Chapter Seven, Part One: Publicity, Flashbacks and a Deal
Happy paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. He had been pacing for so long, his feet had begun to drag, and he felt his expression of deepest thought might never change, that he might never stop this endless cycle of pacing…
“Happy?” Jackie pried, sitting at the round table like the rest of the authors. “Happy, you’ve been pacing for five minutes now! What’s the problem?”
Happy groaned.
“I was about to have a revelation!” he scolded.
“A revelation about what?” inquired Jackie.
“Publicity,” Happy told his assistant, Mr. Jackie van de Geissen, and the anonymous authors. “We need publicity. We’re looking at a world record “ a worldwide Category Six Literary Storm, and climbing! To make it to the next level, we need an advertising campaign with impact!”
“We could advertise on bus stops,” suggested an author. “You know?” Happy didn’t dignify this with a response.
“We could hang banners over the streets!” proclaimed another.
“Or we could hang massive posters over tall buildings!” put forward a third. Happy just shook his head.
“No, no, no, you silly buffoons. What we need,” he prescribed, “is an all out, hard-hitting, unforgettable publicity stunt.”
The room suddenly became a haven of thought, a very beacon of ideas.
“How about we march through the streets dressed as birds, handing out pamphlets?” Jackie suggested cheerily. Happy had the suspicion that it had always been a dream of Jackie’s to march through the streets, dressed like a bird.
“No, too… random,” Happy replied apologetically.
“Well, then, how about we march through the streets dressed as oddly coloured planes, and making motor noises?” an anonymous author recommended. Happy rolled his eyes.
“No. That has nothing to do with Harry Potter.” There was a short pause.
“How about we all parade through the streets, dressed as“” began a second author.
“Let me guess,” interrupted Happy. “Superman?” Everyone looked at him strangely.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the author, “After the last book, Superman’s been done. Besides, who likes to march around in public with their undies on the outside? I think we should be dressed as toads.”
Happy rolled his eyes, realising that if he wanted an idea more original than walking through the streets dressed as various different things, he would need to think up one himself.
He tapped his chin, thoughtfully, until…
“I’ve got it!” cried an anonymous author.
“No, I’ve got it!” shouted back Happy. His eyes had strayed to a recent email, which happened to be sitting on the screen. “Listen to this…”
“Dear J.K. Rowling,
Due to the fact that your ‘Harry Potter’ series has reached success of enormous proportions, News Newspaper’s television partner, News Current Affairs Show, would be very much interested in an exclusive interview.
We would like to propose that we organise everything “ a small panel to interview you, the studio, before- and after-interview snacks, etc., and the remainder of the necessary television necessities, such as advertising and lighting. Please call us on:
1800 NEWS TV to discuss terms…
Regards,
The Manager.”
The authors sat in silence for a moment.
“What’s your point?” inquired Jackie.
“Do I have to spell it out to you?” demanded Happy. The authors and Jackie all shrugged. “I’m suggesting maybe we should do an exclusive interview…”
“But Mr O’Brien,” queried an anonymous author. “I think you’ve forgotten “ J.K. Rowling doesn’t exist! Remember, we had to invent a name…?”
Several years earlier…
“How about Superman?”
“NO!” snapped Happy. “Someone new, someone with impact, someone very… British.”
“How about J.K. Rowling?” suggested an author.
“Perfect!” shouted Happy in triumph. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”
“Of course I remember!” snapped Happy, irritated. “You twits! All we need to do is get someone to stand in for J.K. Rowling “ to pretend to be the author of Harry Potter!”
Everyone gasped.
“But who?” whispered Jackie.
“Well, we need to keep up pretences,” Happy told everyone, “so I suppose the author who claimed to be J.K. Rowling in the web chat with Femog, the Australian flashback extraordinaire, will need to be the face of our author…”
“Yes,” agreed the flashback author, “remember, Mr O’Brien…?”
A couple of years earlier…
“G’day, mate. You can just call me ‘Femog’,” replied the man.
“Very well, Mr Femog. My name is Happy O’Brien and this is “ umm…”
“J.K. Rowling,” prompted the author, panicking. The fact that J.K. Rowling didn’t exist had to be kept secret at all costs. Femog tipped his hat at the two of them.
“Of course I remember!” Happy told her sharply. “I was there, and I brought up the incident in the first place!”
“Anyway,” Jackie intervened, “with that settled, I think we should get back to what we were discussing several minutes ago, the exclusive interview idea. Remember…?”
Several minutes earlier…
The authors sat in silence for a moment.
“What’s your point?” inquired Jackie.
