Harry and the Pirates

Chapter 80

Draco, the Lust Monster?

Professor Snape was quietly getting ready for another day of trying to ram facts into dunderheads' minds when he was startled by a shrill scream from outside his office. "Professor! Help! Save me! She'll kill me!" Before he could react, Draco Malfoy yanked his door open, ran in, and cowered under his desk, shivering with fear.

As he stood to ask Draco what he was about, Pansy Parkinson stormed in, her wand in her hand and her face twisted into a mask of fury. "Where is he? Where is the rotten cheater? Under your desk?" She shrieked: "Come out from under there and die like a man, you worm!"

"I will not!" Draco yelled back. "I'll show you who wears the pants in this relationship!"

By then, Snape had his wand out, and two quick Petrificuses later, he had restored some semblance of order. Hauling Draco out from under his desk, he un-Petrified them, having first taken the precaution of disarming and Incarcerusing them both. "May I ask just what brought this on?"

Pansy snarled: "That article in Witch Weekly!" Snape didn't read Witch Weekly, but he saw a copy in Pansy's hand. He pried it loose, and read:

The Specter of Hogwarts

A specter haunts the halls of Hogwarts - a specter known as Draco Malfoy.

Little do parents know that this lecherous creature stalks the halls of our cherished school, his beady eyes ever on the watch for fresh young female flesh. No post-pubescent female student is safe from this Slytherin Casanova, and only the female teachers' venerable age protects them.

When this ithyphallic monster spots a fresh, unsullied young victim, he sets his odious plans into motion. Separating her from the safe female flock, he maneuvers her into a place of privacy where he unleashes his hidden talents, taking advantage of her sweetness, innocence and naivete. With his oily charm and meretricious attractiveness on full, his target has no chance. Soon, her virginity is a thing of the past, and this hypermasculine beast is introducing her to odious pleasures and non-Euclidean practices so perverted that words do not exist in the English language to describe them. She swims in a sea of unhallowed ecstasies never before experienced by mortal woman or girl.

When this hypersexual animal has slaked his unholy lust, he casts his latest conquest aside as though she were a dirty pair of underpants, and goes on his unhallowed way, searching for his next victim, like a shark in the depths of the sea. His prey is left forlorn, forever to remain unsatisfied as she seeks vainly to replicate the non-Euclidean delights she has experienced.

As Snape read on, his eyes went wide. He'd known Draco Malfoy all his life, and while the blond boy had his faults, but he'd never been a "love 'em and leave 'em" type. He'd been fairly faithful to Pansy as far as Snape knew. "Mr. Malfoy? Do you have any explanation for this?"

"No! I was sitting at breakfast, minding my own business, when all of a sudden Pansy goes crazy and attacks me! I didn't do anything!"

Just then, a flock of owls swooped in, each of them bearing red Howler envelopes. As Snape watched, the envelopes opened, and Howler after Howler erupted.

"DRACO MALFOY, IF I FIND YOU'VE BEEN ANYWHERE NEAR MY DAUGHTER, I'LL NEUTER YOU PERSONALLY!"

"MALFOY, YOU PIG! KEEP YOUR FILTHY MITTS OFF MY LITTLE GIRL!"

"DRACO, YOU PERV! HOW DARE YOU DEFILE OUR SWEET INNOCENT DAUGHTERS?"

"DRACO MALFOY, YOU BETTER STAY AWAY FROM MY LITTLE SISTERS! THEY DESERVE BETTER THAN A HORNDOG WHO JUST USES AND ABANDONS WOMEN!"

Shaking his head and sighing wearily, Snape defused the rest of the Howlers before they could go off. As it was, his ears were ringing, and he made a mental note to get himself a pain-killing potion for the headache he was feeling come on. "Miss Parkinson? What's your side of this story?"

Pansy gave Draco a furious scowl. "I was at breakfast when my copy of Witch Weekly came. I read that, and went berserk! How dare he give all those cows all that action?"

"All that action?" Draco spoke up, indignantly. "I'm innocent! I didn't do it! Honest!"

Draco Malfoy being honest was about as unusual a sight as a cubical egg, but this time, Snape was inclined to believe him. There were ways that Draco betrayed himself when he lied, and none of them were in evidence.

"Miss Parkinson, I am inclined to believe Mr. Malfoy," Snape said. He scowled at the way the girl sneered at him. "And if you do not wipe that expression from your face, I shall assign you detention. With Mr. Filch."

