Daily Prophet, 16 June:
The day of destiny arrived when Harry Potter married Virginia Weasley this morning. The entire wizarding world rose and applauded the couple as they made their way down the chapel's stairs, Mr Potter in his special-order black dress robes and Mrs Potter with white feathers adorning her hair. Our fashion consultants, Ms Patil and Ms Brown, believe they were chicken feathers and were also featured as an accent in her bouquet, which was caught by Ms Brown after a long and furious battle with Ms Patil, who has yet to forgive Ms Brown.
It was the dream wedding, with all of the bride's brothers as the groomsmen, Mrs Hermione Weasley as the matron of honour, and a flock of beautiful white chickens being released from the church after the ceremony.
The wedding registry has been set up at various places in Diagon Alley and, as they plan to live in the country, the happy couple also intends to start a chicken farm of their very own. Mrs Potter will tend to the chickens while Mr Potter continues his stellar run as Seeker for the Holyhead Harpies.
"Duddikins, why're you standing in front of the ice box all day?"
"S'nothing, Mum. Just getting a bite to eat." Dudley waved a chicken leg at his mother, then passed one to Harry. "Here, Harry, have a bite of chicken, won't you?"
Harry looked at the offered chicken, then took it. "Thanks, Dudley." He had no idea why Dudley was being so nice to him, but food, and food from Dudley, was never something to be turned down. Maybe it was because it was the summer of their sixth year, and soon they'd never have to see each other again.
"Not a problem, Harry." Oddly enough, Dudley didn't really smile.
"Chicken again, Ginny?" Harry looked up at his wife, who had taken off her oven mitts and had her hands on her hips.
"I thought you liked it. Besides, it's ever so much better for you than beef, and you know as well as I that studies have been done on Mad Cow Disease and that magic's ineffective in treating it. And beef is expensive, darling. You know how it is."
"I just feel guilty about eating one of our chickens." But he stuck his fork into the thigh on his dinner plate.
"It's white sauce; don't you like white sauce? Tomorrow I'll try making a recipe. I can get some fresh herbs from the market and we'll try something new."
"Maybe we could try something new like beef," Harry said, his mouth full of chicken.
The next morning, she served him scrambled eggs and chicken sausage.
"Maybe something new like pork," he said while he helped wash up the breakfast plates.
For luncheon, they had a picnic out on the lawn by the chicken coop, eating cold chicken salad sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs with salt. Harry imagined the chickens were staring at him as he bit down into the sandwich, and whenever Ginny moved to shoo them they scattered away.
"I've heard good things about tofu," Harry said as they folded up the picnic blanket.
"Have a devilled egg, Harry dear," Ginny said as she stirred the chicken stew. "Supper'll be on soon enough; the egg'll tide you over."
"Have you ever heard of tempeh, sweetling?"
"Dobby is only here to serve Harry Potter! That's why Harry Potter must eat what Dobby gives him!"
"But Dobby, you're always trying to feed me chicken! I think I've had enough of chicken!"
"Harry Potter must eat the chicken!" Dobby proceeded to beat himself in the head with a drumstick off of the platter of chicken he'd brought to Harry in Gryffindor Tower.
"All right, all right, I'll eat it." Harry reminded himself silently not to touch that particular drumstick.
"Thank you, Harry Potter, sir!" And Dobby made his way off to the sound of dragging fabric and scuffing knees.
In retrospect Harry found it odd that he hadn't disappeared as he'd done before, but it worked well enough, as the chicken was rather tasty and he was glad he'd had it.
"Ginny, pet, when you kill the chickens for dinner, you do kill them humanely, don't you?"
"What's that?" Ginny said as she reached for her third bottle of Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover that hour. "I'm scrubbing so hard, lovey, that I can't hear you."
"You kill them humanely, don't you? They don't suffer, do they?"
"Oh, of course not, Harry, darling." She continued to work on the stained tile in the kitchen. "I love our chickies; they're like our babies. I would never make them suffer; you know that."
"Right. Just checking. And did you see the recipe Hermione owled us for the tofu dish? I wouldn't mind trying it some time soon. Ron says it's tops."
"We'll see, love, we'll see." She had feathers sticking to her elbows as she added "Have axe sharpened" to her To-Do list, but Harry didn't say anything. As long as she took care of everything, and the chickens didn't suffer, he was just fine.
Even if he was considering asking for just a salad that night.
"Potter. Wake up, Potter."
Harry bolted up in bed, where he found Tom Riddle was standing over him. "Riddle! I thought... I thought you were dead! I killed you my second year!"
"But I'm not, clearly. I live on. As you can see."
"What do you want from me?"
"I've come to tell you that this time, your friend Fawkes will not be able to help you." Riddle presented him with a platter of a well-roasted bird. "Phoenixes are very easy to cook, you understand. They practically do it themselves."
"You're disgusting!"
"But he's quite tasty."
"I will never forgive you for this!"
"Oh, of course not; I wasn't expecting you to. Have a bite, won't you?"
"Fawkes saved my life!"
"Now he can fill your belly. How many times will you get to eat phoenix flesh in your lifetime? Go on, Potter. Try it."
For a mythological creature, phoenix flesh tasted particularly like chicken.
The next morning, Harry made his way up to Dumbledore's office to send his condolences to the headmaster on the loss of his bird. Standing on the landing, he was greeted with a trill from Fawkes, obviously alive and uncooked.
Harry believed he was being a very good and thoughtful husband when he brought home Muggle Chinese take-out that night. Instead, Ginny threw fistfuls of feathers at his feet.
"I go through all of this trouble to make supper for you and you throw it all in my face! How expensive was that, anyway? We can't live off of your parents' money forever, since sooner or later it's all going to be gone!"
"Ginny pet, it'll be all right! And you know that we're not struggling for money; the team'll be top of the league if I win tomorrow's game, and I'll get a raise, and things'll be just fine. And I understand if you don't like tofu; the texture's a little weird, but we can get used to it. I'm just thinking about variety, pigeon."
"Don't call me pigeon."
"Ginny. It'll be fine. Just have a bite of the garlic pork. You'll like it. Or try the spicy tofu."
But she refused to take a bite, only pulling out more feathers from the dead chicken in the sink and sulking, her lower lip pouted out at him with that "oh, you're so on the couch" look.
"Dear. Look at me. Why don't you come to the Quidditch game tomorrow? Then maybe we can go out to dinner and celebrate. I'll let you pick out the place. Or you can make a big home-cooked meal. It's up to you. I just want to make you happy."
"Well." Ginny drew a red-streaked hand to her mouth, pondering, a piece of hair falling in her eyes. "We'll see what happens after the game. I had plans for the evening, but. Well, we'll see, won't we?"
"That's my girl."
Ginny did not see what sort of problem Harry had with the massive amounts of bloody chicken in the lounge.
She had fully intended to launch into a "it's one of those things you need to get used to in married life, just like how I have to pick up your socks and you pay the bills" speech, or perhaps a "well, I may be evil, but it's only because I'm trapped in a male-dominated society, you male pig, and so I'm blaming you" speech, but she never had an opportunity.
Speeches are wasted on the unconscious. She tugged off his dripping robes, picked the kidney and liver bits out of his hair, and sent him to bed.