Beautiful, the Dark Heir (bdh12)

Chapter Twelve

Fic Adopted from Bittersweet Alias

that which goes or comes back: that which occurs again, repeatedly, or periodically

Recurrence

Robes lay discarded around the room as Micah quietly crawled across the bed toward his waiting husband.  “Hmm, Micah,” Harry purred with the first caress against the back of his knees, lying perfectly still where he had been placed only a few minutes before.  The hand slid upward, and Harry couldn’t help but gasp at the sensation of Micah palming his already hard arousal. 

“Mine,” Micah growled as he claimed Harry’s lips, his hands never leaving the lean frame, wanting to give it pleasure, wanting Harry to call out his name until he was hoarse.

He could feel Harry’s anxiety, sense the uncertainty of being fifteen and pregnant and recently bonded.  “Hush, Hadrian,” he whispered against the line of a cheek, catching the soft tears that fell almost unnoticed.

Harry clung to his broad shoulders, almost desperately, letting emotions wash over him.  “Just make love to me, Micah,” he whispered.  “I need to feel you, know that you’re here.”

Micah nuzzled Harry’s shoulder and bit down on it lightly, licking the hurt away.  “I’ll never leave you,” he vowed, reaching a hand underneath his husband’s sweet frame in order to prepare him.

“No,” Harry countered.  “Just do it, please.”

Micah couldn’t help but pull back, noting the desperation in Harry’s eyes, never wanting to see such a look again as long as he lived.  “I promised I’d never hurt you,” he responded, slipping a finger past the tight ring of muscles.

Harry hissed in reaction, pushing down against it, until Micah added a second, and then a third.  “Yes, like that,” he half purred, pulling Micah tightly against him again, only to feel himself rocked upward until he was sitting in Micah’s lap.

“Mine,” Micah reiterated, as he withdrew his fingers long enough to lubricate his pulsing erection.  He knew Harry needed to hear it – needed to be claimed.  “My husband, my mate, my child,” he whispered reverently before gently rocking Harry onto himself.

Holding desperately onto Micah, Harry arched his back in pleasure at the sensation, his mouth opening almost silently as he exhaled his relief.

And with a gentle rocking motion, Micah made love to Harry into the early evening, their eyes never leaving one another.

(o)

“Robes?” Harry stared incredulously at the perfectly tailored, grey robes his husband was holding out to him.  “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go to the Malfoys’.  You can’t show up in Muggle leather trousers or whatever they are,” he growled, looking about the room that they were sharing in Riddle Cottage.  Sirius and Remus had quietly offered to move onto the first floor for the rest of the holiday, giving the newlyweds a little escape from real life, having their meals served by a house–elf.

“But robes, Romeo?” he whined, looking at them petulantly.  He could admit that they were beautiful, gorgeous even, with white and silver threading around the edges.  They purred decadence and understated wealth, and, wait – “How did you get my measurements?”

Micah smirked.  “I can’t help if you’re a heavy sleeper after I tire you out.”

Harry stuck out his tongue, which Micah quickly nipped.

“Mhmm,” Harry hummed into the kiss, his arms wrapping around Micah’s neck until he was almost lifted off his feet.

“Robes,” Micah insisted, and Harry was so dazed he could only nod in assent.  Damn it if in only a week he had already learned the art of emotional manipulation, which he needed.  With one look, Harry had him wrapped around his finger, and he was beginning to suspect it would be exactly the same with their child.

Half an hour later, the four wizards were standing outside of Malfoy Manor, Harry gulping audibly at the grand sight.  “Just how wealthy are the Malfoys?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Sirius sniggered.  “About the wealthiest.  But you’re one to talk.”

Harry’s gaze snapped at him. 

“Your combined wealth from the Gaunts, the Blacks, the Potters, and Micah’s future inheritance from the Montagues makes both of you the only wizards in England who could compete with the Malfoy fortune.”

