The Odd Combination of Fate and Humor

Notes:

Poll - I have reduced the poll choices to only 5. So far the biggest favorite is: Draco / Fred / George. The Tom / Harry option is just 1 point ahead of Tom / Severus with Severus / Remus / Sirius and Draco / Harry trailing behind.

I am going to change the voting deadline to this Monday so that I can start to work on the outline for the next chapters. Anyone who still want to influence the choices, this will be your last chance.

Disclaimer:

I do not own Harry Potter in any way; those rights belong to J.K Rowling. The plot and any extra characters are my own though.

Warnings:

This story WILL contain slash!

This means that this story will be purely male x male slash regarding the main characters. Please do not read if you find it offensive to read about two guys kissing…etc.

Everyone else… please enjoy

Key:

"speech"

"soft spoken or seemingly vague speech"

'thoughts'

- Parseltongue -

'Latin words'

Chapter 4: Plans and surprises

Harry woke to the sound of his bedroom door opening and automatically jumped up and stood at attention next to the bed. Or that was what he had intended to do at least. Unfortunately he forgot about his bedmate in the scramble and the next moment he found himself landing hard on his behind next to the bed with Draco on top of him. Luckily Nagini had crawled onto a heating pad that Tom had laid out for her under the bed; otherwise they would have been pinned by one very unhappy snake.

It only took him a dazed moment to register that he had automatically jumped at attention because he thought that it had been his uncle opening the door. He blushed sheepishly and looked at the blonde on top of him. Draco looked furious at being woken in such a manner and Harry slightly cringed as if waiting for a blow.

Someone must have explained his circumstances to the blonde though, because the anger was gone in a second and he felt himself enveloped in another hug. 'These people seem to really like hugs' he thought as warmth filled him. He didn't really like people discussing his personal life, even if they just guessed a few things, but it was nice to have someone who took his reactions into account due to circumstances.

"I see you took the time to get better acquainted. Should I inform certain young men, that you are not available anymore, Draco?" Harry heard Severus' drawled words, but before he could try to work out what he had said, Draco got off him. The blond was blushing and when Harry glanced at Severus, he could see humor in his eyes.

"It's not like that, Severus! Harry jumped out of the bed and pulled me along, I think something spooked him." This brought Severus' gaze to rest on him and he wondered why the expression of humor had shifted into worry.

The man silently walked over and before Harry could gather his thoughts, Severus picked him up and laid him back on the bed. He silently checked him over to see if there were any remaining injuries on Harry's body, but when he found none, he gave a reassuring nod. "I should have realized that you would be skittish after what you have been through. I should have opened the door more softly. Can you tell me why you automatically jumped up when you heard the door? You don't have to if you don't want to, but it will help us to understand you better."

For a moment Harry wanted to tell the man that it wasn't important, but he knew that if they really cared for him, then they would want to make him comfortable around them and that could only be done if he trusted them, even if it's just by a little bit at first.

"I will tell you, if you promise to allow me to work through the rest of it on my own. I don't want to sound like a whiny brat, but I promise to tell you when something bothers me. I know people usually say that it is better to talk about these things and let it out, but I want to get to know everyone before I do that. I know you are all amazing people, but it's only been a couple of hours since I met you and the whole acceptance thing needs time to settle in my mind."

Both Severus and Draco nodded even though Harry had only been addressing Severus. He didn't mind it though since he had a feeling that he would be revealing some of his secrets to Draco in the near future anyway. He took a deep breath to calm his racing heart and mind.

"The reason I jumped out of bed when I heard the sound of the door opening, was because my uncle used to either wake me up with a bucket of cold water, or throw me out of the bed if I wasn't awake and standing at attention beside my bed when he came in. That meant that I had to wake up when he slid the first bolt out of place and by the time he opened the door, my bed had to be made and I had to be dressed and standing at attention to wait for orders about what I had to do that day. I usually just put my clothes on before I go to bed in order to make time to actually make my bed."

The teen grimaced. "During those times I had to stay in my wet clothes no matter what the weather was and if I dared to dirty the kitchen with water drops, I was punished. The next night I always had to go back and sleep on the wet bed otherwise I would have had to sleep on the dirty floor. Luckily I was so small that he usually only wet the one side of the bed, leaving me to sleep on the other side.

Harry could see Severus and Draco sharing a look of anger and disgust, but he knew they weren't aiming it at him. It felt amazing to be around people who took his word when he told them about his treatment in the Dursley house and it was quite apparent that the Wizarding world worked very differently.

This reminded Harry of the fact that he knew next to nothing about the Wizarding world and he frowned before turning to Severus again. "Uhm Severus? Am I right to understand that things work a lot more differently in the Wizarding world than in the muggle world?" The black-eyed man nodded, but stayed silent when he sensed that Harry wasn't finished speaking.

