DISCLAIMER: That part of this world and those characters you've seen before belong to their Creator: JKR. The rest is mine - although I cannot quit my day job as I make no $$$

A/N: For those who finished "Not Normal," which is the Part I of this tale, this chapter is somewhat of an overview to date. The story resumes pretty much where it left off…

CHAPTER ONE: REFLECTIONS

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17th 1993

The Fall Term of Harry Potter's Third Year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was over. There had been end of term exams and they were over too. Tomorrow morning most of the students of the school would gather at Hogsmeade Station and board the Hogwarts Express for the eight to nine hour trip south to London and from there disperse for their Winter Break. The past two years, Harry had spent the break at the school which was allowed. After all, he had no desire to return to his "home." He had lived with his Aunt and Uncle for as long as he could remember and for as long as he could remember it was clear he was not welcome. So given the choice of not spending the break as an unwelcome guest, it was not choice at all. He had stayed at school.

This year was different. He no longer lived with those people. Well, that was not completely true. Magically, he no longer lived with them although physically he still needed to spend about forty days each year at their house. But at the beginning of last summer he had found a way to both be there and not be there at all. Actually he had not found it. A House Elf had found it for him and that had set a lot of things in motion.

Harry had first arrived at Hogwarts two and a half or so years ago. Like all of his classmates, he was eleven years old when he first entered the castle that would be his school for the next seven years. Unlike most of his classmates, he had not been dreaming of that day. Most of his classmates grew up knowing that magic was real and that they were witches and wizards. They grew up at least hoping if not knowing that they would receive a letter on their eleventh birthday inviting them to attend what most believed was the preeminent magical school in the British Isles if not the world. Harry fell into the minority that knew nothing about magic or Hogwarts prior to the arrival of that letter. He had been told his parents were the worst sort. They had no job and either could not or would not get one and lived on the dole which his Uncle loathed as the dole came from his hard earned income that he had to give back to the useless government in taxes. He was told his father was a drunk and his parents had died in a car crash. It turned out none of this was true, but until he learned he was a wizard that was what he had been told.

The day he finally got his letter he learned his parents were not "on the dole." They were a witch and a wizard. He wasn't told what they did for a living but it was clear in context they were productive members of society. His father was no drunk and they had not died in a car crash. They had been murdered, his mother apparently dying in front of him when he was less than eighteen months old. Upon reflection, he really couldn't say which was worse. But it meant his parents had cared for him and had they lived his life would have been far better than it had been. His Aunt and Uncle never cared for him. He was nothing more than an unwanted burden, a perpetual problem. Odd that. He cooked, cleaned, tended their garden and did other chores from the time of his earliest memories without pay. His Aunt was free to spend much of her day watching soaps or the neighbors or gossiping because he did her work. He lived in a cupboard under the stairs such that his presence would have been unnoticed by visitors if he was quiet and he usually was. As far as he knew, they spent next to nothing on him while spending a small fortune on their own son who was the walking definition of ungrateful.

He wondered if he ever really was a child. He worked his entire life. He never was allowed to play or to be idle. Until Hogwarts, he never had a friend and what few kind words he ever heard were from teachers and from Mrs. Figg who looked after him whenever his "family" went somewhere. The only times he ever went anywhere were the rare occasions when Mrs. Figg was unavailable. He liked the old woman, but even he knew she was a bit daft. Every night he hoped someone would stop by and tell his relatives it had all been a terrible mistake and take him away to some family that wanted him and until he was eleven he went to sleep disappointed.

He now knew he was neglected. That was the proper term. He never thought he was abused as he understood the term. True, he had been spanked when he was little and slapped on occasion, but compared to some kids he knew about in school it was nothing. He had never shown up with broken limbs as a result of his Aunt or Uncle (his Cousin was another matter and that was bullying). His Uncle had threatened him with a "proper hiding" more times than Harry could count but aside from throwing things at him and missing, he had never laid a hand on the boy. Were it not for the way his Cousin was treated, he might not have realized things were off at all. But while he was made to work and could either do nothing right or nothing worth comment, Dudley could do no wrong. Dudley stood at the bottom of the class consistently and it amazed many others at the school that he was allowed to advance at all. You would never know that at the Dursley household. Harry, meanwhile had stood at the top of their class at first. According to his Aunt and Uncle, that meant he had far too much time on his hands which meant that his chores increased such that he could barely keep up with his assignments. Despite this, he was still at the middle of his year. He couldn't be as dumb as his cousin if he tried. And yet his cousin got rewarded for his marks terrible as they were and Harry at best was ignored. It was emotional abuse. But as far as Harry knew the authorities were not about to pop by and take him away for that alone.

All he wanted from life was to be normal, whatever that was. All he knew was he was not for some reason and it was not his fault as far as he knew. Then Hagrid had knocked down the door to the place where his Uncle had taken them to avoid those owls and letters. Hagrid was huge. He was scruffy looking from head to toe with long, scruffy hair and matching beard and mustache. He might well have been the most terrifying man Harry ever met if he had not had such a kind heart. It was Hagrid that told him he was a wizard. It was Hagrid that told him his parents were not the people his Aunt and Uncle said they were. More important, it was Hagrid who told him he could go to Hogwarts and leave his Aunt and Uncle for much of the year. Maybe now, he could be normal if only normal for a wizard.

