Tonks was back in the Ladies’ bathroom. She was pacing, thinking, pacing…
'Everyone around me is getting married, paired up or something of the kind. What about me?' She stared at herself in the mirror. 'Remus is too stupid to take a hint and he just doesn't understand. In fact, he’s refused already… Is he..gay? Oh my god, I hope not!' At any rate, she needed a plan.
'I have to get married today…It’s either now or never…'
* * *
"Who are you?" It was unimaginable that a sixty-six-year-old Dark Lord who had committed hundreds of murders, manufactured several Horcruxes and petted a lethal teenage basilisk, was using such a baby-like tone to talk to his servant. But, ah...the power of "love", it can make a Spongebob out of Dracula.
"M-my Lord?" Wormtail was nonplussed, what with having to wear female attire, a sleek but precariously positioned blonde wig, not to mention having his hands full with two full tankards of Ye Old McWarlock, now had to bear the brunt of a lovelorn master.
"Where is she?" he asked delicately, the way someone batters an eyelash while making a wish.
"W-who, my Lord?"
"Pariahhh..." sighed Voldemort, his eyes closed in pleasure as though he was bathing in sunlight on a wintry day.
"S-she's g-gone..." Wormtail mumbled, sweat coalescing with the axle grease he used for taming his rodent hair.
Voldemort stared like he had done sixty years ago when Happy-the-clown had not turned up for his birthday.
"You are lying," Voldemort muttered petulantly.
"No, I swear, I..."
"No no, you are lying," maintained the Dark Lord. "Haven't you always been such a bad bad liar, my naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty Pariahh..." Wormtail shook his head slowly, fearfully.
"No, no, no, no...I'm not her! I'm not Pariah! My Lord, this-this is a costume, remember? The whole thing! Wig, the Cinderella gown! My Lord, I'm not Pariah! No, no, NOOOOO!" What with having had a dangerous concoction of sherry and Amortentia, Voldemort couldn't catch a word of what Wormtail said. His sweetest dreams had come true and were standing just two feet away from him. All he had to do was stretch his arms.
"Come to me, Pariahhh...."
It was ghastly. The Dark Lord pressed his serpentine body awfully tight to his servant's. He was panting yet again, cobra breath all over Wormtail's face. Then he clutched the latter's face sensuously close to his own and cemented his lips to his.
It was gruesome. A thin, green, vile tongue was flapping aimlessly inside Wormtail's rodent mouth. Every standing hair on his neck was reminding him to detach, while the steely grip on his wig was doing the latter. After Voldemort seemed to have decided that either his quota was complete or that rat saliva was infectious in snake mouth, he separated himself from his servant.
Everyone's eyes were on them. There was a minute of complete silence, only to be broken by Wormtail spewing ("It's S-P-E-W!" screamed Hermione from somewhere, to everyone's alarm) on the carpet.
Only one person, only one freaky-haired Metamorphmagus person, seemed to hit upon the truth. The fact that she hadn't touched a drink and wasn't listening to Ron's jokes and wasn't having sherry with Love Potion while listening to Ron's jokes, had helped her retain her sanity. At any rate, Voldemort's lopsided moustache and Wormtail's blonde wig askew, seemed to say more than their kiss had.
"He...He's the..Dark Lord?" Tonks murmured to herself.
Her eyes turned to Wormtail's beautiful blonde wig.
'Nice wig there,' she thought to herself. 'Sleek, straight, shiny...perfect!' And for a reason only known to herself and the procrastinating fanfiction author (procrastinating fanfic author gives toothy thumbs-up from his computer chair), she muttered the Summoning Charm as softly as possible. It was a wonder no one noticed a bundle of fake hair float cleanly across the room towards Tonks.
* * *
"Did you - hic - know that I - hic - married 't least eight times?" asked a drunk, dishevelled old man to one of the skimpily-clad bronze-bodied pussycat-doll-like Veela sitting on his lap.
"No, Horace, I didn't," she replied boredly.
"Only - hic - ONLY because," went on Slughorn, his body shivering with excitement, "I knew that -hic- there was someone much -hic- better than the wife I had!"
"And, you are sure it had nothing to do with the fact that you were living with a man?" she yawned.
Slughorn turned impatient. "I wasn't -hic- living with a man! I had to live -hic- with Aberforth because of -hic- need for..."
