A/N: So…ever read one of those fics where it looks supremely promising and then the most obvious cliché makes an appearance?
Be warned: I'm about to mock them.
Back from the Future…Again.
So Voldemort had won, Harry was Malfoy's bitch, and Hermione had escaped to live in a cave somewhere in the Middle Pacific. Where the Middle Pacific is I currently have no idea since I regularly navigate my way through cities using strange people's houses as map points, but saying 'somewhere in the Middle Pacific' sounds vaguely mysterious and ominous enough to catch your interest, so that's where Hermione went.
"We fucked up." Hermione, being the Middle Pacific for reasons beyond her understanding, was also in the dark as to why she brought Ron with her.
"Aren't you dead?"
"Yes."
"So why are you here, again?"
"I'm your one true love destined to haunt your every waking moment until the end of eternity," he answered while sitting on a rock, studying his cuticles with a critical eye, tone completely unenthusiastic.
"Are you kidding me?" Hermione stared at him completely horrified. "Seriously? I'm stuck with you for the rest of my life?"
"And death," Ron supplied helpfully, his words taking on a somewhat pessimistic tone. "You forgot – it's eternity."
"Forever? You're going to be – I'm going to – this…Oh, I'm never getting laid."
"Hey!" Ron snapped back at her, arms crossed as he glared. "And least you have the option. I died a virgin, you know! Ought to be rules against the killing of virgins," he muttered, sulking as he crossed his arms and turned to face the rock wall and pout.
"Oh for fucks sake," Hermione grumbled, turning her attention to the cave opening as she chewed on her bottom lip. "There has to be a way out of this."
The two sat in blissfully oblivious silence, both so lost in their own thoughts that it took several moments for either of them to notice the elephant in the room.
"Um, guys?"
"What?" Both Hermione and Ron snapped back to reality with an angry…snap, turning their attention to the origin of the voice, jaws dropping simultaneously.
"Harry?" Hermione squinted at the glasses wearing elephant. "Is that you?"
"You've bulked up, mate," Ron stated, somewhat in awe of the colossus that was his former best friend before another thought occurred to him.
"Wait – aren't you locked up in Malfoy Manor?"
"I got out," Harry replied. "It was feeding time at the zoo and someone left the gate open…it was a tight fit, but I made it."
"What happened to you?" Hermione asked, completely horrified at the Boy-Who-Lived's transformation. "You're…huge."
"Hot dogs," Harry replied. "And cheesecake and birthday cake and ice cream and cotton candy and deep friend pickles and snickers bars and pickled toads feet…"
"You're drooling, mate," Ron supplied helpfully. "You might want to stop. You might drown Hermione."
"Yes, please, contain your saliva," Hermione stood on top of rock, staring into the growing puddle with great annoyance before raising her gaze back to Harry's face.
"But why would you eat all of that junk?"
"Draco," Harry replied darkly. "He was always jealous of my svelte figure, so that's all he would feed me until I became addicted. Now he keeps me in a cage and he's taken away the toads feet! I want my toads feet back!"
'Toads feet?' Ron mouthed at Hermione who shrugged her shoulders, equally befuddled.
"Alright, alright, just calm down Harry." It was important for Hermione to calm him down – if he squished her, then she'd die a virgin and be stuck with Ron for the rest of her life. At least while she was still alive she had the option of getting laid and figuring a way to move Ron on to the other side.
Now Harry…Harry was another problem completely.
"So why did you come here? And how did you find me?" The question order was all wrong, but Hermione didn't care. There was no logic anymore not since she'd ended up in a cave in the Middle Pacific.
"I knew you'd go someplace melodramatic to brood," Harry supplied cheerfully, proud of his own logic. "So I looked at a map, thought what is the best place for someone to mope, and ended up in the Middle Pacific. Pretty neat, right?"
"Yeah, neat," Hermione was starting to feel a little bit nauseous from watching all of Harry's fat rolls jiggle, so she turned her attention to Ron, who was completely fascinated by the process.
"So what do we do now?"
"We go back to the past to warn ourselves out of this mess." Hermione decided with a nod. "Just give me a minute to find my time-turner."
Harry was sitting in the common room, reading a book while Ron took a nap and Hermione studied in a corner when there was a popping noise and an elephant appeared in the room.
"Harry?" Hermione asked, squinting at the huge figure in front of her.
"Yes?" Future-Harry and Current-Harry answered at the same time, startling Ron from his slumber. He opened his eyes in confusion, only to find himself staring at…well, himself.
"I'm a ruddy handsome living person, aren't I Hermione?" Ghost-Ron asked, grinning widely as he turned to face Middle Pacific-Hermione.
"Fantastic, wonderful. You look very good with skin," MP-Hermione replied as she quickly sought her contemporary counterpart.
"Listen, you need to listen to me. I'm from the future –"
"Get out." C-Harry broke in, dead serious.
"What? But I haven't – "
"Nothing good ever follows the words 'I'm from the future.' So you're not allowed to say them in my presence."
"What are you, five?" MP-Hermione asked.
"Hey!" F-Harry protested.
"Oh, shut it, tubby. You eat frogs. You no longer have speaking privileges."
"But – "
"I said zip it, fatso!"
"Wow, Hermione. You got meaner." Living-Ron was somewhat impressed by the ferocity of MP-Hermione and equally mollified when the Real Hermione glared at him, clearly unhappy with the comparison.
"Look," The Real Hermione interrupted, "I'm sorry, but you're the thirteenth variation of Ron, Hermione, and Harry that we've seen this month. And this isn't even the freakiest one."
"Yeah," L-Ron supplied with a harsh chuckle. "You should have seen the Gay Pirate versions of ourselves…Ulgh." He let out a shiver that all three of them echoed.
"Pirates?" F-Harry wiggled to the side a little bit, intrigued by the thought.
"Gay?" G-Ron lurched backwards in horror, following through the wall and completely out of the story as a direct result.
"One down," C-Harry murmured under his breath.
"Look, I just want to warn you about – "
"Voldemort, right. He's going to win, I'm going to end up as a sex slave, and Hermione will become S&M Barbie."
"Really?" MP-Hermione stared at Harry, an angry flush on her features. "Do I look like S&M Barbie?"
"You look like you've been living in a cave in the Middle Pacific," the Real Hermione supplied.
"Why does everybody keep guessing that!"
C-Harry, F-Harry, and the Real Hermione exchanged looks before shrugging their shoulders.
"You look the type," Ron supplied helpfully. "But anyways, whatever the case, if Voldemort wins, we've already made a suicide pact, so you have nothing to worry about."
"A suicide pact?" MP-Hermione gaped at them. "Are you crazy?"
"Look who's talking," the Real Hermione pointed out, tilting her head meaningfully towards F-Harry, who was sort of waddling in place.
"Right," MP-Hermione decided with a nod of her head, forgoing logic in favor of running away. "So we'll just be going, then. I guess."
And with that, they popped away, leaving the real Harry, Hermione, and Ron in peace.
"That shit was fucked up," Ron finally spoke after a moment, shaking his head.
"Tell me about it," Hermione flipped a page in her book.
"Hey, look on the bright side," Harry pointed out, causing both of his friends to blink and look over at him. "At least we have options."
A/N: I wrote this a long time ago. And today I'm hungover and mildly nauseous so I thought I'd spread some good cheer in the hopes that Karma will take pity on me and I won't throw up. How am I doing so far?
