Henry H. Pottermore, Vol. III

THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY H. POTTERMORE AS HE SLEEPETH SOUNDLY AND HAS MANY A DREAM

Well, what an adventure Henry H. Pottermore had had at Hogdeath School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He sat back on his bed and reflected on all his good times, from the time he crashed a high-speed bullet train through the entry doors and killed hundreds, to the time the next day he got thrown into the dungeon for five years for murdering a professor, to the great and lasting friendship he built with the Great Lawyer, Newt Gingrich. It was Gingrich who spearheaded the effort to get Henry out of prison on parole.

“POTTERMORE!!!” yelled his Uncle Keith from outside his bedroom door. Then he just started kicking the door in. “POTTERMORE, OPEN THIS DOOR NOW!” And he kicked it some more.

“It’s unlocked!” yelled Henry, but it was all in vain. Uncle Keith just kicked the door over and over again until eventually his foot just burst through the door, spraying door guts across the room. Then a great fat hairy hand came through the hole and opened the door from the inside.

“Like I said, the door was unlocked,” said Henry, as Uncle Keith lumbered into the room.

“DON’T SMART OFF TO ME YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SLUDGE BUCKET!” yelled Uncle Keith. He was an oddly proportioned man, with an extremely small bald head on top of a very massive hairy body that was always dripping skin flakes. He stood there and stared at Henry, fury in his eyes.

“Did you need something?” asked Henry.

“I FORGOT WHAT I CAME IN HERE FOR!” Uncle Keith screamed. Then he left. Henry chuckled and shook his head. Crazy Uncle Keith!

Henry got up off the bed and went to the window. He just stared off into the distance, thinking. He missed Ron Schadenfreude. He missed Hortense. He missed Squimmitch, even though he was the worst Squimmitch player ever and wasn’t afraid to admit it. Who he didn’t miss was the Dark Lord and Parole Officer Hans Voldemortmanstein. He was out there somewhere, probably wreaking havoc, probably casting Cruciatus curses on parole violators, probably scheming to take over the world. And here, Henry H. Pottermore was unable to stop him, trapped in the house of his Uncle Keith and Aunt Bavmorda. What he wouldn’t give for some of Headmaster Donny Trump’s Famous Magical Pulled Pork Whimsy Beans right now.

Just then, Henry’s young fat cousin Trayvon burst into the room, chewing on a giant mouthful of grass, chocolate drops, and raw liver, just spraying stuff everywhere from his mouth. “URGHAHAMUGURFLLEMAN!” he said as chocolate drop grass liver juice sprayed Henry between the eyes. “MUURRLFANNNIGANIFH!!!” he said some more. Crazy Cousin Trayvon!

“Aahhh!” cried Henry, waking up in a cold sweat. He breathed heavily for a moment, trying to gather himself. A bizarre dream, for sure. Uncle Keith? Cousin Trayvon? Just witchcraft and wizardry if you ask me, he thought. At that moment, his real uncle, Uncle Barry, quietly opened his bedroom door and peeked in.

“Everything all right, Henry?” Uncle Barry asked, smiling. What a sweet uncle.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Henry, wiping sweat from his brow. “Just a weird dream, that’s all.”

Uncle Barry walked into the room and sat at the foot of Henry’s bed. “Well I know how that goes!” he said, and laughed. Henry laughed too. What an empathic uncle.

“Uncle Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“What is love?

Uncle Barry scooted closer to Henry and ruffled his hair.

“Well Henry,” he said. “It’s hard to describe, really. But when you love someone, you just know it. You can’t really describe it. You just feel it. Deep down. Right in… here.” And he placed his hand on Henry’s chest. This is getting weird, thought Henry. Uncle Barry just kept his hand there, too. Henry tried to scoot away, but Uncle Barry tightened his grip on Henry’s chest. The more Henry tried to pull away, the tighter the grip became until Uncle Barry was literally gripping Henry’s beating heart. He stared into Henry’s eyes, suddenly crying.

“I’m sorry Henry!” he cried. “I can’t control it! I just can’t!” And his hand broke through Henry’s chest, ripping the heart out.

“Aahhh!” cried Henry, waking up into another cold sweat. Someone named Uncle Barry? This “Uncle Barry” character teaching him about love followed by ripping his heart out? What a night! Then Henry noticed something, all over his sheets, all over his pillow.

Blood. Just gallons and gallons of blood. Everywhere.

Then he looked down at his chest, and noticed the gaping bloody hole where someone had reached in.

