Harry Potter as written by Damon Runyon

by Technomad

So it happens that one fine day I am standing in a meadow, which is more than somewhat distant from my usual habitation, because in this meadow the Quidditch World Cup is going to be played, and I am very fond indeed of being a spectator at a Quidditch game.

Quidditch is a very fine sport for those who like to play sports, but I am a sedentary and peaceful citizen, who does not care to play such sports at all. In the game of Quidditch, the object is to put a ball called a Quaffle through a goal. While this may sound simple enough, this is done while flying around on very fast brooms, while large citizens try to knock you off your broom with Bludgers, which are large flying iron balls they knock at you with wooden bats. You can put down long odds that if some citizen is in the way of a Bludger, he will feel very much as if a cannon ball had been shot off at him, which is no kind of an experience to have. Meanwhile one of your team mates is looking for a small ball called the Golden Snitch, and if he should happen to apprehend this object, your team gets a hundred and fifty points and the game is over.

So you can see why I am not at all interested in actually playing Quidditch. However, the action that goes on with bets and this and that is more than enough to draw my attention, and I am here to place a few discreet bets and hopefully make myself some Galleons. Galleons are very fine things to have, and even the richest swells do not turn up their purebred noses at the thought of having more, I have noticed.

The crowd is large and surprisingly good-natured, considering that there are a lot of people here who have enemies present whom they would love to see lying flat on their backs at the undertaker's. I greet citizens with whom I am acquainted, and manage to duck out of the way when certain parties to whom I owe some Galleons that I do not have are nearby. I do not wish to discuss my owings with these people, since some of them are very bad news indeed, of the sort that have a habit of making citizens with whom they are displeased disappear.

So, as I say, I am standing around, enjoying the atmosphere and deciding on just how I should place my wagers, when who should accost me but Mr. Ludo Bagman. Now, Mr. Ludo Bagman is a former Quidditch player himself, and is more than somewhat well-known, but in my estimation he is nothing but the old phonus balonus, and so much of a four-flusher that one might refer to him as a five-flusher.

"Good day to you!" says Mr. Ludo Bagman. "Would you care to wager with me on the outcome of this wonderful game? It looks like today is a wonderful day to play Quidditch!"

Now, it is indeed a very fine day, of the sort that if one were ordering days out of a catalog, this day would be greatly in demand and probably on back-order at the factory. But, as I have already stated, Mr. Ludo Bagman has a very bad reputation indeed for welching on bets, and is said by citizens in the Alleys and Hogsmeade to be a broker, so I have no interest in betting with him. However, he has friends who are very dangerous gentlemen indeed, of the sort that no citizen, and particularly such a law-abiding citizen as I am, would wish to be on the wrong side of, so I am very careful about giving him the old brush-off.

"I am sorry, Mr. Bagman," I say, "but I am no longer interested in betting on Quidditch. Or the Thestrals, or anything else." Which is a big thumping lie, but Mr. Ludo Bagman is by no means a person of uncommon brain, and is completely taken in. He wanders off, and I am just heaving a sigh of relief when a hand falls on my shoulder, and I look around to see who the hand is attached to, and who should it be but Mr. Lucius Malfoy.

Now, Mr. Lucius Malfoy is a hell of a swell, and has Galleons the way the kitchen at a dive like the Hog's Head has cockroaches, so I am glad that he is taking an interest in me. This is despite the fact that certain ill-disposed parties whom I shall not name have said that Mr. Lucius Malfoy is nothing but a Death Eater who is buying his way out of trouble after the Dark Lord, whom we do not name even though there has not been so much as a sight of his face in over ten years, is stopped.

"Good to see you," says Mr. Lucius Malfoy, smiling a smile like a hungry shark. "And how is the world treating you, my friend?" This gratifies me enormously, for having Mr. Lucius Malfoy being in a friendly mood could be better than having a key to the vaults at Gringotts' Bank, so I am telling him that I am well, and inquiring politely about his ever-loving wife and son, and this and that.

"Oh, they are very well indeed," says Mr. Lucius Malfoy. "In fact, they are accompanying me to this game. But that is not what I wanted to talk to you about." He leans in close, and all of a sudden I am not so sure that those stories about him being a real live Death Eater, and not under the Imperius, are not true. His eyes are like two chunks of frozen ice.

"Are you seeing Mr. Harry Potter around and about?" he asks. Now, Mr. Harry Potter is a very well-known citizen indeed. You see, it is him that is given the credit for stopping the Dark Lord all those years ago. I am not so certain myself that all the stories about him are true, since if they are even half true Mr. Harry Potter is a hero and a half, and the few times that I am seeing him, he looks like an ordinary kid, rather weedy and shy, and not at all what I am expecting of a hero.

