Chapter 15 - Have You Met the Neighbors' Kid?

Well, the good news was that about half of the things that were broken in the house from hell could be fixed with a wave of the wand. The bad news was that the neighbors' kid was armed with a pair of high powered binoculars and was constantly 'bird watching', particularly in the mornings whenever Brooklyn got out of the shower.

And considering that the house from hell lacked proper window valances, this was a bit of a problem.

The most damnable thing of all was that the kid was apparently on break, and despite the cold, snow and the migration of birds to warmer climates, the kid still insisted on exercising his high powered binoculars to the fullest extent.

It was on one weekday morning during their first week there, when Harry had gone out to get the non-existent mail, searching in hopes of a summons from the Order in the empty mail box, that the neighbors came outdoors, the mom waving excitedly in his direction. Harry squinted, wondering what the hell they could possibly be on about at nine in the morning.

After attempting to inconspicuously hex the mailbox, as practice for Tonks whenever she did get around to contacting them, he hurried back toward the front door.

Unfortunately his new shadow was following, and recently showered Brooklyn was clearly enjoying the show from the bedroom window.

Harry unexpectedly felt his back, shoulder and head get hit with something cold and wet. He turned around, resisting the urge to hex whatever little fiend that had decided to use him for target practice. Only instead of the gremlin he expected, there was a wiry kid, clearly in the awkward stages of puberty, gaping wide eyed at him like a drowned fish.

"Yes?" Harry asked, forcing the annoyance to a minimum.

The kid continued gaping, his gloved hand rising to rub his chin. As he did this, a freakishly excited look crossed his face.

"Woah..." The kid said in astonishment. "You've got your first stubbles in, eh? I'm waiting for mine any day now."

Not understanding a word, Harry found himself now gaping like the adolescent, half-drowned fish. Only since Harry was the only one of the two wet from a covert snowball attack, he fit the part much better…stubble and all.

Frustration finally got the best of him. "Can I help you?"
The kid nodded. "Yeah, have you tried shaving yet? Or is that your first growth?"
His confused look was met by one of awed understanding.
"Ah..." Said the snowball throwing assailant. "You don't even know yet do you!" The kid strode forth, reaching out his hand. "My name's Damion, and congrats on your first stubble of beard growth."

And this was how Harry found himself shaking the gloved fiend's hand exuberantly, dodging the kid's attempt to pull on his stubble. Then Brooklyn opened the door, still clad in her bathrobe.

The kid let out a low whistle. "Wow...is that your mum?"

Brooklyn, out of ear shot, was sending him a very odd look indeed, and Harry found himself shaking his head helplessly. After all, how do you explain to your former casual sex partner that you have been mistaken for an adolescent, while informing her that she has been aged an extra ten years by the same kid, without anyone winding up hexed?

As if the situation couldn't get any more awkward, his mother approached. Her beaming smile faded as she stood behind her son.

She shook her head. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I'm afraid I saw you this morning and thought the new family had sent their child for the paper..." Now she was starting to sound completely depressed. "My son Damion here...he wanted to meet you. There are so few people his age here."

She was looking pleadingly over her son's head at him. He could hear Brooklyn, who was leaning against the door frame, laughing at him.

"I-uh…" He really had no idea where he was going with that when he began.
"Oh I'm sorry." She held out her hand. "My name is Angelina."
"I'm…" Oh damnit, what the hell was his name!
"Ryan!" Brooklyn shouted from the door. "Did my, uh, letter come yet?"
He shook his head at her while mouthing 'thank you'. "I'm Ryan and that's Katelyn." He hated how they got stuck with such generic names.
"Are you two married?" She was eyeing up his hand, looking for the fake band that resided on it.
He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Yeah."

The woman seriously needed to stop asking questions. He barely knew the basics of their new identities, let alone the intricate details.

"You look awfully young." She said.
He hadn't the faintest idea of how old they were supposed be, so he pulled the first number that came to his head. "I'm 22." Yes, twenty-two was a nice palindrome. "M-my wife is also."

He looked pleadingly over to the bathrobe wearing Brooklyn, hoping that she would come up with something to get him out of this. The Demon kid was also looking in her direction, though he had been practically drooling over her since she came to the door.

"How long have you two been married?" Angelina asked with much interest.
Right now, he was hoping for Voldemort to come bursting through the trees. "I-uh, well…" He decided to stick with his theme of twos. "Two weeks."
"Oh dear, very newlyweds," She said excitedly. "Wh-"
"Ryan, aren't you cold without your jacket?" Brooklyn said from the doorway.
"Don't worry, I'm make sure Damion will give you some privacy," She said with a wink. "It was nice to meet you!"

