Episode Five: The Name's Isk, Basil Isk
Breakfast was a non-meal seeing as it was a Sunday. The housemates were forced to fend for themselves if they bothered to wake up at all. In their pajamas Draco, Ron, Harry, Hermione and Ginny were all squished onto the couch watching the Channel 5-movie marathon that had started at midnight. Entitled "The Bonds that Only WE Love" it was a horrifying montage of Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby movies.
The teens were soon than zombies enraptured by the spy life; Quildemort had been terrified at the sight of the glassy eyed beings on the couch when he'd been unfortunate enough to stumble out of the cupboard under the stairs. Calling it a sixth sense he'd sensed the trouble that was to come and made haste to latch himself into the for once deserted bathroom. This caused problems later in the day when he refused to come out, but promises that they'd order out pizza with whatever he'd like as a topping eventually got him out around dinner time.
In the corner of the living room Dumbledore slept in his hammock with the Soap Opera guide tented over his face. As the TV programming switched from the ending credits of "License to Kill" on to "Man of Boundless Emotional Depth: The Timothy Dalton story", the young viewers exchanged glances and then grinning to themselves darted for their rooms.
Lifting the Soap Opera guide off of his face, Dumbledore fished under his hammock until he came up with the TV remote. Changing the programming back to the 24-Hour Soap Opera Network, he smiled contentedly to himself and settled in for a restful Sunday.
*****
Snape awoke when the cave-like darkness of the room he shared with Hermione was broken as the door swung open and then was snapped shut. The darkness wouldn't not reign for long, as Hermione threw herself into the tiny closet and flicked on the light within. Merely rolling over, Snape pulled his black comforter up over his head and curled into a fetal position. He wasn't able to fall back asleep, however, due to the horrible noise that soon filled the room.
Peeking out from under the blanket, despite the hideous case of bed hair he always woke up with, he barked, "What is that noise, it could wake the dead!"
Instantly he wished he hadn't spoken or looked because what the noise was became glaringly apparent when his gaze fell to his blushing roommate. "Gods girl, are you trying to give me a... heart attack?" He asked, only just stopping himself from saying stroke.
Straightening up, Hermione gave up on smoothing the skin-tight, black vinyl trousers and had the decency to blush an even deeper red color. "I didn't mean to wake you, honestly."
Snape scowled.
"Is it too much to hope that you are not going to leave the room in those? And if you are, perchance you explain yourself?"
Turning her back to him, Hermione said nothing but shut herself back in the closet. Other than a few bumps against the wall and some muttered swearing, the room went back to silence. Snape was too curious to sleep now and waited, looking at the ceiling, for her to emerge.
"Shit!" Her exclamation was out of character, as she stuck her head out of the closet and waved a piece of tattered black fabric at him. "How the hell did this happen to my bra?"
Snape looked at her levelly, and her eyes went round.
"Double SHIT!" Clutching a shirt and another bra to her exposed front she burst out of the closet, shooting him a horrified look under a crimson blush. She barely had time to pick up a small makeup bag before she ran from the room.
On the top bunk Snape stifled a malicious smile. From the look she'd given him, she only too well remembered how her undergarments had gotten that way. Unfortunately he wasn't able to get that particular mental image out of his head for the rest of the day and was barely seen by the other members of the household and not at all by Hermione.
*****
"You're really going to wear that dress?" Draco asked with a slight edge to his voice.
Ginny nodded and adjusted the bodice so that it fit her curves while Draco pouted at her in the mirror. "But you're just going to have a psychotic episode and ruin it. You're a Weasley you should have more care for your clothing. You never know if you'll have any tomorrow. You might have to wear Ron's clothes if you ruin that."
Glaring at the blonde haired boy, Ginny ran a comb through her hair and walked from the room leaving Draco to his own devices. His pout became a scowl as he jerked open the wardrobe door and surveyed his choices for an outfit. Choosing a rather imposing white suit that put him in mind of South American drug dealers, he sat at Ginny's makeup table and winked at his reflection.
"Draco Malfoy, you're looking rather attractive this afternoon."
