Good Omens/Harry Potter.... Yet again
In a desperate attempt to avoid getting on with the statistical analyses of experimental data I'm supposed to be doing this week I decided to write yet another GO crossover. I have no idea why I can't seem to be able to write anything without it turning into a silly crossover.
Disclaimer - None of the characters or settings belong to me in any way, shape or form.
On Tuesday afternoons the clientele of Madam Puddifoot’s Tearoom usually consisted of a dozen or so middle-aged witches, a few Hogwarts students who’d managed to sneak out of the school grounds, and an elderly wizard who would sit at the table in the corner for hours on end after ordering just a small cup of tea. Today however they had been joined by a couple of new faces; two men dressed in muggle clothing, who, to the casual observer, may have appeared to be having something of a squabble.
“Do we really have to eat here?” grumbled Crowley, eyeing the flowery wallpaper and profusion of doilies with an expression bordering on disgust.
“You were the one who kept complaining that you were hungry,” said Aziraphale, glancing up from the paper. “Anyway I think it’s rather charming, in a chintzy sort of way.”
Crowley muttered something about angels having a mandatory taste-bypass.
“Really Crowley, if you’re trying to goad me you’re going to have to do just a little better than that.” Aziraphale went back to doing the crossword, whilst Crowley looked around for something to entertain himself with.
The elderly wizard in the corner gasped as he noticed that the copy of Daily Prophet he was holding had somehow become the latest edition of Leather Clad Mermaids Exposed.
Crowley smirked.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes.
In the kitchen the proprietor of the establishment was suddenly overcome by feelings of guilt about the inordinate amount of work she’d been giving Tipsy, and resolved to be more sensitive to her house elf’s needs in the future.
Crowley sat back and folded his arms.
A Hogwarts seventh year, who was sitting at a nearby table minding their own business, shifted uncomfortably as they began to feel their mind pervaded by impure thoughts about Professor Snape.
“Honestly my dear, anyone would think you were flirting with me,” said Aziraphale, in tones just loud enough to be heard by the four witches on the neighbouring table; who instantly began to gawp at the pair in what they obviously thought was a discreet manner.
Crowley choked on his coffee.
A look of definite smugness flittered briefly across the angel’s face.
“Are you okay sir?” asked a concerned waitress, whose robes were about as frilly and florid as the soft furnishings.
“Yeah... err fine thanks,” said Crowley, quickly regaining his composure.
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, suddenly sounding serious. “There aren’t any demons besides you anywhere around here, are there?”
“No, don’t think so. Why?”
“I seem to be sensing a second infernal presence in the vicinity.”
Crowley’s eyes widened as he began to sense it to. Visions of being dragged kicking and screaming - with strong emphasis on the screaming - back to the pit by Hastur or one of his mates began to play themselves out in his mind with graphic Technicolor detail. “Shit. Look if they ask, I’ve been using my innumerable reserves of demonic charm and persuasion to try and get you to fall.”
“Crowley I’m not going to fall just to get you out of trouble with the boss.”
“You don’t have to actually fall. Just tell them that I was attempting to entice you to the dark side.”
“But angels don’t lie.”
“Then expand on the truth.”
“Crowley it’s getting closer,” said Aziraphale, who was beginning to experience the first symptoms of mild to moderate panic.
“Yeah. I know,” snapped Crowley, who’d skipped panic altogether and gone directly to blind terror.
The teashop’s door began to slowly creak open. What appeared in the doorway however was not a disgruntled duke of hell, but a very large snake.
As the snake slithered into the centre of the room, the rest of the patrons ceased to move, as if they were somehow frozen in time. The thing then coiled around itself and began to metamorphasise into something very different.
Crowley’s shoulders visibly sagged with relief “Hello Nagini.”
“Crowley!” exclaimed the now-woman-shaped creature. “What are you doing here?”
“Err, just out to lunch. You?”
“Trying to aid the descent of the magical world into chaos and despair. You haven’t seen a young girl with red hair around here at all have you?”
“No sorry.”
“Who’s the angel?” she said, gesturing to Aziraphale.
“Oh this. This is Aziraphale.”
