Dearest Ginny,
I have missed you these months at sea. If only there were a faster way to hunt down those dark wizards of the seven seas. But there isn't. There's only the HMS Hedwig and its valiant crew. And me. I alone protect these seas, as Shacklebolt requested I do.
Last night we cornered the Doom Brig and its crew on a coral reef [the reefs truly are the magic of the seas! Well, next to merpeople and their magics, that is.] and engaged in combat. It was a short battle; they were easily outmagicked. Regrettably, their captain chose to sink the ship in lieu of surrender, but our crew got off just in time with nary a casualty in the bunch [with the exception of Hendricks, who died a horrible, horrible death – please tell his wife that he died with honor and that he most definitely did not scream out "I've wasted my life on a horrible frigid bitch" while in the throes of death].
Give my love to the children, as I have missed them terribly. And I shall see them [and you my wife!] in a month's time. If only I knew a spell to make the time pass quicker. But, alas, I do not. Only Marco the Time Master knew such a spell, and I left him to rot in Azkaban for rigging lotteries three years back. Oh well.
Love,
Harry.
Harry Potter, age 35, the most famous wizard in the entire wizarding world, rolled up his parchment and inserted it into a patented Weasley Message Bottle. He corked it and lobbed it into the ocean, where it would bob for a few minutes before being whisked away to his bathtub back home. It was a good system; something that Harry continually thanked George for creating.
And then the HMS Hedwig hit a big rock that no one saw because a certain famous wizard was supposed to be the lookout when instead he was writing to his wife.
And then the HMS Hedwig capsized and everyone was killed.
Everyone except a certain wizard who, years earlier, had defeated the dark lord Voldemort by mastering the single most powerful wand in the world and by facing his own certain death. Here, he just grabbed a hold of a floating bit of the crashed ship and floated to shore. Or maybe it was a body. Harry couldn't really tell, as the crash had disoriented him considerably.
When he reached shore, Harry rolled onto his back and fell asleep. Nearly drowning was awfully tiring.
Harry awoke with the hot sun beating down on his face. His mouth tasted like brine. Unsure of where he was, Harry sat up and surveyed his surroundings. Sand seemed to be the predominant motif around here. To Harry's right was a pristine sandy beach. He looked to his left. Also pristine sandy beach.
Harry shuffled to his feet and turned around. Here the pristine sandy beach became a densely packed jungle, from which emitted all manner of creature noises and cries.
"Where the blazes am I?" Harry asked out loud. Of course, there was no one around to answer him so he went without a reply.
Then Harry decided to survey his surroundings in a bit more detail. He started by following the beach around the entire island.
The trip took one hour and eleven minutes, causing Harry to realize that the island was, in fact, rather small. From no point on the beach was he able to spy any other landmasses, causing Harry to realize that he was probably stranded on one of the random unpopulated islands of the South Pacific – the precise sort of island that a navigator couldn't locate on a map for all the tea in China, but weary shipwrecked survivors were always washing up on the shores of. That sort of island exactly.
"Well blast," Harry said. "How am I going to get home?"
At the thought of home, Harry was suddenly hit with a large blast of homesickness and he felt as though a great pit had opened in his stomach. He was also hit with a large blast of someone-swallowed-too-much-seawater-sickness and he threw up on the beach.
When he finished dry heaving, Harry despaired over the possibility that he might never see Ginny or the children ever again.
But Harry Potter wasn't a quitter, so he resolved to find a way off the island and back to his family.
"I'm no quitter," Harry said with resolve. "I'm going to find a way off this island and back to my family!"
The first order of business was to investigate the interior of the island. In addition to possibly hiding some kind of secret that Harry could use in his escape, the jungle also probably had something to eat in it.
Sure enough Harry stumbled upon a patch of mushrooms unlike anything he had ever seen.
"What curious mushrooms," Harry said as he picked up one of the fungi. It was rather small and blue, although it also had a number of red spots on it.
Harry popped it in his mouth and, finding it delicious, ate until there were no mushrooms left.
He felt better now that his stomach was full, so Harry quickly resumed his exploration of the dense forest. The trees grew close together, as though no path had ever been cut through the green splendor. Harry cut himself a path with a few strokes of his wand and was on his way.
Suddenly Harry found himself face to face with a brightly colored bird.
