Trasure Island: Puppets on Strings

After losing most of his money to the submarine rental company, Harry was really afraid to face Ginny. He found some pretext to stay back in Hogwarts for some more days, hoping to garner some courage.

Sitting in the summer sun, on the shore of the enchanted lake, he was talking moodily to Ron and Hermione. "I need to make some money before I go home." "You can write a syndicated column, or maybe an autobiography," suggested Ron. "That needs too much of hard work. I want quick money, no strings attached!" exclaimed Harry.

Hermione said, "It's a long shot, but I had heard of a tresure island in the enchanted lake.." Harry smiled wryly and said, "I guess I'll have to try that" and they soon planned an expedition.

Not having any money to rent a submarine or even a cruiser, they constructed a balsa-wood raft and named it Kon-Tiki. Taking a crew of elves (they did not argue about minimum wages), the trio set off on their mission. As soon as the shore was lost behind the mist, the crew started singing their sea-shanty (or lake-shanty, as the case may be)

Fifteen elves on the death-eater's chest

Yo-ho-ho and veritaserum

Imperius curse had done for the rest

Yo-ho-ho and veritaserum

"What's the song about?" Ron was curious. "It talks about the elves who obtained the truth about the treasure island from death-eaters," said the chief elf. "And what's that?" asked Harry. "No one knows.. not one elf on the crew alive, what put to sea with seventy-five," answered the c.e.

Nevertheless, the trio got lucky and reached the desolate shores of an island after two days of the journey. The journey itself was quite uneventful, except for a mutiny, two sea burials, the occasional plank-walking and plankton-eating, and a distant perusal by the giant squid (although Hermione claimed it to be the collosal squid)

"Welcome to the Treasure Island!" proudly pronounced the neon sign powered by a non-conventional energy centre harnessing tidal and wind power. The windmills, in fact, were so tall that they had managed to pierce the ozone layer all by themselves. Luckily for the trio and the elves, Senor Quixote had got tired of attacking the windmills just the day before.

Now that he had reached the island, Harry wasn't sure about which way to proceed. He stumlbed across a faded old house with a faded old broken nameplate proclaiming "Hawkin" and was ectastic to have found Jim Hawkins, the boy who lived.

"Where's the treasure?" he shouted.

"No gain without pain," came the reply from within the house.

"What do you mean? I want the treasure!" bellowed Harry, "I've spent all my money in getting here."

"That doesn't gurantee the treasure. If you want to make money, you'll probably have to write a syndicated column about your expedition. There's no easy money - nothing comes with no strings attached. That's the essence of strings theory." came the reply.

"How can you be so sure?" asked Hermione.

"I should know. I wrote the bally theory!" replied Prof. Hawking, finally opening the door.

Harry accepted defeat. He returned to Hogwarts and wrote a syndicated column in the Daily Wizard. As usual, everyone had a share in the syndicate and Milo Minderbinder had the largest share of them all.

Aurors meet horrors - Pottering in Jurassic Park

Harry squinted hard in the dawn, but all he could see were some gigantic ferns dripping with dew. “Lumos” said Hermione quietly and suddenly they could see their environs quite clearly.

A vast primordial plateau stretched ahead, crisscrossed by innumerable rivers and streams. Baobab and other trees dotted the landscape, without interrupting the uninterrupted view one could view, if one had the inclination to view it and the opportunity to view it without interruption.

“This looks just like the African savannah!” said Ron, interrupting Harry’s thought process. But there was a major difference – epitomized by the lone stegosaurus ambling quietly to the N.N.E. Howsoever comfortable the trio might have been in the company of creatures like unicorns, dragons and blast-ended skrewts, a dinosaur was a novelty to them, yet.

The evening before, the Hogwarts reunion had started off rather formally. But a few rounds of butterbeers and firewhiskies upped the tempo, one thing led to another and before knowing what he was doing, Harry had accepted a wager for diving to the bottom of the enchanted lake. Luckily Hermione found a loophole in the terms and conditions, and the trio dived in the lake safely ensconced in a frigate class submarine.

They were not afraid even when the giant squid perused them and then pursued them. But there was an untimely explosion in the submarine’s nuclear reactor, and the submarine ended up in an inner world, penetrating the Earth’s outer crust. This was when Harry got out of the submarine and squinted hard in the dawn.

The stegosaurus and the herd of maiasaurs looked benign enough, and the trio started walking towards the only UFO they could see in the distance. Suddenly, a Tyrannosaurus Rex broke out from behind the thicket on their right and charged straight at them.

Harry bellowed “Expeliarmus” pointing his wand at the T Rex. A complete set of teeth and claws flew off the T Rex, but the 6 ton weight itself was still a major danger for the puny humans. Luckily, the dinosaur was more confused than the trio and turned tail. He also turned his hindquarters, torso, legs, neck and head. In fact, he turned 180 degrees like a basketball player going for a slam dunk. (The teeth and claws still remain at the very spot waiting for an archeologist or a paleontologist to find them. The archeologist or paleontologist in question are still waiting to find any T Rex teeth or claws.)

Continuing their journey, they were accosted by an angry apatosaurus and his friends. They remembered the time when they were accosted by a mongoose and one more mongoose, but this time their antagonists were much larger and more antagonistic. Just when all seemed lost, Ron shouted “Accio raptors” and a troop of bemused velociraptors reached the battleground instantaneously. The trio then witnessed a veritable battle between the apatosaurus and his friends against the raptors. The mongooses and the mongeese were not to be seen anywhere.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were courageous and didn’t turn tail. They don’t have any tails. They took a detour and soon reached the UFO. Opening the door of the ship was a piece of cake for the trained aurors. None of them cared for cake. They stood outside the UFO, dumbfounded. An alien took pity on them and opened the door to let them in.

He was courteous and spoke Parseltongue. Harry had forgotten Parseltongue. After unsuccessfully trying English, Spanish, Swahili and Bulgarian, Ron tried American Sign Language. The alien had eight fingers on each of his three hands. Finally, Hermione pointed to a map on the wall, and the alien took them back to Hogwarts.

The proprietors of the submarine rental agency sued Harry. His vault in Gringotts had just enough money to pay the claim. The moral of the story is to buy insurance before you travel anywhere.