Snips and Scars In Which Catching Up is Done, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter 42, everybody! Let's go shopping!

Had a lot of fun with this chapter, and coming up with the various bits and pieces—it's nice letting the characters chill out and have fun. :D The warrior owl books are a reference to Guardians of Ga'Hoole, while the dragon POV book is in reference to either Wings of Fire or the fanfic Harry is a Dragon, and That's Okay. Either way, fun stuff.

Harry's reaction to new glasses is honestly mine—I hadn't gotten new glasses for 10+ years, and the first time I wore the new pair I could read the signs on the other end of the mall. Caused some eyestrain for a while, honestly….

Thanks to James Birdsong, dianaanne, slytherinsal, and Guest for the reviews! Dumbledore's just now starting his investigation into Snips, so this should be a bit. Also yes Fitzherbert counts as a familiar and we haven't figured out who Trevor is spying on yet. The mark of a good spy….

Lunch ended with Luna leading her new army of gnomes back home after having an extended discussion with Remus, Ron happily waving the gnomes farewell.

"Hopefully they won't come back," Ron said. "The gnomes, I mean, not Luna."

"Although I do enjoy tossing the little tossers," Fred mused.

The rest of the day involved giving Sirius and Remus the grand tour, Harry slowly getting used to the concept of adults who actually liked having him around and genuinely wanted to know more about him. occasionally Sirius would turn into a dog and run off chasing something, would return with the biggest stick he could find.

"So I've discovered there's benefits to this not being a secret anymore," Sirius announced, leaning on his latest acquisition.

"You're ridiculous," Remus told him. "Give me that stick."

"No—get your own."

It also made dinner interesting, as Mr. Weasley had to be brought up to speed, then Percy, before conversation turned to who would make it to the finals.

Harry did, however, make it a point to go through all his potions books in an attempt to find one in particular.

"Harry, no offense, but homework's done and you've got that trip tomorrow," Ron told him, looking up from his Chudley Cannons book.

"I know," Harry said. "I'm trying to find the Wolfsbane potion."

"That one Professor—er, Remus has to take?"

"Yeah—he said it was expensive and that Slughorn was still making some for him and shipping it to him, but I was hoping to see what all goes into it."

Snips made an aggrieved noise before fluffing up one of his pillows and flopping down—Mrs. Weasley had had to enlarge his little bed (alongside several of Harry's clothes when her food finally achieved the desired result), but Snips still was much smaller than Hedwig, wingspan maybe matching one of her wings at this point.

Harry finally had to admit that the potion wasn't in any of his books after an hour, and resolved to see about picking up a new book tomorrow.

"You'll want to be careful about that," Ron said as he turned the light off. "That path leads to Hermione-ness."

Harry had to concede that point.

Harry was roused the next morning by the smell and sound of bacon sizzling, followed his nose down to the kitchen to find that Sirius was already up and nursing a coffee at the kitchen table.

"Howzit, Harry?" he greeted as Harry joined him.

"You're up early," Harry observed.

"One of the side effects of part-timing as a canine is that the existence of food immediately wakes you up. I'm not sure if it's a benefit or a drawback."

Harry tried to control a snicker at that, thanked Mrs. Weasley when she put a plate of food in front of him, had a moment of silence before digging in.

"So," Harry said after a while. "I wasn't sure if you were serious about yesterday—"

"I'm always Sirius," he responded. "But yes. You can bring your friends, if Molly okays it?"

"Is Remus going with you?" she asked. When Sirius nodded: "Then yes. Not that I don't trust you, but I don't need to be hearing about you helping the twins turn everyone in Diagon Alley lime green or something. Should have at least gotten a better grade in Charms," she muttered as she went back to the stove.

"So that's settled," Sirius said—looked over when Remus shambled over. "Howzit, Remus?"

"What house is this?" Remus yawned. "I smell bacon."

