Chapter Text
“Alright!” James smacks his knees as he stands up in one swift motion and looks around the room. “I’ve told you everything you need to know and in case you forget we made a list of instructions so you should be fine,” he forces a very tight smile and anxiously taps his feet. Lily rolls her eyes.
“The kid is almost eight years old, how many instructions do we nee- oh, dear lord,” Marlene says from her spot on the sofa and watches in horror as James pulls out a two-meter-long piece of parchment from his jacket.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Lily whispers from behind her husband.
“All his allergies are listed right here,” James continues, frantically pointing at different parts of the list. “His favourite snacks and games, his curfew, how long he’s allowed to watch the tv-“
“Okay, love, I think they get it,” Lily interrupts, patting him on the shoulder and giving their friends an apologetic look. Everyone is seated across the living room intently listening to James’ nervous blabbering like children in class. Some not so much. (Mary’s doing everything in her power not to doze off right there in the armchair.)
James still does not seem satisfied with the amount of information he’s been spewing out, though, and he goes on. “And I’ve already established all the things you’re forbidden to do around Harry,”
Everyone lets out a collective sigh, including Lily.
“First of all, all of you – no swearing,” James uses his serious voice (which the others have always found very funny).
“Sirius – no quidditch lessons other than theoretical, Remus – no smoking around my child,”
“Oh, come on, James. Do you really think I’m that irresponsible?” Remus whines. James raises his eyebrows, directing his gaze to the filled ashtray on the coffee table.
Remus clears his throat. “Yeah, okay. Noted,”
“Peter – no magic lessons,”
“Wha-a-t?” Peter whines, frowning. “Lily?”
Lily shakes her head. “No, I actually agree with that. Last time you locked him in a bird cage for two hours, which is just animal- I mean- child cruelty,”
“I was just trying to unlock his inner wizard,” Peter mumbles, crossing his arms in discontent.
“Everybody’s magic comes in their own time, okay?” Lily shrugs. “And if Harry doesn’t get a letter, that would be okay too,”
“…but he will, though,” James says.
“James!”
“Okay, okay. You’re right. We would all love him regardless. Anyhow! My point stands, no magic lessons,”
Peter groans.
Just when James takes a breath to presumably continue listing forbidden things Sirius gets up from his seat (which happens to be Remus’ lap) and makes his way over to give his best friend a crushing hug in a not-so-inconspicuous attempt to get him to shut up.
“Thank you, Prongs, for the very informative and thrilling information dump. We will try our best not to kill, spoil, curse, or shape your son in any way and get him back to you completely unharmed and unchanged!” he grins and ruffles James’ already disheveled hair. “Now, go and enjoy your vacation,”
They all exchange hugs and I love you’s with the married couple all the while James keeps dropping pieces of instruction they have all heard twice already.
“Okay, then,” Lily smiles. “Harry! You can come down now, the meeting is over,” she calls up to Harry’s room. The child comes running down the stairs in mere seconds, throwing himself at his parents.
“Hello, honey,” James coos at him as he squats down to poke his nose. “You be nice to them, alright, boy?”
“We get a two-hour long lecture and an entire toilet roll with instructions and all the little rascal gets is ‘Be nice to them’?” Mary imitates James’ voice (quite on point, actually). “Sounds like unfair treatment to me,” she scoffs.
Sirius claps. “Okay, people, you’ve said your goodbyes. Now hand over your child,” he grabs Harry out of James’ grasp and throws him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes to which the child immediately responds with laughter and maniacal leg kicking. Dorcas starts shooing James and Lily out of the door while Remus helps them with their bags.
Not long after James and Lily had left and gone off on their well-earned vacation, the group of six very responsible adults sit around the fireplace watching Harry perform a dance routine he apparently learned from a friend from school.
Marlene’s sitting on the floor curled up in between Dorcas’ legs, and sleepily hums along to the song.
“Look at him go,” she chuckles. “What an angel,”
Peter nods. “Yeah. Besides, it’s just one week,” he shrugs.
“How hard could babysitting possibly be?”
⋆
The first horseman of the apocalypse arrives in the morning of the following day.
Everyone is still deeply asleep when the clock strikes 6 a.m. and horrendous shrieking echoes through the building. Remus is the first one on his feet, Marlene and Dorcas following.
“What the-“ Sirius groans from his bed before the panic sets in upon hearing the sounds of total chaos from upstairs. It doesn’t take long for everyone else to wake up and join Remus in his panicked race to Harry’s bedroom. Well, everyone except Peter who would most probably sleep through a thousand Moaning Myrtles flying above his head.
They break Harry’s bedroom door open, wands at the ready, but what they are met with is somehow more concerning than anything they could have imagined.
“WAR IS AFOOT!”
The little wild-haired boy is standing on his bed (in his shoes, to Mary’s dismay), his face covered in black and red Sharpie stripes. There is a torn piece of curtain wrapped around his waist behind which he’d tucked a little twig (a wand), and another wrapped around his head as a headband. The room is covered in red crepe paper and, for some reason, confetti. The record player is playing the Ghostbusters theme.
Everyone stands staring.
“I am the best monster slayer in the land, and I command you,” Harry roars, pointing at the confused and slightly distressed faces of his adult supervisors. “To accompany me on my journey to kill all the monsters! Everywhere! Forever!”
