Author's Note: Wowee, I think we're about halfway through book 1! With any luck I'll do all 7 books instead of doing something normal, productive, or meaningful with my life.
August and September passed into October through haze of orange farts. Hogwarts felt more at home for Harry than Privet Drive ever did; he had friends, he had fans, and he had a source of water that did not come out of a garden hose (Harry had assumed that the water jugs next to their beds were for dentures, for an embarrassingly long time).
On Halloween morning, each student was awoken via a punch to the face by the scent of pumpkin spice, bewitched into a humanoid, steam-like sentient being for the holiday. Satisfied when all boys were awake and clutching bleeding noses or black eyes, the Spirit of Pumpkin Spice slunk into the vents to move on to the girls' dormitories. Later, it would pee in everyone's drinks.
"I didn't know wizards celebrated Muggle holidays like Halloween," said Harry after they were done getting dressed and headed down to the common room to lounge around before breakfast.
"What? They appropriated it from us!" said Fred.
"Whoa, really? I had no idea."
"I think they'll cover it in History class; wizards and witches used to dress their kids as animals or fae to confuse demons from snatching them when the gates to Hell opened on Hallow's Eve."
"Yeah, that was life before The Pact," added George.
"Is it true the Muggles dress up as stereotyped witches and wizards, and use wands made of plastic?" asked Neville.
"What the hell is plastic?" asked Seamus.
"It's delicious is what it is," said Harry.
"Not all plastic has leftover yogurt stuck to it, Harry," said Dean wisely.
"What the hell is yogurt?" asked Seamus.
"It's like this curdled, germ-infested milk pudding Muggles eat," said George. He turned to his twin. "Remember when Dad tried making it?"
"Yeah, that cursed stuff was bubbling before it was even in our stomachs."
"And it was screaming."
"I don't think it was supposed to do that."
"Wait, so these Muggles," asked Neville. "Isn't it also true they dress up their kids as our Lord and Savior, Lucifer?"
Seamus made a noise of dreaded disapproval and performed a pentagon pattern over his chest with his finger.
"They mock His Holiness," agreed Fred.
"I was a sexy nurse for Halloween once," said Harry. "But I actually know my stuff. When my uncle nearly drowned, I pulled him out right away and started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."
"Okay, Harry."
"But he sent me to St. Brutus's for the summer after that because it turned out he was just taking a bath. I didn't know because they never let me take baths, only garden hose showers in the backyard baby pool with my clothes still on. That way they got washed too. I know the Dursleys have a lot of issues, but they at least they respect water conservation."
"Wow."
"Of course when I washed with the sexy nurse outfit, our neighbor filmed it from our window. Probably to make sure I wasn't wasting water. The day after that he sent me a new sexy nun outfit to wash with next, which was ridiculous because it hadn't been worn yet and Halloween was over. And anyway I could never bring myself to appropriate nun culture like that."
"Harry," George clapped his shoulder, "remember our talk about not always needing to say absolutely everything out loud?"
Later that morning in Charms, Professor Flitwick – a literal mouse in tiny wizard robes purchased from a dollmaker, standing on top of a tall pile of pillows so he could be seen by the students - announced they were ready to start practicing Void Charms.
"We will only be making small Voids," he explained in his adorable squeaky voice. "As first years, you won't be able to make one larger than a pencil eraser. We want you to learn to control them at small sizes to avoid accidents that come with learning them at an older age. If you do make larger ones, do be sure to keep them far away from me, heheh!"
"Professor!" Hermione raised her hand. "Please, what is the purpose of learning a Void Charm?"
"Excellent question, Ms. Granger! The purpose is to make housecleaning easier. It's a very common household Charm."
"Does that really warrant such a dangerous Charm, sir?"
"Do you want to have to drag out the trash every day like some Muggle, Ms. Granger? Now then, open your textbooks to page 121, the wand movement diagram and instructions are in there…"
"I'd really hate to accidentally make a larger Void," said Harry. "I mean, what if I accidentally stuck in my p-"
"Harry!" scolded Hermione, horrified.
"What? I was going to say pieces of gold."
"Remember your wand movements!" piped Flitwick. "Swish and flick! The spell is as follows, make sure to repeat it after me!"
"Ripopen Aspaceanus!"
Soon, Voids of varying flaws popped in and out of existence inside the classroom. Those who succeeded had fun flicking scraps of paper and broken quills bits into them.
