Great Collaboration of Doom 5
Chapter Five: In Which the Death Eaters Sing
“Harry! Harry!”
He came to with a start. Hermione was leaning over him, looking worried. Bellatrix was right behind her, leaning over too, though for a different reason.
“Sorry, love,” Harry told her. “I prefer your sister.”
Bellatrix’s eyes widened and she seethed with rage. “Cissy!” she snarled, clenching her fists. Why did men always like the blonde one? She wasn’t even naturally blonde – her hair was the result of a very clever dye job: just ask Lucius. “I’m going to kill her!”
She Disapparated, making Hermione cry out. “Oh, that’s just not fair. You can’t Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds!”
Ron patted her arm. “Just let go,” he told her. “Just don’t worry about it.”
Harry blinked, the effect that Bellatrix seemed to have over him evaporating like the fumes from a potion. “What happened to Voldemort?” he asked, feeling a little peculiar.
“He went for a cup of tea,” Dumbledore supplied. “I do hope the house elves are looking after him.”
Pushing back the sleeves of his pyjamas, Harry looked towards the castle with a look of grim determination. “I think a surprise attack is in order.”
“Okay,” said Hermione. “How?”
“We could… hide inside a cake and jump out shouting, ‘Surprise!’?” suggested Ron.
“Weasley, your idiocy never fails to send me to the brink of despair,” said Snape, who was feeling that he hadn’t said much lately. “Where would we get a cake from?”
“House elves?” said Harry.
“We can’t just take advantage of their trusting natures the whole time,” put in Hermione, primly pursing her lips. “They are not slaves!”
“We could use the secret entrance into the kitchen,” said Harry slowly, “you know, the pear-tickling one, and surprise him. There’s enough of us, and only one of him.”
Snape gave him an old-fashioned look. It was so old-fashioned that it had last been seen in the reign of Louis XIV. “Yes, apart from all these Death Eaters who are still standing in front of us.”
“Oh,” said Dumbledore, waking up again, “I had forgotten about them. My brain’s just not been right since I was reanimated. I think some maggots got into it.”
“Excuse me,” said one of the Death Eaters (whose name was Pugh). “Do you really need us here?”
“I’m dying for a cuppa myself,” added another (whose name was also Pugh).
“This Death Eatin’ really takes it out of you,” put in Barney McGrew.
Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub all nodded in agreement. Death Eater robes, while they looked perfectly right, were not the most comfortable of outfits.
“Absolutely,” said Dumbledore. “You pop off and get a cup of tea. We’ll just stay here ’til you come back.” He smiled twinklingly. “Honest.”
As the Death Eaters trudged off to the kitchens, Hermione pointed out, “But we still haven’t decided how we’re going to attack Voldemort!”
“We need to find his weakness,” Dumbledore said calmly, steepling his fingers as he thought.
“He seems pretty scared of dying,” said Hermione. “Why else would he make all those Horcruxes?”
“That’s it!” Ron exclaimed, nearly jumping a mile in the air. “We get the Grim Reaper to chase him. That could work. Actually, we don’t even have to get the real Grim Reaper. We could just get someone in black robes to chase him. With a scythe!” He looked as Snape, as though assessing how good an impression of the Grim Reaper he could do.
Snape gave him a scathing look. “That,” he said icily, “is the worst plan I have ever heard.”
“We attack Voldemort with cheese.”
Everyone stared at Harry.
Snape cleared his throat. “I stand corrected.”
“No you don’t. Have you never heard? Voldemort’s greatest fear isn’t death, it’s cheese. The Horcrux thing is just a huge cover – he’s allergic to every sort of cheese there is.” He gave Snape a scathing look in return “You know, what with you being in his ‘inner circle’, his ‘confidence’, I’d have thought you would have known that.”
“Well, they are all in the kitchens together with the house elves. First of all, there is cheese in the kitchens – job done? Secondly, hellooo, Bella has just been revealed to be disguised as a house elf. Don’t you lot think we should go and see what the heck’s going on down there, before more of them do the same thing!?”
Hermione was on the ball, as per normal.
“Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that?” Dumbledore sounded a little peeved.
“Because, sir, since you died, I have become the cleverest person in the world, the greatest witch and so it is now my ideas that are going to be listened to.”
“And what does Little Miss Perfect suggest we do right now, then, instead of stand in the Entrance Hall arguing?” Snape interrupted.
“Go down to the kitchens?” Hermione replied in a small voice.
“Gee, what brains that girl has.”
“I do enjoy the odd pint now and then, how’d you know?”
“Never mind that, let’s get going!”
As the gang approached the kitchens, Hermione thought she heard singing. Yes, it was definitely singing – high pitched, squeaky, house elf vocals. As they got nearer, she even thought she recognised the song – it was a bit like Food, Glorious Food, only the words were different…
“Death, glorious death!
Cold corpses all soggy!
We only can guess –
They’ve been buried in a bog-gy!
Bones hanging with strips to munch,
What next is the question?
After we’ve eaten it for lunch –
In-di-gestion!
Death, glorious death!
You all really should try it!
Three corpses a day,
Our favourite diet!
