The Assignment, a harry potter fanfic

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1

Hermione chewed absently on the tip of her quill, blankly staring ahead as Professor Lupin passed out Monday night's homework to the Gryffindors and Slytherins. He placed her parchment in front of her, a lovely 100% gracing the top of the page. She acknowledged it and continued to chew until he reached the front of the classroom.

She removed the writing utensil from her mouth and dipped it in a well of ink as he turned around.

"Next week, we shall be learning about Huntroggles. These demonic creatures manipulate people's dreams in order to–... Miss Brown, are you paying attention?"

Lavender looked up from the lazy heart she was drawing on her parchment which held the words "Lavender 3's Seamus" in a nice shade of red. She colored and put the parchment in her bag for Charms later on. Lupin gave her a knowing smile and brought his attention back to the class.

"As I was saying, Huntroggles are evil creatures, who are also known for their knowledge of the art of Kung Fu." There were a few odd looks at this, and Lupin looked mildly offended. "It's not like I'm making this up. The little demons are mad. But anyways, they manipulate people's dreams and cause–yes, Miss Granger?" He sighed.

"Kung Fu? I thought it was Tae Kwan Do?" Lupin looked blankly at her. "Well, if you're going to teach a class, sir..."

"ANYWAYS, they cause... what now?" Lupin turned towards Neville.

"...I hate to bother you, Professor, but m-my ink...." Lupin stared at the now black parchment, waved his wand and sent the boy to get cleaned up while reprimanding Draco and his cronies at the same time. He glanced over the class.

"Is that all?" No answer. "Thank– what?" Lupin cast a scathing look at Hermione. She blinked.

"I was just wondering if you'd get on with it already..." Lupin ignored her.

Another raised hand. Pansy Parkinson. "What on earth is that hideous creature in that cage back there?" Lupin smiled tightly.

"What on earth, Miss Parkinson, have I been trying to teach you about for the past," he glanced at his watch, "fifteen minutes?" She scowled.

"Huntroggles, as I've been attempting to say, manipulate dreams in order to fulfill it's masochistic urges..."

"URGE?" Seamus quieted himself. "....sorry...."

"...It's understandable." Lupin shrugged. "To make it short, they mess with your head because they think it's funny." The class looked only partially bored. "And to make things interesting, you're all getting a Huntroggle of your very own to play with. For a week." Now the class looked horrified. A hand raised and Lupin nodded.

"Let me get this straight," Dean started tentatively. "You're going to set loose fifteen masochistic demons on a class of sixteen-year-old students..?"

Lupin nodded, "That's about right." An uneasy silence settled over the classroom.

"Oh," Dean said quietly.

"Now, if you'll all come to the front, I'll introduce you to your new best friend!" He said this entirely too gaily. There was a collective hesitancy to approach the front of the room. "Come!" he barked, and the students stood and swarmed to him without a second thought.

The cage bucked, and the students instinctively took a step back.

"Oh, bloody hell, they're five inches tall," Lupin said in exasperation.

"But they know Kung Fu," Lavender quipped.

"Tae Kuan Do," Parvati supplied helpfully.

"Take the ruddy sheet off the cage," Draco demanded, fully annoyed with the class' antics. Lupin rolled his eyes and did so. The class blinked and moved closer to the creature.

A shiny black, very fuzzy... ball with big brown eyes, a pink nose, and rabbit paws stared back at the class with a mix of horror and indignation. His look seemed to be that of a wet cat. Very distraught. Draco blinked twice more before erupting into giggles, forcing his finger between the bars of the cage and wiggling it mockingly.

"Aw, what is this little thing going to give me nightmares? Kick me? Hah! Harmless little bugger. Who'd have to defend themselves against this?!— AUGH! Bloody bastard bit me!" He was waving his arm and banging his hand against the bars, but the little fuzzball simply wouldn't detach itself. "I swear, my father will – Stop it! Stop laughing at me!" The class was in hysterics, and the Huntroggle still had his little teeth buried in Draco's forefinger and was showing no signs of letting go. "Would you get off!" Draco yelled, before flinging his arm to the side with all his might and causing the cage to fall off of the desk and land with a loud crash. The Huntroggle had let go of the boy's hand while in shock of falling.