Pansy was not stupid and knew that her House Head did not threaten idly. She quickly made her face as blank as she could, befitting a Slytherin. Satisfied that he had established proper dominance, Snape continued: "If Mr. Malfoy had done all this article claims he has done, when would he have had time to do anything else?" Reluctantly, Pansy nodded; she could see her teacher's point. "And wouldn't you have heard rumours about it from other girls?"

Pansy was visibly chewing that idea over. "That's a good point. I keep my ear to the ground, and I haven't ever heard other girls talking about how Draco seduced and abandoned them. And I would have." Her expression grew stormy again. "They would have relished rubbing my face in what I wasn't getting!"

"True. I am reliably informed that young women bond among themselves by sharing secrets, and something this juicy would not have gone un-reported." Pansy nodded. Mentally, Snape blessed the memory of Lily Evans. Before their rift, she had often been willing to repeat girl gossip to him, particularly since she knew that he would keep a confidence confidential.

"Then why would they publish something like this?" asked Draco. Now that he was reasonably sure that Pansy wasn't about to kill him, he was recovering a lot of his usual bounce. "I mean, it's awfully flattering in a way, but I honestly couldn't have done half of this and got anything else done!"

Pansy giggled at that. "I should have figured out that this was a tissue of lies! I know you better than anybody, after all, and this is as far beyond your power as flying to Mars!" Ignoring Draco's hurt look, she turned back to Snape, who was trying to suppress an amused smile.

"I shall look into the origins of this story," Snape said, rolling up the copy of Witch Weekly and keeping it far from Pansy's grasp. She pouted, but at Snape's scowl, she composed her face in proper Slytherin blankness. Snape had his suspicions about where the story had come from, but preferred not to share them until he had proof.

Down in their dungeon office, the PD Enterprises group was gathered, howling with laughter. Luna's plan to discomfit Draco Malfoy had worked brilliantly.

"Good job you knew someone involved with the production of Witch Weekly!" chuckled Dudley. He lifted his bottle of Coke, and the others followed suit. "Vostrovya!"

"Vostrovya!" the others chorused. Luna blushed. She'd spent enough time with Dudley to have picked up some Russian, and she was unused to so much praise.

"Honestly, it wasn't that difficult," Luna demurred. "The compositor at Witch Weekly was an old friend of my family, and he owes the Malfoys a few bad turns. The Malfoys put his family out of business back when he was little."

"That's one good reason not to screw people over," Harry remarked. "Even if you're not in Roanapur, where people you've screwed over can come after you with guns, that sort of thing can bite the person doing it right in the arse when he least expects it."

"That's perfectly correct, Mr. Potter," came a voice none of them had expected. They all looked up to see Snape standing in the door of their office. "Will you adjourn with me to my office? This business needs to be discussed."

Harry and Dudley looked at each other uneasily. They knew they were in trouble. Meekly, they and their friends stood and followed their House Head off to his office.

Once the PD Enterprises group were arrayed before his desk, Snape sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers before his face. "It appears that you caused a false report of your Housemate Draco Malfoy's amorous activities to be published in Witch Weekly. May I ask why you did this?"

"Draco's been getting more and more arrogant and forgetting that little lesson we taught him in first year. The one with the palanquin," Harry said. "He's in need of a reminder of his proper humble station in life."

Unwillingly, Snape had to agree with that statement. Draco had been reverting to the behaviour he had displayed when he first came to Hogwarts, and Snape had received reports that he was causing friction with other Houses' members. "Why did you take this approach?"

"We couldn't find the palanquin, sir," Dudley Dursley said. "And we thought a different method would work better. Keep the enemy off-balance by always doing the unexpected. That's what Balalaika says." Harry nodded. Snape knew that to both the boys from Roanapur, Balalaika's slightest statement was law. He hoped to meet this woman one day, and exchange stories about the boys. He thought she would have made a magnificent teacher.

Even so, he had his duty to do. "Do you realise that you've caused not just Mr. Malfoy, but Miss Parkinson, great distress?"

"How could we have caused Draco distress? Wouldn't any teenage boy want it to be known that he was an incomparable sex god, an all-conquering force of raw masculine lust and prowess that no girl or woman could resist?" asked Luna. Her manner was perfectly straightforward, as though she was seeking information from her teacher.

