Harry Potter and the Unexpected Summer by Iris

The morning had been utterly chaotic, but at long last all three of them was ready to go. Harry had woken up early that morning oblivious to everything that had happened last night. He had woken up in an unknown bedroom with no recollection of how he had gotten there. A few moments of confused goggling made him realize he was in Draco’s room. He had a vague memory of taking a bath. A blurred nightmare and a picture of Snape looming over him protruded into his mind. He had an idea of what might have happened, but he really didn’t like that thought at all. After quite a bit panicked fumbling around in his mind he had decided to let the matter rest and try not to think about it, he just hoped no one else would bring up the subject. At the very least his body seemed a lot better today, this of course did not lessen his suspicions of last night but he certainly wouldn’t complain about it. His sunburn was almost gone, his bruises seemed several weeks old, and the wounds on his back had lessened to thin white lines. Even the few scars that his younger body bore seemed less protrudent than yesterday.
____

Harry stood besides Draco waiting for Snape. Harry was wearing some grey sweatpants, a red t-shirt and a cream white teddy jacket, Draco who stood beside him wore almost the exact same outfit only with other color variances. Both boys had been a bit confused when Snape came into their room with a change of clothes that actually fit for each of them, saying they were going away and needed to pack. They had done as they were told hoping Snape would eventually tell them the reason. Luckily for them he wasn’t as grouchy as he sometimes could be and had told them in short unenthusiastic terms that they were going on a holiday. Harry was indeed happy for this, he had never been on a real holiday. Even if he had to endure Snape’s sour demeanor, Draco had really started to grow on him. Snape hadn’t said where they were going though. He hoped they were going out of the country, he had always wanted to go abroad. It would be nice to come back to school and have something to share with his friends for once.
Harry had to hold back a snort, this would definitely be a story to tell his friends when he got back. A freaking holiday with the snarky dungeon bat and the spoiled Malfoy brat. The situation was so extremely far fetched that they most likely would think he was pulling their wand.

"Are you ready to go?" Snape asked coolly as he walked into the room.

They both nodded in response. Harry looked up at Snape and was shocked, as he many times had been that summer at just how young and normal his professor looked. His sleek black hair was once again tied back in a bun, he was wearing a white T-shirt, black slacks and white shoes. The difference from his normal appearance was startling. However, the sneer he almost always sported was still in place, and so was his cold demeanor towards Harry. That was the only thing preventing him from believing that someone else had taken his professors place. Harry still had his suspicions though, even Snape’s attitude towards him had been off this morning. He seemed a bit less snarky and more attentive, as if he was observing all of Harry’s actions closely. If he was being honest, it made him very nervous.

With a calculating look at the two boys and a slight sneer Snape started explaining the plan.
"We will be taking the floo to Hogwarts where we will meet our companion. Do not ask me who that may be, that is the headmasters joyful surprise for us." He said with cold irony. "Both of your magical signatures are inducted into the wards and they will therefore allow you to pass in and out with the use of magical transport. However, due to your current…" he sneered at the last word "..size.. it will not be advisable to travel long distances. The headmaster has been so kind to book us tickets on a muggle device called an airplane. I do not know much about them so there will be no need to ask me for information. Regardless, I will expect the both of you to behave on the trip, you will not complain, you will not get into any mischief, and you will both do as you are told." He gave Harry a hard glare. "The location of this trip is set to Munising, which is a town in Michigan USA."
"Is everything understood?"

"Yes sir" both boys answered eagerly.

Snape gave a curt nod, then turned around, took his wand out of his pocket and shrunk the luggage. He put the luggage in his pocket and without looking at them, deliberately walked to the fireplace. Once there he stopped, crossed his arms and raised a brow.
"Are you coming? I’m not in habit of wasting my time waiting on moronic children and I wasn’t planning on starting today." He said tersely.
With a quick look at each other both boys moved forward towards the potion master. Harry fell into steps behind Draco. So far this summer Snape hadn’t been too bad. He hadn’t in any way been kind, but he hadn’t been directly mean either, and he didn’t want to go and upset him now.
Snape grabbed the shoulder of Draco and steered him to his right side, then he grabbed Harry’s boney wrist and dragged him non to gently to his other side. With a last warning to hold on, he dropped the floo powder and called out for the headmasters office.
_____

Harry fell tumbling out of the floo. His face was only inches from the floor when a pair of old, surprisingly strong, arms caught him under the arms and lifted him up into the air.

"Oh my, that is quite a speed." Dumbledoor said with a wink.
Harry was baffled, but very grateful for having avoided the collision with the stone floor. He felt his face heat up at the combined realization that firstly, he had almost face planted in front of everyone in the room, and secondly he was currently seated on the headmasters hip like a little baby.

"Uh, hi.. thanks.."