"You told me that the school starts at age 11, so that means I have no way to learn magic and everything about it before the school year starts, unless I get a tutor, but who would want to tutor me when I'm so far behind?" Severus smiled a little at Harry's question. The boy seemed eager to learn and he didn't know that he had teachers in every subject at his disposal yet.

"Yes you will be in the same year as Draco when you go to school, but we will train you beforehand. Since Nagini told Tom that you are good at wandless magic, we will start practicing that first. I want to test your abilities with it and then we can go get you a wand."

Harry felt a wave of excitement overcome him and he enthusiastically hugged Severus. The man froze for a second, but Harry didn't care. The man had calmed him and he couldn't wait to be able to learn everything. He glanced at Draco who was softly snickering where he stood, but just let it go. He didn't know why the blond was laughing, but he would probably find out later.

The blonde's expression suddenly morphed into a look of confusion and worry. "Harry, what did you mean when you said that you had to get up as soon as the first bolt unlocked? Does that mean they locked you away in your room?"

Harry grimaced, but chose to answer anyway. It had been his slip after all. "They placed me in the cupboard under their stairs as soon as I got there if their stories are to be believed. I had numerous locks on my door to ensure that I could only come out when they wanted me to. That was the idea at least. I learned enough in time to be able to sneak out and lock the door behind me again when I returned. They sometimes only locked the one lock, and then I had to wake up and make my bed as soon as I heard someone coming down the stairs. When it was my aunt at the door, she would just yell at me to wake up before unlocking the door."

The blatant anger that appeared in the faces of the other two wizards didn't spell anything good for the Dursleys, but Harry found that he didn't really care. He knew that Vernon and Petunia could have stopped the abuse at any time, but they didn't and that was what made him angry. He was also angry at Dudley, but he knew that, that had been the fault of his cousin's upbringing.

Draco was obviously very confused at Harry's revelation and he looked at his Godfather. "Severus, I thought there was a law against underage magic? How come the Ministry didn't pick up on it?" The dark haired headmaster nodded before elaborating.

"Yes, but they can only monitor the magic born children when they use their wands. Not many adults can achieve wandless magic, so it's safe to say that children should be unable to access it except when accidental magic comes into play. The underage magic law starts when students receive their first wand and each wand has a timed detection charm placed on it by the Ministry. Once the wand has been held for six years, the magic that a wizard or witch receives at the age of 17, breaks the charm and witch or wizard is then able to do spells freely while staying undetected."

Severus glanced at him and he felt a slight nervousness course through him until the man spoke. "Harry must have truly believed in magic and studied hard to make it work for him, but I don't understand how he knew about magic when he wasn't told or exposed to it at all."

Harry blushed slightly. 'I suppose I should tell them about the comic book.' He took a deep breath before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. When he was sure he had their undivided attention, he spoke. "While I was locked up in the cupboard under the stairs, I found a forgotten comic book between the boards. I didn't have much better to do, so I read it. It was about something called psychokinesis. It's kind of like the muggle way to train your brain in order to do something that other people, who haven't trained, can't do."

Harry was happy to see that he had a captive audience, so he continued. "There are many types of kinesis like pyrokinesis, which enable the user to manipulate and start fires and hydrokinesis, which can allow the user to manipulate water. Psychokinesis allows the user to move and levitate things with their mind along with many other uses. It sounded very interesting and since I had nothing to do other than sleep, when I was locked up in the cupboard, I decided to try it and see how it works. I would have tried telepathy, which is the ability to read minds and inject thoughts into it, but I chose psychokinesis instead."

He smiled slightly as Draco and Severus' interest spiked. It was strange to see wizards so intent on information about muggles and so he continued. "The comic book said that it would take a long time to train but it didn't take me long before I started noticing results. Soon enough I found that I could lock and unlock the door whenever I wanted."

Draco and Severus both smiled at this, but he could still see the underlying anger. Harry wondered what he could do to take their minds off of the subject. Then he remembered the strange vials the man had held when he healed him, but he didn't want to slip up and reveal that he had been awake during the healing episode, so he decided to take a different approach.

"What were those vials next to my bed? I kind of noticed them when I woke up, but I forgot to ask about them when we started talking." Draco immediately smiled and he could see by the excitement in Severus' eyes, that the subject was something of a passion of theirs.

