Disclaimer: All things Harry Potter related belong to J.K. Rowling, and all thing "Aliens" and "Predator" related belong to 20th Century Fox and such. However the plot belongs to me. Big thanks to Quillian, and Writer Chica for betaing this chapter. The specifics on the Predator information and lore was acquired from the novel "Aliens vs. Predator: Prey" by Stephen Perry
Harry Potter and the Alien HiveChapter 14: The Serious Joke
Kat'ja could not believe this. If one of his comrades had told him only a week ago that he would be cooperating with oomans to fight against a whole hive of Hard Meat, Kat'ja would have laughed for weeks. But now it was happening. He had no idea where they were going, he hoped they were heading toward the hive, but even if they were not at least he would get his bearings of this very complicated ooman dwelling.
Harry could not believe this. If Professor Sybil Trelawny had told him only a week ago, that he would be fighting along side an alien hunter against a whole hive acid bleeding black beasts, he would have laughed for weeks. Just when he thought his life couldn't get anymore bizarre. Then again should he really be surprised something like this happened after all that had happened before? He looked back at the hunter who seemed to be observing everything; the windows, the statues, the suits of armor, the tapestries, and just the general structure of the hallway.
He took a moment to visually study the hunter now that he no longer had to worry about being killed. The hunter had black dreadlocks decorated with gold rings, his armor was a dark silver color, as opposed to the other two hunters who's armor had been blue and red. But what caught Harry's attention was the design of its mask. Three hunters all had the same basic design for their masks, but had little differences between them, this particular hunter had three spikes that came together and fused at the forehead, then forked into three and curved around the top of the head and pointed at the back.
This design brought to Harry's mind the nickname that had been given to his father, "Prongs." James Potter had been given that nickname because of his animagus, which took the form of a stag. Prongs. Yes, that would be a good nickname for the hunter, at least until they knew its real name.
Harry and the other kids decided to make for Gryffindor tower; he wanted to pick up some stuff there, namely his Firebolt, and his arm and shin guards from his Quidditch uniform.
Harry noticed Neville keeping his eyes on the ceiling at all times, understandable since the last attack by the black beasts had come from there. Unfortunately, since Neville was keeping his eyes on the ceiling he was failing to keep an eye on the ground. His foot caught on a slightly out of place stone in the floor and he fell. Harry shook his head and started back, but "Prongs" stepped up, grabbed the back of Neville's cloak, and set him on his feet as if he weighed nothing.
"Uh, thank you." Neville said nodding, nervously looking at Prongs as if the hunter was going to eat him. Prongs nodded back at him.
One would think from the past events Prongs understood English, unfortunately they quickly found he did not, at least not much. However, he was clever so they could generally get their thoughts across by talking, gesturing and pointing at things, though Harry did not think that Prongs completely understood where they were going and why, but the hunter did not seem to be complaining.
He looked over at Justin Finch Fletchly the one Hufflepuff that was with them. He had torn off part of his robes to make a bandage for his left hand. It had been burned by the acid blood of a black beast in the previous battle, fortunately he was able to get to a sink and wash it off before his hand burned completely. Ginny was helping Justin to wrap his hand. Harry was surprised when he felt a twinge of jealousy that Justin was getting all of Ginny's attention.
Harry was interrupted from his thoughts when he heard Ron's voice yelling.
"The reason Dean and Seamus are dead is because of you!" Ron raged at Draco.
Draco growled and yelled back. "The reason you're not dead by now is because of me!"
"All right that's enough!" Harry called out.
"Because that thing is inside you, they're going to track us down and dog us until they see us dead!" Ron, ignoring Harry poked at Draco's chest with his pointer finger. By this time everyone in the hallway had stopped and were watching the verbal battle.
"I told you not to touch me! And its not my fault your friends got in front of the black beasts tail spike at the wrong time!" Draco slapped Ron's hand away.
Ron clenched his fists and his teeth. The tension between the two was so thick it could only be cut with a knife. Ron started toward Malfoy, but Luna got in the way.
"Now Ron you wouldn't hit a pregnant boy would you?" Luna asked.
The tension was immediately broken. Ron burst out laughing along with everyone else, everyone except Draco, Luna and Prongs. Draco blushed bright red, at first in embarrassment, but then in anger.
"It's not funny dammit!" Draco grabbed Ron by the front of his robes. "One of those things could tear through my chest at any moment and you're laughing?!"
Everyone stopped laughing, Hermione and Neville's faces even looked a little guilt ridden.
"If you ever laugh at my expense about this again, I swear the next time we run to the black beasts I'll let them eat you alive!" Draco let go of Ron with a shove.
