Ron Weasley and the Curse of the Shellfish

Ron Weasley and the Curse of the Shellfish

The day started like any other day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Colin Creevy was swimming with the giant squid, Cho Chang was brushing her hair, and Ron and Hermione were walking out of the Great Hall after breakfast.

"No kippers again," said Ron plaintively.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked.

"I think he's upstairs brooding again," Ron answered. "You know, he has to get in so many hours each week."

"But I do wish he would wear clothes while he did it," she said with a frown. "Honestly, we've got half the first years under memory charms. They keep walking around in circles asking how to find the loo."

Ron started up the stairs and doubled over as he bumped into the railing.

Hermione laughed and asked, "Is that railing new, or are you just learning how to walk?"

"Very funny," said Ron. "I was just thinking..."

"What?"

"Well... I really wish they would have crab for dinner sometime. It's my favorite."

Hermione blushed bright red and lowered her eyes. "Gee Ron; I didn't know you felt that way about him."

Ron looked at her with a confused expression. "What are you talking about Hermione?"

"Well, it is a valid lifestyle choice Ron. You shouldn't feel ashamed."

It always took a long time for Ron to clue in, but when he finally did he said, "Ewwww! I didn't mean ... Ewww! I meant the animal ... fish ... whatever it is!" Ron's expression turned thoughtful. "Although, I have wondered what he would look like in leather pants..."

Now it was Hermione's turn to look disgusted.

"Well as I was saying," he covered, quickly changing the subject. "I wish the house elves would fix seafood once in a while, you know, like crab and lobsters. They serve carp all the time, but never shellfish," he paused and looked thoughtful. "You don't suppose they're Jewish do you?"

"I told you it's S-P-E-W..." Hermione began, but whatever else she was going to say was lost forever as Neville came running up to them.

"Ron, Hermione," he said, puffing and out of breath. "Come quick, you've got to see what Harry's doing." Hermione and Ron ran up the staircase, leaving Neville to groan and slowly lumber along behind them.

Ron and Hermione were stunned when they walked into the common room and saw smoky letters floating in the air.

Hermione asked, "What on earth are you doing, Harry?"

"Tom Riddle came up with a cool scary pseudonym using the letters of his name. But all I can come up with is HER RAT ATE MY PJS - and I still have the word OR left over!"

Hermione put her arm around Harry and led him to his favorite squashy chair by the fire. "It's OK Harry; we won't leave you alone with Ginny again."

All of a sudden, Harry's eyes widened to an alarming diameter and he started rocking back and forth. He reminded Hermione of someone, now if she could only remember who it was...

"Harry," she asked, "is there something you want to tell us about Ginny?" He could only whimper and nod. Then he started to hit his head with his hand. Between bangs he muttered, "Ginny...Malfoy...Tartar Sauce."

They stared at Harry in horrified silence until he finally said the word kitchen. Then they left the Common Room at a run.

They found Ginny licking butter off Draco's fingers in the kitchen, a heaping plate of crab legs between them. Ron advanced angrily at Malfoy, but then stopped suddenly as he spotted the food. "Where? How? What?" he stammered.

"And here, Ladies and Gentlemen, is proof that the Weasleys really are idiots. Of course I have my favorite food flown in daily from the coast."

Ron stared longingly at the seafood for a moment then remembered what was happening. He wiped the drool from his chin and regained his expression of righteous indignation. "Malfoy! What are you doing with my sister?" Ron asked. He turned to Ginny. "And Ginny, take his finger out of your mouth. You don't know where it's been."

Ginny narrowed her eyes and sneered at Ron. "Just because you're content missing out on the finer things in life doesn't mean I have to be. Besides, Draco and I are madly in love. I've decided to become a Death Eater and help take over the universe. Right snookums?"

Draco turned to her and smiled indulgently. "Of course my sweet." He wiped his hands on a giant lobster bib around his neck. "Now look Weasley, leave us alone to enjoy our seafood in peace, or I'll have my minions deal with you." He gestured over his shoulder where Crabbe was washing dishes in leather pants and an apron that said Kiss the cook.

Since Ron's expression had become vacant again, Hermione was forced to take over. She grabbed Ginny's arm and hauled her from the room, closely followed by Ron babbling, "Crab and Crabbe and crab and Crabbe..."

They dragged a screaming, incoherent Ginny into the hallway. Draco shouted after them, "Don't you submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive...you stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you. I will find you!"

They reentered the common room where Harry was doing a slow strip tease in front of some terrified ickle firsties. The children were frozen in horror, since the Weasley twins had just been testing their petrified rock candy, even though they'd left school the previous year.

