Ah, a playful omake. This should be fun, getting away from the drama of the core story. What will it be about? Well just read the chapter and you'll find out. Now, my life is fairly static right now. I failed to get a job as a barista at Barnes & Noble but I still have applications to work as a sales associate in the system that I hope they see soon. I've also watched Gunsmith Cats recently and it's great. Good characters, great action with a competently told, if simple story. You can find all three episodes of the OVA on youtube right now if you want to see it and I highly recommend it. I also saw Akira again. Still as confused and overstuffed and insane as I remember it from when I watched it in that Japanese Cinema class I took in college, with so many themes and ideas but with not enough time to deeply explore them all. You can also find it on youtube with the original 90's dub with you want a few laughs or just want to admire the art direction. But until then, on with the show. Oh, before I forget, I am an American and the topic I'm working with is based on an American holiday, so I apologize in advance if you don't get what it's about. I do not own Harry Potter or Ed, Edd & Eddy. Those are owned by J.K. Rowling, AT&T and Warner Media.
Ron Weasley discovers the wonders of Thanksgiving
"I'm not going, you can't make me!" "I don't care what you want, you're going to class even if I have to drag the couch all the way done to Transfiguration myself!" Ron and Harry watched the scene before them in confused bemusement. Hermione, fully garbed in her school uniform, was trying to pry Marie, who was still dressed in her night clothes, from the couch. While Marie's vice-like grip had dug into the couch, Hermione's determination for education had given her a sudden influx of strength, causing pieces of fabric and cotton to spill out from the tears made from Marie's fingers slowly being yanked further and further from the back of the couch. "Um, can anybody explain to me what's going on here?" Harry asked. Eliza Runcorn, who had been reading in a nearby chair, replied without looking up from the page. "Marie apparently thought that we'd have a week off of class because it's the end of November. When Hermione told her otherwise, she decided to go on strike as a student and refused to leave the common room. As you can see now, the debate is reaching its conclusion." The sound of torn fabric, the yelp of surprise and a resounding crash caused all three of them to wince.
The three of them looked over at where the crash came from. Marie had crashed into the wall, pieces of torn wallpaper and tapestry littering the ground beneath the hole she had bore next to the fireplace. Her one visible eye spun in a corked circle and a dopey smile squiggled its way across her face. Harry and Ron went over to her and grabbed her arms. "Marie, I know you don't want to go to class, but you still have to get dressed if you want to have breakfast." Ron expressed as he and Harry stained to pull Marie out of the wall. With a stretching sound of a rubber band, Marie was pulled further and further away from the wall. A snap echoed through the room as Marie detached from the wall, flew out of Ron and Harry's arms, toppled them to the floor, slammed into the other wall, and then tumbled head first into a nearby rubbish bin.
Harry and Ron climbed back to their feet, sporting several bruises on their faces. "Merlin I hope the writer doesn't put us into more slapstick scenes anytime soon." Ron muttered as he rubbed a bruise on his left eye. "Doubtful, though I think he doesn't plan to do it often. Something about it messing with the consistency of the tone of the story." Harry replied as he fixed the bent wires of his glasses. "Hey," Ron asked as he looked around the room. "Where's Hermione?" "Can someone help?" A voice croaked as a bent arm stuck through the new architectural feature in the wall. "I'm in desperate need of assistance." The two of them quickly sprinted over to the hole in the wall and pulled Hermione out from underneath the rubble. "Thank you boys." she mumbled, bits of limestone sticking out of her bushy hair.
"Clunk. Clunk." The three of them turned back to a corner of the room, where their friend was stuck in the rubbish bin and was bouncing around the common room and banging into the walls and desks. Fred and George, who had just come down the stairs from the boys dorms, took a look at the four of them and chuckled. "Gred, I dare say that our icky Ronniekins and his friends have decided to form their own comedy trope." "Too true Forge, though I think they still need to improve their act a bit. Slapstick comedy was so last century." An angry muffled shout came from the depths of the rubbish bin as Marie tumbled over and started rolling around on the floor. Fred and George smirked. "Though I will admit Forge that Marie's piece of interpretive dance is quite revolutionary." "Indeed, truly she is the Renaissance artist of our time, skilled in many different fields and talents." "Guys, can you two please stop being jackasses and help her out of there?" Ron asked in tired exasperation. "Language little brother." Fred remarked playfully, draping his hand over his forehead in a fake faint. "What would our mother say if she found that you speak such vulgar words?" The two of them chuckled until George let off a pained "Ooofff." Marie had regained her footing and rammed into his sternum, forcing him to the floor. The trash can with legs jumped up in down with rage, the clangs echoing as loudly is her muffled shouts. "Okay, okay, hold your knickers." Fred said pleadingly. Gripping the edges of the bin, how tugged and tugged until Marie came out of the bin, covered in black and blue ink on her face and neck and with bits of broken quill tangled in her hair, with a resounding "POP!"
