Title: Fragments 2: The Difference a Malfoy Mind Can Make
Author: Tiny Q
E-Mail: one_legged_lesbian_seagull@hotmail.com
A/N: Well here's the next chapter. I was a little stuck, but I pulled through. All cheer! Ha. But yes. I have been trying to finish 11 different stories that I really want to get out soon, but it's just not happening. Feel lucky that you get to read this one! Stupid school. No time and it kills inspiration. Never go to school at the cost of your own money! Bah. Uh, how about I just let you read the story eh?
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Anything that sounds like it's from something other than Harry Potter most likely is...
Fragments 2: The Difference a Malfoy Mind Can Make
Chapter 3
A Dragon's Heart
~*~
Malfoy continued to stare at the stage before them on which the bone white man was rampaging about. Ginny was beginning to get the feeling that perhaps he was just as disturbed by it as she was. But then, who wouldn't be with Voldemort singing such lyrics as: "I'm ahead, the man. I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah." Or other more disturbing ones such as: "I'm at peace with my lust. I can kill 'cause in God I trust, yeah. It's evolution, baby!"
"I don't know," Malfoy finally said slowly, his voice absent from any sort of drawl. It was just a plain, disturbed and slow voice.
Ginny continued to stare at the spectacle before her, still not quite getting how it could work. Yet her thoughts were disrupted when she felt someone pull on her arm. Looking down she saw that Malfoy had a vice grip on her left. A moment later he was dragging her towards a hall to their right. Ginny surprised herself by not resisting, rather glad to have a chance to get away from Voldemort butchering that rather catchy song.
As they rounded the corner the music suddenly stopped, like a heavy door had closed behind them. Looking about though, Ginny felt her heart sink further than it had yet to sink that day. The hall was filled with doors. They were the regular types of doors at Hogwarts, meaning they were conniving and sneaky. Ginny suddenly had a great dislike of these doors. Not that she much cared for them before.
"Now what?" she asked the man beside her, pulling her arm free of his grasp.
He looked down on her. "We choose one I suppose," he said in that same voice as before, but there was a hint of his usual arrogance in it this time.
"Which one?" she questioned, feeling rather daft afterwards. Well, it was a valid question.
Without a response, Malfoy strode forward to a door to their left and opened it.
"Ladies first," he sneered with a sweeping gesture. Ginny felt a pang of hurt at his insult of the past. She hadn't minded it when he had said it then. But now it just sounded all wrong. 'Well, at least his sneer's back,' she thought bitterly.
Glowering back at him, Ginny walked past and went through the threshold of the door. With another blinding flash of light, which Ginny shut her eyes to, she found herself standing behind a podium.
She knew this place. All too well. But unlike in her own head, there was an audience, who all seemed off somehow. There was also a back stage and other such things that one would find on a real television set. 'I never should have introduced him to TV,' Ginny thought grimly, looking to her left to see Malfoy, frowning about at his surroundings.
"Great," she heard him mutter, and couldn't help but grin.
Ginny turned to her right, expecting to see the infamous Sean Connery who really wasn't Sean Connery, but got a bit of a nasty surprise. Instead of a man, there was a large, coppery brown dragon crouch behind the podium, looking about with a smirk on his face. Ginny never knew dragons could smirk. 'Apparently they can.'
Leaning forward, she read the name on the creature's podium. Sean Connery had been neatly crossed out and the name "Draco" had been written even neater below it.
"That Dragon has the same name as you," she whispered over to the blonde beside her. He looked at her as if she was stupid. But he never the chance to tell her off.
"And welcome back to Celebrity Jeopardy," a downtrodden man said in an equally downtrodden voice from behind the main podium where he had apparently just walked up to. "I still can't understand why you people keep coming back. Is it some sort of chemical imbalance I wonder? No, that must be what is wrong with me. You all probably just enjoy my torments in a cruel and sadistic way."
There was a cough from somewhere off stage. The downtrodden man suddenly looked nervous.
"Right," he said, clearing his throat. "Let's meet our contestants, shall we?" He turned towards the dragon and visibly jerked. "Who the hell are you and what have you done with Sean Connery?" He paused. "Please tell me you ate him."
"I bet you also wish I could tell you how to get a hand on your mother like I did last night," the dragon named Draco said lazily, flicking his long tail. Ginny began to get the feeling that there was a connection between the dragon and the man in question. They sounded a lot alike. And it seemed the game show host was getting this exact same inkling.
