BEETLE JUICE
Ron looked at Harry.
Harry looked at Ron; at the mess on the floor, on the workbench, the smattering of entrails on their friend's face.
"Well," Harry said. "That was interesting."
-----
32 Minutes Earlier
Professor McGonagall was late.
Transfiguration was supposed to start at 1pm on the dot – McGonagall was never later – yet it was now twenty past one and there was no sign of the elderly witch.
Hermione huffed at the head of the line of students waiting outside the third-floor classroom, her nose in a textbook.
"You might not care," the bushy-haired Muggle-born was saying to Ron, "but if I lose one point on my NEWTS because of this class…"
She didn't finish the sentence, which was probably wise. When she turned back to the book with another disgruntled expulsion of air, Ron nudged Harry with his elbow and made an imaginary ring around his ear and then shook his head.
"I have eyes, Ronald," Hermione hissed.
Ron gaped at his friend, while Harry stifled a laugh behind his hands.
"How does she do that?" Ron muttered.
Harry just shrugged his shoulders. He could see Hermione eying them both dubiously over the top of her textbook. She arched a brow at the Boy Wizard, challenging him to say something. He ducked his head and averted his gaze, taking in the scene outside the classroom. The Gryffindors were on one side, leaning up against the brick wall, while the Slytherins slouched on the other side of the corridor, hands in their robe pockets and scowling from left to right. The handful of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were scattered between the other two houses, the latter of which were waiting more patiently than the rest of them put together.
Draco Malfoy let out a dramatic sigh. He was inspecting his fingernails as he spoke, his voice the usual sardonic drawl.
"It's no skin off my nose," he said lazily. "I don't even need my NEWTS. I'm off to bigger and better things."
"Oh, Draco, whatever do you mean?" Pansy Parkinson simpered.
The blonde flashed her a winning smile that was most definitely on display for the masses. He flicked at the nail on his ring finger delicately.
Pansy squealed.
"Draco! Oh, you're going to propose!"
Malfoy's head snapped up. His trademark complexion of near death was now Gryffindor red. Every eye in the corridor was on him and Pansy: some had dropped their jaws, while others were furiously whispering with the person next to them.
Ron Weasley retched, his middle finger poking the back of his throat.
"Foul!" he exclaimed.
"Like you can talk, Weasel!" Malfoy fired back. "You'd lick the bottom of that Mudblood's shoes if she asked you to."
Harry grabbed his friend's arm to stop him from doing something crazy. Ron's ears flamed the same shade as his hair. His expression was incensed, accusatory, as he looked at his fellow Gryffindor.
Harry drew two fingers to his green eyes and tilted his head at the staircase end of the hall. A few seconds later, the telltale clack of heels could be heard gaining momentum and volume. Soon, McGonagall's pointed witches hat came into view, and then her formidable form under a billowing cloak of jet-black – only she wasn't anywhere near as formidable as usual. Her head of wiry, grey hair was dishevelled under her hat. She had lipstick smeared across her cheek, and her robes top looked like it was on inside out.
Everyone was gaping – not just Harry – yet it was the Boy Who Lived who McGonagall singled out. She raised a stern eyebrow at him.
"Close your mouth, Potter, or the flies will get in."
Draco Malfoy let out what sounded distinctly like a girl squealing. The professor turned her eyes on the Slytherin, took in the tight grip Pansy had on his arm and the light on her face. McGonagall pointed to her ring finger and Pansy nodded ecstatically.
"Well, congratulations, Mr Malfoy." She sounded smug.
The blonde spluttered. "What?"
McGonagall didn't respond. Her eyes twinkled as she ushered the restless students into the classroom. She was red in the face, as if she'd just come back from a rigorous workout on the Quidditch pitch; except Harry knew that the Transfiguration teacher only enjoyed the popular sport from the safety of the stands.
Hermione was hot on the professor's heels as she strode into the room. She was waving her textbook around and ranting about NEWTS and the state of her education.
