November 21, 2003

Draco and the Discards--by Wandwaver

Draco and the Discards

by: Wandwaver

Summary: What happens when a certified canon character gets lost amid fanon's discards? A whole lot of chuckles! Draco finds himself in the land of "To Where", and all of the discarded ideas authors have tossed there from their stories.

Five…six…seven…eight…nine…ten…eleven… The clock struck the hour jolting Draco back into awareness. The room was full of the jostling energy created by young wizards in close proximity. He could see pansy arrayed in black and silver robes dancing with Blaise Zabini whilst other students congregated by the vat of pumpkin juice and butter beer. Draco just couldn’t seem to care. It was Samhain, an ending and a beginning. Day of the Dead. The night of All Hallows’ Eve, when the Veil between the Worlds grew thin and all things became possible… Draco wandered away from the Hall, occupied with his thoughts. He felt separate from the other students, even whilst observing their frivolity. There was a vague formless kind of longing for something within him. As he wandered aimlessly an amused voice rang like a bell throughout the corridor; “Wish granted…” As he spun to face the speaker, who had apparently disappeared from view, he found himself facing a door labelled clearly “To Where”. Without hesitation he opened it and passed through into the realm beyond upon the other side. Behind him the letters on the door proclaimed the succinct message “From There”.

“Halt! Who goes there!” A less than stern voice hailed him.

“What message do you bear?” A second person inquired.

Draco saw two people he could only describe as shabbily dressed guards standing before a large gateway. It looked like Hogwarts…but certainly not the Hogwarts he knew. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered haughtily.

The guard on the left hesitated. “Surely he’s…?”

“Isn’t he?” The other returned.

“I think so,” the first concluded.

“Do you ever make any sense?” Draco interrupted impatiently.

“Hardly ever.”

“Although never say never,” added the other less than helpfully.

“Do I get to go through?” Draco asked. He wanted to see the rest of this off kilter version of his school.

“But of course!”

“You are the Master.” Draco was confused. Obviously they had mistaken him for someone else. He wondered if it mattered for the moment. He walked past the sentries and into the hallways of Hogwarts. As he did so, he saw a charge of angry teenagers rampaging towards him. “There he is!”

“He has to answer to us!”

“What the…?” Draco found himself thinking, before he was grabbed from behind and thrust bodily thorugh a nearby doorway. “Thank goodness I got to you before they did!” A girl of about his own age gasped.

“Not to be funny but who are you?” Draco asked. “Seeing as you obviously seem to know me and I don’t have the foggiest as to your identity.”

“Stop messing around, Draco darling!” she smiled. “Are you feeling all right? Do you want a massage?” Her hands crept round his shoulders.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer but can we just clarify your identity first?” Draco protested. “It’s a bit much not to even have a name to put to a face.”

“That’s never bothered you before,” she pouted. “Nor with the others, either.”

The others? Draco's mind boggled. Just how many women did he supposedly have on the go? ? “Much as I’d love to hear about my wondrous harem at this point,” he stated sarcastically, “let’s just start with you. I’ll repeat it in words of one syllable so it’s easy for you to understand. Who are you?”

“I’m your long suffering girlfriend, of course!”

“No you’re not,” Draco argued. “Pansy’s supposed to be my girlfriend!”

“Behind the times, mate. That idea went out yesterday. She came through the gates sometime during the afternoon, gave you a piece of her mind regarding polygamy and stormed off to shack up in other quarters. She might be with Dozydore or Loopy concocting Yet Another Plot to Accomplish Nothing if you look. Either that, or try Serious but he’ll be far too busy with his state of mind to even notice you,” she warned. Since Draco’s head was already spinning by this point, he stuck with the most logical thread of the argument. “But I don’t even know you!”

“Of course you don’t. That’s what makes me a discard, isn’t it? The relationship never got off the ground. I don’t even remember getting a name.”

“What the hell are you on?” Draco exclaimed. “Whatever it is you’ve obviously taken too much – or maybe not enough!”

“I think it’s you who’s been indulging too much. In the year 0AD you staged a revolt and threw over the rule of Tiresome Tom?”

“Who?”

“Tiresome Tom. That Tom Riddle bloke who made such a nuisance of himself in Book Two. There was never any room for him in any of the others so he found himself here and formed his own set up immediately. Rather boring ruler actually. Spent most of his time sulking about wanting to return to the good old days and admiring Frodo’s final finger which arrived gift boxed from the fires of Mount Doom. Before that we had the Sultan of Swing.” Draco’s face obviously said it all. “Well, this is the Domain of Discards,” the girl reasoned. “You can’t expect much ingenuity, can you? Besides, someone had a severe Dire Straits habit. Sometimes the real world gets muddled in along the way,” she clarified.

Draco wondered if he had misheard the word “muggle”. “What do you mean, the real world?”

“The one where the author decides what happens here.”

“The who?”

“Well, at least it’s better than Dire Straits.”

“What?” said Draco, nonplussed.

“You really don’t get out much, do you? You need to indulge in some decent conversation. We were talking about the author. The author who invented you.”

“No one invented me!”

“You think that if it helps you. You’ll learn. We all do in the end.”

“You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met!” Draco exclaimed.

“Proves a point, doesn’t it? That was why I was discarded in the first place,” she exclaimed ruefully.

“Well, at least you admit it.” Draco was mollified. He found the idea of having control over more than just Crabbe and Goyle rather enticing seeing as they’d never managed to string a sentence together anyway.

