FicWad

Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.

Summary of the last chapter:Harry has just begun to backpack around Ireland with Dean and Seamus....it was mainly a filler chapter!

Chapter 11

As Harry sat by the campfire one evening listening to sharp crackles and pops of the fire, and to the breathing of his sleeping friends, he had the odd feeling that he was forever cursed to have a lifetime of odd, wacky adventures, if the last few years of his life were anything to judge by.

They had really only had two strange episodes so far, but his crazy adventure sense was tingling. It had tingled on many occasions; just before he first met Dobby, just before he first met Snape, just before he first met Dumbledore, and so on. In fact, on further thought it was likely to be a tingle to herald meeting an absolute weirdo. He could only hope that they washed, unlike Snape. Just to be sure though, he checked his supply of shampoo to make sure he had extra if needed. He found all was as it should be (he had four extra bottles).
Seeing Snape’s poor personal hygiene for all those years had led to all the students he knew being obsessive about their personal cleanliness. In fact, some had petitioned to have an extra hour to clean up after potions - you just couldn’t help feeling as if some of Snape dirty greasiness had rubbed off on you. Harry gave a slight shudder at the thought and compulsively cast a quick self-cleaning charm.


The first had been decidedly non-magical in nature, but quite surreal and had happened at the very beginning of their travels. Seamus was using a very old pair of travel robes, his great uncles to be precise, as he had grown so much during the school year. Consequently, the charms on the robes, while good quality, had faded over the last ninety years, the muggle repellent charms being the most effected. (Although they hadn’t tried to set Seamus on fire so one could not be entirely sure, Dean had pushed him into a river though).
One rather atypically sunny afternoon they were wandering cross country through a field when they had happened upon a group of muggles, mainly in their teens and all in rather bizarre costumes shaking what appeared to be swords and other weapons made of foam with a good deal of enthusiasm. Being horrible people the three had decided to stop and see who could come up with the nastiest insult when at the precise moment Seamus accused a rather portly individual of looking like a giant blue turd his muggle repelling charms fell. The giant blue turd took offence and decided to take revenge on Seamus, not with his giant foam war hammer, but with his giant meaty fists.

Soon all attention was on the ludicrous and pathetic attempt at a brawl, what with the muggle alternatively forgetting about Seamus and wandering off when the charm flickered and running back towards Seamus with a roar when the charm failed again, leaving Seamus to run around and dodge the muggle’s surprisingly quick though wild lunges.
Harry and Dean had, in the mean time climbed up a small tree to improve their view, but were having great difficulty staying in it they were laughing so hard. Every time Seamus begged for their help they would wheeze back about the magical secrecy acts.
Finally, after around twenty minutes of Seamus sprinting towards the tree with the two wizards when the charm activated and the muggle steadily driving him away when it failed, the muggle had started to turn an alarming reddish colour and gasp hoarsely after every breath, they decided action must be taken.
A wide range diarrhea inducing curse was cast by Dean and Harry shot him an impressed look as they waited for all the muggles to clear the field in search of porta-potties or just a convenient ditch. To Harrys further amusement, Seamus, too, had been caught in the curse which had no counter, one just had to wait it out, so to speak.


The three had then continued their journey slowly, interspersed frequently with toilet breaks and accompanied by non-stop muttered curses by Seamus. Both Dean and Harry had made sure to stay down-wind of Seamus for the next few hours, and then for a few more after that as his muttering had turned increasingly violent, especially as the other two kept snickering.
The best part was in the evening when Seamus had gone to sleep, tired out form his rather nasty and exhausting day, Dean had whipped out a few photos of the muggle and Seamus. Harry had not even seen the camera but made sure to get a copy.

‘That muggle was an angry, angry man wasn’t he?’ Dean mused as they looked over the photos.
‘Hmm yeah, being called a giant blue turd isn’t so bad. I mean Snape and Malfoy along with most of the Slytherins call me worse every day in Hogwarts,’ Harry replied as he tilted his head and squinted his eyes at one of the photos.
‘I know, maybe you should start some sort of odd rampage every time someone insults you and they’ll stop.’
‘Uh Dean, you are aware that a good portion of Great Britain thinks I’m bat-shit crazy as it is right?’ Harry replied as he put down the stack of photos and turned to look at Dean.
‘Well yeah, but you might as well capitalise on your new psycho reputation. It would be great, think about it. Every time you did something outrageous people would just shake their head sadly and comment on poor crazy Harry Potter. You could get away with murder....well maybe not murder, but anything short of it anyway. Think of all the senseless violence you’re missing out on!’
Harry paused for a moment to consider just what exactly he could do and muttered dreamily ‘Think of all the women I could accidentally grope,’ and then he sighed. ‘Dumbledore would have me locked up or potion-ed up so quickly it wouldn’t be funny. Have to keep the sterling image of the boy-who-lived after all you know old boy.’ he finished, slightly bitterly.
Dean shot him a sympathetic look ‘Hey, you can see Seamus clutching his arse and about to shit himself in this one,’ he said as he shoved a picture into Harry’s hands, and the rest of the evening was spent laughing and planning what to do with the photos. Dean suggest an album, Harry agreed but insisted on sending a few copies to Grammy.