"Where d'ya think she's been?" Ron asked Harry, thumbing in McGonagall's direction.
Harry shrugged again and shook his head.
The redhead made a rude gesture with his hands. "It looks like she's been–"
"Ronald!"
Hermione was back, appearing out of nowhere at their sides. She'd given McGonagall's ears a rest, at least for the moment. Harry was just glad she'd stopped Ron from finishing that sentence. He liked his nightmares as they were – starring Voldemort and Bellatrix and clowns.
Clowns. He shuddered at the thought.
They sat in their assigned seats: Harry with Hermione, and Ron one row back with Lavender Brown. Malfoy was last into the room, a hyperventilating Pansy Parkinson draped on his arm. He looked put out, Harry observed with a small thrill.
The Gryffindor wondered if perhaps all the sneaking around the blonde had been doing since the start of term had nothing to do with Voldemort and Death Eaters at all; that perhaps Draco had simply been trying his dandiest to hide the fact that he was madly in love with Parkinson and was planning to propose.
Ron must have been thinking the same thing, because he nudged Harry's chair with his foot, jerking his head at Malfoy. His fiery red hair flopped in his eyes with the movement, rendering him momentarily blind.
"Don't you go getting any ideas," he warned under his breath, and then cleared his throat to clarify. "With Ginny, I mean. She's too young for matrimony."
Harry went to tell him that he had absolutely no intention of marrying anyone right now, but Hermione shushed both of them with an angry hiss.
McGonagall was speaking. She was standing behind her desk holding up a curious creature Harry had never seen before. It was about the size of the professor's hand, a bright cerulean in colour with a mottled shell including all the colours of the rainbow.
"The Belgian Pus Beetle," McGonagall announced, "is a delicacy in its country of origin. It is also extremely rare. We can, however, transfigure one from an ordinary shell."
An assortment of seashells, each one a different size and shape, came sailing across the room, falling onto the workbenches in pairs.
"Today's lesson," said McGonagall, "is to successfully transfigure one using only the shell in front of you and the instructions on page 129 of your textbook."
A handful of students reached across their desks for their shells; the others remained stationary, staring ahead blankly and blinking. Ron and, suffice to say, Harry, were included in that second group. The professor raised an open palm, demanding attention. The few murmurs that had broken out amongst the group – mostly on Malfoy's side of the classroom – ceased. Silence descended again.
"I must warn you," the professor said ominously, "this is an extremely difficult task. Care must be taken not to burst the sac of your transfigured Belgian Pus Beetle, as the smell will linger for weeks on the skin."
The entire class blanched at this. Harry glanced back at Ron, who had now flicked to the designated section of the textbook and was staring at it with fearful eyes.
"Impossible," he whispered. His voice shook.
Lavender Brown took his freckled hand in hers. "Don't worry, Won Won, I'll help you!"
"That's… reassuring," Ron gulped.
Theodore Nott sniggered from the desk across from the Gryffindors. Behind him, Neville Longbottom swallowed a heavy lump of anxiety. His skin was grey-green and he looked more than a little sickly. He was paired with Seamus Finnegan.
Hermione thumped the desk in between her seat and Harry's. "Pay attention!" she snapped. Harry jumped and turned back to the front of the classroom.
The professor set an egg timer down on her desk and clamped her hands behind her back. "You have forty minutes," she said. "Read through the instructions first – carefully. Miss Granger, I'm leaving you in charge."
Hermione rose from her stool with a start.
"But professor, where are you–"
"I need to pay a little visit to Professor Flitwick… about the, ah… choir. Yes. I shan't be long. Until then, I trust you will keep things in order."
She strode out of the room before Hermione could protest, cloak billowing around her in a manner even Professor Snape would be proud to see. No sooner had McGonagall left than someone started up a chant near the centre of the room.
