Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament

Chapter 1--To Have a Birthday Party

Harry Potter woke on his sixteenth birthday to the all-too-familiar sensation of his twin sister bouncing onto the foot of his bed. She was always up earlier than him, and whenever she was excited about something that was happening that day and they weren't in dormitories she would come to his room, hop onto the foot of his bed, and wake him up--often by beating him with a pillow.

Harry kept his eyes shut, refusing to get up. "Go away, Rose," he muttered.

"No." He could hear the amusement in her voice as well as sense it and knew exactly what look she had on her face at the moment. Her mouth would be twisted into a little sardonic grin and her wide chocolate-colored puppy eyes would be narrowed slightly, a slightly dangerous air about her. She was a little dangerous when she was being mischievous, and amusement often led to mischief.

"It's my sixteenth birthday," Harry mumbled. "I'm sleeping in."

"Harry James Potter, it is my sixteenth birthday, too, and if you are not up and ready to greet our guests in half an hour than I'll have the first one here wake you up! If that's the Weasleys, I'll send Ginny."

Harry immediately sat up. "I'm awake," he said quickly.

Rose looked as though she was about to laugh. "Good. I let you sleep in, and you had better get ready. The party's supposed to start in half an hour. And Harry?"

"What...?"

"I hate to sound like our uncle, but comb your hair." With that Harry's twin left him almost completely alone. They weren't completely alone unless one of them had a reason to close their mind to the other. That was usually Rose's doing, either to block him out during her visions or so that she could have some time alone with her boyfriend and confirmed husband-to-be, Neville Longbottom. Neville had no idea that Rose knew for a fact that they would get married and have three children, two girls and a boy, by the time Griffin was eleven. Griffin was to be born the day that they started back to Hogwarts that year, and would publicly be Rose's little brother. Very few people could know that Rose was Harry's twin, and all of those already did out of necessity: the fewer who knew the better. It was a danger to Rose... as much of a danger as the knowledge that Harry was in love with Ginny would be to the brown-eyed Weasley girl.

Harry ran a comb through his untidy black hair, put on the dark blue robe Rose had made for him--she had a passion for designing robes, though his were plain--and went downstairs to join his sister.

The whole party had been Rose's idea from the start. She'd started talking to Harry about their birthday party at dinner near the beginning of the summer, shocking everyone at the table. Stunned silence led Rose to ask if something was wrong, and Harry explained that he had never had a birthday party, and attempted to clarify his position in the Dursley household. Rose had insisted on having a birthday party for them, saying that she had had a birthday party every year of her life and wasn't about to stop now, and that she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to have a birthday party with Harry Potter. The Dursleys, who didn't know that Rose Black was truly Rose Potter, eventually gave in when she promised to keep the guest list short. They regretted it when they saw her "short" guest list, and she countered their attempts to insist that the list wasn't short by starting to list all the people she wasn't inviting. The next morning they were to go to Quidditch camp, and one of Rose's "cousins", Orion Black, was spending the night, as he was going to the European Summer Quidditch Academy, too.

Rose was just finishing the decorations when Harry came in. "Everything's ready?"

"Of course, Harry. We still have fifteen minutes to go."

"Good. Than I have time to show you my present." Grinning, Harry was, very suddenly, not there anymore. Where he had stood was a great stag, his lily-white forehead marred by a scar in the shape of a bolt of lightening. Then, just as suddenly, Harry was there again.

"Oh, Harry, you did it!" Rose half-squealed. "How?"

"Like this." Harry quickly sent her his memory of what happened the first time that he had made the transformation, only a week before.

Rose hugged him, kissing her brother on the cheek.

"You know, I can't decide which of you is more like James," said a very familiar voice. Rose immediately turned to hug the tall man that had just come through the temporarily-on-the-Floo-Network fireplace that she'd cleared to make potions on.

"And I can't decide which is more like Lily," said the small woman beside him, smiling at the beauty that her best friend had given her to raise as her own. She turned her smile down to the swell in her stomach, her second child, though he would be her only living one. Placing a hand lightly on her midsection, she turned to Harry. "Happy birthday, Harry."

"Hello, Maralin. How's Griffin doing?"

"Just fine," the petite woman answered, patting her midsection fondly. "Not that I need worry too much with Rose's assurance that he'll be a healthy, happy child."

