Chapter XXI: Warrented Brewding

It was Halloween morning, and Harry was feeling glum. This was the day that his parents had been murdered by Voldemort, so it brought up all the depressing little thoughts that bounced around inside his skull. Conceptually, he missed his parents; he never knew them, but he desperately would have liked to. Even more, he would have liked them to survive so that he never had to wind up in that God-forsaken cupboard. For Harry, the 31st of October was the anniversary of the day his life turned to shit.

Making matters worse, near everyone else in the castle was in a sort of mania. Festivity was the word of the day, with bunting going up all over and pumpkins appearing as if by magic (and frequently by direct magic) in every nook and cranny. For the rest of the wizarding world, the 31st of October was a day of tradition, an excuse for sweets galore, and the anniversary of the day their stupid blood-war ended.

There were precisely two other people in the whole of Hogwarts who shared in Harry's approach: Professor Snape, by way of being incapable of experiencing pleasure unless it was at someone else's expense - and even Harry's own suffering wasn't drawing a smile from the bat that day, and, for whatever reason, Hermione Granger, who had just thrown herself onto the bench beside him in a visible huff.

Harry half grunted, half mumbled a greeting and received the same in reply. For a minute they focused on breakfast, and he noticed she eschewed the usual pumpkin juice for a cup of coffee so strong you could stand a wand up in it. Where did she even get coffee?

"So," he finally said, "what have you got against Halloween?"

Hermione slammed her cup down hard enough to splash coffee all over her hand, which she made no effort to clean off.

"Don't."

"Jeez, don't have to bite my head off."

"Am I not allowed to be miserable or something?" she snapped.

"Merlin, Hermione, be as miserable as you like. I sure as hell am. Just thought you'd be excited about McGonagall's show later."

Professor McGonagall hadn't completed her list, to Harry's knowledge, nor had any significant trouble come their way since duelling club. The whispers had increased, and Harry was now being shunned even when away from Hermione, but what difference did that make to him? An entire childhood of such treatment had brought far worse treatment and inured him to passive aggression.

The only change he could be bothered to resent was that the twins barely acknowledged him now; the day after the club they had let him know, through a series of winks and absurd hand gestures, that as much as they approved of his 'prank' he was now too hot to handle in public. A stance for which he couldn't blame them; self-preservation was something he understood well, even if he had developed a habit of throwing it to wind recently.

"I am," Hermione moaned. "That's what got me out of bed."

"Bloody hell-"

"-language!" she spat with excess vitriol.

"Right. Bleeding… Heck? So what kept you in bed?"

"Can a girl not have a sleepless night around here without the sodding Spanish Inquisition jumping down her throat?" she complained.

"Sorry for being concerned about my friend," Harry grumbled. He'd been rather hoping she would cheer him up, but that was out of the question. He only kept talking to her because her misery was a distraction from his own.

"Thank you for the concern, but I'm… fine. I'll be fine," she trailed off into a whisper, and Harry barely caught the last word: "Eventually."

Recognising the can of worms for what it was, he simply replied with, "well, I'm here if you want to talk."

"I don't."

"Not about anything?" he tried, hopeful that they could find a less depressing subject. Merlin knew they couldn't get much more depressing.

"There is one thing," she acquiesced, between heavy swigs of coffee. "The Malfoy plan. Polyjuice is still the best we've got, and I'm sick of researching options, so I guess we should start on that."

"Awesome, what's first?" he asked, leaning in with a glance over at the Slytherin table - not that Malfoy was still there so late in the morning.

"First, we need someplace to brew it. It takes weeks to brew, and I'm going to have to go extra slow because, frankly, a second year has no right being able to brew something so difficult."

"But you'll be able to, yeah?" Harry said, expressing his confidence in his friend when it came to anything remotely academic.

It was clear she didn't share his confidence as she took a deep breath before answering, "yes."

"Excellent, so when-"

"-That might not be the biggest problem though," she halted him in his tracks. "We're going to need ingredients, and there's only one place in the castle that will have what we're after: Snape's storeroom."

Harry would have sworn, properly, but for fear of her wrath.

"And polyjuice is still the way to go?" Harry asked.

