The Potter Hour

Chapter 1: Getting Properly Pissed

This is the story of Harry Potter, wizard television personality and defeater of the dark Lord Voldemort. After his final confrontation with Voldemort, which occurred in the seventh and final year of his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and resulted in Voldemort's death, Harry was offered a television show on the failing Magical Airwaves wizard television network. The idea was invented by his best friend Ronald Weasley, who had received word of an opening of the 9:00pm time slot on the station and thought it would be a great way to make money. Potter was sold on the argument that the show would display him as the normal, intelligent wizard that he was.

The show turned out to be unexciting, consisting of an hour of four wizard panelists and Potter himself discussing the current affairs of the wizard world. However, despite all reasonable explanations the show was a hit for three years. On its fourth year, ratings began to slump, and on its fifth year the station began to lose advertisers, causing the imminent cancellation of the show, which was called "The Potter Hour," due to financial problems.

The crew and host of "The Potter Hour" were given two weeks' notice before the cancellation of the show. That night, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley went out on the town to relieve their anger. The two friends got properly pissed.

"It was when you and Hermione were kidnapped and being held hostage by Voldemort in our seventh year, remember? Of course you remember, Harry, you were being held captive!"

Harry was so drunk he found this hilarious.

"Anyway, without Hermione I was SOL, so I was tryin' my best to figure out for myself where you were exactly. It was a bitch trying to do it, though. Then finally, I figure it all out. He's got you held captive in Krallmower Tower! So I run over to Professor McGonagall, right, cuz I hadn't anyone else left to go to, and I says to her, I ask, 'I need to get to Krallmower Tower!' And she looks at me, and she's got that scared look in her eyes, and she says 'Don't do it! You're a young wizard, you've got your whole life ahead of you!'"

Of course, this joke hadn't made the slightest of sense, but the two had loads of alcohol in them, and laughed aloud, for they didn't know any better.

~

"Give us another round!"

"On the house, sir!" The bartender flung his towel over his shoulder and took Harry and Ron's drinks. They had found themselves in another high-class bar.

"So, Harry, like I was sayin'... What the show needs is more exploitation. We need more skinny little orphan kids with shite lives so we can exploit the little buggers to hell!"

Harry didn't respond. He was lost in the tiny little bubbles sliding slowly up the side of the glass...

"'s the only reason why people ever watched your show. I mean no offence Harry but your show was crap! Who the hell wants to watch a bunch of boring wizards sitting around talking about current affairs? Hadn't all the interesting stuff gone away when you offed Voldemort?"

...After Hogwarts, Harry had found his list of true friends growing thin. Most of his classmates went their own way, and started their own careers that would take them far away from the media hell he was living in right now. Ron and Hermione were getting too involved in the show (and each other) to ever show interest in him. Sirius was off doing work for the Ministry of Magic ever since his name got cleared. Oh, and there was that stupid, annoying wench Ginny, who was always tailing him around wherever he went. He had to let her move into his house and sleep in his bed, otherwise she'd go crying to her brothers (who were all making more money now than Ginny would her entire gold digging career) and have them all hit him with the worst hexes you could pull on a guy... Didn't she have anything to do other than worship him mindlessly?

"I was telling Hermione, we should have like a segment, or an hour, or maybe even weekly TV movies dedicated to these fucked up little kids. We could become the FUK Network - the Fucked Up Kids Network! Bloody brilliant, I say!"

The only true solace Harry could find after Hogwarts, or actually, after Professor Dumbledore died, was in alcohol, a friend he found at the age of 17. He loved it, for alcohol didn't expect him to defeat Lord Voldemort and would be there whether he was defeated or not. Alcohol didn't worship him. Alcohol didn't make false assumptions on him just because it was jealous or scared. Alcohol wouldn't give up on him just because audiences didn't care for fucked up little kids anymore. All alcohol wanted was for him to drink it and work its magic inside his tormented body.

He looked down again at the glass to examine the bubbles but found they had gone - In his self pity, and Ron's mindless blabber, had he drunk it all. He felt good...

"Harry! I have a feeling you weren't paying the slightest attention to me!"

"Sorry, I'm afraid I wasn't..."

To be continued.