"Because You're a Freak Too," Aunt Petunia Said

Outside Number Four Privet Drive, a sharp crack rent the still evening air. Before Harry could so much as knock, the door was wrenched open, and he found himself staring into the bristling purple moustache of Vernon Dursley. "You could at least have had the decency to give me a ring like a normal human be-," Harry muttered, then yelped when his uncle grabbed him by the forearm and jerked him into the house, slamming the door behind them both.

"What do you think you're doing showing up on our doorstep dressed like THAT?" Vernon's chins wobbled as he jerked his head angrily at Harry's robes.

"They're robes, Uncle Vernon. I am a wizard, you know." It was with some grim satisfaction that Harry noted Uncle Vernon still flinched at the W word. "Mind telling me why I'm here?" The post box he kept for Muggle letters had been crammed to overflowing with Aunt Petunia's spidery missives by the time he'd remembered to empty it.

"We looked after you for seventeen years, boy without pay or thanks," Vernon began, shifting his bulk around Harry in the entry. Harry's jaw only tightened a little. He'd seen too much in the past ten years to rise to anything the Dursleys could serve up, he reckoned, and said as much to Remus before he'd finally snatched up his cloak and apparated to Little Whinging alone. "It's your turn now."

Rather than ask what on earth Uncle Vernon meant, Harry took a closer look at him. "Why is your moustache pur-?"

"IN THE ROOM!"

Still stumbling from Vernon's shove, and dearly tempted to hex the rest of the man a matching purple, Harry's train of thought was rudely interrupted by a wail loud enough and shrill enough to pierce a good silencing charm. "What's that?" He demanded instead, skidding to a halt.

"Vernon Dursley II," Dudley mumbled as his father snapped "A freak!"

Dudley shrank in on himself. Harry never would have believed it possible if he hadn't seen it happen. He took another cautious step into the room, and found himself looking down at a squashed round face with startlingly green eyes. "Who'd you have to tie down to get him, Dud?"

"I didn't have to tie down anyone," Dudley snapped, face reddening much like his father's. "I've been married three years!"

"Only just now popping out the kids?" Harry shook his head, muttering something about 'poor girl' under his breath.

"He's my third." Dudley lifted his chins--all five of them in what was probably supposed to be a haughty expression. Having fought next to Severus Snape for the past ten years, Harry wasn't impressed.

He shrugged. "So why're you showing him to me?" He felt sorry already for the other two.

"Because you're going to take him off our hands," Vernon growled, shoving the baby carrier into Harry's hands.

Harry all but dropped it. "I'm what?" He was too stunned to do more than gape.

"We're not raising another freak, boy."

Harry stared at the bundle in his arms. "Is this even legal?" He asked, somewhat weakly. Part of him that sounded very like Malfoy drawled that the directory was probably crawling with orphanages. The thought made Harry's guts clench. "Look, here, take him-" He tried to hand off the infant to Dudley, who shrank away from him as if he were passing over a rabid badger. Sighing, Harry carefully set the bundle of Dursley on the floor and turned to face Uncle Vernon once more. "How d'you know he's a wizard?" Both Uncle Vernon and Dudley flinched in a way that made their jowls quiver.

His eyes fell on Uncle Vernon's twitching moustache. Oh. That.

"Anything else, then?"

Dudley mumbled something.

"What was that, Dud?"

"Said he turned his booboo purple too."

Harry dreaded to ask what a booboo was. He sincerely hoped it was the purple bear tucked into the carrier, and asked the question he didn't really want an answer for. "So why not put him up for adoption if you want to get rid of him so badly?"

Vernon bristled, and inflated until Harry was reminded of Aunt Marge's accident his third year.

It was Aunt Petunia who answered. "We did," she snapped. Harry's eyes flicked to the infant who was, clearly, not in an orphanage or being adopted. "We woke up with him back on our front step."

Harry looked down at the baby, feeling rather as if that was a neat trick, and wishing he'd been able to turn up back on someone's front step as a baby. Maybe if he'd known how awful his life was going to be with the Dursleys he would have. "So what makes you think it won't happen again when I take him? If I take him?" He amended.

"You're a freak too," Aunt Petunia said, as if that solved everything. It might, Harry supposed. He couldn't imagine a baby wizard choosing to come back to the Dursleys if he had a better alternative, but he also knew how much it hurt not to have a mum and dad around.

"What'm I supposed to do with a baby?"

"Eat the wretched thing for all I care," Vernon snapped.

"Vernon!"

Everyone in the room stared at Petunia, who drew herself up and looked down her horsy nose at Harry. "Take him out of this house and never let us see either of you again."

Deciding, in the back of his mind that this might well be the best for both child and Dursleys, Harry shrugged. "I can't make any promises. And I still don't think it's legal."

"It will be," Petunia said, dropping an envelope onto the table. "Dudley and Violet have already filled out their half. Now you."

Harry stared at it. "Adoption papers? You've got to be having me on."

Aunt Petunia wasn't, and so when Harry apparated back to Number 12 Grimmauld place, Vernon Dursley II went with him.

"I reckon we might as well make a few rules, since Fred and George say it's always better to have some to break," he said to the bundle that seemed determined to stuff as many fingers in its mouth as possible. "Rule one, no cupboards under the stairs." He gave the baby his best stern look; it wasn't terribly effective as the child giggled. "That one's not getting broken." As a matter of fact, Harry had already bolted the under-stairs cupboard closed and wallpapered over it. "Rule two, Daddy's a pouff. That's not so much of a rule as a guideline." He juggled the blanket awkwardly against his hip, grateful that Little Vernon didn't seem quite as squirmy as Hermione's cat--or Hermione's twins. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt any of Daddy's rare chances to get some, though I expect that's one that'll get broken." The baby yawned widely and let out a little hiccup. "A lot," Harry said, stomach sinking.