Draco smoothed the invisible wrinkles in his robes before examining his finger intently and ignoring the Gryffindors' poorly hidden guffaws. The Slytherins looked like they were trying very hard to look sympathetic. After all, a ball of fur had just latched on to the future heir of Slytherin's finger and transformed him into a squealing little girl.

Meanwhile, the huntroggle looked deeply offended as it huddled into the corner of it's cage and curled into a ball. Lavender rushed over to the creature.

"Oh, you poor thing..." Hermione rolled her eyes, "Here, I'll take you, all right? And I'll call you... Poofles. Okay little Poofles?" Hermione was going to be sick. Ron and Harry attempted to hide their grins across the room, though they were rather unsuccessful. Hermione sighed as Draco argued about the creature some more.

"I absolutely refuse to take any part in raising some... freaky little poof-ball that does nothing but cause agony."

"Go look in a mirror, Malferret." Harry muttered. Draco cast him an acidic look and continued.

"My father–"

"Doesn't give a rat's ass about Huntroggles or your petty incidents enough to have to speak with me. I'm sure he has other things to attend to. Now, here," Lupin shoved a cage into Draco's arms. Draco scowled before yelping again.

"For the love of–"Hermione grinned.

----

Hermione sighed as she stared blankly into her huntroggle, who seemed to always be depressed and huddled into the far corner of the cage. Maybe it was self-conscious. The other girls in her dorm spent their time giving their huntroggles make overs and preening over who had the prettiest ball of fur. Hermione didn't understand why the creatures didn't bite their fingers off. She sure would have.

It was the first night that they'd have their new roommates, and Lavender and Parvati were prancing around their beds like elves on opium. Wow.

"What do you think you'll dream tonight?" Parvati asked, mid-prance. Lavender looked thoughtful for a moment before straightening. Hermione almost thought for a second that she was going to give an intelligent answer.

"Ponies," she said with confidence. "Poofles seems to appreciate the prettier things in life. Just like her mommy, bless her."

"I'm going to be sick," Hermione informed her roommates. They looked over in surprise.

"What will you dream of, you think?" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Bunnies, sunflowers, and a family with six siblings. And a dog. Named Spot." Parvati made a face.

"Wow, Hermione. That's lame." She blinked.

"Did I mention the dead people? And the zombified kitty?"

"No need to be sarcastic," Lavender said, sounding slightly injured. Her huntroggle purred, and she beamed at it, patting it on the head and tossing it unceremoniously back into its cage. It made a strangled noise when it hit the bottom.

This, Hermione thought, would be a long night.

Hermione once again peered into her huntroggle's cage and watched as it opened one eye and went back to sleep. She tossed a carrot into the cage before remembering Draco's incident that morning and thinking that perhaps it would have appreciated a piece if bacon more.