"If you're still insistent on sneaking into Slytherin, and unless you suddenly know how to cast a NEWT level glamour, yes."

"Sounds like you need some help," Ginny declared from behind them, making both jump clear of the bench. "And lessons from my brothers in how to keep a plot secret."

"Ginny! How long have you been there?" Harry exclaimed.

"Long enough," she answered coyly.

"About twenty seconds," Hermione estimated.

"You knew she was there?"

"Harry, I can hear a pin drop on the other side of the hall. Of course I knew she was there."

"But you kept talking about the plot," he hissed instinctively, as though there were still a chance to hide it from Ginny.

"What's she going to do, tell on us?" she scoffed. "Everyone will just think we're going in to find some heirloom our great-great-great-granddaddy Salazar left for us."

"I won't tell on you; I want in!" Ginny eagerly assured them.

"You don't even know what you're asking to help with."

"Sure I do."

Harry gave her a quizzical look, but Hermione just sighed resignedly like she knew what was coming.

"Luna may have let it slip," Ginny said, apologetic on her friend's behalf.

"Who else knows?" Hermione demanded.

"Just Neville, and he's not gonna tell. He's too afraid of you."

"Oh for-! Does everyone and their dog still believe I'm the heir?" Hermione shouted, drawing a few looks.

"Nah, he knows it isn't you," Ginny said, finally taking a seat beside her, "but you're still kinda scary. And he's a wuss."

"I am not scary," Hermione huffed.

"You know the first time he ever saw you, you were arguing with my brother about how dark curses shouldn't be illegal?"

"That's misrepresenting my argument."

"Try telling Neville that. He's pretty opinionated when it comes to the dark arts, what with his parents…"

"Ok so Neville isn't an issue," Harry stated, trying to get the conversation back on topic. "Why don't we figure out where we're brewing this potion? Ideas?"

"I'll need access to running water;" Hermione said, starting a count on her fingers, "privacy, obviously; a lack of anything flammable in the immediate vicinity would be a sensible precaution… I think that's it."

Water, privacy, fireproof, Harry summarised mentally. Alone any one of them was easy, but combined? Their classroom was private, but nothing else. A bathroom seemed a natural choice, other than the lack of privacy - people coming and going would have them outed within a day.

"The second floor girls' bathroom!" Hermione whispered in a eureka moment. "It's out of order, has been since before I started at Hogwarts, but it must have running water because it flooded."

Harry remembered that flood; how could he not? He did think of asking if she was alright with returning to where it all kicked off, but figured she'd thought of that already.

"We can't use that!" Ginny squeaked. "I mean, it's in a main corridor, and if anyone sees you go in they'll be suspicious."

"That's fine, we can use my-" Harry stopped himself, before he revealed something he hadn't told Ginny about yet. "We have a way of getting in unseen," he said levelly, knowing Hermione would catch his drift.

Ginny was looking awfully pale when she protested with, "are you sure it isn't out of order for a reason? The third floor corridor was off limits last year and George reckoned there was a cerberus in there!"

"We'll check for giant three headed dogs before we go in," Hermione said, her disapproval showing, though whether at Ginny or the idea there was a cerberus in the school Harry couldn't tell. What a ridiculous rumour that was. It was a rumour, right?

"Okay, so we'll check the bathroom out," he agreed. "How about the ingredients - we've got potions later, any way we can get them then?"

"If the two of you can get into Snape's store without him noticing, sure."

"That should be doable," Harry asserted, a plan already forming in his mind. This was suddenly feeling very real, and the implications were dawning on him, but it was a bit late for backing out even if he wanted to. "Ginny, you up for a bit of theft? Ginny?"

The girl in question was staring blankly at him as she spoke. Snapping out of it at the second mention of her name, she adjusted something under her robes before answering.

"Sure, Harry, whatever you need," she said in an absent tone that left Harry unsure she'd even heard the question. "See you in potions," she mumbled, wandering off to take a seat with some fourth years he didn't think she knew.

Unfortunately, whatever was up with her would have to wait until a better day; even with the building excitement, Harry knew he wasn't up to supporting two of his friends, and Hermione had dibs.

