Chapter 48

"I don't know, Harry. I really don't think it fits." Hermione tugged her knitted Weasley jumper down, trying in vain to make it stay below her bare pussy that peeked from between her thighs as she tried to hide herself from the girls' watching eyes.

The jumper was emerald green and had a big white H initial on the front.

"Nonsense, it fits well." Harry gave her a thumbs up. "I can't throw it away, Mrs Weasley knitted it for me for my first Hogwarts Christmas. It's one of the first presents I ever got."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Probably the last one I'll ever get. I bet she thinks I stole you away from Ginny."

Harry grinned, stroking Helena's hair idly as she nestled her peachy bottom in his lap. The young Malfoy girl was wearing a Christmas corset, white feather trims at the top and bottom of a red velvet corset, but her panties had been lost somewhere.

Christmas at Malfoy Manor had begun as a debaucherous affair, with Cissy and the girls determined to bring out all the stops. All of them were there, except for Daphne — Harry had thought the cheerful Christmas spirit might be punctured by Daphne's Scrooge-like temper.

After an enormous meal, they'd all settled in the living room for drinks and party games, with the victors being granted the honor of relieving Harry in whatever way he chose.

Helena had won the initial game of who could throw the most gnomes, the girls competing to degnome the garden while Harry sprayed the girls down with the garden hose. The blonde beauty had a vicious throw on her, as it turned out.

As such, she was grinding and shaking her sweet cheeks against him, building him up to deliver her prize, while they watched the girls pour drinks ahead of the next game.

"I would prefer some good wine." Marie sniffed as Hannah poured Firewhisky into shot glasses. The Hufflepuff girl wore a strange thing she called a romper, which Harry had never heard of — it seemed to be a shirt with attached shorts. Taut short-shorts, too small for Hannah's bubble butt, her ass cheeks bulging from her hemlines.

The romper was red, with the words HOE HOE HOE printed all over it.

"Shut up and drink it." Hannah giggled, tipsy — she'd already had a few, her face as red as her romper.

Marie hiccuped, far more classy in a satin red slip dress, long legs bare. She had drunk too much, her heels hanging loosely from her toes.

"You should try to be more sophisticated." Marie said primly.

"You should try taking that stick out of your ass." Hannah countered.

"I'm just saying that Harry likes a lady, not a hoe. You don't need to show everything, all the time."

"It's Christmas, who cares?" Hannah downed her shot. "And maybe if you had more to show, you'd show it off too."

"I have plenty to show, you English cow." Marie growled, leaning forward to tug on Hannah's pigtails. Hannah responding by pinching the French girl's nipples, until they were both screeching and wrestling on the carpet.

Narcissa watched in dismay as her cream carpet was colored in booze.

Hermione shook her head, smirking. "So vulgar, aren't they, Harry?"

"Disappointing." He agreed absently. He was barely paying attention, distracted by Helena's soft moans as she slid her wet snatch up and down, lubricating his hardening cock.

Hermione shook her head. "Perhaps I should make a sort of handbook for your less…educated lovers." She hugged herself, biting her lip.

"I like that idea." Narcissa threw her head back, lying on the carpet with her head against the armchair as Apolline suckled the whipped cream from her breasts. Cissy liked to give him some visual spectacle when her daughter was working on him, and Apolline was always happy to help. "I can write a section on cleaning Harry's cream up."

Apolline cleaned the cream from her lips. "And I can give tips on blowjobs." She cheered.

"I meant more behavioral advice." Hermione scowled. "Like, always drink in moderation."

Harry grinned to himself. He'd thought Daphne was the Scrooge of Christmas, but Hermione always surprised him.

###

The chilly breeze brought the strong smell of salt into his nose, and it was like the wind gusts were timed to accompany the rushing waves below, battering into the large rocks they stood on.

"Why are we here?" Amelia frowned, shivering, her hands holding onto the hem of her black layered ruffle skirt to stop it from blowing up. A charm stopped the rain above her head, but she was still wet, because the wind-swept rain came from every angle, and if the rain didn't get them, the sea-spray did.

Harry didn't answer, his eyes closed as he pushed through the memories that came with each churning wave. In his mind, Tom was laughing at his fellow orphanage children as they cried, stranded on the towering cliff, surrounded by angry waves and sheer drops.

"Harry?" She asked.

He shook himself. "Horcrux."

"What?"

"Tom — Voldemort — he split his soul into objects to grant himself immortality."

Amelia gaped at him, her skin paling. In the stormy evening, her red hair was like a lighthouse, even though it was soaked to a dark shade and stuck to her skin.

"We're here to find one." Harry said quietly. As he grew in power, it was like he could handle more of Tom's mind, able to wrestle it into organization, a filter that opened slightly. When he claimed Daphne, the memory of Tom hiding Slytherin's locket came to him.

Here, not far from the orphanage, the cliffside Tom had been brought for sea air and views. Although the other kids hadn't gone so far as this dangerous rock outcrop, except from the couple Tom had brought with him for entertainment.

Amelia gathered herself, but she looked a little shaken. "I'm glad you changed your mind about changing the timeline."

I haven't, he didn't say. But he'd realized that destroying this horcrux was the one action he could take that wouldn't affect the future timeline. It was well-defended, protected with layer after layer, because Voldemort had no intent on moving it or checking it.

None would find it, so Harry could destroy them without repercussions.

A skipping stone that cast no ripples in the waters.

"I told you, didn't I?" He said firmly. But her reaction was why he'd brought her — he wanted her to think he was on her side. Maybe then she'd let her guard down — he had to fuck her before she fucked the whole world over.

"You did. Are we expecting danger? I'm not dressed for it — you could have let me go home before we left the Ministry." She blew a wet lock from her mouth. Soaked through, her red bra shone through her white blouse.