She sighed and climbed into bed, lowering the curtains around the canopy in a half-assed attempt to drown out Lavender and Parvati. She laid back and was overcome with sleep as her head hit the pillow. Hogwarts had nice pillows. She soon drifted into a state of unconsciousness...

~~~d.r.e.a.m...s.t.a.t.e~~~

Hermione awoke to Parvati and Lavender screaming at each other. "Oh for the love of GOD..." She opened the curtains and glared at the two. "What on earth are you carrying on about?" Hermione said with trademarked Death Glare.

Lavender glared at Parvati one more time before turning to Hermione. "How do you feel about Mark Twain?"

"...Mark Tw- wait. Mark Twain? What is he one of the boys here?" Hermione began.

"No, the author. I feel he's more transcendental while Parvati believes him to be a realist."

Hermione stared. "Uhm... well he... uhm. He was a bit of both, actually. He did satire of romantic Transcendentalists, but I still don't understand what you're going on about."

Lavender gave her an exasperated look. "But–" Hermione turned tail and fled.

She came downstairs to see Harry and Ron playing a game of chess.

"'Morning," Ron greeted her. Harry nodded as well.

"Good morning. The weirdest thing just happened in the girls' dormitories... Did you know Lavender and Parvati are literate?" Ron stared blankly at her as Harry moved a piece on the board.

"Checkmate." Ron groaned.

"Not again..." Hermione gaped.

"A-again? We've been trying to beat you for ages..." Ron stared at her.

"What on earth are you going on about? Harry's the one that always beats us." Hermione just arched an eyebrow.

"...Something is up," she muttered. "So, do you know what brought about Lavender's change of heart?"

Ron shrugged. "That mofo is whack." Hermione sputtered. The rest of Gryffindor stared. Hermione and Harry simultaneously walked down to the Great Hall.

The corridors were relatively empty as the trio made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast, only passing a few first years, who always seemed to be in more of a rush than the other students. Even though it was only breakfast. Right before they reached the Hall, Hermione gasped out in disgust.

"What the bloody hell is that?" she demanded, pointing with a stiff arm. Harry and Ron looked up and stared blankly. They looked back at Hermione with curiosity. She raised an eyebrow at their indifference and thrust her finger back at the spectacle. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"What on earth are you talking about, Hermione? Draco?" Hermione glanced back at the floating blond head with his famous scowl, cape billowing out in the air above him.

"Uh. Yeah." Ron stepped an inch closer to Hermione and started to peer into her face.

"Are you all right?"

She shook her head. "B-but he had a body. I know he did! And it was sex– I-I mean... evil. An evil body." She nodded matter-of-factly. "Emmenating evilness. And he probably would have had the dark mark, too. That evil boy." Ron pat Hermione on the back.

"There, there, Hermione. We'll go see Madame Pomphrey and get you all sorted out."

"I'm not mad. Why wouldn't someone have a body? It's not natural. It's–it's madness!" Harry and Ron were becoming concerned for their friend's mental health by this time.

"Maybe some breakfast," Harry said hesitantly, "will set you in order." Hermione glared at him, took one last glance at the disturbing floating head of her enemy and marched off.

"Do you think she realizes that she just stormed off into the loo?"

"Best not confuse the girl more," Harry said amiably.

They counted to ten before they saw Hermione storming back, looking flustered.

"Not a ruddy word," she grumbled, brushing passed them in what she hoped was the direction of the Great Hall. "Not one."

"Harry, could you pass the jam?" Ron said through a mouthful of pancakes.

"No," he said, passing him said jam. Hermione was looking fidgety.

"So, you guys haven't noticed anything a bit.. Off?" she asked carefully. Ron snorted into the toast he was spreading jam on, and then looked at it with disappointment.

"Nothing except you, 'Mione."

"'Mione?" she asked, scandalized. Ron looked up at her with surprise. "When have you ever called me that?" Harry put his palm to her head.

"Are you sure you're not running a fever?" She pushed his hand away with a scowl.

"Butter, Ron?"

"No," he said, passing Harry the butter. Hermione looked puzzled. When had they ever done that? There's usually no getting by Ron when he's eating. He's like a rampaging hippogriff when it comes to his toast.

There was a flash behind Ron's eyes as his hand met Harry's on the tray of butter. Hermione blinked. That was new. Harry cleared his throat and looked down at his breakfast.

After a few minutes of casual conversation (and after Hermione thought that one thing that morning would finally be going normally), there was a loud thunk from under the table and Ron let out a moan.