"You also smell coffee," Sirius said, waving the pot in his direction. "Sit down, compose yourself…for like three weeks after term ended he kept waking up early, first out of habit and then in a panic because he thought he was late to class," Sirius told Harry as Remus poured himself a cup.

"I thought I was done with it all," Remus sighed, taking a long sip. "This is really good coffee."

Ron drifted down soon after, then Ginny, and about five minutes after that everyone was revived enough to start having proper conversation.

"Still not sure what to make of the Marauder's Map being commercialized," Sirius said.

"I'm still including the proper credits," Remus said, cutting into his egg. "With one exception."

"Good."

"Did he really contribute that much?" Harry asked.

"Mostly did gofer work," Remus said. "Made sure we didn't fall asleep in wet ink."

"Subject change," Sirius said, lifting a finger.

"Right. Moving on, the Marauder's Map only has three Marauders going forward."

"That's still creepy to think about," Ginny said.

"So lucky I didn't find out," Mrs. Weasley muttered darkly at the porridge she was stirring.

"Mates, this isn't how a subject change works," Sirius said.

"Sorry," Harry said.

"It's a bit hard to ignore," Ron said. "I mean, he slept in my room."

"On the one hand, it's important to verbalize it and get it out of your system," Remus said. "On the other, yes it's also important to respect boundaries."

"Such as now," Sirius said.

"Yes, such as now. If you've noticed, Sirius has been working hard to avoid thinking about or talking about he-who-must-not-be-named."

Ron blinked. "You mean You-Know-Who? Because of…you know?"

"Mmm? Oh no—Sirius calls You-Know-Who Moldy-Voldy. He-who-must-not-be-named is what he calls that rat that used to sham as a pet in this household."

"Ah," Ron noised in understanding.

Harry, meanwhile, had come to the unavoidable knowledge that Remus had said that within hearing of Fred and George, who nearly fell down the stairs holding in laughs.

"Moldy-Voldy," Fred giggled.

"Brilliant," George said.

"Why did we never hear this before?"

"Much less wordy than You-Know-Who."

"Or he-who-must-not-be-named."

"Most excellent," they both agreed.

They got ready after breakfast, found that once again Floo was to be the preferred method of travel (Harry quickly practiced saying Diagon Alley under his breath, not wanting to end up in Knockturn Alley again). Fred and George were the last to come down, toting several caps as they came.

"Now seems like a good time to test these," George said, holding one up.

"Hats?" Harry asked.

"It's Fred and George," Ron said. "They're not just hats, probably."

"You are correct, our dear younger brother," Fred said. "We're still trying to nail down a better name than disguise hats, but the idea is you slap one on and get a random glamour while you wear it. Thus far we've only managed to change hair color, debating on whether that's enough."

"It works as such," George said, putting one on. "How do I look?"

"We've finally worked it out of that horrible puce color," Fred said, admiring George's lime-green hair.

"Oh this—this is brilliant," Sirius said, putting one on and turning his hair hot pink. "I love it—and you say you made these?"

"We did," Fred said.

"It was nothing," George added, both of them trying not to preen.

"We've also made glitter howlers—"

"Still trying to figure out a better name for those."

"But we've got the kinks worked out of those."

Ron made a face at one before trying it on. "Well?"

"Your hair is still orange," Harry said. "Maybe a lighter color, but still."

"Try taking it off and putting it back on," George told him—which resulted in his hair turning an electric blue. "Much better."

"These are brilliant," Remus said, taking one. "And should make it just a little easier to navigate while everyone gets used to a certain someone roaming about freely."

"That was the idea."

"Fred, George," Mrs. Weasley said, holding one of the hats and looking at them. "How did you not get better grades on your OWLs?"

"Not everyone likes neon, as it turns out," Fred said.

"Or glitter," George added.

"Shame, that."

Vibrantly purple hair aside, Harry was glad of the hat for the simple fact that it hid his scar. It was nice to be able to walk along Diagon Alley without having people stare at him. Well, actually people were staring, but they were also staring at the others, so Harry was going to attribute it to the hair.