"McGonagall and Flitwick, sitting in a tree…"
Their song came to a strangled end. It was Zacharias Smith who Hermione was now glaring daggers at from her post at the front of the classroom. She threw Harry an apologetic shrug as she gathered her things and parked herself behind the teacher's desk: only Harry didn't really believe she was sorry, not at all. Her spine was stiff with pride as she sat in the high backed chair; her textbook spread open, big brown eyes scouring the text for the trick to transfiguring a perfect Belgian Pus Beetle.
The first disruption came from Pansy Parkinson.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T WANT TO MARRY ME?"
Every head in the room spun one-eighty degrees to face the desk of Parkinson and Malfoy. The former had her wand in the air. Her eyes a swirling mass of indignation and hurt turned towards the blonde Slytherin who, it appeared, wasn't going to be her lawfully-wedded anything after all.
Ron leaned back to high-five Dean Thomas.
Hermione took a commanding hold on the room at large. "All right, show's over, everyone. Concentrate on your own work. The timer's half-gone already and I don't see any Belgian Pus Beetles walking around."
"I don't see yours, either," sneered Nott.
Hermione pointed her wand at the chalkboard behind her. A white cross magically appeared in the Slytherin column. "Two more strikes and I start deducting points."
Not spluttered. "But that's unfair!"
"McGonagall left me in charge," was all the bushy-haired witch offered in response.
Ron high-fived Dean again.
Harry, meanwhile, was to busy trying to decipher the notes on page 129. He had his tongue sticking out one side of his mouth, and his glasses were skewif and fogged at the corners.
"I can't do this!" Seamus exclaimed. "I'll kill everyone!"
A couple of students laughed at this announcement. None disputed it. Harry furrowed his brows, perturbed. The little egg timer was losing sand in a steady stream, collecting in a growing mound in the glass base.
McGonagall had been gone too long. It wasn't like her to just blow off class like she'd done, especially given the complexity of the lesson. Harry thought of her reasoning – Flitwick – and immediately cursed his traitorous mind for the images it conjured. He was definitely going to have new nightmares tonight.
Pansy Parkinson shrieked, and a half formed Belgian Pus Beetle scattered across her shared desk and onto the floor. It scurried over the stone ground, a multi-coloured seashell on top of little insect legs, dropping great, globular lumps of yellowed pus in its wake. It shot under the desk of Neville and Seamus; the latter leaped on top of his stool, cowering and screeching at the top of his lungs.
"Sweet Merlin, it's alive!" Zacharias Smith called out as the deformed shell beast scuttled beneath his stool. He lifted his legs in the air and stared imploringly at Hermione, who huffed and slide down from her high perch about the rest of the room.
She rolled up the sleeves of her school robes and adjusted the knot of her red and gold tie. "Right," she said, tone authoritative.
The thing was under Malfoy's chair now. It seemed he had been the one to wrongly transfigure the not-bug. Hermione stormed over to him, flicking another chalky cross in Slytherin's column over her shoulder.
"I didn't mean to!" Malfoy protested, his eyes on the newest mark on the chalkboard. "She was threatening to turn me into a pus beetle if I didn't agree to marry her after all, and I panicked!"
Pansy rolled her eyes as if to say 'a likely story,' but when Hermione questioned her on the matter she didn't deny it.
"You can't just propose to someone and then take it back five seconds later!" she wailed. "It's hurtful."
"It really is," Lavender Brown agreed, piping up form the other side of the room. "When Won Won proposes to me, I know he won't do what Malfoy did. He's a Quidditch star, you know, and Quidditch stars are always gentlemen."
Pansy narrowed her beady eyes in the Gryffindor's general direction, but it was one of their own who took the bait and flew like a wounded Hippogriff with it.
"What?" Hermioned barked. "Ron would never marry you, not for all the gold in Gringotts."
"Granger!" Malfoy whined in the background. "My not-beetle thing has learned how to climb."
But Hermione paid no attention tot he blonde with flailing arms at the back of the room. She wasn't even aware he'd spoken. All of her attention was focused solely on Lavender and Ron, who both wore matching expressions of shock.
Lavender blinked. Her lips curled and then spread in a hard line across her face. "Ron and I are in love," she stated. "Of course he'll marry me."
