How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Lord Voldemort
Chapter 5: Queer Fish
In the "morning" I arose, went to shave and discovered my wand was missing. I searched the kitchen for it and found nothing; after much cursing I aroused Voldemort (no, not like that, you mucky buggers), who fumed "Typical," and went to exchange his striped pyjamas and dressing gown for the usual robes.
"What's happened to it?" I shouted round the door.
"That Chinese thief – Li Hsu-Deng, or whatever her name is – she's stolen it," he shouted back. "Her role in life is to pinch everything that's not nailed down."
"I didn't take it near her, did I?" I said, and then remembered I'd put it down near the Chinese contingent when I made the second batch of tea.
"That's why she was in chains," Voldie informed me, emerging from his bedroom properly clothed. "If they'd left her behind, she'd have nicked everything in China before they got back, the fucking waster. Theft is her sole talent and has hypertrophied to make up for the lack of everything else."
It occurred to me that Voldie's killing-people abilities had hypertrophied to make up for his lack of tact and charm, but I decided to keep that one to myself. "Can we get it back?" I said. "After all, she can't exactly have sold it."
He gave me a funny look. "We damn well will get it back," he said, "whatever she thinks she's done with it; and if it's damaged, she'll pay – "
"No, no," I said crossly. "No killing!"
"Fine," he said. "You've got a choice. Come with me to China, and then you'll be able to make sure I don't kill anyone; or stay here away from the horrid Apparition, and I'm damned if I'll pander to your airy-fairy scruples. And if it's the first one, you'd better get a move on."
"I'm ready!" I said indignantly.
"You are?"
"Yes!"
"Good," he said, scooping me up by the waist, and we sailed a third of the way round the planet and landed in the most startling Ministry I had yet encountered. We were standing on a pinnacle of milky rock a good two hundred feet above a bare, lunar slope of scree; to our right a door led into the rock, accompanied by a little window, and to our left a creaky-looking rope bridge stretched away to a second pinnacle, and thence to a cliff riddled with at least a hundred doors and windows.
"Christ," I said, gawping, grabbing hold of the rope bridge before Voldemort could drop me. "This is weird."
"You've never been here before?" he said, putting me down as indifferently as if we were in a car park in Sussex. "Quite famous, is the Chinese Ministry."
"I'd never seen any but the British one till this happened," I said, peering down in amazement at the bare rock, the distant hills and forest. "And that was only to get tried by the Wizengamot and nearly killed by you."
"Best way to see it," he assured me. "Are you coming? I think they're mostly holed up in the cliff part," and with that he trundled lightly across the rope bridge as if he were Nadia Comaneci.
Looking back and seeing my face, he added, "This thing is surrounded by an invisible barrier, Potts. You can't fall off."
"Oh," I mumbled, and tiptoed carefully along its creaky length. He was quite right; it was as sturdy as a packhorse bridge. I peered up in fascination at the tips of the pinnacles, way above us, some obscured by fat clots of fog. The air was cool and humid. I decided I liked this a lot better than the Indian place, or the British one, for that matter.
We trundled from pinnacle to pinnacle, and finally into the cliff, and I was disappointed to discover that the insides of the cave-dwellings were pretty much like any old building; they had posh wallpaper and so on. They didn't have any frozen Chinese witches or wizards, which I thought was odd until we walked past a large room and I saw that someone had helpfully stacked all the immobile people in there to keep them out of the way. I found that rather callous; also, for some reason, hilarious. My laughter only irritated Voldemort; "What?" he demanded. "It's the only sensible thing to do with them. If all those narrow little bridges were blocked with frozen people, there really would be some blood shed. And hurry up."
"Nice of you to be so cheeky when I can't hex you for it," I observed, sprinting down a corridor to keep up with him.
"You ungrateful idiot. It's YOUR WAND I'VE COME HERE TO RETRIEVE," he shouted, and lashed the air with his own. There was an awful whistling crack, and horrible, gnarled thorns shot out of the floor and walls like a Herbology experiment gone mad.
I decided there was no point talking to him while he was in this mood.
The Chinese contingent was finally located having its breakfast (dinner? How much further ahead of Britain is China? And there was no time difference anyway while the stasis spell was in effect so... oh, sod it) in a giant dining hall. Demands for my wand were interpreted by its slightly less superannuated members; long conversations took place while Voldemort grew madder and madder, and I finally got worried, barged into the middle of them all and said loudly and clearly, "Where is my wand? I need my wand," while miming casting spells.
