Dashing Duds for Dastardly Dudes
Summary, Voldemort's favourite robes meet with Murphy's Law. A humorous tale based on an alliteration and thought up while watching Harry Potter and knitting the project of doom (which by the way is finished).
Note: This story contains references to "Voldemort's Boggart," a previous tale which I would love if you all read (It is only two chapters so it doesn't take much time)
Robes to Rubbish
In a manor house near the village of Little Hangleton we begin our scene. The night, as usual for a gray January in England, was depressingly wet and dreary. Did I mention cold? At the Riddle Manor, the sky was little different, though occasionally the low clouds were lit with a sickening green light from the windows of the manor. Yes, the inhabitants of the house were busy that night.
Perhaps most hard at word was their beloved (or hated, depending on whom you asked) Dark Lord. He had just sat himself down in his study with a nice cup of tea and glared at the wardrobe in the corner; after all, villains can enjoy a good tea too, especially if they are English. Thankfully, no sounds emanated from within this night. Voldemort made a note to thank Lestrange for expelling the boggart of the previous night. No, tonight his study was blissfully silent, with only the steady patter of rain as his company.
With a disgruntled sigh, he took out quill and parchment. Time for plotting nefarious plans. His last plot, unfortunately, had not met with approval. Malfoy had suffered the cruciatus for pertness, but not before laughing at his plan. He himself had thought it quite clever. Apparently, spoons are not the best way to invade Hogwarts. Well, this time his plan would be perfect. He scribbled notes madly, until…he saw the cuff of his robe.
There…was a…a tear! A tear in his beloved satin silk robes embroidered with slithering snakes. Stumbling he ran to the door to scream for Bellatrix; she mended fairly nicely, though she tended to leave the pins in her finished work to stab unwary persons, sometimes she even dipped them in poison for amusement sake. Hell hath no fury like a seamstress scorned.
As he turned to look in the mirror, maybe the damage was not so bad, his hem, the beautiful hand rolled hem, caught on the doorway. For in the Riddle house no one had done housework for ages; can you imagine either of the Malfoys with a hammer? and the edges were becoming a little rough. So, as Voldemort stepped away from the door, he heard a heart wrenching "riiiip."
Frustrated he bent to disentangle his robe from the daring door. He gently tugged; nothing. He tugged again, this time too hard. He fell, tumbling head over heels, quite undignified for the darkest dark lord of the last 50 years, and slammed into his desk. As he had left his desk in a hurry, he had failed to cork the ink, which promptly, and almost magically, fell on his head, spilling dark ink all down his robes.
As he looked down at his ink spotted vestments, despairing of ever repairing them, a giggle sounded from the doorway. Now, dear reader, this is only the sort of giggle one hears when one is in Bedlam or has just encountered a megalomaniac. For Bellatrix Lestrange is definitely both a person who should have been locked up in Bedlam long ago and a person you would never ever want to meet on the street, least of all a dark alley in the East End. At least, Voldemort thought, she could mend his robes.
After an appraising look at the spots, tears, and ravels, Bellatrix expertly waved her wand and flicked, "repairo." A few of the threads in his cuff wove themselves back together, but they seemed more inclined to form herringbone twill than matching the satin weave of the surrounding fabric.
Voldemort glared at the reason for his robes new state of absurdity. "Lestrange," he hissed, "your spell seems to have strayed."
"I am sorry my lord." She quavered before the wrath of the dark lord (his loyal death eaters knew better than to mess with his robes), and tried another spell, "Resuere."
This time her spell was aimed at the hem of his besmirched garment. And at the hem, the lovely hand rolled hem, machine surging appeared where he had torn it. As a surged hem is a muggle invention (for who could imagine Mrs. Weasly or any other self respecting witch using a surger?) the insult to his beautiful robes compounded.
"My Lord, one more…" She gulped and again swished her wand, this time quite timidly, "atramentum vacuum."
Then, the ink, instead of sloughing off as it should, decided to batik a pattern (where the fabric got the wax from was beyond our two antagonists, especially as they did not even know what Batik was) of stylized seals.
All in all the effect was very unimpressive. For now, the stitched slithering serpents were fighting with the stylized seals over space, the satin stitches were arguing with the herringbone stitches, and the newly surged hem was starting to unravel, as surged hems are wont to do.
Bellatrix Lestrange wisely took this moment to apparate away from her lord's wrath. Voldemort though, oddly enough, seemed did not look around for someone to torture, as he usually did when angry. No, instead he stared at his once resplendent robes and sighed. A tear leaked from his eye, for he realized that never again would he be able to wear those robes for torturing muggles and mudbloods, never again would he wear them to dark society meetings, and most importantly, never again would he be able to impress cowed death eaters with his elegant style. No, his robes were helpless, and tomorrow he would have to visit a robe shop.
To the south, in Knockturn Alley, a shop proprietor smelled a sale and smiled.
Have you ever had one of those days where Murphy just seems out to get you? I certainly do, especially when I am around cameras. Yes, he probably could have just used a spell (or several in this case), but sometimes, things are just beyond hope. I have not had a day quite this bad, but I have had outfits ruined beyond hope. Voldemort, especially with Ralph Fines playing him, seems to me the sort to care a great deal about wearing dastardly duds and sinister threads, so I thought of this. Thanks go out to Jzeylyn who came up with the name "Dashing Duds for Dastardly Dudes" when she reviewed my story "Voldemort's Boggart," and, with such beautiful alliteration, I could not resist the temptation to write an accompanying story.
I might mention that it is my practice to watch movies while knitting, spinning, weaving, embroidering, whatever, so many of my movies are interwoven with my textile interests.
My current favorite textile movies are:
The Mummy (when you can recite every line in the movie you really don't have to watch the screen much)
Kingdom of Heaven (Director Ridley Scott always has great costume designers)
Lord of the Rings (I can accomplish an awful lot of textile related things while watching a 16 hour epic)
I love fabrics, so I took the opportunity to place a little bit of my obsession in the story. Sorry to those of you reading this who do not know fabrics. Here are some notes:
For those of you who do not know the difference between a satin weave and a herringbone twill, check out: http/ is a modern technique used in most machine clothes on the hems and seams. If you look at a seam on the shirt you are currently wearing, it is the thread pocket that surrounds the seam on the inside of the garment and tends to unravel. I don't like surging, and prefer to do my hems by hand.
Rolled hems is a technique by which you hand sew a hem by rolling over the fabric and whip stitching it down.
Batik is a technique of wax resist dying. The name comes from Indonesia I am pretty sure.
For anyone curious about my made up spells:
Resuere rehem in Latin from suere.
The spell, "atramentum vacuum" derives from the words for ink and blank.