Submitted for The Houses Competition Forum - Round 5

House: Ravenclaw

Subject: Prefect

Category: Standard

Prompt: [Object] Candy; [Time] Midnight

Word count: 1,597

Warnings: Muggle AU

the boy, the fox and the scared dad

The grandfather clock struck midnight, and Harry's eyes opened. Mummy and Daddy would be sleeping, and it was time to put his plan into action.

Throwing the blankets aside, Harry stepped down from his bed and scampered towards the door, trying to listen for any sound. The only things he could hear were the sounds from inside the walls and Daddy snoring in his room.

Grinning wickedly like Daddy sometimes did, Harry opened the door with a soft creak and walked into the hallway.

Harry had never been awake at midnight, and the shadows in the hallway were a little frightening, but he swore to himself that he was brave and would go to the kitchen all by himself.

"You can do it, Harry; just be brave." Harry was being a big boy, and big boys were fearless. Like his daddy. Nothing scared his daddy except Mummy. Also, big boys could get candy at midnight, especially when they were being brave.

Nodding to himself, Harry walks towards the stairs. He held the railing—like Mummy always told him to because he needed to be careful—and jumped down onto the first step. After the fourth step, Harry was tired and decided to toddle down on his butt because Daddy always said it was fun to slide down.

He was still holding onto the railing and being careful; it was the best of both worlds. He was being careful like Mummy wanted him to be and having fun just like Daddy did with him often.

"I did it!" Harry congratulated himself before he tiptoed towards the kitchen, his ears pricking up to hear if he had accidentally awakened his parents.

Shadows crept up from everywhere, but right next to the oven, with its lights still on, was the holy grail. A jar full of candy bars and lollipops.

Grinning widely, Harry decided to get it.

Walking towards the kitchen table, Harry started dragging a chair across the floor, making a loud screeching sound that would have scared him if he had been sleeping. Continuing to drag it towards the counter, Harry started humming under his breath.

Sirius jolted awake in his and Lily's bedroom. A strange scraping sound had reached his ears and brought him out of his wonderful dreams of his gorgeous wife, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of the noise.

His overactive mind instantly jumped to one simple thought. Ghosts.

Sirius was terrified of ghosts.

He still wasn't a fan of the house he and Lily had bought together, but since Lily and Harry loved the house so much, Sirius just sucked it up and tried not to think about the place being haunted.

It hadn't worked so far, and the fact that he was waking up at—he squinted at the clock—seven minutes past midnight, there was only one logical explanation. The place was definitely haunted.

Sirius thought about waking Lily, but she always got grumpy when she didn't get her beauty sleep. And ever since they discovered they were expecting, Sirius valued his life too much to wake a pregnant, hormonal Lily. She was scary enough as it was, but carrying his child? He preferred to be on his wife's safe side.

In the kitchen, Harry finally put the chair by the counter and climbed up. It was a bit difficult because the chair didn't have any armrests, but Harry managed to pull himself up by grabbing onto the chair's sides. The chair wobbled and creaked under his weight, the sound echoing through the silent house again.

The jar was right next to his hand, and smiling wide, Harry shoved his hand inside and grabbed the candy bar right on top. Harry unwrapped it with great difficulty, huffing and puffing as he chewed the plastic open. Finally, he succeeded and was just about to eat the fruits of his labour when something outside the window caught his attention.

Harry giggled in delight. An orange baby cat was right outside the glass door! He knew it wasn't called a baby cat, but it was midnight and he was a baby (Mummy always called him her 'little baby,' but Harry thought he was a big baby now); he didn't care about being grammatically right like his Mummy wanted him to be. After all, Daddy said he could call them meow-meows too.

This baby cat had pointy ears and black paws, and it looked so big. Harry wondered where the Mummy cat was since it was dark outside besides the lights Daddy had put in when they moved into the new house.

