[From Litha to Lammas]: Covet, Harry/lots of people, R, 5/5
Part Four.
Part One.
Title: Covet (5/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Theodore, Harry/Blaise, Harry/Draco/Astoria, Draco/Astoria, Harry/Zacharias, Harry/Luna
Content Notes: Humor, not epilogue-compliant, polyamory, harem fic, magically powerful Harry, screwed-up wizarding law, angst, brief violence
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 8700
Summary: It turns out that, when various people begin asking Harry for legal and magical shelter, he has the power to marry them all as per an ancient Ministry law that says the conqueror of a Dark Lord can have multiple spouses. Harry knows the marriages are in name only, and it’s not like they require sex, just a magical oath. He thinks he’s doing very well at resisting temptation, not realizing what a temptation he is himself.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. As you can see from the summary, this fic is not meant to be taken entirely seriously. It should have four parts.
Thanks to everybody who came along! This is the last part of “Covet.”
Zach had been the only one so far to decorate his bedroom extensively, Harry saw when he stepped through the door. Although, to be fair, the only other one he’d been in for a long time was Draco and Astoria’s. He had seen the gleam of what seemed to be pure sunlight, as from a portal, coming from under Luna’s door, and he had decided he wasn’t going to ask.
Zach had hung two mirrors up on either side of the room, but they were enchanted to show outdoor scenes: a slowly swaying forest, a gently rolling ocean, distant purple mountains, and a distant white desert that might have been a scene from the moon. Harry saw touches of green and blue in the wallpaper, too. And he’d enlarged the bed.
Zach started stripping off his robes as soon as they got into the room. Harry leaned forwards to kiss him once, and started undressing, too. He would let Zach guide everything.
When he glanced up, Zach had turned around, panting, pink, his cock curving up against his stomach. He looked almost defiant, as if waiting for Harry to find some fault with him. Harry simply met his gaze and then looked down at his erection, and smiled.
Zach breathed out. “That’s another reason I didn’t want you inside me,” he said. “Besides just not liking it.”
“What other reason, then?” Harry kicked his robe to make sure it was out of his way. One time tripping over that when he was still with Ginny, and he always made sure it was in some corner. Waking up in St. Mungo’s with a concussion had been bad enough, and then he’d had to make up a story about fighting with someone who’d run off into the night.
(Ginny had been no help, laughing in a corner the way Ron had when Harry had said he was marrying the Malfoys).
“You’re bloody huge.”
Harry turned back to Zach and away from the memories. “I meant it when I said we can do whatever you want,” he murmured.
“I know.” Zach paused a moment, then used his wand to cast a Cushioning Charm on the rug in front of his bed.
And knelt.
Harry took a long step forwards, his heart picking up speed the way it sometimes did before battle. He’d been telling the truth when he’d told Zach that he’d liked everything he’d done with his spouses so far, and lots of other things besides. It really was his partner’s pleasure that got him off, every time.
But blowjobs were a particular favorite of his.
He reached out and skimmed his fingers down Zach’s cheek, then saw some tension in his jaw and decided that Zach probably liked different things than he did. Harry moved his arms and locked his hands together behind his back.
And that made the heat leap to life in Zach’s eyes in a way it hadn’t so far.
He opened his mouth and waited there. Harry didn’t let his surprise show on his face, because he didn’t want to dismay Zach or put him off in any way. He shuffled slowly forwards instead, until his cock rested on the edge of Zach’s tongue.
Zach closed his eyes and sucked Harry in with an expression of bliss.
Harry groaned. “Hell, yes,” he said aloud, in a hiss that he knew was on the edge of Parseltongue.
He experienced a momentary flicker of doubt. If that upset Zach-
But no, Zach groaned and hummed and locked his lips tighter. Harry relaxed with a long sigh of bliss of his own, and rode the warmth, the way that Zach’s tongue thrust beneath him and lifted and curled around his shaft, and the tight pull of his cheeks.
And then he slid down Zach’s throat.
Harry raised himself up on the very tips of his toes, fighting the temptation to thrust desperately. Merlin. Everywhere around him was a different kind of heat than he got when he was inside someone’s arse or vagina, a different kind of pulling and sucking. His breath was hurting his chest, it was coming so fast.
Zach reached out with one hand, smoothing down Harry’s thighs and around to his bollocks. He pulled and plucked them, rolling them with a skill Harry had never experienced. New jolts of pleasure rocked through his body, making his muscles tremble and scrambling his brains.
Harry felt himself lifting to come far before he’d thought he would. “Zach,” he whispered.
Zach seemed to take that as encouragement, not the warning Harry had meant it as. He used both hands now, one on Harry’s bollocks, one on the small part of the cock that wasn’t in his mouth, circling and teasing the base.
Harry stuffed his fist in his mouth and came. Zach’s name got garbled around the edge of his fingers anyway, and the scorching sensation that burned through him, hot and quick and fierce, wrung him out. He dropped to his feet and then to his knees, dragging his limp cock free, bracing his hands in front of himself to keep from falling on his face.
Hot damn, he’s good.
He glanced up to find Zach licking his lips, every trace of come gone, his expression supremely self-satisfied. Harry grinned at him and leaned back, saying, “Wow.”
“That was amazing,” he added a second later, because Zach was still looking at him expectantly.
Zach laughed and sprawled beside Harry, more relaxed now than he’d been since the night he burst through the door of Grimmauld Place with the dog-man after him. “Thanks, Harry. I love doing that.” He paused, then shyly shifted to his back. “Could you get between my legs like this?”
