Harry Potter Abridged! SS/PS Chapter 4

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

[At the start of this chapter, Harry and the Dursleys (that sounds like the name of a band, doesn't it?) are sleeping in a shack, on a rock, in the middle of the ocean. Or something.]

Dudley: It's so cold and dark here.

Harry: Now you know what it's like to have a crappy bedroom!

[Just then, Hagrid enters!]

Hagrid: *breaks down door* Hi!

Vernon: Go away, you huge man! Before I shoot you with my gun! *holds up gun* Not that I know exactly how I got this, living in England and all, but still.... RAWR!

Hagrid: Oh, no, it's hug time! *Hugs Uncle Vernon, crushing the gun in the process*

Vernon: I'm being hugged by a huge crazy man!

Harry and Dudley: *LOL*

Hagrid [turns to Dudley] Harry, is that you? You've gotten fat!

Dudley and Harry: *sweatdrop*

Dudley: I'm not Harry.

Harry: I am.

Hagrid: Harry... you're a wizard!

Harry: I'm a... what?!

Hagrid: A wizard! Obviously!

Harry: A wizard, huh...? Well, I did talk to a snake and vanish a glass case and get a bunch of letters flooding my house so... sure!

Hagrid: Oh, by the way, I brought you birthday cake! And a letter!

Harry: Yay, my first birthday cake in... forever! 

[Harry puts the cake down on a table in the back where Dudley goes after it. He then reads the letter.]

Vernon: No fair! Harry, you're not supposed to know about magic!

Harry: Wait... how do you know?!

Petunia: You see, my sister, your mother, was a witch. She was a brat who liked turning my teacups into rats, but my parents kissed up to her because that's apparently how you're supposed to treat magical people. *rolls eyes* And then she got herself killed and... and I've had to take care of you.... *bursts into tears*

Harry: What do you  mean, she got herself killed? I thought she and my dad died in a car crash.

Hagrid: A car crash? What stories have they been telling you, you poor child. Your parents were killed by an evil psychopathic wizard named, well, You-Know-Who is what losers like me call him most of the time... but his real name was... *shudder* Voldemort.

Harry: Why are you so afraid to say his name?

Hagrid: Nobody really knows. People are afraid, but there is speculation it's bad luck. It probably isn't, though, we're just too afraid of him.

Harry: You mean not all wizards are good?

Hagrid: No. Sad to say. *lightens up* Anyway, won't you come to the great magic school Hogwarts and learn from the best teachers including Albus Dumbledore, the cult-leader god I hero-worship like a dog... I mean, the greatest wizard of all time?

Harry: Hell yeah, that sounds so cool!

Vernon: Hey, you can't just barge in and take him away from us!

Hagrid: Actually, I can because you're just a Muggle and Harry and I are the infinitely superior wizards here.

Harry: What's a Muggle?

Hagrid: Oh, a nonmagic person. You see, Harry, when someone's different from you it helps to come up with a catch-all expression, or slur, to describe them.

Harry: "Muggle" sounds like those names I'm not allowed to repeat because they're extremely foul language.

Hagrid: It... well..., that... that's an accident, I swear, it's just a funny word! Just go with it!

Petunia: No, not Dumbledore!

Vernon: Now wait just a minute here, Hargrid! I have a feeling Dumbledore is some sort of jerkass Gary Stu who's going to start a cult with Harry at its centre the first chance he gets.

Hagrid: How dare you call Dumbledore anything less than noble! *sniffles*

[Hagrid looks around the room to see Dudley eating Harry's cake. Hagrid pulls out his umbrella and gives Dudley a pig's tail]

Dudley: WAAAAAAAAAAH! I've got an ugly pig's tail!

Petunia: A pig's tail? What is this, One Hundred Years of Solitude?!

Dudley: Oh, get it off! Get it off!

Harry: Something doesn't feel very nice about that.

Hagrid: Hey cheer up Harry, there's plenty more Muggle torture where that came from!

Harry: Well... that doesn't sound too good but whatever. I'm not a Muggle. I'm a wizard!

Hagrid: Let's go get your school supplies so we can head off to Hogwarts!

Harry: Yay!

[Hagrid and Harry ride off into the night, while the Dursleys look on in horror.]

A/N: Yes, I know in the original Hagrid simply destroys Vernon's gun, but I thought that Hagrid's decision to hug Vernon was funnier and more of a surprise. Besides, it was a good excuse to reference the anime "Hetalia," which is good service for parody.

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Vernon: Go away, you huge man! Before I shoot you with my gun! *holds up gun* Not that I know exactly how I got this, living in England and all, but still.... RAWR!/

Oh, yes, the gun laws in England are stricter than in the States, aren't they? So how did Vernon get that gun?

/Petunia: You see, my sister, your mother, was a witch. She was a brat who liked turning my teacups into rats, but my parents kissed up to her because that's apparently how you're supposed to treat magical people./

You know, when I first read this, I thought that Petunia was just jealous of Lily and just couldn't get over the fact that their parents were proud of Lily's magic, while Petunia hated it. But now that we've seen what a stuck-up, self-centered brat Lily was, now I'm taking Petunia's words a bit more seriously.

