Author's note:

Mistress Cavy would like to inform our dear readers that we are not responsible in any way, shape, or form for Harry Potter and that highly inflated egos are our only profits from this fic.

Miss Polyptera kindly reminds our readers that this was a cooperative effort and if one finds it pleasing they should be sure to check out both SpaceCavy and Polyptera's other works.

Most importantly, Dear Reader, we solemnly swear we are up to no good.

Prologue

There's a lot of things to be said for luck.

Harry Potter didn't know it, but despite the many times he had been told differently, he was not in fact lucky. Harry Potter was very unlucky, and bad luck, they say, always comes in threes.

Some people would suggest that the first piece of bad luck was the rotten circumstances that had brought Harry to the battle in the ministry in the first place, those people would be wrong. It was actually more than a little incompetence and ignorance that had managed to get Harry here. Here being where we are now. With Harry Potter standing over Neville Longbottom cursing his fate... which really wasn't to blame at all.

He swore out of helplessness and rage as he attempted to drag a cursed Neville to safety, watching the prophecy he had long needed to hear fall on deaf ears in the massive room. He hoped that someone in a corner somewhere was writing this down, because he doubted he was going to remember. Stepping away from the fallen Neville in frustration, he itched to jump in and fight beside his godfather, no matter what the man had ordered him to do. He was the reason they were all here, he wasn't going to watch this one from the sidelines. Decision made he stepped forward, pulled his wand out and before a move could be made he watched as Sirius stumbled and fell as Bellatrix's curse hit true.

This moment here was where it began, right then when Bellatrix's curse first hit Sirius square in the chest. Half a lifetime in Azkaban hadn't done very much for dear old Bella and later people would reflect on this moment and think it was nothing short of a miracle that she had landed a single hit at all. It was of course this moment of horrifyingly bad luck that started it all.

A seeker's reflexes had him moving before he had thought to move, he threw himself forward as he watched his godfather slowly fall back, too slow really for it to be realistic. Reaching out for Sirius, his focus on him and him alone he missed the sights and sounds of the battle around him. He didn't hear curse Bellatrix threw at him and made no move to counter the spells headed his way instead all he had eyes for was the only family he had left. Unsurprisingly the harmless curse tickling curse Bellatrix had miscast flew in arc over Harry and hit Lucius Malfoy mid escape.

Harry, though? He didn't care about any of this, all he cared about was the handful of Sirius' robe he caught just as the man's head began to disappear behind an ominous black curtain. This was the second piece of bad luck. It was so incredibly unlikely that Harry would have anytime to grasp anything more than the realization that Sirius was dying, it couldn't have been anything less than a masterful stroke of cursed luck that let him catch Sirius with such a deathly strong grip.

Bellatrix's second attempt to curse Harry was more successful, unfortunately for her bad luck comes in three's and she misfired again. The cheering charm she hit him with was the best piece of magic that would happen to Harry all day. The cheering charm was so powerful in fact that it blasted him right off his feet, still clutching desperately at his godfather as he was thrown forward, right through the veil.

Which of course brings us to the third piece of bad luck. The veil itself. It was incredibly unlucky that the same day that Harry was being blasted into it was the very same day that the steel casing covering the dangerous device had been taken down for inspection and maintenance.

While Harry and Sirius were falling through the veil Bellatrix remained behind, staring at her wand in confusion. Bad luck comes in three's though and as she held the tip up for inspection she blasted herself with a memory charm, and suddenly began to wonder where her Mummy was.. and who were all these people?

.

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Waking with a start, the first thing Harry noticed was not his throbbing head, although he did feel as though he'd gone a few rounds locked in a small closet with a bludger. He didn't notice the thin sheen of sweat covering his body, nor the absence of both his wand and his glasses. He noticed that someone was holding his hand. Eyes shooting open in confusion, Harry was rather disturbed to find a blurry, sallow-skinned figure leaning over him, his curtain of black hair blocking most of the room from view. Someone squeezed his hand, and he could have sworn a male voice he vaguely recognized was murmuring sweet nothings at him.

"What the bloody hell?" he sat up, ripping his hand away from whoever was sitting next to him.

