A Very Harry Christmas
I claim no rights to either Ms. Rowling's Harry Potter or Mr. Dickens' Christmas Carol, but together, they form this: my creation! Inspiration from this came from The Princess Bride: Insane Version (Author I forgot) and The Piranha Club (Author I'm too lazy to look up) comic strip, and of course the best version of the Christmas Carol ever - the Muppet Christmas Carol. "We're Marley and Marley…whoooooo!
A/N 12/20/04: I am re-releasing this story since, when I first posted it, Christmas had already passed and I believe that is why I did not get any reviews. Have fun with this... I had fun writing it!
-kr-
"Master," said a stout, balding man coming in from the cold winter air and taking off his cloak. "I've finished killing those three Aurors you told me to kill. Can I go home now? It's Christmas Eve, and I'd like to spend it with my family."
"Don't even bother taking off that cloak, Wormtail," said Ebeneezer Voldemort, the most feared Dark sorcerer in all of history, who was said to have a heart of stone. "You'll be working all night and into tomorrow until you've killed everyone on the list!"
"List, my Lord?"
"List!" Voldemort shouted, holding up and piece of parchment, which began to unroll, falling off the desk and making its way across the floor to Wormtail's feet.
"But tomorrow's Christmas, my Lord," Wormtail sputtered.
"Christmas! Bah Humbug! I hate Christmas! All the joy and the giving and the goodness! I don't care what day it is! You'll kill all those people and until then, don't expect to go home!"
Wormtail whimpered.
"By the way, it's getting dark. I should get going. I want to see all those names in the obituaries by tomorrow!" With that, Voldemort Apparated back to his cozy little apartment outside the city where he lived with his pet snake, Nagini.
He had a small supper and then decided to retire for the night. He opened the door to his room, set the lantern down on the table and began to undress for bed. As he crawled under the covers, the flame went out. It was completely dark and all he could see was Nagini's eyes glowing in the moonlight.
Then, as suddenly as it had gone out, the light flicked back on.
"That was strange, don't you think, Nagini?" but the snake had already fallen asleep, coiled tightly on the rug at the foot of the bed. Must have been my imagination, Voldemort thought. He blew out the lantern and fell asleep, quickly forgetting what had happened.
The clock struck eleven, and Voldemort woke to the sound of water dripping and plopping. "Who's there?" he called out, quickly lighting the lantern and slipping on a bathrobe. Careful not to step on Nagini, he tiptoed out to the living room. The splashing got louder. Then suddenly, he saw something glowing, a soft blue light, not like the orange flicker of the lantern.
He cautiously stepped toward the glowing thing, and it began to twist and take shape. And soon, standing in front of him, still shining brightly, was his loyal Death Eater Barty Crouch, Jr.
"Barty!" Voldemort exclaimed. "What's happened to you? You're all drenched! And didn't I kill you last month?"
"Ebeneezer," Barty said in a shaky, spooky voice. "I have come to warn you! You must change your evil ways, or else you will spend eternity haunting a girls toilet at Hogwarts with Moaning Myrtle and I!"
"Oh, no! Not Myrtle! Wait - didn't I kill her, too?"
"Yes, for goodness sakes! There's only one person you haven't killed! But that's not my point!" Barty cleared his throat and went on. "Tonight, three ghosts will visit you."
"Of people I killed?"
"Yes of people you - hey! I thought we were finished with that conversation!"
"Sorry."
"Now where was I?" He scratched his head in a puzzled fashion. "Oh, yes. Now I must go back to the toilet!" He cackled hideously and vanished.
"Wait!" Voldemort called into the night. "I didn't get to ask who else died today. Oh well." Voldemort went back to his room, crawled under the covers, and went back to sleep.
The clock tolled twelve. For some reason, the blasted clock kept on waking him up tonight. He was about to roll over and get back to sleep when he noticed a teenage girl sitting at the end of the bed.
"Yipes!" he screamed, sitting up abruptly.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past," said the girl.
"Did I kill you? I don't recognize your face."
"I'm not dead yet, except for the purposes of this story. My name is Hermione Granger."
"You're that Mudblood friend of Harry Potter!"
"I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past! Let's just leave it at that. Now, tonight I'm going to take you for a trip down memory lane. First, we go back to the orphanage you grew up in."
Suddenly, Voldemort felt as though he had touched a Portkey. He was whisked away from his bedroom, and he was now standing in the unpleasantly familiar building he had grown to hate.
A boy with disheveled black hair was sitting alone at the mess hall table.
"That's me!" said Voldemort excitedly.
"Shhh! Just watch!" said Hermione.
A few boys ran up to his six-year-old self. "Want to come have a snowball fight with us, Tom?" asked one boy.
"No," the little Tom replied. "I'm busy." But the boys didn't give up.
"What, are you too scared to play?" asked the second boy.
"A little cold too much for you?" asked a third.
"I said I don't want to!" said Tom, obviously agitated.
The boys started to cluck and flap their arms calling, "Chicken! Chicken!"
"I am not chicken!" Tom shouted, standing up.
"Then prove it," said bully number one.
"You want snow?" Tom asked wickedly. "I'll give you snow!"
The windows opened and a huge amount of snow piled in and floated towards them. The boys watched, eyes wide, their faces turning white as the snow mound levitated towards them. Then it stopped right above them, hovered for a while, and fell splat! on their heads. Tom ran out of the mess hall, laughing.
The Ghost of Christmas Past turned to him. "You've always been a cold, evil-hearted loner, Voldemort," she said sadly.
