A/N: Not much of a romance. Not much of a parody. Not much of anything. A burst of random inspiration, if you will. Plus, it will distract readers from my struggle with Newlyweds. Heh. So (try to) enjoy.

Disclaimer: Hey, if you try really hard, you can hear the sound of me not owning Harry Potter! (trust me it's a really lousy sound)

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"I won't, I won't, I won't," said Harry stubbornly for the umpteenth time, starting to sound like a child throwing a tantrum.

Hermione looked at him exasperatedly. "You have to, Harry."

"I won't," repeated Harry vehemently. "I wouldn't be caught dead in that place!"

They were outside of a small ramshackle stone building in Knockturn Alley, an array of bright colors flashing in the dusty, cracked windows and a few creaky steps leading up to a peeling green door. A wooden sign had been nailed above the entrance. The Cat's Paw-burlesque parlor, said the smudged black ink. It was irrefutable. Harry was going into a strip joint in order to save the world. If the situation at hand wasn't so pressing Harry would have laughed.

He ran his fingers through his rumpled black hair tiredly. "It's two in the morning," he grumbled. "Who knows what kind of perverted freaks are in there?"

"We know," replied Hermione, ignoring the fact that it was a rhetorical question. "A crowd of Death Eaters went in and we followed them here. Did you know that one of the Death Eaters owns this place? I have a hunch that a Horcrux is concealed somewhere in there; they don't know it, obviously, but it must be something Voldemort is telling them to take care of. All you have to do is wheedle a bit of information from one of the employees there-"

"You mean a stripper," said Harry loudly.

Hermione frowned. "Quiet, someone could hear you. And calm down, Harry, it's not a big deal."

"Well, you're not the one who has to call for a lap dance!" exploded Harry. "Why can't Ron do it? Or you!" Harry, of course, knew the answer to this. Neither Ron nor Hermione was the Chosen One. Neither one of them had the weight of the world on his/her shoulders. Besides, Ron would turn scarlet at the sight of his mum's smalls. Imagine if he were to walk into a building armed to the teeth with scantily clad striptease artists. And as for Hermione-well, she hated masquerading as a lesbian. "I can't believe you're actually making me do this."

Hermione rubbed her forehead wearily. "We don't have a choice, Harry."

"Sorry, mate," whispered Ron. He was invisible to the naked eye, hidden underneath Harry's invisibility cloak nearby; he had been stationed as lookout.; Hermione would cover the rear of the building.

"Can't I just slip a bit of Veritaserum into somebody's drink?" asked Harry hopefully.

"Yes," said Hermione. "But a customer wouldn't know anything, of course, and since this…place is pretty shady, they might be expecting it. And the-employees aren't allowed to drink anything during…work hours."

Harry snorted at Hermione's attempt to euphemize the conversation, then remembered the seriousness of the situation. "Hermione, I can't," said Harry, wildly grasping at straws. Legilimency! Oh, but he was terribly incompetent at it…his insides squirmed as he pictured the scene: some hag of a woman with blue eyeshadow and rouge caked on her face creeping up to him seductively…he would stammer and words would fall out of his mouth…she would climb on top of him and his legs would buckle…

"You have to do it, Harry," urged Hermione, interrupting this rather disturbing image. "And you're very lucky that this Horcrux isn't in a dangerous location. I mean, a cabaret is a bit risky, but we've been through worse, much worse."

Harry recalled their last adventure, where they had managed to find and destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes-the Slytherin locket. He shuddered. They had been an inch near death that time. But right now he felt that he'd rather take the Death Eaters again rather than face the monstrosity of these circumstances. "I can't," he said again.

"Harry, listen to me," said Hermione, using the guilt trip trigger, "If you don't do this, people are going to die. More people are going to die, I mean," corrected Hermione. "You don't want that, do you? This war has to come to the end, and we have to win before it does. If not, the world will be plunged into darkness. You'll never forgive yourself. This is minuscule compared to what is at stake-peoples' lives and freedoms. In order to conquer Voldemort, you have to do this. Remember your promise to Mrs. Weasley…"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. The guilt trip trigger (Part One of How to Persuade Harry to Do Something) had worked. Hermione was good at that. How he hated her.

"You can do it," prodded Hermione, now enacting Part Two of How to Persuade Harry to Do Something (the pep talk), "Erase your fears and misgivings. This is nothing compared to what you've done in the past. You're brave, Harry, and an exceptional wizard. You can do it."

"Yeah," echoed Ron.

Harry swallowed. He'd had to coax information out of people before and was moderately skilled at doing so, but coaxing a female specimen paid to do scandalous acts specifically for the entertainment of the likes of him was not a skill he could assume. "Okay," he said finally. "Okay."

Hermione pushed him a little. He stumbled two steps forward. "Go on, then." Harry robotically went up the steps and stopped at the door. He felt decidedly nervous. "Are you sure they won't recognize me?" he asked, gingerly touching his forehead where his scar used to be. They had followed the lead immediately after having been given instructions at headquarters. There had been no time to waste; the other side would eventually find out that they had found out another Horcrux location and that would lead to serious problems. The Polyjuice Potion they had was out of stock, so Hermione had quickly covered Harry's scar with what she called "Muggle magic," a light dab of liquid foundation, much to Harry's discomfiture. She had also removed his glasses and tried convincing him to wear a wig, but Harry had adamantly refused; to think that the Order of the Phoenix could afford casualties of war and not a few decent-looking hairpieces. As Hermione had rummaged through the trunk containing shoddy disguises, there was only a huge black Afro and a shambolic bob. After failing to sway Harry to her point (Harry: 1; Hermione: 2093483048023), she had sighed, raised her hands up in defeat, briskly stated that it didn't matter, and to hurry up and get going, Ron, you shouldn't have drank all that butterbeer.

"It's fine," reassured Hermione. "I bet everyone in there is too intoxicated to notice you and besides, the only reason they would know you're Harry Potter is because of your scar and thanks to Cover Girl, you don't have one. And even if they did notice you, they'd be too incapacitated to do anything about it, so don't worry."

"Okay then." Harry, with a trembling hand, reached for the doorknob, bracing himself for the worse when Hermione's voice cut through the silence. "Wait!" She tossed an item to him; Harry fumbled it and held it up to examine it. It was a plain gold mask. "What's this for?"

"Just in case someone does recognize you," said Hermione with the air of one talking to a child. "Put it on and you'll fit right in. It is a burlesque parlor, after all. And good luck."

Easy for you to say, Harry almost said but decided against it; he didn't want her to do Part Three of How to Persuade Harry to Do Something, which usually ended in blackmail and/or violence. Instead he slipped on the mask, feeling rather stupid, summed up what courage he had, and was just about to open the door when Hermione suddenly hissed, "Harry! Do you remember the signals?"

Harry groaned. "Yes." There were different colored sparks to shoot up in the air with one's wand to convey messages to another associate, each meaning different things at different times. There were the standard ones, like red for danger, green for objective accomplished, blah blah blah. Then there were the complicated color combinations and difficult spark movement amalgamations Hermione had invented, which Harry couldn't really recall at the moment-it was Hermione's system, after all. But he figured he would only have to know the basics-hardly anyone used the I'm-wandless-and-surrounded-by-vicious-bloodthirsty-creatures-and-with-three-handicapped-people-please-help signal (which Harry vaguely remembered required a sort of funny 'S' movement of the wand). With a final curt wave, Harry wrenched the door open and slipped quietly inside before Hermione could utter another word.