The Potter Hour

Chapter 2: The Suicide Threat

The lights blazed down on the set, making even the tiniest detail visible. Susan Bones liked it this way, because she could bark orders from the control room without having to go down there and talk to those people in person. This job was a miracle that she had jumped onto only because she felt obligated to help Harry out. He was a victim of Voldemort's evil rein, just like her. The Bones had also been attacked by Voldemort when he was in power, and because of that she felt a deep affinity with others whose lives had been damaged because of Voldemort. The television show, as she saw it, would be a way for her to reach out to all the victims out there who needed emotional support.

Quickly it came to her attention that after Voldemort had been defeated none of her intended audience actually cared anymore to hear about Voldemort and guessed correctly that they wouldn't want to have Harry Potter reading some syrupy offer of support. So, she reinvented herself into a backstage overlord, taking her bitterness on the poor stage hands on the set who couldn't aim their wands at a couch properly. She was so busy barking orders at the scrambling crew members about the flaws on the set that she failed to see the unhappy scowl on Harry's face at the moment.

Ron stood expressionless in the back, his arms folded over his chest. He was director and producer, yes, but ever since Susan ceased her silly therapeutic campaign he had let her tear up the production like the mad witch she was becoming. Harry's ever-present scowl was also overlooked by Ron, though Ron was not looking at anything in particular.

Hermione had just come out of a small department meeting in which she had enthusiastically pushed the idea of exploitation. But not fucked up kid exploitation. Ron was wrong about that one. Nobody watched Harry's show because his parents were dead, or because he had the worst social life of anyone she had known at Hogwarts, but because he had, at age 1, and age 11, 12, and so on, defeated Lord Voldemort. What she wanted to exploit were the small cells of radical militant wizards who were currently kidnapping the heirs of wealthy wizard families, putting them under the Imperius Curse and making them participate in the various acts of non-terrifying terrorism used to push their cause and make money off of ransom. They'd make a great reality comedy series.

One cell in particular had given her a video with footage of them kidnapping her former classmate Draco Malfoy. This made her laugh: Draco had never been much of a wizard. He was too busy boasting about his heritage and his wealth to make up for his lack of brain and magical power to notice much of anything else. He also wasn't an heir - Both his parents had been killed and he was living fat off their money. The kidnapping, it appeared, was quite easy - Malfoy was sitting around with a surly lot bragging about his nonexistent achievements in Hogwarts when witches dressed in flowery tops and bell bottoms leapt from the bushes, performed a full body lock curse and stuffed him into a burlap bag, all before the slightly shocked eyes of Draco's semi-interested audience. They'd left an address in the package, too.

Now she had found her way to her sparsely decorated office which overlooked the bustling wizard community below. It was evening; the moon was slowly rising over the building just beyond the window. She turned on the TV, which was a rectangle placed in the center of the wall opposite the east window. "The Potter Hour" had just started. Harry was sitting with a group of talkative wizards and witches who all sat in their seats with a slight slouch. They were discussing new dragon taming methods. Harry looked 100% disinterested. Hermione was, too; she was poking the remnants of the Chinese food she had ordered while in London earlier that day.

Harry watched the clock. The lights were far too bright, as usual, and he was trying his best not to squint. The four panelists were in heated discussion, arguing whether or not certain curses and potions would work for taming Norwegian Ridgebacks, and not letting him get a single word in. Not that he wanted to say anything, of course. The entire conversation was considerably dull. But he wanted it to go on forever, he wanted time to stretch until it would take at least a year to get to 9:50, the very time where he would have to announce the show's cancellation...

Why had he dreaded it so? "The Potter Hour" was of no substance to him. It only gave him more money, and he already had plenty of that sitting in Gringotts before he made this little show. The show was crap, like Ron had said before. He never really gave a hoot what was going on in the wizard world, considering that he'd banished all the interesting stuff anyway when he decided, reluctantly, to play hero.

But for some reason he loved this show. For some odd reason he looked forward coming to the studio day after day, sometimes quite drunk, and listening to four losers talk about things that were of no matter to him. Besides drinking it was the only activity of his where he was not required to do much of anything outside of sitting and staring. He didn't have to save the world, he didn't have to love someone, and all he had to do was greet the audience, introduce the panelists and sit there for the rest of the hour. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes the discussions got interesting, particularly when they were on the subject of Quidditch...

...9:50. He saw Susan standing at the control room window counting down the seconds until he was on the air. The panelists had stopped talking minutes ago, though he could still hear a few forceful murmurs during the commercial break. The music played. The cameras closed in on him. Susan gave him the signal to start...

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I have a special announcement to make. Due to the recent ratings slip and the unfortunate loss of advertisers, Magical Airwaves have been forced to cancel The Potter Hour."

Harry paused for a moment and bit his lip. There was something bubbling up inside of him that he couldn't ignore...

"The Potter Hour was one of the network's most popular shows..."

...a sense of malicious rage, a sheer lack of caring...

"...one of the network's most important shows, where wizards and witches across the country could tune in to hear intelligent conversation on the current affairs of the magical world..."

He bit his lip again, then sighed deeply...

"...and so, since this show was the only thing left going for me, and that's not saying much, I've decided to kill myself... On the air."

Ron's arms had fallen limply to his side and his jaw was making a race to the floor. Susan Bones's head whisked up towards the monitors. Ron could see her face had turned scarlet and a vein was popping out of her forehead.

Hermione had raised an eyebrow and was holding back a smile...

"The Potter Hour will be going off the air two weeks from now and I intend to go out with a bang. So, if you tune in for our last episode you will finally see the famous and invincible Harry Potter succumb to an early death, like he was supposed to. Good night all."

Susan erupted. Ron, and others in the control room, ducked to avoid the sparks emitting from her wand as she waved it in the air with rage.

Down on the set, the four panelists looked at Harry in shock. Harry had broken into a sweat that did not match his blank expression. It did not change when Susan's lividly red face shone through the control room windows.

"HARRY! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING ANNOUNCING YOUR 'SUICIDE' ON THE AIR?!?! DO YOU THINK THIS IS SOME KIND OF JOKE? A RATINGS TRICK? DO YOU THINK WE'RE SUPPOSED TO PITY YOU?!?! WELL?!?!"

Harry didn't answer.

Hermione, on the other hand, had an expression far more animated than Harry's.

"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!" She grabbed her cloak and scampered down to the studio, just as Ron was making his way out to talk to Harry. Susan was too busy fuming to say anything else.

"Harry, c'mon, what is this? Are you joking? You know we wouldn't let you commit suicide on the air... People are still too sensitive to violence."

Harry looked Ron in the eyes and felt Ron's hand rested on his back in a gesture of false interest.

"It's OK, Ron... I'm ok..." He got up and walked off the set.

To be continued.