“He’s trying to get me to fall,” said Aziraphale, helpfully.
“Well. If you do, don’t let them make you a succubus,” she said.
“Oh right... right. I’ll remember that,” said Aziraphale, at a loss as to how to respond.
“Nagini used to be a succubus, but she got demoted back to general minion for gross incompetence.”
“I couldn’t stop laughing,” supplied Nagini, who, much to Aziraphale’s consternation appeared to be trying to drape herself over Crowley.
“I don’t see how that would be a problem. Humans always seem to be giggling when... well you know.
Crowley sniggered.
“Not that I make a habit of watching them of course,” said Aziraphale sharply
“Of course not,” said Crowley, smirking.
“I think it was more a matter of timing,” said Nagini, ruefully. “Your average warlord can start to feel a bit inadequate if the succubus starts laughing the moment he removes his undergarments. They don’t tend to sign the immortal soul contract afterwards.”
“If you ask me it was genius,” said Crowley. “Make a human feel adequate, and they might just be persuaded to sell their soul. Make them feel inadequate though, and they’ll spread chaos and despair like nobody’s business to overcompensate, damning hundreds of other souls in the process. Anyway, what exactly are you doing back up here? Last thing I heard was that you were working for Dagon.”
“I was. Three thousand years filing the pound of flesh requisition forms. Of course after the Armageddon project failed they decided to restructure the whole department, and I somehow got sent back up here.”
“Err. Yes about that. You didn’t happen to hear what downstairs was saying about me before you came back up here did you.”
Nagini shook her head. “They were debating what to do with you for a little while, but then they just seems to forget about it. Well apart from Ligur. After you dowsed him with that holy water, he holed himself up somewhere in Dis and refused to come out. Lilith and both Beelzebub tried shouting at him for a while; but that didn’t work, and he’s still there, having anxiety attacks whenever he sees a bucket lying around. Hastur was vowing revenge for a while, but then he went a bit weird and started stalking Belphegor; who said he was going to make an official complaint about it if it didn’t stop.”
Crowley grinned evilly. “Nagini knows all of the office gossip,” he said.
“Well, I used to. Until you ruined the apocalypse for everyone.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t say that you’d rather be down there. What could possibly be worse than having to navigating Dagon’s nonsensical filing systems for eternity?”
“Being Lord Voldemort’s pet snake,” snarled Nagini.
“Ah.”
“He sprays spittle everywhere when he cackles. He speaks parseltongue to me in a silly high-pitched voice, as if I were some sort of retarded grass snake. I don’t get any paid holidays. Lucius Malfoy keeps trying to secretly borrow me for use at his depraved house parties. Oh, and he doesn’t listen to a single one of my ideas for world domination.”
“Ah. I supp...”
“And the worst thing is we hardly get any souls out of it anyway. Oh yes, he’s got lots of followers, but they were ours already. And his opponents are being sickeningly noble about the whole thing.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do,” said Crowley, looking uncomfortable.
Nagini instantly brightened. “There is one thing,” she said.
“Oh?”
“We could swap jobs.”
“I don’t think that would be very a good idea.”
“But you were the Serpent of Eden. I bet that you could get Voldemort to do whatever you wanted.”
Crowley visibly preened at this. “Well, I suppose I could, but I’ve got the USA and the Middle-East to think about.”
“But the people downstairs are predicting his reign’s going to last for over a hundred years,” wailed Nagini, looking stricken.
Aziraphale coughed. “What about Harry Potter?”
“He won’t win against Voldemort,” she said, glumly.
“But if he had, shall we say, divine help he could.”
“Oh yes. But your people don’t usually do that sort of think anymore... What exactly are you suggesting?”
“It would be killing two birds with one stone so to speak. We get rid of an evil despot, and you don’t have to work for him any more.”
Nagini was silent for several minutes. “What would be in it for you?” she said eventually.
“Like I said, we’d be getting rid of a tyrant.”
“Yes but what’s in it for you personally? I may have been a useless succubus, but I’m not entirely stupid. You could be planning to turn me in for passing sensitive information over to the enemy.”
