Harry Potter And The Title That Is Too Long For FA

The First Half of the Third Chapter: The Cameo Spot, Part One (Which Also Includes Very Many Impromptu Author Notes...Just Thought You Should Know)

"Oh, how sweet--the Weasel and Granger," drawled a nevertheless succinct voice.

Ron quickly removed his broad, tanned, muscular--well okay, look; you know if you've read the second chapter. And if you haven't, then what the hell are you doing here?--hand from Hermione's shoulder and narrowed his eyes, against the glare produced by the oncoming figure's über-shiny pale blond hair--or maybe just because he was extremely angry...

"Well if it isn't Draco Malformed," said Harry, all-too-pleasantly.

"Yeah, well--wait...what did you just call me?" asked Draco suspiciously.

"Dra-co Mal-form-ed," pronounced Harry slowly and clearly, as though he was talking to a small child, or a mental patient, which he may have well been.

"Sarcasm--and an intentional, original insult that did not include a death threat? From Potter? What the hell?!" Draco's face bore an expression of intense confusion and disbelief.

"AHEM," said a voice behind them.

The...what's that, five of them now? Oh, no, it's four. Okay. The four of them turned quickly around and saw a large, pale and bloated toad-like visage, with puffy eyes, advancing on them.

"Oh, sorry," said Neville. He scooped Trevor up, into his hands and stuffed the magnifying glass that the toad hap been hopping toward hurriedly into his jacket pocket. "I'll be on my way now." And with a final, nervous glance behind him, Neville disappeared into the crowd.

"Riiiiight," said Malfoy, as everyone turned back to their original positions. "Anyway, as I was saying--"

"AHEM." The throat that was still, apparently, situated behind them cleared itself again; this time more vehemetly.

"For the love of Pete, what is it now?!" burst out Hermione spastically. Ron gave her a look, as if considering placing his hand on her shoulder again, but seeing as it had done little if no good the first time, he declined.

"Who keeps saying that?!" said Malfoy, both angry and extremely exasperated, now that he had been interrupted twice, not to mention consecutively, by the same person with a congested asophagus.

The five turned round again, this time notably less enthusiastically, and saw a dark, cloaked figure standing behind them.

Actually, not only was the figure cloaked, but it was also rather...well, short.

Draco, Ron and Harry stared, completely non-plussed. Hermione began to fiddle with her hair.

"Great," said Harry dryly, "just what I need to top of this morning's series of unfortunate events. An appearance by Lord Voldemort himself."

"...Or," Harry added finally as an afterthought (and a bit more loudly as well), finally registering the figure's questionable lact of vertical prowess, "is it Wormtail--pathetic emissary of our favorite Dark Lord?"

The figure just stood there, its face hooded, cloak flapping slightly in the light breeze. A neon sign appeared suddenly in the air above the figure, and blazed to life.

It read 'MYSTERIOUS, HOODED FIGURE' in bright green neon.

"How helpful," drawled Malfoy sardonically.

Hermione started to say something about how, in reality, the sign wasn't really helpful at all, more redundant actually, and that she was fairly certain that she had read in Platform 9 ¾, A Profile that it was magically impossible to levitate large, neon objects above the platform without proper forms and registration, but Ron, sensing the stupidy of her impending comment, abandoned all thought of placing his hand comfortingly on her shoulder (and any furthur pretense of civilty) and clapped his palm firmly over her mouth.

Hermione took this new development in stride, and returned peaceably once more to fiddling with her hair.

Not long after this, however, she realized that she had been exposed to a rather terribly-written run on sentence, and she fainted dead away--though, luckily Ron, as he had said before, was there for her (as in, he caught her).

In the meantime, Harry and Draco were still staring at the mysterious cloaked figure, who had not budged an inch since Harry had insulted both Voldemort and Wormtail...but apparently, someone else had heard him as well...

"How dare you, boy," said a steeley voice behind Harry.

It may be worth mentioning that the aforementioned steeley voice was also situated behind Ron, Hermione and Draco, and that they were all forced to wheel around (rather exasperatedly this time, as they were getting sick of it) to locate the source of the voice. Ron could be heard grunting as he struggled with Hermione's unconcious weight.

The cloaked figure (which was now behind them), needless to say, persisted obstinately in its immobility--but in this case it acutally due to the fact that it was already facing in the voice's direction.

Harry, Ron and Draco stared (or rather, glared, on the part of the first two) at Lucius Malfoy. Harry opened his mouth to say something to the effect of how he, Harry, would like to know how the Dark Lord Minion business was treating Lucius; but before he could deliver this spectacularly written line, someone spoke from what was now behind him.

