Late, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

Sorry! I've suddenly been shunted off to another school (with scary ass internet security settings that block EVERYTHING! American security programs are downright scary. Why my Dad had to install something so evil is beyond me. It won't even let us use Wikipedia, let alone Fanfiction!), It's my little bro's birthday and I couldn't be motivated to write at all for like the past two weeks. But most of all Harris was refusing to cooperate with me.

Excuses, excuses, but It's out at last. And it still feels fillery. And it shouldn't.

Written By: NialsFiction

Beta'd by: N/A (I wanted this up fast but will be sending it off to her as soon as I'm out of school and this is up and posted)

Harry was nervous now, he had been sitting there for quite some time and, other than the Hat humming and hawing somewhere in the vague direction of the ceiling, nothing at all had happened.

'Well my boy you are particularly hard to sort I must admit. You can easily fit everywhere and yet you fit nowhere at all. It is all quite curious.'

Curious. That word seemed to follow him around everywhere lately, first Ollivander and now the Hat. Although it might just be that wise old things all seemed to think the same.

'This is highly unusual young Master Potter but it seems I must ask, where is it that you wish to be sorted?'

Little Harry thought about his reply for several long moments.

"A place where I can make friends please." The boy whispered, thinking of Ron who had joined the rest of his family in Griffindor. Griffindor seemed a far friendlier bunch when compared to the Slytherins too.

'Very well young Harry. Griffindor it is.'

The first thing that really came to mind when Harris first met Alice Falshe was that she was unnaturally pretty. True Harris had seen pretty girls, and he even worked with one or two, but Miss Falshe was Veela grade pretty.

Which inevitably made Harris think about Before, and thinking about what happened Before was not entirely pleasant to think of.

So Harris just smiled and acted as he usually did, which is to say somewhat dangerously insane, and appeared to creep her out. Harris didn't particularly care that he was creeping her the fuck out because if she didn't get used to it she had better quit while she was ahead.

He quickly led her on a rapid tour, pointing out the coffee machine in the Mess hall, the benches she was never ever permitted to put her 'grubby human servos' on in the med bay, and several other things she would have to be aware of if she were to survive in a military base filled with utter psychos.

She looked rather worried by the time Harris eventually led her to where the Mini's generally spent their time.

"- and this is where the Minibots are encouraged to stay. This is mostly because the amount of damage these guys can cause in an hour with taffy, four sticks, and a rubber band."

Harris opened the door –

- and was immediately seized around the knees by Rattitude as he moved to dodge a rather vicious swing from Dewbot.

The black haired man stumbled and nearly teetered to the floor as the green Mountain Dew dispenser attempted to nudge him out of the way in order to get at the silver mech hiding behind him.

Alice was presented the rather dubious privilege of witnessing Harris be shunted around a bit before sidling into the room and immediately being latched onto by several of the other, smaller, much more well behaved minibots.

"Miss Falshe, these are just a few of the Mini's that you will be helping to look after if you take this job as an intern. The large green one is Dewbot, this silver one with the spikes is Rattitude, and these little guys are Nesbit, Compact, Celler, JP, Vee, and Farrow."

While usually this would seem to be a fairly formal introduction it was entirely incorrect as Harris currently had a little Femme hanging from his spectacles, another rummaging through the pockets of his white lab coat, and Rattitude clinging onto him tightly from behind as Dew fought valiantly to knock him off while doing as little damage to Harris as possible.

Alice just blinked as she was dragged away by one of the senior employees.

"Don't worry dear, we're all mad here."

The large school was quite alright in Harry's opinion, most of the teachers were cordial at least which was nice, although Snape behaved rather like his old teachers back in primary school, all sneering and expecting the worst from him.

He had made some friends too which was nice. There had been road bumps, or rather road bumps with laser defenses and mines. The troll had been somewhat startling, it was not everyday that an eleven year old ended up jamming their wand down ones nose after all. In fact it was highly unlikely for most people to run into a troll but somehow he had managed.

