Reactions: Year One, Part Two

A/N: Thanks to Zeropolis79 for beta-ing.

Oh, and since several people have asked me this... no, Sirius will not be getting sent to Azkaban for mothering his godson to death :-)

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"So, kiddo, you've been sorted! What's next?" Sirius asked cheerfully, but also inwardly vowing to curse whoever had made his godson so insecure.

Harry smiled and thought to himself, Maybe the protective guardians thing isn't that bad. No, wait, scratch that. Death defying stunts is next.

---------Reactions: Year One Part Two-----------

"Right, so... where should I start," Harry asked, fidgeting a little.

Remus laughed slightly and said in a slightly teasing tone, "Well, your first day of classes would be a good place to begin."

"Er, right," said Harry, wondering if it would be possible to skip Potions. On second thoughts, he didn't really mind if Snape was on the marauders' bad side. Maybe he would get to see what they did to him...

"Harry?" Sirius prompted, looking at the boy nestled under the covers.

"Er, right," said Harry, blinking. "So, um, nothing really interesting happened on the first day. I mean, we were late for Transfiguration and McGonagall took off points."

"It was your first day!" Sirius exclaimed incredulously. "Surely they can't fault you for getting lost!" Harry just shrugged in response.

"Keep going, cub," said Remus.

"Then we had Potions," said Harry, shuddering at the thought.

"Are you cold?" Sirius asked immediately, looking at his godson concernedly.

"No, just remembering that particular Potions experience," Harry answered innocently, thinking that there were a few up-sides to over-protective guardians.

"Why?" Sirius growled. "What did that greasy git do to you?" Remus threw Sirius a reproaching look for bad-mouthing a teacher in front of Harry but the dog Animagus just ignored it.

"Well, first he called me a 'celebrity'," said Harry in disgust, remembering how much he actually hated that so-called title. "Then, he asked me a whole bunch of questions that I had absolutely no clue what the answers were, and then he took off points because I told him that Hermione had the answers, and also because I happened to be sitting next to Neville," Harry ranted, getting completely lost in the memory.

Sirius' eyes were narrowed, and he was muttering furiously under his breath, "Greasy git... deserves... gonna kill him... taunting my godson!"

Harry inwardly rejoiced. He was finally going to get revenge on Snape for all those years of hell in his classroom.

Remus' eyes had glints of gold in them, and it was obvious he was none to happy with his former colleague but still said calmly, "Keep going, Harry."

"Um, after the lesson Ron and I went down to see Hagrid," said Harry, trying to recall his memories. "Oh, now I remember," Harry said. "That was where I found out that the Gringotts break-in was on the same day as my birthday. When I asked Hagrid about it, he changed the subject, not very well I might add."

Remus and Sirius both laughed, it was true; Hagrid was an absolutely horrible liar. You couldn't find a more loyal man anywhere, but subtlety was definitely not his strong point.

"Oh!" said Harry, "I nearly forgot to mention our flying lesson!"

"Do tell, Pronglet," said Sirius, smiling at the carefree attitude his godson was currently showing. This was far better than the haunted teen from the last few weeks; it seemed as though this was a good idea.

Which it was... for Harry. Not for Sirius' and Remus' hearts though...

"Well, we were with the Slytherins," Harry started, rolling his eyes. Sirius grinned, anticipating some Malfoy humiliation.

"So, first we got the whole lecture on how to hold a broom and mount it properly. But then," Harry began his sentence.

Sirius and Remus threw a glance at each other, wondering if this was where the jinxed broom came in. Sirius was sitting up a little more tense as he listened carefully to Harry's next words.

"Neville got scared and rose up on his broom too early," Harry completed, looking slightly confused when Sirius let out an audible sigh of relief.

Sirius, noticing Harry's look of confusion, said, "Don't worry about it, Pronglet, just keep going."

"Right, anyway, so Madam Hooch tells all of us that if we even think about flying while she took Neville up to the hospital wing, then we're good as expelled," Harry explained.

"That was an... interesting lesson," Remus said, nodding.

"I'm not done yet," Harry said.

"Why, what happened next?" Sirius asked curiously.

"Draco Malfoy," Harry answered simply.

