Disclaimer: all characters belong to J K Rowling and Warner brothers.
a/n Ack... this chapter isn't nearly as humorous as the previous chapters, I guess its because my humor muse is burning itself out and I really should get this out before it completely dies on me. It's really scrapping the bottom of the pan though, but hopefully, it won't be too disappointing.
Please read Of Western Stars before you read this fic, otherwise, things will get very confusing!
Good Intentions
By neutral
Chapter four - godsons and godfathers victims of stalker obsessed girls
He had every reason to be bailing out on a class that he was suppose to teach, Sirius reminded himself firmly. Despite what Remus had repeatedly said, Sirius knew the soiled truth. It was only natural that he'd hide his godson from it, he was only a child after all! He had to make sure Harry didn't come of harm.
As much as Bulstrode was despised by the rest of the female population of Hogwarts, her actions were still revolutionary. For the first time in history, a girl had dared to ask Harry Potter to be her boyfriend. Now, all of them were following her paved road, ignoring the Sirius' best attempts to beat them down with a stick. He had tried to make an example of such idiocy, but all of them were blind. Wasn't the message clear enough? Approach Harry and suffer the consequences. The Ravenclaws understood, but the Hufflepuffs… oh god. Sirius' hand was itching to wring their necks.
Most of his earliest girlfriends were Hufflepuffs, Sirius dully recalled. Shameless, they were. But he wasn't about to admit that to his godson, otherwise, he'd have to explain how he came to that knowledge.
Sirius ruefully sighed aloud as he traced the path to the field. What would Harry say if he discovered his past dating, troublemaking history? Ever since he was a six year old boy, Harry held him in a sort of reverent admiration. Sirius was flawless, a bit rough at the edges but still the most wonderful godfather in the world in his mind. If he knew… Sirius could just see the blind faith Harry placed on him erupting in a mass of flames. Sirius gritted his teeth.
Quidditch practice had already started. Sirius lingered at the stands, watching the red blurs streak overhead. Fred and George Weasley were batting around bludgers like some ridiculous game of catch that Sirius remembered playing at their age. They were skilled but, he noted with some amount of guilty pride, they never placed as many people as he did in the hospital wing. He probably shouldn't be thrilled about that. Sirius shrugged and resumed watching the game, searching with practiced proficiency for the hovering player far above the rest.
There was no seeker.
Sirius was instantly wary. Something was definitely wrong. Harry was never late for practice. Could something have happened? Could another girl have cornered Harry in the hallway? The poor boy would even know what to say or how to react if she kissed him! But those girls wouldn't dare, would they…?
"What's taking Harry so long?" a voice that Sirius recognized as Ron's shouted from above. "I checked on him in the dressing room at least ten minutes ago!"
That was all Sirius needed to hear before he was already sprinting for the dressing rooms. He tore down the side stairs and made a beeline for the oak doors at the base of the stadium. There doors flew open with a carefully aimed kick, and Sirius gasped for breath at the doorway.
And froze at the sight.
Harry was… on the floor. Three girls were on Harry on the floor.
That was all his mind registered before Sirius running forward, peeling off the Hufflepuffs by the back of their shirts. He knew they were desperate, but goddammit, he didn't think they were that desperate! His poor godson… Harry's going to be so traumatized, as if he hadn't been through enough!
Sirius dumped the first one unceremoniously on the floor. The other stripped off like a fire burning a tick when Sirius hauled her away by the scruff of her neck, but the last girl was stuck like a leech. Sirius fought the urge to wrap his fingers around her neck and throttle her when he noticed where her hand was.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Sirius snarled. He latched onto her arm and savagely tugged, but she apparently never released Harry's shirt. There was a distinct sound of shredding fabric, followed by a pop as a button snapped off. She gave a startled and almost reluctant squeak when she recognized his voice. Sirius half threw, half kicked her away.
The girls stared at him in wide eyed horror. Sirius whipped his wand out with a honed preciseness, already whispering the first curse that came to his mind.
But his godson was right behind him.
Sirius clamped his jaw down instantly at that realization. It wouldn't do for Harry to see him hexing three Hufflepuffs to oblivion. Sirius drew his lips back in a vicious snarl, and the girls scattered like harassed little hamsters.
"Ow… Sirius?" there was a slight rustle as Harry dragged himself upright. He sounded bewildered and a bit dazed as he spoke.
"Are you alright?" Sirius asked, the anger evaporated in an instant as he turned around. But at Harry's rumpled appearance, he felt another snarl coming to his face. Harry's normally untamed hair was ruffled almost beyond recognition, and his cheeks were flushed bright red in embarrassment. His glasses were skewed and hanging by his ear. "What did those girls do to you?!" Sirius couldn't help but snap angrily. "And… your shirt!"
Harry's whole left shoulder was nearly bare. The tear in his shirt ran up dangerously from the helm to the collar, giving a rather fine testimony of why those girls were after his flesh in the first place.
Harry blinked at him, a bit baffled, before looking down. "Oh." And he flushed like a rip tomato.
Sirius choked. His poor innocent, oblivious, clueless godson! He was going to skin those girls alive…
Juggling the two instincts of preying after the three scoundrels with a wand and giving Harry a hug and assuring him that nothing of the sort will ever happen again, Sirius picked up the discarded cloak on the floor and draped it over Harry's shoulders.
"You see, they got lost, and… umm… somehow wandered here," Harry stumbled over his words while trying to explain. Sirius inwardly sighed as he secured the cloak around his godson's neck.
"I sort of lost my balance, and fell. I think they fell too, and…"
"She fell and ripped your shirt open like that?!" Sirius choked in a hoarse shout. The last shred of self control was immediately stripped away.
Harry's faltered slightly. He nervously shifted from side to side, "It was an accident though. Why are you angry?"
Sirius let his head fall forward in defeat. Drawing several deep, calming breaths, Sirius managed to plaster a semi convincing smile on his face. "Come on."
"What?" Harry muttered in bewilderment as Sirius began hauling him forward. "Where are we going?"
"Teacher's dorm." Sirius half dragged, half guided Harry out of the dressing rooms. "You're evidence to convince Moony."
"But I have practice," Harry protested weakly as he stumbled after his godfather, trying to keep up. "Wait… what evidence?"
"You look tired," Sirius said stoically. He shot a glare at the closest girl who glanced Harry's way, fingering his wand discreetly. Hermione's eyes widened in confusion.
"I'm not really tired," Harry insisted, but Sirius' grip on his arm was locked. "I don't see why…"
"Yes, you are. Anyone would be after getting mauled by those…" Sirius clamped his mouth shut again. "I'm going to kill them," Sirius hissed under his breath.
Harry stared. "Huh? What?"
The door to the joint living room that he and Sirius shared flew open with a grating screech. Remus reeled out of his stool in surprise, mug raised midway to his lips. And instantly knew something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Sirius marched in, his godson in tow, with a scowl engraved in his features that could set Severus' infamous glower to shape. Harry stumbled bewilderingly after him, and Remus noted with some surprise, that he was wearing his cloak in the cozy Hogwarts halls.
