A/N: Ah...sorry? My goodness! Almost three weeks since I updated. So much for once a week. All I can say is that I've suddenly gone on a Supernatural/Harry Potter binge and I completely forgot about this. Plus I've been exploring writing a couple of new crossovers which will be posted when I've either finished them or feel there's enough there to get my teeth into. But you're probably more interested in the story.
Enjoy!
Chapter 10:
The inhabitants of Hogwarts were going about their daily routines of sleep, food, lessons, homework, food and sleep again. Some of them gossiped a little about the unexpected storm that had driven them inside the evening before, but without any sort of scandal, the talk didn't go any further than that.
One female student was walking outside. She walked slowly, her nose in a book, studying for a test the next period. Suddenly, she felt a drop of wetness land on her head. Screwing up her face in disgust, she imagined a malicious bird had just decided to ruin her day. She put her book away and quickly walked towards her dorm.
Halfway there, a housemate stopped her, asking whether there had been a food fight in the Great Hall that breakfast time.
"No, why?" she asked, confused.
"Because it looks like you've got some fruit in your hair."
"Oh," said the girl, confused. She put her hand up to feel the unpleasant mess, finding it an orange colour when she drew it away.
"Shall we go back and see where it might have come from?" her friend suggested. "Maybe it was one of those Gryffindor boys playing a prank again." The girl agreed and they retraced her steps. When they looked up, the idea of Gryffindor boys playing a prank on them went right out of their heads.
Attached to the spike on the turret sticking out from the centre of the Astronomy tower, the tallest part of Hogwarts, a massive, round, peach coloured object was sitting. It was from this object that a small dollop of fruit flesh had come. The girl couldn't resist tasting her fingers.
"It's a peach!" she cried, disbelieving. Magic school or not, there is something inherently disconcerting about a massive peach spiked onto the top of a large castle.
"Merlin," her friend breathed. "Think we ought to tell the Headmaster?" The girl agreed and they rushed off to the Headmaster's office. Getting no answer from the gargoyle guarding it, they turned instead to the Deputy's office.
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore is away for the day. What is the issue?" the stern professor asked almost curtly.
"Professor, there's a huge peach on the top of the Astronomy tower."
"A peach?" The teacher sounded somewhat disbelieving.
"Yeah, a ginormous one! It dripped juice onto Tiffany's hair. Look!" They displayed the cited mess. The professor sighed.
"Very well. I shall investigate, but if this is some sort of prank, I promise I will not be lenient."
Once outside, the two students were treated to the sight of their cool and collected Deputy Head losing her composure. Her eyebrows rose and her mouth slackened slightly. There was movement on the top of the peach and, by squinting, the Deputy could just about make out the shape of a human peering over the edge. Whether male or female, adult or child, she couldn't yet tell: it was too far away.
Pursing her lips, the Deputy regained her lost calm manner.
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Now, Miss Egglebert, could you go fetch Professor Flitwick and Miss Tretson, could you find Professor Lupin. I believe he is in his office at this point. Thank you." The two girls went off on their errands. All the while the peach had been dripping its juice and even bits of flesh all over the courtyard and down the Astronomy tower. By this point the commotion in the main courtyard had started attracting attention from people who had a free. The crowd grew further the two called for professors came, Flitwick bringing his class with him. Despite the Deputy's remonstrations, this was too exciting to go inside.
"My my," Flitwick chuckled. "Someone's engorgement charms went a little awry, I think."
"Yes, well," the Deputy said dryly "I think the perpetrator might be sitting on the fruit itself." Lupin's eyebrows went skyward.
"You mean there's someone up there?" The Deputy nodded. "Then we must get him or her down immediately! Who knows when that charm will lose its magic!" Both other professors agreed.
"But how?" questioned the Deputy.
"I'll fly up on a broom," Lupin offered. The Deputy nodded again.
"Very well, as long as I don't have to get up on it." She shivered visibly.
"Yes, Minerva," Flitwick interjected with a note of amusement in his voice. "I heard last time you went up on broom you got stuck in a tree and couldn't get down. Really doing the cat image a lot of good, that." Minerva glared at him.
"I'll thank you to hold your tongue about that…incident…when students are in earshot." While they carried on their little, uh, cat-fight, Lupin rolled his eyes and summoned his broom. He then took off towards the peach, quickly drawing level with the top.
As suspected, there was indeed a person there, only, not an adult. Not even a teenager. The child in front of Lupin certainly didn't look old enough to even be at Hogwarts. In fact, if he had to take a guess, he would estimate the boy at about six, maybe seven. Smiling kindly, he asked the boy his name.
