The Azkaban Hot Tub Tales By Miranda Aurelia
I don't know what the heck happened but Draco and Ginny have a tendency to hijack my stories. Like this one, I
totally intended for it to be mainly H/Hr, but now it's almost all D/G interaction with barely any H/Hr and I just
lost track of the plot AGAIN.
Sigh. I suppose it could be worse. I could have accidently kicked Voldemort down a large hole before I remembered that
I needed him for the evil plot...
As usual, Harry Potter is not mine.
Chapter 3: Not Overreacting
At that moment, Draco's eagle chose to make its entrance and dropped a letter down into Ginny's lap (seeing as Draco was still too busy celebrating his rediscovered evilness).
"Hey, gimme that." Draco snatched the letter from Ginny's hand.
She watched as the grin slowly faded from his face. "What is it?"
"Voldie's going to attack Hogsmeade next week and kidnap your brother and Granger as bait to lure Potter to Azkaban," he said quietly, "But that's not the worse of it."
"What is it then?"
"There's another spy inside Hogswarts. My cousin's here."
"Your cousin?" Ginny looked confused. "You never mentioned anything about having a cousin."
"Well, it's more like second or third, but he's still a Malfoy. He also has a polyjuice fetish." Draco raked a finger through his hair, "Well, this complicates things."
"Why should it? All we have to do is prevent Ron and them from going to Hogsmeade next week." Ginny said reasonably.
"It's not that easy! It's never that easy! My cousin's here to make sure of that, no doubt."
"But I thought your father was pretty high up in the Death Eater hierarchy."
"He is. That doesn't mean he doesn't know when a relative is trying to stab him in the back."
"So who is this cousin of yours anyways?"
"Duke."
"Your cousin's a duke?"
"No, his name is Duke." Draco corrected, "And before you get any ideas, I'm still richer, smarter and sexier than he is. Taller too."
"Right…" Ginny gave him a disbelieving look.
"Sheesh, this attitude from the woman who's having my children."
"How many times do we have to go over this?! I'm not having your kids!"
"Yet."
"Whatever. So this Duke guy, how come you didn't know he was here?"
"He's probably here under an assumed name. His family likes to think that they're so great at the false identity stuff."
"Great. Now what do we do?"
"What can we do?"
"Tell Harry?"
"I'm supposed to be evil, remember? It'll totally ruin my rep."
"Oh shut up Draco. Everyone knows that you and Harry haven't had a single real fight since fifth year."
"What do you mean EVERYONE?"
"Okay, fine," Ginny reluctantly conceded, "I know, you know, Harry knows and probably Hermione knows. Professor Dumbledore may know. Ron knows but I think he's still in denial…"
"My publicist is going to have to do major, major damage control."
"Just tell him."
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Later that afternoon, Harry received a detention from Professor Snape for "breathing too loudly".
As Harry arrived for his detention that evening, he was surprised to see that the classroom was completely empty. Where the heck was Snape?
"I'm overseeing your detention Potter," drawled a familiar voice.
"I should have know," Harry said darkly.
"Well, you got a better idea?" Draco snapped, "You have no idea what's going to happen to my rep if I ever got caught having a civil conversation with you."
"Right." Now Harry looked a bit irritated, "So what's so important that you had to land me in detention?"
"Voldie going's to attack Hogsmeade next week, take your girlfriend and the Weasel and use them as bait. Savvy?"
"Oh," Harry looked uninterested, "That's nice. So what else is new?"
Draco just gave him a long look.
"Oh right," Harry sighed, "Let me try that again." He took a deep breath, "WHAT?!"
Then he started waving his hands around and muttering. "Okay, that's it, Hermione's not going anywhere without twenty house-elves around her, even if I have to dock their pay myself."
"For the love of-" Draco smacked a hand against his forehead, "Calm down, Potter! It's not that bad!"
"Not that bad?! Voldemort's after my best friend and the mother of my children and you're telling me it's not that bad?"
"Don't tell me Granger's expecting already," Draco's expression darkened, "Because that would make me very mad."
"Of course not!" Now Harry just looked at him curiously, "I never knew you had a thing for Hermione."
"I don't!" Draco turned his eyes heavenward before he gritted out, "I merely bet that it would take another two years before any little Potters were running about. If I lose thirty galleons because you and Granger can't keep your hands off each other before the end of next year, I will be very pissed off."
"People are betting on when Hermione's having our first child?" asked Harry incredulously.
"Well, yeah. What do you think we do in our spare time? C'mon," Draco scoffed, "There's only so many times one can pull the legs off of spiders and whatnot before it gets boring."
"Is there a bet going on with Ron and Luna?" asked Harry, a glint entering his eyes.
"Duh. How much do you want to bet?" Draco took out a little black book from his pocket and opened it.
