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Chapter 10 - The Pudding Club

"I can't, I can't!"

"It's alright, Draco, you'll sort it out. I have faith in you."

"If I can't make it work, he'll k-kill me."

"If you die, you can always share my toilet, Draco, you know that."

"Humph," Harry whispered, "She made me the same offer back in second year, I'll bet she says that to all the boys."

Luna and Harry stood just outside the door to the second floor girl's lavatory, taking the opportunity to cuddle beneath his father's invisibility cloak while eavesdropping on 'ferret boy.'

"He's getting desperate." Harry murmured.

"Oh, he's beyond desperate," Luna answered, "it's just lucky Professor Slughorn took Dumbledore's advice and checked his personal potions and potables for poisons - someone might have died."

"Yeah, and he was just about to open that meade."

"I know Draco planted that, if we could just prove it."

"Like with fingerprints?"

"Fingerprints?"

"Yeah, muggle technology, no two people have exactly the same fingerprints, not even identical twins."

Luna thought for a moment. "If they have different fingerprints then they're not identical, are they?"

Harry chortled, and from inside the room they heard, "Who's there?"

The invisible couple moved silently away from the door just as it swung open and Draco, looking murderous, scanned the hallway, wand in hand.

"Don't go Draco, I'll keep you company, I'll listen to you." Myrtle pleaded.

"Bloody useless bint!" Malfoy muttered under his breath as he stormed down the hallway heading up to the seventh floor for yet another attempt to make the portal work.

Harry and Luna removed the cloak and entered the bathroom.

"Hello Myrtle."

The ghost girl smiled from her perch in the window, "Two more visitors, all in the same day! If this keeps up I'm going to need a social calendar."

Luna said, "I just wanted to say that you're doing a wonderful thing, keeping poor Draco company, offering a sympathetic ear."

Myrtle floated to the floor, "The other Slytherins have been positively ghastly toward him, his da's in Azkaban and apparently 'You know Who' has taken over his house and his mum is afraid."

"So Draco is not the Prince of Slytherin anymore, eh?" Harry asked.

"No, he's had to petition his godfather, Professor Snape, for protection from his own classmates. Apparently, the Dark Lord has threatened him and his whole family, but he, brave boy, is fighting back, trying to fix a portal and help his mother escape so they can both get away."

The ghost girl brightened up, "Can you help him with his portal problem? I know you're very bright!"

"Between myself and Hermione and Padma, I think we can get a portal working - tell me, has he said anything about where the other portal will be?"

Myrtle thought for a moment, "It was at Borgin and Burkes, but they've moved it, now it's in his bedroom at Malfoy Manor."

With that, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. They had the who, the death eaters, a what, the portals, both of them, a where, starting and destination points for the portal, the how and why were givens, the only thing missing was the when.

"Myrtle, how does Draco communicate with his mother?" Luna pressed.

"Why?"

"We want to be able to let her know when she can come through to Hogwarts." Harry suggested.

"Oh, they use charmed journals. Whatever Draco writes on his right-hand page, is copied to the left-hand page in his mother's journal. Her responses appear on the next page. They write to each other everyday - he's such a good son."

"We'll be in the Prefect's Bath later if you'd like to visit." Luna suggested.

"What, the two of you, together?" the ghost giggled, "That's so naughty!"

"I'm sure you've seen worse than three hand-fasted brides entertaining their husband in the bath."

Myrtle's eyes nearly bugged out,"T-three?"

Luna smiled, "Um hum, we'll be there around seven."

As they left Myrtle's bathroom, Harry smiled at his wife and said, "Who knew a ghost could hyperventilate?"

Luna's expression turned serious, "Time to go to the Department of Mysteries."

The 'Golden Quartet' flooed directly from the Headmaster's fireplace to the office of Algernon Croaker, senior unspeakable.

Luna handed Algernon the transfigured chamber pot.

"Odd shape for a portal." He mused.

Hermione reversed the transfiguration and the unspeakable nearly jumped back, "Sir William Gull's cabinet!"

