Harry Potter and the Brisket Loaf

by evil-underlord

This is it. The final year of Hogwarts, the final reckoning, when evil is defeated and the whole world is turned on its head.

1. Part 1

Harry Potter 7: Harry Potter and the Brisket Loaf/The Adventures of Robert Langdon 3: The Brisket Code

FACT!

Magic is real. Hogwarts is a real place. All of the spells and rituals described in this book have actually been performed. I am actually a really clever person, who has done loads of research. And I'm good looking too.

Prologue

It was a cold, dreadful day. Mist curled about the spires of Hogwarts School for witches and Wizzrobes in a menacing way, like an army of dementors was somehow breeding on its sacred grounds. Only they weren't, because they can't get in. Except now that Dumbledore's dead, maybe they can get in. It's up to you to work it out. I've given you enough clues already, haven't I? And as to it being cold, you may ask, what with it being July, well, we are quite far north... and VOLDEMORT IS ON THE RAMPAGE! It's dramatic irony, the whole microcosm/macrocosm thing. Christ and Aslan, Jane Austen never had to put up with this kind of criticism.

So it's cold and dreary and dark, and miserable. Why did I ever move to Scotland? I don't know. I should have stayed in Portugal. The mist obscures everything, but through it we can see a figure walking alone. He hurries against the wind, his heavy robe pulled tight around his body, and around the book he carries with him. It is an old grimoire, full of the most powerful and deadly spells, but also full of spells that might give hope to mankind. Like spells about antimatter and shit. I hear that stuff is really popular these days. Scratch that, it contains even more achingly up-to-date spells. Quantum anti matter. For getting us to other planets, in case this one blows up in a hundred million years time or so. That'll hit the zeitgeist.

All these thoughts went through the old man's head as he ran. he knew that by rights he should be safe, here on the grounds of Hogwarts (TM), but he had a feeling that he wasn't. He was right.

Out of the mist the Death Eater loomed.

'H- how?' the old man stammered

'Give me the Book,' the death eater drawled.

'Never.'

'The book...'

'You, I know your voice, but I thought...'

'Accio Intestines.'

The old man cried out but it was cut short as his guts exploded from his body. He fell to the ground heavily. The Death Eater stepped over his body and retrieved the gory book from the rictus clutches of the old man's cold hands and walked off without another word.

'...you were with us.' The last words of the dying man steamed into the frozen air to mingle with the steam from his steaming innards. The Wizzard Plotus Devicius was dead.

Chapter 1

Hundreds of miles away Harry Potter was boffing Ginny Weasley. Ron really wanted to be boffing Hermione, but she wasn't letting him, so he was sulking. Why did his bloody best friend have to be getting off with his sister. It was icky. Didn't they know that this would completely ruin their friendship, like totally, for ever. It was all very nice now, but what happened in twenty years time, when Harry was fat and Ginny wasn't putting out, and he was in the middle.

Or if they broke up. That would be it, that would be the end. He would have to side with his sister, and probably break Harry's legs, if his mum didn't do it first, and he didn't really want to. But that was what you got if you disrespected the family. All those drive-bys he and Harry had shared, capping Malfoy's homies, that was all good. But family came first.

Hey thought Ron, suddenly. This is me. I've got control of the narrative. While they're having sex, there's no way that the text can stick with Harry's P.O.V. That would just be too risky for a mass market, cross-genre mega-book like this. That makes me the main character. All thoughts of bitterness and ick-factor that accompanied the rhythmic bumping that he could hear, the groans and shouts and perverse incantations that came through the thin walls of the Burrow from the room next door left his mind. In flooded visions of power, of fame and money. Of the whole world knowing HIS thoughts and feelings, caring about HIS mundanities and trivial everyday stuff. HE would be the one who got to come up with lame-arse metaphors that no-one understood to convey his angst out to a caring, adoring public. He would be-

Harry Potter rolled onto his back, the slight soreness of his knob swiftly dispersing into a tired and sweaty feeling of pleasure that crept through his body. Fuck off Ron, he thought to himself, the monster inside his chest appeased at the good workout he had just given it, you'll just have to get yourself a blog like everyone else. Beside him, Ron's sister pulled the sheet around her perfect body.

Harry stared at the cracks in the ceiling, thinking how they mirrored the cracks in his life. All the people who had died because he was such a useless twat. Ah well, he thought. No point worrying, this was a new book. No-one was going to remember any of that shit, so he surely didn't have to.

Chapter 2

Thousands of miles away in Boston, or some over place in America, I don't know. Somewhere near Harvard University. I live in bloody Scotland, don't I? Where's that tweed jacket, I have to wear a tweed jacket to write these scenes, someone told me that I have to wear a tweed jacket if I want to do these bits properly.

The balmy July night of Hollywood, Harvard University, drifted in through the open French windows of Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University's mock-Georgian, 16th century concentric castle. The scented air rolled across the finely gilted, hand woven Persian carpets (TM) that he had bought at the CarpetRight January sale last year, and onto his silk and satin sheets. A phone began to ring. It kept ringing, until Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University stretched out a tweed pyjama'd arm to pick it up.

