Work Text:
"I summon thee!"
Harry looks down at his rapidly vanishing body and groans. "Is it too late to return the title?"
Luna looks at him impassively (heartless as she is), "You did sign the form.".
"Don't remind me!" He thought he was going to be stuck filling the pages of that form forever because that stack was almost the same height as him.
Luna grins, "Do you know what my favourite question was?".
"Not this again."
His friend somehow got her hands on the thing and she's been steadily flicking through it. She finds a new favourite question every time.
"How -"
Harry has never been gladder that his ears vanish pretty quickly because Luna's smile was growing bigger and bigger and last time it got that wide…
He shudders.
The first thing that greets Harry is the barrel of a gun which is a welcome surprise - most people are usually too busy quaking.
Guns spice things up a little.
"Hello." he beams. Harry sounds young (because he is) and it seems to startle the toddlers blinking at him.
Several of them draw closer but one lingers towards the back of the group and he can't be bothered to squint enough to make the blob out.
Summonings rarely account for his glasses so he is normally gifted with a bit of a blurred vision - really rather inconvenient.
But at least they aren't usually doing it on purpose. Not that Harry would know if they did.
He does, however, manage to make out the little pacifiers around their necks.
How cute...
Only toddlers and yet they're already pointing guns at him. They wouldn't work on him anyway for obvious reasons but they don't need to know that.
He's going to go for melodramatic teenager today - he hasn't had much fun in a while.
"Oh why do mortals insist on Summoning me? I, the great Death, bound by their wishes and Summons." He makes a sobbing sound as though he is crying.
"Fear not Death for I shall serve you!" Luna chooses this point to appear, skipping as she emerges from behind him.
"But alas you are only mortal - fragile and short-lived!"
"My servitude shall be so great that my soul is bound to you - oh great Death."
The yellow toddler chooses that moment to shoot them.
"Then arise my dear servant and serve me faithfully."
"I do."
The yellow toddler shoots them again, just as Harry processes. "This isn't a wedding Luna."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"But it sounded like a union of souls to me."
Harry decides to abandon it as a lost cause. "Hi kids, what can Uncle Harry do for you today?"
He is met by some very unimpressed faces. It would be more effective if he cared.
They interrupted his chamomile tea. Chamomile tea. They can deal with it.
The one at the back, the purple toddler seems more exasperated than the others and Luna notices. "Hello Skull de Mort."
Harry squints and sure enough, Teddy is standing there. This must be where he keeps popping off to. His godson seems to be having some sort of midlife crisis because he's not young enough for it to be teenage rebellion.
He is dressed head-to-toe in purple - Luna's favourite colour.
"You look very dashing." Luna compliments.
"Too purple." Harry mutters.
"Would you like to repeat that?" his best friend snaps.
"You know I wouldn't."
"Like I know you didn't just insult-"
It is Teddy who saves his skin. "Hi Death."
"No need to be so formal Skull."
"Hi Dad." Teddy mutters but the other toddlers hear him.
Harry ignores their various amusing reactions in favour of speaking to his son because he has priorities. "What did you do?"
"Yes Teddy, what happened?" Luna's tone is the furthest thing from light.
By the end, Harry's decided he'd better pay this 'Checkerface' a visit. Luna is whispering in Teddy's ear and Harry would rather not eavesdrop. He wants plausible deniability.
People say Harry's the reckless one but Teddy far surpasses him. They also say he's the mischievous one. Anyone who's ever met Luna on a particularly good day (for her) will disagree. Or they would if they could see past the 'strange but studious bookwork' act. It isn't really an act though - Luna is like that.
Just not all the time.
"What do you want?" he demands.
"A way to break the curse."
"You could eat the pacifiers." Luna suggests,"but then you'd have indigestion and wouldn't be able to eat the biscuits."
"Biscuits?"
"Malted milk. Such a shame you can't have any, Skull."
"Why not?"
"Because I ate them all."
Harry levels a disbelieving gaze at her. Luna smiles serenely back. He can never tell whether or not she's lying when she pulls that face.
"Fine then."
He's just psyched himself up to start gobbling them up when Teddy interrupts. "It's the act of consumption right? Why don't you just take them and recycle them."
"You party-pooper!" Luna pouts before Apparating away.
"Wait- how am I supposed to get back?"
Harry spins around wildly - not noticing the gap in the summoning circle.
"Have fun!"
His chamomile tea is deposited in his hand. He takes a sip.
It is lukewarm.
"You!" he yells at the Acrobaleno.
"Run!" Skull shouts.