"By the way, Potter," Draco looked at Harry meaningfully, "I'll give you twenty percent if you and
Granger make it two years."
"No."
"Thirty"
"No."
"Why the hell not?"
"I can't believe you are encouraging me to reproduce."
"Well, actually, it's Granger doing the reproducing," said Draco dryly.
"Shouldn't you be trying to convince her then?"
"Hey," Now Draco looked annoyed, "Am I her boyfriend or are you?"
"Oh...right."
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Meanwhile, Lucius was trying to figure out the best way to cut his losses without arousing suspicion. He knew that
sneaky cousin of his was slinking around doing damage. He also figured that Voldemort was beyond hope by now. The old
boy was getting more and more irrational as the days went by.
"I wouldn't think too hard if I were you, cousin. People might think that you're up to no good." Earl Malfoy gave a laugh at his own joke. However, Lucius failed to see what was so funny about that.
"Bugger off Earl."
"That's the best you can come up with?"
"Well," Lucius' mouth curved into a evil grin, "I have been working on perfecting the Cruciatus curse…want me to demonstrate?"
"No," Earl leaned closer, "But I'd be more careful if I were you." He said in a low voice, "Pretty soon you and that brat of yours are going to find out that the Malfoy dynasty's going to be continued down a more worthy branch of the family."
"I'm positively shaking here."
"As you should be."
"From laughter, old boy." Suddenly Lucius smirked, "Which reminds me, Draco was just asking me the other day; if Voldemort made you an Earl, would you be Earl Earl then?"
"The two of you always had a very, unusual, sense of humour." Earl spat out the word 'unusual' as though it were something distasteful, "Must be all that inbreeding."
"No, sorry," Lucius said cheerfully, "I'm pretty sure all inbreeding occurred on your side of the family. Well, I guess that explains the hair, and the nose, and the eyes…oh and yes, that lovely personality."
He was almost amused to see a muscle twitching just above Earl's left eyebrow.
"Besides," Lucius added softly with a dangerous edge to his tone, "The last time we had a duel, don't forget who won that match."
"Battles and wars, cousin," Earl finally said evenly before he left with a swoosh of his robes.
He failed to notice Lucius give an indiscreet wave of his wand. However, the latter was satisfied to see his cousin's blond hair turn a lovely shade of neon pink.
Sure, Malfoy's were above these types of things, but hey, reconnecting with one's inner child did wonders for one's health.
Lucius rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Maybe he could persuade Narcissa to send a stuffed pig (booby-trapped of course) as a kind of peace offering later on.
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Meanwhile, Duke had sneaked back into the Slytherin dungeons and was currently searching through his cousin's sock drawer for some blackmail material. It was intensely puzzling that so far, all he had found was….socks. Surely all evil-mastermind wannabes hid their plans for world destruction in their sock drawer!! He had already been through the bottom of Draco's closet as well as under the bed.
After all, those were the least obvious places, weren't they? Well, in the Ravenclaw dorms, that was usually where the playwizard magazines could be found, but since he had a feeling that Draco was gay, that had to be where the secret plans were! That or his correspondence with Lucius - which his father had stressed were to be his first priority on this little scavenger hunt.
Wait! Maybe Draco was smarter than he gave him credit for! In that case, it would be in the most OBVIOUS place! So that would be…
Duke looked around. No paintings meant no secret safe behind it. Ah yes! It would be inside the top drawer of his desk!
Pleased with that logic and his smartness, Duke crossed over to the wooden desk, but as his hand closed around the handle of the drawer, he heard some footsteps from outside the door.
Quickly, he dived under the bed just as Draco entered into the room. From his position, he could see a pair of polished black shoes moving about.
Duke silently whispered an incantation and he almost laughed out loud as Draco stumbled over the paperweight he had magically placed in his path.
Swearing, Draco glared at the offensive item and kicked it under the bed.
Now Duke had to bite his tongue to avoid yelling as the paperweight connected directly with his face. "Bloody hell," he thought as he pressed a hand to his throbbing nose.
"Did you find it yet?" a girlish voice asked. All pain was momentarily forgotten as another pair of shoes entered into room.
"I thought I told you to wait for me outside!" Duke was surprised to hear the irritation in Draco's voice. The girl sounded familiar though…and he struggled to figure out who it was. Pansy? No, she was more high-pitched. Millicent? Nope, Millicent sounded like a guy.
"Wait a second. How did you get in here?" Draco glared at the redhead in front of him, "I didn't even see you!"
Ginny just grinned cheekily as she held up the invisibility cloak she had "borrowed" from him two weeks earlier.
"I was wondering where that was," muttered Draco, "Couldn't you have jacked Potter's
instead?"
"Well, where's the fun in that?"
Draco merely gave a long suffering sigh, but he abruptly straightened as he noticed something…strange.
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And the plot thickens...somewhat.
Review, please? =D