You Can Call Me Tommy

by Bowles

You know something's amiss when Voldemort's on a mission to right his wrongs and save the universe for all that it's worth.

11. Ron's Fifteen Minutes of Infamy

Last time on You Can Call Me Tommy...

(Look it up for yourself! Stop being so lazy!)

Anyways, this chapter kind of takes the tone of the last chapter and pushes it a little further. It's got its outrageous moments, but if subtler, darker humor isn't your thing, then you probably won't like this chapter as much. Don't blame me. Blame Joseph Heller and Jonathan Franzen.

Disclaimer: Why didn't I think of Harry Potter first?

Eleven: Ron's Fifteen Minutes of Infamy

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Ron was the first to try to rouse Harry.

"Wake up, mate!" he said.

A semi-elliptical sliver of Harry's pupil revealed itself from its pale skin coat. "What is it?"

"It's me, Ron. Your sidekick."

"Oh. What's up?"

"Nothing much. We were just thinking that it was probably time for you to get up and make your dramatic recovery."

This instilled an immediate suspicion in Harry, as when Ron got to thinking it always ended badly.

"I'm sure it's sturdy," said Ron as they gazed at an old, decaying bridge overhanging from two cliffs that framed a large abyss.

"I think it's a great idea!" encouraged Ron as Harry self-consciously inspected his freshly inked "I WANNA BE MCGONAGALL'S WHORECRUX" tattoo.

"I bet she didn't take you seriously when you gave here a ring and proposed to her after getting her pregnant," Ron told a drunken, dizzy Harry as the latter slurped beer out of a saucepan.

"I think it's time we take the next step forward in our relationship," stated Ron as soda squirted out of Harry's nose and onto his newly polished Firebolt.

"You know what?" Harry asked. His eyelids met and the sliver converged on itself. "Wake me up when life is less terrible."

Naturally this provided Ron with an almost unsolvable dilemma. Easily solvable dilemmas provided the redheaded boy wonder with enough trouble as it was, but almost unsolvable dilemmas were out of the question. This left Ron with another dilemma – what to do about the fact he could not solve the present dilemma – and how to solve ithis/i new dilemma became another dilemma and so on and so on. Ron's brain was whirring at a million and two miles an hour, but his engine's cutoff was somewhere around sixty-five, and the pistons and carburetors and batteries of his mind worked to the brink of combustion to take on this new workload. Finally Ron decided, in an uncharacteristic move of innate brilliance, to deal with the first dilemma first, as this would make all the other dilemmas irrelevant. Ron did not comprehend the magnitude of his decision, as the implications of his choice were far beyond his level of understanding, but perhaps that was for the better, for Harry had been exactly right: nothing good ever happened when Ron got to thinking.

To the detriment everyone involved, that's what Ron did right then. He thought about his problem, which lay before him (snoring lightly with drool dribbling down its cheek) in plain sight. Harry had explicitly asked Ron not to wake him until life was less terrible, but Ron was no optimist and knew that life usually tended to get worse and worse as you went along. The older you got the more opportunities you had to screw your life up even more, and Ron saw no way to circumvent this depressing quadratic equation of misery. And even if he was naïve enough to believe that life wasn't entirely terrible, and that there was some hope for the future, that was only from ihis/i perspective. While his immediate future may have been less barren than he'd initially suspected, who was to say that Harry's prospects were any better? Ron could not wake Harry up until he knew that Harry's situation in life was less terrible, but he could not know if Harry's situation in life was less terrible unless he woke Harry up. Sometimes Ron hated life.

Ron began to wonder if perhaps this wasn't all his fault, as everything seemed to be his fault nowadays. His mother blamed him for everything that went wrong and Hermione blamed him for everything that went wrong and eventually Ron began to think that he wouldn't mind if someone would blame him for everything that went right for a change. After seventeen years of hearing that he was a failure Ron came to accept the truth, and from this moment of revelation he set out to make himself into a success story. To do this Ron thought about all his skills, but the only skill he could think of was a fantastic talent for failure. The solution was soon clear to Ron. To succeed, he would only need to try to fail, as he would inevitably fail in his noble quest for failure.

