They stared. Hermione seemed to be drooling again.
"Uh..." said Seamus, glancing at Hermione in a peculiar fashion, "we wanted two things actually. One, do you know why Ron thinks he's Sherlock Holmes, and two—"
"DO YOU WANT TO GO SURFING!?" yelled Neville.
"Yeah, Dean promised not to give anyone cement shoes," said Seamus, while Dean grinned maniacally.
"Uhh, okay," said Harry suspiciously.
They all stampeded onto Hogwarts Beach.
"Wow, what a beautiful day," sighed Neville, who was watching Ron examining rocks through his magnifying glass in the distance. Suddenly, Parvati Patil walked up, wearing a bikini. She said (without looking at the revolted look on Dean's face) "Hey Dean, is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
Dean pulled his wand out of his pocket and twirled it. "A wand," he said mildly.
Seamus, who appeared to be salivating, sidled up to Parvati. "I'm happy to see you," he said, glaring at Dean.
Parvati ran away.
Hermione stepped in front of Harry. Throwing a seductive look at him, she dramatically ripped off her robes, revealing her bathing suit-clad self. Harry shielded his eyes.
Hermione looked angry and ran down to the shore, diving into the water.
"Good idea," said Dean, and they all flew down to the waves and jumped in. Suddenly, four surfboards appeared.
"Wow!" yelled Harry, and he got up onto the surfboard and started to surf. For about two seconds. Then he fell off.
"I can do better than you!" shouted Seamus. He enthusiastically bent to spring onto his board, but apparently was a little overenthusiastic as he jumped over the surfboard and landed on his face in the wet sand.
Hermione's head appeared above the waves. When she spotted Seamus's face covered in sand, she screamed in genuine horror and pointed at him, yelling, "OH MY GOD! IT'S SWAMP THING!" Then, still shrieking loudly, she ran across the beach and into the castle. Harry roared with laughter.
Seamus glanced over, wiped the sand from his face, and grinned at Harry. "Yeah, that was pretty funny, eh?"
Harry choked. "No— it's not that— " he gasped, still shaking with laughter. He pointed at Seamus's shorts. Seamus looked down at his shorts. With one little problem.
They weren't there.
"AHHHHHHH!!!" screamed Seamus, turning brick red. He ran farther into the water so as to cover what little was there. "Where'd my shorts go?!"
Just then Harry and Seamus were distracted by a delighted squeal from Neville. "Look guys! I caught one!" he exulted, holding something up. Harry and Seamus stared.
It was Seamus's shorts. More startling than that, though, was exactly what Neville had caught. Parvati's hair flew everywhere as she struggled to free her head from Seamus's shorts; it looked as though she was about to explode. Unfortunately, she did just that.
BOOOOOMMM!
Neville was thrown twenty feet through the air as little pieces of Parvati floated merrily down into the waves. He landed with a loud SPLOOSH and thrashed wildly.
Harry was laughing again. Seamus was crying.
They left the beach.
Later that day, in the fifth year boys' dormitory, Harry was trying to comfort Seamus, who was devastated about the loss of Parvati. Harry was finding this hard, however, because just thinking of the incident brought tears of laughter to his eyes. Seamus was miserably packing his Parvati shrine into his trunk.
"Come on, Seamus, it's not your fault," said Harry, his lip twitching.
Neville was there, too. He was nursing a huge bruise on his belly that he'd gotten when Parvati had exploded. Dumbledore had appeared on the spot and given Neville a World's Best Belly Flop Award. Unfortunately, Neville hadn't been conscious to enjoy it. Needless to say, he wasn't quite mourning the loss of Parvati.
Hermione had been spotted in her dormitory, fixing Parvati's bed and clearing her things out of the way. She'd also placed a large sign that said "HARRY'S BED" on the pillow. Harry, although he usually was extremely annoyed by Hermione's attempts to get him to sleep with her, was seriously considering moving there. He wanted to laugh hysterically about Parvati's exploding without Seamus or Neville there to tell him off. In fact, Harry hadn't done anything but laugh all day. He didn't know if it was healthy to do so— his ribs were aching.
At dinner that night, Professor Dumbledore gave a very grave announcement. "Students," he said, "we have had a most horrible pair of tragedies today. Most of you already know about the unfortunate explosion of Parvati Patil. She was— erm—" he appeared to be searching for something nice to say about her. "A student." he finished lamely. Harry's mouth was twitching again.
"Secondly, a patient of St. Mungo's Hospital has escaped. Most unfortunately, he freed an army of bloodthirsty owls from their confines and they are on the rampage. Already, they have commited one murder. Mister Igor Karkaroff, of Durmstrang Institute, has been killed."
Everyone was silent. Then Harry burst into hysterical laughter. Everyone stared at him; he was slapping his knee and spewing milk out of his nose.
"May I ask what is so funny, Mr. Potter?' said Dumbledore.
Harry just shook his head. He took several deep breaths andmanaged to choke out, "It— wasn't— owls!"
"Then what was it?"
Harry pointed down the table at Ron, who, incidentally, was wearing a ski mask and holding an axe. Something red was dripping off of it. "Stole— his— donut!" Harry said, and promptly fell off his seat, holding his sides.
Suddenly, Ron stood up, holding the axe above his head. The sky outside went dark, thunder clapped, and lightning flashed, illuminating the ski mask. "BWAHAHAHAH!" yelled Ron. "I KILLED KARKAROFF FIRST, BUT THERE ARE MANY MORE TO COME! BEWARE OF RON THE WANTON FAWN!" He started laughing again and ran from the hall, slamming the door behind him. Excited whispers filled the room.
That night in the dormitory, when everyone else was asleep, Ron flew in through the window and landed softly on his bed. He stashed the axe under his bed and took a bite from a large donut in his hand. "Mmmmm, sprinkles," he said, contentedly rubbing his stomach. Then he peeled off the ski mask and crawled into bed. During the night he could be heard muttering things like, "beware Ron the Wanton Fawn" and, "bob and weave, that'll teach 'em, yeah!"