AN: The first, really, really long chapter. If you live through this let's mate and create a genetic sub-species that will live in parks and multiply until our numbers are so great we can overtake civilised society and finally halt the insidious progress of human civilisation. We will revert to Paranthropus boisei and use the small volume of our brains to crush stuff.

Chapter 1: The Best Chapter Ever

It was a dark and stormy night…

Or, to be more precise, a bright and suspiciously shiny day.

The four girls – George, Mark, Anthony and Sir Edgar, were frolicking with the confidence that no amateur could fake, amid the screams and catcalls and hideous moaning of passer by, their concentration never strayed. You know, except for that time, with the shoes and… well, you were there.

Anyway.

These guys were professional trash, filthy and mud-spattered and dancing. If you looked closely enough at their forms it became an endless procession, beards and filth and laughter, it echoed through your mind.

Mark Musky stretched back, her hair overflowing from the neck of the cape/Hessian sack it had been tucked into. Her hair was legendary, an unstoppable force. No man could hold it in place for more than a moment before its power overwhelmed and subsequently crushed them with its might, no cloth could tame it, though sun and wind and water eroded its power, it grew more every day. Though her body would decay, the hair was eternal; it would last on until bones crumbled to dust.

It also made her trip over a lot.

George Spades had an eye patch and continued to frolic around energetically, over Mark's struggling hair-entangled body, knocking Anthony in the beard as she went.

"Hey, watch the kittens!" Anthony wailed, stroking her beard with its 8 tiny kittens. "You could have hurt them".

Sir Edgar laughed at her and chewed her beard for a moment, since they hadn't eaten for the last eight years or so. Why they were still alive, we don't really know, but nobody really bothered to think about it. They were kind of annoying, it's not like anybody was concerned with keeping them alive.

Mostly cause they were always in the park, frolicking and dancing like… well, there isn't a word for homeless people with beards and male names who continue to insist that they are female, is there?

Eventually it began to rain on the suspicious shininess of the day, soaking everything. Mostly Mark.

Well, anyway. It was another day at the park – or… wait, maybe it was night. I can't remember. Whatever. The girls were abusing passer-by and chewing various things.

Not that they really meant to abuse them, but they smelt rather bad after all of the… uhh… stuff, and. It was abusive. I mean, passer-by were clawing at noses and screaming. I mean it.

So. They were left alone most of the time.

They found this rather amusing.

And of course. The yelling made it better. Such fun.

Edgar was muttering something as she tripped over the shoeboxes she called shoes. They were getting rather decayed, and filling with rainwater and leaves, but she would never discard them (well… not until they rotted off her feet anyhow). They were a part of her. Possibly literally, she never did take them off. But whatever. The newspaper socks kept her feet dry enough to stop the fungus spreading, and… shoes are shoes, rubber, canvas, cardboard... whatever.

Ok, so, they were off having fun, being wet and homeless, without a care in the world. They considered every day to be their last, and so used it to the fullest. Which of course meant… wetness and homelessness. Of course, what with all the rain and cardboard shoes, they had a pretty good notion in assuming that this day was their last. Plus… they hadn't eaten. In eight years.

So, Edgar pulled herself from the ground and went over to the tiny kittens in Anthony's beard and struck up a conversation.

"Anthony…" she started, "your kittens are hungry again."

" What? No. They're never hungry."

"… they are."

"No, they're not."

"… but… they are."

But their quasi-argument was cut short by a muffled gurgle from behind them, where Mark was still on the ground, having tripped over her beard again and suffocating in the mud.

And, as any caring friends would do, they laughed. Note that Mark was not counted when the term "friends" was used.

And deep, deep underground, the eternal struggle went on…

Mark attempted to hurl the mud from her windpipe, but in the act of opening her mouth received more mud.

Suffice to say, the eternal struggle lasted 8 seconds, at which point she went still, and everybody else ran out of things to laugh about. So after a few minutes of staring at her immobile, they figured it would be funnier of she was moving, and… tried to pull her out.

Oh… oh god. OH GOD.

The Hair.

Next day…

The sun was being a greenhouse-gassed ball of fury again, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. No one was at the park yet, since people who are not homeless generally work, so no one was present as a large group of pigeons appeared in the apparently-deserted park and began to peck curiously at the muddy floor. Their curiosity soon evolved into bloodthisty madness, as they dug deep into the bowels of the earth towards their homeless, unloved prey.

This continued until one of the pigeons was shooed away by a tiny kitten. Shooed rather bloodily. Within seconds the other seven kittens pounced on the remaining pigeons and there was a flurry of grey feathers. Oh, and the kittens were still in Anthony's beard, by the way.

"See, I told you they were hungry."

