XIII

Draco rocketed to the floor with a violent force, rolling immediately and assessing his surroundings with reflexes he could only really attribute to the brutal regime his Quidditch captains had put him though over the years. He scanned the area, his breath ragged and deep, but as he calmed all he saw was another blasted wooden room, with weak light filtering though the slates at his sides, and instead of dark holes leading to stomach flipping slides, all he saw were unmarked wooden barrels, and dust drifting through the shafts of light as Draco got a hold of himself and steadied his breathing back down.

Bones had flown from his lap upon arrival and landed in an upside down heap, but as usual it hadn't taken him long to scramble upright again shake himself together again. "Nice landing Sunshine. Brandon!" he bellowed. "Where are you, you miserable sod!"

"Shh!" Draco hissed, flapping his hand in the dog's direction. "How do you know we're safe, that there's not HSP already."

Bones considered. "I don't," he agreed. "BRANDON!"

Draco was ready to smack him on the nose, when he snatched his hand back, taking in his companion's attire. "Uh, Bones," he said. "You're um, clothes have changed again?"

He almost laughed, but fear took any humour from the words. Gone were the cheerful green tunic and jaunty top hat. In their place were a white shirt, black eye patch and...wooden leg?

"Bones!" Draco shrieked, and dove down to inspect his recently amputated limb. As he lifted the sturdy stump in the faint light, Bones merely groaned in annoyance.

"Oh, not again?" he grumbled.

"You..." Draco stammered. "You lost a leg?"

"Perceptive, aren't you?" Bones snapped, wriggling free and shooting up to the doorway out of the room they had found themselves in. "The question is, what will we have to do to get out of here. BRANDON!" He slammed his peg leg against the wooden door.

Draco stumbled, and for the first time he realised they were swaying slightly, that they weren't exactly stable underfoot. "Are we..." he began, blinking and confused. "Is this...are we on a boat?"

Bones turned and squinted at him with his one good eye. "You're telling me this-" he waved his wooden leg in the air "-isn't giving you any clues as to where we are?"

Draco scowled. "I said, we're on a boat," he said petulantly, crossing his arms. "Do you expect me to know every random holiday – you said there were hundreds on the third level after all?"

Bones considered him a moment, then turned his attention back to the door. "Why don't you use those human hands of yours and get us out of here, then you might be able to work it out yourself." He grinned wickedly over his shoulder. "It's no fun if I just tell you everything."

Draco huffed but did as he was told. There was no sign of Brandon in the small storage room anyway, so they might as well venture outside and see where they had landed in any case.

There was no lock in place and the door swung outward easily, revealing a wide open deck and a tang of sea-spray in the air that confirmed Draco's boat suspicions immediately. The billowing sails looming above them were black, which struck him as unusual, but that was as much time as he got to ponder on the situation.

Several men were on deck, all dressed in filthy rags, with hardly enough appendages between them to make a whole person and each armed to the rotting teeth with rusty, chipped weaponry that glinted in the afternoon sunshine.

"Yar!" the nearest one shrieked, thrusting the hook where his hand should have been in Draco's direction. "Avast me heartys, here be stowaways!"

"Uh oh," said Bones, apparently surprised.

Draco blinked, not certain he had understood a single word that had been uttered, but in an instant the half a dozen men around him were all yelling at them too, drawing a large crowd swiftly from the rest of the ship. "Hang on, wait a second!" he said, throwing up his hands as they lurched for him.

"Lily-livered landlubber!" a large brute with astonishingly sour breath howled in his face as he seized him by the arm and hauled him up onto the higher part of the deck. There must have been at least fifty men and women all swarming around him now, brandishing their fists and teeth (those that had them) and cursing something fierce. They didn't seem to mind Bones as he nipped between their legs, but then he looked just like they did. Draco's neat hair and almost pristine shirt certainly set him apart from these ruffians.

"Just a minute, will you listen to me?" Draco yelled over the cacophony, but it wasn't doing him a bit of good.

"They're normally friendlier than this," Bones cried franticly. "They can't understand you, you have to talk like a pirate!"

"What!" Draco bellowed back at him.

"It's Talk Like A Pirate Land!" Bones tried to explain, but Draco had no idea what that meant, and it did him little good as he was flung to his knees in front of a pair of worn leather boots with the largest turnovers Draco had ever seen.