Aziraphale looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, if you didn’t mention to anyone that you saw me and Crowley together, I’d be rather grateful. Not that I’m in any way suggesting that this would be my only motivation in this matter of course.”
“Of course,” said Nagini smiling sweetly, or at least as close to sweetly that your average demon could manage. “I really should be going. He’s having one of his Death Eater meetings tonight, and I think I might try and bite one of the Lestranges, when he’s not looking.” She then removed herself from Crowley, transformed back into a twelve-metre long cobra/boa-constrictor hybrid, and slithered back outside.
The teashop’s other customers instantaneously unfroze, glanced at their assorted clocks, watches, and other miscellaneous time keeping devices, and collective wondered how the last half-hour had pasted so quickly.
“Aziraphale, did you just manage to persuade a demon, who isn’t me, to let heaven have a free hand in destroying a psychotic dark lord; whilst at the same time guaranteeing that she’s not going to blab about seeing us together. I must be having more of an influence than I thought”
“It just seemed like a mutually beneficial agreement for all concerned,” said Aziraphale, primly.
“Come on, you’re even starting to talk like a lawyer.”
“Oh do shut up.”
----
After lunch they went shopping Hogsmeade. Crowley bought several ethically dubious products from Zonko’s joke shop, and Aziraphale almost had to be forcibly removed from the second-hand enchanted-bookshop next to Gladrags Wizard Wear.
“It’s rather pretty in the evening don’t you think,” said Aziraphale, as a thick mist began to settle on the ground.
“It’s too bloody cold if you ask me.”
“Well maybe if, like me, you’d dressed in something a bit warmer…”
“…then I’d run the risk of contracting your dress sense,” said Crowley putting an arm the angel’s shoulders.
“Really dear boy people are going to… Crowley what on earth are you trying to my neck… Mmmm… Crowley there are people out here.”
“In there then?”
----
“Evening, Aberforth,” said Madam Rosmerta, cheerfully, as the proprietor of The Hogs Head walked past The Three Broomsticks.
“Evening, Rosmerta. I hear that the ghosts are back,” he said, nodding in the direction of the Shrieking Shack.
“So did I,” said Madam Rosmerta. “Fancy them returning after all these years.”
As evening turned to night, the sound of unearthly moaning could be heard throughout most of Hogmeade.
Disclaimer - None of the characters or settings belong to me in any way, shape or form.
On Tuesday afternoons the clientele of Madam Puddifoot’s Tearoom usually consisted of a dozen or so middle-aged witches, a few Hogwarts students who’d managed to sneak out of the school grounds, and an elderly wizard who would sit at the table in the corner for hours on end after ordering just a small cup of tea. Today however they had been joined by a couple of new faces; two men dressed in muggle clothing, who, to the casual observer, may have appeared to be having something of a squabble.
“Do we really have to eat here?” grumbled Crowley, eyeing the flowery wallpaper and profusion of doilies with an expression bordering on disgust.
“You were the one who kept complaining that you were hungry,” said Aziraphale, glancing up from the paper. “Anyway I think it’s rather charming, in a chintzy sort of way.”
Crowley muttered something about angels having a mandatory taste-bypass.
“Really Crowley, if you’re trying to goad me you’re going to have to do just a little better than that.” Aziraphale went back to doing the crossword, whilst Crowley looked around for something to entertain himself with.
The elderly wizard in the corner gasped as he noticed that the copy of Daily Prophet he was holding had somehow become the latest edition of Leather Clad Mermaids Exposed.
Crowley smirked.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes.
In the kitchen the proprietor of the establishment was suddenly overcome by feelings of guilt about the inordinate amount of work she’d been giving Tipsy, and resolved to be more sensitive to her house elf’s needs in the future.
Crowley sat back and folded his arms.
A Hogwarts seventh year, who was sitting at a nearby table minding their own business, shifted uncomfortably as they began to feel their mind pervaded by impure thoughts about Professor Snape.
“Honestly my dear, anyone would think you were flirting with me,” said Aziraphale, in tones just loud enough to be heard by the four witches on the neighbouring table; who instantly began to gawp at the pair in what they obviously thought was a discreet manner.
Crowley choked on his coffee.
A look of definite smugness flittered briefly across the angel’s face.
