Crossover
Harry Potter/Good Omens crossover in which Pepper and Ginny find themselves trecking across central Asia in order to free two friends and a certain relative following a slight 'misunderstanding' with the law.
The sight of two very annoyed, red-haired women stalking their way across northern Mongolia with a dented broomstick in tow is not a particularly common sight. Yet, crossing northern Mongolia with the aid of an extremely worn specimen of magical transport, two young red-haired women ostensibly were; and ‘very annoyed’ was quite possibly the understatement of the year.
“I still can’t believe it,” said Ginny, checking the map again. “I mean, what could have possessed Ron to think that going for a swim in an international magical landmark was a good idea?”
“I think,” said Pepper, who was walking beside her and wearing an expression of equal irritation, “that he might have been hanging around Brian a bit too long. I told you about the time he decided to streak across the university campus on the day of the Archbishop of Manchester’s visit, after one too many glasses of absinth, didn’t I?”
“I don’t think Ron’s any better. He started experimenting with fairy dust and centaur snuff when Hermione told him that she’d finally decided that a life of celibacy and campaigning for House Elf Rights was definitely for her.” Ginny fumbled around in her coat pocket for a few moments, trying to extricate the enchanted compass she’d obtained from a nautical themed shop in Hogsmeade’s new magical mall The Consumimancy Centre*, which always pointed in the direction of wherever it was that you wanted to go**. “Ah, here it is,” she said as it finally pulled free, “By the look of things we need to go four more miles in this direction.” She waved her hand in an eastwards direction.
Pepper heaved a disgruntled sigh, they’d already been walking for several hours Ginny’s attempt to transfigure the other woman’s expensive and stylish walking boots into walking boots that could actually handle long distance hiking hadn’t worked as well as they’d hoped. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t get there on your broomstick.”
“There’s a ten mile no fly zone around the prison. If you’re detected within range they’ll send a flock of specially trained day-vision bats after you. It’s a pity your friend Adam couldn’t come; he could have just wished us here.”
“He’s gone to see his father, not Mr. Young, the other one. Apparently, they’re trying to have a less confrontational and more communicative relationship. Besides, he doesn’t really like using his powers, even for sensible things like getting Brian, Wensley and Ron out jail; says it always feels like too much messing about.”
Ginny considered this. Since first encountering the Them, shortly after Adam turned up at the offices of The Quibbler to helpfully point out to Luna and her grandfather that their article on the Rising of the Antichrist had one or two factual errors, she’d formed the impression that the Son of Satan would be much happier if the forces of good and evil would just let him get on with life as a normal muggle university graduate. “So are you and he, well, you know, going out together?”
Pepper shrugged. “I suppose we are. Well, sort of, in a way. It’s more like we’re living together and sleeping exclusively with each other, but not calling it a relationship. What about you, still seeing the guy with the messy hair and lightning scar.”
“What, Harry? No, not any more.” She felt a pang of sadness, but it was far milder than the feelings of abject disappointment she’d experienced four months earlier, when she’d broken off the relationship. “I realised it wasn’t working when he started muttering Malfoy’s name in his sleep.”
“Malfoy, isn’t he the one that….”
“Ran away in terror when you looked threateningly at him, yes that’s the one. Anyway, after things had finished with Harry I somehow ended up having a brief re-bound relationship with Blaise Zabini, with that one though I think half of it was probably me just trying to annoy my mother.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “Trying to annoy your mother? But you’re twenty-two years old.”
“I know, but she just wouldn’t stop asking me when I was finally going to settle down with a nice wizard.”
“I tried to rebel against my mother once: joined the Young Conservatives and the Corporate Leaders of the Future Society for three weeks. It didn’t work; she just told me that however much she might disagree with my newfound political beliefs she respected my right to express them.”
Pepper’s mother, Ginny decided, clearly knew a few things about that reverse psychology thing Hermione sometimes talked about.
“So you dumped this Blaise person in the end then?”
