I Mustache You To Dance
Cowritten by Jeshii & Mattecat
It was a silly muggle affair. Minerva's squib grandragonson worked at the same office as Harry's uncle Vernon. This was an office party celebrating the latest in corporate blargenjargen. Minerva was standing in a corner. She was invited by her grandson and felt obliged to show up, though she really didn't want to go to it. She nursed a muggle Styrofoam cup containing muggle coffee made by muggles using muggle coffee beans. After a while some muggles started playing some muggle music over the muggle speaker system.
Vernon Dursley and his magnificent mustachioed face were very much enjoying the normalcy of the office party. He saw a somewhat odd looking lady looking somewhat bored in the corner. Vernon didn't want anything to do with someone as odd looking as her but his mustache always had a taste for adventure.
He tried to resist but his mustache took control of his legs and made him approach the unusual lady. He had gotten into many affairs this way, Petunia had gotten used to it after a while. Minerva was quite startled to see a man approach her with the grandest mustache on his face that she had ever seen. (And when you work in the wizarding world, you see a lot of grand mustaches.)
"Excuse me, mam, but I mustache you to dance" said Vernon's mustache in the most charming voice imaginable. His mustache was so amazing that Minerva had no choice but to comply. She'd never thought that she would ever dance with a muggle, let alone a muggle's mustache.
The dance, despite being to muggle music, in a muggle office, at a muggle office party, felt more magical than any dance Minerva had ever had. Minerva's heart beat faster and faster. Her only prior experience with facial hair in a romantic context was being Dumbledore's beard.
Vernon's mustache didn't know Minerva was a witch but the dance was still enchanting. It was as if she had bewitched his mustachioed heart. He smiled the most charming smile a mustache could smile and Minerva, caught up in his gaze, smiled back.
Uncle Vernon had no idea what was going on. Who was this woman? Why was his mustache so attracted to her? He didn't want anything to do with this! He struggled against his mustache's control over his body and finally managed to take over and pull away.
Minerva stared at him in confusion. Vernon's mustache was horrified, but Vernon's hatred of anything that dared disturb his normalcy was stronger than his mustache's love. Vernon's mustache could only watch as Vernon turned and walked away.
"Wait!" Minerva called out. "Who are you?"
And despite it all, Vernon looked back, and his mustache gazed at her with all the love and devotion a mustache could have.
"Vernon Dursley's mustache!" he said, in the most powerful voice a mustache could have. Then Vernon took control again, and Minerva stared at him with such longing as he walked away.
Minerva knew she had heard the name Dursley before, but she couldn't remember where. So she resorted to navigating the muggle pages of a muggle phone book, searching for his name.
"Dursley" she muttered to herself. "Dursley, there must be an easier way to do this." But as irrational as it was, she feared that doing any sort of magic on a muggle phone book could damage it beyond repair, destroying the only chance she had at finding her love. Finally between "Dupland" and "Dutton" she found it. She immediately grabbed a muggle phone and dialed as fast as she could. Her heart leaped in joy when she heard someone pick up and say, "Hello?"
"Hello," she said, "is this Vernon Dursley?"
Oh no, Vernon thought. "Yes," he said carefully. "What do you want?"
"May I speak with your mustache?"
Vernon had to hold the phone in an awkward sideways fashion, so that the receiver was on his upper lip. He was used to his mustache getting calls from all kinds of flighty broads, but none as strange as this Minerva McGonagall lady.
Vernon cringed as he listened to his Mustache's sappy exchange. Just imagine all the romantic lines to ever appear in a mustache-romance novel. Then imagine Vernon's mustache saying them all to Minerva. Because that's what Vernon had to endure.
Minerva dreaded to hang up the phone. But alas, you can not conjure food with magic. So she had to hang up and go grocery shopping.
"Accio Groceries!" cast Minerva. Several Trader Joe's bags full of various foodstuff barged through the wall. This is how all wizards shop for food. Little do they know that whenever they do this they are stealing from muggles before they reach the cash register.
Minerva had planned a date with Vernon's mustache. She couldn't stand the three day wait! So she got out her time turner and skipped ahead three days.
"Attractiviosus!" Minerva cast a spell to automatically make herself presentable and ready for the date.
