"Gasp!" Gasped Neville, finally roused to an emotion. "Jacob, we have to rescue Hermione!"

"Quiet!" Hissed Jacob, looking around at the army of the dead. "Does she look like she needs saving to you?"

Hermione was fondling the odd stalagmites that grew out of the Night King's brilliant blue cranium, and she was tittering coyly as he waxed lyrical on some unheard subject. The Night King was wearing a feminist frequency t-shirt and carrying a small peach man-bag on his right shoulder. Jacob took a huge risk by edging closer to listen in on their conversation.

"And then of course there's the issue of women in tech." Hermione said, primly.

"We will force them into tech." The Night King said, in a campy baritone.

Hermione bit her bottom lip. "But.." She hesitated. "What about the ones who don't want to work in tech, what about the women who're happy being mothers and homemakers?"

The Night King adjusted the strap on his fetching man-bag and frowned. "They must go in the death camps with all the other misogynists."

Hermione let out a small gasp of relief. "Thank goodness!" She cried. "They're just too dangerous to be left alone. And after all, it's-"

"For the greater good." The Night King chirped.

"For the greater good." Hermione echoed resolutely. "You're a true ally Barnabus."

Just then Voldemort sidled up, twizzling his neckbeard. "M'lady." He addressed Hermione, performing a half-bow.

The Night King snorted in disgust and Hermione turned green with fury. "Did you just assume my gender?" Xe hissed at Voldemort.

"Come now my dear," said Voldemort in a patronising tone. "Don't get your pretty little head all worked up about such things; let me take you out for a crab dinner and show you how a true gentleman" - He threw a sideways glance full of shade at The Night King - "treats a ravishing princess, such as yourself."

Hermione covered her mouth with her hand as thick chunks of vomit forced their way through her fingers, then she ran into The Three Broomsticks wailing about micro-aggressions.

The Night King turned to Voldemort and gave him a look of pure disgust. Voldemort opened his mouth to speak, but Barnabus made a sassy motion and thrust his open palm into Voldemort's face. "Talk to the hand, slitnose, cause the face ain't listening." He strode after Hermione, tight butt wiggling in his fetching blue chaps.

Voldemort punched his fist into his hand and scowled. Turning to Greyback he said: "God I hate all this subterfuge. When Hogwarts is mine, I'll enjoy destroying that blue idiot! He thinks he's going to create a feminist paradise on earth, but little does he know I plan on betraying him in order to resurrect the dying art of chivalry across the land!" He tipped his trilby to Bellatrix, who was at that moment skipping-by, swinging a striped candy cane which seemed to have a large toffee apple wedged on the bottom.

"Neville!" Hissed Jacob, but it was too late.

Neville, with a dead-eyed stare, had whipped out his wart-infested jingle-bone and just stood in the street jacking it; oblivious to the danger all around him. One pale hand slipped down the back of his ripped jeans and began fiddling with his tattered bunghole, the loud squelching drawing enquiring looks from the dead ones that surrounded them on all sides.

"A spy!" Cried Voldemort, sounding delighted. "Take him inside." He ordered the surrounding corpses, who sprung into action.

Jacob stifled a cry as Neville was grabbed on all sides by decaying flesh. He was just reaching for his wand when a steadying hand closed over arm and a reassuring voice whispered:

"Come now, my merry one,

Ring-ding a dillo,

Can't help poor Neville out,

If you're captured also!"

It was Tom Bombadil!

Jacob desperately fought the madness that rose inside him, screaming at him to take on Voldemort and the entire army of the dead, and somehow succeeded. Tom's calm presence seemed to soothe his troubled soul and belay the desperation that threatened to engulf him. He watched his friend being hoisted away on the shoulders of the dead, oblivious to everything that was happening around him. Neville's fist had disappeared entirely up his gaping sphincter and he was moaning gently as he pumped his arm.

"I'm a good boy Sally, I am a good boy. Give it to us precious; it's my birthday-"

He disappeared into The Three Broomsticks and the doors swung shut with a clunk of finality.

Fifteen minutes later Jacob rode back into Hogwarts behind Tom on the back of Fatty Lumpkin. The stage was being disassembled by Snape, as Dumbledore watched from the sidelines criticising his every move. Snape self-consciously brushed away tears with the back of his hand, whilst swinging around his greasy spanner like a drunk uncle at a nudist wedding.

Tyrion munched on a large piece of steaming meat by side of the podium.

"Where did you get that?" Asked McGonagall, rubbing her toned, lycra-covered belly hungrily.

"The barbecue area, over there." Tyrion pointed at a smoking pile of flesh over by the speakers.

McGonagall sidled over to the charred meat, sniffing at it like a fart detective at the scene of a follow-through. She seemed to agonise over her decision for a moment, then made a grab for a leg, saying: "Waste not, want not." It pulled away from the smouldering mass with a wet plop. She tore into the dripping flesh greedily.

"Sorry Bem," she explained. "But Severus' finger-buffet was singularly inedible-"

Snape wailed from somewhere underneath the stage.

"-and you just looked so tasty. And trying to catch a good meal around these parts is like... is like-" She searched for the right words.

"Is like trying to catch smoke... like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands?" The pile of meat offered helpfully, before exhaling one last rattling, agonised breath and finally dying.

Everyone looked at each other with bemused expressions and shrugged.

"No idea what that was all about." Said McGonagall, giving voice to the thought on everyone's lips. She kicked the sizzling mass of flesh and bone with brutal force and everyone cheered.

Jacob frowned and looked at Tom. "I'm a bit... surprised to see you here; didn't anyone tell you this was a Harry Potter/Song of Ice and Fire crossover?" He asked, momentarily breaking character.

