Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or Harry Potter or any of their characters.
Harry said a cheerful goodnight to Ron and Hermione as he left the pub. They caught up every Friday night and had taken to frequenting muggle pubs to avoid the attention of overly enthusiastic fans and any as yet unidentified death eaters and unmarked supporters. As they had been successful so far Harry wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as he walked home, he'd had far too much to drink to feel confident in his ability to apparate.
His first indication of trouble came as he felt a sudden pain in his crotch and lower abdomen. As he fell to his knees in agony he was dimly aware of the sound of apparition. He pulled out his wand and looked in the direction of the noise but the ally was empty. Realising that the pain in his groin was caused by spell damage beyond his ability to heal in his inebriated state, he attempted to apparate to St Mungo's. Thank goodness he made it in one piece.
Taking rare advantage of his fame he was quickly transferred to a private room and attended by the head healer. They numbed the agonising pain and ran some diagnostic charms frowning at the results and calling in a second healer who cast more charms without stopping to explain what was going on.
"Enough" Harry said tersely as the numbing charms started to wear off "What was the curse?"
"Drink this pain reliever. From your scan results we've been able to determine the spell you were hit with. It's not really a curse. It is a medical spell which is normally only used in American fertility clinics on request." the healer explained regretfully handing over a strong potion for the pain. "I've never seen it used in an attack though the Americans generally would not use it without very strong pain relief potions or dreamless sleep or both because it is quite painful, however the pain should only last 72 hours" the healer explained.
"It makes a very effective attack spell" Harry said dryly. "It very nearly incapacitated me. I don't know that I could have stopped him if he'd tried to curse me again. So it won't actually be illegal" Harry sighed. "What does it do?"
"The spell itself isn't illegal though it is illegal to cast on a wizard without their consent. It is one of a class of spells that we must certify the patient is not under the influence of any controlling spells or potions before we accept their consent in a magical contract. The spell is intended to allow a gay man to bear a child with his male partner. It establishes a womb which is the cause of the stomach pain you are now feeling. Unfortunately it works at the cost of the man's ability to impregnate a woman" the healer explained.
"Can the spell be reversed?" Harry asked in alarm.
The healer sighed sadly, "I'm afraid the spell is only partially reversible, we can remove the uterus and prevent you from being able to be impregnated but we cannot restore traditional male fertility. I wouldn't suggest you do this Lord Potter-Black as it would make you unable to produce an heir and therefore prevent you from being eligible to hold your lordships if there are any other male heirs."
Harry nodded "That means those other potential heirs would be the most likely suspects to have done this though from what you've said they're unlikely to have come across the spell. Is there any way to prove who cast the spell?"
"Yes we've identified the magical signature as the work of former Healer Davis, he was disbarred from the healer's guild several years ago for using experimental treatments on muggleborns in cases when there was an already proven effective treatment for their conditions. I'm surprised he knew this spell though it's very rarely used here in England because homosexuality is not considered acceptable, especially in the pureblood circles."
"So you're saying that to have a child I would have to have a male lover, but that we wouldn't be accepted in polite society if I did?" Harry said running his hands through his already wild hair.
"Not exactly, if you had homosexual tendencies you could of course do that though I'd advise leaving Britain is you choose this option, otherwise we could use a procedure similar to the muggle artificial insemination. Now your visit here will be kept confidential. In fact I will give you the file and all the paperwork involved in this visit to keep so that you can guarantee there will be no leaks from St Mungo's. What I would suggest if you want my advice is that you marry a witch from a good home, preferably one with a brother, get that brother to impregnate you through a procedure here at St Mungo's or in America where this spell is more widely used, and then take a year's honeymoon to travel the world, to hide your pregnancy. That or move to Australia or America where it's acceptable to marry a wizard. It would also be possible in some countries to adopt a child and complete a blood adoption ritual. It is considered dark magic here in Britain but is still widely practiced in Eastern Europe. There are a couple of magical lines that wouldn't accept a blood adopted heir though and if there are other heirs with a good claim then it could end up being decided by the Wizengamot. Most lines also wouldn't accept an illegitimate heir either so it would be necessary to spell everyone involved to secrecy" The healer explained his options fully.
"I'm engaged to Ginny Weasley" Harry replied.
