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hells_half_acreTitle: Vile Violent Vacations 7/30
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hells_half_acre
Fandoms: Harry Potter, Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Genre: Gen
Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books, spoilers for Supernatural until 5x10.
Disclaimer: This is a transformative work of fiction for entertainment purposes only.
AN: Sequel to Damned Demented Demons and Bobby and Hermione - An Epistolary Fic . Updates every Wednesday (PST).
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Summary: In which the Winchesters get a tour of Muggle London
Sam woke up at 4am. Dean’s bed was still empty, the sheets still neatly tucked in, the pillow untouched. Sam cursed and rolled out of bed. He slipped out of his room and into Harry’s study, making his way to the windows. Dean’s car still sat perfectly parked in front of the row house. Sam breathed a sigh of relief, though in the next second he realized the vast amount of different ways Dean could have gotten into trouble in the last ten hours even without a car, and he no longer felt relieved at all. Still, there was the rest of the house to check before he panicked.
Sam used the trick of stepping on the edges of each step on the staircase – avoiding the weak middles – and was able to make his way downstairs quietly. He didn’t have to go far. He found Dean passed out on the sofa, one of the incident reports in his hand. Sam carefully pulled it out of Dean’s lax grip and placed it with the others on the coffee table. He went back to the hall and pulled Dean’s leather coat off the hook, then carefully laid it over Dean without waking him. He remembered when they were kids, at one point they had been small enough that, on cold nights in the car, the coat could cover both of them.
He made his way to the kitchen before his stomach woke Dean. He figured breakfast probably wouldn’t be for another few hours, so he might as well eat the plate of food Ginny had set aside last night. There was only one plate in the fridge, so Sam assumed that Dean must have already eaten his share. Maybe, Sam thought, Dean had even come home fairly early, though Sam doubted it.
Ginny had said that he’d have to eat it cold. He knew there wasn’t a microwave, but Sam was curious about the stove. The stove looked like any other, except that it didn’t have dials. It wasn’t electric. It looked like a gas stove, only without the actual elements.
“Ok, magic stove,” Sam muttered, and took a bite of his cold chicken. Who was he to complain anyway, it was way better than the overcooked and over-salted diner food that he and Dean usually lived off of. He ate in the kitchen, carefully washed and dried the plate and put it away in the proper cupboard, and then he went wandering.
Tucked in the corner of the kitchen, Sam found an extremely creepy picture of an odd-looking creature, appropriately named Kreacher, with dates underneath it. Sam felt a little uneasy as he realized that it may have possibly been something that lived in the house at one point. He didn’t recognize what it was, but he hoped it wasn’t another version of a pet ghoul. The picture gave him a dirty look, so Sam left.
In the living room, there were family pictures on the mantel. The old photograph of a man who looked like Harry and a beautiful woman holding a baby was probably a picture of Harry’s parents. It reminded Sam of the picture he had in his apartment at Stanford – of his Dad and the mother he never knew. There were many photographs of the red-haired people that obviously made up Ginny’s family, Sam didn’t spend much time looking at them. He found pictures of Harry, Ginny, and the kids, and pictures of Harry and a baby Teddy.
He left the pictures and gathered up the incident reports, deciding to go back upstairs to the study, so that he didn’t accidentally wake Dean. As he passed through the hall, he thought he heard a muffled voice, but couldn’t find the source. Still, it was a town-house – He was probably just hearing the neighbours through the walls.
*
“Come on Harry, get up” Ginny said, and tugged on Harry’s foot.
“Yeah, Daddy! Wake up!” James demanded. Harry opened the eye that wasn’t buried in pillow to see James’ face looming over him, and Albus’ head a blurry black blob just behind him.
“Glasses Daddy,” Albus said, thrusting his hand into Harry’s field of vision. Harry rolled over and opened both eyes. Carefully taking the glasses from Albus and sliding them on...they were of course covered with little finger prints.
“Thanks boys,” Harry smiled. He reached for his wand and muttered a quick cleaning spell at his lenses. Albus giggled and Harry wondered if he marked the glasses up on purpose every morning just for the little show.
Ginny had Lily on her hip and was already dressed, so Harry stumbled out of bed, and didn’t bother changing out of his pyjamas. He just took Albus’ and James’ hands and told them to be quiet going down the stairs in case Sam and Dean were still sleeping.
As soon as they got to the second level though, it was clear that Sam, at least, was not sleeping. He came out of the bathroom, freshly showered and clad only in a towel at his hips and the crystal pendant tied haphazardly around his neck, and nearly ran into them in the hallway. Harry was not sure which of the three adults were blushing more profusely – Harry and Ginny being both more fair-skinned or Sam being mostly naked, well...at least the children weren’t embarrassed.
“Oh, um, hey, good morning,” Sam said.
“Morning!” James said as if nothing was amiss.
“Mornin’,” Albus echoed quietly. Lily still sat on Ginny’s hip, wide eyes on Sam and thumb in her mouth. Sam smiled at the children, and some of the tension was broken.
“Oh, yes, good morning Sam,” Ginny replied, “sleep well?”
“Yes, thanks,” Sam said, and then inched a little to the side, and that’s when Harry realized that they were blocking the door to the guest bedroom.
“Oh!” Harry said and tugged on James and Albus, “back up kids. Ginny?”
Ginny moved backward a bit too quickly, and Harry tried to remember that he’d probably get a good laugh at this later, but right then there was an Adonis standing half-naked in front of his wife and he didn’t really appreciate it as much as she appeared to. Harry couldn’t help but be consciously aware of his ridiculous bed-head and the possibility that he still had pillow creases in his face. Sure, Sam had scars, but they hardly seemed to diminish him...and the fact that Harry knew that even though he didn’t fancy blokes really said it all.