Now Ron knew what he must do to make Harry's life less terrible so that he could wake his friend from his deep sleep. He only needed to try to iruin/i Harry's life to make it better. Ron set out immediately to set things right (wrong) with the world. He punched a passing twelve-year-old boy into a bookshelf and took his phone, dialing in Gringott's international toll-free number. The goblin on the other side was surprised when he lied and told him that he was Harry Potter, and that yes, he wanted to invest his entire fortune into the soon-to-be-defunct Exterminaticus Totalus Corporation, and yes, he knew that Neville Longbottom had been murdered only an hour ago, since his body was rotting only a few feet away from where he stood. He didn't care. It looked like a hot commodity.

The goblin hung up and Ron threw the phone to the side. He let out a satisfied smile as the mobile cracked the unconscious boy upside the head and blood began to ooze from his temple. Ron knew he had just ruined Harry's finances, and thus set up his pal for future fiscal success.

Ron looked to compound on his accomplishment by further sabotaging Harry's chances at happiness. He told Hermione that Harry had always loved her and stalked her, and when she didn't believe him, he showed her photos Seamus had taken of her singing in the shower and claimed that Harry had been the photographer. She was too angry and embarrassed to think about the chances of Harry doing such a thing, and instantly fostered an immense hatred for her former friend.

Ron told Remus that Harry had confided in him that Sirius had always been the better father figure, and Ron told Sirius that Harry had confided in him that Remus had always been the Marauder that Harry'd looked up to. He told both of them that Harry had been the one to drink their stash of Firewhisky the summer before sixth year, proud that he had really been the one to do so and even prouder that he had been able to blame Harry for all his misdeeds.

Ron told James and Lily that Harry thought they were terrible parents for going off and dying on him when he was just an infant, and that Harry had thought it infinitely irresponsible to trust Peter with their lives. Ron told Peter that Harry was going to hunt him down and kill him the next time they met, and that Harry would accomplish this with the largest mousetrap known to man. Ron told Snape that Harry had secretly enjoyed his class and thought that Snape was the most wonderful, kind, compassionate, charming, and polite professor in the history of the world, and that if Snape had been trying to torment him throughout his tenure at the school, the slimy-haired git had utterly failed.

Ron told Voldemort that Harry still hated him, and that Harry suspected Voldemort was still evil inside. To finish up, Ron told himself that Harry thought he was a horrible sidekick, and that his head would better be used as a suitcase as there obviously weren't any brains taking up the space inside.

By now Ron was very pleased with himself. He'd managed to alienate Harry from every ally he might have ever had – the ones that weren't already dead, anyways – and he'd done it with admirable efficiency. When Harry woke up his life would be in shambles, and thus everything would be just gravy.

With a pinch on the cheek Harry was brought back to the world of the living, and when he woke he was confronted with the image of a grinning Ron.

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

Harry muttered an obscenity that could not be written in this fic without raising the rating. He then went back to sleep.

"Aw, don't cuss me out, old sport! I'm not entirely stupid, you know, I can tell when you're insulting me!"

Ron jovially pinched Harry on the bridge of his nose. Harry woke up with a start, muttered an obscenity in German, and went back to sleep.

"C'mon, buddy! I don't know what you just said, but when you speak German it always sounds like you're angry anyways, so I'm gonna guess you cussed me out again! I've got a surprise for you!"

"Whaaaaaaaat?" was Harry's muffled reply.

Ron beamed. "I've been working my tail off, and I think life is less terrible now!"

"Really?" said Harry, and he sat up. "Do you mean to say that you've eliminated the problems of world hunger, unbalanced trade, and exploitation of developing nations by economic superpowers?"

"Nope!"

"Do you mean to say that you've persuaded the leaders of said superpowers to curb back their overly aggressive foreign policies that only encourage terrorism in the countries they're 'saving from themselves,' and that you've also convinced nations and sects all around the world to give up any claim to nuclear warfare?"

"Not in those words, no."

"Do you mean to say that you've succeeded in getting Dancing with the Stars canceled?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Life still seems pretty terrible to me," Harry grumbled.

