Please R/R; I need them to know what to write about.
The Flylizards Torment
Part Four
As Hairy, Wronky and Harmonious walked to the Grate Wall together, Harmonious noticed Hairy had a piece of parchment clenched tightly in his fist. "Hairy," she said, "is that the same piece of parchment you had at lunch time?"
Hairy nodded yes. "Why are you so interested in it?" he asked back, trying not to be aggressive.
"Oh, just that you seem very attached to it." Harmonious said as she patted her hair, making sure that it was still in place, which of course, it was as it was fixed there with magic. (Leavenedhair and Partvarti had tried to help her with it, but she got them to do her makeup instead. Now she was wearing what she thought was about twenty layers of different types of foundations, concealers and powders, with about a million different types of shimmer, sparkle and gloss on top of that, not to mention the eyelash lengthening charms and all that.)
"Oh," Hairy laughed, "that was just a note from someone who was going to be dressed as an evil icon of the twentieth century. It said that he wanted to get rid of me tonight. I suppose it was just a little trick."
Harmonious immediately had a frown on her face. "A note from someone who is coming as an evil icon of the twentieth century-He-who-musty-knot-be-rained-on perhaps?"
Hairy shook his head, "I was thinking more of Bombed Fiddle."
Harmonious shook her head vigorously, replying, "They're one and the same. It makes no difference."
Hairy thought about this for a while. "Still, if he was Moldywort, he wouldn't be killing his younger self. Then he himself wouldn't exist. Paradoxical, you know? That's why I'm going as Bombed Fiddle."
Harmonious nodded, then fell into silence.
Wronky took the time to have a look over her in her barely there dress.
She had transfixed Wronky ever since she met them in their common room. It appeared that she was wearing nothing, yet she wasn't shivering from the cold, and he sure as hell couldn't see through that dress. It annoyed him immensely that she could actually wear something like that to a Halloween party. It was more the kind of thing he thought she would wear to their graduation. He himself was just a floating head, as he had borrowed Hairy's divisibility coke. Hairy, who was still wearing school robes, except these ones were made of a velvety stuff, his scar was now hidden under a bit of putty from Fried and Gutted's store, and he had magicked a little monogrammed TMR onto his pocket.
When they got to the door of the Grate Wall, Draino was waiting for them, in tight breeches, a waistcoat, ruffled shirt and cravat, also heavily adorned with daggers, knives and a sword. Harmonious quickly melted into the background before he saw her. Draino bowed to Hairy and Wronky in a fashion, showing obvious distaste in Wronky's costume, and a liking to Hairy's.
"Ah. Yes. Potamus and Weasel. I see you've chosen a good costume for tonight." He said, gesturing to the monogrammed initials on Hairy's pocket. Then he noticed that Harmonious was missing. "Where's Grudger?" he said, looking suspiciously at them. Harmonious was hiding behind a pillar, 10 feet away from him.
Wronky waved his hand expansively. "I don't know," he said, "she popped off about five minutes ago. Said something about her hair."
Draino snorted. "Her hair. When does she ever worried about her hair?"
Hairy glared at him. "When have you ever not?" he retorted.
Draino looked hurt. "I'll leave you now to pick on some other unfortunate." He said, before hunching his shoulders and clanking off into the hall.
"Wow." Wronky said to Hairy, "you'd actually think he was insulted."
Harmonious came out from behind the pillar. "I wonder how he walks, with those tight pants and all that metal clanking around him." She commented.
"Don't start getting any ideas." Wronky warned her.
"I'm not!" she said indignantly, then said sheepishly, "Well, apart from bewitching those swords to be about ten times heavier and those leather-well, I suppose you'd call them breeches, about ten times tighter."
Wronky and Hairy breathed a sigh of relief, and she continued on, "But I suppose I could rid him of them, and let the swords be kind of like a metal kilt, only sharper." She smiled at the thought of Draino wearing a ruffled shirt, cravat, waistcoat and a collection of sharp metal implements.
