Voldemort whipped his wand out and screamed, “Avada ””
“Expelliarmus!” cried Harry in the same instant, and the golden cage formed about them again. “Told you so!”
“Curse you, Potter!” snapped Voldemort as the shadowy figures began pouring out of his wand. “Death Eaters, charge!”
There was another barrage of CRACK!s and suddenly the hollow was filled with members of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (originally known as the Order Of The Phoenix, they changed the name after three of the founding members left due to artistic differences a year ago).
“Not so fast, Death Eating scum!” yelled Moody, and the battle began.
Amidst the flickering and rushing of green and red light, Harry and Voldemort stayed still ” both dreading the inevitable appearance of Harry’s parents. Trying to take his mind off the forthcoming embarrassment, Harry watched the Death Eaters fighting. Was that a flicker of red light reflecting off the buckles of a sock-garter? It looked as though Snape had finally decided which side of the fence to jump off.
“How are we doing with the plan, guys?” said Harry out of the corner of his mouth.
“Almost ready,” said Neville, his voice shaking.
“Keep stalling!” hissed Hermione.
A nearby bush quivered, although there was no breeze to stir it.
“Last time this happened we were standing over my father’s grave,” said Voldemort. He was staring fixedly at the end of his wand, watching the tangle of ghostly limbs that were fighting to get out of it.
“Yeah, well this time we’re duelling over the ruins of my father’s house,” said Harry, standing a little taller.
James’s head appeared, suddenly. “Actually, Harry, the house was a bit to the left of here ” nearer the trees.”
“Yes, James, that’s right,” barked Lily, “distract him at a crucial moment, why don’t you, just like you did to me when Voldemort attacked us.”
“Don’t listen to her, Harry,” said James, head-butting Lily. “You and I both know that I died first trying to protect your mother. You’d think, after sixteen years of living in someone else’s wand, that she’d have got through the stage of Denial and be well into Acceptance by now, wouldn’t y””
“Of all the stupid,” Lily began punctuating each word with a slap to James’s head, which he couldn’t defend because his arms still hadn’t come out of the wand, “lying, ungrateful, toe-rags of a husband! I DIED FIRST!”
Harry’s patience finally wore out.
“For goodness’ sake!” he shouted. “There’s got to be an easier way of duelling than this!”
“Use the power, Harry,” said the bush.
Dodging the bat that was still flitting back and forth across the hollow, Harry said, “What?”
“Not yet!” shrilled the bat. “I’m not ready!”
“What?” Harry spun around. Who was talking?
“Hurry up, Severus!”
“What?” said Harry again.
“Alright, alright, headmaster. Give me a moment.”
“Seriously ” WHAT?” Harry was reaching breaking point.
“Talking to yourself now, Potter?” grunted Voldemort. He cleared his throat.
“I’m ready now,” said the bat.
“Of course, madness runs in your family, doesn’t it?” Voldemort rumbled, tugging at the rope around his waist. “Wormtail!”
Harry looked at his parents. He could see what Voldemort meant: They were climbing up the walls of the golden cage, trying to pull each other down. But that didn’t mean that he was going mad, did it? Okay, so a bush and a bat were having an argument ” but that was the kind of thing that happened in the wizarding world, wasn’t it? And the bush did sound quite a lot like Dumble”
“Now, Harry!” cried the bush.
Simultaneously flinging his wand aside and grabbing a handful of paperclips from his pocket, Harry cried, “Curse your way out of this, snake-face!”
“What?!” said the bush, swaying madly.
From behind the wall, Hermione groaned.
Neville’s face appeared above the stones. “We’re not ready yet, Harry,” he hissed.
The bat gave a derisive squeak and began dive-bombing Harry. Trying to maintain an heroic legs-well-apart stance whilst beating away an angry bat, he said, “There are plenty more paperclips where they came from, I can assure you. And Professor or no Professor, I’m going to stun this bat in a minute.”
“So, Potter, you choose to fight without wands, I take it?,” rumbled Voldemort. He cast his wand aside, and reached into a pocket in his robes. “‘Mano a mano,' as the mudbloods say.”
Seeing the silver sheen of Voldemort’s newest deadly weapon, Harry muttered, “More like ‘paperclippo a spoono,’ if you ask me.”
“I can still do it, headmaster,” trilled the bat. “It’s not over yet.”
Harry turned automatically to the bush to gauge its reaction ” but it was gone. What was Dumbledore up to? He sat down on a nearby boulder and rummaged through his pockets for some more paperclips.
“Death Eaters! To me!” shouted Voldemort. “And that includes you, Wormtail! And bring a balloon!”
The battle halted abruptly as all the remaining Death Eaters hurried to obey their master’s command. Wormtail, however, remained six feet above the ground. “I can’t come down,” he whimpered. “I’m not heavy enough.”
“If you want something doing, do it yourself,” sighed Voldemort. He aimed his wand at the cluster of balloons, and burst all but one of them. There was a thud, and another whimper from Wormtail. Stepping over his servant’s prostrate body, Voldemort grabbed the balloon and inhaled deeply. “That’s better!” he said, in the voice of a Munchkin.
“Pardon me for saying this, master, but I think that was a bad idea,” said a familiar (although pitched higher than usual) sardonic voice. Harry had a moment of confusion. He was almost certain that the bat was Snape, but this sounded like Snape too. Was it possible that he was fighting for both sides at once?
“What are you talki” Ooh!” squeaked Malfoy. “Master!”
The Death Eaters fell into alarmed quasi-supersonic chatter, from which only a few phrases were clear: “My voice!” “What’s he done?!” “Ha ha I sound funny!” and “Two octaves!”
During the melee, the bat took the opportunity to perch on Harry’s shoulder and whisper in his ear, “We want you to charge him, Potter, as soon as you can.”
“Who’s ‘we?’” asked Harry, trying not to mind the stench as the bat poohed all over his robes.
“Even a dunce such as yourself should have worked that one out by now, Potter,” snapped the bat. “Just remember to charge at him as fast as you can.”
“Why?”
“Remember: as fast as you can,” said the bat, as it took off again.