Author's Notes:

So here we go again! The warning I used for the The Bodyguard applies here too.

Warning, this slash fanfic contains plot. Lots of plot. To the extent that Harry and Draco don't even appear in the prologue. (Okay, they appear and they're nearly naked. But only in a photo.)

The presence of plot may or may not render The Deathly Hullos suitable for your slashy needs. For it is a truth universally acknowledged, that occasionally, or perhaps all the time, the keen slash reader must be in want of porn without plot. (Who hasn't scrolled their way through the chapters of a long slash fic thinking, "Come on, where's the sex?") For your plot-avoiding convenience, look out for the chapters subtitled "Shagging" or "BJ". The slashy goodness is concentrated there.

This fic is AU after Half-Blood Prince, and it won't make much sense unless you read The Bodyguard first. It probably won't make much sense even then. ;-)

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe used in this fanfic is copyright J.K. Rowling.

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The Deathly Hullos

By

Luuuurve

Prologue: Wizard Baiting

By a busy London road, one sunny lunchtime in August, three men wearing white overalls, thick gloves and rubber waders were setting out orange plastic barriers around an open manhole. In another hour, two of them would be dead, but they did not know.

All they knew was that a grinning old man, wearing a blue and white gingham dress and a bowler hat, was pole dancing around a traffic light, in front of the record store and big bookshop across the road. Soberly business-suited pedestrians were stopping to stare and tut-tut in disgust. Cars honked. But the old man seemed too happily drunk to notice. His skirt rode up as he swung around the pole, revealing hairy legs and hobnail boots.

Owen, the youngest of the three men in overalls, leaned on a barrier and watched the old man with amusement. "I wonder what he's advertising? It's big news, whatever it is. He's the twentieth weirdo I've seen over there since we started setting up." Owen turned to grin at his colleagues. But his face fell when he saw their stony expressions.

"Just ignore him," said Jimmy coldly, tucking a greying lock of hair behind his ear. He pushed a barrier into place with a sideways glance that suggested Owen should be working harder.

"Thames Water isn't paying us by the hour," said Kev, in his usual bossy tone. But underneath his freckles he was pale, Owen noted. Both Kev and Jimmy had their backs turned towards the spectacle across the road. They didn't so much as glance around, when there was a small explosion from somewhere behind the shops, and shimmering shooting stars shot into the air.

Owen eyed them both suspiciously. "That's what you keep saying today. You said it when we nearly ran over that flock of trained owls carrying envelopes this morning. Then again when we saw that group of men in dresses whispering to each other outside the National Gallery. Everyone else was laughing, but you two drove off like they were escaped criminals."

Jimmy shouldered his pickaxe. He and Kev glanced at each other, but said nothing.

"What's going on today? " said Owen in frustration. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you two were afraid-"

"Yoo hoo!" An ancient quavery voice cut him off. The old man in a dress was waving a folded newspaper at them.

Jimmy and Kev flinched in alarm, and Owen was more certain than ever that they were afraid. His curiosity was piqued. He couldn't see anything remotely scary about the old man.

"I do so love your disguises. No one's even looking at you!" The old man shouted. Then he seemed to realise, for the first time, that everyone was staring at him. Even more so, now he'd mentioned disguises. He clapped his hand to his mouth and giggled.

Owen smiled and raised his hand to beckon the old man over, only to have it roughly shoved down.

"Don't talk to him," Jimmy hissed. His hand was clenched so tightly around Owen's forearm that it hurt.

Owen yanked his arm away and turned his back on the old man. "What's your problem, Jimmy? Lighten up, he's a harmless madman."

"He's not harmless. None of HIS lot are," said Jimmy. He was making an effort to keep the old man from overhearing.

"HIS lot?" Owen mimicked in the same low voice. "Who are his lot?"

Jimmy opened his mouth, but closed it again when Kev stepped closer.

