CHAPTER 10:

ON THE STRANGENESS OF TWO OLD WIZARDS

Dumbledore scowled impatiently. He had given the recipe for the chocolate cake to the House Elves, and he wanted that chocolate cake now, Merlin-dammit! He needed that Theobroma transcendence! As in, medically needed it! Well, not really, but hey, this Dumbledore lived in a world of his own, where other people's opinions, along with the laws of morality, society, and fashion, had absolutely no truck whatsoever. And he liked it like that.

He also liked confectionary.

The rationalisation he had made for it in his mind was that, being the Most Powerful Wizard Since Merlin™, he needed a lot of sugar to fuel his magical reserves. This actually isn't that much of a delusion: magic did tend to eat through calories quite strongly.

However, a more fundamental, Freudian reason was that his brother and sister had a bad habit of hogging the sweets and stealing them from him whenever they had the chance. Well, look who was laughing now? His sister was…well, actually, even Dumbledore didn't think she deserved death for stealing his sweets. Not at the time, anyway. But his brother deserved to be nothing more than a dubious publican with a thing for goat-specific zooerastia. That was more than he deserved for the heinous crime of stealing Albus' sweeties, being known as Aberforth, the Goat-Buggerer.

It was partly the loss of control over his sweets that also led to him being a massive control freak. He didn't view his puppets as pieces on a chess board, but rather, more like a checker board made out of Smarties. Much more colourful.

Speaking of game pieces, Dumbledore was a little annoyed. Harry Potter hadn't turned up at the Dursleys. The Dursleys themselves had disappeared. And, recently, both Sirius Black and Remus Lupin had gone incommunicado, along with the newly-vampirised Tonks. All of which was more than a little concerning. That, plus the rumbles he heard from within the bowels of the Ministry which portended what was known in technical and polite terms as a shitstorm. He knew Fudge wouldn't have taken the warning about Voldemort's return very well, the cowardly, inept, bribe-taking piece of shit, but the smear campaign would be irritating to weather.

The truth was, Dumbledore never started evil. Nobody really is born evil. And like too many who turned to evil, he was the epitome of someone who walked a road to hell, paved with good intentions. As Luna noted before, it was the accolades he was showered with after defeating his ex that had Dumbledore begin to head down a path Grindlewald had nearly brought him down. But in a different way. Grindlewald wanted to rule overtly, wielding power like a whip or a hammer. But Dumbledore understood subtlety. He understood it better than most Slytherins, and he had been a Gryffindor!

Sadly, things had, by now, degenerated to the point where he believed himself, in his lemon drop-addled mind, to be sole arbiter of virtue in Magical Britain, and any dissent was to be dealt with. His controlling tendencies had grown to Brobdingnagian proportions (try saying that adjective quickly three times!), as had his ego. Oh, he would act humble and eccentric, like the grandfather you always wanted secretly, but in truth, he was nowhere near as benign as he acted. People thought he was past his prime, and while that was certainly the case, that certainly didn't mean he was weak. In fact, he was probably still in the Top 5 most powerful wizards alive in Magical Britain, and the Top 10 in the world. He was still smart and cunning, age doing surprisingly little to dull his faculties. Oh, his faculties were being dulled, but it wasn't age that was doing it.

It was hubris.

The sad thing was, Dumbledore could have been a force for good. In other times and realities, he was. But sadly, he wasn't. Which was why the Pudding Club had no compunction about feeding him a cake that would cause him to act crazier.

With a pop, a rather generous slice of chocolate cake appeared in front of Dumbledore in his office. "Thank you," he said, absently, to the House Elf that had delivered it. If there was one undeniably decent thing about this Dumbledore, it was that he was genuinely, if a little condescendingly, nice to the House Elves under him. Then again, they did as they were told, and brought him what he wanted with no complaint, so it was nothing to be nice to them.

What he didn't know was, through orders relayed through Snape, Dobby was currently watching Dumbledore from a corner of the office. He had set up cameras around the room, video cameras enchanted to be able to record things. Fawkes could have warned Dumbledore, but Fawkes didn't like the old wether he was forcibly bound to, and was going to sit back and enjoy the show. The bribe of a few matchboxes' worth of matches and a small bottle of petrol was a welcome bonus(1).

Half an hour after eating the Theobroma Theophany, Dumbledore was swatting at little motes of light, giggling. "I see them now! Wrackspurts! Xenophilus was right! Oh dearie me, I must clear the air of them!"

An hour after his cake, Dumbledore was naked. This wasn't an unusual state of affairs while he was alone in his office, and the door was locked. However, this time, the door was unlocked, the gargoyle not blocking the way, and Minerva McGonagall, coming in to deliver some paperwork that needed to be signed, got to see Dumbledore, in his naked glory, singing about being part of the Midnight Crew(2) to Fawkes.

