Chapter 12 The Loved Star Ritual

It had been more than a year since I had woken up in this strange version of the Harry Potter world. In that time I had gotten three betrothals, and an additional girl that was interested in me.

Despite that I had done relatively nothing except look into my Uncle Tom's (AKA Voldemort's) death, go on the occasional date, and study magic.

Between magic and the girls it was hard to choose a favorite. For one, well, magic. And for the other, well, women. It was hard to focus on one for any prolonged period when I had two wands needing attention.

My family and I had just gotten back from the Ministrys annual Yule party. Unfortunately this year Fleur was in France visiting the Veelas enclave. Meanwhile Lord Greengrass brought other daughters in hopes of selling them off. He didn't say that of course, but that was the gist.

"Boy, in my office," Lord Gaunt said.

Instead of being in my fathers manor we left the Yuletide party and went to my grandfathers. His was… darker than my fathers. The wood was macassar, and the stone dark granite that had flecks of white to make it look like a star filled sky. Outside of my blood grandmother none of the others came out to greet us on our arrival, no doubt an order my grandfather gave.

I swore to myself that I would never let my Coven become like his. I knew that he cared for some of them, such as my grandmother, but others were there for nothing but obligations and alliances.

It was one of the reasons I wasn't blasting my magic power out and having women fall all over me. I could have dozens of witches, but it meant nothing if they were all miserable. I would go at my own pace, making sure that everyone could at the very least get along.

I sat down opposite my grandfather, my back straight and face calm.

"I let you have your fun for this past year as an apology, and you haven't been a disappointment by ruining girls' virtue or promising random mudblood whores a place in your Coven. However you will be going to Hogwarts next year, and there I am sure that you will be swarmed by gold digging sluts. I know I was, and it can be fun, but I won't let this house be taken advantage of. But you do have the potential to bring us to the top of the social hierarchy. So by the end of your first year I want you to have at least a dozen girls promised or actually brought into your Coven."

Welp, that may ruin my plans.

"That quickly? Wouldn't it be better for me to get to know them to make sure that they are not planning on taking advantage of us?"

"You know Legilimency?"

"No."

"Then you will never know what they're thinking, so therefore you cannot trust them. Here, learn it while you can."

He opened a drawer from his desk and tossed a book onto it.

Into The Minds.

That wasn't a legal book, but the Gaunt house had a lot of similar ones. I took it and placed it on my lap.

"Now there are issues with a large Coven boy. Muggle Emporers know this better than any with their harems. Schemes, grabs for power, infidelity, don't think there are not ways for witches to work around the Coven bond. With one as large as you can have there are more issues. There is a good chance you will have multiple sons, a rarity, but even my father had two. Right bastard Marvolo was. Multiple sons could fracture your Coven as their mothers hope for theirs to become Heir instead of the others."

"Look at the Weasleys, huge family filled with blood-traitors. That Molly girl had six boys, and now she is more the leader of Arthur Weasley's Coven than Arthur is. Think of the power their family will hold in the next generation. Six boys with at least an average of seven witches in their Coven, forty-two wives, so at least forty-two children. If their mother's blood runs deeply in them there is a chance for more than eight or nine boys in that lot. Who will in turn have their own Covens meanwhile the daughters can be shipped off to other houses, hell they'll have so many they might start throwing them to the continent."

"When Arthur first took over for his family it was poor, they could barely pay the bills. Now with all the assets that will come with the dowries they will be in the upper echelon, even if their roots are shallow. But in a generation or two the wealth will be so spreadly thin that it will likely collapse on them again. Unless their eldest boy is actually smart and knows to keep it centralized, unlikely, those fools are as good with money as a snake is in the cold."

I nodded along with his speech. It was interesting that even in this timeline the Weasley's still had a bunch of sons. I wonder if it was due to Molly wanting a daughter like it was in the original.

"Now for our family. I'll be honest, we are well off, but our roots are shallow as well. My father and brother were idiotic cunts. Merope wasn't too bad, bit of a dullard, but not a complete wastrel. The other two though wasted money left and right, going into needless debt and committing anti-muggle crimes despite the changing times. Fools. Everything the Gaunt Family has outside being the blood of Slytherin was built by me. This manor? I bought it after keeping my Coven living barely above our means for a decade. You fathers manor? Burned a few bridges and even one of my Coven members to get. Our Library? Bribes, threats, promises, all to get the books my family lost in the past few centuries. Only for my son to be below average wizard."

He growled out the last part, taking out his wand and waving it. A bottle of bourbon and a glass flew over to the desk. I could see the mist coming off the glass, meaning it was one of those ever-cool ones.

"The reason I only had a few children is because I want our family to be strong. United. It caused a lot of issues as you know."

He swirled his glass, leaning back in his leather chair as his lips tightened.

"However you can have many more Coven members than I, and to keep it to only a handful of children would ruin the opportunity you have. No doubt the women would divorce you in groups."

He was silent for several minutes, his eyes staring off into nothing. He looked… melancholic.

"I made a mistake in not letting my Coven have more children. Oh I'm sure some of them would be disappointments, but it cost me more than I knew at the time. And its far too late to fix that."

"You could still try," I said, for the first time feeling some empathy for my sexist grandfather. "It could go a long way."

He snorted.

"No. Just make sure you let my wives come and visit whenever they want to look at your kids alright? That should be good enough. Off you go now, and remember, a dozen, you already have three down, just lock it in with the Ritual."

"Goodbye grandfather," I said leaving the room.

A grunt was the only response I got.

The Coven Ritual was one of the few that was not illegal or frowned upon in the ministry. It had to be. The Ritual itself was rather basic, no special runes or specific wording. It was as old as magicals were. While having sex the two magicals would envelop their magic with one another. It couldn't be Love potioned or Imperius cursed, as those affected the bond. Then their magic would tether to one another.

For whatever reason, I was sure there was research on it, a witch could only form one tether, even if they were very powerful, and a wizard can only form as many as their magic allowed.

The question of why witches and wizards wouldn't just marry contractually like muggles was rather simple. Witches couldn't get pregnant by wizards unless they were in the wizards Coven.

That along with the gender ratios was why so many women just went for muggle men, a scandalous, but not uncommon occurrence for many pureblood families.

Just like my great-aunt Merope who had been cast out. I also knew that despite being cast out my grandmother and father still owled her sometimes.

Outside of getting pregnant though there were quite a few other benefits to a Coven bond.

Coven Rituals were one of the strongest forms of magic known. The world wide Obliviation following the Statute of Secrecy had been done with Coven Rituals. When needed one member could give magical power to another, and it was possible to communicate through the bond.

The Ritual that my parents had done on me was actually a Coven Ritual, though it only required the direct parents to take part.

That Ritual was called, The Loved Star Ritual.

It required a few things.

Both parents to be alive and participate in the Ritual.

Both parents to love their child.

The child to be less than sixteen years of age and a virgin.

The child to be male.

To be done on a full moon.

To have the blood of more than a dozen magical creatures used to draw runes on the body. The blood in question must be freely given by the magical creatures and relatively fresh. (Dragon, Nundu, Phoenix, Wampus ect.)

A chip of a Unicorns horn, freely given.

A portion of each parents magical power forever lost.

For the child in question to be magically weak.

The dust of a fairy traded on a starless night.

Bottled lightning.

A drop of starlight.

The bone of an animagus that was killed while transformed, not freely given.

The last part was the most worrying, to know that either my parents killed someone, or paid someone to get a bone from a transformed witch or wizard. At the same time it showed how complex Rituals were. Not only did all that have to be correct, the rune placement along with the blood used had to be perfect otherwise there could be drastic consequences.