"Don't tell him, Jimmy. He's only been working for Thames Water for six months." Kev pointed at the open manhole. "He hasn't even been down Middle Level Sewer Number One yet."

"What's down there?" asked Owen. "What's a sewer got to do with men in dresses?"

Jimmy and Kev looked at each other and hesitated. While they were hesitating, the old man shouted out again.

"I say! You three don't look like you're celebrating. Haven't you heard the news?" The confusion in the old man's voice turned to disappointment. "You're not ... Muggles, are you?"

Owen didn't know what a Muggle was, but he was certain he couldn't be one. The word sounded silly. With a cheeky grin at his colleagues, he turned and cupped one hand to the side of his mouth, so he'd be heard across the road. "We're not Muggles, we're flushers," he shouted, pointing at his waders and expecting the old man to understand. "Why don't you come over and tell me the news?" He heard two shocked intakes of breath behind him, and jabbed his thumb back over shoulder. "These two know what's going on, but they won't tell me."

The man in a dress clapped his hand to his face and shrieked. "You don't know? No wonder you're not celebrating!" He took a deep breath, as if to shout out something important. Then he glanced around at people watching him and appeared to think better of it. "Wait a sec, I'll nip over and tell you!"

Owen turned to give his colleagues a triumphant grin. But a squeal of brakes made him whirl back around.

Oblivious to the heavy traffic, the old man had stepped out into the road. A truck had barely missed him, and the driver was now shaking his tattooed fist out of the window and bellowing curses.

The man in a dress acted as if nothing had happened. He weaved unsteadily past the truck and more vehicles had to slam on their brakes as he tottered in front of them. The sound of horns and yells was deafening.

Fearing the man would be run over at any moment, Owen averted his eyes. He felt Kev elbow him in the ribs.

"What have you done?" Kev muttered in his ear.

"These freaks are dangerous," Jimmy muttered in his other ear.

"You're both having me on," said Owen, with a puzzled laugh.

"Play along with him, no matter what he says," said Jimmy.

"Why?"

"He could kill us all," said Jimmy fiercely. "Or worse!"

Owen was about to reply, when the man in a dress hopped up on the curb beside him. Jimmy and Kev took a giant step backwards away from him, and teetered on the edge of the manhole.

But Owen was furious. Disregarding Jimmy's warning, which he hadn't taken seriously anyway, he said, "What do you think you were doing? You nearly got yourself killed!"

The man in a dress waved his hand airily. "Not a chance! My Protego could stop a dragon." He held out his right hand. "I don't think we've met. My name is Loquacis Dolt. I'm helping out in Mr Ollivander's wand shop this year."

Aware of Jimmy and Kev glaring at him, Owen removed his glove, extended his right hand and introduced himself.

Dolt shook the proffered hand heartily. Then he offered his hand to the other two. They introduced themselves in mutters and shook his hand as though it might explode. Neither of them took their gloves off.

Dolt seemed too drunk to notice their rudeness bordering on abject terror. "If we're going to chat, we should find somewhere a bit more private," he said thickly. He looked around at the passing cars, every occupant craning their heads towards him, and then he turned back and winked. "Can't have them overhearing the good news, can we? I've been in trouble about that before. I tend to get chatty after a few drinks." He broke off to giggle, then he mastered himself and pointed at the manhole. "How about we talk down there?"

Looking daggers at Owen, Jimmy and Kev climbed reluctantly down the ladder. Jimmy's hand was clenched around his pickaxe, as if he planned to use it for self-defence.

Owen followed them down, but yelped in horror as a gingham skirt engulfed him from above. Dolt had started climbing down too soon. Freeing himself from the suffocating fabric with a wave of his arm, Owen let himself drop the last few feet to the floor. His waders splashed.

"Sorry about that," said Dolt, pausing halfway down the ladder. "I usually stick with knee-length. Don't you? FAR healthier. Well, this is a nice tunnel, isn't it?" he added conversationally, turning his head to take in the curved red brick walls, twice as high as a man, and extending into the darkness in either direction. Murky, shin-deep water ran along the bottom. The only source of light was the hole above.

