Arithmancy

by: Faithful Wheezy

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

Twenty Five: B for But, It's Draco Malfoy!

"Hey Bill, how's the Amortentia going?"

Bill peered over the cauldron as he stirred, watching the potion turn white to extremely light pink. "It's progressing, Charlie!" he replied, adding half a pound of rose petals. "Can you smell it?"

"Faintly," Charlie said, sniffing the air. "I can smell fire burning—the dragons. I can smell Mum's food…"

"So can I," Bill said, smiling at the memory. "And I can smell… it smells like Fleur Dela—" he cut himself short, but Charlie had heard enough.

Charlie raised both of his fiery red eyebrows. "Unless mine ears are deceiving me—has my brother fallen in love?"

"No! It's not—it's… these are my favorite flowers, and she just happened to wear a perfume made from it that day…"

"You, my dear brother, are nearly as bad as Ron. But that's all right. Once we're through with Ron and Hermione I'll help you and that Beauxbaton girl, is that all right?"

"Merlin..."

-x-

"—and that's when we throw the bag over Hermione's head, just to make sure, all right?" Harry whispered at breakfast, holding up a visual for Neville.

"Wait, when do we throw the bag over her head?" Neville asked, screwing up his eyes.

Before Harry had the chance to patiently repeat the plan for the fifteenth time—

"Who're you trying to suffocate?"

At that moment, Ron squeezed himself in between Seamus and Neville and grabbed a plate of kippers, massaging his teeth. "I really ought to watch my step nowadays…"

"Ron!" Dean said with fake bravado, "you're back already? Madame Pomfrey is really getting faster at healing nowadays…"

"Actually, I would've been back sooner if Dobby hadn't tried to encourage me to dance the polka with him," Ron sighed resignedly. "If I didn't know any better, it would have seemed as though he was trying to keep me from going to the Great Hall just like he was trying to keep Harry from school in our second year."

Harry laughed nervously. "Just like Dobby to do that," he said, adjusting his glasses and taking an unnecessarily large gulp of milk.

Ron stared at his friends. Harry seemed like he was trying to drown himself in dairy products, Dean was making a show of mopping up his lap with a napkin, and Seamus and Neville were stuffing themselves with eggs. "Erm… right," he said, and, finding Seamus and Neville inspirational, began stuffing himself with kippers and toast.

As Ron busied himself with a jug of pumpkin juice, Harry, Neville, Dean, and Seamus all eyed each other and sighed in relief.

Ron looked up, looked at them, looked at his plate, looked back at them, shrugged, and continued pouring out another glass of pumpkin juice.

-x-

Halfway through breakfast, the four boys got up hastily and told Ron that they had to do something extremely quick and would come back later.

Ron was currently too interested in a shepherd's pie to care much and merely nodded.

"Whew, that was close," Seamus breathed, as soon as they were out of earshot. "He almost heard the plan."

"Bill and Charlie wouldn'tve been too pleased with us, would they?" Harry said grimly.

After a few flights of stairs and an episode concerning Neville on the vanishing step, they finally reached a corridor featuring a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy unsuccessfully teaching a few trolls how to dance ballet. After watching Barnabas pirouette and pivot at random intervals, and noticing the door was already there, since Bill and Charlie were already within (and it helped that they told the wall that Harry and the others should see it too). Resisting the urge to barge in and demand how the potion was going, Harry willed himself to open the door calmly and walk inside.

"Hullo," he said conversationally, "how's the potion going?"

The mood of the room changed as he saw Bill stirring the cauldron rather angrily, and looked up at Charlie as if searching for explanation.

"Blimey, Bill," Dean said from behind Harry, "er… all right?"

"I'm—" here, he stirred rather violently—"fine," he said, almost causing some of the contents of the cauldron to spill out.

"If you must know," Charlie said with some amusement, "he became a bit touchy when I just mentioned a Beauxbaton girl in passing."

Harry's eyes widened. "A Beauxbaton girl?" he asked.

"Which one?" asked Neville, chuckling.

All present looked down at Bill, who was now throwing more flower petals into the cauldron.