“I had to. I mean I knew already that he was vain, arrogant and elitist - and they’re just some of the reasons mum hated him - but he just went weird.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, it all started when he made friends with this guy called Anthony. And he went, almost overnight, from being a pureblood snob who wouldn’t touch anything reeking of muggle influence with a ten foot wand, to wearing dark glasses and declaring that he was going to start the magical worlds first advertising empire. It was almost like some kind of deranged hero worship.”
“Advertising! Ugh, I can see why you ditched him,” said Pepper, pulling a face. “Anyway, where’s this prison place supposed to be. There’s nothing for about twenty miles but grassland.”
“Oh, you can’t actually see it until you’re within one hundred metres of the place.”
It took Pepper and Ginny two hours more of walking in the direction that the compass pointed, before they reached the general area where central Asia’s main holding centre for petty criminals was supposed to be located.
As the air shifted and a gigantic, windowless tower of a structure materialised in the Steppe a strange and completely uncharacteristic look of confusion settled on Pepper’s face. “Ginny, I need to nip back home.”
“What?”
“It’s just, I think I forgot to switch the lights off before we went.”
“Look, it’s just an anti-muggle charm. You didn’t really leave the lights on, or at least if you did it’s not important enough to go back for now***. The disorientation should pass in a few minutes. In the meantime, chew on one of these.” From her other coat pocket Pepper pulled what looked to be two pieces of red-coloured bubble gum.”
“No thanks, I don’t really like the stuff,” said Pepper, trying to contend with the expression of vacancy that seemed intent on trying to impose itself on her face.
“It’s not ordinary bubble gum,” explained Ginny. “It’s decipherabubble. It translates anything you say into the language of the person you’re talking to.”
Pepper blinked as the befuddlement charm ceased to have any effect and took the slightly dusty looking sweet. “And how will we know what they’re saying?”
“We’ve just got to hope that they’ve got some too.”
“Ugh, it’s disgusting,” said Pepper, at once looking as though she was in serious danger of being violently sick.
Ginny tentatively put the other piece in her mouth. “Blood flavoured,” she said, resisting the urge to spit it out. “I thought it was cherry.”
“It’s not one of your brothers’ projects that still in the testing stage, is it?”
“Oh no, this one doesn’t cause anybody to levitate to high altitudes,” replied Ginny, recalling the still rather vivid incident involving Brian and an enchanted cigarette that George had accidentally left lying about. Fortunately on this occasion Adam had intervened; saving Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes from what would have been a highly embarrassing brush with the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, in which they would have had to explain why they’d let a highly inebriated muggle sample their goods.
The ‘Visitors Entrance’ was a purple door on the western face of the tower, which led into a cavernous, yet cheerfully decorated, waiting area. It seemed rather incongruous with the buildings exterior.
“It doesn’t seem to be very well guarded,” said Pepper, nodding at the man standing by the entrance; who appeared to be the only person in sight wearing a security uniform.
“Oh, it’ll all be automated these days. One suspicious thought picked up by the dark detectors and they’ll send in the trolls.”
“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” said Pepper, as they joined the queue at the releases desk?
“Not long,” said Ginny confidently. “There are only three other people in front of us.”
In the grand tradition of beaurocracies everywhere however it took over two hours for the woman in front of them to obtain the release of her daughter, owing to a series of clerical mix-ups with name, age and planet of origin.
“We’re here to collect some friends of ours,” said Ginny to the bored looking wizard behind the desk.
“Name,” he asked, in a monotone voice.
“Theirs or ours?” asked Pepper.
“Theirs,” replied the wizard, clearly not one for superfluous words.
“Ronald Weasley, Jeremy Wensleydale and Brian…er, what’s Brian’s second name Pepper?”
“Jones.”
“And Brian Jones.”
The wizard half-heartedly waved his wand and a sheet of parchment removed itself from one of the desk draws. “Between them,” he said, glancing at the document, “they were convicted of vandalism, trespassing, destruction of property and public indecency. The fine will be six hundred and twenty-eight galleons, seven sickles and two knuts.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “Six hundred galleons?”
