Did You Ever Do This as a Kid?

[lithorose]

This is my submission for the September MI ficlet challenge.:D Not finished yet but will be one way or another by Sept. 30. (edit: now finished!)
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Title: Barbie-roth!
Author: lithorose
Rating: PG, like everything on the site.;)
Genre: crossover, humor, parody
Summary: Hermione is stuck babysitting her little cousin and her friend shortly after Hogwarts lets out for the summer. She drags Ron and Harry along to suffer with her, and they end up playing Final Fantasy 7* with them. Warning! Contains FF7 spoilers!:D

*-to those unfamiliar with FF7, it follows Cloud Strife (and friends) as he seeks his revenge on Sephiroth, who is busy trying to attain godhood. That is a massive simplification, but there it is...;)

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Barbie-roth!

"Okay, at the stroke of seven, we'll begin. That's in five minutes. Ready?"

"This is so dumb, I can't believe we agreed to play this game," said Ron, crouching down in the twilight.

"It's only a couple hours," said Harry. "Besides, we owe Hermione for saving our butts last week on our Potions homework."

"Oh yeah," said Ron quietly. "I just wish we didn't have to play outside. The grass is wet."

"You two! Stop talking and listen to me!" A half-grown girl stood before them. "Okay, you-" she pointed to Harry, "-are going to play this guy here." She stuffed a figurine in his hand. He looked at it. It was a thickly muscled black man, with his left arm torn off, and a plastic rifle tied on in its place. "Eh," he said. "Who is this?"

"That's Barrett, can't you tell? See his gun arm? He shoots people with it."

"That's- great," said Harry. Ron was trying to supress a laugh. The girl looked at Ron. "And you get to play Sephiroth, since my brother doesn't want to play with us today." She placed a barbie doll in his hands. He took it gingerly. "What's a Sephiroth?"

The girl sighed. "He's the BAD guy. Don't you know anything? Oh, here's his sword." She placed a green cocktail sword in his hands. "It's a little bent, but you can pretend it's not." The girl turned to her friend.

Ron and Harry looked at each other. "Hermione!" called Ron. Harry turned. Hermione walked into the yard with a cloth bag at her side. "I'm back," she said. "You wouldn't believe the line at the store!"

"I do hope you'll join us," said Ron, holding up his Barbie gleefully.

Hermione looked at the doll in horror. Its once beautiful dress had been colored entirely black with a marker, and its dog-chewed face had been redrawn with nail polish. "What is that?"

"I'm the BAD guy," said Ron.

"Hermione!" cried the girl, turning around. "Are you going to play Final Fantasy Seven with us? Please? You have to!"

"Well, um, I was just going inside..."

"Come on Hermione, it won't be any fun without you!" Ron called.

"And if you play," said Harry, "I'll let you borrow my gun-arm man!" He held up Barrett.

Hermione laughed. "Your what?"

"That's Barrett," the girl said, taking him from Harry. "You can't play with him though. You have to play as Aeris." She held out a large doll with light brown hair.

"Who's that?" Hermione asked, taking the doll.

"She's Cloud's girlfriend. Well, his other girlfriend. I get to be Tifa." She held up a dark-haired Barbie in a skimpy outfit.

"He has two girlfriends?"

"Yeah, but one dies halfway through the game."

"Oh, that's... sad."

"Yeah, everyone remember to cry when she dies."

"Okay, we will," said Hermione, turning to Ron and Harry.

"Not you, you can't cry," said the girl. "You'll be dead."

"Oh."

Harry and Ron snickered from behind.

"And Susie gets to play as Cloud, because my brother isn't playing."

Susie interrupted: "But I wanted to play as the cat..."

"Susie, you have to play as Cloud. He's the hero, and all the other roles are taken!"

"But I want to play as the cat..."

"Okay," said the girl. "You can play as Cloudcat Sith." She whispered something into her friend's ear. She looked at them. "Okay, she's Cloud, but she's running around inside Cat Sith."

Ron nudged Hermione: "Does any of this make any sense to you?" he whispered.

She shook her head. "Just play along. We've only got a few more hours of this."

"Muggles are so weird," muttered Ron.

