Disclaimer : I do absolutely not own Harry Potter and co. I merely borrowed them.
Warnings : AU, people out of character all over the place... And strange sentences since I'm French.
Beta : not for now, so there will be mistakes, be warned! This is a strange story, which popped in my head while I was trying to write the next chapter of Cambiare.... and didn't want to leave until I wrote it. I had more than half the chapter already written, and then... I realised I never brought Harry back from detention....
The song Jamie is mangling is "I kissed a girl" by Kate Perry, and the crystal Erik mentions is inspired from the one in "Seven of Seven", the Punch Comics manga by Imagawa Yashuiro and Kunihiro Azusa.
But Erik Duchtenbergu, the Nietzechyl, the Wilbur Island and the plethora of mini-Potters are all mine. This may or may not stay a one shot, depends on my inspiration.
Still here? On with the show!
Severus Snape was not a happy Potions Master. Albus Dumbledore had issued him a convocation to his office on this sunny summer day. And what for? Severus swore that the Headmaster did that only to annoy him. It started normally enough, with an offer of tea, that he accepted, and one of a lemon drop, that he refused.
And then it went down and down the proverbial hill. It began when Albus told him that the letter sent to Harry Potter had been sent back with a demand of explanation. And, to add insult to all this stinking pile of annoyance, the blasted Headmaster had the audacity to twinkle at him before adding that he couldn't send his Deputy headmistress, as she was already scheduled for some visits in Ireland. And that he was to go in her stead, as he had known the boy's father.
Severus wondered if his tea had been laced with some sort of compulsive draught because he didn't even had the time to properly sneer at the Headmaster before his legs carried him out of Hogwarts, a piece of parchment with Potter's address clutched in his fist.
He sighed deeply, read the address and apparated. He felt a little sick as the landscape gave a little lurch before settling in place. He frowned when he was denied entrance by a powerful ward. What was going on here? Potter was supposed to live with his muggle relatives, in a muggle neighbourhood…
He cast a tickling charm at the ward to signal his presence and settled to wait, crossing his arms on his chest and glowering darkly. He raised an eyebrow as he heard laughter coming from somewhere on the grounds.
A tall and lithe blond teenager hurried to him. Undaunted by the teacher's scowl, he stopped at the edge of the ward and yawned behind his hand, his eyes droopy. Both stared at each other in silence for a while before Severus abruptly stated the reason of his presence.
"I'm here to see Potter."
The teenager nodded, before he yawned again and pronounced the words Severus had only heard in his nightmares. "Which one?"
The teenager's chlorophyll eyes widened as he winced and muttered something about never answering the wards again while half asleep. He nodded when the shocked Potions Master enquired, "You have more than one?"
The teenager turned in the direction of the mansion and shouted "Potters! Front and centre!" He then whirled back to Severus, grabbed his wrist and tugged him through the wards.
Two smallish boys rounded around the mansion, both sporting the telltale Potter hair. One was black-haired while the other had red-hair. Both had the scar, glasses, and, as they approached, Severus noted that the black-haired one had green eyes and the red-haired one had hazel eyes. Both stopped and stared at the glowering man curiously.
Severus turned to the blond teenager and raised an eyebrow. "And why, pray tell, do you have two of them?"
The teenager smiled wanly. "My name is Erik Duchtenbergu, and those are" he pointed to the green-eyed Potter "Harry James Potter" and then to the hazel-eyed one "James Harry Potter, not very original, I know, but it works for us."
The Potions Master introduced himself curtly. "Professor Snape. I teach Potions at Hogwarts. Explain."
Erik sighed before launching into his explanations. "Harry was mistreated at his relatives', and I use this term loosely, because they did not deserve him at all. They gave a four years old a list of chores even an adult would have had difficulties doing in one day, just so they could laze around all day. So, being the powerful wizard that he is, Harry, who felt overworked and alone, wished for someone to help and love him. And the morning after, he woke with James.
I was jogging around Private drive when the oaf Dursley threw both little boys out of his house. And when I intervened, he proposed to give them to me. Naturally, I didn't trust him, and I insisted that we do things correctly. So we went to child care services, where he signed guardianship of both boys to my father."
