A/N: A short epilogue… for those of you who wanted to know what happened to Harry.
Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose
The Ties That Bind
Epilogue
If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.
Benjamin Franklin
Harry knew things just had to get better.
They had to.
He was tired of being pushed around by the bloody Dursleys.
Tired of being laughed at as the Boy-Who-Fainted.
Tired of being the wizard everyone thought would save the world only to get looked down upon as a dismal failure.
He was tired of losing the families, the people, that he wanted— needed.
Sirius was wasting away in that damned hospital— forever, and he had been the one hope for salvation to get away from a horrible family.
The Dursleys were stupid, selfish, horrible excuses for people.
The Weasleys—
Merlin.
Molly was locked up in Azkaban—
But he'd found a special book in a forgotten package of things that Sirius had once sent him— things from both his father and him.
A care package from the past, he had said. Something to help him out with many of his problems.
Marauder stuff.
Like the map.
One of the notebooks with the Black family crest had a complicated diagram drawn inside, but it promised endless power, fame, glory.
He just wanted to be respected. He didn't want to be kicked around like a manky bit of rubbish anymore.
If he was the Chosen One, damn it, he wanted to be treated like it.
He painted the symbols.
He drew the circles.
He spoke the odd language that made no sense.
He killed a rat.
Nasty.
But it would all be worth it in the end.
The candles flickered in the room despite there being no wind around.
He cut himself and dripped several drops of his blood in the centre of the diagram.
Then the candles all went out.
Total darkness.
An odd rustling noise.
Unnerving, unnatural sounds.
Scraping and clawing.
Low growls.
"What do you offer, boy?" a growling voice echoed.
"What do you want?" another growling voice added.
"Fame and respect!" Harry cried.
The growling voices seemed scornful. "And what do you offer in return?"
"I offer—"
He paused.
He hadn't really gotten that far ahead in his thinking—
If you didn't believe in souls, then it wouldn't really matter promising it to another, right?
"I offer my soul!"
Deep baritone chuckling filled the room as the candles suddenly came to life again.
Dark shapes moved in the shadows and flickering candlelight.
A gnarled, taloned hand then wrapped tightly around his throat as something—an odd sense of pressure—seemed to pull the very breath from his lungs.
The candles flickered brighter like a blazing bonfire.
Harry gurgled as he was bodily thrown well clear of the supposedly protective circle.
Dark, inhuman shapes moved, twisted, shrank, reformed.
Harry's green eyes went very wide as the familiar image of his Potions professor dipped his head down and kissed Hermione Granger— a blaze of something light and blue was shared between them— a wisp of something he felt, deep down, he should know.
Snape turned to stare at him, his black eyes seemingly even blacker than before.
"Your wish for fame and respect is granted, boy," Snape growled malevolently.
"Which you will keep until the day you die— unless you should foolishly break our confidence, our contract."
The pair kissed passionately in front of Harry, making him turn an unhealthy-looking green with rising nausea.
"Must you do that?" Harry moaned, clutching his stomach.
Hermione languidly took one of Severus' fingers into her mouth and licked it tenderly. "Better?"
"Yes," Severus answered, smiling wickedly.
"NO!" Harry yelled at the very same time.
"Well, you were quite rude in summoning us right in the middle of our… private time, Harry Potter," Hermione said, licking her teeth suggestively.
Harry stared at her and then immediately tried very hard not to stare, turning a sickly green again.
Why did they have to look just like his old potions professor and his swotty apprentice?
Even as he tried not to lose his lunch at the very thought of it, he tried to focus on the heart of the bargain.
Fame and respect.
He didn't think on how odd it was that the demons had been able to cross the protective circle he had drawn.
He didn't think to ensure he carefully worded exactly what he wanted.
He hadn't thought of using time limiters or setting any rules to their Contract—
He just blindly followed the directions in Sirius' old book, knowing after reading the journals detailing their grand plans and adventures that Sirius had always been his father's best mate.
Not a murderer.
