Chapter Five:A CheesyFinale

"Don't move, Hank!"

"What the…"

Harry and Laetitia were inside some vast building, sitting on a small wooden platform fixed high on a wooden wall covered in carvings.

Thirty feet below them was a monstrous vat, filled with yellow bubbling liquid.

Harry grabbed the edges of the platform and clung on for dear life.

On stacking chairs beside the vat sat a bearded man, an ugly Swiss drag queen, a Swiss Guard and the two halves of a pantomime cow.

The bearded one peeled his beard away. "Good afternoon, Mr. Potter."

"Malfoy, you…" he whispered to Laetitia, "Where's my wand?"

"Back in the apartment," she answered.

"Mr. Potter, it was by an amusing coincidence that I ran across you today. I have decided that your end should be suitably in keeping with our location here in Switzerland. In exactly two minutes, at five PM, the rather large cuckoo in the unusually large clock I have constructed will emerge and push you both into the vat of melting cheese, now at 200 degrees, below you. Unfortunately we cannot stay to watch…"

The back half of the cow whispered to him, "Oh, in fact we can. Kickoff is not until six thirty. Please enjoy your last…er…55 seconds."

Harry looked frantically around. Nowhere to jump to, no wand, nothing.

"We'd need an army to get us out of here, " said Laetitia mournfully.

Army. Swiss army! Suddenly he rummaged in his pocket, and removed the wand. Of course, it was a Swiss Army Wand!

He unfolded one of the small wands, aimed it at the wooden door and shouted a spell to seal it closed. The door turned into melted cheese and oozed away, exposing a huge mechanical cuckoo, poised ready to strike.

He unfolded the second wand, aimed it at the clock face, and shouted another spell, and the entire face turned to milk chocolate, embedded with tasty raisins and almonds.

With a solid click the main hand reached twelve and the mechanism began to whirr.

Cursing the Swiss under his breath, Harry folded out one of the other attachments, a thin metal object. This was clearly designed for removing stones from horses hooves.

Finally, folding out the last remaining wand, Harry pointed it at the great vat and shouted a final spell of destruction.

There was a massive explosion and the vat inverted on top of the spectators. Harry grabbed Laetitia by the hand and jumped fifteen feet onto the base of the vat just as the razor sharp beak of the cuckoo swept past.

Swiss police and Aurors were leading the handcuffed and cheese-covered felons out the door.

"Well Mr. Potter, you did very well to overcome such evil wizards," the ÜberAuror commented. "But unfortunately there is little we can do to them, apart from charging them with some routine cheese-related misdemeanours. We have no extradition for crimes of magic with the UK, and they have committed no serious crime here. Once their burns are treated they may leave, perhaps with a small fine."

"But that is crazy, these people are evil psychos. Something must be possible."

"Ve are afraid not, Herr Potter. Ve need to have a serious crime to charge them vith."

Laetitia's eyes narrowed, "They did gain admission to Hank's flat by pretending to be bank messengers..."

"Mein Gott, impersonating a bank official is the most serious of Swiss crimes. Stop, put zose men in chains. Summon ze guillotine operator at vunce."

Harry and Laetitia walked into the square, hand in hand.

Tourists were coming and going in their thousands, getting on and off buses and taking photographs of each other in front of anything more than five years old.

"Well Hank, looks like it is time to go back to your flat and carry on where we left off. " Her eyes were warm. "A pity I have not got a guitar to serenade you with, but I suppose I can sing a capella."

Harry gulped.

Without warning they were engulfed by an avalanche of nuns, emerging from the cathedral with a clattering of rosary beads and swarming onto a horde of buses.

An enormous moustachioed über-nun was shouting into a megaphone.

"Get on board the buses, Sisters, 'tis four days drive back to the County Kerry and we have lots of rosaries to say before then. I hope you have all been for a pee. Come along now, Sisters, hurry!"

Laetitia was swept helplessly onto the bus in the crowd, and the last Harry saw was her imploring face in the rear window as the bus accelerated away.

He shrugged his shoulders and waved.

At least, with the penguins, she would be safe from the Baron. Who knew, maybe Seamus Finnegan could track her down for him in a week or so. By then he might have found a spell to bring on temporary deafness.

He sighed with pleasure. He had his own apartment, a safe deposit full of bonds, and no real estate to sell. Malfoy Senior and his cronies were going down for a long time. Life could be a lot worse.