Disclaimer: These characters are mine, my own, my precious. Oh wait, no, that's the ring of power. The characters, the setting, they're J. K. Rowling's.
Hermione is in the Dark
Ron, Harry, Ginny, Seamus and Dean stalked away from McGonagall's office, where they had had their "meeting". Ok, fine, game of monopoly. Ginny, imaginary tiara still on her head, was downing an imaginary flute of champagne.
"But I had the dark blue properties!" she wailed, her expensive – well, it would have been if it had actually existed – diamond jewellery clinking.
Harry took a drag on what was probably a cigarette, but may have been a joint – you ca never tell with these figments of the imagination – and took a swig out of what was probably a bottle in a brown paper bag. "She left me!" he shouted, his voice slurred. "She took everything and left me with only those manky, one-bed roomed brown properties!" He waved the bottle vaguely.
Seamus jabbered into an imaginary mobile, talking of new property transactions he could perform. Needless to say, he had won, while they had lost.
"Tragic," Ron said, shaking his head in disgust.
"I know what you mean," Dean replied, "the death-trap of hotels on the reds and the yellows – that's just unnecessarily cruel."
Ron and Dean had not played, having only just gotten over their own dangerous monopoly addictions. It was a viscous cycle – the highs of winning and then the inevitable lows of loosing. Then, the need to keep playing until that joyous win came again and thus the cycle continued.
Both addictions had brought about dire consequences. Ron had lost all his money; he was constantly having to pay bail, or trick the guards by throwing a double, to get out of jail, before finally blowing it all on a night in a posh hotel, which e claimed to have been forced into. Depressed by the lack of pretty coloured bills, he jumped onto the railway line, trying to commit suicide, not realising that by 'railways', it only means four bits of card. He managed to pull through his injuries (a nasty paper cut) and now only gibbers slightly when he sees undersized, metal top hats, boots, steamships, cars and Scottie dogs.
Dean had loved the thrills of monopoly, but, unfortunately, none of his family shared his passion, so he was forced to play against himself. Imagine the confusion at the close of a game that you had both lost and won! Poor Dean... In this fragile mental state, the news that he had not won the beauty competition, but come second, was too much for Dean, even if he did receive £10. After several months on Prozac, he concluded that monopoly was taking over his life and had decided to quit. He was even getting over his "passive playing" problem, and had only had one panic attack in the entire game that Ginny, Harry and Seamus had just played.
What? Are you implying that I have a problem? I promise you that I do not have a monopoly obsession and if anyone says anything about that making it even more worrying then...then...I shall be forced to let Spinach write the rest of the chapter! Yeah, that shut you up pretty quickly.
At a suitable distance behind those poor, aforementioned, lost souls, strutted Colin and Dennis Creevy, gaggles of girls surrounding them. Amazing, really, how buff a year on the Quidditch team had made them. After listening rapturously to how Colin had escaped death from a basilisk in his first year, they turned to Dennis. Hermione, Neville and Ernie Macmillan, who were heading towards Harry, Ron, Ginny, Seamus and Dean, passed by Colin, Dennis and the simpering girls just as he finished the story.
"And then the giant squid pushed me back into the boat."
"Oh, Dennis!" one of the girls said dreamily, "you have such a way with animals."
"It's my animal magnetism," Dennis replied modestly – "The giant squid is female and no female can resist me."
The girls, seemingly unfazed by this admission of a somewhat more involved relationship with a squid than was suitable, kept clinging to the boys.
Harry, Ginny and Seamus, seeing Neville, Hermione and Ernie Macmillan approaching, quickly got rid of their fantasy monopoly personalities, ashamed of them, as if they were some sort of crime. Actually, they were, as all monopoly had been banned from Hogwarts in an attempt to lower violence and depression.
"Hello!" Harry called out.
"Hi!" Ernie Macmillan said. Harry stood for a few minutes, as if waiting for something, giving Neville and Ernie Macmillan time to catch up with them. Then Harry shook his head, and tried again.
