Toeing the Line (by timydamonkey)
Author's Note: Would you look at that - I'm alive! Yeah, sorry. I've been ill, I've been studying, and I've been ill again... I should be doing my Computing project at the moment, but decided to write instead as I've been idle long enough. Oh yes, about the sleepwalking segment: yeah, I know sleepwalkers don't have closed eyes. Jack doesn't, though.
Additionally, talk about hard characterisation. I had a problem with everybody's characterisation this chapter! Let me know how I got on; I like to try and stick to canon characterisation when I'm not writing an AU. Thanks to all the readers, and sorry for the wait!
Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Danny Phantom and am making no financial gain whatsoever by writing this fanfiction. I'm just a fan.
Chapter Two:
"This is ridiculous, Albus! You can't let him go!"
"Why not?" Ron demanded. "You can't stop Harry going on holiday just because he's Harry!" All he got for his efforts were a glare, and a look that could easily be interpreted as, Why are you still here? Stay out of Order business.
Ron scowled.
"It is through my wishes that Harry must spend at least part of his holidays with his relatives," said Dumbledore calmly. "If they are going on holiday, there is no reason not to allow Harry to go." Before anybody could protest, he held up a hand and continued. "There will, of course, have to be measures to be taken for his safety."
"It won't be as simple as it is at Privet Drive, Albus!" Moody yelled, obviously very angry. "You can't just make a guard apparate in every day – across continent apparition would not only take a lot out of the person doing it, but to have to do it after a shift and repeat the process daily? It'd be preposterous!"
"They could stay there," Ron said stubbornly.
"Now that's just ridiculous," stated a lady who Ron had seen around but never bothered to learn the name of. Primly, she continued, "You can't ask people give up their families to shadow somebody while they're in a foreign country!"
Ron glowered. Stupid woman. "Yeah, but you can't just stop him going on holiday – that isn't fair-"
And it wasn't just that this was an opportunity that he'd have killed for if his family could afford it. Why should the Order be allowed to intervene in somebody's life? Even if that somebody was Harry Potter.
"Ron," said his father wearily. "Go upstairs, please. This isn't your affair; so don't make it any harder than it already is."
Ron gaped. "But you-" He could see he wasn't getting anywhere. "Fine then," he huffed, going upstairs. "Stuff concerning my best mate is obviously everybody else's business but mine. Have some of you even met him?"
Disgusted, he didn't wait for a reply, but stomped upstairs. From below, his mother shouted, "Ronald Weasley!" He ignored her and slammed the door – he figured he was entitled to a bit of frustration once in a while considering that, these days, everybody in the world had more say in just about everything than him. He knew he was going to get an earful later, but at that moment he didn't care. He'd done his bit for his friend, and he wondered how you could nicely word that Harry had a complete lack of freedom that would probably come back to strangle him.
Ron fell back on his bed with a scowl and closed his eyes.
"Ron," Hermione said disapprovingly. "What did you say to them? Everybody seems really miffed with you today."
"It was nothing," he grumbled, rolling over and burying his head in his pillow.
"What's up with you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't come here for the holiday to watch everybody mope, you know. And when's Harry coming?"
"That's just it. He might not be. He's going to America with the Dursleys – or at least, they want him to. But the Order… you know…"
"But Harry doesn't even seem to like the Dursleys, and from what I've seen, the feeling is mutual…"
"Yeah, well, Harry reckons they know they won't get away with leaving him alone for six weeks, so they're dragging him with them. Doesn't seem that bad if you ask me, if you get to go on a proper holiday."
Hermione squinted at him. "You're not jealous, are you?"
Ron sat up and glared at her. "Is that what everyone thinks? All right, maybe I am – a bit. Are you happy now? It's not like I'm ever gonna go on holiday, am I? I mean, portkeys don't exactly appear out of thin air, but that doesn't mean anybody else shouldn't be allowed to do it. I stuck up for him, for your information."
"Oh, Ron, I didn't mean to sound accusing." She sighed. "But… it's not like you've never been jealous where Harry's concerned before, and…"
"Just drop it, Hermione, you're acting like you wanted me to be jealous."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous! It doesn't matter. Forget I asked." Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione carried on before he had the opportunity. "So what's the security issue? The Order can't be there? I don't know if Harry even knows if they were following…"
"Oh, trust me, he'll know. You think half of them know how Muggles are?"
"They're not a different species, Ron!"
He waved his hand in the air. "Well, you know what I mean. Yeah, they can't watch him or something. They won't even go over there and stay if it's that important."
"They could have families, I suppose that'd make them decide not to do that."
"Yeah, but it's priorities, isn't it? They wouldn't even listen to sense…"
"Well, they can't exactly commute. Harry may not need full-time protection over there anyway; it's not like… Voldemort's… shown any sign of stepping outside the UK before, has he? Why don't they just… I don't know, tell Harry to write if he has a problem and give him some floo powder? It wouldn't be too difficult to arrange."
"Yeah, well, hell if they're gonna listen to me," said Ron, throwing himself back onto the bed as he stared at the ceiling. "You go and tell them. See if they actually listen to you, instead of wondering why the hell I'm here."