"Middle Level Sewer Number One," said Jimmy. "Goes all the way to Beckton. Twenty miles away." He and Kev were huddled together, with their backs pressed against the opposite wall. They looked ready to sprint to Beckton to get away from Dolt.

"Fascinating!" said Dolt. He took a precarious seat on the middle rung of the ladder. "I hope you don't mind if I stay up here. It looks a little wet down there. As the wizard said to the mermaid, ha ha!"

Jimmy and Kev grinned weakly, though their grins looked more like frightened leers.

"So you work at a wand shop?" Owen piped up. He assumed that Dolt meant a toyshop. "I made my little sister a wand once."

Dolt turned to him and his eyes widened in awe. "You did? Most remarkable!"

"It had a pink glittery star on top," said Owen and grinned, though Jimmy and Kev looked at him warningly.

Dolt's eyes popped. "Ooh! Could you make me one too?"

Owen hadn't expected that. Jimmy and Kev's faces froze, and he was certain that they were trying not to laugh and offend Dolt. He wondered again how they could possibly find this madman frightening. "YOU want a wand with a pink glittery star on top?" he asked, with an incredulous chuckle.

"Of course!" Dolt seemed deadly serious. He reached into the bodice of his dress and drew out a short, floppy stick. "The wands Mr Ollivander makes are SO plain." He sighed, then his eyes brightened and he thrust the stick back into his non-existent cleavage. "Have you ever thought of going into business? Gilderoy Lockhart's fans would buy a dragon-load of wands with pink glittery stars on top."

"Um, no, I've already got a job," said Owen, averting his eyes from Jimmy and Kev's glares and wondering if he'd still have one when the day was over. He made an effort to get the conversation back on track. "You were going to tell me the news?"

"Yes!" Dolt waved his folded newspaper. "You-Know-Who is dead!" To Owen's amusement, he added, "Again!"

"Amazing!" said Owen. He had no idea who You-Know-Who was, let alone how he'd managed to die twice.

Dolt didn't seem to notice. "Yes, the Daily Prophet thinks You-Know-Who might be permanently dead this time," he said, tucking the newspaper back under his arm. "He must be, for I can say his name at last! Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!"

"Cool," said Owen in bewilderment. "So how did Voldie ... Voldiemort...?"

"We're all having trouble saying the name," said Dolt sympathetically. "Most of us have never said it before."

"I certain haven't," said Owen. "So how did ... Voldemort ... die this time?"

"Killed by the Chosen One, of course!" said Dolt. "I know who you're thinking of: Harry Potter! But it turns out we were all fooled. Even Voldemort himself. The real Chosen One is Severus Snape." He made a disappointed face. "A pity really, Potter's much better looking and he did manage to kill Voldemort the first time. He even managed to win that Death Eater, Draco Malfoy, over to his side. Thought the Ministry's mind control might have helped." His expression turned dreamy. "They're getting married, you know. Harry Potter to Draco Malfoy, and their friends Hermione Granger to Ron Weasley. The paper's full of it."

"How did Voldemort die?" Owen asked again. He wasn't particularly interested in weddings or Chosen Ones. In fact, he was starting to lose patience with the man's ridiculous babbling.

"He fell off the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts," said Dolt. "He lost his balance when he heard that his terrible secret had been discovered." He pronounced the words 'terrible secret' with relish.

"What terrible secret?" Owen asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jimmy and Kev shifting impatiently. He considered ending the conversation. But what Dolt said next shattered his composure completely.

"Whore crotches!"

Owen choked. Jimmy dropped his pickaxe with a splashing clang that echoed down the sewer.

"I can see you're as shocked as I was," said Dolt. "Whore crotches are very dark. Very dark indeed."

