Due to a lot of confusion, mainly because decided to screw up all my formatting, I'm editing this and putting it back up again, with extra details added in. So it might be worth giving it another read to make sense of it this time. Ta!
The Lion's Serpent
by Padfoot Rocks
Chapter twelve: The joy of a five year old
As much as he tried, he couldn't keep the morning sun out of his eyes. Burrowing under the sheets didn't work, throwing an arm over his face to block the light didn't work and neither did jamming the pillow over his eyes. He'd just resigned himself to sleeping in the light when the squeals started. And those he couldn't ignore, as much as he tried.
Harry threw the covers back from the bed and growled. As he sat up and fumbled for his glasses, he noticed that the room was empty, and no wonder - it was well into the afternoon. Getting dressed, he realised that it was the first time that he'd ever slept in past nine o'clock, not counting all the times that he'd been forced to spend in the hospital wing.
Molly Weasley met him at the foot of the stairs, ushering him to a seat at the table whilst she prepared something for him to eat. He'd just started his second bowl of soup, when something knocked into him from behind, wrapped their arms around his neck and giggled. He didn't need to look to know who it was. He reached around and pulled a sopping wet TJ onto his knee, pretending to spill the soup down him.
TJ shrieked and jumped down. "Oops, you've got mud on you now." He grinned and ran to hide behind a shadowy figure in the doorway.
Harry began to chase him, but stopped as he recognised the figure.
"Hermione!" He exclaimed, moving forwards to give her a somewhat awkward hug. "How was Bulgaria?"
Hermione smiled at him. "Not bad, although I seemed to have missed out on several things. You and Ron, both prefects? I thought you had reputations to maintain- " she grinned at him " - not writing to me, I have to find out from Ron that you have a son..."
Harry's jaw dropped, he's completely forgotten to tell her, and Sirius too. How could he forget something like that? He panicked, Sirius was going to kill him!
"Don't worry about it," she reassured him. "I understand, and Sirius will too."
He sighed, she had always been able to read him like a book.
"But I think you better bath TJ, Fred and George have been soaking each other with the hosepipes and starting mudfights". She wiped the mud from TJ's cheek to emphasise her point.
She was right, TJ was caked in mud. Harry sighed and hauled TJ up the stairs, TJ protesting all the way. "Bathtime!"
"NO! I WON'T WEAR IT." A mini domestic was unfolding in the room that Harry and TJ shared with Ron.
"TJ, you have to, you don't have any clean Muggle clothes left." Harry massaged his temples, wondering how any parent could voluntarily be willing to put up with this.
"NO!" TJ ran out of the door, point blankly refusing to wear any of the robes that Harry had brought for him, still insisting that they were, in fact, dresses. He set off down the stairs at a run wearing absolutely nothing.
"Why me?" Harry asked, before chasing after him. He passed various members of the Weasley family, who all had tears of laughter running down their faces. He thought he saw one of the twins leaning over the railings holding a camera. He looked at them and they pointed to the garden. As he ran through the kitchen, he heard Mrs Weasley say, "I remember when Percy went through that phase." Prompting the twins into further fits of laughter.
Out in the garden, he saw that he'd been beaten. TJ had launched himself into a mud puddle that was a result of the water fight earlier. He sighed and picked TJ up round the waist, heading back to the house.
"Let me take him, dear" Molly took pity on him and plucked TJ from Harry's arms, leaving Harry in the hands of a grinning Fred and George, who pushed a box into his hands.
"What's this?" He asked them, rattling the box to try and figure its contents.
"That's what you've sponsored, mate -"
"-Those are as far as we've got, finished products and everything."
"Selling quite well through the ad we placed in the Daily Prophet - "
"Of course, no one knows it's ours, it's under a proper company name and everything."
"But we thought you'd like a look at them, just make sure you check them very carefully before you eat them -"
"-Wouldn't want you to be burping slugs for an hour."
They disappeared up the stairs and the usual melody of bangs and muffled cursing could be heard. Harry figured that Molly had given up on trying to halt their experiments. He turned round and nearly dropped the box when he came face to face with George.
"Just don't tell mum, okay?"
Harry nodded. "How did you get down here so fast?"
"We're seventeen now, remember? Finally allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts. Passed our apparition licenses last week." As if to prove his point, he disappeared and reappeared behind Harry with a 'pop'. Before Harry could reply, he disappeared again, presumably to his room.
Harry shrugged and decided to keep his ears open for even the slightest signal that someone had apparated behind him. Rooting round inside the box, he stated to read through a sheet of parchment detailing the twin's creations so far as he trudged up to Ron's room.
"Tj, wake up, we're going to be late."
The morning of September first had arrived, and with it was a sense of anxiety. Both Hermione and Ron felt it too, but they put it down to nerves of the duties they were about to undertake as prefects. The cause of Harry's anxiety, however, was due to the fact that, once again, TJ had had the dream of a man in a dress and that he was going to face all sorts of hostile reactions about taking a five year old to Hogwarts.
TJ grumbled, but rolled out of bed and allowed Hary to dress him in jeans and a shirt. Following Harry down the stairs, he jumped as he was nearly mown down by Molly, who was thundering around the house trying to organise everyone and their belongings. He relented and he was pulled onto Fred's shoulders and carried safely into the kithen, out of the way of the force known as Molly Weasley.
Breakfast was a choatic event for the nine Weasleys, Harry, TJ and Hermione.