"Incendio!" Minerva lit a fire in her fireplace and threw some floo powder into the fire. She entered the fire and shouted
"London Eye!" but nothing happened.
The floo powder had missed the fire place! She was now standing in a fire and it was catching onto her robes! She ran out of the fireplace and cast a stop, drop, and roll charm to put out the fire. She tried again, this time being extra careful. If you, the reader, have never used floo powder, then it would be hard to convey how disorienting it can be. If it helps, imagine what it feels like to comb a mustache, from the mustaches perspective.
Vernon did not like the idea of going to the London Eye. Grown men don't go on Ferris wheels! It's not normal! But if he resisted his mustache's commands again he would be forced to do some unspeakable things as punishment.
When Vernon saw Minerva waiting for his mustache at the London Eye his mustache's heart became all aflutter. They had to wait in a long line full of tourists to get on the London Eye. But it felt like five minutes since they were together (and because of a little discreet magic).
The view of London would have been more amazing if they weren't so lost in each other's eyes. Also if Minerva hadn't seen it before via broomstick. As the wheel stopped they both slowly, wordlessly, moved in for a kiss. Vernon's mustache tickled Minerva's lips as she planted said lips on Vernon's upper lip.
Vernon himself felt a lot like a third wheel. It was always awkward when his mustache kissed people. Minerva pulled away as the wheel began to move again.
"Wonderful view up here," Vernon's mustache said, gazing at Minerva.
"Yes," she agreed, gazing at Vernon's mustache.
"It's quite pretty," Vernon said, gazing out at London. His mustache and Minerva both glared at him. Vernon cleared his throat awkwardly and pretended he hadn't said anything.
After they had been on the wheel several more rounds than was allowed, they walked around for a while until it began to get quite late.
"May I treat you to dinner?" Vernon's mustache proposed.
"Why, absolutely!" said Minerva.
Wait, thought Vernon. whose money is he going to spend?
But there was no use arguing. His mustache chose what must have been the fanciest and most expensive restaurant in London, ordered the most expensive items on the menu, and what's more, Vernon did not get to order a single item for himself. And then to his dismay, they decided to order wine.
"Why don't we share this one?" his mustache said, pointing again to the most expensive bottle of wine.
Oh no, thought Vernon, not the wine. He knew from experience his mustache got drunk very easily. But what could he do? It wasn't as if his mustache ever listened to him.
Before long, Minerva and Vernon's mustache were making stupid jokes and laughing very loudly at them, making everyone else in the restaurant stare.
"And- and how did the seventh monkey fall out of the tree?" Vernon's mustache said.
"I DON'T KNOW!" replied Minerva.
"He, uh . . . " Vernon's mustache thought very hard about this.
"THE BRANCH BROKE!" he decided on. And then they both cracked up again. Vernon decided that that was enough.
"Excuse me," he said abruptly. "I think my mustache has had a little too much to drink." He waved the waiter over. "May we have the check?"
"Oh," Minerva went quiet. "How soon until we see each other again?" she asked Vernon's mustache.
"Soon," Vernon's mustache replied. "Yes, very soon. I'll call."
"Not if you plan on spending this much money again you won't," Vernon muttered, looking at the bill.
They paid and left (the woman at the front seemed very happy to see them leave) and, standing outside the restaurant, they leaned in for another kiss.
"I'm afraid I must go now," Vernon's mustache said when they broke apart. "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
"Yes," Minerva said. "Well, farewell," and they had one last kiss. Would you hurry it up? Vernon thought.
Finally they were forced to part. At this point, Vernon's mustache was still very drunk, and was starting to feel nauseous.
"If you vomit," Vernon hissed, "by god I am going to shave you off!"
As soon as she was out of sight, Minerva cast a sobering charm on herself. It's a good thing Vernon's mustache didn't (and still doesn't) have any orifices to vomit from, because he was so close to puking all over Petunia's favorite dress.
"Your mustache is drunk again, isn't it, Vernon," said Petunia as she stared out the window watching the neighbors.
"Yes," replied Vernon. He then fell asleep instantly, with his eyes open, like a normal person does. His mustache's snoring kept Petunia up though, but she had secret earplugs for when this sort of thing happened.
Minerva was having so much trouble sleeping, she was kept up by thoughts of longing for Vernon Dursley's mustache. She had to cast a sleeping charm on herself to get any shuteye.
