Harry frowned, and scratched at his beard. He was a wizard, after all, so it stood to reason that he had a beard. Wizards had beards. Long white flowing ones, usually. It showed their age, maturity, and general wizardly-ness. Otherwise they wouldn't really be wizards, they'd just be some kind of teenage wannabe wizards, gazing at the world through a witless and pre-pubescent haze, stumbling through misadventures and accidentally overcoming villains and plots. And that wouldn't be interesting at all.
Harry also had a hat (pointed), a staff (long and knobbly) and an assortment of things he could turn people into at will. That part was the best part about being a wizard. You're shopping for groceries, and the woman ahead of you in the queue is chatting with the checkout girl and has already insisted on separate receipts for the three lots of shopping she's getting although goodness knows why even though she's telling her life story to everyone within earshot, and isn't that annoying? Well hey, zap, she's a Madagascan tree frog. Brilliant.
Harry also had a car that could fly. And a train, that could also fly. In fact, he had an entire garage full of assorted motorised vehicles, that, despite all likelihood, could rise from the ground and soar into the skies in ways that would make a Harrier pilot's jaw drop. It was quite an effort to keep them all cleaned and maintained, so he used magic to deal with that, too. It was jolly handy being a wizard.
Harry's best friend was another wizard called Ron Wheezy. Ron wasn't quite a good a wizard as Harry (on account of his ginger hair) but Harry enjoyed his company. Right now they were playing battleships. Ron was losing.
"Gosh darn it, Harry," said Ron, in his thick East-German accent, "you've sunk mein battleship."
Harry grinned, and magicked a pin into the relevant position in his board. This was turning out to be a fun day.
Only yesterday he'd wondered if he'd see today at all. It had been a close call, fighting that giant snake. Usually, he'd have just barbecued it with a quick fireball, but it had kidnapped his former girlfriend, Herbie, and had hidden her deep in the dungeons of Kazakhstan, along with the mysterious stone of Socrates, which was said to bestow great power upon it's wielder. Naturally, Harry, being a wizard, had wanted to locate the stone and put it somewhere for safe keeping, and also had wanted to ask Herbie something he couldn't quite remember now, so had battled with the giant snake until it had finally given up the secret location of its prizes. Herbie had been a little shaken up, but fortunately Hagar the plumber had turned up with a cup of fire, which had soothed her considerably.
Harry wondered briefly if Hagar knew he had a family of squirrels nesting in his beard. That was a fine beard, that was. Children from all over the country would come to see that beard, and then be disappointed to be firmly ejected from Hagar's cottage. Hagar wasn't a particularly sociable type.
"Bee sixteen?" Ron ventured.
Harry glanced at his board. This would probably go on for some time, he reasoned, but he was enjoying himself. The tiny piece representing his tugboat floated happily some inches above the playing board, drifting lazily from side to side as if caught in a gentle current. Ron had already missed it six times, despite getting the correct square. At some point Harry would have to own up to using magic, but for the moment, he was enjoying slowly demolishing Ron's fleet.
"Miss." he muttered, through his beard.
Ron said something untranslatable in his natural tongue and thumped the desk with his fist. Outside, postcard birds chattered briefly in the branches of a tree, and the sun shone golden rays down upon the scene. Later, they got their brooms out and played an exciting game of Quid's in, the wizard cleaning game that all the family can enjoy.
This article was first published on the 9th of October 2005, on my site Brain Yak.