Against All Odds
Chapter Nine
Stefani: *appears on stage fully recovered from her previous 'grump mood'* *is wearing a black robe with long filmy sleeves* Hallowe'en is OVER! No more chance to wear costume! *pouts considerably over the unfairness of it all* Too bad it can't come more days of the year.
Chibi-Relena: *from her spot balancing on a tightrope with an adorable little umbrella* But then it wouldn't be fun! And no one would get enough candy from the cheapskates.
Stefani: Point well taken. Don't fall.
Heero-chan, Nanashi: *currently assigned to be Chibi-Relena's safety net*
Stefani: *eyes this odd Muse arrangement with a curious look* You know what? I don't want to know what Nanashi's been teaching that Muse. *walks off muttering*
Chibi-Relena: *jumps off tightrope* *lands in Heero's lap* Baka! You were supposed to catch me!
Heero-chan: *stares at previously Chibi-Relena-less lap* You're not dead yet.
Nanashi: Blunt as always. *walks away*
Chibi-Relena: *frowns*
POP!
(Chibi Relena becomes teenaged Relena, Lena-chan!)
Lena-chan: *glares at Heero-chan*
Heero-chan: *returns mute stare*
Lena-chan: *losing temper* Draw the curtain!
*curtains simply drop down*
*sounds of a scuffle can be heard*
*audience does not want to know*
~*~*~*~
"What do you want me to do?!" demanded Draco again, hoping she would be serious this time. There was in no way that Lucius Malfoy's son was ever going to drive such a Muggle contraption! And that was final. No snogs with the current Gryffindor torturess was going to change that… he paused that train of thought, No, no never say never…
Hermione's expression became lightly teasing, "Well, for a long, long time, I've always wanted a pony…"
"Do you want a currycomb with that?" he grumbled under his breath.
Hermione stopped, surprised, "You know what a currycomb is?"
"I figured you wouldn't like grooming stallions the old-fashioned way with wands."
"True, true, very true…" she grinned, continuing on, "Then of course, I'd love to meet Orlando Bloom in person…" Draco stopped fidgeting on the floor in shock, before he groaned. "Oh no, you're not talking about that prat who can't decide what way to keep his hair in for more than a week?"
"Actually, yes."
"Bloody hell Daisy, the guy's a—"
"One more insult and I leave you here indefinitely." Draco shut his mouth, but he wasn't happy to do it and continued to mutter things beneath his breath.
She sat down beside him—sliding a pillow beneath his head simply because he looked uncomfortable—curling her legs beneath her as she did so. "You know, this is one of the only ways I can think of to make you talk to me." Draco looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Do you always spellbind guys to the flood? What other skeletons are in that pristine-looking closet of yours?"
"Dreams/fantasies that include chocolate, cherries and silk sheets, but let's not go there." Draco blinked. My, she was blunt. He kept forgetting that.
"No, continue, I'm intrigued." He urged, in his all-too-well-known Malfoy drawl.
"Actually, I don't think I will. It might give you ideas." Her lips curved into a grin, "Now, as we have gotten over the sexual innuendo, we return to the subject of you driving us through the streets of London."
"I'm a Malfoy."
She put on a fake pained expression as if he'd sunk low enough to bring his bloodline into it. "I'm a Granger." Hmm, for some reason, that didn't seem to carry as much weight as Malfoy. She'd have to look into it. She strove to continue, "Which means I have absolutely nothing to say about that topic, but more on the one I was wanting to discuss. Come on. You have to go anyway, and the fact that you're being a prat because you're trying to shirk your duty."
"How, in any way is this my duty?"
"Come on. You've been down the streets of London, how many cars zooming past your way have a girl driving and a male looking at the roadmap?"
"I don't think I ever bothered to look at them." Hermione rolled her eyes, "But as that's beside the point, I'll go back to begging. Plllllleeeeeeeaaaaassssssseeeeeee?" They must've looked ridiculous with Hermione on her knees and Draco crossing his arms, still lying on the floor.
"Why does it matter to you so much?"
"Well, I should think it would matter more to you," she replied, matter-of-factly, "After all, you're the one who'd be accused of being gay."
Draco's eyes narrowed, "I'm a Malfoy." Apparently, that was his standard response to anything that ranged from financial business to sexuality.
"That supposed to mean somethin'?"
"I can not be, and never will be, gay."
(AN: I don't care if it's in the middle of the fic, it's an opportune moment! The above line is said in this ff, and this ff ONLY. No offense is meant to HP/DM lovers.)
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Ooh, the big bad Pureblood's insulted."
"Oh you know you've got the hots for me."
At this the brunette rolled her eyes, "Oh boy," she said dryly, "You've seen right through me. I want you. I need you. Oh baby. Oh baby." [1]
Draco grinned, "See?" he told her flippantly, ignoring the sarcastic barb.
"BACK to the topic at hand, as I have been reduced to begging, I will. Please, please, please be the designated driver?"
