Interlude
McGonagall and Tyrion crept into the silent graveyard, darting furtive looks in all directions. The night was clear, the air heavy with moisture which clung to the grass growing wild and unkempt among the fading grey stones that surrounded them on all sides. They both jumped nearly out of their skin as an owl hooted in the rotten hollow of an ancient oak, looming in a forgotten corner and stretching out its gnarled arms over a ten foot high brick wall, topped with brutal-looking rusted spikes.
"Did you bring the gear?" McGonagall hissed through her newly-sharpened teeth, finger bone wobbling in her pointed nose.
Tyrion motioned to the sack on his shoulder, which clunked faintly with the sound of muffled metal. They crept on silently through the eerie domain of eternal repose, before the diminutive Lannister stopped at a random grave, the headstone less faded than the rest.
"Here, do you think?" He asked McGonagall doubtfully.
The head of Gryffindor rubbed her toned stomach anxiously, seeming unconvinced. "Go on then, let's just get it over with."
Tyrion tipped the contents of his sack onto the chilly turf, which shone faintly in the light of a waxing gibbous moon. He took up a pick-axe and threw a shovel to his nervous companion. Finding his mark above the grave, he lifted the pick behind his head and was just about to strike when a distinctly familiar moan caused them both to swing around in surprise. Someone else was in the graveyard!
After a few breathless moments which felt like a lifetime - in which the pair of would-be grave robbers stood indecisively rooted to the spot - a black figure emerged before them, seemingly from nowhere.
"Severus!" Cried McGonagall, half relieved and half annoyed. "You too?"
Snape looked like he'd seen a ghost. "Minerva?" He said, voice trembling. "Tiny-T? Whatever are you two doing here in the middle of the night?"
"It's ok Severus." Tyrion began, with a sad, serious air. "You don't need to hide it from us, we're victims of the same terrible desire."
Snape looked like he couldn't believe his ears. "I thought I was alone!" He began to blubber, tears forming in his greasy eye sockets. "Sweet heaven above have mercy, this is the happiest day of my life! Finally, someone to share my terrible burden!"
"Yes Severus," said McGonagall seriously. "Both Tyrion and I have fallen for the forbidden pleasures of the flesh." She licked her sharpened teeth. "It's a distraction, a dysfunction... an obsession!"
"Yes!" Wailed Snape. "All this time, I thought I was the only one!"
"How did it start for you?" Asked Tyrion, piqued by fellowship and curiosity.
Snape frowned and looked like he wanted to clam up. Eventually he opened his mouth and began to talk hesitantly. "It... was my... mother." He said haltingly.
Both Tyrion and McGonagall gasped.
Snape shuffled his feet self-consciously. "I beg of you, don't judge me; not you, not now." He pleaded in a weak, pathetic voice. "I never had enough affection as a child, I just wanted to feel... close to her, one last time."
"That's an... odd way to feel close to your own mother." Tyrion mused, doubtfully. "But then again, what would I know? I killed my mother, shot my father with a crossbow and I used to smear the jelly from a pork pie all over my scrotum and get the dog to lick it off, all whilst spying on my brother and sister taking turns to shove lighted church candles up each other."
McGonagall turned to him sharply. "Sandor did that?" She asked in wonder.
Tyrion nodded. "He's more deviant than he lets on; only dog I ever knew to cough up furballs, if you know what I mean?" He winked and grabbed his midget bulge, jostling his twiddly bits with a salacious leer.
"And what about you two?" Snape asked excitedly. His face shone with happiness and relief.
"It was Bem." Said McGonagall simply. "It was Bem who gave us a taste for it."
Snape gasped in admiration and wonder. "You kinky bastards!" He cried, chuckling from surprise. "There was barely anything of him left!"
"Well yes." Explained Tyrion, frowning. "We ate most of him."
Snape let out a sound like an airhorn. "You eat them too?" Tears ran down his wan, oleaginous cheeks and began dripping onto his filthy dungarees. "It- it never even occurred- Not even to me! Oh happy day; to have met two such kindred spirits!"
