A/N: Yay, hi everyone! How were your holidays? Finally we see Reverse Mountain!

So, um, I was reading a webcomic and found out that in the UK, "spastic" and ""spaz" are derogatory terms o.0 I'm sorry! I'm American, for those who don't know... I'm not going to change Spaz's name, though, so I hope no one's too offended. I don't mean to imply he's retarded or disabled in any way either, nor does Harry think that way, so please don't read too much into it.

While I'm at it, I would also like to inform everyone that I'm plan on only using manga events in my story. That means all those filler adventures in the anime? Not going to happen, though I may use some of them for inspiration. I know some of the adventures in the anime are pretty awesome, but it screws around with the timeline (everything from Luffy's start until the time skip supposedly fits in a single year), opens up a few plot holes (Zoro cutting steel before he understands how), and mostly I'm just too lazy to write about all of them. Harry obviously comes from an AU world, but I'll try my best to keep to the first five books at least.

Chapter Fourteen

Up, Over, and Away

"Hey there, you two! 'Bout time you joined me up here. In a few moments we'll be heading into a storm, but keep your eyes peeled! The first sight of the Grand Line is a memory all pirates hold for the rest of their lives."

"All pirates?" Spaz asked, bouncing in place, head twisting around in search of the storm and the magic mountain.

"Well," Harry cut in, absentmindedly, "seeing as most pirates who attempt to ride over the mountain die off rather quickly, the rest of their lives is usually just a few days, maybe a week or two on the Grand Line, max."

Spaz stopped bouncing and stared at Harry with wide eyes.

"Er, I guess that was a bit morbid, huh?"

"Dahahaha, the kid's got a point though! You two shouldn't worry too much though, me and my crew are old hands at this business, and I can guarantee that after this, life at sea will be the only life for you."

"Why Shanks, are you still trying to corrupt Spaz and me into declaring ourselves pirates and joining your crew?"

"No need! The gorgeous ocean herself can do that well enough."

A sudden gust of wind blew off Shanks' straw hat, but a hand was already raised to catch and replace it on his head.

"Looks like we're here. Grab hold of the railing or something, wontcha?"

The rain certainly came down hard. Everyone on deck was clamoring around, doing something Harry couldn't quite make out, while Shanks stood at the head of the ship crowing like a rooster and Spaz and Harry clung to the railing. With all the water flying around, Harry was extremely glad for his anti-water pulse and tried to distract himself from the wild rocking of the ship by concentrating on shrinking the distance between the deflected water and his skin.

Perhaps it was because he was focusing on magic, perhaps it was just the reflexes of being a wizard, or maybe, just maybe, he still had a bit of his saving-people-thing, but when he turned towards the back of the ship and saw the situation, Harry snapped his wand into his hand and muttered a quick "Accio."

A pirate had slipped after a particularly nasty jolt when the ship scraped by a large rock and nearly flew over the railing. The man with black circled eyes was working with him on steadying the sails and had reached out to grab him, but was about to miss by mere inches. Harry performed a summoning charm on the flying pirate's shirt, just enough to pull a corner of cloth sufficiently close for the other pirate to grab hold of and pull the man back on board.

Harry had the presence of mind to slip his wand back up his sleeve before anyone saw him posing strangely with a stick, but damage was done. If he had just left it alone, the pirate would have been held back anyway by the rope attached to the mast that every pirate tied onto their waists in preparation for Reverse Mountain, though with a few more bruises from hitting the side of the boat upon reaching the end of the line. Now, he had once more performed magic, and those black circled eyes staring at Harry weren't about to dismiss the event as a lucky catch.

"Harry HarryHarry HarryHarry HarryHarry Harry – Look! Look! I see it Harry, look!"

The tension broke as Harry looked away towards where Spaz was pointing to and the pirate went back to working with the sails. All thoughts of anything besides the ship's current destination flew out of his head as he looked upon the shadow looming overhead.

"Do you see it, do you, huh, huh? Wow! It's, it's – !"

Just what "it" was, Harry never found out, as at that moment, straight ahead, was a, gate? The currents were pulling the ship towards it, and as it neared, the rapidly flowing water drowned out the sound of Spaz's voice. Harry could see several archways in a row, rising up along the mountain, Reverse Mountain, with a rushing stream of water leading upwards through it into fog. What was particularly fascinating was the design on the archways – just who made them and placed them here? But there was little time to ponder this, as with a rush, the ship flew through the archways, gaining speed as they climbed the mountain on the gushing water, until at the very peak, the ship practically floated in midair for an exhilarating second. With a whoop from everyone on board, the ship splashed back onto the water, this time flowing downward.

