Why it’s Very Wrong to Pick up Random Lemon Meringue Pies ...

Why it's Very Wrong to Pick up Random Lemon Meringue Pies and Stuff Them in Your Pocket

By: Mikumaster

Harry woke up one sunny day and reached over to his bedside table for his glasses. He fumbled around for a while, longer than usual, until his sweaty hand came to rest on something round and....hairy.

"Ah, there they are!" Harry said to himself, and put them on. As he did, he felt something hairy on his chin but decided to ignore it. He got out of his four-poster bed and stumbled downstairs. Everyone in the Common room looked up as he came down.

"Why Harry, you stole my novelty false beard and glasses set!" Ron shouted, who was inflating a giant rubber replica of a rather demented looking Neville.

"What?"

"Harry, you stole them! And I'd worked very hard to embezzle them away from Fred and George!"

"What?" Suddenly Harry felt something wet around his foot, so he looked down. His foot was immersed in a moist, bright yellow lemon meringue pie, on top of which was lying a radish.

"Pick me up from here, you bloody oaf!" it said.

Harry obliged. Then, rethinking the situation, decided to pick up the bright yellow lemon meringue pie as well, and stuffed it in his pocket.

"Well?" snapped Ron, tapping his foot. Right that moment a short second year walked in carrying a large, bright green cactus with a large bright green card attached to it, and put it in Ron's hands, after which she walked right back out. Ron, still shocked from both novelty glasses-and-false beard theft and surprise cacti, opened the note and read it out loud slowly;

You'll say I'm very odd,

I know about your rod,

You cannot hide,

For I shall find,

That secret, mighty log.

He finished, a bit shocked, and looked more closely at the card.

"That could only have been written by either a psychotic maniac, or someone very, very drunk," he said slowly, turning it over. "It doesn't have a sender..."

Meanwhile, Harry was overcome by a horrible urge to suggest something extremely obscene, and he suspected the compulsion was coming from the radish. It, and the pie, seemed to be emanating some sort of vile, evil force.

"R-Ro-RON!" Harry shouted, his arms waving around wildly. "How...about...we get it...(no, no stop it you evil piece of meringue pie!) On...with your rod?" Ron dropped the cactus, which fell to the floor with a crash and a muted, "save meeee!" which faded off into horrible cactile oblivion.

"Ron!" Harry suddenly jerked forward; realizing the pie must have some amazing magical ability.

"That wasn't what I meant; it was the pie, the lemon meringue pie! It has psychic powers that forced me to say that! It's the end of the world!" Ron, obviously, did not believe him, but right as he was about to say something horrible to Harry, an alarm rang out.

There was a very loud ringing noise, which the two could hear echo around the castle, then a voice belonging to a strangely feminine sounding Professor Dumbledore yelled out: "Alarm, alarm. There is a dangerous magical beast rampaging around the castle, though some Prefects will soon be around to deal with it, would everyone please return to your Common Rooms and stay there."

Ron and Harry glanced at each other quickly, and then naturally ran out of their common room.

"Where...should...we...run to?" panted Ron.

Harry noticed he was still holding the bright green card. Good, he thought, then we'd be able to find out who was possibly drunk enough to write that horrible limerick, and he shuddered involuntarily. But that only caused him to remember the lemon meringue pie still in his pocket (the radish had tumbled out earlier...for some reason...) which caused him to involuntarily shudder again.

"I think...we should...get...to the potions classroom." Ron nodded, as he had no better idea, and ran on. As they bounded down the marble staircase, they saw familiarly bushy-haired girl struggling with appeared to be a giant calamari. The girl was holding its third pincer shut, while the calamari was holding on to her hair, in a futile attempt to free itself.

Right as the calamari performed a particularly successful slash with its pincer/arm/appendage, causing the girl to scream, Ron yelled out: "Hermi-"

Harry pushed him down the stairs. "Get...going...shellfish...will digest us...if not," he gasped. So they ran on.

They burst into the packed potions classroom five minutes later, wildly out of breath, and flopped onto a bench, in their fatigue not noticing the giant, lime-lighted lime-green stage running the length of the classroom. Harry felt around in his pocket, and realized the lemon meringue pie was still safe and sound, although slightly more moist for some reason.

"Mr. Potter, though I must congratulate you on that prodigious Panunis Potion you had concocted yesterday, I must say that flopping down, incredibly unkempt, on a bench, right in the beginning of Mr. Malfoy's debut comedy act is rather rude," Snape snapped, looming loomingly above them, in his own, looming way.

Harry readjusted his meringue-soaked pocket (and the lemon meringue pie) before getting up and walking to the other end of the dungeon, where he just noticed the rest of the class was sitting on various desks and benches, who had obviously been waiting for them. Ron got up as well and followed him.

