Great Collaboration of Doom 7
Chapter Seven: In Which We Meet Dark Hermione
“Professor Dumbledore? Professor Snape?” Harry swallowed, fingers clenching tightly around his wand. “Does anyone know what I can do?”
Paul Daniels held up a fan of cards. “Pick a card,” he told Harry. “Any card.”
Harry picked an anniversary card. It had pink hearts and cherubs on the front. It read, ‘To My Darling Wife’.
“Ah,” said Paul Daniels, “this indicates that you are having some issues with relationships. Perhaps commitment troubles… I suspect due to your burgeoning, um, differences.”
Harry turned that over in his mind, and came to a horrifying realisation. “Hey! I’m not gay! Leave me alone, you lecherous old pervert!”
“Oh, believe me, I’m not interested in you.” Paul Daniels gazed adoringly at the lovely Debbie McGee. At least, at certain parts of her. “I’ve got this scrumptious treat to keep me warm at night. Do you know what she did once: she lay naked on our bed waiting for me to come upstairs. She just had a blindfold on with ‘Do Not Disturb’ on it, and further down, a sign that said ‘Disturb’…”
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville and many house elves were instantly sick.
“It’s worse than I thought,” said Snape to Dumbledore. “He fights with the power of perversion!”
Dumbledore looked sternly at Voldemort in only the way that a person who had spent many years teaching could manage. “Give up, Tom. Do you really need to stoop to these levels?”
“Give up on what? World domination? Of courth not, what do you take me for. And in any cathe, I jutht thummoned two MUGGLE magicianth and you thtood there complaining that you didn’t know what to do – your Mudblood friend here told you what mutht have been one of the eathietht thpellth in the world. Though, if you meant do I give up on you, then yeth becauth I think I have more cauth to be thcared of her than of you. It ith time thith was thettled onth and for all. Potter, we duel to the death.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Harry replied. “We tried this one before remember – the wands connect and all those people you’ve recently killed will come out in shadow form. But just to protect my pretty face…” He waved his wand, having recently and finally mastered the art of silent spells.
“What wath that meant to do, eh? Weally wile me up? Oh, you pwetty little poof, you’ve done it again.”
“Yep, not just a pretty face, am I? You can’t Avada Kedavwa me now. Sorry, that was meant to be Avada Kedavra!”
Hermione gasped. “NO, HARRY!!! You can’t defend yourself against Avada Kedavra!”
“God, Hermione, stop sticking your nose in. Of course you can’t but I wanted him to think I could so he wouldn’t use it on me. Thanks a bunch, if I die, I blame you!”
Everyone stared in amazement between Harry and Hermione. Surely she would start crying: she always started crying. Instead, she flicked her hair and spat, “What do I care? I was only pretending to be your friend all this time to get to Ron, the same as I did with Ginny. Do you think Voldemort has got the brains to plan this attack? Hahaha! Snape hasn’t got a patch on me!”
The whole room looked as though they’d been tangoed.
Then, clearly put out, Snape raised his eyebrow. “What is this, Granger? Some sort of diversion?”
“No, how would you like it if every time you tried to get jiggy you had THAT whinging and whining at you about how hard done by he is?” Hermione looked dignified and continued, “He doesn’t have it that bad, what about me? My parents are drug dealers and have been pushing crack on me since birth!”
Ron looked shocked. “I thought your parents were dentists?”
“Dentists, drug dealers, toothpaste, crack… it’s all the same. They both get loads of money by causing pain and misery and charging the earth for it.”
There was a bright flash of light, some smoke and sundry other special effects. Once it had cleared, all present gasped. Hermione stood there, but different.
Gone was the prissy librarian-in-training look. Gone was the prim and proper Miss Granger they all knew and were just ever-so-slightly irritated by. Leather was the order of the day now; tight, black trips of it. One hand held her wand while the other brandished a dentist’s mirror (one of the little round ones on a stick). Hermione threw back her head and laughed, hair flying artistically in the gale that had sprung up from nowhere.
“Say ah,” she cackled.
“Ah,” said Ron obediently, staring at her with puppy-dog eyes.
