Okay. I posted the first half of the first prologue below, for those of you who read it. This is the second prologue; it's not perfect and I'm not completely satisfied with the ending, but you take what you can get.
Oh, and regarding the situation with Rei... what's actually going on and what her adoptive father thinks is going on are two very different things.
Nearly ten years had passed since I had suddenly found myself in charge of the screwy ex-orphanage that I called a home. The sun rose, illuminating the golf-course that we called a front yard and lit up the post that used to hold the sign for the place before I gave up and decided to just adopt the six misfits, only to find the papers already filed. The light crept into the living room, where the photos showed the various types of mischief that a group of crazies such as ourselves could get into. Harry Potter was there, of course, tucked into his bed in his room on the second floor, but not for long. His oldest brother was awake and was demonstrating the rather surprising effectiveness of a technique he called the "hot foot".
Harry awoke with a start. Rekka snickered, extinguishing the ball of fire that he had in his hand.
"You think that's funny?" Harry asked, extending his now-glowing arm at his brother, who was promptly drenched.
"Are you up yet?" I asked from downstairs, where I was flipping some bacon for Gaara's breakfast. "We have a busy day today."
"Just a minute," two voices called, knowing that I wasn't to be annoyed from personal experience with my more... creative punishments.
Five minutes later, the whole family was seated at the dining-room table. "So, father, what do you have planned for today?" Rei asked after swallowing a bite of her cereal.
"Well," I replied, taking a second to form my response, "first, we're going into Tokyo; there's a new Naruto tankoubon out, and you know how Gaara gets when that happens."
Rekka shuddered, probably remembering what happened when he had torched one of Gaara's manga. He'd had to take laxatives for weeks to get all of the sand out of his colon. No one messed with Gaara's Naruto collection... or stood between him and anything he planned to add to it.
"After that, we're going to be visiting a zoo in England; there are some people who I want Harry to meet... or perhaps that should be 'meet again'."
Harry looked up at that. "Who?"
"Your relatives," I answered.
Robert stopped eating. "Why on earth would you want Harry to meet them?" he asked, his tone showing his contempt for the people in question.
I looked around the table and noticed that most of my kids seemed to agree with Robert's assessment, although Toushirou seemed to understand. "Because Harry needs to know," I said, suddenly rather tired. "I've told him what kind of people his so-called blood family is, but the one time he met them, he was too young to remember it. What's more, there are people who will want to put Harry back with them, and there's a chance that one of them will try to tell him that they're 'not so bad' or somesuch." Seeing my family's looks of disgust at that last bit, I decided to continue. "I'll fight that, of course," I reassured them, "but first-hand knowledge of the family in question will help Harry see through that kind of argument."
Toushirou gave me an odd look at that last bit. "Argument?" he asked, questioning my word-choice.
I shrugged. "It wouldn't be a lie strictly speaking," I responded. "The person in question actually manages to be more navely trusting than Nuku-Nuku, and would honestly believe it when he said that."
Somehow, that description of Albus Dumbledore actually managed to weird my family out.
"Look," I said, "we don't even know that they've turned out like they would have had Harry stayed with them. There's a chance that they've turned out to be less... oh, I don't know..."
Robert chirped up. "Xenophobic, racist bastards without a shred of human decency?"
Gaara smiled. "Morons who would have fit in perfectly with the Nazis?" he added.
I frowned. "Actually, no," I corrected. "The Dursleys actually had several valid complaints with the so-called Wizarding world. It doesn't excuse what they would have done, but I suspect that they simply displaced that onto Harry, then rationalized their behavior. I have to wonder how they've turned out without him there to take their frustrations out on. Regardless, they weren't fascists, so Gaara's description isn't accurate, although Robert's was rather uncannily so."
By this point, Harry was scowling fiercely into his Lucky Charms.
"Look at it this way," I finished, "if they turned out that way anyway, the zoo has a nice snake exhibit."
Considering the evil grin that suddenly graced Harry's features, I knew that I had said the right thing.
