Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Nightmare Before Hogwarts
The Nightmare Before Hogwarts
By: USA Tiger
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling. The Nightmare Before Christmas is the property of Touchstone/Disney and Tim Burton. Corpse Bride is also the property of Tim Burton and Warner Bros. Pictures. Beetlejuice is also property of Tim Burton.
This chapter has been betaed Werejaguar of Halloween Town
Edit 5-11-18: This chapter betaed a second time by The Patient One.
Chapter 10
The Potters stayed up late into the night meeting several of the other citizens of Halloween Town. It was shocking to James to meet so many “Dark Creatures”—creatures he grew up being taught to fear, avoid entirely, or kill on sight—who were extremely friendly, if not morbid and dark. Lily, on the other hand, tried to figure out how many were from various horror novels and movies growing up, though Mr. Hyde made no sense to her as he didn’t seem to have a Dr. Jekyll half. He instead reminded her of a matryoshka doll when he revealed he had smaller versions of himself under his hat. The Clown with the Tear-Away face also freaked her out quite a bit; she had never been a fan of clowns.
But when Harry started yawning and rubbing at his eyes more often, they cut the evening short and Jack once against offered his home to the Potters until a more permanent situation was set up. While Harry was tucked into bed with Zero once again taking up a watchful position, Lily and Sally informed James about the clothing and what Harry had told Sally. To say James was livid was an understatement; if he still had blood flowing through his veins his face would have been near purple. However, his anger manifested in a different way: several items around the room rattled and lifted in the air as he clenched his hands and grit his teeth in anger.
“James!” Lily yelped in alarm as she noticed.
“Huh?” James snapped out of his anger at the sound of her voice, the items crashing to the ground and making him jump at the sound. He blinked as he found the source. “What in the name of Merlin… I haven’t done accidental magic since I was a kid.”
“Hmmm,” Jack had a thoughtful look on his face, tapping his chin, then grinned. “You are turning into a poltergeist!”
“Poltergeist?” James asked sharing a look with Lily. “Like Peeves?”
“I don’t know who ‘Peeves’ is, but you’re such a prankster that your powers are changing into that of a poltergeist,” Jack explained. James considered his words, and then grinned darkly.
“Perfect. I know just who my first victims will be,” he said with a wicked chuckle. Lily sighed and sat beside Sally on the couch.
“I agree that Petunia and her husband need to be punished, but don’t kill them, James,” she said, fully knowing what her husband was capable of. James snorted and waved his hand.
“Don’t worry, Lils, it’s funnier just to drive them mad,” he said.
“I haven’t had a good scarefest in a long time,” Jack said as his easygoing skeleton grin widened into a frightening one; the room even seem to darken a bit with a dim fiery light coming from the Pumpkin King.
Something about that stirred James’s memories, reminding of some of the old stories his mother told him sometimes when he was very young, telling of a king of fear and nightmares. Seeing Jack as he was now, he wondered just how much of those stories were true…
Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he refocused his attention on plotting ways they would punish Harry’s abusers. After a few minutes, James turned to his wife as a thought occurred to him.
“Hey, Lily, what scares Petunia the most?”
“Other than being seen as unpopular and abnormal?” Lily asked then hummed as she thought about it. “Well...she hated teddy bears.”
“Teddy bears?” James asked, frowning in perplexion. “Why?”
“I don’t remember all the details, it was something that happened when we were really little,” Lily said as she thought back trying to pull up the hazy memories. “Around Christmas, she always swore that Father Christmas left killer toys. She said the teddy bear she got was weird looking, all stitched together from different cloths and that it had red eyes, claws, and big fangs. There was another toy, too, I think... some black cat toy.”
Sally hummed and tilted her head to the side and Jack tapped his chin, those sounded very familiar.
“Tuney use to swear up and down the toys came to life and attacked her. But I don’t remember it at all, I was asleep when it happened,” Lily continued. “The bear was the one that supposedly attacked her after she picked it up. My parents never believed her, they always swore Tuney got a doll that year.”
“I thought that sounded familiar!” Jack said with a snap of his fingers. “That was one of the toys we made here in Halloween Town the year I tried to take over.” Lily blinked in surprise, remembering that Jack had in fact told them about the year he found out about Christmas and had tried to take the holiday for himself, only to mess everything up and need Santa to clean up his mess.
“Wait, so all that was true?” she asked, turning to look at the Pumpkin King. Jack shrugged his shoulders in response.
“I visited a lot of homes that night before I was shot out of the sky and realized that I messed everything up,” he said. “So your family must have been one of them. It’s too bad, too; I thought the toys were delightful.”
“But that was in the 60’s! The way you were talking about it makes it sound a lot more recent,” Lily said. Jack shrugged his shoulders again. (1)
“When you live as long as we do here, time all bleeds together,” he said. James just grinned widely as an idea came to him.
