Guest chapter: Harry Potter and 'Alchemy for Dummies'
From the pen (or fingers as it were) of Aegis Crow, the reflective one with wings of ash.
Shuffling into the room, slowly, the figure moaned- stretching his arms foreword as the nonexistent camera panned up to reveal Harry yawning much like a zombie.
Walking to the couch, he sat next to Tonks and looked at the TV report about the zomb-feri attacks.
"So what's the plan for today, Harry?"
"I dunno, maybe you'll screw my brains out?"
"Aha, how adventurous?"
Tonks got up, and walked into the kitchen. Poking her head back in she asked. "I'm making some tea, would you like any?"
"Sounds wonderful"
"Do you want any sugar in it?"
Harry hesitated. He was about to say something dull like 'two lumps, please' but suddenly he was hit by an inspiration.
"Baby, you're all the sugar I need"
Tonks smiled gingerly, blushing and looking down as she brushed some of her still dirty-blonde hair behind her ear. "Aw, that's so sweet of you to say, Harry…"
Snapping her a smirk, he popped up his eyebrows and replied, "No baby- you're the sweet one."
Tonks blushed a bit more and popped back into the living room and gave Harry a strong kiss and lovingly ran her fingers through his hair once before she went back to making the tea.
Harry saw an image in the coffee table, the bodacious form of the babe fate mouthing the words "you owe me…"
"I'm gonna go to the garden for a bit hon' " Harry stated nonchalantly before he went out.
As he opened the door to Neville's shed, (why he had been staying at Neville's house for so long was beyond anybody, but nobody bothered to say anything because Harry's the main character and anybody else is "expendable"… or something like that…) but anyways, Neville was sitting on a rough bench playing video games in shackles.
"Hello Harry… can I maybe eat today?"
"Oh my goodness!" said Harry "it thinks it can talk!"
"I'm… I'm not a Zombie Harry, the bite's been healed up for a week…"
"Quiet, Reginald!"
"But my name is Neville!"
"Not as long as you're a zombie!"
Suddenly, the guardian of knowledge poofed into the room and stabbed Harry in the back of the head.
"AAH! What the? Why are you? HEY!"
Wiping the blood off of his hands, the guardian pulled the spike out. "Well, you have a crap-load of points left over that we kinda accepted with a rain check of future knowledge inserts. A new book just got published and… well, here I am."
"So this is going to happen whenever a new book is published…?"
"Uh… would you hate me if I had to say yes?"
"Note to self… must destroy world literacy…"
Neville had long since fainted from the sight of blood, and as the Guardian of Knowledge poofed out abruptly, Harry decided to recall this new knowledge.
"Hmm… Alchemy for Dummies…?"
A grin spread across his face.
"How to be a master alchemist in easy steps, eh?"
Harry scratched his chin.
"Step one. Your father, an alchemist, has to go missing. Well… my dad's dead, that's close enough to missing, and maybe if I SAY he's an alchemist and believe it really, really hard then it won't matter…
"Step two. Your mother has to die. Okay… done. Let's see…
"Step three. Perform a dangerous ritual that's far too complex for your skill level in an attempt to bring your mother back. You need exactly two people- on will lose an arm and a leg out of this ridiculous deal and the other will lose his body… Neville, wake up!"
sputtering, Neville slowly came to his senses.
"I'm sorry Harry…"
"it isn't a problem Neville, anybody could faint at the sight of blood…"
"no, I'm sorry Harry…"
assaulted by the horrendous odor, Harry clasped his nose. "oh, oh my god that is just plain rotten!"
"I'll stop doing it when you stop laughing!"
"I'm not laughing!"
as they gradually calmed down, Harry got right to business. "Neville, I need your help for a very important ritual. All I need you to do is help me draw a circle- a rather fancy circle- and then put the proper ingredients in the middle. Can you do that for me?"
"well yeah Harry, sounds easy enough"
"good, now write this down-"
what followed was a lengthy list of all of the elements included in the human body. While Neville went about finding all of the elements in proper quantities, Harry decided to redecorate the garage with a coincidentally spiffy armor on a whim. After they drew the circle, pouring the powders and liquids together in a heaping mess of funny smelling muck, Harry pulled out a dagger and cut open his palm. "Neville, in order to gain anything, mankind must first give up something of equal or greater value." Squeezing his hand, he poured the drops of blood onto the mess. "I think that this is enough blood for my mum's soul give or take…"
putting his hands down on the edge of the circle, Harry gave Neville a look that implied that he was to do likewise. Focusing their energies, they lit the circle with magical power and the elemental sludge began to glow and change shape, but a void appeared, dissolving harry's right arm and Neville's entire body. Slashing his leg off, harry used it in a transmutation to save neville's spirit in the spiffy armor.
When the light had faded, harry gazed upon his bulbous, pulsating creation in horror as it groaned with the agony of its own existance. Mentally flipping back in the book he realized the folly of his ways.
'this ritual is, by its very nature, doomed to failure, and may end up summoning the dreaded… Rosie O'donnel…'
"my god Neville… look what we've done…"
as tinny sobs of horror rang out from the hollow mass of the Neville-armor, it raised its powerful fist and slammed it into the squishy mess of the beast, bringing an end to its pitiful existence.
At the sound of the commotion, Tonks ran in. her hair was lighter, longer, and straighter, and she was wearing a sky blue bandana.
"oh my god harry! Check out this cybernetic arm and leg that I found in the kitchen! It's amazing what you'll find when you clean!"
she attatched the limbs to the convenient stubbs on Harry's body. He, of course, screamed in agony, but Tonks can sometimes be a freak like that in bed, so she didn't care.
Harry used this time to read further in the book. 'step four- go to an academy for spiffy magical training stuff… … … okay… check… or at least I think that hogwarts counts…'
'anyways, step five- yada-yada-yada, step six- blah-blah-blah, step seven… nobody cares… uh, finally step thirty- use the philosopher's stone to regrow your arm and your buddy's body, then get teleported to pre world-war-two germany where you have no powers… how about we skip that last part, eh?'
gradually making his way to Nicholas Flemel's house, (although as a bit o an alchemy buff I must interject that Flemmel never made the philosopher's stone- nobody has- he's just the only documented alchemist to have 'turned lead into gold'), Harry used his spiffy arm of spiffiness and Nevell's awesome metal body to beat the secret of the stone out of him and use it to turn themselves back into normal.
"well that was a waste of time," said Harry "we're right back where we started…"
"yeah," responded Neville, "it's like we're in a chapter of a book that was written for no reason at all and has no consequence to the outcome of the parody at large…"
Harry could only stare at Neville with eyebrow raised and say "what the frell have you been smoking…?"