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The Elders were more careful with him than they’d been before. They made sure to keep a good distance between him and themselves. They finally understood his reasoning when he point blank told them not to touch him and they were finally doing as he asked. It was too late of course. He’d already had the panic attack and the mini breakdown, but in an effort to not give him another one, he appreciated it.

“Do you still want a pot luck dominant, Harry?” Henry asked him in a ploy at being normal, as if he hadn’t had a breakdown and spent the night in the healing halls.

“Yes. The system was working better, but I think this time I might listen if you have any concerns about a particular person.”

“As I said, I would never have picked Clarence for you.” Henry said, and he sighed heavily, a hint of a growl to his tone.

Harry nodded. “I’ll listen a little more the next time and make my judgement from that.”

“Your bowl of names is all ready, is there anything you want before we start? A cup of tea? A snack?” Elder Trintus asked him.

Harry shook his head. “I’ll take a quick break if I want anything to eat or drink.”

“If you’re ready then, Harry.”

Harry nodded and he got his fourth day of meetings underway by dipping his hand in the bowl and pulling out a piece of folded parchment.

“Any objections to Frederik Strand?” Harry asked.

Elder Kirrian pulled a face. “He’s on the young side and I always pitched him as immature.”

“Henry, that isn’t what Harry meant when he asked us to veto the dominants. He wishes to make up his own mind, but without the issues of another Clarence.” Elder Midate said to his fellow Elder.

“Immature I can handle.” Harry announced. “Send him in.”

The man who swaggered in was what Harry had been coming to expect from these dominants now. All arrogant, cocky self-assurance without the justification for it. He looked like a complete idiot to Harry, who watched him with barely veiled disgust.

“I’m Frederik Strand. I’m twenty.” The dominant introduced himself with a tone of pride. As if he actually had anything to be proud of, Harry thought with a sneer.

Harry looked at this man who was the same age as him and, automatically, he compared this man to himself, and Frederik naturally came up lacking.

Harry sat still and straight, and stared at the dominant, scrutinising his outfit. He’d already failed in his attitude and Harry was about ninety per cent sure that he wouldn’t be picking Frederik to be one of his many mates.

“You could have dressed up a little for me.” Frederik told him, adopting a joking tone, but that he’d mentioned it at all had Harry wanting to tear his head off.

One hundred per cent, Harry amended to himself, sneering at the arsehole in front of him.

“You could be less of a pretentious shit.” Harry countered.

Frederik looked mortally offended that Harry had dared answer him back and Harry decided to have a little fun. This idiot wasn’t going to be his mate in a million years, so it didn’t matter.

“I mean, you come swaggering in here as if you’re the one who has an Order of Merlin: First Class, not me. Like you’re the defeater of Voldemort, not me. As if you have actually achieved something in your life when you haven’t. Honestly, you’re an embarrassment.”

“I’m only twenty!” Frederik said, as if that excused everything.

Harry snorted with derision. “You’re using that as an excuse as if I’m not twenty also. You’re swaggering about as if being born a dominant Dracken is an achievement in itself, the only achievement you actually aspire to. You think that being a dominant should automatically give you everything you want, without working for it, and that is never going to happen. You’re a disgrace and no self-respecting submissive is ever going to want you. Get out of my sight.”

Frederik leapt up and made to move towards him, but Captain Foss was ready and waiting and he immediately grappled Frederik into a headlock to prevent him from getting any closer to Harry on the settee.

“You have anger issues and probably a microscopic pair of balls too.” Harry declared viciously. “It’s not any wonder that no submissive has been stupid enough to pick you yet. Why would they?”

Harry waved a hand in dismissal and Captain Foss dragged the fighting Frederik from the room and Harry eased back into his seat with a sharp smile. This is what they all deserved for forcing him to go through with these meetings, he thought, as he looked at the faces the Elders were pulling, the worried looks they were sending one another.

Harry waited until Captain Foss came back in before he stuck his hand back in the bowl and rooted around for a name.

“Dear Merlin, am I saying this right? Dareios Drakos.” Harry announced, then pulled a face. “Who is naming these people?”

“Harry, sweetheart, remember that we spoke about this?” Elder Trintus told him softly. “Their names don’t matter.”

“They do if I have to say it every day.” Harry muttered to himself. “Any objections to him?”

“He’s a bastard. I recommend not seeing him.” Henry told him.

“Henry, you cannot interfere in such a way!” Elder Keller said angrily.

“Harry needs us to veto these bastards and that’s what I’m doing. All of the Drakos’ are arrogant, selfish, elitists. Harry doesn’t need that in his life. Dareios even means wealthy, they should have just called him fucking gold and be done with it.”

“Is he just an arrogant prick, or is he going to be like Clarence?” Harry asked.

“The former.” Henry told him. “But from observing your meetings so far, you’re not going to like him.”

Harry considered that and he smirked. “Bring him in.”

“Harry, do you think that’s a wise course of action when you know you won’t like him?”

“Absolutely. If I can rip them down a few pegs, from the pedestal they believe they should be standing on, all the better.”

One of the security team moved to the door and went across the hall to call for Dareios.

He was as ostentatious as his name suggested, as he sauntered in, chest thrown out, wearing robes that were clearly high-end and embroidered in what looked to be real gold thread. Harry was surprised that he wasn’t wearing a crown.

“I’m Dareios Drakos. I’m twenty-three.” He greeted in accented English. “I brought you this gift.”

“Are you under a translation spell?” Harry asked curiously, wondering if that was what he was picking up on. He ignored the little gift bag entirely.

Dareios blinked, as if surprised that Harry had mentioned it, and not something else.

“Yes. I do not find the English language easy to learn.” Dareios told him.

Harry nodded his understanding and waved a hand at the seat opposite him.

“You are a queer little submissive.” Dareios informed him.

“Well, I hope so seeing as I’m entertaining all of these male Drackens.” Harry quipped before he could help himself.

Elder Kirrian smothered a laugh and Dareios looked a little confused. Harry made a mental note not to play with language with the dominants who didn’t speak English, it wasn’t really fair of him.

“I believe I meant weird.” Dareios said, giving him a grin.

Harry shrugged. “I am twenty, perhaps that has something to do with it?”

“No, I have met older submissives too.” Dareios informed him, looking at him as if Harry were a curious specimen.

The two of them sat in silence for a time, until Elder Keller coughed to get their attention. “Perhaps it might be best if you try to find some common ground?” He offered. “You only have nine minutes left.”

