Chex sighed and stared at the materials set out in front of her. How was
she going to do this? Professor Flitwick had indeed set forth an
interesting project for her.
Melon looked at Chex's pile of untouched things and raised a plucked eyebrow, "How's it comin' Chex?"
"This is kinda silly." Chex admitted picked up the white silk bag her project was supposed to go in. "While it's a cool idea…it's still silly. What useful purpose could sunshine in a bag have?"
"Squeal, Chex. I'm sure you'll have to use it for something." Melon looked at her own pile of materials. "What I want to know is why I have to make potato powered pants…"
The green in the center of the school was busy as usual, but Chex was insistent on figuring out this Sunshine in a bag project. There had to be some way…
First she tried holding open the bag for a few minutes, letting the sunshine reach into the farthest corners of the silk before pulling it closed. It didn't work, and she hadn't really been expecting it to, but all the same it didn't hurt to try.
Next she tried putting a holding spell on the bag in hopes of getting the sunshine to stay in that way. Unfortunately, all she got to stay in the bag were a few flying insects and someone's shoe, as they had been unlucky enough to step into the bag while Chex was sitting there.
Well, at least she knew she could construct a good holding spell, but that still didn't solve the sunshine problem…
"What are you doing out here, Mix?" Draco Malfoy was the first to approach and ridicule Chex for her behavior. "Sitting out here on the grass with a bag like an idiot. Really, you'd think there wasn't anything better to do…"
Chex looked up at him, "maybe there isn't." Then she turned back to her bag.
Draco felt a little put out, "What are you doing anyway?"
"Putting Sunshine in a Bag," Chex answered simply, inspecting the bag carefully for holes.
"What kind of comeback is that?" Draco looked offended. "You didn't even threaten my life! What are you up to?"
Melon hopped over just then full of glee and shooed Malfoy away before he could harass the Chex any more.
"Chex! I've got the greatest news!" Melon hopped around in a circle. "I got my potato powered pants to work! Come and see!"
With nothing better to do, Chex followed, curious to see the results.
After carefully sneaking Chex into her Ravenclaw dorm room, Melon unveiled her prized achievement.
A pair of shiny black pants stood in the center of the room completely independent of the rest of the items and looked as if someone was actually standing in them. A black dress shoe was attached to each of the legs at the bottom, which Chex supposed gave them the ability to walk…
"Try my potato powered pants, Chex!" Melon said gleefully, as Melons are apt to do when they are full of glee.
"Um…how?" Chex approached the pants slowly, trying to take in every aspect of them to see if it gave her a clue as to how they worked.
Melon simply handed her a potato with an encouraging squeal, and stepped back.
Chex stared at the potato uncertainly, then deciding that there wasn't anything else to try, dropped the potato into the waistband of the pants, where it promptly disappeared.
Melon squealed happily when the pants shuddered to life and began to shakily walk across the room. So enthralled were the two girls by the fact that the pants were walking, that they didn't notice until far too late that it walked into a stand of potion bottles that held another experiment of Melon's.
The stand promptly fell over onto Chex who had no more than a few seconds to react, which were a few seconds too few in her current 'enthralled-by-the-walking-pants' state.
Chex opened her eyes slowly and carefully, not really sure what to expect, but found to her great surprise that she was in her own bed.
"Huh," Chex sat up and looked around. "I was sure that with an incident like Melon's Potions experiment falling on me I'd at least be granted a few days in the hospital wing."
But here she was, in her own bed and totally uninjured. It was a mystery indeed. She didn't let herself ponder on it long as she still had her sunshine project to finish. Or rather…start.
She threw her curtains aside and ran to her wardrobe to get some decent clothes as she was in her pajamas for some reason.
However, before she could get to her wardrobe, she spotted her white silk bag that was supposed to contain sunshine, sitting on her bedside table. It was glowing slightly and looked rather full.
"What the-" was all Chex could manage before she carefully picked the bag up.
Upon opening it, she discovered it was full of marble-sized balls that shone of their own golden brilliance.
Needless to say, Chex was positively amazed.
"This must be what sunshine in a bag looks like…" Chex said dreamily as she lifted one of the orbs out of the bag and set it on her palm.
She felt the light spread into her hand and then all through her body, making her feel extraordinarily happy and optimistic.
"Wow…this is really cool stuff," She placed the marble back into the bag and watched as it lit up again in the presence of the other sunshine marbles. After basking in the happy glow for a moment longer she pulled the string tie and closed the bag.
The rest of the morning, she felt light and giddy. When she had finished dressing and taking care of the normal hygienic procedures, she made her way down to the Great Hall where breakfast was still going on.
The white silk bag was hidden under her school robes as she wound her way around the tables looking for Melon. She found the Melon the same way she did most mornings, looking for the largest pile of food at the Ravenclaw table.
"Hey! Gourd, check this out!" Chex called to a pile of food at the table.
Melon peeked out from around the pile of food and squealed a "good morning" through a mouthful of bacon.
Chex placed the white silk bag on the table proudly, "Look, sunshine in a bag!"
"Yes, Chex. I saw that yesterday," Melon said after swallowing her food. "It's very cool."
"What?"
"You showed it to me yesterday after you spent the whole day out on the green working on it." Melon looked at Chex concerned. "Don't you remember?"
"No, not really," Chex admitted. "I thought that someone else had done it…but it's cool to know that I did it."
Melon turned to face the Chex, ignoring her food for the moment, which meant she must have really been worried about something.
"What's the last thing you remember, Chex?"
"Uh…your potions falling on me. Then I woke up in my bed upstairs."
Melon's brow furrowed in thought and she stared at the floor seriously, "Woo, that's very odd, Chex dear. After the potions fell on you yesterday, you stood up and told me you were fine." She brightened. "You also told me that my potato powered pants were awesome, then insisted you had to get your sunshine project finished."
"Oh." Chex blinked and stared at the bench she was sitting on.
"Chex!"
"Huh? What?"
It was Quevine, Chex's younger brother (3rd year), running over to greet her in a most jubilant mood.
"Thanks for helping me with my bridges yesterday," Quevine gushed happily. "I really needed to get that done for my Muggle Studies class today."
"Oh sure!" Chex smiled weakly. "No problem. Glad to help."
Quevine gave Chex a big hug before returning to the Gryffindor table and his friends.
"I'm missing a day of my life!" Chex quailed and turned to Melon. "What am I gonna do?"
Melon shrugged, "I really wish I could help Chex. I guess all you can do is go with the flow. This is Friday, so at least you'll have time to recuperate over the weekend."
"Yeah, and at least I've got my sunshine in a bag for Charms class…"Chex sighed and calmed herself. "Yeah. I'll be ok. Things are just fine."
Draco Malfoy glided up to where Chex and Melon were sitting, but with none of the malicious air that he usually carried, and without Crabbe or Goyle.
"Good morning," Draco smiled pleasantly and kissed Chex on the cheek. "Glad to see you are well this morning."
Melon's eyes widened and she was too stunned to even squeal. Chex, on the other hand was used to the morning being strange and pulled Malfoy down to sit on the bench next to her.
"What did you do that for?" Chex asked incredulously. "Did you just kiss me and say good morning, or am I dreaming?"
Draco looked a little hurt, "Yes I did. What's wrong? Don't you like me anymore?"
Chex blinked, "Anymore? What?"
Before Draco could look any more confused, Melon butted in, obviously recovered from the earlier shock.
"Don't mind her, Draco dear." Melon smiled pleasantly. "She's just having a bit of amnesia from an experiment I used her for last night. I was practicing making an amnesia potion, which worked perfectly, but my antidote didn't. So now we're stuck with a half-wit Chex."
