elderberryink

elderberryink @ 2007-04-21T16:29:00

2007-04-21T15:50:21Z

Title: Goodness Gracious Me
Fandom: Doctor Who/House MD crossover.
Pairings: Gen
Summary: Rose and the Doctor (Ten) are fresh and glowing from their latest saving-the-world gig when Rose comes over a bit funny and ends up in hospital under the tender, caring wing of House's team. A TARDIS malfunction (yes, one of those, a very rare occurence plotwise I know) leads to House being rather more curious about Rose's popping-up-in-odd-places friend than the actual, y'know, potentially life-threatening illness.

Note: the title does not have anything to do with the comedy show, so people expecting amusing Anglo-Asian hijinks may be disappointed. It's just because the song starts 'Oh doctor, I'm in trouble..'. Also it continues into a confession of heart-palpitating lust for the good doctor, and I know there are lots out there with similar feelings towards Mr Laurie and Mr Tennant.

‘…And let that be a lesson to you to never play with mysterious glowing green objects again!’ the Doctor said sternly to the frightened-looking woman standing next to him, and then he and Rose saved the world. Again.

‘All done, then?’ asked Rose afterwards, sitting down thankfully on a handy wall. Averting a potential catastrophe (for the third time in one week) that could doom the entire human race to, well, doom, could really take it out of a girl, she thought. The Doctor beamed at her.

‘Yep! Medals all round and buns for tea. Ooh, no, hang on a minute, I should probably nip round the corner and give that short fella with the nose his shoes back.’ They looked at the shoes, without which the history of the twenty-first century would almost certainly have involved a lot more in the way of purple alien overlords. ‘Coming?’

It really was a very comfy wall, and Rose was now feeling slightly light-headed; the result, she assumed, of having to hang upside-down for the better part of five minutes in restraints designed for aliens with seven limbs while the Doctor ran around trying to find the ‘Free Rebellious Prisoner’ button.

‘No, you go ahead, I’ll just wait here. You know, look at the nice trees. Enjoy a few moments of not being in life-threatening danger. Put my feet up.’

‘There’s lots of girls’d be very grateful for a quality piece of life-threatening danger like that, Miss Tyler. Normally life-threatening danger is a lot more boring than that.’

‘Go on, go and give the poor man his shoes back.’

‘Right, back in a minute then.’ The Doctor started to walk off, then spun on his heel and pointed one of the shoes warningly at Rose. ‘No wandering off, mind.’

‘Nossir. Yessir,’ said Rose, and saluted.

‘You know, on Galapagostrinius Five that gesture actually means—’

‘Go!’ He went.

Unfortunately, mere seconds after the Doctor disappeared around the corner, Rose’s body chose that exact moment to quietly, and with a minimum of fuss, slide gently off the wall and into a neat heap on the ground. When the Doctor returned in ten minutes, after explaining to the man that while his shoes were now bright pink, they were also now the first shoes to have saved the universe, (so wasn’t that a lot better really, and besides, with that gorgeous colouring he was probably one of the few men who could really pull off pink shoes, no, he wasn’t trying to be funny, yes, he’d just be going) he was very put out to find a definite lack of cheerful blonde travelling companion.

Gentle enquiries on the subject put to the closest native led to an answer of ‘What, the blonde chick that collapsed? They took her to the hospital. Hey, are you from— right, yeah. It’s on the other side of town. Could you let go of my shirt? I kinda have to get to class.’

For House it starts yesterday, when he is looming over the nurse on duty and trying to convince her to let him sign off early. Normally he considers this to be a refreshing mid-afternoon mental exercise (far superior to Sudoku), but it has got much less fun since Cuddy taped a copy of his clinic schedule to the counter, went to town with the pink highlighters and told all the nurses they could enforce it by any means necessary. As he bats his eyelashes at the nurse (worth a try, but to no apparent effect-- his mother always told him he had beautiful blue eyes, but apparently she never told the nurse) he does a few mental calculations; two minutes to reach the end of this particular thread of the argument, thirty-two minutes until the end of her shift, two and a half hours since the nearest coffee machine broke down, so he’ll be out of here soon enough to watch his TV show as long as there are no--

‘Excuse me!’

--interruptions. Damn.

‘Excuse me, I think my friend may have been admitted here. Rose Tyler? Blonde, this tall, English, possibly unconscious, about twenty?’

The interruption is skinny and slightly mad looking, with messy brown hair and an accent, and to his irritation the nurse is now checking the admission records instead of paying attention to him.

‘Hey!’ He raps his cane on the top of the counter. ‘It was still my go. I need to sign off.’ The nurse glances up, exasperated, but the other man just looks at him, briefly, and then turns back to the nurse, clearly dismissing House as unimportant.

‘No, I’m sorry.’ The nurse shakes her head. ‘We don’t have any record of—’

‘Great. Wonderful,’ says House. ‘Now can I sign off? Some of us have better things to do with our Thursday afternoons than run around looking for comatose English blondes. I mean, I’ll certainly keep it in mind for Saturday nights, but—’

‘Thursday afternoon?’

House pauses, aggrieved.

‘I had a whole riff coming up there, you know.’ The other man stares straight ahead for a split second, then gives a wordless yelp of frustration and bolts off towards the exit.

House shrugs, and signs off.

‘One move. One simple jump, just in space, not in time, was that really too much too ask? Why did you have to— hammer, hammer, where did I put the hammer? —go wandering off to Thursday when I was specifically meant to be in Friday? Was there a reason for that, because as far as I can see it makes absolutely no sense at— oh. Well. Yes. Perhaps I should have pressed that. And not kicked that.’

The TARDIS remained diplomatically silent.

It continues on Friday, when House is lurking in an empty sleep lab to eat his lunch (to be picky, it’s actually his best friend’s lunch, which is why he’s lurking, because although it’s really fun when he manages to make Wilson’s voice go all squeaky and flustered, he also stole Chase’s fancy imported yoghurt, and Wilson gets so tedious when he’s on a ‘do not abuse your position of power to get dessert’ kick) and then unfortunately the kids all file into the room, with Cameron waving a file. He’s going to have to think up some new hiding places.

‘We’ve found a—’

‘New case, which is probably going to be pathetically boring. You each have one sentence to convince me otherwise. Go!’ He points at Cameron with his spoon.

‘One of the lab techs I know was telling me about it, it’s got the whole lot of them confused and once I’d looked at the printout I thought—’

‘Too long, too irrelevant.’ He swings round the spoon to Chase. ‘Go!’

‘There’s this— hey, that’s my yoghurt!’ House makes an obnoxious you-got-it-wrong quiz show buzzer sound and points at Foreman, who says smugly,

‘Unconscious Jane Doe admitted early this morning, hasn’t woken up yet, whose test results are all normal apart from a completely unidentifiable substance in her blood.’

‘Which explains the unconsciousness. Weird, yes, interesting, no. Not a diagnostic problem, not my problem. Leave it for the lab techs.’ Cameron and Chase stare at him piteously with their big, pretty eyes. Foreman’s big pretty eyes just do their standard exasperated upwards roll.

‘…She’s young, blonde, and cute?’ Chase offers lamely, and House turns to stare at him, a memory rising from the back of his brain.

‘Is she British?’ he demands. Chase looks put out.

‘She’s unconscious, how am I supposed to know? I don’t have…Commonwealth detector superpowers. Foreman just said she’s a Jane Doe. No ID on her.’

‘…But she did have three ten pound notes in her pockets,’ says Cameron in startled tones, looking up from the file. ‘How did you know?’

‘Not important. Tox screens?’

‘They already—’

‘Redo them.’

‘We’re taking the case then?’ asks Foreman.

‘Oh yes.’

So. Second go. Thankfully there was a different nurse on duty, because the Doctor had to admit looked slightly odd for him to be checking daily for unconscious friends. He’d just leaned on the counter and put on his most endearing grin (which, if he said so himself, was pretty damn endearing) when a scruffy man with a cane— the same one he’d seen a few minutes ago yesterday, the Doctor realised-- levered himself out of a nearby chair and said,

‘You. I’ve been waiting for you. Come with me.’ The man turned and walked off without waiting for answer. As summons went it definitely wasn’t the most cryptic the Doctor had ever had, but it still merited a ‘mildly intriguing’ classification. He did need to find Rose though.

‘Not that I’m not always up for a jaunt, but I am trying to find my friend, actually, Mr…?’ he called ahead. The man, who moved surprisingly fast for someone with a cane, stopped and waited for the Doctor to catch up.

‘Doctor. House. We’ve got your friend here. Her condition’s stable.’ Doctor House started off again.

‘And…not much to worry about, she’ll be up and about in no time, you’re taking me to her now and it’s just round the corner, sir?’ This earned him a sardonic sideways glance.

‘No, we are going…here. This’ll do,’ House said, stopping outside a nondescript-looking door. He motioned the Doctor through.

‘Well, this is a nice…cleaning cupboard. What’s wrong with Rose, Doctor House?’

House stepped forward slowly, and reached behind him with his cane to shut the door with a bang.

‘At the moment? I’m thinking poisoning. By you.’

It wasn’t her bed. She knew it wasn’t without even opening her eyes, because even though her bed in the TARDIS could occasionally get a bit creative and decide to change shape while she was asleep, she still always knew it was her bed by the comforting now-you-are-home feel of it, and the ever-present hum of engines.