Harry decided to go outside and play with the baby cat. Holding the candy bar between his teeth, not wanting to lose his prize for being so brave, he crawled towards the window. Harry knew how to get down from the window to the backyard, thanks to Daddy teaching him how to escape Mummy when she was mad.

Climbing right out the window, Harry fell on his bottom with a loud thump, but thankfully, he had tumbled down onto a patch of grass, which had softened his fall.

Sirius sat up in his bed, trying to convince himself that there was no such thing as a ghost. Then, he heard the loud thump. Now he was terrified that a thief had entered their house. Realising what he needed to do, Sirius stood up and left the room.

He crept down the stairs, terrified of what he would find when he walked into the kitchen.

Harry was having the time of his life as he approached the kitten. The cat looked friendly and it seemed hungry, just like Harry was.

"Wanna candy?" Harry asked the baby cat, who in turn lolled its head to the side as though inspecting him. "I can share!"

Mummy had always taught him to share his toys, so he figured it would be the same for his candy. He opened the candy bar and took a bite before offering the rest to the cat.

Sirius switched the kitchen light on but didn't see anyone around. He was sure the sound had come from here. He paled when he heard soft giggling outside. Again, the thought of ghosts ran through his head, but he put on his brave face and grabbed a frying pan lying on the counter nearby—just for an emergency, of course. Then, he leaned out the window to see what was going on.

Harry was sitting in the grass, his legs spread out in a V, offering a piece of candy bar—that he wasn't supposed to be eating, how had he managed to get his hands on it?—to a baby fox.

Sirius's breath caught in his throat. His hands went cold and he dropped the frying pan on the counter with a loud clatter.

What was a fox doing in their backyard? It was something he would have to think about later. Right now, he needed to save Harry!

Sirius threw open the backdoor and ran towards Harry just as Harry had almost given the fox the candy bar.

"Harry! What the hell are you doing?" Sirius cried, grabbing Harry and hugging him with all his might. "Don't scare me like that ever again!"

"But Daddy—" Harry tried to say, but Sirius wasn't having any of it.

Sirius shooed the fox away, glad that it was just a baby and not an adult fox, which could have endangered Harry. He tried to get his breathing under control; otherwise, he would start hyperventilating.

"No, Daddy! Don't scare the baby cat!" Harry wailed, trying to jump out of Sirius's arms to follow his new friend, but Sirius hurried to the backdoor.

"It wasn't a baby cat, Harry," Sirius said, still clutching Harry to his chest. He walked inside the kitchen and closed the door behind them, maybe a little too forcefully. His heart was still thundering against his ribs as he muttered to himself, "Who knew being a father would be so terrifying?"

"But he was nice!" Harry whined, trying to go back outside.

"What, in God's name, is happening here?" a voice from the doorway caught their attention: Lily was standing there with a frown on her face and her hands on her hips.

"Baby cat, Mummy! I was sharin' my candy with a baby cat! You told me it's nice to share," Harry said a little too enthusiastically.

"It was a fox, not a cat, and I don't want to think about how close to Harry it was," Sirius mumbled before turning to the toddler in his arms. "I won't even ask how you managed to grab a candy in the middle of the night."

"He probably learnt that from you," Lily mumbled before approaching Harry and kissing his forehead. "Don't scare us like that again, baby."

"But I was just playing with the baby cat…" Harry said, looking at his Mummy and Daddy. "He was so nice!"

"Foxes aren't really nice, Harry; you just got lucky," Sirius said, releasing a breath. When he saw Harry's trembling lip and teary eyes, he groaned and said, "Maybe tomorrow we can see if we can find the 'baby cat' and make a home for it."

Perking up right away, his tears forgotten, Harry clasped his hands in delight. Sirius smiled at him and swept him up onto his shoulder.

"I hope this one is a girl. I can't handle any more stress," Lily murmured, caressing her stomach and walking back towards the stairs.

"You love us," Sirius cooed, following her with Harry hanging upside down off his shoulder and laughing heartily.