Disclaimer: I'm not J.K. Rowling. Believe me, if I were, I wouldn't have killed all of my favourite characters…
Books to Get Your Teeth Into
"Tea? Again?" she asked incredulously.
"But of course, my dear," he purred.
"You´ve just drunk your second cup half an hour ago," she said in frustration.
"Ye-e-e-s?..."
"And now, at lunchtime, you want another?"
"How nice to know that you read me so well," he murmured ironically.
"But tea and soup don´t go together," she stated magisterially with absolute confidence.
"Ever heard of the saying "each to his own taste?" he replied.
"Listen, it´s got nothing to do with individual taste. It´s just heresy to do that," she said, gradually losing her patience.
"Heresy?" he replied with a chuckle.
"Of course. You are mixing the delicate taste of tea with a heavy, meaty soup and adding them together."
"I must admit your theory is quite charming but I´m a stubborn old mule my dear McGonagall."
She sighed, knowing she would get no further. "Dobby! Bring another cup of tear for Professor Dumbledore, would you!"
"Strange to imagine this dialogue taking place in a school in England – a land more identified with the delicate brew than places like India and China where it is actually grown," thought Dobby as he tootled into the kitchen and called to the scullery maid Twenkins: "Hey Twenky anuvver lickle cuppa for the guvna en be sharp abaht it yoo knobbly-kneed lickle numpy!"
Abigail Twenkins, somewhere betwixt late middle age and early old age, with hair as naturally red as a cockle boat full of carrots and a girth which Hagrid´s arms might have encircled with a bit of Herculean effort, smiled across at Dobby, showing a mouth which had a pattern of gaps and teeth like the black and white keys on a piano.
"Oh Mr. Dobby you must stop flirting with me and making such flattering comments. You´ll make a certain Miss You Know Who as jealous as a spider! By the way, Mr. Dobby it´s my evening off tomorrow if you want to invite me out for a nice spot of dinner and a dance at the Periwinkle Club in Steeple Bumpstead."
"Less of the hanky panky Twenky. I woodn´t go out wiv yoo if you woz the last livin female in the hole world! I´d ravver go out wiv a pair of knittin needles. Now go en get the guvnah´s bloomin char yoo hevalumpish apology for a skool servant."
"Hey you, yah slimy wee Elfishman who the hell dae ye think you´re talkin´ tae?" boomed the voice of Archie MacHatty who had just entered the kitchen holding a dead dragon across his wide shoulders. MacHatty was a wild Highlander from Inversneckie employed at Hogwarts as head of security. Every day the pupils would watch him go through the ancient entrance way and head off to the nearby hills and forests on a slaying expedition. He took nothing with him but a wild look in his three eyes – one green, one yellow and one which changed colours depending on his mood which generally swung from being furious and bad-tempered to being bad-tempered and furious – his bagpipes on which he played Go to Sleep My Baby Close Your Pretty Eye and a 12 foot long sword he had been given as his first birthday present by his father, Archibald Ranald MacHatty, the 138th Laird of Inversneckie, Laird of Craigeagle and the Guardian of Bumbaleary Castle, the family seat.
"Wonder what Mac´s up to today?," Harry would say.
"Horrible nasty man, probably going to kill all the wildlife around here. I tried to persuade him to join Greenpeace the other day but he told me to go away and "bile mah heid" whatever that means," said Hermione. "However I looked it up in a Serbo-Croat dictionary but couldn´t find it.
"Gawd, I´d love to go with him," Ron would say. "He seems to have such great fun, killing all them werewolves and dragons and whatnots, slicing their heads off and sticking them up on the wall above his bed."
"How can you possibly want to go and kill things?" Hermione would say wrinkling her nose. "Anyway I can´t stand here all day chatting. I´ve got exams to prepare for so if you´ll excuse me I´ll be on my way to the library."
Unfortunately for Dobby he had picked the wrong moment to have a go at poor lovelorn Miss Twenkins because just as he was about to say something MacHatty put one giant paw round his skinny little neck, pulled him and glared at him with a wild revolving triple-eyed stare.
"Well wee English Elfishman you´ve jist made a big mistake…."
"But, but, but, but, Mr. MacHatty I can hexplyne. I woz only jokin wiv Miss – sorry Ms – Twenkins."
"Oh wur yae noo?" said MacHatty bringing the squirming half-strangled Dobby closer to his mouth as though about to bite his little flat head off .
