Harry Potter Short Stories

Misuse of metamorphy

Tiberius Avery nearly wet himself as a familiar figure emerged from the shadows of Knockturn Alley.

"M-Milord!" he stammered, snapping a sharp salute. The pale, tall figure merely regarded him with contempt.

"Avery," the Dark Lord said in a musing voice. "It is too much to expect, I presume, that you have already completed the task I gave you?"

Despite himself, the Pureblood aristocrat felt a flare of irritation: he had only been given his mission three days ago. What did the Dark Lord expect? That he had a secret Time-Turner?

Still, when the Dark Lord made a slight motion with his wand, Avery straightened and plastered on his most unctuous expression. "I have not yet found my way into the Department of Law Enforcement's most closely-guarded files, milord," he said, simpering like that rat Pettigrew. "However, I am pleased to report that Alanna Meadows is gone – you may have heard already–"

"That was you?" the Dark Lord said in an uninterested voice, but Avery could detect the faint note of surprise. He swelled with pride.

"Yes, Milord, I killed the Mudblood-loving filth with my own hands," he said, his smile a bit more honest than before. "Her friend, too – I knotted their intestines together, so they might truly be bound as one." He chuckled. "I hope the miserable blood-traitor wretches in the Aurors got an eyeful."

"I am certain they did," murmured the Dark Lord. His expression was unreadable. "What else have you accomplished recently, my friend?"

Avery, always eager to sing his own praises, went down the list with great eagerness: the Muggles murdered, the Half-Bloods harassed, the blood-traitors' shops burned down…

Only when he trailed to a stop did the Stunner hit him in the back.

"From the horse's mouth," a hag said, straightening her back and shaking back the hem of her filthy hood as she inspected the unconscious Death Eater. "That should be enough to put him away for good, connections or no connections."

"I can't believe it," mused the vampire who had just been conversing with her, scratching at his face. This pale makeup always gave him a rash afterwards, to say nothing of the way these false teeth kept scraping his mouth. "He really fell for it…"

"But of course," said the Dark Lord dryly. "It's exactly what the Muggles say about telling a big enough lie – if the Dark Lord comes out of the shadows and says 'Wotcher?', it's so absurd it's got to be true, hasn't it?" He strode forward – and managed to trip over his own feet. "Bugger – excuse my language," he said, barely regaining his balance in time to avoid sprawling on top of the Death Eater. "It's this silly tall figure – keep expecting my legs to be shorter than they are. I'll get used to it soon enough, and then you'll see – be dancing across London in no time."

The "hag" and the "vampire", both of whom were all too familiar with their colleague's dubious coordination, only turned to each other and raised their eyebrows.

Harry Potter sat across the table from Voldemort and carefully watched his expressions.

"No, no," he said after a moment. "I tell you, he doesn't flare his nostrils unless he's really surprised. And you've got them too big again – they really are slits." He propped his chin up on one hand as he watched Voldemort adjust. "Okay, now twirl your wand." The Dark Lord complied. "Look, you've almost got it down. But you can't flub it at all."

"I am afraid, boy," the Dark Lord said slowly, "that it is most difficult to toy with one's wand with fingers that could readily accommodate another set of knuckles –"

"I know, but this is his signature gesture. He was playing with his wand when he was a teenager, even–"

Harry buried his face in his hands as Voldemort burst into a fit of screaming laughter. "I knew there was something wrong with how I said that," he muttered as the Dark Lord pounded his fist on the table in a most unlordly fashion. "All right, all right, I think that's as far as we can go for today. It'll be hard to get back in the mood."