Chapter 3: Which He Found Extremely Annoying

The first visitor arrived, although I don't know when; I would like to say "he arrived on Monday" or whatever, but I had no idea what day it would have been if the stasis spell hadn't been cast. So... the first visitor arrived while I was asleep; and I was woken by his cry of "What are you deuing?"

I shuffled across the bedroom and peered curiously down the hall. (The house only had one storey.) Voldemort was sitting in his favourite uncomfortable chair, glaring up at a black guy whose right arm ended mid-forearm. His face was kind of scrunched as if it had been burnt or exploded, and he had the weirdest accent I'd ever heard, like the Queen's, only posher.

"...is this supposed tue help? We can't talk tue the Muggles now, cahn't reason with them!"

"As if we could ever reason with them."

"Oh, my goodness, why yeu?" the bloke wailed, gyrating in an agony of frustration. "Of all the people who could be dealing with the crisis – "

"I am the BEST one," Voldemort thundered over the top of him. "What does any bloody wizard understand about nuclear physics? You're a genius compared with most of them – "

"I beg yhaw pardon?!"

I wondered if Voldie was going to kill or Crucio him, and decided that he would have done it already if he was going to, the way that bloke was shouting at him. I trundled past them and filled the pan to boil some water. The screeching came to an abrupt halt. "Who's that?" the bloke demanded.

"That's Harry Potter," said Voldie. "So if he thinks I've got the right idea, then you've got no bloody right to complain."

"D'you want some tea?" I asked, yawning.

"Yes please," said Voldemort.

"Yes," said the bloke, shaken. "Listen, Lord Voldemort, you are going about this quaite the wrong way..."

"Oh, easy for you to say!" jeered Voldie. "You only had six bombs!"

They squabbled and chuntered all the time I was pouring the tea, conjuring up some milk, going to the toilet and getting dressed. When I finally joined them for breakfast, the Black bloke was still moaning and wringing his hand and Voldie was still cackling.

"Will you shut up?" I said irritably. "This bloke's been here for half an hour and you've still not even told me who he is."

Voldemort rolled his eyes. "This is Albert Hottie. He was the South African Ministry's plant for getting rid of their nuclear arsenal – "

"Ho!" interrupted Albert. "I wish! The Ministry didn't even kneuw what a nucleus was!"

"You think you've got problems?!" spluttered Voldemort. "Do you know how I eliminated the Lakenheath warheads?"

"No, how?"

So then he dragged me into it and spent another ten minutes boasting about how hard he was, and Albert retorted that that was nothing, because Voldie hadn't had his arm blown off by the Nats, had he? Voldie sneered that anyone who knew the first thing about explosives would never have been blown up at all, and Albert said that was good coming from someone who'd been defeated by a baby; so Voldie responded that it was him who'd cast the temporal stasis spell and we'd all be dead right now if it weren't for him, and I got fed up and said in Parseltongue, "If you don't ssstop showing off I'm going to tell him you pisssed your pantsss the other day." That shut him up.

"Hello, Albert," I said. "Nice to meet you."

Albert compressed his lips and glared at me, clearly thinking that anyone who deemed the current situation "nice" had a crap sense of proportion. I ignored him and said brightly, "What's your plan?"

Mistake. "PLAN! PLAN! THERE IS NO PLAN!" and off they went again. The gist of Albert's argument seemed to be that the best way to prevent a war was to talk to the Muggles, and we couldn't talk to them if they were statues, now could we? Voldemort (not wholly surprisingly) responded that it was impossible to reason with Muggles in the first place and the only sensible course of action was to get rid of their plutonium. I tried to interrupt again, but with no success; and the argument didn't fully end until Voldie pointed out that it was no good cancelling the stasis spell because the metaphorical button had been pushed and the missiles were literally about to leave their silos. Upon hearing this, Albert opened his mouth to present another furious argument, stopped, huffed, then suddenly slid down in his chair while expelling a tremendous sigh of defeat through his nose.