"Yes indeed, Mr. MacHatty. Fact is I woz abaht to ask her to come wiv me to the Periwinkle Club tomorrow."
"Iz that a´ ye were gonnae say tae this wee lassie who´s so devoted tae ye tho fur the luv o´ God ah dinna understaun whit fur? Wiz there no something else ye wur gonna say wee Dobbykins? Did ah no hear ye mention something aboot a weddin ring?"
"Wot?" Dobby´s voice grew shrill and nervous and his eyes filled with horror as MacHatty´s 12 foot long sword called the MacCalabur appeared from nowhere and was laid across his throat. "Yes, yes, yes Mr. MacHatty. Yoo´re quyte ryte. I must ´ave forgotten in the pleasure of your company. I ´ad, of course, intended asking the charming young lady for ´er ´and in marriage."
"Well Miss Twenkins whit dae ye think o´ the soond o´ weddin bells? " asked MacHatty turning to Miss Twenkins who was blushing and smiling with delight, tears of happiness rolling down her plump cheeks, round the warts and carbuncles and into her moustache.
"Oh Dobby I always knew you had a soft spot for little old me but I never knew you felt that way about me. Of course I´ll marry you as Mr. MacHatty – and MacCalabur- is my witness."
And they all lived happily ever after – except for Dobby, and Dumbledore who didn´t get his third cup of tea. And Hermione who only got 99.999999999999999 in her advanced nuclear brain surgery exam.
(Ron got 00.00000000000000000001 for being able to spell his first name properly.)
Two Days Later
"Gawd I´m soooooooooooo hungry I could eat the top of this pencil," said Ron. "Fact is I think I will." He then started to chew at the rubber end but spat it out quickly. "Yuk. It tastes likes rubber."
"Well what did you expect you silly nit?" said Harry. "Anyway why are you so hungry? You´ve just eaten lunch."
"Lunch! You call what we just had lunch – potatoes as hard as a stone, peas as hard as a (hum what can I compare them to – oh, yeah, got it) a stone and a piece of steak as hard as a um…."
"Yes don´t tell us – a stone by any chance?" interjected young Miss Granger who, believe it or not, was uninterested in Ron´s plight. "Listen, we are in the library and I would like some peace and quiet to study for my advanced nuclear physics and atomic energy O-level which I´ll be taking next year. I´ve only got 245 days to prepare for it. So be quiet and stop talking about food. Why don´t you behave like Harry who´s studying quietly and responsibly – for once."
Harry was indeed quiet but was not, in fact, studying. He was bent over his notebook, hiding its contents from prying eyes by an outstretched, enfolding arm, trying to compose a love poem to his dearest darling Chinese dream girl with the less than poetic name of Cho Chang. Harry had decided to forget the Chang part and concentrate on the Cho part. Writing poetry was something that came quickly to him although you, dear reader, can opine on whether it might have been worth waiting a while for the Muse to arrive when you read what he had written so far.
"Dear Cho
I love you
I really do
Phew!
You´re a real doll
Want to be my moll?
Let´s become a team
Won´t that be a scream?"
Ron gazed miserably at his two friends, both scribbling away, oblivious to the aggravation his stomach was giving him. "If you don´t give me some food soon I´m going to report you to the police for cruelty," his stomach (known as Ron´s Belly) rumbled. "Don´t think I´m joking. I´ll see you inside, rotting away in the nick with the key thrown away," Ron´s Belly shouted forgetting that if Ron was in the nick so would it. However, stomachs are not renowned for their intelligence so let´s go back to poor Ron also turned idly to his book and thought about his homework. His task was to compile what in his opinion were the 10 most influential books in literature. Since Ron had never read a book from cover to cover he had taken a potted literary history with him but whether he paid as much attention to it as he should have is another matter.
"Oh best get down to it," he sighed and started to write, trying not too successfully to keep his mind off food. This is what he handed in to his teacher the following morning.
The 10 Most Influential Books in Literature
- War and Peas
- Cream and Punishment
- Wuthering Bites
- Oliver Crisps
- Omelette – Prince of Denmark
- The Catcher in the Pie
- The Cakebook of Sherlock Holmes
- The Lunchpack of Notre Dame
- Look Back in Hunger
- Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Prince
A/N: Just a lil' fic I had written in Portuguese and I translated. It did get a bit longer than I had expected. I . Well, I did get some help too. Oh btw, I have nothing against English. (I'm sorry if I, somehow offended anyone.) I hope you enjoyed it.
Would you send me a review, please, so that I know what you think?! Thanks. :