Harry smiled, trying not to give away the fact that he knew the boy wouldn't live past childhood. He was to die at eleven, protecting Rose and Harry's children. Rose had told Harry that he'd have two at that point, a beautiful little redheaded girl and a boy that looked very much like him. "I'm sure Griffin will be a wonderful boy."

"I'd say he'd be better off with his father back in Azkaban, but I'm not willing to give up Sirius and I think you and Rose prove that the child will turn out like their parents. Maybe I can keep him from turning out quite like his father, though."

Sirius laughed, pulling his wife in for a kiss just as the next batch of guests was coming through the fireplace. Mr. Weasley came through and smiled, staying quiet, as did Bill and Charlie, but the fourth figure that tumbled through the fireplace stood up, brushed herself off, caught sight of Sirius Black, and screamed. She had a very ear-splitting scream that startled Sirius and Maralin out of their kiss and caused everyone in the room to cover their ears, except for Charlie, who quickly clamped a hand over the young woman's mouth. Heavy steps came down the hall, and Harry motioned for silence as he slipped over to the door and opened it enough for him to face his uncle.

"What's going on in there, boy?" Vernon Dursley demanded with his great purple face livid.

"Nothing. We just startled someone."

"Don't let it happen again!" Mr. Dursley snapped before fairly fleeing the room full of witches and wizards that he didn't dare to set foot into.

Meanwhile the rest of the Weasleys arrived and were surveying the scene in confusion. Charlie whispered something in the terrified girl's ear, she nodded weakly, and he released her. She had short black hair with a slightly longer green lock, pale skin, and black lipstick and heavy eyeliner. She was wearing a tight dark green shirt and black pants under a black tunic that was tied with a long strip of black fabric. Her shoes were sleek black boots that reached to mid calf.

Harry saw that all in the moment it took for the young woman to regain her composure enough to ask, "Now will somebody explain why there's an escaped convict here?"

"Because he's innocent, my father, and Harry's godfather," Rose said crisply. "Charlie, as you might have noticed if you'd read the invitation, I invited the members of the Weasley household. Those included in that household, now that Percy has moved out, all know that my father is innocent. There is only one person invited that doesn't, and the worst he'll do is pull a wand on Dad, which I can deal with, and will listen to reason. I do not need this today!"

"Rose--calm down," Harry said quietly. She was somewhere between anger and hysterics. She was clenching the skirt of her apparently flat black sleeveless linen robes with white-knuckled hands, tiny sparks playing through her cascades of ebony hair, her eyes slightly widened and her lips just parted.

Rose took a deep shuddering breath, slowly unclenching her hands, then exhaled harshly as the sparks disappeared. "Sorry, I'm a bit out of sorts today," Rose apologized weakly. "I had a vision this morning."

Harry groaned faintly. "Which would be why I got to sleep past six."

"No, it's why you got to sleep past noon. You got to sleep past six because it's your birthday and I was trying to make you breakfast."

Harry winced. Rose could do a lot, but she couldn't cook, which was surprising as it was so close to potion making and she was so good at that. Harry supposed that it came from having house elves waiting on her all her life. "Maybe it's a good thing you didn't finish."

"Hey, I'm trying to learn to cook!"

"'Trying' is the key word."

Rose flicked a tiny ball of flame at Harry, which he directed into the fireplace with a gust of wind.

The youngest four Weasley children and the Blacks, who were used to this kind of behavior, laughed, but the others stared in shock, except for the young woman who had started all the commotion. She looked intrigued with their use of magic. Rose and Harry went from a mock-fight to playing with a ball of flame almost like two children with a small rubber ball, Rose catching and throwing it and Harry doing the same with air, as to avoid being burnt. After a while she asked how they did it.

"We just do," Harry said with a shrug. "In a letter Dad left for us he said that we were more of our element than anyone he'd ever met, including himself. Apparently he was very much of his element, as well. Rose is fire and I'm air." Her element, water, had the smothered feel that told Harry she was a Muggle, as well as being very faint.

Charlie smiled at the young woman beside him. "This is my fiancé, June Loral. She's a Muggle, but believed every word I told her when I explained the Wizarding World to her. She absolutely loves magic."

"And dragons," June laughed. "I was so very excited when I found out that he works with dragons, but I must admit that the real ones are a bit disappointing. I want the ones that show up frequently in modern fantasy--intelligent and rather superior to humans."

