A/N: Written for the Bewitching Fiction Beltane Challenge 2015
Word prompts: Beltane, rooftop, charger, scone, clay
Emotion prompt: homicidal
Beta love: fluffpanda, the most kind and the most merciful tolerant soul to my insanity
Ravenclaw compatriot in taking over the world (masquerading as a grammar Nazi): Moka-girl
Nott Amused
Theodore Nott yawned softly as he heard the soft but telltale sound of apparition outside his French cottage. The windows were open due to the oncoming summer heat, but a storm had begun brewing overnight, making the temperature far more tolerable. He had always been a light sleeper when he was anticipating something, and this particular night was no exception.
He roused from his light sleep the moment the sound of light rain on the clay tiles on his roof was joined by the crack of magic. The Second Wizarding War had honed his senses into a razor edge. His job as a Curse-Breaker had done the rest.
The witch nestled into his side stirred slightly as a breeze came in the open window, providing much-needed relief to the horrible heatwave. The change in ambient temperature triggered a change in the bushy-haired witch's sleep-demeanour, and she instinctively snuggled closer to him, instead of punching him in the face.
He admitted, at least to himself, that he'd be asking for that punch to the face for weeks due to his heckling of her humidity-induced frizzy hair. It had been coincidence that he had tried to sit up just as Hermione had been throwing her arms out in a morning stretch. She had spouted off a chain of apologies as his nose bled all over their new silk sheets. He had assured her that he was fine as he'd nonchalantly grabbed the first thing he could find to staunch the bleeding. That had turned out to be less than ideal, as he had grabbed her silk bra and bled all over it.
It had then been his turn to spew apologies at that point, and he had gone early to the bakery to pick up her favourite type of scone before they completely disappeared in the early morning rush. As it turned out, raisins looked a lot like chocolate chips to the hurried eye at five in the morning. His sin against scone-kind had been vast and terrible indeed, and his father's portrait, sitting atop his favourite white charger, had suffered for his crime. It had taken Bugsy, their house-elf, a full day to figure out how to pry the magic-laden castaway scone out of the portrait canvas, and it had taken the poor creature a week to figure out how to remove the multitude of raisin bits from the rooftop. Theo had later confessed to Hermione that his father looked much better with a scone embedded in his face.
Luna had stopped by and recommended they just let the raisins sit on the roof and be pecked away by the hungry birds. But, when the third sparrow and fifth pigeon had exploded into a fiery ball of magic-raisin-induced flaming destruction and almost set the neighbour's fields afire, Theo had realised that letting them "sit up there" was not a good idea in the slightest. They had come to love their little cottage out in the middle of a pastoral region of France, and the last thing they wanted was bad neighbour relations.
Apparently, for whatever reason, the raisin bits didn't seem to mind someone touching them. No, they did their magic after whatever victim ate them. Theo had pondered on whether his witch could somehow harness her hatred for raisins into a marketable talent as a weapon, but he'd figured he had to sleep with the witch each night. Asking her to charm food into weapons was probably akin to sticking his arm into an angry hornet's nest, where the hornets would not only sting you but also make you explode.
As for Bugsy and the raisins, his wife had protested the use of the house-elf to clean up the mess she had caused, but three things had worked in his favour and against hers. One, his wife was very pregnant, thanks to a very enjoyable Beltane in Fiji. Two, apparently whatever pregnancy-induced enchantment his wife had managed to imbue into the food bits had mutated after a few days. What had started off as harmless unless eaten, now only allowed Bugsy to touch them. Three, the blasted pieces of dried fruit were immune to Accio. Bugsy, of course, had been happy to be of service, and had dutifully "de-raisined" the poor, abused, roof.
Theo had noted that the house-elf had never been so happy, and had privately wondered if there was a mind healer for house-elves that took far too much pleasure in cleaning charred bird bits and food off of clay-tiled roofs. He blamed the fact that his wife tried to do so much by herself instead of letting the poor house-elf do it. He had tried to tell her that Bugsy loved working, but in true Gryffindor stubborn blindness, she hadn't believed him until Bugsy had started beating herself when she couldn't do anything. As if to accentuate the situation, Bugsy had then started beating herself more when his wife had tried to order her not to do what she wanted to do: work!
They had, thankfully, come to a compromise after the sound of Bugsy beating her head against various objects in the house had driven everyone to crave firewhisky. Bugsy could clean to her heart's content, but she wasn't allowed to do it in rooms he and his wife occupied at the time. This made everyone happy, and he didn't even have to kill anyone. Excellent.
Theo perked his head as he heard the snap of his very special trap spring. He reached over and brushed the curly lock of hair out from his wife's face. "I'm going to take care of our little bug problem, my love. I'll be back soon."
Hermione muttered incoherently at him, snatching his arm in hers and pulling it closer to herself. He smiled smugly, not-so-secretly glad that, even in sleep, she chose to be close to him. He skillfully slithered out from her warm embrace, feeling somewhat annoyed that he was being forced to choose pest control over the touch of his wife. No matter, they would make up for that later.
Theo exited the room with a yawn and walked down the hall. He waved his wand to turn on the lights in the den, his eyes spotting the small glass jar that was now mouth-side down on the floor. A rather large beetle was scurrying frantically in a pale blue powder under the jar.
"Ah, Ms Skeeter," Theo purred. "I believe I owe my wife ten galleons." He sat down in the nearby chair, not even bothering to approach the jar. He drummed his fingers against the arm of the chair.
"I bet that you were too intelligent to do something as stupid as break into our cottage looking for dirt," he said venomously. "She bet you would not stop at anything to get a 'good story' as it were. Ever since you got in with new management over there at the Prophet, who strangely seem to cover up that you are an illegal Animagus, you've been making a right nuisance of yourself all over Wizarding Britain."
