CHAPTER I
I SPY
Harry Potter was an unusual boy.
“That about sums it up,” JK said to herself and looked happily at her introduction.
Harry was walking from the library”where he had studied about the Purdkins for his Defence Against the Dark Arts essay”to Gryffindor Tower. He dragged himself along the many corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and after what seemed like several hours, he found himself in front of the Fat Lady.
“Snoutcod” he said dully.
“Indeed,” the Fat Lady agreed and let him pass.
Harry entered the common room where he found Ron and Hermione in one of their endless rows.
“That’s NOT the point!” Hermione cried, pointing her index finger at Ron, whose face was the same colour as his hair.
“I don’t care! I can bring it up if I want to!” he bellowed.
“What are you arguing about now?” Harry asked, not really sure if he wanted to get into this little disagreement of whatever sort it might be.
“Hermione has brought ignominy to her family name!” Ron answered angrily.
“How?” Harry asked.
“She… She… SHE!” Ron shouted, pointing at Hermione, “Has disgraced herself!”
“Yes, I heard that, Ron. But how?” Harry asked again.
“I can’t even tell you how,” Ron muttered grumpily and slumped into an armchair by the fireplace.
Harry looked at Hermione for answers. She sighed and said, “I met Malfoy in Hyde Park just before we began this school year. And well… apparently a choir of little Catholic school girls walked by and saw us snogging under a bench.”
A pause.
Harry shifted uncomfortably on the spot.
Hermione continued, “And apparently one of the girls was Ron’s cousin and he just happened to be in the vicinity….” she trailed off.
“Hermione…”
Hermione turned to look at Ron, who had now stood up and walked over to her while saying her name. “Hermione,” he repeated. “I wasn’t yelling at you for that. It was because you took the last chocolate frog.”
Dumbledore was pacing his office. Professors McGonagall, Sprouch and Flitwick were standing nearby, watching his every move. After five minutes of Dumbledore’s presumably continuing pacing, professor McGonagall carefully asked, “Have you decided yet, Headmaster?”
Dumbledore looked up at her with a very concerned look. It was clear to the other professors that this decision was taking a lot of energy out of the elderly Headmaster. But he, nevertheless, managed to smile and got out of the hole he had produced in the floor by his pacing.
“Yes, Minerva, I have,” he answered slowly. He walked behind his desk and sat down, facing the three nervous-looking professors. He put his long fingers together and closed his eyes.
“Yes?” professor McGonagall urged him.
Dumbledore looked up at them and they all straightened their backs, ready for whatever response he would bring them. Slowly, oh so slowly, Dumbledore opened his mouth and said, “A chocolate frog, please.”
“We have a plan,” Lord Voldemort declared, looking around at his Death Eaters, who stood in a half-moon opposite him.
“We have?” Peter Pettigrew asked nervously.
“No, Wormtail, you haven’t “ we have,” Voldemort corrected.
“I do not understand, my lord,” Pettigrew whimpered. “I do not recall-”
“Wormtail!” Voldemort bellowed. “When I say ‘we’, I speak of myself, you insignificant little twerp. I have decided to speak of myself in first person plural since it gives my appearance extra superiority.”
“But of course, master,” Pettigrew whispered with his head almost touching his knees in a very low bow.
“Good,” Voldemort said and removed his cat-like eyes to look over the rest of the Death Eaters. “On to the plan!”
“Well, since that’s settled, I have to go now,” Harry said, turned his back to Hermione and Ron, and walked over to the portrait hole.
“Where are you going, Harry?” Ron asked.
“Detention with Snape,” Harry growled.
“I feel with you, mate.”
“Thanks, Ron,” Harry replied. After giving his two best friends a long and most deserved sigh, Harry proceeded through the portrait hole.
He walked down the many stairs from Gryffindor Tower on the seventh floor and all the way down to the dungeons. He walked alongside a cold stone wall with torches flickering against the light wind that blew in through a small windpipe in the ceiling. As he approached Snape’s office door, he heard a sound”very much alike someone humming. Harry opened the door to Snape’s office and stepped soundlessly inside. Now the humming sound was clearer and when Harry proceeded through the next door in the office, he saw Snape with his back against Harry, leaning over a desk, humming. Harry couldn’t recognize the melody at first, but then Snape broke into song.
“Ooh, What you want
Ooh, Baby, I got
Ooh, What you need
Ooh, Do you know I got it?
Ooh, All I'm askin'
Ooh, Is for a little respect when you come home, just a little bit
Hey, baby, when you get home,
just a little bit, mister, just a little bit
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
Oh, sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it-”
Snape had turned around, wanting to break out in the dance Trelawney had taught him, but stopped dead at the sight of Harry.
