A/N: As I'm sure many of you are aware, there have been several rumours going around that this will be the final chapter. I can confirm that these rumours are true. I can also confirm that I started all of these rumours, so they were never really rumours but fact. But that is neither here nor there. Anyway, before I get on with the chapter, I would like to make it fully clear that if it wasn't for the help, input and encouragement of the following people, this fic probably wouldn't be what it is today. I say this purely so that the blame does not fall fully on me (although admittedly I'll have to shoulder a large brunt of it, but I'm hoping by the time this is up I will have got all my affairs in order and escaped) when angry readers come knocking at my door, complete with flamethrowers, trying to find the cause of this abomination. So, if it were not for the following people, this story would not be here, or at least not what it is today. So - a huge thank you to my amazing beta, Karin (songbook99), who has been such a huge help throughout, picking up on all my (little and big) mistakes, and constantly thinking of ways to improve things. So thank you (and blame!) Karin! Also, thank you so much to all the mods for patiently reading through and rejecting (and accepting things here and there too!) all these chapters. So, thank you (and blame!) moddlies! A gigantic thank you to all my readers and reviewers, for inspiring me to update and for giving me ideas and encouragement all the way through. You truly don't know how much it all meant to me. So, thank you (and blame!) readers and reviewers! So, thank you so much everyone - and thank you for reading this - the end!
Chapter 12
“You know, I never wanted to be evil. I always wanted to be a dentist…”
“Enough! Enough already!” Harry screamed. “This is almost worst than the Crazy Frog!” Harry knew he could take it no more. The only sound he had heard was Voldemort’s whining for the last hour, and quite frankly he couldn’t handle it any longer. “I am not a psychiatrist! What’s more, I don’t actually care! You know, everyone has problems, didn’t you read ’Dear Dumby’? You just overreact! So nobody liked you! So you had awful fashion sense! So you smell!“
“Hey! I do n - not!” Voldemort sniffled.
“Um…" Harry coughed. "Yeah… So what? Deal with it! Because I can’t!” Harry finished, feeling immensely better as he collapsed back onto the sofa, not really caring what happened next, as long as it didn’t involve any more of Voldemort’s hardships.
“But - “
“No buts!” Harry positively yelled. Voldemort gave one last sob before straightening up in his seat and wiping his nose.
“I d - don’t know how you’ve done it, once again,” Voldemort admitted begrudgingly. “But somehow you have survived another encounter with me.” He scowled, standing up and throwing his cloak around him impressively with a flourish. “Malfoy!” Lucius, who seemed to have recovered from his previous encounter (though he did still yell, “Not the robes - they‘re satin!” at random moments), stood to attention.
“What shall I do? I can’t let word get round that I’ve let the twerp escape again, I’ll get chucked out of Evil Villains Incorporated Limited!” Voldemort paled at the thought of the humiliation.
“Well, my Lord, why don’t you kill him?” Lucius asked, with slight frustration. “You know, what we came here to do?”
“Don’t be stupid, Lucius,” Voldemort said, looking at Lucius with cold distain. “I’ve had hours to kill him, how would it look if it took me this long to do it? Plus, it wouldn’t be nearly impressive enough. No, we must think of something else…a plan…”
Hermione seemed to be unaware of the fact that Ron had resorted to his old trick of banging his head against a desk.
“And then, at Christmas, Viktor and I will be sitting around the table, with all of our children - ”
“Yeah, all five thousand and forty two of them,” Ron added in an undertone. Hermione glared at the interruption.
“And one of them will ask about the first time we met, and we’ll tell them all about the Yule Ball, and then Viktor will say, ’remember your stupid, insensitive, annoying…”
“I’ve got it!” Voldemort cried out happily. Harry blinked as he looked away from his previous activity: counting his one nose. Malfoy, too, put down his nail file to listen. “This is one of my most ingenious, resourceful, creative ideas yet! We’ll… “ By now both Harry and Lucius were intrigued, although that wasn’t saying much, considering before Harry had started counting his nose he had been daydreaming about watching paint dry. “We’ll just pretend this whole thing never happened! Then, when I‘m, f - feeling better, we‘ll do this whole thing again!” Harry and Lucius exchanged glances.
“Well, that's better than the gardening club...”
“Brilliant idea, my Lord! I completely agree. One of your most brilliant ideas yet! It by far out does the one to steal Potter’s blanket…”
Harry gave a yawn and settled back down to counting his nose.
“I think we should make it official,” Lucius declared, after he had finished complimenting Voldemort, who seemed to be considering the idea as he warmed his toes by the fire.
“Very well then. I won’t tell anyone about this if you won’t. Cross my heart and hope to d-”
“No! Surely not hope to die, Master!” Lucius said in alarm. The night had already gone horrendously; the last thing he needed was Voldemort dying on his watch.
“No, no. Alright then, how about pinkie swear?”
“‘…argumentative, inconsiderate friend? The one who just sat miserably all evening and refused to dance with his date? The one who glared at us all night? The one who -'”
“Alright! I get the picture!” Ron burst out, not being able to take anymore.
“Well, at least you get something.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I knew it couldn’t last.”