A second later, a completely disheveled Hermione, lacking all clothes except for a pair of lime-green-with-pink-polka-dots undergarments, holding a giant piece of calamari shell-armor in her hand, lurched into the classroom. Right at that moment, a very Hermione-esc gasp was heard from behind Harry, and a decidedly bushy head disappeared from the crowd.

"Where," she wheezed, brandishing the calamari appendage, "are my extra robes?"

A severely disturbed Lavender Brown pointed to the store cupboard by the corner.

"Thank you," she said, and stumbled away towards it, still dragging the shell fish member. Snape cleared his throat loudly.

"Now that that's over with, how about we start the act, accurately named, The Draco Malfoy Show!" A predictable drum comedy-theme went up, and everyone cheered, including Harry, who was still under the malignant influence of the lemon meringue pie.

Draco Malfoy strutted on stage, rock-hard styled hair gleaming unnaturally in the horrid lighting. 'Hello ladies." He winked. "And gentlemen." He nudged. Harry, feeling the horrible urge to do something completely stupid and world-damaging radiating evilly from the pie, could not stop himself from shouting out: "I love your log!" Fortunately, nobody noticed it, as Draco Malfoy was about to tell his Joke.

"Why do gorillas have big noses?" He paused dramatically. "Because they have big fingers!" The annoying drum-theme went again, sounding to Harry a lot like: ka-boom! Only much stupider and more pointless.

Nobody laughed. Except for a curiously wet sounding chuckle coming from the direction of Harry's pie-soaked pocket, which he quickly attempted to muffle, using both arms and legs. But then the Crazy Urge came again, this time forcing Harry to do a spell he didn't even know existed, although it suggested using it on Malfoy. Seeing as who the supposed target was, Harry was more than happy to oblige. He tore out his wand, and, as quietly as he could, murmured the words to the spell. All of a sudden, there was a sharp crack, and Malfoy's left earlobe flew away from his face, ricocheting off the wall, all the while chuckling madly. Malfoy, clearly shocked from the sudden loss of a body part, raised his hand slowly to his ear and felt around for the missing lobe. As it was currently gone, probably giggling madly along the corridors, Malfoy's hand fell away, and he fainted promptly. Which was when everybody started screaming.

***********

That after-noon was incredibly calmer than the morning, so that by the time the Trio was sitting down for dinner they had almost forgotten about the crazy events of the morning.

"So Hermione," said Harry, feeling around in his pocket. "How did you manage to defeat that giant calamari?" He snatched his hand away. The lemon meringue pie was still there, live and kicking.

"It wasn't that hard actually," replied Hermione, gulping down a glass of disgustingly dull-green lima bean juice. "It's just a matter of disabling its pincers, and holding on to the appendages. Of course, it is kind of hard to tear them off, seeing as the joints are tightly connected wit-"

"Shut up Hermione!" Ron gasped out, face dangerously yellow. "I'm eating!"

"Of course, it does get a bit messy, with all the dismemberment and whatnot, specially considering the Sorting is tonight..."

The pitted prune he was currently eating fell out of Harry's mouth with a resounding 'thump' as his mouth gaped open in a pretty good imitation of Ron.

"Tonight?" he screeched softly.

"Yes Harry, tonight, I think Dumbledore's sex change would be quite serious as to delay the Sor-"

"Wait, wait, wait," interrupted Ron, several mashed frog legs dribbling out from his mouth in the process. "Dumbledore's sex change?"

"Why yes Ron, haven't you heard about it yet?" Hermione explained, looking impatiently from Ron, who was still clutching the bright green cactus card, to Harry, who seemed to be wrestling too fiercely with left pocket (which was drenched for some reason, and had evil-looking lemon meringue crumbles around it) to notice anything she'd said.

"You guys should really pay attention to the announcements, you can find out some useful things. Ah, here come the first years, and Professor Dumbledora and the rest..."

"Professor Dumbledora?" But Ron's outraged exclamation was drowned by the sound of hundreds of students cheering, partly to encourage the first years, but mostly because the arrival meant that the food was not that far off.

As the clapping died down, and the rest of the teachers sat down at the Head Table, the newly renamed Professor Dumbledora remained standing, and started his-her Sorting speech.

"Welcome students, old and new," his voice, while girlish, had the high-pitched quality of nails scratching on a blackboard, and the fact he/she still looked exactly like the male Headmaster, except for newly applied amounts of make-up, were quite frightening,

"Today we commence the Sorting, as it had to be delayed for...uh...medical reasons concerning me...as you all must know from the many announcements, broadcast thirty two times a day actually, we had about it. Alas, let the Sorting begin!" There he gave a sickening sort of giggle, and flopped down on his chair, which had been newly decorated with hot-pink paper hearts, and lime-green confetti, somehow shaped as little bunnies.

Professor McGonagall marched up, stool and Hat in hand, and placed them right in front of the Head Table. She then unrolled a large scroll, and began reading out the names.

