Chapter 14- Asking for Trouble

April 15, 1993

Everyone thought Harry had received everything on a silver platter. Well he almost had. But one thing had always been denied him.

Harry could remember that when he was very young, he had a brother. He was so happy when said brother was born; he'd finally have someone to play with.

And then baby Percy was gone. His parents always avoided the topic and Harry eventually let the subject drop. But he never forgot about Percy – even when Victoria was born.

Then his brother came back, yet Harry could see that there was something wrong about him.

Harry had been a sheltered child because his parents had been terribly paranoid. Even though, he had never seen somebody so submissive.

Percy's posture screamed obedience. He was terribly shy and uncomfortably small.

Harry had immediately taken to his half-brother, which turned into a friendship that could weather anything. And yet, it was being threatened.

Harry had noticed their group was growing apart and he hadn't a clue why. He was so terrified of losing his brother that he had broken it off with Katie.

While she had been unbelievably furious, Harry knew it was necessary. A girlfriend would only get in the way. Of course, he didn't consider that Percy was easily juggling a relationship and friendships.

That was part one of the plan. Next was to call the group together.

"Hey, Percy!" Harry called running over.

Percy turned around with a smile on his face. 'Maybe it's not too late,' Harry thought optimistically.

"I was just wondering if you'd want to go to the library with me." Harry asked a bit nervously.

Percy looked quite surprised and Harry felt terrible about it. He knew he had barely given Percy the time of the day for nearly a month now.

"Sure, Harry. I was just finishing up with Nev anyways," Percy said, before putting away his books and quill.

The two friends walked off together towards the library, leaving Ron and Neville by themselves.

They hadn't a clue how awkward a situation they left behind. Ron and Neville only spoke to each other through Percy, and hadn't much to say to the other.

"Sooooo…D'ya like quidditch?" Ron finally asked.

Neville scowled. "Can't you shut up about quidditch for one second?" he said walking off.

"Is that a no then?" Ron yelled chasing after him.

Percy followed Harry up to the library. They walked in an awkward silence to the third floor.

As they entered the library, Percy quickly noticed the other four members of their old 'group' gathered. Hermione and Gabrielle had their nose in a book, whilst Daphne and Victoria were at each other's throats. Just like old times.

Not surprisingly, Harry led him over to the table. As soon as Daphne saw him, she jumped up and yelled, "Happy birthday, Percy!"

The others quickly mimicked Daphne's yell. Madam Pince very nearly kicked them out, but quick thinking on the part of Hermione stopped that.

"Thanks guys," Percy said as he took a seat.

"No problem, Perce. I'm sorry I've been such a prat these past few weeks," Harry responded sullenly.

Percy looked at Harry strangely. If anything, he was acting the opposite of a prat. "No need to apologize, Harry. You've done nothing wrong. Just to be curious, is this why you called us here?"

"Well this and another thing as well. We've been growing apart." He put up his hand to stop the protests.

"It's not necessarily anybody's fault, but we've got to do something to reconnect."

Percy wasn't excited about this at all. Not to be mean, but Harry had never been the brains of the group for a reason.

"And what exactly do you plan on us doing?" Hermione asked skeptically. Percy wasn't the only suspicious one.

"Well this can take care of our two problems. First off, what have we done this year?" It was a rhetorical question, but Percy decided it needed to be answered.

"School. It is why we come here you know. I know when I signed up for Hogwarts, I wasn't expecting to be battling supposedly dead dark lords," Percy said sarcastically.

This drew a laugh from Hermione and Daphne. Of course, Victoria and Gabrielle had heard of their adventure last year, but they couldn't quite relate.

"All I'm suggesting is a little trip to the Forbidden for –"

"No," Daphne said cutting him off.

She was quickly followed up by Hermione's scolding. "Harry! It's forbidden for a reason!"

"It's just a quick frolic into the forest guys. It's not like we're raiding the ministry or something," Harry countered.

"What about Lupin? Some people think he's still in the forest," Gabrielle said.

