Disclaimer: Yay! I found my pink rock I bought in Arizona! But guess what? I still don’t own Harry Potter!
Parenting Class
GIMME THE MAGIC!
“What’s Hogwarts?” Hermione asked innocently, though her eyes twinkled with mischief.
Harry and Dumbledore glanced at each other. “It’s a boarding school,” Dumbledore answered carefully.
“Why are you all wearing such funny clothes?” The child pointed at the wizarding robes on both figures. “Why am I wearing them?” she cried, realizing that she too had them on.
“It’s part of the uniform,” Harry said quickly. “I got a set on you while you were kicking Draco.” Of course, that wasn’t true, but Hermione seemed to buy it.
“Why do you have a pretty picture on yours? I want one!” she complained, pointing at the Gryffindor badge on Harry’s robes. As soon as she’d turned little, her badge had left the articles, since her house was undecided and she was too young to attend.
“They symbolize our houses…like clubs,” Harry answered. “I’m in Gryffindor and Draco’s in Slytherin.”
“Albus, I think Draco needs to be taken to the Hospital Wing…he’s in pretty bad shape,” Snape interrupted, looking up at the headmaster.
“Well then, Harry,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may either accompany Mr. Malfoy to the Hospital Wing and have breakfast there with Miss Granger or you can take Miss Granger down to breakfast.”
“I’ll take option one,” Harry blurted. “Can we have breakfast brought up for all of us though? Draco might be hungry when he wakes up.”
“I’ll see it done to,” the man chuckled. “Severus, come along; we must report downstairs. Harry, kindly escort Mr. Malfoy there. Have a nice day.” Still laughing, he exited the portrait hole, flicking his wand back at Harry’s glasses right before he left, the shattered glass repairing automatically, although all of this was missed by Hermione as she knelt next to Draco and poked him in the stomach.
Draco groaned and half-heartedly tried to crawl away, though his body was too exhausted to go more then a few centimeters. “DING-DONG!” Hermione bubbled happily, poking Draco’s belly button. “DING-DONG! DING-DONG!”
“I think that’s enough,” Harry intervened, catching Hermione’s hand before she managed to jab Draco again. “Can you walk in front of us to the Hospital Wing?”
Hermione snorted. “You don’t think I can walk? What do you take me for, a baby? I can do more then walk. I can kick-” she emphasized this with a blow to Harry’s shin- “and bite-” she launched her teeth into the poor boy’s arm and Harry screamed- “and pull hair-” both hands grabbed tufts of the unruly black locks and yanked, several pieces falling out- “and scream…! See? Now, is it can I walk or will I walk? You have to use correct grammar.”
“Will you please walk in front of us?” Harry cried, one hand nursing his head and massaging the spots where his hair had been ripped out and the other clamped tightly on the bite marks. “Please?”
“Sure,” she smiled, hopping so that she stood in front of Harry. “Well…what are we waiting for? Let’s go already! I’m hungry!”
“You will have to be patient. It’s your fault that we have to go to the Hospital Wing in the first place,” Harry retorted, helping Draco to stand up and draping one of the Slytherin’s arms around his neck for balance. “Now, nice and slow…I don’t think Draco wants to go very fast.”
“Damn right,” Draco muttered, wincing as he took a step forward.
“Watch your language,” Harry reprimanded, steering Draco carefully out of the room and Hermione fortunately obeying and walking directly in front of them.
“She swore first,” Draco grumbled, nodding his head at Hermione, who smirked.
Harry looked thoughtful for a moment, pausing in the hallway. “I thought we were going!” whined Hermione. “Move!” When Harry took no notice, attempting to remember the child swearing, Hermione gave an agitated sigh and kicked Harry on his already bruised shin.
He promptly jumped and lost hold on Draco, the poor Slytherin falling to the ground with a thud and a groan. “WHAT WAS THAT FOR?” Harry shouted, hopping around the hall and clutching his leg to him. “THAT HURT!”
“I’M HUNGRY! AND YOU’RE MAKING ME WAIT! NOW HURRY UP!”
