Harry Potter and the Pepperoni of Doom!

Chapter Five

Back in the kitchens, Draco sidled up to Harry, looked him up and down approvingly and grinned. Harry felt his tummy do a flip-flop, and he was, not for the first time around Draco, glad he was wearing his robe.

"So can't the insufferable know-it-all help him? I'm sure Granger must have read something in Learn Really Obscure Spells to Infuriate your Friends Handbook?"

"Why you-"

"-Leave it Ron, he's right."

What? You have read Learn Really Obscure Spells to Infuriate your Friends Handbook?" said Ron gleefully.

"No... But I am an insufferable know-it-all."

"HERMIONE, I CAN'T KEEP TALKING LIKE THIS, PEOPLE WILL WANT TO KILL ME!" said Harry pleadingly.

"He's right you know," said Ron, "I definitely want to kill him!"

Hermione shrugged and thought for a moment. She couldn't take her eyes off Draco's huge length of meat, as he stood there pointing it at her.

"That's IT!" she cried pulling Draco towards Harry.

"Harry put his meat your mouth," she commanded.

"HERMIONE, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE HERE ... NO WAY!"

Draco piped up, "I have to admit Hermione, I mean after a candle-lit dinner, a little dancing maybe... But here... now?"

"Shut up, and do as I say, or I'll Crucio your sorry arses!"

They had no choice but to follow her orders. Draco placed his length tentatively towards Harry's mouth. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and placed his lips around the end of meat.

"NOW WHA'?" he asked with a full mouth.

"Now Bite down HARD."

"Well, well, well Potter, just what do you think you are up to?"

"GULP!" said Harry, almost choking on Malfoy's salami in shock.

"Professor Snape! I can explain everything!" said Hermione.

"Everything since the dawn of time, no doubt," said Snape, sneering in the way only he and the Rickman clan could. "But I want to hear it from the horse's mouth."
"Leave me out of this!" said Firenze, emerging from the pantry with a large deli treat of his own and leaping from the window into the night.

"Your mouth, Potter. Spit. It. Out."

"Pro...Professor," whined Draco. "You, you won't tell my dad, will you?"

"You know well we have a special relationship, Lucius and I... We'll discuss that later," he winked. "But what's going on here?"

"He's done something to Vince and Greg!"

"Don't be ridiculous, boy, they're right behind me."

Crabbe and Goyle burst through the door, teary eyed.

"Draco, at last we've found you!"

"G-g-Goyle, there you are, I thought you were... I found your lunchbox, and you always take it..."

"But I've got it here," said Goyle, opening it.

Peering into his lunchbox, he saw a huge, unsavoury black pudding, curled like a sleeping sausage dog.

"You plonker," roared Ron, "you've got Crabbes!"

* * *

In the depths of the hidden forest, Voldemort put in his funky red contact lenses and figure-hugging evening dress, unaware he was being watched...

* * *

Harry spat out the spicy treat straight onto an unfortunate Dobby's head.

"Sorry Dobby," gasped Harry breathlessly. "I didn't see you there... What are you doing down there anyway?" he asked curiously.

Dobby quickly zipped up Draco's trousers.

"Sorry Harry Potter sir, Dobby must go and staple his ears together."

And with that, the little house elf ran off. As he ran, the gob of pepperoni hit Dean in the stomach.

"Food fight!" he cried, grabbing his wand and flipping over a bowl of mashed potato that landed right on top of Snape's greasy head. "Oops," said Dean, stepping back into the shadows.

Snape stood with the bowl covering his face, but everyone knew that beneath it, the Potions master was seething. Suddenly a noise could be heard from the other side of the kitchen... It sounded like singing.

"We're following the Weazey, the Weazey, the Weazey. We're following the Weazey, wherever he may go."

Ron emerged into the light, followed closely by a herd of house elves - which were singing.

"We're following the Weazey, the Weazey, the Weazey. We're following the Weazey, wherever he may go."

"BUGGER OFF!" Ron yelled, but to no avail. The house elves were in hot pursuit.

The leader cried out in a squeaky voice, "Ooh, the Weazey speaks!"

The other house elves replied in a monotone, "Ooh!"

Ron sighed and buried his head in his hands.

The leader, the smartest one of the bunch called Albert, piped up gleefully, "Is the Weazey going to take us to the portal of light now?"

"Portal of light?" queried Harry.

"Portal of light... ooooh," repeated the house elves.

"Will you pack that in!" Ron snapped at them, and then turned to Harry. "They mean the kitchen door."

"Will someone PLEASE get this damn bowl off my head!" roared Snape. "NOW!"

Harry stood there in the middle of kitchen, thoroughly confused by everything that had just happened. Did Dobby really just give Draco a treat? Where the hell did Snape, Crabbe, and Goyle just come from? Wasn't Dean supposed to be upstairs on the seventh floor duelling with the Ravenclaws?

There were so many unanswered questions, and Harry decided to do what he always did in times of crisis - he would go for a cry under his Invisibility Cloak.

He was just about to head for the door, when Ron and Hermione, apparently guessing what he was about to do, grabbed his robes and prevented him from escaping.

"Oi! Get off!" complained Harry. "My cloak is calling me!"

"You'll stay here, you coward!" said Hermione.

"Yeah," said Ron. "We're supposed to be having a food fight, right?"

"Indeed," said Snape, wresting the bowl of mash potato from his head and throwing it at the nearest house elf. "That is what is called for at such an occasion."

All of them stood around, as they waited for someone to start the fight.

"Okay," said Hermione, taking the initiative. "Here's what we do - we need to split into two teams: Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Each team will have one attempt to throw the food at the other team, before it is other team's turn. A team member will be disqualified for throwing food out of turn..."