Harry couldn't help it. "Fleur?"

Bill chose to lapse into what he evidently thought was a dignified silence, stirring the cauldron so violently the cauldron shifted positions slightly with each stir.

"Will you at least tell us when it'll be finished?"

Bill blinked and looked down at the potion properly.

"Well, er…" he said, and he checked it against a book he had been studying beside him. "Erm… actually, it would normally take three to seven days, but… I've been stirring it so fast, and I don't think I've spilled any—or have I?—no, I haven't… that means it could be finished by…"

Everyone in the room held their breath.

"Tomorrow by lunch should do the trick."

Everybody cheered, and Charlie gave Bill a rather loud kiss on the cheek.

"Let's just hope McLaggen falls out of love with Hermione," Harry said, "or this might complicate matters."

The cheering died down.

"Oh, you just have to go and ruin the fun," Seamus said, looking down at the potion.

There were a few awkward moments.

Then everybody resumed celebrating.

-x-

The next day, in Transfiguration (Ron had been warned not to act heroically in class from hereon in and was placed in a seat in the furthest corner), Harry eyed the nearly-sane McLaggen and Hermione trying to work on the same desk. It was very hard work, as the chinchillas they were supposed to be transfiguring kept ramming into each other. It was rather loud in the classroom, so Harry had no problem talking to the others about the plans in low voices. "Seamus, did you check in on Bill and Charlie earlier?"

Seamus nodded eagerly. "Sure enough," he said excitedly. "Bill was still stirring like a madman, wanted to keep going at the same pace he'd started at. Charlie was dictating out of the book—he said it should be done right after this class, before lunch."

"Perfect," Harry breathed. "Neville, do you have the paper bag I gave you?"

"Erm…" Neville said, checking his robe-pockets. "They're not here…"

Everybody groaned at intervals.

"It's not inbetween my books…"

Groan.

"It's not in my book bag…"

Groan.

"Oh, here it is! It looks like a ruddy piece of parchment, it's a good thing I didn't use it…"

"All right," said Harry, choosing to forget what just happened, "McLaggen's still slightly addled, so he might still think that Hermione's just wearing a bag over her head for some odd fashion reason, and hopefully he doesn't think to wear one too… but if all goes well he'll ignore it, and then that's when I creep up in my Invisibility Cloak and pour the Amortentia into his pumpkin juice."

"It sounds all right to me," said Dean thoughtfully. "Just as long as he doesn't fall in love with the Hermione with the bag over her head. That might be slightly weird."

"Nah, Bill and Charlie said that he'd have to see someone's face. Are you guys ready?"

"Definitely!" every boy had a picture of extreme maliciousness on their faces, just as the bell rang for lunch.

-x-

"No, Cormac, we are not sitting with your friends today." Hermione said for the fifth time that day, beginning to lose her patience.

"You said it was my turn to sit with my friends this week," McLaggen said rather immaturely—the Euphoric Spell's effects were still coursing rather lightly through his veins.

Hermione nodded, resisting the urge to just walk at her own speed and drag him behind to the Great Hall. "No, I never." she said again, her voice losing the patient motherly touch she was so good with back home. "You sat with your friends yesterday, and today is my turn. Now, don't argue."

"Are you sure it's your turn?" McLaggen demanded, "Because you can't lie to me 'Mione."

Hermione was now become so peeved at him that she seriously considered advising him to shut up before she hexed him so hard that he'd turn into a pile of giant's bogeys when everything suddenly went dark.

"What the—?"

"Hermione, shut up, we're saving you," Harry's voice whispered.

Thankfully enough, Hermione had stopped in front of a rather large tapestry depicted Gorgoroth the Gross picking his nose, and McLaggen, not noticing the abrupt halt, began watching the ugly troll explore its nasal passages.

"Muffliato," Harry said, pointing his wand to McLaggen.

Turning back to the bagged Hermione, he shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you and Ro—tell you about this before, but we thought that an accident would happen if we did."

Seamus, Dean, and Neville all nodded energetically behind him.

"Hermione can't see you, you prats," Harry said, in an annoyed voice.