"Ye Old McWarlock?" the Veela suggested, pointing to his finished tankard of the same.
"Why don't you...?" he began.
"PROFESSOR, I need your help!" In slow deliberate motion, Horace "I-ate-Spongebob's-house" Slughorn, turned sideways. He took a triple-take, unwilling to believe his eyes. Wormtail was standing there, in a ridiculous banana-coloured gown with no wig to match and the Dark Lord fallen in his arms, the kiss apparently having bowled him over.
"I don't believe my -hic- eyes!" Slughorn said.
"The Dark Lord and his sevant in the tent?" the Veela cried.
"No! Transgender romance in the tent!" Slughorn shouted. "Hideous! What is the wizarding world coming to?" he spat, while digging his Homosexuals Anonymous newsletter deeper into his pocket.
"No Professor!" Wormtail said, irritated. "I need your help. Someone spiked the Dark Lord's drink with Acromantula...er..no..Arizona...er, Love Potion!" There was a pause.
"So?" said Slughorn.
"I need you to make him normal!
"Normal?" Slughorn enquired, looking at Voldemort who was lying limp in Wormtail's arms, caressing his tummy and kissing his neck. "OK, I -hic- get your point!"
As the minutes passed on and the procrastinating fanfiction author started getting lazy, miraculously Horace Slughorn discovered a tiny bottle in his pocket. Marvellously enough, it was labelled "Antidote for Acromantula".
"Oh look," Slughorn squealed like a child, wielding the bottle from his pocket, "Miraculously I had this bottle with me all along. And marvellously enough, it's labelled 'Antidote for Acromantula'!"
"Acromantula?" Wormtail said doubtfully.
"Oh, I know it's not the same as Amortentia, but the words sound similar!" Slughorn reassured, being caring and understanding and also impatient to get the man off his back. "Go on! I don't think it would harm him!"
"Here you go, my Lord," Wormtail said, passing the medicine to Voldemort, "Pariah's gift to you."
"Pariahhh..." answered the latter and drank the contents of the bottle, as though smooching it. Instantly his body stiffened, his nerves come back to order and he fell out of Wormtail's arms, adjusting himself on ground.
"OH NO!" he shrieked, lifting his robes high and staring down. "Hairy legs!"
"Umm...that's one side-effect of the potion," Slughorn apologised.
"My life is...ruined!" Voldemort wailed, loud enough for the tent to hear him.
"It's Okay, my Lord," Wormtail reassured him. "Anyways, the waxed look doesn't go too well with a Lord!" This was another challenge the servant had to deal with. Heaven knew he was having a stressful day.
"Heaven knows I need a higher pay," Wormtail sighed.
* * *
She looked at herself in the mirror of the Ladies' bathroom.
"Do I look good?" she tilted her head smartly, the sleek blonde wig she had just stolen lolling to one side, "Or do I look good?" She laughed. Tonks had always wanted to say this to herself. But her endless turf of zits and mammoth thighs had restricted her from saying so. Today was different of course. Today, she would be wed. Today she would be bed. (Okay, okay, erase that last part). She only needed one more ingredient for the wedding.
A groom.
* * *
Voldemort was seated quietly in a cane chair at a far end of the marquee-hall, a folded version of Buddleigh Babberton Daily cradled in his veined arms while his servant had yet again wandered off to fetch him drinks.
"This is boring," he mumbled, to no one in particular, after reading a mildly interesting article about How to Differentiate Between Squibs, Muggles and Wizards Only By Identifying Their Favourite Ice-Cream Flavours. He turned to look at the person to the left of him. 'Bag of dung', he thought. For it really was a lone nylon bag filled with gooey Jell-O like muck. He turned to his right. This one was figuratively a bag of dung - Mundungus Fletcher, snoozing over what seemed to be a sort of outpost for dirty clothes. Voldemort poked him awake with his wand.
"Hey...um...bozo," he muttered, in the name of saying something witty. "Wake up, will you?" There was shuffle and Mundungus jerked awake.
"Tell me a knock-knock joke, will you?" The Dark Lord demanded. "I'm bored."
"Huh..." Mundungus looked around, with the sort of confused expression Ron always had every morning while wondering where on his body the socks should go.
"Oh, in the name of Salazar, I'll start one! Knock knock!"
"Whozere?"
"Avada"
"Avada who?"