“Why did you set your meeting time so low?” Dareios asked him, upon hearing that.

Harry scowled as he thought how best to answer. “Probably because I didn’t want to be here. So far, I haven’t met anyone who has made me want to change my mind, or my time limit.” Except Georgio, his traitorous mind told him, but he waved that away. He’d already convinced himself that Georgio would be a completely different person outside of his role as a healer.

“I hope to be the first then.” Dareios told him, flashing him a charming smile.

Harry wondered where this arrogant arsehole that the Elders knew him as was hiding. Harry realised quickly that this charming façade was likely just that, a façade. A front put up to lure unsuspecting submissives in.

“Why are you still unmated at twenty-three, Dareios?” Harry asked.

“There have been no submissives that I have liked enough to call my own. I hope that you might change that also.”

Harry gave him a soft, simpering smile and watched critically as Dareios started mentally reeling in the proverbial fishing rod. This dominant was acting, trying to play him, this meeting was almost like a game to him. It was like he didn’t even want a mate, but instead, wanted to lure in as many submissives as he could, only to turn around and reject them just as they were going to pick him as a mate.

“You have very beautiful eyes, if I may say so.”

“Thank you, I share them with my mother, it makes me feel closer to her, almost as if I can look into a mirror and see her looking back at me.”

“She has passed?” Dareios asked, adopting a look of remorse and sympathy. That, more than anything, made Harry want to curse him.

“My father too.” Harry nodded.

“I had wondered why you were here, unaccompanied. Was there no one else who could have come to support you?”

“Oh, there was.” Harry said, thinking of Sirius and Remus, who had both desperately wanted to come to support him through these meetings. “But I wanted to do this by myself.”

Dareios’ eyes flickered a little at hearing that Harry did have people, family, around him still and that set alarm bells ringing in his head. He quietened himself, he already knew this dominant was dangerous and manipulative. He definitely wasn’t going to pick him; he was just playing with him a little.

“You are very strong and independent.” Dareios complimented him, sounding sincere, but Harry knew that he had wanted the opposite. This dominant was looking for a potentially orphaned, isolated submissive whom he could control and manipulate to his wishes, without anyone around to stop him. He didn’t want a mate, he wanted a slave. Harry was tempted to kill him on the spot. He wondered how his Elder chaperones would react to that.

“That I am. I’ve always been a fighter too. I think resilient is the word I’d use to best describe myself.”

“You would make strong babies.” Dareios told him and Harry’s submissive perked up at that and crooned a little inside him, but Harry wasn’t so taken, not so easily impressed with a few words.

“I’m a very powerful wizard, I think I’m incapable of doing anything less.”

He was annoying Dareios, Harry could see it clearly, as every time Harry spoke those eyes would flicker a little, the smile would turn a little more forced, those fingers would twitch constantly as if Dareios wanted to leap up and put him back into the box that he believed Harry belonged in; the meek, passive, obedient submissive box. It was amusing to watch him force himself to remain charming and polite, as if he wasn’t rotten and decayed right to the core underneath the veneer of sugary words.

“I can see you are powerful, seven mates is almost obscene.” Dareios attempted a joke, but it fell flat to Harry, who hated the very thought of trying to pick seven people to invade his privacy and space.

“Seven mates is only if they are all powerful too.” Harry explained, continuing his plan to rile up Dareios. “If they are rather weak, then I’d likely need anything from fourteen to sixteen mates. One of the Elders even suggested I might need as many as twenty! Can you imagine?”

“We’ve explained that this is a very unlikely scenario, Harry.” Elder Keller said gently. “Drackens are pretty powerful magical creatures to begin with.”

Harry nodded. “Yet, despite that, I still need seven of them at a minimum and only if I pick the most powerful ones, so what does that say about them? About me?”

“This is not what you want?” Dareios asked him.

Harry shook his head. “I wanted just one mate, I might have been able to deal with that better, but unfortunately, no one here is even close to a match for me when it comes to magical power, so that isn’t an option. I have to suffer with numerous mates to even come close to my power level. Such weak, pathetic little creatures.”

Harry watched Dareios absorb the insult and that mouth flickered to a sneer for a bare moment before the dominant controlled it and forced it into an understanding frown.

“I am sorry to hear that this isn’t what you want.”

Harry nodded, as if he were accepting the words, when all he wanted was to remove this worm from existence.

“Your time limit is up.” Elder Kirrian said harshly, as if he had wanted to interrupt multiple times throughout the mere fifteen minute meeting.

“Ah, it seems your short limit is cutting us apart.” Dareios said, sighing sadly as if he had been thoroughly riveted to their conversation. “Perhaps, on our next meeting, you might consider revising it?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Harry agreed. He’d revise it to fucking zero. “Bye, Dareios.”

“Until we next meet, sweet Harry.”

Harry was very amused to see Dareios still holding the little gift bag he’d brought, likely more gaudy jewellery, but clearly he didn’t think Harry still deserved it, as he left the room with it.

Henry barely waited for the door to shut behind Dareios before he exploded.

“Don’t tell me you were taken in by any of that crap he sprouted!” The Elder snapped.

“Henry! Don’t interfere!” Elder Nardovino chastised harshly. “Harry is free to pick who he likes, regardless of your personal feelings on the matter.”

Harry watched as the five Elders started arguing with one another and he sat back and watched them amusedly.

“He is the worst possible choice for Harry!” Henry shouted.

“If Harry likes him and wishes him as a mate…”

“I will not see them mated together!” Henry cut in angrily.

“Dareios is the first dominant that Harry has liked!” Elder Keller burst out. “He already doesn’t want to be here, Henry, cutting him off from dominants he likes is going to…”

“I don’t care, that smarmy little bitch is not going to abuse any submissive! Not on my watch!”

“Jojey.” Harry called out softly for the Council estate elf.

He appeared immediately, bowing low. “What can Jojey be doing for you?” He asked, even as the Elders continued to argue as if Harry wasn’t even there.

“Can I get a cup of honey-sweetened tea and maybe some plain biscuits, please?”

“Right away!” The little elf chirped, vanishing and then reappearing less than a minute later with a tray of the requested items.

“Thank you, Jojey.” Harry said, picking up the tea and taking a sip. The house-elf bowed and Harry smirked as the Elders started circling back around to points already made.

