Every Wish: What We Can't Have
lone astronomer
Author's Note: You people get to tell me if this should be part of my series… I'm only giving you the prologue now and I don't have much of it done, but it's sort of crossover-ish and I don't know if you like that. You'll see what I mean… anyway, I'm focusing on this for a while, although I won't post it if you don't like it. I needed a break from… everything else.
If you don't like it, I'll delete it and work on something else when this piece is finished, I just won't add it to my alternate universe fic. If you do like it, it's going to be a sort of "drop everything and finish this story before all the other ones" sort of deal.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all things contained therein are JKR's.
Setting: Harry is 24.
What We Can't Have: Prologue
As the dust cloud from the explosion cleared, the three bodies laid prone on the ground, barely moving fingers at first. The smallest one- she was short, with green eyes and black hair streaked unnaturally with white- sat up first, looking around her. Something squished at her feet; she looked just in time to see some sort of odd primordial slime seeping back into the ground. She somehow knew that she should take a sample, but didn't know why and wasn't fast enough.
The man beside her- she judged him to be in his early twenties, but couldn't be sure- stirred next. A long piece of smooth, red wood laid by his side. "What happened?" he asked. "Where are we? And," the killer, "who are we?"
The third person laying on the ground awoke at last, confusion in her violet eyes. "Why do I have the feeling that something is missing?" she asked.
At this moment, a tall, messy-haired man of about twenty-five stumbled upon the clearing. His emerald eyes were lit with an incomprehensible flame, and his first words to them were, "Great, you're all okay. I was worried about you guys for a while. Aunt A's in hysterics." When three pairs of eyes looked at him blankly- green, brown, and violet, he asked, "You are all okay, right?"
Violet-eyes looked at him blankly. "Who are you?"
Oooh. A cliffhanger? Nah, I'm not that mean.
Chapter One
The three post-adolescents were still on the ground when Remus, Sirius, and Allya arrived. Remus looked from them up to the Chernobyl power plant, then back down again, and made sure that the breach had been fully contained by performing a simple charm. "This can't be good," he said.
"Who are you people?" his daughter asked, looking confused.
"Really, really bad, in fact," he said, flopping down hard on the ground beside Allya.
"Why am I sensing another trip to St. Mungo's?" Sirius asked, trying to lighten the situation. He swallowed hard and reached for Archer's hand, as he looked the least aware of his situation. "Here, kid, let me help you up." He pulled hard on the young man's hand… but Fox Lupin didn't even budge. In fact, Sirius wound up on the ground next to him. "Put on weight, have you?"
Fox didn't respond.
"This is definitely very bad," Allya said.
Tiredly, Arthur Weasley ceased his pacing for the fourth time. For the eighth time, he asked, "Who are you?
For the eighth time, they replied exactly the same, in the same order.
Violet-eyes- Vera Jean Lupin- spoke first. "I am the phoenix," she whispered, "the daughter of the phoenix and the wolves, the sister of magic." The phoenix-Vera paused. "I am his sister, too," and she pointed at Fox.
"I don't know who I am," the woman once known as Sierra said. "I know who I used to be, but I'm different now." As she spoke, she twirled a longstem rose between her fingers. Just like the seven before it, it wilted and dried after a few mere seconds, and her hands retained a greenish tint for about five minutes. "I am just another Mary Sue in someone's twisted dreamworld," she said introspectively, watching as her fingers gradually faded back to a skin tone.
"Fox," the man growled, leather-swathed hand grasping his only sign of identification- those three letters on a metal tag found beside him on the ground.
Frustrated, Arthur sat down again. After a moment's pause, he asked, "Why do you answer last?"
Fox's answer was short and characteristically (now, anyway) gruff. "Ladies first."
This puzzled Arthur. Archer Fox Lupin had shown no sign of any other manners whatsoever since they'd found him sprawled on the ground after the semi-botched containment charms on Chernobyl. He finally gave up, and sighed. "Very well. Off to the physical examination room with you three."