"Just gimme a chance, will you, mate? I really think you're going to be in for a nice surprise. I've called in a few favors, and I think everything's looking up for ol' H.J. Potter."

Harry had been lied to by everyone he knew and numerous people he didn't know, so he was disinclined to believe that his moronic best friend had somehow improved his tragically heroic situation in life. It was at that moment that Hermione mustered up the courage to approach the two.

"Hello, Harry," she said, uncharacteristically shy. Harry blinked at her, and she blushed before continuing. "I know what's been going on between us, and I was kind of confused and angry for a while, but I think this can work. I'm really scared, but I really think this can work, and I think you were just a bit off in how you displayed your feelings, but that's natural, seeing as you were raised by an abusive aunt and uncle and everything. Oh, look at me, all books and smarts but I get flustered when talking to a teenage boy. I just want to say – I just want to say – well, would you like to spend some time with me later tonight?"

Harry's eyes bulged. "Just how late tonight?"

"Why," she said, smirking and batting her eyelashes at him, her confidence raised, "as late as you think you can last."

Harry passed out right then and there. Hermione revived him with a prompt iEnnervate/i and walked away, swinging her hips side to side as she went. Harry was nearly catatonic, but Ron was jubilant. Harry was going to have sex with the girl Ron was in love with, and it was all Ron's fault.

Harry did not have time to recover from the shock of Hermione's advances before Remus and Sirius loped up to him, followed by his parents.

"Hullo, Harry," said a dejected Sirius.

"Hullo, Harry," echoed Remus, with as much lupine melancholy as an ill-fed puppy (awwwwww poor puppy! What? I like dogs.). "Sirius and I have been thinking. We know we haven't been the most responsible or most available or most mentally stable father figures, and we're sorry for that. We're really going to try to do a better job to provide you with a better future."

"And we know you stole that Firewhisky from us."

"I did not!" protested Harry.

"It's all right, Harry," said Remus, patting him on the shoulder. "We know you were just trying to save us from the dangers of alcoholism. We appreciate how much you've sacrificed on our behalf. Someday we'll make it up to you."

"We'll buy you a broom," Sirius declared.

"I've got a Firebolt," Harry noted. "Best broom there is."

"We'll buy you a Quidditch team!"

Harry jumped into the air with excitement. "Really? Oh my God, you guys are the BEST SUBSTITUTE FATHERS EVER! I totally forgive you for all the stupid selfish childlike things you've ever done that have caused me indirect harm!"

"Three cheers for the blatant materialism of today's youth!" Sirius hollered to the gathered crowd of canon characters and book store customers. "Hip hip – hooray! Hip hip – hooray! Hip hip – hooray!"

"Hurrah, I say once more!" cried out James, a nervous smile played out across his face. He and Lily approached Harry in a sort of zigzag pattern, as if avoiding mines beneath the carpet. As has already been made clear, they were doing this because they were anxious about confronting their son over the issues Ron had brought up, but their anxiety was of a fortunate sort, as Sirius ihad/i – in a moment of extreme boredom and dubious sobriety during Harry's flit into the catatonic state – placed mines beneath the carpet, just to see what would happen. Their path somehow miraculously avoided every single explosive, and that just goes to show you that heroes have incredible dumb luck. No worries, though; these two rats are going to be killed off by Tommy over there in a couple years (or sixteen years prior, or twenty-six years prior, depending on the timeline), so they'll get what's theirs soon enough.

"Hullo, Mum and Dad," Harry said, too cheerful to spit out the statement with the venom he'd intended. "What is it?"

"Well…" James looked to Lily for comfort, and when he saw her warm smile he continued. "Okay, we just wanted to say that we're really sorry for dying when you were a baby."

"Yes," said Lily. "We didn't mean to."

"It wasn't in our plans," agreed James. "It was sort of inconvenient. I was like, 'Ach! It's Death! Away from me, Death!' And Death was like, 'No, dude, I've got a murder in five minutes. Some wife is killing her husband for cheating on her, and if you don't hurry I'll be late. Oh, by the way, your wife's about to die. Sorry.'"

