Harry and the Pirates Chapter 10

by Technomad

Draco's Just Deserts

For the next several weeks, as Christmas came closer and closer, the four friends dug into research. Hermione took the lead; her love for burrowing into books was unparalleled outside of Ravenclaw, and even some of the Ravenclaws looked rather lazy next to her. She organized the information search, and the boys were happy to accept her direction. For Harry and Dudley, it was a bittersweet reminder of their years in Roanapur, doing Balalaika's bidding.

Ron pumped his brothers for information. After l'affaire Troll, they treated him with much more respect, and neither Fred nor George said one word against his House affiliation. Percy had been shocked at the violent, final way in which the foursome had dealt with their attacker, but had to admit that they had made very sure that the troll could not endanger anybody else. "Even so, though," he remarked, "I feel rather bad about it. Trolls are kinda-sorta humanoid, and I don't feel right about casually killing one." Then his eyes flashed fire, and for a second, he looked like Ron when Ron was hot on the scent of something good. "At the same time, anybody that threatens a Weasley…any Weasley…dies! Good on all of you!" He patted the boys' backs, and affectionately ruffled Hermione's hair. "I can't wait for Ginny to meet all of you!" Hermione looked up at him, and blushed, very uncharacteristically.

They found out a bunch of very interesting things. Firstly, that there had been a break-in at Gringott's, the goblin-run bank that served the wizarding community. "Gringott's is supposed to be utterly safe," said their informant, "but someone or other managed to get into a vault without authorization. Luckily, whatever was in the vault had been taken out earlier."

"Could that be what's hidden here?" Harry wondered, when this information had been shared out. "Hogwarts is supposed to be one of the safest places of all, and with Professor Dumbledore and the rest of the staff on guard, it might seem to be the perfect place to keep something secure. I don't know about those goblins. They might be up to something themselves. What better way, after all, to lure people into placing their valuables in your hands than to have them believing that you've got someplace that's impregnable?"

"I don't know, Harry," Dudley replied. "These folks we're among have long memories. If the goblins tried anything, their reputations would be ruined for centuries. Kind of like at home. One reason that people deal with Balalaika, or the Lagoon crew, is because they've built up reputations for always, always treating their customers fairly. If you buy something from Balalaika, you're guaranteed to get what you pay for, on time, and in full. And if you hire Dutch and the Black Lagoon, they'll do the job they were hired to do, no matter what. If they started double-crossing their clientele, they'd not only not get any more work, but they'd have a lot of people very unhappy with them."

"Right! And they'd end up on the harbor bottom. I always liked what Balalaika said about that." He went on, in a slight Russian accent: "I do not think you would like the harbor bottom. You meet the nastiest people there." Harry nodded at his cousin. While he was usually the brains of their partnership, he was always willing to listen to what Dudley said.

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. They shook their heads very slightly. "Roanapur sounds like an interesting place…in the sense of the Chinese curse, if you know what I mean," Ron remarked.

"Oh, it is!" Harry grinned at his friend. "But for those who can handle it, it's like no other place in the world!"

Meanwhile, as the four friends tried to suss out what was behind the odd goings-on at Hogwarts, and keep on top of their schoolwork…the four of them were at the top of their year in Slytherin for grades, and Harry and Dudley felt confident that Balalaika would be proud of them…another problem grew, affecting all of Slytherin House.

Draco Malfoy had steadily become more and more arrogant, until his housemates were good and sick and tired of him. The blond boy strutted around as though he were a prince, and had taken to trying to order his housemates about "as though we were house-elves," as a furious Millicent Bulstrode put it to Hermione, in an all-girls gabfest in the Slytherin girls' dorms one night.

"He told me to fetch him a quill! Who does he think he is?" Pansy Parkinson paused in brushing out her hair to glare into the mirror. "Does he think he's royalty, or a Roman Emperor, or something like that?"

Hermione smiled. It wasn't a very comforting smile, and her dorm mates' eyes widened. When she smiled like that, she usually had something underhanded in mind. "I have the most wonderful idea, girls!" When they all gathered around, curious, she went on: "Now, for this, we'll need to get all of the rest of the Slytherins in on it, but I think that they'll be willing to go along…"

OOO

When Hermione confided her idea, first to her three close friends, then to their other housemates, they were all utterly delighted with it! "Let the punishment fit the crime!" Marcus Flint said joyfully before grabbing a surprised, but not displeased, Hermione and giving her a big kiss on the cheek. Even Crabbe and Goyle were willing to go along with the idea. They were getting just as sick of Draco's attitude as everybody else, and they also did not want to be caught in the sidewash from his actions.

The plan took some days to put everything together. Finally, the day arrived when Operation Comeuppance could commence.

OOO

The teachers at Hogwarts had seen many strange things in their careers, and most of them thought that there was little their charges could do that would startle or shock them. However, one fine day, they found out just how wrong they were.

It all started at breakfast. The students were filing in, in the usual way, when all of a sudden, a blare of trumpets shattered the morning quiet. In the sudden silence following the trumpets' fanfare, a boy in what looked to be a medieval herald's uniform appeared. Pounding a staff three times on the floor, the boy announced: "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Let all present rejoice at their good fortune, for the Exalted One, the Illuminated Ascended Master, the Utmost Avatar of Superiority has descended from On High to grace this humble hall with his divine presence! Let there be merriment and happiness! Let scrolls be prepared, of the finest parchment, made of the skin of only the choicest unborn baby Snorkacks, to be inscribed with ink of gold with pens of solid silver, should the Supremest Being deign to grace our unworthy ears with his words of wisdom!"

