I know its taking me ages to update this story, but its actually a lot harder then it looks! Humour is very difficult to write…
Happy Birthday Annabeth! Hope you're having a great day!
--------Last time on Reactions------------
Seeing that his guardian's weren't getting the hint he put it in simple terms even though he knew their reactions wouldn't be very good;
"We went down to Hagrid's hut where we found out that he had gotten a dragon's egg."
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Harry braced himself for his guardian's reactions, knowing that it most definitely would not be good. He was proved correct when Sirius turned white as a sheet and then, only a few seconds later, bright red. Remus seemed to be stuck in 'white' mode.
"What. Do. You. Mean. By. A. Dragon." Sirius asked in a very tense and strict tone.
"Um, I mean, you know, a fire-breathing dragon," Harry said apprehensively, ducking under the blanket.
"And Hagrid got rid of this dragon and you didn't go near it until he did, right," Sirius said through gritted teeth.
Remus nodded in agreement, his knuckled white from where his hands were gripping the couch tightly.
Harry winced and murmured the answer under his breath. Of course, considering that he had murmured whilst hidden deep under a blanket, neither of them heard him.
Sirius blew out a breath, making a whistling noise and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. He didn't want to terrify his godson, after all. He took several deep breaths and kneeled down in front of the couch and pulled the blanket back to look into his godsons bright green apprehensive eyes.
"Harry," he said in a would-be calm voice, "What did you do?" He sounded almost resigned to the fact that it would most likely be dangerous and he would not like it at all.
"You're gonna have to sit down it you want to hear it," Harry pointed out, looking worriedly between his two guardians.
Remus closed his eyes, trying to collect himself while Sirius was rearranging Harry's blanket again to either try and keep his hands busy or stall for more time before he had to hear about any more danger – Remus couldn't figure out which one.
Sirius finally sat back and Harry thought it would be wise not to mention that the blankets were a little too tight. Anything to keep him on his broom this summer. Though, if he was right about that eye trick (he thought he'd once heard it referred to as the 'puppy-dog eyes' by Ginny) then maybe he would be able to convince Sirius to let him go up anyway… It had potential.
But at the moment, there was a very overprotective godfather and an equally overprotective surrogate uncle waiting for an answer. Harry took a deep breath in preparation for this answer and said hesitantly, "Well, see, we obviously knew that we had to get rid of it somehow."
"Well, that's good at least," said Sirius, sounding relieved.
"Yes, it is glad to know that some of Lily's genetics are in there somewhere," Remus said, also sounding very relieved.
Harry grinned uneasily. "Yeah… um, well Hagrid kinda didn't want to get rid of it so we had to convince him – which wasn't easy!"
"You did convince him though," Sirius said questioningly, continuing in a warning voice when he saw Harry's nod, "And just what did you do to get rid of the dragon."
"Norbert," Harry offered in a helpful voice.
"What?" Sirius asked, now looking bewildered.
"The dragon's name was Norbert," Harry explained, glad to see that his distraction worked. Now they wouldn't get as mad. Or, at least, they had forgotten some of the anger that they had accumulated so far.
"Norbert," said Sirius under his breath. "Norbert. I really can't believe Hagrid."
"Just what type of a dragon was, er, Norbert," Remus asked suspiciously. Harry's first year was not nearly so safe as he thought, or perhaps thought would be a better word to use, he mused. He knew the Headmaster had evaded his question when he had asked about them when he saw him the summer before he taught at Hogwarts. He really should have pursued that train of thought – after all, there had to be some sort of story behind the fact that one Defence teacher was dead and the other was in a permanent ward at St Mungos. Unfortunately, he had been too shaken with Sirius' breakout to be thinking straight and had let the Headmaster go.
Harry scowled, Remus was far too perceptive. After he had managed to get them unsettled to. "He was a Norwegian Ridgeback," Harry said lightly.
"A Norwegian Ridgeback," Sirius stated with deadly calm. "As in the dragon that is on the top five 'Most dangerous creatures list'?"
