Disclaimer: I own nothing in this, apart from Truth Ink and the weird plotline.
The Bad Penny
Chapter 1: Encounter of the Currency Kind
The penny sat on the ground where it had come to rest after falling from the pocket of its previous 'owner', who had lost it whilst searching frantically through his trouser pockets for a forgotten shopping list, which would later be found in his washing-machine, crumpled and illegible. He shouldn't have dropped this penny…
And the penny sat in a busy wizarding street, waiting for its next victim, as patiently as a bird of prey that has eaten its fill but will continue to hunt, just for the fun of it.
It sniffed the air, just for a moment, and detected a gullible, easily-influenced spirit approaching. For its magic to work, its 'owner' had to believe in its powers.
This one would.
Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you'll have good luck…
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"That thing on the ground."
"It's just a penny."
"Huh? What's one of those?"
"You know, Muggle money. Smallest denomination you get. There's a rhyme about them."
"What's that?"
"Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you'll have good luck."
"Does that really work?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know."
Ron glanced at the penny again, puzzled as to how so small a thing could have so much power. He bent down to pick it up, but…
"Ron! You're not actually going to pick that up, are you? You don't know where it's been, it could be filthy!" Hermione had stayed impatiently silent through this exchange, but had had enough.
"But what if it really does make you lucky?"
Hermione scoffed. "Oh please, it's just a silly superstition, like the one about not walking under ladders."
Panic suddenly filled Ron's brown eyes. "What about not walking under ladders!"
"It's supposed to be bad luck, but of course it's a load of rubbish."
This was the kind of person the penny did not like, with a mind that would question everything it came across, and disbelieve most of it.
Ron, however, still looked worried. "I walked under that painter's ladder this morning…" he whispered, barely audible, fear showing in his eyes as he contemplated the bad luck that possibly lay before him.
The painter's ladder tale was, indeed, a tale, told to frighten foolish people and make them scared of painters and decorators everywhere. It worked. The penny, however, was a real story.
The bushy-haired teenager rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, pulling him forwards, with Harry walking beside them, smiling to himself. Squabbling like an old married couple already.
"Come on, we need to finish our shopping, we've only got half an hour left before your mum picks us up, Ron!"
Ron tagged along, glancing back at the battered penny that lay innocently in the street. Unknown to him, it was laughing nastily to itself.
Its magic would soon come into play.
The trio approached Flourish and Blotts.
The penny laughed harder.
As Ron walked past a stack of fresh parchment, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of pennies and painters' ladders, he slipped in the melting remains of a Florean Fortescue ice-cream, dropped some six minutes earlier by a small, bawling child, and not yet cleared up.
As he fell, he grabbed the nearest thing on the table next to him, in an attempt to stop himself falling; a newly-arranged display of Truth Ink. The bottles fell, smashing on the neatly-tiled floor, and a tidal wave of ink rose and soaked the pile of parchment, seemingly defying gravity.
A large blotch of shining ink had fallen on Ron, obliterating the words 'Chudley Cannons Rule' on his faded orange T-shirt. The words melted together for a moment, absorbed the ink, and reappeared, slightly bigger, in cramped, spiky writing, and now a bright purple, clashing horribly with the orange T-shirt and with Ron's hair.
The words now read 'Chudley Cannons Drool'.
Ron screamed at this, grabbed an object from a nearby display, and rolled under the nearest table. When Harry lifted the material draped over the table and peered inside, Ron was scribbling feverishly at his T-shirt with a red felt-tip pen, but this was to no avail. The word 'Drool' simply absorbed the fresh supplies of ink and swelled, the colour strengthening further. In a fit of desperation and fanaticism for his favourite Quidditch team, Ron grabbed his T-shirt and tore at the offending word with his teeth, eventually removing it. It sprouted legs, the ink having reacted badly with Ron's saliva, and walked away.