A/N: Well, I'm sure everyone who cared has given up hope on this ever being
updated, and considering it's only the second chapter, that kind of sad.
But it's here now. So be happy.
Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me. I'm sure you knew that.
-----ooooOOOoooo-----
Voldemort, being a rather brilliant evil mastermind (if he did say so himself), quickly figured out where he was. Or, rather, whom he was inhabiting. Harry Potter just always had to mess up all his plans. Every single time. It never failed.
"Excuse me, I didn't do anything. You're the one who always comes chasing after me, remember?"
Voldemort jumped. Or would have, if it weren't for the fact that Dark Lords don't jump. They accept new and surprising developments with poise and dignity.
That, and his body didn't seem to be responding to him.
"That's because it's my body. And you still haven't told me what you're doing in it."
Potter wasn't even speaking out loud, he realized. Well, that made sense. They were, after all, sharing a head. And Potter seemed to have no problem picking up his thoughts. Which was slightly disturbing, come to think about it. The inner thought processes of Dark Lords should really be private, classified information. This situation could not be allowed to continue. He tried to throw himself back into his own body.
Nothing happened.
Well, almost nothing. He did get Potter to laugh at him. He snarled at the boy.
"Don't tell me you're actually happy about my being stuck here?"
"No, I'm happy because you're being thwarted. Again. Although, really, I shouldn't be surprised. It does happen fairly often."
"Let's try this again, Potter. Are you really stupid enough to be happy when the greatest Dark Lord in living memory takes up residence in your head?"
Potter shrugged. "I was getting kind of bored. Having a megalomaniac over, especially one I know well enough not to be concerned about or anything, kind of fixes that problem."
"How dare you, you insolent little brat! I've killed wizards far better than you for less! I ought to grind you into dust where you stand!"
Potter raised an eyebrow. Well, okay, maybe that had sounded a bit stupid. Voldemort settled for a frigid silence.
---o---
The trouble with teenagers these days, Voldemort mused, was that they never took anything seriously. Oh, they were concerned enough about their own little problems -- crushes and teachers who hated them and the odd near- death experience -- but they had no conception of the truly important things, like groundbreaking (if forbidden) new spell research and the survival of the wizarding world and the chess game he'd been in the middle of against Severus the other day.
No, Harry sat here, oblivious to anyone's concern's but his own and refusing, point-blank, to lift a finger to get the greatest Dark Lord of all time out of his head and back where he belonged. It was intolerable. Drastic measures would be required.
"Potter, I'll pay you fifty galleons if you'll cooperate."
"No."
"Alright then, a hundred."
"Don't be stupid."
"How much then?"
"I don't need your money, lizard-brain."
"Fine." Time for plan B, then. "What will everyone say, Potter, when they find out you've been hiding me in your mind? Do you imagine they'll still be willing to be near you?"
"My friends won't desert me."
"Oh, but they will. They'll be terrified, of course. Better for you if you just let me go, and then no one need ever find out, isn't that right?"
"Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about."
"What, no witty comeback? I must have hit a nerve. What would they say, I wonder, if they knew who you were playing host to at the moment?"
"Probably, 'That's a relief, now at least no one else has to look at his ugly face.'"
---ooo---
Potter eventually caved, of course. Nobody said no to Lord Voldemort for long. And if the Dark Lord had a sneaking suspicion that the brat's capitulation had less to do with the strength of his arguments and more to do with the threat of hearing the full results of the Death Eaters' Annual Poetry Writing Convention (Crabbe in particular could churn out incredible quantities of utterly atrocious verse. He'd recited a few of them to Potter, just to get the idea across), well, true Evil was always prepared to use whatever means were at hand to get the job done.
---ooo---
Dear Hermione,
You'll never guess what just happened to me. Voldemort got his hands on something called the Talisman of Dreams, and he tried to use it against me, to give me nightmares in a lame attempt to surpass the Dursleys at making my life miserable, but he decided to skip straight to using the thing instead of reading the instruction manual, so now he's stuck in my head. Which isn't as bad as the nightmares would have been, because now I can poke fun at him with impunity, and he has to listen to me, but it's still bad enough that I want it over. So, he's going to write a letter to his Death Eaters telling them to send the instruction manual to you, and if you could read it and figure out how to get the evil cockroach and his evil poetry out of my head, I'd really appreciate it.
