A/N: This is totally a crack fic. This whole story will be a series of crack fics, do don't expect them in any order. And don't expect fast updates. And don't expect any of these to really make sense. But enjoy them anyway!!
Life is Average.
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Bubble wrap, it's not just for packing.
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One day Harry woke up to find that he couldn't move. He tried squirming, thinking that he had tangled himself up in his blankets – not that he had ever done that before, but you never know – and he popped instead. The small explosion caused him to jump in surprise and more popping sounds were heard.
Harry squirmed even further to try and figure out what was going on and succeeded in falling off of his bed. The following explosions reminded him of all of those army movies that his cousin used to watch. The only thing that Harry ever heard from them was the popping of their guns.
The floor gave him a new vantage point and he was able to find the mirror that Seamus had been looking for since last week. Harry absently wondered why Neville had the mirror under his bed until he saw himself in the mirror. His head was okay from what he saw, beyond the fact that he was wearing his glasses when he was sure that he had taken them off before he went to sleep, it was his body that caused him to space out for a moment.
He seemed to be wrapped in bubble wrap, which would explain the popping noises and why he couldn't move. Harry squirmed again, trying to wrestle himself out of the bubble wrap, or at least find the edge so that he could work it loose. But, nothing that he tried worked; the bubble wrap was a perfect tube.
He was trapped in the bubble wrap, but not in the dorm rooms. As he squirmed, he found that he could inch himself forward. He felt like a worm as he did so, a strange sort of popping worm with a bubble wrap body and a human head.
He wondered exactly why he was wrapped in bubble wrap as he slowly made his way to the door to his dorm. Most of the strange things that happened to him either had something to do with Voldemort or the students at Hogwarts. He honestly doubted that Voldemort made his way into his room only to wrap Harry up in bubble wrap and leave once more. No, a saner man would kill Harry in his sleep if he managed to get into the dorm rooms. This meant that this was all Ron's fault; although Seamus could get pretty bad at attracting trouble.
There was a reason why Harry spent most of his time hanging out with Hermione and Ron. Harry was a trouble magnet, pure and simple. Any time that there was chaos, Harry managed to blunder his way into the middle of it all. Hermione managed to figure this out right when Harry and Ron saved her from the troll. Hermione wasn't a natural counter for Harry's magnetism, but she still helped keep the level of trouble down.
Harry had been really unsure when he first got to Hogwarts, which was why Ron was his only real friend for a while until they made friends with Hermione. At that point, Harry had been contemplating becoming close friends with his other dorm mates, but Hermione had shot that idea down. Seamus had already set his hair on fire every day for the past week at that point, Dean had graffiti'd the Entrance Hall and had gotten caught, and Neville had already gotten lost in the Gryffindor Common room twice at that point. Hermione rationalized that Ron was the only one who wouldn't add to Harry's natural ability to find trouble.
Still, Ron got these ideas and could lose his common sense whenever they occurred to him. Ron could easily think that he was protecting Harry by wrapping him in bubble wrap. It wouldn't' be too far of a reach, given that Ron had handcuffed Harry to the bed once and that ended in McGonagall questioning their sexual preferences. If the tube of bubble wrap was Ron's fault than Harry had to just be glad that Ron didn't include a bubble wrap helmet to suffocate Harry.
While Harry came out of had been thinking of all of this, he found that he had reached the door to their dorm. Unfortunately, the door was only opened a crack, although he had to be grateful that it wasn't completely closed. Still, he had to leverage the door open with his chin, which almost knocked his glasses askew. Thankfully Hermione had charmed his glasses to stay on after Seamus kept summoning them last year to use on the snowmen that Dean had built.
He got the door open by shifting around but now he found himself with a new dilemma as his eyes crossed while looking down the stairs. While he was sure that his body could handle being rolled down the stairs, he didn't have that nifty helmet made out of bubble wrap. That meant that he wasn't suffocating, but it also meant that his head could still get hurt.
Harry stared at the stairs for a while before an idea came to him. It took another five minutes, but he wriggled and popped himself around so that he was now facing the door feet first. He then slowly popped his way down the steps.
There were only five steps before he reached the main spiral staircase of the boys' dorms. The stairs were almost empty, except for two fourth years that stared at him as he wriggled his way down the stairs. They didn't say anything though, stepping back to allow him to pop his way down the rest of the stairs.
"Wasn't that Harry Potter?" Harry heard one of the boys whisper when Harry got past them.
