BOOK IV: HARRY PINTER AND THE GOBBET OF PHLEGM

Harry has entered an international music competition; he consults Dumdedum for repertoire advice.

"Harry, I have a very difficult choral piece for you to conduct" said Dumdedum.
"I hate you! That's so unfair!" said Harry's hormones.
"It is a vital part of any hero's repertoire - you never know when you might need it. It is called 'Deus Ex Machina' - learn it well."
"God used to be a robot?" said Harry, whose Latin left something to be desired. "I can't conduct that. I'll just do all the stuff I learned in first year, that'll always beat everyone!

At the competition, Harry's splendid performance wins tuition from a world-famous conductor, who later turns out to be Baron VoleKiller, or 'He From Whom No Arboreal Rodent Is Safe'. Challenging Harry to a showdown, the Baron flourishes his baton with consummate skill; he is clearly a superb conductor at the height of his powers.

"Hahahaha!" said VoleKiller.

Harry, a pimply teenager who never does his homework, despairs at the hopelessness of VoleKiller's obvious superiority. He then remembers the uncannily useful solution that Q gave him.

"Holy Android!" screams Harry, and successfully conducts 'Deus Ex Machina', a piece he hadn't a hope of conducting correctly when it wasn't a dramatic necessity. The amazing music summons Rowan, who lobs a handful of snot in VoleKiller's face, incapacitating him and thus resolving a hopeless situation with an unstoppable attack of slapstick.
"I told you bogeys were important!" shouts Rowan. "That Deus Ex stuff is well powerful."
"This could be the start of a beautiful friendship..." said Harry.

BOOK III: HARRY PINTER AND THE PENSIONER ASHKENAZY

Harry hears news of an evil old man called Ashkenazy who, not content
with terrorising young conductors with a piano (by which to say he has
the piano, not the young conductor (by which to say he does not have the
young conductor - this is a family book)), seeks to hunt them down and
exterminate them.

Higher-E, meanwhile, has a magic artifact which allows her to travel in
time but not, alas, sing in time. She remains one step ahead of
everyone else, which gets tedious after a while.

After some confusing revelations, it turns out that a bad guy had
been handed down through generations of Rowan's family, disguised as
their beloved pet onion. Ashkenazy turns to Harry, black-gloved hand
extended:

"I am your God-father".
"Nooooooooo!" said Harry.

BOOK II: HARRY PINTER AND THE CHAMBER-MUSIC OF SECRETS

(note: I wrote these some time ago, but am posting them now to help fill out the blog in its early stages. )

We rejoin Harry in his second year as a music student, in which time he has learnt how to conduct in 4 in a slowly-decreasing tempo that was too slow to start with. He is now learning the rules of Orquichtra, a favourite sport for musicians. Oliver Offenbach is explaining the rules.

"Each team has ninety-two players and one conductor. The players do a variety of very difficult things you needn't worry about, each of which scores one point. The conductor does something very easy indeed, and gets awarded one hundred million points" said Oliver.
"Doesn't that render the other players a bit pointless?" said Harry.
"Typical conductor!" tutted Oliver.
"This could be the start of a beautiful friendship" said Harry.

Dumdedum exposes the plot:

"You were struck as a fetus by the baton of Baron VoleKiller. He wrote a book of chamber music for the serpent, a renaissance instrument. It is much too difficult for a twelve-year-old, but you must conduct it." said Dumdedum.
"Aren't serpents brass instruments? Surely they listen to no conductor?!" said Harry.
"Only you and the Baron are able to talk to serpent-players." said Dumdedum.

Harry finds a few serpents, and opens the score. He starts to beat a 4-4 time in which every beat is a slightly different length, and blames the resulting mess on the players not watching him properly. He is savagely attacked by the D.C. Al Cobra hidden on the last page, but vanquishes it by realising that "Baron VoleKiller" is simply an obvious anagram of his enemy's real name: "Ron Aieolllrv Baker".

"Ron Baker! How could I miss such an obvious anagram? Gosh, his everyday name rearranges to an amazing super-villain alias, with title and everything!" said Higher-E, resolving whole chapters of tension with one hackneyed plot device.
"Snot" said Rowan, feeling he should contribute something.

BOOK I: HARRY PINTER AND THE KIDNEY STONE

THE HARRY PINTER SAGA
A seven-part saga in seven parts, by OK? Rowling-in-it.

BOOK I: HARRY PINTER AND THE KIDNEY STONE

Harry Pinter was just an ordinary fetus, until he was struck by the baton of a famous conductor, and was imbued with special musical powers. He first knew of this when, on his eleventh birthday, a letter invited him to Warthogs School of Sacred Music (motto 'Celli et Coeli').

Arriving at his new school, brandishing his new conducting baton, he meets another newcomer, a violinist:

"Hi, I'm Harry", said Harry.
"Harold Pinter? You're very famous. I'm Gary. Do you want to be in my gang?" said Gary to Harry.
"No thanks, your hair is greasy, so you are self-evidently a bad guy" said Harry to Gary.
"You smell" said Gary to Harry.
Harry said: "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship", said Harry to Gary. This was said by Harry to Gary, in case there was any remaining doubt as to the protagonists of this conversation. Gary went off to count his collection of vintage G-strings, and Harry met two more youngsters.

"Hello, I'm Higher-E, a soprano. My purpose is to make up for your incompetence so the plot will still work" said Higher-E.
"Hello, I'm Rowan, a bass trombonist. I make bogey jokes" said Rowan.
"This could be the start of a beautiful friendship", said Harry.

There followed a solemn academic ceremony involving an ancient hat (a notion preposterous to anyone not from Edinburgh University). This magic bonnet sang a crap song and sorted the newcomers into houses, which were named after their founders: Nobby Nobilmente (the house for noble people), Bacchus Backstabbicus (for the untrustworthy), Anna Anonymosa (for people not interesting to the story) and Connie Christie Christmas Crossword Contrivicus (for those with unlikely alliterative names). Our heroes retire to Nobilmente common room, which, despite being home to 200 people, is invariably empty, and spin unlikely tales about their harmony professor, whom they suspect of having greasy hair.

Harry is summoned to the office of Dumdedum, the headmaster of the musical school.

"Harry, I want to have a word with you: Grimblebundleswup" said Dumdedum, displaying a delighfully eccentric streak which will be long forgotten by book 3.
"This could be the start of a beautiful friendship", said Harry, who was developing an irritating habit of repeating himself.
"Fearing its theft, I have hidden my precious kidney stone behind a series of lethal traps so fiendishly ingenious that even an eleven-year-old can get past them unscathed." said Dumdedum.

Unable to resist the obvious invitation, Harry triumphantly rescues the kidney stone and gives it straight back to Dumdedum, thus achieving nothing.