“I DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU! YOU’RE A LITTLE GIRL!”
“YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME! OR I’LL KICK YOU IN YOUR WIENER AGAIN!”
Harry growled but decided to escape without bloodshed and hurt areas. “Fine,” he snarled. “You win this round, but you haven’t won the war. We’ll get going. Come on Draco.”
The Slytherin moaned from the ground. “I can’t move…” Harry, already in a bad mood, wrenched Draco up by his arm and proceeded to drag him down the hall, ignoring the protests from the blond as his body was banged up even more. Hermione led the duo, a large grin on her face, happily following Harry’s directions of ‘turn here’.
They (fortunately for Draco) arrived at the Hospital Wing a few minutes later, the Slytherin now unconscious after banging his head on a corner when Harry turned too sharply and Hermione beginning to grow grumpy once more.
Madam Pomfrey, hearing loud footsteps, exited her office and groaned when she saw who was entering. “Already, Mr. Potter? It’s the first day!” Seeing Draco, she let out a gasp. “Oh my, what happened to him?”
“I did it!” Hermione smiled. “And I kicked Harry in the wiener!”
“Goodness! Are you all right, Mr. Potter?”
“I’m fine,” Harry muttered. “Might not be able to have kids…but after this, I’m not sure I want to.”
The Mediwitch nodded and began to examined Draco, rubbing some ointment on his cuts and beginning to cover him with small band-aids, which had been introduced into the wizarding world earlier that year and had become insanely popular.
“Give me my breakfast,” Hermione demanded, quickly growing bored of watching the nurse bandage Draco.
“It’s right there,” Harry said, pointing at a tray sitting next to the window. “Go sit down quietly and eat so Draco can recover in peace.”
“You also injured him, Mr. Potter,” Pomfrey informed. “Dragging him here wasn’t the best choice. He’s got a bruise forming on his arm where you were holding on to it and a rather large bump on his head from a run in with what I can presume was a wall.”
Harry shrugged. “What I did was minor. I swear, that girl is evil!” Luckily for Harry, Hermione was too busy examining the breakfast selection.
“Well, Mr. Malfoy is all patched up…he should wake up shortly. Make sure he eats something…I’ll be in my office if something drastic happens.” That said, the nurse patted Draco’s hand and went into her office, the door closing with a firm snap behind her.
Hermione’s brown eyes looked inquisitively over the selection. Several bagels, a few doughnuts- ‘yummy’- a plate of buttered toast with packets of jelly, several choices of cereal- ‘No way!’- and oatmeal. A rather fitting meal. Selecting a chocolate cream filled doughnut from the plate, after all she never got this kind of junk food at home, Hermione glanced at the drinks.
One percent milk, a pitcher of water, a thermos of hot chocolate- ‘I think I’ll have some of that later’- and some strawberry milk. ‘Not a bad selection…but…’
The girl walked calmly over to Harry and Draco, the latter just beginning to wake up and looking wildly around for any sort of danger with Harry apologizing over and over for the extra injuries. “Oh look,” Draco smiled, noticing the breakfast tray and not Hermione. “A chocolate sprinkle doughnut; my favorite!”
“Uh oh,” Harry muttered, seeing the girl gliding over to them, an almost too sweet of a smile on her face. “Something’s up.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong…she’s got a doughnut. Kids love sweets like that.”
In Harry’s mind, he was attempting to rethink a memory he knew he should remember…something about broccoli? No…that couldn’t be right.
“Harry,” Hermione simpered, voice coated in sugar and honey. Too sugary to let either boy feel comfortable.
“Yes?” Harry asked uneasily, not liking at all how Hermione was getting closer, the doughnut now out of the way on a spare bed and both of her hands extended with the nails pointing towards him.
“I’ve got a little…question for you? Would you like to answer it?”
“Not really, no.” Seeing the girl’s cinnamon eyes harden he quickly changed his mind. “I’d love to hear it,” he squeaked, putting up both hands in a block in case she tried anything.
