Disclaimers: No, I do not own the Harry Potter universe. I only molest the little characters because it is fun and I can. No money changes hands either. I also like to poke fun at The Mummy. Seriously what kind of a nut case would even want to exist looking like he does?
Chapter 10: Hogs to the rescue
The road to hell is paved with good intentions: Probably lucky for Harry that he had no specific intentions at that particular moment. He walked away from the Leaky Cauldron feeling a hopeless sort of rage, directed mostly at Severus Snape. The man really had managed to piss him off. Harry was aware of the fact that he was probably overreacting, but Merlin! Sev hadn't even asked any questions, he had just opened his mouth and started shrieking.
Harry reckoned that he probably should walk down to the end of the street and talk to Fred and George before he wandered on over to Hogwarts to see Minerva. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life with Severus acting like a jealous shrew. Might as well find a way to fix it now rather than wait until he had to hex him back to Russia (Or wherever it is that the hook-nosed variety of Snape originated from.)
Fred opened the door with a flourish and hauled him into the shop while yelling, "Make way! Seriously bad wizard coming through."
Harry glared at him as several people jumped out of the way before realizing that it was Harry Potter who had just entered the shop. "Would you shut up with that nonsense!"
George vaulted over the counter and began bowing in front of him. "Oh please, Harry, we haven't got to say that in such a long time."
Harry narrowed his eyes at the two of them. "What did I tell you two about hanging out with Jarreth? He is not the King of the Goblins for nothing." He watched identical faces smirk at each other before beginning their lying protestations. "Don't lie to me."
They backed up slightly and focused on the little black haired maniac in front of them. "Harry, we didn't do anything." Their whining and cowering only served to make him more paranoid.
Harry glowered. "What are you hiding? If I find out that your stupid bloody jokes are actually harming people I will close you down faster than you can say, "My mommy snogs Dumbledore."
Both boys looked rather strange as they turned a peculiar shade of green and began gagging. Harry continued to glower at them even as he was chastised by Hagrid, who had entered behind him and was currently standing beside the canary cream bin counting out sweets for his thestrals. "That there was a bit harsh wasn't it, Harry? After all, Dumbledore's a great wizard. I can't see him messing around with Order members. Well, except Minerva, but they are a little bit of a special case."
He noticed everyone staring at him wide-eyed and blinked nervously. "Well, I'll just pay for these and be going back to Hogwarts then." As he stepped past Harry he whispered"Forget I said that. I shouldn't have said that." (Sorry, we can't manage Hagrid's brogue.)
Fred and George snickered at the half-giant's embarrassment. "It's alright, Hagrid. At least we know Mummy doesn't snog the Headmaster now, don't we."
Hagrid just mumbled and handed them the bag of sweets to weigh. Just before he left he remembered something and turned around to speak to Harry one last time. "Are you still working on being a Medi-Wizard, Harry?"
Harry looked up when he spoke. "Yes, Hagrid. Just because Severus, Draco and I are going to bond doesn't mean that we are all going to give up our plans and live in each others pockets."
"Well, the reason I asked was because Bane came to see me earlier on today and told me that some of the younglings had eaten a strange plant and they were all falling ill. He wanted me to ask you to visit with him as soon as you could."
"What time did you speak to him, Hagrid" Harry was all business.
"I headed this way right after lunch. Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were talking with Dumbledore and Mr. Malfoy mentioned that young Draco would be at the Leaky Caldron if he managed to get out of the Hospital wing."
"And you just managed to catch me here instead of at the Leaky Cauldron?" Harry watched the big man squirm.
"Well, I was just getting ready to go over to your table when Professor Snape started yelling. When you apparated out the door and walked down the street I reckoned it would be OK to follow you."
Harry nodded. He waited until Hagrid counted out the correct coins for George. After watching him slip the bag into one of the voluminous pockets of his mole skin coat, Harry huffed, "Are you ready then?"
Hagrid nodded at him, not fully understanding the question. He then squeaked in surprise at finding himself standing outside his hut with the little wizard stepping back from him and grinning like a lunatic. "Harry, you ought not do that. You scared me a fair bit, you did."
Harry laughed. "Come on. Let's go see where Bane is. If he came to you it must be pretty serious." They took off in the general direction of where Hagrid usually met the centaurs.
They followed a twisting path into the forest for some minutes before Harry looked up and saw a blood red female centaur pawing the ground agitatedly. "It took you long enough to get here, Harry Potter. We are desperate. The unicorns say you are the best of healers and we need your help."
Harry walked up to her. "I came as fast as I could. I will do what I can."
