I, unlike my friend, don't get up in the middle of the night to write. Everyone else in the house would probably think I'm a burglar and then, with one thing and another, I'd be in jail looking at fifteen years. And I couldn't help write this story from jail, having to drive back my insane cellmates with a broom. Or a mop. So, anyways, here I am.
Now, back to the narrative. Enjoy the next chapter of this very strange and twisted story.
That Loser
Chapter 2: Harry the Wizard
In a sunny little hamlet in southern Spain, a vagrant breeze wafted across a flowered field, bring the musty, telltale scent of rain to come. Crimson fichus plants on slender stems bent into the wind. A local shepherd boy, being both lazy and deaf, sat in the middle of the fichus field, hearing neither the tormented bleats of his sheep being eaten by wolves, coyotes, and ravenous traveling salesmen, or the soft murmur of the fichus, whispering into the wind.
Edmuuuuund…
But, as this story was not about suicidal women, it is also not about stupid shepherds, traveling salesmen, or rain on some plain in Spain. This story is about a boy named Harry Potter, staring out the window of a car driven by his maniac uncle, Vernon. Uncle Vernon had dragged Harry (and the rest of the family, which isn't doing much now but cowering in the backseat) to numerous hotels and relative's houses' over the past week, running from Harry's letters.
"Ha! Here, we're here!" shouted Vernon, who was, to his credit, foaming only slightly at the mouth. His face a quite becoming shade of mauve.
As it turned out, 'here' was a rickety old shack that seemed to be clinging only vaguely to a slippery rock jutting out into the sea. Uncle Vernon quickly pushed the family into the house, and locked and bolted the door.
Nothing of interest happened until twelve o' clock midnight. Harry lay on the floor, drawing himself a birthday cake in the dust.
"Make a wish Harry." He said to himself. He then blew out his dust candles, upsetting the dust and sending everyone into a fit of coughing.
"STUPID BOY!" yelled Uncle Vernon from the only bedroom in the shack.
Harry sighed, "I'll never do things right." He picked up his mop and broom and began humming and cleaning to the twittering of birds that have appeared out of nowhere. Pretty soon everyone is going to start skipping and singing and giggling when—
—There came a knock at the door.
"Who is it?" chimed Petunia in a singsong voice, only to be slapped by Vernon. "Sorry."
The knock came again, this time with more force, completely breaking the door off its hinges. It would have been a very dramatic moment if the giant menacing figure at the door weren't carrying a pink, lace-edged umbrella.
"Surry Amooot thaahhh." Said the large man in a heavy accent.
"Um, I'm sorry, what?" said Vernon.
"I suuud: Surry Amooot thaaaahhhh!"
"Sorry, one more time?"
"Suuuury Amooooot Thaaahhh!" The strange man began running around the room, waving his arms and spewing nonsense.
"Who are you!" said Vernon fearfully gazing at the giant man that no one could understand. Dudley whispered something to Petunia.
"Rubeus Hagrid, and I came for Harry."
"See Dudley, he isn't a blathering idiot, he can speak proper English!" said Petunia.
"And you must be Harry!" said Hagrid, walking up to Dudley, as Harry was conveniently out of sight, cleaning. "I must admit, you're a bit fatter and uglier than I'd hoped."
"But I'm not Harry!" said Dudley, outraged to be mistaken for his dorky cousin. "Take it back! Take it back! Take it BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!"
"I'm Harry," said Harry, momentarily stopping his frantic cleaning.
Hagrid stared at him for a moment, "Of course you are! And, since I've suspected these great muggles haven't let you read your letters, I've come to tell you something…that you're a wizard, Harry."
Harry blinked at him, "What? But I-I can't be a wizard…"
Hagrid beamed at him, "Of course you are!"
"But I don't want to be a wizard!"
Hagrid look confused for a second, "Well of course you do! Wizards get to do all sorts of fun things like…ah…go to Hogwarts, the wizard school, o' course."
"And going to some school is supposed to help? School! Where's my motivation?" Harry crossed his arms and looked away.
"Ah, well, wizards get to…ah…do magic, and play Quidditch, and…"
"What's Quidditch?" asked Harry, trying to sound uninterested.
"Oh, players fly around on broomsticks and…"
"BROOMSTICKS! I looove brooms!" Harry's eyes lit up and glistened with tears, "Are there…are there MOPS involved?" Everyone in the room was silent, waiting for the punch line, or for someone to jump out of a cake and yell "Surprise! We made you all look completely stupid on national television!" (Or in this case, BBC) But nothing of that sort happened. Harry continued to look at Hagrid, completely serious.
"Ah, well, no. Just brooms."