Harry neglected to answer when he noticed that two peacocks were walking by him.  This was really too much.

Micah, who was used to pureblood antics, merely took in everything silently.  “Our child is not growing up around peacocks,” was his only contribution.

Remus burst out laughing.  “I would hope not!  A wolf cub and peacocks would not go well together.”

Micah stared at him with open hostility, and only looked away when Harry pulled him forward.

“Hmm, there’s a thought,” Harry murmured to himself.  “Morpheus Garoul Montague-Gaunt.”

“Who gave you a dictionary of rare names?” Micah half-asked in earnest.

Harry only smiled up at him, cheekily.  “Blame Father and Sirius.  They give me too many books that go on and on about the meaning of words and the history of current terms.  It just sticks, oddly enough.  Word meanings, that is – Can’t get them out of my head. Hermione would be so jealous.  It could also be another side effect of the blood adoption.  Father can see something and remember it decades afterwards.”

“Garoul?”

“Go on a word search, Romeo,” he breathed as they finally reached the front door of the manor.

The evening was rather pleasant, Harry thought, all in all.  Narcissa wanted to know everything about Harry’s childhood, insisting that he call her “Aunt Cissa” and her husband “Uncle Lucius.”  Harry actually managed not to laugh at the confused look on Draco’s face.  He was handling having the Harry Potter as a cousin rather well, but even he couldn’t seem to understand his parents’ friendliness with the Gryffindors and the lone Slytherin Head Boy.

There was nothing for it, though.  Harry was his second cousin, a pureblood Black, and a Montague by marriage.  And, according to everyone, he was practicing the Dark Arts.  He smirked to himself.  Oh, Dumbledore was in for an unpleasant surprise.

(o)

Harry was surprised that news of his bonding still hadn’t been published in The Daily Prophet a few days later as he made his way to King’s Cross Station with his new husband.  He had somehow managed to convince both his godfathers that he really didn’t need a parental escort, as he knew London well enough and just wanted a last few minutes with his bonded.

Caelius Montague, however, hadn’t been so easy to convince.  In fact, the task had proven impossible.

Outside of being Viridian, Harry had little interaction with his new father-in-law.  They had shared a celebratory glass after the bonding ceremony had been completed; he had even grudgingly complimented Harry’s choice of rings when his wife had made a comment, and then had inquired into his private study of the Dark Arts.  If he had looked slightly approvingly at the latest member of the Montague family, that emotion no longer held true in his gaze as he looked over Harry’s Muggle inspired ensemble of designer jeans, heeled leather boots, and a tight black button down shirt with gold trim.  The leather coat Sirius had gotten him for Yule didn’t meet with his approval, either, even if it was military style.

“Your room or my room?” Harry finally asked Micah in order to break the tension.  They still hadn’t sorted out any of the details for when they returned to Hogwarts, as they had been certain that someone would have checked the Book of Bondings at the Ministry by now.  They had, in fact, been bonded for nearly a week.

“Mine’s green,” was Micah’s only response, his hand wrapped possessively around Harry’s waist as the three wizards walked amongst a crowd of tourists on their way to the station.  Their trunks had been shrunk and were residing in Harry’s coat pockets as Micah claimed he couldn’t be bothered carrying them.

“I’m assuming it’s also bigger, despite the choice in décor,” Harry sighed.

“The bed’s the same. And I like fucking you in yours.”

Caelius’s eyebrows shot up and he wished that he were not hearing this particular conversation.  His son, sex, and another wizard were thoughts he never wanted to think in tandem ever again.  Unfortunately, Harry’s constant presence wasn’t helping the matter, since he was now bearing proof of his son, sex, and another wizard.

“Well, my room does have a good view of the Quidditch Pitch, and it’s purple.”

Micah’s eyebrows shot up.  “You’re not playing anymore.”

“Wha –” Harry squeaked, inadvertently stopping in the middle of a crosswalk, several Muggles pushing past him in their haste to get to the tube station or the McDonald’s that was only a few paces away.