He didn't notice McGonagall enter, stop, stare in appalled silence, and then finally turn on her heel and leave, the Deputy Headmistress resolving to try and forget the incident either through copious amounts of scotch, or a decent Memory Charm. She was going to try the former first. Dumbledore's beard may have been long enough to tuck into his belt when he was wearing one, and it was certainly long enough to cover his genitals, but it was still a traumatising experience…

"…And that is why I think insufflating lemon sherbets is most salutary for nasopharyngeal health," Dumbledore concluded his lecture, wondering why his audience wasn't applauding his genius. "Incidentally, Gellert, Ariana wants to have your lovechild, but I told her you had a vasectomy charm on your testicles thanks to Aberforth. That being said, I am willing to share our bed. What do you say? Two Dumbledore siblings for the price of one…"

"Why, no, Mr Eric Blair, I don't think the surveillance on Harry Potter was intrusive at all, so it's nothing like that book of yours(3). You disagree? Well, fie upon thee! And fire upon thee! Incendio!"

A portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black shrieked rather girlishly, and rushed for another portrait frame as the unhinged Dumbledore set the painting aflame.

"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc," Dumbledore murmured(4). Then, he fell asleep, lying on the floor in front of his desk. Loud snores came from the naked old man with the abnormally long beard (which Luna strongly suspected to be a parasitic moss that fed on lemon sherbet, and was a theory that Harry and Hermione didn't wholly dismiss out of hand). Dobby smiled, glad it was over. He looked over at Fawkes, who gave a grin of his own, insomuch as a bird could grin. The pair of them made their way out of the Headmaster's Office by their own means. Fawkes was going to gorge on the matchsticks and petrol, while Dobby had a video to deliver…

And what of Voldemort?

"…And when he ate what I fed to him, it turned him into something out of a goddamned healer's encyclopaedia!" Voldemort said to his spellbound audience. Literally, spellbound. He had to use Body-Binds to keep them (well, save for a few of the more morbidly-interested ones) in place while he regaled them with a tale from his misspent youth, learning the Dark Arts.

"His head swelled up like a watermelon, he gained over a hundred pounds in a little over two hours, he got claws, bleeding warts, and then THAT'S when I noticed the sextet of huge, hairy breasts growing out of his back(5)!" Voldemort then shrugged. "That was the last time I let Rookwood make potions for me. I wanted superwizards! Wizards capable of setting the sky afire and turning the seas into excrement and blood! But…I am, as always, surrounded by incompetents or madmen. I wonder why that is? Is it my charisma? My machismo? I mean, LOOK AT MY BODY!"

He tore open his robes to reveal his skeletal form. And he pointed to it. Or rather, a specific part of him. "SEE THIS? THIS MAKES NAGINI ENVIOUS! SHE WANTS TO BE THAT LONG! AND I'VE TRIED, AND TRIED, AND TRIED, BUT I CAN'T GET IT UP!" After a moment's uncomfortable silence, he added, "I mean, her body length. I can't get that up." He then got back onto his theme. "BUT THIS! THIS THING…OH, BACK IN THE SEVENTIES, BELLA LOVED THIS! SHE CALLED IT THE MONSTER FROM THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS! AND I DID NOT ENHANCE ITS LENGTH WITH DUBIOUS RITUALS!"

Actually, he did. But that's a story for another time…

"I just want to be loved," Voldemort wept as he hugged Nagini. "Is it too much to ask? You love me, don't you, Nagini?"

"Yes, Master," she hissed in Parseltongue.

"I love you too, Nagini. And with Bella missing, I need someone else. I could go and bang Malfoy's wife, but she doesn't have that edge of cruelty and sadism and serpent-tongued thingy that you have. Why oh why can't you be more human-like?! I'd be on you like…some metaphor I can't think of yet."

Now, Voldemort's magic, reacting wildly to his intoxicated state, decided to grant him his wish. There was a flare of magic that blinded and dazzled those present, and when they blinked the afterimages from their eyes, they saw that Nagini had changed significantly.

For one thing, she had limbs now. Long slender limbs. Covered in scales, of course. Oh, and she had breasts. Her face was beautiful, albeit in a somewhat cruel way, long and elegant. Her eyes were golden with slitted pupils. Her hair was green. If you could ignore the scales, and let's face it, a lot of people would, she was instantly desirable. Oh, and she was naked. Gloriously so.

Then again, so was Voldemort. Somewhat less gloriously so. Well, his robes were in tatters, enough to show his endowment. Which had gone from flaccid to priapic in two seconds flat.

It was, oddly enough, Nagini who took the initiative, lunging forward and snogging her master hard. And, well, it all went downhill from there. For those watching, anyway, including a certain House Elf…

As the video of what they had captured in both Hogwarts and Voldemort's lair came to an end, well, reactions were understandably mixed. Remus and Tonks were fighting each other to get to the nearest sink or toilet to indulge in a technicolour yawn, Harry and Hermione looked mortified, Luna was laughing, and Sirius was tilting his head. "Huh. I guess you can do it like that. Must be because she was once a snake. More flexible than a human."

