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Chapter 29 - Eating and Overeating

The next morning found the four of them snuggled deep in the coverings of the futon on the floor of the Prefect's bath, Myrtle was being careful not to bump into any of the corporeal bodies, lest her ectoplasm shock them to a cold, rude awakening.

"Good morning Myrtle" Harry said softly as he quietly slipped back under the covers, having just returned from the loo.

"Oh, you're awake?" she replied equally quietly.

"Yeah, I almost always wake up first, but I try not to disturb my ladies."

She nodded knowingly, "just want to make sure they're really real?"

"Yeah, I keep thinking I'll wake up and all this will have been a dream. I see my ladies first thing in the morning and thank all the gods that have ever been or will be that they're both in my life. In my darkest moments I'm afraid my whole life since coming to Hogwarts will have been a dream; I'll wake up and be ten years old again; back in a tiny cupboard and all of this will have been some kind of psychotic delusion."

She arched a ghostly eyebrow at him "bad memories?"

"Yeah, but they're all behind me now."

"Just let me know if you want me to haunt anyone for you, rumor has it I can be very annoying" she added with a smirk.

"Not to me" he said as though it had always been a well known fact, he didn't notice when the lonely ghost girl quivered in appreciation.

"Will any of you ever come back and visit me again?" she asked; the longing painfully evident in her trembling voice.

Harry leaned up on one elbow and said "of course, if you'd like, but Myrtle?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you still here? I mean, why didn't you move on, or at least move away from the castle?"

"Well, first I was just so mad at Olive Hornby, for teasing me - if it hadn't been for her I wouldn't have been in the bathroom in the first place, then later I had just become, well, not comfortable but secure? Does that make sense? Here I am in a familiar place and well, I just stayed."

"But you can leave if you want to?"

"Sometimes, you know I followed Olive for months after, y'know, the basilisk" Harry nodded, "but then Headmaster Tippet put a geas on me binding me to the girl's bathroom. But I found a loophole, wherever pipes can go, so can I."

"The current headmistress could release you from your geas, don't you think?"

"Maybe, I really dunno . . ." she shrugged.

Just the form of a wispy Scottish terrier appeared and requested, in McGonagall's voice, that Harry and his entourage please join the headmistress for breakfast.

"Nice patronus" came the sleepy voice of Marietta, "wish I could do one."

"We'll just have to work on those happy thoughts" Harry smiled and kissed her.

"Oh yes, keep doing that and I'll give you a patronus that will bring the house down."

"Belle . . . My Lady?" Harry caressed her bare shoulder.

"I'm awake, m'lord, I've just been enjoying the warmth and company and I'm afraid I have been eavesdropping, sorry."

He gently rolled her onto her back and gave her a proper good morning kiss.

"Hmmm," she murmured, "fresh breath" she reached up and stroked his jawline, "and I see you've shaved. You have learned your lessons well young man."

"I was taught by the best" he smiled and kissed her again.

"Did the headmistress say when to come to breakfast?" Marietta asked. Harry, completely engrossed in kissing Belle, missed the silent communication going on between the three ladies in the room.

"No, just that she wanted us to join her . . . erp!"

Belle pushed Harry onto his back as Marie removed the cover, then leaned down to kiss him completely. As Marie was doing this Belle straddled his legs and reached down to stroke him to full readiness. Myrtle hovered between the two waiting for the 'tug' that would bring her into one of the corporeal bodies.

Belle slid onto Harry's 'morning wood' with practiced ease and groaned her appreciation for the manner in which he filled her. She looked at the ghost with half lidded eyes and nodded. Myrtle giggled and slid effortlessly into her and together they rode Harry to completion.

Belle insisted that his Marie be taken care of as well and this time the ghost girl flowed from one to the other as they danced the intimate dance of the ages, Harry/Myrtle on top and Marie/Myrtle on the bottom, her knees on his shoulders.

"Oh my Goddess, you can wake me up like that every morning for the rest of my life!"

He kissed her and wondered if she realized that she had just proposed to him, if so the answer was yes.

"Sweet Maeve, don't you dare stop!

A very refreshed trio of corporeal beings and one very satisfied looking ghost entered the great hall just over an hour later. The headmistress sat at one of the long tables, Gryffindor's of course, sipping on some tea, munching on a ginger biscuit.

"Did ye get lost Commander?" she smirked.

"No ma'am, we had some things we had to, ah, finish before breakfast."

The headmistress's eyebrows arched knowingly.

"Would you know anything about a large number of giant spiders running away from the castle yesterday?"

"Yes ma'am, it seems there was an infestation in Salazar's old chamber."
Belle proceeded to explain the purpose of the basilisk in the chamber in the first place, and how Harry had done a great service to the school by clearing out the current infestation.

"Indeed; and how did he accomplish that?"

Harry told the tale of Belle's transfiguration of the snake Iris, giving the castle another guardian, one that would not be so easily subverted.

"Miss Frisbee, may we help you?" McGonagall asked Myrtle.

Myrtle seemed shocked that someone knew her surname, "yes, headmistress, I was hoping you could unbind me from the castle."

"D' ye no longer wish to stay here?"

"It's not that Professor, I believe I can be of service to Harry and his ladies but I can't do that until the geas that binds me to Hogwarts is lifted, and only the current head of school can do that."

"Very well, I shall attend to it after breakfast, if you'll excuse us Miss Frisbee, we'll eat and then reconvene in my office."