'Hello?' he said. But the line was dead.

The phone continued to ring.

'Oh, it's me. Sorry,' a woman's voice said. She pulled out a mobile phone and began to speak into it. Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University didn't understand most of what she said, but he knew that it was probably important to the plot, and may well save his life at some point within the next twenty four hours or so he tried to listen very carefully. It was something about Phoenixes and Dark Marks, the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic antimatter was in there as well. He really wished that he had an extra brain, one that was actually useful. Maybe in a jar and attached to a killer nazi robot. That would be really cool.

He had read somewhere that for the first five minutes or so after you wake up you can be legally classed as insane, for the purposes of criminal justice and so forth. This seemed somehow important to him. Also, Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University had morning glory, and there was at least one woman in the room at the moment.

Oh shit, he thought. I'm going to make a fool of myself aren't I?

'Sorry about that,' the woman said, putting her Samsung G-18 wap enabled picture phone away.

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University opened his eyes. Next to his eyes there was a grey streak in his hair, that he didn't like but that all of the females at Harvard University, who were really quite clever, but probably not as clever as a man could be, but, you know almost – when they weren't thinking about kittens, thought made him look distinguished. Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University liked their boobs, but he didn't say that, because then they might not have thought that he was distinguished. Instead he went swimming all the time, because it was manly, and helped to take his mind off his impure thoughts.

'Professor McGonagall,' Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University said. 'And Madam Hooch. I haven't seen you two since that conference two years ago. Do you always come together?'

'It's a trick,' said Hooch. 'It's about practise, trust and not a little love.'

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University blushed. He had seen a lot of them at the party after that conference, and he had kind of hoped that he wouldn't see them again. Although, if they had enjoyed it as well, and they were all adults...

'I don't think he quite meant that,' McGonagall said in her broad Irish brogue. 'But... no. We are here to talk business, Mr Langdon. There has been a murder, well quite a few actually, and some other stuff.'

'And you need me to come and sort it all out for you?' asked Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University.

'Not really no,' said Hooch, 'we've got all that covered. There's a couple of bratty kids who everyone loves that are all superpowered up and stuff, there dealing with all that stuff. We just came to offer you a job.'

'But I have a job,' said Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University. 'I'm a professor of Symbology, here at Harvard University.'

'Semiotics,' said McGonagall.

'What?' said Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University.

'The study of signs and symbols, what you do. It's called semiotics. Well, what you do is actually not a real discipline at all, so really you'll have no problem with this new job. It's as Teacher of the Defence against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts in Scotland, London-'

'Is that in England?'

'Yes. It's full of spurious religious crap. You'll get along just fine.'

'Why me?'

Madam Hooch began to speak. 'McGonagall's head of the school now, so she gets to choose who we hire. The two of us thought it might be nice to have you around for a year.'

'A year? I thought this was one of those twenty four hour jobs. That's what it says in my contract you know. Twenty four hours.'

'I know, but this is a different narrative structure, and we're already locked into it. It would be a real favour to us. A real big favour. And anyway, surely you know that you're a wizard, you might as well spend some time with the rest of us.'

'I'm not a wizard.'

'Yes you are. Have you ever noticed that you can do things that ordinary people can't, especially in times of stress.'

'Everything I ever do is meticulously researched. Anyone could do it. If they were fit enough and looked like Tom Hanks.'

'I thought you looked much better as Harrison Ford,' McGonagall interjected.

'You think that anyone could fall two miles from a helicopter into a shit-filled inner-city river and survive?' Hooch continued. 'You're even stupider than I thought. And that's even after giving you the benefit of the doubt on all that mirror writing stuff.'

'OK, OK,' Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University said. 'Point taken, I'll come with you. So, how do we get to Hogwarts, some kind of top-secret supersonic jet that goes faster than the laws of physics? How about a transporting spell, or a magical polar express train with all creepy animal on it.'

'Virgin Atlantic actually. We'll see you in the airport tomorrow at noon.'

'But where will you be?'

'Why,' smiled the catlike features of Madam Hooch, 'In the executive lounge of course.'

Chapter 3

OK, so, if you look on the back of this book, on the inside flap, there'll be a picture. Blonde woman, stunningly attractive, that sort of thing. So, there's this witch who looks just like that, and she lives in Edinburgh castle. Her name is Jerome K Jerome Rowlingessa Starchild and she is the most powerful witch ever. She goes out with Legolas, but that's neither here nor there, and her eyes are black with stars in them. And SHE DOESN'T WRITE FANTASY.

Pratchett quivered before her, but it was too late, she was quick to anger and never let a slight go unpunished. 'Just because I'm making more money than you are,' she said, and then she turned Pterry into a Ptoad. Ptah.

For fuck's sake. I plot more like a thriller writer anyway, with everything down in advance. You fantasy writers will find any old excuse to write a sequel, even if there's no continuity at all.

Oh yeah. Harry Potter did some shit too.