Owen tried to speak, but no words came out.

"Whore crotches make you immortal. You can be blown up, burnt, or drowned. But if you have a whore crotch, you can never die, " said Dolt impressively.

"No wonder they're so expensive," said Owen. Suddenly the conversation had taken a more interesting turn. He was keen to egg Dolt on and see what else he'd come out with.

"Very expensive!" Dolt agreed. "Someone must die, in order to make a whore crotch." His eyes became misty with memory. "Professor Slughorn told me all about them. Terrible things. Awful!" He blinked. "Voldemort had six whore crotches scattered all over Britain. Six of them! One of them was in Harry Potter's forehead!"

"Sounds uncomfortable," said Owen, with just the ghost of a smirk.

"Indeed! I wouldn't want a whore crotch in my forehead," said Dolt solemnly. "Neither did Harry Potter. He, and Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape tracked down all of Voldemort's hidden whore crotches. They destroyed them all! Then on the top of the Astronomy Tower, they told Volda ... Voldemort what they'd done." He beamed. "Voldemort knew he was now mortal! He lost his balance and ... kersplat!"

Owen leaned forward, and tried to look serious. "Are you sure they got them all? What if there were seven?" he asked. He was amused when Dolt went pale.

"I never thought of that. The Daily Prophet was certain all the whore crotches had been destroyed. If there's a whore crotch still out there, Vold ... Volde..." Dolt winced. "You-Know-Who would still be alive." He bit his lip nervously. "That would be terrible! I must find an Auror and ask them about whore crotches at once." He straightened up as a thought struck him. "Which reminds me, that's why I went out in the first place. To find an Auror. Mr Ollivander was robbed this morning. Have you seen any Aurors?"

"Glowing in the sky over the poles?" Owen suggested, with a shrug.

Dolt stared at him in confusion.

"That's auroras," said Kev. Jimmy nudged him into silence and nervously picked up his pickaxe.

But Dolt's mind was elsewhere. "I really must be going," he said. "Thanks for the chat. Do try to attend at least one of the parties. We can't have you working all day." He gave them a distracted nod, then turned and started climbing up the ladder.

Jimmy and Kev looked relieved that he was leaving, but Owen said, "No, wait. Tell me more about the whore crotches."

Dolt paused. "What did you say? Whore crotches?" He chuckled. "Is that what I've been calling them all day? No wonder Professor Trelawney kept giving me funny looks."

"It's not whore crotches?"

"I haven't said the word for fifty years. Not since Professor Dumbledore became headmaster and banned all talk of them," Dolt said, and hiccupped. "All those celebratory Firewhiskies haven't helped either."

"How do you really say it then?" asked Owen.

"Horcruxes," said Dolt.

The three men looked at each other in confusion. "Can you spell that?" asked Owen.

In reply, Dolt unfolded his newspaper open and held it up. He pointed at a word on the front page. "There," he said. "Hor-CRUX-es. Not whore crotches." He giggled.

But the three men were staring at the newspaper as a whole in horrified astonishment.

It was alive. Headlines danced and flashed. Flourishes swirled, and photographs animated like silent videos. On the front page, a young man with messy black hair, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and round glasses, stood in a doorway, with one hand on the door, and stared with open-mouthed horror as flashbulbs went off. Behind him, a pale young man sat up in a four-poster bed. He was naked apart from a scrap of sheet over his lap, and there were undone leather straps attached to the bedposts.

No comment, the black-haired man mouthed, and slammed the door shut. The scene replayed over and over.

Owen backed away until he was against the wall with Jimmy and Kev.

Dolt chuckled. "That was my reaction too. Caught in the act! They're kinky little buggers, that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. I'm glad they're getting married and making honest men of each other."

"It's moving," said Owen, pointing a shaking finger at the newspaper. All of a sudden, he was terrified. The harmless madman was clearly something else entirely and he wondered - far too late - what he could be. Grasping at straws, he babbled, "Is this what you're doing? All of you men in dresses? You're advertising new technology? Thin screens? Very clever, I'd buy it."

