Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived... in a cupboard) and the stoned philosopher.
If a fanboy writes a fanfic and someone else actually reads it, is he still pathetic?
Chapter two- Di-angles
Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) was feeling mixed emotions. It had been less than a day since he had discovered his new purpose in life, (For those of you who skipped the first chapter or have very poor short-term memory or just weren't clever enough to follow along- at the end of the last chapter, Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) abandoned his goal of saying or doing something that would make his uncle, Vernon, turn red, like a time-lapse movie of a ripening tomato, every day, and set himself the goal of saying or doing something to make his uncle, Vernon, turn dark purple, like a time-lapse movie of a ripening eggplant, every day. But, this is where Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) got slightly worried. He had never actually seen a time-lapse movie of a ripening eggplant and there was an outside possibility that eggplants were purple from the beginning. If that was the case, he wanted to make his uncle, Vernon, turn purple like a time-lapse film of a ripening tomato… If that tomato was going to end up being the same color as a ripe eggplant, every day.) and Harry's uncle, Vernon, was currently a lovely shade of eggplant. So, he should feel happy because his daily goal had been accomplished. However, he hadn't actually done or said anything to achieve this goal. That distinction belonged to the very large Hairy Footer that had burst into the cabin at midnight. Harry was confused by this. Firstly, he wasn't sure why they were in a cabin or how they had arrived there because the author had skipped over a bunch of stuff and secondly, he'd always pictured Hairy Footers as quite small, thirdly, while it was, technically "challenge complete," he hadn't really done anything and fifthly, he had lost count of the things that were confusing him.
Confusion about goals aside, watching the large Hairy Footer befuddle his uncle, Vernon, and embarrass his cousin, Dudley, was most definitely un-boring. A fact that Harry's aunt, Petunia, was also keenly aware of. During the incredibly exciting, hours-long, comedy chase scene, (Which had taken Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) and the Dursley family from Little Whinging through a veritable plethora of snobbish literary phrases, clichéd near misses, and the inevitable long hallway filled with identical doors- where they had a surprise encounter with David Tennant and Billie Piper which was actually quite funny and worked really well despite the fact that it was a visual gag and David Tennant wasn't supposed to show up in the story for another three books- to an isolated cabin in the middle of an ill-defined nowhere.) which the author had inexplicably chosen to omit from the narrative, she had allowed herself to hope that there might be some boring in the future but in her heart, and other places, she had realized that she was just setting herself up for disappointment.
After the Hairy Footer had cowed Harry's uncle, Vernon, and pigged Harry's cousin, Dudley, and mongoosed Harry's aunt, Petunia, he told Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) that his life was supposed to have been very un-boring and that he didn't have to go into the boring family business. That there was a whole un-boring world out there, inside of (but not part of) the other whole un-boring world which was also out there and should not to be confused with the first whole un-boring world, which the author probably should have spent a few minutes coming up with a better name for. In fact, the boring world that he lived in was actually very small. There were only three companies that manufactured boring stuff and, due to the way corporate structure works, Harry's uncle, Vernon, worked for two of them. (The other one was a front for the British Dental Association and the less said about that, the better.) The Hairy Footer offered to take Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) shopping the next day for the supplies he needed in the un-boring world. (The first un-boring world which the author still hadn't spent any time coming up with a better name for.) Harry's uncle, Vernon, entertained them by changing the color of his face through the entire red spectrum. Harry's cousin, Dudley, squealed and ran from the room on all fours and Harry's aunt, Petunia, smoked a cigarette and smiled because she'd never felt so bored in her entire life.
Shopping in the un-boring world was, as you would expect, un-boring. There were sticks that shot sparks, books that read themselves and so many different colors of fruit that Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) was sure he could set a new goal for himself every day for a year and never run out. The high point of the day was when Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) started reading his new book about the color spectrum. He discovered that chartreuse was actually a shade of green… or yellow… though in the un-boring world it was sometimes a pinkish-magentaish-red… and not, as he had previously thought, a medical condition requiring the removal of one's Mandela. His shopping trip got even more un-boring when he went dress shopping. He had decided to wear a dress because a boy wearing pants was kind of boring and he was most definitely un-boring now. In the dress shop he met the prettiest boy he'd ever seen who told him all about elitism and how he needed to embrace it if he wanted to be the right kind of un-boring. Then the pretty boy introduced himself but Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) was so busy trying to figure out which exact shade of white the boy's hair was, (he spent quite a bit of time torn between 'cornsilk' and 'cream,' and eventually settled on 'cosmic latte,' not because he thought it was any more accurate, but because he wanted an excuse to call someone 'the cosmic-latte haired boy.') that he completely missed it. He did manage to zone back into the conversation in time to hear the boy ask, "What's your name?"
"I'm Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard.)" Said Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard.)
"Never heard of you." the cosmic-latte haired boy said. "But I'm curious about how you do that."
"Do what?"
"Say your name with parenthesis and a hyphen."
"It's not a hyphen, it's an ellipse," Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) corrected. "but I understand your confusion since the author doesn't seem to know how to properly use one and has confused it with a closed plane curve generated by a point moving in such a way that the sums of its distances from two fixed points is a constant. Also, You Completely Forgot To Mention My Ability To Verbalize Capitals."
The cosmic-latte haired boy, was named 'Dragon Malicious,' which Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) found out because the boy's mother (whose hair, he decided, after a very short consultation with his book, was a surprising combination of russet on top and buff underneath) swept into the shop like a broom under the spell of an incompetent rodent and picked him up by the ear. "Dragon Malicious," She hissed, which was when Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) found out the cosmic-latte haired boy's name, "How many times do we have to tell you not to be so elitist in public?" She looked over at Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) and scrunched up her nose in distaste and asked, "Why do you have a picture of a lion on your forehead?"
He shrugged, "I think the author is just trying to cram as many pop-culture references into this story as-" He was interrupted by a commotion at the back of the store and they all had to dive out of the way to let a red-haired girl and a pants-less blond boy run past.
The rest of the shopping day passed in a blur because the author was tired of shoehorning in references and just wanted to be done with the chapter. There were a few mildly funny antics and another bit in a long hallway with multiple identical doors but the second run-in with David Tennant and Billie Piper wasn't nearly as funny as the first one and the whole scene felt forced and tacked on so the author omitted it and skipped to the end of the day where Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) was winding down, trying to make sense of his new completely un-boring life. And, as he sat in front of Madame Fescue's "Emporium Of Completely Legal Grass, No Really, It's Totally Legal, I Swear," blinking away the fumes from the pungent braziers scattered around the tables filled with over-priced snacks, he decided that Dragon Malicious' hair really was more of a 'cornsilk.' But he then decided not to acknowledge that because he didn't want to stop saying 'cosmic-latte haired.' He also decided that if he ever started a band, he would name it "The Pungent Braziers." Harry's uncle, Vernon, would probably turn a very interesting shade of whatever color chartreuse actually was if he heard that his nephew had started a band. And that thought got him wondering if there was anything he could say or do that would make his uncle, turn green, yellow and pinkish-magenta all at the same time.
Then Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived… in a cupboard) jumped to his feet, raised his arms to the heavens and shouted at the top of his lungs, "I've got a new goal!"
Next Time- Three ways to escape from Borg-warts, Problems with the metric system and How to NOT write a scene.