Disclaimer's in the prologue.
Harry Evandrus woke up one morning. The sun was already up, and the light was entering his bedroom. He cursed when he saw that it was already 9 o'clock in the morning. He was supposed to wake up at 5 in the morning that was his wake up time. That and it's impolite to stay in bed when you're in other people's house. He got up and then fixed his bed. After fixing his bed, he took a bath and headed downstairs to get something to eat.
The manor was quiet. His godfather and Remus must've already went off to work. His godfather is an Auror while Remus works in the muggle world. The wizarding world doesn't take Remus' condition kindly. Lars, he thought, must be in his room reluctantly doing his homework since his brother still grounded and not allowed to go play Quiditch.
When he went down he saw the door of the living room ajar so he decided to close it.
"SURPRISE!" He literally jumped when the lights opened and he heard the words being said loudly as he slightly opened the door wide enough to see if someone was there before he closed it.
The whole living room was decorated with garish colours. There was a banner hanging above one that said 'Happy Birthday and Welcome Back Harry'. He really wasn't expecting that surprise, even he himself forgot, for nearly an hour that he was awake, that today is their birthday.
Three Weasleys were there, Fred & George, and Ron Weasley, of course being Lars' bestfriend. Harry hummed, one-third of the Golden Trio is not present, what a surprise. Sirius and Remus were there, of course. Draco was also there, and surprisingly, he was with Theo. Though at the sight of his friends, he felt a little guilty that he doesn't even know when their birthday is.
Harry will ask them later on how Theo got out of his father's claws.
"Hey Harry! Happy Birthday to us!" Lars said, bear hugging him. "Like the surprise? I'm the mastermind." his proudly added.
"Happy Birthday to us indeed, thanks, very much Lars." Harry said, awkwardly hugging back his twin brother.
Everybody in the room gave him a greeting.
"Make a wish Harry!"Sirius said gleefully, holding a cake with eleven candles. Harry smiled at his Godfather before blowing the candles. He scowled when the said Godfather ruffled his hair, but smirked when Sirius made a slightly disgusted expression on his face what with grease on his hand. The hair wax was newly applied.
"Here you have another cake." Theo said to him, holding a smaller cake with a number 11 shaped candle on top. There was something dodgy about the grins that his two friends were sharing, making him hesitant to blow out the fire.
"Oh come on mate," Draco said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "The candles won't blow up in your face." With one last look at the grins of his friends, he blew the candle. Only thing is, the fire wasn't blown away. He tried twice more, and it still didn't. The joke is on him, the candles were trick candles. He had no idea that those trick candles even reached the wizarding world, moreover he had no idea that Theo has one of those, but then again, knowing Theo, he'll probably do and get anything that interests him, and apparently that includes muggle trick candles.
"Nice eh?" Theo said to him, looking quite amused.
"Hilarious." he said dryly before putting out the fire with the use of his fingers, meaning licking his fingers then pressing it together with the wick in between, causing the Draco to gape at him for doing such a thing and Theo pouting saying that he had ruined the fun.
Fawkes, the Headmaster's flaming chicken suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It flew around the large living room while singing, and then dropped two small boxes at Harry, and one for Lars. Harry immediately placed the box with the Flamel crest inside his pocket as soon as he caught it. There will be too much questioning if ever Sirius saw that it was from the Flamels. Lars had the sense of mind to have never mentioned that Harry personally knows Flamel during meal times.
Fawkes flew then disappeared once again.
Harry turned when Lars nudged him. "Hey brother, I think this is yours." Lars handed him a letter with waxed with a seal in the shape of a cauldron. He just looked at the seal.
When he looked up, all eyes were on him, obviously waiting for him to open the letter, so he did.
Dear Mr. Harold S. Evandrus,
Greetings from the British Association of Potions Masters.
Congratulations!
You have been invited to the Potions Apprentice Testing this coming 10th of August. It shall be held at 9:00 in the morning.
P.S. This letter is a portkey and shall be activated at the precise time as indicated.
Sincerely yours, Bartholomew Pelican, Head of the International Association of Potions Masters
"Bloody Hell you're a genius!" Lars exclaimed upon reading the missive.
"What's the letter about, cub?" Remus asked him who was smiling.
"I get to be Professor Snape's apprentice and start having my mastery in potions, obviously, if I pass their test." He said that with a smile on his face. He had always wanted to be a potions master for potions had always been an interest of his. It didn't require you to do complicated wand waving to get something done, plus it was more subtle. It's hard to cast a spell without anybody noticing, not unless you're excellent in wandless magic, but with Potions, you just have to create the potion perfectly, slip it into someone's drink and Bob's your uncle.
