Chapter 1: Battleship Butterfly
AN: If I owned Harry Potter it would be my name y'all would have to disclaim to. But I don't so that magical disclaiming name is JKR, and she owns it with pride . . . harry potter that is.
Harry Potter sat in his bedroom looking out at Privet Drive. The seventeen-year-old had become so bored waiting for Ron and Hermione to once again rescue him and take him away, this time, for good, that he had begun to talk to a ladybug that he discovered sitting on the windowsill. Unfortunately, after two hours the ladybug died and now Harry was speaking to, well, the dead.
It had only been two months since the death of Dumbledore. Although sad, Harry figured that since Dumbledore always believed that death was the next great adventure, he was at peace. It still didn't change the fact that Harry had to now find the Horcruxes all by himself without the guidance of his mentor.
"So, no I'm on my own . . . technically. I really have been taking care of myself since I could walk. The Dursleys are complete brutes," Harry told the ladybug. "It's a good thing I'm leaving to stay with my godfather, Sirius before Dudley leaves for college. I'm not sure what medieval torture devices they would use on me."
At that moment, Ron and Hermione apparated into Harry's room. They stared at their friend with concerned looks. They weren't sure who exactly he was talking to.
"Oi, mate, who are you talking to?" Ron asked.
Harry whirled around. Upon seeing his best friends, a broad grin graced his handsome features. Thanks to quidditch, intense yard labor inflicted upon by Petunia, and receiving a blessing from the beautiful side of the gene pool, Harry was ready to embrace his inner model with a quick show off of Blue Steel.
"Hey! Wow, the time . . . uh, yeah this is a ladybug," Harry said looking down at the bug whose legs were curled to its body.
"Harry, that bug looks dead," Hermione said sensitively.
"Yeah, I guess it died while I was talking to it."
"Why were you talking to a–," Ron trailed off when his eyes spied a familiar, colorful box of candy. "Jelly Beans!"
"Where?" Harry, Ron, and Hermione all dove for the box. Upon touching the box of beans, the three felt a tug behind their navel and realized that there were no beans in the box. It was a portkey.
The room was still and empty when Petunia poked her head in to make sure her nephew was still bored. She smelled fun and had to make sure it was just her. When she saw that there wasn't a sign of life on the room, she figured that Harry had taken off with his freak show again. Even the ruddy bird was gone!
"Vernon, he's gone!" Petunia called to her husband. She closed the door and practically danced down the stairs.
Meanwhile, somewhere off the coast of South America, Harry Ron and Hermione landed with a hard thud. They untangled themselves and stood up to look around their surroundings.
"Where are we?" Ron asked.
"It looks like we're off the coast of Venezuela," Harry mused.
Hermione looked over at him, "Are you serious? How do you know that?"
Harry rubbed the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly, "I studied maps and things like that when I was bored during the summer in the past. I guess I learned something while doing nothing."
"Well, we need to find a city of some sort so we can contact the order," Hermione declared. Ron and Harry, nodded and started walking, hopefully in the direction of civilization.
They had only gone a little way before the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood on end.
"Hey guys, I have a bad feeling about where we're going," he said.
"I have the same feeling too," Hermione agreed.
"I'm hungry," Ron said.
"You're always hungry, Ron," Hermione rolled her eyes. "I think we should turn back."
"I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet," Harry said wistfully. He was obviously deep in thought. "I think we should keep going, but at the sign of trouble, split faster than you can say ."
Judging by the tone Harry used, Hermione figured there was no changing his mind and just shrugged her shoulders and fell silent. She occasionally piped up about her growing sense of danger, and yet, she was out ruled two to one.
It wasn't until the three rounded a corner, coming face to face with a group of Death Eaters did Harry and Ron think that they should listen to Hermione's instincts more.
"Ha! You fell into our trap," one of the Death Eaters said. He sounded like Macnair.
"Supercali-supercalifr-supoer," Hermione stammered. "Why haven't we left yet!"
"Because you didn't say ," Harry explained.
"Wait, what did you say? Supercalf something or another?" Macnair asked confused.
"It wasn't supercalf, Macnair," a Death Eater sounding like Bellatrix scolded. "He specifically said 'super cow, a fragile biscuit, expert alley, donuts."
"What the Hell's an expert alley?" a voice that was none other than Severus Snape.
The Death Eaters all began to argue about the long, complex, and, for anyone who knew their Mary Poppins, childish word. Seeing their opportunity to run away, the trio back tracked to where the portkey took them and rode the jelly bean box back to Number Four Privet Drive.