Harry nodded and shuffled forwards, using his own Cushioning Charm. “Afraid that my manly prowess will put you on your back if you’re not already there?”
“No, I just like to watch you, and it’s easier this way.”
I could get used to this honest communication, Harry thought, and spent a moment licking around the inside of his mouth to get it wet enough. Zach might think Harry was big, but he was no slouch, either, and it had been a while since Harry had done this.
Taking him in was a pleasure all its own. Zach sucked in a breath that he didn’t release for endless moments, and his chest flushed in a wave of red that snaked down and joined up with the red of his cock. And his hips began to surge up.
Harry rode the motion easily, humming and wondering if Zach could sense his pleasure at getting his face fucked like this. He hadn’t wanted to thrust until Zach told him he could, because he hated overwhelming his partner. But he loved overwhelming in return, and when he had to lift his head and gasp in a sharp breath, it was to see Zach’s eyes wide, staring, dark.
Harry returned to the task with even more enthusiasm. The taste of salt in his mouth was dense, and Zach’s cock was thickening, his thrusts harsh enough to invade Harry’s throat all on their own. Harry waited until he thought it wouldn’t choke him, and then he swallowed, hard, and again, and again, forcing himself to do it before he was ready.
Zach drummed a sharp fist on the rug, and came.
Harry relaxed his throat as he much as he could, and let come slide down until it was swallow or choke. He did, and sighed a little as Zach’s erection slid back until it was just barely resting in his mouth. Yes, that was the way. That was something Harry enjoyed. And he liked the stronger taste of salt, like a whole mouthful of ocean, as he swallowed, too.
Zach rolled over to stare at him, eyes liquid.
Harry cupped his chin and kissed him, not sure whose taste was on his tongue now. It probably didn’t matter, not with both of them ruined for anything else this evening, panting next to each other on the rug.
“That was incredible,” Zach whispered.
“You’re incredible yourself.” Harry ducked his head and rubbed the top of it against Zach’s chin like a cat. Silly, maybe, but what he felt like doing right at the moment.
“No one’s ever…”
“Sucked you off? Enjoyed you sucking them off?” Harry leaned back, half-draped across Zach’s legs, and smiled. “That’s too bad. You’re really good, at both.”
Zach flushed and averted his eyes. “No, I mean, no one’s ever not held it against me that I don’t enjoy anal sex.”
Harry stared at him. Zach tensed, and Harry put a hand on his shoulder. “No, I believe you,” he said, not wanting Zach to start imagining who knew what. “It’s just incredible to me because it seems so silly. It’s just one kind of sex. They didn’t want to go to bed with you when they found out?”
Zach shook his head. “There was one bloke who was okay, but he was getting married and we didn’t stay together very long. And there were a few who didn’t like it, but that’s because they didn’t want to admit they were, you know, banging a bloke, and as long as I just sucked them off, they could pretend I was a girl.”
“Bloody waste.” Harry kissed Zach’s chin. “I think you’re a handsome bloke who’s really talented in bed.”
Zach laughed abruptly and shoved his shoulder. “Shut up, you berk, I’m trying to tell you something important.”
Harry nodded, but he made a mental note that Zach didn’t seem very accustomed to compliments. Harry would have to make sure he changed that. And if Zach wanted to sleep with any of the other spouses, Harry would have to make sure that they knew teasing wouldn’t be a good idea.
Well, mostly for the Slytherins. Luna would already know.
“I’m not ever really going to want that, Harry,” Zach confessed softly. “I wouldn’t want to be inside a woman, either. Although I’m so not attracted to women that I’ve only been with two, and luckily they both wanted my mouth and nothing else. I just-is this going to be a problem for you?”
“Why would it be?”
“Well, you really enjoyed being inside Blaise and Luna and Draco, from what they said. From what I saw.”
Harry shrugged. “Sure, but they wanted that. And just because I enjoy one kind of sex with one person doesn’t mean I want the same kind of sex with everyone. Any more than I want you to be Blaise or Luna or Draco when I’m with you. Or Astoria. Or Theodore.” For a moment, the thought flickered through his head that Theodore hadn’t approached him, but, well, he had no doubt Theodore would do that when he wanted to, just as he’d approached Harry about the marriage first. “You’re you. Unique. Zach.”
Zach closed his eyes and clenched down his teeth on his tongue. Harry kept still. He thought he might know the sort of emotions Zach was struggling with.
He’d sort of done the same, the first time he really realized that he could find people to be with who didn’t want him because he was the Boy-Who-Lived.
Who didn’t want to reject him because he was the freak the Dursleys had always told him he was.
“I’m so lucky,” Zach whispered, his voice shaking.
“Everyone in this room and this house is,” Harry said firmly. “Do you want to get lucky again?”
“You’re ready to go again?”
“Magical strength has its perks.”
“Then, yeah,” Zach said, and kissed him hard enough to mark Harry’s lips with his teeth.
*
Harry paused for a second outside the carved doors that marked the chamber where the Minister’s “Council”-consisting of the Heads of the various Departments, as well as other important officials like the Head Auror-met on a regular basis. Then he let his magic flare in front of him, pressing the doors back so that they floated open in front of him.
Just in case anyone wanted to mistake how much magical power he was using because he hadn’t opened them with a boom, he let the Council hear the hinges straining.
