Harry Potter: Seducing Destiny

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The Hogwarts Express was a gleaming scarlet engine, with clouds of steam billowing from it, fitting the book description to the tee. Hogsmeade station was teeming with students and trunks and cages filled with owls and toads and what not. As I walked through the train trying to find my compartment, I could feel eyes on me, though the emotions in them differed. Most of them looked at me with awe because of the entire Boy-Who-Lived thing, while the Slytherins looked at me with varying degrees of suspicion, jealousy and interest. I wondered how meeting Draco Malfoy would be, given his bi-annual visit to my compartment on the Express. Seeing Romilda and Parvati giggle as I passed by, I wondered if Romilda was as much of a gossip as the Indian girl. I passed the one where Cedric was sitting with his girlfriend Cho Chang, another difference between the books and this world, and finally, past a group of Slytherin girls that didn't so much as look up as I passed by.

"So," Ron said, his voice hesitant, "Wanna join Dean and Seamus for Exploding Snap? I'm going!"

I had no desire to join him. Other than that, I had fucked Ginny until the early hours of the morning and was finally feeling the lack of sleep get to me. I didn't want to leave Hermione alone. Also, I knew that the game was simply an excuse. Ron was conflicted between his newly found prejudice against werewolves, and his friendship with Hermione and often invented excuses to avoid being with her. His loss, really. I knew what kind of gem Hermione was, and with Ron out of the equation, she was mine to mold in whatever fashion I thought best.

"Uh, maybe later," I said. "I want to catch up with some sleep first. Couldn't get any 'cause of your snoring!"

Ron chuckled, but gave him a lopsided grin, probably understanding what I really meant to say.

"You could go with him," Hermione replied as we put our trunks on the racks. She opened up her copy of the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 and said, "I wouldn't mind."

"Sure you wouldn't," I replied with an amiable smile. "We're going to be staying together, anyway."

Hermione flushed at that. "I still don't think that's alright, Harry. I feel like I'm taking undue advantage of you."

"Oh you are, you definitely are!" I mocked, relaxing into my seat, kicking my boots off. "Maybe I should start charging rent."

She chuckled. "I don't have a job."

"Nor should you, filthy beast, that you are!" said a voice in the doorway.

Draco Malfoy. An exact look alike from the books, only smarmier with condescension and disdain, literally dripping off him. Behind him stood Crabbe and Goyle, just as Harry remembered them. Evidently, he had heard of their conversation through the compartment door.

"Don't remember asking you to join us, Malfoy," Hermione replied coolly.

"What was that?" Malfoy asked, "The beast's moving in with you? First Weasleys and mudbloods and now a beast?" He looked at me, "Every time I think you can't sink any lower, you prove me wrong, Potter. Look, even Weasley's got enough sense to leave you."

Harry Potter would have gotten angry at this. Trouble was, I wasn't Harry Potter. Draco and his minions thought they were making me angry. It was sad that they were doing a piss-poor job of it.

"What happened?" Malfoy challenged, "Kneazle got your tongue, Potter?"

"Not really," I said. "I agree with your words. She," I pointed at Hermione, "was cursed by a werewolf, and Ron left me to join Dean and Seamus to play Exploding Snap."

He sneered, possibly from a loss of things to say. Malfoy had expected a rebuttal, not an agreement with his words.

"At least you have the sense to accept your mistakes," He went on, his words feeling hollow with every passing second.

"Good," I said, looking away from him. "Is that all? I really want a nap before the train reaches Kings Cross."

His face flushed. "Don't act high and mighty, Potter. You aren't. We know how you quivered and cried helplessly before Professor Snape rescued you from those dementors. You cried, didn't you? Like a baby for his mudblood whore of a mother? Probably before the dementor was about to kiss you and that fugitive Sirius Black—"

I exhaled. I glanced at the furious look on Hermione's face and the evidently pleased expression on Malfoy's, no doubt feeling smug about getting a rise out of me.

He expected me to get angry. I was not.

"Yes," I said, "My mother was a woman born to non-magical parents. Everyone in Wizarding Britain knows that. Unless… you just discovered it today?"

Draco stared at me as though I had two heads. Behind him, the trolls cracked their knuckles threateningly. Goyle let out a smug laugh, which sounded like the rumbling of an antiquated engine.

"Watch your tone with me!" Draco adopted an arrogant expression. "I'm your superior. My blood is purer than yours!"

