Harry Putter and the Chamber of Cheesecakes (19 page)

            “’Fraid, you forgot to leave out milk and cookies this Christmas,” said Santa, matter-of-factly.  “Just kidding, ho, ho, ho, I had a lot of money riding on that quibbage match last year, you stinkin’ rotten cheater!”

            “Santa,” said Elvis Grumblesnore, “you don’t have to deal with him everyday like I do, have pity on me.  Why don’t you go back to the North Pole and leave the wizard-slaying to those of us who really deserve to kill Putter?”

            “Sorry, Grumblesnore, but where I come from, the guy with the bigger gun makes the rules, and unless you don’t want any presents come Christmas, I suggest you go back to your office and be a good little boy!”

            “So are we all here now?” asked Gandulf.  Everyone’s head turned to the only intact rice paper screen left.  However, there was no reply.

            Gandulf drew his sword, Spamdring, and ran it through the last paper screen and into the body of whomever it was standing behind it.  He wrenched his sword from his victim, and stepped back as Ophelia’s father, Polonius, fell through the rice paper screen and into the room.

            Polonius cried out.  “O, I am slain!”

            At this point, Carnivorous Ape stepped in front of Harry and said, “Listen all of you, regardless of what you think, none of you are above the law.  You just can’t go around killing people.  Besides, violence is the last resort of the incompetent.”

            Harry thought it was the bravest thing he ever heard.  But when the other four trained their weapons on Carnivorous Ape and let loose, his body dropped half a second later, riddled with shot, seared with electricity, shriveled up in flames, and cursed to death, Harry turned white as a ghost!  This was the most deadly group of adversaries ever assembled, and they meant business.  If only there was some way he could get his wand back from the corpse of Ape.  But if he tried, he knew he would be instantly killed.  And even if he were to somehow get his wand, would it still be in working condition?

            “So, how are we going to decide who gets to kill him?” asked Grumblesnore.

            “Biggest gun!” growled Santa, as he pumped his smoking shotgun, automatically loading the next cartridge and expelling the spent one.

            “Seniority,” said Gandulf.

            “Most powerful,” said Moldyfart.

            “How about a contest?” asked Elvis Grumblesnore.

            “A contest?” they all asked together, including Harry.

            “Yes, winner gets to kill Harry!”

            “What form of contest?” asked Gandulf suspiciously.

            “How about we all jump into Lake Iwannabealifeguard, the one who makes the biggest splash wins?” replied Elvis.

            “What?  At the same time?” asked Moldyfart.

            “That is the most foolish contest I’ve ever heard of!” cried Gandulf, who couldn’t swim.

            “No, it’s not, it’s brilliant,” exclaimed Santa, secretly thinking he had the meanest cannonball around.

            “It’s ingeniously clever, not one of us knows who would win such a contest,” Lord Moldyfart thought aloud.

            “If we want the outcome to be random, might we simply draw straws?” asked Gandulf, who was planning to cheat at drawing straws.

            “BORING!” shouted Santa.

            “If we do this contest, Grumblesnore, who would be the judge?” asked Moldyfart.

            “Harry can be the judge!” said Grumblesnore.

            “Putter?” sneered Moldyfart.

            “Yes, Harry,” said Grumblesnore firmly.

            “Why not?” chuckled Santa.

            And though they were supposedly some of the greatest thinking minds in the realm of fiction, none of them could indeed think of a reason why not.

    They headed out of the teachers’ lounge, out the backdoor of Hogwashes, and down to Lake Iwannabealifeguard.  Then much to Santa’s distaste, they drew straws to determine the jumping order.  Gandulf cheated and got to go first.  Santa would be second, followed by Moldyfart, then Grumblesnore. 

            Gandulf nervously pulled an inner tube around his waist.  He climbed the ladder.  He looked at Harry to make sure he was watching, then he stepped to the end of the diving board, and did his best cannonball, causing an enormous splash that looked like giant horses.  He hoped the boy liked horses.  He felt rather proud of his work, and considered the inner tube a great way to keep it secret from the others that he couldn’t swim.  He paddled leisurely to the shore and climbed out. 

            He called out, “Ha!  Beat that, Nick!” 

