Disclaimer; J. K. Rowling owns all things pertaining to Harry Potter and I am just playing with her toys.

Chapter 4

If it isn't one thing it's another.

As soon as the group arrived back at the, real time, party in the Burrow, Harry turned to Lille and asked, "You know where the ring box is will you please go to my room in the Palace and bring it here."

Ginny went off telling them that she was going to speak with her mum and Gabrielle hadn't even finished coiling up the portkey chain when Lille arrived back and handed Harry the Ring box for which he thanked her.

Opening the box wide so that all of the girls could see what was in it he removed the Black family engagement ring and after seeking and receiving permission, put it on Daphne's finger; whereupon she promptly burst into tears of happiness; Harry cuddled her until she settled down.

"Why is that ring glowing?" Padma asked.

Harry looked and said, "That is the Potter family wedding ring . . . I wonder if because we are soul bonded I should put it on your finger?"

This prompted an instant debate the outcome of which was that it wouldn't hurt to try it; all of these rings were magical and they would only do what they wanted to do.

Hermione's eyes were glowing as Harry put the wedding ring on her finger and they kissed deeply.

Susan had started bouncing as she asked excitedly. "Now why are all of these other rings on this side glowing?" The four rings on the Potter side of the box were now glowing.

"I'm guessing." Harry said, "Because Hermione is now Lady Potter and is wearing the wedding ring as well, I can now start collecting concubines for that house."

"That sounds about right." Daphne said happily.

"Oh poo!" was Parvati's intellectual response.

"Parvati!" Padma said severely. "You sounded like Luna Lovegood, although I do agree with the sentiment . . . and Harry's assessment as well."

Harry smiled, "So Susan, would you like your ring now?"

Susan rushed forward, again she was bouncing, smiling and blushing all at the same time, "Yes please." She said, holding her left hand out with her ring finger prominent.

Laughing Harry slipped the ring onto Susan's finger; he was immediately subjected to another mind-blowing kiss.

"Hannah?" Harry asked; she came forward quietly and kissed him gently on the lips and then she held out her left hand onto the third finger of which Harry slipped her ring; she then kissed him very seriously.

Hermione was giggling, "As we thought might happen, darling there are still four rings on the Potter side of the box."

Susan said, "They are trying to wear you out my Lord." Then she fell rolling on the ground laughing with Hannah.

Parvati had a minor case of the rats, "Enough of this frivolity, when are you and Daphne going to get together so that we can join in the fun?"

-x-

For a change, Fate was kind of on their side, the mothers of Hannah, Daphne and the twins were talking to Susan's aunt and another short plump witch who appeared to be quite vociferously complaining about something. As the eleven approached the group they were joined by the Queen of Veeland and Goldfist.

"What appears to be the problem aunt?" Susan asked happily.

"The problem is," the fat witch had butted in before Amelia had had a chance to reply, "that 'the Register' has been going berserk with unauthorised entries an . . ."

"We were not speaking to you . . . anyway who are you?" Harry was speaking in a very dangerous low voice.

However the fat witch seemed to be so full of herself that she was oblivious to his tone, "My name is Madame Isolonte Pumpernickel and I am the registrar of births, deaths, betrothals, engagements and marriages and 'the Register' has been going wild and making a lot of unauthorised entries."

As she stopped for breath Hermione asked innocently, "Is this one of those petty idiots? You know the insignificant, minor Ministry flunkies you were telling us about Harry?"

"It appears to be so." He answered with a small smile.

Hermione re-engaged her target, "I am muggle born witch so please excuse my ignorance, however I seem to remember reading that 'the Register' was controlled by ancient magic and it would only make acceptable entries."

"Yes but look at this latest entry here, Lord Black cannot marry a Greengrass; he has to marry Miss Tonks Black."

Harry's voice had gone even quieter, "So which idiotic fool decided this?" As soon as she had said Miss Tonks Black, small grey parrot had emerged from the top of Harry's staff; it had taken off circled once and headed away into the nearby orchard.

"Why, the Committee for the Purification and Continuation of Blood Lines, of course."

"The Ministry has a committee for the perpetuation of pure blood lunacy." Hermione muttered incredulously.

Totally in agreement Daphne groaned, "I am so full of not surprise that I am totally . . . not surprised."

Tonks soon arrived, slightly dishevelled, with her arm around Remus and she said, "Hi Harry, pretty neat messenger parrot, what do you want?"

"Do you want to marry me?" Harry wasn't pulling any punches.

"Of course not, I want to marry Remus but he's a bit slow realising it. Oh, you've got 'Miss crumpled knickers' here that explains the totally inane question."

