Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Potter47 Eight
The Half-Blood Prince of Oz

Hermione was bored with her life at her parents' house. It was so very boring, not being able to speak of witchcraft or wizardry, and it simply bored her to death whenever her boring parents invited any of their boring dentist friends to dinner.

So, in order to avoid an overly long, overly boring opening, let us skip to the tornado:

Hermione was skipping along the sidewalk when she came upon a tornado. Normally, there were no tornadoes on this particular sidewalk, and that made this the most unboring (that's not a word, I know--but don't you think it should be?) thing that had happened all summer.

Of course, as you know, Hermione is a very smart girl, and as such did not act like this:

"Hello, tornado. How are you today? Oh, no, I've got all day to stand here and talk to you, Tornadie, don't worry."

Yes, Hermione was much smarter than that; instead, she showed it a fair pair of heels, and ran for it.

"Help! Tornado!"

(And no, before you ask: she was not calling for the tornado to help her.)

Our dear little Hermione ran all the way home, calling not so much 'Wa! Wa! Wa!" as "Help! Help! Help!"

She didn't find any of either; her great big dentists' mansion was empty when she returned to it: repetitively, no one was home. The tornado had grown in size as she had run, and she could see its approach through the wide window in the library.

"Such a horrible place for a wide window," muttered Hermione to herself. If it were to break when there happened to be a particularly strong wind, all of my precious books could be destroyed..."

Hermione wrote her troubles off as 'irrelevant' for the moment, and went down to the kitchen to have a mug of hot chocolate as she awaited almost certain peril.

"Oh, hello, Crookshanks," said Hermione as the squish-faced ball of fluff wandered into the kitchen, looking as though he had just woken up, disoriented and wondering if it were New Year's yet. "The author must have forgotten about you when he said there was no one home."

"Meow," said Crookshanks, and Hermione wished, not for the first time, that she was a Purrrrrseltongue, and could understand cat-speak.

(I happen to know that this particular 'Meow' meant, "There is a big swirly thing approaching out the window. It better not get my fur mussed up. I'm going back to sleep.")

Fwooooooo--fwoooooo

, went the tea kettle, signalling that Hermione's hot chocolate water had boiled.

"Mmmm," said Hermione. "There's nothing more enjoyable than sipping hot chocolate water as a tornado approaches, about to tear us to smithereens."

"Meow," said Crookshanks, which meant, "Yes, there is."

Hermione placed her empty mug in the sink and filled it with water from the tap. She went back upstairs to the library, pulled up a nice chair in front of the wide window, and settled down to read a book and await her doom.

Crookshanks jumped upon Hermione's lap with a "Meow!" which meant, "Your lap looks comfy--but I better not get my fur mussed up."

Hermione put down her book for a moment and petted Crookshanks idly. She knew that her current situation was very exciting--just look at that tornado approaching outside the window!--but she missed Hogwarts so dreadfully so. In fact, she missed Hogwarts so very much that she decided to sing about it:

Somewhere past that tornado
Way up high
There's a place I have lived in
A place where I am alive. Somewhere past that tornado
Slytherin's green
And some cloaks that you use to cloak
Mean you can't be seen. Maybe I'll ride a flying car
And land down where the clouds are far behind me...
Where Dumbledore gives lemon drops
Where turrets replace chimney tops...
That's where you'll find me.... Somewhere past that tornado
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly, into the Willow...
Why then, oh why can't I...? If happy little bluebirds fly,
into the Willow...
Why, oh, why can't I...?

Hermione furrowed her brow as she finished her song, and felt rather faint. The last thing she remembered thinking before she passed out was that she most certainly didn't want to fly into the Whomping Willow, and she wondered why she had sung about doing so.

It was an odd thing to sing about, if she did say so herself.

Nighty-night.

--|--

When Hermione came to, everything seemed to be so much more colourful than before she had fainted...it was as if they had gone back to Chris Columbus as director, and Hermione knew that that spelt trouble.

Crookshanks was now seated on her chest, with his face curled up in her neck. Hermione noted that she was on the floor, and Crookshanks' position made it rather...difficult, to stand.

Eventually, she managed it, however, and she felt that the scrapes on her chest would fade eventually. (As would the pain from Crookshanks's claws.)

