Disclaimer: No, the cow still hasn't given us the rights to Harry Potter...and I really was expecting her too...
The author note bit is up here this week. Well done to soymaid for winning the competition – the chapter names are indeed modified Lord of the Rings ones. She even gave us an intelligent reason for doing so – "a subtle jab at what many consider to be Rowling's overly liberal borrowing from Tolkien's works." Oh, yeah, I feel clever. As long as you ppl keep thinking that rather than that it's because of our over attachment to the title 'a shortcut to mushrooms'...
p.s. VOTE KERRY
The Last Insult
A few weeks passed in quiet study and hard work. An aura of peace had finally descended onto Hogwarts, almost as if Harry Potter wasn't even there. Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief before going off to get a marketing contract with smarties – the only commercial food product still to use crushed beetles in its red colorant.
Yum.
Then, just as he finished the last punctuation mark after the last word of his last NEWT, Harry realised something. This could tell us two things:
The author is utilising that well known plot cliché, giving all the main characters good grades in their exams.
Harry really is that slow
(You are free to choose, but we are inclined to think that it is a mixture of the two)
"Voldemort insulted my mother's honour!" he yelled before running out of the exam room.
"No talking in exams," mumbled the invigilator sleepily, before slumping and resuming his nap.
Ron and Hermione glanced at each other. "Is this where we run after him and then tag along to his fight to show our strong bonds of friendship before disappearing/being somehow incapacitated so that he can face You-know-who alone?" Ron asked.
"Yes," said Hermione. She looked longingly at her exam paper and then at the clock, which showed that there was still fifteen minutes of exam time left. "I just hope I've written enough."
Ron glanced at the pile of paper, covered in her neat writing that was sitting on Hermione's desk. "I'm sure 60 pages is enough, Hermione – I wrote three and your writing's smaller than mine and you wrote in the margins and you didn't use double line spacing."
Hermione seemed to be convinced, because she started to walk out of the exam room with him. As they were nearing the door, she whispered, "Don't exaggerate Ron – I only wrote 57 pages."
"I said no talking!" the invigilator yelled. Then he noticed Ron and Hermione standing by the doorway. "Going somewhere TOGETHER, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley?" he asked, winking in a rather exaggerated manner.
"Uh, yes, about that...um..." Hermione said, in what must have been her least lucid sentence, ever.
"Don't worry, kids, you carry on," he said, chuckling. "You have no idea how long us teachers have been waiting for there to be some real action, if you get my meaning." He started winking again.
"Is there something wrong with your eye, Professor?" Ron asked, concerned.
Hermione, with a resigned look on her face, dragged Ron out of the exam room and into the corridor. "Ron," she said, "it's one of those fics."
"Ah," he said, comprehension finally dawning, "um... I'd never noticed how, uh, brown your eyes are before, Hermione."
"That was pathetic," Hermione said.
"And I think brown is really...appealing?" he tried. Hermione rolled her eyes. "What?" he demanded, "I don't even know if you're allowed to say 'sexy' in a G-rated fic."
Just then, the author rushed in to defend her precious G-rating. "Honestly, people, the lewd-teacher-thing was just a joke – I didn't expect you to take him seriously! You think I...?" She shook her head in disgust. "No. I do plan for you to marry, but the reader will have to assume that the next huge generation of the Weasley family were made in a far away land and carried to you by storks." Then she disappeared.
Hermione and Ron were staring at the author (or rather, where the author had been until a few seconds ago) with shell-shocked expressions on their faces. There was a long silence, finally broken by Ron –
"Storks, huh? My mum told me it was a phoenix that carried me; and when it burst into flames, dropping me safely into my mother's arms, my hair caught fire, and it has stayed fiery red to this day."
Hermione wordlessly handed him a copy of Basic Genetics – An Idiot's Guide.
Ron accepted the book without looking at it – he was too busy reminiscing. "Strange," he mused, "you'd have thought it would have scarred."
Hermione got another book – The Birds and the Bees Explained – and handed this to him as well. (A/N: I love how this being a parody means I don't have to explain anything – where she got the books for example)
"It's too late to go after Harry," she said, soothingly. "Why don't you just go to your room and read those books – you may be a little surprised. If there's anything you don't understand, I'll explain it to you." She thought about the rating – "but NO demonstrations."
Harry was angry. Very angry. As we all now, insulting friends, killing girlfriends and even several attempts on his own life are all forgivable offences – but insulting his parents...that is too grave a sin. In fact, if it wasn't for his existence, he'd probably say that his mother was too pure and his father too gentlemanly for that kind of thing.
"Voldemort!" Harry shouted, having somehow found him in record time. (A/N: see above)
Voldemort hurriedly scraped his face mask off (what – you think you could get to 70 and have as wrinkle-free a face as he does without the aid of beauty products?)
"So you managed to find me!" he said, but the cold and piercing voice thing really doesn't work directly after your victim has seen you with cucumbers over your eyes.
After Harry had finished his five minute fit of hysterics, he stood up straight, breathed deeply a few times and then looked Voldemort straight in the eyes.
"You insulted my mother's honour," Harry said coolly, "when you lied about being by father, and for that, I can never forgive you." All teenage girls who fancy Daniel Radcliffe (are they mad??????) swoon at the brilliance of his acting and live in hope that one day, he will gaze into their eyes and say, in the same cool tones, those ever-romantic words – "STOP STALKING ME!"
