A Comedy In A Foreign Language – Chapter 4c

In my stupefied slumber, I was trapped by my first proper nightmare. It seemed I had finally been pervaded by Voldemort's terror.

I remembered that night when I was about four or five, when Uncle Vernon had discovered at the last moment that all his minutes for tomorrow's meeting had been stapled together in the wrong order. I was duly dragged out of my cupboard and conscripted to separate the papers and re-staple them, spreading them all out in the space behind the living room sofa. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were watching a film about nuclear war.

I don't remember whether I understood the facts; the nature of the devastation and so forth. I don't think it really matters. The atmosphere still got me; the images of darkness, horror, burning. I didn't even see the first half, just heard the soundtrack; and that was enough. Perhaps it made it worse.

Darkness. Flames. Frightened voices –

"Hello, Harry," a fuzzy Voldemort said from a chair by my bedside, his voice suggesting great amusement. "I hope you're feeling the better for your nap," and the room was full of sunshine and there was no-one else there.

"I feel horrible," I complained, trying to sit up and finding it made my head ache even worse. Voldie tapped me on the bonce with his wand and the pain abruptly departed, although my mouth still tasted nasty and my eyes were sore. "Thanks," I said, lying back down. "Er, what happened?"

"Well, you got Stunned, obviously," he said, handing me my glasses and a glass of water, "and then we had a minor dust-up, but nobody else really suffered any damage. You get points for jumping in front of me, by the way. That showed real loyalty."

I spluttered on my water. "Loyalty!"

"Well?"

"It was the only thing to do. I thought she was going to Stun you, and that might have disrupted the stasis spell. Or you would have killed her, more likely, and then everyone else would have killed you."

"Ah, so you decided to de-escalate the conflict," said Voldemort. "That was a very good idea, actually. I kept coming very close to losing my temper, and so did everyone else. Possibly the Muggle top bananas should take a Harry with them to summits and he could talk them down."

"And get Stunned," I muttered.

"Well, it was very helpful, as you say," he said calmly, and then spoilt the effect by shouting, "which is one of the FEW bloody helpful things anyone has DONE today!"

"What did they say?" I said wearily. Apart from anything else, I was not at all sure I liked having Voldie talk to me while I was lying in bed, especially since a simple process of deduction revealed that he was the one who'd put me there; well, unless he'd bullied Albert into doing it for him, anyway. I decided I'd have to put up with it. At least I had my clothes on.

"Well," he began, brightening.

"Briefly," I begged. "In language I can understand."

"Oh. All right. Important things first: the Russians now accept that the war is underway and I can't just cancel the stasis spell and hope everything'll be all right. Some of the younger Chinese spring chickens have remembered that the Muggles have some kind of dangerous weapon and they're busy persuading the two-hundred-year-old ones to do something about it, which is good. We can't find any Americans, which isn't too surprising, but we've sent some people to look for them."

"Why isn't it surprising?"

"A lot of their oldest and most powerful witzies were killed off by the Dark Lord Thingy Thingy in the 1950s."

"Who chose his name?"

"I can't remember his name. It was Anishinabe for Vile Rage or something."

"So where is he now?"

"He got killed off by a different Dark Lord in the 70s. Amateur," Voldemort sniffed.

"And you had a fight with the Russians."

"Yes, I enclosed you in a protective shield," he said proudly, clearly expecting flowers and applause, "and we had a very OK Corral-style duel with people hiding behind chairs or cheering us on and so on. Then eventually we got tired and stopped and I put you to bed. Then we carried on the discussion for a bit and agreed to meet tomorrow and they all left."

"And the Peruvian woman?"

"She's staying in China for now. She was fed up of doing everything in the dark."

"Right," I said as all this sank slowly through my rather resistant brain. "So, like, did anyone do the washing up?"

"Dream on," said Voldemort, adding generously, "although I did fix the broken windows."