Hermione, now standing, decided to go out the front door of her house--just, you know, to see what had happened after the tornado had hit. When she stepped outside into a beautifully Technicolor world, she knew one thing for certain:

"We're not in Kansas any more," she told Crookshanks. Of course, she hadn't been in Kansas to begin with, because if she had been then she probably would have went the wrong way home, because she didn't live in Kansas. She thought, however, that Kansas would have been a much farther (and wetter) journey.

"Although I've heard the Atlantic can be beautiful in the summertime," she told Crookshanks, and he shook his furry little head, wondering when his human planned to get back in-character.

"Holy Snitch!" Hermione shouted--and Crookshanks felt that answered his question sufficiently. He pouted as much as a furry little squished-face kitty can pout; he liked it better when they got his human right in these silly stories. But oh well, as long as he didn't get his fur mussed up.

Where had we been just a moment ago? Oh, yes:

"Holy Snitch!" Hermione shouted, spotting a pair of very ugly fuzzy Snorkack slippers protruding from underneath her house. "I certainly hope that those don't belong to--"

And then she noticed that there were legs protruding from the very ugly fuzzy Snorkack slippers protruding from underneath her house.

"Oh my stars and garters--I've killed Luna!"

Now, as Crookshanks would have told his human if she would listen, shouting out that you've killed someone is not the best thing to do after fouling up the landing of a three-story house that has only appeared in this one story. No, the proper thing to do was to see if they had any cat nip on them and then slink away unnoticed.

Not that he knew from experience.

Suddenly a murmur went up through the land...it started low, then it started to grow:

"The Weird Witch of the East...dead? Could she be dead? Who killed her? That girl with the cat? Yes, she looks evil too. An aura around her...bookishness, I think it could be called...let's get her...and let's sing too."

And so they chased Hermione out of the land, singing a merry song as they did it; Hermione never got a good look at them, so she didn't even know what she was running from, but that didn't stop her from showing it a fair pair of heels, and running for it. Crookshanks jumped into her arms for a free ride.

Their song went like this:

Ding! Dong! The witch is dead.
Which old witch?
The Weird Witch!
Ding! Dong! The Weird Witch is dead... We sound cheerful but we're not!
We're gonna
rip out your heart!
Ding! Dong! You killed our Weird Witch..."

And so on, and so on. For some reason, Hermione didn't like the sound of these people. She ran as fast as she could, and she soon realised that she happened to be running along a Road of Yellow Brick, capitalised for no particular reason.

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road," Hermione murmured to herself as she ran--she couldn't fathom why, as the Road she was on was clearly a Road of Yellow Brick, not a Yellow Brick Road...oh, well. As long as she didn't get Crookshanks's fur mussed up.

Soon the singing was out of earshot, and Hermione allowed herself to slow down.

Walking now, she soon came upon a man upon a wooden pole, and he looked oddly familiar.

"Professor Snape?" she questioned, and he looked up at her.

"No, I am the Tin Rickman," he corrected, and Hermione felt there was something inherently wrong about a tin-anything being up on a pole like some sort of Scarecrow... but she ignored this instinct.

"But you look like Professor Snape," said Hermione.

"I am also Professor Snape," said the Tin Rickman. "But I have been sentenced to being called the Tin Rickman for the rest of my days."

"Why?" said Hermione. Crookshanks thought that his human was decidedly more in-character when around Snape than at other times. "And why are you on a pole?"

"Parents got fed up," said the Tin Rickman, "of all the potions accidents happening in my class. You see, of every ten stories written involving me, nine of them involve a potions accident. And out of every ten stories involving the two of us--" he indicated Hermione and himself, not Crookshanks and himself, for some reason, "--ten of them involve a potions accident."

"But why are you on a pole?"

"Well," said the Tin Rickman, "originally, parents wanted to hold a poll, to see if I should be fired for all the accidents involving my class. But then the person who was writing the poll misspelled 'poll' and here I am."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Do you want help to get down?"

"Yes, please," said the Tin Rickman. "I am feeling particularly out-of-character at the moment. I'll probably be better once I am closer to yourself--that always seems to happen, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I cannot understand it," said Hermione, looking at the Yellow ground.