But he wasn't normal as a wizard. He couldn't be, although it would be a couple of years before he fully understood all the reasons why. He was the Boy-Who-Lived. He was the only person who ever survived the Killing Curse, or so everyone believed and who had somehow defeated the most feared Dark Wizard in history when he was only a baby. He was famous. People gawked at him wherever he went in the magical world, or at least in Britain. He learned very early on that in many ways the magical world was backwards and decades or more behind the non-magical one and as annoying as this was in many instances, at least they had not yet discovered paparazzi. Had they adopted that particular trait, he doubted he could go anywhere without scores of cameras shooting pictures. And that was all about something that happened before he could remember. It also was as not normal in the "Wizarding" world as it would have been in the "Muggle" world and he had nothing to do with it. It's not like he chose to survive or chose to defeat the Dark Wizard. Somehow it just happened and he could not avoid the fallout.

He had a clue about just who Harry Potter really was when he first went to Gringotts which was the bank in the wizarding world. He went there with Hagrid to withdraw money to pay for his school supplies. He did not think he had any money, to be honest. The way his Aunt and Uncle complained one would have thought he was expensive and penniless. But he had a vault (apparently each account had its own vault) and it seemed to be filled with more coins than he had ever seen. The wizarding world had apparently not discovered such things as bank notes or paper money, much less credit cards. At the time he had no idea how much was in that vault, only that it was his money. He later learned it was only part of a trust fund that had been set up for him when he was born. It consisted of the interest earned by the entire trust over time and he could spend that interest as he saw fit. It was only later that he learned his spending account had stood at close to £700,000 that day. It was a lot of money in either world which set him apart from his classmates had he thought about it.

For two years Harry had been somewhat blissfully unaware of his true wealth or the reason for it. No one bothered to tell him. In some cases, he was now certain that was deliberate. In most cases, if they knew they probably assumed he knew as well. He did not. He did not know he was heir to one of the oldest and largest fortunes in magical Britain. He did not know he was heir to a hereditary seat in the Wizengamot which was like the British House of Lords in Parliament without a corresponding lower House of Commons. He did not know that when he turned twenty-one he could exercise direct control over the largest single voting block in that assembly. And, he did not know that he was entitled to all of that in time from the day he was born. In other words, the Boy-Who-Lived and everything else aside, Harry Potter would and could never be "normal."

He had learned this all by accident rather than by design. During his first two years at Hogwarts he had never thought to research his family. To his later surprise, his best friend Hermione had not researched it in depth either. While she knew the name "Potter" was of note, for whatever reason she had not tied Harry to that name. Harry realized it was because she had not considered it important and in a way he was grateful for that. She was arguably his first friend who truly liked him for who he was, not the stuff he had no control over whatsoever. It was not until recently that he learned this and for it he was eternally grateful to his brilliant friend. His family history had not been important to her! She was not of a magical heritage at all and seemed bent on learning everything about magic, but she had not seen that as important.

But there were others who had kept him in the dark for whatever reason. He had learned that the Headmaster had been his "magical" guardian and by custom was tasked to prepare Harry for his role in society or at least see to it that he was prepared. Not once had any adult told him about his family or the legacy that awaited him. Some probably assumed he knew. Others more likely had been told to keep it quiet. Albus Dumbledore had suggested such things were unimportant for now. Perhaps. He was still a boy and these were not things boys his age should be worried about. But that did not explain why he had not even been told.

For two years he had gone about his new life as a wizard blissfully unaware of his true nature. He hated his fame which he blamed entirely on that Boy-Who-Lived nonsense being unaware he would have been famous regardless. For the first time in his life he had friends, namely the Muggle Born Hermione Granger who had not bothered to research his pedigree and Ron Weasley who was from a long line of witches and wizards. Ron later admitted that he thought Harry knew all that. The same was true for Neville Longbottom who was every bit the heir apparent to a major family as he was. Neither acted as if he was more than he thought he was, which was not what he really was, and he thanked them for that in his mind. Harry might have suspected them for being friendly because of those things he did not know. But it was not easy being friends with Harry Potter. Harry Potter could not help but stand out. He never tried to, it just happened. And when he stood out, his friends got in trouble or worse or he stood out because they had been hurt or worse.

Barely two weeks into his First Year Harry made the House Quidditch Team becoming the youngest player in a century. Hermione later amended that. He was the first First Year to make a team in a century. Given that he began Hogwarts a month after his eleventh birthday and was the youngest in his year, he was actually the youngest player in over five centuries when they accepted students at a younger age because of transportation issues. It was all the more unusual since he earned his tryout the very first time he had ever sat a broom, or at least the first time he could remember. It was an event that saw his friend Neville in the Hospital Wing with a broken wrist, although that happened before Harry had left the ground for the first time.

