Harry Potter's Sixth Year in Bad Fanfiction
BY LARGEMARGE
Author's Note: Cameo of a Time-Turner. Since I'm the one writing this story, it would be very good if I understood time travel. But I don't. In fact, it confuses the heck out of me. Oh well. Happy Valentine's Day, all!
Disclaimer: I own a few things, but millions of dollars and Harry Potter are not among them.
Harry's Excellent Adventure
Harry was sitting in Transfigurations doodling on a piece of parchment when Filch ran in.
"Professor Dumbledore says Potter should get up to his office now!" he yelled, looking slightly maniacal.
Everyone began to whisper.
"What's going on, Harry?" Ron whispered.
Harry shrugged. "I don't know," he said nervously.
"Now, Potter!" Filch yelled, so Harry got up and followed him.
Up in Dumbledore's office, the headmaster was looking very solemn indeed. "Have a seat, Harry," he said, after dismissing Filch. "I have something very important to tell you." He reached inside his desk and pulled out a dusty glass sphere.
Harry jumped nervously when he saw it. It looked like those things he'd seen in the Department of Mysteries last year.
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Yes, Harry. You have guessed what this is, I think."
"A…a dusty glass sphere?" Harry guessed.
"It's a prophecy, Potter!" Dumbledore said sharply.
"Oh, right. A prophecy."
"Yes. So as I was saying," Dumbledore continued after throwing a disapproving glance Harry's way, "It's a prophecy. To be more precise, it's a prophecy about you. It was discovered in the Department of Mysteries in an old abandoned room with lots of locks on the door. Apparently everyone forgot about it. Convenient for this chapter, isn't it?"
"I'll say," Harry said.
"Yeah, so this is the companion prophecy to the one you discovered last year. It reveals some more stuff about how you will defeat Voldemort."
"Really?" Harry asked interestedly. "What does it say?"
"Perhaps I should tell you what it's called first, Harry," Dumbledore said, looking at him over the top of his glasses.
"Okay." Harry shrugged. "Makes no difference to me. What's it called?"
Dumbledore leaned forward. "It's called…the Prophecy of Romance."
"The Prophecy of Romance?" Harry echoed skeptically. "What kind of a name is that?"
"Well, what else do you think the author would call it?" Dumbledore asked, folding his arms. "You do know Valentine's Day is coming up, don't you?"
"Oh, right," Harry remembered.
"So anyway, let's break this sucker open and hear what it has to say," Dumbledore suggested.
"But isn't that the only one?" Harry asked with concern.
"Nah. There was like a hundred of these things in that locked abandoned old room. Guess it was a pretty important prophecy. Too bad we all forgot about it."
"Yeah," Harry echoed. "Well, let's hear it."
Dumbledore smashed the sphere on his desk. A pearly white figure rose up and began to speak.
"…the boy will bring balance to the force…his name will be Anakin Skywalker…he will become a great Jedi…" The figure dissolved.
"Huh?" Harry looked confused. "I don't get it, professor."
"Oops." Dumbledore looked embarrassed and began rooting around in his desk. "Must have grabbed the wrong one. Aah, here it is." He pulled out another dusty round sphere and cracked it open.
Another pearly white figure began to speak. "…Harry Potter must marry the one who moans in the second floor girls bathroom before midnight on St. Valentine's Day in his sixth year…together they will defeat the Dark Lord forever…plus they'll have really near-sighted children together…well, that's all for now…over and out…"
The figure dissolved.
"Marry who?" Harry asked in a horrified voice.
"Hmmm…the one who moans in the second floor girls bathroom…" Dumbledore mused. "Now who in the world could that be? Is there a sick student?"
Slowly Harry began to catch on to what the readers were already aware of. "Wait a minute…moaning in the girls bathroom…on the second floor…that's Moaning Myrtle!"
Dumbledore looked doubtful. "That whiny dead girl?"
Harry stood up and began to pace. "Professor, I can't marry Moaning Myrtle! She's a ghost! Plus she's really creepy."
"Well, Harry, ghosts are creepy," Dumbledore pointed out helpfully.
Suddenly Harry had a thought. "Hey, wait a minute!" He spun around, a suspicious gleam in his eye. He whipped out his wand and pointed it at Dumbledore. "All right, Fred. This isn't funny anymore."
Dumbledore looked slightly surprised. "Harry, if you're going to start calling me by my first name, you should know it's Albus."
Harry lowered his wand uncertainly. "You mean…you're not Fred?"