Harry slunk into potions, feeling apprehensive. He had a few ideas on how to get ingredients from Snape's store, but none he felt confident in. For the more promising of them - those not utterly doomed to embarrassing or even dangerous failure before they had begun - he needed to involve Ginny, and clue her in. Geofric was quietly put out when Harry slipped into the boy's usual place next to Ginny, and Neville looked disappointed to be seemingly abandoned by the only classmate willing to put up with the terrible flailing none including he called potionmaking. Fortunately neither said anything, as the professor was already looming, his presence alone commanding obedient silence.

Ginny gave him a knowing but nervous look, then focused on not drawing Snape's attention. Harry was worried he wouldn't be able to escape that himself well enough to whisper the plan to Ginny, but they were brewing a type of burn salve; in typical potions logic, the cure for burns was almost entirely comprised of flammable ingredients, so Snape was needed almost immediately and repeatedly at Neville's cauldron.

"Got any ideas on getting into his store?" Harry whispered as he diced a fireradish, hoping she had something better than he did. When she shook her head, he went ahead with his best. "I'm thinking if I can create a distraction in the corridor right after the lesson, you can sneak in and out while Snape deals with it."

"What sort of distraction?" she asked, perking up and almost slicing her own finger off as she forgot to pay attention to her chopping.

"I'll worry about that, you just make sure you're the last to pack up at the end," he told her.

Ginny sucked her nicked finger thoughtfully. "Alright. But what if Snape catches me?"

"Uh... Tell him I made you do it?"

"Will he believe that? Won't he just punish both of us even if he does? I really don't want mum getting a letter from him," Ginny worried.

Harry was surprised to hear that of all the things Snape might do, getting Mrs Weasley involved was the one Ginny feared; Molly had been nothing but friendly - overly so - when they met. Harry was also thinking he was glad there would be no such repercussions with him and Vernon. That was a fear which left a little cold sweat on his neck, despite the fact he was never going back to that hellhole.

"Say you think I'm the heir, and you were scared to say no to me. He'll be so overjoyed to rub it in my face he'll forget all about punishing you," Harry suggested, reckoning it might even be true. He hated the idea of fuelling the rumour, but once they proved it was Malfoy that would be moot.

"Fine. I'm not taking the fall for this crazy plan you've cooked up," Ginny agreed, all too readily. When Harry shot her an involuntary hurt look, she explained; "Fred and George's first rule: Don't get caught. Second rule: Deny everything if you do."

Can't argue with that. Just be grateful she's helping at all.

"Alright. Til the lesson ends, keep- Are the ashwinder eggs ready?" Harry interrupted himself loudly as Snape walked past, earning a suspicious glare no worse than the horrid man's usual expression.

"The eggs don't go in for another twenty stirs," Ginny replied, showing she was more in control of the brewing than Harry.

"Oh, yeah," he lamely muttered, to a snicker from the professor.

"At least it appears one amongst you Gryffindors knows how to read instructions," Snape commented before moving on to stalk Neville again.

"Git," Harry breathed, so softly only Ginny could possibly catch it. Even so, he could have sworn he saw Snape hesitate mid-step, then continue with a tiny shake of his head. Was he running an augmenosensus or something? Harry couldn't imagine having heightened senses amongst the fumes of all the potions, though he knew Hermione had to do exactly that for solo brewing. Maybe all the years of it had gotten to Snape, and literally soured his brain. There was a thought he could share with Hermione later; it was most likely nonsense, but it might get a laugh out of her. If there was anything to it, she needed warning; he wasn't going to see his friend end up anything like Snape.

The rest of the lesson passed with little excitement - Neville's cauldron bubbling over was par for the course, and though Warren's fury was nearly as scolding as the spitting liquid it ended as Snape took over. Harry somehow lost five points for 'riding on the coattails of a more competent brewer' when they turned in a half decent (barely satisfactory, in Snape's words) potion.

As class let out, Harry left Ginny to clean up, giving her the perfect excuse to hang back and himself chance to set up his distraction. Loitering outside the door, he waited for the cluster of Slytherin girls to exit, then 'stumbled' right into them, grabbing one by the arm as he went down and bringing her to the floor with him. Overcoming his repulsion against touching her at all was as hard as overcoming the fear of what her housemates might do in retaliation, but he was rewarded for his sacrifices: Her startled scream was perfect.

