Chapter 2
The Zoo
It took a good thirty minutes to calm all the students down and get everyone looking normal again. The carsick children were fine after a bit of sunshine and some water but the professors looked like the dieing undead. Professor McGonagall had straightened herself and fashionably looked wonderful; physically she looked half dead and Snape, well, since he usually looked dead it was hard to see any difference in his appearance save for a greenish tint to his skin, but then again that could have been because of his shirt.
"Is everyone set?" Dumbledore asked. A chorus of yes's and a single no answered him. Ignoring Snape's pestilential answer, Dumbledore smiled and began dividing the group into two groups. "This group will be Professor Snape's team and this group will be Professor McGonagall. Whichever team at the end of the day has the most information on animals, written or orally, gets five hundred house points!" Snape and McGonagall immediately began protesting the large number, but Dumbledore waved them off. "Now lets get going."
The two groups moved off down the paved driveway and approached the first pen. (Apparently one of the lurches to the side had been to pay for their entrance into the zoo.) McGonagall's team ohh'ed and ahh'ed at the lions in the large pen, but Snape's team was quickly ushered on by a less-than-happy Snape.
"Wow! Those lions are huge!" Harry exclaimed pointing at one of the larger males. Ron yawned and nodded. Hermione was busy scribbling notes down from the information plaque in front of the pen, so naturally she just nodded.
"What are you going to write on?" asked Harry as they followed McGonagall further into the zoo.
Ron shrugged.
"I wanted to do a Hippogriff, but I guess it has to be muggle. Maybe a lion or a bear."
"How about a snake?" Draco sneered, coming out of nowhere and pointing over at where the rest of his group was. The Reptile House had an eerie look to it and the boys shuddered.
"Mr. Malfoy!" Professor McGonagall stated, saving the day. "A Gryffindor student will write a paper on snakes when a Slytherin writes one on how to treat people properly. Now return to your own group, Mr. Malfoy."
"Sorry, Professor. I was just offering them a bit of friendly advice. Snakes make wonderful paper topics."
"I am sure they do. However, Mr. Malfoy that is no reason to try and scare your fellow classmates." Professor McGonagall's mouth was set in the thinnest of lines and Draco swallowed before shuffling off to join his group.
"Thanks, Professor." Harry muttered. Professor McGonagall turned to him.
"What for, Mr. Potter?"
"Getting rid of Malfoy. I was getting ready to sock em." Harry stated nonchalantly. McGonagall's eyebrows went skyward but Dumbledore halted her coming lecture.
"Minerva did you see those beautiful white tigers? They are some of the most marvelous creatures I have ever seen; second only to the domesticated feline, of course." He winked at her and she blushed slightly.
"Yes, Albus. I did see the tigers and I would appreciate if you stopped comparing animals to the cat." Pleasure sparkled in her eyes despite what she said and Albus knew she enjoyed his mild flirting.
Harry and Ron, however, had had quite enough adult "romance" and began searching for another animal they could steer Hermione over to. Hyenas were next and so the group drifted over that way.
"That one sounds like Draco." Ron laughed, singling out the worst sounding hyena.
"Looks like him too." Harry agreed. Even Hermione smiled at the fact that sad to say it did look a lot like Draco.
"All right. I've got the information for the lions, brown bears, black bears, white tigers, Bengal tigers, cheetah, and the hyenas." Hermione sighed and pushed her hair back over her shoulder.
"Is that enough?" Ron asked, peering over her shoulder at the notepad. She instantly shook her head.
"No. We'll need a lot more. Including the reptiles." She began to walk over toward the Reptile House, but the boys stepped in front of her.
"They didn't see the animals we saw." Ron whined. "Can't we skip theirs?"
Hermione frowned.
"Ron! If we do the same thing they do then we'll tie. If we get all the animals then we have an advantage." This seemed to help Ron, though it did nothing to resolve his fear of snakes.
