I do not own Harry Potter

At a quarter past seven, the seven teens had assembled. Dobby had come and brought the new goblin king. He nodded to Harry.

"How are you, Tr`lik?"

"As good or bad as can be expected, Merlin. The bus rishuk have accepted me without discussion. And I have to thank you in the name of all clans. Three woman will bear singles." Meaning that Harry's magic had worked. "So what do we have to discuss tonight?"

"Samhain." The word hung in the room for a moment. In only a few weeks time, the students of Lord Merlin's class would start to weave the wicker branches into the likeness of giants for the festival. Harry turned to his friends, looking each of them into the eyes. "I am afraid."

Each of them returned his glance. Hermione was the first to answer. "You wouldn't be human if you were not."

"Sometimes I don't understand you humans. You know very well what has to be done, Harry. To protect every being in this land."

"Yes, I know that. But that does not change the fact that I will force ten living people into the wicker man and set fire to them, killing them in quite a painful way." The reports of the Roman conquerors about the British druids had been wrong in many aspects, but the story about the wicker men was absolutely correct. Every year, the Merlin (or his Gaul counterpart) would collect the worst criminals of the land, men who had become too much a threat for the land, and force them into a giant wicker figurine. As the Merlin would know everything about them, there could be no wrong accusations. And then, at the height of the Samhain festival, the Merlin would set fire to the wicker giant, burning the screaming men inside it. There was an enormous amount of magic necessary, and Lord Slytherin's whole class would have to participate, but if done right, the ritual would give the Merlin power to force back the darkness on midwinter night.

Harry knew well what rituals Tom Riddle had done to become the half-living, half-undead thing he was. And he was positive that a full Samhain would break almost all of the enchantments of the Dark wizard. If everything went according to the plan, Tom Riddle would be a very mortal, broken man at Christmas time. Or even better – he might be dead.

"Each of them has killed many times in cold blood. They are murderers, rapists, torturers and they have committed treason against their own land." The goblin did not share the human values that Harry had grown up with. Goblins were pragmatic beings. If something needed to be done, a goblin would do the necessary things without any moral qualms. If the young goblin king knew that Harry had spent an hour vomiting after he had returned from his first meeting with the clans and the ritual killing of their king, he would not have understood. Of course the death of his father was an inconvenience, and if his death had been an accident, he would have mourned him. But the king had given his life for his people, let his blood so that the British goblins would have a chance to live. His name would be part of the memories for as long as goblins would live. Goblins did not believe in a god, but they believed in an afterlife, an immortality for as long as the name continued to be spoken. The Ragnokal Wis'ry would stay in the memory of the goblin nation as long as goblins would walk British soil. A better death could not be had, and any mourning would only be a sign of madness.

Gabrielle broke the silence. "Can you do the ritual?"

Harry nodded. "It is complex, but I am sure we will have enough time to do it correctly. The class is preparing, and even if one or two bow out when they really understand what we will do, there are more than enough. Hell, I could do the whole event with you, Hermione's mother and an old woman."

"The maiden, the mother and the crone." Hermione informed the others. "Gabrielle would be the maiden, obviously. We others wouldn't qualify."

Ron's interest was piqued. "You could use a muggle?"

"Sure. For one thing, Hermione's mother has quite a lot of the genes she needs to be a witch. Genetically, she is a squib. But I could use any woman who has given birth. Only the crone needs to be able to do magic on her own. I am hoping for McGonagall, but I have not asked her yet."

"Which leaves the moral question. Can we justify killing these men to protect Britain?"

Tr`lik shook his head in a very human gesture that was alien to his people. "You ask the wrong questions, my friends. Each and every of these men has committed murders and has raped children. We all know that there might have been some pressure on him to do this. But every of them, and you have confirmed that, Harry, has voluntarily asked for the initiation in the Death Eaters. We are not talking about second or third generation kids here, like the man Marcus Flint."

"So?"

"The punishment for these crimes is the dementor's kiss according to the laws of the country. So they are already sentenced to die. What you really should ask yourselves is this: Are you willing to execute the punishment yourself and in the face of all wizards of Britain or are you taking the coward's way out, letting someone be paid to do away with them?"

Harry shook his head. "You know that I am no coward."

