The Second Delivery
It could be said that it was an absolute miracle that Harry Potter managed to wake up in the morning after the stunt he had pulled. Indeed, Harry was almost disappointed to discover that Draco had not crept into his window and then strangled the Boy-Who-Lived with his own Gryffindor tie. Could it be that Draco and Narcissa had actually eaten the food? Did the Muggle delivery boy get out alive? Did the two of them even find his message?
I knew I should have sent a letter with Hedwig, Harry had grumbled to himself.
The lethally bored teenager had been keeping an eye on the morning use and so far, there had been nothing on the telly or the newspaper about a young boy or girl going missing in Wiltshire after setting out to make a McDonald's delivery.
How positively boring! Of course, Harry was relieved no one ended up under the Malfoy patio, but still.
The son of Prongs and godson of Padfoot decided to keep a close eye on the news over the next three days just to make sure that no parents had decided to wait three days to phone the police about a missing child. Nope, still nothing. No missing child, no shoes left outside on the road or sinister message hung in the sky that read DO NOT EVER BRING MCDONALD'S HERE AGAIN! Surely a Muggle on Malfoy territory was something that neither could stomach easily?
There wasn't even an owl with a Howler coming for him. That was the next thing the young wizard kept his eyes peeled for. Any owl with a bright red letter; he knew Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would love the death threats Harry knew Draco would be throwing at his head. It was a good thing that they decided to make several different day trips one after the other because it gave Harry time to scheme about what he could send Draco and his mother next.
Unfortunately for Harry, the next three days were also so warm that Dudley barely had the inclination to go out, so he was stuck with his cousin inside for most of the day. Fortunately for Harry, it seemed the Dementors from last year had done something to Dudley's character because the usually bullyish boy kept as much as he could out of Harry's way and when they had to be in the same room, he would actually give a small smile in Harry's direction. It was creepy, to say the least.
For once, the Boy-With-Too-Many-Epithets enjoyed keeping the garden alive during the hot summer days because at least he didn't have to deal with Dudley weirding him out. Or so he thought.
It was getting close to dinner time when Harry, who had been busy weeding, heard the garden door open. "Hey, cousin! Mum and Dad have let me know they will not be back until tomorrow and it's too bleeding hot for either of us to cook so shall I just order some pizza? Oh, and Piers is coming over. You don't mind, do you?"
"Yeah, sure," Harry replied, utterly shocked at Dudley not only offering to get dinner but also asking Harry's permission essentially to invite his friend over.
"OK, cool. What pizza would you like?" Dudley asked, looking and sounding a little awkward.
"I never had one, so you pick one. Surprise me," Harry smiled a little.
Dudley nodded and as his cousin went back into the house, it was then that the flash of evil inspiration hit the son of Prongs.
He knew exactly what to send the Malfoys next; they dealt with McDonald's. How would the two snobby Nobles handle Muggle pizza?
The question was: where was a nearby pizza place and who would be willing to once more risk their lives and deliver to Wiltshire?
The Fates were usually the ones to kick Harry up the backside but apparently they decided to make up for some of the things they had done by throwing him a bone. Piers Polkiss, who was still his scrawny self that Harry remembered so well, behaved himself and even gave Harry a nod of the head in greeting as he went for the TV. Not too long afterwards did the pizza delivery boy arrive. Harry went to get the food and pay the boy for his trouble.
"You don't mind if we watch the footie during dinner, do you?" Dudley asked as Harry brought the pizza boxes into the room.
"Sure, knock yourselves out," Harry scoffed. He looked into the boxes. "OK, so which is yours, Piers' and mine?"
"Erm, if it has a whole bunch of meat on it, it is likely my one and Piers' one. We like the same pizza. I ordered a Margherita for you. Hope it's OK," Dudley replied as Harry gave him his box and then handed another pizza box to Piers, who was also watching them curiously.
"Yeah, it's fine," Harry reassured as he took the armchair while Dudley and Piers took the sofa.
Harry could happily switch his mind off for a while; he never really had much interest in football, ironically enough. With Dudley and Piers distracted, he could plot his next prank in peace.