Then he strode in.
The Council turned to face him. Kingsley’s face was welcoming, but nervous. Robards looked as inscrutable as ever. The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Aurelia Parkinson, sent him a sneer of dislike. The Head Unspeakable was hooded, so who knew what expression his or her face wore.
The Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Jacinda Burke, didn’t take her eyes from him, and didn’t appear impressed by the door trick. Then again, she had been mostly unimpressed with Harry since he had helped Hermione write the Marriage Expansions Act.
Of course she’s behind this pathetic attempt to bring me down. Harry nodded to the other Department Heads, who he mostly had neutral relationships with and who were mostly unremarkable people, and walked over to pause near the chair that had been pulled away from the table.
“Oh, dear, it appears that someone left this here,” he said, and waved his hand, using his magic to push his chair into the space left between Kingsley and Robards. Then he sat down.
Harry tossed his head back, let his legs spread, and didn’t fold his arms. He was challenging them, everybody here. He wasn’t defensive, he wasn’t thinking about excuses, and he wasn’t fucking cowed.
I’m going to defend my marriages. All of them.
And he wasn’t going to sit in front of them like a criminal or a naughty child while he did it.
“Auror Potter.” Burke’s voice lashed like the Werewolf Whip that was her signature spell. Harry might have disliked her for that alone. Her hair, heavy and dark and braided, slid down her neck as she turned towards him. “Please explain to us why you’ve married six people in the last month.”
“Last three weeks, actually.” Harry clucked his tongue. “If this is the level of detail that the inquiry is skimming over, I’m already prepared to be disappointed.”
“Harry,” Kingsley said, with a slight shake of his head.
“I must object to the informality on the Minister’s part,” said the Head Unspeakable, their voice echoing and prancing around lots of other echoes. Harry had learned to ignore that-he’d dealt with them often enough-but Kenneth McAndry, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, leaped in his chair. “We are here to conduct a formal inquiry on the wrongdoing of Harry Potter in marrying so many spouses.”
“Then by all means, let us have formality,” Harry said, and bared his teeth in what they were welcome to take as a grin if they liked. “That means that I should be referred to as Auror Harry Potter, Head Unspeakable.”
There was a long silence, in which a few people at the table exchanged glances. Parkinson, of all people, broke it with an ostentatious clearing of her throat. “It’s not clear to me what laws Auror Potter has actually broken.”
Harry eyed her sideways. Her face was still full of dislike, but she was a stickler for procedure. He supposed that was the basis of her objection.
“The bigamy laws,” said Burke, with a snap of her fingers. “All of them.”
“I married Theodore Nott sa’Potter, Blaise Zabini sa’Potter, Draco Malfoy Potter, Astoria Malfoy Potter, Zacharias Smith sa’Potter, and Luna Lovegood sa’Potter under the Dark Lord Conqueror’s Exception Act of 1604,” said Harry smoothly. “I conducted the rites in accordance with the laws and didn’t break any of them.”
“There are no exceptions in the law for a married couple,” said Burke.
“I think you’ll find there are,” Harry said. “As long as the couple is a man and a woman, already married to each other, and both of them claim the conqueror of the Dark Lord as their lord.” He was grateful that he’d read over the wording of the Act again and again before he’d married Draco and Astoria. “Draco and Astoria fit all those criteria.”
“There is no exception for someone with a Dark Mark.”
“Obviously-”
Burke sat up and smiled.
“Since the Dark Mark didn’t exist then.” Harry matched her stare for stare, and then turned to Kingsley and Robards. “Minister, Head Auror, what exactly have I been called here for? I checked thoroughly before I married my spouses. It’s in accordance with all known laws, I performed the rites correctly, they live with me so they fulfill that criterion, and there’s no reason to believe that I am going to betray them or leave them. So why?”
Kingsley cleared his throat and glanced away from Harry. “It has been suggested that, since you married so many spouses all at once without any indication of showing that you wanted to before…”
“They think you’re under a love potion or the Imperius, Auror Potter,” Robards said. “And they’re worried about you somehow staining the reputation of the Ministry.”
And they see a chance to get rid of a powerful ally for Hermione and someone who they think could be a challenger for their position, Harry thought, making sure he kept his face bland as his eyes traveled to Burke and Parkinson. Not that Parkinson is going to do anything that would take me down unless she can do it strictly within the rules. Burke is the one to watch.
“Very well, then I’ll be checked.”
Burke’s trace of a smile disappeared. Parkinson just nodded. “In accordance with the laws. This is the Purging Draught.” She pushed a small crystal vial across the table to Harry.
Harry grimaced and drew his wand. Burke surged to her feet at once. “He’ll try to neutralize the antidote!” she shouted.
“No, I’m conjuring a bucket,” Harry said, raising his eyebrow a little. “I don’t know if you’ve seen someone suffering under the effects of a love potion antidote, but it purges everything from the body if someone’s not actually under one. Then it would only purge the potion, through the pores instead of the mouth. I’m about to lose my breakfast and the headache potion I took this morning. Unless you want it to spill on the floor…”
“You’re only going to lose the love potion, because you’re under one.” Burke sat down with her arms crossed.
“Sure,” Harry sad, unimpressed, and conjured the bucket. Then he picked up the little crystal flask, swallowed the love potion antidote as quickly as he could-it tasted like old blood and dried bones-and bent over the bucket.