"Harry, what are you doing here? Don't you have practice?" Remus asked somewhat wearily.
"Harry is not going today," Sirius hissed.
The hair on the back of Remus' neck prickled in warning at his friend's tone of voice. Glancing back at Harry, Remus noted that the boy was unusually flushed.
Oh no, something had definitely happened. It couldn't be another repeat of the Bulstrode incident, could it? The poor girl…
"But I should have at least told Ron before I left," Harry paused thoughtfully, and all the confusion suddenly morphed into a restrained calm. "Is there something wrong? Did something happen?"
"Actually, no," Remus said cautiously, edging slowly backwards.
Sirius snarled mutely at him, and Remus' hand instinctively sought his wand. But by some miracle, Sirius managed to scrape that off his face when he turned to face Harry. "Harry, go take a shower."
"Wh… what?" Harry stuttered out, blinking in confusion.
"I'll get you something warm to drink, alright?" Sirius continued soothingly. He spoke to his godson as if speaking to a trauma patient, but as to why, Remus was completely clueless. One glimpse at Harry's face told him that he flared no better.
"Umm… Padfoot, are you alright?" Harry quietly asked.
Sirius narrowed his eyes.
"Err… okay… I'll just go take a shower now," Harry muttered, sneaking a glance at Remus before slowly shuffling to the door that led to the dorms.
Remus' eye caught a fleeting glimpse of Harry shirt when his cloak flapped, and frowned. Did he get into a fistfight? "Harry, what happened to your shirt?"
Harry blushed even more, if it was at all possible. "There were three Hufflepuffs who got lost, and… umm… they wandered into the storage room of our dressing room…"
"Wait, wait, wait… what?!" Remus hoarsely croaked.
"I know it sounds odd, but they probably never played quidditch before, so its completely understandable!" Harry said in a rush, growing increasingly flustered. "I think they must have grown really scared when they couldn't find the infirmary and hid in the storage room. Or wait, that doesn't make much sense, does it? Umm… they got lost…"
Remus' stomach fell to his feet.
Oh… ooooooooh…
Oh no. Oh god.
Since when were Hufflepuffs this desperate? Peeking at Harry in the changing rooms?! Remus inwardly seethed. It was bad enough that Harry hadn't even been given the birds and the bees talk yet. This was going way too far!
"One of them was dressed really thinly! I mean, her skirt was really short, so I offered to lend her my cloak, and when I handed it to her, she accidentally grabbed my hand instead of the cloak…"
Accidentally?!?! The poor, innocent, clueless boy…
"… sort of, fell on me. I guess they accidentally ripped my shirt too…"
"She fell and ripped open your shirt like that?!" Remus was too caught in his shocked anger to notice his voice weakly resembled a horrified shriek.
"You look angry too," Harry calmly observed, slightly baffled. "Sirius reacted the same way. But it's an accident; they weren't intentionally planning to slit my throat or anything like that."
Remus slumped back on his stool in defeat. "Harry, go take a shower."
The moment the door slid closed, Sirius flew into a rampage.
"Didn't you hear that?! Remus, did you here that?!" Sirius madly paced the room, flinging out his arms in fury. "And you call me paranoid. Look what they're doing to Harry!"
Remus held his breath, silently counting to ten.
"Harry believes their story! I mean, how hard is it to fall on level ground?"
"Very easily," Remus firmly insisted.
"Only if you try very hard," Sirius hissed through clenched teeth.
Remus uneasily cleared his throat. As much as he now despised those Hufflepuff girls (he did recall that Sirius was very intimate with a few Hufflepuffs back in their school years. This was almost ironic), more than just curses would fly if Sirius met them in the halls. He was beginning to worry for the safety of the general female population of Hogwarts.
It was an accident, Remus repeated in his head. He had to teach Hufflepuffs tomorrow, he didn't want to be thinking about how the girls had Harry pinned to the floor. He might accidentally follow in Sirius' footsteps.
How horrifying.
"Sirius," Remus began with his most calming, professor like tone. "Go to the kitchen. Get a knife. Get a carrot. Chop."
Sirius bared his teeth in Remus' direction.
"I'm going to kill them. I'm seriously going to kill them!" Sirius continued to resolutely burn a hole on the floor as he paced back and forth through the room. "Hiding in the storage room… peeking at him while he changed… My godson's getting rapped!"
Remus choked for the third time that day. "It takes a little more than that to qualify as…"
Sirius groaned, ranking his hand angrily through his shoulder length hair. "My six year old godson…"
"Sixteen! Harry's sixteen!"
"… by those gossiping, grappling Hufflepuffs! And the Slytherins too! Whose next?! McGonagall?!"
Remus flinched at the mental image. Irritably, he rapped his fingers against the kitchen counter and steadily tried to count to twenty. "Sirius, I seriously doubt…"
Sirius glumly scowled at the floor. "I'm drawing him out of Hogwarts right now."
Remus buried his face in his hands. Oh no, not this again…
//
"We're dead, we're dead, we're so dead!"
"He's going to skin me alive…"
"… hang me by my thumbs from the Astronomy Tower…"
"… grab me by the hair and fling me over the stairwell tomorrow morning…"
"What are we going to do?"
"We're going to fight back!"
"… what?"
"Remove Professor Black."
"Well, he's a bit hard to throw from the tower, isn't he…? And we can't quite fall on him either, although he is really hot…"
Crickets.
"… sometimes…"
A long silence.
Blush. "I'm only kidding."
A suspicious glare.
Cower.
"See here. This is a banishing charm…"
"… you're serious about removing him?!"
"Well, of course!"
"That looks difficult…"
"…But it throws your enemy into…"
"Someplace not here? This is a little vague…"
"But that's not the point! We don't care where he goes, as long as he leaves, right?"
Giggle. "Harry, we're coming!"
Another lingering silence.
"Err…"
\\
"Draw me out of Hogwarts?" Harry asked mildly, peeking over the rim of his mug. "What for?"
It wasn't the first time Sirius raged and roared over this issue, and Harry knew it wouldn't be the last. Sirius had threatened to draw him out of Hogwarts every year at least once. It usually followed a rather unfortunate encounter with his worst enemy, but it seemed that this year, Sirius had flung the issue at him rather early. He hadn't even met Voldemort yet, why was his godfather already panicking?
Harry curiously examined his godfather's demeanor and then Remus' for good measure. Remus looked oddly… horrified, and even slightly irritated. That was an expression he never saw on the usually mild tempered professor. And Sirius was… furious. He was trying hard to hide it, Harry could tell, but he could see hints of the anger in his pale eyes.
Why would they be angry?
The only odd encounter he had that year was with those three girls. But that was hardly life threatening.
