"Potter."
"Malfoy."
The two enemies glared at each other, each fully aware that the entire audience and the contestants were looking at them as well.
"Father wants you to get to all the Muggles this way?"
Draco glared at him. "Drop dead Potter."
Dana, suddenly aware of the tension of the situation, decided that she needed to say something.
"Look, can't you guys make a truce or something?"
They both looked at her as if she had turned into a Flobberworm.
"Look Mirchevov, you have no idea --"
Dana interrupted the blonde boy. "I know you've been fighting ever since that day on the train but still..."
Malfoy gave a surprised look to Potter.
"How does she –"
"Another time Malfoy. Err... you know you're right uhh..." he eyed the words on her nametag, "...Dana. Truce Malfoy?"
"I'll give you a truce as long as I don't have to shake your filthy hand."
"You b—"
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, HERE ARE YOUR CONTESTANTS FOR TIMELINE 2004! PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEATS IMMEDIATELY. THE CONTESTANTS WILL BE ESCORTED OUT OF THE BUILDING TO THEIR HOTEL."
The crowd groaned. Most of them had been planning to swarm the contestants – particularly the ones with magic blood – when the show ended.
But the producers had planned for this. The stadium seats had been designed with special seatbelts, which functioned like amusement park ride bars. They could only be opened remotely from the commentator's box.
Besides, even without the seat belts, there were the one hundred security guards who had been specifically hired to guard the contestants until they were whisked away in limousines...
MALFOY MANOR -- NARCISSA MALFOY.
Narcissa Malfoy was not Albus Dumbledore. She did not have a hidden love for Muggle sweets. She was not the inevitable soon-to-be hero of the Great War Against Voldemort. She was not a genius. But it didn't take her Ravenclaw wit to realize that something was wrong.
Draco had not returned home for three days. She couldn't blame him for running away; he had come home from Hogwarts to meet a very drunk Lucius, who, when given alcohol – was particularly notorious for being extremely abusive.
Much to Narcissa's dismay, the heartless bastard had given her precious Dragon a broken leg and a few fractured ribs.
Narcissa didn't care a bit about Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, or the Weasleys. In fact, there was only one soul who she really loved – and that was her Draco.
She had lost her love for Lucius when he had started to commit murders, and abuse Draco.
Not only had Draco run away from her home – but she could have sworn that she'd just heard his name being called by an unfamiliar voice.
The strange voice was coming from a shop that she'd never entered in her life, but passed by weekly. Sometimes she looked at the objects on the store's display in curiosity – and other times she never glanced at it – either because she was in a hurry to get to the Leaky Cauldron, or Lucius was with her.
For the shop was a Muggle one, a particularly grand record store located next to the Leaky Cauldron.
Perhaps she had misheard the voice. After all, it could have been coming from the Leaky Cauldron – where the pureblood name "Malfoy" was repeated at least ten or twenty times a day. But a Muggle store? How would any Muggle know of Draco?
Ravenclaw or not Ravenclaw, it was completely natural that the wife of Lucius Malfoy would have subconscious Muggle prejudices. And as much as she hated her husband, Narcissa did not know that she had indeed, took some of his values to be her own.
For example, she did not sympathize with the Weasleys as she had previously done before she was married. Nevertheless, she did not 'hate' Arthur Weasley – as her husband did – but she did consider herself higher than them.
The same thing applied in her view of Muggles. In Narcissa's Hogwarts times, one of her good friends had been Muggle-born. When Mr. and Mrs. Black had found out, they had been quite upset, and forced her to never talk to the Muggleborn again. However, they had found out in sixth year, soon after Cousin Sirius Black had been thrown out of the family, and burnt off the family tree. Thus, Narcissa's parents comforted themselves by thinking:
"At least she's not as bad as him"
It was true.
Being sorted in Ravenclaw was second to only Slytherin in her family – not nearly as bad as being sorted in Gryffindor.
Besides, a shy Ravenclaw girl who listened to her parents quietly, and who could be bullied to marry into a nice Slytherin pureblood family, was much more comforting than a fiery Gryffindor boy who swore at his parents constantly, and who went off to live with a blood traitor.
Narcissa entered the store, with a slight frown on her face. There it was again… the name, Malfoy.There was no mistaking it this time.
She followed the rather annoying loud voice, until she was face-to-face with a … what-do-you-call-it-again… T..V screen?
But there was Draco, giving a faint smile. And surrounding by him, thousands of Muggles
What was he doing?
"Ya can buy poster if ya want lady! Everywan'll beh wantin' them now."
A Muggle had… had talked to her.
"Pardon?"
"The twelve contests. Ya can buy posters of 'em if you want. They just came out."