"You could stay out here if you want." Harry suggested. "Hermione can go in by herself and I'll stay with you." To anyone who didn't know him, it appeared to be a friendly gesture to help a friend. But like Ron, Harry didn't really like snakes either and he had no desire to go into a room full of them and other snakelike animals.
"Fine, do what you want. But the arctic animals are connected to the reptile house and you have to go through one to get to the other." Hermione smirked as the boys looked torn.
"Great! I wanted to see the penguins." Ron exclaimed unhappily.
"What is it, Mr. Weasley?" Professor McGonagall asked, concerned. She had heard him whine about something and figured it was serious.
"Um…nothing, Professor." Harry stammered. "Ron just didn't want to go into the Reptile House."
McGonagall fixed him with a steely glare.
"Then he needn't go in there, Mr. Potter. We will not be going in there anyway."
"But I wanted to see the penguins." Ron said, forgetting he was speaking to McGonagall. "Please let us go in!"
"Under no circumstances, Mr. Weasley. And that is that!"
Moments later--
"It sure was nice of the Headmaster to convince Professor McGonagall into letting us come in here, wasn't it?" Hermione stated, busily scribbling down notes on a large iguana.
"Yeah. I wonder why she didn't want us in here though. We're old enough to not wet our pants or anything like that." Harry commented, leading Ron along. He had covered his eyes with his hands and refused to look until they were "safely" into the Artic House.
Just then someone yelled, "Loose Cobra!" and chaos reigned over the reptile house. With Ron screaming bloody murder and Hermione trying to get a look at it, Harry was the only one left to drag them from the house. He had almost hurried his friends out the door when he noticed that Draco Malfoy and his goons were all snickering in the corner. Obviously they had yelled and no snake was loose.
Slapping Ron a few times, Hermione and Harry finally got him to stop screaming and explained to him that no snake was loose. He breathed a sigh of relief; though it was obvious he was still wary, and allowed Harry to begin leading him toward the arctic house again.
Meanwhile, Albus Dumbledore was having a blast just outside of the Reptile House. His longtime friend and deputy, Minerva McGonagall had fainted dead away upon hearing about the "escaped" snake and had gracefully fallen into his arms. It didn't get much better then that.
Feeling a bit self-conscious as no one else in the zoo had an unconscious woman in their arms, Albus picked her up and entered the Reptile House. He had brought his wand along in case of an emergency and this just happened to be one. Casting a quick energizing charm, Albus watched as Minerva's eyes flickered open. Immediately her hands clutched the front of his shirt and her eyes darted around the room looking for the snake.
"There, there." Albus soothed, rubbing her back. He had lifted her to her feet and made sure that they were carefully hidden behind a large pillar. "There was no snake, Minerva. Someone just panicked." He half thought about telling her that Draco Malfoy had indeed been playing a prank on the trio, but decided against it. Obviously Minerva was terrified of snakes and he didn't want young Draco, Malfoy though he was, to be expelled, or worse.
"You're certain?" Minerva asked tentatively, still glancing around her feet. Albus shook his head to assure her and smiled. He would never let her hear the end of this one. Finally he had literally caught a reason to tease her and the prospects were tantalizingly good.
"Shall we pursue our group?" Albus asked, offering her his arm. She accepted his offer without a word and the two of them made their way into the Artic House.
Ron pressed his nose up against the glass of the penguin pen and wished absently that he could see the furry birds better. The glass wall separated viewers from viewed by a good five meters.
"All right, I'm ready for the next one." Hermione stated already making her way to the next exhibit. Ron and Harry ignored her.
"Do you think they put the wall so far away to annoy us?" Ron asked, squinting into the pen. "I can't even see the ones in the swimming hole. Only that old one on the hill." Harry shrugged and stood up on his tiptoes.
"Hey, Ron! If you stand a bit back and go on your tiptoes, you can see the pond!" He shouted. Ron hastened to try it out and soon both boys were waving back and forth on their tiptoes a good meter from the glass. Oblivious to the strange looks that muggles and their own classmates were giving them, they laughed and pointed out one penguin with a pointed beak.