“Are you okay sir?” asked a concerned waitress, whose robes were about as frilly and florid as the soft furnishings.
“Yeah... err fine thanks,” said Crowley, quickly regaining his composure.
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, suddenly sounding serious. “There aren’t any demons besides you anywhere around here, are there?”
“No, don’t think so. Why?”
“I seem to be sensing a second infernal presence in the vicinity.”
Crowley’s eyes widened as he began to sense it to. Visions of being dragged kicking and screaming - with strong emphasis on the screaming - back to the pit by Hastur or one of his mates began to play themselves out in his mind with graphic Technicolor detail. “Shit. Look if they ask, I’ve been using my innumerable reserves of demonic charm and persuasion to try and get you to fall.”
“Crowley I’m not going to fall just to get you out of trouble with the boss.”
“You don’t have to actually fall. Just tell them that I was attempting to entice you to the dark side.”
“But angels don’t lie.”
“Then expand on the truth.”
“Crowley it’s getting closer,” said Aziraphale, who was beginning to experience the first symptoms of mild to moderate panic.
“Yeah. I know,” snapped Crowley, who’d skipped panic altogether and gone directly to blind terror.
The teashop’s door began to slowly creak open. What appeared in the doorway however was not a disgruntled duke of hell, but a very large snake.
As the snake slithered into the centre of the room, the rest of the patrons ceased to move, as if they were somehow frozen in time. The thing then coiled around itself and began to metamorphasise into something very different.
Crowley’s shoulders visibly sagged with relief “Hello Nagini.”
“Crowley!” exclaimed the now-woman-shaped creature. “What are you doing here?”
“Err, just out to lunch. You?”
“Trying to aid the descent of the magical world into chaos and despair. You haven’t seen a young girl with red hair around here at all have you?”
“No sorry.”
“Who’s the angel?” she said, gesturing to Aziraphale.
“Oh this. This is Aziraphale.”
“He’s trying to get me to fall,” said Aziraphale, helpfully.
“Well. If you do, don’t let them make you a succubus,” she said.
“Oh right... right. I’ll remember that,” said Aziraphale, at a loss as to how to respond.
“Nagini used to be a succubus, but she got demoted back to general minion for gross incompetence.”
“I couldn’t stop laughing,” supplied Nagini, who, much to Aziraphale’s consternation appeared to be trying to drape herself over Crowley.
“I don’t see how that would be a problem. Humans always seem to be giggling when... well you know.
Crowley sniggered.
“Not that I make a habit of watching them of course,” said Aziraphale sharply
“Of course not,” said Crowley, smirking.
“I think it was more a matter of timing,” said Nagini, ruefully. “Your average warlord can start to feel a bit inadequate if the succubus starts laughing the moment he removes his undergarments. They don’t tend to sign the immortal soul contract afterwards.”
“If you ask me it was genius,” said Crowley. “Make a human feel adequate, and they might just be persuaded to sell their soul. Make them feel inadequate though, and they’ll spread chaos and despair like nobody’s business to overcompensate, damning hundreds of other souls in the process. Anyway, what exactly are you doing back up here? Last thing I heard was that you were working for Dagon.”
“I was. Three thousand years filing the pound of flesh requisition forms. Of course after the Armageddon project failed they decided to restructure the whole department, and I somehow got sent back up here.”
“Err. Yes about that. You didn’t happen to hear what downstairs was saying about me before you came back up here did you.”
Nagini shook her head. “They were debating what to do with you for a little while, but then they just seems to forget about it. Well apart from Ligur. After you dowsed him with that holy water, he holed himself up somewhere in Dis and refused to come out. Lilith and both Beelzebub tried shouting at him for a while; but that didn’t work, and he’s still there, having anxiety attacks whenever he sees a bucket lying around. Hastur was vowing revenge for a while, but then he went a bit weird and started stalking Belphegor; who said he was going to make an official complaint about it if it didn’t stop.”
Crowley grinned evilly. “Nagini knows all of the office gossip,” he said.
“Well, I used to. Until you ruined the apocalypse for everyone.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t say that you’d rather be down there. What could possibly be worse than having to navigating Dagon’s nonsensical filing systems for eternity?”