“Morpheus,” Micah said by way of explanation and the startled look on Harry’s face was replaced with a petulant one.

“Fine,” he ground out.  “No more Quidditch until next year.”

“At least Slytherin will win the Cup.”

Harry stuck out his tongue, walking swiftly forward again.  “In your dreams, Romeo.”

“Morpheus?” Caelius inquired as they made their way down a moving Muggle staircase.  He really didn’t understand or like Muggles.  He wished the Ministry would just lift the Anti-Apparition Wards around the magical platform.  Families could Disapparate; they just couldn’t Apparate in.  Apparently, it was a safety risk.  Caelius just thought they were insane or perhaps Muggle-loving idiots who shouldn’t be influencing policy.

Harry laughed sweetly and Micah’s arm tightened around him.  “Micah’s convinced the baby’s going to be a boy and, as all Gaunts are given a name beginning with the letter ‘M,’ we thought we’d name him Morpheus Montague-Gaunt.  Children are our dreams, our pathway to the future, they form and shape things, like Morpheus did.  I thought it would be nice.”

“Hence ‘Muliphein.’  I think I like it.”

Harry beamed up at him before approaching the barrier.

“There may be reporters, Hadrian,” Caelius warned, stepping up behind him.  “Perhaps Micah should go first.”

“We’ll go together,” Micah asserted, not wanting to give up his hold on his husband.

“I can manage to walk through a barrier on my own, Micah,” Harry grumbled, just to be slightly argumentative.  He liked seeing his husband overly possessive and dominant.  He also enjoyed the odd faces Caelius made when he thought no one was looking.

Micah stared coolly at him before leading him toward the platform, Harry not even looking where they were going, just smiling cheekily at Micah.

Caelius walked through a few seconds later to the sight of a busy platform without the presence of the press.

“Has either of your guardians informed the Headmaster you’re now bonded?” he inquired, just now thinking that the old man might need some prior warning.

“No. Sirius thought it would be too good of a joke and Father . . .” Harry’s voice trailed off and Micah knew exactly why the Dark Lord hadn’t written the Headmaster a letter.  “He prefers his reputation to speak for itself, not his name.  He also hates Dumbledore.”

Caelius’s eyebrows rose at the statement, but he gave no other outward sign at his surprise.

“Well, your godfathers and I have scheduled it so a Healer will meet you every Hogsmeade weekend until the end of the year.  A private room has been set aside at The Three Broomsticks.  He’s the Malfoy‘s personal healer and reputedly the best.”

Harry had to restrain himself from smirking, knowing that Voldemort had most likely ordered it of his follower.  “Thank Uncle Lucius for me.” 

Farewells between the father and son were terse, but Harry couldn’t help but smile slightly.  “I hope you’ll show more emotion in eleven years,” he breathed into Micah’s ear, unable to repress the smile at the thought of them being a family, whole and complete, with no secrets as soon as the war was over.  “Come on, we need to find Luna and Neville.”

“We have a prefect’s meeting first,” Micah complained, not liking the thought of it.

Harry scrunched up his nose as his husband followed him through the corridors.  “If you say so, Romeo.  But we have to find them sometime afterwards so that Luna can say something about the Dark Angel and the Dark Wolf creating a Dark Dreamer,” he teased, having told Micah all about his eccentric best friend.

He pulled open the prefect’s compartment and sashayed inside ahead of the Head Boy, who only mumbled, “Tease,” under his breath in response.

“Hadrian,” Blaise greeted, pulling him into a seat next to him that was usually reserved for Draco.  He picked up Harry’s left hand and quietly inspected the thick piece of platinum encasing the fourth finger.  “Elegant,” he complimented.