Murmurs of affirmation to Gabrielle's statement came from the group. 'At least I'm not the only one with some sense here.'

"Where's your sense of adventure? We haven't done a bloody thing this year! Come on, it'll be fun!" Harry urged.

Percy watched as everyone's resolve broke apart by Harry's argument. Well, at least he tried.

Percy's adventurous side took over and he gave into the idea. It had been easy to escape the Gryffindor common room; a bit to easy to be honest. They didn't notice that they weren't the only ones who escaped Gryffindor tower that night.

Breaking out Daphne was just as easy as it was on New Years Eve. The patrolling prefects were pathetic and Percy doubted that they would even care – other than the fact that he was a Gryff. Many were sleeping and the ones that weren't were lazily playing with their wands.

The real problem didn't begin until they were outside the Slytherin common room.

"Brilliant plan, Harry! We get all the way to this point and then you notice that you ran off half-cocked again!" Victoria ranted.

"Hey! None of you thought about it either!" Harry argued back.

"How about you both shut the hades up before Snape gives us detention," Percy whispered fiercely.

"Do you guys even pay attention in class? Hand me the cloak," Hermione ordered sighing. Percy would've thought that she would be freaking out for breaking so many school rules, but she seemed to be acting calmer than the rest of them.

Harry handed her his invisibility cloak. The cloak could only conceal four of them at most – and that was only when two of them were Gabrielle and Victoria.

"Capacious extremis," she said enchanting the cloak. All of them took a closer look at the cloak.

"Um…Hermione…I don't think it worked," Harry spoke warily.

Daphne and Hermione rolled their eyes.

"Idiot," Daphne muttered.

"Everyone under the cloak," Daphne ordered as if she was in charge of this operation.

The six of them huddled together and Hermione threw the cloak around them. Percy was surprised to find that the cloak not only fit around all of them, it even had slack to spare. 'Should've paid more attention in Charms.'

Percy pulled out the marauders' map and the group made their way out of the castle. If he'd been paying better attention, he would've noticed that they were not quite alone as they thought.

"Why are we doing this again?" Victoria whined as they stared at the mass of trees surrounding them.

"It all started one day when I decided to befriend my bespectacled idiot brother," Percy said grumbling.

There was a reason that Dumbledore had sternly stated that the forest was off-limits. It was a bloody nightmare. The trees shook eerily, but there was no wind. There were snarls coming from various corners of the forest and the howls of things that were not quite human. Even the flowers portrayed the blackness of the forest – they were darker than the night itself.

Harry was the only one not affected by the terrifying forest. He was prancing along whilst he was humming a toon, as if he was red riding hood.

The rest of them had more sense. Percy and Hermione put on a brave front, but he knew that they were hiding both of their fears underneath. Victoria and Gabrielle were visibly shaking and Daphne had a blank look on her face, but she was surely hiding it as well.

"Maybe we should go back," Percy suggested.

"But we haven't even done anything yet!" Harry protested.

"Why're you getting cold feet all of a sudden?" Harry asked turning around.

"Maybe you haven't noticed the terrifying forest that's filled with bloodthirsty, flesh-eating horrors!" Daphne exclaimed quite loudly.

"Aww! Is wittle Daphwe gonna cwy?" Harry mocked in his baby voice.

"I'LL HEX YOU, YOU BLOODY ARROGANT BASTARD!" she roared in response pulling out her wand.

"Percy, are you gonna back me up?" Harry asked.

"Uhhhhh…"

"PERSEUS BLACK! HOW DARE YOU SIDE WITH HIM!"

"Uhhhh…"

"Guys, I think we have a problem," Hermione whispered out as if she was trying to act as natural as possible.

Harry and Daphne were still going at it and hadn't quite perceived the situation. There were five Dementors creeping up behind them.

Percy very slowly reached for his wand. He was pretty sure that nothing in his inventory of spells could do a thing against a dementor.

Daphne finally saw the dementors as well, but fortunately, she only gasped.