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Sir William Gull, physician to the court of Queen Victoria. To the muggles of the day he was better known as "Jack the Ripper." A squib who brutally murdered muggle prostitutes in Whitehall in the late 1880s. The muggle lawmen never caught up with him, but the aurors of the day did. Apparently he used this portal to move back and forth between the East End and Kensington.

"Gull was captured in the spring of 1891 and the portal-cabinets were taken to Hogwarts for study. They disappeared fifty years ago and haven't been seen since."

Harry explained, "One was at Borgin and Burkes, the other - this one - was still hidden in an unused room at Hogwarts."

"Do they still work?"

Hermione tapped a single runic cluster on the left side of the cabinet, "Change this isa to eihwaz and it will."

Algernon Croaker shook his head, "If this works..."

Luna said, "I can see several possible futures where this will work, spectacularly well, and several where is doesn't. Everything we do from now until the end of the week must be with the former in mind."

She looked meaningfully at everyone in the room, "Failure is not an option."

)O(

Returning to Ravenclaw Tower Luna pulled Padma into a tight embrace, "Soon, love, very soon. Now remember, your job will be to alert the DA while we're at the Department of Mysteries - if things go badly there, not saying they will, but, random factors are what they are, if we fail, the DA will be the last line of defense for Hogwarts."

Both girls had tears lining their faces as they faced an uncertain future.

Luna's eyes unfocused for a moment and she whispered, "The die is cast, there's no turning back now."

)O(

Draco, sweat dripping from his brow, swore at the cabinet, he had his mother's notes and illustrations in his journal,"All the runes are correct, even that subtle omission that I missed before has been repaired. Why won't it bloody work?"

"Because it's a transfigured chamber pot?" Luna's disembodied voice asked.

Draco spun and pointed his wand in the direction he thought the voice came from, "Avada..."

"Owie!" Harry said, softly.

And Draco fell to the ground screaming as every joint in his body hyper-extended. Not enough to tear ligaments or tendons, but excruciatingly painful nonetheless.

Harry, Hermione and Luna un-disillusioned themselves.

"That's the problem with the killing curse, Draco." Harry said, "It takes too long to articulate a six-syllable hex."

He knelt down and patted the writhing Slytherin's robes until he found the journal.

As Draco whimpered, Luna placed his journal atop one of her own and cast the duplication charm.

As the content from one journal was copied to the other Hermione said, "The good news, Draco, is that you won't remember the worst of the pain. The bad news is that you will be sore for two weeks - if you live that long."

A small bell 'dinged' and Luna replaced Draco's journal. She gave him a small kiss on his forehead, practicing for when she, gods willing, would be a mother herself.

Draco stared at his three tormentors. His expression was equal parts pained, confused and pleading as Luna said,"Obliviate."

"You do that just a little too well, sweetheart." Harry said, jokingly.

Luna froze, then saw the playful look on her husbands face. She let out a relived sigh and said, "Really? I think Ineed more practice."

)O(

It was the work of a moment to de-code Draco's journal, as he'd printed the translation key in the inside back cover.

"Like no one would think to look there." Hermione quipped.

They took turns reading the journal aloud as either Hermione or Padma decoded the true meanings of each of the nonsensical sounding phrases.

Over and over, Narcissa Malfoy pleaded with her son to resist taking the dark mark, for "The price of such an act would surely scar an otherwise pristine soul."

"I may have to vomit." Harry said.

Draco kept 'private' notes in the margins, apparently, margin notes didn't transcribe to the other journal.

Can't believe this shite, he wrote, can I possibly be related to either of these people? The sperm donor languishes in Azkaban while the egg donor no doubt puts out for every swinging todger in the manor. It's a wonder she even bothers to wear knickers.

A later entry stated, Took the mark, still burns like hell, but the reward was worth it. She begged and cried as I tied her to the bedposts, but she bloody screamed as I tore into her virgin fanny, the look on her face as I held the knife to her throat was priceless, I felt like God - I had the power of life and death over that stinking mudblood cunt. When I cut her I came again and again, I can't fucking wait til the next revel!!!

That whiny bint Myrtle knows nothing useful. Fifty fucking years in this castle and she hasn't learned a single secret passageway into the headmaster's office. I can't wait to feed her useless ectoplasmic twat to the first dementor I see. She was worthless in life and is even more worthless now.

