Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

"Whoa, look outside! It's snowing like mad!"

"What a surprise, Ron--they've only been predicting it on the radio for the last week."

"Come off it, Harry, aren't you excited about all this too?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "We're only supposed to have like three centimeters. It's not much to get excited about."

"It's snow, you idiot! It doesn't matter how much you get--it's still great just to have! Come on, let's go get up Hermione!"

"For goodness sake, Ron, she just went to bed!"

But that didn't stop Ron. He ran up to the girls dorm room and ran in without even knocking.

"Wake up Hermione! Look! Snow! Snow!"

"What--Oh my gosh, Ron! Get out of here!"

"Snowflake!"

"Out! Out!"

And so Ron was pushed out of the girls dorm with much violence. But it didn't matter. It was a Tuesday night and it was snowing. Who cared if it was only going to be a little teeny-weeny amount? Not Ron!

"Do you have any money?" Ron asked Harry as he came back down into the common room.

"Yeah--why?"

"Because...it's snowing!" Ron began to run around like a madman.

"God, give me patience..." Harry muttered to himself.

"Wohoo! Snow! Snow!"

"Calm down, you'll spurt!"

But Ron didn't listen. Before Harry could stop him, Ron had tripped over a rather unruly armchair and fell into the fire.

"Ron! I'll save you!"

Luckily for Ron, this was just about the time that his Uncle Albert was supposed to call via the fireplace (in other words, Ron didn't burn up).

"Ron! What's going on?" his Uncle Albert asked.

"We're so sorry, Uncle Albert--we're so sorry if we've caused you any pain..."

"Oh my God, stop!" Harry grabbed Ron and threw him away from the fireplace. He then threw some water on the fire to stop the randomness of it all.

"I guess I'll go to bed," Ron said.

"Good. See you tomorrow."

"I'm going to dream of snow angels!" Ron said as he skipped up to the dorm.

***

The next day, it was still snowing. About a foot of snow was already on the ground, and the snow just kept coming.

"Look at the snow! Snow. Snow? Snow!"

"If you kill him, I won't tell anyone," Hermione whispered into Harry's ear as they watched Ron run up and down the hallway in a fit of exuberance on the way to breakfast.

"Nah, it would look bad on future resumes," Harry responded.

The three then reached the Great Hall and sat down at their respective seats and began to eat breakfast.

"Look! I'm making a snowman out of my waffles!" Ron said as he stacked up his waffles. "Look! I'm making a snowflake with my pumpkin juice! Look! I'm making a--"

"Shut up! I'll kick your--ouch!" Harry was cut off as Hermione stabbed him in the hand with her fork.

"Let the poor lad have his fun," Hermione said. "After all, he only has three hours left to live."

"Whoa, when did this happen?"

"Oh--sorry. Wrong story."

"Look!" Ron shouted. "I'm making the Bonhomme Carnival from the Winter Carnival in Quebec with my bacon!"

"Oh, brother..."

***

Ron's behavior was bad enough during breakfast, but during their last class of the day, Potions with the Slytherins, it was even worse.

"We're going to be late to class!" Hermione screamed as she and Harry pulled Ron along with them towards the dungeons.

"Snow! Snow!"

Harry grabbed Ron's shoulder with excessive vehemence. "I'll kill him if we get detention for this!"

Finally, the three made it to the potions class, Harry and Hermione out of breath, and Ron still in la-la land.

"Ah, Potter, Weasley, and Granger. How nice of you to finally join us," Snape said with a sharp twist of venom in his voice.

"Join who?" Ron asked.

"Us," Snape replied coldly.

"Who?"

"The class!"

"Oh...who?"
"Curse you Weasley! A hundred points from Gryffindor!" Snape broke out in a huge rage and began to throw stuff around the room.

"Maybe if we run away real quick he won't see us," Harry said to Hermione.

"Right--let's go."

So the three ran out of the dungeons and began to wander the halls aimlessly.

"Snowy!"

Soon, they came across Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat, followed by Filch himself.

"Truancy? Well, we are in trouble, aren't we?" Filch said with an evil grin.

"We are?" Ron said before Harry and Hermione could stop him. "You're in trouble too?"

"What?"

"Wow, I didn't know teachers could be in trouble. What did you do?"