They all looked at me in surprise. There was a little more earnest conversation, then, just as it seemed Voldemort was about to do his nut, the youngest Chinese lass told me very solemnly, "We think Li Hsu-Deng stole it."
This somewhat less than earth-shaking revelation was, it appeared, as much as Voldie could take. With a yell of fury, he smashed all the crockery, cut the dining table in half and set fire to the curtains. In the ensuing mayhem I marched up to him, grabbed the front of his robes and hissed, "You know what? Fucking stop it. You just go home and leave this to me. You're only making everything worse."
He looked at me with surprised disdain. He didn't even bother to hex me; instead, he slapped me across the face. There was a spectacular whack and I reeled back and stood there blinking. The Chinese goggled, then howled with nervous laughter. This did not make me feel less humiliated. Actually, the humiliation was exacerbated. I fantasised about killing Voldemort horribly after pulling out his claws with a pair of pliers. Then I gritted my teeth, accepted that one of us had to be sensible and grown-up, and said as calmly as possible, "You go home. This is only aggravating you. I can deal with this fine. If you stay here someone'll try to Stun you again and it'll screw up your spell."
He stared at me, then sneered "I look forward to seeing you Apparate home," and vanished, leaving me in a mangled dining room with about fifteen enthralled Chinese people who stared at me as if I were a soap opera. Wonderful.
I stared back at them in dismay and said hopefully, "So, is Li Hsu-Deng round here?"
As it turned out, she was not. She was immured in a pinnacle a very long way from the cliffs, and we had to traverse about fifty rope bridges and ladders to get there. This was good, because (a) I got another eyeful of breathtaking Sinitic topography, and (b) it gave me time to calm down.
When we finally did get into the prison-pinnacle it was very surreal, because unlike the other chambers, this one was indeed a cave. No flat floors or wallpaper or anything here; it was a smooth round hole in a rock, with one window, a tap and a toilet. Yet there was Li Hsu-Deng, in her chains, sitting quite untroubled in the middle of the room and smiling as if she hadn't a care in the world.
"Er, hello," I said uncertainly.
"Hello," she greeted me, quite comprehensibly, although with very weird intonation.
"You can speak English!" I said. "Why didn't you interpret, last night?"
"Interpret," she said. "Ah, thee elders would not let me? They thought that I would lie to them." She finished this off with an unnerving beaming smile that made it clear that the elders had been right.
It didn't impress my guide at all, because he said something sharply in Chinese; Li, however, simply fluttered her eyelashes at him (I should point out that the effect was playful rather than conventionally sexy, since she was at least fifty, pretty fat and dressed like Professor Grubbly-Plank) and said "It is very nice to get visitor here? Life of a prisoner is really boring. There is not even anything to steal."
"It's that that got you here in the first place," I said, thinking that she was a fairly unlikely equivalent to Mundungus Fletcher. "And I really wouldn't mind having my wand back," I added hopefully.
She winked flirtatiously and said, "How about kiss from a pretty boy?"
My first impulse was to refuse this request, noisily and at length. Then I thought it over and decided it would probably expedite the process. I leaned forwards and gave her a swift peck on the cheek, and she beamed again and withdrew my wand from her cleavage.
My guide had a lot to say about this; indeed, it seemed he was shouting all the things that I'd kept quiet. I wasn't too bothered, because I was more concerned with wiping my wand clean of Li Hsu-Deng's boobie sweat without hurting her feelings; I scrubbed it unobtrusively behind my back and unleashed the fatal rain of red and green sparks, which made her grin again, widely. I was still blushing when I finally managed to ask the guard, "Could someone maybe Apparate me to Wales?"
"Huh?" he said blankly. It appeared Wales was unknown in China. Li and I embarked on lengthy explanations, finally resorting to drawing a map of the UK on the floor, me keeping a very tight grip on my wand as I did so and hoping she wouldn't help herself to anything more important than my spare change. At last the guide showed signs of understanding what we meant, hurled a final expletive at Li, who gave me a saucy wink, and Apparated me to the Isle of Man.
000
When I finally appeared in the kitchen of the house in Wales, after a long and confusing journey about which I refuse to go into further detail, Voldemort was sitting calmly in his armchair, reading a book and drinking iced tea. At the sight of me he burst out laughing and cheered, "Oh, just look at your face. You've still got an enormous red handprint."
"I'm glad you find it funny," I grated, managing, by a mighty effort of will, not to throw all the dirty glasses at him.
"I do," he said, not remotely abashed. "I like annoying teenagers. They're so easy to provoke."