Luna thought for a moment, if they were to share these journal entries with Myrtle, then they would have another ally in the struggle against the Dark Lord.

"Let's be sure to keep this information away from Myrtle," Hermione suggested, "it would break her heart and she's had enough pain in her life, um, death, I mean afterlife."

That evening the foursome languished in warm, clear water enjoying post-coital bliss.

Hermione smirked, "If the muggle world ever finds out about those potions, then the magical world will never know amoment's peace."

Harry, finishing his second two-liter bottle of water, nodded and groaned.

He was nigh on exhausted, owing to the endurance and replenishment potions, not to mention the soothing balm for friction burns- he'd cum like a hosepipe three times already.

His head was slightly stuffy and he was dehydrated, but other than that he had no complaints. The soothing waters helped him catch his second wind.

"How long are these potions supposed to last?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Padma answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, because..."

Hermione groaned, "You have got to be kidding."

Harry floated to the surface, at full mast, still.

Padma sighed, "When I tell my amma, my mother, about this she is going to go spare with jealousy."

Luna smiled, "Let her join us in this bath, she won't be quite so jealous when Harry wears her out."

Padma looked positively predatory, "Well I, for one, don't plan to let this one go to waste, come here!"

As Harry and Padma splash, splash, splashed in the shallow end of the pool Hermione asked, "How soon, Luna?"

"Tomorrow, have you given any thought to our suggestion?"

"I don't know if I'm ready to have a baby yet, perhaps we could magically freeze some of Harry's sperm?"

Luna looked scandalized, "What?"

"It's a common muggle practice, eggs and sperm can be preserved ex-vivo, by freezing, then the thawed gametes are combined and you have test-tube babies."

Luna shook her head, "And you thought blibbering humdingers were fanciful."

"No, Luna, I promise, it's a well documented, tried and true method of conception."

"If you say so, I believe it."

Hermione smirked, now the shoe was on the other foot, Luna didn't really believe her.

Luna asked, "How long would this process take?"

"About a week, I should think."

"We don't have that much time."

"We could collect and freeze the sperm in a single afternoon."

Luna looked pensive, Why didn't Hermione mention this before? It would have been so simple.

"I think we'll have to do this the old fashioned way, Hermione. We'll be at the Department of Mysteries tomorrow afternoon."

"Are you sure?"

Luna nodded.

Hermione lightly bit her lower lip and whispered, "Do you have the potions?"

Luna reached over the pool deck for her beaded bag and pulled out two vials.

"This one first." She said, handing ablue vial to Hermione.

"Ughh! Why do potions have to taste bitter?"

Luna shrugged and handed her the second one, a red vial, "Now this one."

Hermione threw the second dose to the back of her throat, then swam over to the shallows where Padma floated, sexually exhausted, limp as a dishrag.

"I hope you left some for me sister-in-love."

"Gasp! He's all yours - Pant! Hermione!"

Harry growled as Hermione flowed into his arms, "Slowly, love, we have all night."

As she settled onto his unflagging member she asked, "Harry, what would you say if I told you that I'm at my most fertile time of the month, and I'm off the potion."

Harry looked shocked, "You want to get pregnant?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, yes I do, I want to have your baby, please?"

She wouldn't have believed Harry's todger could get any larger - or harder, but she soon found herself impaled on a pulsing log.

"Oh! I think at least part of you likes that idea!"

"I love you Hermione Jane Granger Potter, and once this business with Riddle is over I would be honored to be the father of your children."

Luna sidled up to his back and asked,"Does that go for me as well, Harry?"

"Yes! And Padma! Just as soon as Tom Riddle is pushing up daisies - big ugly ones - I will be happy to help you repopulate magical Britain."

Caught up in the pure sensuality of the moment Luna asked, "What if I told you I, we, had already taken your seed into our fertile wombs, and were even now, carrying your unborn babies."

Her timing could have been better -especially as far as Hermione was concerned.

Harry stopped his delicious thrusting.

Gently grasping Hermione under her arms he lifted his bewildered bride up and away from his unflagging member.

