Title: The Dread Pirate
Author: P.L.S.
Word Count: 1592 (107 if you include this header.)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the Princess Bride
Summery: Short Story crossover between Harry Potter and the Princess Bride. Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts of 2012, real name: Draco Malfoy.
Author's Note: I was originally writing this to be Harry, but it struck me that Harry would hate modern piracy, but Draco (a canon Draco who did follow Voldemort until it became too risky) would love killing and theft so long as he did it in a fashionable enough way and was delving into his dark roots.
. . . oo))oOo((oo . . .
New Yorker Magazine Nov. 2012
By: The Dread Pirate Roberts
introduced by: Cynthia Clemens (Senior Editor)
During a pleasure cruise off of Manus Island the ship I was on had the grave misfortune of being surrounded and boarded by a gang of men and women all wearing the colors of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Much to my bemusement the man himself stepped onto the ship after all of us pleasure seekers were separated out into the two ballrooms and the less formal dining area. He gave out orders to his men at a rapid rate and nothing failed to get finished. It took just three questions for the admiral of the small fleet of attack ships to realize that his men attacked a small fish.
In the end of the four hours it took his people to plunder every nook of the ship I managed to pester and sweet talk the rather fetching man in black to do a short interview, which fell far below my standards and apparently his standards as well because in just three days I checked my e-mail and found this letter as well as a bit of information on the terms he uses. That information follows the letter and I'm actually finding myself believe that magic exists and that the Dread Pirate is indeed a wizard.
Enjoy. And just picture the most delightfully toned but not too bulky man with a rich rolling baritone voice and shoulder length hair of corn silk and white gold. Also flashing gray eyes that look like ice with a handsome just barely there tan and a devious smirk that plays on his face when he isn't sneering at you like you are the lowest scum on Earth. Ah, even an old girl like me can see the wonder of that in a twenty-something man. --------------------------------
C.C.
I am the dread pirate, Roberts. It has become what I announce when I come ashore or board another vessel. It is the name which has been used for hundreds of years, the most feared, yet business-minded pirate in the Carib or in the South Pacific. I don't know who started it, but all of us have looked pretty much the same in build and since we keep masked and cloaked, no one has a chance in hell of saying that Roberts isn't immortal, which I sort of think he is, in a way. Oh, I'm not immortal, but the name Roberts is in a way.
Right now I dress in the requisite black; black cloak, black muggle tee shirt, black denim trousers, black boots, black gloves, and the black cowl/mask, or even just black wrap around glasses on shore. I look good, I always look good. I must look good because the last random boarding was a party for some American fashion magazine and three agents gave me cards and entreaties to call them. Not that I would even if I cared to go about half nude in front of cameras. My muggle peers are such suckers for promiscuity, like all morals as far as self respect and decency have faded with each bleached blonde added to their media. I've been told that I'm suck in the fifties.
I'm modern as far as actual piracy goes, there is an AK-47 in my trunk, a berrta with laser sight on my hip in a cross draw, my wand is hidden up my sleeve, and my fleet of Zodiacs and yachts all are floating weapons I use on my surgical strikes. I still plunder, I still pillage, but I also target drug barons and those who make their living off of the suffering of others (minus dentists. Not because of any respect for the damned people. I was threatened by their advocate rather well.) Not due to avenging the poor and weak. It's because I understand their minds and also they tend not to trust the banks.
Yes, the pirates' life is a glorious one. So long as you are the one in charge. Funny, much of my childhood lessons apply to this line of work. And I thought I'd never have use for lectures of how to govern over a large group or how to deal in politics. I guess this goes out as a late thank you to my father for drilling those into my head.
I know you want to know who I was before I became the dread pirate.
I could tell you, it would make this story have a little more sanity to it, or maybe it would make you want to see me bouncing up and down in the padded rooms. Then again, it would do me good to stop pretending to be so hopelessly muggle. I grew up hating you sodding idiots. In my eyes you were stuck in the middle ages blundering about and trying to mimic our superior magic. Ah, hell, I'm going to break the Roberts code just for this. Besides, you muggles don't think us wizards exist. And we don't exist on paper.
My name is Draco Cepheus Malfoy, and I am one of the pureblooded wizards who fled England after that damned Potter killed Voldemort. Not because of fear, but rather it was due to us getting out while the getting was still good. In the confusion, I liquidated my family's sellable assets, sealed the twelve vaults at Gringotts and sealed of the Malfoy ancestral grounds with whatever I was unable to sell. All can be accessed by my named heir upon my death. What little I didn't seal off I transferred into pounds then I took off for Guam where the yacht I was hitching a ride on was plundered by the then Roberts.
I was curious about the muggle, and I let myself be captured with the clueless crew of the boat instead of being put to death like the passengers. The crew was dumped off on this tiny little island named Yap, but they kept me in the hold a bit longer because when they questioned the crew they found that no one knew who I was. After about four hours after the crew was dropped off I was manhandled into the captain's presence.
he said casually while writing with what I assumed was the muggle answer to quills and ink on a bound bunch of very thin papyrus.
Who asks? I shot back with all the haughtiness I was brought up to throw about. The man was in a black mask and when he looked up he brought up to my nose what I now know to be a .44 magnum. Of course, I didn't believe muggles were dangerous, besides my wand was ready to be drawn with all the speed of Voldemort's best Auror executioner and Hogwarts' top duelist (after that blasted Potter. But in my account he doesn't exist or matter even if he did exist.)
asked the man again. And again I shot off my mouth, not that I really cared. He was just a muggle with a bit of metal in an odd form in hand. I was a very dark wizard who was now fingering my wand trying to figure out how I wanted to kill him and trying to remember if the Ministry was on good terms with Micronesia or the United States, depending on which island was closest. I had my wand out and was ready to just fling the Killing Curse on the ignorant muggle when the door opened behind me.
I twisted to the side dropped to my knees and flung the curse at the poor sap who dared barge in as a deafening blast was issued from the muggle's metal toy. The two blasts hit him at once and he dropped to the floor with a frozen face of horror as a surge of blood welled up from the hole in his chest over his heart. Getting up, I walked over to the body. The Killing Curse ruins a body for potion ingredients, but if the man was killed by the hole then I could plunder the body and make a killing on the black market with a number of exotic potions.
What was that? I found myself asking as I cast a few diagnostic spells to determine his health and how he was killed. It was the Advada but the shot did a large chunk of damage to the heart and spine where the bit of metal was lodged.
.44 Magnum. What did you use?
Killing Curse. It's interesting, maybe a good way to profit off of dead bodies.
What do ya mean?
Dark potions that use human remains. Killing Curse ruins the bodies for potions but maybe this could work.
Do you want a job?
What kind? From there he started telling me about the history of the dead pirate Robertses. It sounded better than drifting aimlessly killing at random to make potions that I wouldn't even get the fun out of seeing them used. Besides, it was just more proof that I was better than not only muggles, but the rest of the world.
It's been ten years to the day since I first took up the mask, and now I am quite well off. I exist under many pseudonyms both muggle and wizarding. I am challenged in ways I never dreamed of before. I like what I do, and I do what I like.
Oh, and Granger, you mudblooded chimera, I dare you. I just dare you to try to find me now.
The Dread Pirate Roberts/ Draco C. Malfoy