Les Sylphides, chapter 6: Not Just Children Can be Cruel

by flax, June 2003

JK Rowling owns the characters. They're only in this daydream for a profitless romp. :)

(I'm trying to finish by the 20th - when the new book comes out and completely changes the landscape - here's hoping! :) )

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Hermione and Harry wandered into the great hall for Saturday breakfast, finding Ron pouring over someone's copy of _The_Daily_Prophet_. The room was unusually crowded for a Saturday breakfast - but as everyone had "volunteered" for the lectures and discussions today, it wasn't that much a surprise.

"Just like a school day," grumped Harry.

"I hope it's actually worth the time," muttered Hermione back.

"You're not going to believe this," said Ron, rearranging the paper and tossing it to his friends. Hermione and Harry looked, and were surprised by what they saw.

The headlines were: "SYLPHES ABANDON DIPLOMATIC TALKS, CORNELIUS FUDGE DISMAYED AND OFFENDED, Hogwarts Site of Yet Another Scandal, What are They Teaching the Children?"

Harry and Hermione skimmed the article fast, as did most of the rest of the room, soaking up the details of what went on after they'd left the party. Apparently the Sylphs didn't follow the protocols that Fudge had worked out. "Protocols?" scoffed Harry. "They must not have read about sylphs when they thought they'd follow 'protocols.' "

"It's Fudge we're talking about. He's just mad that he didn't get a picture of himself shaking a sylph's hand," replied Ron.

"Why not? He was there, they were there," asked Hermione.

"Well, there's a picture of him in costume," said Ron, laughing.

"Oh No," said Harry laughing. Hermione's eyes bugged out and Ron laughed some more. She glared and they put their hands up, promising not to tell.

There was a picture of "The Green Man" dancing with a sylph - and the green man was Cornelius Fudge (in costume) according to the caption. And the sylph was Hermione in costume - which was not indicated by the caption.

"So did he trip over your feet?" asked Ron.

"Did he bore you to tears?" asked Harry.

"He was an idiot!" said Hermione. "And we are *NEVER* discussing this."

The boys laughed and that was an end to that. Ron pointed out the useless gossip page had even better stuff - snippets of who was seen with whom information - social register stuff, made more interesting by the complete lack of data as to who was in which costume. "And there's a quote from the Cupid here," said Harry laughing. He read on: " 'Nothing helps relationships more than a little good hearted good cheer,' said the Cupid, urging this writer to dance with a Ceuranos. And What Fun We Had! We should listen to Cupid more often.'"

The trio laughed. "I bet Dumbledore would boot that guy out the door," laughed Ron.

"I bet Dumbledore booted them all out the door when the party was over," laughed Hermione.

"I don't even want to know what that looked like," laughed Harry.

Hermione returned to the front article about the Minister of Magic. "I am especially disappointed that the wizards with connections to the Sylphs didn't even try to support our diplomatic goals," the article quoted Fudge. "Instead, they supported their own selfish agendas." The article went on to highlight the announcement of Severus Snape's dismissal from the Sylph flock and divorce from one of its members. "Sometimes we need teamwork to get things done," the article quoted Fudge further, "and the teamwork just isn't there. I just hope this is a case of someone being foolish and not of someone trying to ruin the Sylph/Wizarding accords."

"This gossip is on the main page," whispered Hermione to Ron.

"What do you expect? It's _Fudge_," replied Ron.

"It's gossip," she whispered back.

"Deflects attention from his insignificance to the whole event," muttered Ron quietly. "He probably was happy to have an excuse to leave in a huff."

"He left in a huff?" asked Harry.

"The Hufflepuff's saw it - right outside their dorm rooms. He slammed doors, refused to shake Dumbledore's hand, threw a fit, the whole nine yards. Accused Snape of having an affair with another woman and parading it in front of his sylph wife," said Ron.

"That's not true!" said Hermione, shocked.