"Have you stopped arguing now?" I said wearily. "You spent ages saying we needed to find someone else, and when we do, you call him an arsehole."

Voldemort said, "I was hoping we'd find someone who knew what to do – Albert, will you shut up? – but anyone's better than nobody, I suppose. So, seeing as he's here, we have to figure out what he's going to do."

"Oh, it's ap to yeu, is it?!"

"Look," I appealed desperately, envisioning dragons munching their way through the entire population of Eastern Europe, "what were you planning to do?" This question seemed a bit wide in scope, so I narrowed it down: "What were you planning to do today?"

Pause. "I was going to search various places for survivors – well – not survivors..."

"People who can move," I supplied.

"Yes.. well, apart from all those people at the Chinese Ministry, I haven't found any so far."

"Oho," said Voldie, satisfied. "They're all in China, are they? Might have guessed."

Albert was distinctly unimpressed: "You didn't kneuw that? What were you going to do, if you didn't even kneuw that?!"

"That's my business," Voldemort said loftily, "but after that, I was going to defuse a couple of bombs. Of course, if you feel it's beneath you, you needn't come along."

"Are we?" I said, surprised. "I thought all the submarines were at sea?"

Voldemort suddenly looked intolerably overbearing and smug. In a superior voice he said, "I thought they were, until yesterday."

"What?" said Albert. "Wheuse submarines? The British ones?"

"Yes!" Voldie said triumphantly. "One of them's still at Faslane, in dock!"

"Why?" sputtered Albert. "Wouldn't it have been sent out at this time – "

But Voldie couldn't wait to deliver his punchline. "Ploughshare smashed the controls to bits!" he cackled, administering a deafening thwack to Albert's thigh, and they both fell about laughing for around ten minutes. I watched, mystified, as they hooted and rejoiced and punched either other in the ribs, howling "Good old Ploughshare!" and "Let's hear it for the hippies!"

Eventually I went and made them a second cup of tea each, and by the time it was brewed they were discussing the best course of action quite amicably; they agreed to get on with their own private searches and to rendezvous "tomorrow" at Faslane, and parted with unexpectedly good wishes. I was speechless, and cooked breakfast to keep myself sane.

I cooked some baked beans, fried mushrooms and tomatoes; wondered how it could be that World War III had started and I'd run away from school with Voldemort, yet I seemed to be still here, and was eating and thinking and functioning, and had formed a rapport of sorts with the scaly one, even. I wasn't sure whether this was actually a good outcome; I started to mull it over, but at that moment Voldie interrupted me by rapping me on the head with a spoon.

"OW," I said.

"Wimp. Right, let us review our plans for the day. We're going to look at the prophecies; agreed?"

"Do we have to?" I said unenthusiastically, chasing mushrooms round the pan.

"We don't have to," he said, a pinch of impatience swirling round in his voice, "but, as I say, I think it would help."

"I don't think it would help," I muttered.

"You don't think AT ALL."

I stabbed at a tomato, watched it explode in a splat of red guts. I thought about how much I would like to kill Voldemort, and silently accepted that the option was not available. I would have to get on with him if a war was to be avoided, the same way he would have to get on with Albert, and the Americans would have to coexist with the Russians. I flipped half the food onto his plate, deposited it in front of him and said as emotionlessly as possible, "All right. We'll go and look at prophecies."

Voldemort stared at me for a bit with his knife and fork pointing, startled, at the ceiling, and displayed a hitherto unsuspected capacity for tact. "We don't necessarily have to go to the British Ministry," he conceded gruffly.

"Where are we going, then?"

"Any of them will do. BUT NOT AMERICA! I AM NOT GOING TO AMERICA!" he shouted, banging his fork on the breakfast bar and rattling his plate. "DON'T TRY TO MAKE ME, BOY! YOU'LL NEVER GET ME THERE!"

Riiight. I sat down next to him cautiously and started on my own breakfast. "But the stuff we want's got to be in English, hasn't it?"