“Aahhh!” cried Henry, waking up into an even colder sweat. He took several deep breaths. This was it. This was reality. No question about it. He had his heart back. The sheets free of blood. No “Uncle Barry” or “Uncle Keith” to terrorize him. Just his verbally abusive Uncle Brockman and Aunt Perigold, who seconds later, were kicking his bedroom door and yelling at him.

“POTTERMORE!” yelled Uncle Brockman. “WILL YOU SHADDAP IN THERE?!”

“Just having a bad dream! Or… a dream within a dream! BWAMMMMM!!!” he replied.

“THERE WILL BE NO TALK OF DREAMS IN THIS HOUSE YOU MISERABLE PUDDLE OF POODLE SPITTLE!” cried his Aunt Perigold. “NOW OPEN THIS DOOR SO WE CAN YELL AT YOU CLOSER!”

Henry reluctantly opened the door. Uncle Brockman, shaking with pure rage, pointed his finger in Henry’s face. “YOU LEFT THE BACK DOOR OPEN LAST NIGHT AND SQUIGGERS GOT OUT!” Ah, Squiggers, thought Henry. The family hyena. “NOW GO OUT AND FIND SQUIGGERS!”

“My poor Squiggers!” cried Aunt Perigold, burying her face in Uncle Brockman’s shoulder. “Squiggers! Squiggers! Squiggers! Squiggers!”

“Aahhh!” cried Ron Schadenfreude, waking up into another cold sweat. He looked around. Whew, he thought. Safe at Hogdeath School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A hyena named Squiggers? Uncle Brockman? And… was I Henry Pottermore just now? Wow. The name Uncle Barry was floating around his brain too. And more fuzzy, a monstrous creature named Uncle Keith. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. He’d never had a dream like that. Boy, this was gonna make a great story for all the guys.

He peeked out of his bed curtain to make sure of his reality. There, sleeping on the other side and snoring soundly, was none other than Henry H. Pottermore, the Henry H. Pottermore, the boy who loved! The boy who served five years in the hellish Hogdeath Correctional Dungeon! Henry H. Pottermore, his best friend. Surely, there would be no more waking up into cold sweats. Of that, he could be—

“Aahhh!” cried Hans Voldemortmanstein, awakening suddenly into a sweat that was, indeed, quite cool.

“Aahhh!” cried Henry H. Pottermore, as he awoke suddenly, in Hogdeath Correctional Dungeon.

“Aahhh!” cried Chuck McChucklin, finding himself in a puddle of cold sweat.

“Aahhh!” cried Headmaster Donny Trump, up to his neck in a puddle of cold sweat.

“Aahhh!” cried Henry H. Pottermore, waking up just drowning in Cold Sweat State Park Reservoir. He waited for a second. Waited to wake up again, screaming. He just sat there, listening to the silence, listening to the deafening darkness. Suddenly, a sweet tender voice.

“Is everything all right honey?” asked Hortense, laying next to him in a sexy nightie, being sexy.

“Yeah baby,” he said. “Just a wild dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream.”

“Well, I hope this isn’t a dream!” she said. And they laughed, then smooched with fiery passion. It was only after passionately smooching with Hortense for several minutes that Henry suddenly realized that something was wrong. Very very wrong.

“Wait a minute,” said Henry. He reached for his totem on his bedside table. Only he knew the weight and feel of his particular totem, which was a 25-pound possum carcass he found on the side of the road one day. He dropped the carcass on the floor, which made a sickening splat. It hit him like a ton of possum carcasses… he was still dreaming.But boy, what a dream! In bed with Hortense, his best friend’s girlfriend!

But as it turns out, it was not a dream. Henry forgot that in a dream, the possum carcass bounces off the floor, then floats slowly down, then twirls its tail 17 times. Only in reality does the possum hit the ground with a sickening splat. It’s easy to get them mixed up.

Henry pushed his luck and tried flying off the roof of Hogdeath School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but ended up falling 200 feet and fracturing his pelvis as well as every other bone in his body. Then Ron found out that Henry was smooching his girlfriend, so he got revenge by setting Henry’s messenger hyena Squiggers on fire. Chuck McChucklin came to visit Henry in the Hogdeath General Hospital every week, sneering and hurling insults like he was prone to do.

And Henry H. Pottermore, his life in ruin, his “reality” a mess, his pelvis throbbing in agony, lay in bed at Hogdeath General Hospital, clutching his trusty possum carcass day and night, probably violating some sort of hospital infection-control policies.

THE END