“And seven sickles and two knuts,” added the wizard.
“You do take cheques from Gringotts don’t you?”
“There’s a ten galleon surcharge on this method of payment.”
For a moment Ginny fought the urge to launch in to a prolonged and possibly violent rant that would get both her and Pepper sent directly to the upper floors of the prison. “Fine,” she snapped, with as much restraint as she could muster.
After a prolonged period of disagreement as to whether Wensleydale had been mistakenly admitted under the wrong species (Ginny and Pepper remained defiant that there was no possible way that he could be legally classified as a Centaur), the wizard waved his want once more. In a flash of blue light a distressed-looking Wensleydale, an inanely giggling Ron and an ecstatically sighing Brian materialised before them.
“What happened to those two?” demanded Ginny on seeing the current behavioural state of her brother and his friend.
Wensleydale sighed in the manner of the long suffering everywhere. “I think that they’ve succeeded in proving once and for all that magic and magic mushrooms just don’t mix.”
“Ginny,” said Pepper, her expression going from annoyance to determination. “Does that St. Mungo’s place you were talking about have a substance misuse rehabilitation centre?”
Ron ceased giggling and went very pale. “Not there,” he said, sounding terrified. “Mum’ll kill me if she finds out.”
“Ron,” said Ginny, “she already knows.”
Later, everybody would agree that fainting there and then was a slight overreaction on Ron's part.
*Owned by the Parkinson family, suggested and designed by one AJ Crowley[1].
[1] With great care taken to ensure that the exorbitant rents would ensure a 700% mark-up on most goods, that the lavatories were located in the most inconvenient and difficult to locate positions possible and that nothing resembling charm and/or character could reside therein. It had been, needless to say, an instant success.
**Which isn’t quite as useful as it sounds if the most direct root to your destination passes through a mine field or Snorkack breeding ground.
***Ginny may have changed her mind on this point were she to have discovered how much the average British muggle electricity bill actually cost.
The sight of two very annoyed, red-haired women stalking their way across northern Mongolia with a dented broomstick in tow is not a particularly common sight. Yet, crossing northern Mongolia with the aid of an extremely worn specimen of magical transport, two young red-haired women ostensibly were; and ‘very annoyed’ was quite possibly the understatement of the year.
“I still can’t believe it,” said Ginny, checking the map again. “I mean, what could have possessed Ron to think that going for a swim in an international magical landmark was a good idea?”
“I think,” said Pepper, who was walking beside her and wearing an expression of equal irritation, “that he might have been hanging around Brian a bit too long. I told you about the time he decided to streak across the university campus on the day of the Archbishop of Manchester’s visit, after one too many glasses of absinth, didn’t I?”
“I don’t think Ron’s any better. He started experimenting with fairy dust and centaur snuff when Hermione told him that she’d finally decided that a life of celibacy and campaigning for House Elf Rights was definitely for her.” Ginny fumbled around in her coat pocket for a few moments, trying to extricate the enchanted compass she’d obtained from a nautical themed shop in Hogsmeade’s new magical mall The Consumimancy Centre*, which always pointed in the direction of wherever it was that you wanted to go**. “Ah, here it is,” she said as it finally pulled free, “By the look of things we need to go four more miles in this direction.” She waved her hand in an eastwards direction.
Pepper heaved a disgruntled sigh, they’d already been walking for several hours Ginny’s attempt to transfigure the other woman’s expensive and stylish walking boots into walking boots that could actually handle long distance hiking hadn’t worked as well as they’d hoped. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t get there on your broomstick.”
“There’s a ten mile no fly zone around the prison. If you’re detected within range they’ll send a flock of specially trained day-vision bats after you. It’s a pity your friend Adam couldn’t come; he could have just wished us here.”
