Happy Wizards Retirement Home: The Disastrous Annual ...

Happy Wizards Retirement Home:

The Disastrous Annual Holiday Pancake Breakfast of 2067

"What does the sign say Ron?" Hermione Filch snapped at her long time friend, Ronald Weasley. Ron gave her a rude look.

"Why are you always so nasty?" He asked then wheeled himself over to the sign.

"What?!" Hermione shrieked. She had lost her new magical hearing aide, and had resorted back to her old method of hearing...by shrieking at everyone around her to speak up.

Ron reached up and ripped down the sign. There was really no point for him to bother reading it to her. He thrust it into her hand and then settled back. Hermione took out her reading glasses and read the sign out loud, interjecting her sour comments in between.

"Happy Wizards HA! Retirement Home Presents: The Annual Holiday Pancake Breakfast. Our Annual Pancake Feast is arriving shortly! Are you ready for fun, Bingo and merriment? They act like we do anything else BUT play bingo all year round! What is so special about that! Do you like good food, friends and laughter? GOOD FOOD? Last week's meatloaf Tuesday had me in the restroom for three hours! They call that good food? Bah! Then you're invited to our pancake breakfast! Scheduled at 9AM on December 22^nd. Come Hungry! Happy Holidays from the Happy Wizards Retirement Home Staff!"

She finished reading then snorted at the sign with contempt. Ron looked thoughtful however, and scratched his white whiskered chin since it had been a few days since he'd shaven.

"I have always liked pancake breakfasts," he said to himself so low that Hermione didn't even notice that he was talking.

"So I suppose that we're all going to the pancake breakfast then?" Hermione sneered and scrunched up her already wrinkled forehead in an unpleasant fashion.

"Of course we are! Just because you're old and nasty because your twelve children don't visit you doesn't mean that other people can't have some fun!" Ron grumbled. Amazingly, Hermione heard this. She always had perfect hearing when any of her ungrateful children were brought into the discussion. Many of the staff members had also noticed this, and had come to the conclusion that the woman was mean and just had selective hearing.

"THEY DO TOO VISIT ME YOU STUPID OLD COOT! IF YOU WEREN'T SO BUSY EYEING THE FEMALE STAFF YOU WILL HAVE NOTICED THAT THEY CAME LAST WEEK AND GAVE ME A CHRISTMAS CARD!" she screamed. Ron rolled his eyes.

"You're almost as bad as my sister. That was five years ago!" he snapped back.

"WHAT?" Hermione screeched and cupped her hand around her ear.

"Never mind," Ron said and wheeled off, ignoring Hermione's nasty comments as she followed him down the hall.

*****

Everyone in the home was very excited about the Pancake breakfast over the next few days. Hermione could screech the loudest, and was finally able to wake up Harry long enough to let him know about the breakfast one night at supper. She accomplished all this while a house elf was blissfully shoving mashed potatoes and beef brisket down the aged hero's throat. Harry however fell back asleep when Hermione started complaining about how much she hated pancakes.

"If you hate pancakes, then don't go," Ginny said during a momentary lapse into lucidity. However, almost as soon as she was done speaking she went back to worrying about what she was going to get her dead husband for Christmas as she idly poked at her food. Hermione didn't seem to have an answer for this one, because she just opened and closed her mouth indignantly like a gasping fish . Ron chuckled.

"If she doesn't go, the nasty old bitch won't have anything to complain about," he wheezed. His assumption apparently was only too true, because Hermione turned red and began screeching.

"I HOPE YOU DIE WHEN THEY ARE CHANGING YOUR DIAPER RONALD WEASLEY, AND I HOPE THEY THROW YOUR CORPSE OUT THE WINDOW WITHOUT CLEANING YOU UP!" she yelled. Ron only cackled though, since he was used to her wishing that particular fate upon him.

*****

The morning of the pancake breakfast arrived. All the seniors wheeled and shuffled their way out to the main dining area. There was a table set up at the front of the dining area with a bingo basket. The food was set out in buffet servers along the sidewalls of the room. Each had small tongues of enchanted blue flames below them to keep the food hot.

Ginny had screamed at her morning mediwizard because he refused to wait for the late Mr. Goyle to finish getting dressed, then curtly told Ginny that her husband was dead. So naturally, Ginny had completely forgotten about all of this and was calling the mediwizard her "little angel" by the time they arrived at the dining hall.

Hermione was sitting behind Harry, whom of course was fast asleep and drooling on his "Happy Christmas!" spittle bib.

"WAKE UP!" Hermione squawked and smacked Harry's liver spotted, baldhead. Harry snorted awake and wheezed angrily at her.

"You stupid bint," he began, but was not able to finish as he slipped back into dreamland again. Ron for once was eyeing the food table instead of one of the young mediwitches.

"When can we start getting our plates?" Ron asked a nearby wizard who was putting the lid on one of the serving trays. The man ignored him and walked away grumbling about 'doddering old men'

Hermione wheeled herself over to the table, schmecking her mouth with a distasteful expression on her face as she opened the lids of the trays to inspect the food inside. A Mediwitch ran up to her when she got a plate and began heaping eggs on it.

"Mrs. Filch! Please! We're not serving the breakfast yet. Everyone has not arrived!"