So one of them ripped his shirt. He had other spare shirts, it didn't really matter. Another sort of… bit his neck, but he didn't think she was a vampire. It was daylight outside. Inwardly shrugging, Harry took another sip of his hot chocolate.
"Umm…" Sirius was uncomfortable. That was odd. "because it's not safe."
"The Moor House isn't any safer," Harry pointed out blankly.
Remus blanched. "Sirius, this is hardly worth overreacting over."
"Overreacting?!" Sirius screeched in disbelief. Glancing at Harry out of the corner of his eye, he drew a steadying breath and fought to restrain his temper. "It's safe from certain… aspects of life."
Harry raised a bewildered eyebrow. "The wards are actually weaker though…"
"This isn't about death eaters or Voldemort," Remus said with a wry smile. "Sirius is more worried about things like… g--"
The blood drained from Remus' face; he cringed in his seat as if in pain. Abruptly, he lurched out of his seat and hobbled to the side of the room.
A ripple, tingled with warmth, ripped through the air.
Harry leaped from his stool, pose tense and ready for battle. Planting his feet firmly on the floor, he held himself with the confidence and certainty of someone honed and trained for war.
"We're being targeted," Harry whispered low under his breath. "Someone is casting a charm on one of us."
There weren't any intruders. The wards were still intact. Closing his eyes, Harry focused on the thin stream of magic filling the room with an unnatural warmth that only he could seem to sense, and imagined himself running his fingers through its strings. Trace its source, trace its victim…
Harry reeled back in shock. "Sirius…!"
That was all he managed to yell out before a savage tug at his navel sent the room spiraling into darkness.
It was dark.
It took a moment for Harry to reorient himself and realize that his eyes were open and not closed, and the room was really dark and not light. Giving himself a quick, metal assessment of his condition, he was vague surprised to discover that he felt completely fine, if not slightly lightheaded. What was that charm?
Oh no, Remus and Sirius…!
Harry fidgeted apprehensively. He was lying down. Humm… he should probably stand up. Something rustled as he moved. It felt grainy under his fingers.
What was this? Grass…? What? Where was he?!
"Lumos."
Harry squinted when the sudden light assaulted his eyes. He vaguely wondered why he never sensed the stranger approach him. Blindly, he groped around for his wand and released a soft sigh when he felt its reassuring presence pressed against his thigh.
"There you are! I was beginning to worry," said a very familiar voice.
Harry blinked. "Sirius?!"
The man who stared down at him looked nothing like the godfather who stood in the cozy living room just minutes before. His hair was long and sleek, combed carefully in a ponytail that fell down his neck. His godfather never grew his hair past his shoulder, and it was certainly never as neat as that man's. Sirius always insisted his appearance wasn't important, not with a godson to look after and children to teach. Did Remus curse him or something as a joke?
"Come on, lets go before they come to pick you up. Damn, they're going to have my throat when they finds out."
Before Harry had a chance to react, Sirius was pulling him up by the back of his shirt and enthusiastically marching him towards a very familiar home. But why was he at the Moor House? He was at Hogwarts only minutes ago!
Sirius slung a casual arm over his shoulder, but Harry was too confused to do anything more than gape. His godfather wasn't usually that nonchalant. What was going on?
"So, how did it go?" Sirius brightly asked.
"Wh… what?" Harry stuttered, staring at the man fixedly in shock.
Sirius gave him an odd glance out of the corner of his eye, and grinned secretively. "You know…" he let his words trail off into a mysterious silence.
Harry furrowed his brow, feeling as if his brain had died on him. "Know what?"
Sirius threw his head back and laughed, and Harry had another shock. His godfather never laughed like that. "Alright, stop the weaseling. How did the quidditch game go? Got any quaffles?"
He said quidditch and quaffles in the oddest tone, but Harry couldn't depicter it.
"But I play seeker," Harry said stupidly, unable to think of a better response.
"I know you play seeker." And there was that odd tone again.
Harry frowned. Somehow, he had the idea that Sirius was talking about something completely different from quidditch. But…
"I… I don't think I understand," Harry sheepishly admitted.
Sirius just gave a dramatic sigh. "Oh, alright, be secretive. Just make sure to tell me when you're no longer a virgin."
Harry choked. What?!
Sirius tore through the underbrush, blindly running through the darkened forest. He was distantly aware that the place was familiar. It distinctly resembled the gardens surrounding the Moor House, but that was the last thing on his mind at the moment.
There was a charm. Harry was shouting out his name. And the next thing he knew, he was lying face down under a new moon. This didn't bode well. Could it be a curse of some sort, designed to separate him from Remus and his godson to divide and conquer?
A moan.
Sirius jerked to a stop, trying to ignore the blood pounding in his tempers as he strained his ears to pick out the sound.
Another moan, a but muffled this time, followed by a rustle of fabric. From his right came a distinct sound of a girl's giggle, but that was instantly silenced by a very mushy pop.
He definitely knew that sound. In fact, he had been very well acquainted with it back in his Hogwarts days.
"Oh, where are you putting your hand…?" the sentence slipped into a soft moan.
"Must I say it?" came a smooth, low whisper. The speaker was a boy, a very familiar boy.
Before Sirius even considered discretion or the dangers of the odd territory, he was tearing through the bushes and filling the area with light from his wand. The small closure suddenly came into acute detail, and Sirius nearly fell backwards at the sight.
Harry on the ground. Harry on a girl on the ground.
This time, the roles were obviously reversed. Harry, his godson, had his hand frozen right above a lacy collar that he was slowly and skillfully unbuttoning, and the other snaked tightly around a slim waist. He had a girl (Sirius almost fell completely when he recognized Lavender Brown) completely pinned against the moist grass. Even when the area splattered with light, he still pointedly ignored Sirius in favor of sliding his hands down.
No, no, no, no... this can't be right!
"What…?" When suddenly faced with the worst nightmare of his life, in which Sirius remembered yelling himself hoarse and hexing the girl into a pile of dust, he was shocked to realize he couldn't speak.
"Oh, hello Mr. Black," Lavender said with a coy smile. Harry slowly extracted his arms from her neck and waist, and they both exchanged long, knowing glance.
Harry didn't even look at up until after she portkeyed away. Sirius was too stunned to even stutter. When Harry turned, Sirius was sure his stomach was a bloody puddle at his feet. His godson wasn't at all embarrassed. He wasn't even blushing. In fact, he had a large, triumphant smile on his face that Sirius was sure he saw in his own after a session with the third fling of the month.
"Well?" Harry elbowed him teasingly and cheekily tilted his head to one side. "What do you say? I'm close to breaking your record!"
Sirius was sure that his jaw could have fallen completely off his face if it wasn't for the annoying skin.
"Lessee, there's Lavender this week. Chang was the first this month, and then Patil. I'm halfway through, I think, just as much as you," Harry idly counted with his fingers, pursing his lips in thought. "I'm thinking about asking Ginny, but she has too many brothers…"
This was a nightmare. Everything that he swore not to let Harry do, his godson was going about it with a cheeky smile.