"So what did you do while we were in our..." he winked at Ron, Dean, Seamus and Ginny, "meeting?"
"We went down to the kitchens and Winky gave us these cupcakes," Ernie said, holding up the significantly less full basket of glowing cupcakes. Harry waited again, before asking him to repeat what he had just said, an edge of panic in his voice. Before Ernie Macmillan could answer, Ginny cut in.
"What is wrong with you Harry?" she asked, not believing that she had ever liked him.
Harry stood, gaping at Ernie Macmillan and then, in fear, at random parts of the ceiling. "The narrator!" he cried, "the narrator didn't say 'pretentiously'! The narrator always says 'pretentiously' after 'Ernie Macmillan said'!" Then he collapsed in a gibbering wreck on the floor. Ron forced potion into his mouth.
"What do you mean by 'narrator'?" Neville questioned. "We aren't characters in a story or anything," he scoffed. Then, in a serious tone, he asked, "Do you think, Harry?"
Harry, regaining inner tranquillity as the potion took effect, did not reply. A happy smile spread over his face, and he appeared not to have heard Neville.
"Ok," Neville acquiesced, "Maybe you're the wrong person to ask." He looked round the group, trying to find someone who could truthfully answer 'yes' to that question. Finding no-one, he said, "The point is, I'm sure that there is someone in this school who can think, and if one thinks, then one exists. So you see," he laughed, the annoying, condescending laugh of one who understands philosophy, "we can't just be fictitious characters."
"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked suddenly. Did everyone notice that it was RON who asked about HERMIONE? Yeah, that was a subtle continuation of their hidden love for each other...at least until I started discussing it.
Everyone case around for her. Eventually, Ernie Macmillan said, "She might have got caught up with all the girls around Colin and Dennis." All the boys glared subconsciously at the Creevy brothers – the most popular (with girls, anyway) boys in the school. Then Ron spotted her –
"There," he said, "third one to the left on Colin's right hand."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, doubtfully.
"I would know Hermione anywhere," Ron replied proudly before adding, "Not that I spend hours staring at the back of her head..."
"Right..." Harry said. After a long pause that was so heavily pregnant that it was in the hospital screaming for drugs, Harry called her name – "Hermione!"
She turned around, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Yes, Harry?" she asked, clearly annoyed about her fawning being interrupted.
"Uh...is something wrong?"
"No!" she said, rushing over, hysterical. "Why? Do I look bad? Does my hair look bad? Don't tell me Colin just saw me with my hair looking bad!"
"You look fine, Hermione," Ginny assured her. Ron had been about to say something similar, but had decided against it, in case people started thinking he liked her or something.
"Do you really mean that?" Hermione gushed, "Thanks, Ginny!" She hugged a rather shocked Ginny.
"Since when do you care what Colin thinks?" Ron asked hotly.
"Colin!" Hermione squealed, turning swiftly around. But he wasn't there. "Where is he gone?" she asked frantically.
"Well it doesn't take a genius to work it out," Harry said, nudging Ron. "Those two and several girls..."
"Yes," said Ginny, "to dinner, which is where we should be going as well." As they entered the Great Hall, Ernie Macmillan handed Harry the cupcakes.
"Here, have one," he offered.
"I don't want to ruin my appetite," Harry said, "but I'll have one after dinner." He took the basket.
How very wrong he was.
For after dinner, he did not have a cupcake, but an argument with Malfoy. "Potter," the pale boy (well, teenager now, really) drawled, eyeing the basket, "You mean someone has actually given you something other than abuse?"
Harry hugged the basket protectively. He would have replied, but as a witty repost was unlikely as he had little to no wit, and he was unable to swear due to the tender age of some of his fans, he didn't.
Draco looked at the contents of Harry's basket and sneered. "Only two left?" he drawled, before a pause, followed by him commenting in a worried drawl, "You do know they're glowing..."
"Yes!" Harry said, snatching the basket away. There was a long pause as everyone waited for Harry to make a remark that was only insulting because so little wit had been put into it.
