FicWad

Chapter 2


"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency trans..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Mary Sue interrupted. "Just get this thing moving, will you!"

"I'm Stan Shunpike and I'll be your..." the young conductor tried again. His little speech was cut off by the tip of a short-sword finding its way to his left nostril.

"Move it!" the girl demanded loudly.

"Er, where to?" Stan relented, reaching up to gently push the sword's tip away from his nose.

"Diagon Alley! Gringotts! Let's go!"

"Diagon Alley, Ern!" Stan informed the driver, "And step on it!"

Harry and Mary Sue found themselves in a heap at the back of the vehicle as the Knight Bus rocketed forward. They had just managed to untangle themselves when they were hurled to the front again as the bus jerked to a stop.

"Diagon Alley! Gringotts!" Stan called out loudly.

"Stop shouting!" Mary Sue gave Stan a warning poke with her sword. "We're standing right here, you knucklehead!" She fished out several Sickles from her pocket and tossed them to the conductor as she pushed Harry out the door.

~~~

"Down on your hands and knees!" Mary Sue ordered Harry once they were inside Gringotts. She pointed to the spot just in front of the teller's window.

"What!?" Harry protested at first, but then knelt down when he noted the expression on her face - not to mention her hand reaching for her whip.

"Exchange this for Galleons," the girl demanded of the teller, stepping up onto Harry's back and slapping her wad of Muggle cash onto the counter.

"What about me?" Harry called up to her from his position on the floor. "I'll need to visit my vault."

"Do you have your vault key with you?" she reminded him curtly.

"Er, no."

They left Gringotts, Harry's back slightly sorer and Mary Sue's pockets quite a bit heavier. "Next stop is Knockturn Alley," she informed him.

"Why did you make me do that?" Harry asked, rubbing his back.

"I needed a height advantage. Always deal from a position of superior altitude," she intoned. "Why do you think the tellers perch on chairs that are taller than they are?"

~~~

"Mister Boy-wizard needs a wand," Mary Sue informed the proprietor of an unmarked and quite unremarkable Knockturn Alley shop. "He's partial to holly and Phoenix feather," she added.

"How did you know?" Harry asked as the man disappeared to the back of the shop.

"I've been through this before, too," she rolled her eyes at him. "Several times, in fact."

"Can I get a cool sword-wand like yours?" Harry asked hopefully.

"No!" Mary Sue shook her head but wouldn't elaborate.

"Why not?" Harry whinged. He didn't mean to, but it definitely came out sounding that way.

"This is mithril," the black-haired girl explained, fondling the hilt of her sword. "I picked it up when I did a Lord of the Rings crossover gig a couple years back. You can't get mithril in this fandom."

"How do I get picked for a Lord of the Rings crossover, then?" Harry wondered.

Mary Sue looked him over, head to toe and back, then shook her head slowly. "Don't hold your breath," she replied, a note of pity in her voice.

The wand-maker returned just then, carrying a fistful of holly and Phoenix feather specimens. The second one Harry tried seemed to be the winner.

"Let me see that!" Mary Sue grabbed the wand from Harry's hand and gave it a swish, sending out just as many sparks as Harry had. "Not bad," she nodded to the wand in her hand. "We'll take it. Now, about this sword conversion you did for me two years ago: it's defective!" she glared at the proprietor as she set her sword on the counter with her left hand, Harry's new wand held threateningly in her right.

The man eyed her warily as he carefully picked up the sword to examine it. "Don't you ever clean it?" he frowned. "What's all this crud on the tip?"

"Dried bogies," Mary Sue admitted sheepishly. "I guess I have a tendency to stick it up people's noses a lot. It's a very effective tactic. I've found that people are quite protective of their noses."

Harry cringed along with the wand-maker.

"I'll see what I can do," the man shuddered as he carried the sword-wand back to his workshop, careful to not touch it anywhere near the point.

He returned perhaps twenty minutes later, a hesitant smile gracing his visage as he held up the cleaned and polished sword-wand for inspection. "I had to replace the Fwooper feather," he announced. "You wore out the old one. What kinds of spells have you been casting with this?"

"None of your business!" Mary Sue glared at him, snatching her sword from his hands. "How much?"

"Ten Galleons for the holly wand, twenty to repair the sword," he straightened his shoulders to reply.

Thirty large gold coins hit the counter, one at a time, and the two youngsters turned to leave.

"See you again in two years if you keep abusing it like that," the wand-maker called after them.

"Rip-off!" Mary Sue muttered under her breath as the pair walked out into Knockturn Alley. "Here!" she thrust Harry's new wand at him. "Don't stick it up any noses," she warned. "Apparently it voids the warranty."

