Disclaimer: Slightly used but never abused.
Harry's Slightly Used Invisibility Cloak Emporium
Harry's temples began to throb as he felt repeated attempts to jam a probe through his developing mental shields.
He wouldn't have had to go through any of this crap if Snape had bothered to teach rather than torture, he thought to himself, but he figured the odds were really against that ever happening.
He'd had to find out how to develop mental shields by going through all his school books. Strangely enough there was a brief mention of an easy to use technique in the back of his self transfigurations book that had worked fine, well it had worked fine against Snape and Dumbledore, Voldemort was another matter and he was proving himself to be even more a pain in the ass than he usually was.
"God damn it," Harry growled. "I have had it." The boy rummaged around his trunk until he found a sock and then walked to the yard, snagging a can of soup from the kitchen as he went. Harry slipped the can into the sock and gave it a couple practice swings before he followed his nose to the Order guard.
"Pot . . ." Harry cut the man off with a well placed strike and another and another and another, actually things just went red for a few minutes. When Harry came back to his senses, he saw a mop of greasy hair and a bloodied invisibility cloak.
"Doesn't look like I killed the bastard," Harry sighed. "Pity." Then in the spirit of all good adventures, Harry emptied the bastard's pockets and appropriated the invisibility cloak, never know when a spare might come in handy.
Of course, between the beatings and the chores, Harry learned a lot about how to get bloodstains out of damn near everything.
Harry had just about finished cleaning up and packing his things when he was disturbed by another of the many people that had played a hand in ruining his life.
"Harry," Dumbledore said with a kindly voice, "I . . ." Harry cut the old man off with a soup can to the side of the face. It took three more hits before Dumbledore stopped moving.
"Looks like I didn't manage to kill you either," Harry mused as he secured the Headmaster's wand, "consider this a thank you for the day you left me on the bloody doorstep." An experimental wave produced a cascade of sparks from the tip of Dumbledore's wand, which cheered Harry up a bit, as he knew the underage magic office tracked by wand rather than by person.
"And why don't we just figure that the wand and everything else in your pockets are your way of apologizing?" Harry asked. "Say absolutely nothing if you agree that I just came up with a splendid plan."
Dumbledore didn't admit so much as a groan, signifying that he did indeed think that Harry had come up with a marvelous plan.
With that, Harry added Dumbledore's things to his own and skipped out of the Dursley house with smile on his face, a song in his heart, and a slightly dented can of chicken soup in a bloody sock.
IIIIIIIIII
The first hint the Order had that something had gone wrong was when Snape didn't show up for the meeting.
Course since no one cared about the nasty bastard, this hint was largely ignored. Well ignored if you don't count Tonks' attempt to start a 'wave' like she'd seen done at muggle football games.
The second hint the Order received was when they noticed that the Headmaster was more then three hours 'fashionably late.'
Most members just noted that the Headmaster was a busy man and resolved to wait until the old man had enough spare time to devote to fighting Voldemort.
Between arranging his sock collection and inspecting the latest issue of 'Gigantic Asses', Dumbledore had been late a couple of times before.
The final hint the Order got that all was not right in the world was when a bloody Severus Snape showed up and began screaming something about Potter going insane. Granted, most of the members were too enchanted by the way the Potion Master's teeth kept flying out to pay much attention, but enough people got the gist of it to direct the rest to the Dursley Abode.
IIIIIIIIII
Harry took stock of the situation. It didn't look good, all he had was an untraceable wand of immense power that had once belonged to the Headmaster, two invisibility cloaks, several assorted potions, an assortment of mysterious items, a large amount of cash in Galleons as well as Pounds, some . . . come to think of it, things were looking pretty damned good after all.
"Go me," Harry cheered himself. Damn he was good. "Now all I gotta do is learn some incredible magic and." Some of the seldom used gears in Harry's brain began to turn. "And then they'll use the underage magic detectors to catch me." He glanced down at his new untraceable wand of immense power that had once belonged to the Headmaster. "And I was really looking forward to playing with this thing too." Best to be on the safe side and make sure that the charms followed the wand rather then the wizard.
The gears continued turning, how was he going to protect himself from the assorted obstacles that were sure to throw themselves into his path without using massive amounts of magic?
"Illegal things for sale," a man in a large trenchcoat called out, "all kinds of illegal and semi-legal things for sale."
