A/N: So, I'm back again! I am on summer break so therefore I will be able to update a whole lot more. Yay? :) Anyway, hopefully this story will be wrapped up soon. I realized that we're almost at 30 chapters (feels kinda guilty). This is most definitely my longest and craziest story ever. Speaking of which, I now have over 300 reviews! I've decided I would alert y'all whenever I reach a crazy amount of reviews from now on. ;) Thank you so much. I have never had this many reviews for any of my stories.
Anyhow, I wanted to mention this. I read back on some of the early chapters and decided that once I officially finish this story I'm going to go back and edit a bit. Just thought I would mention it in case anyone would be interested. ;) Not that anyone probably is…
Okay, so Acacya is poking me with a cattle prod so I better start the story already and stop prattling about stuff that no one will probably read. ;) So, on with the story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
"Should I keep reading then?" George asked wearily, picking up the book he had dropped in the excitement of the appearance of Dumbledore.
"Oh, what's the point?" Hermione snapped, flopping down on her abandoned seat on the floor. "If even Dumbledore can't help you then it's time to abandon all hope."
"Hermione!" Ron gasped, genuinely surprised. Hermione wasn't one to give up so easily.
Draco lifted his head back up out of his hands (where he had put it in order to try and block out the memories of the traumas the book secretly caused him) and gave Hermione an odd look. "For once, the Mudblood has a point." He shrugged. "We can't beat this bloody book so why bother?"
Seamus and Dean were oddly quiet while Luna stared at the floor in defeat. Even Remus and Ginny were staring up at the ceiling but nodding in agreement.
Harry, however, looked pale and shocked. "Give up?" he asked weakly. He looked at each of his friends (avoiding his blonde nemesis) and shook his head. "We can't give up."
"But what can we do Harry?" Ginny moaned, turning to look at him. "We've been reading this book for nearly two days and we're only barely half way through! We won't finish it anytime soon and our one means of escape just abandoned us!"
"Listen," Harry began firmly, "We can't give up now. I've gone through too many tortures of the mind to just turn back now. Fred is up there in convulsions. Neville is in a coma and is possessed by the devil woman who wrote this book." There came a giggle from Neville-Acacya at this and some kind of squealed response that no one really listened to. "We can't let her beat us. We can't let her win. For the good of the school and for the good of the Wizarding World we have to keep trying."
There was a moment of silence.
"Harry, you're a bloody loon," Hermione snapped. "You're not making any sense. I'm tired of putting up with this crap." Tears sprang into the back of Hermione's eyes as she spoke. "I mean, all we do all day is read and torture ourselves and read and torture ourselves and read and torture ourselves and read and torture ourselves some more. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result! I mean, how can you honestly expect us to keep reading just so that you feel better about it? That's bloody selfish Harry. We just need to sit and wait for this curse to wear off and everything will be—"
Ginny stood up and slapped Hermione straight across the face with as much strength needed so that it wouldn't hurt the girl but snap her out of her state.
Hermione stared at Ginny, comprehending the action and the forming red mark on her cheek. The room waited in tense silence, waiting for her response. Finally, she released her held breath and gave a shaky smile. "I needed that." She promptly began to cry, shoulders shaking. "I'm sorry everyone. I'm just so tired!"
"Why don't you go sit in a different room for a little while," Remus suggested calmly, handing her some chocolate and ushering her up the stone staircase. "You come down when you think you're ready."
"Thank you," Hermione replied and she disappeared up the staircase.
"Like, isn't she so gross?" Neville-Acacya squealed as soon as Hermione was gone. "I mean, her makeup will be extra gross now and she'll look all grosser than usual. Ew."
Ron sighed and threw a pillow on Neville-Acacya's face. "I say we smother them. Put both Neville and us out of our misery."
"Ron!" Dean protested with a glare, pulling the pillow away. Ron glowered but didn't try to pull another stunt like that again.
"Read away George," Harry instructed, resigning himself to a chapter of torture.
George nodded in agreement and opened to the page he left off on.
The Bunny Eaters shrank away from Harry's fierceness, begging for mercy.
"Please, don't hurt us! We'll take you to Acacya!" the Bunny Eaters pleaded and bargained.
"I don't need you sacks of worthlessness to tell me where Acacya is," Harry snarled and began to pick them all off even though they surrendered. "I just have to follow my heart and it will point the way."
The Bunny Eaters shrieked and ran away in great numbers, and Harry was tempted to follow of them and kill them slowly. ("Who knew you had this big of a lust for blood?" Ginny teased.)
However, Harry remembered that he had to find Acacya and rescue her from this dreadful place. So he flew past his friends and ran up various staircases until he found the cell that he knew was hers. It was a room he noticed, but he didn't care. He just wanted to see his beloved again.
He yanked the door open, pulling the hinges off with nothing but brute strength. But when he looked in he saw a sight that made his stomach crawl with anger. Acacya was kissing Lord Moldy Wart. ("Oh Merlin… that is so gross!")
"Lord Moldy Wart! Get away from her!" Harry demanded, his eyes flaming with anger. Acacya broke away from the Moldy Wart and saw her Harry and nearly cried.