Cho Chang, who had just entered with her best friend Marietta Edgecombe, looked over to the two prefects before her she squeaked in surprise.  “It’s true then?  What was in the Prophet?” she asked, looking between the ring on Harry’s finger and the matching one Micah was wearing.  “How is this possible?”  She cast a hurt glance at Harry, wishing now more than ever that she had been able to go to the Yule Ball with him the year before, even though she had liked Cedric.

“There are these things called vows,” Harry began explaining as if he were talking to a preschooler, before Micah harshly interrupted, not liking where Chang’s eyes were going at all.

“If we’re done gossiping like a bunch of Hufflepuffs,” he growled, staring down at the Ravenclaw.

She squeaked again but quickly sat down in a blue cushioned chair, her eyes nonetheless glancing toward Harry more often than not.

Micah leaned against the wall, waiting for the rest of the prefects and the Head Girl to filter in as the steam engine began to move.

A few moments later Draco rushed in with Adrian Pucey, who stared at Hadrian as if he were a ghost.  Although they knew from meetings of the Dark Sect that he had married Micah nearly a week ago, seeing the husbands wearing matching bonding bands was entirely too surreal for them.

“Why’s everyone staring at Potter?” a dimwitted Cormac McLaggen asked after he had settled himself down to the only empty seat remaining – Hermione’s.

Harry sighed, not bothering to correct his name.  McLaggen never seemed to get it and he only saw him once or so a month, so it really didn’t matter in the scheme of things.

“No idea,” Blaise piped in, smirking smugly at the Dark Heir.  “Perhaps it’s the leather trench coat.  Very Muggle World War II.  Military, right?”

Harry blinked at him.  “Y-yeah,” he stammered.  “How do you know Military fashion?”

“He’s obsessed with world domination,” Adrian Pucey explained, “even Muggle attempts.  Don’t mention Alexander the Great or Adolf Something.”

“Hitler.  Nice hobby.”

“Everyone’s got to have one.”

“Where’s Granger?” Micah interrupted, wanting to be anywhere other than in a prefect’s meeting.  God, he hated them, and a Mudblood holding one up just made it even worse.

“Wanna play a mind game?” Harry asked, his eyes glinting.

“Payback for Diagon Alley?” Micah’s scowl lightened somewhat at the thought.

Harry nodded.  He looked around at the other prefects and instructed, “You know nothing and haven’t read anything in the Prophet about either of us all break.”  He quickly took off his torque ring before placing it carefully in his pocket.

Micah reluctantly did the same.

“How very Slytherin of you, Montague,” Draco complimented Harry, choosing to give him his bonded title as a show of solidarity, although Harry still intended to use Gaunt by the time his child was born.

A few moments later, Hermione hurried into the compartment, her face flushed – most likely from an argument or, perhaps, from running.

“You’re late,” Micah snapped before roughly pushing her toward her seat.

Hermione faltered slightly before staring the Head Boy in the eye.  “I saw you in The Daily Prophet, Montague, with Harry.  Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“And what’s he doing?” Harry asked casually, inspecting the fingernails on his left hand, clearly displaying that he wasn’t wearing a bonding band.

“He-he’s seducing you!” she exclaimed, as if this made sense.  “He’ll seduce you and then either turn you dark or leave you, laughing about how he seduced the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Harry looked up at her calmly.  “Not everything’s about some stupid title The Daily Prophet gave me after my parents died, Granger.”

She flinched when he used her surname again and wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“Are you seducing me, Montague?” he inquired.

“No.”  Micah’s eyes shifted mischievously.  “I thought you were close to some girl.”

Cho Chang almost gagged and the Hufflepuff Head Girl just stared incredulously between them.

“True,” Harry responded.

“That Loony girl, right?”

Harry glared at him for that slight, but played along.  “You can’t help but love Luna.  Does that answer your questions into our personal lives, Granger?”  His eyes were a cold, deep green, almost black in their intensity.

Hermione gulped.  “Y-yes, Harry.”  She quickly took her seat, before Claire Estes continued the meeting, no one really paying attention.