In his last moments of out-of-character-ness, the Tin Rickman decided to sing a song:

When a man's an empty cauldron
He should always be called Ron,
And that's irrelevant...
The point's that I'm presumin'
That I could be kind of human
If I only had a heart...
I'd be tender, I'd be gentle
And awful sentimental
Regarding love and art...
I'd be friends with Gryffindors
Place my hand between your fingers
If I only had a heart... Picture me...a balcony
Above a voice sings thus...
"Wherefore art thou...Severus?"
I hear a beat
How sweet.

Just to register emotion,
Jealousy, devotion
And really feel the part...
I could stay young and chipper
And I'd lock it with a zipper
If I only had a heart.

As Hermione got the Tin Rickman down, she shook her head in wonder: "Boy, you were out-of-character."

"Yes, and I regret that point very much, Miss Granger. I had nothing to do with the matter."

"You do have a heart, you know," said Hermione sort of shyly.

"Anatomically speaking, yes," said the Tin Rickman wryly. "But other than that, I'm afraid I'm out of luck."

Hermione didn't quite think this was true, but she kept it to herself.

"Do you know how to get back to Hogwarts?" the Tin Rickman asked. "I've been...hanging around here since the end of term. I certainly hope you know where this place is?"

"I'd wager Logica-Land, but that's another fic entirely," said Hermione.

"You know..." said the Tin Rickman, looking thoughtfully yet sarcastically and snarkily at the Road of Yellow Brick, "I've heard tell that this Road leads to a Wizard."

"The Wizard of Oz?" Hermione asked for no reason in particular.

"What is a wizard avoughs?" the Tin Rickman asked. "I meant the Wizard of Hog."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Well, that's a logical place to head to."

And so the two began walking, and they walked rather closer together than they might have preferred, in order to stay as in-character as possible. The words

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Hog,
Because, because, because, because, because...
because of the wonderful school he runs!

came inexplicably to both of their minds, but thankfully no one sang them aloud.

"Meow," said Crookshanks, which thoroughly contradicts the previous statement,

because it meant:

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Hog,
Because, because, because, because, because...
because of the wonderful school he runs!

But neither the Tin Rickman nor Hermione spoke Purrrrseltongue, and so neither of them could be disheartened by the fact that one of their number had burst into song yet again.

The group continued on their journey to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Hog, until they came to a fork in the road. No, it wasn't a literal fork, you single-minded reader--they went left, and Hermione voiced something that had been bothering her for a while now. She hung back a moment, stopping while the others continued on.

"I think I killed Luna Lovegood."

"That's nice," said the Tin Rickman. Then, in a moment, he straightened his head up, turned round, and stomped back to where she was standing, and hissed, "That is most certainly not nice, now stick close, you fool!"

Hermione kept up with them now.

"How on Earth do you think you killed Miss Lovegood?" the Tin Rickman asked. "What, did you drop a large inanimate object on someone and the only identifiable features left visible clearly indicated her?"

"Yes."

"That is only circumstantial evidence, Miss Granger. Never assume."

"Yes sir," she said. Silence for a moment. "Then who could I have killed?"

"Perhaps you killed no one at all. Have you ever thought of the possibility that the body was perhaps a manikin for the store at which the identifiable features of the girl are sold?"

"No, I hadn't thought of that."

"I do not blame you. The chances of that being true are less likely than that of winning the lottery."

"But is it more likely than being struck by lightning in a submarine?"

"What is a submarine?"

"Never mind."

Silence again, and the three kept walking. Soon they came to someone lying in the Road--

Scratch that; replace it with:

Soon they came to a lion in the Road. It too looked somewhat familiar to Hermione, and she called the first name that came to mind, which happened to be the correct one:

"Neville?" she said. "Why are you in the middle of the Road? And why are you a lion?"

The three adventurers walked round the other side of Neville, and saw that he was crying.

"Oh, pull yourself together, Longbottom," said the Tin Rickman. "You haven't even melted a cauldron and you're crying."

"I have every reason to cry! I'm the Cowardly Gryffindor. I don't have one bit of courage and I'd say 'I ain't got no courage' if I didn't have any grammar either, but I do, so I said 'I don't have one bit of courage.'"

The Tin Rickman blinked. Hermione blinked. Crookshanks blinked, only he used more eyelids.

"It's all right, Neville," Hermione said. "We're going to see the Wizard of Hog, and I'm sure he can give you plenty of courage."

"Hog?" said the Cowardly Gryffindor hopefully. "Lions eat hogs, don't they?"

