Sometimes the Dragon Wins

CHAPTER 6: TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED

There was a flash of white light, as if the largest camera in the world had just over-exposed.

Harry blinked.

Then there was a painfully bizarre moment as memories came rushing back into his head, and he opened his eyes.

A blinding pain from his scar replaced the memory retrieval pain.

Harry screamed. Lord Voldemort was standing in front of him, an ominous shadow in Albus Dumbledore's study, licking his lips.

The Dark Lord tucked his fork back into a messy bowl and stood up. "My god Potter, that was an excellent Thai green curry chicken," he said. "I would say thank you but that wouldn't suit my reputation."

Harry didn't even think twice. He lunged... into an invisible wall. He fell back, groaning.

"Uh uh uh," Voldemort cautioned, wagging a playful finger. "Protective shield. How does it feel to have your memory back?"

"I lost my memory?"

"Yes you did. It was quite charming. I liked you that way. You were a bit like a dog."

Harry stared at him. "What..." he faltered and then recovered, "What do you mean?"

"Well, you kept smiling at me and wanting affection., and you made me this awfully good dish of chicken here. I have a good mind to wipe your memory again and install you as my personal chef." He paused dramatically. "After you fulfil your promise, of course."

"My promise?" Harry spat.

Voldemort's grin was delightfully evil. The portraits of old headmasters decorating the wall put their collective hands before their collective mouths, obviously shocked. "Oh yes, dear Harry. A few minutes ago, you signed this contract here." He waved a scroll of parchment around as if he were selling raffle tickets. "In it you pledge you undying allegiance..." Voldemort leaned in to savour the horror on Harry's face, "...to ME."

"Never!" Harry cried out. "I wouldn't have."

"Damn straight he wouldn't have," agreed a stuffy, colonial-looking portrait.
"Oh, but you did," Voldemort giggled in delight. "And I know a Gryffindor would never disobey a signed contract. It would go against his code of honour."

"I didn't sign it," Harry said, forcing the hesitation in his voice away.

Voldemort unfurled the scroll. "Potter, I'm not a liar. What do you think of me? Read it, and weep."

Harry didn't even read it. He merely looked to the bottom of the page, where a very familiar untidy signature proclaimed the name "Harry Potter."

"Oh no!" the irritating portrait wailed.

He sank to his knees, yelling the unutterable words. He swore on his aunt, his uncle and his fat cousin. He made the creatures in the drainpipe shudder in fear. He darned them all to heck. (Blatant Terry Prattchetisms!)

But he never even contemplated disobeying his honour code.

When he'd finished, he glowered at Voldemort suddenly.

"Feel better?" the Dark Lord asked brightly. "Got it all out of your system?"

Harry didn't bother to reply. "Where's Ron and Hermione?" he demanded.

"I believe Mr. Weasley's having Care of Magical Creatures with McNair," Voldemort sniggered. "Or should I call it Disposal of Magical Creatures? And I have no idea where Miss Granger is. It's rather vexing."

"You prat! What have you done to the teachers?"

"Oh, they'll live." Voldemort grinned. "For a while. Enough chit-chat, Potter."

Harry glared. "What must I do?" he snapped.

"Lots of things. Lots of things. First, you can massage my feet." Voldemort wandered over to an armchair and sank into it, removing his fluffy slippers.

Harry noticed that his socks had graffiti on them that read "Bad to the Bone."

Voldemort smiled brightly. "Come now Potter. Time waits for no Wonderboy. And neither do my feet."

Harry moved towards Voldemort, letting the pain from his scar drill into his skull. He deserved it for being so stupid.

Voldemort handed him a little aromatherapy bottle of lavender oil.

"Go on," he said sweetly. "If you do a good job, I'll even let you out on another broom excursion. You can find the Slytherins and bring them back for me."

Harry removed the socks dully. He'd recently read a magazine article on reading people's personalities by observing their toes. There was no doubt about it. Voldemort's evil, malignant, dark lord tendency toe (to be precise, the fourth toe on the right foot) was abnormally large.

****************

Draco grinned, pleased at the reactions around him. Ha! They'd thought he'd brought them to a field. Ha!

Hermione, who was standing next to him, ran her eyes over every statue as if she were caressing every rock lovingly. Of course, Hermione was in the habit of caressing everyone lovingly. She wasn't bad at it either.

"Shall we go in?" Draco inquired when he felt they'd fawned about the hide out enough.