"Ick, the idea of Snape married is bad enough," replied Ron.

"Let's not talk about Snape's life?" said Harry with distaste.

"Just one more thing - Snape apparently laughed his head off when Fudge accused him of scuttling the talks that way. Makes me almost respect the guy," finished Ron.

Harry laughed as did Hermione, nervously, and they moved to finish their breakfasts. "So how good a dancer was Fudge," murmured Harry to Hermione.

"We're not talking about this," murmured Hermione back with a glare.

The boys laughed.

Dumbledore stood at the end of breakfast and announced the sad news that the sylphes had left for their migration, and there would be no extra lectures or discussions today. A minor cheer went up through the hall, which was extinguished somewhat in the face of professorial table glares. Dumbledore went on to further extinguish it, announcing that in lieu of all the various detentions earned last night, and as everyone was free today, everyone had just volunteered for "spring cleaning." The universal cheer turned into a universal groan. Which was far more acceptable response to the news that the Sylphs had flown.

"I hate spring cleaning," said Hermione to Ron.

"I just hope I get someplace remotely interesting this year," he whispered back.

"The lists assigning you each to various details will be available after breakfast in your common rooms, I expect you all to pitch in, and have a great day," concluded the headmaster. Who had just lost popularity points with the student body. As was traditional following that announcement every year.

Spring-cleaning was the day that every corridor, every classroom, every public area was crawled over and checked for unintended spells. Such tended to accumulate, and once a year, Hogwarts cleaned house. That the professors did this again in the off year was never spelled out, but it seemed likely.

"Here we go again," grumped Hermione, binding up her hair and putting on her old robes. Last year during spring-cleaning, she was crawling in the bric-a-brac on the library ceiling, chasing a page-turner spell. This year she didn't want to give the spells a place to hide. The one in her hair last year was just too annoying.

She met the boys downstairs and found to her dismay she'd been assigned the potions lab. They were back in the library again. "Ugh," she said.

"It's what you get for being a good student," laughed Harry.

"I regret it, I regret it," she muttered.

In the potions lab she met a small group of students, being organized by a seventh year, Marvyn Clander. A Ravenclaw doing his seventh year project with Snape. "Yeah, and ask me or one of the other seventh years questions if you can, and not Snape. Spring cleaning goes better when he doesn't get involved," he said. "Welcome to the fifth and sixth years joining us today. It's a dubious honor: someone trusts you to clean hexes without messing up his lab too badly."

"What do you mean messing up the lab too badly," asked a nervous student.

"Well, the hexes do tend to knock over ingredients and equipment as they try to get away from us," said Clander. "Try to avoid disasters. Since you've been picked for this detail, you probably have a concept of what a disaster is and how to avoid it."

"Oh my," thought Hermione.

"For any real disasters, we call in the professor, but let's avoid that," said another Seventh year named Georgina Midriss. She passed out a list of zone assignments, did a quick mapping spell, and reviewed the de-hexing procedure. Hermione got assigned the third year shelves and went to work, finding and attempting to diffuse stray hexes.

"There are more hexes in here than the other classrooms combined," whispered one of the sixth years to her as they met at the margin of their zones.

"Hey," said Clander. Hermione and the other student blinked. "We don't want company," finished Clander. "Save it for after we're done."

They grinned and carried on.

Eventually Snape swept in and glared at the students all over his lab. He glared even though they were his handpicked choices, even though he did think they wouldn't destroy the area. He narrowed his eyes, gave a cursory glance, called the work adequate, asked if his desk was done, and assured that it was, he sat down, pulled out papers and began grading.

The incongruity of it surprised Hermione. "Doesn't he have to oversee lots of this today?" she asked the seventh year who gave out the zone assignments.

"Questioning my methods, Granger? 10 points from Gryffindor. But I will take more points for shoddy work," he said without looking up from the papers he was marking. Hermione blinked and the student she'd addressed just gave a quick shake of her head and mouthed "later."