Draco was the first to speak and his excitement was apparent as he jumped up on the bed next to Harry. "Those are what we use to store potions in. You learn to brew them in school and even though Severus is the headmaster of Hogwarts, he is also a potions master and he teaches the potions class. They hold everything from potions that could grow back your bones, to potions that could make you extremely lucky and even potions that force you to tell the truth. Each potion has a recipe that needs to be followed to the letter otherwise you will mess up and the potion might explode or even have the opposite effect than it was intended. Severus usually says that it is a delicate art and those words are very true since very few people ever master it."

Harry's face fell at hearing that. He didn't know anything about the Wizarding world and so he was sure to fail such an amazing subject, but before he could talk himself down any further, he heard Severus speak.

"Yes, it is an amazing subject and I might just be saying this because I'm biased, but if you work diligently to learn the basics and patiently work yourself up, then I am sure that you will be great at potions. Your mother was brilliant at potions herself after all. It takes much longer to learn and understand potions, but if you want, we can schedule extra lessons for you. Draco is already receiving extra lessons since he enjoys the subject just as much as I do, so we can both help you together."

Harry couldn't keep his happiness back and this made him laugh happily for the first time in a long time. It was just so amazing to have people willing to teach him, that he was sure that he was partly laughing because of shock, but Severus and Draco seemed to take it all in stride. It took him a while to bring his attention back to the other two wizards in the room and he felt a blush creep over his cheeks when he saw both of them staring at him with amused and shocked faces. He wanted to apologize for the fact that he had just seemingly laughed about nothing but Draco threw his arm around his shoulders with a laugh of his own. Severus gave him a small smile as Draco spoke.

"If you're this excited after hearing about extra lessons then I'm sure you will do fine. Usually when we talk about potions, people quiver in fear before running to hide." The slight dimming of the amusement in Severus' eyes told Harry that the potions master felt confused as to why not many could grasp and enjoy the subject even though it was hard and he vowed to himself that he would study for the subject as much as he could. This raised another question though.

"I promise to always give my best Severus, no matter what happens." The potions master nodded and Harry continued before someone else spoke. "How will I attend Hogwarts as myself without alerting that madman you talked about? If he's as crazy as you say then I'm sure that he will immediately figure out that I can't really protect myself yet and he could take advantage of this."

Severus and Draco's faces became solemn, but a second later Severus smirked. "We will be teaching you how to glamour first then and we will change your name, but that will be a surprise for later. Since you are good at wandless magic, Imagine your power engulfing your entire body and…"

"Severus Tobias Snape! Don't tell me you're trying to teach him magic after he's barely even recovered yet!" A women's voice suddenly interrupted and Harry could tell that she was angry. He subtly tried to scoot backwards, but Draco saw his movement and pulled him close to comfort him before whispering to him.

"That's my mom, you don't have to be afraid, she's just very protective of you at the moment. Her name is Narcissa." Harry relaxed slightly, but not completely. He knew that these people weren't like his muggle family, but he also knew that some mothers didn't really like outsiders. His thoughts were erased a moment later when she immediately stormed over to the bed and hugged Draco before turning towards him with a searching expression and a question.

"Would you mind if I hugged you Harry? The last time I saw you, you were such a cute little thing and you and my dragon played up a storm in our house. We had to cast a whole bunch of chasing charms to find the two of you when you decided to hide before we finally gave in and just let the two of you run free after we attached a tracing spell. It didn't really surprise us when we found both of you passed out in his castle house with each and every toy scattered around you."

Harry nodded with a clenching feeling in his heart as his magic provided the images he had forgotten long ago. Tears sprung to his eyes as he felt faintly familiar arms hug him and he knew he couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Aunt 'Cissa!" He cried out the long forgotten nickname as he burrowed into her arms and he didn't care that Draco and Severus saw him crying. For the first time in a long time he felt the feeling of motherly love and it healed his damaged soul little by little. This reminded him of how Severus had been so caring and protective and his soul healed just a little bit more. Magic rose up around them and he heard quite a few gasps, but the rest of his body was oblivious to everything until his magic settled down once again.

A shocked silence followed and Harry dared a peek at the other occupants in the room. Everyone was frozen until Narcissa moved out of their hug while still holding him at arm's length. Her eyes were filled with tears and he felt confused when he saw happiness in her eyes as well. Did wizards or witches cry when they were very happy? Harry didn't know, but he decided to wait and see what happened next.

Narcissa choked a bit as she lifted her hand and Harry saw a lightning bolt made of silver while a green snake circled around it. A black phoenix could be seen in the background of the crest and the word 'Mater' was written through the crest. Severus raised his hand and Harry saw the same crest on his hand with the word 'Pater' running through it.

Lastly Draco lifted his own hand and the same crest with the word 'Fratris' was inscribed upon his hand. Harry thought about their reactions and realized that he must have unconsciously had something to do with the tattoos, but before he could ask if the people around him were alright, the door flew open and he saw the man called Sirius rush in along with another blond man he didn't recognize, but he assumed the man was Draco's father because of the resemblance.

