Author's Notes: Kerichi's alter-ego for Sirius is Black Dog the pirate in her Sirius/Rosmerta fic, Semi Charmed Life. This Black Dog pales in comparison. Perhaps I should've called him Faded Black Dog. At any rate, happy birthday K!
Disclaimer: No disrespect intended to JKR or anyone affiliated with Batman or Pirates of the Caribbean. I am not one of those people, so feel free to disrespect me all you want. :p
Avast!
"Where'd that monkey come from?" Fred Weasley asked his twin, George.
"Dunno," his brother replied. "Off your back?"
The monkey screeched and waved a gun, holding out two gold medallions on neck chains.
"Mate, I think he means business," Fred muttered, watching the monkey point the gun meaningfully at the medallions then gesture towards their throats.
George slowly accepted the pendants, handing one to his brother while he hung the other around his own neck. "Yeah," he said. "Monkey business."
They watched the simian scamper out the door before examining their new neckwear.
ooOO00OOoo
An hour or so later, Auror Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, her werewolf husband, also draped medallions over their heads at monkey gunpoint.
"From Black Dog the pirate, captain of the Black Pearl," Remus read the inscription scratched on the back.
They shared a puzzled look and shrugged.
ooOO00OOoo
The new jewelry was a hot topic at the next meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. The Order members discussed possible uses for shiny gold pendants in the fight against the evil Voldemort and his band of scary men, the Death Eaters.
"Perhaps they're from Harry Potter?" Ted Tonks, Nymphadora's father, suggested. "Perhaps he's given up his quest and has run off to be a pirate. Nice of him to send us a bit of gold. Probably an apology for nearly hexing 'Dromeda after mucking up our pond."
Andromeda Tonks smacked her wand across the back of her husband's head. "I am not a camel. If you call me Dromeda, Dromedary, Drommy or any other atrocious nickname that sounds vaguely camel-related one more time, I shall retrieve Walburga's troll leg and shove it up your--"
"The umbrella stand leg?" their daughter interrupted. "You can't get that. It's still at Grimmauld Place."
"No," Andromeda said darkly. "Her REAL leg."
Ted grinned. "I love it when your Black streak shows."
"Oh, I'll show you my Black streak," Andromeda growled.
"Let's back to Harry," Nymphadora, who preferred to be called Tonks, said.
"Harry Potter is the greatest wizard alive ever," Dobby the house-elf shrilled, clutching his medallion, which he'd tied around his waist like a belt.
Remus looked pensive. "I don't think Harry would run off to be a pirate."
"Why not?" Lee Jordan, one of the twins' friends, asked. "He's got Ron to be his first mate and Hermione can be the wench."
"I don't think he knows how to sail, for one thing."
Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt held his necklace up to the light. "Are we sure these aren't from the Death Eaters? Perhaps they're cursed. I sense very strong magic in these."
Arthur scoffed. "Everyone knows monkeys don't distribute cursed necklaces. Besides, they're gold. What Death Eater would give gold to the Order?"
"Let's make them our official good luck emblem!" someone called from the back.
"And we can change our motto," George said, "to 'All for one and one for all!'"
Fred looked scandalized. "I thought we agreed it should be, 'Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!'"
"Everyone in favour of wearing these medallions till the end of the war?" Professor Trelawney called out, waving a conjured gavel that reeked of cooking sherry.
"Aye!"
"Any opposed?"
"Nay!" sneered a voice from the corner. "And you're not Leader of the Order, so you can't call for a vote."
Grumbles of dissent arose: "Who said that?" "Walk the plank!" "It be Davy Jones' locker fer yeh!"
The gavel struck the wall. "Motion carries!"
"Point of order," Kreacher's churlish house-elf voice grumbled from the kitchen. "No proper motion. Ignoring rules of parley."
ooOO00OOoo
"Why is Dobby underground?" the little elf wondered. "Dobby likes tight, dark spaces, but Dobby is tired of dirt." He clutched at his precious medallion with one hand, and with a snap of his bony fingers, he Apparated back to Hogwarts for a shower.
Toweling himself off afterwards, he discovered a rapidly healing scar on his chest and remembered what had transpired at Malfoy Manor. "Harry Potter must have buried Dobby in hallowed earth, knowing Dobby needed rest to heal. Harry Potter is the greatest wizard ever! Dobby must get to work on some chest armour, in case Harry Potter calls for him again. Come, Trevor."
The large toad hopped obediently beside him down the hallway, tonguing up beetles as they dropped out of Dobby's crevices.
ooOO00OOoo
Over the next few months, Order members spotted the gun-toting monkey several times. Mostly, he seemed to be checking to see that they all wore their medallions, but he spent an inordinate amount of time peering down the ladies' robe fronts.
When a monkey packing heat indicates it's time for a cleavage check, it seems the wisest course of action to simply let him. Or so proclaimed Professor Minerva McGonagall, who generally "forgot" to wear hers on days the monkey showed up. The monkey would scream and tear at his hair before dragging her into her office. Usually there was a fair amount of shrieking and caterwauling, followed by slapping—or perhaps spanking—noises. McGonagall always emerged from her office wearing her amulet, and the monkey followed, looking like a cat had swallowed his Canary Cream.
ooOO00OOoo
Several radio broadcasts, a birth and many monkey checks later, Order members received urgent Patronus messages and flew to fight evil at Hogwarts as if summoned by the Bat Signal.