"You had a conversation with Death?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. He's not a bad guy. Got a crappy job, but that's not his choice. And he's quite a good singer, incidentally."

"And that's not all," pressed Lily. "We also realize how utterly stupid it was to trust Peter with our lives and your life and pretty much the fate of the world. In our defense, that was Sirius's idea, and he had to get us drunk to agree to it."

"No, it was perfectly consensual!" Sirius argued. Upon seeing Lily's – and more importantly, James's – expression, his face fell. "Oh, so we're not talking about that time you and I fooled around in seventh year when James was in the Hospital Wing? Because you took off your shirt before I'd even gotten the Firewhisky out."

"No more of this, I'm killing the bastard –"

"He's joking, James!" Lily tossed her hair over her shoulder and directed a glare towards Sirius. "Right, Sirius?"

"Uh, yeah." Sirius laughed to try to break up the tension. "Man, this is almost as awkward as when Lily told me I might be the father of her unborn baby!"

"That's it, IAVADA KEDAV–"/I

It occurred to Harry that he should be extremely depressed that his parents' marriage was falling apart in front of his eyes, and that the father he loved so dearly was about to kill the godfather he loved so dearly (who might have actually been his father). It was an odd thing, seeing his possible fathers fight each other, but more than anything it was pretty amusing. Suddenly everything seemed funny to Harry.

"So which one is actually my father?" he casually asked Lily. James had Sirius in a headlock.

"Neither," she sighed.

"Oh God, don't tell me it's Snape. That would totally ruin this perfect day."

"Heavens no. Your father is Remus."

Remus gave Harry what would have normally been a very creepy pat on the shoulder, but now Harry just basked in the warmth of his biological father's love. "She's right, son."

"Sweet, I always thought Remus was pretty cool, anyways." He looked at Lily. "So did you sleep with Peter, too?"

"No, and don't make me sound like some… some prostitute!" she spat with disgust. "I mean, James… I married him! And Remus was my best friend back at Hogwarts and the boy I truly loved but because Remus didn't want to hurt James and I was too cowardly to break up with James we never got together. And everyone's slept with Sirius."

"Isn't that the truth," said Remus (because Remus and Sirius are pretty much a canon couple).

"I'm there with you on that one," said Snape.

"What the hell?"

Snape noticed Harry's bewilderment. "After he nearly got me killed in sixth year. I went to go fight him, but we got bored of fighting and so we –"

"Screwed!" chortled Sirius. He had James pinned to the floor, his knee on his throat. "You are so screwed now, my friend! I always knew I'd be the one to kill you."

Voldemort coughed.

"Okay, I give credit where credit is due. But I always knew I could kick your ass!"

"Arse," said Remus.

"Whatever."

"Potter," drawled Snape as James's windpipe began to collapse, "Weasley has been telling me some things you said about me. I wish to know if his allegations are true."

Harry was noncommittal. "Probably. It seems like he's done a pretty good job of telling people what I think of them so far. A few embellishments, but not much."

"Oh."

"What'd he say?"

"I said that you thought Snape was a wonderful, charming man," stated Ron, "and that you'd always enjoyed his class and thought that he was just a champion of happiness and sunshine and bunnies and that stuff."

"And that my efforts to torment you failed completely," added Snape.

Harry took a second to deliberate. Under normal circumstances, he would never go along with anything Ron said, because when Ron made decisions they always ended in disaster. In this case, however, he quite enjoyed the disaster and mayhem Ron had promoted, for everyone else (Ron included) was getting screwed over and Harry was profiting from their misery. He wondered if this was what funeral home owners felt like every day. Suddenly the thought of owning a funeral home became incredibly appealing, as he'd found he very much enjoyed misery, so long as he wasn't the one experiencing it.

"Yep, that's right. You were a great teacher."

"Oh Lord. Where's McGonagall or Dumbledore or anyone? I quit teaching forever!"

Snape stormed off, tugging at his hair, which was entertaining because he could never get a good grip on it due to the copious amounts of grease it exuded.

"There's one slimeball gone," said Harry, satisfied. "Where's Pettigrew?"

"He scurried off earlier," Voldemort mentioned. "Said something about a mousetrap and that he'd never come within a hundred yards of you again."

