deadlyhollow | Chapter Thirty Three--The Prince's Tale (Reply)

This endeavour having caused erastes to have a nervous breakdown, she’s had to take herself off to a remedial writing course where she is being soothed with the cool application of the proper use of colons and gentle repetition of sentence structure until she recovers.

Her spork therefore will be conducted by our old friends The Random Death Eaters (1 and 2) who some of you may not have met before. You know them, though. The ones who joined up because the uniform was cool, (“it was! Leather and pointy hats”) or because they thought they could get girls (“well we did.” “Yeah, if we Stunned them”) The ones that always lurk around at the back (“well, wouldn’t YOU? You saw what happened when they told him about the vault”) and the last ones to volunteer for anything… They are the Nobby Nobbes and the Fred Colon of the Bad Guys. Keeping out of the rain, keeping out of trouble. They may never be famous but they might just make it through this alive.

Voldemort once said that he was often defeated by Luck and Chance, so lets give these boys names for once.. I introduce Chuck, and Lance, the Random Death Eaters.

Chapter Thirty-Three
The Prince's Tale

In which we are supposed to believe six impossible things before Breakfast.

1. That a potions expert who worked as double agent with a psycho with a big snake wouldn't be saturated with antidote.... I'll let you work out the others.

Harry remained kneeling at Snape's side, simply staring down at him, until quite suddenly a high, cold voice

Chuck: Oo er. It’s His Nibs.

Lance: Don’t worry. Harry won’t realise who it is. He never does. May I ask how Nagini killed Severus, but Harry survived her bite?

spoke so close to them that Harry jumped on his feet, the flask gripped tightly in his hands, thinking that Voldemort had re-entered the room.

Chuck: Wow. That’s one clever flask.

Lance: I used to have one like that. I had to smash it. Never stopped bloody singing.

Chuck: It’s funny that the flask recognises Sir’s voice immediately when Mr too-lucky to live often has great trouble working it out.

Voldemort's voice reverberated from the walls and floor, and Harry realized that he was talking to Hogwarts

Chuck: Harry was talking to Hogwarts? My head hurts. Who’s writing this tripe? Jeffrey Archer?

Lance: At least he went to prison.

Chuck: But not for offenses against the English language.

Lance: Shame. A good dose of Azkaban would suit both Jeff and Jo.

and to all the surrounding area, that the residents of Hogsmeade and all those still fighting in the castle would hear him as clearly as if he stood beside them, his breath on the back of their necks, a deathblow away

Chuck: He's invented the magical loudspeaker! Now that would have been a handy device for the school, don't you think? Hang on… Is this movie canon or is it in the books?

Lance: The only canon I remember was a made up one of Filch’s

Chuck: I think that’s the only one Jo recalls, too.

"You have fought," said the high, cold voice, "valiantly.

Lance: You have chosen…… wisely.

Chuck: You watch far too many Muggle films

Lance: I won’t be watching this one, that’s for sure.

...Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery."

Chuck: He never used to talk about himself in the third person did he?

Lance: I don't think so, it's caused some problems for Greyback and the Snatchers too. Everytime He Who Must Not Be Named (and, you'd think the clue would be in the name, wouldn't you?) refers to himself in the third person, they have to choice but to SWOOSH to his side. Can be a bit awkward when he's practising his speeches in the bath.

Chuck: Do you think that Peter’s resurrection potion from Little Hangleton went wrong and His Nibs is becoming a house elf?

Lance: I wouldn’t mind if he stuck to one or the other, but to constantly change form first to third is just showing a lack of finesse. Dobby was better at it than he is.

Chuck: Dobby was better at a lot of things.

Lance: Ewww! You didn’t!

Chuck: Hey! Don’t you judge me. He was unemployed! And if you can't love your Elf, who...

Lance: SHUT UP!

Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen.

Chuck: *raises hand* Oh, Sir! I do! I do! Let me!!

Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.