"Ah," Malfoy sighed with relief. "Well, I'll leave you to recover then, Chex. See you later."
With that Malfoy got up and proceeded to the Slytherin table where a few of his fellow Slytherins backed away from him with unhidden malice.
"Wow," Chex said after watching Draco be rejected from several seats. "He's risking a lot by doing that."
Melon sniffled and dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief, "That's love, Chex. Ain't it great?"
"No, it's weird," Chex shook her head. "Well, I gotta go to class, so I'll see you at lunch and I'll tell you if I remember anything that happened yesterday."
"Squeal. You do that, Chex. Especially tell me if you remember anything about Draco. I really want to know what happened to him."
Chex quickly made her way to Herbology out in the oppressive greenhouse. Apparently, Professor Sprout had a surprise for them.
Once the class had gathered inside the greenhouse Professor Spout announced that they would be going outside to sit in the sunshine with the plants and tend to them there.
"Why is everyone in such a good mood?" Chex asked Kinestra Lorencroft, a Gryffindor that she conversed with during class.
Kinestra looked surprised, "You don't remember? You gave her one of those sunshine orbs yesterday because she was feeling a bit upset about one of her Gyropter plants that had died."
"Oh, yes." Chex nodded. "Of course I did. How silly of me."
When Kinestra had turned away Chex shook her head and wondered what the hell Melon's potions had done to her. Certainly it would be something even Snape could be proud of.
Thinking of Snape reminded her that she had Potions next. That wasn't exactly a nice thought…maybe she could pull out one of the sunshine marbles and get through class on a cloud of sunshine induced euphoria.
"Wait a minute," Chex said out loud to herself. Luckily Kinestra had wandered off to tend to a patch of shamrocks and didn't hear her. "Maybe this sunshine stuff is a drug…type of thing…"
Before she could carry that thought any farther, the bell rang and Professor Sprout let them leave with a cheery wave.
As Chex made her way down the hall, she noticed that everyone seemed to be in a very jubilant mood. Many of them thanked her for letting them borrow one of her sunshine marbles and she was beginning to really wonder what she had done. Mostly so she could put things back to normal.
Chex was beginning to get tired of everyone being so happy. Not as if she didn't want them to be happy…but all the same, she was beginning to miss the diversity of emotions she usually came across throughout the day.
"Well, at least I'm going to Potions," Chex commented to herself. "I can always count on Professor Snape to be in a pissy mood."
"Good afternoon class," Snape said neutrally as he entered the classroom. "I suppose we should get started then."
Chex was relieved to see that he wasn't cheery and buoyant, but she also noticed that he wasn't his usually bitchy self. He seemed to be acting civil to everyone, even the Gryffindors.
Once the class was busily working on amnesia potions, Chex approached Snape warily.
"Excuse me professor, but could I ask you a question?"
"Of course," Snape turned his attention away from the class for a moment and looked at her.
"I didn't happen to give you a golden marble yesterday, did I?"
Snape looked curious, "Yes, of course you did. Why? Do you want it back?" He reached into his robes and handed her a slightly faded golden marble. "I must say, that it has lost a bit of its brilliance, though."
Chex stared at the orb in her hand before quickly deposited it back into the bag with its fellows. When she looked up again, she caught Snape staring at the bag longingly.
"Right then," Chex shifted. "Well, I'll be going back to my seat then…"
Snape scowled at her, "You do that. Why you're out of your seat to begin with is beyond me. You should be working."
"Hold on a moment, sir," Chex pulled out the sunshine bag again. "Would you like another marble? One that's not faded?"
For a moment, Snape looked as though her hadn't heard her, then his face softened slightly, "Yes, please."
Chex practically ran to the Great Hall for lunch to meet up with Melon and tell her what had happened.
"Melon!" Chex called when she had located her pal. "You've got to hear this!"
"Squeal, what is it, Chex? Did you remember anything?"
"No," Chex said breathlessly and she sat down. "But I did make an interesting discovery. Those sunshine orbs, they're like a drug."
Melon looked interested, "Really? How so?"
"They make you happy," Chex answered simply. "They make you unconditionally happy. Even Snape-"
"Snape is happy?" Melon interrupted. "Woah…never saw that one coming…"
"Neither did I," Chex grinned. "He actually asked me nicely if he could have another marble. Then…then he gave me a point for Gryffindor."
Melon pondered this for a moment, wrapped in a vale of awe at this very uncharacteristic act from Snape.
"In fact," Chex interrupted Melon's thinking. "All my teachers are happy. Apparently I gave them each one of those sunshine marbles. It's very disturbing."
"You know, Chex," Melon smiled mischievously. "We could sell them. People would pay tons for something like that."
"I don't know if they're addictive or not…" Chex commented. "But it seems they have great capability to be so."
"That's even better then!" Melon squealed happily before taking a large bite out of a cheeseburger. Chex had no idea where the cheeseburger had come from, but ignored that fact.
"Melon, we can't sell these! They're dangerous!" Chex whispered harshly. "I don't think the world could take being happy all the time."
Melon chewed thoughtfully on another bite of cheeseburger before speaking, "Well, they don't have any negative side effects, do they?"
"I think you're missing the point, Melon," Chex answered flatly.
"Maybe Fred and George could help us-"
"Melon!"
"Squeal! I was just kidding!" Melon finished off the rest of her cheeseburger. "I don't think I could handle the whole world being happy."
"Uh, oh," Chex sighed. "Here comes Draco…I hope he doesn't ruin his reputation too badly because of these sunshine things."
Draco, however, seemed a little less happy than he had been that morning. In fact, he looked like he just might cry. He silently sat down next to Chex and put his head on the table.
Chex couldn't help herself; she felt sorry for him. She patted his head comfortingly and he looked up at her with tears in his eyes.
"They all hate me!" Draco sobbed before hugging Chex and burying his face in her shoulder. "I don't know why!"
Melon patted Draco on the head as well, "It's all right dear. Here, have one of these."
She opened the white silk bag and pulled out one of the sunshine orbs and handed it to Draco. When it had sat in his hand for a moment, he smiled giddily and hugged Melon.
"Thank you! I needed that." He stood up and turned to Chex. "I'm glad I can count on you guys to help me feel better. Here, you can have this back,"
Chex watched as Draco deposited one of the sunshine orbs, this one completely dark, on the table and skipped away.
Melon was in shock.
"See what I mean about them being a drug?" Chex asked of the Melon.
"Squeal, yeah. That was nuts." She looked at the bag with apprehension. "Those things need to be put away where no one can find them."
"Yeah," Chex nodded. "But after Charms class…"
Chex had plenty of time before she had to go to Charms class…she had other classes to go to, but they could wait. She wanted to find out how she had made those damn sunshine orbs.
She sat on her bed, staring at the little pile of glowing marbles on her bed. They had a happy warm glow, Chex thought, then shook her head and tried to focus.
She pulled on her dragon leather gloves and picked up one of the little balls, inspecting it all over before placing it back on the blanket.
If Chex was right, and she thought she was, the marbles had some kind of absorption spell on them. They absorbed sunlight, and when a living thing touched them the sunlight was released, giving the holder a pleasant feeling.
Chex sighed, "That much was easy to figure out, but how am I going to make them so they aren't so damn effective?" She picked up on of the marbles again and stared at it. "I want sunshine in a bag, but not sunshine in a bunch of balls in a bag. Just pure sunshine in a bag would be less dangerous than it is in this absorbable form."