Flashing himself another grin he noticed a dark green book in the mirror and picked it up. 'It's All In Your Head: Making Delusions Your Friends' by Gilderoy Lockheart. Come to think of it Ginny had been on an unusually even keel all morning and Draco now got the distinct impression that this book had something to do with it. Turning it over he snorted at the back page blurb: "Do you suffer from delusions and psychotic episodes? Do these episodes put you at odds with everyone around you? Well with this book you can learn how to make these delusions your friends!"
"As long as she doesn't go all Stalin again," he muttered as he tossed the book back where he had found it.
Striding out into the hallway, he smiled at the muffled sounds of arguing coming from Potter and Weasley's room. Taking the stairs down two at a time, he smirked as an incredibly evil idea dawned on him. The hours of spy movies they'd watched had put certain ideas in their heads as to how they could get their own way without the use of their wands and Draco rather fancied himself as a Bond villain.
Coming to the bathroom door he smiled to himself and said, "Draco Malfoy you're not only attractive, but a born genius."
Knocking on the locked bathroom door, he waited for a response that didn't come. Frowning he yelled, "How long are you going to be in there?"
"For a while," Quirrell's voice yelled back. "Use the bathroom in the basement!"
Draco shuddered and felt suddenly ill, there was no way he could explain his aversion to the downstairs bathroom logically. Then it came to him. "I need to use the mirror, there is no mirror down there." Unless you count the one on the ceiling, he added silently.
This however didn't get a response. Kicking the door, he jiggled the handle impatiently. He managed to say, "You've been in there since this morning!" before his speech degenerated to some truly spectacular cursing.
Quildemort, who showed no signs of emerging, turned on the shower. When this failed to tune out the noise, two voices began to belt out the opening verses to Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings". Forced to admit defeat, Draco kicked the door one last time and turned, running straight into Hermione who lost her balance and brought not only herself but Draco down into a pile on the ground.
Grunting, Draco lifted himself up on his arms and looked down at the girl he had pinned and her attire. Looking at her exposed midriff and tight trousers he grinned cheekily, and put on a seductive look that would have made Sean Connery proud. "Do you expect me to talk?"
"No, Mr. Malfoy. I expect you to GET OFF!" Hermione attempted in vain to dislodge the boy and knee him in the groin at the same time. However her trousers would not allow it and all she managed to do was lodge her knickers up her bum and twist her shirt up. Draco, seeing the looks of red rage that was coming over the normally sane girl, got off of her and stood up.
"Bond girls are usually a lot more accommodating and polite to their bad guys." Smoothing his jacket, Draco crossed his arms over his chest. "Granger, perhaps you should have gone for the Moneypenny role. You know, adoring and biting to Bond and rarely seen."
Laying flat on her back, she glared at him. "Help me up, Malfoy."
Draco laughed.
"Can't get up? Trousers too tight?"
Giving into hysterical laughter, Draco's mirth was short lived as Hermione's leg came up and caught him about the knee and brought him back down to the floor. For a moment the two lay sprawled in the hallway. When Hermione spoke, her words were laced with acid. "No, the trousers are fine. I was just going to have to get revenge if you didn't."
Pulling herself to her feet, Hermione fixed her shirt and vainly tried to rid herself of the wedgie, before going down the stairs. Draco lay stunned on the carpet. In the bathroom the shower went off, and first Quirrell then Voldemort's face peeked out through the slightly open door. Abruptly the door closed behind them, and the shower started again and they resumed their song at the long notes of "HEEEROOO!"
*****
"The name's Potter, Harry Potter." Grinning wickedly at his reflection, Harry was infinitely glad that his mirror wasn't a wizarding mirror. If it had been, it would have either laughed itself silly or at the very least told him how horrible his hair looked and then asked him about the faint biro marks that ringed his face. Adjusting his suit, he turned to Ron who was busy glaring down at his trousers. The trousers in question were nice, charcoal gray and pressed. The problem was that they had been each Charlie's, Percy's and Fred's in turn and were several inches too short. The socks he was wearing, which were the only ones he could find, were bright orange like his helmet and had evil alien faces on them.
"It's a losing battle, Ron," Harry said to his best friend when they stood next to each other in the mirror.