"Babblebut, Ernie." A short, immensely fat boy squealed madly. He attempted running out of the Hall, only to bang into the Ravenclaw table, and be dragged by McGonagall to the stool. As she forcefully tried to shove the hat down on his head, he squealed hellishly.

Although a second after sitting on his head, the Hat cried out: "GRYFINDOR!" Ernie fainted, and McGonagall seemed fairly doubting of the Hat's judgement, as she's had such a strong feeling that the boy should be in Hufflepuff. She shrugged, and read out the next name.

The Sorting continued, Professor McGonagall reading out the names, and the Hat calling out the houses they belonged to. Harry meanwhile, had managed to quell the rabid pie in his pocket, and kept his meringue-wet hand clamped tightly over it, in case it decided to escape again. He thought back to that morning, when he had glanced down and saw the pie there, sitting demurely, looking up at him innocently.

'That was a pretty bad idea, picking up the pie,' he thought, his hand stroking his pocket unconsciously. 'I should have never believed it, the evil little bugger-' His other hand found a butter knife and slowly brought it down to pocket-level. Though right as he was about to kill the pie once and for all, he eyes fell upon Colin Creevey, who was swaying wildly and uttering dangerously stupid senselessness, half-eaten food dribbling down his chin.

"What's his problem?" Harry asked no one in particular.

Hermione glanced at Colin before answering, "He's drunk. Wildly, extraordinarily drunk. He's been like that since last night. Nobody knows why."

Ron stared at the bright green card, curiosity, and horror, dawning in his eyes, and was about to say something when suddenly everyone's attention was drawn up front. A short, red-haired girl was about to be Sorted, only the most incredible thing about her was that she was lacking any articles of clothing other than a bra and skirt. Colin promptly fainted.

When she jammed the Hat down on her head, it only took a second before it yelled out "SLYTHERIN." With rather more enthusiasm than it had any of the other kids.

Everyone was still stunned, so much so they did not notice the food appear on their plates, signaling the end of the Sorting. Harry, of all people, was the one who picked up his fork first, as for the latter part of the last five minutes he had been trying to force the butter knife in his hand towards the Pocket of Doom, in order to finally plunge it into the ghastly pie, ending its evil, lemon meringue reign forever. He failed however, and so seeing nothing better to do, picked up a fork. Everyone else in the Hall followed his example and commenced eating the delicious - albeit sticky - food on their plates.

******

Later that night, the Trio was making their way slowly to Gryffindor Tower, exhausted slightly from the feast, though mostly from the bizarre events of the day. They were discussing them in fatigued tones, when suddenly Ron's gleaming eye fell on Harry's left pocket, which was now basically dripping with molten meringue.

"Speaking of unexplainable, why Harry, in Merlin's name, has that pocket of yours been fairly dripping with...meringue...for the better part of this day?" he exclaimed, the gleam in his eyes very bright indeed.

Harry unfairly was right at that moment under the vile influence of the pie (yet again) and unable to do anything more than sputter and gag randomly.

"Well, it seems I'll have o find out for myself." Ron made a wild grab at Harry dripping pocket, and actually managed to pull out the slimy, melted lemon meringue pie. Harry promptly collapsed.

Hermione stared at it. "In God's name, what was that doing in Harry's pocket?" she exclaimed, and reached out to touch its sticky surface.

Her eyes widened. "A lemon meringue pie?"

Just then there was a bright flash, and when the sudden brilliance cleared, Ron and Hermione were still standing in the exact same spot, sans lemon meringue pie. Hermione's hair however had acquired an odd reddish sheen, and her nose had a brownish smudge on it, which wasn't there before. Ron's hair on the contrary, was incredibly frizzy.

"What the-" said an oddly Ron-ish sounding Hermione, before closing her mouth tightly, and snatched the bright green card off the floor, where it had fallen from Ron's limp hand.

"It seems," whispered a very feminine voiced Ron. "That we have changed bodies, because of that lemon meringue pie." There was stunned silence, which was interrupted by Hermione's (or should we say Ron's?) strangled voice.

"Hermione," she (he?) said, holding out the card. "Is this from you?"

Ron (or should we say Hermione?) snatched it from him. She read the limerick, faint horror clouding his face as she did so, then turned the card over, and examined it slowly. She looked at it for a while more, eyes narrowed, before bursting out into a lopsided (yet definitely Hermione-ish) grin.

"There's a signature right here! Wait, let me read it...oh my...." She dropped the card, stepping back, carefully avoiding Harry's inert form (yes, he was still out cold, other-dimensional lemon meringue pies can have that effect on you).

"What is it?" Hermione (-or Ron?) grabbed the card off the floor, and after reading it, promptly fainted.

Enclosed in a little lopsided heart, the name scrabbled messily read: Colin Creevey.

The End