A/N: I don't own Harry Potter. This was for Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's challenge, "Why? Oh Why? Competition? Challenge? Dare? You Choose!" I deeply apologize for any randomness that may occur. If you lose any brain cells while reading this, please don't sue. I'm poor enough as it is already. But, in the famous words of My Immortal, "WARNING: SUM OF DISCHAPTA IS XTREMLYSCRAY. VIOWEREXCRETIONADVISD."
Voldemort was in a strange and unfamiliar room, which looked futuristic and computerized. There was a figure, tall and dark, speaking with Voldemort. They both seemed relatively calm, but then the figure turned, his face in view. He was wearing a black mask, which covered his entire face. The man was clad entirely in black, with a cape flowing out behind him.
"So you will take the boy, then?" booms the man in the mask.
"Yes, yes, my Lord. Whatever you want, Darth Vader." Voldemort choked out his words then bowed before Darth Vader.
"You may go, now. Just don't forget to take the boy with you. Don't bother telling him why, he'll figure it out soon enough. Now leave my sight before I come back on my offer."
Voldemort nodded, and backed slowly away. He then ran to a nearby door, and went though it.
Harry jolted up out of bed, his scar tingling uncomfortably again.
"You okay, Harry?" asked Ron, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I just thought I saw…" Harry thought back to the dream he was having before he woke up. "Nothing. I'm fine, just a bad dream."
"You're not having another one of those crazy scar is-it-real-or-not dreams again, are you?" Ron asked incredulously.
"No, no, it's fine. Just go back to sleep." Harry persisted.
Ron took Harry's advice, and was soon knocked out like he had never woken up. Harry's scar still burned slightly, so no matter how hard he tried, he could just not fall back asleep.
After a few minutes of tossing and turning in bed, Harry decided to go into the bathroom. Maybe washing his face and getting a drink of water would help him fall asleep. He snatched up his glasses from his bedside table and put them on as he walked through the dormitory, the only noises his muffled footsteps and snores from an unidentifiable source. When he got into the boys' bathroom, he was startled to see someone already in there, someone none other than Neville Longbottom.
"Neville?" Harry asked, "What are you doing here?" Upon closer inspection, Harry saw that Neville had an instrument on his lap. A guitar, to be precise. "Why are you playing a guitar this late at night in the bathroom?" Harry never thought that he would need to ask that question in his life.
"Oh, well," Neville started, stuttering a bit, "Uh, this is the only time and place I can practice without anyone hearing me play." he mumbled.
Harry gave him a confused look, but finally shrugged and went back to bed, forgetting all about the water he intended on getting.
The next morning, Harry awoke once again, but this time to the noise of hustle and bustle around his dormitory.
"Wake up, breakfast started half an hour ago!" Dean Thomas threw a pillow at Harry's face.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Harry said, putting on his glasses and getting dressed for the day.
Once he and Ron were down in the Great Hall and loading their plates up with breakfast foods, they were interrupted by one of their least favorite people.
"Hello, Potter." sneered Draco Malfoy, looking at them intently. His two henchmen, Crabbe and Goyle, were behind him and trying their best to look intimidating. In Harry's opinion, it wasn't working too well, though.
"You know what? I'm going to take over the world someday. And no, there's nothing you and your little friends can do about it."
"Whatever, Malfoy. Just go back to your table and let us be." sad Ron, who was in an extremely irritable mood that day.
"And you know how I'm going to rule the world?" he continued, apparently unaware that anyone else but himself was speaking, "With my new best friend, Beardy." The blond-haired boy stroked his chin, where a few short hairs were poking out. "With the help of Beardy, I will be unstoppable!" Draco practically yelled the last part, earning him a few looks from sixth-year girls a few feet away.
"Yeah, sure. Now just leave us alone." said Harry, who was becoming annoyed at Draco as well.
"Whatever. When I take over the world, you two will become my mindless slaves that I will make do all of my bidding. How do you feel about that now, Potter? Huh? Huh?"
When neither of the boys reacted, Draco shrugged and said to Crabbe and Goyle, "You are so going to regret this." said Draco to Harry and Ron. "Come on guys. Beardy wants to go back to the Slytherin table. He says that he doesn't appreciate the reaction that he's getting over here." And with that, the three Slytherins (and the Beard) went back to their table.
"Can you believe him?" Harry asked, Ron, "How do a few hairs on his chin change anything?"
When Ron didn't reply, Harry glanced up from his breakfast to see that Ron was staring off into space, a dreamy look on his face.
"What's wrong, mate? Are you listening?" Harry asked, a bit concerned that Ron had switched bodies with Luna Lovegood.
Ron snapped back into reality quickly. "Me? Oh, nothing. I was just… Just thinking." he said quickly.