Lance: *coughs* Yeah, right. Sooo. Moaning Myrtle, Hepzibah Smith, Susan Bones' grandparents, Dorcas Meadows, Lily and James Potter, Bertha Jorkins Cedric Diggory , Charity Burbage, 'Mad Eye' Moody, Gregorovitch, Gellert Grindelwald, Severus Snape…

Chuck: Don’t forget all those when they told him about the vault…

Lance: I don’t.. All those were a waste, Sir? Some of them were loyal! Some of them were only telling you the truth!

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately.

Lance: You know I know that you say I watch too many films but if I didn’t know better I'd think this was a hoax along the lines of The Wizard of Oz. Sir is allegedly speaking, but if Idiot-boy were to go up to one of the wall hangings and twitch it aside, he'll probably find Lucius Malfoy working a big machine.

Chuck: I’d like him to work my big ma….

Lance: Do you mind? He tells Harrykins to give himself up.

"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity.

Lance: Oh I do love it when he gets all illiterate.

Chuck: Alliterate, you moron. It’s JKR who’s the illiterate one. Anyway, can we get on with the plot? Voldemort challenges Harry to come to him or he'll start killing everyone, one by one.

Lance: Now, grateful as I am that they didn’t think of this, but I do happen to know that the Muggles have armies.

Chuck: Where do they keep them?

Lance: I know you want me to say “up their sleevies” but I’m trying to make a point here. You know. Commandos?

Chuck: No underwear? HUBBA!

Lance: *sigh * No. With guns and tanks and long range shells! Granted, His Nibs and us brave minions might be able to kill a good many, turn the tanks into hippos and rifles into bunches of flowers but I wouldn’t be surprised if Might conquered Magic. It simply isn't like the English government to put up with this crap, and if the Ministry kept them out of it, then more fool them, I say.

Lance: And Ron and Hermione tell Harry not to go. You’d think they’d be pushing him in Sir’s direction, after the Carry on Camping book. Oh he's still rambling on...

Treat your injured. "I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself.

Chuck: So he's just noticed, huh? SNIP! While Sir gives his ultimatum. Harry looks down at Snape and

He did not know what to feel, except shock at the way Snape had been killed, and the reason for which it had been done.

Lance: Blech. What a horrible sentence. And of course he doesn't know how to feel, he's not a real boy.

They crawled back through the tunnel, none of them talking,

Chuck: or… silently?

and Harry wondered whether Ron and Hermione could still hear Voldemort ringing in their heads as he could. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest…One hour…

Lance: JKR must think the readers have no memory at ALL.

Small bundles seemed to litter the lawn at the front of the castle

Chuck: I did those! My handiwork, that.

Lance: They are children!

Chuck: Hey! I heard what they did to that group in the Ministry! They threatened me with Jellylegs Jinxes! I had to defend myself!

There was no other sign of Grawp or of his attacker.

Lance: Well, if the story had one good outcome, it was that. Did anyone work out the point of Grawp yet?

The castle was unnaturally silent. There were no flashes of light now, no bangs or screams or shouts.

Chuck: Wow. I wonder if that's because it was silent?

The flagstones of the deserted entrance hall were stained with blood. Emeralds were still scattered all over the floor,

Lance: Grab them! They'll save you from a job at McMagic Burger, Ron! How could they see them, please? Isn’t it pitch dark? They go into the Great Hall next. All the tables have been STOLEN!

Chuck: You told me to make a fence with them.

Lance: I told you to FENCE them, you idiot!

Harry could not see Fred's body, because his family surrounded him. George was kneeling at his head; Mrs. Weasley was lying across Fred's chest

Lance: but apart from Fred’s head and his chest, he couldn't see Fred at all.

Chuck: What’s Harry doing?

Lance: What Harry does best. Nothing. Watching. Running away. He doesn't even comfort that blind kid.

Chuck: What blind kid?

Lance: The one who went out with him last year.

Harry reeled backward from the doorway. He could not draw breath. He could not bear to look at any of the other bodies, to see who else had died for him. He could not bear to join the Weasleys, could not look into their eyes, when if he had given himself up in the first place, Fred might never have died… He turned away and ran up the marble staircase

Lance: Brave Sir Harry!

