Internal Considerations
10 October 1994
Roanapur, Thailand
9:15 A.M.
"I mean, the job got done, and that's the important part, right?" Harry asked of Sam Hawthorne, who had an engine pulled completely apart.
"I suppose," Sam replied dubiously as he examined the piston walls. "You did it for a friend, which is fine. It's not like you need the money, and you got not only artifacts, but also a political ally out of it. Anything else?"
"Well..." Harry began, nervously scratching at the back of his head. "Before all that, we kind of..."
Sam smirked at Harry's hesitation to repeat what he'd said earlier. "Went at it like rabbits with each other? What's bugging you about that?"
"It's... I mean, it's not like I didn't have a good time," Harry admitted, sitting back down on a stool. "But I don't think I want a group sex thing in the future. I'm pretty sure I'm a one-on-one sort of guy."
"That's fair. Not everyone is cut out for every sort of sexuality. Finding out what your limits and comfort zones are are all part of maturing. What's really bugging you about all this, Harry?"
"I just don't understand how damn casual it got," Harry replied with a sigh. "I mean, I was there, Sawyer and I were playing with each other, Lotton and Shenhua were on the other couch, also playing. And suddenly Shenhua has me in her mouth while Lotton's buggering her? I just... Fuck, I don't know how it all ended up like that, you know?"
Sam sighed a little as he reseated a piston ring. "Actually, there's a sensible explanation for that. And remember that one of my doctorates is in Abberant Sexual Psychology." Harry nodded at the reminder.
"Roanapur is widely consider the ultimate City of Sin," Sam explained, his attention now fully on Harry. "Pretty much anything can be bought or sold here. Now, for the locals, this just mostly means that there are better ways to make money. But for the more combative residents who understand how the city functions, it gets a lot more variable in how people take their stress relief.
"For example, Revy prefers tranquilizing herself with alcohol, whereas I hear that Balalaika prefers to relax with a cigar and a book. You're still figuring your own stress management out.
"Lotton, Shenhua, and Sawyer appear to enjoy sexual stress relief. People who do that tend to be a lot more casual about such things, but only with people that they can implicitly trust. It's like your girlfriends. If they didn't completely trust you, they wouldn't come to your apartment. Instead they'd keep everything about the relationship to either public places, or places under their control. With me so far?" Harry nodded. "So, that's what it looks like. There's nothing wrong with a little casual sex between friends, as long as everyone's into that.
"So if you're not into the group thing, that's fine. Just mention that while you don't regret the experience, you discovered that it wasn't for you. They'll understand, okay?"
"Right. You're probably right. I just didn't want to insult them or anything. I like having friends who aren't judgy. But a little warning before it went went down would've been nice."
"That's actually a good spot to bring up a point you've been avoiding," Sam mentioned, oiling several moving parts before fitting baffles into place. "You'll be leaving pretty soon, so we do need to talk about your friends back in Britain."
"Fuck," Harry swore with a groan. "Fine. First there's Hagrid. Yeah, he's older. Like, he's Voldemort's age; they went to school together. But honestly, he's like a big, honest kid. Friendly, helpful, all of that. Too bad he's Dumbledore's biggest support; the man has got some serious explaining to do when I get back, and I want to keep Hagrid out of all that."
"Hagrid, a good guy. No issues there, except for the headmaster. Next?"
"That'd be Hermione," Harry continued. "Really smart, super intense when it comes to studying, and probably more than a little lonely growing up. Now that I've been trained to see the signs, I can see that while she wasn't abused or anything, she probably felt really isolated growing up. Too smart for people around her, and both of her parents are medical professionals? They were probably away a lot. Yeah, I can see it.
"But, with the exception of the hiccup when I got my Firebolt, she's been a great friend," Harry continued. "Granted, I don't know if she really knows how to have fun. She studies too much, doesn't get a lot of sleep, and doesn't care about how she looks. And she's a bit of a bully about studying, homework, and oral hygiene. Still a stand-up friend, and now that I'm looking at her in my head, she's coming up really cute."
"So, a good person with her own flaws, like anyone else. Check. Next?"
"Neville. Man, he's been really helping me out with my family shit," Harry admitted with a chuckle. "Plus we can actually hang out and talk about stuff. We spent a few days in Blackpool before I left, and we just wandered around, people watched, and acted like normal teenagers. It was great.
"Mind, he's got a whole new set of problems now, but I'll be there to back him up when I get back. He's a solid friend."