Now, Lupin could perhaps be forgiven for not recognising the son of his best friend. Harry had, under the 'care' of his relatives, become much thinner than he should have been. In addition, since his escape, though he had tried to keep reasonably clean, living inside a giant fruit was not conducive to good hygiene. To add to this, of course, the way down to his current position had involved him slamming into every available surface inside the peach. As a result, he was liberally coated in peach juice turning him an orangey colour. His hair was a mat of dried and still sticky juices, sticking firmly over his forehead and that – unknown to Harry- famous scar. His eyes were the only remaining feature unaltered by circumstances, but considering he was at present too nervous to look the strange man directly in the eye, Lupin was kept from their true piercing greenness.
Harry's immediate reaction to being asked his name was to give it, 'Harry Potter'. Remembering, however, his teacher's firm instructions to be careful with strangers and never give them personal information unless a trusted adult said otherwise, he thought he had better be cautious.
"James," he said warily. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie: his middle name was 'James' after all. The man just gave him another kind smile that made him just want to trust the strangely familiar person in front of him.
"Well, James, my name is Remus Lupin. Call me Remus. Do you know where you are?" he asked, deciding he'd better find out whether the boy was a muggle who had somehow got involved in a wizard's work or a young wizard who had accidentally enlarged a peach. 'James' looked around and then sighed miserably.
"I wanted to get to Hogwarts, but I can't see it now." Remus felt like laughing, but he kept it to another smile, not wanting to frighten or offend the child.
"James, we are currently impaled on a spike rising up from Hogwarts' tallest tower."
Harry felt his eyes widen in the delight that suddenly coursed through him.
"We're at Hogwarts, really?" The man, Remus Lupin, just nodded.
"Would you like to come and see it?" He offered. Harry nodded wildly. The bugs would be so…. He stopped short, his grin falling. Remus quickly noticed the change in the boy's mood.
"What's wrong, James?" he asked softly.
"I had…. My friends didn't…. I came with some others. We were all so excited, but now they're not here." He looked so miserable Remus' heart went out to him.
"Well, there are a lot of really good witches and wizards down there. Maybe one or more of them could help find your friends for you." He smiled at 'James' and Harry gave a tentative one back. Remus then got 'James' to sit behind him on the broom and wrap small arms around his waist. He then gently tipped them towards the ground. The arms around his waist tightened but when they landed, Remus saw the boy had the biggest grin on his face.
"You like flying, huh?" he asked softly. Harry nodded fervently in return. The feeling of swooping through the air, that weightless sensation, was magnificent. Far better from flying on the Peach which had barely felt like flying at all. Suddenly noticing all the people around him, he shrank back a little into Remus: the only somewhat familiar person in this multitude.
"You've got him then, Remus?" a jovial voice said. Harry looked and realised the man who had spoken was barely bigger than he was!
"Well Filius, you and Minerva seemed so engrossed in your conversation that I thought I should get the ball rolling a little," Remus drawled. 'Filius' smiled.
"Be that as it may, I had better get introduced to this little man here. You are human, are you not?" Harry frowned at him.
"Of course I am!" he said indignantly.
"No offence meant, no insult intended. I merely wanted to make sure. I am not entirely human after all." Harry's eyebrows disappeared into the matted mess of his hair. "Now, what might you be called, young man?"
"I'm James," Harry said, sticking to his decision.
"My name is Filius Flitwick. I'm the Charms teacher at this school. Now, let's get this peach of yours down."
"Please be careful," Harry said anxiously, then shrank back when Flitwick looked at him. "I mean…" he trailed off unsure what to say but not wanting this man to get angry with him.
"Have some sentimental feeling attached to it, do you?" he asked kindly. "I mean, you like it, correct?" he reiterated seeing Harry's slight incomprehension. Harry nodded. "Well don't worry. I'll just levitate it up off the spike and then down onto the ground here."
"Not here exactly, Filius," a new voice said. A stern looking woman in a tall witch's hat and flowing black robes approached them.
"Minerva McGonagall," she introduced herself as. "Transfiguration professor. And who might you be?" she asked, her voice a little more kind.
"J-James," Harry said, slightly intimidated.
"James? And what is your surname name, might I ask?" Harry felt as though he must answer and couldn't lie, but on the other hand, he didn't want them to know anything about him that could send him back to the Dursleys. Instead, trembling, he stayed silent. McGonagall just regarded him silently, her eyes piercing, then turned back towards the bouncy little teacher. "Levitate it to the lawn outside the main walls. That way it won't block this through-way and provide a distraction to students." The Charms teacher nodded and everyone proceeded outside.
"So, James, what brings you to Hogwarts?" Remus asked while Minerva and Filius tried to shoo the students back inside. The end of his sentence, however, was drowned out by the sound of an engine sputtering and groaning. Everyone, including the students and the remonstrating teachers, looked down the lawn towards the Forbidden Forest where a very battered looking car was just driving up to them.