"How come a git like Malfoy can pull off being both Bond and a baddie?" Ron grunted as he tried in vain to pull the trousers down on his hips to compensate. Unfortunately that only bared lime green boxer shorts with toads on.
Harry thought about this for a moment before cracking up. "He could probably pull off being a Bond girl as well!"
There was no time to dwell on that thought, much to Ron's delight, as Ginny burst into the room holding the skirt of her ball gown up around her thighs. Panting she waited with the door open for several minutes before pushing it closed and dropping to the floor to sit cross legged. After catching her breath she managed to say, "We know what Malfoy's evil plan is."
Harry and Ron exchanged looks.
"We?"
Ginny nodded solemnly and motioned to the empty space beside her. "Yeah, me and Basil got it out of Hermione who had Draco in a sleeper hold."
"Hermione had Draco in a sleeper hold," Harry asked with glee as Ron said, "Who's Basil?"
Ginny rolled her eyes. "The basilisk, you dummy!"
"Um... Ginny. There is no basilisk there." Harry motioned to the space 'Basil' was supposed to occupy.
"He's obviously invisible, that's why you can't see him.... Basil you're so funny. He says that you'd be in danger if you could see him, because of his eyes' magical powers."
Ron coughed, trying not to laugh as Harry looked thoughtful. " I'm a parseltongue, I'd be able to hear him if there was a snake."
"Not necessarily. I can hear him and I'm not a parseltongue." Ginny narrowed her eyes in challenge.
"You'd admit that, being a snake, he'd understand me though?"
Ginny nodded.
"I can prove that there is no snake then. SSSssssSSSSssss!"
Ginny and Ron both looked at him like he'd grown two heads. Glaring outright at him, Ginny shrugged her shoulders. "What did that prove?"
Harry smile triumphantly. "See, any real snake, if I'd said that about his mom, he'd have had something to say about it!"
Ginny looked at 'Basil', frowned and then stood up and walked over to Harry who was grinning. Drawing back her fist the youngest Weasley punched The Boy Who Lived square in the eye before storming to the door and flinging it open. "In case you were wondering, Ron, SINCE BASIL AND I ARE NO LONGER SPEAKING TO HARRY, Draco is going to take Channel 5 off the TV so all we get is the Soap Opera Network. And if you don't give in to his demands he's going to add the Religious Home Shopping Network in its place."
With that she walked out and slammed the door behind her. Ron laughed weakly as Harry moved back to the mirror to watch his eye purple and swell. Looking down at his socks, Ron mused, "That's pure evil. Taking Channel 5 off would have been a favor... but the religious home shopping nun is so scary."
Harry poked his bruise, then winced again, thankful no wizarding mirror was witnessing this. Turning back to Ron, he nodded in agreement. "Aunt Petunia always watched that in the kitchen when I was making dinner. She bought all sorts of religious icons that she used to store in my cupboard. It was like in 'Carrie'! Do you know how scary it is sleeping with figures of Moses and Jesus staring at you?"
"Is it scarier than living with Ginny?"
Harry shook his head in defeat. "No, you win."
"So what's our course of action?" Ron asked as he looked absently at the new glass in their window.
"We need to attack, you never give in to terrorists", Harry said solemnly. "I'm going to go down to the kitchen and set up an arsenal by using last nights soup to fill water bombs."
Ron made a disgusted face.
"So that leaves you as the action man, Ron. Good luck."
Harry walked purposefully out of the room leaving Ron to his thoughts. He was the action man, he thought with a large grin. Tightening the chin-strap of his helmet, he took a breath and did what came naturally. He threw himself out of the window.
Ron landed on the balls of his feet, despite the drop from the third floor window. Without even looking at the almost shocked resident of the garden, he tossed himself to his left, enacting a precise combat roll. The roll was impressive and spanned the entire length of the house, to the lone shrub whish Ron promptly used as shelter. Crouching there he dusted off his suit and pushed broken glass off his orange helmet before cocking an imaginary gun and waiting for a signal that he would give himself once he caught his breath.
When that time came he darted into the house leaving Hagrid alone with his destroyed rows of flowers.
*****
"I don't know what's wrong with everyone in this house," Ginny said solemnly to the camera in the diary room. Putting her arm out as though holding something, her eyes narrowed. "Harry's lucky all I did was blacken his eyes, he acts so superior, like I'm crazy or something. Ron, too, and he's my brother!"
