The Final Straw

A/N: This is where I apologize for not having an update but for me, it has been very hard to do so with the way that work is, my relationship with a great girl still building, and the lack of ability to put take an idea and flesh it out at the moment.

Now, the real story notes will be after the chapter as this is a bit more of a teaser, a prologue if you will, to see if the idea is worth fleshing out and bringing more to the table as this one has been in my mind for a while so I figured I needed to finally get this out as it is partially due to having stumbled upon a story that infuriated me.

One warning though, there will be a bit of gore and angst in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

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Who am I? If you ask my family, I am an unwanted pest. Ask my friends and some will praise me while others can't stand me. Ask the people in general and they will call me a savior. Ask my wife and she will say I am the center of her life... Then why is it that I have to share her with other men? I am Harry James Potter, the proclaimed Man-Who-Conquered and my wife is currently with one of her lovers while I sit here and wait for her to come back, most likely with some other man's fluids inside her. Why do I take it you ask? Because for all that I hate what she has done, I still love the woman and the mind that she possesses. I should start off with saying that we have been together since our first year in Hogwarts.

Ever since I saved her life from a troll that fateful Halloween night, we were bonded by our souls and magic. Things were, pardon the over used cliché, magical between us for the first few days but things turned quickly. She came to me one day saying that no one could know that we were together. At the time I accepted as I believed that I was protecting her but over the next few years, as we discovered that Voldemort, the bloody bastard, was still alive, she began to date other men. These men were "key figures" in our age groups that she said she needed to help shape to be ready for the time when Voldemort did truly come back and to be on my side when the time came. It started with little dates until the Yule Ball where I ended up walking in on her and Krum, the man behind her as she laid across our bed, I cried myself asleep for the first time of many to come that night.

It didn't stop there as she would regularly visit the beds of other but she always said something before she left for the night. "I know this is hard, Harry, but I promise you that as soon as Voldemort is gone, I will be yours and yours alone. It's for the best despite how hard things are." Then she would give me a peck on the cheek before leaving to warm some other man's bed with him. Those few words of hope were the only things that kept me going.

It has been four years since I killed Voldemort, looking forward to the future with the woman that was my wife, and yet she still continued things with her lovers. And tonight, this would be the last that I would stand, I haven't even gotten a night with my own wife while others have had her since our fourth year.

Tonight...

Tonight...

I could see her as she walk in, with a limp again as always, most likely Kingsley again to pass another one of her proposals. And I sat there watching her walk in, wand in my hand and a bit of dried blood on my fingers. "So, how was he? Another night of passion to pass a bill, or was it another night with Neville to nudge him in the right direction, or maybe it was Ron tonight. Giving the jealous git what he wants to keep him from being envious of my life?"

"But Harry..."

Even with her attempt to cut me off, I continued on my tirade. "But who could ever be envious of my life. Yes, I'm richer than most, live in a mansion and always invited to the bump shoulders with the elite of the elite...but at what cost? The money and mansion, that's because my parents gave their lives for me and caused me to live with the Dursley's, a family that hated me. And the parties, because my wife is fucking at least half of so called elite that attend them. You and your 'Greater Good', just like Dumbledore. Did you learn to love it so while you were fucking him? Is that what all of the visits to his office were for?" With this I let out a laugh that made her shiver, if it was from fear or from being discovered, I will never know. "But you know what, I'm done. A soul bond, two souls that were supposed to be perfect for each other and produce a love like no other. Despite all the blood on my hands from the war, tonight...my blood is on yours and that of your Greater Good." As my wand came to rest under my chin, I simply grinned at the look of horror on her face. "Reducto." The pain was sharp but short as that last second passed, looking forward with hope to being in the arms of those that had once loved me once again.

[End POV]

Hermione could only watch as bits of flesh covered the walls and the pinkish mist of blood spattered, Harry's wand now falling from his now limp hand. She couldn't believe it, it was all too much for her mind to handle at one moment but that was want she had to do. She thought back through the years starting with this horrific moment: the nights she spent with men of political power, the fight at her wedding when Ron punched Harry for marrying her that caused her to start sleeping with Ron again to mend the friendship between the three, the fight with her parents after the war and learning that she was a "harlot" in her parents eyes for forsaking loyalty to "her man", the years at Hogwarts and the men that laid in her bed. The last memory that ran through her mind was the night that Albus Dumbledore had pulled her into his office to talk to her about Harry's future and how she was the one that had to help secure a desired future no matter what, for the...Greater Good.

