Chapter Text
As the summer of 2025 comes into bloom, Daniel Radcliffe and Billy Bragg wave goodbye to the drag queens and drive away into the sunset, towards the prison. They venture out of Cardiff city centre, but thankfully they don’t get lost this time, as the TERFs are finally starting to leave them alone.
“I still can’t believe it…” Daniel Radcliffe stares at his hands. “Yesterday we sent JK Rowling to 1955… Do you think she’ll be ready to see us yet?”
“Well it wasn’t yesterday for her.” Billy Bragg points out.
“Oh. Right. Time travel really fries the brain.”
“Not as much as the TERFs, Danny.”
When they arrive, Daniel Radcliffe brings a huge bouquet of flowers out of the boot, a great hefty thing bursting with all shades of green and pink. Billy Bragg raises a disapproving eyebrow.
“Really, Daniel? Flowers? After all she’s put us through?”
“Have a heart, Billy.” Good old Danny replies. “She’s been imprisoned for seventy years. Don’t you think she’s learnt her lesson by now?”
Billy Bragg holds onto his grimace as he locks the car.
“We’ll see, shall we?”
And so they wander into the prison and soon find a large, cumbersome guard with his feet upon the reception desk. It takes him a good few minutes to look up from his crosswords and address the two men before him:
“Afternoon, gents. I take it you’re here for the visiting hours?”
“Yes.” Billy Bragg replies. “We’re looking for JK Rowling.”
The prison guard furrows his brow.
“You do realise this is a men’s prison, don’t you?”
“Let me handle this, Billy.” Daniel Radcliffe steps forward. “Is there a man named Robert Galbraith here? You might want to look far back in the records.”
“Mhm-hm. Just a second, sir…”
The prison guard sucks the cheese dust from his fingers and scrolls through his laptop. He comes to a sudden stop with wide eyes and a scratch on the head.
“You sure this is your guy?” He asks. “It says here he was arrested way back in the fifties.”
“Yep. That’s our guy.” Daniel Radcliffe confirms.
The prison guard stares at them some more, unsure whether they are joking. Then, too tired to question this, he gets up and grabs the keys.
“You make your way to the visiting room. I’ll go and fetch him.”
Without another word, the two make their way to the visiting room. Inside, Daniel Radcliffe stares down at the bouquet, twiddling the tips of the leaves. He and Billy Bragg make eye contact, but neither could engage in conversation. That is, until, Billy Bragg looks up and gasps.
“Oh good heavens…” He gulps. “That can’t be her, can it?”
Daniel Radcliffe looks in his direction and joins him in his horror-stricken stare. Before them, the prison guard approaches with a wheelbarrow, in which he carries a skeleton with a moustache. The prison guard clears away the vacant chairs before parking the moustached skeleton at the table and sauntering back to reception.
Daniel Radcliffe is the first to attempt speaking:
“Joanne? This that you? Do you remember us? Can you even hear us?”
The skeleton lifts its skull with a terrible clatter, which resonates across the entire room like a thousand tiny gunshots.
“H-Harry…?” Comes a thin husk of a woman’s voice, speaking through the waving tips of the cursed moustache. “Harry… Potter…?”
Billy Bragg sniggers and elbows Daniel Radcliffe on the ribs.
“Harry Potter and the Cursed Moustache. Right, Danny?”
Daniel Radcliffe throws him an unamused glance, before turning to JK Rowling.
“Joanne. It’s us. Daniel Radcliffe and Billy Bragg, remember? We’re not angry anymore. Please, talk to us.”
“Oh, Danny.” JK Rowling laments. “Nobody’s visited me since Tipton died in 1989… And the way they talked about him afterwards, the way they interrogated his grieving widow about his private parts, on the news! That was my friend they were talking about, my only friend, who forgave me after everything! I’ve never known anger like it. The world still seems a strange place without him…”
A weighty gloom consumes the table, leaving the three of them with stupefied voices. Billy Bragg clears his throat, shuffles in his seat and forces an uneasy smile.
“So how was the fifties?”
JK Rowling sighs and shakes her skull, as well as the rest of her bones.
“Don’t listen to those internet boomers. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Definitely overrated. Would not recommend.”
“But still.” Billy Bragg maintains his awkward smile. “You managed to make a decent trip out of it, right?”
“Trip?” JK Rowling thunders. “Trip? You sent me seventy years into the past, with no hope of returning to the present, and you speak of it as though it were a surprise weekend at the beach?”
“Now, now.” Daniel Radcliffe places a hand on Billy Bragg’s shoulder and gingerly pulls him back. “Let’s not get into an argument with Joanne. She’s had enough of those to last several lifetimes. Let’s keep things nice and light for her.”
JK Rowling turns her skull towards him, in spite of the strenuous effort, and lets out a gentle laugh.
“It’s been seventy years since I’ve heard my correct name and pronouns…” Her skull slumps backwards into a pensive state. “I finally get it… I know what it is to be stuck in the wrong body, in the wrong environment, in the wrong clothes… to be laughed at just for pursuing my true self… I finally understand what it is to be transgender… and believe me it’s no picnic!”
Daniel Radcliffe and Billy Bragg exchange gobsmacked looks, their jaws hanging low.
“Is… is she really apologising?” Billy Bragg asks.
“Yes.” JK Rowling answers. “I’ve been nothing but cruel to you two. All you wanted was to provide hope for an innocent minority group. I should have commended you, but instead I had you viciously harassed for no good reason. I’m so sorry.”
“Well.” Billy Bragg scratches his chin and considers. “I suppose that makes us even, then.”
“So you forgive me?”
“Yes, Joanne.” Billy Bragg smiles. “I forgive you.”
“I forgive you too, Joanne.” Daniel Radcliffe rises to his feet and arranges the bouquet of pink flowers inside her wheelbarrow, embedding her bones with roses. “Peace offering?”
“Oh, Daniel. They’re beautiful. Thank you! Thank you both!”
A tear seeps from her empty eye socket and rolls down her skull. Then, all of a sudden…
Poof!
A cloud erupts from the wheelbarrow, leaving behind a small pile of dust crowned by the moustache. All it takes is a slight breeze to whisk away the pile, and it takes flight into the setting sun, outside the barred window.
Inside the wheel barrow, lies only the abandoned facial hair.
At last, JK Rowling is free from her cursed moustache.
The End