"I'll try to remember that," Harry nodded, thinking ahead to the 'Troll Incident' that he feared might still be lurking somewhere in his future. "So what's the plan?"

"Plan? What plan?"

"I figured that since you're here and everything... well, I just assumed that you'd be the one with the plan," Harry tried to sound encouraging.

"Me!? Fuck no! This is a 'Harry Potter' story! I'm only a plot device. I'm just along for the ride. Your story - your plan!"

"How come you get the cool sword-wand, then?" Harry groused.

"Because I ripped an Orc's head off and took it from him, that's why I get the sword! And it was my idea to get it cored for use as a wand!" Mary Sue declared.

"You ripped off an Orc's head!?" Harry gaped in awe at his new-found plot device. "With your bare hands!?"

"Well, to be fair, his head was mostly off when I found him, but if I hadn't been bad-ass enough to finish the job and rip it all the way off, I'd never have noticed the sword lying underneath him."

Harry eyed the girl suspiciously for several long moments until she started fidgeting under his scrutiny. "What else aren't you telling me?" he demanded, and he noticed her eyes dart to her whip ever so briefly. "Your whip!" Harry pointed.

"Okay, so I stole it! So what?"

"Who from?"

"Indiana Jones - duh!" Mary Sue gave him her best 'You're an idiot!' look.

"You did an Indiana Jones crossover, too!?" Harry goggled at her.

"Not exactly," Mary Sue admitted. "I was down in North Africa, hanging around the set of one of the movies and the props guy left it lying around where anyone could simply walk off with it..."

"So you did?"

"Why not?" Mary Sue shrugged.

"So let me get this straight," Harry frowned. "You stole a cool whip, robbed a cool sword from a corpse, and now you're some all-powerful character who makes guest appearances in other peoples' stories?"

"Yeah - pretty much," Mary Sue nodded. "So?"

"But you're not all that exceptional, actually."

"Check out the leather, Scar-boy!" Mary Sue struck a pose for him. "And the attitude! Black leather and an attitude is all a girl needs. Don't let anyone tell you different! Dragon Animagus form? Pfft! Totally unnecessary! Lasers shooting from my eyes? Don't be ridiculous! Armor that..."

"I once had laser eyes!" Harry interrupted. "It was waaaay cool!"

"Laser eyes? You!?"

"Yes, ME!!" Harry retorted loudly. "I was really AWESOME!"

"What about your glasses?" Mary Sue pointed out. "Why didn't the lenses scatter the laser beams?"

"Er..." Harry frowned as he tried to think of some scientifically sound way that the combination might work. He finally settled for, "Magic?"

"Right!" she gave a smug laugh. "Laser eyes are STUPID!"

"No they're NOT!" Harry yelled, as they stood there in the middle of Knockturn Alley, "Laser eyes are COOL!!"

"Not as cool as a sword-wand and a whip - and let's not forget the black leather and the attitude!" Mary Sue set Harry straight. "Anyway, you don't seem to have laser eyes in this story, so it's irrelevant!"

"Um... maybe we could both use some right now," Harry gulped as he noticed the curious throng of Knockturn Alley denizens that now surrounded the pair, attracted by their very vocal argument. The three hags in the front of the circle of onlookers were eyeing the two children hungrily.

Mary Sue's whip cracked over her head, drawing everyone's attention. Its next crack plucked the long tobacco pipe from the nearest hag's mouth.

"You want a piece of us, bitches? It's gonna cost ya!" the Girl-in-Black yelled, cracking her whip again for emphasis. The crowd backed away a few steps as she began waving her sword around above her head and faint sounds of Fwooper song filled the air.

"Incendio! Incendio! Incendio! Incendio! Incendio! Incendio! Incendio!" Harry shouted, crouching and spinning in almost a full circle. The only person he missed was the wizard directly behind Mary Sue, so she took out that one herself.

"Run!" Harry yelled, using the diversion to make a frantic dash in the direction of Diagon Alley.

"Protego!" Mary Sue cast a shield behind her as she followed closely on his heels.

"Not bad, Harry!" she panted once they were safely inside Gringotts. "I never figured you for the 'burn-'em-alive-and-ask-questions-later' type!"

"You're a bad influence on me," Harry replied, breathing heavily. "This wand had better not have a Ministry trace on it!" he studied his new wand as if he could somehow detect the trace charm by visual inspection.

"Only 'Ministry approved' wand-makers are required to include the trace, and Ollivander is the only 'approved' wand-maker in all of Britain. You should know that."

Harry thought to retort with something snarky, but he was too tired to argue. He settled on, "Good!"


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