"We should be fine, but Tom's protections are less than charming." Harry raised his brow at her underwear and her high heels. "That bra would show through even if you were dry, you know?"

She smirked at him. "I'm still a woman in a man's world, Harry. I'm not afraid to play the game." She plucked at her blouse. "Honestly, sometimes I just forget what skin I'm showing. It's not easy being a lady."

"Not the Amelia I remember."

"That way didn't work out, not in time, so I'm going to cheat a little."

"You and me both." Harry muttered under his breath — he could barely hear himself think with the sound of whipping winds and frothing waters.

He led her to the edge of the rock, to the jagged niches that Tom had made long ago, slippery footholds that led to the boulders that tried to stay above the waterline, like swimmers treading water.

Harry led them down and leapt from boulder to boulder, making liberal use of Sticking Charms to stop from falling. Amelia followed hesitantly, but he caught her every time.

With each jump, he'd hold her wet curvy form, looking into her bottle green eyes. With each jump, he pushed his luck a little more. A too-tight hug, a kiss to her forehead, another to her lips. On the last boulder, he caught her with firm hands on her plump ass, underneath the skirt that flapped high in the wind.

Amelia bit her lip, shivering as he kneaded unashamedly. "Hardly the way to treat a soaking wet woman."

"Unless you want her a little wetter."

"I thought Lords were gentlemen." She took his hands and unpeeled them. "Not teenagers with crass tongues."

"I thought Ladies were pure and modest." He teased, pulling her red thong up a little so that it appeared from where it had disappeared between her ample ass-cheeks.

Her lips twitched. "I guess we're both setting poor examples, but if I must be man-handled, perhaps you could do it in warmer climes?"

"Let's hope the next horcrux is in the jungle." Harry agreed. "Lumos." His wand cast golden light on the cliff-face, on the fissure below that the dark waves vanished into.

Amelia wasn't paying attention, wringing the water from her skirt. "Dry me off? I feel like a Grindylow."

"No point. We're going into the cave."

"Cave?" Amelia peered over. "Oh, Merlin, Harry, I'm not a strong swimmer."

He looked her over. "It might sound like I'm just trying to get your clothes off, but you really don't want to be wearing clothes if you're not a strong swimmer. The weight is enormous underwater."

She looked at him dubiously. "You've got a real boy who cried werewolf thing going on, you know — no girl is ever going to think you virtuous."

"That boy was right eventually." His wand came out — Amelia's skirt whipped to her ankles, her blouse unbuttoning itself.

Amelia was left, hands on her hips, half scowling and half-blushing as he stared at her beauty. She was undeniably gorgeous, an hourglass figure like everything she ever ate went to her tits or her ass. Her long red hair stuck to skin that was quickly covered in raindrops, and it didn't need to soak her slightly sheer bra in order for him to see the hard-nipples that poked through, her full melons being cupped from below.

Like Cissy, she wore open cup shelf bras to support her large teardrop shaped breasts, because there were few other bras that could support a chest like that. Harry thought he'd like to reborn as a shelf bra.

Down below, her little satin thong was barely concealing her smooth mound — wet as it was, he could see her pussy outlined behind the fabric, before she shifted her thigh to hide from his perverted gaze.

"Are you quite done?" She growled.

"Not even close, but I suppose we should be going." He sighed. He stripped himself to his boxers and heard her choke.

Amelia was wide-eyed and coughing.

"What?" He looked down. His cock was poking from the leg of his boxers, semi-hard. "Whoops." He grinned. "It's not easy being a lady." He pulled down his boxers, trying and failing to cover his large cock.

"Merlin's sweet gray beard." She muttered. "I wish I hadn't given you advice with Susan now. She might not survive."

"Don't be impressed." He gestured to his bulging boxers. "It's not me, I've hidden a a Boomslang in there." Harry winked at her before falling backwards into the water. It was icy cold, but the swimming came easily to him. Ibn Maw had once made Tom swim lengths in freezing cold water while fending off his Legilimency and curses both, for hours and hours until the water ran red.

But as he swam, it wasn't Tom's swimming lessons that came to mind, but Marie's — in Lac d'Annecy, the hot springs underneath warming the lake water, with the Alps in the background. She'd felt like a woman for the first time as she wore a bikini, getting glances from the boys treading water.

The more time he spent with his girls, the more memories he took from them, which wasn't always a good thing — he wasn't sure he wanted to know how it was to feel like a woman finally, her father's little girl no longer. But his brain was already a scrambled mess, so what more could it hurt?

While it wasn't like Marie had new spells to gift him through their bond, her breaststroke was perfect. Towards the dark mouth in the rock face, he led a struggling Amelia, his wandlight casting strange refracted shimmers. In the cave, the slimy walls were narrow and oily, a tunnel longer than he expected.

Harry idly thought that it felt like he was swimming into a massive vagina. Perhaps he was going mad — it was difficult to control his two minds of past and present, and in the future, Harry was certainly enjoying his Christmas break, entering a much tighter pussy.

Finally, the steps led up to the freezing cave. Amelia cursed loudly as they left the water, shivering — Harry let her stomp around, taking in the view of her from behind, her thong riding up and askew so her pink asshole peeked from each side of the fabric.

Time for business.

Tom's magic was thick and recognizable.

"There's nothing here." Amelia griped.

"Quite the opposite." Harry murmured, seeing enchantments and wards, many and layered. "There is an entrance." But rather than look for it, he looked inside his mind, searching his memory, Tom's memory.

"Well, can you hurry up?" She growled. "I'm going to freeze to death."

"Aren't you a witch?"

"You've got my wand." She snapped.