"Don't we need some kind of password to get through the door?" Hermione asked, like the intelligent girl that she was. He was rather surprised that he was feeling the beginning of some grudging respect for her.

She was so much like him in so many ways. She was smart, she had a foul temper intermingled with an irrational sense of calm, a sharp mouth, ambition, recklessness and an admittedly great butt - all rolled into one. And yet, with those very Slytherinny attributes, she'd ended up in Gryffindor. Because she'd somehow managed to be kind, honest, loyal and brave as well.

How could she manage such opposing characteristics? Incredible. He had to admire it. It would have driven his own conscience to St. Mungo's.

"Malfoy, do you know the password?" she asked again, staring at him as if he were quite the idiot.

And she was a bloody-minded bitch. Kudos to her.

"Of course I do. Giants are not renowned for their intelligence. Do you know what the most commonly used password in the world is?"

Hermione frowned. "Yeah. Or at least," she amended, "I know what the most commonly used password on Muggle computers is."

"I'll wager you it's the same thing," Draco said.

"You think the password to the Lost City of the Giants is "sex"?"

The enormous door grinded open as the words escaped her mouth.

Draco just grinned and waltzed into the Lost City of the Giants rather saucily.

******************

Ginny Weasley bit her lip, fluffed her hair nervously, and surveyed her outfit in the full-length mirror.

All black.

Good. That was appropriate. Her dark red hair was rather too noticeable, but after all, heroines had to be noticed. Who'd ever want to save the world and not be able to take the credit for it, right?

She'd even contemplated sewing a form-fitting outfit of black leather. Perhaps with cat-ears. But it was a silly idea anyway, and rather impractical. Her mum would hardly be impressed if she were clad in black leather on the front page of the Daily Prophet.

Not that she'd ever make the front page with wonderful scarface Harry Potter hanging around. There had certainly been a time that she'd liked him. In fact she'd had a humongous crush on him for five years; until he and Slut Granger had suddenly found each other, that was. And then, when they'd mysteriously parted ways, with Hermione throwing her precious books at his sorry little scarred head, he'd ignored Ginny's sweet smiles and sped into that Ravenclaw Seeker's arms. Bastard.

Ginny muttered under her breath because she felt that was what scorned women did.

However, she'd had enough of being a typical scorned woman. She was an atypical scorned woman. Certainly, she'd spent many nights mooning and crying and hitting her pillow and trying elementary voodoo curses on both Cho and Hermione.

But now she had a better plan.

Ginny whipped a cloak around her body and winked at the mirror, a little nervously.

It was time to kick some arse.

But nicely.

Draco had never been inside the Hall of the Lost City of the Giants and he had to give them credit for it.

It was beautiful. It looked like a larger, much more impressive version of the interior of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The ceilings and the walls were adorned with soft frescoes depicting images, which on closer inspection, he wished he hadn't really seen.

The giants of old had been artists all right. Unfortunately, their topics were rather morbid.

And cannibalistic.

The images showed giants killing people; giants torturing people and giants eating people. It was like a surrealist city of Goya paintings.

He focused on the enormous, intricate pillars supporting the roof instead, hoping that all the giants had indeed escaped to the mountains as he had heard. The pillar wasn't a good distraction. It was a statue of a giant eating a tiny human being.

"Looks like Goya," Hermione remarked absently.

Draco tucked a stray hair behind his ear and tapped his foot, uncertain what procedure to follow now. He realised that he was waiting for cries of revulsion and disgust.

Nothing.

He expected at least a long, drawn out "Euuuuuuw!"

Nothing.

He swivelled around and scanned the subdued Slytherins.

Pansy was gone.

He groaned.

Stupid girl. What had she done now?

"Pansy's disappeared," he announced to the world in general.

There were a few grunts in acknowledgement to the statement.

Hermione looked around wildly. "What happened? Where is she? Is she all right?"

"Probably not," Draco sighed. "We should probably go and find her."

"WE should definitely go and find her. This is not like we've lost her in a shopping mall," Hermione said severely.

Draco turned around. "Yes, I suppose we must. Why didn't she just keep up?"

Hermione glared at him. "Pansy is probably frightened for her life right now, wherever she is. Do you have no compassion whatsoever?'

"No," he said.

She looked exasperated. "Draco, just because you have had a hard life, doesn't mean you have to have a heart of stone."

He frowned at her. "What are you on about? Why are you using bad metaphors? Who ever said I've had a hard life?"