“Elders, perhaps this isn’t the best time to be arguing.” Captain Foss cut in firmly, looking annoyed at them for forgetting that Harry was still there. Harry liked Captain Foss, despite that he’d knocked him unconscious to bring him to the Elders in the first place.

“Oh, don’t stop on my account.” Harry replied when they turned to look at him worriedly. “I mean, it’s not as if these are my meetings or anything. I so enjoy hearing people argue about me as if I can’t answer for myself.”

“Harry, sweet bo…” Henry stopped and hissed through his teeth before he said ‘boy’. “I beg you to look closer at Dareios and his motives. There was a reason I didn’t want you to meet him.”

“Henry!” Elder Keller chastised and there was a definite growl to his voice this time.

“No!” Henry burst out, sounding angry and actually upset. “You know what Dareios does, you know what he’s like! Would you put Harry through that? Would you?!”

“He might have changed his mind. He might actually like Harry.” Elder Nardovino tried.

“You’re doing it again, Elders.” Captain Foss told them angrily and, he too, had a bite of a growl to his voice.

Harry took a sip of tea as they watched and he reached for one of the digestive biscuits, taking a bite.

“Harry, what did you think of him?” Elder Midate asked him.

“Oh, is my opinion important or something?” Harry queried. “From the way you were all arguing about me, it didn’t seem like it was.”

Harry took another sip of tea, watching as the Elders all took on looks of regret. At least they were sincerely remorseful of talking over him.

“Explain to me why you liked him.” Henry all but begged him.

“I don’t like him. I think he’s a cunt.”

Harry watched as they all blinked and pulled back in surprise and Harry finished another biscuit and drank some more tea.

“You didn’t like him?” Henry asked, sounding so relieved.

“No. I told you before these meetings began that I am a very good judge of character because of the war. I know when I’m being played. I know when people are lying to me, or trying to distract me with words. He sees these meetings as a game. I take it he seduces submissives with his words and charm, and, at the last minute, he rejects them?”

Henry nodded and he actually heaved out a relieved sigh that Harry actually understood the danger. “Yes, that’s him to a T. He’s an arrogant, selfish, piece of crap and I don’t want you near him.”

“You know he’s a lot more dangerous than that, don’t you?” Harry asked them.

“What do you mean, sweet one?” Elder Trintus asked him.

“You didn’t notice the way his eyes lit up when he realised I was orphaned? When he thought I was alone without a support system? That’s why he is making a game out of the others, he’s practicing on them, because he knows they’re not what he wants so it doesn’t matter if he slips up. He’s looking for someone alone, who’s isolated, someone who doesn’t have anyone around them to protect them. He doesn’t want a mate, he wants a slave. Someone he can control, someone who doesn’t have a family around them to notice if they’re being abused by him or to help them out of that abusive situation.”

The Elders looked horrified, as did the strike team, and Harry turned to the plate and selected another biscuit.

“He almost lost his shit when I said I was powerful.” He said almost conversationally. “I could almost see him wanting to push me back into the meek, obedient submissive box he thinks we all belong in. He’s a control freak and he would most definitely turn violent if he was disobeyed in any capacity. He would abuse his submissive so thoroughly that they’d be too afraid to move without his permission. I was considering killing him.” He finished with a shrug, before popping his biscuit into his mouth.

“No, there’s no need for that.” Elder Trintus put in quickly. “We will deal with this, sweet one, you don’t have to. Now that we know what he’s trying to do, we can better protect the orphaned or abandoned submissives better.”

Harry nodded and finished his tea. He reached his hand into the bowl without being asked and he pulled out a new name.

“Kylian Lavellan.” Harry announced. “Any objections?”

There was silence from the Elders, so Harry nodded to Captain Foss, who nodded back, and he sent one of his team to go and fetch the new dominant.

The man was swaggering, of course he was. These dominants seemed to think that swaggering equalled confidence and it didn’t. He was handsome enough, nicely dressed. Nothing that Harry could pick apart on first sight.

“I’m Kylian Lavellan. I’m twenty-eight.” He announced. “I brought you this gift.”

Surprise surprise, it was another gaudy necklace that Harry would never consider ever wearing. It had been shoved into his hand and Harry crinkled his nose and disposed of it with a careless flick of his wrist onto the coffee table with the other gifts he didn’t want.

Kylian didn’t seem to care that Harry had discarded the necklace he’d bought so obviously, then, from what the Elders had told him, most submissives came to these meetings expecting gifts and thinking of everything given to them as their ‘payment’ for even being there.

“I’m a CEO of my own company.” Kylian told him. “At twenty-eight!” He insisted.

Harry held the disgusted sneer back by the skin of his teeth.

“I can afford to buy you anything you want. I will be able to financially support you and all of our children.” Kylian insisted.

Harry tuned out the boring tirade of exactly how much gold Kylian had and instead he wondered what Remus was going to be making for dinner later.

He was disturbed by Kylian raising his voice, which made Harry flinch, and aim a glare at him.

“You haven’t been listening to me!” Kylian screamed.

“What can I say, you’re boring.” Harry said, giving a shrug.

“You set your meetings at just fifteen minutes. I had to give you all the relevant information in that time!”

“Well, you told me all the information I didn’t want to know. Is the limit up? Is this over?” He turned to ask the Elders.

“Yes, your time limit is up.” Elder Kirrian said.

Harry nodded. “You can go now.” Harry told Kylian.

Kylian stormed out and Harry sighed, sinking back in his seat.

“Do you want to shake the cobwebs out before the next one?”

Harry grunted. “He was really boring.”

He reached forward and selected another name. He frowned at it.

“How do you even say that? Maxi…Maxim…Maxi-mile-us.”

“Let me see.” Elder Keller said, holding out a hand.

Harry handed over the parchment he’d picked out.

“Maximilius Maddison.” Elder Keller said.

Harry watched as all the Elders relaxed and settled. They apparently liked Maximilius Maddison.

The dominant who was fetching Harry’s prospective mates almost jogged out and Harry wondered if this next dominant was fucking royalty or something.

The man who walked in made Harry tense immediately purely because he was just so big. Harry was surprised, and pleased, when the dominant immediately noticed this and purposefully walked the long way around the room, past the Elders, to sit down opposite him. He rounded his shoulders and hunched a little, as if to appear smaller, which didn’t really work because Harry had already seen how big he truly was, but he appreciated the effort.

“Hi, I’m Maximilius Maddison, but please call me Max.”

