Bently McQuinn Saves Literature

“Bently McQuinn, get your head out of that book and pay attention!”

Bently snapped his head up, caught completely off-guard. Moments ago, his head had been in the Forbidden Forest on the ground of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, following Harry Potter trying to find an injured unicorn. And now, as he looked up into the stern face of his science teacher Mrs. Grist, he was sitting in his seat at the back of her classroom, with nearly everyone in the class snickering at him before turning back to the board of complicated physics notes.

“Sorry, Mrs. Grist,” he mumbled, and placed the bookmark between the pages.

“This is the third time this week, McQuinn! Lunch detention, today, and if I see that book out again, it’ll be for a week.”

More snickering. Bently put the book away, pulled out his notes and began copying down the nonsense on the board. Bently’s friend Russell tried to give him a sympathetic look, but Bently ignored him. He knew Russell didn’t really understand.

Bently’s mind wandered as he took notes silently. He couldn’t help it. Ever since the dream, he just couldn’t stop reading Harry Potter. He wanted to make sure everything would be okay, that no more crazy shit would go down at Hogwarts. Months earlier, Bently had had a very, very strange dream. He dreamt that he himself was at Hogwarts, but at the same time, it wasn’t Hogwarts. Twilight fans had taken over, and Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson had sent him on a quest to find and kill Edward Cullen, the Fairy Lord. It had been a wonderful dream, and so… real. It sounded crazy, and maybe he was, but Bently had a feeling that it was more than a dream, that it had actually happened. It was absurd, but so were a lot of things in life.

“Bent, time to go!”

Russell was throwing his backpack over his shoulder, urging Bently to come with him. Bently scrambled to put his notes away and ran out the door to join his friend, eager to leave for gym.

“Dude, you really gotta quit reading in that class,” Russell said, amused. “Mrs. Grist is going to kill you some day if you don’t.”

“I can’t help it!” Bently said defensively. “You know I can’t stop reading ever since… the dream.”

“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that.”

“But it’s true!”

“Bent, it was just a dream.”

“Then it was a pretty real one. I just get this feeling like I need to keep on the watch, to make sure nothing else bad happens.”

Russell rolled his eyes. “Come on Bently, you know nothing will happen. Once a book’s published, it stays like that. There’s no changing it. And no, fanfiction doesn’t count.”

They were now dumping their bags in the locker room, pulling out their shorts and gym shirts.

“You just don’t get it.”

“Whatever, man.”

-

All throughout gym, Bently had an odd feeling that something wasn’t right. His eyes kept getting drawn over to the crowd of girls who were on the other side of the gym, doing jump rope exercises. He couldn’t look for long (people might get the wrong idea), but he thought he saw a new girl that no one had bothered introducing. She had a very serious look on her face, her brown hair was drawn up in a ponytail, and she seemed vaguely familiar. But Bently didn’t have much time to think about where he knew her from, because he was dealing with problems of his own. It was down to himself, Aidan Hodges, (an extremely nerdy kid) and Carl Rothberg (a druggie) to be picked for the dodge ball teams. The captains were picking.

“I’ll take Rothberg,” said Landon Vance, and Carl joined that team. Now it was Bently and Aidan, and it was Russell’s team’s turn to pick.

“Aidan, I guess,” said Robert Downs after some careful consideration.

“That’s not fair! I don’t want to be stuck with the Fairy Boy!” called out Landon angrily.

“Well, I don’t want him either!” Robert yelled back.

Bently shot Russell a look that said, “Come on, man.”

Russell spoke up. “Hey, Robert, Bent can just play with us…”

Robert rounded on him angrily. “Shut up Russell, this is my team, not yours.”

“Boys, stop arguing!” shouted Coach Dunbar. “Bently, just join Robert’s team and let’s play!”

Grumbling, Robert lead his team over to their assigned wall and began giving a strategy to all of the team except Bently and Russell, who stood to the side. The strategy mainly consisted of, “Just stay out of my way, unless there’s a ball coming towards me, then you’d better not let me get out.”

“Sorry Russell,” Bently said, bending over to tie his shoelace tighter.

“It’s alright Bent, it’s not your fault Robert’s an asshole.”

Gym couldn’t have passed faster. Usually Bently could have avoided people like Robert and Landon by running on the track, but it was raining outside. Still, Bently just ran around and threw balls when he could. He even got a few people out, and Robert didn’t say anything more to him. He had all but forgotten about the new girl until after the game, when he was headed back over to the locker room. One girl was sitting out, and she was reading a book with an unmistakable black cover; Twilight. Bently snorted at her as he passed. She evidently had heard him, because she snapped the book shut and stood up a bit shakily.

