Something in the Air

Draco sat alone in his room. He giggled softly to himself. Then, he let out a shriek and threw his wand across the room. He started giggling again.

Chickens... he thought. Chickens taste like cucumber...

He feared he was going crazy.

***

Lucius raised his nose into the air. Something funny was there, it didn't exactly smell different, but it felt different when he breathed it in. The air felt different when he walked through it. Yes, there was definitely something strange in the air.

***

If a cow and a piece of spaghetti had a fight then the tomato would sit on the cow and eat a yellow toothpaste tube, Draco thought. It made perfect sense to him; he could see it running through his brain. The cow... the spaghetti attacks the cow! The cow dodges to the left and then the tomato rides the cow! The cow tries to get it off! The spaghetti bites the cow! The cow yelps and tries to dislodge the tomato, which is sitting on him eating contentedly. Draco felt sorry for the cow. He reached out to pat it on the head, reassure it somehow. Then he realized where he was and fell off his bed.

He landed on his head and when he opened his eyes he could see his wand a little ways off. He reached for it, thinking that if he could grab it then he might be able to perform a curse to blow up the tomato before it ate all of his toothpaste. Then he could have a nice meal, hamburgers and noodles. Too bad he was going to blow up the tomato or he might have been able to have some nice tomato paste for the pasta.

"Shiato leprechandun!" he yelled, pointing his wand at the closet door. A shivery apparition came out of the tip of his wand. It was a leprechaun. It danced and jig and hummed to himself.

"Come to steal me gold?" the little man demanded. "Well, I won't be having that!" And then the man in green ran over to Draco's bed and bounced once before sailing through the window. Draco lost sight of him, but was pretty sure that he had gone to join the tomato in tormenting the cow. Poor, poor cow.

"Got to save the cow," Draco muttered. He got up from his spot on the floor and dusted himself off. He wandered over to the mirror and checked his reflection. He decided that he looked as good as always, but he better go clean himself up for the date with the cow. He squinted at his reflection. But I thought I was going to eat the cow, Draco thought. Now he was really confused.

What about the bird? He though in alarm. The bird swooped down and grabbed the tomato that was riding the cow and eating to toothpaste. And then the bird turned purple and ate the tomato!

He made chomping noises to himself. "Coffee makes me happy," he said. Once again the vision of the poor cow came into his mind. Maybe I should bring the cow some coffee.

Draco opened the door to his room. As soon as he exited his room he felt something different about the air. It was thicker maybe, or at least it didn't feel the same.

There's something strange in the air, Draco thought to himself. Maybe it is that which is making the tomato have such big teeth.

***

Harry grinned as he finished reading the letter that he had just gotten from Hermione. It was a very detailed description of the trip she had just been on. He felt like he was actually there while he was reading it. Hermione's parents were not only dentists, but obsessed with worldwide trips. They had just been to Canada and half of the letter was Hermione ranting about how untrue all the stereotypes about Canada were. She told him that she hadn't seen even one polar bear and that it hadn't even been snowing. Imagine--some Canadians even had pools! And none of them lived in igloos!

Suddenly a noise came from downstairs. Dudley has invited some of his friends over and they were taking turns torturing the neighbor's dog. Harry though about intervening, but decided against it. Nothing he said would have helped anyhow.

Harry set to work writing a reply to Hermione's letter. He couldn't wait until school started in a week. Dumbledore had arranged for him to be picked up by a ministry official and brought to Platform 9 ¾ so that there wouldn't be any risk. Hermione and Ron, who were meeting in Diagon Alley, were picking up his school supplies. Harry was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to join his friends, but he understood that it was for the best. After all, with Voldemort on the rise again they couldn't risk Harry Potter's life.

Who knew when they would need famous Harry Potter to defeat the Dark Lord again?

Another noise came from downstairs. It sounded like yelling. He looked out the window and saw, to his surprise, that Dudley was yelling at his friends.

"Why would you want to hurt Charles?" he yelled. "Charles is my friend!"

"Who's Charles? The dog?" one of his friends asked.

"Charles is right there! You sat on him!" Dudley dragged out the word sat like a moan. "How would you like it if someone sat on you?"

"Er, I didn't sit on no one," his friend protested.

But Dudley wasn't listening. "A tomato? A tomato! The chickens, running around... see them run! They run so fast! Get the saddle! Get the bridle! The chicken is running! Cowboys, run! Chickens, run! Ruuuuuuuuuuun!" With that, Dudley ran over to the gate of the backyard and threw it open. He raced out and ran down the street.

Ah, Harry thought. Dudley has finally blown his lid. And he wants to loose weight.

He could still hear Dudley, running past the house again and yelling about catching the ruddy chicken.

Harry looked out the window to see how Dudley's friends were taking his sudden bout of insanity.

"Someone farted!" someone exclaimed.

"I don't smell anything... but the air feels funny. Hurts to breathe. Who wants to go to my house?"

There was a collective cheer and all of the boys cleared out of the backyard.

Harry shrugged. He knew what they were talking about with the air though, the air felt strange. Maybe it was the humidity.

He went back to working on his letter. When he was done he went downstairs where Dudley was waiting for him.

"I caught the chicken," he said proudly, holding up one of Mrs. Figg's cats. It was dead.

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Get that away from me," he said.

"We can have chicken for breakfast tonight," Dudley said in a happy voice. "I reckon the giraffe will be happy. Wouldn't you like to make the giraffe happy? And the hippo, the hippo should be happy too. I wish that the tissue would stop gnawing on my foot. I wish that the tissue would stop absorbing mucus. Do you want some mucus?"

Harry started to back up the staircase. He was starting to think that his cousin had gone crazy. He walking backwards until he was halfway up, when he turned tail and ran. Dudley hurled the cat after him, hitting a picture which fell off the wall and shattered down the stairs.