His Boy
Chapter Twenty: Halloween
"CHOOOO-CHOOO!" Harry ran through the house, waving his conductor's hat high in the air. A large cardboard box painted to look like a train with six round wheels and a large cylinder for the whistle wiggled slightly from his chest to just above his knees. It was strapped onto his shoulders with a pair of belts tightened to the right length to keep the train from falling off of him. "CHOOCHOO!" He also wore a pair of blue and white striped overalls over a red t-shirt to match his hat. He had been insanely excited when Moony had suggested the idea for his Halloween costume when they'd been at the shop instead of going for a super hero or animal. Harry had even been able to help paint his train… mostly red of course.
"Choo-choo." Sirius laughed, wearing a similar costume, only his was the black coal car, his face smudged with ashes from the fireplace to make him more realistic. Remus followed next, a green passenger car that had little people drawn in the windows. And lastly, after much begging on Harry's part, Lexie had agreed to come along as the bright red caboose. "Harry, we need to get going if we're going to meet up with our friends in time for trick-or-treating."
"Ok!" Harry laughed, chugging his feet towards the front door where his pumpkin bucket sat by the door. He snatched it up and pressed at the front door. Sirius opened it for him and they all deboxed to get into Remus's car.
The trip to the center of town where they were to be doing their trick or treating was already getting crowded. Remus parked along the edge of the street and Lexie helped Harry out onto the sidewalk, his eyes looking around wide with wonder. This was his first time trick or treating. For the past couple of years, the Dursley had dressed up Dudley and taken him out while Harry was left with their neighbor, a Mrs. Figg. She was nice enough and sometimes fed him a bit of stale chocolate cake when he came and then they would mostly look at pictures of all of her many cats. Harry liked her ok despite how her house smelt of cats. At least she never yelled at him, so most of the time he rather looked forward to going over to her house. However, last Halloween he'd stood at her window watching all of the other kids coming and going in their costumes, getting candy, and feeling incredibly left out. Mrs. Figg had given him a lollipop, but it hadn't really changed the fact that Dudley got to be out there having fun and gathering sweets while Harry was trapped inside.
"Haaaaarry!" Luna called, running at him. She was dressed in what could only be described as the most colorful sunflower anyone had ever seen. Each petal was a different color around her head and she wore a long tube of green down to her ankles, out of which her arms came, shaped like leaves with holes for her hands to come out the front. "Harry! We're gonna get candies." She hugged Harry, her own pumpkin bucket swinging back and forth and hacking him in the shoulder. He hugged her back, not even noticing beimg bumped with the pumpkin. "I'mma flower."
"I'mma train con-con… driver." Harry grinned, holding his arms up to let Sirius slide his train down onto him. Harry adjusted his straps to make them comfy on his shoulders and then looked around, holding onto Luna's hand, for Ronnie who was supposed to be coming with the rest of his family. It was kind of hard to find them. Harry was looking for a lot of red hair, but it was Remus who spotted them first. He waved.
"Hi!" Ronnie laughed, swinging his pillowcase above his head. He was dressed as a fuzzy lion, the hood and mane around his face hiding his hair. His face had been painted with a black nose and whiskers. He looked really cool.
"Wow Ronnie! You look awesome!" Harry laughed, poking him and then checking to see if he had a tail. He did.
"Thanks, my mummy made it for me." Ronnie beamed proudly, looking back at his mother and father. Mr. Weasley was carrying Ginny who was dressed as a pumpkin, her limbs green while her middle was very round and very orange. "I was the pumpkin last year when Ginny was the puffskein. Mummy says Fred and George were pumpkins when they were three too. And Percy, and Bill, and Charlie. And afore that they was all puffskeins." Ronnie informed Harry. "But I'm four now, so I got to pick what I wanted to be."
"I like bein' a punkin." Ginny stuck her tongue out at Ronnie, dancing in a circle as she was put down on the sidewalk.
"And what're you pretending to be?" Tricia asked kindly of the twins who had mischievous little grins on their faces. They wore only their Christmas sweaters from the past year, a G on one, an F on the other, looking quite normally themselves.
"I'm Fred." Said the twin with the F who, after a moment, Harry realized was actually George.
"And I'm George." Fred grinned and they laughed, looking quite pleased with their prank. "It's a trick, see?"
"I have to admit, it was quite ingenious of George to come up with that one." Molly beamed, patting George on the head.
"I'm Fred." He stated, shaking his head at her.
