Wade Wilson stepped into the broom closet he used as an office. Lockhart had far more too many photos of himself in his office for Deadpool to bother to remove. Therefore, he decided to commandeer one of the little-used broom closets as an office. He moved the bear trap out of the way to catch some snogging students. He sat down on one of the buckets inside of the closet. He carefully balanced a candle and took out the diary.
'Mundane enough, but mundane could be very suspicious,' Deadpool mused to himself. 'After all, a toilet plunger could secretly be a Doomsday weapon.'
Okay, so Deadpool did not really run into a toilet plunge Doomsday weapon. It was just he could have run into a potential Toilet Plunger Doomsday Weapon. The Mercenary placed his finger down on the diary.
"Okay, show me the money!" Deadpool yelled. "Open says me! I command you to tell me what you yield1"
The Mercenary tapped the diary on the side of it. He had a feeling that it would be prudent to write in it if nothing else to figure out what nefarious secrets the diary would yield.
Deadpool scratched at the words. "Knock, knock, anyone home?"
The ink sucked into the diary no sooner than Deadpool lifted his quill off of it.
Might I Ask Who is Speaking?
"My name is Jack Kirby," Deadpool wrote.
The ink soaked into the diary. Deadpool waited for a few seconds to tap onto the diary. The Mercenary spent the next couple of minutes waiting for the diary to respond back. He had a feeling it was deliberating taking it's time for dramatic pause.
"Hello, Mr. Kirby," the diary wrote back. "My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come across this diary?"
Deadpool hesitated for a second. He decided to write the next message.
I've found it buried in the burned-out wreckage of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It was a terrible, terrible world. Not many people survived the Great War.
A long pause followed with the diary pausing as if reconciling what Deadpool said. He had no idea how a magical diary would react. He could see how much fun he might have before the diary responded.
What is this Great War? Was it a battle between Magical and Muggles?
The long pause followed and Deadpool waited for a diary.
A Muggle is a person without magic. A magical person is a person with magic.
Deadpool sensed a condescending tone through the writing in front of him The Mercenary decided to see how far he could gaslight this diary before it caught on the fact it was being bullshitted.
I don't know anything about magic. Are you talking about Dungeons and Dragons, and that sort of thing?'
The longest pause followed and Deadpool almost would have thought the diary did not want to respond to him. The Mercenary scratched out another note to his mysterious, inanimate penpal.
Yo, Tommy Boy! You still with us?'
A very prominent pause came out from the diary. Wade could have sworn the diary gave a very ominous red glow.
There are dragons involved, yes. You can't be a Muggle though. You must be a squib.
Deadpool scratched the next notation on the piece of paper.
Don't you mean a squid? If that's what you mean, no, I'm not a squid.
No, I mean squib, squib, as in…well, I'm sure that knowledge has been suppressed in the Great War. You're saying you know of no magical people, no magical governments, nothing that regulates the magical people?
He had been prodding for some very specific information. Deadpool wondered where this one was going. Did he have his ideas? Oh, he had plenty of ideas, and many of them were going to get him into trouble. Deadpool placed his pen on the diary.
Nothing, just a war between sentient ponies and sentient bears which wiped out a good chunk of humanity.
Deadpool could sense another pause burning deep within the diary. He wondered what would happen when it came on through. The Mercenary scratched his pen against the edge of the diary and waited for some kind of answer.
Explain.
A small smile could be barely seen with the shadows. Deadpool placed his pen on the side of the diary and started to scratch out some kind of response.
The Great War occurred when the nefarious Rainbow Dash and her even subordinate Fluttershy, had been let out of the Negative Zone by an emo vampire named Ebony. Or maybe it was Enoby. These entities, joined by the diabolical duo of Scrappy-Doo and Jar-Jar Binks, stormed the land and wiped out everyone. Several brave entities fell to these Dark Lords. But, Dark Lord Scrappy and Dark Lord Jar-Jar met their match against an army of bears, who were known as the Care Bears. They lived in a mysterious realm where they could make people care, even if their lives were shit. They used a variety of tactics to mentally manipulate people and rewrite their minds into being less evil. They were the last hope to stop the word after many others have failed.
Maybe, Deadpool was mixing up the fan fiction he was working on with reality.
There were a series of epic battles, the likes of which had been debated by people on the Internet with no social life for years to come, along with who should hook up with who and who was really a villain and who was a misunderstood stole who should have been put in tight leather pants. But, regardless the battle ended, and the world was lost. We were among the last hope.
The diary began to write back after a long pause.