"Oh shut up!" shouted everyone else.

"You always ruin our fun with 'rules'" said Ron.

"But guys," said Hermione, "rules control the fun."

Before Hermione could say anything else, a large bowl of what looked like stringy green beans was aimed straight at her head, hitting her quite spectacularly. No one was sure who had thrown it, friend or foe, but it unofficially signalled the start of the fight.

Harry picked up a bowl of ice cream and hurled it straight at Malfoy.

"Elves!" shouted Harry. "We need more food, pronto!"

Duck! Dodge! Catch! Scoop! Hurl!

Harry performed a rather impressive leap-somersault-stand manoeuvre and caught a bowl.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Take things out of the bowls before you chuck them! Someone's going to get hurt, with all this china being tossed about!"

Hermione nodded. "Exactly. We need order. We need-" Suddenly, a loud splat was heard, effectively cutting her off. Hermione raised her spider chart, trembling, and watched the gravy begin to drip off it. "My chart!"

And with that, she began to throw mashed potatoes (with garlic, butter and chives) in every direction.

"My hair! My perfect fucking hair!" cried Draco, as he wiped a fancy crème brulee out of his golden locks. "I won't stand for this! I'm a Malfoy! And this brulee hasn't set long enough! GAK! And it's been over-salted!"

"Terribly sorry, Master Malfoy, sir!" moped a guilt-stricken house elf.

"You know what to do," commanded Draco.

The house elf furiously set to trying to concoct a cake around its head and stuck itself in an oven.

Hermione, upon seeing the house elf trying to frost itself, shrieked in utter dismay. "You bastard, Draco! I'll get you if it's the next to last thing I do! Providing, of course, that I pass my NEWTS, become a successful runway model in France, marry Viktor Krum, have loads of children (by a surrogate witch, of course), and discover a cure for genital herpes. BUT I SWEAR I'LL GET YOU!"

Hermione took a slice of pizza handed to her by a house elf ("Thank you, Alby."), picked off the pepperoni, which she gleefully crammed into her mouth, and chucked it at Malfoy, only to have the hot, greasy cheesiness slap Ron right in his freckled face.

"ARRRGHH!!! You crazy bitch! Don't throw food at me! Throw it AT MALFOY!"

"But that would mean playing by the rules, Ronald. And we all know how you hate for me to mention the rules," Hermione harrumphed rather bitchily.

"WELL IT BURNS, I THANK YOU!" shouted Ron. "Somebody do something! I swear, I hate this school."

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry bellowed.

Everyone stopped to watch as a large, silvery stag burst out of Harry's wand ("Stop giggling, Lavender!"), strode about the kitchens magnificently, looked about its surroundings and helped itself to some Canadian Apple Pie before dissolving back into nothingness.

"Sonofa-" Harry mumbled in disbelief. It was the first time since being able to conjure a corporeal Patronus that the charm had failed him. He was visibly shaken. Everything that he ever learned, all the practice, teaching Defensive Arts to the DA in their fifth year... Harry was beside himself. Panic began to set in. He looked about for the closest exit, tears welling up in his eyes. He began to think of his mother, his friends, Voldemort, the prophecy-

SPLAT!

The battle in the kitchens was still raging. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had retreated to one side of the kitchen and tipped a large wooden table onto its side to act as a shield. Draco and Snape had taken up a similar position on the other side of the kitchen.

Crabbe and Goyle, through a combination of hunger and stupidity, sat at a table in the centre of the melee, making a complete mess of a large and sticky chocolate cake. They sat there completely oblivious to what was going around them, laughing at each other with their hands and faces covered in the sticky cake.

"Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee! This is like, so cool," said Crabbe.

"Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu! Yeah cool," said Goyle.

The fifty or so house elves, which were in the kitchen at the time, were either frantically preparing food for use as ammunition or cleaning the mess that the ammunition made.

Harry was just about to hurl a large handful of cranberry sauce at Snape's position, when the door of the kitchen burst open and a large fat bastard came in.

"'Ello, ev'rywon'," said Hagrid. "Was bin 'appening doon 'ere?"

"Oh no," said Ron. "What the fuck does he want?"

"How the hell I am supposed to know?" said Harry. "I can never understand a word he says. I just nod and 'yes' or 'no' every now and then, and it seems to work."

"Weers dose 'ouse elths wiv me barr'l o' mead?"

"I understood the word mead," said Hermione, "but that was about it."

"Maybe the only words he can say properly are those related to alcohol?" suggested Ron.

"I guess we'll have to wait for the DVD, when they make the films of this, to come out, then we can find out what the hell he's saying using subtitles," said Harry.

"Speaking of films, are either of you happy with the actors that play you?" asked Hermione.

"You must be kidding," said Harry. "That Radcliffe kid can't act to save his life."

"Likewise," said Ron. "I think the only reason Grint was cast was because they couldn't find another ginger kid."

The conversation about Hagrid and films went on hold as a large glob of treacle narrowly missed Harry's head. Harry threw what he had in his hand and ordered the nearest house elf to get him some more food. Hagrid, meanwhile, started rummaging through a nearby cupboard, obviously to find some booze, when he came out with something long and thick in his hand.

"Was dis?" asked Hagrid, curiously.

"Oh no!" said Hermione. "Look what Hagrid just found!"

At that moment, a night owl flew into the kitchen. It flew toward Ginny who, even as the pepperoni emerged, began to show Luna Lovegood and another would-be Bond girl a new meaning of 'avocado dip'.

It was obviously a howler... it began smoking.