"Next?"
Harry sighed before he sipped at his ramune soda. "Ron. There's the one I've been avoiding thinking about. My first friend my own age, youngest of six boys. When we met, he had second-hand everything. Robes, books, wand, and rat. He's a good guy, but he has a nasty temper, a hatred of all things Slytherin, and a wide lazy streak. He also insults the shit out of Hermione, calling her mental for wanting to do well on her homework. Mind you, she does tend to go overboard, but still.
"He likes quidditch and chess. His brothers told me he's pretty good on a broom, and I've seen him dominate a chess board. But when it comes to homework, he really acts... his... age... Sumbitch," Harry ended, blinking.
"What is it?" Sam asked curiously, pausing in his reassembly of a supercharger blower stack
"Ron... Shit, Ron's a teenager!" Harry exclaimed. "He's fourteen, and what teenager wants to do a foot-long assignment on a charm? What teenager wants to go to class? So like most teenagers, he doesn't want to do what he sees as useless bullshit! Being shitty at Hermione makes less sense, but I can work on that down the road."
"That's an excellent point," Sam submitted. "What else?"
"Bill made a point to me about Ron. That all of his shitty behavior was because of how he was raised," Harry replied, considering the conversation from the summer. "There was something... Something that Bill said that I didn't need to know. I... Fuck. There it is." At Sam's upraised eyebrow, Harry continued, "I barely remember from when I was staying with Ron's family after they came and got me from Privet Drive. I overheard Mrs. Weasley claim that she wasn't going to stop having kids until she'd had a girl, and then she was done."
"Oh, hell," Sam breathed out, setting down a screwdriver to look directly at Harry. "That means that your friend likely knows that if his sister had been born first, then he wouldn't have been born at all."
"Yeah. Holy shit, that's gotta be nagging at him hard," Harry mused aloud. "Plus with all of his brothers doing all this amazing shit, and how Mrs. Weasley dotes on Ginny, Ron tends to get left out, at least in his head. Let's see... Bill is a Gringotts Cursebreaker, Charlie is a Dragon Handler, Percy has been Prefect, Head Boy, and I think he's already working at the ministry. The twins have their joke inventions. What does Ron have to make himself shine?"
"Excellent points," Sam allowed. "Sounds like Ron needs some direction in his life, a set of goals to aspire to. Something to let himself feel better about his circumstances, to be able to stand out, if only in his own head."
"If his letter was any indication," Harry said with a chuckle, "I think I already gave it to him. Have you heard of the game Warhammer 40,000?" Sam nodded with a smirk, pointing to a shelf full of assembled and painted Warhammer Fantasy figures. "Ah, okay. Well, I sent him a box set, two full armies, all that. And he went nuts over it. Started talking about how he wants to try animating them like wizard chess sets. So I told Slipshard to buy out Games Workshop; now I understand that I did it to allow Ron the chance. Well, shit. I guess I'm a better friend than I thought, if I did that without even realizing it."
"Good, good. Sounds like that part is well in hand. Now if you can curb his more negative tendencies, he sounds like he might be a friend worth keeping."
"About that," Harry brought up, "last summer, Neville told me that it was Ron and Hermione that were keeping people away from me. Probably not intentionally, but that's how it shook out. To quote Neville, 'You spend so much time with them, and other people are thinking that you have to have a lot in common with them, including all the bad behavior'. Or something like that."
"Makes sense. Guilt by association, the forming of cliques, and so on. Do you have a plan for that?"
"I guess I'll have to reach out a bit," Harry admitted. "Maybe sit down at a table and work on homework with some people? I'm pretty sure that we only have to be at our House tables during feasts and events, so kinda wander from house to house at meals, I suppose? It's what I've got at the moment."
"And if your friends object?" Sam asked pointedly.
Harry just shrugged. "If they can't see that I'm wanting a larger group of people to talk to, that's their fucking problem. And if they really get shirty with me, I guess they were never that good of friends to start with."
"So, a few close friends, and some plans for that. Anyone else?"
"There's Dobby, but he's a fucking godsend. He's a little too devoted, but I think he's never had anyone be decent at him before. Or ask his opinion, much less be treated like anything other than animated furniture. There's the twins, they're pretty fun. They can get kind of mean with their pranks and jokes, but they tend to mean well. Of course," Harry admitted, "pretty much all of the quidditch team is in my circle of friends. The chasers kind of brought me in as a little brother, and that was a really good thing when I was eleven," Harry admitted with a smile. "Although now that I'm fourteen, I might be seeing them in a more... biological light."