"And you call yourself our mother." Fred laughed, but hugged Molly anyway. When you were six it wasn't too uncool to be hugging your mum in public.
"Well I should think you would be more grateful, since she did give you life after all." Percy state snidely. He wore a little suit, pressed firmly, his hair greased down, and his candy bucket appeared to be a beaten down brief case. "I wanted to be the Minister of Magic, but Father said we are to be mingling with Muggles, so I've settled for a business man instead. They do really well, you know. I almost didn't dress up this year, because I am getting a bit old for it, I am eight after all. Charlie dressed up last year when he was ten, so I figured it was all right. He and Bill are at school. "
"Yes, so I've heard. It's a very nice costume, Percy." Remus laughed at Percy's indisputable smugness at his costume choice. He pulled on his passenger car box. "Shall we get on then?"
"Yay!" Harry cheered. He held onto Luna's hand as they walked, having not seen her in a while. He'd been busy going to school and she had been away on a holiday with her father hunting for something called a Crumpled-Horn Snorkack. He was quite pleased to see his little sissy. "We're gonna get a lot of candy, Luna."
"Yeah." Luna agreed brightly, swinging her bucket in her other hand.
"Alright guys, here we are. Go on up." Sirius stated, pointed to the first house. The little kids ran up the walk first while the grown-ups waited on the sidewalk, Percy taking up the back to make sure they all did as they were supposed to and to remind them of their thank yous. Fred rang the bell.
"Trick-or-treat!" The little bunch of wizards called gleefully as the door opened, holding up their buckets and pillow cases in anticipation, their eyes shining.
"Oh my goodness, what have we here?" A lady wearing a dressing gown and looking tired. She was bouncing a blue blanket in one arm. Harry recognized her as his friend from school Marny's mummy. She came to pick Marny up sometimes, but mostly Marny's big sister would get her. "Let's see… we have a brave lion…" She placed some candy in Ronnie's pillowcase. "And a pretty flower… and a beautiful pumpkin… and… what might you be boys?"
"I'm him!" The twins laughed, pointing to each other with one hand while holding out their pillow cases with the other.
"Ooooh, very creative! And you're… Clark Kent?" She asked Percy who shook his head, looking a tiny bit affronted.
"I'm a business man, ma'am."
"Oh yes, of course! How silly of me." Marny's mummy dropped some candy into Percy's pillow case. "Ah, and I know this train conductor. How are you, Harry?"
"Good." Harry smiled, holding up his pumpkin, his grin growing at the sound of candy hitting the bottom. He pointed to the window by the door where he could see Marny peeking out from behind the white curtains. "Marny's not trick-or-treating?"
"No, I'm afraid not. I haven't the time." She switched the bundle into her other arm, setting the candy down as the baby inside began to fuss.
"She can come with us!" Harry perked up, waving at Marny who waved a little bit back, looking kind of like Harry felt last year when he watched all the kids trick-or-treating while he was stuck inside.
"Oh, I don't know, Harry. That would probably cause a bit of trouble for your godfather."
"He won't mind. Paddy!" Harry called, running down the front walk and grabbing at Sirius's hand. "Paddy, Marny's mummy can't go, so she can't trick-or-treat. She can come with us, can't she? Please?"
"Of course." Sirius nodded, smiling and heading up the front walk. "We'd be more than happy to have Marny come along with us, Diane. We'll probably be out here for a couple of hours at the most anyway."
"You've already got so many children to look after… I wouldn't want to trouble you."
"It's absolutely no problem. We have seven adults. One more kid won't hurt."
"I have five brothers and a sister and my mum watches all of use just fine on her own. She's with us." Percy added quite proudly. Diane sighed, eyeing them all before nodding.
"Let me get her."
"I heard, Mummy." Marny appeared from behind her mother, no costume, just her jammies. She beamed brightly, looking excited. "But I hasn't got a costume… is that ok?" Sirius frowned, looking her up and down.
"Have you a robe, a baby doll, and some string?" He asked after a moment. Marny nodded. "Go get them, I've got an idea. The rest of you lot go on. We'll be along in a moment."
"Alright, come on." Percy waved for the younger children to follow him. Harry paused, but then followed. They went along to the next house, getting more candy, and were just leaving when Sirius came, Marny running along in front of him holding a pillow case. She wore a robe over her pajamas, her hair messily clipped on top of her head with a giant banana clip. Someone had put black smudges under her eyes, making her look tired… but the absolute best bit were the baby dolls tied to the front of her legs while she cradled a third.