Harry looked down — so he had. He had a new bad habit of subconsciously summoning wands when others looked angry — yesterday, Hermione had stubbed her toe and he'd immediately taken her wand from her without thinking. A defense mechanism from Tom, no doubt.

"Sorry." He swished his wand to make her bra and panties warm and dry and returned her wand.

"Can't you summon my clothes too?" She asked. "I can't summon through that much water."

"What's that? I have water in my ears."

"Really funny." Amelia muttered, but she'd stopped stomping around now her underwear was warm, her skin returning to color.

"Blood wards. Ibn Maw's favorite." Harry muttered. He held a Severing Charm on the tip of his wand and over his skin, splattering his blood over the rocks. The wall lit up in a silver arch and then vanished completely, the rock replaced by a black void.

"Who? What?"

Harry didn't reply, walking into the darkness. Amelia scampered after him and then ran into his back when he stopped at the edge of a murky black lake, vast and wide. He couldn't see the banks, but he could see the greenish light in the centre, a glow like the Killing Curse.

It was all just like Tom's memory. Except that Tom's memory was blurry, coming through in glimpses, bits and pieces, which was a common side effect of memories that were forced to the fore — one of many reasons why Veritaserum wasn't used liberally in court cases.

Harry did know there was a boat, but he couldn't see it. But he could feel something hidden. Tom's signature in the air, on the edge of the rock rim where the murky water began.

"You keep talking to yourself, you know." Amelia said.

"Oh? Am I?"

"Dumbledore does the same thing." She hugged herself, peering into the black lake.

"Ah, clever." He murmured. Disillusionment charms that were inscribed into runes on metal chains, then those runes had been disillusioned with another layer of runes, a deep loop of rune on rune.

"He does that too."

Harry pulled a green chain from thin air, and coiled it up in a shriek of clinking metal, before a tiny glowing green boat rose out of the water.

"Can you make it any bigger?" Amelia asked. "It looks too small."

Harry gave her a side-eye. "You've never engorged a boat, have you?"

"No?"

"It's the same principle behind why you don't engorge your house. The joins, the seams, it all gets destroyed. If I Engorged it, we'd start taking on water in seconds."

"Well, unless you want me to sit on your lap, then—"

"As enticing as that sounds, I think we'll just fly." Harry wrapped his arm around her tightly and rose up into the air, unaided.

Amelia squealed in surprise, holding onto him with a deathly grip.

He was wobbly, especially unbalanced by a second person, but they careered jerkily over the cloudy water.

"There's things in the water!" She exclaimed.

From above, that was clear. Marble white patterns swirled on the misty water, like there were spiders making webs underneath the surface, but when Amelia cast a Lumos, the patterns solidified into bodies. Their open eyes staring up unthinkingly.

"Bodies!" She shuddered.

Harry gently hovered down onto the island in the centre of the lake, where the green light emanated. "They won't harm us." He told her. The Inferi wouldn't wake if they hadn't already — he figured that there was enough of Tom about him, in him, that they weren't roused to danger.

But these dead souls were a reminder of what this place once meant to Tom, all the people he'd lured here, or killed and then brought here. This was a place with meaning — these cliffs, not far from the orphanage, was where Tom had realized he wasn't just different, but better.

Better than the fearful screaming kids with nothing magic about them, scared of a sharp drop or a stiff wind.

Some of those kids lay in the lake, even now.

"Since when can you fly?" Amelia gazed up at him, breathless.

He shrugged.

"Why do powerful wizards always act so mysteriously? It's like you're all protecting your secret magic cabal." She rolled her eyes. "Can the Dark Lord fly?"

"Indeed he can."

"Why did he hide a boat, then?"

"He was a younger man, then."

Amelia hummed. "How did you even find this place?"

"Secret magic cabal." Harry pointed at the stone basin in the centre of the island. "This is what's important." They stepped up to see that the basin contained an emerald liquid. "The Horcrux is underneath the liquid. To drain it, we need to have sex."

"What?!"

"Just kidding. Would that have worked?"

Amelia glared. "Can you be serious?"

"Sex based magic is a thing." Harry defended. "And, if I didn't know exactly what this was, it might have been preferable to what we would have to do. This is a very dangerous potion."

"What does it do?"

"It induces a terrible madness and thirst. Pain beyond measure." Harry said somberly. "It was a potion used by South American indigenous tribes when their shamans were anointed, a ceremonial mind-altering experience."

"How can you possibly know that just by looking at it?" Amelia crossed her arms, incidentally pushing up her bust, her nipples partly popping from her bra.

Harry couldn't explain that - how Tom had attacked a tribe member, possessed his mind, learned their ancient secrets and then burned acres of the Amazon jungle to ensure those secrets never trickled down to anyone else.

"It's the green shade." He said sagely. "Thankfully, the magical properties are diluted by Boomslang skin." Harry reached into his boxers and withdrew a vial of patterned shedded snakeskin. "I told you I had a Boomslang in there."

"I…" Amelia exhaled loudly.

Harry emptied the vial into the basin and stepped back as the liquid began to hiss. A minute later, and the green potion was as clear as water.

"Thirsty?" He asked.

"Not even for a thousand galleons."

Harry drank the water himself, until the basin was dry and the locket was revealed.

But as his fingers closed over the golden locket, he heard a groaning from behind him.

Not from Amelia, but from a hundred raspy throats.

"Harry…" Amelia said slowly.

He turned to see the lake waters rippling, figures in ghostly white emerging, the tar-like waters sludging down their forms.

The Inferi were coming.

He grabbed Amelia's waist and tried to rise up into the sky, taking flight. But the island below them cracked like the rockbed of an arid desert, and through those cracks, pallid white hands reached around his ankle, tugging him down.