We decamped to the kitchen, where I straightened up all the chairs that had been knocked over when Voldie had had his scrimmage with the Russians. I also had to wipe scorch marks off the cooker hood. Then I washed thousands of teacups while sat in his favourite armchair and ranted about the attitudes, scientific knowledge and personal habits of all the other wizards and witches. Apparently they were obstructive, mistrustful, snobbish, opposed to the Dark Arts, drank too much, had illegible handwriting, probably still believed in the Four Humours, didn't know what a bomb was and had bad breath.

"Why do they keep blaming me for everything?" he demanded irritably, tossing back a glass of pink gin he'd cunningly mixed himself. "Just because I have some faint understanding of Muggle politics, which is clearly too much for their puny minds to grasp? If I hear any of them say 'half-blood', they'll die."

"Oh, shut up," I said in disgust, carrying the first lot of plates over to the bucket. "Like that matters now. You can't go round killing the people on our side, and besides, they can't slag you off when you're the only one who did anything... Er?" I finished, turning round to see that he was glaring at me over the point of his wand.

"Huh," he grunted, putting it down on a little round table. "I was going to hex you until you mentioned the part about my being useful."

"Well, you are. And that's got nothing to do with your blood status," I said, going back for more plates.

"It has everything to do with my blood status, dolt. It's because I was raised by the putrid Muggles that I know so much about Muggle warfare. Whereas that lot... They kept asking how the war began, which of course was a stupid question because a full answer would use up time we don't have, and they didn't understand the short answer..."

"What is the short answer?"

"Incompetence, brashness and technological errors. Be quiet. Of course, they don't understand what a computer is, and when we mentioned the situation in the Middle East they said 'What situation is that?' So it was an uphill struggle."

"Oh great," I said, depressed. "So the only people we're stuck here with don't know anything about bombs or politics, except you, and you're mad."

"Harry!" he said, greatly amused. "I never knew you were such a bitch!"

"Well, you are! You said so! And they don't trust you..."

"That's only because I'm a mass murderer," he said casually, then added gloomily, "or at least, I hope so. You might have noticed that the Russians don't think much of Albert..."

"Yeah, I noticed that," I said animatedly. "What was that about?"

"They think he couldn't possibly know about nuclear science (or anything, possibly) because he's African."

"What?!" I hooted in righteous outrage.

"Well," he said fairly, "nuclear programmes in Africa are rather thin on the ground, but the fact remained that there was one and he infiltrated it. He's the only person here, apart from me, who's actually dismantled a bomb, and that pack of sneering apparatchiks have no right to laugh at him. Oh, and he did it all by himself, as well. Nobody to help him in the 80s."

There was a silence while we contemplated the plight of Albert. Voldemort gave a long, gloomy sigh, sank into a small dark pit of depression, and said, "I don't know how he did it."

"Come on, Voldie," I wheedled. "You can do it. You'll be a hero. You'll stop the war."

He looked almost as if he was going to laugh for a moment, and his scowl of gloom appeared slightly leavened. "As if they'd call me a hero for doing what anyone with any sense would do. And wash your – "

"Yes, yes," I said crossly, and marched out to the stream to get a bucket of water. After casting a quick Purifying Charm I put the bucket in the kitchen sink and stuck my head in it.

"Thank you for that, Marvin," said Voldemort in a pitying tone when I finally came back up. He looked a lot happier now; possibly he'd had another gin while I was out. "Now listen, here's the problem. I've given the Russians and Chinese and other hoojahs a rough explanation of what a missile is, together with a warning that it's all extremely dangerous, and they've basically expressed willingness to learn how to defuse one. They should be able to Vanish the plutonium successfully once they've figured out what it is, and the locations of the silos are pretty open knowledge. We've even found a way round the planes..." he gave me an ironic bow. "Out of the mouths of babes, indeed, although I think they're probably going to cast a Summoning Charm in concert, since, relatively speaking, planes don't weigh very much."

He started drumming his claws on the little table, which produced a noise like a millipede trundling along in hobnail boots.

