Work Text
BEDKNOBS AND GEARSTICKS
by
Wirrrn____
"-Horsepower? You mean the Muggles have harnessed the stamina of a Unicorn, or a Pegasus, or even an Each-Uisge and stored it to use in this... wheeled metal box?"
"Not exactly. Horsepower means..er...actually I'm not really sure what it means; something to do with how many horses it could outrun in some kind of defiant act against nature I guess. But you'd have to ask Dudley, he's the resident Rev-Head in the family; of course he's also family's resident Knob-head as well, so he wouldn't tell you...unless we whomped him with a particularly painful and humiliating hex, I mean. I won't tell the Ministry if you don't!"
Cedric paused in running a hesitant but intrigued hand over the phoenix-feather red hood of Vernon Dursley's new car and grinned at his friend. "-I'd like to tell you that even Umbridge wouldn't convict you for Improper Use against your cousin, Harry, but you know that just because he looks and acts like a Cave Hobgoblin doesn't actually make him one".
Harry smiled back. "I know, I know- she'd see through it anyway once she saw him take supper; Cave Hobs have far better table manners." He cocked a speculative eyebrow in Cedric's direction. "So- want to go for a ride?"
"-That depends; Harry; are we still talking about the car?"
"Yes...well, at least initially anyway. Though there is a Muggle mating ritual involving the back seat of a vehicle that I'm itching to show you..."
- - -
"~Mr. Potter."
Harry stirred as a voice reached through the sticky black nothing he was floating in and
"~Mr. Potter..."
yanked him seemingly upwards, although there was neither light nor direction here. He kicked off the tarry floor of wherever he was, following the voice, much as he'd followed Cedric to the surface of the lake on the day of the Second Task, although this time he didn't have disturbingly literal fish-fingers clawing at his ankles.
"~Mr. Potter!"
a beat and then Harry's nostrils were assaulted with an absolutely vile stench somewhere between his cauldron on a particularly inattentive day in Potions class and the Greenhouses that time one of Ron's wayward spells gave sentience and mobility to a large pile of Minotaur dung fertilizer.
"Aaaugh!" Harry jerked awake and upright with the same motion, batting vaguely in the general direction of his nose
(oddly enough, much in the same way that Professor Snape did when grading Harry's homework on the inattentive Potions days mentioned above).
Madame Pomfrey nodded to him primly and pocketed the slimy, yellow lump she'd been holding near his face. She saw Harry's quizzical look.
"~Concentrated extract from a hairball coughed up by a Manticore."
Harry nodded. "Ah- and it has some medicinal property that brings unconscious people around?"
"~No, it just smells so bloody revolting that if it doesn't wake you up, you're probably dead anyway."
Harry moved to stand up and Madame Pomfrey placed a restraining hand on his chest. "~Oh no you don't, young man. I haven't finished making sure all your internal organs are still the right way up yet."
"What happened?"
A stern eyebrow raised into cocking position. "~We were hoping you could tell us that, Mr. Potter. There *were* several eyewitnesses, but most of them are still in a state of shock- Parvati Patil has spent the last four hours convinced she's an Owl, poor Dear; although to her credit, that letter I sent with her to Diagon with a request for more bandages did get there in record time."
"Bandages?"
"~Well you did manage to fly that wheeled Muggle conveyance right into the North Tower at considerable speed, Mr. Potter. And there was a Divination Class running at the time. We can only be fortunate there weren't more serious injuries."
"I flew Uncle Vernon's new Porsche into Madame Trelawney's Tower?" Harry attempted a nervous smile. "I guess she didn't see that coming."
Madame Pomfrey pursed her lips. "~Indeed. Although those of her students still able to talk have been saying that shortly before the incident, Sybill was raving in a strange voice about 'a great, gas-guzzling beast of fearsome crimson hue and woeful mileage which voiced the most terrible shrieks from its head, in the voice of a tormented maiden."
"Tormented maide...oh yeah; Dudley got an Ashley Simpson CD stuck in the car's player and the broke the volume control. We couldn't shut it off"
"~You might have tried harder. I've had Argus Finch in and out of the ward all day- he's convinced from the noise that you had Mrs. Norris in the car with you and were garotting her with piano wire whilst Mr. Diggory kept time on a lute."
Harry blinked. "Ced? Nah, he loves animals, and anyway he isn't very adept at string instruments; although he certainly knows his way around an orga....Merlin's Arse! Cedric! Is he okay?" Harry made to leap from the bed. "We have to go find him!"
Again, Madam Pomfrey pressed Harry back into the bed with her no-nonsense hands. "~Mr. Diggory is fine, Mr. Potter. Slightly shaken, but no injuries." Madame Pomfrey's eyebrow shot up again. "-Although we did find him in the same....state...as you."
Harry gulped. "State?"
"~Indeed. In the confusion after you flew your Uncle's car into the tower, we had students running and screaming all over the castle. Several of the Enchanted Portraits thought that He Who Must Not Be Named had returned again and either set fire to their own landscapes or attempted to reassure each other through desperate acts of...sexual comfort. The walls of the second floor look like a Mapplethorpe retrospective. Not to mention that several of Hagrid's new monstrosities that were being assessed for Care of Magickal Creatures classes broke free and attacked students and staff willy-nilly. Nearly-Headless Nick will have to drop the "Nearly" from all his stationary from now on, after his encounter with that Vodyanoi in the South Moat; and we're still looking for Draco Malfoy's left foot."
Madame Pomfrey cleared her throat and continued. "-But despite all the chaos, numerous staff and students were still able to identify you. Not that it was difficult, because despite your apparent daze, you were completely, stark-bollocked naked and alternately yelling something about "the little red man meaning stop" and singing the first verse of 'Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang."
"And...Cedric?"
"~Mr. Diggory was unconscious in your arms. You were dazed, but you carried him right here to the hospital wing. Quite sweet really... He was also completely naked."
"Ah. Could I see him then?"
Madame Pomfrey sighed. "~I suppose it couldn't possibly cause any more harm than you already have today. Alright- he's three beds down on your right. Oh- and Mr. Potter?"
"Yes?"
"~The next time you and Mr. Diggory take a...joy-ride, I believe they are called? I would appreciate you wearing, if nothing else, at least some seat-belts."
"Uh..."
"~Or even better, restrict your late night assignations to the Prefect's Bathroom as you usually do. Oh yes, the mermaid in the painting there- Lillian, I believe- has *quite* the tales to tell of you and Mr. Diggory's adventures in the tubs of an evening. I do wish you boys would remember to turn the taps off before you leave though- she's getting quite a case of fin-rot from all the steam."
Harry moved to reply, but by the time he'd picked up his jaw from the floor and had stopped blushing redder than a swamp-hydra, Madame Pomfrey had gone. He moved three beds down and turned right.
Cedric was sitting up in his bed, a slight smile on his face.
"-Tell me again why I got into a car with you?"
"Honestly, I have no idea," Harry replied.
Cedric patted the mattress beside him, and Harry sat down beside him. "-Maybe we started off with a bit too much Housepower."
"Horsepower"
"-Horsepower, right." Cedric's grey eyes gleamed in a most un-Hufflepuffish way. "You know, I hear Professor Flitwick has a motorcycle..."
---END---