“Good. There’s one thing I like to have with my breakfast every morning…”
“Hi there, everyone. I’m Barb and I’ll be your waitress for today. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“And Mommy and Daddy always make sure I have it…”
“These two,” Hermione said, pointing at the children, “will have milk and I’ll take a cup of orange juice.”
“But for some reason, it isn’t here…”
“It’s what gave me my dashing good looks,” the dark haired boy joked, throwing a charming smile at Hermione. “I grew up on it instead of fruit juices…my mother is allergic to all citrus fruits and she hates apples.”
“And it’s making me rather angry. Tell me Harry…”
“I’m sorry,” said Hermione, “I would never have made it through my childhood without my daily…”
“Where is my…?”
“Orange juice.”
“Orange juice?”
“Shit,” Harry swore, backing fearfully away from the girl, who was preparing to pounce. “Listen, Hermione. I don’t have any orange ju-” he broke off his sentence with a scream as the girl launched herself at him, teeth sinking into his nose and knocking his glasses off.
Draco immediately scrambled off of the bed so that he wouldn’t be in harm’s way…too bad for him he was a little late. Hermione kicked down with her right foot and caught Harry once more in a now very tender and sore spot for him. Leaving the boy howling on the floor in pain, she jumped on top of Draco, scratching his face and biting his head.
The Slytherin began to run around the room, not able to see where he was going thanks to Hermione’s hands continually blocking his vision, screaming and crashing into various objects. Harry had just recovered enough to uncurl only to have Draco run on top of him, his foot squashing Harry’s face.
Seeing that Draco was going full blast running into various objects, Hermione jumped off and watched in satisfaction as the Slytherin plowed head first into a stone chimney and fell to the floor, not moving. Shouting in glee (happy to be getting revenge) Hermione hurdled on to Harry’s back, the Gryffindor having just risen from the floor. Covering his eyes, Hermione squealed in excitement as Harry began to run wildly around in circle, desperate to throw the girl off.
Pomfrey, finally deciding she couldn’t ignore the screams, exited the safety of her office to find out what the problem was. The sight she saw made her blood run cold.
‘It can’t be Miss Granger…that horrible child cannot possibly be her. Look at the mess! The damage! The boys! Oh, Merlin! The boys!’ “STUPEFY!” she shouted, flicking her wand at Harry to stop him from running in pointless circles.
The boy froze in mid run and slowly fell forward, Hermione sitting quite confused on top of him. Looking up, her eyes lighted on the wand in Pomfrey’s hand, eyes magnifying several times their normal size. “Magic,” she breathed, the nurse suddenly feeling very vulnerable. “I WANT THE MAGIC! GIMME THE MAGIC!”
The Mediwitch screamed as Hermione abandoned Harry and charged the woman, a crazy gleam in her eyes. Pivoting, Pomfrey ran out of the Hospital Wing, Hermione hot on her heels. Her shrieks echoed down the corridors and many students poked their heads out of the classrooms to see what the commotion was.
They all simply stared at the rather strange spectacle, wondering why a small girl was chasing the Mediwitch screaming ‘gimme the magic’ at the top of her lungs although she could barely be heard over the nurse’s screams.
In Transfiguration, a certain redhead looked up from the notes they were supposed to be taking on turning a candle into a picture frame. “I know that voice! That’s Hermione!” Leaving Terry to watch Lavender, he leapt out of his chair and dashed into the hall, a large grin on his freckled face as he saw the little girl coming down the hall, Madam Pomfrey right in front of her.
“Hermione!” he cried, catching the girl and wrapping her in a bear hug after Pomfrey had passed by. “What are you doing chasing the poor-”
“STUPEFY!” Pomfrey shouted, turning and aiming her wand at Hermione. Regrettably, Hermione chose that moment to kick Ron in the stomach and drop to the ground, the spell colliding with the redhead and rendering him frozen on the floor.
Digging through his pockets, Hermione emerged victoriously with a wand, a maniacal grin spreading across her face and her laughter ringing down the hall. “Now I have magic too…MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“What’s going on out there?” demanded McGonagall, coming to the doorway with the whole class behind her, several of the children looking at Hermione curiously.