Anthony gurgled amidst the pool of blood and feathers on her face. George was the first one up and out of the mudhole.

"Hey! Food!"

"FOOD!" bellowed Mark from behind, licking the muddy palms of her hands. Mm. So rich in fibre.

They all got up and were on the dead, parasite and flea infested pigeons in a flash. But first they needed a fire…

"Careful," warned George, "Don't want to set your beard on fire again, do you?"

"Why not?" mark muttered. "Keep on tripping over the damn thing". Besides, it was always growing back ten times faster than the last time she'd burnt it off. That time, of course, had been an accident. An accident involving cheese. And was the cause of the many burns on her knees as well.

She took off her glasses –cracked and mud covered as they were – and attempted to use them to make a fire in the middle of the road. Well, footpath anyway.

Slight problem. The sun couldn't actually make it to the other side.

If it could get through the mud and scratches on one side, there was no getting through the layer of dead bugs… a lot of things seemed to like flying at her face. It was great fun when they crashed into the glass, but then she was sort of blind, and tripping over the beard and running into trees and stuff.

"Cease your fruitless attempts with the sun. That bastard has never come through for us before. Watch now, and see the world before you burst into flames with nothing more than the inclination of my mind!" George declared.

… nothing happened.

"Ohhh can you feel the warmth?" George cried, lying on her back and rolling around. "I'm on fire!!"

They couldn't see anything, but who were they to judge whether there was a fire there or not?

If she could feel it, they might as well copy her.

"It burns!"

"It really is hot!"

"Hm…" Edgar blinked as she chewed on one of the pigeon carcasses.

"Not bad. Just needs… perhaps a sprinkle more of mud and disease?"

Okay, stop thinking about those pigeons.

"But they were so good!"

"We hadn't eaten for eight years!"

Anyway, a few hours after they had finished their pigeon feast…

So the four girls began to wander around the park, waiting for the sun to set again, since that was the time that people started to make their way home.

And that meant stealing from squirrels and singing Christmas carols for no apparent reason and doing bad bad things… some more. They were looking forward to it. No better way to end the day.

But that was eight hours away.

Anthony muttered under her breath as she stroked her now well-fed tiny kittens and was not paying attention to what was in front of her. Somehow managing to trip over mark's beard again – who was nowhere near her – she crashed face-first into a giant… squirrel? Or maybe it was a duck. It was kinda hard to tell amongst all of the facial scarring.

Oh well. It didn't really matter, as it was clawing at her eyes. More than slightly confused, the kittens retreated deeper into her beard. Before any permanent damage could be done, Edgar pulled her away while George and Mark attempted to eat whatever it was. It escaped, sadly, and George sighed before pointing at the retreating figure.

"That's why I have an eye patch!" George howled, sinking to her knees and raising her arms to the sky.

"What? You lost it when you sniffed too much popcorn and passed out at the carnival last year. When were you clawed in the face?" asked a bleeding Anthony.

"… "

"Were you trying to do something to it or what?" Edgar blinked at pulled at her beard.

But right before George even had a chance to avoid the question, the thing (whatever it was), reared up and attacked Mark's shins, slashing at the flesh where it peeked out through her rotting paper bag pants.

"Aah!" she shrieked. Before anyone could do anything, the thing was… well, there was a click and a bang and a flash, and it had a very large hole in its head. Needless to say, it had stopped clawing at Mark's shins.

Edgar poked it with her favourite stick.

After waiting a respectful time, she finally asked the vital question.

"… should we eat it?"

But they didn't have all that long to consider.

Just moments after her statement, Edgar had been stuffed into a Hessian bag and thrown into a mysterious van, marked "Rosarium's flower emporium".

As were Anthony and her kittens less than a moment later.

And Mark as well.

At which point the van drove off.

And George began to cry.

She felt so left out and unloved. It wasn't fair. Not fair at all.

So there was only one thing she could do.

Catch that van.

Time passed, and the van drove on.

And still, George kept running.

---

Hedwig flew into Harry's room and he muttered as sunlight flowed with her. Pulling the blankets off his head, he tried to block out the insistent hooting from his owl, eventually resorting to throwing an alarm clock.

Furious at his disobedience, she flew at his unprotected feet, gnawing at the big toe.

"Garrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" he screamed, as blood spread along his pyjamas.

Finally learning his lesson, Harry sat up, tears still staining his cheeks, and took the letters.

Good boy.

Let's see… letter from Hermione, letter from Ron… letter from Hagrid, letter from school… he threw them onto his desk in annoyance and stared at the last letter in his hand.

…?

You know you love me.

And then… it looked like somebody had spit on the page.

Harry was confused, momentarily forgetting his bleeding foot.

Who had sent it?

---

Oh my god, you actually read it!