RRRRIIIIIINNNNNNGGG!
Harry, Dudley and Piers all looked up from their pizzas, looked at each in confusion and then towards the landline phone in the entrance hall in perfect unison.
"Big D, you expecting a phone call?" Piers asked stupidly.
"Nope. Cousin?" Dudley frowned.
"Not unless it's Mrs. Figg calling to give me an update about one of her damn cats," Harry answered with a sigh.
Harry was about to get up to answer it, but it was Dudley who had beat him to it. The wizard blinked in surprise; was his cousin really affected that much by the Dementors, because Dudley was acting seriously strange.
"Hello, Dursley residence. Dudley speaking," Harry and Piers heard Dudley say.
There was a moment of what can only be described as nonplussed silence.
"Erm … Miss, as far as I know he isn't dead," Dudley answered. "Yes I am certain – no, there is no funeral coming up because there is no body! Yes, I am bloody certain! I know I am because he is sitting with me and my friend in the living room eating pizza."
Another moment of silence.
"I am pretty sure no screaming letters or weird people in masks have been showing up; we would have seen them or heard them. Is that a joke?"
Harry at this point had to bite into his cheek quite hard to stop himself from laughing, especially at Piers' face. Oh no! He knew there could only be one person who was at the other end of the line!
"What do you mean, your 'Harry senses are tingling'? What do you mean 'he has been sending McDonalds to his rival'?" It was at this point Dudley came back into the room, looking about as confused as someone could get. "Harry, your friend is losing it. Go and deal with her."
"Thanks, Dud," Harry managed to answer while maintaining a semi straight face. He composed himself for a moment before picking up the landline. "Hello, Hermione! I am still alive!"
"Yes, by some miracle, Harry James Potter!" Hermione snapped. "I have been checking both the Muggle and magical newspapers and radio for a kidnapped Muggle child and the body of Harry Potter appearing on the Ministry's doorstep for three days in a row!"
"You are over-reacting," Harry grinned.
"No I am not, you absolute nitwit! Never mind You-Know-Who, you will end up getting killed by your own stupidity," Hermione thundered. She composed herself for a moment. "So … did they eat it?"
So, she had been interested to see if the prank worked!
"I have no clue!" Harry wailed. "I haven't received anything, not even a three word death threat."
"Which means you're going to up the ante," Hermione sighed. "I knew my Harry Senses were going off! Your cousin didn't seem to know what I was talking about, though. Are you telling me you behave when your aunt and uncle aren't around?"
"Kind of have to," Harry reminded her lightly. "Which is why I am acting out in the only way I know."
"What are you going to send them next?" his sister-in-all-but-name sighed. It seemed to hit her in a moment because she remembered what Dudley had said about their dinner. "No, no, no, no, no HARRY! YOU ARE NOT SENDING PIZZAS TO THE MALFOYS!"
Harry huffed. "Why do you always suss out what I am going to do? Hermione, you are not making this fun," he complained.
"You were lucky to get away with sending McDonald's to the Malfoys and now you want to send them PIZZAS?" Hermione wailed. "Why are you so suicidal?"
"I am not suicidal. I am just having fun. I am bored!" Harry whined petulantly. Yes, he was acting childish but he didn't care. "Besides, Draco probably never had a pizza in his life with that stuffy peacock Lucius as a father and that prim Narcissa as a mother. He needs to live a little!"
Hermione seemed to be losing the will to live. "Harry, you make someone live a little by booking them a holiday to Spain, not by sending them pizza!"
"Well, I disagree," Harry stated brightly. "We can send Draco a surprise holiday another time."
"Why do I bother?" Hermione sighed.
Suddenly the two of them heard the sound of water running. Hermione clearly blanched on the other end of the phone. "Harry Potter, are you in the bathroom with the phone?!"
Harry sighed. "No, I am not. Dudley, get the phone away from the tap right now!"
The landline was one of the few ways of spying in the Dursley household. Dudley Dursley had snuck to the phone in the kitchen, clearly intent on eavesdropping on the conversation and had decided to try and embarrass his cousin while he was on the phone with a girl. Piers was guffawing so hard, he was on the floor, clutching his sides.
