Chapter 11: Arguments
Crouch had his wand pointed directly at Ron Weasley's heart. Without the slightest hint of hesitation, he began uttering his unforgivable curse. "Avada Kedavra!"
A blazing line of furious green light shot out of Crouch's wand and it was as if time itself had stopped for those fatal seconds. However, instead of hitting Ron's chest, the spell had hit a space on the wall! Crouch had missed Ron by several feet.
How could this be?
Ron's eyes were wide open when he had heard Crouch say the spell, but as soon as he'd spotted the emerald light escape the wand pointed at him, he had shut his eyes tight. Now he gingerly opened his eyes and when he saw he was still standing before all his friends and foes, the tension in his muscles eased a bit, but not much. Hermione, Harry, Ginny, and even Draco looked at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Evra gawked at him and began scratching his head. When Ron finally looked at Crouch, he jumped back into the wall with a yelp of surprise.
Barty Crouch was still standing in the entrance of the cell, but snakelike fingers were wrapped around his wand hand! Ron's eyes went up the arm and their gaze rested uncomfortably on a very pale face.
Lucius Malfoy?
Ron goggled at this. Draco Malfoy's father had just saved his life? This was mad— maybe he was dead, because crazy things like this were just… crazy! Ron continued staring but finally reeled back into reality with a howl of pain.
Draco had pinched Ron's arm!
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?" Ron whispered violently.
"You looked like you needed it." Draco muttered back, not bothering to look at him. Draco had obviously gotten over the surprise of seeing his father redirect a killing curse to the wall. Though Ron also was not looking at Draco, Draco practically foresaw Ron's confused face and explained himself further. "You're not dead, Weasley." Draco rolled his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the wall.
How could Draco be so relaxed? Though it was hard for him to believe, Ginny had told Ron that Malfoy's own father had betrayed him, and now he was leaning against the wall like he didn't have a care in the world?
"No, Mr. Weasley, you indeed are not dead," Lucius Malfoy's velvety voice floated through the room to Ron's ears. "Thanks to me." He grinned.
Quite uncharacteristically, Harry spoke in the middle of an evil minion's welcoming speech. "Barty Crouch is supposed to be dead! I heard it with my own ears during my fourth year! This can't be him!" He was quite flustered and confused.
"Oh, that," Lucius graciously began explaining. "He was never dead; his soul simply took a siesta, you might say. Barty's body was still alive, but his soul was missing, and one can retrieve many things from the Dementors when they work for you."
"So you had a Dementor barf up Barty Crouch's soul?" Ron asked as a look of utter disgust settled upon his face once again.
Mr. Malfoy looked over his nose at Ron and sneered. "Precisely." Lucius suddenly averted his eyes in Draco's direction. "My dear son, why are you shaking? Surely you are not afraid of me?"
Ginny looked over at Draco; his hands were clenched into tight fists— so tight that his knuckles had turned a shade lighter than his skin and the skin around his knuckles were furious blotches of red. Draco certainly was shaking, and Ginny wouldn't blame him for feeling terrified at the mere sight of his father. Ginny grimaced internally; the man didn't even deserve the title of father anymore.
Lucius waked closer to Draco and looked down at his son. "Are you afraid?"
Without thought, Draco's left fist had begun to swing through the air, making a beeline to his father's face, but his fist never made contact! Ginny could see that the muscles in Draco's left arm were fully flexed, but the reason he hadn't been able to injure his father was because Evra had restrained him!
Draco tried to swing out his other arm, but Evra stopped that one too. "Let go of me!" Draco ordered, looking back at Evra through the corner of his eye.
"Now you must be afraid?" Lucius asked, quite entertained by the current situation.
"A Malfoy is never afraid," Draco fed his father.
Since Evra wrenched both of Draco's arms behind him, Draco used the leverage and swung both his feet up to kick his father in the stomach, but Evra simply let go of Draco's arms to counter this. Draco never made contact with his father and he landed on the dungeon floor with a loud thud. He didn't move.
