"Sir, do not discuss my reproductive cycle in front of enemy girls!"


Hermione Jane Rocket Granger-Tebbs-Goldberg-Klein-Gogberashvili was, no doubt about it, AW6S2M6.02x10²³.

Not only was she beating Harry Potter-Evans-Verres at every single magic-type class except broomstick riding (in which, by mutual agreement, they had both taken an Incomplete), not only had she exceeded him in hyphenated last names by deed poll, she had now wrested away control of his story.

Harry didn't know it, but he should never have proposed that book-reading contest, because, after all, she needed to read only one book, namely HARRY POTTER AND THE METHOD OF RATIONALIZATION, as it necessarily incorporated all the books he was reading...

And then she had successfully Transfigured ink to narrativium, and the rest was rewrites.

She flipped ahead several chapters. "Oh, really," she smirked, "like that's going to happen." She inked in another change and peered over the top of the book. Harry, still halfway through THE BOOK OF SAND and making no progress, didn't seem to notice that history had changed underneath him.

Hermione smiled. Yesterday she was only the Zelenka to his McKay, the checker of his maths, but today, and tomorrow and tomorrow, the coffee-demanding rat would get his due. "Nobody give me trouble," she whispered, "I'm nationwide, baby."

And the bell rang and the contest was over.

"You lose, Potter," said the combined students of Ravenclaw.

"Curse!" cried Harry. "I have run afoul of Hofstadter's Law! How embarrassing."

"That means you have to perform a forfeit," said Hermione.

"A forfeit!" cried Harry. "What forfeit?"

"I'll think of something," she said, twirling her quill. "Give me a chapter or so."


Hours later, in a stone chamber lit only by a single green-tinged lumos, two vague figures met.

"I declare this meeting of Get Rid Of Slimy normalS open," declared one.

"'kay," yawned the other, "can we get on with bumping off my dad?"

"All right," said Harry. "We shall kill him with SCIENCE!"

"Yay science!" chirped Darko. "What's science?"

"Oh, Darko, my new friend," said Harry, his face lit green from below his chin, "do you know the Klingon proverb that says, 'Let the wookiee win'?"

"Nope."

"So it is with science. You pull a knife, the universe pulls a gun. You send the universe to the hospital, the universe sends you to the morgue. That's the scientific method, and that's how you attain ultimate power: by carefully observing what sends you to the morgue and doing it to other people first.

"Do you like...numbers, Darko?" he added nervously.

Darko shook his head no. In the dark. "No," he said after a bit.

"Whew!" said Harry. "Good, I'd hate to lose you to pure mathematics. Erdős never killed anybody!" He paused to wipe tears from his eyes at the waste of a great mind. "Now!" he continued, "science is a means of using parts of the universe to beat up other parts of the universe. It's better than magic, because any cretin like Crabbe or Goyle can magic, but only geniuses like me can science. The word is derived from the Sanskrit ch'yati, meaning 'he cuts off'."

"Can you science my Dad's head off?" said Darko with polite interest.

"Yep!"

"Even though he's got all kinds of defensive charms and is proof against everything other than Avada Kedavra?"

"Yep!"

"Cool," said Darko, and smiled a dreamy smile. He was finally having a real grown-up conversation.

"So, science!" said Harry. "Where shall we start with our sciencing? I know! You Malfoys are heavily into blood purism, right?"

"You bet," said Darko. "We're so inbred we smell like yeast."

"Hmm," said Harry. "I wondered. Okay, we'll do genetics. I know virtually nothing about it, but you know less than nothing, so that's all right.

"Anyway, to combine with science: science rules, okay? if you get into a magic duel with a mudblood and that mudblood cleans your clock, you lost, right?"

"That could never happen," said Darko confidently.

"The universe is bigger than you."

"So it is!" mused Darko. "My worldview is being upturned."

"And if you line up all the purebloods and all the mudbloods and have a hex-off and the mudbloods win, that's that, right? This pureblood-is-best stuff falls by the wayside, destroyed by observed evidence."

Darko made a moue. "I'm starting not to like science."

"Science," explained Harry through gritted teeth, "is how you kill all the mudbloods after they beat you at hexing."

"So with science I always win?" said Darko.

"Right!"

"Excellent!" said Darko.

They played air guitar.

"Oh," said Harry, "killing all the mudbloods reminds me: in science there are things Man Was Not Meant To Know."

Darko cocked his head. "My tutors all say that."

"Yeah, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic except for being better. Knowledge is power, so absolute knowledge corrupts absolutely. Basically, you don't want hoi polloi becoming Dark Gods."

"Gotcha."