"A lot of countries use English in their records. You'd be surprised how many. We can go to Australia, NZ, India, Pakistan... any country where quite a lot of the population speaks English, basically."

"OK," I munched doubtfully. "Well, if you've been there before, then I suppose we should go to one where you know where everything is."

"India, then. I'll Apparate us there. You don't mind, do y-?"

"OH NO, NOT YOUR SODDING APPARITION AGAIN!"

"YOU'RE SUCH A WIMP!" he shouted back. "ANYONE YOUR AGE OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO BLOODY APPARATE!"

"How fucking far is it to India?" I demanded, waving a mushroom around on the end of my fork.

"Just a few thousand miles," he said sweetly.

"Oh, god," I groaned. "I hope you Splinch your backside."

"I haven't Splinched myself since I was seventeen, and I'm delighted that you want me to be incapacitated so that I can't defuse the bombs," he sneered coldly.

"Yeah, because you're really doing this out of love for humankind!"

"Fuck humankind! It was them that created this mess in the first place..."

Thus, later, still arguing, did we depart unto Mumbai.

000

In India it was not, of course, early morning, but midday. Having forgotten to make arrangements for this, we Apparated into such heat that my body attempted to expel its entire supply of liquid in a tidal wave of sweat. I vomited horribly, while Voldemort staggered, swore, and leaned on my back to get his balance. This did not improve my mood.

We were in a courtyard garden, a square one surrounded on all sides by a kind of cloister; it was packed with Indian wizards and witches, all motionless. Voldemort cast a Cooling Charm and helped me into the shade of the arches, where he mopped his forehead and I picked chunks of food off my trainers.

"Fine," he said crisply, "I forgot it was hot over here. Too bad. The door's that astonishing twiddly thing that looks as if someone threw gilded porridge over it."

I glanced at the cynosure of his attention. "They did go a bit overboard," I agreed. "Is it trapped?"

"I don't think so. It is guarded, but with any luck the guard's frozen."

He strode briskly off through the maze of frozen Indians in the courtyard, occasionally attacked by a horizontal dupatta or sari that had been caught in mid-air when the stasis spell came into effect. I flicked a bit of carrot aside and trundled wearily after him.

The golden gates were huge, ornate and flanked by silver elephants. Voldemort walked through them into a long, dark marble hallway, then stood still and waited. I stood next to him in puzzlement for several seconds, and was just opening my mouth to ask what was happening when an enormous flying eyeball popped up in front of my face.

"Aaagh!" I yelped out of reflex, jerking away from the horrible thing. It followed me, staring into my eyes; it made a few tweeting noises to itself and waved its tentacles. To my right I could hear Voldemort sniggering.

"Oh yes, this is so funny," I snarled. "Ugh! What is it?"

"I told you this place had a guard," he said mildly. "I don't think it'll be very pleased when it sees me, though."

"Some guard," I muttered as it floated serenely up to Voldemort, peered into his eyes and suddenly stopped dead in mid-air. It tweeted again in quiet perturbation, peered some more and sailed off down the hall, tentacles bobbing.

"Right, come on," Voldemort said briskly. "We'll follow it to whoever's in charge," and he took off yet again at 90mph. I wished he hadn't got such long legs.

"What if it just leads us into a trap?" I grumbled. "You should probably AK it now."

"What?!" he said, shocked. "But it's so cute!"

Voldemort: kills babies, likes flying tentacular eyeballs. I followed the pretty pair, muttering to myself.

We progressed down a long dark corridor, whose walls were of a wood that looked like mahogany, and squeezed between various witches and wizards who were blocking the doors. Voldemort gave me a few nasty looks when this happened, presumably because my presence was preventing his simply blasting the Indians to bits. I glared right back at him; if he felt it was beneath his dignity to be wodged between minor officials, well, that was his problem.

