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: Yeah, right. Don't own it.
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Once We Were Warriors
Chapter Three: Orange and Melons
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Just as Harvey leapt up, Madam Pomfrey turned around.
"Get back in that bed this minute, young man!" she thundered across the infirmary.
Harvey, just a little terrified, squinted over at Snape - who had hidden his stick behind his back and was whistling tunelessly.
"Bed!" Pomfrey shrieked again, making her way stormily over to them.
Harvey sniffed, quickly combed his irate hair with his fingers, and jumped back onto the bed, hiding under the covers. Having not reckoned on such a frightful temper, Harvey began to feel a little nervous about the bet he'd rather thoughtlessly entered himself into. But then, peeking over the sheet to glare at Snape, his confidence returned - the man's odious looks crept beyond cringefull in drastic leaps and bounds.
No - Harvey would win easily, without question. Nine hundred million ba-zillion squillion trillion pounds could not quite settle his debts, but it would make a decent start. Harvey only had to get the doctor into a better frame of mind, and perhaps a different, more sensual environment. It might take longer than he had thought it would, though, unfortunately.
A loud booming echoed from the door as some colossal force knocked, shaking Harvey from his scheming.
Madam Pomfrey, looking her most hostile, cried angrily, "Visiting hour's over!"
But the knocker, mirroring his force of before, had entered anyway.
It was a sight that sent trembles down Harvey's spine - the giant monstrosity, a mass of unnaturally large limbs and feral, smelly fur and horrible, thick black hair - was absolutely the most scary thing he'd ever laid blurry focus upon.
"Hello Pomfrey, Snape," the giant boomed. "I'm here ter take young Harry ter lunch - Minerva's order."
"To lunch?" Snape repeated. "You mean in the hall, with the other students?"
"That's right," the giant said.
Snape raised an eyebrow. "Your funeral," he commented dryly. Harvey couldn't understand what that meant, and figured it must have been some sort of secret code. "I haven't got the brat's blood yet, though," Snape went on, confirming Harvey's devious suspicions - they wanted him dead for sure.
The giant nodded. "That'll have ter wait till later, then. The lad will need his strength."
Snape shrugged, uncaring. "Whatever," he said, and stalked off.
"I'm not finished with you yet!" Harvey called to his retreating back, reminding Snape of their agreement as he slammed the door behind him without a backwards glance.
Gingerly, Harvey pushed himself up from the bed.
"Harry Potter?" the giant asked fondly … far too fondly than would seem appropriate, or even natural.
Harvey shook his head. "No, I'm Harvey."
The giant bared its teeth savagely in a terrible grin. "I'm Hagrid," the beast told him happily.
"Where are my clothes?" Harvey asked the Healer, pretending the giant wasn't there.
"Oh, allow me," she said, and withdrew another stick from her pocket.
Harvey supposed the sticks must have something to do with a sort of fetish that was popular within the academy cliental. There were many things one could do with a stick, Harvey pondered, but that had never really been his sort of thing.
Pomfrey swished it about the air dramatically and Harvey laughed. But then, when Harvey looked down, something most bizarre had occurred - for where before he had worn a set of fluffy pajamas, he was now dressed in a ... well ... a dress. Never one to question memory blanks, Harvey pushed the strangeness to the back of mind, and focused on the more pressing matter at hand.
Harvey glared at Madam Pomfrey, unable to believe that she could have possibly made such a terrible, offensive mistake.
"I'm a boy," he told her hotly, seething in rage. "As in male - a male that does not like to wear dresses."
Madam Pomfrey regarded him oddly. "Alright," she said, already turning away, ignoring him and making no move at all to improve his embarrassing attire. "I want him back here as soon as you're done, Hagrid," she told the giant sternly.
The giant looked down at Harvey affectionately and Harvey harbored no doubt that, despite the conflicting wish of the beast to kill him in some most unpleasant way, he was obviously quite in love with Harvey as well. This scared Harvey even more, and he couldn't help but remember that the beast had probably just seen him naked, as he was being dressed. With this thought, Harvey decided he didn't want to go to lunch with the - thing - at all. Who knew what the giant could do to him on the way, and - worse yet - if it were him on the menu!
"I don't want to go to lunch," Harvey said, shaking with fear as sweat beading on his forehead, just as his traitorous stomach lurched.
"Sorry, Harry," the beast began. "But yer expected. Minerva's waitin' fer yeh, see."
Harvey pointed to where he had thrown the item from his bedside table. "But Dumdledoo is here still, isn't he? Shouldn't we wait for him?"
"Dumbledore?" Hagrid said, shuffling his feet. "Well, yes." The giant looked a bit embarrassed. "He'll be joinin' us later, when he's feelin' better."
Harvey signed, his wobbly knees trembling.
"Come on then," the giant insisted, heading for the door.
Resigned to his own piteously doomed fate, Harvey decided reverently to get one up on Snape before he was eaten alive. As he started walking Harvey pretended to trip, groping at Madam Pomfrey's upper midsection for support.
"Are you alright there, Mr Potter?" Pomfrey asked from behind him.
What? Behind him?
Harvey quickly steadied himself, leaping away from Hagrid and where he had been abusing the giant's ... lower region.
Bugger.
