Disclaimer: I don't own any form of wizardry.
A/N: Yay, the second chapter! And less than a week after the first one! …I'm not one of those quick-updating people, as a rule. Enjoy while you can.
AnyOtherName: Thanks! Yes, reconciliation between the universes is a problem…not to mention between personalities. As we shall see…
Fireblade K'Chona: Unfortunately, Harry totally in character is a bit much to hope for with me. I did think the anger problem was in character, though…
viper676: Thanks! I know I've read some of your stuff, but I don't think I ever reviewed any. I will, though, I promise!
Venus Goddess Sailor Magna U: Yes, the blinking cursor in the first chapter is always kind of mocking, isn't it? But I think it's gotten better…now it's just mildly sarcastic, not outright mocking…
Jubills543: Yep, asking for reviews is always a dangerous business. Update your story too, ok?
mornstar: grin I like the screams of excitement. That makes me happy as a writer. Hope you like it.
Erin: Thanks! Sometimes I have trouble coming up with titles, but this one was really pretty obvious…
Unwelcome Guests
"Look," said Harry, "I am really, really, really sorry and I promise it will never happen again. Unless you call me a nut again," he added.
Kit glared at him. His brain was still busy trying to process the fact that a character straight out of a fantasy bestseller had shown up on his doorstep half an hour before. It was much too late at night to expect his brain to work properly. It didn't help that Nita had now had three cups of coffee and was as irritatingly energetic as ever. Put a hex on her and see how she feels, Kit thought grumpily.
Perhaps sensing his thought, Nita glanced over at him. "How's your headache, Kit?" she asked sympathetically. The sympathy was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she distinctly appeared to be trying not to snicker. "Do you need more ice?"
"No," Kit muttered, slumping down in his chair. He did, but he refused to give in to his splitting headache. He had already made enough of a fool of himself for one night. "I'm fine."
His father sighed. "I'm not sure I'm understanding this," he said. "So you really are…"
"Harry Potter, yes," Harry said, rolling his eyes a little. "Want to see the scar?"
"No, no, that's fine," Mr. Rodriguez said quickly. "It just seems so…unreal." He shook his head and tried to suppress a yawn. Kit's family was usually in bed by eleven at latest, and the lateness of the hour wasn't improving anyone's mood.
Kit, staring intently at Harry, saw him glance down at something in his lap. "What's that?" he asked, a little more sharply than he meant to.
Harry looked up. "What? Oh, this…" He placed a letter on the table. "From the Ministry of Magic."
"Been expelled for good this time?" Kit asked nastily. "Temper doesn't pay, does it?" Nita kicked him under the table, hard. "Ow!" he said loudly, not in the mood to be a good boy and shut up.
Harry turned a little red. "None of your business," he snapped. "I mean," he added in an obvious effort to be polite, "I'd rather not discuss it."
Kit smirked. "Not going back to hoggy warty Hogwarts?" Nita kicked him in the other shin.
"What Kit means is, is there anything we can do to help?" she asked soothingly, putting a comforting hand on Harry's arm. Kit looked away and pretended not to notice the intense jealousy that filled him. Nita was practically ignoring him! Was this any way to treat her best friend?
He leaned back in his chair, deliberately casual and unconcerned. "I think we ought to call Tom and Carl first before we do anything to help," he said authoritatively. "They'll want to know about this for sure."
"Hmm, yes," Nita agreed reluctantly. "Why don't you go ahead and call, Kit?" She made shooing motions toward the phone before turning back to Harry. "You haven't really told us, Harry, how did you manage to wind up here in the first place?" Kit gave Harry a venomous look and headed for the phone.
Tom didn't react quite as Kit had hoped. Actually, he had rather hoped that Tom would be incredibly upset and declare Harry Potter a threat to the very structure of space-time itself or something equally drastic. Instead, Tom said, "Huhm…? Kit, it's too late at night for this kind of thing…"
"I know that!" said Kit, annoyed. "I didn't ask for this!"
There was a short silence on the other end. Then: "You're not kidding, are you." It was not a question.
"Nope," Kit said with a small measure of satisfaction. If he had to be miserable, he was darn well going to make sure to ruin everyone else's night too. And, of course, it was his duty to report this sort of thing to the nearest Seniors…but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it. Misery loves company.
Tom sighed heavily. "Lemme talk to Carl first," he said after a moment. "We'll be over as soon as we have some idea what we're doing." Kit snorted and hung up without bothering to say goodbye.
At the kitchen table, Nita was still quizzing Harry about his little Portkey fiasco. "So you grabbed the wrong beer can?" she asked skeptically.
