Chapter Twelve
The rest of the holiday break passed without incident.
Well, not without incident.
Never without.
No one was capable of giving Art a day off from nagging, after all. Especially not after he had introduced them all to the wonders of being railroaded.
That being said, it was downright serene compared to that fateful night. Come Christmas morning everyone seemed to have other things to do. Now, Art was gracious enough to be the grownup and give them all the benefit of the doubt. They had other things to do with their free time.
Shiny new toys to play around with, pranks to pull, adventures to have, and anything else that didn't involve sitting around and throwing dice while his narration got progressively more and more pointed and frustrated.
He frowned.
Okay, maybe they were avoiding him.
A little.
He was being grownup about this, goddammit.
Percy had apparently decided that his siblings weren't worth the hassle of trying to play with. That, or he really hated the Warlock. That probably had something to do with it. That was understandable, at least.
Heck, even Harry had begged off. Bit of a surprise, that. After how much the little brat had enjoyed their first session, Art had expected a lot of whining for an encore. But he had barely seen any sign of him at all since Christmas morning. The few times they came across each other, he and Ron were acting more subdued and cagey than usual. And that was saying a lot.
Harry seemed distracted, that much was clear.
Might be that he got a shit present or something. Oh well. Art hardly minded. Saved him the headaches.
If no one wanted to play another session, then that was just fine with him.
He didn't care.
Good riddance to the game. He was ready to wash his hands of it all.
Art had more than half a mind to return it to Daphne, perhaps two-thirds of a mind, but then he decided that returning it was too much work. And too thoughtful, besides.
If she wanted it back, she could ask him.
Nicely.
When she refused to do that, she could buy another.
She was rich, wasn't she?
Yeah.
After that disastrous experience, he wasn't nearly as eager to put himself through another session of chaos. No sirree.
Not on his life.
And certainly not on her say-so, stuck-up that she was.
In any case, all of that Christmas roleplaying nonsense was behind him now. Firmly behind him. All long gone in the past. The holidays were over, and it was time for the term to resume. Classes and homework. Bickering and passing the time.
At last, a return to normality, and—
Well…
A return to Hogwarts normality.
Whatever that meant.
Students had returned, and classes would start back up again the following day.
Classes, homework, and hallway hexes.
Back to the old, abnormal, regularly scheduled sort of nonsense.
His first order of business was to find Hermione and nag at her about how awful her housemates were, in that tone of voice that made it clear he was imitating her. Once she was suitably annoyed and reacquainted with his snark, as well as his tendency to exaggerate things, he regaled her with the saga of that damnable tabletop session.
Best to keep her on the backfoot, lest she start accusing him of having fun or something.
"And that's the story of how I saved Christmas," he said, nodding patiently at her befuddled expression.
Completely understandable.
It had been a weird night.
"Did any of that actually happen?" she said, at last. More thinking out loud than actually asking him.
So naturally, he responded anyway.
"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Art demanded, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at her. "It's true, you know. All of it."
She scoffed. "Is it really? Every part? The part where you begged Professor Dumbledore to let you continue the session? On your knees, groveling, was it? Oh yes, that sounds very much like you. Please."
Fine. Parts of it were made up.
Art changed the subject. "Just because your vacation was such a dull affair doesn't mean you need to belittle mine."
She scowled at him, so clearly his banter was superior.
"I'll have you know that my vacation was—" she floundered, then pressed on stubbornly. "It was perfectly fine. Lovely, even."
Wonderful retort, Hermione. Ten out of ten.
He tilted his head innocently. "Are you sure about that?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"Because you don't sound—"
"Very sure," she said, cutting him off with a glare. "It was a wonderful Christmas, and I wouldn't have spent it any other way."
He shrugged. "If you say so."
"I do say so."
Well, now he had to push it.
"You know, Hermione. You can just come out and admit that you missed me," he said, solemnly placing a hand on her shoulder. "I won't tease you for it. Promise."
She smiled, which meant he had taken a wrong turn somewhere. "Funny you should mention that. Have you taken to waiting around in the entrance hall for no apparent reason since I've been gone, or could it be that you were waiting for someone to get back?"
That was uncalled for.
He closed his eyes and nodded. "You've caught me redhanded, Hermione. I have been waiting for someone."
"Thought so," she said smugly.
"You're a credit to your house," he said with a sigh, looking around the hall. "I might have missed him, just a tad. You haven't seen Neville yet, have you?"
She groaned and shoved past him, making her way down the hall.
Art followed, whistling a jaunty tune and thinking to himself.
Maybe Hermione had a point.
Maybe she wasn't the only one who needed to get used to dealing with annoying people at school again. He was being too nice.
It was obvious enough in retrospect.
The holidays had him going soft, warming his heart, making him more friendly, and other garbage. Would the Art from the beginning of term have agreed to babysit a bunch of degenerate Gryffindors for all of Christmas Eve?
