Disclaimer: Just 'cause I live in the same city as JK and just 'cause the first HP book was written in a café I used to visit regularly and just because Hogwarts may be based slightly on my school, doesn't necessarily mean that I am JK… or own HP… damn laws…

A/N: Oh my god! I am so sorry! I so meant to have this up earlier, but real life totally got in the way! :S I've also actually been kinda ill… my parents even thought I had swine flu for a whilee there (since I had all the symptoms)… but I'm fine, so it's okay. :)

Um… this is the last chapter actually guys so… if you've not left a review yet, maybe you would like to for the last one…? Don't worry… I'll remind you at the end. :P Over 100 reviews though guys! Yusss…! xD

This is dedicated to my American friend Carrie, who went back to her country after her 6 month stay in my city… *sniff* I'm gonna miss her. :*(

All the usual rules apply… don't make me write them out. ;)

Oh, and also. Someone pointed out to me that I spelt Metamorphmagus wrong. This is in fact my beta's fault as that is how I was originally spelling it. So… yeah. Blame him. :P

On with the last episode of this damn show…

Muggles, Fan Mail And Metamorphmagus Werewolves
Chapter 7: Fatherhood And How To Prevent It

'Besides,' he said with a slightly manic smile on his face, 'Here it's you who's not normal.' He glanced along the table at the people who were glaring at his Uncle for calling them freaks. His Uncle followed his gaze, terrified.

His face fell.

The mail-unwrapping had stopped and a buzz of agitated chatter arose from crowd. But it was only Seamus who spoke directly to him.

'Tosser,' he said, scowling, before ripping open an envelope rather aggressively, effectively tearing it in half. Ron snorted.

Vernon spluttered, his vein pulsing furiously. 'I am not – I… ruddy cheek…'

'What?' Seamus asked nonchalantly looking up, 'Me calling you a tosser? You called me a freak?!' he exclaimed, tone incredulous.

'But I'm not a bloody tosser!' Uncle Vernon hissed back, bearing his teeth, making him appear slightly rabid. Seamus raised his eyebrows.

'But I am a freak. Nice. You know me Dad's a muggle,' he said, waggling his finger at Vernon, 'but he's not like you – he understands. You know, sure he was a little freaked out when he saw me Mam levitating plates to the table for the first time, but he got past that! He got past her potions and magical contraception and he fell in love with her! More than you could ever do, ya English twat… "freak" my arse.'

Harry looked sideways at his Uncle and choked back a laugh. He was staring at Seamus, fists clenched, teeth grinding, with a crazed look in his eye, which, experience told Harry, was not good.

'I don't want to hear about your mother's freakish behaviour,' he growled, 'I have enough problems with it in my own family.' He glowered at Harry, who frowned and glared back.

'Stop it, Vernon!' Petunia choked angrily.

'Yeah – pick on someone your own size!' Seamus laughed at his own comment, 'That'll be hard!' A few people nearby sniggered into their food, some going as far as coughing their mouthfuls into napkins and grinning merrily at Seamus.

'Well – I – see here!' Vernon spluttered.

'What? Wanna see some magic?' laughed Seamus. 'Harry! Do that spell we all learnt in fifth year. You know! The condom spell!

'Er...' Harry glanced at Mrs Weasley who, unfortunately, seemed to hear Seamus' request and who looked quite disapproving until her husband nudged her and said, 'Well they have to learn it sometime, dear…'

Seamus, seemingly undeterred, tried again, 'Okay – well what about a patronus? That's got nothing to do with sex and it's pretty cool.'

'Er…'

'Come on Harry!' spurred on Ron, 'It's really cool – you're the best at it!'

'I'm not the best-' began Harry, but Dean cut him off.

'Shut up and do it Harry. Yours is really impressive 'cause you've got such a big animal – come on!'

Harry looked at his Uncle who looked quite terrified at the thought of his Nephew being the best at any sort of magic, let alone that which was going to performed in front of him. It was the droplet of sweat dripping down Vernon's brow that egged him on more than Ron ever could. He took out his wand and leaned forward so he could point it past his Aunt, at his Uncle.