"Damn you, Luna," Hermione muttered in a lost voice. "No, seriously. After you had Harry turn me into a vampire, I've gotten more nightmare fuel than I had when mortal. I did not need to see Dumbledore naked, I did not need to see Voldemort naked, and I certainly didn't need to see Voldemort having sex with Nagini!"

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Luna pouted.

"Died a slow painful death when I ate Snape," Hermione said utterly deadpan.

"Well, when we're older, we can try a few of those things we saw," Luna said. "We can even have Nymphadora join in. Metamorphs are great for sexual experimentation, aren't they Nymphadora?"

What Tonks tried to exclaim was something along the lines of Fuck off, but as she had to open her mouth to do so, it became, thanks to the torrent of vomit that splashed all over Remus' robes and shoes, "Fugorrrrrfffffffhhhhk!"

Harry, after a moment, said to Hermione, "Please tell me you know how to either distil a Brain Bleach potion, or a VERY precise Memory Charm."

"Working on it," Hermione said. Then, rather too casually, she asked, "Luna, are vampires vulnerable to strangulation?"

"Nope. Decapitation, yes, strangulation, no. And no, I'm not into that sort of kink."

"I wasn't asking about any kink," Hermione growled.

"I know."

CHAPTER 10 ANNOTATIONS:

So, there you have it. More crack. I wanted to put in Luna channelling Dio Brando because I can, but couldn't figure out the right place to put it. So, maybe next chapter, we can have Luna screaming "ZA WARUDO!" and using steamrollers as weapons. Oh, and the current title is On the Nuances of Vampire Puberty. No, really.

The concept of a human Nagini is one I used before. In Tales of the Fall, my omakes compilation for my Highschool DxD crossover Fall to Zenith, I did an omake where a transformed Nagini and Serafall Leviathan play beach volleyball with Voldemort…who has been turned into a Prinny. No, really. And quite frankly, if Voldemort could turn Nagini into a human, he'd be banging her before you can say Avada Kedavra. Hell, I'm sure he could have persuaded Bellatrix to have a threesome with a transformed Nagini. Have fun with that mental image, by the way.

Review-answering time! I've had more than a few complaints about the fourth wall being broken in the last chapter. To which I say, tough shit. This is MY story, and it is a crackfic. If you don't like it, the door is there. Don't let it hit you on the arse on the way out. This is easily one of my most popular fics (it'll reach my top ten in terms of favourites and alerts with this chapter, I reckon), and so I must be doing SOMETHING right. Some fanfics are works of high literature. Others are trash. And yet others are basically meant to be fun. You know, FUN? So just sit back, disengage your brain a little, and have fun. Otherwise, go away. Or else read some of my more serious fics if you want. It's your choice.

Okay, now that that's over, time for the actual reviews. A few mentioned a Sekirei fic. I've already started a Potterverse crossover with Sekirei, a WBWL story called Wings of the Forsaken. I've also done a crossover with Pirates of the Caribbean, called Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, An Ashikabi's Life for Me.

Dis Lexic: It's not the first time I've had Luna shatter the fourth wall. I did this in one of my earlier fanfics, Harry Gainsborough and the Philosopher's Stone, the sequel to Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage. Then again, Gilgamesh in the former acted like Deadpool. I don't know why some people get sick of a wacky Luna. She's fun to write and fun to read.

PikaMew1288: Pikachu will be less of a sidekick and more of a recurring accomplice. If I can be arsed remembering him.

imortal333: Sadly, Alucard won't be making an appearance any time soon. That being said, if you want some semi-Abridged Alucard action, why not try my Hellsing crossovers Haemophilia and The Uncertainty Principle?

1. In Tempest of the Fae by DMentor (put a dot between the D and Mentor), Fawkes enjoys eating matches (presumably they're junk food for a Phoenix) and petrol (which is like alcohol), so Harry, Luna and Hermione, through the Sorting Hat's guidance, actually helps Fawkes obtain these things. Unfortunately, Fawkes has been known to raid McGonagall's stash of matchsticks (the ones turned into needles for Transfiguration), much to her ire.

2. Some of you might think this is a Homestuck or MS Paint Adventures reference, but there's actually a song from the early 1900s about the Midnight Crew, one which was turned into an acapella song for a Homestuck album (and I'm sure a snatch from the original song is heard at the start of the flash animated scene [S] Jack: Ascend). Presumably they're what the characters were named for.

3. You're wondering what the fuck Dumbledore is talking about? Well, Eric Blair actually wrote a very famous novel under a pseudonym. Said pseudonym was George Orwell. Said novel was, of course, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

4. The family motto of the Addams Family in the films. Mock Latin for 'We joyfully feast on those who seek to subdue us'.

5. Voldemort is paraphrasing Doctor Gonzo's remarks on the dangers of eating pineal gland from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.