Well, he reflected philosophically, it wasn't as if he'd been getting much to begin with. Being the saviour of the wizarding world left him somewhere in the Untouchable category between saints and legends. Being the Seeker for the Montrose Magpies had, at least, been an interesting study in contrasts since then, he'd had trouble keeping hands off. And he didn't much fancy his chances that autumn--Hogwarts professors weren't known for their sexual exploits.

Though there had been rumours...

Deciding, apparently, that he'd had quite enough of this standing in the foyer listening to Harry think thing, Little Vernon let out a wail, and was very lucky indeed that he wasn't nearly dropped for the second time that day. Appalled, Harry trotted into the sitting room, fell into a chair, and groped through the carrier bag Petunia had shoved into his hands, hoping against hope that there might be something vaguely bottley in it.

He sincerely doubted that the Boy Who Lived had any prowess in the lactation department. "You'd better be hungry," he muttered, yanking out the bottle, taking a sniff, and then all but dropping it between the wailing lips.

The blessed silence was almost enough to make him faint with relief.

"Harry?" Remus asked in a somewhat bemused voice, appearing in the doorway and staring at the noisily slurping bundle. "What's that?"

"S' my cousin," Harry mumbled, watching the bottle worriedly. He didn't fancy finding out what happened if it ran out before Little Vernon had had enough.

"I remember him being somewhat-" Remus made a vague gesture in the air with one hand. "Bigger last time I saw him?"

"S' my other cousin." Harry risked a glance away from bottle and baby, then blinked slowly at the nervous expression on Remus's ashen face. "Isn't the moon-"

Remus pointed. "Why do you have it though?"

"Um. It's a wizard. He," Harry corrected.

"But why do you have it? Him?"

"Buggered if I know." Harry felt a sulk creeping into his voice.

"Language, Mr. Potter." Snape brushed past Remus, arms folded across his chest as he took in the scene, one incredulous eyebrow lifted. "Oh, for the love of Merlin--give it here, Potter. It is an infant, not a cat." So saying, he lifted the slurping bundle from Harry's arms, tucked it expertly against his body, and sank into a chair. "Impossible to get anything done with this sort of racket."

Harry stared. "Didn't know you had any experience with babies."

Snape's sharp eyebrow had not lowered, and his lip curled in a sneer. "Do you really think Lucius Malfoy would have changed his own brat's nappies?"

Harry and Remus both stared. Harry covered his mouth before a snigger could escape. "You changed Draco's nappies?"

"And his bed, bottle, and blanket," Snape answered, as if responding to a particularly redundant question in Potions. "What sort of idiot could possibly hand over an infant to you?"

"The Dursleys."

"Ah," Snape said.

After all, some truths were, indeed, universally understood.

"I expect he has a name?" Snape asked, ignoring the two men before him who seemed incapable of dragging their eyes from his fingers where they stroked over fuzzy red hair with astonishing tenderness.

"Vernon Dursley the Second," Harry said.

All three winced.

"I expect," Snape said, somewhat more frostily, "that he will be given a more suitable name?"

Harry nodded, wholeheartedly, and gave Remus a nervous look. "I was thinking of calling him Sirius." He held his breath, ignoring Snape's incoherent muttered grumble, and watched Remus, only daring to breathe again when the werewolf gave him a shaky smile.

"Sirius is a good name."

"For a dog," Snape snapped.

"Severus!"

Snape met Remus's eyes with an expression of cool challenge, daring him to deny it. Snape sneered. Remus growled.

"James Sirius Potter," Harry said at last.

"Merlin help the poor boy," Snape muttered, stroking down one pale cheek, his finger especially sallow against the blush of infancy. "Weren't you removing him from an abusive situation, Potter?"

"Hah, hah, Severus." Remus was the first to answer, though he did seat himself a safe distance away from both Potions Master and child. "There's nothing wrong with Harry naming the boy after his father."

Severus snorted, setting the bottle aside and lifting the infant to his shoulder, leaving the room without another word.

"D'you think we should, y'know-?" Harry looked after Snape and--James, he supposed--and then back to Remus.

"He does seem to know what he's doing." The remainder of the sentence was left unspoken between the two of them: unlike us.

There was a soft wail from the next room, a hiccup, and moments later, Snape returned, dabbing at James's mouth with a tea towel. Drawing himself to his full and imposing height, he announced, "he shall require nappies."

Remus cringed.

"I think there's a few in the bag?" Harry offered.

"You think."

Harry shrugged vaguely. "Haven't really checked yet."

The look Snape gave him should have withered every flower in the room. Including those in paintings. "I'll be staying here, then, until the end of summer, will I?"

Harry smiled weakly, and just a little hopefully. "Unless you have anywhere to be?"

"I assure you, Mr. Potter, there is nowhere I could be that is immediately more important than seeing to it that the two of you don't add accidental death of baby through sheer incompetence to the misfortunes that have befallen this house." Slinging the bag, happy ducklings and all, over his shoulder, he turned, and marched up the stairs, announcing behind him for anyone who would listen: "I shall be occupying the eastern suite that overlooks the back gardens."

Harry stared after him until he heard a door close, then turned slowly towards Remus, feeling as if he'd been clipped by a rogue stupefy. "What just happened?"

Forcing a watery smile, and rubbing uncomfortably at the back of his head, Remus tore his eyes away from the staircase and answered. "I think little Jamie's got a nanny."