"Ah! Get off me!" she shrieked right in his ear.

The other girls leapt back, making room for the Slytherin boys to swoop in.

"Let her go!"

"What's happening?"

"Potter's attacking Travers!"

"Wibbilus!"

The jelly legs jinx hit him in the arm, and proved its name to be a little misleading as the impacted limb, not his legs, lost its strength. His grip broken, and still unbalanced from crashing to the floor, he couldn't stop two boys hoisting him away from the girl. He could still lash out against them with his good arm, and he kicked at the air wildly for good measure. That was the scene professor Snape stepped out into, and Harry suppressed a triumphant smile by turning it to a grimace - his impending doom made that an easy task.

Everything played out exactly as one would expect: Harry denied everything vehemently, and his words fell on deaf ears. More than that - every denial only angered Snape further, until he grabbed Harry's limp arm, not bothering to cancel the jinx, and marched him off up the corridor to berate him further in private.

Nothing that came from the dungeon bat's mouth was anything Harry hadn't heard before, yet by the end of it Harry was still trembling. There was a rage in those normally cold eyes that reminded him of his uncle, and the threats came with a certain promise; Harry was fairly sure if Snape could have beaten him senseless without losing his job, he would have.

Regret and shame burned Harry's abused ears as he dragged his heels back past the classroom, once Snape had sent him on his way with a fortnight's detentions. Seemingly the idea that detentions would be as intolerable for the professor as for the student no longer held, which left Harry fearful of what Snape had dreamt up in his fit of anger.

Fear turned to resolve, and shame to pride, when Ginny gave him a subtle thumbs up in passing. He noticed she had Neville's arm in a vice grip with her other hand, and the boy was looking chastened. They had the ingredients; the brewing could begin.

Hermione walked the corridor with a racing heart. This was new territory for her; clandestine meetings in abandoned bathrooms, for the explicit purpose of rule breaking. Possibly law breaking, although Hogwarts' policy of never getting the aurors involved, even when they very much should, made that less important. Planning had constituted conspiracy to commit, she knew that, but there was something viscerally different about going ahead with it.

A little of her elevated pulse was due to reliving her last high-stakes trip down this particular corridor, all those long weeks ago when she had been on a literal bloodscent. Hopefully this outing would end better than the first.

Reaching the door, and checking several times that no-one was about with a hominem revelio (the charm couldn't show her direction, as it gave visual feedback, but one could feel whether it had detected someone in the vicinity), she pushed it open, winced as it creaked, and slipped inside.

"You're late," Ginny accused tetchily.

"Hey," chorused Harry and Neville... why was Neville there?

"A witch is never late, Ginevra," Luna absently corrected, completing Hermione's mental list of expected occupants.

With a plus one. What was Neville doing there?

"Neville..."

"You're wondering what I'm doing here, aren't you?" he pre-empted in a resigned voice.

"Yes."

"So am I," he moaned, "but Ginny didn't give me a choice."

"Ginny?"

"He saw me stealing the stuff from the bat's stores! So I thought might as well get him in on it, right? Properly I mean?"

"And he had a say in the matter?" Hermione asked, though she knew the answer already.

"About as much say as I had in where we're doing this," Ginny complained, "but he didn't say no."

"Yes I did!" Neville protested.

"Well you didn't say it very loudly then. It's too late now, anyway."

"No it isn't," Harry asserted. "Nev, you can leave if you want. Just, don't tell anyone, yeah?"

The group fell silent as the offer hung in the air. Hermione wasn't going to coerce someone into involvement, and she trusted that Neville wouldn't dare snitch on Ginny. Harry had made his stance known, and Hermione didn't expect Ginny would go against him. Luna's opinion wasn't worth trying to figure out, though not for lack of caring about it. Which left them waiting on Neville's decision. So, naturally, Luna broke the silence.

"It's awfully cold in this bathroom," she noted to no-one in particular. "I'm glad I'm not here all alone."

