Disclaimer: I in no way or form have any ownership over the Harry Potter series, and do not pretend to. Some dialogue in this story will be directly taken from the Harry Potter series so all credit to those portions must be given to J.K. Rowling.
Summary: Harry Potter, a boy, is known as the Girl-Who-Lived with no way to prove otherwise- all because his father just couldn't resist playing the ultimate Halloween joke on Lily hours before Voldemort attacked. Fate is a cruel thing.
Warnings: Heterosexuality and homosexuality (All depends how you look at Harry's, erm, situation haha); a darker Harry; perhaps one too many curse words later on in the story; and every other canon warning there might be is likewise included. There will be more kissing than in canon though, because hey, they're bloody teenagers people! They kiss- a lot. It's sort of the teenager thing.
Rating: T or PG-13. They're roughly the same.
Notes: So here's the thing with this little story of mine: I really like using different and not overly used POVs while writing. I just think that looking at a story from a character's perspective that's not necessarily the protagonist gives more depth and insight to the writing, or in some cases when I want to surprise you readers, less. But this will mainly only be for the first few chapters when Harry is too young to get a decent POV from.
My other main love in writing is humor. So if I fail at this, please let me know! I mean, there will of course be parts that are serious, but overall I'd rather put a smile to people's faces. But if you laugh even once I claim a review at least saying "lol", and I'm pretty sure you'll laugh several times :) So please continue on and giggle!
A Trick with a Terrible Treat
Written by Shadow Hunt
Inspired by late night talks with Darkowand
Prologue - Sirius's POV
It was suppose to be a joke to lighten the mood around the house, that was all. It was a small joke when James cast the spell, just to make Lily flip her lid so he and I could get a few good laughs over it, but the joke sort of blew out of proportion. Okay, so it really blew out of proportion. So much so that it has fooled the entire world, muggles and wizards alike- and that's no exaggeration ladies and gents, no matter how much I wish it was. Then again, it's probably the only thing that's kept me sanely laughing all these years in Azkaban so maybe I should be thankful for it.
But before I go into any details, maybe I should start from the very beginning just so it can be seen that I'm perfectly innocent of all charges that might be thought to be thrown upon my unholy self. Then again, when has anyone cared whether or not I'm innocent? I'm Black by name, so apparently I must be black by nature. Off with my black head they say!
Just to state a fact though, my head is rather handsome so I don't see why people don't seem to want it on my equally handsome body. Silly people with their silly prejudices blinding them... Off with their head I say!
I seem to have digressed...
James and I were sitting in his living room with his son Harry, sweet ickle Harry, in between us crawling around like any normal baby boy would. It was Halloween morning, our favorite time of the year next to April Fools day, but with the war going on and the Potters being under the Fidelius charm because of said war, we couldn't do anything but enchant Harry's baby toys to attack each other. Though we did that all the time, so our boredom was obviously at it's peek. I mean we were the Marauders for Merlin's sake! We pranked the living snot out of Hogwarts since year one, and each and every Halloween, without fail, we would cast a rain of terror like none other upon the students! Even in the few years we had been out of Hogwarts my muggle neighbors and a select many others were scared shitless from our brilliant creations! (Frankenstein's monster-in-law? Yeah, our idea.) With that logic in our minds, James and I had decided that there was no way Voldemort could ruin our holiday just like he ruined our year. We deserved at least one day of fun!
Only problem is that our one day of fun has turned into ten years of fun. But Fate is just funny like that.
So there we were, watching my enchanted army men fight off his Lego soldiers (all of whom with that pathetic line-smile) when it hit me. It was the perfect prank to pull on Lily, since it would come from left field and hit her right in the heart. It'd scare her out of her knickers too, and that's what Halloween is all about! The only problem was distracting Lily long enough not to notice the spell we'd have to put on Harry, which was fairly strong since it was a permanent transillusionment charm that could only be broken by the caster and the only one that can't see it is the subject of said charm. We had used this charm on a poor Ravenclaw bloke our third year in Hogwarts when he told us we didn't know half of the spells he knew. Well, he might have been right, but at least the few we did know he couldn't do shite about.
Now Lily was hard at work on cooking a Halloween feast for the four of us in the kitchen, completely oblivious to our mischievous plans to enact M.A.D: Mission of Absolute Distraction. By enlarging our army's heights to reach our knees and sending them off to the kitchen to do battle with the pots and pans we easily managed to complete our mission with complete success. It was a proud moment for the both of us. We heard her scream James's name in a way that would be all right in bed I reasoned and cast a few spells at our armies. As she was about to cast her third James turned to Harry and cast our own spell on the unsuspecting boy.