"Wow, my day just keeps getting better and better!" Harry's eyes stayed on Voldemort. "So, are we on speaking terms again?"

"Yes. I was being foolish earlier. I was letting my anger get the best of me. I was trying to do the right thing, but I wasn't going about it in the correct manner. I realize that you've been right about me. So. Friends?"

"Til the end!" said Harry, and they shook hands.

"Why don't you die?" James screamed as he stabbed Sirius repeatedly in the chest with a fork. "Just bleed out already!"

"Chest protection charm," said Sirius, chuckling. "Keep stabbing away, buddy."

"That's it. I'm going to go find an axe. You can't fight back if you don't have a head!"

"Aw," said Lily. "They look like they're having such fun."

Remus smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "Yes, it's good to see them so happy."

"DIE! DIE, POTTER!" Sirius screamed over the rattling of machine gun fire. James hid behind an overturned table as bullets shot over his head. "I WANT TO SEE YOU SCREAM IN PAIN AS YOU DIE!"

"Makes me almost want to join in on the fun," said Remus, wistfully.

At that moment Hannah Abbott walked by, dressed in a designer suit-dress and talking on an expensive cell phone. "No, I don't care about the stockholders. No, I don't care about the kids in the sweat shops. I especially don't care about the kids in the sweatshops. I want to have a record-setting quarter, do you hear? Lie, cheat, steal, kill. I don't care how you do it. Remember, if you don't do your job, I know where your family lives, and I also know several hitmen quite intimately. Good. Go get 'em, tiger. No pressure."

"Hannah?" asked Harry.

"Hold on… er… Harold!" She seemingly remembered his name. "Harold, baby, how are you doing!"

She came over and gave him a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"It's Harry, actually," he said as she drew back. "How are you? You look… busy."

"Oh, I am, I am," she said. "Exterminaticus Totalicus has just gone through the roof, thanks in large part to the funds we got when you bought out a portion of the company."

"What?"

Ron nudged him in the back.

"Oh yes, I remember! I totally approved that monetary transaction, too."

"Yes, yes. But business has just been going through the roof!"

"Excuse me, but how? Neville's dead."

"I know, but after he died using your money and his life insurance I was able to buy several smaller commodities. Those did well, and then I bought larger commodities, and those didn't do as well, so I hired some criminals to kill off all my rivals. Then business started to boom, and after I bought out several politicians, things just skyrocketed."

"Oh." Murder and corruption. Harry was starting to like Hannah more and more. "I like your style, Abbott."

"Thanks, doll." She reached into her leather purse. "Anyways, here's a sheet describing most of our company statistics. You'll notice our share of the timber market has gone down recently, but we just organized to have the headquarters of our rival company burned down, so that'll sort itself out."

"Good, I guess." He scanned the sheet. "The video game division has really huge losses."

"I know, it's great. It's very profitable to be so unprofitable."

"Pardon?"

"You see, whenever our company's stocks are too high, I sell off all my shares. Then I intentionally make several terrible fiscal decisions, which I don't have to pay for because all my shares have been sold. Then I buy back the shares at a much discounted price, kill off several of our competitors, and then sell the stocks when they're at a high and repeat the process."

"Huh. I never thought it would be so lucrative to be in the red."

"You just don't know business," said Abbott. She got out her cell phone and began absent-mindedly dialing in a number. As she did this, she paced, and eventually she ran into the body of her former lover. "Oh my God! What the hell is this?"

"It's Neville's remains," Ron said. "He's just been hanging out. If you want him you can have him."

She inspected the carcass with a degree of both horror and fascination. "Hm. No, that's all right." She held the phone to her ear; apparently whomever was on the other end had picked up. "Yes, Smithee? I just got a great idea for a business. I know we already own most of the hitman industry, but I'm thinking about self-help classes for people wishing to kill their spouses and cashing in on the life insurance. I think it could potentially be very lucrative."

"I love business," Harry sighed happily.

"Yes," agreed Voldemort. "Killing's always in demand."