"What a curious owl," Harry exclaimed. Looking closer at the yellow and green plumage of the fowl, he reasoned it wasn't an owl after all. He then reasoned that due to its peculiar coloring, it might just be a magical bird of some sort. He was, after all, always stumbling upon all manner of magical objects and creatures.
"Hello bird," Harry said. "Are you perhaps related to the proud phoenix? Could you help me? Can you speak?"
"Speak, speak!" squawked the parrot, which was precisely as magical as a teaspoon.
"Excellent," Harry exclaimed. "Send a message to the Ministry of Magic…no, wait, just send a message directly to Ginny Potter. Tell her I'm safe, but that I'm in dire need of assistance. I'm…well…on an island. Just tell them to follow you back, got it?"
"Got it!" squawked the parrot.
"Excellent!" said Harry. "I'll just sit back then and await my rescue."
The parrot looked at him with that tilted head thing that birds do.
"Um, you can go now," Harry said to the bird.
"Go now!" squawked the parrot. "Go now!"
"See here bird, I'd appreciate you not taking that tone."
"Tone! Tone!"
"Are you mocking me?" Harry asked the bird. "I don't think I'll need your help after all."
The parrot didn't respond to this. It just spread its wings and launched into the air, pooping on Harry in the process.
Birds are vile, horrid creatures.
"Blasted unhelpful bird," Harry said while wiping bird feces off his robes.
Looking down to make sure all the avian waste product was gone, he noticed his hands.
"Wow," Harry said. "Look at those hands."
Harry's hands seemed to be growing before his very eyes and then they had orange stripes and lemon scents wafted under the nails and the leaves were just so green, like, so green.
As the world around him seemed to undulate and warp, Harry slid down to sit at the base of a tree. And then a familiar figure stepped out from behind a tree amid a glowing light.
"Dumbledore!" Harry exclaimed. "I'm so glad to see you. Are you here to offer explanation for all these strange circumstances and save the day as usual?"
"Perhaps not save the day, but I can offer explanation," Dumbledore said. "You ate a large number of psychedelic mushrooms."
"So I've somehow been cursed then?" Harry asked while he swatted at the tiny electric blueberries that flew about his head.
"No," Dumbledore said curtly. "You're high. You're really, really high. You should be alright in a few hours but you're going to have a killer headache. I remember back when Aberforth and I…seriously, didn't you pay any attention in Herbology? I mean, who just wanders into the woods and eats the first goofy looking thing he finds? Sometimes I wonder how you ever managed to get dressed without the assistance Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, let alone how you saved the entire wizarding world."
"Professor?" Harry asked.
But Dumbledore couldn't hear him, as he suddenly turned into a purple hippo that flew into Harry's mind and danced with dinosaurs in the great red halls of the bone palace, which sprouted flowers and exploded through eternity.
With the entire world around him melting into colored jellies, Harry did the only sensible thing he could think of – he closed his eyes and began screaming.
When Harry opened his eyes again, he found that he'd fallen asleep and night had fallen over the island. Luckily the moon was full and cast an eerie pale light over everything. It was enough light for Harry to spot something rustling in the nearby bushes, which by this time had stopped undulating and changing colors.
"Hello," Harry called out. "Is someone there?"
A small, furry creature crawled out of the bushes. It approached Harry cautiously and sniffed him as it got closer. It was a funny sort of creature. It looked something like a ball of blue fur housing an enormous mouth and a horn that could be only described as crumpled.
"A Crumple-Horned Snorkack?" Harry said.
"Eh, whatuvit?" said the creature.
"But you can't be real," Harry said.
"Whyzzat?" said the creature.
"You don't exist," Harry said.
"Izzatso?" asked the creature. "All prove am me, eh?"
Then the creature bit off Harry's left hand and wandered off into the jungle.
"Wanker," said the Crumple-Horned Snorkack as it disappeared into the vegetation.
"Blast!" Harry exclaimed. "What am I going to do now?"
Then he spied his wand near him on the ground.
"Wait a minute," Harry exclaimed. "I'm a wizard. And I have a wand!"
Harry jammed his wand into his arm stump, screamed, and then promptly passed out.
So, yeah, maybe those mushrooms hadn't quite worn off after all.