Less than two months later, he had led Ron to find Hermione. Hermione was missing. There was a troll of all things lose in the school and according to one of the other girls Hermione was alone in a bathroom crying and did not know of the danger. Harry and Ron found the troll and locked it in a bathroom only to hear Hermione's scream from within. Given the number of girl's bathrooms in the school, naturally she would be in the one they locked the troll in. Harry led Ron in after it to try and get Hermione away. With nothing in their arsenal aside from wands and what little they had learned in their first two months of school, they took on a very dangerous troll and knocked it out. It was mostly pure luck and some rather reckless ideas, but it worked. Hermione was their best friend from that point on but more importantly from Harry's point of view she was always behind him. True, she could be bossy and preferred to follow rules and listen to adults even when circumstances suggested such things were not good ideas, but she was always there for Harry even when he was behaving in ways she ordinarily could not support. Taking out a Mountain Troll as a First Year, even if it was luck, was not a way to go unnoticed.

Neither was killing a professor. The professor was their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He was not their worst professor in that subject. He was not even the worst professor they had. But he was definitely nowhere near the best. Perhaps he would have been better if he did not have a severe stutter and penchant to mumble such that you could almost never understand him. Perhaps he would have been better if he had not been possessed by the spirit of Voldemort, the same dark wizard who had killed Harry's parents and tried to kill him when he was a baby. Of course, it wasn't until the end that Harry knew that or that Quirrell or Voldemort had tried to kill him at least once before during the year at his first Quidditch Match; probably twice before during a misadventure said to be a detention in the Forbidden Forest and possibly three times before if one includes that Troll which Quirrell had set loose in the school. For reasons unknown to anyone not named Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of the school, an object known as the Philosopher's Stone was hidden in the school. Said to be capable of many things, it was critical in the making of something fabled to be the Elixir of Life. Voldemort believed this would allow his to return to physical form so, naturally, he wanted it and if he could kill the brat who thwarted him all those years ago, so much the better. It didn't work out that way, not that it ever would have.

Harry later learned that the Elixir of Life was a myth. The stone was real, but it did not extend life nor did it allow a spirit to regain a body. It was a component of a potion that was more like the fabled Fountain of Youth, except it did not grant perpetual youth anymore than perpetual life. It merely made the user younger and they would then age naturally from their new youth. This could allow for a long life, but the user was still quite mortal and could still die. It was also very impractical. There was a key ingredient that one could not just pick up at a potions shop. To work, the potion needed amniotic fluid from the daughter of the user. A granddaughter would work as well. Perhaps a great-granddaughter although Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle had never tried that. They had been around since the thirteenth century and had lived nine lives, the most recent as George and Carla Tennyson. Sometime around the age of seventy or eighty, they arranged their affairs, faked their deaths, took the potion and re-emerged as young people to begin again. Over the centuries they had around thirty children together who had children of their own. There were up to thirty-one generations of descendants out there from the oldest incarnation and three from the newest. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville and others all had these two as distant ancestors, and some had them in more than one line. The point was without a daughter's amniotic fluid, the stone was worthless. Voldemort had no children.

That little fact was not generally known. Harry would not learn it until over a year later when he met the most recent incarnations of his distant ancestors. So Voldemort went after the stone and Harry tried to stop him bringing Hermione and Ron in as well. In the end, Voldemort tried to kill Harry and Harry killed the body the spirit had possessed. All he had to do was touch the man. The man had burnt to death under the touch. Unfortunately it had not been the end of the spirit. For whatever reason the death of the professor had gone unnoticed at least officially. But it was hardly a secret and hardly secret that Harry was somehow involved. It was not a way to go through school unnoticed.

If anything, Second Year was worse. Someone claiming to be "The Heir" had released something from someplace called "the Chamber of Secrets" that was petrifying students. The students deduced the heir was the heir of one of the Founders of the school, Salazar Slytherin and when Harry made the mistake of talking to a snake in front of scores of students, they further thought he was that heir. Only Hermione truly believed otherwise. Then Hermione herself became a victim. Ron helped him try and find out what was going on, but Hermione had been the brains of their group. Harry spent every spare moment by her side, not that it mattered as she could not tell him anything. Except somehow she did. He found a piece of paper in her hand, a page torn from a book. On one side was a description of a fearsome creature known as a basilisk that fit most of their clues. The problem was the thing killed with its gaze, it did not petrify. But then Harry realized that not one of the victims had seen it directly. They had seen reflections or refractions of the gaze. There was a note in Hermione's handwriting. The thing was moving about in the plumbing.

Harry put it all together. Fifty years earlier, the Chamber had been opened and a girl had died in a bathroom. Her ghost was still there so perhaps that bathroom was related. Before he could check it out, Ron's sister Ginny was taken. They went to the Professor tasked with dealing with the problem, their fraud of a Defense professor and found that rather than doing what he was tasked to do he was doing a runner. With the man at wand point, they found the entrance in that very bathroom and went in. The man tried to obliviate them, apparently his modus operandi, but managed instead to erase his own memories and nearly bring the cave down upon them all. Separated by the cave in, Harry went on alone. For the second time since starting school he encountered a form of Voldemort and true to form the Voldemort was intent on killing him. This time, he set a huge basilisk on the small, twelve year old. With the help of a Phoenix and a sword, Harry killed the beast and then found a way to destroy this version of Voldemort as well, saving his friend's sister's life in the bargain.