When Snape-in-a-cape took a flying leap through a wall, many expressed regret that they hadn't got to push him. Someone hit his retreating scalp with a shampoo charm and then refused to follow with creme rinse.
What seemed like hours later, the battle was finally over. In the aftermath, the somber task of collecting the dead and wounded was well underway, and families were being contacted. Auntie Muriel arrived and sobbed over Fred's body, doing more stroking and patting than was strictly acceptable.
"What the hell?" Fred suddenly sat up, throwing off the sheet as Auntie Muriel moved in to kiss him good-bye again. His siblings gasped; his aunt's eyes rolled up in her head as she dropped to the floor.
George poked his shoulder. "You were dead," he said accusingly.
"No shit?"
Their sister, Ginny, narrowed her eyes at them and darted over to Remus and Tonks' bodies. She tugged off the sheets as their eyes fluttered open.
"Ha! Ha HA!" A booming laugh from the doorway turned heads.
"Sirius?" Remus gasped, launching himself off the camp cot towards his old friend. "But…you're dead!"
Sirius gave a raucous guffaw. "I've been dead many times. It's very liberating. I think of it as therapy. And I'm Black Dog the Pirate now."
The monkey raced to leap on his shoulder and shoved at a huge tropical bird perched there. Two other presumed dead former Order members, Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones, trailed behind Sirius, scantily attired in their pirate wench outfits.
"I see you've all been wearing your medallions!" Sirius grinned. "Good crew!"
"Wait..." Tonks' forehead furrowed. "So we aren't dead?"
"As long as you're wearing the medallion, you bear the curse of the Black Pearl and you cannot die."
Remus grinned and gave Sirius a manly hug. "Ah, what's another curse?" he said, then nodded politely at the women. "Madam Bones, Miss Vance."
"Actually, they have pirate names now," Sirius said. A moonbeam broke through the clouds in the enchanted ceiling, illuminating Amelia and changing her to her skeletal state.
"I'm just Bones now," she grinned.
Remus blinked. "I see." He looked at Emmeline.
"I've changed my name to Vancelot." She held up several long spear-like weapons.
Remus edged away from her even as she tucked the spears away.
"Sirius suggested Vanceypants, but I think I'll use that when I open Pirate Panties Parlor, now that the war is over."
"The war!" Remus gasped. "What happened? Where's Harry?"
"We won, and Harry's in Dumbledore's office, according to the Map," Sirius answered offhandedly, using his wand to unmask the various Death Eaters on the floor and rifle through their pockets.
"So we really can't die?" George clarified, poking at Fred with his wand.
To demonstrate, Sirius shot the monkey off his shoulder and continued his voyage of discovery through the Death Eaters' belongings. The monkey shook himself, shrieked and smacked Sirius on the ear. Sirius shot him again before turning back to the twins.
"The first time it takes awhile to come out of it, but after half a dozen or so deadly injuries, you don't even feel it anymore," Sirius said, examining and pocketing a Gringotts key and a dog biscuit.
"Excellent!" Fred grinned. "I always wanted to try one of these." He grabbed the gun and shot George point-blank.
ooOO00OOoo
Hours later, when Harry, Ron and Hermione finally returned to the Great Hall, Fred and George were happily exercising their itchy trigger fingers, Tonks was talking to what appeared to be a skeleton dog in a shaft of moonlight, and Bellatrix—one of the few that still seemed to be dead—dangled from a set of stockades, a bright red 'B' stamped on her chest where Molly's curse had hit her.
Harry stood, dumbfounded, as Ted Tonks regaled Dobby with the story of how he'd awakened during his own funeral and been forced to play along until the casket was closed and he could Disillusion himself and Apparate out. "I was sorely tempted to sit up and say, 'April Fools! Gotcha!' but I thought Drom--Andromeda might kill me really dead if I did that."
Ron pushed past and made his way to Fred's side, Hermione trailing behind him. Harry stood stock-still, staring at the huge black dog that had materialized when a shifting cloud obscured the moon. He didn't blink even when the dog shape shifted again, standing up on two legs.
"Harry!" Sirius called out to him, jogging over. "Our man of the hour! The snakes...the bodies...you give it all such a glow! I don't know if it's art, but I like it."
They turned at a swishy cloak noise and watched Snape skulk in, tugging a chain away from his neck where it chafed a partly healed snakebite injury. Mad-Eye Moody stumped in behind him, wearing an eye-patch and peg-leg, bellowing, "Where's the scum that stole my eye? I've been looking for it for months." Hedwig perched on his shoulder, flickering to skeleton form and back as Moody clomped along under the enchanted moonlit ceiling.
Observing the melee with delight etched in every line of his face, Remus turned to smile at Tonks. "Ever danced with a werewolf skeleton in the pale moonlight?"