“Thanks,” Sam said ducking into the room, while keeping a firm grip on the towel. “Sorry,” he added turning back around briefly, then he seemed to remember something. “Oh, um, Dean might still be asleep on the couch downstairs.”
“Was something wrong with the bed?” Ginny asked. Sam shrugged.
“Sleeps where he falls,” Sam replied. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
With that the door snicked closed, and Harry raised an annoyed eyebrow at Ginny as she turned to him with wide-eyes and a placed a hand over her heart.
“Come on kids,” Harry said quietly, leading James and Albus past Ginny. “Let’s keep practicing keeping quiet.”
Again, there was no need to be quiet, because when they got halfway down the stairs, Harry saw Dean in the hallway, very much awake with his ear to the wall.
“Dude,” Dean said, “there’s someone in your wall and I think they’re insulting me!”
So far, it was shaping up to be an interesting morning.
*
“...so, since we couldn’t get the portrait off the wall, we just plastered over it all. Mind you, we had to wait until Kreacher was dead, he loved Mrs. Black,” Harry was saying as Sam walked into the kitchen. He raised his eyebrow at the overheard name.
“What was Kreacher anyway?” Sam asked. Harry seemed surprised at the question. Sam nodded towards the corner of the kitchen where the picture hung.
“My house-elf,” Harry replied. “He used to belong to the Blacks. Sirius bequeathed him to me when he left me the house.”
“What’s a house-elf?” Sam asked. “Not like the ghoul thing, is it?”
“No,” Harry answered. “House-elves are different. They...well, things have changed in the past few years, but they’re sort of like servants – maids and butlers for Wizards. They can be attached to a particular family, or you can hire them.”
“Hm,” Sam said. “What did you plaster over?”
“The thicker wall in the front hallway there,” Dean pointed towards the kitchen door. “There’s one of those Wizard paintings underneath – the ones that watch you. Apparently they can talk too, and the one out there is some crazy racist lady.”
“Walburga Black,” Harry clarified, “Sirius’ mum. Pure-blood prejudice. Hates me because my father was a blood-traitor, hates Hermione because she’s a mudblood, would hate you because your Muggles...the list goes on.”
“Harry!” Ginny said sternly, pointing to James and Albus who were busy preparing to launch forkfuls of scrambled eggs at each other, “language!”
“Sorry, Gin,” Harry replied. “Boys! Don’t play with your food!”
Ginny passed Sam a plate of food, and sat herself down beside Lily’s highchair.
“Language?” Dean asked Harry, “did you say a bad word in Wizard or something?”
“Uh, the word I called Hermione – it’s like...um...calling a black person the N-word,” Harry explained. “And well, blood-traitor is also a nonsense term that shouldn’t exist. It’s all this rubbish against Muggle-borns and people from old Wizarding families marrying Muggles or Muggle-borns that Voldemort and people like the Malfoys believed. Like the older families were superior somehow, even though if you think about it, all wizards had to come from somewhere right? I mean, at some point, all our families had to be Muggle.”
“Alright,” Ginny said, “I’m not sure this is correct talk for the breakfast table. Why don’t you fill the Winchesters in later on everything that’s wrong about Wizard society, dear.”
“Sorry, Gin,” Harry repeated.
The conversation shifted to the sights they were planning to see that day, and before they knew it, Harry was madly scrambling upstairs to shower before Hermione and Ron arrived.
Sam had been in enough family-friendly diners to know that this was pretty much par for the course when you put young children near food, but he felt bad for Ginny all the same when James reached over and rubbed a handful of egg into Albus’ hair.
Dean helped Ginny get the scrambled eggs out of Albus’ hair, while Sam gathered up the plates and took them to the sink. Ginny kept insisting that they didn’t need to help, but it was hard for her to be convincing when Lily spilt her juice and started crying before Ginny could even finish scolding James for the egg incident.
“What’s going on in here?” Harry said, in a stern voice that reminded Sam a little of his own father, as he returned to the kitchen right in the thick of the chaos. Sam wisely stayed out of the way by the sink. Dean was almost done picking the egg out of Albus’ hair, and Albus was now only sniffling occasionally instead of sobbing. James was looking a bit bewildered, and Sam guessed that James had probably expected the stunt to illicit laughter not tears. Ginny was still trying to calm Lily down.
“James! How many times do I have to tell you to be nice to your brother?” Harry said. “You should be grateful; some people don’t get to have brothers because their parents die! How would you like that?”
James eyes went wide and Sam thought idly that it really was like those Japanese cartoons - the way you could actually see the tears well-up. Albus had a similar horrified expression. Sam bit his lip.
“Dude,” Dean said, and ran a hand over his face.
“I mean...” Harry tried, but obviously didn’t know how to mend the situation.
“It’s ok, sweethearts,” Ginny said. “James, apologize to Albus, then you two go play, alright?”
James ran over to Albus and hugged him as only children do, then grabbed Albus’ hand and pulled him out of the room. Finally, Sam heard Dean’s stifled chuckle erupt into a full blown laugh. Sam fought with the corners of his mouth, but ended up making an embarrassing snorting noise as he laughed too.
“Oh Merlin,” Ginny sighed, “my poor babies are going to need therapy by the time they’re eleven at this rate.”
“It sounded better in my head,” Harry mumbled.
“I’m sure it did,” Dean replied, patting Harry on the back consolingly without losing his grin.
“I don’t remember our Dad ever using that one on us, that’s for sure,” Sam added, shaking his head.
“Didn’t have to,” Dean winked, “you always deserved what I did to you.”
