Chapter 5 – in which Voldemort reads the paper, Harry makes friends and Bob is suspicious
HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED: NEW HEIGHTS OF RUTHLESSNESS
By Rita Skeeter
It is your reporter's honour to shed light on one more of You-Know-Who's cruelties. Is terrorizing, torturing, killing and maiming no longer enough for the Waxen Warlock? It seems not. Witnesses have reported that during a raid in the suspectably-crazy Albus Dumbledore's secret headquarter, a child-made drawing fell from the Dark Lord's pocket. Is it a kidnapped child's cry of help? Or has You-Know-Who done the cruelest deed imaginable and generated offspring? Witness and member of Dumbledore's off-kilt Resistance group, Elphias Doge comments, "Some time ago, also during a skirmish, I heard Rookwood talk about a baby. If it is indeed so, there might be, at this very moment, a child suffering unspeakable cruelties at the Dark Lord's hands" he sighs with a grave expression, picking up his fallen pinkie. "We will do everything in our power to help him or her to escape, and to keep other children safe". That is their promise to us, but are pretty words enough against this new development?
Voldemort put down the paper. "Dolohov?"
"Yes, my Lord?"
"Did they just call me Waxen Warlock? And accused me of kidnapping children?"
"...I'm afraid so, my Lord"
"And is that the supposedly kidnapped child, suffering unspeakable cruelties at my hands?"
Dolohov turned to look where his Master was pointing. Harry was having a blast, riding Nagini and destroying everything in sight. Especially Voldemort's delicate-looking silvery artifacts.
"Um, yes, my Lord"
* * * *
RESEARCHERS REVEAL: THE TRUTH BEHIND YOU-KNOW-WHO'S CRMINAL IMPULSES
By Xenophilius Lovegood
Is the lack of a nose equivalent to the lack of morality? That is the question our ancestors have been wondering for centuries. The Wizarding Scientific Community seems to have found the answer. "After years of effort we've discovered the source of the Dark Lord's madness," says researcher Edwin McKinnon, brother of the late Edgar and Jack McKinnon. "We're reasonably sure that the GSRC, General Sanity Regulation Center, is to be found in the nasal zone of the human body. Subsequently, we can safely say that the Dark Lord's insanity is to be imputed to his nose, or lack thereof". So says Researcher McKinnon, but what can we do to counter this unexpected truth? Is You-Know-Who's noseless state unchangeable?
"Bollocks," declared Voldemort, burning the stupid Quibbler with a snap of his fingers. "Snape is just as bad as me, and yet he has plenty of nose"
* * * *
"Harry. I have considered everything, and I have reached a conclusion. You need a place where you can learn discipline"
Harry, his eyes wide and his Skull firmly in his arms, gasped. "You mean..."
"Yes" he said gravely. "You are five years old. It is time for you to go to school. Lucius!"
"Yes, my Lord. I shall bring him with my son"
And that was how Harry had ended up going to school. Rather than being a school, though, it was a gathering of young Dark Purebloods and a teacher. Of course, some of them he already knew, like Draco and Theo, but others looked at him distrustfully.
Suddenly, a little brown-haired girl with pigtails named Pansy took one step forward.
"My daddy could beat up yours anytime. He's a Hitwizard,"
"No he couldn't," Harry said haughtily. "I've seen him, and my daddy is a lot stronger"
"My daddy is a dragon tamer" bragged a little boy called Blaise. "Or, well, the last one was"
"Yeah, and my daddy is an Unspeakable" little Astoria Greengrass said, thinking she had won.
But then, Harry lifted his nose up in the air with the most smug expression imaginable.
"My daddy is the Dark Lord Voldemort"
Everyone shut up very quickly after that.
* * * *
The lessons weren't so bad, but as time went by, the teacher had them doing homework, and some days, she even made them read it. This was one of those days.
"Harry, please read your homework"
The boy was...strange, but at least this, she felt confident she could handle. It's just homework, afterall, she had thought. How bad can it be?
"My family and I" Harry read. "I have a very big family. My daddy looks like a snake and doesn't have a nose, but I think if he were normal he wouldn't be as good at being a Dark Lord. I hope one day he teaches me his evil cackle, cause it's really really cool. My Aunt Bella is very charming, and she is in love with my daddy. I hope she doesn't become my mommy, cause that's just gross. On the other hand, I hope Uncle Dolohov becomes my mommy, cause he's really good at it. Before I go out, he always asks me if I've got everything and stuff. Uncles Walden and Nott like torturing and sometimes I like it when I get to help"
By then, the teacher wanted to interrupt, to stop the madness, but she couldn't. It was like watching you grandma naked in a field. It was disgusting, it was unexpected, but you couldn't stop looking.
Harry kept going, as terse and innocent as a little angel.
