"Hari."
"Yes, dad?"
Itachi closed his eyes. "A word about your Sharingan."
"Yes?"
"It belonged to my best friend. It is incredibly powerful. I am entrusting it to you. Do not make me regret this course of action."
There was a knock at the door. Pein stepped inside. "Would someone," he glared at Hari, "care to explain to me why my lieutenant is currently squealing like a little girl? I already asked Tobi, and he said it wasn't him 'this time'."
"Oh good, he sent it!"
"Who sent what?"
"Jiraiya of the Sages! I asked him to send Aunt Konan an autographed set of Icha Icha."
"You what?"
"It's her favorite series! She has the whole collection already. I don't get why." He gave Pein a quick hug. "I have to run!"
From deeper in the Tower they heard, "Bye, Uncle Kisame! Bye, Aunt Konan!" Then there was a farting sound and swearing. "Bye, Uncle Hidan! Nice one, Uncle Tobi!"
Itachi and Pein looked at each other.
"Fawkes!" There was a fwooshing sound and then another.
"Itachi."
"Yes, Leader-sama?"
"Explain."
"Well—"
"Wait. Did your son give our address to Jiraiya?"
"Indeed."
"So he knows we're here."
"Correct."
"I'll step up patrols."
"If it's any consolation, I suspect the Toad Sage will be too busy training a new protégé to bother us for some time to come. At least that's what I hear."
"It isn't."
Itachi was silent.
"Icha Icha?"
"So Hari says."
"Really?"
"I don't ask Lady Konan about her reading collection. I merely accepted that Hari has inherently violated everyone's privacy as a matter of course."
"So he's seen us naked?"
"He sees everyone naked, Leader-sama."
Pein paused. "Ick!"
"Indeed, Leader-sama."
X
X
FWOOSH
Hermione's head snapped up. "Oh no."
"Hi, Hermione!"
She didn't even jump when Hari spoke behind her. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm checking on your progress. Have you been practicing?"
"Of course not! Magic is against the rules during the summer."
"And?"
"We'll get in trouble if we use it."
A pebble started levitating. "I'm not so sure about that." Hari stepped around in front of her. "Think of it this way, Hermione: would you rather possibly get in trouble, or definitely get hit with your wand?" He thwacked her on the forehead with her wand. "I expect you to be able to keep up in class this year."
With that, Hari trotted over to a frizzy-haired man and his wife. "Hi, Mister and Missus Hermione's Parents."
"Hari?"
"What?" Hari looked up from vigorously shaking the pair's hands.
"My parents are over there." She pointed at a pair of people watching with a look of moderate horror. Neither had frizzy hair.
Hari rushed over. "Sorry about that. Hi, Mister and Missus—" He ducked the swing from Hermione's mother.
"You!"
"Me?"
"You're the reason our daughter has those freakish teeth!"
"No I'm not. She did that to herself." He dodged another swing. "Right. I can see you're busy." He shook their hands despite their best efforts to avoid it. "Make sure Hermione practices her magic or I'll hit you with her wand." He paused. "Ask her what that means."
Hari suddenly had a phoenix on his shoulder. "Bye now." Fawkes burst into flames.
The muggles on the beach stared in horror at the second fireball in as many minutes.
"Mom, dad?"
"Yes?"
"We're leaving. Now."
"Why?"
"Because when people start asking Hari-questions, I want to be elsewhere." Hermione gathered up her towel and began trotting away. "Now, please."
X
X
Fwoosh
"Who the hell is—oh." Blaise Zabini lowered the muggle pistol he'd raised and sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to get a visit here on our completely private villa."
"Hey. Blaise."
"Hi."
"Did you know Hermione is really twitchy?"
"Around you or in general?"
"Yes."
"I see."
"Blaise, what was th—oh." Miss Zabini stepped through the door into the living room and smiled, perfectly manicured eyebrow rising slowly. "You've invited someone to our private estate already?" Her smile turned wicked. "Starting young, just like your mother."
"Mom!"
"And a boy, no less."
"MOM!"
"Hello there," she murmured huskily. She held out a hand. "I'm Circe Zabini. My mother was Greek," she added, by way of explanation.
Hari took her hand and kissed the back of it. "I'm sorry to hear of your recent bereavement."
"Thank you. It was such a shame."
"Yes. I heard. Total accident, from what I understand. Knives so easily move to the mansion from the guest house and all."
She raised her eyebrow.
"It happens all the time." Hari's smile was all mirth.
"Oh?"
"Of course." Hari sat on the couch beside Blaise.
"What a charming young man you are."
"Thank you. I'm working on that."
"Working hard indeed." She made a purring sound.
"MOM! Stop flirting."
"What?" She put on an innocent look. "What flirting? I was just complimenting young Hari."
Hari was watching with a slightly confused expression. Some of this exchange was familiar in the abstract, but he was having a great deal of trouble lining it up in his mental space as relating to him. "What am I missing?" he asked Blaise.
"My mother was doing one of those things she does. I don't have male friends because she always flirts with them."