"Lucius," hissed the voice coldly.

Harry, Ron and Draco rolled their eyes in unison (Hermione grunted, as she was still unconscious), as they turned once more.

Standing in the behind that used to be before them, before their behind had become their before, was Mr. Weasley. He was accompanied by everyone's favorite female Weasley (except for Mrs. Weasley, of course); Ginny.

Ginny grinned and waved at Harry. Harry felt himself blush and scowled. The author smiled wickedly.

Ron, no sooner had he realized his father's presence, scooped Hermione's limp form into his arms, strode over to Mr. Weasley and stood beside him, to make it perfectly clear as to whose side he was on. Harry wasted no time in joining Ron, and Draco, after a moment of looking ridiculous as he was standing in the middle of the Platform all by himself, rushed over to his father, and tried to restore his cool appearance by scowling even more malevolently than previously thought humanly possible.

Harry observed that this new expression had much the same effect on Malfoy's face as does mold on a rotting carcass.

The cloaked figure (A/N: Forgot about that, now did we?), now almost completely obscured, not to mention forgotten, sighed loudly and impatiently from behind Mr. Weasley.

"Arthur," said Lucius Malfoy, his tone matching the look on his (as of now, rather demented-looking) son's face. Coincidentally, he said he said this just as the mysterious cloaked figure sighed ostentatiously, thereby (however inadvertently) drowning out the sound of completely.

"I was just about to teach Potter here some manners," the sinister, covert Death Eater continued.

Harry frowned. He was sure he'd heard that line somewhere before.

"Oh really?" said Mr. Weasley, as the author was becoming quite fond of using italics. He raised one eyebrow and slowly folded his arms in front of him, looking increasingly like a poorly-written action movie (A/N: *coughcoughanythingwithVinDieselinitcoughcough*).

"Yeah, really," repeated Lucius, sneering, and in the process completely overwhelming the horror of Mr. Weasley's abysmal impression of a bad action movie with his own.

I mean, come on. What kind of evil, upper-class, aristocratic, Generic VillainTM says 'yeah'?

Anyway...

"Really, really?" asked Mr. Weasley in a dulcet tone. (A/N: A 'dulcet' tone? What the hell?)

"Yes..." said Lucius, a bit uncertainly

&ldqu;REALLY, really, really?" asked Mr. Weasley again, this time (thankfully) abandoning the dulcet tone.

"Yes! Really, REALLY, REALLY!" said Lucius through clenched teeth, obviously trying to remain calm but failing quite spectacularly.

"Are you positive?" asked Mr. Weasley.

"YES, GODDAMMIT! REALLY!" shrieked Lucius, who had become quite exasperated, and had finally lost control, "REALLY, REALLY, REALLY! I'M BLOODY POSITIVE!"

Mr. Weasley, along with Ron, Ginny, Harry, Draco and Hermione, who had finally regained consciousness, stared at Lucius Malfoy's bloodshot eyes, pumping vein, red face and twitching left eye. Harry heard Ginny suppress a giggle.

Mr. Weasley surveyed Lucius calmly for a few moments as the latter panted for breath. Then he said, "Excellent."

Lucius, as well as everyone else involved, looked (understandably) confused.

"Right then," said Mr. Weasley to Ginny, "shall we go?"

Ginny smirked. Harry saw her blow a kiss to someone behind him, and then, her long red hair flowing behind her as she ran slightly to catch up to Mr. Weasley, she disappeared among the crowd of mostly nameless background characters.

Harry turned just in time to see Draco blush faintly and motion as if he was going to snatch something from the air--but before he could, a pale, blond woman with a haughty and disdainful expression popped up over his shoulder, shook her finger ostentatiously in a motion indicating 'no, no, no!', and grabbed the thing out of the air before him. Then she disappeared, presumably behind Draco again.

Completely oblivious to the goings-on between Ginny and his son, and the unexplained appearance of the blond woman, Lucius was standing, mouth agape, staring in the direction of which Mr. Weasley had walked away. It looked as if he could not believe that Mr. Weasley had...well, walked away. Harry noted that it looked as if the mysterious cloaked figure had disappeared as well, taking its large neon sign with it.

Good riddance, he thought.

Lucius Malfoy shook his head vehemently as if to clear it, and withdrew his wand from the top of his cane, the silver head of which bore a sculpture with a remarkable resemblance to Kermit the Frog. Harry tensed, ready if the man of more than questionable character would try to jinx him, but Lucius simply gave his wand a flick and Disapparated from the Platform.

