Harry Potter and the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It was another boring summer day at number four, Privet Drive. The Dursleys were out for tea, and Harry, enjoying the house's quiet lack of hostility, was reading Flying With the Cannons for the umpteenth time. Suddenly, he heard a strange sound through the window. It sounded like some very heavy machinery was moving around out in the street.

Harry threw his book aside, ran down the stairs, and pulled the front door open. A bulldozer was crossing the Dursley's front yard.

"What the hell...?" Harry spluttered. The bulldozer was quite obviously heading for the house.

"Stop it! Stop it! What are you doing?"

A tall, bewildered-looking man came around the corner of the house, yelling loudly and waving his arms around.

"What the hell...?" Harry spluttered again.

The man threw himself in front of the bulldozer.

The bulldozer stopped.

The man driving the bulldozer got out of it and gave the man in front of the bulldozer a disapproving look.

"Mr. Dent," he said, "we've already been through this. I've already knocked your house down."

"Nooooo!" the man yelled, now sitting in a conveniently placed mud-puddle.

"Look," the driver said patiently, "this is my job. I wander around fiction stories and knock down houses. Do you want to put me out of a job, Mr. Dent?"

"Yes!" said Harry and the man on the ground at the same time. They eyed each other warily.

"Who're you?" Harry asked.

"I'm Arthur Dent," the man in the mud said. "I've had an awful lot of terrible things happen to me in the past few months. And I'm suffering from an extreme lack of tea. Who're you?"

"I'm Harry Potter," said Harry. "I'm a wizard."

"Look," interrupted the driver. "I've got orders from the council to knock this house down. Can you both move, please?"

"No," Arthur and Harry chorused.

"The council hasn't got a leg to stand on," Arthur added.

"I don't think the Dursleys would like to come back and find their house knocked down," Harry said.

"We sent a notice," said the driver.

"Yeah," Arthur said knowingly, "you probably sent it to some remote corner of the galaxy, didn't you? I bet Milliways thinks it's going to be blown sky-high today. Not that it isn't blown sky high every day, but..."

"Who cares where we sent it?" the driver scoffed. "My point is, it was sent. Now I've got to knock this house down!"

Suddenly another man came running around the corner of the house. There was a slightly mad look to him. He wore a pink-and-blue striped towel around his head and he was carrying a canvas bag.

"Arthur," he said. "Get up."

"Ford!" Arthur yelled, pointing at Harry. "They're trying to knock his house down!"

"Well, since the Earth is going to be destroyed in about ten minutes, I don't see the problem," said Ford, frowning.

"Oh," said Arthur, "are the Vogons back, then?"

"Yep," said Ford cheerfully. "We're hitching a ride."

"Run," said Arthur to Harry. "Get out while you still can. They make you listen to poetry, you know." To Ford, he said, "I've just got back! The Vogons already destroyed this planet twice! I'm not doing this all over again!"

"I like poetry," said Harry mildly.

Arthur and Ford stared at him open-mouthed.

"You're very disturbed," Ford commented. He reached down and dragged Arthur out of the mud. "They should be here soon, we have to go. Want to come along? The planet's going to blow up, you know," Ford said to Harry.

"Um... okay," said Harry, now thoroughly confused.

"So can I knock this house down, then?" asked the driver hopefully.

"Sure," said Ford as he led Harry and Arthur away.

The driver scampered back to his bulldozer. A few moments later, Harry heard the sound of the bulldozer crashing into the Dursley's house.

"I hope you're right about the Earth blowing up," Harry said to Ford.

"Oh, I'm absolutely certain of it," said Ford. "You have your towel, right?"

"My - what?" Harry asked.

"Your towel. You have to have a towel. Arthur, I don't suppose you've got one?"

Arthur said crossly, "Someone stole mine. Or I left it at Fenchurch's."

Ford sighed and checked his Sub-Etha-Sensomatic, which was blinking quietly to itself inside his bag. "Okay, we now have five minutes. Harry, go dig some towels out of the wreckage of your house."

Harry went over to the bulldozer, politely asked the driver to stop doing his job for a moment, stumbled across the wreckage, and finally pulled out two fluffy yellow towels.

"Wonderful, super, great," said Ford. "Okay. The Vogons should be here any minute -"

Right on cue, a huge, lumpy, yellow spacecraft popped into view and hovered menacingly above the wreckage of number four.

"And we're off!" yelled Ford.

"This is the weirdest day of my life," Harry muttered.