"You're not in a nightie again, are you?" Hermione checked. She'd lent her a set of robes but didn't entirely put it past the girl to have lost them. The greater likelihood of them being stolen overnight was a worry for tomorrow.

"No Hermione, your robes are very warming, thank you. But really it's being with friends that makes the cold bearable."

Hermione was touched by the sentiment, and apparently she wasn't the only one.

"I'm in," Neville declared. "You'll have to go over the plan for me 'cause Ginny was spouting a bunch of nonsense about potions in a toilet, and I don't see how I can help whether it's with potions or not, but... I'm in."

"Brilliant," Harry exclaimed, the rest agreeing vocally with his assessment. "And so you know, we are brewing in the loo, but I don't reckon any of us are gonna ask you to touch that."

That was received with nervous chuckles. Hermione hadn't witnessed Neville's potion attempts first hand, but the stories Harry told made her glad of the fact.

Niceties observed, Hermione was about to get down to business when an ethereal warbling echoed about the room. Her friends responded with little gasps, but she wasn't in the mood for any of that. After all she'd endured in the past year, ghostly emanations hardly registered on her 'give-a-damn' meter.

"Right, who's doing that?" she demanded, channelling her mother's disapproving act.

"Ooooooh," the feminine intruder whined sarcastically, "that's rich. That's lovely. Coming in to my bathroom, and talking to me like that."

"Uh, sorry? We didn't know anyone was in here," Hermione said by way of apology.

"No, you wouldn't, would you? Everyone's forgotten all about me. Well excuse me, let me just go find somewhere else to cry. I wouldn't want to interrupt whatever it is you lot are up to, it's obviously far more important than whatever silly old Myrtle is doing."

"Myrtle? Are you Moaning Myrtle?" Harry asked.

Hogwarts: A History had a paragraph, or a run-on sentence if one were being honest, about the ghost Moaning Myrtle. Said to haunt all the best places to cry in peace, travelling in the plumbing to avoid meeting anyone in the corridors. Hermione disagreed with the author's assumption that Hogwarts toilets were a good place for crying, but Myrtle herself seemed not to.

"Oh? Moaning Myrtle, am I? Can't even be bothered to learn my real name, can you? Well, why would you, not like I'm important," Myrtle sniffed. "Everything's always more important than Myrtle. You know they didn't even cancel classes when I died? Just carted my body away like it was garbage, then went straight back to their textbooks. I knew no-one liked me, but that's just rude. You'd know all about rude, though, wouldn't you, barging in here, causing a draught! Let's see how you lot like it!"

Seconds later, Hermione was treated to one of the oddest sensations of her life. A cold chill tore through her, travelling in a clear wave from right to left. That wasn't what was strange though; the strangeness was she felt that same chill ripple through her on a magical level, the same way her wand was warm to her touch. And, because her luck was what it was, she hadn't dropped her augmenosensus yet, so she was experiencing it with more intensity than mundanely possible. Her legs shook so hard they were one tremor away from giving out.

Did a ghost just fly through me? Hermione thought, as she tracked Myrtle's soft wailing and the wake of gasping and chattering teeth she left; their matching gave her the answer. She was pretty sure that was against common ghost etiquette (a thought which made in onto her list of phrases eleven year old Hermione would never have expected to utter).

Ignoring the insult, the ice in her bones, and the indignant shouts of the others, she got to thinking. If Myrtle haunted this bathroom as regularly as it sounded, that explained both the unnatural chill in the air and the out of order sign on the door. It could also make it a bad place to brew the polyjuice; they would need to get along with the ghost, or risk being snitched on. As a rule, ghosts cared little for the affairs of mortals they didn't know in life, but they were certainly not above spiteful acts when provoked. Poltergeists existed for such thrills.

This could be a problem.

The question was, should they find somewhere else to brew? It was unlikely she would snitch unless actually provoked, and could act as quite the deterrent against discovery otherwise. Once the brew was started, Hermione would only be returning occasionally to check on the polyjuice and refresh the magic heating it; she could endure Myrtle's unique brand of company easily enough. All in all, she wanted this to work out.

"Myrtle," she said, hiding her annoyance, "I'm very sorry about my friend. He's an idiot who doesn't know when to shut up." OK, so not hiding, just redirecting.