"Do you see him, Yassop?" Shanks called up towards the tallest lookout point.

"I think so Captain! Our best route would be to turn starboard."

"You heard him men," Shanks called back from his place at the bow, "turn her starboard!"

With a great heave from the men at the rudder, the ship slowly moved towards the right. Harry was quite confused – who was this him? But as the ship sailed downwards faster and faster, Harry could swear he saw a great black mountain sitting at the bottom of the mountain, slightly to the left of their current course. No, wait, was that an eye? And, teeth!

It was close, but the ship of the Red-Haired Pirates managed the slip through the passage between the walls of the mountain and the large sea creature.

"BO!"

"Hey there, Laboon! How are you and Dr. Crocus doing?"

"BO!"

"Dahahahaha, good, good!"

At this point, the whale – for Harry could now see that the sea creature was indeed some strange, toothed whale, was floating horizontally, revealing horrible scars on his head, and, a, door? The metal gate suddenly opened, and a man climbed out, wearing a hat and a hairstyle like a flower. Harry was beginning to wonder if this was how Alice felt when she fell into Wonderland, which worried him, because he certainly didn't remember eating any strange, hallucinogenic mushrooms.

"Shanks, that you? You crazy boy, passing through every year, not even being decent enough to come around properly, always flying from the mountain and leaving through the Calm Belts."

"Dahaha, true enough. I'm enjoying the four Blues with my crew, Dr. Crocus."

"You say that every year but what do you end up doing each time? Diving through Fishman Island and crossing the Calm Belt to drink West Blue sake."

"It is my homeland, Doctor, and besides, this time we're going to East Blue."

"Ah, going to visit Roger, eh?"

"At least pass by – doubt I'd be able to actually step foot on the island. I was hoping to taste the sake there, Doctor, I know Roger loved it."

"Doctor this, Doctor that, pah, I'm no pirate doctor anymore, Shanks, being a pirate at all was really just those three years on the Grand Line with Roger. I'm nothing but a lighthouse keeper now."

"Don't be ridiculous, Doctor. You've got more medical knowledge than anyone I know. You're taking care of Laboon here, aren't you? How are the installments going?"

"Pretty much done down there," Crocus reached down into the gate and pulled out an empty bucket of sky blue paint. "Just decorating now. The crazy whale wants a sky painted on his stomach; I'm going along with it mostly since it keeps his mind off other things."

"I see."

There was a sad quiet between Shanks and Crocus for a moment.

"BO!"

"I'm wondering too, Laboon. So Shanks, looks like you've got some rookie pirates I haven't seen before yet, mind introducing us?"

"Sure, Doctor. Hey, Kid, Boy, come up and meet Doctor Crocus."

Harry and Spaz untied themselves from the railing and walked towards the head of the ship towards Crocus, who jumped off the whale onto the ship next to Shanks.

"This is Potter Harry and Spaz. They aren't pirates, but are kinda tagging along with the crew and me. The kid here is decent cook."

"Wow!" Spaz spoke up, shaking Crocus' hand. "You're head looks like a flower, did you do it on purpose because of your name? I'm Spaz, your whale is neat and really, really big! Laboon is funny name and that whale makes a funny noise. I've never seen a whale that huge before, and those are some nasty scars he's got on his head – is that why you're his doctor? What did Shanks mean by installments and are you really painting his stomach to look like the sky and stuff? I like your beard, how long did it take to grow it, how old are you anyway?"

"Shouldn't you give your own age first before asking for someone else's?"

"Ah, right, I said my name was Spaz but I never said anything else, did I? I'm sixtee- "

"I'm 61 years old, Pisces sign, AB blood type. Laboon is a whale from West Blue, the sea you just left. It doesn't quite look like the sky down there yet, I still have to paint clouds."

"Whoa, maybe you could paint some seagulls too! That'd be so cool! Are you going to paint a sun, too? What time of the day will it be? Sunrise is a great time of day but then the sky is kinda pinkish and not blue so that wouldn't work very well."

"Shanks," Harry asked, as Spaz and Crocus seemed to be quite caught up with each others, "will Doctor Crocus be joining us for lunch?"

"He should, yeah Doctor?" Shanks interrupted, "join us for lunch, eh?"

"I suppose I could."

"Any requests or food preferences?"

"Actually, I just caught a rather large fish this morning. I don't suppose you can work with it?"

"Well, I know a few seafood recipes."

"How about dessert?" Spaz asked.

"Dessert?" Crocus questioned, "well, I've always been rather partial to tarts. I remember once on Roger's ship we had some tarts at a restaurant with some strange fruits that only grow on tropical Summer Islands in the Grand Line."