Filch looked perplexed beyond all reason. He wandered off because this story has a very thin plot line.

"Well, there it is," Harry said.

"Let's go to the library," Hermione said.

"Okay," Harry said.

"Snow!"

***

The trio reached the library and entered.

"Snow!" Ron shouted as he ran out of Harry and Hermione's grip into the Restricted Section of the library.

"No! This could be the end! The epilogue for life!" Hermione shouted as she saw her life pass in front of her eyes.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked. "Let's just leave Ron in there. Who cares about him?"

"But he's our friend! We've got to rescue him before one of the prefects in there finds him!"

Harry felt like he was about to cry. "Okay, let's go."

So the two quietly entered the Restricted Section and crouched down behind a shelf.

"Look! I can--ouch!--get off me, you idiot!"

"Sorry--I lost my balance," Harry apologized as he sat back up.

"I think I see him over there!" Hermione said.

"Let's go--we can get him if we're quiet."

Just as they were about to go down the aisle to grab Ron, though, a prefect walked right in front of them. Luckily, his back was to them.

"I can't resist!" And so Harry shot the prefect in the rear with a little dueling charm, after which he threw himself behind the shelf again to keep from getting seen.

"Who's there?" the prefect shouted, rubbing his hindquarters.

"When you hear the tone, it will be exactly--"

Hermione punched Harry silent before he could finish what he was saying.

"Whoever you are, you're not going to make it out of here alive! Well--maybe you will--but you won't get out of here without a stern warning!"

Harry was now up again, and he ran up to the prefect and tackled him from behind.

"Go! Get him!" Harry shouted to Hermione. Hermione quickly ran out from behind the shelf as Harry continued to pin the prefect down. She found Ron quickly and ran out of the Restricted Section with him.

So now Harry was wrestling a madman on the ground--well, he wasn't a madman, really, but he was a prefect, and that meant he was part of the Establishment!

Harry thought that he had finally pinned the prefect for good when he felt hands go around his waist from behind.

"Aargh! Assault and battery! Get off me!"

But the guy behind him (another prefect on duty in the Restricted Section) was too strong. He and the prefect that Harry had pinned grabbed Harry and dragged him out of the library.

Harry soon found himself in Filch's office, with all the quote unquote "intimidating" stuff hanging everywhere.

"I know your game! You may have me now, but by Merlin, I'm takin' one of you with me!" Harry shouted as he brutally kicked one of the prefects in the shin.

"Ah, it's Potter! I've been wanting to get you on something one of these days!"

The prefects continued to push Harry towards Filch's desk.

"I know all your tricks! The panty hose and the size twelve boot! The rope and the Chinese handcuffs! You'll have to get the rubber hoses out for this trooper!" Harry shouted defiantly.

"What are you talking about?" Filch, who looked rather annoyed, asked Harry.

"You great brute! You've got sadism stamped all over your bloated British kisser!"

"What is he talking about?" Filch asked the prefects exasperatedly.

"I'm a soldier of the Republic! You'll need the mahogany chair for this boy-o! A nation once again! A nation once again!"

"Argh! Sit him down over there by the nail wheel--maybe that'll strike some repose into him." Filch picked up a copy of 'Squib Weekly' and began to silently read as Harry was handcuffed and sat down next to a wheel with a large, rusty nail sticking out of it.

"And so--here it is! The end has come! Oh well, at least I can write my autobiography now--wait, no! I'm handcuffed! I can't write my biography if I'm handcuffed! Help! Murder! Treachery! You villain!"

But Filch was too engrossed in his copy of 'Squib Weekly' to take note of Harry.

***

Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione were frantically running around the school trying to figure out where Harry was.

"Maybe he went out in the snow!" Ron said. "Come out--let's go!"

"No, you fool! He's probably in detention or in Filch's office or something!" Hermione said.

"Maybe he sneaked off 'secretly' to the prefects' bathroom," Ron said.

"What did you say?"

"Snow!"

"Oh, God, give me patience!"

"Look! There's an old dude! Wouldn't it be cool if he like saved the day or something? Then we'd look in the papers tomorrow and it would say 'Old Dude Saves the Day'! Wouldn't that be neat?" Ron said, tugging on Hermione's robes much like a little kid.