Dolt frowned. "The Daily Prophet isn't new. It's been around for a hundred years. You're acting like you've never seen it before." He made a face. "Hold on, the Firewhiskey is getting to me." He burped, and a jet of flame exploded out of his mouth, lighting up the tunnel for a long way in either direction. He patted his chest. "Excuse me," he said. Then he stared in confusion at the three flushers, who were now yelling and climbing over each other in their efforts to get away. They froze and stared at him with wide, frightened eyes when he spoke again. "You lot acting very strangely. Are you quite sane?" A suspicion penetrated the drunken fuzz of his mind. "You said you weren't Muggles. You said you were flushers. What's a flusher?"

"We're employees of Thames Water. We inspect London's sewers," said Owen, pressing his back against the wall. "What's a Muggle?"

Dolt let out a wail and nearly fell off the ladder. "You don't know? Why, you must be Muggles! And I've been talking to you about ... secret stuff. I'm going to be in so much trouble! Why does this always happen to me? I'm only ever trying to be neighbourly!" He yanked his wand out of his bodice again and brandished it like a gun. "Don't tell a soul what I told you."

"O-of course not," Jimmy stuttered. "Not a word."

Dolt's gaze flicked to the end of his wand. "I never could manage memory charms," he said. "Mine only make people's heads blow up like balloons and they remember everything they've ever forgotten."

Kev let out a high-pitched whimper.

"My only option ... is to flee," said Dolt. "Yes, flee!"

With a swirl of gingham, Dolt leaped off the ladder. The flushers gasped and raised their arms to catch him or ward him off. But in midair, right in front of their eyes, he vanished.

Only his voice could still be heard, echoing faintly, as though from down a long tunnel, and not the one they were standing in. "Ouch! Splinched myself!"

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of the water trickling down the tunnel and the muted sound of traffic up above.

Then Jimmy spoke. "That was close," he said.

Kev groaned.

Owen was gasping in shock. "He was talking rubbish ... then that paper ... then he..."

"Lighten up, he's a harmless madman. This'll be a laugh," Jimmy mimicked him scornfully. "Yeah, it's all fun and games, until they breathe fire and teleport." He shook Owen by both shoulders. "Pull yourself together. We were lucky today. He wasn't violent, like most of 'em are."

"Remember what happened to James?" asked Kev, staring into the middle distance with a haunted expression.

"Yup," said Jimmy grimly.

"He had a donkey's head afterwards. A donkey's head! Then he disappeared. We never found out what happened to him. Remember Frank?" asked Kev.

"Yeah, don't remind me," said Jimmy, through gritted teeth.

"He tasted that shiny white stuff running down the walls."

"He was a show off, that one. No sense at all," Jimmy looked sidelong at Owen.

"It took me half an hour to make him stop humping your leg," said Kev, looking shattered. "He quit right after that. A broken man."

"We were lucky this time," Jimmy repeated.

There was a long silence. Finally, Owen spoke. His mouth was dry. "I'm sorry. What just happened?" he asked. "Who was that man? WHAT was he?"

"The flushers have been arguing about that for years," said Jimmy wearily. He seemed prepared to talk, now that Owen had seen so much. "We're a dying breed. Fifty years ago, there were nine hundred flushers. Today?" he shrugged. "If you can handle it, there'll be forty-one."

"What happened to them?" asked Owen.

"Retired. Laid off, when the Germans bought the company. But most of them couldn't handle THAT place, if you know what I mean." He pointed upstream.

Owen's gaze followed his finger. Nothing seemed different about the tunnel. "What's up there?" he asked.

"Where that old man came from. Hidden behind that record store and bookshop up top, there's a whole square mile of London that's ... secret. Have you seen the sewer maps of this area?"