The second odd incident had been when they stumbled upon a revel of what Seamus later told him were clurichaun, kindof like leprechauns but always drunk, and to be honest they were assholes. They were all sitting around beside some sheep cursing and mocking each other, and didn’t appreciate their drunken party being interrupted by the three wizards. They had chased the three for hours, none of them having enough time to cast any spell strong enough to repel them. The sheep were surprisingly fast and they had to dodge a hell of a lot of empty bottles until the clurichaun got so drunk they began to fall off the sheep or fight each other. The rest of that evening was spent rubbing bruise-be-gone balm on, occasionally on each other, with Harry reminding Dean to ‘keep his hands off the goods, he didn’t want Seamus to get jealous did he?’


Harry had discovered he was an even bigger celebrity than he had thought, no one had recognised him yet but he had seen plenty of books about himself in the various bookstores they had visited on their travels. The majority of the books did not laud his victory over the flamboyantly evil snake queen, aka he-who-has-actually-designed-trendy-uniforms-for-his-minions. No, most were speculating about his reasons for surviving the unstoppable killing curse, with various levels of realism. Well, what may seem reasonable to wizards.

The three had taken to glancing through vast number of books on Harry and the one who found the most absurd at the end of their journey won a whole bunch of galleons along with a copy of the book containing the questionable theory. Harry felt he had a fair chance of winning, in one book he had read ‘You think they’re human; but are they?’ They had hypothesised that he was actually a puffskein who once he had been hit with the killing curse, had been turned inside out, and apparently everyone knew puffskeins were just poor wizards and witches who had been bitten by snoofters in their unborn state. It did not go into detail on what a snoofter was or how it could bite someone not yet born, but did offer a voucher giving fifty percent off a puffskein in a large chain of pet stores.



Seamus had warned Harry as they had traveled into the more remote areas, that the chances of them having encounters with magical creatures increased greatly. The powerful and nasty kind of magical creatures, which explained some of the odd equipment Grammy had filled each of their packs with before they left. To this end, he gave Dean and Harry a crash course on magical creatures and the do’s and don’ts. He picked out a giant ring on which you would usually find keys, but which contained a number of different charms.
In the morning or evening, and especially as it was soon after Bealtine they were likely to see some of the aes sídhe, or fair folk. They had better be damn well polite if they saw any, but iron burned them. He then waved a small charm shaped like a cauldron.
The list went on with odd and nasty sounding creatures such as Bloody Bones, a small rock-like hairy creature that lives near places of water and rewards good children, but punishes bad children, and a few more Harry had heard of, like a kelpie and a will-o'-the-wisp. He rounded off his lecture with warnings about a Fear Dear which wears a red coat and cap and often makes gruesome practical jokes, and a Leansídhe, a female possession spirit.


With his weirdo sense still tingling, Harry started the next day, groaning as Seamus not-so-gently nudged him awake with his foot. It was not long before they met the weirdo his body or magic had been warning him of.
‘Ah you! You’re after my gold aren’t you? Thieves! Thieves the lot of you!’ a voice boomed out
The three just blinked in surprise, before Seamus sighed in a resigned manner.
‘It’s just a leprechaun,’ he said, ‘although this one was possibly dropped on his head,’ he finished under his breath.
The leprechaun squinted up at the wizards.
‘You’re a rather calm bunch of fellas aren’t yee?’
‘Yeah, our school is full of loud, ah, eccentric people,’ Dean said in a calm manner.
‘Really, you’re not a sadistic, racist psychopath or a sadistic, filthy grease-bat or a sadistic...’ Seamus began.
‘Yeah I get it,’ the leprechaun interrupted, sounding a little sullen.
Harry had been silently observing the odd little leprechaun.
‘And what might you be looking at?’
‘Do you, are those really gold underwear in your pot?’
The leprechaun burst into lecherous giggles.
‘My gold is twice as valuable, no ten times as valuable as any other gold, so valuable I don’t let it out of my sight ever. See I melted my gold down, my real gold, and I gold plate the underwear of the most attractive females around.’
The leprechaun then started to explain, while giggling perversely, which underwear belonged to whom, and the three huddled closer together, pretending to listen while plotting their quick getaway.
‘....and then I watched her in the bath....’
‘We can’t just run, he’s much faster than us’
‘....and the way she used to bend over when she was....’
‘Any portkeys handy?’
‘.....now this one belong to Aoife. She had a rack if ever I’ve seen one...’
‘Yes, but I have to get it out of my bag’
‘....I believe it’s called a thong....’
‘Hurry the fuck up. The little bastard’s going to turn me gay with the way he’s going on’
‘....oh so smooth, and her creamy thighs....’
‘I’m trying! Believe me I’m doing my best’
‘....and I just wanted to lick her toes....’
‘Shut up and get the bloody portkey’
‘....of course none of these were washed before I....’
‘Got it. Hands on. Portus.’


