Title: What Could Go Wrong?
Team: Caerphilly Catapults
Position: Chaser 1
Round: QL Daily Prophet A Very Senior Year Competition
Prompt: Harry Potter
Additional Prompts used: [dialogue] "It— It was like this when we got here!"; [emotion] doubt
Hogwarts Assignment 4: dentistry task 2
Prompt: write about seeing through a lie
Alphabetti Spaghetti: Spell out your favourite characters name – A
Prompt: Animagus
Build Your Own Adventure: doctor, 11
Prompt: [trait] boisterous
Flower Power: list 1, sunflower
Prompt: [weather] stormy
Honeydukes Horder: liquorice
Prompt: "I can't lie to [name]!" / "Of course you can! Believe in yourself!"
Writing club: would you rather, 1; quotations number 7; here for the year, number 16; fight club, number 11; nifty & swiftie, number 7; Rowena says, number 4; pair Em up, pairing 3, prompt 1; Hogwarts library, number 9; room of requirement, number 8
Prompt: Harry Potter; "I'm not hiding, I'm safely tucking myself away for the day."; write about forgiving someone; [object] glasses; [dialogue] "What did you do?" bonus prompt: midnight; "You really are just bad ideas, wrapped inside a pretty body."; HarryDraco, [word] vehemently; [dialogue] "We can't go in there!"; [dialogue] "You're not as charming as you think."
Gather Your Party: artificer, number 4
Prompt: [dialogue] "I regret my life choices."
Scamander's Case: occamy, male
Prompt: [dialogue] "I hate how much I love you."
Word count: 2071
Betas: Rose Sky
A/N A universe where Sirius didn't die, because I just don't like that he died! So, Sirius and Remus both live, because it was mean to kill them and I want them to live. Oh, and Severus too, because I can.
Harry handed Sirius a beer and flopped down onto the couch beside him.
"Is it not a bit early to start drinking?" Sirius asked, taking the beer from Harry nonetheless.
"Meh, it's five o'clock somewhere," Harry said as he took a swig of his own, but Sirius still hesitated so Harry asked, "What's wrong?"
"Oh…erm…nothing," Sirius replied, slowly raising the bottle to his lips.
"Remus banned you from drinking again, didn't he?" Harry stated with a chuckle. "What did you do this time?"
"In my defence, it was hardly my fault," Sirius replied vehemently.
"What happened?"
"He never told me that the apple crumble was to be taken to the Weasley's for that family dinner!" Sirius said defensively. "So really, it was Remus' fault, if you think about it."
"Please, tell me you ate it and didn't go American Pie on it," Harry said, laughing and shaking his head.
"Of course I didn't go American Pie on it! I'm a grown up! Physically. Not a sex starved geeky teenager," Sirius said indignantly, taking a swig from the bottle of beer.
"You ate the entire thing?"
"Not the entire thing, no! I left Remus a slice."
Harry raised an eyebrow at Sirius.
"Okay, so there was only one slice of apple left, but that still counts as leaving him a slice, doesn't it? And he got all mad and told me I can't drink again, can you believe him?"
"Glad to see you listen to him though," Harry said with a smirk indicating the beer that Sirius was currently drinking.
"This?" Sirius asked, holding up the bottle. "This is your fault. You gave it to me." Sirius grinned. "Besides it's only one. What harm could one drink do?"
An hour later, Harry and Sirius had opened their tenth beer of the night. Neither had eaten anything and they were both a little drunk.
"So, what does he do in there anyway?" Sirius asked, pointing to Draco's potion lab.
"I don't know," Harry replied. "He never lets me in there. He says I'm not to be trusted anywhere near potions, can you believe that?"
"Well, he's not here now! Let's go take a peek in there," Sirius said, getting unsteadily to his feet.
"We can't go in there!"
"Just a little peek."
"I don't know, Sirius," Harry said, looking worried. "He really doesn't like anyone going in there. Lucius and Severus don't even get taken in there when they visit."
"All the more reason to have a peep then," Sirius said as he staggered over to the door. "Go somewhere with potions that Snivellus isn't allowed. I like the sound of that, 'cos it'll annoy the great greaseball."