Hope your summer is going well.
Your friend, Harry
---o---
Avery,
I want you to send that infernal manual along with this owl. Do not attach any hexes, curses, locks, or other surprises. Do not read the other letter carried by the owl. Do not inform anyone else of this request. And do not disturb me or allow others to do so up until the next time I call a meeting. Failure to comply will result in your painful and messy death.
Voldemort
---o---
Dear Harry,
I received your letter and the book that came with it, but it may take me a while to work through it. It's fascinating, of course, but it keeps referring to other books that I haven't got. What I wouldn't give for access to the Hogwarts library right now! But there's a lot of information in the book I haven't gotten to yet (the book's got to be spelled, it's a lot bigger inside than it is outside, and it's no shrimp outside) and who knows, I may be able to figure it out yet. I can't work on it as much as I'd like to, either, because my cousin's visiting from America, and my parents are insisting that we give her the full tour of Important Things To See in Britain, so I don't have much time to myself, but I am studying the book every spare moment I can. Good thing I'd gotten most of my summer work done already!
The Talisman of Dreams, from what I've read, is pretty strange. It tends to be unpredictable and also seems to have a sense of humor. A lot of what it does turns out to be deliberately ironic in one way or another. For example, the painter who did the warning on the talisman, every time he tried to paint something after that, some of the paint would end up on his forehead, spelling out, "beware the painter whose canvas seeks art." Which you can spend a really long time puzzling over if you want, but that seems typical of the talisman. Sorry this isn't more help. I'll write again when I have more. Hope you're holding up well, all things considered.
With love from, Hermione.
-----ooooOOOoooo-----
A/N: I'd like to take this time to thank all the lovely people who left me reviews last chapter. They made me very, very happy. Bouncing-off-the- walls happy. They even (well, eventually) inspired me to sit down and write some more. So thank you, very much. And more reviews would be greatly appreciated. Constructive criticism (or information on how to get ff.n to double-space) is particularly welcome.
Oh, and don't forget to check out my Favorite Authors list, which is made up of some of the best writers in the fandom.
Floppy disks are evil. Just so's you know.
Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me. I'm sure you knew that.
-----ooooOOOoooo-----
Voldemort, being a rather brilliant evil mastermind (if he did say so himself), quickly figured out where he was. Or, rather, whom he was inhabiting. Harry Potter just always had to mess up all his plans. Every single time. It never failed.
"Excuse me, I didn't do anything. You're the one who always comes chasing after me, remember?"
Voldemort jumped. Or would have, if it weren't for the fact that Dark Lords don't jump. They accept new and surprising developments with poise and dignity.
That, and his body didn't seem to be responding to him.
"That's because it's my body. And you still haven't told me what you're doing in it."
Potter wasn't even speaking out loud, he realized. Well, that made sense. They were, after all, sharing a head. And Potter seemed to have no problem picking up his thoughts. Which was slightly disturbing, come to think about it. The inner thought processes of Dark Lords should really be private, classified information. This situation could not be allowed to continue. He tried to throw himself back into his own body.
Nothing happened.
Well, almost nothing. He did get Potter to laugh at him. He snarled at the boy.
"Don't tell me you're actually happy about my being stuck here?"
"No, I'm happy because you're being thwarted. Again. Although, really, I shouldn't be surprised. It does happen fairly often."
"Let's try this again, Potter. Are you really stupid enough to be happy when the greatest Dark Lord in living memory takes up residence in your head?"
Potter shrugged. "I was getting kind of bored. Having a megalomaniac over, especially one I know well enough not to be concerned about or anything, kind of fixes that problem."
"How dare you, you insolent little brat! I've killed wizards far better than you for less! I ought to grind you into dust where you stand!"
Potter raised an eyebrow. Well, okay, maybe that had sounded a bit stupid. Voldemort settled for a frigid silence.
---o---
The trouble with teenagers these days, Voldemort mused, was that they never took anything seriously. Oh, they were concerned enough about their own little problems -- crushes and teachers who hated them and the odd near- death experience -- but they had no conception of the truly important things, like groundbreaking (if forbidden) new spell research and the survival of the wizarding world and the chess game he'd been in the middle of against Severus the other day.