“Don’t…go…near…her,” the Mediwitch panted. “She’s…dangerous…”
“You’d better believe it,” Hermione smiled, twirling the wand in her fingertips. “And I’m going to turn you all into toads!”
“You’re too young to be doing magic,” McGonagall said primly. “If you’ll give me back Mr. Weasley’s wand…” the teacher held out her hand expectantly.
“No. It’s my magic now! I got it fair and square and I’m not giving it back!”
“Miss Granger! I am a teacher here at Hogwarts and you will do as I say.”
“NO! IT’S MY MAGIC! HOCUS POCUS!” she cried, waving the wand and pointing it at the teacher. Several students screamed as an explosion of green smoke coated them all. In a matter of seconds it faded…although McGonagall’s new accessory didn’t.
“What happened to Hermione?” whispered Neville, watching in horror as the girl got off of Ron and slowly began to walk towards the class, the wand brandished like a sword in front of her. “I thought she was nice.”
“Dunno, don’t care. Just whatever happens, we have to protect Blaise,” Pansy said firmly. Neville nodded. He certainly didn’t want his charge getting a pair of white bunny ears attached to his head. Or his own for that matter.
The Transfiguration professor gingerly touched one of her new ears, disbelief covering her face, before backing slowly away from the child.
“I did magic!” Hermione squealed, bouncing up and down on the ground. “I did magic…I DID MAGIC! AND I’M GOING TO DO MORE MAGIC! HOCUS POCUS! HOCUS POCUS! HOCUS POCUS!”
The class began to dive for cover from the insane child, although not many were lucky to escape her wrath. In fact, none were. Pretty soon, all of the students were screaming and running around the room just to keep out of range of Hermione, all of them wearing a pair of white rabbit ears.
Pomfrey, the only one who was rabbit ear free, dashed off down the hall to the headmaster’s office for help…they would surely need it.
Back in the Hospital Wing, Harry rose gingerly to his feet, the stunning spell finally having worn off. Picking up a pitcher of water from one of the nightstands, he dumped the contents onto Draco’s face, the Slytherin waking with a scream.
“Hermione’s loose,” Harry informed Draco, after he’d finished screaming and looking around for the devil child. “We should probably go look for her.”
“Are you crazy? Barricade the door while we still have a chance!” Ignoring his myriad of injuries, Draco stumbled upwards and raced to the door, throwing the lock into place. “Not good enough,” he realized. “An alohamora could open it up.”
Harry watched in amusement as Draco proceeded to push every available piece of furniture against the door, using his wand to stack several of the beds on top of one another until they bumped the ceiling. One bed was left in the corner, which Draco took shelter behind and yanked the blanket off to cover his head.
That just happened to be the bed Hermione had left her doughnut on…and it fell straight into Draco’s lap. The Slytherin was too tired to make his way over to the breakfast tray by the window and instead opted to eat the child’s breakfast.
Harry came and sat down next to the blond, grabbing part of the blanket and tossing it over his head as well. “Are we safe now?” he whispered, reaching out to take a piece of the doughnut. Draco growled and Harry withdrew.
“Probably not,” Draco whispered back after a thoughtful pause. “What happened exactly? She was on me and then everything went black.”
“You crashed into the chimney,” Harry said dryly. “She wasn’t even on you when you crashed…so you did that by yourself.”
Draco glowered silently before going back to questioning. “What was she talking about in the hall? About kicking you?”
“Nothing,” Harry said shortly. “Just leave it.”
“Okay…well, how did she get out of here?”
“She saw Pomfrey use her wand to stun me…and Mione didn’t know about magic yet, so she got really excited and took off after Pomfrey. Poor lady…I hate to think of what horrible disaster has befallen her.”
“Agreed,” Draco nodded. “We’ll just stay here…it’s safest.”
Both lapsed back into silence (Draco into eating Hermione’s doughnut again) while elsewhere in the castle it was anywhere but quiet.