"Sirius, what's up with you? You're unusually quiet," Harry said finally, frowning at him as he straightened his shirt. Suddenly, he grinned and elbowed him again, "Having second thoughts about losing your record?"
Something cracked. Very loudly.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" Sirius shouted as loud as his voice would allow him, flinging out his hands. When he found there was nothing to hit, grabbed at his hair instead. "What . Are . You . Doing . With . Brown . In the bushes?!"
Rather than shrinking back as his godson would have done, Harry perked up even more rebelliously. "You know," Harry winked and a smile that suspiciously resembled a smirk spread across his face. "Come on, we better get back. They're going to kill you if they find out what happened."
Sirius staggered after Harry with his jaw completely detached.
This was a nightmare. A nightmare!!!
He was dreaming. He was sure of it. This couldn't possibly be happening. Remus pinched himself hard, and grimaced at the pain. He must have imagined the it, because this couldn't be happening.
"Remus, tell me this truthfully, where's Harry?"
The lights were dancing oddly over the ceiling, a reflection of the brustling fireplace. The white tiled counter, the same as the one he remembered cleaming before leaving on the Hogwarts Express, gleamed back at him. Remus opened his mouth and shut it again, feeling unmistakably fishlike.
The man sighed, shaking his head in frustration when Remus failed to answer. He stood with a flourish, his hands behind his back, and began madly pacing the room. His glasses glinted with firelight as he walked, and his hair resembled an ungroomed animal's. Remus sank all his weight against the kitchen counter and tried to breathe. But what came out sounded vaguely like a groan.
James. The man was James. He was an enlarged version of Harry but with a stouter build, a firmer jaw, and deep, brown eyes. There were a few more creases on his face, and he looked far more mature than his pictures, but Remus could still recognize him distinctly.
"I knew it! I knew it!" the man, James, continued to rant as he ploped into a stool. "Damn, Lily's going to kill me."
"Lily…?" Remus choked out weakly.
Was she here too? What sort of dream was this? Oh god…
Remus stabbed himself with the tip of his wand.
James dragged his hands over his face exasperatedly, "I can't believe Sirius is cheering him on! I can't believe I made him Harry's godfather!!"
"Wha…?" Remus said eloquently.
"Alright, I know Sirius. But I thought he'd be… more mature to my son!" James continued to rant, completely oblivious to Remus' shock.
Was this some sort of dream? Or was James' ghost so infuriated with Sirius' actions that he took the incentive and decided to haunt him?
"Sirius is very mature," Remus finally found his voice, but it still came scratchy and wavering. "He's been a very good godfather to Harry."
"What?!" James choked out in disbelief. Remus subconsciously took a step back. "He's putting Harry up to dating every single girl in Hogwarts!" What?! Oh god, this can't be happening...
The room in Remus' vision sharply tilted to the right, but the wall fortunately caught him.
"No, that can't be right," Remus whispered. Numbly, he tried to think back to an occassion when Sirius did anything to imply that, but his mind scraped a blank. "Sirius is setting up Harry to date absolutely no girls in his life."
"At least my son still has top grades in his class, otherwise, I'd be wringing Sirius' neck. I mean, my son!" James gritted out angrily, clenching and unclenching his fists. He didn't seem to hear Remus' previous defense at all. "Sirius wants Harry to be a mirror image of him, but... oh, the idiot!"
Remus furiously shook his head. "No, James, that's definitely not true!"
Distantly, he wondered what sort of twisted reality he could be standing in. He would imagine that if he met James' ghost, his old friend would be furious that Harry was doomed to a bachelor's life, but this was completely wrong. Sirius encouraging Harry to follow in his footsteps? Sirius? Who cursed any girl who even attempted to catch Harry's eye? Sirius would have a heart attack is a girl even tried to kiss his godson...
"What sort of act are you trying to pull? Are you on his side or mine?!" James snapped out, slamming his fist against the table.
The front door suddenly flew open, and a cheery "Moony, I'm home!" wafted through the room.
Remus froze. Harry?! That was Harry's voice, although that was definitely not Harry's style. Remus stiffly turned his head in the direction of the living room, and felt the blood drain from his face.
No, that was definitely not Harry's style. The glasses, the hair, the eyes were still the same, but the long leather coat and the hugging bike pants were things that Harry wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. He alarmingly resembled Sirius at his age, and Remus felt like melting to the floor in shock.
And was that... an earing?! This could not be happening. That boy in front of him could not be Harry.
The Sirius that staggered after him was pale faced and dazed, as if he couldn't quite comprehend or digest what was occurring. Remus caught his gaze, and they stared at each other with confused recognition.
"Hey, Dad!" Harry greeted with a wide grin. He threw his arm over his dad's shoulders, pointedly dismissing James' suspicious glare.
The front door flew open a second time, and another cheery "Moony, I'm home!" ran through the house.
Both James and Harry startled in surprise.
Remus had to catch the wall for support to keep from falling completely to the floor. Another Sirius marched proudly into view, clothed in his leather jacket and his hair tied smoothly into a low ponytail. He hauled a second Harry after him, a Harry with oversized clothes that Remus remembered lending to him after his shower and very large, saucer sized eyes. He looked as confused and out of place as the first Sirius did.
Something in his mind clicked. Everything fell into place.
Oh no… not this again!
"You're both home now?" came an all too familiar voice from the top of the stairs. Remus lifted his eyes and felt himself completely freeze at the sight of the lanky frame, fawn hair, and grey eyes. "Harry, would you like something to… eat…?" the other Remus' voice trailed off into silence. He looked at the two Sirius', the two Harry's, and an added Remus in the kitchen. The other Remus' jaw fell.
"What the…?"
*
End.
*cackle* *cackle* *cackle*
*grins*
updated author's notes as of 11.07.02: a brief summary of what happened. Hufflepuffs banish Sirius, unknowingly, to an alternate world. Because of the blood oath, Remus and Harry are dragged along for the ride. The alternate world is a bit... different. Remember in chapter two, when Remus speculated what would happen if James and Lily had lived? He thought that Sirius, rather than protecting Harry, would cheer him on to follow in his godfather's footsteps, and driving James and Lily insane while he did it. So now, you have the Harry with a charmed life, and needless to say, he's very different. In fact, he remotely resembles Bill. Two very opposite Harrys with two very opposite Siriuses was quite a fun idea to play around though...
umm... really, this isn't a joke. It is the end. GI is complete. I'm completely serious this time. My humor muse has scraped the bottom, I think you can sort of tell by the quality of this chapter. Ack...