From his eleventh birthday until that day, it seemed to Harry that anything even remotely memorable that happened to him seemed to have happened before. It was as if he was constantly experiencing déjà vu. It was yet another way he was different from everyone else, although it was also something he shared with no one, not even Ron or Hermione. In hind sight, he should have shared it with Hermione as she was experiencing the same thing starting from around the same time and a part of her thought she was mental. Ron would have told her that, but then Ron had thought girls were by definition mental. That sense of déjà vu ended suddenly and in an unexpected way. It ended because of a House Elf.

The elf in question was named Dobby and had been pestering Harry since the summer before that year. He had gotten Harry in serious trouble with his relatives that summer. He had tried to keep Harry from getting to school because the elf said it was too dangerous but would not or could not say why. The result was Harry and Ron could not get to the train and then Ron had this bright idea about taking his dad's car which could fly. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed like a good idea right up to the point where it conked out and crashed into a whomping willow on the school grounds. This was a tree that could move its limbs and liked to "whomp" things like cars that crashed into it and the people in those cars. It was a spectacular entrance, and not one to go unnoticed. The elf then set a bludger after Harry at a Quidditch match that broke his arm and with the help of the fraud defense teacher wound up in his having no bones in the arm at all.

The elf belonged to the Malfoy family and had accompanied Mr. Malfoy to Hogwarts the morning after Harry's adventure in the Chamber of Secrets. The son was Harry's rival in all things and would be dangerous if he were not so incompetent. Still, he was more than a little annoying and Harry wished nothing but ill for the boy. The elf subtly let Harry know that somehow Mr. Malfoy was behind it all and Harry then tricked the man into freeing the elf. Mr. Malfoy then tried to kill Harry in all likelihood. The man clearly did not understand House Elves. So far, it all seemed to have happened that way before. Then Harry had a thought. He asked the elf if the elf wanted to be with him and the elf explained about bonds or at least those bonds between elves and wizards and yes, he would be honored to be "the Great Harry Potter Sirs" elf. There was no feeling of déjà vu. Something new had happened.

That's not to say it was completely gone. But mostly it was. His first decision to keep it from coming back was to change his electives for the next year. He dropped Divination despite Professor McGonagall – who was his Head of House and as such his academic advisor – suggesting the Headmaster wanted him to take it and asked for Runes and Arithmancy which while harder he felt were more useful. He tried to break from his routine and this meant when exams were cancelled rather than hang around the common room as he was thinking of doing, he found a quite place down by the lake to sit and think. There he met Luna Lovegood or rather she met him. She was a year behind him in Ravenclaw. She was pretty, smart and interesting in a way. Harry liked her. She also had until very recently had suffered what she called a perpetual "French Word Thing." Talking about that and their lives, they became friends. She left for home a couple of days later when students with magical Floo access were allowed to leave. Those who lived in the Muggle world had to wait a few more days for the train to London.

The day Luna left, Hermione found him under the tree. They too talked. It was then that Harry learned that she too was having or had been having persistent déjà vu. It was also then that she kissed him … on the lips … more than once. The first time, while wonderful in a way, was weird. It was as if a life flashed before his eyes except while some of it was his life, a lot of it either was not or was not yet. The same thing happened to her. She then kissed him again and it didn't happen again so he now thought they sort of wrote if off as one of those weird Harry Potter things. But he still had to ask why she kissed him. She told him she had known somehow he had been with her when she was petrified. True, Madam Pomfrey who ran the Hospital Wing had told her, but she had known anyway. She realized her feelings for him were more than just as a friend and after that first kiss, he realized his feelings for her were just as strong. They agreed they were "dating" sort of and he said he found a way that he could see her over the summer – not mentioning Dobby except in passing. He had also promised to visit Luna as well and convinced Hermione to come with him.

Things began spiraling in a very different direction. Harry met Hermione's parents in London and arranged to visit the next Monday and then returned to his relatives where Dobby had arranged a way for him to stay there and yet not stay there at all. Dobby had acquired a magical manor travel trunk or some such. It was not your typical trunk. First of all, it needed some of Harry's blood to work. It had something to do with the wards. It opened to a ladder that decended into a cloakroom like place. Beyond the main door out of that room was a real manor. It was huge and it was now Harry's. On the walls were portraits and tapestries of Harry's Potter ancestors going back to around the late eighth century and a library with goodness knows how many thousands of books including the family journals and archives dating back a thousand years or more. With Dobby's help, he began to learn about the Ancient and Noble House of Potter and his role as Earls of Hwicca, Abengale, Hereford and Finchley and Baron of Loch Sheen.

The trunk was much more than just a house. It also had extensive grounds. No one knew where except it was "somewhere else." You could not get there by any means other than through the trunk or a similar access trunk or with special access by portkey, floo or apparition, those accesses would be keyed to the person through their blood. By the end of the summer, that trunk had forty-thousand acres of gardens, parks, orchards, fields, pastures, rivers, lakes and streams and it would be but one of eight such trunks as apparently his parents and grandparents had similar ones staffed with hundreds of elves. It was its own country in a way, its own world. With a feature called time compression that could cram days into a single hour "outside," it even had its own time.

