Desperate Measures

Chapter 27: Harry's Summer I

Chapter 27 – Harry's Summer I

As he'd promised Hermione, he had taken his end of year tests the second week of June. Surprisingly, he'd been allowed to take all of them; Dumbledore's influence, undoubtedly. He was sure that he'd done well enough. Then, just because he could, he'd taken the last week of school off, mostly, from his courting and enjoyed the company of his friends. He and his grandfather had met all day the Saturday after testing and for two hours each morning that next week but, other than that, he'd been able to revel in his mini-vacation.

That Saturday had been a day of harsh realities. He'd completed all the easy eliminations and the suitors left were the ones who were going to require a greater amount of thought and effort. Some of that effort had already been done, however. As each suitor had passed through round three, a very thorough background check had been initiated that included the suitor's family as well as themselves. Saturday had been spent reviewing the results of those investigations.

He'd hated to do it, but the remaining suitors had been separated by personal and familial wealth. He firmly believed, as Hermione had admonished him so long ago, that a person's worth couldn't be based on how many galleons they had to their name. The cold, hard truth, however, was that he had a certain status within Veela society and his mate was going to need to be able to deal with that. A mate raised to wealth was going be comfortable within the circles Harry would soon frequent, whereas one who hadn't most likely would not.

Twenty-two of the remaining thirty-one suitors had been marked as unlikely to be comfortable with the necessary social obligations. He had been prepared to still meet with them, however, because you just never knew. That is, if they were still interested in courting him after they read the letter – properly spelled for secrecy, of course – that had been sent to them that evening detailing what would be socially expected of his mate, though it had left out his exact social status. Four suitors had politely withdrawn.

The same letter had been sent to the nine remaining suitors in the "used to it" pile, but none of those had withdrawn. That pile had, however, been further subdivided into greater and lesser political desirability in regards to an alliance. There were three suitors of little interest, five of acceptable interest, and one of great interest. The contacts that the Malfoy family had all over the world put them far and away above the next nearest set of suitors.

Unless one of the other suitors really stood out for some reason, Harry and his grandfather had figured there were only six truly viable contestants based on social status alone.

Another distinction he'd reluctantly made had been between pureblood and not. He'd eliminated most of the muggle-borns during the dating process. This had been expected, though not intentional. As he'd said in the interviews, he had no interest in living in the muggle world. Most of the muggle-borns he'd dated had wanted to continue living in the muggle world so as to be accessible to their families. He applauded them for their closeness to their families, but had eliminated them nevertheless. The remaining muggle-borns, of which there were six, were marked as likely to fail due to Statute of Secrecy issues. Not being able to talk about what was really going on in his life was not conducive to creating close bonds with extended family members not "in the know" about the wizarding world. Five of those six were also in the "not likely to be comfortable" pile.

An easier evaluation, at least on his conscience, had been the gifts. The final tally had been made of all the positive and negative marks Harry had made on the suitors' files over the last several months. Less than half had come up in the black. Those in the red were marked as "unlikely."

The background checks had also turned up a couple of dodgy pasts, a few intra-family spats of some concern, one mafia connection, one that had died days after the date, and numerous tidbits of fascinating information that would have no bearing on the decision making process.