She paused. "I heard about your father," she said gently. "And it's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person. It's his fault, not yours."

He was completely baffled. "I really don't get it Granger. What do you think my father did to me?"

She gazed at him nervously. "Well. You know, there are rumours that Lucius hits you."

"WHAT?"

"And it's all right," she continued in a soothing, motherly voice.

He grinned at her. She sounded so compassionate and worried about this... this rumour. You had to hand it to her. She was one big contradiction.

"Thank you for being concerned Granger," he said, risking a cold smiled. "But you don't have to be. My father doesn't hit me. He's never laid a finger on me."

Her mouth was agape. "But...but..."

Draco smirked. "Thought you could explain away my attitude with psychobabble, huh? Thought I was such a bastard because my father hit me? No, that's not it Granger. But thanks for caring anyway." He allowed just the right amount of sarcasm to slide into his last sentence and noticed her lips pursing.

It didn't stop her from retaliating though.

"What is it then Malfoy?" she asked mockingly. "Why are you such a cold, heartless bastard?"

He grinned magnanimously. "Wait and see." Before she could interrupt again he continued. "We don't have time to analyse my personality Granger. This cold heartless bastard needs to go and find Pansy right now." He frowned. "I'd like to hit her when I find her."

*******************

It was dark. Incredibly dark.

Perhaps she should open her eyes.

She opened them, instinctively shielding with her hands, fearing an assault of bright, unexpected light on her irises.

There was none of that.

Wherever she was, it was as dark here as it had been in her head.

She was sprawled on some rough surface, surrounded by the antithesis of light. It didn't take that long to remember.

The cave. Draco had led them all inside of a cave, and she'd lagged behind, wondering why he had to be so nasty, so unnecessarily. Then at some point, someone's wand had flickered and she had seen him deep in conversation with someone. In that brief flash of light she'd seen, even from that distance, that there was something different in his facial expression. He'd been talking to that person almost earnestly, and yes, a slight smirk had been playing around his mouth, but it was almost as if he struggled to keep it there.

Her jealousy radar was phenomenally sharp, and it hadn't so much as beeped once, so it probably hadn't been that he desired the person he was talking to.

Instead, it had been something she'd never had thought she would be jealous of. Draco had treated that person with some level of respect, and it was exactly what she wanted from him. Although she hadn't realised it until now.

So she'd stormed forward, intent on glimpsing who he was talking to so that she could also cultivate the desired attributes that made him respect her, and there had been sudden blackness.

She rubbed her temple. Ouch! There was a huge bump there. She'd hit her head very hard indeed.

She got up shakily, wondering how long she'd been knocked out.

Her legs were rather wobbly, but she ignored the urge to sit a while longer. She was not about to sit in a dark cave on her own. Her heart raced at the very thought. She had to find the others.

She latched onto a wall, ducking her head carefully, determined to avoid other protruding ledges, and made her way to the sound of the running water.

She was just in time to see Gregory Goyle pass through the entrance to the Lost City of the Giants.

She ran, but it was hopeless. The large stone doorway slammed shut long before she got there.

She alternated between nudging, pushing, kicking and hitting the stubborn stone slab, but it didn't budge.

"Draco!" she called out desperately. "Gregory! Anyone!"

No answer. She hit the door a few more times and accomplished nothing except raw knuckles.

She resisted the impulse to burst into tears for the moment. She was quite well-versed in the history of the Lost City of the Giants - her father was a history and archaeology buff, and had loved reciting the Giant Wars and the architectural procedures which had taken place right where she was standing.

In fact, her father couldn't shut up about it. His main ambition in life was to find this very place. He ignored both her and her mother and her seven siblings unless they wanted to listen to him ramble about archaeology or history. He was, as everyone said, a very intelligent man.

She'd developed a dislike for intelligence quite early in life, and had opted to like everything her father didn't.

Like Draco, who'd seemed to be a suitably bad boyfriend for a rebellious teenage girl to acquire. And now he and the people she called friends had deserted her.

She walked over to the nearest statue of a serene-looking woman and touched the cold rock fingers wonderingly.

The beautifully defined mouth of the statue blurred as warm tears flooded out of the corners of her eyes and pelted onto her robes with alarming ferocity.

She leaned against the statue and allowed herself to cry for a while.

Her face was wet and hot when she'd done, and she felt slightly better, so she set about finding the way back out. It wasn't difficult, but it was exhausting and lonely. She crept out of the cave miserably, and ignoring the frankly astonished look on the cow's face, she fell onto the grass and started crying anew.

