Loose Ends

A/N: Sorry about the random cutoff halfway through; all\'s fixed now! *kowtows to friends with extensive knowledge of HTML (for instance, that having a random end-tag instead of a comma is a bad thing...hehehe)*


The next night found Draco flitting ghost-like along the corridors of Hogwarts, concealed beneath his Invisibility Cloak--a belated birthday gift from his Aunt Bella. Though he had never heard of Sir Ulrich the Unctuous, and was actually quite sure that no such figure had ever graced Hogwarts Castle, it never occured to him to return to the Slytherin common room and take the stairs down to Harry\'s appointed dungeon. The secret passage beneath that thrice-damned bust, he had been told, and the secret passage it would be.

This, of course, explained why Draco was now pacing back and forth somewhere between the second and third floors, muttering to himself about...well, about a lot of things, including several anatomically improbably suggestions for Harry involving his wand, a Firebolt, and several unsuspecting kitchen appliances from the Muggle Studies classroom. Chief in his mind, though, was the thought that if he didn\'t find the bust and its passage soon, he would not only have spent a night out of bed for nothing, but would have lost his only chance of getting a decent shag out of Harry Potter.

This thought, had he paused to consider it, would have bothered him far more than it had any right to.

Oh, who am I kidding? Draco groaned internally, I\'m never going to find the bloody thing! His breathed whooshed out in a dejected sigh as he slumped against the wall--only to leap back up with a yelp as something cold and hard prodded him in the small of the back.

A doorknob? I could have sworn that wasn\'t here before...oh, what the hell. Giving in to his oft-ill-fated curiosity, Drraco grabbed hodl of the aforementioned protrusion and gave it a sharp jerk.

The door didn\'t budge.

Draco scowled and tried again, to no avail. He tugged and yanked, heaved and rattled, and was just on the verge of whipping out his wand (the *other* one, you little perverts! ^_~) and blasting the door with a Dissolution hex when a smooth, slick voice floated out from within.

\"You have to push, my dear.\"

Draco snarled an oath, twisted the knob, and gave the door a vicious shove, whereupon it sprang open, catapulting him face first onto a large, fluffy, pink-sheeted bed. Extracting himself from the tangle of coverlet and Cloak, Draco found it scattered about it not the stuffed animals and heart-shaped pillows one might expect, but rather a collection of salad servers, a toaster oven or two, and several blenders of assorted sizes and colors.

Stuck by a sudden timidity, Draco carefully inched his way off the lace-edged monstrosity, bringing into view the head of a large, granite bust placed on a pedestal several convenient yards away. Its subject was a sallow-cheeked wizard with thinning hair and a nose like a cigarette stub. His eyes were the eyes of a Wall Street day-trader, his smile the smile of a 1940s used-car salesman--or so Draco would have thought, had he ever heard of day-traders or used-car salesmen. As it was, he could say only that there was somethign about the bust that made his spine crawl as if infested with the larvae of a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Briefly, he considered turning and walking...or running, or sprinting--yes, sprinting sounded about right--back the way he had come. The the bust\'s eyes snapped toward him and it purred, in the same oily tones that had invited him into the room, \"And who, my handsome one, might you be?\"

Draco froze.

I\'m invisible, it can\'t see me, I\'m invisible, it can\'t see me...

\"Oh, don\'t be like that!\" the bust chuckled, \"You lost your cloak when you landed on the bed. Now, why don\'t you come over here and let your dear friend Ulrich have a closer look? I\'m curious to know where a pretty creature like you might be headed at such a late hour.\"

Draco scowled and opened his mouth to snap, \"None of your business!\" The words never made it out.

\"I\'m going to see someone,\" he found himself saying instead. \"He\'s going to--\" bugger me into next week, or beyond if I\'m lucky. With a startled oath, Draco clamped down on the last part of the sentence.

What the hell?

He tried again.

I need to...return a...favor,\" he managed, the words sticking in his mouth like thick taffy. The statue laughed, a high, tittering giggle that made the hairs on the back of Draco\'s neck stand up and had him reaching for the wand at his side. No one, but no one laughed at Draco Malfoy! At the sight of the young wizard\'s weapon, the dark granite of Sir Ulrich\'s face paled to the gray of an old tenement building.

\"Now, now,\" he said, voice trembling just a bit, \"Let\'s not be hasty!\"

Draco\'s grin flashed white and feral in the torchlight.

\"Oh, I\"m not being hasty,\" he said, \"I would never dream of being hasty where my...dear friend Ulrich...is concerned. But you see, there\'s a certain passage I need to get to, and you happen to be sitting right atop it...\" He fingered the end of his wand meaningfully. With a strangled eep!, Sir Ulrich wrenched himself, pedestal and all, several feet to the left, revealing a hole just big enough for Draco to squeeze through. Pausing only to snatch up his Invisibility Cloak, the Malfoy heir abandoned his dignity and dove forward, a Cushioning Charm on his lips. However, instead of the only-slightly-jarring impact he had anticipated, Draco found himself hurtling headfirst down a long, dark tunnel. Choking on a cry of fear, he heard Sir Ulrich call after him, \"Mind the spiders!\"

Spiders? Oh, shit...

Then he was among them, the meager light from above lost in the tangle of webs old and new, and in the twists and turns of the chute itself. Draco revoied from their touch, opening his mouth to shout a spell, only to be somthered by fetid, pale threads that tasted of dust and darkness and old secrets better left to lie. Struggling to breathe, he lost all sense of time and motion, until the chute spat him, coughing and spluttering, on the black-marble floor of some hidden dungeon. When his throat had cleared enough to allow him to Vanish the webs from his face and hands, Draco lifted his head, intending to look around. His motion, however, brought a sharp blow to his cheek that made him gasp, more in anger than in pain. He began to hex the brute who had struck him, only to find himself sent sprawling across the floor, stars clouding his vision. A pair od dragonhide boots swam into view, accompanied by a rough-palmed hand that wiped a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. A ring of red gold encircled its middle finger, runes glinting just beneath its surface, and Draco\'s eyes widened.

\"Such insolence,\" murmured Harry, lifting Draco\'s blood to his lips, \"And you\'re late, as well.\"