Severus nodded, two Potters, there were TWO Potters! Seven more boys skidding to a halt around the two Potters jerked him out of his thoughts. He looked all of them from head to toe and felt dread settled in his stomach like a ball of lead. They were unmistakingly Potters. All of them an exact version of James Bloody Potter.
He turned his hottest death glare on Erik, daring him to find a good explanation. Erik cleared his throat and began to speak. "Well, see, it involved a crystal we found while redoing the dungeons of our castle in Nietzechyl… We had absolutely no idea what it was, or its uses. We were studying it one night, when a moonbeam went through the crystal and right into James' eyes. And the next morning, we got seven mini-James… Did I mention that it was the full moon? And that the crystal disappeared the day after?"
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. He suddenly realised something. "But to have seven 'mini-James', surely you had to have one already. A 'big' one."
Erik nodded and inched away from the glowering Potions Master. "Well, we had an adult one. Sort of. Wish magic can be…. Or is it because having a dead man coming back to life would disrupt the timeline? Anyway, Harry and James were in tears one evening, they were inconsolable, I suppose they were missing their parents, you understand, it was a few days after they had come to live with us. And in the morning…"
Severus snorted. "You found yourself one James Potter more."
Erik winced. "Sort of."
"I'm beginning to dread those words in your mouth." Severus retorted.
"Well, there was one major modification."
"Which would be?"
Another voice interrupted. "Well, nothing too drastic, Snapy!"
Severus slowly turned around. His eyes rounded as he found himself face to face with an indisputable female James Potter, complete with glasses, as he discovered as his eyes travelled from braided black hair to a body covered by a pale yellow sundress of Asian design. He snapped back to laughing eyes when James began to speak again. "At least I still get to be their parent. But I thank all the gods that I didn't have to birth all nine of them…" she laughed as Severus acquired a green tinge and extended her hand to shake "Jamie Potter. I was the one to design the wards with which we intercepted Harry's letter, as well as the one who redirected you to here. By the way, thank you for using a tickling charm."
Severus could only nod, he was speechless. Jamie grabbed his hand and quickly shook it before releasing it.
"Here, let me introduce you to the Seven Ones." Severus noticed that all the boys had a number magically written over their breast pocket.
"The first one is Quinn Aarao Acey Potter, he's the studious one of that lot. Always curious for information. The second one is Taesan Bryant Cearey Potter, he's pretty shy." She smiled at the boy, who was half-hidden behind a glowering boy wearing the number three on his breast pocket. "The third one, Farril Kaen Caccee Potter is our little protector. The fourth one is Aatu Donal Cullyren Potter, he inherited our pride. The fifth one you'll like, he's pretty much a Slytherin, his name is Cendryk Derryn Potter. The sixth one is Cermyt Connor Potter, you should like him too, he's pretty blunt and laconic. And the last one is Alair Kermat Teadoir Potter. This one is more of a Gryffindor, optimist and mischievous."
She looked at Severus with laughing eyes. "The numbers are charmed to appear on any clothes they own, but sometime they exchange their clothes…"
Severus didn't hear more as he fainted at Jamie's feet.
The boys crowded around Jamie and Erik, Taesan burrowing against James' side. Erik rolled his eyes and held one of his hand, palm up, in front of him. He slowly brought it up to his shoulder. The earth situated under Severus Snape slowly rose and tipped until an unconscious Snape was mostly upright, the soil moving on the sides so that Severus would not tip forward or to the sides.
"What now?" Erik groused.
Jamie grinned evilly and clapped her hands. "Song time!" she chirped.
Erik eyed her warily and shrugged before stepping back and instructing the kids to do the same. Jamie wearing that peculiar smirk never did bode well.
She took a deep breath and began, loudly but with a surprisingly good voice, to mangle the lyrics of a song she had heard in a muggle shop, right into the poor unconscious professor's ear.
