And here doth commence Chapter 6…

Heh, this was originally meant to be Chapter 3. But, thanks to AWE, it's now been promoted to Chapter 6 (after quite a large amount of rewriting, of course!)

Oh, and a warning here; I CANNOT write accents. I am absolutely TERRIBLE with them. So please don't be worried if for some reason, Jack seems to talk like Hagrid or something. That's just me messing up his accent, alright? Actually, I have a problem writing Jack! I don't actually know why, 'cause I love him to bits. So if he seems REALLY OOC, please say where and how in a review!

Oh, and since I've mentioned reviews, THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU to all of you who've reviewed! I want to give all of you a big hug. Really. I adore you all! Please keep reviewing!

Oh, and a question asked in reviews was if Harry was going to be powerful. Well, in a word, yes. But it will have limits; after all, he has to teach himself! There were other questions asked too, but many of them are ones I can't really answer, because the story'll deal with them soon enough . But yes, we will be meeting up with the other POTC characters… eventually!

Do I really need to write a disclaimer? Fine: JK owns Harry Potter and anything you recognise from that world. Disney owns POTC and anything you recognise in that world. Whatever's left is either mine or actually existed.

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A nearly-thirteen year old Harry stood on the deck of his and Jack's ship. His hair had grown longer, and was tied back. He was dressed in a plain white shirt, grubby brown trousers, and leather boots. A red bandanna covered his head and his bright green eyes, now without glasses, were lined with charcoal.

All-in-all, he looked awfully like Jack. Except, maybe, not as…. quirky…

He stared out into the distance, and spotted a dot on the horizon. It was another ship, heading directly towards them. Harry quickly turned and, dodging the crew they'd picked up at a port a few months ago, headed below deck to the captain's cabin to fetch Jack.

As Harry entered, He saw Jack poring over his chart that he had taken from Barbossa over a year ago now. As he entered, Jack stopped and looked over at Harry, his brown eyes questioning.

"There's another ship approaching," said Harry calmly.

"Colours?" asked Jack, wondering what –or who- was on board it.

"Can't see them yet. Too far away."

"Right," Jack paused. "Go on back up and watch it. Aren't usually many Navy ships in this part of the sea. Once you see the flag, get down 'ere again"

Harry nodded and left Jack and to it.

On the deck again, Harry retrieved a battered telescope and peered through it. It took a while for him to make out the flag it was flying, but when he saw it clearly, he cursed. It was the Navy. What were they doing in this part of the sea? He stared through the telescope to the ship and studied it carefully. It was a rather small ship, and there weren't that many people on deck. This was good; there didn't seem to be many soldiers aboard. If they fought hard, they would probably be able to fight them off.

Harry turned and headed back downstairs to Jack.

When he entered the cabin again, Jack's eyes were immediately on him, and he'd put his stuff away. "What's the news on this ship?" he asked.

Harry sighed. "Bad luck, I'm afraid. It's the Navy, and they're heading straight for us. Probably seen us before we seen them. Can't get out of this one…"

"Right," said Jack. "You go ready the cannons; I'll go up on deck and inspire those scallywags into actually fighting decently for a change."

And so, Harry found himself, twenty minutes later, standing on the deck with most of the crew. This would be his first actual swordfight, as for the previous ones he had been below deck, tending to the cannons and the injured. He hadn't been a good enough fighter. However, Jack had been giving him lessons since he'd arrived and Harry was now nearly at the same level as him.

The other ship drew level with them, and Harry could see that the ship was indeed one of the Royal Navy for the British Empire.

There was a pause, a moment of complete silence apart from the calming noise of the sea, and then all hell broke loose.

Cannons fired from both ships, and redcoats threw grappling hooks over. Harry drew his sword and prepared himself. As the first soldiers reached the side of the ship, Harry charged forwards with the rest of the crew, into the heat of battle.

An hour later, it was clear that Harry and Jack's crew had the advantage. The other ship was badly damaged by cannon fire, but they had been lucky and suffered much less. Despite slashing his sword at many a redcoat, precious little blood had stained it. In many ways, Harry preferred it that way. He didn't know if he would really have the guts to kill somebody. He'd fought with many, though, but couldn't defeat them and each time was lucky enough that a nearby crewman had seen him and a quick stab was all it had taken for another lifeless corpse to fall to the deck.

Harry sheltered in a hidden doorway for a minute to catch his breath. As he looked up, his heart gave an unpleasant jolt. Jack was fighting with the captain of the other ship, and although Harry could see that he was talking to the other man, it was blatantly obvious that all the witty swordfight banter in the world wouldn't stop this redcoat winning. Jack was good, but this guy was better. Harry knew what he had to do. He sneaked up behind him, raised his sword, and slashed it down. The other man didn't realise until it was too late, turning around as the sword came down. He didn't stand a chance.

