Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks Chapter 1, a harry potter fanfic

PLEASE READ THIS PRESCRIPT.

There are some things I'd like you to accept before you read this work of fanfiction.

1) This is a severe alternate universe fanfiction, and it's not just a 'one-change' alternate universe. If you actively dislike that kind of thing, you're best to go read something you'll actually enjoy.

2) This thing is complicated. That's intentional, I like complicated stories. It's also at least trying to be humorous, but the humour is pretty dark at times and things get quite nasty in places. Just thought I'd say.

3) I am not a populist fanfiction author. I couldn't be a populist fanfiction author if I tried, because I'd get bored in a very short time. This won't be everyone's piece of cake, but you know the saying – you can please most of the people most of the time, or some of the people all of the time. I'm writing for myself, and I'm sharing in case any of you folks out there enjoy it.

4) Things that are different to the canon are intentionally changed, for example Hagrid's name, and Diagon Alley becoming Daigon Alley to get rid of the bad pun, and the same goes for the characterisation. They're acting differently from how they would in the canon because I've intentionally changed them. Different personalities respond to stimuli in different ways, and if you change someone's personality, having them react as if it was unchanged would be unrealistic.

5) The Harry herein is not a nice person. He's what you get if you let a fat sicko treat an innocent little boy like a rabid dog for fifteen years then send what's left to fight in a war that makes Vietnam look like Sesame Street; the poor guy could easily out-snapped John Rambo, and he's almost as paranoid as Alastor Moody. Dark? Yes. Evil? Could be. But don't ever question his honour, and he'll only kill you if he's getting paid – or you pissed him off…

And 6) If you like this fanfic, great. If not, that's fine too, but do yourself a favour if I'm really crawling up your arse that much and go click the little back button in your browser. Don't bother flaming me – I'll completely ignore you.

Still with me? Cool; welcome aboard.

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This ain't no self-insert fic.

This ain't no slash fic neither.

This is Top Dog.

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On the southeast fringe of the Rahavi'therata galaxy, there is an insignificant-looking little star system known to the universe as Tars Sahal'dat (the Imperial Star) and known by many of its inhabitants as Sol; as per usual, Sol pretty much means 'sun' in one of the local languages. Like most inhabited systems, it's been called a few other things in it's time; unlike many of them, its sole inhabitable planet goes by a rather unprepossessing name that just means ground.

That name is Earth.

Two hundred thousand years ago, Earth's nearest neighbour, the planet now called Venus, was the hub of the most powerful empire the galaxy has ever known; that empire is long gone, washed away by the fires of the never-ending wars that plague the universe.

More recently, up until about seventy-nine thousand years ago (a mere tick of the clock in galactic terms) Earth played host to an empire that called itself the Hardak Dynasty; like the Atlanteans, the Hardaks fell to war, leaving only a few remnants of their once-mighty nation.

The beginning of the 1980's had two extremely interesting events for Earth. First there came what was later called 'The Great Yodel', on August 12th 1980, now regarded as the 'loudest' psychic event in recorded history. The psionics shout, sounding like the cry of a baby, was heard over sixty thousand light years from its source; the town called Bristol, in the island nation known as Great Britain. In the Tars Sahal'dat system, the Great Yodel is confirmed to have caused seventy-nine head explosions, fifty-six spontaneous combustions, and nearly a million sensory burnouts, and in fact the galaxy-wide casualties exceeded the population of the Tars Sahal'dat star system by a dozen times. One of the very few active Earther psychics who heard it and lived to tell the tale without going insane likened it to being hit in the ear with a battleship keelgun. He was lucky; his eyes exploded and let the pressure off before it could burst his skull.

Then on October 31st 1981 the notorious leader of the Death Eater terrorist gang, known by the pseudonym 'Lord Voldemort', was killed by a freak accident while firing a soul-eater spell at a baby boy named Harry Potter. Voldemort was known to be primarily responsible for over thirty-six billion deaths across in excess of seven hundred star systems, including atrocities such as the total depopulation of the planet Karukarasha, the destruction of the capacity-packed spaceliner LSS-1018 Flying Yak, and the wheelworld massacre at Rokolushu, in which the spaceliner ADK-21288 Thevas'tran was rammed into Rokolushu Orbital Band at a velocity well above half lightspeed. His death was celebrated across known space, and HM Auror Department officers performed sting operations against many known Death Eater safe houses over the coming months; however, less than a tenth of Voldemort's forces were ever apprehended.

Now it's 1996. Fifteen years have passed since the Voldemort Insurgency came to it's unscheduled end, and things are about to get interesting again.