Rose opened her eyes and thought, I am somewhere very very clean. Then she frowned, because her head felt…heavy, and strange, and thinking was like trying to wade through treacle, and the Doctor wasn’t there, where was the Doctor?

‘Where’s the Doctor?’ she said aloud, but it came out more like ‘Wzdr?’ and a woman in a white coat came over to the bed.

‘Oh, you’re awake.’ The woman smiled. She had very white teeth. Rose took a deep breath and asked again, clearly this time. The woman’s smile faltered slightly.

‘…I’m the doctor.’

Rose’s first mad, slow thought was that the Doctor had gone and died again while she wasn’t looking. If it turned out that not only had he regenerated into a woman, but he’d regenerated into a woman several dress sizes smaller than her, they were going to have words, she decided. Then common sense reasserted itself, and the word hospital floated hazily through her mind.

‘Right. Sorry. Meant…my friend. He’s…’ Rose trailed off, finding herself at a loss for words. ‘Never mind.’ Chances were if she needed to describe him, he wasn’t here. Noticeable. That was a word she could have used. Why wasn’t he here?

‘I know you’re probably feeling a bit disorientated at the moment, uh--’

‘Rose.’

‘Rose, but we need to know. Have you taken anything that could be causing your symptoms?’

Rose giggled weakly. That purple cocktail which the Doctor had insisted would do wonders for her skin, but had tasted like a cross between a Mars Bar and nail polish remover? Those weird triangle sweets which burst in your mouth from that rainforest planet? Alien Happy Meal from the future?

‘I…beg your pardon?’ Oh dear, she’d said the last one out loud.

‘Sorry. Er…private joke. I don’t think I’ve…’ What had she been about to say?

‘Rose? Rose, are you still with me?’

‘Nope,’ she murmured, and drifted back into oblivion.

elderberryink @ 2007-04-21T16:15:00

2007-04-21T15:29:23Z

Title: There's A Lot Goes On That Harry Doesn't Know About
Pairings: None really, suppose it's vaguely Ron/Hermione
Summary: This was going to end in tears, she just knew it. Either that or cat ears again.

Humour piece I'm not quite sure what to do with. I wanted to go through the whole of HBP from different characters points of view, hence the title, but so far I've just done a bit of Hermione's. Involves an amorous encounter with a brooding, black-haired dungeon-dwelling man, cheating at Scrabble, scurrilous rumours and broomstick polishing.

‘We mustn’t,’ whispered Hermione desperately, lips quivering as he took another step towards her, his face purposeful, black robes swirling imposingly around his lean yet muscular form. ‘It’s wrong’.

‘Wrong?’ he demanded, and his dark eyes flashed with such intensity and passion she felt as if he had glanced into the depths of her very soul, and seen the treacherous longing that lay within. ‘How can it be wrong, when every particle of my being yearns for you, aches for you? When my every waking hour is consumed, nay, tortured, by thoughts of what we could be, what we could do? Hermione-- my goddess--’

He brought his hand up to rest against her flushed cheek, and she suppressed a gasp; his touch had sent fire racing through her veins.

‘But-- what would people say?’ she said breathlessly, her mind trying to resist the inevitable even as her feet took her inexorably forwards, closer to his arms.

‘Do you think I care what people say?’ he asked. His words were soft, but the heat she could hear behind them sent thrills down her spine. ‘Damn them. Damn them all.’ And he swept her into a dizzying, rapturous embrace that seemed to last forever, though in reality, it was mere seconds before they broke apart, panting. He gazed at her with a kind of wonder, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough and ragged.

‘Swear to me,’ he said, capturing her hand in his, ‘Swear to me we shall never be parted, that from now on we shall be together always, in perfect bliss. Swear to be mine, and mine alone.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Hermione.

‘Oh, go on,’ said Ginny.

‘No,’ said Hermione.

‘Perhaps madam would prefer a different Daydream. Would madam care to try another two-minute sample?’

The blonde saleswitch waved a brightly-coloured box enticingly under Hermione’s nose.

‘How about this one? Passion on the Spanish Main, that’s very popular--’

‘No.’

‘Come on, Hermione, lighten up a little,’ said Ginny, rummaging enthusiastically through the samples. ‘You might as well, Fred did say you could have one for free-- and let me tell you, if it’s from Fred and George and you didn’t have to pay for it, you’ll want to keep it just for the novelty value anyway. Ooh, what about this one?’

She held up a packet with the title ‘Love in the Time of Dragon-Pox’ emblazoned across the top in what was, Hermione felt, unnecessarily curlicued and purple writing.

‘YOU are a tempestuous troubled beauty of seventeen, torn from the life you knew by a tragic accident which left all your beloved family Transfigured into shellfish. HE is the hot-blooded Latin ward of your new guardian- and sparks fly from the moment you meet. He is determined to make you his, however long it takes, but your guardian, Lord--’

‘I don’t want one, really, Ginny.’

‘The Veela and the Viscount.’

‘No.’

‘A Snitch in Time Made Him Mine: A thrilling tale of Quidditch, adventure and romance.’

‘No.’

‘Selina and the Sorcerer’s Staff.’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Shrakes and Serendipity.’

‘For the last time, I--’

‘It’s Regency…’

‘Ooh, really? Can I--’ Hermione stopped and cursed inwardly. That was it; there would be no escaping now. Once she thought she had a chance of winning, Ginny was as unstoppable as Hagrid in pursuit of something hairy and venomous, and about as easy to oppose as said hairy creature.

‘She’ll take that one,’ Ginny informed the saleswitch triumphantly, just as Fred appeared with Harry trailing along in his wake. Hermione hastily shoved the box into her bag; while she was fairly sure Harry was too busy gazing at Fred and George’s diverse ‘Things That Explode’ range to notice, she didn’t particularly want him (or Ron, wherever he was) to see her purchasing anything with such…questionable cover art as Shrakes and Serendipity. She was sure the neckline of the heroine’s dress was definitely not period.

This train of thought was abruptly brought to a halt as Hermione’s eyes were suddenly assaulted by some shelves of overwhelming pinkness. A sign above the display (also in eyewatering pink, but then again subtlety had never been the Weasley twins’ strong suit) read ‘Back to School Special: 30% off all WonderWitch products!!!’ Hermione gingerly picked up one of the less sparkly jars and looked at the label. A love potion!

‘Well, really,’ she said aloud. A girl next to her with mousy brown hair turned around to look at her.

‘Oh, I was just looking at those,’ she said. ‘They’re good, aren’t they? I’m not sure how you’d get someone to drink one, though, it’d probably look a bit suspicious if you just handed them a drink out of the blue. Are you going to buy one?’

‘No, and I don’t think you should either,’ said Hermione firmly. The girl looked rather confused and a little affronted. ‘What I mean is, there’s clearly not been much thought put into the ethical side of these products.’

Enlightenment failed to dawn.

‘Look, when you think about it,’ Hermione attempted, ‘what’s the moral difference between giving someone one of these love potions and putting them under Imperius to achieve the same effect?’ The girl gave her a look of horror and scuttled away to the other side of the shop, clearly convinced that here was a madwoman who was more than likely a Death Eater-in-waiting or something. Hermione sighed. ‘Not to mention the implications of only marketing love potions to girls,’ she muttered under her breath.

Wondering if it was worth trying to bring this up with Fred and George, she turned in time to see Harry’s head snap round to look at something outside. She followed his line of sight and saw an all too familiar blond head disappearing into the crowds. Oh dear. Hermione looked hopefully at Harry’s expression on the slim chance that he was just, for once, not going to follow it up. No, there was that look in his eyes again. Oh well. This was going to end in tears, she just knew it. Either that or cat ears again.

Sunday:

‘Don’t you think it was a bit suspicious, though?

‘Yes, Harry.’

‘I mean, it’s Borgin and Burkes. It sells bits of dead bodies. He can’t have been there for anything good, right?’

‘No, Harry.’

‘And it must have been something really bad, if he didn’t want his mum to see him buy it. It’s not like she’s got anything against the Dark Arts, look what she married.’

‘Yes, Harry. Harry?’

‘What?’

‘I know you want to continue the conversation, but I’d rather you didn’t follow me into the bathroom.’

‘Oh! Er-- right. Yes. Sorry.’

‘Who’s following you into the bathroom?’

‘No one, Ron.’

Tuesday:

‘I’m just saying, I think Malfoy’s up to something.’

‘Malfoy’s always up to something. Vacuum, thirteen points.’

‘Yeah, he’s probably just redecorating and wanted to buy some of those skulls. That’s never a real word!’

‘Vacuum: a space empty of matter; a void.’

‘It’s not in the dictionary.’

‘Ron, that’s a wizarding dictionary. Actually, according to the cover, it’s ‘Thee Complet Dyckshionnarrie for thee ufe of Thee Dyscerning Wizzard’, so even if it did include Muggle words, it would hardly be a reliable reference tool for a game involving spelling, would it?’

‘See, that’s what I don’t get, Hermione. A game involving spelling?’

‘No, I mean up to something important.’

‘Look, Harry, even if he is, there’s not much we can do about it right now, is there? We’ll have to wait until we’re back at school. Ron, stop complaining and make a move.’

‘Fine. There. Fourteen points.’

‘That’s not a word.’

