MR. SPARKS
"Mr. Sparks? Mr. Sparks! Over here!"
Biting back an annoyed sigh, Harrison J. Sparks felt his shoulders sagging mid-way through the gesture to accept the cup of steaming coffee being offered to him by the barrister.
"It's him again isn't it?" he asked the sympathetic looking woman, the pain in his voice clear.
"Do you want me to call security?" Lucy answered with a grimace, smiling gently at him as he nodded pathetically. "It's okay honey, just stay by the counter and they'll be here soon",
Mouthing his thanks to his favourite barrister, Harry shuffled over to the side and watched as Lucy changed places with a co-worker to hurry over to the phone. He didn't know what he'd do without her in his life, aside from die of coffee deprivation of course, she was always so much kinder than most of the other star struck people he met in his day-to-day life.
"Mr. Sparks?"
And then there was that guy.
Hand coming up immediately to knock the man's hand off course, Harry turned to lean against the counter with narrowed eyes, glaring at the short red-haired man who merely pouted at him in response.
"It's a surprise to see you, here, Mr. Sparks," the man began quickly.
"It's a surprise to see you too," Harry lied politely, "How's that court case going for you? Stalking again, wasn't it?"
"Oh it's nothing," Kristopher ("With a 'K') said dismissively, holding his hand out for Harry to shake and lowering it when the black-haired teen just raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you mind if I ask you a couple of quick questions? My readers want to hear the facts straight from your mouth".
"Can I ask you a question first?" Harry countered uselessly, "What part of 'I have a restraining order against you' don't you understand?"
"How do you feel about the charges going against your mother for fraud?" Kristopher asked, completely ignoring Harry's reminder.
Harry would have loved to just punch the man in the face and be done with it, he hated people coming after him for his so-called 'fame', but unfortunately for him being in the spotlight made getting away with that so much more difficult. Although... maybe his alleged mother's PR guy could spin that as a reminder that Harry wasn't his 'mother' and thus was not to be badgered over her show, she'd already asked that people left him alone even if idiots like Kristopher refused to do so.
"People are always accusing my mother of being a fraud," he ground out instead, keeping an eye out for mall security. "If Mrs. Brown didn't want the news of her affair to be made public then perhaps she shouldn't have challenged my mother to find out her darkest secret in front of a live studio audience".
"But what about Emily Brown's accusations of your mother ruining her marriage?" Kristopher pressed eagerly, stepping forward into Harry's personal space as he held out a voice recorder. "How do you think this afternoon's court case will go?"
"Emily Brown's marriage was ruined when she jumped into her father-in-law's bed on multiple occasions and then confessed that in front of the aforementioned live studio audience," Harry corrected, trying to step away from the man boxing him in. "I have complete confidence in not only my mother but in the presiding Judge for this case," he added formally, having already been instructed on what to say by his mother.
"One last question," Kristopher pressed, shoving the recorder in Harry's face even more. "What do you think of- OOF"
"I'm listening," Harry deadpanned, smiling innocently at the second security guard as he stepped past Harry to help his partner handcuff the tackled reporter. "You guys are getting better and better at this," he praised as he watched them hauling Kristopher to his feet.
"Mr. Sparks! Mr. Sparks!"
"I lied. I'm not listening," Harry dismissed, nodding his cup of coffee towards the two familiar security guards, "Thanks, by the way".
"Come on Mr. Sparks, this isn't necessary is it?" Kristopher blurted desperately, struggling against the two beefy guys pinning his arms together behind his back. "There's nothing illegal about asking a few questions, they can't hold me for long".
"Stalking and breaking a restraining order are illegal, Sir," Markus, the beefier of the two guards countered. "Sorry about this, Mr. Sparks".
Waving them off, Harry watched with a blank face as they started dragging the annoying reporter towards the coffee shop's door, unable to resist flicking his fingers and coughing a mild curse into his fist.
Shooting a 'thumbs up' at Lucy and starting for the door, Harry tugged his cap back onto his head as he stepped out into the sunlight of the open-roofed mall, hoping to get out before any of Kristopher's groupies showed up to try jump him again. Sarah – his 'mother' – had asked that he stayed on his best behavior while she was in court today, and personally he felt he'd done that, there was – after all – no way for the itching hex he'd hit Kristopher in the back with to be traced back to him even if it was discovered.
By the Styx he hated the press.
Absently weaving an illusion around himself as he walked, Harry stepped into the corridor leading to the toilets and vanished in a tornado of emerald green smoke, reappearing without even a sign of a stumble in his bedroom in his sometimes home in LA.
"Hello the building!" he shouted as he let himself into the main part of the penthouse, "Anyone home? Mom One? Mom Two? Anyone?"
"I do wish you wouldn't call me that".
"Mom One," Harry greeted with a smile, turning to see his birth mother sitting daintily in her favourite armchair. "Lady Hecate," he corrected quickly when the woman shot him a warning look over her cup of tea, "Missed you," he added as he padded over to kiss her cheek.
"I missed you too baby, have you been behaving for your sister?" the goddess questioned, kissing his cheek back. "Don't answer that, you'd only lie to me anyway".
"Of course I'm behaving for Sarah," Harry defended, faking hurt as he pouted up at his mother, flopping down onto the divan beside her without spilling a drop of his coffee. "I could have cursed that reporter guy today and I chose not to".
"Uh-huh," his mother agreed skeptically as the goddess sent him a Look. "And that itching hex was what, exactly?"