No...

It couldn't have...HE wouldn't have...

Or would he?

As she tried to think on the memory, she could feel a headache developing as she tried to delve further, seeing Albus' eyes lock with her and then nothing until she found herself outside the Gryffindor dorms. Every time she went over the memory, she would see and catch bits that she didn't before. For months, she secluded herself in the room that her husband had...she still couldn't let herself mourn until she found out just why he had done it and what had made her bring him to the edge that made him do so. Now as she sat in the room with the decaying corpse, her own sins having come to view in her mind and the reason behind both her own and Harry's fate.

Hermione could she Dumbledore pull out his wand and level it with her now drooped eyes.

"Imperio." The man said in a quiet yet firm voice. As the spell left his wand, she could hear words replaying over and over in her head.

No matter what it takes in order for you to do so, you will follow the Greater Good and bring about a better future. With the courage of a Gryffindor, with the absolute loyalty of a Hufflepuff, with the knowledge of a Ravenclaw, and with the cunning and ambition of a Slytherin. No matter what sins you commit, no matter whose life you harm, no matter what even Harry has to go through. Nothing is more important than the majority. One life is not more important than the lives of thousands, of millions. You will do whatever it takes to keep Harry, Ron, and yourself together as friends. You will do whatever to change the current political climate once I have gone from this world. You will change it all for the Greater Good.

For what seemed like an eternity, Hermione listened to the words play through her mind.

"Forgive me for what I have done, Mrs. Potter, but you will understand one day and see my point of view. This is all done with the Greater Good in mind."

All of this... all of this because of one man's delusions and his own distorted world view. The reason she had sullied herself, the reason she had betrayed so many, the reason she had destroyed her marriage, the reason she now saw Harry's decaying, headless body, all because of that manipulative man. But even then, the spell had broken years ago with Dumbledore's death, she still didn't have the mental clarity to take a look at what had been going on and what she had still continued to do.

She hated Dumbledore.

She hated the Greater Good.

She hated what had happened to Harry because of her actions.

She hated herself...

And it was finally time to bury her husband as she should have in the first place.

As she lifted the corpse of her husband into a transfigured coffin, she noticed the congealed blood on the table that Harry had been at. It was messy and burned from magic being coursed through it but there was a single rune that she could translate.

Time...

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Yes, a bit of a cliffy for the first chapter but I wanted the first chapter to be powerful and different. While I love to do harem and multi stories, I wanted to combat the "male harem" plot device that have been in a few stories or ones where the main female lead drifts from guy to guy, The List comes to mind in the Harry Potter section.

It may be a double standard with men being players when they are with multiple women and women being sluts when they are with multiple men, but if you find yourself an unwilling part of this type or relationship, by this I mean the person that ends up one of the "others", when you truly love the person you are with, you still feel harmed, just as you would if you saw your crush kissing another guy. Harry had to face Hermione, the woman that was supposed to be his soulmate, being intimate with so many men that he didn't know the exact answer. This is why I am going against the "male harem" plot device as I cannot stand the reasons behind it as it doesn't fit into the male psyche.

A man, in most cases, is dominant in his own mind. When he is with a woman, she is seen as his, as barbaric as it sounds in this culture to some, his property. Now, a logical man knows the woman isn't literally his property but that he has a bit of a claim on her. To see that claim challenged and then seeing another put a claim on his girl all to just accept it and go along with it, it would not fit with the male psyche.

Yes, there is a lot of angst in this chapter but it is meant to show all the tension that has finally come to a head.

In this story, soul bonds do not provide safeties nor do they prevent infidelity unless it has been affirmed by both bond partners and has gone beyond the initial stages of the bond.

The effects of the Imperio put on Hermione at her young age will be explain in the second chapter if this is well received.