"I think so," the other boy replied.
"Why is he wrapped in bubble wrap?" the first kid asked.
"Who knows; the fifth years are all insane," the second kid dismissed.
"Are we going to go insane next year?" was the last thing that Harry heard before he made it to the bottom of the steps.
Harry squirmed around so that he was facing frontwards again before he inched his way out into the common room. No one reacted at all as he inched his way through the common room and if it hadn't have been for those two fourth years he would have thought that he had been turning invisible as well. Luckily, no one managed to kick him in the head as he passed, even if they acted like Harry being wrapped in bubble wrap was normal.
This sort of supported his theory that it was Ron's fault, so he popped his way in search for his red headed friend. He found the rest of the Gryffindor fifth years near the fireplace, which was now spitting pink flames. He absently wondered which of his dorm mates spelled the fire pink as he waited for someone to notice him.
Neville was the first one to do so, although not in a manner that Harry hoped. Instead of greeting Harry or pointing him out to Hermione, Neville put his feet up on Harry's bubble wrapped back and went back to talking about fire eating begonias. Harry squirmed a little, trying to get Neville's feet off of his back, but all he succeeded in doing was to create more popping noises.
Neville frowned as he looked down to figure out what was up with his footstool and found Harry instead. "Hullo, Harry," Neville said as he smiled and peered curiously at the floor. "What are you doing down there?"
"Trying to get your attention," Harry answered.
"Harry, there are easier ways to get attention rather than crawling around on the floor," Neville counseled. "You can always go to the Daily Prophet, for example."
"Let's go, we're going to be late for breakfast," Hermione said as she stood up and gathered her books together.
"Great, I'm starving," Ron said as he stepped over Harry's body on his way to the portrait entrance.
The rest of the fifth years followed suit, although Neville stumbled over Harry and they wrestled on the floor for a few minutes before Neville stood up once again. "Sorry about that, Harry; we'd better get a move on."
Neville left Harry without seeming to realize that Harry was wrapped in bubble wrap and couldn't walk on his own. Harry blinked as he realized that no one else had noticed his predicament, not even Hermione and she had the best radar for illogical things! Of course, this now left him still trapped in the bubble wrap and only able to inch his way down to the Great Hall.
For a moment he considered just staying in the common room and waiting for his friends to come back. Surely they would have to acknowledge their scheme to protect Harry by wrapping him in bubble wrap, right? And they would at least allow him to walk and use his arms, right? But, if he ever managed to find his way to the Great Hall he could probably get McGonagall or Flitwick to get rid of the bubble wrap.
He finally decided that he had nothing better to do, other than being a foot stool, so he wriggled his way out from under a sixth year's feet and made his way out of the common room. Thankfully a seventh year held the portrait door open for him and as he flopped out onto the stone floor. The seventh year went on his way with a cheerful goodbye and Harry muttered curses under his breath as he inched his way down to the Great Hall.
It was weird, traveling as slow as he was. He noticed something on his long journey down to the Great Hall; the floors of Hogwarts were dirty and they smelled. It was hard to keep his neck stiff, but he in no way wanted to put his face down onto the stinky feet floor: who knew what germs were on the floor. He saw enough of the infirmary already; he didn't need another trip there because he got sick from resting his head onto the floor.
Breakfast was over when he finally got down to the Entrance Hall. It took him such a long time to get down to the Entrance Hall that it was the stragglers coming out of the Great Hall even. He knew this because he spot Hermione dragging Ron out of the Great Hall. She paused and frowned down at Harry.
"What took you so long, Harry?" Hermione asked. "It's almost time for class and you haven't eaten any breakfast."
"I got here as fast as I could," Harry protested. "In case you haven't noticed, I can't walk right now and these popping noises are driving me crazy."
"That's no excuse, Harry," Hermione scolded. She huffed as she bent down to shove a piece of toast into Harry's mouth. "I'm afraid that toast was the only thing left; you'd better eat it in a hurry, we have Potions next."
"Come on, mate," Ron said as Hermione dragged him out of the Entrance Hall and over to the dungeon stairs.
Harry groaned when he realized several things. One, the teachers probably weren't in the Great Hall anymore, which meant that he had to go to class. Two, Hermione's logic sensors had just failed, which meant that the end of the world was coming next Tuesday. Three, now he had to make his way down even more steps to make it to the Potions classroom. And Four, he couldn't move until he had eaten his piece of toast. He was hungry and he wasn't about to risk losing his delicate hold on the piece of toast.