"Huh, was that where we were, Spaz?"

"Um, I guess?"

"Great, I'll have a go at that, then. How long are we staying here, Shanks?"

"We'll leave after dinner – don't bother cooking for that, we'll have a night barbeque on land."

"Great, then Spaz," Harry started, but caught the eye of the pirate who refused to leave him alone and winced. It might be best to provide an opportunity to speak with him alone. "Spaz, you can play with the whale, if it's ok with Doctor Crocus, maybe help him with the painting, yeah?"

"Wow, can I, Doctor Crocus, can I, can I?"

Crocus led Harry and Spaz on top of the whale's body to the lighthouse, as the pirates tidied up the ship from the rough trip over Reverse Mountain and lowered anchor. He showed Harry the fish he mentioned earlier, then picked up some more cans of paint with Spaz and returned to his whale.

The fish was huge! Harry had to cheat a bit with a featherweight charm just to get it onto the rowboat Crocus let him use to return to the ship. Back in the kitchen, Harry covered the dining table with old newspapers and laid the fish out on top. It easily covered over half the table which regularly seated nearly thirty pirates. With a sharpened kitchen knife, Harry sliced open the stomach to start cleaning it out.

The flesh was soft and pinkish and reminded Harry of salmon. As he cleaned out the guts and set aside the liver – fish liver was edible, right? he thought back to the war days. Hermione had this neat spell that she used on the game and vegetables to test if they were edible raw or cooked or at all; how did it go?

"Essumir," Harry chanted, drawing a circle in the air above the fish. The flesh and skin glowed a deep green color, the liver and bones a pale yellow, and the guts a tinge of orange.

This spell, if Harry remembered correctly, worked on a scale of colors. Red meant not edible, yellow meaning only if cooked, and green being fine to eat raw. Since the flesh was green, Harry tore off a strip of flesh and tasted it. Surprisingly, it even tasted a bit like salmon; very similar to the raw salmon Harry ate at a sushi restaurant before.

Thank Merlin, Harry thought to himself, since salmon fillet was one fish recipe he actually knew. He didn't have much time though. Harry turned the oven on then threw a quick Colloportus at the door – he'd cheat a bit. A quick aguamenti rinsed out the fish of blood, a scourgify cleaned away the dirty water and guts, and a refreshed featherweight charm made it easier to lift the flesh off the bones.

It was a bit hard chopping the head off, but the skin stripped off easily enough, and the meat cut well, so it wasn't long before Harry was baking the fish fillets on a bed of lemon and herbs, basted with oil.

Half the fish was more than enough to feed the crew along with plenty of rice and pickled vegetables. The rest of the fish he left of the table to deal with later. Maybe he could store it in the fridge in the meat room?

Harry filled and turned the rice cooker on, then pondered over the liver. As it came from such a large fish, the liver was quite big, but still didn't seem worth preparing for such a large group. Maybe he should just make it into pate and give it to Crocus to take home – it was his fish after all.

Harry sliced the liver and sautéed it, then mashed it with some butter, lemon juice, and spices, before scooping it into an empty jam jar from breakfast for Crocus.

Now for dessert. Harry reached into the pockets of his robes and pulled out some of the fruit he preserved before leaving the island. Concentrating, he conjured a dozen large tart pans and got started. He just gathered all the ingredients he needed to make the crust when he heard a knock at the door. Harry froze for moment.

Walking over to the door, Harry muttered an alohomora and opened the door. On the other side was the pirate he was expecting. Time to see just how deep in trouble he was.

A/N: And next week we'll see just why the pirate really doesn't like Harry.

I've realized that Harry's Devil Fruit power hasn't shown up in awhile. Does anyone have any guesses yet as to the details behind his fruit?

Jade: Imagine my shock when I looked up spells from Harry Potter, and found that the Notice-Me-Not charm is actual not canon! It's in practically every fanfiction battle, but it doesn't actually exist, such a let down. Sigh. Of course, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If a simple charm could make people ignore you, students would use it to wander the halls, Harry would use it to live in relative anonymity, so on and so forth. There are , however, spells and wards that can hide a location from detection, so if Harry could figure out how to use them on moving locations like ships, that would be awesome. Meh, I've got ten years to work with. Maybe I'll give Harry a ship of his own to play with for a year or two, yeah? Thanks for the review :)

Thanks goes to my beta, RedValentino!

Does anyone know why when I try to make Spaz say Harry's name over and over again without spaces it gets automatically deleted?

184 reviews as of today, January 4, 2011 (- it's a new year!)