The doctor- or nurse, or whatever you wanted to call her- kindly asked him to step onto the scale- he grunted, scratched at his sideburns (which hadn't been there yesterday, Allya noted from behind the two-way mirror) and moved to do so.
"No, no," the woman chided. "Shirt off. Shoes, too."
Fox growled. He hated being told what to do, but he complied. The medic gave a startled gasp- either because of the h air on his chest, the perfect muscles, or the fact that the scale read 352 lbs. he couldn't be sure and didn't really care.
He raised one eyebrow at her, about to ask if she was quite finished, when a strange scent caught in his nostrils… the faint smell of burnt wood and Polo Sport.
Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter chose that time to walk through the door- "So Vera got her memory back?" Harry was asking.
"Yeah," Ron frowned. "The minute she saw Draco."
Fox smelled loathing and overprotection in the redhead's words. "You Weasley's kid?" he asked when the doctor dismissed him and called in his fraternal twin, who looked a little overwhelmed.
Ron nodded. "You remember?" he asked hopefully, wondering if he'd ever be able to watch Allya Lupin cry.
Fox shook his head. "Nah. You just smell like him."
Ron looked even more confused. "I- what?"
"It's the red hair," Archer assured him, but before he had time to continue, his sister was rapidly approaching at six o'clock. "Do you remember?" he asked, and felt her nod a reply before she stepped between Fox and Harry to join the conversation.
"And Mary-what's-her-name remembers, too?" he asked, watching his sister's face and somehow hiding the pain of forgetting. He also wondered how Vera disguised the pain of remembering.
She nodded, and as Sierra had her physical in the room beyond, an eerie silence dropped around Fox. "I'm not going to remember, you know," he said finally, almost gently for all his gruffness. "I'm a fucking amnesiac."
What happened next was a bit of a blur- a scream erupted from the examination room next to the one they were in, and Harry, Vera, Fox and Ron ran to Sierra's aide… but she seemingly didn't need it.
Upon seeing the doctor on the floor, Vera immediately asked, "How?"
Sierra/Mary shook her head. "I- I couldn't tell you. She took off her gloves to feel my pulse better and then-" She let out a small gasp. "I can hear her… she wants to know if she's alive…"
Harry made a move to comfort his friend, but never made it there. "Stop, Harry," Vera commanded softly. "Remember the roses? I don't think it's a very good idea to be touching her skin." Still, Harry didn't move. In fact, one of his legs was off of the ground, the other only touching by the toes of his sneaker soles.
"Right," Harry said, barely moving his lips.
Vera relaxed, and suddenly he could move again.
"Well, Vera, Mar-yy," Harry said, getting a bit off-track as he saw the look on Sierra's face, "and Fox.." he swallowed hard, trying not to look at the doctor and trying not to believe that Archer didn't remember him. "It seems that you've got some explaining to do…"
Fox chuckled, but it didn't sound human. "Like what?"
"Like how Sierra sucks life energy," Ron began,
"Or how Miss Lupin froze me in mid-stride," Harry continued-
"Or how in the Hell," Vera picked up, "someone built- albeit solidly- like you manages to weigh 352 lbs. … I mean, a hundred ninety I can understand, but…"
She was interrupted by the P.A. system. "Will Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Phoenix, Marie, and Fox please report to waiting room five?"
Fox almost laugh-growled again. Fuckin' famous… we've got official looney-toons codenames and everything. I'm certifiably bonkers. He sighed. "Might as well get this over with…"
END CHAPTER ONE
No housepoints for guessing the crossover- have I told any of you which movie I saw three times coming back to Europe from Miami? I think everything's a dead giveaway… ah well, should I continue to work on it "publicly", or not waste my posting space on this? Feedback… thank you.
Another disclaimer: Um. The official looney-toons codenames belong to MOI. Everything else is J. K. R.'s or someone else's. Toodles.