"Ron! Harry! What are you doing?" Hermione asked, hands firmly planted on her hips. Both boys ignored her and took another step back. However that step back caused Ron to slip on a melted ice cream cone that had not been cleaned up yet and he grabbed Harry to keep from falling. Since he was on his tiptoes and very unbalanced, Ron's sudden weight pulled Harry down as well and they both fell and slid off the raised sidewalk. It was a half a meter drop to the ground and both boys felt its cement floor before they even realized they had fallen.
"Ouch!" Ron groaned untangling himself from his friend. He looked up to find Hermione laughing down at him from the sidewalk and immediately became red faced.
"Are you hurt, Mr. Potter? Mr. Weasley?" Professor McGonagall asked, appearing out of nowhere (not literally). Both boys nodded that they were, but accepted her hand to help them up. Ron still had ice cream on his shoe however, and as he went to stand his foot slipped and he flipped backward to lay on his back taking McGonagall with him. Thankfully she caught herself inches above his body and was lifted up before Ron could have been crushed. Although not a heavy woman, she still weighed more than he happened to weigh.
"Well, Mr. Weasley. It appears as though you might want to clean off your shoe." Dumbledore stated, cheerfully. He had gladly pulled his deputy off Ron and now helped the boy to his feet and braced him as he cleaned off his shoe with a tissue McGonagall handed to him. So far the field trip had been nothing if not a disaster; still there was still a lot left of it to see.
An hour later-
It was lunchtime and the two teams met at the one of the zoo's food courts to eat. Ironically the Head of Houses had no idea what to order their students and found themselves listening to all sorts of descriptions of muggle food.
"Hamburgers are good!" Chimed a Hufflepuff.
"But they have Mexican food!" Whined another student, pointing Professor Snape toward a taco stand. The man visibly gulped and shook his head in a silent "no".
Professor McGonagall sighed as at least ten chattering students began telling her different muggle delicacies and wished she had never woke up that morning. She glanced over to see if Albus would help her to find him already ordering himself something called a "Hot Dog". Sounds innocent enough, she thought wearily. Turning back to her "starving" students, she motioned for silence.
"How do hot dogs sound?" at first the students just stared at her. It sounded strange to hear their serious professor say Hot Dog, but since none of them had anything against the idea of wrapped pig intestines in an artificially enhanced bun smeared with glorious ketchup they all nodded.
And so while Professor McGonagall's team was all happily eating hot dogs; Professor Snape's team was still trying to decide between elephant ears and cotton candy.
Albus was delighted by Minerva's choice of food and made a point on telling her so. She only smiled and politely declined a lemon drop.
"Aren't you going to try a hog dog?" Albus asked. He had finished his lunch and feeling a bit low on sugar had just purchased an ice cream cone for himself and all of the children.
"I suppose I should." Minerva sighed and picked up the hot dog that she had bought for herself. A Hufflepuff had kindly offered to put condiments on the hot dog for her and she now realized that the girl had a bit of an obsession with squeezing bottles too tightly as her hot dog was so covered with every known condiment that it was nigh on to impossible to identify.
Albus gasped when she uncovered the suffocating meal and hurriedly asked she what had happened to her hot dog.
"I let a student dress it for me." She murmured, wondering where the drowning meat was underneath the tide of ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard and salad dressing that covered it. With several good wipes of a napkin she could have been able to identity the cylinder rod of meat but her appetite was going faster than her patience.
"I'll get you another one. You can't eat that." Albus offered. She thanked him and rose to throw out the ruined hot dog. Never one to waste food, Minerva dropped it into the recycling bin.
"Here you go!" Albus said, placing a hot dog in front of her. It had a thin layer of mustard and ketchup on it and looked better than the one it had replaced.
Picking it up, which was something Minerva found most uncouth; she took a small bite. The look on her face was one of sheer disgust and Albus had to bit his lip to keep from laughing. Many students who were watching their professor lacked his self control and began roaring. Five minutes later another hot dog joined the first in the recycling bin.
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