Harry Potter Morgendorffer Halloween Campout
Daria is the creation of Glenn Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers, as are its characters and situations. I don't own them, and neither expect nor deserve financial compensation for this story. I am writing for my own amusement and for ego gratification.
What if Minerva McGonagall had been able to persuade Professor McGonagall to place baby Harry Potter with different blood relatives instead of with Petunia Dursley and her husband: the Morgendorffers from MTV's Daria?
Rated "T" for language.
Harry Potter Morgendorffer*Harry Potter Morgendorffer*Harry Potter Morgendorffer
The end of October already? Helen went through her day planner. She used paper; she suspected that she'd continue to use paper throughout her career. She now worked for the Goblins and learned that magic interfered with electronics.
"Jake, are you and HJ going to be at the Halloween party this weekend?" asked Helen.
"Sorry, Helen, but HJ and I are going to be camping Saturday night. It's the Halloween campout."
"Janey from the office is holding that children's party," said Helen. "I think you ought to consider going."
"HJ and I had looked forward to this camping trip," said Jake. "We've been signed up for months."
Helen shook her head fondly at her husband, who had started picking out clothes to wear for the campout. She thought the idea was a little strange. The boys were going to be out camping this weekend instead of trick or treating or going to a Halloween party? Who else but Jakey would want to go on a Halloween camp out?
Well, HJ, she thought. Over the years since he'd come to live with them, HJ had come to think of Jake as a Dad despite the fact that both of them knew that Jake wasn't his real father. And the two had bonded much like father and son.
"Still going on that campout this weekend?" Daria said a little later/
"Yeah," said HJ. "Dad and I are going to go out into the Hill Country and be wild men."
"Don't get eaten by coyotes," said Daria. "I read they get particularly hungry this time of year."
"Thanks, Daria," said HJ.
HJ had mixed feelings about the campout. He didn't worry about it being cold, not here in the Hill Country. It wasn't like it was the end of December or January or anything. It was cool in the evenings, but not freezing.
True, he'd miss the regular stuff about Halloween. It was fun to go out in a costume and see how much candy he could get if he went trick-or-treating, but he knew that his hours would be cut short. Last year Aunt Helen and Uncle Jake imposed an 8:30 curfew for trick or treating. Still camping was better than going to a kiddie party with Quinn and her little circle of friends; Quinn had ways of making her part of the party all about her. Daria couldn't wriggle out of it; She'd have to go. HJ felt a little sorry for her, but not too much: his adopted sister was tougher than she looked.
HJ and Uncle Jake spent the early part of the next morning loading up camping gear—sleeping bags, camping cookwear, a water cooler, and some paper plates and napkins that had been stashed in the pantry. They then made a stop at the H-E-B grocery store and loaded up on food, plastic forks, knives, and spoons, as well as the essentials—canned beans, chili, bread, eggs, sausage, and hot dogs.
The campground was somewhere between thirty and forty miles from Ruskin as the crows flew, but at least fifteen more when you threw in the county roads to get to the camp site. They got to the campground and started unloading the car. Dad and he had brought a tent, two sleeping bags, a cooler, and a chest with dry food. They'd tried living off the land a couple of years ago during a family campout and Mom had said never again.
One of the parcels next to the campground was a paleo-Indian site owned by an archaeological conservancy. Some pot hunters had removed a couple of arrowheads, but most of the site was still intact. One of the volunteers who watched the site to make sure that looters stayed out said that it was thought to have been some sort of ceremonial site. Nobody was sure.
They'd brought lunch. The dads had gotten together and planned it out beforehand. Nothing fancy: hamburgers with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, or onions. Cheese was optional. Jake had brought some hamburger patties as well as condiments. They'd not use the camp fire for cooking, though. They'd be using a couple of small, efficient propane cook stoves instead.
After lunch, the fathers and sons took a short hike out of the campground and down the road they'd taken to get there, then a short walk inside the fencing at the edge of the campground. Most of the surrounding area was ranch country, and to prove it, they could see and hear cattle on the other side of the barbed wire.
