Harry Potter Abridged! DH Chapter 7

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

[The next morning, Harry wakes up from a strange dream]

Ron: Harry, you look terrible!

Harry: Do I?

Ron: Yeah. I heard you muttering about “Gregorovitch” in your sleep.

Harry: Gregorovitch? What on earth could that possibly mean? I suspect I’ll find out at the most plot-relevant moment.

Ron: So you think you were in Voldemort’s head again?

Harry: Without a doubt.

Ron: So it goes. But, anyway, it’s your birthday today, isn’t it?

Harry: Yes, that’s right! Now I can use magic! Accio glasses! [Gets poked in the eye with glasses] Ow….

Ron: I’ve even got you a present! [Hands Harry a book] It’s supposed to tell you how to pick up girls.

Harry: Oh, please. I’m the Chosen One. Any girls I want will surely come flocking to me now! Keep your books to yourself!

Ron: No need to remind me….

[They go to breakfast, where Harry finds an array of presents]

Harry: Yay! Presents! [He opens the boxes] …Say, will any of this stuff actually be useful?

Hermione: My Sneakoscope is pretty useful….

Harry: Oh, well—I’m the Chosen One so I deserve all the tribute I get anyway! [Pause] Say, where is Hermione?

Hermione: I’m right here! I’m just doing laundry for no apparent reason!

Ron: Now why on earth would you do that? My mother could have done it herself.

Hermione: Well I’m going to be doing your laundry after we get married so I might as well get used to the idea.

Ron: Don’t remind me.

Ginny: Harry, Harry! Will you come to my room for some hot lovin’?

Harry: Oh, how could I refuse?!

[Harry follows Ginny to her room]

Ginny: So, anyway, I completely forgot about your present so instead I’ll just kiss you on the mouth!

[Ginny kisses Harry on the mouth until Ron and Hermione burst in]

Ron: Harry, now is so not the time!

Ginny: Oh, no, this wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t going how I planned….

[Harry follows Ron and Hermione outside]

Harry: I don’t see what your problem is. She’s my future wife—surely I have the right to kiss her if I want to?

Ron: Please don’t remind me of “future wives” and “destiny” and all that sort of thing. I just want to live in the moment.

Harry: I see I’ve hit a nerve.

[Everyone decorates a table for Harry’s birthday, and Mrs. Weasley sets out a cake shaped like a Golden Snitch]

Mrs. Weasley: After all, gimmicky cakes based on your favorite sport never go out of style, even when you’re seventeen!

[Hagrid, Lupin, Charlie, and Tonks arrive a little later]

Hagrid: By the way, Harry, I have something important for you. [Hands Harry a bag] It’s made of Moke skin so it shrinks automatically and only you can get stuff out of it!

Harry: Oh, thank you, Hagrid! I will cherish it forever and put it to good use, I promise!

Charlie: Incidentally, that dragon you helped smuggle to us is alive and well, and is female, funnily enough.

Hagrid: Oh, please—you went for that cliché?

[Mr. Weasley arrives as everyone’s sitting down to eat, and brings the Minister of Magic with him]

Harry: Oh, no! Not him again!

Scrimgeour: Greetings, all of you!

Harry: What is it you want?

Scrimgeour: Oh, I just want to meet with you. And your two friends. [Zaps Ron and Hermione]

Harry: God help us all!

[They go off with Scrimgeour]

Scrimgeour: So, anyway, Albus Dumbledore left a will, which for some inexplicable reason stipulates that you three get his possessions. I don’t understand that at all. I mean, Harry is the Chosen One, so him I can understand, but...these other two people?

Harry: Well, they’re Chosen Ones by association, clearly!

Scrimgeour: Yes, yes. Well, anyway, I have the things here. [Brings out a box of stuff, which he accidentally zaps] Don’t worry—they’re still intact!

Hermione: How on earth did Dumbledore’s things end up in the hands of an imbecile like you?!

Scrimgeour: I’m the Minister of Magic—I have the right.