"I'm a mommy." Marny announced to the laughter of grown-ups.
"She looks like me after I had Ron." Molly remarked fondly, bending down to tighten one of the dollies from falling off of Marny's leg. "Fred and George were so jealous back then, I almost had to tie them into their high chairs during feeding time just so they wouldn't keep hitting Ronnie and telling him to go back to the hospital."
"Yeah Ronnie, go back to the hospital." George ponked Ronnie on the head with his pillowcase.
"George, don't hit your brother."
"I'm Fred."
"Well, Fred then. Don't hit your brother."
"My mummy's tired alllll the time, cause she hasta look after Nathan." Marny nodded to herself with a frown. "He's my baby brother, and he cries a lot. I don't like him."
"Aw, why not?" Tricia asked curiously, only having one child of her own and not really knowing the whole unspoken sibling rivalries.
"Cause he's loud and smells bad." Marny wrinkled her nose.
"Well, babies do that sometimes, yes, but he'll grow out of it soon enough." Sirius stated, ruffling the top of Harry's head. "We were all babies at one time or another, and we all smelt bad and cried loudly. But we're ok now aren't we?"
"Yeah." Marny nodded in agreement, reaching out and taking Harry's free hand in her own and trailing after him. She was looking quite inquiringly at the other kids, having not seen them around before. "Harry, are these your cousins or something'?"
"No. My cousin is Dudley, but I dun see him anymore. These are my friends. Ronnie and 'mione are my favorite, but 'mione isn't here. And Ginny and Luna-sissy are my second favorites. And then Fred and George and Percy and Bill and Charlie are Ronnie's brothers, but Bill and Charlie are at school 'cause they're big."
"But, I thought I was your favorite friend?"
"Yeah, you're my favorite school friend. Ronnie and 'mione dun go to our school. Cause 'mione lives by London and Ronnie's mummy teaches him stuff."
"Oh! My sister wants to do that, 'cept our Mummy doesn't have time to teach her her schooling. She wants to go away to school too, but Mummy says she can't cause she needs her at home to help with me and Nathan. Where does Ronnie live?"
"Outside town, like me." Harry looked a little confused. He thought everyone knew that. It seemed like ages since he'd met Ronnie, and though he had yet to go to the Burrow, he knew that it wasn't too far from his own house. Just up the hill and through the orchard, Sirius said. He'd also said that when Harry was older, he and Ronnie could walk to one another's houses by themselves. Harry was looking forward to this a lot because he did wish he could see Ronnie more often.
"Hurry up you two!" Percy called, waiting at the bottom of the next lighted house's walk. They ran to catch up and all of the kids hurried up the walk, wanting more candy, but, surprisingly, the door to the house was already open.
"Come in, if you daaaaaaare!" A creepy voice stated from the shadows. The kids panicked a little bit, but George grinned, shouting.
"It's a haunted house! Awesome!" He and Fred raced up the steps and inside.
Not wanting a gaggle of kids going into a strangers home by themselves, Sirius volunteered himself to go with them, as did Lexie. They joined the kids on the stoop. "Do you lot want to go through? It could be a lot of fun."
"Yeah!" Harry cheered, but then reached up for Sirius's hand. He was a brave boy, but he always felt better with his Padfoot there to help sort of make the scary stuff seem a lot less scary. It helped him be even more brave.
"We goin' in." Ginny nodded, taking Ronnie's hand, and after a moment, Ronnie reached up to take Lexie's. Luna looked indecisive for a moment, but then, to quite a few people's surprise, took Percy's hand. He was a big eight to her little three after all. Surely he wasn't scared of any old haunted house. Percy looked down at her and put on a brave face.
"Right then. Off we go." He marched forward, and into the dark house they went.
"Eugh…" Ronnie shuddered.
The whole first room was covered in cobwebs and spiders of all sorts of sizes. A dim light shone purple all around, making the webs glisten and the spiders gleam menacingly. Spooky music, filled with moans of ghosts and the strange rat-a-tat-tat chinking of chains played from somewhere. Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he shuddered a little bit, moving closer to Padfoot. This WAS scary.
As they move forward to the center of the room, a great, hairy, slimy, giant spider came flying down from the roof! Ronnie screamed bloody murder, ducking his head and nearly dragging Lexie and Ginny into the next room with a rush of adrenaline. He did NOT like spiders at all. Not since last year when Fred had turned his beloved Sir Wugglesworth into a spider.