I turned my back on him most emphatically, added an enormous amount of washing-up liquid to the bowl, and started washing my wand. "You moron," I muttered. "When you're not neurotic you're a smart-arsed antisocial prick. The fucking world's being destroyed and all you can think of is hitting people and killing people and..."
"I only slapped you round the face."
"You were going to kill Li Thingy if she didn't give my wand back!"
"So fucking what?"
I rubbed my wand with the tea towel so violently that a shower of small emeralds shot out of the end and rattled across the floor. "YOU'RE AN IRRESPONSIBLE FUCKING PSYCHOPATH. THAT'S FUCKING WHAT."
I gave the breakfast bar a hard kick for good measure. It, and Voldemort, remained unmoved.
"You like life, do you, Harry?" he said with a ghastly grin. "Think all living things are worthy of preservation? Do you? Well?"
"Yes," I said, low and angry.
"Fine," he said. "Effervesco!" and an enormous number of diaphanous bubbles exploded from his wand and cascaded crazily around the room. Even as I sat there amazed, watching them burst against the walls, he flung out an arm and said, "Go on. Catch them. Stop them popping."
I glared at him and cupped my hands to shield a passing bubble. I successfully preserved it for a couple of seconds, then it soundlessly expired. I grabbed the full washing-up bowl and used it to catch a few bubbles; a couple of them succeeded in adhering to the water, but most popped.
"Now imagine," he taunted, "that you have to keep every single one of those bubbles in existence for a good seventy years, that you have to dress them in bubble nappies and paint them with bubble drugs and push them round in little bubble wheelchairs. And every time one of them pops there is much anguish and wailing and rending of robes. What a mug's game, Potter. Is that what you want for a life? Is it? Is it?"
Tosser. The problem was, he would keep coming up with these brilliant metaphors at a moment's notice, and he damn well knew I couldn't. I glared at him, threw up my hands and turned away, saying in frustration, "Yeah, fine, you're cleverer than me and you can make clever arguments that I can't answer. But I – "
I was going to say that I was still rather partial to organisms and to life in general, but he grabbed me by the shoulders, twisted me round to face him and said, "I don't make clever arguments just to humiliate you. I'M NOT LIKE THAT. I DON'T DO THAT."
"Yes, you are!"
"I'M NOT."
"Right," I said, wide-eyed.
"I'm not that kind of person," he ranted. "If I needed to prove my great intellect and wit, I'd hardly do it against a child."
"I'm not a – !"
"Yes you are. Shut up."
"Bloody big and ugly child," I said.
"Yes, Harry, and I'm Michelangelo's David. Look, I am of an intellectual bent, you're not, and I don't seek to rub it in your face to prove I am your superior. And there it ends."
I finally deduced, "And you think Professor Dumbledore did that."
"He DID!"
"Mm," I said doubtfully, then, since a Voldemort-eruption seemed inevitable, "He never did it to me."
"Harry, dear, your sweet, woolly head wouldn't have taken the strain. Gryffindors are chosen for bravery, not ruthless ingenuity. Or a cynical and suspicious attitude towards strange old men."
He prowled elegantly across to the dining area and sat down with Burns Nicht: A History Of Nuclear Protest In Scotland. As far as he was concerned, quite evidently, the matter was closed.
As far as I was concerned, it wasn't. "Why did you hate him?" I demanded.
Voldemort levitated about six inches out of his chair. "Hate him?!" he spluttered. "He hated me!"
"He – " I began, then remembered that Dumbledore had been suspicious of Voldemort before he'd ever set eyes on him, and was obliged to fall silent. "Mrs Cole badmouthed you to him," I said limply.
"She would, the old bag, but you can't put it down to that. The more he found out about me, the more he despised me – "
"Yeah, well, that's funny, isn't it, seeing as you kept killing people," I interposed, and he looked up at me reproachfully as though I'd mentioned my haemorrhoids at the dinner table.
"In any case," he said rather loudly, "he hated me."
"But – "
"He hated me for being hungry."
"He – " I began again, and stopped again as I realised what he'd just said. "For being hungry! What were you, Mr Blobby?"
"Not physically, you moron! I wanted intellectual sustenance. And various other things, such as power and eternal life, I admit; but you'd expect a headmaster to encourage some kid's desire to be a genius, and he didn't. He thought any insatiable craving was wrong; and I am quite full of insatiable cravings, since I wanted To Be Somebody. And I also love knowledge for its own sake."
"And power."
"Hmm," he said unenthusiastically. "I'm not so sure about that. The minions will insist on perpetually doing things wrong."
"Well, that's better than being a minion, isn't it?!"