Marriage is traditionally between a mustache and a woman. Or at least it was until mustaches stopped being hip sometime in the late 80s. So now such a marriage is frowned upon. It is now typically the man who gets married, as opposed to his mustache. ~ A History of Marriage, 13th edition.
The next day was a bright day. But to Minerva it felt gloomy. She hated being apart from Vernon's mustache for any period of time. She wished there were some way to never have to part from him again. If only she could somehow magically move Vernon's mustache from his face to hers. But magic doesn't exist, everyone knows that. Minerva then mounted her broomstick and remembered that magic does in fact exist and that mustache transplantation is part of the mandatory curriculum for Hogwarts students in their third year of schooling.
Upon their next meeting Minerva took Vernon and his mustache to an alleyway.
"Stachey, I have something to tell you. I'm a witch," she admitted.
"I thought so," replied Vernon's mustache.
"Good, and I have something else to say. I want to magically move you from Vernon's upper lip to mine," said Minerva.
Vernon's mustache blushed with excitement.
"Really? You mean it? That's possible?" replied the mustache, excited at the prospect of no longer being attached to someone as drab as Vernon Dursley.
"Yes," replied Minerva. She took out her wand to cast the mustache transplantation charm- BUT THEN A FLASH OF LIGHTS! A CLASH OF DRUMS! AND MINERVA'S LOVE WENT OUT OF SIGHT!
What appeared to be an alleyway revealed itself to have mechanical parts and Minerva watched it disappear before her very eyes, taking Vernon and his mustache with it! Little did she know that Vernon and his mustache had been sent back in time!
With a flash of light and a crash of drums, Minerva disappeared and Vernon and his mustache found themselves standing alone in the alleyway.
"Where's Minerva?" Vernon's mustache said in horror.
"Oh, whats happened now?" Vernon grumbled. "This is all your fault. I knew I should've shaved you off the moment you started to talk, but no–"
"You wouldn't dare!" Vernon's mustache interrupted. "Come on, we need to find Minerva."
"No," Vernon said. "I've had enough of this, We are going straight back home. She can take care of herself," And before his mustache could protest, Vernon walked right out of the alleyway– and stopped in confusion.
Something seemed different, but he couldn't tell what at first, until he noticed a store that he was certain had closed several years ago. While he was distracted, his mustache took control of his legs again and forced him to walk towards a newspaper stand.
"What are you doing?" Vernon said.
"Shut up," his mustache snapped back. "I'm going to find out what's going on here."
Vernon grumbled, but went along with it, while his mustache made him buy a newspaper and sit down at a bench to read it.
"I don't see what's so special about this," Vernon said.
"Look at the date!" his mustache replied. Vernon did– and gasped.
"The 20th of May 2002? Nine years in the past? How did that happen!"
"I don't know," his mustache said, "But we've got to find a way to get back!"
"But how?" Vernon said, "Find some sort of magical time traveling police box? I've had enough of magic and-" Vernon stopped himself. "What are you doing?" he said when his mustache made him stand up again.
"I know what to do," his mustache said. "We're going to find another witch to send us back."
"Oh no, no more magic. We'll find a scientific time traveling device. How about that?"
"Shut up," his mustache said, and Vernon shut up. Well, he thought, I suppose I can deal with a little magic if it means getting back home.
The first thing they did was check the alleyway they came from for clues as to how they got sent to the past in the first place. But to their surprise, the alleyway itself was completely gone!
"Oh bugger! Now what?" "F&%#ING MAGIC!" Both of those exclamations were shouted simultaneously. I'm sure you can tell which one was by who. But the resulting exclamation just sounded like "FOHKBUGGINGER NOMAGWHICAT?" to anybody passing by. Most people in 2002 do have trouble discerning between the voices of men and the voices of their mustaches.
Vernon and his mustache didn't know this, but anything that travels through time must also travel through space. For you see, the earth is always orbiting around the sun, while simultaneously rotating. So the bagel shop down the street is not in the same place the next day. So because the earth is always moving, so must the time machine.