There was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and Chex quickly tucked all the orbs back into the silk bag and tossed them under her bed.
"Are you up here, Chex?" A boy's voice called.
The boy came all the way up the stairs and smiled when he saw Chex sitting on her bed.
Chex froze. It was Draco.
"Uh, hi." Chex fidgeted. "What brings you to Gryffindor's 6th year girls' rooms?"
"You," Draco smiled.
"Oh, no. Please don't be nice to me," Chex pleaded. "I can't resist you if you're nice to me."
Draco was moving closer, slowly, but he was still closer.
"Why shouldn't I be nice to you when you helped me out so much?" Draco asked with that same smile. "I feel bad for all the times I've been so mean to you for no reason…I wanted to make it up to you."
Chex laughed uneasily, "That's great and all but…" She stopped. What the hell was she thinking?
"But what, Chex?" Draco asked honestly.
"Make it up to me how?"
"However you want me to," Draco was now close enough to touch, and Chex was having a hard time keeping from doing just that.
Draco leaned down and kissed Chex, and not on the cheek this time. Chex wondered where the hell he had learned to kiss like that and was getting ready to pull him onto the bed when someone else came running up the stairs.
"Squeal! Chex, I found out what you did yesterday-" Melon stopped abruptly seeing Draco in the room. "How the Hell did you get up here?"
Draco shrugged, "I asked the right questions."
Chex couldn't help herself, "He wants to make up for all those times he was mean to me for no reason."
"Make up or make out?" Melon raised an eyebrow then laughed as Malfoy blushed a lovely shade of red.
"Go sit over there Draco," Chex pointed to a chair on the other side of her bed then turned back to Melon. "So what did you find out?"
"I heard that yesterday something was stolen from Professor Dumbledore's office. Something very rare and shiny."
Melon was being overdramatic and both Chex and Melon knew it, but it always made things more interesting, so Chex played along.
"Could it be…my sunshine marble things? Do you think I could have-" Chex stopped short and suddenly turned to look at Draco.
Draco had apparently found the bag of sunshine and was looking at it in wonderment, "Wow, what a lovely collection of these things you have! And you only gave me one!"
Melon, still feeling dramatic, tried to jump over the bed and tackle Draco, but she only succeeded in getting both her and Chex tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets. By the time they had freed themselves, Draco was long gone with the sunshine.
"Shit," Chex cursed and kicked an innocent nearby chair. "I never should have let him…"
"Chex, did you steal those things from Dumbledore?"
"What?!" Chex looked at the Melon shocked. "Do you really think I would-"
"You from yesterday might have," Melon inserted, looking a bit too smart for Chex to counter effectively.
Chex sighed, "Well, I guess we should go track Malfoy down and give those things back to Dumbledore."
"Give Malfoy back to Dumbledore? What would be wanting Draco for?" Melon looked confused.
Chex laughed and shook her head, "No, Melon. I'll keep him and then we can give those sunshine things back to Dumbledore."
Melon agreed that sounded like a good idea and they made to exit the tower, but ran into Harry, Ron and Hermione on the stairs.
Harry looked startled, but apologized and began to move on. Hermione however stopped him and whispered something in his ear. He looked at her, then sighed and looked at Chex.
"Excuse me, Chex. But did you happen to steal anything from Dumbledore yesterday?"
Hermione elbowed him for being so incredibly blunt, but Harry just gave her a 'What else was I supposed to do?' look.
"Uh…yes actually." Chex answered.
Looking a little shocked Harry asked if he could have it back so he could return it.
"Unfortunately, no." Chex replied.
"And why not?" Ron bristled. "It don't belong to you. Give it back."
"What I mean, Ron, is that I can't give them to you because Draco took them from me."
"Well that makes sense," Hermione sniffed. "Silly Slytherins always making trouble for themselves and others."
"I'm glad we agree," Chex nodded to them and continued on her way out of the common room.
"Wooh, Chex," Melon called after Chex. "How are we gonna find Malfoy? He could be anywhere."
Chex looked up and down the empty corridor, then back to Melon, "That's easy enough. Where would you go if you were an extremely happy Slytherin?"
Melon grinned, "Snape."
Of course, Chex knew that Melon would have said 'Snape' no matter what she had asked, but it was always nice to ask a question and get an answer that makes sense, so she'd just had to ask the right question.
"Exactly," Chex grinned back. "He'll want to gloat if I know Draco. Of course even if I didn't know him I could tell because he's just do damn easy to read."
"Easy to read, or just easy?" Melon asked giggling like mad.
Chex giggled in turn, "God, Melon. You'd think we were under the effects of that sunshine from the way we act."
Melon nodded her agreement, "On to Snape!"
"Excuse me, girls, but why are you out of class?" a commanding, Scottish voice came from behind them.
Melon and Chex turned to see Professor McGonagall standing in the hallway with her classic "I caught you doing something you're not supposed to be doing" expression.
"Um…." Melon searched for a good reason for being out of class that wouldn't get her in too much trouble, but Chex spoke up first.
"Pardon me if I'm being impolite, but why are you out of class? I'm sure you should be teaching right now…"
McGonagall straightened then glanced up and down the hallway looking a bit suspicious, "That's none of your business."
"Are you looking for the sunshine marbles?" Chex asked nonchalantly.
"Yes, but you needn't-" she stopped and looked down at Chex as if she were Harry Potter. "How did you know that?"
"Because she's a clever Chex!" Melon chimed in. "And we're going to track down Malfoy and get it back for Dumbledore."
"Really?" the Professor raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Well first I think you should be getting along to class."
"But what about Malfoy!" Chex cried out loud. "He's got the sunshine!"
"I'll take care of Mr. Malfoy, Miss Mix. You and Miss DeVine need to be going," McGonagall insisted sternly and personally deposited them in Care of Magical Creatures class.
Hagrid looked shocked to see Melon and Chex showing up late for class, as they were usually early to see if they could get a peek at what they would be playing with for the day.
Today the class was crowded around a cage containing what looked like a hideous flying creature of some kind, but Chex paid it no mind as she was trying to think of a way of getting Draco and the sunshine back.
"Wooh," Melon whispered in Chex's ear, disrupting her thoughts. "What are we gonna do, Chex?"
"Well…first off, we need to get out of this class," Chex looked at Hagrid who was busy keeping Kinestra safe from the strange creature clawing at the bars of the cage. "Let's just pretend you're ill and I have to take you to the hospital wing."
"Chex, we tried that last time, remember?" Melon was recalling last week when they had wanted to get out of class early so they could retrieve Melon's stolen roller skates from Draco.
"Is it just me or are we always trying to get something back from Malfoy?" Chex pondered. "Cuz you know…the week before that we had to skip dinner so we could sneak into his room to get my Charms homework."
Melon shrugged, "Some people just have the urge to steal. Perhaps Draco is a kleptomaniac?"
Chex shoved that possibility away and raised her hand, waving it frantically to catch Hagrid's attention.
"Oy, what's that back there?" Hagrid peered easily over the rest of the class to see what Chex was up to. "You got a question?"
"Um, Hagrid…Melon is feeling a bit woozy from something she ate at lunch, would it be alright if I took her to the hospital wing?"
Hagrid shrugged, "Why sure, jus' make sure ya get the notes from somebody."
Melon moaned piteously and Chex insisted that they had to be going so Melon wouldn't die of some horrible stomach illness that she had heard about in The Daily Prophet.
Draco was melted into a happy puddle on a black velvet couch in Snape's office. He had discovered that the happiness you got from the marbles was increased ten-fold if you swallowed them.
