The Last Day—To the Relief of All

Disclaimer: If I didn't create it, then I don't own it.

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Chapter 4: The Last Day...To The Relief of All

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As a Dark Lord, Voldemort prided himself on his ability to delegate tasks to his underlings. So many of his predecessors had failed simply because they had lacked the ability to choose which of their followers might be trusted with the simple, everyday tasks which were so essential in the administration that was central to a Reign of Terror. Mad Lord Nolvroot had reportedly been so crazy that he'd made a bowlful of geraniums a general in his Dark Army. Nimerick the Nutcase had trusted absolutely nothing to his subordinates and had ultimately ended up with a Reign of Terror so thoroughly overrun by paperwork that Hendricus Potter, his nemesis (What was it about those damn Potters?), had only to waltz into Nimerick's office and torch it all, then Apparate out and hope that Nimerick had never heard of Aguamenti (he hadn't). Oddly enough, Curzadh the Completely Normal had been relatively good at delegating tasks; he had slipped up only once, when he'd absentmindedly handed his nemesis, one Jacobus Sneypa, the one weapon in the world which could vanquish him. Voldemort, wishing not to be known in the history books as Voldemort the Incompetent, had therefore taken great pains (usually somenone else's, of course) to make certain that his Reign of Terror did not become a Reign of Errors.

However, he'd apparently considered the delegation of this task quite poorly; although both Severus Snape and Antonin Dolohov were both extremely imaginative when it came to the creation of new and interesting spells (Voldemort had always admired Severus' Levicorpus spell, though he'd never admit it), the Dark Revival had so far failed to instil a proper spirit of co-operation in these two Apostles of Evil, who had hated each other since that strange business years ago involving Dolohov's sister, a smuggled magic carpet, a tapir, an ancient Whomping Willow and several gallons of marmalade.

Voldemort was still trying to figure out how the whole thing was possible...he wanted to try it with Bellatrix someday...when finally, after watching the pensive Dark Lord for several minutes, Dolohov asked, "Master, what is thy bidding? Honestly, I wouldn't ask out of turn, only we've been Transfiguring birds into croutons all day and we're finally ready to test it on a human being..." he trailed off, noting his Master's grey-faced disapproval.

"It is lucky for you, Dolohov, that I am disposed to be charitable towards you at the moment. If your experiments with Severus had not yet shown any results, I might have been less lenient. But as it happens, I have come to check on your progress. Severus?"

"My Lord, we believe that we have hit upon a solution. However, I do think that we should take some time to refine the incantation, as it is...inconsistent with the dignity of our Dark Brotherhood and therefore inconsistent with your dignity as well, Master."

Considering everything that had happened in the past few days, Voldemort was surprised that Severus had managed to say this with a straight face. "Tell me, Severus, what is the incantation?"

Dolohov coughed.

Snape glared at his companion. "Master," he said tersely, "I want it to be absolutely understood that I had nothing at all to do with the phrasing of the incantation."

Dolohov glared right back at Snape. "You know as well as I do, Severus, that this was the only incantaton that worked with that wand motion you came up with."

Snape would have retorted, but Voldemort had a look in his eye that clearly spoke quite clearly of Pink Lacy Robes for a Year If You Keep On Bickering, Severus...And This Time I Might Even Curse Your Hair Pink If You Push Me Too Far, You Dungeon-Dwelling Heliophobe.

"Tell me what it is, Severus," he said softly.

It looked as if someone had shoved something unusually unpleasant under his prominent proboscis. "It's 'Oo, ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang,' Master."

Voldemort stared at them for a moment, finally shifting his full attention to Dolohov. "I share your colleague's displeasure with this incantation, Antonin. What the hell were you thinking?"

Surprisingly, Dolohov blushed. "I remembered a nonsense song I heard once when you sent me on a reconnaisance mission among the Muggles, my Lord. The tune just sort of stuck in my mind after I heard it. It popped into my mind when I tried to turn those croutons back into birds, and I found myself singing it when I performed the wand movement."

"And it has to be...sung?" Voldemort asked, thinking that this would really undermine his reputation if it ever got out.

Snape crossed his arms. "I'm afraid so, Master. They turned into self-playing sets of Great Highland bagpipes when we didn't sing it."

Voldemort silently offered a prayer to whatever divinity might possibly be watching over exasperated dark wizards who were well aware that most of their followers were complete idiots. "Get Yaxley in here, then. Since he's the one who caused the problem, it is only fitting that you test its solution out on him."