"Oh right…" they said rather sheepishly.

"It's Neville, Seamus, and Dean," Neville said rather helpfully.

"Thanks for enlightening me, Neville," Hermione said, rather irritably, "but do you mind telling me the plan now? I don't like being kept in the dark… pardon the pun."

"Ha, ha," Harry said dryly. "Well, in any cases, Bill and Charlie have made a love potion."

"How's that supposed to help?" Hermione asked in a strangled voice. "What if McLaggen just starts loving me more?"

Harry turned to look at McLaggen, who seemed to find Gorgoroth the Gross as a source of inspiration and was following in the troll's footsteps. "That's why there's a bag over your head, Hermione. The potion requires him to see a face, and well, with the bag over your head, which Neville put on you, he can't see your face, so he can't fall in love with you. He'll fall in love with the first face he sees."

"I could suffocate in this, you know!"

"If you were going to suffocate you would have started getting hot about two minutes ago, Hermione. We put some holes in the top. We're not brainless oafs, you know."

"But I am getting hot," Hermione said, sounding thoroughly muffled.

Harry checked over the bag impatiently. "What are you talking about? Neville, where are the holes I told you to puncture?"

"Oops…"

"Darn you, Neville!"

-x-

Just as they were reaching for the door handle of the Great Hall, Bill and Charlie burst out of it, as though looking for somebody, when they caught sight of Harry leading a bagged Hermione and a rather bored looking McLaggen, followed by Dean, Seamus, and Neville.

"Oh, there you are," Bill sighed, evidently relieved. "We thought you guys couldn't make it."

"Well hurry up!" Charlie said, pulling Hermione in. "Sorry about that, Hermione, but did they tell you about the plan?"

"Eventually," Hermione said through the bag. "But I just hope this works."

Bill and Charlie looked at each other as though they were sharing a private secret. "Oho," Bill said, his eye twinkling. "You're talking to the people who taught Fred and George to be who they are today. Our plans never fail."

Harry merely rolled his eyes and sat down with the rest (although McLaggen, with a little more reluctance—"But whyyyyyyyyyyy?" "Because, now sit down!")

Leaning across the table, Bill poured a phial of Amortentia into McLaggen's goblet, who was looking at Hermione with whining eyes.

"Why do you have a bag over your head?"

Hermione stalled for time, picking up a spoon, replacing it, and then picking up a fork. "Erm… we played truth or dare, and my dare was to wear this bag over my head for breakfast."

McLaggen seemed content enough with this answer. "Oh."

There was a pause as everyone, sans McLaggen, eyed each other nervously.

"Can I play too?"

Harry looked over at Bill and Charlie, who were obviously running a million plans through their heads.

"You know what, McLaggen?" Bill said, smirking, "Why not? Truth or dare, you?"

"Dare."

Charlie wore a smirk almost identical to his brother's. Catching on, he said, "I dare you to chug down your pumpkin juice and…"

"And look at the Slytherin table!" prompted Bill.

McLaggen shrugged. He chugged down his pumpkin juice and immediately turned around—but he didn't have to look far. Draco Malfoy was being frog marched to the Staff Table by a rather angry looking Professor Flitwick, who seemed to be drenched in milk.

McLaggen's pupils dilated and retracted as he focused on Malfoy's face.

When he turned around, everyone was trying to control their laughter as McLaggen let out an audible sigh.

"Her—Hermione?" Dean said, feeling a stitch in his side from so much laughter, "I think it's safe to c—come out now, hahahahahaha!"

When Hermione removed the bag, the first thing she saw was McLaggen's face; he looked as though he had just seen the mythological goddess of love herself.

"Malfoy," he said breathily, saying it as though it were a spell.

"Hermione," Harry said, once he managed to stop laughing. "D'you—d'you think he's forgotten about you?"

Hermione looked over at McLaggen. "I honestly doubt it—he's been hit by a million hexes and he still pulled through—" This was interrupted by McLaggen's loud announcement that his new favorite animals were ferrets—"but you're right, I should try."

And she got up from the bench and did an enormous tug…

finite