Looking at the empty space next to her she nodded a few times and a smile brightened her face. "I agree with Basil. I think that all those encounters with Voldemort must have turned Harry a bit odd."
*****
Hanging up the phone Draco grinned at Hermione who was propped up against the arm of the couch since her trousers wouldn't allow her to sit. "If I don't call them within the hour, they can say goodbye to channel 5 and hello to Sister Bridgett and her line of cheap church paraphernalia."
"That is so terrifying," Hermione whispered, half in awe half disgusted that he'd resign himself to that fate just to prove how evil he was. Seeing as though he was the son of a Death Eater she could almost excuse his evil but she had a sinking suspicion he hadn't thought far enough ahead to realize he'd be forced to admire tacky crucifixes and bottles of holy water. Yet seeing as though he hadn't consulted her on his plan, despite her being smarter than him, she kept this knowledge to herself. She rarely watched Channel Five anyway, last night's marathon notwithstanding.
Setting a novelty egg-timer on the coffee table, Draco took a seat on the couch. On the other side of the room Dumbledore was muttering about Adam Chandler Jr., ramblings that were ignored by the younger occupants of the room. Turning to Draco, Hermione sighed. "So now we wait for their move."
"We wait for triumph." Draco got an eerie gleam in his eye as he watched the egg timer tick away the seconds.
"That was pretty corny," Hermione chastised as she watched the supposed baddie stare at an egg timer. "And you look ridiculous."
Draco glared at her.
"As if you don't? What's your Bond-girl name, Poore D'Intayapants?"
Hermione scowled and tried to smack him, but he scooted over on the couch. "How about Hotte Forslytherins..."
"That's it!" Hermione lunged across the couch, grasping Draco's throat in her hands. Bound as tightly as she was by the incredibly tight vinyl trousers, it was hard for her to pull herself back up and in the confusion they never noticed Ginny, closely followed by Harry, darting into the kitchen.
Helping Hermione off of him, Draco rubbed at his throat and fixed his mussed hair. "Whoa there killa. Granger, you've got some anger problems."
"I do not!"
Draco grinned and scooted further away from her. "You need to relax and I'm sure Snape'd help… AHHHCK!"
He hadn't scooted far enough away.
*****
Ginny hooked the sides of the stretchy black fabric to either side of the kitchen doorframe. Pulling on the middle a few times, she let it snap back and smiled. "Slingshot's made, Basil."
"Give it up and talk to me already. You know I can hear you," Harry whined from the kitchen sink where he was attempting the near impossibly task of filling water bombs with left over soup from dinner the previous evening. Since Snape had once again prepared the meal, there were strange lumps in the soup that indicated one thing: eye of newt. Finally filling the second bomb in an hour, Harry placed it in the clean cooking cauldron on the counter and vowed again to destroy the slimy eyes before they left the kitchen. The whole house, minus Snape, would rejoice.
Behind him the refrigerator door opened, signalling that Ginny had moved and was pouring herself a drink. She was still talking to the imaginary basilisk, which infuriated Harry, but at least gave an indication as to her mental state. "Basil, I told you already. He said that if his demands aren't met he's going to sabotage the TV."
There was a pause.
"To tell you the truth I don't know what his demands are either. Someone should ask him."
Since the only other someone in the room was Harry, he guessed he was elected and moved to the doorway. Peering through he could make out Hermione propped against the edge of the couch, Dumbledore doing a crossword in the back of the TV book, and Draco leaning over the coffee table looking at a novelty egg timer shaped like Daffy Duck. Somehow none of this bothered him and he shouted, "Oi! Malfoy, what are your demands?"
The blonde boy looked at Hermione but didn't answer him. Harry assumed they were speaking even though he couldn't hear them, but the way Draco kept motioning with his arms and Hermione periodically lunged at him suggested some sort of interaction.
It was several moments before Draco responded with, "We want first dibs on the bathroom in the morning and permission to play Peg Potter without you retaliating."