“Well, Max is a lot better than your full name.” Harry said.

“Harry!” Elder Trintus chastised him, but Max just laughed.

He had a nice laugh, Harry allowed. His genuine amusement made Harry smile.

“There’s a reason I prefer Max!” He said. “Only my grandfather calls me Maxie. I won’t tell you what my dad calls me.”

Harry’s eyes lit up. “What does he call you?” He asked.

Max groaned. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now. It’s embarrassing.”

“Go on, tell me. I wish I had a dad to tease me.” He said sadly.

Max gave him a sympathetic smile. “He calls me care bear.”

Harry laughed. “Why? Because you’re as big as a bear? Or just a cuddly teddy?”

“Because for my first hunt at sixteen, I ran away from them and I…uh…I took down a bear by myself.”

Harry gaped at him. “You took down a fucking bear?”

Max gave an embarrassed one-shouldered shrug. It brought the attention to what was in his hand.

“Oh, I brought you these as a gift.”

Harry opened the small box curiously, hoping it wasn’t any more fucking jewellery. It wasn’t. The box was filled with biscuits.

“I made them myself.”

“You bake?” Harry asked, even as he picked one up and gave it an experimental nibble. He hoped they weren’t drugged or something.

“Yeah, I like cooking and baking. My size makes people think I’m dumb and brutish, but I’m honestly not.”

“These are really good.” Harry told him, eating another biscuit.

That made Max smile widely.  “So, how are you?” He asked.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t want to be here, but I was forced into it, so I’m just enduring it as best as I can.”

“I get that.” Max said and Harry looked at him closely, scrutinising whether he actually did understand, or if he was just saying words. “My family is huge.” Max explained. “My grandfather, Alexander, is a massive advocate for submissive rights and he’s furious that you have no support in your meetings.” He said, giving a sly look over to the Elders to see how his words were received.

“I think I like your grandfather already.” Harry declared.

“Oh, he’d be overjoyed to hear that. He’d really like you too. He likes pretty much everyone.”

Harry found himself wanting to meet this Alexander, he wondered if he’d be allowed to have a chat with him.

“So, tell me some things about you.” Harry said, finding himself actually wanting to listen to Max speak.

“Me? Well, I’m a Potions Master…”

Harry tried not to let that bring up images of Snape. Hateful, bullying Snape.

“I work for a small firm that supplies clinics and chemists all over the United Kingdom.”

“I was never any good at potions. I had a horrible teacher and I lost interest.”

“That’s terrible!” Max declared. “You shouldn’t have had to endure a bad teacher that has robbed you of a passion for potions.”

“The war robbed me of a lot of passions, including my passion for life.”

Max looked genuinely concerned. “You’re not suicidal, are you?”

“Self-harming more than truly suicidal.” Harry admitted. He saw no reason to hide it after Healer Vasey had encouraged him for more than a year to share those feelings with Sirius and Remus. It had become second nature to admit when he was having those feelings now. “Though I have had my moments.”

“Harry, maybe that isn’t the best thing to share with your prospective mates.” Elder Nardovino tried.

“No, it’s exactly what he should be sharing!” Max contradicted immediately. “Forgive me, Elder, but I would much rather know if a submissive needs help or support than anything else.” He said before turning to Harry. “Your health and wellbeing should be the biggest focus here.” Max told him and Harry actually felt a little teary.

“Tell that to them.” He said, pointing. “They forced me into these meetings. I’m not ready, I don’t want to be here, I don’t like any of the dominants I’ve been introduced to because I’m not in the right mind frame to like them!” 

Max’s sapphire blue eyes narrowed and he gave a barely concealed glare to the Elders. “You know that you’ll have every advocate for submissive rights on your backs for this, don’t you?” He asked them. “Considering Elder Messana was in on this decision, it’s a surprise that Fiammetta isn’t already breaking down the door…unless she’s being kept in the dark as well? She really won’t like that.”

Harry watched as the Elders looked a little uncomfortable at that.

“We made our decision based on what we thought would be best for Harry, the submissive in question.” Elder Keller tried.

“You don’t get to decide what’s best for me!” Harry raged. “Best for me would have been keeping up with my therapy. Not this! I need to focus on myself, not any of these selfish, stuck-up cunts.”

“Max, I think we had best leave this here.” Elder Midate said.

“You’ll be hearing from my grandfather.” Max promised. “Harry, I hope to see you again. My grandfather will certainly want to see you too.”

Harry nodded and watched Max leave. He wished the Elders hadn’t thrown him out with the threat of Captain Foss hanging over his shoulder if he refused.

“Today has been very emotional for you, Harry. Would you like to go home?” Elder Trintus told him.

It had only been emotional because he didn’t want to be here and yes, he had gotten teary when Max had actually seemed to care about him as a person, and not just a submissive, but he wasn’t getting out of these meetings and he wanted them over sooner rather than later.

“No, I’ll carry on.”

“Do you think that’s the best decision?” Elder Midate asked worriedly.

Harry levelled a glare onto him. “Don’t pretend like you care about me or anything I say. I’m carrying on because the sooner I get through them all, the sooner I’ll be rid of these meetings!”

“Harry…”

Harry shoved his hand in the bowl and pulled out a name.

“Carrie Varrett.” He read out, then looked to Captain Foss, almost daring him to refuse his wishes.

Captain Foss sighed heavily, his shoulders moving visibly as he did so, before he turned to one of his team and nodded.

Harry settled himself, but he was angry and everyone knew it. These next several meetings were not going to go very well for any of them, but especially not for the dominants who were picked.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

Max made his way from the meeting room and back to his uncles and lone aunt.

“Were you not picked?” Nicodemus asked him.

Max shook his head. “Harry’s not in the right mind frame to pick anyone, Uncle. Grandfather was right to be angry, the Elders have literally forced him into these meetings and I think Harry is sabotaging them on purpose. He doesn’t want to be mated.”

“If he can refuse you, then no one has a chance.” Cassander added.

“He didn’t actually refuse me, the Elders put an end to his meeting because Harry was getting upset and angry.”

“What the hell were you saying to him?” Cepheus asked.

“It wasn’t directed at me, but at them. He’s angry, upset, and frustrated that they’ve forced him into this. He admitted that he’s self-harming and that he’s thought of suicide in the past. The Elders have actually forced him into this when he’s still in therapy. I’m going to go and tell grandfather, now.”