"I know that better than anyone, my brother." The goblin put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "So this discussion is only an attempt to make you feel better about what you are going to do. We all do support you, Harry. And we will stand with you when you put fire to the wickers. But you are the Merlin, and you will do what needs to be done. Like you did three weeks ago in my cave, where you killed an old man you respected just to correct the folly of two men dead for ten centuries. You have Ron, Luna, Neville, Ginny and me behind you. Be sure of that. And now, take your women and spend time with them. They will make you feel better."

Harry nodded slowly. "What about you?"

Neville grinned. "The High King has promised to spend the evening here. And we just might have some butterbeer, firewhiskey and other drinks that I, as a responsible prefect, should not let into the hands of the student body."

Gabrielle rose gracefully and took Harry and Hermione by the hands. "Come with me!"

The three left the council chamber and sat down in a guest room of Slytherin's apartment. Gabrielle scrutinized the two of them for a moment, then shook her head. "You owe me a walk by the lake tomorrow afternoon, love." She kissed Harry's cheek and disappeared.

Harry watched her leaving and turned to Hermione. He had spent the night after the ritual with the goblin king with both of his wives, had needed both their hands to hold on to him. And somewhere, being the teenager he was, he had had some hopes for this to happen again, only with him not as distraught as before. The man in him was relieved that Gabrielle had left. Slowly, he turned to Hermione, pulled her close and tackled her down to the bed.

The week had been very hard for the two young lovers. Hermione had absolutely forbidden Harry to touch her sensually as Lord Gryffindor. "I am married to you, Harry Potter, and even if you and Lord Gryffindor are the same technically, you aren't. Not where it counts. I want no one but you to touch me."

So she had kept up appearances and spent the night in the chambers of Lord Gryffindor, but she had slept in her own room, in her own bed. But keeping up appearances also meant that she and Harry could not exchange casual touches, like he and Gabrielle could. She could not fly into his arms as his younger wife could when she met him in the morning. It hurt her, and her hurt touched him. He wanted her, and he knew that she wanted him. How they would live through another year like this, he did not know. But that were thoughts for later on. Now, the two undressed each other quickly, touching each other hungrily.

An hour later, Harry lay snuggled close to his wife. Their passions had been satisfied for the moment, and they could enjoy their closeness. "Harry?"

"Hm?"

"What are you going to do about Dumbledore?"

Harry looked at her, surprise in his eyes. "Why? What should I do with him?"

"He has sent you to the Dursleys. And he has kept so much from you."

"He did. But in his defence, he did not do it because he wanted to hurt me." He sighed. "Even though you could repave the road to hell with his good intentions."

"Tell me."

"He didn't tell me about my fortune and my inheritance because he didn't want to. Because he thought it was too early."

"Too early my ass."

"You are thinking muggle again, love. Your parents have seen you as a girl turning into a young woman since forever. Among the wizards, it's different. We may become legally adult at seventeen, but most people under thirty or forty are considered very young. We are expected to live to a ripe 150, don't forget that. Traditionally, the people who manage family fortunes and lead a House are at least something like fifty. So why put pressure on the child. He was convinced that I would have enough time to learn later."

He shook his head. "Actually, that's not true."

"Why?"

"Because he was convinced, he still is, that I have to die to kill Riddle."

He could feel Hermione cramp around his arm. "Calm, love. I won't. But Dumbledore knows a lot less about magic than he thinks. And with the information he has, it was logical. So he didn't want me to waste my time with all that."

"He wanted you to die!" Hermione was enraged.

"No. Anything but that. The old man really likes me, though I have to admit that this is not obvious all of the time. But he saw no other way to save the world." He pulled her closer to himself, then added: "If you knew that one person had to die to save millions of others, how would you decide?"

"I..."

"You are a very principled young woman, Hermione. A child of Kant, Hume and the twentieth century."

Hermione looked at him.

"You told me I did right to ritually kill the High King to save the goblin nation, right?"

"Yes."

"Knowing it was the only possibility to." He nodded slowly. "So where is the difference?"

The silence stretched between them, and still, Harry held her as close as he could.

Then, in a very small voice, she asked: "Am I a racist, Harry? Bigot?"

"No. But you happen to love me. And Dumbledore did not have all the information while I was more fortunate in this regard. But we both decided to sacrifice a person we loved to save innumerable."