Chapter 4

The Hogwarts Express is a heavily modified three cylinder 4-6-2 locomotive built initially in Crewe in 1956 to a design by noted engineer R.A. Riddles. Engines fitted with its experimental B.R. 13 boiler had initially found problems running on Britain's muggle railways, plagued by mystery steam-flow malfunctions and under-par running and draw. It was only with the arrival of M.G.M. Awizardname in his workshop that Riddles could finally locate and solve the original flaw in his revolutionary design.

The new locomotive was fitted with a lower body casing, chrome wheels and a system of lights that shone from underneath the cover plates as well as a natty red paint job. These changes to the original design provided a final 500 horsepower to add to the innovative engine's already impressive 4000 maximum. The newly christened 73000 King of Essex was bought by a mysterious government department calling themselves the Ministry of Serendipity, in actual fact the Ministry of Magic, and renamed The Hogwarts Express. It was given some further, magical modifications, including expanding the capacity of the tender to enable all-day running, and put to work on a special line run exclusively between London's Liverpool Street and Scotland's Hogwarts Terminal.

R.A. Riddles went mad after he found that he could never reproduce an engine like the Essex again. But he's some muggle so he doesn't matter.

The Hogwarts Express steamed through the bright sunshine at a boiler-straining 136mph. Onboard, Harry, Ron and Hermione sat in their usual carriage. Ginny was with them and she sat snuggled up against Harry with her feet across two seats, Harry resting his hand on one of her tits.

'So, what's the plan, Harry?' asked Ron, trying to snake his arm around Hermione's waist. Hermione deposited his hand elsewhere.

'I dunno,' Harry said. 'I suppose we're gonna have to go through school and that. Study for our NEWTs. Then, something will happen around the end of the year, probably in June. There'll be some clues before hand, but we really only have to worry about it about the time we have to start revising.'

'But I'm already revising.' Hermione said.

'I thought that you weren't going to school this year, Harry,' Ginny said to him. 'I thought that you were going to bunk off and like, try to find the horcruxes. Defeat Darth Vader and that.'

'Did I say that?'

'Yeah, at the end of the last book.'

'Oh yeah, I wouldn't pay any attention to the stuff I say at the end of the books. Deadlines, lack of sleep, I'm usually not thinking straight. I'd just forget about it if I were you, I have. I mean, I was going to break up with you wasn't I?'

'Yeah, you were. But then I did that thing, remember?'

'What, the,' Harry looked down at himself meaningfully 'thing?'

'Yes. That thing.'

'Urrgh!' said Ron. 'Cut it out you two.'

'Just cos Hermione's never done that thing on you,' Harry laughed.

Hermione shot Harry a filthy look and Ron threw a sweet wrapper at his friend's head.

Chapter 5

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts admired his fine new Harris Tweed robes and very impressive pointy stick that he had been given. The immensely attractive and frighteningly clever female professor Minerva McGonagall had called it a wand. He wondered what it was capable of.

He wandered around his new quarters. They were rather dingy, having previously belonged to professor Snape, a bad guy now, or so he had been told. But Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts knew how these things worked. If it looked like Snape was a bad guy from the very first page then it was almost certain that he wouldn't be. It would be whoever seemed to be the least likely person. Whoever looked the most likely to be a target would almost certainly be the one who was orchestrating the entire affair.

He would need to put a Jacuzzi in here, certainly. Do something about the damp as well, but this Snape fellow had a lot of very interesting books, and Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts knew a lot about books. Especially if they were full of spurious, pseudo-religious crap and half-baked references to mythology, which these books certainly were. Lists of random creatures cobbled together from half a dozen cultures at once, spells with names derived from schoolboy Latin.

And amongst it all, a number of books written about, or maybe by, a character calling himself the Half-Blood Prince. This Half-Blood Prince seemed to be possessed of an amazing understanding. Could he in fact be the missing link that was never really explained at the end of the Da Vinci Code? A half-blooded descendent of the messiah, part human and part divine? Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts knew that he would be the one to find out. And he was looking forward to the challenge.

Chapter 6

Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape sat side by side in the all black Lear jet that Voldemort had sent to pick them up from the Hogsmeade airstrip.

'Have you read this book?' Draco asked Snape, showing him the cover.

'What, the Da Vinci Code? Yeah.' Snape drawled.

'What did you think?'

'I liked the ending. It tied everything up nicely. But it wasn't very believable.'

Draco ignored his former teacher. 'Don't you think that it's amazing? Some of the stuff in there, it's like, it's like a whole different way of looking at things.'

'You think?' Snape asked. He was wondering how a story that involved a character who was currently working at Hogwarts, in his old job, could possibly exist in this world. It didn't make an awful lot of sense.

'I mean,' Draco continued, 'it's so obvious that the church has been covering all this stuff up, to oppress women and to oppress us all. Its like, there's all this stuff going on that you cant even know about. But he's managed to tell us about it. I mean, it must be true. All of it.'

Snape sighed. What did I do to deserve this? he thought.

Oh yeah. That.