Harry got to his feet a little more steadily than Sirius had and joined Sirius outside the door to Draco's potion's lab.
"Sirius, I'm not sure this is a good idea," Harry whispered, as though Draco would be able to hear them.
"It'll be fine," Sirius stated with the sort of confidence that only drunk people can manage. "He's out Christmas shopping with Remus. They won't be back for hours. Besides, we're only going to look, nothing else."
Sirius pushed the handle down, but the door didn't open. He pulled out his wand and tried the Alohomora charm but the door still wouldn't open. Sirius looked questioningly at Harry.
"What's he got in here that's so secret? How do we open it?"
Harry approached the door and put his hand on the handle and tapped the door with his wand, thinking of Draco cloistered in his potion's lab. To his great surprise, and slight annoyance, the lock clicked open.
"What'd you do?" Sirius asked, looking surprised.
"Nothing!" Harry said, peeved. "I was just thinking of Draco. All this time, that was all I had to do to get in and see him when he's locked himself in here?"
"Aww, how perfectly lovingly revolting," Sirius smirked.
"Shut up!" Harry snapped, stepping into Draco's potion's lab.
It was not at all what he was expecting. Draco's potions lab was the complete opposite of the potion's dungeons at Hogwarts. The room was brightly lit and pleasantly warm despite the winter storm that Harry could see raging out of the large window. It would seem that Draco didn't like Snape's potions classroom any more than he had.
"Now I know why he doesn't let Snape in here," Harry commented. "Because it's the polar opposite of what Snape thinks a potions lab should look like."
Harry thought he would quite like sitting in here watching Draco work. Beneath the large window there was an old, but comfy looking, sofa next to a desk that was positioned so that Draco would be able to keep an eye on his potions, as well as take in the view outside the window. There were several workbenches, each with a cauldron beside them. In the corner of the room, a door stood ajar revealing a supply cupboard that looked as though it would rival Snape's private store cupboard at Hogwarts. Mortars and pestles, knives and other potions essentials were neatly in place at each bench.
"What do you think is in here?" Sirius asked, peering into a cauldron filled with a bright green bubbling potion.
"Sirius, it's me you're talking to." Harry gave Sirius an exasperated look. "What makes you think I would have any idea?"
"He's your husband," Sirius shrugged.
"Who's never let me in here before. Sirius, what are you doing? Don't touch anything or Draco will know we've been in here!"
"Not if we deny it," Sirius shrugged, bouncing around the room from cauldron to cauldron.
"I can't lie to Draco!" Harry exclaimed.
"Of course you can! Believe in yourself!" Sirius said nonchalantly, pulling his wand from his robes and prodding at a thick purple potion simmering over a low heat in another cauldron.
"He'll see right through me."
"Should've tried harder with the Occlumency then, shouldn't you?" Sirius said.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous BOOM as the potion in the cauldron that Sirius had been prodding exploded. Sirius and Harry were blasted backwards into a table as the thick purple potion splattered the walls of the lab and began dripping down the walls and from the ceiling. A large blob of purple potion dripped from the ceiling into the bright green potion which startled to foam, spilling out of the cauldron onto the floor. Harry was frantically searching for his glasses which had been dislodged from his face by a stray elbow from Sirius when they had been thrown backwards.
"What's going on?" Harry heard Draco's voice from the living room.
Harry found his glasses and put them on his face just as Draco entered his potion's lab. He stopped short in the doorway, looking around in shock. Harry could just make out Remus' face peering over Draco's shoulder into the chaos of the room. Sirius was nowhere to be seen.
"What did you do?" Draco asked and Harry couldn't bear the disappointment in his voice. "I've been working on that potion for weeks!"
"Sirius," Remus said sternly. "I can see you hiding. What did you do?"
A large black dog slunk out from under the bench and transformed back into his human form.
"I'm not hiding, I'm safely tucking myself away for the day," Sirius said vehemently.
Remus glared at him. "What did you do?"
"It-it was like this when we got here!" Sirius said, flashing Remus what he clearly thought was a winning smile.
"You're not as charming as you think."