Professor Snape reluctantly agreed to let Malfoy hide in his office, but the reluctance went away as they both were engulfed in the euphoria of the sunshine happiness.
"Professor Snape," Draco looked dazedly over at the teacher. "Would you do me a really big favor?"
"What's that?" Snape asked just as dazedly.
Draco giggled to himself with the silliness of his request before he could actually say it, "Would you…touch…my arm?"
Snape nodded and nearly giggled as well when he discovered how tingly and nice it felt when he touched someone else. Draco further melted into a puddle of rapture and felt he just might die of sheer pleasure.
Unexpectedly, a pair of black shiny pants entered the room and ambled purposefully over to where Malfoy was sucking contentedly on a sunshine marble.
Malfoy wasn't quite sure how to take this new occurrence. He didn't think the sunshine had hallucinatory effects…but one never knew. So, to test his theory he reached out and poked the pair of pants standing next to him.
Instantly he felt his cloud of jubilation being sucked away, and he removed his hand from the pants in disgust.
"What a horrible thing you are!" Draco cringed away from the black shiny thing, clutching the bag of sunshine to his breast.
"What was that?" Snape looked over at Malfoy, slightly puzzled until he spotted the pants for himself. "Oh dear…I know what you are…"
Dumbledore had been tipped off by Minerva McGonagall to check out Snape's classroom for the missing sunshine, and so there he was.
Snape was standing over a pair of shiny black pants with an empty potion bottle in his hand and Draco Malfoy was passed out on the couch.
Seeing the slightly confused expression on Dumbledore's face, Sanpe decided to explain what had happened.
"You see," Snape began. "I came down here and saw Malfoy laying on the couch and there was this pair of black pants coming towards him…I didn't get there in time to totally save him, but I did manage to disable the pants by…"
And so Dumbledore took in Snape's silly cover-up lie and believed it…somewhat.
"Well, next I suppose some students of mine will be running down the stairs to see what happened and I'll have to explain it somehow…what can I make up that just might be true?"
Malfoy coughed and rolled over then looked up drearily at Snape, "I'm sorry, sir…I promise I didn't mean to put you in such trouble…"
Snape shrugged and turned to Dumbledore, "I suppose I should call the Ministry while you think of something to tell the children?"
Dumbledore nodded, then smiled for he had the perfect idea.
Chex and Melon ran frantically down the hall towards Snape's classroom hoping they were in time to save the stash of sunshine before Malfoy used it up.
"Squeal, I just hope the retard doesn't try to eat them," Melon said breathlessly, still running down the corridor.
"Do you suppose…" Chex stopped in mid-run to think. "No, that's silly. That's way too far fetched to be even remotely true. I don't think sunshine would make your stomach upset…"
Melon looked confused, as she usually did when Chex only expressed her thoughts in half sentences to herself.
"Don't worry about it," Chex waved away the thought and continued running.
By the time they reached the dungeons, it already looked like a Muggle crime scene from a movie. There was yellow tape floating about to keep out unwanteds and Dumbledore was in the room talking with a few members from the Ministry of Magic.
"What's going on?" Chex felt almost as if she had been cheated out of her great discovery."
Dumbledore excused himself and made his way over to Chex and Melon who were trying just then to persuade the warning tape to let them by.
"I commend your mystery solving skills, girls, but the situation has been taken care of," Dumbledore looked down at them with an amused twinkle in his eye.
"Aw, mope…" Melon sighed and plopped into one of Snape's office chairs.
"Well, what's going on? Where's Malfoy?"
"Being purged," Dumbledore answered. "The sunshine marbles that you discovered were actually an experiment from the Ministry that they had sent to me to study.
Unfortunately, they were stolen from my office yesterday by a pair of potato powered pants that seemed to be under the control of another branch of the Ministry that didn't agree with the sunshine marbles as they created a rare, deadly stomach illness when swallowed."
Chex blinked, "Wow. I thought maybe there was some connection…when Melon said that thing about hoping Draco hadn't swallowed any…"
Dumbledore looked as though he wanted to laugh, but kept it to himself, "Well, Mr. Malfoy did consume quite a few of the marbles, I'm afraid, it's just a good thing Professor Snape was here to keep him from seriously hurting himself."
"What?" Melon sat up, suddenly taking hold of where she was and what she was sitting in. Once the shock had passed she sunk happily back in to the chair and sniffed it to absorb Snape's scent.
"Wait…I'm still confused…" Chex tried to remember everything Dumbledore had just told her. "Didn't Melon make those pants? And why did Professor Flitwick want us to create sunshine in a bag and potato powered pants?"
"This is going to be rather difficult to explain, but I'll try," Dumbledore sat down on the very couch Draco had been lounging on earlier. "The pants the Melon created were found earlier in a dumpster behind the school. The pants that pushed the potions on you yesterday were the pants from the Magic Conservation branch who were against he marbles because they felt they were an extraneous use of magic."
"But why did Professor-"
"As you may see," Dumbledore motioned behind him to where a rather ragged looking man in Professor Flitwick's robes, much too small for him, sat looking pissed off. "This man found out about the sunshine and is the one who reported it to the Daily Prophet. He was also hoping to make more of the marbles so that he could sell them."
Chex still didn't feel she understood the whole thing, so she tried to summerize as best she could, "So, the pants were trying to take the marbles from you and destroy them, but this guy wanted the marbles to sell so he impersonated Flitwick, no doubt with a Polyjuice potion, and got me to make more?"
Melon felt left out so she jumped in, "NO! You see the potions I had on my stand made you forget what you really wanted to do that day and you were hypnotized by the pants to steal the marbles and bring them back to them, but you snapped out of it the next day and were stuck with the marbles!"
"But not without passing them around first," Snape appeared suddenly, and looked bitchy as usual. "I should take 50 points from Gryffindor for you trying to kill one of my students with those sunshine things."
Dumbledore ignored Snape, "That's a wonderful deduction, Melon. However did you come up with the answer so fast?"
"Well squeal. Everyone knows that Melons are masters of anything that doesn't make sense!"
Chex nodded, for it was indeed true.
Later in the Gryffindor common room Melon and Chex told Harry, Ron and Hermione about what had happened and what Dumbledore had told them.
"That's rather odd I think…" Harry thought to himself. "It just doesn't seem right…"
Ron shrugged, "Well, at least it's over and we don't have to worry about it anymore. We didn't even have to solve the mystery! Chex and Melon did it for us!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Well, personally I would have liked the chance to investigate the matter myself, but its all been cleaned up now."
Chex leaned back in her chair, "I'm just glad I didn't actually have to make that damn impossible sunshine in a bag."
The next day in Charms class Professor Flitwick apologized for the inconvenience the imposter had caused, but then said that he had been on the right track.
Chex groaned, "Don't tell me we still have to do projects!"
Melon grinned, "Can I make potato powered pants?"
Professor Flitwick looked confused, "Yes, I suppose so…that's not what I had in mind but it will do."
Chex dreaded the thought of having to complete another magical project and wondered how she might get out of it. However she failed to come up with any good reason despite the fact she had lost a day of her life…
"Professor?" Chex raised her hand. "Can I plead incompetence based on a trauma I have suffered? I lost a day of my life."
"Oh, that's sad indeed," Flitwick sympathized. "Perhaps you can create something easy…" he peered down at a list he had in his hand. "Moonlight in a bottle, Ms. Mix. That should be simple enough."
Without noticing Chex's dismay, Flitwick went on to assign the rest of the classes projects.