The healer nodded. "An excellent choice, I'm sure one of her brothers would be prepared to help and there would be no reason to question a quick pregnancy from a witch in that line. Remember that you don't have to actually have sex with the wizard. This is my private floo call contact. I would be happy to complete the procedure for you. The other thing to remember when looking for a donor if none of the Weasleys are prepared to assist you is that it must be a wizard, and the essence must be willingly provided and willingly received. You cannot be impregnated through rape, though I'd be mindful of the risk of such an attack as whoever organised the spell to be cast may not be aware of that limitation, and you cannot be impregnated by a muggle, or a squib unless of course he happens to be your soul mate which is almost unheard of."
"So can I go?" Harry asked.
"Normally we would keep you here on regular pain potions for the next 72 hours" the healer said doubtfully.
"I can't stay here 72 hours, the press will find me. I want to keep this situation private if at all possible" Harry protested.
"I assure you St Mungo's takes its patient's confidentiality very seriously" The healer said offended.
"And yet there are frequent breaches of that confidentiality in 'The Daily Prophet'" Harry said dryly stepping towards the door and drawing his wand. "I will need a privacy oath from both of you not to mention why I was here tonight."
"I assure you..."
"I will Obliviate you if you would prefer" Harry said pointing his wand at the healer steadily.
"You can't do that!" the healer protested reaching or his own wand.
"I'm a fully trained auror and I assure you I can if I deem it necessary" Harry said seriously.
Both healers reluctantly gave the oath as dictated by Harry.
"Right then anything else I need to know before I go?" Harry asked getting dressed.
"Yes well..." The healer gathered up several potions and handed them to Harry. "Take one of these every four hours and the dreamless sleep once per day. No more than that, and try to do as little magic as possible. Absolutely no apparating. And it's important that as little magic as possible is performed on your body. Do not for example have somebody spell you to sleep or stun you. And for heaven sake avoid getting in another duel."
Harry pocketed the potions and case notes from the visit and thanked the healer handing them each a stack of galleons. "Please don't consider this to be a bribe it's not, but because you have no record of treating me you cannot be paid for it through official channels" he tried to explain.
The healers smiled, thanking Harry for his honesty and thoughtful generosity before escorting him to the staff floo to avoid attention.
Harry floo'd to Grimmauld place as the most secure possible destination and went to his room triggering the heavy privacy and locking wards to lock down the house preventing all entry that had been unused since soon after the fall of Voldemort. He fell onto the bed and finally gave in to the pain he was feeling.
The healer was correct the pain over the next 70 hours was excruciating Harry eventually gave in and drank a dreamless sleep potion collapsing on the bed. He awoke on the fourth day feeling physically fine but still emotionally reeling. He'd always dreamed of the day he would have a family of his own and now the likelihood of it happening seemed remote. The Weasleys for all their virtues were still a pure blood family and the British wizarding world's general attitude to relationships, sex and alternate lifestyles matched those of the muggle Victorian era. At least wizards weren't sentenced to death for homosexuality but most family lines had clauses that prevented homosexual wizards from inheriting the headship of the family. And homosexual wizards were not allowed custody of children in Britain, even their own if they had any. Harry made a note to go to Gringotts once he recovered to check on the Potter and Black family inheritance laws, and all the other families he was head of as well though they didn't matter as much. It wasn't so much the money that concerned him, Harry would be devastated if this curse deprived him of his family legacy.
Harry also tried to make a list of all those who had the motive and opportunity to attack him. All of the death eaters and their families of course and the various sympathisers that hadn't yet been brought to justice though that was more difficult as he was sure they hadn't all been identified. The ones with the most motive was of course Draco Malfoy and his fiancé Astoria Greengrass who had reason to believe Draco was next in line to inherit two of Harry's titles and houses along with quite a lot of entailed Galleons and property if he could prove Harry wasn't capable of producing an heir.
Harry thought back to the meeting he'd had with the goblins immediately after the war. Ron and Hermione had offered to go with him but Harry thought it might be better going alone seeing he was planning to pay the entirety of the damage bill and whatever fine the goblins decided to levy. Instead that turned out to be a minor issue. Once Harry had explained the need to destroy the Horcruxes before Voldemort could be killed and why they'd believed one might be found in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault and the fact that the Horcrux they found was the only thing they took or intended to take from the vault, Ragnok admitted that what had happened with Griphook making an agreement to help them in return for the return of the sword of Gryffindor once they'd destroyed all the Horcruxes and how the goblin had broken the agreement abandoning them in the Lestrange vault was a breach of goblin honour. So Harry agreed to pay a fair price for half the costs of repairing the bank itself with Griphook's clan liable for the other half and the matter was settled.