“P-Potter,” he stammered.
“Sorry, professor, didn’t mean to disturb…” Harry trailed off, looking strangely at Snape.
Snape let out a small cough. “Yes, well…” he replied, putting down a piece of parchment which, Harry presumed, contained song lyrics. “Let’s return to my office, shall we?” he finished and went out of the back room after Harry.
Voldemort paced back and forth in front of his Death Eaters. The first thing he decided upon, was to stop speaking of himself in first person plural since he wasn’t good at keeping it up. The next thing he thought about was his master plan. After several minutes of Voldemort’s pacing”in which he had not revealed his plan yet”Nott took a small step forward and said with a shaking voice, “Master?”
“What?” Voldemort snapped, not removing his eyes from the floor.
“If you please, sir,” Nott began, “I would like to ask for permission to withdraw since I have a small party to go to. Not that I do not enjoy watching you elegantly pace these beautiful mahogany floors, while obviously planning a most vicious and brilliant plan, but it is my nephew’s birthday…” he trailed off. “So, is it possible for me to go, my lord?” he finished.
“What do you think?” Voldemort asked, now piercing his eyes into Nott’s, which made Nott flinch.
“Of course, master, how stupid of me…” Nott bowed and returned to his place in the Death Eaters’ circle.
“No, no, Nott,” Voldemort said and furrowed his ‘eyebrows’ at how strange those three words sounded together. “I meant that you may of course take your leave. I just have one question…”
“Yes, master?” asked Nott, who looked extremely astonished that he had got permission to go.
“Can I come?”
Nott looked a little taken aback.
“It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a birthday party,” Voldemort continued. “Is there going to be a clown?”
“Erm, no, my lord,” Nott responded, bowing once again. “My nephew is turning eighteen.”
“Pity…” Voldemort replied. “Well, off you go, Nott. Be sure to murder and harass some Muggles on your way.” Nott nodded and disappeared through the door. “As for the rest of you”you’ll stay here and listen to my most brilliant plan to date!” Voldemort cried, happily clapping his hands together.
There was a loud groan amongst the Death Eaters.
“How was detention with Snape, Harry?” Hermione asked as Harry joined them at the dinner table.
“Boring,” Harry answered. Snape had used the Obliviate curse on Harry so he could not remember what happened in Snape’s back room before the detention started.
“Harry, Hermione’s just found out there’s a Hogmeade weekend next week!” Ron exclaimed.
“Sounds great,” Harry responded happily and ate some mashed potatoes.
“What’s this? Mail at dinner?” Hermione asked curiously, looking up.
Harry followed her eyes, looked up, and saw an owl swoop gently toward Gryffindor table. It landed elegantly in front of Harry, who took the letter off it’s leg, and the owl took off. On the envelope, Harry saw his name written with a beautiful silver handwriting which he did not recognize.
“Open it,” Ron encouraged him.
Harry turned it around, opened it, and unfolded the letter.
Dear monsieur Harry Potter,
I much enjoyed my stay at Hogwarts, which is now three years ago, and therefore I have decided to come and pay you a visit. If you do not mind, that is. I look forward to your response, and say hello to Ron for me.
Grosses bises,
Mademoiselle Fleur Delacour
Harry was speechless. “Who’s it from?” asked Hermione, who had been eyeing him all through his reading.
“Fleur,” Harry responded in a barely audible voice.
“Fleur?” Ron asked, wide-eyed. “Fleur Delacour?!”
Harry nodded and shoved the letter over to Ron and Hermione, who sat closer to each other so they could read it at the same time.
“Cool,” was all Ron could say afterwards.
“Her writing is much better than her pronunciation was,” Hermione pointed out.
“Who cares?” Harry and Ron replied in unison.
“I spy with my little eye…”
The Death Eaters awaited Voldemort’s continuation.
Alas, they waited in vein.
“Yes, master?” McNair urged him.
“LET ME FINISH!” Voldemort bellowed.
McNair crumbled back into the row of Death Eaters and stood oh so still as not to disturb his master further.
“I spy with my little eye… something that is dark-haired,” Voldemort finished with S-A-T-I-S-F-A-C-T-I-O-N written across his forehead.
The Death Eaters glared at him blankly.
“Another clue?” Voldemort drawled. The Death Eaters nodded in mortification. “Very well…” Voldemort let out a huge disappointed sigh and then began, “I spy with my little eye… something that is dark-haired and wears glasses.”
A lonesome cricket could be heard in the distance.