"I contemplated just killing you, you know," Theo said casually, glancing at his nails. "Honestly, nothing unforgivable, even though you do deserve it after—oh, how did you phrase it? 'Female member of the Golden Trio turns whore to wiggle herself into Nott fortunes'?"
Theo bared his teeth at the beetle in the jar, his eyes murderous. "Wait, no," he corrected himself, pulling a clipping out from under a book on the desk. "Here we are! 'Hermione Granger turns slut to slip Theodore Nott a love potion'. It took me over a year to fix the mess you made with your horrible article. We were to be married that month, and you made it so she didn't even want to be seen with me lest I sully my honour. My honour! She didn't even care about herself. She cared about me, and you—"
Theo stood and walked over to the jar and picked it up with his fingers. "You deserve every pain in the world for making my wife cry." He scratched his finger down the side of the jar, making a horrible noise. The beetle inside shook as her antennae whirled around in torture.
"But, Ms Skeeter," Theo said with a sniff. "It turns out my wife is a brazen Gryffindor. Despite my trying to make her see the light of Slytherin, she insists, for some reason, not to get myself imprisoned by using unforgivable curses upon you. I'll never understand it, I suppose, but a good husband honours his wife. I came up with a compromise."
Theo stared into the jar, his eyes narrowing. "I know you walked all over my safe because of that blue powder, you see," he said conversationally. "It's all over you, by the way. I fear you're quite covered in it. I hope you enjoyed looking at my baby pictures and the photos of our last vacation in the old growth forests. I'm sure you'll agree that the sunsets were particularly vivid."
The beetle in the glass was getting more and more frantic as Theo spoke, but Theo wasn't done. He rattled the jar sharply. "Now, now, it's rude to interrupt." The beetle froze inside the jar, antennae whirling.
"That's better," Theo drawled. "Anyway, since you're a horrible guest, I'll get to the point. That blue powder you're basically bathed yourself in isn't powder as much as it is… mould."
Theo watched the beetle's antennae dart back and forth even faster. "It's not just any mould though, oh don't worry it is perfectly harmless to humans. Beetles, on the other hand, well, it loves beetles… to death."
"By now, it's probably nicely embedded into your carapace. So, unless you want to bathe in fire, take off all your skin, or remove your lungs, that leaves you with two options," Theo purred casually. "One, by all means, stay a beetle and let the fungus tear your body apart slowly and agonisingly. Two, change into a human where the fungus cannot harm you and live a nice long and healthy, mould-free life. I'd hurry on that decision, by the way, as I hear the symptoms start rather quickly even though death takes quite some time."
Theo placed the jar on its side on the floor and stepped back. The frantic beetle shot out of the open mouth and changed into a panicked looking Rita Skeeter. She stumbled away from him, brushing her hands over herself in frantic but futile movements.
"And before you think of going somewhere to tell an Auror, this area we happen to be living in just so happens to be the natural home of Cordyceps fungi. It is specifically the kind that likes beetles. There are hundreds of others, of course, spread throughout the world, but this particular strain is the boon of agriculture. It's why the farmers here haven't have problems with beetles in all the years their families have ploughed the land and raised their animals unaffected by the swarms other places have. Feel free to tell the Aurors that you just happen to be staying here in the middle of rural France where we just happen to live. Tell them, perhaps, how you broke into our quaint little cottage and helped yourself to our safe. Tell them too, Ms Skeeter, why you are in such a panic over a silly fungus that is perfectly harmless to humans."
Rita swallowed hard as she stared at Theo. "You want money then? My silence?"
Theo broke into a smile that was a hundred times more frightening than the murderous glare he had been wearing previously. "No, my dear," he replied with sickly-sweet venom. "I expect you to live a long and healthy human life, and I expect you to use the door to leave instead of flying in and out of my chimney like a thief in the night."
Rita Skeeter paled and exited the cottage as though the hounds of hell were at her heels, and perhaps, she would not have been so wrong in her assumption.
Theo walked out of the room and down the hall, making his way to the front door, which was standing wide open. He heard the crack of Skeeter's disapparation and smiled cruelly. Killing the vile woman would have been too easy, he admitted. The compromise had been much better. Had Skeeter not followed them in secret and stuck her beetle-self where it didn't belong, she wouldn't be in the mess she was in.
Now, thanks to a very friendly-to-humans and a not-so-friendly-to-beetles fungus, Rita Skeeter would be forced to stay in her human form forever. Well, she didn't have to, but every moment she spent as a beetle would hurry along her specialised infection.
Theo made a mental note to thank the local mycologist friend of Hermione's. It turned out that Muggles were frighteningly useful, and Theo was a Slytherin. A Slytherin always kept things that were useful around. The very best Slytherin always got what they wanted in the end, and Theodore Nott was the very best. No one suspected him because he always seemed so terribly mediocre. It was the perfect cover.
He glanced at the framed portrait hanging over the fireplace. Hermione and Theo were posing together in quiet dignity as they overlooked the room. A brass plaque on the frame glistened with an engraving: Lord and Lady Theodore and Hermione Nott.
Theo smiled again as he reached over to close the front door and lock it. Yes, he did receive exactly what he wanted in the end.
Thousands of miles away, a certain beetle Animagus stood in the shower as she scrubbed herself raw in the vain attempt to stave off the fate she had been dealt by her pursuit of a story. Rita Skeeter, on the other hand, had managed to get exactly what she deserved.
A/N: Cordyceps fungi, believe it or not, is real. It is a very specialised fungus that attacks a very specific host. The most commonly known species attacks ants in South America, but it is a natural population control vector in the rainforests or wherever else it makes its home. There are, thankfully, no kinds that attack humans.