No, Harry sat here, oblivious to anyone's concern's but his own and refusing, point-blank, to lift a finger to get the greatest Dark Lord of all time out of his head and back where he belonged. It was intolerable. Drastic measures would be required.
"Potter, I'll pay you fifty galleons if you'll cooperate."
"No."
"Alright then, a hundred."
"Don't be stupid."
"How much then?"
"I don't need your money, lizard-brain."
"Fine." Time for plan B, then. "What will everyone say, Potter, when they find out you've been hiding me in your mind? Do you imagine they'll still be willing to be near you?"
"My friends won't desert me."
"Oh, but they will. They'll be terrified, of course. Better for you if you just let me go, and then no one need ever find out, isn't that right?"
"Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about."
"What, no witty comeback? I must have hit a nerve. What would they say, I wonder, if they knew who you were playing host to at the moment?"
"Probably, 'That's a relief, now at least no one else has to look at his ugly face.'"
---ooo---
Potter eventually caved, of course. Nobody said no to Lord Voldemort for long. And if the Dark Lord had a sneaking suspicion that the brat's capitulation had less to do with the strength of his arguments and more to do with the threat of hearing the full results of the Death Eaters' Annual Poetry Writing Convention (Crabbe in particular could churn out incredible quantities of utterly atrocious verse. He'd recited a few of them to Potter, just to get the idea across), well, true Evil was always prepared to use whatever means were at hand to get the job done.
---ooo---
Dear Hermione,
You'll never guess what just happened to me. Voldemort got his hands on something called the Talisman of Dreams, and he tried to use it against me, to give me nightmares in a lame attempt to surpass the Dursleys at making my life miserable, but he decided to skip straight to using the thing instead of reading the instruction manual, so now he's stuck in my head. Which isn't as bad as the nightmares would have been, because now I can poke fun at him with impunity, and he has to listen to me, but it's still bad enough that I want it over. So, he's going to write a letter to his Death Eaters telling them to send the instruction manual to you, and if you could read it and figure out how to get the evil cockroach and his evil poetry out of my head, I'd really appreciate it.
Hope your summer is going well.
Your friend, Harry
---o---
Avery,
I want you to send that infernal manual along with this owl. Do not attach any hexes, curses, locks, or other surprises. Do not read the other letter carried by the owl. Do not inform anyone else of this request. And do not disturb me or allow others to do so up until the next time I call a meeting. Failure to comply will result in your painful and messy death.
Voldemort
---o---
Dear Harry,
I received your letter and the book that came with it, but it may take me a while to work through it. It's fascinating, of course, but it keeps referring to other books that I haven't got. What I wouldn't give for access to the Hogwarts library right now! But there's a lot of information in the book I haven't gotten to yet (the book's got to be spelled, it's a lot bigger inside than it is outside, and it's no shrimp outside) and who knows, I may be able to figure it out yet. I can't work on it as much as I'd like to, either, because my cousin's visiting from America, and my parents are insisting that we give her the full tour of Important Things To See in Britain, so I don't have much time to myself, but I am studying the book every spare moment I can. Good thing I'd gotten most of my summer work done already!
The Talisman of Dreams, from what I've read, is pretty strange. It tends to be unpredictable and also seems to have a sense of humor. A lot of what it does turns out to be deliberately ironic in one way or another. For example, the painter who did the warning on the talisman, every time he tried to paint something after that, some of the paint would end up on his forehead, spelling out, "beware the painter whose canvas seeks art." Which you can spend a really long time puzzling over if you want, but that seems typical of the talisman. Sorry this isn't more help. I'll write again when I have more. Hope you're holding up well, all things considered.
With love from, Hermione.
-----ooooOOOoooo-----
A/N: I'd like to take this time to thank all the lovely people who left me reviews last chapter. They made me very, very happy. Bouncing-off-the- walls happy. They even (well, eventually) inspired me to sit down and write some more. So thank you, very much. And more reviews would be greatly appreciated. Constructive criticism (or information on how to get ff.n to double-space) is particularly welcome.
Oh, and don't forget to check out my Favorite Authors list, which is made up of some of the best writers in the fandom.
Floppy disks are evil. Just so's you know.