It seemed his travels around Ireland were ordinary, peaceful days interspersed occasionally with extreme moments. Basically like his time at Hogwarts, except for the fact that the nice calm days were few and far between, just squished moments between one crazy adventure and the build-up to the next.
It was headless, with its head under one arm, a hideous thing with huge eyes that constantly darted about, a grotesque mouth literally grinning from ear to ear, and skin he colour of mouldy cheese. It was riding on a headless black horse and wielded a whip made of what looked like a human spine.
It saw them and grimaced as they tried to get the hell away from it. Letting out a hellish shriek it cracked its whip at Harry’s eyes. Monster, who had been surprisingly quiet on their journeys, decided now was the time to reclaim Harry’s honour and lunged at the dullahan in a blur of brown, badly jarring the creature.
Harry whipped out his wand and summoned Monster as it turned with a shriek of rage and threw a basin of blood on Harry. Fast as lightening, Seamus whipped out a galleon and threw it at the dullahan causing it to cringe and with a last look at Harry, wheel its horse around and flee.


‘Remember what I said about not pissing off the aes sidhe?’ Seamus asked in a shaky voice.
‘Yes?’ Harry replied grimacing in disgust
‘That was one of them. One of the really nasty ones.’
‘Oh. Crap.’
‘Yes. Also, remember the way you are supposed to see a grim before you die?’
‘Oh?’ Harry asked with a sinking feeling.
‘Well the whole "getting blood thrown on you by a dullahan" is kinda like that.’
‘I think we should perhaps take the portkey to Seamus’ house now,’ Dean said softly.
‘That. Yes. Let’s do that,’ Harry replied, feeling like he should be really, really pissed at Monster, but sighed as he looked at his cute whiskery face.
Once they arrived at the Finnigans', he picked up Monster so they could see each other eye to eye. ‘New rule. No attacking super powerful potentially evil creatures. Are we clear?’
Monster whined softly but Harry’s face took a very stern expression, and the krup lowered his head in what Harry hoped was agreement. Hedwig just hooted in a manner that suggested she could have taken the dullahan, but felt it was beneath her.
Harry looked at his two overly protective and aggressive familiars and sighed.
‘At least ask me first.’


The next morning the three were a bit miserable that Harry was leaving, but Harry knew with Dumbledore actively tracking him, he couldn’t spend too long in the same country.
On the plus side, Harry pointed out, their encounter with the dullahan the night before rounded out his time in Ireland nicely.
‘Every bizarre adventure I have has some sort of nasty attempted murder involved,’ Harry said with a twisted grin.
‘Well you know, you are very annoying, and a bad singer,’ Seamus replied awkwardly.
The three lapsed into silence again.
‘Thanks guys, I really mean it. I don’t ever remembering having so much fun in my life before.’
‘Yes, your life is sad and empty without us,’ Dean shot back.
Harry checked his watch. ‘This is it. You had better write or Hedwig will be pissed.’
The two winced at the menacing look Hedwig shot them and nodded.
‘We’ll see you around mate, and maybe come visit you later on in the summer?’
‘Sure Seamus, I’ll use our ultra-secret code and let you know where I am or where I’m headed if you let me know you want to stopover. If not I’ll see you back in Hogwarts.’

With one last grin, he turned away and was gone.


‘I kind of pity everyone on the continent,’ Dean said after a few seconds.
‘Poor bastards,’ Seamus replied with a grin.
‘You want to get some tea?’
‘Nah, I’ll stick to rum, but you can go right ahead."