"Hey," Harry grumbled.

"Oh shush, you know it's true," Hermione bit back, shutting him down before he could screw things up any further.

Myrtle let out a mean little giggle. "Trouble with the boyfriend?" she teased.

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Oooh, can I have him then?" she asked, in a voice that might have been seductive had it not been so nasal.

"I didn't think you liked him?" Hermione reminded her, not sure it was the best thing to say but desperate to keep her talking, as it was calming her down.

"Maybe I like a bad boy," Myrtle sniffed.

Hermione heard Harry shudder, and could only imagine his discomfort as the ghost sidled up beside him. Or possibly inside him. Just take one for the team Harry.

"Are you a bad boy?" his new paramour whispered.

"Half the school thinks I'm the heir of Slytherin," he responded levelly.

Myrtle's gasp was ear-piercing, or at least it was to Hermione, who finally cancelled her sensory charm as her head rang.

"He isn't though," she clarified.

"He most certainly isn't!" Myrtle asserted. "They're doing it again, aren't they?"

"History does like to repeat itself," Luna said.

"Doing what?" Ginny hissed.

"Blaming the wrong person," Myrtle clarified. "First poor Rubeus, now this fine specimen."

"Rubeus? Rubeus Hagrid?" Hermione breathed, as the new information met her like a curveball, and she took it as well as a real one.

"Yes, but let's not talk about him. I want to talk about this one."

"Myrtle… Were you a student when the chamber was last opened?"

"Not telling," Myrtle pouted, which confirmed Hermione's suspicion. The last time the chamber was opened, a student died.

"Myrtle…" Harry said, "we're trying to catch whoever opened the chamber again. Do you want to help?"

"What good would that do me? I'm already dead," she whined.

"Okay, well would you at least let us use this bathroom to do it?" Hermione asked. "Without telling anyone?"

There was a gust of wind as Myrtle flew right up to Hermione's face.

"What's in it for me?" she demanded.

"Revenge? Not having to share your haunts with any more ghosts?" Myrtle's thoughtful hum didn't sound overly impressed, so Hermione silently played her trump card, and resolved to ask forgiveness later. "It'll mean Harry visiting you."

"Harry? The hot one?"

"Oi!" Harry interceded. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"No!" snapped Hermione and Myrtle as one.

"But she knows I'm only thirteen, right? And she's, what, sixty?" he complained.

"I'm fifteen," Myrtle shrilled, "and I'm going to be fifteen forever! And you'll age up soon enough."

"So, do we have a deal?" Hermione cut in, not fancying a tangent at the crucial moment.

"Sure," Myrtle sobbed, losing her composure once more over something Harry had said. "Not like I'm stuck in this bathroom anyway. Do what you like, and let me know when bad boy's coming back to see me. Buh-bye!"

Myrtle blew a kiss, and with a splash her presence left the room.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, before Ginny summed up the encounter perfectly.

"What the actual f-"

"-Language!"

"-fudge?"

Hermione shook her head, and starting pulling brewing equipment from her bag. Most of it was her school set, for which she'd already ordered replacements by owl. Handing it out, she gave clear, concise instructions for setting it all up, then repeated them more slowly when she remembered the average competence of a first year potioneer.

Four first years and a blind second year meeting in a haunted bathroom to brew an advanced potion using stolen ingredients… is every Halloween going to feature ridiculous bathroom situations? And how is this the less alarming of the two?

A/N

Think I have to drop to one upload a week, or else I'll just keep missing uploads. I'll try to up chapter length to compensate somewhat. :(

To reviewers: There are a lot of things that are going to be explained or expanded upon later, such as the lackadaisical approach by the staff and the question of what makes curses 'dark'. Also, a lot of things I don't strictly agree with in canon are going to be kept regardless, because if I changed everything that is wrong with Harry Potter, it wouldn't be recognisable by the end of it. Easier to draw the line early.
Also, I think this was lost in the last AN that didn't save: MorphCross is right that I meant chauvinist, not misogynist. As to Hermione's inconsistencies, she's a flawed narrator and a 14 year old. Her image of self and her actions may not line up as well as she thinks.