Had he not been the fearsome Dark Lord he was, Voldemort might have been taken aback at the look on Snape's face just then. "With the greatest pleasure, my Master."

*****

Yaxley was summoned and promptly Croutified, and Snape volunteered Dolohov to perform the de-Croutification. Rolling up the sleeves of his robe, Dolohov twirled his wand around his index finger, traced a complicated Celtic knot in the air and sang, "Ooh, ee, ooh, ah-ah, ting-tang walla walla bing bang! Ooh-ee, ooh ah-ah, ting-tang walla walla bing bang!" There was a flash of multicoloured light and the area filled with putrid yellow smoke. When it had cleared, Yaxley stood resored to his former self, albeit looking extremely fearful, as he had since the initial Croutifying incident; he'd been walking around with a look of abject terror on his face for so long that Voldemort idly wondered if his face had simply got stuck that way. If so, it was a damn good thing that the Death Eaters wore masks; what use would an evil minion be if he looked even more scared than his hapless victims?

Putting on his Serious Dark Lord face, Voldemort glared at Yaxley. "You have been extremely fortunate, Yaxley. Have you anything to say to us?"

"I don't wanna wrestle," he groaned, and fell to the ground in a faint.

"Take this cretin to the medical station, will you, Dolohov?" Voldemort sighed. "I want him to be back to normal...or at least, as near to normal as he can get...by the time we de-Croutify Macnair. Snape, go with him and make sure he doesn't get lost."

"Yes, Master." The Death Eaters bowed, conjured up a stretcher for Yaxley and bore him to the medical station, arguing all the way. When he was sure that they were out of earshot, Voldemort collapsed onto the ground, put his head into his hands and groaned.

Gibberish! They've got me using bloody gibberish for an incantation! My Dark Lord credibility is really going to suffer for this one...

And if I have my way, so is Yaxley.

*****

Having decided that Macnair could stand to be a crouton for a little while yet, Voldemort had decided to do the Decroutification after giving the revival's final sermon. Admittedly, it looked a little strange to have a stretcher containing a bell jar with a crouton in it arranged so close to the podium, but Voldemort thought that perhaps it would serve as a useful warning to his followers. It was far better than putting it in words; "Behave yourselves or I'll turn you into croutons" somehow just didn't sound very impressive.

He'd been speaking for half an hour now, and seeing that most of the Death Eaters were starting to shift restlessly in their seats, he decided to wind things down with a few announcements.

"We will be raiding the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic in two weeks' time in order to acquire the cursed tea set and bedroom slippers that they confiscated from Borgin & Burkes last week. Lucius, do try to stay out of Azkaban this time; it's such a hassle to break people out.

"Severus Snape would like to remind his Dark Brothers and Sisters that the Cruciatus Curse is not a toy.

"The Malfoy family will be hosting our annual picnic on their estate on August 13; all are commanded to attend, and you are reminded to bring your bathing suits as the pool will be open. Mulciber, do try to find one that actually fits this year. I am certain that I speak for everybody when I say that last year's incident in which we found your shorts floating a short distance away from you after a dive should not be repeated. Your bare bum is not as attractive as you think it is.

"Finally, while I appreciate the spirit, Dark Jokes like 'My Dark Lord has no nose!' 'How does he smell?' 'Terrible!' are not appropriate." He glared directly at Rabastan Lestrange and Augustus Rookwood as he said this, and both men had the good sense to look ashamed. However, when he looked away from them, Voldemort thought he caught a hint of shaking shoulders in his peripheral vision; he decided that Lestrange and Rookwood must have simultaneously come down with a cough.

"Now that's over with, I shall proceed with the De-Croutifying of Macnair. Yaxley, Jugson, bring him in." They complied, nearly tripping over their own feet in his haste to do their Lord's bidding. When the stretcher had been placed on the tent's makeshift altar (really another crate which was Glamoured to look like a solid obsidian block), Voldemort paced behind it and glared at his followers.

"I believe that I do not have to tell you twice," he said, "that I would not appreciate it were this to be necessary again. However, I command you all to observe, this one time, the awesome demonstration of the power, the might and the dreadful mercy of your Lord Voldemort!"

