Caer Azkaban is commonly known as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, what few know is that it is also a place where several active Harry Potter Fan Fic writers congregate to vet each other's prose and offer suggestions. One day a few months ago, Diresquirrel, who is working on a HP/Muppets crossover, offered this snippet as something he was working on:
"No Harry, I didn't say they were dentists," Hermione said tiredly, facepalming while shaking her head.
"But you said they were Doctors working with teeth," Harry said confused. "You did say they were Americans.."
"No, I said they worked with Dr. Teeth," his friend replied. "They're musicians. I'm the result of some experimentation during the '70s."
- On Caer, We often offer up snippets, paragraphs and even full chapters to aid the others over bumps in their stories. I came up with this little scene where Zoot and Janice (I assumed that would be the chosen pair for the Parents, mostly because I was a fan of Zoot and Janice's interplay during the first season of the Muppet Show) explain to Harry that Hermione is... different.
"My little chickie is, like, weird, man," Zoot said, looking over his shades at Harry.
Harry blinked at the incongruity of this man, whose skin appeared to be made of some kind of felt describing his friend as 'weird'.
"I'm not sure what you mean," he said hesitantly.
"Like, wow," Janice said as she flounced her way onto a chaise lounge, "Harry, dude, you have to have noticed it."
"Noticed what?" Harry pressed.
"Well, if you look beyond her skin, man," Zoot said with a shudder.
"Now, dear," Janice chastised him gently. "Her hair and teeth show she's part of the family."
"Before she let those magicals put Animal knows what in her hair and disfigure her teeth, anyway," he pointed out grumpily. "She hasn't even picked up her bass since she started at that school."
"Hermione plays bass?" Harry asked in amazement. "That's quite impressive, but I don't see how it makes her weird, as you put it."
"It's her voice, Little Dude," Zoot said shaking his head sadly.
"Her voice?"
"Harry, dude," Janice sighed, "we've never been to England. Hermione went there the first time to go to Hogwarts for her first year. She learned to speak like you English from watching television. She was disappointed when it turned out that there weren't daily chases around the castle to the tune of Yakety Sax."
Harry was still digesting that bit of information when the door burst open and a small orange... something rushed into the room and knocked him from his chair. A huge gaping maw ringed with more teeth than Harry had ever seen before, even when he took dragons into account, hovered directly over his face. A werewolf?
"Uncle Animal, no!" Hermione shouted as she rushed to Harry's side. "Harry is a friend."
"FrEiNd?" the creature growled. "NoT KiLl TaStEr?"
"Not a Death Eater," Hermione assured him, stroking the sides of the creature's face. "Harry is my friend."
"oK..." the orange... thing said as it hopped off of Harry's body and extended a small but enormously strong arm to Harry, pulling the boy physically off the floor and into the air. "SoRrY, lItTlE fElLa."
"It's ok," Harry said while he counted his extremities to ensure they were still in place and operational.
"Uncle Animal said he'd come along and sort out our Lord Voldemort problem," Hermione said with a grin.
"AnImAl HuNgRy!," the orange thing agreed with an energetic nod. "BrInG hOt SaUcE fOr SnAkEmAn."
"And that," Hermione said in a self-satisfied tone, her arms crossed and a grin on her lips, "is how you do that!"
"Like, so weird," Janice lamented.
- This is never going anywhere, and I doubt the original writer will use it, so, I thought I'd share.