"Draco!" Ginny gasped, wondering if she should rush to his side or hold her ground. She began moving towards him but Hermione held her back. Ginny looked up at Hermione to see why she'd held her back, but Hermione looked as though she'd done nothing of the sort.
Everyone stared at Evra with shock, but finally, of all people, Ron broke in with an outburst. "You bloody pillock! Evra! What'd you do that for? I thought you worked for the Malfoys!"
"Only half correct," Evra said, his tongue slithering slightly out of his mouth as he turned on Ron. "I work for Mr. Malfoy. Never did I say I work for Draco Malfoy—"
"You said you worked for the Malfoys!" Ron interrupted.
Ginny stared on with sudden interest. She never thought Ron would be saying anything to defend Draco Malfoy even in the slightest fashion, yet now, it was as if he'd forgotten that the ultimate minions of evil were standing before him— listening to every insulting word he said!
"Of course I worked for the Malfoys. Mr. Lucius Malfoy insisted that I obey all the Malfoys. But as of late, Draco Malfoy has been excluded from this elite group."
Hermione was taken aback. Evra suddenly spoke with such poise and knowledge. Was his laid-back attitude from before just an act? Or was he intimidated by Lucius Malfoy's presence? And she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but he gave her an uneasy feeling. Not exactly uneasy, but his company made her feel strange in a way.
"Elite? Malfoys are elite now—?"
"Finite Incantatem!" Hermione interrupted Ron. Her wand was pointed at Evra. There was a long moment of stillness and Hermione thought that perhaps her suspicions had been false, but soon, Evra's edges began to get blurry and then they started disappearing until his nearly six foot high stature was now less than three feet.
Harry made an awkward sort of wheezing noise from the back of his throat before he finally pointed at the shrunken form before him. "Kreacher the house elf?!" Harry's mouth was wide open as he stared at the disgruntled old house elf.
Even Ron stopped yelling at "Evra" and turned to see his friend. Color was rapidly flooding back into Harry's face and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides. "YOU BETRAYED SIRIUS!" Harry yelled at him. Tears welling up in his eyes, he began running towards Kreacher with obvious intent to injure. "YOU BLOODY BA—" He suddenly stopped speaking, startled that he wasn't able to move forward any longer. He looked at his sides and Hermione and Ron were holding him back. "WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?! LET ME GO!" He bellowed.
"Harry, beating him to a pulp—"
"HERMIONE, JUST SHUT IT! I DON'T BLOODY CARE IF HE'S A HOUSE ELF! BULLOCKS TO SPEW!"
It's S.P.E.W., Hermione had wanted to say. She was offended that Harry was insulting her organization for house elves, but she made a note to forgive him just this once. After all, Harry had a lot to be upset about.
"Bloody hell," Hermione suddenly heard Ron murmur from Harry's other side. "Bloody hell!!" He said once again, only this time in great anguish.
Harry was still struggling to get at Kreacher when Hermione craned her neck over Harry's back to look at Ron. "Ron what's the—" Hermione scanned the length of room around her, gasped, and involuntarily let go of Harry. "Bloody hell," she whispered, feeling that this was an appropriate situation to use the phrase.
Harry's left side flung toward Kreacher, but it was like Ron's fingers had been glued tightly to Harry's right arm. Harry lay on the ground now, Ron still clutching his right arm when he happened to look around the room as well. He ceased struggling and finally spoke. "Where's Ginny? And Malfoy? Where'd everybody go?"
All three of them had their backs to Kreacher, but when they turned to look at him, the chubby old house elf had vanished as well.
* * *
Garlic.
Draco sniffed the air a bit more and he had no doubt that he smelled garlic. The scent rushed into his nose and quickly filled his whole head with the horrid smell. He gently opened his eyes and rolled over. He went through a moment of silent panic when he realized he was on a cold floor, but seconds later, he remembered all that had happened.
Wait! What about those Gryffindor goodies?
Draco sat up and put his hand to his head. The area above the nape of his neck was bruised and felt as though it was pulsating. He didn't need to look far before his question was partially answered. Ginny Weasley was sleeping rather fitfully in the corner opposite Draco. She was balled up and her arms were hugging her knees tightly to her chest.