Absolutely not.
Art glared at the depths of his soul and decided to distract himself from his self-loathing by instead distracting Hermione from her own faux-loathing of him.
A tall order, worded in a convoluted way.
"How was that one book I loaned you?" he asked mildly, adopting a friendly expression that felt far too normal. "It was very heavy, so I wouldn't be surprised if you decided not to bother, or if you forgot about it."
This immediately popped her stupid bubble of bubbliness.
Ha. Take that.
She averted her eyes, and he narrowed his in turn.
"Did you end up looking at it?"
"You could say that," she said, her eyes slowly drifting to the ceiling.
Now hold on, that wasn't the response he wanted.
This was outrageous.
It was unfair.
How dare she react contrary to his expectations?
"I could say that? Don't tell me you actually read that thing, that big blasted rulebook. Did you?" His face fell when she didn't immediately respond. "You read all of it, didn't you."
Drawing herself up, she lifted her chin defiantly at him. "I did."
"You put a bunch of work into a charter, didn't you."
"I did."
"You're going to get me roped into talking to McGonagall, aren't you."
Finally, she turned to scowl at him. "Oh hush, this whole operation was your idea. You're not being roped into anything. In fact, feel free to refuse. Make it so all of my effort was for nothing. Go on, make your excuses. I'm sure you have so many more important things to do instead of helping me execute your idea. I might wonder why you spent so much time coming up with plans for a club in the first place, but I'm sure you have your own convoluted reasons for it. And furthermore, don't bother asking me too—"
He groaned in put-upon frustration, dragging his feet in the general direction of the staircase deathtrap. "Fine, let's go talk to McGonagall. You can stop roping me in now."
Art and Hermione stood before the door to McGonagall's classroom.
"I still think this is a foolhardy idea," he said, glowering in her general direction without glowering at her directly. That would be too risky.
She closed her eyes and sighed, but otherwise didn't rise to his bait.
He went on, more to disguise his nerves than anything. "I mean, honestly. What are the two of us going to do in a club? Like as not we'll be sitting in some classroom, doing a whole lot of nothing with our time while waiting for something that isn't nothing to happen."
Again, she didn't respond. So he kept going. "And what's more, why did you go through all of this effort in writing this thing up? What, did you get bored after revising your Christmas homework for the fourth time?"
Yeah, that made sense.
At this, she spared him a look.
"Well," she said slowly, fiddling with some of the parchments in her hands. He narrowed his eyes at them, but they were all folded up and Hermione was being really mean and not letting him read any of them. "I suppose I wanted it to be a surprise. The club charter, and all of the writeups I did for it… It's supposed to be a gift. At least, that was my idea for it."
He hummed in thought. "Didn't you already send me a gift? What's with this over-achieving nonsense? This isn't like you at all, Hermione."
"Ha," she said.
Only a single ha.
Art nodded.
An appropriate response.
Before he had the chance to annoy her further, the door to McGonagall's office swung open of its own accord.
It was like magic.
"Hurry on in, then," McGonagallagallagall called from the room beyond.
Merlin, her name was exhausting. Too many syllables.
Chin raised and back ramrod straight, Hermione wasted no time marching into the room with all her weird paperwork in hand.
Art, on the other hand, made sure to take a few seconds and let his life flash before his eyes, before finally hunching over and dragging his feet after her.
Oh, the Transfiguration classroom.
Just as dreary as always.
The two of them stopped in front of McGonagall's desk. She didn't look up at them right away, taking her time with what looked like the grading of some holiday homework.
Hermione seemed content to wait. Art was not.
"Hiya, Professor," he said, clearing his throat and ignoring Hermione's glare. "Have a nice vacation?"
"I have had better, Mister Crouch. But I thank you for asking." She glanced up, her eyes drifting between the two of them. "I would ask how yours was, but sadly I already know the answer. Miss Granger, I hope your time off was peaceful and productive."
Hermione smiled. "It was, Professor. Thank you…"
Then there was more silence.
Hermione looked over at him, very subtly jerking her head towards McGonagall.
What?
Professor McGonagall looked between them again, slowly raising an eyebrow. "Was there something the two of you wanted to speak with me about? While it is nice of you to stop by, I have things I must see to before Transfiguration starts back up."
No. Come on. No.
Hermione poked him in the shoulder.
He stared at her, eyes widening until they started to burn, and mouthed it.
Nooooo.
She nodded, her eyes repeatedly and very deliberately darting between him and McGonagall.
Hermione Granger, everyone.
Master of intrigue.
"Mister Crouch," McGonagall said because she was a heartless witch with no soul, who hated children and probably favored Hermione because she was a Gryffindor and everyone sucked. "You had something to say to me?"