Ron was about to come back at the Slytherin Prince, but this time Harry stepped in between.
"We have enough problems as it is without you provoking our only shield Ron. And Malfoy, I might remind you that if it wasn't for us going into Slytherin, out of nothing but the goodness of our hearts, or the sacrifices of our friends and Professors, you'd still be stuck in the snake pit without any idea of what was inside you. So just shut. Up."
Kat'ja watched the infected ooman and the scarred ooman battle verbally. It seemed the other oomans laughed at the infected one, for what reason he did not know, but it seemed the infected one was determined to defend his honor till the end. Then the scarred ooman stepped in and spoke to the short tressed non-infected one, the non-infected one backed off, the scarred ooman turned and yelled at the infected one. The infected one yelled back. It seemed the Scarred one was the leader; the others seemed to follow its direction, however the infected one yelled right back at him. Rivals perhaps? The scene greatly reminded him of Hikate and Ajka butting heads.
Ah. Hikate and Ajka two great leaders ordered by the elders to lead the mission to retrieve or kill the Hard Meat Queen on the ooman home planet. As usual, every leader always believed he was right, and as usual the other leader had another opinion, and as usual there was an argument. However, Hikate and Ajka did not argue as much as he would have expected. Usually it happened when one trespassed into the other's area of expertise.
Kat'ja would have let the oomans go on and see if there would be any physical combat, but they didn't have all day. The Hard Meat would catch up to them soon. He walked up the oomans stamped his foot, pointed in the direction they had been headed, and spoke in his language, saying, "We go! Now!"
He knew they could not understand exactly what he was saying, but speaking served the purpose to emphasize his point.
The oomans looked at him in silence for a few seconds, then babbled amongst each other for a little while longer, then proceeded to walk in the direction they were going before.
Oomans....
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Harry sighed as they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, which concealed the entrance to Gryffindor tower.
"Good gracious! Where have you been?" the Fat Lady shrieked, looking absolutely terrified. "You all run off, leaving me to fend for myself against those awful black beasts!"
"The black beasts? They're in Gryffindor?" Harry and the other Gryffindors looked at her horror stricken.
"Er....well....Not here exactly, but ...." the Fat Lady stuttered.
"So they're not here?" Harry looked relieved.
"Well no, but they'll be here soon enough! That's what the other portraits say. Medusa has had a terrible fright. Oh such horrible creatures they must be."
"They are indeed. Fortis!" Harry quickly spoke the password; they did not have much time.
The portrait was about to open when she suddenly shrieked and pointed, "Who is that?!"
Harry did not have to turn and look to know whom the portrait was pointing to Prongs.
"He's a......a foreign exchange student." Harry offered up.
"Very foreign." Ron whispered to Justin who chuckled in return.
"Foreign? I'll bet he's from that Durmstrang?" the portrait huffed as she opened and kept continuing her ranting long after the children and the "exchange student" had gone inside. "Dreadlocks? Well I never!"
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Draco realized this was first time he had seen the inside of the Gryffindor common room. He huffed and smirked inwardly the Slytherin Common room was much larger and grander than this. He watched Potter and his followers walk up the stairway that most likely led to the dormitories. He was about to follow whether they wanted him to or not, this was his only chance to see any secrets that might be hidden in Potter's realm, he stopped when suddenly felt his chest tighten and hot pain shoot through, then he felt something move.
He braced himself on the nearest wall and absently put a hand to his chest. It was time, he was going to die! Then as quickly as it had started the pain subsided, the tightness in his chest released and all was still. Draco breathed hard, making sure he could still breath, each breath came in and went out unhindered. What had just happened? Had she tried and failed?
Don't kid yourself Draco. He thought. Nothing ever goes your way. The queen was just making herself known. He was really infected. He was going to die eventually. He felt a bout of nausea rise from the pit of his stomach.
Draco flinched slightly when he felt a large shadow fall over him. It was not his father, but it was justas bad. The alien hunter stood over him, it's wrist blades extended. Draco felt his nausea grow ten tomes worse, he tried desperately to keep it down, but to no avail whatever was in his stomach at the moment ended up on the floor.
Much the dismay of Kat'ja.
Disgusting! Kat'ja nimbly jumped back as the infected ooman seemed to vomit up its entrails. The yautja had gone over to the ooman, wrist blades ready when it looked like it was ready to go into z'skvy-de, the spasm before the birth of the Hard Meat. However, much to Kat'ja's dismay the ooman merely went through rjet'skvy-de, the spasm of sickness.
Kat'ja decided it would be best to depart from the room so he wouldn't have to smell or look at the result of the ooman's sickness. He quickly made his way up the short stairway and soon came to a split in the path. He shrugged and took the left path.....