Hermione sobbed.

"Do not forget that Dumbledore and you have been raised in very different ways of life. He was raised in a pureblood family in the Victorian age. You have read Tennyson and Kipling, have you not?"

She nodded.

"So, his only crime is not to be omniscient. And he might have been a bit too sure of himself. But I can't punish him for that any more than I have done."

"You have?"

"Yes. I have forced him mostly into retirement. He has lost his power in the wizengamot, and he is completely marginalised as Headmaster. Actually, this might be worse punishment for a man like him than killing him. He is not used to react. He has been the primary actor in this land for half a century."

Hermione nodded and cuddled even closer to her husband. "If someone had told me two months ago that I would lie in your arms and discuss philosophy with you, I would have laughed." She turned to him and looked deeply into his eyes. "I love you, Harry."

"And I love you, Hermione. I am very sure of that now."

When they made love for the second time that night, the hunger had gone. But their slow rhythm knit their bond ever stronger.

At breakfast, Hermione returned to the discussion of the last night. "What has Voldemort done to survive the curse?"

"A lot of things. There are some hundred rituals that have been developed to keep on living. The reason for the low number of immortal wizards is that none of them work. Riddle has celebrated some twenty rituals. Dumbledore knows about one of them and believes he put part of himself into my scar, keeping him alive. Actually, he is right, there is a little bit of him in the scar. It doesn't keep him alive, though. I might push it out, still, when I find the time.

The reason he still exists is the Dark Mark. He doesn't know it, but he has fused his magic to that of his marked followers. As long as they are marked, he pulls a part of their magic and their life force out of this connection and sustains at least some minor part of him. So to kill him, we have to kill the Death Eaters or use some overkill. If, for example, we were to put Voldemort into the middle of a nuclear explosion or even just in front of a hail of bullets, he would need to pull so much energy from his followers that they would finally die, too. And when the last follower dies, he dies, too."

"So how does Samhain help?"

"When we burn them, I can turn the Dark Mark around, so that a lot of his life force and power will be funnelled into them, leaving him weaker than ever. As an added bonus, he will feel their pain, too. So, we will weaken him. And either at the winter solstice or at latest in the summer, I can fetch him and put him down. The real question is – do we let the Death Eaters die with him?"

"There is a way around that?"

"Yes. It is very painful and it would only work for those who are willing to renounce him forever, but there is a way. I am not sure if anyone except for Snape would even be interested. And even he might feel that his death with his former master might be an appropriate punishment for him."

"How many of them are left?"

"Not too many. Don't forget that we have a very low population. We are less than 20.000 in all of Britain and Ireland. A thousand years with no Merlin has left us stagnant and weak. When a dark Lord comes along every thirty to fifty years, killing some hundreds, letting several more hundreds or even thousands flee, it adds up. Did you know that there are a lot less Magicals living than in the time this version of Hogwarts was built? In the 1450s, there were almost 40.000 of us, and we had a much smaller population of Mundanes."

"It doesn't work like that, Harry."

"Usually not. Tell me, love, how has the British muggle population developed during the last fifty years? Since they invented the pill?"

His wife slowly nodded. "We have less births than deaths now in Britain. If it weren't for immigrants, our population would skydive."

"Yepp. And we have magical birth control for some six hundred years. The effects are a bit slower because of our immense life expectancy, but still they are there. British wizards are slowly dying out, love."

Hermione was obviously shocked. "So what do we do about that?"

Harry shrugged and grinned. "No idea. But it gives us something to think for the time after Tom Riddle. We just need to find some way to integrate human magic workers with the other magical species, save our population from slowly dying out, reform the way our government and wizengamot work, do all the experiments Ron wants to do, and raise our children." He winked at her. "Enough to fill several lifetimes, don't you think? And it gives me something to do. Not all problems are trivial like killing an undead dark wizard."

It was almost impossible to fulfil his host of obligations. As Harry, he took lots of courses, participated in the workshops and did the PA lessons. They were much more intense than last year, and any pretence to defence had gone. They were preparing to fight whatever enemy who would be willing to stand against Harry Potter. It was quite common for several of them to visit the hospital wing after the lessons, but a few words from the Lords had kept Madam Pomfry quiet.