"Hm, I'll have to remember that little word the next time I face Voldemort. He might be thrown off by it as well," Harry said happily.
"Yeah, that was brilliant, mate," Ron agreed. "Now can we get going? I'm really hungry."
"Ron, when aren't you hungry?" Hermione shot him a look.
Ron smiled and gathered Hedwig's cage. Harry was already packed. He was so excited about leaving, he packed two days early. Harry walked around his room for six years to make sure he had absolutely everything he needed, even though he'd done that several times already. He wanted to make sure that when he did leave, there was nothing to make him go back.
"I have everything,¡ VAMANOS!" Harry exclaimed, exercising the little Spanish he picked up while watching telanovelas.
Once more, and for the last time (hopefully) the three left Privet Drive, landing on the step of Number 12 Grimuald Place. They entered the house that was filled to the brim with Order activity.
"There must have been a meeting recently," Ron commented.
"Yeah," Harry agreed. He half heard what Ron had said for the corner of his eye caught a flash of a fiery wave. Said wave could only belong to one person: Ginny. Following the direction of the sighting of his girlfriend, Harry drifted up the stairs. He heard his friends say something to them, but he didn't heed it. His mind was elsewhere.
He slowly poked the door open and slipped inside the drawing room. Ginny was sitting on one of the chairs with a drawing pad in her hand. She had recently taken up painting and drawing. Much to everyone's surprise, she was quite good.
"I go through guys like money flying out the hand. They try to change me but they realize they can't," Ginny sang to herself. However good at art she may be, singing wasn't her thing, but Harry decided to play up whatever it was she was singing.
"So, what you're saying is that I'm just the flavor of the week?"
Ginny looked up, her cheeks flashed red with embarrassment, "no, you're not! It's just this song I heard. I don't even like it! I just heard it and it got stuck in my head! I swear."
"I was just messing with you, Gin," Harry laughed. He kissed her lightly. "What have you been up to?"
"The same thing I've been doing all summer," Ginny replied.
"Which would be?" Harry wrapped his arms around the ginger.
"Help Fluer keep her hormones in check and draw."
"That sounds fun. I've been stuck in a room all summer, wondering when my Prince Charming was going to come and take me away on his noble steed," Harry said dreamily. For some reason, the image of a boy with blonde hair and gray eyes on a majestic white stallion popped into his head.
"I will follow you to the midst of Avalon," Harry told the image.
"What?" Ginny asked, who had been curling up under Harry's arm.
"Nevermind," Harry said, shaking the image out of his head. He had been left alone for too long. "¡Vamanos a la planta baja!"
"You've been watching those muggle things in Spanish again haven't you?" Ginny sighed.
Harry merely smiled and lead her downstairs. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Harry tripped over his trunk. He had forgotten that he had abandoned it there in his pursuit of Ginny. He rolled over onto his back, groaning. "Stupid trunk."
"Well, maybe you shouldn't leave it in the hall," Sirius said, coming to greet his godson.
"You sound like my mother...I think," Harry said. A bitter silence fell. During that silence, Harry thought about what it was like to have parents, as he often did. Sirius thought about how much he wanted to avenge his best friend by wringing every ounce of life out of Peter Pettigrew. Ginny stared at Harry, wondering if he thought that they were practically siblings since her mum had pretty much adopted him.
"It's not incest!" she cried and ran out of the room.
"What's on her mind?" Harry asked himself, watching her run away. He noted that she must have been running over the summer. She looked very fit.
"Here, let me help you," Sirius picked Harry off of the floor. Harry dusted himself off and, with a flick of the wrist, sent his trunk up to the room he shared with Ron.
"All this falling has made me hungry," Harry said to no one in particular. Following Sirius, the two went into the kitchen where Mrs. Weasley was making lunch.
"What would you like Harry dear?" She asked after crushing all his bones in a hug.
"A sandwich would be nice, Mrs. Weasley," Harry gasped. She beamed at him and busied herself with making Harry's request.
Halfway through eating his sandwich, Harry, by the missing warm and fuzzy feeling deep within his soul, noticed that his sandwich was missing cholesterol and Ginny was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Ginny?"
"I think she ran outside," Ron said, taking a sip of lemonade.
Harry decided to wander outside to see what Ginny was up to. He hoped he wasn't coming off as clingy. Harry knew that he was going off to find Horcruxes and wanted to spend as much time with Ginny as possible.
He found her by a small pond, playing with toy boats. He wasn't sure where the boats came from, but a brilliant idea just popped into his head. Taking a bite of lunch for confidence, Harry walked up behind the girl.