Chapter 7

As evening descended the Hogwarts Express steamed on into the countryside. Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom had knocked on Harry Potter's carriage door, holding hands, and asked him about the DA and how he might need a well trained group of supporters when going up against the dark legions of the re-born evil.

'Nah, that whole thing was good when we were just fighting the ministry and that fat bitch teacher,' Harry had said, 'You guys were good to have around. But Voldemort, we'll, he's a woofter isn't he? I should be alright without any help.' And I've got a much bigger, much harder dick than he has anyway the monster inside Harry's chest added. The monster that was a metaphor for his MANhood, in case you hadn't noticed. Just thought I'd mention it.

Neville and Luna had slunk off then, muttering to each other.

'I wonder where Draco is?' Harry said, to no-one in particular.

'He's off, isn't he?' Ron said. 'You defeated him and now he's slunk off to the Knights of Walpurgis with his tail between his legs.'

'I don't know if that's quite the way it happened, Ron,' Hermione admonished. 'Draco may be too thick and too stubborn to recognise it but, and by god I can't see why he did it because I would have killed the boy myself, Dumbledore saved him. If the thick cunt-'

'Hermio-'

'-has any two brain cells to rub together then he's got some real thinking to do.'

'But I still wonder what he's up to. Right now.' Harry said, almost dreamily.

'Well, you shouldn't dear,' Ginny said, her voice peculiarly hard. 'You've got me now.'

'He might be plotting against us. That's all that I meant.'

'They're always plotting against you, Harry, aren't they?' Hermione sighed. 'Snape's trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, Draco is the heir of Slytherin...'

'I know that they were both innocent then, Hermione,' Ron said, 'but they have both turned out to be out to get us.'

'Don't you think that it might have been your constant suspicion, that the constant accusations the two of you have made against the two of them that might have led them to hate you so much? They're both dickweeds who didn't really like you, Harry, but you're the one who's really carried the grudge. You're the one who's been pressing it at every opportunity. And Ron hasn't really helped. I love you both dearly, but I think that if we're going to have to fight this then we need to do so with a full knowledge of what we're fighting. And if that means knowing our own mistakes and weaknesses then that's what we have to do. No matter how hard and how painful that may be.'

'Last year was a bit of a mess,' Ron said mournfully. 'We tried but we were outmanoeuvred on every important occasion. We kept hitting at all the wrong spots, chasing shadows and illusions, classic overworking, and that's why we lost Dumbledore. It's like we sacrificed our queen for nothing.'

'Overworking?' asked Harry.

'Yeah, and all our own fault.'

'But what do you mean? And why was Dumbledore a queen? A lush maybe, but he was straight as an arrow.'

'It's chess mate,' Ron said. 'I wasn't thinking about it right, I was letting my emotions get in the way, but I can see now every tactical move that we made was wrong...'

As Hermione, and then Ron had been speaking, a very dark look had crossed Ginny's features. The train began to slow in the twilight and she suddenly sat bolt upright. 'We're here,' she said with just a touch of overenthusiasm. 'Wow, so that's what one of those Thestrals looks like.'

Chapter 8

Snape was disturbed. The meeting with his master had not gone in quite the manner he had expected. He was seriously beginning to reconsider the way he had been playing things up until now. He wasn't so far in that he could not get out again, despite the way things looked, but he would have to be cautious.

Although, he thought as he looked out of the window of the private car at the winding alpine roads, maybe not all that cautious. Snape looked at the mountains but his eyes did not see them. Instead his mind was cast back to an hour ago, to the strange words that Lord Voldemort had said to him.

'All this stuff that I've been doing,' the dark wizard had said, 'all of it is no longer important. A friend of mine told me something a month or two ago, just before he disappeared in the strangest circumstances, and I think I've only just worked out what he meant. He said "The man has a machine and it will record our voices. It goes da-di-da-da-da and he will make albums of us and we can live forever."'

'But Lord,' Snape had said. 'What happened next? Where is this man now?'

'Vegas,' Voldemort had said dismissively. 'I don't know. The point is, before he went, he told me that he had found the thing that I want most. A way to live forever, maybe a way that doesn't involve me killing loads of people and chopping my soul up in that way I've been doing. Wouldn't that be something worth pursuing? And it could work for all of us. All.'

Da-di-da-da-da.

The words continued to chase through Snape's mind, and the car drove on.

Chapter 9

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts stepped out into the warm, balmy air of tropical Scotland. His stomach was full of the rich meats and pastries of the inaugural feast and his head was swimming with the madness of the speeches he had heard. He had also been taking in quite an eyeful of the obviously incredibly talented and dazzlingly clever sixth-formers who had been in the room. Apparently you came of age at seventeen in the wizarding world. But the speeches, what he had heard of them, they had been weird. All this stuff about wars and dark wizards and magic and self-sacrifice and a whole load of other concepts that he couldn't quite get his head around. Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts had needed to step outside and clear his head after all of that.

