Disclaimer: Not mine.
Sorry 'bout the wait--have been on vacation, yay. As a result, this chapter is less polished than it should be, but I am too busy eating my way through Boston to really care. Mmm, mochi.
Chapter Seven: In Which Harry Has A Rude Awakening
Harry wasn't too terribly alarmed when Scorpius sneaked up behind James, shoved his Fanged Frisbee down the older boy's shirt, and leaped away, cackling madly. He was more amused than worried when James let out an embarrassingly high-pitched shriek and began dancing spastically around, crying "Get it off me, get it off, dear Merlin, it's headed for the border" while batting uselessly at his lower back.
Victoire, being without question the most responsible person present, summoned the Frisbee away with impressive alacrity. It clung to James' collar in defiance of her summoning spell, actually dragging him back a few feet before it gave up, and Harry suspected he would forever treasure the memory of his eldest son being yanked backwards, arms windmilling wildly and heels dragging along the cobblestone road.
But still, Harry wasn't particularly bothered. He figured the incident would conclude with James punching Scorpius and Al dithering over being caught in the middle, as usual. Scorpius would whine for hours about his delicate skin bruising, James would sulk for approximately ten minutes before forgetting about the entire mess, Al would look at everyone with heartrendingly disappointed eyes, and the fight would be over and done with. That's how his boys worked.
Except Harry didn't consider just how stressed to the brink James was, by torturous lectures, constant arguments with his little brother, lifelong proximity to Lily, and a morning spent with Rose Weasley. His son was most definitely not in a forgive-and-forget sort of mood. Instead, James went very still, staring wild-eyed at Scorpius, then snapped completely and launched himself at his attacker. Scorpius squeaked (a distinctly ferrety sound, truth be told) and turned to run, but James got him around the middle in a flying tackle.
Harry's reflexes hadn't dulled since the war; if anything, they'd become even sharper, given that these days he actually got paid for being quick with a wand. But the boys were a veritable whirlwind of hormonal aggression, and by the time he got his wand out, they'd already crashed into the semi-open door of a dark, gloomy-looking shop nearby.
"It was bound to happen," Lily said philosophically into the stunned silence (punctuated by furious cries from the fighting boys). Then she shrugged and grinned, letting out a war-whoop and rushing to join in, eyes blazing with the light of battle. "Never fear!" she cried, somehow managing to strike a valiant pose in mid-leap. "SuperMe to the rescue!"
That she seemed more interested in damaging both boys equally than in rescuing either was, apparently, besides the point.
Al followed quickly after his little sister, evading Harry's belated attempt to hold him back. The cunning little bastard had made his shirt collars detachable. Next time, Harry promised himself grimly, he'd go for the shoulder.
"Gotta save Scorpius," Al called back apologetically. "Sorry, Dad!"
Harry swore viciously under his breath and tossed aside the sad-looking abandoned collar, which fluttered pathetically to the ground. The seething mass of brawling Potter-Malfoy disappeared further into the shop, and for a split second he thought about just leaving them to it—after all, it'd worked with Ron and Hermione, back in the day. If them taking seven long years to get their acts together could be constituted as 'working'. Er.
"What just happened?" Teddy asked, blinking.
("Ow, Lils, no pulling hair."
"Scorpius—oof—is the hair-puller. I bite." The last two words were oddly muffled, as if spoken around a mouthful of robe and skin.
"Bloody hell, Potter, watch the goods.")
"Stupid buggering river of historical imperative," Harry groaned, and ran into the shop, a shell-shocked Teddy and resigned Victoire at his heels.
Matters were even worse than he'd anticipated, inside. Oh, the kids were fine—Al was obviously more concerned with separating his friend and brother than fighting himself, and Scorpius and James weren't about to risk hurting him just so they get at one another.
Plus, none of them would ever lay a finger on Lils. Harry liked to think this was due to their innate chivalry, but suspected it probably had more to do with Lily's fuzzy pink binder of blackmaily goodness, not to mention her suspiciously sharp teeth. Sometimes, he had to wonder if she filed them or something. It wasn't natural.
But though his children were more or less all in one piece, the same could not be said for the shop. They'd knocked into a shelf full of ominous-looking artifacts, several of which had crashed to the ground, and the shopkeeper, beginning to recover from his shock, was rapidly working himself into a rage.
"ENOUGH," Harry roared, flicking his wand and forcibly separating the kids. They squealed as they were dragged magically away from each other (even Lily, though she'd probably deny it until her dying day), Scorpius and James glowering at each other resentfully.
He shot a nervous look at the store's owner, wincing at the near-purple flush of anger spreading over the squat man's face. Unpleasant-looking bloke, really, all bristly black eyebrows and quivering jowls.
"Do you know what those little miscreants have done?" he snarled in a deep, raspy voice. He had his wand out, and it was spouting deep red-orange sparks. Harry wisely decided that cautioning the man to keep his temper under control would only end in bloodshed.
"Hey now," Teddy started to say, coming to the kids' defense, but Victoire cleverly shut him up with a smack to the back of his head before he could make matters worse.
"I'm very sorry. Any damaged merchandise," Harry began in his most conciliatory tone (which, okay, was perhaps more confrontational than diplomatic), after sparing his niece an approving nod. He was rather rudely cut off before he could offer reparations, though.
"Damaged merchandise? That's not just damaged merchandise, you fool--"
Harry eyes narrowed dangerously, and the shopkeeper amended, "—you self-sacrificing world-saving heroic fool," which he supposed was something of an improvement. "Those are priceless, priceless artifacts. Dangerous priceless artifacts. Just look at the way they shattered the Hand Mirror of Echilc Cifnaf. Just look at the spilled Dementor blood! The Hourglass of Trope! Just look at the ominous multi-colored steam arising from the… Ominous multi-colored steam arising from the… Oh, shit."
The shopkeeper paused, gulped, and Apparated away, and then the shop exploded in light and noise.
If they all survived this, Harry thought muzzily before he succumbed to darkness, he was going to see to it personally that Scorpius was banned for life from Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. And that James was put on sedatives.
When Harry returned reluctantly to a fuzzy, dim sort of awareness, he was fairly certain he hadn't been out of it for more than a few minutes. And what with being both an Auror and a father of two rambunctious young wizards and a rambunctious young witch, godfather of another rambunctious young wizard (well, three rambunctious young wizards, if you counted Lorcan and Lysander), and uncle to an entire horde of rambunctious young wizards and witches, he had quite a lot of experience at judging these sorts of things.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, wincing as the orangeish light stabbed through his retinas and skewered his brain. Evil light, he decided. Very evil. Give him a few moments and he'd arrest it for—indecent exposure, that was it. Yeah.
He blinked the haze from his eyes, biting back an unmanly whimper. The first thing he saw when the world de-blurred was Severus Snape bent over him, muttering to himself in a testy sort of undertone as he prodded Harry in the side with a bony finger.
That was the precise moment, as Harry would attest to all and sundry for decades to come, when he knew for certain that life hated him and wanted him to be miserable.
