Title: Fall- back

Chapter eleven: Primping for Halloween

Rating: T

Summary: After the war Harry moves to Lima, Ohio to try and live a normal life as just another invisible teenager. You know what they say about best laid plans, though. KH/HP

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise…. Isn't mine. Though I probably wish it is. Now I'm sad.

AN: Hi all!

At first, I wasn't going to post this. These are just a few scenes I wanted to write somewhere between the real start of the plot, and the Halloween party at Puck's. The ideas kept building, though, and I decided to squeeze them in anyways. Somehow, two little scenes turned into a chapter. Think of it as a kind of interlude, if you will. Anyways, two chapters in as many days. This doesn't happen often.

Enjoy and don't hesitate to let me know what you thought of it ^^

Harry bit his lip, studying himself in the mirror. Kurt had delivered a costume, as he had promised, but he wasn't really sure what he thought of it. He had thanked his friend profusely of course, but now that he was wearing it he doubted if it was appropriate. It was just so tight. Kurt had mumbled something about the costume being a popular culture reference, but Harry didn't really understand that either. Living with the Dursleys and then in a castle away from muggle civilisation pretty much meant he didn't get any pop culture references. He supposed the claw- thingies sticking out between his fingers were kind of awesome, though.

He walked into the bathroom, grabbing the jar of hair wax Kurt had left behind for him. The boy had instructed him to style his unruly mess of hair in a way that the unruliness of it seemed to be done on purpose. Harry had nodded at him, but looking in the mirror now he had no idea what he had meant by that. Taking the jar with him, Harry left the bathroom again, this time to go downstairs and ask Remus if he knew what he was supposed to do with his hair.

"Remus?" He asked when he walked into the living room where the werewolf was busy playing peekaboo with his son. "Do you know anything about hair products?"

"Not a thing," Remus answered before turning around, "Why would you need to – what are you wearing?"

Harry shrugged. "Not a clue. But look; claws!"

With that, he slid out the built in fake claws, having figured out how to do so about half an hour ago. Remus raised an eyebrow at him, obviously not impressed.

"Really?" he asked drily, "You're showing me your claws? You're not hitting on me, are you?"

Harry sputtered a bit before remembering that werewolves didn't really have any different mating rituals from humans, save the howling thing. He narrowed his eyes at his now smirking guardian.

"Very funny. I'm flattered, but I'm not asking you out on a date. Doesn't matter how well kept your moustache is."

Remus immediately stopped smirking. "What's wrong with my moustache?"

"Oh nothing," Harry innocently replied, taking over Remus' peekaboo game with Teddy for a second. "Just do me a favour and don't take Teddy to the park any time soon. I really don't want to have to bail you out of jail."

Remus looked at him as if he wasn't sure whether to take him seriously or not. Harry thought it was a hilarious expression, but didn't say so, choosing to remain stoic instead. After a minute or so of enjoying the moment he got up from where he had been playing with Teddy.

"Well, fun as this has been, I think I'm going to go. It's still early, but I'll stop by Kurt's first so he can maybe fix my hair a bit. I'll try not to make any noise when I come back tonight."

"Alright," Remus nodded distractedly, still mulling over Harry's earlier words. "Have fun. "

The man opening the door to Kurt's house was nothing like he had expected Kurt's father to look like. He was big, broad, bald (and thinking about how much Kurt cared for his hair, Harry really hoped the baldness wasn't genetic) and dressed in clothes he was pretty sure Kurt didn't want to be found dead in.

"Can I help you?" the man asked, looking at Harry as if he immediately distrusted him.

"Er, is Kurt home?" Harry asked, not sure why this man seemed to intimidate him more than half of the Death Eaters he had faced.

"Who's asking?" the man he assumed to be Mr Hummel gruffly asked.

"Harry Potter, sir, " Harry answered. "Kurt told me something about how to do my hair, but I don't really know anything about that kind of stuff, so I was hoping he'd be willing to help me out."

The man snorted. "Doing someone's hair? I think he'll be delighted. Come on in."

Harry walked past Mr Hummel, feeling as if he just passed some sort of test he wasn't previously aware he was taking. He stopped a few feet ahead of him, not really knowing where he was supposed to go. He turned back around to where Mr Hummel was still standing, watching him with amusement in his eyes.

"To the left, then down the stairs," he said. Harry nodded, gave an awkward little wave and walked in the direction the man had pointed him in.

As he approached the closed door, he could hear music. It became louder with every step he took and when he finally walked down the stairs to knock on the door, a woman's voice singing about wanting someone's bad romance became impossible to ignore. He stopped in front of the door, his hand poised to knock when he heard Kurt's voice mingling with whoever was singing. What stopped him from just knocking was that he wasn't the only one. He was joined by several girl voices. Harry questioned his chances of getting out of there fast, but decided that his hair really did look a mess and that he could use all the help he could get.