The two newcomers strode in, but didn't demand any explanations. Instead they both looked to see whether the other occupants of the room had also been marked and when they saw that this had indeed happened, they turned to Harry.

For a moment he feared that they were angry, but both men smiled with a poorly hidden happiness and they raised their left hands only to reveal that they also had the crest with the word 'Pater' written onto it.

Harry was confused at first, but then he realized that these people had instinctively answered his call for a family and while he felt giddy at the thought of having a family again, he also felt scared that he had somehow forced them into the commitment he hadn't even known that he was making.

Harry cleared his throat and everyone in the room held their breath. He was slightly quivering and everyone could see that, but they didn't know what to make of it until he spoke. When he spoke, it was hesitantly and the other people in the room automatically stayed quiet. "Uhm, I'm truly sorry if this sounds rude, but what are these marks for and what do the words mean? I was raised by muggles and so I don't know anything about magic symbols."

The blonde shaggy looking man called Remus also stepped into the room and Harry saw that he also held the same crest on his hand with the word 'Pater'. He felt really confused, but he calmed himself. It was no use freaking out when the people around him could provide him with answers.

Narcissa glared at the rest of the people in the room and they took it as a cue to be quiet before she turned to Harry with a soft smile and gave him another hug. "Your magic recognized us as a substitute for your family and before you worry about forcing anyone into anything, I assure you that each person who carry the mark, actually truly wants to be there for you. 'Pater' is the Latin word for father and 'Mater' is the Latin word for mother. Draco's symbol carries the word 'Fratris' and it means brother."

The smiles around the room widened and Harry was surprised to see that even Severus was smiling. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't alone anymore and that he actually had a family that cared. He wondered why he had so many fathers and only one mother and brother, but he didn't really mind it at all.

Narcissa and Draco stayed close to him, but he could see that the men wanted to come closer as well. Some unknown instinct screamed at him that he had to allow them to get closer to finalize the bond and he subconsciously reached out his arms to Severus for a hug.

The potions master went slightly red as all eyes fell on him and he quickly stepped closer to get the humiliation over and done with. He didn't want to wait for a lecture from the other people in the room, but the moment his arms closed around Harry's waist, he felt a power unlike anything he had ever imagined, engulf him.

The rest of the people in the room gasped as the words on his hand transfigured to 'Patrinus' which meant godfather in Latin and Harry could see that a strange energy now enveloped his Godfather's form. He yelped in surprise when he felt a slight burning sensation on the skin of his neck, but he ignored it until each person in the room hugged him in turn as if compelled.

The next few minutes were a blur and Harry felt close to fainting as he released Sirius from his hug. It seemed fitting that one of the godfathers started the chain and another of the godfathers ended it, but no one paid attention to that as they noticed a glowing crest being burned to Harry's skin as the words on Sirius' hand changed into 'Patrinus'.

Apart from Severus and Sirius, the rest of the crests remained the same, but every crest changed into a deep green color with a silver sheen as the bond was sealed. Nobody knew what was happening until Severus, decided to speak up.

"It seems like Harry's magic decided to form his own family circle, but it looks like there is one core person missing." Everyone could see the rune-like crests surrounding Harry's neck, but there was a core-like crest missing from the base. This never boded well for crest circles and everyone who had accepted Harry, felt their worry spike. They knew that they would do their best to finish the circle, but they had no idea who the last person could be.

Crest circles tied people together by fate and once it's initiated, it couldn't be undone. The group gave each other worried glances and it was Sirius who decided to speak up. "When a crest circle is formed, the people that form the circle only have a limited time to close the circle, or they risk losing their magic. Crest circles are usually only formed once a group is sure that they have all the needed components, but it seems like Harry's magic recognized us as the substitute for his original family and automatically acted out."

Severus stepped forward. "The circle gives the members a boost to their magic and it is said that the link can't ever be broken once it's completed. The problem is that if you kill one of the people in the circle while its uncompleted, then everyone dies."

Harry felt fear course through him and he wanted to apologize for placing everyone in danger, but Severus and Sirius both gave him a pointed look that said that he was going to be in big trouble if he even dared to blame himself.

Remus looked like he was onto something though as be stepped closer to Harry in order to examine the crests. Everyone held their breath as he suddenly stepped back with wide eyes and it was apparent that he had to compose himself before he could speak. "The Ministry won't be able to take you away if we can complete the circle. In a way Harry's magic has given us a way to stay together. Unfortunately there is one important and specific crest missing. It seems like Harry has somehow met his soul mate."

Thank you for reading remember that this is your last chance to vote on the polls.