"Now hang on a minute," Ron began weakly.
Hermione glared at him. "This is all your fault," she said. "You lead people on and then suddenly when somebody decides that what they feel for you is more than just friendly affection, you snog some trollop in front of everybody and that somebody who decided they liked you no longer matters!"
Ron's eyes shuttered. His expression was blank. Harry's wasn't much better.
"Huh?" Ron grunted. "Are you the trollop?"
An extremely frazzled Hermione screamed in frustration.
"You are so daft, Ronald Bilius Weasley!"
Dean Thomas patted his carrot-topped housemate on the back. "I think she's trying to tell you that she likes you," he said.
"Thank you, Dean!"
Hermione, though, didn't look anywhere near pleased. Dean shrank back on his stool and ducked his chin behind his desk. Ron, still apparently clueless, was glancing between Hermione and his Transfiguration partner, his brows knitted together.
Lavender wasn't stupid. She knew exactly what was going on. She shoved Hermione – hard – in the chest.
"You keep your hands off my fiancé!"
"Now hang on a minute," Ron tried again.
"SHUT UP, RON!" Hermione and Lavender bellowed in unison.
Harry looked over at the egg timer. The sand had completely settled in the bottom now, which meant that McGonagall should be back from her rendezvous with Professor Flitwick. Harry shuddered.
Just think of clowns, he told himself.
"Merlin, it's still leaking!"
The girlish cry had to be Malfoy, but Harry was too busy watching the silent standoff between Ron's girlfriend and his best friend to check.
Clowns, Harry thought. Big, red-nosed clowns.
Hermione turned diplomatic. "Ron isn't your fiancé. He hasn't even proposed yet."
"Well, we can soon fix that," Lavender said smugly. She spun around to face her boyfriend. "Won Won, do you have anything you want to say? A question, perhaps, that you've been just dying to ask me?" She batted her eyelashes at him and Hermione dry-heaved.
Ron's freckles were stark against his suddenly ultra-pale complexion. "Um, Harry?" he called uncertainly.
Hermione turned her dagger-eyes on the raven-haired wizard. "Don't you dare say a word!" she threatened of him.
"Won Won, say something!" Lavender wailed.
"Yes, Won Won," Hermione said mockingly. "Answer her."
There was a clatter from the other side of the room, followed by raucous laughter and a scream so piercing that it couldn't have come from any human.
But it had.
Malfoy was dancing around on the tabletop shrieking, "Get it off, get it off!" The laughter was coming from Pansy.
Lavender huffed and stamped her feet. Ron let out a whimper and closed his eyes.
Seamus Finnegan yelped excitedly. "I think I've got it!" He pointed his wand at his seashell and spoke the incantation in a loud, clear, voice.
"Engorgio!"
Hermione's eyes became wide as saucers at the same time as Neville Longbottom realised what his partner had just said. Dean hid under his desk. Ron's eyes snapped open and stayed open. Malfoy was still screaming.
"Seamus, NO!" Hermione gasped.
"Uh-oh," Seamus muttered.
Too late.
*POP!*
-----
Professor McGonagall came back to find a mess of entrails and Belgian beetle pus covering the ceiling over Seamus Finnegan's bench.
The room was silent, save for the intermittent drip, drip of bug goo falling from the roof. Malfoy has passed out in the corner from the stench of his Belgian Pus Beetle facial.
Harry and Ron were standing near the doorway, horror marring their features. They were staring at Hermione: or where Hermione had been before Seamus had exploded his beetle. Now, all they could see of their friend was a clump of bushy brown hair. The rest of her – face, robes and all – was coated in a liberal layer of revolting, yellow beetle sludge.
"What in Merlin's name happened here?" McGonagall asked.
Nobody answered.
In truth, Harry didn't know what had happened. All he knew was this: Transfiguration had never been so eventful.
Zacharias Smith cleared his throat.
"So, Professor: how was Professor Flitwick?"
fin