When no such remark seemed forthcoming, Draco leaned over towards him. "It's alright Harry," he reassured him (in a drawl), "if you whisper it, then you'll have fulfilled the requirement to retaliate without horrifically embarrassing yourself in front of everyone." There was a pause, "Well, until I tell everyone just to confirm what a complete and utter asshole I am and that I am definitely not secretly on your side."
Reluctantly, Harry did so. Draco, still leaning over, sneakily slipped a piece of parchment into Harry's pocket.
When Harry had finished, Draco collapsed in hysterics on the floor. "He asked," Draco managed to get out between giggles, "he asked if the reason my hair is blond is because it turn white in fright every time I look in the mirror."
The Great Hall exploded into laughter. Harry slouched sullenly, and stuck his hands into his pockets, trying to look like a moping teenager. However, just as his previous attempt to act teenage had failed – the fire whisky in the Hog's Head episode – this attempt also failed, for upon placing his hand in his pocket, he discovered the parchment put there by Draco.
As everyone who wears a school uniform with pockets will know, this is quite a feat as pockets are usually stuffed with useless junk – letters that were meant to have reached your parents months ago, used up biros etc. As Hogwarts is a boarding school, where quills are used, this is not, however, an issue for the students. Unless, of course, they have strange, hoarding personalities and like keeping quills that have been snapped and their acceptance letter to Hogwarts, but the complexities of Ginny's psyche are to be saved for another time.
Harry stared at the parchment. It was folded in half, and printed on the visible side, in block capitals, were the words 'IMPORTANT PARCHMENT ONLY TO BE READ BY SLYTHERINS WHICH DEFINATLEY DOESN'T CONTAIN THE SCHEDULED TIME OF THE NEXT MEETING WITH VOLDEMORT"
Subtle there, I know.
"Malfoy!" Harry said, "You must have accidentally dropped this in my pocket."
Draco stared at him in disbelief, before proceeding to band his head against the wall in despair. A few minutes later, and with only a mild concussion, he turned to Hermione.
"Is he always this dense?" Draco demanded, but Hermione wasn't listening. She was twirling some hair round a finger and smiling up at Goyle with big, round eyes (it's one of those wonderful things about poetic licence – you can make people smile with their eyes instead of their mouths.)
"Oh, Gregory," she said, dreamily. "I'd never noticed how big your..." she paused, certain that, a few hours ago, she had known what the scientific names of all the anatomy of the body, despite not having done biology since she was ten. However, the feeling passed, so she decided to just sound ignorant, "muscles are." Bet you thought I was going to put something else there, you sick minded individual.
Draco rolled his eyes and turned to Ron to repeat his question. Ron, however, was also in no fit state to reply. He was staring at Hermione while doing vague imitations of her actions in disbelief.
Draco took a few deep breaths, composed himself, set the sneer on his face, and turned to Harry. "I don't want it back – not now that you've touched it," he drawled.
Harry turned to Ron, making wild gestures that either meant he needed some potion fast, or he was planning on doing some unpleasant things to an elephant... You figure it out. Ron, shell-shocked as he was, could not do anything but say "you do that" in a distracted tone. This may have been a subconscious effort by Ron to get Hermione to start a society that discouraged such disrespect towards elephants, thus returning her to her normal personality, but it's more likely he wasn't paying attention. No- one would wish that on an elephant.
No-one.
You know, that's the second time I've mentioned doing inappropriate things to large animals. Don't worry, it's probably due to sleep deprivation and DOES NOT suggest a secret desire to do said inappropriate actions to large animals. Just making sure everyone is clear on that.
Harry was groaning, his anger, not having been dissipated by his potion, was so great that it was causing him physical pain. Then a fiendish look of glee, not dissimilar to the expression Winky had worn in the precious chapter, stole over his face.
"Accio bagpipes!" he shouted, giggling madly. The Great Hall went silent as every person – teacher and child – stared in fear as the bagpipes zoomed in overhead.