"Mmm-hmm," Harry said indistinctly through a mouthful of chocolate-chip cookie. He swallowed. "Yeah, I wasn't looking and grabbed the wrong brand. And then—" He shrugged. "Here I am…"
"Wait," Kit interrupted. "Any more of those cookies?" Nita and Pop knew he loved cookies. Surely they had saved him some…
His traitorous father and friend exchanged guilty looks. "Actually," Nita admitted, "there were only a few. And Harry was hungry, so…" She shrugged, a little less apologetically than Kit would have liked.
"Sorry," Harry said insincerely, scarfing down the last of the cookies. "I could eat a horse." He looked around vaguely as if hoping more might appear out of thin air, but there were no more to be found. "Excellent," he said, licking his fingers.
This means war, Kit thought grimly. He had invaded his house. He had stolen his friend. He had eaten his cookies.
He had to go.
Unfortunately, Tom and Carl didn't seem to understand the urgency of this when they showed up. They, like Nita, seemed much more interested in questioning Harry than in meeting Kit's emotional needs. Kit was reduced to occasionally moaning loudly and clutching his head, gaining him ten seconds of concerned attention before everyone was again focused on the famous Harry Potter.
"This Deputy Headmistress," Carl was saying, "do you know how we can get in contact with her?" Tom nodded in agreement.
Harry shrugged helplessly. "Do you have an owl?"
The two Seniors looked at each other. "Last time I checked, no," Tom said dryly. "Noticed any around lately?" Carl hadn't either.
"We could do a transit," Carl said dubiously, "if you have coordinates." Kit noted with contempt that Harry obviously didn't have the slightest idea how to give proper coordinates. Instead, he scrawled some vague directions on the back of the Ministry envelope and handed them to Tom.
Tom looked them over. He blinked once. "Oookay," he said. "We'll see what we can do." Bidding everyone good night, he and Carl went into the backyard. Kit strained his ears for the pop of displaced air, but they were too far away for it to be heard over the noises inside the house.
Harry was now explaining some of the finer points of Quidditch to Nita, who was hanging on his every word. Kit didn't like the look in her eyes. Not at all.
"—and then he feinted—" Harry said excitedly, demonstrating with hand gestures. "—and I dived—like this—and the other Beater came up behind and—" He made a rather confusing but definitely violent gesture, accompanying it with a soft "Pow!"
"That sounds so exciting," Nita mused dreamily. Kit couldn't help noticing that she was looking not at the recreation of the Quidditch game, but at Harry's green eyes. "I wish we could see it, don't you, Kit?" She turned to him, her eyes sparkling.
"Sounds barbaric to me," Kit said ungraciously. "Here in America we have civilized sports where people don't end up in the Sahara Desert or fall off broomsticks." How stupid could these wizards be? Didn't they realize that this sort of thing was exactly what endangered their secrecy?
Nita didn't share his opinion. "Oh, don't mind Kit, he's been this way all day," she told Harry with a tolerant smile.
"I have not!" Kit flared. "Only since certain people who will remain unnamed gave me injuries that will cripple me for life!" He thought a little exaggeration was appropriate, considering.
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I said I was sorry," he reminded Kit, sounding a touch irritated. "And you did tell me to go away."
"The offer stands," Kit muttered so that nobody could hear him. Nita gave him a sharp look, but she obviously hadn't managed to make out what he had said. He gave her an innocent, who-me? smile in return.
The conversation, which was degenerating in any case, was interrupted at this point by the back screen door opening again. Tom and Carl entered, followed closely by a middle-aged woman in a pointed hat. She was actually wearing a pointed hat. This was enough to force Kit to hold his breath for several seconds until he could keep himself from laughing out loud. Not only that, the hat was lopsided; she was a little out of breath and had obviously not quite been expecting the transit.
"Fascinating," she said to Carl. "Rather like Apparating, but with more of a bang to it…" She stopped dead when she saw Harry, and her already thin mouth compressed into a straight line.
"Mr. Potter," she said reprovingly, crossing to the table. "What, exactly, is the meaning of this?"
"Er…" said Harry, seemingly at a loss for words. "It was an accident, Professor McGonagall." She continued to look at him sternly, and Kit could almost see him break out in a cold sweat. "It really wasn't my fault," he said weakly.
McGonagall shook her head. "I'm afraid you will have to explain that to the Ministry, Mr. Potter," she told him. "Another violation of the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizards…really, now…"
"Can I get you something to drink?" Mr. Rodriguez broke in, eager to get back onto safe, familiar ground. Drinks he could handle. "Water, coffee, tea, something stronger…?"
"Pumpkin juice will be fine for me," McGonagall said serenely, taking the chair Tom pulled out for her. She took off her hat, revealing graying hair pulled back tightly in a bun.
Kit's father blinked. "I…" he said. "I'm afraid we're fresh out of pumpkin juice."
