Unwanted Fame

Lizzy Lovegood

Story Summary:
My sequel to my fic "Unknown Fame." Harry knows how famous he is in the Harry Potter books that his Muggle friend, Jo (to us the wonderful JK Rowling), wrote, but when he brings one of the movies home, things become so much worse for him.

Chapter 01 - Unwanted Fame

Chapter Summary:
Harry now knows that he is famous in the Muggle world because of the famed Harry Potter series which all of us know and love. However, what he finds a few days after he gets home, makes him feel that this is unwanted fame in the Muggle world. The sequel to "Unknown Fame."
Posted:
07/03/2006
Hits:
649


Unwanted Fame

"What's that, Daddy? Is it a present? A present for me?" six-year-old Nicole Potter asked excitedly as she darted around underfoot her father, trying to peek into the plastic bag that he was carrying. "Did you buy me a birthday present?"

"Your birthday isn't for a few more weeks, poppet," Harry reminded his daughter patiently, going into the living-room where his wife, Ginny, was sitting, holding two-year-old David on her lap.

"Da-da!" David exclaimed as soon as he saw his father, holding out his arms to be held.

"Hey, Davey," Harry said with a laugh as he lifted his son up and hugged him. Nicole pouted, wrapping her arms around one of her father's legs, and Harry, placing the bag on one of the arms of the couch, lifted her up with one of his heavily-muscled arms, toned from years of Quidditch playing and dueling for his life, placing her on his shoulder.

"What did you get this time?" Ginny asked her husband curiously, dangling the bag in front of Harry's emerald-green eyes.

"Well, you know what I got Hermione for her birthday?" Harry prefaced, placing Nicole on the ground again and handing his wife David as he took the bag from her slack grip.

"Yes, she loves those books," said Ginny, smiling at the man. "She's even gotten Ron to read them and he enjoys them just as much as her."

"They're definitely magic, then," Harry said, chuckling, opening the bag partway and peering in with a grin, waiting for his family's reaction.

"Daddy, show me what it is!" Nicole demanded, standing on tiptoe in a feeble attempt to try and peer into the bag.

"Well, I don't know," said Harry thoughtfully, scratching his chin. "I don't want to ruin the surprise, maybe. . . ."

"No!" Nicole moaned.

"Harry Potter, either show us what's in there right now, or I will hex you into oblivion," said Ginny sternly, fingering her wand.

"As you wish, m'dear," Harry said roguishly, sweeping a DVD out of the bag with a flourish.

Ginny's eyes widened in surprise and Nicole and David said in unison, "A movie!" as they saw what it was.

"Harry, is that . . . you?" Ginny asked, pointing at the cover of the movie.

"Yes, the actor who plays me. Daniel Radcliffe, I think his name is," Harry clarified. "You know how I told you there were books dedicated to me?" Ginny nodded and he continued. "Well, they made movies of them, too; there are four of them now, I believe. This one is . . . Prisoner of Azkaban, the only one I could find, they sell like hotcakes." He gave a grin and saw that Ginny was pale. "What is it, hon?"

"Mummy, what's wrong?" Nicole asked worriedly, going to her mother and putting a hand on the woman's arm. David's hazel eyes displayed a great amount of worry as he gazed at his mother.

"Nothing, nothing," Ginny hastened to assure them. "It's just . . . wow, I mean, you're obviously famous in our world, for defeating Voldemort, but in the Muggle world, wow."

"Unknown fame, isn't it? I wonder what the Dursleys think of this," Harry said with a grin. "So, what do you say we watch it?"

"Yeah!" Nicole enthused while David clapped his hands, laughing.

Harry grinned at his children's antics as he grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and slipped the DVD into the player. "Let the fun begin," he said, flopping down on the couch and Nicole echoed him, as the screen popped up with Play, Scene Selection, and Special Features. However, Ginny caught his eye as she saw the pictures parading across the Menu screen.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked her worriedly.

"Do you think this might be a bit too scary for them?" Ginny asked. "I mean, werewolves, dementors, it's all things that they've never seen in their lifetime. . . ."

"But this is just entertainment and they know that dementors and all those are bad. As for the werewolf, that's one of their babysitters," Harry said.

"Still. . . ." his wife continued persistently. "I don't want it to be too scary for them, especially Nicky. You know how she has nightmares."

"I won't be scared!" Nicole protested. "I'm six years old, you know, that's old enough!"

"Good kid," Harry congratulated, patting his daughter on the shoulder while Ginny rolled her eyes. "You're not afraid of Remus, are you?" Harry continued.

"Remus is nice," Nicole said angelically, knowing what she wanted and knowing exactly how to get it. "He just gets a bit grumpy on the full moon, right?"

"Exactly," Harry said with a grin.

"Awooooooo!" David added, remembering what his father and Remus had told him about werewolves.

Harry grinned. "Yes, they howl at the moon, Davey," he said. Then, at a glance from his wife, "And you guys know that all of the bad things in this movie, besides Remus, aren't around anymore, right?" he continued.

"Like what, Daddy?" Nicole asked innocently.

"Dementors, Death Eaters, that sort of thing," Ginny said.

"Oh, of course," the girl said, though she shook somewhat as the names were mentioned.

"What about you, David?" Harry questioned his son.

"Awooooooo!" the toddler repeated.

"See? He's brave like his father," Harry said proudly, giving his wife a cocky grin.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Fine, you win," she said. "But if either of them end up having nightmares, I'm not the one who's getting up at three in the morning."

"As you wish," said Harry, leaning across and giving her a kiss ("Ew!" Nicole said), before pressing Play and letting the movie begin. . . .

~

"That's the ending?!" Harry asked incredulously as the credits began to play. "That's it?"

