Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Recycling

Over the years at Hogwarts, Harry had noticed that the wizarding-born students received a lot more "care packages" from home than the muggle-born students. There seemed to be a few reasons for this. First, wizarding parents were likely to have attended Hogwarts themselves, and so had a clearer idea of what was and was not available or permitted at school. Second, wizarding families were far more likely to possess a family owl -- the main way of getting a small package from home to school, and of course, for getting those pleading letters for sweets from school to home!

Having Mabel the Phoenix as a pet, though, was like having a fleet of express super-freight owls: she could make her flights to far-flung places invisibly and at amazing speeds; and of course she could carry incredible weights. Harry remembered the time in his second year when Fawkes the phoenix had lifted (and flown with) the weight of Ron, Ginny, himself and Professor Lockhart together, without batting an eye or losing a tail-feather. The only problem, unfortunately, was that Harry's family happened to be the Dursleys -- who would sooner dance down Privet Drive in dress robes and wizards' hats, singing "That Old Black Magic," than ever send him a care package.

So after a while, Harry began lending Mabel to his friends (mostly his closest ones from his year, and a few from D.A.) to let them get things from home they needed quickly, or that no owl could bring. "Please, no pianos!" he would joke -- although he had no doubt that Mabel could handle a baby grand if she had to. (Even though he didn't think it would fly very aerodynamically.) Mabel didn't seem to mind at all. She liked getting the exercise, and as a very devoted pet, she would do anything for Harry. And the families loved seeing the phoenix, as it was so rare and beautiful, had such a nicer voice than owls, and had much more sanitary habits: it didn't cough up dead mice, and was fully house-broken.

Hermione in particular was very grateful for the loan of Mabel's services, since she didn't have an owl of her own, (she already had a cat named Crookshanks, and students were only allowed one pet,) and the school owls, being less personally loyal, were much more reluctant to carry anything heavier than a large birthday card back to school. It was obvious to Harry that Hermione would be one of those witches who would live very comfortably in both worlds when she grew up -- she wanted things like the Sunday Times, some muggle magazines (he even thought he saw The Economist in her package a few times), and paper goods.

Toilet paper was one of those things that wizards simply didn't do as well as muggles. The school bathrooms all had a standard-issue toilet paper that was rather scratchy and not very absorbent -- the type Hermione had seen and reluctantly used in some parts of Europe in less deluxe public rest rooms. So when her parents agreed to send her a monthly supply of her favorite brand from the Safeway, she was in heaven. (Yes, she could transfigure the wizarding paper to something softer; but she could only do it a sheet at a time, not a roll at a time, making it just too time-consuming.)

Another treat they sent her via Mabel was rolls of paper towels. This was something wizards didn't seem to have at all. They used cloths, assuming that a house-elf or a laundering charm would always be available. But paper towels had a hundred handy uses, from wiping up spills to blotting lipstick. Once Lavender and Parvati got addicted to them too, Hermione found she was going through rolls faster!

One of the little things from her childhood that Hermione was addicted to, she called a "Dur-dur." This was an impromptu musical instrument made from the empty brown cardboard tube from the end of the roll of paper towels. (In Harry's family, a Der-der was "That springy thing with the rubber stopper screwed into the baseboard behind the doors in your house to keep the door from hitting the wall." But he wasn't going to correct her.) Hermione would hold the tube up to her lips and sing through it, as it produced a funny echoing sound far away from one's ears. (You could do the same thing with a toilet paper tube, but it being much shorter, you didn't get the fine distant hollow-sound effect.) And it got its name from the phrase of choice she would sing into it: "Dur-dur-dur-dur!" Seamus insisted his dad used to make a kazoo with a tube, a rubber band, and wax paper; but Hermione was quite content with her Dur-dur. Hermione never seemed to tire of her little "instrument" -- but Harry did.

Hermione would sing all the ditties she could remember through her Dur-dur, while studying and reading with her friends in the common room by the fireplace. Unfortunately, a lot of the melodies she remembered were commercial jingles and TV series' theme songs, many of which were already old in her parents' day. Pure-blooded wizards like the Weasleys, having never heard them before, found these melodies interesting or novel. But Harry, having grown up with the worst kind of muggles, was sick of them even before he got to Hogwarts. When Hermione's mindless "Dur-dur-dur"-ing would get on his nerves, Harry would roll his eyes and mutter, "Aw, give it a rest!"

One evening in the common room, when Hermione simply would not stop, Harry, in a fit of pique, grabbed the tube right out of her hands. She tried to snatch it back from him, but he dodged back and forth. Ron and Ginny knew better than to get in the middle of this argument, so they just kept their heads down. Seeing no ally to help him, Harry looked around in a panic. Then he spotted Mabel perched up high. "Oy, Mabel!" he shouted, "Go long!"

Mabel flew from her bookcase, and Harry lobbed the Dur-dur through the air, which she caught nicely in her beak. She landed atop another bookcase, and Harry sat down to his books with a big smile on his face.

"Well, aren't you going to help me get it back from her?" Hermione asked him crossly.

"Not on your life," said Harry. "I've been asking you to put that away for hours! If you want it back, you can get it yourself!" Hermione looked at him with a pout.

Then she looked over at Mabel atop her bookcase, who seemed to be holding the cardboard tube at a variety of odd angles with one of her legs, while she stared down it with her beady eye. Finally she began to sing her beautiful melodic phoenix-song down the tube, and seemed excited by the tones that came out the other end. She flapped her wings a little, and bobbed her head. She started singing again through the tube, but this time she was making little puffy sounds, that sounded almost like "Dur-dur-dur!"

"At least it's not cereal jingles!" said Harry. "Looks like Mabel has made it her own! Hope you don't mind."

Hermione cocked her head with a little wink. "You mean it's -- "

"That's right," Harry winked back, "It's --

"The Dur-Dur of the Phoenix!"

Ron sank into his couch with a low moan, covering his head with a book. Harry and Hermione snickered.

- End -