Melon patted Chex on the head, "Don't worry Chex. I'll just have my potato powered pants knock some potions on you and everything will be fine!"
Melon looked at Chex's pile of untouched things and raised a plucked eyebrow, "How's it comin' Chex?"
"This is kinda silly." Chex admitted picked up the white silk bag her project was supposed to go in. "While it's a cool idea…it's still silly. What useful purpose could sunshine in a bag have?"
"Squeal, Chex. I'm sure you'll have to use it for something." Melon looked at her own pile of materials. "What I want to know is why I have to make potato powered pants…"
The green in the center of the school was busy as usual, but Chex was insistent on figuring out this Sunshine in a bag project. There had to be some way…
First she tried holding open the bag for a few minutes, letting the sunshine reach into the farthest corners of the silk before pulling it closed. It didn't work, and she hadn't really been expecting it to, but all the same it didn't hurt to try.
Next she tried putting a holding spell on the bag in hopes of getting the sunshine to stay in that way. Unfortunately, all she got to stay in the bag were a few flying insects and someone's shoe, as they had been unlucky enough to step into the bag while Chex was sitting there.
Well, at least she knew she could construct a good holding spell, but that still didn't solve the sunshine problem…
"What are you doing out here, Mix?" Draco Malfoy was the first to approach and ridicule Chex for her behavior. "Sitting out here on the grass with a bag like an idiot. Really, you'd think there wasn't anything better to do…"
Chex looked up at him, "maybe there isn't." Then she turned back to her bag.
Draco felt a little put out, "What are you doing anyway?"
"Putting Sunshine in a Bag," Chex answered simply, inspecting the bag carefully for holes.
"What kind of comeback is that?" Draco looked offended. "You didn't even threaten my life! What are you up to?"
Melon hopped over just then full of glee and shooed Malfoy away before he could harass the Chex any more.
"Chex! I've got the greatest news!" Melon hopped around in a circle. "I got my potato powered pants to work! Come and see!"
With nothing better to do, Chex followed, curious to see the results.
After carefully sneaking Chex into her Ravenclaw dorm room, Melon unveiled her prized achievement.
A pair of shiny black pants stood in the center of the room completely independent of the rest of the items and looked as if someone was actually standing in them. A black dress shoe was attached to each of the legs at the bottom, which Chex supposed gave them the ability to walk…
"Try my potato powered pants, Chex!" Melon said gleefully, as Melons are apt to do when they are full of glee.
"Um…how?" Chex approached the pants slowly, trying to take in every aspect of them to see if it gave her a clue as to how they worked.
Melon simply handed her a potato with an encouraging squeal, and stepped back.
Chex stared at the potato uncertainly, then deciding that there wasn't anything else to try, dropped the potato into the waistband of the pants, where it promptly disappeared.
Melon squealed happily when the pants shuddered to life and began to shakily walk across the room. So enthralled were the two girls by the fact that the pants were walking, that they didn't notice until far too late that it walked into a stand of potion bottles that held another experiment of Melon's.
The stand promptly fell over onto Chex who had no more than a few seconds to react, which were a few seconds too few in her current 'enthralled-by-the-walking-pants' state.
Chex opened her eyes slowly and carefully, not really sure what to expect, but found to her great surprise that she was in her own bed.
"Huh," Chex sat up and looked around. "I was sure that with an incident like Melon's Potions experiment falling on me I'd at least be granted a few days in the hospital wing."
But here she was, in her own bed and totally uninjured. It was a mystery indeed. She didn't let herself ponder on it long as she still had her sunshine project to finish. Or rather…start.
She threw her curtains aside and ran to her wardrobe to get some decent clothes as she was in her pajamas for some reason.
However, before she could get to her wardrobe, she spotted her white silk bag that was supposed to contain sunshine, sitting on her bedside table. It was glowing slightly and looked rather full.
"What the-" was all Chex could manage before she carefully picked the bag up.
Upon opening it, she discovered it was full of marble-sized balls that shone of their own golden brilliance.
Needless to say, Chex was positively amazed.
"This must be what sunshine in a bag looks like…" Chex said dreamily as she lifted one of the orbs out of the bag and set it on her palm.
She felt the light spread into her hand and then all through her body, making her feel extraordinarily happy and optimistic.
"Wow…this is really cool stuff," She placed the marble back into the bag and watched as it lit up again in the presence of the other sunshine marbles. After basking in the happy glow for a moment longer she pulled the string tie and closed the bag.
The rest of the morning, she felt light and giddy. When she had finished dressing and taking care of the normal hygienic procedures, she made her way down to the Great Hall where breakfast was still going on.
The white silk bag was hidden under her school robes as she wound her way around the tables looking for Melon. She found the Melon the same way she did most mornings, looking for the largest pile of food at the Ravenclaw table.
"Hey! Gourd, check this out!" Chex called to a pile of food at the table.
Melon peeked out from around the pile of food and squealed a "good morning" through a mouthful of bacon.
Chex placed the white silk bag on the table proudly, "Look, sunshine in a bag!"
"Yes, Chex. I saw that yesterday," Melon said after swallowing her food. "It's very cool."
"What?"
"You showed it to me yesterday after you spent the whole day out on the green working on it." Melon looked at Chex concerned. "Don't you remember?"
"No, not really," Chex admitted. "I thought that someone else had done it…but it's cool to know that I did it."
Melon turned to face the Chex, ignoring her food for the moment, which meant she must have really been worried about something.
"What's the last thing you remember, Chex?"
"Uh…your potions falling on me. Then I woke up in my bed upstairs."
Melon's brow furrowed in thought and she stared at the floor seriously, "Woo, that's very odd, Chex dear. After the potions fell on you yesterday, you stood up and told me you were fine." She brightened. "You also told me that my potato powered pants were awesome, then insisted you had to get your sunshine project finished."
"Oh." Chex blinked and stared at the bench she was sitting on.
"Chex!"
"Huh? What?"
It was Quevine, Chex's younger brother (3rd year), running over to greet her in a most jubilant mood.
"Thanks for helping me with my bridges yesterday," Quevine gushed happily. "I really needed to get that done for my Muggle Studies class today."
"Oh sure!" Chex smiled weakly. "No problem. Glad to help."
Quevine gave Chex a big hug before returning to the Gryffindor table and his friends.
"I'm missing a day of my life!" Chex quailed and turned to Melon. "What am I gonna do?"
Melon shrugged, "I really wish I could help Chex. I guess all you can do is go with the flow. This is Friday, so at least you'll have time to recuperate over the weekend."
"Yeah, and at least I've got my sunshine in a bag for Charms class…"Chex sighed and calmed herself. "Yeah. I'll be ok. Things are just fine."
Draco Malfoy glided up to where Chex and Melon were sitting, but with none of the malicious air that he usually carried, and without Crabbe or Goyle.
"Good morning," Draco smiled pleasantly and kissed Chex on the cheek. "Glad to see you are well this morning."
Melon's eyes widened and she was too stunned to even squeal. Chex, on the other hand was used to the morning being strange and pulled Malfoy down to sit on the bench next to her.
"What did you do that for?" Chex asked incredulously. "Did you just kiss me and say good morning, or am I dreaming?"
Draco looked a little hurt, "Yes I did. What's wrong? Don't you like me anymore?"
Chex blinked, "Anymore? What?"
Before Draco could look any more confused, Melon butted in, obviously recovered from the earlier shock.
"Don't mind her, Draco dear." Melon smiled pleasantly. "She's just having a bit of amnesia from an experiment I used her for last night. I was practicing making an amnesia potion, which worked perfectly, but my antidote didn't. So now we're stuck with a half-wit Chex."
