Just Like Hell
YAY! I've FINALLY updated! Instead of doing the usual stuff from the movie, I'm writing a whole original scene in this chapter so I dunno how well it came out!
People I've got to thank for making this chapter possible: Bullied for the AMAZING plot ideas, cckeimig for ALL the corrections she's done, my beta--(yup, I've finally got one) cordyangel and all the people who reviewed! (even the one who called me a boy)
Chapter Fourteen
Draco and Harry were back in their apartment. Harry was pacing around the room while Draco stood by the window watching him.
"What the hell was she talking about? She's definitely a loon! God, I feel like the answer's right in front of our faces. I just can't get a handle on it. How do you solve a problem that isn't supposed to be possible in the first place?" Harry ranted impatiently.
"Because nothing seems impossible to me anymore," Draco interrupted. He strode forward to face Harry. "I mean, how come I ended up moving into your apartment? Why can I see you when no one else can? And at the restaurant, I just happened to be there when that guy collapsed! It all seems interrelated somehow." Draco gestured wildly as he said all this to Harry, trying to make him understand. Harry however, just stared at him blankly. Frustrated, Draco pulled out the phone book and started flipping through the pages.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked.
"I don't know. I feel like I missed something here. Wait a second, check this out," he held up the phonebook page. "Sybil Trelawney, the famous mystic lives here. She's famous for her predictions. We could go talk to her." Draco picked up the receiver to call her.
Harry sighed and was about to walk over to stop Draco when he spotted something on the coffee table. It was Harry's photo that Hermione had brought to the hospital. He looked at Draco. "Where did you get this?" he asked him suspiciously. Draco dropped the receiver and placed it back in its cradle.
He looked like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was decidedly cute, Harry thought. "It was just at the hospital," Draco said. He smiled hopefully at Harry. Harry stared back at him with a strict face.
"Yeah, I-I took it. I'm sorry. I just…I wanted to have a picture of you. I wasn't sure that I was ever going to see you again... I'm sorry."
Harry smiled at him fondly. "Don't be sorry. That's really nice. I really like that picture."
"Yeah. Yeah, I liked it too," Draco admitted shamefacedly as he picked up the frame.
"I had just gotten my MCAT scores back."
"Well, you must've done well," Draco said looking at the happy looking Harry partying in the photo.
Harry blushed at that. "No, actually, I bombed it. My scores were so low that I couldn't even get into correspondence school."
"And that's a good thing?" Draco asked with another glance at the photo.
"No. I know it sounds kind of crazy. I just wanted to go back to the library and start studying immediately but Ron said no. Hermione surprisingly agreed with him. She's a study freak. She said that the only thing to do was to burn my scores. Ron suggested drinking."
Draco took another look at the picture.
"Well, looks like they were right."
Harry snorted. "It's just funny because the one time I completely failed at something, I had more fun than I've ever had in my entire life."
"You look happy," Draco added.
"I was happy," Harry said with a smile. Then he grimaced. "But what was I doing with the rest of my time? When I think about my life and I… All I can remember is working. You know? Working and working and trying so hard. And for what?"
Draco smiled at Harry. "You helped people. You saved lives."
Harry snorted again. "Yeah, including my own. I saved my life, for later. I just…I never thought there wouldn't be a later."
"No, don't say that. There's still time. We're going to see this lady…" Draco said moving towards the phone again. Before Harry could stop him, he was on the phone calling the woman up to ask for a private audience.
He hung up and pulled Harry out over his protests. "Come on, Harry. This woman just might know what to do. She could help us. After all, how bad could it be?"
Famous last words.
"We're here," Draco said as they pulled up at a rather rundown flat.
Harry tried to stop him. "Draco, we don't have to do this. I mean it really…"
Draco ignored him. He walked over to the door and pressed the button to what he figured out would be the seventh floor. A stringy voice crackled from the box. "Hello, my dear. Come right up. I had a feeling you'd be dropping by." A beep followed and Draco wrenched the door open, striding through.
