HARRY POTTER AND THE MAHOGANY DWARF (embargoed until 12.01am)
By I.Am. Rowlinginnit
"Run, Cho Chang!" yelped Harry, frantically slapping out the flames on his invisibility cloak as he tore up the crumbling steps and away from the murky cavern.
The bone-headed troll lumbered through the reinforced steel door close behind, finger still on the trigger of his flame-throwing device, his huge bulk moving at a surprising pace.
Suddenly, a cloud of plaster dust, splinters, and mid-afternoon sunshine burst though the wall, along with a huge pair of hands which yanked Cho Chang and Harry swiftly to the safety of the street outside.
"Hagrid!" cried the blinking pair in unison as the gentle giant tossed them over his huge shoulders and began thundering down Old Compton Street.
"Dumbledore's not going to be happy about this, Master Harry," mumbled Hagrid, Cho Chang's foot partially wedged into his bearded mouth.
"Mark my words, Harry Potter, Gryffindor is going to do very badly out of this. Very badly indeed."
Although every leap Hagrid took was knocking the breath out of Harry's lungs, he stretched out his hand for Cho Chang.
But his heart sank as she failed to grasp it, and fixed her eyes firmly on the blurring cobblestones below.
The day had started full of promise. It was the summer holidays, and Harry and Cho Chang were spending the week with Professor Batshit, a hugely gifted but eccentric scholar of Potions, who lived in Soho.
Soho was a fascinating place in the middle of London, populated by all manner of freaks and vendors. Muggle visitors to the city would walk straight by on the Charring Cross Road, Oxford and Regent Streets and Shaftesbury Avenue. But those who knew slipped up into the narrow streets, where you could procure almost anything, or even anyone, that you desired.
Professor Batshit had never fancied the life of a traditional wizard, he told them, as he distractedly picked at the dried dragon's egg yolk on his kipper tie. He declared Soho to be the only place for a true virtuoso of the art of potion making to reside. It was also, he added with a wry smile, a fantastic address for those who did not wish to be beaten to a bloody pulp for stepping out on a Saturday night dressed as a fetish-loving chorus girl named Big Bertha Whipalot.
Harry and Cho Chang had sat up late into the muggy August nights, enrapt by Batshit's tales of potions that could reduce dragons to house pets, and tinctures which would shrink size elevens to the right proportions for a sparkly Topshop wedge sandal.
To Harry, the routine of Hogwarts seemed a million miles away.
As he and Cho Chang lay beneath clammy, unzipped sleeping bags on lumpy sofa cushions on the crumb-scattered floor of Batshit's apartment, his brain was racing with all the weird and wonderful images he had seen on the pungent streets of Soho over that last few days.
"Cho Chang," he whispered to his dozing companion as he rolled over and propped his face on his hand.
"I want to go to Stringfellows."
Stringfellows, as every boy at Hogwarts knew, was a red velvet palace just outside Soho, run by a good-natured and leathery dwarf named Peter Stringfellow.
Although the dwarf had been celebrating his 721st birthday for several decades, he certainly had no trouble finding romance with the strange and exotic females who worked in his titillation emporium. His prowess was spoken of in awed whispers, and many a teenage wizard had spent hours in the laboratory, trying to recreate the secret powders that it was rumoured the potent creature used to woo his lady friends.
But the supposed ingredients of powdered rhino horn, unicorn tears and snufflewort root were not only exceptionally rare and expensive, but also highly explosive, leaving would-be lotharios with sooty faces, singed eyebrows, and no more tuck money until Fetching Feast.
Stringfellow admirers were left to jealously pour over pictures in the London Standard Evening of the gnarled, half-size mahogany play-boy having his sparse, yellow-grey mullet ruffled by a series of scantily-clad beauties.
It seemed his secret would never be uncovered.
To be continued...
Disclaimer: this clearly has nothing to do with the real Harry Potter books, which I'm pretty certain are not penned during JK Rowling's lunch break.