"Hey, wake up," he whispered in her ear.
Ginny's eyes immediately flew open to find Draco Malfoy's face scrunched up before her. "Ugh, get away from me!" She moaned. "Stop bothering me!"
"I had no intention of bothering you," Draco retorted, "but I hope that you'll take this time to realize that you snore." He said, even though she really didn't. Ginny looked offended. "Loud." Draco added as an afterthought.
"I do not!" Ginny protested, straightening out her legs and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"It doesn't help to deny the fact, Weasley." Before Ginny could speak again, he continued. "So, would you happen to know where we are?"
"No," Ginny said thoughtlessly.
"So they punched your lights out or something before they brought you here?" Draco asked.
"No," Ginny said again.
"Then what were you doing when you were being brought here against your own will?" Draco pressed on, a bit annoyed at this point.
"No! We weren't really brought here," Ginny said. "We just kind of appeared here."
Draco arched an eyebrow. "So we apparated here?"
"Not really," Ginny said, looking pensive. "It was like using a Port Key, except everything didn't swirl into a mesh of colors and we weren't really pulled into the Port Key by our navels."
Draco scoffed. What kind of person thought being pulled by the navel and being transported with a Port Key was the same? "That is so retarded," Draco absentmindedly thought aloud.
Ginny made a face. "What?" She asked, confused.
Draco closed his eyes and opened them again. "Nothing," he said quickly. "Back to the point, then. We were some how transported here, we don't know where everyone else is, and—" Draco couldn't take it anymore. "Bloody hell! Where is that smell coming from?" He bellowed.
Ginny blushed and Draco noticed. "Not that kind of smell, Weasley! I smell…" Draco's nose pointed up to the air. "I smell garlic! And it reeks!"
Ginny had a worried look on her face and she raised both eyebrows. Draco Malfoy was really weird, though he was a lot more dorky than evil, contrary to popular belief. Ginny thought about it and Draco hadn't really done anything bad since they'd met up. She looked up at him now, still smelling the air and trying to locate the source of the so-called odor. How can he stand there and just let his fringe dangle in front of his eyes like that? It must get annoying, Ginny thought to herself. But I suppose it wouldn't go anywhere even if he tried to move it aside. She laughed inwardly. Draco's hair was as stubborn as he was!
Draco spotted Ginny smirking. "What's so funny, Weasley? Is it funny that we don't know where we are? That we're in a tiny room with no hair accessories, expensive clothes, or bathrooms? That this damned room has no door? That I'm a half vampire that might rip your throat out from under your chin any second now? That is smells like garlic?"
Ginny cursed herself for thinking about Malfoy's hair and allowing her imagination to camouflage Malfoy's real personality. "That we're—" Draco was about to go on.
"Shut up!" Ginny hollered. "You big crybaby! Honestly, the first thing on your list of missing necessities is hair accessories! You're worst than Lavender and Parvati combined and multiplied by eight!"
Draco was about to say something, but all of the sudden, the whole room shook.
"What was that?" Ginny gasped aloud, caught off-guard.
Without warning, the walls of the room gradually became translucent. Once the room had stopped moving, both Draco and Ginny got up and looked out of the windows that used to be walls.
Draco's eyes grew wide.
"Professor Snape's Potions classroom? How'd we get in here?" Ginny asked.
"Who cares how we got in here," Draco started.
"Huh?"
"Why the bloody hell are we so small?"
Ginny jumped back in surprise. Everything around her was enormous! They had been shrunk!
* * *
"Harry, your elbow is in my mouth!" Ron complained.
He felt the elbow being removed from his mouth.
"How do you know it's my elbow?" Harry said, trying to steady himself and stop his surroundings from spinning.
"Because it tastes like Dursley à la carte!"
"How do you know what a Dursley tastes like?" Hermione's smart voice chipped in.
Ron finally sat up, glared at Hermione, and crossed his arms over his chest, accompanied by a, "Humph!"
"Now, if you're done acting like a child, I think it would make sense if we tried to figure out how and why we're back in the Gryffindor common room." With that, Harry and Ron looked at Hermione, confused expressions plaguing their faces.
