Chapter 9; Muffins of Mass Destruction
The roof blew off.
An alien hovercraft loomed menacingly above the Infirmary, drenching the room in liquid shadow.
"I gotta get me one of those," Voldemort marveled in an awe-filled voice.
Snape had never enjoyed low-budget science fiction films.
Ron Weasely was visible in the cockpit, grinning maniacally. A sixteen foot long laser gun, disproportionate to the spacecraft, lowered from the bottom of the ship, which was aimed directly at Harry Potter.
Lucius jumped in the way. "There is no way you're going to kill him without us."
"What makes you think you'll be in control?" Ron retorted.
"What makes you think I won't?" Lucius answered. They commenced in arguing both and forth.
"What makes you think I'll let you?"
"What makes you think you can stop me?"
"What makes you think you're mighty enough to stop me from stopping you?"
"What makes you think you can confuse me with all these stupid word games!" Lucius roared, losing his temper altogether. "I'm not an idiot!"
"Shut up!" Ron cried. He pushed a red lever forward with a berserk cackle. "Die, Potter . . . DIE!"
He blew a humongous hole in the wall right next to Harry's head.
Harry spread his arms wide, smiling in a condescending fashion. "A worthy effort, Ron. Good thing you weren't really trying to shoot me or else I'd have to declare that you have the worst aim I've ever seen in my life."
Ron was hyperventilating with hate, muttering, "Die Potter, die Potter, die Potter . . ."
Harry leaned his head on his hand and took a sip of his daiquiri. "You know, Ron, I worry about you. Sometimes I get this feeling that you're actually a bit angry with me or something, get what I'm saying? Another butterbeer, please, Madame Pomfrey . . ."
Ron frothed at the mouth in utter hatred. The demonic boy jumped out of the cockpit, glass exploding unrealistically around him. He had two machine guns in his hands, and commenced in firing two hundred rounds erratically, to assure that Harry wouldn't escape.
When all the smoke cleared, Ron glanced around hungrily for Harry's dead body. He had decimated everything and everyone in sight, save Hermione, Draco, Voldemort, Snape, Lucius, Wormtail, Good and Evil Ginny, and . . . how was it possible?
Potter.
The green eyed boy smirked insolently from the bed, somehow managing to have dodged all two hundred rounds.
"I have a plan," muttered Lucius.
The window shattered.
A crazed Bulgarian mounted on a broom tumbled through the window, breathing heavily.
"Die, you vill, Potter!" Krum cried, unsheathing his wand. "Potter, you vill die!"
Everything in the room looked at him, then looked away.
"I have a plan," said Lucius more determinedly.
"Is this some kind of soap opera?" Harry asked with a laugh. "I mean, if you were really trying to kill me, I'd be dead by now, right? You're like . . . low budget actors or something. You guys are such clowns."
"Or maybe we're all just muffins," considered Draco philosophically. He stared out moodily at the icy September evening, meditating on the significance of the statement.
A few people shifted on their feet uncomfortably as twilight zone music started playing in the background. The occupants of the Infirmary darted suspicious glances at one another, disturbed at the thought that there was a muffin amongst them.
Paranoia ensued.
"Alright," Ron roared, swinging his guns around indefinitely, "who's the muffin here!"
They stared fearfully into the barrels of his machine guns.
"Someone tell me who the muffin is!"
"It could be any of us," whispered Hermione fearfully, glancing around. "Even you, Ron Weasley."
"Never!" spat Ron disgustedly, appalled at the very thought of being a muffin.
"Right there!" cried Evil Ginny, aiming her gun forcefully at the back of the room.
Everyone whirled around to see a five foot blueberry muffin, previously unnoticed, comfortably wedged in the corner.
Pandemonium ensued.
"Get it!" Voldemort roared, and Ron jumped forward, aiming his guns at the motionless blueberry muffin in the corner.
Everyone fired simultaneously, and when they had finished shooting, only a blackened hunk of dough remained.
"That was a close one," Lucius muttered, wiping his brow. "Good thinking, my boy."
A battalion of uniformed men stormed self-importantly into the Infirmary, guns raised.
"The UN," Snape muttered.
He had never liked the UN weapons inspectors.
"Viktor Krum!" the leader of the group roared. "We have reason to believe that you are stockpiling . . . muffins of mass destruction!"
Two men seized Krum and tackled him to the ground. Everyone else watched in livid fascination.
There was a man standing in the corner who looked suspiciously like George W. Bush. He was muttering something that sounded like, "Nu-cu-lar...nu-cu-lar muffins... gonna smoke em' out!"
"You have no proof! No proof, you have!" Krum cried angrily.
"Don't deny it!" cried the UN weapons inspector. "We have proof! Right here! Ever heard of something called Doppler radar?"
"No," Snape leered rudely.
Silence.
The inspector pulled out a complicated chart that had absolutely nothing to do with radar or muffins and pointed at it, as if this would convince everyone.
"We saw you walk into the muffin shop, we saw you walk out of the muffin shop, we saw you walk into the warehouse, we saw you walk out of the warehouse–"
"There is no warehouse," Snape pointed out blatantly.
The inspector seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
"Well . . ." he said at last, "your mom went to Canada where she was selling synthetic copper earrings to save up money to go to Jewish college, because she was majoring in bioengineering, but the earrings gave her lyme disease so she got placed in an underfunded hospital in Eastern Mexico."
Snape had never liked "your mom" jokes.
"Anyways," the UN official continued importantly, "you are under arrest, Viktor Krum. You'll have to come with us for interrogation and exile in Angola."
They frog-marched Krum out of the room.
"Nu-cu-lar..." muttered Bush as they left.
"I have a plan," Lucius continued.
-ten minutes later-
"So let me get this straight," Wormtail said to Lucius. "You're saying we should all put a finger on that gun and aim it at Potter?"
"Precisely, Wormtail," Lucius muttered. "Precisely."
"That way," growled Voldemort, "we'll all get the revenge we've always wanted."
"Do it nowwwwww!" hissed demonic Ron, forked tongue flaring out in anticipation.
They all reached out and placed a finger on the trigger of Ron's ten foot bazooka.
"On three," Voldemort said excitedly.
"THREE!" Evil Ginny screamed.
Harry sat unconcernedly on the bed, where he had not moved from since the beginning of this overly drawn out scene. "Now, now, Ginny, certainly you've learned how to count to three. If you want to make this scene properly dramatic, you'll have to use all the numbers between one and three. Shall I help you lot out?" he chortled, pouring Chateau into his fluted champagne glass. "One . . . two . . .!"
There sounded a profound bang, and everything tapered into slow motion. The midnight black bullet hurtled through the pristine air in a poetic and glorious shower of blood and gore spewing everywhere. The head was so utterly destroyed that the beholder could perhaps not fathom what creature it had been in the first place. It was astoundingly artistic, and a heavenly light emanated down upon the scene where Harry Potter's head had been blown to shreds, pieces of the ear hanging dreadfully . . .
"Stop it!" cried Good Ginny. "The imagery! The imagery!"
Snape had closed his eyes, as if listening to a beautiful elegy.
The body collapsed onto the bed.
Harry Potter was, indeed, dead.
Applause ensued.
THE END . . .?
((A.N. That's right, folks, this is not actually THE END... hence the three ?'s. So stay tuned.))