"Run, Cho Chang!" yelped Harry, frantically slapping out the flames on his invisibility cloak as he tore up the crumbling steps and away from the murky cavern.
The bone-headed troll lumbered through the reinforced steel door close behind, finger still on the trigger of his flame-throwing device, his huge bulk moving at a surprising pace.
Suddenly, a cloud of plaster dust, splinters, and mid-afternoon sunshine burst though the wall, along with a huge pair of hands which yanked Cho Chang and Harry swiftly to the safety of the street outside.
"Hagrid!" cried the blinking pair in unison as the gentle giant tossed them over his huge shoulders and began thundering down Old Compton Street.
"Dumbledore's not going to be happy about this, Master Harry," mumbled Hagrid, Cho Chang's foot partially wedged into his bearded mouth.
"Mark my words, Harry Potter, Gryffindor is going to do very badly out of this. Very badly indeed."
Although every leap Hagrid took was knocking the breath out of Harry's lungs, he stretched out his hand for Cho Chang.
But his heart sank as she failed to grasp it, and fixed her eyes firmly on the blurring cobblestones below.
The day had started full of promise. It was the summer holidays, and Harry and Cho Chang were spending the week with Professor Batshit, a hugely gifted but eccentric scholar of Potions, who lived in Soho.
Soho was a fascinating place in the middle of London, populated by all manner of freaks and vendors. Muggle visitors to the city would walk straight by on the Charring Cross Road, Oxford and Regent Streets and Shaftesbury Avenue. But those who knew slipped up into the narrow streets, where you could procure almost anything, or even anyone, that you desired.
Professor Batshit had never fancied the life of a traditional wizard, he told them, as he distractedly picked at the dried dragon's egg yolk on his kipper tie. He declared Soho to be the only place for a true virtuoso of the art of potion making to reside. It was also, he added with a wry smile, a fantastic address for those who did not wish to be beaten to a bloody pulp for stepping out on a Saturday night dressed as a fetish-loving chorus girl named Big Bertha Whipalot.
Harry and Cho Chang had sat up late into the muggy August nights, enrapt by Batshit's tales of potions that could reduce dragons to house pets, and tinctures which would shrink size elevens to the right proportions for a sparkly Topshop wedge sandal.
To Harry, the routine of Hogwarts seemed a million miles away.
As he and Cho Chang lay beneath clammy, unzipped sleeping bags on lumpy sofa cushions on the crumb-scattered floor of Batshit's apartment, his brain was racing with all the weird and wonderful images he had seen on the pungent streets of Soho over that last few days.
"Cho Chang," he whispered to his dozing companion as he rolled over and propped his face on his hand.
"I want to go to Stringfellows."
Stringfellows, as every boy at Hogwarts knew, was a red velvet palace just outside Soho, run by a good-natured and leathery dwarf named Peter Stringfellow.
Although the dwarf had been celebrating his 721st birthday for several decades, he certainly had no trouble finding romance with the strange and exotic females who worked in his titillation emporium. His prowess was spoken of in awed whispers, and many a teenage wizard had spent hours in the laboratory, trying to recreate the secret powders that it was rumoured the potent creature used to woo his lady friends.
But the supposed ingredients of powdered rhino horn, unicorn tears and snufflewort root were not only exceptionally rare and expensive, but also highly explosive, leaving would-be lotharios with sooty faces, singed eyebrows, and no more tuck money until Fetching Feast.
Stringfellow admirers were left to jealously pour over pictures in the London Standard Evening of the gnarled, half-size mahogany play-boy having his sparse, yellow-grey mullet ruffled by a series of scantily-clad beauties.
It seemed his secret would never be uncovered.
To be continued...
Disclaimer: this clearly has nothing to do with the real Harry Potter books, which I'm pretty certain are not penned during JK Rowling's lunch break.
posted by Elizabeth at 6:40 PM
3 Comments:
ROFL.
*grin*, thts a fantastic entry. im sure j.k. would have happily substituted a similar portion of her book with the above ;)
"titillation emporium"
Oh Lizzie! You've done it again!
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