Zach is insane for asking for this, Yuval is insane for suggesting this particular plotline, and I'm insane for writing it. You're welcome, the both of you.
It was a joke, really. An odd little turn of phrase that had stuck, somehow. No one thought it would stay around, become such a well-known phrase that even Muggles would say it.
It started with an eleven-year-old boy getting sorted into Hufflepuff in the beginning of his first year of Hogwarts, and his name was Barack Obama. He was a brown kid with frizzy hair, a bright yet unexceptional student, and for the first couple months of school at Hogwarts, no one paid him any mind.
Until, that is, he ruined Sirius Black's 'do.
Sirius Black was a fourth year at the time. Part of a group of friends named the Marauders, he was exceedingly young, handsome, and popular, and like many handsome and popular fourteen year olds, he was also exceptionally vain. Girls giggled and blushed when he passed, and he didn't discourage them from doing so. Boys would frown and say things such as "his hair is ridiculous" with jealousy tinting their voices.
Sirius Black had exceptionally good hair. It was long and sleek, as dark as his last name, as flattering as everything else about him. Many girls would sigh when they saw his grey eyes or discuss his physique, and yet it was his hair, whether up in a messy bun or allowed to roam free, which was considered his most attractive feature.
And so when, on Monday morning, Barack Obama tripped and spilled an entire pitcher of pumpkin juice on Sirius Black's hair, his anger – and the wrath of many girls in the area – was most likely understandable, if not exactly justified.
"Thanks, Obama," Black muttered sarcastically, ignoring Barack's stream of apologies. He was incredibly unaware that he was, in fact, starting a trend that would change generations.
It started slow, of course. A girl would have a bad hair day and say to her friends, giggling, "Thanks, Obama." And then, a boy would get a bad score on a quiz and he would mutter under his breath, "Thanks Obama!"
It was a trend. These things happen.
The problem only truly arose the next year, when two things happened: 1. It had spread to the next generation of first years and 2. It has spread into the real world.
And it was everywhere. People were saying "Thanks Obama" without knowing who Obama was or who said it originally or why Sirius Black's hair mattered so much. Muggles and Wizards and teachers and students, all saying "Thanks Obama" whenever something bad happened to them.
When Lily broke off her friendship with Severus that day by the lake, she muttered to herself "Thanks Obama!" while she was walking away. When Harry broke the awful vase Petunia sent her, James cried out: "Thanks, Obama!" And when Lord Voldemort found and killed both Lily and James Potter, it is quite possible that one of them thought to themselves Thanks, Obama! just before being struck with the killing curse.
Anyway, then Barack Obama moved back to the states and became a senator or something like that. Nobody really cared enough to find out.
(It was really funny when, more than thirty years later, the phrase resurfaced and still, nobody knew that the real reason everybody was saying "THANKS OBAMA" was Sirius Black's magnificent hair.)