“So you’re really seeing Luna?” Hermione asked once the Head Girl had closed the meeting, not seeing Micah march up behind her to claim Harry.

“I’m not seeing her at this moment,” Harry corrected.  “She’s not in this compartment.”

Blaise stifled his laughter in his robe sleeve. 

Hermione blinked dumbly at Harry, but he only walked around her, his hand pulling out his ring and sliding it back onto his finger.  Micah quickly copied the action.

“So, Hitler?” he said conversationally to Blaise as he and the other Slytherins exited the compartment.  “My Muggle uncle used to make me watch old documentaries about the concentration camps.”  His face clouded over with repressed emotion at the memory.

“Why?” Draco asked in confusion, knowing a bit about the Second World War from his friend, Hermione staring stupidly after them.

“He was ‘educating’ me on my future,” Harry responded softly.  “Said that soon the government would wise up and send all freaks like me to places like that.”

“Freaks,” Adrian mouthed, but Harry caught the motion.

“Wizards.  Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.  I was only six and ‘magic’ was a forbidden word.”

Micah growled, pulling him into one of the few empty compartments that were reserved for prefects’ personal use, quickly slamming the door behind them.  “He did what?” he questioned darkly.

In any other circumstance, Harry would have laughed, but instead he just wrapped himself securely in Micah’s arms, softly kissing the side of his neck.  “It’s over now,” he reassured.  “The Dark Lord and Sirius took me away from that.  They saved me, and now you’re keeping me and our baby safe.”

Micah held his little mate gently to him, running his hands through Harry’s long hair.  “Muggles,” he bit out as he softly pushed his mate down until he was lying on one of the compartment seats.  He quickly unbuttoned the bottom of Harry’s black shirt, his coat already having been hanging loose ‘for style’ as Harry had informed him earlier that morning.  Micah ran his hands over Harry’s flat abdomen reverently before following each caress with his lips.

“Romeo,” Harry sighed as his hands clenched in his husband‘s golden hair.

“As soon as Morpheus is born,” Micah vowed, “we’re going to make iron-clad wills that not even the Goblins could break if they wanted to.  I swear that even if something happens to us, our child will never know that pain.”

His hands gently gripped Harry’s hips as he continued to ghost kisses against Harry’s sensitive skin, causing Harry to mewl in appreciation.  “Hadrian,” he breathed before snaking his hand lower.

The compartment door slammed open, causing Harry to bolt upright, although Micah kept him firmly in place. 

“What?” Micah snapped at a pale-faced Pansy Parkinson and Adrian Pucey, angry at being interrupted.

“Thought we’d warn you that the Weasleys and Mudblood are coming,” Pansy sniffed, showing her disdain for Harry.

Adrian rolled his eyes at Pansy.  “Blaise and Draco are on their way for back up and Daphne was attempting to hold them off, but they were a bit determined.”

Draco quickly entered, his face completely cool.  “They heard Chang talking about your rings or something,” he tagged on the end of Adrian’s statement.

“Splendid,” Harry muttered as he re-buttoned his shirt.  “And Luna and Neville aren’t even here to enjoy the show.”

True to their word, an angry looking Hermione soon entered the already full compartment, Ron and Ginny behind her.  “You said you didn’t marry him,” she accused.

“I think you’ll find,” Blaise responded, “that Hadrian said Micah wasn’t seducing him and that he was ‘close’ to Luna Lovegood.  He never said anything about not being bonded.”

“Marriage is so plebian,” Draco interjected.  “So Muggle.  No self-respecting Black would do anything so common.”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh at this.

“Harry?” Ginny asked, her dark doe eyes shining with tears.

Harry looked up and then looked away again, uninterested.

“You’ve really taken this far enough, Harry,” Hermione scolded, obviously not having learned her lesson from before break.  “We said we were sorry.  Why can’t you just accept that and move on?”