"Oh for goodness' sake," Hermione chuckled. "It sounds like you and your cousin are on better terms."
"Yeah, kind of," Harry admitted sheepishly. He lit up. "So, will you help me get some pizza delivered to the Malfoys?"
"To be honest, I don't know anyone in the Salisbury Chamber of Commerce who could help, because now that I think about it they-"
"I do!" Piers stated loudly through the other phone, making both Harry and Hermione wince slightly. "My uncle works there. I could pull a few strings. All I would need is the address of the person you want to send it to. What kind of pizza are we talking? Pizza Hut is a safe bet."
"No, no, no, no," Hermione chanted as though she were saying a prayer. "I don't know who you are, but you have just given one of the most diabolical people I know an easy way to prank someone."
Harry smirked evilly.
"He's smirking evilly, isn't he?"
Dudley leant around the kitchen doorway and then said into the kitchen phone. "Yes, he is."
"You have just unleashed a demon. Good luck. I will keep my eyes peeled for the news of all of your deaths," with that Hermione hung up.
Piers chuckled from the kitchen. "Your girlfriend is a hoot, Potter."
Harry flushed. "She's not my girlfriend, Piers! She's practically like my sister."
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Piers grinned.
"So," Dudley grinned, "a pizza prank, cousin? Really?"
"Hey, if you're going to worry about money, I have my own," Harry reassured him.
"Ain't worried about the money, cousin," Dudley rolled his eyes. "But I do kind of want to know how many pizzas you're talking about sending."
"Well, you see I have no idea how many would reach the guy in one piece," or how many Muggles would survive the journey, "but I thought for the sake of surety to send at most fifty."
"FIFTY?!" Piers and Dudley chorused, splitting their sides.
"What, you never know if there is a delay or someone gets lost or eaten by wolves who want the pizzas or get attacked by angry peacocks or disappears into the night," Harry listed, attempting to look innocent. "I just want to make sure the pizzas get there."
"I never knew you could be cool, Potter," Piers grinned. "I'm gonna get in touch with my uncle soon then and see what I can do for ya."
"Errrr," it seems even Piers Polkiss had an attitude adjustment, "thanks?"
"I am not gonna rat you out to Mum and Dad, if that's what you're worried about," Dudley told him candidly, smirking. "This is just too much fun!"
Harry smirked. "Hey, Piers? If your uncle agrees to help, could you make sure a message comes along with the delivery?"
Piers' face lit up instantly. "Sure. It could take a day or two, though."
"Doesn't matter," Harry reassured.
It was in that moment Dudley realised what Hermione meant when she had Piers had unleashed a demon in his cousin. The issue was, he did not know the half of it.
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Draco Malfoy would never admit it to another living soul, but he had been going through each day on tentative hooks, looking for owls delivering suspicious looking letters, unusual deliveries of Merlin-knows-what that suddenly appear out of nowhere and keeping an eye out for any and all Muggle vehicles that passed the house, waiting for any one of them to stop in front of the gates and say something along the lines of 'We have a delivery of one hundred flowers for Draco Malfoy to give to a Mr. Dark Lord'!
Potter was very likely to pull something like that because it would be Draco who would be fed to the Basilisk before he would be! Bloody Saint Potter and his stupid scar!
Narcissa Malfoy, while trying to find legal methods of freeing her husband from Azkaban, had overtly done the exact same thing as her son. She did not know the Potter boy very well, but she had gotten a very rude introduction to the kind of shenanigans the child could do a few days ago. Narcissa had been lucky she didn't have yet another dead body to dispose of; the Dark Lord had been more amused than anything else!
As for Voldemort and his Death Eaters, they had been cursing Potter's existence for forty-eight hours until they calmed down – admitted to themselves the food had come at precisely the right moment and that seeing Snape with an ugly colourful toy in his box had been Pensieve-worthy – and decided to get on with the raids they had planned. Eventually, they had almost forgotten the Muggles-on-Malfoy-territory-with-McDonald's incident.
Emphasis on the word almost.