Just then another figure came through the fireplace, a man with sallow skin, purple eyes that were practically black, greasy black hair, and a hooked nose who was dressed in billowing black robes. He barely managed to dust himself off before Rose launched herself at him, extinguishing the ball of flame she and Harry had been playing with. Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Head of Slytherin House, ex-Death Eater, Seer, and Regent for Rose Potter on the Council of Five over the Order of Phoenix, who was widely called "unpleasant" when he and the person speaking were both in a good mood, caught the sixteen year old girl and hugged her, smiling like a father with his favorite daughter. He touched the comb she wore at the back of her head in the top of her elegant pony twist when he released her, smiling. He had given it to her the year before for Christmas, a treasure of his house, passed down from mother to daughter for generations. When his mother had passed away without a daughter she left it to him, her oldest son, to give to his daughter. He had chosen to give it to Rose, who was the closest thing he had to a daughter, closer, even, than his niece, Elizabeth, who went to Hogwarts and was in Gryffindor four years below the Potter twins.

"You should have written, Severus," Rose said softly. "I've missed you."

"I would have if there had been a moment that it was safe to. An interrupted letter to you found on me or left among my things would be dangerous to both of us."

Rose nodded. "Perhaps things will be safer for you, soon."

Severus studied her face, frowning slightly, his eyebrows furrowed. "You had another vision this morning," he said finally.

Rose suddenly looked sheepish. "Yes."

"Is that why you said that..." He trailed off, giving Rose a look so piercing that Harry was surprised that she didn't flinch. She wasn't even uncomfortable.

"No. The vision had to do with a brunette. You two were arguing." Rose suddenly gave a rather feral grin, and Snape sighed.

"I can see that I will get nothing more from you."

Rose hugged her mentor and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Of course not. I have been keeping a journal of my visions, Severus, just like you said to. I have them all written out, back to the very first one."

Snape nodded, obviously satisfied.

Then there was another thump, followed shortly by an "Ouch!" as Neville Longbottom tumbled out of the fireplace.

Rose left her mentor to practically bowl into her boyfriend as he stood up, almost knocking him down again. Neville didn't even have time to regain his footing before Rose gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, dragged him over to the sofa, seated him on the end opposite Harry, and sat down between the pair.

"Let's see... we're missing Hermione and Aunt Minerva and Aunt Catherine and Uncle Remus and Papa Albus and Orion. We can't start without them, now can we?"

Sirius, who had been taking a long drink of punch, began choking and promptly spat the punch all over the carpet. Maralin began to move towards her husband, concern etched on her face; and then stopped, obviously confused. A moment after that, Harry realized that his godfather was laughing.

"Sirius, get a hold of yourself and do tell the rest of us what you find so amusing," Snape said coldly.

Sirius flipped Snape off ^[1], but regained his composure enough to speak and turned to his wife, his eyes flashing mischievously. "Do you remember the day that you and Lil both found out you were pregnant?"

Maralin's eyes lit with understanding and she laughed. Severus, however, was getting annoyed.

"What, exactly, is so hilarious?"

Maralin looked wryly at her husband. "Shall we?"

Sirius furrowed his brow for a moment, then his eyes widened and he nodded. Maralin grinned and pointed her wand toward the wall that was void of couch, fireplace, and door, if not decorations and pictures of Dudley that still managed to peek out. With a secretive smile, Maralin glanced over her shoulder, and then fixed her gaze on the wall.

"Pensivia."

Some silver-white stuff shot out of the wand and then expanded, like a puddle growing into a lake, until it covered the entire wall. Then the white stuff began glowing, and with a flash an image appeared.

Four men and four women were sitting around on various chairs and couches in a red and gold room. After a moment Harry realized that the four men were none other than the Marauders... and three of those women were a younger Minerva McGonagall and Maralin... and his mother...

"So," an impatient and approximately twenty-year-old Sirius asked, "what did the doctor say?"

Maralin turned to Lily. "Shall you tell them or shall I?"

The redhead grinned. "I will. Unless you want to, Mara."

Maralin shrugged. "Go ahead."

Lily turned to the others, then looked James straight in the eye. "James, love, I'm pregnant."

"Whoa--what?" James was obviously shocked.

Maralin giggled. "That's not all, either." She turned to Sirius. "I am, too!"

