Soup Bowling and Talking Raccoons by Rosworms

Rated: T for teen because of swear words
Genre: comedy
Summary: Harry Potter gets a job.

"That's the third time that we’ve had to have the carpets cleaned because of your ruddy owl. And last year we had to fix the fireplace because of that stupid redheaded family! If you are going to stay here this summer, you're paying. You need to get a job!"

~~@~~

And so Harry Potter, Almighty Savior of the Wizarding World, was standing behind the counter of the local Petrum Petrol Station at 2am. He was bored out of his mind since it was only Monday night/Tuesday morning and nobody was out this late on a weekday when they had a normal daytime job.

Harry had only been working the overnight shift at the station for two weeks and he was already sick of it. He liked something more challenging and this... well it wasn't.

"Hey, Harry!" The voice of one co-worker jolted Harry out of his miserable boredom and he looked up. "Stock those fuc.kin' cigarettes. The shift before us didn't do sh.it!"

Two things that Harry had learned right away were; second shift was full of lazy bums who took credit for everything... and everyone on nightshift had a filthy mouth.

He glanced at the cigarette rack above him and began a mental list of all the cigarettes that he would need to fetch from the back cage. It was going to be a long and tedious night.

~~@~~


On Tuesday night Harry worked with Michelle and Kelli. Two very strange girls, but at least they made the shift a bit more interesting.

After the beginning of shift chores were finished, Michelle and Kelli cornered him by the first register.

"What?" Harry asked slightly annoyed. He hated being cornered, he had a large space bubble and the girls knew this and used it against him all the time.

"We're soup bowling tonight," Michelle informed him. He raised his eyebrows in question.

"Bowling... ya know, with soup. C'mon." Kelli grabbed his sleeve and dragged him away from the security cameras. In the back aisle he could see bottles of steering fluid set up in a triangle and Michelle handed him a can of soup.

"You just roll it at the pins and we write your score."

Sighing, Harry tossed the soup... and he knocked down every bottle.

"A strike! Wicked!" Kelli yelled. Harry smiled and had to admit he was quite proud of himself.

A 6am, when the manager entered the store and found a horribly dented can of soup, Kelli smiled innocently with her wide eyes and explained, "A customer dropped it... at least fifteen times."

~~@~~

Harry had Wednesday night off. He was glad because Wednesday night is truck night when the supply delivery is dropped off. It's a pain and everyone hates it.

~~@~~

On Thursday. Harry worked with Josh and Kelli. Josh had blue hair and a short attention span. That night, he also had what looked like an archery set with him.

"Er... I don't think that will do much good if we get held up at gun point," Harry said.

"No, but it will confuse them. Besides, that’s not what it's for," and Josh pulled out one of the arrows and Harry noticed that it had foam padding over the tip.

Staring, Harry could only utter one word.

"Why?"

"Because it's fun."

"Why?"

Then Kelli stepped in. "Oh, like you've never wanted to shoot anyone."

Josh frowned. "Can't you think of one person?"

"Voldemort," Harry muttered. Kelli and Josh started laughing.

"You know someone named Voldemort?  What a dork!" Kelli gasped.

"Is that, like, Polish? What’s his first name?" Josh asked.

Harry narrowed his eyes.

"It's an alias... kind of. He killed my parents."

"Oh..." Josh immediately looked somber, but Kelli giggled softly still.

"Still... Voldemort?" She gigglesnorted.

Harry grabbed the bow and padded arrow and shot it at Kelli.

"Ugh... I hate you," she muttered.

~~@~~

Friday night Harry worked with Adam and Josh. It was a very busy night. People with normal jobs had just finished their work week and it was time to lose their ties and party the weekend away.

Since the Petrum Petrol Station was between two popular pubs, the store was full of drunks in the middle of the night.

One drunk customer decided to eat Spam... straight from the can. One other guy thought it would be a good idea to throw chocolate biscuits at the ceiling to see if he could aim them into the vents. After that, Harry charged him for every ruined biscuit and then handed the customer a broom to clean up the mess.

After the crowd died down, Adam discovered a new product in the store... giant campfire matches. Not much discussion was needed to figure out what was going to happen next.

So about ten miinutes later, the three guys had a nice toasty fire going... in the parking lot of a petrol station... a PETROL station. None of them could figure out why customers would begin to pull into the lot and then quickly drive away.

~~@~~

On Saturday, Harry was sent a message from his manager. He was to come in on Monday morning to meet with him.

Harry had Sunday off and then on Monday he walked into the station to meet with his boss.

"Harry, I?m afraid we have to let you go."

"What? Why?"

"There's been a sexual harassment complaint from Adam."

"What? But I'm straight!"

"That doesn't mean it's alright to grab his ass. I'm sorry. Goodbye."

"Er... okay."

Harry walked out, confused? and he heard snickering coming from around the corner. He went to investigate and found a raccoon sitting on a garbage bin, but he couldn’t figure out where the laughing was coming from... until the raccoon started speaking.

"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Wouldn't Die... so stupid. The Dark Lord has spies everywhere in the muggle world as well as the Wizarding one. There’s one of us at every petrol station in this town."

"Not very smart spies. You just gave yourself away... Adam."

Adam, the talking raccoon animagus, was speechless for a moment before muttering, "You suck," and scurrying away.

~~@~~

Harry was locked in his room for the rest of summer after being fired and when he got to Hogwarts, he taught his friends a new game... soup bowling.

The End