Vernon stiffened and his trembling jaw gaped open.

'What-what are you doing?' he stuttered.

'Magic,' Harry whispered, enjoying the last look of terror on his Uncle's face, letting it fill him up with the feeling of being free, before he jerked his wand so it pointed into the aisle and said quite clearly, 'Expecto Patronum.'

As expected a giant silver stag erupted from the end of his wand and galloped towards the doors of the Great Hall. For a second there was panic as people looked for Dementors, before realizing there was none and settling back into subdued relaxation.

'What was that?' asked Dudley in complete awe.

'It was a patronus. A positive force. Wards away Dementors.'

'So that's what you did when-'

'Yeah,' Harry replied somewhat awkwardly.

'Cool.' Harry almost laughed at the amazement put into the word.

'So it doesn't even ruddy do anything?!' Vernon snapped, having recovered.

'It wards away Dementors,' Ron supplied.

'What? Did you want him to turn you into a frog?' asked Seamus scathingly, 'Because that can easily be arranged-'

'Don't!' said Petunia, grasping Vernon's arm.

Seamus snorted. 'Probably be an improvement anyway…' he muttered, going back to opening mail.

'Anyway,' said Petunia, quite flustered, trying to regain the conversation her and her Nephew were having before her husband intervened, 'Er… where were we?'

'Er…' Harry couldn't honestly remember, but he could swear it was something about his Mother… Luckily, Hermione had been listening in.

'Er,' she began awkwardly, leaning over Harry to address his Aunt, 'You were talking about Snape, then you said "you never really gave the magical world a chance".'

Petunia stared at her blankly for a second, then blinked. 'Lily used to do that… memorize what people said… are you…?' she gestured between Harry and Hermione, the unvoiced question apparent.

'No!' said Harry and Hermione together. They glanced at each other and, simultaneously, each began a speech of "no"s:

'No, what? No. We're just… friends… I mean, never, no, it's just, no. I never even thought – she's with Ron, I never… that-that way-'

'We're just friends. We've never really been more than that – we're best friends but that's it. I maybe liked him in first year, but that never – I got over it. We're just friends-'

Petunia looked quite startled by the enthusiasm of the denial. 'Oh. Right. I just… as you were like Lily I thought you would be compatible… but I was wrong… I've been wrong about a lot of things…' she chuckled, 'You know, I always thought she would end up with Snape-'

'What?!' Harry yelped, distinctly unnerved at the fact his Aunt thought his Mother would end up with the man who made his school life hell.

Petunia chuckled lightly. 'Yes… but I was very wrong about that. One Summer she came home and just never mentioned him. I knew something must of happened, but, as we really weren't on speaking terms at that point, I never asked her,' she said sadly. Her unseeing eyes were staring at the table as though she saw something different to everyone else there; as if in her own invisible pensive.

'I remember her always complaining about "that Potter". My parents always thought something was going on between them, but I never really saw it until much later. I knew someone who made Lily that angry was never going to be very close to her, but over the years her attitude towards him changed. It was subtle, and it definitely wasn't instant, but slowly she would let some of his "wrongdoings" go.' She blinked and met Harry's eyes. She smiled. Harry just looked back. His need for more information from this new perspective greater than his need to be polite.

'For instance, in First Year,' she continued, 'She came home and ranted about this boy in her year who was… insolent and arrogant and a bully, who picked on everyone and – who was almost rewarded for that by the masses. The second Summer was almost the same, as was the third, except she mentioned that he took particular interest in her – he always had – because she disapproved of his behaviour and let him know this on many occasions.

'After that it all just boiled down to her defending things he did and eventually a letter home saying they were dating.' She laughed lightly. 'I remember my Dad – pacing up and down the living room thinking up all these scenarios where Lily would be taken advantage of…' She laughed. 'I think the worst one he thought up was that she was taken advantage of and liked it.'

She smiled and gazed upon Harry, her eyes seeming to bore into him as if seeing him for the first time. Harry watched self-consciously as her eyes traced all the scars and premature lines on his face before finally meeting his stare.