They were all laughing by this time. "How do suppose you're going to do that?" Wronky demanded between guffaws.
"I do have my wand concealed in my hair, you know." Harmonious said, pointing to a piece of wood sticking out of her left bun.
Hairy nodded knowingly. "Always useful to carry your wand around with you all the time. I've got mine in my pocket, right here." He patted his right hip, which had a rather pointy looking object protruding from the robes.
"Hairy," Harmonious said, "Are you sure that's a wand?" she pulled it out of his pocket. "Just as I thought. A stake."
Wronky frowned slightly. "A stake?"
Hairy smiled. "Haven't you heard? Malfunction's come as a vampire. I thought I'd bring some protection against him." He produced a bauble of garlic. "And this too."
Harmonious wrinkled her nose. "Hairy, you heard wrong. Malfunction's come as a vamp, more commonly known as a fop or cad, not a vampire."
Wronky started laughing again. "A fop. I like that."
With big smiles on their faces, Hairy, Harmonious and Wronky entered the Grate Wall finally.
***
"Well?" McGoneagirl stood there with her hands on her hips. "Where's the cross between the purple people eater and the green pickle?"
Snake tried to look unhappy and apologetic. "Unfortunately, the purple people eater costume was already taken at the Logsweed costume shop."
McGoneagirl sighed. "Oh well." She said. "I guess the green pickle will have to do. And I was looking forward to the purple people eater too…" she trailed off, her thoughts far, far away.
Snake edged towards the door. "So what's your costume?" he asked.
"I told you already. A giant beer keg." She gathered her things up. "Now, go and get ready. I have a lot to do before 7:30." She shooed him out, and Snake was glad to go.
"Those awful Greedygores." He shuddered. "At least my masterpiece will be revealed tonight." He laughed maniacally as he got into the green pickle costume. "This will be worth the trouble."
McGoneagirl sighed and sat down in her office. "Giant beer keg. Now that's funny." She gave a little laugh as Dumbelladorn walked in. "So how did our bet go?" he asked her.
"Not bad. He's coming as a green pickle. Pay up, Album."
"Ah ah ah. He's not coming as a cross between a purple people eater and a green pickle is he?" Dumbelladorn said, his eyes twinkling.
"Yeah, well he's not coming as his normal self either. Shouldn't I at least get some money?" McGoneagirl protested.
"Let's call this one a draw. No one loses any, and no one gains. Fair?" Dumbelladorn compromised.
"Okay." McGoneagirl said, wishing that the purple people eater costume was for rent. She really wanted to see Snake in his costume. Dumbelladorn and herself weren't really going as a Giant beer keg or a toilet seat, but as Logshorts teachers. Snake would really make a fool of himself in front of all the Zitherpins. Everyone would remember this Halloween ball for ages, or so she hoped.
"Shall we go now?" Dumbelladorn held out an arm for McGoneagirl.
"Why not?" she answered, and took the proffered arm.
***
"There you are, Harmonious." Draino pulled her away from Leavenedhair, Partvarti and their friends who were talking about that girl from Blowbackons, whose name was Flour. It seemed that all their boyfriends and so on had been mesmerised by her.
"Hey! Get your greasy hands off me!" she slapped futilely at Draino's strong arms around her waist, and at his chest.
"Shh. Try not to make a scene. Did I mention that you look wonderful tonight?" He said quietly into her ear. She tried to maintain some space between them, but Draino pulled her in closer, looking over her. "What did you make that dress out of?" he asked, fingering the material at her back. She thought that there wouldn't be any harm in telling him, as he couldn't do anything with that snippet of information.
"Magic." She said.
"Magic? Does that mean that if I say Finite Incantatum it will disappear?" he said in disbelief.
"Nope, I put a charm on top of it so no one can do it apart from me." She replied, happy that she did.