Harry awoke to two different things. First, he awoke to great pain. His hand was very much missing and seemingly replaced with a thin bit of wood. Luckily the magical qualities of his wand had cauterized the wound so at least he wasn't bleeding any longer. Or he could have just jammed shut an artery. Whatever.
Second, he awoke to noises. There seemed to be some kind of commotion coming from the beach. The commotion sounded like voices, which instantly piqued Harry's interest.
"Rescuers?" he said. "Maybe that bird came through for me after all!"
It hadn't.
Harry ran out onto the beach to come face to face with a crew of enormous, tattooed, tattered, and overall scurvy-looking pirates.
"Gah!" cried Harry as he collided with one of the pirates.
"D'yar!" cried the pirate as he toppled over.
"Captain!" cried the rest of the pirate crew.
"Quietdarn wankers!" cried the Crumple-Horned Snorkack from the woods. He'd been drinking all night and had one hell of a hangover.
Harry soon found himself on a boat anchored near the island. This would have been a decided improvement from just being on the island, but he was tied to the mast and faced down a number of cutlasses and three small daggers.
"Yar!" said the pirate captain as he spewed grog breath in Harry's face. "What manner of landlubber have we here?"
"Actually I'm a seafaring man myself," Harry said, remembering that a mere few days prior he had his own boat and his own crew.
"Ah a fellow man of the sea," said the pirate captain. "So what wud a seaman like yerself be doin' on Secret Treasure Island?"
"An island's very much not the sea!" cried out the hulking first mate.
The cutlasses seemed to jab closer to Harry's neck in unison.
"Well," Harry said trying to ignore the sharp implements of violence near his throat. "I was shipwrecked on your secret island and you all certainly look murderous at present, don't you? Well, you see, I think…um, oh bugger blasted muggle magic legislation."
"Accio cutlasses and three or so daggers," Harry exclaimed while wiggling his wand-filled stump.
All the sharp implements of doom shot out of the hands of the pirates and clattered at Harry's feet. He then cast an unbinding spell and tossed his ropes aside.
"That's more like it," Harry said.
"Yar, he be a witch!" said the pirate captain. He then made the sign of the cross in front of his chest and spit, which actually dislodged a tooth. The captain, you see, had the scurvy pretty bad.
"Well, yes I can do magic," Harry said. "So no more jabbing pointy things at me. It's rather rude."
The pirates all looked at Harry in awe. The captain even took off his frilly feathered hat.
"Them be some fine occulting sir witch," said the captain. "And thar be skills we cud put to use here on this fine ship."
"The Pretty Ballerina!" shouted the pirates.
"Aye, the Pretty Ballerina – the scourge of the seas," said the captain.
"So…you want me to join your crew?" Harry asked.
"Aye," said the captain. "A real witch wud make this ship even more a-feared."
"And it was kind of rude just tying you up like that," added the first mate.
Harry realized that the Pretty Ballerina had to make port eventually, at which time he could find a way home.
"All right, I'll do it," Harry said.
"Huzzah!" cried all the pirates.
"What be ye name, man witch?" asked the captain.
"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said. He was pleased to find that, for once, the utterance of his name didn't result in gasps or fainting elderly.
"What happened to your hand?" asked the first mate.
"Oh. A fierce beast – that totally exists – bit it off."
There was a lot of nodding and agreement through the crowd of pirates. The majority of them had similar stories to tell, explaining away all manner of hooks and pegs and patches.
"Welcome aboard Peghand Potter," cried the captain.
"Huzzah!" cried all the pirates.
And thus Harry joined the crew of the Pretty Ballerina as Peghand Potter, scourge of the seas. Harry found that the captain considered a good many things to be the scourge of the seas.
"Yeh see them fishies out thar?" he asked Harry.
"Those dolphins?"
"Aye," said the captain. "Scourge of the seas they be."
Harry began to get used to life aboard a pirate ship. It really wasn't much different from life aboard the HMS Hedwig; there were lots of ropes to pull and secure, none of the crew ate enough vitamin C, and everything smelling kind of like rotten fish.
Eventually the Pretty Ballerina approached land.
"Yeh see the port our thar?" asked the captain.
"The tiny island village?"
"Aye," said the captain. "Ripe fer the plunderin'."
