Illegitimi non carborundum

Dear Readers,

This is the chapter that killed our notebook. RIP, notebook, RIP.
-spastic_visions

Chapter the Fifth

By dinner, it seemed that Hermione had denounced both Harry and Ron and begun talking with Malfoy. Harry prodded at his food, pointedly ignoring Sirius’s finger which had fallen onto his plate when the corpsified professor had stopped to say hello.

“That’s unsanitary, mate,” Ron said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “You have no idea where that’s been. This is Sirius’s finger we’re talking about.”

“What finger?” Harry asked, looking at his place in honest confusion.

Ron hesitantly plucked the pinky from Harry’s plate. “I guess I’ll get this back to Professor Black.”

Harry looked up eagerly. “Oh, I can give it to him. I’m going to stop by his office before curfew. What is it?”

Ron groaned, wrapped it in his napkin and handed it back to Harry with a reserved smile. “You’re taking this denial thing way too far.”

Harry’s eyes were alight with genuine confusion. “What denial thing?”

Ron gave up. “Why do you reckon Hermione’s talking to Malfoy?”

“Looking for a new boyfriend,” Harry deadpanned and then smiled at his friend’s expression.

“What?” Ron choked, voice strangled.

“Relax,” Harry soothed, “I’m joking. I haven’t got a clue as to why she’s talking to him.”

“But you think it could be flirting?” Ron was panicking. “It can’t be flirting! She’s going out with me, Ron, not Draco with his bad boy charm and smoldering good looks, she’s going out with me!”

“I’m sure there’s no flirting,” Harry said, a faintly amused grin on his face.

“How can you possibly know that?!?!? Oh God, I’ve got to stop him before he starts making hot monkey love to my girlfriend!!”

Harry blinked as Ron made his way to Malfoy’s side and put his hands around his throat. Harry briefly considered breaking up the fight, but then he remembered that Malfoy was bottom-feeding scum that didn’t deserve to live, so he turned back to his place and finished his potatoes.

When he’d cleaned his plate he glanced back over to the fight, saw that Ron was winning, smiled faintly and sauntered out of the hall.

In the great hall, he had to pause as someone came sprinting down the hallway, nearly knocked him over and kept running. He squinted after the figure. “Neville?”

He got no answer so he shrugged and turned to the opposite direction where there were twenty or so Slytherins standing there with pitchforks and torches. They stared at Harry for a long moment and then continued on down the hall in the same direction as whoever had sprinted away.

“They’ve been through five times already,” a voice called. Harry glanced to the staircase where a fifth year Hufflepuff was sitting and munching on a bag of popcorn.

“What are they doing?” Harry asked in confusion.

The Hufflepuff shrugged and said, “Interhouse Exchange Program,” as if it explained everything.

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The Dark Lord’s evil lair was dark, evil, sinister and filled with henchmen and lackeys that unfortunately, had quit their day jobs to become full-time bringers of doom. This would have been well and good if it didn’t leave them hours of doom-free time in the brightness of the day. Needless to say, it got pretty dull.

“I’m bored,” said Death Eater 1 petulantly

Death Eater 2 looked up from his newspaper. “Why don’t you go torture the muggle?”

Death Eater 1 looked over to the muggle in the corner cage and let their lip curl a little under their mask. “He’s unconscious. They’re no fun unless they scream.”

“So torture the ministry official!”

“Someone accidentally made him crazy,” complained Death Eater1. “We had to kill him yesterday. There’s nothing to do!” And then, suddenly, an idea occurred to him. He knew what villains did in those contraband muggle movies. “Want to have sex?”

Death Eater 2 lowered their paper. “We’re required to wear masks at all times and robes tend to be baggy and in ally honesty, your voice could go either way. I’m not looking for that sort of adventure.”

Death Eater 1’s body slumped. “Shucks. I guess I stay bored, huh?”

“A Death Eater should always be able to amuse themselves with their dastardly deeds. It’s in the recruitment brochures.”

“Why are we called Death Eaters anyway?” Death Eater 1 asked. “I mean, couldn’t eating death be interpreted as a positive thing? No one wants to die.”

Death Eater 2 shrugged. “It’s propaganda. It doesn’t need to make sense.”

“I mean,” continued Death Eater 1, “eating life would be so much more intimidating. If I ate your death, you would live, but if I ate your life, you would die. The whole thing’s a misnomer. We should be called the Life Eaters. It would be much more intimidating.”

Death Eater 2 opened his mouth to say that was stupid, but then he paused because, when he thought about it, it wasn’t stupid. “You’ve got a point,” he admitted grudgingly.