Harry ran down to the dungeons so quickly he couldn’t see his feet move; they were just a blur. He was so elated with the fact that he was free, free at last, from Voldemort’s (numerous) woes, that he didn’t even notice Hagrid lurking around, examining every nook and cranny, or a firework fizzing around Lavender Brown who was apparently having a breakdown. He didn’t take in Peeves greasing down all the corners, so that people (like Harry, who were going too fast to take notice of their surroundings) would slip, or the fact that the Bloody Baron was too busy trying to resuscitate one of the students who was choking on one of his sweets to stop him. All he cared about was getting down to the dungeons and retelling his tale happily, with great added embellishment, naturally.
He didn’t think that Snape might have finally had enough of telling parents how closely their children resembled sea slugs, both in brains and appearance, and might have returned to the dungeons to enjoy watching his latest victims suffer. He also didn’t think that because they had been told to finish off scrubbing the dungeons the floor would be slippery, and if he rushed in, he would most likely fall over.
Luckily Snape hadn’t escaped yet and Ron and Hermione had been too preoccupied to actually clean, so Harry didn’t get the detention he had been threatened with earlier, or slip over. But he did run into the door before he slowed down enough to open it and enter normally.
Even with all the weirdness and strange things that had happened recently, even with shock of having been eliminated from Harry’s emotions due to overuse, Harry still thought that this sight was probably the most bizarre one yet.
Ron and Hermione’s lips parted from each others’ to mirror Harry’s look of complete and utter shock.
“Ron? Hermione? So...er...I guess the whole ‘I hate you and never want to see you again’ was a euphemism?” Harry asked whilst Ron and Hermione looked awkwardly anywhere other than at each other.
“I can explain!” Ron blurted out desperately. There was a long pause as both Harry and Hermione stared at him. “Ok, maybe I can’t.” Harry resisted the urge to laugh.
“Yes, you can!” Hermione corrected him hastily.
“I can? Oh, er, yes, I mean, I can!” Ron agreed. “I remember now...we were, uh, rehearsing a play!”
“In detention?” Harry was finding this extremely amusing, a lot more so than Ron and Hermione, who were both jabbering frantically, as well as turning a very deep shade of scarlet each.
“Um, yes. I mean, no! Uh, I mean…”
“He means, I, um, didn’t feel too well, and, um, fainted! And, um, Ron thought I was, er, dead! So he had to give me mouth to mouth resuscitation!”
“Yeah! And, um, then, I realised that Hermione wasn’t actually dead after all! Er, as soon as you came in! And, er, then…”
“What’s everyone crowding round?” Harry asked as he saw that, once again, everybody in the Gryffindor common room seemed absorbed in something on the notice board.
“Dunno,” Ron replied uselessly. “Probably another notice.” Harry rolled his eyes.
“Why don’t we ask your girlfriend?” Harry suggested. He never got tired of seeing Ron’s ears turn redder than his hair.
“Have you two seen the notice?” asked none other than the source of Ron’s beet redness herself.
“Define seen. I mean, is this like when you define care, or is this the actual definition of the word this time?” Harry grinned as he saw Hermione’s cheeks turn the same colour as Ron’s ears.
“Well, they’re closing down ’Dear Dumby’! Apparently there were too many complaints about the advice going wrong!” Hermione laughed. “I mean, if you think about it, I can’t think of one piece of advice that actually worked!”
“Now you come to mention it, that's right! I mean, all Harry’s letter did was cause Hogwarts to run out of tissues and give him an ear-ache! Well, I suppose Lucius did get to file his nails…” Ron mused. Harry grimaced at the memory of it.
“Urgh, you think that was bad? Try sharing a dorm with Lavender, having to listen to her complaining about how she has to wear that awful glove, which clashed with her eye shadow.” Hermione groaned as she sat down on the sofa.
“Yeah? Well thanks to Cat-Lover 212 we had to clean the dungeons - with a toothbrush!” Harry pointed out.
“So did I! In my detention with Ron, which by the way, was all your fault!” Hermione said, addressing the last bit to Ron with a small glare.
“It didn’t look like much cleaning was going on to me!” Harry said with an evil grin (he received his invitation to join the E.V.I.L. (Evil Villains Incorporated Limited) later that evening - apparently they had a recent job opening…)
Ron and Hermione didn’t answer.
“Well, ‘Dear Dumby’ wasn’t that bad! I mean, we got our own back on Malfoy with the absence of Crabbe - for a while, anyway. I mean, alright, so it kind of helped Voldemort get into the castle and try to kill me again, and so the Crazy Frog is still on the loose - “
“What?” Ron, Hermione and the second years who had been eavesdropping yelled.
“Uh, nothing!” Harry said guiltily, before hurriedly deviating the conversation topic. “Well, Ron, ‘Dear Dumby’ did help you find out who slept with a teddy named Hugsy!”
“Who?” They both looked intrigued. “It was Malfoy, wasn’t it!” Ron asked, looking momentarily thrilled.
“Nope. It was Voldemort!” When they had finished falling about with laughter, Hermione asked the question that had been bothering her for a while now.
“What ever happened to him anyway…?”
“Bob, what’s wrong? Just sell the man a chair!“ Bob, the salesclerk in the Furniture Warehouse, was looking quite scared.
“But, sir, he won’t leave! I don’t even care if he buys anything, I just want him to stop talking!”
Voldemort was lying down on a leather sofa, his head resting on the armrest, his nose running slightly.
“Why didn’t they like me?”
Dear Dumby by Oppungo
Chapter Notes: As always, a huge thank you to songbook99 for betaing!