"That'll work," Harry said cheerfully. He walked up to the man. "Do you take gold?"
IIIIIIIIII
Arthur was in his element. As Director of the Department that Delt with Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, he was the Order Expert in muggle affairs and thus was the most qualified man available to track Harry down in the muggle world. The dozens of better qualified muggleborn that had been passed over to give him both jobs would have begged to disagree, but they were muggleborn so their opinions didn't count.
Arthur crept slowly, ever so slowly through the alley way clad in his pink kilt an lime green jodhpurs.
"Easy now," he whispered to himself, "steady as she goes . . ." Arthur felt a sharp pain in his neck and collapsed to the ground.
"Are you okay, Mr. Weasley?" Harry asked in concern.
"What happened?" Arthur gasped.
"I'm afraid I had to tase you, Mr. Weasley," Harry replied mournfully.
"I'm not familiar with that spell," Arthur said thoughtfully, "where did you learn it?"
"It's not a spell," Harry explained, "I'm trying to avoid doing magic."
"Sensible," Arthur agreed, "so how did you . . ."
"It's a muggle device," Harry explained. He pulled the taser out of his pocket.
"Fascinating," Arthur eyes were shining as he regarded the device in Harry's hands. "How does it work?"
IIIIIIIIII
Hermione looked up from her book suddenly.
"Harry senses . . . tingling . . ." the girl sighed. "Can't he stay out of trouble for one damned week? Just one bloody week."
Hermione closed her book half way.
"On the other hand, this is a really good chapter and it's not like he'll need my help right away," Hermione justified to herself. "So it wouldn't hurt anything if I just read a few more pages before rushing off to help him."
Her mind made up, Hermione turned back to her book, an unabridged copy of War and Peace in the original Russian, thus assuring that she wouldn't be in the story any time soon.
IIIIIIIIII
"What's that Arthur?" Tonks asked. The jolly old man was playing with an odd looking black box.
"Harry gave it to me," Arthur said proudly. He activated it again and watched the lightning dance between the two contacts. "It's a muggle device of some sort."
"What's it do?" Tonks asked.
"Well . . ."
"Urhagggg," Tonks squealed as she toppled to the floor.
"It uses batteries," Arthur said to the trembling Auror, "isn't it just grand?"
"Arthur what did you just do to poor Nymphadora?" Molly demanded. The rest of the order turned to watch. "Well?" Molly demanded.
"Just showing her this muggle toy that Harry gave me."
"Well do it after the meeting," Molly said with a long suffering sigh, "we need to pay attention while other people give their reports."
"Yes, dear."
IIIIIIIIII
Harry wandered into the best (and most hazardous) joke shop in Diagon Alley.
"Harry," the twins called out.
"Buddy."
"Partner."
"Hippopotamus."
"What?" George asked, as he gave his brother an odd look.
"Hippopotamus Handcuffs," Fred replied, "that's what we can call our newest prank."
"Brilliant."
"Masterful."
"Profitable," Harry interrupted.
"We hope so anyway," Fred agreed.
"What can we do for you, Harry?" George asked.
"Just wondering if you two would be willing to help me with a few things," Harry replied, "nothing much."
"What can we do for you, Harry?"
"I just need your help marketing a few things," Harry replied.
He pulled out his spare invisibility cloak and an assortment of other items looted from the Order members that had been unfortunate enough to cross his path.
"You think you could set up a display for all this maybe?"
"Sure thing," George agreed, "this a one time thing or will you have more stuff?"
"POTTER," Snape screeched. "I knew I'd find you here, now give me my wand and . . ."
A red haired fist came out of nowhere, silencing the gobshite and removing him from the land of consciousness.
"Flying Fisting," Fred explained proudly, "our store security system."
"Gonna be a pain to explain what happened to him thought," George sighed, "and I'm kinda annoyed that I didn't get to do that myself."
"Tell him I did it," Harry said cheerfully.
He walked up to his former Potions Professor and planted several kicks in the man's ribs before crouching down and once again removing everything of value on the bastard's person.
"And you know what you asked about getting more stuff?" Harry asked over his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure that there will be plenty."
"Might be a good idea to build up the inventory before selling it all then," Fred said thoughtfully.
"Might also be a good idea to take some of our goods to test out," George added. Visions of profit danced in his head, they didn't even need to advertise that Harry Potter used their stuff, word of mouth would suffice.
"Thanks for helping me out guys," Harry said.
