Disclaimer: Sooo not mine.
Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson were leaning, back to back, against each other. Like the other students sat in the room they said nothing to each other. For a place packed with children, it was eerily silent. The monotonous sound of spells being repeatedly cast had ceased over fifteen minutes ago. They were out of ideas and rapidly becoming disheartened. Unbeknown to both girls, they were thinking the exact same thought. Namely, that the present situation wouldn't have been as bad had the two dominant males of the House been present. At least the huffing and silent posturing would've been amusing to watch. And further distraction could have been gained by seeing which boy could go the longest without breaking the silence. At least, they thought thankfully, no-one was crying.
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Outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Professor Severus Snape was feeling like weeping. Not in some pathetic girly way of course, but rather a manly, I've had a trying last few weeks and this really isn't helping, kind of way. It didn't help that Augusta Sinistra's eyes seemed to be fixed on him constantly, as if watching for some evidence of weakness. He only just managed to contain a tired sigh that threatened to escape his lips.
"Anything?" his question hung between them for a moment.
Augusta drew herself from her thoughts and glanced down at the charm incantation in front of her. It was useless, everything that she had looked at had been useless, "Nothing."
She heard fingers drumming restlessly against the hard, stone floor. She had almost forgotten about Goyle. He had been sat there idle, while she and Severus had looked through the books. It had been the first sound that he had made since he had come back from the library. She was mildly impressed, it had been close to an hour since he had returned, she wouldn't have thought it possible for him to keep silent this long.
"Mr Goyle, since you have nothing else to do, please return to Madam Pince and retrieve the remaining books I requested."
A frantic scrambling of feet was heard, then faded away. Apparently, Gregory was more than happy to leave their presence.
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Elsewhere in the castle and in the grounds Professors Flitwick and Sprout were becoming increasingly exasperated with the whispers going around their classes. Helga Sprout was particularly displeased as the main culprits in her case were her own Hufflepuff NEWT students. Not only were they not paying attention to her lecture on the current method of repotting one-year old Thunderdils, they were also throwing poor Neville Longbottom death glares every chance they got. Although, it has to be said, Neville was shooting daggers right back at them.
Professor Flitwick was facing an analogous problem with his sixth year Ravenclaws. To be more precise, he was being irritated to no end by Iona Stevens and her select coterie of friends. They were all listening to Iona whispering furiously about something or other and making indignant noises at appropriate intervals. In his many years of teaching Flitwick had acquired a reputation of 'softness' amongst pupils and faculty members alike, though he preferred the term 'leniency'. He had turned a blind eye and ear to the disruption at first, but given its persistence, he felt that he was perfectly entitled to reprimand them. He cleared his throat and waited. After a minute or so he tried again,
"Ahem, ladies?" again he failed to capture their attention. He spoke once more, louder than before, "Miss Stevens, et al? Might I remind you that you are currently in my lesson and not on your own free time. Please postpone your discussion until after this period. Two points from Ravenclaw." There, he thought, that should do it.
Unfortunately, one of the troubles that arise when you have an easy-going reputation is that you can shock people when you finally do attempt to be firm. For Iona the further loss of two house points, which admittedly was nothing compared to the thirty she had lost from Madam Pince in the library, was the final straw. She burst into tears and stormed out of the classroom to the girls toilets, followed hastily by her best friend. It sealed her decision to extract revenge on James Brook, whom she was blaming for everything that was going wrong for her today.
Professor Flitwick sagged wearily on his high stool. This was precisely why he didn't like to enforce discipline too strictly… it always seemed to result in tears. He looked at his class who seemed as confused as he was as to what to do next and came to the conclusion that the best course of action was to act as if nothing had happened. Of course, the rest of the class spent the next couple of minutes paying attention to him before bursting into conversation to puzzle out what was going on. Flitwick breathed deeply trying not to become disheartened at the fact that yet again events had conspired to prevent him from getting his class to pay attention.
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Gregory Goyle was running for his life.
And he was very out of breath.
His wheezing and spluttering had become so pronounced that Snape and
Sinistra had heard his approach a full minute before he had come into
view. Well, that is to say, before the
books he was carrying had come into view.
He collapsed in front of them gasping.
Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Mr Goyle, whilst your eagerness to deliver these books to us is commendable, you hardly needed to run all the way here!"
"Air!" choked out Gregory, "Air!!"
Rolling her eyes at her colleague Sinistra stepped in, "That's quite alright Gregory, you just sit there and take your time and catch your breath." She moved to pat him on the shoulder, then stopped realizing that she didn't know exactly where his shoulder was.
"No time! Air!" his breath caught in his throat causing him to cough violently, making him dizzy and nauseous. He tried to calm himself and spoke again haltingly, "Air. No. Air. In. Den."
Seeing that his tutors weren't paying him any attention, he struggled to form a coherent sentence, "Professors! There's no. Fresh air in the room. Sir!" with this he grabbed Snape's cloak causing him to look at him, "Professor Snape, sir, I think that the spell might've stopped air getting into the common room. They might be running out of air to breathe sir!"