"Thank you ma'am" Myrtle said and started to drift off.

As the breakfast platters appeared on the table Harry said "wait, Myrtle would you like some breakfast?"

"Commander" the headmistress said in a sotto voice, "I sent the ghost away because it's considered rude to eat in front of one, remember Miss Frisbee hasn't tasted food for over fifty years, it can be very depressing for her to watch."
Myrtle drifted back and as Harry said "come on" she slid into him. Harry/Myrtle speared a link of sausage and bit off the end experimentally and the look on his/her face was sheer bliss.

Myrtle's voice sounded eerie coming out of Harry's mouth as s/he said "cor, I'd forgotten how good food tastes."

McGonagall looked scandalized, "Mr. Potter, I'm sorry, Commander, I can't allow possessions in this school, what if the other ghosts just start popping in and out of the living?"

Harry leveled his gaze at his old head of house and said evenly, in his own voice, "it's not a possession, it's a co-habitation - I invited Myrtle, she's not taking over, we're sharing."

She looked skeptical but shrugged her shoulders; in nearly fifty years of teaching she had seen stranger things to be sure.

"Very well, Commander, on your head be it. Well everyone, tuck in!"

The tension evaporated over the excellent Hogwart's fare. After breakfast Myrtle phased out of Harry and nuzzled his cheek and whispered her thanks, for 'everything' before drifting in the general direction of the headmistresses' office.

As the four living members of the group walked up the tower steps to the office McGonagall asked "Harry, we're to meet a Mister Smith at the Quidditch Pitch at solar noon today, do you have any idea what that's about?"

"Yes ma'am, and I would keep all the staff away from the pitch unless they can form a corporeal patronus."

Once in the office the Head of School pulled a massive volume down from the bookshelf behind her desk and flipped through till she found the passage.

"Spirit of the departed, Myrtle Louisa Frisbee, by the power vested in me as head of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I unbind you from the geas that was wrought by my predecessor and you are henceforth free to roam the land of the living without limit or restriction."

Myrtle felt as if a weight had fallen off her "oh thank you Headmistress, thank you!"

McGonagall raised her hand and said, "just a moment, there's something else I'd like to add, now where was it, oh yes, here it is . . ." she cleared her throat, raised her wand and intoned "should your restless spirit crave a home you need not ever more to roam you are always welcome within these walls, these warm welcoming Hogwarts hallowed halls."

Silver tears streamed down Myrtle's face, she would never be a 'homeless' ghost, as so many were.

Three hours later Harry, Marietta and the headmistress were standing in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch. Harry had adamantly refused to let Belle anywhere near it, "I don't need to worry about what I know is out there but you do and you have to think of our daughter now, this could be very bad for her, mon chéri please, no argument this time."

Belle had relented and stayed with Myrtle in the library.

The ghost asked "do you feel a chill, just now? I normally don't feel cold but that's what I feel now, like a chill draft is coming from somewhere."

Belle's heart sank as she felt it too, and she knew what it was. Harry, as usual, had been right.

"It's nothing Myrtle, come, give us a happy thought, I know!"

Belle leaned toward the seated ghost girl and lowered her voice conspiratorially "describe how it feels to be 'visiting' Harry as he is making love to one of us."

Myrtle's eyes grew wide and she giggled naughtily.

'That's right little ghost,' Belle thought 'let us share happy thoughts for that is how to fight the abomination that is being visited upon Hogwarts right now'

It was a bright, sunny mid-August day but the pitch was cold and uninviting, Harry felt the weight of the world on his shoulders and was anxious for the safety of his ladies and his unborn daughter. The reason was very evident. Standing at the other end of the pitch was Mister Smith and a tethered dementor.

Harry moved to center field and placed the cup, the inkwell, the locket and the scabbard on the center circle and walked back to the goalposts. Mister Smith, accompanied by the dementor, moved to the center and stood for the better part of half an hour as the wraith sucked the dark soul magic out of the four horcruxes.

As the last glowing bead of soul magic was drawn out of the last horcrux the dementor screamed a sound like a thousand brakes screeching before a crash, like ten thousand fingernails on a thousand blackboards, the sound reached a crescendo just before the dark creature exploded into a million shards of black light.

"I thought that could happen" Mister Smith shrugged, "I'd hoped it wouldn't, but what can you do?"

"What happened?" Harry demanded.

"He overate. There was so much magic that he couldn't stop absorbing it, I tried to get him to stop, told him we could finish later but he got greedy."

"Are there any soul pieces left?" Marietta asked.

"Let me see" Smith pulled out his wand and a crystal of darkest amethyst. He mumbled an incantation followed by a revealing spell with his wand and said, "No, all gone."

"So the next time I see Moldishorts . . ." Harry started.

"He'll be killable" Smith finished.

Harry nodded; his face a mask of grim determination.

"Mister Smith" he asked "Voldemort can remove the dark mark, right?"

"I suppose so, but I don't see why he would."

"Could someone who shares a bit of his power do it?"

Mister Smith looked surprised at Harry as he revealed his famous lightning bolt scar.

"He 'marked me as his equal' sixteen years ago, I speak Parseltongue and have even been inside his thoughts on the odd occasion."

Smith's normally expressionless face took on the light like that of religious fervor.

"Commander, I need to talk with two of my colleagues, but if I'm right your bondmate may just be the first living person to be released from a dark mark!"