Disclaimer: Nope, I don’t own Harry Potter, or the ‘Crazy Frog’, thank goodness, or he’d have leapt off a lily pad ages ago! Also, the bit about Harry using sleepwalking as an excuse is from the PoA film, (but not the bit about him sleepwalking into or out of detention) but I had to use it here!
Harry was only mildly taken aback to find what seemed to be the whole school empty, as so many strange occurrences had taken place lately. He wandered round the corridors aimlessly, almost wanting to run into Snape or Malfoy, just so he could have something to do. He had become so accustomed to weirdness and surprises happening, he was rather bored with nothing to do.
Ron and Hermione were in their detention with Snape, from when they committed the offence of “laughing and general merriment”. Harry decided that although he wanted something to do, it didn’t include a free-for-all (or discussion as they tried to describe it) between Ron and Hermione.
“Potter, what are you doing wandering the corridors at this time?” came a sneering voice that could only belong to Snape.
“Um…sleepwalking?” Harry replied cautiously.
“How would you like to sleepwalk in to detention?”
“I’d prefer to sleepwalk out of detention, sir,” he answered, wondering why he’d previously wanted something, anything, to occupy himself with. “Hang on - why aren’t you in detention with Ron and Hermione? Sir,” he added, after seeing the menacing look in Snape’s eye.
“Because it’s Parent/Teacher Consultation Evening,” snarled Snape, scowling. “Some parent requested it, especially for tonight, so I’ve had to leave Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger to their own devices whilst serving their detention.”
“Er - right. Well, I’ll just be off to the common room then,” Harry said, trying to sidle off down through a passageway before Snape was reminded of putting his threat of detention into play.
As Harry walked past the dungeons, he heard shouting from which he could only assume was the room Ron and Hermione were serving detention in, as he heard raised voices, one screaming, “I hate you! I never want to see you again!”
The other retorting, “Well that’s just fine!” and “bloody Krum!”
Harry entered the common room, too worn out from holding his hands to his ears until he was at least four floors away from Ron and Hermione and assuring the Bloody Baron that he really didn’t want any sweets, chocolate or a game of charades, to notice the surprising absence of people apart from two dark shadows in the corner.
“Ginny? Is that you?” he asked somewhat nervously. “You’re not trying out the goth look, are you? You know, I really think you’re fine just being you. Oh Merlin, you’re not going for the whole Death Eater style, are you? 'Cause that is so out of fashion. I mean, talk about living in the eighties - “
“Hey! Potter, this look is so not out of date! Like you can talk anyway, I mean, what’s going on with the whole trainers and robes look? Talk about not colour co-ordinating!” said a voice from the dark of the corner, mockingly, stepping out slightly into the light so Harry could get the full effect of the sneer plastered across his face.
“Lucius, I think Potter’s fashion mishaps are going to be the least of his worries right now, as he is faced with the ultimate evil, immoral, nefarious - “
“Bit full of yourself, aren’t you?” Harry addressed the dark shapes in the corner, trying to conceal his surprise at the unexpected beings in his common room, which he could only assume to be Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort himself. No-one else could be that vain, Harry reasoned, though he had not seen him yet.
“Shut up. You make your little jokes while you can, Potter, for this time, there is no escape!” Voldemort declared gleefully.
“Um…how about the door?” Harry walked back towards the way he had come.
“Ha! I’ve already thought of that!” Voldemort let out a high pitched laugh at the thought of Harry's upcoming misfortune as a purple haze covered the portrait hole.
“Ooh - mist! The horror, the horror!” Harry said theatrically. “Why, a mist like that, it could make it harder to see! Oh no!”
“Yes, I thought - wait, you’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
“Just a tad,” Harry admitted, rolling his eyes.
“Well, it isn’t the mist that’ll stop you, it’s what’s in the mist!” Harry watched in anticipation as the mist evaporated. What he saw shocked him beyond extremes. Voldemort smiled in delight at his horrified gasp.
“That is low, even for you,” Harry spluttered out. Voldemort nodded, evidently pleased with himself, as Harry took in the hoards of shrieking fan girls, all waving scraps of parchment and quills in the air and screaming excitedly.
“Harry!! We love you!!” they screeched, waving banners such as ’MrsRubeusHagridDursley loves you this much!’ and ’Can I have a chunk of your hair please, Harry? ~ Lady A’. Harry stumbled back as a blinding flash went off in his face. He wondered if this was another ingenious plan of Voldemort’s, until he realised that it was Colin Creevey’s camera.
“All right, you’ve made your point,” Harry admitted dejectedly, backing up quickly. “But why Colin? I thought it was only crazed fan girls?”