And that had been proven, right?
With Pettigrew's capture?
Why couldn't he stop staring at the distinctive swell of Hermione's belly?
Why did it disquiet him so much?
The pair were snogging again— this time it seemed a little too intimate, a little too much information at once.
Harry could see something forming between them that wasn't about the foetus in Hermione's belly.
A bright, concentrated light slithered out of their mouths and past their sliding tongues to form a ball of brilliance in between them. It felt— oddly familiar somehow.
Like the feel of his Firebolt in his hand.
His holly wand.
Something distinctively his.
Wisps of darkness seemed to seep out of the ground as two other shapes slowly unfurled in the smouldering cloud— a mixture of wings and fangs and claws.
A loud, bat-like muzzle opened and let loose a loud SCREEE upon entry as gobbets of black slaver dripped from obsidian fangs. Beside that beast was another—
A mixture of fang, claw, and wings— and sleek silver fur that seemed vaguely familiar.
It purred—
A rumble of sound that seemed so very feline and yet so very other.
So very wrong.
"Mmmmmm, it seems congratulations are in order," Severus purred, his voice low and sensual.
Sensual?
Snape?
No, no. that wasn't right at all.
"Mmmmmmmminerva," Hermione rumbled with clear affection, taking the grey-furred demoness into a hug. "We have a very special present for you. Mr Potter here has— made a rather generous donation to your—" Hermione's smile was smug and malevolent. "Fertility."
Mrowllll, the grey demoness purred as both Hermione and Severus breathed into her mouth, sending the brilliant ball of light they had formed together into her mouth.
And then she swallowed it, where it immediately went into her belly and glowed radiantly.
"Mmmmazakath," Minerva purred flirtatiously. "I need you."
The demon bat smiled wickedly. "My lovely queen. Your wish is but my command."
The pair promptly proceeded to entangle themselves lustfully, right in front of everyone, caring not who saw what.
For anyone's eyes but their own.
Hermione and Severus turned and smiled knowingly at Harry. "Your wish is granted, Harry Potter."
Long tongues entangled in a fervent kiss.
Sharp claws replaced dull, human nails. Skin shifted in hue from ivory pale to black. Wings flapped, fangs glinted— nasty yellow fangs and pristinely pearly flashed as their groans and growls and hedonistic pleasure mixed in the room.
Harry's brain derailed, careening off the cliff into his own personal mental train wreck, and one foolish young wizard, Mr Harry James Potter, He-Who-Traded-His-Soul-For-Fame-and-Respect, swooned and passed out onto the cold attic floor.
Harry Potter, Quidditch Hero, Star Seeker, Dies at One Hundred and Fifty-Two
Body Disappears, Fanatical Fans Blamed for "Sickening Form of Hero Worship"
Famous Quidditch Star of Puddlemere United died last Tuesday night at the venerable age of one hundred and fifty two. After well over a century of unprecedented sports success, still Seeking even at his advanced age, Harry James Potter left behind a legacy of fame, influence, and glory as the undisputed finest Seeker in the World, having only been matched by Bulgarian Viktor Krum until the Bulgarian retired some decades previously.
Millions of fans and even longtime rivals came out to pay their respects to the great Harry Potter, the man who was once known as the Boy-Who-Lived and became even more famous as the Man-Who-Seeks.
Mr Potter is survived by his twenty-five children from his (now deceased) wife of ninety years, Gabrielle Potter (née Delacour).
The family asks for privacy in their time of mourning, and anyone who believes they may have information regarding the strange disappearance of Mr Potter's body is asked to contact Senior Auror Jacques (Jack) Potter at their earliest convenience.
Deep within the bowels of Purgatory, Harry Potter wandered about aimlessly, unable to pass on to the Afterlife that lay beyond, good or bad, because he had no soul.
He had lived a very long and grand life.
He had believed it would go on forever— until it didn't.
And he had woken up in the grey, unrelentingly hazy land.