"Bloody Hell!" The other boys said, including Sirius.
Harry and Lars opened the other presents that they received.
The content of the box with Slytherin green wrappings that Fawkes delivered was another bracelet, a silver snake one, looking like it slithered itself on his wrist. Lars, being a Gryffindor, was given a gold lion shaped one. Harry got the Black Family heir ring, with its crest engraved on it to symbolize him being the heir of the Noble House of Black, from Sirius. After all the time he was gone, Sirius' decision for him to be the Black Heir has never changed, it was quite touching. Lars got a new Nimbus 2001. The Weasleys gave both of them a cloak, green coloured with silver linings for him and red coloured with gold linings for Lars. Draco gave him an expensive set of Quill and a leather diary, and gave Lars a book on Quiditch. Theo gave him a book on Potions and a book on Charms to Lars. Remus' gift to them was a bar of muggle chocolate each.
He still had one gift left, the other box. He just decided to open it later on.
Lars invited them to play Quiditch, he doesn't want to be a kill joy at that jolly day so he agreed when the fireplace lit again and somebody literally stumbled out of it causing Sirius and Remus to stare for a moment before drawing their wands.
"Wait, lower your wands." Harry told them and then went to the teenager who is down on his feet to help him up.
"Thanks snake boy." The boy said with an American accent upon standing up.
The teenager has a short and spiky flaming red hair with chocolate brown eye with a kind and smiling face, wearing denim jeans, v-neck tee and a high cut basketball shoes. "Hey yall!" Flame hair greeted them. "Sorry for just barging in like this."
"You're Lord of Supreme Awesomeness." Everyone looked at Theo who declared the thought. Flame-haired boy was beaming and nodded.
"Damn right I am pal." The teen responded with a grin. "Say how'd you know that?"
"You called him 'snake boy' in your letter." Theo pointed out.
"Right, so you must be Theodore then." Theo nodded. "That fireworks display during the Quiditch match was downright amazing huh?"
The Weasley twins looked at each other.
"You were the one..." Fred or George started,
"who made that wonderful..."
"Excellent..."
"Superb..."
"fireworks display?" They finished together.
"Ye got that right dudes." The young ones seemed to have forgotten the presence of the two adults in the living room. Sirius coughed, the others turned to the man.
"Oh sorry, forgot to introduce his awesomeness...I'm Luke Skywalker and may the force be with you." Luke said with a grin. The others looked blankly at Luke while Harry snorted at that. He knew that 'Skywalker' is the surname of a character in Star Wars.
"He's Luke Owens." Harry informed them.
"Oh come on dude, you're ruining it." Luke said with a whine.
"That broom was yours, the one Harry used." Sirius said gleefully shaking the hand of Luke.
"Yeah Sir, it was...I'm Luke Arnold Owens broomstick extraordinaire." Luke said with a bow.
"Oh by the way, I got your gifts." Luke searched for something in his pocket. The teen took out five matchbox sized parcels, gave three to Harry and two to Lars. "You're gonna have to do some unshrinking...uhm on these three." The two others that were in no need of unshrinking was a miniature car the same size as a matchbox. Naturally, Harry's was green coloured, and Lars' red coloured.
It wasn't a surprise when Lars didn't wait for later to have Sirius enlarge his parcel. The parcel that needed to be enlarged was prank materials, which is, without a shadow of doubt, from Luke.
"You want me to enlarge yours Harry?" he just nodded in response then gave the two small parcels to his Godfather. The first parcel was about Wizarding Law along with a note that says 'Happy Birthday. From: PhiLeMon'. And the second one is another wristwatch.
Harry placed the gifts on the table before he approached Luke. "Where's Ethan?" he asked.
"He...uh...well...he...uh" Luke stammered then sighed. "He didn't want to come. He said he has to study or some freakin' load of shit like that, but we both know that's bull."
"I see." he replied calmly, though disappointedly.
"How did you know that there's going to be a party?" He asked curiously. Lars and Luke hadn't met each other before so there was no chance that Lars could've send messages to Luke.
"The old geezer told Midas, who told me."
"Ah. And where's Midas?"
"You dear old dad?" Luke questioned. "Keeping Ethan at bay."
"Right." That was all he replied before both of them went over to his twin and friends.
"So," Draco began, "are we still going to play Quiditch?"