"And a powerful one at that!" he said happily. "Wait 'till you see what happens next!" But before they could see anything more, the ghost transported him to Christmas, ten years later.
They found sixteen-year-old Tom in the dungeons, a long, green King of Serpents following behind him. "This way," the teenager hissed to the snake. "I think I hear someone."
They walked towards the person, past a suit of armor and down a corridor, where the person fell to the floor, petrified.
"Nuts!" Tom cried as he went to the petrified person. "He's not dead! Darn! He must have seen your eyes reflected off the suit of armor. They always polish it at Christmas time."
"You've always been bloodthirsty, too," said Hermione
"Yeah! Killing people just brings me so much joy!" He looked around and saw that he was back in his bedroom. The Ghost of Christmas Past was no where to be seen. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "At the sound of the tone, it will be one o'clock." The clock struck once, echoing through the silent night.
"Ho, ho, ho!"
Voldemort looked around wildly, but the sound was coming from outside in the kitchen. He opened the bedroom door and squinted in the bright light. He stood in the doorway and watched the giant raid his refrigerator.
"Come in, and know me better, man!" the giant called.
"Uh…Santa?" Voldemort said.
"No, I'm Hagrid, the Ghost of Christmas Present!"
"Christmas presents? Ooooooh! What'd you bring me?"
"Not presents, you moron! Present, like now, today!"
"Shucks," Voldemort said, snapping his fingers.
"Say, you don't happen to have any treacle fudge in here, do you?" Hagrid asked, moving some things aside."
"No, sorry. But I do have some sandwiches left over from last night."
"I guess that will have to do." The giant put a whole leftover sandwich in his mouth, swallowed it in one gulp, and started for the door.
"Where are you taking me?" Voldemort asked, as the Apparated into town square and Hagrid led the way down a dark, deserted alley. Once they got to a dingy old house, which looked like it was about to fall down, Hagrid stopped and peered in the window.
"Why are we stopping?" Voldemort asked.
"Look inside," Hagrid instructed.
Voldemort cleared the ice off the window and peeked in. He saw a family gathered around a small table, lined with plates of meager portions.
"That's my ahem most loyal Death Eater. But why is he eating in such a dirty place? And why is he home when I'm sure he hasn't killed everyone on the list!?"
"This is his home," Hagrid explained. "It's so small because you don't pay him much."
"Pay? You think I get paid for killing people? What kind of fantasy world do you live in?" He looked around the poorly constructed house. "Who are all those people there? I don't think Wormtail has a wife or children."
"That's his sister. You killed his brother-in-law, so he's letting her and her seven children live there with him until she can find a job."
"What's wrong with that boy sitting by the fire? He looks so… insane."
"He was hit with Cruciatus Curse while trying to save his father. And you know how damaging a Cruciatus Curse can be to a young boy."
The family inside gathered around the table and bowed their heads.
"What are they doing?" Voldemort asked.
"They are being thankful for what they have been given," Hagrid answered. The family began to eat, the mother feeding her insane child.
"Ha!" Voldemort laughed. "That's crazy and hilarious! They're giving thanks when they have so little! Are you sure they haven't all been hit by the Cruciatus Curse?"
"Don't you feel sorry for them?"
"Sorry for them? Not slightly! It's not my fault Wormtail's too stupid to get a paying job because he never paid attention in school. I don't force him to work for me."
"Um…."
"Okay, yes I do, but that's not the point. And spirit…" but when he looked around, Hagrid was gone and the bedroom clock was about to strike two.
Suddenly, Voldemort heard an odd rattling sound, as if from a broken vacuum cleaner. Then, a floating cloak appeared. It was a dementor.
"Let me guess," Voldemort said sarcastically. "You're the Ghost of Christmas Future."
The Dementor, being unable to talk, nodded.
The next thing Voldemort knew he was being led through a thick fog. He shivered in the cold and wondered where the spirit was taking him. Gradually, the fog cleared, and Voldemort was standing in the middle of a graveyard.
"What are we doing here?" Voldemort asked, but the Dementor couldn't answer; he just pointed to a gravestone sticking up at an odd angle out of the frozen earth.
"'Tom Riddle,'" Voldemort read. "You dragged me here just to see my father's grave?"
The Dementor kept pointing, and Voldemort looked at the stone more closely. There were words underneath it, but the tombstone was so caked with mud he could hardly read it. He cleaned off the headstone. It read:
Tom Riddle
Aka
Lord Voldemort
Possibly the greatest Dark Lord the world has ever known or will ever know
Killed by Harry Potter, December 25th
Voldemort checked the date. "This is just next year!" he exclaimed. "Oh, no, spirit! This can't happen! I'll change, I swear I will! Just tell me this isn't true!"
Voldemort got on his hands and knees and squeezed his eyes shut, begging the dementor to spare his life. When he opened them again, he was begging a post of his bed, and sunlight was starting to stream in from behind the curtains.
Voldemort stood up and brushed himself off. "Sucker," he cackled.
"Ebeneezer!" a voice called from the kitchen. Voldemort opened his bedroom door and went outside, where he again saw the ghost of Barty Crouch, Jr.
"Did you learn anything from this experience?"
"I learned that I've always been evil, am evil now, and will always be evil. It only proves that I'm evil through and through."
"Yes, you are evil, but perhaps you should still be nice to people on Christmas."
They looked at each other. "Nah!"
"Want to join me for a cup of butterbeer?" Voldemort asked his loyal Death Eater ghost. "I've got to check the obituaries."