“WHERE ARE HER GUARDIANS?” screamed Ron, finally having regained movement and was now huddled down behind McGonagall’s desk with Terry and Lavender, the girl wailing and pulling at her ears. “THEY SHOULD BE WATCHING HER!”
“I DON’T LIKE MY EARS!” the child cried, now ramming her fists into Ron. “MAKE THEM GO AWAY! NOOOOOOOWWWWW!”
“I CAN’T! JUST LEAVE THEM!”
“BUT THEY’RE UGLY! THEY DON’T MATCH MY HAIR!”
“Some things never change,” Ron muttered, not even able to hear himself over the screams of his classmates.
A small body came hurtling over the desk, and landed with a plop in Ron’s lap. A tiny, black haired boy looked up at the redhead, his brown eyes wide with fright. A second later, Pansy and Neville tumbled over as well. “FANCY SEEING YOU HERE!” shouted Pansy. “I THOUGHT YOU’D TRY AND STOP HER!”
“ARE YOU CRAZY? I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”
“YOU’RE A GRYFFINDOR,” the Slytherin pointed out. “NEVILLE’S A BLOODY COWARD TOO!”
“I AM NOT!” the clumsy boy defended. “I’M JUST COMPLETELY TERRIFIED OF THAT GIRL! SHE ISN’T SANE!”
“BOO!” screamed a new voice, jumping over the desk and landing behind the teenagers.
“IT’S HER!” they all yelled in unison.
Hermione looked thoughtful for a minute. “DO YOU GUYS PRACTICE TALKING TOGETHER? IT’S REALLY COOL!”
“NO!” Terry screamed. “BUT YOU CAN LEAVE US ALONE AND WE’LL DO IT AGAIN!”
“BUT I LIKE USING MAGIC! LOOK AT MY NEW TOAD!”
Reaching into her pocket, Hermione held up a dark green toad with a pair of bunny ears attached to its head.
“WHO IS THAT?” Pansy cried in alarm.
“THAT TEACHER! I THINK SHE LOOKS BETTER THIS WAY!”
“YOU DON’T TREAT TEACHERS LIKE THAT!” Ron shouted. “GIVE ME BACK PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL!”
“NO! SHE’S MY TOAD! I WANNA KEEP HER!”
And so began the battle of tug-apart-McGonagall as Ron grabbed the toad’s legs and Hermione the bunny ears, neither willing to give into the other side, and neither taking into account the poor professor.
At a different, calmer level in the castle, Pomfrey was pacing in front of Dumbledore’s desk, simply wringing her hands and mouthing words, although nothing was coming out. The headmaster knew that whatever had happened had frightened the poor witch out of her mind.
“Sit down, Poppy,” he said gently, making a plush chair appear behind her. With a loud thump, the nurse sat, though she continued to squeeze her hands. “And have a cup of tea,” he suggested with a smile a cup of the steaming brown liquid forming in her hands. “And once you’ve calmed down, tell me what’s wrong.”
Taking a few sips, the Mediwitch finally felt well enough to explain. “It’s Miss Granger, Albus. I don’t know how the potion had that affect on her…but she’s awful! Simply awful!”
“I know,” Dumbledore chuckled. “I had an encounter with her this morning. Quite a lively little thing…Hogwarts will be quite interesting for the next two weeks.”
“But Albus! You don’t understand! She’s dangerous! Last I saw, she was giving Minerva’s sixth year class rabbit ears after robbing Mr. Weasley of his wand! She has to be stopped! Please, can we not change her back?”
“She can’t be all that bad, Poppy. She’s just a child…give her a chance.”
“But Albus…”
“I’ll go see what I can do,” Dumbledore smiled. “Come along…the whole thing has probably already been solved.”
Dumbledore was far from right.
When they arrived outside the Transfiguration classroom, both could only stare as the students screamed and continued to dive for new places of cover, a small girl with brown hair standing on top of McGonagall’s desk with a large collection of toads all tied together in her arms and all wearing a set of bunny ears, with a wand clutched firmly in her hand, which she was using to shoot out random spells.