"Thank you my shining heroes." Marie snipped sarcastically. She plucked a piece of eagle calamus from the area above her left ear as she let out a bitter sigh. "Stupid British education practices. Not allowing us a fall break." she muttered. Hermione's eye twitched in irritation. "Marie, how many times do I have to tell you, Thanksgiving is an American holiday. You go to a school in Great Britain. Therefore, WE DON'T CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING!" she ranted. Ron and his brothers looked at the two curiously. "What's Thanksgiving?" Ron asked. Marie blinked, dumbfoundedly, while Hermione gave an exasperated sigh. "It's an American holiday designed to celebrate the survival of one of the earliest colonies. Apparently, the American school system lets their students have a week off of school every fourth week of November so that they could celebrate it." she scoffed. "Waste of time if you ask me." Unfortunately for her, nobody else seemed to agree with her as the other people in the room that had been listening in on the conversation or had been part of the conversation. "A week without school, that would be nice." Lavender Brown remarked wistfully. "Yeah, no Snape to deal with, no needing to go up to the astronomy tower in the early hours of the morning, not having to deal with Binns or Quirrell. That would be nice." Parvarti agreed. Hermione's head flicked around the room, her face plastered in disbelief. "Oh come on! None of you even know what the holiday is about, let alone how it's celebrated!" she shouted. Eliza, finding this more interesting than her book, closed it with a loud "SNAP!" "Okay then." She turned in her seat so that she could look at Marie over her shoulder. "Okay then Kanker, what is your holiday about?"
A few beads of sweat started to go done Marie's face as the entirety of the common room, about 2/3rd's of all of Gryffindor house watched her in rapt attention. "Well, well, it's, uh, it's about…" she stammered, her eyes filling with panic. 'Oh God, I've never had to do public speaking before. How on earth does that blonde bitch that Oven-Mitt and every other guy in the neighborhood fantasize over do it so well.' She heard a snap coming from next to her left ear. "Hey, Marie." It was Seamus. "Just take your time and relax." Marie nodded dimly, "Yeah, okay, okay. *inhale* *exhale*. Right." She looked at the crowd and dragged her hand through her bangs. "Look, I don't really pay much attention to this holiday. To me it's just a week off from school, two football games and an elementary school pageant I took part in when I was six. But to others it's more significant to them, especially those that tend to have more money than my family does." "Why's that?" Ron asked curiously. "Because a major part, hell the main part of the holiday, revolves around the thanksgiving feast." A growl roared throughout the room. Ron blushed as the rest of the room chuckled, which helped ease Marie's nerves.
"All right, the basic story goes is that there were this group of people that didn't like the Church of England and wanted to reform it. The King, who was head of the Church of England, didn't like their opinions as he saw it as antimonarchist, so he excommunicated them, that means threw them out of, the Church of England and persecuted them to the point where they were driven into exile. This group, known as the Puritans, tried to find a more tolerant land on the continent, but everybody was busy getting caught up in something called the Thirty Years War (long story that involves several different nations, succession disputes, and people being thrown out of windows) so they decided to leave for North America. After months at sea and nearly blowing up one of their ships, they landed in modern day Massachusetts when they started to run out of beer in 1620. Unfortunately, they landed in November and in the winter that followed about half of them died. Even worse, when spring came, they found that the sandy soil was not suitable for growing European crops and so it was looking likely that their new home would quickly become their new graveyard."
