Chapter Two: The Arrival

As Harry woke up the next morning, he immediately began dreaming again of the glorious internet purchase. He had so many questions for himself. How long would it take? Would the shipper use insurance? Would the packing be sufficient? Did they really contain the ghosts of his dead parents? Would he have to sign for the package at the door?

Harry woke up again and began thinking about the questions he just asked himself. If only he could get answers to his questions. Harry thought hard for a long time about the last time anyone had told him about using Muggle Post, but nothing came to mind.

"Harry! Bring me my muffins!" Dudley roared from Harry's doorway. He looked as if he were on the brink of turning into an iceberg lettuce that someone had painted with brilliant red paint.

"OF ALL THE BOYS I HAVE EVER KNOWN, YOU ARE THE MOST LATE OF ANY BOY I HAVE EVER KNOWN!" he shouted.

Harry gave him bran muffins and received naught but a grunt from Dudley as a thank you. Harry sighed to himself and went back to his other chores.

Harry was cleaning the grout of Dudley's bathroom. It was green and slimy and smelled of bathroom smells. The only tool he had been given to clean with was a bent thumbtack. "I know!" he said to himself. "I'll just make myself a nice big washcloth to clean all this up with!"

Harry was about to chant the incantation for making 600 thread count towels, when a thought came into him.

"I have a marvelous gift. I should not squander it on making towels for doing my chores or drying off after a cold shower. Since I live with Muggles, I should live like Muggles." He resumed picking the grout clean.

"Harry, come down and eat the rest of my food!" Dudley yelled. Harry hated having to eat Dudleys food. It was mostly pre-chewed crusts from bologna and jam sandwiches and a few pieces of ice from an empty pitcher of Kool-Aid.

He longed for the old days. The glory days. The days when wizards and witches ordered large tankards of Butterbeer and talked the night away sharing stories of Quidditch, Hogwarts, Dumbledore, Voldemort and the House Wars.

Harry's brain jolted when he a piece of tile he was cleaning, flicked up into his mouth. Harry had an urge to pull out his wand, but instead he just spit the piece out on the floor.

"Blech!" Harry said. "That was by far the grossest piece of tile I've ever eaten!"

From the upstairs bathroom, Harry could hear some talking downstairs. He took a peek through the railing.

"Who is this for, you say?" Dudley asked the delivery woman who was standing at the door.

"Someone named Harry Potter."

"I'll sign for it." Dudley said. He turned around and caught Harry's eye staring right at him.

"What's in this parcel?" Dudley asked.

"None of your beeswax!" Harry replied. Dudley's face looked as mischievous, as much as an iceberg lettuce could anyway. "Give it here or I-I'll blast you with my magical wand!"

"You don't scare me one bit. You think I just forgot about what happened? If you want this parcel, you have to take it from me." Dudley sneered again.

With that last remark, Harry lunged at Dudley. Fists flew, feet kicked, heads butted, but Harry was finally able to grapple the parcel away from Dudley.

"Well, look at that. Harry Potter is all grown up now and beats up on his older cousin," Dudley bleated. He stood up and walked off somewhere.

Harry looked at the parcel. It was tightly wrapped with a green foil and bore an inscription; Harry didn't bother to read the inscription though. He was too excited about opening his parcel to read the inscription.

Harry opened the parcel and gazed upon his purchase with envy.

"Well that looks like them, doesn't it, computer—" Harry realized that his friend the computer screen was upstairs.

"How can I extract the souls of my parents from these tickets?" Harry wondered to himself, although spoke aloud. "Maybe one of my friends can help me."

Harry thought about all his friends, friends who now were all dead. Ron killed himself. Hermione was killed by Ron. Dumbledore was killed by Voldemort pretending to be Snape. Snape was still alive, but was pretending to be Voldemort. Ginny and her entire family were burned alive until they were dead. Cho was killed in a freak Quidditch accident that was actually concocted by Hermione. Voldemort was killed by…"By me!" Harry said out loud.

Harry had defeated the Dark Lord, but the victory came with a terrible price. He lost his magic abilities while fighting the Dark Lord, but for an unexplained reason, the Dark Lord died the instant Harry lost his powers but Harry still retained his magical powers despite losing them for a time.

The staff at Hogwarts were all killed in the House Wars, as were most of the wizards in the world. Hagrid was eaten by his half-brother. Crabbe and Goyle were killed by Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, who was actually an Animagus named Mardagos, and was a sworn protector of Hermione. Mardagos failed obviously, when Ron ran her broken heart through with a large spear after he found out she had burned his family alive. She begged and begged him and told him that she loved him and would never do anything like that, but he killed her. When Mardagos finally arrived at the scene after looking for her for several days, he told Ron that he, Mardagos, was the one that burned Ron's family because he suspected them of trying to kill Hermione. After Ron heard that, he impaled himself on the same spear to which Hermione was still attached. At last they could be together.

Moaning Myrtle was also killed. Nobody thought you could re-kill a dead person, but you can. What a hoot that was, Harry thought to himself.

Viktor Krum was eaten alive by the spiders in the Forbidden Forest after a game of "Catch the Kitty" went horribly awry. The Death Eater army was decimated in a battle against the remaining Order of the Phoenix members, whose true numbers remained unknown. The Order themselves usurped the power of the government, killed the entire Ministry and initiated the House Wars.

Harry thought some more about his dead friends and how long ago all that had been and gave a long sigh. It was so long in fact, that he fell asleep midway through his reminiscing.

When he woke up, he was still lying on the floor where he had opened his parcel. He continued to open it and pull out his prize.

"Well look at these blokes." Harry said in his best Australian accent.

"I think it's about time to use these."