“Do I have to spell it out to you?” demanded Happy. The authors and Jackie all shrugged. “I’m suggesting maybe we should do an exclusive interview…”
“Will the lot of you stop giving recounts, please?” demanded Happy, very irritated. Everyone sighed, and nodded.
“Would you like me to call them?” asked the anonymous author who would be playing J.K. Rowling.
“Yes,” Happy told her. “Yes, you do that…”
o0oOo0o
Two weeks later, Happy, Jackie and the authors found themselves waiting for the ‘exclusive J.K. Rowling interview’ to come on television. In the mean time, they were reading stories on an interesting site, with a magnificent archive of fan fiction.
Warning: Written before HBS (Half-Blood Superman)
Chapter One “ The Other Minister
It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind. He was waiting for a call from the president of a far-distant country, and between wondering when the wretched man would telephone, and trying to suppress unpleasant memories of what had been a very long, tiring and difficult week, there was not much space in his head for anything else....
Happy found it all very amusing.
He had only gotten about three pages into the thing, when the clock struck seven thirty, and it was time to turn on the television, to see the well-advertised segment of News Current Affairs Show.
A long-running commercial finished, and the announcer came onto the screen, sitting at a desk.
“Good evening, and welcome to News Current Affairs Show. We’re told to wait when we go to the Doctor’s surgery, but what are the doctors actually doing? That and more later, but now on to our first story…”
An image of the author who had stood in as ‘J.K. Rowling’ appeared in the background.
“J.K. Rowling began her writing career just a few short years ago, and the first book of the Harry Potter series, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, was widely accepted as one of the great children’s books of our time. Since then, the series has increased in popularity, and experts say the books appeal to anyone from the youngest infant to the oldest citizen. J.K. Rowling has not been seen by the public until just recently, when she gave an exclusive interview to Sue Thompson, from News Current Affairs Show…”
The screen changed to the studio where the interview had been conducted.
“Do you find yourself getting attached to the characters?”
“Oh, absolutely,” laughed the author, “absolutely. I remember how difficult it was in ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Superman’ when I had to kill off both Harry and Voldemort. And in ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’, the scene when the Acromantula ate Draco Malfoy, as a delayed reward for Harry and Ron. Not to mention Basil, the giant snake’s death scene. Just heart-breaking.”
“Ah, so that’s how you pronounce it then?” asked Sue, “I know there are lots of pronunciations out there, but it’s ‘Harr-ee’?”
“Yes, that’s right. I was worried about that name, but thankfully most people seem to get the pronunciation. That’s why I wrote that bit around the beginning of the first book, when Harry explained how to say his name? That was for readers, just as much as it was for Hermione.”
The interview went on for several more minutes, edited here and there so only the more interesting questions were discussed. Eventually, the interviewer, ‘Sue Thompson’, got to the end of the interview.
“Now, Mrs. Rowling, there’s just one more question I have to ask.”
“Just one?” The two of them laughed.
“What can you tell us about book seven? Does it have a title yet?”
“It might have a title,” said the author mysteriously. “But I can’t say. I can tell you, though, you’re going to see a lot of the trio in the next book, particularly Harry.”
The announcer closed the segment, and went back to whatever other news they were talking about, but something about that interview felt particularly significant to Happy. What was it that made him uneasy?
“You know, I just realised we haven’t even started on the last book,” Jackie commented. Ah, yeah. Of course, that was what was wrong.
“Well,” Happy addressed everyone, turning off the television, “here we are “ about to write the seventh and final Harry Potter book. For this book, we need clever thinking, drama, action, suspense, and hard-hitting children’s entertainment!”
The authors and Jackie cheered.
“And even more importantly and immediately,” Happy added intensely, “we need a title. Jump to it!”
It was not long before the room became a hive of activity, minds constructing, theorising, and putting together the basis of the seventh Harry Potter book. They worked and worked, for seventy days, and seventy nights, until they all got together and approached Happy…
“Mr O’Brien,” began one of the authors, “in the past, when trying to think of a title, we have always presented what first came into our minds, on the spur of the moment, but this time, we’ve decided to base the title of the book on the plot.” Happy considered that for a moment.
“What an interesting idea,” he commented, “it’s good to see you authors are somewhat capable of original thinking “ not to mention, I was wondering what you’d been doing for the past approximately two and a half months.”
“We have some proposals at the ready,” the author continued, and stepped aside while Happy’s assistant, Jackie van de Geissen, took the floor.
“Our first suggestion,” Jackie proposed, “is based on the idea that the book will contain some very important artefacts, and thus the title, ‘Harry Potter and the Disillusioning Artefacts of Doom’.”