An epilogue might be in the works, but I hardly doub it will be humorous. There are too many issues tied into the situation, that if it took a humorous path, it would... I can't find the right word for it. Ack... or maybe until CoS can get under way. That story is a pain... and my muse has completely died for it. *sigh* Sorry about the short author's notes for this chapter.
a/n Ack... this chapter isn't nearly as humorous as the previous chapters, I guess its because my humor muse is burning itself out and I really should get this out before it completely dies on me. It's really scrapping the bottom of the pan though, but hopefully, it won't be too disappointing.
Please read Of Western Stars before you read this fic, otherwise, things will get very confusing!
Good Intentions
By neutral
Chapter four - godsons and godfathers victims of stalker obsessed girls
He had every reason to be bailing out on a class that he was suppose to teach, Sirius reminded himself firmly. Despite what Remus had repeatedly said, Sirius knew the soiled truth. It was only natural that he'd hide his godson from it, he was only a child after all! He had to make sure Harry didn't come of harm.
As much as Bulstrode was despised by the rest of the female population of Hogwarts, her actions were still revolutionary. For the first time in history, a girl had dared to ask Harry Potter to be her boyfriend. Now, all of them were following her paved road, ignoring the Sirius' best attempts to beat them down with a stick. He had tried to make an example of such idiocy, but all of them were blind. Wasn't the message clear enough? Approach Harry and suffer the consequences. The Ravenclaws understood, but the Hufflepuffs… oh god. Sirius' hand was itching to wring their necks.
Most of his earliest girlfriends were Hufflepuffs, Sirius dully recalled. Shameless, they were. But he wasn't about to admit that to his godson, otherwise, he'd have to explain how he came to that knowledge.
Sirius ruefully sighed aloud as he traced the path to the field. What would Harry say if he discovered his past dating, troublemaking history? Ever since he was a six year old boy, Harry held him in a sort of reverent admiration. Sirius was flawless, a bit rough at the edges but still the most wonderful godfather in the world in his mind. If he knew… Sirius could just see the blind faith Harry placed on him erupting in a mass of flames. Sirius gritted his teeth.
Quidditch practice had already started. Sirius lingered at the stands, watching the red blurs streak overhead. Fred and George Weasley were batting around bludgers like some ridiculous game of catch that Sirius remembered playing at their age. They were skilled but, he noted with some amount of guilty pride, they never placed as many people as he did in the hospital wing. He probably shouldn't be thrilled about that. Sirius shrugged and resumed watching the game, searching with practiced proficiency for the hovering player far above the rest.
There was no seeker.
Sirius was instantly wary. Something was definitely wrong. Harry was never late for practice. Could something have happened? Could another girl have cornered Harry in the hallway? The poor boy would even know what to say or how to react if she kissed him! But those girls wouldn't dare, would they…?
"What's taking Harry so long?" a voice that Sirius recognized as Ron's shouted from above. "I checked on him in the dressing room at least ten minutes ago!"
That was all Sirius needed to hear before he was already sprinting for the dressing rooms. He tore down the side stairs and made a beeline for the oak doors at the base of the stadium. There doors flew open with a carefully aimed kick, and Sirius gasped for breath at the doorway.
And froze at the sight.
Harry was… on the floor. Three girls were on Harry on the floor.
That was all his mind registered before Sirius running forward, peeling off the Hufflepuffs by the back of their shirts. He knew they were desperate, but goddammit, he didn't think they were that desperate! His poor godson… Harry's going to be so traumatized, as if he hadn't been through enough!
Sirius dumped the first one unceremoniously on the floor. The other stripped off like a fire burning a tick when Sirius hauled her away by the scruff of her neck, but the last girl was stuck like a leech. Sirius fought the urge to wrap his fingers around her neck and throttle her when he noticed where her hand was.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Sirius snarled. He latched onto her arm and savagely tugged, but she apparently never released Harry's shirt. There was a distinct sound of shredding fabric, followed by a pop as a button snapped off. She gave a startled and almost reluctant squeak when she recognized his voice. Sirius half threw, half kicked her away.
The girls stared at him in wide eyed horror. Sirius whipped his wand out with a honed preciseness, already whispering the first curse that came to his mind.
But his godson was right behind him.
Sirius clamped his jaw down instantly at that realization. It wouldn't do for Harry to see him hexing three Hufflepuffs to oblivion. Sirius drew his lips back in a vicious snarl, and the girls scattered like harassed little hamsters.
"Ow… Sirius?" there was a slight rustle as Harry dragged himself upright. He sounded bewildered and a bit dazed as he spoke.
"Are you alright?" Sirius asked, the anger evaporated in an instant as he turned around. But at Harry's rumpled appearance, he felt another snarl coming to his face. Harry's normally untamed hair was ruffled almost beyond recognition, and his cheeks were flushed bright red in embarrassment. His glasses were skewed and hanging by his ear. "What did those girls do to you?!" Sirius couldn't help but snap angrily. "And… your shirt!"
Harry's whole left shoulder was nearly bare. The tear in his shirt ran up dangerously from the helm to the collar, giving a rather fine testimony of why those girls were after his flesh in the first place.
Harry blinked at him, a bit baffled, before looking down. "Oh." And he flushed like a rip tomato.
Sirius choked. His poor innocent, oblivious, clueless godson! He was going to skin those girls alive…
Juggling the two instincts of preying after the three scoundrels with a wand and giving Harry a hug and assuring him that nothing of the sort will ever happen again, Sirius picked up the discarded cloak on the floor and draped it over Harry's shoulders.
"You see, they got lost, and… umm… somehow wandered here," Harry stumbled over his words while trying to explain. Sirius inwardly sighed as he secured the cloak around his godson's neck.
"I sort of lost my balance, and fell. I think they fell too, and…"
"She fell and ripped your shirt open like that?!" Sirius choked in a hoarse shout. The last shred of self control was immediately stripped away.
Harry's faltered slightly. He nervously shifted from side to side, "It was an accident though. Why are you angry?"
Sirius let his head fall forward in defeat. Drawing several deep, calming breaths, Sirius managed to plaster a semi convincing smile on his face. "Come on."
"What?" Harry muttered in bewilderment as Sirius began hauling him forward. "Where are we going?"
"Teacher's dorm." Sirius half dragged, half guided Harry out of the dressing rooms. "You're evidence to convince Moony."
"But I have practice," Harry protested weakly as he stumbled after his godfather, trying to keep up. "Wait… what evidence?"
"You look tired," Sirius said stoically. He shot a glare at the closest girl who glanced Harry's way, fingering his wand discreetly. Hermione's eyes widened in confusion.
"I'm not really tired," Harry insisted, but Sirius' grip on his arm was locked. "I don't see why…"
"Yes, you are. Anyone would be after getting mauled by those…" Sirius clamped his mouth shut again. "I'm going to kill them," Sirius hissed under his breath.
Harry stared. "Huh? What?"
The door to the joint living room that he and Sirius shared flew open with a grating screech. Remus reeled out of his stool in surprise, mug raised midway to his lips. And instantly knew something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Sirius marched in, his godson in tow, with a scowl engraved in his features that could set Severus' infamous glower to shape. Harry stumbled bewilderingly after him, and Remus noted with some surprise, that he was wearing his cloak in the cozy Hogwarts halls.