Ignoring everybody else Harry said, "Remus, I have noticed recently that you seem to like a certain pink haired Auror, (Harry hadn't finished saying that before Tonks' hair became even more violently shocking pink.) So why haven't you asked her to marry you?" Tonks was now fluttering her eyelashes as well and Goldfist was whispering to Harry.

After a moment Harry continued, "Before the first war really cut loose a stag and a big black dog thought that a certain werewolf should find himself a female companion. So, to avoid any excuses of the 'I haven't got,' or 'I cannot afford,' a ring verity, they bought this one and they must have really liked you because this ring is nice . . . very nice." Harry held up the platinum two carat diamond ring that had been passed to him whilst Goldfist was whispering to him.

Harry passed Remus the ring and said, "Try asking her." He then started whispering to Apolline.

Remus had an, I'm going to take great delight in killing you later, expression on his face, but he turned to Tonks and very sincerely asked, "Nym, will you marry me?"

The 'yes' was half smothered as Tonks clamped her lips onto Remus'; when the pair eventually broke apart, Remus slipped the ring onto her finger; 'the Register' recorded the entry.

"Now I am suddenly full of not surprise as well." Hermione's voice was also low and dangerous. "A witch is being allowed to marry a werewolf . . . very interesting."

Pumpernickel was outraged, "The Committee for the Purification and Continuation of Blood Lines will not allow such a thing."

Daphne had a slightly evil smirk on her face as she said, sweetly, to the fat witch, "Would you be so kind as to go to the floo in the house and ask the Committee to come here please?"

The flunky smiled, "Of course that will be the easiest way to sort this all out." The ball of lard waddled off not realising that she was in the process of organising her own doom.

Hermione was livid, "This is an excellent example of what is wrong with our world; there is a committee, probably comprised of inept, inbred, braggarts, dedicated to overruling magic that was devised by some of the greatest minds ever; what in the name of Merlin do they think that they are playing at?"

Padma was also fuming, "They are playing at 'let me show you how important I am' and the 'see how much better my blood is than yours' game; they're a bunch of congenital morons with intellects somewhere between Crabbe and Malfoy and probably closer to Crabbe than Malfoy."

Daphne looked grim, "They are coming and I know most of these . . . people, they are all quite stupid pure bloods with a perchance for inflicting their own brand of self importance on everyone who they consider to be beneath them socially and that is practically everyone."

All seven of Pumpernickel's committee arrived with a very haughty looking wizard in the lead and he started speaking very arrogantly, "My name is Nigel Bytham - Smyth . . ."

Harry had silenced him and frozen all of the committee that comprised six wizards and just the one witch, he asked, "Will you please have them tested Apolline?"

"Of course I will Hunky Harry." Amelia burst out laughing, all of the girls started giggling and the Queen seemed to be lost in thought; however four veela arrived with two goblins and started testing the committee.

Harry glared at Gabrielle but she started bouncing up and down happily, "Oooo do I get punishment . . . please?"

Hannah, Lille and Parvati moved forward and Parvati said, "We have to admit to equal blame so if there is any punishment going to be had we want our fair share . . . I got that a bit wrong didn't I. What I meant was it should be shared out equally."

Harry had buried his face in his hands whilst Daphne was trying to comfort him; it did not help that she was having great difficulty stopping herself from giggling.

Having seen the veela report to their queen, Amelia saved Parvati from embarrassing herself further by asking, what the result of the checking was. The queen told everyone that all seven of the committee members were marked Death Eaters so they had all been sterilised and their assets confiscated; the rest was up to Amelia and the aurors.

Tonks giggled then sent out a summoning spell and shortly afterwards four aurors arrived; subsequently the recently retired members of a now defunct committee were removed to a place where the wizard world would be safe from their sociologically damaging machinations.

Amelia had a small smile as she said, "If it carries on at this rate there will be nobody left working in the Ministry."

With a smile of his own Harry said, "You should go into work for a few minutes early tomorrow morning and send out a call for all of the staff and all of the various Wizengamot and committee members to come to the Ministry say mid morning Monday because of the reorganisation required due to the untimely death of the Dark Lord and his minions. I'm sure that you can think of something . . . of something suitably creative that will intrigue the more dubious staff members enough to lull them into thinking that they might possibly advance their positions, that way everyone should turn up.

"If Apolline and Goldfist could have a group of their people at the Ministry on Monday morning you could clear out all of the remaining Death Eaters in one fell swoop; then you really might have a shortage of staff."

"Do we really want this?" Amelia started sounding a little worried.