'Your eyes look so old,' she whispered, sadness etched in her features like horror was etched in his. A solitary tear ran down her cheek and Harry looked away.

'Er…?' Seamus was leaning across the table. 'Sorry to interrupt, but I thought I should give you an update…' He glanced at Petunia whose eyes were still boring into the side of Harry's face. 'Er... so far you have fourteen proposals and a modeling contract… would you like to accept any of those offers?' Seamus smirked as Harry shot him a glance that clearly said "you've got to be joking" and shook his head.

The exchange over (Seamus having gone back to open more fan mail), Harry turned back to his Aunt whom had mercifully stopped staring at the side of his head. Another tear ran down her cheek. Brushing it away furiously, she forced a smile and asked, 'So, what do you do for fun? In your world?'

Her seemingly genuine interest took Harry back. It was like she was a different person. He looked around him self-consciously. Seamus, Dean, Ron and Hermione were still opening his fan mail, quietly talking amongst themselves and trying to ignore the blatant Aunt-Nephew bonding that was happening before them. He was pleased at that. Pleased they were at least pretending they didn't hear the whole conversation.

'Er…' began Harry, looking back at his Aunts expectant, watery smile, 'Quidditch.'

'Oh. The game with the balls,' Dudley stated, nodding along with his thoughts so innocently, Harry had to smile.

'Yeah,' he said slowly, 'The game with the balls.'

Petunia, quite rightly, looked confused. 'I think I've heard of it… Lily might've mentioned it once or twice – but I don't know what it is…'

'Er… right. Basically it's a sport played on broomstick. There are seven players on each team: a keeper, two beaters, three chasers and a seeker – that's my position. At the end of the pitch there are three hoops. The chasers have to throw the quaffle through the other teams' hoops and the keeper for that team has to stop them. To make things more difficult, the two beaters have to beat bludgers at the other team and stop them from hitting their team-'

'Wait! What? What are bludgers?' asked Dudley, thoroughly confused by this version of Quidditch since he'd got the idiot's version.

'Right. Bludgers are black balls about that size,' he held up his hands to show the rough size of a bludger, 'And they have a mind of their own. Well – not literally, but they're charmed to attack you. So beaters hit them towards the other team with bats, to kind of give them direction and then they have to protect their own teammates from being hit – that make sense? Right. Then you the seeker – that's me. And I have to catch the golden snitch-'

'That's it?' asked Dudley incredulously. Harry was beginning to wish he'd stuck to the idiot's version.

'Yes. And catching it will earn my team 150 points and will end the game; which means whatever team catches the snitch almost always wins. But it's harder than it looks. It's about the size of a chestnut and flies so fast and erratically that it's almost impossible to catch. Some games have gone on for weeks because no one has caught the snitch.'

'Weeks?! Through the night?'

'Yeah – they had to sub on all their reserves so that the team could get some sleep!'

'So you play the seeker?' asked his Aunt, not waiting for an answer before she continued, 'Are you any good?'

'Yeah… I suppose I was… I was captain in my sixth year…'

'Then you must have been good,' she smiled.

'Dunno if I still am though – it's been a while-'

'Rubbish!'

The mail-unwrapping stopped and everyone turned to the redhead that had spoken.

'Of course you'll still be able to play! It's not something you forget.'

Like everyone was watching a game of tennis, everyone turned to look at Harry, the Weasleys included.

'How do you know I've not lost my touch?' Harry rasped.

'Just because you've not done it in a while, doesn't mean you wont be able to. You just need a bit practice…'

'So I can practice?' he whispered. Ginny gave a slight incline of her head.

'I'm sorry' he said so quietly, Ginny almost had to read his lips.

But his old eyes said it all. It would be hard and it would be difficult. Possibly harder than facing a fifty-foot dragon, maybe even harder than going up against Voldemort himself. But one thing was certain; this time the end result was not the most important. This time it was the journey. And as Petunia gazed upon the scene, she wondered if Harry had ever been given the safe sex talk and what kind of contraception wizards even used.

The End

A/N: Thank you for reading all the way to the end. I hoped you liked it. :) Reviews and crit are very much welcome.