"But you love me, really, and I love you," Sirius grinned at Remus.
"I regret my life choices," Remus said with a weary sigh.
"I love you," Sirius said again.
"I hate how much I love you. You're really are just bad ideas, wrapped inside a pretty body."
Draco meanwhile had yet to say anything. He was just looking around the room at weeks and weeks of work splattered on the walls and dripping from the ceiling.
"I'm sorry, Draco," Harry said quietly. "I'm really, really sorry."
"What did you do?" Draco asked.
"I swear I didn't do anything!" Harry answered, truthfully. Draco gave him a sceptical look. "I swear I didn't. I don't know how it happened."
"Why are you even in here?" Draco asked. "You know how important my work in here was to me. I'll never get my Potions Mastery now."
"Draco, I…"
"Forget it, Harry, I can't even look at you right now," Draco lamented, shaking his head as he walked out the room.
"Draco!" Harry called after him before Harry heard their bedroom door slam shut. "He's never going to forgive me."
Remus moved into the room and pulled Harry into a hug.
"He will forgive you, Harry. He loves you. More than anything. He's just upset right now. He put a lot of work into those potions," Remus said, giving Harry a tight squeeze. "Stay right where you are Sirius! Don't think I can't see you out of the corner of my eye slinking out the room in your Animagus form."
The large black dog stopped in the doorway and glared at Remus.
"Don't you look at me like that!" Remus said firmly. "What. Did. You. Do?"
Sirius grumpily turned back into his human form.
"What makes you think I did something?" Sirius asked, trying, and failing, to look innocent.
"Because I know you! And when you've been drinking you are more likely than normal to do something stupid or impulsive or rash."
"All right! Don't get your robes in a knot. I may have been prodding the potion with my wand," Sirius conceded.
"I told you not to touch anything! He thinks it was me!" Harry wailed.
"You'd better go and fix this, Sirius," Remus said.
"Alright!" Sirius said grumpily, stomping out the room.
It was nearly midnight when Sirius and Remus had left, Harry carefully approached their bedroom door and knocked quietly.
"Draco?" Harry called through the closed door. "Can I come in?"
"If you want. It's your room too," Draco replied coldly.
Harry opened the door and entered. Draco was lying on their bed with his back to Harry.
"Did Sirius explain what he did?" Harry asked timidly.
"Yup," Draco replied shortly.
"I'm really, really sorry about your potion. Can it not be salvaged?"
"No!"
"I'm sorry Sirius ruined your potions."
"He might have been the one who ruined them, Harry, but you were the one who let him in there!"
"We just wanted to have a look."
"You did more than look!"
"Well, if you'd ever let me in there, I would've been able to answer his question about what you were doing in there!"
"You've always been able to get in there! The only thing I ever asked was that you didn't go in there when I wasn't there. Why do you think there was a sofa in there?"
"You always locked the door!"
"Which you could unlock, clearly. You managed it tonight."
"I thought you didn't want me in there!"
"And I thought you didn't want to come in!"
"I didn't know how to get in until tonight. It seemed like you didn't want me in there."
Draco sat up and turned to face Harry.
"I always want you by my side, I love you. You complete moron!" Draco said. "Why do you think I altered the locking charm so only you or I could unlock it?"
"I'm sorry, Draco, I'm really, really sorry."
"And I'm sorry you felt like I didn't want you in there."
Harry crossed the room and sat down on the bed beside Draco. Draco reached out and took Harry's hand in his.
"I'm sorry–"
"I know you are, Harry. I forgive you." Draco gave Harry's hand a squeeze and a small smile. "And I'm sorry I thought you were the one who ruined my potions."
"I'll help you redo your potion–" Harry began.
"No, you ruddy well will not! I'm quite partial to living!" Draco exclaimed in horror.
"I'm not Neville! I'm not that bad at potions," Harry protested.
"Nor are you that good," Draco muttered.
"I resent that. I was better at potions than you in our sixth year." Harry grinned at Draco and Draco gave Harry a pointed look.
"No, you weren't. Severus was."
Harry opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it and closed his mouth again. They both burst out laughing.
"I love you," they both said together.