Without a word Harry exited the pool, donned a bathrobe, and left the Prefect's bathroom.

If there could have been a sound-effect to describe Luna's expression, it would have been that of a glass wall shattering.

She stepped out of the water, pulled on a bathrobe and dropped to the stone tiles like a marionette with its strings cut.

Curling into a fetal ball she lay on the floor, sobbing.

Hermione was flabbergasted; she looked at her other co-wife and asked, "Padma, did you know about this?"

The Sinhalese beauty shook her head, but looked puzzled. "I feel like I should have known, how is it that Ican't be sure?"

"B-because I-I o-obliv-obliviated you!" Luna wailed.

"What!"

"I-if Harry knows we're pregnant, then h-he w-won't let us be there when he has to face him."

Luna uncoiled and lay on the cold stone floor, face up, tears streaming from her eyes. "If he k-keeps us away, prevents us from standing by his side, his chances of surviving V-Voldemort drop by half- he needs us there!"

She turned tortured eyes to Hermione and Padma and sobbed, "What have I done?"

At that moment Hermione came into her own as the alpha of Harry's wives.

Her eyes narrowed and her voice edged in steel she said, "Get up, get dressed, now."

Padma put a hand on Hermione's shoulder,"Maybe we should..."

Hermione spun and said, none too gently, "Get dressed."

Following her own advice she found her robe and threw it on, cinching the fasteners on front and not bothering with anything else. Hermione threw the robes to her co-wives and said, "Don't bother putting on anything else, just the robe."

Padma shrugged and slipped hers on, "Can we at least wear shoes?"

Hermione nodded, "We'll have to leave the castle so, yes, put on your shoes."

Spinning on Luna she asked, "Aren't you dressed yet? It's only a robe for God's sake!"

Taken aback by Hermione's domineering tone, Luna asked, "Who died and left you in charge?"

"Hermione pulled Luna roughly up by the arm and said, "It's not who died, it's who will die that you should be worried about - we have to find Harry, now!"

"Where will he be?" Padma asked.

"I'm the expert on all things Harry, and I can tell you that he's going to look for a sympathetic ear, a male ear."

"Surely he won't go to Dumbledore." Luna said, afraid of the headmaster's influence.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Hermione thought of the headmaster as a manipulative old bastard, or perhaps, being bonded to Harry and equally bonded to each other meant that the girls shared each other's thoughts from time to time, but Hermione said, "No, the last thing Harry wants now is to be with someone who has manipulated him."

Luna's cheeks burned with shame.

Hermione led Padma and Luna out the back door and marched straight to Hagrid's hut.

Smoke curled from the groundskeeper's chimney as the girls approached.

The three co-wives stopped at the sound of their husband's voice.

"I knew you'd know where to find me, Hermione." He said, jumping down from a low hanging limb to face his brides.

"Harry?" his best friend of six years asked, "Are you alright?"

"I will be, it's just a shock, y'know?"

Luna stepped forward and knelt on the cold, wet ground, tears streaming down both cheeks she cried, "I'm so sorry, Harry, I'm the victim of my own hubris.

"I see so many possibilities and probabilities that I assume that I know best. The problem is, knowing what will probably happen just doesn't work around you - random factors infest your life like nargles in mistletoe."

She sat back on her heels and look up at Harry, her eyes beseeching, "Let me confess, to you and to my sisters, and, if you want, we can a-annul our m-marriage."

"I love you, you know?" Harry said,"That's why it hurts so much, you don't trust me to make my own decisions."

Tears continued to flow freely down Luna's cheeks as she explained, "There's a better than even chance that you w-won't sur-survive the battle. I wanted to ensure some part of you survived." She looked up into his troubled green eyes, "Even a bastard child can inherit if there are no legitimate heirs, and I wanted you to live on in your sons and daughters."

She took a deep breath, "I was overjoyed when you hand-fasted us. That was one of the only times when a random happenstance worked in our favor. Now the children we carry will be Potters by name as well as by blood."

"Why couldn't you just tell me?" Harry asked, the pain evident in his voice.