Severus Snape had been apoplectic enough to try and figure out where Albus Too-Many-Middle-Names Dumbledore had hidden the spawn of James Potter and had been absolutely furious to find out that the location and the address had been protected with the ultimate weapon – it had not been written down, ever. The only way the Potions Master was going to find Potter and open a can of whoop-ass on the child for forcing him to eat fast food was if Severus took a dive into the mind of Albus I-Live-To-Annoy-Severus-Into-An-Early-Grave Dumbledore!
Snape did have the steam coming out of his ears but his fury at Potter was not worth risking a dive into the demented mind of the old codger. No amount of memories around woolly socks was worth that! But, like the rest of the Dark, eventually, Snape's ire cooled and his defences lowered somewhat.
Alastor Moody would have been marching around Malfoy Manor shouting, 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE', until he was hoarse if he had known, Dark side be damned.
Now, on the evening of the 30 July, which was the fifth day since the Muggle incident, Draco was having a sleep over with Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe, Pansy Parkinson, Theo Nott, Daphne Greengrass, Millicent Bulstrode and Blaise Zabini. Their parents had all been summoned by the Dark Lord for yet another meeting and the adults decided that the children would be able to entertain themselves. This assumption was correct.
"He did what?" the group chorused.
Yes, Draco had indeed been regaling his friends about what Potter had pulled.
"He's still alive?" Crabbe gaped. "Are we sure he's still alive?"
"The Prophet would have reported his untimely demise, so we have to assume so," Theo commented.
"Muggles were on Malfoy Manor land," Millicent heaved. "They were here, oh Merlin. They were here and didn't burn the building down with all of you in it!"
"No, they were more annoyed that they weren't immediately let in to put their bags down," Draco admitted.
"Morgana, you were lucky," Daphne sighed dramatically.
"I'll say! You survived seeing Bellatrix Lestrange being ordered to eat Muggle food by the Dark Lord!" Blaise was dying of laughter to the point he was hanging precariously off the sofa. "I'll pay good money to see the memory."
"Blaise, shut up," Pansy advised, shaking her head.
"Somehow, I doubt this is the last of Potter's insanity," Theo stated.
"You think this wasn't a one of thing?!" Daphne could barely believe her ears. "Surely he knows that a second round of Muggle food might-"
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRINNNNNNGGGGG!
The Sonorous-Charm enhanced gate bell rang around the entirety of Malfoy Manor once more. Peacocks stopped cawing and moving, the guards tensed in a moment; Wormtail, who was in the kitchen, promptly fell off his stool in shock, his bowl of soup landing right on top of him. Faces all over the house became ashen. A deadly silence befell the meeting of the Dark Lord. The portraits stopped moving momentarily.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no, no!
"You have got to be kidding me," Pansy stated, pinching the bridge of her nose.
In the dining room below, the glowing silver orb floated in front of Narcissa, and showed her this time was a despondent, tired and frustrated looking man in his twenties maybe. He was standing next to this four-wheeled mechanical device that Narcissa looked like a 'car' as Muggles called them, but it was bigger than a car. It had a white and red colour scheme with a picture of an odd sort of decorated disc on it with Pizza Hut written next to it.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" the Muggle called tentatively with a sigh. "I did press the bell."
"I heard," Narcissa answered coolly. "What do you want?"
"Delivery for Draco Malfoy," came the dreaded answer. "This is the address I have been given and I know it for sure this time, so can you please let me in?"
"No, no, no, not again. No more Muggles on Malfoy ground!" Bellatrix seethed. "Fillet the maggot and be done with it!"
"What in the name of Morgana is that thing next to him?" Rabastan wanted to know, looking oddly fascinated.
"It's ugly," Yaxley commented.
"Hello?!" the Muggle called. "Madam, are you still there? I have been trying to find this place – it took me more than two hours to even get here – and I have already mistakenly driven into several different properties mistakenly which already means I am around two-hundred bucks out of pocket so can you please just take the pizzas?"
"Pizzas?" Snape repeated, his eyes widening. No, the Brat didn't! He didn't!