You can't expect me to believe that, can you, Mr. Kirby? A war between sentient bears and ponies destroyed the world…and what kind of Dark Lord name is Scrappy?
Deadpool started to write in the diary.
Well, that's not the lamest Dark Lord I've ever heard. There's this guy I have to tell you about, he's a real loser. Ugly, guy without a nose, leached off of the back of someone's head. His name is Voldemort. Man was he lame, he's a laughing stock. You see, he's so bad. Voldemort actually lost to an infant.
The diary glowed black for a minute.
It's impossible.
Those words were so blunt and so to the point, Deadpool almost had been surprised by the cadence they had been given to.
What's so impossible about it? I've seen this Voldemort guy just before the Great War started. He's just a chump, a rank amateur. He'd be nothing. I think he has some obvious Mommy issues as well. Never got hugged enough as a child.
The diary smoked only for a second. Deadpool dropped it down on the table. He pulled out a fireplace poker and lifted it over his head. The poker stabbed into the diary and melted the second it stabbed into the pages.
'How very odd,' Deadpool thought.
How is this possible? Tell me. Explain.
The diary settled down although the damage to the fireplace poker and the lack of damage to the diary caused Deadpool to step back. He almost decided to just abort this entire conversation. Deadpool took the quill.
Don't really know. Maybe he threw a loaded diaper or something. Or maybe his mother did something, Lily Evans was a powerful witch and a very attractive woman. But the point is, Harry Potter grew up to eventually be married to several women and have an oversized harem which the size of which was complained about. Because, you know, the Internet. Internet was built on two things. Porn and complaining about things you don't like.
A very long pause followed and Deadpool jotted down the next note of this afterthought.
Mostly porn.
A pause followed with Deadpool awaiting the diary's response. He would not have been surprised if the diary had just shut up.
I need some time to contemplate. Write to me again in a week.
Deadpool wondered how much a diary could contemplate. This was no ordinary diary. The melted fireplace poker showed Deadpool something was up.
Yeah, that Dark Lord Scrappy, that's some heavy shit.
I mean about how some child can defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort. Good night, Mr. Kirby, if that is your real name.
A deep shudder came over Deadpool's body. He stuffed the diary underneath the bucket and exited the broom closet.
A bear trap snapped over his ankle. Peeves floated up above him and tore off his mask. The Poltergeist recoiled in horror when he saw what Deadpool's face looked like with all the tumor scars and general disfigurement.
Peeves slapped the mask back on and fixed with duct tape before zooming back into the night.
Gilderoy Lockhart woke up with a groan. The last thing he remembered, well he remembered getting dropped off by the pixies. Lockhart put his hand on the top of his head and recoiled.
Lockhart rubbed the top of his hair. He stroked his hands through hair that was not there. He found a little bit of it, in rude tufts. Lockhart put his hands and opened his mouth to scream, but something felt off.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher reached into his mouth and felt for his teeth. Several of them were missing. Lockhart rose to his feet, dressed in a pair of overalls and scruffy looking work boots. He smelled of motor oil and cheap booze.
"What happened?" Lockhart asked.
The leader, Billy-Bob, and his two cousins/sons/brothers/uncles, Zeb and Jeb, stepped into the picture. They looked over Lockhart. Zeb whistled.
"Boy, howdy, you look about as good as Mama did on her wedding day," Zeb said. "I should know because I was the flower girl."
The other hicks whooped and hollered when Lockhart looked around. He looked at his own reflection. For the first time ever, Lockhart had been repulsed by the sight of his own face.
"What did you do to me?" Lockhart asked.
"Hey, you should thank us, because you've just saved yourself on a lot of hair care products and toothpaste as well," Billy-Bob said. "That's highway robbery, those fancy pants dentists. They scam you, and I bet a lot of them own those candy companies on the back end, so they can double dip. It's a dang-fangled conspiracy."
Lockhart's dreams of a six-time winner of the Witch Weekly's most award went up in flames. He dropped to his knees and started to sob.
"Man, calm down," Billy-Bob said. "Ah, I know what will just perk you up. Granny's old secret Chilli recipe. It puts hair on your chest and makes your pubes about as hard as steel wool, it does."
All Lockhart wanted was his beautiful hair and teeth back. A large woman with pigtails and missing teeth squashed in a tight black sundress.
"Ah, Billy-Bob, my dear cousin, were you keeping this hunk of manhood a secret for your dear old sister!"
Billy-Bob waggled his finger at his sister.
"Now-now, Crystal Meth, you don't want our friend to be uncomfortable. You best be putting on your good britches when we have company.
