Bushwhacked!

BUSHWHACKED

by Silverfish ~:
I.

He swirled the glass of brandy in its goblet, flames licking along the surface of the liquid in a tangled expression of sultry movement. He watched their reflection for a while, smiling at the golden and orange tendrils that clung to the colour of the brandy. He closed his eyes and brought the goblet to his lips, tongue tasting fire.

He was alone, and this pleased him. For only when he was alone could he be here, with nothing but a drink to keep him company, and mull over the fond, fond memories that he longed to bring to the fore again. He opened his eyes, and narrowed them at his fireplace, a contemplative pout on haughty lips. Oh, yes, he knew where she was, and just where, exactly he would have to journey to get to her. Perhaps if he followed the right thread, and said the right words he might be able to seduce her again. It had been so easy that first time--though when he thought on it, hadn't it always been easy? He chuckled softly to himself and took another sip of his drink, a smile for the reflection he saw cast upon the flames and now stilled liquid. He touched the bridge of his nose tenderly, and when he was satisfied that the small, crooked variable in the bone was only one-one hundredth of an inch out of alignment, he set the goblet aside on the table beside his dark blue velvet, winged-back chair, and stared into the fireplace again--only this time with a much more serious, and what one would call, a sinister expression.

He would have her. It was only fitting. He would bring her back to his estate, and give her a private house of her own, one his wife did not know about, and even if she did what did that matter? He had a goal to pursue, and he would be dead before he'd let go of it.

He grabbed the goblet of brandy, drained it, and then stood before the fire. He knew she was in London right now, he'd used a small, magicked looking glass for the purpose--A Muggle object infused with the ability to follow the one of your desires. He'd set the mirror on the sill of the fireplace, where he could easily watch her. She was in some dingy hole of a noisy bar by the look of her now, waiting for her husband to get off work. He smiled at the sadistic thought of wrenching her right from underneath the nose of that goliathan monster, maybe he'd even laugh as the man tried to take her back with his stupid brawn.

He narrowed his eyes at the flames, determined in his decision. He took his wand from out of his pocket, and circled it twice in the air, throwing the glass goblet from his other hand into the flames where it exploded as he shouted out "Vehere The Sinkhole!"

A shower of sparks and a circling whirl of displacement surrounded him, but he stood firm, even if the force of the travel was spinning his long, blond hair out behind him in a halo of frenzy, the winds of magic travel tearing at his robes as he spun down, down into a torrent not unlike the arm of a tornado. When the spell had finally finished, he was deposited not all that gracefully onto a hard floor, his forehead loudly smacking something wooden. He dropped his wand, and clutched at his head.

Yes, there was a bump forming there already. He blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus, but the force of the spell had left him a little dizzy, as did the blunt trauma to his temple. The arm of a wooden chair seemed to have been the culprit, and he used it now to ease himself to standing.

"What the F**K!!" a woman shouted.

He frowned. The voice could very well belong to her, he wasn't entirely sure. He looked up to see a tall woman with thick blond hair and large, moving lips. That mouth--it was saying an awful lot of things at present that he was having difficulty focusing on, and most of it contained words he'd never heard of before.

"F**K! What the F**K are you F*****G doing here? G******M! J**********T! You ******!!!"

Hm. This *might* be her.

"F******G paparazzi!!"

He never did find out. The bruise on his forehead was met with another blow, this time from the steel heel of a sharp piece of footwear. He tried to get up, and insist that no, this wasn't how this plan was supposed to have worked out, he was supposed to be taking her back with him, back home to his world that was unplottable on any map and that monster monolith of a husband couldn't find her (or himself, Lucius Malfoy, for that matter) and he would imprison her, spoil her, and give her all, and he would moan and sigh her name in times of boredom and strife and say as though it was a kiss "Amanda..."

"F**K! S**T! You *F*****G people following me around..!!"

Another kick met his groin, then his stomach. He could feel something burning, like flames licking over him, and the flames were coming in hot bursts, like flashes, and with them was this horrible, click, click, click sound like snapping old twigs. He couldn't tell much after that, what with the severity of the pain. Like an Crucius Curse, it took him over, and thankfully blocked all consciousness out.

***
Hogwarts. September 12.

Shockingly enough, it was Ron Weasley who said it first.

"I feel really bad for him," he said.

In the Hogwarts Express train booth just two rows up from their own, and in plain view from where Harry and Hermione were sitting, was Draco Malfoy--Alone, scowling, and looking every molecule of miserable, even if he was wearing sparkly beige trousers with peace patches on them. He caught Harry's concerned glare and made a face at him before turning his attention to the window at his left. Hermione pushed at Harry's arm, and then gave Ron, who was across from them, an attention getting kick. "Come on," she said. "Looks like Crabbe and Goyle have given up on him, thanks to this. Let's go sit with him."

