Hi, my name is Harry Potter. A few days ago, I found out some pretty spectacular news.
I'm f-ing famous.
That's right. I'm eleven years old, and I'm famous for killing some wanker eleven years ago or some s-t like that.
The news came suddenly. My cousin and I were f-ing around with some firecrackers late at night. Our family, his parents and my uncle and aunt, were taking a vacation out to the country. My cousin and I are best friends; we do everything together. We f-k s-t up.
We were doing our due diligence to add some cosmopolitan flavour to the bucolic little townhouse his parents rented out, but it started raining and I had to take off my sunglasses. I'm just not the same without my sunglasses. They augment my natural swagger and procaciousness. It's like, when I take em off, the lameness of the surrounding material world penetrates my being. It's pretty gay.
Just kidding about that last part. I may be pretty damn cool, but I'd never stoop so low as to use someone's sexuality as a derogatory and/or pejorative statement. Now THAT'S juvenile.
Now, Dudley and I we're trying to light some firecrackers-maybe even set that bucolic little shack on fire. But our flow was totally rekt. Some fat*ss, and I mean he was a big mofo, burst through the door right when the sign of my removed sunglasses capitulated to the rain.
He had a whole bunch of lame s-t t say about safety measures around hazardous materials like firecrackers. That was the first thing he said, "Now, you know Harry, it's been a long time since I've seen you. Eleven years to be exact, but that's no excuse for messing around with such inflammatory materials. You might start yourself a conflagration here. That would not be good, especially in wood this fresh for kindling."
But I zoned him out at "Eleven." I've heard it all before. "Don't set things on fire." "Hazardous materials are not a toy." "The fire department will no longer accept calls from this number." "You are banned from using any type of flammable material until the age of 18." "If you ever spank my grandma again without MY consent, I'll put this ping pong paddle of yours to good use."
Just another boring adult trying to put LIMITS on me. And I can't handle that kind of negative energy. So I zoned him the F out.
And he kept talking and talking and talking. I was so bored, that when my uncle tried to shoot him with a shotgun, I was happy. Finally, an end to this oaf's soporific locutions!
But the guy grabbed my uncles shotgun and curled the barrel with his hands. I gotta say, I respect his strength. He used that as an opportunity to lecture us all about firearm safety and the need for higher gun control.
"That could have ended dangerously there, Mr. Dursley. You know, firearms are not very safe. You could have killed me. See, look here kids." He turned to us. "Firearms are not a toy. This only underscores the need for more gun control. Currently legislation surrounding gun control is too lax. It permits predators, in the name of domestic security, to arm themselves against good natured citizens. It's the basis of our crime problem."
That's when Mrs. Dursley jumped in.
"Now, Mr…." she paused at his name.
"Hagrid, fair madam." He said.
"Mr. Hagrid, I must say I respectfully disagree. I don't think that argument holds any grounds, you see."
"On what basis?" Hagrid said.
"Well, you are likely correct that some people abuse the current gun control legislation for their own perverse purposes. But, you must keep in mind WHO those people are. They're criminals! They want to break the law. It's the very telos of their being, written in the code of their DNA. They, why, they have no choice but to break the law. Murder is in their heart, and they have a lust for it, not to mention their predilecton for certain, despicable and vagarous things, their voyeur and their, well for… for… cocaine and the meth. If these people, who lack any sense of virtue, want guns, they can smuggle them in. They can get them anywhere. The extent of our gun legislation will have minimal effects on the amount of guns these bad guys have. All it will do is disarm the good guys. It will leave us at their hands."
Hagrid thought about what Mrs. Dursley said.
"Obviously the points you bring up are valid, but they lack an understanding of the longview of a proposal like mine. See, a large reason these bad people have weapons is because of the actions of regular people. Someone without any offenses goes and purchases a weapon, completely legally. They hold on to it for a while, and then sell it on the street, or even to a friend or relative. They report it stolen, and they're fine.
