AUTHOR'S NOTE: It has been some time since the dark events of the Badger-Serpent War took place, and I had not thought when I alluded to them in "The ThriceWrought Challenge" that many people would care to know the truth of what happened in those terrible days. However, since several of you have asked to know more, I, Ancalimë Erendis, have returned to the journals and other papers entrusted to me, which detail the war and the events leading up to it.
What you are about to read is based upon actual eyewitness accounts recorded and submitted by a number of fictional personages (including, but not limited to, the Snape family, Draco Bonfoy, Pansy Parkinson, two sadistic house elves, and Jonathan and Mina Harker), but according to repeated statements from both Houses concerned, none of what you will see recorded here ever happened.
Prologue
Harry Snape had no memory of having fallen asleep, but he woke up in a bright corner of the hospital wing. The windows were open to admit fresh air, and the birds were singing cheerfully outside, as if to foreshadow by use of juxtaposition that darker and far less cheery events lay on the horizon.
"Oh, thank Heaven, you're awake!"
Harry turned toward the voice, then received a nasty shock when his head suddenly dropped fifteen centimeters to slam his cheek against the pillow; he was still getting used to his Afro. The frizzy hair didn't collapse properly when he lay down; instead, it stood on end, holding his head high above his pillow. Rolling over too quickly or too far deprived him of that support and inevitably led to a short drop and a quick stop.
"Malfoy?" he said groggily, though he was awake enough to remember to use his best friend's public name. "What happened? Why am I in the hospital wing?"
Bonfoy furrowed his brow worriedly. "You don't remember?"
Harry almost shook his head, remembered his hair, and reconsidered just in time. "I remember something about cat-sitting for the feline from Hell," he answered. "Then skipping out of the Three Broomsticks with my dad and Trelawney—um, Hermione—well, my mum. And now waking up."
Bonfoy stared at him. "Harry," he said slowly, "Trelawney's been in the hospital wing for a week, Hermione's gone missing, and no one knows where—to say nothing of who—your mum is." He shook his head. "And I don't think you've been to the Three Broomsticks with your dad yet, much less cat-sitting." He shrugged. "Though, come to think of it, you mentioned that you were supposed to have a man-to-man talk with Professor Snape as part of your therapy—"
"But that was ages ago!" Harry cut him off. "And we've gone to the Three Broomsticks tons of times since I killed Voldemort!"
Bonfoy shook his head and went very pale. "Harry, you haven't killed him. He's still out there."
"It was my Brainiac Gene!" Harry protested. "I started spouting quantum physics and made his head explode!"
Now Bonfoy had to work at not smiling. "Now Harry, be reasonable," he said. "It must have been a dream. I mean, come on; who would seriously write an ending like that—unless the writer was trying to put in a gratuitous Dogma allusion—" He broke off, looking thoughtful, then shook his head. "Nah. Had to be a dream."
Harry sat up, for it occurred to the writer just then that he was still laying down. "So what you're saying, then," he said tremulously, "is that Voldemort's still at large, and that Hermione, Trelawney, and my mum are three different people?"
Bonfoy frowned, reflecting. "Well, he's still at large, anyway," he at last replied. "But since only Chapters 5 and 6 seem to have been a dream, Chapter 2 still happened, so it stands to reason that they are all the same people after all, and that there will be a scene revealing it all—again—later on. And then, of course, there's still your hair."
"So Hermione's still my mum," Harry groaned.
"I'd say so, mate," Bonfoy replied. "And Hufflepuff is still planning to take over the world, or something."
"Excuse me," a third voice interposed, drawing the eyes of both boys to the foot of Harry's bed. "Would you care to explain how you know that?" Professor Snape asked.
The two students exchanged looks. "Is this off the record?" Harry countered.
Snape smirked. "Only in a Connie Chung sense," he answered.
The boys exchanged glances again.
"Well," Bonfoy said, after a moment of consideration, "this may take a bit of time."
"That's quite all right," Snape replied. "The narrator will give us all the time we need in Chapter 1, which is due to begin—" he consulted his pocket watch—"right now."
Chapter 1: The Sign of the Black Badger
"Now," Snape said, sitting in a chair provided for narrative purposes. "Since we have shifted to the chapter in which everything is to be revealed, please commence with your part of the revelation."