“Have you still got any of those toys, Jack, especially that bear?” he asked. “I think we should return Petunia’s gift to her.” Jack laughed wickedly and clasped James’s shoulder.
“We may, Sandy dropped the toys back off after he fixed everything,” Jack said. “And if we don’t, I’m sure we can recreate it!”
“Perfect,” James said with an evil grin.
******
There were plenty of abandoned houses in Halloween Town, as the supposed neglect added to the creepiness of the place, so James and Lily had their pick of where to live. They chose one not too far away from Jack and Sally’s home; their pick, like all the other houses around it, was dark and somewhat crooked-looking, looming over them like a classic haunted house from a Muggle film.
James loved it from the start, finding the whole thing amusing. Lily hadn’t been as on board with the whole situation, a vocal part of her wishing for something a little less spooky looking to raise Harry in. But that was impossible in a place like Halloween Town and Harry adored the house as much as James did so Lily’s protests went away quickly. Still, she was at least determined to spruce the inside up a little bit, give it a bit more color.
“All right, Harry, which room do you want?” James asked as they entered the house.
“I can pick my own room?” Harry asked in quiet awe, his green eyes wide. Both James and Lily’s hearts broke, and their hatred toward the Dursleys for what they had done to their baby boy grew stronger. James knelt down next to Harry and ruffled his hair.
“Of course, Prongslet,” he said. “You get your own Big Boy room and we’ll make it 100 times greater than your cousin’s room. Why don’t you go have a look and see which room you like the best.”
Harry smiled up at his father brightly then ran for the stairs, climbing them to go see the bed rooms. Once Harry was out of earshot, James stood with a dark scowl on his face.
“The more and more I hear, the angrier I get.” A few dusty dishes on the counter rattled a bit to prove James’s point. Lily laid her hand on her husband’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“I know, love,” she said soothingly. “And you’ll get to ‘play’ with them soon. Let’s just concentrate on getting set up here first.” James sighed and the rattling of the dishes stopped as he calmed, turning his head to smile at Lily.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said then looked around sighing again. “There is a lot of stuff I wish we had here, Harry would love some of the wizarding toys Mum kept in storage and we could have hung Mum and Dad’s portraits on the walls.”
“Is there any way we can get any of that?” Lily asked as she peaked into the cupboards in the kitchen, biting back a scream as a rat jumped out and ran across the floor to a mouse hole. “And maybe new things as well? They have to have imported stuff here, don’t they?”
“I’m not sure,” James said crossing his arms and looking around. “It looks like they’ve got a muggle ice box so I’m sure they do, but for the other stuff… the old family estate is locked up. If I can still get in somehow, I can get anything that might be there. But everything else would have been put into the vaults and going to Gringotts will be impossible. They’re not going to deal with two corpses, or ghosts, or whatever we are now, and Harry is too young to be allowed into any vaults.”
“Well, we can’t get anything from Godric’s Hollow,” Lily sighed angrily; their haunting had quickly revealed that any possessions in the house had either been destroyed during that night or vultures wanting a piece of their baby took it. It was more fuel for her hatred of the whole ‘Boy-who-lived’ nonsense.
“I just hope someone we trust got our wands, at least,” James said. “Not that we seem to really need them much anymore, magic comes so much easier.” He proved his point by pointing his finger at the plates on the counter and making them dance drawing a laugh from Lily.
“Show off,” she teased. James just grinned and set the plates back down.
“Not as good as you at charms, but I was no slouch either,” he replied cheekily.
“Mummy, Daddy,” Harry said as he ran back into the room grinning. “I picked me room!”
“Alright, why don’t you show us, hmm?” James said letting Harry lead the way back upstairs to show off which room he wanted.
Harry had picked a nice, decently sized room next to what had to be the master bedroom. Harry swore it was better than Dudley’s room which could be the imagination of the boy, but his parents agreed anyway and promised to let Harry pick how he wanted it to be decorated as both wanted to spoil Harry a bit and help build up his confidence. There were at least two other rooms on the floor that James looked into.
“I think Padfoot and Moony would like this place,” James said to Lily. “They could stay in these rooms until they had their own place if they wanted.” He had a look of sadness in his eyes thinking about his two other friends and only other family he had.
“Don’t worry, love, we won’t let Sirius rot in that horrible place too long,” Lily promised him making James smile softly.
*****
(1) It’s pretty clear that the story we’re being told in the movie doesn’t happen in the 1990’s, the tech in the human world just doesn’t match up. I figured it was at least sometime in the 70’s or 80’s, which was my original intention in timeline placement, but Werejaguar informed me they heard it was confirmed to be in the 60’s so I’m going with that. So let’s just say that to Halloween Town it feels like it only happened a few years before rather than between 20 to 30 years. Time passes by differently for people who are immortal or dead, after all.