McGonagall and Tyrion narrowed their eyes in unison. "What do you mean eat them too?" Asked Tyrion, looking Snape in the eye. "What else do you do? Just why are you here, exactly?"
Snape froze. "Um- well-" He stammered. "That is to say-" He looked around frantically. "I just meant-"
"Are those maggots on your crotch?" McGonagall asked suspiciously.
Snape's eyes shot down and he started brushing at his tackle furiously. "No!" He cried, even though it was clear that they were.
"You've, er- got some around your mouth too." Tyrion advised, looking faintly disgusted.
"I, er- have to be going." Snape began to edge away, looking terrified. "Just to be absolutely clear, we're all... cannibals? Correct?"
McGonagall licked her pointed pearlies and let out a mirthless bark of laughter. "Your own dead mother, eh Severus?"
Snape looked around desperately, but there was no rescue in sight. "Well- I mean-" He sweated. "Technically she was alive when it began. The vegetative state lasted quite a few years, in fact-" He tugged at his collar nervously. "That makes it better, right?"
McGonagall looked at him shrewdly. "And how did she get into a vegetative state in the first place?"
Snape looked like he wanted to die... moreso even than usual. "I- That is to say-" He coughed into a shaking fist. "Someone- some rotten motherfu- Nothing was ever proven by the way!" He interrupted himself, almost madly. "Someone gave her an accidental overdose of rohypnol with her morning gin and Cornflakes."
"Some rotten mother-bleeper." McGonagall's echoed - her eyes piercing Snape - who seemed to melt into the ground even as he stood before them.
"Bitterly ironic, really." Tyrion said, shaking his head in revulsion.
This drew questioning stares from his nighttime companions.
"It's just that John Harvey Kellogg invented Cornflakes back in 1894 to help stop masturbation and sexual desire." Tyrion explained. "He thought it was unhealthy for the body and mind and-" He looked Snape up and down and fought the urge to vomit. "Well let's just say he might have had a point."
"Didn't he also used to give himself yoghurt enemas and recommend threading a silver wire through the foreskin to prevent erectios?" Asked McGonagall.
Tyrion nodded. "He did indeed and, perhaps even worse, Kellog was an advocate of female genital mutilation. He recommended using carbolic acid to burn off the clitoris in order that the-."
Snape gasped noisily and juddered where he stood. All this talk of torture and degradation had been to much for him to bear and he'd made a little accident in his pants. A fresh, sticky wet stain began spreading out around his maggot-infested crotch.
"Mummy!" He wailed and ran off into the distance, reeking of corruption and unspeakable desires.
"You know what?" Said McGonagall, turning to Tyrion. "I think I'm quite over my obsession with the oh-so-sweet, forbidden taste of human flesh."
Tyrion nodded a vigorous assent. "Besides-" He added gazing around the graveyard suspiciously. "We don't want to be chowing down on Snape's sloppy seconds." He shuddered involuntarily.
McGonagall licked her sharpened teeth, shivering slightly. "We're not hooked." She said unconvincingly. "We can stop anytime we like."
"Oh quite." Tyrion tried to sound more confident than he felt.
Just then a fireball streaked by overhead, lighting their upturned faces with an artificial orange glow. The noise came a few seconds later, travelling at a constant three-hundred-and-thirty-seven metres per second; it was a screeching, keening sound, like the air itself was being rent asunder.
"Seven save us!" Cried Tyrion, falling to his knees. "A demon! The Night King has come at last!"
"No, not the Night King." McGonagall countered, tracking the object through the night sky with fear and wonder. "It's an Airbus A380-800; and- my God!" She exclaimed. "It seems to be heading straight for Gryffindor tower!"
There was a sudden rush of wind and a new shape - black against the stars - swept by, blotting out the very moon.
"It's the Mother of Dragons!" Tyrion wept with relief and joy. "But wait- she's... she's not going to get there in time!"
The orange fireball hurtled towards Gryffindor tower, as McGonagall and Tyrion closed their eyes and began to pray.