"Harry, what are you doing here? Don't you have practice?" Remus asked somewhat wearily.
"Harry is not going today," Sirius hissed.
The hair on the back of Remus' neck prickled in warning at his friend's tone of voice. Glancing back at Harry, Remus noted that the boy was unusually flushed.
Oh no, something had definitely happened. It couldn't be another repeat of the Bulstrode incident, could it? The poor girl…
"But I should have at least told Ron before I left," Harry paused thoughtfully, and all the confusion suddenly morphed into a restrained calm. "Is there something wrong? Did something happen?"
"Actually, no," Remus said cautiously, edging slowly backwards.
Sirius snarled mutely at him, and Remus' hand instinctively sought his wand. But by some miracle, Sirius managed to scrape that off his face when he turned to face Harry. "Harry, go take a shower."
"Wh… what?" Harry stuttered out, blinking in confusion.
"I'll get you something warm to drink, alright?" Sirius continued soothingly. He spoke to his godson as if speaking to a trauma patient, but as to why, Remus was completely clueless. One glimpse at Harry's face told him that he flared no better.
"Umm… Padfoot, are you alright?" Harry quietly asked.
Sirius narrowed his eyes.
"Err… okay… I'll just go take a shower now," Harry muttered, sneaking a glance at Remus before slowly shuffling to the door that led to the dorms.
Remus' eye caught a fleeting glimpse of Harry shirt when his cloak flapped, and frowned. Did he get into a fistfight? "Harry, what happened to your shirt?"
Harry blushed even more, if it was at all possible. "There were three Hufflepuffs who got lost, and… umm… they wandered into the storage room of our dressing room…"
"Wait, wait, wait… what?!" Remus hoarsely croaked.
"I know it sounds odd, but they probably never played quidditch before, so its completely understandable!" Harry said in a rush, growing increasingly flustered. "I think they must have grown really scared when they couldn't find the infirmary and hid in the storage room. Or wait, that doesn't make much sense, does it? Umm… they got lost…"
Remus' stomach fell to his feet.
Oh… ooooooooh…
Oh no. Oh god.
Since when were Hufflepuffs this desperate? Peeking at Harry in the changing rooms?! Remus inwardly seethed. It was bad enough that Harry hadn't even been given the birds and the bees talk yet. This was going way too far!
"One of them was dressed really thinly! I mean, her skirt was really short, so I offered to lend her my cloak, and when I handed it to her, she accidentally grabbed my hand instead of the cloak…"
Accidentally?!?! The poor, innocent, clueless boy…
"… sort of, fell on me. I guess they accidentally ripped my shirt too…"
"She fell and ripped open your shirt like that?!" Remus was too caught in his shocked anger to notice his voice weakly resembled a horrified shriek.
"You look angry too," Harry calmly observed, slightly baffled. "Sirius reacted the same way. But it's an accident; they weren't intentionally planning to slit my throat or anything like that."
Remus slumped back on his stool in defeat. "Harry, go take a shower."
The moment the door slid closed, Sirius flew into a rampage.
"Didn't you hear that?! Remus, did you here that?!" Sirius madly paced the room, flinging out his arms in fury. "And you call me paranoid. Look what they're doing to Harry!"
Remus held his breath, silently counting to ten.
"Harry believes their story! I mean, how hard is it to fall on level ground?"
"Very easily," Remus firmly insisted.
"Only if you try very hard," Sirius hissed through clenched teeth.
Remus uneasily cleared his throat. As much as he now despised those Hufflepuff girls (he did recall that Sirius was very intimate with a few Hufflepuffs back in their school years. This was almost ironic), more than just curses would fly if Sirius met them in the halls. He was beginning to worry for the safety of the general female population of Hogwarts.
It was an accident, Remus repeated in his head. He had to teach Hufflepuffs tomorrow, he didn't want to be thinking about how the girls had Harry pinned to the floor. He might accidentally follow in Sirius' footsteps.
How horrifying.
"Sirius," Remus began with his most calming, professor like tone. "Go to the kitchen. Get a knife. Get a carrot. Chop."
Sirius bared his teeth in Remus' direction.
"I'm going to kill them. I'm seriously going to kill them!" Sirius continued to resolutely burn a hole on the floor as he paced back and forth through the room. "Hiding in the storage room… peeking at him while he changed… My godson's getting rapped!"
Remus choked for the third time that day. "It takes a little more than that to qualify as…"
Sirius groaned, ranking his hand angrily through his shoulder length hair. "My six year old godson…"
"Sixteen! Harry's sixteen!"
"… by those gossiping, grappling Hufflepuffs! And the Slytherins too! Whose next?! McGonagall?!"
Remus flinched at the mental image. Irritably, he rapped his fingers against the kitchen counter and steadily tried to count to twenty. "Sirius, I seriously doubt…"
Sirius glumly scowled at the floor. "I'm drawing him out of Hogwarts right now."
Remus buried his face in his hands. Oh no, not this again…
//
"We're dead, we're dead, we're so dead!"
"He's going to skin me alive…"
"… hang me by my thumbs from the Astronomy Tower…"
"… grab me by the hair and fling me over the stairwell tomorrow morning…"
"What are we going to do?"
"We're going to fight back!"
"… what?"
"Remove Professor Black."
"Well, he's a bit hard to throw from the tower, isn't he…? And we can't quite fall on him either, although he is really hot…"
Crickets.
"… sometimes…"
A long silence.
Blush. "I'm only kidding."
A suspicious glare.
Cower.
"See here. This is a banishing charm…"
"… you're serious about removing him?!"
"Well, of course!"
"That looks difficult…"
"…But it throws your enemy into…"
"Someplace not here? This is a little vague…"
"But that's not the point! We don't care where he goes, as long as he leaves, right?"
Giggle. "Harry, we're coming!"
Another lingering silence.
"Err…"
\\
"Draw me out of Hogwarts?" Harry asked mildly, peeking over the rim of his mug. "What for?"
It wasn't the first time Sirius raged and roared over this issue, and Harry knew it wouldn't be the last. Sirius had threatened to draw him out of Hogwarts every year at least once. It usually followed a rather unfortunate encounter with his worst enemy, but it seemed that this year, Sirius had flung the issue at him rather early. He hadn't even met Voldemort yet, why was his godfather already panicking?
Harry curiously examined his godfather's demeanor and then Remus' for good measure. Remus looked oddly… horrified, and even slightly irritated. That was an expression he never saw on the usually mild tempered professor. And Sirius was… furious. He was trying hard to hide it, Harry could tell, but he could see hints of the anger in his pale eyes.
Why would they be angry?
The only odd encounter he had that year was with those three girls. But that was hardly life threatening.