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In the northwest of Scotland near to a town named Mallaig, there is a place that has stood the test of time like few others, outlasting even the Atlantean Empire.

That place – a mighty, stunningly ancient castle – has played host to the galaxy's greatest Collegium Arcanum for over a hundred thousand years. From all over the known universe, the best, brightest and most talented students come to Earth to learn the art of magic within the towering walls of that tremendous ancient fortress, which has been known by as many names as the world on which it stands.

But, for now, its name is Hogwarts.

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Disclaimer: I don't own the Potterverse, I'm just borrowing it.

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Top Dog: Enter the Fnords

Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.

A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic

Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace

Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH

This is not a drill.

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Chapter 1: In the beginning, there was the future.

(In which our heroine gets a new and sublime destiny)

Hermione Allison Granger, age sixteen, was having a conventional day.

She'd been out of bed at half past seven (on the dot) and downstairs to porridge sweetened with honey. From there, she'd done her work-out, checked her E-mail, and was now relaxing with some light reading in the form of Steven Hawkings 'A Brief History of Time', a book she was enjoying immensely.

As per usual, she was alone, but she didn't really give a shit; she had her Internet friends (many of them at places like Harvard and MIT), her parents, her sensei and her uncle. All of them, with the exception of said uncle, were highly intelligent and articulate people.

Her father, Jeff Granger, was a practising dentist. He was also a fairly well-known builder of customised motorbikes; he'd had bikes on the cover of Back Street Heroes three times, AWOL twice and Streetfighters once.

Her mother, Anne Granger (formerly Withers) was likewise a dentist and a biker, though she just rode the things; Anne's father had been the leader of one of Scotland's biggest bike gangs, and she'd ended up learning to ride and becoming at least vaguely interested just because.

Her sensei, Kaneda Sabusoru, was an authentic Japanese martial arts master, teaching karate; she'd taken up the study following a nasty experience that would have been a whole lot nastier if it wasn't for her uncle's biker gang.

Her uncle, Stanley 'Crazy Stan' Scott was basically a permanently stoned new age motorbike traveller, so essentially a hippy gyppo on a Harley-Davidson, making him the biggest anomaly in Hermione's life. He, along with many members of his gang, was also a former member of 22 Special Air Service. He was married to Anne Granger's twin sister Jenna.

Hermione was just finishing up reading the fifth chapter when her rumination on the nature of the universe suffered an unscheduled interruption in the form of the shattering roar of a V-twin engine.

Setting 'A Brief History of Time' down, she checked out the window; right enough, her uncle was just pulling up outside on his midnight blue Panhead chop.

The bike had an old car (a black Ford Cortina) following it.

"What the Hell?" Hermione muttered.

She watched bemusedly as Crazy Stan swung off his bike and led the Cortina's driver up the path; they made a distinctly mismatched duo. Crazy Stan was a large, heavyset and somewhat overweight bear-like man with a bushy beard and long scruffy mud brown hair; he was dressed in tie-die flares, a Flower Power T-shirt and mangled Wulfsport motocross boots. The person following him was a rail-thin elderly woman; her grey hair was tied back in an ultra-strict bun, and she was wearing a sombre, uber-conservative dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on a schoolmarm.

Crazy Stan had a most un-Stanlike expression on his face; oddly sombre, like someone about to relay extremely serious news. Not the someone-just-died type, the we're-now-at-war type.

Thinking that, Hermione went to answer the door.

"Hello, Uncle Stan. Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Like, no, squirt." Crazy Stan said. "It's just, like, heavy. This is like, Professor Minerva McGonagall. She needs to like, talk to you, dig?"

"C'mon in." Hermione said. "I'm afraid Dad's out, so no beer."

"That's cool." Stan told her. "Like, Prof, this is my like, sister-in-law's like, daughter. Like, squirt, the like, Professor's got a like, proposition for you."

"I can talk for myself, Stanley." McGonagall stated. "Miss Granger, I am here to represent the United Nations Security Council Collegium Arcanum Branch, as per the Treaty of Roswell Accord on Magic Usage and Education…"

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That name is Earth.

More recently, up until about fifty-four thousand years ago (a mere tick of the clock in galactic terms) Earth played host to an empire that called itself the Hardak Dynasty; like the Atlanteans, the Hardaks fell to war, leaving only a few remnants of their once-mighty nation.

Yet, in the northwest of a landmass called Scotland, there is a place that has stood the test of time like few others, outlasting even the Atlantean Empire.

But, for now, its name is Hogwarts.

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"So you're saying," Hermione said, "Aliens are in contact with the government, and you want me to learn magic? What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?"

"Squirt," Crazy Stan said, "You're like, too smart to be stupid, dig?"