"What's wrong, Daddy?" Nicole asked.

"That was one of the worst endings to a movie that I've ever seen! I mean, it didn't even end like that, it ended with me, Ron, and Hermione going back to the Muggle world! What type of ending is this? Ginny, who the bloody hell is the director?"

"Alfonso Cuaron," the woman said, watching her husband's rage somewhat coolly, as though amused by the whole situation.

"Well, this Cuaron guy is one of the suckiest directors I've ever seen in my life!" Harry said angrily, kicking, moodily at the leg of the coffee table as he strode back and forth across the room. "I mean, I had blue eyes for Merlin's sake, and of course they couldn't bother to put colored contacts in that Radcliffe kid's eyes! Bloody hell!"

"Harry, you know that they couldn't do an exact replica of our lives in the time constraint," Ginny said patiently, allowing a frightened Nicole to crawl into her lap next to David.

"But our lives are in the books, Gin! Believe me, I've read them, they're basically a word-for-word description of what's happened to us, and now they just go and mess the whole bloody thing up! Alfonso Cuaron . . . a monkey could have done better!"

"A monkey could have done better with what, exactly?" asked a voice and Harry looked up to see Remus Lupin stride into the room, his wife, Tonks (who had short, hot-pink hair and moon-stud earrings today), close behind. Harry was used to his friends dropping in at his house at times since they were all family to each other, but not right now. His anger was fueled when he saw that both of them looked somewhat amused at the situation.

"It's this!" said Harry, picking up the DVD case and tossing it to the werewolf.

Remus's lips moved soundlessly as he read the title. Then, "Oh, so they made movies, too, then?" he asked. Harry had told all of his friends about his discovery of the Harry Potter books and its fame in the Muggle world.

"Yes, have you ever seen them?"

"No, not-"

"Don't," Harry warned him, with an air that he was saving Remus from death. "Don't, they are . . . absolutely horrible!"

"Absolutely horrible?" Tonks asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," Harry said emphatically, ignoring the Metamorphmagus's grin. "I mean, I have blue eyes and . . . and you tell me that I have 'my mother's eyes,' in this conversation we have, Remus. But how the hell can I have my mum's eyes if they're blue? How, I ask you?" He buried his face in his hands, continuing to grumble. Then, "And you have a mustache that makes you look like Hitler, Remus! It's freaky, you don't look . . . Remus-ish."

"Remus-ish?" the werewolf asked, echoing his wife as he also raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, you know . . . Remus-ish!" Harry said emphatically.

"I think that Remus would look hot with a mustache," Tonks commented, trailing her finger over Remus's upper lip, thoughtfully, thinking of there being whiskers there.

"You think that Remus would look hot any way, Tonks," Ginny teased.

The werewolf grinned and then, "They're only movies, Harry. There are more important things in life," Remus said reasonably, seeing how upset the young man was about this.

"But it's not just about me, they're disrespecting Sirius's and Dumbledore's memory," Harry continued. "I mean, Dumbledore is a hippie!"

"A hippie?" Tonks asked.

"Somehow I doubt that, Harry. . . ." Remus started.

"No, he is a hippie, the guy braids his beard for Merlin's sake. You expect him to say 'dude,' every other word!"

Remus raised his eyebrows. "And Sirius?" he asked. Sirius had been one of Remus's best friends at Hogwarts.

"Sirius had a mustache," Harry said tragically. "A mustache, I tell you! The guy was mad-looking, I tell you, even madder than when I first actually met him!"

"And how did this make you feel?" Remus asked, trying to act like a psychiatrist as he steepled his fingers and gazed at Harry in an uncanny imitation of Dumbledore.

"Stop it, Remus," Harry said. He was whining and he knew it, but he couldn't help it, that movie had made him mad! The books had been unknown fame, but this was just plain unwanted if those Muggles who made the movie were going to mutilate his life like this. Hogwarts had had a choir for Merlin's sake! Not to mention the computer-animated animals who had looked totally fake as he had announced through Nicole's whimpers as Remus turned into a 'werewolf,' and ignoring Ginny's reprimanding glances. Then there were his emotional upheavals, his fake crying, his horribly mushy ride on the computer-animated hippogriff, Buckbeak, and of course the oh, so wonderful freeze-frame of him on his Firebolt, that Sirius had, for some strange reason, sent him at the end of his third year. And why was it that it only showed one Quidditch game through the course of the two-and-a-half hours? Why was it that they had never won the Quidditch Cup. He only hoped that Oliver Wood didn't see this, but for now, this movie had to deal with the anger of Harry Potter, oh, Merlin, it made him so mad! He wanted to run into the studio and personally kill whoever had made these decisions. But then he might get put in Azkaban for the rest of his life and be visited by St. Mungo's specialists, so he guessed he'd better not, but still. . . .

Harry's manic thoughts were cut short by Tonks's excited voice, "This I have to see," she said.

"It is really horrible, Tonks," Ginny advised. "Maybe you'd better not. . . ."

"It has to be better than some of the chic-flicks Remus has taken me to see," said Tonks, pretending to retch. "Those were horrible!"

"They weren't that bad," said Remus, blushing as Ginny stifled a laugh.

"No, they were worse," Tonks replied, giving her husband a kiss as she took the DVD from a reluctant Ginny and popped it into the player once more. Nicole screamed and ran from the room while David buried his face in his mother's shirt.

"I didn't think it would scare them that badly," Ginny said worriedly as she wiped some of her son's saliva off of her T-shirt.

"It might just be from how horrible it was," said Harry, groaning as he heard the words, "Lumos Maxima!" . Since when had Lumos Maxima been a spell and since when had a thirteen-year-old been allowed to use magic outside of school?