Chapter 10
Disclaimer - I don’t own Evil Villainy for Dummies, amongst other things (such as Harry Potter). Evil Villainy for Dummies is another fanfic that belongs to Hermiones_Revenge, who very kindly let me make a reference to it here, and I would strongly recommend that you read it, if you haven’t done so already!
A/N - I’m really sorry that this wasn’t an issue of Dear Dumby, but there was just too much narration to fit in! But don’t worry, Issue 5 will be in the next chapter.
“Um…so what made you decide to become an evil villain obsessed with world domination and ridding the wizarding world of Muggle-borns?” Harry realised he had no choice but to go with the first option of trying to find a different side of Voldemort. Or at least try and make conversation.
“Well…” Voldemort scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“Master, I’m not really sure that this is going to help you rid the world of Muggle-borns and this infuriating Potter boy. It seems more of a playing-for-time solution of his. Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill him and get it over with?” Lucius implored.
“Shut up, Lucius, I’m thinking. Go and play with your pimp cane or something,” snapped Voldemort, as he leant back in his chair.
“Fine. But don’t blame me when he gets started,” Lucius said to Harry grouchily. Harry looked at him quizzically as Lucius turned on his heel and strode off towards the portrait hole.
“Oh don’t mind him, Lucius gets in these stupid moods sometimes. He’ll be back,” Voldemort said confidently, noticing Harry’s confused expression. Sure enough, Lucius scrambled back through the portrait a minute later, his hair dishevelled and the hem of his robe was newly torn as he stumbled back into the common room. “Told you so!” Voldemort smirked.
“Crazed. Fan. Girls,” Lucius gasped out. “Couldn’t. Make it. Through! Some of them tried to rip off my robes and Colin tried to tear off my nose! I only managed to get back as I promised to read you their messages!“ With that, Lucius brandished a seemingly never-ending roll of parchment and gave an experimental cough. “Lauryn would like to tell you that she thinks your hair is cute when it’s ruffled up. Scarlet would also like to add that the robes you wore last Tuesday don’t suit you as much as the ones you wore three weeks ago…” Voldemort shrugged, before turning back to his audience: Harry.
“Well I guess it all started that fateful day in November. It was getting colder, and the matron at the orphanage, Mrs. Cole, made me wear a pink woolly hat to school - and - and - all the other kids laughed at me!”
Draco Malfoy was pacing the Slytherin common room, his hair not combed to perfection, his face un-moisturized. He didn’t even berate Goyle for following him so closely that he kept kicking the back of his shoes. He was too nervous. He had been laughed at. Him, Draco Malfoy, laughed at. He was supposed to be the one who laughed at other people. Things were all wrong, and he couldn’t handle it. He had no choice but to take Dear Dumby’s advice, as much as he hated to. But it was either swallow his pride and take the advice, or have his pride shoved down his throat by force every time he tried to beat up a third year and remembered (too late) that Crabbe wasn’t there to hold them still.
“Crabbe!” he said, as soon as he saw him stumble down the stairs. “I need to talk to you.” Crabbe grunted, so Malfoy took that as an invitation to carry on. “I just wanted to say, I,” Malfoy paused. “I - I’m,” he took a deep gulp of air and continued in a very low voice, “sorry.” He looked back up from his shoelaces, which he had been staring at. “Will you come back and be my sidekick again?”
“What if I don’t want to be your sidekick?” Crabbe asked in his low grunt.
“Then I’ll be stuck with Goyle!” Malfoy wailed.
“Hey!” Goyle said, two minutes later, when he realised he had been insulted.
“Well, it’s true! I mean, you even cheered when Potter got the Snitch!” Malfoy shouted at a bewildered Goyle.
“Well, everyone else was…” Goyle muttered.
“If everyone else jumped off a cliff then you’d do it too, I expect!” Malfoy snapped.
“Well, would everyone else be in Slytherin? How many people are there? What else - “
“Anyway, Crabbe, please come back! I promise I won’t put you down…as much. And you can be second in command! I’ll even buy you a Christmas present! And you can have every second Sunday off!” Malfoy looked up hopefully at his former sidekick.
“Alright,” he said simply.