It was the worst punishment Harry could perform.
At this point, something must be explained about musicians – namely, Harry is not one. Musicians have played their instrument (or sung, although singers don't really count as musicians) for some time, and have thus developed "tone" (it sounds good), "intonation" (it's in tune) and sometimes "improvisation" (the ability to make up a melody."
As this is the first time the bagpipes have been mentioned (he got them for Christmas last year, as a hand-made gift from Hagrid) we can assume that he has not touched them, or, at the very least, practiced much, so he can not do any of these thing. Bagpipes, like violins, tend to sound like a cat's death cries anyways, so for Harry to play them was a truly sadistic act.
Fluffy must have been tone deaf to have fallen asleep to Random Notes (an atonal piece) by Harry Potter. But then again, he is just a dog.
In a desperate attempt to stop this torture, Vincent Crabbe made a leap for the basket and quickly consumed the cupcakes inside.
Harry stopped playing – well, squeaking, tunelessly – and stared in shock. There was tumultuous applause.
Harry, rage boiling up inside him, shouted, "You..." He paused, trying to think of a word that was appropriate for the average age of his usual audience (of the actual books, not this fic), but that a self respecting 17- year-old would say. Then, realising that he was fighting a loosing battle, Harry settled on "bum-head".
"Oh, Harry," sighed Vincent, "do you have to be so scatological?"
Harry, speechless at the use, by Vincent Crabbe, of a polysyllable, and at the theft of his cupcakes, stormed off, shoving the parchment that Malfoy had, accidentally, of-course, allowed into his possession into an inside pocket.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Terribly sorry about how long it has taken to update, but this is a ridiculously long chapter so that should appease you somewhat. Also, I was really busy last weekend, what with playing golf (I find it hilarious as well, so feel free to laugh), having a sleepover, having a 2-hour origami lesson, going riding, and having a concert (in which I screwed up most spectacularly).
Anyway, point is that NO MORE SCHOOL!!!!! Actually, that has nothing to do with what I was saying, but it's still good.
Hermione is in the Dark
Ron, Harry, Ginny, Seamus and Dean stalked away from McGonagall's office, where they had had their "meeting". Ok, fine, game of monopoly. Ginny, imaginary tiara still on her head, was downing an imaginary flute of champagne.
"But I had the dark blue properties!" she wailed, her expensive – well, it would have been if it had actually existed – diamond jewellery clinking.
Harry took a drag on what was probably a cigarette, but may have been a joint – you ca never tell with these figments of the imagination – and took a swig out of what was probably a bottle in a brown paper bag. "She left me!" he shouted, his voice slurred. "She took everything and left me with only those manky, one-bed roomed brown properties!" He waved the bottle vaguely.
Seamus jabbered into an imaginary mobile, talking of new property transactions he could perform. Needless to say, he had won, while they had lost.
"Tragic," Ron said, shaking his head in disgust.
"I know what you mean," Dean replied, "the death-trap of hotels on the reds and the yellows – that's just unnecessarily cruel."
Ron and Dean had not played, having only just gotten over their own dangerous monopoly addictions. It was a viscous cycle – the highs of winning and then the inevitable lows of loosing. Then, the need to keep playing until that joyous win came again and thus the cycle continued.
Both addictions had brought about dire consequences. Ron had lost all his money; he was constantly having to pay bail, or trick the guards by throwing a double, to get out of jail, before finally blowing it all on a night in a posh hotel, which e claimed to have been forced into. Depressed by the lack of pretty coloured bills, he jumped onto the railway line, trying to commit suicide, not realising that by 'railways', it only means four bits of card. He managed to pull through his injuries (a nasty paper cut) and now only gibbers slightly when he sees undersized, metal top hats, boots, steamships, cars and Scottie dogs.
