Chapter 13: Driving and Flying
Disclaimer “ I do not own Harry Potter and its characters; JK Rowling does, so she has the REAL power to send Draco to Hillbilly country. Also, if you look hard enough, there is a line here from Full House. There is also a line from OotP.
“Name?”
“Hunulupulupuaikikikiaboninisisatani Ianolaikilapochama.”
“Year?”
“Sixth.”
“Got your broom?”
“Yep.”
Voldemort balanced himself on the balls of his feet anxiously while he stood in front of the Slytherin Quidditch team captain, Miles Bletchley. He worked on polishing his new firebolt while Bletchley scribbled down his name and nodded. “Okay, go onto the stadium.”
Voldemort’s confidence that he would become Seeker melted away like the Witch of the West under water when he saw the stadium. There must have been at least two hundred Slytherins on the field, practicing their Quidditch tricks, tossing Quaffle balls, and taking turns catching the Snitch. He felt his knees knock together and sweat flood down his sides.
“I must have been mental,” he croaked, seizing Lucius’ collar.
“What’s wrong?” Lucius asked.
“These people are good! I’ll never be able to beat them. Dear heavens, what was I thinking? I stink at flying. I’m Riddle the Queen.”
“Come now, Tom, everything’s going to be fine!” Lucius patted his shoulder reassuringly. “What would Sheldon say?”
“ ‘Bacon grows on bologna trees’,” Voldemort said dully.
“Exactly! Now go out there and make him proud, won’t you?”
“But I’ll never make the team!” Voldemort whined.
“Everybody step in line here!” Bletchley barked, gesturing at a flagpole near the field.
Lucius patted Voldemort’s shoulder as everyone began filing over to the pole. “Good luck.”
Voldemort gulped. He set his broom on his shoulder and walked to the pole.
***
“I still don’t see why I need a driver’s license,” Draco grumbled as he, Vince, Greg, Nerd, and Cho, followed by a disgruntled Heathcliff, walked into a large parking lot toward Carl McHoho’s car, a dusty pickup parked in a corner. They had received permission from him and Ellie to practise for Draco’s driving test after he passed the written portion (which he had aced by using an enchanted quill disguised as a pencil).
“It was part of the exchange agreement,” Greg said matter-of-factly, pulling out the car keys from his pocket. “One of us had to get a driver’s license, and we picked you. Now get in before I use my muffin catch phrase.”
Still grumbling, Draco took the keys from Greg and unlocked the driver’s door, climbing inside and pulling out his manual. Everyone else got in: Greg in the passenger’s seat, and Cho, Nerd, Vince and Heathcliff in the back. “What next?” Greg asked.
“It says I put the keys in the ignition.” Draco took the key and pushed it in. The car made a great bucking sound as though it was a horse and shook violently.
“Relax, Draco, relax, just put your hands on the wheel,” instructed Nerd, who had already gotten his license. “Lay back and let Nutto take charge.”
“Nutto?” Draco was dumbfounded.
“Hey, lay off, it’s named after my grandma!” Nerd exclaimed. “Now never mind the name…just relax…”
“I’ll relax a lot better if I wasn’t driving a car named Nutto,” Draco said nastily.
“Fine, name it yourself!” Nerd threw up his hands in exasperation.
Draco stroked his chin. “Hmm…I’ll name it…”
He turned around.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
***
Voldemort put his sharp mind to use as he watched the other Slytherins try out. Some of them were excellent, demonstrating complicated stategies performed by skilled top Quidditch players and catching the Snitch at every chance. Some stunk and hurled the Snitch and the Bludgers into the hoop instead of the Quaffle. One particular boy ended up having a Bludger jammed up his nose and had to go to the hospital wing.
“Hunu,” Bletchley finally called after about a century of waiting.
His knees trembling, Voldemort walked onto the field with his broom. At a nod from Bletchley, he mounted the broom and kicked off into the air.
The sensation he felt was wonderful. He was free, he was a bird, he was shooting through the sky and the clouds and the fresh air; something soft and smooth, probably a spring breeze, brushed past his legs and “
Loud shouts from the ground brought him back into reality.
He was high above the other players. He had to cock his head and strain to listen to what they were calling out to him anxiously.
He finally discovered what had happened when he’d kicked off.
“HUNU! YOUR PANTS FELL OOOOOOFF!”