As the teachers stared, the Slytherins came into the hall, carrying an elaborate palanquin. In the palanquin sat Draco Malfoy, who had an expression on his face that reminded those who saw him of a just-hooked fish. Before him, several of his housemates swung censers of incense, while another paced behind him, holding a redundant umbrella over his head, and the others salaaming to the floor as he came past.

McGonagall nudged Snape, who was sitting beside her. "What in the world are those children up to?"

Snape grinned. He had figured it out very quickly. "Apparently they're in the process of teaching our Mr. Malfoy that his arrogance is not welcomed by his schoolmates." McGonagall's eyes went wide, and then she smiled like a hungry cat.

Draco was shown to his place at the Slytherin table with ceremonial that Snape privately thought would have been considered too elaborate and fanciful for welcoming the Holy Roman Emperor on a state visit. When he wanted to eat, he was served by his housemates, who offered him plates on bended knee. When he left, he was carried out in his palanquin, while his herald announced: "Let us all rejoice, that the godlike countenance of Draco Malfoy deigned to shine upon our unworthy selves! Let this day be inscribed on the rolls of history! Let it be remembered forever as a day of gladness and thankfulness that we were so highly honoured!"

And so it went, for the rest of the day. Any time Draco tried to speak, his merest words were announced to all and sundry as though they were pronunciamentos from the Pope; he could not walk, but rode in his palanquin from one class to the next, and everything he said and did was treated with the utmost respect and awe. The teachers got in on the act, asking "Would your Exalted Supremacy be so kind as to inform this unworthy one about the nature and duration of the Levitation Charm, and then perform it?" or "May this infinitely lesser being request that the August Eminence that has so graciously chosen to favour us with his divine presence demonstrate that he indeed can mix a simple boil removal potion without at least three gross errors?" The students from the other houses also had great fun, bowing, curtsying, and prostrating themselves as Draco went by.

By the evening, Draco had had enough. More than enough. In the privacy of the Slytherin common room, he exploded. "Okay, already! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I treated everybody like I did! Just quit this stuff! Please! It's embarassing! Everybody's staring at me all the time!"

"But, Your Worshipful Supreme Excellence, you seemed to want just this sort of thing!" Marcus Flint pointed out, with a wicked grin. "And soon we shall be sending forth notice to the fathers of daughters, to groom their offspring for the Great Choosing! They shall be brought here, and only the finest of all shall be selected, so as to provide a mate worthy to receive the seed of such a divinely perfect being as yourself!"

"You mean we haven't come up to the standard? Oh, woe! Woe is us!" wailed Pansy Parkinson, theatrically raising her hand to her forehead.

"Without the favor of the Awesome Magnificent Being, our lives are as nothing!" sobbed Millicent Bulstrode, wiping tears from her face with a handkerchief she'd previously soaked in onion juice, for just this sort of emergency.

"Alas, our existences have been rendered meaningless. Nothing left to do, girls, but to all go jump off the Astronomy Tower!" cried Hermione. Every girl in the room burst into stagy tears.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" screamed Draco. "I never wanted this! I want to be normal! I want to be just a normal Slytherin! I don't like you all treating me like I'm a combination of the Pope and a Roman Emperor! Please stop it! I said I'm sorry!"

"Oh, so you want to be normal, do you?" Pucey looked at Draco narrowly. "You do realise, of course, that that means things like…oh, I don't know…not pushing ahead of upperclassmen to get to the showers and expecting them to put up with it because you're a Malfoy?"

"Yes!"

"Or not treating your loving housemates like we're so many house-elves? You're perfectly able-bodied, after all…you could get your own goddamned quill!" snarled Millicent Bulstrode.

"Yes!"

"And treating all of us like we're on an equal footing, instead of acting like you're royalty and we're all serfs?" growled Dudley.

"Yes!"

Harry looked around. "Do you think he's learned his lesson, people?" Everybody nodded, except Draco, who was hunched in a chair, crying. "Very well. We'll stop this…for now." He leaned over Draco, and purred: " But if you start letting your head swell too much again, Draco, it'll start up again, and this time we won't stop till the end of the year!"

OOO

Some days later, at Malfoy Manor, Draco's parents got a letter from a very amused Professor Snape. When they'd finished reading it, they both whooped with laughter. After they composed themselves, wiping tears from their cheeks, they read through the letter again, savoring every word.

"I must say, Draco's housemates seem to have cured him of being spoilt," Lucius commented. "I'd have anticipated that he'd find his head shoved down a toilet, but they've got a much better way to do it! Very Slytherin of them!"

"And dear Severus says that he's been working much harder on his schoolwork, instead of coasting along. I would like to meet whoever came up with this scheme," Narcissa purred.

Lucius looked thoughtful. "I wonder…would they be willing to provide this service every so often, on a paid basis…"

"No!"

"But, dear, it would be a sometimes thing only…"

"NO!"

"You wouldn't deprive me of a little harmless pleasure, would you…"

"Darling, you already have an exalted enough opinion of yourself. This would be like throwing fuel oil on a fire. Do this, and you'll be sleeping in the guest room for a long time," Narcissa snarled through a smile. "Put this on the list of things that you'll never have."

"Very well, dear…pity, that."

END Chapter 10