“He’s gone to see his father, not Mr. Young, the other one. Apparently, they’re trying to have a less confrontational and more communicative relationship. Besides, he doesn’t really like using his powers, even for sensible things like getting Brian, Wensley and Ron out jail; says it always feels like too much messing about.”
Ginny considered this. Since first encountering the Them, shortly after Adam turned up at the offices of The Quibbler to helpfully point out to Luna and her grandfather that their article on the Rising of the Antichrist had one or two factual errors, she’d formed the impression that the Son of Satan would be much happier if the forces of good and evil would just let him get on with life as a normal muggle university graduate. “So are you and he, well, you know, going out together?”
Pepper shrugged. “I suppose we are. Well, sort of, in a way. It’s more like we’re living together and sleeping exclusively with each other, but not calling it a relationship. What about you, still seeing the guy with the messy hair and lightning scar.”
“What, Harry? No, not any more.” She felt a pang of sadness, but it was far milder than the feelings of abject disappointment she’d experienced four months earlier, when she’d broken off the relationship. “I realised it wasn’t working when he started muttering Malfoy’s name in his sleep.”
“Malfoy, isn’t he the one that….”
“Ran away in terror when you looked threateningly at him, yes that’s the one. Anyway, after things had finished with Harry I somehow ended up having a brief re-bound relationship with Blaise Zabini, with that one though I think half of it was probably me just trying to annoy my mother.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “Trying to annoy your mother? But you’re twenty-two years old.”
“I know, but she just wouldn’t stop asking me when I was finally going to settle down with a nice wizard.”
“I tried to rebel against my mother once: joined the Young Conservatives and the Corporate Leaders of the Future Society for three weeks. It didn’t work; she just told me that however much she might disagree with my newfound political beliefs she respected my right to express them.”
Pepper’s mother, Ginny decided, clearly knew a few things about that reverse psychology thing Hermione sometimes talked about.
“So you dumped this Blaise person in the end then?”
“I had to. I mean I knew already that he was vain, arrogant and elitist - and they’re just some of the reasons mum hated him - but he just went weird.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, it all started when he made friends with this guy called Anthony. And he went, almost overnight, from being a pureblood snob who wouldn’t touch anything reeking of muggle influence with a ten foot wand, to wearing dark glasses and declaring that he was going to start the magical worlds first advertising empire. It was almost like some kind of deranged hero worship.”
“Advertising! Ugh, I can see why you ditched him,” said Pepper, pulling a face. “Anyway, where’s this prison place supposed to be. There’s nothing for about twenty miles but grassland.”
“Oh, you can’t actually see it until you’re within one hundred metres of the place.”
It took Pepper and Ginny two hours more of walking in the direction that the compass pointed, before they reached the general area where central Asia’s main holding centre for petty criminals was supposed to be located.
As the air shifted and a gigantic, windowless tower of a structure materialised in the Steppe a strange and completely uncharacteristic look of confusion settled on Pepper’s face. “Ginny, I need to nip back home.”
“What?”
“It’s just, I think I forgot to switch the lights off before we went.”
“Look, it’s just an anti-muggle charm. You didn’t really leave the lights on, or at least if you did it’s not important enough to go back for now***. The disorientation should pass in a few minutes. In the meantime, chew on one of these.” From her other coat pocket Pepper pulled what looked to be two pieces of red-coloured bubble gum.”
“No thanks, I don’t really like the stuff,” said Pepper, trying to contend with the expression of vacancy that seemed intent on trying to impose itself on her face.
“It’s not ordinary bubble gum,” explained Ginny. “It’s decipherabubble. It translates anything you say into the language of the person you’re talking to.”
Pepper blinked as the befuddlement charm ceased to have any effect and took the slightly dusty looking sweet. “And how will we know what they’re saying?”
“We’ve just got to hope that they’ve got some too.”
“Ugh, it’s disgusting,” said Pepper, at once looking as though she was in serious danger of being violently sick.
Ginny tentatively put the other piece in her mouth. “Blood flavoured,” she said, resisting the urge to spit it out. “I thought it was cherry.”