Carrying his straining stomach, almost at full capacity having been loaded up with 1.48 litres of compacted food, Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts let the air fill his lungs, knowing that a fully oxygenated bloodstream would significantly improve his digestive abilities. He was just glad that he had remembered to chew his food thoroughly before swallowing it, thereby utilising all the enzymes that were held in his saliva and kickstarting the breakdown process. There was no way that he would be letting any of the nutrients he had just ingested go to waste; he'd been caught out one too many times before having to do all sorts of heroics on little to no sustenance and he wasn't going to let it happen again. A man who chewed his food properly was a man who knew how to live his life.

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts realised something about grey hair. And aging. But he chose to ignore it. In about two hours time the contents of his stomach would have been fully rendered down into a semi-liquid chyme and then it would be passed into his small intestine ready for absorption, and he needed to be ready for that.

As he wandered through the ancient grounds of Hogwarts castle Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts began to think some more about the mystery of the Half-Blood Prince. About the strange recipes that this character had hinted at in his notes. Strange and wonderful recipes. Recipes for the kind of food that might keep you going for days without needing to cook another meal. Cheap, wholesome recipes that nevertheless reminded one of home and one's mother. If one had had a mother, which Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts had never had, but he could imagine what it might be like to have had one, and how these recipes, so beguilingly hinted at, might remind a man of one.

He walked, not quite knowing where he was going, until he reached the very edge of the castle's grounds and found himself on the shores of Loch Fyne, indeed the place where that mediocre seafood-restaurant-chain did its fishing, the giant, oceanic inlet that borders Hogwarts school for heathens and deicidal maniacs that I am usually content to call a lake, because most children are stupid and wouldn't understand the difference anyway. Not that I'm writing for children, I'm writing for myself.

Oh.

Fuck.

A sudden ripple of movement disturbed the still waters of the lake. Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts did not notice at first, rapt as he was in the truly outstanding view that was being afforded him. This really was a lot nicer than Harvard. As the reflections of the moon and the stars up above began to distort and fold in upon themselves Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts started to take notice. And then, silently, spectacularly a giant shape rose from the waters. It was a beautiful animal, a destroyer of worlds. It was the giant squid.

Calamari.

'Don't even think about it.' the giant squid said. 'My entire body is flushed through with ammonia for buoyancy, and it would make me taste disgusting.'

'I never said anything,' protested Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts.

'Yeah, but you were thinking it,' the giant squid replied.

'You have me all wrong,' Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts said. 'Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.'

'Rth'glwah klhthgn fwe'ghng. Pyr'ghadl wgah'kygn. You speak the tongue of the great old ones, my ancestors? I am impressed.'

'Of course I do, dgythe'fth hgt'klp Cthulhu fhtagn.'

'I'm flattered. In return, I will tell you something that I know, something important. The Half-Blood Prince is not the thing that you should be looking for. They found out who he was at the end of the last book.'

'And he wasn't Jesus?'

'No. But there are things that are being hidden from you, and the Prince may hold some of those clues. Search them out, and be careful. You may be being set up.'

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts said in his most gravelly voice: 'I'm always being set up.'

'Just, keep an eye in the mirror, if you know what I mean,' the giant squid said.

By the way, all this time they've been talking in R'lyehian only I haven't written it in that, I've been writing it in American, not because I can't understand and speak fluent R'lyehian or anything, it's just to help you guys, who can't.

'I'm not going to sleep with you at the end of this though,' said Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts.

'That's OK. I didn't think you were.'

'It's just, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea or anything, because usually if I talk to someone in their own language it's because I want to sleep with them.'

'That's OK. I understand. I'm fine.'

'That's good. I just wanted to make sure that we were clear. So we're cool?'

'We're cool.'

'Cool.'

'You want to play bridge next week?'

'Yeah. You're on.'

Chapter 10

'Seven deadly sins

Seven ways to win

Seven holy paths to hell

And your trip begins

Seven downward slopes

Seven bloodied hopes

Seven are your burning fires

Seven your desires...'

The witch sang quietly to herself as she walked the black and midnight paths just outside of Hogwarts castle, secreting the thin white device she carried within her robes. She toyed gently, absent-mindedly, with the heavy pendant that hung from her neck, but checked herself. She had to be careful not to disturb it much or else all of her plans might be undone.

The walk ahead was a long one, but she did not mind, she had selected an accompaniment that would last its length. Her favourite album in fact. Behind her, once again the interminable yearly farce that was the sorting had begun, with its tortured, shoehorned song and all of the little brats mewing about what poxy house they wanted to be in and how they thought that that was really important.

And the yearly introduction of the new Defence against the Dark arts teacher. A chance to wring yet another jaundiced ounce of tension out of the great feast. At least Dumbledore wasn't around to show off this year, but it wasn't like McGonagall didn't have a bit of the old drama queen hiding underneath that excessively pointy hat she wore.

'The evil that men do lives on and on...

The evil that men do lives on and on...

The evil that men do lives on and on...

The evil that men do lives on and on...'