* * *
"Okay, Snape definitely needs a new interior designer! Why the bloody hell does he have garlic strung all over the place? — Weasley! What— GET OUT OF MY PANTS!!" Draco's eyes were plates on his face.
"I needed your wand," Ginny said.
"You could've asked," Draco responded.
"And you would've given me your wand just like that?" Ginny asked, raising her eyebrows.
Draco glanced at her with a look of disgust on his face and quickly looked away. "Well, you didn't need to go through my pants."
"Sorry, Malfoy, I'll think about your personal space next time, though I'm sure it's not the first time your personal space has been invaded… though that wouldn't really be considered an invasion," she trailed off.
"And why are we talking about my personal space?" Draco asked, annoyance starting to get the better of him.
"Oh gosh, what is that spell?" Ginny thought aloud, twirling Draco's wand in her fingers.
"Ignore me, will you?" Draco said, trying hard to maintain his temper.
"Wait, did you say something?" Ginny asked, a smirk playing at the ends of her lips.
"What is it with you, Weasley? You don't say a single word for six years or something and now that you've got me in a box," Draco threw his hands up at this, "you decide to completely open your big, freckle-surrounded mouth and throw at me everything you've wanted to say since you first laid eyes on me?"
Ginny cocked an eyebrow. "Are you saying I'm being mean?" She scoffed. "Because that's terribly ironic coming out of your mouth."
"Did I ever say that?"
Ginny smiled sweetly and shrugged her shoulders.
"No, I didn't. So lay off!" Draco shouted.
"Okay, I guess you've a lot to be upset about at the moment." Ginny said. With that, she went back to thinking of the spell that might un-shrink them.
Draco stared, aghast. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, your whole family just decided to saw your limb off the family tree, your father seems to not mind if you die, you're turning into a vampire or something, Blaise Zabini isn't all she's cut out to be, and you're stuck in this hamster cage with me, which is also why you're acting like a child for some odd reason." Ginny explained. "Why wouldn't you be upset?"
Draco's temples flared red. "It's sick how you can talk about me dying in such a singsong voice."
The singsong voice wasn't added intentionally, but Ginny thought back to her first year at Hogwarts. "As if you cared that I nearly died that one time in the Chamber with Tom Riddle."
Very uncharacteristically, Draco snorted.
Ginny scrunched up her nose. "What is it now?"
"Honestly, Weasley, the whole of Slytherin house was talking about it after we found out it was you that had been landed in the Chamber."
"So?" Ginny asked, wondering why Draco was smirking so suddenly.
"So?" Draco mocked, a strange glint in his eye. "Poor Ginny Weasley, always following the shadow of famous Harry Potter and receiving no notice at all! Why else would you go down to the Chamber? But really, rather sad that you had a go at a dead guy—"
"Malfoy!" Shrieked Ginny, understanding where the gist of his explanation was going. "I was eleven! Are you insane?"
"—and you were going on about my personal space—"
Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Shut it, Malfoy."
"—and I can just imagine the look on Potter's face when he got there—"
"I'm warning you," Ginny said, temper rising.
He disregarded Ginny and continued to taunt her. Then, Ginny suddenly began waving Draco's wand around and within seconds, Draco stopped ridiculing her.
That swishing motion! Draco gasped aloud. "Oh, shit!" He hollered, throwing his arms over his face as he quickly got out of the way of the oncoming spell.
Too late for Draco, however. The Bat Bogey hex had already found its target.
Author's Note: Whee! Yet another chapter finished. Hope yall liked it and I'm sorry if you thought it was confusing. And sorry it took forever to come out too! Blame school! :x Also, Harry, Ron, and Hermione's location crisis will soon be resolved soon...
Chapter 12: This chapter's mainly about Draco and Ginny since I want to get their relationship moving along. Er... that's all... I think...
*steals Eiko's line* Comments keep me sane. I mean... reviews... yeah... *cough* So jumbo chocolate frogs to Kashew, Erika, Jonah, Crazylily54, Lily Among the Thorns-89, evil*grrl*13, Eiko, and natsume2 for reviewing! Yay! Keep it up! XP
Crouch had his wand pointed directly at Ron Weasley's heart. Without the slightest hint of hesitation, he began uttering his unforgivable curse. "Avada Kedavra!"
