Title: Sirius Black and the Duckies of Doom
Summery: A short one shot on Sirius Black's first and most probable last experience babysitting Harry. Little does he know what extraordinary things magical babies can do, especially when you come between them and their toys or Rubber Ducks!
Disclaimer: Trust me, if I was J.K.Rowling I wouldn't bother about Harry- Marauders all the way! In other words, everything belongs to the great J.K.R, except the duckies- they're mine.
Authors Note: Here it is, my one shot tribute to the marvellous Sirius Black. One of my first stories, and my beta's first story beta-ed, so I hope you like it. All reviews very much demanded! (Only joking), now get on and read…
It is a generally well-known fact among wizarding parents that magical babies can do extraordinary things when they are very small. Funnily enough, Mr Sirius Black though a wizard and self proclaimed 'Hunk of Hogwarts' (a title hotly disputed by both his best friend and one Gildroy Lockhart), had only ever rolled his eyes and started to day dream when talk turned to parenting before his best friends wife finally consented to letting him baby sit his Godson. Thus the terrible (though funny to everyone except Sirius) incident of Sirius Black and the Duckies of Doom commenced…
It was a warm summers evening when Sirius Black (ladies man extraordinaire) apparated with a rather large pop in the back garden of Lily and James' moderately sized, semi-detached obviously lived in house. He was, that night for the first, and most likely last time baby sitting his Godson Harry alone.
"My beautiful, generous, dearest Lilikins!"
"Cut it Padfoot, she's already said yes, besides there's no-one else left." James answered in a jovial tone.
"Whoopee. You just get going then, don't worry Lilikins. Yes I promise not to use the kitchen or any of your precious muggle stuff; no I will not transfigure or even touch anything I don't need for Harry; and finally yes I do indeed know baby-sitting does not mean sitting on the baby! Now go, have a good time." Sirius when needed could be surprisingly articulate, even if what comes out of his mouth isn't that reassuring.
Finally the Mr and Mrs left Sirius and the young baby Harry alone in the living room. "Now my little Harry, what shall we do first eh? I was going to start Quidditch with you but Mummy's forbidden it until you can walk for some reason, silly mummy!"
At this Harry gave a little gurgle.
"You're a clever one aren't you? Of course you are, I'm your godfather, my genius must have rubbed off on you. Anyway, I can't transfigure anything but rolling up these socks…yes, how about some beater practice?"
We've already guessed that Mr Sirius Black never had much common sense but what happened next must cement all those guesses. For fifteen minutes after Sirius threw many different kinds of rolled up socks at Harry, who, instead of hitting them away as Sirius expected, merely laughed at them like any other small baby.
Sirius quickly got bored of that and so carried a chortling baby Harry into the kitchen. "Here you go, now, where to put you? Your baby chairs there but you're getting bored of that aren't you little fellow eh? I know, how about a little bath; you sit here in the sink and I'll get something to eat. Perfect!"
Unfortunately for Sirius, Harry was a very intelligent baby, and when told he was having a bath immediately wanted a Duck. Now, as magical babies are on the whole extraordinary it should've come as no surprise to Mr Black when a family of multi-coloured ducks came shooting down the stairs and into the kitchen.
"Oooooh ducks!"
Mr Black, very obviously surprised at what young Harry could achieve, was immediately distracted, dropping his plate of pancakes on the floor with a loud bang. Mr Black didn't seem too worried about that though, he was busy trying to grab the duckies. If you've ever tried to take something from a young baby you'll know what complete rubbish the saying 'as easy as taking candy from a baby' is. So while Sirius was trying to catch the ducks which were zooming around the kitchen Harry was controlling their path and trying to throw Sirius off. Needless to say chaos ensued.
"Harry mate, look here" Sirius attempted to say in a reasonable sounding voice while ducking two bludger like ducks which were bombarding him in the hallway. "Come on, call the ducks off, you can play with them as much as you like- they're not so cute when they're flying all over the place!" Suddenly Sirius had a brainwave- unbelievable I know- but suddenly his good (and wise) friend Remus J Lupin appeared in his brain and deadpanned "Padfoot, you are an adult, if not mature, wizard- surely you remember enough from charms to combat the "evil duckies"
"Thanks Mooney my old pal!" Sirius exclaimed out loud, and proceeded to use repelling spells to try and blast the Duckies away.
