Fragmented Soul: The Fluffy Bits

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Modifications

Harry and Clayton mischief making.

November 1991

"You installed a pool table in your basement," Severus stated dryly, looking at Damon with scepticism.

"I saw Harry playing at that youth club the boys like to disappear off to. When I went to pick them up I saw that they were playing the other kids for cash," Damon said, sounding a little unhappy, though perhaps slightly impressed by the initiative of it too.

"Hmmm" Severus hummed with disapproval, "I did wonder where he got that extra money from."

"Yes, well, it appears that he has rather a talent for it," Damon said, "I thought we might let the boys have some fun."

"By all means," Severus said in amusement, as Damon smiled at him. He moved from the kitchen where they'd been stood talking, into the hallway where he called to the boys from the bottom of the stairs, Severus following just behind him.

The two teenagers had been suspiciously quiet in Harry's bedroom. Whenever the two of them went silent it was usually time to worry because it meant that they were up to something. Low and behold, when Harry and Clay came down the stairs, into sight of their waiting parents, both of them were looking a little sheepish.

Clayton now looked like a reject from the Mr Blobby show, his skin bright pink and covered in yellow polka dots. Harry on the other hand was looking more like a fish than a ten year old boy, seeing as his skin was now covered in neon blue scales.

"Do I want to know?" Damon asked with an amused look between the pair of them.

"I hope those scales aren't permanent," Severus commented.

"How many times have we told you, no body modifications!" Damon said looking between the two sulky looking teens, wanting one of them to come up with an explanation as to why or how.

"Clay wanted to get his nipple pierced and I said I wouldn't do it for him!" Harry suddenly shouted.

"Yeah, well, Harry wanted to get a pink pygmy puff tattoo on his hip!" Clay shouted right back at him.

"Least I don't look like Mr Blobby!"

"Least I'm not a mermaid!"

"ENOUGH!" Severus shouted, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, already starting to get a headache.

"You wanted to get what pierced?" Damon asked looking at his son incredulously. "Please tell me you didn't succeed?" He had no idea what affect such a piercing would have during his transformation but he truthfully didn't want to know.

"Harry Prince, if you have a tattoo…" Severus scowled.

Harry pushed the waistband of his jeans down a little, exposing his hip where, beneath the blue scales everyone could clearly see a bright pink pygmy puff. At the same time Clayton lifted up his t-shirt exposing the nipple that had a gold nipple ring hanging from it. His entire upper torso was electric pink with yellow polka dots and was quite a remarkable sight.

"I think I used the wrong spell the first time," Clay said conversationally, while Damon stared at him; apparently both parents had been shocked momentarily into silence. "That one turned me all pink, but the second try did the piercing perfectly. Did the irremovable charm perfectly and everything," he added proudly. "Though it was Harry who added the yellow spots… I kind of like them."

"They were supposed to be revenge for these scales," Harry said sulkily, though there was a definite twitch of an amused smile on his lips.

"And the tattoo?" Severus questioned, his voice dangerously quiet and his eyes were practically narrowed to slits by this point. Damon looked like he was trying to outdo Harry's fish impression, the way his mouth was opening and closing as he failed to find words.

"It's cute right," Harry said, looking down at it proudly, "Once these scales fade a bit it'll look really pink. Not sure they'll go away completely, Clay's getting far too good at that irremovable charm."

"CLAYTON DANES, tell me you DIDN'T cast that irremovable charm on Harry's scales," Damon yelled, and then he had to stop himself from laughing, because that was SO not a sentence he ever thought he would have to say. Though he did wonder what the Alpha might say seeing the boy he'd charged Damon to watch over suddenly becoming part fish.

"I was aiming for the tattoo," Clay said in defence.

"But that tattoo is UNDER the scales!" Damon said.

"Ohhh..." Clayton said, with the tone of sudden realisation, "so that's why it didn't work the first time."

"We really should have figured that out," Harry said with a wry smile at his best friend.

"I hope you realise that you're both in serious trouble!" Severus said coldly. "You'll never be able to go out in public again if we can't undo whatever you've done!"