"No problem Harry-"
"-anything for a friend."
"Still, I really appreciate the fact that you didn't try to sell me out to Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore trusts Snape," Fred explained.
"Which makes us seriously question his judgment-"
"-and his sanity."
"-and his sexuality."
"-and his sanity."
"We already used sanity," George pointed out.
"Yeah, but there are more reasons than just Snape to question it. Look at who else he's hired."
"Good point." Boot to the ribs.
"Good point." Boot to the ribs.
IIIIIIIIII
Harry whistled cheerfully as he headed down Knockturn alley, enjoying the sights and sounds that would have surely given the Dursleys conniption fits.
He made a mental note to have Hermione develop a spell that could inflict... err gift his family members with copies of his memories of walking through the place.
'Of course Hermione may not be the best person to create a spell, since magic seems to be based on something other than logic. Maybe with Luna's help...' Harry thought to himself before his mind drifted off imagining Luna and Hermione working late at night together and then Susan came in . . .
IIIIIIIIII
Several Death Eaters had quietly filtered into the alley when they had been told by one of their informants that Harry had been seen out and about without escort.
They knew Harry wasn't even a fully trained wizard, but he had faced their lord in battle several times and lived, so rather than rushing in throwing spells at him and risking their lives, they decided to do something that was decidedly Slytherin for a change, at the request of one of their former Ravenclaw members, strangely enough.
They'd gotten a hold of a young Boggart, that had never been exposed to any living thing before and they planned on having it imprint itself on him.
Boggart's young are extremely dangerous in that just before they reach maturity they will bond to any creature they are exposed to and using that bond they will increase the fear to lethal levels and feed off the fear of the creature until it dies of it, giving them the energy they need to reach full maturity.
So having bought a boggart that had been raised in captivity and not bonded to anyone the Death Eaters had what they believed to be a fool proof plan.
Unfortunately the shopkeeper had been a bigger fool than usual and had separated the young boggart from its parent before it had been taught how to hunt and feed off of emotions, so when the Death Eaters and had banished it from its container to just in front of a fantasizing Harry something unusual occurred.
IIIIIIIIII
In light of who was involved with the scene, it wasn't surprising that news of the event spread at the only thing faster then the speed of light. Rumor.
"What!? I most certainly was not making with Luna and Susan in the middle of Knockturn Alley!"
"What? I was being ravished by Hermione and Susan in Knockturn Alley? Oh, poo. If I knew that I would have made sure to attend."
"What!? Susan was being cosy with Hermione and Luna in the middle of Knockturn Alley!? And they asked Harry Potter to join them!? SUSAN!"
"Urk! Hannah, I swear, I wouldn't do that! ...Not that there's anything wrong with it."
"Well, no. But I refuse to loan you out to anyone, Susan. At least not without me."
IIIIIIIIII
Several shocked Death Eaters stumbled into the Dark Lord's hide out after witnessing Harry's reaction to the boggart during their unsuccessful attempt on his life.
"Tell me you fools haven't failed me again," Voldemort growled.
"It wasn't a total loss master," one of the Death Eaters simpered, "we learned Potter's greatest fear."
"We already know Potter's greatest fear." Voldemort struck what he thought was a menacing pose.
"Er . . . it's not you, master."
"Of course it's me," Voldemort shouted. "I killed the boy's family, his friend, and made his life a living hell!"
"You were also unsuccessful in all your attempts to kill him, master." one of the Death Eaters pointed out. "According to 'Teen Witch,' he regards you as a major annoyance but . . ."
"Annoyance?" Voldemort roared.
"A major one, master."
"CRUCIO." Voldemort held the curse until the man's brains were leaking out his nose. "If Potter is not sensible enough to hold me as his greatest fear, then what does he fear above all other things?"
"Well . . ."
IIIIIIIIII
Severus Snape wasn't the only Order member lurking around the twin's joke shop. Arthur Weasley had again picked up Harry's trail and had followed the boy from Diagon Alley to a sparsely populated section of town that Arthur had never been in before.
"Hey Mr. Weasley. It's you following me, right?"
"Harry you shouldn't--"
"I know, Mr. Weasley, but before we discuss that, I wanted to know if you've ever seen a Muggle device like this?"
"What is it?" Arthur's attention was captured by a small device in Harry's hands. "Does it use batteries?"
"Nope," Harry replied, "would you like to see how it works?"