Keeping up with them, the other followed and they all found themselves in a kitchen with some sort of red liquid on the walls that Sirius suspected was mostly created by the glowing red light of the room. There were bowls on the counter.
"Stick your hands in, feel what we have for you." A disembodied voice floated into the room.
"Who wants to go first?" Lexie asked, biting her lip as she looked down at the bowls. She could see their contents, but the kids couldn't because of their height.
"Me! Me! Me!" Ginny raised her hand and Lexie hoisted her a little.
"Don't peek and stick your hand right on in, Ginny." Ginny did as she was told and let out a shriek as her hand hit the bowl.
"Brains of the last child who dared come through!" The disembodied voice cackled. Ginny screamed again and withdrew her hand, looking revolted. Harry went next, shoving his hand into the second bowl. "Eyeballs! Lots and lots of eeeeeyeballllls!"
Harry yelped and took out his hand quickly, looking quite startled. Great, wet, round things had encased his hand. Ooooh, those had to be eyeballs for sure! It was delightfully gross! He shoved his hand in again, wiggling it around, laughing. "Ewwwww!"
Each child took a turn then, getting their hands in the brains and eyeballs and the last bowl, which turned out to be worms that had Luna laughing so hard she put both hands in and squirmed them around. "Worrrrmy worms! Ew ew ew!" She took her hands out and Xeno set her down, chuckling to himself.
They continued on, down a long hallway with many doors. A mummy jumped from an open one, causing everyone to scream. Luna wrapped herself around her father's leg while Ginny marched forward and stared straight up at the mummy. She cross her arms over her little chest, glaring up at it. "That was not very nice."
The mummy started quivering and covering its mouth, retreated back into his hiding spot. Harry thought he heard someone laughing, but he was not sure who it was. Everyone around him wasn't, well maybe the couple of the adults.
"Oh Ginny, you'll be a Gryffindor yet." Arthur scooped up his daughter and she laughed, beaming at him like it was the best compliment ever.
They carried on, getting through the hallway without much else jumping out at them and into a large sitting room where a grizzled old lady sat hunched in her rocking chair. She beckoned them forward with one crooked, warty finger. "Come and get some candy if you daaaaareeee."
Harry took Ginny's hand and then Marny's and marched forward, his head held high. He wasn't going to let some creepy lady keep them away from getting what they'd come for. Not after all they'd gone through to get to this part of the house.
He thrust one hand into the bowl, letting go of Marny to do so and dropped a piece of candy into his bucket. He then did the same for Marny who screamed as the lady leaned towards them and looked like she was ready to run back to the adults.
"I'm not scarededs." Ginny announced, taking candy as well for her pillow case and beaming at Harry when he nodded.
"Me neither."
"Yeah!" Ronnie ran forward and took his piece of candy. If Ginny could do it, then he definitely could. Percy followed, knowing it'dd look ad if he played chicken now. Luna went with him.
Smiling the little old creepy lady waved them towards a door covered in a black sheet. They left, saying their thank yous even though she was very scary. Outside in the cool night air, the group found themselves safely on a sidewalk beside the haunted house. Fred and George were waiting for them, both laughing and looking excited.
"How cool was that?" Fred asked, delighted by the haunted house.
"Cool." Harry nodded in agreement. Now that he was back out in the safe night instead of being inside the haunted house, he was feeling even braver than he had. He clung to Remus's hand now, glad of something to clutch after that.
"You were very very brave in there Harry." Remus commented, giving Harry's small hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'm very proud of you."
"It was pretty scary, Moony." Harry admitted after a moment, once he'd been sure that no one was listening but Moony.
"But you did it and that makes all the difference. Sometimes we have to face our fears to get what we want. Understand?"
"Yeah." Harry nodded, beaming brightly at that. He had been pretty brave, hadn't he? It made him feel quite proud of himself, a feeling he'd been having a lot more of ever since he'd started living with Padfoot and Moony instead of with those awful Dursleys. "Will I be a Gryffindor too?"
"It's highly possible." Moony laughed, ruffling his hair. "C'mon now. There's lots more candy waiting for you."
Sorry it's taking me so long to update. I know there are those of you who really like this story and probably find my lack of updating annoying. But I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive my awfulness. This chapter isn't up to par either, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway! Please let me know what you thought.
Hugs and butterfly kisses,
S.Q.O.