He was roused from his sulking when a pillow hit him in the face. Hermione looked at him indignantly, as if the pillow-throwing had been a last resort. "Stop moping and find something to do, Ron, and I'm sure you'll be much happier for it." She walked out the door, shutting it behind her.
Ron snorted.
Danny was so tired, he felt like he'd fall asleep on the spot. Sam and Tucker had long since gone off home, though at least they'd opted to leave the Fenton phones on to offer support if he needed it.
"ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzZZzzZz…"
He had to admit, though, Tucker snoring was not exactly the ideal sound. It was like an irritating buzz in his ear, and he voiced this irritation.
"Poor you," Sam said, sounding like she was seconds from dropping off herself as her words were preceded with a yawn.
"What time is it?" he asked her, feeling like he'd been hunting ghosts non-stop for days, yet knowing that wasn't true.
"2:18," said Sam, and he could imagine her raising her eyebrow. "Geez, Danny, we're really lucky that it's break; imagine if we had school tomorrow…"
He laughed. "Well, I haven't fallen asleep in class yet. If it were tomorrow, though, I might be tempted…"
"These days, you aren't in class enough to fall asleep there."
"Aw, Sam, I'm wounded!" He joked. "Besides, if I don't go after ghosts, who else will? My parents couldn't cope with this many ghosts!"
"Best to not tell them that," chuckled Sam. "I'm sure they'd be offended. Hey, are you going to head inside now? I don't hear any rampant destruction."
"Yeah, because the rampant destruction normally comes from when they're trying to smash my head into the ground," he quipped. "But it doesn't seem like there are any more ghosts about… I sure hope not, anyway, but I'm not sticking around to find out. I'm gonna head home."
As he was speaking, he hovered in the air and started flying.
"Great!" said Sam, "because no offence, Danny, but I can barely keep my head up, and if my parents end up hearing me, they'll be going on about you being a bad influence 'til next year…"
"Yeah, sorry about that. Good night, Sam."
"Good night."
He flicked the switch on the side of the Fenton Phones to 'off'. A moment later, he flew through the wall of the house in front of him – his house – then turned intangible and invisible and dropped through the floor into the lab. He just had to empty the Fenton Thermos into the Ghost Zone, and then he could go to bed…
There were voices. He froze.
"Are you really all that sure it needs repairing, Jack?"
"Yes! It doesn't seem to do anything," mumbled his father, poking the Fenton Ghost Catcher. "Now if only we had a ghost to test it on, it might do good! But seeing as no ghost seems to want to fly into it… we either need to improve the design, or find a way to entice a ghost into it! I'd even sacrifice the ham!"
"I don't think food would attract a ghost, Jack; they don't need to eat, do they?"
"But that's the genius of the whole plan, Maddie! They won't have seen ham in so long, they'll have to go for it!"
It was his parents. It was just his luck that they were down there so early in the morning. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, a horribly familiar device perked up with, "Ghost detected. Directly above."
Danny swore under his breath. How'd he missed the stupid thing? It shouldn't even be switched on! He sped behind a counter and transformed back from his ghost mode, breathing heavily as he did so, hoping his parents wouldn't notice now he was no longer in the aforementioned place.
No such luck.
"Danny? How long have you been there? I hope the Fenton Finder wasn't keying into him again… And no, Jack, Danny's not a ghost."
He was too tired to think of a cohesive argument for why he was down in the lab, and closed his eyes in a gesture of defeat, but breathed a slight sigh of relief at the lack of accusations about him being caught out by that stupid device again.
"Aw, but Maddie…" Jack whined, then seemingly forgot about his disappointment as he shouted, "Hey, look, his eyes are closed! Maybe he's sleepwalking!"
Of course, excuses being handed to him were very, very welcome.
"I don't know, Jack… it doesn't really look like he is, and I've never known him to do this before," Maddie said worriedly. "I wonder if he's under any stress?"
Too right, Danny thought.
He heard somebody move closer towards him, and then his father exclaiming in a much more hushed tone of voice, "Maddie! You can't wake a sleepwalker! You don't know what will happen!"
"I'm still not convinced," his mother muttered. "But what else would he be doing down here…? And he might have been sleepwalking – though wouldn't he have gone back to his bed? - but if he was still doing it now then I'm sure we'd be able to tell." She shook him gently.
Not expecting it after his father's outburst, Danny's eyes flew open. "Huh…?" Trying to figure out how he should react, he said weakly and unconvincingly, "How… did I… uh, get here?"
"Danny!" announced his father, grabbing him and practically flattening him. "Don't worry, son, I used to sleepwalk to when I was your age! But, you should be going back to bed!"
"Um… yeah… I'll go now, then… um… good night?"
He'd ran up the stairs before they had a chance to reply. He'd have to empty the Fenton Thermos tomorrow, but he wasn't too bothered at the moment. He just wanted to go upstairs and collapse onto his bed, because he was exhausted.
Author's Note: Again, please let me know how well the characterisation turned out. And belated happy Easter!