Summary: Cha Cha Slide time
@BarnowlNiza, this is for you.
The dementors came around near the end of summer just as Harry knew they would. Remus and Sirius nearly had a heart attack when they saw Harry giving them bags of sweets.
"They're hungry," he explained with a shrug.
Remus had to go get a drink — of Wolfsbane, the full moon was nearing.
And then it was time for Harry to face his demons — Dolores Umbridge. Still as sickly sweet as always and had unfortunately not stepped on any cone snails during the summer (rude).
"You know what we need?" Harry said to his friends after the first week of hell at Hogwarts.
"A butterbeer?" Draco replied hopefully.
"Sounds great, but not what I meant. No, what I meant was —" and he threw an arm around him and Ron, pulling them close "— an illegal student organization." May as well get the ball rolling.
"For our first lesson, we shall learn... drum roll please, Des."
Desiree, who had taken lessons when she was younger, did as she was told.
"The Cha Cha Slide!"
"Huh?" almost everybody said in unison.
Harry gave an impatient wave of his hand. "You know... Slide to the left, slide to right? Two hops this time?" He threw his hands in the air. "It's a classic dance!"
"A dance?" Zacharias scoffed. "And how is a dance supposed to help us?"
"Dodging spells, of course!" Ron said, rolling his eyes. "Can't get hit if the spell never lands."
A few people nodded in agreement.
"Anyone else got any complaints?" Harry asked. Nobody spoke. "All right, let's just watch the video and see how it goes."
He pulled out the DVD player/projection thingamabob that defied magical logic and pressed play.
By the end of the video, even Zacharias was willing to learn the dance, not that he'd admit it out loud.
"All right, let's do this!" Harry shouted.
To make it even more fun, he made it into a game. The dummy (as in an actual dummy, not the one named Zacharias Smith — "I heard that!") would shoot spells at random students, who had to dodge. The last one standing won.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," Harry said solemnly.
Sage sniffled at the reminder of [REDACTED]'s death.
("Why censor the name?"
"Spoilers. Also, given how many characters die, it could apply to pretty much any of them."
"Fair enough.")
To the left!
The students yelped and practically rocketed to the left as a spell went whizzing in their direction.
Take it back now, y'all!
Poor Colin Creevey was the first to get hit at this moment.
One hop this time!
"GAH!!" several students shrieked as a long whip of light swept across the floor. A few either didn't jump high enough to dodge or weren't fast enough to jump at all and fell over like dominos.
Right foot, let's stomp!
Fred "accidentally" stomped on George's foot.
Left foot, let's stomp!
George "accidentally" returned the favor.
Cha-cha real smooth!
Everyone Cha-cha-ed real rough. Oh well, A plus for effort.
How low can you go?
Can you go down low?
All the way to the floor?
Jayson laid down on the floor.
Can you bring it to the top?
Like it never never stop?
"Don't feel like it," mumbled the Hufflepuff still on the floor.
Can you bring it to the top?
One hop!
Jayson didn't move as the whip came back and was flipped over onto his face with the momentum. "Ow."
Reverse reverse!
About half of the remaining students were knocked back when the dummy (again, not Zacharias) suddenly appeared behind them and pelted them with dodgeballs.
"I thought I came to magic school to escape gym!" Sid yelled indignantly.
"Who's Jim?" asked Draco.
"And why do you need to escape them?" added Ron.
Sid opened his mouth to explain the horror that was P.E. (which, of course means Public Execrableness*) when a loud SMASH rang through the room.
*execrable: very bad/wretched/detestable (source: Merriam-Webster); fucking nightmare (source: Sage the author)
Harry paused the music to peer through the fourth wall made by a stray dodgeball. "Who are you people?" he asked.
"The readers, of course," said Sage. She poked her head over his shoulder and smiled. "Salutations, my dear... Watson? No, that's not it." She frowned, trying to think of what to say, then shrugged. "Cool people, the lot of them. I cherish every one of their comments."
"Their what?"
"Nothing. All lefty, let's continue!"
Ron looked at her, puzzled. "All... lefty?"
"I'm left-handed."
"Ah."
Charlie brown!
"Who's Charlie Brown — AHH!!"
No one had been prepared for the (harmless and fake) fireballs to explode at their feet.
Slide to the right!
Neville slid a little too aggressively in his haste to dodge the ball and knocked three students over.
Slide to the left!
Harry prided himself on being a brilliant idiot. Which is why when Draco crashed into him because Harry had momentarily forgotten where left was, he accepted the loss with dignity.
"And the winner is Ron Weasley!" Sage announced as Harry and Draco fumbled to untangle themselves from each other.
"My king!" Harry whooped, almost tripping over Draco's leg as he stood. "Let's do that again!"
"Harry, the curfew!" Hermione reminded him.
"Drat! Okay, next week!"
"Tomorrow!" Hannah begged.
"Never again!" groaned Justin, rubbing his side from where a dodgeball had made contact.
"Nice one, losers."
("What's with the Australian accent?"
"Ken."
"From Barbie?"
"... Sure.")
I hope this chapter was as fun to read as it was for me to write.
Thank you again, @BarnowlNiza for the excellent suggestion of this dance. And if anyone gets an idea for what I can do for future chapters, feel free to leave a comment. The more chaotic, the better.
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You're a Badger, Harry
FanfictionHarry goes back in time, losing all the progress he's made - and all the forks he had. No, seriously, he's now forkless. Help a guy out, would ya?