Harry glared at the back of Draco's head, but was distracted by the door to the backyard creeping open and Ron crawling in on his stomach, covered in flower petals and dirt and looking rather like he'd just crawled out of a swamp. Hooking his foot around the door for the cupboard under the stairs, he did a rather messy combat roll and he used that as cover. Luckily no one in the living room was paying much attention to the racket he was making, or the dirt trail he left behind. For some reason Harry had the feeling that none of them were really cut out to be spies.
"You only have thirty minutes left, Potter," Draco called from the living room, snapping Harry back to the twisted reality he lived in.
"That's all the time in the world, Malfoy," he responded loftily, as he pulled the cauldron toward the sling shot in the doorway. Putting a filled water bomb in the center of the fabric, he pulled back and waited. "Any last words before I knock the living daylights out of you, Mr. Malfoy?"
Turning his head and seeing the danger he was in from the contents of the bomb, he stood up and pulled Hermione in front of him. As if in slow motion Harry let go of the sling shot.... and Ron jumped up from his hiding place and lunged at Hermione to get her out of the way. The first bomb hit Ron square in the stomach and he went down, a look of anguish on his face at the smell that filled the room, and landed on top of Hermione.
"Nice try, Potter," Draco drawled, brushing some imaginary lint off of his suit. 'But I think your time just divided, fifteen minutes."
Fiddling with the egg timer in an attempt to reset it, he ducked out of sight and away from any possibly water bombs. Harry cursed, then laughed as he heard Ron shriek, "I'M TRYING TO GET OFF, BUT THAT BOMB MADE YOUR TROUSERS ALL STICKY."
The eye of newt and other unnamed ingredients in the soup had reacted, chemically, to the vinyl and the two on the floor found themselves bonded together. No matter how they struggled, neither could break free or get to their feet. Malfoy, who was sitting on the floor in front of the couch clutching Daffy Duck was laughing himself into hysterics.
"Apparently Weasley can't 'get off' even when on top of a girl." His laughter grew louder as the two enraged Gryffindors tried wriggling across the floor in order to get close enough to kill him. Even Dumbledore, a neutral third party in all of this, was amused by the proceedings on the floor since they didn't block the television. Soon they digressed into bumping into the coffee table, the couch, each other as they grunted and hefted trying to remove themselves from the disgusting situation.
No one noticed Snape on the stairs trying to escape Quildemort's bathroom singing, which could he heard all through the second floor. Frozen at the bottom of the stairs all he could see through wide eyes was Hermione's flushed face, Ron wriggling up and down on top of her and Draco watching them with an amused smirk. Blindly he reached for the first door in sight and threw himself through it, nausea getting the better of him. What he didn't know until it was too late was that he'd just entered the basement.
The spy/counter spy activity disintegrated as Hermione began to try and pull herself out of her trousers to get away from Ron. Draco, wishing he had a video recorder, was forced to call a truce with Harry so the two of them could laugh hysterically together. Ginny had taken the task of dismantling the sling shot and disposing of the other water bomb, all the while telling Basil that he couldn't go watch the circus in the living room.
By the time she joined the throng in the living room Snape had appeared up out of the basement, blinking at the light and hugging himself defensively. Walking further into the room, he started to say something to Dumbledore but stopped himself and merely sat on the edge of the couch and stared dumbly into space.
Dumbledore himself, getting the cordless phone from Ginny, called into the cable company to keep the television programming as it was. The confused customer service man was a little curious as to why the elderly man didn't want to upgrade the programming to more than the two worse channels in their system but bowed to his wishes. Hanging up the phone, Dumbledore pulled the tattered remains of the slingshot from the antenna of the phone and looked at it curiously.
"Now what on earth is this?" Looking at it from all angles, his inclined an eyebrow at the struggling form of Hermione on the floor then to Snape. "It looks like this feminine garment was taken off with somebody's over zealous teeth."
Pulling herself with a grunt from her trousers, Hermione snatched the battered bra from Dumbledore and raced up the stairs clad only in her shirt and bright pink panties. Looking almost more disturbed than he had when he'd exited the basement, Snape made a run for the stairs but his destination was his room, while Hermione's was the shower. Both shared the feeling that they would never be clean again.