"It's Albus," Dumbledore enunciated clearly. "Doesn't even sound like Fred."
With a sigh Harry flopped into a chair. "Well, I guess this prophecy thing is real, then. Don't you think I'm kind of young to get married, though?"
"You can't very well go against the prophecy, Harry," the headmaster pointed out. "You're going to have to marry Myrtle."
"A ghost!" Harry shouted.
"Well, naturally not," Dumbledore said. "Obviously you're going to have to use this." He held out an object.
Harry leaned in for a look. "A Time-Turner?" he asked skeptically.
"Yep. Go get Myrtle before she dies, bring her back here, and you'll be married before midnight on St. Valentine's Day. Then evidently you and Myrtle will defeat Voldemort together and have kids. Nearsighted ones. Or maybe you'll have the kids first and then defeat Voldemort," Dumbledore continued uncertainly.
Harry wrinkled up his nose at the reference to children. "But professor, what about the Chamber of Secrets and all that? If Myrtle comes back with me, doesn't that mean someone else could get killed instead? And maybe throw off all of time?"
Dumbledore leaned in close. "Harry, when are you going to learn that stuff like that doesn't matter in bad fanfiction?"
Harry shrugged. "Well, okay." He took the Time-Turner and threw it around his neck. "How many turns, d'you think?"
"About…a million forty-eight," Dumbledore calculated in his head. "But remember, Harry! You must come back to be married before midnight on Valentine's day! Do you understand?"
Harry paused to consider. "Wow, professor, St. Valentine's day is only a week away," he realized. "It's sure lucky that prophecy turned up this week and not next!"
"Yes, and convenient for this chapter too," Dumbledore agreed, just before Harry disappeared.
After 163 turns Harry lost count. He kept turning for another hour or so (well, never mind…that time reference is just going to confuse everybody). So anyway, Harry turned for a while, then he figured it was probably far enough, so he stopped turning and waited to see where he was. Or when he was. Whatever.
Well, he was still in Dumbledore's office. Looked pretty much the same, except for a little messier, maybe. Oh, and there was Young Dumbledore sitting behind the desk. He looked slightly surprised at sight of Harry.
"Hullo," he said. "Where'd you come from?"
Harry held up a hand. "I come from the future," he said distinctly. "I come in peace."
Dumbledore looked intrigued. "And you came back in time to see me?"
Wow, Young Dumbledore was an unbelievable egomaniac. Harry shook his head in disgust. "No, I came back to see Moaning Myrtle. See, we're supposed to be married. Have I gone back far enough?"
"Moaning Myrtle?" A look of perplexity on his face, Dumbledore asked, "That whiny dead girl?"
Harry sighed. Not far enough. He began turning the Time-Turner again. A while later he stopped, figuring he had to be back to Moaning Myrtle's time by now.
This time Dumbledore's office was empty. Harry looked around a bit, trying to find some indication of what time he was in. Finally he gave up and decided to go see what he could find out by snooping around the school a little.
In the hallway students were running around frantically. Harry stopped one of them.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Another student's been injured!" the kid shrieked. "Petrified. By some mysterious unknown evil! Boy, it's sure lucky no one's been killed yet!"
The student ran off, leaving Harry to smile to himself. Oh, yeah, he was good.
Now all he had to do was find Myrtle. Among other things.
So where else would Harry look but the second floor girl's bathroom? He knocked on the door, but nobody answered, so he went ahead and walked right in.
"Hello?" he called out. "Anyone here?"
One of the doors flew open. "This is a girl's bathroom," Myrtle pointed out to him in a very cold voice. "And you're a boy, so go away!"
"Myrtle!" Harry cried out. "At last I've found you! I'm here to marry you!"
Myrtle burst into tears. "Why does everyone make fun of me? Just because I'm fat? And ugly? And I have a few pimples?"
"But Myrtle!" Harry rushed at her and grabbed her by the shoulders, "You're not ugly!" He paused. "Well, that is…you're not hideous." He paused again. "I mean…you're not maimed beyond all recognition, anyway."
Myrtle wailed louder. "Olive sent you, didn't she. I hate that stupid Olive Hornby, and someday I'm going to get her, just you wait and see!"
Harry sighed. This wasn't going well at all. He decided to try again. "Look, Myrtle –"
The bathroom door opened and a boy stepped in. It was – dun dun dun – some puny-looking kid Harry had never seen before in his life. He froze up when he saw Harry and Myrtle standing there.