"As for Pansy, we figured that the sooner she saw Draco for what he is, the better for her. While we don't always like her, we think she can do better than a guy who's so in love with himself that anybody he marries will have to take Polyjuice to look like him if she wants to get shagged," Hermione said.

Snape stifled a laugh with an effort. He had to admit that Hermione had a point. "Even so, Miss Granger, you went farther than was warranted. You owe Mr. Malfoy an apology."

"For getting everybody to believe that he's a sex god?"

"For upsetting Miss Parkinson and getting him deluged with Howlers from angry fathers, uncles and older brothers warning him to keep his sticky fingers off their girls." Snape scowled. "I had to defuse a dozen of those just this morning. And I had other plans for this day, plans which your little scheme has disrupted very effectively."

"Very well, sir," Harry said. As the effective head of PD Enterprises, he usually acted as spokesman. "How does this sound? 'Draco, we're very sorry we planted that story. It was very wrong of us to make people believe that you're an ultra-masculine sex deity, and we'll do our best to explain that that is by no means the case."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I doubt that Mr. Malfoy will take much comfort in that, but if that's the apology he gets, that's the apology he'll have to accept. And I will expect you to apologise to Miss Parkinson for distressing her, contact Witch Weekly and explain your actions, and compose a suitable retraction for them to print in their next issue." He fixed Luna with a glittering eye. "Since you seem to be the expert on journalism among your friends, Miss Lovegood, you shall have the honour of composing the retraction and apology."

When Draco was located, he'd been cornered by a group of angry girls. Poking her finger into his chest as he cowered against the wall, Daphne Greengrass was snarling: "How long has all this action been going on, anyway? Why didn't you tell us about it?"

"And why didn't we get the benefit of this sex magic you apparently have? What are we? Chopped liver?" Amy Wilkes said. "Don't we deserve equal time with all those cows in the other houses?"

"Ladies, please!" At the sound of Snape's voice, everybody turned to see him looming over them. "This turns out to have been an ill-thought-out prank by some of your Housemates. They'll be wanting to apologise to Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinson, and a retraction of that story will be printed in the next Witch Weekly."

"Is that so?" asked Millicent Bulstrode. She gave a very theatrical sigh. "Well, girls, I suppose it was too good to be true. Oh, well...we'll have to struggle along with ordinary boys."

"Here I was hoping to get some of that action," Amy Wilkes said. "I mean-isn't 'ten times a night' what every young girl dreams of?"

"I certainly would not know," Snape said. He was slightly appalled at the turn the conversation had taken. He had had little to do with women, particularly after changing sides and abandoning the Death Eaters, and was not at all comfortable with discussing sexual matters with any females. The fact that these young women were his students and members of his House made it worse. He beat a retreat, a chorus of giggles echoing in his ears as his face flushed bright red with embarrassment. Why couldn't the Houses have male and female co-Heads to deal with this sort of thing?

A few days later, Witch Weekly printed a retraction.

It has come to our attention that a false article was slipped into our magazine. We would like to apologise to our readers. At this time, we do not know how this occurred, but we shall find out and the person or persons responsible shall be held liable for any damages.

We also wish to make it clear that Draco Malfoy is not an all-conquering sex god, he does not spend all his time rogering his way through every post-pubescent female in reach, and he does not have unholy sexual powers that make any woman his panting, drooling slave. He is a perfectly normal boy and a sweet, innocent paragon of virtue and chastity.

Reading this, Draco said: "I don't know if I like this any better!"

Crabbe grunted: "At least Pansy's off your tail!"

"But if people believed all that tosh about me, I'd get more action than a platoon of Aurors on leave!" Draco mourned.

"Life is a weary journey full of hardships, grief and woe, Mr. Malfoy," said Snape, who was observing the action. "The sooner you get used to that, the better it will be for you!"

"Not for me it bloody well isn't, sir!" Draco sat up, indignation plain on his face. "For me, life is a big mansion with house-elves to do all the work, all the top-quality food I want to eat, and being able to buy anything I want!"

Snape had not had it anything like that when he was growing up, and found it difficult to sympathise. While he had known Draco since he was born, and was responsible for him as his godfather, he did sometimes have an urge to smack some sense into his empty head. He wondered whether Lucius, Narcissa or Abraxas had had the main hand in spoiling the Malfoy heir.

The PD Enterprises group found themselves on a week's detention in the Potions dungeon, scrubbing floors and cleaning gunk out of cauldrons. "Ugh, my poor back!" Dudley complained, after an hour spent bent over a particularly stubborn patch of floor. "Why can't we just use magic on this?"