Happy tapped his chin.
“It gives too much away,” he decided, “next!”
“Alright,” Jackie accepted, and turned to the next palm card. “Because Harry is so grown up now, we have ‘Harry Potter and the Adult Problem’.”
“That is quite catchy,” considered Happy, “but much too wordy…”
For a long time, Jackie ran through title after title after title, until finally he came to his final palm card, the last suggestion of the authors.
“Well,” he began, with a yawn, “For our tenth and final idea: it’s clear that the plot of the seventh book will revolve around the centre point of Harry himself, so we came up with this one, last title…”
Everyone looked on in suspense and tiredness.
“‘Harry Potter’.”
Happy sat for a moment.
His eyes widened.
His fatigued frown turned slowly into a grin of absolute delight.
“It’s“” he began. “It’s… it’s…” The authors and Jackie all appeared to be crossing their fingers. “It’s… perfect!” exclaimed Happy, happily. “It’s simple, it’s risky, and it’s positively divine!”
The authors all high-fived each other. Now, for the first time since the release of the previous book, confident and inspired, Happy, sat up, straight and enthusiastic, at the head of the round table.
“Now, my dear assistant and fantastically adequate authors,” he addressed everyone, creativity and opportunity sizzling through the air like poorly contained electricity, “let’s get started on this thing.”
The following six hundred and twelve days and six hundred and twelve nights were devoted, not to naming the book, but to writing it. Growing sentimental, Happy decided that, instead of picking out random chapters, or settling for the last one, he, Jackie and the authors would attend a miraculous feast, where they would read not one chapter, nor two chapters, but three chapters (and an epilogue), the night before publication. The press would be allowed to stay for the first, but then they would be rid of, so that the final book of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, ‘Harry Potter’, would remain secret.
The dining hall was positively splendid, with plated gold furniture and a soft, relaxing background music being played by a top quality CD player.
“Why,” announced Jackie, ever the over-dramatic type, when he first entered the room, “this room is lovely.”
“Quite!” agreed Happy, content, “I do declare this room is simply glorious, fit for the highest standards of royalty!”
When the authors had all taken their seats (of course, the press was told that they were particularly anonymous-looking, lowly fans and lucky small-time reporters), and the various members of the media were standing around, waiting, Happy decided it was time to begin.
Chapter One: The Deal
“Gosh,” remarked Ron, a tall boy with red hair, “I feel downright down after that funeral.”
“Me too,” agreed Hermione, a clever girl with big hair and a little nose that was suspiciously similar to that of both the late Harry Potter’s and the ‘late’ Sirius Black’s. “It’s so odd to be travelling on this train, not in the Prefects compartment, and without Harry.” Ron nodded.
“Also, I haven’t seen or scowled at Ginny at all today,” he added. “It’s really getting to me that every person in the world even distantly related to me has been recently been killed by Knight of Walpurgis, evil fiend, father of Draco Malfoy, and Minister for Magic, Lucius Malfoy.”
“I understand,” comforted Hermione. Ron looked out the window.
“I think we’re at the station,” he commented, seeing Platform 9 ¾, where students were now standing, although most had already crossed through the barrier.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Hermione, “We don’t want to be late!”
Quickly, Ron and Hermione grabbed their bags and hurried out of the train, pushing through the thin crowds to get to the barrier. When they were allowed through, the pair seemed to be in a train station, and a sign nearby said ‘King’s Cross’. This was because they were at King’s Cross Station. All this was normal enough… but something seemed slightly off…
“Ron!” Hermione gasped. “I just realised “ where are we going to go?” Ron rolled his eyes.
“Well, to my place, of course…” Hermione raised an eyebrow.
“Ron, your entire family has died.” Ron scratched his chin.
“Oh, yeah…”
“I don’t think we can go to my house,” Hermione went on, “because you’ve barely talked to my parents, and neither you nor Harry has ever even noticed my sister!”
“You have a sister?” asked Ron, alarmed. Hermione nodded. “Wow, Hermione, I never noticed. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” said Hermione, “She understands. I explained that you and Harry were a bit dim.”
Ron blinked, and then blinked again, in Harry’s honour, of course.
“I wrote to them and said I’d be staying at your place,” Hermione continued. “But now I don’t know where we should go!”
All seemed lost, until Ron and Hermione became a little more observant, and saw three uncomfortable and highly impatient figures.
“Hermione,” said Ron, “the Dursleys are here…”
“Did no one tell them Harry had died?” questioned Hermione.