"WHAT!?"

Maralin and Lily laughed. "And you," Maralin said, turning to the others, "you'll be their aunts and uncles."

Peter ^[2] blinked, clueless (as usual-), and Minerva's lips thinned, but it was Remus who spoke.

"No way on Earth. I am not going to be 'Uncle Remus,' or 'Uncle Remmy,' or anything like that!"

Lily laughed. "When our children look at you with their big, loving eyes, you won't care if they call you 'Uncle Stinky.'"

"NO! If you teach them to call me uncle, I'll let James and Sirius teach them to be Marauders from infancy! I'll help them!"

"Well, I don't mind being their Aunt Catherine," said the fourth woman, a snobbish-looking witch with golden-blond hair and deep sapphire eyes, "but if you teach them to call me 'Aunt Cathy' I'll... I'll box your ears!"

James laughed. "You don't know how to box someone's ears!"

"I'll learn!"

That declaration was met with laughter.

*flit*

It was a different sitting room, this one done in black and red. Maralin was sitting in an armchair with a little black-haired girl with a single scarlet lock and big brown eyes sitting on her knee. Remus, Minerva, Catherine, and Dumbledore were sitting around the pair, looking very much like the previous scene. They were apparently in the middle of a discussion.

"...that's settled, let's spend one last evening together here," Maralin was saying.

They started off on normal discussions, and a little while later Rose stretched out her little chubby arms to a Remus who was deep in conversation with Minerva. It didn't take long for her to get impatient. "Unca Mooy! ME!"

Remus jumped and gave Rose a very startled look. "I didn't know she could talk!"

Maralin sighed. "She has yet to talk, but she's been yelling for two months, ^[3] as you would know if you'd been able to stand coming to Sirius's house more often. I suggest you take her before she decides you're still ignoring her and starts screaming."

Remus grinned and took the little girl. "Hey, sweetie," he told the little witch, Minerva entirely forgotten and watching in amusement. "Uncle Moony, eh? You know, I kind of like that."

"I thought you weren't going to be her uncle," Catherine teased, and Remus flushed.

"Well, I'm sure you'd let her call you Aunt Cathy, too!"

"As if!"

Remus opened his mouth to answer, but Rose put her hand in it. While the other adults laughed, Remus blushed again and removed the child's hand, quite literally, from the werewolf's mouth ^[4].

There was another flash, and the wall was clear again, and Harry looked around to see everyone in the room laughing as hard as he was, except for the merely chuckling Severus.

"You know what's even funnier?" Rose asked once she could speak. "I call him Uncle Remus and Uncle Remmy!"

"You know, I really have to be more punctual. I always end up as the butt of several jokes before I get there if I'm late at all."

Rose turned towards the fireplace, grinning, and jumped up to give her adopted uncle a hug and a kiss on the cheek. The noise of Remus's arrival had apparently been lost in the earlier noise. "You know, Uncle Moony, everyone gets their turn at being the butt of the joke, but since you weren't here for yours you can have mine, too."

Remus laughed, and Rose giggled. "You know, Rose, that's not really fair. I wouldn't want you to miss out!"

"And you know I've always loved your laugh. Why do you think you've always been my favorite uncle?"

"Because I was the only one you picked and your blood uncles are all plotting behind your back?"

Rose giggled again. "Well, that, too... and the fact that you were just always my favorite, even when you scolded me."

There was a pair of thumps, saving Remus from having to think up an answer, though not from blushing profusely, and Minerva McGonagall and who Harry assumed was Catherine Adams had arrived.

"Aunt Min, Aunt Cathy!" Rose turned to hug them and the stern Transfiguration professor smiled warmly and hugged her back. However, the blond witch glared softly.

"You know I hate that name." Rose, however, didn't flinch, and Catherine laughed. "Oh, Rose, you haven't changed a bit!"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "I would hope I had, as the last time you saw me I was eleven."

Catherine pursed her lips and made a show of looking Rose over, and then laughed again. "Cat, love, you might be a lot older, but you're still the mischievous angel you were when I left for New York." Which explained the loud, fast, harsh accent.

"A cat, am I?"

Catherine smiled and ruffled the girl's hair. "Yes, Cat, now introduce me to all your little friends."

