Chapter Two: Cauldron's Bottom

..

"I should tell you," Pansy continued, wiping her hands on her robe, apparently to get the germs from the Mudblood's pants off of her. "You have three hours, and you have six special tasks to complete which will lead you to Granger. You cannot skip any of these tasks, and there will be a trinket you'll need to take as proof from each task so that I know you're not a lying little scamp—"

"You've gone from pranking to creating tasks? What are you, a Ravenclaw?" I quipped.

Pansy took me by the ear and pinched me. "Shut it," she said shrilly.

"Seriously, though, Pans. Your pranking talents would be better spent elsewhere... I see it now. I'm thinking you have a future in this—"

"Not listening," she trilled, releasing her grip on my ear. I rubbed it, making a face. "Anyway, you have to complete all of them before I'll let on where Granger is, that is, if you're too stupid to guess by that point in time. I've arranged a rather private spot for you to shag your brains out, and like I said, if you can't muster up the courage to ravish her, you'll have me to answer to."

"Wait! This is a trick. Granger wants nothing to do with me, and she'll likely refuse me anyway. That is, if I even decide I want to shag her," I said coolly. Slytherins are constantly trying to out-trick and best each other. I lived life on the toes of my fancily-clad feet.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "That doesn't count," she snarled. "I might be a raving bitch, but I'm not going to penalize you if the little dirty blood doesn't want you to fill her crevice with your tormented manhood."

"Yikes, Pansy. I hope that's not how you talk about me in mixed company," I grimaced. I paused again, trying to make sure she wasn't having me over. "As much as I know you hate me, and as much as I know I hate you, are you really beyond frisking me to the point of setting me on a Mudblood? I mean, let's pretend I do want to shag Granger, let's just pretend for a second… As my oldest and dearest friend, wouldn't you want to save me from the fate of becoming a Mudblood-Boffer? I mean, what's your angle here?"

She sniffed the air haughtily. "I'm bored," she said, "and your little attraction to Granger is the most amusing thing I've laid eyes upon all year. Granger makes your blood boil, and while I don't like her a bit, I do enjoy seeing you get your knickers all in a twist. It doesn't happen often enough. I'm not bragging, but I'd like to think I've got the best match-making skills at Hogwarts School and I could envision you and the Mudblood having some fantastic hair-pulling, aggravating wild sex. You're too prim and proper, Malfoy. You need to get your anger out before you go insane like your dear Daddy Demented—"

"My father isn't insane! And if he heard what you said—"

"Your father is in prison," Pansy reminded me sweetly.

"Well, my mother isn't, and just wait until I send her owl post that Pansy Parkinson is encouraging me to have sweltering angry sex with Mudbloods. She'd be really keen on passing that along to your father—"

"If you tell your mother that I'm encouraging you to have sex with Granger, then I'll tell your mother you've already had sex with two girls and that you actually abandoned Prefect duties twice last year because some Ravenclaw Halfblood agreed to let you eat her out behind the statue of the one-eyed witch and WHO covered for you? Oh, right. That was dear old me," Pansy smirked, her eyes shining with malice.

"Oh?" I said, and pointed at her enormous chest. "Well, I'll just write to your father and tell him how you practiced snogging on a moving photograph of that dead blood sympathizer Cedric Diggory!"

"He wasn't dead when I did that!" she screamed.

"He's dead now!" I sneered.

"Well!" she snapped. "I'll tell your mother about the time you let me do a makeover on you and you said you felt as pretty as unicorn—"

"I WAS SIX YEARS OLD!" I shouted, and began breathing heavily. "Alright, alright. Let's just not tell anyone about anything, shall we? Now how in Salazar's cloak am I supposed to know what to do?"

"I'm going to give you the first clue, but then you're on your own," Pansy smirked. "Cauldron's bottom. Ta-ta, Drakie!" She giggled manically and sidled down the stairs, swinging her hips heavily from side to side.

"Petrificus totalus!" I shouted, and ducked away before she had a chance to be revived and have Millicent kick my arse.

..

"Cauldron's bottom," I muttered to myself. "What a wonderful clue. There are about a thousand trillion cauldrons in this damned school and they all have a bottom. How am I supposed to see under all of them?" I cursed Pansy loudly as I walked, attracting frightened glances from Hufflepuff first years.

"Hi Malfoy," greeted Daphne, looping her arm through mine. She, like every other girl in my year, thought we were dating.

"Can't you see I'm thinking?" I glowered.

"Oh yes, I know. You're going on Pansy's maze. I saw you leave the commons twenty minutes ago and you still haven't finished the first task."

"Don't rub it in, Greengrass. I've made you, but I can break you just as easily."

She squeezed my arm a bit harder. "You're thinking about it all wrong, Malfoy. It's not surprising, as you tend to go all over-analytical and obnoxious at the drop of a hat. Don't think about it so literally." She released me from her grip and then punched me in the shoulder.

"OUCH!" I yelled.

"That's from Pansy. Bye!" she said and disappeared down the corridor to the my left.

I rubbed my injured shoulder and paused, trying to think. How could a cauldron be anything but a cauldron? There was no one by the last name of cauldron at Hogwarts, so that was out. But "bottom"… Bottom. That rang a bell somehow. With hope in my heart, I took off running to the place where I thought I could find both a cauldron and a Bottom.

I opened the door to the Potion's classroom, where sure enough, Neville Longbottom was standing next to a large pewter cauldron.

"Longbottom," I said. "Cauldron's bottom?"

"Yes," he said, looking a bit peaked. "I was hopin' you'd show up sooner than later. You see, even with Snape gone, this classroom gives me the heebie jeebies."

"So this is it? You've a cauldron and your last name is Longbottom? Cauldron's bottom? Pansy's not as crafty as I thought. This is easy!" I smirked.

"She said you'd say that," Neville replied. "But the next clue is on my bottoms—" with that, he fished around into the cauldron and pulled out a pair of very wonky bright pants that dripped with blue nasty water. Longbottom tapped them with his wand and they instantly dried and fluffed out. He handed them out to me.

"Oh… snakes… Are those your pants?" I shouted. "Ugh! Get them away from me!"

"I washed 'em for you, Malfoy. You need 'em 'cause they have the clue!"

I made a face and snatched the pants gingerly. On the very center of the Y-fronts was a message in what I only could assume was Nerdville Lousebottom's horrific handwriting. I read aloud:

"Seek out the onyx basilisk

and snog him the way snakes might kiss!

Then after you perform the tonsil dance,

remember Draco,

the proof is in the pants!"

I stared at Neville in disgust.

"Don't look at me. Parkinson's the one who made me write it!" Neville shrugged.

"Still…" I trailed off and cursed him swiftly, making the word LOSER appear on his forehead. "That's for making me touch your pants, Longbottom. Now get out of here before I do worse!" He shuddered and ran out of the classroom.

"The… the onyx basilisk?" I asked out loud, tasting the words on my tongue. I made a face. "That sounds like a clichéd wizard porn name!" I paled even deeper than usual, suddenly understanding my fate.