The witch walked on, head nodding in time with the basslines that were Steve Harris's signature. The night crowded in around her. The moon had not yet risen. She had a plan, a plan that would keep them busy while she finished her researches into the book that she now controlled. They had been foolish, very foolish, to let her get her hands on that. But then, who would have been suspicious of her? Who indeed? Dear dead Dumbledore? Not likely. Harry 'Two Short Planks' Potter? Never. Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger might have seen what was coming, but they were far too wrapped up in themselves and in Harry Potter's Ego Circus. It was almost too easy, except that she had done too much work for it to have gone wrong. The witch smiled to herself.

'Only the good die young

All the evil seem to live forever'

Forty-four minutes went quickly when you were having fun, she thought. She would have to remember that fact in future though: taking too much pleasure in gloating was not always a good idea. Sixteen minutes left to do what she had to do, she switched off the iPod, sixteen minutes, an apparation and a short sprint, and no-one would ever know that she had gone.

Chapter 11

Tits. Harry Potter was thinking.

Ginny's tits.

Tits.

Jenny Agutter's tits.

Now that was something that was wrong. There she was, in The Railway Children, taking off her red petticoat to stop the train so that it didn't crash. And there she was in An American Werewolf in London, taking off her top so that that werewolf bloke could see her tits. It was just too much. It had spoilt his childhood for him. Honestly.

Talking of werewolves, Harry decided to give Lupin a ring.

'Hey, dude. How's things.'

'Things are cool, but listen, I can't talk now guy. Tonks is sticking her tits in my face.'

'Hey, that's cool. That sounds like fun.'

'You'd think, wouldn't you.'

'I am, thinking. A lot. I might have to go now. I need a piss.'

'Really. Dude, you're foul. Speak soon, yeah?'

'Yeah. Speak soon.'

Chapter 12

'Hey there,' said the ptoad. 'Let's rewind a chapter for a second. I'm pretty sure that was my idea. I wrote a book about it twenty years ago. I did.'

Rowlingessa Starchild's black eyes glinted darkly with malicious ecstasy. 'Uh, uh,' she said. 'You're my bitch now. And don't you forget it.' She looked darkly at the two zombies stumbling through the grand gothic arch of her castle's writing room's doorway. One carried a sterling silver tray piled high with pastries and sweetmeats and steak and kidney pies and all sorts of meat and a few kinds of potatoes and some fine English tea. The other brought a freshly laundered Harris Tweed suit. 'You wouldn't want to be like Mervyn and J.R.R. here now would you?'

'At least they're dead,' muttered the ptoad.

Chapter 13

'Lord Voldemort,' said Draco Malfoy. Have you read this book?'

'What book's that,' Voldemort asked his newest disciple.

Draco held up the cover to show his lord. 'It's by this guy called David Icke, It's got some amazing ideas in it.'

'Oh for fuck's sake,' Voldemort muttered.

'I mean, did you know that the Queen is actually a lizard?' Draco continued oblivious.

Chapter 14

Dressed in his finest Harris Tweed robes Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts stood at the front of the classroom basking in the eager, attentive gazes of his students. A shaft of sunlight caught the dappled grey streak of hair at his temple just so, reflecting an air of distinguished authority out onto the room, while the motes of dust that lazed playfully in the late summer beams subtextualised both the carefree innocence of childhood schooldays and the approachable good humour of the obviously astoundingly clever teacher these students had the blind fucking luck to have been gifted with.

Yes, yes, yes. The sentence does work.

The 1930s.

Sorry, just daydreaming a little bit there. It's this tweed suit, it makes me confused. I try to be all progressive, and modern and feminist and progressive, but, well I just can't do it. Its just not my style. Either of my styles.

And it smells of wee – something to do with the dying process.

And the time I drank too much port.

'So,' said Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts, 'to start. We're going to look at the very essence of protection, at the very beginnings of what you can do to ward yourself from evil, before you even wave a wand, we're going to look at what the forces you intend to conjure really are, and what sort of mindset you need to have to conjure them well.'

Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts turned from the class to draw on the board behind him. When he had finished he turned back around and asked 'who can tell me what this symbol here is?'

A hand shot up in the middle of the class, while the rest of the students looked shifty.

'Yes,' said Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts, 'Ms Ranger, isn't it? Of Ravenclaw?'

A great mass of hair nodded itself enthusiastically.

'Go on then,' encouraged Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts.

'It's a pentagram, sir,' the child said.

'Almost,' smiled Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts. 'The name pentagram is usually used to denote the downward pointing star, although there are many who wish to reclaim it for this, upward pointing form, with its more peaceful associations. However, when it is enclosed within the circle as I have drawn it, it becomes more properly a pentacle. The most basic symbol, and indeed mindstate, required for magical protection.

'Because, as you will come to see in our later lessons, all the symbols that we draw are in fact-even though the link seems mind-snappingly inaccessible-simultaneously states of mind. It is in this synchronicity that the spell is cast, in this bending of the mind to the symbol that the world is bent to the mind in turn, that the triumvirate reality of concrete-abstract-will is synchronised beneficially, neatly and without harm. To any party.

