Colin had checked into a small hotel in Hogsmeade. This is what many students did over the holidays, preferring it to going home. There were exceptions, however. Hermione, for example, had gone home for the summer. Hermione's parents worked in the field of neurosurgery, and thus she was better-off than most of the other students, for whom Hogsmeade hotels provided a standard of living far superior to their own homes at a very economical price. Hermione's father was especially wealthy because he subsidized his already considerable income by selling whatever various implements or byproducts of his neurosurgical practice he didn't need to the students. Most of these he sold to Severus or the Weasleys, who in turn sold them at a profit to the kids not hip or connected enough to know or know about Mr. Granger.

Colin, earlier that day, had picked up a well-preserved pineal gland and a suppository applicator from him when Hermione was departing. Colin was sure to clean the applicator good, because he didn't imagine that Mr. Granger had sterilized it using the proper equipment. Why would Mr. Granger have been using suppository applicators in neurosurgery? More likely they were from Mr. Granger's personal life, in which case he wouldn't have had access to the proper cleaners. It even smelled of shit. The gland, however, was beyond reproach, and it was not long before Colin had "applicated" it right into his ass and felt the rush from all those mindbending secretions being absorbed into the sensitive skin of the old fecal tract.

He collapsed onto the cot in his room, naked and perspiring. He began to see strange patterns appearing all over the walls of the room: sting-rays and manta-rays, bleeding and foaming at their mouths; red stencil calligraphic two-dimensional chickens vomiting their guts and then swallowing them back up again and again on repeat; static television signals stretched and bent into the shape of metal bed frames and wire frame reindeer which shat uncontrollably from millions of atomic sized orifices.

He lay there motionless on his bed until the morning.

After heading over to the toilet and shitting out the shriveled thing, he stumbled over to his suitcase and slipped on some things. Not quite over the drug yet, he lacked the complete awareness to dress himself properly. Resultantly, he had put on a Ralph Lauren goatskin car coat over a Ralph Steadman Mickey Mouse shirt and some jeans with his cricket cap (the one with the picture of the copulating lions on it) pulled down over his face.

Colin rushed down the stairs, pushing people out of the way and mumbling something about 'continental breakfast.'

Colin wandered about the hotel until he found himself in one of the privately reserved banquet rooms. Colin didn't read the signage however, and was unaware that this was where he was, and before anything could be done had already noticed the buffet that had been set up. He helped himself to some rice-crispy squares, croissants and bacon (all of which he dipped in the chocolate fountain). After that, he went for some sausage and eggs, and some thin mint cookies (dipping these too in the chocolate fountain). After that, he noticed the open bar in the room, and soon enough had drunk himself asleep on rum and laudanum. Finding the room too bright, he rolled under the tables so that he was fenced off by the tablecloths from any sunlight.

After a while, Colin was woken up by the sounds of footsteps.

"Somebody's been at our breaky-weaky!" said a little voice he recognized as Professor Gloucester Flitwick, the token dwarf among the faculty.

"Rats! It's rats, I know it!" screeched a voice which could only be that of Professor Minerva (formerly Mervin) McGarnickle, "This hotel is filthy! Filthy!"

Next, Colin could hear the loud, stoned laughter of Professor Anita M. Sprout. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Man, you guys… you guys are crazy."

Colin covered his ears. These were not the sounds you wanted to wake up to with a hangover.

"Silence, all of you!" shouted the noble and brassy tones of Headmaster Albus Mordred Adolf Finnegan Dumbledore, "We have much to discuss."

Colin could hear the professors all sit down at the table next to the one he lay under, and could see their feet poking from under the cloth.

"The Riddle boy is getting dangerous!" said McGarnickle, "These are no longer childish pranks! If we are not careful, we will lose control of our own school!"

"Yeah, they keep… they keep setting fire to my gardens," said Sprout, "I didn't even light up this morning or nothing." She followed this statement with another bout of stoned laughter.

"And they keep targeting minority students!" Pointed out Flitwick concernedly, "They dress up in pointed hoods and harass them as they walk about at night!"

Dumbledore grumbled. "Hrrrm, yes - terrible." He spoke without any special concern.

Flitwick banged his fist upon the table, hurting himself considerably, and shouted about how "Action must be taken!"

"Calm yourself, noble Gloucester," boomed Dumbledore, "I have identified what our next steps shall be." He then began to speak in a more hushed and excited tone: "I suggest we purchase… a Potter's."

"A what? Dammit, speak up!" shouted Professor McGarnickle, who had noticed the open bar.

"A Potter's. You know, a place belonging to a potter, a pottery artisan!" he said, still very excited. "Just imagine - with this we can slash the budget in half. We can stop buying shit like globes and new desks and shelves! We can just make them in the kiln!"

"But- how much would it cost to purchase this Potter's? And how much will we end up spending on kiln upkeep?" said Flitwick.

"Nevermind that!" said McGarnickle, "We must be focused upon military retail against the Riddle boy!"

"You mean military retaliation?" asked Flitwick.

"No, she clearly said millinery retail," said Dumbledor, "In which case I must again remind you of our new Potter's. We can make all the hats we need in the kiln!"

"Shut up about the bloody kiln!" screeched McGarnickle, "What I meant was we ought to organize an army to put a stop to the Riddle boy!"

Dumbledore grumbled and pouted and smirked. "Well in that case what you'd be talking about military retaliation, not millinery retail at all you stupid man-bint."

McGarnickle slapped him across the face.

Dumbledore stood up. "All right, I'll tell you what I'll do- this way we'll all get what we want." He began to stride about the room, looking very much like a general speaking to his troops, "We shall organize a militant group, recruiting from both Hogsmeade youth and Hogwarts students on a volunteer basis, which should give us a decently large number of loyal members provided we devise a sufficiently seductive propaganda campaign. I have identified a piece of Hogsmeade real estate which would make for an ideal headquarters and which contains facilities which could be used in constructing inexpensive, if easily breakable, hand-to-hand weapons."

The other professor clapped, impressed by the conviction with which he spoke.

Tears in her eyes, a deeply moved McGarnickle asked "And what, Albus, shall this militant group be called?"

He smirked, a magical twinkle in his eye and said "The Potter's Army."

With that, Colin bolted out from under the table and ran out of the room.