"Oh dear," he said miserably. "Why must you people do this to me?" he suddenly shrieked at the people who were obviously, or hopefully, behind the stage. Now that Ginny looked, she realized the man was a touch more frazzled than he should have been. 'Malofy's mind in really fucked up,' she thought darkly, frowning at the blonde.
He seemed to sense her staring at him, and frowned back at her. Ginny looked away.
"We don't need to meet the contestants then, we all know who they are," the game show host said in a bit of a rush, yet it was still drawn out in that game show voice. "And the-"
"Oh come on Trebeck," the dragon drawled. "We're the main stars of the show after all. You have to introduce us."
Trebeck looked darkly at the dragon then heaved a sigh. "Fine," he said rather pathetically, then looked down at his que-cards. "Our first contestant is, or rather was, Sean Connery, but now appears to be a dragon named Draco." He paused. "Cute." He then turned his eyes to Ginny. "Next we have the ever lovely Ginny Weasley." Ginny gave a little wave. "And finally we have Draco Malfoy, our third contestant."
Trebeck then turned to the Dragon. "Happy?"
"Immensely."
With another sigh the man turned to the board across from the podiums. "Let's look at the categories, shall we?" He glanced over them then gave another sigh. "Potent Potables, Who are you?, Flash Mobs, Finding Nemo (Note: these questions are all based on that movie about the cute little fish), Savvy, Where is Daddy?, and finally Disneyland."
"Wonderful topics!" the Dragon trilled, clapping his clawed hands.
It was at this time that Ginny turned to Malfoy and looked desperately at him. "Can we leave now?" she whispered and when he nodded in agreement, she wasted no time in moving back towards the door from which they came, Malfoy close of her heels.
"And we'll start the game off with- What?! You're leaving again?!" Trebeck practically shrieked. "You can't do this to me! How am I supposed to run a game with a dragon?!"
There was a whoosh of flames and Ginny heard a little scream. Whipping around she saw that the dragon named Draco had shot a burst of flames at the game show host, making him look a little beyond crispy.
"Damn you," he said weakly before falling to the ground.
Ginny never got the chance to find out what happened as Malfoy had shoved the door open and pulled her through. They both slammed the it shut and leaned heavily against it.
"Malfoy," Ginny hissed, taking in a few deep breaths to calm herself, not quite sure why she was suddenly so worked up. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I honestly don't know," he responded with a slight drawl causing Ginny to look at him. He didn't have his usual sneer in place, but rather had a pensive look instead. He turned and looked at her then, a smirk washing the look away. "Let's just try and get out of here."
~*~
Three hours later, Ginny felt her head was about to explode. She had never seen so many disturbing things in such a series. There had been sever beatings of Hippogriffs with rubber chickens (which she had a feeling had to do with his battle with both Buckbeak and Riddle). And there had also been Severus Snape singing on the top of his lungs that he was a man of constant sorrow. And of course, the incident she was sure would not leave her mind too quickly, Professor Lupin cowering from several moons that seemed to be ramming into the poor man. Ginny felt justified in the explosiveness in her mind after all that. And her feet were killing her. This was the last time she ever wore high heels when going into someone's mind.
Ginny stopped and leaned against the wall, just as Malfoy opened yet another door and poked his head into it. She never did find out what he saw, for she never looked and he closed the door far too fast. Besides, she was more concerned over peeling her stupid shoes off her aching feet.
"Ah, Weasley," Malfoy suddenly said in disgust. She turned and looked at him to see a rather un-Malfoyishly humorous expression in place. "Don't stink up my mind with your smelly feet!"
"I think it reeks bad enough as it is. My feet couldn't hurt," Ginny sneered, tossing the high heels to the ground where they made a satisfying "clunk". "And besides, my feet don't stink."
"Whatever you say," he drawled, crinkling his face at her shoes, but seeming to think twice about commenting. "Let's just try and get to the Great Hall and see if there's anything there. This hall is starting to annoy me." He started towards a bend a few feet away.
"But that's where Filch is!" Ginny found herself crying before she even realized she was saying it.
Malfoy turned to her in distaste. "Are you telling me that you are scared of that pathetic Squib?" he snarled at her.
"He has a cat," she offered, glaring down at her neglected shoes. It was as if they were laughing at her.
"Ooh, scary stuff there," he drawled, and continued to his destination. Ginny mentally smacked herself and hurried gingerly after him. Her feet were really starting to hurt, even without the shoes.
She caught up with him by the time he got to the bend and when they cleared it they came into the open of the Entrance Hall. Ginny looked warily around for Filtch and was just beginning to think that perhaps she was safe, when she spotted something worse tearing down the main staircase. She reached out blindly for Malfoy, finally catching at his sleeve.