“Did you know,” Harry said by way of conversation, “that Dumbledore considers me a weapon against Voldemort?”  The Slytherins shuddered at the name of the Dark Lord.  “That’s right, not a person, not a wizard, not someone with choices.  A weapon.”

“What does that –” Hermione began to ask, but her ex-friend cut her off.

“Now like every good weapon, it had to grow up right.  Take a half-blood orphan, and throw it into a fucking Muggle cupboard and starve it for eleven years so it will be obedient and do whatever you want when you come and ‘rescue’ it.  Of course, though, that wasn’t enough.  He paid the Muggles with the orphan’s fucking money to beat it and keep it down.  Keep it malnourished and hurt it just enough so that all of the broken bones might just appear like childhood accidents.  And then the weapon comes to Hogwarts.  Makes friends for the first time in its poor, pathetic, little life and Dumbledore saw an opportunity. 

“He started taking more money from the orphan to fund his own projects, such as purchasing a troll to infiltrate the school on Halloween – an innocent test, never mind that three students almost died.  Pay off one of the friends and his family because they’re too greedy.  But he needed more control of the weapon, as he kept on testing it, again and again.  He couldn’t control it once it turned seventeen, which was only two short years away, so he did what every good puppeteer would do: he tried to secure the future. 

“He made sure the friends of the weapon were in his pocket, promised them everything they could ever want just to keep the weapon in line, and even tried to have a marriage contract signed so the weapon would be the husband to a bitch that was another one of his puppets.”

The entire cabin had become unearthly quiet and Harry smiled bitterly to himself.

“Personally, I can’t blame the weapon for going nuclear on the puppet master.  It’s what he was trained to do, after all, but he won’t go down like a good fucking soldier.  He’ll come out on top.  Ring a bell?”

The trio stared at him, having absolutely nothing to say.

“Now get the fuck out!”

(o)

Harry naively thought that the day couldn’t get any more dramatic after that.  With a glare from Micah, the other Slytherins had filed out of the compartment, leaving the husbands alone with their thoughts.  Their passion was not reignited. Instead, Harry laid down, with his head in Micah’s lap, letting Micah’s presence calmly wash over him.

“I’m so fucked up,” he murmured just before he drifted off to sleep, “and yet, I was lucky enough to fall in love with you.”

When Luna and Neville finally found them, they quietly looked at their friend, who was still sleeping in his lover’s arms.  Lunaadmired their bonding rings, saying that she was certain the Dark Angel and the Dark Wolf would dream together for all eternity (Micah smirked, thinking how Harry had almost guessed her reaction exactly), before the friends left the Montagues to themselves.

Half an hour before they arrived in Hogsmeade, Micah shook his little husband awake before placing a deep kiss on his lips.

“Romeo?” Harry drunkenly asked before curling up like a kitten.

If Micah let himself admit it, he would have thought Harry looked adorable.

“We’re almost there.  We need to enlarge our trunks so the house–elves can pick them up and bring them to the castle.”

“And I need to be awake, why?” Harry questioned.

“Robes.”

Harry grumbled.

Of course, Micah insisted that he undress and then redress his husband, still marveling that Harry was his for all eternity.  Harry smiled at him indulgently, reaching up and kissing him softly before they exited the compartment.

They found that Crabbe and Goyle had appointed themselves their unofficial bodyguards and had been sitting in the apartment across from theirs, despite the regulations that the entire car was only for prefects. Harry, though, couldn’t find it in himself to mind, knowing that after the incident with Granger and the Weasleys, he had really needed a respite from Hogwarts drama.

He found both Neville and Luna waiting for him near the Thestral drawn carriages, and he pulled Micah gently toward them, not wanting to relinquish his company quite yet.

Neville shook both their hands in a silent ‘Congratulations,’ which made Harry smile at his friend’s support.

The couple entered the Great Hall together, heads turning from every direction to take in their closeness and the matching bands of platinum on their ring fingers.  Eventually, the hall calmed down and Harry hoped that after the main course, he could just slip away quietly into the waiting arms of his bonded.