Flushing embarrassedly in green boxers (the usual), Voldemort quickly snatched up his pants, which were lying in a wrinkled heap on the ground and darted into the changing rooms. He had just finished putting them on when Lucius appeared. “Hey, they’re announcing their picks. Come on!”
“I’ll never get picked,” Voldemort grumbled, but he went with Lucius.
“And our Seeker will be “ ” Bletchley began. Voldemort’s entire body tensed up.
“Hunu!”
Voldemort’s mouth fell open. “A-are you sure?” he managed to say finally.
Bletchley nodded. “Yep, you’re our Seeker.” He grinned and added, “we evaluated your boxers and decided that you were stylish enough. Be here for practise Friday.”
“Thank you,” Voldemort said, his eyes brimming with tears, not with joy that he had been selected as Seeker, but with tears of laughter at how he would make Potter pay.
***
The sky was slowly darkening as the hour hand drew nearer and nearer to eight. Draco squinted in the bright red light from the sunset as he drove the car around the parking lot clumsily. In the backseat, Vince was snoozing, his massive head almost crushing Nerd’s bony shoulder.
“Argh!” the car brushed by a tree, causing a thick tangle of branches to poke its way into the window. Draco screamed and began having spasms as the branches tickled his face and entangled his arms. The car zoomed forward at a speed of 110 miles per hour and stopped suddenly.
Trembling, Draco managed to sit up from where he had cowered under his seat and look around. They were jammed in between two massive trees; he tried to open the car doors, but they were pressed against the tree trunks and therefore did not budge. “No!” he moaned, burying his face in his hands. “We’re going to be stuck here - forever!”
“Use the radio,” Nerd suggested. “Send a help message to someone. Do you know the morse code?”
“No!” Draco seethed, beginning to bang himself against the door hard. Nothing happened.
“That’s a shame,” Nerd said, shaking his head. He then brightened after breathing heavily into some sort of allergy contraption and snorting loudly. “Let’s wait for these trees to decay, then. In the meantime, I’ll entertain us by singing Einstein’s E = MC2 equation to two hundred different show tunes! Let’s start with the Brady Bunch!”
***
“You know, we could just use magic to blow these trees to pieces with Reducto…” Cho sighed.
“Are you crazy?” Draco hissed back. “In front of all these muggles? We aren’t allowed to modify these people’s memories anymore, the Ministry’s put a ban on that…”
“Right, I forgot,” Cho said resignedly. “Well, what are we going to do, then? Sit here and rot?”
“I’ll think of something,” Draco said imperiously. “Just sit there and wait for my master mind to blossom.”
“That explains why you have dung in your head,” Cho muttered, sitting back down. “Fertilizers…”
“I’m hungry,” Vince blurted suddenly from the back, where he had finally awoken and released Nerd’s shoulder.
“Deal with it,” snarled Draco.
Making a face, Vince began digging around the car. He soon came up with a jar of half-eaten honey. Rolling his small window down to enjoy a breeze, he began noisily licking at the honey like a wild bear.
“Vince, don’t!” Draco warned, horrified. But it was too late.
They were large and black, their antennae waving defiantly in the breeze as they marched in an orderly manner down a branch and into the car window. Vince gasped with dismay when an ant climbed up his arm, followed by more ants. “Eeeek! Ants! Gemroffe!”
“Hey!” Nerd yelled as the jar of honey slipped in Vince’s hand, splattering him from head to waist in sweet-smelling golden sticky honey. The ants advanced on him, biting and licking at his shirt. Then more ants began to come in.
“Roll up the windows!” Draco cried in panic, and he began to roll the windows frantically. To his horror, they were broken. He screamed and writhed as ants came through his window and covered his torso. Without thinking, he whipped out his wand. “Stupefy!” he cried, pointing and jabbing at the ants. Wisps of smoke came from the wand but only caused a few ants to stumble in their path. They burned a hole in his shirt. He yelped and writhed as the itch began to kick in in some very uncomfortable places.
“Give me your stick!” Nerd yelled, snatching the wand from Draco’s hand and jabbing at the ants on his shirt. When that didn’t work, he grunted and snapped the wand in two.
“Noooooo!” Draco yelled, diving for the wand, but it was too late. Nerd tossed both fragments out of the window into another swarm of ants.
“My wand!” Draco cried, thrashing in his seat and fighting an urge to strangle Nerd. Without thinking, he stepped down on the gas so hard that the car struggled for a moment, then shot out from the trees like a bullet.
A/N: Thank you for reading, reviews would be much appreciated!