The Mysteries of Life

It was chaos. Utter chaos. There is no other word to describe the times except with the word 'chaos'. Chaos...

A few select people were called to Harry's room at 4 Privet Drive on that hazy June evening while Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were out shopping. It was right after Harry's fourth year, and he had just gone through a big trauma. But now was another trauma; a trauma that had not come to his attention until one evening: the true year of his birth.

The thought came up as he was lying on his bed one night, thinking. He was thinking about Cedric, and how he had died. He thought about how he would never graduate, or get married, or have kids. And this thought led Harry to thoughts of birth. It must be painful, he thought to himself. He then thought about his own birth. And that led to his dilemma: what year was he really born in? Oh, that's easy, he thought at first; 1980.

He then began to wonder to himself: was he really born in 1980? He began to pace his room, and then he began to remember that Dudley had a Playstation a summer ago: supposedly summer 1994. But then he remembered another fact: Playstation wasn't in the UK or the US until September 1994, months after Dudley chucked his out the window.

Harry began to panic. He didn't know what to do; he was trapped in a vicious cycle (actually, he wasn't, but it sounds more dramatic that way). He owled a group of his wizarding friends and acquaintances to meet him the next week to solve the matter; for it was not just Harry's birth year on the line, but perhaps the entire destiny of the world was at stake.

After all who were invited had entered Harry's bedroom, Harry locked the door and ate the key.

"Now nobody gets out until this is solved!" he shouted maniacally.

"Or afterwards," Ron muttered.

"Or until he--"

"Don't say it, Hermione," Ron interrupted.

In attendance that evening was: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dudley, Draco, Ginny, and Nearly Headless Nick. The crowd seemed calm--too calm.

"So, we shall begin," Harry said, standing in front of the seated people. "I've called you all here tonight to solve a mystery. One of us here in this room is a murderer!"

Everyone else exchanged confused looks.

"Oh, sorry," Harry apologized, a bit embarrassed. "Got carried away..."

Harry then pulled out a piece of paper with writing on it.

"This is my birth certificate. Everyone look at it." He passed it to Ron, who looked at it then passed it to Hermione, and so on.

"You will notice that there is no year. We are here to figure out what year I was born, and more importantly, what year it is now. I want to show both sides of the argument and then we'll have a vote."

"What are the two sides?" Ron asked.

"Either I was born in 1986, corresponding with the book publications, or I was born in 1980, to correspond with--well, you'll see."

"Sounds good to me," Draco drawled.

"Shut up. Now I will present the 1980 case."

The crowd was silent.

"In our second year, we attended your death-day party, did we not, Nick?"

Draco looked disgusted. "A 'death-day party'?"

Nearly Headless Nick smiled. "Why, of course you did."

"Let me quote what was on the cake there: SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-PORPINGTON, DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492. Is that not what it said?"

"A 'death-day party'?" Draco repeated.

"That's what it said, alright," Nick responded.

"Now, how many years was it that you were dead on that day?"

"A 'de--" Draco was cut off by Harry throwing Hedwig's cage (with Hedwig in it) at him.

"Er--" Nearly Headless Nick stuttered for a bit. "I'm not too sure. Five-hundred?"

Harry came over to Nick with a desk lamp and blinded the poor ghost with the light. "I didn't ask for you to guess. How many years was it?"

Nick was sputtering incoherently now. He had his eyes half closed from the blinding light that Harry was shining in his eyes, and his face was half turned away. "I'm not sure! Five-hundred, give or take a few!"

Harry threw the lamp across the room in frustration.

"I need correct dates!" Harry spat.

After he said that, Ginny stood up and said, "I think I'm the correct date for you!" When she realized how stupid she was being, Ginny turned beet red and sat back down.

"You see, if he was 500 (as he said before) on that day, that would make our second year at Hogwarts start in 1992, and make me born in 1980. However, it seems that our dear friend may have just been--dare I say it--rounding down."

Everyone in the room gasped.

"Well, that's the price of your stupidity, Nick!"

Then Harry turned to Dudley. Or was it Dudley?

"You're not Dudley," Harry said slowly, shaking his head. "You're just a random fat kid. Leave! Go Home! Be gone, you Dudley Dursley wanna be!"