"That 'old dude' is Dumbledore!" Hermione said, a glimmer of hope shining through this random darkness. "Professor! Professor Dumbledore!"

"Yes, that's me. What's the trouble?" the Headmaster said cheerfully.

"Harry's lost! We were chasing after Ron, and I think these prefects caught him or something! I'm worried about him so much! He could be dead--or worse--expelled!"

"Young lady," Dumbledore said, "that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say."

"Snow!" Ron shouted.

"No, wait! Professor! I don't know where he is! He's been gone for an hour so far and I haven't seen a trace of him!"

"He's probably constipated or something and needed awhile to sort himself out," Dumbledore reasoned reasonably.

"But he could be in trouble!" Hermione pleaded.

Dumbledore sighed. "Alright--I'll help you find Barry."

"Harry! His name's Harry!"

"Yeah, whatever. Let's go."

And so Hermione and Dumbledore left to find Barry--er--Harry. Little did they realize that they had left Ron behind!

"Eskimo girl, won't you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight?" Ron sang to himself as he made his way outside into the two foot deep snow (and it was still snowing). "Wohoo!"

Ron rolled around in the bitter cold for maybe three minutes before he had to come back in to get some more clothes on.

"I almost forgot to put on my lucky underwear!" he shouted as he came back in and ran up the Grand Staircase to the Gryffindor Tower.

***

Meanwhile, Harry was on the verge of escaping from his handcuffs.

"Just...a little more to the...left...got it!"

He was able to use some bones he found on the ground to pick the lock in the handcuffs (the bones were probably from former students, but Harry didn't like to think about that). He stood up and slowly crept by Filch, who had fallen asleep right in between pages 56 and 57 of 'Squib Weekly', which was an article about how to caramelize carbonated sugar without magic.

He got to the door of the office and peeked around the corner. He noticed that the two prefects were now standing right outside the door, "keeping watch" or something along those lines. Either that or they were playing twenty questions.

"Harry Potter'll give you a run for your tuppence!" Harry shouted as he burst through the door.

The two prefects at the door didn't seem to care that Harry was escaping. Then Filch woke up.

"Get him! Evil! Evil, evil, evil, evil, evil!" Filch screamed as the prefects were startled into running after the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry ran as fast as he could, but then realized that he didn't remember where he was, so he hid himself behind a suit of armor and pulled out his Marauder's Map.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," Harry said as he tapped the map with his wand. After consulting his map, he found that he didn't know where he was, but a little dot marked 'Ron Weasley' was positioned right next to the dot marked 'Harry Potter'.

"Hey, Harry!" Ron said from inside the suit of armor.

"What the--Ron! How did you--"

"Shh! I hear people coming!"

The two prefects and Filch ran by, Filch screaming, "Die, Potter!"

When the noise from the three had stopped as they ran further away, Harry stood up to talk to Ron again.

"Hey, Harry--I can see you through this little window!" Ron said as he looked out of the metal helmet.

"Ron--am I glad to see you. We need to find Hermione! And we need to get Dumbledore or McGonagall or someone! Filch is a madman!"

"How long did it take you to figure out that one?" Ron said, clanking loudly as he walked around.

"He almost killed me! It was horrible! He tortured me for hours!"

"You were only there for like thirty minutes! Ooh...snow!"

"Never mind--come on, let's find McGonagall or some figure of power!"

So Harry ran off, Ron banging along slowly behind him.

***

"So, you said this 'Harry' character was in the Restricted Section with you and you ran off this other 'Ron' guy?" Dumbledore asked Hermione as the two walked around the Restricted Section of the Library. "Sounds like a steamy romance to me."

"Oh, come off it! Ron went crazy and ran in here, and me and Harry were just trying to save him from imminent expulsion!" Hermione said, looking around for any trace of Harry.

"Look! A clue!" Dumbledore said, pointing at a strand of hair on the ground. He tried to pick it up and examine it. "It's Professor Snape's hair! It was so greasy that I couldn't pick it up! He's behind all this! Come on, Hermione, we can put an end to this vicious cycle once and for all!"

So the two ran off to find Professor Snape.

***

Meanwhile, Filch and the two prefects had come across a dead end.

"I know this school like the back of my hand--we won't get lost."

