The Heart Of The Country

Harry sat looking out the window from the boys dorm, thinking deep thoughts.

"You're thinking deep thoughts again, aren't you?" Ron, who was reading on his bed, said.

"Yep."

Ron shook his head in disgust.

"What is it this time?"

"My life feels....empty," Harry said, looking at the green mountains in the distance.

"How so?" Ron asked.

"I feel cooped up out here in the city."

"You're not in a city, you're in a castle in the middle of nowhere!"

"You want to shut up?" Harry shot back at Ron. "I mean, I never feel the satisfaction of a hard day's work. I never feel like I deserve what I have."

"You work all the time, Harry! You do school stuff every day, and you save the world from Voldemort like every year. You deserve everything you have."

"Yeah, right."

"I know I'm right," Ron said.

"I don't care what you say," Harry, who stood up said, "I'm blowing this joint."

"Eh?" Ron wasn't exactly listening to what Harry was saying.

"I'm going to go out and get a home in the heart of the country, where I can feel satisfied after a hard day of work."

"What about school and crap?" Ron, who was still not really listening, asked.

"Who cares? I'm leaving it behind me." And with that, Harry threw a few things from his trunk into a red polka-dot bag, tied it up, and put it on the end of a stick that he pulled out of nowhere.

"See you, Ron."

Ron suddenly realized what was going on.

"I'll go with you," he said.

"Why are you giving in so easily? Shouldn't you try to make me stay?"

"No," Ron said, as he to got a few of his belongings together, "the deck is stacked against me. You're the main character in this story: if I somehow convince you to stay, there is no story. So let us go!"

The two fifteen year olds left the dorm with their sacks over their shoulders, and they made their way down to the common room. In it was Hermione, who was furiously writing.

"Bye Hermione," Harry and Ron said in unison.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked, looking up from her parchment.

"The heart of the country to find a home," Harry said. "Want to come?"

"Sure, why not." Hermione got up and picked up a sack with a stick in it off the floor and put it over her shoulder. "I packed this morning."

"How did you know?" Ron asked.

"Clairvoyance. I just figured it would save time."

So the three left Hogwarts and headed out into the heart of the country. Five minutes later, they were magically at an airport in London and flew to the middle of nowhere in Oregon.

"Um, Harry?" Hermione said as they walked towards an unclaimed piece of land on the plains. "Don't we have to get a green card and get naturalized before we can live here in America?"

Harry tackled Hermione and held he mouth shut. He looked around nervously.

"Shut up!" he whispered, "they don't know that!"

When they finally made it to their plot, Harry looked out at the vast expanse and breathed in the fresh air.

"Ah, nothing like the wilderness!"

"I hate you," Hermione said as she sat down and looked around at what was now her home.

"Oh, come on. We'll build a house and everything and be all comfy cozy." Harry had already adopted a Southern American accent.

"Let us build!" Ron shouted.

So the three built a big log cabin without the use of magic (at Harry's insistence).

"You gotta work with your own two hands in the country," he said. "You gotta be holy-like."

So then the three 'found' some cows that were grazing in another pasture, and they 'found' some sheep that were pasturing. Harry also 'found' a horse in a 'deserted' stable. One day, the three were hoeing the land to make a garden.

"Ah, isn't this the life?" Harry said as he looked at the four feet of ground he had tilled.

"Yep." Ron was using hoeing his strip of land exceptionally fast.

Hermione had surreptitiously brought her wand out to the field. She was about to plow the entire field with one flick of her wrist when Harry ran up and brutally tackled her.

"Nooooo!" he yelled, grabbing the wand. "You can't cheat! You have to use a hoe!"

Ron walked over. "Ho, ho, ho! I be Father Christmas, and I say you won't be getting any presents this Christmas if you don't get a-hoeing!"

"Ha, ha, ha. Here," Harry said, handing Hermione a hoe, "Start hoeing."