"There is that," Sam confirmed, having finished assembling the large engine. "With the rebuild potion done on the physical side of things, your body is up and running at full capacity. Add in the physical conditioning that you've been doing, and suddenly you're looking at being extremely attractive to a lot of people. You're damn near at the peak of human potential for your age, and it shows in how you walk and present yourself.
"And then there's the magic," Sam continued, getting up to attach the engine to a chain hoist. "Basically, your magic is running hotter than almost anyone else your age, and certainly more strongly than many adults. That leads to a certain amount of... Let's call it 'animal magnetism', okay? It's basically a base-level charmingness. There's nothing odd about it, some have it, some don't. But you have it. People are going to be better disposed towards treating you in a positive manner in general, and you'll be turning a lot of heads in an area with more magicals."
"So basically, everyone is gonna want to jump my bones?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Sort of," Sam responded as he lowered the engine into a car. "It's more like everyone who doesn't already dislike you will react more positively towards you, and people who already like you will want to be friendlier. Of course, the type of 'friendliness' will depend on their individual interests in you. For those that already dislike you, either they'll really dislike you, seeing you as a threat, or they'll back the hell off, seeing you as a threat."
Harry blinked at all that, and then frowned. "I wonder if that's what made Voldemort and Dumbledore so well regarded. They were, are, so powerful, and if it shows up like you say..."
"That could very well be," Sam confirmed with a nod as he bolted down the engine to the transmission and vibration blocks. "And there's another theory that slots into the power thing. You notice that the more powerful wizards and witches tend to be half-bloods?"
"What?" Harry asked in sheer confusion. "I don't understand."
"According to you, Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, was a half-blood," Sam explained, attaching the wiring harness. "And Dumbledore is a well known half-blood; his mother was a muggleborn. You are a half-blood. Three half-bloods, three very powerful magicals."
"So?" Harry asked with a shrug. "We seriously aren't the only half-bloods out there. Lots of half-bloods out there that don't have our power outputs."
"Let me explain," Sam began, checking contacts with a multimeter, his hands darting in and out efficiently. "There is a known factor in genetics called Hybrid Vigor. Basically, it's adding fresh genetic material to a stagnating bloodline. You see it mostly in dog breeding.
"With magicals, the theory runs that too much inbreeding causes a rise in the birth of squibs, the state itself cause by too much concentrated magic in the gene chain. That much magic gets determined to be biologically hazardous, so the body itself locks out the access. With me so far?" Harry nodded, considering the theory. "With Hybrid Vigor, what's happening is a lessening of sheer power, making the amount safe to use for the human body. Of course, that much power in the gene chain means that the half-blood in question naturally has more power flow at their disposal.
"On a one-to-ten scale, the average magical rates anywhere from a four to a six. Squibs would rate as a ten, and trying to use that much magic would lead to a very rapid, messy death. So you breed in a non-magical, or someone completely unrelated, and suddenly you have a half-blood who rates an eight or nine on the output scale."
"So people like me and Voldemort would naturally be more powerful? Crazy."
"Like I said," Sam tossed out with a shrug as he began connecting the plumbing to the engine, "it's a theory, and one that's not yet proven. But it's an interesting mental exercise."
A couple of hours later, Harry finally finished mailing off some forms from the mail-order catalogs that Bill had given him months prior, having them delivered to the Blackpool house. Then he wandered through the daytime stores, stocking up on winter clothes and any military surplus equipment that caught his eye.
At six, he met with the three girlfriends for dinner. They all giggled at his tale of how Shenhua, Lotton, Sawyer and Harry had basically group-shagged most of a night away, and they in turn regaled him with more tales of problematic customers, as well as three more offers of marriage, two offers for the position of mistress, and one offer to Eva for the permanent position of Mistress. That night Urara went home with him, as the other two had previous engagements to attend.
After Urara left (Harry had to call her a cab, she was so boneless from Harry's skill with massage), Harry opened up the trunks that Johnny had dropped off. Four more trunks, all packed with magical stuff. Harry, now no longer needing corrective eyewear, had purchased a few sets of eyeglasses with clear lenses; the analysis spell that Salim had taught him was too useful not to use. That, and as a life-long spectacles wearer, Harry found that even the slightest of breezes would make his eyes water.
