal the violet bra — also quite lacy — she had on underneath. "Well, we'll have to do a proper inspection of him just to make sure, Harri," Pansy noted.
"Oh, indeed we must."
"That we must."
As hands reached down to his trousers to get them unbuttoned, Draco shuddered as he felt his lovers' lips and tongue tickle his ears, and then he realised there was no other sound coming from anywhere in the Room. Thanks, guys…! he mused as he laid back while Pansy and Harri both got to work on other parts of his uniform.
And while this happened, we now…
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(Posted Fri, 28 Jan 2011 06:28)
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