"Damn." He said, before pressing her to himself, "I wished I could. Not here, of course." He added, sensing her discomfort. Harmonious was furious. She decided that fighting physically against Draino was impossible for the moment, and used her tongue instead. She started an onslaught of insults.
"What have you been doing, playing hairdresser with Snake?" she spat at him.
Draino looked confused for a split second, then realised she was referring to her previous remark about greasy hands. "For your information, Snake can't help having greasy hair." He hissed furiously, defending his housemaster. "What else do you expect from staying down in that musty dungeon with all those cauldrons full of lard and other crap?" Draino continued whirling her around the floor, and mushed her against his chest. Her face was buried in the ruffles on the front of his shirt.
"Don't, you'll smudge my makeup!" she said, and amazingly he held her a little further away, but still close enough that she was touching him. After about thirty seconds, when her head had cleared from the cologne that he was wearing, she was at it again.
"You filthy bastard, you can't even get a girl without abducting her first." She said viciously.
Draino was surprised, and almost let go of her. Instead, he replied, "No, I took a shower just before and my parents were married for 3 years before they had me. As for abducting you, you're still in Logshorts, aren't you?"
Harmonious looked daggers at him. "You little pus-filled maggot. Don't you know that your mother had an affair?" This one really got to him.
"My mother? An affair? With who?" Draino let go of her and stepped back.
"More like with what!" Harmonious laughed with relief. She ran back to Wronky, who had observed the whole episode. Draino was left standing there. "Very well." He muttered to himself, "If I can't get you, I shall have someone else."
Wronky got up from the table(although it wasn't apparent, his head just floated up) as Harmonious came towards him, almost sprinting. "What happened?" he asked, swallowing his mouthful of spaghetti. Harmonious went straight into his invisible arms, and gave him an unexpected hug. "That thug Malfunction was trying to molest me." She sobbed into his chest.
"Everything's okay now. Look, he's trying to get Flour to dance with him." He tried to stroke her hair, then realised again that it was all done up. He settled for a pat on her mostly bare back. Harmonious dried her eyes against an invisible Wronky, and turned to watch Malfunction use his "charm" on Flour.
Draino had tried everything he could think of to get Flour to dance with him, but she insisted on sticking to Dodger Rabies' side, or least, very close to him. At the moment, he was sitting next to her, playing poker with his friends and doing okay for himself.
"Please, Flour, dance with me." Draino was practically on his knees, begging for a dance.
"No way, Draino." Flour turned back to Dodger. "Oh, you are so good." She purred to him. Dodger smiled, and continued playing.
"Just one dance, please?" Draino couldn't really believe it himself, it wasn't like him to throw himself at the feet of a lady. It might have been a—no, he thought. No love portions this time. He really did love Harmonious, but why was he begging Flour to dance with him. After all-
"Your muzzer was a hamster and your fazzer smelt of elderberries!" Flour half-shouted at him, as he found himself kissing the hem of her dress. (She had come as the Princess of Wales-god knows why!)
Draino removed himself from her dress, and got up.
"I'm sorry," he said icily, moving off to find a more receptive girl, thinking that some habits were hereditary.
"I don't know what's the matter with that Draino." Flour said to Lodger, "he keeps trying to—what is that word again? Ah yes. Hit on me."
Lodger grunted. "Don't worry about him. I'll take care of you." He said before betting a rather large amount of Knives on the next round.
***
Harmonious giggled. "He's even worse with Flour than he was with me. Look at him, on his knees." She felt better now that she was sitting between Hairy and Wronky, actually more on Wronky than between Hairy and Wronky. Wronky looked much happier about this arrangement than Hairy, who was either staring wistfully in the direction of Ker Ching, who was slow-dancing with Cedar Didgeridoo, or at Harmonious and Wronky.
Hairy spotted Dumbelladorn and McGoneagirl walk in. "Finally," he said, "We get some order around here."
Fried and Gutted looked at him as though he was some alien.
"What?" Hairy said as they stared strangely at him, "Am I growing green horns?" he felt his head. "I am." He said after making sure there were two hard, bony growths sticking out of his head.