*****
Snape didn't show up for dinner that evening, though Hermione told everyone gathered around the table he was only upstairs in their bedroom sick. What she didn't tell them, was that he'd been staring at the ceiling for more than an hour, looking thoroughly sick and mumbling about mental scarring, dogs and nipple clamps. She figured that he needed some alone time in order to process.
Emerging from the other room, Ron brought the pizza boxes and set them on the table while Ginny finished setting the table place for Basil. She insisted that he had to have a place despite the fact that he lived off a diet of Mountain Dew, so his setting only held a napkin and a large glass of the toxic substance.
"That pizza guy ran away pretty fast, does it still smell in here?" Ron asked as he opened the first box and passed the second one labeled ' 1/2 pineapple 1/2 Feta Cheese' to Quildemort who was grinning happily despite sporting amazingly dry skin from having been in the shower all day.
Grabbing a slice, Dumbledore sniffed for a smell but only shrugged merrily. "It smells only of pizza in here, and of last nights dinner."
"That's the problem," Harry muttered, as he grabbed a slice of cheese pizza from the box in front of Ron.
At the refrigerator Hermione stifled a laugh as she looked at Ron who was still wearing his crash helmet and his suit jacket since that hadn't been harmed by the water bomb incident. It was likely that the pizza delivery boy had taken one look at him and run for his life, the smell having no part in it. Removing a bottle of lemonade from the door, she shut the refrigerator and went to her seat. It was either believe that or admit that she had got used to the smell of anything containing eye of newt.
"How dare you!" Ginny suddenly squealed, glaring at the empty space to her left. "This dress does not make my bum look enormous!"
There was a moment's silence, before Ron tentatively asked, "Are you talking to Basil, Gin?"
"I'm never talking to Basil again!" She declared, impressively. "He's a pig!"
"I thought he was a basilisk?" said Harry. But he said it under his breath, he was getting very fed up of Basil and had no wish to incur Ginny's wrath again.
"No Basil, I don't care how sorry you are. Some things are unforgiveable!"
She paused for a moment, presumably listening to Basil's reply, then grunted in anger and threw Basil's Mountain Dew in his face. Unfortunately, since Basil wasn't technically present, it went all over Voldemort. The dark lord glared at Ginny and for a moment it looked like there would be murder done, but before he could make a move, she ran from the room, crying.
Taking a slice of pizza, Draco limped after her muttering excuses that he was over tired and wanted to get some sleep. Harry, Ron and Hermione soon followed suit seeing as though they'd been up in front of the TV since the night before. Quirrell and Dumbledore watched them go while Voldemort wiped the Mountain Dew from his face with a napkin.
"How b-bad was it?" Quirrell ventured after a moment."
The older wizard grinned. "The spying was terrible, their plans were terrible, but it was all very imaginative."
"Did it really take Hermione and Ron an hour to detangle themselves?"
Dumbledore paused.
"If by detangle, you mean for Ms. Granger to pry herself out of those trousers with Mr. Weasley stuck to them... Yes."
*****
Tired as he was, Harry found himself woken up during the night by a wailing noise. He wandered into the hallway and located the source of the noise on the first floor staircase.
"Ginny?"
She looked up at him and promptly burst into fresh floods of tears.
"Oh Harry, I'm so sorry! You were right about Basil. He was horrible. He was never really my friend in the first place."
Harry was about to remind her that he'd actually said that Basil didn't exist in the first place, but settled for patting her on the shoulder and saying "there, there" in order to keep the peace.
"And he hates me now! I've heard him following me around the house, saying he wants to kill me!"
This time Harry really was going to tell her it was all in her head, but he was distracted by the angry hissing sound.
"SNAKE!" Ginny screamed, running for her room in a blur of tears and pigtails. Harry remained on the stairs. There wasn't really a basilisk, so why could he hear hissing? Maybe he was going mad the same as Ginny? He listened more closely and the hissing resolved itself into parseltongue.
"That'll teach the little cow to throw Mountain Dew in my face!"
Harry grinned. He'd forgotten that Voldemort slept under the stairs. He was about to go back to bed, when there was a crashing noise from the third floor and the house was filled with the sound of Draco wailing.
"I told you you'd have a psychotic episode and ruin it! My beautiful, beautiful dress!"
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