Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. Furthermore, I am very proud to say that I do not own any of the plot lines found within this parody. All has been derived from the vast reserves of abysmally written fanfiction on this site. (On that note, the originals are often even more hilarious than the parodies, so I suggest you read those, too.)
Harry Potter sat curled in a corner of his room, crying uncontrollably. He had been in that corner for six days now, not even moving to eat or use the bathroom. He was, in fact, sitting in a small, but nevertheless disgusting, pile of his own excrement and fluids.
Mr and Mrs Dursley stood outside his bedroom door, conferring in hushed voices.
"Let the boy rot in there, I say," Mr Dursley snarled.
"But, Vernon," whimpered Mrs Dursley. "What about those people from King's Cross? What will happen to us if he dies?"
Mr Dursley seemed to contemplate this for a moment. "Yes… well, I'll suppose we'll have to feed him periodically, then."
Mrs Dursley nodded.
Mr Dursley was sucking in a large amount of air through his nostrils in preparation to heave a superb sigh, when he suddenly stopped, gagging and spluttering. "What in blazes is that smell? It's positively nauseating!"
On the other side of the door, their presence as sudden as it was inexplicable, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks appeared. It took them quite some time to make themselves heard over Harry's melodramatic monologue. He was so lost in his own sorrow that he didn't seem to have noticed his two older friends at all.
"OH GOD! EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER DIED, CURRENTLY IS DYING, OR WILL DIE SOMETIME IN THE NEAR OR DISTANT FUTURE DID, DOES, AND WILL DO SO BECAUSE OF ME, MY ACCURSED EXISTENCE, AND MY OWN FOOLISH, FOOLISH ACTIONS! OH GOD, OH GOD, NO! WHY? EVERYONE I LOVE IS DOOMED TO DIE! THE ONLY WAY I COULD EVER POSSIBLY SAVE THEM IS NOT BY ACQUIRING SOME SORT OF NEW-FOUND DETERMINATION TO FULFIL THE PROPHECY AND KILL VOLDEMORT. NO! I MUST ESCHEW ALL OF MY FRIENDS, EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT ME. ONLY THEN WILL THEY BE SAFE. AFTER ALL, IT IS NOT AS IF EVERYONE I LOVE IS DEEPLY IMMERSED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT AND THEREBY RISKING THEIR LIVES, ANYWAY! OH, MY DARK, DARK FATE! WHY, WHY, WHY ME? WHERE WILL I FIND THE WILL TO GO ON IN SUCH A GRIM AND TROUBLED WORLD? OH, WHY? WHY? NO, GOD, NO!"
"Harry!" Lupin screamed. "Harry are you alright?"
"WHAT? I… IS SOMEONE THERE? IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO SEE THROUGH THIS VEIL OF TEARS… LUPIN, IS THAT… NO! FLEE, FLEE! FLEE BEFORE THE CURSE OF MY EXISTENCE TOUCHES UPON YOUR SOUL, TOO! GOD, OH GOD, NO!" Harry turned his back upon his friends and continued to weep into the wall.
Lupin and Tonks exchanged bewildered stares. They instinctively stepped closer to comfort Harry, but the smell sent them flying back against the wall. After he regained his breath, Remus continued, "Um… Harry what are you talking about?"
"DEATH! I SPEAK OF DEATH AND THE INEVITABLY OF IT REACHING OUT AND WHISKING AWAY ANYONE WHO IS FOOLISH ENOUGH TO LOVE OR BEFRIEND ME!"
"Harry please stop speaking in capitals" Tonks pleaded. "its… unpleasant"
This only sent a fresh shower of tears gushing out of Harry's red, puffy eyes and spilling down his flushed, already tear-stained cheeks.
"Damnit Tonks why cant you be more tactful?" Remus whispered. "The boy is-"
But whatever Harry was, Tonks never found out, for at that moment, Harry's irrational gibbering took up again.