"See, a majority of these weapons don't come from large smuggling operations like they have in the movies. They come from characters like these: regular, everyday people who did this one bad thing to make some extra cash on the side. They'd never do an explicitly evil thing, like shoot someone themselves, or rob someone, but they'd "lose" one of their guns for some extra cash. It's a reasonable thing to do. And that's the problem. Grey characters who aren't perfectly good or perfectly bad. But, they're averse to any kind of explicit or risky lawbreaking, so if you could stop them from buying guns, the brunt of the criminals would lose their gun supply. They'd be just as armed as us." Hagrid seemed satisfied with his diatribe and winked at us boys.
I looked over at Dudley, and I could tell he was bored out of his mind. "Who the hell would want to do away with guns?" I could tell we were on the same wavelength. When I motioned with my head to sneak out, he nodded in agreement.
We snuck out just as we heard Mrs. Dudley saying something like, "But wouldn't that leave the people powerless against government tyranny?" The rain continued and we realized that we forgot our coats. Going back in wasn't an option, so we decided to brave it. We found some krabs on the beach and killed em. We didn't even know if them krabs was supposed to be there, if it was natural or what-not.1 We killed 'em anyhow. It was a grand old time. We dressed up like the boys from Golding's novel; I got Dudley to pretend he was a pig and I chased him around with some raw lobster claws I pretended was a conch. Then I started sneezing. We both realized we were cold as hell out there and were liable to catch cold.
We returned to the cabin. The adults hadn't even noticed we were gone. They'd moved from their original position to the table in the middle of the living room.
"I'm just not convinced that would change anything for us for the better. Look, we can't just leave the EU. We've already proven to be incapable of doing it in function. We can say whatever we want, but we won't be able to leave it." Hagrid said. As he said it, Mr. Dursley looked over and saw Dudley and I sitting in the corner.
"Boys! Ha! Where've you been off too?" He said in British.
"Well, we decided to take a little walk," Dudley said.
"But it's freezing out. You could have caught cold!" Mrs. Dursley said.
"Oh, nonsense, I can warm 'em up." Hagrid said with gusto. He stood up and pulled out an umbrella. This was the moment that caught my eye. He pointed it near us and flame shot out of it!
He'd clearly intended it for the fireplace behind us, but he was just a tad off, and it hit Dudley square in the chest. In no more than two seconds, Dudley's life force withered out of him, and a minute later what was once known as Dudley combusted into a pile of ashes on the floor.
Shock.
"DUDLEY!" Screamed his mother. Hagrid's eyes widened.
"I should not have done that." He said. "Quick, Harry, come here! Let's get out of here!"
I looked at him like he was wild. "What why would I go with you? You just offed me best friend! Me cousin!"
"Look, Harry, I have great news. Yer a wizard, a magical boy! You have the potential to do this kind of thing. You too can burn people. Here, take my hand." He stretched his hand out to grab mine. I half extended mine forward, unsure of his offer. He reached out farther, unintentionally imitating the ceiling of Sistine's Chapel to barely touch the tip of my finger.
Right as he made this motion, Vernon, my uncle, was lifting one of the wooden chairs to hit Hagrid with, but, as Vernon swung the chair, Hagrid touched my hand, and we vanished.
We must have teleported because the next thing I knew, I was somewhere completely different.
"I'm actually not supposed to use magic, Harry. But, the way I see it, f-k 'em." Hagrid said to me. He hit my shoulder.
In a moment, my previous opinion gave way, and an inaugural one replaced it. This man was a legend. I knew that he was my man. I would follow him to the end of my days. I put on my sunglasses and nodded.
"Yeah, f-k 'em." I said.
"So, I gotta tell you something. Walk with me." He started walking away. We were in a train station, and we had appeared in a corner so busy as to be entirely conspicuous. We walked towards the exit.
"Harry, you are a wizard, but -"
"Hell yeah," I interpolated.
" you are something even more important than magical. You are famous, Harry."
My eyes widened.