"Harry," Percy called.

"What's the matter?"

"I want you to slowly turn around and when you do, I want you to not make any sudden movements or noises, all right?"

Harry turned around slowly – just as he was directed. To his merit, he didn't do anything to make the dementors attack prematurely.

The aura they were admitting was nearly suffocating Percy in fear. He was buckling at the knees, whilst the others only seemed slightly bothered.

"Here's the plan, all. On the count of three, we reductor their arses into the ground and make a run for it," Harry ordered calmly.

"Ummm…Well the only problem with that is –"

"One," Harry whispered.

"The castle's a good ways back –"

"Two." Apparently, Harry was just going to ignore Percy's comments, so he gave up.

"Three," Harry said. Immediately, all wands were focused on a dementor.

"REDUCTO!" they all shouted. Percy was the only one who glanced after the curses were fired. The reductos had knocked them back, but they were already giving chase. In other words, they were truly and utterly screwed.

Percy dashed off at speeds the others couldn't match. Who knew he would be praising Dudley for his game of 'freak hunting?'

Harry had thrown Victoria over his shoulder and grabbed Hermione's hand – pulling her along with him. This left a struggling Gabrielle and Daphne trying to keep up with them.

Percy quickly took control of the situation – throwing Gabrielle over his shoulder and latching on to Daphne's hand.

Percy could feel the cold auras of the dementors closing in fast from behind – it caused him to shiver. It wouldn't be too much longer for the dementors to catch up – much less time than it would take to get to the castle.

Suddenly, Harry and Hermione stopped in their tracks. They were still quite a bit ahead of Percy and Daphne, so Percy hadn't a clue what could be holding them up.

That is, until Percy ran into the small clearing and crashed into an already crumpling Harry. Percy was on his feet in a second – which unfortunately meant that Gabrielle got a little rough-housed – only to look into the empty eye sockets of a dementor.

Percy staggered backwards until he tripped over an object. A memory was brought to the forefront of his mind as the dementor began to feed on him.

"Hey, kid!"

Freak didn't bother to look up; no one ever called for him, unless it was a scolding.

"Oi! Dudley's cousin!"

Freak looked up from his book. He quickly became unnerved by the stares of these kids. They looked to be a year up from him, but he couldn't be sure.

"Can I help you?" he asked softly. His throat still hadn't healed since Uncle Vernon had choked him the day before.

"We wanted to know if you wanted to play at the park with us later today."

An older Percy would've noticed the smirks on their faces as hostile, but the younger Percy was naive and desperate for friends. He agreed readily.

Freak was supposed to be home as soon as possible to start on chores, but he decided that this was worth skipping out on. How dearly he would pay for that later.

Of course, when he got to the park he was actually a little surprised to find his new 'friends' there. Surely the adults had known of whom they were going to play with?

To his dismay and chagrin, he found out that he had been lured here by Dudley's gang – who had paid off the older students – and received a rather sound whopping for his stupidity.

When he finally gathered the strength to get home, he was met with only more pain by his furious uncle.

This story had passed through Percy's memories in a flash, but before the dementor could feed any more, Percy saw a flash of light and heard the yell, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Percy awoke to a panicked scream. He must've passed out after the dementor attack. He'd read that dementors often cause that, but he never expected it to be so vivid.

He finally noticed his friends, who were crowding around him with worried expressions.

"Percy, are you alright?" Daphne asked worried.

Percy gave her his most reassuring smile and said, "Just a little headache."

"That's good. Have some chocolate," a foreign voice spoke from behind him.

Percy turned around to take the offered piece of chocolate (it helped with the after effects of the dementors, otherwise he would never take candy from strangers) and gasped as he looked at the man.

The man looked gobsmacked. "S–Sirius?" he stammered.

Percy didn't know why the man was so surprised to see him, considering said man was an escaped convict. He looked just like the wanted posters described. Unclean light brown hair – that had quite a bit of grey in it – fell down to his shoulders, while his green eyes stared piercingly at him as if trying to figure him out.