"NO! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! SURELY, YOU COULD NEVER BE EXPECTED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE VASTLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE ENORMITY OF MY EPIC AMOUNTS OF GRIEF CAN ONLY BE EXPRESSED IN LARGE, HARD-TO-READ LETTERS! OH GOD, NO! AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS! AND UNNECESSARY INTERSPERSIONS OF THE WORD 'NO!' OH! OH, OH… NO!" Harry sobbed. Then, composing himself somewhat with a few deep breaths, he continued: "However, I will deign to use capitals only at the appropriate times and places if you two agree to employ some punctuation… and apostrophes would be nice, too." He gave both of them an arch look before turning back to the wall.
"Alright, Harry. Fair enough," Lupin agreed. "Now, tell me, why are you being like this? Whatever could have happened in the week between our meeting at King's Cross and now? What could possibly have catapulted you so far out of character? Sobbing into a wall? Sitting in a pile of your filth? It's not like you, Harry. You're resilient! If you weren't, a certain well-known British woman would be stuck with one entirely depressing book, no money, and nothing to do with the rest of her life!" With that, Lupin took in one last gulp of air, held it in his lungs, and approached Harry. He grasped his shaking shoulder in a fatherly and reassuring way. Despite the unfortunate situation, this opportunity for Lupin to show some more of his admirable ability to care and console made him feel warm inside. But soon that warmth was swallowed up by the black void that occupied the greater part of his soul. Why had he never had children? A family and a home? He was so alone…
Years ago, before any of this happened, before Lily and James died, before Lupin's life was turned upside down… Sirius and he had been trying for a baby. Every night (and sometimes morning, noon, and teatime, too) they tried, but they just couldn't do it.
One day, they decided to go to an obstetrician at St. Mungo's. Surely, a doctor would be able to tell them what they were doing wrong. For some reason, it took them a long time to communicate their plight to the doctor.
"Let me see if I understand correctly…" the short, bespectacled man finally said. His round, rosy face looked very odd, contorted as it was in an expression of the deepest seriousness. "You want me to discern why you two, er, gentlemen cannot conceive?"
"Yes, please, Doctor," Lupin sighed, eyes tired but radiant with new-found hope. "We want nothing more than a baby girl-"
"Boy," Sirius interrupted.
"Child… to call our own," Lupin finished, smiling wearily.
The doctor took a deep breath. "Um… is either one of you aware of exactly, um, how the process of conception works?"
Lupin and Sirius gave the doctor bemused stares.
"Well," Sirius began slowly. "We usually start by taking off our clothes-"
The doctor cleared his throat loudly. "That's, er, not exactly what I meant… You see, it does, er, unfortunately take a bit more than two loving people to have a child." The doctor raised his eyebrows.
Lupin and Sirius continued to stare at him blankly.
"Um, it, er… it is necessary to have, um, the two opposite parts of the human, er, reproductive anatomy in order to…" The doctor gestured vaguely, smiled sympathetically.
"I don't understand," Lupin frowned.
"Dear Lord! Neither of you has a uterus, or, or… eggs! Or ovaries! Or fallopian tubes! Or a va-" The doctor, who was beginning to turn a bit red and thoroughly frighten the concerned couple, readjusted his spectacles and recomposed himself. "There's only one way to put the puzzle together, and in order to have a child a man and a woman must have sex. I'm terribly sorry, you're wonderful fellows – if a bit slow – but two men simply cannot conceive."
Lupin gasped. "What? No…"
"Have…" the doctor stumbled. "Have you considered adoption?"
Sirius stood up, his jaw set, an icy flame burning behind his eyes. "You, sir, are a quack! A fraud, a fool, and a complete and utter quack! Just see if we'll be patronizing you when Remus is pregnant. Come, dear." And with that, he took a quaking Lupin by the arms and led him out of the doctor's office.
Later, at home, it took Sirius some time to convince his partner that all was not lost. "Don't cry, dear," he cooed, wiping the tears from Lupin's cheeks. "That doctor didn't know what he was talking about. Why, it was as if he'd never even heard of m-preg!"
"Of-of what?" Remus choked.
"M-preg, my dear, I've read into the subject extensively."
"Where? I've never come across such a thing in any book."
"I'm sorry to say that I cannot reveal my source."
Lupin stared at him suspiciously.