“See?” Pomfrey cried. “She’s mad Albus, mad!”
“I’ll fix this,” the wizard said grimly, stepping into the room, the noise level suddenly becoming deafening. “MISS GRANGER!” he bellowed. “STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!”
The entire class froze and the screams faded as they recognized their rescuer.
“You!” Hermione spat, jumping off the desk and carrying her toads. “You lied to me, you evil man.”
Dumbledore looked taken aback. “Pardon, Miss Granger?”
“You said this was a boarding school!”
“And it is.”
“But there’s magic here! And you didn’t tell me!”
“I’m sorry,” Dumbledore apologized. “It must have slipped my mind.”
“Pick me up!” Hermione demanded. Miffed by the change in conversation, Dumbledore did as he was told, not wanting to end up like the rest of the class. But as soon as she was settled in his arms, one fist snaked up and caught the old man in his chin, snapping his head back.
Before Dumbledore could react, Hermione jumped from his arms and slid down his beard like a fire pole (she was very good; having always done this at park next to her house) ripping out half of his beard in the process. “Never,” she said icily, Dumbledore’s beard clutched in right her hand and the toads in her left, “forget about magic.”
The whole class stared at the girl, Dumbledore looking down his nose at his incomplete beard. “I must inform you, Miss Granger,” he said, the twinkle gone from his eyes, “that you are to treat your elders with respect.”
“Why? I don’t have to be nice…I’m only nice to Mommy and Daddy and I’ll only listen to them.”
“Then we have no choice but to send you back. If you cannot comply with a simple rule then I’m afraid Hogwarts is not the place for you,” Dumbledore said gravely.
“Oh, please Sir!” she cried, throwing herself at his feet and dropping the beard and toads. “I’ll be good! I promise! Please don’t send me back!”
“One chance, Miss Granger. If you hurt the staff or myself again, then you will go home.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said meekly. “Can I go eat my breakfast now?”
“You haven’t eaten yet?” asked Pomfrey. “But there was a whole tray of food inside.”
“But it was missing my orange juice. And then I got mad at Harry when he said he didn’t have any.”
“Where’s Minerva?” asked the Mediwitch suddenly, looking around the room for any sign of the professor, after noticing the woman’s absence.
“The teacher?” Hermione asked. “She’s right here…this one I think,” she said proudly, picking up one of the toads and holding it up. “Can I keep her like this?”
“Certainly not!” the nurse cried. “Change her back right now!”
“How?”
“Well, that certainly complicates things,” Dumbledore buttered, fingering his ripped beard with a thoughtful expression. After a moment, he pointed his wand at himself and muttered a few well chosen words. Seconds later, his beard hung not even a half a foot from his face, since that was the only part that wasn’t cut in half. With a last flick, a dark blue satin ribbon wrapped itself around the base of the beard and tied itself into a neat little bow.
“This is no time to be fixing you hair, Albus!” snorted Pomfrey. “We have a teacher and several students who are all toads! And the entire class has rabbit ears!”
“Do you know how to change them back, Miss Granger?” Dumbledore inquired. “Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll have to give you detention with Mr. Filch.”
“I’ll change them back! Just promise me I can have breakfast after I do it!”
“You may have breakfast when they’re back to normal,” the headmaster agreed.
“Okay…let me think. ‘Hocus pocus’ gave them bunny ears. Maybe I have to say it backwards to reverse it! Sucop sucoh!” she bubbled, pointing her wand at Seamus. The teenager yelped as the ears changed to a pair of antlers and his head fell to the floor, the weight too much for him to hold up. “Well, it’s an improvement.”
“Improvement?” screeched Seamus, trying unsuccessfully to rise from the ground. “This is not an improvement! Give me back the bunny ears!”
“I think I might know the right spell,” whispered Hannah, Seamus’ partner. “Could I try, Professor?”
“Be my guest, Miss Abbot.”
The brown haired girl smiled and flicked her wand at a Hufflepuff. “Lepus mimi absentis!” The ears vanished and the student cheered.