That was definitely new.

Harry grinned seductively at his eggs and Ron turned the color of his hair. Hermione raised an eyebrow and ducked her head under the table to see just what the hell the boys were doing to each other.

....

It was better off never mentioned what exactly they were doing to each other. Hermione resisted the urge to run screaming from the Hall, but slid down a considerable distance at the table.

Just then, Hermione saw something fly across the room from the corner of her eye. Her head shot up to see Justin Finch-Fletchley standing behind the Hufflepuff table looking triumphant. She looked around and saw that a syrupy pancake had soared clear across the room and smacked Pansy Parkinson soundly in the back of her little head. Hermione giggled at the sight, before Ron and Harry glared at her, their lusty game momentarily forgotten.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" Ron asked irritably. Hermione sputtered.

"Justin–he just–Pansy–Pancake.. Smack!!" she said, getting desperate. The boys just stared. Hermione thought that she was completely in the right on this one (finally) until Pansy stood up from her table and ran sobbing from the room. Hermione stared at the doors as they swung shut, completely and utterly traumatized by what had just happened.

"Happy now, are you?" Harry said scathingly. "Fancy just having a go at the helpless Slytherins?" Hermione gawked shamelessly.

"C'mon, Harry. Let's go," Ron said, and they both stood and left her sad, alone, and confused.

"W-what?" She asked pathetically behind them. "No, really..." They were gone. She groaned and finished picking at her meal before swinging her bag over her shoulder and heading to Potions.

-----

The dungeon is not a very pleasant place, but being left behind, Hermione didn't have much of a choice than to go alone. She sighed and walked closer to the door when a presence appeared to her right. She turned. She screamed. She regained her self.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she said, glaring at the floating head next to her. "What the hell do you think you're doing, scaring me like that, Malfoy?" He blinked back. Apparently, he hadn't expected her to be so bitter. "And for that matter, why don't you have a body? Honestly, I was talking to Ron and Harry about it and they gave me the oddest look. What kind of a person goes floating around without a body, silently coming up to people and scaring the bejeezus out of them?!"

Draco stared at her. "Hermione, have you gone mad?"

She glared at him. "You don't have a body. How hard is this to grasp?" She waved her hand under his head. "See? That's not right! That's... just really freaky. Ew..." She wiped her hand on her robes.

"You know, if you keep this up we're going to be late for Potions. Though, I'm not sure you're in a very good state of mind..."

"My mind is fine, thank you. Snape won't be happy if I'm late, so if you'll excuse me, Oh Bodiless One." She hitched her bag up higher and walked purposefully into the lab. Draco followed, shrugging.

Hermione set up her cauldron and other potions ingredients on her desk, half expecting to see Ron and Harry walk in joking about Quiddich or some other non-school-related thing. The last thing she expected was for syrupy Pansy Parkinson to sit down next to her, puffy eyes and all. Hermione wasn't sure what to say so she quirked an eyebrow and continued to take out her necessities.

"Oh, Hermione," Pansy sobbed. Hermione looked over at the distraught girl and resumed her business. "How could they be so horrid to us? To me?..." Hermione snorted. Pansy started sobbing. The class stared on as they entered the room.

"Uhmm. Uh. Damn those Hufflepuffs." That wasn't right. Hermione bit her lip. Another Slytherin piped up.

"Yeah! Why are those Hufflepuffs so mean? Stupid badgers..." Hermione continued to bite her lip.

Pansy looked up at her and her eyes widened. "Your lip is bleeding. Do you need to see–"

"No, I don't need to see Madame Pomphrey. God. What on earth is going on here?" Hermione snapped. Pansy just shook. Hermione glared at her. She cried.

"God, lay off the girl," Seamus protested. "What has she ever done to you?" Hermione wordlessly left the room.

Dinner was a sad affair. The only people still willing to sit within a three foot radius of her were Ginny and Colin. And they weren't much conversationalists. After jabbing at her food for longer than she could possibly keep track off, hundreds of owls swooped into the Great Hall, carrying letters and copies of the Daily Prophet.

Hermione blinked. "What now?" Ginny and Colin just looked at her blankly, opting rather not to say anything. Hermione blinked again when a newspaper fell from an owl's beak and landed in her pumpkin juice. "Bloody hell," she muttered to herself, wiping the juice from her robes and unfolding the paper, grabbing her goblet and taking a long drink.