‘Yes it is. It’s a wizarding word. It means…it’s…a sort of musical instrument. If you can have Muggle words, I can have wizarding words.’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘That’s not my fault, is it? Oh look, and it’s on one of those red squares, that means I get triple points, doesn’t it? So that’s…um…’

‘Forty-two points. It might be something Dark, I mean.’

‘Ha, forty-two points! I think I quite like this Scribble thing.’

‘So do you think he’s up to something?’

Thursday:

‘Harry. Harry!’

‘Hm?’

‘Aren’t you coming down for lunch? Mrs Weasley’s been calling for ages!’

‘Oh, sorry, didn’t hear, I was thinking about Malfoy.’

‘Right.’

‘Stop looking at me like that.’

Saturday:

‘Ron, do you think-- Ron!’

‘What?’

‘Fleur left the room at least two minutes ago. Could you possibly manage to take that ridiculous look off your face and listen to me, instead of gazing into space like an idiot?’

‘…Suppose so.’

‘Do you think Harry’s getting a bit, well…fixated on this whole idea of Malfoy being up to something?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Ron…’

‘All right, maybe just a bit. Doesn’t really matter, though, does it? I mean, for all we know, he could be right. Maybe Malfoy is planning something.’

‘Yes, but it’s unhealthy to think about it this much. I’ve read about this thing in psychology books called sublimation, where--’

‘Psychology? Muggle thing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a human thing, Ron. Anyway, it said that sometimes people suppress an emotion and put all the energy it produces into doing something else. Maybe Harry is suppressing all his feelings about Sirius dying into hunting out what he thinks are Dark wizards.’

‘You’re saying Sirius dying is making Harry turn into Mad-Eye Moody.’

‘That’s just being unhelpful.’

‘I just think it all sounds a bit farfetched. That psychology stuff’s all made up, people don’t do that suppression thing.’

‘That’s the fifth time you’ve polished your broomstick today, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, so? I like to keep it clean.’

‘Never mind.’

To Hermione’s relief, the next day they managed to reach King’s Cross without any further speculation on Malfoy or his mysterious evil plan. Privately, she was of the opinion that Malfoy couldn’t plot his way out of a cardboard box without assistance, but felt it would be hardly tactful to mention this to Harry. Particularly, a small voice at the back of her head whispered, because it’s not really being paranoid, is it, if you’ve had annual attempts on your life from Dark forces since you were eleven? And especially if some of those attempts might never have happened if more people had listened to him in the first place?

No. Thinking like that was not going to help. She was hardly expecting it to be an easy year, what with a Dark Lord back from the dead still on the loose, but it wouldn’t do to start getting all panicky and depressed. She needed to provide a stable and calm recuperative environment for Harry to come to terms with his trauma in, that’s what the book had said. She just needed to…act normally. Which right now, meant patrolling the corridors for troublemakers, she reminded herself sternly, and not coming over all Trelawney.

‘Hermione! Are we going, or what?’ Ron was standing at the door of the compartment, waiting for her.

‘All right, I’m just coming.’ They set off down the train together, and almost immediately nearly ran into a large group of giggling fifth-year girls.

‘Come on now, the train’s about to leave, you should be in your compartments by now,’ Hermione said firmly, anticipating further giggling and probably much dropping of personal belongings before they actually did what they were told. What she wasn’t expecting was a sudden awed hush; Ron had told her several times she could have a very authoritative voice sometimes, but it had never had quite this effect.

‘You’re Harry Potter’s friends, aren’t you?’ said one of the girls. This was clearly a secret signal for all of them to start talking at once, making it impossible to understand them; though from what Hermione could hear, she doubted whether they would sound any more sensible separately than together.

‘…really working as a spy for the Unspeakables?’

‘…shoot laser beams out of his scar?’

‘I heard that he…’

‘…with thirteen centaurs and a mermaid!’

‘…true you’re engaged to him?’

Ron turned to look at her, eyebrows raised.

‘No, it’s– will you all be quiet!’ They subsided. ‘You shouldn’t believe every rumour you hear,’ Hermione said repressively. There were a few mutters of disappointment. ‘Now, will you please all go to your compartments.’

They all scurried off in a pack, except for one blonde girl, who lingered behind, looking self-conscious.

‘Excuse me,’ she said shyly to Ron, ‘But you were in the battle at the Ministry too, weren’t you? I heard your sister saying last term-- I mean, I don’t really know her but she’s in my Transfiguration class-- that you fought Death Eaters and you got scars and everything-- not from the Death Eaters, I mean, I heard they were from…brains, or something?’

Ron looked taken aback, but not entirely displeased.

‘Er…yeah,’ he said, glancing down at his rolled-up sleeves and waving an arm vaguely in the girl’s direction. ‘Yeah. They left scars on my wrists.’

‘Wow,’ she breathed, wide-eyed, and Hermione noticed she was definitely on the pretty side. Especially when she blushed, like she was doing now.

‘Er…bye then,’ the girl said, and blushed even more before running off to catch up with her friends. Ron stared after her, looking utterly bemused. Hermione felt unaccountably annoyed.

‘Girls are strange,’ Ron said, apparently forgetting for a moment she was unlikely to go ‘Chuh! Women, eh?’ and agree. ‘Oh-- er-- not you, obviously. You’re not strange. Well, you are, but you don’t giggle and wear glittery hair things, I mean.’

It was a compliment. Sort of.

‘Thanks, Ron.’ He looked even more confused, as if he’d been caught skiving off Charms, only to be presented with a trophy and a congratulatory certificate for it.

Hermione just laughed, and suddenly felt a lot better about everything. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long, as the compartment at the end of the carriage contained Malfoy and most of the other sixth-year Slytherins.

‘What’s he doing there?’ Ron muttered, frowning. He tried to glance inconspicuously through the window, but Malfoy noticed him straight away, and without stopping his conversation with Pansy Parkinson gave them an indifferent two-fingered salute. It was rather half-hearted compared to his usual efforts, but the rest of the Slytherins still sniggered. Hermione sighed, and dragged Ron into the next carriage before he could reply in kind.

‘How come he’s not doing prefect duty like us?’

‘I don’t know. Since when has Malfoy done what he’s supposed to?’

‘You don’t think he’s planning anything, then?’

‘Oh, don’t you start.’

Things went rapidly downhill from there, and Hermione was very glad when lunchtime neared and they could stop patrolling. They found Harry in a compartment with Neville and Luna, and Hermione slid into a seat by the window. She hoped Ron wasn’t going to--

‘Guess what? Malfoy’s not doing prefect duty.’

Hermione closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. She could definitely feel a headache coming on. Harry, however, was sitting bolt upright, wearing the expression that she really should stop thinking of as ‘Lassie Saves the Day’.

‘Maybe,’ she said meaningfully, staring at Ron with a death-glare, ‘He preferred the Inquisitorial Squad. Maybe being a prefect seems a bit tame after that.’

She nodded towards Harry, who wasn’t looking at her, and scowled. Ron just looked puzzled and silently mouthed ‘What?’ at her. Thankfully, a diversion arrived in the shape of a small girl and an invitation from the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, asking Harry, and for some reason, Neville, to lunch. Hermione let herself hope for a moment that this might distract Harry from Malfoy for a while, but it was not to be.

‘Listen,’ said Harry, his eyes lighting up with worrying earnestness, ‘let’s go under the Invisibility Cloak, then we might get a good look at Malfoy on the way, see what he’s up to!’

‘Er…OK,’ said Neville, looking slightly confused. The moment he and Harry left the compartment, squashed together under the Cloak, Hermione turned to, or, more accurately, on, Ron.

‘Oh, well done, Ron. He’s probably going to run off and get himself into trouble now, you realise.’

‘What makes you think he’ll…’ Ron trailed off as he considered Harry’s past record of encounters with Malfoy. ‘Well, even if he does, it’s hardly my fault, is it?’ he said defensively.

‘No, I suppose it’s not your fault you don’t have an ounce of common sense. Why did you have to go and mention Malfoy? You must have realised he wouldn’t just let it rest.’

‘I…wasn’t thinking.’ Ron looked anxiously at Hermione’s worried scowl, and stood. ‘Look, I’ll go after him.’

‘He’s wearing the Cloak.’ Ron sat down again with a defeated thump. ‘Though I suppose you could just follow the sound of the screaming,’ Hermione added darkly.

Luna, who had been listening, wide-eyed, to the whole conversation, nodded wisely.

‘Ah. Banshees.’

elderberryink @ 2007-04-21T16:13:00

2007-04-21T15:14:58Z

Petunia steps out of the church into the clear September afternoon, with the solid presence of Vernon, smelling of soap, by her side. She smoothes the moderately expensive material of her wedding dress over her knees as she gets into the awaiting car, and tries out her new name in her head. Petunia Dursley. She doesn’t feel much different from Petunia Evans. Mrs Dursley. That sounded old, far too old.

They arrive at the reception, which is being held at Vernon’s parents’ house, and Petunia goes off to change while Vernon gets his back slapped by assorted red-nosed male relatives. When she returns, in neat blue, she is descended upon by a flock of elderly aunts.

‘…a lovely ceremony, Petunia dear!’

‘I hope you liked the napkin rings, Petunia, you can never have too many, you know!’