So Harry and Bonfoy took turns describing their ventures into Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, of which the reader will doubtless be aware and thus does not require it spelled out again in this story's dialogue. Snape listened attentively, his brow knit as he considered their words.
"So Sprout is ready to make her move, is she?" he murmured darkly when they had done. "And in a fortnight…I should have known."
Harry looked to Bonfoy, who shrugged. "Known what, exactly?" the latter asked.
Snape turned his eyes on the boys. "The black badger is abroad," he replied cryptically. "It will be a hard night…and tomorrow will be worse."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Um, Dad?" he said. "You're sounding like a Susan Cooper character, and it's a little creepy."
"It should be," his father told him. "Now listen carefully. You think that the worst war imaginable is against a Dark Lord."
"That is the generally accepted idea," Bonfoy replied.
"There are worse things than You-Know-Who winning," Snape stated, leaning forward and lowering his voice. "Imagine, for example, a world under the complete control of Hufflepuff House."
Both boys went deathly pale, and Harry swayed a little. "No," he breathed. "It's—it's not possible!"
"Unfortunately, it is," Snape countered grimly. "I have long suspected that Sprout was laying the groundwork for world domination, but it wasn't until Dobby tried to kill you that I knew for certain."
Harry frowned. "But…Dobby didn't try to kill me," he stammered. "He was just being an idiot about saving my life."
"Is that what he told you?" Bonfoy asked contemptuously. "Nasty little rotter. You can't take a word he says at face value. Father wanted to give him clothes ages ago, but he said it was too dangerous."
"And it probably was," Snape said. "That freed Dobby to contact Sprout and report everything he knew. Fortunately, Dobby's only intelligence would have concerned Death Eaters, so it's no harm to our side."
"Wait a minute." Harry held up a hand. "You're saying Dobby's in cahoots with Sprout, who's out to take over the world?"
"Not only Dobby," Snape told him. "Most house elves in Britain, even the ones at Hogwarts, are spies for the Hufflepuff Army."
"So the war is between the Order and Hufflepuff on one side and Voldemort on the other?"
Snape shook his head. "No," he answered. "No, it's far worse than even that. Hufflepuff will stop at nothing to gain full control. There are, unfortunately, two obstacles in the way: you and the Dark Lord. I believe that Sprout, having failed in the attempt at having you whacked, is playing the Death Eaters in such a way that they'll kill you for her."
"Did you just say whacked?" Bonfoy asked, smirking.
Snape glared at him. "Shut up."
"But if I'm dead," Harry said, "what about Voldemort?"
"They want the world beholden to no one but Hufflepuff," his father replied. "So they're grooming their own agents to kill Voldemort instead." He smirked. "They're not doing a very good job, though. Their most promising agent was Cedric Diggory, and we all know what happened to him."
Bonfoy turned sober eyes on Harry. "I'm sorry I ever pretended to think he was a better champion than you," he said in a traumatized voice.
"No harm," Harry rejoined. "Reputation before all, you know."
Bonfoy nodded slowly, then looked back to Snape. "So how do you know all of this?" he asked.
"A good question," Snape said. "One of my family's house elves infiltrated their ranks. Unfortunately, something went wrong and we haven't heard from him for over a year." He sighed. "Poor Reginald."
"How do you know your house elves aren't part of the Hufflepuff conspiracy?" Harry inquired.
Snape raised his eyebrows. "That," he said coolly, "is a plot hole that I don't believe the writer intends to fill. Suffice it to say that I know, which should be enough for both of you and for the reader."
They were silent a moment before Harry spoke again. "So what are we going to do?" he asked.
Snape narrowed his eyes. "We're going to stop them, of course," he replied.
"Great," Bonfoy remarked. "How?"
"That discussion has been assigned to the next chapter," Snape informed him. "So you'll just have to wait until then."
Bonfoy glanced and Harry and arched an eyebrow. "Ever wonder what happens in the time between chapters?" he said under his breath.
Harry smiled. "Read Jasper Fforde sometime," he advised. "I hear Marianne Dashwood smokes a pack a day and flies a biplane."
FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: For any who might be (justly) wondering, this is not a weekend fanfic. It's still a brief tangent from other fanfic writing, but it will be much longer than its predecessors, and I intend for this to be part of a continuing tale, Lord willing. So, short of my walking out today and getting hit by a truck/lorry, you can be sure of a good, long read. Unless I get nobbled by a lorry next week, in which case I'll have my roommate notify you. AE
