A/N: Think we've been gone for a long time? Take a Closer Look at this chapter and you'll see that we've been here all along…
Chapter 24! Hollar.
Harry rolled over and clutched his eye. Feeling something squishy and wet, he suddenly screamed, "Ron! Ron! Help me! Look at my eye! Look AT IT!"
Ron slowly got up and screeched abruptly, "OMYGAHD! You have pink eye!" Ron reached into his pajama pocket and pulled out an eye patch, "Here, Harry. Wear this!" With a bright smile he threw it at a questioning Harry.
"…Thanks?"
Making their way down to the common room, they spotted Hermione. When she saw Harry she let out a gruff, "Argh," holding up a hooked finger.
"Shut up, Hermione," Harry whined.
"What's wrong with your eye, Harry?" she asked, still giggling about her pirate joke.
"I have pink eye!" The boy screamed, lifting his eye patch to expose his oozing and swelling eyeball. The entire common room stopped in their tracks and stared at the disgusting pink glob protruding from Harry's eye socket.
A cricket chirped.
Someone vomited.
Hermione then rushed Harry to the hospital wing as a screaming Ron trailed after them.
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Meanwhile, Draco was hurriedly getting dressed in his dormitory, deciding he would skip his day of classes and shop for Ginny's Valentine's Day present. As horrifying as his nightmare had been, he was thankful that dream-Blaise had reminded him to get the gift. The stupid holiday was, after all, in less than a week. What he would get her, he had no idea. But something was better than nothing.
After heading through the tunnel under the school to Honeydukes, Draco began looking at different types of candy in hopes he could find one suitable for Valentine's Day. He was about to give up and leave the store, when suddenly something next to the door on his way out caught his eye.
"Cockroach clusters!" he yelled happily. "I love these! They're perfect for Valentine's Day, for sure."
After buying fourteen bags (for February 14th, duh) of the disgusting candy, Draco happily left the shop, feeling as if he were making progress.
He searched the whole of Hogsmeade and couldn't seem to find the perfect gift. Nothing was special enough for Ginny. And nothing he saw could beat Blaise's gift. How his dim-witted friend had managed that stroke of genius, Draco could not fathom. He guessed that even Blaise could have moments of brilliance.
He was about to leave the town when something shiny sitting in a shop window caught his eye. A closer look said it was the most dazzling antique diamond ring he's ever seen.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" Draco asked, disgustedly. He was taken aback by the close proximity of the strange, homeless man.
"Oh, me? Well, I just happen to be `Closer Look.' It's a pleasure to meet you, child!"
"It's a pleasure to get away from you!" Draco ran quickly into the antique shop, frantically closing the door behind him.
He stopped a moment to catch his breath and turned around to look through the door's window. As he held his hands on either side of the circular window with deranged fear evident on his face, "Closer Look" stared hopelessly back at him. Draco reminded himself why he had come to the shop.
"The perfect gift," he whispered to the man.
"I just want to understand you…" the man mouthed back at him. But Draco didn't seem to care.
He grabbed the gift and gently set it upon the counter to pay for it.
"Can I help you, son?" an old man who looked curiously similar to the hobo outside asked him from behind the counter.
"Yes, I would like to buy this for my girlfriend," Draco replied.
The shopkeeper narrowed his eyes. "This is very old, are you sure-" he began in an unusual tone of voice.
"Yes, I'm absolutely sure, and I have the money," Draco snorted, "Don't bother thinking I can't afford it!"
The old man was taken aback, but complied. Draco left the store.
The man jumped at Draco, crying eagerly, "I just want to understand you!"
Draco, disgusted, kicked the poor old homeless man to the curb where he crumpled helplessly and stalked off to Hogwarts.
Harry suddenly emerged from a bush nearby holding a basket full of mushrooms. Nearly tripping on the old man, he knelt down and lay beside him.
Harry handed him a mushroom, "A gift from me to you, `Closer Look.'"
Closer Look looked at him lovingly and smiled wearily, "Thank you, Harold."
They both slept soundlessly upon the mushrooms when Closer Look suddenly started, "Aren't you supposed to be in Potions, child?"
"Oh, you know how Snape can be… I chose not to go…"
"Yes," Closer Look nodded, "A father does know his own son."
"Snape is your son?" Harry yelled with a start.
"Alas, I have no children," the man replied solemnly. "Go to sleep now, child," he mumbled as sleep overtook him.
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After the typical tutoring session, Draco searched his mind for a private place to wrap the perfect gift. He never considered the fact that it'd only take one whole second to wrap it with a spell, but besides this he didn't seem to realize that his own room was password protected, the rest of the school was confined to their beds, or that all of the towers were completely deserted.
"The Forbidden Forest!" Draco whispered aloud to himself.
He grabbed the shopping bag and his wand before setting off into the night. He wasn't caught sneaking out, but that didn't surprise him in the least. Filch and his ridiculous cat were always looking far too closely into corners and back hallways to notice a student strolling through the Great Hall and out the front doors of the castle.
When he found the perfect place to wrap the perfect gift, Draco placed everything gently upon the moss-infested ground. Carefully removing the perfect gift from its shopping bag, he lifted it high into the sky.
He stared lovingly at it and smiled, "You're so beautiful!" As he raised it into the sky, higher and higher, suddenly the sun (although it was night) broke through the trees and cast a ray of light upon the bucket of hair gel. Draco guessed that through all of the dust, the aged miracle was shiny and glittery.
