Chapter 08
Harry had to admit it: the Muggle rides were quite enjoyable. His aunt and uncle had never taken him to a fair--they’d always left him with Mrs. Figg when they’d gone off to do anything fun--but his cousin Dudley had always bragged about it when they’d returned.
Dudley would boast about pushing to the front of the lines on every ride so he wouldn’t have to wait, and how he always won the biggest prizes, or when he ate so much popcorn once that the vendor had to close shop. Well, by the size of Dudley, Harry had always thought, I’m sure that’s true.
Harry’s cousin was an enormous boy; Harry often likened him to a pig. Dudley used his size to bully people into doing what he wanted and had the worst sort of tantrum if he didn’t get his way.
Dudley’s parents, Petunia and Vernon, thought he was an angel, but Harry knew differently; if his aunt and uncle knew the real Dudley, they’d have heart palpitations.
However, Harry tried to push all thoughts of his Muggle family aside so he could enjoy the time spent with Ginny. A large part of him still wanted to slip away, but he had promised Hermione he wouldn’t go anywhere.
Not that he’d be able to get away, he chuckled inwardly; Ginny held his arm tightly everywhere they went. Harry didn’t mind, but the redhead had never clung to him like this before. As Harry looked about, he realized perhaps the other Muggle couples had something to do with Ginny’s closeness.
So Harry allowed the youngest Weasley to choose their destinations. Her excitement was contagious and soon Harry found himself smiling and laughing along with Ginny. When the two slid into a contraption that resembled a large teacup, Ginny’s intake of breath caused Harry to grin. Her squeal of delight on the Ferris Wheel and the deep-bellied guffaws while riding the Swinger made Harry laugh out loud.
It was obvious that Ginny was genuinely amazed at the forms of entertainment the Muggles used--and, frankly, Harry had to admit that he was impressed too.
After they’d ridden nearly all of the rides, Harry suggested they play a few games. Surprisingly, Ginny was quite skilled at ‘Ring the Bottle’, as well as the game called ‘Break A Plate’. Harry didn’t do so well with the ‘Bowler Roller’, but had a better time when playing ‘Tip the Cat’.
“I just pictured Snape’s face in place of the fuzzy blue cats’,” Harry told Ginny, when he handed her a stuffed pink unicorn, “and it wasn’t difficult to knock them down at all!”
Ginny snorted, turning the unicorn over in her hand. “A pink unicorn? Boy, those Muggles have great imagination! Did you see the prizes they had over at the ‘Guess Your Weight’ game? Since when do dragons come in yellow--?” She passed a couple carrying a purple dragon with silver wings. “--Or purple?” she gasped; turning to Harry, a look of disgust on her face, she added, “Charlie must be having fits.”
Charlie Weasley worked with real dragons in Romania; Harry guessed that no Muggle would want to win a stuffed version of the real thing; real dragons were quite ugly...
“What are your thoughts on visiting the ‘Haunted House’?” Ginny piped up suddenly. Harry turned in the direction she was pointing--and laughed.
The crudely constructed building looked like an overblown version of the Shrieking Shack. After all that Harry had been through over the years, he knew nothing inside that ‘Haunted House’ could possibly frighten him. “Er, I think I’ll pass,” he replied after a moment.
Shrugging noncommittally, Ginny steered Harry towards the area designated ‘Sideshow Alley’: an odditorium of scarred souls, gaunt carnies, and an endless mob of gawkers. “I’m curious,” she told him. “Walk with me.”
It was the tone of her voice that caught Harry’s attention; it seemed Ginny was daring him to say no. Harry knew better; if he naysayed her, it was likely he’d again be on the receiving end of her Bat-Bogey Hex.
They saw what was billed as ‘The Smallest Horse in the World’, ‘The Lobster Boy’, and ‘The Headless Woman’--and shook their heads in disgust throughout each presentation--but neither could contain themselves when faced with ‘The Siren of the Sea’.
“Bloody hell! That’s not a real mermaid!” Harry gasped, nearly choking from shock.
The woman behind the glass was obviously a Muggle dressed in a rubber suit; her long, blonde hair was definitely a wig, and the shells she wore were likely fake too. She was seated on a boulder in a pool of water, singing sweetly and combing her synthetic golden mane.
In his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry had grudgingly taken part in the Triwizard Tournament. He and three other ‘champions’ had to complete three tasks in order to determine the winner.
One of his tasks was to face the mermaids that dwelled in the lake on the school grounds. Harry would never forget the chilling darkness of the water, nor the realization that mermaids were neither friendly or beautiful.
“’Who is right, the man who believes he is being deceived, or the man who believes he is not?’” Ginny quoted, as they left Sideshow Alley; she sounded eerily like Hermione for a moment. When Harry looked at her askance, she added, “A Muggle named Lichtenberg said that; my father has that quote hanging in his office.”
Feeling duped and quite disgusted with Muggles in general (“Turning oddities into a show for profit--how awful!” the youngest Weasley declared hotly), Harry and Ginny decided they’d try something different; so off to ‘Magician’s Alley’ they went.