"When it comes to submarines, however, we are truly fucked. Unfortunately, as you noticed, I Vanished all the warheads on that sub that's still in Faslane; which turns out to have been a mistake, because all those new people want me to demonstrate the process and now I can't. I suppose I could stick a lump of tin or something where the plutonium should be and Vanish that instead, but I think the suspicious bastards might be expecting that... But, er, frankly, Harry, I was too embarrassed to admit that I'm afraid of going underwater, so I told them I was too busy to do it."

He looked, and sounded, almost sheepish. I meditated for an impossibly short space of time on what a strange thing the human mind was. Voldie had never shown the slightest sign of unease over his status as a baby-killing, Dementor-bossing mass murderer, but he was horrified at the prospect of being exposed as slightly neurotic. Peer pressure can achieve some very odd things.

"So... er... I don't suppose you've got any brilliant Chosen One ideas as to how I can get it done?"

Me? I gaped at him in dismay and said, "Why can't Albert show them how to do it?"

"I asked him to and he won't," said Voldie. "Obviously, he doesn't like them very much."

"Aren't you going to Crucio him and tell him to do it anyway?" I demanded, which elicited an astonished stare, a loud giggle and the question, "D'you think he'd appreciate being Crucioed?"

"You did it to me!"

"Yes," he said dispassionately, his eyes now focussed on an invisible victim somewhere in the middle distance, "but I think it's best if I avoid Unforgivables for the time being. I could happily curse some of those Russians to death, but you've demonstrated very nicely that we should probably all try to be friends."

"Fat bloody chance. And why can't they just do all the disarming themselves?"

Voldie's eyeballs spiralled in exasperation. "Because it is DAN-ge-rous. Because unless they use exactly the right spell, they could cause a criticality. You don't understand this, Potter. Look, going near plutonium irradiates you, I assume you know that, but crushing it down into a very small space is what causes the chain reaction; so if, for example, they'd used a Shrinking Spell, that would have been catastrophic. A Shrinking Spell gets rid of rocks and so forth very nicely, but if used on plutonium it would have detonated the bomb. I mean, the effect would depend on the strength of the spell," he continued, much more animated now that he was discussing physics, "and a powerful witz with a good grasp of Transfiguration would cause much more damage than a useless one, because magic is better at compressing things than Muggle explosives; so a strong spell, cast quickly, would increase the yield of the bomb enormously. It would create a super-weapon. Oh, and it would also have detonated the rest of the bombs on the sub, making everything even worse... and so on. So we would have had a huge hole in the ocean and several dead witches and wizards."

I was silent. Then I said, "Ah."

"Yes. Quite. And if they'd tried to bash through the warhead using the Reductor Curse or something similar, they'd have set off the explosives, with a similarly bad effect. Look, Harry, it's like giving a gun to a kid; they don't understand which part's dangerous. I expect the risk is actually a lot less than I'm making it sound," he conceded, "but the consequences would be so awful if something did go wrong that we can't afford the risk at all, so I've absolutely got to show them how to do it right."

This seemed incontrovertible. I sat down opposite him and said slowly, "So you can't go down there in the dark and show them..."

"No, I CAN'T. I've ALREADY TOLD YOU that," he snapped, which I found very unfair, since I hadn't been trying to change his mind; but I kept my temper and continued, "And Albert won't. And there aren't any submarines in dock anywhere else."

"Well," he said, and paused in thought. "Maybe America... I'M NOT GOING TO AMERICA."

"What's wrong with it?" I said wearily.

"IT'S DARK THERE."

"Fine. So if you can't go down to the subs, we need to bring them back up."

"Bring them back up! And how, precisely? Since none of us can pilot a submarine and all their engines are frozen?"

"Tie them to the Durmstrang ship and give them a tow."

There was a long silence, then he said, "I begin to see why you always manage to defeat me. I don't think the Durmstrang model is strong enough to pull one of those, though."

"There must be another one somewhere," I argued, unimpressed. "It can't be the only one in the world..."

"True. And piloting it?"

I gave this some thought. "I don't know anything about it specifically, but I don't think it can be too hard, because Karkaroff made the seventh-year Durmstrang students drive it all the way to Hogwarts."