Fried and Gutted were very red around the ears, and they also looked slightly green around the gills.
"Have you got anything to do with this?" Hairy demanded.
"Well,"
"Er,"
"Actually,"
"No." Gutted finished. "We haven't. You'd better ask Snake about this one."
Fried and Gutted pointed as one to a large green sausage-like thing that was wobbling its way over to the teacher's table.
"That's Snake?" Hairy asked in amazement.
"Sure." Fried said, "see the top of the pickle? It's rather oily."
Hairy nodded. "You do have a point. Although I can't exactly see what this has to do with my horns, or rather, antlers." He touched his head again, and found they felt more like a stag's antlers than a cow's horns.
"Well," Gutted tried to explain without gagging, "Snake sort of pointed his wand in your direction as he staggered in. I assume he wasn't trying to get you, but it did, and now you have antlers." He stopped talking to cough, and out came a green tree frog. "It appears that he got me too."
"As the Flylizards-no, Flywizards Torment competitors will be announced tonight, I shall have to make sure that Potamus boy doesn't win. Some horns should be appropriate-no, antlers are better." Snake said to the green pickle costume as he walked into the Grate Wall, stroking the top of it, leaving greasy handprints. "My Draino Malfunction shall win this contest." He cackled as the crowd on the dance floor parted for this monstrosity. All around him Snake could hear whispers about who was in the pickle. He snorted. "No one will guess who I am. Not with this they won't." Snake whispered into the foam around his head. His face was painted green to match the fabric, and he wore a green body-stocking underneath. He waved his green-stockinged arm with the wand in it at Hairy, and made him grow horns-no, antlers! He thought furiously to himself, and accidentally moved his arm, so the spell hit that Weasel twin as well. "Oh well," Snake thought and half-whispered, "It doesn't matter if I get him as well."
After that little bit of mischief, he made his way up to the teacher's table, congratulating students on their costumes as he went by. "So, Mynervous," he said as he sat down, "Where's the giant beer keg and the toilet seat?" he raised his eyebrows at Dumbelladorn, sitting at the head of the table.
McGoneagirl gave a nervous laugh. "We didn't wear them, after all."
"You didn't wear them?" Snake said furiously.
McGoneagirl nodded.
"You didn't bloody dress up as a friggin' giant beer keg, and here I am stuck in a friggin' green pickle costume?" Snake got up from the table, shaking the crockery and spilling the fermented grape juice.
McGoneagirl nodded again, and went on to explain, "Didn't you know it was a joke? In any case, I still won't tell about the book."
Dumbelladorn got up and stood next to Snake. "You been in the porn mags again?" he asked Snake. "Playwizard's still the best, you know." He winked at Snake, then went back to his seat, pouring his fifth glass of fermented grape juice and sculling it down. "Good stuff this is." Dumbelladorn said jollily, "My fifth in 10 minutes." He burped and poured another.
Snake grimaced in disgust. "Who'd have known." He muttered to himself, "The headmaster's a drunken porn fanatic, and the Deputy's a joker." He pulled a hip flask out from somewhere in the green pickle, and took a swig. "Nothing like a good strong tomato juice to calm the nerves." He said to himself. A quiet voice piped up from somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear.
"What about me, the dog-man?"
"Yaah!" Snake said as he jumped, "God, Serious, you scared me." Snake did a double take. "Wait a minute. Serious Bleak. You're supposed to be a convicted murderer. What are you doing here?" he asked the good-looking man who was seated next to him.
"Don't you know? My name's been cleared." Serious said.
"But-but-but that's not supposed to happen until later." Snake spluttered inside his green pickle suit, leaving flecks of spittle dribbling down the polystyrene innards.
"Who's to say when it's supposed to happen? After all, how do you know I'm Serious Bleak?" Serious said airily.
"Because you look like him, talk like him and generally are him." Snake replied half-logically.