Draco wrinkled his perfectly formed eyebrows, "Isn't that the guy who always stays sober?"
Hermione blinked, side-tracked. "Yes."
"There's my biggest excuse. Keeping me away from alcohol when you people are is about as impossible as Millicent Bulstrode seducing Potter into her bed."
He caught the disgusted look on her face, "She's got a thing for Harry?"
"Just be glad you didn't share the same common room as her for the last three years."
"I don't want to know."
"Just remember, you're the one who asked."
Hermione suddenly frowned, "You're doing this just to get me off-topic aren't you?"
He gave her his most innocently injured look. "I would never dream of it!"
"Then be the bloody driver!"
He paused, cocking his head as if thinking some important, profound thought. Then, "No."
Hermione nearly growled in frustration. "Drive us around London or I'll personally clip ever precious hair on your head short."
Draco's eyes grew wide with horror.
"In clumps."
Even wider.
"And then, I just might dye it black."
They'd reached astronomical proportions now, and the poor boy seemed to have stopped breathing.
"And maybe I'll even—"
"I'll do it! I'll do it!" he finally yelled.
Hermione grinned triumphantly, "Good. I'll be sure to inform Professor Dumbledore. Immediately." Giggling, she sprang up as gracefully as a gazelle and ran for the portrait hole, exiting with a greeting to the inhabitants of it.
He was silent for a moment, before comprehension found him. "DAISY! GET ME UP OFF THIS BLOODY FLOOR!"
This was not supposed to happen! Women were supposed to be groveling at his feet, not the other way around! Whoever was in charge of making the world go round was certainly out on a cigarette break because this is NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! Only one thing left to say now. "Why me? Why, why, why, why, why?"
~*~*~*~
"Nagini?" the girl froze, turning around slowly, recognizing the voice.
"Harry!" Oh how could she explain this, how could she explain to him that… she looked down in sudden confusion, that she was carrying a blanket and a pile of female lingerie? What the hell?
"What the hell?" He'd stolen the words right out of her mouth.
She was still blinking at her burden before shrugging, and asking a simple question. "Yes?"
"Why are you walking around the halls carrying… that?"
She shrugged, "I don't know."
"I… see…"
"Well I certainly do not. One minute, I was carrying Miss Parkinson back into the school, the next I find that she has been replaced with a pile of underclothes."
"Pansy? But she's—"
Nagini raised an eyebrow, "Pansy Parkinson, as annoying and vapid as she may be, is a Slytherin, and with that comes a great ability of knowing what to do in desperate times."
"You knew? I mean, you know that she wasn't dead?—but that can't be true because even Dumbledore said she was dead—or did she do some kind of Dark magic you think?—or maybe…"
She refrained from rolling her eyes. This was probably the reason Draco so hated him throughout the years of his stay at Hogwarts. She well remembered his information from the ride on the train. "Well then… since I have thoroughly confused both myself as well as you, I shall be quite willing to give this pile to the house elves and offer you my lowly company over a mug of coffee."
Harry perked up. "Coffee?" he asked, "Black?"
"Just the way I like it." she replied. She wasn't lying. She did like it. Sugar was for goody-goodies. All the bad guys know you use Sweet 'N Low when you're truly desperate. Honestly.
She had the sudden feeling, someone had slipped Prozac (for indeed, she had learned much about Muggle medicine) into her afternoon pumpkin juice. For she was feeling much more… human that ever before, more keen to humor and more… like Hermione when she verbally sparred with Draco Malfoy.
Oh on Salazar's ashes… this was not happening, this was NOT happening. She wasn't going, she would not go. No, these strange, squishy feelings had to stop AT ONCE.
Harry paused, raising an eyebrow at her, "Didn't you say you wanted coffee?"
No! Absolutely not! It rots your teeth! It makes you stay up late! It is addictive!
"The house elves already told me that there wasn't any sugar left, but there is Sweet 'N Low if you're desperate…"
Perhaps the above-mentioned things weren't as catastrophic as they had first seemed.
"Very well then… but I choose which packet of Sweet 'N Low I use."
"Is there a difference?" he asked, blinking owlishly at her.
"Of course there is a difference," she told him primly, "You can never know what those companies use to fool you…" she said this with an air of extreme superior knowledge.
Harry shrugged, "Whatever you say."
Nagini led the way, keeping Harry well out of her sight. Why had she suggested this in the first place? Ah, again the immortal question. Why? Why, why, why, why, why?
~*~*~*~
Ron was stuck in a complicated situation. Despite his very firm resolution not to hit girls, (especially after his outburst at Hermione) he was near the end of his tether as Millicent Bulstrode cornered him in a corridor and had hard-pressed him for information about his second-best friend. For a second, he thought she was talking about Hermione and he cringed at the horrifying thoughts that ran through his head. But when she clarified, with a blush that made her face a deep puce, that she was talking about Harry, his imagination's supply of images were no less unsettling. But, as he had yet to reach Millicent Bulstrode's height and weight, he answered her questions monotonously until he was ready to throw caution to the winds and just tell her to go and explain in detail her kinky fetishes to someone else who might actually be INTERESTED!