He unsheathed his wand, traced the Celtic knot in the air and sang the incantation; unfortunately, Voldemort was unfamiliar with the tune of the song and accidentally hit a wrong note. The Death Eaters looked on in amazement as they saw the crouton slowly enlarge and resume the shape of Walden Macnair. His eyes opened only for an instant before a black smoke issued from Voldemort's wand and completely surrounded him. It solidified into the shape of a large round thing with a long, curved tail. The crowd assembled under the marquee was strangely silent for a moment, until Macnair started rocking on the altar, yelling something that was muffled by the black shape but which sounded suspiciously like "Get me out of this thing!"

"Bloody hell, my Lord," said Mulciber, stricken. "You've put him into a comma!"

Voldemort glared at him. "Thank you for this astute assessment, Mulciber," he growled. "Snape! Dolohov! You two have got some explaining to do!"

Dolohov's eyes were as wide as a house-elf's, but it must be confessed that he found the situation amusing enough that not all of his trembling was the result of fear. Snape simply ran a hand through his greasy hair, absently wiped the grease off of his hand with his reluctant colleague's robe and studied the rocking, shouting comma while re-playing his memory of the events that had placed Macnair within its black casing. "My Lord," he said, attempting for once to find the most tactful way to say something, "far be it for me to imply that you could actually have made a mistake, but it seems that you sub-consciously felt the need to improve upon the tune of the incantation, which is entirely understandable."

"Very well, then, Snape," said Voldemort, practically tripping over all of the commas he'd just used. "But remember, all of you...nobody is ever to speak of this incident again, unless you want to spend a week cleaning up after Nagini! Is this clear?"

A murmur of what was probably consent ran through the assembled Death Eaters.

"Good," he said. "We're finished here. I, Lord Voldemort, officially declare this Dark Revival closed. You are all hereby commanded to take down the marquee and not to bother me until you're done with it. Go forth and spread my Evil in the world!"

*****

Having decided that it would be prudent to be as far away from the Revival site as possible whilst his followers attempted to take down the grand structure at its centre, Voldemort wandered off to see if he could find some wildflowers to zap into oblivion. However, he hadn't got far when Mulciber came running up to him. "My Lord! My Lord!" he shouted. "Please come back...we need your help!"

Voldemort glared at him. "I believe I was quite clear in my instructions, Mulciber," he said. "Half the confounded thing's still standing, and I specifically commanded all of you to leave me alone until you were done with it. So if you really do wish to disturb me, then it had better be for a good reason, or you'll be cooking for me for a month. Is this clear?"

"Yes, my Lord, perfectly clear. Honest, I wouldn't bother you, only it seems like we've been discovered by some Muggles...somebody must have taken down the Muggle-Repelling Charm too soon. We took a vote, and it seems that almost everyone thought that it might be wise to ask you to deal with them, my Lord."

Voldemort's eyes flashed scarlet. WHAT did I do to deserve such idiotic henchmen? "Very well, then, Mulciber. Go back and tell them that I'm on my way."

*****

The moment that Voldemort saw the red bathrobe, he knew that there was going to be trouble. He glared at the Death Eaters. "All right, which one of you took down the Muggle-Repelling Charm before we were finished here?" Not surprisingly, given Macnair's recent experiences, nobody was willing to step forward and for a change, neither Crabbe nor Goyle looked more sheepish than usual. He did, however, notice Wormtail trying to slink off again. No matter; he'd simply hand him over to Snape for the rest of the summer. That would put the proper fear of his Lord back into him. Besides which, Snape had been looking entirely too happy with himself lately; perhaps a few weeks with nobody's favourite rodent would take him down a peg or two.

And if it worked out satisfactorily, perhaps he'd consider sticking them with each other every year.

Turning his attention back to the confrontation, he was ever-so-slightly amused to see Snape nose-to-nose with a man who looked like Gilderoy Lockhart might if he'd run to fat. The Lockhart look-alike was wearing a red velvet bathrobe tied with a gaudy gold curtain tie in the shape of a rope with tassels on the end. "I don't care if you think that this is a wonderful place to celebrate your Lou-wossname! We were here first, and we demand that you vacate this field immediately!"

The man in the red bathrobe snorted. "This is Open Country, you greasy git...we've got as much a right to be here as you do!"

"Not as far as I'm concerned. "I'll hex the bathrobe right off of you if you don't leave now," Snape growled with great menace.

Lockhart's pot-bellied look-alike snorted. "I'd like to see you try, mate!"