Instead the main reason for them summoning Harry had been to formally hand over his inheritance. When he hadn't come in on his seventeenth birthday the goblin's had assumed he was too busy trying to fight the war. Soon after that he'd been declared public enemy number one and it would have been foolhardy to attempt visiting the bank. Once Voldemort had been destroyed and the rebuilding process was well in hand the goblins were able to take stock of their accounts and realised that the Potter accounts were still in stasis and they had realised that due to the fact his magical guardian had died when he was 15 and again at 16 he might not know about his inheritance. In fact if he had claimed his inheritance he wouldn't have to have broken into the Lestrange vault. House Lestrange was a vassal house to House Black and Bellatrix was still part of the Black family, therefore as head of House Black Harry had the right to remove any artefact from Bellatrix's vault.
So, contrary to their usual practice, rather than leave the vaults in stasis until they could confiscate them as abandoned they contacted the Potter heir to come in and claim the vaults so the money could be put to work to increase goblin profits.
Harry had been surprised by the size of the Potter fortune, but astounded by the fact that his legal name was not and never had been 'Harry James Potter'.
'Hadrian James Potter-Black- Evander-Peverell-Gryffindor-Slytherin' had put on the rings to accept his inheritances making him Lord Potter, Lord Black, Baron Evander, Viscount Peverell, the Duke of Gryffindor and the Earl of Slytherin. He hadn't wanted to accept the Slytherin title but hearing that it would go to the Malfoys if he didn't, made him put on the ring to see if it would accept him. He smirked when it did. It seemed the gossip mongrels of Hogwarts ended up being almost right for a change. He hadn't been the heir of Slytherin back in second year but now had become so by right of conquest. After having experienced the depth of hatred in second year he decided not to tell anyone and disillusioned the Slytherin ring. Thinking further about it he disillusioned all the rings except the Potter family ring to avoid any more attention from the press and strangers. Being the-man-who-conquered was definitely bad enough without giving them more ammunition.
-o0o-
Feeling well enough to be seen in public and to defend himself if necessary by the fourth day, Harry chose to meet with his accounts manager at Gringotts to discuss the inheritance laws of the houses he was head of. The goblin manager suggested that instead of paying one of them to go through the inheritance books it would make financial and legal sense to read them himself because he might come across other information that he hadn't thought to ask them to look for. So he collected the various family grimoire from each vault and returned home to his research glad of something to do while he came to terms with the changes. After extensive research he found that several of the families had laws preventing anyone not born of the bloodline from inheriting even through blood adoption rituals, but that since this spell was virtually unknown in the British Wizarding World none of the previous heads of house had updated their grimoire to exclude male pregnancies or to differentiate between the father of the heir being the sperm provider and the bearer. His sons would still be eligible to inherit all of his titles, provided he had any.
By the end of his 6 days of self-imposed isolation Harry had received several angry letters from his fiancé Ginny, her mother and youngest brother berating him for ignoring his fiancé. Even Hermione had sent him a letter though she sounded more worried over his disappearance than angry.
Deciding to face the music he apparated to the Burrow to visit his fiancé and her family.
"Where have you been? You missed dinner with my friends and Abbott's party on Saturday. I was so embarrassed" Ginny yelled when she saw him.
"I'm sorry Gin. I was recovering from an attack on Friday night" Harry explained.
"You couldn't have been that badly hurt. You didn't go to St. Mungo's" Ginny said mulishly.
"I did go to St. Mungo's but you know I can't stay there without the press finding out" Harry replied.
"Why didn't you come home here to convalesce?" Molly asked.
"I didn't need nursing and I wanted to be alone" Harry replied to his future mother in law patiently.
"That's crazy. You were hurt you needed your family around you" Molly argued.
"I'm perfectly safe at Grimmauld. I closed the wards and Winky and Kreacher took good care of me" Harry replied.
Hermione huffed as she always did when someone mentioned a house elf in her hearing but didn't say anything. She and Harry had argued about the issue until Harry threatened to stop speaking to her if she brought the subject up again.
"I needed time alone Mrs Weasley. I had to come to terms with what happened and I had some decisions to make" Harry tried to explain.
"We're about to get married. Don't you think I should be involved in those decisions?" Ginny asked angrily.
"Quite frankly, no" Harry retorted. "One of those decisions was how to tell you about being cursed and honestly while you are yelling at me questioning my right to think for myself and more concerned about how many parties you've missed than my well being is not how I plan to have this conversation."