‘Such a shame your sister couldn’t make it,’ says one aunt, hopefully. The odd disappearances of Lily have never been satisfactorily explained to the extended family; Petunia knows the general consensus among the aunts is that her sister is In Trouble of a scandalous nature, so naturally they are eager for affirmation and, more importantly, shocking details.

‘Yes, it is,’ says Petunia, and carefully moves the conversation on to the quality of the catering. Petunia doesn’t know why Lily is not there, and has not asked their mother about it. Since she left school, not especially long ago, Lily’s presence at home has been sporadic to say the least. Their mother always seems cheerful but new lines on her face betray her concern.

‘Petunia!’ roars a horribly hearty voice. ‘Finally made an honest man out of Vernon, eh?’ Petunia winces inwardly. Marge. She can tell who it is without turning round by the fearsome clump of her- Oh God- her new sister-in-law’s aggressively sensible shoes.

Marge, habitually encased in tweed but right now a vision in spectacularly ill-chosen green polyester, is large, loud, and was fated from birth to teach hockey at an all-girls school. She thinks nothing of tracking mud across a clean floor. Both Marge, and, incidentally, mud on clean floors scrape across Petunia’s nerves like claws on a blackboard.

Petunia makes her way into the garden, hoping to gain a few minutes respite from the reception and also to recover from her conversation with Marge, who always left her a little drained. A few moments later, Vernon appears, looking worried and solicitous.

‘There you are, Petunia. Are you all right?’

‘Oh…yes. Just a bit too warm in there.’

‘Ah.’ Petunia looks at him, his face still anxious and unsure, and realises she does love him, in her own way. She had been wondering whether she did, in the past few days, but now she is sure. He is dependable, and likes it when she flatters him, and is inexplicably proud of her being blonde and boasts about her to his friends. He is not perfect, but he’s there and she knows he won’t go away. Petunia smiles at him, and he gives a slightly confused smile back, clearly not entirely sure what was the matter but glad it has passed. Then he frowns.

‘What’s that noise?’ He looks up at the twilight sky, and then Petunia hears it too, a muted roar from somewhere above their heads. A small black dot appears below the clouds, moving rapidly towards them, and as it gets closer, Petunia can just about make out the shape, but no it can’t be that’s impossible it’s her it’s not it’s-

‘A flying motorbike?’ Vernon splutters. His face has gone an extremely unlikely colour. He watches, open-mouthed and lost for words as a black, purring, sinfully gleaming machine alights smoothly and with utmost precision upon his parents’ back lawn. It looks supremely out of place next to the begonias.

The motorbike, however, is nothing compared to its owner.

His substantial boots hit the ground with a thump as he swings off the bike with an easy grace, and Petunia suddenly recognises him, although the last time she saw him he didn’t have the shaved head or the studded dog collar. One of the boys who came with James to visit Lily. A…one of them.

‘Hello,’ he says, with a feral smile, ‘I’m Sirius.’ He extends a hand. Petunia does not take it, because she is too preoccupied with frantically thinking what she is going to say to the aunts inside and wondering how he got into those leather trousers. She is vaguely aware of Vernon making a series of interesting choking noises beside her.

‘Are- you- Lily’s- sister?’ the boy says clearly and slowly, after a long pause, seemingly having taken Petunia’s expression of panic as evidence of mental subnormality.

‘Er. Yes,’ she manages. No one inside seems to have noticed yet that a flying punk has just landed on the lawn, thank God, and perhaps if she can just get him to go away quickly no one will.

‘Right. Well, she’s really sorry she couldn’t come, she’s in a bit of a…tricky state at the moment, but she really wants to see you, so if you could just…’ He gestures at the motorbike. It takes a few seconds for Petunia to register what he means.

‘You want me,’ she says flatly, ‘to get on that. With you.’

‘Yes. To come and see Lily. Look, it’s perfectly safe, and it’s got a Cushioning Charm and everything.’

‘Look here,’ says Vernon indignantly, finding his voice at last, ‘you can’t just- fly in here and-’ The boy stares at him, surprised and a little amused.

‘Oh,’ he says, with slow insolence, ‘I think I can.’ He smiles again, and Petunia notices the carved wooden handle that has just appeared in his hand. Yes, he can, can’t he, she thinks.

‘Vernon,’ she says, making an effort to keep the tremor out of her voice, ‘I’ll- I’ll be back soon. Tell them…I don’t know. Make something up. Please. Tell my mother I’ve gone to see Lily.’ He gapes.

‘But Petunia, really, this person…’ Vernon lowers his voice, and hisses, ‘He looks like a very unsuitable type. Probably dangerous.’

‘Absolutely,’ says the boy in cheerful tones. ‘I’d love to stay and talk all day, Mr Muggle, but we really need to be going now.’ He waves his wand with a flourish and mutters several somethings, and Petunia finds herself sailing through the air onto the back of the motorbike.

‘It’ll wear off in a few minutes,’ says the boy to Vernon, and leaps on in front of her. The engine revs. Vernon gives a strangled shout, and attempts to move forward, but it looks as if his feet are unaccountably stuck to the ground. The expression on his face as he watches, helplessly, his newly-made wife being spirited away on a flying motorbike by a skinhead in black leather is one that will stay with Petunia for a long, long time.

It’s not a long flight, but Petunia squashes all attempts at conversation on the way there, and by the time they land it is dark and neither the owner of his motorbike or his passenger are in a particularly good mood.

‘Is this it?’ Petunia asks, climbing unsteadily off the motorbike with as much dignity that she can muster. She is not sure what she was expecting, but certainly not this, a dingy, deserted-looking block of flats with misspelled graffiti on the walls. The boy called Sirius grunts something that may have been a ‘yes’ and jerks his head for her to follow him. They go up three flights of concrete stairs, each smelling worse than the one before. When they reach the door, Sirius has to do something complicated to it with his wand and Petunia looks away, feeling unsteady, until the door swings open.

And there is Lily, lying on a battered sofa, hair a mess, looking so much older than Petunia pictures her, with worry creased around her eyes that didn’t used to be there. Petunia sees all this in a rush, and then her breath stops short because she has just noticed there’s a large amount of empty space where Lily’s legs and lower torso ought to be. There’s no gory wound or blood as far as Petunia can see; Lily just seems to stop existing at her waist.

‘It’s all right, Petunia,’ Lily says hurriedly, ‘I just had a bit of an accident getting here. I’m not hurt or anything, James is going to put my legs back on for me in a moment.’

Oh, well that’s OK then, thinks Petunia, fighting hysteria. He’s going to put her legs back on. Couldn’t leave them off, I suppose.

James walks in from the next room, with, yes, Lily’s half-heartedly waving legs tucked under his arm. He gives an awkward nod to Petunia, who he has met on the odd visit but never talked to.

‘You’re going to have to help me with the second part of the charm, love,’ he says to Lily, who nods and goes a bit pale.

‘Idiot,’ says Sirius, ‘that’s what I’m here for. Or had you forgotten about me?’

‘I don’t think that’s actually physically possible,’ mutters James, but grins. He and Sirius launch into a technical discussion involving much waving of hands and poking of Lily’s legs, and Lily looks up at Petunia and smiles with genuine warmth at her.

‘Congratulations, Pet! Sorry about dragging you all the way here, but I couldn’t not see you on your wedding day, and we haven’t had much of a chance to talk for ages, it seems like.’

Petunia has no idea what to say. She wants to scream at her sister, ask her why she can’t live a life that doesn’t involve removal of limbs, why she made that horrible boy with his stupid motorbike come and fetch her and scare her and look at Vernon like he wasn’t even worth contempt, why she can’t just be normal and make Petunia’s life a whole lot easier. She wants to whine ‘it’s not fair!’ like a petty child.

But she doesn’t say any of it, because Lily looks so pleased to see her and so uncomplicatedly happy despite being cut in half, so she sits next to Lily on the sofa and tells her about the wedding, about her dress and her presents and who was there, and her sister laughs and makes sympathetic groans when she hears about Marge and the aunts, and Petunia feels like they’re proper sisters for once.

When James and Sirius finally reach an agreement, there is no blood, or green smoke or mysterious potions, just a few words and a short gasp from Lily and then her legs are firmly in place, with no sign of a join or a scar when Lily lifts her shirt a little to inspect her stomach. Petunia asks, not sure if she’s going to like the answer,

‘Lily, how did you…lose your legs in the first place?’ Her sister laughs, but it sounds a bit strained.

‘We- me and James, that is- we had to get out of somewhere fast, and, well, magic doesn’t always go right if you panic and don’t do it properly…’

Petunia is aware of a quick flickering glance between the other three people in the room, and knows that it means that she mustn’t be told too much, that she’s asked about something secret; what had Lily been doing, that she had to ‘get out fast’, and panicked enough to detach her legs? But she knows that no one’s going to tell her, and a change of subject conveniently presents itself at the front of her mind.

‘How- how am I getting back?’ Vernon would be going mad by now, though Petunia suspects her mother will have thought of a convincing story to explain to the guests why the bride apparently chose to disappear rather than go on her honeymoon.

‘Oh, I’ll take you. Sirius’ll lend me the motorbike, won’t you Sirius?’ Petunia supposes that Lily and the flying motorbike is at least a slight improvement on Sirius and the flying motorbike.

‘Can you…actually drive it, Lily?’ asks Petunia, as they go outside.

