Chapter 2

A Chapter That Had Promised To Introduce New Secondary Heroes And Villains To Spice Up The Plot A Little Bit, But Actually Turned Out To Be A Mere Homecoming For Two Relatively Insignificant Relatives Of The Hero, The Kind That Get Into Trouble And Wait For Their Famed Relative To Rescue Them

“Where the hell are we going to, Father?” demanded Ginny. It had been three minutes on the road, and she was already thinking of her husband and children, staying in that deserted stable with only one another.

“How come THEY get to be the one in an irreversible sleep, while I have to be out here, walking to nowhere in particular with my eccentric father?” she muttered to herself. Her father looked back at her and smiled benignly – and she noticed that scar on his forehead.

“DADDY! Were you injured? What’s that scar doing on your forehead!” Arthur had undoubtedly gotten into a scrape again. Messing around with the Muggles daily ever since the Ministry had ungraciously pensioned him off, he was bound to meet someone who didn’t appreciate his plug fetish.

“Oh, that,” Arthur pointed nonchalantly. “It was all the rage three months ago, after the Harry Potter books had been released, and everyone wanted forehead scars, even the Muggles. Especially the Muggles.” Arthur paused, reminiscing. “I got one too. I even have this.” Arthur pulled up his left sleeve to reveal a green skull.

“The DARK MARK, Father? How could you?” Ginny had always thought Arthur to be a Dumbledore supporter.

“It’s nothing, sweetie,” Arthur rejoined airily. “It means nothing, now that Voldemort has died. It was another fad that your husband’s “third-person autobiographies” had unwittingly spawned.”

“Hush, Father! No one’s supposed to know that Harry wrote those books HIMSELF, while paying off Rowling for using her name!” Ginny looked around surreptitiously, hoping that no one had heard her.

It was perfectly true. While Harry HAD been an extremely brave (which is merely another word for ‘foolhardy’) wizard, half of the things in the books hadn’t actually happened. A day after defeating “Voldemort” (who was actually an ex-convict of a clown that had gone wayward and threatened to shoot Harry in the private parts with a banana gun), Harry had told Ginny secretly that he would write some sort of sensational thriller about himself, in order to make himself up to be some kind of hero. The Aurors at the Ministry would then think that he was brave, courageous, and righteous, and hire him, and he would get all sorts of royalties to live off for the rest of his life. It was a perfect plan.

…Or it would have been, if Arthur Weasley had not happened to eavesdrop while Harry and Ginny were discussing Harry’s schemes. He had then demanded to know everything about it, and subsequently blackmailed Harry to get him a lifetime subscription of Playwizard.

“We’re home, Ginny!” The duo had arrived at a small circular hole in the ground. A rabbit crept out of it, stared at them, and ran off, terrified.

“A… burrow, Father?”

“Just shut up and get in. After I lost my job, the damned Ministry lawyers exploited so many loopholes in my title deed, and the court concluded that this was my house all along. Those stupid lawyers.”

“Father? We are WIZARDS. There aren’t wizard lawyers.”

“Oh. I meant those people who sit there in the Ministry’s cushy offices and discuss trivial stuff over bad coffee. In the Ministry, we call them Liars.”

“Ah,” muttered Ginny with a note of finality, as she struggled to get her bum down the hole. Her figure had never been the same after the pair of McLaggen twins.