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Draco sat down on the couch nearest to the fireplace. There was no fire there now, but he always sat in the couch nearest to the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room, so it felt natural.
He was grateful that Luna Lovegood had stayed behind and performed a Scourgify to cleanse both him and the floor of his vomit. However, he was quickly ungrateful when Luna took to sitting down next to him. She was staring blankly at the bookshelf across from them. Draco noticed that as with many of the other girls around his age at Hogwarts were all grow out in the right places. Luna was a pureblood, so he could allow himself to look at her, unlike the mudblood Granger or that blood traitor Weasely, too bad Lovegood let herself be so unkept. Yes, one good trip to Malificent's "Can do Anything Salon", and Luna would look as beautiful as her namesake.
Not I will live to see it. Draco thought bitterly as the reality of his situation set back in. He now knew for sure he was infected, he had felt the young queen move inside his chest, he could be dead at any moment. Somehow looking at everything he had been taught since he was born from this perspective, a lot of it seemed so meaningless. He Draco Lucien Malfoy of one of the most powerful pureblood families was to meet his end at the hands of alien spawn. Not the death anyone in his family could have ever pictured.
"I bet you think this is pretty funny don't you?" Draco muttered glancing over at Luna.
"Hm?" Luna looked at him frowning, but her eyes were full questions and concern.
"Me, the so called "Prince of Slytherin," playing host to the new Queen of serpents. I bet I gave the Weasel something to laugh about for the rest of his miserable life." Draco spat, his rage beginning to flare.
"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately." Luna whispered, the dreaminess returning to her eyes, and a gentle smile formed on her lips. "But I don't think they are."
There was an awkward silence where neither party seemed to know what to say, but after a little while Luna broke the silence, "I do not think it was right to laugh at you before.
"Then why did you make me the end of your joke back there"? Draco snapped standing up.
"Joke?" Luna looked genuinely perplexed.
Draco looked like he was about to pop, and for the first time there was some color in his usually pale face.
"The 'Pregnant Boy' comment which made me the laughing stalk of the group!"
"That was no joke. I was perfectly serious." Luna looked as serious as she insisted. "With the Serpent Queen feeding off your blood, you could not afford to lose what blood you would have lost if Ron Weasely had struck you."
Draco just stood there, looking at her with disbelieving eyes. She had tried to defend him? But she was one of Potter's friends? Why would she do that?
"Why do you care what happens to me?" Draco quickly turned his look of disbelief to one of suspicion. He slowly sat back down on the couch.
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Draco opened his eyes to find himself in a dark room. Funny, he did not remember going to sleep. He was alone, where was Luna?
"Well, 'ickle Draky," sickening mock baby voice came from a figure standing in the only source of light, which came from a door way at the top of some stairs. "It's time to learn your lesson."
Bellatrix.
He remembered. He remembered where he was and why he was there. Easter vacation of his fifth year. Bellatrix and the other Death Eaters had broken out of Azkaban and his aunt hid at the Malfoy Manor for a little while. He had once said something to her, he couldn't remember what it was, but she had considered it insolent to punish him she locked him in one of the darkest, dankest basements in the Malfoy Manor.
The door shut.
It was dark and cold, but he felt there was something more than just that down there. Something terrible. Then he heard it. The sounds of scratching and squeaking, coming toward him. He backed into a corner, fear filling his body, he knew there was something to be afraid of, but he did not know what it was. What could be in the basement that was so frightening? Then he saw them. Rats.
He hated rats. More than spiders, bugs, even more than the black beasts. The rats had been there when he was locked in the basement before, but this time the whole lot of them seemed to be aimed for him. Their beady red eyes glared brighter and brighter as they drew closer.
Suddenly the rat at the head of the group leaped at him. Draco curled up in the corner and covered his face with his hands. Sometimes it was better to not know what hit you.
Nothing happened.
Draco carefully opened up a space in between the fingers over his eyes. Pearly-white teeth clamped around the rat that meant to attack Draco. Draco lowered his hands to get a better look. His heart stopped in shock.
I love you. I need you.
In front of him stood a Black Beast Queen. Her white teeth now stained red from the dead rat clenched between her teeth. Then with one quick movement, she gulped the rat down.
Then he saw other black beasts around the queen, they were gobbling up the other rats.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Draco asked shakily, why he bothered to ask he didn't know.
The Queen answered in a soft, very human voice. "I am the one who sleeps inside of you,
The black beasts that surrounded Draco and the young Queen gobbling up the rest of the rats left and right.
"I am here to give you a choice, you can accept a bond with us and let us comfort you or live in fear for the rest of your life."