"But, I just made a batch of Granny's special Chilly," Crystal Meth said. "And I'm sure our good old friend would like to try some of my special pie after dinner."
Crystal Meth pulled out a spoon and shoved it into Lockhart's mouth. Lockhart screamed as the chilly tortured him. This was worse than being under the Cruciatus Curse for about twelve hours straight. Granted, Lockhart was never under the curse technically, just wrote about it in a book.
His tonsils burned and he screamed out in agony. Lockhart felt like someone shoved hot coals down his throat.
"Water!" Lockhart yelled. "Water!"
He moved over to take a jug off of the shelf.
"Hey, wait, that ain't no water that's…."
Lockhart downed the contents of the jug and now he felt dizzy and rather sick. He vomited all over himself. The putrid mix of Chili and booze covered Lockhart's body.
"Well, that done stinks," Billy-Boy said. "We better get him cleaned up."
Crystal Meth fluttered her eyelashes until she got one stuck in her eye.
"Ah, dang it!"
Deadpool prepared to perform his duties as both the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher and the Assistant Caretaker of Magical Sanitation. He stepped down the hallway and came face to face with Snape.
"So, any lock on finding Lockhart?" Deadpool asked.
"No," Snape said. "He hasn't turned up dead anywhere at the very least."
Those pixies might have mauled Lockhart to piece. To be perfectly honest, Snape could barely bother to care. Lockhart was out of the way and not a bother to him. That was really all that mattered to him at the moment.
"Well, that's handy," Deadpool responded. "I don't suppose that there's any leads on…."
Suddenly, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, showed up at the gates of Hogwarts. He looked very tense and walked next to Dumbledore.
"We have to do something about this entire Lockhart thing, Dumbledore," Fudge said. "I've gotten several letters every day demanding that I find Lockhart. Do you know what it's like of being bombarded by thousands of howlers every day from angry housewives? It's driving me mad."
Fudge looked from the left to the right and back into Dumbledore.
"Mad!" Fudge yelled.
"What do you want me to do about it, Cornelius?" Dumbledore asked.
"How should I know?" Fudge asked. "If I had all of the answers, I would find a way to not get bombarded on a constant basis with these letters and these demands. Who do they think they are to demand anything of the Minister of Magic anyway?"
Dumbledore did not even bother to say anything. He stepped closer towards Fudge.
"You'd like me to hire a private investigator to track Lockhart down?" Dumbledore asked.
"Anything to get those shrill harpies off of my back!"
"Fine, I suppose it is for the best we actually find out whether or not our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is living or dead."
Fudge went about fifty shades of gray.
'Um, ew,' Deadpool thought. 'Because, I've envisioned a Fifty Shades of the Grey-style spin-off, starring Fudge and everyone's favorite pet toad. Take that image to your nightmares tonight.'
"Oh, please don't let him be dead," Fudge said.
The Minister of Magic made plans to increase security in his office. The last thing he wanted or really needed was to be bludgeoned by a group of irate housewives.
"Just get something done, Albus, I don't want to get killed by a mob of housewives," Fudge said. "If he isn't ready to receive his sixth annual Witch Weekly's most charming smile award, then there's going to be trouble."
"Well, we'll find him," Dumbledore said. "I'll hire someone who can hunt him down and bring him in."
Fudge nodded and left the premises. He felt like someone is watching him.
"Professor Assistant Caretaker Wilson?" Dumbledore asked.
'Yes, Headmaster," Deadpool said.
"It says on your application you have certain life skills which may be a benefit," Dumbledore said.
"Hey, I've got a guy who can track Lockhart down, whether he's alive or dead," Deadpool said. "He's got this keen sense of smell, I and him go way back."
"Is he good?"
Deadpool nodded at Dumbledore's questions. "Oh, yeah, he's the best in the world at what he does. Even though what he does, isn't very nice."
"Good!" Dumbledore cheered. "You can go and contact this man. The two of you can ensure Gilderoy comes safely home. Or he receives a proper burial."
"I am willing to fill in for Professor Wilson until he returns," Snape offered.
A bright smile and the twinkle in Dumbledore's eye became very obvious.
"I'm certain Mr. Filch will appreciate the assistance," Dumbledore said.
"I wasn't referring to that job, I was referring too….."
"Now, Severus, time to roll up your sleeves and get to work," Dumbledore said. "Mr. Wilson, good luck on your mission."
"If I'm not back in a week, assume that this story's abandoned," Deadpool said as he gave Dumbledore a salute.
The Headmaster smiled and prepared to return to his office. It had been a long last couple of days. Life had Hogwarts had never been more interesting.