"How about Draco?"
"He's a contestant too ain'it?" At Narcissa's silent response, the salesperson sighed, and gave a poster to the blonde.
"Here. That'll be two pounds."
"Uhh… I don't have two… uhh pounds." The salesperson's eyes narrowed
"Well then you can't have it… can ya?"
"Wait!" Narcissa began to take off her diamond necklace. "Is this enough?"
The salesperson blinked, and took a full minute to recover from the lady's generous offer. Worried that she might change her mind (a diamond necklace was definitely worth a lot more than two pounds) the salesperson snatched it from her hands, and gave her the poster
"That's definitely enough. In fact, ye want a book on Timeline too? And any contestant profiles?"
The salesperson did not wait for an answer. She began stuffing books and pamphlets into her hand.
"Thank you very much."
Holding her head up in the air, with her arms full of Muggle pamphlets, Narcissa exited the record store.
CONTESTANT NUMBER TWELVE: HARRY POTTERSomehow, the twelve contestants managed to crawl into one luxurious limousine – armed with video cameras of course. The crowd, eager to get a better look, abandoned the stadium and dash home to their televisions, not willing to miss even a minute of this new drama.
The limousine was travelling quite slowly, and Harry vaguely wondered what was the problem. He knew that these extravagant Muggle cars could travel up to a hundred fifty kilometres per hour... and he wondered why this particular machine was only traveling at fifteen on a deserted road.
He wasn't terrified however – it was just a slow car. He continued to exchange glares with Draco Malfoy, while trying to smile at a pretty black-haired girl who was nervously biting her lip. He read her nametag. Dana Mirchevov. Such a beautiful name.
For some reason, Harry found that although the introduction of the contest was finished, he was having a hard time settling down. There was something about this contest which made him uneasy, yet he wasn't quite sure what it was. Hermione seemed to be feeling it too, he noticed. She couldn't stop fidgeting in her seat.
Calm down he told himself with a sigh. If the contest was based on each contestant's popularity with the audience – he would have a good chance of winning it. And if he won the contest, he would get his heart's desire. And if he got his heart's desire… well, nothing would be more pleasing than the death of Lord Voldemort.Sighing once more, Harry ended his mute staring contest with Draco (the git was naturally good at that sort of thing) and turned to gaze at the floor.
That was when he saw the skulls.
CONTESTANT NUMBER FOUR: DRACO MALFOY:
Draco Malfoy was happy. Not only was he miles away from his malicious father, he was also sitting in an extremely luxurious vehicle which would presumably take him to an equally luxurious hotel.
In addition to this, he had just won a miniature staring-contest with his arch-enemy which although a small triumph, was still enough to keep him happy.
True, he was surrounded by Muggles, but at least they weren't sitting next to him. He saw Potter making eyes at a brown-haired girl and mentally groaned. Sure, the girl was rather pretty, but she was a Muggle for Slytherin's sake! She was, obviously, a nimwit!
Draco's trademark smirk lessened slightly when he realized that the vehicle was slowing down. The others were looking around, also puzzled, and Potter was the only one not looking out of the window. He was staring at the floor, with a pale expression on his face. Must be carsick or something, Draco snickered.
But looking closely, the car did not appear to be near any glamorous hotel. It was slowing down near a sort of deep forest. Granger voiced the concern.
"I wonder why it's slowing down?" She bit her lip and waited, while the car came to a complete stop. The puzzled mudblood touched a black switch, which lowered the black glass separator between driver and passengers.
The group gasped as one. There was nobody at the steering wheel.
"What now?" asked Alpho-something-or-other. He was shaking. Typical Muggle.
"Uhhh…" Potter graced the contestants with a fabulous syllable. Draco rolled his eyes and smirked. His smirk disappeared when he heard Potter speak once more.
"Uhh… I hate to say this everyone, but there's kind of two human skulls underneath my seat."
(A/N: very small cliff-hanger :P )
Draco's eyebrows went up, and Alphonse-whats-his-name finally burst out crying. Malfoy was not horrified; he had seen skulls before. Lucius Malfoy had developed a nasty habit of saving the decomposing bodies of his Muggle victims as items of amusement.
He was mildly surprised, but that surprise turned into severe alarm when he thought he saw a familiar engraving on the peeking skull.
No… it couldn't be…
He could barely see the skull, as it was underneath Potter's seat. But that engraving…
"Give it here Potter." He spoke softly, his heart pounding in fear.
"What? You want me to… I'm not touching--"
"Scared Potty?"
"No of course not!" Malfoy snorted despite his dry throat and lips, and Potter gingerly gave him one of the skulls.
