Harry Prewett and the Case of Inadvertent Illegal Time Travel
Chapter Nine: Of Incorporation and Idiots with Insecurities
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: Hey everyone, welcome back, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, alerted, and favourited! You guys are the absolute best of the best. Now on to the good stuff!
When Harry woke it was to the feeling of something wet and slimy crawling across his face. He swatted it away and rolled over trying to get back to sleep when he felt a few more crawling up his arm, then across the back of his neck, then across his back.
"What the -" he muttered groggily, rolling over, opening his eyes and reaching for his glasses.
He put them on and blinked as he watched a slimy green spider the size of a walnut climb down his arm leaving a gooey green streak. He looked down to find his bed and his chest was crawling with them.
"Bloody hell!" he yelped loudly rolling out of the infested bed.
He hit the floor with a loud thump and scrambled back towards his closet yanking his shirt off as he went.
Behind him there was a loud very familiar barking laugh, and Harry turned to stare incredulously at Sirius who was laughing and pointing.
"Whassamatta!" demanded James as he ran into view glasses barely hanging on to the end of his nose and his hair sticking up rather more crazily than usual, apparently having just rolled out of bed.
"You should see your face!" howled Sirius doubled over, "And that girly little scream!"
James blinked and pushed his glasses up his nose staring at Harry and then his spider infested bed.
"Sliming Spiders?" he asked grinning widely.
"Yep!" said Sirius proudly, "I picked them up from Gambol and Japes before the end of term, I was going to use them on Reggie, but never got the chance,"
Harry scowled darkly. He was beginning to understand Ron's fear of spiders. His skin was still crawling.
"Don't worry," James assured him, "They only last for about a half-hour, tops,"
"Long enough, I've been working on extending their life and making them explode goo if you try and banish them," Sirius enthused.
"Really, how's it going?" asked James.
"Well, they explode goo," Sirius shrugged.
"You know we could try -"
"Look, as fascinating as this conversation is, I need a shower," Harry interrupted squirming in his own skin as phantom slime trails traced themselves over his back and arms, "I've got the heebie jeebies,"
Harry moved past them into the hallway pulling his bedroom door shut behind him.
"Hey, is that a tattoo?" asked James his voice a tad awed as he pointed at Harry's chest.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I got it done for my birthday," Harry said holding his arms out to the sides so that James could get a better look.
"Awesome, do you think mum would let me get one?"
"Not a chance," said Sirius looking a bit grumpy.
"It hurt's like a bitch anyway," Harry said trying to be consoling.
James snorted.
"Can't be any worse than trying to grow antlers, plus it's way cooler," James snorted.
Sirius elbowed him in the ribs.
"Ow, hey!"
Harry raised an eyebrow at Sirius.
"We promised Remus we weren't gonna talk about that prank, remember?" Sirius hissed.
"Oh, right," James said sheepishly running a hand through his mussed hair making it stick up even more, "Forget I said anything, I'm just not really awake yet,"
"Riiiight...I get first dibs on the bathroom," Harry said.
Harry slipped past them and dashed into the bathroom where he stripped and turned the shower up to scalding hot and full blast.
"So gross," he muttered scrubbing the slime off his arms.
When he got out of the shower, Harry was relieved to find that James and Sirius had gone off somewhere else and the Sliming Spiders were already starting to disappear from his bedspread and Miss. Disdain was having a blast hunting the few that were dumb enough to venture to the floor. The only reason she found them amusing was because she hadn't had them crawling all over her.
Harry could not believe Sirius had pulled that prank on the first day, without even giving Harry a chance to get to know him. What a jerk. At least James hadn't been in on it.
He got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and headed to the sanctuary that was the kitchen. He was pretty sure Dorea would maim Sirius if he so much as thought about pranking in or around her sacred kitchen.
Dorea was already there, looking rested and relaxed despite the trauma of yesterday's attack, dressed in her silk robe and sipping from a large mug.
"What's with the sour face, you want some coffee?" asked Dorea as he slipped through the door.
There was a large pan of bacon and sausages sizzling on one of the burners, twice as much as yesterday, the smell was heavenly and Harry's stomach growled.
"I got pranked," he grumbled accepting the mug she handed him.
"Yeah, you've got to watch out for that, the boys think that they're quite the comedians," she said rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, Sliming Spiders, hilarious," Harry deadpanned.
Dorea chuckled a bit. It was that stupid chuckle that adults sometimes got that said quite clearly that he had no idea, and she had little to no sympathy for him.