Harry spat fury, stomping the fingers that stopped them from fleeing. He sliced curses down at the cracks, buying them time. If not flight, then…

"Fire."

"What?" She didn't look away from the army of the dead that rose, faces with sunken cloudy white eyes, climbing onto the island rocks, behind and in front.

"Light them up!" Harry snarled. There was no space for hesitation. "Fiendfyre." He called.

The flames burst from his wand, skin-drying heat surging. A glow became a ball became a storm, the semi-sentient flames yearning to consume. The air sucked from the room, the moisture drying on his tongue.

He tore the fire high, made a wall into a protective ring.

The fearsome blaze stymied the Inferi army. For a moment, he thought it enough, but then they came.

Through the flames, staggering and lurching, dropping to their knees. Climbing over those that fell, shrunken hands reaching out.

Harry wrenched his flames towards him, even as it threatened to break fire.

Let me free. The inferno begged him.

Next to him, Amelia cast all manner of fire spells, but the army of ghostly bodies was close.

Too close.

Through the flames — but all Harry had to do was bring his Fiendfyre wall closer. His eyes narrowed in concentration, biting through his tongue, muscles straining, veins bulging.

Do as I say. He ordered, mustering all his power.

Somewhere in the future, their two minds connected, Harry roared as he came inside Helena, teased to completion by Apolline and Cissy.

And in the past, a spark through time and mind, it was Harry who lost control. The Fiendfyre roared away from him, breaking free of his chains. It seared towards the lake, the bodies still climbing from the waters.

Their protective ring was gone.

"Fuck!" Harry swore, watching their shield go. He brought his wand high, and when he snapped it down, a long coiling flame-whip cracked through the heads of the coming Inferi.

He slashed and struck, again and again. Heads rolled, staring through sunken expressionless eyes, but it wasn't enough.

Fetid breath blew on their skin. The Inferi were upon them. Their bony hands clawed at Amelia, arms enclosing around her flesh, lifting her flailing feet.

"Harry!" She cried, but he couldn't kill them fast enough.

Without the Fiendfyre, he couldn't create fires large enough, hot enough. He could conjure arrows, ropes, candles, even Bluebell Flames, but he couldn't conjure the unconjurable, like thick black oil to coat the Inferi in flammable death.

He changed tactics, needing close control now the enemy was close enough that he could see the whites of their eyes, smell the rot of their flesh.

Wizards had long tried to use other things as a magical focus, unsuccessfully embedding cores in swords and staves. But Harry had always wondered why one would ever made a sword into a wand when you could just make a wand into a sword.

"Diffindo." A Severing Charm, but not released. He held it at the tip of his wand.

The Severing Charm was invented by a seamstress, Delfina Crimp, in the fifteen century, seeking less destructive magic to alter her fashion creations. But it was not Voldemort who'd taught him its full powers, but Apolline — the Veela used it like a master to tailor her clothes — there wasn't a dress she hadn't cut the hem of, or altered the neckline.

Apolline used the charm like an artist, and she was the canvas, ensuring that her skin was always showing for him. Cutting crotchless holes in her lacy things, making ladylike blouses become very slutty, cutting thigh-baring slits in her skirts.

And all her Severing Charm knowledge had transferred to him, through long nights and pleasant mornings spent under her, behind her, or fucking her into the pillows.

He'd always known he could hold the Severing Charm at the tip of his wand and run it down like a pair of lethal scissors, but now he knew the seamstress Crimp had also dabbled in blacksmithing.

And she'd learned to hold a Severing Charm while she cast an Incendio, creating burning cuts to carve armor plates and smith swords.

"Incendio." His pink-tipped Severing Charm became red hot. The Fire-Making Charm could be fuelled with magic and rage, and the red glow grew three feet in length.

A wand became a sword.

Hands reached for him. Slimy fingers without nails dug into his legs and back. Mindless mouths exhaled gurgles and bubbles. He was surrounded.

And behind the icy invaders, a glimpse of red hair, Amelia was lifted towards the burning lake, the void of no return.

Smoke filled his throat and his coat of sweat felt like liquid panic, swarming, overwhelming. But his hands burned, because he'd fucked up his charm chain — his wand was on fire, searing his skin away.

That pain was his wake up call.

He swung his wand-blade furiously, a sword with the sharpest edge. Heads toppled onto shoulders, arms lopped from shoulders. And with every swing, he saw more of Amelia, cutting a path to her. He met her eyes through a torso carved open, a window to the soul made in a body without a mind.

"Fucking die!" Harry growled, reversing his wand under his shoulder and stabbing back to remove the hand on his shoulder. He reversed again and lunged forward, slicing left, right, ahead, his footwork graceful.

Marie had taken some fencing, or was it Daphne? It didn't matter. He was made up of all that lay under him.

Harry cut himself to freedom, but the Inferi were still coming. And Amelia was about to be pulled into the waters, the red waters that reflected the uncontrollable Fiendfyre that swarmed over the lake, an inferno that forced the Inferi from their sleeping place and then burnt them to ashes.

He thought quickly. Thanks to future Harry's Christmas pleasures, his control over the Fiendfyre was lost. He needed flames, and his sword wasn't cutting it.

But future Harry's intrusion into his own mind wasn't a complete dead loss. Cissy emptied a bottle of champagne over her breasts as the crowd of girls cheered, her forfeit for losing a card game of sorts.

And, over a decade in the past, a block slid into place in Harry's mind.

Alcohol.

Alcohol burnt.

He couldn't conjure oil.

But there wasn't a teenage boy at Hogwarts who hadn't conjured wine, trying to extend a party after the Firewhisky ran dry, trying to get a girl to bridge the gap between tipsy kisses and drunken surrender. They all regretted it, the wine undrinkable, the girls sobered by the awful taste.