Harry and Clay exchanged looks of amusement, grinning at each other with wild excitement in their eyes.

"What are you two looking so happy about? We just told you that you were going to be punished," Damon said with confusion. He was half worried the two of them had something else up their sleeves.

"Shall we put them out of their misery?" Harry asked, withdrawing his wand.

"Let's," Clay returned, drawing his wand as well and both aim at each other.

"No," Severus cried out, thinking they were about to add to the mess they had already made.

"What the…" Damon began as the two boys shouted 'finite incantatem' at one another.

The two fathers were once again completely speechless as their sons stood before them looking every bit the normal human boys that they had that morning. They had tricked them; Harry and Clay had actually had them believing their little story.

"Home, now, Clayton," Damon said firmly, only feeling more aggravated by how amused the two young boys seemed to be.

"Perhaps we can join you," Severus suggested with a devious smile upon his lips, which made Harry decidedly nervous.

"Dad?" Harry questioned hesitantly. He had just pulled a big prank and had their Dads seriously worried, he knew he was in trouble, but being invited to go over to Clay's house didn't really sound like a punishment; he just couldn't figure out what his Dad was up to and that probably didn't bode well for him.

"Damon just purchased a pool table," Severus told his son.

"REALLY?" Harry and Clay asked together, with matching excited grins.

"Really…" Damon said dryly, looking at Severus with curiosity. He certainly hadn't planned to let either of the boys in on that yet, not after the stunt they'd just pulled.

"Oh yes, and I thought Damon and I might learn to play this evening," Severus suggested.

"Oh…" Damon said, a smile now twitching on his lips. "What an excellent idea."

"But the boys… clearly they can't be trusted unsupervised," Severus said with mock sadness.

"That's okay," Damon told him, with a wide victorious grin. "I have a rather large store cupboard right next to the room with the pool table. I am sure Harry and Clayton would LOVE to help me sort out the mess in there. Wouldn't you, boys?"

Harry looked horrified, "you want us to tidy a cupboard while you play pool?" he asked.

"Did you think you would go unpunished, Harry?" Severus asked, his eyebrows raised, daring his son to challenge him on it.

"Punished, of course, but that is like torture or something, Dad?" Harry said dramatically. "You're so evil," he added crossing his arms over his chest and pouting.

"Funnily enough, you are not the first person to tell me that, but I am glad to hear I have not lost my touch," Severus told his son with a mildly amused smile.

"I want to know who told him that before," Clay muttered irritably.

"You'll never find out, Clayton, they didn't survive their punishment," Severus said pointedly to Clay. Harry rolled his eyes, his Dad liked to believe he was scary with his brooding moods but Harry knew just how much of a teddy bear he was really.

"I think we are going to have to add body modifications to things that we have to tell each other about," Damon told Severus, as he frowned at his son.

"Agreed, I think we both need to be kept informed with regards to anything involving body modifications, as well as destruction of property," Severus said dryly; a glare quickly silenced the giggle he heard start to escape from Harry's lips.

FGHP

It had taken a little while to get shoes and coats on the two grumbling and complaining boys. Eventually Damon had told them that every minute they wasted was another day that they would go without being allowed near the pool table, and that had sped up the process considerably.

As it was the boys had been shown to the store cupboard and then Damon had started to teach Severus how to play pool. It was not a game he had ever had a reason or opportunity to play before and, while he didn't object to it particularly, he did not believe it would be an activity he would be partaking in on a regular basis. Damon, however, seemed to be taking great joy in teaching Severus something new.

They had to remember to regularly check on the two boys, who seemed to actually be doing rather a good job of sorting Damon's nightmare of a storage room, into some semblance of order; though both boys were wearing rather sour expressions.

"But we've done so much, Dad," Harry complained, when Severus came to check on them, letting his arms flop dramatically to his sides as though this would prove how exhausted he was.

"Then it won't take you long to finish," Severus stated, before returning the pool room to try and at least beat Damon once. The other man was annoying good at the game and Severus was starting to wonder if Damon was discretely casting charms to knock some of the balls in.

"Your Dad really is evil," Clay stated, dropping himself down to sit on one of the numerous storage boxes. "I mean, we have got to have been doing this for like… Ten HOURS," he exclaimed.