Tom whistled merrily, bobbing up and down on the pony's sturdy back. "Tom doesn't know about that." He exclaimed cheerfully. "He only goes where he's needed, and he heard you were in trouble as he was picking water lillies for Goldberry over in the haunted forest." He gestured towards the gnarled wood - almost black in the twilight - with only the canopy visible above a low-lying mist.

"But how did you know I was in trouble?" Jacob asked.

"Oh ho ho!" Chuckled Tom. "Firenze was spying on you with a pair of magical binoculars. He's been stalking you for months, so old Tom understands."

Jacob was momentarily taken aback. "So that explains the piles of manure that have been appearing at the foot of my bed every morning!" He said with sudden enlightenment. "I thought Seamus was forgetting to put on his big-boy diaper again!"

"And by now you'll realise that wasn't ectoplasm all over your sheets." Laughed Tom. "And that funny taste in your mouth, like French onion soup-"

"Tick tock, horse cock,

Deep-throat-my-hearty!"

Dumbledore heard the stout little man's singing and looked up hopefully. "Tom? Tom Bombadil?"

"Hullo Dr-D." Tom hailed in his singsong voice. "You're allowed out at night again, are you?"

"The electronic tag came off last week." Dumbledore boasted. "But I'm still not allowed within 500 metres of the local zoo. Terrible misunderstanding-" He shook his head wistfully. "I was performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on that aardvark, ask anyone..."

"Tom believes you, though thousands wouldn't." Bombadil winked.

"Is- er, Gandalf with you?" Dumbledore asked hopefully.

"With me?" Mused Tom. "No."

Dumbledore's face fell with disappointment.

"Last I heard he was racing up the M74 on his moped." Bombadil went on.

Dumbledore beamed and rubbed his hands together with relish. "I better iron my lucky outfit," he grinned.

Just then Voldemort's high, cold voice magically filled their heads. "Some of you may wish to fight." He crooned. "Some of you may even think it wise. But every drop of magical blood spilled is a waste-" He paused for effect. "Except for Snape's."

Snape let out a strangled cry of despair as he inched across the party-disassembled stage, bent double under the weight of a gigantic speaker.

Dumbledore nodded. "He's got a point," he said reasonably. "No magic!" He suddenly bellowed at Snape, who had snuck out his wand when he thought no one was looking. "You need the exercise, mr flabby bottom!"

"Surrender to me within the next hour, and I will let you live." Voldemort continued. "But defy me... and die."

"Dumbledore!" Cried Jacob suddenly. "I have important news- the worst kind of treachery!"

But Dumbledore had run after Snape, whipping at his calves with a rolled up towel, tittering like a cartoon chipmunk.

Tom grabbed Jacob by the elbow. "You'll find no succour there, my lad." He said knowingly. "Come doll, merry doll, let's take ourselves to the Gryffindor common room and come up with a proper plan, er- my hearty!"

Jacob walked into the Gryffindor common room ashen-faced, Edith looked hopefully behind his shoulder for Neville. Jacob shook his head almost imperceptibly and Edith's face fell like a thunderbolt. She ran up to the dormitories wailing, her AIDS medicating clinking against the syringes in her pockets as she took the stairs two at a time.

"Tom!" Cried Beric, who was sitting with his feet up by the fire, reading Ready Player One. "I haven't seen you since..."

"Let me see..." Mused Bombadil. "Sam Gamgee's trial?"

"That was it!" Said Dondarrion, clicking his fingers. "My how he wailed!"

"A sad business, derry-doll, merry-doll, hop-along-my-darling!" Tom replied, laughing. "I didn't want to give evidence against him, but what could old Tom do?"

"He was guilty as sin." Beric shook his head fondly. "I still say we should have offered him up to the Lord of Light."

Tom wagged a reproachful finger. "Naughty, naughty!" He scolded. "There's no precedent for that in Shire law, as you know well!"

"Bless the little heathens." Said Dondarrion wistfully. "And how's the fracking operation coming along?"

Bombadil rubbed his hands together with glee. "Old Tom's consortium has hit a rich vein of shale gas," he hopped from one foot to the other. "The Westfarthing has made both myself and my backers very rich indeed, tra-la-la-lillo!" He paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. "It's a wasteland now of course; makes the Plateau of Gorgaroth look like Rivendell."

Beric inclined his heat to Bombadil's yellow feet. "Nice boots Tom... they look expensive."

"The best that money can buy!" Chuckled the stout little man, producing a thick wedge of fifties from his bright blue jacket and fanning it under Dondarrion's nose. "The water table's poisoned for miles around, even the elves at the Grey Havens are getting sick!" He laughed. "I heard the children are going bald from all the chemicals we pump into the earth, but we've bought off the government so there's nothing the pointy-eared arseholes can do about it; except whinge of course!"

"What's new there?" Laughed Beric, looking faintly disgusted. "Oh Gilthoniel, sweet Elbereth!" He mocked. "Miserable shits are always whinging about something-or-other that happened about nine-thousand years ago; might as well give them something more recent to moan about."

"Ho ho!" Tom's kindly eyes crinkled as he bent double with mirth. He made a drinking motion then began slapping his head with a wide-eyed expression, in imitation of the children he had poisoned for easy profit.

Jacob interrupted the reminiscing pair with a cough. "Aren't we forgetting something, gentlemen?"

Tom shook his head as if interrupted from a particularly pleasant daydream. "Right you are derry-doll, merry-doll, hop-along my Jacob!" He turned to Beric. "It appears-"

But just then Hermione burst into the common room, sobbing. Her face was swollen and puffy, and her eyes were rimmed redder than Edith's after an eight week binge. She kept touching her hands to her chest and wincing, as if something there pained her.

"Betrayed!" She screamed, looking around the room with wild eyes. "I've been betrayed! It's The Night King, he's coming... He's coming to kill us all!"