"Harry," Hermione said. He ignored her and continued to undulate to the Muggle music that had inexplicably begun to play. It was Shakira, whom everyone in the wizard world knows and loves and emulates, because things like that just happen in fan fiction. "Harry... Harry... Harry... It's Voldemort!"

Harry stopped suddenly and pulled his knickers back up. His face looked suddenly fierce and determined. "Where?" he asked.

"He's not really here," Hermione admitted. "I just wanted you to stop that."

Harry ignored her. "I will fight Voldey anywhere. I'll fight him in my underwear." He flexed his arm muscles as he said this, first above his head, then leaning over. "I do not like the Voldey man! I do not like him, Sam I am!"

"Who's Sam?" asked Ron.

"You know ... Lord of the Rings," explained Hermione. She turned her attention back to Our Hero. "Harry..."

"I will fight him and kill his rat. I'll always fight him just like that."

"Harry," Ron said, suddenly looking at his best friend in a whole new way after six years and never, ever having such thoughts before. "You look really good in that underwear."

"I will fight Voldey with my wand. I will fight Voldey in a pond."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Now stop it, both of you. Draco's done something to Ginny. We need to go to the library." Harry paused while flexing his muscles, and Ron stopped trying to sneak a peak. They both looked puzzled. "You know, the place where all the books live? Never mind," she snapped, flicking her bushy hair behind her. She placed a body bind on the entire common room and stomped off to do research.

Later that night, Ron was snoring loudly as Harry continued to speak in rhymes about Voldemort and Wormtail. Hermione burst into the room and shouted, "Lumos! Get up you two! We've got to run to the forest and meet the stranger from America who has all the answers!" Of course, Neville, Dean, and Seamus weren't there at the time, because that would be inconvenient.

Ron jerked up from a sound sleep. "Crabbe? Is that you??" He blinked sleepily.

Harry looked at Ron seriously and intoned. "I will fight him and kill his rat. I will eat crab until I'm fat."

Hermione stomped her foot. "I expect the two of you in the common room in ten minutes! And Harry, for the love of Merlin - put on some clothes!"

Ten minutes later (plus or minus an hour), the sleepy crew assembled in the common room. Somehow, mysteriously, Luna had joined them, as had Blaise Zambini from Slytherin.

Hermione gave her a questioning glance, but the busty Slytherin only smiled and said in a deep voice, "It's in my contract that I have at least one line in the book."

Hermione released Ginny from the closet and they all frog marched her down the stairs of the castle and towards the forbidden forest covered with Harry's invisibility cloak. This took quite some time, as there were six of them. They shuffled awkwardly and were just passing Hagrid's hut when Ginny stumbled and fell into Luna. Who stepped on Harry's foot. Who found himself keening in pain on the ground in front of Blaise's designer stilettos.

"That's it! We need a bigger cloak!" screamed Ron, as someone grabbed his bum for the third time.

The noise woke Hagrid from a sound sleep. He peeked out the window and was surprised to see six pairs of feet walking across the lawn without heads. He immediately grabbed his bottle of firewhisky and threw it into the fireplace, which made his entire cabin ignite into a giant fireball. Of course, no one was killed because that would be inconvenient at this point.

Hagrid staggered out into the night screaming, "STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!!"

He fell into his pumpkin patch and rolled in the dirt, squashing a niffler, a blast-ended skrewt and several thestrals in the process. Fang whined and ran up to the crew barking ferociously.

Hermione knelt down and spoke seriously to him. "What is it boy?"

"Woof! Woof! Woof!" said Fang.

She turned under the invisibility cloak and said into Luna's right nostril. "He says he can lead us to the American Wizard who has inexplicably appeared and is the only one who can help us save Ginny."

"You can't hurt me," Ginny said. "Draco and I are joined by the bonds of love. And you cannot track that. Not with a thousand bloodhounds. And you cannot break it. Not with a thousand swords." She fell to her knees. "My Draco will always come for me! He loves me!"

Hermione rolled her eyes and couldn't get them back into position. Blaise finally hit her on the back of her head. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," said the curvaceous brunette. She then gave a wave and went back to the dungeons, her contribution to the plot complete.

"Now," said Hermione, tearing off the invisibility cloak (which had belonged to Harry's father, and was a valued and sacred artifact) and leaving it carelessly on the ground. "Let's follow Fang."

As they entered the forest, the American Wizard inexplicably appeared.

"Which one of you is Ginny?" he said in what he hoped was a wise voice, but the Texas drawl ruined it. Of course, the students didn't realize this since Americans all sound alike to them, and they were awestruck by his wisdom.