"Really," said Harry, actually sounding interested, "I didn't know that."
"No, but I'm sure Hagrid did," Remus interjected wryly. Harry had to nod in agreement. That was probably why Hagrid had loved it so much – also that it was rare, of course.
"Alright, back to the point," Sirius said, eyes closed as he tried to will patience into himself. It would not do if he went and killed the entire Hogwarts staff on a rampage.
"Right," said Harry, "Well, I remembered that Ron's brother, Charlie, works with dragons so we figured we'd send Hedwig with a letter to ask him to take Norbert to Romania."
"That was a good idea," Sirius beamed, both surprised and thrilled that Harry had managed to solve this problem without any dangerous stunts. Harry looked a little unsettled at how happy his godfather looked.
"Anyway, we got an answer back and he said he'd send his friends to meet us at the highest room in the Astronomy tower at midnight," Harry relayed the letter they had received. "Unfortunately, Malfoy managed to get a hold of it."
"How on earth did that happen," Remus asked with a raised eyebrow.
Harry shrugged dismissively, not wanting to get into the whole story about him threatening Ron and everything. He hated Draco with a passion, but that didn't mean he wanted him to be targeted by his guardians. Snape was a grown man and could defend himself. Draco could not.
"Unfortunately, Ron was in the hospital wing so it was just Hermione and I that went," Harry continued, making it quite obvious to his two guardians that he was avoiding the question. The two former pranksters (but would be again, with the number of idiots that their charge had gotten involved with) exchanged a suspicious glance but decided to leave it at that.
But, Remus had to ask, "Why was Ron in the hospital wing?"
"Some reason," Harry said, shrugging once more.
Remus held Harry's gaze for a moment but then broke away, resolving to find out later. At the moment, he had to pay attention to Harry's story.
"What about Draco?" Sirius asked impatiently.
"I'm getting there," Harry complained, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, so Hermione and I snuck out of bed, down to Hagrid's hut and got Norbert. Hagrid was teary-eyed about having to send his 'baby Norbert away'."
Sirius snorted. He had absolutely no sympathy for Hagrid at that moment. And he wouldn't even think about it until that damn dragon was far, far away from his godson.
"And that's where we saw Malfoy," Harry continued, "He obviously hadn't gone to a teacher, but had instead tried to catch us in the act. Unfortunately for him, he got caught by McGonagall and, since we were under the Invisibility Cloak, she didn't believe a word of what he was saying about us and gave him detention." Harry actually looked gleeful as he said this, as did Sirius when he heard it. Remus just looked satisfied.
"So you got rid of the dragon," Sirius prompted hopefully, half expecting something horrible to happen.
"Yep," Harry nodded. But then his face fell, "Except that we were so happy to be rid of Norbert that we had, of course, completely forgotten about the Invisibility Cloak."
Sirius instantly paled and said, "You got caught?" The punishment for sneaking illegal animals was extremely severe.
"Yeah," Harry nodded, wincing even as he remembered the memory. "By Filch, and then he took us to McGonagall. She was absolutely furious."
Remus and Sirius were both looking sympathetic. Remus asked, "What punishment did you get?"
"Well, first I should say that Neville was caught out of bed as well," Harry said dully.
"Neville," said Remus, eyebrow shooting up in surprise. "No way… I would never have expected that of Neville of all people."
"I know," Harry sighed, "Apparently he heard Malfoy talking and went to warn us. Luckily McGonagall thought it was a joke. She gave us a bloody – "
"Harry," Sirius reprimanded.
"Sorry," said Harry, then continued, "She gave us a huge lecture then took off fifty points and gave us detention."
"Well, fifty points isn't too bad," Sirius reasoned.
"Um, I mean fifty points each," Harry said, "Meaning 150 in total."
"150 points?!?" Sirius said in shock. "But it was your first time!"
Harry shrugged. It didn't really bother him much anymore. Sirius scowled, mentally adding McGonagall to the ever-growing list in his mind. He would have a few words with her.