She led the Demon kid back in the direction of their house. His neck was still turned so he could see Brooklyn's form in the doorway. Harry rubbed his face with both of his hands. He was officially stressed out, and it was just barely after 9 a.m.

When he reached the smirking Brooklyn, he threw his arms around her and kissed her cheek close enough to her mouth to make it look like it was her lips.

"What the bloody hell did you do that for!" She demanded.
"Two reasons. One: Keeping up appearances." He said, glancing over at Angelina, who was blatantly a sap for romance and had a huge smile plastered on her face from the display. "And two: reminding me what my name is and giving them the hint to leave."
"That's three."
"Right. I'm still stuck on the whole two theme."
"Remember, any sort of physical contact within these doors is strictly prohibited."
"We're not inside yet." He said suggestively.

She quickly remedied that problem by dragging him inside. Angelina, who had still been watching from her front yard, probably thought he was about to get laid. Instead, they spent the rest of the day sitting at the kitchen table working out the intricacies of their faux life.

---------------------------------------------------

Going to bed at night was something that was a drawn out fight that started the day they got there. It would always end in one of two ways…

They'd end up in bed together, each threatening to cause bodily harm if touched by the other, or one of them ended up locked in the temperamental closet for the night.

On one particular night during their second week there, Brooklyn had started yelling at him for removing her clothes from the hangers and replacing them with his own. After she threw his clothes around, he had pushed her into the closet and slammed the door behind her. She must have pounded on the door for hours before finally giving up and he made sure to let her know that he was sprawled out across the whole bed before going to sleep.

That following morning, Brooklyn attacked him with one of the plastic hangers when he finally managed to open the closet door.

He ended up spending the night in the closet after that.

But on the days they woke up with one of them clinging onto the other, there wasn't the predictable yelling, only a feeble apology that was accepted by the other. They were usually the most pleasant to each other in the mornings. It was when they were both fully awake that the pleasantries subsided and the bickering would begin.

Then it hit him…they sounded just like Ron and Hermione, bickering like an old married couple.

But just as quickly as that thought entered his head, he began to utilize his defensive walls. He rather not think about his dead friend, nor the very much alive one that now hated him. He did not want to break down again like he had at Hermione's funeral. Only Luna had seen how destroyed he was and he would like to keep it that way.

And just when he thought his defenses were about to deteriorate, there was Brooklyn, who always seemed to chime in at the correct time…

"Did you eat all of the pastries…again!"

Then he was forced to think about how he hated arguing with her. How he wished she would stop being so stubborn and just admit that there was something between them.

Thinking about her wasn't putting him through as much emotional turmoil as the other.

It was just exponentially more frustrating because he was forced to deal with it on a daily basis.

At least he was trying to deal with her, unlike all of his other issues. She was quite unresponsive. He had tried several tactics ranging from subtle hinting and casual flirting to being down right blunt about it.

He had been hexed on the few occasions he had been a little too blunt.

Then there was the matter of explaining to the extremely nosy neighbors why they never left the house…

Brooklyn had come up with the idea that they ran their own business from home primarily through the internet. There was that and they also had inherited a nice sum of money from a deceased relative. It was decided that it was his grandfather who left them the money, since they both were supposed to hate their parents because they opposed their relationship…hence why they eloped.

He really wished they would have left him somewhere where they wouldn't have neighbors…not that they had many to begin with, but having to remember all of the details of their new lives was proving to be difficult.

Harry would also have his daily brooding sessions. Oh how Brooklyn hated these. They usually ended up screaming at each other over who was going through the worst hardships. He always won…not like that was a good thing. She almost had him beat when it came to who had a worse childhood though. His winning edge was the fact that he had been locked in a cupboard for most of his youth.

It was during one of these daily screaming matches that the doorbell rang.

Harry almost tore the front door off of its hinges when he opened it. There stood the Demon kid. They were purposefully trying to avoid him more than anyone else in their small neighborhood.

