Disclaimer: Nope, unfortunately I do not own Harry Potter, or any of the other characters in the series. I also don’t own Agony Aunt columns in general, but I do, however, own ‘Dear Dumby’. I also do not own ‘Hugsy’, he belongs to Joey from Friends. For now, anyway…….
“What’s everyone crowding round?” Harry Potter asked his best friend, Ron Weasley, when he saw that everybody in the Gryffindor common room seemed absorbed in something on the notice board, all of them jumping and pushing to get a closer look. Everyone apart from Ron that is, who was just sitting on an armchair by the fire, scowling venomously at an blank piece of parchment.
“Dunno,” Ron replied uselessly, looking up from the apparently enthralling piece of parchment. “Maybe we should ask Hermione, she’ll know.” Harry nodded.
“Where is Hermione?” Harry asked, after looking closely for her bushy brown hair amongst the crowd of people.
“Dunno,” Ron replied, uselessly.
“Maybe we should go up there and actually look for ourselves at what’s going on?” Harry suggested, but immediately regretted it when he saw the look on Ron’s face.
"Harry, are you joking? Quidditch practice was murder today - is it always so harsh, or was everyone purposely trying to replace my head with a Bludger because it was my first practice? I don't think I can move for about another two weeks at least," Ron declared, stretching out on the armchair.
“Well I'm not going!” Harry said, grimacing at the memory of practice. “In case you've forgotten, I was at that practice too - you think you had it hard, at least you've got things you can see flying at you! The wind nearly blew my glasses off, causing me to have to fly down blindly and catch them without really being able to see them, and more often then not flying into something else, such as the Bludger that was about to replace your head! I'm not going," Harry finished stubbornly, sitting back in his chair as if to prove his point.
"Well I'm not going - you go, go on Harry, it will do you good."
"No! You know, I don't think this is getting us any closer to finding out what's on that notice. If neither of us is going then we're not going to know what it says until Hermione turns up, as she doesn't have Quidditch practice so she'll be able to get up and look," Harry explained, half forgetting what his point was in the process.
"It's Hermione, she'll probably know already," Ron pointed out. "But who knows how long it will take until she gets down here? Can't you go and see what it is now?" Ron whined hopefully.
"No! Well then, it seems that neither of us will get up to look, so we'll both just stay sitting down and we'll guess what it might be till Hermione turns up then,” Harry said with more than a trace of sarcasm. But Ron rather took to the idea, and before long Harry found himself getting happily involved as well.
So Harry sat down and they bounced ideas around, which ranged from there being another Ball (“No! It was enough trouble last time! I don’t think there could be another one with me still alive at the end of it!” Ron looked positively sick at the mere prospect), to there being a Hogsmeade trip (“Nah, to boring,” Harry commented. “You couldn’t make a decent story out of that”.) They then considered, rather optimistically, that the teachers might have decided that they’d had enough work, and were cancelling all exams (“That‘s why Hermione‘s not here then! She‘s probably gone to complain!” Ron joked), which evolved to Snape having been eaten by the Giant Squid (Ron got particularly excited about this one, they had double Potions next and he hadn‘t finished his homework. The blank piece of parchment he had been glaring at earlier apparently was Ron’s Potions homework).
In the middle of Harry and Ron having gotten slightly sidetracked by making up more gruesome and elaborate deaths for Snape, Hermione appeared.
“Hey, Hermione!” Ron called, beckoning her over as he saw her appear down the stairs from the girls dormitories. She smiled when she saw Ron wave, and made her way over to them.
“What’s that?” Hermione asked, gesturing towards the empty piece of parchment now lying forgotten on the table in front of Ron.
“Nothing, unfortunately.” Ron replied, glaring daggers at it. “But never mind that, do you know what everyone’s looking at?”
“Yes.” Hermione answered, sitting down next to them and re-reading her Potions essay. The boys looked at each other, exchanging frustrated glances.
“Well? Aren’t you gonna tell us what it is?” Ron demanded impatiently. Hermione looked quite amused as she put her essay back into her back and met both the boys’ impatient gazes.
“So, do you mean to tell me that you’ve been waiting here all this time for me to come down and tell you what it is, rather then going up to look for yourselves, which would have been a lot quicker and easier?”
“Well, it seemed like a stupid idea at the time…” Harry said, looking sheepish. Hermione laughed, but took pity on them, put down her essay and explained.
“Well, Dumbledore’s decided that as so many people seem to need his help, and he really doesn’t have time to see and help them all individually, so he’s started an advice column, where people can write into him with their problems anonymously, and he’ll publish a weekly column answering them. Sort of like an Agony Aunt. And,” Hermione continued, trying to stifle a giggle, ”he’s decided to call it, ‘Dear Dumby’.” Harry and Ron exchanged glances again.
“Well, I suppose we could use help once in a while…” Ron observed, trailing off into thought.
“Yeah, we do seem to have a lot of problems around here,” Harry noted, thinking back through his years at Hogwarts.
“Yeah, like never finishing homework!” Ron complained, looking gloomily down at the empty piece of parchment in front of him. “And girls,“ he added, looking over at the sound of Parvati and Lavender giggling in a corner. Harry noticed Hermione scowl, and eager to avoid another argument, quickly spoke up.
“Yeah, and having evil wizards bent on world domination trying to kill us…” For a moment, they all adapted vapid looks, thinking about something that they could write to ’Dear Dumby’ about.
“Hey!” Ron suddenly looked excited. “We can find out about everyone’s problems and stuff with this! Like, we could find out that Malfoy still sucks his thumb and sleeps with a teddy bear named Hugsy!”
“No Ron, that’s just you mate!” Harry laughed, ignoring Ron’s glare.
“We can’t do that anyway, all the letters are anonymous, people just sign them with “Troubled” or something,” Hermione explained, caught between wanting to laugh at the thought of either Malfoy or Ron sucking their thumbs and sleeping with a teddy bear named Hugsy, and looking disapprovingly at Ron for thinking about ways to humiliate people. “Wow!” she exclaimed, suddenly realizing something.
“What?” Both Ron and Harry asked, Ron looking up from his still empty parchment, and Harry looking up from the space on the wall that he’d been staring at.
“This has got to be the first time ever that Ron hasn’t been the first one down for lunch! It’s been fifteen minutes since lunch started, and he hasn’t even mentioned it!” Hermione stated, laughing at the look of shock on Ron’s face.
“You're right Hermione," Ron told her sincerely, leaving Hermione looking a bit surprised. "You see what this stupid essay has drawn me to? If I don't get this finished, I might have to miss lunch altogether!" he wailed, looking appalled at the thought of having to go without food. "I might starve to death Hermione - I'll never get this essay finished - not without your help, anyway! Please, Hermione? Come on, do you really want my blood on your hands? If there's any left after I've wasted away..." Ron asked dramatically, putting his hand on his forehead and falling to the ground as if in a dead faint. "Hermione?" he opened his eyes from his dead faint to look around after receiving no response. "Harry?" Ron sat up to find his friends gone, laughing together down the corridor as they left for lunch.
Dear Dumby by Oppungo
Chapter Notes: What happens when Dumbledore has his latest "brilliant" idea, to start an advice column, and call it 'Dear Dumby'? Letters from some of our favourite Hogwarts students, some of our not so favourite Hogwarts students, some not even Hogwarts students at all, and, of course, lots of madness!