Unfortunately for our Mr Black Harry, in true Marauder fashion, was one step ahead of him; every time a duck was hit with any spell it doubled in size. As you can imagine after the series of spells shot at them the duckies grew quite enormous. Mr Black in a rare display of ingenuity (or common sense) started shooting reducio spells, yet once again Harry was one step ahead, the first time it was attempted a clear jet of milk spouted from the beaks of all seven duckies in unison.
Mr Black as we have already seen can be very persistent, a trait I'm sure is of great use in the complex business of pranking, alas this trait was to be his downfall in the unfortunate incident of Sirius Black and the Duckies of Doom. As he repeatedly shot a variety of spells at the flying, kamikaze ducks the ducks repeatedly shot a variety of fluids (getting progressively more disgusting) back at him.
And so, with the walls of the kitchen, hallway and living room covered with more types of baby related fluids than I can count the Potters returned home after a lovely evening.
"Black! GET OUT HERE NOW!" Mrs Potter screeched in a tone akin to a mermaid.
Mr Black, deciding it was better to face the music before she got even more worked up.
"What were you doing in my house?"
"Now Lilikins…"
"Don't you Lilikins me? Didn't I expressively FORBID you from doing any not necessary magic in my home?"
"Well yes, but it was nesscessess, nessssesss, needed I swear? Your son was being evil, really truly over the line, he got these cute duckies and just because I wanted to play first he turned them into demons, you have no idea. Every time I tried to blast them away"
"That's the scorch marks" Mr Potter interrupted
"They just grew and grew, and then when I tried to shrink them they started spurting stuff, and the more I tried the nastier stuff they squirted. So you see dearest Lilikins, it wasn't my fault at all." Sirius finished- with the puppy dog eyes of course.
Unfortunately for him, Lily after ten years with him and her husband had become immune. "Not your fault, not your fault! You, Mr. Black, are supposed to be the responsible adult! It is completely your fault."
It was here that the merciful and incredulous Mr James Potter cut in. "Lily, just calm down, I'm sure I can clean it up quite easily and just stop and think what has happened. Our son, our little Harry, has tricked Padfoot here, a prank veteran. The duckies were really powerful magic, instead of pointing fingers we should just feel proud- he's a true Marauder"
"That's right, Prongsy, no need to point fingers,"
"Padfoot, your tidying up, and you owe me one, it's going to cost you if you don't want this to get round, honestly Sirius Black bested by my baby!"
And so ended the notorious (Sirius refused to admit James was 'The Hogwarts Hottie') incident of Sirius Black and the Duckies of Doom in a less than glamorous fashion. Mr Black ended up cleaning the Potters house top to bottom and although as the Godfather he was still allowed to see Harry, Lily put her foot down when he offered to baby-sit again. I hope you have all learnt something from this unfortunate incident, whether it is to actually listen to some parental advice before babysitting, never to come between a baby and there toys or that even Sirius Black is not invincible when faced with rubber ducks!
Authors note: Thank you very much, if you've read that I must ask you to leave a review, it's not that hard, just tell me what you think. I'd like to thank Meg my beta, Mix for properly starting my duck collection, Gix for inspiring the Duckies of Doom (even though she like HP gasp!), and Hawkins Bizarre who make the cute little duckies which combated the block.
If you're still reading I guess you're actually interested, so although I write drabbles this will probably be the last actual story for quite a while, if your interested in my drabbles slip me a line in a review or email me. I'm here to read and boost writers ego's but I'd appreciate just this time if you lot out there will give me some input, what's wrong with my story? What's right? Review mine and eventually I'll review yours- by the way, if you don't post a story your profile doesn't show- or mine didn't.
Anyway, I think that's enough, thank you, bye!