"Yes," said Owen. "Middle Level Sewer Number One running by itself for miles."

"It's rubbish," said Jimmy. "There's a whole network of tunnels that aren't on the map. Flushers have to keep them up here," he tapped his forehead. "Because you can't write them down. Real maps just ... fade." He shuddered. "And we flushers have to inspect them all," he added grimly. "That's our job."

"There's stuff washed down there that you wouldn't believe," said Kev. His face was pale around his freckles. "Jimmy here thinks a crashed flying saucer is the source of it all. Me, I think there's been a toxic waste spill that's sent everyone mad, and the government's quarantined off that area of London. Kept it all hush hush. I know it sounds crazy," he added, seeing Owen's expression. "But you saw what that old man could do."

Owen took a backward step away from them. "I'm not looking forward to this," he said. "Toxic waste that makes you wear a dress and breathe fire? I don't want to go in there."

"You're not," Jimmy snapped. "I wouldn't trust you in there for all the tea in China! Teasing that old man ... what if we met another one of them in the tunnels? No, you can stay up top and guard the hole. Call the police if we don't come up in an hour."

"Fine." Owen didn't have to be told twice. He started climbing the ladder.

"And don't use the company phone for personal calls," Jimmy called after him. "The expenses report was enormous last time. You must have been talking to your girlfriend for hours."

"What if Emma calls me?" Owen paused on the ladder.

"Then you'll use up the battery," Jimmy sighed in frustration. "I give up on you. Get on out there. Go on, hurry up! And throw down our helmets!"

Despite his clumsy waders, Owen climbed the rest of the way up the ladder like a monkey. But he managed a parting shot.

"Good luck, you two! I'll have the dresses ready when you come back!"

oOoOoOo

Long experience made Jimmy and Kev ignore the wonders around them. They made their way cautiously through the tunnels, sidestepping anything that glowed, spat or generally acted unnatural.

The tunnel here was dry. "I wonder what they do with all their water?" Kev wondered aloud, sidestepping the bloodstained footprints of something large that - impossibly - had five legs. To his relief, the footprints turned after a few metres and meandered down a side tunnel.

"Who knows?" said Jimmy grimly. He was checking behind them. "You feel it?"

"Like we're being watched?" said Kev. He took a deep, shaking breath. "Yeah. Not too far to go now."

They turned into a tunnel where a rainbow of rivulets ran down the walls. Steam rose in spirals from the mother-of-pearl-coloured trickle. Both of them held their breath as they walked past, even though the steam smelled very good indeed. Good enough to taste. The flushers had learned that lesson the hard way.

But a faint sound up ahead suggested that they still had more to learn.

Stopping in their tracks, they scanned the tunnel with the lamps on top of their helmets. Something moved in the shadows just outside the circles of lamplight. Jimmy raised his pickaxe and both of them tensed, as a creature crawled into the light.

It was a rat. Only a battered grey rat, with beady black eyes.

Jimmy lowered his pickaxe. Both he and Kev let out the breaths they'd been holding. But they did not relax completely. There was something more than a little off about that rat. Though the sewers were meant to be full of rodents, usually they never saw them. They fled at the sound of human footsteps.

But not this rat. Fearlessly, it stood up on its hind legs, making no attempt to sniff the air as a normal rat would. Instead, it glared at them, over the long, dark wand that it carried between its yellow teeth.

They'd never seen such a malevolent expression on an animal before.

From the darkness behind the rat came a sound like cloth brushing over the tunnel floor. Something else was moving in the shadows towards them. Something much larger than a rat.

"You hear that?" asked Kev. His mouth was dry.

"Someone's coming," said Jimmy in a low voice. "We'd better let them know that we're friendly. We don't want to startle one of THEM."

Both of them scanned the darkness with their lamps. "Hullo?" they chorused.

Then their lamps caught the intruder full in the face...

oOoOoOo

Author Note: Please review! It's a big encouragement to keep writing!