"Oh, and I suppose you're here to marry me too!" Myrtle yelled.
"I…uh…thought this was the boy's bathroom. Sorry." He ducked out.
Ha! You all thought it was going to be Tom Riddle, didn't you!
So anyway, after the kid left, Harry turned back to Myrtle. "Come with me to the future, Myrtle! It was foretold in a prophecy that after we're married, we'll defeat an evil dark wizard and have nearsighted children together!"
"You're from the future?" Myrtle asked.
"Yes, about fifty years or so," Harry calculated. "And even in my time you've got a thing for me."
Myrtle wrinkled up her nose. "What am I, a pedophile?"
Harry sighed. "Just…c'mon." He threw the Time-Turner's chain around her neck.
"Well…okay," she finally conceded.
"Oh, and by the way, my name's Harry Potter," he told her, just before they disappeared.
After a few false stops, Harry finally got them back to Valentine's Day. Which he knew because he asked some girl leaving the bathroom what day it was. She told him, but she sure gave him a strange look.
Myrtle looked around the bathroom. "Well, everything looks the same," she said. "Are you sure we're, like, fifty years in the future now?"
Suddenly there was a loud wailing above them. They both jumped and looked up.
Floating up near the ceiling was a ghost. "What are you doing in my bathroom!" she wailed. "Boys aren't supposed to be here –" She broke off. "Myrtle? Is that you?"
"Wilma!" Myrtle cried. "What happened? You're a ghost!"
Wilma the ghost shrugged. "I died."
"But how?"
"I don't know," Wilma said. "One minute I was in the stall, and then I heard a boy talking. So I opened the door to tell him to get out. And then I died."
"Wow…weird," Harry said. "I bet that doesn't happen every day. Well, let's get out of here, Myrtle." He grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the bathroom.
Dumbledore looked up blankly when Harry rushed into his office with Myrtle in tow.
"Harry," he said blankly. "What're you doing here? And who's this?"
Myrtle seemed surprised. "Professor Dumbledore?" she asked. "You're the headmaster now?"
After staring at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, realization suddenly dawned on Dumbledore's face. "Can it be…Myrtle? But you disappeared from Hogwarts over fifty years ago! We all assumed you were another one of Hagrid's victims!"
"Hagrid's victims?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore gave him a strange look, because of course this was something that Harry ought to know. "Yes, you know, Hagrid. The evil murderer who's been in Azkaban all these years for the murders he caused when he opened the Chamber of Secrets."
"What?" Harry yelled. "This isn't fair! You never told me when I brought Myrtle back that people would get hurt!"
"Calm down, Harry," Dumbledore told him. "What do you mean, you brought Myrtle back? Can it be that you have…gone back in time?"
Harry gave a sigh and flopped into a chair. "Well, duh! The Prophecy of Romance, professor," he explained impatiently. "Don't you have it?"
Dumbledore stared at him blankly. Myrtle, meanwhile, had a seat and began doing her nails for as long as it took Harry to figure out what was going on.
"You know, all those dusty glass spheres in that secret locked room in the Department of Mysteries that everybody forgot about for all those years?" Harry prompted the headmaster.
Dumbledore continued to stare without comprehension.
"Look, Myrtle and I are supposed to get married. Before midnight tonight," Harry explained. "And then we're supposed to defeat Voldemort together. Now would you care to tell me what else has changed since I left? I suppose maybe Voldemort isn't even around any longer."
"Who?" Dumbledore asked blankly.
"You know, evil Voldemort, killed my parents?"
"Harry," Dumbledore said slowly, "Your parents were killed by Peter Pettigrew. That's how you got your scar. Don't you remember?"
Harry folded his arms. "Peter Pettigrew?" he asked skeptically. "But what about Voldemort? You know, Tom Riddle?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "Harry, you're confusing me. Tom Riddle was another of Hagrid's victims when he opened the Chamber of Secrets."
"What?" Harry sat forward with surprise. "You mean…the basilisk got him?" He began to smile. "How appropriate. But in that case, there never was any Voldemort, then. No evil dark wizard always trying to off me…my life must be a breeze then, right?"
Dumbledore shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I don't know about that. You do invariably have a showdown with Peter Pettigrew every year. Well, actually, most people refer to him as Lord Scabbers. Or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Harry laughed. "You mean people are actually afraid of that coward?"
The headmaster folded his arms. "Well, he is rather scary."