"It is beyond want; you cannot afford not to have this." Susan told her aunt bluntly. "If you leave the rotten apples in the barrel then it won't be long before most of the barrel is rotten again."

The bookworm decided to help, "It might very well be a bit inconvenient in the short term but it must be done now, in no more than a month the protean charm will have decayed too much to detect and then it will be too late, and don't forget all of the people hiding themselves in the Department of Mysteries and such like. You don't want to trust anyone who hasn't been checked; if anybody and I mean anybody doesn't turn up on Monday investigate them straight away, no exceptions, no matter who or what they think they are. Even that character Scrimgeour seems to be a bit dodgy to me, all of the wheedling he's been doing trying to get to the top years before his time; all of the other prospective ministerial candidates should be checked as well."

Queen Apolline was smiling, "You have collected together a fine team Prince Harry but I somehow think that starting to sort out the Ministry of Magic was not the main reason for you all to come over here originally?"

Daphne suddenly had a huge smile, "Well those of us who now have rings wanted to show them off and those of us who are still forced to wait for their rings wish to know when Harry and I are going to be joined, for that matter I am rather keen on knowing how soon I can become Lady Black as well."

Now Danielle, Daphne's mother, had a huge smile, "Thanks to Harry the immediate future is likely to be somewhat chaotic but we should be able to arrange something by way of a bonding ceremony within the next three months or so." The three girls looked dejected.

Amelia had recognised the twinkle in her friend's eyes so she said, "I would think that we could arrange something a bit quicker than that; how about tomorrow at the Greengrass Estate?" Dejection had become happiness.

Hermione had caught on to what was going on, "Surely tomorrow is too quick, anyway Harry and I must have at least a couple of weeks for our honeymoon and then Gabrielle has to have hers; how long do Veela Princesses normally have for their honeymoon Apolline?" If looks could kill then Hermione was getting it three ways.

"Usually it is at least two months but she might be prepared to cut it down to six weeks." Despair had now joined the equation.

Remus hadn't been a marauder for nothing so he decided to add to the doom and gloom, "Well Harry's father once told me that it was a long standing family tradition for Potter males to have six week honeymoon's; so if Hermione and Gabrielle have six weeks each then Daphne could bond with Harry in about three months; so he should be able to fit the concubines in sometime just before Christmas." The twins were now locked in a mutually comforting cuddle.

That would be excellent." Pinkie, the twins' mother agreed, "I suppose that they could work something out for the Christmas holidays from Hogwarts, or maybe in the summer after NEWTS would be better." Total despair.

The total despair was replaced by instant happiness when Danielle said, "No, all in all I think that Amelia was correct originally; how does eleven o'clock tomorrow at the Greengrass Estate suit everybody?"

"Sometime around one in the afternoon would probably be better for me." Amelia said and everybody agreed with her.

Apolline smiled, "If there is anything at all that you think that you might have a problem finding or having made in the time then ask, basically I have a whole country working for me and I can arrange practically anything. So can Prince Harry for that matter, but he has a honeymoon to attend to and I don't think that it would be fair to Lady Potter if he spent all night arranging things for the soon to be Lady Black."

Hermione moved over and put her arms around his neck and asked in a sultry voice, "Do you think that we should go and have our honeymoon now?"

"I think that we should." Harry agreed and they faded out of sight.

"Where did they go?" Danielle asked wide eyed.

Gabrielle had her eyes closed for a few seconds then she said, "To 'the Princes Palace' in 'the Princes Circle'."

As had been intended, this answer, although entirely accurate, didn't really tell anybody who didn't already know the answer, anything.

-x-

"What time is it?"

"Who cares?"

"Harry, I have just remembered that my parents are coming to the Burrow this morning at ten, so what time is it?"

"Look at your watch."

"I don't want to move and to look at my watch I would have to; it's on the bedside cabinet."

"You are a very demanding wife Mrs Potter."

Long pause for several kisses and a little hanky panky.

"It's twenty to nine."

"We have to get up."

"After you."

"I can't move."

"Should I call a healer, are you paralysed?"

"If you hadn't noticed, you are laying on top of me; of course I'm not paralysed." She wiggled her bum which resulted in another, this time longer, delay for kisses and more hanky panky.

"I suppose we must." He said climbing off the bed, he turned and picked her up and carried her into the shower where there was considerably more hanky panky.

-x-

It was ten past nine when the couple arrived in the breakfast room and they were greeted by the three personal assistants and Gabrielle who said, "We didn't expect you two for a couple of hours yet."