"Oh, fine, all right, I like power! But listen, Potter, there is an entire fucking house, if you haven't noticed, one quarter of Hogwarts, which is a house for ambitious people! And he thought I was a monster because I was ambitious! I found it, actually, perfectly summed up in The Screwtape Letters: 'We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over.' (Quiet, you filthy-minded vermin.) That's the devil speaking. It's odd, because witzies and Muggle Christians have practically nothing in common philosophically, and yet they both seem to believe that obsessive hunger per se is bad. Dumbledore prefers human potatoes like you who have no ambition whatsoever beyond (a) having parents and (b) killing someone. I could have just sat around impressing people with my towering genius, but no, he had to – "
Just then he was interrupted, which was probably fortunate, as I might have tried to strangle him for one of eight or nine different reasons. Specifically, he was interrupted by the crack of Lakshmi appearing in the centre of the kitchen. We both jumped as per usual, then looked at one another with faintly sheepish expressions as though we'd been caught doing something embarrassing. Lakshmi regarded us curiously.
"We're just talking," Voldie barked. "Having a conversation. Is that illegal now?"
"Don't fucking start that again," I said between clenched teeth.
"I don't know," Lakshmi said distantly. "I am not familiar with the laws in this country. In any case, Mr Voldemort, I am here to rrreport on the ships, unless you would like me to return at a more favourrrable time."
"No, no, that's fine, report," Voldie ordered.
"Certainly. Mr Hottie tells me that there are certainly many magical ships, although he does not believe they will be sufficiently strong for this task. He will search for them and report back. Mrs Hong replies that she and Mr Hong will immediately start piloting the largest Chinese ship, which is presently in dock near Qingdao, and will see you in one and a half hours at Faslane."
Voldie stood and blinked. "An hour and a half? Quick, aren't they?"
"I agree, sir."
"Any other ships? Peruvians? Russians?"
"Persons of other nationalities have been sent to search for ships in their home countries, although we do not yet know whether they will find any."
"And are they reporting to Qingdao, or Faslane?"
"To Faslane. I am afraid they do not know where Qingdao is."
"Not a problem," he said absently. "Right. Excellent work, Bhattacharya. D'you want some lunch? Harry, cook something."
"All right," I said, getting out the frying pan with alacrity, although I knew Lakshmi would decline on the basis that she had a stunningly boring piece of paperwork to do; and I was only slightly wrong, because she said instead that she'd better get searching for Indian ships. I wondered if house-elves ever ate. Perhaps they were sustained by work alone.
000
The docks at Faslane had undergone a remarkable change. Most of the Chinese witches and wizards were waiting patiently for the arrival of their ship, and had decided to make their environs more comfortable. Accordingly, they had put up several multicoloured satin tents, spread out pouffes and rugs on the concrete, and were busy enjoying a picnic.
I looked at Voldemort. He blinked a few times, then said, "Well. Wish we'd thought of that when we were here before. All right, you don't really need to do anything. I'll go and talk to the Chinese; I promise not to kill anyo – "
At exactly that moment, there came a thunderous crash from Faslane Bay. Spray shot fifty feet into the air; Voldemort and me, at least two. Creamy waves smashed upon an invisible barrier and fell doucely back into the sea; from beneath them an awesome vessel became visible. It was a ship, possibly, but the Chinese Ministry must have sold Mongolia to pay for it. An enormous silver dragon snarled from the prow; the sails were bright red and appeared to be made of silk, and multicoloured lanterns hung from the end of every possible projection. In terms of extravagance it eclipsed the Durmstrang effort by a very large amount.
I glanced over at Voldie and said, "Did you know it was this big?"
He looked at me shiftily, and I noticed he was wearing the guilty face that, on him, generally accompanied an 'accident'. "Ask me later," he muttered, and surreptitiously cast some spells to clean himself up.
While I stood and stared in awe, the ship manoeuvred neatly in beside the pier thing and glided to a halt. Two monkey-shaped silver gargoyles on the side of the deck suddenly jerked into life and rolled out a little walkway, down which stepped, beaming, an ancient couple: a bloke with a beard down to his knees and a little round hat, and a woman whose back was becoming rounded by old age and must have stood about four foot eight, max. They bowed politely in our general direction, clearly not requiring a closer acquaintance with Voldemort, and began happily discharging the details of their trip upon the hooting, clapping, laughing group of Chinese.
"What are they saying?" Voldie asked impatiently. "Anything important?"
The question was relayed to the ancients, who, if that were possible, beamed even more widely. The old bloke replied through our makeshift interpreter, "I have been very well-behaved since 1880. Now look at me: I am a pirate!"