"DON'T YOU START SASSING ME! YOU MAY BE MUMBLING, BUT I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. WHY I SHOULD REPORT YOU TO THE MINISTRY I SHOULD! HOW DARE YOU ASSUME THAT I AM NINETY-NINE!" she shrieked and waved her plate about angrily as she spoke, causing the slippery scrambled eggs to slide off the plate onto the floor. The mediwitch looked bewildered.

"Madame, please! You're dropping the food on the..."

"AN INSULT!" Hermione screeched and dropped the plate on the floor with a loud crash. "I HAVE NEVER BEFORE IN MY LIFE HAVE BEEN CALLED A MAD MAN! I'M NOT EVEN A MAN! I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT I HELPED DEFEAT THE MOST EVIL SORCERER OF ALL TIME BEFORE YOUR MOTHER WAS BORN! THAT'S RIGHT, YOU STUPID LITTLE TART! I HELPED DEFEAT LORD VOLDEMORT WHEN I WAS MUCH YOUNGER THEN YOU ARE RIGHT NOW! HOW DARE YOU USE SUCH A TONE WITH ME! I WAS HEAD OF MY CLASS AT HOGWARTS AND-"

"Oh, shut up Hermione," Ron shouted with a mouth full of honey bun, from behind the mediwitch. She now looked completely exasperated.

"Mr. Weasley! You know you can't have sugar!" she cried and tried to take the bun out of his hand since he was a recently diagnosed diabetic. Ron, who was surprisingly deft with his hands dodged her and kept the honey bun out of reach. The mediwitch was reluctant to grab it out of his hand because he was elderly, and Ron knew this.

"Mr. Weasley, please!" she pleaded.

"I'll give it to you in exchange for a kiss," he said and puckered up his wrinkled old lips. The mediwitch cringed and stood up straight.

"Mr. Weasley, you're here free on the good graces of the nursing home because of your association with Mr. Potter and the Order of Merlin, so if you want to slip into a diabetic coma and die, that's your choice. I can always say I never saw you take it," she said and walked away quickly. Ron scowled in defeat and threw the half eaten honey bun on the floor. Hermione got another plate and began serving herself eggs again, and even picked up a few sausage links. Ron wheeled up next to her, got his own plate and began heaping pancakes on it.

At this sight, most of the folks in the room tottered on over to the table and began filling their plates. Several staff members tried to stop the seniors, claiming that two games of Bingo were to be played first, but Ginny silenced them by whacking them in the shins with her cane because she thought they'd called her fat.

The domino effect had been put into action. One by one, more folks came and took some food. Each time one of the seniors were approached and asked not to begin eating, the staff member was kicked, slapped or had their foot run over with a wheel.

Hermione watched the action with an expression of cool satisfaction on her lips. In the midst of the chaos, Harry was still asleep. His hand fell off of his knee and hit the brake on his wheel chair. He slowly began to roll backwards and knocked back into a snoozing Snape. His gothic wheelchair went tumbling down a flight of spiral stairs, with Snape screaming and swearing the whole way down.

Hermione cackled as Snape screamed, and at the dimwitted expression on Harry's face as he continued to snore. Ginny rolled her chair up to Hermione and tapped her on the shoulder.

"It's my birthday Hermione! Look! I got a present!" she yelled and held up her cane. No matter how senile Ginny was, she always seemed to remember Hermione's hearing problem. Hermione snorted.

"Who gave it to you?" she asked and rolled her cloudy brown eyes.

"Greggy just gave it to me! I've always wanted a brand new spice rack," Ginny said absently and wheeled herself off to show off her new 'spice rack' to some of the other residents.

"EVERYONE! STOP IMMEDIATELY! WE WILL USE MAGIC IF WE HAVE TO!" One of the mediwizards shouted above the chaos. However, old people continued to kick and whack the staff members with anything they could get their hands on.

"That's for never coming to see me you ingrate," one old witch said and threw a pancake at the front desk receptionist, who'd originally come up to get some breakfast herself. She screamed when she looked down at her brand new robes, now drenched in sticky maple syrup.

"YOU BATTY OLD BITCH! THIS IS BRAND NEW! I'M NOT ONE OF YOUR STUPID RELATIVES!" she screamed indignantly and picked up the tray of scrambled eggs She heaved it at the women like she would a bucket of water and dropped the silver buffet service platter with a loud crash. The old woman gasped in shock as runny scrambled eggs dripped out of her hair and down her face into her lap.

Ron completely ignored the chaos. Instead he went ahead and made himself a plate including some scrambled eggs, which he scooped out of the lap of the old woman who'd attacked the receptionist. He made his way over to Ginny.

"Let's eat, come on then, I've made you a plate," he told his sister. Ginny smiled and followed Ron, telling him all about the brand new basket Greg had gotten her for Easter.

Finally, a mediwizard stood up despite the pain of having three broken toes and severely bruised shins and pointed his wand at the masses.

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS! PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" he yelled repeatedly as he pointed his wand at some of the more rascally patients. Soon, the only residents left unpetrified were Harry, Ron Hermione and Ginny. Harry was snoring near the stairs. In the other room Ron, Ginny and Hermione were all enjoying their meals. Snape was downstairs swearing in several different languages as he was being helped back into his über-goth wheel chair by several concerned mediwitches.

"Are you three ok?" asked the mediwizard as he carefully sat the petrified people up in the chairs around the room.

"SHUT UP SPANKY! I DON'T LIKE SPAM!" Ginny screamed in exasperation as she threw a stray bingo number bal at his head.

Finis