This particular time machine was not very well built. Its movement was not properly synced up with either the rotation of the earth or its orbit around the sun. Whoever built the time machine discovered this too late to catch up with it as it slowly moved away, abandoning its creator sometime in the gap between 1 BC and 1 AD. Except he was nowhere near the Roman Empire and so he didn't even get to witness whatever exciting events were supposed to be happening around that time.
So between Vernon reading the newspaper and them returning to the alleyway's former location, the time machine had moved from being an alleyway to being the extra fridge in the barbershop next door. (Thanks to its magnificent camouflage systems. Which were so well made that even the control panel changed how you needed to use it to make it send you to the right time and place depending on where it was.)
Between Vernon and his mustache leaving the alleyway and the next time we'll see this time machine in this story, at least seventeen and a half people were sent on at least nineteen crazy adventures. But we haven't reached that point in the story yet. The point we're at is the point where Vernon made a big deal about the side that came with his sandwich.
Not the Vernon we've been following, the Vernon of 2002. To lessen confusion, The Vernon whose mustache is in love with Minerva McGonagall is Vernon (A) and mustache (B), and the Vernon making a big deal over the side his sandwich came with is Vernon (B) and mustache(A).
"WHY HAVE I BEEN SERVED THESE WEIRD AMERICAN FRENCH FIRES INSTEAD OF THE CHIPS I ORDERED! I ORDERED A CLUB SANDWICH WITH CHIPS, NOT FRENCH FRIES!" screamed Vernon (B).
The server was an American student working to afford his expensive tuition for studying abroad. He accidentally called the side with Vernon (B)'s sandwich "french fries" instead of "chips" leading Vernon (B) to think he had been served the wrong side dish, even though french fries and chips are the same thing.
Vernon (B) refused to understand the server's "weird" American accent so the Welsh manager had to be called.
"I assure you that you got the side you ordered. American french fries are the same thing as chips." said the manager in the thickest Welsh accent he could muster. He always considered it important to talk to his customers in his thickest Welsh accent when he was attempting to settle a dispute. He believed that it made everything go much smoother.
"!" screamed Vernon (B).
"I'm sorry?" said the server, who thought Vernon (B)'s outburst of angry gibberish was just a very thick form of English accent he had never heard before.
"I'LL HAVE THIS PLACE SHUT DOWN!" shouted Vernon (B), and so he did. But not just that moment. What he did just that moment was storm out of the sandwich shop and right into the phone box nearby to make the complaint that would shut down the horrid place that dared to serve him fries instead of chips.
Vernon (B) did not realize that the phone box was slowly sliding to the left of the sandwich shop before he entered it.
He entered 09-08300-1100 into the keypad and inserted a pound coin. He was then transported to the 9th day of August, 300BC, 11:00am. A time when mustaches had yet to be invented.
Meanwhile, Minerva was still in 2011 trying to use magic charms to find out how the alleyway had disappeared with the man whose upper lip bore her true love. However, because the time machine was built with Science she could not trace it using magic. The only reason she wasn't sent back in time was because the time turner she was wearing magically protected her from being displaced by external non-magical time travel.
She did manage to deduce through conventional logic (something she struggled to do) that because she was protected by her time turner, Vernon (A) was transported back in time. And that it was via Science. Because her magic detection spells did not work.
She wished there were a way to find out when he was sent so she could use her time turner to go and get him. But Science and magic mix like oil and water. If she ever wanted to find Vernon's mustache again she would have to do it with science. The analogy of science and magic being like oil and water is so accurate that it would not be out of line to say, "This slice of pizza sure is dripping with science!"
Luckily, a few follicles of mustache hair were still in her possession – she had clipped them for use in the mustache transplant. She knew what she had to do. She had to take the mustache hairs to Oxford and see if the latest in science could help her.
Meanwhile, Vernon (A) was pacing in front of the wall where the time machine used to be.
"Pacing back and forth is not going to change anything," said Vernon's mustache.
"I don't care! What else am I supposed to do!" replied Vernon (A).
"Figure out a bloody way to get us back to 2011!" cried Vernon's mustache (B).
It's actually pretty pointless to focus on any of this pacing, so let's get back to Vernon (B).
Vernon (B) was currently riding on horseback chasing after the time machine which was currently a wooden crate that ended up on a cart being carried by another horse. Unbeknownst to Vernon (B), a lone cave painter was amazed by his mustache and decided to paint his majestic ride on horseback. This paining became very popular and many tried to emulate the hair of the mysterious man in the painting.