"What? On purpose? Without being forced to by a spell?" Ron flubbered in response. "I don't feel *that* bad for him!" He went back to reading his copy of the Wizard World News, and Hermione grabbed it from him, rolling it up into a neat cylinder which she then began beating him about the head with. "Ow! Ow! Fine, whatever, quit it! Just don't expect me to talk nicely to him or anything, because if he has the gall to say one thing out of line I'm making that snobby nose of his as crooked as his father's. Ow! Hermione, quit it!"

She walked ahead of both them with her usual confidence, Harry and Ron reluctantly hanging behind her as they headed to Draco's booth. Without asking permission, she walked in and sat across from him, forcing either Harry or Ron to sit beside the pale, blonde youth they had called their enemy for well on six years. Ron made a mad dash to sit beside Hermione, and thus Harry was stuck with the dubious honour of an unhappy truce and sat beside Draco. Draco gave them all a sneering glare, and then ignored them, his eyes solely for the trees and countryside speeding past his window in a fuzzy blur of green.

Harry cleared his throat. Ron fidgeted in his seat.

"Where are your friends?" Hermione asked, and both Harry and Ron winced and exchanged glances at the booth's entrance, wondering if maybe they'd been wrong in assuming Crabbe and Goyle had dumped Draco.

Draco fixed a glare on Hermione that was so icy it would have made Shackleton shiver. He grabbed the rolled up paper that was still in her grip and shook it open. He brought their attention to the front page, where a picture of Lucius Malfoy, his father, was in living colour very clearly in its center, and by the look of the photo was getting the crap beaten out of him by a tall, blond woman--A woman of Muggle origin, no less.

"I think the whole idea of me having 'friends' is something dear old dad destroyed," Draco replied. "I don't imagine the lot of Slytherin is going to be too keen to be the 'friend' of the great Draco Malfoy whose father got beat up by a Muggle girl."

Hermione shrugged. "The 'girl' *was* Courtney Love," she said.

Draco raised a brow at her. He turned to Ron. "Does that make any difference to you Ron? Did your dad, Arthur Weasley, ever get beat up by a girl?"

"Hell no," Ron replied.

Harry coughed again. "I was partially to blame for a frosted cake falling on a dinner guest's head once," he said, trying to be helpful, but wasn't, really. Draco glared at him, and didn't dignify that information with an answer.

"Oh, come on," Hermione said to Draco, "It can't be that bad."

Draco remained silent a moment as he folded the newspaper in his hands into a very, very small square before gently ripping at its corners.

"Of course it is," Draco said, and there was nothing but malice in his voice. "I'm sitting with you three, aren't I?"

***
Daniel Deschamps, English Muggle teacher for Hogwarts, and disturbingly alive although by all Death's accounting was supposed to be dead, shuffled through his latest collection of books for the seventh year students. Strunk and White had thankfully been discarded, to make room for Ellison's 'American Psycho', which he felt was a much more hands on approach to learning descriptive style. He had considered offering The House of Leaves as an alternative, but since that particular book ended up in Snape's purifying cauldron because the potions master had seen it as 'The worst evil since He Who Must Not Be Named!", he'd ended up with the sole, psychotic leftover. He was still a little miffed about that particular incident, which had occurred in the middle of July, and every now and then he'd still stoop to calling Snape a 'book burning bastard', even if the historical reference was completely lost on him. He'd warned Snape to never touch one of his examples of Muggle literature again, an order that Snape had no difficulty following, and thus, American Psycho was saved.

There was a gentle tap at his door, and Daniel looked up from his inspection of the bloody rendition on the cover of the book in his hand and saw Remus Lupin smiling good naturedly at him. He shrugged his tattered robes around him a little closer as though Daniel's rather clinical looking room was as cold as its ambiance suggested. "They're more than halfway through the sorting ceremonies," Remus said. "Aren't you going to come and join in?"

Daniel gave the adjoining door to Snape's potions room a knowing look. He'd been doing his best to avoid this particular Hogwarts ceremony, and discussions of it, for the entirety of the summer. Snape had been constantly harping about it ever since the last exam had been written, insisting over and over that Daniel was a shoe in to be a part of the Slytherin house, while Remus and Sirius warned him that he'd damned well better not end up in Gryffndor. Dumbledore suggested Ravenclaw because of the literary connection, and this just about set Snape into a frenzy of hysterical, foot stamping tantrums. Daniel had made the huge mistake of mentioning Hufflepuff, to which everyone just groaned and asked him if *he* thought he was accountant material?

