"Professor?" I gasped. My breath came out in a cloud because the room's temperature dropped below freezing. Piles of snow scattered the edges of the room as Dumbledore approached.
"Happy Birthday!" he exclaimed. Dumbledore was Frosty the Snowman, except he was different than anyone else in the castle. His skin was completely white, and actually made of snow. He glistened in the candlelight. His beard was still made of hair, but it looked as if it had been stuffed into his face haphazardly by a child. His eyes were made of coal and his long bumpy nose was a carrot.
The Sorting Hat was perched on top of his head, and Dumbledore smiled at us crazily before turning around and dancing. The Sorting Hat wore a surly expression.
"Harry Potter!" it yelled as Dumbledore danced in circles, "What began all this?"
"A Potions disaster," I explained as Dumbledore made a snowball. "Everyone in the castle but me is affected!" Dumbledore threw the snowball at Ron.
"Too cold!" Ron shouted as snow dripped from his face, and he angrily stormed from the room.
"Get me down from here!" the Sorting Hat commanded as Dumbledore climbed upon his desk. A cane appeared in Dumbledore's hand and he began to dance like some kind of old Broadway star.
I tried to climb upon the chair next to the desk, but it had been covered with ice and I fell to the freezing ground.
"How can Dumbledore still do magic?" I wondered out loud as I picked myself up.
"You have to get me off of him!" the Sorting Hat pleaded. "I know how to reverse the potion's effects!
The headmaster giggled to himself, and then ran out into the hallway, bringing the Sorting Hat and the arctic chill with him.
I looked around helplessly. Hermione was back to kissing Trevor, which was relatively harmless, so I decided to leave her behind. I didn't know where Ron went. I sprinted out of Dumbledore's office.
I saw a blizzard turn left at the end of the hallway, so I followed.
A few students started following Dumbledore, laughing and throwing snowballs at one another. They called him Frosty.
"Frosty!" I shouted stupidly, slipping on the cold stones of the corridor. Dumbledore turned at his name. Someone chucked a snowball at me, but I ducked out of the way.
"Let me see your hat," I said, reaching to his head. He stepped away, his smile fading.
"But this hat gives me life," he answered. "If you take it off I won't be Frosty anymore.
I looked uncertainly at the Sorting Hat.
"It's okay," the hat said. "He'll be fine.
"Sorry if this hurts," I said, grasping the Sorting Hat and yanking it from Dumbledore's head. Dumbledore froze in place with a vacant expression. The snow around him melted into the cracks in the stone. His skin became skin and the carrot nose transformed into his own long, bent nose. The students surrounding him were furious. They began grabbing at me, trying to pry the hat from my grasp. I fought through them and sprinted down the corridor back towards Dumbledore's office. I said the password and dove in before anybody could follow me.
"Okay," I said to the Sorting Hat, "what do I need to do?
The hat made a face as I placed it on Dumbledore's desk as if it had been in pain.
"This kind of accident has happened before," the Sorting Hat explained, "though not on a scale so large." I pulled up the chair and sat down in front of the hat.
"You see," he began, "the effects of the potion are not complete. People are only acting like creatures and characters, and have not been completely transformed into them. If the potion is used correctly, a person can be transformed into an actual pig or an actual giant or any other sort of creature. Albus Dumbledore would have actually turned into a snowman and remained a snowman." The hat sighed. "Since the potion is not exact, the cure will not be exact.
"Why was Professor Dumbledore made of snow?" I asked. "Nobody else has been able to do magic.
"I am assuming it has to do with me," the hat continued. "Dumbledore is not the only person I have come in contact with. He was with a student at the time of the disaster, a 7th year, and she had become Rapunzul. Well, she spotted me sitting on the bookshelf, and put me on her head. Yellow hair began to sprout from her head until it was in a pile at her feet. A few minutes later, I heard a boy shouting from the window; I was still on her head. He was all the way down on the ground and he was shouting at her to let down her hair so she did. He climbed up and through the window. They kissed, and suddenly her hair disappeared and she stopped acting like Rapunzul. She tried to help Dumbledore, who hadn't moved since it happened. She decided to put the hat on his head and that's when the snow appeared and he started moving around."
"So , when the boy kissed her, she was cured?" I asked.
"She was cured, and so was the boy," answered the Sorting Hat. "You have to make everyone live happily ever after, but it will only work if I am on the head of somebody in the story."
"Everyone in the entire castle?" I exclaimed. "I can't do it, there are too many!"
"Then get used to your friends being in fairy tale land!"
I contemplated for a minute, and sighed.
"All right. There isn't any time restriction on this or anything is there? Like, I don't have to do this all before midnight do I?"
"No, no. But you do want to make sure nobody hurts themselves too much. Remember, magic only works if I'm on the head of a person in the story. If someone is killed without the hat on, then they will be dead forever. If I'm on the head of somebody and a character dies and he's supposed to die for the story to be happily ever after, that person will be okay when the story is complete."
I tried to understand all of this, but it was certainly difficult.
"Just don't take too long to do it, okay?" the hat said.
"Okay," I replied, and grasped the Sorting Hat by its tip. We left Dumbledore's office, and I was surprised to note that Frosty's group of students were gone. I set out to find Hermione or Ron, thinking the task would be easier with the help of the two of them.
I headed for the Gryffindor tower, hoping that they might have returned there.
Along the way, I passed the usual unusual characters, and tried to commit to memory who was who, so that when it was time to finish a certain story, I would know who to look for. I discovered Parvati and Padma, who were being particularly vile to a second year Hufflepuff girl; they must have been the wicked stepsisters and the girl was Cinderella.
"Do you know the muffin man?" a Slytherin boy asked frantically, grabbing my shoulders.
"Put me on him!" the Sorting Hat said, so I shoved the boy's hands from my shoulders and put the hat on his head. Cheesy music filled the air and the boy began to sing.
"Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man? Do you know the muffin man who lives on Drury lane?" The boy finished singing, and looked at me expectantly.
"Do I have to sing it?" I asked the Sorting Hat.
"I don't know," the hat replied. "You should go ahead and try."
I groaned, and began to sing very quietly to the music that came from the hat.
"Yes I know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man. Yes I know the muffin man who lives on Drury lane." I was embarrassed, even though nobody was listening.
"You don't know the muffin man!" another Slytherin said, shoving me out of the way. He looked at the boy who was wearing the hat, and they took turns singing the verses of the song. When it was over, the music stopped, and the boys looked very confused.
"It worked!" I exclaimed. "The potion's effects are gone!"
The Sorting Hat smiled. "Let us keep going, there is a lot of work to do."