When he vomited, there were still recognizable chunks of food in there. Harry grimaced and closed his eyes. He couldn’t tell Kreacher about this, or he would pop into Harry’s office, kidnap him, and pop back into Grimmauld Place, where he would force-feed Harry and not let him up from the bed for days.
It was a sensation like taking a Scourgify to the stomach, but it finished quickly, at least, within thirty seconds. There had been a time when Harry had taken a love potion antidote almost every day, because people kept sneaking the damn things into his Ministry meals. He sat back with a sigh, used a gentle Cleaning Charm and a Breath-Freshening Charm, and turned to face his accusers.
Burke’s face was slack with shock. Parkinson looked annoyed. Harry braced himself to be accused of making a mess on the floor, even though he hadn’t, but Parkinson turned to face Burke. “You said that you were sure he was acting under a love potion.”
“He has to be! No one normal marries more than one-”
“Excuse me?” Harry asked, and made his voice as cool as Hermione’s when she was asking someone why they would mistreat their house-elves. He leaned forwards a little, and Burke scooted her chair back. “I’m not normal? Someone who enjoys the company of more than one person who all willingly live in the same house isn’t normal? But, of course, someone who wants to restrict the rights of werewolves and tell half-goblins they can’t marry wizards is.”
“You’re mental!” Burke pushed her chair back from the table some more. “To want to fuck more than one person, to be having orgies in the house, it’s a scandal the Ministry can’t tolerate!”
“Auror Potter.” Parkinson’s voice was tight with fury, but not at him, which Harry was glad of. “Will you submit to be checked for the Imperius Curse? I will cast the spell myself. I had intended to leave it up to someone else, but, well.” She flicked an eyelash at Burke, who had probably permanently alienated her by swearing in her presence.
“Yes, madam,” Harry said, and bowed his head as the cool magic from the Head of the DMLE’s wand flowed over him. He felt it as a much nicer sensation than the love potion antidote, although still probing. When Parkinson put her wand away, her lips were practically bloodless.
“He’s clear.” She turned to face Burke and the Head Unspeakable, which was a nice way of letting Harry know exactly who his enemies were. “I insist that you apologize to Auror Potter for wasting his time this morning, and interfering in his lawful marriages.”
“I will not,” Burke said through lips that sounded numb. “I can’t-it’s a scandal.”
“I insist that we need to study Head Auror Potter more closely,” said the Head Unspeakable’s bouncing voice. “He’s repeatedly denied us the ability to examine him and see why he was able to defeat a Dark Lord whom no one else could slay. If we examine him, then I’m willing to endorse his marriages.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Harry said. “You mean you didn’t learn enough the last time you kidnapped me, tied me down, took three hours of time from my memory, and forced me to destroy one of the rooms in the Department of Mysteries in escaping?”
“What?”
Parkinson’s voice was so shocked that Harry was surprised she was standing. Kingsley feigned a look of shock well, but he had known, as had Robards, who rose slowly to his feet. They had both told Harry to save that revelation for a time when he could use it. Trying to object to the Unspeakables before this had done nothing.
“Oh, yes,” Harry said, his eyes not moving from the Head Unspeakable’s still form. “They were so eager to talk to me that they couldn’t ask me questions or even ask to cast a few spells on me, the way you arranged to do today, Madam Parkinson. They kidnapped me and they paid the price.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before, Auror Potter?”
Harry turned to look at Parkinson, while keeping most of his magical attention on the Head Unspeakable. “I attempted to complain up the hierarchy of the Ministry, madam. But the Unspeakables told Minister Shacklebolt and Head Auror Robards to, I believe these were the words, fuck off. They said they were a totally independent department of the Ministry and didn’t need to obey the rules that were for the commoners.”
Parkinson turned in place to stare at the Head Unspeakable. The masked face turned slightly towards her. Parkinson held up her wand. “I demand that you fetch the Unspeakables who examined Auror Potter and tell him how his memories can be restored.”
“No.”
“What did you say to me?”
“The Department of Mysteries has its mandate. We investigate the secrets of the universe. We are not under the purview of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, or the Ministry, or anything other than the responsibility of discovering secrets.” The Head Unspeakable leaned back in his seat a little. “And Auror Potter, as a mystery of the universe, is mine, and is going to come with me now.”
Harry had been expecting that, which was the only reason that he evaded the net of white light that came flying across the table at him.
Just a pretense, this whole thing about my marriages, he thought as he twisted to the side and his magic flared around him, lighting the net on fire and tearing it to pieces at the same time. Just a pretext to get me in an enclosed space so that they could take me again.
And if the Unspeakables captured him, Harry would never get to go home. Never see his spouses again. Never get to close the door behind him and feel their magic humming around him.
His anger joined his magic.
The last of the net disintegrated. Harry turned and gestured towards the Unspeakable, his desires speeding along his nerves faster than any spell could have sped down his wand. And the magic coruscated out of him, and burned.
It burned the last of the cloak away. It burned the mask that the Head Unspeakable wore over their face, as they screamed in hoarse fear and pain. And it definitely burned the thing like a silver spear that tumbled out of their cloak, an artifact Harry recognized from his time in the Department of Mysteries. It had been used to pin the ropes around his legs, which was one reason he’d only managed to use his wandless magic to break free around his hands.
Harry stared at it, and the spear disintegrated, too.
Then he looked up at the ordinary man who was feeling for the tatters of his cloak and his obscuring magic, his wand twitching in his hand. Parkinson and the other people in the room were staring at Harry. Harry didn’t look at them. They had put up with this for decades, the Unspeakables allowed to go around in obscurity, protected from the consequences of their own actions. Harry didn’t have to.