The Tin Rickman blinked again. Hermione blinked again. Crookshanks blinked again, and he still used more eyelids--he wasn't even showing off; he couldn't not use more eyelids. It was just his nature, and that probably has some metaphorical quality to it, but I don't care.

"I suppose they do, Neville," said Hermione. "But the Wizard of Hog is a...Wizard of Hog."

"That would be considered cannibalism, Longbottom," said the Tin Rickman. "No matter your current species."

The Cowardly Gryffindor sniffled, and got up from the Road. "All right, I suppose I'll go anyway."

"We'd better be off," muttered the Tin Rickman, and so they went.

The Cowardly Gryffindor began to sing, now, making the Tin Rickman wish that Tin Rickmans ate lions, or at least hunted them.

Oh, no, the Cowardly Gryffindor didn't sing about how he didn't have any nerve--he just led a rousing chorus of that annoying "Wizard of Hog" number. Crookshanks sang backup.

Soon, the group came upon what appeared to be an Emerald City, but was really just Hogwarts Castle playing dress-up.

Soon they had reached the gate to this 'City' and were met by a familiar old man who looked very much like Dumbledore, standing just outside the gate, looking as if he were guarding it.

"Professor Dumbledore?" said Hermione.

"Oh, no," said the familiar old man who looked very much like Dumbledore. "I'm just the Gatekeeper. And who is this 'Dumbledore?' I assume you are here to see the Wizard?"

"Yes," said the Tin Rickman. "Now if you would be so kind to open the gate..."

"Oh, I can't," said the Gatekeeper. "Not till somebody tells me the password."

"How would we know the password?" said the Tin Rickman.

"I'm simply terrible with passwords," said the Cowardly Gryffindor, tugging on his tail worriedly.

"The chances that we could guess the password are probably less than getting struck by lightning in a submarine."

"What is a submarine?" said the Gatekeeper.

"It is an underwater boat thingy that comes in a variety of flavours--I mean, colours--same difference--both have lost a 'u' at the hand of Americans--the most well-known colour is Yellow, which is capitalised because it is part of Yellow Submarine which is a song that I really don't care to sing right now because it is repetitive and extraneous and here goes it goes because you can't understand me anyway: "We all live in a Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine / We all live in a Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine," said Crookshanks, but all that came out was, "Meow."

The gate creaked slowly open.

"Well what do you know!" said the Gatekeeper. "The password must've been 'meow!'"

Hermione blinked. The Tin Rickman blinked. The Cowardly Gryffindor blinked, and it took him just as many eyelids as Crookshanks because he was a lion at the moment and lions are cats.

"You mean you didn't know the password?"

"Oh, no!" said the Gatekeeper. "Why do you think I'm standing out here on this side of the gate?"

"Let's find this Wizard, shall we?" said the Tin Rickman.

The five of them walked through the gate, and the Gatekeeper closed it behind them. He stood now with a happy smile on his face, awaiting more visitors.

Soon after going through the gate, the four companions met up with another familiar old man who looked very much like Dumbledore.

"Professor Dumbledore?" said Hermione. This man sat in a horseless carriage, looking straight ahead.

"Welcome," said the other old man who looked very much like Dumbledore. "I am the driver of the Thestral of a Different Colour."

They all blinked once again and it is wholly unnecessary to tell of each individually.

"How can it be the Thestral of a Different Colour? Thestrals are invisible."

"Maybe to you," said the man, "and maybe to me. But that's because we haven't ever seen death. I'm sure you know how it works--"

"There's no Thestral there," informed the Cowardly Gryffindor. "I can see Thestrals. There's nothing pulling that carriage."

"He's right," said the Tin Rickman.

"There isn't?" said the man. "Oh. Well, that would explain why he's never pulled me anywhere. I'd been wondering greatly about that."

"Let's head on," said the Tin Rickman, and so they did.

Eventually they came to the door of the castle...er, main building of the City. They knocked on the great double doors, and in a moment they were opened.

"Welcome!" said a great, loud voice as they entered. The Cowardly Gryffindor quivered and held onto his tail. "What has brought you here to speak with the great Half-Blood Prince of Hog?"

"Half-Blood Prince?" said Hermione inquisitively. "I thought it was the Wizard of Hog?"