But undrinkable wine burned all the same.

"Engorgio." Harry made the stone basin so large that it broke the pedestal below, crushing it into pebbles. The basin grew bigger than him. And when it was large enough, he murmured another spell.

"Harry!" Amelia shrieked desperately, on the edge of the lake.

His sword became a fountain of red wine, and in his panic, the fountain became a torrential gout. The basin filled up, barrels and barrels of wine. An overpowered Incendio made the red become a hissing blue, a basin transformed to a makeshift oven stove and made giant.

"Always drink in moderation." Harry muttered grimly.

He toppled the basin.

The liquid flames burnt through the island, a waterfall of liquid death. These flames couldn't be walked through, couldn't wrench free of his control.

Harry took aim at Amelia, working on instinct. There was the smallest gap in the bodies, a spell he could hit her with, a chance to save her. A shield? It wouldn't protect from liquid flame. Freeze her into stasis? It would freeze her heart, or be melted to nothing.

A levitation to freedom? Levicorpus, perhaps? But she'd be wrenched into the smoke over the island, asphyxiated.

Amelia. Susan. Cedric. Bubble-Head Charm.

The thoughts chained quickly. Harry summoned all his magic, taking aim under the shoulder of an Inferi, as the wine avalanche washed toward her.

Tom's accidental mind-merge had taught him many things. But more than spells and runes, dueling and incantations, it had taught him that power broke rules. Tom worshipped power because it broke the rules of magic. Powerful mages changed the elements, brought down buildings, destroyed armies, brute-forcing spells, making magic bend to their intent.

Harry forced all his power into the Bubble-Head charm, willing it to take the form in his mind. The blue spell flew through the smallest of gaps to hit Amelia in the face. And instead of a bubble of oxygen around her head, a translucent protective bubble formed around her entire body.

Just in time, before she disappeared under the blazing flood. His cascading wildfire swept the Inferi from their feet and burned them to a crisp. Their second death was worse than their first — a sulphuric stench of burning flesh, torched rags melting skin from bone, bones that cracked and split loudly.

It was a gruesome death, a scene Harry watched with fear in his heart, searching for a sight of Amelia.

The Inferi were swept back towards their lake, and as they vanished, he saw a blackened bubble emerge, hovering above the ground.

"Finite Incantatem." Harry ended the charm, and from the bubble, Amelia dropped. Coughing, covered in ghostly white hand prints, her underwear torn from her body, but alive.

Harry swept her up as she choked and spluttered. She wiped her wet eyes, shuddering, but he couldn't wait for her to recover.

He cast Bubble-Head charms over their heads and then rose off the ground, taking flight. As he directed them toward the cave exit, the Fiendfyre whipped at them, a blaze with a mind and an anger to match. Flames with shapes, fists and snakes and crackling with purpose.

Harry countered it with wind, pushing fire and smoke back, creating a small path to freedom. Back through the tunnel, their feet trailing through the icy water, flames at their back.

Until finally they were out of the cave, and the Fiendfyre was left to consume itself and die. Harry Apparated them to his room in the Leaky Cauldron. This timeline had few wards that could stop him, and certainly not the newly erected Apparition wards the Ministry had put up, trying to stop the reappearance of the masked madman who'd torn up the Diagon Alley street.

Amelia was beautiful naked, but she was exhausted and vulnerable. In this room, the room he would fuck Daphne in, years from now, Harry threw away the thought of pushing Amelia's limits. She was miserable and wet, covered in bruises, glorious red hair matted to her skin.

His wand worked away. A robe to clothe her. Bath filling with warm water. Teapot pouring itself into cups.

Amelia looked at him gratefully.

"Thanks," she croaked.

"Relax." Harry told her. "That was…dicey."

She snorted weakly. "Inferi."

"Disturbing, aren't they?"

She bit her lip, shaken. "Glad you were there."

"Thanks for coming with me. I'm sorry." He said genuinely. "I thought I had a handle on whatever Voldie would throw at us."

"You did, just about." Amelia said quietly. "At least we got it, right?"

"We did." Harry pulled the golden locket free and frowned. It was not ornate, like Slytherin's locket should be, like it was in Tom's memory.

And where the portrait should be, there was a tightly wedged piece of parchment.

He read it out loud. "To the Dark Lord — I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. R.A.B."

"It's a fake." Amelia groaned.

Harry crumpled it in his fist and squeezed it, letting his anger out. Harry didn't know who R.A.B. was, but Tom did. Regulus Arcturus Black.

As the paper tore in his fist, the memories came back to him.

Voldemort asked Regulus for the use of his house-elf Kreacher, and used the poor little bastard to test the defenses.

But if Regulus had stolen the Horcrux…perhaps Kreacher hadn't died after all. Perhaps he'd reported back to his master, told him what the object was, what it did.

Harry brought his hand to his face, trying to feel the magic of the parchment. It wasn't old — Regulus had stolen this recently and probably given his life for it. Perhaps he'd been one of the Inferi Harry had burned away.

He swallowed the bitter taste of failure in his throat.

He hadn't just wanted a horcrux because he could get it without tangling time. He'd wanted to study it, to hold it in his hand. Surely then, he'd remember how Tom made them, the incantation and magic of it, so that Harry could make his own Whorecrux.

To seal a splinter of a bondmate's soul away in an object, their bond hidden away until he could break it free in the future.

"Where is the real one?" Amelia interrupted.

"Regulus Black took it. A defection." Harry murmured, lost in thought.

Amelia swore. "It's probably hidden away in his vault or stashed somewhere."

Harry paused. "What do you know of him?"

"Regulus?" Amelia frowned. "He hasn't been heard from in a year? Eight months, maybe. Everybody thinks he's dead."