His uncles all nodded their agreement and Max said his goodbyes. He wasn’t going to be picked again. It made sense for him to go to his grandfather. The sooner he knew what the Elders were doing, the sooner he could help Harry, who was suffering through these meetings all by himself.

He flooed straight to his grandfather’s home, and his grandmother noticed him first, before he could greet anyone.

“Oh, Max, did you have a meeting, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Were you not picked?” His dad, Richard, asked.

Max shook his head. “No one is going to be picked, Dad. Granddad, it’s worse than you feared.” Max said, finding his grandfather in the mix of bodies. “Harry is really suffering and the Elders are making it worse. He mentioned both self-harm and suicide. He’s not going to pick anyone because he doesn’t want to be there. It’s worse than you feared and the Elders have pushed him into this. It’s not what he wanted.”

“He actually said these meetings are making him suicidal?” Alexander asked him, looking as furious as Max had ever seen him before.

“He told me that the war had robbed him of his passion for life and when I asked if he was suicidal, he told me that it’s more self-harm than suicidal, but that he had thought of it before. Elder Nardovino actually told him off for mentioning it, he said something like his prospective mates shouldn’t be hearing him say that. I did contradict him, perhaps rudely, but I wasn’t going to let Harry think he should be hiding such dangerous thoughts out of shame. Every dominant in that hall should hear that Harry is struggling in such a way, to better help him if they are picked, as unlikely as that is given that Harry doesn’t even want a mate.”

“I don’t care what those Elders say, I’m going there!” Alexander hissed, and he spun on his heel and marched to the fireplace, calling out the address for the council halls.

“How did he seem otherwise, Max?” His grandmother asked him worriedly.

Max shook his head and put a hand through his hair. “He looked like he wasn’t eating or sleeping properly; he looked stressed and overwhelmed. He was sitting there on his own, with no support, and he’s struggling. Visibly struggling. His meetings are only fifteen minutes long and I met him for less than that and I could see how much he was struggling in that scant timeframe.”

“The poor dear.” Kimberly sighed.

“Grandfather will sort this now.” Max said. “I hope he does, Harry really needs someone to back him.”

“So, were you actually rejected or not?” His mother asked him.

Max shook his head. “I wasn’t rejected. The Elders made me leave after Harry started getting angry and upset. But I don’t expect to be called back for another meeting. Harry really doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want a mate. He said he’d rather be with his therapist.”

“The poor boy, he really shouldn’t be on his own. Alexander will sort this.” Kimberly said with the lifelong faith that she had in her mate.

“I hope so, he really needs it, Nana.”

Max kept thinking about Harry, how small and tired he looked. How there was a lingering, growing pain behind his eyes, and he wanted to help him. He wanted Harry to get the support he needed. Hopefully, his grandfather would provide just that, Harry deserved it.

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Harry didn’t know what had happened to him. Ever since his meeting with Max, he was feeling teary and overwhelmed. He wanted to cry. He wanted to go home, to Grimmauld Place, to his room so that he could crawl into bed, pull the duvet over his head and he could cry himself to sleep.

None of the next three dominants impressed him in the slightest and he was angry and feeling slightly unstable. He wanted to rage and shout, he wanted to kill every single person near him.

He was halfway through a meeting with another piece of shit, this one called Hideki Sano, who was thirty-one and really, really liked talking about himself. Then, every dominant liked talking about themselves. Harry really needed to find a better way to hold these meetings.

The door knocked and Harry looked up curiously. Anything that disturbed Hideki’s tirade was a good thing in his book.

A man came in and he looked incredibly angry, but he was making massive efforts to hide his anger. Harry was intrigued as he could immediately smell that this man was mated and obviously couldn’t be here for a meeting.

“Alexander, there’s really no excuse for this interruption.” Elder Keller insisted. 

Harry wondered if this was Alexander Maddison. Max’s grandfather.

“Oh, I think there is after what Max has just told me.” Alexander, now all but officially confirmed as Max’s grandfather, said almost venomously.

“Hideki, I’m sorry, perhaps we could continue this meeting after a brief pause.” Elder Trintus said.

“No.” Harry said. “He doesn’t need to come back. I don’t want him to.”

Hideki looked just as offended as all the other dominants and he gave Harry a disgusted look before leaving.

Alexander took the seat that Hideki had vacated and he looked at him closely.

“I’m Alexander, Harry. You’ve recently had a meeting with my grandson and, after what he told me, I really couldn’t keep away. I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s fine. I’m bored of these meetings now anyway.”

“Alexander, he’s under our care.” Elder Midate tried.

“And a good job you’re doing of it, Jacob.” Alexander said with heavy sarcasm.

“I’m not sure what Max has told you, but…”

“Max has told me that Harry doesn’t want to be here and that you’re forcing him through his meetings. It’s bad enough that my own granddaughter-in-law was forced through her own meetings by the American Elders when she wasn’t ready, but I will not let you do the same to Harry. He is suffering!”

Harry watched this man curiously. Normally, he didn’t like people speaking about him as if he wasn’t even there, but Alexander looked righteously angry and he sounded like he was genuinely on Harry’s side, so Harry didn’t interrupt.

“It’s a complicated situation, Alexander. We had no choice. Harry’s Dracken had let out a distress call for a reason.”

“I got sad.” Harry said, shrugging. “It happens often. It wasn’t that I was losing control of myself, it’s that I’m in therapy, and therapy is hard sometimes, and yeah, sometimes I get upset and angry. That doesn’t mean my Dracken is going to go on a rampage.”

“We can’t take the risk that you might, Harry.” Elder Midate told him gently.

“You don’t get to fuck up my life just because you feel like it!” Harry hissed.

“Harry, we’re not messing up your life.” Elder Keller told him. “We’re trying to help you get your life started.”

“My life doesn’t start when I’m enslaved to a dominant and start popping out babies!” He raged.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Elder Keller rushed to assure him.

“Is that how you see being mated, Harry?” Alexander asked him.

Harry nodded his head, wiping his teared up eyes with his sleeve. He hated that he had complex post-traumatic stress disorder, it made his emotions swing from one extreme to the other. He could literally be as angry as he’d ever been and in the next moment he could tear up and start sobbing at nothing.

Alexander came to sit beside him and Harry tensed in pure reaction, but he could see the arm coming towards him slowly, he had plenty of time to see it and move if he so wished, but he got a scent of Alexander’s pheromones. He smelt safe in a way that no one else ever had and, in the next moment, Harry had surged towards him and tried to burrow in deeply, clinging to the man tightly.

