A/N: Inspired by the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text's episode "Familiarity: Grawp (Book 5, Chapter 30)."
April 1996
Professor McGonagall was putting away her first-year syllabus, and exchanging it for the sixth-year one to prepare herself for her next class. Seeing as she had already dismissed them, she did her best to ignore the first-year Hufflepuffs that were still milling around the door to the hallway. While they had gone at their usual glacial pace packing all their parchment and quills for the next class, it was strange that they lingered en masse at the door. One of the firsties finally had the courage to look back, though not to speak. Instead, she raised her hand nervously.
Professor McGonagall arched her brow, expression brooking no shenanigans, "Is there a problem? You won't want to be late to your next class."
"Professor," the young student fairly squeaked, "The hallway is disgusting and cloudy."
McGonagall frowned, "It's what?"
"It smells like a latrine," a different one lamented, "We'll die before we get halfway to the dungeons!"
"Please don't make us go!" Another cried out.
By this point McGonagall was already nearly at the door and the Hufflepuffs had parted to give her an unobstructed view of the half-open door. The atrocious smell met her before she could even reach the door. The air beyond was heavy with the telltale smoke of freshly released dungbombs.
She sighed, now unsure what to do. The Weasley twins had left a power vacuum in the school when they had soared out of Hogwarts on a deluge of fireworks. It seems some industrious students had taken their parting advice to heart, and were filling said vacuum with chaos and stink pellets. Vive la révolution and all that.
As she was trying to figure out the logistics of clearing a path for twelve first-years all the way to the dungeons, her incoming sixth-year class arrived. The first-year Hufflepuffs excitedly made room for them to enter, anything that would get them further from the stench of the hallway. The entering Ravenclaws looked like those silly astronauts from those Muggle cartoons McGonagall had occasionally watched as a child.
With a small pop, the shimmery fishbowl gave way to reveal one of the students. "Bubble Head Charm," she answered the unasked question as she ruffled out her shiny black hair.
"Very good, Ms. Chang," McGonagall acknowledged with what one might generously call a smile.
The other Ravenclaws made their way to their desks with a series of small pops. A few of them breathed in deeply, with varying degrees of exaggeration, the fresh air of the Transfiguration classroom. A delightful mix of crisp parchment, fresh ink, and that special zing of magic, but, most importantly, no dung. The young Hufflepuffs watched, still in awe at the display of superior magic.
Professor McGonagall turned the matter over in her head, before deciding. "Ms. Chang, perhaps you and your classmates can help these first-years traverse safely through these halls. I believe Educational Decree #26 makes it out of my purview."
Ms. Chang nodded resolutely and motioned for her friends Ms. Edgecombe and Mr. Inglebee to join her. The trio quickly made their way through the Hufflepuff ranks, bubbling up the first-years with efficiency. Even if poor Ms. Edgecombe kept brushing nervously at her newly-cut bangs.
McGonagall returned to her desk to prepare for the upcoming lesson. Maybe she would have an easy revision day instead, as a small thank you for helping the younger students. The professor's eyes followed Ms. Chang as the young girl finally made her way to her desk now that the bubbled Hufflepuffs had toddled off to their next class. She'd had such sad eyes this past year, for no small reason of course, but now there was a spark returning. Chang looked up, and their eyes met.
McGonagall nodded, eyes softening, "Fifteen points to Ravenclaw."
Professor Flitwick congratulated his fourth-year Slytherins on a lesson well done, and wished them on their way. They had asked such insightful questions throughout the class period. He was impressed with their understanding. Alas, they had lost track of time digging into the nitty-gritty of Charms theory and went well over class time.
The Slytherins were very nearly to the door when it burst wildly open, and a troupe of third-year Gryffindors came streaming in. They were falling over themselves to get into the room. One of the students almost slammed the door shut on the last classmate to come racing through the door.
"We lost Tommy!" a towheaded girl shrieked. There were murmurs of distress in the Gryffindor ranks.
"It was every man for himself," a dark-haired boy snapped. "He knew the risk!" Several Gryffindors slumped morosely to the floor, though one threw himself at the closed door in despair.
One of the Gryffindor girls patted her friend on the shoulder as he clung desperately to the door, "It's too late for him, but we're safe now. It's okay."
The Slytherins that had, only just moments ago, been looking forward to a free period turned from this scene of melodrama back to their professor, eyes wide in terror. What fresh new horror awaited them in the ancient halls of Hogwarts?
Flitwick closed his eyes, and took a very (very) deep breath to center himself.
Upon opening his eyes, the diminutive professor plastered on what he hoped was a calming smile, "Everybody, raise your wands-"
"Oh god, he's really dead," whispered a mortified student.
Flitwick barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "And repeat after me the incantation for the Bubble Head Charm."
Never had he had such willing students eager to learn.