He knocked, and stepped back quickly when the door swung open wide. Tina looked confused as she looked at him.

"Harry? What are you doing here?" she asked, and the rest of the girls and Kurt turned around to look at him as well. Harry felt a little uncomfortable under their gazes, especially when Mercedes seemed to realise that he was wearing an extremely tight costume and started giggling and blushing. Santana wolf- whistled at him, appropriately dressed as a little red devil. Harry helplessly held up the jar of hair wax he hadn't let go of since taking it out of the bathroom at home.

"I, er, really don't know how to do this, so I thought I'd ask Kurt if he would help me," he explained. "I didn't know all of you would be here as well."

"Kurt's helping us with our hair and make- up, too!" Rachel chirped. "What do you think of my costume?"

Harry looked at her swishing her over the knee length dress around, pointing at a bonnet on her head gleefully. He had no clue who she was supposed to be, but he nodded and smiled anyway.

"Nice, Rachel. You look cute."

She beamed at him and Harry felt like he had dodged a bullet. From the looks Kurt was shooting him, he was fairly spot on with that assessment. He decided to err on the side of caution and said to the rest of the girls: "And so do you! You all look great."

The girls all grinned at him and he smiled back at them, feeling a little more secure around them now that he hadn't alienated them by speaking badly about their costumes (This of course did not include Lauren, who was smirking at him pointedly, a black witch's head perched on her head. He decided he quite liked her little jabs, even though they might get him in trouble when the ministers shattered the Statue of Secrecy. They reminded him a bit of how Dean and Seamus had always been trying to one- up each other at Hogwarts).

The girls went back to what they were doing –though were did Santana and Brittany disappear to?- and Harry approached Kurt. He had no clue what the fashionable boy was wearing either, but he really liked the tightness of it. The black cat- suit started making more sense when the boy pulled out cat ears to go with it, though.

"So, will you help me?" he asked. "You look great, too, by the way."

"No need to flatter me into getting what you want," Kurt told him, though from the flush on his cheeks he was currently drawing whiskers on Harry could tell that he really didn't mind. "I'll do your hair for you anyway."

"Thanks!" Harry grinned at him. "I mean it, though. You look brilliant."

"Thank you," Kurt smiled, taking the jar of wax from him and pushing him down into a chair. "You make a mean Wolverine as well."

Ah, so that's who he was supposed to be. Didn't ring any bells, though. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Kurt said, suddenly standing behind him. "Now, hold still, and only move your head when I ask you to, okay?"

"I can do that," Harry nodded. Kurt tssk'ed behind him. "Oh, sorry."

While Kurt was busy massaging wax into his hair (and dear Merlin, Harry hadn't expected that it would feel that good) the girls broke up their conversation at the other side of the room after a final bout of giggles. After a few seconds, Rachel walked up to Harry and Kurt with a determined glint in her eyes. She crouched down before Harry so she could look him in the face.

"You know, Harry," she said. "You have really pretty eyes. Such an unusual colour," she said.

"Thank you Rachel," Harry answered, not sure why she was staring at his eyes. "I got them from my mum."

"Hmm," she nodded. "I'm glad you decided to wear your contacts tonight. It's a shame you hide them so often."

He looked at her questioningly, not noticing that Tina was no longer part of the pack of girls edging towards them.

"In fact," Mercedes added her two cents, "We think they could use some extra attention."

An alarm started going off in Harry's head. He barely felt Kurt pulling his hands away from his head and stepping away.

"What do you mean?" he asked her, a slight tremor in his voice that he hoped none of them would notice. Judging by Kurt's soft chuckle, someone had.

Harry turned around to lightly glare at Kurt, and that was all the girls needed. Lauren and Mercedes darted forwards to grab his arms and hold him steady while Rachel giggled and pulled Kurt over to stand beside her.

"Now Harry," Rachel started. "Please keep in mind that we like you, and we only want what's best for you."

Harry decided not to mention that he doubted that very much. The girls turned his chair around, revealing Tina who was now only an inch away from poking him in the face with an eye- pencil. He started shaking his head, already having gone through this once with Lavender and Parvati to make up for being a terrible date to the Yule ball and not wanting a repeat of that night. The Asian girl took hold of his chin to stop his head from moving. He decided he liked her a little less now. He realised he was right in thinking that when she smiled sweetly at him and said:

"Now sit still, Harry, before I poke your eyes out."

I can't believe two small scenes grew into this. (Seriously, both scenes were only about 200 words each at first)…

So, what did you think?

Till next time,

-Robin.