"Seventh-year Durmstrang students," he muttered. "Do you know, Potter, I think you've got it... Damn! You're not even a scientist! It must be practicality that always pulls you through. I'll ask Albert if there are any more ships, and I'll tell all the other witzies about it tomorrow."

"Cool," I said, pleased.

"Yes," he said, still amazed. "Yes! D'you want some gin, Potter? Harry."

"You bet I want some gin," I said, and we sat there companionably drinking in our armchairs until I said, "I had a nightmare while I was out."

"Don't you usually have nightmares?" he said curiously.

"Only about you. – Stop giggling. I remembered," I said slowly, "when I was about four or five, and there was this nuclear war film on the telly..."

"A film?" he said, instantly attentive. "What, War Games?"

"Er..."

"Americans who accidentally trigger a war by mucking about with computers?"

"Oh, no. No. It was the one in Yorkshire, with the melting milk bottles."

"Threads," he said immediately. "That was a made-for-TV film. Sheffield, 1984."

"Right – what – You shouldn't know that. You were a spirit at the time."

"I saw it two years ago, I got it on video."

"But... why?"

"I watched everything I'd missed during the '80s."

"WHY?! You're fucking terrified of nuclear war!" I bawled.

He scrunched up his face until he looked like Dudley eating a grapefruit and said sourly, "I know... or, I should know by now. I just can't help myself. I suppose I just want to... know the worst..."

"The worst's happening!"

"And I know what to do!" he said, suddenly triumphant. "There, Harry, aren't you glad you're not stuck here with an optimist?"

"You're so bloody silly," I said, unable to stop myself laughing. "You're so brainy, but you can't stop yourself, can't stop yourself watching TV programmes that even scare me, and I'm not scared of nuclear war. It's just..."

But I couldn't say what it just was, and I sat there turning my glass round and round until he said decisively, "It's personal."

"Personal!"

"Because that's my thing. Radiophobia, nuclear war... it's about me. It's personal."

"It was about everyone dying!"

"Not really everyone. They were using a wildly optimistic Square Leg-type scenario, in which..."

"How can it be personal if it's about billions of people dying?!"

"But I would die!" he shouted, suddenly incandescent. "I would die! Me! This isn't some bloody TV programme or some Muggle-hunt where you can say 'Oh yes, how profound' and carry on. This would be the end of my bloody life! It would be – " and then he was silenced by the horror of it all and couldn't say any more.

"Other people have lives too, you know," I said testily.

"They might have," he said. "How do you know? What about the evil demon?"

"I have a life, all right?"

"Yes, but it's not my life! It's not mine!"

"And why are you so fucking important?!"

"Because I exist! I exist! Me! Me!" he shouted, astounded at the concept of his sentience. I wondered how anyone could reach his age and still be amazed by the fact that he existed. I've never been able to decide if he's very clever or very thick.

At the time, I decided it was the latter. "Other people had lives," I said flatly. "My mum and dad had lives. They existed."

There was a long silence; as it turned out, a perturbed silence. "Is that what it means?" he said at last. "Love? To care about someone else's death as if it were your own? Look – no," he balked, "it's not possible to feel that. You carry on living. Other people's deaths are just not important; you don't feel them the same way – "

"It was important enough to my mum that she died for me," I said, feeling the words coming out of me through that same old pain, "so you must be wrong, mustn't you? If she did it, then you're just not thinking right."

Voldemort mumbled unintelligibly to himself. At last he snorted and scoffed, "It's all right for you, isn't it? And her. You're not mad. You don't know how alone it makes you feel."

"She's DEAD. And you told me I was mad," I pointed out.

"And when you were more mad, when you were depressed and shouting: did you feel alone?"

Yes. I didn't want to admit he was right. "Have we gone quite deep enough here?" I said drowsily. "It's like we're telling each other our life stories or something." I finished my gin and poured myself another.

"Yep," he said. "Who was it who said you never really know a man, sic, until you've watched him die?"

"Uuuuuurgh!"

"Because I suppose he would think that watching him during imminent nuclear war – now, that's really getting to know him."

"Do you believe it?" I said, faintly disgusted.

"No," he said. "You never really know anyone else at all."