"Of course," said Sirius, rolling his eyes. "I should have known. What did he do?"

"Well, first I should say that Neville's gran had sent him a Remembrall as a gift," Harry explained before continuing on to the actual story. "Anyway, it must have fallen out while Neville had been flying because next thing we knew Malfoy had got a hold of it and was calling Neville an idiot and all this other stuff."

Sirius growled softly. No good Slytherin scum.

"Well, I defended Neville," Harry continued, either not hearing Sirius or choosing to ignore him.

Sirius smiled at Harry and said affectionately, "Defending your friends?"

Harry smiled before continuing, "Of course. Malfoy, the git, decided to hide it up a tree or something so flew off with it." Harry hesitated a moment here.

Remus caught the pause and said, slightly wearily, "Did you go up after him?"

"Well... yes," Harry admitted.

"And what did Malfoy do," Sirius asked calmly, trying not to let his imagination of what had happened run away with him.

"Well, we argued a bit in the air," Harry answered. "But then Malfoy chucked it..."

"Harry," Remus said, sounding as though he was dreading the answer to the question he was about to ask, "you didn't go after it... did you?"

Harry winced slightly and said, "Well, yeah, I did. But I caught it, and I didn't get hurt!" he added hurriedly, hoping this would stop any lectures.

"What happened next," Sirius asked, glad that this was not the jinxed broom moment.

"Erm, well, McGonagall appeared," said Harry, wincing as he remembered how it had felt at the time.

Remus whistled and said, "Well, I don't envy you, Harry. McGonagall is definitely the worst when it comes to handing out punishments."

Harry smiled mischievously and said, "Well, that's what I thought. But first she told me to go with her, ignoring what everyone was saying."

Sirius was now scowling; he liked McGonagall, but sometimes she cared to much about the rules, especially if she would punish his godson for helping a friend. Remus, on the other hand, was looking thoughtful. Harry didn't seem too unhappy thinking about it. In fact, he seemed nearly... happy. Hopefully that meant that McGonagall let him get away with the flying.

"So she took me up to the castle and first went to Quirrell's class to get 'Wood'," Harry continued.

Sirius rose an eyebrow and was about to ask just what he meant by 'wood' when Remus spoke up. "Wood? Wasn't he a seventh-year the year that I taught? And the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain as well, if I recall correctly."

"Yep." Harry nodded. "So she asked for Wood and then took us to an abandoned classroom where she told me that," here Harry stopped to take a breath, "that I made the Quidditch team as Seeker!"

"You're joking!" Sirius exclaimed, giving Harry a huge hug. "I knew you were brilliant but I never knew that you made the team on your first year!"

"Harry, that's wonderful," said Remus warmly. "You have no idea how much Sirius and your father tried to get Minerva to break that rule."

"Yeah, and you managed it without even trying," Sirius said proudly, ruffling his hair.

Harry nodded and said, "Yep, it was wicked. Ron was so surprised when I told him, but then, well, Malfoy showed up."

"Ha, what was the look on his face when he found out that you made Seeker?" Sirius asked, a proud glint still evident in his eyes. Harry found himself hoping that it would stay there for the next part or two.

"Well, Wood wanted us to keep it a secret, so we couldn't tell him," Harry began. "But he started taunting us again and ended up challenging me to a wizards duel in the trophy room... at midnight."

Sirius looked torn as to what to think about this while Remus said, "The trophy room? The one on the third floor next to the forbidden corridor?"

Sirius looked up sharply at that; as much as he wanted Harry to get one up over on Malfoy, he would prefer that it happened in a way there wasn't such a high chance that Harry get hurt. "Did you agree?" he asked, knowing that even if he said yes he couldn't really tell him off, seeing as he had done far worse.

"Well, no," Harry admitted. Sirius' face lit up until Harry added, "Ron agreed for me." Sirius' expression fell, and he just hoped that Harry wasn't that close to that corridor.

"So what happened?" Remus asked almost cautiously.

"Well, Ron and I stayed up and went down at about quarter to," Harry began this part of the tale, "but then we ran into Hermione, who kept on trying to tell us off. She followed us outside the portrait hole where we met Neville, who had forgotten the password. Of course, with our luck, the Fat Lady had gone for a nighttime stroll!" Harry said exasperatedly.