“What’s happened, Hermione?” asked Harry. “What’s with the dominatrix gear?”
(“I’m surprised you even know what that word means, Mr Inexperienced,” muttered Neville.
“Shut up!” hissed Harry. “And since when are you so experienced?”
Neville smiled wistfully. “That night after the ball… with Ginny.”
“But she’s my…”
“Pay attention!” snapped Hermione. “I changed my look because that’s happens when a character goes bad. Have you never read a comic book?”
“I used to read the Beano as a kid,” began Harry.
“It’s NOT the same!” yelled Dark-Hermione.
“Excuthe me,” said Voldemort, feeling a little put out, “but I’m the villain here!”
“Consider yourself out of work,” sneered Dark-Hermione, “I’ve seen what you can do, and I’m determined to do better. Mwahahahaha!”
Voldemort turned to face the others. “What have I done?” he bemoaned.
There were face-slappings all round. “Well, duh,” came the chorus.
Voldemort still had his pride, though, and he was just about clinging to the last vestiges of his dignity. He was not going to be outdone by some Muggleborn witch who was young enough to be his granddaughter. He quickly disposed of Paul Daniels and the lovely Debbie McGee, sending them back to his secret lair where they would remain until he called upon them again. That done, he sent icily-enclosed David Blaine off to the Antarctic, thus tying up some loose plot lines.
He turned on Dark-Hermione, his red eyes blazing with fury. “You will not best me, you young whippersnapper!” He surreptitiously cleared his throat, concentrating so that he wouldn’t lisp. “Avada Kedavra!”
Horrified gasps sounded as he shot the spell at Hermione, but she calmly raised her dentist’s mirror. The spell bounced off the small reflective surface and back onto Voldemort. The green light struck him squarely in the chest and he fell to the ground, stone-cold dead and with a look of mild surprise on his serpentine features.
“Well, that’s that loose end sorted out,” Dark-Hermione sneered. She’d discovered she rather liked sneering. “Now to tie a few other loose ends up…”
Ropes whipped out of her wand, wrapping themselves round Harry, Ron, Neville, Snape, Dumbledore and anyone else standing around who had been forgotten lately.
“Hermione!” yelled Harry. “Don’t! We’re your friends!”
“We’re your friends!” echoed Neville.
“We’re your friends to the bitter end…” chorused Snape and Dumbledore, not to be left out.
“No amount of barbershop will stop me!” snapped Dark-Hermione.
“You could at least untie us,” said Harry. “Ron’s getting far too excited over this. He’s dribbling all over my shoulder and panting.”
“Oh dear.” Dark-Hermione waved her wand again. Ron was freed from the ropes in a puff of smoke, only to appear again at Hermione’s feet dressed in a metal bikini and on a leash. “There’s my pet,” Dark-Hermione purred.
“Oh, sweet Merlin,” muttered Snape, “it’s Jabba the Slut.”
“Um, excuthe me?” came a voice from the floor. “I’m not dead yet. You know, The whole Horcruxes thing? Makes me a bit difficult to kill…”
“Oh dear,” murmured Dumbledore. “He really shouldn’t have done that.” Snape nodded in agreement, unable to tear his (dark, intense, soulful and ever-so-slightly lusty) gaze from Dark-Hermione’s new attire. “Now he’s just gone and made her angry.”
Dark-Hermione’s wand and mirror fell from her hands, clattering on the stone floor of the kitchen. She stared at Voldemort, her eyes and hair turning black as the gale that seemed to surround her picked up again, whipping her dark hair around her face.
She held her hand out to him. “Then I must change that, once and for all.” Her voice was strangely disengaged: it was her voice but, at the same time, it wasn’t.
A golden glow seemed to emanate from Voldemort and, strangest of all, he smiled. “Thank you,” he murmured and dissipated into a shower of dust.
“Hermione!” Harry struggled free of his restraints. “What did you just do?”
She turned to look at him. “I had to do it. I had to protect you from the false lord.” Her hand touched his cheek. “My Harry.”
