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The entire courtyard watched in devastastion as the body of their saviour lay in Hagrids arms. The Dark Lord and his army of Death Eaters had just finished laughing and gleefully announcing that Harry Potter was dead. The resisting students, teachers and Order of the Phoenix members were all staring stoicly or otherwise blurred with tears as Lord Voldemort continued with his victory speech-
"Harry Potter is dead! Now is the time to declare yoursel-"
-when suddenly a teenage boy with a black aviator jacket and a black sword melted out of the darkness in the middle of the courtyard. And face planted.
"..."
"..."
There was stunned silence for a moment, and no one was quite able to tell who was more surprised - the boy or everyone else. Eventually the boy stood up - not looking as self conscious as one would expect upon apparating in the middle of a confrontation between the world's most dangerous dark wizard, all his dark wizard and witch followers and a bunch of school students and staff that stand between him and his plans of genocide. It looked, inexplicably, as though the boy had landed himself in situations more awkward than this. He looked at both of the groups that were surrounding him in a surprised manner, but soon everyone's bemusement was stopped by the sound of the Dark Lord's furious voice.
"Who are you, that dares to intrude? Have you come to join my cause, young man? Or are you here to die with all the other blood traitors and mudbloods?" His voice rasped loudly, and everyone looked to the boy whose attention had been caught. His response was not what anyone expected.
The boy took a breath and raised a finger, before his face slipped into confusion and he deflated before finally speaking. "OK, first of all, you don't have a nose. I'm sorry, that's probably really rude and offensive, but to be honest it's kind of distracting and I have ADHD, so if I don't address that now it's just gonna keep popping up in my mind and I won't be able to concentrate on anything else. Seriously, you look a lot like an albino snake and you just spoke like you're hissing, and I haven't ever met any snake people. My cousin's met three, but he said they had snake's for hair and were a lot less obvious, so I'm just gonna assume that you're a human who made some bad decisions."
The entire courtyard was silent, once again dumbfounded by the teenage boy who had appeared. It seemed the only reason that the Dark Lord hadn't attacked the impudent kid, was that he was too surprised to move before the boy continued speaking.
"Second, you know you're missing pretty much most of your soul? Seriously, you should probably be dead by now. I mean, that's gotta feel pretty shitty and- wait a minute... Why does that snake have more of your soul in her than you have in you? Oohhhh, that's gross. Man, I'm really feeling sorry for that snake.
"Third, and this is probably the most important, but where the schist am I?!?!"
At the boy's exclamation, the Dark Lord finally shook himself out of his stunned stupor enough to angrily address the boy. The Hogwartians all began to prepare themselves to fight. There was likely no stopping the strange boy from being murdered, but as soon as an attack was made they would respond and fight until they either killed all the Death Eaters or died trying.
"How DARE you show such disrespect to me, the Dark Lord!? You are fortunate that I don't kill you where you stand! The only reason I don't is that you are young and already so powerful as to be able to apparate at such an age. Beg for my forgiveness, and you may yet be spared, boy. Beg, and tell me your name, then pledge your allegiance to me and become one of my Death Eaters!"
There was a pause before a soft sound could be heard from the boy who was shaking in... laughter? Then, all of a sudden, his quiet sniggering turned into full-blown giggles, complete with tears of mirth.
"Oh-oh wow. Did you- Did you just say 'Death Eaters'?" That set him off again for a few more seconds before he recovered enough to continue speaking more calmly. "Oh, man, I haven't laughed that hard in a while, so thanks for that. Uh, well I kinda have this policy about begging and pledging my allegiance to people who are, A: crazy and not related to me, B: crazy and related to me, C: creepy snake-like-but-not-actually-snake people, or D: a cultist. My policy says that I don't do either of those things to people who are any one those things, but I can give my name." He smirked, like there was a joke and only he knew the punchline, "It's Nico, Nico di Angelo."
"You would defy your superiors and side with those of inferior heritage? Then now you will die, Nico di Angelo!" The Dark Lord raised his want, probably the perform the Killing Curse on the brave, foolish boy who had dared to defy him. Before he could cast the spell, however, the di Angelo kid waved his hand - his wandless hand - and everyone watched in horror and awe as the shadows near the Dark Lord's feet all manifested as a permeable force and worked to trip him up.