‘Fly it, you mean. Yes, I thought it’d be useful to learn, although James nearly had a fit when I said I was going to.’ Lily snorts. ‘As if it wasn’t just as dangerous for Sirius as it is for me.’

‘It was a bit of a shock, him turning up like that, you know.’ This is the nearest Petunia can get to reproach, to asking her sister how she could be so thoughtless, to asking how she thinks it feels when a strange man, who can control with a piece of wood everything you do, turns up on a motorbike to carry you off God knows where and for God knows how long.

Lily giggles.

‘Oh goodness yes, I suppose it must have been, I am sorry, Petunia. I was going to send James, because you know him at least, but he wouldn’t leave me. Said he didn’t want me getting into more trouble. As if I could do anything anyway when I couldn’t walk anywhere!’

The flight back is short and without incident. Vernon sits looking bewildered while Petunia and her mother explain a few things about Lily to him. Later, Petunia privately asks him not to mention Lily to her, for she is determined that her sister is not going to invade every corner of her life with her strangeness. It works surprisingly well; Vernon seems to have forgotten the incident within a few weeks, probably, Petunia suspects, through sheer force of wanting it never to have happened.

The wedding invitation is in green ink on heavy cream-coloured parchment. Petunia looks at it once and drops it into the bin, throwing the potato peelings in after it.

Lily’s voice cracks once then doesn’t waver as she tells Petunia that their parents died instantly, didn’t feel any pain, didn’t even see the other car swerve towards them out of nowhere. Lily and James were injured but lived; apparently people like them had rather more effective survival instincts than others. They hadn’t seen the other car either, but nonetheless a chance quirk of genetics had meant that a second before the collision, they had involuntarily done…something (Petunia had not wanted to listen too closely) that meant an impact which should have killed them didn’t. They hadn’t even realised what had happened for a few minutes, Lily explains.

Petunia can see the guilt in her sister’s face, that she survived where her parents didn’t, can see the plea in her eyes for…what? Comfort? Forgiveness? Absolution? But Petunia offers none of them and says not a word, just holds onto her baby so tightly he begins to cry, and eventually Lily leaves.

She sees her again at the funeral, of course, skin looking deathly white and hair brighter than ever against the solid black of her dress. The dress also shows something Petunia hadn’t noticed the last time she saw her sister; the round swelling curve of Lily’s stomach. It makes her thoughts dart to Dudley, and she wonders if the babysitter has managed to get him to sleep. She doesn’t like having to leave him, always feels a fierce, protective possessiveness pull her towards him even if she’s only in the next room and he’s safely asleep.

Petunia tries to leave after the service without talking to her, but she comes across and takes her arm urgently, frantic words spilling out in a confusing torrent.

‘Petunia, I’ve been thinking, and- the thing is, I can’t tell you too much about it because it’s dangerous, I’m not allowed, but that’s just why I want to- you see, me and James, we’ve been doing work that’s, well, it’s not exactly safe but it’s important- more important than I can tell you.’

Petunia stares, wide-eyed.

‘It’s just that, and I know this sounds completely unlikely, there’s- people- who’d prefer it if me and James were...well, dead. And I didn’t want to even think about it but I couldn’t help wondering, and it might not even be true, but they…they could have done it. The car. And…it’s too late for me to help Mum and Dad, but I can’t bear to think it might happen to you.’

By now tears are sliding down Lily’s face, and out of the corner of her eye Petunia can see James making his way over, looking concerned. Lily goes on, her voice thick and choked.

‘I want to- would you let me put wards around your house? Or protection spells, on you and Vernon and Dudley? You wouldn’t know they were there, I promise, it won’t do anything to you…’

Petunia, horror-struck, suddenly understands what Lily is talking about.

‘No,’ she blurts out, surprised by the violence in her own voice. ‘No, you can’t- I won’t have it- you’re not to put your spells on Dudley, on my baby, you leave me- leave us alone, I won’t have your- unnaturalness-’ Petunia puts her hands to her throat as her words fly into hysteria, and Lily is sobbing now, and James is pulling her away with soothing murmurs, looking almost as heartbroken himself as she does.

Petunia sits white and rigid on the journey home, Vernon looking at her anxiously while he drives. When they get back she goes straight to find Dudley and sits for the whole night listening to him sleep, and she doesn’t cry a single tear.

Dear Petunia,

I know you don’t want to talk to me, but please read this letter. You don’t have to answer. I want you to know that if you change your mind about what I asked you at the funeral, I’ll come. At any time. Please think about it.

James and I have a son now, did you hear? Just a few weeks ago, at the end of July. His name is Harry and he’s beautiful. He’s Dudley’s cousin, I’ve just realised.

I can’t stand this, Petunia, you’re my sister. Please answer.

Love Lily

When the baby opens his eyes and looks at her, Petunia does not need to look at the letter beside him to know who he is; he has Lily’s eyes. She also needs no explanation as to why he is on her doorstep. There is only one reason Lily would ever give up her child.

elderberryink @ 2007-04-21T15:36:00

2007-04-21T14:40:20Z

Title: Pressed Flowers
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairings: Just bits of Lily/James and Vernon/Petunia. Gen really.
Summary: ‘Oh? You’ll be reading my hand and telling me I’m going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger next.’ Lily looks at her, eyes glinting.

'What, that lummox Dursley? Well, two out of three isn’t bad, Pet.’

Pieces of Petunia's life, dealing with a magical sister and a less-than-magical husband.

And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his mother’s sister. —Order of the Phoenix

‘Sit still, Lily, you’re making it go all wonky.’

Lily, who is seven, wriggles impatiently.

‘Can’t I be the hairdresser now?’

‘No, I’m the hairdresser because I’m the oldest.’

Lily subsides into mutinous silence. Petunia is eleven, and wouldn’t be seen dead pretending hairdressers if her friends were there, but has always secretly preferred her sister’s thick red hair to her own wispy blonde locks. She weaves the bright strands of Lily’s hair into one heavy plait, ties the end, and sits back to admire how neat it is. Lily, naturally, immediately undoes her hair and shakes it loose, provoking a scolding from her elder sister.

‘…So you just can sit still while I do it all again, Lily. There. Now don’t move your head.’

Petunia re-does her sister’s hair, with perhaps slightly more pulling than is necessary, while Lily sits glowering and sulky. Absently, Petunia reaches up one hand to her own hair, as it has fallen across her face, and is puzzled to find it about an inch longer than normal. She steps back to look in the mirror, and yes, her hair is now past her shoulders. Suddenly, she freezes; she realises, with alarm, that she can actually see her hair getting longer by the second, and parts are curling and rippling as if with a life of their own.

Lily has a small, wicked smile on her face, and her green eyes glitter as they remain fixed on her sister’s reflection. She is still sitting perfectly motionless.

As her hair twists and loops itself into wild, improbable shapes, Petunia knows, without knowing how she does, that Lily, or rather Lily’s temper, is the cause of this abrupt unpredictability.

‘Lily!’ she says harshly, her voice sounding more scared than she thought she was, ‘Stop it this instant!’ A writhing blonde tendril twines itself around her wrist, tightly, as she tries in vain to subdue her rebellious hair with one hand. Panic wells up and Petunia is suddenly terrified that her own hair is going strangle her to death.

‘Lily!’

The movement stops. Petunia slowly, cautiously, lifts her head to look in the mirror again. Her hair sticks out at all angles from her head, in knots and tangles, woven into a mad cocoon. She tugs at her right hand but can’t get it free, so is forced to stand there, absurdly, with one hand stuck to the side of her head.

Lily bursts into peals of gleeful laughter.

When Lilly is eleven, Petunia learns that her sister's inexplicable ability for making strange things happen is in fact something good, something to be admired; an extraordinary man appears in the middle of their front room and tells their parents this. Petunia hovers at the edge of the door, not quite daring to go in, and listens.

That evening at dinner, her mother excitedly tells her that Lily has a very special talent indeed, and that next September she is going to an amazing school on a special train where there are lots of other children with talents like Lily’s.

‘Isn’t it wonderful for your sister, love!’ says their father, a cheerful Welshman who owns a flower shop.

Lily and their mother go up to London on a shopping trip and return with all sorts of mysterious, interesting objects. Petunia does not know what most of them are for. While Lily is trying on her new cloak, Petunia goes quietly over to the kitchen table, where Lily had placed with care the slim, carved stick of wood. She had previously demonstrated to their father, with much pride, the way fiery sparks sprang out whenever she waved it. Petunia reaches out hesitantly and grasps the smooth wood. With a quick glance to check no one is watching she waves it. Nothing happens.

When Lily is fifteen, Petunia starts going out with Vernon, who is tall, bull-necked, and vain about his thick, dark, Brylcreemed hair, which he parts (ruler-straight) on the side. They go to the cinema every Friday like clockwork, and afterwards drink tea in the place round the corner. He talks about the apprenticeship he’s finishing with a local engineering firm, the money he’s going to earn in five years and what he intends to do with it. She fills in the gaps with gossip and asks after Vernon’s mother’s health every other Friday. They both agree that the world is in a dreadful state nowadays, and that it’s shocking the government doesn’t do more about it. Vernon occasionally adds that it’s down to all those foreigners, who are getting far too full of themselves.