            Then he wiggled out of his inner tube as a giant squid wrapped a huge tentacle around him, and instantly pulled him to the depths below never to be seen again.  Santa, Moldyfart, Grumblesnore, and Harry all stared at the ripples on the surface of the water.

            “Wow,” thought Harry, “Nemoy sure has grown!”

            Moldyfart turned to Santa and said, “Right then, you’re next!”

            Santa gulped, “I hope that thing is full now.”  Santa laid his shotgun on one of the lounge chairs.  He climbed onto the diving board, sprang up and down a few times to get momentum, then jumped, tucking his knees under his arms, somersaulting through the air. 

            Meanwhile, Moldyfart and Grumblesnore gave each other a look, pulled out their wands, and said, “Use Glad freezer bags!” at the same time.  The spells they cast instantly froze the surface of the lake solid.  Santa hit the frozen lake top, and despite its thickness, he put several hairline cracks in its surface.  The surface also put several hairline cracks in Santa’s skull.

            “Very naughty, boys!” said Santa just before he fell unconscious. 

            Grumblesnore slashed out with his wand, saying “Wigwamia Levi-Straussa!” and he levitated Santa’s bulky body off the ice, and placed him in a nearby lounge chair.  Then stabbed with his wand at the lake saying, “Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love” and the lake surface instantly became water once again.  He turned to Moldyfart and said, “You’re up!”

            “Just how stupid do you think I am?” asked Moldyfart.  “You’d better give me your wand first.  I’m not going to let you cast any spells at me while I’m diving.”

            “And what, you think I’m just going to hand my wand over to you?” snorted Grumblesnore.

            Moldyfart started to object, but Grumblesnore held up his hand for quiet.  “The solution seems to me, that I will give Harry my wand to hold while you dive, so that I can’t interrupt you, and in turn, you will give Harry your wand to hold as I dive.  Will that be alright with you?”

            Moldyfart conceded that the plan would work, so long as Grumblesnore was disarmed during his own dive, and Harry couldn’t escape.  The boy was helpless, he couldn’t use another wizard’s wand, and somewhere deep inside the school, that sniveling fool Ape’s now cold corpse still held Harry’s wand.  The boy couldn’t abberate, couldn’t attack, couldn’t defend himself, and couldn’t run away.  He was helpless.

            Grumblesnore handed Harry his wand.  Then Lord Moldyfart climbed up on the diving board, and did a cannonball that sent a tremendous splash into the air. 

            “Wow,” said Grumblesnore, “that’s going to be tough to beat.”

            Harry decided to make a run for it.  He ran as fast as he could, but Lord Moldyfart surfaced, and flicking his wand at Harry, said the magic words, “Keeanu Reeves!” 

            It was one of the unforgettable curses.  Harry found it far worse than the Nicole Kidman curse.  His body instantly became wracked with pains, as though he was being forced to actually watch a Keanu Reeves performance.  He flopped to the ground and starting rolling in agony.  It was the same curse that had put Neville Largebottom’s parents in the insane asylum.  Even if he didn’t go insane, Harry would never again be able to look upon Keanu Reeves’s likeness without getting the willies.             

            Moldyfart stepped out of the lake, snapping his wand upward.  Harry felt instantly relieved.  “What a simpleton!” said Moldyfart.  “I knew the idiot would try to make a break for it.  Grumblesnore, you had better not let him get away, or I’ll kill YOU instead!”

            Grumblesnore said, “I’m sure Harry won’t want a second helping!  Make no mistake, that’s just what you will get, if you try that again, boy!”  Grumblesnore dragged Harry by his robes back to the lakeshore roughly.  He retrieved his wand from Harry, and waited for Moldyfart to relinquish his own wand temporarily for Putter to hold as Grumblesnore dived.

            But just before he handed his wand over, Moldyfart became suspicious.  “How do I know you two aren’t trying to trick me?” he asked himself aloud.  “Yes, I see, you disarm me, and then turn sides again, Grumblesnore, killing me instead of Harry!  I’ve figured out your little plan!”

            “I give you my solemn word, that I will not attack you.  In fact, I regret all my past endeavors to prevent you from killing the boy.  I have indeed had a change of heart.”