"So how did they survive?" Neville asked. Marie grimaced. "Well you see, luckily for them and unluckily for the people that originally lived there, a massive smallpox epidemic had hit the area a few years earlier that wiped out most of the native tribes in the area and severely weakened the rest. Deciding that a peaceful coexistence was in their best interests, one of the tribes, the Wampanoag, sent a delegation led by Squanto, the only survivor of the epidemic that wiped out his tribe because he was in England at the time, to help the settlers. They showed the settlers how to plant maize in the sandy soil and get them to grow by adding fish to increase nutrients. By the end of the year, they had a bountiful harvest and celebrated with a feast with their new allies. And that was the first thanksgiving. Ever since around 1863 when it was made a national holiday, people would join together with friends and family in remembrance of all the good times they had and their hopes for the future." Her face turned bitter. "Course my mother is an only child, I never knew my father, my uncle died shortly after I was born and my grandparents either disowned my dad or died before I was five, so there was literally no family to spend time with and the most we could afford for food was some cured ham, some toast, a can of cranberry sauce and two cans of baked beans. The only reason I or my sisters ever cared about the holiday was because we could sleep in during the week."
Most of the common room were satisfied, if a little uncomfortable with Marie's answer. Some of the smarter students were even wondering what smallpox was. But Ron wasn't focused on that. "What food is usually served at Thanksgiving anyway?" he asked, a bit of saliva wetting his lips. Marie gave a weary sigh. "Do try to take this with a grain of salt, because this is just a perception I put together from thanksgiving special and gazing through my neighbors windows but from what I can tell the feast is centered around the turkey. It's usually about 6 to 10 kilos in size and stuffed with this thing called stuffing, which is a combination of dried bread crumbs, celery, onions and eggs." As she described this, Fred and George took out a notepad and quill and started jotting down notes and Ron's mouth fell agape, droll starting to drip from his tongue. "Paired with it is usually mashed potatoes with butter, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, steamed green beans, cranberry sauce and buttered rolls." (Ron had started to salivate heavily) "Sometimes meals also include glazed ham, cornbread, baked beans, grilled zucchini and squash and bowls of butternut squash soup, apple chestnut soup and salad." (A large puddle had started to pool at Ron's feet and spread across the common room) "And of course there's dessert, with apple, pumpkin and cherry pies, banana bread, apple crumb cake, chocolate mousse and many different flavors of ice cream."
At this moment she noticed that she was now waist deep in water. She looked around the room and saw the source of the problem. The saliva pouring out of Ron's mouth was tumbling from it like a small waterfall. Furniture and small wall alcoves had become islands where several students squeezed on top of them. The couch alone held 20 people on its small 2 meter by 1 meter surface. Some of the students however couldn't care less, as Fred and George were still writing while standing in the small lake and Eliza Runcorn was practicing her back stroke. Marie, used to the occasions where the sink or the shower had burst, just calmly walked across the room, opened up the portrait hole and started to let the water drain from the tower. Once the water had receded to about ankle height, which was when it could no longer reach the edge of the small landing in front of the portrait hole, she walked over to the twins who were still writing on their notepad, ten pages of which had been flipped so that they could write on the back.
"What are you two doing and where should I be so that I could avoid the back lash?" Fred and George looked over at her for a split second before refocusing on the notepad, two quills going across it. "Never you mind." George mumbled. "Let's just say that we have an in with the kitchen staff and leave it at that. When is Thanksgiving celebrated again?" Marie quirked her eyebrow in confusion. "Every fourth Thursday of November, why?" The two looked up from their paid, devious grins on their faces. "Bit of a surprise, you'll just have to wait till the 22nd to find out." Marie was about to press what they were about to do, but was interrupted by Percy. "What's going on in here!?" He asked from the portrait hole. "Water has been going down the stairs all the way to the entrance hall, so who busted the shower room again?"