"Try two," Harry shot back after casting a spell to tell him the time, "but I agree. I am sooooooo bored," he told his best friend as he sat on one of the other boxes and leaned against the wall.

"Me too," Clay agreed, glaring at the pile of things they still had to sort onto shelves; Severus was right though, they really were almost done.

Suddenly there was a creaking sound and then a crunch as Harry half disappeared into the box he was sitting on. Clay nearly wet himself as he burst out laughing at the sight of his friend's limbs sticking out of the top of the large box.

"A little help please, Clay?" Harry asked, wiggling his arms and legs about in an attempt to free himself, but Clay just laughed even harder.

"What are you…?" Damon asked as he hurried into the room, having heard the loud noise from the room next door. He paused mid-sentence as he saw Clay, who was barely able to breathe from laughing so hard, and turned to see Harry, who was most definitely stuck in the one of the storage boxes.

"Harry Prince," Severus with an exasperated sigh, as he came into the room and went to pull his son out of the box, "why is it that everything always seems to happen to you?"

"I didn't exactly do it on purpose, Dad!" Harry grumbled as he was pulled out of the box.

As his Dad set him back on his feet he reached behind himself and pulled off a piece of paper that had been stuck to his back. It seemed to be a picture of three children, two young boys and an even younger girl, by the looks of it. They were all a little on the skinny side and younger than he and Clay were, and Harry thought that their clothes looked scruffy and ill-fitting.

Clay seemed to have mostly recovered from his laughing fit and hurried over to Harry's side to see what he was looking at. "Is this you, Dad?" he asked, jabbing a finger at the smaller of the two boys in the picture.

Damon peered into the box that Harry had just been removed from and nearly cursed when he realised which one it was. It contained pretty much everything he had from his childhood and enough things that could raise some very unwelcome questions, but Clay had seen pictures of him when he was younger before and so it wasn't overly surprising that his son had recognised him in the picture, though this was the oldest photo he had.

Moving over to where Harry, Clay and now Severus were peering at the picture, he smiled as he remembered that day. One of the other kids at the orphanage had found an old camera and had wanted to test it out, none of them had been really in the mood for it, and Fenrir had sulked something fierce, but Callie had talked them into agreeing.

"Yeah, that's me, Clayton," Damon agreed, taking the picture from his son.

"Who are the other two people?" Harry asked curiously, peering over Damon's arm to have another look, taking in the younger face of Damon, the too large clothes that were dirty and all three of the children in the picture looked a little tired with dark circles under their eyes.

"My younger sister and my best friend," Damon told him simply, slipping the picture into his back pocket carefully. "That was a very long time ago, Harry. Now..." he said, looking around the little room. He was actually rather impressed with what the two boys had managed, not to mention he was keen to get them out of there and put a stop to the questions before they could really get started. "... I think the two of you have probably done enough to earn one game of pool before dinner."

"REALLY?" Harry and Clay exclaimed with disbelief. Harry had honestly been wondering if his Dad was ever going to let him play after the prank they had pulled earlier.

"Yes, really," Damon said, glad that the boys had taken the bait, "Come on Harry, show us your skills."

When he had seen the photograph of himself, Callie and Fenrir from their childhood he had panicked; it could have ruined everything if Severus recognised Fenrir; as far as werewolves go his friend was pretty infamous after all. Thankfully, though, the man everyone would recognise now was a far cry from the scrawny boy in the picture.

"Ghosts from the past?" Severus asked Damon, as their sons rushed out of the storeroom to go set up and play a game of pool.

He had noticed the expression on Damon's face that spoke of a strong reluctance to discuss the photograph. Severus had often wondered about the other man's past but the two of them seemed to have some unspoken agreement not to ask too many questions about such things, and given how well that worked for him and Harry, he wasn't not going to push the issue.

"Something like that," Damon said, with a reassuring smile and a pat to Severus' shoulder. "We better go check on the boys, before they blow up the pool table… or my basement… or each other," he added with a look of worry, leading the way towards Harry and Clayton's excited shouts.