"It burns!" her brother, Ron, shrieked, tearing down the stairs and flailing his arms about in an insane flurry. "It burns us!" Now, you may be wondering why he was screaming such a phrase that is truly only worthy of Gollum. Well, his hair was on fire.
Ginny's mouth fell open as her brother rushed across the hall and flung his head into a fountain that hadn't been there when she had first arrived. He kept his head in there and Ginny could only stare.
"That was cruel Malfoy," she said after a moment. Her brother was now sitting quietly on the edge of the fountain, his head bald. "I now you hate my brother, but that was just cruel." She glanced to her own red hair that had darkened with age. Had he ever imagined that happen to her?
"When I first dreamt that there hadn't been a fountain," he offered, pulling her hand off his sleeve. "Now come on." He dropped her hand and she stared after him, before she followed him to the Hall doors.
When they reached them they both stopped, listening. There was an odd chattering noise coming from beyond them. A chattering that Ginny didn't entirely like the sound of. By the way Malfoy was standing, it seemed that he didn't either.
"You haven't ever had dreams about scorpions, have you Malfoy?" Ginny found herself asking, looking wearily at the door.
"Not that I can remember," he said slowly, looking at the door himself.
With a bit of a breath, Ginny reached forward and pushed the door open. 'Might as well get it over with,' she thought grimly. It seemed to be her motto lately. When the door had swung open she felt her heart stop.
"Welcome," a voice called to them, and they walked in slowly, seeming compelled to move. Ginny looked towards the source of the voice and let out another gasp. There before them was Hermione.
But it wasn't just the normal know-it-all Hermione. No, it was far worse. This Hermione had let her bushy hair go wild, so it stood out almost like a frizzy afro. She was also dressed in a dress that seemed to be made of rows of squirrel pelts sewn together, yet the tails had been left to hang like tassels. Yet perhaps the most startling feature about this Hermione was that she was seated on a grand throne where the Head Table should have sat. And over the top of this throne there was a sign that read: Tu es un ecureuil dans mes cheveux.
"You are a squirrel in my hair?" she asked Malfoy, using her poor French. "Why the hell would you have that in your head?"
"Because I could never remember how to say fly or wall," he replied, looking about. It was then that Ginny realized there were several thousand chipmunks scattered about the halls, resting on the pushed back tables and the stools, hiding in the shadows. Ginny felt her eyes grow wide. They had been the source of the odd chattering noise.
"I, the Queen of the Chipmunks, welcome you to my strong hold," Hermione said in a regal voice, drawing both of their attentions to her rather than to her apparent minions. Who by the way, began to chatter loudly as though to pay praise to her. Hermione raised a hand slowly and the chattering stopped. "I am pleased that you have finally arrived."
"And why is that?" Draco asked, looking up at the bushy Hermione. Ginny frowned at her. There seemed to be something off about her, just like everything else in Malfoy's mind. But she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"Because he has been waiting for you," she replied simply, a malicious grin spreading across her face. The chipmunks around them seemed to grin as well, yet remained silent.
Then it struck Ginny what was so off about everything in this man's head: It all had undertones of evil.
"And he has been very anxious to see you again, Draco," Hermione said lazily, lounging back in her fur strewn throne.
"And who is this he?" he spat at her. Ginny could sense his whole body tensing up in anticipation.
"Why, your father of course."
~*~
A/N: Well, that's that. Don't know when the next chapter will come out 'cause I don't really know what will happen next. I have a few little chunks but I need more to pull them together. Any suggestions? JK. Anyhoo, have a good Halloween, even though it's a little early for Halloween...
Many thanks to: Amaya, Cay(Hmm, not sure yet. He could be...), Azalai(Not much scares me anymore. Well, except the chick from The Ring. She just won't leave my head alone! ~runs away screaming for her glowing stick~), mngolianporkchop(Ya, a little scary. Almost worth drawing, but no. Draco IS a sexy bitch. :D), Shyanne, redcrow, tulzdavampslayer(Now I really want to do one... too much to write...), fire-sprite16(Well if he was all nice it just wouldn't be fun), Antonida(Oh, there's a reason. And it will rear its ugly head soon enough...), Logan's Lover(~blushes~ Thanks. But I wish she would finish that story. I say we should pester her...), yourgrandmother(No musicals? You break my heart), bobby and VirtualFaerie(And she's back from the dead. ~threatening music~).