"Eloquent as always, mr. Potter" Snape sniffed and rolled his eyes while climbing much more gracefully out of the floo. By the looks of it Draco hadn’t done much better than Harry. It seemed as Snape had just managed to get a grip on the back of his T-shirt and kept him from falling. Harry wasn’t in any way surprised that Snape still favored Draco, and he didn’t much care.
Dumbledoor gave a cheerful chuckle before setting Harry to his feet besides Draco. Now that Harry had gotten a bit of overview on the situation his eyes fell on the last person in the room. A red headed young man was seated in one of the comfortable armchairs in front of Dumbledoor’s desk. He was muscular, very freckly, and had several old burns and scars on his arms. Harry recognized him immediately from Ron’s description of Charlie Weasley.

"Ah, everyone, this is Charlie Weasley." Dumbledoor stated. "Mr. Weasley here has been helping out planning and preparing for the care of magical creature class for the upcoming year. He has generously offered to help professor Snape on your impending trip. Charlie has taken the mugglestudies class, and are therefore more at ease with the muggle norms than many others. I think he will make an excellent addition to this excursion." Dumbledoor said with a glimt in his eyes, talking mostly to Snape.

For a moment Harry was afraid that Snape would blow up, not unlike aunt Marge, but the moment luckily passed.
"I have no doubt" Snape said ironically with a dark look at Dumbledoor. The headmaster simply beamed back at him

"Hi Harry! I’ve heard loads about you from Ron, it was a pity I missed you last year but it’s a joy to finally meet you." Charlie said.
Harry didn’t know what to say so he simply settled for a `nice to meet you too’. Charlie then turned to Draco and told him too it was nice to meet him. He had wisely decided from mentioning anything he might have heard about him from Ron. Draco, who Harry usually would have thought would sneer at him and throw a nasty insults only uttered a polite `hi’.

"With the introduction out of the way I must insist we move on to the more pressing matters as you are in a bit of a hurry." Dumbledoor smiled. "As you already know, Severus, you will be traveling with an airplane, I’m sure Charlie will explain in more detail how that works. I must quite frankly admit, I have not a cackling clue on how these machines functions."
Dumbledoor then turned to Harry and Draco before Snape had a chance to comment. "For you two it will be exceedingly important to act your age." He winked at them. "A bit of a different meaning behind those words this time I’m afraid. In muggle eyes you are three years old, and you will need to act like any other three year old." At the horrified expressions on both their faces he let out a load chuckle. "Come now boys, it’s not that bad."

Not that bad? If the shared look between him and Draco said anything, they at least agreed on the fact that this was a - yes, this bad- situation.

"Ah yes, I almost forgot. We need to settle the relationship between you all as to not raise any suspicion." At Snape’s raised eyebrow and warning look Dumbledoor clarified, still sporting the all so familiar glimpse of mischief in his eyes. "We can’t have anyone thinking you have kidnapped the boys now, can we? Draco, I think you can keep on being Severus’ godson. Charlie can be Severus’ cousin, and I think it is best if Harry portraits as your son." He said as if he had given this a great deal of thought, only the cheeky smile giving him off.

“WHAT?!" Harry and Snape exclaimed at the same time. Snape shot him a contemptuous glare before turning to Dumbledoor.
"Albus, this scheme of yours have gone way too far, I will not agree to this absolute ridiculousness. I see no point what so ever that anyone would suspect us of kidnap." He sneered at the headmaster.

"Now, now, Severus, you have already agreed to this trip, and I think this is the best course of action."
"I think that was all, you all have an explicit trip!"
Snape protested with I’ll contained outrage, and Harry stood there without knowing what to say or do, not completely sure what just happened. To his own indignation both Charlie and Draco was trying to hide their smirks. Dumbledoor just waved them all away with an amused look, seemingly not taking the faintest notice of anything.

At last they were once again off to the floo. This time they stepped out at the leaky cauldron. Charlie, thankfully, preventing him from falling on their descent.
_____

Getting out of the taxi at the London airport they all stopped momentarily while taking in the big airport. There were people everywhere, cars, taxis, busses and Ubers were pulling in and out constantly. People were scattering in and out of the various entries. In the skies above, big airplanes were taking off and landing in close proximity. Even though Harry had been raised by muggles and spent the majority of his life in the muggle world he had never been allowed anywhere near an airport. The closest thing he had ever come to a holiday with the Dursley’s had been the hut on the rock while escaping the Hogwarts letters. Charlie, who Dumbledoor apparently had chosen to accompany them because of his skills in the muggle world, had never actually spent much time in the muggle world. He had taken the muggle studies class and had quite a lot of muggle interactions in his work, mostly to keep muggles away from the magical beast he worked with. He was more at ease in the muggle world than most, but still far from an expert on the matter. However he had done some research on traveling the muggle way before this trip and had been quite confident that he would be able to guide the group safely through this experience. Now he wasn’t so sure, this place was big, and people were everywhere.