“Do you see what you’ve done to him?” Alexander demanded, holding Harry tight and close, gently moving Harry’s face to snuffle into his neck, where all those amazing pheromones were coming from.

“This isn’t helping, Alexander.” Elder Nardovino sighed. “He has to have his meetings. It’s too dangerous to put them off any longer.”

“Harry has rights, Christophoros.” Alexander said, a growl coming through. “Has he even had a psychiatric evaluation performed?”

“Healer Camberly declared that he was mentally fit to proceed with his meetings.” Elder Keller said quickly.

“Healer Vasey said I wasn’t!” Harry said from Alexander’s neck.

“Who is Healer Vasey, sweetheart?” Alexander asked him.

“My therapist.” Harry said, snuggling in tighter.

“So Harry’s personal therapist declared him unfit, yet a healer who met him once declared that he was?” Alexander demanded.

“Healer Camberly is one of our healers, Sebastian Vasey isn’t. You know we only use two specialist mind healers, Alexander.”

“Perhaps it’s time to change that.” Alexander growled. “Harry clearly isn’t ready for this step, regardless of what Healer Camberly has said. You are forcing him through these meetings, despite seeing clearly that it is traumatising him further. How can you expect him to choose his mates like this?!”

“I don’t want any of them.” Harry sobbed, trying to curl up into Alexander like he was a frightened toddler.

“Come here, sweetheart.” Alexander said soothingly, wrapping him in his arms and easing Harry onto his lap, making sure not to dislodge Harry’s face from his neck.

Alexander stroked Harry’s hair gently, soothingly, and Harry felt like he could truly relax, and it felt amazing. Alexander just felt so safe.

“This is a disgrace!” Alexander hissed. “How dare you do this to him. How could you do this to him?!”

“Alexander, please. We had no choice given the evidence.” Elder Midate tried to say.

“Don’t give me that, Jacob.” Alexander said angrily. “You had a choice, you could have sided with Harry, or sided against him, and you chose to do the latter.”

Harry had calmed slightly from his out of the blue sobbing session, but he stayed wrapped in Alexander’s protective embrace. This was what he needed. Not mates, not babies, this.

“The eleven of us met and it was decided that it was in Harry’s interests to hold his meetings as soon as possible.”

“You decided that without me!” Harry said, getting angry again. “I straight up told you it was against my best interests and you ignored me! The best for me would have been carrying on with my therapy, that’s what I wanted. That’s what my actual therapist wanted. Healer Camberly is a stupid old man and he’s in your pocket! Of course he didn’t care what was best for me, you probably told him to pass my assessment so you could force me into this!”

“Henry, you’ve been suspiciously quiet.” Alexander said.

“Don’t give me that look, boy.” Henry growled out. “I agree with every word you’ve said and I argued long and hard about forcing Harry into his meetings. I was out voted.”

“He was the only one who listened to me and actually sided with me.” Harry agreed.

“At least one of you is actually thinking of Harry’s wellbeing in all of this.” Alexander quipped.

“So where do you suggest we go from here?” Elder Keller demanded. “Just stop his meetings now that they have started?”

“Can we do that?” Harry asked hopefully.

Elder Nardovino cut in so quickly that Harry’s hopes didn’t even have a chance to rise. “No, absolutely not. You have been speaking to and interacting with unmated dominants, your meetings have already started, and you could have already offset your breeding cycle.”

“The chances that that has happened, given Harry’s mind set, is so slim it’s laughable, Christophoros!” Alexander argued.

“But not impossible.”

Harry started crying then. He could hear these men talking him into carrying on with these meetings and it was too much for him to handle.

Alexander held Harry tighter and let him cry. He didn’t try to shush him or stop his crying fit, he just let him cry everything out. That felt very therapeutic too.

“Your presence, your interruption here has upset him, Alexander.” Elder Keller said angrily, disapprovingly.

“It is not my presence that has done this!” Alexander cut in coldly. “It is entirely down to your poor decisions in handling Harry’s case. Tell me, why wasn’t the submissive advocacy informed about Harry’s case?”

“He did not ask for it.”

“Did you tell him that he could ask for it?” Alexander demanded unrelentingly. “Did you tell him he had legal rights to speak to a submissive advocate under the Submissive Protection Act?”

“What?” Harry asked, feeling like he’d just been poleaxed.

“Telling him would do more harm, Alexander.”

“I believe he deserves to know the truth that you set him up.” Alexander insisted.

“Set me up?” Harry echoed, feeling numb.

“You didn’t have to have your meetings, Harry.” Alexander told him.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“The Elders have forced you into it, making you believe it was the only way, the only choice you had, but if they’d given you a chance to speak to a submissive advocate, like myself, I could have backed your corner and stopped this from happening.”

“They did it on purpose.” Harry said in horror, in dawning understanding.

“It was the only way we could think of to keep you safe!” Elder Midate said quickly.

Harry screamed out his anguish and he buried his face back into Alexander’s neck, sobbing, as he realised that he hadn’t had to do this at all. They’d known that he wasn’t from the Dracken society, that he knew nothing about Drackens, so they had used his ignorance against him to get him to do what they wanted, and he was the one suffering for it.

“This isn’t helping, Alexander.”

“Why didn’t you tell him that he had a choice?” Alexander demanded over Harry’s cries. “Why didn’t you tell him that he had the right to speak to a submissive advocate? Did you even let him speak to a submissive at all before forcing him into this?”

“I haven’t met any other submissives.” Harry said tearily.

“At all?” Alexander asked, sounding shocked.

Harry shook his head. He felt Alexander inhaling deeply as he was laying on the man’s chest.

“How dare you do this.” Alexander growled, sounding so incredibly angry, but his pheromones didn’t once change from calming, soothing and comforting. “Harry, sweetheart, I’m going to get you in contact with several other submissives immediately, so that you can have contact with people who are the same classification as you.”

“You can’t interrupt his meetings!”

“I already have.” Alexander snapped back. “He’s going to take several days now to talk to other submissive Drackens and some submissive advocates too. You’re going to give him that time after how spectacularly you’ve mishandled his case.”

The Elders couldn’t say anything in the face of Alexander’s anger, it was clear that he didn’t get angry very often and Harry was touched that it was on his behalf.

“You have unmated children and grandchildren, Alexander, you know we can’t let you put Harry in contact with them.”