"Oh, that's all right then. I suppose you can't have everything. Still, brooms!" Harry felt as if he were floating on the fluffy pink cloud of his strange, mop-filled fantasies. Dreams do come true!
"Here's your letter!" said Hagrid, passing Harry one of the letters he had been trying to read for the last week.
"Harry Potter," said Harry, reading aloud and following the words with his finger, "we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwatts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Hogwatts?" The name brought a mental picture of a pig with its tail in a light socket. Medium-rare please.
Hagrid turned deep red, "Uh, misprint, that's HogWARTS."
"Oh…of course." Said Harry, thinking Hogwarts wasn't much better than Hogwatts.
"Well, we'd best be getting to Diagon Alley to pick up your school stuff." Said Hagrid, heading for the door.
"No, I won't pay for him to go to some strange school and stare at brooms all day! It's a disgrace to our way of life. After all we are British!" Everyone in the room pulled out a cup of tea, raised their glasses, and toasted "To the Queen!", drained their cup, and threw it over their shoulder.
You may think this is strange, but I assure you, everyone in Britain does this. It's quite common, really.
After toasting the Queen, Vernon glared again at Hagrid, squinting his piggy eyes. "Who would run such a patently ridiculous establishment!"
Hagrid looked as if he were about to strangle Uncle Vernon with one giant fist. "Never insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me!"
Petunia smiled dimwittedly, "Can we insult him when we're behind you then?"
Hagrid's face turned red, and with a roar he pointed his pink umbrella vaguely in the direction of the Dursleys. Gold sparks shot out of the white plastic tip of the umbrella, directly towards Dudley, who had managed to keep his mouth shut through all this conversation. Four seconds later, Dudley started screaming.
"Hagrid," said Harry, now walking the streets of London a few hours after they had left the shack, "why did you give Dudley a pig's tail?"
Hagrid blushed, giving a random passerby the impression that they had just seen a large, hairy tomato. "Actually, I was aiming at your prune of an uncle. But that's not important, here; we've come to the Leaky Cauldron." Hagrid lead Harry into a dark, dingy pub complete with peeling brown paint and sickly green moss creeping along the sides. Hagrid pushed open the door and was greeted with a chorus of hellos.
"'Ello 'Agrid, the usual?" chimed a short grubby man from behind the counter of a short grubby bar.
"Not today Tom, I'm taking Harry Potter here," Hagrid nudged Harry with his umbrella, "to get his school things."
A crypt-like silence filled the room; all chatter ceased.
"Well bless my soul, it's Harry Potter!" said a strange woman. She ran up to Harry and shook his hand vigorously, "Can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see you back!" Suddenly, the whole pub, full of previously unimportant people, with strange hats, ran up to Harry including, although he was certain they hadn't been there before, a group of screaming girls with matching tee-shirts saying WELCOME BACK HARRY.
"Grimwealda Bugleweed, it's an honor to meet you!"
"Alabaster Cornelius-Argohousis, a real pleasure."
Harry nodded and smiled politely, quickly turning his head to Hagrid and hissing between smiling teeth, "Who are all these people and why do they have such strange names?"
Hagrid laughed, "I dunno, this is Britain!" The whole restaurant was filled with the sound of chair legs scraping on the floor and the tinkling of china cups.
"To the Queen!"
China cups were thrown haphazardly across the room. The bartender grimaced; it was seriously time to think about moving to America.
Harry felt much better, knowing that many, many, strange things happened in Britain, "Right, thank you."
"Oh, Harry, this is Professor Quirrell, he'll be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts."
Harry looked up to a pale man wearing a ridiculously large, hideously purple, and strangely bulbous, turban. "Harry P-P-Potter, c-c-can't tell you how h-h-happy I am to meet you."
A cold, strangely muffled voice coming from the back of Quirrell's head said, "I will kill you, Pooter! Mwahahaha! I shall return! Vengeance will be MINE!"
Quirrell smiled nervously at Harry and Hagrid, "Just one second, please?" He then rolled his eyes up into his head and started having a conversation with himself.
"I though I told you not to do that!"
The cold voice replied, "I am the Dark Lord!" the voice changed to a sulky whine, "I can do what I want!"
"Oh, just shut up for once will you! I am NOT going to keep covering for you!"
"What do you mean keep covering for me?"
"Oh, as if you don't remember my mother's tea party two weeks ago! When you started yelling at the croissants, I had to tell Mother that an angry gnome has taken up residence in my turban! I can't believe Mother believed it."
"Hey, it's not my fault you have a stupid mum."
"What! You were the one yelling at croissants!"