By the end of class, Harry had finally managed to rip a small two-dimensional hole in space, but all it did was make a loud, demonic "OHMOHMOHMMMMM" sound. Ron could not cast the Void Charm at all. A couple students with immense hidden talents made theirs too big and would never be seen again.
Neville did not have much luck either; he had made a sizeable Void but it was spitting out household garbage all over his desk and he couldn't make it stop.
Hermione of course managed it perfectly; she looked at the tiny Void in front of her, for once not proud of her magical talent. It swirled in mid-air, the vacuum gently tugging at her hair, and she wondered if she should have just stayed in Muggle school and aimed for a career in real estate.
"Class is over in three minutes, students!" squeaked the professor, flourishing his toothpick wand. "Lift your wands and release the spell!"
The class did as they were told; Neville's Void refused to vanish. Instead, it chose to increase the rate at which it was spewing out garbage. There was a large heap on his desk now.
Neville raised his hand awkwardly while the other students packed their things and began to shuffle out of the classroom.
"On to your next class, Mr. Longbottom! I'm only paid by the hour!"
On the way to dinner, Harry couldn't wait to see what the Great Hall had in store for Halloween. The common room had been abuzz after classes, with the older students Transfiguring cute little temporary physical changes in the first and second years. Harry sported realistic bunny ears, while Ron had his nose bewitched into a clown one that honked when he squeezed it. Hermione unfortunately had missed out; she was in the bathroom crying because her shirt was untucked and nobody had told her.
One would think by now that Harry would have gotten used to the weird quirks and horrifying twists and turns of Hogwarts, but when the Great Hall doors opened after much heightened anticipation by the crowding students, he wasn't ready for the six hundred or so gallons of blood to splash onto the first five rows of students. The blood quickly bloomed across the entire hallway floor; students kept slipping in it and getting covered, laughing their asses off. When everyone entered the Hall, Harry saw that everything was blood; the floor was flooded in it, the tables were dripping in it, the chairs were soaked in it, the dishes were filled with it, the ceiling drizzled it, and the walls were flowing with it like those neat glass waterfalls that Harry had seen through the windows of fancy Muggle banks. Harry and Ron sloshed forward to their usual seats at the Gryffindor table.
"Where did all this come from?" Harry asked Griff across from him, expecting an answer involving an order from a special effect company and a subsequent upcoming increase in tuition costs.
"I wouldn't ask anyone that," he said delicately. "Just enjoy the Halloween décor, Harry!"
Harry and the other students found that all the magnificent Hogwarts food tasted the same, it just looked and acted physically like liquid blood.
"This must be loaded with anticoagulants," thought Harry out loud.
When they finished their main course, Professor Dumbledore, today wearing magnificent black robes with little orange pumpkins all over, stood up and gestured for silence.
"Happy Halloween, students! As you know, Halloween is a much-revered holiday for our people. The Goddess Cresselia looks down lovingly at all of us, and blesses us with a bountiful harvest of grains and livestock, as well as healthy raining seasons and steady birth rates every year. Now, before we choose this year's lucky first year student as our virgin sacrifice-"
BANG
Professor Quirrell burst through the Great Hall doors in hysterics.
"WASP!" he screamed. "THERE'S A BLOODY WASP IN THE DUNGEONS! Thought you ought to know." And he fainted. In the blood.
Immediately everyone screamed in a panic, knocking over dishes and rushing to the doors-
"SILENCE!"
Dumbledore stood up.
"Prefects, you will calmly lead your students back to your house dormitories. Professors, we are to open every window in the castle and hope for the best. And then we will head to the pub for drinks. Onwards!"
Percy conjured up some police barriers along the path to Gryffindor Tower. He had his Pepper Spell at the ready for any violators.
"Wait," Harry stopped Ron at the back of the line. "What about Hermione? She doesn't know about the wasp!"
"Oh…" Ron bit his lip. "Oh all right. I suppose we have to go help her."
"How do we get away from Percy?"
"He can barely see indoors with those Muggle sunglasses. Come on!"
Hermione emerged from the toilet stall in the girls' bathroom, wiping tears with toilet paper.
"Just because I'm wearing a robe over my shirt and no one can see it untucked, doesn't mean…"
She trailed off as she heard the ominous buzzing sound. She turned and spotted the wasp.
She ignored it and went to wash her face in the sink.
The doors burst open, and Ron and Harry rushed in after having ran into several wrong girls' bathrooms prior. They each sported angry red hand marks on their faces to show for it.
"We've come to save you, Hermione!"
"What are you doing?" she scolded. "You're not allowed in here!"