Just picture a great big arse –
From some bloke called Jeff.
Oh, death,
Wonderful death,
Marvellous death,
Glorious death.
Death, glorious death!
What could be more tasty?
Gulped, swallowed or chewed –
None left to go to waste-y.
What is it we dream about?
What brings on gut thunder?
Corpses bloated and rotting, about
Six feet under!
Death, glorious death!
Eat right through the graveyard.
Just grab your spade
Dig down the six feet, pard–
Work up a new appetite.
We eat to exceth — ["excess" with a lisp]
The death,
Once again, death,
Dreadful death,
Glorious death.
Death, glorious death!
Don’t care what it looks like –
Rotten!
Putrefied!
Rank mess!
Don’t care what the coffin’s like.
Just thinking of eating fat –
Cadavers called Raoul
One moment of tasting that
Flesh gone foul!
Death, glorious death!
What wouldn’t we give for
That extra bit more –
That’s all that we live for
We’d give you all of our souls,
Yes, that’s what we’ve saith,
For death,
Magical death,
Wonderful death,
Marvellous death,
[VOLDEMORT]
Fabulous death,
[HARRY]
Beautiful death,
[ALL]
Glorious death!”
Just as the end of the song was reached and the house elves broke into thunderous applause, Harry and his friends suddenly realised that they’d been carried away with the song…
Hermione and Ron untangled themselves from the cancan-dancing line of Death Eaters while Snape and Dumbledore (who knew something about death and being a corpse) extracted themselves from the human pyramid. Harry backed out of Voldemort’s embrace at some speed.
“Um…” he began, “well, first of all, well done. For a first run-through that really wasn’t bad! I do have a few comments, though. Firstly, you in the black mask, no, not you – yes, YOU! You went the wrong way!”
One of the Death Eaters started to mumble something inaudible but Harry cut across him.
“Look, its no good apologising or making excuses: just get it right next time!!! Now, Crabbe and Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you that you have to face the other way for the human pyramid – admittedly, your backs are a much nicer sight for the audience but its just not theatre! On top of that how is the rest of the pyramid supposed to get assembled in time if half of the bottom layer is missing?!?”
“Voldie… Could you try to look a little happier? Come on this is what you’ve dedicated your life to – it’s your one love… uh, I mean passion,” Harry corrected himself as both Dumbledore and Voldemort the same look of shock and outrage in the blue twinkling eyes (still ever-so slightly glazed since his resuscitation) as in the red slits.
“And finally GOOD GUYS – if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times DON’T JOIN IN!!! Not only does it go against everything we stand for, but it messes up my choreography,” Harry finished sulkily.
“But still very good on the whole – keep up the good work and we’ll soon be ready for the West End, or at the very least that ‘Yule Ball’ thing that Muggle university society is holding.”
Voldemort rounded on Harry. “Potter,” he hissed. “I am an artist! How dare you insult my performance and then suggest that I was deign myself to perform for Muggles.” Voldemort decided not to mention that one time with the ‘video camera’ and the Muggle heiress. Besides, Nagini had eaten her dog, so he didn’t want to think about the law suit.
“Oh, I dare,” Harry told him coolly. He raised his wand; the assembled Death Eaters gasped but were too preoccupied with the delicious assortment of cakes and pastries that the house elves had supplied to do anything else.
Then, Harry said the two words that would bring about Voldemort’s downfall. “Accio mozzarella!”
Well, they were meant to bring about Voldemort’s downfall. Unfortunately, the pesky Dark Lord ducked.
Mozzarella sprayed all over the Golden Trio and stuck. Harry’s glasses were coated, meaning he couldn’t see.
“Help, I’m blind!” he yelled, stumbling into a table covered in chocolate éclairs.
Ron and Hermione had mysteriously ended up on the floor together, rolling around oddly.
Snape rolled his eyes. “Told you,” he said.
“What’ss thiss, Sseverusss?” hissed Voldemort. “Have you been offering sssuccour to thesse ssscummy children, who are our enemiessss?”
Snape wiped his face of Voldemort-spit and attempted a crafty wink. “Well, I am meant to be on their side, oh Lord and Master, reason for my being and love of my life.”
“Oh, yesss, it had ssslipped my mind, Ssseverusss. Forget my head if it wasssn’t ssscrewed on sssuccesssssfully.”
Just then, Harry, blind as a bat with its eyes removed, blundered into Voldemort, smacking him in the mouth with a flailing arm. Voldemort staggered.
“Oh, thit!” he exclaimed. “You thtupid bathtard thon-of-a-witch! You given me a lithp!”
When Voldemort said this, the kitchens fell silent for a stunned moment. Even Harry stopped his mozzarella-covered stumblings, pulling off his glasses and staring short-sightedly at the Dark Lord.
Then, the Death Eaters started laughing. Giggles and snorts and chortles; one of them even sounded a bit like a donkey with a sinus problem. This only served to set everyone else off – even Ron and Hermione were laughing from the floor.
“Bathtardth!” Voldemort screeched. “You’re not thupposed to laugh at me! I am your Lord. You will bow at my feet!”
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Collaborative Fanfic