Harry stared at Malfoy (the remaining one) who shall, from this point on, only be referred to as Malfoy, because we want to deny his numerous Fan Girls the happiness of seeing Draco being recognized as actually deserving a first name--and because J.K. Rowling made him into an even bigger sissy prat/sod in the fifth book than I ever could have imagined. Grrr...

Sorry. Anyway, as I was saying...

Harry stared at Malfoy with an intense hatred that was rapidly becoming sexual tension for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever, and spat, "So, what are you doing here anyway, Malfoy?"

"Well," said Malfoy maliciously, "it's a free country, isn't it? So I can stay wherever I choose for as long as I choose, Potty."

"Oooo burn, Harry," Ron and Hermione said together.

Malfoy preened.

"Actually," said Harry, determined to pay back Malfoy in full for the stinging insult that is calling someone 'Potty', "it's not a free country; in reality, we're under the rule of a patriarchal monarch whose ancestors came to power by exploiting the workers and by hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma--and that itself perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. We're living in a dictatorship; a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes are treated as a diminutive commune and as inferiors to those who hold seats of power--a.k.a., those who sit in the Queen's favour."

"And," Harry continued, relishing the dumbfounded look on Malfoy's face, "if you stayed in one place for long enough, you'd eventually be arrested for loitering."

Ron and Hermione's mouths were hanging open. Malfoy scratched his head in a perfect imitation of a chimpanzee. Harry smiled.

"Look Malfoy," he said, "the only reason I asked you what you were doing here in the first place, is because we're not scheduled for our first confrontation until we've boarded the train and left for Hogwarts."

"What--aw, buggerall!" Malfoy's confused (other wise known as 'brain-dead') expression was quickly with a look of vague irritation, as he began to rummage in his tight black jeans (A/N: Oh, did I forget to mention those?) for something. In no time, he produced a worn-looking, dog-eared script entitled Harry Potter (& Co.) and the Alternate, Politically Correct--due to a lack of funds, we could not afford to continue this title, or even put this message in capital letters. He hastily began to flip through, and apparently finally found the page he was looking for, because he quickly skimmed its contents. Satisfied, he promptly folded the script back up, shoved it in his back pocket, and with a brisk nod, turned and walked right through the side of the train, presumably to find himself compartment, and advisably to review his lines.

And then Hermione, in direct consequence of her exposure to another run-on sentence containing a lethal combination of incorrectly-placed adverbs and freely-used hyphens, Draco's tight black jeans, and unregulated magic, fainted once more.

Harry sighed and shook his head as he watched Ron catch her again. They stared hopelessly at one another for a second, and then the author got tired of writing stilted narration, so she quickly employed a new character cameo.

But first...

Suddenly, Hermione revived, which required a rather lengthy assessment of physical assessment for an all-together much too eager Ron. ("Ron, really, I'm fine! Would you stop slobbering all over me--this shirt wasn't cheap, you know!"). The overexcited redhead eventually gave up and announced that Hermione seemed to have suffered no fatal injuries or serious repercussions from her abrupt loss and regaining of consciousness.

For this Harry, in particular, was quite grateful; as Ron had begun to eye him up appraisingly while flexing his rippling muscles, which were of course clearly visible under his traditional maroon Weasley jumper.

"But it's such a good colour for him!" insisted Mrs. Weasley, who had popped up behind Harry, causing him to utter a small squeak of fright and then jump into Hermione's arms.

"What?" asked Ron, confused because he did not have access to the wonderful narrating.

"Oh nothing dear," sighed Mrs. Weasley, and as she turned and walked down to the archway that led to the Muggle part of the train station, Harry was sure he heard her mutter something along the lines of 'honestly, that boy...ever with his head in the clouds...'

"Right," said Hermione authoritatively, as soon as Mrs. Weasley had faded from sight. Apparently her brief lapse had left her ability of speech completely (and perhaps unfortunately) quite unaffected. "Could we possibly get on to the train now?"

Without waiting for a reply, Hermione shifted the stack of books that had reappeared into one hand, and balanced them expertly as she handed her trunk (and behemoth makeup case) to Ron, who proceeded to unhesitatingly pass them on to a house elf that had suddenly appeared at his elbow...and who coincidentally enough, looked remarkably like--

"Dobby!" exclaimed Harry quite predictably.

Yes, and who could have guessed that such an unlikely character would ever appear...

Oh, oh! Over here! Pick me, pick me!

Yes, you with the wedding dress on, and the white chiffon blowing in the wind--oh, my! It seems we're quite out of time. So I guess you'll just have to wait for the next installment: The Second, and Thereby Final, Half of the Third Chapter: The Cameo Spot, Part Two.

Until then...PLEASE REVIEW!