"Oh, of course," McGonagall said. "Muggles, I quite forgot…" She looked rather disapprovingly at Harry, who still had smudges of chocolate all over his face. "Napkin, Mr. Potter." Harry hastily wiped his face clean, casting a swift embarrassed glance at Nita.
Oh ho, thought Kit. So that's the way it is. If this Harry Potter thought he could just waltz right in and sweep someone as practical as Nita right off her feet, he had another think coming. Nita would never fall for the first smooth-talking pretty-boy to cross her path…
Harry leaned closer to Nita so as not to interrupt the adults' conversation. "Are all American girls as pretty as you?" he asked in an undertone. Nita giggled and blushed.
Kit felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He had never seen Nita giggle and blush in his life. Never even imagined such a thing could be possible.
Something was deeply, terribly wrong.
He couldn't stand it any more. "Excuse me? Tom? Carl?" he asked. "Shouldn't we be making plans to send Harry back where he belongs?" Not sitting in my house flirting with Nita!
McGonagall cleared her throat. "That is, of course, our greatest problem. You see, young Mr. Potter was in fact attempting to reach Ottery St. Catchpole to stay with Arthur and Molly Weasley. His own family members have, shall we say—"
"They kicked me out," Harry interrupted darkly. "Had enough of my freaky wizarding stuff at last," he added with a touch of bitterness. Kit would have felt sorry for him if he hadn't already hated him intensely.
"However," McGonagall continued, "there has been a change of circumstance. It is no longer safe for Harry to stay with the Weasleys. You know why, now?" she said to Tom and Carl, who both nodded solemnly.
"Hang on." Harry didn't seem to notice McGonagall's annoyance at his interruption. "If I'm not staying with them, then where…?"
"Where those we hide from would least expect to find you," McGonagall said with a trace of satisfaction. "Although we certainly did not intend for you to end up here, it is perhaps just as well. How many would think to look for you in America?"
Kit felt the blood drain from his face. "You mean—"
"Mr. Potter must remain where he is for the time being," McGonagall said. "We have already discussed it." She turned to Tom and Carl. "Perhaps you, as responsible—er, Seniors—could take him in?"
"Sorry, no," said Carl with an apologetic grimace. "My brother's coming to stay in two days. Don't want to raise any questions."
"No, of course not," McGonagall agreed. "But we do want to keep this as quiet as possible, avoid involving more people than absolutely necessary."
"Meaning Harry has to stay with one of us," Kit said heavily. He should have known the prospect of getting rid of him was too good to be true.
Nita looked up. "I don't think there would be any problem with—"
"NO!" Kit cried, horrified. Everyone stared at him. "I mean, no, it'll be no trouble for us to fix up the guest room for you, Harry," he amended, trying for a polite, friendly smile. He wouldn't have believed that he would ever volunteer for this, but the thought of that wolf in sheep's clothing staying in the same house with Nita was infinitely worse.
His father frowned slightly. "Are you sure, Kit? I mean, Nita said—"
"He can sleep in my room if he has to," Kit offered desperately.
"I don't think that will be necessary," said his father, giving him an odd look. "I guess it's all right by me." Kit breathed a sigh of relief.
McGonagall smiled tightly. "That's settled, then. And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'd better be going back." She retrieved her spectacularly ugly hat. "Life goes on, you know…"
"Absolutely," Tom said. "Thank you for your help, Professor. We'll be in contact again soon." McGonagall nodded to each of them and, quite suddenly, vanished.
"I think that's our cue to get lost as well," Carl said to Tom. He turned to the rest of the group. "Thanks for taking all this so well, guys," he said. Kit snorted. "We'll call you as soon as we have any news."
"Dai stihó," Tom said. Nita returned the farewell, but Kit seemed to have developed a case of lockjaw and could only nod. A moment later, the two Seniors were gone.
"So," Harry said, looking around the kitchen. "Now what?"
"Now we go to bed," Kit's father said firmly. "You spring chickens may not need your sleep, but I certainly do." Kit rolled his eyes a little, wondering when his father had started actually using the phrase "spring chickens".
"I'd better go home," Nita said, glancing at the clock. "My dad will wonder what happened to me. –Wait, what was that?"
Everyone turned toward the entrance to the kitchen as Carmela appeared, having made her way downstairs for her habitual midnight snack. "Hey, what's this, a slumber party?" she asked. "Why's everyone up so late?"
Then her eyes fell on Harry and despite her bleary, sleep-encrusted eyes, Kit could see Carmela's expression change instantly. "Ooh," she said, "who's this?"
It took all Kit's self-control to keep from banging his head on the table. Not again! he thought in anguish.
A/N: Hmm…somewhat better…yeah, the first chapter was just stupid. So now the question is, what ways will Kit think of to torment Harry? I'm thinking some OOC-ness is definitely called for…on everyone's part. So, please review and I'll try to update soon!