"Copyright infringement," informed the Half-Blood Prince. "Apparently the term 'the Wizard of' is property of MGM for some reason or another. I'd been told that if I dropped the capital 'W" I'd be fine, but who wants to be the Izard of Hog, anyway? So I chose the Half-Blood Prince of Hog instead."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Well, we've come here for you to grant our wishes."

"I would like courage," said the Cowardly Gryffindor.

"And we want to go home," said Hermione, gesturing at herself and the Tin Rickman.

"Meow," said Crookshanks, which meant, "What about me?"

"Oh, of course," said the Half-Blood Prince. "I shall begin with the lion. Just let me get down..."

With the sound of a person dropping to the ground from something off the ground, the Half-Blood Prince appeared before them. He was an old man, and he looked very much like Dumbledore.

"Professor Dumbledore?" said Hermione, positive that she would be wrong again.

"Wrong again! I am the Half-Blood Prince of Hog! Didn't you realise that I am the same person that had been talking to you people?"

"I guess."

Hermione thought that whatever this man said, he was still Dumbledore.

"Penguins and cheese," said the man.

Yep,

thought Hermione. Still Dumbledore.

"Now, Mr Cowardly Gryffindor. All you need to have courage is to have a mean Slytherin following you round everywhere. This way, you'll learn to stand up for yourself." The Half-Blood Prince reached behind a curtain, and made a face as if he were grabbing for something. "Here," he said, pulling with all his force. "Have a Malfoy."

"Thank you, Mr Half-Blood Prince!"

"You are very welcome, my feline friend! Next!"

The Tin Rickman stepped forward, and after a complicated footwear ritual, he had been sent home.

Hermione stepped forward at last, and the Half-Blood Prince said to her with a smile:

"Ah, this one's easy! All you have to do, Miss Granger, is wake up. You're dreaming this whole thing. Wake-up!'

"Wake-up, Tangy. Wake up."

Hermione opened her eyes to find her parents leaning over her, looking worried. With them were Ron and Harry, and Hermione wondered what they could be doing there.

"I just had the strangest dream," said Hermione, breathing in and out, in and out, just like she did all the time because otherwise she'd be dead. "And you were..." She pointed at her father limply, but then shook her head, "...not there. Nor were...you, nor you, nor...you. Goodness, my subconscious must not think very much of you people at all."

"She's delusional," said Hermione's mother, Jo Granger.

"Most definitely," said her father, Neil Granger.

"She's got to be, if she thinks I wasn't in her dream," said Ron.

"Yeah, she couldn't get knocked out and not dream of at least one of your arguments...they're so common that I'd guess the odds of it are less than getting struck by lightning while in a submarine," said Harry ("What is a submarine?" said Ron).

"Meow," said Crookshanks, which I happen to know meant, "That's what you think."

~ Finis ~

Author's Note:

I have now decided to include a HBP-related song-parody in each HBPP's author's-note, from now until the end of this fic (which should come sometime in July...) Thus, I give you:

A Half-Blood Prince's Night

It's been a Half-Blood Prince's night,
Hinkypunks lead me into bogs.
It's been a Half-Blood Prince's night,
And bowtruckles look like logs,

But when I get HBP, I'll find the things I can read, and I'll stay up all night
You know I'll read all day, to get to know who's the HBP,
And it's worth it just to hear JK: "The Half-Blood Prince is..." anything.

So why on earth should I sleep?
Cause when I get HBP, I'm gonna read all day

When I read, everything seems to be right,
When I read, gripping an HP book tight, tight yeah

It's been a Half-Blood Prince's night,
Hinkypunks lead me into bogs.
It's been a Half-Blood Prince's night,
And bowtruckles look like logs,

But when I get HBP, I'll find the things I can read, and I'll stay up all night

So why on earth should I sleep?
Cause when I get HBP, I'm gonna read all day

When I read, everything seems to be right,
When I read, gripping an HP book tight, tight yeah

It's been a Half-Blood Prince's night,
Hinkypunks lead me into bogs.
It's been a Half-Blood Prince's night,
And bowtruckles look like logs,

But when I get HBP, I'll find the things I can read, and I'll stay up all night
You know I'll read all night
You know I'll read all night

This is, for the two of you that don't know, a parody of the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." Shame on you.

See you next time. Er... actually, no. I can't see you, nor can you see me. We are quite a way's away from each other, and I will not disclose exactly where it is that you are a way's away from. Because then I would have to kill you. Or Obliviate you. That would probably be more reasonable.