He turned to Molly, "I'm sorry Mrs Weasley but I won't be staying for dinner after all. I'll open the owl wards so Ginny can contact me when she calms down" Harry said going outside to apparate home.
"Were you attacked on your way home from the pub?" Ron asked following him out.
"Yeah" Harry said sighing. "It wasn't your fault mate. I know you didn't tell anyone where we'd planned to meet."
Harry, Ron and Hermione had taken to keeping their meetings as quiet as possible after being ambushed several times when out in the muggle world by reporters, or various girls determined to bag the man-who-conquered.
"Is there anything I can do mate?" Ron asked as he followed Harry to the apparition point.
"I would be grateful if you could convince Ginny and your Mom not to send Howlers" Harry said hopefully.
"I'll try mate but I can't say I'm likely to make much difference" Ron said sighing.
"Don't worry Ron I won't blame you. I wonder how much it would cost to have the goblins invent a ward against Howlers?" he speculated.
"The twins might be cheaper. Let me know if you succeed" Ron said laughing.
Ron was right to be pessimistic in his ability to moderate his mother's or sister's temper. Two howlers arrived within the hour. Harry jotted of a quick note to the twins and to Bill who as a curse breaker had an extensive knowledge of wards asking if there was any possibility of warding against howlers. He contemplated sending a howler of his own back but decided it would probably make things worse.
He ignored their demands to return immediately and closed the mail wards for the night and went to bed early, the healers had warned him it would take a couple of weeks for his energy levels to return to normal.
Several days (and multiple howlers) later Harry felt well enough to deal with the confrontation. He apparated to the Burrow and braced himself for the onslaught.
"Where have you been? And what on earth are you wearing?" Ginny asked looking at his baggy sweat pants. "We're invited to Michael Corner's party tonight and you need to get changed immediately!"
"I'm not going" Harry replied. "I'm on sick leave. How would it look if I was going out to parties when I wasn't well enough for duty?"
"What do you mean you're not going? I already accepted" Ginny screeched.
"Without asking me?" Harry asked annoyed. "You knew I'd been injured. And I've asked you before not to accept invitations without asking me."
"Yes well. I've already said we're coming so go and get changed" Ginny demanded.
"I'm not going out tonight" Harry repeated slowly. "And so we don't have to have this argument again. I'm not going out tomorrow night or any other night while I'm on medical leave either. Nor will I ever want to go out the night before I have an early shift. You do not know my work schedule and I do not want you to accept invitations without asking me. We've had this conversation before Ginny so you did know not to."
"But I already said we'd come" Ginny whined.
Harry summoned parchment and a self inking quill and jotted a quick note before calling Keacher. "Kreacher will you take this note to Michael Corner and give him my apologies for not being able to attend tonight" he asked. He turned back to Ginny, "you can go without me" he suggested.
"No I can't! Everyone would spend all night asking where you were" Ginny exclaimed crossly. "Everyone would think I'm a terrible fiancé if I'm out partying while you were home sick.
"So you're prepared to be a lousy fiancé dragging me out somewhere I'm not well enough to be and putting my job at risk if my boss hears about me being at a party while on sick leave so long as nobody calls you on it to your face" Harry said disgustedly. He walked out without listening to her protests.
Harry sat eating his dinner alone in the kitchen. Kreacher refused to eat with him. It concerned him greatly that Ginny hadn't asked about his health on either of the times he'd seen her since being injured. He'd told her he'd been cursed, treated at St Mungo's and was still on medical leave a week later and she hadn't seemed to care. She was more concerned by the fact he'd disrupted her social life. He thought about that for a moment. Either she already knew what had happened which meant she was involved in organising the attack or she didn't really care about him at all. The thought ate at him. Could she have done this or was she really just another shallow fan girl wanting the fame of becoming the wife of 'The-Saviour-of-the-Wizarding-World'. He'd thought she loved him. How had he been so blind?
He decided pessimistically that if he could prove she wasn't involved in the attack he may as well marry her anyway. He wasn't likely to ever meet anyone who wasn't more interested in the saviour than they were in plain old Harry. Hermione was the only witch on the planet who didn't think that way and she was engaged to his best mate. At least if he married Ginny one of her brothers was sure to be willing to help with the curse. Ron or the twins would in a heartbeat though Charlie would possibly be a better choice as unfortunately Ginny looked more like him, short and slightly solid, rather than her other taller lankier brothers.