"Fine, you coercive hoe-er!" Hermione shouted. "You think you're so handy with a hoe, but you can't hoe half as good as Ron 'the hoe-master' can hoe!"

Ron stuck his hoe in the ground and bowed. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Oh, shut up."

Later that day, the clouds started moving in. The sky turned dark as the three were planting their carrot seeds in their freshly hoed ground.

"Looks like a storm's coming!" Harry said. "I'll go round up the chickens!"

"We have chickens?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, I found them earlier. The poor things were trapped in a little wooden house." Harry went off to gather the chickens.

Suddenly, the clouds started to swirl. Then a funnel cloud began to descend from the cloud. The funnel cloud was somewhat far away, but the wind started picking up. Then the funnel touched down and started coming towards the trio and their house.

"It's a twistah! It's a twistah!" Ron shouted as he ran to the storm cellar. When he opened it up, he saw Harry already inside, eating a bucket of KFC fried chicken. Ron looked at Harry curiously.

"Oh," Harry said, putting down the chicken breast he was scarfing, "I just wanted some chicken."

"Are those the chickens that you said you were going to gather?" Ron asked as he closed the door behind him.

"Hey, I didn't say I was going to gather them to put them in their coop!" Harry defended himself. "I started to do that, but then I saw this fast food joint down the road and figured they'd fry it up for me. They're in a safe place now, anyway." He rubbed his stomach.

"Fast food joint? Road?"

But Harry's reply was cut off. The winds outside from the tornado were too loud and violent for any thing to be heard.

Meanwhile, Harry and Ron had forgotten about poor little Hermione, who was now running desperately around their house.

"Auntie Em!" she cried, holding a little brown dog she had found buried in the ground who was remarkably alive. "Auntie Em!"

In the storm cellar, Ron suddenly realized that Hermione wasn't there.

"Harry!" Ron shouted at the top of his lungs.

"What?" Harry, who was eating a drumstick, yelled back.

"We forgot Hermione!"

"Don't worry," Harry shouted, "I'll save her some chicken!"

Then, as Hermione was running through the house, a cow that Harry forgot to tie down flew through a window and knocked Hermione out. When she woke up, the house was flying through the air. She looked out of the window and saw a bunch of stuff flying through the air. Then the house suddenly crashed and she looked outside: the house had landed on top of Lord Voldemort, who at that time was right in front of the storm cellar and was about to open it to nab Harry and Ron. Hermione ran out of the house and met up with Harry and Ron, who were looking at Voldemort's dead legs poking out from under the house.

"Good job Hermione," Ron said, patting her on the back. "I bet even Harry couldn't have done that."

"It's a good thing you landed the house on him when you did," Harry said. "He was after our fried chicken!"

Hermione put her brown dog on the ground.

"You know, I had a strange dream; and you were in it, and you were in it." Hermione pointed to Harry and Ron.

"Aw, that's silly," said Ron.

"It's true! Why won't anyone believe me? You believe me, don't you Toto?" she asked the dog. The dog bit her ankle as a negative answer. She kicked the dog and told it to get back to where it once belonged.

"Mangy mutt..."

"Chicken?" Harry asked, holding up a chicken thigh.

Well, Hermione eventually got so fed up with living in darkest Oregon that she finally convinced Harry and Ron to come back to Hogwarts with her. They sold the farm and caught a plane back to London and magically walked to Hogwarts in five minutes. When they entered the school, they met Draco, who was with Crabbe.

"Where have you three been?" Draco sneered.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"You've been gone a month; it's November.

Ron stepped up to Draco and waved his hand in front of his face once, saying, "We've been here all the time."

Draco turned to Crabbe. "They've been here all the time, Crabbe."

Ron passed his hand once again in front of Draco's face. "We were never gone."

"They were never gone, Crabbe."

"These aren't the droids you're looking for."

"These aren't the droids we're looking for, Crabbe. You all can go."

The three left Draco and Crabbe and headed towards the Gryffindor common room.

And the moral of the story is 'don't do drugs'.