After several minutes, everyone, including the toads, had been de-eared and the entire class was now looking through the numerous textbooks lining the shelves to find a spell to undo the toad transformation.
“Hey! Here’s a book on toads!” cried little Padama excitedly. “Look Parvarti!” Both identical twins hunched over the book and the younger one (Parvarti) read the passage aloud.
“To turn your toad successfully into a jewelry box you must…nope, that isn’t right, is it?”
“Afraid not. But nice try,” smiled Hannah.
“I found something!” Seamus cried, flipping through a book on the floor. “Oh…wait, never mind. It’s about boiling toads to bleed the mucus from their eyeballs.”
“That’s just gross,” a Ravenclaw shuddered. “What would a book like that be doing in a Transfiguration classroom?” Seamus just shrugged and picked up a new book from the pile that a kind student had set next to him.
“Ribbit!” croaked one of the frogs, hopping excitedly on an open book. “Ribbit! Riiiibbbit!”
“I think that one is trying to tell us something,” Pomfrey guessed, going over to examine the text. “Albus this is! It gives the spell for changing toads back into people!”
“What is it, Poppy? The sooner we can restore these poor humans, the better.”
“Let’s hope this works,” she prayed. Pointing her wand at the toad on the book, the witch said, “Hiki licentia!”
The toad began to grow, the skin changing from green to peach until a very haggard McGonagall was standing there. “Albus, if you wouldn’t mind, I think I’ll take the rest of the day off…could we possibly get a substitute? I can’t take anymore.”
“Of course, Minerva. Go relax and have a nice cup of tea. I can have Filius come down and teach a book lesson…he has almost no classes today.”
McGonagall gave a smile of thanks before walking rather quickly from the room and towards her chambers.
“Now can I have breakfast?” Hermione whined, tugging on Dumbledore’s periwinkle robes.
“Yes, yes,” Dumbledore nodded. “Let’s head up to the Hospital Wing.”
“We’re coming too,” Ron said firmly, stretching as he was released from his toad shaped prison. “I’ve got to talk to Harry and Draco…a nice long, painful, talk.”
“And I’m sure they’ll appreciate that very much, Mr. Weasley,” Dumbledore chuckled. “Let’s go then, shall we?”
The small (well, rather large group) consisting of Dumbledore, Pomfrey, Ron, Terry, Lavender, Pansy, Neville and Blaise all made their way up to the Hospital Wing, surprised to see the doors shut. “I could have sworn I left them open,” mused the nurse.
As a rule at Hogwarts, the doors to the Hospital Wing were to always remain open until nine at night when they were closed signaling visiting hours were over. For someone to have closed them was very odd…
Ron shrugged and tried to turn the doorknob, confusion etching on his features when the door failed to comply. “I think someone’s locked it.”
“Then try unlocking it,” Pansy sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.
Ron glared. “I was going to do that. Alohamora!” The lock clicked, but when Ron pushed against the door again, he was met with resistance.
A muffled shout was heard and then several loud curses from inside. “They must have barricaded the door,” Pansy glared. “Come on out of there, you cowards! Are you afraid of a little girl?”
“Yes!” shouted both Draco and Harry in unison.
“Please,” Harry begged. “Don’t let her in! Please!”
“Open the door, Harry!” Ron demanded, waving his wand dangerously (which he’d gotten back from Hermione).
“Never! You’ll never get in!”
“Blast it?” asked Neville.
“Blast it,” Terry said firmly. “On the count of three.”
“Three,” started Pansy.
“Two,” Ron said grimly.
“One!” squealed Lavender, hiding behind Dumbledore.
Bright purple light shot off the ends of the teenager’s wands and crashed into the door, the obtrusive object giving way and flinging open. Beds soared in the air and nightstands fell to the floor with a crash.
Hermione dashed inside and over to the one remaining bed that wasn’t on its side and where two figures were huddled beneath a blanket. “I’m back!” she sang, crouching down in front and trying to pull the blanket off.