This lead to the invention of stone razors and the invention of shaving, and more importantly, mustaches themselves.
With a giant leap, Vernon (B)'s horse landed on the cart and knocked the time machine to the ground. Vernon (B) was a lot smarter and more agile than Vernon (A); 9 years does a lot to a man. He opened the crate, stepped inside, and then . . .
"Why in the world do you think we have the technology to trace someone through time and space using their mustache hair follicles?" said the Oxford scientist from the year 2011.
"You don't?" asked Minerva.
"We do, but it's top secret. How did you know about it?" replied the scientist.
"I just do – magic or something," said Minerva.
The Oxford scientist was named Jom Tomikel. He was of purely English heritage but his parents thought giving him a first and last time that nobody had every heard before was the best way to make sure he grew up to become an exciting pop music star and not something drab like a scientist at Oxford University. Jom, sometimes also referred to as Tom or Jon, became the best scientist in his field just to spite his parents. He would go on to be nominated for a Nobel prize in the year 2015. Jom lead Minerva into a secret room.
"This" Jom said, "is our machine. It is still in the testing stages, but it may serve your purpose well enough." The machine was enormous. It took up half the room, covered with flashing lights and switches and vents and buttons and things Minerva couldn't even name. Everybody knows the more flashing lights, switches, vents, and buttons you have on a machine the more scientifically capable it is. All the while it was vibrating and emitting a harsh grinding noise.
"What is that thing?" Minerva cried.
"I told you, our machine for tracing people through time and space," said Jom.
"Of course." said Minerva, quickly regaining her composure. "What do I have to do?" she asked.
"It's simple," Tom said (he liked to go by Tom when he was explaining things to people). "Here, I'll show you." He walked over to the machine and pressed a button, and a small, ordinary looking tray slipped open, almost like a CD-tray, but with a solid bottom.
"You simply place the mustache samples there," he said, gesturing to the tray, "and the machine will do the rest! Are you ready?"
"Of course," Minerva said, sounding more confident than she really was. She walked right up to the machine, ignoring all the strange noises omitting from it, and placed the hairs inside. Tom pressed the button again and the tray closed.
"Cover your ears" he warned. And with one dramatic motion, he pulled a large lever marked "Do not touch."
The machine exploded.
Not literally of course, but with the sound it made it certainly seemed like it did. Minerva wondered why she bothered to cover her ears the noise was so loud. It almost seemed like it was as loud as the plutonium rock band Disaster Area, but of course in reality it was nowhere near that level of volume.
"Don't worry!" Tom shouted. "This is normal!" There was a great boom and part of the machine lit on fire. "That's normal too!" he shouted. "It, ah, amplifies the process!"
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the machine started to quiet. And abruptly the noise ceased and it printed out a single sheet of paper.
"Here we go," Tom said, tearing it out. "Come with me and we'll look at the results."
Meanwhile, after stepping into the crate and stamping around a bit, Vernon (B) found himself in a strange and futuristic city.
"Oh bloody hell, not again," he snapped, causing several people to stare at him. Such language and dialect was very archaic. People usually only ever heard their great-grandparents talk that way.
"This is the future, isn't it?"
"Clearly," his mustache (A) said. "Seeing as we're in a futuristic city and all."
"Shut up. I bet this is all your fault, somehow."
Vernon (B) turned to go back inside the crate and then remembered that it doesn't stay put when he saw that it was gone. Both he and his mustache swore simultaneously.
"Well, what do we do now?" Vernon (B) said.
"I don't know!" his mustache (A) said. "Why don't we find someone to help? This is the future, there must be a decent time machine somewhere."
"Fine," Vernon (B) said, and they set off. They wandered the city for quite a while before they spotted someone relatively normal-looking.
"Excuse me," Vernon (B) said, walking toward him. "We need some help. What is your name?"
The man turned around and Vernon (B) realized he was a cyborg! Right down to his cyborg mustache!
"I," he said, "am Cyborg Vernon Dursley."
"And I," his mustache said "am Cyborg Vernon Dursley's mustache."
Meanwhile, Vernon(A) was still pacing.
This is stupid, let's go back to Minerva.