-------------------
Harry Potter and the Screwed-Up Life
Prologue Two
by
Aleh
-------------------
Two hours later, Harry, whose evil grin had faded into a smirk, was sitting in the back of a taxi with Rei and Robert. I was sitting in front, having left Gaara, Rekka and Toushirou with Nuku-Nuku, and reading a manga.
"Now, Robert, Harry," I said, having come to a decision, "remember -- behave yourselves. I don't want anything... odd... happening unless I start it."
"I'm not going to do anything," replied Robert, "honestly..."
Unfortunately, I didn't believe him. The problem was that screwy things happened all too often in our family, and, well, they were normally just part of life, but I wanted to at least give the Dursleys a chance, and the usual chaos that followed us around was a bit much at times, even for us. Once, Robert had come home from school with a group of three tenkaijuu -- the ancient variety; I still don't know where he found them, as the heavenly beasts aren't talking. Another time, Rekka had managed to get lost in Konohagakure after getting there through a closet on the third floor of our house, something that was quite an accomplishment, given that we live in a two-story building and that Konohagakure is apparently in a parallel universe. Incidents like that had become an almost routine fact of life amongst our little band of screwed-up nutcases, even disregarding the more common 'disturbances' such as kidnapping attempts, assassination attempts, or serial rapists. On the other hand, the kids weren't the only ones with screwed-up lives -- the kids had started jokingly calling my so-called love-life the "demon-of-the-month club".
But today, nothing was going to go totally insane. Today was a day for normalcy. Okay, so maybe not Dursley normalcy, but what passed for normalcy in our rather messed-up lives. Today, no pedophiles would teleport in while I wasn't watching and try to rape Rei. Today, no alien brain-snakes would try to take me as a host. Today, no demons would show an allergic reaction to Harry's breakfast cereal. Today was going to be a perfectly normal day in our rather messed-up lives, a beacon of calm amidst our daily chaos. And if I actually believed that, I could probably convince myself that I could turn a profit buying a quitclaim deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Still, one could hope.
While we rode, Robert complained to Harry. He didn't like cars very much, a side effect of being able to change his feet into rocket-powered roller skates capable of outpacing just about any "normal" land vehicle. Unfortunately, this was around as normal as it got for us; as much as I loved my adoptive children, I wished the chaos would calm down a little.
It was a bright, cheerful Saturday, and the zoo was packed with families. Given my luck, I wasn't entirely certain that all of them were human, but as long as none of them were trying to suck out my soul, drink my blood, or otherwise harm me or mine, I really didn't care. I bought all of us except for Rei chocolate ice creams at the entrance; she prefered lemon sorbet.
I had the most normal morning I'd had in a long time. I was careful to keep an eye out for the Dursleys, remembering what Skuld had told me about this trip. By lunchtime, Robert was starting to get tired of the animals and Harry was looking forward to the reptile house. We ate in the zoo lunchroom, and when one of our neighbors, a fat, blonde-haired kid, threw a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream, we all had a bit of a chuckle.
I should have known that it was too normal to last.
After lunch, we visited the reptile house. Rei didn't like it much, given her tendency to avoid dark places, but it wasn't dark enough for me to have trouble seeing her, and there weren't any overly-dark corners for a would-be rapist to drag her into. A large variety of lizards and snakes were on display, and Harry seemed particularly interested in a rather sociable boa constrictor with whom he was carrying on a conversation. Robert, meanwhile, was taking a look at the chameleon exhibit, and Rei was latched firmly to my side.
"Don't worry, Rei," I reassured her, putting a hand on her shoulder, "I won't let anyone try anything. Why don't you take a look around?"
Rei just shivered and tightened her grip. It was at that moment that a rather ugly middle-aged woman approached me.
"Rather shy, isn't she?" she asked, turning a sympathetic eye towards Rei.
I sighed and tightened my grip on Rei's shoulder. "I really wish it was that simple," I answered. "Ordinary shyness I can deal with, but rape trauma is on a completely different level."
The woman's eyes widened. "You mean..." she paused for a moment as the realization set in. "The poor dear..."
I shook my head. "They weren't successful, but even the attempt is traumatic enough for a young girl, don't you think?"