And finally, the blood purism line. I was waiting for that one. Fact is, even then, he'd be wrong. The only valid point in favor of Blood Purism was the accumulation and inheritance of perks in future offsprings. As it stood, I already had way more perks than most adults out there, pureblooded or not.

"If you say so," I replied, still polite, even though I was laughing at the comedy happening around me. "Also, and this is becoming repetitive, but are you done? I need to get some sleep."

I put the pillow provided by the train on one side, and prepared to lie down, when with a flick of his wand, Malfoy sent the pillow tumbling down to the ground. I looked at the now soiled pillow and back at Draco, grinning at me smugly.

"I never said I was done with you yet."

"That," I exhaled. "was a mistake. I'm willing to forgive that one if you leave us right now."

My words enraged him even more.

"You Fool! You have no right to speak to me like that. Your mudblood Granger is now a werewolf. You know the laws here? I'll send her packing. She won't get a place in Hogwarts. Father will ensure she gets cast out from seeing her parents! She'll be a hag whoring herself for a living and even then, people won't touch her because she's a — ARGH!"

Before he knew it, Draco was down, his cheeks bruising against the dusty floor. He bellowed in pain, clutching his left knee and beating the floor with his other hand. Goyle, caught by surprise, rushed towards me, his hand fisted like a troll. I cast a quick Jelly-Legs on his right leg, making him lose control and drop over Malfoy's already broken knee. Malfoy howled in agony, while Crabbe tried to push the heavy Goyle off Malfoy in vain.

I slipped my wand back into my robes and crouched down before him, my feet just inches away from his face.

"That was just an example of what I do to people who annoy me," I told him politely, before aiming at Crabbe's hands and firing another curse. Both of his lower arms turned into smooth, leathery gloves. The boy roared in panic and fell over and unsuccessfully tried to get up.

"Silencio!" I whispered.

Then, after a moment of thought and a sideways glance at Hermione, I cast another curse at Malfoy's right elbow.

No sounds came out this time around. Or maybe that was just the Silencing Charm in action.

"Don't bother," I said. "That was the Confringo spell, by the way. A very weak version, mind you. The full thing would have shattered your knee apart, and your elbow too, I suppose. All I did was cause the bones to separate. No blood loss. No broken bones. A muggle physiotherapist could have fixed you up in a jiffy, but I doubt you'd go to any of them."

Even Hermione winced at my clinical and polite tone.

"See, the thing is, Malfoy. There are really three things that matter. Gold. Power and Skill. You have gold. I'll give you that one, but you lack power and skill. Which means, regardless of how wealthy your father is, and how many people he knows up in the Ministry, not even all the gold in the Malfoy vaults can stop me from doing… this."

I flexed my wrist.

Malfoy opened his mouth and screamed.

But no sounds came out.

I looked into his eyes. They had fear in them.

Good.

"Understand this, Draco. You can hide behind your father's skirts all you want, but if you annoy me, I'll teach you pain. This was simply an example."

With a flick of my wand, I banished them out of the compartment. All three of them slammed against the train wall on the opposite side, groaning and screaming soundlessly.

And then I closed the compartment door to their faces.

"So," I asked a shell-shocked Hermione, "About that rent?"

The apartment at 17, Tottenham Court Road, was in a small building on a big lot.

The building was three storeys, not huge, though it sat amidst much larger structures. The lot it stood upon was big enough to hold something a lot bigger. Instead, most of it was landscaped into a manicured lawn and garden, complete with water features and a modest wrought-iron fence. The building itself showed a lot of stone and marble in its design, and it had more class in its cornices than the towers nearby had in their entire structures. It was gorgeous and understated at the same time; on that block, it looked like a single, perfect diamond being displayed amidst giant jars of rhinestones.

There were no signs outside it. There was no obvious way in, beyond a set of gates guarded by competent-looking men in dark suits. Expensive dark suits. If I didn't know that these men were actually goblins under an illusion spell, I'd have wondered exactly what kind of money James and Lily Potter had thrown on this construction back when they were alive.

"Mr. Potter," said one guy as he walked up to me. He held out what looked like a completely ordinary key, but one that I knew allowed the wielder, and whoever, was with him to cross through a dozen layers of lethal magical wards between us and the front door. Say what you will about goblins, but they are anal-retentive with security. Gornuk had charged me a solid chunk of gold, but the enchantments and protections he had added to my apartment were top class.

"I expect everything's done?"

"Of course," said the guard, "we were expecting to hand over the key and report to Gringotts. You will find the interiors to your liking, sir."