"Yes, Harry, you heard me, you are a famous wizard. You've been famous since you were but a wee-lad. A baby. See When you were a wee-lad, an evil wizard. The most evil of 'em all. He's the one killed your parents. He was going to kill you. But, as he tried to, your mother stepped in the way. Her love protected you. So, for the first time in history, that spell backfired, and this evil wizard himself was killed by his own spell."
I didn't know what to say.
"You mean, my parents didn't die in a car crash?"
"No, of course not Harry. They didn't die in a car crash; they were powerful wizards." He bent low to tell me that part, and then stood up again.
He led me to an old alley and hit the bricks a bunch. The brick all fell down, and I chalk that up to his profound strength.
We entered this place called Diagon Alley. It was this magic marketplace. Everything flew around and everyone dressed up long robes from the 1500's or something.
He procured a list from his coat pocket. "School supplies," he said. Some of the items were unorthodox, but it made sense to consider them traditional for a more magical oriented curriculum.
"Now, Harry," he said. "You need to know one other thing. You, doing what you did as a wee babe, are a known figure in recent wizarding history. Everyone knows what you did, killing that guy, but no one knows what you look like. When they first lay eyes on you, they're gonna wanna soak you in. You're the hero of the wizarding world, and the hero the wizarding world's been deprived of for the past eleven years."
"Ah," I said.
"I just thought I'd warn you. Now, before we go anywhere's else, we'd best get some money."
He led me to a large bank with the word Weltanschauung displayed as a masthead.
"Weltanshauung: A Bank Above All Other's." Hagrid noticed me looking at it and chuckled. "A goblin bank," he said. "They like the Germans. I assume that's German for 'altruistic finance' or something. You know, something to show that these guys are out to serve your financial needs and your financial needs only."
"Well, they sound like guys I might like." I said.
Hagrid showed me my bank vault. My parents, somehow or another, were rich. I guess dying did wonders for their Roth IRA, or whatever Hagrid called it. They just willed it to me, and it kept accruing interest like crazy. Hagrid said there's a major difference between muggle economics and magical boy economics- namely, the rare but powerful influence of prophecies.
The example he shared with me had to do with my own birth. Apparently, my parents willed to me a decent amount of money, but not near enough to account for the absolute haul present in my bank account. Thankfully for me, there was this prophecy back in 1980 by this lady named Trelawney. She told a guy named Albus Dumbledore that there was some kid gonna be born near the end of the summer, and long story short either he kills that dark wizard I told you about earlier, or he is killed by that guy. Well, that kid is me, and I already got that mofo. In the stock market, the valuation of all public wizarding companies depended on the downfall of this dark wizard guy. He was, apparently, pushing for a large, nationalistic, and racially motivated totalitarian form of government. Those were factors of varying value to the economic sphere. In fact, not all of them were bad, in that regard. However, the rise of this bad guy presaged dark times ahead - namely, a recession. This guy had a conspicuous personal foible for the economic sphere. His main problem was his unpredictability.
See, the markets long term stability depends on the reliability of myriad variables. At least, this is what Hagrid was telling me. A major variable in play here is the encroachment of government bureaucracy on the private sector. This bad guy was highly equivocal in his public political statements. His policy on the expansion of the public sector, his policy on the regulation of the private sector, both remained a tenebrous enigma. It was a buyers market, or something. I don't know the term. People were trying to get out while they still could.
However, this is where my parents stepped up. They, and this Dumbledore guy, knew about this prophecy. So, they thought, there is a fifty-fifty shot that Voldemort (the dark wizard from above) kills my parents and this boy, therefore continuing his fascist rise to power. Or, he gets wrecked by this little babe, namely, me. Knowing that the continuity of Voldemort's totalitarian rise to power had gargantuan effects on the economic sphere, they bet that the economy would go through the roof by september 1981, the month after I was born.
They were right, and it paid off lavishly for Dumbledore and me, but my parents weren't so lucky. They, of course, died as a result of the prophecy. They didn't expect that they could be on the winning side of the bet, and still get absolutely rekt. They believed that if I defeated Voldemort, he alone would die. Life can sure suck.