He gnawed on his lip. It was unlikely that Regulus knew how to defeat that rare potion in the basin. If he'd drank it, been dosed with an unquenchable thirst, he'd have gone to the lake and never come back up, claimed by the Inferi.

But if the locket was gone, then someone must have taken it.

Someone like the house-elf, Harry surmised.

If Kreacher had it…

"I think it's in the Black family home." He said slowly.

Amelia looked at him dubiously. "How are we going to get in there?"

"I know someone." Harry gave her a guilty smile.

"Bellatrix? You trust that crazy witch?"

"No." He crossed his arms. "If I ask her to take it, she'll just as likely tip off Lord Voldemort. She's still playing us both, getting tutored by us both, letting us both think she'll join our cause." He grimaced. "She might even tip him off in the future and he'll know we're hunting his Horcruxes."

"Not if she never joins him." Amelia reminded.

"Right." Amelia didn't know of his plan to bond women here and reawaken them in the future. She still thought he was happy to fuck timelines up.

No, he realized. He couldn't get that horcrux, not yet. He could probably get into the Black home sooner or late, playing the socialite, but he couldn't pop in there, destroy their wards, break the place apart looking for the horcrux. That would attract Tom's attention.

"How, how, how…" He murmured. How did he make a Whorecrux without a horcrux? There was one other horcrux he was sure of the location of.

The diary he'd stabbed in the Chamber of Secrets, that Lucius Malfoy had slipped it into Ginny's school supplies.

He had to get into Malfoy Manor. Unfortunately, he mused, it was unlikely that the Narcissa of this year would be as welcoming as Cissy was currently.

###

"Is that enough whipped cream?" Cissy said uncertainly, spraying another thick coil of cream between her thighs.

"It's a fun game, Cissy." Apolline giggled, tipsy. "It is not meant to make us fat, oui?"

Harry looked down at his girls. The games had moved onto Exploding Snap, though this version was Strip Snap. Since the girls didn't have many clothes to strip off in the first place, and Narcissa had thrown a tantrum when she lost in the first round and had to take off her long sheer lace teddy, they'd made an amendment to the rules. Last girl to snap had to cream themselves up, if they were already naked.

"Cissy," Harry said slowly, drinking in the thoughts of his other, past self. "Where did Lucius keep his dark artefacts? He had a diary he gave to Ginny in my second year, a horcrux."

Cissy squeaked as Apolline spread her cream around her groin. "I don't know for sure, but anything dark would have been kept in the cellar under the drawing room."

"You're certain?"

She nodded.

Hermione sighed loudly as they turned over another round of cards. "You cheated again, Apolline."

"I did not!" The Veela said, affronted, the bell jiggling on the end of her Christmas hat. Her tits jiggled too, spilling from her Christmas bodysuit, which was more like a fishnet than lingerie.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "When you see two identical cards, you hit the card with the top of your wand."

"I know that! I have the Troll in my deck and I tapped first, so I win!"

"But the Mountain Troll cards have already been played, so how are they in the deck again?" Hermione cast a Finite on them, and the Trolls were revealed to be Bowtruckles.

Apolline deflated. "Zis is a stupid game." She declared.

Hermione pursed her lips. "You can't play the same trick twice."

"'Arry needs me to pleasure him." She argued. "I do not zink Helena did it properly." Her accent always got thicker in passion.

"Harry loved it." Helena squeaked quietly, tired and unable to argue effectively from being laid back on the chaise longue while Marie slurped noisily at his cum oozing from her gleaming, creamy, debased pussy. Marie had come second at degnoming. "Right, Harry?"

Harry didn't answer, distracted by his thoughts. "You can't play the same trick twice." He murmured.

Couldn't he?

###

Harry Apparated into Malfoy Manor. Even in the past, it was almost the same. A vast roaring fireplace heated a luxurious room, but the carpet was covered in thick beige shag rugs, the sort that never made it into the next decade.

Narcissa rose from the piano in the corner, fumbling for a wand.

"Who are you?" She snarled. Harry was wearing the same slight glamors he used when he met with Bellatrix — himself but not himself.

He batted away her spell, feeling nostalgic for their future, the time he'd taken her, the love they'd made. She was an unparalleled beauty, even now. More svelte and slender, but her recent pregnancy had made her figure full. He was surprised by the innocence in her blue eyes — she had those sharp cheekbones, an aristocratic face, but the better-than-thou sneer had yet to develop. So too, her grace — she snapped spells forward with more anger than composure.

"You dare to attack me, Lord Voldemort?" He answered, flexing his magic to the full. The mirror fell from the wall. The glassware shattered. The house itself trembled in its foundation.

She gaped at him, her wand dropping to her side.

"M-my Lord?"

"Did you expect a monster, Narcissa?"

"N-no, my Lord, you just don't look like the last—"

"I can control the deepest roots of magic, Narcissa." He said silkily. "Did you really think I cannot control your appearance? Where is your husband?"

She bowed her head. "He's at Gringotts, My Lord."

"Good. I require something from your cellar, under your drawing room."

She looked startled. "But?"

"But did you think I didn't know all your husband's secrets?" Harry said arrogantly. "Quickly now, girl."

"Y-yes, my Lord." She pulled aside the large luxurious rug and muttered a spell. The carpet shifted to reveal a trap door, which she pulled up by the hook.

"Do not move." Harry instructed her sternly. The cellar was dank and musty, and more so as he descended down the steep flight of stairs. Through a heavy door, he found himself in a room of stale air, with wooden shelving on either side.

"Lumos."

Dusty books stacked on each other, while dirty silver instruments whirred away on the shelving, emitting little puffs of smoke. A shadowy Foe-Glass reflected his wandlight.