Two days later with Dobby's help, he arrived in Luna's bedroom with Hermione and Hermione's mother. He had promised Luna he would visit but for some reason she had not believed him. She was so thrilled that she kissed him … on the lips … more than once and again that strange life flashed before his eyes and something similar happened to Luna too, which was at least one reason for the second kiss. Hermione had not seen anything odd, but her mother had. The three children had been surrounded in a glow of some kind. Then the Tennyson's arrived. They were Luna's real Great-grandparents and also the current incarnation of Nicholas and Pernelle Flamel. They explained the glow and as a result Hermione kissed Harry again and it happened again. Somehow, Harry was now "bonding" with both Hermione and Luna.

The Tennysons explained that and much more. They were ancestors to all three of the students and as such were able to access records. They had brought with them certificates from the Ministry stating that Harry shared something called "compatible magic" with Hermione and Luna and had from when they were born. There were also betrothal contracts between Harry's parents, Luna's parents and Hermione's parents that said first that they were supposed to have been raised together and second that if they bonded, they would marry as soon as possible afterwards without regard to their ages or that Harry might wind up marrying both of them. Apprently, while rare it was legal and when Mrs. Granger read the contract she remembered it all. It was what she and her husband had wanted for their daughter. They knew it might mean Hermione would not be Harry's only wife. They knew it meant she could be married as early as this summer. But they were okay with that. Luna was more than okay with it. To her it meant she would have friends and never be lonely again.

The Tennysons explained that and the fact that this triggered some more betrothals, specifically with Daphne Greengrass and Hannah Abbott made in case of the bonding by Harry and those girls parents. Hannah's was what was known as a Line Continuation which meant while Harry was her husband and would be the father of her children, she would remain Lady Abbott and her children would be Abbotts and not Potters. It was an old way to preserve an old family line in the absence of a son to carry on the name. Apparently, it also triggered a final contract: one for the hand of Ron's sister Ginny Weasley.

The Tennysons also told them that they were receiving information from a future time, perhaps a parallel future. That time had been horrible. Millions if not billions had died in a horrible war that had started because the magical world had been revealed to the non-magical one in a way where the later saw the former as a threat to their very existence. The non-magicals had won, meaning the magical world had been all but wiped out. The Tennysons, Harry, Hermione, Luna and some others had been among the few survivors and sent information back to this time to try and change things. The system was not perfect. The persistent déjà vu was part of it and what Luna called the "Life Flashy Thing" was another part of it. These Future Memories would come up from time to time when the sender felt there was something that needed to be changed or done differently. It did not come all at once. It probably would not come if things changed to a point where it either was not needed or was no longer relevant. Most annoyingly, while they would know what happened and what they had done in that future, they would not be told what to do to change it. But they would have time to think about it so hopefully they would have a plan when the time came.

Among their revelations was what Dumbledore seemed to be doing. He was not supposed to have placed Harry with the Dursleys, although there was a reason for it. There were wards on that home that protected Harry and they would remain in place so long as a blood descendant spent time there each year and was not yet of age. But Dumbledore also had done more. After getting declared as Harry's Permanent Guardian, he had entered into a binding betrothal with the Weasleys that Harry considered repulsive. There was, for one, no way to avoid it. (The betrothals he had with the others were by no means that absolute. Nothing could be enforced without the bonds and they were by no means certain.) It all but required that Ginny became pregnant with his child before he finished school and quite possibly before she sat her OWLs and their thoughts on the matter would not be taken into consideration. If they became romantically involved, they would be encouraged to have sex and she would be taken off birth control (required of young witches) and placed on fertility potions. If they were not so involved by the time Harry had his OWLs (if not sooner), potions could be used to get them involved. There were no limitations on the nature of such potions provided they had the desired effect: to get them to have sex and get Ginny pregnant so they would have to marry. What Ginny and Harry wanted was irrelevant.

But as vile as that was, what was worse was that once they married, "House Potter would become the Vassal of the Head of the Bride's family." This meant that Mr. Weasley would in effect become the Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter. Harry could not believe they would betray him like that! The Tennysons then explained that as Mr. Weasley was effectively Dumbledore's vassal, this would make House Potter a vassal of Dumbledore. House Potter had been a thorn in Dumbledore's political plans: supportive on some things and opposed on others and particularly opposed to Dumbledore's "Greater Good." Without House Potter's votes, Dumbledore could not prevail. In time, Harry and the others came to believe that this betrothal was not some long term plan, but an opportunity that presented itself in the days following his parents' deaths. It explained why Dumbledore had said nothing to Harry about his heritage. As it intended Harry to marry Ginny before he was seventeen, it sought to prevent him from coming of age and abrogating the contract as would be his right.