Chuck: *sings* He is packing it in and packing it up, And sneaking away and buggering off, he's going upstairs, to have a big mope...

Lupin, Tonks… He yearned not to feel… He wished he could rip out his heart, his innards, everything that was screaming inside him…

Lance: Oh please. Now he gets empathy? I thought he spelled it with an M for Moron. And he only had to ask, I'd have ripped out his innards for him. Accio Innards!

The castle was completely empty; even the ghosts seemed to have joined the mass mourning in the Great Hall.

Chuck: One hates to nitpick; one isn't an orang-utan, but if everyone was in the Great Hall then the castle wasn't empty. Maybe the Great Hall isn't in the castle now.

Lance: And can you believe that Snape passworded his office "Dumbledore"?

Chuck: I can believe that a hell of a lot more readily than I can the Lucky Boy coming up with it. He really did love that old man, didn't he. Yuk. Rita was right - that relationship was unnatural.

Lance: Says the man with the Elf-love.

Chuck: Oh God. This is the garden of Gethsemane isn't it? I feel ill. Now - I didn't want the Little Git to get any help, but don't you think it strange that ALL the portraits were empty when Harry got up into Snape's office? I mean DumbleBORE was allegedly fond of the Oik-that-lived, wouldn't you think he would have hung around to give Harry some of his advice? At this crucial time?

Lance: Well then, it wouldn't be Harry's choices that defined him, would it?

Chuck: *laughs* Yeah, right. He really fell for that crap, didn't he? Dumbles really was an evil bastard, wasn't he?

Lance: And of course, Borem-all has to EXPLAIN IT ALL later, and he can't do it now... That would spoil the suspense!

Chuck: What suspense?

Lance: Oh yeah, right. Right so Brave Sir Harry decides to run away even further.

To escape into someone else's head would be a blessed relief… Nothing that even Snape had left him could be worse than his own thoughts.

Chuck: Oh I don't know. Look in the bottom drawer. I'll say something for His Nibs though, if the sneaker was on the other foot, and HE had to present himself to Harry within an hour to save lives, he wouldn't be FARTING ABOUT sticking his head into other people's memories. Why not have a stiff one.

Lance: Please!

Chuck: A DRINK I mean - and watch a DVD while you are at it? Phone for pizza and a stripper. After all, no-one's DEPENDING ON YOU, ARSEHOLE.

and without hesitating, with a feeling of reckless abandonment,

Lance: Reckless and Abandoning. Yep. That sums his personality up.

as though this would assuage his torturing grief, Harry dived. He fell headlong into sunlight, and his feet found warm ground.

Chuck: Has he lost his shoes and socks?

When he straightened up, he saw that he was in a nearly deserted playground. A single huge chimney dominated the distant skyline.

Lance: Oh one of those dreams. Very phallic

Chuck: SNIP! as Harry fails to recognise young Snape despite having seen him twice before in visions and Pensieves. And Lily proves that despite everything JKR says wizards CAN fly.

Lance: Sir can fly.

Chuck: Yes, but he's SUPER. I hear he's going to wear his underpants outside his robes next.

Lance: Wait a minute... This is YET another Newspaper device isn't it?

Chuck: Yep. And I bet the readers are sick to death of them. It seems that Jo is completely incapable of letting Harry and the readers learn ANYTHING directly.

Lance: SNIP! Snape tells Lily she's a witch.

Harry wondered why he did not take off the ridiculously large coat, unless it was because he did not want to reveal the smock beneath it.

Chuck: I don't know why. Would an 9? year old boy care? And smocks were in fashion in this era.

Lance: SNIP! as Snape tells Lily she's a witch. Didn't he do this already?

Snape, and even with his poorly cut hair

Chuck: I don't get this - Harry's hair was almost shaved off in book one and it grew back. You'd think Snape's would too.

Lance: HUGE SNIP! as we are told all about Sev's everlasting love for Lily Evans and the quite understandable want to have her, over the dead bodies of James and Harry.