For the first time something struck Harry. He had asked Ron to wake him up when the world was less terrible; while Harry was much happier now, he couldn't properly say that the world was any less terrible. If anything, the world was an exponentially more terrible place, but for some reason he was happier than he had ever been. He wondered if maybe this was the way the world worked. Maybe you could only be happy if you made other people unhappy. Maybe happiness was a limited, nonrenewable resource, and if that was the case, then he'd start a proxy war in far-off countries if it meant he could get a better buying rate on happiness. Other people be damned. Everything was all about Harry, all the time. In other words, it was uOrder of the Phoenix/u all over again.

"So, Harry," said Ron, "what do you think? I'd say life is pretty wonderful."

"Yes," Harry agreed. "For me, anyways. And that's all that matters."

Harry was now a full-blown antihero, and damn proud of it. Life was so much more fun when you were a complete jerk. He never had stopped to admire the simple beauty of squishing a bug beneath his heel. But now he relished in the feel of the bug against the pavement, the little screams it made as its stomach crushed in on itself, the gorgeous green stain on the pavement that said, i"To: World, From: Harry Potter - Don't mess with me, okay?"/i

"Come on, Ron. Let's go find some punks robbing a store or something. We can beat them up and then steal the money."

"Oh goody! Is it time to kick ass and take names, like they do in summer blockbusters?"

"Yippee-ki-yay, Ron."

"Wait, Harry!" said Hermione. "We have to have sex first!"

"She's right, Harry," said Voldemort. "So far you haven't been nearly chauvinistic enough to be a proper antiheroic antihero. First you need to objectify some women and then leave them without even giving them your number."

Hermione faced Harry. "Hold on a second! Is that all I am? Only a good lay?"

"No, no, of course not, Hermione!" Harry protested. "You're the love of my life, the star that guides my way, the reason for my existence, et cetera, et cetera. I would never do something like that. I don't want meaningless, cheap sex. I want to make sweet love to you as an acoustic pop-rock song plays in the background! It'll be very deep and meaningful and then I'll probably go off and die in some terribly sacrificial heroic manner."

"Oh Harry!"

Hermione swooned in a completely out-of-character display of sentimentality, and Ron high-fived Harry behind his back.

"Remember, Harry: get what you want and then dump her! And use protection. You don't want her to have anything that might connect you legally, especially not a kid."

"Good advice, if you're looking to be the typical sexist action hero," agreed Voldemort.

"Ron, I hate to say this, but you're a genius. I'm almost sorry that I'm going to sleep with the girl you want to marry."

"I know, Harry."

"It's all right. She's way too smart for you, anyway."

"I know, Harry."

Hermione was an idiotic sex tool, Ron was doomed to foster an unrequited love for the rest of his life, Harry would never seek meaning in his life ever again, and Voldemort just encouraged all this immoral behavior because he'd lost all confidence in himself after Ron had told him what Harry "thought" of him and he couldn't bring himself to stand up to his friend. Voldemort was the Alfred to Harry's Batman, if it was a psycho version of Batman where Batman was an immoral womanizer, Robin was a lovesick self-destructive dolt, and Alfred had two slits for a nose. Everything was rosy, in Harry's opinion.

"Well, if you guys don't mind, Hermione and I are going to go have a nice 'chat,' if you know what I mean…"

"Wait, Harry," said Voldemort. Harry looked at him, and the former Dark Lord nearly lost his nerve. "I know we're all having a thematic exploration of immorality in modern cinema, but we've forgotten something."

"I don't care," grumbled Harry. "I've been the antihero. Now I want to get the girl."

"If you would be so obliged, I think this would sufficiently add to your many accomplishments and only increase your fame."

"I don't care about fame. I care about badassery. It's all about my public image."

"Well, I think it'd make you look very badass. Avenging your mentor's murder is a recurring theme amongst the origin stories of the most badass heroes of all time."

"Are you saying what I think you're saying, Tommy?"

Voldemort began to speak, but Harry held up his hand to stop him. After waiting several seconds to build the tension and cuing a stark piece of ambient music in the background, Harry gestured for his comrade to continue.

"I'm saying," said Voldemort, finally, "that you need to find out who killed Albus Dumbledore."

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