“Well he sounded interested when I was telling Mary and Farida that they could stand there and scream at you, seemed to think he could recruit more people for the fan club, now that Ginny’s backed out…anyway, I didn’t want to be sexist!” Harry looked at him in disbelief.
“No, heaven forbid anyone would besmirch your character by implying that you would ever discriminate," Harry rolled his eyes, putting his hand to his mouth and emitted a cough that sounded suspiciously like the word “Muggleborns”.
It took Voldemort a while to understand that Harry was, once again, using the ingenious and subtle art of sarcasm.
“You know, he has a point, master,” agreed Lucius, nodding to Harry before realising what he was doing.
“Shut up! Just let me continue with explaining my ingenious plan! And, Lucius, don’t encourage him! Anyway,” he continued, a smile returning to his face as he relived the pure excellence of his plan, “and you can’t go up the girls’ dormitories, you’ll just slide back down again!” Voldemort laughed maliciously.
“But I can go up the boys’ dormitories,” Harry pointed out.
“Just you try it.” So Harry made his way over to the staircase, but as soon as he got within five metres, a sound so terrible it could barely be described came on. It went something like this:
“Ring, ding ding ding, d-ding baa aramba baa baa!”
“Ahhh! Make it stop, make it stop!” Harry screamed as he fell on his knees. Voldemort smiled with a sense of achievement.
“Just step away from the stairs,” he said calmly.
“What - what was that?” Harry asked, his hands still over his ears in anguish.
“Just something I picked up from your little half-breed pal. That big oaf you call Hagrid. The creature has a name that is nearly as feared as my own,” Voldemort explained approvingly. “Whilst some call it ‘Crazy’, and others call it ‘The Frog’, it’s real name is,” here Voldemort paused and lowered his voice for the dramatic effect, “‘The Crazy Frog’.” He continued in a hushed tone. “It is an extreme method of torture that I like to use, on, well, anybody. Lucius hates it.”
“How did you get in here anyway?” Harry asked, curious as to how he overcame all of Dumbledore’s security measures, and trying to prolong the conversation and prevent whatever other forms of torture Voldemort had planned. Voldemort smiled and gestured to the fireplace whilst drumming his fingers on the armchair he was lounging in.
“But that’s impossible! Floo Powder can be detected!” Harry said, clearly trying to think. Voldemort rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“I didn’t use Floo Powder you imbecile! I came down the chimney - you know, like Santa!”
Down in the dungeons, where nobody was willing to go (well, not in the last half hour, for fear of losing their hearing), Ron and Hermione had been sentenced to finish off the cleaning that Harry and Ron had started in their last detention. But there seemed to be no change to the hygiene of the dungeons, probably because both Ron and Hermione’s toothbrushes were lying forgotten on the cold stone floor, and they were both too engrossed in arguing to notice the growing mould.
“Well, I don’t even care about you and Parvati! Why should I?” Hermione shrieked shrilly.
“You haven’t even given me a chance to explain!” Ron bellowed, the full force of his voice knocking over a pink potion on Snape’s desk.
“What, too busy to explain your wedding plans?”
“Yeah, well - “
“Well, me and Viktor - ”
“Oh, you and your beloved Vicky!”
“Oh, just grow up, Ron!”
“Like you can talk!”
“Ok, what is Malfoy doing here then?” Harry asked after Voldemort had explained that he had not just dropped by as he was in the area and fancied a catch up on Harry’s Quidditch skills, but he was, in fact, here to make another attempt to kill Harry.
“Well, it was Parent/Teacher Consultation Evening anyway, so I thought I’d stop by and see how the torture was going!” Harry noted, with a scowl, that Malfoy Senior had brought popcorn.
The sight of the popcorn, for some random reason, reminded Harry of the letter he had sent off to Dear Dumby all those issues ago under the clever pseudonym of ‘Fed Up of Avoiding Avada Kedavra’, and of the reply, which had advised Harry to find the good, kindness, or sensitivity in them, or to see if they had any shared interests. Harry thought that it would be too much like hard work to try and find Voldemort’s sensitive side, so he opted for the second choice.
But while Harry had been thinking about this, it seemed that Voldemort had been making his closing speech and had now raised his wand.
“So…how about those Cannons?” Harry asked desperately. To his satisfaction, Voldemort looked thoroughly mystified.
“Do you understand me?” asked Voldemort slowly, as if he were talking to a mentally defective plant pot. Harry nodded intently. “I’m about to kill you, and you want to know my opinions on the Cannons?”
“Oh, are you more of a Harpies fan?”
Dear Dumby by Oppungo
Chapter Notes: As always, a big thank you to my lovely beta, songbook99!
Who would have thought that so many people would be wondering around in the evening. One would assume, what with the Parent/Teacher Conference Evening taking place, that Hogwarts would be deserted, but then one would be wrong...