It certainly told the boy something about the castle's supposed safety.

…

It wasn't safe at all!

Harris didn't see much of Alice in the following week, he was quite busy with paperwork (which had piled up again much to his dismay) and with his almost daily checkups from Ratchet (who was being downright anal about Harris visiting as often as possible).

She seemed to be doing alright if the reports were to be believed (which he did as Charlotte, Alice's supervisor, was to be trusted in most things regarding the Mini's and how they were being treated) and he had eventually decided to employ her full time.

He would pass this on to Charlotte and she would in turn tell Alice, as Harris was rather unlikely to be able to tell her himself with how everything seemed to be going.

"Harrison Burke." The Prime rumbled, blue optics examining the human stood nonchalantly on his palm. "It has been a while since we have last spoken."

And indeed it had as Harris had been determined in keeping as far away from the nosy Cybertronians as he could for as long as possible. It had worked well for a quite a while.

The scientist had a sneaking suspicion that the Prime was aware of his attempts to avoid the Autobots.

"Might it be too much to ask, Harrison, if I could have a personal report on the younglings?" The mech asked, in his rumbling voice.

Harris paused momentarily in thought.

"…Alright I suppose. Anyone in particular you want to hear about first?"

The mech seemed to consider for a moment, optics flickering slightly as he reviewed his options.

"Hmm. The largest first I suppose."

Harris nodded and immediately launched into a report on Dewbot, the largest of his sparklings, and how the green mech had been doing in the past few months. "Dewbot is in perfect health and is scheduled to visit Ratchet biweekly. He is fairly well behaved most of the time but still likes the occasional bit of fun. He also helps us out with caring for the smaller ones and has one of the smallest ones nearby at all times. It's fairly adorable to be honest."

Optimus could just imagine the young green mech with one of the far smaller silver ones perched on his head. It was indeed an adorable image.

Harris continued on to describe the others. All in all they all seemed to be doing well with Harris and his other assorted followers helping out.

"I am glad that the younglings are doing as well as they are. The government has however expressed interest in trying to take them away for research once again."

Harris looked up sharply.

"What! Again? Don't they ever give up?"

"Your human governments have been known to be quite stubborn in their ways."

"Well yes, but all humans are stubborn to some degree. But don't they realize that the Minis are basically Cybertronian and so do not fall under their jurisdiction?"

"True they may be Cybertronian in formatting and appearance they were… born on this planet and are technically under the jurisdiction of the Earths governments."

"You mean the Americans. I doubt any other countries will be gaining anything if the American government does manage to get their hands on them. Not that they will of course." Harris said, frowning darkly at nothing in particular.

"You believe that we will be able to keep the younglings?"

"Naturally. I'm not about to allow my children to be taken away from me by some bigwig arse with too much money to fling around. Now if you would please put me down so I can get back to work, the paperwork has been piling up again."

Optimus chuckled softly to himself, bending down in order to allow the twenty eight year old to be on his way. He was glad that the sparklings had a caretaker as fiercely protective as Harris had turned out to be.

He watched the man swish his way from the room, white lab coat flaring dramatically behind him. The Prime wondered exactly how long he had practiced in order to get that right.

Christmas had been a painful experience for Harry. Finally finding out what his parents looked like would do that to a boy. He had never really imagined how his two parents would have looked, as he had never seen pictures and Aunt had never described them other than their worthlessness and their supposed death in a fabricated car crash.

Which meant that they were, to his young eyes, absolutely perfect.

Harry was only sad that he had never had the chance to know them.

Whelp.

Here we are then.

Hopefully I will actually be motivated to start writing the next chapter as soon as possible. I'm also considering a Christmas and New Year special with Harris and Mini interaction but as of yet I have nothing concrete planned.

Any Ideas?

Also 200 THOUSAND views? Seriously? (God I was so tempted to write a Sirius pun) And dear lord my earlier chapters sucked. You guys are so nice!

~N~