"Puh-lease," Harry said. "Well, I think if you have a look around the Department of Mysteries, you'll find a locked secret room full of a bunch of prophecies that I'm supposed to marry Myrtle here. Which is why you sent me back in time to get her."
Dumbledore shook his head slightly. "Harry, there's no prophecy, believe me."
"Sure there is," Harry continued. "It's a companion to the one I found last year in the Department of Mysteries."
Once again, that look of confusion.
"You know, the one that said Voldemort would kill me or I would kill him…wait a minute…" he trailed off as he realized Voldemort no longer existed.
"There is no prophecy, Harry," Dumbledore said.
"But…but…you mean my fifth book doesn't even exist?" Harry demanded. "What about my second one? Did I even get to battle it out with the basilisk down in the Chamber of Secrets?"
Dumbledore shook his head.
Harry jumped up. "This stinks! Am I even a hero at all?"
"Well, you did receive the highest marks in Potions last year," Dumbledore pointed out.
"What! From that greasy-haired git of a professor?"
"If you're referring to Professor Snape, he teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Harry sighed and sank back into his chair, his head in his hands. "This timeline stinks," he finally said. Then another thought occurred to him. "What about Ron and Hermione? Do they exist?"
"Who?"
Harry gave a frustrated sigh. "Oh, and I suppose they're not my best friends, either."
"Well, if you're referring to Miss Granger, I see her quite often in the company of Mr. Longbottom."
"Neville?" Harry echoed. "Well, what about Ron?"
Blank stare.
"Weasley! Ron Weasley!"
The blank stare persisted.
"Professor, you know the Weasleys!" Harry shouted. "You've had a ton of 'em here at the school! Percy and Fred and George – you can't have forgotten Fred and George."
"Harry," Dumbledore said quietly, "The only Weasley I can recall was Arthur Weasley about forty years ago. As far as I remember, he's a professor in muggle studies at a school in Siberia. Nice old bachelor."
Harry sank lower into his seat. "Great! Just great! My life is completely ruined! And it's all your fault!"
Finally Myrtle set aside her nail file. "Look, are we getting married or what?" she asked. "Because if not, I've got very important things to do back in my time. I was planning some serious revenge for Olive Hornby when you walked into that bathroom, Harry."
He gave Dumbledore a glare. "This is all your fault, for assuming going back in time wouldn't change anything. Just because this is bad fanfiction doesn't mean the author doesn't want to get all literal every once in a while." He folded his arms and pouted.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, but Harry refused to be baited by it this time.
"If you're quite finished, Harry, I do have some other important things to do," Dumbledore finally said.
"More important than me?" Harry huffed. "Like what?"
"Well, my afternoon soap will be starting in just a few minutes…"
Harry stood up. "Come on, Myrtle. This timeline is too weird to even consider staying in." He threw the Time-Turner's chain around her neck and began turning once again.
A short while later the two were back in the second floor girl's bathroom. Myrtle gazed sadly at Harry.
"Well, this is it," he said.
"Goodbye, Harry," Myrtle said, throwing her arms around his neck. "I'll never forget you, the first boy who ever wanted to marry me." She pulled away. "At least we'll always have Paris."
"Uh…right," Harry agreed. He backed away. "Look, I guess I'll see you in the future, all right?"
"Au revoir," she said, giving a funny little wave with her hand.
"Yeah, bye."
Harry left the bathroom, but he was determined to make sure that things turned out the way they were supposed to, so he hid around the corner and waited until he saw Tom Riddle approaching the bathroom. Once he was inside Harry crept near and listened. He heard Tom speaking, and then –
"What are you –"
And then silence.
Oh, yeah. Myrtle was dead, and all was well.
"Aah, Harry, you're back," Dumbledore greeted him. "But where's Myrtle?"
"1943," Harry responded. "And don't even ask me to explain. Because we're not getting married, no matter what that stupid prophecy says."
Dumbledore sighed. "Well, it's just as well," he said. "I've been doing some calculations, and I believe time could have really been thrown off by Myrtle not dying. Even if this is bad fanfiction."
Harry stared at him. "You think?" he finally said.
Then he went off to pout about what a lousy day of time-traveling he'd had. And Dumbledore was so preoccupied with his afternoon soap that he forgot to ask Harry for the Time-Turner back…
Dun dun dun!
Author's Note: Yeah, I know it was totally random. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of that time-turner...and I'm the author, so I oughta know. Oh, and has anyone missed Harry's animagus? Well, it'll be back, and soon…more good times ahead!
Now be a pal and review!