Whilst they were having breakfast Hermione explained why they were up and then expressed her worry at being able to explain her matrimonial situation to her parents in less than two hours. All of them understood that there were no exceptions to the rule that muggles were not to know of the existence of time magic although they readily agreed that it would be the easiest solution.

Time was running out when Hermione settled on explaining it all to them later; however she was dressed like a princess and she realised that she would need to do at least a little explaining as soon as she saw them.

After checking, three times, that Harry had the rings with him, anyone would think that they didn't trust him; at ten to ten they activated their reusable portkey to the Burrow. This portkey would be one of the two Ginny would be given for her future use, the far end would probably be reprogrammed for Ginny's bedroom; the other portkey would, if needed, carry her between her dorm room and the Princes Palace.

-x-

Mrs Weasley and Ginny were in the garden of the burrow surveying the detritus of the previous day's celebrations when the group arrived at the same time as Hermione's parents drove up the lane; Molly was looking somewhat panicky and said, "It will take weeks to clear up all of this mess."

Gabrielle and Nicole each took one of Ginny's hands and the trio used the portkey again to disappear to the Princes Palace; once there Ginny quickly changed into one of her sophisticated new dresses and within three minutes the trio was back at the Burrow.

Meanwhile Harry and Hermione held hands and lifted their staves, they closed their eyes and a few seconds later a wash of magic slowly covered the garden; when it cleared the garden looked far better than it ever had; the couple turned to Mrs Weasley smiling and she hugged them, each with one arm.

When they were released they both turned to Hermione's parents, who looked gob smacked and Hermione said, "Good morning, that wasn't quite the greeting I had expected to give you."

Her mother spluttered, "What was that?"

Harry smirked and said, "Would you believe me if I told you 'Magic'."

He received a playful slap from his first love who said, "You may be a Hunky Prince but you should behave yourself."

"He does look rather hunky doesn't he and you look like the princess to his prince; something is obviously going on?" Although smiling at Harry, her mother was talking to Hermione and somewhat confused.

Gabrielle had finished doing what she wanted to do with Ginny and they had joined them with the three veela personal assistants; she said, "It is mostly my fault and it is quite a long story, however we have to go to a bonding ceremony in a short while, so we would like you to be patient and please wait until later for a complete explanation."

"Alright we will wait after Hermione explains what those are on her left hand." Mrs Granger was now smirking at her blushing daughter.

"We have slightly less than an hour." Harry said as he conjured a large garden table with sun umbrellas and about a dozen chairs; there were a lot of glasses on the table and several large jugs of various ice cold drinks.

Arthur, Molly and Ginny had joined them as Gabrielle started the story explaining about Harry rescuing her during the second task of the 'Tri Wizard Tournament' and the veela magic, at nobody's behest, creating a bond between her and Harry.

Harry told the next bit, which was about the will reading and being presented with the box of rings by the goblins and the multitudinous complications being caused him because he had become the head of two major old families. Hermione knew him well enough to know that he wasn't entirely joking when he said that he wasn't certain if he wouldn't be happier if he just did a bunk and left the whole mess behind him.

Hermione and Gabrielle were sat either side of him and they both comforted him and entreated him to take them both with him if he did; when he had assured them that he would Hermione started the final part of the story.

She explained as well as she could about them making their blood staves as part of a magical exercise and that they had double blood bonded them; nobody having warned them that they would be magically bonded if they did this. Then she went on to describe his rather unique marriage proposal and her acceptance; which she assured her parents had nothing to do with the bonding.

For her part Hermione's mother didn't doubt her daughters commitment to Harry Potter; in her first letter home from Hogwarts she had mentioned him and since half way through her first term at Hogwarts, at least half of each letter she had written home had been about him.

The four veela had earlier realised that their natural enchantment was affecting Mr Granger and had reduced it as much as possible so now he asked if Harry was able to afford three wives. No one had expected Ginny's reaction to be to fall off her chair laughing; it took a few minutes to explain to the elder Grangers just what it was that Ginny found so funny.

One thing that had surprised both Harry and Hermione was when Gabrielle had added that the two and a half billion Galleons he had collected the previous day didn't even double the fortune he already had. Neither of the pair had realised that the princess had been paying that much attention to the goblins when they had visited Gringotts on his birthday.

A bit later Arthur reminded them that it was nearly time for them all to go to the wedding; Jane Granger declaimed that neither she nor her husband were dressed for any kind of wedding. The four veela stood the two Grangers in front of them and after putting their heads together they waved their hands and the pair were dressed in robes that were suitable for the parents of a princess; Hermione had simply conjured a very large mirror so that her mother could see herself. The slacks and sweaters the pair had been wearing had been folded neatly and placed on the back seat of their car.