Quirrell was yelling now. The whole pub was staring at him, wondering how quickly they could run for the door.
"Hey, that croissant was Harry Pooter-shaped!"
"Why I let you share my body is beyond me!"
"Oh yeah, well who needs you!"
"You do! You don't have a body, remember?" Added Quirrell smugly.
"Curse you, you're right."
Professor Quirrell suddenly thumped the back of the turban with his fist and the strange voice faded to a few muffled curses and general grumbling. Quirrell smiled broadly and picked up a tray of food off the bar, "T-T-Toffee?"
No one seemed to notice the strange voice, and what does it matter, since I assure you that it has no significance whatsoever later in the book. None. So just forget about the whole thing.
Once everyone had a chance to shake Harry's hand, or in the case of the girls, tear off a piece of his clothing to sell on E-bay, Hagrid lead Harry outside to a brick wall behind the pub.
"Hagrid, what was going on in there?" asked Harry, frantic and missing his left sleeve (which, it might interest you to know, is now owned by a rather strange man in Peru).
Hagrid then told Harry about his parent's deaths and how he had brought an end to Voldemort's reign of terror by surviving the deadly killing curse. "It was a horrible time…anyways; let's go get your school stuff!" Hagrid cheerfully, tapping a couple bricks with his umbrella. To Harry's surprise, the bricks started to shake in the wall, then suddenly rearranged themselves into a huge archway.
Beyond the archway lay an entire city, full of people in cloaks bustling around with shopping baskets on cobbled streets, or staring at colorful window displays of racing brooms, or fashionable robes. Owls flew freely above the crowd, alighting on the peaked roofs above.
"Welcome," said Hagrid, gesturing to the amazing city in front of him, "to Diagon Alley."
"We'll go shopping in a minute, but first we need to make a stop at Gringotts, the wizard bank."
In the next forty minutes, Harry found out that his parents had left him a load of gold, something strange was being kept in vault 713, and that goblins don't like to be called 'My Good Little Elf'.
And so, after a quick stop at St. Mungo's to remove the letter opener stuck in Harry's foot by an angry goblin, they started shopping. Harry followed the school list in his letter, buying robes, cauldrons, newts' eyes, brass telescopes, and spell books. You know, the usual school stuff. Most of the day had been pleasant, except for that boy in the robe shop. What was his name? Oh right, Draco Malfoy, the one who wanted his robes to fit tightly across his chest, to impress the witches. Madame Malkins in the robe store had sighed and stretched the black material over his bony ribs. Suddenly, Draco's eyes had darted around the room to make sure no one was watching him. He leaned down and kissed his bicep.
"Don't tell the others," he whispered lovingly to his arm muscle, "but you're my favorite."
Harry grimaced; 'I hope I never have to see him again.' He thought. Next on Harry's list was a wand.
"Ah Harry, I've got to pick up a few things. Go over there to Olivander's to get your wand; I'll meet you there in an hour." Hagrid turned away.
Harry nodded to Hagrid and walked into Olivander's.
The room was dark and dusty, heaped with piles of small narrow boxes, some thrown haphazardly on the counter, some stored on their dusty shelves. Harry looked around for a shop owner, and stepped up to the counter.
A man popped upright behind Harry. "Curious," he said, "What can I do for you Mister Pooter?"
"Um…actually it's Harry Potter, and I'm here about a wand…"
"Of course, of course, step right over here and," the strange man, who must be Olivander, rummaged around in the boxes, withdrawing one, "try this. My wands are made of the finest woods and magic core ingredients available. Here, try this one: Hazelwood and duck."
"Duck?"
"But of course, duck feathers are one of the least known and most powerfully magical substances."
"Right, sorry." Harry would be sure to be more careful around the duck pond at Privet Drive in the future.
"Well, give it a wave!"
Harry took a deep breath and swished the wand through the air, promptly sending a jet of purple flames at Mr. Olivander's face.
The flames narrowly missed his head, coming close enough to singe his eyebrows as it passed. "No, definitely not." He rummaged around a little more, "Ebony and unicorn hair."
Harry waved the wand and a flock of parakeets flew out the tip of his wand with a dramatic flash of orange light.
"No. Willow and duck."
Twenty mediocre accordion players appeared on the top shelf.
"No, not right either. Here, white oak and dragon heart string."
Two bricks tied up with string appeared outside and took turns hitting a very confused looking wizard on the head.
"No, no, no. Willow and duck."
"Hey, I tried that already!" Harry was a bit frustrated, and more touchy than usual. The accordion players were really getting on his last nerve.