"Yeah mate, we were supposed to play until he shot out the fireplace." Weasley second.
"You're gonna play?" The boys nodded. "Sweet! I don't have a broom though...didn't think you'll agree to play."
Harry shrugged. "Lars talked me into it,"
Sirius gave the others his spare brooms while Lars, and Harry used the Nimbus 2000 and Nimbus 2001 respectively and they, except Harry, ran out to the Quiditch Pitch of the manor. Sirius and Remus followed them to supervise the game.
"I don't believe we've met." Luke said, approaching the blonde boy.
"I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." The blonde said proudly.
"And I'm Bond, James Bond." Luke snickered at Draco's confused look. "He's a super spy dude, surprised you don't know the man, you're supposed to know him, he's a Brit like you!"
"I don't know a lot about muggles." Draco replied.
"Perfectly understandable," Luke said. "Heard from him that a lot of purebloods are asses here...anyway he never mentioned you in his letter before."
Draco simply replied "Wasn't his friend yet at that time."
"Oh right, so blondie." Draco frowned at the name. "What's your position in school?"
"Well, I want to be a seeker, like Father used to be, but I think I'll do better as a chaser."
Sirius refereed the game. It was like Slytherin versus Gryffindor, only difference was Luke is not a Slytherin. Lars' group consisted of all Gryffindors. Harry played his team's keeper for he has no intention to struggle for the possession of the quaffle with the others.
"Ok boys even with no bludgers please don't try to kill each other." Sirius said and the game started when he threw the quaffle on air.
Fred or George was the first to grab the Quaffle being bigger than the others. He tried to shoot the Quaffle to one of the hoops but Harry was quick and caught it with ease then passed it to Theo. Luke, Theo, and Draco were playing superbly as if they can read each other's mind and SCORE!, first point goes to Harry's group.
Harry's group won the game having more points than his brother's team, 100 – 80.
While the others were enjoying themselves with Luke's story about his escapades and pranks, Harry called for Draco and Theo, and they went to the garden to talk.
"Who's he by the way?" Theo was the first to ask a question. "I'm not suspicious of him or whatever but, it's weird that he just knew that there'll be a party."
"He probably doesn't." he replied to his friend. "Midas had always given me gifts during my birthday so it's possible that Luke bugged him until he tells him where I'm at, thus flooing here, and being the gift delivery guy...anyway, how did you get out of your house?"
"All thanks to Mr. Malfoy, he sent my Dad a letter asking if I could come over at Malfoy Manor to accompany Draco to a friend's house." Theo looked happy about that.
"So..." He looked at Draco, "your father doesn't care that you're associating yourself with me, who is apparently a muggle lover, son of a bloodtraitor, and has a muggleborn mother."
"No, doesn't care about it at all," Draco said looking very relieved at that. "To be honest I thought he'll be extremely mad about it, but he just said he's perfectly fine with it because you're a Slytherin and Slytherins stick together." Well, perhaps Mr. Malfoy is the most sensible out of all those pureblood bigots.
"That's good to hear then...you alright Theo?"
"Yeah I'm fine...when are you gonna get your school things?" Harry noticed that Theo doesn't want to talk about the issue with his Father because of the sudden change of topic. He wouldn't push his friend though. Theo might not react kindly to it.
"Third week of August, most probably on a Saturday," he replied. "Same day as Lars would, how about you two?"
"I'm going to ask Father if he could also bring me there on that time," Draco replied while Theo said that his Father will be the one to buy his things, no questions asked.
"See you there then,"
Their visitors left after a few more hours of chatting, playing and goofing around. Harry concluded that Luke is now his brother's, Weasley's, and two friends' most favourite person in the world and atop their list of the coolest chap in the world, if they ever have one, telling jokes and stories that makes everyone laugh and of course their most favourite part he is an aspiring broom designer.
As soon as Harry went to his room, after bidding Sirius, Remus and Lars goodnight, he took to the box with the Flamel crest from his pocket. The contents surprised him. It contained a key and a ring, the key for the Flamel vault in Gringotts and the ring of the family head or Lord. Sure he knew that he was the last apprentice of the Flamels, but he wasn't expecting that he will be their heir as well as he'll inherit all the properties, as in all of it. For all he knows, the old couple would donate it somewhere, a hospital or an orphanage perhaps.
He returned the ring and the key back in the box when he felt footsteps headed his room.
"Ever heard of knocking?" Harry drawled as the door of his room opened. He turned around from facing the window. Lars entered the room, carrying with him a big box with holes on it.