"Well, I've got something that'll put the bit back in your mouth, so to speak,"
"Great, what're we cooking?"
"Toad in a hole,"
"Uh, no offence but that sounds gross,"
"It's just a name, there are no actual toads involved," Dorea assured him.
"Alright, so what is it?"
"Poached egg in the hole of a bagel with hollandaise sauce and melted cheese,"
Harry's mouth watered.
"That sounds so good," he very nearly moaned.
Dorea laughed again.
"It's delicious," she assured him, "Now the first thing you need to know is how to properly poach an egg,"
Dorea lectured Harry on the poaching of eggs, the requirements for the perfect hollandaise sauce, and the necessity of adding a ton of cheese while not making the bagel soggy and gross.
It took a few hundred failures, that Harry was allowed to eat a few of to keep his complaining stomach quiet, and a botched batch of sauce, but Harry and Dorea managed to turn out enough eggy, cheese-covered deliciousness, as Sirius described it, to feed a small army within an hour and a bit.
Dorea waved her wand, and when Harry entered the dining room the trays piled high with the fruits of the morning's labour were sitting on the side-board. Sirius, James and Violet were already in the dining room and were quick to pile their plates high.
Harry served himself and moved to sit down in the empty seat between Violet and Dorea and across from James.
He yelped as he fell right through the chair sloshing hot coffee all over his chest.
Sirius burst out laughing and James sniggered a bit.
"Ladies, I present to you the Not There Chair!" he said standing up and bowing theatrically.
Harry grit his teeth and took a deep breath. He tried counting to ten and that didn't really help. Sirius was just hazing him, he knew that they were pranksters, and it wasn't like he'd spilled his breakfast.
"Oi, I'm no lady!"
"So you keep saying Jamie, I remain unconvinced,"
Dorea swatted Sirius upside the head with her rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Hey!" he protested.
"No pranks at the table," she ordered sternly.
"Here, now, Harry dear, don't move and I'll fix up that spill," Violet said waving her wand in an odd little pattern.
The coffee was drawn out of the rug and his shirt and with a splooshing sound poured itself back into the mug which was then levitated to the side-board and vanished into the kitchen. Harry tried to smile, not wanting to seem like a poor sport, and accepted another cup of coffee and a chair from Dorea.
"Dig in, you lot, the food's getting cold!" Dorea urged taking a bite of her bagel.
The praise, from Violet and James anyway, was effusive, and even though Sirius didn't say anything he did eat twice as much as everyone else, so Harry figured the toads-in-a-holes were a hit with him too.
"So what are you three up to today?" Dorea asked.
Before anyone could answer Violet cut in.
"Keeping in mind I want the three of you to do something together and get to know each other a bit better," she said sternly with a pointed look at James.
"Sure thing Auntie Vee, not a problem!" Sirius said bouncy but not terribly enthusiastic.
"We'll start training Harry!" James said excitedly, "I cannot wait to see you in the air, man, I'm serious,"
"James, you're having that identity crisis thing again, I'm Sirius, remember?"
The whole table sighed and Harry snorted and grinned.
"I can't believe you just made that joke,"
"It's more astonishing when he doesn't make that joke," Violet groaned.
"What position are you training for Harry?" asked Dorea curiously, "I know you played seeker before,"
"Uh, yeah, James says Gryffindor already has a Seeker so I'm going to train for Keeper, see how it goes," Harry shrugged.
"It's going to be awesome, I have time to hand train you, I mean if you're even a half-way to good flyer we will totally kill Hufflepuff on the pitch this year, finally!" James said around a gulp of juice.
"Dude, Diggory is gone next year lighten up, even if we don't get it this year no way the Puffs are going to pull it together without him," Sirius said waving his hand dismissively.
"To be the best Siri, and know you're the best, you have to beat the best. Diggory's team is the best, he's been Captain since his third year, knows how to pull together a team better than anyone I've ever seen," James trailed off shaking his head.
"You could just ask for tips, Golden Boy Diggory-"
Harry nearly choked on his coffee at the familiar title.
"—would give you all the info you could ask for," Sirius pointed out.
"I have to beat him first. If I use his advice to beat him I haven't beaten him," James insisted stubbornly.
"But you'll use his advice to beat everyone else,"
"Exactly,"
"That, mate, is a little bit hypocritical and besides which, did Hartly have a tragic accident I don't know about and name you Captain in the will or something?"
James sighed irritably.
"Semantics," he insisted taking another bite of his breakfast.
"Who's Hartly?" asked Harry even though he could pretty much tell who he was without the guys having to spell it out.
