KEY POINTS:
With publication of the final (stupendously successful) Harry Potter book just a day away, Outer Roa's leading literary figures are demanding "massive gummint funding" to produce a local equivalent. "We must tell our own stories, plant our own kumaras and pay our own artists - especially the mediocre
ones - huge amounts of money," says Auckland City's new Carbon Neutrality Advocate and Cultural Ambassador, Miss Gwendolyn Absinthe. "We need an indigenous Harry and who better to tell his tale than the extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins?"
"I couldn't have put it better myself!" beamed the immoral bard.
Now read on ...
HEMI POTTER AND THE BOLLARDS OF DOOM
CHAPTER ONE
With his voice deepening and unfamiliar urges having a strange effect on his trousers, Hemi Potter had enough to worry about without being gripped by an eerie presentiment of imminent doom.
Yet gripped he was - and in a vicelike manor. "What is this place? Why am I here?" murmured the boy wizard, surveying the abandoned, cobwebbed workshop.
Alas, the empty premises offered no clue, other than a small sign on the wall - To Lease - Contact Mr F Paykel (Victim of Silly Muggle Policies) Bangkok.
"I don't understand," thought Hemi, his perplexitude interrupted by a ghastly, ghostly laugh bouncing off the rain-sodden walls.
"Voldemort!!!!* " he gasped.
"Yes! Voldemort," whispered Yobby,** the State House elf, who'd been hiding in the shadows.
Having successfully avoiding eviction at a Tenancy Tribunal hearing, Yobby now followed Hemi everywhere; sometimes alone, sometimes with other members of his socially-deprived yoof gang.
"I seen dat mofo, Voldemort, putting an Unforgivable Curse on you, bro," Yobby explained. "So I, like, followed youse, man, in case da cops was, like, violating your rights." He paused. "Hey, now we're here, let's trash the place!"
But Hemi wasn't listening. The presentiment of doom had gripped him again.
"So, Voldemort," he muttered. "We meet again. But this time only one of us will survive. Someone's got to die and you're the one who will, vile Lord of Darkness. I'll make sure of that!!!!"
"Better do it before they lower the age of criminal responsibility," quipped Yobby, who seemed to know what he was talking about.
CHAPTER TWO
Things were getting tough at Hogwash, the legendary school for political wizards. Everything had turned to custard, including the Deathly Hollows as Oldus Bumblemore*** had started calling the poll results.
If only Hemi's best friend, that mischievous John Keysley**** had decided to cast a few spells of his own.
Alas, more familiar with exchanging currencies than magical properties, young John got his incantations utterly confused. Inside of chanting Ferd turdium defartum - which have made all cow manure carbon neutral - the silly boy had actually yelled Ferd termium defeatum and it had been all downhill from there - especially at Kaeo. Oldus Bumblemore was worried.
"What are we going to do, great Fiscal Impotence?" whimpered the hapless Drevo Samuels*****.
"Well, I can over-rule Voldemort!!!" yelled Bumblemore.
"You can play Quittich!!!"
"How do you play that?" asked Drevo.
"You get out of parliament as fast as you can to make way for someone younger and sexier so I can keep my job," roared Bumblemore. "Now p*** off!!!!!"
In a trice, Drevo was out in the corridor, doing as he was told.
CHAPTER THREE
Hell's bells, thought the extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins. We're running out of room. I'd better wrap this up quickly.
"We're doomed," sobbed Bumblemore. "Doomed!!! If these poll results continue well be annihilated at the next election. There's no way we'll even slitherin!!" (Boom! Boom!)
"Oh, pull yourself together, you fool!!!" hissed Professor Snip.****** "I've got a plan!!!" She paused. "I'm going to move all our problem areas to a much safer place ... "
"You mean, like Northland?" sniffed Bumblemore.
"No, Oldus!!!" snapped Snip. "The problem areas I'm thinking of are the ones that like John Keysley. To make sure they don't vote for him, I'm relocating them to Australia!!!"
"I think a lot of them already have," mumbled Bumblemore.
"Fetch Potter immediately!!!!!" Snip ordered, ignoring the remark. "He can cast the necessary spells!!!!"
CHAPTER FOUR
Hemi Potter stooped gingerly, his body still aching, and lifted the pile of rope at his feet.
"My darling," he said to Hermione, finally understanding the strange urge he'd encountered in Chapter 1, "now that I've moved all John Keysleys fans to the Hone Harawira Re-education Centre in a remote aboriginal community and slain the evil Voldemort after a titanic battle at Hogwash, thus preventing the horror of another Interest Rate rise, let's take all these loose ends ... " he grasped the tangled ropes ... "and tie the knot!!!"
"Oh, Hemi," sobbed the gorgeous Grainger, "you are my hero!!!!!!"
* Officially, The Governor of the Reserve Bank
** Called Dobby in the culturally inappropriate foreign original
*** Usually described as the Minister of Finance or "Sir" to his friends
**** Previously Ron Weasley
***** Draco Malfoy's love child
****** She who must be obeyed. Also called Luna Lovegood and, sometimes, very occasionally, Hagrid (but only by Rodney Hide, who is himself best known as Hufflepuff)