Most of the rest of the week did not go particularly well for Marie. First, Neville melted her cauldron, covering them both in hair brighting potion and getting their hair bleached a respective pale blue and white. Then she had been accidently knocked off a floor landing just before one of the moving staircases arrived. She ended up falling three stories before smashing into one of the staircases below, leaving an imprint of her body there for five hours and suffering a torn kidney and smashing her collar bone (again). After getting healed, she ended up running afoul of a group of seventh year Hufflepuffs when she threw a helmet in frustration that ruined their game of gobstones, getting all of them squirted. The resulting argument and fight that followed put all five of them in the hospital wing with several broken bones, a few black eyes and, in Marie's case, a dislocated hip. When Professor's Sprout and McGonagall were told what happened by several witnesses, they had gotten detention spreading manure amongst the plants in all the greenhouses. She returned to the common room at 1 in the morning smelling of cow dung and covered in several lacerations some a fight she had with the venomous tentacula. Tuesday wasn't much better than Monday. Seamus struck her in the eye with a stinging hex during Charms and she had to go to the hospital wing again when it started hemorrhaging. Lack of sleep from the previous night caused her to fall asleep during Defense Against the Dark Arts, causing Quirrell of all people to give her a detention on Wednesday, which she spent putting new stain on the classroom desks. This combined with her previous detention caused her to get drowned in homework, all of which she didn't finish until just before Astronomy. Already tired, she didn't notice that Pavarti had inked the inner lining of her telescope. When she did (thanks to a few of the Ravenclaws chuckling), she was barely prevented from hurling Pavarti off the Astronomy tower. By the time she woke up on Thursday, she just wanted the week to be done.
'At least whatever force governs the universe decided to give me a break today. Professor Binns first thing in the morning followed by a free period.' She yawned, dark purple bags under her eyes as big as quarters. 'Still, double Herbology really took a lot out of me. I don't think I can…' She started to collapse in a dead faint, but was grabbed by both Neville and Ron before her knees went out from under her. "Sweet Merlin how much does she weigh?" Ron complained as he struggled to carry the comatose trailer punk. "Tell me about it. She must be all muscle under her robes." Neville grunted as he and Ron dragged Marie down the stairs from the Gryffindor tower towards the Great hall. "Have to feel sorry for her though, Professor Sinistra kept her back for an hour after class to discuss her anger issues and she didn't get back to the tower until 3 in the morning and she worked on her homework the night before until midnight. She's barely had any sleep at all this week." They dragged her down the flights of stairs. Their muscles strained as they struggled to navigate the moving staircases, sweat glistening off their foreheads as they carried nearly one hundred pounds of human flesh and bone down the entrance hall steps toward the large double doors to the Great hall. "Hopefully some food will wake her up." Ron expressed as he pushed the doors open. He looked in. His eyes glazed over and dropped his unconscious friend on the floor, jolting her awake. "Ow, what the hell?" She mumbled as she grasped her aching head. She got up and fell into a state of disbelieved amazement.
The Great hall was filled with a cornucopia of food. Bushels of turkey, tubs of mashed and sweet potatoes, pyramids of butter corn and maize, baskets of buttered rolls and cornbread and mountains other delicacies. As more students started to come up or down from their common rooms, a large crowd of ravenous teenagers and preteens started to crowd around the entrance, joining Marie and Ron in their zombie-like state. Neville backed up away from the doors in terror, not noticing two other people until he bumped into them. "They look hungry there don't they Gred?" "Bit of an understatement really Forge, they look like they bit lost at sea for weeks without food." Neville turned around and saw the twins grinning impishly. "You're responsible for all this?" He asked tentatively. "Why of course Nev." one of them answered. "After Marie told us about what Thanksgiving is, we just couldn't let such a fantastic occasion go un celebrated just because we're not a bunch of Yanks." He then produced a bell from his robes." "George, would you care to do the honors?" "Indeed, lets just these piggies to the trough."
With the ringing of the bell hundreds of students rushed towards the food as if they were settlers trying to claim land in Oklahoma. Within less than a minute the Great hall had descended into chaos. Students were gorging themselves on peas and beans, fighting over drumsticks and pieces of pineapple and slobbering cranberry sauce and tomato soup, pieces of furniture and silverware was flying across the room and in a few places several brawls had broken out. Marie in particular was swinging a drumstick as if it were a mace, with several older Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaw lying unconscious on the floor. Ron was shoving entire slices of ham into his teeth while Seamus bit his arm with the strength of a crocodile. Crabbe and Goyle were throwing people into walls and benches while eating spoonfuls of marshmallow sweet potatoes. Any source of respectability they had had been lost in a wave of animalistic savagery, their reasoning asleep, producing nightmarish caricatures of humanity driven by the desire to consume.