The American Wizard had a turban on his head and looked remarkably like Johnny Carson. Of course, our heroes didn't know that because they don't watch American Muggle TV and even if they did they would only remember Leno and Letterman. The Wizard flattened his hands together in front of his chest and bowed his head so that his chin touched his fingertips.

"Carmac the Magnificent says dumb and luck," he said.

The quintet all exchanged confused glances, even Ginny.

The American Wizard pulled an envelope out of a hermetically sealed mayonnaise jar and opened it, reading the contents aloud. "What are the two things that have kept Harry Potter alive up until now?" He laughed evilly and whipped off the turban, and out popped a hideous face (along with a really skanky smell).

Voldemort whipped out his wand and stared at the stunned Gryffindors (and one Ravenclaw although that's really not important right now). He smiled evilly and also nastily. "Now, Harry Potter, which one of your friends shall I kill, maim and torture first? Not necessarily in that order!"

He bopped his wand up and down. "Eenie, Meanie, Miney Mo. I smell the blood of a Mudblood ho." He pointed his wand at Hermione and intoned majestically. "Crucio!"

"Hey!" Harry protested, "I thought you said kill first!"

But Ron interrupted, "You can't do that to my Hermione! I love her! Stop it NOW!"

Voldemort glanced at Ron while continuing to torture his true love. "Na na na na na na!" he taunted.

Ron pointed his wand at Voldemort to inflict the pain-giving curse. But he hadn't studied much during Fourth Year, and he couldn't pronounce it correctly (or perhaps it was just the seafood on his mind). "Crustaceus!" he shouted loudly.

A flash of viridian, violet, and vibrant red light, accompanied by a loud boom, erupted out of Ron's wand, and many things happened, all at once, and most with multiple conflicting points of view.

"He will come for me!" screamed Ginny, falling to her knees and rolling up like a hedgehog. She knew this was so, for theirs was true love.

Luna merely smiled mysteriously and said, "I knew my lunch box was here someplace." She began working a puzzle in the Quibbler. She didn't understand what everyone was so excited about.

Harry ran toward Voldemort in an effort to hit him with a rather large rock he had suddenly managed to produce from the pocket of his boxer shorts. He wondered briefly where the rock had come from and then realized it was one of the Weasley twin's pieces of candy.

Hermione stopped twitching and lay silently on the ground, her eyes rolled back in her head. She wasn't thinking anything, she was unconscious.

Ron stared in astonishment as countless metric tons of seafood materialized out of thin air and buried Voldemort. He suddenly felt hungry.

Voldemort screamed as a lobster pinched his nose and looked at him with beady eyes, and in that instant, into his open mouth fell a single, pure white shrimp.

That was when the king of bad wizards, the not very nice guy who kicked puppies and stole candy from babies, the Dark Lord himself, turned a very vivid shade of aubergine. He gagged, and put his hands to his throat in the universal sign for choking (of course, since none of the quintet had ever taken CPR, they didn't recognize it, and even if they had they wouldn't have helped him). His tongue and face were swelling rapidly. He stared at them and managed to croak out, "I'm allergic to shrimp!" before losing consciousness and dying within seconds from an acute anaphylactic reaction.

You could have heard a pin drop in the clearing. Harry stopped trying to break open a stone crab with his rock and looked confused. "Is that it? But wait, I was supposed to do that. Woe is me! My life is worth nothing! I have failed to avenge my worst enemy, and now I will forever have to be known as the boy who lived to be dethroned by a shrimp." He sank to his knees and began to sob.

At that moment, Draco ran into the forest, wearing his bib, closely followed by Crabbe carrying a vat of melted butter. "Ginny, our plan worked! Now everyone can know we are truly good and how pure our love is."

After the night in the forest, there was a feast in the great hall and Harry had a long boring talk with Dumbledore. Oddly, Blaise Zambini was never heard from again. Draco and Ginny converted all the Death Eaters to the side of good and shagged each other senseless every chance they got (when they weren't eating shellfish).

Harry ended up going on many adventures with Luna while they searched for the mysterious Sticky Smorfcat and he became a world renowned writer of wizard greeting cards. "I'll hit it with a Beater's bat. I do not fear Sticky Smorfcat." Ron ended up married to Hermione, and having several dozen red haired children. He kept a crab as a pet and would sometimes get a funny smile on his face when he thought about leather pants. And as for Crabbe, well, let's just say it was an awful lot of shellfish, and it was a big vat of butter. And for the purposes of our story, it's convenient that he stayed there 'til this day.

THE END