Before Sam could argue, there was an eruption of green flame in the large fireplace, and out stepped Ron. He took a brief look around the room and then frowned.
“Aw, Harry did something stupid, and I missed it,” Ron said. “What was it then, come on, tell me?”
The fireplace flashed green again and Hermione stepped out.
“Good morning,” Hermione said.
“’Mornin’” Sam replied, as Harry and Ginny both greeted her as well.
“’Mornin’” Dean added in at the end. Hermione glanced over at him hopefully. “Yeah, I’m still pissed, but we’re good,” Dean assured her.
“Understood,” Hermione replied. “I wasn’t sure you’d still want me tagging along today.”
“Nah,” Dean said. “Need someone who can talk geek to Sammy, while the rest of us make funny faces at those guards.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he had to admit that Dean was probably right.
“Brilliant” Harry said brightly, “who’s up for seeing London?”
*
They started off with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Dean listed the number of movies he had seen in which someone fell off Big Ben, flew into Big Ben, or caused Big Ben to explode, while Hermione talked about its historical significance. Harry thought it was an educational experience no matter which of them he listened to.
They walked by Westminster Abbey, but didn’t go inside. Hermione regaled them with stories of coronations, and the political significance of the building, but managed to actually avoid the topic of religion. After the previous night, it was clear Hermione was determined not to upset the Winchesters in any capacity.
Next was a small stroll through James Park, while Hermione and Sam discussed the switch from Latin to English within the church and its relative non-transference to exorcisms. Ron told Dean all about his Dad’s reaction to the EMF meter that Dean had made for him, and how Ron had managed to repair it himself three times already. They made it to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard.
Trafalgar square was next on the list, mostly just because it was well known, and not for any interest in Nelson. Hermione still went on about the history for a bit, this time with Ron mostly peppering her with questions, as Sam and Dean sat on the edge of one of the fountains and stretched their legs out, crossing them at the ankles in mirror poses. Harry laughed at Ron’s more ridiculous questions, and noted that Ron had probably passed the point of being genuinely curious and was well into the let’s-annoy-Hermione-until-she-loses-it game.
He turned to Sam and Dean to see if they were as amused as he was by Ron, only to find the two brothers were obviously not paying attention anymore. They both sat there with slightly wistful expressions. Harry turned towards where they were looking to see what on earth about Trafalgar square was bringing the mood down so much. Only he couldn’t figure it out. There was the column, the other fountain, the gallery...
... and people. A group of teenagers pushed and shoved each other playfully, waving to more friends as they arrived before the group started arguing about whether they wanted McDonald’s or Burger King. There was mother walking by with a pram, and younger kid rocketing about on roller-skates while his dad yelled at him not to bump into people. There were a few other tourists, taking pictures of each other with the column over their shoulders.
The Winchesters were looking at the people. Harry couldn’t help but think back to the war against Voldemort. He tried to remember if he had ever looked at everyone like that – like they were children that needed protecting, like it was his job to save them all. He knew what it felt like to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, but not like the Winchesters. The Winchester’s fight was different than his had been, and not just because they had a different enemy.
“Harry,” Hermione said softly to him, and Harry realized that her and Ron had stopped at some point and were Ron was now sitting next to the Winchesters looking around in slight confusion.
“They’re doing it for us, not themselves” Harry said. The Winchesters weren’t trying to save their own lives. They were trying to save everyone else’s. Why did they even Hunt? They’d long since killed the demon that killed their mother; Dean was back from Hell. What was it to them if Lucifer was roaming the earth? Was it just out of some sense of guilt over having accidentally caused it? No one would blame them for giving up. No one would blame them if they just decided to stop. Hadn’t they given enough for humanity already? Hadn’t they been screwed over enough already?
“Harry?” Hermione asked.
Yet, Harry couldn’t even get them not to think about Hunting for one bloody day. He had to find a job for them to do in Britain just so that they’d come. They hadn’t even made it through tea before Dean and Sam were sitting there reading reports and trying to make connections between paranormal occurrences. Why were they such workaholics? Then Harry thought, maybe the better question was if they weren’t working, what would they be doing? They lived in a car, they were legally dead and, besides Sam’s brief stint at college, Hunting was all they’d ever known. They were killing themselves to protect something they couldn’t even enjoy.
“Harry?” Hermione repeated. Harry could see her scanning the skies, as though there might be a magical cause for the melancholy that had just descended on their group. But Harry knew...they just had to put the Winchesters back into familiar territory.
“The Tower of London,” Harry announced.
“What?” Hermione asked, completely confused.
“I think Sam and Dean would really enjoy the Tower of London,” Harry clarified.
“Harry, do you honestly think that’s a good idea?” Hermione asked in amazement, but Harry had spoken loud enough for everyone to hear him, and Sam and Dean were now both looking over with identical quizzically raised eyebrows. Harry had the fleeting thought that sometimes Sam and Dean reminded him a bit of Fred and George.
“It’ll be brilliant, Hermione,” Harry said. “It’s their field of expertise, but they’re not required to actually fix any of the problems. You should start telling them about it, while I see if I can flag down a couple of taxis.”
Hermione gave Harry a confused and slightly disapproving look, but dutifully began to recite everything she knew about the Tower of London - including the fact that it was quite possibly the most haunted place in the England.
By the time they actually reached the tower and started the tour, Dean had produced an EMF meter from somewhere. Sam alternated between having his eyes roam over every single centimetre of each room, and walking with his eyes closed and his head cocked to one side like he was listening for something. Both the Winchesters asked numerous questions and then whispered animatedly back and forth to each other in half-sentences.
“Like that time in Albuquerque”
“First or third?”
“Third”
“Right, not so bad then”
“Better than the second”
“Don’t even.”
