Wild Dancing Underpants?

Ron was, of course, knocked over the head by a shovel, falling unconscious on the ground...

***

Draco and Ginny had found themselves a useful little office, seemingly unused.

"This place is far better than the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office," Draco had said when they had stumbled upon it.

Draco shrugged, also watching the door handle with interest.

"Maybe we should hide," Ginny suggested, though she made no move to hide.

"I don't really want to," Draco said, crossing his arms over his chest. "If we hid, we'd accidentally eavesdrop on somebody's private conversation, or well, private time, if you get my meaning, and perhaps hear, or see, something we don't want to. Or maybe it'll be some important top secret information that we'll come across, and then we'd be no better than that Gossip Union."

"I thought you were in Slytherin," Ginny said, "aren't you supposed to go around black mailing people?"

"You learn after time that black mail isn't the best revenge," Draco said softly. "In fact, it's no revenge at all, but revenge itself is the sweetest revenge."

"You lost me after the second revenge," Ginny said (and I think he lost the rest of us as well).

By this time, the door handle had come to a complete pause, waiting for Draco and Ginny to hide, and so given no choice but to hide, they ducked under the desk, into a very tight, cramped area mind you.

Finally, somebody entered the room through the door.

***

Blaise and Tristan (after cleaning Tristan up) searched for Ron Weasley, who had gone missing. They had decided to start their search in the kitchen, but all they found there was an unhappy house-elf with its rear end on fire as a punishment for losing his masters.

"I is glad to sees you, Miss Blaise Zabini," he whined as Blaise and Tristan entered the hen. "I did be scarded that I has loses my masters. I do be finding one at now."

"But don't stop punishing yourself just for me, Hankydankypanky," Blaise said, "I'm just looking for someone. He has red hair and freckles, have you seen him?"

"I is punishing ourselves," Hankydankypanky said, running to the oven, "for not being seeing the red hair and freckles." He proceeded to stick his foot in the oven, jamming it beneath the lower grate. "I is burneding!"

"That's right," said Blaise, a satisfied smile on her face. "Now we'll be on our way and leave you to your 'burneding'. Have a nice day Hankydankypanky."

Tristan and Blaise then continued off, down the corridor, up the stairs, down another corridor, down a staircase, through a door, up a different staircase, across a long, winding corridor, downstairs, through several secret passages, and finally through yet another door, finding nothing but a baby mountain troll asleep in a cage, a few loose pixies, a jarvey covered with scorch marks, and a mummy, doing something we'd rather not discuss...

"I wonder where Ron could be," Blaise wondered aloud as they climbed down the ladder leading into the torture chamber under the ballroom floor.

"Who's Ron?" Tristan questioned.

"The fella we're looking for," Blaise replied, stumbling upon something unknown. "What's this?"

As Tristan joined Blaise on the torture chamber floor, they knelt down over what Blaise had tripped over. Blaise, being the more clever of the two, pulled out her wand, muttering "Lumos" and providing them with light.

As it turns out, Blaise had tripped over a head, still attached to a body. But the head was not dead, nor was the body; it was just sleeping. But whose body was this?

"Who is this?" Blaise wondered aloud, but of course, Tristan was no help.

"You're the one who lives here," Tristan said, kicking the sleeping body on the floor for no apparent reason whatsoever.

By the way, to those of you that are not a) Blaise Zabini b) Tristan Zabini c) the owner of the sleeping body or d) me, you will want to know that the person asleep on the floor (yes, we're quite certain it was a human being, at least partially) was a woman with brightly flushed pink cheeks and blonde (though it was most-likely fake) hair.

"This is odd," Blaise said as the sleeping woman with blonde hair stirred so that she wasn't quite so asleequot;I don't think I've ever found someone alive in the torture chamber before."

The person on the floor sat up, rubbing her eyes with rather pudgy fists. "Where am I?" she murmured groggily.

"You are on earth," Tristan replied, speaking very, very slow. "We are earthlings. From where do you come?"

The woman made a questioning sound, looking rather confused.

"I don't think that's necessary," Blaise muttered to Tristan.

"That's right," said Tristan, sounding thoughtful, "it wouldn't speak English, or any other earth language, would it?"

"No, I think it's a person," Blaise said knowingly, "a human being, you know?"

"No, I don't think it is," Tristan said.

The woman sitting on the floor looked at Tristan with a frightened expression.

"I am Tristan Zabini," Tristan continued, speaking extremely slowly again.

The woman on the ground looked at Blaise now, as though too scared to look at Tristan (who by the way still wore a helmet on his head, so we see how this can be frightening...).

"Honestly Tristan, stop being an idiot," Blaise snapped, ready to slap her cousin, but it wouldn't do much as he was wearing a helmet that covered his face.

"I'll have you know," Tristan said importantly, holding up a finger with an air of superiority.

Blaise raised an eyebrow, eyeing Tristan for a few moments, expecting him to finish his sentence, but of course, he did not.

"Who are you people?" the woman on the ground murmured.

"It talks!" Tristan cried excitedly. "It talks, Blaise, it talks!&quo/p>

Blaise once again fought down the urge to slap her cousin. "It is a woman," Blaise said very slowly so that even somebody with an intelligence level as low as Tristan's could comprehend. "She is not some other life-form from some other planet; she is a woman. A female human being. And by the way, it talked before as well."

There was a long, awkward silence for no real reason, just that nobody had anything to add or comment to this. Blaise looked at Tristan in the helmet, the woman on the ground looked down at her hands, and well, nobody really knows where Tristan was looking.

