"I," Harry said, and said it very carefully because it was important that this be clearly understood, "am going to go down to the Dungeons and, um, do things to Malfoy that are going to involve no clothes and possibly his hair getting all ruffled."
Nearly Headless Nick blinked a bit. "I believe you've had a bit too much of that whiskey, my potvaliant friend."
Harry frowned, failing to see the connection between one remark and the other. "Potter. Potter. Not Potvaliant. So don't tell Filch, 'kay?"
"This is the same Malfoy that you hexed into the hospital ward last week, no?" Nick asked dubiously. "And the one you had a shouting match with on these very stairs not twelve hours ago, threatening to turn him into, I believe the phrase was 'something out of a Lovecraft story,' if he didn't leave young Granger and Weasley alone?"
Vaguely irked, Harry drew himself up to his full height, clutching the invisibility cloak around him and checking to see that he still had the firewhiskey bottle securely in hand. "That's right. And this is, this is all part of my fell vengeance. You know he hates having his hair messed up."
"And why is it necessary to take his clothes off in order to mess up his hair?"
Frowning, Harry considered the point. For a ghost, Nick was certainly a masterful debater. "I have a reason for that. And it's a good reason. Why are you snickering?"
"Just sneezing," Nick said hastily.
"Anyway, I have my reasons. They're good reasons. Reasons with nothing at all to do with the fact that Malfoy in Quidditch gear makes my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, and certainly nothing to do with that dream the other night where one of the spigots in the prefects' bathroom gave out melted chocolate, or… oh, bollocks. I said that out loud, didn’t I?"
The firewhiskey bottle was abruptly plucked out of his hands by someone far too solid to be a ghost; at the same time, his invisibility cloak fell away, really rather confusing him because he didn’t remember putting on that particular shirt.
"Yes, Potter," Malfoy purred in his ear. "You did."
"Oh," Harry said in a small voice.
