Chapter Two. I really don't have much to say at the moment. To the very few people who reviewed: Thank you. To the people who didn't review: REVIEW!
Disclaimer: I disclaim it all.
"AAAAH!" Yelled Harry, grabbing a passing house-elf and using him to beat at Voldemort.
"AAAH!" Yelled the house-elf, whose name was Dobby and who had been working for Harry for several years now.
"AAAH!" Yelled Voldemort.
They continued yelling like lunatics until they were all out of breath. Finally, Harry calmed down slightly and glared at Voldemort. "Well?" he demanded irritably. "What do you want?"
Voldemort trembled slightly, if books can tremble. "I need help, assistance, support," he whined, bruised by Dobby's hard head. For once, Harry Potter remembered his manners. Though it was really the thought of the Dark Lord asking him for help that swelled his ego enough to make him be polite. "Why don't you come in?" he asked self-importantly. "Wait!" It has just occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, he didn't want Voldemort wandering around in his house. He ran thirty feet to a counter, panting from the strenuous exercise, and grabbed the first object that he could use to transport the Dark Lord harmlessly to his office, where Voldemort might be able to flatter him enough to make him agree to help with whatever it was. Unfortunately, Voldemort did not like his choice of an object.
"I am not sitting in a Barnes and Noble shopping bag!" he hollered at the top of his lungs. "It's not tainted by literacy," Harry argued as, in a faraway country, a certain fanfiction writer pondered whether Harry needed something thrown at his large head. Or maybe just some schooling. "I don't carry books in it or anything. The house-elf uses it to carry firewood." "All the same," complained Voldemort. "It's…demeaning! Humiliating! Mortifying! Unheard-of! I shall not be carried in that…. Thing!" Harry scratched his head, wondering what the word demeaning meant. He wasn't so sure about mortifying either.
"It's this or I'll order my house-elf to use you as kindling! See if you wish you'd accepted my kind offer of being carried in a book bag when you burn!" Harry screamed at the book. (Oh, my, is Harry a pyromaniac?)
Voldemort acquiesced unhappily and hoped that none of his Death Eaters were there to see. Harry donned large rubber gloves and removed the "piece of filth" (Voldemort had the same kind thoughts about Harry) to his extremely durable office. Harry had had to have a team of overpaid builders—the ones who built Azkaban—spend weeks designing just that office alone; he tended to throw things when he was angry and needed an extremely durable workspace.
"So," said Harry once they were in his office, "What brings you to ask the greatest wizard in the world for help?"
Voldemort glared. "I'm a thesaurus!" Harry blinked. "What's a thesaurus?" Voldemort only sighed. "Oh, never mind," he said grumpily. I'm a book¸ and it's humiliating. I want you to help me."
Harry shrugged. "What's in it for me?" he wanted to know. Harry Potter could never consider doing anything for anybody just out of sheer generosity. Oh no, of course not!
"Uh," Voldemort said, thinking quickly. Luckily, as he was intelligent, he thought of something quickly. "You can have this story published in the Daily Prophet," he suggested helpfully. "People will talk about my ineptitude, and your generosity and skillfulness at spells, for decades." This wouldn't actually happen, of course. Voldemort resolved to find some way to prevent this from ever happening, but restoring himself to a less embarrassing, and taller, state came first. Voldemort disliked being short.
"Oh, all right," Harry said, pleased by the offer in spite of himself. "Because I'm the greatest and kindest and most skilled and most generous and…" he continued this way for a while, head metaphorically swelling with every word, before getting to the point "…wizard in the world, I'll help you." He stood there proudly, waiting for Voldemort to praise and thank him, but Voldemort said nothing. Bored by Harry's monotonous speech, he had fallen asleep.