When she saw the headline, she spat it out. All over poor Colin.

"Augh!" he groaned.

"Shush!" Hermione practically shouted, throwing the paper onto the table and pointing at the headline in horror.

Boy Who Lived and Sidekick Join Circus

Ginny stared. "Oh, Mum's going to kill him."

"Not if she can't catch him," Colin debated. "It says here that he's the newest magical acrobat. Wow, look at those costumes, too!" Colin sounded genuinely jealous of the two boys, who were holding each other very intimately in the picture. Which wasn't moving. Rather not dwell.

Hermione was staring at the paper in horror.

"Are you all right, Hermione?" Ginny asked, looking concerned.

"No," she said quietly. "And I don't think I ever will be again." She got up silently and walked back to her dorm, where she collapsed onto her four-poster and screamed into a pillow.

Hermione woke with a start when her huntroggle's cage went sailing to the floor and landed with a crash loud enough to wake even Professor Binns from his death-induced revery. She jumped up and looked around wildly, gaze finally resting on the offending creature.

"You," she growled at the fur ball. "It's you, you masochistic son of a bi~"

"Hermione!" Lavender looked out from the curtains of her four-poster, scandalized.

"Lavender!" Hermione said, just as urgently. "Quick! Your thoughts on Mark Twain!" Lavender stopped short.

"Pardon?" Hermione almost fainted.

"Oh, thank God," she squealed happily.

"Are you feeling all right?"

"I'll be fine as long as you never ask me that again."

"Deal." She looked confused for a minute. "OH! Hermione, help me! My hair! My hair's fallen out!!" Hermione cocked her head to the side.

"Honey, do this," she tossed her hair and then rested her hand in the side of her head. Lavender did so and let out a shriek of joy.

"Hermione, you're a goddess!" She frolicked from the room. Hermione raised an eyebrow. At least Lavender was Lavender again. She never thought she'd say that, but it was true.

She glanced over at her huntroggle, who was looking quite happy for the first time since she got him. "Little bastard," she muttered, and she could have sworn that the little devil grinned at her.

She heard a shrill scream come from the opposite side of the room and she looked up to see a blur jump out of Parvati's bed and streak across the room to settle in front of a mirror. Only when she did settle could it be confirmed that it was indeed Parvati.

"Are they gone? What happened? It was horrible, Hermione, horrible!" Hermione put her hands in front of her in an attempt to make the girl stop talking.

"Whoa. Whoa. Stop," she said slowly. "Tell Auntie Hermione what's wrong."

"They were boils," she sobbed. "Big, purple boils! All over my body!" Hermione blinked. "Horrible! Everyone laughed at me, and they wouldn't go away!"

"Calm down, honey, they're gone. It's just that damned huntroggle that did it. But don't be mad, it can't help how it feels." Parvati sniffed a few more times before nodding. The last of her was seen skipping gaily into the shower.

"Mother of all that's holy," Hermione said to herself before dressing and heading down into the common room. Harry and Ron weren't up yet, which was typical, considering it was a Saturday and that they had practice way into last night, so Hermione sighed, grabbed a roll of parchment and a quill and high-tailed it down to the library, the concept of reliving this nightmare brought to justice by the fact that Ron and Harry might be dreaming something as horrifying as she had. She grinned.

Hermione spent a total of four hours reliving and writing down every aspect of her dream, adding notes along the side pertaining to how the huntroggle might have come up with such things. That and how she loathed it with a passion. She climbed the stairs to Gryffindor Tower and into the common room to see Harry and Ron playing a game of chess.

Now where have I seen this before? She mused to herself before settling into a comfortable chair beside them. They glanced up at her.

"Pleasant dreams, boys?" Ron snorted.

"I wish." He nodded towards a covered cage on a table next to them. "That thing is horrid. Let's never see these again." He flicked the cage. The huntroggle got up groggily and eyed him.

Hermione grinned at the look on the creature's face.

"See? The ruddy creature is plotting my death!" Ron scowled at the cage and looked at it closely from between the bars. He pulled back and opened the cage door.

The huntroggle went hurtling towards Ron's face, little paws flying. Ron tried to bite it, but he missed. As the fight wore on, the entire Gryffindor house assembled to watch the match. Of course, the little fuzzy thing won. Ron was knocked cold, bloody nose, bruised eye, and broken fingers.