"That doesn't mean anything if you've got a Polypuke Portion." The apparently Serious Bleak said, and grinned to show a big mouthful of shiny white teeth.
"Those teeth look strangely familiar…" Snake trailed off as he went and got Dumbelladorn.
Serious shrugged and went back to the Logshorts nightly special-cold spaghetti drenched with watered down tomato juice and peeled grapes in white sauce. (It was supposed to look like guts and eyeballs)
"I don't see why you're so upset. My teeth are better now that I have some toothpaste and a toothbrush. Those deflectors at Banthahan don't even give you a clean pitcher of water to wash your face with." Serious said through a mouthful of steak and kidney pie (Yes, real kidneys!) to Dumbelladorn. "The thing is, I wanted to see Hairy and make sure he wasn't getting into too much trouble. He has to save up his energy to do battle with Lard Moldywort at the end of the year." Serious scraped up the crusts and shoved them in his mouth, waiting for Dumbelladorn to speak.
"You're not supposed to come back yet." Dumbelladorn touched Serious' arm gently, "Do you know what everyone would say if they had an ex-convicted murderer in their midst?"
Serious laughed. "They'd all think it's great, just as long as I could teach Defence Against the Park Darts. I hear Confessor Rotter has them all tying knots in their underwear to get an early warning system against Lard Moldywort. Come on, everyone knows that that doesn't work."
Dumbelladorn chuckled. "Quite right. However, the Ministry of Magic happened to find him right out of Burmastring as a student teacher. He should be good at that kind of stuff, although I hear that they actually teach them the Park Darts there."
McGoneagirl suddenly entered the conversation. "Yes," she sniffed, "they do. Although I do believe this Confessor Rotter does know what he's doing."
Snake put down his fork and knife carefully on the side of his plate. "So you are Serious Bleak?" he asked.
Serious was taken aback. "You mean you actually thought I was someone else pretending to be me?"
Snake smiled greasily. "You never can be too careful, with all these attacks by He-who-musty-knot-be-rained-on."
Serious nodded solemnly. "Yes. You never can be too careful. Those little rats do get annoying sometimes, don't they."
Snake cocked his head, if it was possible inside the pickle. "Little rats?" he asked.
"Oh come on! Surely you remember Weaker Petticoat last year." Serious peered into an eyehole of the pickle. "Are you quite okay in there?" he asked.
"I'm fine, thank you for asking, though." Snake said, trying to be civil, and turning quite pale as he saw the eye looking straight into his. Serious could give him heartburn with one stare. Damn him! He made a mental note to carry a roll of chewy Quick-eze the next time he went to a feast which involved a lot of food and Serious Bleak.
"Well, I'll be off now." Serious pushed his chair back from the table. "Got some students to boogie with." He grinned at Snake, and went off to find Hairy.
"Yo, Hairy!" Serious said as he walked towards the Greedygore table. Hairy saw Serious and jumped up, a smile on his dial.
"Hi Serious. How have you been? Where's Buckbeak? Where're you living?" Hairy started questioning him as he got closer.
"Shh. Not here." Serious leaned closer to Hairy. "People might hear you. Come on, kid." He took Hairy by the hand and led him out in the direction of a dark closet on the thirteenth floor. Harmonious and Wronky looked on in awe as they saw Hairy and Serious just walk through the wall.
Over at the teacher's table, Snake murmured to no one in particular, "Sometimes I wonder about Serious and Hairy."
"Goddamn. I gotta learn to do that one." Harmonious muttered as Picture Mum bumped into her, not quite by accident.
"May I cut in?" he said to Wronky in his thick accent.
"Sure. Whatever." Wronky turned a purplish-red and slouched off to the drinks table.
"So, what's your name?" Picture said to her, red highlighting his cheeks.
"You don't even know my name and you want to dance with me already?" Harmonious sounded slightly amazed. Picture didn't lift his head, thinking she was going to leave him there.