“What did you do?” the man whispered, ducking his head, probably because the sound of his own voice would no longer intimidate anyone.
“Revealed you,” Harry said. He waited a moment, to see if anyone else would say anything, and then added, “Michael Corner.”
The man cringed away from him. Harry stared at him. Good God, what did Ginny ever find attractive in this berk?
“You can’t…you can’t burn away my cloak like that, my mask. It’s not allowed. It’s not legal.” Corner was whispering hoarsely, as if it was the best approximation he could make of the echoing voice that would otherwise have been his. He ducked and scurried back into a corner, shivering all the while.
“You disgust me,” Harry said, and Corner flinched. He turned to stare at the other Department Heads in the office, and the Minister. “Are you going to let me leave? Or are you going to arrest me for burning this rat?”
“Of course we’re not going to arrest you,” Robards said. “Good God, man, get a grip. We’re not all like him.”
“No? But you tolerated his presence while he walked around masked and talked about being in the service of the secrets of the universe.” Harry made his voice high and mocking, and watched Corner flinch again from the side of his eye. Good. “Burke was cooperating with him, for Merlin’s sake.”
He let his magic show, hovering around him, in an aura that formed a vaguely human-shaped golden figure. He released one jolt of his power, and let it shake the room, a localized earthquake. Everyone was staring at him now.
“I trust the Ministry will take the proper steps when someone just tried to kidnap me and treat me like an experiment,” Harry said. “If they don’t, then I’ll kill him. Make no mistake. I’ll kill any Unspeakable who comes near my house, who tries to hurt me or my spouses. And anyone else.”
“I promise you, we will settle this within the law, Auror Potter.”
Parkinson’s voice was firm, and as little as Harry trusted her, her devotion to the law was firm. He eyed her once, nodded, and left.
No one stopped him, all the way to the lifts, or all the way to the Floo, even though he was leaving in the middle of the day. The soft, steady blaze in the air around him might have something to do with that.
Merlin, Harry thought as he hurled Floo powder into the fireplace. I need to talk to Theodore.
*
But when he arrived in Grimmauld Place, he pulled up short, because having tea in the kitchen were Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. Kreacher was hovering next to Narcissa’s chair, his eyes bright with adoration.
“Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said, pulling his magic into his skin. Luckily, he had started to dim it even before he came through the fire, and so he thought it might pass as just a shower of sparks from the Floo.
“Mr. Potter.” Lucius put his teacup down on the table with a kind of fussy disdain and stared at him. “I hope you won’t mind us not addressing you as lord.”
“Why would you?” Harry took off his cloak and put it on the nearest hook, where Kreacher immediately snatched it free to carry somewhere else. He sat down in the chair across from them, and Kreacher brought him a cup of tea. “I’m not your lord.”
Lucius flared his nostrils, but sat back when his wife made a little gesture. Presumably he thought she might have more luck.
He wasn’t wrong, Harry thought as he stared at Narcissa. She hadn’t wronged his friends personally the way Lucius had wronged Ginny and Hermione. And she had saved his life. And she loved Draco.
Although not enough to stop bothering his wife.
Harry firmed his resolve. If they had come for the reason he thought they had, he was going to keep his temper under control, but he wasn’t going to give them what they wanted.
“We were surprised when our son and daughter-in-law sought your protection, Auror Potter,” Narcissa began, slow and musical and formal in a way that Harry couldn’t help thinking Aurelia Parkinson would have approved of. “There was no persecution on our part, nor intention to persecute, the way I understand most of your spouses were fleeing.”
“Luna wasn’t fleeting persecution,” Harry said pleasantly, and managed to hold in his sigh as a huge spread of biscuits and marzipan appeared in front of him. He wasn’t hungry. But Kreacher would blame himself if Harry looked like a bad host, so he picked up a small biscuit dotted with candied rose petals and chewed it slowly. “And Draco and Astoria did tell me why they left your house.”
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t want to cause a scandal by living apart from you, but they couldn’t stand the way you kept telling Astoria that she liked Muggles too much.”
Lucius blinked. From the way Narcissa looked at him, she had actually never thought of that. And it seemed her husband hadn’t, either.
Harry sighed and resisted the temptation to rub his face. He was so bloody wound up, and he didn’t want to be here with his rude parents-in-law. But he also didn’t want to appear weak in front of them, and he would if he asked for ordinary consideration.
“She was saying that she would ask a half-blood to stand as godparent to her future children,” Narcissa said finally. “That would have caused much more of a scandal.”
Harry smiled at her. “Well, now her children will grow up in a house full of love and have plenty of parents who would die for them.”
It took them a long moment to get it. Harry treasured the moment, and stored it up to tease Draco with later. Draco hadn’t stopped making remarks about Harry’s obliviousness and how he should have known immediately that his spouses wanted him. Well, Harry was going to hit a few notes about the obliviousness of Draco’s immediate relatives.
“Her children are not growing up in this house!”
“Of course they are.” Harry sipped more of his tea and ate another biscuit. It wasn’t what he wanted, which was words and shelter with Theodore, but he was hungrier than he’d thought. “For as long as she wants to stay. And as long as they want to stay. And with as much protection as we can muster.”
“Anyone would think that you intended fathering some of my daughter-in-law’s children yourself.” Lucius had tightened his hand on his cane.