Hey!" said Harry, looking around. "Why do you guys get sinks?"
"What?"
"And what is… Is this soap!?"
Hermione looked appalled.
"Ew."
"Watch out, Hermione!"
"For what?"
"The wasp!"
The wasp stupidly bonked against a window.
"Just open the window Ron, it's not a big-"
Ron pulled out his wand and aimed at it, intending to end it with a Void.
"Ripopen Aspaceanus!"
The spell hit the wasp and gave it a minor jolt; confused and angry, it started fluttering its way towards Hermione.
"Oh no, I'm sorry!"
"This soap is scented too, whoa."
"Omg Harry."
"Ron, do something!"
Panicking, Ron made a sort of jabbing motion and shouted the spell again.
He hit the wasp with a real spell this time, finally… only it enlarged to a thousand times its size. Hermione saw herself reflected in its many, many eyes.
"Ron-"
"Oh god - Ripopen Aspaceanus!"
It grew thirty stingers.
"Ron, I think I should just leave-"
"LET ME DO THIS! RIPOPEN ASPACEANUS!"
And started shooting fire out of them.
"Ron! Swish and flick, you absolute boob!"
"Ripopen ASPACE-anus!" fumbled Ron.
It had a gun.
"It has a gun, Ron!"
"RIPOPEEPEEPUS!"
The wasp multiplied to twenty.
"HOW ARE YOU SO BAD AT THIS?"
"Ohgodohgodohgod- Ripopen Aspace-ANUS!"
They voted for Brexit.
"There go my family's Italian visas!" exclaimed Hermione.
The wasps swarmed a screaming Hermione before Ron finally swished and flicked the correct spell, or so he thought. In a poof of glittery indigo smoke, the wasps turned into a single round, black cat with no distinguishable features other than its big, green eyes.
"Aw," cooed Hermione.
Ron lowered his wand and scratched the back of his head. "I suppose the spell did its job in a way."
"Thank you, Ron." Hermione scratched the back of the little black cat's ear.
Harry, having messed with the nearest sink, broke the rusty faucet handle. Water shot out and soaked the cat.
"RRRAGAHARRRAW!"
"AHHG!"
It mauled Hermione.
Percy slammed the bathroom door open.
"There's a warrant out for your arrests, Potter and Weasley."
"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!" Harry whipped out his wand, made a man-sized Void, and escaped through it.
"He could do it this whole time?!" shouted Ron. Two miles away, Harry fell seventy feet into a vat of cement. He became solidified and was sold to be put on display at the London Museum of Art as some kind of faun statue (he still had his stupid bunny ears) before the school noticed his absence and sent someone to chisel open a crack so that he could slide out like an egg yolk from its shell.
"Detention, Potter," said Snape, glaring down at Harry and pocketing the chisel. "For ruining the dignity of fine art. I will not ask how it is that you have become so mucinous in there."
"A Void cat," Harry gasped, still sliding along the floor a little while admiring the magnificent museum ceiling. "I get it now."
"Excuse me," said a Muggle tourist, "are we getting a refund or what?"
"Just go to the customer service kiosk," said Snape.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
The first Quidditch game of the season was coming up on a Saturday and Harry still didn't know what he was supposed to do. Wood trained him in secret, throwing balls at him until he was black and blue.
The twins, who were also on the Gryffindor team, had taken pity and finally explained it to him. There were 56,809 rules and 43 goal posts on each side of the playing field. Each goal post was worth 6 points if you got the Quaffle through it, with the middle smallest one worth 17 points. There were 7 total players on each team; 3 Chasers, 2 Beaters, a Keeper, and a Seeker. The Seeker's chances of dying during each game was 124%. It was considered a foul if one team member had not had a bowel movement before the game. Some countries had an extra player to act as human goal posts at random by forming a circle with their arms. Which made little sense because the Quaffle was 200 pounds and 8 meters in diameter. But the goal posts themselves were each only 4 inches across.
American Beaters were known as Shooters and played a little differently, but the twins reassured Harry that this didn't concern the Hogwarts's teams.
Players who called out sick were replaced by a sack of potatoes. Because they had many eyes and it was considered a good luck thing.
Every half an hour of game time, a flock of 400-900 British geese flew through the players in an attempt to disorient the players and keep the game from getting boring.
Lastly; the winning team was the one with highest score divided by number of calories burned by the player with the most hemodynamically stable body-mass index, multiplied by the weather degrees in Celsius and square rooted with the coefficient of the surface area of goose-to-player contact. And that included hair and feathers. Blondes were worth 14% more. If the player was Black, you had to give them money.