"Ah," Malfoy sighed with relief. "Well, I'll leave you to recover then, Chex. See you later."
With that Malfoy got up and proceeded to the Slytherin table where a few of his fellow Slytherins backed away from him with unhidden malice.
"Wow," Chex said after watching Draco be rejected from several seats. "He's risking a lot by doing that."
Melon sniffled and dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief, "That's love, Chex. Ain't it great?"
"No, it's weird," Chex shook her head. "Well, I gotta go to class, so I'll see you at lunch and I'll tell you if I remember anything that happened yesterday."
"Squeal. You do that, Chex. Especially tell me if you remember anything about Draco. I really want to know what happened to him."
Chex quickly made her way to Herbology out in the oppressive greenhouse. Apparently, Professor Sprout had a surprise for them.
Once the class had gathered inside the greenhouse Professor Spout announced that they would be going outside to sit in the sunshine with the plants and tend to them there.
"Why is everyone in such a good mood?" Chex asked Kinestra Lorencroft, a Gryffindor that she conversed with during class.
Kinestra looked surprised, "You don't remember? You gave her one of those sunshine orbs yesterday because she was feeling a bit upset about one of her Gyropter plants that had died."
"Oh, yes." Chex nodded. "Of course I did. How silly of me."
When Kinestra had turned away Chex shook her head and wondered what the hell Melon's potions had done to her. Certainly it would be something even Snape could be proud of.
Thinking of Snape reminded her that she had Potions next. That wasn't exactly a nice thought…maybe she could pull out one of the sunshine marbles and get through class on a cloud of sunshine induced euphoria.
"Wait a minute," Chex said out loud to herself. Luckily Kinestra had wandered off to tend to a patch of shamrocks and didn't hear her. "Maybe this sunshine stuff is a drug…type of thing…"
Before she could carry that thought any farther, the bell rang and Professor Sprout let them leave with a cheery wave.
As Chex made her way down the hall, she noticed that everyone seemed to be in a very jubilant mood. Many of them thanked her for letting them borrow one of her sunshine marbles and she was beginning to really wonder what she had done. Mostly so she could put things back to normal.
Chex was beginning to get tired of everyone being so happy. Not as if she didn't want them to be happy…but all the same, she was beginning to miss the diversity of emotions she usually came across throughout the day.
"Well, at least I'm going to Potions," Chex commented to herself. "I can always count on Professor Snape to be in a pissy mood."
"Good afternoon class," Snape said neutrally as he entered the classroom. "I suppose we should get started then."
Chex was relieved to see that he wasn't cheery and buoyant, but she also noticed that he wasn't his usually bitchy self. He seemed to be acting civil to everyone, even the Gryffindors.
Once the class was busily working on amnesia potions, Chex approached Snape warily.
"Excuse me professor, but could I ask you a question?"
"Of course," Snape turned his attention away from the class for a moment and looked at her.
"I didn't happen to give you a golden marble yesterday, did I?"
Snape looked curious, "Yes, of course you did. Why? Do you want it back?" He reached into his robes and handed her a slightly faded golden marble. "I must say, that it has lost a bit of its brilliance, though."
Chex stared at the orb in her hand before quickly deposited it back into the bag with its fellows. When she looked up again, she caught Snape staring at the bag longingly.
"Right then," Chex shifted. "Well, I'll be going back to my seat then…"
Snape scowled at her, "You do that. Why you're out of your seat to begin with is beyond me. You should be working."
"Hold on a moment, sir," Chex pulled out the sunshine bag again. "Would you like another marble? One that's not faded?"
For a moment, Snape looked as though her hadn't heard her, then his face softened slightly, "Yes, please."
Chex practically ran to the Great Hall for lunch to meet up with Melon and tell her what had happened.
"Melon!" Chex called when she had located her pal. "You've got to hear this!"
"Squeal, what is it, Chex? Did you remember anything?"
"No," Chex said breathlessly and she sat down. "But I did make an interesting discovery. Those sunshine orbs, they're like a drug."
Melon looked interested, "Really? How so?"
"They make you happy," Chex answered simply. "They make you unconditionally happy. Even Snape-"
"Snape is happy?" Melon interrupted. "Woah…never saw that one coming…"
"Neither did I," Chex grinned. "He actually asked me nicely if he could have another marble. Then…then he gave me a point for Gryffindor."
Melon pondered this for a moment, wrapped in a vale of awe at this very uncharacteristic act from Snape.
"In fact," Chex interrupted Melon's thinking. "All my teachers are happy. Apparently I gave them each one of those sunshine marbles. It's very disturbing."
"You know, Chex," Melon smiled mischievously. "We could sell them. People would pay tons for something like that."
"I don't know if they're addictive or not…" Chex commented. "But it seems they have great capability to be so."
"That's even better then!" Melon squealed happily before taking a large bite out of a cheeseburger. Chex had no idea where the cheeseburger had come from, but ignored that fact.
"Melon, we can't sell these! They're dangerous!" Chex whispered harshly. "I don't think the world could take being happy all the time."
Melon chewed thoughtfully on another bite of cheeseburger before speaking, "Well, they don't have any negative side effects, do they?"
"I think you're missing the point, Melon," Chex answered flatly.
"Maybe Fred and George could help us-"
"Melon!"
"Squeal! I was just kidding!" Melon finished off the rest of her cheeseburger. "I don't think I could handle the whole world being happy."
"Uh, oh," Chex sighed. "Here comes Draco…I hope he doesn't ruin his reputation too badly because of these sunshine things."
Draco, however, seemed a little less happy than he had been that morning. In fact, he looked like he just might cry. He silently sat down next to Chex and put his head on the table.
Chex couldn't help herself; she felt sorry for him. She patted his head comfortingly and he looked up at her with tears in his eyes.
"They all hate me!" Draco sobbed before hugging Chex and burying his face in her shoulder. "I don't know why!"
Melon patted Draco on the head as well, "It's all right dear. Here, have one of these."
She opened the white silk bag and pulled out one of the sunshine orbs and handed it to Draco. When it had sat in his hand for a moment, he smiled giddily and hugged Melon.
"Thank you! I needed that." He stood up and turned to Chex. "I'm glad I can count on you guys to help me feel better. Here, you can have this back,"
Chex watched as Draco deposited one of the sunshine orbs, this one completely dark, on the table and skipped away.
Melon was in shock.
"See what I mean about them being a drug?" Chex asked of the Melon.
"Squeal, yeah. That was nuts." She looked at the bag with apprehension. "Those things need to be put away where no one can find them."
"Yeah," Chex nodded. "But after Charms class…"
Chex had plenty of time before she had to go to Charms class…she had other classes to go to, but they could wait. She wanted to find out how she had made those damn sunshine orbs.
She sat on her bed, staring at the little pile of glowing marbles on her bed. They had a happy warm glow, Chex thought, then shook her head and tried to focus.
She pulled on her dragon leather gloves and picked up one of the little balls, inspecting it all over before placing it back on the blanket.
If Chex was right, and she thought she was, the marbles had some kind of absorption spell on them. They absorbed sunlight, and when a living thing touched them the sunlight was released, giving the holder a pleasant feeling.
Chex sighed, "That much was easy to figure out, but how am I going to make them so they aren't so damn effective?" She picked up on of the marbles again and stared at it. "I want sunshine in a bag, but not sunshine in a bunch of balls in a bag. Just pure sunshine in a bag would be less dangerous than it is in this absorbable form."
There was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and Chex quickly tucked all the orbs back into the silk bag and tossed them under her bed.
