The Legacy
"Corn is the gold thatwill shine in the Summertime,
leaves are the emeralds
you find in the Spring.
At Autumn they turn and
as copper they burn,
then fall like the diamonds
that bleak Winter brings."
Chapter 7: Squish and Flip!
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The sun rose above the grounds of Hogwarts School. A large aged tree stood basking in the new morning's sunshine. A happy bluebird was flying towards its nest with a worm shut tightly between its beak. Her eggs had hatched a few days ago and her tiny babies were always beeping for more food, she loved them so dearly. As she approached the large willow, the tree savagely whirled its branches, hitting the small bluebird purposely. The little bluebird fell limply on the ground; her last thoughts were of her small helpless babies, nonchalantly tweeting in her nest, just a few trees over. (A/N: a small tribute to all the birds the Womping Willow brutally killed during the "Prisoner of Azkaban" film; it's strange how nobody saw anything wrong with this).
Harry opened his eyes suddenly, as soon as he felt the sunshine on his face. He shot out of bed, grabbed his glasses from the bedside table, put his hands on his hips, stuck out his chest and roared "Ron WAKE UP!" Ron jumped up and turned to look at Harry, "Ah!" Harry continued "you are awake my trusty sidekick. We will now embark on yet another day of searching for those who shall follow ME." Ron was now sitting on his bed, "Er, Harry…" "What is it my faithful companion?" Harry interrupted. "Er, you're naked." Harry looked down with a start. "Oh" he said, "right." Ron made to get up and Harry was about to get dressed when he hesitated and turned towards Ron "Soooo…what do you think?"
Ron raised an eyebrow and hastily ran to the bathroom.
Harry shrugged and wore his "HP" top and his cloak; Ron came out of the bathroom and they exited the castle. This took some time mind you, Harry would stop at every reflective surface to look at himself, Ron had conjured up a nine foot sandwich and was happily distracted.
They had spent most of the day walking around looking for potential fellow quest….people, but had no luck. They were resting outside near the lake when Ron, who was still just at the beginning of his sandwich eating adventure, spat violently on the ground "Aaargh!"
Harry jumped, whipped out his wand (ahem) and pointed it at the sandwich which Ron was now holding as far away from his face as possible.
"What is it Ron?" Harry said with a shaky voice.
Ron didn't reply and kept spitting pieces of sandwich on the ground.
"Is it sandwich demons?" Harry asked, fear in his eyes.
Ron shook his head.
"Sandwich ghosts? Sandwich ghouls? Sandwich midgets? What is it? What is it?" Harry was shaking violently.
Ron looked up and met Harry's eyes. "Worse," he said, "tomatoes."
Harry gasped, his wand fell from his hand and he kneeled in front of Ron looking sadly at the sandwich, "No!" he said in a small whisper.
Ron nodded. "I hate tomatoes; they remind me of red vomit…"
Harry composed himself, "Well there is only one thing we can do, we must search this sandwich and rid it from all traces of tomato!"
They lazily sat back and while Ron threw tomato slices in the air Harry would zap them to oblivion. Tomato slice after tomato slice was destroyed, slowly yet surely they were extinguished. As the last piece flew into the air and Harry had jumped up to zap it, a deafening scream filled the air.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…"
Harry and Ron could not move, they fell to the ground clasping their ears. The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Bewildered, the two friends looked around to find the source of this inexplicable noise. And they saw it. A few feet away, a small tomato was running towards them. Yes, a tomato. It had little stickman arms and legs, a mouth (obviously, cos it just screamed), and big round puppy eyes. No nose. As it run towards them it waved its arms in the air.
"No no no no no no" the tomato squeaked and picked up the last remaining slice of the 'offensive' vegetable that was lying on the ground. It dusted it off and sobbed. "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"
Harry jumped up again and pointed his wand at the strange creature. "Who are you?" he demanded. The tomato looked up at him with its huge sparkling eyes. "I am Squishy" he said, "the King tomato!" Harry lowered his wand. "Wow, you're a King?"
"Oh, look" Ron interrupted, "this rock looks like a Diamond…"
"Not really" replied Squishy, "I am the only walking and talking tomato, so I thought I could be King, you know, because my brothers and sisters can't really say or do anything about it."
Harry smiled, he liked the way Squishy thought. He quickly took his superhero stance.
"I am HARRY POTTER" he boomed. He was met with silence…he coughed meaningfully. Ron was still examining the diamond shaped rock. "I said, (AHEM), I am HARRY POTTER!"
Ron snapped out of his daydream and rolled his eyes…Harry was still looking at him and nodding eagerly.
Ron took a deep breath, "daraaa daraaa" he said half-heartedly.
Squishy blinked.
"Would you like to follow ME, in a quest to fulfill the Legacy?" he asked the tomato, looking down at him. Squishy looked up; he barely reached Harry's knee. His eyes watered and widened. "Yes!" he said, almost in tears "I will follow the one-who-does-not-eat-tomatoes only on one condition."
"What's that?"
"No more tomato killage" Squishy frowned. He doesn't have eyebrows though.
Harry shrugged, "OK".
"What can you do?" Ron asked.
Squishy span to look at Ron. "What do you mean?"
"What's your power? Can you do magic? Are you a magic tomato?"
Squishy looked down and shuffled his stickman feet. "No" he said "I was created in a freak Potions accident" he then seemed to remember something and looked at the two boys in front of him "Oh, I am meant to tell everyone I meet never to toss a salad in the cauldron they use for potion-making."
Harry made a mental note of that.
"Anyway, what good are you to us if you can't fight or use magic and stuff?" Harry pondered.
Squishy would have blushed but how can a overgrown red tomato blush?
"I can scream…" Squishy said finally.
Harry thought about this and smiled madly. "Yes!" he said, "from now on," he regained his superhero stance, "you shall be known as: Squishy The Screaming Tomato!"
Squishy mimicked Harry, putting his hands where a tomato's hips would be if they had any, and beamed. Suddenly, they both looked at Ron.
"Daraaaa Daraaaa" he complied, through clenched teeth.