So one of them ripped his shirt. He had other spare shirts, it didn't really matter. Another sort of… bit his neck, but he didn't think she was a vampire. It was daylight outside. Inwardly shrugging, Harry took another sip of his hot chocolate.
"Umm…" Sirius was uncomfortable. That was odd. "because it's not safe."
"The Moor House isn't any safer," Harry pointed out blankly.
Remus blanched. "Sirius, this is hardly worth overreacting over."
"Overreacting?!" Sirius screeched in disbelief. Glancing at Harry out of the corner of his eye, he drew a steadying breath and fought to restrain his temper. "It's safe from certain… aspects of life."
Harry raised a bewildered eyebrow. "The wards are actually weaker though…"
"This isn't about death eaters or Voldemort," Remus said with a wry smile. "Sirius is more worried about things like… g--"
The blood drained from Remus' face; he cringed in his seat as if in pain. Abruptly, he lurched out of his seat and hobbled to the side of the room.
A ripple, tingled with warmth, ripped through the air.
Harry leaped from his stool, pose tense and ready for battle. Planting his feet firmly on the floor, he held himself with the confidence and certainty of someone honed and trained for war.
"We're being targeted," Harry whispered low under his breath. "Someone is casting a charm on one of us."
There weren't any intruders. The wards were still intact. Closing his eyes, Harry focused on the thin stream of magic filling the room with an unnatural warmth that only he could seem to sense, and imagined himself running his fingers through its strings. Trace its source, trace its victim…
Harry reeled back in shock. "Sirius…!"
That was all he managed to yell out before a savage tug at his navel sent the room spiraling into darkness.
It was dark.
It took a moment for Harry to reorient himself and realize that his eyes were open and not closed, and the room was really dark and not light. Giving himself a quick, metal assessment of his condition, he was vague surprised to discover that he felt completely fine, if not slightly lightheaded. What was that charm?
Oh no, Remus and Sirius…!
Harry fidgeted apprehensively. He was lying down. Humm… he should probably stand up. Something rustled as he moved. It felt grainy under his fingers.
What was this? Grass…? What? Where was he?!
"Lumos."
Harry squinted when the sudden light assaulted his eyes. He vaguely wondered why he never sensed the stranger approach him. Blindly, he groped around for his wand and released a soft sigh when he felt its reassuring presence pressed against his thigh.
"There you are! I was beginning to worry," said a very familiar voice.
Harry blinked. "Sirius?!"
The man who stared down at him looked nothing like the godfather who stood in the cozy living room just minutes before. His hair was long and sleek, combed carefully in a ponytail that fell down his neck. His godfather never grew his hair past his shoulder, and it was certainly never as neat as that man's. Sirius always insisted his appearance wasn't important, not with a godson to look after and children to teach. Did Remus curse him or something as a joke?
"Come on, lets go before they come to pick you up. Damn, they're going to have my throat when they finds out."
Before Harry had a chance to react, Sirius was pulling him up by the back of his shirt and enthusiastically marching him towards a very familiar home. But why was he at the Moor House? He was at Hogwarts only minutes ago!
Sirius slung a casual arm over his shoulder, but Harry was too confused to do anything more than gape. His godfather wasn't usually that nonchalant. What was going on?
"So, how did it go?" Sirius brightly asked.
"Wh… what?" Harry stuttered, staring at the man fixedly in shock.
Sirius gave him an odd glance out of the corner of his eye, and grinned secretively. "You know…" he let his words trail off into a mysterious silence.
Harry furrowed his brow, feeling as if his brain had died on him. "Know what?"
Sirius threw his head back and laughed, and Harry had another shock. His godfather never laughed like that. "Alright, stop the weaseling. How did the quidditch game go? Got any quaffles?"
He said quidditch and quaffles in the oddest tone, but Harry couldn't depicter it.
"But I play seeker," Harry said stupidly, unable to think of a better response.
"I know you play seeker." And there was that odd tone again.
Harry frowned. Somehow, he had the idea that Sirius was talking about something completely different from quidditch. But…
"I… I don't think I understand," Harry sheepishly admitted.
Sirius just gave a dramatic sigh. "Oh, alright, be secretive. Just make sure to tell me when you're no longer a virgin."
Harry choked. What?!
Sirius tore through the underbrush, blindly running through the darkened forest. He was distantly aware that the place was familiar. It distinctly resembled the gardens surrounding the Moor House, but that was the last thing on his mind at the moment.
There was a charm. Harry was shouting out his name. And the next thing he knew, he was lying face down under a new moon. This didn't bode well. Could it be a curse of some sort, designed to separate him from Remus and his godson to divide and conquer?
A moan.
Sirius jerked to a stop, trying to ignore the blood pounding in his tempers as he strained his ears to pick out the sound.
Another moan, a but muffled this time, followed by a rustle of fabric. From his right came a distinct sound of a girl's giggle, but that was instantly silenced by a very mushy pop.
He definitely knew that sound. In fact, he had been very well acquainted with it back in his Hogwarts days.
"Oh, where are you putting your hand…?" the sentence slipped into a soft moan.
"Must I say it?" came a smooth, low whisper. The speaker was a boy, a very familiar boy.
Before Sirius even considered discretion or the dangers of the odd territory, he was tearing through the bushes and filling the area with light from his wand. The small closure suddenly came into acute detail, and Sirius nearly fell backwards at the sight.
Harry on the ground. Harry on a girl on the ground.
This time, the roles were obviously reversed. Harry, his godson, had his hand frozen right above a lacy collar that he was slowly and skillfully unbuttoning, and the other snaked tightly around a slim waist. He had a girl (Sirius almost fell completely when he recognized Lavender Brown) completely pinned against the moist grass. Even when the area splattered with light, he still pointedly ignored Sirius in favor of sliding his hands down.
No, no, no, no... this can't be right!
"What…?" When suddenly faced with the worst nightmare of his life, in which Sirius remembered yelling himself hoarse and hexing the girl into a pile of dust, he was shocked to realize he couldn't speak.
"Oh, hello Mr. Black," Lavender said with a coy smile. Harry slowly extracted his arms from her neck and waist, and they both exchanged long, knowing glance.
Harry didn't even look at up until after she portkeyed away. Sirius was too stunned to even stutter. When Harry turned, Sirius was sure his stomach was a bloody puddle at his feet. His godson wasn't at all embarrassed. He wasn't even blushing. In fact, he had a large, triumphant smile on his face that Sirius was sure he saw in his own after a session with the third fling of the month.
"Well?" Harry elbowed him teasingly and cheekily tilted his head to one side. "What do you say? I'm close to breaking your record!"
Sirius was sure that his jaw could have fallen completely off his face if it wasn't for the annoying skin.
"Lessee, there's Lavender this week. Chang was the first this month, and then Patil. I'm halfway through, I think, just as much as you," Harry idly counted with his fingers, pursing his lips in thought. "I'm thinking about asking Ginny, but she has too many brothers…"
This was a nightmare. Everything that he swore not to let Harry do, his godson was going about it with a cheeky smile.