Truth was, the game was rigged from the start. Always had been.
Fine.
Raising a fist to his mouth, Art cleared his throat. "Professor McGonagall. I am approaching you today, humble and contrite, to ask you for just one thing. We, the two of us, Hermione and I— but more specifically Hermione seeing as you're her head of house and not mine…" He trailed off to glare at Hermione, whose gaze was firmly on the wall behind McGonagall. "Are seeking your stamp of approval in the formation of a student organization, by way of the two students exception pending the approval of a head of house, as specified on page two hundred and four in the officially sanctioned Hogwarks club rulebook known as Guidelines and Regulations for the Establishment and Continuing Operation of Student-Led Extra-Curricular Organizations."
One thing Art hated about his life was that he had thought to memorize those canned lines from that awful, awful book.
He paused to take a breath, and Hermione stepped forward to hand the papers to McGonagall before stepping back again. The poor old Professor looked like she was regretting her life's choices up until this moment, and Art could relate.
Ha. Served her right.
"In that packet of documents my associate just handed you, which make up our official charter, you'll find all of the proper paperwork and required documentation about our club, which is…" Art trailed off again, this time to scrunch up his face into a frown and peer over at the papers Hermione had just handed over. "Just… Really solid. Super cool. I'm sure of it."
"Art," Hermione hissed.
He glared at her and lowered his voice to a whisper. "I don't actually know what the club is, Hermione. That's your extended essay up there. Not mine."
"This whole club thing was your idea, wasn't it?" she whispered back, her voice torn between frustration and confusion. Once again, Art could relate. "That bit of paper you had, the one I— borrowed, I wrote up the whole charter based on that."
Oh. Okay, that made more sense.
Art turned back to the Professor, who seemed resigned to flipping through the pages of Hermione's manifesto.
He opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He blinked.
Looking over at Hermione, he frowned and whispered again. "Wait… Which part of the list? The one where I get to practice magic and get extra credit for it? Or the one where we gather information on different students and sell that intel to their rivals and enemies for a hefty profit?"
Those were the only ones he could remember.
"No, of course not," she said, almost sounding insulted that he had even brought them up. "Those are entirely Slytherin ideas— though I suppose you could argue that the practicing magic one leans more Ravenclaw… But even so. At the core of it, this had to be a Gryffindor club."
"Hurray," he muttered.
She huffed. "Well, what did you expect? The final say is with McGonagall, and I'd welcome you to try and sell one of your other ideas to her."
True enough.
"Fine. What idea did you go with, then?"
Hermione was about to respond when Professor McGonagall rudely interrupted by clearing her throat.
Feeling particularly annoyed and not at all liking the amused look on that woman's face, he sighed. "Yes, Professor?"
"I'm sorry to interrupt your… Last-minute debating," she said, and her tone, unfortunately, matched her change in demeanor. "But you are here to get your club approved, and we really must be getting on with it…"
Hermione wilted, wringing her hands together. "So sorry. You're right of course, Professor. Art was just confused, is all."
Oh, fuck right off.
"With a charter of this sort of depth, I can sympathize," she said, and now Art really wanted to read the papers. Damn it all, Hermione. "I wasn't expecting anything quite so detailed from you, Mister Crouch. That being said, I find myself pleasantly surprised at the focus of your new group."
"Oh?" he said, his voice sounding faint. "Why do you say that?"
"It's properly Gryffindor, so I suspect Miss Granger had no small amount of input. Especially when it came to the… Length."
Art went on, feeling slightly lightheaded. "It was only natural, Professor. We might have gone for something less obviously favorable to you, but that would involve appealing to Professor Snape… I'm sure you can imagine how that would go."
Damn that man. This was his fault.
And Hermione's.
And Draco's.
"I understand, yes." McGonagall sighed, some of her good humor leaving her. She shook her head. "Well, it is a good thing you brought this to me then. Not just because I am more likely than Professor Snape to take petitions like this seriously, but because this concept and charter are positively inspired."
They were, were they?
Art turned to stare at Hermione and was unsurprised to find her almost completely facing away from him. He attempted to glare a hole into the back of her head, to no avail.
"Why do you say that?" he said, dreading the answer.
"It is such a lovely idea, is it not? Yes, I can see Miss Granger's hand in it clearly. An opportunity for the two of you to bring students together, across houses, in service of a common cause. Almost Hufflepuff in nature, I suppose, but still commendable regardless." She smiled, looking back down at the stack of papers and flipping to the last one. "I'm almost of a mind to approve it right now, in fact. Will you be keeping the name you wrote here on the form? The Service Club? It's a little on-the-nose, but that isn't necessarily a negative."
The Service Club.
Art sighed, closing his eyes in weary resignation.
That settled it.
Hermione would have to die.
AN: I am the mightiest Necromancer.
AN PS: Something-something death of the author.