“Unlike you, I’m not going to do anything to harm Harry.” Alexander insisted and Harry actually tried to press closer to him. Alexander felt it and the arm around him squeezed him tight for a moment and Harry felt boneless. “We’ll be at Fiammetta’s.”

Alexander stood with him and gave him the option of standing on his own, but Harry kept his arms locked around Alexander’s neck, so the man started walking with him.

“Alexander, you can’t do this!”

“Watch me!” The man shouted back.

Harry was carried out of the room he was using for his meetings, but instead of going into the common room holding the dominants they went down the corridor and then up a set of stairs. Harry knew these were Anthanaric’s private living quarters, but Alexander walked up here as if he knew every step. They went into a large formal room with a huge fireplace.

“Do you want to floo with me, or would you prefer to floo by yourself, Harry?” Alexander asked him.

“With you.” Harry said, strangely grateful that Alexander had given him the choice. He’d been given so few choices in his life.

Alexander cradled him tighter, shifted his arm to protect his head and threw in a handful of floo powder.

“Take a breath, sweetheart.”

Harry did as he was told, inhaling deeply so that he didn’t get a mouthful of ash. Floo travel was always disorientating for him, but thankfully, he was with Alexander and the man seemed to be a pro, even with an added person to carry.

“Alexander, who is this?” A woman’s voice asked, even as Harry felt her fluttering around.

“Fia, I have terrible news to bring to you and I’m afraid it concerns your mate.” Alexander told her.

“Sesto? What has he done now?”

“He was part of a meeting that forced an unmated submissive, Harry here, to have mate meetings against his will. They didn’t tell him that he had rights under the Submissive Protection Act, nor that he could have had a submissive advocate as a representative. He’s from one of the lost lines and hasn’t grown up in the social circles, he didn’t know that he had these rights and the Elders didn’t tell him. Not a single one of them.”

Fiammetta said nothing, so Harry turned his head to look at her. She was dark-skinned and statuesque, but her grey hair marked her as being in her hundreds, at least. The look of utter fury on her face was twisting her features, but it didn’t put Harry on guard. It made him feel a little bit safer, if that was at all possible.

“Please sit, Alexander.” She offered, her voice tight, but controlled.

Alexander sat on one of the settees and he kept Harry in his lap, allowing him to snuggle back in.

“So, they have forced him to have his meetings?” Fia asked. “He didn’t want them?”

“Harry, may I tell Fiammetta about your case?”

Harry just nodded. He was feeling tired and overwrought again, but he didn’t know if he wanted to sleep or cry, so he just kept his face in Alexander’s neck, doing nothing.

“Harry is Harry James Potter, he’s still suffering the effects of the war and he’s still in therapy. He’s in no fit state to be choosing his mates, Fia. He doesn’t want any of them.”

“All eleven Elders voted for this action?!” Fia demanded angrily.

“Ten of them. I’m told that Henry voted against it, but he still didn’t tell Harry to seek help with an advocate. None of them told Harry that he had legal rights as a submissive or that he didn’t have to have his meetings.”

Harry heard Fiammetta breathing out heavily.

“I assume the meetings have already started?”

“Yes, we’re too late to stop it.”

“But we can support him through them.” Fia said firmly. “Harry, would being supported help you feel less isolated in these meetings?”

Harry picked his head up and considered it. He thought about not sitting on that settee alone, with five Elders to the side all gunning for him to be mated, surrounded by the strike team who made him feel like they would intervene just as quickly if he tried to leave as they did when a dominant tried to approach him.

He still felt like he needed to do this alone. He hadn’t wanted Remus or Sirius there, could he ask strangers?

“You don’t have to decide right now, Harry, and you can change your mind at any moment. From meeting to meeting if need be.” Alexander assured him. “We just want to help you as much as we can.”

“They’ve already ruined my future.” Harry said quietly. “What hope do I have now for a better future when I’m thinking of my mates as accessories to myself?”

“What do you mean, honey?” Fiammetta asked gently.

“I’m not going to pick them for home and family. I’m going to pick them based on what they can offer me. I’m like a battle general picking his team for the next mission. Skillset is what I’m going to choose them on, if anything. I’m going to pick based on which of them would best survive a war I already won, but I can’t…I haven’t let go of the war yet, my mind is still there. It’s been almost three years since the end and I suffered so greatly that it’s still all I can think about. The therapy was helping. It really was, but then this happened and it’s like I’ve gone back three years all at once.”

“What sort of skills are you looking for?” Alexander asked carefully.

Harry shrugged. “So far, I haven’t met anyone who would be in my mateship because I deem them to be useless. They wouldn’t survive a war and I…I lost so many people during the war. People I cared about, people I loved. I won’t have weak, useless mates that would drag me down or die in a war.”

“So you’re picking a battalion to surround you?” Fiammetta asked.

Harry nodded. “It’s not fair, because I know if I carried on with my therapy that I wouldn’t choose them this way. I was making progress, but this has thrown me back years and now the only way I can get through these meetings is to pick them based on skillset.”

“So what sort of skills are you looking for?” Alexander asked him. “The best fighters?”

“No, not just fighters.” Harry said, before he stopped and thought about it. “I need a minimum of seven or eight mates. I have enough room to pick selected skills based on what every team needs.”

‘I’ve already picked a healer.’ Harry thought to himself, thinking of Georgio. Healers were always good things to have. Maybe if there had been more healers at the final battle then more people might have lived…maybe Hermione would have lived.

He tried to get rid of those thoughts. These meetings really were putting him back in his therapy. He’d come so far and now it just felt like it was all unravelling. It was almost like he was watching from the sidelines as all his progress was wiped away. He couldn’t stop it, he wasn’t in control and he hated not being in control.

“They have to be strong. Independent. I don’t want anyone to hang all over me. I need my space.” He said. “They do have to know how to fight, or at least know how to defend themselves. I think I’m magically powerful enough to cover us all from that angle, but they need to cover the physical side of fighting.”

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry they’ve done this to you. I wish I would have known sooner.” Fiammetta told him.

Harry shrugged. “They didn’t tell me on purpose. They knew I was ignorant of everything to do with Drackens coming in. I only had Ministry-sanctioned books to get information from and I’ve been told they’re mostly wrong or misleading. I didn’t know I had any rights or that I could ask for help. They made me feel like they could make all the decisions for me and just force me to do what they wanted, and truthfully, that’s exactly what they have done.”