At last we were disgorged into an equally dark office, clad this time with slate, in which the desks and shelves were attended by frozen staff who showed no sign whatsoever of being able to give an order. The eyeball floated into the centre of the room, have a high, trilling call, and abruptly vanished. Voldemort made an amusingly infuriated noise.

"Bugger," he muttered. "I suppose we'll just have to try to sneak into the archives. Evidently there's nobody left here at..."

"Can I help you?" said a very posh voice from beside his left elbow. He yelped and flailed his arm around; I cast Lumos in time to reveal a cross-legged, disdainful-looking house-elf, who, like the eyeball, was bobbing up and down in mid-air.

"Can I help you, sir?" she repeated, without bothering to stop her magical quill writing on a small notepad. She was dressed in a sari and shalwar kameez, so I supposed she must be a fairly non-traditional house-elf. The eyeball peeped over her left shoulder as if afraid we might attack.

"Hello, I'm Harry and that's You-Know-Who," I informed her. "What's your name?"

"I am Lakshmi Bhattacharya, seniorrr undersecrrretary to the Ministerrr of Magic," she said distantly. She was fantastic at rolling her Rs. "May I be of assistance? The Minister is indisposed at prrresent."

Voldie, recovering to some degree, barked, "A nuclear war has started and I've cast a temporal stasis spell, which is why your Minister is indisposed. Was the Indian Ministry doing anything to stop it?"

"What is 'nuclear'?" Lakshmi demanded.

"There goes that, then," said Voldemort.

Becoming intrigued, I asked, "Do you know a British house-elf called Dobby?"

Lakshmi looked delighted and rather impressed. "Ah, you know the password. Our colleague is orrrganising the elves in Britain, using the codename 'Dhobi'. And you must be Harry Poe-tar."

"That's me," I affirmed while Voldemort stared at me as if I'd turned myself into a lump of blue cheese.

"I am honoured to meet you, sir. Feel free to browse the Ministry archives," Lakshmi said casually, and a door suddenly appeared in the opposite wall as she went back to her notes, looking completely unconcerned with everything that had happened. I said "Thank you," and hastily pulled Voldie through the door before he could do anything to ruin it.

We walked down a corridor for some time before he said, "I hate you, Potter, and your bloody good luck."

The Indian Ministry had a very good library, illuminated by tiny, pink winged elephants with flames coming out of their mouths; there was also a sign saying PERSONS BRINGING DURIAN INTO THE LIBRARY WILL BE FED TO THE THREE-HEADED DOG, but once you'd got over that it was pretty straightforward. Voldemort marched briskly down the immense central walkway and set off down one of the side aisles.

"Hey," I shouted in vain, running after him. "Hang on, Voldie. What doI do?"

"Just muck about," he said casually, his robes sweeping imperiously away from me. Unfair; I didn't have any robes to sweep. I shouted after him, with malice aforethought, "But I'll get lost and you won't be able to find me."

That did it. He jumped, looked around nervously and took in the size of the library. Then he said, "Stay close to me, then. But don't disturb me when I'm in deep thought."

"And if I see that vanishing blue person again?"

"Tell me straight away."

With that, he hovered along to his final destination and unloaded a shitload of books from the section helpfully labelled "Doomsday".

At the point there was very little for me to do. I walked the length of the library looking for blue persons and three-headed dogs, but alas, or hallelujah, there was none. Then I looked for books that I might find interesting, but came up with a similar sum; the subjects were so specialised that just looking at the titles made me cry. I wandered aimlessly along to a little fountain, which of course was frozen in mid-air, and sat down on the marble edge. A small amount of water liberated itself and fell into the pool with a splash. Beyond that there was silence.

After a while the flying eyeball trundled out from behind a bookcase and came to a shocked halt, tentacles drifting gracefully, as it saw me sitting there. "Hello, eyeball," I said wearily, and it purred suspiciously and bobbed round me in a circle as if to make sure I wasn't putting soap in the fountain.

"Cheeeeeeep," it said dolefully when it saw that I was innocent.

"Tell me about it," I grumbled.