Very sorry for the long delay. I've just finished a grueling orientation that went on for two full weeks - WITHOUT INTERNET CONNECTION. (How do they expect people to live like that?)
I'm afraid this will suffer one more delay, since I've exhausted my cushion chapters, am working full-time, and have perhaps rashly signed up for a Lupin/Tonks challenge that's due end of this month. My prompts, by the way, are diadem and Howler.Diadem, indeed. If anyone has even the faintest idea what to do with those, do send me a message. I'll give due credit.
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Well-Thought Out, Carefully-Researched, Foolproof Infiltration Plan
NARRATIVE: Harry and his two bestest friends have spent the month holed up in the house of Dark Wizards, dodging the Death Eaters posted watch outside, greeted at the door by the dusty shade of my murdered mentor, passing the decapitated house-elf heads on the wall, kicking back with thousand-Galleon prices on their heads…
HARRY: … domestic bliss. *contented sigh*
HARRY'S WAY OF GREETING THE FAMILY AS HE BRINGS HOME THE BACON: I've got news, and you won't like it.
RON: Years down the road, Ginny will get you whipped into shape.
NEWLY-RE-BRAINWASHED!KREACHER: Apocalypse can wait. Master Harry is now washing up before his lovingly-made home-cooked dinner.
HARRY: Oh, Kreacher. *watery-eyed* I've never really had multiple replacement mother figures before…
THE DAILY PROPHET: Snape's headmaster. Cue totally new levels of dramatic irony when rereading the relevant moments in CoS and PoA!
HERMIONE: Er, Harry… sweetie? How are you doing?
HARRY: Eh, it's a dark world out there these days. At least I've got the domestic bliss I've always craved.
HERMIONE: *spluttering* This—this is an outrage! A travesty! Snape's the reason the twins are no longer identical! He's an ear-severer! And now he's Dumbledore's successor! It really cannot be tolerated.
RON: … er?
HERMIONE: Well, Harry's gotten me used to a certain amount of blithering rage whenever the Sole Object of His Eternal Ire comes up, and I just… *blush* it doesn't seem right to let the moment go by.
HERMIONE: Merlin's pants.
RON: *delighted* Hermione, I've been a bad influence on you!
RON: I clearly haven't read the last book. Who are the Carrows?
HARRY: Death Eater types. We've met.
RON: Harry, you're so cool these days. How do you know all this stuff? I can still remember you as the ickle first-year who needed me to explain what Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans were.
HARRY: Well, Ron, while you're busy with your nostalgia, I'll just take comfort in the fact that "at least we know exactly where Snape is now." Which is good, coz the plan is, the second I get this bothersome killing-the-Dark-Lord business out of the way, I'm gonna go after some ex-Potions Master something gruesome.
SNAPE FANGIRLS: Ha. You can try, Potter. Nameless, faceless Death Eater mooks almost rumbled you at your own doorstep two pages ago.
RON: Yeah, that happens to me every time. *stretches and relaxes*
SNAPE FANGIRLS: … if we're lucky that sort of nonchalance will get you offed.
OTHER FANS: God, you lot are haters.
SNAPE FANGIRLS: That is rather the point.
HERMIONE: *overreaction*
RON: *defensive*
HERMIONE: *high-pitched*
RON: Sheesh—
HARRY: All right, all right, I can't take all this flirting and cuteness during my lonely singlehood! I'm now declaring an immediate implementation of our desperate, daring, and dangerously under-researched plan to infiltrate the Ministry and steal Dolores Umbridge's bit of Voldemort's soul.
RON: … way to kill the mood, mate.
HERMIONE: B…B—But our so-called plan is desperate, daring, and dangerously under-researched!
HARRY: That's the beauty of it.
RON: All right, but I'm gonna get my chivalry on now, because Hermione is under the most danger. You can tell coz her name's in the Prophet.
HERMIONE: Frightening a precedent as this seems to be, you're in at least as much danger, Mr. Spattergroit Ghoul—
HARRY: Look, I'm Chosen One. I win.
SUDDEN ONSET OF PSYCHOTIC MIND-MELD WITH DARK LORD: *proves his point*
And this mind-meld is particularly traumatic because people are speaking in German. There's that silly little capital-B-in-cursive and everything! Bleagh.
HARRY: Saw Voldemort killing some motherly Teutonic broad. God, I miss the Diggory beefcake during my spells of helpless homicide witness.
RON: So what's all this about?
HARRY: God knows, maybe. Certainly Rowling's editors don't. But wands. Wands are important.
RON: *starts to open mouth*
HERMIONE: Shut it, Ronald.
RON: Look, I understand now that it's not all about wandwork! I'm maturing you see.
HARRY: And Ollivander doesn't understand the current plotpoint about my wand doing magic of its own accord any more than the rest of us.
HERMIONE: If it's magic that's too arcane for Ollivander, then the accessibility of this book's plot is in serious danger indeed.
Harry shines his wandlight on the old school photograph of the Marauders and stares at it as he falls asleep.