With the funds that my parents so cerebrally accrued via their murder suicide, I bought all my school supplies for the upcoming year. I also happened to purchase some marijuana off a guy in Knockturn alley. I didn't know how to smoke it, but I figure it will make for a good time to have my first weed experience within the confines of a magical boarding school.
After I purchased everything I needed for the upcoming school year, Hagrid rushed off to go meet the school's headmaster - that Dumbledore guy.2
He left me on that same train platform he teleported both of us to when we left my aunt and uncle. He told me to head over to this platform called, 9 ¾. I was a little nonplussed at the idea of finding such a platform. My luggage was heavy, and wheeling it around in a busy train station proved discouraging.3
I'd been ready to give up, when I happened upon a gingerly family full of physical similtudes of one another. Their gingerlyness did nothing to peak my interest. No, it was the peculiarity of their carts, packed similarly as mine, and the conspicuousness of their atmosphere. They walked through the station as strangers to modern technology, but not in the usual amish sense of the phrase. They were uniquely dressed, and this served to make me think of them as, not merely a gingerly family, but I then saw them as a gingerly wizardly family. And I watched them.
I watched that family, one by one, ram their carts straight into a pillar. The mother of this family instructed her Kinder to charge through one by one. They disappeared into the brick pillars.
I introduced myself.
"Hello ma'am." I said. She looked over at me. I thought she was the hottest mofo I'd seen in years. Hotter, even, than my secret crush, Vermilda Wilde, from across the way. Vermilda was a year above me in school, but I caught her looking at me in the hallways. It's a real shame I'll never see her again, seeing as my relationship with the Dursleys burned up with Dudley's flesh. But, if these wizard babes are anything like this ginger mom, the Dudley flesh it'd cost me to enter would be a more than fair price to pay. I'd be willing to pay it twice over.
I was speechless at first when she first turned to me. Then the silence became kind of awkward and I knew I had to break it.
"Hi, I couldn't help but notice your children's disappearance into the brick pillar over there. I'm personally, trying to get to platform 9 ¾. It seems like your unorthodox methods of travel correspond to the unorthodox train platform I seek. You must surely know something about this platform I seek." She looked at me funny.
"If you don't mind, though, I happen to be fairly famous. My name is Harry Potter." As I spoke these words, I lifted up my hair and revealed a scar on my forehead. This scar was the last remnant of Voldemort's failed killing curse; in that sense, it was the last ontological remnant of Voldemort, since his body vanished when his curse failed. He now only exists in a certain spiritual, idealistic sense, within the minds of women and men.
Once I showed her my scar, her eyes lit up.
"You're! Harry Potter! You're famous!" At that moment, I knew that I was gonna be an F-ing beast. I was gonna kick a- and take names. This, was my world. I smirked in response.
"Yeah," I said. She turned to her children and told them the good news, and they crowded me. They lifted me up into the air and shouted, "Hip Hip Hooray! It's Harry Potter!" I'd never been so smug in my entire life. They set me down and I asked their names.
"We're the Weasleys," they said.
"Nice to meet you," I responded. And before I knew it, I found myself alone again on the platform. They disappeared. I looked around. They'd snuck off into the pillar. I was so caught up with my own fame and brilliance, that I'd completely missed that they'd left.
Not only had they left, they'd also robbed me! My cart was gone!
Pissed. I charged in the pillar after them. I found myself on another train platform. A bunch of wizarding bozos and weirdos and s-t were all there, but I was pissed. I was gonna find my s-t.
They'd rue the day they robbed Harry Potter!
I found my s-t on the train. I'd been searching all over the platform proper, but I had no luck. The train started leaving, and I thought I'd better hedge my losses and get on the train to the school. I looked around for a place, but everywhere was full of weirdo's doing some weird magic boy crap. I wanted to be on my own, too, at least, as much as possible. I was pretty bummed about losing my wizard weed, and now I knew I wouldn't have another opportunity to score some more 'till the school year ended. I had just about withred up into a ball of pre-teenage angst in the hallway, and cried myself to sleep touching my fame scar, ruing the day I was cursed with such an awful life, when I walked past a carriage with one of those gingers in it.