Ignoring the splitting pain in his head and quickly finding his glasses in a nightstand beside him. Cramming them on his face, Harry was finally able to take in the scene around him. He was in a large, poorly decorated children's bedroom complete with enchanted unicorns dancing across the padded railings on the side of his bed. Where was he?! To his relief, Hermione Granger was kneeling by his bed-side, looking fretful. She was clutching, to his complete bewilderment, the arm of Severus Snape, who was sitting in an armchair by his side and looking for all the world as though he'd been there all night.

"Shhh, shhhh, Harry, it's alright. Was it the dreams again?" To Harry's growing horror, Snape's speech drifted off into nonsensical murmurings, and he began running his hand up and down Harry's arm soothingly. Harry contemplated breaking the man's arm off. Looking up at Hermione for help, he mouthed silently in unspeakable disgust and pointed at the obviously deranged potions master before him. Explain. Now, he begged silently.

His concern only grew when Hermione reached out to stroke his cheek gently, saying, "Oh, poor baby, he's sick Severus . . .." Um, what? If this was some death eater scheme to break him, it was working.

"Look, I'm not sick. Can you guys get Ron? Dumbledore?" He barely succeeded in keeping Snape at arm's length as he attempted to crush him in a stifling hug, holding both of his arms out and locking his elbows to keep as much distance in between him and the confunded man as possible. "Anybody?!"

"Oh, Harry," Hermione cooed sickeningly, "You don't have to be brave with us, it's OK," she turned to Snape, giving him the hug he so inconceivably wanted from Harry.

"No it isn't!" he yelled, his voice several octaves higher than normal.

"Oh Severus, our poor baby is sick." she continued as though she hadn't heard him, snuggling closer to Snape.

"We'll get through this," Snape assured her. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and he stopped pawing at him to gaze lovingly into Hermione's eyes. "We always come through, as a family," and then Snape, Potions Master, AKA That Slimy Git, kissed Hermione Granger on the lips.

Despite his earlier assertions, Harry Potter was not okay, he was sick in Snape's lap.

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"That bitch!"

Those were Sirius Black's first muttered words upon awakening from whatever spell his dear cousin had used on him. He had no idea how long he was out of the fight, but if that wretched excuse for a witch had hurt Harry, or Remus, or any of the innocent children at the department... well Sirius knew ratings would go through the roof if he took the time to think about what he would to do to her.

Wrenching his eyes open, Sirius took stock of his surroundings. He was in a tent, a rather large tent, and laying on a soft pile of deer skins. So... this wasn't Grimmauld Place, definitely too classy for Azkaban and not classy enough to be a death eater lair. Sitting up, he realized he was not the only one in the fur pile that was probably meant to be a bed.

"Remus?" confusion and concern colored his tone. What strange and terrible circumstances had led the werewolf to fall asleep in the a tent with him? Had Grimmauld place been taken? He reached over and shook the man's shoulder. He was slightly concerned Remus had been so badly injured during the battle he's fallen unconscious next to him after dragging his hexed ass to shelter. If so, where's everyone else? He had to know.

"Moony!" he said a little more urgently.

To Sirius' great relief, the man beside him stirred, rolling over to face him with a smile on his face. "Mmm, you haven't called me that since our anniversary."

Sirius couldn't fight back a bark of laughter; it was, after all, a Marauder's job to make every situation as awkward as humanly possible. Relief washed over him. Clearly the results of the battle hadn't been too devastating, for Remus to joke so early in the morning.

"Will you turn into Padfoot for me?" Remus asked a little too innocently, pushing himself up and moving in so that his face was mere inches from Sirius'. "I'm feeling a little... primal," he snapped playfully at the air.

"Er, Moony, don't you think this has gone far enough. I mean, you probably saved my ass back there, but seriously no homo b-" the rest of his words were smothered by a very wet kiss. If he could've finished though, he would have clarified that their childhood games of gay chicken had never been appropriate before breakfast, you needed to be thinking clearly!

This certainly wasn't one of their childhood games though, mostly because those had never involved any actual lip to lip contact. Being too dignified for early-morning vomiting when no firewhiskey was involved, Sirius Black fainted.