By: USA Tiger
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling. The Nightmare Before Christmas is the property of Touchstone/Disney and Tim Burton. Corpse Bride is also the property of Tim Burton and Warner Bros. Pictures. Beetlejuice is also property of Tim Burton.
This chapter has been betaed Werejaguar of Halloween Town
Edit 5-11-18: This chapter betaed a second time by The Patient One.
Chapter 10
The Potters stayed up late into the night meeting several of the other citizens of Halloween Town. It was shocking to James to meet so many “Dark Creatures”—creatures he grew up being taught to fear, avoid entirely, or kill on sight—who were extremely friendly, if not morbid and dark. Lily, on the other hand, tried to figure out how many were from various horror novels and movies growing up, though Mr. Hyde made no sense to her as he didn’t seem to have a Dr. Jekyll half. He instead reminded her of a matryoshka doll when he revealed he had smaller versions of himself under his hat. The Clown with the Tear-Away face also freaked her out quite a bit; she had never been a fan of clowns.
But when Harry started yawning and rubbing at his eyes more often, they cut the evening short and Jack once against offered his home to the Potters until a more permanent situation was set up. While Harry was tucked into bed with Zero once again taking up a watchful position, Lily and Sally informed James about the clothing and what Harry had told Sally. To say James was livid was an understatement; if he still had blood flowing through his veins his face would have been near purple. However, his anger manifested in a different way: several items around the room rattled and lifted in the air as he clenched his hands and grit his teeth in anger.
“James!” Lily yelped in alarm as she noticed.
“Huh?” James snapped out of his anger at the sound of her voice, the items crashing to the ground and making him jump at the sound. He blinked as he found the source. “What in the name of Merlin… I haven’t done accidental magic since I was a kid.”
“Hmmm,” Jack had a thoughtful look on his face, tapping his chin, then grinned. “You are turning into a poltergeist!”
“Poltergeist?” James asked sharing a look with Lily. “Like Peeves?”
“I don’t know who ‘Peeves’ is, but you’re such a prankster that your powers are changing into that of a poltergeist,” Jack explained. James considered his words, and then grinned darkly.
“Perfect. I know just who my first victims will be,” he said with a wicked chuckle. Lily sighed and sat beside Sally on the couch.
“I agree that Petunia and her husband need to be punished, but don’t kill them, James,” she said, fully knowing what her husband was capable of. James snorted and waved his hand.
“Don’t worry, Lils, it’s funnier just to drive them mad,” he said.
“I haven’t had a good scarefest in a long time,” Jack said as his easygoing skeleton grin widened into a frightening one; the room even seem to darken a bit with a dim fiery light coming from the Pumpkin King.
Something about that stirred James’s memories, reminding of some of the old stories his mother told him sometimes when he was very young, telling of a king of fear and nightmares. Seeing Jack as he was now, he wondered just how much of those stories were true…
Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he refocused his attention on plotting ways they would punish Harry’s abusers. After a few minutes, James turned to his wife as a thought occurred to him.
“Hey, Lily, what scares Petunia the most?”
“Other than being seen as unpopular and abnormal?” Lily asked then hummed as she thought about it. “Well...she hated teddy bears.”
“Teddy bears?” James asked, frowning in perplexion. “Why?”
“I don’t remember all the details, it was something that happened when we were really little,” Lily said as she thought back trying to pull up the hazy memories. “Around Christmas, she always swore that Father Christmas left killer toys. She said the teddy bear she got was weird looking, all stitched together from different cloths and that it had red eyes, claws, and big fangs. There was another toy, too, I think... some black cat toy.”
Sally hummed and tilted her head to the side and Jack tapped his chin, those sounded very familiar.
“Tuney use to swear up and down the toys came to life and attacked her. But I don’t remember it at all, I was asleep when it happened,” Lily continued. “The bear was the one that supposedly attacked her after she picked it up. My parents never believed her, they always swore Tuney got a doll that year.”
“I thought that sounded familiar!” Jack said with a snap of his fingers. “That was one of the toys we made here in Halloween Town the year I tried to take over.” Lily blinked in surprise, remembering that Jack had in fact told them about the year he found out about Christmas and had tried to take the holiday for himself, only to mess everything up and need Santa to clean up his mess.
“Wait, so all that was true?” she asked, turning to look at the Pumpkin King. Jack shrugged his shoulders in response.
“I visited a lot of homes that night before I was shot out of the sky and realized that I messed everything up,” he said. “So your family must have been one of them. It’s too bad, too; I thought the toys were delightful.”
“But that was in the 60’s! The way you were talking about it makes it sound a lot more recent,” Lily said. Jack shrugged his shoulders again. (1)
“When you live as long as we do here, time all bleeds together,” he said. James just grinned widely as an idea came to him.