“Being Lord Voldemort’s pet snake,” snarled Nagini.
“Ah.”
“He sprays spittle everywhere when he cackles. He speaks parseltongue to me in a silly high-pitched voice, as if I were some sort of retarded grass snake. I don’t get any paid holidays. Lucius Malfoy keeps trying to secretly borrow me for use at his depraved house parties. Oh, and he doesn’t listen to a single one of my ideas for world domination.”
“Ah. I supp...”
“And the worst thing is we hardly get any souls out of it anyway. Oh yes, he’s got lots of followers, but they were ours already. And his opponents are being sickeningly noble about the whole thing.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do,” said Crowley, looking uncomfortable.
Nagini instantly brightened. “There is one thing,” she said.
“Oh?”
“We could swap jobs.”
“I don’t think that would be very a good idea.”
“But you were the Serpent of Eden. I bet that you could get Voldemort to do whatever you wanted.”
Crowley visibly preened at this. “Well, I suppose I could, but I’ve got the USA and the Middle-East to think about.”
“But the people downstairs are predicting his reign’s going to last for over a hundred years,” wailed Nagini, looking stricken.
Aziraphale coughed. “What about Harry Potter?”
“He won’t win against Voldemort,” she said, glumly.
“But if he had, shall we say, divine help he could.”
“Oh yes. But your people don’t usually do that sort of think anymore... What exactly are you suggesting?”
“It would be killing two birds with one stone so to speak. We get rid of an evil despot, and you don’t have to work for him any more.”
Nagini was silent for several minutes. “What would be in it for you?” she said eventually.
“Like I said, we’d be getting rid of a tyrant.”
“Yes but what’s in it for you personally? I may have been a useless succubus, but I’m not entirely stupid. You could be planning to turn me in for passing sensitive information over to the enemy.”
Aziraphale looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, if you didn’t mention to anyone that you saw me and Crowley together, I’d be rather grateful. Not that I’m in any way suggesting that this would be my only motivation in this matter of course.”
“Of course,” said Nagini smiling sweetly, or at least as close to sweetly that your average demon could manage. “I really should be going. He’s having one of his Death Eater meetings tonight, and I think I might try and bite one of the Lestranges, when he’s not looking.” She then removed herself from Crowley, transformed back into a twelve-metre long cobra/boa-constrictor hybrid, and slithered back outside.
The teashop’s other customers instantaneously unfroze, glanced at their assorted clocks, watches, and other miscellaneous time keeping devices, and collective wondered how the last half-hour had pasted so quickly.
“Aziraphale, did you just manage to persuade a demon, who isn’t me, to let heaven have a free hand in destroying a psychotic dark lord; whilst at the same time guaranteeing that she’s not going to blab about seeing us together. I must be having more of an influence than I thought”
“It just seemed like a mutually beneficial agreement for all concerned,” said Aziraphale, primly.
“Come on, you’re even starting to talk like a lawyer.”
“Oh do shut up.”
----
After lunch they went shopping Hogsmeade. Crowley bought several ethically dubious products from Zonko’s joke shop, and Aziraphale almost had to be forcibly removed from the second-hand enchanted-bookshop next to Gladrags Wizard Wear.
“It’s rather pretty in the evening don’t you think,” said Aziraphale, as a thick mist began to settle on the ground.
“It’s too bloody cold if you ask me.”
“Well maybe if, like me, you’d dressed in something a bit warmer…”
“…then I’d run the risk of contracting your dress sense,” said Crowley putting an arm the angel’s shoulders.
“Really dear boy people are going to… Crowley what on earth are you trying to my neck… Mmmm… Crowley there are people out here.”
“In there then?”
----
“Evening, Aberforth,” said Madam Rosmerta, cheerfully, as the proprietor of The Hogs Head walked past The Three Broomsticks.
“Evening, Rosmerta. I hear that the ghosts are back,” he said, nodding in the direction of the Shrieking Shack.
“So did I,” said Madam Rosmerta. “Fancy them returning after all these years.”
As evening turned to night, the sound of unearthly moaning could be heard throughout most of Hogmeade.