“Mr. Potter-Black,” the stern voice of McGonagall interrupted partway through his steak and kidney pie.

Harry sighed before turning toward her.  “Professor?”

“The Headmaster requests that you see him in his office directly after dinner,” she commanded.

“What’s the password?” he asked before she could walk away.

“I beg your pardon?” she sounded affronted.

“If he wants me to come to his office, I’d rather not have to guess like I usually do.  I’ve had a long day, so I’d prefer not to wait in the hallway until he chooses to see me.”

McGonagall sighed before taking out a quill and bit of parchment, scribbling “Mars Bar” onto it.

Catching Micah’s eye, he inclined his head toward the Headmaster, and he nodded in response.  Half an hour later they quietly exited together; neither of them wanted to endure the meeting with Dumbledore, but Micah was unwilling to let Harry suffer through it alone.

“A gargoyle,” Micah growled out when they reached the office. Harry was a bit surprised that Micah had never been to the Headmaster’s Office, especially as he was Head Boy.  He guessed Dumbledore just took a rather special interest in him, and he did often find himself near death and saving someone or other.

“Yes,” Harry nodded before saying the password. 

A short trip up the revolving staircase later, and Harry heard Dumbledore call out to him in greeting as he crossed the threshold, only to have him say, startled, “Ah, and Mr. Montague.”

Micah didn’t respond.

Dumbledore looked questioningly at Harry, who quickly took a seat.  He noticed that he wasn’t offered a sherbert lemon.

“I assumed you wish to talk about the article in the Prophet nearly a fortnight ago, so I brought Micah along.”  His voice was hard, yet calm, and Dumbledore inwardly sighed.

“I see you’re both wearing wedding rings,” he began, taking out an aged and well-read copy of The Daily Prophet, their smiling faces on the front page.

“The Glass Slipper only sells bonding bands, Headmaster,” Micah corrected, picking up the paper and rereading the piece.  He was rather fond of it, and had even had the article framed.  Not that he was remotely sentimental.

“You are bonded, then?” He looked between the two of them, his light blue eyes devoid of any life.

“I believe you could look in the Book of Bonding at the Ministry of Magic for confirmation.  It’s all there, although no one’s reported it yet.”  Micah was still pointedly looking at the newspaper and not at his Headmaster.

“It is done, then.”  Dumbledore paused.  “Surely, Harry, you must see. . .“

“See what?” he snapped.  “Forgive me, sir, but my bonding is none of your concern.  In the eyes of the law and magic, we are one.  Micah is of age and I had the consent of my blood father.  There is nothing against Hogwarts laws that prevents this and I believe, historically, there are about five students each year who are married or bonded to another.”

His eyes shone a cool deep green and, for a moment, Micah thought he saw a flash of Viridian in Harry’s demeanor.

“If you continue to pressure Hadrian,” Micah began, his voice deadly, “the Houses of Montague and Black, and all associated with them including Malfoy, will bring this matter up with the School Governors and the Ministry of Magic.”

“I hardly think, Mr. Montague –“

“It’s all here in the paper, Headmaster.  We’re England’s dream couple and they don’t even know who Hadrian is yet.  Once that gets out, we’ll be the bonded pair of the half-century.  They adore and respect us.  On that alone the Ministry and the Board will have to act in our favor, let alone that what you are attempting to do falls under harassment, if not persecution of his rights.”

Harry looked over at his husband with awe.  “I forgot I was related to the Malfoys,” he said for show.

Micah’s lips twitched in a rare smile that was only ever for Harry.

“Well, I don’t have time for this,” he concluded roughly, when the Headmaster said nothing else.  He gently pulled Harry to his feet before nodding once in Dumbledore’s direction.

After they left, hands entwined, Dumbledore could only stare after them, and it was then that he knew.  He had lost his weapon.