"Oh, my, yes," the woman agreed. "From the way she's acting, I take it it was fairly recent?"
I frowned. "Well, the latest incident was... around a week ago, actually, so yes."
The woman's eyes widened further. "The latest incident?" she asked, startled.
At that point, Robert, noticing Rei's behavior, abandoned the chameleons and came back to us. "Come on, Rei," he said, pulling Rei off of me, "no one's hiding in the shadows... and if they are, Dad'll just chop their bits off."
Seeing Rei starting to take my earlier advice, I focused my attention back on the woman who I had been speaking to.
"What was that about?" she asked.
"Rei," I said, letting some of my exhaustion show, "seems to attract perverts like a magnet."
Just then, a bit of motion drew my eye as a spectacularly overweight blonde kid knocked Harry to the side to get a better look at the snake Harry had been chatting with. I moved to intervene, but was interrupted by the six of us -- me, my kids, the woman I had been chatting with, and the fat kid who turned out to be her son -- being kidnapped by alien xenoproctologists. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning.
-------------------
The damned xenoproctologists were more trouble than they were worth. After Rei panicked and tore a hole through their ship with her AT field, the idiots were stranded on Earth and had taken to referring to her as "she-who-must-not-be-probed" in hushed tones when they thought I couldn't hear. Of course, stranded as they were, they had no place to stay while they awated rescue, and it wasn't like a group of four Roswell Greys could just stroll into the local Motel Six and rent a room, so I wound up offering them the cupboard under my stairs to use until their superiors could send a rescue party. It wasn't as bad as it sounded, thanks to the screwed-up physics of my house, and a cubic mile of space was far more than they deserved... even if the area was infected with really cute little eight-legged rabbits that bred like the eternally-pregnant legless furballs that had taken over the pantry.
Edit: Added that last paragraph. It was originally intended to be the start of a third prologue, but it fit in better here.-- This message brought to you by Ely Lilly, makers of SeraFem: Happy Pills for PMS.
![[Image: Aleh.jpg]](http://www.animecubed.com/billy/pics/sigs/Aleh.jpg)
Oh, and regarding the situation with Rei... what's actually going on and what her adoptive father thinks is going on are two very different things.
Nearly ten years had passed since I had suddenly found myself in charge of the screwy ex-orphanage that I called a home. The sun rose, illuminating the golf-course that we called a front yard and lit up the post that used to hold the sign for the place before I gave up and decided to just adopt the six misfits, only to find the papers already filed. The light crept into the living room, where the photos showed the various types of mischief that a group of crazies such as ourselves could get into. Harry Potter was there, of course, tucked into his bed in his room on the second floor, but not for long. His oldest brother was awake and was demonstrating the rather surprising effectiveness of a technique he called the "hot foot".
Harry awoke with a start. Rekka snickered, extinguishing the ball of fire that he had in his hand.
"You think that's funny?" Harry asked, extending his now-glowing arm at his brother, who was promptly drenched.
"Are you up yet?" I asked from downstairs, where I was flipping some bacon for Gaara's breakfast. "We have a busy day today."
"Just a minute," two voices called, knowing that I wasn't to be annoyed from personal experience with my more... creative punishments.
Five minutes later, the whole family was seated at the dining-room table. "So, father, what do you have planned for today?" Rei asked after swallowing a bite of her cereal.
"Well," I replied, taking a second to form my response, "first, we're going into Tokyo; there's a new Naruto tankoubon out, and you know how Gaara gets when that happens."
Rekka shuddered, probably remembering what happened when he had torched one of Gaara's manga. He'd had to take laxatives for weeks to get all of the sand out of his colon. No one messed with Gaara's Naruto collection... or stood between him and anything he planned to add to it.
"After that, we're going to be visiting a zoo in England; there are some people who I want Harry to meet... or perhaps that should be 'meet again'."
Harry looked up at that. "Who?"
"Your relatives," I answered.
Robert stopped eating. "Why on earth would you want Harry to meet them?" he asked, his tone showing his contempt for the people in question.