"Sirius, what's up with you? You're unusually quiet," Harry said finally, frowning at him as he straightened his shirt. Suddenly, he grinned and elbowed him again, "Having second thoughts about losing your record?"
Something cracked. Very loudly.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" Sirius shouted as loud as his voice would allow him, flinging out his hands. When he found there was nothing to hit, grabbed at his hair instead. "What . Are . You . Doing . With . Brown . In the bushes?!"
Rather than shrinking back as his godson would have done, Harry perked up even more rebelliously. "You know," Harry winked and a smile that suspiciously resembled a smirk spread across his face. "Come on, we better get back. They're going to kill you if they find out what happened."
Sirius staggered after Harry with his jaw completely detached.
This was a nightmare. A nightmare!!!
He was dreaming. He was sure of it. This couldn't possibly be happening. Remus pinched himself hard, and grimaced at the pain. He must have imagined the it, because this couldn't be happening.
"Remus, tell me this truthfully, where's Harry?"
The lights were dancing oddly over the ceiling, a reflection of the brustling fireplace. The white tiled counter, the same as the one he remembered cleaming before leaving on the Hogwarts Express, gleamed back at him. Remus opened his mouth and shut it again, feeling unmistakably fishlike.
The man sighed, shaking his head in frustration when Remus failed to answer. He stood with a flourish, his hands behind his back, and began madly pacing the room. His glasses glinted with firelight as he walked, and his hair resembled an ungroomed animal's. Remus sank all his weight against the kitchen counter and tried to breathe. But what came out sounded vaguely like a groan.
James. The man was James. He was an enlarged version of Harry but with a stouter build, a firmer jaw, and deep, brown eyes. There were a few more creases on his face, and he looked far more mature than his pictures, but Remus could still recognize him distinctly.
"I knew it! I knew it!" the man, James, continued to rant as he ploped into a stool. "Damn, Lily's going to kill me."
"Lily…?" Remus choked out weakly.
Was she here too? What sort of dream was this? Oh god…
Remus stabbed himself with the tip of his wand.
James dragged his hands over his face exasperatedly, "I can't believe Sirius is cheering him on! I can't believe I made him Harry's godfather!!"
"Wha…?" Remus said eloquently.
"Alright, I know Sirius. But I thought he'd be… more mature to my son!" James continued to rant, completely oblivious to Remus' shock.
Was this some sort of dream? Or was James' ghost so infuriated with Sirius' actions that he took the incentive and decided to haunt him?
"Sirius is very mature," Remus finally found his voice, but it still came scratchy and wavering. "He's been a very good godfather to Harry."
"What?!" James choked out in disbelief. Remus subconsciously took a step back. "He's putting Harry up to dating every single girl in Hogwarts!" What?! Oh god, this can't be happening...
The room in Remus' vision sharply tilted to the right, but the wall fortunately caught him.
"No, that can't be right," Remus whispered. Numbly, he tried to think back to an occassion when Sirius did anything to imply that, but his mind scraped a blank. "Sirius is setting up Harry to date absolutely no girls in his life."
"At least my son still has top grades in his class, otherwise, I'd be wringing Sirius' neck. I mean, my son!" James gritted out angrily, clenching and unclenching his fists. He didn't seem to hear Remus' previous defense at all. "Sirius wants Harry to be a mirror image of him, but... oh, the idiot!"
Remus furiously shook his head. "No, James, that's definitely not true!"
Distantly, he wondered what sort of twisted reality he could be standing in. He would imagine that if he met James' ghost, his old friend would be furious that Harry was doomed to a bachelor's life, but this was completely wrong. Sirius encouraging Harry to follow in his footsteps? Sirius? Who cursed any girl who even attempted to catch Harry's eye? Sirius would have a heart attack is a girl even tried to kiss his godson...
"What sort of act are you trying to pull? Are you on his side or mine?!" James snapped out, slamming his fist against the table.
The front door suddenly flew open, and a cheery "Moony, I'm home!" wafted through the room.
Remus froze. Harry?! That was Harry's voice, although that was definitely not Harry's style. Remus stiffly turned his head in the direction of the living room, and felt the blood drain from his face.
No, that was definitely not Harry's style. The glasses, the hair, the eyes were still the same, but the long leather coat and the hugging bike pants were things that Harry wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. He alarmingly resembled Sirius at his age, and Remus felt like melting to the floor in shock.
And was that... an earing?! This could not be happening. That boy in front of him could not be Harry.
The Sirius that staggered after him was pale faced and dazed, as if he couldn't quite comprehend or digest what was occurring. Remus caught his gaze, and they stared at each other with confused recognition.
"Hey, Dad!" Harry greeted with a wide grin. He threw his arm over his dad's shoulders, pointedly dismissing James' suspicious glare.
The front door flew open a second time, and another cheery "Moony, I'm home!" ran through the house.
Both James and Harry startled in surprise.
Remus had to catch the wall for support to keep from falling completely to the floor. Another Sirius marched proudly into view, clothed in his leather jacket and his hair tied smoothly into a low ponytail. He hauled a second Harry after him, a Harry with oversized clothes that Remus remembered lending to him after his shower and very large, saucer sized eyes. He looked as confused and out of place as the first Sirius did.
Something in his mind clicked. Everything fell into place.
Oh no… not this again!
"You're both home now?" came an all too familiar voice from the top of the stairs. Remus lifted his eyes and felt himself completely freeze at the sight of the lanky frame, fawn hair, and grey eyes. "Harry, would you like something to… eat…?" the other Remus' voice trailed off into silence. He looked at the two Sirius', the two Harry's, and an added Remus in the kitchen. The other Remus' jaw fell.
"What the…?"
*
End.
*cackle* *cackle* *cackle*
*grins*
updated author's notes as of 11.07.02: a brief summary of what happened. Hufflepuffs banish Sirius, unknowingly, to an alternate world. Because of the blood oath, Remus and Harry are dragged along for the ride. The alternate world is a bit... different. Remember in chapter two, when Remus speculated what would happen if James and Lily had lived? He thought that Sirius, rather than protecting Harry, would cheer him on to follow in his godfather's footsteps, and driving James and Lily insane while he did it. So now, you have the Harry with a charmed life, and needless to say, he's very different. In fact, he remotely resembles Bill. Two very opposite Harrys with two very opposite Siriuses was quite a fun idea to play around though...
umm... really, this isn't a joke. It is the end. GI is complete. I'm completely serious this time. My humor muse has scraped the bottom, I think you can sort of tell by the quality of this chapter. Ack...
An epilogue might be in the works, but I hardly doub it will be humorous. There are too many issues tied into the situation, that if it took a humorous path, it would... I can't find the right word for it. Ack... or maybe until CoS can get under way. That story is a pain... and my muse has completely died for it. *sigh* Sorry about the short author's notes for this chapter.