'Unless that's what you want, of course.'

About half of the class stared open-mouthed at their teacher, that would have been the Hufflepuffs because we're really into stereotyping here, while the other half, the Ravenclaws, took studious notes.

Shit no. They all just listened as best they could, except for a few who doodled, or made notes, or did all the other shit that kids do in school.

'So,' said Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts after taking a moment to get his breath back and look at the effect that his speech had had on the students. 'One of the most interesting things about the pentagram, and that's the star itself I'm talking about now, is what its supposed to represent. Of course, with the point down it has been claimed that it looks like a goat, and thus was taken on by the Satanists, allowing the Christian church to effectively demonise any party that had a prior claim to the symbol. However the goat is merely a good shorthand for the virility of the male, and the downward point is representative of the penis.

'Meanwhile, the upward pointing star is most often claimed by modern Wicca movements. The upward point is the positive ascendant, the reach for higher things. This way they seek to preclude any possible accusation of Satanism, but with their religiously necessary masculine/feminine dichotomy they defeat themselves. The goat becomes the male, destructive, even satanic force in the way that satanic was originally used – as the enemy and the aggressor – while the upward point is necessarily female.

'But what sort of female? With her arms out and her legs open wide she is the spread-eagle of male fantasy, not the powerful force of life that the religion requires. The spread-eagle in fact of satanic sacrifice. And so the circle comes round again. And meanwhile we can see the downward pointing pentagram, the essential V inherent in its design, as signifying the female vulva and womb.'

By now the first year students arrayed before the pacing Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts really were just sitting there staring at him. It reminded him of a class he had given at Harvard University, only last term.

Actually, it didn't remind him of any classes he had given at Harvard University. All of the classes he had given at Harvard University he had been so obsessed with seeming clever that he had forgotten the most important aspect of theology and religious history – that no one ever knew for sure. Symbols were never only one thing, they never meant only one thing and that thing alone, because they belonged to people and people changed. Two different groups in two different places at two different times might have both used the same set of lines, the same geometric shapes, to convey two different ideas. Other ideas were hijacked for political purposes, and then hijacked again, and in the end even the people who thought they were returning to the origins of an idea were only re-inventing it for their own time. And the best he could do was to observe the process and try to claim as much sense as he could from the mess.

It did remind me of a class I once attended though. It was when I was still at school, all those years ago. That's 'I' as in I, I, I – the original me who's writing this, the author of all of these authors, if you do the maths. I went to an all-boys school and, in the final year of A-levels, to fill up some of the free periods that we had, we did a thing called liberal studies. Which consisted of putting us in a classroom with whatever teacher didn't have anything better to do.

One set of lessons, on art history, were programmed, with this amazing bloke called Jan Piggott, who as far as I am aware is still going strong and being paid to do little more than sit in a room above the library jealously guarding his secrets. He claims to be a very strong Christian. I kind of believe him. He showed us some slides of some pictures he liked, it wasn't a very rigorous syllabus or anything, and told us a little bit about what each picture was, and why he liked it, or why it was important, or just why he had picked it out of the cupboard that morning. About half of the class just went to sleep, more fool them, but no-one really cared about that.

I watched. I like art.

And then he got to a picture of a young woman identified as the Daughter of Hell.

All boys school, remember.

The daughter of Hell didn't have any clothes on. More worryingly, in the words of our Dr Piggott, 'as you can see, she has wolves coming out of her vagina.'

There were about three of them, pulling their way out, violently yes, but not bloodily, if you know what I mean. It was violent, but it wasn't a picture about pain. We just stared, open mouthed pretty much.

'Its a very horrible picture,' Dr Piggott said. 'Quite horrible. Quite blasphemous. I don't like it at all.' But the way he said it, it was with a gleam in his eye, it was as if he really did like it, somewhere deep in his youth. Even if he didn't like what it represented, the reasons it had been painted, any of that.

It was there, though. Somewhere deep in his youth. And that was how I learnt something about what art is. Although you can't tell anyone else.

Chapter 15

Shitflaps.

(If in doubt, swear – humour maxim #1).

Chapter 16

Autumn stole upon the castle slowly, like the death of a loved one from a slow-acting but inevitably fatal virus. The sunny summer days wasted away with a momentum that was at first imperceptible, allowing a sense of security to permeate the hallowed halls of wizardly learning, but was in its final effects, unavoidable.

Warm, balmy evenings, the last of their kind for a great long while, found Harry Potter and his friends stretched out beneath the trees idly watching life go. In the distance, they watched as Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom shouted and gestured at a bunch of students. The students were from all four houses - Harry could tell by the coloured swatches that they had attached to the left shoulder of their otherwise uniform robes - and they seemed to be well drilled. Harry had watched this spectacle frequently over the last few weeks.

'I wonder what they're doing?' he said.

Hermione shook her head mournfully, Ron just continued to stare blankly.

'They're training,' Ginny said.

'Are they? But there's Slytherins among them. And stuff.'