I looked around the table and noticed that most of my kids seemed to agree with Robert's assessment, although Toushirou seemed to understand. "Because Harry needs to know," I said, suddenly rather tired. "I've told him what kind of people his so-called blood family is, but the one time he met them, he was too young to remember it. What's more, there are people who will want to put Harry back with them, and there's a chance that one of them will try to tell him that they're 'not so bad' or somesuch." Seeing my family's looks of disgust at that last bit, I decided to continue. "I'll fight that, of course," I reassured them, "but first-hand knowledge of the family in question will help Harry see through that kind of argument."
Toushirou gave me an odd look at that last bit. "Argument?" he asked, questioning my word-choice.
I shrugged. "It wouldn't be a lie strictly speaking," I responded. "The person in question actually manages to be more navely trusting than Nuku-Nuku, and would honestly believe it when he said that."
Somehow, that description of Albus Dumbledore actually managed to weird my family out.
"Look," I said, "we don't even know that they've turned out like they would have had Harry stayed with them. There's a chance that they've turned out to be less... oh, I don't know..."
Robert chirped up. "Xenophobic, racist bastards without a shred of human decency?"
Gaara smiled. "Morons who would have fit in perfectly with the Nazis?" he added.
I frowned. "Actually, no," I corrected. "The Dursleys actually had several valid complaints with the so-called Wizarding world. It doesn't excuse what they would have done, but I suspect that they simply displaced that onto Harry, then rationalized their behavior. I have to wonder how they've turned out without him there to take their frustrations out on. Regardless, they weren't fascists, so Gaara's description isn't accurate, although Robert's was rather uncannily so."
By this point, Harry was scowling fiercely into his Lucky Charms.
"Look at it this way," I finished, "if they turned out that way anyway, the zoo has a nice snake exhibit."
Considering the evil grin that suddenly graced Harry's features, I knew that I had said the right thing.
-------------------
Harry Potter and the Screwed-Up Life
Prologue Two
by
Aleh
-------------------
Two hours later, Harry, whose evil grin had faded into a smirk, was sitting in the back of a taxi with Rei and Robert. I was sitting in front, having left Gaara, Rekka and Toushirou with Nuku-Nuku, and reading a manga.
"Now, Robert, Harry," I said, having come to a decision, "remember -- behave yourselves. I don't want anything... odd... happening unless I start it."
"I'm not going to do anything," replied Robert, "honestly..."
Unfortunately, I didn't believe him. The problem was that screwy things happened all too often in our family, and, well, they were normally just part of life, but I wanted to at least give the Dursleys a chance, and the usual chaos that followed us around was a bit much at times, even for us. Once, Robert had come home from school with a group of three tenkaijuu -- the ancient variety; I still don't know where he found them, as the heavenly beasts aren't talking. Another time, Rekka had managed to get lost in Konohagakure after getting there through a closet on the third floor of our house, something that was quite an accomplishment, given that we live in a two-story building and that Konohagakure is apparently in a parallel universe. Incidents like that had become an almost routine fact of life amongst our little band of screwed-up nutcases, even disregarding the more common 'disturbances' such as kidnapping attempts, assassination attempts, or serial rapists. On the other hand, the kids weren't the only ones with screwed-up lives -- the kids had started jokingly calling my so-called love-life the "demon-of-the-month club".
But today, nothing was going to go totally insane. Today was a day for normalcy. Okay, so maybe not Dursley normalcy, but what passed for normalcy in our rather messed-up lives. Today, no pedophiles would teleport in while I wasn't watching and try to rape Rei. Today, no alien brain-snakes would try to take me as a host. Today, no demons would show an allergic reaction to Harry's breakfast cereal. Today was going to be a perfectly normal day in our rather messed-up lives, a beacon of calm amidst our daily chaos. And if I actually believed that, I could probably convince myself that I could turn a profit buying a quitclaim deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Still, one could hope.
While we rode, Robert complained to Harry. He didn't like cars very much, a side effect of being able to change his feet into rocket-powered roller skates capable of outpacing just about any "normal" land vehicle. Unfortunately, this was around as normal as it got for us; as much as I loved my adoptive children, I wished the chaos would calm down a little.