But as he said this, the trio officially became lost, and any label that came close to the definition 'lost' could be applied to them. After a few minutes of aimless wanderings, they decided to make the best of it and settle down for the night. Filch opened up a can of beans and they cooked it with a spell.

"Dig in everyone!"

But then out of nowhere Mrs. Norris pounced on the beans and began to scarf them greedily!

"No, you bloody cat! Gerrof me! Argh! Stupid cat! My beans! No, you're spilling them! Argh!"

And so Filch bravely fought the deranged cat over the beans, but the beans ended up spilling all over the floor.

"Now I gotta clean that up!"

***

Clank, clank, squeak, clank, squeak, clank, CRASH!

"Ron, what the heck are you do--argh!"

As Harry and Ron went down the Grand Staircase, Ron tripped and fell on Harry, and the two of them rolled all the way down the stairs until they hit the floor of the Entrance Hall.

"Kill me now so I don't have to get up," Harry said to Ron, who was using Harry as a kind of fulcrum to get up.

"No, I couldn't do that. And besides--snow!"

"Oh, brother...."

"Boys, what on earth is going on?"

Who's voice did they hear?

"Professor McGonagall!"

Ron ran up to Professor McGonagall and tried to hug her, but he worked up such a sweat running that the metal joins rusted stiff. Harry got up and hobbled over next to Ron.

"Filch is a madman! He's trying to kill me!" Harry said breathlessly.

"Nonsense!" McGonagall said. "Argus would never try to kill a student--okay, I take that back--but he'd never try to kill you!"

"But he did all ready!"

"I'm sure he's just in a bad mood. Give him a day or two or a couple of months and he'll be over it."

"But--"

But McGonagall didn't listen to what Harry was saying. She walked off.

"Harry--bust me out of here, will you?" Ron said, still frozen in a very awkward position (reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart with stomach cramps).

"Sure thing, buddy."

So Harry pulled out his wand, and he did this Welding Charm that they had learned earlier that year, and he melted the suit of armor open. And out stepped Ron, wearing nothing but some orange and white Chudley Cannons briefs.

"Good grief! Put on some clothes!" Harry said, trying to keep from running away.

"It's alright--I don't mind being almost naked."

"Well I do! I don't want to go around the school with you in your whitey-tightie underwear!"

"Ahem--they're orange!"

"I don't care! I'm not--"

"Ah, Missster Potter! Our...new...celebrity."

"No, not Snape..." Harry said to himself as Professor Snape walked into the Entrance Hall.

"Actually, Harry's been here for quite a few years now, and he's hardly new," Ron said cheerfully.

"Why are you naked, Weasley?" Snape shouted in horror, suddenly realizing that Ron wasn't wearing anything.

"I'm not naked--I'm wearing underwear--hello?"

"I knew something was wrong with your family the moment I met you--a bunch of nudists! I'm not surprised!"

"I'm not naked!"

"Yet!" Snape shouted. "But next you'll be wanting to run around without anything!"

"Severus!" shouted a voice from the other side of the hall.

"Eh? Oh, Professor Dumbledore!"

"Harry! You're alive!" Hermione, who was with Dumbledore, shouted. She began to run towards Harry, but when she saw half-naked Ron, she decided to keep her distance.

"Severus, I believe that you are behind a huge conspiracy!" Dumbledore said, pointing violently into the Potions Master's face.

"You what?"

"Your hair was found in the Restricted Section! Harry disappeared in the Restricted Section. Logic warrants that you kidnapped Harry!" Dumbledore said, his voice trembling with rage.

"Wait, no! You've got it all wrong! I was only in the Restricted Section to get out some Julia Child cookbooks!" Snape shouted. "And Harry's right there! I didn't kidnap him! He's been hanging around with his nudist freak friend the whole day! I just wanted to learn to make a nice Potage des Champignons!"

"I'm confused!" Hermione said.

"Oh well."

"Snow!"

***

Meanwhile, Filch and the two prefects were sitting around a campfire in the area of Hogwarts that they had become lost in. They had scraped up the beans off the floor for dinner, and they were about to go to bed in a makeshift tent they had made out of Filch's 'Squib Weekly' magazine.

"How about a song around the fire before we hit the sack?" Filch said.

"Sure."

"Okay, try this one out:

Hands across the water! Heads across the sky! Hands across the water! Heads across the sky!"