The car, which by the paintwork still left among the scratches used to be silver, clanked to a halt just in front of the Peach. Out of it, to Harry's horror, staggered a whale, a pig and a giraffe. Only, the actual animals would have been a more welcome sight.
"See, Petunia," said the whale proudly. "I told you that GPS tracker* would do the job!"
"Ah, who, might I ask, are you?" Filius asked politely. Vernon looked down at him patronisingly.
"A dwarf, I think, Petunia. Probably been deformed since birth," he 'whispered' to his wife. Unfortunately or not, he seemed to miss the point of a whisper and everyone could hear it. Harry noticed several people bristle, obviously taking insult on behalf of their professor. The man in question, however, kept smiling genially. "We. Are. The. Dursley. Family.," Vernon half-shouted, obviously thinking that a physical 'deformity' would also mean Flitwick was both deaf and slow. "We. Are. Here. To. Retrieve. The. Peach."
"Thank you, Mr Dursley," said Flitwick at a normal level. "There is no need to shout. Now, are we to understand that the peach belongs to you?"
"Yes," said Vernon, dropping his 'talking-to-the-stupid-person' voice. "See here." He shoved a newspaper cutting under the noses of Flitwick, Lupin and McGonagall who had come to support their colleague.
'Dursley Family Produces Record-Punching Peach!" the headline screamed, a big picture of the Dursleys next to the Peach next to the article.
"My, the picture doesn't move!" exclaimed Flitwick.
"Of course it doesn't move," frowned Vernon, his wife scowling behind him. Dudley had been scowling all the way though so no-one took any notice of him. "What kind of freaks do you take us for?" He looked around and sniffed. "Besides, why do you think you can cast aspersions when you're standing next to a ruined castle?" He dismissed the issue, poking the picture firmly. "You see this picture here? You think there's another huge peach in this country? This is our peach and we want to take it home now."
"And the young lad who was riding it?" The Dursley couple exchanged a glance.
"I suppose we'd better take the boy too," Vernon said grudgingly.
At those words a shock of horror went through Harry's system, freezing him in place. To go back to that hellhouse now he knew what life could be like? Now he had discovered people who thought more of him than a worthless slave or delinquent child, to still return to the place of nightmares? Now he had got to Hogwarts, his dream?
No. The thought was faint at first but gained strength as soon as it was thought. No, I will not go back! Whether Severus, Molly, Hermione, Neville, Sirius, Draco and Trelawney are alive or not, I will not go back to the Dursleys. It was a new idea to disobey the Dursleys, but one that once taken root continued to grow.
"So we'll be on our way with the Peach, then," boomed Vernon.
"And the boy," Petunia added, a sneer in her voice.
"Mummy, I'm tired and hungry and I'm missing my TV shows," whined Dudley. "I wanna go home!" Petunia turned to her son, a sickly smile on her face.
"We'll be going in a moment sweetums. You've been such a good boy on this trip, haven't you Dudley-diddums," she gushed, kissing his forehead. "We'll have to give you a treat."
"I wanna new TV," he demanded.
"Of course, darling," Looking around Harry realised that there were quite a few others who looked as sick as he felt. The teachers looked at each other.
"Well, it seems legit," said Flitwick doubtfully. "Though how they're going to get this huge fruit home without magic, I don't know."
"Do you have any identity papers proving your guardianship of the child?" asked Lupin. Something about these three was rubbing him up the wrong way….
"Here," Petunia said, thrusting a photo under his nose where the three Dursleys were standing proudly, beaming smiles on their faces. To the side of the picture looking forlorn, though trying to smile, 'James' stood, separated from the family by more than space**. Lupin looked from 'James' to the picture. Yes, that was the same child if all that peach juice was washed out and the hair was allowed a little extra wave. He frowned. The child in the picture was exceedingly familiar. Now, who could he be thinking of….
His thought process was interrupted by the Dursley father pushing rudely past him and trying to roll the Peach. Of course, it was far too heavy for a single man to even shift, let alone roll. To help him out, so the family would leave quickly, Flitwick levitated it into the trailer. Petunia paled, Vernon paled and then went red, Dudley played on his game-boy.
A/N *OK, I know this wasn't invented in the late 1980's, but I needed a way for these three to make their way to Hogwarts for 'the final confrontation'. Besides, it fits with the original film where Spiky and Sponge make their way to New York in a manner which makes no logical sense.
**And why do the Dursleys have a family picture of Harry, you might ask? Because…because they were forced to take him with them to the photographer since he legally couldn't be left alone in the house and since he was with them at the place, they were kinda obliged to take a photo with him in it. They kept it because somehow the contrast of his miserable, dark-haired, waifness made the family seem so much happier and better off. But they didn't want others to see it so Petunia kept it in her purse instead of as a big photo. Yeah.