After realising that their captain was dead, the other soldiers surrendered. Jack took charge and marooned them on a small island with a pistol each. Harry's first real battle was over, and he retired to his cabin, next to Jack's. Being the son of the captain had its advantages- everyone else had to share the crew's quarters below.

Lying down on his bed, Harry closed his eyes and listened to the sea outside. He found it very soothing. For his first few nights on the ship, Harry remembered, he hadn't been able to sleep because it was so different than what he was used to. He'd eventually gotten used to it though.

Harry reached under his bed and pulled out his book. He still didn't understand any of the words, but he'd studied it nearly every night, looking at the layout and diagrams and trying to make some sense of it.

He'd gotten somewhere- all of the pages had a different spell as a title, he had realised. Some of these pages also had a diagram illustrating what the spell was supposed to do. Harry had tried a few, even though that was probably very dangerous. He was in the middle of learning a spell that summoned objects to him, and after that he wanted to try one that, according to the picture, would make him invisible, or nearly that, anyway. He retrieved his wand from where he'd hidden it under his blankets and pointed it at an empty bottle across the room.

"Accio!"

The bottle flew across the cabin and Harry raised his hand and caught it. He grinned. He threw his pillow to the other side of the room and summoned it.

He spent the next hour practicing the spell, until a knock came at his door. He quickly stuffed the book under the bed and his wand back under the blanket. "Come in!" he called.

Jack opened the door and entered, closing it softly behind him.

"Whatcha doin'?" he asked.

Harry rolled his eyes and smiled. "Practicing."

"Practicing swords or…."

"Magic."

"Ah. Right. Well…"

Jack came over and sat at the end of Harry's bed. He looked unusually serious.

"Listen, I wanna talk about earlier. And," he looked at Harry, "do NOT make this any harder for me, right? I wanted to say… thanks. For the life-saving thing. And I was also wonderin' how ya were holdin' up. That was your first real fight, wasn't it?"

Harry nodded.

"And that means it woulda been your first time that you…" Jack made a slashing motion across his neck with his hand.

Harry nodded again.

"So… how are ye?"

Harry shrugged. "I just haven't been thinking about it, I guess. I don't want to think about it, because if I do, I know I'll start feeling guilty, because that guy could have had a kid or a wife or something…"

"Yeah, but if you hadn't, I wouldn't have been here. And if I weren't here, God knows that we'd all be in the locker by now. Believe me, you don't want that. Better them than us, savvy?"

Harry looked up at Jack and smiled. "Yeah, I suppose so."

"My advice is, keep on going. Don't think about it. I was the same as ya. You'll get over it, don't worry. Most likely your' gonna hafta kill someone again, sometime in the future. It's just part of the job." Jack stood up.

Harry looked up at him and nodded.

"Say, kid, when's your birthday again?" asked Jack suddenly.

"Next Tuesday."

"31st?"

"Yeah"

"Right!" Said Jack. "We'll do somethin'. Dunno what. But we'll think of somethin'. It'll be good. Thirteen, won't it be?"

"I'll be thirteen, yeah."

Jack looked at Harry for a moment, then suddenly reached down and pulled him into a quick, one-armed hug. Harry grinned. He knew it didn't seem like much, but he also knew that Jack didn't get very emotional either. He wasn't the type to give out hugs.

Jack pulled away and Harry looked up at him. He made up his mind; he was going to ask the question that had been on his mind for the past few days.

"Jack…"

"Yeah?"

"Can I call you Dad?"

Silence.

Harry panicked. Was it too soon? He'd known Jack for over a year now, and he honestly thought of him as his father, but did Jack see him as a son? He was about to open his mouth again, say, no, he was only joking…

Then Jack replied, "Oh bugger." Harry's heart sank, but Jack continued, "No, it's not that! I'm just not good with the touchy-feely emotions thing." He paused. "Ah, what the hell. Call me Dad."

Harry grinned from ear to ear, then launched himself off the bed and tackled Jack, "Thank you!"

"Not a problem. Now, get some sleep."

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I'm sorry that this was so short. It's probably the shortest or second shortest yet. Sorry, but I thought that that was a good stopping point!

Ehhh. Again, I apologise for Jack in this. He just wouldn't come out right! But I've now watched POTC again and I've been listening to the music all week, so maybe that'll inspire me some….

I hope that I'll get the next chapter up soon!

Note: A HUGE glomp goes out to my friend, CREATIVITYANGELGIRL, who is apparently far, far, FAR more experienced in Jackisms than I am. (God knows why!). She is a tremendous help.

'Til next time!