It took him about a minute to eat the piece of toast and he allowed himself a sigh before he began popping his way down the steps. During his journey to the potions classroom he discovered something new about the dungeon floors: they smelled even worse than the other floors of Hogwarts. If he didn't know that Snape was very particular about his potions ingredients, Harry would have thought that Snape made a point to ground in every disgusting bug or organs in his supply. Harry really wouldn't put it past Snape to do that with his inferior ingredients instead of using them on the students.
He finally reached the potions door and he breathed a sigh of relief before realizing that the door was closed. There was no way that he could open the door and it wasn't like he could knock conventionally. He finally twisted around and pounded on the door with the tail end of his bubble wrap enclosure. It was really more of a thud and an explosion of popping noises rather than a knock, but Snape opened the door anyway.
Snape glanced around the corridor first before his eyes fell to the floor and he noticed Harry. "What, may I ask, are you doing?"
"I woke up like this and it really isn't easy to move, you know," Harry answered, hoping that Snape would cut him free.
"Really?" Snape raised his eyebrow and stepped back to allow Harry into the classroom.
Harry stared at Snape for a while before he inched his way into the room. He wondered exactly what was going through Snape's head; was he just ignorant of Harry's bubble wrap tube like the rest of Hogwarts, or was he just a bastard. Given the amused way that Snape watched him inch his way over to his stool, Harry was willing to bet that Snape was just a bastard.
Snape continued to watch him as Hermione finally noticed his presence. "We're brewing sleeping potions today and you're partnered with Neville. He's already started the brewing process, but you're going to need to cut up the rest of the supplies."
"How am I supposed to do that?" Harry asked as he flailed and popped a bit to make his point.
"Oh," Hermione exclaimed as she whirled around and picked up a cutting board filled with what looked to be green onions to Harry's eyes. She set that down on the floor in front of him and whirled back around to pick up a knife from the table. Harry gave Hermione a hopeful look and waited for her to cut him out of the bubble wrap.
Unfortunately, she didn't even look at the bubble wrap as she inserted the handle of the knife into Harry's mouth. Harry mumbled something around the handle, but Hermione didn't pay him any attention as she went back to her potion. A soft snort had Harry giving Snape a death glare.
Snape wasn't affected by the glare and he swooped down the rows to stand beside Harry. "Well, Potter, you have all your supplies, why aren't you working?"
Harry mumbled a curse around the handle of the knife, wishing that he had the nerve to spit the knife out and repeat it to Snape's feet. Snape chuckled, no one noticed, as Harry made an attempt to chop the vegetable in front of him. It really didn't work though and Harry spit the knife out of his mouth.
"Why am I wrapped up in bubble wrap and why is it that no one has noticed," Harry practically yelled as he flailed about. An explosion of popping noises continued until Harry clunked his head against the potions desk and fell unconscious.
Snape out and out laughed, which still no one noticed, and that was the last thing that Harry was aware of for a while.
When Harry woke up he was still surrounded by bubble wrap, although this time it was not pinning his arms to his body. Instead, he was wearing the bubble wrap like an ordinary blanket. He was lying down in a bed and he carefully shifted to try and figure out exactly where he was. Even though he was trying to be quiet, something under him popped: the sheets under him were made of bubble wrap. In fact, he discovered as he sat up to look around, the whole room was covered in bubble wrap.
There was a figure sitting in a large armchair, poking at it and popping all of the bubbles on the chair. The figure looked up when Harry caused a bunch of explosions by sitting up and red eyes lit up as they fell on him. The next thing that Harry knew, Voldemort had stood up and was skipping over to Harry's bubble wrap bed. The bubble wrap carpet protested his every moment, but that only made Voldemort stamp down even harder to create an even louder noise.
"You're awake," Voldemort exclaimed as he jumped onto the bed. Harry flinched back from both the man and the noise that he had cuased.
"What is going on?" Harry warily asked.
"You're my new playmate," Voldemort excitedly informed Harry. "Malfoy made me this marvelous room and Snape said that he would get me a playmate as a house warming gift. And he was right; you were all tied up with a bubble wrap bow!"
"How do I get out of here?" Harry asked as he got out of the bed.
"Oh, there's no way to get out of here, but don't worry – I have lots of bubble wrap foods." Voldemort grinned and started to pop the comforter as Harry finally gave in to the urge to scream.
Fin.