What the World Needs Now

Editor’s note: Due to an unfortunate incident — namely, the annihilation of his home planet — the author is unable to present the narrative form of this portion of the chapter. From reviewing his notes, I have been able to make the following observations:

• One should be wary of odd-behaving wizards in garish yellow robes calling themselves “Dr. X” and offering for their daughter’s ransom a “special weapon” that in reality is simply an erumpet horn in a used dust bin, even if one is a Dark Evil Overlord with a penchant for destruction.
• The Ministry of Magic should be more inquisitive concerning innocuous-looking items before releasing them as surplus, such as a used dust bin found in the back of a futuristic Muggle sports car.
• The appearance of two red-headed girls named Potter dressed in chains and skimpy black leather can provide an excellent diversion during the evening feast at Hogwarts School.
• Greasy-haired headmasters may not respond favorably to dismissal, especially at the order of a former student miscreant.
• Most students don’t care.
• When presented with the sum total of their wrongdoings in the form of a single curse, Death Eaters posing as professors may have a tendency to spontaneously combust.
• Angry former headmasters should not perform “brain-dump legilimancy” — fulfilling their former employer’s last wishes — to former student miscreants in front of the entire Hogwarts student body, nor should they concern themselves with mutterings about budgies on trains.
• When the “eighth Horcrux” theory concerns one’s sister, Super-bonded soulmates should not use #THINK-SPEAK to discuss said theory in the presence of said sister and the entire Hogwarts student body.
• If one's sister decides to fall into the arms of one's former enemy, one must accept that said former enemy will be a fixture at future family picnics.
• When giving inspirational speeches, Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter say almost exactly the same thing, except interchanging the words “me” for “us” and “Pure-blooded wizards” for “all living creatures.”
• During speeches, they both inexplicably speak with a Texas accent.
• Dragons and wyverns create a lot of fire in aerial combat.
• Former-headmaster-shaped bats may regain their usefulness if a used dust bin needs to be carried away from a particular battle site.
• Hearing a bat flying at 296 feet altitude singing “The Things We Do For Love” is not a particularly pleasant experience.
• Frightening a bat at 296 feet altitude by flashing to his location as a pair of phoenixes - even with good intentions - may cause said bat to drop the used dust bin he is carrying.
• A phoenix flashing nearby will not cause an erumpet horn to explode.
• The impact from a fall of 296 feet will.

* * *

“So, Blaise, how’s that gender elimination project coming along?”

“I’ve told you, Griff, it’s gender unification, and early results were rather disappointing. Candidates went completely mad if the transition was applied after age eleven. We’ve since employed an age limit of seven years and that seemed to solve the problem. Now we are finally reaping some of the benefits — domestic crimes, pornography, prostitution and the like have all dropped dramatically.”

“Smashing! What about procreation?”

“Yes, that little stumbling block has yet to be surmounted. Lack of interest, you see. . .”

“Presumably that will be solved before everyone dies off then?”

“We can only hope.”

“Good luck with that. Ah, we’ve arrived,” Griff said, opening a door. “Welcome to Future Anomaly Testing and Evaluation’s operations center. Sovran here is one of our software debuggers. He’s only been here a couple centuries, so still a bit of a novice, but he has great imagination. Sovran, this is Ambassador Blaise from Zabini Four in the Beta Carotene system.”

“Is this the same Sovran who performed the soul merging on that young human couple? You’re quite the celebrity in academic circles on Zabini Four. Your idea was the original inspiration behind gender unification.”

Sovran bowed humbly. “Thank you, Ambassador, I had no idea. Did. . . anyone ever tell you —“

“That I look just like a super-tanned Peter Sellers in drag? All the time.”

“I apologize for my forwardness, Ambassador. Supervisor Insdohr, might I have a word?”

“Certainly, my boy. And yes. . .” the supervisor paused, trying to decide on the correct pronoun, “. . .the ambassador has clearance.”

“It’s about Earth, sir. It’s gone nova.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Only stars go nova.”

“That’s what I thought, sir, but the data clearly . . .”

“There must be some mistake. Let’s take a look.”