“I don’t think so,” Ron told her, “I think I remember Dumbledore (whose name is really Icicle Slughorn) mentioning it…”
Earlier that day…
“Well, Ron,” said Dumbledore (whose name was really Icicle Slughorn). “Harry is dead.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ron.
“I have had correspondence with Petunia Dursley, but, even though I am still alive and this is not my funeral, I think you should be the one to inform the Dursley family of his death.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ron again.
“Oh no!” exclaimed Hermione, upon hearing this news. “How are we going to tell them?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” said Ron. “I mean, he’s only temporarily dead. Come on, let’s go and have a word with them.”
“I don’t know,” worried Hermione, “I mean, remember the last time we saw them…?”
The last time Ron and Hermione saw the Dursleys…
“Vernon, don’t pick on Harry,” commanded Moody, moodily.
“And why not?!” demanded Vernon, a little shaken.
“Because we’ll come after you!” warned Ron, eyes flashing dangerously. Vernon looked perturbed.
“But “ but it’s so hard to change routine, even if wizards with dangerously flashing and/or revolving eyes warn you not to!” he told them all, worriedly.
“What about if witches and wizards with dangerously flashing and/or revolving eyes were to warn you?!” pressed Tonks, eyes flashing dangerously, and, since it was Tonks, in various different colours.
“Well… I suppose it would be worse…”
“Then consider yourself warned!” barked Hermione.
Vernon looked scared, but not convinced.
“Well,” Lupin put in his two cents. “What about if witches, wizards and rabid wolves with dangerously flashing and/or revolving eyes were to warn you not bother Harry?!” he growled angrily, bearing his sizeable teeth. “Rabid wolves with extensive knowledge on the topic of even darker and more terrifying creatures?”
“Okay, okay!” cowered Vernon. “Okay! We’ll put in our best effort!”
“You’d better!” scowled Moody, madly revolving his magical eye, while everyone else’s eyes flashed dangerously at the same time. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley squeaked awkwardly and scampered away, off to their car, and Dudley came tumbling after.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that now, is there?” rationalised Ron.
“Alright,” agreed Hermione. “I’m just glad that Dumbledore told you to give them the news, and not me.” Ron scowled, and set off towards the Dursleys.
“Hey, Mr., Mrs., and Dudley Dursley!” he greeted in a friendly tone.
“Are you talking to us?!” demanded Vernon, infuriated.
“Yes!” Ron said bravely. “I don’t see any other Mr., Mrs., and Dudley Dursleys around here! It’s nice to see you again. I’m sure you remember me (although I doubt you remember my name).”
Vernon nodded stiffly.
“Well, first, I have to inform you that Harry has been killed!” Vernon spluttered, surprised.
“What?!”
“You heard me!” replied Ron. Everything he said was like an announcement, due to nervousness. “Harry Potter is temporarily dead!”
The Dursleys blinked.
“Don’t ask,” suggested Hermione. They took her advice.
“Was there something else?” asked Petunia, looking pale.
“Yes, two more things,” said Ron. “Next, I need to tell you that You Know Who is temporarily dead also, so you don’t need to worry about dying at his hands until he’s resurrected or one of his Horcruxes is invoked!”
The Dursleys blinked again.
“And the last thing?” requested Vernon weakly.
“The last thing,” Ron began, plucking up the courage, “is… we need to ask you if we can come and stay at your house for a while!”
The Dursleys blinked, a third time.
“What?” asked Dudley. “Why? Don’t you have freak families to go to?”
“No,” replied Hermione. “My family are all non-magical, non-freaks, and all of Ron’s family are dead.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Dursley, not sure how to respond.
“You still can’t come and stay, just because your whole family has been killed,” said Petunia.
Hermione and Ron scowled.
“Alright then,” said Hermione. “We’ll stay at Mrs. Figg’s house. But you have to give us a lift.”
“Deal,” said Vernon. “But only if you’ll get out when we’re somewhere quiet a street or two away, so no one knows you have anything to do with us.”
“Deal,” agreed Ron.
He and Hermione followed the Dursleys to their car.
Happy grinned as all the media personnel couldn’t help but beg to stay just a little bit longer to hear more of the book. This, of course, was out of the question.
When the security guards had finally gotten them all out, Happy decided it was time to read the other two chapters that they would gloat over, the final two chapters of the book…
-.-.-.-.-.-
And here ends another chapter of Happy's tale. As usual, I'd be ever so greatful if you would take the time to review. Finally, if you have any questions of interest regarding this story, why not pop over to my thread in the Duelling Club?
Thank you for reading, and please stick around for Chapter Seven, Part Two: Of Horcrux Hoaxes and Hopelessness