Disclaimer: Don't own anything, except the Threatmaster 5000 and the rules of that.
Please review. If you review, I might continue the fic.
A/N: 9.15.2005- No new update this time, just going through it to spruce it up and get rid of a few of the awkward phrasings.
"Join me or die," Voldemort threatens the slight young woman they had captured in Hogsmeade. She glares at him with golden green eyes.
"Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort," she sighs shaking her head. "See, this is where you're going wrong." She dances out of the way of a curse, and lunges at the table where her wand rests. "Quite simply, you have absolutely no delivery, and precious little style. You emulate every single ineptly evil villain in any comic book I've ever read." She dances out of the way of a couple more curses, and casts 'protego' before stopping again.
"See, your plans are completely lacking in panache," she observes. "Let's just start on your basic beginning threat. Now, according to the Threatmaster 5000, it barely rates a three. It's a threat, so that gives you one point, kind of a gimme, you know. You might be able to back it up, so that is two, and there's an if/then statement, so that's you third point. Now, if you were slightly more creative, you could rate a six or higher. You see, what your threat needs is more originality, which could rate you at least another point. You need a signature move, which, depending on how original it is, could rate you a couple points. Laughing evilly doesn't count anymore. It's so overdone. If you don't go for originality, you should at least add to the 'join me or die'. That simply is too ambiguous. How will I die? Will you kill me? Because I've found wizards tend to live an awfully long time, and I could take it to mean for me to die of old age. Not a big threat there."
"Now take a recent altercation between Harry and Dray," she gestures with her wand. She's still dancing out of the way of the curses, and interrupting herself on occasion to hex them back and de-hex herself of the solid hits. "Harry had pilfered one of Dray's quills. Dray knew this and loomed over Harry, smirking the 'Malfoy Smirk'. This already gave him points. One for intimidation and another for a signature move. The Dray said 'Potter, give me the quill back or I will hex your fingers off one by one.' This earned Dray four points. One for delivery, as it was said smoothly, and it wasn't a clunky threat. One for the if/then statement. One for the fact he described the method he would employ if the quill was not returned. And one for the fact he could plausibly back it up. As well, he of course got the gimme point for the fact it was an insult. A seven point insult altogether, oh and by the way Lucius, Dray says hello."
"I do not see the point of this," Voldemort states.
"Well, you see, I'm just trying to give you some helpful hints while I kill time waiting for Potter to rescue me," she shrugs. "By the way, I'm Ashley Minori, of Slytherin. It's not a pleasure to meet you."
"Where was I?" she frowns. "Ah, yes, your statement of not seeing the point of this. See, if you had half a brain functioning you wouldn't have said that. This is where you keep going wrong. You kidnapped me out of Hogsmeade. You probably know I'm a fairly good friend of Harry. Thus you lure Potter here. You had to know I have a tracking spell on me, just in case something like this happens. A tracking spell Hermione and I made so even magical interference doesn't affect it sending its signal. Any rate, you, as the villain, lure Harry, as the hero, into your lair. You practically hand him a portkey into it. Okay, once you did. You depend upon the hero to not have learned anything since the last occasion he beat you. This is a rather stupid move on your part.
"Do I really need to stun you?" she growls as a particularly virulent curse nearly hits her. "Dray's been teaching me the not-nice spells, and said I'm a natural. It's my personal opinion that the instant you decide to become evil, you lose about a hundred IQ points sort of like a southern accent. IQ points mean intelligence by the way. Or, in other words, you become stupid. Either that or you become way to over-confident. This winds up meaning the same thing anyway. Hero wins you look like an ass yadda yadda yadda."
"Now, when the hero shows up, you give out the 'join or die' thing," Ashley rolls her eyes. "Number one, that's a really sucky incentive you have there. You ought to offer free dental. As it is, this only fires the 'hero' up to make some impassioned speech about how he would never join the dark side thus inspiring his side and causing your side to do one of three things. One, which you don't seem to need to worry about as giving someone the dark mark seems to disable their ability to cogitate on previous events to predict future events, is to start to think things through again. Two, they fall asleep because the hero's speech is ridiculously boring. This doesn't impress us by the way. It just makes things easier. Or they fall on the floor laughing. This doesn't exactly project the evilness you're trying to cultivate."
"So, speech finishes, and you start throwing hexes," Ashley taps her wand against her chin. "Again, wrong move. In asking him to join you, you're supposed to present the image that your side has something to offer that he cannot obtain in Hogwarts on the light side. I'm afraid Draco is quite good at throwing curses at him. So, as far as he can see, you're offering him nothing he cannot easily obtain at Hogwarts. Now, if I were evil, I'd probably offer him, I don't know, to teach him some rare move to use in defense against the dark arts, and gradually lure him to the dark side. Convince him you're trustworthy and all that rot."
"Unfortunately, you've queered the deal with him too much to be able to ever truly have him support you," Ashley goes on, after disarming one of the more annoying death-eaters and summoning his wand to her immediately in a smooth motion that privately has one of the death-eaters extremely proud of her. She knew she was merely hoping to waste enough time for the gang to show up, but it seemed to be working. "Mind you, until last year, this wasn't actually the case. If you'd wanted to expend the effort, you could have had him join you right up until you killed his godfather right in front of him. Until then, there was a slight chance you could have brought him over to the dark side. You could have created stories for every single move you made, right up until you killed his godfather. That was an unforgivable offense as far as he is concerned"
"Any rate, so you throw around hexes," Ashley goes back to her narration of the probable events. "Somehow, don't ask me how, you wind up facing him one on one, and through some twist of fate, fight to a stalemate, or he beats you. Either way, you lose face with your death eaters. You'll never win, and eventually Harry is going to kill you."
"The overall moral of the story, is find a new strategy, dummy," Ashley states as the door blows open. She moves out of the way of the shrapnel, and hisses as one piece hits her.
"Ash, are you okay?" Harry asks.
"Beyond a few curses I didn't dodge, just peachy," Ashley states. "Hello Draco." Draco strides in and stands right next to Harry.
"Ashley," Draco nods. "Did you send father my message?"
"Of course," Ashley moves to stand on the opposite end of Potter, with Ron and Hermione flanking them. "One would hope the aurors are somewhere around." She raises her eyebrows interrogatively.
"They'll be here in a second," Draco nods. "I alerted them.
"Potter," Voldemort says. "Join me or die."
"AARRGGHH!" Ashley shakes her head. "Did you not here a word I said!"
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