The random fat kid slowly got up and climbed out the window, seeing as how the key to the locked door was in Harry's stomach at the time. As he started climbing out of the window onto the roof of the garage, he slipped and fell with a crash onto some trash cans that were strategically placed in the driveway in case of such a situation. Harry ran to the window and looked down at where the random fat kid was lying on the flattened garbage cans.

"I'm all right!" the random fat kid yelled. Harry shut the window and came back to his crowd. He then saw that the real Dudley was now sitting there. Harry approached the enormous boy and grabbed his shirt collar firmly.

"Is it not true that you had a Playstation last summer before the month of September?"

"Yeah. But then I threw it out the window in a fit of rage."

"That was very mature," Harry said. He turned to the rest of the audience. "I would like to point out that before September 1994, there were no Playstations in the UK or US; only in Japan. Now Dudley, did your games use English or Japanese?"

Dudley looked confused. "They used electricity, you idiot."

Harry was now grasping Dudley's shirt collar with both hands. "No! In the games themselves! Was the game in English?"

"Oh. You know, I'm not really sure."

"What the heck? What do you mean you're not sure?"

"I can't read either one, so it doesn't really make much of a difference, does it?"

Harry sighed at Dudley's stupidity and released his shirt.

"What does this matter?" Hermione asked.

Harry ran over to her and lifter her by her own shirt collar. He shook her back and forth as he screamed, "Last year was either 1994 or 2000! If he had an English Playstation, then it's 2001 now! Are you totally numb in your brain?"

Hermione seemed to be surprised by Harry's sudden anger; so surprised, in fact, that she didn't respond.

"What a man!" Ginny stood up and shouted. She again turned beet red and shut up and sat down.

Harry dropped the silent Hermione to the ground, breathing heavily. He looked around at the others--all (except for Ginny) seemed to be trying to ignore him as best as possible.

"Okay..." Harry walked in front of the crowd again, wiping the foam away from his mouth. He noticed everyone was staring at him as though they thought that Harry would kill them all; Hermione was still shocked from her encounter with Harry's anger.

"So, is that all the evidence you've got?" Draco asked.

"Here's some evidence for you!" Harry threw an apple at Draco's head, narrowly missing. But while the apple missed Draco, it hit Ginny in the head. She was knocked cold.

"Now look what you've done!" Ron said. "You've knocked her out!"

"I'm sorry!" Harry said rushing over to the scene.

"Don't be sorry; she was getting on my nerves."

"Wait!" Hermione had snapped out of her daze and was now pacing the room.

"What?!" everyone else shouted in unison.

"I've figured out what year it is!"

Just as Hermione said this, the door to the room was smashed and fell in. Hagrid was on the other side.

"Sorry 'bout that."

Behind Hagrid, a bunch of Aurors, as well as the Men in Black and the CIA, ran into the room and started giving everyone memory charms. The last person into the room was Dumbledore, who turned to Hagrid and said over the sounds of people running around and shouting charms, "Kids today don't know what they're dealing with. You know, when I was their age, playing a good game of Enchanted Marbles used to occupy me for hours. But today," Dumbledore shook his head and motioned towards the ruckus in the room as all of the kids were getting their memories altered (or trying to avoid getting their memories altered), "these kids can't be satiated by a simple game. They have to solve the secrets of the world."

"Cryin' shame."

"But you know Hagrid, we live in a time that has so little things left to discovery that it's nice to have a few mysteries in life."

"Darn right yeh are, sir."

The two stood, regarding the scene, and then one of the Aurors came up to Dumbledore and said, "They've all been fixed."

Dumbledore and Hagrid both looked shocked.

"You mean you--"

"Yeh couldn't have--"

The Auror looked a bit confused, and then he suddenly rolled his eyes.

"I mean their memories were changed. Jeez, you have sick minds."

And so then the Aurors, Men in Black, and the CIA agents all filed out of the room, and Hagrid replaced the door in the doorway. Then Dumbledore and Hagrid both followed the rest of the crowd down the halls of the Dursley residence, hoping that no more youths would stumble upon the dangerous path that Harry and the rest did on that hazy June night while Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were out shopping.