Harry snorted. “That’s up to Astoria. And maybe Draco,” he added, because they acted as a duo together so often that Astoria probably would ask him before letting her contraception spells lapse with Harry, or anyone else in the house.
“I…this is obscene.”
“No,” Harry said, losing his temper in a much more controlled way than he’d lost it with Corner and the Heads of Departments. He leaned forwards across the table. “This is a much better situation for Draco, Astoria, and their children. Not that they would have sought it if you hadn’t pushed and pushed and pushed, and decided that the best way to stop Astoria from seeking out this unknown half-blood was telling her she cared too much about Muggles. About people. Because compassion is the greatest fault that someone can have in your world, isn’t it? Not bigotry or stupidity or a taste for mass destruction. Compassion.
“You can march your bigoted little arses out of my house, Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Malfoy. Draco and Astoria will talk to you if they want to. And I am going to defend them, and the whole of my family, including any of our future children, with all the magic in me.”
“You cannot talk to us this way!”
Fuck it. Harry dropped the shields on his magic and let warmth leak out of his skin, flames sheathing him and rising up with a roar that meant the Malfoys could feel their heat, no matter how harmless they might be to Harry. The couple froze, and Narcissa dropped her teacup.
“Go away,” Harry said into the silence.
The Malfoys fled. Harry sat where he was, using his connection to the wards to track them up the stairs, through the entrance hall, and out the front door.
Only then did he sit back, shaking his head when Kreacher appeared. “You can take the biscuits and marzipan away, Kreacher.”
“Why did Master Harry kick the Mistress out?” Kreacher stared at him with drooping ears.
Harry nodded. He had to make this clear now, or Kreacher would probably let Narcissa back inside whenever she wanted to come. “Because they wanted Draco and Astoria to leave the house and give birth to their children in Malfoy Manor, Kreacher. Where you could never visit them. Where they could do whatever they wanted with the child, and threaten Draco and Astoria whenever they wanted.”
Kreacher’s ears stood up. “Threaten Master Draco and the lovely Mistress?”
Harry nodded again. “We have to protect Draco and Astoria. Our first loyalty has to be to them, and the people who live here, not someone who was born a Black. Can you do that?”
Kreacher drew himself up and bowed so deeply that Harry heard the impact of his nose with the floor. “Kreacher can do! Defend Master Draco and Mistress Astoria!” He paused. “And Kreacher be getting the nursery ready for the baby.”
Harry rolled his eyes as Kreacher disappeared, then took another sip of tea. At least the nursery was a separate room from the rest and Kreacher wouldn’t disturb anybody.
And if Kreacher started talking about the baby to Draco and Astoria, well, Harry would cross that bridge when he came to it.
“What happened at the Ministry?”
Harry started and looked up. Theodore was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his hands braced on the frame. His eyes were locked on Harry.
Harry swallowed and opened his mouth. He had calmed down a little since he’d stumbled into the house. He could hold the line. He could lie. He could tell Theodore that it was nothing really, that the Unspeakables had made a silly threat and he’d handled it.
But what he said was, “I need you.”
Theodore crossed the space between them and knelt down in front of Harry, his hands cupping Harry’s face. For the first time since they’d married, he’d dropped the masks. Harry didn’t know if he deserved the devotion that was shining in Theodore’s eyes.
That he’d somehow achieved from afar. Harry wouldn’t have blamed him if that devotion had changed after Theodore had started showing a house with him and seeing the real Harry. It wouldn’t be Theodore’s fault at all if the “perfect” picture had been damaged.
But somehow, it had endured.
“Please,” Harry whispered, “take me to bed.”
Theodore leaned in to kiss him, leaf-soft, and helped him out of the chair.
*
“What do you need?”
They were in Theodore’s room, a quiet one at the end of the expanded corridor that held all the bedrooms on the third floor. Harry had barely noticed that the purple-and-black decorating scheme was similar to the one in the large drawing room where he’d had the conversation with his spouses the other day. His whole attention was focused on Theodore, who was focused on him.
Harry hesitated. Theodore smiled at him and shook his head. “Believe me, Harry, if you want something I don’t want to give you, I’ll just tell you. Although there’s very little you could ask of me that I wouldn’t be willing to share with you.”
Harry nodded. Maybe later on he would find that disturbing and need to talk about it with Theodore, but right now, he would just ask.
“Please fuck me.”
Theodore’s eyes widened a little, and darkened. Then he nodded. “Of course,” he said, standing up and reaching towards the collar of his robes. “I wasn’t sure you would ever want that, but I would have offered eventually.”
“They had the Head Unspeakable waiting there,” Harry said, tearing at his own robes. The button near the top snapped, but he ignored that as he threw them aside. Repairing Charms were easy enough. “The fucking Head Unspeakable. He said that I was a mystery of the universe and they had some fucking right to me.”
Theodore’s face stilled. “I thought it was a meeting about our marriages.”
Harry had to pause to appreciate the weight of warmth in his stomach. Our marriages. Theodore was ready to defend everyone else with him, even if he found some of them exasperating or-and this was only a guess, based on some of the expressions Harry had seen him wear-wished that he’d been Harry’s only spouse sometimes.
“That was just an excuse,” he said, when he came back to the present, and found Theodore waiting patiently for him. He bent down and tore his pants off, leaving himself slick and bobbing and hard. Theodore caught his breath at the sight of him, but Harry couldn’t stop talking. “They would have liked to have an excuse to discredit me if they could, and Hermione-”
“Why Granger?”