Hermione: You have the right to treat our beloved Dumbledore’s things like common cursed goods?! How dare you!

Scrimgeour: We can’t be too careful in these times, you know! [Zaps Hermione]

Hermione: Ow….

Scrimgeour: Ron Weasley! [Zaps Ron]

Ron: [Whimpers] Ow…. What is it?

Scrimgeour: Were you particularly close to Dumbledore?

Ron: No, no I wasn’t. It was all Harry.

Hermione: Ron, if you keep talking like that you won’t get any of Dumbledore’s exclusive stuff!

Scrimgeour: Nobody asked you! [Zaps Hermione] Ahem, Ron Weasley, if you were not close with Dumbledore, as you claim, then how do you account for the fact that he left you with his Deluminator? [Brandishes Deluminator]

Ron: Aaagh! Please don’t hurt me! I don’t know anything!

Scrimgeour: This is getting me nowhere. Oh, well. [Throws Deluminator to Ron] Hermione Granger! [Zaps Hermione]

Hermione: Yes? What is it?

Scrimgeour: Explain to me why Dumbledore left you his copy of Beedle the Bard.

Hermione: I don’t know anything about any Beedle the Bard. [Takes book]

Scrimgeour: You have no idea whatsoever why he might have left it to you?

Hermione: Well…it’s true that I liked books.

Scrimgeour: You liked books? That’s his rationale for leaving you this extremely ancient book that rightly belongs in a museum? [Zaps Hermione]

Hermione: Makes sense to me.

Scrimgeour: You don’t suppose he’s trying to pass you a coded message via this book?

Hermione: What coded message would he possibly have for me? “Take care of the Chosen One because he’s an idiot who can’t even wash his own socks?”

Harry: Hey!

Scrimgeour: Speaking of which! [Zaps Harry] So, Harry, it says here, Dumbledore’s left you your first ever Golden Snitch. Now why on earth would he want to waste a perfectly good piece of quidditch equipment on a brainless fool like you?

Harry: Fuck you! Only Dumbledore gets to call me a brainless fool!

Scrimgeour: Might it have anything to do with your birthday cake? It’s also shaped like a Golden Snitch.

Harry: What’s my birthday cake got to do with anything?! I didn’t even know about this Snitch until just now!

Scrimgeour: [Zaps Harry]

Hermione: Maybe it’s something to do with the flesh memory of the Snitch? You know, they say the first player to catch the Snitch develops a special connection to it!

Scrimgeour: I could have told him that…. [Zaps Hermione]

Harry: [Takes Snitch] This Snitch says here, “I open at the close.” I wonder what that could possibly mean.

[The Snitch refuses to open, however]

Scrimgeour: Oh, well. Never mind that now. I should tell you, Harry, that Dumbledore did leave you one other thing.

Harry: Oh, really?! What was it?!

Scrimgeour: Oh, just the Sword of Gryffindor.

Harry: Awesome! Give it to me noooooooow!

Scrimgeour: I can’t do that! That sword is an extremely valuable artifact! I can’t just give it to any random teenager!

Harry: Oh, because it’s so much safer in the hands of someone like you?!

Scrimgeour: No, it’s back at Hogwarts. You know, the school its owner helped to found?

Hermione: Who cares about that stupid school?! It has no right to the sword! That sword rightfully belongs to Harry now! If Dumbledore wills it, so shall it be!

Scrimgeour: [Zaps Harry, Ron, and Hermione] Listen! Listen! Listen! Listen! Listen! Listen, you stupid kids, it’s not up to me to hand you things on a silver platter just because Dumbledore wants me to! Did you ever think that your priorities are not the only ones in play?!

Harry: Who cares?! I’m the Chosen One! What I want is the only thing that matters in this world! The sooner you accept that the sooner we’ll get along!

Scrimgeour: Aaaaaargh you are just so frustrating! [Raises his wand to zap Harry again]

[Just then, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley enter]

Mrs. Weasley: Is everything alright?

Scrimgeour: Aaagh! [Zaps Mr. and Mrs. Weasley] Oops! Sorry, you two!