"So, what happened next," Remus said, hoping that they were near the end. His heart really couldn't take much more pressure, and he really didn't want to go to St Mungos.
"Well, we figured out that Voldemort was after the Stone," Harry said, after thinking a moment. The detention wasn't really necessary to the story so he could bypass that part, knowing without a doubt that both Sirius and Remus would go nuts if they found that his first detention was in the Forbidden Forest, never mind the fact that he had actually come face-to-face with Voldemort there!
Remus looked slightly suspicious, the jump seeming a little unnatural to him, but he let it go. The majority of this year was unnatural anyway.
"And you went to Dumbledore with this information, yes," Sirius said, and by the tone of his voice, Harry could tell that he would so get grounded for longer if he said no. Luckily, this was one of the few (actually, more like the only) times that he could appease his godfather. At least, slightly.
"We did try, I swear," Harry exclaimed. "Well, at first we didn't think it was worth bothering about," he amended slightly, but jumped into continuing when he noticed the look on Sirius' face. "But then, after exams, I realized that the way that Hagrid had gotten the dragon egg was suspicious, after all, who carries an illegal dragon egg in their pocket?"
"Hagrid," Sirius snorted, still none to happy about this fact, even if nothing really bad had come out of it.
Remus, on the other hand, looked thoughtful and said, "I see your point. Continue."
Harry obeyed and said, "Well, we all went up to Hagrid and asked him about the man that had given him the dragon egg. He let slip that he had accidently told the man how to get past Fluffy, because the man had asked him if he could handle a dangerous creature like the dragon."
Sirius' eyes widened in surprise and he exchanged a panicked look with Remus.
Harry rushed to reassure them, "That was when we decided to go to Dumbledore." His guardians looked far more relieved but Harry's face had dropped and he added, "Except that we had found out that he wasn't there."
"What the hell do you mean he wasn't there?!?!?" Sirius shouted with narrowed eyes. "He's the headmaster, he's supposed to be there all the time!"
"Well, he wasn't," Harry told his godfather, glad to have escaped being grounded for longer. "Apparently he was at the Ministry or something for 'business'. We tried telling McGonagall, but she didn't believe us."
"What do you mean she didn't believe you?" Sirius asked, eyes narrowed once more.
"Erm, exactly that," Harry answered, slightly uneasy.
Sirius muttered curse words under his breath as Minerva was officially 'Black-listed'. Or, in other words, added to his list of people to have words with when this was over.
"Harry James Potter," Remus said firmly, surprising Harry slightly, for Remus hadn't used Harry's full name yet. He guessed that this was not a good sign. "Please tell me that you did not go to get the stone yourself."
Sirius whipped his head around to look at Harry with piercing eyes, making the boy squirm uncomfortably. He answered the question, weighing his words carefully but knowing he would not completely get away with this one.
"No, we didn't go to get the stone ourselves. We went to stop Voldemort from getting it," Harry said, in a false optimistic voice.
His guardians faces, which had lit up when he had said the first sentence, automatically deflated and paled.
"Harry," Sirius said warningly, but stopped before saying anything else, deciding to wait until Harry had finished. Then he would never let the boy out of his sight again.
"What exactly did you do?" Remus asked, faltering slightly. Fluffy and the Philosophers Stone was one thing, but Voldemort himself?
"We snuck down after hours," Harry said with a deep breath, wanting to just get it over and done with. "Neville was there, and he tried to stop, but Hermione hexed him. She felt really bad about it, but we had to."
Remus and Sirius nodded silently, urging Harry to continue.
"When we got down to the corridor we saw the door was already open and that there was a harp there so we figured someone had already gone down," Harry explained.
There was a growl that sounded suspiciously like 'Snape' that issued from Sirius but other then that, there was complete silence in the room.
"We opened the trapdoor and jumped down, landing on Devils Snare."
Sirius gasped audibly and grabbed Harry's arm, holding onto it tightly. Remus was sitting up straighter as he stared straight at Harry.