"Okay, everybody take their positions!" The girl and her friend ran off into a corner of the yard and hid behind a tree, leaving Hermione, Ron and Harry in the middle of the yard.

"Remind me again, Hermione, why we have to do this?"

"Because you owe me big time Ron."

"I know. But really, do you think we have to stoop to this?"

"You also owe me for that water balloon incident the week before last."

"That was Seamus..."

"But you told him to do it. So it's still your fault really."

Ron raised the arm on his Barbie doll.

"Come on, Ron," said Harry. "Didn't you ever play toys like this as a kid?"

"Yeah, but we played with cool toys. Look at this thing. In what universe is this remotely scary? It doesn't even talk!"

"It is- was a Barbie, Ron. All muggles have them. Only this one's been-"

"-butchered?"

"Something like that."

"So do you have any?"

"Um," said Harry, looking up, "what are they doing?" Hermione turned. Ginger was halfway up the tree in the corner of the yard, and squealing in a high voice. "Help!"

They ran over. "Ginger! What is it?" called Hermione.

She screamed. "I'm being chased by a monster! Help!" She inched out farther along the branch.

"I'll save you!" said Harry, holding up his action figure.

"No, you can't!" said Ginger. "That's Cloud's job."

"Oh," said Harry. "So then what's my job?"

"Your job is to fight monsters until later."

"Watch out Harry! The BAD guy's coming to get you!" A barbie came flying down from the sky.

"Oh no you don't!" cried Harry, raising Barret's arm. "I'm going to shoot you dead with my automatic rifle arm!"

"Ginger," said Hermione. "You really shouldn't be in that tree." Ginger wasn't listening. She was already busy climbing down. "Susan," she was saying. "You need to come save me!"

"But you're too high up!"

"You have to. You're the hero! Oh well, go fight Sephiroth first. Those two are playing it all wrong."

Harry and Ron were paying no attention.

"Come back here and fight me like a man!" called Harry, Barret standing on a rock in the middle of the yard. Ron had his barbie on the picnic table.

"I can't fight you; I'm not a man!" said Ron in a high-pitched voice. "But I can curse you! I curse you with my green sword-wand... Cruciatus!"

"Ron!" hissed Hermione. "Don't even joke about that! And don't talk about it here..."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Very well then, I'll throw my sword-wand at you!"

"Hah! Your puny sword is no match for my gun arm! I can hit you from back here!" He waved the figure's arm up and down.

Susan ran over. "Wait! I'm here to fight the bad guy too! Die Sephiroth!" She ran towards Ron and stopped. "Where's your sword?"

"Oh, I lost it," said Ron.

"I can't fight you without your sword. We're supposed to swordfight."

Harry laughed and came over. Susan was already looking in the grass. "I don't see it," she said.

"What's going on?" called Ginger from the tree.

"Sephiroth lost his sword," said Susan.


To be Continued....:D

[lithorose]

And the concluding part...


"Green grass, green sword," muttered Ron. "This'll be easy."

Ginger ran over. Hermione had finally managed to get her out of the tree. "What happened?!" she cried.

"Can't find the sword," said Harry.

"Oh, well, that's okay," she said. "He can use this." she picked up a twig from the ground. She grabbed the action figure she called Cloud from Susan, and screamed at the top of her lungs: "You killed Aeris! Now you must die! Evil Sephiroth!" the toy flew at Ron, and he lunged back.

"Hey! You're supposed to fight me!"

"Ginger!" whined Susan, "I'm supposed to be Cloud!"

"But you're not fighting him!"

"I'm not dead yet," said Hermione, entering the scene.

"Yes, you are! You, um, you fell out of the tree and died just now."

"But how can Sephiroth have killed me if I fell out of a tree?"

"I don't know, but he did. He made you fall out of it by thinking of it. He did a lightning spell on the tree, and it made you fall out. He's evil!" She ran circles around Ron, who stood there with his mouth hanging open.

"That's it," said Ron. "I'm done playing." Ginger looked at him like she would cry. "Look," he said, trying to soothe her, "I'm dead. You killed me. See?" he threw the Barbie on the ground.
"Yea!" cried Ginger. She picked up the doll and ran around screaming: "I killed Sephiroth! Sephiroth is dead now! Yeah!"
Susan started running too.