Sirius nodded sympathetically. "She always does that at the worst times."

Remus agreed and added, "Yes, you wouldn't believe how many times we got caught out after curfew because we couldn't get into the common room."

"So, what, all of you had to go together?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "Worst thing was that I didn't even have my invisibility cloak yet. Or the Marauder's Map for that matter. So we somehow ended up getting there without getting caught, but then Malfoy didn't show up! And we heard Filch just around the corner."

"Wait, so Malfoy tipped Filch off?" Sirius asked, sounding slightly disbelieving. At Harry's nod he also added, "That kid is a right idiot. At least Snape always kept his word. Even though he tried to get us expelled, he still did it in slightly less underhanded ways."

"It seems as though Malfoy is slightly too spoiled," Remus added disgustedly, remembering Malfoy from his classes with the Slytherin.

"Yeah," Harry said, shrugging. "Anyway, we obviously decided to run away but then we ran into Peeves!"

Sirius groaned and said, "Kiddo, I'm beginning to think you have the worst luck."

"You have no idea," Harry agreed, rolling his eyes. "So, as I'm sure you can guess, Peeves told Filch where we were. We ran even harder when we got to a sort of a dead end. It only had one door and it was locked. Luckily Hermione had read ahead and unlocked it with an Alohomora charm."

Remus looked uneasy; he didn't like where this was going. Sirius remained oblivious.

"Well, we heard Peeves taunting Filch and, in the only stroke of luck that night, he didn't tell on us," Harry said before pausing, wondering if there was any way to put this to make it seem less dangerous.

Remus sighed at the pause. Looked like he was right after all. Sirius also seemed to string the clues together at the prominent pause... Third floor... locked door...

"We turned around," Harry said hesitantly, "and we sort of saw a giant three-headed dog that was snarling at us."

Harry looked at his guardians hesitantly and saw that Sirius looked pale and was about to faint. Remus wasn't faring much better. Even if he had expected the corridor to be the forbidden one, there was no way that he would have ever guessed that something like that would be in it.

Sirius seemed to have gone along the same train of thought, for he said incredulously, and also slightly angrily, "What on earth was Dumbledore thinking, putting a... a... thing like that in a castle full of children!"

Harry shrugged and realized belatedly that he had probably gotten the Headmaster in trouble. But then again, Dumbledore was already in trouble with the two marauders for his decision regarding Harry's guardianship. And, Harry reflected, this most likely wouldn't be the last time that Dumbledore had done something that his guardians wouldn't approve of.

Remus was muttering as well, quite angry himself, "He let my cub be in the same room as something that could kill him?!? That senile old fool!"

Harry looked slightly startled at the extent of his guardian's anger and was very glad that he wasn't Dumbledore.

"Pronglet, please tell me that you got out of there straight away," Sirius said in a voice of forced calm. He knew Harry seemed to have a 'saving people' thing and wouldn't have put it past him to get everyone else out and forget about himself.

"Uh, of course," Harry said, "we all ran straight out the second we comprehended what we had seen. Ran straight to the Gryffindor Tower without looking back."

"Smart," Sirius praised, looking highly relieved as he ruffled the dark hair next to him.

"Yeah, but then Hermione mentioned something else about the dog," Harry added.

Remus rose an eyebrow and said slightly disbelievingly, "I know she always managed to catch all the details, but she still managed to do so in front of a massive three-headed dog?!"

"Yep," said Harry off-handedly.

"Well, what else did she notice?" Sirius asked, thinking that if it was another crazy animal then he would personally lead Moony to Dumbledore's office under the light of a full moon.

"That the dog happened to be standing on a trapdoor," Harry said. "Ron and I figured that it was–"

"The package from Vault 713," Remus completed, looking thoughtful. For those who knew him, it was quite clear that Remus had in no way forgotten his anger with the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Harry nodded. "Ron and I were really curious as to what it could be but it was driven out of our minds during breakfast the next morning."

"Was it the look on Malfoy's face?" Sirius asked, hoping so. That little blond idiot could have gotten his godson killed!