"Well, it's just that my accessing it defies all the principles of time and space…" Sirius whined. "You know, that whole physics bag." He waved his hand dismissively. "But I can tell you that all the material was written by teenage girls, and I don't have to tell you how much they know about gay sex."
"Indeed." Lupin nodded solemnly.
"Anyway, it is entirely possible for two wizards to conceive. Apparently, it's unheard of in the Muggle world and even the magical community isn't exactly sure how it happens, but I think a wizard's ability to impregnate another man has something to do with the enormous strength of his supernatural sperm."
This seemed likely enough. That very night, Lupin and Sirius picked up their attempts at fatherhood with renewed fervour.
Then the most tragic of all tragedies that could ever possibly happen, tragically did. Lily and James Potter were killed by Voldemort. Sirius went missing, causing Lupin to become sick with worry. The next time he was seen, he was standing in the ruins of a Muggle square, just having (supposedly) killed Peter Pettigrew and twelve others.
Lupin couldn't even bring himself to be present at his lover's trial. He curled up in his sock drawer and cried for days. And when Sirius came back, more than a decade later, and proved himself innocent of all charges, how could they imagine bringing a child into the world then? With all the evilness and confusion and goings-on…
Lupin wiped a single tear from his own eye and sighed. "Harry, I know how you feel. Sometimes, things happen in our lives that we have no control over, and we don't know-"
"NO!" Harry pushed Lupin's hand off his shoulder. "YOU DON'T GET IT! JUST GO AWAY! DON'T EVER COME BACK! AND DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE EVER COME BACK! EVER! GOD, OH GOD, NO! WHY, GOD?"
"Remus," Tonks whispered. "I think we should go…"
Lupin looked up at her and nodded sadly. With a crack, they were gone.
Harry sobbed louder because obviously, even though he told them to go and generally stop concerning themselves with his existence, they didn't care about him at all, or else they would have tried a bit harder to comfort him.
Hedwig screeched, bringing Harry out of the deep, dark hole of self-pity he was currently digging for himself.
"OH, HEDWIG! HEDWIG, HEDWIG, HEDWIG! HOW I WISH I COULD CARE FOR YOU… PET YOU, LOVE YOU, OR PERHAPS EVEN FEED YOU. ALAS, THAT CANNOT BE FOR IF VOLDEMORT OR ANY OF HIS FOLLOWERS SAW HOW MUCH YOU MEANT TO ME, DEATH WOULD BE THE ONLY REWARD THIS CRUEL WORLD WOULD EVER GRANT OUR LOVE!"
Hedwig promptly punctuated Harry's speech with a death rattle, keeled over, and was, to put it philosophically (and the author is beginning to feel very philosophical) no more.
Harry cried, which seems like the proper thing to put here, but it wasn't really anything very special.
Author's Note: Although it is shamelessly unprofessional to insert an author's note in any part of a story… Here I go! (After all, what is fanfiction other than literary masturbation? And am I allowed to use that word in a PG-13 story? Oh hell, I'll make it R just to be safe.) Anyway, unlike most parts of this story, Remus's awkwardly interposed flashback is not an exaggerated paraphrase of actual fanfiction writing. I made that up. (And I'm unjustifiably proud of the meagre amount of creativity it took to do so, too.) Remus's plight really does make me sad. And I don't think I'm alone in saying that, even though he is teetering on the edge that dangerous cliff called Old-Enough-to-Be-My-Father, I just want to take that man in my arms and pet him and hold him and tell him that everything is going to be all right, and that I will spend my life with him and have his babies, to hell with the consequences!
I would also like to note that, despite finding the concept of "m-preg" utterly ridiculous, I personally feel that gay sex is a very beautiful thing. I do not, to be honest, think very highly of pornography in general, but if I am going to watch/regard/read it, I prefer some good old man-on-man action. Also, I do not know a whole lot about sex changes, and I highly doubt that the insertion of ovaries, tubes, and a uterus is part of the whole operation, but it would be nice if it was because wanting to have a child and not being able to is probably one of the saddest things in the world. Other than having a child and not wanting it…