Harry had blinked a few times quite cutely when the spell hit him before continuing on his merry way towards his enchanted toy box that would automatically give him whatever toy he wanted. That way, we didn't have to keep guessing until he stopped crying. That little bugger was as picky as my mum, but at least he didn't hate all things abnormal. Well if he did we didn't know it, and I really hope he hasn't started hating the weird and crazy since he's been living with Lily's sister's family, because I clearly remember Lily complaining about them being like that on quite a few occasions before her death. I also really hope that Dumbledore has moved Harry somewhere else since I last heard from that he was living with those rotten muggles, but somehow I find myself highly doubting that.
After Lily got our armies back to their original states, she stomped into the living room to give us a rather nasty lecture on proper living room warfare and how it should never enter neutral territory- a.k.a. The Kitchen. Luckily James was smart enough to silently cast a spell to make the magic train Harry was holding explode in light and sparks so Lily would stop her yelling. It also gave a possible reason behind what she would soon find.
Instantly Lily rushed over to the crying-kid-who-peed-his-pants-in-fright. After she had calmed Harry down some, she put him on the changing table and took off his diaper to replace it when…
"JAMES! SIRIUS!" Lily had yelled, but this time I think she more resembled a banshee then anything else, which was obviously why my fellow Marauder and I covered our ears before remembering we were suppose to be concerned at that tone. James and I rushed over to her side in fake but very well acted worry, looking down at their son that should have a little baby wee-wee sticking out between his chubby legs, not a vagina. But a vagina he had and Lily flipped the lid we knew she would! She also fainted, an added bonus.
After that I don't know what happened at the Potter house exactly because I had left James to take care of a passed out Lily on his own to do some shopping. That was my excuse at least. I personally just didn't want to be there when the red head woke up and started throwing a hissy fit when she figured out that we were the culprits of her Halloween scare. Unfortunately, she never did find out since she would have forced James to change Harry back the instant he told her, and considering that Harry is now considered to be the Girl-Who-Lived, I know the spell was never taken off.
But why oh why would James let such a joke carry on for the next ten years you ask? Simple. Because hours later they were murdered by the feared Lord Voldemort, not giving him a chance to take off the transillusionment charm so his son could be seen as a son.
Like I said, Fate is funny like that.
Now there are two other things I should probably explain since I bet you're wondering why neither Dumbledore nor I told anyone that Harry is biologically a boy, and technically still is just that nobody but himself can see that. My case is rather simple and stupid, being that I had run without thinking like I so often do as soon as heard my best mate and his wife were murdered. That had lead me to tracking and fighting their Secret-Keeper, Death Eater Peter Pettigrew. Who, I would like to add, no one knew was their Secret-Keeper or even that he was a Death Eater and instead thought both things were me due to a not so genius idea to flip-flop the two of us. I would have been the obvious choice to hide the Potter's location, so obviously we had to pick the not so obvious person. It was one of the smartest decisions we had ever made, and yet the dumbest.
To cut a long story short, I got blamed for the murders of twelve muggles and Peter after said fight. Actually though, it was Peter's fault and his nifty and diabolical escape plan. Because yes, he's not dead, just without a pinky. I also didn't get a trial to tell anyone any of this or of Harry's predicament, so you can see how I'm clearly off the hook for this little gender bender trick on the world. I blame the Black family name for my luck.
Dumbledore on the other hand is a right fool. He honestly thought that the rebounded killing curse that Voldemort had cast on Harry had somehow transfigured his body into that of a girl's. Since no one else in history had survived the curse, they just put it down as a side affect of surviving it (though this is knowledge only shared by a select few). The old man had even said that it was Voldemort's power that stopped them from being able to change Harry back. And so, with that theory firmly placed in mind, Dumbledore released to the world that Harley Lily Potter, the once unannounced twin (to keep her safe was the excuse for not telling people before) of the now allegedly dead Harry James Potter, was the baby that survived the Killing curse and killed the Dark Lord.
So now you know of James's final Halloween joke on the world, one where Harley Lily Potter (horrible name if you ask me) is really Harry James Potter and the only one who can actually see he's a boy is himself. Poor thing must be terribly confused. Probably doesn't help any that Lily's sister always wanted a girl.
But you know, it would have been one hell of a brilliant trick if it weren't for the rather nasty treats that came along with it