This was horrible. She'd thought this would be a romantic get-away; perhaps it would have been the chance to get Draco to get rid of his attitude and convince him that he didn't have to be mean to her. And perhaps she could have lost her virginity to him - after all, that was what road trips were all about.

She felt sweaty thinking about it.

And now the only thing in her near future was a cow. And the prospect of a five-hour hike back to Hogwarts during which she'd probably get lost anyway.

The tears welled up yet again. She sobbed against the grass, not caring what the cow thought.

She could vaguely hear footsteps through her cries.

"Hello, are you okay?"

A hand touched her shoulder tentatively.

She wiped her face, certain that her smeared mascara probably made her look like a raccoon.

"Pansy, shh, it's all right. What's wrong?"

Much as she wished the voice belonged to Draco, she knew it wasn't him.

There was real concern in that tenor, and not a trace of impatience.

She looked up into Harry Potter's startled green eyes.

******************

Harry was very conscious of the fact that his hand was holding onto Pansy Parkinson's shoulder.

Pansy Parkinson? How bizarre. He'd never even been this close to her.

She sniffed, wiped her face and looked up.

Her many layers of mascara had sunk to the bottom of her cheeks, making her look a bit like a raccoon. Harry quite liked raccoons. And Pansy was not a bad-looking raccoon, he realised, surprised.

She was a reasonably attractive raccoon that he had to capture and return to Voldemort's zoo.

Darn.

How had he gotten himself into this? He'd asked himself that a million times as he'd sped over farmlands on his Firebolt broomstick, following the Slytherins' tracks. They hadn't tried to conceal their muddy footprints, which made it easy to follow them.

Harry almost wished that they'd bothered to make a cleaner get away, because he had no desire to capture them.

He didn't wish Voldemort on even the Slytherins.

And, he took a deep breath, it would be very bad for the destiny of humankind if Draco got into Voldemort's hands. If Draco was the Dragon, that was.

Harry still toyed with the forgotten idea that he might be the Dragon himself.

Because, hey, there was him: heroic, sweet, handsome, kind, gentle Harry Potter who knew how to save the world. Easy-peasy. He'd done it, what, 5 times already?

And then there was Draco Malfoy, the swine of Slytherin, the hater of Mudbloods, the sarcastic, slimy, insufferable git of Hogwarts.

Prince Charming, Harry Potter vs. Boa Constrictor, Draco Malfoy.

In Harry's mind, it was obvious who weighed in at 2000 pounds as the champion.

Himself.

He winced. He was sounding a wee bit vain.

He looked at Pansy. She was apparently Draco's girlfriend, but it never looked like that in public.

"What's wrong Pansy?" he asked in his nicest voice.

She stared at him in disbelief. "Do you mean that?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Are you really concerned about me?" Her intense, raccoonish gaze made him a little nervous.

"Erm, yes. Of course. You're lying here all alone, crying your heart out. I'm very concerned."

She smiled. Harry stared at her in amazement. He'd never seen her smile sincerely, with her eyes all soft and runny and needy.

She really was a very attractive raccoon. His animal instincts were acting up.

"What happened?" he asked.

She parted her hair away from her eyes so that he could see the huge lump on her head. It looked a bit like a portable map of the United Kingdom.

"I bumped my head and blacked out. And when I woke up the others were gone." She looked at him closely. "Aren't you supposed to be under Voldemort's spell?"

There was only one way to evade the question. He gave her his sexiest 'Harry Potter, the boy who was a Witch Weekly cover star'-smile and said, in his corniest, most seductive voice, "No, but I'm under another kind of spell now."

****************

Author's Comments: I put the Ginny-bit there as a last minute change, because I suddenly have a plan for her in the rather mediocre scheme of things. She probably also seems out of character (don't they all?) but she's going to be really cool. You'll see...

Oh, and the chapter title is Roald Dahl's. And one of the quotes I used is Terry Pratchett's, who is simply brilliant and has the honour of being my undisputed favourite author. But they're practically the only quotes I've stolen that I know of, and I won't do it again.

A blatant plug: I started writing two other fics. It was 3am this morning. The one is terrible. It's warped. It's the blackest humour in existence. (Well, I certainly can't write it blacker than that.) It's about a new Dark Lord. I'll put the first chapter up soon. Read it, if you dare...