"Doc-tor WHOOOOOOOO?"


Professor Cheesymac swiftly spirited Harry off his new Magical World, specifically to the magical pub known as the Leaky Cauldron where she ordered a small firewhiskey, leave the bottle.

Only a moment passed before the first drunk peered at the lightning scar on Harry's forehead cried "MY GOD, IT'S — SCARFACE MCGILLICUDDY!"

"NO IT'S NOT!" roared the Professor. "IT'S HARRY POTTER EVENTHORIZON-VERISIGN-ERSATZ! Oh bugger, this stuff goes right through me..."

Many knees were in mid-fold when someone else entered the pub.

"HAGRID!" cried the patrons.

And so Harry was able to go about his business. "Shirley Temple," he said to the barman, and scanned the room. Yes, many worshipers for his future cult — and, sitting quietly just above the chamber door, a man who looked like a pale bust of Pallas. His eyes were pale blue, one had a film over it, and Harry felt a sudden sense of deja vu when he said "Be seeing you," just before turning into a screeching photino bird and vanishing into the screaming void.

"Happens a lot in these stories," said Professor Macintosh around the neck of her bottle. "That was Professor Quirinus R.J. Quirrell. He'll be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year. At Hogwarts," she added darkly. "Mr. Potter... do you know... how much have you been told... about how your original parents died?"

"Eaten by a rhinoceros," said Harry promptly.

"Alas," said Professor MacGoonshow, "a pleasant lie to conceal a dark and awesome truth."

"I love awesome!" said Harry.

"Do you know, I rather thought you might," said McGottacatchemall, and sighed like a desert wind on a cold dark night.

Something strange clutched at Harry's heart. It was his appendix. "What... did happen?" he murmured, massaging it back into place.

"Tell you momentarily," said McG, "when we go to the bookstore. Put on my tab, Tom," she added to the bartender, who wasn't there. Neither was the bar. Because they were standing in the bookstore of Flourish and Blotts.

"What just happened?" said Professor McGoneagain.

"I'm sorry!" said Harry. "It's a thing I do. It's a family tradition, or an old charter, or something."

"Well, Flourish and Blotts don't take American Express," sniffed Professor Polygon. "We'll need to fetch you some gold from Gringotts."

"What?!" screamed Harry. "An idealistic-contra-materialistic magical society and you're on the GOLD standard?! HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF MODERN MONETARY THEORY?!"

"It's only 1991, Mr Potter! Warren Mosler hasn't written Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy yet!"

"How do you know about that, then?"

"Time turners," began McGallimaufry, and Harry chimed in with "the solution to every problem!"

"Except," added the Professor solo, "for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, Voldemort."

"Voldemort?" Harry whispered. The name burned cold and ruthless, with the diamond clarity of a hammer of pure titanium descending upon an anvil of yielding flesh, whee-splat, and a chill swept over Harry as he felt the sudden urge to use the term déjà vu.

"Steady on, boy, it's only a name," said Professor MagAnalClog. "But he was a mean, dirty, no-good, low down rotten dirty liar cheat horse thief and a poor judge of whisky. Oh, he was evil!" shuddered Professor LlamaConGag. "Yermy Wibble called for increased taxes and conscription and Voldemort boiled his dog!"

"What did Voldemort have against taxes and conscription?"

"Nothing, it was dogs he didn't like," said GalaManClog, and laughed until she ran out of phlegm. "He didn't like parents, either. He slew your parents, right before your baby eyes, and your puppy, too."

Tears were coming into Harry's eyes. He wiped them away in anger or maybe desperation, I didn't know those people, not really, they aren't my parents now, it would be pointless to feel so sad for them -

When Harry was done sobbing into the witch's robes, he looked up, and felt a little bit better to see tears in Professor McGonagall's eyes as well. Then he realised they were his own tears. "Sorry," he said.

"You're a little fountain, you are," said Professor ClamGaolNag, pulling a bath towel out of her sleeve and wiping them both down with it.

"So what happened?" Harry said, his voice trembling.

"The Dark Lord came to Godric's Hollow," Professor McGonagall said in a whisper. "You should have been hidden, but you were betrayed. The Dark Lord killed James, and he killed Lily, and he came in the end to you, to your cot."

"What about my puppy?"

"Stepped on it with his hob-nailed boot. And then with the other one. And then he cast the Killing Curse at you, and that was where it ended. The Killing Curse is formed of pure hate, and strikes directly at the soul, severing it from the body. It cannot be blocked, and whomever it strikes, they die. But you survived. You are the only person ever to survive. The Killing Curse rebounded and struck the Dark Lord, leaving only the burnt hulk of his body and a scar upon your forehead. That was the end of the terror, and we were free. That, Harry Potter, is why people want to see the scar on your forehead, and why they inexplicably want to see you naked."

"I beg your pardon?" said Harry.

"Fans," said AllMcGonga with a shudder, "they're creepier than You-Know-Who."

"We can take that to the bank," said Harry.