He heard Harry snort behind him. "Had a feeling! You just called her fifteen minutes ago." Draco made a shushing sound to shut him up. He looked around for an elevator but couldn't find any.
Harry grinned at him before winking and floating up the stairs. Draco groaned as he began to follow him. "The things I do for you," he muttered under his breath as he made his way up the steps.
"Huh, what was that?"
"Nothing," Draco said firmly.
Seven floors later, a hot, sweaty, panting Draco and a calm Harry emerged in front of a door with the a brass plaque on it.
"Sybil Trelawney, Divinator and Seer Extraordinaire," Harry read. "What a load of crap."
Draco pushed Harry aside and started knocking on the door. On the first knock, the door fell off, raising a cloud of dust as it landed on the grimy carpet. Harry grinned. "I guess she's not really into opening doors."
Scowling, Draco made his way in and found himself in the strangest looking home he had ever been in. It looked like some kind of cross between someone's attic and an old-fashioned tea shop. A large round table was placed in the middle, surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little poufs. Everything was lit with a dim, crimson light; the scarlet curtains at the windows were all closed and red candles were placed all around the room and quite a few of them littered the floor.
It was stiflingly warm, and the heater was probably on overdrive. Bowls of potpourri gave off a heavy, sickly sort of smell. Though, the smell could be attributed to a pile of sherry bottles that were piled haphazardly on one side of the room. The shelves running around the circular walls were crammed with dusty-looking feathers, stubs of candles, many packs of tattered playing cards, tarot cards, countless silvery crystal balls, turbans, a huge array of teacups and what seemed to be a rubber chicken.
"Where is she?" Harry asked.
A voice came out of the shadows; a soft, misty sort of voice that sounded almost dazed, as though someone had hit the speaker on the head with a club only a few minutes before.
"Welcome," it said. "How nice to see you in the real world at last. I've been awaiting your arrival."
Harry's immediate impression was of a large, glittering insect, most probably a dragonfly. The woman moved into the room and they could see that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a wispy flowered shawl. Innumerable chains and beads hung around her scrawny neck, and her arms and hands were covered with fake sparkling bangles and rings.
"Sit, my dear," she said. Harry yawned and sat on a pouf. Draco took one look at the poufs before choosing an armchair. He regretted his choice as soon as he started sinking slowly down to find himself embedded in it.
Trelawney sat on a particularly plush armchair with what appeared to be wings sprouting from its back and gazed at Draco. "Why have you sought me out?"
"I thought she could predict everything," Harry whispered to Draco.
Draco aimed a kick in Harry's direction, motioning him to be silent.
"Well, you see," he began before looking disconcertedly at her. Trelawney just blinked from behind her large glasses. "I've met this ghost, but he's not dead."
"Is that so?" she asked as she stared intently at Draco. Draco leaned back slightly before nodding. "Yeah, he's in a coma. And he can't get back into his body. They're pulling life support tomorrow…" Trelawney nodded before disappearing into the door she had come in from.
"Where'd she go?" Harry asked as he looked around. Draco merely shrugged.
She reappeared a few minutes later with a cup of tea. "Thanks but I don't drink tea," Draco said cautiously. "Only coffee."
Trelawney resolutely placed the tea in front of Draco. "Drink that up quickly," she motioned. Draco stared at her as though she were daft (which she probably was) before picking up the cup and taking a long slug. He was nearly done when she pulled the cup out of his hands and started turning it around clockwise.
"Hmmm… the cross. You've got trials and suffering up ahead. Usually this comes up for newlyweds. Did you just get married by any chance?" Draco violently shook his head. Making a weird noise in the back of her throat, she turned the cup again. "The sun, great happiness is ahead of you. Are you sure you aren't married?" Draco raised an eyebrow and she continued turning the cup. Suddenly she let out a shriek as she let the cup drop.
"What's wrong?" Harry shouted.
Draco stared at the woman curiously. "The Grim, my dear, you've got the Grim!"
"And how is that going to help Harry get back into his body?" Draco asked, his patience running low with the woman.