She looked over at Hagrid. "Go home, big man. I will take him to our camp and bring him back when it is time." She knelt, forelegs on the ground, so that Harry could mount. Then she whirled around and was gone before Hagrid could argue.
He sighed dejectedly and turned to go home. It would serve no purpose for him to try to find the camp although he so wanted to meet everyone. And then make sure Harry was alright.
Hagrid, being Hagrid, promptly forgot to tell anyone where Harry was. He went on with his duties as Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts as if taking someone into the Forbidden Forest and leaving them there was regular business. Of course with him taking children into the forest at all hours of the day and night, this may just have been normal.
Harry effectively disappeared without a trace. Had he actually tried to do something as stupid as escape from Severus, he would not have managed to get out of Diagon Alley. Harry had long since given up on plotting, he simply wasn't a Slytherin- he was just so concerned about the centaurs that he forgot to tell anyone where he was going.
He was in the centaur camp within a matter of minutes. The red female, whose name was Flame, was truly concerned because two of her foals were ill from eating whatever the plant was.
By the time he got there, the camp had all eight of the younglings settled down in one place and was trying to make them comfortable. The little ones were having the hardest time and they were all fading. The plant was poisoning them all very slowly.
The first thing he did was cast diagnostic spells on the sick children. Flame refused to leave his side and helped him with cataloguing the symptoms and filling him in on what all had been done so far. Harry blanched when she told him that forcing beazor stones down their throats had not helped either. He just knew it was going to be a long night as he set up some equipment for doing blood analysis on the sick and their parents.
Some thirty-odd hours later, Harry was practically sobbing in frustration. He had managed to put the sick centaurs in a magical stasis so they would not deteriorate further, but he was having a horrible time trying to make his way through an obscure text dealing with centaur physiology that one of the centaur elders had found and insisted he read.
Harry was ready to beat his head against the nearest tree just to find some blessed relief. If he had his way he would have called in Severus, Dumbledore, Poppy and any number of other people- yet even faced with certian death if he failed, the centaurs had adamantly refused to let him consult with anyone else. They left it to Flame to explain the intricacies of centaur life to him.
Under normal circumstances they would have just let the young ones die, but with seven of the sick being females they could not in good conscience let them pass away. The herd, itself, was beginning to decline from passive neglect.
The whole 'heal the babies' issue boiled down to one fact: Bane would do anything to keep his mare happy. If that meant bringing a human into the camp to heal her children then it would be done. (He's finally learning to be a responsible parent!)
Sometime after the forty hour mark, Harry had finished the centaur physiology book and performed a few more tests. One of those tests involved analyzing the regurgitated remains from the stomach of a sick foal. He finally identified the undigested bits as part of a plant which Flame said was a prized delicacy among the Centaurs once it was stewed with acromantula meat in a special clay jar used to remove the spider's venom.
He finally had one of the centaurs take him to where the plant was growing. He immediately noticed that the plant was growing in spots of high ground where it could get away from pits of strange colored porous clay. Thanks to having the Potions Master from Hell as his instructor, he recognized the clay as a bonding agent normally used to extract certain minerals from a potion.
He sighed with relief as he directed the centaur to bring other centaurs with buckets so they could scoop up some of the precious clay and take it back to the camp. He intended to plaster the babies down with the compound and see if it worked the same way on sentient organisms as it did on inanimate objects. Before he could put the clay on them though he had to bring each foal out of stasis and then spell it back to sleep.
Just before dusk Harry and the centaurs who were helping him got all the little ones coated in the clay substance. Harry then spent the night keeping the clay on them moist so it would work on drawing the poison out of them. Bane was terribly cross that Harry had performed a hair removal charm on all of them and they looked even more pathetic with their gaunt little ribs practically poking through translucent skin. It did serve the purpose of putting the clay into direct contact with the skin though and that helped the pultices work faster.
The last thing he had to do was wake the lot of them up. After pausing a minute to think about what he wanted to do, Harry approached the half circle of sleeping centaurs. He smiled radiantly at Flame, threw a casual smirk at Bane, then bent forward slightly while deepening his voice to a gritty base tone, chanted, "Centaurs come alive!" Arms outstretched, he made a motion as if pulling power from the earth. (And why not? It works for the Mummy Imhotep.)
He assumed his mission was successful when he saw the eight little ones jump up and stagger toward their parents, whinnying in various tones of terror. He was so tired it took him a few seconds to realize that when he called up the magic to pull the little ones out of stasis, he had, in fact, summoned something from the ground. "Who in the name of Merlin are you lot?" He asked. The expression of 'eyes bugged out of his head' certainly fit ol' green eyes.
