Time Travel pt. 1
Tom had barley been back at Hogwarts for a week, and so far, juggling Head boy duties, NEWT preparation, and Haddy, was turning out to be less time consuming than he’d thought. Because of this extra time, Tom was engaged in one of his most relaxing hobbies, hate reading the muggle newspaper. ‘Oh look another hospital has been bombed, isn’t muggle technology just amazing?’ Tom scoffs to himself before turning the page. Tom ensures he reads the muggle newspaper at least once a week so that he keeps abreast of the events in the non-wizarding world, he will never live amongst them again but when it comes to war, you must know your enemy.
Although, Tom doubts whether he can even call the Knight’s crusade against the muggles a war anymore. In recent years, the Knights of Walpurgis had deviated from their rather extreme roots where they called for muggle genocide and extinction. This shift in ideals was due in part to the rather ingenious muggle inventions Haddy gifts the Knights. When Abraxas moved in with his girlfriend, he was beyond grateful for the Stink-Away bathroom spray Haddy gave him as a housewarming gift, and Orion swears there is nothing better for Black curls than the Tangleteezer he got from Haddy on his 16th birthday. More than anything, the Knights were grateful to the muggles and their inventions, because without them, Haddy would still be chopping the limbs of their relatives, wrapping a ribbon around it, and calling it a gift.
It was this gratefulness to the unsuspecting muggles that caused many of Tom’s Knights to begin having doubts about the whole mass murder thing, so, to appease his followers, Tom agreed that they will no longer seek the destruction of muggle kind, they do however still advocate for the complete separation of muggles and wixen.
It was as Tom was pondering the best way to separate infant muggleborns from their parents without the muggle police getting involved, that a metal contraption around the size and shape of a large book appeared out of nowhere and clattered onto Tom’s desk. Tom jumps to his feet, swiftly pulling his wand from its holster and pointing it at the unknown device. After a few moments of nothing happening, Tom takes a closer look at the thing that just landed on his desk, on the outside it was silver in colour, on the inside, one side (the side that landed on the desk) looked similar to a typewriter, with buttons for each letter and number, the other side, looked to be showing a still, blurry image of the Great Hall. Next to the letter buttons was a sticky green piece of paper with the words ‘PRESS ME’ and an arrow pointing to the longest, label-less button.
Warily, Tom does as the message suggests, pressing the long button with the tip of his wand before jumping away. At that same moment, the image on the screen begins to move and the tinny sound of hundreds of students talking and eating comes out of the machine. Tom is bewildered by this baffling piece of technology, forsaking his fear and picking the thing up, turning it every which way, trying to figure out how it works. Tom didn’t know muggle technology had gotten so advanced already, this is concerning. Tom gets distracted from his inspection of the unknown device, by the film playing on the screen.
The video looked to have been filmed last week at the Welcoming Feast, just after desert had been served, Tom can see the image of Mulciber get up from the Slytherin table and start stomping towards the back of the hall ready to introduce the EE’s for their performance. The angle of the recording was just to the right of the Great Hall doors, but Tom can’t remember seeing anyone stood there, then again, he can’t remember many things from that night, he was rather… distracted. A few more seconds of staring at the slightly shaky video, Tom began to wonder why he had been sent this recording, is it a threat, a warning, why would someone film Hogwarts students going about their daily lives, it makes no sense.
All of a sudden, over the recorded sound of Hogwarts students finishing their meal, Tom hears muttering, he looks around the room suspiciously, casting hurried spells to check whether someone had dared to try and sneak up on him, but there was nothing.
Again, Tom hears muttering, before a familiar voice mumbles, “Is this thing on?”, Tom looks back towards the device which seems to be where the voice originated from, before Tom could figure out who the filming voyeur is, music blasts out of the devices speakers, Mulciber starts conducting her speech and the EE’s begin to dance, the camera following Haddy the whole time.
Once again, Tom gets distracted by the virtual cheeks in front of him, so much so, it takes him over ten seconds to realise the mystery cameraman has started speaking again, it’s almost as if the person was whispering to themselves, “One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, stick to the beat Sweetie.” The camera zooms in on Haddy’s arms as the boy does a complicated looking hand motion, the unknown figure continuing their critique.
“Flawless pirouette, good, good. Look away aaand back to the front.” The camera moves up and down erratically as if the person behind it was executing the same moves Haddy was.
The mystery person tuts before exclaiming, “That outfit was not on the pre-approved list Haddy, I should know, I bedazzled the full-length chaps you were supposed to be wearing.”
As the music comes to a close and Haddy’s arse is no longer jiggling up and down enticingly, Tom finally places the voice, it’s a testament to the awesomeness of Haddy’s arse that he didn’t figure it out sooner the voice belonged to Lord Peverell, Haddy’s father, Death.
Whilst Tom was going through this revelation, the recording carried on playing, Death’s voice coming through the speakers loud and clear.
“Okay overall, I have to mark the performance 8/10 Sweetie, you know I have to mark you down for the truly scandalous outfit but if you carry on performing this well, you can definitely win the Georgia Pageant this year, this would have been seven years in a row if that bitch Holly Barker hadn’t sabotaged your Single Ladies routi-… What is it doing?”
Death, who had been monologuing to the camera this whole time, verbally noting down his critiques of the performance but evidently getting ready to simply pack up and leave, stopped in his tracks and zoomed back in on Haddy, who in the image, had begun walking towards the Hufflepuff table.
Oh shit.
In the video, Haddy is joined by Tom, via Tom’s hand on Haddy’s ass.
He’s a dead man.
“What… does that little PERVERT think he’s doing?!” Death whisper-shouts menacingly into the camera.
The camera is fixed on Tom now, Tom who looks like he is having a religious experience molesting Death’s son’s arse.
“Oh, so you wanna die bitch!?”
The next few minutes where Recording-Tom obliviously fondles Haddy’s cheeks, Present-Tom trembles with anxiety, analysing every corner of his dorm room like Death is about to jump from behind his curtains and say ‘boo’. When nothing happens, Tom suspiciously, goes back to watching the tape, greeted with the image of his own hand repeatedly squeezing Haddy’s arse like it’s a particularly irresistible stress ball (a muggle invention Haddy gifted Tom for their one-week anniversary).
“You’re really pushing your luck fuck-face!” Death seethes, Tom gulps.
“You’re so lucky I promised Haddy I’d never embarrass him at school or you’d be a steadily cooling corpse by now! Watch out, your days are numbered pervert! In fact, I’m gonna go back in time right now, I’m gonna make your creepy ass die of dysentery before you even meet my boy!”
A shrill ringing sound silences the threats, Death holds his wrist up and turns it around, as if looking at an invisible watch. “Oh shit, Korea again, brb Son-Molester!”
The camera pans down and the screen goes black, just when Tom thinks that the end of it, a still, animated image of a cricket player holding a round bat spins onto the screen and a comically deep voice booms out, “Strrrrike One”. Straight after the image spins away, words start appearing on the screen in a bold spiky font, sound effects accompanying each word.
HADDY = THE EPITOME OF THE WORD PERFECT!
YOU = THE HUMAN MANIFESTATION OF MICROWAVED RHINO SHIT!
DON’T YOU FORGET IT!
The screen goes black and Tom staggers to his seat, contemplating all he has learnt. Death saw him touch Haddy, Death who had, continuously and explicitly, threatened Tom’s life if he ever touched the entity’s son inappropriately, now he not only knows that Tom has touched Haddy, he had a front row seat to the event. Tom’s shocked he’s not dead already. But the thing that stuck with him, more than anything else, even the threats to his life, was the comment Death made towards the end of the video, something about… Time Travel?!