It went without saying that both of the senior Grangers were extremely pleased with what the veela had decided to dress them in for the wedding; after all, they both looked like royalty from a period two hundred and fifty years earlier.

Suddenly Harry looked a bit worried, "Does anybody have any idea as to where we are going?"

Gabrielle smiled, "We took care of that yesterday evening." She said producing a portkey, which was a brass coloured ring with a long piece of ribbon threaded through it. "Danielle, Daphne's mother gave it to me yesterday evening after you two had left."

Harry smiled nervously as he took hold of the ribbon and complained, "If this is a regular portkey I generally fall over when I land with one of those things."

Lille gave him a lecherous smile, "Don't worry my prince, we will look after you." Too late he realised that he was surrounded by the three veela personal assistants.

Harry did not fall over when the portkey landed; he was dragged down by three randy veela, he had two underneath him and Lilly on top and all three were making the most of their opportunity.

"Lille! Let Harry get up." Susan had been waiting for them and she was not happy that the veela were getting their hands on more of Harry than she had so far managed.

"I'm stuck." Lille said with a wide eyed innocent look.

"Do you think that that will work with me?" Gabrielle was having nothing to do with Lille's proclaimed innocence.

"Or me?" Gabrielle's mother the queen added; everyone realised that she was standing between Susan and Hannah.

The three girls were up and they had Harry back on his feet so quickly he was dizzy for a second; and the girls were all looking very contrite and extremely guilty.

After Hannah and Susan had greeted Harry with a kiss Susan said, "My aunt would like to speak with the three of you for a few minutes, I think that we have time before the ceremony."

Harry looked at Apolline and she gave a little nod, so taking Susan's hand he said, "Ok lets go and talk to your aunt; do you think that Hermione's parents should come as well?"

"I don't think that it would hurt." Susan answered, she was just happy to be holding his hand.

Turning to the Weasleys he continued, "See you all a little later." As they set off to find Susan's aunt.

As soon as the group left Ginny's mother started berating her daughter for not trying to join Harry; Ginny told her mother not to show them up and to try to be a bit quieter. She continued by telling her that she was the only girl who had an open option to join them if ever she wanted to in the future and the beautiful dress she was wearing Harry had arranged for her.

This pacified her mother somewhat and she now had a small smile.

-x-

As they approached Amelia Susan told them quietly that the man who appeared to be having an argument with her aunt was Matthias Abbott, Hannah father and as they moved closer they could hear him saying; ". . . the man's a Lothario, and did you see that carry on with those veela girls when he arrived?"

Hannah was looking upset so Susan, Gabrielle and Hermione gathered round to comfort her.

Lille had decided that after her earlier behaviour she had to redeem herself for her indiscretion, so she reapplied her wide eyed innocent look and asked, "Excuse me Mr Abbott, but what is a Lothario?" All of the veela personal assistants were actually very well aware of what a Lothario was.

"A Lothario is a womaniser, a man who takes advantage of innocent young girls like you three my dear." Mr. Abbott said, smiling at her.

Looking puzzled for a second Lille said, "But that can not be correct, Prince Harry is not a Lothario . . . we were taking advantage of him." She said as if it was blindingly obvious and then she paused for a few seconds to take a thick scroll out of her pocket and continued, "This is a list of one thousand nine hundred and seventy three Veela who wish to, as you say, take advantage of Prince Harry; there are a lot of other Veela who want to add their names to the list but they haven't had time to add them . . . yet. I do not believe that he needs to be, as you imply, a womaniser."

Mr Abbott wandered away looking somewhat mystified; then the thought of nearly two thousand very beautiful women wanting to take advantage of your body will do that to some men.

"Thank you for that young lady." Amelia said to Lille and then she turned to the others and continued, "I took your advice and slipped into the Ministry quite early this morning; I sent out the call for everyone to be in the main meeting hall at eleven tomorrow morning. There weren't very many staff at the Ministry this morning, being as how it's Sunday, but by the time I left the chaos we anticipated was well underway; headless chickens comes to mind."

Turning to Queen Apolline, with a barely contained smirk, she continued, "So why, your majesty, do I appear to have acquired an escort of eight veela and two goblins?"

The veela queen was quite straight with her, "We have decided that you are one of the few people we would like to see as the Minister in charge of your part of the magical world; to that end anyone who approaches you will be checked and if necessary neutralized. Those protectors you have seen will remain with you for the foreseeable future, however tomorrow morning at eleven there will be many more, for your personal safety of course." The queen now had a slightly feral smile which was matched by Amelia's.