And then there were jokes, and Ron laughed even though some are at his expense. Hermione was happy because she knew more than the tour guides, and Harry could stand back and actually feel like the plan had been successful - that even though Harry had never met Bobby Singer himself, Harry thought he’d be happy with how Harry had managed to pull off this favour.
“Alright,” Harry said, after the tour was over, “I’ve had my fill of being a tourist. Let’s get home and help Gin with dinner.”
“Oh,” Hermione said glancing at her watch, “we better go pick up the children from my parents. We’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”
“In a bit,” Harry confirmed with a wave. Hermione and Ron glanced around and then turned and disapparated.
“Come on,” Harry said, and set off walking. “We’ll take the tube home. How’d you enjoy your tour of Muggle London?”
“It was nice,” Sam said, and Dean nodded in agreement.
“Why do you keep calling it Muggle London?” Dean asked. “Do Wizards have their own London?”
“Sort of,” Harry smiled. “I’ll show you tomorrow, after we drop Teddy at the train.”
“Ok,” Dean said. “I gotta admit, I’m interested in meeting Teddy.”
“Yeah?” Harry asked, just as Sam muttered a soft warning of “Dean”
“Yeah,” Dean confirmed. “Never met a Shifter that wasn’t evil before. Fuckin’ hate those things.”
“Dean,” Sam said a little louder, as Harry’s blood ran cold.
“Don’t call him that,” Harry said.
“Sorry, right, he’s something else. I know, didn’t mean anything by it,” Dean immediately replied wincing, “just meant...well...”
“Teddy’s a good kid,” Harry said.
“Of course, sorry,” Dean placated again. “That’s why I want to meet him, honest. I’ve already met your other kids and they’re pretty damn adorable.”
Harry couldn’t help the smile at Dean’s words about his kids, even though he knew that had probably been Dean’s intent. Dean smiled and changed the subject to whether or not there would be dessert with this family get together. Harry answered his questions and joked right back, but in the back of his mind he was already running through a thousand scenarios of how dinner was about to go, and whether Andromeda had been correct in her reluctance to let Teddy stay in a house along with two Hunters.
When they got back to the house, Ginny actually didn’t want them underfoot in the kitchen and told Harry that he should show Sam and Dean the computer in the back shed. Harry knew she was probably just getting rid of them so that she could use as much magic as she wanted without worrying about breaking Harry’s “use as little magic as possible around the Hunters” rule.
Harry led them out into the back garden, which was actually fairly large for a London row-house. In the back corner was a garden shed that Harry had been very careful not to enchant at all. He unlatched the door and swung it open across the dirty floor. There was a small space heater that he always kept on low, so once they were inside he swung the door shut again to keep out the cold January air. He reached up and pulled the cord for the single light bulb that hung from the centre of the ceiling.
“Sorry it’s not much,” Harry said. Realizing how shabby the shed must look – the space heater tended to attract spiders, who built complex webs in the corners. The floor was dirty from Ginny’s summer gardening supplies and the boys’ tricycles and wagon. In the corner there was a small desk with a computer and a modem. Harry went over to turn them both on.
“We have to keep the shed magic free for the computer to run,” Harry explained, as he plugged the computer and modem into the battery pack he had mounted on the wall. “Otherwise, I’d have it looking much nicer.”
“It runs off a battery?” Dean asked.
“How do you charge it?” Sam added.
“Solar,” Harry answered. “You may have noticed – the house isn’t exactly ‘on the grid’ as you say.”
“Magic stove,” Sam nodded. “The house isn’t hooked up to electricity or gas at all is it?”
“No,” Harry confirmed. “Technically, our house doesn’t exist according to the Muggle authorities. It wouldn’t matter except for wanting to use the computer. I couldn’t very well have some electrician come over to run electricity out to a garden shed that he can’t see and the city doesn’t know about. So, I installed solar panels on the shed roof, and it’s enough to charge this battery here – which runs the space heater constantly, and the light bulb and computer when I need them.”
Dean whistled lowly, and moved the two steps across the small shed – which seemed smaller now that Harry had the two Winchesters in it with him – to gaze at the series of wires running between the battery and ceiling.
Harry indicated the swivel office chair to Sam, and made sure all the right lights on the modem were lit.
“It’s wifi,” Harry said, “again – sort of difficult to have internet access run out to your shed, when you don’t exist.”
“I never realized having magic could actually make things more difficult,” Sam muttered.
“You mean, besides well-meaning fellows like yourself thinking I’m evil from time to time and trying to kill me?” Harry asked. “It’s just a different set of problems – whether your magic or not, there’s always going to something working against you.” Dean hummed in agreement.
“You have the specs for this Harry?” Dean asked, pointing at the solar set up.
“Uh, yeah” Harry replied, crouching beside Sam and sliding the desk drawer open. “It’s um...British voltages though.”
Dean just shrugged and made a grabby hand in Harry’s direction when Harry pulled the pile of papers out of the drawer, so Harry handed them over.
“What time do you want us inside?” Sam asked, without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Teddy and Andromeda will be here at six,” Harry replied, and then, recognizing that he was being dismissed, added “Just turn-off and unplug the computer and the modem when you come in.”
“Will do, thanks man,” Sam said. “Dean, you want to go grab those incident reports while I hack into Scotland Yard here? I left them in Harry’s study.”
“Sure thing, Princess,” Dean grumbled and rolled his eyes. “You want a half-caf double latte with that order?”
Sam levelled Dean with blank stare, and Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing. Dean just shook his head and pushed Harry out the door along with him.
“He was kidding about Scotland Yard, right?” Harry asked when they were half-way back to the house.
Dean just shot Harry a look that did not put him at ease at all.