"Okay," said Harry, his tongue sticking out as he frowned at his notebook and scratched his head with his pencil. "Is the surface area measured in centimeters or inches?"
"That's determined by the referee," said Fred.
"They have to flip a coin," added George. "Except on mildly cloudy days, then the referee has to shave their head. The winner will have been tattooed on it. Any questions?"
"Yes, just one. What the fuck?"
"Great! Don't be nervous, you'll be amazing out there."
Ron could sense Harry's anxiety, especially because Harry would express it by crawling into his safe space behind the large Gryffindor common room tapestry. The day before the game, Ron took him to a nice snowy hill to sled down using ginormous library books. They picked ones Hermione had already signed out of the library at least fourteen times in hopes she wouldn't reread them.
Harry was about to race Ron again on his massive 2,000-page, 4-by-7 foot, 40-pound leather-bound copy of How do "Lightbulbs" Work?; Theories when Snape came stomping up to them. Wrapped in a black winter coat against the wintery winds, he was scowling worse than usual.
"Potter!" Weasley!
"Uh-oh."
"What do you think you are doing?"
"We were just sledding, Professor."
"Without helmets?"
"Er," said Harry.
"But it's just snow, sir," said Ron.
"Are you two not stupid enough that you must risk incurring further brain deficits? Fifty points from Gryffindor!"
"But-"
He turned and swept his coat dramatically. "And next time, do not use the Hogwarts student burial mound!"
Before he finished the sentence, a bony skeleton arm reached out and strangled Ron. Harry laughed so hard he blew a fuse in the sun and the sky momentarily went dark. Then all the skeletons popped out and ran wild before an exterminator had to be called. The school added the fees to Ron's tuition.
Later that evening, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat by their usual squishy armchairs near the fire. Harry sat fidgeting and wringing his hands. The dread of his first game tomorrow was weighing on him like one of Dudley's old empty aquariums that fell on him when he was snooping around the Dursley basement looking for a book, any book.
"I think I'll go to the teacher's lounge," he announced, standing up.
"Why?" asked Hermione.
"Maybe McGonagall will give me the points I lost from Snape."
"Don't be stupid. She doesn't go around giving points."
"What if I give her cat treats?"
"That would be bribing!"
"Ugh."
"Look, why don't you try studying really hard and earning back those points over time?"
By the time Harry recovered in the hospital wing from the spontaneous abdominal wall hernia he had developed from laughing so hard at Hermione's absurd idea, it was quite late in the evening.
He doubted that Professor McGonagall was still at the lounge, but he had to try.
Harry slowly creeped the door open and peered inside… And he had to slap his hand over his mouth to stop himself from shouting out at the horror before his eyes.
Snape was in there, but not wearing his winter coat. He was almost unrecognizable; his robes were covered entirely in long, thick golden hairs.
Filch was in there too, using long strips of tape to remove the hairs.
"Blasted thing," grumbled Snape. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"
"Well you've got two eyes," said Filch. "Just need one extra."
Harry giggled. Snape looked up.
"POTTER!"
"This isn't the bathroom!" Harry jolted off.
Filch turned to Snape and unrolled a fresh strip of sticky paper. "Shall we start with your weekly leg wax, sir?"
"Not right now, you fool! Go out there and show the boy where the bathroom is before he wets himself!"
It had been difficult for Harry to sleep that night due to his running thoughts. He discussed it at length with Ron and Hermione. One thing was clear; he must have tried to get past the three-headed Golden Retriever. What could it possibly be guarding?
The Great Hall was abuzz with excitement over the first Quidditch match of the season. Gryffindor was to be playing Slytherin. Harry felt so nervous he accidentally thunk a curse into existence in which every banana within a 50-mile radius became unpeeled.
"You have to eat something," said Hermione gently.
"I'm not hungry."
"You need your strength!"
Harry poked at his sad soggy cereal, floating around in a bowl of leftover Halloween blood.
"What if I embarrass myself in front of the whole school?"
"The whole school won't even be there," reassured Ron. "Filch isn't coming."
"I really needed him there, Ron!" harry cried into his hands.
"You need to stop imprinting on people who don't like you."
A piece of used tissue paper landed in Harry's cereal bowl.
"Dammit Neville, can't you control that thing?" snapped Ron.