An hour and mounds of data later, no mistake had been discovered. Supervisor Griff Insdohr had thought he’d seen everything, but this young debugger pushed the boundaries to the point where the unthinkable was almost a regular occurrence.

“Right, so tell me what you were doing when the nova occurred.”

“There was a nuclear detonation in the close vicinity of two soul-bonded phoenix animagi.”

“Blast! Of course! Why didn’t you say so at the beginning and spare us the hour of data mashing? This couple — the same one from the soul merge before?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve had our discussion on unhealthy obsessions, Sovran.”

“Right, sir. I’ll turn in the counseling request forms this afternoon.”

“Excellent. You may proceed with the reset code.”

Sovran tapped two keys and pressed a red button. No one noticed the slight power surge that occurred at the same time.

Ambassador Blaise was astonished. “Forty-two is the reset code? I thought forty-two was —“

“The answer to life, the universe and everything? Answer me this, Blaise. Who arrived at that conclusion?”

The ambassor began to chuckle. “I suppose to a silicon-based artificial life form, the reset code would equate to the meaning of life.”

“Meanwhile,” the supervisor smiled in return, “the rest of the living universe will continue to rely on us here at F.A.T.E.  Humans make exceptionally good test subjects, you know. They are so attracted to calamity of all sorts.”

“Such as that headmaster chappie — another notable failure?”

“An excellent example of how the ‘greater good’ is contorted by those considering themselves great and good. He did have the grace to admit his foibles in the end.”

“Then, not a failure after all.”

“Quite so.”

*

Due to that inexplicable power surge, the earth’s new axis was ever so subtly shifted from its previous position, yet undetectable by the best geophysicists and instruments in existence. However, one individual did notice something was different.

Harry Potter was rudely awoken by a loud knocking close by his head.

“Get your lazy arse up, boy! You need to get moving on our breakfast!”

Harry swore under his breath, startled out of a fascinating dream by his uncle. He tried to maneuver his lanky teenage frame in his tiny cupboard under the stairs at Number Four Privet Drive, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, Harry didn’t recall it ever being this tiny inside. He had to pull his feet out of a hole that had been cut into the wall at one end or he wouldn’t have fit at all.

He knocked his skull twice before tumbling ungracefully out onto the hall floor and shuffling into the loo to freshen up, noticing the five o’clock shadow on his haggard face in the mirror. This seemed very odd, because he hadn’t lived in his cupboard since he was eleven years old. Why was he sleeping there now? He couldn’t remember why he had come back to Privet Drive, nor when his relatives had returned from hiding.

In the kitchen, Harry was still lost in thought as he pulled out the things he would need to fix the morning meal, but that all came to a screeching halt at the sound of someone behind him.

“Hem, hem.”

He whirled to face a vision from one of his nightmares. A squat toad-faced woman wearing a pink cardigan and a polka-dot bow in her hair was smiling condescendingly at him.

“I’d like my eggs over easy,” she simpered, “and you need to squeeze some more orange juice.”

“Wha. . . what are you doing here?”

“Have you forgotten, Harry? I am your mother.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO. . .”

* * *

A/N: Right, that’s it, I promise.

This little exercise in literary butchery is dedicated to the real Peter Sellers and all those other comedic talents that I can only pretend to honor by stealing their gags. My fondest wish is to be like them when I grow up, but according to my friends and family, that should have happened quite a few years ago already.

Thanks to the Challenge Gurus at SIYE for dreaming this one up — even if I couldn’t get it all in time for the competition, this was a fun cauldron to stir. And of course, special thanks go to JK Rowling for fashioning this magnificent sandbox in which we play and dig, massacring her brilliant creation.

Although it is purely academic at this point in time, from the challenge rules — and I realize that I took considerable liberty with some (I prefer to call it creative license) — these were the guidelines I applied in this story:
Nos. 1, 2a+bonus, 2b+bonus, 2c, 2f+bonus, 2g, 2h, 2i+bonus, 3a, 3c, 3e, 4, and 5.

Rather than listing the many clichés I blatantly utilized, I am hereby granting myself authority to award house points to any reviewer that is first to correctly identify the source of any of the several stolen gags in the story. And if you think this is a shameless attempt at garnering more reviews, you are awarded five points straight away.