I slammed in there.
"Hey, you! What did you guys do with all my stuff!" He looked up at me.
"Oh, I'm so happy you found me! We were looking everywhere for you! You'd disappeared on the platform, so we took your stuff. We didn't want someone to take it while you were unaware."
"What?" I said. "You took it while I was unaware. You must have used your magic, your special ginger charm or something. To… to trick me."
"How dare you accuse me of that?!" He said. "We can't just use our ginger charm whenever we want. It's a sacred gift, and it's actually really hard to use. We wouldn't use it for such a simple robbery." He turned around and folded his arms.
"Well, you must have!"
"No I didn't!"
"Yes, you did."
"Alright, what does ginger charm even look like? Huh? Can you even answer that?"
"Yes. Of course I can." I rejoined.
"Okay, then tell me what it looks like. What are its chief characteristics?"
"Well…" I pondered. "Okay, who cares? I don't need to recite to you the chief characteristics of ginger charm to know that what I saw out there, on that platform, was the quintessential manifestation of ginger charm." He just stared at me when I said this.
"Look." He said. "I don't know what to tell you. I didn't use my ginger charm on you."
"I didn't say you specifically used it. I said you guys used it. I don't know who used it, but one or many of you did."
"Okay, well, let me tell you this, Harry, that none of us used it. What would we need to steal your stuff for? We have perfectly good stuff of our own. See, look." He pointed at the luggage compartment. I looked where he was pointing and saw my footlocker.
"Hey! That's mine!" I said. He threw up his arms.
"Oh my goodness," he said. At just that moment, someone came in the door. A blazing babe, our age, entered. Curly locks; she looked hella smart.
"What in the HELL is going on in here!" She screeched. We recoiled. Then, the ginger responded.
"This guy is accusing me of stealing his stuff. I didn't steal it, I carried it all the way onto the train for him. His stuff's all here. I've been searching for him for ages."
"You took this stuff on the train without me knowing that you did that, though." I said. "Don't act like it's an act of charity."
"Well, I don't know what's going on, but I know you guys are very loud." She said. "We could hear you in the other carriage."
I personally held my tongue. This was one smokin' babe, and I didn't want to blow my chances with her or any other wizard babe cause I lost my cool the first chance I could. This ginger boy, wasn't so lucky.
"Well, you can put some earphones in or something, cause that's not my problem!" He said. "We're gonna be loud. We're talking about robbery!"
"You're the one who stole from me." I said. "Don't attack her for it."
"What?!" He said.
"Yeah, don't attack her for you stealing my stuff."
"Dude, I told you already, you're stuff is right there!"
"No, you told me where 'your' stuff is, and then you pointed at my stuff."
"No dude, your stuff is right next to my stuff. Your stuff is right next to where I pointed."
"What the hell man, that's your stuff. I saw it in your cart with your family earlier. You can't just swap your stuff with mine and then expect me to let you get away with it. You can't trick me man."
"Look, I don't know what to tell you. I have never seen that stuff next to my stuff in my life." The ginger said.
"Gosh. Dude, what's your name?" I asked.
"Well, I'm not gonna tell you now, ain't I."
"Come on, just tell me. I already know what you look like. I can report you either way."
"Okay, it's Ron. Ron Weasley."
"And I'm Hermione." The girl said. She reached out her hand. We stared awkwardly at it.
"No one asked you." Ron said.
"Considering you just stole his stuff, I don't care what you have to say, Ron." She said.
"Yeah!" I added.
"Come on," he said. "I didn't do anything." I clenched my jaw.
"Gah." I let out. I sat down in one of the seats. "I'm mad!" I said. "This makes no sense. What am I doing here?" They looked at me.
"I don't even care anymore. You can take my stuff."
"To be fair, it's not your-" Hermione hit him.