Dean had loved the thrills of monopoly, but, unfortunately, none of his family shared his passion, so he was forced to play against himself. Imagine the confusion at the close of a game that you had both lost and won! Poor Dean... In this fragile mental state, the news that he had not won the beauty competition, but come second, was too much for Dean, even if he did receive £10. After several months on Prozac, he concluded that monopoly was taking over his life and had decided to quit. He was even getting over his "passive playing" problem, and had only had one panic attack in the entire game that Ginny, Harry and Seamus had just played.
What? Are you implying that I have a problem? I promise you that I do not have a monopoly obsession and if anyone says anything about that making it even more worrying then...then...I shall be forced to let Spinach write the rest of the chapter! Yeah, that shut you up pretty quickly.
At a suitable distance behind those poor, aforementioned, lost souls, strutted Colin and Dennis Creevy, gaggles of girls surrounding them. Amazing, really, how buff a year on the Quidditch team had made them. After listening rapturously to how Colin had escaped death from a basilisk in his first year, they turned to Dennis. Hermione, Neville and Ernie Macmillan, who were heading towards Harry, Ron, Ginny, Seamus and Dean, passed by Colin, Dennis and the simpering girls just as he finished the story.
"And then the giant squid pushed me back into the boat."
"Oh, Dennis!" one of the girls said dreamily, "you have such a way with animals."
"It's my animal magnetism," Dennis replied modestly – "The giant squid is female and no female can resist me."
The girls, seemingly unfazed by this admission of a somewhat more involved relationship with a squid than was suitable, kept clinging to the boys.
Harry, Ginny and Seamus, seeing Neville, Hermione and Ernie Macmillan approaching, quickly got rid of their fantasy monopoly personalities, ashamed of them, as if they were some sort of crime. Actually, they were, as all monopoly had been banned from Hogwarts in an attempt to lower violence and depression.
"Hello!" Harry called out.
"Hi!" Ernie Macmillan said. Harry stood for a few minutes, as if waiting for something, giving Neville and Ernie Macmillan time to catch up with them. Then Harry shook his head, and tried again.
"So what did you do while we were in our..." he winked at Ron, Dean, Seamus and Ginny, "meeting?"
"We went down to the kitchens and Winky gave us these cupcakes," Ernie said, holding up the significantly less full basket of glowing cupcakes. Harry waited again, before asking him to repeat what he had just said, an edge of panic in his voice. Before Ernie Macmillan could answer, Ginny cut in.
"What is wrong with you Harry?" she asked, not believing that she had ever liked him.
Harry stood, gaping at Ernie Macmillan and then, in fear, at random parts of the ceiling. "The narrator!" he cried, "the narrator didn't say 'pretentiously'! The narrator always says 'pretentiously' after 'Ernie Macmillan said'!" Then he collapsed in a gibbering wreck on the floor. Ron forced potion into his mouth.
"What do you mean by 'narrator'?" Neville questioned. "We aren't characters in a story or anything," he scoffed. Then, in a serious tone, he asked, "Do you think, Harry?"
Harry, regaining inner tranquillity as the potion took effect, did not reply. A happy smile spread over his face, and he appeared not to have heard Neville.
"Ok," Neville acquiesced, "Maybe you're the wrong person to ask." He looked round the group, trying to find someone who could truthfully answer 'yes' to that question. Finding no-one, he said, "The point is, I'm sure that there is someone in this school who can think, and if one thinks, then one exists. So you see," he laughed, the annoying, condescending laugh of one who understands philosophy, "we can't just be fictitious characters."
"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked suddenly. Did everyone notice that it was RON who asked about HERMIONE? Yeah, that was a subtle continuation of their hidden love for each other...at least until I started discussing it.
Everyone case around for her. Eventually, Ernie Macmillan said, "She might have got caught up with all the girls around Colin and Dennis." All the boys glared subconsciously at the Creevy brothers – the most popular (with girls, anyway) boys in the school. Then Ron spotted her –
"There," he said, "third one to the left on Colin's right hand."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, doubtfully.
"I would know Hermione anywhere," Ron replied proudly before adding, "Not that I spend hours staring at the back of her head..."