Of course, it all meant nothing if Harry intended to marry Ginny (which avoided the potions and pregnancy) and if Ginny's dad was not her head of family when she married Harry. Harry married Luna and Hermione the day after they bonded. He married Daphne (to her surprise) the day after that and Hannah the day after that then met with the Weasleys absent Ginny's brothers. Harry went in suspecting the worst and found that it was not as it seemed. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had no memory of the contract. They weren't particularly surprised there was one, but surely if there was they would remember it. As Harry went over it with them, it was clear that it was something they would never have agreed to if they knew the details. Mrs. Weasley was not that good an actor. She was both furious with Dumbledore and heartbroken that she had somehow done this to one of her children. Time for Plan B. Fortunately, Harry and his ladies had a Plan B.

Plan A and Plan B were similar in execution, but different in intent. In both cases Harry would call in the Life Debt Ginny owed him and bind her magically as his Concubine. From that moment on, she became legally and magically a Potter thus were he to marry her (biologically she was not a Potter so he still could marry her) the head of the bride's family would be Harry so he would owe vassalage to himself. The difference was how he would treat her and the Weasleys. Under Plan B, while bonded, no one would know she was a Concubine unless it was necessary. Ginny would be Harry's betrothed and would come to live with him to learn her role as a Lady Potter. This was very old fashioned and not done much, but it was done in this case to keep her safe. Neither Harry nor her parents trusted Dumbledore with her future. But under Plan B, she was still their daughter in all other respects and he would marry her as soon as practicable as opposed to maybe never. He rewrote the betrothal agreement (now that he was emancipated to a degree) in a way that protected the Weasley family from any legal reprisals. And so his new normal began, married before he was thirteen to four smart and pretty witches and betrothed to a fifth. And the weirdness did not stop there.

During the days, Harry and his girls were out in the real world mostly. For the first part of the summer, they spent the days with the Grangers travelling through France. Later, they spent it at the Grangers and doing things "normal" kids their age would do like going places and seeing movies and such. The nights and some days were spent at the estate. When they were at the estate they were in Harry's primary trunk as far as the outside world was concerned and this included the magic in the wards at Harry's relatives. If he slept at the estate, it was as if he was present in the smallest bedroom of the House and the wards recharged. He only had to spend about eight hours a day there to recharge the wards and why spend it in that bedroom when he could spend it in the Manor and accomplish the same thing? Besides, he had to sleep with Hermione and Luna. They were bonding, but not bonded and they could not complete the bond yet. They were not old enough. The bonding process would accelerate their maturation, but to do so they needed to be in intimate physical proximity for at least six hours a day. Basically this meant within each other's personal space although the more intimate that was the better and certainly the more enjoyable. But sex was not an option. When they were mature enough, consummation would complete the bond, but until then the process prevented it.

Still, Harry knew far more about girls by the end of the summer than most boys his age. When they were alone at the estate, his girls wore nothing at all. But he also learned about monthlies, as they would wear something during those times, and about witches. Apparently witches needed sexual stimulation to develop through puberty. At first, this could be achieved entirely on their own. Eventually, however, they needed at least occasional intimacy and this meant they were encouraged to be intimate with other witches. Boys seldom fit the bill for any number of reasons namely they seldom saw the need or had the ability to bring the girl to climax which was the point of the entire thing. The girls needed to climax and needed it in an intimate situation with a partner. Another witch would understand that. A lot of boys would not, nor would they necessarily know how whereas the witches were taught how. Ginny was not old enough for that yet, but the others were and although they did hang about naked, they did not do that around Harry but they did tell him. He was their husband. He was their friend. They felt he should know. Particularly because in no way was that any slight about him as a boy, a friend, a husband or a future lover. They told him so he wouldn't feel he was somehow inadequate or not desirable. It was weird, but Harry accepted and appreciated the fact they would share that with him.

The summer had seen far more change than merely the fact that Harry had married Hermione, Luna, Daphne and Hannah and had taken Ginny his betrothed into his home, his protection and his family. That alone would be a lot. But it had also been the summer of the fugitive. His Godfather Sirius Black had escaped from the supposedly escape proof Azkaban Prison. It was said he was a mass murder, that he had betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort and that he was looking for Harry to finish what Voldemort had stated all those years ago. The escape had prompted the first memory "uncap." Harry and Hermione both then knew Sirius had been innocent and sent to prison without a trial. The real traitor was a wizard everyone thought was dead: Peter Pettigrew, who was an animagus and currently living life as Ron Weasley's pet rat Scabbers. Moreover, the memory revealed that in that other timeline Sirius died a fugitive. Somehow, that needed to change so Harry and his Ladies began planning.

