Thursday, August 23, 2007

Cult-Like Programs I've Embraced, Part IV: Fine, Harry Potter, Okay? OKAY!?

Harry stood and dusted off his Quidditch robes. He peered at me through his cracked glasses.

"So, you're the one," he said. "You finished me."

"That's right, Potter," I sneered, my whitish-blond hair pulled back from my forehead. "All seven books."

"That's great," he muttered, and said something in Pig Latin. But without his wand, he was powerless.

"So..." I said.

"Well, yup," he answered, standing there in my kitchen, kind of looking around at the missing baseboards and such. "What'd you think of the end?" he asked. "The part where—"

"Enough!" I bellowed, dust and dead bugs shaking down from the light fixture we hadn't cleaned since early summer. "Don't give anything away, anyone could be reading this."

"Uhh...can I ask how old you are?"

"None of your damn business, half-blood," I snarled, my wand-hand itching. Harry sat down in one of the mismatched chairs. I saw his eyes wander to the television remote control.

"It won't help you, Potter," I told him, coolly, my unnaturally high voice piercing the relative quiet of the dishwasher's rumble. "You have to have the cable box on first, and besides, it's Thursday..."

The young wizard's eyes brightened, but he quickly supressed his excitement. I was instantly suspicious. "What?" I said loudly. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he said, one eye half-closed to better see through his glasses. The lightning-shaped scar on his forehead was turning red. "It's just that—"

"Well, Potter?" I could wait all night for his confession.

"I was just thinking now that you and your wife have finished those books and all...umm, I think Grey's Anatomy's on tonight."

I knew when I was beaten. My Muggle wife came down, they settled in front of the TV, and I went to the garage to find my old blanket and read The Hobbit.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm peeing myself laughing. My husband is a hardcore Harry Potter freak, re-reading all previous books just prior to the release of a new one. So you can imagine what most of the spring and summer was like here. Now that he's finished (with tears, no less), he may be forced back into Lord of the Rings again himself...

wcs said...

O Elbereth ! Gilthoniel !

elkit said...

You could always read Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy before the "Golden Compass" movie comes out in December. I know I will. :-)

Suzanne said...

May I suggest "The Talisman" by Stephen King and Peter Straub, one of my favorite fantasy stories of all time. (I honestly read it about a dozen times in my teens) I hope they never, ever try to make it into a movie, thus ruining it forever.

Bill Braine said...

Oh, wcs, you just made me cringe with embarassment, even here in the blanket, in the garage.

Amy Plum said...

I admit, being mom-of-two-babies, (meaning I have no time to read)...I read Wikipedia's summary instead. I felt awful while I was doing it, but couldn't wait until my kids were in grade school to know who died.

Bill Braine said...

Whoa whoa whoa...someone DIES?