"What about" pushed Harry.
"Nothing. Well, I was just thinking about how cool it would be to join the circus. With all of those monkeys, and elephants, and people swinging from trapezes. I would love to be a clown! Even though they scare me sometimes… But still. It would be so much fun, don't you think?" Ron had an exuberant look on his face, as if he was actually going to run away to the circus.
"That's great, Ron. But for now, we need to stay here and study at Hogwarts. Then, maybe after you graduate you could join the circus."
"We need to stay here and study at Hogwarts." Ron mimicked in a tone that sounded nothing like Harry's. "You're starting to sound like Hermione, mate." His face turned sour, and he went back to his breakfast, chewing slowly.
"Speaking of Hermione, where is she?" asked Harry, confused about the absence of their third friend.
"Here I am." sad Hermione, running up behind Harry and then stopping short. "Sorry I was late, Malfoy held me up in the hall. Something about a beard taking over the world? I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. But before that I was talking to Luna Lovegood, and she was babbling on about Blibbering Humdingers and such, so I kind of just went along with it. But then she showed me this." Hermione pulled out a book; one that seemed extremely ordinary, to tell you the truth.
"So, what is it?" asked Ron, recovering from his little fit.
"Well I thought that it was just another irrelevant book that she had around with no value whatsoever, but look at who wrote it." She pointed to the bottom right corner, where a name was written in small print: Bathilda Bagshot.
"Yeah? What's so important about that?" Harry asked, unaware what was so important about a name.
"Bathilda Bagshot wrote 'A History of Magic' and 'Hogwarts: A History'. We can trust things that she writes about. Guys, what if these creatures are real?" Hermione grew tenser by the second, unable to believe that the creatures of Luna Lovegood's imagination could actually exist.
"Okay, then I think you might owe Luna an apology then." said Harry bluntly, seemingly unfazed by Hermione's discovery.
"Oh, stop acting like you never though she was a bit, erm, non-present." said Hermione a bit angrily.
"Well not as much as you did. Weren't you the one who called her father's magazine was rubbish?" countered Harry.
Ron was silent throughout this whole argument, no doubt thinking about the circus he wanted to be a part of.
"But anyways, I was thinking. What would happen if we went out and tried to find one of these animals? We could give it to Luna to apologize for doubting her this entire time." Hermione said, seeming proud that she came up with this idea.
"You can go if you want, Hermione. I really need to stay here at Hogwarts, though. And I'm sure Ron feels that same way." Harry tried his best to sound apologetic, but in reality he was happy that he had an excuse not to go off on some crazy adventure looking for an animal that may or may not exist.
"Whatever you want, Harry." said Hermione reproachfully, "But I'm going to look for something. I looked through this book before and saw that the dwelling place of Crumple-Horned Snorkaks is supposed to be a little bit away from Hogwarts. I was thinking of going there first, and maybe bringing one back for Luna."
"Do you know how crazy you sound, Hermione?" asked Harry.
"Well I just wanted to do something nice for Luna. I mean we-"
"You." interrupted Harry.
"Okay, fine. I mean I doubted her a lot throughout the time we've known her, so I just thought that it would be a good thing to do. I'm sorry for being a decent human being." And with that, Hermione stormed off in a rage.
"She's going to get herself killed out there," mused Harry.
"What? Oh, yeah, you're right." Ron snapped out of his dreamlike state, again barely aware of what had just happened.
Suddenly, someone from the Gryffindor house jumped up on the table. Someone that looked extremely familiar. And that person was none other than Neville Longbottom.
Neville's face was covered in white makeup, with heavy black eyeliner. His lips were painted black, and he ha somehow gotten a pair of black ripped jeans, and a black tee-shirt with a skull and cross-bones on it.
"Are you ready to rock?" Neville screamed, guitar in his hand. He put the strap of the guitar around his neck, and began playing it and singing something about killing people. The Great Hall had grown silent, everyone staring at Neville. Even the teachers had stopped what they were doing, a few of their mouths agape at what a formerly mild-mannered boy was doing.
When Neville was done with his murderous song, he yelled out, "Thank you, Hogwarts! I'll be here all semester!" and jumped down off of the table and sat down again, then resumed eating like nothing had happened. Everyone glanced around nervously, wondering what on Earth they had just witnessed. One of the Slytherins started to laugh loudly, but was soon quieted by the annoyed looks he was getting from his peers.
Soon, the conversations around the Great Hall picked up again, most of them about whether someone had put Neville under the Imperious curse, or had he just finally lost it. Everyone was glancing concernedly at Neville, who seemed impervious to the attention he was receiving.
"What was that about?" Ron muttered to Harry, unwilling to let Neville hear him, since he was only a few feet away.
Harry shrugged, and they continued on with their breakfast.