“You got a problem with Twilight?” she asked, irritated.

“Other than the fact that it’s an awful series? Not at all,” Bently replied sarcastically.

“Everyone knows you hate them, so just leave them alone, Bently! What did gorgeous vampires ever do to you?”

“They took over Hogwarts, that’s what.”

“What’s going on, Michelle?”

A group of girls now approached, evidently Michelle’s friends. The one who had spoken Bently recognized as Ricci.

Michelle just glared at Bently. “The stupid Fairy Boy is making fun of Twilight again.”

Ricci’s face turned red. “You keep your face shut, Bently. Stephanie Meyer is a goddess!”

“Yeah!” added in another girl. “She’s giving us all the chance to be famous on her website!”

“I don’t care, and I highly doubt it,” Bently retorted, but he knew immediately that was the wrong thing to say. They started closing in on him, murder in their eyes.

“Obliviate!”

The girls eye’s all went blank and they sort of toddled away. Bently was very confused. He had just heard a spell from a Harry Potter book, and he thought he had just seen it work. When they were gone, he found the new girl standing there, a wooden wand pointed at him.

“Pansy Parkinson.”

There was no denying it now. Pansy Parkinson, the first Potter character he had recognized in his dream, was standing right there in front of him. She blinked a few times.

“You recognize me?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s kind of hard not to,” Bently stated. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were… imaginary.”

“Not exactly,” Pansy said, rushed. “But I’ll explain later, we need to get to our Portkey.”

“Portkey?” Bently asked as the bell rang for lunch.

“Yes, now hurry,” hissed Pansy, and she grabbed his wrist, dragging him towards the door.

“Wait! I need to get changed,” Bently insisted, and she rolled her eyes.

“Alright, fine, but do it fast.”

So Bently ran into the boy’s locker room and changed as fast as possible, slinging his bag over his shoulder and leaving his sweaty gym cloths on the floor. He met back up with Pansy, and they started out of the school.

“So what the hell is going on?” Bently asked as soon as they were out the front doors and away from other people.

“Do you remember your dream?” Pansy asked.

“Of course.”

“Well… it wasn’t exactly a dream.”

“You’re mad.”

“No, not really. You see, Bently, books are real, as real as I am walking with you… just, the people in your world don’t think so.”

“What?” Bently asked, completely lost.

“Look, it’s hard to explain, I’ll let someone else do that, but basically, your dream was real. And now we need your help.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“The characters in the books under attack.”

“Under attack from who?”

“Stephanie Meyer.”

Bently stopped in his tracks. “Meyer? Meyer is attacking books?”

“Yes. I’ve been sent to come get you, because honestly, you’re the only one who can help. I don’t like the idea, but you are.”

Bently shook his head. This was crazy.

They were almost to the big tree off school grounds. At the base of the tree, Bently could see an old boot, just like the one Harry Potter had taken to the Quidditch World Cup. “Is that it?” he asked. Pansy just nodded. “How did you get here?”

“The Portals. They’re open, thanks to Meyer and the Crazy.”

Bently had no idea what kind of portal Pansy could have been talking about. “Like… the portal in the South Park episode about Imagination Land?”

Pansy just gave him a blank look. Bently shook his head. “Never mind then.”

They reached the boot. Pansy regarded it with a bit of disgust, but Bently was intrigued. “It’s really a Portkey?”

“Yes you idiot, how thick are you?” she asked, irritated. “Now, touch it when I count to three.”

“Where will it take us?”

“Just outside the Hogwarts grounds. Then we’ll head off to the meeting, and everything will be explained to you, if you can follow.”

Bently chose to ignore the last comment. She was, after all, a Slytherin. “Alright, let’s go.”

“One, two, three!”

They both grabbed the boot at the same instant, and Bently felt the sensation of using a Portkey exactly as how it had been described in the books. He was spinning and spinning, thankful he hadn’t eaten lunch yet, but he wasn’t spinning through the air. He seemed to be spinning through space itself, with flashes of black, purple, yellow, and white all around him. And then it all stopped and he landed solidly on the ground, his knees buckling. He fell face-first into the long, damp grass. And when he looked up, he saw a sight familiar to him; Hogwarts Castle.

“Get up, we don’t have a lot of time,” urged Pansy, pulling her wand back out. Bently stood up, a bit wobbly, and followed her up the slope towards the castle.

‘What have I gotten myself into?’ Bently asked himself as Pansy pulled open the big oak front doors, and they walked inside.