"Well, that too," Harry admitted with a laugh, remembering Draco's look of disbelief quite vividly. "But what I originally meant to say was that I got my broomstick!"

Sirius laughed and ruffled his godson's hair fondly, masking the regret that he felt over the fact that he hadn't been the one to buy Harry's first broom.

Harry laughed once more as he suddenly recalled what had happened next. "The funniest thing was when Malfoy noticed that I had a broom and told on me only to have the teacher congratulate me on getting the 'special permission' to have one!" Harry was laughing at the memory, and his two guardians laughed as well, knowing that Malfoy must have been absolutely furious, especially since, in a roundabout way, it had been because of the blond that Harry had gotten onto the team.

"So, what next?" Remus asked, suppressing his laughter.

Harry cocked his head to one side as he tried to sort out the memories of that year. "Well, nothing really important happened after that until Halloween. Well, I had my first Quidditch practice," he added as an afterthought.

"So what happened on Halloween?" Sirius asked, slightly dreading the answer. Ever since the death of Lily and James, he had believed that Halloween was cursed. The fact that Harry's name had come out of the Goblet of Fire on the so-called holiday had only fueled this belief.

"Well, I suppose it started in the Charms lesson that day," Harry said thoughtfully. "We were learning how to levitate objects."

Remus nodded and said, "One of the most interesting lessons in Charms. Although I recall James and Sirius decided to levitate their feathers under people's noses to make them sneeze."

"Me?" Sirius asked innocently. "I think you might be losing your memory in your old age."

"But aren't you both the same age?" Harry asked innocently, hoping to prolong their argument so that he could wait longer until he had to tell them about the troll.

"Yes, but Moony has grey hairs, so he's older," Sirius said, as though this made perfect sense.

Remus snorted and rolled his eyes at his best friend's logic and said, "Well, as much as I would love to argue over who's older, I believe Harry has a story to finish."

Damn, Harry thought as both marauders turned back to him.

"So, you were telling us about your Charms lesson?" Remus prompted.

"Yeah," Harry said, sighing before continuing with slight reluctance, "I ended up pairing with Dean, while Ron got stuck with Hermione."

Remus winced and said slightly sarcastically, "That must have ended well."

Harry gave a slight grin and said, "Well, actually, it ended up with Hermione crying in the girls' toilets because Ron had basically said that she was a know-it-all with no friends."

Sirius winced as he said, "Ouch."

"Yeah." Harry nodded. "She didn't even end up going to classes! She didn't show up to the feast either."

"Poor thing," Remus said sympathetically, "Ron must have really hurt her feelings."

"Did you find her?" Sirius asked.

"Well, sort of," Harry said slowly.

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Sirius asked warily, just knowing that he wasn't going to like the answer.

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes before opening them and saying all in one breath, "Well, Quirrell had burst in and told us that a troll had gotten into Hogwarts. We were told to go to our dormitories when Ron and I remembered that Hermione didn't know about the troll, and we kind of found her, and we all kind of... fought off the troll together."

Sirius and Remus sat in stunned silence for a moment before comprehending what they had just heard.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER!!" they both yelled simultaneously, jumping up from their respective seats.

Harry winced and ducked his head down to prepare for the tirade.

"WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING, GOING WITHIN ONE HUNDRED FEET OF A FULLY GROWN TROLL?!" Sirius ranted, thinking about how close his godson must have been to getting killed.

"Do you know how dangerous that was?" Remus asked incredulously.

"We had to, or Hermione would have gotten killed," Harry protested, not actually looking his guardians in the eye. He wondered vaguely how Mrs Weasley had reacted when Ron had told her about this.

Remus narrowed his eyes and said angrily, "Sirius and I will be having a word with Dumbledore about this, you can rest assured."

Sirius nodded vehemently but also added to his godson sternly, "Even if Dumbledore was a completely idiotic moron, that doesn't mean that you go and fight trolls on your own!"

Harry knew better than to say that Ron and Hermione had been with him. Somehow, he didn't think that this was what Sirius wanted to hear.

"You are so grounded for that, kiddo," Sirius also added, sitting back down on the couch.

"But it was nearly four years ago!" Harry protested.

"Don't care," was the only answer he got.