"I'm actually his son, Perseus," Percy said warily, carefully eating his chocolate. There was no mistaking that this man was the escapee, Remus Lupin.

"His son?" he muttered.

"Yeah…How do you know him?" Percy was simply trying to keep a conversation going so that maybe Lupin would forget that he could probably kill them with the flick of his wand.

"He–he never mentioned me?" Lupin asked seemingly confused.

"I don't think so. But he's never quite been the serious type…"

Lupin laughed. "Yes that's true. James and Sirius never could go a minute without saying a joke."

Percy and Harry shared a look. How did this man know their fathers?

"How do you know our fathers?" Harry asked.

"We were best mates back in school," Lupin explained. Harry and Percy shared another look. "Me, James, Sirius, and Pettigrew…Good times."

Lupin was either really messed up from Azkaban, or he was telling the truth. Percy was inclined to believe the second option considering the way Lupin had said it.

"We were the marauders."

Maybe he was a little more off his rocker than first thought.

"Excuse me?" Percy asked.

"The marauders," he repeated again.

"Okaaaaaayyy," Percy drew out the word to show his disbelief.

"It actually makes a bit of sense if you think about it, Perce," Harry said. "How else would they have the marauders' map? And my father's cloak would have been efficient for pranks and explain why no one ever saw them."

It did kind of make sense, but it's not like it mattered too much to Percy. However, if this man would rather talk about that than kill us…

"What do you have to say to get the map to work?" Percy asked.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he replied without hesitation.

"Awesome! Next thing we know, we'll find out he's actually innocent!" Harry exclaimed.

"You guys do realize that we can be arrested for fraternizing with a criminal, right?" Hermione said her voice shaky. She wasn't as brave with escaped convicts around.

Harry completely ignored Hermione. "What was that you used against the dementors?"

Percy gave the man an interesting look. 'So he was the one who saved us. But why?'

"It's called the Patronus charm –" No sooner had he spoken that Hermione spoke up.

"I've heard of that!" she said excitedly.

"It's a charm that projects your positive feelings into a sort of magical guardian. It's immensely complicated and very difficult spell to cast and most wizards and witches can not hope to achieve it," she said in one breath.

"Looks like we've got a miniature Lily Evans in the making," Lupin laughed.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing scream penetrated the silence. It was definitely human. Lupin jumped up quickly and rushed in the direction.

Against his better judgment, the Gryff side of Percy's brain acted on impulse. He took off after Lupin before even Harry had come to his senses.

Lupin was fast. Of course, he had to be to stay on the run from the ministry for so long, but considering the man was little better than a walking skeleton – it was rather impressive. The distance between Lupin and Percy was rapidly growing.

They were getting much closer to the ear-splitting screams now. The ground rumbled furiously with the movement of hundreds of objects.

Percy stopped right next to Lupin. Lupin had his wand out and didn't seem scared at all. Percy wasn't sure of what to expect, but the screams and the enemy were closing in fast.

Ronald Weasley came charging out of the bushes like his life depended on it. Judging by those sounds behind him, it probably did. Ron ran straight into Percy knocking both of them over.

"Get off, idiot!" Percy shouted. Percy hadn't the time for this nonsense right now. He pushed Ron off of him and stood facing the stampede of…whatever is was.

"They're coming," Ron whimpered pathetically.

"What's coming, Ron?" Harry asked, his wand pointed toward the impending threat. He and the others had finally caught up.

Ron needn't answer as they were suddenly surrounded by a horde of overgrown arachnids.

"Well this is just bloody fantastic!" Harry whined.

"Look! More human food!" one of the spiders said gleefully in his raspy voice. Everyone had a tight grip on their wands – except for Lupin of course. Running from the law must do that to you.

The spiders started advancing slowly, trying to taunt them. Percy had to admit that it was working rather well.

Suddenly, several of the spiders jumped.

"REDUCTO!" The entire group had the same idea as every attacking spider was reduced to ashes.