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley: [Facepalm]

Harry: Aha! It appears your time here is up, Minister of Magic! [Sticks up two fingers of his hand, revealing his scars in the process] Now go away and leave me alone!

Scrimgeour: You ungrateful punk…. [Leaves]

[Harry, Ron, and Hermione rejoin everyone else at the dinner table, where they pass around the things Dumbledore gave them]

Mrs. Weasley: These are just so random. What use could they possibly have?

[After dinner, Harry, Ron, and Hermione retire to their rooms]

Ron: I don’t understand why Dumbledore would give me this. Surely Peruvian instant-darkness powder would have exactly the same effect?

Hermione: It really doesn’t seem to make any sense, does it?

Harry: I just thought of something! I remember the first time I played Quidditch I caught the Snitch in my mouth! So…maybe if I put it in my mouth again, I’ll be able to open it!

[Harry puts the Snitch in his mouth, but it still won’t open]

Hermione: Anyway, what does Beedle the Bard have to do with any of this?

Ron: Well, Beedle the Bard was a famous author of children’s stories.

Hermione: Children’s stories? You mean, like, Cinderella?

Ron: Who?

Hermione: I’ll take that as a yes.

Ron: Is Cinderella a story all about the inevitability of death?

Hermione: No. It’s about something quite different, actually.

Ron: Then it’s nothing like Beedle’s stories.

Harry: Ron, Hermione, all this thinking is hard. It’s making me sleepy.

Hermione: Come to think of it, we should be getting to bed now, shouldn’t we?

Ron: Agreed. The wedding is tomorrow, after all.

[So they all go to sleep]

Comments

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Gimmicky cakes never go out of style. When I was in my late twenties and a grad student in Geography at the University of Washington, my mother sent me two dome-shaped cakes for my birthday, one frosted like the Northern Hemisphere and one like the Southern Hemisphere. It was a tradition in my family that each of us three kids would tell Mom what we wanted our birthday cake to look like, and somehow she always managed to make them. A Siamese Cat. A Corvette Stingray. A saxophone. A mountain range with skiiers, a ski lift, and a lodge. The Earth was quite simple by comparison. I’m certain she could have done a Snitch, though being a muggle cake, it would have to be a hemisphere, not a sphere.

What I want to know is whether Molly made gimmicky cakes for all her own children, or just for Harry. Seven crazy cakes a year (or six if the twins get one for the pair of them) is bigger job than three. Why is it I suspect that it’s Ron, not Ginny, who gets shorted a cake?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Ron gets a badly made crazy cake with a theme he dislikes or one that makes him awkward. I bet sometime after POA he got a rat-themed one.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I gad forgotten the gifts Harry got from his friends. Bit surprised about Hermione's 'Sneakascope'. After all, Ron gave him one just before 3rd year.

Note that it 'went off' just fine around Scabbers and then we never hear of it again, Not a peep from it over fakeMoody.

Likewise, we never hear of this sneakascope alerting Harry about Batilda nor about the proximity of Snatchers or DEs. Actually - you wouldn't want it alerting you regarding those Snatchers - it would give away your position in hiding,

Also, really a bit strange of Albus to assume he can leave Harry the Sword, when it doesn't even belong to him, but to the school. How can he leave something in a will, that isn't even his to give?

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

I didn't catch that about Harry already having a Sneakascope until you mentioned it, than I remembered it.

It only goes off when it helps the plot, not very consistent.

Also, really a bit strange of Albus to assume he can leave Harry the Sword, when it doesn't even belong to him, but to the school.

And we later learn the Goblins make things for wizards with the understanding that it goes back to the Goblins on that wizards death, so it should have been returned to the Goblins centuries ago. But wizards feel free to ignore that.

But I agree by Wizard standards the sword is school property, not Albus' personal property.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I doubt Dumbles expected Harry to get the sword that easily, but he wanted Harry to know that Dumbles wanted him to have it.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Dumbledore would do that, leaving hints rather than actually telling Harry what he needed to know.