Afterwards, Vernon always walks her all the way up to her front door. Tonight, as he does so, Petunia is considering, for the first time, inviting him in, but when she steps into the hallway she catches an unexpected glimpse of red hair through the half-open door to the kitchen, and remembers that Lily came home for the Easter holidays today. Petunia says a hasty goodbye to Vernon, because the idea of asking him in and introducing him to her sister, who is wearing an outlandish yellow cloak over her normal clothes, is to her unthinkable. Lily looks up inquisitively as her sister enters the kitchen.

‘Was that Vernon Dursley, Pet? Are you really going out with him?’ Her incredulous tone is slightly insulting, though probably unintentionally so.

‘Don’t call me Pet.’ Petunia knows she sounds childish, and is all the more annoyed because of it. She purses her lips and goes over to the sink, where, she notices, no one has yet bothered to do the washing-up. Lily shrugs and goes back to her conversation with their mother, who is curious about everything magical and peppers Lily with eager questions every time she comes back from school. Petunia listens with growing irritation, scrubbing at saucepans viciously.

‘And he’s so rude, Mum, and thinks he’s so clever, and he hexed a Slytherin first-year the other day, a first-year! The poor little thing barely came up to his shoulder! The teachers let him get away with it half the time, too, because they think he’s funny-’

Hexed? Petunia thinks, what’s hexed? Much of Lily’s vocabulary is incomprehensible to her now.

‘And the other day in Divination, he-’

‘Divination? Isn’t that finding water or something?’ asks Petunia in disbelief. ‘Do they really teach you that?’

‘Divination is telling the future,’ says Lily in a talking-to-small-children voice. Petunia snorts derisively.

‘Oh? You’ll be reading my hand and telling me I’m going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger next.’ Lily looks at her, eyes glinting.

‘What, that lummox Dursley? Well, two out of three isn’t bad, Pet.’

Petunia flushes red and bangs the last plate down on the draining board. She starts on the teacups, concentrating on getting every inch white and gleaming. Petunia likes things to be clean. Her mother casts a worried glance at her, then turns to Lily again and asks in an overly bright voice,

‘What are your other subjects again, love? There’s Divination, and Charms, you told me about that one, and Trans- transifer- what was it again?’

‘Transfiguration, Mum. Turning things into other things.’

Petunia sniffs pointedly. Transfiguration indeed.

‘Like this,’ Lily says, and suddenly there is warm, squirming hairy flesh under Petunia’s fingers. A shudder of revulsion jolts through her body and she snatches her hands away with a shriek; the rat scrabbles across the draining board and on to the floor, where at a word in Latin from Lily it abruptly becomes a teacup again. The brief clank of the china against the tiles is the only sound in the kitchen.

Petunia rushes from the kitchen without a word, ignoring the calls of her mother, and washes her hands five times before she stops shaking. When her sister comes to find her Petunia feels the same shock of disgust that she did at the rat, and it must show on her face, as Lily turns around and leaves immediately without speaking.

They both share a room, and Petunia is dreading going to bed. She goes upstairs and sees a cup of tea on her nightstand and her sister looking at her with a half-worried, half-smiling expression. She also notices that Lily has placed her wand right on the other side of the room, away from them both. Petunia gives a subdued smile and drinks the tea.

Two years later, when Lily is now Head Girl Lily Evans, Petunia can’t sleep. Three months ago she agreed to go out with Vernon again, after a year and a bit of them avoiding each other on the street and looking awkward when they met by chance. She is still not entirely sure why she agreed. While Petunia stares at the shadows on the ceiling and watches the lights of the occasional passing car flicker on the wall, Lily sleeps, peacefully and easily. They still share a room.

Suddenly, Petunia hears something tapping sharply on the window, and is instantly entirely alert. Silence. Did she imagine it? Or-

‘Evans!’ a voice hisses from right outside the window. ‘Lily! Open up!’ Sounds like a boy, thinks Petunia. She is just about to get up and look, when the full implications of a voice right outside the window when your room is up one flight of stairs hit her. Whoever it is taps again, and Petunia hears Lily stir and sit up. ‘Evans!’ comes the whispered voice again. Lily claps a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle, and scrambles out of bed. She glances at Petunia, who is now pretending to be asleep, before opening the window.

‘James, what on earth are you- Black, is that a motorbike?’ Petunia hears the indistinct murmur of a low male voice in answer. Lily whispers again, exasperated but clearly amused.

‘You can’t come in, you’ll wake my sister up. Not to mention my parents. Honestly, if you just came to see me at a reasonable hour, instead of flying across the country in the middle of the night-’

‘You come down then,’ says the first voice. ‘Come on Lily, we’ve flown all the way here to see you- Remus actually got on a broomstick, especially for you, which is no mean feat when you’re as pathetic at flying as he is, let me tell you- ow!’

‘All right, all right, I’m coming. Serve you right if he knocks you off your broom, Potter.’ Petunia wonders at the easy familiarity in her sister’s voice. Lily shuts the window, shrugs on a jacket over her pyjamas and patters out of the room in her bare feet. Petunia lies there, burning with curiosity, for all of a minute before giving in and following her sister.

The night air has a bite in it, and Petunia shivers as she slides out of the back door to stand in the shadows. Lily and her visitors are sitting on the grass by the shed, huddled around a small fire that is not quite the right colour and somehow not setting the lawn alight. Petunia is only a few metres away from the five of them, but they’re so absorbed in their laughing conversation they haven’t noticed her presence.

She looks at their faces, made slightly alien by the shadows of the flickering firelight. A laughing Lily, expression more alive than Petunia has seen it for months, leaning comfortably against a gangly bespectacled boy, his arm wrapped around her waist. He watches her when he thinks no one is looking, with such obvious adoration in his face it seems as if the rest of the world, to him, does not exist. Presumably this is James. A dark-haired boy with sharp cheekbones and a cigarette, feet propped casually on the legs of another boy with thin shoulders and a quiet smile. One more boy, dirty blond, who laughs then checks to see if the others are laughing too, and looks eagerly from one person to another for their approval after speaking.

Their ease in each other’s company is clear, and Petunia has a brief pang of something she resolutely does not identify as envy. She wants, suddenly, to have someone who would impulsively drape an arm around her, or lie across her knees, or even someone who’d lean out and fondly hit her over the head, as the dark-haired boy has just done to his friend next to him. For a brief moment, Petunia has a mad impulse to step forward and sit down in the warmth of the fire, smile at her sister, join in the conversation. Then she shrinks back into the darkness as one of the boys scrambles to his feet.

‘Er. We should really be going now,’ says the thin boy, his voice noncommittal.

‘What? Why?’ says the one with dark hair, frowning. He reaches out and yanks his friend back down to the grass. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Remus, we’ve practically only just arrived.’

‘No, Sirius, we, you me and Peter, should really be going.’ Comprehension dawns on- Sirius? Can that really be his name? Scarcely better than Remus- the dark-haired boy’s face. He leers in the direction of James and Lily and wiggles his eyebrows.

‘Oh, I see. We’ll be off then, shall we? Leave you two alone.’ James rolls his eyes and grins.

‘Idiot,’ he says with affection. The three other boys, with much shoving, disappear down the side alleyway next to the house and a minute later Petunia hears a purring roar start and fade into the distance.

Petunia looks at her sister again. Lily tips her head to rest it on James’ shoulder. He shifts to move his arms more securely around her. Lily’s cheeks are tinged a pale pink from the cold. They don’t talk, content to sit there quiet and together, and look so intensely peaceful and private that Petunia, though reluctantly, is compelled to slip back inside the house. She feels like crying and she doesn’t know why.

The next day, Vernon, in a self-conscious voice and with much coughing, proposes. Petunia can see that he has not for one minute wondered if she’ll refuse. She says yes.

Three nights later, James comes again to visit Lily on his own, and then starts appearing at more conventional times every few days. His girlfriend’s parents are delighted to meet him. Petunia listens, unseen.

fic

2007-04-21T14:23:47Z

Title: Where There's A Will
Fandom: Harry Potter/Black Books crossover
Pairings: None
Summary: Bernard had finally found a lighter in an open box of cereal and lit up a cigarette, glaring at it as if it had personally insulted his girlfriend, his pet kitten, his dear old grey-headed mother, and his entire extended family.

‘Whatever you’ve come here for,’ he muttered, ‘the answer is no.’

Sirius's will is causing problems. Remus is getting exasperated. Bernard is actually weirder than Fran and Manny thought he was, which is a fairly impressive feat.

Oh dear, it was fudge.

Over the years, Remus Lupin had found himself sitting in Dumbledore’s office on many occasions. As schoolboy, teacher, and member of the Order of the Phoenix, the one thing he had learned to look out for was the size of the preliminary sweet, as it was directly proportionate to the bad news about to be imparted. If, for example, there rested upon the exquisite seventeenth-century mahogany of Dumbledore’s desk an unobtrusive bowl of liquorice twists, the information that followed was likely to be relatively minor, such as:

‘Mr Lupin, now that you are a prefect may I enquire as to whether there is the slightest chance you would be able to impose a modicum of restraint upon certain of your fellow Gryffindors?’

Or perhaps:

‘By the way, Professor Lupin, I feel it is my duty to inform you that Miss Morgan in your second-year Ravenclaw class intends to send you two dozen red roses and a dancing pixie on the fourteenth of February, as a small token of her undying love for you. You may wish to take appropriate protective measures’.