Neville's Void had been revolving around him since its creation, like a loyal little moon. His four-poster bed was basically a dumpster, and he now needed to shower seven times a day and sit way in the back of each class.
"I can't find my wand." A single tear went down his cheek. "Or Trevor."
The Void made a new gurgling noise and started spewing fish guts just to spite him.
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The Gryffindor team changed in the locker room and sat through Captain Wood's pregame pep-talk.
"MFFGHFH! MFURGHGRUFFMGH!"
"You really mixed it up this year," said Fred.
"Yeah," said George. "Pure poetry."
"Truly you have a way with words."
"Don't you mean 'roids', Fred?"
Wood ripped the chalkboard off the wall and flung it at the twins.
Carrying their horse sticks over their shoulders, the red-clad Gryffindor team were met with a mix of roaring cheers and booming boos from the stands. Harry scanned the faces for Filch, but without much hope. Across from them, the green Slytherin team walked sneering towards the middle of the pitch.
"Alright!" chimed Madam Hooch. "I want a clean, fair game… No bewitching a dragon-bear to look like a player, like last time."
Angelina Johnson shifted guiltily.
"Mount your horse sticks! Ready… GO!"
The players kicked off; the game began. As Harry dashed forward through the manicured grass, his nervousness dissolved into determination and focus; he had to find the Golden Snitch.
"And they're off!" he heard the magically booming voice a fellow Gryffindor, Lee Jordan, acting as announcer.
"Alicia catches the Quaffle, she passes it to Angelina, Angelina is now circling the hoops in standard Pentagon Formation to summon points…"
Harry swept the field carefully… There! He saw it!
He kicked his Nimbus forward when he felt something go horribly, horribly wrong.
"Wha- AH!"
Unnoticed by his teammates and the rest of the school body because of how stupid everyone was, his Nimbus appeared to have been replaced by a real, live horse. Real horses, as one knew, were timid animals who could sense magic and did not like it at all. And there was a lot of magic in the air.
The animal starting bucking violently while Harry clung on for dear life.
"What's happening to Harry?" shouted Hermione.
"Sabotage!" booed Ron. "Stop the game!"
Madam Hooch stood flipping through the massive tome of a Quidditch rulebook to see if this was considered a reason to pause the game. It was hard memorizing all the rules.
The horse ran into the stands; in so doing, Harry was flung through the air and the Snitch somehow lodged itself inside Harry's trachea.
"GRYFFINDOR WINS(?)"
Hermione performed the Heimlich Spell. Harry coughed up the Snitch which landed in his palm, shaped like a chubby little golden fairy.
"Neville Longbottom once tried on his aunt's brassiere," she Snitched. Harry giggled amongst the broken wood.
"It was Snape. I know it."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione went to Hagrid's trailer after the game, drinking tea mixed with Mountain Dew.*
*Mountain Dew is a wizard drink made of mist condensed on the brows of muscular Norwegian lumbar wizards. It was especially popular with the ladies.
"He's the only wizard who has access to the Muggle stables at the town outside Hogsmeade. Bill told me he volunteers there."
"And," added Harry, "he tried to get passed that three-headed dog on Halloween. I saw him covered in fur, he must have tried to steal whatever it was guarding!"
Hagrid dropped his bong, shattering it.
"Who told you about Richard?!"
The trio gaped at him.
"That thing has a name?"
"How do you know about it?"
"Because he's mine! Bought him off some Muggle Golden Retriever breeder- he was one 'o the inbred rejects."
"I can't imagine why."
"That's why you gotta buy from qualified breeders, kids. Learned that the hard way. Their dental bills are outrageous."
"Why would Snape want to kill Harry though?" asked Hermione.
"Every teacher has those thoughts sometimes, Hermione."
"But he seems to really hate me-" started Harry.
"He just wants you to apply yourself more, Harry."
"He insults me every class."
"He's trying to teach you how to take constructive criticism."
"He let Draco Malfoy pour boiling mercury down my underpants-"
"I mean, nobody likes group work but tha' doesn't mean-"
"What's Richard guarding?" Ron blurted out, hoping to catch him off guard.
"I ain't telling ya nosy kids. That's between Dumbledore and Dorothy."
"Ha!"
Hagrid scowled.
CHAPTER EPILOGUE
Somewhere, a Muggle dog owner - whose wife had insisted on purchasing purebred dogs only - woefully cleaned up after his three-anused Golden Retriever and littermate of Richard named Armani.
Author's Note: I swear I was not on any drugs when I wrote this, though I probably should have been.