Chapter 8
Deleted Scene
Author:
hells_half_acre Fandoms: Harry Potter, Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Genre: Gen
Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books, spoilers for Supernatural until 5x10.
Disclaimer: This is a transformative work of fiction for entertainment purposes only.
AN: Sequel to Damned Demented Demons and Bobby and Hermione - An Epistolary Fic . Updates every Wednesday (PST).
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Summary: In which the Winchesters get a tour of Muggle London
Sam woke up at 4am. Dean’s bed was still empty, the sheets still neatly tucked in, the pillow untouched. Sam cursed and rolled out of bed. He slipped out of his room and into Harry’s study, making his way to the windows. Dean’s car still sat perfectly parked in front of the row house. Sam breathed a sigh of relief, though in the next second he realized the vast amount of different ways Dean could have gotten into trouble in the last ten hours even without a car, and he no longer felt relieved at all. Still, there was the rest of the house to check before he panicked.
Sam used the trick of stepping on the edges of each step on the staircase – avoiding the weak middles – and was able to make his way downstairs quietly. He didn’t have to go far. He found Dean passed out on the sofa, one of the incident reports in his hand. Sam carefully pulled it out of Dean’s lax grip and placed it with the others on the coffee table. He went back to the hall and pulled Dean’s leather coat off the hook, then carefully laid it over Dean without waking him. He remembered when they were kids, at one point they had been small enough that, on cold nights in the car, the coat could cover both of them.
He made his way to the kitchen before his stomach woke Dean. He figured breakfast probably wouldn’t be for another few hours, so he might as well eat the plate of food Ginny had set aside last night. There was only one plate in the fridge, so Sam assumed that Dean must have already eaten his share. Maybe, Sam thought, Dean had even come home fairly early, though Sam doubted it.
Ginny had said that he’d have to eat it cold. He knew there wasn’t a microwave, but Sam was curious about the stove. The stove looked like any other, except that it didn’t have dials. It wasn’t electric. It looked like a gas stove, only without the actual elements.
“Ok, magic stove,” Sam muttered, and took a bite of his cold chicken. Who was he to complain anyway, it was way better than the overcooked and over-salted diner food that he and Dean usually lived off of. He ate in the kitchen, carefully washed and dried the plate and put it away in the proper cupboard, and then he went wandering.
Tucked in the corner of the kitchen, Sam found an extremely creepy picture of an odd-looking creature, appropriately named Kreacher, with dates underneath it. Sam felt a little uneasy as he realized that it may have possibly been something that lived in the house at one point. He didn’t recognize what it was, but he hoped it wasn’t another version of a pet ghoul. The picture gave him a dirty look, so Sam left.
In the living room, there were family pictures on the mantel. The old photograph of a man who looked like Harry and a beautiful woman holding a baby was probably a picture of Harry’s parents. It reminded Sam of the picture he had in his apartment at Stanford – of his Dad and the mother he never knew. There were many photographs of the red-haired people that obviously made up Ginny’s family, Sam didn’t spend much time looking at them. He found pictures of Harry, Ginny, and the kids, and pictures of Harry and a baby Teddy.
He left the pictures and gathered up the incident reports, deciding to go back upstairs to the study, so that he didn’t accidentally wake Dean. As he passed through the hall, he thought he heard a muffled voice, but couldn’t find the source. Still, it was a town-house – He was probably just hearing the neighbours through the walls.
*
“Come on Harry, get up” Ginny said, and tugged on Harry’s foot.
“Yeah, Daddy! Wake up!” James demanded. Harry opened the eye that wasn’t buried in pillow to see James’ face looming over him, and Albus’ head a blurry black blob just behind him.
“Glasses Daddy,” Albus said, thrusting his hand into Harry’s field of vision. Harry rolled over and opened both eyes. Carefully taking the glasses from Albus and sliding them on...they were of course covered with little finger prints.
“Thanks boys,” Harry smiled. He reached for his wand and muttered a quick cleaning spell at his lenses. Albus giggled and Harry wondered if he marked the glasses up on purpose every morning just for the little show.
Ginny had Lily on her hip and was already dressed, so Harry stumbled out of bed, and didn’t bother changing out of his pyjamas. He just took Albus’ and James’ hands and told them to be quiet going down the stairs in case Sam and Dean were still sleeping.
As soon as they got to the second level though, it was clear that Sam, at least, was not sleeping. He came out of the bathroom, freshly showered and clad only in a towel at his hips and the crystal pendant tied haphazardly around his neck, and nearly ran into them in the hallway. Harry was not sure which of the three adults were blushing more profusely – Harry and Ginny being both more fair-skinned or Sam being mostly naked, well...at least the children weren’t embarrassed.
“Oh, um, hey, good morning,” Sam said.
“Morning!” James said as if nothing was amiss.
“Mornin’,” Albus echoed quietly. Lily still sat on Ginny’s hip, wide eyes on Sam and thumb in her mouth. Sam smiled at the children, and some of the tension was broken.
“Oh, yes, good morning Sam,” Ginny replied, “sleep well?”
“Yes, thanks,” Sam said, and then inched a little to the side, and that’s when Harry realized that they were blocking the door to the guest bedroom.
“Oh!” Harry said and tugged on James and Albus, “back up kids. Ginny?”
Ginny moved backward a bit too quickly, and Harry tried to remember that he’d probably get a good laugh at this later, but right then there was an Adonis standing half-naked in front of his wife and he didn’t really appreciate it as much as she appeared to. Harry couldn’t help but be consciously aware of his ridiculous bed-head and the possibility that he still had pillow creases in his face. Sure, Sam had scars, but they hardly seemed to diminish him...and the fact that Harry knew that even though he didn’t fancy blokes really said it all.