"Avada Kedavra!" There was a flash of green light and Mundungus fell back, dead.
"Oh my goodness, my Lord!" The newly arrived Wormtail screeched, dropping the drinks. "What in the blazes....?"
Voldemort fumbled for excuses. "I had no idea...just an innocent knock-knock joke..."
"Why this is HORRIFYING!" Wormtail wailed, pulling the newspaper from Voldemort's hands, "All Squibs love pistachio!?" he slowly turned to look at the readers with a pained expression on his face. "But I love pistachio too!" Then he turned to look where Mundungus was sitting.
"Oh my goodness, yet again!" he cried, "What in the name of names!"
"It was a tiny mis..." Voldemort began.
"No my Lord, look!" Wormtail pointed fervently at a silvery slithery serpent-y locket proudly slung across Mundungus' neck. "It's your thingy, the one which we are not supposed to know about yet!"
* * *
"Why in the world have you brought me to this Ladies Lavatory, Tonks?" Bill gibbered, nonplussed. He was rather non-minussed too and that wasn't helping either.
"Look Bill, forget the place," Tonks said, trying to wave off pink toilet paper, stray lipsticks and feminine potty relief sounds away from his perverted werewolf mind. "The important thing is that...your marriage...is in danger! Today is not a safe day!"
"What? Why? Full-moon?"
"No."
"French Revolution?"
"No."
"The Great Annual Buddleigh Babberton Bring-and-Fly Sale?"
"NO Bill!" Tonks said, irritated. "Look there?" she twisted his head outside the loo towards where Voldemort, Mundungus and Wormtail were sitting.
"That woman wants to tempt me out of my marriage?" Bill said, rather off-handedly, trying to melt the situation with a George Clooney like grin but failing miserably due to his gnashing jaws.
"No silly, it's not a woman," she said, clenching her teeth, "It's Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew, You-Know-Who's servant!"
"So?" Bill said blankly.
"So? Even the Dark Lord's there! And he's planning to destroy your marriage by possessing Harry, creating havoc and extending the procrastinating fanfiction author's weak plot!"
"Oh no!" Bill said worriedly, not understanding the words but getting worked up by the rushing urgency of its sound. "In the name of Heiroglyphics! I must stop this marriage, I must save Fleur's delicate heart from breaking, I must speak with mother!!"
"N-no! Not that far! Just do what a werewolf is supposed to do on encountering a two-headed drunk Hippogriff on a rampage - flee, with the tail between the legs!"
"Seriously? You mean it?" Bill said softly while adjusting his tail between his legs. "Oh Tonks, you are such a well-wisher...say...why are you wearing this beautiful blonde wig?"
"H-huh?" Tonks stuttered, getting caught off-guard. "T-this is j-just for th-the...um...Bill and Fleur ...um... Marriage Life Parody Lupin and I would be performing for guest entertainment tonight, before the marriage!" She said quickly and unwittingly.
"Cool, who were you going to play?" Bill said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
"I was going to...heyyyy!"
"And why do you need a wig? You are a Mental-morgue-octopus aren't you?"
"It's a Meta....heyyy again!" She stared stupidly in the mirror, then turned straight around to the computer screen to look at the fanfiction author. "Great work, smart-arse! How could you forget I'm a Metamorphmagus? Made me take all the trouble of stealing a wig! Some Biggest-Harry-Potter-Fan-The-World-Has-Ever-Known you are, hmph!" She said sardonically, mimicking the author.
"So....?" she turned to look at Bill.
"Thank You."
"No, I mean, when are you going to leave?"
"Oh, oh yeah," he said and bounded from the room as fast as his paws could carry him, out of the tent, out of Tonks’ problems…
The Summer of Ninety Seven by SevenAndMoreToGo
Chapter Notes: I apologize for not updating for so long. Even for a story as inept as this one, why even Dolores Umbridge does not deserve to be at a cliffhanger, just because authors like me delight in writers' blocks! I deserve PUNISHMENT!
*picks hand-shaped back-scratcher from computer table and slaps left buttock*
There you go! Now you can read the fic in peace, and do remember babekitty_92 who has freed the fic from grammatical errors.
WARNING: slight slash (but rest assured neither the author nor the story support homophobia)
[a/n] (please delete after reading) Please pass specifically to Elle[a/n]
* * *