They broke for lunch, a quick bite in the great hall. While there the seventh years filled in the newer kids on how this worked. Apparently Snape detracted points, but surreptitiously put them back after this particular exercise. "All we can ever figure is that he doesn't want to seem to favor his potions majors," said Rogers, a Slytherin seventh year. They all laughed at the incongruity of Snape favoring _anyone_ before returning to try to finish the classroom. The topic of his social life never came up, except for the students to laugh and be thankful that he wasn't angrier. "I expected the worse," said Clander, "and this is just normal." Then they returned together to finish up the day's cleaning project.

Snape was gone when they got back ("To look over the work," explained Clander.) They settled back in, and were at it a good hour. Hermione had gotten into a small battle with a "hint spell" when she began to consider that it might be worth the "disaster" and the sacrifice of a few bottles of student's supplies... the door opened - though Hermione didn't look. She wasn't going to miss this hex if it moved again. Snape muttered over her shoulder that Gryffindors never could understand strategy. Hermione turned to look up, somewhat miffed, when the hex broke cover. Snape grabbed it and dismissed it. "Try to be a bit less direct, Granger, and you might actually get something done," he said turning and retiring back into grading.

One of the Hufflepuffs winked at Hermione who shook her head and rolled her eyes. "10 points for disrespect to a professor, Miss Candice," said Snape, not looking up. Miss Candice now rolled her eyes and Hermione giggled. The day wore on, and Snape went off to do his round a few more times. While he was gone Clander declared them done. The room read clean, and once Snape showed up again, they could all be dismissed and get at least an hour before dinner. When Snape didn't return, they discussed their various projects. And then what they thought of store bought potions. And then Quiddich, their professors, and the ball last night. Which all came to a halt when Snape returned.

"I take it you're done?" asked Snape of Clander.

"Yes, Professor Snape. The room tests clean of unregistered spells," said Clander.

Snape went and sat down again. And invited Clander to run the test for Snape to see. Which he did. And a hex showed up.

Clander blinked, Snape glowered, the other students looked nervous. Clander ran the locator spell, and found it at Snape's desk. And then found it on Snape. Which didn't make the professor look any happier.

Snape angrily dismissed his preferred students, calling their work passable, their efforts acceptable. They left, and Hermione managed to asked Clander what that final hex was. Clander insisted they get a bit further from the classroom before he talked, and they moved from the dungeons to the lawn. "I think it's a transformation spell," said Clander.

"It was," said Midriss giggling.

"Did you get a look at it? All I could see was that it had a love trigger," said Clander.

She laughed at that, and then explained, "I think it's going to turn him into an ass, but I missed the trigger" she said. "So I'm guessing, if he feels some passion, he turns into a donkey."

The students laughed a bit. "Shouldn't we do something?" asked Hermione of Candice.

"Do what? I'm sure it won't be a problem for him," she laughed.

"Oh, I hope I don't have to mention, I don't want to be reading about this in the Daily Prophet," said Clander menacingly to the group of students. "It's bad enough with him moody now - we don't need to make it worse for him, and then us. Is that clear?" He matched eyes with each of the new assistants, sixth and fifth years. "He's our professor, and there's no need to give him up to the gossip harpies," he finished as they nodded.

Following this he invited the new students to join them for the monthly get together when they both discussed and complained about potions. "Snape doesn't attend," he assured the new invitees.

"Usually," added Midriss darkly. They all rolled their eyes.

The students went on their ways, Hermione back to her own common room. She thought it was a hopeless wish to keep news of this hex quiet, but she planned to do so herself. Oddly enough, it wasn't hopeless, and news of Snape's hex died in the slush pile of gossip, details unknown, never making it to be an accepted rumor. Apparently there was some potion-professor - potions-students loyalty. Because it can't be called affection, precisely. Though none of the house points lost during the cleaning of the lab stayed gone for long.