It was a dark and stormy night, well fairly close (excluding the facts that it was noon and the sun was shining bright without a stormy cloud in sight, but that's not the point) and three teenagers were sitting on the street nearby a "School Xing" sign. (A.N.: Does anybody think of the ff.n Xing when they see signs that say things like School Xing or Animal Xing?) One, a small black-haired boy with a scar shaped like a lightning bolt (but we're not naming names) was chained to the post bearing the School Xing sign, and a bushy haired girl was keeping watch while a red haired boy looked confused.

"Hermione, what on earth are we doing out here on a street in a Muggle neighborhood with Harry chained up like this?" Ron asked, baffled.

"Well, you see, I decided the only way to liberatize the houselves was to force them to take money; for clearly, they haven't discovered themselves sufficiently to maximize their abilities and prioritize enough that they can make Hogwarts Learning Environment a place at which they can be paid to work," Hermione explained, looking like a young budding politician (especially with her "Newspeak" language).

"Hermione, talk normal!" Ron said, laughing and completely ignoring the fact that Harry was in tears. "What does that have to do with chaining Harry up?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "It's speak normally, not talk normal. And I was getting to that point if you'd just let me. You see, I'm completely and utterly broke and have nothing to pay with. Harry and I had a huge fight...I tried to get him to give me all the money in his Gringots account for which to pay them and...for some reason...he refused. Puzzling..."

Here Harry could take it no longer. "I told you, I don't have any money!"

Even Ron had to balk at that one. "Bullshit," he said. Hermione began to reprimand him for his vulgarity but he waved her away. "You know you have loads of money.

"Not anymore!" Harry protested. "It all started one cold, grey morning...

*flashback*

Harry Potter was snug in bed one Saturday morning, sleeping late because there were no classes that morning. He was enjoying himself with sweet dreams about pleasant topics like how hilarious it would be to see Professor McGonagall and Hagrid snogging when an abrupt, loud noise awoke him. "What's making that noise, oh my God, it might be a person putting anthrax in my room or a camel spider or a derranged fanfic author or...?" he was about to say more, but then he saw the true cause of all the noise: a rooster.

The thing simply would not shut up. It said, "Caw-ca-doodle-do," incessantly. "SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!" Harry finally yelled in desparation.

"Not 'til you pay me!" the rooster said in a sing-song voice.

Harry, being accustomed to odd things like talking roosters, was not surprised but instead simply said, "What do you want?"

"All your money," it replied, and if roosters could Harry swore that this one would grin tauntingly.

"In your dreams!" Harry said, and shoved his head back into his pillow.

After five hours of the incessant rooster's crowing (it followed him absolutely everywhere, and somehow Harry just couldn't remember how to banish it) Harry finally said, "Fine, I'll pay you next time I go to Hogsmeade."

"Must be now, must be now, must be now," the rooster said obnoxiously.

Too weary to do anything else, Harry snuck out of Hogwarts, went to Gringotts, and got the money out of his account, giving it to the rooster, which directly flew off. Harry sighed. "That was certainly tedious..."

*End flashback*

"And he expected me to actually buy that foolish story," Hermione continued her conversation with Ron with a shake of her head. "I told him that I've been raising funds and all I need now are two more sickles, but he said he doesn't even have that much, so I told him that if he's going to be so tight with his money...well, that drastic times call for drastic measures. He has to suffer for his stinginess. So I'm selling him...he only costs two sickles, and the person who buys him not only gets to keep him but also gets his copy of A History of Magic, which I'm sure they'll just be thrilled to have."

At this Hermione began to shout in a singsong voice, "Harry Potter's for sale! Only two sickles! Harry Potter's for sale! Only two sickles!" At this, Ron whispered to Harry, "I think she's gone mad."

"Tell me about it..." Harry replied.

"Although I do have to admit, your story wasn't the best...almost as stupid as that one on that muggle sebwite about me and Draco..." Ron shivered.

"IT'S TRUE!" Harry whined. "Why won't anyone believe me?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "I can almost understand Hermione, though it's still pretty stupid. You guys are both nuts."

"Oh shut up," Hermione told him. Suddenly she saw a large, muscular guy passing by, clearly coming from the school that was in this neighborhood. After muttering, "Aha, a perfect victim..." to herself gleefully, she shouted, "Hey, do you want to buy Harry Potter, it's only two sickles and a complementary copy of A History of Magic comes with the offer!"

The guy looked at her like she was insane. "First off, you're insane to try to sell some freak who got dressed up in his Haloween costume a week to early, but I'd buy him just to shut you up if it weren't for one reason: I need this two sickles so I can be in METMA!"

Hermione looked suspicious. "Let me see your wallet!" she demanded, snatching it from him before he could have a word in edgewise. She found some muggle money which she quickly transferred into sickles. "But that's four sickles, not two. You can give me two sickles and still have two left over for this...METMA thing."

Hermione looked suspicious. "Let me see your wallet!" she demanded, snatching it from him before he could have a word in edgewise. She found some muggle money which she quickly transferred into sickles. "But that's four sickles, not two. You can give me two sickles and still have two left over for this...METMA thing."

"You don't get it, I have to have a sickle each for two other things. One, to buy tictacs, the other, to buy a ticket to see my hero wrestle," the man asked. At the thought of tictacs he began to froth at the mouth. "Must. Have. Tic. Tacs!" he yelled in a way that would be best transcribed with mutliple exclamation marks but, for the sake of decent English shall not be. He grabbed his wallet back and ran into a nearby shop and came out with several boxes of tictacs, already beginning to stuff them into his mouth.

"You know those contain car oil, don't you?" Hermione eyed the tictacs suspiciously.

"So what? They taste good. Even car oil cannot stand in the way of addiction!" the boy cried defiantly.

"Well, don't you want to at least donate two sickles now?" Hermione looked at him angrily.

"I need one for the wrestling match and two for METMA, how many times have I told you this?" the boy looked exasperated.

"What do METMA and wrestling matter compared with this dire need of the house elves?" Hermione asked intensely, her face inflamed with passion about her cause.

"They're both far more important than your shameful ploy to get money," El Diablo said, getting angry. "Especially the wrestling match. Wrestling is very important."

"Hey, you're that wrestler person, huh? El Diablo, right?" Harry asked, recognizing him from one of Dudley's favorite TV shows.

"Yeah..." he said, clearly embarrassed because he didn't really want all this fame and recognition. "Anyway, I have to go now...you know, get on the internet so I can join METMA now that I've saved up two sickles."

The three looked at each other strangely as he left. "METMA? Huh? Better get the Boxcar Children to solve this mystery!" After pausing a moment to wonder where that burst of randomness came from, Harry resumed his normal miserable silence as he sat, chained onto a School Xing sign; Ron kept looking at Hermione strangely; and Hermione kept shouting, on and on: "Harry Potter's for sale, only one sickle! Harry Potter's..."

Meanwhile, el_diablo@hotmail.com was joining METMA and METMA had effectively gained another male member and more importantly, another newbie to torture...