Peter Pettigrew walked into the room and Death Eater 1 was quick to involve him in their argument. Death Eater 2 watched his face contort in thought. Pettigrew nodded twice and said, “I’ll pass that thought along to the Dark Lord.”

He left and the two remaining Death Eaters exchanged shocked looks. “Shit,” said Death Eater 2. “I think that idiot took you seriously.”

A smile formed behind Death Eater 1’s mask. “You know, the title Dark Lord is equally ridiculous.”

Death Eater 2 glared in his direction. “If you say another word, I will kill you.”

And he meant it too. He was evil. That was the kind of shit they were allowed to do.
Outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts room, two third years were attempting to levitate a quill and were having no success. “Floatis!” the taller one cried. “C’mon, floatis!”

His friend seemed to be stifling laughter. “Maybe you should be listening to Professor Flitwick instead of Professor Black…”

“Dude, Black survived a fifteen month brush with death, I’ll take his word over Flitwick’s any day.”

“Try again!”

Harry rolled his eyes and pushed himself into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Sirius was sitting at his desk and drinking something that looked suspiciously like Snape’s Zombie Drought. But being in denial, Harry did not notice.

Zombie!Sirius looked up, grinning oafishly. “Harry, my boy! What brings you here?”

Sirius’s inconsistent characterization gave Harry pause, but he quickly dismissed it. “So you’re channeling Professor Lupin now?”

There was a slight delay before the laughter. “I never thought I’d end up as a teacher. James would never forgive me.”

For a brief second, Harry’s eyes welled up with tears of orphan!angst, but undead!godfather!joy overruled it. He looked at the steaming potion on zombie!Sirius’s desk. “What’s that?” he asked curiously, covering up him momentary woe.

Zombie!Sirius followed his gaze to the desk, eyebrow falling off in his panic. “My death cheating potion!” he cried.

“Sounds useful,” said Harry, grabbing for it. “I’m going on a Horcrux finding journey. This would be loads of help. Mind if I have a sip?”

“NOOOOOOOOO!” zombie!Sirius cried, jumping on the table and snatching the potion from Harry’s arms (because, you know, it would be cheating to have the same death scene twice). A tooth fell into the glass, splashing some of the liquid into Harry’s face. Harry blinked.

“You need to see a dentist. That was just unsanitary.”

Zombie!Sirius grinned, grasping the potionand turning his back to Harry. “Excuse me for a second. I will be with you shortly.”

Harry shrugged and sat down. A book of zombie!Sirius’s desk was open to the page on Zombies (Inferi!). Remembering the potion from Snape’s class, he picked it up and read a few random lines.

The skin should have a sickly green paller

Behavior changes to how the zombie master had percieved the zombie in life.

Body parts have the pesky tendency to detatch but can easily be reattached with a muggle contraption called a hot glue gun.

“Harry!” Sirius said jauntily. Or maybe he only looked jaunty because of a poor reattachment of his eyebrows. “What’s this you say about Horcruxes?”

Harry’s sense of self preservation was warring with his denial and in his head he debated on wheither or not to tell Sirius everything. His self presevation lost the battle. Big time.

“I think I know where Voldemort’s soul part 4 is…”

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Pettigrew was on his knees before Voldemort. (No, not like that, you pervert!) “Master! I have been hearing dissent in the ranks about the name Death Eaters.”

Voldemort attempted to give him a death glare, but sadly, Peter Pettigrew just wouldn’t die. Snape’s death glares were far better than Voldemort’s. “Wormtail, I honestly don’t give a damn. How many muggles have you killed today? You really need to consistantly make your quota of evil or else, I will have to kill you.”

Peter’s sense of self preservation was an even bigger wimp than Harry’s. “But, my lord, they make a very convincing argument. Have you realized that eating death could be interpreted as a positive thing? Eating life would be far more intimidating.”

Voldemort glanced from side to side and weighed his options. Anamagi were useful, but the other side already knew of Wormtail’s rat-form and had probably put up mouse traps everywhere to catch him. And he wouldn’t shut up. Voldemort narrowed his eyes and leveled his wand on the babbling rat. “DIE INFIDEL!”

And then there was a smoking pile of charred dust right where Peter Pettigrew had been.

“Life Eaters,” mused Voldemort and turned to the henchmen at his side. “Contact my PR person. We are going to have a little name change.”

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The seventh year Gryffindor’s dormatory was silent save five boys snoring in their beds. Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway staring at them. Harry slept with a knife on his nightstand, Draco noticed. He suddenly found himself holding it. It was such a shiny, pointy knife.

Harry’s exposed neck was practically screaming, ‘SLICE ME!!!!!!’