"Hiya Ryan." The Demon said. He was already looking past him, trying to get a glimpse of Brooklyn. The schoolboy crush he had on her was really quite irritating.
"Hi." He said, hoping that the tone of his voice would make it obvious he didn't want to talk.
"I heard some shouting. Is everything alright?"
Oh for the love of Merlin… "Everything's fine."
"You and Katelyn argue an awful lot." The eavesdropping adolescent said. "Don't you love each other?"
It took everything he had to not pull his wand out on the kid. "Of course we do, not that it's any of your business anyway."
"Katelyn!" The kid's raging hormones were evident. Brooklyn was probably wishing for a sweatshirt in exchange for the form-fitting camisole she had on.
"We're busy Damion." He said, knowing the kid probably wouldn't take the hint.
"Can I come in?" The annoying little prat said hopefully. "No one is home at my house right now."

The string of obscenities he wanted to yell somehow managed to not leave his mouth as he let the kid in. He sat himself down on the couch and immediately took to staring at Brooklyn, who was obviously uncomfortable by his enamored state.

"So when are your parents going to be back?" Harry asked, hoping that the answer would be something along the lines of 'very soon'.
"Well, my dad won't be home until this evening and my mum went grocery shopping."
"And how long does that usually take?" Brooklyn asked.
"An hour or so." He responded excitedly.

Harry actually left the room so he could go bang his head against a wall. He could've sworn he heard Brooklyn groan when he exited.

"Why does Ryan yell at you?" The meddlesome adolescent asked. "You're way too pretty to be getting yelled at."

That little son of a bitch was hitting on his fake wife, in his hideout shack, while he was only a room away. He leaned his head around the corner. Brooklyn looked like she was stuck between wanting to hex the kid and being at a total loss for words.

"He's always yelling at you. I saw him throw in the closet a few times too. I don't think he loves you very much if he does that." The audacious spying kid continued on. "Why do you love him when he does things like that?"
"I-uh…" Brooklyn looked like she had just gotten hit in the head with a bludger.
"You don't love him?" The arrogant adolescent asked with way too much hope present in his voice.
"Damion, our relationship is none of your business." Brooklyn said quite calmly.
"It's a simple question."
"Of course I love him!"
"No need to shout. His behavior must be rubbing off on you."
Brooklyn's hand was now in the pocket of her jeans. Harry could only assume she was gripping her wand.
"Katelyn, sweetie?" Harry said from behind the corner. "Would you mind helping me in here for a moment with some work?"

Brooklyn wasted no time in ditching the Demon kid and practically sprinted to the hallway, nearly knocking him over when she collided with him. They went into their bedroom, closing the door behind them. She started pacing around, mumbling about the wicked little child sitting in their living room.

"It's bad enough he's probably already seen me coming out of the shower, completely undressed, but to have the little weasel blatantly hitting on me! Do something Harry!" She pleaded.
"And just what exactly do you propose I do?" He asked, hoping she would provide an answer.
"I don't know, act like a jealous husband or something!"
"He's thirteen!"
Brooklyn crossed her arms and scowled at him.
"Alright, alright, I'll get rid of him somehow."

Harry went back out to the living room, not having a clue as to how he was going to get rid of the kid. He wasn't sitting where they had left him though. He was now wandering around unsupervised, appearing to be looking for something. Harry cleared his throat to make his presence known.

"Don't you have wedding pictures? Or any pictures at all?" The Demon asked.
"You know we eloped, so there are no wedding pictures." Harry said flatly.

Why was this kid so overtly nosy? Harry was starting to think he was doing reconnaissance for his meddlesome mother, who probably went on to inform the rest of the people in the neighborhood. Harry was seriously contemplating using an Unforgivable on whoever decided to send them here.

"Damion, you're going to have to go home now, we have some work we have to get done." Please let the kid leave, please…
"I don't want you yelling at her again." His arms were crossed and he was glaring at him. The nerve of this kid…
"He won't Damion, I can promise that."

Harry was taken off guard when Brooklyn wrapped her arms around his torso, leaning her head against his shoulder. The kid's world looked like it was about to shatter at her display of affection towards him. Harry couldn't help but smile, maybe the kid would finally leave them alone now. They escorted him to the door and he began to walk across their front yard toward his own. He stopped suddenly and turned around to look at them.

"Oh I'll show that little brat who I'm supposed to be in love with." She sneered.

Without any warning she pulled him towards her, but stopped. Her eyes shifted in the direction of the adolescent horror and then back to him.

"Put on a good show, I want this kid to take the hint." She said lowly.

He merely nodded. There would be no show coming from his end for he had been waiting to do this for quite some time. And as they kissed in the front doorway, she would have to be quite thick-headed to not realize what he was doing was genuine and not merely an act.

He just hoped he wouldn't get hexed for it later.