"Are you up here, Chex?" A boy's voice called.
The boy came all the way up the stairs and smiled when he saw Chex sitting on her bed.
Chex froze. It was Draco.
"Uh, hi." Chex fidgeted. "What brings you to Gryffindor's 6th year girls' rooms?"
"You," Draco smiled.
"Oh, no. Please don't be nice to me," Chex pleaded. "I can't resist you if you're nice to me."
Draco was moving closer, slowly, but he was still closer.
"Why shouldn't I be nice to you when you helped me out so much?" Draco asked with that same smile. "I feel bad for all the times I've been so mean to you for no reason…I wanted to make it up to you."
Chex laughed uneasily, "That's great and all but…" She stopped. What the hell was she thinking?
"But what, Chex?" Draco asked honestly.
"Make it up to me how?"
"However you want me to," Draco was now close enough to touch, and Chex was having a hard time keeping from doing just that.
Draco leaned down and kissed Chex, and not on the cheek this time. Chex wondered where the hell he had learned to kiss like that and was getting ready to pull him onto the bed when someone else came running up the stairs.
"Squeal! Chex, I found out what you did yesterday-" Melon stopped abruptly seeing Draco in the room. "How the Hell did you get up here?"
Draco shrugged, "I asked the right questions."
Chex couldn't help herself, "He wants to make up for all those times he was mean to me for no reason."
"Make up or make out?" Melon raised an eyebrow then laughed as Malfoy blushed a lovely shade of red.
"Go sit over there Draco," Chex pointed to a chair on the other side of her bed then turned back to Melon. "So what did you find out?"
"I heard that yesterday something was stolen from Professor Dumbledore's office. Something very rare and shiny."
Melon was being overdramatic and both Chex and Melon knew it, but it always made things more interesting, so Chex played along.
"Could it be…my sunshine marble things? Do you think I could have-" Chex stopped short and suddenly turned to look at Draco.
Draco had apparently found the bag of sunshine and was looking at it in wonderment, "Wow, what a lovely collection of these things you have! And you only gave me one!"
Melon, still feeling dramatic, tried to jump over the bed and tackle Draco, but she only succeeded in getting both her and Chex tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets. By the time they had freed themselves, Draco was long gone with the sunshine.
"Shit," Chex cursed and kicked an innocent nearby chair. "I never should have let him…"
"Chex, did you steal those things from Dumbledore?"
"What?!" Chex looked at the Melon shocked. "Do you really think I would-"
"You from yesterday might have," Melon inserted, looking a bit too smart for Chex to counter effectively.
Chex sighed, "Well, I guess we should go track Malfoy down and give those things back to Dumbledore."
"Give Malfoy back to Dumbledore? What would be wanting Draco for?" Melon looked confused.
Chex laughed and shook her head, "No, Melon. I'll keep him and then we can give those sunshine things back to Dumbledore."
Melon agreed that sounded like a good idea and they made to exit the tower, but ran into Harry, Ron and Hermione on the stairs.
Harry looked startled, but apologized and began to move on. Hermione however stopped him and whispered something in his ear. He looked at her, then sighed and looked at Chex.
"Excuse me, Chex. But did you happen to steal anything from Dumbledore yesterday?"
Hermione elbowed him for being so incredibly blunt, but Harry just gave her a 'What else was I supposed to do?' look.
"Uh…yes actually." Chex answered.
Looking a little shocked Harry asked if he could have it back so he could return it.
"Unfortunately, no." Chex replied.
"And why not?" Ron bristled. "It don't belong to you. Give it back."
"What I mean, Ron, is that I can't give them to you because Draco took them from me."
"Well that makes sense," Hermione sniffed. "Silly Slytherins always making trouble for themselves and others."
"I'm glad we agree," Chex nodded to them and continued on her way out of the common room.
"Wooh, Chex," Melon called after Chex. "How are we gonna find Malfoy? He could be anywhere."
Chex looked up and down the empty corridor, then back to Melon, "That's easy enough. Where would you go if you were an extremely happy Slytherin?"
Melon grinned, "Snape."
Of course, Chex knew that Melon would have said 'Snape' no matter what she had asked, but it was always nice to ask a question and get an answer that makes sense, so she'd just had to ask the right question.
"Exactly," Chex grinned back. "He'll want to gloat if I know Draco. Of course even if I didn't know him I could tell because he's just do damn easy to read."
"Easy to read, or just easy?" Melon asked giggling like mad.
Chex giggled in turn, "God, Melon. You'd think we were under the effects of that sunshine from the way we act."
Melon nodded her agreement, "On to Snape!"
"Excuse me, girls, but why are you out of class?" a commanding, Scottish voice came from behind them.
Melon and Chex turned to see Professor McGonagall standing in the hallway with her classic "I caught you doing something you're not supposed to be doing" expression.
"Um…." Melon searched for a good reason for being out of class that wouldn't get her in too much trouble, but Chex spoke up first.
"Pardon me if I'm being impolite, but why are you out of class? I'm sure you should be teaching right now…"
McGonagall straightened then glanced up and down the hallway looking a bit suspicious, "That's none of your business."
"Are you looking for the sunshine marbles?" Chex asked nonchalantly.
"Yes, but you needn't-" she stopped and looked down at Chex as if she were Harry Potter. "How did you know that?"
"Because she's a clever Chex!" Melon chimed in. "And we're going to track down Malfoy and get it back for Dumbledore."
"Really?" the Professor raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Well first I think you should be getting along to class."
"But what about Malfoy!" Chex cried out loud. "He's got the sunshine!"
"I'll take care of Mr. Malfoy, Miss Mix. You and Miss DeVine need to be going," McGonagall insisted sternly and personally deposited them in Care of Magical Creatures class.
Hagrid looked shocked to see Melon and Chex showing up late for class, as they were usually early to see if they could get a peek at what they would be playing with for the day.
Today the class was crowded around a cage containing what looked like a hideous flying creature of some kind, but Chex paid it no mind as she was trying to think of a way of getting Draco and the sunshine back.
"Wooh," Melon whispered in Chex's ear, disrupting her thoughts. "What are we gonna do, Chex?"
"Well…first off, we need to get out of this class," Chex looked at Hagrid who was busy keeping Kinestra safe from the strange creature clawing at the bars of the cage. "Let's just pretend you're ill and I have to take you to the hospital wing."
"Chex, we tried that last time, remember?" Melon was recalling last week when they had wanted to get out of class early so they could retrieve Melon's stolen roller skates from Draco.
"Is it just me or are we always trying to get something back from Malfoy?" Chex pondered. "Cuz you know…the week before that we had to skip dinner so we could sneak into his room to get my Charms homework."
Melon shrugged, "Some people just have the urge to steal. Perhaps Draco is a kleptomaniac?"
Chex shoved that possibility away and raised her hand, waving it frantically to catch Hagrid's attention.
"Oy, what's that back there?" Hagrid peered easily over the rest of the class to see what Chex was up to. "You got a question?"
"Um, Hagrid…Melon is feeling a bit woozy from something she ate at lunch, would it be alright if I took her to the hospital wing?"
Hagrid shrugged, "Why sure, jus' make sure ya get the notes from somebody."
Melon moaned piteously and Chex insisted that they had to be going so Melon wouldn't die of some horrible stomach illness that she had heard about in The Daily Prophet.
Draco was melted into a happy puddle on a black velvet couch in Snape's office. He had discovered that the happiness you got from the marbles was increased ten-fold if you swallowed them.