Gabrielle had noticed that Hermione's parents were getting somewhat bemused so she said, "Mother, Mme Bones may I present my very good friend Hermione's parents, Mr and Mrs Granger may I present my mother Queen Apolline and Susan's aunt Mme Amelia Bones."

Sometime during the usual conversation that takes place at times like this, Harry learned that Hermione's parents were called Dan and Emma; also Apolline had noticed their nervousness and put the senior Grangers at their ease. For his part Harry wondered why Hermione's mother was being called Emma when Hermione had told him that her middle name was Jane after her mother.

Four more veela arrived and the queen said, "Prince Harry will you please do the honours?"

After Harry had given the four newly arrived veela permission to speak in front of him, (the girls were quietly explaining the reason for this to those who did not know what was happening) the queen continued, "Loren, you will be the personal assistant of Susan and Serena you will be the same for Hannah."

Harry was fairly surprised although his two concubines looked amazed however the queen carried on, "Elena, you will be Daphne's personal assistant so for the time being you should be with the randy trio until you can be introduced to her; and Tina you will help Ginevra she seems to be friends with all of you; I believe you will be quite a surprise for her. (A few days earlier Gabrielle had made sure that her mother was well aware of Ginny's relationship with both Harry and Hermione; also she understood the regard Harry held the young girl in, for helping him try to save his godfather.) Now you ten should take Tina to Ginevra and then you should all go and see if you can help Daphne in any way; Lille will stay with Harry and he will need to go and find out what everyone else expects him to do."

Hermione could see that Harry looked terrified so, in a tone that brooked no argument, she said, "Tamira and I will also look after Harry." Her parents were very surprised that their daughter had stood up to the Veela Queen in that matter.

However the queen realised just what Hermione had seen in Harry's face so she smiled and said, "Spoken like a true Princess and of course I agree, a very good idea."

The other eight left in search of Ginny and Amelia said, "I think that someone else had the same idea as us Bernard is coming, oh sorry, none of you know him, Bernard Greengrass Daphne's father; Pinkie Patil and Esther Abbott are with him."

Surprisingly the first of the three to speak was Esther Abbott, "Your Majesty, Lord Potter Black, Ladies; please forgive Matthias my idiot husband, I think that he realises that he made a bit of a fool of himself."

"I believe that Prince Harry's personal assistant quite adequately pointed out why his thoughts were erroneous." Hermione was smiling.

"Prince Harry?" Daphne's father asked sounding slightly confused.

"I'm sorry but I wasn't quite sure what to call him; to me he is Lord Potter and to you he will probably be Lord Black; however Queen Apolline is here and she is the highest ranking of all of us and to her he is Prince Harry so I deferred to her." Hermione had a query so she was in her element trying to find the answer.

Amelia was smiling, "I am most disappointed that you left me out, to me he is Lord Black Potter; it sounds a bit clumsy, Potter Black seems to sound better; however the Potter name is the more prestigious so it should come last as people tend to reduce double barrelled family names to the last name."

The queen had a big smile, "Well Princess Hermione I believe that you were correct to refer to Hunky Harry as Prince Harry, I am here so the title attributed to my daughter is the correct one to use; and it saves all of the confusion with Potter's and Black's."

Harry was a bit calmer knowing that Hermione wasn't going to leave him alone to face whatever was coming and he said, "Seriously that was all very interesting and I think that we could get a definitive answer from Paris our Traditions and Protocol instructor, however I am sure that Mr Greengrass didn't come over here for a seminar on the correct forms of addressing me."

Indeed it was the case that Mr Greengrass had other ideas, he led Harry away to explain to him just what was expected of him, luckily it was nothing too complicated; and Daphne's father only appeared to be slightly surprised that Harry was being accompanied by Hermione and two veela.

Actually he seemed to be more concerned with the five women he had left behind who appeared to be forming a committee and talking about co-opting his wife and various other females as members.

A short time later Dan Granger appeared to be well out of his depth and had been rescued by Arthur Weasley who took him off for a drink and a chat.

-x-

Ginny was still with her mother when Gabrielle and her seven accomplices found her; the Princess wasn't one to beat about the bush so she opened up with, "Hi Gin, Tina has been made your personal assistant." Ginny and Tina hugged and were smiling widely at each other.

However both of the Weasleys were shocked and predictably Molly recovered first, "Ginny can't have a personal assistant."

The two girls were looking disappointedly at each other but Gabrielle didn't want to argue so she played a trump, "Well my mum, you know the queen, appointed her for Ginny so I suppose that you will have to go and tell her of your objection."