"Frankie Hartly, she's Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain," James said.
"She's also our Seeker, hence why you can't have the job," added Sirius.
"Frankie?"
"Her real name is Francesca, she's towering, thin, no real figure to speak of but, Morgana, her legs," said Sirius reverently.
"Dear Merlin, Sirius, I don't need to hear that I went to school with her mother and still have to talk to her at functions," Violet said scandalized.
"Besides she's the Captain," James added.
"If she stays with Warrington all year, again, I swear I'll cry," Sirius sighed wistfully.
"They're betrothed, nephew, let it be," Dorea advised.
"But all I'm asking for is - "
James slapped a hand over Sirius' mouth.
"So training?" said Harry loudly and brightly.
"Right, well, thanks for breakfast Nana," James said standing abruptly and kissing Dorea on the cheek then moving around to do the same to his mother, "But we've got to go before Sirius starts waxing lyrical about Hartley's, er, assets,"
James dragged Sirius from the room and Harry followed, torn between the urge to laugh and cringe.
"I can't believe you were about to talk about boning the Captain in front of my mum," James said shaking his head.
"Auntie Vee has had sex before, case in point," Sirius said indicating James.
"That doesn't mean I want to think about it, or talk to her about it, the big Talk was bad enough, back me up here Harry,"
Harry, who had never had a sex talk with any of his pseudo-parental figures, made some sort of non-committal noise that James took for agreement.
"Thank you!"
"Alright, alright, I'm just saying," Sirius said putting his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender.
The three boys headed outside in rare silence. It was a typical lukewarm overcast summer day, not committed to rain but certainly considering its proposal. James led the charge out past the greenhouses to a little wooden shed on the edge of the pitch.
"This was my Dad's first love," James said with a laugh, opening the door.
Inside the shed was something like a cross between a storage shed and a Quidditch museum. Warm wood panelling a few glass cases with old school team uniforms, mounts on the wall a few trunks with increasingly ancient sets of balls offset by photos of teams and what Harry recognized as the latest in Quidditch gear.
"Wow," Harry said breathlessly, "This is...amazing,"
"Yeah, every broom my Dad ever owned is in here, some of them are Grandpa's, Mom's old Silver Arrow is over there in the corner, my first broom, they're all here. Some people they have family traditions, scrapbooks or whatever, to remember their parents and grandparents, to find a connection to them. Our family is all here. When I have kids, this will all still be here and I'm going to show it to them and tell them stories...they're gonna know about all the important stuff, you know?"
Harry's throat was all choked up, and he didn't think he would be able to squeeze the words out so he cast around for a distraction. In the corner was a desk, a chalkboard with a faded play and a few shelves with a whole mess load of well-loved looking Quidditch texts and guides as well as scads of leather bound books with no titles.
"What's this?" he croaked.
James didn't seem to notice.
"That's what I like to call the Captain's Corner. All my Dad's Quidditch journals, a set up for play-making, references on training techniques, everything a Captain needs is right here," James paused a bittersweet smile playing on his lips, then he looked up and it was gone, "But you are not going to get anywhere sitting at a desk and reading about strategy, at least not til we get some hands on experience in you,"
James handed Harry a net of severely abused looking Quaffles and grabbed a couple of brooms. Sirius had his own broom over his shoulders and was watching Harry and James with an unreadable expression.
"Well, what are we waiting for let's get started," Harry said.
"That's the spirit! Come on let's get out onto the pitch I want to see how you fly," James insisted.
The three boys left the warmth of the shed and headed out to the big flat patch of lawn with its makeshift goal hoops.
Sirius swung a leg over his broom and kicked off hard, shooting into the air faster than Harry would have expected on such an old model broom. Harry set his net of quaffles on the ground, and watched, impressed despite himself with some of Sirius' moves.
"Here you go Harry, you can have my old Shooting Star, it's not the best thing out there but it's sturdy," James said tossing Harry a thick handled broom that looked old and well-loved.
There was barely a twig out of place and the handle had been recently polished.
"Sweet, thanks James,"
"Don't mention it," said James with an easy grin.
"Jamie, are we gonna play or what?" Sirius whined.
"In a sec, I forgot Harry's a newbie Keeper, so we're gonna need a pair of gloves and some goggles so you don't get too wrecked up trying to handle the quaffle. I'm going to get some more stuff from the shed, I'll be right back. You two start warming up!"
James jogged back across the field to the Quidditch shed, and Harry mounted his broom and kicked off getting used to the slow and muted responses of the old broom.