The day was aggressively sunny and warm, so they spent the first half hour walking up and down the alley and pointing out interesting things in the store windows before eventually ducking in to cool off and shop. Remus suggested the eyeglass store when they passed it, and when they came back out Harry was astonished at how clear everything was.

"That's how it's supposed to look, mate," Ron told him. "They look good though."

After that was running back and forth, going to Enchanting Everyday Wear and Flourish and Blott's. As always, the former had plenty of entertaining outfits to choose from (Sirius revealed that the shirt he was currently wearing had been bought from here and the drummer on the front would play if tapped on), and Sirius seemed amused by Harry's choice of browsing in the latter.

"Your mom was big on potions too," he said as Harry sorted through potions books, checking with Snips whether they were a yea or a nay. "She and Snape were always top of the class."

"Was my dad any good at them?" Harry asked.

"No, Transfiguration was more his thing—which reminds me, add this to your cart," he said, taking a book titled Animorphology off a nearby shelf. "Not sure where the fascination with magical creatures comes in though."

"Snips," Harry said simply. "It started off with trying to figure out what he was and then it snowballed from there. Herbology is more because it's interesting—most Muggle plants don't try to kill you."

"That does sound rather tame in comparison. What about fiction? Muggles read those too?"

Which led to examining the fiction section too—Ginny found a book series about warrior owls and Harry found a book written from the viewpoint of a dragon, which seemed the sort of thing Hagrid would like (his last letter said he was visiting Romania again to check in on Nora and was wondering how he was going to get the plus-sized teddy bear filled with dragon treats past customs). Herbology was browsed also because Neville's birthday was coming up—Ron barked out a laugh suddenly and called Harry's attention to a book called The Hairy Potter: A Biography of a Herbologist, which entertained Harry so much that he bought two and declared the second for Neville. As for Potions, Snips signed off on Five Hundred Potions to Brew Before You Die, An Assortment of Advanced Potions, and his own copy of Better Herbs and Potions, so he didn't have to keep borrowing Mrs. Weasley's.

After that was a visit to Florence's, who recognized Harry despite the hair and agreed it was amusing between chortles. They enjoyed their ice cream outside, Sirius and Remus quizzing Fred and George on their products as Harry resisted tugging out one of his new acquisitions and instead discussed Quidditch for a while with Ron and Ginny, who said she was thinking about trying out for the team this year.

"I've been playing against my brothers all my life, so I know the basics," she said. "And there's no harm in trying, right?"

Harry and Ron agreed, and when the ice cream was getting close to being done they debated on where to go next.

"I kind of wish I brought my potions supplies so I knew what I was low on," Harry said, eyeing the apothecary down the way.

"Well the good news is, Diagon Alley isn't going anywhere anytime soon," Remus said reasonably. "You can make a list when we get back and then we can visit some other day."

That was fair enough, Harry agreed, which made the next store they visited Quality Quidditch Supplies. Nothing had unseated the Firebolt yet, but that didn't mean they couldn't explore and soak up the heated discussions focused on the rapidly approaching finals.

After that they went to Elyop's, where Sirius informed Ron that he was buying him an owl to replace he-who-must-not-be-named, seeing as it was his fault Ron no longer had a pet. Ginny helped with the decision of the little owl that had escaped from its cage and kept zooming around their heads, and the cashier seemed happy to be rid of it.

It did lead to an interesting argument on the way back to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch and then the Burrow, in-between Ron thanking Sirius profusely.

"We're not calling him Pigwidgeon," Ron insisted.

"But it's a cute name! It fits!" Ginny insisted.

"Ginny when you get your own pet you can name that one."

"Fine then, what's your grand idea for his name then?"

Ron's extended silence and sour expression suggested he didn't have one. "I'll think of something," he muttered.

Ron did not.