A/N: Whatup, homies? Hahaha. Now that I'm done being ghetto for the day, on with the story! Oh, and blah blah blah, I don't own JKR.
When we last left off…
"Harry tentatively approached the doors. They swung open, and he climbed inside, not knowing what was coming next…"
Harry surveyed the mass chaos that was currently ensuing, and began to feel a little panicky. These feelings were not at all alleviated upon the realization that the windows were all blocked off by iron bars. Shaking off his fears, Harry took another step forward. He paused momentarily, and tried to figure out where to sit. As he wandered, the bus engine protested with a large "KAPOW" and started, throwing Harry face-first to the back of the bus.
A/N: Anybody who has ever ridden on a school bus knows that all of the cool kids sit in the back of the bus, because it's farthest away from the driver. (I thought I'd just put that in there…)
As he struggled to his feet, Harry was met by the snarling face of a tall, pale, blond boy who looked like a mini-Abercrombie male model. Unfortunately, the boy's otherwise perfect face was twisted by a scowl.
"Umm… I'm H-h-harry Potter," stammered Harry. "Who are you?" The pale boy's scowl became even more twisted at this, almost to the point where his mouth did a full 360, and the strange boy snarled, "I'm Dracula Malfunction, but I thought everyone knew that already." Dracula smirked some more before continuing. "So, are you really Harry Potter?" Harry was about to make some smart-aleck remark when he realized that he was roughly half the size of everyone else in this area of the bus, and decided that being a bit more polite was more conducive to staying alive.
"Yeah, I'm Harry…why do you ask?" This was met by a loud chorus of guffaws, and Dracula spoke again.
"Wait, lemme get this straight—you're the boy with the loony parents who let their kid almost get killed by Voldemort! What a loser… Crabbe, Goyle, get him out of my sight."
A/N: I must admit, coming up with the name "Dracula Malfunction" was not my idea, alas, it was entirely the dedicated work of SpellCheck. Anyway, back to the story:
On that note, Harry was rudely shoved towards a gangly-looking boy with a mop of fiery-red hair. Harry turned to the new boy and asked, "What's up with that Malfunction kid's face?" The red-headed boy replied, matter-of-factly,
"Well, nobody really knows what happened, but rumor has it that his parents decided that his face was unbearably ugly, so they force-fed him some illegally imported Botox. It's really quite an improvement, if you ask me. By the way, I'm Ron Weasley. I bet you're Harry Potter, right?" Harry looked only slightly taken aback before replying.
"Yeah. Lemme guess—the scar tipped you off, right?" Ron murmured something in assent as he began unwrapping a package from his backpack. Without warning, his face started to go red, making it almost indistinguishable from his hair.
"Something wrong?" questioned Harry, feeling slightly concerned. He peered over to see what was in the package that could have caused such a reaction, but only saw a sandwich. Feeling panicky, he asked Ron, "Are you allergic to something in the sandwich?" Ron made no immediate reply, and Harry was about to perform the Heimlich maneuver when the real problem became apparent.
"I HATE CORNED BEEF!" shouted Ron. At the same time, his eyes turned purple, and green laser jets shot from each of them, creating large holes in the walls of the bus. Startled, a toad gave a loud croak and hopped through the hole. A somewhat chubby boy yelled, "TREVOR, NO!" and hurtled himself off of the bus after the toad, and was almost immediately killed by a passing car. Ron stood up and shot green lasers at the boy, and a few seconds later he disappeared, and then reappeared in his original seat on the bus. Upon seeing this rather shocking display of telekinesis, a girl with a bird's nest in her hair rushed over.
"Oh, my gawd! That was, like totally, the awesomest telekinetic show of powers I've seen, like, ever! You totally need to do that again so I can, like, document it!" Without questioning the girl, Ron complied, and shot some more lasers at the bird's nest in her hair. Suddenly, the smell of burning hair filled the bus and the girl, who was now on the verge of tears yelled, "Like, what was that for? You totally ruined my hairdo!" Ron looked shocked at the girl's dismay and replied, "I was only trying to help you get that bird's nest out of your hair! You should be thankful!" The girl merely ran off, now openly sobbing, shouting something incoherent about people who were too dumb to tell twigs from hair. Harry, who was now quite puzzled, turned to Ron, meaning to question him some more, when the bus came to an abrupt stop, flinging the poor children at Hagrid's feet.