“Oh, dear,” Voldemort uttered and threw his hands up in the air in despair.
“Master!”
“Yes, Crabbe?” Voldemort leered.
“Dumbledore,” Crabbe said with a tad of pride in his voice.
“Dumbledore?” Voldemort replied. “DUMBLEDORE?! Does Dumbledore have dark hair and glasses?!”
“He does have glasses, my lord,” McNair pointed out.
“OUT!” Voldemort bellowed, and McNair crawled out of the door that Voldemort was furiously pointing at. “Crabbe…” Voldemort began, now more calmly, and turned his head to the wizard standing just a little out of the circle of Death Eaters. “As Dumbledore’s hairdresser, I can not see how you could ASSUME I was speaking of Dumbledore. You, as well as the whole wizarding world, know his famous long white beard!”
“Yes, master. Of course, master,” Crabbe replied and bowed twice before returning to his place amongst the other Death Eaters.
“Maybe I should grow a long white beard to be recognized, too,” Voldemort mumbled, tapping his index finger on his lipless mouth.
“You, my lord, are indeed recognisable just as you are,” Goyle put in.
“OUT!”
Goyle crawled utterly ashamed out of the same door as McNair had gone through only moments before.
“Where was I? Ah, yes,” Voldemort said and returned to his position in the middle of the half-moon circle of Death Eaters. “I spy with my little eye...” Once again a groan escaped the Death Eaters’ mouths. Voldemort let out a little cough and continued, eyeing them wickedly, “…with my little eye... something that is dark-haired, wears glasses AND has a scar on his forehead the shape of a lightning!”
The lonesome cricket could be heard once again.
“Oh, why do I even bother?” Voldemort sobbed.
After wiping the tears off his bony cheeks, Voldemort positioned himself in the middle of the half-moon circle once again. “Ahem… Seeing that none of you have any brains left after the bikiniwaxes you so desperately wanted…” Voldemort trailed off. The Death Eaters looked as if their eyes could pop out any second. “I was just kidding!” Voldemort exclaimed.
All the Death Eaters laughed except Lucius Malfoy, who looked strangely uncomfortable.
“As I was saying!” Voldemort said sternly, making the Death Eaters stop laughing, “Since you have lost your brains”maybe not because of that particular reason previously mentioned”I just have to cut it out in cardboard.” Voldemort let out another sigh of disappointment. “The person I was ‘spying with my little eye’ was none other than the famous Harry Potter!”
“I knew that-”
“Of course, master-”
“Brilliant, I shall-”
“Yes, yes,” Voldemort replied, waving his hands to make them quiet. “Yes, of course you all knew that was what I meant… you insufferable lot of nitwits!”
The Death Eaters stirred uncomfortably on the spot and looked nervously up at their master.
“The interesting part is,” Voldemort began and the Death Eaters made a sound as if they hadn’t even expected an interesting part, and they suddenly stood upright, listening intently. “I spy with my little eye…” The Death Eaters immediately stooped down again. “Ahem… with my little eye… a Hogsmeade weekend!”
“A Hogsmeade weekend, my lord?” Pettigrew asked nervously.
“Yes, Wormtail, yes!” Voldemort bellowed as if saying ‘Hogmeade weekend’ out of nowhere was the simplest thing in the world. “A-weekend-to-the-village-Hogsmeade-for-students-from-Hogwarts-School-of-Witchcraft-and-Wizardry!” Voldemort said slowly so that Pettigrew could not miss any words of this unbelievably wise sentence.
Pettigrew still looked confused which made Voldemort bellow, “Do you not understand English anymore, Wormtail?! Do you want me to repeat it in French? Okay! Un week-end à l’hameau, Hogsmeade, pour les étudiants de l’école d’Hogwarts de Sorcellerie et Sorbier!”
“If you please, my lord,” Lucius whispered. “I think you mistook ‘wizardry’ for a rowan tree.”
“That’s beside the point!” Voldemort bellowed.
Harry woke up with a start. He couldn’t remember what he had dreamt about, but he knew it hadn’t been a good dream”sweat made his hair cling to his forehead and his pyjamas clung to his body like a homeless person would cling on to a lamp post in a hurricane.
He got up and walked into the bathroom where he took a cold shower. Letting the chilly water run down his body made his mind wander. But where to, he did not know.
Voldemort. No, wait… Well, it does look like him but it can’t be “ this bloke is speaking French.
Who said anything about rowan trees?
Cold water suddenly burst through Harry’s thoughts. For a moment he was sure that he had just had a vision of Voldemort again. Usually there were some evil schemes floating around in the air in these dreams or visions, but this time there was a French version of Voldemort, talking about rowan trees.