"Ssssseverusss, what are pizzasssss?" the Dark Lord immediately questioned.
Merlin, kill me now, the Potions Master thought to himself. "A Muggle food, my Lord. It is essentially baked flat bread spread with molten cheese, tomatoes and other toppings."
"More food? Really?" Macnair complained. "Can't the brat have sent us something else?"
"That is your main concern?!" Rowle exploded. "Not the fact there is yet another Muggle-"
"Right OK, I will leave then," the Muggle grumbled, opening the door next to him.
"Narcissa, let him in!" Voldemort ordered. He was not about to let the pizzas go without finding out what they were.
Lady Malfoy cursed herself as she did so. Once more, a Muggle was permitted to enter the sacred grounds of Malfoy Manor, this time with an unsightly machine. The Muggle drove it almost right up to the steps, got out of the thing again, went around the back and opened the back doors. Much to the shock of everyone who witnessed it, whether via the orb or the windows upstairs, the Muggle put pile after pile of square boxes onto the steps – there must have been around fifty of them. Maybe more!
"Potter's fucking lost it," Vincent commented, shaking his head.
"You don't think He will make us," Pansy gulped, "partake in this, do you?"
It was in that fateful moment that Rozzy the House elf popped in. "M-M-Mistress requests all of yous presence d-d-downstairs."
"Well, that answers that," Millicent stated bleakly as the House elf popped away.
"Bloody Potter and his stupid eyes and his scar-" Draco seethed.
"Yeah, yeah, we know," Blaise grinned.
The Death Eater children made their way down to the dining room as though they were marching towards their execution. When they got there, they were stumped to see that Rabastan Lestrange, Walden Macnair, Antonin Dolohov and the werewolf Fenrir Greyback were guzzling these really odd, flat, disc-shaped things that one had to cut up into triangles to eat like there was no tomorrow. What made them practically faint was Lord Voldemort elegantly eating his, while glaring menacingly at anyone who was refusing to touch theirs.
Bellatrix was sulkily nibbling on one of her slices and was very clearly forcing herself to keep scowling while actually slowly speeding up her chewing process. Rodolphus was trying to see if he could systematically give his slices to Rabastan without the Dark Lord noticing. Yaxley was being peer-pressured by Macnair and Dolohov. Snape looked ready to commit murder, cutting the smallest pieces he could get away with. Rowle was staring at his food as though it were about to explode. Augustus Rookwood was too busy laughing at his compatriots than he was concerned about eating. The Carrow twins were eating angrily, clearly not happy at being forced to eat the stuff. Narcissa Malfoy looked set to cry.
"I owe Potter a hex or two," Pansy stated, shaking her head at the sight in front of her.
The Dark Lord noticed their presence by now. "Ah, young Draco! You and your friendssss are in time for an early dinner!"
"Yippee," Blaise whispered as he was dragged towards the table.
"Never mind two, make that five," Pansy amended.
One thing was for sure, Draco decided as a pizza box was forced in front of his nose by Rabastan. He was going to get Potter back for this, one way or the other. Especially when he saw the message with the food.
Hello Draco!
I didn't forget you, you know. I thought I would treat you since it is my birthday soon and I am feeling generous. Don't eat it all; it's rude not to share!
Hoping you don't faint, Harry.
He just needed to find out where Old Scarhead was.
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One of my reviewers suggested Domino's pizza as the next Moment of Madness. Well, I am afraid I didn't trust myself with Domino's but I did know Pizza Hut came to England in the 70s and 80s and was therefore a bit more safe for me to go with. This was a moment of madness because I have spent an entire day looking at maps of Wiltshire and looking at different Pizza Huts that could theoretically be able to deliver from their towns to Wiltshire and also looked at the amount of time and distance it could theoretically take … I now know things I never thought I would! I kind of settled for the Amesbury area because it is 8.2 miles from Wiltshire and takes more than 2 hours to get there and does have a Pizza Hut. I tried to find out when that Pizza Hut opened precisely but ran into a dead end so I decided to say, 'screw it I will use this anyway'.
I hope you guys enjoyed this – I know I loved writing it! I will see you in the next one.
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