The cellar reminded him of Dumbledore's office, though he imagined Malfoy's artefacts were much more evil.

It didn't take him long to find. Even in the den of strange things with murky magical signatures, the horcrux stood out. Especially since he'd held it before, seen it before.

The diary of Tom Riddle.

He couldn't destroy it, not now. If he did, Lucius wouldn't be able to give it to Ginny. The diary wouldn't possess her. Harry couldn't save her.

It would change too much, maybe even his personality, his friendships.

This wasn't like the locket, an artefact with no future to alter.

It didn't matter. He just wanted to examine it.

Harry took hold of it gently, closing his eyes.

As soon as his fingers gripped him, he was taken away. Another piece of Tom's memory unlocked — a memory of creating this horcrux. Moaning Myrtle, dead from the basilisk, the murder that would create the first horcrux.

He saw Tom cradle the diary reverently. He saw the incantation used, the rush of magic that sparked from toe to ears. And he felt first-hand how to do it himself, to create the darkest of artefacts.

Harry sat back with a heavy thump, sweating. It wasn't purely a murder that had to create a horcrux, he understood now. It had been for Tom — because it was the only time he could flare up every piece of his soul, awaken it to begin splintering. When Tom killed, he felt such a rush of power, a rush that echoed along his bond to the Death Eaters, a reciprocal loop of glee and rage and power. And with that power, he could muster the might needed to create a horcrux.

"Fuck me." Harry muttered. He realized that he too experienced power flare ups like that, surges in his soul and his bond.

But not from murder.

From the moment of climax.

When he took Daphne, claimed her, his conquest complete, he'd felt it then. A surge in his bond. A moment of invincible power and feeling indescribably alive.

His power swarmed over his bond and he got an understanding of his girls and their links to him, the links that came from their souls. At that moment, he knew, he could take a piece of their souls. And like Voldemort, place it in an object.

He looked down at the diary, that which held a piece of Tom, his spirit.

It was a window into the man's mind and soul, at that age at least. What did it matter to Harry? He had Tom's mind in his own, a much older Tom at that.

Still, the object felt powerful. He couldn't take it, but he wanted to.

One day, this would go to Ginny. Poor girl — she'd never stood a chance against such a powerful object. It was a wonder that she hadn't more ill effects from her months long possession by the horcrux.

Harry shook his head and left the diary behind before ascending up the stairs.

In the drawing room, Narcissa wrung her hands nervously.

What could he say to her? What could he do?

The woman he loved would waste away for a decade and more, lost in her loneliness, her heart turning cold without love or affection, married to a monstrous man who had no time for her, a man that poisoned the mind of her son.

Even with all of his power, he couldn't change that.

Somewhere in the house, he could hear a baby crying.

He took her chin in his hand. She trembled at his grasp.

Slowly, softly, he kissed her, trying to imbue all his feelings and sorrow, his love for the woman that she'd come to be.

At first, she fought him, frowning, but then she sank into his kiss, moaning.

He broke away. "Do not worry, Narcissa."

She looked at him, bewildered.

Harry gave her a sad smile. "You'll find love one day. I promise."

He Apparated away.

###

"Presents!" Narcissa shrieked with glee. "Presents, everybody."

"Not yet, Mother." Helena rolled her eyes as she met Harry's eyes. "It's just Hedwig with some things, it's not time yet."

Harry smirked. Cissy was desperate for presents, more because she wanted to give him gifts than receive them. He'd given her some Edible Dark Marks ("They'll make anyone sick!" George quipped.) from the Weasleys' shop as a joke, and she'd reacted like he'd proposed.

Hedwig soared through the open window and dropped her parcels. She stood around proudly as the girls fawned over her.

"You're going to get a big head, girl." He told his old friend as he opened the first envelope.

Hedwig stared at him balefully, like she was saying 'and you have room to talk?'.

The parcel contained a knitted scarf in Potter red. The accompanying parchment smelled of woody perfume.

Harry,

Ron and I thought we 'd send you our Christmas gifts at the same time, since Hedwig was here. Thanks for the Chaser gloves, they're brill! Mum's been teaching me to knit this Christmas break, can you believe it?

Maybe this scarf will help you get through winter.

Ron keeps writing Lavender with a dumb look on his face (don 't tell him I told you). The twins are hidden in their room making explosions, if they're not at the shop. Charlie is in Romania with his dragons and I think Bill's running errands for Dumbledore.

So …I'm bored! I can't spend any more time getting lessons on femininity from Mum.

I thought I 'd write you instead to say thank you. I've always been the ignored little sister trying to get some attention from my brothers. I thought that would change in Hogwarts, but I didn't manage to find my place in the world there either. (You already know I did some dumb things out of loneliness).

But that changed, kinda, this year. In the DA, you took the time to teach me, to talk to me, to see me.

It meant a lot.

So this New Year, my resolution is to be a better friend to you. To be more than the little girl I know you see me as, the girl who puts her elbow in the butter dish and can 't get three words out. I've even taken down my old Harry Potter poster!

Your friend, hopefully, Ginny, who 's putting her silliness behind her.

Harry smiled to himself. She was sweet and even if he barely had time for his friends as it was, he wouldn't say no to better ones. He should, he reflected, have at least one female friend who he hadn't fucked or wasn't trying to.

He felt guilty, and he knew he was being selfish, but he didn't like the idea of Ginny getting over her crush on him. She was cute, and getting cute as she got older. Maybe she'd be a smokeshow in a year, and what then?

Don't be a Dudley, he told himself. At some point, he had to realize he couldn't have all the presents.

Ron's parcel contained a rolled up poster of a Chudley Cannons manager leaning against the Quidditch hoops, wearing a bright orange three-piece suit. Vintage, it looked like — the man was rocking a mighty moustache.

