Never Really Over

Never Really Over is the third chapter in the Wombles Eight.

“Now what is so urgent?” asked Sir Mother.  “You remember the night when Father died?” asked Father.  “Of course I do!” Sir Mother snapped.  “The day your name was changed to Father to remember him.” Father retorted “And I remember the day that Mother died when you were named Mother to remember her.”

“So we know our names! What is this about?” said Sir Mother testily.  “Well Nathaniel” started Father.  “Don’t call me that!” shouted Sir Mother.  “It’s back” replied Father calmly.  “It won’t change anything saying it now.”  Sir Mother turned white.  “IT is back? That’s impossible I killed it!” he said doubtfully.

“Natalie it can’t have survived!” he continued.  “Well it has I saw the shadow last night” she replied.  “Natalie, you’re blind!  You can’t see shadows without light!” said Sir Mother with a look of fear.  “Exactly Nathaniel!  The blind can only see the shadows of the dead.”

At that moment the doorbell rang.  Sir Mother answered it.  “John Constantine at your service sir!” said the scruffy blond man at the door.

Meanwhile up in the sky something was heading towards the Earth.  Astronomers were looking amazed as what looked like meteorites were scorching towards the Atlantic Ocean.  They didn’t know that one of them was called Rover, what they were or where they were from. The world was soon to find out!

Sir Mother looked serious at Constantine.  “I’ve heard of you.” He said, “You’re an exorcist, demonologist, and mast-“ “Master of the dark arts, yes, yes, get it over with, please.  I come round to help people and all they talk about is my job title.”  “Where’s your partner?” asked Father, walking up to the doorway.  “Partner?” asked Constantine, confused, “I don’t have a partner, love.  I work alone.”  “No, you have a partner.” Insisted Father.  “A lot cleaner than you, wears a suit, he always seemed like he was trying to look his best.”

Constantine sighed. “He was trying to look his best.” He said, “For reasons that I honestly don’t want to explain at the moment.  But if you really need me to bring him ‘ere, I suppose I can do that for you.”

Constantine turned around and disappeared in a gulf of flames.  A few seconds after that, he reappeared with Harry Potter.

Harry looked around, very disoriented.  “Where am I?” he asked to no-one in particular, “How did I get here?  What happened?  Why-how-who-“  “Calm yourself down, will ya, Harry boy.” Said Constantine irritably.  Harry jumped with fright as he had only just noticed that Constantine was there.

Harry was now less confused. “What did you bring me here for?” he asked, “I thought we agreed our partnership was over, since I wasn’t much use to you last time.”  “We did.” Confirmed Constantine, “You ain’t my partner.  But these ‘ere people wanted me to bring you ‘ere.”

“It is understandable,” interrupted Mother, “That we would rather work with the clean one over the dirty one.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” Announced Constantine.  “Harry ‘ere’s the dirty one.  You wanna know why we ain’t partners anymore?”

Harry turned pale. “Well you see,” began Constantine, “He used to be married to a nice young girl named Ginevra.  But it’s safe to assume that he wasn’t so satisfied with that relationship, so he decided to start another.”  Harry turned even paler.  “He went off with this other woman, who just happened to be married to his best friend, and never even felt sorry for it.”  Harry felt like he was about to faint.  “After young Ginny caught Harry and ‘is new girlfriend in an embrace, Harry didn’t apologise and try to be a better man.”  Harry was about to faint.  “No, instead, Harry decided that it was best to divorce his wife, and stick with the other girl, who in turn also had to divorce her husband.”  Harry fainted.

Mother and Father both scowled as they were now very put off of both Constantine and Harry. Eventually they decided to work with Constantine, and left Harry lying on the cold hard floor unconscious.

An hour later, Harry woke up in bed with a bag of ice cubes on his head and a hot water bottle behind his back.  He took the bag of ice off of himself, and then went down the stairs to see what was happening.  Hermione was there.

“Oh finally, you’re awake!” she gasped, very relieved.  “I found you lying outside the house of one of the new knights, and I tried to wake you up but you weren’t reacting.  So I took you here, and guessed that you had either fainted from heat exhaustion or extreme cold.  I really wasn’t sure which, so I decided to give you something for both, a bag of ice cubes and a hot water bottle.  But then you still weren’t waking up, so I was getting worried.”

This was a lot for Harry to take in at once, so he just cleaned his glasses, and said, “Thanks, Hermione.”, then sat down.  He then noticed that Hermione was watching the news.  The report went something like this:

*Today a rumour has been started that a world domination plot is taking place.  Supposedly the evil team consists of none other than former royal singer Venus King, former pop singer Katy Perry, known jewel thief from Gotham City Catwoman, former MI12 member Tara Keel, and three members of Cadmus associates the Superlative Seven, who were accidentally brought back from hell by exorcist, demonologist and master of the dark arts John Constantine. However, the only police left in the country, who is not even from this country, Teresa Lisbon, reports that she found Mrs King’s decapitated body at the bottom of cliff in leigh-on-sea.*

“Why are you watching the news?” asked Harry.

“Well, it’s fascinating to hear about what’s happening in the world.” Replied Hermione casually, “And this particular story seems very interesting.”

Harry couldn’t exactly argue that this story didn’t stand out from the others, so he just sat there watching with her.  Hermione leaned down onto his shoulder and pulled a blanket over herself.  Harry felt very awkward about this after what Constantine had said, but he kept silent.