“She causes a lot of trouble for the Magical Creatures Department. If they could expel me from the Ministry or prove that I was committing some crime, it would taint her.”
“Of course. I should have thought of that myself.” Theodore gave a little shrug, and his robes fell off. Harry studied his pale skin, and felt himself stir. Theodore gave him a half-lidded smile. “But it was really just to get you into a room with the Head Unspeakable.”
“Yes. Although to give the other Department Heads credit, they didn’t know that. Kingsley and Robards really thought it was going to be my chance to defend our marriages and clear myself, I think.” Harry watched with desire that shook him as more and more of Theodore’s skin emerged. “The Head Unspeakable threw some net at me that looked like it was made of white light-”
“What?”
Harry blinked. “I don’t know what it was, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I know.” Theodore was wide-eyed and furious, and Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen him like that before, either. “He was going to tie your magic up inside your body so it couldn’t ever escape again, Harry. There’s no counter to that spell, no reversal. It ought to be an Unforgivable, but no one outside the Department of Mysteries can cast it. I only know it because of my father.” He closed his eyes. “He threatened me with it, more than enough.”
“Oh, Theodore.” Harry stepped towards him and let his fingers feather gently down Theodore’s cheek, towards his mouth.
Theodore took a sharp breath and opened his eyes. “Look at us, both naked and acting as though we want to weep instead of fuck.”
Harry licked his lips. “Well, I’d like to do both, but fucking first. Is it all right if I keep talking?”
“Of course.” Theodore smiled a little and steered Harry towards the bed, which didn’t seem to have changed from the usual Black production of ridiculously over-sized and over-frilled. “Although I have to admit, I plan on fucking you so hard that you might not have much breath left for talking by then.”
“That’s fine.” Harry dropped into the middle of the bed and clenched his hands together. When he pulled then apart, they were sticky with strands of lubricant.
Theodore didn’t seem to be as affected by the display of wandless magic as Blaise was, but he was smiling and his cock was a dusky purple as he knelt down next to Harry. “All that wandless magic earlier and you can still do this. I assume that you used wandless magic to defeat the Head Unspeakable, too?”
Harry snorted. “Burned his cloak and the other magic that was obscuring him right off. It was Michael Corner, if you can believe that. Maybe he wanted to capture me partially because we both used to date Ginny Weasley and there’s hard feelings from that, but maybe he really did believe all that stupid ‘mystery of the universe’ stuff.”
“You…burned all of that?”
Harry shot Theodore a cautious look. “Are you about to turn strange on me? Yes, I did.” To keep Theodore’s mind where it belonged, even if Harry had been the one to bring it up, he lifted one dripping, glistening finger and reached down towards his arse.
Theodore leaned back on his hands and knees to watch, but he whispered, “The Unspeakables’ Cloaks are woven of the same stuff that Dementors’ cloaks are. I just never heard of anyone who could destroy one.”
Harry blinked. “Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, I suppose I should have got used to being freakish by now.” He slid his finger into his hole and arched, eyes closing. Damn, he had forgotten how good that felt.
Theodore seized his wrist. Harry looked up at him, wondering if he had changed his mind about fucking him.
But Theodore said, as calm and intent as if he was giving Harry instructions in cooking, “You are not a freak.”
Harry sighed. “I meant unusual. That’s all.” He spread his fingers and bucked in surprise as he touched his prostate. It really had been a long time if he’d forgotten where the hell that was. He hissed and spread his legs wider, working himself back and forth.
“There’s a reason that word was near the top of your mind.”
Harry hesitated, then took his hand out of himself and looked at Theodore. “My Muggle relatives used to call me a freak.”
“And what else did they do?”
Theodore’s voice was soft, an incantation. Harry found himself responding before he meant to, in words that he hadn’t meant to say. “They gave me lots of chores. Didn’t always feed me. Encouraged my cousin to beat me up.” He swallowed. “Keep me in a cupboard.”
Theodore stared at him, and the silence lengthened. Harry finally cast his eyes down, wondering if he should have brought this up at all. Good choice for when you’re finally about to get the fucking you need, Harry.
Then Theodore said, “That’s why you were so reluctant to trust that we could want you back.”
And his fingers slipped down and gently entered where Harry’s hand had been just a few moments before, spreading and opening him.
“Yeah,” Harry said, his lips parting on the gentle gasps of a sigh. “Merlin, Theodore, right there.”
“That’s why you cling with such loyalty to your friends and protect the people who depend on you. Because you never had anyone show you loyalty in the Muggle world, and no one protected you.” Theodore rose up on his knees and gripped his cock. His face was placid, except for his eyes, which were stormy.
Harry nodded to him and swiped a pillow from above him, sliding it under his arse. He had the feeling he was going to need it. “Yeah.”
Theodore slid in, and this time they both sighed. Harry rested his head back on the remaining pillows and gripped the sheets with splayed, trembling fingers. This was bloody perfect. This was what he’d needed.
“And you were never given what you wanted,” Theodore whispered. “Not even the most basic needs.” He set up the rhythm that Harry had known, without asking, he would set: gentle and relentless as moonrise.
“Yeah.” Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t think he was crying, hoped he wasn’t, thought Theodore would excuse it if it happened.
“I promise,” said Theodore, and his hands shifted up and snatched Harry’s hips, “I am going to give you everything that you need.”