All he had to break up the unrelenting grey landscape were the small pools of obsidian that showed him the world going on without him.
Both in the land of the living— and that of the dead.
The obsidian pool shimmered, and a cold feeling of intense dread completely filled him—
Dion, his youngest son— his most favoured son, had found Sirius' old notebook mixed amongst the contents of his old school trunk.
No, stop!
Harry slammed his hands down on the pool, but the surface was as hard as stone, even as it moved like water should have.
He watched his youngest son sobbing brokenly as he drew the circle, painted the floor— killed his own owl.
No, Dion, NO!
The candles flickered in the attic where Dion was sniffling and chanting.
Dark shapes rose up from the floorboards, seeped out from the cracks in the walls—
Harry wept onto the obsidian pool, his hands clawing at the unforgiving surface.
Demons.
Some had silvered fur. Some had scales as black as night. Some had fur that took in all light and kept it hostage. All had wicked claws and sharp, pointed fangs.
All had wings that barely fit in the poor, abused attic room.
"What is it that you desire, boy?"
No, Dion, NO!
"I wish to be just as great as my father!"
The gathered demons chuckled lowly. "What do you offer us, hrm?"
"Anything! Anything!"
"Your soul, boy? That is the only tender that we desire in exchange for this— contract."
Bat shapes swirled. Feline-bat shapes, tall, intimidating beast-faced shapes, demonic hounds—
All of them slavering, eager.
"You can have it! Just make me as great as my father!"
The slavering darkness descended upon Dion Potter as the glowing heart of his soul was shared amongst them all, and they then fell upon each other in vile acts of heated, bestial fornication.
"Your wish is granted, Dion Potter."
Dion Potter, youngest son of Harry James Potter, then fainted onto the old attic floor.
Like father—
Like son.
Far away, nestled deep in the stygian Darkness of the ancient forest, Severus, Hermione, Minerva, and Mazakath sat supping together and having tea.
"Our progeny have found a tasty contracted soul," Mazakath rumbled.
"So proud,"Minerva said fondly.
"Couldn't have happened to a more dunderheaded fool of a mortal," Severus observed, nibbling a chocolate biscuit with clear relish.
"Oh! I felt a kick!" Hermione exclaimed, her long talons resting on her rounded belly.
All the demons took turns placing their hands upon her swollen belly, their eyes glinting with pride and glee.
"Ah!" Minerva said, her eyes going wide as her own abdomen experienced the fluttering butterfly kick of a foetal demon.
Hermione took Minerva's talons gently in hers as their respective mates looked on with a smug, unrelenting pride.
"I love you," Hermione purred, entangling herself in Severus' wings and body as she always had and always would.
Severus enfolded her, drawing her close, relishing in the feel of her warmth and Darkness, her unrelenting loyalty and love. "And I you, my lovely Summoner, my mate. Always."
Far, far away in the lands of Purgatory, Harry James Potter screamed his lungs out in horror.
And then fainted dead away.
The End
A/N: Moral of the story: Don't be a dunderhead and summon demons. It's just not worth it.
Or, if you do, be like Hermione and do your part by enslaving the world, one sprog at a time—
Ahem.
Hope you enjoyed this epilogue.
*Skittering of demonic spiders*
Spider 1: Hey, it's going to take a while to take over the world, yeah?
Spider 2: Maybe they should have a gazillion eggs like we spiders do. We hatch out hundreds at a time.
Spider 3: Um, I'm pretty sure they don't want to take care of hundreds of sprogs at a time, mate.
Spider 4: Awwwww!
Spider 5: But, but… they make such great parents!
Spider 6: Irony, much?
Spider 7: Oh, that reminds me. We have to go iron the nappies!
Spider 8: Eeee! Let's go!
Spider 9: Remember, tea at two, everyone!
*Spiders scurry off, leaving one spider with a tiny silver pail over his head, all alone*
Bucket: Guys? Um… guys?
Other spiders: This way, Bucket!
*Bucket sighs and scurries off toward the voices*