Draco just stared at her in disbelief. Comfort? She was going to eventually tear through his chest at any moment and she was offering him comfort? He was about to tell the young queen to go to hell, but then he took another moment to gaze at the scene before him. Then again, was she not already comforting him now, by turning the tide of this dream?
Sometimes it is better to not know what hit you......
Where had he heard that before?Then he remembered his first Quidditch practice. Marcus Flint wanted to first train him on how to avoid bludgers. He remembered before the practice, being inwardly terrified one of those things was going to smash his face in. He remembered the future Slytherin Captain Orlando Baragon, who was thirteen and the time and placed as a beater, telling him:
"Sometimes it is better to not know what hit you, because usually it's you worrying about it the entire time that gets you in the end."
It was the suspense that was getting to him, every time he thought of his situation he wanted to vomit all over again. Was the young queen offering him peace mind until the final moments?
Draco looked at the young Queen again. "I....I......choose the bond."
Like many other animals, the black had no facial expressions, but the way her jaws were set and her lips curled, she seemed to smile.
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Another stairway stood in front of Kat'ja. He started to make his way up, when suddenly the floor seemed to drop out from beneath him and he was standing on something slippery. He quickly braced his arms against the walls on either side of him, and lifted his feet off the slippery surface, and did the same thing he had done with his arms. Below him the slide seemed to reformat itself back into stairs. A trap?
"Hermione! Ginny!" One of the short tressed oomans ran in and scaled three of the steps before noticing him. Then the stairs became a slide again, and the ooman fell back into the wall.
Kat'ja adjusted himself, pushed of the wall and landed on his feet at the bottom stairs. The fallen ooman picked itself up and dusted off his robes babbling in its language. Once again the slide became stairs before their eyes.
Suddenly, one of the long tressed oomans appeared at the top of the stairs. Kat'ja tried to warn the ooman not to step further, but it paid no head and stepped onto the first stair. Nothing happened.
If there was ever a time Kat'ja was completely dumbfounded this had to one of those times. What was the secret? Why had the stairs become a slide for him and the short tressed ooman, but not for the long tressed one? What could he have on common with the short tressed ooman that made the stairs change for them, but not for the long tressed ooman? Couldn't think of anything really......
Then it hit Kat'ja like a blow to the head. Could it be a difference in gender? Did the stairs react to males, but not to females? Another long tressed ooman appeared at the top of the stairs and came down just as easily as its predecessor. The gender idea had to be it; there could be no other plausible reason. Apparently the females wore the long tresses on this planet.
"Apparently the stairs to our dormitory work on all men, alien or not." Giggled Hermione, while Ginny snickered. Ron did not share their merriment.
"That's a sexist bunch of stairs you've got there."
"No, just over protective. Remind you of anyone Ron?" Ginny challenge.
"You guys ready?" Harry came around the corner followed by Justin.
"Hey Harry we just found out that Prongs is not an "it" anymore, he's a 'he'" Ginny smirked gesturing to Prongs, who was carefully eying the staircase. Harry guessed how Ginny and the others knew. Prongs had tried to go up the stairs of to the girls dormitory, but being male the stairs set there trap to prevent him from doing so.
"How do you know? Oh wait let me guess, 'woman's intuition'?" Justin rolled his eyes.
Hermione and Ginny gave the Hufflepuff boy dirty looks.
"No." Ginny replied, quite irritated. "The stairs that protect us girls from intruding boys reacted to 'Prongs' over there in the same."
"However Prongs, seemed to prevent himself from falling completely on his backside, unlike most of you." Hermione spoke curtly.
Harry watched as Ron and Justin glared at Ginny and Hermione, while the two girls glared right back. He looked over at Prongs who had now turned its-- no, his--attention to the glaring Gryffindors. For moment he thought he and Prongs shared the same exasperation at the fact the others were so worried about petty things when they had the Black Beasts running around...
"Come on, guys." Harry's voice came out harsher than he intended. "You may care about these things, but the Black Beasts are not. If we are going to survive, we have to work together."
Once again the Scarred ooman spoke and the others followed. For moment he thought he and the scarred ooman shared the same exasperation at the fact the other oomans were not moving along when the Hard Meat were running around.
Kat'ja thought for a moment and decided on a name for the scarred ooman, at least until he found out his real name. "Rry'ha." It meant "small leader". Yes that would do.
Kat'ja was interrupted from his thoughts when a terrible scream came from the room beyond.
Sorry that took so long, but I hope this long chapter will make up for it. This chapter kept getting longer and longer, and I couldn't see a cut off point, not to mention I had exams to study for.
Show me your love! Please review!
Till Next Time!
-Vega Sailor