The dignified huntroggle hopped back into its cage, slammed the door shut, and curled up for some shut eye. Harry and Hermione eyed it for a moment.

"Let's let Lupin come up for this one." Hermione agreed. Evil little thing.

Ron woke up a few minutes later where they left to go to the infirmary.

The angry mob of sixth years storming into Lupin's classroom was frightening, to say the least. They all carried small cages, which they promptly dropped onto his desk and sat in their chairs moodily. Lupin blinked at them.

"So," he said hesitantly, "how'd it go?" The class glared. "I trust you're all in the process of reliving the dreams through a three-page essay?" Hermione snorted and held up a stack of parchment, much to the displeasure of the students around her. "Are there any questions?" He nodded to Draco, who calmly raised his hand.

"If you don't mind me asking, sir, what the hell were you thinking? Is masochism contagious? You don't know the bloody trauma that, that.. Thing put my now-unstable mind through! It's evil! I pity the next unsuspecting victim that's put through the pain and agony that this vile, disgusting, satanic creature causes!"

By the time he was finished, his face was flushed and his hair was disheveled. The class was nodding in agreement. Lupin grinned.

"Good."

And for once the Slytherins and the Gryffindors agreed.

Hermione stood up in front of the class, fidgeting. She had held off giving her recollection of her dream until last, and now she was last and there was no holding off any longer. She sighed and looked up before looking back down at the parchment and reading.

"Before I went to bed, I set my huntroggle beside the cage, tossed it a carrot and watched it lazily lift it's head in a somewhat depressed manner. Of course, I just figured that is wasn't too fond of carrots and ignored it's depressing state of being before going into bed..." she set down the paper and looked out over the class.

"Her-"

"Needless to say, the little bugger must've hated me. That dream was simply frightening. I 'awoke' to Parvati and Lavender fighting." The two girls exchanged looks. "Yes, fighting. Over an American author. Lavender immediately asked my opinion on Mark Twain after giving her point of view - Transcendentalist. Parvati rolled her eyes and thought he was a realist. I immediately fled to the common room.

"At this point, I came down to Ron and Harry playing chess. A pretty normal occurrence. Ron greeted me. Harry nodded. Harry beat Ron at chess." Draco snorted.

"What's so weird about that?" He inquired. Hermione grinned.

"Ron has never lost at chess." Draco stared at Ron curiously. "On the way to breakfast," she continued, "I saw Malfoy, here." Draco smirked up at her. "He was merely a head, floating about the corridors, and no one seemed to think this a bit odd. What's worse, he was nice." Draco blanched. "It was madness. The Hufflepuffs were horrid people and the Slytherins were complete pansies." Pansy glared. "No offense, Parkinson, but come now."

"Hermi-"

"And that's not the half of it. Ron and Harry were lusting over their morning toast, and Justin Finch-Fletchley launched a pancake across the Great Hall and it smacked into the back of Parkinson's head. She ran away screaming. Harry and Ron ran away with each other to become magical acrobats in a traveling circus, and Colin was jealous of Ron's spandex, much to everyone's dismay."

The class was staring.

"And, the Great Hall and girls' loo were switched, and I stormed right into a sink when trying to make a dramatic exit. Bloody pain, theatrically marching into a loo and having Myrtle crow at the sight. I swear, I still have a bruise. And what's more-"

"Hermione, please!" Lupin cut in. Hermione took a breath and looked around.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"Thank you. I think you're quite finished."

"Bloody thing's a menace," she muttered, trudging back to her chair as the class stared at her in horror.

"Magical acrobats?" Harry whispered to her when she sat down.

"Spandex?" Ron asked, scandalized.

A/N: I know, I know… "What the hell was that?" Before you go accosting us, I figure I, Katie, shall explain exactly what caused this: 3AM and much, much grape soda on my part. J In addition, Nicole was nauseous over the grapiness. J Heh heh. And other than the fact that we had been planning to write this for months on end, we feel that you should accept our poor excuse anyway.

Nicole: In my defense, grape soda is nasty.

Katie: That doesn't matter. But what does matter is that little review box in the bottom left hand corner of your screen.

Nicole: Actually, I think that the nastiness of grape soda should be a topic of discussion. If you're a fellow grape hater, I'd appreciate your support, here. Katie's a monster.

Katie: *scowl* Yes, well, start a Grape-Haters Anonymous group, or something. Right now, we want these….

::click::