"If it's not too much trouble," Arthur agreed, his love of muggle devices again getting the better of his sense of duty to the Order.
"Just look right into the nozzle," Harry replied as he flicked off the pepper sprays' safety.
He'd actually feel some guilt for using muggle defense measures against the man who treated him like one of his own sons if not for the fact that the man didn't seem to mind as long as he got to play with it himself afterwords.
IIIIIIIIII
Fred and George had a large dunk tank set up in front of their shop.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Fred called out, "step right up and throw a dung balloon at the git."
Severus Snape was tied up, gagged, and ready to be dumped into a rather unpleasant liquid.
"Or you can hit the target and dunk him in the ooze," George added, "but he might escape if you do that."
"Can we do it, Aunty?" Susan asked. "Please?"
"How much?" Amelia Bones asked.
"Free for current and past students of Hogwarts," Fred replied glibly.
"All we ask is that you take a look at our store after you throw all the dung balloons in your bucket," George added, "throw your dung balloons, look in the store, and get a new bucket."
"A deal like that you'll never find at Zonkos," Fred said quickly.
"We'll take two buckets then." Amelia stretched out her throwing arm. "Let's see if this old girl still has it."
"Hit him in the nose and we'll refill your bucket," George called out.
Within seconds, they had a large crowd formed in front of their shop. Future generations of businessmen would agree that it was the most brilliant piece of marketing in history.
IIIIIIIIII
Pansy was able to keep her feelings bottled until she and the other girls were ushered out of the Dark Lord's audience chamber and given some time to digest their orders.
"YES," Pansy squealed, "score."
"You actually like the fact that the Dark Lord has ordered us into Potter's harem?" Tracy exclaimed in shock.
"What?" Pansy asked when the others stared at her in shock. "It's better then having to marry Draco."
There were several sage nods of agreement at that pronouncement.
"Good point," Tracy conceded. "Though I must admit that this latest plan to kill or emotionally destroy Potter is a bit less . . ."
"Traditional?" Daphne suggested.
"Yes, traditional," Tracy agreed, "than his other plans."
"Is it even possible to kill a teenage boy with too much sex?" another girl wondered aloud.
"Oh, haven't you read "Harems Throughout The Middle Ages"? *sigh* "The Earl of Pudding died of a massive sex overdose at the age of 19, leaving his 32 wives behind. His ghost watched over them until they all died, some 20 years later. He was quoted to have said, "I knew having a minimum sex requirement, and removing the "'til death do we part" clause as a good idea."
"Granger? How'd you find the Dark Lord's secret base?"
"The Straps 'n' Things BDSM Parlor does not a secret base make."
IIIIIIIIII
"What was that?" Arthur asked with tears flowing down his face.
"It's pepper spray," Harry replied, "think of it as a muggle potion and this device is a muggle potion thrower."
"Do you have any more of them?" Arthur asked eagerly.
"Sure," Harry agreed, "loads. Would you like me to give you a couple to play with . . . er . . . examine?"
IIIIIIIIII
Dumbledore was strolling down the alley. He'd heard there was a sale on slightly used invisibility cloaks along with several other things needed by the Order and he was eager to pick them up before they had a chance to fall into the wrong hands.
After pushing his way through the enormous crowd that had formed around the entrance to the WWW joke shop, he beheld the most extraordinary sight. An angry mob had formed and was pelting an enraged baboon with dung balloons. Though, there was something off about the baboon . . .
"My word," Dumbledore gasped, "Severus."
He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and confronted the Weasley twins.
"Boys," he began in his most grandfatherly tone, "I'm going to have to insist that you release Severus this instant and . . ."
"Afraid we can't do that, Professor." George said mournfully. "The charms holding him there are too powerful for us."
"Only way to let him down is to hit that target over there with one of the balloons," Fred added, "care to try your luck?"
IIIIIIIIII
"What do you got now Arthur?" Tonks asked. "And please don't use it on me this time."
"It's a potion throwing device," Arthur said with a happy grin, "Harry gave it to me."
"If Potter had it then it can't possibly work," Snape said with a haughty sneer. "And aside from the fact that it's tainted by the boy's incompetence, there is no way in hell that mere muggles could make any useful discoveries in the field of potions." Proving once again the old adage that you can't teach a hidebound bigoted bastard new tricks.
"Shall we try it out then?" Arthur asked hopefully.