"Hermione managed to get rid of it," Harry assured them, "Well, after she was reminded that she was a witch, that is," he amended with a laugh. Neither of his guardians laughed.
"Right," said Harry, "The next 'trial', I suppose you can call them, was Flitwick's. It was a locked door that could only be opened with the direct key. And there were about a two hundred keys flying around the room that could have been used."
"What do you mean, flying around?" Remus asked, speaking for the first time since Harry had talked about going through the trapdoor.
"Exactly that – they had wings," Harry explained. "Ron told me what sort of key we were looking for, and I managed to find it and catch it. We were through that trial."
Sirius looked torn between being proud and praising Harry for his brilliant Seeker ability or scolding him for using it to get himself into danger. He settled for not commenting, but ruffled his godsons hair with one hand. The other hand was still tightly holding onto Harry.
"The next trial was McGonagalls," Harry said. "It was a giant chess set and we realized – or rather, Ron realized, that we had to play our way across."
"I'm assuming that Ron did most of the work with that," Remus said, remembering how many times he had seen Harry and Ron playing chess all over the place. There had only ever been one person winning all of those matches, and he had heard stories about rooms emptying when Ron came in them with a chessboard.
"Yeah," said Harry, looking more subdued now, "But he had to sacrifice himself to the Queen so that I could checkmate the King."
Sirius ruffled Harry's hair again and asked in a quiet voice, almost dreading the answer, "What was next?"
"Next was Snapes," said Harry, "Well, I suppose it was technically Quirrell's, but it was a troll and it had already been knocked out by the person in front of us."
Remus was looking thoughtful at the mention of Quirrell's trial being a troll. Could it be… he was shaken out of his thoughts by Harry's voice continuing.
"Anyway, Snapes. It was a logic puzzle with potions, but Hermione managed to solve it in, like, two minutes. The only problem was that there was only enough for one of us to go forward…" Harry trailed off.
"Harry, please tell me you didn't," Sirius practically begged.
"You did," Remus said quietly, closing his eyes, trying to fight the overprotective urges that were telling him to go and kill Dumbledore now.
Harry nodded mutely, not saying anything when Sirius' grip on his hand tightened considerably.
"Yeah, I did… and I found out that Quirrell was working for Voldemort," said Harry, slightly bitterly.
Sirius stilled in surprise and Remus looked slightly shocked as well. "Quirrell…" Sirius whispered weakly. "Was he the one who…" he asked, directing his question to his godson. Harry nodded, assuming (correctly) that Sirius was talking about the Quidditch fiasco.
"And what happened with… Quirrell," asked Remus, his voice sounding forced.
"He tied me up, admitting that he wanted the stone, and that yes, Snape did hate me, but didn't want me dead and was in fact trying to save me," Harry said flatly, trying to repress the memories, which still seemed vivid despite them being so long ago.
The look of surprise on Sirius' face would have been comical is the situation had not been so serious. To think that he owed Harry's life to him… Sirius nearly shuddered at the thought. However, he quickly returned his attention to his godson.
"He then tried to get me to get the stone – which, it turned out, was apparently hidden in the Mirror of Erised," Harry revealed, managing a small smile at the looks of shock on his guardians faces.
Sirius got over his shock quickly enough, rubbing his thumb on Harry's hand soothingly to urge him on.
"But when I looked into the mirror, I somehow got the stone," Harry explained, and, noticing the looks on Sirius' and Remus' faces, decided to elaborate. "Dumbledore later told me that people who wanted only to get the stone but not use would be able to get it but those who wanted to use it, couldn't get it."
Sirius still looked slightly confused, but nodded for Harry to continue.
"I obviously lied to Quirrell, but then I found out that well, that Voldemort had possessed Quirrell and his face was sticking out the back of Quirrells head," Harry said in a rush, looking at his guardians apprehensively.
Sirius' jaw was dropping open was dropping open while Remus was counting to ten, one hand on his heart.