Then he changed shape.

Simply put, Stanley Scott was a werewolf.

Now, on hearing that, most people would think something like 'Ooh Argh Ravening Beast Where's My Silver Bullet'. All of which is bullshit.

The whole silver thing? A piece of disinformation designed to make it look too expensive to go after weres.

Ravening beast? Another piece of disinformation, this one come up with by the Spanish Inquisition as an excuse to murder defenceless women and children.

Ooh Argh? Well, OK, a hybrid form werewolf stands around nine feet tall and is composed of nearly a quarter ton of bloody-minded muscle and bone. So maybe you've got a point there.

There's a whole load of other things one ought to know about werewolves, but all of them can wait for another time; we're currently concerned with poor Hermione, who was sat gobsmacked in her living room while trying to get her brain around the fact her weird spliffhead uncle had just turned into a wolfman the size of an estate car.

"!!!... !!!-!!!" she said.

"Like, something like that." The wolfman said, shrugging in a very Crazy Stan-like way as he lit up a spliff.

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"Okay, let me get this straight. You, Uncle Stan, are a werewolf, but that doesn't mean you go bonkers at the full moon. You, Mrs McGonagall, are a mage. Why the particular term?" Hermione checked.

"There are several forms of magic user." McGonagall said. "Firstly, you have the witch; the term is not gender specific. A witch derives his or her power from a symbiotic relationship with a more powerful being. Secondly, you have a wizard; once again, the term is not gender specific. A wizard derives his or her power from the manipulation of magical artefacts. Thirdly, you have an enchanter or enchantress; the terms are gender specific. An enchanter or enchantress weaves the power that naturally flows through the world into effects, known as spells. Fourthly, you have a mage, such as myself; once again, it is not a gender specific term. A mage is much like an enchanter, but a mage's aura produces a small amount of magical power independently of the environment. Fifth and last, you have the sorcerer or sorceress; the terms are gender specific, and both are incredibly rare. A sorcerer or sorceress does not use environmental power; he or she does not need to, because their aura generates more power than a Legendary-class ley-line nexus."

"… whatever that is." Hermione muttered.

"Like, you know what a like, nuclear power plant is, right?" Stan asked. She nodded, causing him to grin stonedly. "Well, a like, ley-line nexus isn't considered legendary unless it puts through something like as much power in a second as like, a nuclear reactor does in a like, century, dig?"

"So we're talking stellar-level power." Hermione mused. "Okay, so which type of magic user would I be?"

McGonagall smiled.

"A sorceress." She said. "It's quite fascinating; we have a bumper crop of sorcerous students this year. Four, would you believe it!"

"Whatever." Hermione muttered, filing that away under things she hadn't needed to hear. It presumably meant that firstly people were going to be getting in her face, and secondly they'd be treating her like she was dangerous. Not what she needed. "So, what's the organisation of this 'collegium' then?"

"Much like a mundane college." McGonagall told her, and went on to go in depth and give a few demonstrations and warnings.

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---Eighteen days later; Friday August 30th 1996---

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Considering the sheer quantity of stuff required for attendance to this oddball college, Hermione had to wonder why her uncle had insisted on her getting everything by mail order.

Apart from the trunk. That trunk was the really worrying part; Hermione was convinced that either whoever had made her trunk had read way too much Terry Pratchett, or Terry Pratchett had hung out with whoever had made her trunk way too much. Her uncle had turned up with it out of the blue.

Simply put, it was the Luggage, complete with bad attitude and habit of swallowing things then seeming to contain only Hermione's laundry; any article of clothing she put in there got washed and pressed, and the thing didn't come with a user manual. Fortunately it seemed to have an infinite interior; she'd loaded every book in her collection (over 75,000 volumes) and her motorbike (a Norton Commando chop) into it without problems, and it still had plenty of space left. Apparently. The amount of gubbins required for the Collegium beggared belief; when Crazy Stan's friend Jim Bollock had been explaining what it was all for they'd run out of flat surfaces in the Granger household living room.

Twice.

And to add to her headache, she hadn't had time to get stuck into reading the course work and 'extra reading' her uncle and his friends had prescribed. When it came down to it, she was at a dead loss as to what was going on.

They were currently proceeding down the street in the middle of London on Crazy Stan's Harley-Davidson with the Luggage in hot pursuit. This did of course attract a lot of attention but,

1, Crazy Stan was used to that and didn't give a shit,

2, the fact it was the Luggage meant people wrote it off as a publicity stunt. Seriously. People are kinda stupid like that.

And 3, what they were doing was against the law. The international one.

Especially since they weren't wearing helmets.

"This is insane!" Hermoine yelled for the umpteenth time.