Even Molly realised what Gabrielle had done and she also realised that protocol dictated that the princess was totally correct; if she was going to refuse the queen's gift to her daughter, then she would have to tell her why; so after complaining mildly she reluctantly had to accept the situation.

Now it was nine of them who headed off to find she who was about to get hitched; somehow along the way they collected the Patil twins and like an unstoppable female tide the eleven of them soon found Daphne.

Who was in a state of panic.

She didn't have anything to wear.

Clearly this was a misnomer; she had a wardrobe as big as the average bedroom and it was full of clothes, besides all of her other new clothes in the Princes Circle; what she didn't have was something she considered suitable to wear whilst getting bonded to a prince.

Gabrielle sounded slightly frustrated as she turned to Danielle, Daphne's mother, saying, "We asked you to tell us if you had any problems, this is a problem; however it is not an insurmountable one."

She introduced a very happy Elena to Daphne and told her that she was to be her personal assistant and then she continued, "Close your eyes and think of exactly how you wish to look."

Daphne did as she was asked and Gabrielle gently took the panicking girls face in her hands and then lent forward so that the two girls foreheads touched; she held the position for a few seconds and then moved back. All six veela girls held hands, forming a circle around Daphne and a couple of seconds later a bright golden dome formed over the seven girls; half a minute later the dome faded away and Daphne looked wonderful; she looked in the large mirror and smiled; her dress . . . everything, was perfect.

-x-

The next morning breakfast in the Princes Palace was quite chaotic, Gabrielle, Hermione, Susan, Hannah, Ginny, Padma and Parvati were accompanied by eight personal assistants and they were all very happy. At just after nine thirty Daphne and Harry arrived in the breakfast room; they had left the bonding ceremony less than an hour after Gabrielle and the other veela had simply removed everything she was wearing and created her dress. In a situation such as Daphne's they didn't believe that underwear was necessary, in fact the veela generally believed it to be more of a hindrance than an asset, so Daphne hadn't been given any.

By the time the couple arrived things had quietened down a little bit however that was before Daphne and Harry came in for breakfast, Harry had six plus Ginny girls to kiss before he could sit at the table.

As was normal most of the girls were throwing a barrage of questions at the couple and as usual Harry wasn't answering any of them, however to their delight Daphne was going to answer some, "My dress was really very beautiful and I thank you for creating it for me, however, it had no buttons, zips, hooks, laces or anything else so that I could get the ruddy thing off." This resulted in a great deal of hilarity, when it quietened she continued, "Harry was going to vanish the dress but I love it and I wouldn't let him, so he decided to do a switching spell for a T-shirt and we could get that off, then we discovered that I wasn't wearing any underwear . . . why?"

More than half of those at the table were convulsed with laughter, the others were holding themselves together a little better but still laughing; Gabrielle was the exception, she waited for the noise to die down and with a totally deadpan expression she said, "You were going to spend your first night with Hunky Harry, why on earth would you want to be wearing underwear?"

Now all of them were laughing.

-x-

It took about twenty minutes for the ribald hilarity at the table to calm down and then Harry asked, "Did anything interesting happen after we had left?"

"Well you didn't hang around very long, did you?" Ginny was trying to be severe but her giggles were winning.

"Considering what was on offer I think that Daphne showed a great deal of patience." Padma was looking very happy for her friend.

Hermione started, "Well Scrimgeour and his goon squad arrived . . . you know Dawlish and that bunch, although three of the aurors were new, he seemed to be trying to make out how great he was because Voldemort had been destroyed yesterday. Anyway Gabrielle's mum immediately had the seven tested; none of us were very surprised with the result, Scrimgeour and three of the six aurors failed. The three newer aurors passed but Dawlish and the other two who had been with Fudge as well, all failed; I really don't think that any of the newer ones had any idea, they probably had just been trailing around, doing what they were asked to."

"He was one of the least savoury of all the people who were considering running for Minister; my aunt was is glad he is out of the way because he was often, deliberately quite intimidating to a lot of people for no particular reason." Susan sounded relatively happy with the situation.

"Scrimgeour was probably trying to get onto the Fudge gravy train." Hannah remarked.

Ginny smirked, "Well it earned Fudge a one way ticket to the Azkaban Holiday Camp; I hope that he enjoys the dementors."

Padma was bouncing on her chair, "In the middle of the party Hermione discreetly pointed out a beetle to me and I caught it in a tumbler and gave it to Susan's aunt, I don't know just how Hermione knows but she said that it was that cow Rita Skeeter in her illegal Animagus form. Anyway Magical Law Enforcement appeared to be very happy, they told us that it was the second time she had been caught and she was already banned from using her Animagus form so she would go to a special cell in Azkaban, probably permanently."