Before their plan could be placed in operation, however, Harry was in for a shock. It occurred on his thirteenth birthday when he connected the "old" family trunks with each other and with his new one to make one large estate. It was now five hundred square miles, half of which had been his parent's or grandparent's. Exploring his parent's place, which was an alpine valley with mountains rising as much as fifteen hundred meters over the lowest point, they found his parents house and in a bedroom in the house they found his parents. That was a shock. There was no future memory of this. But his parents were there in bed together appearing to be asleep. There was a note that said they were in stasis and telling Harry how to revive them and he was able to do so, although it took time for his mother to realize he was their son. After all, to her she had last seen him hours ago and he was fifteen months old, not just turning thirteen years old. His mother had done this. She had cast some kind of magic (it was runic, actually) that caused her and his father to be transported here a split second before they were hit by the Killing Curse and they were replaced by doppelgangers: transfigured pigs exact in every external detail save the fact that the pigs were devoid of life. A similar doppelganger had been prepared for Harry but for some reason had not worked when he was hit. They arrived under a stasis charm, freezing them in time. It was a precaution as they could not know what condition they would be in and it would keep them from dying before help could arrive. There was one flaw in Lily Potter's plan: help never arrived. There were four people who knew of the plan and how to get here. One was Sirius, locked away in Azkaban. Another was Remus Lupin who was out of the country and by the time he returned the trunks were locked away in the Potter vaults. The other two were Neville's parents who were incapacitated as well. Were it not for Dobby, Harry might never have found these trunks or known what they were about and never have found his parents or, as it later turned out, his sister Elizabeth Dorea Potter. Lily had been pregnant when the attack had occurred. Harry's sister was born twelve years to the day after the attack.

With Harry's parents alive and well, they next set out to capture Sirius. This proved very easy, although it was more complicated than it needed to be. After all, as they guessed Sirius did go to the Grangers in search of Harry and they could have nabbed him there, but that was no fun. He was captured in a play park a few blocks from Harry's relative's place by use of a ham sandwich portkey. Step one: Sirius Black was now safe from the Ministry and the Bounty Hunters at the Estate.

But this was Sirius Black. He might not have been a mass murdering psychopath, but he could not disappear quietly, it seemed. True, Harry felt it only right that he and Harry's parents have a chance to see to their affairs and get new wands and such and that could be arranged through Gringotts which in addition to being the only bank in their world was also a sovereign nation over which the Ministry had no authority. Gringotts had no reason to arrest Sirius. But it didn't stop some Ministry bint from trying to hex Sirius in the back in the middle of the bank lobby in front of scores of Goblins and nearly hitting Sirius's Accounts Manager. Gringotts dealt with her quickly, seizing and snapping her wand, seizing her vaults permanently, barring her from their bank for life and casting her bodily from the premises. The Minister for Magic himself arrived with an entourage and left minus his Head of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, shot dead for attempting to hex a Goblin, and having nearly started a new Goblin War. The Goblins considered it quite entertaining. Magical Britain did not.

Black was exonerated a few months later by the Wizengamot following an ancient Manor Court. The Manor Court was the oldest judicial body in magical Britain, dating back well over a thousand years and before the formation of the Wizengamot. It was still a legal body, although as the Clans no longer lived in a single area and had not for many centuries, Manor Courts had fallen out of use. But the Estates were clearly a Clan territory exercising some authority over more than just immediate family, so it could hear the claim of one under its protection. House Potter, Longbottom, Bones and Abbott heard the claim along with the House Black proxy. In addition, the proceeding was before some two thirds of the Wizengamot who held final authority. They promptly ratified the ruling over the strenuous objections of their Chief Warlock who tried to put it off and almost lost his seat as a result. He would lose his seat as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards as a sanction for what the British Ministry had almost done in Gringotts. It was not a good year to be Albus Dumbledore. What made it amusing to Harry was the man's discomfiture was all due to the events surrounding one Sirius Black and not Harry Potter.

The day after the events at Gringotts, Harry and House Potter (including Sirius) met with House Longbottom. Neville had sent a formal and cryptic letter. Apparently the Tennyson's had been busy. It seemed Neville and another were also suffering from that persistent déjà vu. Now, Neville Longbottom had assumed his position as Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Longbottom on the occasion of his own marriages to Sally-Anne Perks, a Muggle Born bondmate from his year in Hufflepuff; Padma Patil, his other bondmate and classmate from Ravenclaw; her twin sister Parvati; Tracy Davis, a classmate from Slytherin, Susan Bones in Line Continuation, another Hufflepuff classmate; and his betrothal to Daphne's younger sister. At least Harry was not alone.

During the stay with the Longbottoms, Luna revealed she had a memory uncap. Hers was not about Sirius, but about what the Ministry would do namely set loose the Dementors of Azhaban. Students would die at school because of those things so the rest of the summer say House Potter and House Longbottom learning the Patronus Charm to counter those vile creatures. They did not have to wait long for at least two of them attacked the Hogwarts Express. Both were destroyed, although no one knew why. They would later learn who at least two of the students were who survived in this time for the Dementors were withdrawn following Sirius Black's exoneration. One was Neville's bondmate Sally-Anne. The other was a first year girl named Anna Fitzhugh who they would later learn was the daughter of Sirius Black. Sirius never knew she existed. He had surprised everyone at his trial when he said he was married and he was. But his wife only learned she was pregnant the day Sirius took off to catch Pettigrew and never came home. The family almost was never reunited despite Sirius's exoneration.

