Sweet Revenge

Chicken Transfer

When Harry had mentioned to Lucius that he wanted the Order to be shipped away from his room, he should have expected Lucius to take it a bit too literally. Now, standing in front of the miniature lake on the Slytherin Castle grounds, Harry was on the verge of tears as Lucius proudly presented a caravel that looked like it had been pulled out of a 16th century expedition. It was a bit too wide and too long for the little lake, which somehow managed to look burdened and tearful under the ship's weight.

          "I call it... The Speedy Pumpkin!" Lucius proclaimed.

Harry began to sob into Tom's shoulder.

          "And why, pray tell, should I accept that name?" Tom asked, slightly amused.

          "Well, because I engraved a pumpkin pasty on bowsprit."

Tom opened his mouth but was interrupted by Harry's loud wail of,

          "Why?!" 

Lucius, looking less sure of himself from all these questions, responded cautiously.

          "I missed some of Narcissa's pasties earlier...?"

Just then, Pansy rounded the corner and gave Lucius a strange look.

          "Too much information, Mr. Malfoy. Harry! I couldn't find you anywhere, so I asked Uncle Sev where to find you. Also, what is that?" She gave a start, suddenly realizing that the caravel's bow was right above her head.

           "That, right there, is Lucius's pumpkin," a voice on the far end of the lawn announced happily.

Pansy turned slowly and gave Sirius a serious look.

Sirius only smiled and began levitating the cage he had dragged out of Harry's room toward the ship.

          "Thanks, Sirius. I just couldn't bear to look at them anymore," Harry explained as Tom patted him on the back consolingly. 

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After (not so) securely attaching the cage to the middle of the upper deck, Sirius stepped back to admire his handiwork. Deeming it satisfactory, he walked to the starboard side of the ship and peered down at Harry and the others, who were huddled on the shore, covering their ears to protect their eardrums from Ginny Weasley, who had been squealing nonstop since she was levitated in the cage out of the castle. 

Seeing that none of them were paying attention to him, he shot sparks toward them and accidentally singed the back of Pansy's new robes (she would get him for that later, he knew).

Still, the tactic worked because just as Pansy let out a scream of rage, the others glanced up and saw Sirius frantically waving his hands at them. Confused, they waved back until Tom (who hadn't been waving) said flatly,

          "He wants our attention on the newest blip on Lucius's pumpkin."

Lucius covered his face in his hands as the others admired the extremely precarious way Sirius had nailed down the cage. 

Sirius had insisted on nailing the cube of a cage so that the line that was the intersection of two sides of the cube was the only thing nailed down. That way, when the ship moved, the cage would bounce from side to side but stay (hopefully) attached. And if it didn't stay attached...that would just be one extremely memorable experience for the people in the cage, given they still had a memory afterwards. 

Sirius thought maybe Molly Weasley, who was sitting closest to the edge on the cage, might be thrown out if the ship shook too hard. Ginny Weasley had finally stopped abusing her vocal chords and their ears.

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Lucius was the final member of the group to clamber onto the ship's deck to admire Sirius's wonky work. 

He did so with panache befitting of a Malfoy but, upon noticing that no once else had seen his beautiful display, he seemed to wilt like a depressed flower and made a face at Pansy's back. 

Pansy, like everyone else, was engaged in an intense staring contest with the people in the cage (minus Ginny Weasley, who was nursing her vocal chords). She took it very seriously, and Ron Weasley was shrinking under her fiery gaze. 

Alex Potter, still not quite sure what was going on and thereby living up to Pansy's diagnosis, was looking like he was getting thoroughly trounced by Harry. Harry was quite bad at the staring game (it was general knowledge, but Alex didn't seem to get it), but Tom was massaging his shoulders, so he was feeling particularly drowsy, and his eyes kept shutting. 

The only thing was that Alex Potter was somehow worse. It wasn't that he shut his eyes more often than Harry did (no one was keeping count), but he managed to seem completely overwhelmed even though he was doing nothing but sitting and blinking a lot. He also seemed to have convinced himself of the verity of this feeling he was projecting and was thus convinced that he was losing whatever it was that was happening. 

Tom, of course, noticed this and put a sort of filter on Alex's eyes so that every one of Harry's movements seemed more dramatic and awe-inspiring. He knew it had worked when Alex starting blinking himself into tears. Harry (who had been falling asleep from Tom's vigorous massage) awoke to find Alex bawling silently in front of him. It was deeply disturbing.

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Narcissa Malfoy was looking in vain for Lucius around the house. She had looked in the closet, under the dining room table, and even behind the curtains, but to no avail. Lucius was a Missing Mage! She sighed. Perhaps she should pull the fainting trick again. She opened the door the Lucius's study and listlessly trailed her fingers over the spines of the books in the cases on the walls. She elegantly swished her skirts and gracefully folded over to look under the study table. 

Just then, the door opened and Draco came in, also looking for his father. He stopped and stared at Narcissa with a look of consternation on his face. She was stooped--almost crouching--beneath his father's side desk (it wasn't even the emperor desk he usually sat at), which had no panel on the front. Even standing at the door where he was, he could see her very clearly beneath it. She saw at him and then stuck her head out from under neath. Her knees showed through her dress, and Draco began to look even more concerned. 

          "Yes, dear?"

          "Mother. Have you seen father?"

          "No, why?"

          "Well, I have unfortunately encountered a minor technical impediment to which I thought to myself to consult father."

That was Draco's way of hiding the fact he needed homework help from Lucius.

          "I'm afraid you will have to surmount this challenge alone, Draco. Your father is out."

          "Where?"

          "Your father and I feel it is not appropriate to share with you."

           "But--"

          "That is quite enough out of you. It is of the utmost secrecy!" Narcissa flounced out of the study.

           "He didn't go somewhere illegal, did he?" Draco shouted after his mother.

She did not respond, and Draco watched her receding back through the open study door.

           "Would you be surprised?"

Severus glided past the doorframe, his robes billowing profusely behind him.

           "What do you know?" Draco rushed into the corridor and saw only Severus's black cloak growing smaller as he advanced down the hallway.

Severus put his hands out to the sides of the big black cloak and shrugged. Draco felt a tap on his shoulder.

            "Maybe if you stopped trying to Slyther-in to our business, you'd find out eventually," Rabastan whispered into Draco's ear and then peaced out, bolting off the same way Severus had left.

The corridor was silent while Draco processed this and wiped the condensation from Rabastan's breath from his ear.

           "What are all of these people doing here anyways?" he wondered.