Immedietly afterwards, they were all ushered into heavily warded Ministry cars ("no expense too great for your safety, Harry", Mr Weasley had muttered as he clambered in after Harry) and taken on the journey to Kings Cross.
They had no trouble in getting onto the platform, apart from TJ's scream of terror as he thought Harry was going to smash them straight into the dividing wall between platforms 9 and 10. Harry was thankful that no-one had hindered their entry to platform 9 3/4. Moving back from the barrier, he gripped TJ's hand and waited patiently as the rest of the group filtered through.
Soon enough, he was surrounded by the others, and he couldn't help noticing that the Ministry wizards who'd been in the cars had also accompanied then onto the platform. A young woman with spiky pink hair was glancing in all directions so fast, it made his head spin to watch her.
The atmosphere on the platform had changed as well. Before, there used to be a never ending babble of chatter, but now, the mood seemed almost sombre, everyone seemed on edge, fearing an attack at any second. It made Harry feel so uncomfortable, what he slipped his wand into the palm of his hand, reassured by its weight.
"Wow," breathed TJ, looking at Harry's wand and reaching out to touch it.
Harry's only answer was to grab TJ's arm and start to make his way towards the train, closely followed by Ron, Hermione, and the woman with pink hair. As they neared the train, they stopped to say their goodbyes. Harry was the last one to be pulled into a bone crushing hug by the Weasley elders. As Molly wrapped her arms around him, she whispered in his ear. "Just remember this Harry, you may be the son of Lily and James, but you and TJ will always be part of our family. Take care of yourself."
Harry didn't trust himself to speak around the lump in his throat. Instead, he hugged her back and stepped onto the train. He and TJ stood there, watching the platform draw away as the train moved.
"Come on Harry, we have to go to the front." Hermione's voice drew Harry out of his thoughts and he picked up his things.
The other prefects were already in the carriage. As TJ walked in, a drawling voice called out, "you can't be normal, can you, Potter? Most others have house elves to do their bidding, but a mere house elf isn't good enough for Harry Potter. He has to have a human boy instead - "
"Shut up Malfoy," Harry growled as he shrunk his belongings and levitated them onto the overhead rack, not noticing TJ staring at him as he did so.
Surprisingly, Malfoy never said anything else. The occupants of the compartment endured the speech of the head boy and girl and were then left free to their own devices. Everyone left the compartment until only Harry, Ron, Hermione, TJ and Malfoy were left.
Malfoy smirked and moved to where he could tower over Harry. "Remember what I said, Potter. Once the Dark Lord's back, you'll be next?" He grinned malevolently.
"Oh, so you're his little lapdog now are you?" Harry whispered.
Malfoy snarled. "A Malfoy bows to no one, Potter!"
"Could have fooled me," shot back Harry. " Then what was your father doing last summer - tying his shoelaces?"
A look of absolute rage twisted Draco Malfoy's face and he spat at Harry. "You wait, Potter, the Dark Lord will kill you, the weasel and that mudblood Granger, and I'll stand there and laugh!"
"NO!" TJ screamed and strode forwards, Harry's wand in his hand. Without knowing any spells, he copied the one he'd heard Harry use earlier. "Wingardium Leviosa."
A jet of white light shot from the end of the wand and hit Malfoy with a mini explosion. He was lifted off his feet and hit the roof of the carriage with a sickening crack. He yelped as he hit the floor at Harry's feet.
Harry looked down at the boy in front of him and sneered. "For a Malfoy that bows to no one, you're doing a pretty good job of it. Now get out!"
Malfoy winced as he got up, coughing blood as he did so and ran out of the compartment as fast as he could manage.
Harry turned to face the others. "Well, I guess that gets rid of any doubts about him being a Muggle," he quipped, gesturing to TJ.
Ron and Hermione were too stunned to say anything.
There we have it. I've put the formatting back in to mark the passage of time, hopefully this time won't wipe it all. Time I answered some reviews I think:
I hate everything: Thank you very much, it's not another chapter, but I hope it proves I'm still alive!
Yana5: He is, and this will prove essential to the plot later.
Kitsune-dragon-inu: I thought so too, but it also goes to show the range of power that TJ will be capable of.
Totallystellar: Thanks! I don't think I'll make this Harry/Ginny. At the moment it won't be romance at all, unless it's in the background. Further on, Harry's going to have his mind on more than a girl. And I always figured that Harry would jump at the chance to have a family, especially when the child's past seems so 'similar' to his, that he'd take action before thinking of the consequences.
Moonfyre: Thanks
Samsamsghjh: Thanks…it just takes time! Lol
Silver Scale Serpent; I just figured it would be something Ron would say, but since Ron wasn't there for the third task, I had Harry say it.
Some random reviewer: Thanks! I'm slightly alarmed for my personal safety now though…
MKS: He wasn't cursing, he'd seen Harry levitate his belongings and so he remembered the spell from that.
IamInsane (but accountless): Thanks. And sure, you can borrow her on the condition that Snape and I get front row tickets to watch.
Sevti Rune: I'm getting there…I just can't wait for potions.
Jayde Green: Thank you very much. And yes, I'd probably strangle him too!
Drusilla: Thanks!
IRM Kármádá Dothlthleig: I didn't forget it…I actually can't find it! blushes I think that might have been on my other account…
ER: I know, I know, the formatting all screwed up. I have no intention of giving up on this….I was just…on hiatus?
And everyone else who took the time to leave me a review, even if it was just a 'are you dead, please write more'. Thanks, it means a lot to me!