“Ah… WHAT now?” Harry leapt backwards, tripping over Dobby and landing flat on his skinny arse.
“You heard me,” purred Dark-Hermione, “you are my Harry. My precious…”
At her feet, Ron made whimpering noises. She ignored him. He pouted. The metal bikini was chafing him more than a little.
“Well, there’s something I didn’t expect,” said Snape.
“Plot twist and a half, if you ask me,” agreed Dumbledore. “I think we should probably not get involved. After all, children get so annoyed if you interfere with their love lives.”
“Quite right,” said Snape, avoiding Harry’s hands that had begun clutching at the bottom of his robes. “In your own time, Potter.”
“Please!” gasped Harry. “I can’t… not Hermione! She’s more like sister than anything! Don’t let her…!”
“Don’t come crawling to me, Potter,” sneered Snape, “I gave up on Potter-love lives back in my school days, back when I spent long hours gazing after your father. He never noticed me, cruel man. Did I just say that out loud?” He coughed. “Anyway, nice as it is to see you crawling… it’s nothing to do with me!”
“But it’s everything to do with me!” roared a new voice.
All heads turned. At the top of the stairs (obviously, the stairs leading down to the kitchen, for that is where they still are) another figure stood. Billowing robes managed to compliment a slender (yet well-figured) frame. Red hair flew in the wind.
“Harry is mine!” declared Ginny Weasley. “Back off, sister!”
“Oh, ’cause you’ve got so much out of him so far!” jibed Dark-Hermione.
“I was turning him,” argued Ginny.
“Hey!” said Harry. “I’m not gay!” He was ignored.
Strands of some strange power circled round Ginny like Doctor Octopus’s tentacles, whirling in feverish madness. The very air crackled with raw energy, leaving a tinny taste in everyone’s mouths. Sparks flew and earthed themselves around people’s feet.
“What,” asked Snape, “is going on NOW?”
“Something to do with the women in my family,” muttered Ron, “they’re all bloody terrifying.”
“Harry is mine,” Ginny repeated, “and I will defeat you. Not by my own hand – you were too much a friend for that – but by that of another, who I will raise now.” And she spoke a mysterious word, unknown by all but infused with some immense and ancient power. The ground rumbled and outside, the sky flashed with red lightning and purple stars. It was rather pretty, so it was a shame they were all inside and not watching that.
What they were watching was even more incredible, though probably less aesthetically pleasing.
“Oh, thith ith getting ridiculouth,” said the newly-reappeared Voldemort. “Thould we jutht inthtall a revolving door?”
Ginny growled in annoyance. “That wasn’t who I was trying to raise!” she whined, stamping her foot like a petulant five-year-old. She had, in fact, being trying to raise Barney the Dinosaur, but decided not to mention this.
“Harry is mine,” Dark-Hermione told her calmly.
“But you kept saying I was gay!” Harry protested. If she kept telling him that he was gay or metrosexual or whatever, why was she now turning back on her word and telling him that he was hers.
Dark-Hermione turned her black gaze on him. “You are mine. In a purely platonic way, of course. Harry Potter does not have sex.”
Ginny rolled her eyes and grumbled, “Talk about preaching to the converted.”
While this exchange was going on, Snape had something up his sleeve. It was a handy knife, which he used to cut the bonds that tied him to Dumbledore. “I think this is going to go on for a while. I think I might go down to the pub. Would you care to join me?”
“That sounds positively delightful,” Dumbledore agreed. “I believe that gentleman from Neighbours is playing at the Three Broomsticks tonight.”
Dumbledore and Snape left, leaving the teenagers and Voldemort to battle it out by themselves.
“The Three Broomsticks, headmaster?” asked Snape, with a querying look. “At this time of night? Rosmerta and her girls’ll be busy by now.”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore, a sparkle in his eye (which he blinked furiously to get rid of: it itched). “That was what you might call a cunning ruse of mine. I said Three Broomsticks so that those children won’t know where to find us. We’re actually heading to the Hog’s Head.”
“Oh, Albus, you think of everything.”
Tags: great collaboration of doom
Categories:
Collaborative Fanfic