“Thanks,” Sam said ducking into the room, while keeping a firm grip on the towel. “Sorry,” he added turning back around briefly, then he seemed to remember something. “Oh, um, Dean might still be asleep on the couch downstairs.”
“Was something wrong with the bed?” Ginny asked. Sam shrugged.
“Sleeps where he falls,” Sam replied. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
With that the door snicked closed, and Harry raised an annoyed eyebrow at Ginny as she turned to him with wide-eyes and a placed a hand over her heart.
“Come on kids,” Harry said quietly, leading James and Albus past Ginny. “Let’s keep practicing keeping quiet.”
Again, there was no need to be quiet, because when they got halfway down the stairs, Harry saw Dean in the hallway, very much awake with his ear to the wall.
“Dude,” Dean said, “there’s someone in your wall and I think they’re insulting me!”
So far, it was shaping up to be an interesting morning.
*
“...so, since we couldn’t get the portrait off the wall, we just plastered over it all. Mind you, we had to wait until Kreacher was dead, he loved Mrs. Black,” Harry was saying as Sam walked into the kitchen. He raised his eyebrow at the overheard name.
“What was Kreacher anyway?” Sam asked. Harry seemed surprised at the question. Sam nodded towards the corner of the kitchen where the picture hung.
“My house-elf,” Harry replied. “He used to belong to the Blacks. Sirius bequeathed him to me when he left me the house.”
“What’s a house-elf?” Sam asked. “Not like the ghoul thing, is it?”
“No,” Harry answered. “House-elves are different. They...well, things have changed in the past few years, but they’re sort of like servants – maids and butlers for Wizards. They can be attached to a particular family, or you can hire them.”
“Hm,” Sam said. “What did you plaster over?”
“The thicker wall in the front hallway there,” Dean pointed towards the kitchen door. “There’s one of those Wizard paintings underneath – the ones that watch you. Apparently they can talk too, and the one out there is some crazy racist lady.”
“Walburga Black,” Harry clarified, “Sirius’ mum. Pure-blood prejudice. Hates me because my father was a blood-traitor, hates Hermione because she’s a mudblood, would hate you because your Muggles...the list goes on.”
“Harry!” Ginny said sternly, pointing to James and Albus who were busy preparing to launch forkfuls of scrambled eggs at each other, “language!”
“Sorry, Gin,” Harry replied. “Boys! Don’t play with your food!”
Ginny passed Sam a plate of food, and sat herself down beside Lily’s highchair.
“Language?” Dean asked Harry, “did you say a bad word in Wizard or something?”
“Uh, the word I called Hermione – it’s like...um...calling a black person the N-word,” Harry explained. “And well, blood-traitor is also a nonsense term that shouldn’t exist. It’s all this rubbish against Muggle-borns and people from old Wizarding families marrying Muggles or Muggle-borns that Voldemort and people like the Malfoys believed. Like the older families were superior somehow, even though if you think about it, all wizards had to come from somewhere right? I mean, at some point, all our families had to be Muggle.”
“Alright,” Ginny said, “I’m not sure this is correct talk for the breakfast table. Why don’t you fill the Winchesters in later on everything that’s wrong about Wizard society, dear.”
“Sorry, Gin,” Harry repeated.
The conversation shifted to the sights they were planning to see that day, and before they knew it, Harry was madly scrambling upstairs to shower before Hermione and Ron arrived.
Sam had been in enough family-friendly diners to know that this was pretty much par for the course when you put young children near food, but he felt bad for Ginny all the same when James reached over and rubbed a handful of egg into Albus’ hair.
Dean helped Ginny get the scrambled eggs out of Albus’ hair, while Sam gathered up the plates and took them to the sink. Ginny kept insisting that they didn’t need to help, but it was hard for her to be convincing when Lily spilt her juice and started crying before Ginny could even finish scolding James for the egg incident.
“What’s going on in here?” Harry said, in a stern voice that reminded Sam a little of his own father, as he returned to the kitchen right in the thick of the chaos. Sam wisely stayed out of the way by the sink. Dean was almost done picking the egg out of Albus’ hair, and Albus was now only sniffling occasionally instead of sobbing. James was looking a bit bewildered, and Sam guessed that James had probably expected the stunt to illicit laughter not tears. Ginny was still trying to calm Lily down.
“James! How many times do I have to tell you to be nice to your brother?” Harry said. “You should be grateful; some people don’t get to have brothers because their parents die! How would you like that?”
James eyes went wide and Sam thought idly that it really was like those Japanese cartoons - the way you could actually see the tears well-up. Albus had a similar horrified expression. Sam bit his lip.
“Dude,” Dean said, and ran a hand over his face.
“I mean...” Harry tried, but obviously didn’t know how to mend the situation.
“It’s ok, sweethearts,” Ginny said. “James, apologize to Albus, then you two go play, alright?”
James ran over to Albus and hugged him as only children do, then grabbed Albus’ hand and pulled him out of the room. Finally, Sam heard Dean’s stifled chuckle erupt into a full blown laugh. Sam fought with the corners of his mouth, but ended up making an embarrassing snorting noise as he laughed too.
“Oh Merlin,” Ginny sighed, “my poor babies are going to need therapy by the time they’re eleven at this rate.”
“It sounded better in my head,” Harry mumbled.
“I’m sure it did,” Dean replied, patting Harry on the back consolingly without losing his grin.
“I don’t remember our Dad ever using that one on us, that’s for sure,” Sam added, shaking his head.
“Didn’t have to,” Dean winked, “you always deserved what I did to you.”
Before Sam could argue, there was an eruption of green flame in the large fireplace, and out stepped Ron. He took a brief look around the room and then frowned.