"Oh, just let him alone Bulstrode." Drawled a voice from the shadows, making Millicent step backwards, pouting, which made even Ron grimace. He turned to look for his savior as Millicent, still grumbling, shuffled away, and the person peeled herself from the wall that had been leaned on throughout the exchange. For a second, he thought it was almost like a female Draco Malfoy… she had the much-hated drawl down pat. However, he didn't seem ready to rip into her as he did with the albino bastard.
But then he realized who it was, and his jaw dropped.
"Blaise Zabini?"
She raised an eyebrow, "What? Not happy to see me?"
"As happy as anyone who'd been rescued from… that." he replied stiffly, gesturing to the directing that Millicent Bulstrode had departed from.
"You're quite welcome. But I have come to you for information, if you are willing to part with it."
"What is it…?" he asked, with a great sense of foreboding. What was she going to come up with? Information about the secret meetings that Dumbledore held? The Gryffindor password? How to get into the Restricted Section without being caught?
"Harry Potter. Boxers or briefs?"
Well, that wasn't exactly as cataclysmic as he'd first suspected. But she was a Slytherin, what else could he expect? "Um… why?"
"Got a bet going with Bulstrode. She desperately wants to know, and desperate to know for sure that he wears briefs. I sometimes wonder at her. So? It'll earn me fifty galleons."
Ron stared at her, "And why the hell would you come to me?" he asked, rather insulted at the implication that he regularly checked what his best friend's choice of underclothes was.
She grinned, showing most of her teeth as she did so. He vaguely thought they would've made Hermione's parents proud. "Come on, you can't mean to say that even with you two sharing the same dormitory, the same Quidditch changing room, you've never seen?!"
"If I even have, why would I tell you?"
Blaise shrugged, "It was an innocent enough question." she replied, "And I needed to show Bulstrode that she was not telepathic when it came to Harry's underclothes. She regularly tries to get a glimpse whenever he's up on his broom on the Quidditch pitch."
Ron felt his face pull into a grimace, "Oh dear God… the next time I see him, I'm warning Harry."
"I feel I should be rewarded then. Boxers or briefs?"
"Boxers." He replied, watching her smile again. It wasn't that bad a smile, and it would've been even prettier if she'd turned it up full watt. As it was, he was merely stunned, not instantly falling before her, promising his everlasting love and devotion. "Perfect! Thanks Weasley." She caught sight of his half-finished Potions homework before saying, "You know, that's supposed to be rotweed, not roadweed. You'd be turned into a caterpillar if you added rotweed."
He looked at her suspiciously, "And why should I believe you?"
"Because I don't want my new pipeline of Gryffindor matters (because I know Dumbledore talks to most of you about issues like Pansy Parkinson more than us Slytherins) to be suddenly without vocal chords." She smiled prettily after her answer. Oh the vixen, the vixen! "Besides, Pansy's death is enough to handle at this school. Who would replace Dumbledore if he was taken away a second time? Professor Mc-I'm-still-a-virgin-and-I'm-very-bitter-thank-you-very-much-Gonagall."
Ron couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing. "That is how I see her, yes." He replied, grinning.
She returned his grin, before her grin changed into a slightly sultry smile of her own, making Ron gulp with nervousness. Despite the light-hearted banter, he was not used to conversing with Slytherins over an extended period of time without hexes cast or insults thrown. Into his ear, her lips tickling the sensitive skin of his earlobe, and his sudden inability to move, she whispered. "And now the most important question… Ron Weasley… boxers or briefs, I wonder?"
Then, while he was still in shock, she disappeared down the corridor. "I'll be sure to find this one out firsthand." She called back, before disappearing. Dear god, how did that happen? Blaise Zabini trying to be civil?! And why was he—oh dear god, oh dear, god! "Why did it have to be her?" he muttered plaintively to no one in particular. Couldn't he just have stuck to his once-crush with Fleur Delacoure and kept it at that? "Why? Why, why, why, why, why?"
~*~*~*~
[1] = taken completely unchanged from the novelization of 10 Things I Hate About You. You'll find out that I will randomly do that at odd moments.
End of Chapter. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I really am! I know it's short, shorter than anything I've done for a long while. But to keep it in continuation with the previous chapter, I had to cut it short as it is! But that means the next chapter comes out sooner too! Uhm, yeah. So… still working out plotline, and I think I've just screwed up any chance I had of finding one again. But… yeah.
And about Nagini's apparent sugar high… well, I was eating chocolate (yum), and reading Maya's 'Draco the Amazing Bouncing… Rat?', and laughing my head off. I love it! And basically all those factors spawned our ever sarcastic Nagini Whetlyn.
