A.N: No claim of ownership, no profit intended, and so on. If you something bad, typo or otherwise, say so. It'll make me happier than just 'Good Job!'

Harry Potter was in a bad mood.
This was totally unfair, since it was Saturday and therefore bad moods should not exist. But Draco had some super special new potion thing he'd been talking, well bragging, about for the last few days. Some sort of maxclaw thing? Harry didn't know, he'd done his best to ignore it. And the day had started horribly. Breakfast had been interrupted by Hermione, so Ron and Ron's stomach complained about it for the rest of the day. Irritating, and unneccessary, because his own stomach was doing a splendid job all on its own.
It would have been ok though, he'd have gladly forgiven her, if only she'd had a good reason. Excitement about Malfoy's... thing was beyond Not.

And it continued. Nothing really seemed to go right. Hermione forced him to research something he was actively trying to not care about. Ron vented his frustrations very clearly (not loudly though, it was the library after all) and Harry's stomach joined in for refrain. Well until Ron managed to ditch them three hours in, the devious bastard. His mom had trained him well. Harry would have congratulated him, if his raging jealousy would have allowed that. The library also had decided that today was a great day to have windows. Normally he would have welcomed the relieve from the depressing gloom. The problem: it really was a great day, unless one was caught inside, in that case it felt like the sky was taunting him. The presence of several figures on brooms, one with a distinct red hair and smaller than the rest only added to the feeling.

Harry told himself that it was perfectly understandable to do something rash under that kind of pressure.
Like snatch that stupid vial Malfoy had been making such a fuss about during the obligatory mid-day taunting. When the twins came in for an attack run, he just had to act on the opportunity. If anyone (or worse Hermione) found out, he'd blame it on his reflexes. He had only been at Hogwarts for a few months, but he'd already learned that no day was complete without the eruption of something. It was basically Law, and the Twins (and Slytherins) had taken it on themselves to enforce it. Though admittedly, Neville would have blown up his fair share of cauldrons without the assistance. So the sudden bombardment didn't surprise him as much as it apparently did Draco, judging from the spastic motions that sent the vial in his hands arching through the air. He was a seeker; catching small, quickly moving objects was what he did. He really couldn't, shouldn't be held accountable for that.

Of course, now Harry had a bit of a problem. He did not want to get caught with the liberated vial (it must have been just as sick of Draco's strutting as the rest of the castle, right?), or he'd never get out of detention. Which, actually, would be a Good Thing, because Hermione would never stop hounding and nagging and berating him, and she was even more terrifying than Snape.

His first idea was to flush it down some unused toilet. It seemed perfectly reasonable, so he didn't wait for a second idea, like just smashing it and walking away. It would have saved him a good bit of trouble.

And so it was that he found himself in the third floor girl's room. He'd heard it wasn't in use anymore, something about flooded toilets. Why they couldn't just fix it; he didn't know. He'd only been in the wizarding world for a few months, but he already knew that they had some strange ideas and that questioning them would A) lead to a headache, and B) a ticked off Hermione, which meant even more brain pain. For all he knew, the Cult of the Braided Underpants dictated that third floor girl's bathrooms had to be flooded every 27 and 3/4 hours, unless it was the Year of the Golden Knob. Though judging from Dumbledor's outfit, it was probably more like the Cult of the Colourblind Tailor.

He was still deep in these contemplations when the day's bad luck caught up with him again.
He slipped on the wet floor and suddenly found himself lying on said wet floor with an aching ass and a hurting head. Getting up, and alternatively hissing in pain and hissing curses, he tried to lean on one of the basins to steady himself. Tried being the key word, since apparently the basin had objected to his use of foul language, and decided to search out politer company. So instead, he found himself plummeting down a long, strange pipe headfirst.
He really should have seen it coming.

The impact at the end was almost welcome, since it relieved him of his pain, dizziness and consciousness for the next few hours.