Harry did a couple of loop de loops getting a feel for the broom's speed and handling, and trying to compensate for its deficiencies, when Sirius rammed him from behind and sent him skidding across the pitch, dropping a few feet before recovering. He just managed to hang onto his broom with one hand and was trying to catch his breath while dangling twenty feet up.
"Watch out for bludgers, Prewett," Sirius sing-songed circling him like some sort of human vulture.
That was the last straw.
Harry saw red. He swung himself up onto his broom dropped another ten feet, banked hard and threw himself through the air, into Sirius, and sending them both tumbling onto the soft grass and layer of cushioning charms. They rolled and Harry kept of firm hold on Sirius until they lost momentum at which point he pinned the larger boy's arms above his head and straddled his waist.
"What the hell was that!" Sirius demanded.
"What the hell was that? What the hell was with that stunt you just pulled? Huh? What was with the pranks, and trying to embarrass me in front of my family? What the hell is your problem with me, Black?"
Sirius' grey eyes darkened to charcoal and he threw Harry off him easily and got to his feet gesturing wildly.
"My problem! My problem is you've been here for, what? Three days? And already you've taken my place! James is all Harry, this, and Harry, that! Dorea, my aunt, my own blood, lets you in the kitchen and is teaching you to cook!"
"You just about killed me, because you're fucking jealous! Are you insane!"
"Fuck you!"
Sirius turned and began to stalk away.
"Don't you walk away from me, Sirius Black! You owe me that much!"
Sirius whipped around.
"I don't owe you shit!"
"Well, too bad, because I have something to say to you and you are going to listen!" Harry said grabbing his bicep and pulling the angry teen to a halt, "You know what poor you, you have an amazing best-friend and a relationship with some of the nicest people I've ever met, and you're so possessive that you can't let them get close to someone else? Is that it? I would kill, to have even a fraction of the connection you have with this family!" Harry bit out angrily.
Sirius paused, still glowering but not trying to stomp away.
"Don't you get it? This is the first time I've been with family who actually gave a damn since I was a baby, and I refuse to apologize for trying to get to know my cousin or anyone else. Damnit, Black, I'm not trying to replace you, I'm trying to carve out my own little place in this family, and with you! And maybe you should talk to your best-friend about your bloody insecurities instead of trying to knock me out of the air!" Harry shouted poking him in the shoulder roughly.
Sirius cocked his head to the left.
"You want to be friends with me?"
"Yes! If you would quit with the mean-spirited pranks, you prick! You're smart, funny, and you and James are practically joined at the hip anyway so why the hell not!" Harry shouted throwing his hands up in complete and utter exasperation.
Sirius gave Harry an assessing once over. Harry wasn't sure what he was looking for or what he saw, but Sirius gave a decisive nod.
"You like me," he said a Cheshire grin curling across his mouth.
"Not at the moment, no!"
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry, you're right I was being a bit of an ass,"
"Not to mention a royal pain in mine,"
"Can we be friends anyway?"
"I dunno, maybe? No more stupid shit?"
"No more stupid shit, I promise," Sirius said flashing a charming grin and holding out a hand to shake.
Harry regarded it suspiciously for a moment before taking it and shaking it. Sirius used the connection to pull Harry right next to him and sling a companionable arm over his shoulder.
"Well, then I suppose we ought to make a half-way decent keeper out of you, after all,"
"Sirius, you better not be hitting on my cousin!" James shouted jogging across the pitch.
Sirius made his eyes go wide and innocent.
"I would never!" he yelled back with mock outrage.
"Uh huh, tell it to someone who believes you," James snorted tossing a pair of gloves and some goggles at Harry, "What are we doing on the ground? We have to get you in decent shape!"
"Slave driver," Harry muttered ducking out from under Sirius' arm and putting on the protective gear, heading back towards where they'd left the brooms.
"Let's go!" James shouted again.
AN: For those of you who are worries about one-dimensional conflict don't worry we're going to be revisting some of the above issues in more detail, but I really didn't want Harry and Sirius feuding especially since James is trying so hard to include Harry and develop a rapport with him.
For those of you waiting with bated breath to know, I remain an indecisive flake about the pairing. Sorry. *shrugs*
Also I know I'm not the most regular updater of all time but I thought it was fair warning to let you guys know with school starting up it could be a really, really, really long time before my next update. I apologize in advance but that's just life right now.
As always let me know what you guys think and any suggestions you might have for plot, I love hearing from you and your comments always make my day!
Til next time!