"Well, this is Neville, and then there's the Weasleys--Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie and his fiancé June Loral (she's a Muggle), we're missing Percy, and then there's Fred and George, Ron, and Ginny--and of course, you know of Harry Potter, and know everyone else."

Catherine shook her head. "You're hopelessly arrogant, Rose. Of course I know of Harry, I saw him several times before... Lily and James..." She broke off. "I'm sorry, no one needs reminded of that at a party."

Another thump jostled everyone out of the heavy sense of grief, and was followed closely by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

"Come, now, why all the long faces?"

Sirius grinned at the silver-haired man. "Lily and James had to come up at least once, you know that."

"Ah. Did I miss-" He broke off, listening to the sound of angry voices coming from the direction of the front door.

Harry and Rose traded looks.

:You or me?:

:I'll go,: Harry said. :It's probably Hermione.:

Harry left the room, the yelling growing louder as he went towards the front door.

"-dead wrong if you think for one minute that I'm just going to stand here while you-"

"Hermione, calm down," Harry interrupted, grinning at his friend.

Hermione blinked, then smiled a bit sheepishly. "Hello, Harry. These are my parents."

"Hello," Harry said to the two smiling brunettes behind Hermione. "I'm Harry Potter."

"Hermione's told us so much about you," Mrs. Granger said, nodding.

"She doesn't say very much about what happens at school, anymore," Mr. Granger added. "She did at first, but not after the incident with the Basilisk, and something about an escaped convict being after you, and then that he was innocent, and that some dark lord was rising again."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, then felt something nudge on the back his kneecap and looked behind him. The Dursleys were long gone, and Sirius was there, in his dog form, looking at him a bit impatiently.

"Snuffles!" Hermione exclaimed, reaching down to scratch the big black dog on his head. Harry took the hint and closed his mouth. Sirius looked highly amused. Then Hermione turned back to her parents. "I'll call after the party, before I go to stay with Ginny. And please don't go trying to get information out of my friends, I have told you the important parts. There's no reason to worry you about things that you can't help."

Mr. Granger sighed, and Hermione gave her parents each a kiss on the cheek, and then followed Harry and Sirius down the hall as her parents left.

"So... how much have you told them?"

Hermione flushed. "The major events of our first two years and a few main points after that. Just that Voldemort's rising again from the end of our fourth year. I haven't even told them that I'm a member of the Order--yet."

"Your parents should know, in case you get killed."

Harry and Hermione jumped, and Hermione screeched, "What?"

"I didn't know my dad was Order until he was killed. It's not like we send kids your age out into danger unless it's absolutely necessary, but later you will almost certainly be in danger, and you wouldn't want them to find out that you're dead and Order at the same time, now, would you?"

"Well--no."

Sirius nodded. "Then tell them."

He went on ahead of them back into the party, leaving Harry and Hermione to finish working out what he'd said and follow. When Harry arrived back in the party, he was just in time to see a boy with black, longish hair and gray eyes like Sirius's step out of the fireplace. The boy was about his age, and he brushed himself off, looked around, caught sight of Sirius, and drew his wand, starting towards him dangerously.

"You!"

^[1] That's just how I picture Sirius and Severus interacting, what with the promise to Dumbledore at the end of GoF and the fact that they practically share a daughter. Ugh. That sounds just wrong. I meant that they're both paternal figures to Rose. Anyway, they can't get away with hating each other, anymore, can they?

^[2] I'm sorry, I don't like him, either, but the rat kind of has to be in the flashback type scene. He can be totally clueless, though! As always, of course.

^[3] Remus has been there in that time, once, which is how Rose picked up the nickname Moony. Her little eighteen-month-old brain automatically connects adult men and "uncle." She has several who come to see her mother and try to remove her from the Black manor and take it, or simply move in and take her husband's position of Keeper of the Trust, letting her and chibi Rose stay there. However, the manor was legally Sirius's, to be left to Rose (providing he never had a son) and so they couldn't take the manor.

^[4] Okay, you know how they say that you're putting your head in the lion's mouth if you're putting yourself in danger? I think the Wizarding version would have werewolves, not lions. So, there's my pun.

A/N: Hehe! Evil Cliffhanger! You'll forgive me, though, because I finally got around to re-writing chapter one of the Doomspell Tournament, and re-writing a lost document is always hard. *glares at crashed computer* That thing had better not have lost everything!