The Pretty Ballerina pulled to the small port and dropped anchor. Or tied off. Or whatever the hell large ships do when the come to port. Anyway, so the Pretty Ballerina is at port and the pirate captain ordered a full assault.
"D'yar, Peghand Potter, go with ye mate an' make off with the coffers," said the captain as he plunged his cutlass into the port's night watchman.
"Aye aye captain," said Harry, who followed the first mate off into the darkened village.
"So do you enjoy being a witch?" asked the first mate. "I mean, is it rewarding work?"
"It's alright," said Harry.
"I always wanted to be a witch," said the first mate. "I think I'd look quite fetching in a black corset."
"Do you have any magical powers?" Harry asked.
"No, not really," said the first mate with a sigh. "Thus the piracy."
The pointless small talk ended when the pair reached the home of the town's governor.
"Here's where the money usually is, Peghand," said the first mate. "You create a distraction while I sneak inside."
Harry, trying to be an obliging pirate, shouted "Incendio" and started a number of barrels on fire. Since they were the obligatory stored-out-in-the-street-for-no-good-reason-barrels-of-gunpowder that were always scattered about these towns, the fire got a bit out of hand.
Harry was trying to make the town square less of a blazing inferno when he heard the first mate shouting for him.
"Good job Peghand! Now get in here. I need some help with the loot."
Harry ran into the now-burning building and found the first mate in front of a large number of sacks, all brimming with gold doubloons.
"Can you witch these down to the boat?" asked the first mate.
"Sure," Harry said. He then levitated the numerous bags with him as he made his way back to the Pretty Ballerina. The ship, however, was deserted.
Harry thought this would be a good time to sneak away, but the town where he'd hoped he could have begun his journey home was very quickly burning to the ground. He realized his salvation was going to have to wait for the next port. Of course, without a crew aboard the ship, the ship wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.
"Where's the captain?" Harry asked.
The first mate just shrugged. He had, in mere seconds, gotten completely drunk. He promptly slumped against a cannon of the boat and passed out. Harry wandered back into town to search for the captain.
Harry found the captain having his way with a number of young ladies all at once. Somehow.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked the captain.
"Ravaging lady folk," slurred the captain through a thick accent of rum.
"Oh this won't do," Harry said looking about at the burning whorehouse where he stood. "Alright, we're leaving."
"Petrificus totalus!"
With the captain inert, Harry levitated him back to the ship and then cast off from the now-on-fire pier. And then, because it had been a long, hard day, Harry went to sleep in a pile of ropes on the deck.
Harry awoke to a number of surprises. First, it seemed to be midday already, judging from the heat and the position of the sun. Second, he was on that wretched deserted island again. Third, the island was presently not deserted.
"Oh, the witch is awake," said the first mate.
"D'yar," said the captain. "Well if it aren't Peghand heself, eh? Back from nod, eh?"
"Hey guys," Harry said groggily. "What's going on?"
"We were just talking about our last raid," said the first mate. "And about how a certain someone left the entire crew behind not to mention pulling the captain away from important business."
"D'yar!" said the captain.
"Sorry about that," said Harry. "But I thought we needed to go."
"Aye," said the captain. "We been sayin' the same. We been sayin' maybe a witch ain't so savvy on a ship after all, eh? An' maybe splitin' the loot two ways is better than a third, eh?"
"Maybe?" said Harry. "What are you saying guys?"
"Look Peghand," said the first mate. "We're leaving you here so you won't cause us any more trouble. Also, we'll each be able to buy a lot more rum and whores without you third wheeling things up at Tortuga. Also, we broke your peghand, Peghand."
"Can't have ye witching us up now," said the captain.
Then the two remnants of the Pretty Ballerina's crew took their longboat and left Harry on the beach.
"Come back you blasted pirates!" Harry yelled. Then, lacking anything else to do, he threw a rock at their disappearing ship. It splashed harmlessly in the water.
Harry sat on the beach and tried to figure out a plan. Obviously he needed to get off the island if he was ever going to see his wife and children again. Obviously he needed a brilliant plan of some sort.
"I'll build a raft," Harry exclaimed. Then he set to work constructing a raft. It took some time getting all the materials together and assembling them, especially without the use of his wand or his hand. Still, eventually his perseverance paid off and the HMS Hedwig 2 was ready for its maiden voyage.