Charlie decided that this was his chance to show Snape that he wouldn’t be a completely useless addition to this trip and took the lead. The two small boys followed close behind, Snape making up the rear with only a slight look of dismay on his face. Well inside the building Charlie went straight to the ticket box, fishing up the phone and the four passports the headmaster had gotten him. Electronics didn’t work well in the wizarding world, but he had learned the basics to navigate his way on it. Luckily the line was short and he got their tickets out from the box short after.
Draco looked awestruck at the ticket machine.

“Wow! That’s so cool” Draco said in a high pitched voice pointing at the machine.
Harry let out a childish giggle, and Charlie smiled at them. Even Snape looked partly amused.

"Now we’re supposed to send our luggage on that belt over there." Charlie said pointing to a black conveyor belt.
"We need to pass through some sort of security before boarding the plane" he scratched his head " I’m not exactly sure how it works but they will be able to check everything we have with us, and there’s lots of rules on what we can and can not bring through.."

"Can’t we simply just pass through with it in its shrunken state?" Snape drawled with a raised eyebrow.

"Uhm.. I’m really not sure. I suppose we just have to try, in that case I think we should cast a concealment charm on both the luggage and our wands."

Snape looked half annoyed, half impressed with the young Weasley’s thinking. Nevertheless he steered them behind a corner away from all the peering eyes and cast the spells.

When it finally was their turn to walk through the security both Harry and Draco was extremely bored. They had been standing in line for at least 30 minutes and were very ready to be done with it. Both boys were moving forwards fast on their short legs. They had seen numerous others walking through a small archway and was about to do the same when a security guard stopped them.

"Are these yours, sir?" The guard asked Snape who stood 10 meters behind them placing his jacket on the belt. Snape looked up at that and glared at them both when he saw they had been running ahead.

"Yes, that is my godson and my…son.." he said, seemingly forcing the last word out of his unwilling mouth. "I didn’t realize they had gotten away from me."

"Ah, yes, an easy mistake to do. Better watch out, these little ones tend to run all over the place and easily gets lost. You wouldn’t believe how many lost children we deal with every day."

"I’ll make sure to do so" Snape said, sending a death glare at them as he grabbed their hands and took them through the arch.

As soon as they were all on the other side and the guard had turned his around he dropped their hands and crouched down.
"Behave! Do not walk away from us." He hissed.
"Sorry sir." They both said.

He shot them yet another glare. "And do not call me sir. You are supposed to be three year olds!"
They nodded glumly.

"what am I supos’d to call him then?" Harry whispered to Draco while Snape turned around and went to get his jacket.
Draco shrugged his shoulder "well, daddy, accordin to Dumbledoor" he snickered .
Harry grimaced and Draco giggled.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Snape asked Charlie.

"We need to find the right gate. You see that big screen over there? We need to find gate number 52, our boarding starts in 40 minutes. I think we just need to follow these number signs." Charlie answered uncertainly.

"I will never understand how these muggles work out such ludicrous systems." Snape muttered shaking his head at the screen.

Harry and Draco were shooed in the right direction and started walking along while looking at all the different shops and talking excitedly with each other. After about 5 minutes Snape was growling impatiently at them to walk faster. Yet another 5 minutes later it became apparent that Snape’s patience was wearing thin.

"Uhm Severus?" Charlie said.

"Yes?" Snape snapped in response.

"I think it might be more efficient if we just picked them up, it’s a bit of a walk." Charlie said cautiously. He was in no way scared of his old potions professor, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to continue tearing on his already lacking patience.

Snape sneered and gave him a mild glare. He was about to turn around and keep walking when he stopped to think. He couldn’t take much more of this dawdling before he exploded, on the other hand the boys couldn’t walk much faster than they already did with their short legs. He clenched his teeth before abruptly turning and scooped Draco up in his arms. Draco gave a small squeak and turned pink but wisely kept quiet.
Charlie placed his hand under Harry’s arms and gently placed him on his hips. Harry turned just as pink as Draco did. The humiliation of being carried by Ron’s older brother like a little child made him want to cringe.
"Ehm.. can’t I just walk on my own Charlie?" Harry asked timidly.
Charlie gave a small chuckle and looked down on him.
"Not unless you want Severus to burst out in flames out of pure impatience."
Despite the situation Harry couldn’t help let out a small giggle at the idea.

With a much higher efficiency they found the right gate, and after some time found an empty table to sit down at. Charlie sat Harry down in a chair beside himself. Harry turned to Draco and they chattered happily for a few moments while Charlie and Snape discussed the travel ahead. Harry was starting to get a bit hungry, but he was well used to the feeling so he didn’t linger on it. Draco on the other hand was not used to being hungry and was starting to get a bit grouchy when his stomach rumbled loudly.