“Brilliant! Well, what are we waiting for? There are midgets to hex and Mudblood’s to taunt! Come on you lazy oafs!”
“So that was when I decided that I would have my revenge! No more would stinking Muggles get the better of me and get away with it! I knew that, someday, I would slay them all!” Harry edged away from his side of the sofa, looking at Voldemort warily out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, why would they do that? Mrs. Cole always said that pink brought out the colour in my eyes!”
The dungeons were looking, if possible, more dingy than when Ron and Hermione had started ‘cleaning‘. This could have been because they had somehow managed to break two of the candle lights, but neither of them had noticed.
“Well, when it comes to naming mine and Viktor’s children, I’m going to name them after all the people who are special to me, those who I actually care about who they go out with! There will be Harry, Viktor Junior, Ginny…”
Harry woke up with a start.
“And that was when Haley said I was a loser! I knew then that…”
Apparently Voldemort had not noticed Harry had fallen asleep, or he didn’t care. Harry groaned as he tried to move his left foot, which also seemed to have fallen asleep. He now knew what Lucius (“Alexa would like you to know that she was the one who left a sugar quill on your pillow…”) had meant. When would it end?
“…Dean, Neville, Luna, Lavender, Seamus…”
Harry had decided to take a different approach and was now trying to insult Voldemort into getting some self pride and shutting up.
“Some evil mastermind! You weren’t even in my third year!” he interrupted.
“Hey, that was a difficult time for me!” Voldemort protested. “I was under a lot of emotional trauma! You know, most people don’t understand just how demanding being an evil overlord can be! I mean, there’s the Death Eater meetings, plotting, attending parties (but only the ones where I was guest of honour, naturally) finding new, interesting and elaborate ways of taking over the world, killing you, shopping…as you can see I was under a lot of stress!”
“…Hannah, Ernie, Justin…”
“So there I was, in my hour of need, when I found my miracle - Evil Villainy For Dummies. That book saved my career!” Harry groaned. Voldemort’s life story was, unsurprisingly, boring.
“Barney is more evil than you! You know, the purple dinosaur who sings ‘I love you, you love me, we are one big family’?”
“I know!” Voldemort wailed, throwing himself onto Harry’s shoulder. “I quit!”
“…Padma, Terry - “
“Merlin, how many kids are you going to have?” Hermione silenced him with a glare before continuing.
“Well, if we decide to have any more children, I guess I’d have to think of the next person closest to me, but seeing as I’ve named everyone I actually like, I have to start with people I don’t like. Let’s see, what do you think of Draco Krum?”
Hermione looked over in what could have been described as concern, if she wasn’t mad at him, as Ron seemed to be choking on air.
“But you can’t quit being evil! What else are going to do with your life?” Harry was in shock. He had only meant to stop Voldemort from rambling on, not rid himself, and the world, of his nemesis. Things have gone too far, he decided.
“I don’t know…play Scrabble? Start up a gardening club?”
Ron was giving a fantastic impression of a cat with a hairball as he retched loudly in the dingy corner, whilst Hermione carried on regardless.
“Although I feel as if I’m forgetting someone, um, R something…Oh, I know! Rob! That person I bought a new quill from three years ago! That’s who’s next closest to me!”
“But - but what about me? I mean, I’m the tragic hero! If you quit, I’ll have nothing! How else am I going to get girls?” Harry moaned, his head in his hands in grief.
“There’s got to be someone round here crazy or stupid enough to take you. What about that goth girl you mentioned? Not like me. I mean, it’s not as if Melie could perform a Patronus or anything. She had a ladder in her tights, and her Transfiguration - well, let’s just say she wasn’t too far out of my league…”
If Harry had been able to worm his way out of Voldemort’s grasp to move over to the table and bang his head repeatedly on it, he would have.
Dear Dumby by Oppungo
Chapter Notes: Thanks to my lovely beta, songbook99!
There is a lot of confrontation taking place at Hogwarts in this chapter, as not only are the Parent-Teacher Conferences taking place, but Ron and Hermione are bickering in the dungeons, Harry tries to evade his seemingly inevitable death once again, and Draco strives to get his minions back...