"But I don't want to work on the stupid charm, Hermione," grumbled Harry Potter, a fifth year student at Hogwarts School. "Quidditch season starts next week! I should be training!"

"Bah! Training! Harry, exams are only eight months away! You have to be prepared! You have to understand this charm now. You're not thinking about the charm and that's ruining your concentration! Come along! Just try it. Dinner is in an hour, you know. And if you don't get this today, it will cost you another free period." said Hermione Granger, Harry's muggle-born friend.

Harry sighed as he stared determinedly across the room at Ron's owl, Pigwidgeon. He was going to get this charm even if it killed him! He wanted to get out of this stifling hot common room.

"Come on, Harry, you great prat. We have better things to do than wait around all day for you to get this confusion charm," said Ron Weasley, another of Harry's friends. He had quite a talent for insulting people subtly, due to living with five older brothers and one sister. "And why is Hermione having you use Pig for practice? Why can't you use Crookshanks?"

"Ron, hush. Let Harry concentrate." Hermione said. Then, to Harry, "You're saying the words all wrong. It's embodius limber, not emblodius lumber! Roll the 'r' at the end of limber, and make the 'bod' nice and long." then, pointing her wand at Ron, she demonstrated the charm perfectly.

"Embodius limber," she said clearly and carefully.

"Hey! What're you doing? You can't put this charm on me! I- errrrrrrrrr," Ron mumbled. "Hey! Who're you guys? What's going on?"

"There. Now he won't be as troublesome for the next-" Hermione checked the grandfather clock in the common room. "-Oh, fifteen minutes or so. Then you can practice on him again. I don't think he'll mind too much." she laughed. "Well. I should be getting to the library, actually. I told Professor McGonagall that I would have that extra credit essay done by next Wednesday. We can practice after supper, all right?" Hermione turned to go out the portrait hole.

"Hermione! What am I supposed to do with this confuddled curmudgeon?" Harry laughed at his choice of words.

"Oh, when he snaps out of it, he won't remember anything." Hermione stated. "Oh, but make sure he doesn't run into any walls or anything." with that she turned once again and was out of the common room.

"Oh, joy," Harry mumbled to himself. He was bored. He pointed his wand lazily at a fly that had just buzzed its way into the room from the north window. He said the words for the confusing charm, then watched in surprise as the fly appeared confused. "Yeah! I got it!" he shouted, then grimaced as he saw Dean Thomas as Seamus Finnigan coming down the stairs from the boy's dormitory.

"Having fun with that Confusing Charm, are you, Harry?" said Seamus in his strong Irish accent.

"Hey, guys. You want to play chess or something?" Harry asked.

"Nope, can't, Harry old pal. We're going out to the lake to see what the seventh years have done to the giant squid this time. We can hear shouts from our windows." Dean said.

"Yeah, it sounded pretty interesting from what I could hear of it. Okay, Harry, see you in the Great Hall at dinner!" Seamus said as he and Dean clambered out the portrait hole, snickering at some inside joke.

Harry sighed. "Well, Ron, d'ya want to play chess?"

"What's chess?"