Great Collaboration of Doom 4
Chapter Four: In Which Harry Wakes Up
Waking up with Dobby the house elf and Moaning Myrtle standing over him was a little surprising, Harry decided as he rubbed his eyes. His eyes still feeling a little blurry and feeling as though he’d had the most peaceful sleep he’d had in a long time, Harry looked around. He didn’t remember falling asleep in the common room, but here he was, with Ron’s head resting on his shoulder and Ron’s hand lying on a place where it really shouldn’t have been lying.
“What’s going on?” Harry yawned, pushing Ron away; Ron gave a loud snore and almost fell on top of Hermione, several books falling to the floor in the process. Harry felt a little uneasy under Myrtle’s slightly lecherous gaze.
“Dobby thinks the story can wait,” Dobby said quickly. “Harry Potter must get up! The Dark Lord is coming!”
“Well, I hope that makes whoever he’s banging very happy,” muttered Harry, rolling over to sleep again.
As Dobby set about reviving Ron and Hermione who had, horror or horrors, started snuggling up together, Myrtle hit Harry upside the head. Of course, being a ghost, her hand went straight through him, icy cold and making Harry leap up with a yell.
“Argh!” Harry swore loudly. That brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘brain freeze’. “What d’you do that for?”
Myrtle’s lower lip trembled. “Because You Know Who has all his Death Eaters outside the castle grounds.” She sniffed. “I thought you’d be happy that I woke you up.”
“There’s no need to go into my head like that!” Harry yelled, starting off on his usual teen-angst-rant. “I feel like I’ve been violated!”
Myrtle chuckled. “You’d feel a lot more violated if I had time…”
Harry thought about that for a second before backing slowly away. Still staring at Myrtle in an attempt to keep her away, he got to his feet and made his way to the door, opening it behind him. Myrtle giggled and drifted closer. Harry stepped backwards and vanished from view.
“Oh dear,” said Myrtle after a moment, “I thought he’d have remembered there were stairs there.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Harry landed on top of Dumbledore, who had come up to see what was taking so long. Worryingly, he didn’t seem all that bothered about having Harry on top of him, clad only in pyjamas.
Harry ripped his pyjama shirt from his chest, popping the buttons in a vain attempt to look macho.
“Where’s Voldemort? Lemme at him! Lemme at him!” Harry had started hopping madly on the spot.
Ron and Hermione had finally got up, though they were holding hands as Hermione wrinkled her nose at Harry.
“What are you going to do, make the Dark Lord jealous of your hair-free chest? I think he’d appreciate it if you duelled him with clothes on.”
Ron yawned loudly and added, “Hurry up, mate. Hermione needs to finish inspecting the tattoo of a hippogriff I’ve got on my ar…”
Dumbledore coughed and interrupted them all.
“Harry, I rather value my collection of frog cards. I’d prefer it if I stayed on them and I’m afraid that won’t happen if you let Voldemort storm the castle. Get shifting.” Despite his age he managed to give Harry a swift kick up the hiney.
“Okay, Professor, I do know my way out of my own common room, thank you very much!” Harry glared at Dumbledore as he rubbed his backside. The Headmaster had managed to catch him particularly painfully on a series of splinters he had received some days earlier whilst playing with his broomstick.
“Ooh, tetchy! Do not worry, I am sure it is only due to the fact you have just woken up and are therefore both tired and hungry. I will expect an apology in due course.”
“Yeah, well, what do you expect?” Harry grumbled under his breath, his backside smarting at every step he took.
Dumbledore wasn’t sure where to look for Voldemort, what with him never having infiltrated the school in person before, but decided that the best option would be to ask Professor Snape, who always seemed to know what to do.
Unfortunately, as they rounded the head of the stairs down to the Entrance Hall, the question had already been decided for him. There in the Entrance Hall stood Lord Voldemort, in the midst of a half-circle of Death Eaters, all hooded and masked.
“Well, well, Dumbledore. I never thought you would become a house elf and get the students out of bed. What happened, the top job get boring?”
“Good morning, Tom. No, as you are probably aware by now, the whole school is asleep due to the actions of one of our house elves, so I took it upon myself to fetch Harry here.” Dumbledore descended the stairs throughout this little speech, Harry one step behind him, until they were on a level with Voldemort. “So, I assume that, once again you have come with the aim of killing the two of us. Fire away.”
Voldemort waved his wand, much in the manner of the Queen, greeting her subjects. He then began wiggling his hips, much in the manner of Freddie Mercury (of Queen).
“What’re you doing?” Harry asked, curious despite the deadly danger.
“Warming up, of course,” replied Voldemort tetchily. “Do you expect me to go straight into this cold? I’d pull a muscle or something.”
Harry turned to Dumbledore. “We’re meant to warm up before doing magic?”
Dumbledore waved his dongles airily. “Strictly speaking, yes, but we never had time to teach that. Besides, with the restrictions placed on us by the National Curriculum these days…” He sighed.
“National curriculum?” said Hermione, coming up behind them. Ron followed, still doing up his trousers. “National curriculum?” Her voice acquired a hysterical note. “We never get taught stuff that’s on that! I’ve been deprived of learning all sorts of things: science, maths, English, music (which is the most important, clearly). We never even got taught sex education!”