"What about the Headmistress?" Gabrielle reminded them.

Hermione looked quite serious, "Professor McGonagall cornered me and asked if we were coming back for the next school year and she said that you and I would be head boy and girl if we did. I told her that it was probably as much up to her as anyone else, I explained that there were at least sixteen of us and it would possibly be best if we had our own tower, also I told her that I wasn't sure if either of us really wanted to be the head students."

Gabrielle figured that the pair knew as much as they needed to about the previous day's events, so she said. "It's just after ten thirty and my mother asked if we could all be at the Royal Palace before quarter to eleven, so we should think about moving."

Before they went to finish getting ready Harry gave the twins their rings and he was rewarded with a pair of mind blowing kisses. It was just as well that he was already dressed for the day which, from the time he had woken up, he had believed would include a visit to the Ministry of Magic.

-x-

To the twins delight the first thing that the Queen did after greeting them all was assign two veela Karin and Eleni to be Padma and Parvati's personal assistants; this brought their number up to sixteen.

Next the queen gave Harry and all of the human girls a potion to drink; it would make them immune to the veela sleep spell so they could help with the clear up in the Ministry.

The queen explained that there were close on a thousand veela spread around, inside the Ministry and they were mostly invisible; Harry thought that it would be advisable if they could all see the invisible veela. So Hermione cast her own spell but Harry cast a spell on the other five human girls so that they could see the three veela who had made themselves invisible for a test of Harry's spell.

"Why do we have to sort out the wizarding world?" it was Parvati who expressed the thoughts of several of the girls; however Parvati was being self-indulgent, the longer Harry spent away from being in bed with one of the girls, the longer she would have to wait for her turn; she was not noted for her patients.

"Princess Hermione," the queen said as they were about to leave, "I have had copies of Seemab and Merlin's life works placed in the library in the Princes Palace." As soon as she had said this she had activated the portkey to carry them all to the atrium of the Ministry of Magic; Gabrielle, Ginny and Harry were holding each other up laughing at the expression on Hermione's face.

As they were all walking towards the main meeting hall Apolline was suddenly quite serious, "Really several of you should look at the codices and books before you decide if you are going back to Hogwarts or not; deciphering them could well be your life's work and I doubt if anything Hogwarts can teach you will help very much. Between us we will have to decide what we are going to do with the information when we have it in a form that most people will understand; I have never studied it but I have been told that some of it is quite dangerous."

Hermione's eyes were still glazed and she was walking as if half in a dream; it was just as well that Gabrielle and Harry were guiding her towards the main meeting hall.

-x-

The actual business of clearing out the Ministry went extremely smoothly and in ten minutes they had a further thirty seven marked death eaters in custody. Of course a large number of those captured over the last three days would be fed Veritaserum so that they could discover the names of any remaining Voldemort supporters.

The only Ministry member not to attend the meeting was Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna's father; it transpired that he worked for the Department of Mysteries. As it was a lot of people knew that the editor of the Quibbler was in Patagonia with his daughter; none of them were very worried about Luna's eccentric dad.

A rather loud, fat, egocentric witch said pompously, "You are lucky that Dumbledore isn't here to see this he wouldn't have permitted a lot of what you are doing."

Hermione snapped out of her daze and she was annoyed, "Don't you dare talk to us about Bumblemore, he was nearly as bad as most of these pure blood idiots; he actually seemed to favour the extremely foolish pure blood agenda, without the violence of course. Constantly marrying first and second cousins will totally ruin any society and the selection of acceptable partners for the strict pure bloods in our wizarding society is very small and getting smaller; genetically they are rapidly dieing and their magic is going first.

"On top of that the fools were also trying to keep their money in the family; their obsession with my pile of gold is bigger than your pile of gold was criminal; the result of this non reinvestment is that the economy has stagnated. No doubt it will take a few years for attitudes to adjust and we will have to be careful because, thanks to that lot, there isn't a large enough consumer base left within the wizarding world; so we will probably be forced to turn to the muggles. The muggle populations of India, China and Africa are vast and we can easily arrange for what we are doing to be lost amongst the innumerable opportunities waiting there."

Gabrielle hugged her best friend and made her calm down, then she said, "Come on you lot; let's go home."

All of them had gathered around the portkey when somebody called out, "What about the veela?"

Ginny's eyes were sparkling as she answered, "The thing about veela is . . . a secret."

Fin

Authors Note; I am not sure if this needs an Epilogue? . . . Please Review.