And Draco was a slave to the whims of Harry’s neck, so he pressed the shiny, pointy blade to his jugular. Harry was done for before he even realized what had happened. His eyes opened wide and he gurgled in surprise.

Draco shuddered unapologetically and sneered, “Like you didn’t see this coming….”

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Dear Readers,

This chapter had plot. Aren’t you proud? It might be a bit hard to notice, but I promise, it was there… Then again it’s been so long since we updated, I’m not even sure we remember this ‘plot’…Also, DEAD HARRY!!! YAY!!! ( you can tell I wrote this chapter, huh?)

-spastic_visions

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spastic_visions would like to issue a WARNING on this chapter for... of forget it, you'll figure it out.

Chapter the Seventh

It was a stupid plan. Quite possibly the stupidest plan they had ever tried. “This is a stupid plan,” Ron said. “Pretty much they stupidest plan we’ve ever tried. And we did try to take down a troll that one time and then there was the flying car debacle and then…”

Harry cut him off. “Those don’t count. Hermione wasn’t there. None of the plans we’ve made with Hermione have been stupid.”

“This is a stupid plan,” Hermione confirmed.

“Fat Horace agrees with me.”

“I just wanted out of the cage. I NEVER agreed to pull a fast one on the Dark Lord. I thank you for your help and all but…”

Harry kicked the snake and hissed, “You’ll do it or all Hogwarts will be eating snake tonight.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“Oh, try me.” Harry smiled brightly and turned to Ron and Hermione. “Fat Horace is up for it.”

“Fat Horace is suicidal then,” said Ron. “I wouldn’t willingly enter a room with Voldemort much less swap places with his favorite pet. When that guy gets angry, death is just about your best option.”

“I hate you hero-types. Got no qualms about sacrificing pathetic little animals to your cause.”

“I only protect puppies, bunnies and Christmas.”

“I don’t even look like Voldemort’s freaking snake.” Fat Horace protested. “For one, she’s female and a rather fine looking one at that…”

“She’s Voldemort’s soul incarnate.” Harry snapped. “That’s just gross.”

“Hey, snakes have needs.”

“I am not having this conversation with a reptile.”

“Hey Harry,” Ron said. “This talking to the snake in snake language this is all well and good, but you know we’ve got better stuff to do.”

“Like what?” Harry asked. “Nothing big will happen before May. You know Voldemort never does anything first semester.”

“You know,” Ron said uncomfortably. “Plot stuff. You need to find a horcrux before everyone stops paying attention to us.”

“Right,” Harry said. “Plot.”

“I hate you all,” said Fat Horace.

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After Hermione threatened to beat Draco up, he told them the path to the Dark Lord’s evil lair. He also said they were stupid pea-brained idiots and quite possibly suicidal for wanting to attack the Dark Lord in the first place.

“I thought you wanted me dead,” Harry said. “I am, after all, your arch-nemesis.”

“Maybe,” said Draco, leaning closer for a moment, “I was only jealous.”

Harry’s glasses sparkled in the torchlight and Draco’s pale blond hair shined with an incandescent glow. Harry could hear Draco’s slightly erratic breathing and he leaned towards him, drawn by (omg!) the subtext and then Draco’s hands shot to Harry’s neck in a violent effort to strangle him. Harry’s eyes were bugging out, face blue from strangulation. The line between love and loathing was oh-so-very fine.

Unfortunately, since it was not the end of the chapter yet, Hermione intervened before Harry got too brain damaged.

“C’mon,” she said, handing him his firebolt. “We’ve got plot to do.”

Harry nodded once and they ran off, leaving Draco alone and confused.

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Ron had a problem. They were flying to Voldemort’s top secret lair in the middle of the night in order to implement the world!stupidest!plan and hopefully steal part of Voldemort’s soul.

And Fat Horace was riding with him.

That’s right folks, it was Snakes! On a Broom.

Fat Horace shifted his weight and Ron nearly lost control of his broom, only narrowly avoiding a weather balloon.

“That’s it!” Ron screamed. “I’ve had it with this motherfu—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Ronald,” Hermione called sharply. “You’re not Samuel L. Jackson and these books are supposed to be children friendly.”

“But the slashers got their moment last scene!” Ron protested. “Why don’t I get my cussing?”

“Because Ronald," Hermione explained, “you are not Samuel L. Jackson.”

“Bollocks,” Ron said.

“We’re here,” said Harry.

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Their plan was as simple as it was moronic.

“Explain this to me again,” Hermione said.

“‘Mione, it’s not terribly difficult,” Ron said.

“I know, it’s just every time I hear it, it sounds so idiotic that I’m sure I must’ve missed something.”