The pause, however, was, to Blaise's relief, broken by a mind-piercing scream, a cry of agony, an indication of terror, a deathly shrie

The woman on the ground made a terrified face, looking as though Tristan had just plunged a knife into her eyeball, rather grotesque to imagine indeed.

"Well, I think somebody just died," Blaise said, relief seeping through her blood, "I'd better go and, er, clean it up or something. You can just wait here." And with that she fled up the ladder, through the trapdoor, and out of the ballroom.

"Wait!" the blonde lady with pink complexion cried out, looking up the ladder. "Take me with you! Don't leave me here with- with... with this!"

"With what?" Tristan asked, kneeling down beside the woman. "Is there something else down here with us?"

Frightened almost to her death (though I think she'd rather be dead, if you understand), the woman backed away, sliding along the ground on her bottom.

Tristan spun around, startled. "Is there something behind me?!" he cried, frightened that the woman was backing away from some horrifying creature creeping up on him. No, it couldn't be the underpants, could it? How could they possibly be in two places at once? Unless... Can underpants have siblings?

No, there was nothing behind Tristan, or at least nothing the woman on the ground could see. The fact of the matter is there was something horrifying behind Tristan, something unspeakable. All right, so it wasn't exactly unspeakable, but it sure as hell was disgusting and unpleasant... Yes, a floating ahem...

The stench of the floating something disgusting hadn't reached Tristan's nose as he wore a heavy helmet over his head, but the thing inched nearer and nearer until practically sitting on Tristan's head. And it was then that the young Zabini turned his head, hit right in the helmet with something quite unpleasant, yes, the same unpleasant object that was floating in the air...

And this unpleasant thing was smothered and gone, just like that, leaving behind only a memory, though a stinky memory it was.

"What was that?" Tristan squealed, flying up the ladder out of the torture chamer and into the ballroom, leaving the blonde haired lady by herself, or so it would seem.

***

Sirius Black and Lucius Malfoy stood in the corridor outside Amos Diggory's office. Narcissa had drifted off to some other part of the building and Harry Potter had joined in the festivities within the office (in other words, he had joined the riot). Lucius had closed the door on the mad controversy, annoyed by the yelling, screaming, and violence.

&q;We'll let them argue it out among themselves," he said to Sirius.

"What about Harry?" Sirius asked. "I can't just let him stay in there."

"He's the great Harry Potter," Lucius said with the usual amount of sarcasm he had when he spoke this phrase, "he'll sort it out without you."

"You're always making me sound so damn useless," Sirius said, "I'm the boy's godfather for crying out loud."

"That's nice."

"I mean, I'm supposed to be there for him the way you're there for your son," Sirius continued.

"How lovely."

"I know you don't care for your son," Sirius said, hoping to catch Lucius' attention, "but some people have hearts. And I don't want to have to- is that Hermione Granger running towards us?"

>

"What's that Mudblood doing here?"

"Don't call her that disgusting name."

"It's what she is..."

Hermione screamed, looking back at the underpants behind her, now prancing in wide strides. "Help me!" she shrieked.

"Why, it's a pair of underpants," Lucius said, slightly confused. "Are those the same...?"

"I think so..."

"Help me!" Hermione cried. "They're after me!"

The underpants, for some unknown reason, slowed as they neared an open door, and then, as though curiously, seemed to tip-toe, if they had toes, into the room with the open door.

At this time, Hermione tripped over her own feet, collapsing in a pile of limbs at Lucius' feet.

"Get up you filthy Mudblood," Lucius snapped.

"I'm seriously warning you now Lucius," Sirius said, glaring at the other man. "If you use that term once more while referring to a friend of mine or Harry's, I'm going to have to hurt you."

"What if I call you a Mudblood?" Lucius asked curiously.

Without a second's hesitation, Sirius charged at Lucius, knocking the other to the ground in a fury of flying fists.

Amidst it all, Hermione watched thunderstruck. "No!" she cried, catching her voice. "Sirius, no!"

It was a battle of the strongest, but who would come out the victor? Sirius struck Lucius; Lucius struck Sirius, and so on and so forth. But why not use their wands? Something strange was definitely going on in wizarding London, even Lucius Malfoy had forgotten his proper pureblood ways, but what was it all about?

***

Neville Longbottom had somehow, in all the confusion and chaotic riot, ended up in alone and stranded in a dingy alleyway, apparently somewhere near the village of Hogsmeade. Back at the Ministry, nobody could explain Neville's disappearance, had they noticed it, but of course, everybody was so involved in their own problems that they all failed to notice the boy was missing. Even his plotting old granny had forgotten all about him.

"Is there anybody here?" Neville asked pointlessly.

The question was answered by pure silence. Yes, nsingle sound, not even the scurry of a rat... For now.

"Can anybody hear me?" Neville called out stupidly, knowing already that if no one was present to hear him, no one would hear him.

Suddenly, Neville was certain he saw something at the end of the alley. A tall, burly something. A tall, burly something in black robes, as far as Neville could see. Of course, Neville never could quite fight his cowardice and in a situation where anybody else would be curious, Neville was terrified. So terrified in fact, that he wet himself a little, unable to control his bladder.

The tall, burly something in black robes neared swiftly, a cloak swishing about its feet. It, in fact, was not a man, nor was it a woman, and it wasn't the er thing either. No, it was something else, something almost inhuman, and it sought out Neville Longbottom for very peculiar reason as Neville was almost quite useless as a wizard. Heck, he was so clumsy he made Muggle government officials look clever! And they wouldn't understand magic if it slapped them in the rear. No, Neville was definitely not the shiniest broom in Quality Quidditch Supplies. In fact, he was barely a Floating Moon -9000. So what would this tall, burly something in black robes want with Neville Longbottom?