"Uncle Sev, I’m hungryy" Draco whined.
Snape looked at him and with a sigh he looked up at the screen. They had 20 minutes until the boarding started. He supposed they should get some food before then.

"I suppose we’ll have time to get some food before the boarding starts if we do it now."

"I can go buy us something." Charlie said, raising from his seat.
Charlie came back 5 minutes later with four hotdogs. Draco and Harry chomped happily at their sausages while Snape eyed it with dismay before carefully starting on it. Draco devoured his hotdog in an impressively short amount of time. Harry giggled at his ketchup filled face handing him the rest of his own. He was quite full already after half of his hotdog.
Snape looked unhappily at Draco’s ketchup filled face, handing him a napkin.

"For Merlin’s sake Draco, clean your face. Who would have thought you have had lessons in proper etiquette since you were 5"
Draco’s cheeks turned a slight pink, but he grinned slyly as he innocently said;

"But I’m not 5 uncle Sev, I’m 3 remember?"
Charlie grinned and Harry snorted at him. Snape quirked and eyebrow but seemed slightly amused.

They were some of the first that got to board, and was seated towards the back of the plane on a four seat row. Charlie climbed in first, followed by Harry and Draco, then Snape at the end. The plane was big, it had two four seat rows with an aisle separating them. Harry and Draco looked excitedly around, each row of seats had their own window, and a small screen was stuck on the back of the seat in front. The boarding took a long time, by the time the security demonstration done by the flight attendants was done they both was quite impatient.

"Charlie, how long will the flight take?" Harry asked in a soft voice.

"It will be around 8 hours, so just get comfy." Charlie answered with a small grin.

"8 hours?!" Draco asked incredulously, appalled that any means of transport could take so long.
"But I need to use tha loo, you cam’t mean I’m suppos’d to wait 8 hours?" Draco asked with dismay and concern etched in his voice.

Snape sneered and quirked and eyebrow at him.
"And pray tell, Draco, why didn’t you go before we boarded?”

"I though I could just wait umtil we got there. I never ecspeceted the plane to take so long." Draco muttered, stumbling over the words in a very childish way.

Snape glowered at him, but turned around and called one of the flight attendants anyways.
"How can I help you, sir?" The flight attendant offered politely.

"My godson here need to use the loo, is there any available?" Snape said as politely as he could through his annoyance. He was not in a very good mood. His head was pounding, and the two imbeciles grated his nerved every chance they got. Had he not been in such a bad mood he might actually have been pleasantly surprised at how well the older Weasley boy not only knew his way around quite well, but refrained from annoying and disturbing him needlessly.

The flight attendant looked sympathetically at Draco’s small form.
"I’m sorry but we are just about to take off, the toilets will be available as soon as we are stable up in the air. Do you think you can wait until then, sweetie?" She asked Draco kindly.

Draco blushed pink and muttered a "Yes, mam". The flight attendant looked slightly surprised at Draco’s formalities, most likely not expecting a three year old to know any. As she walked away Snape leaned close to Draco, and fixing both boys with a stare he said;
"You are supposed to be three year olds, act like it!"

They glumly sat back in their seats, Draco squirming a bit every once in a while. Their gloominess didn’t last long however, as the flight began to gain speed. Both boys eagerly looked out of the window, giggling excitedly as the flight took off. Butterflies tickling in their tummies. Charlie too looked interestedly out of the window, enjoying the experience. Sneaking a look back at Snape Harry almost laughed. Who would have thought the grouchy, scary, dungeons bat would be afraid of flying?
Snape was gripping the edge of his seat so hard his knuckles were white. His face was pale, and a thin layer of sweat made it obvious he was not comfortable. Other than that his discomfort was hard to spot unless you looked for it.

As the seatbelt sign blinked off Draco jumped out of his seat, heading towards the loo. Snape, who still looked slightly unwell slowly rose and followed Draco on unsteady feet.
Harry felt his neck prickle, he turned around to find Charlie considering him.
"Maybe we should go too?" Charlie asked him.
Harry shrugged his shoulders, and he too jumped off his seat and followed Draco.

Some hours later the two small boys were nodding off. The Disney movie they had been watching on the small screen had lulled them into sleep. Harry shifted in his sleep, his head leaning against Charlie’s side.
_____

Charlie and Snape were both very tired as they stood outside of the airport, each with a small child in their arms. The flight had been long, and they were exhausted. Charlie waved at a taxi, at least it was only a ten minutes drive to their vacation home.
They paid the taxi driver, dragging their feet up to the front door. Disposing the children in their beds, both men collapsed in their own rooms, falling asleep before their heads even touched the pillow.