Our Toil Strive To Mend

"Our Toil Strive To Mend"

-A Harry Potter Mishap-

Prologue

-In Which A Semi-Evil Plot Is Born, And Percy Has A Prophetic Dream-

"Two household, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;

Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,

And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

Which but their children’s end naught could remove,

Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;

The which, if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend."

In a seemingly normal theater, in a seemingly normal location somewhere in the vicinity of London, a seemingly normal production of Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" had begun. As the seemingly normal actors and actresses performed this great work of literature, they were unaware of three seemingly normal girls sitting in the audience. Of the three girls, two would soon begin something seemingly normal that was neither seemingly or normal and that would bring terror to the heart of one seemingly normal young man with red hair, glasses, and freckles.

"I’ve had the most fantastic idea!" shrieked Lavender as the actors took their last bows.

"Really?" asked Padma sleepily. Maybe the late show hadn’t been such a good idea what with school starting again tomorrow, she thought as she tried to stay awake. It was no use. She slumped down in her seat, but the other two ignored her.

"What is it?" asked Parvati as her sister began to snore.

"We could do the play- at Hogwarts!"

"And have auditions and perform it and everything!"

"All we would need is some copies of the play, but that shouldn’t be too hard…."

"We could call ourselves "The Gryffindor Theater Company" or something."

"But would they let us?"

"If we got a teacher to sponsor it or something, I’m sure they would."

"It would have to be a former Gryffindor if it was only our house…"

"McGonagall?"

"No, she’d never buy it."

"Then who?"

The two girls shook the third awake and left the theater, pondering the prospect of a suitable ‘sponsor.’

Meanwhile, far away from the still fairly normal theater and the not in the slightest bit normal girls, but only moments after their plan was devised, a young man shot up in bed, sweat pouring over his eyes.

"Only a dream," he muttered to himself as he fumbled for his glasses. "Only a dream."

He slid the horn-rimmed glasses up over his nose and turned on lamp. His room was exactly as it had been when he had fallen asleep, but he couldn’t shake the sickening feeling his dream had left hanging over his head. He couldn’t remember anything from it…except that there had been two girls….

"Have some breakfast, Perce," said Ginny as she passed him a plate of bacon.

"Hmmm?" He blinked several times as though he was coming out of a trance. In fact he was coming out of a trance. At least it seemed like a trance, but trances are mysterious things and very difficult to define in the best of cases.

"You all right?" asked Ron with some semblance of concern. He really did care for Percy, but at that particular moment he had other thoughts on his mind, including a certain bushy haired girl who was most likely off somewhere being given a brand new toothbrush and floss by her parents who just happened to be avid dentists.

"Of course I am," said Percy quickly. Molly Weasley walked over to the table.

"Are you taking the train up, Percy?" she asked before yelling up to the twins to hurry up.

"I think so mother, if it’s not too much trouble for you." The twins thundered down the stairs.

"Of course it’s no trouble, dear," said George in a perfect imitation of their mother as he, along with Fred, strode into the kitchen.

"Yes, Percy dear. It would never be any trouble," continued Fred.

"Shove it you two," muttered Percy as he played with his food. The twins looked surprised….and proud it seemed. Hearing Percy drop his almighty air long enough to say something nasty was a rare and special family moment. If he did it often enough, he might actually loosen up enough to be fun. Little did they know that in only a few hours, a group of events so riddled with misfortune that they might even be referred to as a series of unfortunate events would be beginning, and these events would change dear old Percy quite a bit. As to whether the change would make him more fun to be around, only the author (myself) knows, and I’m not telling. Besides, I happen to think Percy is quite fun as he is,

Percy, his dream now forgotten, sat quite pleasantly in his compartment on the Hogwarts Express reviewing his notes. Actually, he was reading a very funny book about a very odd Irish boy who was trying to swindle a bunch of fairies, but he was a bit embarrassed of his fondness for muggle literature. He was therefore anxious to hide it by putting the book inside a notebook so it would look like he was reviewing notes. There was a knock at the door.

"Er, come in," he said as he sat up straight and tried to smooth a few wrinkles out of his robes while shoving the book under his seat.

"Professor?" It was a pair of girls.

"Oh, yes?" He felt funny being called professor. He supposed he must get used to it eventually…

"We were wondering if you might be interested in sponsoring a-a-" stumbled the first girl.

"An extra curricular muggle studies project," finished the second girl.

"You’re both in Ron’s year aren’t you?" asked Percy absentmindedly. He almost remembered them. The girls squirmed a bit.

"Yes, but, um, will you sponsor it?"

"Yes, of course," he muttered. He waited for them to leave and then fished his book out from under his seat. Unfortunately, he was too busy reading about a particularly exciting bit about a battle with a troll to realize the severity of this agreement just yet.