"Hey Ginny, want to play Battleship?"
Ginny jumped, landing in the water. "Harry sodding Potter! You got my hair wet! And everything else for that matter."
"I'm sorry, but not really. I wanted to play battleship and the only way to put you in a competitive mood was to piss you off," Harry explained.
"Battleship huh?" Ginny mused, feeling, much to her dislike at Harry being right, her competitive side take over. "How do you play?"
Harry explained the rules briefly and the best he could without confusing Ginny. After she had become impatient with Harry explaining rules, the two set up the toy boats on opposite sides of the pond. Harry had green boats, respectively, and Ginny had scarlet ones. Using their wands (since the Ministry oddly didn't care if underage witches and wizards used magic outside school), they started blasting each other's boats out of the water.
After Harry lost his baby ship, he decided to up the competition. "Hey, Ginny, what's say we make this more interesting with a bet?"
"The usual?"
"Of course, would I bet anything else?"
"You're on."
Harry smirked to himself. "This is going to be precious! I will defiantly use this as possible blackmail," Harry muttered to himself as he made a move on his secret weapon: a yellow submarine that ran on the power of being yellow. He figured it was his last chance at winning since he only had one ship left. His excitement and anticipation grew as he saw the sub move toward Ginny's two ships that she had left. Just as he saw the cannon on the sub getting ready to fire, there was a splash of pink the flooded the water surrounding the sub.
At first, Harry thought it was blood, but when the water cleared up, he saw his submarine meeting the dark lagoon of Davy Jones' Locker, stalk pink.
"You killed my yellow sub!" Harry exclaimed, baffled as to how his submarine could fail him. He needed to make that ship not run on yellow power. It should run of red power. Red is a harder color to change than yellow.
"That's not all I'm killing," Ginny said evilly. Harry, horrified, saw Ginny's big boatie launch three torpedoes at his big boatie. The boat sunk down not far behind the submarine.
Hanging his head in defeat as well as shame for losing to a newbie, Harry made his way back across the pond. His fellow teammates on the "I heart Battleship" club he joined over the summer, once again, due to lack of human contact by his family, would be disappointed in him.
"Guess you lost," Ginny mocked, feigning sympathy. She held something behind her back. Harry only knew too well what it was. "Looks like you lost, sweetie," sarcasm dripped from every syllable.
Harry reached behind Ginny's back and grabbed the basket that he knew was there, waiting for him. It was bright and stood for everything against manhood. The usual. He had to stop betting the usual.
"Don't forget your wings, butterfly!" Ginny was now in a giggling mess as she tried to strap on the glittery contraptions of death. "Get hopping."
"We need a new usual to bet on," Harry said before going back inside and becoming the laughing stock of the house. Taking a deep breath, Harry closed this eyes and began to skip.
"I'm a pretty butterfly," Harry chanted as he threw the flower petals that were in the basket, into the air.
"C'mon Harry, put some life into it," Ginny squealed with delight. Harry ignored her. Their bet may have been that the loser has to skip around the house saying "I'm a pretty butterfly" while throwing flower petals, but it was not agreed that there had to be soul in the chanting.
Harry's reign of beautifying the house was cut short by Sirius, who stopped Harry on the third floor landing. He couldn't stand to see his best friend's son reduce his pride for a girl. Not even James went to such lengths to get Lily. In Sirius' opinion, that was what made Lily cave.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
"I lost a bet with Ginny and we bet the usual," Harry muttered with lack of dignity.
"THIS IS THE USUAL?" Sirius exclaimed, pointing out the glitter wings attached to Harry's back. Harry smiled guiltily. Sirius looked up at the ceiling, "why James? Why does he have to be like you in almost every aspect?"
In a rush of excitement at the mention of his father, Harry looked up at the ceiling, "hi dad!"
Sirius dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his temples. Harry, who was still looking up at the ceiling, remembered that he wouldn't see his father until he fetched the resurrection stone out of the ring that demolished Dumledore's hand.
"Harry," Sirius finally said after a few minutes of awkward silence.
"Yes?"
"Go take off that outfit."
Harry, without further invitation, ran up to his and Ron's room to change.
AN: please review! oh, and if you thought chapter one was boring stick around for chapter 2 when we are introduced to Kevin. Oh and try to guess the answer to this riddle, which will be showing up periodically throughout the story: what is small and sits dangerously in a tree? The answer will be revealed at the end of the story (chapter 15). Happy guessing!