Harry shrugged it off and went into the boys’ dormitory to get dressed. Ron was up when he came back.
“Morning, mate,” he greeted Harry. “Breakfast?”
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Harry responded.
At the breakfast table they sat down opposite Hermione, who was very much interested in her book. Harry immediately recognized it to be Hogwarts; A History because he had seen her read it so many times. He poured some pumpkin juice into his goblet and turned to Ron, “What’s our first lesson today?” he asked.
“History of Magic,” Ron drawled. “By the way, Harry, I’ve decided to take Muggle Studies instead of Divination.”
“What?! You can’t just leave me in that tower with that nutcase!” Harry argued.
“You can just transfer to Muggle Studies, too,” Ron suggested.
“Ron, I live with Muggles,” Harry pointed out. “I know enough about them.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Ron grinned.
“Come on,” Hermione suddenly cut in, “we have to go to History of Magic.”
“AS I WAS SAYING!” Voldemort bellowed once again, trying to rid himself of the humility of speaking incorrect French. “I spy with my little eye a Hogsmeade weekend. Indeed, I do. It MEANS…” he trailed off, looking from Death Eater to Death Eater. The prospect of finally knowing what all the ‘I spy’ and the French side track were leading to, the Death Eaters suddenly awoke from their slumbering state.
“Which means…” Voldemort repeated with a bittersweet voice, “that young Harry will be out of Hogwarts grounds. And then we will…?” he asked.
“Go after him and kill him!” Rockwood yelled with glee.
“Yeah!” Lestrange agreed.
“Potter’s going down, dude!” Lucius blended in.
“NO, YOU IMBECILES!” Voldemort bellowed which made all the Death Eaters stop in half-yell and look at him blankly. “I need him!”
The Death Eaters gave him very curious looks.
“Not need him like that!” Voldemort nervously added in a hurry.
“So, when’s Fleur coming?” Hermione asked, rather uninterested in the subject. But she had been brought up to be polite.
“Friday afternoon,” Harry answered. “And since that’s the Hogsmeade weekend, I thought we could get up early the next morning and all go together.”
“I agree with you on the all go together-part,” Ron said, “but not the get up early-part.”
“Okay,” Harry grinned. “You, Hermione?”
“Sounds absolutely smashing!” she exclaimed a little too eagerly. Harry eyed her suspiciously.
“What I mean,” Voldemort continued after a mall cough to clear the embarrassing situation he found himself in, “is that I need Harry Potter for my most vicious, extreme, horrifying, wicked, evil, bad, vicious-”
“You said vicious…” Rockwood pointed out.
“OUT!”
Rockwood ran, sniffing, out of the room.
“…my most evil, bad, vicious plan to date!” Voldemort finished with an evil smile.
“Indeed, sir?” Lucius asked.
“Indeed, Lucius,” Voldemort nodded in satisfaction.
“What, may I ask, is the plan about?” Lucius asked.
“A just question, my nonentity,” Voldemort replied, putting his hands together on his back and continuing his pacing. “We will”and now when I say we, I do not only mean myself”catch dear Harry in Hogsmeade-”
“Ooohh…!”
“Yes, indeed, Lestrange,” Voldemort sneered. “We will capture him, return him here, where we will cut a great deal of his hair off.”
The remaining Death Eaters”the ones who had not yet been kicked out”stared blankly at their master. Lucius opened his mouth to speak but was cut off. “IN ADDITION,” Voldemort continued, “we will also cut off some of my hair and we will make a Polyjuice Potion. Harry and I will switch places, continually drinking the potion. As the boy will become me out of appearance”and you will of course know that he isn’t the real me”he will have to stay here where you can keep an eye on him. While I,” Voldemort said proudly, expanding his chest to the fullest, “I will return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and turn everything around! To translate: This is my mission to get control of the whole UNIVERSE!” he exclaimed viciously, throwing his arms excitedly to each side. “Ahem… well maybe just the Earth,” he added, crumbling his toes nervously in his shoes.
“Well?” Voldemort began after a few minutes of silence. “Why aren’t you applauding?”
Instantly, applause broke out in the dark room of the Riddle House, where their I’ve-got-a-vicious-plan meetings were held.
Voldemort seemed pleased with this and sat down in his chair, exhausted after his long energy-taking speech. “Thank you, thank you,” he said deferentially, waving his hands to stop the applause.
“If I might be as bold as to say something, sir?” Lestrange stepped forward, holding her hands together in front of her chest.