"So killing both your parents was ok, but pretending to have slept with on isn't?" Voldemort asked. Harry nodded solemnly. "You're unhinged," Voldemort said, in what may have actually been sympathy shock, horror, I know "It would be kinder to just fulfil the prophecy and kill you."
"Not so fast, Voldemort!" Harry said.
"Would it kill you to say 'master' or 'o feared one' or something along those lines?" Voldemort asked, but his pleas went unnoticed.
"The prophecy doesn't specify that I am the one who will die!"
"Now I'm scared," Voldemort said sarcastically. "Although you've never died, Potter, it's always been through fluke or through Dumbledore coming to rescue you. You really believe that I'm going to die – me, the most powerful wizard of all time – because of a fluke? You are unhinged." Harry may have actually listened to this, but he still remained as confident as before, so it seems unlikely.
"But now I have a secret weapon..." he paused dramatically, using the silence to bring said weapon out from behind his back – "A bucket of soapy water!"
There was a long pause. Finally, Voldemort, who had never seen the Wizard of Oz, asked, "And that's supposed to do what, exactly?"
"When I throw this over you," Harry said, "you will melt."
"And the scientific basis for this theory is..." Voldemort prompted.
"You are so intrinsically evil that when you come into contact with something as good and pure as soap, your cells will self-destruct," Harry explained, his hand clutched to his chest, a far-away expression on his face and his gaze fixed on something in the middle distance.
"Soap?" said Voldemort, in disbelief. "You reckon soap could kill me?" Voldemort shook his head. "Over the years, as your evil nemesis, I like to think we've developed an understanding – yes, even a bond (although NOT to the extent some fics put it). Therefore I am hurt and confused why you think soap could kill me."
Harry still had the same defiant, yet noble, expression on his face, which leads me to believe that he has hearing difficulties. Either that or, due to some serious psychological issues, he cannot hear criticism. Inclined towards the latter, myself.
Voldemort gave up on trying to talk to Harry. Instead, he turned to a nearby Death Eater. "What am I doing wrong? I killed his parents and his girlfriend; I've terrorised him throughout his entire school career and yet he still seems unafraid of me."
The Death Eater wasn't sure what to say. He didn't usually receive more complex instructions than 'kill' or 'torture', yet now he was being asked to explain Harry Potter's psyche – a task which even the most brilliant psychologist in the world would find difficult.
"This is the end, Voldemort," Harry said, having apparently decided that he wanted to be in the limelight again. I mean, fair enough, the books are all called Harry Potter and the Something or Other.
"Oh please, Harry," Voldemort said sarcastically, "anything but this dreadful fate which now awaits me. Forgive my evil deeds." This confused the Death Eater even more; he'd never heard the Dark Lord say anything like that before.
"Tom! You don't know how long I've been waiting to hear those words," Harry said, weeping with joy. He threw the bucket to one side, spilling soapy water everywhere.
"Someone, just kill me now and spare me the sentimentality!" Voldemort yelled.
The Death Eater beside him gave a huge sigh of relief – finally, something he knew how to do. "Avada Kedavra!"
Harry stared at Voldemort's corpse lying on the floor and then at the Death Eater who had killed him. "Now that," Harry said, "was a fluke."
Suddenly Hermione appeared – "Wow, Harry, you defeated Voldemort." She gave him a hug, in the strictly platonic sense.
"I know Hermione – I'm just so happy!" Harry said, and was awarded an Oscar for the most insincere sounding dialogue ever. "But where is Ron?" Harry asked, trying to win the coveted prize a second time.
"Reading," Hermione said gravely. "It's a tough decision to make, but I though it was about time Ron learned the facts of life."
Harry let out a wistful sigh for the lost innocence of Ron's mind, which now would be filled with thoughts such as 'Why on earth is that called the birds and the bees?' (A/N: If anyone knows this, include it in your review)
They stood in silence for a minute. Then Hermione said, uncomfortably, "Harry, I need to talk to you..." she turned to the Death Eaters and said, pointedly, "Alone." The Death Eaters started to shuffle out. "Dumbledore is waiting outside to take you to prison," she called out after them.
"Now, Harry," she turned back to Harry, "now that Voldemort's gone, there isn't really any point in your continuing existence." She paused, groping for the most tactful words and missing them completely – "It would make a much more dramatic end if you...you know...kick the bucket."
Harry, though this seemed a strange request, did so.
"Um, Harry," she said, kindly, "I meant the metaphorical-euphemism-for-death bucket." She watched the bucket roll along, leaving a trail of soap suds after it – "Not the literal-just-had-soapy-water-in-it bucket."
"Oh!" Harry said, "Why didn't you just say?" He promptly collapsed, dying. She levitated him and then took him up to the Hospital Wing, where they were joined by Ron and all the other people who were of even minor significance to Harry.
"Hermione," he croaked, "there is something I need to know..."
"Anything, Harry," Hermione cried, tearful.
"In chapter 8, why did Snape keep us waiting outside his classroom?" Harry asked, his voice cracking.
"Oh, Harry, he was putting lard in his hair so that it stayed at optimum greasiness."
Harry's dying words were so quiet that they were barely audible – "Slimy git!"
There was a minute's silence, after which Dumbledore intoned in a rich and sonorous voice, "And thus, Harry Potter, saviour of our time, dies."