“Have you still got any of those toys, Jack, especially that bear?” he asked. “I think we should return Petunia’s gift to her.” Jack laughed wickedly and clasped James’s shoulder.
“We may, Sandy dropped the toys back off after he fixed everything,” Jack said. “And if we don’t, I’m sure we can recreate it!”
“Perfect,” James said with an evil grin.
******
There were plenty of abandoned houses in Halloween Town, as the supposed neglect added to the creepiness of the place, so James and Lily had their pick of where to live. They chose one not too far away from Jack and Sally’s home; their pick, like all the other houses around it, was dark and somewhat crooked-looking, looming over them like a classic haunted house from a Muggle film.
James loved it from the start, finding the whole thing amusing. Lily hadn’t been as on board with the whole situation, a vocal part of her wishing for something a little less spooky looking to raise Harry in. But that was impossible in a place like Halloween Town and Harry adored the house as much as James did so Lily’s protests went away quickly. Still, she was at least determined to spruce the inside up a little bit, give it a bit more color.
“All right, Harry, which room do you want?” James asked as they entered the house.
“I can pick my own room?” Harry asked in quiet awe, his green eyes wide. Both James and Lily’s hearts broke, and their hatred toward the Dursleys for what they had done to their baby boy grew stronger. James knelt down next to Harry and ruffled his hair.
“Of course, Prongslet,” he said. “You get your own Big Boy room and we’ll make it 100 times greater than your cousin’s room. Why don’t you go have a look and see which room you like the best.”
Harry smiled up at his father brightly then ran for the stairs, climbing them to go see the bed rooms. Once Harry was out of earshot, James stood with a dark scowl on his face.
“The more and more I hear, the angrier I get.” A few dusty dishes on the counter rattled a bit to prove James’s point. Lily laid her hand on her husband’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“I know, love,” she said soothingly. “And you’ll get to ‘play’ with them soon. Let’s just concentrate on getting set up here first.” James sighed and the rattling of the dishes stopped as he calmed, turning his head to smile at Lily.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said then looked around sighing again. “There is a lot of stuff I wish we had here, Harry would love some of the wizarding toys Mum kept in storage and we could have hung Mum and Dad’s portraits on the walls.”
“Is there any way we can get any of that?” Lily asked as she peaked into the cupboards in the kitchen, biting back a scream as a rat jumped out and ran across the floor to a mouse hole. “And maybe new things as well? They have to have imported stuff here, don’t they?”
“I’m not sure,” James said crossing his arms and looking around. “It looks like they’ve got a muggle ice box so I’m sure they do, but for the other stuff… the old family estate is locked up. If I can still get in somehow, I can get anything that might be there. But everything else would have been put into the vaults and going to Gringotts will be impossible. They’re not going to deal with two corpses, or ghosts, or whatever we are now, and Harry is too young to be allowed into any vaults.”
“Well, we can’t get anything from Godric’s Hollow,” Lily sighed angrily; their haunting had quickly revealed that any possessions in the house had either been destroyed during that night or vultures wanting a piece of their baby took it. It was more fuel for her hatred of the whole ‘Boy-who-lived’ nonsense.
“I just hope someone we trust got our wands, at least,” James said. “Not that we seem to really need them much anymore, magic comes so much easier.” He proved his point by pointing his finger at the plates on the counter and making them dance drawing a laugh from Lily.
“Show off,” she teased. James just grinned and set the plates back down.
“Not as good as you at charms, but I was no slouch either,” he replied cheekily.
“Mummy, Daddy,” Harry said as he ran back into the room grinning. “I picked me room!”
“Alright, why don’t you show us, hmm?” James said letting Harry lead the way back upstairs to show off which room he wanted.
Harry had picked a nice, decently sized room next to what had to be the master bedroom. Harry swore it was better than Dudley’s room which could be the imagination of the boy, but his parents agreed anyway and promised to let Harry pick how he wanted it to be decorated as both wanted to spoil Harry a bit and help build up his confidence. There were at least two other rooms on the floor that James looked into.
“I think Padfoot and Moony would like this place,” James said to Lily. “They could stay in these rooms until they had their own place if they wanted.” He had a look of sadness in his eyes thinking about his two other friends and only other family he had.
“Don’t worry, love, we won’t let Sirius rot in that horrible place too long,” Lily promised him making James smile softly.
*****
(1) It’s pretty clear that the story we’re being told in the movie doesn’t happen in the 1990’s, the tech in the human world just doesn’t match up. I figured it was at least sometime in the 70’s or 80’s, which was my original intention in timeline placement, but Werejaguar informed me they heard it was confirmed to be in the 60’s so I’m going with that. So let’s just say that to Halloween Town it feels like it only happened a few years before rather than between 20 to 30 years. Time passes by differently for people who are immortal or dead, after all.
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