A blazing line of furious green light shot out of Crouch's wand and it was as if time itself had stopped for those fatal seconds. However, instead of hitting Ron's chest, the spell had hit a space on the wall! Crouch had missed Ron by several feet.
How could this be?
Ron's eyes were wide open when he had heard Crouch say the spell, but as soon as he'd spotted the emerald light escape the wand pointed at him, he had shut his eyes tight. Now he gingerly opened his eyes and when he saw he was still standing before all his friends and foes, the tension in his muscles eased a bit, but not much. Hermione, Harry, Ginny, and even Draco looked at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Evra gawked at him and began scratching his head. When Ron finally looked at Crouch, he jumped back into the wall with a yelp of surprise.
Barty Crouch was still standing in the entrance of the cell, but snakelike fingers were wrapped around his wand hand! Ron's eyes went up the arm and their gaze rested uncomfortably on a very pale face.
Lucius Malfoy?
Ron goggled at this. Draco Malfoy's father had just saved his life? This was mad— maybe he was dead, because crazy things like this were just… crazy! Ron continued staring but finally reeled back into reality with a howl of pain.
Draco had pinched Ron's arm!
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?" Ron whispered violently.
"You looked like you needed it." Draco muttered back, not bothering to look at him. Draco had obviously gotten over the surprise of seeing his father redirect a killing curse to the wall. Though Ron also was not looking at Draco, Draco practically foresaw Ron's confused face and explained himself further. "You're not dead, Weasley." Draco rolled his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the wall.
How could Draco be so relaxed? Though it was hard for him to believe, Ginny had told Ron that Malfoy's own father had betrayed him, and now he was leaning against the wall like he didn't have a care in the world?
"No, Mr. Weasley, you indeed are not dead," Lucius Malfoy's velvety voice floated through the room to Ron's ears. "Thanks to me." He grinned.
Quite uncharacteristically, Harry spoke in the middle of an evil minion's welcoming speech. "Barty Crouch is supposed to be dead! I heard it with my own ears during my fourth year! This can't be him!" He was quite flustered and confused.
"Oh, that," Lucius graciously began explaining. "He was never dead; his soul simply took a siesta, you might say. Barty's body was still alive, but his soul was missing, and one can retrieve many things from the Dementors when they work for you."
"So you had a Dementor barf up Barty Crouch's soul?" Ron asked as a look of utter disgust settled upon his face once again.
Mr. Malfoy looked over his nose at Ron and sneered. "Precisely." Lucius suddenly averted his eyes in Draco's direction. "My dear son, why are you shaking? Surely you are not afraid of me?"
Ginny looked over at Draco; his hands were clenched into tight fists— so tight that his knuckles had turned a shade lighter than his skin and the skin around his knuckles were furious blotches of red. Draco certainly was shaking, and Ginny wouldn't blame him for feeling terrified at the mere sight of his father. Ginny grimaced internally; the man didn't even deserve the title of father anymore.
Lucius waked closer to Draco and looked down at his son. "Are you afraid?"
Without thought, Draco's left fist had begun to swing through the air, making a beeline to his father's face, but his fist never made contact! Ginny could see that the muscles in Draco's left arm were fully flexed, but the reason he hadn't been able to injure his father was because Evra had restrained him!
Draco tried to swing out his other arm, but Evra stopped that one too. "Let go of me!" Draco ordered, looking back at Evra through the corner of his eye.
"Now you must be afraid?" Lucius asked, quite entertained by the current situation.
"A Malfoy is never afraid," Draco fed his father.
Since Evra wrenched both of Draco's arms behind him, Draco used the leverage and swung both his feet up to kick his father in the stomach, but Evra simply let go of Draco's arms to counter this. Draco never made contact with his father and he landed on the dungeon floor with a loud thud. He didn't move.