"This is too weird," he said to Hermione. The three of them sat on the picnic table. Ginger and Susan ran circles around them screaming and yelling. "I got killed by being circled to death."

"At least you didn't get struck by lightning and fall out of a tree," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"You have to do this every year?"

"More than that, sometimes," said Hermione.

"I'm sorry."

"Hey," said Harry. "I wonder if you could enchant these things." They looked at him in surprise. "No, really, I wonder if you could make one of them light up or something. It would be way cooler than anything you could buy in the store." They stared at the toy in his hands.

"We're still underage," said Hermione. "Besides, it's illegal to enchant muggle objects."

"Come on Hermione. It's a toy. Besides," Ron took the toy from Harry, "we know overage wizards, don't we?" He winked at him.

"Oh, no! You guys are not giving these to-"

"What? I didn't say anything. What time is it now?"

"It's nearly eight-thirty. Aunt Martha should be here any-"
A car pulled up in the driveway, and a middle-aged woman stepped out. "-Minute," Hermione finished.

"Wow you're good," said Ron.

Ginger and Susan ran up to the Mrs. Granger and started talking excitedly. Mrs. Granger walked up to Hermione. "Thank you," she said, giving her a hug. "And thank you two also." She shook Harry's and Ron's hands. "I hope they weren't too much trouble," she said, as Ginger dragged her towards the house.
"They were fine," said Hermione. "I'll see you on Monday night then." They walked down the street to Hermione's parent's house.

"Glad that's over," said Ron.

"You're not coming with me on Monday?" said Hermione.

"No way!" said Harry and Ron together.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"You're not guilt-tripping me this time," said Ron. "There's no way I'm going back there."

"Hermione," said Harry. "I wonder. Would it be very hard to get one of those dolls from your cousin next time?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. You'll see." They reached the Granger's home, and went inside.

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Look! I finished a fanfic!:D:D:D

Comments and critiques are very welcome.:)

[Xazinon]

LOL, that's great lith, fantastic, well done!:D Gotta say I'm not familiar at all with Final Fantasy, but that didn't matter because I'm certain I would have done that as a kid! Maybe even as a grown up.. my little cousins are staying here at the moment, so there's a fair chance I might be playing along ala Hermione, Harry and Ron within the next week or so! ;) :LOL:

Seriously, that was great, I hope somebody gets inspired to add their entry to yours! I'd like to brainstorm something, but I just don't have the time for it at the moment, d'oh! Once again, congratulations, you talented girl you! ;) :)

[lithorose]

Why thank you!:D I have to confess, my writing has never been called talented before, you flatterer you!:D:o

I didn't realize until after I'd finished it, but in the HP timeline, FF7 doesn't even exist at this time! So not only are the kids scary, but they're psychic, which is even scarier!

Also, I changed the title to something a little punchier.:)

[Xazinon]

Ah, no worries lithorose, I meant it, very good! :D

LOL, psychic! Well, you know kids these days, they're always up to some mischief or another! ;)

Sorry your ideas haven't really taken off regarding the whole competition thing, it's a good idea but I think people are just a bit too shy to really have a good go at it. I've almost finished classes for the year, so once I'm done with that and the last few assignments I might hopefully have a bit more time and be able to have a crack at one of your suggestions.. how long exactly have I been saying that for now? ;) Hopeless I know, but one of these days I might surprise you! :D

[Luthien4211]

This is very funny...it's so true! I used to make my poor, abused babysitters do stuff like this all the time. And the little ones I babysit now make me do it.

The whole, "You're not doing it right!" bit sounds really familiar. ;)

It's very good! You're a good writer! :D

~Luthien

[lithorose]

Thanks Luthien! We did a lot of that as kids, though nothing quite so horrifying that I remember. I remember building a lot of mud forts and downs for the toys to play in. It was quite fun to write. It wasn't what I originally intended at all; but putting HP characters into the FF7 universe and vice-versa didn't sound quite interesting enough. And then, this horrible idea popped into my head....:devil:

Whenever you can, Xaz. I know how busy college is.;) I need to find time to think up the next contest too.