Ron scowled. “What are you trying to say about my technique?”
There was an amount of coughing and shuffling of feet. No one looked directly at the pair of them, and Harry had gone bright red.
“Your grammar could use some work,” Hermione told him gently, patting his hand.
“Anyway,” interrupted Voldemort smoothly, “all that aside, and a very nice aside it was too, I’m about to KILL YOU ALL HORRIBLY!”
“No need to start sounding like Harry in book five,” muttered Hermione, under her breath.
“What was that?” asked Harry suspiciously.
“I said: no thanks, I’d rather stay alive,” she replied. Honestly, she thought. Boys.
“Ahem.” Voldemort raised his wand arm. “Ava…”
He was interrupted by the arrival on the scene of another person who swept down the stairway (insert description of giant bat, enormous raven, Batman, whatever). Severus Snape, potions master supreme, thrice winner of Witch Weekly’s Bitch of the Month award, voted Least Likely to Ever Have Any Friends in the Hogwarts leaving book, master of the snark and a dab hand at peeling vegetables, stopped short on seeing the little crowd. He had a dilemma.
There was Dumbledore, the genially-smiling reanimated Headmaster who he owed complete obedience to (for some dark and mysterious reason), and there was Voldemort, who would kill him.
“Oh, bugger,” said Snape.
“No time for that now,” said Dumbledore, “maybe later, if you’re good.”
“There’s no time for your innuendo, Headmaster,” Snape told Dumbledore in his usual silky and disdainful manner. “I came to inform you that Winky is not Winky.” From somewhere in his robes, Snape produced the house elf, holding her at arm’s length by the ear. [No house elves were harmed in the production of this fanfic.]
Even as Winky began to squeal and protest in an annoyingly high-pitched way, she began to change, growing and becoming human. Finally, an angry Bellatrix Lestrange fell to the ground, rubbing her ear. “Ow.”
“How did she do that?” Ron demanded hollowly, his freckled face pale.
Straightening herself up, Bellatrix looked innocently at the assorted group, seemingly unaware that she was only wearing a pillowcase. “That wasn’t butterbeer I’ve been drinking. It was Polyjuice Potion.”
There was a stunned silence until Hermione started to protest. “But! But Polyjuice Potion can’t be used for inter-species transformations.”
Amusement lit up Bellatrix’s heavy-lidded eyes (she had run out of her eye cream) and her babyish laughter rang out. “And Dumbledore was killed using Avada Kedavra. I think it’s best if we just ignore those rather obvious plot holes, isn’t it?”
Harry stepped forward, pointing his wand at the witch. “My name is Harry Potter.”
“I know who you are, ickle baby Potter.”
“You killed my godfather. Prepare to die.”
Voldemort cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling very neglected here. Shall I come back another time?”
“You know, you really need to work on your ego complex mate.” Ron was still sounding tetchy.
“You aren’t the only person here, in case you haven’t noticed.
“Yeah, and we weren’t exactly expecting this thing to appear in front of us were we?” Harry was also sounding a little annoyed. “In answer to your question by the way, yes, piss off and leave us alone.”
“Okay, well, I’ll go and get a cup of tea or something in the kitchens. I’ll be back later,” he said as he went down the passage at the side of the Great Hall.
“Good, now we’ve got him out of the way, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Harry demanded of Bellatrix.
“I came to kill you, of course,” said Bellatrix, adjusting the pillowcase for maximum cleavage. “Duh.”
“But then why haven’t you done it already?” asked Hermione, eyeing her suspiciously and feeling very, very jealous of that cleavage.
“Yeah, you’ve had plenty of opportunities,” said Ron, eyeing her interestedly and feeling very, very jealous of that pillowcase.
“Um… biding my time?”
“I believe I have the answer to that,” cut in Snape (a slick, dark-bladed knife of a phrase), pushing Dumbledore’s hands away. “Our dear Bellatrix here has developed something of a crush on Potter.”
“What?” spat Bellatrix, pulling the pillowcase up a little further to reveal more leg. “How do you know tha… I mean, it isn’t true!”
“Oh, but it is,” continued Snape (voice of silk, steel and other pervtastic things), “it’s amazing what a little Veritaserum in your pumpkin juice reveals. You were quite … detailed. Then I Obliviated you, of course.”
“Bastard!”
“Please, Bellatrix, there are children about.” (Chocolate and honey, smooth and slippery). “Which brings me to a rather important point: isn’t he a little young for you?”
“Of course not!” Bellatrix advanced towards Harry, cleavage outstretched. “You like me, don’t you, boy?”
Harry drew back. His mind was inexorably drawn back to a happier moment in his life…
[wibbly-wobbly flashback screen]
The moment he had seen her, he felt it. Hidden by his Triwizard tournament robes, his trouser regions began to react and tingle. The woman of his dreams walked past, hair blowing and sneer firmly in place. As she looked at him, her expression implying he was a mere cowpat, he felt all trembly inside…
[end flashback wibbly-wobbly thing]
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Collaborative Fanfic