"I certainly hope so," I laughed, and grabbed the key.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, "Who was that?"

"Long story short, I paid Gringotts to renovate this place. Put some protections and make the place magical."

"But…. don't you own a single flat?"

"I… might have done a bit of an impulse purchase recently," I grinned.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Don't tell me–"

"Yep. This building is now ours."

It wasn't an impulse buy. I simply did not want to have to face non-magical neighbors and explain things whenever something weird was going on. I had goblin renovators rework the entire structure of the building on all three storeys, ending up with thirteen bedrooms, a proper office with Floo installed, with all the necessities that a magical house contained, compete with a dueling court, a mini library, a workshop for spell casting, a potions lab, and finally a medieval dungeon with chains and cages just in case Hermione got a little excited on full moon nights. There was also a swimming pool on the terrace and a two-car garage holding a limo below right behind the outer entrances. I'd have invested in a pair of crups for protection, but I felt Crookshanks would feel strongly against it. I still planned to get some for Grimmauld Place in the future.

With the guards popping away into thin air, Hermione and I slipped into the building, and found it dark and cool. I stopped for a moment to marvel at the miracle of air-conditioning in the summer. Magic and technology didn't get along, and the aura of witches and wizards plays merry bell with pretty much anything developed after the Second World War. There was a reason the Dursleys put Harry in the cupboard. Apart from being the abusive creatures they were, little Harry was also a source of constant electrical fluctuations and appliance damage, costing the Dursleys a heavy bill almost every other month.

But in this apartment? Things were different. Weather charms, incredibly complex ones, were inscribed along the walls through runic enchantments, allowing the residents to control not just the temperature but the amount of sun entering the premises. The goblins had installed a ward stone that connected to the nearest Ley Line, draining more than enough magical power to ensure that the enchantments worked perfectly unless they suffered heavy spell damage. Kind of like living in a smart house. The furniture was mostly muggle, and as fashionable as it could have been in 1996. My only sorrow was that I couldn't use the Internet, since a dial-up connection would probably get fried faster than they could install it in this place. At least they got us a radio to listen to the Wizarding Wireless.

On second thoughts, maybe I could look into developing wizarding tellies? Or any of the gadgetry from my time in my original life? It wasn't plagiarism if it wasn't invented yet, was it?

We moved into one of the living rooms, which was, inevitably perhaps, the size of a basketball court, with eleven-foot ceilings. There was a little bar separating the kitchen from the rest of the open space. There was a fireplace on the right, with a mug of Floo powder, with what looked like a handmade living room set around it in one corner of the room, and a second section of comfy chairs and a desk tucked into a nook lined with built-in bookshelves. From a door on the side, I could see a small gym room packed with a weight bench, an elliptical machine, both of them expensive European setups. The floors were hardwood, broken up by occasional carpets that probably cost more than the floor space they covered. A couple of doors led off from the main room. They were oak. Granite countertops. A six-burner gas stove with a modular kitchen. Recessed lighting.

"So?" I asked, "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Hermione asked, looking around in awe. "I think this is spectacular. And expensive."

I shrugged. "It's home. My very first. I had the gold. Might as well spend it on the minor comforts."

"How much did it cost you?"

I gave her the number.

Hermione blinked. "That's..."

"Don't worry," I said dismissively. "My investments will regain the amount in a year. Hardly a matter of concern."

"Someone's loaded," she teased. "I never thought I'd see you be this flippant about money."

"Motivations change, Hermione," I said. "I learnt quite a few things about the world that I didn't know about. Things that make me choose to do things differently."

"Things like the way you handled Malfoy?"

I looked away from her. "You disapprove?"

"You could have seriously hurt him."

"Yes," I agreed. "I could. But I didn't. That was just an example. A weak spell. A full-powered Confringo would have blasted his leg apart and then some."

"You've changed, Harry."

"So have you. Change happens to everyone."

"Mine results from a dark curse. You… you're choosing to change."

"Mine too results from the same, Hermione. Seeing my godfather die before my very eyes. Nearly getting my soul sucked. And oh, the curse of Voldemort hounding me." I met her eyes. "I plan to live, Hermione. My parents died to save me. Sirius tried to protect me. Everything I've gotten from them, this life, this fortune, this… everything, I plan to use it. Regardless of what Wizarding Britain or anybody in it thinks about it."

Hermione sat down on the couch and asked in a low voice. "Even if it means hurting others?"

I smiled at her. "Especially if it means hurting others."