Chuck: *sniffles* I thought it was sweet.

Lance: Don't tell lies.

Chuck: Hey. Read the tee-shirt. DEAF-EATER, remember? I'm supposed to be EVIL.

he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone…

Chuck: High on a hill stood a lonely Severus.

Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air.

Lance: Oh that's nice. Dubbledore gets a Speshul Snowflake Apparation effect. Trust him to show off.

Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees

Chuck: I don't see what the connection is with the first part of the sentence to the second part.

Lance: Perhaps Snape worships the God of Lightning?

Chuck: Thor?

Lance: Yes, thank you, I am a little. It's these new leather pants.

and his wand had flown out of his hand. "Don't kill me!"

"That was not my intention."

Lance: Not yet, anyway.

Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.

Chuck: Its GOD!

Lance: Well, he thinks he is.

Chuck: And JKR.

"Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?"

Lance: Well, this is interesting. His Nibs and Double-dealing in cahoots were they? VERY interesting.

You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down – kill them all – "

Chuck: Yanno, I never understood why Sir didn't kill all the boys born in July, to be honest.

Lance: Is any of this understandable?

Chuck: Good point.

Lance: Double-dore says he will keep them safe. Or rather he doesn't.

Please." "And what will you give me in return, Severus?"

Chuck: Was this your first Grooming, Albus?

"In – in return?" Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, "Anything."

Lance: Apparently not. SNIP!

"I thought…you were going…to keep her…safe…"

Chuck: Safe? Since when has anyone been safe around Dumbledore?

"She and James put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore. "Rather like you, Severus.

Lance: Yes. They did. So does everyone. They put their faith in YOU!

Chuck: The Pensieve thing goes on... and on... retro-filling like MAD....

"You are a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon…"

Chuck: You think? If you think that, plankton-brain, why don't you change the system?

Lance: Disgusting that ones entire life is based on which house you belonged to, and any attributes you have are ampliied. Surely it would be better to put Slythie possibles into Gryffindor and so on, so they could learn OTHER traits and appreciate them.

Chuck: *looks at Lance as if he's never seen him before.*

Lance: What? I do think about this stuff, you know.

Chuck: Hurrah! DD's killed himself! Severus thinks he's an idiot.

Harry could tell that he wanted to say more on the subject of Dumbledore's cursed hand, but the other held it up in polite refusal to discuss the matter further

Lance: Yeesh. If you can unscramble that sentence you are a better man than I, Bungitin

. Scowling, Snape said, "The Dark Lord does not expect Draco to succeed. This is merely punishment for Lucius's recent failures.

Chuck: Magiviagra, Lucius! It will stop any of those sort of failures!

Lance: They yak about Draco for a bit and Sev shows that he understands Draco a little better than Dumb-One.

"If you don't mind dying," said Snape roughly, "why not let Draco do it?"

"That boy's soul is not yet so damaged," said Dumbledore. "I would not have it ripped apart on my account."

Chuck: This flies completely in the face of Sprout leading Neville and others to kill via Mandrake. Perhaps this only happens when you do it with a wand. I don't think there's much hope for Draco's soul after what he did in the last book

Lance: Severus agrees to kill Dumbledore. I'm surprised that there wasn't a line of volunteers, to be frank.

Chuck: More backstory, which isn't very interesting. Harry has Lily's eyes, Sev hates him, Sev loves Lily. Yadda Yadda Yadda--- and we are back at the camping trip OF DOOM.

"Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor

Lance: Jumping into a pond will do nicely, then. Heaven forbid that Severus use his prestigious skill like he did in book one with the Potions Riddle. Ah yes - Hermione solved that, didn't she? Severus did his best to kill Harry, in fact most people did, but .. oh well.

Chuck: Can we go now? Is that it?

Lance: Yep. That's it. All is well.

Chuck: You think?

Lance: Not really. Not for them. But for us? Yes. All we have here are perfect conditions for a New Dark Lord to emerge in a few years.