If, on the other hand, you were offered something more substantial, such as a few Jelly Slugs or Chocolate Frogs, it was probably something slightly more depressing, like ‘I am pleased to say Severus has finished his first batch of Wolfsbane potion, and will be dropping by this evening to give it to you’.

The morning after the night in sixth year when Severus Snape had narrowly escaped being given an extremely pressing incentive to perfect his Wolfsbane skills, Remus had been faced with a wide selection of chocolate biscuits and sweets, not to mention an actual cup of tea, and it had been several months before he could look at a pair of sugar tongs without going pale.

Today, however, it was fudge, which was at least better than tea and biscuits, but unfortunately it looked like Honeydukes’ best. Remus leant forward to take a piece of delicious chocolate-covered harbinger, and waited for the blow to fall.

‘As you may or may not know, Remus, before his death, Sirius appointed me executor of his will.’

Oh. Definitely fudge-worthy. Remus cleared his throat uncertainly.

'He-- he hasn't left me anything, has he? I thought he knew about the law regarding werewolves and inheritance...' Dumbledore smiled benevolently through his beard.

‘Sirius was indeed aware of the law, and sadly correct in assuming it would not have changed by the time he died. However, along with his will, he also left a rather more…unofficial, shall we say, note to be opened by me should I not predecease him. It is therefore my pleasure to tell you that you are now the proud owner of Arcturus Black’s rather magnificent collection of Scottish Firewhisky, which has, of course, in no way been left or bequeathed to you. It is merely an inexplicable twist of Fate made manifest.’

Dumbledore flourished his wand and a large metal trunk zoomed from the corner of the room to stop next to Remus’ chair. Remus flicked open the lid with the toe of his boot, and felt a bubble of pure glee rise up through his chest. Someone had used a very neat Compression Charm to make the space inside the trunk stretch to something more the size of a small cellar. Specifically, a cellar lined with shelves of alcohol. Stuck to the nearest dusty bottle of amber liquid was a parchment note, covered in Sirius’ familiar messy scrawl:

Hi Moony, I suppose this means I went before you after all, hey? No surprises there then. I wanted to leave you more but the Magical Creatures lot have clearly still got their heads up their collective arse or I would have changed the terms of my will by now. Don’t worry, I’ll come back and haunt whoever’s Head of Department.

You will anyway, but look after Harry.

Now stop moping like a big girl and drink up. Mischief managed.

Love Sirius

Remus laughed, shakily, and looked up. Dumbledore was tactfully examining the portraits on the wall behind his desk, but it was uncanny how you could feel the man twinkling at you even when he had his back turned.

‘Who has he left everything else to?’ said Remus, finding his voice again. ‘Harry, is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And that is the other reason I have called you here today. It is highly likely, given the Black family’s…propensities, that enchantments have been placed on most of Sirius’s property to ensure that it is not passed on to anyone they would consider unsuitable.’

‘And Harry’s half-blood.’

‘Exactly. It is possible that Sirius foresaw this problem and took measures to prevent it, but unfortunately at this present time I have no way of knowing. I am visiting Harry in three days time, when I intend to explain this to him and test by means of Kreacher whether or not he has successfully inherited. If he has, well and good, but if he has not–’

‘Everything will automatically pass on to the nearest pure-blood Black,’ Remus finished. A horrible thought and a half-remembered glimpse of a tapestry in Grimmauld Place suddenly struck him. ‘There aren’t any Blacks left, though. It won’t– not Bellatrix Lestrange?’

‘That is what I thought at first. But then I recalled the memorable case of Alcor Black, who was disowned by his grandfather sometime in the late eighteenth century for passing a Muggle in the street and only cursing him several seconds after, rather than immediately. All mention of his name was subsequently removed from the family records, and occurrences of a similar nature have happened so often that the official Black family tree is not, in fact, entirely accurate. Accio Dearborn’s!’

A thick leather-bound book came flying off a shelf to land on the desk with a thud. It was Dearborn’s Wizarding Genealogy; Remus could remember Sirius ritually burning his copy when he left home at the age of sixteen. Dumbledore began to flick through its slightly tattered pages, mumbling.

‘Avery…Baddock…hm, no, I’ve gone into Bones now, ah, Black, Black, dear Walburga, Cygnus, Marius…ah! One male cousin, son of Procyon Black, whose father was Marius Black, who was Sirius’s grandfather’s brother and got blasted off the family tree for being a Squib. Nevertheless, Marius emigrated to Ireland and married a pure-blood witch, Meaghan O’Flaherty, as did his son, so the grandson is still a genuine pure-blood Black.’ He swivelled the book around and Remus squinted at the name he was pointing to.

‘Er…all of Sirius’s possessions are going to be inherited by Vague-Squiggle-That-Could-Begin-With-B Black?’

‘It would appear so.’

All the names in the book were printed clearly in an elegant, flowing script, except for the one Dumbledore had indicated, a spiky indecipherable scribble. Every copy of Dearborn’s magically updated itself, but in this case it looked as though the charm had given up and gone home in a fit of pique.

‘It seems that according to the charms set on this book, it is uncertain whether or not our B. Black actually exists– at least under that name. However, there is no doubt that if he does exist, this mysterious cousin is possibly entitled to inherit. And that, Remus, is where I have a favour to ask.’

Ah. Being offered fudge simply for receiving a large amount of alcohol was clearly too good to be true.

‘A few of my contacts in the Ministry have succeeded in tracing a man who could very easily be who we are looking for– though not, alas, to the extent of knowing his name. They believe he is currently in Bloomsbury, though in order to have confused the estimable magic of Dearborn’s so thoroughly it seems likely he is not eager to be found. I myself have a rather busy schedule at the moment– a downside, by the way, of attempting to lead both a school and a secret society, should you ever find yourself in a similar position– but I am sure Sirius would not hesitate to put his affairs into your very capable hands. Could I impose upon you to seek this man out?’

‘Of course, Headmaster.’

Dumbledore beamed benignly. It was something he did very often.

‘Excellent. Here is the address. A bookshop, I am told. Just your cup of tea, eh?’

‘Bernard.’

Fran sighed. There was a distinct lack of answer.

‘Berrrrnaaaard.’

There was, in fact, a distinct lack of anything whatsoever indicating sentient life. Whether the man was alive or dead was uncertain, as he was face down on the desk with what could charitably be called hair (if you squinted and overlooked the fungi) covering any clues that might have helped.

‘Bernard!’

The head arose, like a Leviathan from the deep, from where it had been gently reposing amongst the bills in red ink and the angry letters from customers’ psychiatrists that adorned the desk. The eyes glowered resentfully at Fran.

‘What?’

Somehow, he managed to convey in just one word a whole plethora of emotions: weary disgust, an implied accusation that as a direct result of her selfishness several orphans had just died, general despair at the fact that the rest of the world was too stupid to ever truly comprehend his greatness, and then back to weary disgust again.

‘There’s a man here to see you, Bernard.’

‘Well tell him to go away,’ said Bernard, in the same tone of voice you would use to say ‘two plus two equals four, of course’.

‘I’ve tried that,’ said Fran. ‘It didn’t work. He said he needed to speak to you urgently. Manny’s with him in the kitchen distracting him with tea and small talk about gardening, but I don’t think that’ll last long. He was very insistent. Calm, but with an air of, of, steely determination, I thought.’

Bernard reached out for the wine bottle and looked around for a glass, ostentatiously Not Listening.

‘Come on, it’ll only take a minute. And he was very polite.’

Bernard poured some wine in a splashy, defiant fashion with one hand and scrabbled in his pockets for a cigarette with the other.

‘He doesn’t look as if you owe him money.’

‘Oh all right, all right, I’ll go and get rid of this, this man of yours.’

‘He’s not my–’

‘Did you say he was polite? I hate polite people, they always want something. And I can always tell that they’re secretly insulting me inside their heads.’

Apparently unaware of the fact that most people insulted him inside their head, or indeed, out loud, after spending any amount of time with him, he stamped into the kitchen and eyed the intruder cautiously. His visitor looked perhaps a few years older than Bernard himself, with greying brown hair and nondescript clothing. It was evident from the pathetic ‘like me, like me, kind stranger’ expression on Manny’s face that the man was nice, too. He had probably complimented Manny on his tea-making skills, for God’s sake.

‘You must be Mr Black,’ he said, extending a hand. Bernard put the empty wine bottle into it. ‘I’m Remus Lupin.’ Manny took the bottle away in what Bernard considered to be an unnecessarily thoughtful manner and put it in the bin. ‘I wonder if I might have a word in private? It’s a matter of some importance.’

‘What do you want?’ Bernard started looking inside the various unwashed cups and bowls scattered across the draining board. ‘Lighter, lighter, come on, lighter…’

‘In private, please,’ Lupin said firmly. Bernard stopped rummaging through the potatoes and looked at him with suspicion.

‘And how do I know,’ he asked with mock politeness, ‘that you aren’t here to take advantage of me and sell me fake timeshare flats in Milan? Or murder me in my bed?’

‘You’re awake,’ said Manny helpfully.

‘And you sleep at your desk most of the time anyway,’ said Fran.

‘Yes, yes, thank you so very much for the contribution, don’t call us, we’ll call you. No you can’t have a word in private. I want these two here for protection, and to act as human shields if necessary.'