"All right, now! Get off the bus before I throw you lot into the river!" Hagrid thundered off of the bus, leaving giant-shaped foot-prints on the stairs. Shocked, Harry asked Ron, "Is he on steroids or something?" Receiving an imperious glare as opposed to a reply, Harry quickly stammered "Uh…Just kidding! Jay kay, jay kay…" Feeling that this was somehow less offensive, Ron turned and vented his frustration on the nearest tree. The children gently navigated their way down the steps, being careful to avoid the newly-formed craters, and stared at the cabin in front of them. It was just now that Harry realized that all of the other kids were carrying really big sticks with them as they hurried towards the cabin. After momentarily entertaining the thought that the children were about to attend a Teddy Roosevelt seminar, he turned once more to Ron and asked, "Why does everyone have large sticks with them?" Ron gave Harry an incredulous look before replying. "You don't have a marshmallow stick?" Harry shook his head, and Ron sighed, obviously quite annoyed at Harry's naivety. "Come here," he said. The two stole away from the group, and Harry followed Ron around the back of the cabin, to a rather suspicious-looking tent that was halfway concealed by trees. Ron knocked on the tent flap and yelled, "Hey, Oliver! Are you in here?" The two boys waited for a long time. Just when they had given up, a scrawny albino boy appeared at the tent opening.
"Need a stick?" he asked. Harry nodded, and the boy he assumed was Oliver led them inside the tent. Harry gazed around, dumbfounded at the sheer number of twigs that were organized about the walls. Oliver whipped out a measuring tape and measured Harry's arms and from his waist to his feet, and then dove face-first into a particularly large pile of sticks that was lying in the middle of the tent. Harry looked at Ron questioningly, but Ron merely made a noncommittal gesture and sat down on a bunk. Oliver resurfaced with a handful of sticks and shoved one at Harry.
"Here, try this one." Harry doubtfully took the stick and held it for a moment, but it was immediately snatched from his hands and replaced with another one. This continued for a few minutes before, much to Harry's shock, one of the sticks lit on fire in his hands. Oliver's bloodshot eyes lit up momentarily, but his happiness was quickly cloaked in indifference. Harry thanked Oliver, and he and Ron made their way towards the cabin once more. As they approached, Harry could see all of the campers and counselors gathered around a large bonfire. Harry warily walked towards the gathering, unsure of what would happen next. Just then, a mean-looking counselor hollered into her megaphone, "ALL FIRST-YEAR CAMPERS GET IN A CIRCLE AROUND THE CAMPFIRE!" When nobody immediately complied, she raised the megaphone once more. "NOW, DAMMIT!" The smallest of the campers complied without hesitation, and the counselor dropped the megaphone. However, it appeared that the megaphone made her voice softer, not louder. She continued to shout, "All of you snot-nosed freaks get out your marshmallow sticks." It was then that the children realized that a really short, old dude was passing out marshmallows to every first-year child. Harry began to wonder if they were really just fattening them all up to be eaten, but his thoughts were, once again, interrupted by the megaphone.
"One at a time, starting with, um….you," the counselor pointed at a random camper, "you idiots are going to roast your marshmallow. If you're dumb enough to burn it to a crisp, we're going to assume that you're cunning or something put you in the Slytherin cabins. If you somehow manage to cook it perfectly, you're gonna be in the Ravenclaw cabins, and we're gonna say that you're smart. If you cook it somewhere in-between golden brown and burnt, we'll assume that you're brave enough to risk burning your marshmallow and put you in the Gryffindor cabins. Also, if you're a bigger idiot then we planned on, and you just eat your marshmallow before you get a chance to roast it, we're going to put you in the Hufflepuff cabins. Any questions?" The first-years looked quite shocked at this haphazard method of determining someone's abilities. Regardless, they all submitted to the counselor's demands. Harry took a deep breath and tried to focus on the child now roasting her marshmallow. She seemed quite nervous, and she ripped the marshmallow off of the stick and shoved it in her mouth before it even touched the flames, and was sent off to the Hufflepuff cabin. Soon, it was Dracula's turn.
The stick had barely even grazed the bonfire before it erupted into a fireball and disintegrated. Harry noticed that there was an empty can of gasoline lying next to Dracula's friend Crabbe. All of Dracula's friend's marshmallows reacted in a similar manner, and they were all put in Slytherin. Before he could fully process what was going on, the bitchy lady with the megaphone yelled at him to roast his marshmallow before she threw him into the fire. Harry tried to focus on getting it perfectly brown, but there was a small burnt spot that he neglected to see, so he was put in Gryffindor. The author felt slightly tired of describing a bunch of idiots try to roast marshmallows at this point, so she just decided to tell you all that Ron got into Gryffindor, as did the weird, bushy-haired valley girl, and the (now immortal) boy with his toad. Oddly enough, there was one camper named Blaise Zabini, who was a Slytherin, who appeared to be half-boy and half-girl. This above all made Harry strongly suspect that the Slytherins were all really mean and nasty, and that he would undoubtedly have many confrontations with them, particularly Dracula. Anybody else who was in Hufflepuff isn't important enough to mention, so just forget about them.
The students were ushered into the dining hall, and the first-year students were amazed to see that the ceiling was…
A/N: Hey, slightly less sucky than the original, no? I guess there's something to be said for proofreading, after all. So in the next chapter, someone says "Peachy keen" and someone else eats a grapefruit. I know, you're DYING to find out who. Is it…Dumbledore? Ron? Harry? Blaise? Someone else? Stay tuned, folks…