            “Your solemn word?  I’m sorry, but that just won’t do!  I’ve given mine many a time, and it turns out, dead men don’t question you after you’ve taken it back.  No, I think a little insurance is what’s needed here!” said the Fart Lord.  Then he readied himself to cast a summoning spell.  With the magic words, “Swanson’s Hungry-Beast Dinners,” two slavering bandersnatches appeared out of thin air. 

             “You, keep your eyes on this boy, if he attempts to run, you are to rip him to shreds and eat him,” commanded He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Smelled.

            The deadly creature grinned devilishly.

            Then Lord Moldyfart turned to the other bandersnatch, and said, “You, keep a close eye on this one.  He will be diving in the water, follow him, should he at any moment, before he enters the water or after, reach into his pocket, make him your midnight snack!”   

            The feral creature’s eyes gleamed with expectation.

            “There!  Now I can turn my wand over to Putter, and still be quite safe,” said the Fart Lord triumphantly as he handed over his wand to Harry.

            “A bit paranoid are we?” asked Grumblesnore, who didn’t seem even a bit nervous under the careful observation of the beastly creature.  He was of course very careful however, to keep his hands away from his pockets.

            “Never trust an enemy, Elvis,” Lord Moldyfart retorted.  “And now, I believe it is time for the contest to resume.”

            Grumblesnore climbed onto the diving board, the bandersnatch following.  He wasn’t nervous as he sprang, somersaulting twice before hitting the water with a splash as large as Moldyfart’s.  The bandersnatch jumped in behind him.

            When he surfaced, Moldyfart said, “Nice try, Grumblesnore, but I win!”

            Elvis scrambled out of the lake, as he tilted his head trying to knock water out of his ears.  The creature continued to follow him observing him closely.  “What was that, Moldyfart?  I’m afraid I couldn’t hear you properly with all that water in my ears.”

            Lord Moldyfart recovered his wand, grabbing it from Putter’s hand, “Give me that!”  Then turning back to Grumblesnore, “I said, ‘Nice try, but I win!’”

    “Not so fast, Moldyfart!  Harry is the judge.  Harry?”

    “Looked like a tie to me,” said Harry as he casually stepped over to the lounge chair and picked up Santa’s shotgun.  He blew the nearest of the two bandersnatches to kingdom come.

    Grumblesnore started to reach for his wand, but just as suddenly stopped, realizing in the nick of time that the remaining bandersnatch was still guarding him closely. 

    The Fart Lord, however, trained his wand on Putter.  Putter ignored him, pumping the shotgun, automatically expelling the spent cartridge, while loading the next.  Moldyfart yelled, “Ina Godda Da Vida, baby!”  The death curse.  However, the spell didn’t produce the desired effect.  Moldyfart looked down at his wand.  “What the?” he said, realizing that it wasn’t his wand after all.  It was a fake.  He flinched as the next shotgun blast blew the remaining bandersnatch away.

            Grumblesnore, no longer under the watchful eye of the slavering beast, finally pulled out his own wand.  “Darn it!” he said.  His wand too, was a fake.  He threw it in the lake.

            Harry snickered and held out their real wands.

            “This is all your fault, you idiot!” yelled Moldyfart.  He turned and gave the old schoolmaster a punch in the nose.  Grumblesnore fell down in a heap from the blow, unconscious.

            Then he turned back to Harry, “I can’t believe it!  Three wizards of far greater power than you, plus Santa with a shotgun.  There is no reason why you shouldn’t be dead right now!  But, Nooooo, Harry Putter never loses!  You may have gotten away this time, Putter, but I’ll be back.  Next time, you won’t be so lucky.  You are still no match for me!”

              Harry said, “Sayonara Sucker!” as he pumped the shotgun.  Then, he pulled the trigger and blew the Fart Lord away.

            He lowered the shotgun.  He had done it.  He had finally finished Lord Moldyfart off once and for all.  In the end, either Harry had to kill Lord Moldyfart, or Lord Moldyfart had to kill Harry.  What a relief that it was all over.  Perhaps now, he would stop having adventures.  He could just be a normal kid.  He could finish school, grow up, find a girlfriend, get a job, and maybe even one day, get married.