This was never the way you'd planned
Not your intention
You got so brave, potion in hand,
Lost your discretion
It's not what you're used to
Just wanna try me on
You're curious for I
Caught your attention
You kissed a Potter and you liked it
The taste of my cherry shap stick
You kissed Potter just to try it……
Severus suddenly bolted upright, yelling "Enough!" He tripped on his feet as he turned to confront the laughing Jamie, barrelling into her arms, landing both of them to the floor.
"Well, I can see he tried." Erik commented wryly, waving his hand to dispel Snape's earth cocoon, before extending his hand to Severus to help him stand. Severus, who had seen how the earth had reacted to his gesture, glared at the hand but finally accepted it and rose to his feet with Erik's help.
Erik smirked at Jamie who was still on the floor and pouting. "Serves you right."
Jamie jumped nimbly on her feet. "So, Snape, why was Harry at Petunia's to start with? I clearly remember both mine and Lily's wills stating that he was to be placed anywhere but there."
Severus looked down his nose at Jamie. Perhaps she would be able to dress the great Albus Dumbledore down, it would be enjoyable to watch her try, at the very least. "The Headmaster felt it necessary to place your son with his muggles relatives, so that he could place blood wards around the house, and avoid your son getting a swelled head from his fame."
Jamie's eyes became thunderous. Her voice became chillier. "Tell me, Snape, are the prisoners in Azkaban authorised visits? I suddenly feel the need to make a detour to see a little rat before I try to send Dumbledore to join him in his cell. Who does that man thinks he is? Children protection services?"
"I doubt you would receive clearance to see Black, Potter."
"WHAT? Why would Sirius be in Azkaban? I really couldn't contact him or anybody, being dead and all, so I'm kinda out of the loop, but he surely would never do anything that would warrant being imprisoned in Azkaban. He isn't a guardian, is he?"
Severus was agitated. "Everybody knows that Black was your secret keeper, he was arrested after killing Pettigrew and thirteen muggles in an explosion. He was sent to Azkaban without a trial, but all the proofs seemed to point to him being guilty…" He stopped when Jamie growled.
Her voice became blander "Sirius was not our Secret Keeper. It was Pettigrew, we thought nobody would think it would be him. Why exactly didn't Dumbledore insist that Sirius had a trial? And Remus?"
Severus shrugged. "Who can tell with Albus Dumbledore? And at the time of the events, all known Werewolves had been sent to the Wilbur Island, so the Ministry of magic could claim the island by using soil occupation against the French ministry. Nobody would have listened to a Werewolf, anyway. And with Pettigrew dead…"
Jamie looked him in the eyes. "I'm sure Pettigrew is not dead. He's a rat animagus, he probably faked his death, made a diversion and transformed to escape Sirius. He had to…"
Severus relented "It's possible."
Jamie suddenly smirked. "Yes, Dumbledore… So, Snape, what says you we go and give him the shock of his life?"
Erik shook his head at Severus' answering smirk. "Peas in a pod…" he muttered. He looked innocently back at the twin glares he received. "We'll have to prepare, because wherever Harry, James and Jamie go, so will all of the others. Give us two days to prepare. Do you want to be our guest, or are you going back to England?" he asked Severus.
The Potions Master thought for a while before he made his mind. "I will accept your generous invitation."
Erik rolled his eyes. It must be something big, to be able to make Jamie Potter and Severus Snape work together without much complaint, he mused as he remembered the numerous stories he had heard from Jamie. He didn't want to be in Albus Dumbledore's place when an enraged Jamie Potter was unleashed on his case. But it would be fun to watch. He couldn't wait…
He turned and rounded the boys before walking with them to the mansion. Jamie smiled and followed, her head full of marvellous ideas to try and use on Albus Dumbledore. She didn't notice that Taesan was not with her.
Severus startled when the last remaining Potter, the shiest one he remembered from the introduction, looked him fleetingly in the eyes and asked him "Are you going to be our Daddy?" Before running to join Jamie who, after having finally noticed his absence, was waiting for him.
Severus shook himself before striding to join them, his mind still reeling. Potter children were bad for his health he decided.