This campout would be a little special; it was Halloween after all. They had gotten permission to build a campfire if they tended it and then put it out before leaving. They'd not use the camp fire for cooking, though. They'd use the camp stoves again. Jake silently grumbled about his stove's lack of romance, but thought it worked anyway. Pete, who'd previously gone camping with Jake, was relieved that Jake had had to stick with store-bought beans and chili and hadn't had a chance to do any free-style cooking.
They all sat around the camp fire after cooking chili and canned beans for their evening meal. The boys talked about school, football, and occasionally video games while they ate; the fathers about jobs, wives, cars, previous campouts, and football. The campfire's flickering flames and the wood smoke giving an air of authenticity and a sense of really being outdoors. After dinner, the dads started telling ghost stories. Austin and Brewster told good ones; you could almost see the shape-shifter crawling through the underbrush and dragging away the hapless campers who hadn't listened to the warnings. Brewster's story about the Wendigo was just about as good. The young boys thought that those stories couldn't really happen, but they'd been scared anyway. It wasn't until much later that Harry learned that at least half of the stories Austin and Brewster had told them were all too possible.
It drew on, and fathers and sons began to get sleepy. Some of the guys started turning in. Jake and HJ held out longer than Austin, Paul, Brewster, and Gil. They first unzipped the bug screen, took off their shoes, then slid into their old-style sleeping bags.
It was late at night and Pete and Gus were the last ones left. Their boys had turned in earlier. The campfire had burned down to a couple of glowing embers that either lay loose or still clung to the cedar they'd use to build the fire. Pete pulled out a flask he'd hidden in his back pack and offered it to Gus. "The kids are asleep," he said. "I think we can have a nip or two before we turn in."
Gus took a pull and handed the flask back to Pete. "This is nice," he said. "I need a break from the rat race every now and then."
"Want another?" he asked Gus.
"Just one," Gus replied.
Gus had taken another nip from the flask when he saw a figure standing just out of the moonlight.
"Hallo," it said. English, thought Gus. There was still something of the boy left in him; he couldn't be more than twenty five.
"Hadn't seen you earlier," said Pete, which was his back-handed way of saying who are you and what are you doing here.
"I'm James," said the ghostly figure.
Gus was an amateur photographer who occasionally took night photos in black and white, so he knew a thing about light and shadow. He knew how moonlight leached out colors at night but James was a shimmering white. Holy Crap, this was a real ghost, he thought.
"So you are?" asked Gus.
"I'm Harry's, no, HJ's real da," said James.
Gus studied the ghost's features. So did Pete. Straight, messy hair, eyeglasses, chin. There was a lot more of the ghost's features in HJ than there were of Jake's.
"What are you doing here?" said Pete.
"Well, it's Samhain and the barriers between the worlds are weaker this time of year. There's a buried circle of power next door, so I decided to come over and take a look."
"So where are they?"
He must mean Jake and HJ, thought Pete. "They're sleeping in that tent over there," he said.
Gus was slightly buzzed, but still had some of his wits about him. "You know if you wake them up, you'll scare the snot out of both of them and they'll knock down the tent," he said.
"Good point," James reluctantly conceded. "Then I'll have to be quiet, won't I?"
The ghostly figure walked over to the Morgendorffers' tent. The moonlight gently lit HJ's sleeping face. James pushed his head in through the bug netting at the front for a long time, staring at HJ's sleeping figure. He eventually stepped back, turned away, then walked back to the camp fire.
I'll have to ask you two sots to carry a message for Jake when he wakes up."
"What message?" Gus said warily.
"Not too complex. I think even I'd remember it after a long night out," said the ghostly James.
Smart ass, thought Pete.
"Tell him he's doing a good job with Harry," said James. "And Lily says Hello to Aunt Helen."
Who's Lily, thought Pete.
"Good night," said James, who walked into the brush and then vanished from sight.