/Hagrid: Oh, a nonmagic person. You see, Harry, when someone's different from you it helps to come up with a catch-all expression, or slur, to describe them./

Ha, Rifftrax reference for the win! XD

By the way, are you combining movie canon with book canon in your abridgments? Because the movies added the little part about Dudley eating Harry's cake to sort of justify Hagrid's hex. In the book, Hagrid hexes Dudley immediately after Vernon insults Dumbledore.

And yay, another Hetalia fan! :D

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, the gun laws in England are stricter than in the States, aren't they? So how did Vernon get that gun?

Vernon has a rifle, doesn't he? Rifles need a license and have to be justified to the police based on legitimate sporting or work-related grounds. According to Wikipedia, self-defence hasn't been a justification since 1946, and the licensing process involves ID, two character witnesses, approval from the family doctor, inspection of the premises and proposed gun cabinet, an interview with a Firearms Enquiry Officer, and a background check by Special Branch. All of which Vernon apparently got in less than a day. Either that or he had unexplained criminal contacts.

[oryx_leucoryx]

It is possible that many years ago he went hunting with his boss (isn't that a sporting and work-related reason?) and kept the gun in the basement somewhere ever since.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

But he picks it up while they're on the run, along with supplies for the hut on the rock.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Because, you know, inferior Muggle products like guns are effective against wands.

Maybe he just wanted to do some owl hunting.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, they are effective as long as the wand user isn't aware of the gun-wielder. If one catches a wizard unawares a bullet would work quite effectively. (Does Severus' countercurse to Sectumsempra heal bullet-wounds if the victim doesn't bleed to death immediately?)

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

If the gun-wielding inferior Muggle misses, the wand wielder will have open season in the name of self-defense.

I don't know if the counter-curse would work for wounds other than Sectum Sempra. Rowling didn't get that much into the magic. Off-hand, I would guess that it would, unless it's tied specifically to a) magic and b) the ss spell.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I wonder what Albus would have done had Vernon managed to kill Hagrid.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

If the gun-wielding inferior Muggle misses, the wand wielder will have open season in the name of self-defense.

If an inferior Muggle jet pilot flies over a troop of wand-wielding wizards and witches and drops a nuclear bomb on them, WIN for the Muggle! LOL

I don't know if the counter-curse would work for wounds other than Sectum Sempra. Rowling didn't get that much into the magic.

I read somewhere that the counter-curse was designed to heal any sort of bleeding wound, so conceivably it would work on gunshot wounds, as long as the bullet doesn't remain in the body.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, Rowling has gone on record saying that a Muggle with a gun could actually beat a Wizard. The main problem with that is that in England very few people have guns.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Whatever he does, he drags clients to the house for dinner (PoA) so maybe he also hunts, fishes and plays golf with the sports(wo)man clients.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

You know, when I first read this, I thought that Petunia was just jealous of Lily and just couldn't get over the fact that their parents were proud of Lily's magic, while Petunia hated it. But now that we've seen what a stuck-up, self-centered brat Lily was, now I'm taking Petunia's words a bit more seriously.

Well we have little to nothing to go on regarding what Lily did magikally prior to the age of 9, but based on what Petunia says in The Prince's Tale, it does seem as if Lily may have done a bit of showing off up to that point.

And of course once she became friends with Severus, he would have encouraged Lily in her displays of magik, especially at the expense of her sister.

And Lord knows once she got to Hogwarts, the contempt her fellow Gryffindors such as James and Sirius displayed towards Muggles wouldn't have given Lily any reason to curtail magikally tormenting her sister.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it so much:)

And yes, I am referencing movie canon an awful lot. In some instances movie contamination is probably inevitable, since it's been years and years since I last read the early Harry Potter books (and I've seen the movies slightly more recently). But in this case, I actually did like the way the movie did things better, so I thought I'd roll with it.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Most of the time the movie does things 'better' for the characters Rowling wants us to sympathize with, at the expense of those she doesn't. Which is a problem for fans of the latter characters.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Well, not so much. I distinctly remember instances in which Snape does seem to be more sympathetic in the movies than in the books (such as the werewolf scene in PoA where he stands in front of the children to protect them). And I remember reading once that the man who plays Uncle Vernon asked if it was okay to interpret his character in a more complex light- except that Rowling vetoed him.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The worst thing the movies did to Severus' character is making him Umbridge's accomplice by having him give her real Veritaserum with which to interrogate students. This never happened in the books and goes against Severus' protective attitude to *all* students. But the movie did that to avoid the Marietta business - thus also whitewashing Hermione along the way.

Other stuff: In the PS Potions class - in the book he addresses Harry specifically, so ignoring Hermione's repeated attempts to volunteer an answer makes sense, while in the movie he addresses the entire class, ignores Hermione and pretends nobody knows the answer.

And of course there's the slapping of Harry and Ron in GOF - canon!Severus does not get physical with students unless very extremely provoked.