"I flirt with the females as well, hun."
Hari's face was blank. There was a step he wasn't getting here.
"And to direct things back to a topic I understand," Hari tried. "Are you by any chance engaged to anyone, Missus Blaise's Mom?"
"That's a rather forward question, young man." She made a show of looking him over. "But if you're going to ask, you should call me Circe."
Hari shrugged. "Are you currently engaged to anyone, Circe?"
"Do you blush?" she asked.
"What?" Hari ignored Blaise's bout of snickering.
"Do. You. Blush?"
"Probably? I mean, I have all the right veins and so on . . ."
"But you're not blushing."
"Why would I?"
Circe stared at him for a while. Then she looked at Blaise, a perfectly manicured eyebrow raised.
"He's serious, mom." Blaise grinned. "He really doesn't get it."
Circe frowned. "A challenge, then." She had a wicked smile suddenly. "Hari dear, has anyone ever given you the 'talk'?" The smile grew when Blaise began to choke.
"Talk?"
"Oh good."
"MOM!"
"What?"
"Please! It was bad enough the first time!"
"Aaaand on that note," Hari motioned and Fawkes landed on his shoulder. "Sadly, I have to run. I have a few people to drop in on still." There was a fwoosh as he vanished in a cloud of fire.
"I like him. I must say Blaise, I'm not sure I approve of your starting so young, and I admit I'm not glad that I shan't have grandchildren, but you chose a very nice young man."
"MOM!"
X
X
Fwoosh
"Gah!" Pansy shouted. She threw down her silverware. "Damn it, Potter! You couldn't have waited until dinner was over?"
"Potter?" snapped her father.
"Father, if I might introduce Hari Potter?"
"You may not! I don't—"
Hari was suddenly in front of him and his wife, bowing slightly. "Greetings, Mister and Missus Pansy's Parents. I just wanted to accept your thanks."
"Our what?"
"For saving you from your horrible fate."
"Come again?"
"I read the transcripts. You were forced to do things against your will. I'm glad I was able to save you from your waking nightmare. I think that's what you said it was."
"What?"
"And your poor wife from her job torturing muggle children. You are most welcome."
Pansy was staring in horror at her friend, whom she was certain was about to be cursed into oblivion.
"I'm glad that I can be friends with your daughter and thereby teach her to avoid falling into the same trap that you did when you first met whatshisface? Voldi-dork? I can't remember."
Any moment. She was sure that it was any moment; her friend was going to be utterly erased.
"I hope you don't mind if I join you for an early supper."
"We most certainly—" began her mother.
"I'm glad." Hari snapped his fingers and a House Elf brought a chair for him to sit on. "Do you have any rice? Well, I'm sure your elves can find some."
"What?"
"Are you going to do that thing, too?"
"What?"
"You are. Okay." Hari turned. "How's your summer been, Pansy?"
"Uh . . . suddenly less sane. Do you really think our elves are going to get your rice?"
"Why not? I'm not an honored guest?"
"Well . . ."
"That's what I thought."
"You're bloody mad."
"I'm not angry at all!" Hari smiled. "I'm feeling quite beneficent." He apparently was unaware that there was a seething hatred coming from the other end of the table. "Please tell me you have something to drink other than pumpkin juice."
"Water?"
"Oh good."
There was a tense silence during dinner. Tense and silent on the part of Mister and Missus Parkinson, who were both trying to figure out how to murder the Boy-Who-Lived without getting in trouble, given that he was being transported by Dumbledore's phoenix. Pansy was engaged in relatively calm talk with her insane friend, discussing the upcoming year.
"I heard we're going to have someone good for Defense this year."
"Yeah?"
"Gilderoy Lockhart. He's just about the most famous Wizard in Europe."
"And that's good?"
"Well, he's famous for defeating monsters."
"Oh. That's cool."
"Yeah. And he's handsome."
"That's . . . nice?"
"Yeah." Pansy sighed happily.
"Okay then."
Hari blinked as a baby phoenix landed on his shoulder. "Um . . . Bye?" There was a ball of fire and then a thud outside the mansion. "Sonofabitchwhatthefuckiswiththistransportingbullshitgodsdamnitmotherfuckingsonofaclamshelllabiacuntandsomesortoflizarddickpusmingledinbirdshitandshatoutofakittensrectum!" There was another fwoosh and then, mercifully, silence.
X
X
Fwoosh
"—damnbabycan'tgetthefulldistanceyetmyfuckingleftasscheekI'llshowyounotgettingthewholewaywhenItossyourflamingrearspawnedofameltedducklingandafirestarterinfrontofamovingtruck—oh."
Tracy Davis had her spoon halfway to her mouth. It had stopped there when her friend had appeared on top of the breakfast table, cursing like a sailor. She had thought she was used to the weirdness around him. It turned out not to be the case.
Her father's wand was already moving, but Hari's foot snapped out in an absentminded way and kicked it into the corner without doing anything as crass as looking at what he was doing.