"Right..." Harry said. After a long pause that was so heavily pregnant that it was in the hospital screaming for drugs, Harry called her name – "Hermione!"
She turned around, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Yes, Harry?" she asked, clearly annoyed about her fawning being interrupted.
"Uh...is something wrong?"
"No!" she said, rushing over, hysterical. "Why? Do I look bad? Does my hair look bad? Don't tell me Colin just saw me with my hair looking bad!"
"You look fine, Hermione," Ginny assured her. Ron had been about to say something similar, but had decided against it, in case people started thinking he liked her or something.
"Do you really mean that?" Hermione gushed, "Thanks, Ginny!" She hugged a rather shocked Ginny.
"Since when do you care what Colin thinks?" Ron asked hotly.
"Colin!" Hermione squealed, turning swiftly around. But he wasn't there. "Where is he gone?" she asked frantically.
"Well it doesn't take a genius to work it out," Harry said, nudging Ron. "Those two and several girls..."
"Yes," said Ginny, "to dinner, which is where we should be going as well." As they entered the Great Hall, Ernie Macmillan handed Harry the cupcakes.
"Here, have one," he offered.
"I don't want to ruin my appetite," Harry said, "but I'll have one after dinner." He took the basket.
How very wrong he was.
For after dinner, he did not have a cupcake, but an argument with Malfoy. "Potter," the pale boy (well, teenager now, really) drawled, eyeing the basket, "You mean someone has actually given you something other than abuse?"
Harry hugged the basket protectively. He would have replied, but as a witty repost was unlikely as he had little to no wit, and he was unable to swear due to the tender age of some of his fans, he didn't.
Draco looked at the contents of Harry's basket and sneered. "Only two left?" he drawled, before a pause, followed by him commenting in a worried drawl, "You do know they're glowing..."
"Yes!" Harry said, snatching the basket away. There was a long pause as everyone waited for Harry to make a remark that was only insulting because so little wit had been put into it.
When no such remark seemed forthcoming, Draco leaned over towards him. "It's alright Harry," he reassured him (in a drawl), "if you whisper it, then you'll have fulfilled the requirement to retaliate without horrifically embarrassing yourself in front of everyone." There was a pause, "Well, until I tell everyone just to confirm what a complete and utter asshole I am and that I am definitely not secretly on your side."
Reluctantly, Harry did so. Draco, still leaning over, sneakily slipped a piece of parchment into Harry's pocket.
When Harry had finished, Draco collapsed in hysterics on the floor. "He asked," Draco managed to get out between giggles, "he asked if the reason my hair is blond is because it turn white in fright every time I look in the mirror."
The Great Hall exploded into laughter. Harry slouched sullenly, and stuck his hands into his pockets, trying to look like a moping teenager. However, just as his previous attempt to act teenage had failed – the fire whisky in the Hog's Head episode – this attempt also failed, for upon placing his hand in his pocket, he discovered the parchment put there by Draco.
As everyone who wears a school uniform with pockets will know, this is quite a feat as pockets are usually stuffed with useless junk – letters that were meant to have reached your parents months ago, used up biros etc. As Hogwarts is a boarding school, where quills are used, this is not, however, an issue for the students. Unless, of course, they have strange, hoarding personalities and like keeping quills that have been snapped and their acceptance letter to Hogwarts, but the complexities of Ginny's psyche are to be saved for another time.
Harry stared at the parchment. It was folded in half, and printed on the visible side, in block capitals, were the words 'IMPORTANT PARCHMENT ONLY TO BE READ BY SLYTHERINS WHICH DEFINATLEY DOESN'T CONTAIN THE SCHEDULED TIME OF THE NEXT MEETING WITH VOLDEMORT"
Subtle there, I know.
"Malfoy!" Harry said, "You must have accidentally dropped this in my pocket."
Draco stared at him in disbelief, before proceeding to band his head against the wall in despair. A few minutes later, and with only a mild concussion, he turned to Hermione.