Malfoy swallowed, as he recognized the small black and green carving at the side of the skull.
"Fuck." he muttered in despair.
It was the Dark Mark.
CONTESTANT NUMBER TWO: HERMIONE GRANGER
Voldemort's sign, right in the middle of a Muggle contest stretch limousine. Could it possibly be a coincidence? Highly unlikely.
But then, if it wasn't a coincidence, then --. Hermione shivered, and turned pale. She had known that something was dreadfully wrong with this contest ever since the contestants had been introduced to the audience. However, at the time of the introductions, she had ignored her gut feeling as a result of her blinding desire to win the contest for Daddy. Later, she had thought of the feeling once more, she had not been able to put her finger on what was bothering her.
Now, with Malfoy and Harry's discovery of the Dark-Marked skull, she finally knew exactly what was wrong.
Six Hogwarts students had been selected out of the twelve contestants, in a contest that was supposed to be international.
Six.
And five of them belonged to Dumbledore's Army. The same five had appeared at the Ministry of Magic, to thwart Voldemort in his ultimate goal in obtaining the prophecy.
Surely Voldemort was angry at the five of them: Harry, Ron, Luna, Ginny and finally, herself? No doubt... he desired for revenge? And what a perfect revenge could take place in a so-called Muggle contest, where all six wizarding contestants would be... wandless?
Wandless witches and wizards were even more helpless than Muggles because they, throughout their lives, had depended solely on their wands for defence. Muggles knew karate, martial arts, and boxing while magical folk knew no other means of defence.
There was only one flaw in her theory about Voldemort's involvement, and that was Malfoy. Malfoy had always appeared to be a steadfast follower of the dark side. So why was he here? Why had Voldemort sent him a letter, when Malfoy was obviously a soon-to-be Death Eater?
Why hadn't Neville Longbottom replaced Malfoy? Then the Dark Lord could have revenge on all six intruders of his plan. Why Malfoy?
Malfoy certainly was not looking very calm now. In fact, he like the rest of the contestants, had a look of terror in his eyes. For some reason however, although his other body language seemed impassive, his eyes showed even more terror than some of the Muggles. Hermione's mind was whizzing as fast as her beating heart. She was scared, downright terrified, but unlike some of the others, she found it less useful to panic.
Alphonse Percival Labrie, for example, was now bawling. The others seemed to be less 'panicky', yet still extremely frightened. Ginny Weasley for example, who had been quite happy exchanging suggesting smiles with the handsome Joshua Helmer, was now shaking.
Luna Lovegood, who had been muttering "Weasley is our King" under her breath with her trademark dreamy smile for the past five minutes, was now sharp and alert.
"Better outside than inside."
"Why?"
"They know exactly where we are right now. We're sitting ducks--"
Harry was interrupted by a loud noise coming from the interior of the forest. It resembled a deafening fire alarm in its intensity and bluntness, and it caused many of the contestants to gasp in surprise. The contestants took a deep breath, looked at each other and nodded. Each of them got out of the car with a hard-blazing look combined with an appearance of fear.
Alphonse Labrie… or rather the snowman was bawling incessantly and Ginny Weasley had a strong urge to perform a silencing spell on him. They were all scared, they were all tired. But nobody was blubbering like Mr. Al-Foncy.
Harry Potter, who had been observing Dana Mirchevov in the corner of his eye an hour ago was now extremely worried and alert. He alone knew of the prophecy and what being defenceless in front of Voldemort could really mean for the entire wizarding world.
Ten minutes later, each of the contestants were silently thinking about their family and friends left back at home as they walked still onwards through the forest. Alphonse had even stopped crying. Before long, the twelve teenagers reached the end of the wooded area and suddenly gave a collective gasp.
Where an abandoned rural continuation of rocks, trees and grass should have been -- there was instead a sophisticated little village with buildings formed with a complex nature…the most odd of all a structure which had the name "Round Building" engraved on it.
"Isn't much for names isn't it?" muttered Joshua Helmer, and the contestants laughed nervously.
Helmer was right. The name suited the building in a logical manner, as the key feature of the one-story structure was its… roundness. The building was made out like a flat stone cylinder with only one single stone door facing the forest. One thing was for certain, however. The alarm, never ceasing in its loudness or intensity, was coming from the stone building.
The door opened and every contestant – led by Potter in the front and Malfoy in the back – entered the building.
A/N: Just getting into it... fun fun fun! PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW… this IS one of my first fics by the way. For anybody who doesn't want to wait for each chapter, go buy 24/7 by Jim Brown from the library, the plot basically follows that story, except WITH magic. I'm thinking of making this fic big, I'm carried away with the story!