Harry pushed the loosely constructed raft into the water and then jumped aboard to sail home.
It took about twenty minutes for Harry to lose sight of the island. It took only another five before the HMS Hedwig 2 sank.
"Blasted raft," Harry exclaimed as he gripped one of the largest remnants of the raft. Then, lacking anything else to do, he threw a rock at the separating bits of his "boat." It splashed harmlessly in the water.
"Could this really be the end for Harry Potter?" Harry rather oddly said aloud.
Then he swallowed a ton of seawater and blacked out.
Harry eventually came to and found himself not nearly as wet nor as dead as he'd expected to be. Instead he found himself on a cot in what appeared to be the cabin of a small ship. A woman sat at the foot of his cot. She gazed out the windows at the rippling sea. A wand, tucked behind her ear, sort of unsuccessfully kept her long, dirty blond hair out of her eyes.
"Luna?" Harry croaked with the voice of someone who'd swallowed altogether too much salt water.
"Oh hello Harry," the woman said airily. "Almost thought I'd lost you there. You don't have a hand anymore."
Once again Luna Lovegood proved good at pointing out truths that were at best uncomfortable and, in this case, painful and still weeping blood.
"Did you cut it off yourself?" Luna asked. "Is it what aurors do now?"
"No," Harry said. "It was bitten off by an animal. It was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. They're real, you know. And they're real jerks."
"Of course they're real," Luna said. "It's what I've said all along."
She patted his non-eaten hand reassuringly.
"How'd you find me, anyway?" Harry asked. "Was it that jerk bird? Did he actually turn out okay?"
"I don't recall a bird," Luna said. "I was just sailing by, logging flora and fauna of these uncharted islands when the boat struck something hard. That turned out to be you! I was quite surprised."
"Can't say I planned on being there either," said Harry, finally sitting up.
The two sat on the cot for a while as the sea continued its rippling.
"It's good to see you Luna," Harry said, squeezing her shoulder with his hand.
"How's Ginny," Luna said curtly.
"She's good," Harry said. "I mean, I hear she's good. It's been months since I've seen her or the kids. It's been tough, you know? Marriage with distance and time and…it's been tough."
"Well it's often difficult marrying your childhood sweetheart," Luna said. "When you marry so young the expectations are awfully high for any marriage to realistically live up to. Especially when you find yourselves drifting apart in unexpected, or perhaps expected, ways. You're off fighting dark wizards; she's with the kids and still, well, not much of a character. I imagine there'd be difficulty."
Oh Luna and her uncomfortable truths.
"Yeah," said Harry, feeling strands of blonde hair in his fingers. "You know, I wondered…."
Meanwhile, in London, Ginny Potter was dealing with a very aggravating guest.
"So where did you say my husband is?" she asked crossly.
"Husband!" squawked the parrot. "Husband!"
"You're not very helpful at all, are you?"
"Are you?! Are you?!"
"Blasted bird," said Ginny. "Get out of here. Shoo! Shoo!"
The parrot spread its wings and launched into the air, pooping on Ginny in the process.
Birds are vile, horrid creatures. But hey, sometimes they at least know where they're going.
"Well that was a waste of time," Ginny said while wiping bird feces off her clothes.
Meanwhile, at sea, two people on a certain boat were doing things they ought not to have been doing.
"Abracadabra," shouted the pirate captain as he waved Harry's bloodied wand in the air. Of course, nothing happened, as "abracadabra" isn't a real spell.
"No, that didn't do anything," said the first mate.
"Grar!" shouted the pirate captain. "What be the point a takin' Peghand's peghand if'n we can't do nothing with it? I wanted to magic the clothes off lady folks."
"I know captain," said the first mate. "Let me try."
With the wand in his hand, the first mate tried to remember some of mutterings he'd heard out of Peghand Potter.
"Incendio," he cried and the mast burst into flames.
"D'yar," exclaimed the captain. "Not a subtle as I wud hope, but that'll take their knickers off alright."
"Three cheers for Peghand Potter," yelled the captain.
"Hip-hip-hooray," shouted the captain and his single remaining crew. "Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray!"
And since exploding the clothes off ladies is a true pirate's greatest dream, the captain and the first mate danced little jigs of joy as more of their ship began to catch fire.
Three cheers for Peghand Potter indeed.