“It’s not one of your brothers’ projects that still in the testing stage, is it?”
“Oh no, this one doesn’t cause anybody to levitate to high altitudes,” replied Ginny, recalling the still rather vivid incident involving Brian and an enchanted cigarette that George had accidentally left lying about. Fortunately on this occasion Adam had intervened; saving Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes from what would have been a highly embarrassing brush with the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, in which they would have had to explain why they’d let a highly inebriated muggle sample their goods.
The ‘Visitors Entrance’ was a purple door on the western face of the tower, which led into a cavernous, yet cheerfully decorated, waiting area. It seemed rather incongruous with the buildings exterior.
“It doesn’t seem to be very well guarded,” said Pepper, nodding at the man standing by the entrance; who appeared to be the only person in sight wearing a security uniform.
“Oh, it’ll all be automated these days. One suspicious thought picked up by the dark detectors and they’ll send in the trolls.”
“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” said Pepper, as they joined the queue at the releases desk?
“Not long,” said Ginny confidently. “There are only three other people in front of us.”
In the grand tradition of beaurocracies everywhere however it took over two hours for the woman in front of them to obtain the release of her daughter, owing to a series of clerical mix-ups with name, age and planet of origin.
“We’re here to collect some friends of ours,” said Ginny to the bored looking wizard behind the desk.
“Name,” he asked, in a monotone voice.
“Theirs or ours?” asked Pepper.
“Theirs,” replied the wizard, clearly not one for superfluous words.
“Ronald Weasley, Jeremy Wensleydale and Brian…er, what’s Brian’s second name Pepper?”
“Jones.”
“And Brian Jones.”
The wizard half-heartedly waved his wand and a sheet of parchment removed itself from one of the desk draws. “Between them,” he said, glancing at the document, “they were convicted of vandalism, trespassing, destruction of property and public indecency. The fine will be six hundred and twenty-eight galleons, seven sickles and two knuts.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “Six hundred galleons?”
“And seven sickles and two knuts,” added the wizard.
“You do take cheques from Gringotts don’t you?”
“There’s a ten galleon surcharge on this method of payment.”
For a moment Ginny fought the urge to launch in to a prolonged and possibly violent rant that would get both her and Pepper sent directly to the upper floors of the prison. “Fine,” she snapped, with as much restraint as she could muster.
After a prolonged period of disagreement as to whether Wensleydale had been mistakenly admitted under the wrong species (Ginny and Pepper remained defiant that there was no possible way that he could be legally classified as a Centaur), the wizard waved his want once more. In a flash of blue light a distressed-looking Wensleydale, an inanely giggling Ron and an ecstatically sighing Brian materialised before them.
“What happened to those two?” demanded Ginny on seeing the current behavioural state of her brother and his friend.
Wensleydale sighed in the manner of the long suffering everywhere. “I think that they’ve succeeded in proving once and for all that magic and magic mushrooms just don’t mix.”
“Ginny,” said Pepper, her expression going from annoyance to determination. “Does that St. Mungo’s place you were talking about have a substance misuse rehabilitation centre?”
Ron ceased giggling and went very pale. “Not there,” he said, sounding terrified. “Mum’ll kill me if she finds out.”
“Ron,” said Ginny, “she already knows.”
Later, everybody would agree that fainting there and then was a slight overreaction on Ron's part.
*Owned by the Parkinson family, suggested and designed by one AJ Crowley[1].
[1] With great care taken to ensure that the exorbitant rents would ensure a 700% mark-up on most goods, that the lavatories were located in the most inconvenient and difficult to locate positions possible and that nothing resembling charm and/or character could reside therein. It had been, needless to say, an instant success.
**Which isn’t quite as useful as it sounds if the most direct root to your destination passes through a mine field or Snorkack breeding ground.
***Ginny may have changed her mind on this point were she to have discovered how much the average British muggle electricity bill actually cost.