"Draco!" Ginny gasped, wondering if she should rush to his side or hold her ground. She began moving towards him but Hermione held her back. Ginny looked up at Hermione to see why she'd held her back, but Hermione looked as though she'd done nothing of the sort.
Everyone stared at Evra with shock, but finally, of all people, Ron broke in with an outburst. "You bloody pillock! Evra! What'd you do that for? I thought you worked for the Malfoys!"
"Only half correct," Evra said, his tongue slithering slightly out of his mouth as he turned on Ron. "I work for Mr. Malfoy. Never did I say I work for Draco Malfoy—"
"You said you worked for the Malfoys!" Ron interrupted.
Ginny stared on with sudden interest. She never thought Ron would be saying anything to defend Draco Malfoy even in the slightest fashion, yet now, it was as if he'd forgotten that the ultimate minions of evil were standing before him— listening to every insulting word he said!
"Of course I worked for the Malfoys. Mr. Lucius Malfoy insisted that I obey all the Malfoys. But as of late, Draco Malfoy has been excluded from this elite group."
Hermione was taken aback. Evra suddenly spoke with such poise and knowledge. Was his laid-back attitude from before just an act? Or was he intimidated by Lucius Malfoy's presence? And she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but he gave her an uneasy feeling. Not exactly uneasy, but his company made her feel strange in a way.
"Elite? Malfoys are elite now—?"
"Finite Incantatem!" Hermione interrupted Ron. Her wand was pointed at Evra. There was a long moment of stillness and Hermione thought that perhaps her suspicions had been false, but soon, Evra's edges began to get blurry and then they started disappearing until his nearly six foot high stature was now less than three feet.
Harry made an awkward sort of wheezing noise from the back of his throat before he finally pointed at the shrunken form before him. "Kreacher the house elf?!" Harry's mouth was wide open as he stared at the disgruntled old house elf.
Even Ron stopped yelling at "Evra" and turned to see his friend. Color was rapidly flooding back into Harry's face and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides. "YOU BETRAYED SIRIUS!" Harry yelled at him. Tears welling up in his eyes, he began running towards Kreacher with obvious intent to injure. "YOU BLOODY BA—" He suddenly stopped speaking, startled that he wasn't able to move forward any longer. He looked at his sides and Hermione and Ron were holding him back. "WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?! LET ME GO!" He bellowed.
"Harry, beating him to a pulp—"
"HERMIONE, JUST SHUT IT! I DON'T BLOODY CARE IF HE'S A HOUSE ELF! BULLOCKS TO SPEW!"
It's S.P.E.W., Hermione had wanted to say. She was offended that Harry was insulting her organization for house elves, but she made a note to forgive him just this once. After all, Harry had a lot to be upset about.
"Bloody hell," Hermione suddenly heard Ron murmur from Harry's other side. "Bloody hell!!" He said once again, only this time in great anguish.
Harry was still struggling to get at Kreacher when Hermione craned her neck over Harry's back to look at Ron. "Ron what's the—" Hermione scanned the length of room around her, gasped, and involuntarily let go of Harry. "Bloody hell," she whispered, feeling that this was an appropriate situation to use the phrase.
Harry's left side flung toward Kreacher, but it was like Ron's fingers had been glued tightly to Harry's right arm. Harry lay on the ground now, Ron still clutching his right arm when he happened to look around the room as well. He ceased struggling and finally spoke. "Where's Ginny? And Malfoy? Where'd everybody go?"
All three of them had their backs to Kreacher, but when they turned to look at him, the chubby old house elf had vanished as well.
Garlic.
Draco sniffed the air a bit more and he had no doubt that he smelled garlic. The scent rushed into his nose and quickly filled his whole head with the horrid smell. He gently opened his eyes and rolled over. He went through a moment of silent panic when he realized he was on a cold floor, but seconds later, he remembered all that had happened.
Wait! What about those Gryffindor goodies?
Draco sat up and put his hand to his head. The area above the nape of his neck was bruised and felt as though it was pulsating. He didn't need to look far before his question was partially answered. Ginny Weasley was sleeping rather fitfully in the corner opposite Draco. She was balled up and her arms were hugging her knees tightly to her chest.