As Lord Slytherin, Harry participated in the meetings of the goblin council, conferred weekly with the new minister, organised the necessary meetings with Fleur and her reporters and taught. He also did most of Harry's homework and prepared the PA lessons and some of the defence classes. Lord Gryffindor had a lot to do with teaching Defence, even if he had finally allowed his assistants to teach the lower classes, limiting himself to fifth year and the NEWT classes.

So, Harry was quite surprised when the first game of the European Youth League happened. They had spent a lot of time on the pitch, and in his biased opinion, they played the best quiddich that he had seen at Hogwarts. It was far from enough to defeat the Nordic Team, however. Even though Harry managed to catch the snitch in a hard-fought match against Freya, the power-house of the three Scandinavian chasers, who had all participated in the summer camp, were far superior to the Hogwarts team. With 310 to 240, Hogwarts had lost its first game on the European circuit in more than 20 years.

Harry landed and shook hands with his opponents, leading his team to follow this custom. Guest rooms had been prepared, and the Hogwarts elves had been supported by several grey gnomes, who seemed to take the same role elves did in Britain and its colonies as well as most of the continent, to cook a victory meal for the guests. Harry and his friends as well as the team were careful to show themselves as good losers.

Thore clinked his bottle of butterbeer against Harry's. "You did better than I thought you would. Give them a year or two, and they might start to understand how to play as a team."

Harry rolled his eyes. "We were not that bad."

"You were. If you had not caught the snitch, it would have been 460 to 90. You could have been worse, of course, but you have a long way to go. But if you don't feel this way, I won't lose our player's handbook later..." Harry grinned and passed his friend another bottle. "So how will our teams do this season?"

A voice with a heavy Bulgarian accent answered from behind him. "You vill be among the last three, Harry. And the Vikings, they just might have a chance for the title."

Both boys turned to the gruff Bulgarian seeker. "Victor! What are you doing here?"

"Nice to be appreciated." He laughed. "I'm scouting. My future father in law has made me coach for our national youth team." With a self-conscious shrug, he added: "More of a figure-head. What I know about chasing and keeping can be written on a very small mouse-skin. But it will be good for my career, and I have a friend who can help me. Anyway. I've something for you." He handed them an expensive-looking envelope. "We took care to find a weekend without games."

Harry opened the letter and read. "Congratulations! So her father finally agreed?"

"Yes. On the condition that I retire after this season. I'll be off to Prague next fall, magical and civil European law. Then a few years with the European Community and then ...?" He smiled. "I'm being groomed for the 2030 elections. Young enough for the people to remember their super-star, and old enough to be taken seriously."

Gabrielle appeared at their side, snatched the wedding invitation and hugged the young man. "So what do we bring as presents?"

"There is a charity that allows poor kids to play quiddich. European Quiddich Kids. If you want to make me happy, give something to them."

Later that evening, Harry and Victor stood outside on a balcony.

"So, what do you think of the league?"

"It's so much fun. And it's my only chance to play internationally."

"Rubbish. You are the captain of the British Youth Team, so you can decide where to play. If you weren't married, you would have some future in the World Series."

Harry stared at him. "You think so?"

"Yes. You have the necessary killer instinct. I have seen you play. When you are on the pitch, you are there to get the snitch or die. A good seeker needs that."

"You really think I could get on a team?"

"Sure. Even as untrained as you are, every British and some continental teams would take you without a test game as starting seeker. But you wouldn't want that. The British league is pretty bad, and even though money won't be a problem for you, they pay worse. But with a year or so of experience, you would fly them into the ground. What you need would be the European Series or the national teams. And they usually do not take married players."

"Why?"

"Because you lose that killer instinct you need. What's more important to you? Gabrielle and Hermione or winning a game?"

Harry found himself searching for his wives.

"See what I mean? I'm not unhappy that retiring was a condition to tying the knot with Svetlana. I can have a lot of fun as a coach and with pick-up games. It's time to move on."

It was right. Harry could keep up his divided personality for a year or so, but then, he would have to take on all his responsibilities himself. He would be able to do that, but there would be no time for the circuit.

It was past midnight when Victor left, waving to Harry and calling: "See you next week. And you don't stand a chance."