"Can't knock..." Lars said, walking towards him then sitting on bed beside Harry.
"This is my gift to you," Lars handed the box to him who didn't open it immediately, "thought they might freak if they saw it."
He got curious and opened it. Inside the box was a black two foot snake with red glowing stripes and golden eyes. Based from one of his books the snake is a magical stone snake, a rare specimen of a snake barely a thousand of its species exists in the world. That kind of snake was rumoured to be born from rocks. He was now wondering how on heaven and earth his brother could possibly got hold of that snake, even people at Knockturn Alley rarely have that kind of snake, and that was saying something.
"Where did you get this snake?" He had to ask.
"A simple thank you would be fine." Lars responded.
"Sorry, thank you Lars for this snake... it's very thoughtful of you." he said. "So where did you get this snake?" The snake slowly slithered out of the box and wrapped itself on his arm.
"Thiss brother of yourss is hardly welcoming me." The snake hissed and Lars chuckled.
"He's not the welcoming type."
"Well then, welcome." Harry said dryly to the snake. "Where'd you get him?"
"Why on earth do you -" The snake suddenly slithered back into the box when it was cut off from its starting question by a glare from Harry.
"He's the one I heard that day ya know when I discovered I'm a parselmouth, why does it matter really?" Lars said.
"It matters because this" holding up the box where the snake was in, "is a rare and dangerous type of snake."
"Of course I'm dangerouss I'm a snake Geniuss." The snake muttered.
"The rare part I didn't know that, only the dangerous, I mean of course, like he said, all snakes are dangerous, you know with their bites and all that." His brother doesn't have clue what the snake is and the snake didn't even tell what kind of snake it is.
"Tell him what you can do." He ordered the snake. The snake slithered out again to his arm.
"It's no biggie Lawrence, humanss like you just tend to -"
"Just tell him what you can do before I chop you off!" The snaked made motions with his tongue, if compared to a human, he was sticking out his tongue in a playful manner.
"Basically, I'm a really strong ssserpent, only one stronger'sss are a basilisk and a magically enhanced snake...that and I can incinerate someone with my venom." The snake said, Lars look stunned at what the snake said, realizing that he just brought home a far more dangerous creature than your ordinary garden snake.
"Its organs are quite useful for potions too and come to think of it I can invent a potion with him in it." Harry added mischievously.
"Oh hell no!" Lars exclaimed, in English. "You are not going to use my present for potions ingredient."
He raised an eyebrow at his brother, amused that he was defending a snake. "I thought you don't like snakes, I'll be doing you a favour if I did that."
Lars shrugged. "Well, they're alright, or at least that one is."
"You know Lawrence'ss brother, you might asss well give me a name since you're my master and I really don't like being, 'snake, 'it' and 'potionsss ingredient' all the time." The snake demanded.
"Boy or girl?" Harry questioned.
"Do I bloody sound like a girl to you?"
"Whatever...Seraphim's your name." he said to the snake before letting it loose on the ground. He turned to his brother. "Sorry Lars, I forgot that today's our birthday, and I don't have a present for you."
Lads shrugged. "That's alright...but you did like the surprise right?"
Harry gave his brother a smile along with a reply of "Very much so."
Lars grinned at him. "I'm glad you like it!"
His younger twin was silent for a moment before saying, with a hint of uncertainty. "Did your guardian, I mean did he at least throw you a party or something? Gave you gifts?"
"Why do you ask?"
Lars sighed. "I...I just want to know...I still feel bad that when you were with Dad and I...he never even considered including you in the party."
"Look Lawrence," Whenever Harry uses his brother's whole first name, it either means that the said brother should listen or shut up. "Don't feel bad or guilty about things that you have no control over, it'll eat you. You couldn't have told him to give me a party even if you throw a royal fit. He doesn't want to acknowledge me that was his choice, not yours."
"And if you must know, I celebrated all my birthdays when I was gone." He celebrated it of course. With Midas being your guardian, it's impossible that you won't have a celebration.
Lars nodded his head. "Good to hear then..."
"Where's Granger by the way? Isn't she supposed to be invited to the party?"
"Yeah...well she's still in France with her parents...besides she's not the only who didn't come, we invited Seamus, Dean and Neville, but they can't come...also Dumbledore so it'll be like before but he said to Uncle Sirius that he's busy."
"I see."
"By the way, brother, I've been meaning to ask, what did you do so that I would wake up at 9 in the morning?" Harry asked his brother suspiciously. It wasn't a coincidence that he woke up 4 hours past his waking time, at the same time they prepared a party for him.