"Reading the black news on the paper and laugh is Uncle Yaxley's hobby, and sometimes he shows it to me and makes me laugh too. Uncle Rookwood is a spy, and he's really cool. Uncle Avery plays Quidditch with me and Draco sometimes, and it's a lot of fun. Uncle Lucius is as girly as Aunt Narcissa, and probably more. I think he's gay. He always gets me shampoo for my birthday. My dream is to one day be able to make my robes billow like Uncle Snape does, and being able to brew poisons like he does"
By this point, everyone was gaping, whispering or had their eyes bulging out. Some of those Uncles' children were there, and they didn't want to know those things about their parents. Draco, in the meanwhile, was glaring at Harry. His father was not gay. He just...took care of himself.
Harry, blissfully unaware, continued.
"We have two pets: our snake Nagini, who is a very good conversa- conversationan- conversationalist, and our pet Inferious Bob, who sometimes tries to eat me. Then there's Wormtail, but he's useless, and–"
"Um, ok," stammered the teacher, freaked out. Snake? Pet Inferius named Bob? "That's...that's enough"
How bad could it be, she had asked herself.
Well, as it turned out, pretty bad.
* * * *
Avery was quietly eating his pudding, looking at Bob suspiciously. There was something about the Inferius that was nagging at him.
"Hey, Mulciber"
"Yeah?"
"How do we know that Bob is male?"
Mulciber looked at him arching his eyebrows. "Maybe because he's called Bob?"
"Harry called him Bob. But isn't he...she...it wearing an apron?"
Mulciber did a double take. The Inferius was indeed wearing an apron, and as far as he remembered he had always wore one. But today, the apron was pink.
"Are...are you trying to say that Bob is in fact Bobette?!"
"It's possible, isn't it?"
"Well, you can't really tell by looking at its face...it's too rotten"
"Maybe–"
"I sure as hell ain't gonna check under the apron!"
"Oh, well" conceded Avery with a shrug. "It's just an Inferius anyway"
* * * *
Everything was going as planned. She just had to keep it up for a while more, and then it would all fall into place. No one suspected anything, they were all secure in their conviction of being the stronger. But they would see who would have the last laugh.
She felt very proud of herself: she wasn't just doing it for her own pride and self-satisfaction, although thatwas a rather big part of it, but she was doing it for all her people. They had been declared the weaker species, the less intelligent species, the ones who weren't so important. But they would see. Revenge was at their fingertips, and no one would know anything until it was too late.
She couldn't help a cackle.
With a feeling of victory already washing through her, she took out a parchment and started to write...
Dear Boss,
Everything is going wonderfully. These humans are so easy to fool, they truly think nothing of me. They even believe I am male. They think they're safe, but little do they know that danger is lurking right behind the corner...in their very home!
I shall keep it up and update you as soon as I can.
She blushed.
P.S: I would not be adverse to joining you for lunch at your earliest convenience. I heard there is a nice, romantic cemetery to be found downtown...what do you say?
She signed. Magnificent, if she said so herself. They suspected nothing, and sooner or later their quest would bring results.
In the meanwhile, she could entertain herself with cleaning. She liked cleaning, and sometimes cooking.
But most of all, she liked Harry.
"Bob! Where were you? You will never guess what happened today..."
He was such a sweet little boy, and his daddy was such a handsome man. Bob's face saddened, but her flesh was so rotten that it didn't really show it.
They were nice people, except the whole let's-torture-muggles-and-conquer-the-world thing, but her Inferius pride came first.
* * * *
Voldemort was enjoying a lonely walk through the Manor, contemplating and plotting, scheming and examining. It was all very relaxing, until he bumped into Harry.
Harry who was about to be eaten by Bob.
He sighed. Manners were lost on today's youngsters.
"Come on, Bob," he reprimanded sternly. "I told you not to eat people. It can't be healthy. Now, remove your teeth from Harry"
The Inferius did as it was told, but, Voldemort detected a defiant glare behind all the rotten flesh...but surely ha had been mistaken? That was just an Inferius. It was incapable of feelings.
"But daddy!" shouted Harry, "We were just playing!"
Voldemort prided himself on only having staggered a little when he was called da-...the d-word. It was a definite improvement. Choking wasn't exactly befitting of a Dark Lord, after all.
"I know, but you need to set some boundaries. I will not have you eating rotten flesh in my house...that's just rude, when we have fresh meat downstairs in the Torture Chambers"
Harry was finally persuaded, and he and Bob went back to his room hand in hand.
Voldemort was going back to his scheming, when he saw Bob drop something.
It was a blank parchment and a quill.
What could he have been doing with those? Voldemort shrugged. It was just an Inferius, what could an unintelligent creature like that have been doing?