"Nineteen out of twenty-five possible futures have you waiting until after Voldemort is dead before even considering children, but none of those futures are possible if you die."

Harry nodded, "It's true, I would rather wait until the Dork Lard is dead before having children, but that decision has been taken away from me, hasn't it?"

Luna bowed her head and sobbed, "Yes, unless..."

"I know they're just a collection of cells right now, but I am anxious to meet them, and that won't happen if you take a 'morning after' draught."

Luna cried fresh tears, but these were tears of relief.

Harry nodded his head, as if coming to aconclusion, "Hermione, Padma? Do you have anything to add?"

"My sisters-in-love had nothing to do with my manipulations, Harry, if anyone is to be punished, cast from the family, then it should be me."

Harry asked again, "Hermione?"

"I'm just now learning about Luna's, um, solutions to our unique situation."

"Padma?"

"I have to say that I'm not sure, Harry, Luna has admitted to, um, modifying my memories."

Luna looked up, very calm in the midst of the emotional storm surrounding them, "Padma was so happy to hear that both she and I are pregnant that I 'filtered' her memories - she would have told you, not in words but by her sheer joy."

Padma smiled, "I would be surprised if I am not in the pudding club."

Harry fell to his knees in front of his kneeling wife, "Luna, I love you. I can't, I won't lie to you, I'm so mad at you right now. We should all be back in the Room of Requirement, warm and content after a full day of making love. Instead we're kneeling in the mud..." Harry looked around, "...well, at least I hope it's mud. With the critters Hagrid keeps around here I wouldn't be too sure."

A ghost of a smile touched Luna's lips.

Harry continued, "I think I understand why you did what you did, I just wish you could have found it in your heart to talk to me first, before stage-managing our circumstances to fit your idea of the ideal outcome.

"If you had spoken with me first, Iwould have told you the same thing Sirius told me."

Luna frowned, "Sirius?"

The memory of his godfather falling through the veil still hurt. Harry stared at the ground, silently, for a long while.

After a fair few moments, moments that tortured Luna's conscience, he spoke softly, "One of the things Sirius told me, the Christmas before he died, was that a lot of babies are born during and just after wartime, and that his one regret was that he'd never fathered a child of his own, someone to carry on the Black name. Babies are precious, Luna, and planned or not, they are a miracle and should be celebrated."

Harry got to his feet and helped his Moon Child to rise as well, "It's earlier than I'd planned, but that's okay. Hey, haven't you noticed? There's a war on."

Luna embraced both her spouses and cried tears of absolute relief.

"I love you Harry."

"No more than I love you, Luna. I'm still mad at you, you know."

He gathered Padma into the embrace as well, "And how about you, our goddess incarnate, are you on the nest as well?"

She looked confused for just a moment and then said, "Apparently."

"Now, let's see if we can get Hermione on board." Harry said, as he practically ran, dragging the laughing brunette along as they crossed the courtyard, then climbed seven flights of stairs to the Room of requirement.

Harry's eyes practically bulged as the three witches removed their robes and were left in nothing but their shoes, which they quickly kicked off.

The brunette missile tackled Harry on the king-sized bed and practically ripped his robe off - imagine her surprise when she saw he was wearing the same undergarments that they had been wearing on the way to Hagrids - socks and shoes and nothing else.

Hermione impaled herself on Harry's throbbing member.

Bushy hair teased into a curly halo around Hermione's head as she rode him for the better part of an hour, she'd stopped counting her climaxes out loud after five and just concentrated on clinging with her arms and legs as Harry did his best to fulfill her wishes.

Author's note:

I had prepared a half-page rant to respond to a very few negative "reviews," but then I thought, nope, no matter how vocal, the negatives don't even come close to outweighing the positives.

One reviewer in particular did a fantastic job - he well and truly ripped chapter nine to shreds. But then he gave valid reasons why it sucked, and offered suggestions to make it better - which I plan to follow.

I'm not looking for a bunch of 'attaboyz,' but I am glad of honest opinions and helpful input.

For those of you who still want to read and offer constructive criticism for the stuff I write, God and the Goddess bless you.

You are the readers I'm writing for.

N!