Barbie-Roth!

Part I:

"Okay, at the stroke of seven, we'll begin. That's in five minutes. Ready?"

"This is so dumb. I can't believe we agreed to play this game," said Ron, crouching down in the twilight.

"It's only a couple hours," said Harry. "Besides, we owe Hermione for saving our butts on our Potions final."

"Oh yeah," said Ron quietly. "I just wish we didn't have to play outside. The grass is wet."

"You two! Stop talking and listen to me!" A half-grown girl stood before them. "Okay, you-" she pointed to Harry, "-are going to play this guy here." She stuffed a figurine in his hand. He looked at it. It was a thickly muscled black man, with his left arm torn off, and a plastic rifle tied on in its place.

"Er," he said. "Ginger, who is this?"

"That's Barrett, can't you tell? See his gun arm? He shoots people with it."

"That's- great," said Harry. Ron was trying to supress a laugh. Ginger looked at Ron. "And you get to play Sephiroth, since my brother doesn't want to play with us today." She placed a barbie doll in his hands. He took it gingerly. "What's a Sephiroth?"

She sighed. "He's the BAD guy. Don't you know anything? Oh, here's his sword." She placed a green cocktail sword in his hands. "It's a little bent, but you can pretend it's not." She turned to her friend.

Ron and Harry looked at each other. "Hermione!" called Ron. Harry turned. Hermione walked into the yard with a cloth bag at her side. "I'm back," she said. "You wouldn't believe the line at the store!"

"I do hope you'll join us," said Ron, holding up his Barbie gleefully.

Hermione looked at the doll in horror. Its once beautiful dress had been colored entirely black with a marker, and its dog-chewed face had been redrawn with nail polish. "What is that?"

"I'm the BAD guy," said Ron.

"Hermione!" cried Ginger, turning around. "Are you going to play Final Fantasy Seven with us? Please? You have to!"

"Well, um, I was just going inside..."

"Come on Hermione, it won't be any fun without you!" Ron called.

"And if you play," said Harry, "I'll let you borrow my gun-arm man!" He held up Barrett.

Hermione laughed. "Your what?"

"That's Barrett," Ginger said, taking him from Harry. "You can't play with him though. You have to play as Aeris." She held out a large doll with light brown hair.

"Who's that?" Hermione asked, taking the doll.

"She's Cloud's girlfriend. Well, his other girlfriend. I get to be Tifa." She held up a dark-haired Barbie in a skimpy outfit.

"He has two girlfriends?"

"Yeah, but one dies halfway through the game."

"Oh, that's... sad."

"Yeah, everyone remember to cry when she dies."

"Okay, we will," said Hermione, turning to Ron and Harry.

"Not you, you can't cry," said the girl. "You'll be dead."

"Oh."

Harry and Ron snickered from behind.

"And Susie gets to play as Cloud, because my brother isn't playing."

Susie interrupted: "But I wanted to play as the cat..."

"Susie, you have to play as Cloud. He's the hero, and all the other roles are taken!"

"But I want to play as the cat..."

"Okay," said the girl. "You can play as Cloudcat Sith." She whispered something into her friend's ear. She looked at them. "Okay, she's Cloud, but she's running around inside Cat Sith."

Ron nudged Hermione: "Does any of this make any sense to you?" he whispered.

She shook her head. "Just play along. We've only got a few more hours of this."

"Muggles are so weird," muttered Ron.

"Okay, everybody take their positions!" The girl and her friend ran off into a corner of the yard and hid behind a tree, leaving Hermione, Ron and Harry in the middle of the yard.

"Remind me again, Hermione, why we have to do this?"

"Because you owe me big-time."

"I know. But really, do you think we have to stoop to this?"

"You remember that water balloon incident the week before last?"

"That was Seamus..."

"You told him to do it. So this is all your own fault."

Ron raised the arm on his Barbie doll.

"Come on, Ron," said Harry. "Didn't you ever play toys like this as a kid?"

"Yeah, but we played with cool toys. Look at this thing. In what universe is this remotely scary? It doesn't even move on its own!"

"It is- was- a Barbie, Ron. All muggles have them. Only this one's been-"

"-butchered?"

"Something like that."

"So do you have any?"

"Um," said Harry, looking up, "what are they doing?" Hermione turned. Ginger was halfway up the tree in the corner of the yard, and squealing in a high voice. "Help!"

They ran over. "Ginger! What is it?" called Hermione.

She screamed. "I'm being chased by a monster! Help!" She inched out farther along the branch.

"I'll save you!" said Harry, holding up his action figure.

"No, you can't!" said Ginger. "That's Cloud's job."

"Oh," said Harry. "So then what's my job?"

"Your job is to fight monsters until later."