Professor Snape reluctantly agreed to let Malfoy hide in his office, but the reluctance went away as they both were engulfed in the euphoria of the sunshine happiness.
"Professor Snape," Draco looked dazedly over at the teacher. "Would you do me a really big favor?"
"What's that?" Snape asked just as dazedly.
Draco giggled to himself with the silliness of his request before he could actually say it, "Would you…touch…my arm?"
Snape nodded and nearly giggled as well when he discovered how tingly and nice it felt when he touched someone else. Draco further melted into a puddle of rapture and felt he just might die of sheer pleasure.
Unexpectedly, a pair of black shiny pants entered the room and ambled purposefully over to where Malfoy was sucking contentedly on a sunshine marble.
Malfoy wasn't quite sure how to take this new occurrence. He didn't think the sunshine had hallucinatory effects…but one never knew. So, to test his theory he reached out and poked the pair of pants standing next to him.
Instantly he felt his cloud of jubilation being sucked away, and he removed his hand from the pants in disgust.
"What a horrible thing you are!" Draco cringed away from the black shiny thing, clutching the bag of sunshine to his breast.
"What was that?" Snape looked over at Malfoy, slightly puzzled until he spotted the pants for himself. "Oh dear…I know what you are…"
Dumbledore had been tipped off by Minerva McGonagall to check out Snape's classroom for the missing sunshine, and so there he was.
Snape was standing over a pair of shiny black pants with an empty potion bottle in his hand and Draco Malfoy was passed out on the couch.
Seeing the slightly confused expression on Dumbledore's face, Sanpe decided to explain what had happened.
"You see," Snape began. "I came down here and saw Malfoy laying on the couch and there was this pair of black pants coming towards him…I didn't get there in time to totally save him, but I did manage to disable the pants by…"
And so Dumbledore took in Snape's silly cover-up lie and believed it…somewhat.
"Well, next I suppose some students of mine will be running down the stairs to see what happened and I'll have to explain it somehow…what can I make up that just might be true?"
Malfoy coughed and rolled over then looked up drearily at Snape, "I'm sorry, sir…I promise I didn't mean to put you in such trouble…"
Snape shrugged and turned to Dumbledore, "I suppose I should call the Ministry while you think of something to tell the children?"
Dumbledore nodded, then smiled for he had the perfect idea.
Chex and Melon ran frantically down the hall towards Snape's classroom hoping they were in time to save the stash of sunshine before Malfoy used it up.
"Squeal, I just hope the retard doesn't try to eat them," Melon said breathlessly, still running down the corridor.
"Do you suppose…" Chex stopped in mid-run to think. "No, that's silly. That's way too far fetched to be even remotely true. I don't think sunshine would make your stomach upset…"
Melon looked confused, as she usually did when Chex only expressed her thoughts in half sentences to herself.
"Don't worry about it," Chex waved away the thought and continued running.
By the time they reached the dungeons, it already looked like a Muggle crime scene from a movie. There was yellow tape floating about to keep out unwanteds and Dumbledore was in the room talking with a few members from the Ministry of Magic.
"What's going on?" Chex felt almost as if she had been cheated out of her great discovery."
Dumbledore excused himself and made his way over to Chex and Melon who were trying just then to persuade the warning tape to let them by.
"I commend your mystery solving skills, girls, but the situation has been taken care of," Dumbledore looked down at them with an amused twinkle in his eye.
"Aw, mope…" Melon sighed and plopped into one of Snape's office chairs.
"Well, what's going on? Where's Malfoy?"
"Being purged," Dumbledore answered. "The sunshine marbles that you discovered were actually an experiment from the Ministry that they had sent to me to study.
Unfortunately, they were stolen from my office yesterday by a pair of potato powered pants that seemed to be under the control of another branch of the Ministry that didn't agree with the sunshine marbles as they created a rare, deadly stomach illness when swallowed."
Chex blinked, "Wow. I thought maybe there was some connection…when Melon said that thing about hoping Draco hadn't swallowed any…"
Dumbledore looked as though he wanted to laugh, but kept it to himself, "Well, Mr. Malfoy did consume quite a few of the marbles, I'm afraid, it's just a good thing Professor Snape was here to keep him from seriously hurting himself."
"What?" Melon sat up, suddenly taking hold of where she was and what she was sitting in. Once the shock had passed she sunk happily back in to the chair and sniffed it to absorb Snape's scent.
"Wait…I'm still confused…" Chex tried to remember everything Dumbledore had just told her. "Didn't Melon make those pants? And why did Professor Flitwick want us to create sunshine in a bag and potato powered pants?"
"This is going to be rather difficult to explain, but I'll try," Dumbledore sat down on the very couch Draco had been lounging on earlier. "The pants the Melon created were found earlier in a dumpster behind the school. The pants that pushed the potions on you yesterday were the pants from the Magic Conservation branch who were against he marbles because they felt they were an extraneous use of magic."
"But why did Professor-"
"As you may see," Dumbledore motioned behind him to where a rather ragged looking man in Professor Flitwick's robes, much too small for him, sat looking pissed off. "This man found out about the sunshine and is the one who reported it to the Daily Prophet. He was also hoping to make more of the marbles so that he could sell them."
Chex still didn't feel she understood the whole thing, so she tried to summerize as best she could, "So, the pants were trying to take the marbles from you and destroy them, but this guy wanted the marbles to sell so he impersonated Flitwick, no doubt with a Polyjuice potion, and got me to make more?"
Melon felt left out so she jumped in, "NO! You see the potions I had on my stand made you forget what you really wanted to do that day and you were hypnotized by the pants to steal the marbles and bring them back to them, but you snapped out of it the next day and were stuck with the marbles!"
"But not without passing them around first," Snape appeared suddenly, and looked bitchy as usual. "I should take 50 points from Gryffindor for you trying to kill one of my students with those sunshine things."
Dumbledore ignored Snape, "That's a wonderful deduction, Melon. However did you come up with the answer so fast?"
"Well squeal. Everyone knows that Melons are masters of anything that doesn't make sense!"
Chex nodded, for it was indeed true.
Later in the Gryffindor common room Melon and Chex told Harry, Ron and Hermione about what had happened and what Dumbledore had told them.
"That's rather odd I think…" Harry thought to himself. "It just doesn't seem right…"
Ron shrugged, "Well, at least it's over and we don't have to worry about it anymore. We didn't even have to solve the mystery! Chex and Melon did it for us!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Well, personally I would have liked the chance to investigate the matter myself, but its all been cleaned up now."
Chex leaned back in her chair, "I'm just glad I didn't actually have to make that damn impossible sunshine in a bag."
The next day in Charms class Professor Flitwick apologized for the inconvenience the imposter had caused, but then said that he had been on the right track.
Chex groaned, "Don't tell me we still have to do projects!"
Melon grinned, "Can I make potato powered pants?"
Professor Flitwick looked confused, "Yes, I suppose so…that's not what I had in mind but it will do."
Chex dreaded the thought of having to complete another magical project and wondered how she might get out of it. However she failed to come up with any good reason despite the fact she had lost a day of her life…
"Professor?" Chex raised her hand. "Can I plead incompetence based on a trauma I have suffered? I lost a day of my life."
"Oh, that's sad indeed," Flitwick sympathized. "Perhaps you can create something easy…" he peered down at a list he had in his hand. "Moonlight in a bottle, Ms. Mix. That should be simple enough."
Without noticing Chex's dismay, Flitwick went on to assign the rest of the classes projects.
Melon patted Chex on the head, "Don't worry Chex. I'll just have my potato powered pants knock some potions on you and everything will be fine!"