"Of course we haven't tried it already; I remember every wand I ever sold. Why, I remember when I sold your father a wand, the year was nineteen…eleventy twelve. I remember every wand Mister Pooter-"
"Potter."
"-and I remember your father's. Hazelwood and…" Olivander looked confused for a moment, "What was I saying?"
"My father's wand," Harry dutifully reminded.
"Right! Hazelwood and phoenix feather. Nice boy, James Pooter, nice boy."
"Um, that's Potter."
"What?"
"James POTTER."
"Nonsense! James Pooter, Lily Pooter, Harry Pooter. I remember every wand I ever…" Olivander blinked. "What was I saying?"
"You were about to give me a different wand to try."
"Oh, right, of course. Willow and duck."
"But I…oh, never mind."
Twenty more horrible accordion players appeared on the top shelf, possibly even worse than the last bunch.
"No. Cherry and phoenix feather."
A man outside screamed as a giant green tentacle grew out of his nose.
"No, definitely not! Greenwood and…wait…I wonder…" Olivander dropped the wand he was holding and disappeared far back into the shelves for a moment. He returned with a dusty box, just like all the rest.
"Try this."
Olivander offered no explanation, so Harry picked up the wand. Suddenly, the Harry Potter Movie Soundtrack played and Harry felt a gust of air whirlwind around his feet. The wand shone gold for a moment, and then everything went back to normal. Unfortunately, that included the accordion players. Parakeets flew around the store, pooping on the merchandise.
"Yes, yes, I thought this might be the one. The phoenix feather in your wand came from a special phoenix that gave another feather, just one other feather. That feather was in the wand that...now let's see, who did I sell that too? Oh, it was someone important, I know it was! Oh right," Olivander slapped himself in the forehead, "Voldemort of course!"
"Voldemort!"
"SHHHHH! NOT SO LOUD POOTER! HONESTLY, VOLDEMORT COULD HEAR YOU!"
"WELL I'M SORRY!"
"QUITE ALL RIGHT POOTER, I CAN UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE DISTRESSED AT HEARING VOLDEMORT'S NAME."
"IT'S POTTER ACTUALLY, AND MR. OLIVANDER?"
"WHAT IS IT BOY?"
"WHY ARE WE YELLING?"
'WELL I'M SURE I DON'T KNOW, YOU STARTED IT!"
"I DID NOT!"
"YOU MOST CERTAINLY DID! I REMEMBER EVERY…what was I saying?"
"You were saying, 'Have a nice day Mister Potter, enjoy that wand!'"
"Right, of course! Well, have a nice day Mister Pooter, enjoy that wand!"
Harry sighed, walking out of the store. He spotted a looming figure near Flourish and Blotts. "Hagrid, over here!"
Hagrid waddled over to Harry, holding something behind his back. "'Ullo Harry, did you get your wand?"
"Yes, and Hagrid, why does everyone keep mispronouncing my name as Pooter?"
"I dunno, after all, this is Brit—"
"To the Queen!"
Hagrid turned angrily to the crowd of diners at the café with their teacups raised. "I didn't say it yet!" Some of the diners had the decency to look ashamed, but most kept their eyes on Hagrid, sitting on the edge of their seats, cups raised.
Hagrid sighed, "After all, this is…" Hagrid paused, "Britain."
"To the Queen!"
Harry finally noticed that Hagrid was hiding something behind his back. "Hagrid, what's that?"
Hagrid smiled suddenly, "Why, it's your birthday present! Look!" Inside the cage Hagrid was holding was a snowy white owl.
"Wow Hagrid, he's beautiful! I'll call him SoruHOLD-THE-JAM!mcfarklegut... The third!"
Hagrid cleared his throat to keep from laughing, "Any," Hagrid coughed, "any particular reason why?"
Harry shrugged, "No, not really."
Hagrid smiled, "Well Harry you can't do that!"
Harry frowned, "Why not? Britain-"
"To the Queen!"
"-is a free country!"
Hagrid shook his head. "I mean that this owl's a girl."
"Oh," said Harry, "Well in that case, I'll call her Hedwig."
Hagrid laughed, "And a right fine name it is! Well Harry," said Hagrid, tapping the brick wall with his umbrella to recreate the arch, "it's been fun. Here's your ticket for the Hogwarts Express." Hagrid and Harry had reentered the muggle world.
Harry looked down at his ticket. "Platform 9 ¾? But Hagrid, there's no such-" When Harry looked up; Hagrid was gone, leaving Harry in the uncomfortable situation of having only wizard money from Gringotts in his pocket, and no way to get home. "Oh great."
Harry started the long fifty-mile walk home. "What I wouldn't do for a broomstick right now."
Oddly