“Oh, all right, if you must,” Voldemort growled and slumped down in his chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“The Hogsmeade weekend is in four days now,” Lestrange began, “but the Polyjuice Potion takes a month to brew, master.”
“OUT!”
Lestrange whimpered before running out of the room.
“A month,” Voldemort repeated. “HA! I’m the most powerful wizard that ever walked this planet and Saturn, so clearly I could make the potion in four days!”
“My lord…” Lucius began. “I’m am sorry to bring upon you such devastating news but the potion needs its month to brew properly and-”
“OUT!”
Lucius bowed and slowly withdrew from the room. Voldemort looked at the teeny amount of Death Eaters that remained. He suddenly furrowed his ‘eyebrows’ and asked, “Where is everyone?”
“They behaved badly, sir, and you shooed them away,” Bucklenot answered nervously.
“How DARE you lie to my face?!” Voldemort bellowed. “Bring them all here at once!”
“So what do you want to do today?” Harry asked after their last class of the day. They were sitting comfortably in Gryffindor common room in front of the roaring fire. Ron had put his feet onto the coffee table in front of the sofa and Hermione kept shooing them away mumbling something about “Bad hygiene.”
“Well, obviously we’ll do our homework before anything else,” Hermione replied.
“Yes, obviously we’re not allowed to do anything remotely pleasurable after a long day of lessons,” Ron grumbled.
“Precisely,” Hermione sneered. “No, of course not, Ron. I just think we should get it out of the way so we can enjoy the rest of the day without continually thinking about the homework that lies untouched in our respective dormitories.”
“Merlin!” Ron breathed, shooting his hands up in the air in despair.
“Besides,” Hermione continued, “You wouldn’t want to be overloaded with homework when Fleur arrives for that’ll give you no time whatsoever with that darling Veela.”
“Homework it is!” Harry exclaimed, clapping his hands together joyously.
When all the misbehaved Death Eaters had returned to their place in their half-moon circle, Voldemort began, “As I have so cunningly discovered by my brilliant self, the Polyjuice Potion does not have enough time to be brewed properly. Therefore,” Voldemort looked around and when his eyes met Lucius Malfoy’s, he continued, “you, Lucius, will go down to our stock of potions and search each shelf to their very corner.”
Lucius bowed and turned to leave. “I hope,” Voldemort whispered maliciously, “for your own safety, that you find it.”
Lucius bowed once again and disappeared through the Eastern door.
“Done!” Ron exclaimed, looking happily at his Potions essay.
“Great,” Hermione smiled. “Now you just have to do your Transfiguration homework.”
“Argh!”
Voldemort stood by a window, looking out on the lovely September evening sky. The clouds had a shade of pink as the sun was disappearing on the horizon. He let out a small sigh, absorbing the beautiful wonders of the world.
Suddenly he became quite disgusted with himself and his actions.
He hurriedly proceeded to his pacing before the Death Eaters saw, for pacing elevated his superiority while gazing out the window on dreamy pink, fluffy clouds definitely did not.
A door creaked open and Lucius Malfoy went inside with a small bag in his hands.
“You got the potion!” Voldemort exclaimed.
“No, my lord,” Lucius replied as he walked toward the Dark Lord with the bag held carefully in his hands. “This is your monthly consignment of tranquillizing pills.”
“Oh.”
Lucius handed the bag to a slight awkward-looking Voldemort, and said, “I’ll go to the dungeons now and search for the potion, master.” He bowed and soon disappeared through the door.
“Done!” Ron exclaimed, looking happily at his Transfiguration homework.
“Great,” Hermione smiled. “Now you just have to do your Charms essay.”
“Argh!”
“I found it, sir!”
Lucius reappeared through the door only a couple of minutes later. In his hands he held a transparent vial. You could see the lumpy consistency inside it.
“Very well, Lucius,” Voldemort smirked viciously. “Hand it to me.”
Lucius cautiously gave his master the vial and resumed to his place among the Death Eaters.
Voldemort laughed.
The laugh only a very wicked wizard could produce. A laugh that brought up every vicious side of him, and made his inferiors and foes feel as if their souls were freezing.
“Let the plan begin!” Voldemort exclaimed, the glee so evident in his eyes.
“Yes, master!” Lestrange chorused.
“Lestrange! You ruined the perfect ending to this chapter!” Voldemort berated. “It was the perfect cliffie. But no, no, no! You just had to agree with me, didn’t you?!”
Lestrange look utterly ashamed.
“I’ll just have to say it again, you diseased rhinoceros’ pizzle!” Voldemort bellowed.
He replaced himself in his superior position and straightened up to his full height.
“Let the plan begin!”