Neville caught Hermione out of the corner of his eye, her hair even more disheveled. Her eyes were wide with no hint of intellect, her body looking wain and wild. In her arms was a roasted succling pig. With carnivorous fierceness she tore through the pig's snout, then the ears and then the rest of the head. Dark pink blood and pale yellow grease dripped down her chin and her fingers, bits of skin, tendon, sinew, vein and artery scattering across the limestone. Neville took a step back, the sound of his foot across the floor startling the hunched creature. She looked up, still grasping the torso of the pig. She watched, her brown eyes staring at him in dazed, hungry indifference as she tore another chunk out of the pig.
Unable to look at the mockery of his friend any longer, Neville turned back to the twins. Behind them he saw Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape watching the scene before them in shocked disgust and Dumbledore trying to hide a smile behind his hand. "WHAT IN THE NAMES IS GOING ON HERE!?" McGonagall shouted. "Now now Professor McGonagall, nothing unusual is going on here." Dumbledore said placatingly as McGonagall started to turn white with rage. "It just looks like the students have gotten too into the dinner tonight." McGonagall whirled around and glared. "Too into dinner?! I think that's a severe understatement! Mr. Thomas and Miss Brown are having a knife fight over a bowl of salad, Miss Bones is eating mashed potatoes with her hands, Mr. Boot is drinking french onion soup as if it were punch and even the calmer students like Miss Peakes are stabbing their forks into other peoples hands! This isn't over indulgence this as gluttoneos riot!" "I know, isn't it wonderful!" The twins said, their eyes glistening like stars as they watched with massive grins carved onto their faces. McGonagall rubbed her forehead in tired exasperation. "Of course, of course it's you two. How could it be anyone else but you two?" She sighed bitterly before she turned to them, several new wrinkles developing on her forehead. "The question is, why did you do it?" Fred and George smiled faux nobly. "Why, to give a wave of celebration and comfort to a dear friend of ours." Fred answered. "She was feeling rather homesick recently about some American holiday, so we decided to bring the holiday to her!" George continued. "So we decided to make this feast for her and after we told the kitchen staff what we had planned, they were more than happy to help." McGonagall grinded her teeth together, looking as if she were about to burst a coronary.
"Professor McGonagall, I don't believe we can say that Mr Weasley or his brother can be stated to have done something wrong." Dumbledore interceded. "All they did was create a feast to cheer up their friend." They looked over at the tribal warfare occuring in the Great hall, watching as a group of sixteen Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Slytherins tore apart a massive 15 kilo turkey like a pack of wolves. "And while the students seem to have taken the celebrations a little too far, they haven't done any lasting damage and the twin couldn't have predicted that they would act this way. They shouldn't be punished for their enjoyment." "Be that as it may Professor Dumbledore," Snape drawled. "The Weasley twins admitted that they had talked to the kitchen staff to get this feast ready. The only way they could've done that is by entering the kitchens themselves, which no student is allowed to do." He glared at the beaming faces of the Weasley twins. "25 points from Gryffindor. You will see me for detention tomorrow night." He left with a swish of his camp. "If you're willing to join me McGonagall, I'll be having my dinner tonight at the Three Broomsticks." McGonagall looked surprised and confused, but then she turned back towards the Great hall and watched as Harry Potter started drinking an entire pitcher of apple cider from a funnel while a crowd of students from every house were chanting "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" Without a word, she turned and followed Snape.
Dumbledore chuckled again before turning back to the three Gryffindors. "I would suggest you try to get your fill. We don't want you to miss out on this feast." He then took a drumstick that had been forgotten in the chaos. "Happy Thanksgiving boys."
I did not think an omake chapter would be this long. Though I am happy about how it turned out. For my more artistically inclined readers, you might've seen my references to Francisco Goya's Saturn eating his children and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters through imagery or dialogue. He is one of my favorite painters and his work is very influential as he basically invited the Romantic movement in art. As for my opinions on Thanksgiving, it's fine. Food's good don't get me wrong but I see my family almost all the time. Sometimes, in Shakespeare's words, I dearly wish we could become better strangers. Also we always have to watch the Detroit Lions (the sports equivalent of a continuously busting septic tank) and the Dallas Cowboys (which I hate. Go New York Giants), so bit of a slog overall. Hope you liked this omake, I'll try to make the next one shorter. Thanks for reading and catch you later.