'I know, dear. It's difficult isn't it.'

'But it was my thing. And I didn't want any Slytherin involved.'

'It hurts, doesn't it,' said Ginny. 'When things don't go your way. When people think that you're no good just because of who you are.'

'Yeah, but it was my idea.'

'And you never used it, Harry,' said Hermione. 'Let them do their thing. It's theirs now. Who knows, the DA may come in useful sometime.'

'Not with any of those Slytherin scum,' said Harry. 'I don't trust them.'

'We know you don't,' said Ginny.

'Hermione,' said Ron suddenly, whose current technique for dealing with Harry's more extremist views was to ignore what he said and try to start a conversation about something else. Hermione thought this very weak-willed, and Ron was sure that this was one of the reasons she was still holding out on him, but then again Harry was a mate. And it wasn't like she ever took him to task anymore. She had told Ron that she was close to giving up on Harry, which was a shame, she admitted, but these things happen.

People don't always stay friends with the people they meet in year seven, Hermione had told him a couple of nights ago as they shared a pot of coffee in the prefect's common room before they began their evening patrols - a couple of her muggle friends had gone through the same thing. It was sad, but people grew up in different ways, and Harry really had been getting insufferable recently – never letting anyone else know what he was doing, never listening to what anyone else said and just filled with hatred for anyone who wasn't him.

'Yes Ron?' Hermione said.

'Do you know how to cook?' Ron asked.

'What do you mean?'

'It's just that I don't, and no-one's ever told me how. Or like, I don't know how I'd go about applying for a job, or budgeting my money when I got one, all the practical stuff that I thought I would know by now. When we leave school next year, we're going to have to do all that stuff by ourselves and well, I wouldn't know where to start.'

'But we're going to be Aurors, aren't we?' said Harry. 'We both got into Slughorn's potions class so we're well away, just as long as we scrape through the exams.'

'But mate, we still have to apply, they don't just come up to you and say – "you, you're hard. Come fight dark wizards".'

'They do, to me at least,' said Harry. 'Remember last year, when Percy came over to the Burrow for dinner that time, Scrimgeour wanted me to come work for the ministry then. But I said that I didn't want to work for him, that I was Dumbledore's man.'

'Well, then you've got it sorted, haven't you?' said Ron. 'I still don't have a clue what to do. My dad says that a lot of muggles go to a place called university, where they learn how to live a proper life and stuff, but we can't do that.'

'That's not even quite right,' said Hermione. 'University is a place where people go to continue studying. I've been applying for a few myself.'

'You what?' said Ron.

'I suppose I should have mentioned it before, but it never seemed like the right time. I'm going to do a course in physics I think, there's a special scheme where I can do a foundation year and catch up on all the stuff that I've missed out on.'

'Why would you want to do that?' asked Ginny incredulously. 'You're a witch now, you don't have to go back to the muggle world.'

'The muggle world is still where I'm from,' said Hermione stiffly. 'And there's a lot of very clever, very interesting people at work there. That's one of the things that... well I don't want to say hate because it's the world that all of you guys come from and love, but I do get annoyed by about magical people. We're too happy just to get by, to use our magic to keep us in the comfort zone, and not actually see what's really going on. For instance, do you guys know why things fall down?'

'Cos they do?' ventured Ron. 'Its obvious isn't it. They just fall, cos they're heavy and stuff.'

'No Ron,' Hermione said. 'Things fall because of gravity, which is a force that attracts anything with mass together. All objects in the universe are affected by it, bound together fundamentally. Isn't that amazing? I don't want to stop learning, to let a whole collection of knowledge pass me by because I can make myself disappear at will. I want to know why I can disappear. What happens to the pieces of matter that make up my body and if I'm the same person when I get put back together again.'

'I don't know,' said Ron. 'Maybe it is interesting, but I want to do things, more than anything. I think we're privileged, even us Weasleys, as poor as we are, we're better off than probably the richest muggle – in practical terms, so we should,' he turned onto his elbow and looked at Hermione, 'we should make the most, see as much of the world as we can. Its like an obligation. We have to use everything that life throws at us.'

'That's exactly what I'm saying, Ron.' Hermione shifted against the tree. 'And I'm going to use the things I've been given to really make a difference, to really push back the boundaries of knowledge, both muggle knowledge and magical knowledge...'

She fixed Ron with a hard stare. 'Do you mind, though... that I'm going to go-'

'I could be a pirate I suppose,' said Harry. He put his arm around Ginny conspicuously. 'Do you reckon that if I killed Voldemort they would let me be an Auror without passing any of my exams? I could be the maverick, who's always getting shouted out by the commissioner but who always gets the crooks, like Eddy Murphy in Beverly Hills cop.' Harry started speaking in a strange, not exactly American accent. 'Don't start with me chief, I know I didn't do it by the book, but if I had the O'Neill gang would still be outer there on the streets selling crack to eleven year olds. Don't you tell me what's right, I know what's right and taking down O'Neill was god-damn right by me.'

And there's more... Follow the link in my profile. All good things.