‘Mr Black,’ said Lupin, looking at him steadily, ‘I assure you I have only your best interests at heart, and at the moment it is in your best interests for you to kindly ask your friends to step into the next room for a few minutes. Also,’ he added, extracting a bottle from inside his jacket, ‘please consider this a gesture of my goodwill.’

Bernard grabbed the bottle and looked at the label. His face went blank.

‘Right,’ he said, waving an arm in the direction of Fran and Manny, ‘You heard the man. Shoo. Shoo!’ They reluctantly shuffled out into the main part of the bookshop. Bernard had finally found a lighter in an open box of cereal and lit up a cigarette, glaring at it as if it had personally insulted his girlfriend, his pet kitten, his dear old grey-headed mother, and his entire extended family.

‘Whatever you’ve come here for,’ he muttered, ‘the answer is no.’

Remus sighed. He hadn’t expected this to be easy, exactly, but really, the man in front of him seemed totally impervious to nice, reasonable, grown-up discussion. It was definitely the right man, as he’d recognised wizard-brand Firewhisky, but it looked as though he’d been living as a Muggle for quite some time. That kind of isolation and secrecy could have an effect on people. (A few days later, Remus would privately come to the conclusion that avoiding all magical contact had in fact had absolutely no effect on Bernard whatsoever; his particular brand of misanthropy was one hundred percent home grown and all-natural.)

‘So what you are saying,’ Bernard said, planting his hands on the kitchen table in what was probably an attempt to look threatening, ‘is that I may or may not have inherited a big pile of gold and a house, and if I have, you want me to give it all away to this facially-disfigured fifteen-year-old with a hero complex?’

‘Harry Potter,’ said Remus patiently, though rather less courteously than he had the previous five times. ‘How long did you say you’d been living in the Muggle world, Mr Black?’

‘I didn’t, Mr Lupin. And I’m not sure I believe this little story, this convenient little fabrication of yours. I think there is no ‘Harry Potter’. I think that you, you sir, are a fraudster. A conman! A Nigerian prince with internet access!’

‘Harry Potter, for Merlin’s sake! How can you not have heard of him? Saviour of the wizarding world? Ringing any bells? Responsible for the downfall of Voldemort– oh, I see you’ve heard of him, at least,’ as the other man jumped at the name and knocked over a chair.

‘‘For Merlin’s sake’? What kind of pansy-arsed swearing is that?’ Bernard demanded. Remus, who as both a former teacher and a werewolf, recognised a distraction technique when he saw one, looked down, took a deep breath and tried valiantly to steer the conversation back to something approaching relevance.

‘Look. Mr Black. If you are at all familiar with what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named stands for, surely you realise that everything that can be done to stop him, must be done.’

‘A reasonable point, sir, but not, I think, one that fits in with me giving away lots of money.’

It was becoming apparent to Remus that on the universe’s list of Top One Hundred Lost Causes, appealing to Bernard Black’s sense of duty was probably, ooh, somewhere up in the top twenty? Below, for example, suggesting to Voldemort that he’d probably feel a lot better if he just sat down with a nice cup of tea and really talked about his feelings, but definitely above, say, finding the matching one of the inexplicable odd sock in the washing machine.

‘Mr Black, we need you to formally relinquish all claims to the Black inheritance. We would prefer that you did this voluntarily.’ Remus paused to let the implication sink in. ‘If you would be kind enough to cooperate we would be very grateful. Possibly grateful enough to give you a monetary reward.’ The Order’s funds could stretch to that. What they couldn’t afford was the security risk if this man somehow got hold of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

‘Oh, fine. If only so you’ll go away and stop talking at me.’ Bernard watched warily as Remus got out a piece of parchment and a ballpoint pen.

‘I’ll need your name.’

‘Bernard.’

‘Your full name.’

‘Bernard Black.’

‘Your full name, please.’

‘That is my full name. Bernard, then Black. Full of alliterative goodness.’

Remus put his pen down on the table and looked Bernard straight in the eye, which was not for the faint of heart.

‘Mr Black,’ he began, in the same tone of voice that had caused his whole Gryffindor-Slytherin fifth year class to meekly sit down and write an essay on salamanders, instead of hexing each other under the desks, ‘are you seriously trying to tell me that your parents– your father, Mesarthim, and your mother, Céibhfhionn– would name their children Vindemiatrix, Pulcherrima, Denebola…and Bernard?’

Bernard mumbled something sullenly under his breath.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said Betelgeuse, all right?’

‘Betelgeuse what?’

‘Betelgeuse. Ludwig. Terebellum. Polaris. Beauregard. Black.’ There was deep, deep, resentfulness in every word.

‘Thank you.’ Remus wrote the names down, while Bernard watched him sulkily.

‘Seeing as you know so much about my family,’ he said, ‘why aren’t you off bothering them instead? Why has Lady Luck expectorated on my head and my head alone?’

‘You’re the only pure-blood left with the name of Black. All the others are either married or dead,’ said Remus shortly, folding the parchment up neatly and putting it in his pocket.‘Now, I’ve got a Portkey set up, so if you’ll just–’

‘Whoa whoa whoa, hold on a minute there Mr Speedy,’ Bernard said in horrified tones, waving his cigarette wildly, ‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’

‘You just said you’d–’

‘You didn’t say I’d have to go anywhere! Why can’t you just do whatever it is here?’

‘Because I’m not qualified to oversee or witness formal legal procedures, and I need to take you to see someone.’

‘Tell them to come here. I’m not going. The servants would gossip, the children would pine. I’d have to cancel the milk.’

‘The person I am taking you to see is Albus Dumbledore. I do not care,’ Remus said, holding up a hand to stop Bernard from interrupting, ‘whether you’ve never heard of him, read an in-depth biography of him, or experienced a brief but passionate love affair with him back in eighty-two, but he cannot come here. I don’t know why you’ve chosen to live apart from the magical world, but believe me, if Albus Dumbledore is seen wandering into a Muggle bookshop for no good reason when he is supposed to be running a school, as well as helping to lead the battle against the Dark, the magical world will come to you soon enough. And we are just as anxious as you to have no questions asked.’

Bernard looked very mutinous, and Remus could tell he was trying to decide out of all the things he could be awkward about, which one would irritate Remus most. He came to a decision.

‘I want to bring my two friends along.’

‘You mean the ones I just met? You can’t. They’re Muggles.’

‘This is a very traumatic experience for me. I need moral support. If I leave them here alone in the shop they’ll burn it or sell it or bring in a delightful range of aromatherapy books or something. If I can’t take them, I’m not coming. Besides, they know about all this already.’

‘You’ve told them you’re a wizard? You do know that’s against the Statute of Secrecy?’

‘I didn’t tell them.’

‘Then how–’ Remus stopped as Bernard picked up a saucepan, and without turning around, threw it over his shoulder at the curtain separating the kitchen from the bookshop. It hit something solid with a muffled thump, and there was an anguished cry of pain. Still looking at Remus, Bernard stuck out an arm and pulled back the curtain to reveal Fran and Manny, clearly eavesdropping.

‘They didn’t know before,’ he said, relishing every word, ‘but they do now. Manny, lay out my travelling waistcoat and my best spats. Fran! Fags. Booze. We’re going on a minibreak.’

The rest was really just yet another odd occurrence in the events of the Second War, and as it was one that very few people got to know about, never made it into the history books. Everything was signed in triplicate, Sirius’s possessions were inherited with as few problems as could be expected seeing as Harry ‘If it’s June, it must be time to fight the forces of evil!’ Potter was involved, and Bernard was given enough Galleons to keep him in cheap wine for at least the next fortnight.

Fran and Manny were initially nervous when they were told they would probably have to be Memory Charmed as soon as their trip was over, but as it turned out they both ended up begging to be allowed to magically forget everything; Manny because he felt that the knowledge of a section of society where he truly belonged but could never stay with (‘It’s my spiritual home, Bernard! I have found my people!’) was ultimately both too beautiful and too painful to live with, and Fran because she had been traumatised by the sight of Manny in a regulation Hogwarts tea-towel toga. The house-elves of Hogwarts remembered fondly for many years the brief visit of what was clearly, they reasoned, a house-elf who had somehow got stuck in a human body, and still told stories around the fireside about his prowess with a mop.

When, a few years later, a young man turned up at the shop with hair that was only slightly less messy than the owner’s, and, as Fran mentioned several times after he had gone, ‘eyes like limpid pools of liquid emerald’, Bernard was at first inclined to turn him away with a kick and a callous laugh. But then the man said hopefully, ‘Remus told me about you, and I thought as I certainly don’t want the bloody thing, and it seems to be indestructible, you might like to keep it. As a family memento. Or something.’ Bernard was slightly disappointed when this turned out to be not a London townhouse, but a portrait of some awful old harpy, her face frozen in an expression of rage and shock.

‘When we happened to mention,’ the man explained, ‘that the real last son of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black had given up magic and was working in a Muggle bookshop, she just sort of…stuck like that. She doesn’t move anymore, so if any Muggles see it they won’t notice anything unusual.’

They both looked at the terrifying face in the portrait.

‘Oh, I suppose it might put your customers off a bit, though…’ the man murmured worriedly. ‘Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find somewhere to keep it eventually…’

‘I’ll take it,’ said Bernard.