"I really don't care. Take it." I put my sunglasses on and leaned against the window. I folded my arms. Eventually he sat down, and she said she needed to go back to her compartment. He sat down and a lady came by with a cart of foodstuffs. It was mostly candy from what I could hear. I didn't take my eyes off the window, but I heard him barter with her for some sweets. He sat back down.
"Have you ever had this kind of candy before?" He asked. I looked over at him and saw that he carried a haul of chocolate and sweets. I'd never seen anything like it.
"I don't know." I said.
"Well, look through some of it." He said. He showed me a box of chocolate. "You know what this is, right?"
"I assume it's what it says it is on the box. A chocolate frog, right?"
"You really are new to magic, huh. I never would have thought, Harry Potter, not in tune with the wizarding world."
"No." I said.
"Where were you? I mean, you are famous, you know. It is pretty obvious that you were with muggles somewhere. Of course you were, everyone kind of knew that already. Is it true though?"
"That I was with muggles?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. I was with muggles. That's what they're called, right?" He chuckled at that.
"When did you find out? I've always wondered what that would be like, to find out you were a wizard, if you were a muggle."
"Not long ago, actually. Honestly, it was like, well, it was today."
"No way."
"Oh hell yeah." I said. "I was on vacation. I was with my extended family. I've been with them as long as I can remember. They're dope. Some guy came and got me. He said he worked at Hogwarts, and he said that Dumbledore sent him."
"No way. They didn't send you a letter?"
"I guess they did. I never read it, though. I kept getting them but it seemed kind of weird. Hogwarts is a weird ass name. I thought people were trying to prank me. Kids like to do that at school. I didn't want to let 'em get to me."
"But what was it like? Shopping for school? How did you pay for everything?"
"Well, it's a funny story."
At that point, I told them everything that Hagrid told me about my fortune: it's genesis, and the brain behind it. It took a long time. Ron was astounded at the fiscal prescience of Dumbledore. He'd said, "That's why he's the greatest of all time. Who else would have thought to profit off the potential death of a baby like that. Simply amazing." Hermione wasn't so happy about it, though. When she spoke up about it we defended Dumbledore. She said it wasn't "ethical." But I don't think that has any place in fiscal matters. It didn't make much sense to me. Ron said as much, and that shut her up for a while.
By the end of the train trip, it was dark, and I'd made two new friends: Ron and Hermione. Their personalities were diametrically opposed. I figured myself the hegelian synthesis between the thesis and antithesis these personalities posed, and that stroked my ego sufficiently to call them my friends.
We stood up to grab our stuff and get off the train.
"Wait a minute. What bag is mine again?" I asked Ron.
"I believe your bag is the nice one, Harry." Hermione said. She glared at Ron.
"At this point, I don't even care anymore. I just wanna get outta this train." I said.
"You can rest assured, anyhow, that I didn't steal your bag, Harry."
"But if Harry is so rich, as we all established, then why would his bag look so ratty and terrible?" Hermione said.
"That's what I thought too, but it doesn't change the fact that his bag is ratty and terrible, despite his wealth." Ron responded.
"Maybe it is, I don't know. Let's get out of here." I said.
We left the train and took boats up to the great castle which could only be the castle of Hogwarts. It was a massive stone building perched on a large mountain, and we sailed up to the base of the mountain and were escorted to the chambers of the hall.
1 Are krabs even British? I can't even remember, which is ridiculous considering I took a semester of "Krabs and Briton: A HIstory." Based on the title, I would assume that there must be a significant connection. However, there's a distinct possibility that the 'Krab" was a metaphor for racism in British history. I can't remember.
2 The name, by the way, is Hogwarts, and odd name for a school.
3 An odd fact is how I got my luggage in the first place. Hagrid somehow or another packed my luggage into a large footlocker, and that, mixed with all of my school supplies, occupied my cart at the train station. I must say, it was quite unnerving. I was vigilant against all potential robbers, signs of this non-magic discerning proof train platform, and any precariously packed luggage that invariably threatened to fall with any thought of movement. All this served only to enervate my precious, positive vibes.