Summary: (AU) Hogwarts? No, Harry never went - instead he's a porn star living in the treacherous underground world of orgies and carnage. Meanwhile, the Order's search resumes unfounded ... but not for long.
Disclaimer: Blah blah blah. Not mine. Blah blah blah.
--- ---
Once We Were Warriors
Chapter One: In Hindsight, Blindsight
--- ---
Party hard. Die young.
Leave a fucking gorgeous corpse, cause pretty wont cut it.
--- ---
Harvey didn't particularly feel inclined to dress, but Albus had wearily and most strongly insisted. He might not of, if he'd had a chance to glance into Harvey's obscure assortment of items pertained to the messy wardrobe. Wearing tight black leather pants and a deep purple wife-beater, Harvey strutted out of the bathroom, still zipping his fly, heels of his favorite cowboy boots clicking merrily along the way. Leading the two elderly folk out of his bedroom and locking the door firmly behind them, Harvey escorted the professors out into the hallway and along the corridor through to the back entrance.
When Harvey bumped into Minerva and had to grab at her waist to straighten himself, Albus turned an eye, thinking the lad a little graceless.
When Harvey scolded a cactus ornamenting a sharp corner outside of the lift, referring to the plant in a scathing hiss as 'Poppins', Albus thought it a tad odd.
But when Harvey tripped and fell, tumbling right down the one hundred and seventy seven steps onto the building's ground floor, Albus realized there was something more than a just a trifle wrong with the boy.
Realization crashed mercilessly down upon him, and Albus had to furiously blink – obviously Harry was a drunk. Either that or a junkie, or perhaps even an addict of something more obscure.
"Are you alright there, lad?" he called down to Harvey, who was twitching in a fetal position.
Harvey groaned, the scene swimming dizzyingly around and around in his pounding head.
Albus and Minerva hurried down to his aid.
"Harry!" Minerva cried, brandishing her wand and sending a quick diagnosis spell spinning into his stomach. "Where does it hurt?"
"Everywhere," Harvey told her grumpily, sitting up.
Albus frowned. "Is there something ... er ... something you think we ought to know before heading off, Harry?"
Harvey glared -
"I mean, Harvey?"
Standing on wobbly feet Harvey straightened up, picking the dust off of his wife-beater. "Well," he began. "I could only tell you if you swore your undying love and obedience to my every passing whim. It's that top-secret. Do we have an agreement?"
Albus wasn't too sure he wanted to accept the offer, but Minerva was nodding and Harvey had already started speaking again -
Lowering his voice and leaning in conspiratorially, Harvey whispered, "I can't see a damn thing."
"You can't see a thing?" Albus repeated, a little hysterically.
"No," Harvey said, wiggling an eyebrow. "I can't see a damn thing."
"You mean to say," Albus stumbled, tripping on his words as his mind fought to catch on. "That you're - that you're near-sighted?"
"Keep your bloody voice down, will you?" Harvey cried. "We can't let the whole fucking world know! And anyway, I'm far-sighted."
Albus had the courtesy to look bit sheepish, and wrung his old wrinkly hands by his side.
"Would you mind greatly if I took your arm?" Harvey asked Minerva. "A little guidance and I can manage fine."
Minerva was quite flattered, and quickly supplied her hand in his.
"Why don't you get yourself a pair of glasses, Harry?" Albus asked him, his voice dangerously low as he eyed Minerva moving in closer and fluttering her lashes. "Your father was just the same!"
"Don't you know anything?" Harvey goaded, snorting at Dumbledore - the greatest brain of the century. "A porn star wearing glasses? That's utterly preposterous!"
Albus rolled his eyes.
"You really can't see anything at all?" Minerva asked him.
"No, not really," Harvey told her truthfully. Blindness didn't seem to bother him at all. "Come on then, let's get this over with." Harvey pointed to where he thought the door was, poking Minerva hard in her bosom. "My ride's parked just outside."
--- ---
The morning sun had yet to rise, hidden under a soft grey blanket of miserable, scolding clouds. Rain fell lightly, spat from the heavens above in dreary, spiteful loath. In the underground car park, resting directly under the building, Harvey shivered.
"I have a bad feeling about this," he told Minerva wisely.
Both pretended not to hear when Albus muttered, "So do I."
Perhaps they shouldn't of.
As the trio stepped along the rows of shiny cars, an engine roared - brakes were yanked back and the accelerator slammed on and the car, a sleek new Volkswagon, sped up around the corner of the car park to stop abruptly, rudely blocking their path.
The doors of the Volkswagon snapped opened and people were getting out - a whole lot of very threatening, very angry looking people. Harvey wasn't exactly sure how many of them there were, but he knew they were outnumbered drastically - and any fight outnumbered was one to scamper and quickly hide from, he had always thought.
"Where's my money, Headbanger?" one of the thugs yelled.
Harvey didn't hesitate as he pointed a finger at Albus. "He has it!"
The thug growled, signaling to his thuggy friends, and the terrible sound of the safety catch swung back from a gun echoed about the eerily quiet lot.