“What’s my title here?”

“Big Bad.” The girl stated.

“Oh. My. God.” Draco intoned.

“Well, you considered that one too but decided the other was more succinct.”

“How sad!” Draco conceded.

“You want to be careful about the rhyming thing. It’s a leftover from the Sorting Hat songs. It’s been known to afflict us for hours. Unexpectedly. It’s all right until you realise you’ve mentioned the word orange.”

Draco considered that particular piece of warped wisdom. “So, where’s Perfect Potter then?” he enquired, thinking even if he was called Big Bad, he might as well put his power to good use.

“Oh, he’s not here. He’s the main protagonist. Did you really think he’d get thrown away? The chances of him developing into a discarded plotline are less than those for Snape and McGonagall getting carried away in a fit of elicit passion and eloping to Groaning Green!”

Oh, he wouldn’t ever get discarded, would he? Draco sulked.

Just then a pounding sounded from the other side of the door. “What do we do?” Draco asked. “Ignore them and hope they go away?” God, even the dialogue here’s rusty! He found himself concluding. “I don’t intend spending the rest of my afternoon in a cupboard!” he stated.

“Why not? It’s where you normally spend the majority of your time. It’s where you do your seducing.”

“Couldn’t I find somewhere a little more up market than this?”

“Well, you’ve been known to frequent the Palace of Plot Binds,” Girlfriend suggested helpfully.

I can’t stand much more of this! he thought. “Does everyone know everything about me here?”

“Well, you’re not very complex you know. I presume you had a major overhaul at some point in canon.”

“Canon?” Draco repeated.

“That which is otherwise known as The Truth, to us. The real stuff as opposed to the discards who hang around here.”

“is there anyone sane in this place?” Draco asked. After all, everything around here seemed utterly random. He might as well follow the pattern.

“You might try Ginny Squeezy,” Girlfriend suggested doubtfully.

“Squeezy?” He repeated parrot fashion. Girlfriend nodded. “Where will I find her?”

“Oh, just wander aimlessly for a while. I’m sure she’ll turn up. People normally do.”

“What about the fanatic females?”

“They’ll have given up for no reason whatsoever by now. Their plots are never continued,” Girlfriend stated smugly. Draco edged his way cautiously from the random classroom to find Girlfriend was proven absolutely right. The horde was gone. He wandered with no particular notion as to where he was headed, passing a girl wearing a badge proclaiming herself to be Mary Sue in a steamy clinch with an older, raven haired wizard who looked like an advert for Vidal Sassoon. He introduced himself enthusiastically as Snoop.

After a few minutes of pointless dithering he found himself facing a teenager he presumed to be Ginny Squeezy. He could see a couple of differences between the Weasel he knew and the one facing him now. Suddenly the name made a whole lot more sense. Maybe he would enjoy this more than he had originally thought. She eyed him warily. “Draco Malformed. What do you want?”

Malformed? Draco thought incredulously. I refuse to believe I ever answered to that name? It’s even worse than Ferret Boy and that takes some doing!

“Just to talk.” He was beginning to see more and more why so many of the ideas ended up here.

“You never want to talk,” Ginny Squeezy protested suspiciously. “That wastes too much time you can employ otherwise.”

“Today is different,” Draco told her. What an understatement!

“There is something different about you,” Ginny decided. “I just can’t quite put my finger on it…”

“Never mind that now,” Draco argued. He’d heard enough about other rulers’ fixations to last a lifetime. “I need your help. Do you think you can make sense for more than thirty seconds at a time?”

“I can try,” Ginny returned. “It’s kind of hard to concentrate though with random additions drifting in and out on a constant basis.”

“Go ahead. Knock yourself out,” Draco urged, then suddenly realised he hadn’t quite meant that as it sounded. Still, he didn’t think Ginny Squeezy would have noticed. She was too busy frowning in thought.

“I need to get back to the Canon,” Draco clarified.

“Do you know how to get there?”

“I can only suggest heading back in the same direction as you came from,” she suggested. “Watch out for my brother, Pervy, though. He’ll most definitely invite you in for…tea,” she warned.

Suddenly, like a flash, Draco remembered the door with the sign directing him back to “From There”. He hoped it hadn’t disappeared since things rarely seemed to stay the same for long in this place. “Ginny Squeezy, you have my eternal gratitude,” he proclaimed.

“Can’t I have more than that?” she pouted suggestively.

Draco considered the ramifications of her suggestion. After all, if Enhanced Attributes!Ginny Squeezy was truly a discard he wouldn’t really be seducing a Weasley, would he? And he could think of a couple of good reasons to give in to temptation.

“I’ve already propositioned Peevish but every time we tried to make contact I just ended up putting my hand through him. Seemed kind of rude, really.”

“Tempting but, no, I really must go.” There was that blasted rhyming thing again! If he had his way the sodding Hat Song would be removed from every book altogether! It would save an awful lot of trouble. Without further ado he turned on his heel. Funny how the way back seemed doubly long compared to his arrival.

….Twelve… The clock struck once again and Draco found himself raising his chin from where it rested upon his chest. What a madly detailed dream he had been having! Now, if only he could remember precisely what it had been about… Still, whatever had happened, it had left him with the inescapable urge to pull Ginny Weasley into a random cupboard just to see how she would react.


Posted by rockygirl at November 21, 2003 09:35 AM
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