It was a bright, cheerful Saturday, and the zoo was packed with families. Given my luck, I wasn't entirely certain that all of them were human, but as long as none of them were trying to suck out my soul, drink my blood, or otherwise harm me or mine, I really didn't care. I bought all of us except for Rei chocolate ice creams at the entrance; she prefered lemon sorbet.
I had the most normal morning I'd had in a long time. I was careful to keep an eye out for the Dursleys, remembering what Skuld had told me about this trip. By lunchtime, Robert was starting to get tired of the animals and Harry was looking forward to the reptile house. We ate in the zoo lunchroom, and when one of our neighbors, a fat, blonde-haired kid, threw a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream, we all had a bit of a chuckle.
I should have known that it was too normal to last.
After lunch, we visited the reptile house. Rei didn't like it much, given her tendency to avoid dark places, but it wasn't dark enough for me to have trouble seeing her, and there weren't any overly-dark corners for a would-be rapist to drag her into. A large variety of lizards and snakes were on display, and Harry seemed particularly interested in a rather sociable boa constrictor with whom he was carrying on a conversation. Robert, meanwhile, was taking a look at the chameleon exhibit, and Rei was latched firmly to my side.
"Don't worry, Rei," I reassured her, putting a hand on her shoulder, "I won't let anyone try anything. Why don't you take a look around?"
Rei just shivered and tightened her grip. It was at that moment that a rather ugly middle-aged woman approached me.
"Rather shy, isn't she?" she asked, turning a sympathetic eye towards Rei.
I sighed and tightened my grip on Rei's shoulder. "I really wish it was that simple," I answered. "Ordinary shyness I can deal with, but rape trauma is on a completely different level."
The woman's eyes widened. "You mean..." she paused for a moment as the realization set in. "The poor dear..."
I shook my head. "They weren't successful, but even the attempt is traumatic enough for a young girl, don't you think?"
"Oh, my, yes," the woman agreed. "From the way she's acting, I take it it was fairly recent?"
I frowned. "Well, the latest incident was... around a week ago, actually, so yes."
The woman's eyes widened further. "The latest incident?" she asked, startled.
At that point, Robert, noticing Rei's behavior, abandoned the chameleons and came back to us. "Come on, Rei," he said, pulling Rei off of me, "no one's hiding in the shadows... and if they are, Dad'll just chop their bits off."
Seeing Rei starting to take my earlier advice, I focused my attention back on the woman who I had been speaking to.
"What was that about?" she asked.
"Rei," I said, letting some of my exhaustion show, "seems to attract perverts like a magnet."
Just then, a bit of motion drew my eye as a spectacularly overweight blonde kid knocked Harry to the side to get a better look at the snake Harry had been chatting with. I moved to intervene, but was interrupted by the six of us -- me, my kids, the woman I had been chatting with, and the fat kid who turned out to be her son -- being kidnapped by alien xenoproctologists. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning.
-------------------
The damned xenoproctologists were more trouble than they were worth. After Rei panicked and tore a hole through their ship with her AT field, the idiots were stranded on Earth and had taken to referring to her as "she-who-must-not-be-probed" in hushed tones when they thought I couldn't hear. Of course, stranded as they were, they had no place to stay while they awated rescue, and it wasn't like a group of four Roswell Greys could just stroll into the local Motel Six and rent a room, so I wound up offering them the cupboard under my stairs to use until their superiors could send a rescue party. It wasn't as bad as it sounded, thanks to the screwed-up physics of my house, and a cubic mile of space was far more than they deserved... even if the area was infected with really cute little eight-legged rabbits that bred like the eternally-pregnant legless furballs that had taken over the pantry.
Edit: Added that last paragraph. It was originally intended to be the start of a third prologue, but it fit in better here.-- This message brought to you by Ely Lilly, makers of SeraFem: Happy Pills for PMS.
![[Image: Con.gif]](http://www.yggdrasil.org/misc/Con.gif)