There was a pause during which Harry visibly shuddered at the prospect of accidentally creating Dark Gods. "You know," he said slowly, "it occurs to me that Get Rid Of Slimy normalS is an inadequate name for a venture so great and terrible as this. We need something more sophisticated. Give me a minute."

Darko watched Harry think until shiny beads of sweat stood out on his brow like tiny glowing emeralds.

"Eureka!" cried Harry. "We shall call ourselves...the Q."

Darko blinked. "The queue? As in waiting in?"

"No," said Harry, "Q as in short for Quirrell-Couch, which I was lying on when I first decided to become a Dark God. That was one comfortable couch. We'll be the Q.C. that meets on the Q.T."

"O.K."

"And our Latin motto is Si Non Alium Late Jactaret Odorem Laurus Erat."

"Okay."

"Want to know why?"

"Nope," said Darko, and shrugged helplessly. "Wizards are incurious, what can I say."


Harry went from the first meeting of the Q.C. to dinner, where he grabbed a can labeled FOOD and ate from it with his fingers on his way up to Ravenclaw.

The Ravenclaw door said, "What is your name?"

He said, "Harry James Potter Evans-Verres."

The Ravenclaw door said, "What is your quest?"

He said, "Crush my enemies. See them driven before me. Ignore the lamentations of my girlfriend."

The door opened. "Please enjoy your trip through this door," it said.

These pop quizzes are getting easier and easier, thought Harry, and went up to bed.

On his pillow he found two copper knuts, a book titled POP ART: The Indigo Cow Fighting Society Guide To Third Eye Gouging, and a note.

My dear, my very dear Harry, my poppet, my pigsnie (the note began).
Enemies are all around. How will you make it on your own? This book on Occlumency will help. The wizarding world is awfully big, boy, and you're all alone, but it's time you started living, so let someone else do some giving. You have rid yourself of Snape, but some of his operatives, all of them in fact, are Slytherin; therefore I have enclosed two spare knuts.

It was signed Satan Clause.

Harry stuffed the book, the note and his knuts into his pouc, turned up the Quietus, pulled the covers over his head and died.


"And so Harry goes to it," said Hermione, dotting the i in died with a smiley face.

She tapped her pen against her teeth.

"No," she decided, "death's too good for him."


Harry remembered his unfinished business, wearily stuffed his escaping Möbius-strip soul, which looked like something bizarre from Steve Ditko's MR. A comics, back into his body, got out of bed and went down to the common room. He found a nice wide writing desk, scooted the raven off it, pulled back a comfortable chair, and sat down. Then he got up and sat down on the comfortable chair.

He sharpened his mechanical pencil and got out a nice clean sheet of paper.

His parents had said specifically that if he wanted to come home again, ever, he was to write them every week without fail, just so that they knew he was alive, unharmed, and not in prison.

Harry mentally organized his material, and started writing:

Dear Mume and Dad:
I am alive, unharmed, and not in prison.
Your loving son,
Harry James Pinkamena Evans-Verres Granger.
P.S. I am getting wathan-bonded.


Breakfast next morning was cupcakes again. It was always cupcakes. Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes.

He was on his third — vanilla with vanilla frosting — when a huge hollow voice cut through all breakfast conversation like a sword of ice.

SHE IS COMING, it said cubically. THE THREEFOLD GIRL. SHE DANCES IN THE LONELY PLACES LIKE SHE DON'T EVEN CARE.

At the High Table, Professor Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

O CREATOR OF US ALL, said the voice, THE HERMICORN IS COMING. BEWARE! BEWARE! HER FLASHING EYES, HER BUSHY HAIR!

Prophecy betting pools started up at every table — even, to Harry's skepticky disgust, Ravenclaw.

"Worra lorra rubbish," said Harry, looking across the table at Hermione, who looked enigmatically back at him over the top of a book in a plain brown wrapper — no, surely it was a paper-bag dust-jacket...

"Oh, say not so," said a passing madwoman. "Divination is magically valid. And scientifically vital for that reason. Pay attention to these future echoes. Future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown... the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here...at Hogwarts...so Criswell has predicted..."

"No it isn't," said Harry with annoyance, "I'm here to kick arse and take names!" He popped an irritated Bazooka Joe into his mouth.

"Sybill Trelawney," supplied the madwoman. Harry wrote it down.

It was going to be a long day.

CEDRIC DIGGORY HAS A CUTE BUTT, added the voice.

Cedric Diggory spewed cupcake frosting over most of Hufflepuff. Professor Dumbledore suffered a coughing fit.

ALSO, said the voice, HEADS UP, H.P. WILL DESTROY ALL MANKIND.

Professor Quirrel spewed cupcake frosting over most of the Great Hall.

"It could mean Hewlett-Packard for Trotsky's sake!" screamed Harry.