This time, Severus smirked. Brandishing his wand, he made a great sweeping gesture with his arm and intoned, "Elenim Virga is appellunt!" and innocently started to hum something which sounded suspiciously like Ray Stevens' "The Streak".

In an instant, the hideous red bathrobe had disappeared, though the man's purple underpants, cheerily decorated with yellow smiley faces, lingered for a few seconds before following the bathrobe into nonexistence. An elderly woman clad in a blue bathrobe clapped her hand over a younger woman's eyes. "Don't look, Ethel!" she gasped as the man started to run away, far faster than any human being had a right to be able to do.*

When the Muggles had been chased off to a more suitable venue for their Lughnassadh celebration, Lucius raised an eyebrow at his old friend. "Wouldn't it have been easier just to say 'Evanesco bathrobe', Severus?"

Snape sneered companionably at his old friend. "Perhaps, Lucius, but that would have ruined the song." He strode off as Lucius stared at him in bewilderment.

*As soon as somebody had figured out what that mysterious beige streak was that kept showing up all over the country, he made the news; once Snape's spell had worn off and the man's identity had been discovered, he changed his name and moved to New Zealand in an attempt to escape the publicity which he'd once sought so desperately.

*****

If Voldemort had thought that his followers were terrible at raising the marquee, he was appalled at how terrible they were at taking it down. In the last half hour they had somehow managed to break the laws of gravity in at least a dozen creative ways; currently it was still fully set up, but courtesy of Crabbe and Goyle (of course), it was upside-down.

Snape glared. "Why don't we just Evanesco the bloody thing and be done with it, Oh Great High and Mighty Master?"

Voldemort looked down his nonexistent nose at the spy. "I'll pretend that I didn't hear that sarcasm in your voice, Severus. And might I remind you about what happened the last time that we had to Evanesco something that big?"

A greasy eyebrow arched Northwards. "I'm not entirely certain that Rodolphus didn't mean to end up in the middle of the Sahara, Master, as he and Bellatrix had been quarrelling again, and you know how she is when she's angry. It was just his bad luck that the Aurors found him before Wormtail did."

"An entire tribe of nomads had to be Obliviated, Severus."

Snape sneered. "I was not under the impression that we were to concern ourselves with the doings of the Magical Law Enforcement, Master. So much of what we do causes them large amounts of paperwork. It's what you might call the nature of our organization."

Voldemort still wasn't quite pleased with Snape's tone of voice, but he had to admit that he had a point. He sighed. "All right, then, we'll Evanesco it. Wormtail, you may do the honours."

Pettigrew nearly dropped his wand in his haste to Vanish the marquee. He drew his wand and shouted, "Evanesco marquee!" There was a great flash of light, and (perhaps surprisingly) the marquee vanished. Unfortunately for Wormtail, it also took both the Malfoys with it.*

Voldemort closed his red eyes and counted to ten. Then, suddenly, he turned to Wormtail and kicked him where the sun didn't shine.

Apparently Wormtail could screech like a rodent even when he was human. Voldemort smiled. "That, Wormtail, was for being so utterly useless. Really, you should be thankful...it was that or the Cruciatus."

Wormtail's only answer was a groan. The other men looked at each other, each glad that it wasn't them and each hoping that this particular punishment wouldn't replace the good old Cruciatus. There's only so much a man is willing to put up with, after all.

*Wormtail later found them living as patients in a psychiatric hospital in Ireland. While they'd been somewhat upset at the beginning of their time there...the straitjackets were just so unfashionable...they found that once they'd got settled in, the service was exceptional and they had the run of the admittedly beautiful grounds. The only thorn in their sides there was that they had to endure an hour's counselling session every day, where an opinionated Muggle tried to convince them that there was no such thing as magic, they weren't wizards and it was impossible for anyone to be killed without actually dying, so there was really no such thing as Voldemort either. Lucius was seriously considering a move to the place after his retirement, and Narcissa would have been perfectly happy there if it had been more tastefully decorated.

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Epilogue

Sighing, Voldemort unlocked the door of the House That Had Always Been There and let Nagini slither in before him. Absently throwing up the substantial wards on the place (couldn't chance the Potter brat and his sycophants breaking in...after all, being attacked by wizards, even relatively inexperienced ones, was always hell on the furniture), he wandered into the kitchen and made himself a nice hot toddy to take to bed. By the time he got to his bedroom, Nagini had already curled up in her customary spot beside his pillow. He set the toddy down on his nightstand, changed into his pyjamas (dark green with little silver snakes all over) and sat down on the surprisingly comfy mattress.