Merry Christmas, Harry! This handsome man is Benjamin Barrell. He was the Chudley Cannons gaffer for our golden period in the 1971. We didn 't win the league, but we came second.

See, he wanted to be a star seeker, but he never made it out of the school teams.

Instead, he became the greatest manager Quidditch has ever seen. He invented the Thimblerig Shuffle, he revolutionized how you could use the Porskoff Ploy, and he made the whole league change the rules about timeouts.

Under Barrell, the Cannons never won a single thing. Because we 're the Cannons, we fired him at the end of the season, naturally. But the next year, Puddlemere United stole his tactics and won the league, before every other team caught on. Every fan still knows his name to this day as the last great thinker in Quidditch.

Reach for the stars, Harry — I 'll settle for being your Benjamin Barrell.

Merry Crimbo,

Ron.

P.S. Any chance of that photo we spoke about for Christmas? Don 't tell Hermione.

Hermione read the letter over his shoulder and snorted. "They're a good sort, Weasleys. What photo?"

"Fleur."

"Of course." She sniffed disdainfully. "Boys." Her face softened as she dropped it on his shoulder. "Still, I'm glad they're behind you."

Harry smiled to himself, staring at Barrell in his bright orange suit. "Me too."

###

Ginny's heart thundered in her chest as she saw the familiar owl knocking at her window. Hedwig, as regal as ever.

She bit her lip as she opened the window. Harry's owl dropped her a parcel.

"Thank you, Hedwig." Ginny said breathlessly. She didn't even want to open it until Harry's intelligent owl went away, like Hedwig would spy on her, but Hedwig hooted as if to say she was busy and flew away immediately.

Ginny tore the parcel open. It was a new poster, a blown-up photo from Harry's recent photoshoot with the Daily Prophet. It was Lord Potter looking stern, all burgundy robes and imperious glory. But then he shifted and winked, and Lord Potter became just Harry, full of mischief and trouble. Scribbled on the poster was Harry's white writing, the same autograph he gave to everyone. 'Never stop following your dreams - HP'.

First, she carefully, reverently, stuck the poster to her wall, smoothing it free of creases.

Inside the parcel, there was something else; a small note.

Friends? Of course. But Hermione recently taught me that all friendships have hidden depths.

Merry Christmas, Gin.

She read the note five times. And then she jumped on her bed and screamed into her pillow, kicking her legs behind her.

Harry had written back!

And best of all, he'd written back suggestively.

It had worked.

She bounced to her bedroom door and ensured it was firmly locked. She pressed her ear against it, just to make sure that everyone was distracted.

Then, she unlocked her desk drawer and carefully withdrew her Potions textbook. Between those pages, she'd taped a single, yellowed page, a page stained with blood.

She dipped her quill in ink.

"Guess what?! He wrote back." She scrawled.

The ink shone brightly on the page and disappeared, like it was sucked into the page.

It took a long time, much longer than it used to, but the ink oozed back. "That's great, Ginny. I'm so happy for you. I know that he'll see you for the lovely young woman you are, in time."

Ginny bit her lip, feeling that ever present thrill and guilt that she did every time she wrote in this single page, this remnant of her diary.

She checked her locked door again.

She knew it was stupid. But she also knew that Tom had been reduced to nothing now, a mere shade of what he had been, just a tiniest fragment of spirit resting in the last, bloodied, page of the diary.

She'd had to go to the Chamber of Secrets to get it, but that had been easy enough, once the memories of her possessed actions had returned to her in fragments, in her dreamland. She could remember the strange hissing phrase she'd used.

A single solitary page was all that was left of the diary, after Harry had stabbed it and taken it and her to Dumbledore. Just a page that Harry hadn't noticed, wafted behind a pillar.

But to Ginny, it was everything.

Her first friend. Her only real friend, the boy who understood her, who talked to her, who saw her as something more than the poor scrawny girl that Harry would never look at.

Besides, Ginny thought, it's not like I'm killing chickens again. She never blacked out or walked in her sleep or woke up covered in blood.

She had him under control.

"What's the next step?" She wrote.

"If you want him to see you truly, you'll need to weaken the competition. He has too many suitors."

Ginny stared at the ink for a few seconds. She didn't like that idea, but Tom wasn't wrong.

"I'm not going to do anything against Hermione." She wrote.

"Of course," Tom's ink glowed on the page. "I would never suggest anything like that. I know she's your friend. Besides, Harry wouldn't part from her, from what you've told me. He seems very loyal."

Ginny smiled, thinking about him. Harry had become a man this year — he was so tall and handsome and commanding. "He is."

"But," came Tom's reply. "We need to stop him from making another bad choice for himself. Perhaps, is there another girl that you think Harry would look at rather than you? Another red-haired pureblood beauty?"

Ginny stared at the page. She nearly upset her ink bottle in her hurry to write back. "Susan. Susan Bones. She's a redhead and she's really beautiful."

The diary was silent for a long moment, leaving Ginny to bite at her lip. She didn't want to do anything bad — she wasn't going to fall for Tom's madness again.

"We're not going to hurt her." Tom assured, like he knew what she was thinking. "We just want to put her out of the race."

Ginny hesitated, her quill on the page.

Tom's ink oozed forth. "Unless you want her to become Lady Potter instead, of course?"

She was as still as a statue for a long minute. She wasn't going to hurt Susan, but Tom's advice tended to be mean. But, in matters of love and war, wasn't everything fair? Ginny had never had anything to call her own, not really.

She looked at the poster on the wall. Harry winked at her. His writing shimmered in glowing ink. Never give up on your dreams.

Ginny clenched her jaw and scribbled a reply. "What did you have in mind?"