"You were meant to pay up last week, Headbanger," the first thug began again. "Boss 'aint too happy now, is he boys?"
The other thugs laughed, and the clamor of more guns being drawn resounded in the empty space.
Harvey did the only thing he could do, then - he wrenched his hand from Minerva's and dived behind a parked Mercedes. The thugs cried indignantly to his flight and gunfire rang through the air, hammering into the car and all that surrounded it.
"Now look here," Albus began calmly, drawing a shield around his fellow professor, but no one paid any attention.
The windscreen of the Mercedes smashed and glass sprayed everywhere. Harvey screamed shrilly.
"Stop!" Minerva tried, but the thugs gave her no heed either, moving away from their car and on towards where Harvey cowered, curled in a ball with his arms over his head.
Albus deigned the situation worthy enough in the life-threatening degree to draw forth his wand and restrain them.
"Stand back!" he yelled, stepping to make a protective barrier in front of Harvey.
The leading thug only raised an eyebrow at the strange old man in a dress, before reaching out and yanking the stick from his sweaty grasp. Albus's reflexes, so much alike to his figure, just weren't what they used to be. Minerva shrieked and wet herself again - damn menopause, as she too was gruffly pushed aside.
Harvey briefly considered attempting a runner, but something held him back. He dearly prayed it wasn't a late-blooming conscious. Then, in a courageously brave act Harvey hoped never to have to repeat, he reached behind his back and pulled a pistol from the band of his leather pants. Aiming as steadily as he could at one of the blurry figures hurrying towards him, Harvey pulled the trigger again and again.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
Albus shrieked. "Harry, you bloody idiot, you hit me!"
"Whoops!" Harvey cried, and directed his aim at another blurry figure.
BAM. BAM.
"To the left!" Minerva cried.
BAM.
"Your other left!" Albus yelped.
BAM.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
"Is that all of them?" Harvey yelled.
"Nearly!" Minerva yelled back.
BAM. BAM.
The rest of the standing thugs - who were in fact all gentle, kind hearted beings whom would only have gone so far as to threaten Harvey at all - chose then to abandoned the scene, jumping back into their Volkswagon and speeding away at a hundred miles an hour.
Harvey stood and yawned, returning the steaming pistol to his pants. "Well then," he coughed. "Shall we get going?"
Minerva heartily agreed, and Albus - clutching angrily at the freely bleeding wound on his leg - grabbed his fallen wand from the ground and hobbled on in the direction Harvey gestured.
Reaching the end of the car park stood a brilliant motorbike, big and shiny and masculine.
Minerva smiled at the tempting contraption, her narrowed eyes twitching in excitement.
"What are you doing over there?" Harvey asked, waving his arms across from where Albus was leaning faintly on Minerva. He stood just outside of a weathered old Volvo that looked very much like it had long ago seen its better days.
"That one?" Albus asked. "You drive a Volvo van?"
Harvey was nearly frothing at the mouth, as he glared condescendingly at Albus. He was rather overprotective when matters concerned his trusty, rusty van. "And what the hell is wrong with that, grandpa?"
"Nothing, nothing," Albus told him quickly. "Nothing at all."
Harvey sneered, turning back toward the van and patting it lovingly.
"But really," Albus said, "we'd better apparate."
"Appropriate?" Harvey repeated worriedly. "How about you give me my keycard and I'll meet you there?"
Albus waved his hand, quickly dismissing the idea. "No," he said, more than a little suspiciously. "I think it best we travel together."
Harvey huffed, his impatience growing. "How about my bank number? That ought to do."
"Have you apparated before, Harvey?" Minerva asked him kindly, ignoring the query.
"What kind of a question is that!" Harvey cried, flapping his arms indignantly. "I'm a bloody porn star, of course I've appropriated. I have twelve kids already and it's a job in itself to avoid those welfare buggers, I'm telling you now! I certainly don't need anymore appropriation, and definitely not with either of you ugly old bitches!"
"No, no," Minerva scolded, correcting him. "Apparate - have you ever apparated?"
Harvey blinked. "What the fuck is that?"
"You've never heard of apparating, dear boy?" Albus mused, clutching his bloody leg and wondering why no one had offered him any assistance, or even asked if he were ok. "But how could you know enough of the magical world to recognize that you're a wizard, to be familiar with the story of the Boy Who Lived, but never have heard of apparation, our most formidable mode of transport?"
"What?" Harvey blinked again. "I'm a what?"
"You said before that you knew!" Minerva cried.
"Yeah, and I bloody well lied now, didn't I!" Harvey screeched. "Ew! I'm infected! I'm a fucking freak! Ew! Ew! Ew! I can feel it on my skin, oh my God!" Harvey screamed in agony and dropped to the floor, rolling about on the wet pavement. "It's biting! It hurts! Get it out of me! Help! Help! Ew! Quick, I insist you operate this minute!"
Albus and Minerva exchanged a worried glance, and Albus took from his pocket the crumpled wrapper of a lemon drop - in a flash it was a portkey.
Forcibly or not, Harry Potter was going to Hogwarts.
--- ---
A/N: Still reading?? Wow. I'm impressed :)
xxoo