"And what happened then," Sirius said, choking slightly as he thought of his poor, innocent godson at age eleven – not even a teenager – facing the most powerful dark wizard in history.
"He tried to kill me," Harry said simply, wincing slightly at how tight Sirius' grip had gotten, though he did not complain.
"Don't worry," Harry said, making both of his guardians snort in disbelief. "Dumbledore got there in the end."
"Yeah, in the end," Sirius said bitterly, managing to mask his fury at the Headmaster quite well, in his own opinion.
"How long were you out for?" Remus asked, sounding terribly strained, his hand still on his heart.
"Three days," Harry answered but, at seeing the worried looks, added hastily "But I was fine when I woke up, I swear!"
"Is that all?" Remus asked, desperately hoping that the answer was 'yes'.
"Well," said Harry, cocking his head to the side thoughtfully, "Dumbledore told me why Snape and Dad hated each other, why I could get the stone, that he sent me the Invisibility Cloak – "
At those words, Sirius' eyes narrowed and his fury at the Headmaster mounted even more.
"And Ron, Hermione, Neville and I won 170 points, winning us the House Cup," Harry completed.
"And… that was my first year," he finished, somewhat lamely.
Remus was fervently glad that this was the end. His heart really could not stand any more shock. Sirius reached forward and grabbed Harry into a bear-hug, saying over and over again that Harry was safe now, that Harry was grounded, and that Dumbledore was going to get it.
Harry didn't bother trying to get out of the hug. He stayed there, knowing intuitively that Sirius needed the reassurance. But it really was getting to be quite long…
In fact, it was at least ten minutes before a bell rang, signaling that someone was coming through the floo, and it was only then that Sirius let Harry go.
Harry looked up to see his best friend coming through the fireplace and said with genuine happiness, "Ron!"
"Hey, mate," Ron answered happily, stepping into the living room completely. He frowned suddenly and asked in a puzzled tone, "Oi, mate, why are you covered in a blanket?"
Harry pointed inconspicuously at Sirius and Ron nodded in understanding. "So what are you lot doing?" he asked, honestly curious when he saw Remus pale as a sheet and Sirius mad about something.
"Harry was telling us about his first year," Sirius answered, with a grin that was obviously forced.
"Ah," said Ron, nodding in understanding.
"Actually, that reminds me," Remus interrupted curiously, "Ron, why were you at the hospital wing?"
Harry cursed silently to himself as Ron answered. He knew he should have just told them! Now they were going to furious. He frowned and then thought of something. "Hey, Sirius," he whispered to his godfather.
"Yeah," Sirius whispered back, turning to face his godson, who was getting off the couch.
"I feel like I'm about to dehydrate. Can I go get some water?" Harry asked, opening his eyes wide and pouting for good measure.
Once more, Sirius absolutely melted at the look and agreed automatically.
"Thanks!" Harry said, walking sedately out of the room and then running straight to his own room.
Meanwhile, Sirius tuned back into the conversation.
"…It was that bloody dragon," Ron was saying in a complaining voice. "Nearly bit my hand off! It was why I didn't go to the Forbidden Forest."
"Wait, what about the Forbidden Forest?" Sirius asked sharply, turning to Ron and staring at him. Remus sat up a lot straighter in his own chair.
"You know, that detention that Harry and Hermione got for being out of bounds after curfew?" Ron asked, "The one where Harry saw Voldemort drinking Unicorns blood?"
The blood drained from Sirius' face and his eyes narrowed. There was a distinct thud as Remus fell to the floor in a dead faint.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!"
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And here we are, finally at the end of Year One. Coming up is Year Two, with another guest star appearing! Will Remus end up having a heart attack? Will Sirius ground his godson for the rest of summer? Will Harry still be attending Hogwarts next year? Stay tuned to find out!
The next chapter will most likely be posted by my wonderful beta, zeropolis79 (make sure you check out his stories!) as I will be away.
Make sure you review:-)