"You want to talk about heritage and legacy? You want to claim the title of Dark Lord? Unluckily for you, dead things and darkness fall into my jurisdiction. If you want to play emo-Hitler - if you want to be the Dark Lord - then you're going to have to go through me, Nico di Angelo, Son of Hades, Ghost King. And I'm sure as Athena not going to make it easy for you." Di Angelo was radiating a truly frightening amount of raw, dark power, which was such a contrast to the dorky kid that he'd looked to be before, that no one was sure what to think. Neither the Death Eaters nor the Hogwartians knew how they should feel about this new development - about this boy whose pure power seemed to rival that of the Dark Lord's. No one knew whether he would be their saviour, or the bringer of an even worse fate.
Feeling less than confident for the first time since arriving at his old school, but determined not to show it, the Dark Lord decided to eliminate this new problem. "Kill him," he hissed. His Death Eaters, slightly wary of di Angelo, but more loyal - and scared of - their master, and confident in their numbers began moving forward.
"Oh boy," di Angelo muttered, before he stuck his sword, point first into the ground with a loud CRACK, before the courtyard split open and a contingent of skeletal warriors emerged to attack the very surprised Death Eaters. They provided an ample distraction for all the Dark Lord's followers, giving di Angelo time to turn to the stupefied Hogwartians. "You guys want to get in on this? I mean, I'm just a tourist - this is your war."
Spurred by di Angelo's words, the Hogwartians quickly joined the fray, easily able to capture or kill the Death Eaters with the aid of the... skeletal army. Di Angelo then walked over to the snake that held a piece of scarred soul. He raised his sword, preparing to decapitate the snake before a bushy haired girl and a red haired boy, both a few years older than him, ran over to him.
"Oi!!! Di Angelo! The snake's a horcrux! You can only kill it with powerful magic, like fiend fyre, or with basilisk venom-"
Di Angelo cut the snake's head off. It's body flopped to the ground. It was now a dead snake. Di Angelo raised an eyebrow at the read haired boy as he and his friend gaped at him and the snake's corpse.
".....Oh. I guess that works too."
"Yep. I guess so."
A shout of rage and agony distracted everyone from what they were doing, as everyone looked to where the Dark Lord stood, facing a teenage boy with messy, jet black hair. There were many gasps and murmurings of "It's Harry!" and "Potter's alive!" or "It can't be" and "Not possible!" as the Hogwartians realised that their saviour was indeed alive, and facing the Dark Lord, in what was sure to be an epic duel to the death.
"You can't defeat me, Harry Potter. Even after being brought back from death you aren't strong enough to kill me!" The Dark Lord screamed mockingly at the Chosen One.
Potter prepared for battle against the man who had murdered his family, and began to engage in a duologue. "It's over now, Tom. You've lost! Just surrender!"
"Never! I am Lord Voldemort and I will never yield-"
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Everyone looked to where di Angelo was doubled over and practically breathless with laughter. It took him a few moments longer to recover than it did the previous time.
"What!?" Potter snapped irritably at the same time that Voldemort yelled, "How dare you!?"
Di Angelo just pointed at Voldemort and managed to get out, between peals of laughter, "You're na- ha ha- You're name literally rhymes with 'mouldy shorts'," He looked to the Death Eaters - those that were still alive and conscious, that was - before erupting into laughter once again, "You all voluntarily joined a cult whose members call themselves 'Death Eaters', whose leader is a no-nosed, albino snake-man, who named himself Voldemort! A name which means 'flight of death' in French, and which rhymes with 'mouldy-shorts'! Oh man, and I thought that I made poor life choices. I mean, I've seen weirder stuff, but not from mortal, humans! Ha ha! Next- Oh my gods- Next thing... Ha ha! Next thing you'll be telling me that you have a theme song, or that you wear matching uniforms! Or maybe you all dress up in masks! Ha ha!"