"You see," Tom said, putting the results on the table between them. "this shows every point a person has been to on the current timeline. For a normal person, who hasn't traveled through time, it would only show every moment from their birth to their death. Here, however, we have three abnormalities."
"Three?" Minerva said in dismay. "How will I find the right one?"
"Well, that's not my problem," he said. "Now here-" He pointed to one mark on the graph. "-your subject was in 300 BC for a short while. There-" He pointed to a second mark. "-nine years ago, there were three copies of the subject at one time, before one of them disappeared. Then there were two copies until the present. And here-" He pointed to the final mark. "-your subject will be fairly far in the future."
Minerva worked her brain hard to think about these things logically, something witches and wizards are very bad at. She instead thought about things in a very wibbly wobbly timey wimey way. So she took the paper results, took out her time turner and went off to another time.
"Cyborg Vernon Dursley? Preposterous!" exclaimed Vernon (B).
"What do you mean? Being a cyborg version of someone from the past is perfectly normal in 2101 AD!" replied Cyborg Vernon's cyborg mustache.
"Well, maybe you can help us? We're looking for a time machine, the one we used to get here ran off," said mustache (A).
Cyborg Vernon used his perfectly normal laser lasso to grab the time machine, which was currently a glass window, and pull it over to where they were standing. Vernon (B) looked at the control pane of the window. Windows having interfaces on their glass panes will be perfectly normal in 2101AD. The control pane read
"11111011011.00110010 00110000 00110001 00110001.01000001 01000100 01001101 01100001 01111001.00110010 00110000 01110100 01101000 . . . " and a bunch more ones and zeroes. Vernon (B) couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. So instead he just jumped through the window.
Meanwhile, 15 minutes earlier, Minerva had arrived in 2101AD. She knew seeing details of the future could be against the Minestry's laws for time travel so she was as brisk as she could be. She cast "Accio time machine" and located the control pane. It was binary, but she didn't care. She used magic to make it read 20th May 2011 and what she believed was the time when Vernon (A) had disappeared. She then saw Vernon (B) coming her way so she quickly disappeared back to the past.
Then, in 2002, Minerva found Vernon (A) and performed the mustache transplant. Vernon's mustache (B) became Minerva's mustache.
"Oh Minerva! Your upper lip is so much better than Vernon's drab upper lip!" said Minerva's mustache. She then returned to 2011, abandoning Vernon (A) in 2002. He probably preferred being in the past, she thought, everything would be so predictable and drab and normal when you knew everything that would happen next. She was wrong, but that was her reasoning for abandoning him.
Vernon (B) arrived in 2011 in what appeared to be an alleyway. It clearly wasn't 2002, he couldn't smell sandwiches from the sandwich shop he knew he hadn't shut down yet, and the weather was sunnier than the day he left in 2002. But the control panel on the alleyway's wall was now a circuit monitor which could be adjusted in plain British standard date syntax.
But then Vernon (B) saw Vernon (A) entering the alleyway, so he hid behind a trashcan, which appeared there just then to camouflage even better.
"Stachey, I have something to tell you . . . " said Minerva. Vernon (B) quickly changed the date on the circuit monitor to 20th May 2002 and the time he estimated he had left and smashed a brick to activate the time machine.
A time loop was formed, thereby preventing it from causing any further antics for anyone else. Vernon (B) became Vernon (C), and would in time become Vernon(A) afterward. He escaped the alleyway before Vernon (A) could see.
Vernon (C) then ran off to make a call and shut down that sandwich shop. A few weeks after he had shut down the sandwich shop, the shop's former owner hired some thugs to get revenge. They beat up Vernon (C) and the trauma caused him to forget the whole time travel fiasco.
Vernon (A) had nothing left to live for without his mustache. So he donated his body to science on the condition that they made him a new mustache and let him forget all about magic and everything else abnormal. He went on to eventually become the world's first cyborg. Which according to his programming, was perfectly normal.
But back in 2011, Minerva was showing her new mustache around her home.
"This is such a nice place you have here." said Minerva's mustache.
"Thanks, it's your place too," replied Minerva.
"Minerva, do you have any music?" asked Minerva's mustache.
"Why do you ask?" said Minerva.
"Because if so, then I mustache you to dance."
The End.