Trelawney shook her head. "Harry? Harry, no, that name rings in my ears calling death to it. There is...no hope for him. This Grim signals his death."
Draco glared at her as he attempted to wiggle out of the armchair. Harry was sitting silently on the pouf as though deep in thought. His face was drawn and stressed, as if he were resigned to his fate. Unable to see Harry looking so defeated, Draco turned on Trelawney with his eyes glittering coldly.
"Listen here you overgrown stick figure, how dare you even think about Harry dying! You get another cup, shove your ugly eyes into it and get it right this time!" Trelawney stared at him, her mouth wide open and her eyes popping out of her skull. It didn't seem like anybody had ever spoken to her in such a manner.
In his frenzy to get up and comfort Harry (which was proving to be quite difficult due to the armchair's suctioning), Draco knocked over one of the candles on the table with one arm. The candle landed in a bowl of potpourri on the table. The scented paper pieces caught on fire and the bowl was soon burning merrily.
"Put it out! Put it out this instance, you scoundrel!" Trelawney screeched.
Draco finally managed to pull himself out of the chair. Panicking, he pulled off Trelawney's shawl and tried to smother the flaming bowl with it. As this was not turning out to be his lucky day (underestimation), it wasn't that surprising that the shawl then lit up as well. Draco hastily threw it away before he could be burnt. Unfortunately, he threw it straight at Trelawney. Screaming, she fell backwards onto the floor as she tried to pull the flaming shawl off, her legs flailing.
"Help her, Draco!" Harry shouted from behind him. "Get that shawl off! I'll deal with the bowl."
Draco rushed to the squawking woman on the floor and tried to pull the shawl off, but the idiotic woman had rolled onto it. Looking around for something to put the fire out with, he saw a fire extinguisher at one end of the room. He pulled the extinguisher out and with a cry of triumph, started to spray Trelawney. Not stopping there, he sprayed the bowl which Harry hadn't been able to move more than an inch, and then continued to spray the rest of the room just in case any more fires decided to pop out.
He stopped when he was convinced that nothing red or orange was left in the room. Consequently, the whole room was covered in white foam. Trelawney slowly got up, her eyes trained on Draco.
"You," she said slowly, spitting out the foam from her mouth. Harry winced in disgust. She pulled out a broomstick propped against the table and repeated the word again.
"Yes, me," Draco said exasperatedly. "I just saved your life! Be grateful, you Gorgon."
She nodded. "Oh yes, I'm grateful all right. Let me show you the extent of my gratitude."
And then she proceeded to wallop Draco with the broom all the way downstairs and out of the building.
"And stay out!" she screamed as she shut the door in his face.
"Oh my god, that was—" Harry stopped to laugh. "So damn—" more laughter. "Hilarious! You're getting—" Harry could barely breathe between his peals of laughter, let alone talk. "A lot of doors slammed shut—" Harry doubled over to clutch his stomach. "In your face," Harry finally got out.
"Just get in the car," Draco gritted out.
"Where are we going now?" Harry asked, trying to contain his laughter.
"Home, anywhere else on your mind?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever, just drive."
Draco's reply was to pull the car out of the parking lot and race down the street.
A/N: I'm gonna try my best to finish up da next chap quicker! Keyword: try. Does anybody have any good ideas on what should happen at the Three Broomsticks? If you've got even the slightest clue, CONTACT ME PLEASE!
windchaser90: Thankz so much! sry 4 da super slow update.
Crubellelasheentaii: Wow, Englandz alwyz sounded like a neat place to live in! though kinda wet... (but i've never been there personally...) haha! i have my summer holz rite now n u've gotta wait til july! (ya, tht wz kinda mean. but i cudn help myself! i just had to gloat :D)
ick: oh shut up, ur actin like i suck at da subj or sumthing! n u'll knw da answer as soon as i figure it out myself! so how r da skool interviewz going (u must've reached der by now...)? wish u didn hav 2 move away... (maybe u'll suck at da interviewz n den u'll hav 2 stay. oh well, all da best nywyz!)