It was hilarious to watch as some of the Death Eaters glanced at each other uncomfortably, likely only just realising how stupid they sounded right now. Or maybe they really did wear masks... Nah, that was too typical.
In any case, Voldemort was sick of being laughed at and humiliated by teenagers. Every year, his plans for dominance were at least partially foiled by the Potter boy, and every year his attempts to kill him were stopped. But this di Angelo boy had just shown up, in a frightening display of dark power, laughed at him, and decimated his army. Voldemort was not going to put up with it anymore - not from two of them! If he couldn't kill Potter, then he would have to make do with di Angelo. Once he was gone, things could go back to the way they were. Voldemort could escape, create a few more horcruxes, and return again in the future. So while everyone was distracted by the giggling boy, Voldemort apparated a few feet away from him, raised the Elder Wand, the Killing Curse already on his tongue-
-And promptly tripped over the shadows once again grabbing at his feet. Before he could get his bearings, di Angelo darted over to him and snatched the wand out of his hand.
"OK, this is just sad now. I mean, you have a long distance weapon... but you come into my range to use it? Seriously?" He sighed. "Does anyone have any objections to me killing him right now? No? OK then-"
"Nico wait!"
Everyone jumped, including di Angelo himself, as a tall man with pasty skin, long dark hair that matched his black clothes, and who exuded an aura of death that surpassed the boy's, melted from the shadows from the side of the courtyard. Everyone was very alarmed, except for di Angelo who relaxed slightly and half turned to face the man.
"Gods, Dad! Don't do that! And why do you want me to wait?" No one was particularly surprised by the revelation that the man and the boy were related.
"I'm your father so I'll do what I want, Nico! And I actually can not take it anymore!"
"Dad?"
"It's only been an hour since he died, and I swear he's as bad as Hermes! And because he died a hero, he's going to end up in Elysium, so I'm going to have to put up with him for an eternity - or at least a few years, since I can already tell he won't want to be reborn without waiting for his brother! I can't take any more of this, Nico! You should see what he did to the Charon's boat, and the waiting room! Nico, the waiting room is a mess! And what'll happen when he reaches the palace!? I know his type, Nico, he won't stay put in Elysium for long before he gets bored!"
"Erm, OK, Dad. I don't actually know what you're talking about or what I can do about it."
Di Angelo's father pointed to Voldemort, who was laying on the ground and staring at the man with naked fear, without looking at him. "Oh look, Nico, I see you've managed to find a soul who has cheated Death. What's that you say? You want to ransom his soul for that of the annoying prankster who's been ruining the Underworld? Oh well, since you insist, I suppose I'll just have to resurrect him after I take this soul, won't I?"
Di Angelo blinked and nodded, "Sure, Dad, whatever you say."
"Good," said di Angelo's father as he snapped his fingers and Voldemort vanished before he had time to scream. "Now I better get back to the Underworld and start removing the paint from Persephone's favourite tree before she notices. I have no idea what I'm going to do when they both get down there..." The last part was said to himself, before he disappeared back into the shadows.
There was stunned silence, once again, from everyone as they processed what they had all witnessed, except for di Angelo, who looked rather content with the entire situation. Before anyone could take control of the situation, however, a figure appeared from the doorway that lead into the school hall.
"Hey Georgie! I think I just pranked Death!" A tall, freckled, read headed boy ran over to another who looked identical to him.
"Freddie! You're alive! Also, I think the world may be crazy enough for us after all!"
The red haired boy and the bushy haired girl looked over to di Angelo when he let out an "Oh" of understanding. "That makes sense if they're anything like the Stolls," they heard him murmur.
"No, actually," the girl responded, somewhat hysterically, "none of this makes sense!"
He looked at her, "Trust me, it's probably better that you just roll with it. When it gets to the point that this is only the sixth weirdest thing to happen to you in your week, then you know you're in trouble. Especially since it's only Tuesday morning," there was a pause while the two digested that and decided that di Angelo was probably right, before he spoke up suddenly, "Hey, so where am I, exactly?"
5 minutes later:
"How the Hades did I end up in Scotland!?"