“Aw, Harry did something stupid, and I missed it,” Ron said. “What was it then, come on, tell me?”
The fireplace flashed green again and Hermione stepped out.
“Good morning,” Hermione said.
“’Mornin’” Sam replied, as Harry and Ginny both greeted her as well.
“’Mornin’” Dean added in at the end. Hermione glanced over at him hopefully. “Yeah, I’m still pissed, but we’re good,” Dean assured her.
“Understood,” Hermione replied. “I wasn’t sure you’d still want me tagging along today.”
“Nah,” Dean said. “Need someone who can talk geek to Sammy, while the rest of us make funny faces at those guards.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he had to admit that Dean was probably right.
“Brilliant” Harry said brightly, “who’s up for seeing London?”
*
They started off with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Dean listed the number of movies he had seen in which someone fell off Big Ben, flew into Big Ben, or caused Big Ben to explode, while Hermione talked about its historical significance. Harry thought it was an educational experience no matter which of them he listened to.
They walked by Westminster Abbey, but didn’t go inside. Hermione regaled them with stories of coronations, and the political significance of the building, but managed to actually avoid the topic of religion. After the previous night, it was clear Hermione was determined not to upset the Winchesters in any capacity.
Next was a small stroll through James Park, while Hermione and Sam discussed the switch from Latin to English within the church and its relative non-transference to exorcisms. Ron told Dean all about his Dad’s reaction to the EMF meter that Dean had made for him, and how Ron had managed to repair it himself three times already. They made it to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard.
Trafalgar square was next on the list, mostly just because it was well known, and not for any interest in Nelson. Hermione still went on about the history for a bit, this time with Ron mostly peppering her with questions, as Sam and Dean sat on the edge of one of the fountains and stretched their legs out, crossing them at the ankles in mirror poses. Harry laughed at Ron’s more ridiculous questions, and noted that Ron had probably passed the point of being genuinely curious and was well into the let’s-annoy-Hermione-until-she-loses-it game.
He turned to Sam and Dean to see if they were as amused as he was by Ron, only to find the two brothers were obviously not paying attention anymore. They both sat there with slightly wistful expressions. Harry turned towards where they were looking to see what on earth about Trafalgar square was bringing the mood down so much. Only he couldn’t figure it out. There was the column, the other fountain, the gallery...
... and people. A group of teenagers pushed and shoved each other playfully, waving to more friends as they arrived before the group started arguing about whether they wanted McDonald’s or Burger King. There was mother walking by with a pram, and younger kid rocketing about on roller-skates while his dad yelled at him not to bump into people. There were a few other tourists, taking pictures of each other with the column over their shoulders.
The Winchesters were looking at the people. Harry couldn’t help but think back to the war against Voldemort. He tried to remember if he had ever looked at everyone like that – like they were children that needed protecting, like it was his job to save them all. He knew what it felt like to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, but not like the Winchesters. The Winchester’s fight was different than his had been, and not just because they had a different enemy.
“Harry,” Hermione said softly to him, and Harry realized that her and Ron had stopped at some point and were Ron was now sitting next to the Winchesters looking around in slight confusion.
“They’re doing it for us, not themselves” Harry said. The Winchesters weren’t trying to save their own lives. They were trying to save everyone else’s. Why did they even Hunt? They’d long since killed the demon that killed their mother; Dean was back from Hell. What was it to them if Lucifer was roaming the earth? Was it just out of some sense of guilt over having accidentally caused it? No one would blame them for giving up. No one would blame them if they just decided to stop. Hadn’t they given enough for humanity already? Hadn’t they been screwed over enough already?
“Harry?” Hermione asked.
Yet, Harry couldn’t even get them not to think about Hunting for one bloody day. He had to find a job for them to do in Britain just so that they’d come. They hadn’t even made it through tea before Dean and Sam were sitting there reading reports and trying to make connections between paranormal occurrences. Why were they such workaholics? Then Harry thought, maybe the better question was if they weren’t working, what would they be doing? They lived in a car, they were legally dead and, besides Sam’s brief stint at college, Hunting was all they’d ever known. They were killing themselves to protect something they couldn’t even enjoy.
“Harry?” Hermione repeated. Harry could see her scanning the skies, as though there might be a magical cause for the melancholy that had just descended on their group. But Harry knew...they just had to put the Winchesters back into familiar territory.
“The Tower of London,” Harry announced.
“What?” Hermione asked, completely confused.
“I think Sam and Dean would really enjoy the Tower of London,” Harry clarified.
“Harry, do you honestly think that’s a good idea?” Hermione asked in amazement, but Harry had spoken loud enough for everyone to hear him, and Sam and Dean were now both looking over with identical quizzically raised eyebrows. Harry had the fleeting thought that sometimes Sam and Dean reminded him a bit of Fred and George.
“It’ll be brilliant, Hermione,” Harry said. “It’s their field of expertise, but they’re not required to actually fix any of the problems. You should start telling them about it, while I see if I can flag down a couple of taxis.”
Hermione gave Harry a confused and slightly disapproving look, but dutifully began to recite everything she knew about the Tower of London - including the fact that it was quite possibly the most haunted place in the England.
By the time they actually reached the tower and started the tour, Dean had produced an EMF meter from somewhere. Sam alternated between having his eyes roam over every single centimetre of each room, and walking with his eyes closed and his head cocked to one side like he was listening for something. Both the Winchesters asked numerous questions and then whispered animatedly back and forth to each other in half-sentences.
“Like that time in Albuquerque”
“First or third?”
“Third”
“Right, not so bad then”
“Better than the second”
“Don’t even.”