"Harry! My love!" she cried and flew into his arms, crying. "You came just in time." Harry could feel her terror as she trembled in his arms and his anger grew even greater.
"I will kill you, Lord Moldy Wart," he vowed, drawing his wand. "I will kill you for laying a finger on her."
Lord Moldy Wart drew himself up to his full height, approaching Harry stealthily.
"She loves me, Harry. She said so herself. She is MINE," Lord Moldy Wart insisted. Acacya gave a strangled cry.
She looked up at Harry and her hair floated around her as he crystal pink/brown/green eyes stared into his brilliant blue ones.
"I said it… but I only said it try and get away. I didn't mean it!" she sobbed and hugged Harry tightly to her. "I love you Harry. Nothing can change that."
Harry looked down and noticed Acacya's small clothing and a small smile crept over his features. He leaned down and kissed Acacya so fiercely that both of them forgot all about Lord Moldy Wart in the room with them.
"Merlin, only she would want to put a sex scene in there right now," George grumbled as he flipped forward a few pages. And he made a face. "Ew, I thought Harry wanted to kill him…"
This sent Harry into shock. His face was pale and green and he stared vacantly at the wall in front of him. Finally, his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell backwards, hitting his head against the couch leg behind him.
"Someone fan him a bit," Remus sighed and sent a glare to George. "You really had to let that slip, didn't you?"
George shrugged. "I have to make this entertaining for me somehow." Remus nodded once, seeming to agree.
"I'll have the chocolate ready for when he wakes up."
Suddenly, at this moment, Hermione came sprinting down the stairs. Her eyes were wide and she had the look on her face like she just discovered something incredibly important through research. Ron grinned at the sight. She was back to her old self.
"Guys! I figured it out! It's so obvious!" Hermione shouted, nearly breathless. She paused at the bottom of the steps to regain her breath and noticed that Harry was passed out. "What happened? Wait, do I even want to know? Never mind," she said with a roll of her eyes, barely pausing.
"What did you figure out, Hermione?" Remus asked calmly, frowning a little in puzzlement.
"Everything. I figured it all out. Oh, it's so simple!" she gushed and came to stand next to George in front of all her friends.
"You keep saying that but don't explain anything," Draco pointed out irritably. "If you figured out a way to get us out of this bloody mess, please tell!" No one dared to point out that he was actually asking help from someone he considered beneath himself.
"I went up to my room and saw a book out on my bed," Hermione began quickly. "It was a book that Fred and George gave to me for Christmas recently as a joke. It was a book on pranks and all of a sudden I got to wondering. What if this Mary-Sue thing isn't really real at all, but just a prank?"
"The Slytherins had nothing to do with it," Draco began to defend his House. Hermione quickly waved that away.
"This would be something more advanced than a student could accomplish," she dismissed and began to launch into her explanation again. "So I began to wonder, hypothetically, who would want to sabotage Harry and drive him literally insane? Make him suicidal."
Remus's eyes began to light up. "You're not suggesting…"
"Oh, I'm suggesting," Hermione confirmed with a devilish smirk.
"What are you suggesting?" Neville-Acacya asked innocently. "You don't think I'm real?"
"I think that Acacya is real, but not in the way we're thinking," Hermione continued on, ignoring Neville-Acacya. "I think this book is straight from You-Know-Who himself!"
"But how would he have gotten it into the school library?" Ron asked, frowning a little in skepticism.
"Well, it wouldn't be hard," Ginny countered. "A parent dropping by perhaps…" She shot a look toward Draco secretly. "A minion coming in disguise to the library."
"Exactly," Hermione agreed, nodding her head.
"But what would this accomplish?" Seamus wondered aloud.
"It would drive Harry insane," Remus filled in. "It would possibly even cause him to take his own life, making it a hell of a lot easier to kill him."
"Lyke, that's ridiculous guys," Neville-Acacya argued. "I'm real."
Hermione looked over for the first time and smirked. "Oh yeah? Then how do you explain the fact that Mary-Sues are created by crazy authoresses, most of whom make up fake names like PrettySprinklesSparklesRainbow? How do you explain that you're just a character in a book that anyone could have created?" she asked with her eyebrows raised.
"You're ugly!" Neville-Acacya screeched.
Suddenly, Draco's head snapped up from where he had been hiding it again. His eyes narrowed down as he stared at Neville-Acacya. "Her voice almost sounded familiar there for a second."
Harry awakened, looking around the room in a daze. "Did I hear Hermione relaying information?"
Hermione began to paraphrase what she had concluded with excited hand gestures, but neither Draco nor Remus were paying attention. Draco was staring at Neville-Acacya in wonder and Remus was trying to listen to him to see where he was going with this sudden exclamation.
"I know who PrettySprinklesSparklesRainbow is!" Draco cried, leaping to his feet. "I know who she is!"
A/N: Cliffie! :) I'm happy to take guesses as to who people think is behind PrettySprinklesSparklesRainbow and Acacya. And just as a hint, it may not have anything to do with Lord Voldemort like Hermione guessed. Hermione isn't always right after all. ;)
Please review? Only a few chapters left!
And I'm so sorry about the shortness of the chapter. :(