“They’ll never do it again.” Fiammetta promised.

“That doesn’t really help me, though.” Harry pointed out.

“We will support you through this.” Alexander said, his arm around Harry squeezing tight for a moment.

“What if I don’t love my mates anymore? When I finish therapy, or when I start getting better, and I don’t want mates that remind me of the war? What do I do then?” He asked them.

“Hopefully, you would have at least made good friends of them.” Alexander told him. “That way, even if you don’t love them romantically, you’ll still love them as friends.”

“If they start taking liberties, or pressing you for anything you don’t want to do, you have rights to protection from them.” Fiammetta assured him. “They can’t force you to have sex if you don’t want to and they can’t abuse their position over you.”

“Their position over me?” Harry asked.

Alexander and Fiammetta shared a look full of anger, before Alexander reached up a hand to stroke through his hair.

“Your dominant mates can order you to do things. It’s usually only used in dire need, or for serious situations, for example, if your home has been attacked and your dominant is fighting to make a safe passage for you, they could order you to leave, to go somewhere safer even if you don’t want to leave them behind. It is not to be used to order you to do anything in your day to day life and it should never be used to obtain sex.”

Harry laughed mirthlessly. “Honestly, the very thought of someone ordering me to do anything is hilarious. Do I have to comply with the orders given?”

“It’s automatic.” Fiammetta nodded. “Sesto has only ever used it once on me. I hadn’t slept in a few days, we had several children at a young age who needed constant supervision and a newborn with colic. I was very fretful and couldn’t sleep for fear that my baby might be harmed. He ordered me to go upstairs and sleep and I couldn’t refuse. I hated him at the time for taking me away from my baby who needed me, but looking back, it was the right decision to make. I was sleep deprived, I was weepy, emotional, and snappish and I could no longer rationalise anything around me. I had become a detriment to my family. Sesto called in our extended family to help with the children for a few days, he called in a healer to look our daughter over to make sure that it wasn’t anything underlying causing the colic. I slept for fifteen hours and when I woke up, I felt a different woman and I felt more…balanced. So the dominant bond isn’t always a bad thing, as long as it’s not abused.”

“I’d kill them.” Harry said seriously. “As soon as I got control of myself back, I’d kill them for taking away my control of my own body. I can’t…after the war I have to be in control. Me, no one else. Is that something I should warn them about?”

“You should tell them that, yes.” Alexander told him. “I have never once used the dominant bond between myself and my mate. I have never ordered Kimberly to do anything, we sit and discuss things like rational adults, but we have been very fortunate that nothing terrible has ever happened to us. We have suffered no break-ins, no attacks, or any situation that Fiammetta just described. We used a tap-in, tap-out method of rearing our children. She would sleep with the newborn in the master bedroom and I would sleep in a guest room. When I woke up in the morning, I would take the baby, or babies, and let her sleep through the morning undisturbed while I had the babies downstairs with our older children. It worked very well for us.”

“What about work? Did you have a job?”

Alexander chuckled gently. “Oh, I did, yes. I was the CEO of my own company, so I was very fortunate that I could take off whatever time I wanted and leave the company in the care of my subordinates. I would still usually work from home, though. Kimberly would wake in the afternoons and I could do some work then. We were very organised and we kept the children on strict schedules so we knew who had to be where and at what time.”

Harry mulled that over and included it in his plans to find a suitable mate. One who was organised or had flexible working conditions would give him a dominant like Alexander. He’d like that.

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Harry spent the entire afternoon at Fiammetta’s home and he was assured that while he was speaking to the submissive advocates, he wouldn’t have to go back for his meetings. He was allowed a few days to speak to other submissives and there was nothing that the Elders could do about it, no matter how worried over him triggering a chase they were.

It was late when he got back to Grimmauld Place and Remus had his dinner waiting for him, making Harry smile.

“How did it go today? You were gone for much longer.” Remus said worriedly.

“I’ve been with the submissive advocates.” Harry explained, even as he sat down and picked up his fork. “They’ve told me all the laws that the Elders have broken by forcing me to have my meetings when legally, I didn’t have to.”

“Wait, what?!” Sirius demanded, immediately sitting forward in order to hear him better.

“Yeah. I didn’t have to have my meetings at all. The Elders forced me into it because they thought it was what was best for me, but legally, those rights were in my corner. It was my decision to make and they couldn’t have forced me if I hadn’t been so clueless about Dracken culture.”

“I’m so sorry, Harry!” Remus said.

“I’m going to fucking kill them!” Sirius bellowed.

Harry shook his head. “They could have told me that I could have spoken to actual submissives, or a submissive advocate, but they didn’t. They knew I didn’t know about any of that, or about my own rights as a submissive Dracken, and they used it against me to force me into doing what they wanted me to do.”

“Can you stop it now?” Sirius asked.

Harry shook his head. “No. I have to carry on. Once the meetings have started, they have to be finished.”

“I swear to Merlin, those idiots are fucked up!”

“Sirius, please.” Remus said, shaking his head. “Is there anything we can do to help, Harry?”

Harry shook his head. “Not yet. I still haven’t found anyone I like and I don’t have to have meetings for a few days. I’m going to be talking to the advocates and other, actual submissives. You know, I only met my first other submissive today? Every interaction with a Dracken thus far has been dominants, dominants, dominants. I didn’t even realise until Alexander asked if I’d met any other submissives that, no, I actually hadn’t.”

“Who is Alexander?” Remus asked him.

“One of the submissive advocates. He’s a mated dominant, but he actually campaigned his entire life for submissive protections and laws. He actually wrote the Submissive Protection Act in nineteen-fifty. His youngest son, Myron, revised and added to it in nineteen-eighty-seven to make it even harder for dominants to abuse submissives, and the Elders trampled all over that Protection Act when they didn’t tell me that I had rights under law and forced me to have those meetings. The submissive advocacy are absolutely furious about it too.”

“Can you sue them?” Remus asked. “If they have knowingly broken the law for their own gain, causing you further harm in the process, then there must be some form of punishment.”

“I’ll ask Alexander when I see him tomorrow.”

Harry finished his dinner, had some tea while he filled in Sirius and Remus of everything, and then he was going up to his room. He had a few days away from his meetings and he was thankful for that. They had been getting to him and his mood had been getting worse. He could use a few days off where he didn’t have to deal with the arrogant, unmated dominants. He was dreading going back to the council halls to start his meetings again.

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