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Arriving at the great hall amazingly still all in one piece, Harvey ran away from Hagrid the first chance he got. He didn't get very far, though, knocking into a wall and falling on his bottom.
The student's grew silent, craning their necks to get a better look towards the clamor.
Hagrid hurried after him, manhandling his body as he lifted Harvey up off the ground.
"Ew!" he cried. "The beast is trying to rape me!"
"Now look here," Hagrid boomed again in his atrociously loud voice. "I was only helpin' yeh up!"
"That's what they all say, pedophile!" Harvey hissed back, struggling away from the giant's firm grip.
Free again, Harvey turned around and fled. Finding an empty seat on the table at the end, furthest away from where Flitwick was waving at him in a most stalker-esq manner, Harvey quickly sat himself down.
"Who the hell are you?" a blond boy next to him asked rudely.
"I'm Harvey," Harvey told the table at large, his chest swelling in glamorous pride. "Harvey Headbanger."
"The porn star?" the boy said incredulously.
"Yup."
One girl snorted. "As if! Why the hell would Harvey Headbanger be here?"
Harvey heaped a large spoonful of mashed pumpkin onto his plate. "I've been kidnapped," he supplied readily.
Around him the students exchanged furrowed brows and disbelieving smirks.
"Right," the blond said. "I'm Salazar Slytherin."
Harvey was sympathetic. "Dude - your parents must have absolutely loathed you."
"What?" the boy asked, confused.
"I used to have a really crap name too," Harvey confided. "But when I got an agent they let me change it."
"Oh. Ok."
Lunch passed slowly, conversation thrown hither and tither. Harvey thought the students all rather strange. The students all thought Harvey rather out of his mind. After a particular comment regarding Madam Pomfrey's cup size, which Harvey really was most curious to know, they all got up and stalked off to cram together on the other end of the table, leaving poor Harvey sitting all alone. Why the Healer's melons could be such a touchy topic, Harvey could only guess.
Taking it in his stride, presuming the students only jealous of his marvelous fame and fortune (metaphorically speaking), Harvey made his way over to the only familiar face he could spot - Minerva's. Climbing up onto the dais, Harvey sat himself down in the only empty seat, right at the center of the long, rectangular table that faced the four others. Harvey supposed it was probably Albus' chair, and felt a strange desire to reclaim it as his own, throwing Albus regally off his throne.
"Do you miss your other friends, Harry dear?" Minerva asked, shaking Harvey from his premonition.
Harvey couldn't be bothered repeatedly correcting people on his name anymore. If they were giving him this Potter's money, he supposed he'd (generously, mind you) allow them the leeway.
"No," Harvey answered shortly. "I don't have any friends."
Far from creating the effect he had hoped this statement would have, Harvey found Minerva's sultry grin only grew wider.
"Oh, too bad," she simpered, not at all sorry.
"Yeah," Harvey agreed dully, angry his guilt card had been wasted so.
"We thought we'd sort you next week, give you a bit of a chance to meet some new people and settle in to the curriculum," Minerva explained.
"What sort of curriculum, may I ask?" Harvey said slowly. "Only, from the general look of things, I'm sure I'll be far ahead of everyone else here."
Minerva smiled gently, and went on to blabber about the variously mundane subjects the academy covered - but Harvey had long before tuned out.
"When can I visit a bank?" he interrupted, eager to get his hands on 'Harry Potter's' credit - the sooner he did that, and won his bet with the ugly Bat, all the sooner he could make a hasty getaway and retire in Majorca.
Minerva frowned, scouring her patchy mind. "There's a Hogsmeade visit scheduled three weeks from now, I do believe."
"Three weeks?" he groaned. Harvey glared down at his plate intently, carefully examining the food Minerva had heaped there as best he could.
"Are you alright, Harry, darling?" Minerva asked. "Anything you don't like, just leave it."
"I only eat orange," Harvey told her as he eyed the Weasley twins below him hungrily.
"What was that?" Minerva said, pausing.
"Orange," Harvey repeated. "I only eat stuff that's orange."
"Why is that?" Minerva said, quite puzzled.
Harvey shrugged, looking down the long table for further orange prey.
"Well, there's got to be a reason!" Minerva insisted.
Harvey shrugged again, stabbing his knife down into the table miserably. Or, that is, what he had thought was the table - it was actually Minerva's hand.
Shrieking in agony, Minerva plucked the knife out from where it had pierced her flesh. "Harry!" she cried through gritted teeth, blood spraying out from the wound and onto her face, dribbling down her neck. "We're getting you a nice pair of glasses!"
"Ok," Harvey said indifferently.
"And you're going to wear them!" Minerva threatened.
Harvey scoffed. "Yeah, right." To hell he would!
Again Minerva mistook him. "Good lad," she said, nursing her hand.
From around Minerva, Snape leant back in his chair, catching Harvey's eye. Severus pointed down at a blurry student with awfully frizzy hair and huge buckteeth, licking his lips, and he mouthed - 'Care for a change of target?'
Harvey shook his head, sniggering.
It's be easy, he assured himself with flickering confidence. Win the bet, empty the bank account and he'd be gone in a flash, snap, crack. As simple as sex.
... right?
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A/N: Gah. Thanks for taking the time :)
xxoo