A low life named Mundegus Fletcher never got the word that Sirius was innocent and there was no longer a huge bounty for his capture. He hexed Sirius in the back in front of the Auror post in the Ministry when Sirius went there to take care of House business. Sirius wound up in St. Mungos where an unrelated attempt was made on his life. This was not for the reward, but under the misguided belief that with Sirius dead, Draco Malfoy would inherit the Black estate. Draco was behind Anna Fitzhugh, James and Harry Potter for that to have happened not that his father knew or cared. He should have. He lost everything in the end and was sentenced to life without parole. Sirius did not hesitate to annul his marriage to the former Narcissa Black which not only cut Draco out of the line of succession for House Black, it rendered him a bastard by operation of law meaning even if there was something left to inherit from House Malfoy, he could not inherit it.

Sirius had given Narcissa the choice, although Harry was fairly certain the man was only being polite. He had not bothered to contact Narcissa's older sister before he annulled that marriage and that annulment led to another memory uncap, this one out of sequence. Sirius brought something interesting from the confiscated vault. It was a cup and it had also been a Horcrux. It was no longer. Apparently, the Goblins were able to destroy it. Both Harry and Hermione remembered those things. Hermione remembered where another was. It was a locket located in Sirius's childhood home and it too was soon destroyed. Harry knew of a third, but they were leaving that for the time being seeing as they knew where it was and were pretty sure it was not going anywhere. Harry knew of a fourth in general terms. He knew it was a ring, but that was all. He had no idea where it was. And there was a fifth for certain. Harry himself. From the future memory, he knew how to destroy that but it meant he had to let Voldemort hit him with the Killing Curse. That was the easy bit. Avoiding a follow-up after Harry lived was the hard part. But there was nothing they could do for now seeing as Voldemort needed a body to do that and he didn't have that yet. He might soon. Peter Pettigrew and been convicted, sentenced to life without parole and escaped while being taken to Azkaban. He had helped restore Voldemort in that other time after escaping as well.

For now, things were at a standstill of sorts. As far as he knew no one was actively trying to kill Harry which made this year very different than the last two. Voldemort was also conspicuous in his absence. There were no new memory uncaps to concern himself with; only Dumbledore. He was convinced that Dumbledore would try to do something to get House Potter back under his control. He may have lost his position as Supreme Mugwump, but he was still Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Headmaster of Hogwarts and that meant he still had some influence. Harry was convinced that between that Prophecy and the Horcuxes, Dumbledore was convinced Harry had to die for Voldemort to be defeated. Harry knew from his future memories that was not the case at all and, moreover, that defeating Voldemort was the beginning and not the end.

But he doubted Dumbledore would listen to him on those points and certainly not on what needed to be done. The man was a conundrum. He failed to see that people sometimes could not or would not change. Getting rid of the symptom would not rid them of the disease. Voldemort had to die and his ideas had to be crushed. His followers had to be utterly crushed so that the ideas they espoused would disappear into the dustbin of history. Harry understood this meant in all probability a lot of wizards would need to die and many pureblood lines might well be wiped out. But Harry was a good cook and knew that one could not make an omelet without irreparably breaking some eggs. Dumbldore would rather not have an omelet.

But that was in a future. What it meant for today was that Dumbledore would most likely try to find a way to regain authority over Harry. After all, Harry had to do the right thing and willingly walk into what Dumbledore believed was certain death. Harry wondered how much that entered into the man's thinking. It clearly was a factor regarding the clauses in that betrothal about Ginny getting pregnant effectively early and often. Such would not be necessary unless it was certain he was to die soon and as Dumbledore was certain of his short life expectancy, Harry needed an heir early or so long House Potter. But how much else? Was his placement with the Dursleys for the wards alone or was it part of a plan to prepare Harry to make such a sacrifice, to be for all intents and purposes a suicide bomber for the light? He was less certain of that. To little margin for error. It might well be a fine line between being willing to certainly die for a cause and being suicidal. For now, Dumbledore's attempt at control was the shoe waiting to drop and compared to the last two years that was as nothing. Besides, Harry and the others knew it was coming and were prepared. Until something happened along that line, they were going to let it be.

In the immediate front was the revelation a couple of days earlier that Harry was not just bonding with Hermione and Luna but with all five of his ladies. That it was happening; Madam Pomfrey was certain. Why it was happening was another question. To be honest, the why did not matter so much to Harry. He as actually pleased it was happening. He always tried to see each of the girls as being as equal to him as they could be. He was not so naïve as to think they were identical in all things for they were all different people and he liked them for their differences. But he did not want a situation where any would be or had to be favored over the others and he was afraid the bond with Hermione and Luna might do that. With the bonds forming with all of them, that was one less thing to worry about. Now he only had to worry about the final bit: consummation. Fortunately, that seemed to be months into the future.

Tomorrow Ron would be getting married at Gringotts. The nice thing about this year is weirdness was not a Harry Potter monopoly. Neville had his plural marriage and was now bonding with them all or probably would be once Astoria was a little older so that multiple marriage, multiple bond thing was not Harry's fate alone. And this bond thing wasn't either. He had learned that his parents shared a type of bond similar to the one Ron now shared with Katie Bell (after tomorrow Katie Weasley). The only difference was what started it, not what it would become. Sirius shared the compatible magic bond with his wife Connie. These bonds were supposed to be really rare which would have been another way for Harry to be different. Perhaps "being normal" was just a question of who you hung out with.