"Hey, wake up," he whispered in her ear.
Ginny's eyes immediately flew open to find Draco Malfoy's face scrunched up before her. "Ugh, get away from me!" She moaned. "Stop bothering me!"
"I had no intention of bothering you," Draco retorted, "but I hope that you'll take this time to realize that you snore." He said, even though she really didn't. Ginny looked offended. "Loud." Draco added as an afterthought.
"I do not!" Ginny protested, straightening out her legs and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"It doesn't help to deny the fact, Weasley." Before Ginny could speak again, he continued. "So, would you happen to know where we are?"
"No," Ginny said thoughtlessly.
"So they punched your lights out or something before they brought you here?" Draco asked.
"No," Ginny said again.
"Then what were you doing when you were being brought here against your own will?" Draco pressed on, a bit annoyed at this point.
"No! We weren't really brought here," Ginny said. "We just kind of appeared here."
Draco arched an eyebrow. "So we apparated here?"
"Not really," Ginny said, looking pensive. "It was like using a Port Key, except everything didn't swirl into a mesh of colors and we weren't really pulled into the Port Key by our navels."
Draco scoffed. What kind of person thought being pulled by the navel and being transported with a Port Key was the same? "That is so retarded," Draco absentmindedly thought aloud.
Ginny made a face. "What?" She asked, confused.
Draco closed his eyes and opened them again. "Nothing," he said quickly. "Back to the point, then. We were some how transported here, we don't know where everyone else is, and—" Draco couldn't take it anymore. "Bloody hell! Where is that smell coming from?" He bellowed.
Ginny blushed and Draco noticed. "Not that kind of smell, Weasley! I smell…" Draco's nose pointed up to the air. "I smell garlic! And it reeks!"
Ginny had a worried look on her face and she raised both eyebrows. Draco Malfoy was really weird, though he was a lot more dorky than evil, contrary to popular belief. Ginny thought about it and Draco hadn't really done anything bad since they'd met up. She looked up at him now, still smelling the air and trying to locate the source of the so-called odor. How can he stand there and just let his fringe dangle in front of his eyes like that? It must get annoying, Ginny thought to herself. But I suppose it wouldn't go anywhere even if he tried to move it aside. She laughed inwardly. Draco's hair was as stubborn as he was!
Draco spotted Ginny smirking. "What's so funny, Weasley? Is it funny that we don't know where we are? That we're in a tiny room with no hair accessories, expensive clothes, or bathrooms? That this damned room has no door? That I'm a half vampire that might rip your throat out from under your chin any second now? That is smells like garlic?"
Ginny cursed herself for thinking about Malfoy's hair and allowing her imagination to camouflage Malfoy's real personality. "That we're—" Draco was about to go on.
"Shut up!" Ginny hollered. "You big crybaby! Honestly, the first thing on your list of missing necessities is hair accessories! You're worst than Lavender and Parvati combined and multiplied by eight!"
Draco was about to say something, but all of the sudden, the whole room shook.
"What was that?" Ginny gasped aloud, caught off-guard.
Without warning, the walls of the room gradually became translucent. Once the room had stopped moving, both Draco and Ginny got up and looked out of the windows that used to be walls.
Draco's eyes grew wide.
"Professor Snape's Potions classroom? How'd we get in here?" Ginny asked.
"Who cares how we got in here," Draco started.
"Huh?"
"Why the bloody hell are we so small?"
Ginny jumped back in surprise. Everything around her was enormous! They had been shrunk!
"Harry, your elbow is in my mouth!" Ron complained.
He felt the elbow being removed from his mouth.
"How do you know it's my elbow?" Harry said, trying to steady himself and stop his surroundings from spinning.
"Because it tastes like Dursley à la carte!"
"How do you know what a Dursley tastes like?" Hermione's smart voice chipped in.
Ron finally sat up, glared at Hermione, and crossed his arms over his chest, accompanied by a, "Humph!"
"Now, if you're done acting like a child, I think it would make sense if we tried to figure out how and why we're back in the Gryffindor common room." With that, Harry and Ron looked at Hermione, confused expressions plaguing their faces.