When he finally awoke, it was in a strangely euphoric mood. He was certain he'd just had the worst day ever, and now it could only get better. Even the problem of Draco's maxcaw had solved itself, if the stain on his robe was anything to go by.
Harry sat up energetically, got to his feet and started brushing of his robes. He stopped when he had achieved a more even distribution of slime. Undaunted by his new enviroment, he set out to explore the cave he'd found himself in, since going back the way he'd come certainly wasn't an option. His enthusiasm lasted only a few minutes, or more precisely, until he started to make out a distinct snake motive. He still kept up his mood by imagining that he'd just found the secret entrance to the Sylitherin dorms and that the gloop was actually hair grease from Snape. When he reached a massive snake door, he did feel some trepidation. He was genuinely afraid that he'd been right and that behind the door he'd find a scene of unspeakable horror. Like Draco waxing his broom with a lock of Snape's hair or ...no! Insanity lay on that path.

So he tried to distract himself, he really couldn't afford to go insane right now; it would have to wait until he was back in Hogwarts proper where no one would notice. So he started looking for a hidden switch or something. His brain betrayed him though, and continued to think. The scenarios had become somewhat ridiculous. Brooms could fly, so simply lowering it into a vat of... ugh. It had to stop.

So he began beatboxing. It was something he picked up when he was very young and noticed that the man doing it had made Uncle Vernon angrier than Harry had ever seen before. That meant it was very good for Harry. Things good for Harry always made Vernon angry. It certainly was a blessing in the most boring hours in the cupboard or during the most tedious chores. He fancied himself as pretty good, though he'd never heard anyone else do it ever again.

As such, he was ill prepared when a voice answered the challenge (He'd heard somewhere beatboxing always started with a challenge to a beatboxing duel. For a good reason, apparently).
He was even more surprised when the challenger turned out to be the door.
An impromptu rap-battle with an ancient door may have been the craziest, most unexpected thing to ever happen to him, but it was also the most awesome. He took it as prove that his day was finally improving. Especially when the door let out a final hiss(did her hear a note of respect?) and slowly began to open. He had to correct himself: Winning an impromptu rap-battle with an ancient door was the most awesome thing to ever happen to him.

Though it also had the downside that he would now bear witness to the depravities of the Slytherin dorms. The snakes had obviously fallen from their former glory as beatboxing masters. Draco simply had too much of a whine in his voice, it would sound ridiculous.

In that state of mind, the huge cathedralic cave was actually something of a relief (no Draco doing unspeakable things to his broom), and the bones and shed snake-skin didn't actually worry him. He'd been expecting that. He'd also been expecting some display of overblown ego, but the magnitude still took him by surprise. From somewhere, a sudden anger overcame him at the sight, and pressed some very foolish words from him:
"So you're the great prick who's responsible for this. Well, what do you have to say for yourself? Answer me!"
Just as he'd spoken the last word, his euphoria shattered, suddenly false and artificial, and a feeling of dread settled heavily in his stomach. His heart joined it a moment later when a creak filled the stagnant air and the mouth of the statue slowly began to open.
Insulting super powerful wizards in their home ground was obviously a one-time hobby.

His thoughts went into overdrive. What could it be? Visions of horror appeared, each more dreadful then the last. Harry's imagination tried it's best to kill him with fear before whatever came out could. Fortunatly, his imagination was as much a novice in the art of murder as Harry himself, so it never got very far. It still managed to completely occupy him until a sudden question snapped him out of it.
"What doesss a hundred yard ball of troll sssnot have to do with ssseven sssurprise goatsss?"

In all honesty, he was disappointed. Of course it was a snake. He should have seen it coming. To be fair, the most prominent members of the house reminded him more of a peacock and a vulture respectively, but still.
And it was only a big snake. Not even a giant snake, according to Dudley, a monster was only giant if it attacked Tokyo. He was willing to trust his cousin on that, Dudley knew all about pointless destruction and could quote lots of sources, and Hermine had lectured him on the importance of sources. And even if Dudley was wrong and it was giant, that still wasn't so impressive. It wasn't made of fire or lightning or something wizardly. I was just big.

And it was curious, if the cocked head and insistently poking tail were anything to go by. And not even all that menacing. The huge golden eyes where rather pretty, and combined with the puzzled expression it was rather cute. In fact, the entire fifty feet long snake with very large fangs was adorable. Harry made some quick deliberations. He had just won an impromptu rap-battle with an ancient door. He could die happily now.

So he took a step forward wrapped his arms around as much of the head as he could, and give the snake a hug. He noted that the scales were smooth and warm and really quite soft, despite being hard, well, scales, just like he had somehow expected them to be.

It was the first time he had ever hugged anyone.
A few seconds later, it was also the first time he'd ever been hugged back.