Author's Note: I'd like to dedicate this drabble/one-shot to Quilted Northern®. Without Quilted Northern®, this wouldn't exist.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognize – the Harry Potter world and the character Tom Riddle included. Also, I'm unsure if I depicted the state of Albanian plumbing, plungers, and toilet paper in 1965 accurately. It was simply a convenient place in which to set this drabble.
The Toilet
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 3:46 AM.
Tom Riddle had a problem. In comparison to his other problem – being on the run from Albanian Aurors for an 'alleged' murder – this problem was absolutely paltry. In comparison to his second other problem – he couldn't use magic until he got out of the country because the Albanian Aurors would be able to trace his steps and he was still lacking a diadem – this problem was, again, quite trivial.
But it grated on his bloody nerves like no other.
Albania wasn't particularly known for their good plumbing or for their adequate plunger design, so why in bleeding Merlin did they make their toilet paper more than adequately plush? Add that to a good poo and you had a recipe designed for only the seventh circle of hell.
Unfortunately, that was where Tom Riddle stood. Dripping plunger in hand, he glared at the porcelain spawn of Satan that was his clogged toilet. He was even staying at a decent Inn on the edge of Berat, which should have had good plumbing, but it certainly did not. Maybe 'decent Inn' meant that he was granted the luxury of two plungers in his loo, not that that was making any difference.
They were defective – both of them. All they served to do was make wet, bubbling, slopping squidgy sounds against the toilet bowl. Tom growled in frustration and flicked his hair away from his eyes, going in for round three.
He was going to conquer this blasted toilet if it was the last thing he did.
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 3:51 AM.
This wasn't working.
Tom pulled the plunger out of the toilet and curled his lip upward in disgust as brown water splashed all over. No wonder it wasn't working. The blasted rubber suction cup on the end of the plunger had inverted during his struggles without him realizing. That had to be why it wasn't working. Using the rim of the toilet, he righted the plunger, rolled up his sleeves, and went back at it.
If Muggles were able to do this on a regular basis then there was no reason why he couldn't. He could do anything Muggles could do – and more!
Unclogging toilets at Wool's Orphanage was never this hard. Then again, England knew how to make a fucking plunger. And there was something to be said about scratchy wafer-thin toilet paper: At least it bloody well flushed down the pipes.
Taking a pause for breath, Tom gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts.
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 3:54 AM.
No. This definitely wasn't working. It had to be the blasted plunger.
Tom used the back of his arm to shove his hair off his forehead and set the first plunger back into its plunger container. With a sigh, he grabbed the second plunger. This one had a deeper suction cup on the end, which gave him hope.
Deeper suction cup = more pressure?
Gripping the wooden stick of the plunger with both hands, Tom attacked the toilet. On his first round of plunging, he heard some very promising bubbling in the tank on the back of the loo. Moving his head nearer to the tank, he listened carefully as he rammed the plunger hard against the toilet bowl.
Come on. Come on.
The bubbling noises seemed to stop and he shifted his stance. How did he go at it when the tank started bubbling again? He tried to remember and tested various angles at which to plunge, getting no results.
With an angered growl, he backed off of the plunger – leaving it in the overfilled toilet – and leaned against the wall behind him, winded and glaring at the baleful porcelain beast.
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 3:59 AM.
Perhaps the problem was the murky brown water and the fact that he couldn't see where to put the damn thing.
And perhaps the problem was that he had lost half a stone on the trip and just didn't have enough heft to put behind the plunger to do the job.
He had one foot on the toilet seat for leverage and was putting all of his upper body weight into working the plunger against the clog. After each round, he switched plungers, alternating and trying different angles. One of them had to work sooner or bloody later.
The tank of the toilet bubbled encouragingly again and Tom felt his veins tingle in excitement.
Yes. Yes. Yes. You can do it. Unclog you little -
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 4:03 AM.
Tom had both feet on the toilet seat, using his entire bodyweight to plunge.
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 4:05 AM.
There was a reason why Muggles had problems like clogged toilets. It was the sheer stupidity of a mediocre design. That irritating inferiority was easily solved with magic. Magical toilets never behaved in this manner.
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 4:06 AM.
Tom Riddle stood in front of the most vexing inanimate object that had ever plagued his existence. He was sweating, out of breath, and in desperate need of a shower – all because of a fucking toilet.
It just sat there, still clogged as ever. If it wasn't for the toilet water splashed about, it appeared as if he hadn't been trying his hardest to get the blasted Albanian-toilet-paper-from-hell out of the goddamned pipes.
Sneering at the porcelain demon spawn, Tom pulled out his wand.
"Reducto!"
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Berat, Albania: April 13th, 1965. 4:09 AM.
Tom hitched his travel bag up his shoulder and checked out of the Inn on the edge of Berat.
It was worth looking for another 'safe house' in order to blow up that toilet.
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Author's Note: Thank you for reading!