Professor Sprout glanced down at her watch. Goodness, but her whole class was nearly five minutes late. She was used to the occasional straggler, but the entire class? There must be something seriously wrong happening in the castle. She stepped out of Greenhouse #2 and found her missing fourth-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins sprawled out in the grass or standing in the sun with their arms outstretched.
She gaped at them all, utterly flabbergasted.
Before she could even excoriate any of the inconsiderate lot, a few of them turned to her with dozy eyes.
"Oh please, Professor," one finally acknowledged her presence, "just a few more minutes. The air is so clean out here."
"It's clean inside the greenhouse as well," she argued petulantly.
Before she could give a proper command, a breeze rustled its way over the fields of grass and through the group of students. They all looked so pleased and content as the light winds ruffled their hair and their robes. After so many Educational Decrees and the general rising anxieties of having the High Inquisitor around, it was not an emotion or sense of being she had seen from any students, or professors, in a long while.
Sprout sighed and agreed. "A few more minutes." She turned her face to the sun, eyes closed, and let herself just breathe.
Professor Snape had his back turned, his mind moved on from the students leaving his class and already cursing the next class that would be coming. Blithering idiots, the whole lot of them. Ruining his cauldrons and wasting his stores with their incompetence.
"Professor Snape, sir," came a timid voice from near the entrance of the Potions classroom.
"The bell has rung, Dawson." The professor still did not turn to his students, "Get out." He turned the cauldron over in his hand in disgust, this sludge looked nowhere near what a wit-sharpening potion should. Ironic.
Continued shuffling at the door finally garnered the irate professor's attention. Only the years of training his face into a fixed mask kept him from registering his surprise to see the whole third-year Gryffindor class still in the room.
"Is there a problem?"
"It's the hallway, sir. Someone's set off dungbombs. We can barely see outside for all the smoke."
One of the girls, closest to the partially open door, wiped at her irritated eyes, "The stench is too much, professor."
Snape sneered at his students. Pathetic. "Well, you certainly can't stay here."
"But Tommy's got the asthma," someone whispered tearfully.
"What- What do we do, sir?"
He looked at them dispassionately.
They looked back, hope flickering in their eyes.
Snape drawled, "Run."
The Hufflepuff firsties were rather pleased with themselves. They may have looked silly in their Bubble Heads, the shimmering orbs distorting their facial features almost beyond recognition, but they could breathe freely. The air inside their bubble stayed remarkably fresh, defying logic. Obviously, as it was magic.
And now they were nearly to their Potions class, not so late as they feared they would be.
As they descended the final staircase, they were all nearly bowled over by screaming Gryffindors.
"Oh Merlin, it burns!"
"My eyes!"
One of the boys collapsed in the stampede, wheezing, "Save yourselves!"
The cries and screaming receded into the distance as the older Gryffindors fled the dungeons and returned to the castle proper.
The Hufflepuffs gingerly pulled themselves off the ground. Several of them were groaning as they had essentially been thrown down the last few steps on the stairs.
A curly-haired firstie brushed herself off, and padded over to the cowering older boy left behind. Gathering her confidence and courage as best she could, she raised her wand over him, "I'm certain I remember what Cho did."
And she did.
A/N: Educational Decree #26: Teachers are banned from giving students any information that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach.
Inspired by the following (abridged) conversation between HPatST hosts Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile:
Vanessa (6:50): What this made me think of is, how quickly we become familiar to new things. So it's like, "oh the hallways smell now." And like one person clearly was like, "I know how to get around this." And then they just start doing it.
Vanessa (7:30): I'm guessing that one person did it first and then other people were like, "Oh that's a good idea" and it became a thing. And I just wonder if they know about the Bubble Head Charm because they watched Cedric. It seemed to me like a moment of familiarity via virality. This is like, Bubble Head went viral. *laughs* Because a cool guy, Cedric, did it, and then maybe like, Cho did it, or somebody else did it.
Casper (7:54): I mean, I wonder if it was Cho. That would be so interesting. Perhaps she'd been helping him, you know, prepare-.
Casper (8:17): [Flitwick and McGonagall] could easily stop nearly 90% of the chaos that is going on. But they're turning a blind eye.
Casper (8:32): But what really struck me is that they allow this to become normalized, right? If there had been resistance, it would have taken so much more courage or risk from students to put on their bubblegum heads. But instead, because like, no one pays attention to the first one, it catches really quickly and then suddenly everyone's doing it. So there's no pushback, which I think makes it go viral in that way
Vanessa (9:35): I really love your point about how McGonagall and Flitwick and all the other Heads of House, probably Snape too, although we don't hear about it, is allowing a lot of this to go on. And if they hadn't, if the students didn't just have to hide from Umbridge, but had to hide from a lot of people, this level of chaos would not be able to ensue for nearly as long as it's lasting.