Underneath it, Harry and Draco held on for dear life, but since Hermione had the advantage of standing, she blanket eventually gave way. “Guess what?” she squealed, jumping up and down in front of them excitedly, purposefully not noticing the looks of terror on their faces. “I got to use ma-” The words died on her lips as she looked at the empty plate sitting beside Draco, a bit of chocolate cream stuck on the edge. “You ate my doughnut,” she said, voice dangerously soft.
Harry slowly began to move away from the Slytherin, and as soon as he was two feet to the left, he jumped up and ran to hide behind Ron. “What’s with you?” the redhead whispered.
“You don’t want to see what she’s going to do…it’s scary.” Looking up, he noticed that Dumbledore was there. “What happened to your beard?”
“I decided to get it trimmed,” the headmaster replied evasively.
A scream broke off the small conversation and everyone watched as Hermione tackled Draco and began to pound her fists into his face, sitting on his stomach so he couldn’t get up. After several minutes of pummeling Draco, Hermione rose and made her way over to the breakfast tray.
Ron, living up to the Gryffindor bravery, ran up and pulled Draco out of harm’s way, feeling sympathy for the poor Slytherin.
“Draco? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Speak to me!” pleaded Pansy, shaking Draco by his shoulders.
“Stop that,” Draco moaned, feebly attempting to push Pansy away.
“Try some pain reliever,” suggested Pomfrey, uncorking a bottle from one of the shelves and dumping it into Draco’s mouth. “That should make you feel better.”
“WHERE’S MY ORANGE JUICE?” Hermione bellowed, looking up from the tray.
Dumbledore quickly conjured a cup that landed in Hermione’s hands. The girl smiled and went back to picking out a new piece of food.
“Oh Merlin,” panicked Ron. “Where’d Lav go?”
The entire group looked in horror as the sweet child approached Hermione, a wary yet friendly expression on her face. Harry, crouching down behind a fallen nightstand began to commentate.
“We’re in a clean, sterile hospital room where the wild Hermione Granger has created a disaster. She’s by the water hole, looking through the selection and a tame child, Lavender Brown, has been let out to meet with her. She’s approaching cautiously…that’s it, nice and easy…”
“He sounds like one of those safari people,” Terry grinned. “Keep talking Harry, this is good.”
Harry grinned and went back to observing. “Lavender has reached Hermione and both are simply looking at one another. Lavender takes a step and goes to pick up a glass of milk. And…oh my, Hermione lets her! We’ve got the first signs of positive interaction. She’s heading for the food now…and she picks up the one and only chocolate sprinkle doughnut.”
“Hey! That’s mine!” Draco cried, rising to his feet. Terry and Ron pulled him back to the ground as both girls looked up, and not seeing anyone (they were all hiding behind beds and nightstands) went back to their breakfast.
“Are you mad?” Ron hissed. “Just leave the doughnut! It’s safer that way.”
So Draco pouted in silence as Harry continued. “Both are moving over to the window seat…and they’re eating. Hermione viciously attacks her jelly doughnut while Lavender eats hers calmly, popping off each sprinkle and eating them first. Hermione is now attacking the orange juice, look at her go, and Lavender has still not touched her milk. Uh oh, they’re moving!”
Both children moved away from the window and Hermione picked up a packet of strawberry jelly meant for the toast and Lavender grabbed grape. Together both began to draw lines on the floor, forming boxes.
“And both now seem to be playing an odd sort of jumping game,” Harry commented in a whisper. “Hermione throws a piece of a bagel…and she’s hopping on one foot now, nope two now, now one again to the bagel…she bends down, picks it up and hops back. The bagel is given to Lavender who does the same thing, although the bagel lands in the big square at the top. And there she goes, hopping much slower so she doesn’t get jelly on her shoes. She’s retrieved the bagel and is coming back. And…Ow! That’s gotta hurt! Lavender is down, but she’s right back up, no tears in sight. She crosses the remaining boxes and Hermione takes the bagel. She‘s going again! Look at her hop…you can barely see her legs! She narrowly misses a line of grape jelly but she-”
“Harry?” Draco interrupted crossly, his silver eyes narrowed in a glare at the Gryffindor.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
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