"Do as you wish," Snape snarled.
"Right then." Arthur pointed the device at Snape as he mentally went through the checklist that Harry gave him. "Here we go then."
"Arrrrg," Snape screamed, "it burns, my eyes they burn."
"I guess it works then," Tonks said dryly.
"Quite," Arthur agreed with a pleased smile, "they only work once though."
"Do you think Harry could get me one?" Tonks asked hopefully.
"I'm sure he could," Arthur said, "he gave me ten of them to play with."
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
IIIIIIIIII
Harry was polishing his new super wand when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up. He jumped up and spun around, scanned the motel room, but couldn't see anything out of place.
'Maybe, I'm just getting paranoid?' Harry contemplated the thought for a moment. 'Nah, got too many people after me to be paranoid.'
Shrugging off his unease he turned back around to begin polishing his wand again, when he felt someone tap him on the side of his neck with a wand.
'Busted!' Harry thought to himself, wondering who had actually caught up with him, but relatively sure it was one of the Order, since anyone else would probably have cursed him in the back by now.
He slowly turned around and was stunned speechless to find himself face to face with Luna Lovegood, wearing some sort of mist like cloak and not much else from what glimpses he kept catching as the cloak shifted.
"L-Luna?" he finally managed to stutter out as she pushed him towards the bed, recalling her or someone polyjuicing her having accosted him in the middle of the alley and causing a scene, and a serious need for a change of boxers, earlier that day.
The blond Ravenclaw didn't say a word as her misty cloak faded away, making him wonder what exactly was going on with her, not that he was complaining, he was confused not stupid.
As she slunk towards him, rolling her hips, her form shifted into Susan Bones.
"Tonks!" he grinned as he finally figured out what was going on.
The smirking figure's wand disappeared as her features shifted into those of his favorite metamorph and the pinkette tackled him onto the bed.
IIIIIIIIII
Tonks examined the muggle potion throwing device, careful not to set it off. "Next time you catch up with Harry, tell him I want to know where he got all of these things. Non-magical means of taking down suspects and magical resistant creatures without causing any permanent damage could make us a mint."
"I'll let him know," Arthur promised, pleased to have someone else share an interest in muggle devices.
Molly rolled her eyes as she served supper, happy that her husband had found someone else to bother with his hobby.
IIIIIIIIII
Luna Lovegood frowned as she had the distinct feeling that someone was having fun with her and she wasn't involved somehow. Well no matter, she resolved to make whoever it was make it up to her later, when she found out who it was and in the meantime she had course work due on
her mail order potions mastery.
IIIIIIIIII
Harry slept the sleep of the just... well more the sleep of the just completely exhausted, but deep enough that he never noticed the pink haired girl in bed with him dissolve into mist and vanish from the room.
AN: Not quite the way I expected things to turn out, not that there's anything wrong with that. Happy Boxing day if I've got the time zones right and have gotten it up in time. Polish and scenes by dogbertcarroll, scenes by rijl_kent and SP .
OMAKE for Neutered by zeynel
Hermione was sitting with Harry in the Great Hall:
"Oh, my parents had no problem with the adoption once it was explained to them. I just have two sets of parents and no more bad hair problems now -thanks magic and magical adoption, I got a bit of each world-. Oh, and Mother -Narcissa, I mean- and mum just love each other! The moment she learned about teeth whitening -impossible with magic-, they became fast friends! It's not like the cost is much for a family like the Malfoy, and it makes a nice income for my parents. And so Lucius is forbidden to hurt them. Besides, it interested him, too, one more way to look better than his peers at the wizengamot..."
Harry nodded, before frowning.
"Hey, do you think Lockheart did it, too? I always though his too white teeth were suspicious..."
Hermione blinked before tilting her head, pondering the question.
"That... Is quite possible, now that I think of it."
Lavender, who was listening quietly some seats away, asked suddenly:
"But... Does it not bother you, having Malfoy as a brother?"
"Yes!" added Parvati, several murmures agreeing with her "He's not the menace he was before, but it doesn't stop him from being unpleasant!"
Harry and Hermione both burst into laughter, to the surprise of those surrounding them.
"Well, everybody has unpleasant family members. And I'm the Malfoy heiress, now." Hermione smirked. "I mean, with Draco unable to continue the line... He's been allowed to keep the name and have a little triffle to live with, but the fortune and title are mines!"