Admittedly, the Tent Revival had not been an unqualified success. Indeed, much of it had seemed to be a complete disaster at the time. But the sermons had seemed to bring some good results among his followers, and ever since the Crouton Incident, Macnair had been surprisingly obedient. Voldemort briefly considered turning the lot of them into croutons for a day or two, but finally decided against it. After all, he might accidentally put them into his favourite Dark Salad (rhubarb leaves garnished with belladonna with a lovely garlic-and-hemlock dressing; thanks to his horcruxes, Voldemort didn't have to worry too much about such mundane things as being poisoned) and eat them. And as utterly, unforgivably useless as some of his followers were, it would be too much trouble to replace them now. No, better to try to repair their defects. Crabbe and Goyle quite aside, most of them were capable of learning a thing or two, even if it was only a thing or two.

Downing the toddy in one snake-like gulp, he swung his grey legs up onto the mattress and pulled the frilly pink duvet (a gift from Bellatrix...he worried about her sometimes) over himself.

Yes, the Tent Revival had definitely had its merits. Perhaps he would consider making it an annual event...

*****

Author's Notes: So here we are, finally...how long has it been, anyway? I lost the original copy of this chapter months ago and have been trying to reconstruct it ever since; it took a long time for me to tweak it enough to make it as funny as I wanted it to be. I hope you've enjoyed this bit of silliness, and I apologize for the delay.

By the way, did anyone spot the Monty Python reference in this chapter? I can't promise any sort of reward if you did, but let me know anyway, if you like. =)

"Mad Lord Nolvroot" should be recognizable to people who have read "A Change of Name". I thought that the name was just too good not to use it again somewhere. I've no idea where "Nimerick the Nutcase" and "Curzadh the Completely Normal" came from, though; I just needed a couple of odd-sounding names, and there they were. "Hendricus Potter", however, was completely intentional; one of my great-grandfathers was named Hendricus, but when he and his family came to Canada from Holland he anglicized it to "Harry". As for "Jacobus Sneypa"...it's a reference to both James Potter ("Jacobus" is the Latin form of the name "James") and Severus Snape (I read somewhere that "Sneypa" is an older form of "Snape").

About the "dungeon-dwelling heliophobe" thing...at the time that I re-wrote the "Snape and Dolohov tell Voldemort what they've come up with" scene, I'd been re-reading "Diaries of a Dungeon Dwelling Moron" by Gedia Kacela and "Lamentations of a Starry-Eyed Twit" by She's A Star, both found over at Fanfiction.net. I'm not normally a Snape/Sinistra fan, but these stories have been favourites of mine practically since I joined the fandom. I was looking for a suitable insult for my favourite character at the time (one can only say "greasy git" so many times before it becomes boring), and with a little help from an old favourite story, there it was. =)

"Ooh, ee, ooh ah-ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang" is from one of my favourite nonsense songs, "Witch Doctor". I'm not sure who actually wrote it, but I've heard several cover versions of it. The one I usually listen to isn't the Alvin and the Chipmunks version, though; it's the one by Sha-Na-Na.

I needed something nonsensical for Yaxley just before he faints, and the first thing that came to mind was "I don't wanna wrestle". I couldn't figure out why it sounded so familiar, but a couple of days after I wrote that bit, I found out why. Turns out it's from "Detour", a fifth-season episode of "The X-Files" that I'd only watched once. I still have no idea why it came to mind when Yaxley fainted, though.

The coma/comma thing is my way of exorcising one of my minor pet peeves. It absolutely ruins a scene for me when a character is described as being "in a comma". I just can't take it seriously. After all, who's ever actually seen a person encased in a punctuation mark?

Once again I've decided to mangle the Latin language to create a spell. "Elenim Virga is appellunt!" is supposed to be a Latin translation of "Oh, yes, they call him the Streak", but I'm afraid that the closest I've been able to come is something that might, if I'm very lucky, translate to "For indeed they call him the stripe". The original English line is from a song by Ray Stevens called "The Streak"; my mother used to sing it to my brother and I to make us laugh when we were kids.

I am officially declaring any resemblance between the Lockhart look-alike and a certain real-life personality to be completely coincidental.

And that's it. Again, I hope you've enjoyed this story. As usual, when I wrote it, I tried to make myself laugh; I succeeded, and hopefully I got you to chuckle a bit, too! =)