"Like, chill out!" Crazy Stan yelled back, then silenced her by opening his bike up. As it was a Harley-Davidson Panhead with straight through pipes, this resulted in noise something like 'BrbrbrbrbrBRAAAAAAAAM shachak GROK krunk BRAAAAAAAAM!' that made talking completely useless. Considering Hermione was used to bikes that went 'Crob-crob crobba crob' (her Norton, her father's Enfield and her mother's BSA-Bantam) or 'BRAAANNNG' (the KTM off-road bikes owned by the boys next door) a bike that snorted and bellowed felt a bit weird, even after having ridden from Bristol to London on the back of the thing.

As Hermione was just thinking that, Crazy Stan hung a hard left into an multi-storey underground car park; he aimed the bike for the bottom layer. Hermione noted that each floor was more oddly empty than the last.

"Where are we going?" she yelled.

"Wait and like, see." Crazy Stan shouted back, then turned the last corner, revealing that instead of another floor they were now in a long arrow-straight tunnel that sloped gradually upwards.

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The bike roared out of the tunnel and into the sick orange glow of streetlights. Wherever they were, they'd gone from a clear sunny day to a muggy hot wet night, slick greasy rain oozing from a sky stained by the streetlights, tens of thousands of neon-lit adverts and the headlights of thousands of weird-ass cars, many of which lacked wheels. The pavements were thick with multiple people scurrying every which what way; the buildings along the side of the street bore rigid awnings that shielded the road from the never-ending torrent of filthy rain.

"How come it's dark?" Hermione yelled, feeling quite fucked-with.

"We're like, underground." Crazy Stan yelled back.

"Then how come it's raining?"

"Like, condensation condensing on the like, ceiling, dig? So it's like, raining sweat, dig?"

"That's disgusting."

"Isn't it!"

Shortly thereafter, Crazy Stan hove the bike to outside a covered arcade entrance and helped Hermione off; he then spent a few moments helping her wring the filthy water out of her hair.

"Okay, kiddo." He said. "That's the underground walkway to King's Cross station. You'll come out on Platform 9¾, it's called that because there's also a hard light hologram walkway connecting it to the wall three quarters of the way between the mundane platforms nine and ten. Anyway, just keep on straight ahead. The admittance letter is your ticket. Trust the Luggage, it's got a good sense of bad situations. If something gets messy enough, you can get out of there inside the Luggage. I'll see you in October."

Hermione nodded. "OK, Uncle Stan. I'll see you in the October break."

Stan nodded again, and his expression got more unnervingly serious.

"Listen, Hermione." He said. "You've got the mobile phone I gave you on you, haven't you? If you end up in a really bad situation, speed dial 1. That'll get you through to my lot, and we'll come bail you out. You cool with that?"

Hermione nodded again. Stan grinned, messed up her hair and said, "Well, like, get mobile then."

And with that, he kickstarted his Harley and headed back out into the stinking polluted condensation rain of Daigon Alley.

Hermione watched until the hog's twin Maltese-cross tail-lights had merged into the smear of light, then turned into the covered arcade and started walking, keeping a hand lightly rested on the Luggage's lid; the enchanted trunk seemingly sensed her disquietude, as it kept hard beside her and growled at anyone who got too close.

End: Chapter 1.

General revision 18/ April /07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.

Revised 18/May/07, replaced overgrown disclaimer with manifesto.

Further revision 12/June/07, changed some bits and added a prescript.

Another revision 3/July/07, correcting a stupid mistake I made before, and touched up a couple continuity errors. Duh.

THE TOP DOG MANIFESTO or WHAT I THINK I'M DOING

Well, I guess a lot of people just don't get it at this stage.

Get this; most of the decent fanfic ideas have been done. So have most of the ideas that suck. Some of the ideas that should never have seen the light of day have likewise been done. There's a bastard of a lot of Potter fanfic out there, and a pretty impressive quantity of Ranma fanfic too, so if you're going to take things in a new direction, you have to get radical.

If people like it, great. If not, hey, that's fine too; each to their own.

But what that means is I won't be going with any standard paths here. Oh no. People like Jeconais have already done a hell of a lot better job of, say, 'Ginny gets with Harry and yeah, it was good.' fanfic. That leaves the truly out-there ideas for nutcases like me; I'm not interested in writing 'Ranma-goes-with-fiancee-X' fanfic, it's been done to death by any number of people. You won't catch me writing any sort of a conventional fanfic, because it's been done any number of times and it would bore me into doing something else.

What does that leave me? Plots twisted up like a pretzel, megacrossovers and truly immense altaverses.

Welcome to Top Dog.

Doghead Out.