One trunk was packed with books, the trunk itself magically expanded. Almost all of the books were on enchanting, blood magic, and rather nasty curses. Another trunk was full of bric-a-brac, all little enchanted items that Harry was going to be taking a long while in analyzing. The third trunk was more of a large, walk-in room full of all manner of packed up pub furniture, complete with magical drink mixers, self-cleaning bar, animated statues to serve, and a floor-to-ceiling wall of crates of bottles of alcohol in stasis.
The last trunk was quite different. For one, Harry was certain that Johnny had never opened it; the locks were magically sealed, and Harry knew that Johnny couldn't use magic. Secondly, when he opened it, he only saw a ladder leading down. Sighing, he grasped his cane and descended.
At the bottom, it opened up into a massive room. Low, heavily padded furniture lined the walls, and draperies artfully covered every corner of the room. Next to all of the low couches and divans were tables burdened with hookahs and plates. To one side stood a door appointed in buttoned, bright red leather. Sighing, the shield charm at the forefront of his mind, he opened it.
To see a dozen feminine figures against a bare wall staring blankly ahead. All of them had very lush, voluptuous bodies that Harry had heard described as 'Rubenesque'.
'I see that the previous owner had a type,' Salim chuckled in amusement.
"I don't understand," Harry replied blankly.
'Essentially, this trunk was used as a kind of meeting seraglio,' Salim patiently explained, knowing that this was entirely outside of Harry's experience. 'The outer trappings would have been used to entertain visitors in an adult manner, thus the hookahs and serviettes. The women are a kind of flesh golem, clearly designed to serve whomever the master was.'
"A portable whorehouse?" Harry asked, actually fascinated by the concept.
'Less whorehouse, and more portable meeting place to ply potential allies,' Salim corrected. 'Arrangements like these were in favor in Arabia before the prophet Muhammad made his way into history. And only among the very rich, as the golems themselves generally cost more than five hundred golden dinars each. Either the owner of this was very rich, stole it, or personally enchanted it.'
"And now it's mine," Harry mused aloud.
'Indeed it is, young master. As I recall, I believe that there would be a port on the spine of the golem. If I'm correct, that port can be used to adjust the shape of the golem. However, you may wish to take these to a professional enchanter; I haven't a single clue how to use such things.'
"Got it. Man, I keep having to readjust my Weird Shit meter," Harry commented aloud as he exited the trunk.
'I will admit that your life would be maddening to see from the outside,' Salim admitted in an amused tone. 'Thankfully, you've been able to adapt rather well to your circumstances, and several things assisted you in this.'
"That's not a lie," Harry responded as he closed the trunks. "Damn, but I've been busy. And lucky. Healer apprenticeship, combat training, parkour, work, magic training that I didn't know was possible... I can't imagine having a better holiday," he admitted with a wide smile.
'I am concerned, young master,' Salim mentioned. 'Your return to Hogwarts is going to be... let's go with Jarring. While you can adapt quite well, I'm doubting their ability to adjust enough to accept the new you.'
"As Dutch says, 'We'll burn that bridge when we get to it', Salim. For now, we're in a holding pattern until the middle of the month. I plan to spend the time as best I can with my friends, and the girlfriends. And Revy, of course. Family time is always important."
'One final concern,' Salim admitted. 'Shenhua. Are you certain that she truly is the heir to the Chinese throne?'
Harry frowned in confusion at that. "Why would she lie to us about that?"
'Perhaps the lie told was not of Shenhua,' Salim stated gently.
"What do you-" Harry stopped, considering the chain of logic. "I see it. What if Shenhua was told by, say, her mother or grandmother that she was. Some portion of historical grandeur to liven up a child's upbringing."
'That was my thought, yes. What will you do if her claim comes about as false?'
Harry sat heavily on the bed, eyes wide at the connotations. "Fuck. If you're right, we just stole a national treasure from one of the major global powers for no reason."
'Have you an idea of a plan?'
"Not even a bit," Harry grumbled, tossing the idea around in his head. "Shit, shit, shit... Can't really fake it, not to the ICW," he began, pacing in the small apartment, absently clambering over the trunks. "We'd need a way to confirm it. Any documents from China would be out; they have their version of the Emperor, all paperwork would reflect that, no matter what. What can we..."
Harry stopped, currently standing on his bed. "I think... I think Shenhua is going to have to go to Gringotts in Hong Kong. See if the Inheritance Test can fish out the truth. I can't really think of anything else."
'Nor I, young master.'