The child has a slight lisp which makes his whole warrior speech pretty adorable. At least according to Sirius. As far as Marlene is concerned, James and Lily’s devil spawn of a child acquiring a taste for adventure is a certified recipe for the hospital. Or prison.
Harry jumps off the bed with a triumphant smile and runs up to the group, waving a paper with burnt edges.
“Look! I made a map,”
“How did you- Did you play with matches?” Remus cries.
Sirius inspects said map. It’s not very coherent. Just various lines and dots and drawings of what he assumes are supposed to be the monsters Harry’s so prepared to slay. The boy has never been much of an artist.
“Oh, wow!” Dorcas says, looking over Sirius’ shoulder. “Well, are you sure we will be able to defeat all these terrifying monsters?” they kneel next to Harry.
“Yeah, yeah. Are you sure you don’t want to just… take a nap instead?” Marlene squeaks.
“It’s an adventure! We have to go now, or the monsters will destroy the world” Harry whines, green eyes shining. He does not wait for an answer before sprinting out of the room and down the stairs.
“Okay but- how about some breakfast first?” Remus shouts after the child but to no avail. He sighs. “I’ll just make it to-go then. Padfoot, go wake Pete up,”
And so, their adventure begins.
It’s actually quite fun at first.
Marlene and Dorcas manage to hold Harry off for a bit just so Remus can quickly pack everybody's lunch and Mary with Peter as her grumpy companion walk around checking things off James’ paranoid father’s list of things to pack when going out.
They start their journey in the backyard. Harry climbs through the jungle gym (yes, they have a jungle gym in the backyard) and swings his wand (twig) around chanting nonsense which he confidently claims are actual spells.
The adults play into it, of course. Peter enchants flowers and bugs to resemble the monsters from Harry’s map, Remus secretly casts spells when Harry shouts and points the twig to make it look like he’s actually doing magic. Sirius uses his Animagus form to play the role of Harry’s trusting stallion which the child has decided to name Fadpoot. (Sirius was not impressed by Harry’s creative naming abilities.) (Sirius had also realized that Harry isn’t as small and easy to carry on his dog-back as he used to be and that his back isn’t what it used to be either.)
Harry eventually drags them away from the house and into the nearby forest.
Everything is going swiftly. Until Harry decides to jump off a cliff.
“Harry, stop running! We can’t catch up!” Peter calls after the wild child.
“No! There are too many monsters around, we can’t escape!” Harry yells back. “But I know what to do!”
“Of course, you do, you little fucker,” Remus whispers to himself, almost entirely out of breath.
“The monsters are not going after you! They’re going after me!” Harry spins in place and dramatically stares off into the distance. He stays like that long enough for Marlene to shoot a confused look in the direction Harry’s gazing in to make sure there actually isn't something. Sirius is trying very hard to hold back his laughter/tears because ‘He takes after his dad too much.’
Then, “I have to sacrifice myself so you can survive. It’s time to say goodbye. I love you,” Harry is so dedicated to his role as an adventurer, it actually looks like he might start crying any second, and the others get very concerned.
He spreads his arms in a Jesus-kinda way and shoots everybody one last look. “Take me now, monsters!” he says and - honest to Merlin - flings himself off the cliff behind him.
Panic ensues.
Marlene throws herself after him almost immediately. Remus grabs his wand and shouts ‘Arresto Momentum’ at the same time as Peter shouts ‘Levicorpus’. The rest of them follow Marlene in diving after Harry.
What seemed like a very steep cliff turns out to be a pretty safe-looking hill. They manage to catch a glimpse of the boy rolling down like a powerless tumbleweed before he gets very quickly stopped and carried up upside down by both Remus’ and Peter’s spells. (‘Levicorpus? Really?’ ‘It was the first useful spell I could think of!’)
They carry Harry back up through the air and onto the ground. Everybody gathers around the boy, terrified as ever. Mary is about to cry, Sirius is already crying, Marlene’s eyes look like they’re about to fall out of her head.
And the little ankle-biter has the audacity to not have a single scratch on him.
He sits up and looks up at all the panic-stricken faces of his guardians. But before they can express any kind of concern for him, the absolute terror of a child starts laughing.
“Why are you all making funny faces?” he asks in between giggles. “You know this is just pretend, right? Moony,” he refocuses on Remus who’s shakily reaching for his cigarette case – out of habit perchance – before they get slapped out of his hands by Dorcas.
“It’s not real, dummy!”
Remus doesn’t have much to say to that. None of them do, really.
“Oh my god,” Mary crumbles. “He’s an emotional manipulator. Just like his mother,”
Marlene joins Harry in laughter after that. But it’s more borderline hysterical than joyful.
Sirius wraps his nephew in his arms, covering his ears, and whispers: “How the fuck is he okay?”
He doesn’t get an answer resembling anything but a shrug of the shoulders.
“Can we go home now? I don’t want to miss Adventures of the Gummi Bears,” Harry sing-songs, freeing himself from Sirius’ death grasp and starts skipping his way back through the forest.
“I can’t tell if he’s gonna grow up into a very brave man or a crazy lunatic,”
“This is going to be a long fucking week…”