An Anthology of Wizard Wheezes!
(Funny Tales from the Magical World!)
Fake Names
The eight friends stumbled drunkenly out of the club and into the busy street.
Following the end of the war against Lord Voldemort, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had decided to celebrate by painting the town red, muggle style. They had also decided to drag their fellow Gryffindors, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger and the man who won, Harry Potter, along for the ride as well.
Seamus, Neville, Ron and Lavender were loudly singing some Irish drinking song that Seamus had just taught to the other three, Parvati and Dean were trying to walk and tongue wrestle at the same time and Harry was trying his best to keep Hermione, the groups' lightweight, from falling flat on her face.
Unfortunately Harry wasn't exactly steady on his own feet and eventually Hermione did fall, taking Harry with her.
"Easy you two!" said Lavender.
"Yeah," agreed Seamus "At least wait until you get home before attempting drunken monkey sex!"
Hermione crawled away from Harry and towards the kerb, where she threw up down a drain.
"Nice, Granger!" said Dean.
Harry had gotten back up by now and was just helping Hermione to stand again when their attention was caught by blue flashing lights.
"Aw, shit!" cursed Seamus "It's the Muggle Aurors!"
"Alright," said Dean, who was the only one to have gone out into the Muggle world like this before and had previous experience of dealing with the police "Just keep calm everyone and if they ask for your name just give them a fake."
As everyone began trying to think of a fake name the police car came to a stop and one police officer got out.
"Alright you lot?" the officer asked. He didn't look much older than them and was probably relatively new to the job.
To Dean that just meant that talking their way out of this would be all the easier.
"We're fine, officer," he replied.
"You're friend's looking a bit worse for wear," the officer replied, nodding to Hermione.
"Yeah," said Dean "The birthday girl hit the shots a bit hard. We were just going to call it a night."
The young police officer eyed Dean suspiciously before pulling out a notebook and pencil, stating "Can I take your names?"
Dean knew that this wasn't actually a question and, without hesitation, replied "Mark Spencer."
The others looked around and realised that Dean had taken his name from the shop Marks & Spencer, which was standing on the opposite side of the street.
Seeing the Officer note down Dean's fake name, Seamus decided to follow his lead.
He spotted the John Lewis department store but decided that that was too obvious so instead offered "Lewis Johnson."
Parvati meanwhile had spotted the clothing store Primark and, after taking a brief moment to think on how this could be used as an effective name offered up "Priya Marks."
Neville's eyes had landed on a sign for the nearby Asda supermarket. That in itself was no good, but beneath the logo were the words "Part of the Walmart group" which prompted Neville give the name "Wally Mart."
Lavender, on the other hand had gone for "Debbie Nahm" which she got from the Debenhams department store.
Hermione was in no real state to answer, so Harry answered for her, giving the name "Millie Kidston" which was a combination that he mad by combining Millets, a shop specialising in outdoor clothing and camping supplies with Cath Kidston, a shop selling designer handbags and the like.
When prompted for his name, Harry had a slight moment of panic. Having been thinking of a name for Hermione, he forgot to think of one for himself.
The only place that he could immediately see was Nando's, a restaurant specialising in chicken dishes. Quickly he replied "Nando Harrison."
As all this was going on, Ron had been silently sweating. He couldn't think of a name. He could see nothing that would provide him with two names like Dean and he could see nothing that he could break into two names like most of the others had done.
He saw what Harry had done for Hermione's name, but still could not find anything.
Harry's chosen name had given him hope though. He didn't have to go with a completely fake name, just partially.
"And you, sonny?" asked the police officer, and Ron realised that the man had been talking to him.
No one but the police officer was looking at him, all desperately hoping that he didn't screw this up for them.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the iconic logo for his favourite restaurant chain in the muggle world.
Thankful for the sight of those wonderful two golden arches, Ron opened his mouth and replied with full confidence (and no small amount of ignorance) "Ronald MacDonald."
Dean gave a very small groan and hid his face in his hands as Harry, Lavender and a suddenly sobered Hermione, the only other ones to understand Ron's mistake, all turned to look at him incredulously.
And they sober up in a prison cell.
For anyone interested, the original punchline to this joke when I first heard it was Ken Tuckyfriedchicken. I think that Ron's answer works better for him.