And then there were jokes, and Ron laughed even though some are at his expense. Hermione was happy because she knew more than the tour guides, and Harry could stand back and actually feel like the plan had been successful - that even though Harry had never met Bobby Singer himself, Harry thought he’d be happy with how Harry had managed to pull off this favour.
“Alright,” Harry said, after the tour was over, “I’ve had my fill of being a tourist. Let’s get home and help Gin with dinner.”
“Oh,” Hermione said glancing at her watch, “we better go pick up the children from my parents. We’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”
“In a bit,” Harry confirmed with a wave. Hermione and Ron glanced around and then turned and disapparated.
“Come on,” Harry said, and set off walking. “We’ll take the tube home. How’d you enjoy your tour of Muggle London?”
“It was nice,” Sam said, and Dean nodded in agreement.
“Why do you keep calling it Muggle London?” Dean asked. “Do Wizards have their own London?”
“Sort of,” Harry smiled. “I’ll show you tomorrow, after we drop Teddy at the train.”
“Ok,” Dean said. “I gotta admit, I’m interested in meeting Teddy.”
“Yeah?” Harry asked, just as Sam muttered a soft warning of “Dean”
“Yeah,” Dean confirmed. “Never met a Shifter that wasn’t evil before. Fuckin’ hate those things.”
“Dean,” Sam said a little louder, as Harry’s blood ran cold.
“Don’t call him that,” Harry said.
“Sorry, right, he’s something else. I know, didn’t mean anything by it,” Dean immediately replied wincing, “just meant...well...”
“Teddy’s a good kid,” Harry said.
“Of course, sorry,” Dean placated again. “That’s why I want to meet him, honest. I’ve already met your other kids and they’re pretty damn adorable.”
Harry couldn’t help the smile at Dean’s words about his kids, even though he knew that had probably been Dean’s intent. Dean smiled and changed the subject to whether or not there would be dessert with this family get together. Harry answered his questions and joked right back, but in the back of his mind he was already running through a thousand scenarios of how dinner was about to go, and whether Andromeda had been correct in her reluctance to let Teddy stay in a house along with two Hunters.
When they got back to the house, Ginny actually didn’t want them underfoot in the kitchen and told Harry that he should show Sam and Dean the computer in the back shed. Harry knew she was probably just getting rid of them so that she could use as much magic as she wanted without worrying about breaking Harry’s “use as little magic as possible around the Hunters” rule.
Harry led them out into the back garden, which was actually fairly large for a London row-house. In the back corner was a garden shed that Harry had been very careful not to enchant at all. He unlatched the door and swung it open across the dirty floor. There was a small space heater that he always kept on low, so once they were inside he swung the door shut again to keep out the cold January air. He reached up and pulled the cord for the single light bulb that hung from the centre of the ceiling.
“Sorry it’s not much,” Harry said. Realizing how shabby the shed must look – the space heater tended to attract spiders, who built complex webs in the corners. The floor was dirty from Ginny’s summer gardening supplies and the boys’ tricycles and wagon. In the corner there was a small desk with a computer and a modem. Harry went over to turn them both on.
“We have to keep the shed magic free for the computer to run,” Harry explained, as he plugged the computer and modem into the battery pack he had mounted on the wall. “Otherwise, I’d have it looking much nicer.”
“It runs off a battery?” Dean asked.
“How do you charge it?” Sam added.
“Solar,” Harry answered. “You may have noticed – the house isn’t exactly ‘on the grid’ as you say.”
“Magic stove,” Sam nodded. “The house isn’t hooked up to electricity or gas at all is it?”
“No,” Harry confirmed. “Technically, our house doesn’t exist according to the Muggle authorities. It wouldn’t matter except for wanting to use the computer. I couldn’t very well have some electrician come over to run electricity out to a garden shed that he can’t see and the city doesn’t know about. So, I installed solar panels on the shed roof, and it’s enough to charge this battery here – which runs the space heater constantly, and the light bulb and computer when I need them.”
Dean whistled lowly, and moved the two steps across the small shed – which seemed smaller now that Harry had the two Winchesters in it with him – to gaze at the series of wires running between the battery and ceiling.
Harry indicated the swivel office chair to Sam, and made sure all the right lights on the modem were lit.
“It’s wifi,” Harry said, “again – sort of difficult to have internet access run out to your shed, when you don’t exist.”
“I never realized having magic could actually make things more difficult,” Sam muttered.
“You mean, besides well-meaning fellows like yourself thinking I’m evil from time to time and trying to kill me?” Harry asked. “It’s just a different set of problems – whether your magic or not, there’s always going to something working against you.” Dean hummed in agreement.
“You have the specs for this Harry?” Dean asked, pointing at the solar set up.
“Uh, yeah” Harry replied, crouching beside Sam and sliding the desk drawer open. “It’s um...British voltages though.”
Dean just shrugged and made a grabby hand in Harry’s direction when Harry pulled the pile of papers out of the drawer, so Harry handed them over.
“What time do you want us inside?” Sam asked, without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Teddy and Andromeda will be here at six,” Harry replied, and then, recognizing that he was being dismissed, added “Just turn-off and unplug the computer and the modem when you come in.”
“Will do, thanks man,” Sam said. “Dean, you want to go grab those incident reports while I hack into Scotland Yard here? I left them in Harry’s study.”
“Sure thing, Princess,” Dean grumbled and rolled his eyes. “You want a half-caf double latte with that order?”
Sam levelled Dean with blank stare, and Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing. Dean just shook his head and pushed Harry out the door along with him.
“He was kidding about Scotland Yard, right?” Harry asked when they were half-way back to the house.
Dean just shot Harry a look that did not put him at ease at all.
Chapter 8
Deleted Scene
