A Black Comedy

CHAPTER ONE

Harry knew it was a stupid idea when he started to long for the sensations of portkey travel. Getting sucked into the Exit, he estimated felt like getting kicked in the balls with a seasickness curse. The wind rushing past was making Harry's cheeks flap and he couldn't even get out a proper manly scream of fright.

He grabbed onto his satchel with his right arm, not really trusting his magic to hold on to the bag. The feeling of falling while your body is being stretched from both top and bottom was as nauseating as it was painful. Compounding his discomfort was that the sheer amount of magic around him was blinding. He had his eyes shut tightly but the spell cast on them was forcing him to view all the surrounding magic and in a higher concentration that he'd ever seen before.

Harry idly wondered if he was scorching his optic nerve as he struggled to hold his wand up and cancel the magical sight spell. With a high-pitched grunt-like sound he succeeded.

Harry's glasses had so far managed to stay in place and he blinked his eyes open. He immediately regretted that move as he saw he was falling extremely fast through some sort of tube coated in blood and ectoplasm. The walls were semi-translucent and glancing through the pinkish haze in all directions there were endless arrays of more and more fleshy tubes.

Harry's vision blurred and everything around him seemed to gain a warming purple tinge. Oblivious to his continued descent, he thought back to his more often than not strained relationship with his best friends, Ron and Hermione. He wondered if maybe now Ginny could move on. He thought of the love he held for his parents and then Sirius.

There was a violent jerk to his right and Harry felt his body turn and rotate as gravity was pulling him, this time in a different direction. Thoughts of Sirius reminded Harry that he'd been sucked into the Exit and his vision cleared noticeably. Another jerk sent Harry careening forward, finally managing the elusive high-pitched manly scream that had evaded him earlier.

Harry could feel his stomach churning and really didn't want to know what puking in this ectoplasmic sorting system would do. Just when Harry didn't think he'd be able to make it, he was unceremoniously sent shooting out of the Exit, sliding across the stone floor, and crashing into the bottom set of stairs in the Death Chamber.

The moment Harry lifted his body up he began to retch all over the last step beneath him. He stopped to catch his breath for less than a second before resuming to empty the contents of his stomach. The thick puddle below him was spilling over the edge of the step and onto the floor.

Harry got a few more breaths of air and proceeded to dry heave every last painful drop he could. He wiped his mouth and looked up, only to find three Unspeakables surrounding him with their wands drawn and aimed at him.

Before he could react, two whispered disarming spells hit him, and his wand went flying. His body was forcefully pushed back onto the stairs. He opened his mouth to say something and only managed to belch a thick cloud of whitish smoke and dust.

Harry proceeded to cough and turned away from the welcoming committee. Thinking quickly he exclaimed, "Hang on. Let me drink the counter potion to my nundu's breath before you guys get sick."

Two of the Unspeakables cast immediate bubblehead charms, while the third had impressively managed to conjure or call an entire set of scuba gear complete with a working oxygen tank.

None of them made any move to stop Harry as he pulled a potion vial from his satchel and drank it immediately.

Harry let out a contented sigh as the steam whistled out his ears.

"You lied to us," the first Unspeakable stated. "That was pepper-up."

"True," Harry admitted tossing the empty vial into his bag. "But I didn't think you'd let me take it, if you knew it was pepper-up. Besides I was really exhausted and did you see how much I puked here? That's like what I eat in a week."