"That's so sweet." Harmonious said. Picture looked at her, relieved. "Much better than Wronky's ever done. Of course, then, I introduced myself to him and Hairy, so there wasn't very much he could do about that." She continued. Picture frowned a little.
"Who is this…Vronky?" he asked.
"Oh, he's just a friend. He was dancing with me before." She said a little too brightly.
"And Hairy?" he asked.
"Just another friend." She said, this time quite normally.
"So there is nothing between you and them?" he asked.
"Well, actually, there is. Quite a few metres of air." She said with a smile. Picture frowned.
"A joke." Harmonious explained.
"Ah. A joke." Picture said relieved. They continued dancing.
"Ah, look at that Grudger girl and my good ol' buddy Picture." Draino said to Cribbe as he flung a fake cigarette-part of his costume onto the stone floor and ground it to a powder with the toe of his other pair of patent leather boots with the leather lacing and cute little brass buttons.
"I don't see the problem, boss." Cribbe ventured slowly.
"Well, I do! My father wants her raped, pillaged and dead by my hand, and his father wants him married to this Albanian Park Darts princess! We can't have them falling in love now!" Draino roared at Cribble and Doily.
Snake happened to walk, or rather, waddle by in his green pickle suit. "Who's falling in love?" he asked suspiciously.
"Oh, just two people who definitely aren't supposed to." Draino said casually, trying not to draw attention to the fact.
"Just as long as you're not involved, Malfunction. We wouldn't want your family name disgraced, would we?" Snake said.
"No sir." Draino said dutifully.
"That's better." Snake was relieved underneath the green pickle suit, now suffocatingly hot. "Shall we dance?" he held one stockinged arm out.
Draino grimaced at the thought of dancing with a green pickle who also happened to be Snake. Then he realised the arm was for Panty, who was sitting next to him, one arm around his waist, or as he would rather think of it, one arm around all the swords and stuff hanging off his belt.
"Of course, Confessor." Panty smiled prettily, or what she liked to think of as prettily. She bounced off the chair, took Snake's arm and waved to Draino. He raised his arm and then flopped it back down onto his leg.
"You know Panty, he really doesn't like you." Snake said as he and Panty danced-not closely, but not too far apart, either.
"I know." She pouted, "but it doesn't mean that I can't try to make him like me."
"I suppose so." Snake sighed. "Still, you could waste your time in a better way. For instance, learning your Portions."
"Is this what it's all about then." Panty said.
"No. Well, sort of. You can't get an A if you only got twenty-nine out of one hundred." Snake said cautiously.
"You-you-you mean that I got twenty-nine on a Portions test?" Panty's voice wavered. She got out a lace-edged handkerchief, "I thought I'd get ten. I told my parents I would." Panty dabbed at the corners of her eyes.
"Ten?" Snake tried to make sense of it.
"Yes. To be the ditz of Logshorts you've got to get less than fifteen on each test, don't you?" Panty said, snuffling into her hanky.
"Oh." Snake said knowingly. "I see. Well, I'll give you a really low score next time." He smiled, and patted her on the back. "Don't worry. We all have our own goals to achieve, and I will help you."
The song ended, and Snake returned Panty to her seat. She smiled tearfully at him. "Thank you, sir." She said. He just turned away silently, and many Greedygores, Stufflechuffs, Shavenflaws and teachers still say that they saw a single tear escaping from the green pickle's eye to this day.
Snake had a look at the time, saw it was indeed quite early in the night, and retired to his office to wash off the paint and change out of the ridiculous green pickle suit. He would return to the Grate Wall in about an hour to witness the announcement of the Flywizards Torment. He was quite touched by Panty, but still some things came before others, and getting McGoneagirl back for tricking him into wearing that stupid pickle was at the top of the list.
A/N: Well? Whaddaya think? Review time! (hint hint)
Disclaimer: Characters basically belong to J.K. Rowling. The purple people eater belongs to whoever owns it. Anyone or anything else belongs to whoever owns it.