For Mr. Lucius Malfoy to be inquiring about the whereabouts of Mr. Harry Potter is not a good sign at all, and I am suddenly very sorry that Mr. Lucius Malfoy is taking such an interest in me. For Mr. Lucius Malfoy is the sort of person who will take it very badly if I am giving him the air, and even if he is not a Death Eater still at heart he is rich enough to make me wish that I had never been born with magic. But I am happy to suddenly remember that I am not seeing Mr. Harry Potter around and about at all, and I would give twenty-to-one odds that he is not attending this match. He is never seen at large Quidditch matches, and is almost never seen save in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, which is a very nice small town near the school of Hogwarts, where all of us go to learn magic.

"I am very sorry, Mr. Malfoy," I am saying, "but I am not seeing Harry Potter at all. I am, in fact, looking for someone who owes me a good few Galleons, and I think I am seeing him over in that direction. If you could excuse me?"

Mr. Lucius Malfoy's eyebrows go up, and I am thinking that he knows that I am spinning a tale hoping to get away from his company, for I am not comfortable with him any more at all. However, he lets me go. "If you do see Mr. Harry Potter, you will come and tell me about it at once, right?" he says, as he turns and heads back into the crowds.

Once he is gone, I give way to a relaxing attack of the shakes. Pulling out a flask from my pocket, which I never go anywhere without, I take a long swallow of Firewhiskey, which is a mighty fine tonic indeed for what ails me, which is a bad case of fear. Mr. Lucius Malfoy has a very sinister reputation, and if I am ever hearing that he is looking for me, I am out of town on the next fast broom I am finding, and not worrying too much about who owns that broom.

With Mr. Lucius Malfoy on my mind, I start scanning the crowds, and what do I see but more and more people who are accused, at one time or another, of being Death Eaters! Now, one false accusation, or a few, I can see as people getting more than somewhat overexcited, but when the numbers get this big, you do not have to be an expert on the odds to start figuring that at least some of those accusations might be true. If this is the case, then there is bad trouble brewing, and I am suddenly sorry I am coming to the game.

And, speak of the Devil, who should turn up not half an hour farther on but Mr. Harry Potter himself, in the flesh! He is accompanied by two other kids his own age, one of them a tall, thin carrot top who is a Weasley as sure as I am born, and the other a bushy-haired doll whom I am not recognizing. The doll is not a bad doll, as dolls that age go, but I am of too advanced an age to take more than a very theoretical interest in her.

I try to catch Mr. Harry Potter's eye, since if Mr. Lucius Malfoy is looking for him, I think that this is a fact that Mr. Harry Potter will want to know. But Mr. Harry Potter does not know me from Merlin, and avoids me as though I have bad breath, or he owes me a great many Galleons that he cannot repay. So I am unable to warn him that Mr. Lucius Malfoy wishes to see him, which is a great disappointment to me. I am not at all happy about Mr. Lucius Malfoy presuming to use me as a servant, for I am not a house-elf, and bowing and scraping even to a rich swell like Mr. Lucius Malfoy is demeaning to my dignity. Particularly since he is not paying me so much as a bent Knut.

By the time the game is starting, I am as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a rocking-chair convention, and twitching every time someone rubs up against me, which is hard to avoid, seated up in the cheap seats as I am. The game is very exciting, and I am forgetting my troubles in watching it, particularly since I have a few dozen bobs down in bets with the goblins that Ireland wins.

Even though Bulgaria, who are playing against Ireland, manage to snag the Snitch, Ireland does win by a comfortable margin, which makes me very happy indeed. Once I am collecting my winnings from the goblins, I am debating to myself about whether to join a game of dice that I am noticing, or whether I am better off heading back home and paying off some of the bills that I am owing.

Just then, I hear shouts and screams, and I can see the owner of the campground and his wife and child, being held aloft by magic. This does not please me, since I do not hold with baiting Muggles, not at all. Then I remember all the people present who are accused at one time or another of being Death Eaters, and I am morally certain of who is behind this outrage.

I am wishing that I had a Portkey, or a broom, since I do not want to have anything at all to do with Death Eaters. They are very bad people indeed, and are doing a lot of bad things in the days when their Dark Lord is making his bid to take over. But without a Portkey or broom, I am reduced to hiding out in the woods hoping not to be spotted.