The worst part was her mother's reaction. For a moment, she'd raised her eyebrow. When Hari kicked her husband's wand, she calmly drew the .357 magnum she kept at her hip and was about to plug several rounds into the boy when he ducked and rolled behind Tracy.
"Hey, Tracy. Hi Mister and Missus Tracy's Parents." Hari's voice emanated from behind the redhead.
"You can put the gun down, mum," said Tracy. She was speaking in the slow, careful voice best used around people with large-calibre handguns pointed at one's chest. "Or at least, point it elsewhere. This is my friend, Hari."
Her mother paused a moment. Then she holstered the gun and smiled. "I should have known." Tracy found her mother's response to magic to be one of the more worrying aspects of her family dynamic. Her mother mixed the unflappable nature of someone who was looking at magic from the outside and therefore didn't take anything for granted, with the outlook of someone who plenty of magic-users would like to kill and had decided to let someone else fill the pine box. In other words, she didn't get surprised by anything because she figured it wasn't remarkable that magic could do it and, at the same time, treated all unexpected phenomenon as hostile and reached for a firearm when confronted with the unknown.
"What do you mean you should have known?" asked her father. Tracy felt it was a sign that her father really did love her mother that he didn't ever object to her tendency to shoot first. That or he didn't want bullet holes in him. She wasn't sure.
"From how she described him, appearing in a cloud of fire on our breakfast table, cursing away is somehow apt." She turned to Hari, who was poking his head out now that he knew the gun was put away. "Would you care to join us for breakfast, dear?"
"Yes, please." Hari sat at the fourth chair. "I've just spent all night popping along from the Parkinsons' residence."
"The . . . Parkinsons'?" asked her father.
"Yeah. I stopped in for dinner with Pansy and her parents. They were ever so grateful to me for freeing them from the Imperius."
"The Imperius . . ." Tracy watched her father chuckle weakly. He had managed to plead down to a lesser charge and was out in time to see her take her first steps.
"That reminds me," interjected her mother. "I'm Clare Davis." She held out her hand and was surprised when Hari kissed the back of it. "I just wanted to thank you for retiring my husband."
"Retiring?"
"Indeed. He decided after meeting me that he would rather not be a Death Eater. Your actions as an infant meant he was able to become . . ." she paused, staring off into space for a moment. "Ah yes, I remember the term now: a productive member of society." Apparently she had decided not to let that go.
Her father had the good grace to look sheepish.
"So, how much of what our daughter has told us is exaggerated?" Clare Davis leaned forwards, resting her elbows on the table. Blue eyes gleamed with interest. "Did you really manage to end the year with no house points at all?" It was the question her husband was no doubt dying to ask.
"Yep. It wasn't hard. Professor Snape did most of the hard work." Hari spoke as he dug into a plate of scrambled eggs and sausages. "To tell the truth, the easiest part was ignoring detentions." There was a hacking sound from Tracy's father as he inhaled some of his eggs. "I didn't even have to evade anything, just didn't turn up."
"You ignored detentions?" Clare was snickering.
"Of course. Besides, how else was I supposed to be fair to teachers when I had two detentions on the same night?"
"You got away with this?" asked her husband.
"Sort of. I just ignored the punishments."
Tracy had a horrible feeling. It was borne out when her father gave her a leer. "It seems my daughter goes for the bad boys," he gave his wife a sudden kiss. "Just like her mum." And Tracy was shocked her hair didn't catch on fire, given how hot her face and ears were.
"To be fair," said Clare. "There is a difference between 'bad boy' and 'murderer'."
"Not in my case."
"Come again?"
"What's your count?" Hari asked her father.
"What?"
"Oh. That thing. I asked how many people you killed."
"Uh . . ."
"I bet I have more."
"Um . . ."
"I lost track, but I've got a few dozen, at least."
Clare was looking half horrified and half amused at the look of humiliated terror on her daughter's face.
"Thanks for the food, but I still want to visit Millie and Daphne before I go do my shopping."
"There's almost a month before school!"
"Yeah, but that barely gives me time to get the things from the real world I want to grab." And then a baby phoenix was sitting on his shoulder. "Why isn't Fawkes showing up?" he snapped at it. "At least it can get me where I want to go. You, though—" Fwoosh.
(A/N John)
I suppose I should start by clarifying that Blaise's mother is not actually interested in Hari. She just wants to make him blush. It annoys her a bit that he's got a serious mental disconnect between sex and himself. In a few years though, he's going to remember this and flush bright red.
(A/N 2 John)
As to the title of the chapter . . . for once, I can't really blame Spoon for this. This is what happens when I start writing something to kill a bit of time and then it spirals horribly out of control. Case in point: giving Hari a phoenix that's horribly defective.
(A/N 3 John)
Regarding the phoenix: I have not worked out if it's persistently defective, or just a baby. A newborn, in fact, that is still working out how to flame properly. Or maybe just can't actually manage it yet. Regardless, this was a response of Fawkes to getting called all the time. I'm fairly certain that it kidnapped a baby phoenix to take its place.