According to Snape, the only acceptable outcome to this entire little game of theirs was that Daniel become a part of the Slytherin house, the importance of which Daniel still couldn't grasp. Why they had to be divided at all was a sense of oddness to him, especially since his own years of college had sneered at these sorts of sorority divisions, most of the students envisioning them as nothing more than leftover dinosaurs of the class system--and only inbred gits were the ones who actually cared.

"Look, Remus," Daniel began, "I'm really not sure..."

He was interrupted by a very familiar voice choking insults in his direction, the words 'lazy, stupid, irresponsible, he KNOWS how much this is important to me!, bastard' careening into his classroom along with a very clipped and furious set of footsteps. Snape bolted in, shoving Remus aside as he marched towards Daniel. "Get the hell into the main hall!" he shouted at him.

"I'm a little busy here, Snape," Daniel said, shuffling some more of the books on his desk. He opened a notebook and pretended to read it. "Thanks to you and your love of book burning, I have to recalibrate my lecture references."

"I thought he got rid of that book in July," Remus said, and Daniel rolled his eyes at him.

"You are not getting out of this, Daniel," Snape said, furious.

"I certainly think I can," Daniel replied, and he wasn't exactly happy either. "If I had to pass up free concert tickets to see Hole, you can pass up me putting on a moldy old talking hat."

"You aren't still mad about that!" Snape exclaimed.

"You felt sitting in a bog catching something called glowing pus ant phlegm was more important than a free Hole concert in London, with might I add a backstage opportunity to meet Courtney Love *in person*. Therefore, right now I feel making notes about descriptions of someone skinning alive another human being with a blunt penknife is far more important than your talking hat."

He made a great show of looking as though he was truly busy, but Snape pulled Daniel by the ear to standing, and even Remus was shocked at how much a full grown man could shriek like a little girl. Snape marched Daniel out of his classroom, and down the hall, and it wasn't until they were a good few feet away from it that Daniel finally managed to wrench his ear free from Snape's painful, vice-like grip. The cartilage was now a brilliant scarlet and Daniel rubbed at it, doing his best to massage away the last remnants of stinging pain.

"I'll get you back for that," Daniel promised.

"March!" Snape ordered him.

"I don't know what you're afraid of," Remus said to Daniel. "Everyone gets sorted, it's no big deal."

"Maybe I just don't like being categorized," Daniel answered, but that wasn't the real reason at all.

***

The main hall was filled to capacity with new and older students, the huge overhanging 'open' ceiling twinkling with a myriad of stars. The usual resident ghosts were making their rounds and introducing themselves. Nearly Headless Nick paused in front of Daniel and pulled his head partially off in greeting. "So good to see you here," he said, and then in sotto voice so Snape couldn't hear him: "Professor Snape was in quite a state earlier. If you aren't careful you'll be waking up one morning with the predicament I found *myself* in." He pulled on his head, and then pointed at the thin tendril keeping it attached. "It's a bloody nuisance, this. You can't get into all the good clubs if you're only 'nearly' headless, you know how it is."

"What if the back of your skull is bashed in?" Daniel asked. He was looking at Nearly Headless Nick's ancient injury with forensic curiosity."I see a bit of damage near the left ear here, a good blunt force trauma that might have been partly to blame for doing you in. There has to be something for you in that department at least."

"Good question!" Nearly Headless Nick replied. "I imagine you can hang about in the Murdered Menagerie--Very upscale establishment, mostly royalty and they have very strict guidelines as to who can attend--Pretty much all of the members were victims of crimes of passion." Nearly Headless Nick looked a tad bitter at this thought. "*Those* old bitties turned me away as well. Said my death wasn't 'romantic' enough. I don't know why I bother with any of them."

He was thankfully distracted by a call from the podium from Dumbledore, who with the aid of his walking stick approached the lecturn. The old Headmaster smiled at the gathering of new and old students, his eyes twinkling with mischief beneath bushy white brows. "Welcome, to another year, and to some of you your first year," he winked at the youngest crowd, "of your career at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry. As those of you who are veterans here now know, last year we acquired a new addition to the Hogwarts faculty--English Professor Deschamps. Some of you may also know that he has not yet been sorted into a proper house, an oversight which our potions master, Professor Snape, has made clear to me must be taken care of."

Daniel flashed Snape a murderous glare.

"Thus, the sorting of students is not an exclusionary phenomenon--Those of you who were brave enough to come up here and be counted amongst those who are to be your peers can perhaps give Professor Deschamps a bit more encouragement--especially considering he has been so reluctant to be a part of this ceremony that he made sure he missed most of it..."