WARNING: SELF-INSERTIA TO AVOID THIS PLEASE GO TO NEXT PAGE BREAK!
The middle biker pulled her helmet off and looked him up and down. "'You Harry Potter?"
"Yes."
"Good. We are the Fragonknights and we have been sent by Merlin to make sure you arrive at your wedding in time to shower and dress for it."
Harry looked at them slightly confused. "My wedding?"
FK03 pulls off her helmet and makes hacking noise before reaching to pull one glove off. "Damn braces. Always getting something caught in them. Sometimes it's a real bitch to live like muggles." Pulls unidentified object out of brace wire then returns glare to Harry. "We were sent to remind you that you are scheduled to be married at Hogwarts in less than three hours. Do you plan to come peacefully? Or, do you intend to resist? At which point we warn you that we shall stuff this portkey somewhere it will take a surgeon to remove it."
Harry turned ghostly white and keeled over just after recognition dawned. "Oh, Circe! I'm getting married today!"
FK01 motions for Firenze to drop Harry across the back of Ratty's Harley. Ratty immediately complains, "But, Mummy, I don't like him. I'd rather cruise around with a chick on my bike."
"Do what you are told for once or I won't let you be a self-insertia any more, understand?" FK01 manages to look menacing. (Probably because she had not taken her helmet off.)
"Yes, Mummy." A resigned Ratty Baggins rearranges the unconscious Potter and drives off toward Hogwarts following the rest of his stupid gang. Since he did not turn off his microphone clip the other three could hear him complaining about stupid bitches, fag-boys, and why the hell couldn't he ever get a job toting a total babe around?
FK02 finally becomes irritated enough to speak. "Can it, Rat. I'll personally make sure you get stuck sitting between Mary Kate and Ashley next time we attend the opera."
Rat retaliates by screaming, "I'd rather be a fag!"
Harry wakes up and realizes that he is on the back of a motorbike trolling through the woods at a good clip and the guy doing the driving seems to have issues with gender orientation. "If you don't like gay people you can stop and let me off. Truly it will not be a problem." The bike did not have the same feel of joyous freedom that a broom does, or maybe it was the feeling of impending doom- something about excess speed, large trees and low maneuverability.
The only response he got was, "Shut the hell up. I can't think, listen, and drive at the same time. And, could you please stop shaking and hold on?"
Harry begins cackling maniacally. "I know that voice. You are the guy that answers the phone using the phrase: 'Hi. I'm blond. Please speak slowly and clearly into the phone. Thank you.' Aren't you?"
Ratty, ego gratified, admits that it is true. "Yep, been saying that since I was ten years old."
They skidded around a turn and found themselves racing across the lawn towards the back side of Hogwarts. The noise of four roadhogs was deafening and had alerted some extremely anxious wizards of their approach.
Two tall sexy wizards make a mad dash toward Ratty and his passenger. One roaring, "Harry James Potter, where the hell have you been?" The other roaring, "Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again, Potter!"
Harry slinks down behind the Rat and mumbles, "Do you think maybe you could get me out of here? All of a sudden getting married doesn't sound so good."
In answer to his prayer, Rat spins the bike around while doing a good 30MPH. The result was for HJP to go sliding off the back of the bike straight into the waiting arms of a tall, skinny, black haired, bad tempered wizard. Who immediately snatched him up and began snogging him silly.
SELF-INSERTIAL COMPLETED....almost.
Harry managed a few seconds of looking at Sev's worried face before he was gently pulled away from him and drawn into a cuddle with Draco. He could not hold back the laughter as he heard Draco whispering, "I love you, but if you ever leave me alone with that crazy bastard again I will kill all three of us." He sighed happily and buried his nose against Draco's neck. And then there was perfect bliss as Severus wrapped his arms around the both of them and began mumbling his own gentle chastisement over Harry's absence.
The Fragonknights continue their road trip through the beautiful Scottish countryside while everyone back at the castle resumes last minute preparations for the wedding since the third (and arguably most important) groom has been found.
Merlin sinks back in his well while Arthur Weasley and Albus Dumbledore stare longingly into the distance long after the roar of the hogs is gone. It's now time for Petunia, Narcissa and Molly to take the grooms inside and get them ready for their nuptials.
FK03 wishes it be known that she does in fact drive a Suzuki racing bike, not a hog (those things are nasty looking)
A/N: You may all thank Excessively Perky for helping me with my spellings. Otherwise I would have to just let the lot of you read about fouls instead of foals...twice.