"A hex, not a curse," Harry nitpicked, smiling innocently again (a move he'd practiced non-stop in a mirror until he'd perfected it), not at all surprised that Hecate knew where he'd just been.
His life was, in a word, complicated. To the public and their 'adoring fans', he was Harrison J. Sparks; son of the famous celebrity psychic, Sarah Sparks. But in reality, Sarah was nothing more than his half-sister, another half-blood child of Hecate; the Greek Goddess of Magic who he had been given to as a baby to raise after his adoptive family had died. She had done her best to raise him right until he was old enough to make his own decisions, then she had pursued her dream of being a star while he pursued his interests of learning magic in his bedroom and travelling the world at will.
In short, Harry basically had two mothers, both of whom loved him dearly and let him do whatever he wanted if he tilted his head just right and looked sufficiently pathetic.
The look he received for even trying to get out of it reeked of disappointment, "But an itching hex?" Hecate questioned, scrunching her face up in distaste. "What has Sarah been teaching you that you choose you use an itching hex over something more entertaining?"
"Well I considered just turning him into an animal, but the mortals might have noticed that," Harry confessed bluntly, "We were receiving too much attention for me to use the Mist".
His mother just nodded in agreement at his defense, pausing for a moment to sip at her tea. Taking the chance to drink his coffee, Harry just basked in his birth mother's presence. With all her godly duties and the Olympian gods breathing down her neck, he knew that Hecate had very little time to spend with her children, so he took every opportunity he could to just enjoy her being around – especially since she'd been spending less time with him ever since he'd stopped needing constant watching.
"How is your training going Sweetie?" she asked curiously, glancing at him from the corner of her eye as he perked up eagerly, always happy to talk about magic with others.
"Sarah's got me working on self-transformation magic now," Harry said quickly, grinning at his mother when she smirked. "She says once I've got the hang of reversing a miscast spell then I can start learning how to shape shift into animals".
"And you haven't been reading ahead at all?" Hecate asked knowingly.
"Of course not!" Harry exclaimed, faking indignity. "Damn," he muttered seconds later, not even having believed his argument himself. "I'm being careful," he reassured his mother, "I'm not actually trying the spells, I'm just reading the theory".
"Well, that's alright then," the smiling goddess said simply. "And the Mist?"
"I can cloak an entire room," Harry admitted proudly, all but puffing his chest out smugly. "And I scared the crap out of Sarah by creating a lifelike Minotaur in the bathroom when she was in the shower".
Earning a chuckle at his words as well as a gentle ruffling of his hair, Harry couldn't help but preen as Hecate's musical laugh echoed through the room, his mother pausing mid-gesture and glancing over at the corner in time for a tornado of golden-yellow smoke to burst into existence.
"Harry are you- Mommy!"
Grinning at his half-sister as Sarah basically flew across the room to press her own kiss to Hecate's cheek and be kissed back in turn, Harry obediently shuffled over so the dark-haired star could sit on the divan as well.
"And how was court?" Hecate asked expectantly, raising an eyebrow at Sarah as Harry blinked at his empty hands and the cup of coffee mysteriously in Sarah's hand instead.
"Like taking candy from a baby," Sarah dismissed, "I didn't even need to speak after her husband confessed he'd arranged for the papers a month before the show".
"And did he?"
"As far as I know," Sarah confessed with a shrug, "I didn't have anything to do with it, if that's what you're asking. I'm asking though," she continued with a slight frown, "The new moon isn't for two more weeks, why are you here now?"
Harry blinked in confusion again, this time as he realized that his half-sister and adoptive mother was right. Their mother usually didn't stop by for a visit until it was new moon week, as that was normally when her duties waned and she had the time.
Hecate hesitated for a moment before sighing, slowly putting her teacup down on the arm of her chair (where it vanished) and folded her hands across her stomach as she watched them. "I'm sure you recall a few months ago when I was late to visit you," she began calmly, "And I told you there was something bad brewing in Britain's wizarding world?"
"Is it another Dark Lord?" Sarah said bluntly, the amusement clear in her voice, "The last one got defeated by an overprotective owl".
"He didn't count, not according to the Daily Prophet," Hecate corrected absently, "Remember?"
"What is it then?" Harry asked curiously, honestly a little surprised that he was being included in this 'grown-up conversation'.
"It's not a new Dark Lord, it's an old one," their mother answered unhappily. "Tom Riddle has managed to return to a mortal body".
Harry felt himself stiffening immediately, exchanging a nervous look with Sarah. He knew who Tom Riddle was, how couldn't he recognize his own half-brother after all? But that wasn't the problem, the problem was that now that Voldemort was back, the wizards would soon start up the search for the Boy-Who-Lived, and Harry was more than happy where he was – thank you very much.
"You don't mean..."
"I'm afraid so Sweetheart," Hecate admitted, smiling sadly at him as she reached out to cup his jaw. "The stars are clear in their alignment; it's time for you to return to Britain and finish what you started. It's time for you to kill your brother, once and for all".
MR. SPARKS
Based off DZ2's wonderful 'Break the Rules' challenge, this idea hit me hard and fast like a freight train and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. So I did.
I don't know if this is a preview I'll continue one day, but it's definitely one I think is interesting enough that it's highly likely I'll return to it and at least consider it. The idea for Sarah Sparks; the real psychic pretending to be a fake psychic pretending to be a real psychic comes from the amazing Kelley Armstrong who has the infamous TV medium 'Jamie Vega' who is a necromancer pretending to be a normal person pretending to be a medium.
Thanks for reading, but I don't own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.
MR. SPARKS