"Is he always this dense?" Draco demanded, but Hermione wasn't listening. She was twirling some hair round a finger and smiling up at Goyle with big, round eyes (it's one of those wonderful things about poetic licence – you can make people smile with their eyes instead of their mouths.)
"Oh, Gregory," she said, dreamily. "I'd never noticed how big your..." she paused, certain that, a few hours ago, she had known what the scientific names of all the anatomy of the body, despite not having done biology since she was ten. However, the feeling passed, so she decided to just sound ignorant, "muscles are." Bet you thought I was going to put something else there, you sick minded individual.
Draco rolled his eyes and turned to Ron to repeat his question. Ron, however, was also in no fit state to reply. He was staring at Hermione while doing vague imitations of her actions in disbelief.
Draco took a few deep breaths, composed himself, set the sneer on his face, and turned to Harry. "I don't want it back – not now that you've touched it," he drawled.
Harry turned to Ron, making wild gestures that either meant he needed some potion fast, or he was planning on doing some unpleasant things to an elephant... You figure it out. Ron, shell-shocked as he was, could not do anything but say "you do that" in a distracted tone. This may have been a subconscious effort by Ron to get Hermione to start a society that discouraged such disrespect towards elephants, thus returning her to her normal personality, but it's more likely he wasn't paying attention. No- one would wish that on an elephant.
No-one.
You know, that's the second time I've mentioned doing inappropriate things to large animals. Don't worry, it's probably due to sleep deprivation and DOES NOT suggest a secret desire to do said inappropriate actions to large animals. Just making sure everyone is clear on that.
Harry was groaning, his anger, not having been dissipated by his potion, was so great that it was causing him physical pain. Then a fiendish look of glee, not dissimilar to the expression Winky had worn in the precious chapter, stole over his face.
"Accio bagpipes!" he shouted, giggling madly. The Great Hall went silent as every person – teacher and child – stared in fear as the bagpipes zoomed in overhead.
It was the worst punishment Harry could perform.
At this point, something must be explained about musicians – namely, Harry is not one. Musicians have played their instrument (or sung, although singers don't really count as musicians) for some time, and have thus developed "tone" (it sounds good), "intonation" (it's in tune) and sometimes "improvisation" (the ability to make up a melody."
As this is the first time the bagpipes have been mentioned (he got them for Christmas last year, as a hand-made gift from Hagrid) we can assume that he has not touched them, or, at the very least, practiced much, so he can not do any of these thing. Bagpipes, like violins, tend to sound like a cat's death cries anyways, so for Harry to play them was a truly sadistic act.
Fluffy must have been tone deaf to have fallen asleep to Random Notes (an atonal piece) by Harry Potter. But then again, he is just a dog.
In a desperate attempt to stop this torture, Vincent Crabbe made a leap for the basket and quickly consumed the cupcakes inside.
Harry stopped playing – well, squeaking, tunelessly – and stared in shock. There was tumultuous applause.
Harry, rage boiling up inside him, shouted, "You..." He paused, trying to think of a word that was appropriate for the average age of his usual audience (of the actual books, not this fic), but that a self respecting 17- year-old would say. Then, realising that he was fighting a loosing battle, Harry settled on "bum-head".
"Oh, Harry," sighed Vincent, "do you have to be so scatological?"
Harry, speechless at the use, by Vincent Crabbe, of a polysyllable, and at the theft of his cupcakes, stormed off, shoving the parchment that Malfoy had, accidentally, of-course, allowed into his possession into an inside pocket.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Terribly sorry about how long it has taken to update, but this is a ridiculously long chapter so that should appease you somewhat. Also, I was really busy last weekend, what with playing golf (I find it hilarious as well, so feel free to laugh), having a sleepover, having a 2-hour origami lesson, going riding, and having a concert (in which I screwed up most spectacularly).
Anyway, point is that NO MORE SCHOOL!!!!! Actually, that has nothing to do with what I was saying, but it's still good.