“Let’s see The Great Hamlin,” Ginny suggested, but were turned away when a small, disgruntled crowd came streaming out on the tent. A large, beefy man in a silver turban was shouting after them in a language that Harry didn’t understand.
Stopping one of the Muggles exiting the tent, Harry asked him what was going on.
The short, balding man with several missing teeth was happy to explain. “Two blokes--twins, by the looks of ‘em--won the golden pot; ‘amlin’s right angry.”
“Golden pot?” Harry was confused.
The man nodded. “ ‘E kept money in a gold pot; said anyone who could out wit ‘im would win it. Well, those blokes did and ‘amlin ain’t too ‘appy. Says they cheated and them’s gonna pay.”
A wave of apprehension swept over Harry. “These two ‘blokes’--the twins--” he began, “what did they look like?” He steeled himself for the answer, though deep down he knew what was coming.
“Red hair,” the man spat; he jerked his head towards Ginny. “Like ‘ers.”
Ginny gasped and Harry squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Er, thank you, sir,” Harry blurted, steering Ginny away; the man nodded, then disappeared into the crowd.
“Harry,” Ginny whispered frantically, “that man was talking about Fred and George!” It seemed Ginny had the same idea as Harry.
“I know,” Harry sighed deeply. Trust Fred and George to get into trouble wherever they go, he wanted to say out loud, but for Ginny’s benefit, he didn’t dare.
“We need to find those two--to warn them!” Ginny’s fingernails dug into Harry’s forearm.
“That Muggle, Hamlin, is no match for Fred and George; I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Harry murmured, looking around, wondering if he’d catch a glimpse of the twins. Not likely, he told himself. They are as far away from here as possible, knowing them.
Ginny fidgeted in place for a moment and Harry could tell she was torn between searching for her brothers and remaining with him.
“Ooh, if I see either of them,” she announced in a scathing voice, “they’re going to receive a piece of my mind--after I hex them, of course,” she added with a sly grin.
Harry agreed to help keep a lookout for Ginny’s brothers, though he secretly believed neither was still lurking about; they were probably at home, counting their Muggle money and wondering how much in wizarding gold they’d be able to get for it.
Ginny knew the twins well enough to admit that Harry was correct; after all, they’d gone up against the horrid Professor Umbridge, so a Muggle was definitely no match for Fred and George.
Dolores Umbridge was a Ministry of Magic official who’d become the hated ‘Hogwarts High Inquisitor’ two years previous; she reveled in imposing all sorts of strict rules and shocking punishments--all with the backing of the former Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge.
When she and the Ministry tried to have Albus Dumbledore arrested at one point--unsuccessfully, that is--Umbridge had taken over Hogwarts temporarily. However, students like Fred and George (and members of the D.A., which included Ginny and Harry) had given her a real fight.
Umbridge eventually ended up in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies--after a disastrous scrape with the centaur herd in the Dark Forest--and hasn’t been the same since.
Fred and George, upon hearing about Umbridge’s fiasco, decided that someone should thank the poor woman for showing the Ministry how loyal Hogwarts students could be. So twice a year--on randomly chosen dates--they sent her a nice gift: a small statue of a centaur.
As she was musing, Ginny’s eyes scanned Magician’s Alley; surely there was someone here worth seeing--even if they were Muggles who seemed to enjoy parting unsuspecting, gullible visitors and their money--for the sake of entertainment.
“Want to have your palm read?” Ginny asked Harry with a grin, pointing to a tent with a neon sign bearing the words ‘Madame Zota--Fortune Teller: Tarot Card and Palm Readings’.
Harry gave her a look that clearly said, ‘You must be joking.’ “I’d wager ‘Madame Zota’ has more success than Professor Trelawney does,” Harry added with a snicker, referring to the ‘seer’ who resided in Hogwarts and taught Divination; Sybil Trelawney was extremely outlandish and rarely--if ever--correctly predicted the future. However, Harry knew why she was allowed to remain at Hogwarts: she foretold the prophecy concerning the Dark Lord and himself.
“There’s a mind-reader,” Ginny chuckled, jutting her chin towards a black tent several feet away. “That ought to be harmless enough.”
The pair surveyed the tent at the farthest end of the lane; there were no blinking or swirling lights surrounding this particular tent, no large neon signs, or other eye-catching items to attract the attention of fairgoers. A simple, hand painted wooden plaque bearing the words ‘Mind Reader’, hung from a pole under a single, dimly lit oil lamp.
Something about that tent made Harry feel uneasy. “Looks a bit dodgy to me,” Harry replied slowly. “Why don’t we choose something else?”
But Ginny had trudged ahead, bearing down on the darkened tent, her red hair swinging behind her. With a resigned sigh, Harry followed suit; he caught up with Ginny in less than five strides.
“It appears to be deserted,” Harry told Ginny as they approached the darkened tent. “Let’s go back.” The nagging feeling was growing and Harry simply wanted to be as far from this tent as possible.
“It won’t hurt to look,” Ginny said confidently, giving Harry a smile. “If it is empty, we’ll go back and look for something else to do.” She marched right up to the front flap. “Hel--”
“You may enter,” an oily voice called out from the inner part of the tent. “I believe one of you will find exactly what you’ve been searching for... just inside.”