That certainly got the attention of the two people in front of him. He saw Sinistra begin to dismiss his statement and then watched as her eyes grew wide as she realized that he had a point. Snape made no visible reaction at first, then gripped one of the texts tightly as he said "Well surmised Mr Goyle. I now see you were justified in your speed at reaching us."
It was as glowing a compliment as Goyle had ever received from his Professor and his chest swelled considerably in response. As his heartbeat slowed to a more normal pace he observed the increased speed that the two teachers adopted when scanning the books.
Further down the corridor Draco and Blaise digested what they had just heard. The situation had turned from humorous to deadly serious and the most frustrating thing was their inability to lend a hand. All they could do was watch and wait.
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The quietness of the Den was shattered by a long, loud, unmistakable snore. People stirred slightly to try and locate the offender then settled back down as they remembered that they couldn't see anyone else. It was somehow strangely comforting that, in a time of crisis, people could still fall asleep. Another snore was emitted.
Against the section of wall where the door normally was Marmaduke rested his damp forehead trying to absorb some of its coolness. Once more he chided himself for getting everyone stuck in this situation. He softly butted his head on the stone, over and over trying to will a solution to enter his brain.
Later he would claim that it was the lack of oxygen that caused his addled mind not to register that the hard smooth surface he had been head-butting had suddenly transformed into a slightly warm, soft, springy surface. In fact, it was not until he had been gripped tightly around his shoulders and given a short but firm shake that he realized that the barrier was no longer in place.
Still held firmly, he was marched into the centre of the room by Professor Snape followed closely by Professor Sinistra. He became aware that they were speaking and battled to listen to them through the wave of relief that had washed over him. The room that had filled with the buzz of expectancy had fallen silent and he realised that the Professors had asked who was responsible for the whole mess.
He didn't remember speaking up but he must have done so as a new barrage of questions were directed straight at him. Dimly he realised that his tutors were also holding him responsible for the present state of invisibility of everyone and felt put out that he was having to take the fall for that too.
"What do you mean the invisibility isn't down to you?" Snape said sharply.
'Dumbledore's Knickers!' was the first thought that shot through DeVries' mind, he really needed to regain control of what his mouth was saying, he pulled himself together, "Exactly that sir. The spell I cast had no element of disguise in it; no-one should've turned invisible from it."
"Well?" Snape whirled round and swept his gaze across the full expanse of the common room. "Who else has been proving themselves incredibly inept today?" The look in his eyes showed that he would not accept a less than truthful answer.
"It was me." An annoyed female voice replied, moving so that she was stood in front of him.
Blaise and Draco casually wandered in at this point, lurking at the fringes of the crowd that had gathered around the professors. 'So,' thought Draco as Rose Parkinson explained to a rather unsympathetic audience exactly what she had done, 'little Rosie proves yet again her penchant for mischief.' He perched on the back of a sofa and waited for the Professors to reverse the spell.
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As the student body filed into the Great Hall for lunch almost all the students noticed with dismay that, with the exception of Slytherin, all the Houses were in negative points. It was also a matter that was the subject of discussion at the High Table. Normally, this state of affairs was due to Severus being in a particularly foul mood and so would not have concerned the rest of the faculty; however, that the majority of the point deductions originated from Madam Pince was sensational news. Especially as she refused to discuss the matter with the rest of the staff and was sat looking like an exploding volcano was definitely something to gossip about.
The Slytherins came in en masse led by their house tutors. Most of them hadn't even registered the points situation as they were gloomily figuring out how best to apologise to the Professors whose classes they had missed. Snape had decided that although he was going to explain to each Professor what had happened, it was appropriate that each student should also make the appropriate apology in order to prevent points being taken, with Marmaduke having to apologise to all the Professors whose classes had been disrupted.
Malfoy was feeling cock-a-whoop about the whole affair, more so as he saw the obvious discord on all the other tables. Smirking he let his eyes rest for a minute on the Gryffindor table, connecting for just the briefest of time with Harry Potter's before continuing his scan.
"That ferret! I bet it's all down to him!"
Hermione crinkled her nose in confusion, looked at Harry and followed his gaze before staring back at him pointedly.
"Don't look at me like that Hermione, I know he had a hand in all this."
"But Harry, he wasn't even there. None of the Slytherins were."
"My point exactly. All the more reason to suspect them!"
"Honestly!" she rolled her eyes and turned her back on him to talk to Neville.
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Author's Notes:
Hee hee… the trouble's only just beginning, expect lots of fireworks and downright meanness. Rubs hands together evilly
Now I'm going to make a little confession… I was getting a little disheartened by the lack of response to this story, as well, it's my first one and I really like it, and I'd almost got to the stage of throwing in the towel with it but a nice person set me an awfully lovely encouraging email so I'm going to continue with it for a bit longer and see what the continuing response is.
In that vein therefore, please review, comment, even flame me!!! Go on, you know you want to! All feedback is good, although of course happy feedback is the best.