"Because magic and a lot of the things that get spilled down here don't react well, Dudley," Hermione explained. "Try casting cleaning spells down here, and you don't know what sort of reaction you'll get. Only that you probably won't like it."

"Aye, well, things could be worse," Harry said philosophically. "We could be running for our lives through Roanapur's sewers, couldn't we, Dudley?"

Reminded of that, Dudley chuckled reminiscently. "Man, Boss Chang's men were pissed off at us! We were kind of lucky to get away that time!"

Everyone there had been to Roanapur, and they all knew what a dangerous place it could be. "Apparently Boss Chang forgave you," Ron said. "He was perfectly nice when we met him."

"Oh, nobody takes that sort of thing personally in Roanapur," Harry said, wringing black filth out of his wash rag. "Today's opponent may well be tomorrow's ally."

"Like what Sister Eda said?" Hermione asked. She paused to wipe sweat off her face; the dungeons were rather hot and stuffy. "Even though the first time I met her, she pulled a gun on Revy Two-Hands, she said that she and Revy were actually pretty good friends. It was just that that particular time, they were on opposite sides and needed to figure out who was alpha-bitch."

"Yeah, that's how it goes," Dudley said, bending to go after another patch of gunk. "I loved how you taught her a little respect!"

"How did she do that?" asked Ginny. She scowled at the memory of the "phony nun" who had stolen her brother away from her. Even though Percy was sometimes difficult to like, he was still a Weasley and her brother, and she resented having lost him. She wasn't too keen on any other girl taking her brothers; she quite liked being the most important girl in their lives. While she was willing to adopt Hermione as an "honorary Weasley," that was about the extent of her tolerance.

"Sister Eda made the mistake of threatening Hermione, so Hermione whipped up her wand and paralyzed her, quick as boiled asparagus!" Dudley smiled at the memory. "Then she whipped out a knife and told Sister Eda that she could cut her throat if she felt like it and there'd be nothing Sister Eda could do about it."

"After that, Sister Eda's been very, very respectful of anybody with a wand," Luna remarked. Her face was flushed with the effort she'd put in, but her voice was as calm and even as ever. "When she saw that I had one, she was actually afraid. That's not characteristic of her, not at all, from what people I met there told me."

Snape came in. "Your detention is over, and I see you've done good work," he said. "When I next write Mrs. Dursley, I shall be sure to mention that you took your punishments very well. Your employer would be pleased with you, Mr. Potter, Mr. Dursley."

"Thank you, sir!" Released, the PD Enterprises group put their equipment away neatly, knowing that Snape liked a neat dungeon. Then they scampered for the door, heading for their respective showers and beds.

Some days later, Harry and Dudley got a letter from Roanapur.

Dear Harry and Dudley,

Balalaika and I were notified about your latest exploit, and we of course informed Mr. Sirius Black, since he is Harry's godfather and shares some responsibility for him. Mr. Black was hugely amused, saying that the fruit (meaning Harry) did not fall far from the tree. Since my sister did tell me that James Potter was a very talented prankster, I understood his meaning.

While we were both amused, Balalaika wondered why you did not merely take lethal action against this Draco Malfoy. While he was along on your trip into the Chamber of Secrets, we have heard little good of him or his family. I pointed out that the authorities at your school would have disapproved strenuously of any such thing, and that Britain, both on the magical and "Muggle" side, is not nearly as lawless as I fear Roanapur can be. Putting Mr. Malfoy in his place while avoiding serious consequences, I told her, was a mark of a very good strategist. Balalaika agreed with that, and said that she was proud of you both for taking care of a nuisance.

We hope your studies are going well.

Your loving mother/aunt

Petunia Dursley.

Harry sighed with relief when he had finished the letter. "Well, that's that, I suppose. Now to watch the Triwizard Champions being chosen. I wonder who it'll be?"

"The sooner we know who's competing, the sooner we can start working out odds on the results," Hermione pointed out.

"Fred and George say that Ludo Bagman lost his bet with them, but won't pay up," Ron reported. "If we can make him cough up the cash, they'll cut us in for a share, and they can get started on that joke shop they want to open.

"We'll have to work something out on that front. Other than that, here's to an uneventful, safe, boring year!" Harry raised his glass of Coke, "Vostrovya!"

Everybody else raised their glasses, chorussing "Vostrovya!" As one, they drank to quiet.