And he thrust, and thrust, and on the third thrust, he hit Harry’s prostate as hard as Harry’s fingers had.
Harry’s chest fluttered as he sucked in a harsh breath. He grunted, then he cried out. It was even longer than since the last time he’d got fucked that he’d felt he could be as vocal as he wanted when he was in bed with someone.
But Theodore was here.
Protecting him, just as Harry had protected him from his father.
“Keep going,” he stuttered, and Theodore was right, the simple rhythm took his breath from him.
But honestly, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the pleasure blazing through him. It was subtle heat, and then it became sharp, and then it grew rougher as Theodore’s motions did, and then it gentled again, and the whole time, Harry knew that Theodore was watching his breath and his enjoyment as closely as Harry had watched those of his other partners.
Someone was here who would take care of him.
Harry let go.
Theodore’s startled breath was the only reason Harry opened his eyes. And he smiled a little as he watched the thicket of white trees growing up on the sides of the bed.
“Just ignore them,” he said, waving a hand.
“What are they?”
“My magic grows hawthorn trees sometimes, when I feel really good.” Harry timed his breath to get all the words out. It was easier since Theodore had paused.
“Why? And what happens to them?”
“Because they used to be associated with magic and Faerie? I don’t really know.” Harry relaxed back into the pillows. “And they’ll fall to dust when we’re finished.”
Theodore kept blinking at the hawthorn trees heavy with may blossom, and Harry cleared his throat. “Are you going to fuck me, or should I find someone else to finish the job?”
Theodore turned back to him, and the storm in his eyes had gone. There was only softness like starlight there.
“You’re wondrous,” Theodore said, and began to move again.
Harry grinned and said, “You’re just now realizing-oh.” Theodore had found his prostate and was pressing against it with short, heavy motions that were all the harder to ride with because the jolts of pleasure were so intense.
“Oh, no,” Theodore said, with a faint smile, and clenched his hands down so that his nails scored Harry’s ribs. “I knew it long ago.”
They didn’t talk after that, although Theodore seemed to divide his attention between Harry and the hawthorn trees. Harry might have made a joke about losing out his husband’s attention to a bunch of trees, but he was too breathless to.
Theodore finally held still and screwed Harry with slow, gyrating motions of his hips, and Harry grunted and came. Theodore let go as if he’d been afraid of coming until then, and followed him.
Harry wrapped his arms around Theodore when they were done, holding him close enough to feel heavy and sated and sticky and warm and smug. He flicked an eyebrow up when Theodore jumped as the hawthorn trees fell to dust. “I told you.”
Theodore caught his breath for a minute or so. Then he turned his head.
Harry’s hands went nerveless on Theodore’s sides. There was love in his eyes, and the devotion Harry had seen earlier, and fierce happiness. The mere thought of trying to be worthy of those emotion frightened Harry far more than the Head Unspeakable had.
“We’ll be worthy of them together,” Theodore whispered.
Maybe that was more of that really good marital communication, or maybe Theodore had a bit of Legilimency talent he hadn’t mentioned to Harry. Not that it mattered. It was what Harry needed to hear right then, and he nodded and kissed his husband, rolling over a little. “Mind if I spend the night here?”
Theodore laughed softly. “Only you would ask.”
Harry stilled and glanced over his shoulder. Theodore shifted a little in response. “I mean it, Theodore. I’ll always ask. I never want to just assume.” He thought of adding that that was why he hadn’t asked to sleep with his spouses when they first married, because he didn’t want to assume, but it wasn’t the right time.
“I know,” Theodore said. “And I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Harry laughed, then. “Except for the rest of the people in this house.”
“Maybe so.” Theodore rolled Harry to the side as he separated from him and picked up his wand. A Cleaning Charm gentler than most Harry had mastered-there were drawbacks to magical strength, too-took care of the mess in his arse, and then Theodore rearranged them. Harry realized that Theodore’s ear had come to rest right atop his heart, and he doubted it was a coincidence.
Harry stroked Theodore’s hair, and Theodore murmured, “But I am making one assumption.”
“What’s that?”
“That you haven’t told a lot of people about what happened with the Dursleys. That you haven’t moved on and healed from it.”
Harry licked his lips. “You’re right. I wanted to forget, honestly. And if I spread it around, I reckoned it was a weakness my enemies could use against me. Us, now.”
Theodore curled his hand around Harry’s wrist and looked up at him with soft, depthless grey eyes. “Promise that we’ll work together, with the others, on making it so that it’s not a weakness for you anymore?”
Harry tensed, then relaxed. Theodore wasn’t asking Harry to tell the story to a bunch of people he couldn’t trust. Just to work on it. He nodded. “I promise.”
“Good.” Theodore wrapped his arms more firmly around Harry and drifted off.
Harry didn’t last much longer, but he let his awareness expand beyond the bed, picking up the warm magic of the others. Zach was asleep and dreaming, surrounded by a golden corona of gentle power. Draco and Astoria were moving together in slow lovemaking, their rhythms obvious to Harry after the night he’d spent with them.
Luna was focused in a way that probably meant she was either reading or writing articles for the Quibbler. Blaise was out in the garden, still enough to be meditating, his magic too active to be asleep.
And Theodore was right here. With him.
Harry turned his head, let his lips rest against Theodore’s temple, and joined him in sleep, maintaining his connections with his other spouses as long as he could, utterly content and utterly committed to the life that was to come.
The End.