"Watch out Harry! The BAD guy's coming to get you!" A barbie came flying down from the sky.

"Oh no you don't!" cried Harry, raising Barret's arm. "I'm going to shoot you dead with my automatic rifle arm!"

"Ginger," said Hermione. "You really shouldn't be in that tree." Ginger wasn't listening. She was already busy climbing down. "Susan," she was saying. "You need to come save me!"

"But you're too high up!"

"You have to. You're the hero! Oh well, go fight Sephiroth first. Those two are playing it all wrong."

Harry and Ron were paying no attention.

"Come back here and fight me like a man!" called Harry, Barret standing on a rock in the middle of the yard. Ron had his barbie on the picnic table.

"I can't fight you; I'm not a man!" said Ron in a high-pitched voice. "But I can curse you! I curse you with my green sword-wand... Cruciatus!"

"Ron!" hissed Hermione. "Don't even joke about that! And don't talk about it here..."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Very well then, I'll throw my sword-wand at you!"

"Hah! Your puny sword is no match for my gun arm! I can hit you from back here!" He waved the figure's arm up and down.

Susan ran over. "Wait! I'm here to fight the bad guy too! Die Sephiroth!" She ran towards Ron and stopped. "Where's your sword?"

"Oh, I lost it," said Ron.

"I can't fight you without your sword. We're supposed to swordfight."

Harry laughed and came over. Susan was already looking in the grass. "I don't see it," she said.

"What's going on?" called Ginger from the tree.

"Sephiroth lost his sword," said Susan.

---

Part II:

"Green grass, green sword," muttered Ron. "This'll be easy."

Ginger ran over. Hermione had finally managed to get her out of the tree. "What happened?!" she cried.

"Can't find the sword," said Harry.

"Oh, well, that's okay," she said. "He can use this." she picked up a twig from the ground. She grabbed the action figure she called Cloud from Susan, and screamed at the top of her lungs: "You killed Aeris! Now you must die! Evil Sephiroth!" the toy flew at Ron, and he lunged back.

"Hey! You're supposed to fight me!"

"Ginger!" whined Susan, "I'm supposed to be Cloud!"

"But you're not fighting him!"

"I'm not dead yet," said Hermione, entering the scene.

"Yes, you are! You, um, you fell out of the tree and died just now."

"But how can Sephiroth have killed me if I fell out of a tree?"

"I don't know, but he did. He made you fall out of it by thinking of it. He did a lightning spell on the tree, and it made you fall out. He's evil!" She ran circles around Ron, who stood there with his mouth hanging open.

"That's it," said Ron. "I'm done playing." Ginger looked at him like she would cry. "Look," he said, trying to soothe her, "I'm dead. You killed me. See?" he threw the Barbie on the ground.

"Yea!" cried Ginger. She picked up the doll and ran around screaming: "I killed Sephiroth! Sephiroth is dead now! Yeah!"

Susan started running too.

"This is too weird," he said to Hermione. The three of them sat on the picnic table. Ginger and Susan ran circles around them screaming and yelling. "I got killed by being circled to death."

"At least you didn't get struck by lightning and fall out of a tree," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"You have to do this every year?"

"More than that, sometimes," said Hermione.

"I'm sorry."

"Hey," said Harry. "I wonder if you could enchant these things." They looked at him in surprise. "No, really, I wonder if you could make one of them light up or something. It would be way cooler than anything you could buy in the store." They stared at the toy in his hands.

"We're still underage," said Hermione. "Besides, it's illegal to enchant muggle objects."

"Come on Hermione. It's a toy. Besides," Ron took the toy from Harry, "we know overage wizards, don't we?" He winked at him.

"Oh, no! You guys are not giving these to-"

"What? I didn't say anything. What time is it now?"

"It's nearly eight-thirty. Aunt Martha should be here any-"

A car pulled up in the driveway, and a middle-aged woman stepped out. "-Minute," Hermione finished.

"Wow you're good," said Ron.

Ginger and Susan ran up to the Mrs. Granger and started talking excitedly. Mrs. Granger walked up to Hermione. "Thank you," she said, giving her a hug. "And thank you two also." She shook Harry's and Ron's hands. "I hope they weren't too much trouble," she said, as Ginger dragged her towards the house.

"They were fine," said Hermione. "I'll see you on Monday night then." They walked down the street to Hermione's parent's house.

"Glad that's over," said Ron.

"You're not coming with me on Monday?" said Hermione.

"No way!" said Harry and Ron together.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"You're not guilt-tripping me this time," said Ron. "There's no way I'm going back there."

"Hermione," said Harry. "I wonder. Would it be very hard to get one of those dolls from your cousin next time?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. You'll see." They reached the Grangers' home, and went inside.