"They have us surrounded! What do we do?" Percy asked frantically, as he dodged a pounce from a spider.

Lupin banished one back into the oncoming sea of monsters. "We need to break out through the rear!" he yelled.

"Gaby, Vic, Daph," Harry called. "Clear out all the ones behind us!"

"Who died and made you king?" Daphne yelled back, cutting the legs off of an arachnid.

"What do you want me to – Incendio – do? Maybe you should stop being such a spoiled pure-blooded – Reducto – princess and get us out of here!"

"I'd rather die than take orders from you – confringo!"

"Daphne – love – please clear out the rear so we don't die," Percy pleaded, slicing another overgrown monster in half.

Fortunately, Gabrielle and Victoria had done what they were asked and their line of retreat was looking almost spotless.

"On the count of three we charge the rear!" Lupin ordered.

"Why do I feel as if I'm in – Reducto – the bloody military?" Harry said over the sounds of battle.

"Diffindo! One!" Lupin shouted.

Percy sidestepped a lunge. "Confringo!" he shouted, blasting it into dust.

"Two!"

Harry was knocked on his back by one of the spiders. It looked as if it was over for him, when the previously cowering Ron jumped to Harry's rescue with an Incendio, burning it to ashes.

"Three!"

Percy cast one more Reducto before rushing off to the rear. He hadn't heard any screams, so he could only assume that the others were alright. His bravery had run out.

Percy didn't stop till he neared the edge of the forest. His friends were nowhere to be seen. It horrified him to think that he had left them behind to the flesh-eating arachnids.

He had promised Fleur to watch over Gabrielle – he had failed deplorably in that task. Hell – he'd preferred to leave his girlfriend and best friend behind to save his own skin. He was worse than scum.

It didn't take long for the others to catch up with him. Daphne was giving him a look that showed him that she was thinking the same way about him that he was.

"Sorry," Percy mumbled feebly.

Her expression immediately softened at the tone of his voice. "It's alright, Percy. We were all scared," she admitted.

It was then that Percy noticed the bandages wrapped around Harry's left leg. Harry saw his gaze and answered the question before it could be asked.

"One of the buggers got me before I could get away," he laughed mirthlessly.

Percy hated himself more than Voldemort. Why was he even in the House of Lions? 'Because he told the hat to put him there,' his mind answered of its own accord. What a mistake that had been if he wasn't even brave enough to face a few overgrown spiders.

"Don't worry though," Lupin said interrupting Percy's plummet to depression, "I got him patched up. I should be telling you to go to Madam Pomfrey and get that checked out, but you'd probably get in more trouble than you've already been in tonight."

"Thanks, Lupin," Harry said gratefully.

"It'd be best if I left now. Take care –"

"Mr. Lupin," Percy interrupted.

Lupin turned his similar green – but not quite emerald – eyes to Percy. "C–could you maybe teach us that charm you used to ward off the dementors?" Percy asked timidly.

Lupin looked stumped – clearly, he was not expecting that question.

"I suppose I could, but as Hermione said earlier, it's an extremely difficult charm to learn. Maybe if you snuck out every night, you could learn it in a month or so."

"Awesome!" Harry shouted.

SMACK!

"Ow!" Harry cried out in pain. Turning to Daphne – the deliverer of the slap – he shouted, "What was that for?"

SMACK!

"Shut up before you wake up Hagrid, idiot!" she hissed.

Unfortunately, her warning had come too late as the lights in Hagrid's hut came alive.

"See you tomorrow, Lupin," Percy whispered before he took off with the others back to the castle.

"Lupin! Where are you?" a voice called from a small distance away.

Lupin growled. He hated having to work with Quirrell, but this was his best chance at getting back at Pettigrew. To do that, he had to comply with his 'master's' wishes. Lupin had almost been sorted into Slytherin after all.

A/N- The only reason I made the marauder's incognito was because I didn't think I could pull off a prank, or several for that matter. But I'm giving it a shot next chapter.