Lars' eyes widened. "Uhm...what?" his brother asked innocently.
"Don't play dumb, my dear brother, I know that you did something for me not to wake up at my usual time..."
"Uhmm...Islippedadelayingdraughtinyourdrink." Lars said very quickly.
Harry narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Care to repeat that."
Lars sighed. "Please don't get angry, and please don't tell it to Moony and Padfoot, they'll probably kill me...but I slipped a delaying potion in your drink."
"You did what!?" His brother slipped a bloody wake delaying potion in his drink!
"Sorry, we didn't know how we could give you a surprise party what with you always waking up before sunrise, before anybody else." Lars said apologetically.
"Good enough reason for me." he replied calmly, even if he is still quite fuming. Not by the fact that his brother slipped a potion in his drink, but because he didn't notice it. He can't believe that his brother, a Gryffindor, managed to slip a potion in the drink without him, a Slytherin, noticing. It was a disappointment on his part, it really was.
"Who's we?"
"Uhh...Draco...and Theo...I sent them a message, days ago about my plans...and well they're just happy to help."
Harry hummed. He should've known that those two had something to do with it. Lars wouldn't be able to pull it on his own. He doesn't doubt his brother's capabilities, but when it comes to him, Lars is not entirely sure about everything.
"Let me guess...you got the potion from Draco and the information on how to slip my drink from Theo..."
Lars slowly nodded his head. "Uh...yeah...he says that whenever you wake up in the middle of the night...you always drink water."
"I see..." He responded before making a face. "No wonder that water tastes a bit awful, I was just too sleepy to take actual notice of it."
"So you're not angry?" Lars questioned.
"I can let it go for now. And besides, one of these days you'll have your...comeuppance." He said with an evil grin directed at his brother.
Lars smiled nervously. "Can't wait for my comeuppance brother...goodnight."
"And they, Sirius and Remus I mean, didn't found it suspicious that I didn't wake up at my usual time?" Harry asked as his brother was going to open the door.
"No...we sort of talked to them... of course they know that you're an early bird, so I asked them if we could throw a party if you didn't wake up at 5 and well...after a few more times pleading...they allowed it."
"Smart...goodnight brother." Lars nodded then exited the room.
"Stupid." The snake said as soon as Lars was out of the room.
"Excuse me?" He said to the snake.
"The name'sss stupid."
Harry scoffed. "It's that or I'll name you 'stupid'. Now stop complaining, you want a name I gave you one, deal with it you insolent snake." he sat back on the chair and started writing on his journal.
"You're supposed to be feeding me." Seraphim stated after minutes of complete silence. He put down his pen and looked at the snake.
"You're a snake, from the wild you can hunt your food outside."
If snakes could smirk this one would, "Fine, I already see my food sitting by your window." Harry glanced and saw that it was his owl, Hedwig, perched on the window and now the snake is slowly slithering towards her.
"Don't you dare, if you so much as touch my owl I'm going to use you for my potions."
"Holy hell human, you can't bloody take a joke." The snake hissed, and, again, if only it could chuckle it most definitely would have, slithering back away from the window. "Come on please I'm hungry, I want fish." The snake pleaded.
Harry was resisting the urge to just chop off the annoying and demanding snake that is slithering in his room and who is now, unfortunately, his pet.
"Tinky!" He called the house elf of the manor.
"What young master requires of Tinky?"
"Bring back a fresh fish meat here and give it to that," he looked over to the snake, "snake over there." The house-elf seemed a little scared of the snake but followed his order nonetheless.
"Thank you young master!" The snake said after he finished devouring the raw meat in one whole swallow.
Harry huffed. "Satisfied now snake?" he said grumpily and the snake nodded its head.
"I thought you said my name is 'Seraphim', you aren't even calling me that." The snake complained. He had a feeling that if that snake was an animagus, someone who can transform into animals, it would probably be a whiny three year old kid. He just continued writing then thinking on what he would give his brother as a late gift.
"Tell me a name you like and that's what I'll call you." he found himself saying.
"I'm a snake, you're my master you give me a name." It said.
"Well then we'll stick with Seraphim alright?" The snake, much to his relief, nodded in agreement. "It means 'burning ones', literally." He added so as not to hear any comment from the snake that the name is stupid.
"I do not know your name by the way, master, your whole name, Lawrence only called you 'brother'." It coiled again around his arm when he lied down on his bed.
"Harold Evandrus," he said, "that's my name."