"Okay, Snape definitely needs a new interior designer! Why the bloody hell does he have garlic strung all over the place? — Weasley! What— GET OUT OF MY PANTS!!" Draco's eyes were plates on his face.
"I needed your wand," Ginny said.
"You could've asked," Draco responded.
"And you would've given me your wand just like that?" Ginny asked, raising her eyebrows.
Draco glanced at her with a look of disgust on his face and quickly looked away. "Well, you didn't need to go through my pants."
"Sorry, Malfoy, I'll think about your personal space next time, though I'm sure it's not the first time your personal space has been invaded… though that wouldn't really be considered an invasion," she trailed off.
"And why are we talking about my personal space?" Draco asked, annoyance starting to get the better of him.
"Oh gosh, what is that spell?" Ginny thought aloud, twirling Draco's wand in her fingers.
"Ignore me, will you?" Draco said, trying hard to maintain his temper.
"Wait, did you say something?" Ginny asked, a smirk playing at the ends of her lips.
"What is it with you, Weasley? You don't say a single word for six years or something and now that you've got me in a box," Draco threw his hands up at this, "you decide to completely open your big, freckle-surrounded mouth and throw at me everything you've wanted to say since you first laid eyes on me?"
Ginny cocked an eyebrow. "Are you saying I'm being mean?" She scoffed. "Because that's terribly ironic coming out of your mouth."
"Did I ever say that?"
Ginny smiled sweetly and shrugged her shoulders.
"No, I didn't. So lay off!" Draco shouted.
"Okay, I guess you've a lot to be upset about at the moment." Ginny said. With that, she went back to thinking of the spell that might un-shrink them.
Draco stared, aghast. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, your whole family just decided to saw your limb off the family tree, your father seems to not mind if you die, you're turning into a vampire or something, Blaise Zabini isn't all she's cut out to be, and you're stuck in this hamster cage with me, which is also why you're acting like a child for some odd reason." Ginny explained. "Why wouldn't you be upset?"
Draco's temples flared red. "It's sick how you can talk about me dying in such a singsong voice."
The singsong voice wasn't added intentionally, but Ginny thought back to her first year at Hogwarts. "As if you cared that I nearly died that one time in the Chamber with Tom Riddle."
Very uncharacteristically, Draco snorted.
Ginny scrunched up her nose. "What is it now?"
"Honestly, Weasley, the whole of Slytherin house was talking about it after we found out it was you that had been landed in the Chamber."
"So?" Ginny asked, wondering why Draco was smirking so suddenly.
"So?" Draco mocked, a strange glint in his eye. "Poor Ginny Weasley, always following the shadow of famous Harry Potter and receiving no notice at all! Why else would you go down to the Chamber? But really, rather sad that you had a go at a dead guy—"
"Malfoy!" Shrieked Ginny, understanding where the gist of his explanation was going. "I was eleven! Are you insane?"
"—and you were going on about my personal space—"
Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Shut it, Malfoy."
"—and I can just imagine the look on Potter's face when he got there—"
"I'm warning you," Ginny said, temper rising.
He disregarded Ginny and continued to taunt her. Then, Ginny suddenly began waving Draco's wand around and within seconds, Draco stopped ridiculing her.
That swishing motion! Draco gasped aloud. "Oh, shit!" He hollered, throwing his arms over his face as he quickly got out of the way of the oncoming spell.
Too late for Draco, however. The Bat Bogey hex had already found its target.
Author's Note: Whee! Yet another chapter finished. Hope yall liked it and I'm sorry if you thought it was confusing. And sorry it took forever to come out too! Blame school! :x Also, Harry, Ron, and Hermione's location crisis will soon be resolved soon...
Chapter 12: This chapter's mainly about Draco and Ginny since I want to get their relationship moving along. Er... that's all... I think...
*steals Eiko's line* Comments keep me sane. I mean... reviews... yeah... *cough* So jumbo chocolate frogs to Kashew, Erika, Jonah, Crazylily54, Lily Among the Thorns-89, evil*grrl*13, Eiko, and natsume2 for reviewing! Yay! Keep it up! XP