Daniel tried to turn around and leave at this, but both Snape and Remus pushed him towards the podium, and nearly toppled him onto the hat itself. A few kids in the front row giggled at this, and Daniel shot them a blood curdling, interrogative stare.

"Now, Professor Deschamps, I really don't know what you are afraid of," Dumbledore said, and smiled mischievously.

Daniel glared down at the first row of all four Houses, scruffy, innocent ten year olds looking back at him quizzically.

"Head lice," he said.

Snape was the one who grabbed the hat and shoved it on Daniel's head, though if one was astute enough they'd have seen that the hat itself wasn't all that keen to be there. It pulled against the effort like a reluctant tide, only to finally settle onto the brown haired target. The brim went past Daniel's eyes and the disembodied voice Daniel had been told about finally sauntered through his mind. The sensation was most disconcerting--like having surgery while awake and feeling the instruments moving about one's organs, and this organ happened to be grey and mushy and full of odd pieces of unhealthy pondering.

//I'm not so sure I like what I'm seeing// the hat said, at long length. //Hmmm...Most disturbing...//

"Oh shut up and get it over with so Sev will leave me the hell alone," Daniel snarled.

The hat coughed, and then, in a loud declaration shouted: "Yesterday, upon the stair...I saw a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. Dear God, I wish he'd go away!"

With that, the hat leapt off of Daniel's head, and then gave him a good, painful smack at his forehead before sailing off in a huff to rest back on its perch. The entire school was pindrop silent, and even Nearly Headless Nick was staring at Daniel as though it had just been discovered he had four extra heads growing out of his knees.

"How extraordinary," Dumbledore said, and stroked his white beard. "The sorting hat doesn't seem to think you should be in *any* of the houses. I hadn't expected that." Snape was looking a lot more pale at this phenomenon than most, although if one took a good look around at the older students there was nothing short of a sigh of relief rippling throughout the hall.

"In any event, we do have some matters to discuss before we finish with the festivities this evening," Dumbledore continued, and Daniel happily left the stage to stand beside Nearly Headless Nick. "As a special bonus this year, the seventh year students are being treated with an extra-curricular outing to the Upper Hebrides for an entire week of..." He paused for effect, and the school leaned forward to hear the announcement. "Roughing it!" There was an excited murmur echoing through the hall and Dumbledore smiled into its confusion. "That's right, we're going camping for an entire week! Much of the equipment you need has already been kindly provided for by the ghost members of The Headless Hunt--though please be warned that some of the tents may be a little worse for wear, since they were used during times of war and many have bayonet holes and one or two possible skeletons in some of the older canvas bags..."

"Of course *they* had to go and make a show of things, just to spite me," Nearly Headless Nick complained at Daniel's side.

"...so, if your parents have access, please ask them for any further supplies you may need. You will, of course, be given a list."

"I can't believe you didn't get sorted into a house," Snape hissed at Daniel's ear, as though the entire problem had been *his* fault and not the whim of a crazy talking hat. "That has never happened in all the history of Hogwarts!"

"I'm really looking forward to this camping trip," Remus said, and he was smiling and genuinely eager at the announcement, the concept of Daniel and his hat disability neatly placed out of his thought's reach since such a thing was far too disturbing to contemplate. In the doorway of the hall entrance, a large black dog was watching the proceedings, and every time it looked at Daniel, it flattened its ears, and growled.

"What the devil did you say to the hat?" Snape grilled into Daniel's ear. "Did you insult it? I'm sure you did, as if that 'lice' quip of yours wasn't bad enough!"

"Bastards," Nearly Headless Nick was muttering. "I'll bet some of those bones are mine, too."

"I'm looking forward to roasted marshmallows," Remus said.

"I'm going to tell Dumbledore to put you in Slytherin anyway."

"If there's just one item of mine in any of those bags, there'll be some heads rolling, I can guarantee you that!"

"I hope it doesn't rain, although foggy days would be useful. Especially when you go fishing."

Daniel didn't respond to any of the inane clammer going on around him. He leaned against the stone wall on the opposing side of the Slytherin table, and sighed miserably. He caught the eye of that blond snit he knew as Harry Potter (but who was, in actuality, Draco Malfoy) and was quite surprised to see the brat had grown another inch or more over the summer, and was wearing...Just what the hell was he wearing? Daniel squinted and made out the fact that underneath those green robes the kid had on a pair of beige sparkled jeans with peace signs sewn onto it in patches.

No doubt about it at all. This was going to be one hell of a year.

"I hate camping," Daniel Deschamps said, but no one heard him.