“It’s like this,” Harry said, shoving Fat Horace into Hermione’s arms. “I’m going to go to the front door and ask if Voldemort wants to duel. He’s going to come out to that king of all baits and his snake will follow close behind. So while I distract him, you swap out Nagini with Fat Horace and make a quick getaway.”

“But,” Hermione said slowly, “won’t that leave you alone with Voldemort and about two hundred Death Eaters?”

“Don’t worry,” said Harry. “I have a plan. It’s practically foolproof. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure about this, mate?” Ron asked. “I mean, you have already died three times this story. I think someone might have it in for you.”

“I hope Voldemort peels every inch of skin from your body and boils you in a vat of your own blood,” Fat Horace said. “If I hadn’t been defanged, I’d have done it myself. No wonder spastic_visions has it in for you.”

“Oh, whatever,” said Harry. “Let’s just shut up and implement the plan already.”

So they did. Ron, Hermione and Fat Horace went to the bushes to hide and Harry marched up to the front door of Voldemort’s secret hideaway and knocked twice.

“Password,” a voice drawled from behind the door.

“I’m Harry Potter,” said Harry Potter. “Tell the Dark Lord I’ve come to duel.”

“Ha, ha,” said the Death Eater. “Very funny, but not the password. Leave or I’ll melt your testicles.”

“No,” said Harry. “Look, Mr. Death Eater, sir, it really is Harry Potter here and I really have come to duel.”

“First off,” said the Death Eater, “we’re Life Eaters now. We’ve decided that eating death could have positive connotations and secondly, there is no way Harry Potter is stupid enough to come here without any back-up.”

“Look, just open the door and I’ll prove I’m Harry.”

“Very well,” the Death Eater cracked open the door and peered at Harry from behind his death mask. “So it is you,” he conceded. “I will inform the Dark Lord that Harry Potter had some sort of ill-formed trap waiting for him.”

“Thank you very much,” said Harry and stepped back outside to wait.

Voldemort didn’t keep him long. In fact, after only two minutes the Dark Lord emerged, pulling on a winter robe that had FEAR ME emblazoned on the back. Nagini trailed after him. “Potter,” he greeted, “I grow bored with your childish antics.”

“Lord Voldemort,” Harry said. “I grow bored with your face. You are a murderous, stinking poopy pants and I’m going to kill you for all the things you ruined in my life: my parents, Cedric, Sirius, my childhood…”

“Is that all?” Voldemort asked sounding more than a little bored with Harry’s orphan angst. “I was in the middle of my foot massage and Doctor Who starts in five minutes.”

Behind Voldemort, Harry could see Ron and Hermione making the snake swap.

“You know what?” said Voldemort. “I might as well kill you now and be done with it.” He drew his wand. “AVADA--”

“OH MY GOD!” Harry screamed, pointing wildly off to his left. “What the hell is that thing?”

Voldemort looked. When he did, Harry darted to his Firebolt, mounted it and zoomed off after Ron and Hermione.

Voldemort shrugged. “I’ll just kill the brat some other time.”

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“That was brilliant!” crowed Ron as they dragged Voldemort’s snake into the Gryffindor common room. “Fantastic!”

“I can’t believe something that idiotic actually worked,” said Hermione. “This defies all logic.”

“What do we do now?” asked Ron. “We’ve got the third part of Voldemort’s soul…”

Harry shrugged. “I’ll go grab Gryffindor’s sword. We can chop the snake up.”

“You’re going to kill it?” a new voice asked incredulously.

Harry whipped his head around only to see the fiery red hair of his forbidden love, Ginny. His brain glazed over in a lovesick stupor.

“Look at it’s little snaky face,” Ginny said, turning the snake’s eyes towards Harry so he could get the full effect of the hypnotic gaze. “You took her out of a bad environment,” Ginny said, absently stroking her scales. “She only wants to be loved…”

“Ginny,” Ron said softly. “She’s part of Voldemort’s soul. Remember Tom Riddle’s diary and how he turned you into his bitch? The snake’s kinda like that.”

“No she’s not!” insisted Ginny. “She’s just misunderstood. Go ahead, Harry. Pet her.”

It seemed like a good idea when Ginny said it so Harry bent over and put out a hand…

Which of course was immediately bitten because Voldemort’s soul strongly objected to being fondled by Harry Potter.

So Nagini emptied enough poison into Harry’s veins to kill a couple dozen elephants which killed Harry himself in a matter of seconds.

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Dear Readers (possibly without the 's,' don't think there's many of you),
We were at this point in the story locked in a valiant effort to finish it before JKR. We failed miserably. 
-

spastic_visions

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