Yeah… I swear, it's like Rowling was deliberately setting out to make this history's most disturbing cap to a bestselling adolescent fantasy series. Unfortunately for her, Breaking Dawn came out a year later. You can't blame the woman for underestimating the standard bar, to be sure.
HARRY: Hey! It's not like I was thinking of the Marauders instead of my life-endangering hijinks tomorrow.
READERSHIP: Oh? That's something then.
HARRY: No, I fell asleep thinking of Gregorovitch, wandmaker of my dreams.
READERSHIP: … *headdesk*
TOMORROW: *quite predictably comes*
RON: Blimey, Harry, didn't you even try to rest up for our desperate, daring, and dange—
HARRY: That bit wasn't that funny to begin with, and it's just annoying now.
HERMIONE: All right, men! I'm in exam-taking mode. Ready with the disguises. And the alliterated Weasley Wizard Wheeze products, fun for the whole future-family.
GRED AND FORGE: *voice-over* Saving the world, one Skiving Snackbox at a time.
KREACHER: Master and Blood-Traitor and Muggle-Born Scum is having a good day defying the Ministry now! And is staying safe! And is getting home in time for dinner!
RON: *and this is a direct quote, mind you* Bless him. And when you think I used to fantasize about cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall.
READERS OF TENDER DELICACIES: *disturbed*
IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG READERS: We sure do enjoy all the age-inappropriateness.
HERMIONE: *Stuns Ministry witch from behind Invisibility Cloak*
MIZ PARODY LADY: *never understands how you can do that, are you sending spells through the cloak without damaging it?*
RON: *looks for their victim's ID* She's that annoying underage-magic Nazi from Books 2 and 5.
HARRY: Nope, don't remember her.
HERMIONE: Ron, considering what's going to go down next chapter-and-a-half, I wouldn't be making casual Nazi jokes.
THE TRIO'S NEXT VICTIM: Apparently I hate being a maintenance drone.
MAFALDA!HERMIONE: You know what's good for that? Sweets! Like lots of sweets! I have sweets! Here! Take one! Take one now, goddammit!
MR MAGICAL MAINTENANCE: *very frightened* … Er, thank you? *and then vomits his guts out on the alley*
MAFALDA!HERMIONE: Oh dear. I guess you'll just have to call off.
MR MAGICAL MAINTENANCE: Are you insane, woman? The fiery forces of a thousand infernos could not keep me from going to work today.
MAFALDA!HERMIONE: … damn, clearly we picked the wrong victim.
MAFALDA!HERMIONE: All right, Ron, here's the hair for your potion! It took him physically puking his guts onto the alley and a lot of magical violence, but I finally got Magical Maintenance guy to play hooky today!
RON: *blanches* Er, can I draw another character for this charade? I'm not sure I can get into this one's motivation.
CATTERMOLE!RON: *slowly craning his neck up to Harry's new face* Dude, Harry, you've got… height…
RUNCORN!HARRY: This is flipping awesome. I knew this plan was a good idea.
MINISTRY DRONES: Oh, it's another lovely morning literally flushing ourselves down a toilet!
RUNCORN!HARRY: … you say what now?
MAFALDA!HERMIONE, ONCE THEY'VE U-BENT THEMSELVES INSIDE THE MINISTRY: Well that wasn't taking office stereotyping a little too far, I don't think.
RON: I think it's pretty funny actually. Coz they're toilets, y'know? And bogs are funny?
HERMIONE: *shakes her head with grave moral superiority*
HERMIONE: *pithy, bated commentary on the Ministry's latest statue on Wizarding imperialism*
YAXLEY: God, dealing with you Ministry drones is so much less fun than murdering people in robes and hoods!
RON: Oh my God, he's looking for me. Crap, he's coming straight for me!
YAXLEY: Cattermole! Shouldn't you be in my office, doing menial but highly specialized charmwork?
CATTERMOLE!RON: … effing hell, it's like squirming and stammering under a McGonagall glare of death.
NAMELESS MINISTRY DRONE FROM REGULATION AND CONTROL OF MAGICAL CREATURES, aka BALDING ARSE-KISSER: Gee, Runcorn, awfully sharp of you to nail Dirk Cresswell in some ominously unnamed way. Otherwise I'd have to try to get his job on my own credentials or something and wouldn't that blow. *departs whistling*
RUNCORN!HARRY: … apparently I'm playing a bit of a bastard.
CATTERMOLE!RON: *hissing* At least your character isn't a bloke whose wife is going to suffer some ominously unnamed fate if you don't pass a practical Charms exam!
MAFALDA!HERMIONE: Don't worry, I will help you cheat on this one!
THE TWO NEW ENTRANTS INTO THE LIFT: Oh we don't think so.
ONE OF THE NEW ENTRANTS INTO THE LIFT: is the demented, Imperiused Minister of Magic, orchestrator of all this racist secret-police evil, and Voldemort doppelganger.
THE ENTRANT OUR INTREPID HEROES ARE REALLY FRIGHTENED BY: Dolores-bloody-Umbridge.
DOLORES-BLOODY-UMBRIDGE: *smiles*
DRAMATIC CHORD: Dun-dun-dun-dun.