At that moment, a great snake fell straight down from the heavens and landed right in front of Draco's feet. Blinking in utter surprise, Draco's jaw nearly dropped when the face from his nightmares appeared from the open mouth of the snake. Voldemort was inside Nagini as one would be inside of a sleeping bag.
As his upper body emerged from the snake's mouth, he stretched and yawned as if waking up from a long night's sleep. He then propped himself on his elbows, rested his chin in his open palms and blinked blearily up at Draco.
Draco dropped the hair gel and scurried backward on his hands and feet like a crab until a tree trunk stopped him from going any further.
"My-my Lord?" Draco stuttered in disbelief.
"Haven't I told you a million times before, Drakie-poo? Call me Uncle Dark Lord! Anyway, what brings you here in this fine part of the woods where the sun shines only at night?" You-Know-Who replied, giggling.
"The perfect gift," Draco whispered.
"For me and Nagini? You shouldn't have! How did you know it was our 20th anniversary? Or was it our 200th? Oh, well. Give or take a few… Was it your father who told you?" Voldemort's sickening smile turned to a frown when he saw the bucket of hair gel.
"Draco, you know that neither Nagini nor myself can use this concoction, as we are both obviously hairless." He seemed disappointed. "Don't make me kill you."
"That's not for you, my Lord-" Draco started.
"Uncle Dark Lord!"
"Alright, Uncle… It's for my girlfriend," Draco said slowly.
"Aged hair gel?" The Dark Lord sneered, "Don't you realize that the cause of my baldness is using said remedies? Yes, once upon a day, I myself had lustrous and luscious locks of hair like you and you father. I didn't know everything in those days, like I do presently, and I must now pay the price for my most disastrous mistake. Thankfully, Nagini still loves me," Lord Voldemort said with a smug look at the snake he was lying inside of.
Rendered speechless by both fear and disbelief, Draco found it hard to look away from the odd and chilling sight.
"Nevertheless Draco, I'm pleased to have found you here on my midnight falls through the forest. Why haven't you been returning my dream calls?" he asked angrily.
"Pardon?" Draco choked out, having a hard time finding his voice.
"It is time, Draco... Time to follow in the footsteps of your father and join me."
"Well, my-I mean, Uncle Dark Lord-school takes up a lot of my time… You know, the extensive exams that never seem to end… I'm sure you'd like me to join you when I can fully devote myself to the cause without the interruption of these said exams?" Draco blabbered on with a hint of pleading in his voice.
"You are of age, Draco, and schooling has never been less important. Anything you need to learn can be learned from me, or my people who will teach you when I am too busy. Nevertheless, I shall give you seven minutes to think about it." The Dark Lord then retreated back into Nagini, who closed her mouth and curled up for a quick nap.
Draco was unsure of what to do when instantaneously Harry Potter skipped out of the mist swinging his basket full of mushrooms of all sizes. Seeing Draco, he immediately stopped skipping and began stomping towards him, not knowing that the snake was there until he had trodden all over it. It was surely dead.
Harry let out a small "Oh!" of surprise as he looked down at the ground. The horrible mess of blood and guts beneath his football cleats oozed across the forest floor.
"You've killed The D-" Draco began, "My-my pet snake! You've killed my pet snake, Potter!"
"Your pet snake?" Harry asked nervously, shuffling his sticky feet.
"Yes, that was my snake, Ginny."
"You have a pet snake?" Harry asked.
"Had," corrected Draco.
"You named it `Ginny?'"
"Is that a problem, Potter?"
"What are you, V-Voldemort-in-training?! Naming your snake after your girlfriend?" Harry burst out.
"What could you possibly be on about this time, Potter?!"
"Didn't you know that the only reason why Voldemort turned evil was because he's a heartbroken fool?!" Harry shuffled toward a nearby stone column and embraced it, sniffing sadly, "His girlfriend dumped him for a midget in glasses and he thought to turn to The Dark Arts to replace her with a pet snake which he named after her! How tragic is that?" By now, Harry was crying so hard that he had to swim very hard to fight the current. Draco looked on disgustedly.
"He was so deeply in love that to this day, one million centuries, ten years, five months, three days, one hour, fifty five minutes, and six seconds…seven seconds…eight seconds later, he is convinced that the snake is his reincarnated girlfriend!" Harry crumpled to the floor, unable to fight the rush of his own tears any longer, and began to drown.
Draco looked down at the bloody, goo-drenched floor, "Well, she's not anymore…"
"What was that?" Harry glanced up, his face tearstained…cupcakes.
"Don't worry your nasty little head. You're right, it all makes sense. Now get out of here so I can mourn the death of my…Bride." Draco said darkly.
Frightened, Harry ran out of the Forbidden Forest, taking with him his portable stone column and inflatable swimming pool, appropriate objects for story telling.
Draco snickered at how easily The Dark Lord was actually defeated, was this really what all the fuss was about? He then flicked his wand at the bucket of hair gel, intricately wrapping it with the most beautiful papers and ribbons he could think of, held it in his arms, and curled up on a nearby tree stump to fall asleep.
Suddenly a figure popped into the clearing. Lowering his hood, Voldemort sighed with relief, "Whoa, good thing I made six or seven of me! Ew, what a sticky ground under my bare feet!"
Looking down, he screamed, "Nagini!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" He Who Must Not Be Named screamed with clenched fists towards the sky as a single tear drop fell and simmered upon his fallen girlfriend's remains.
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