Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything else that might belong to anyone else which I might accidentally mention. This includes ducks. I happen to like ducks. I also like rubber chickens, but so does Snow. She really likes them if they're covered in bunny fur or feathers...poor ducks...
Chapter Seven: Baldness and Oil
The Gryffindor cheerleading squad provoked a prank war between the Weasley twins and Rumples. It started at breakfast the morning after the Quidditch match. Fred and George slipped Felix Powder into all of the drinks at the Slytherin table, giving the Slytherins cat ears and tails for the next hour.
The general consensus was that that part looked adorable.
Then they laced all the food with catnip.
In the next 60 minutes, the school saw a side of the Slytherins that it never expected to. Marcus Flint and Gregory Goyle were outside chasing their own tails; Pansy Parkinson had been treed by a grim (-snicker-), and Severus-who hadn't been left out of the fun-was chasing it. Remus was taking pictures.
Meanwhile Harry, Draco, and Hermione were chasing each other up and down different sets of stairs and hallways, often bouncing off of highly indignant portraits in the process. Ron and Neville were desperately trying to keep up with their three friends, who were currently headed straight down the third floor right-hand corridor.
"'Mione!" Ron wheezed. "I really don't think you want to go that way!"
"Harry! Draco! Stop!" Neville looked close to passing out. "Bad kitties!! No donuts!!"
The three cats hit the large wooden door at the end of the corridor in a tangle of fur that looked strangely uncoordinated. When they managed to unravel themselves from each other, the reason became obvious:
"The spell would have to wear off in mid-air, wouldn't it?" Draco grumbled as he tried to smooth back his hair. Harry was rubbing a spot on his cheek where someone's elbow had hit him. Hermione appeared to be nursing her ribs.
"I think I may have broken something..." she said.
From behind Neville, someone meowed.
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Outside, Severus Snape, the most feared Potions Master in Hogwarts history, stood up in the too-bright sunshine and calmly dusted off his robes. In front of him, a grim was grinning and wagging its tail, head cocked to one side. Behind him, Remus was waiting to see what he would do-and discreetly hiding the camera.
The Potions Master gave the grim a slow, toothy smile.
Sirius Black ran for his life.
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It was Mrs. Norris.
Harry reacted quickly. "Nopilosus Totalus!" Mrs. Norris was bald.
Hermione blinked. "Did you happen to mean Petrificus Totalus?" she asked as the now hairless cat ran off to alert Mr. Filch.
"Cats are ugly without hair," Ron observed. Neville whacked him on the back of the head. Meanwhile, they could hear an enraged voice echoing up the corridor.
"MY CAT!!! SOMEONE'S HURT MY CAT!!! THERE'S GONNA BE SOME PUNISHMENT!!!"
Harry began tugging frantically on the door. "It's locked!"
Draco pushed him out of the way. "Alohamora!" The door sprang open, and the five panicked miscreants rushed inside, slamming it closed behind them.
There was a Cerberus inside. In the back of his mind, Harry could hear Persephone gleefully call out Puppy!!
Fortunately, it was asleep. Unfortunately, it was snoring, and it had three very bad cases of dog breath. It was also drooling on a large trap door that was covered by one of its paws.
The five waited in tense silence as Filch inspected the corridor outside and seemingly left, still screaming about bald cats and chains and punishment. Their wands were pointed shakily at the snoring dog-though what good a hair removal spell would do was anyone's guess. When everything at last seemed silent, they eased the door back open into the corridor...
Silence here means that the snores had also stopped.
And Fluffy was not happy.
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Sirius Black had a stitch in his side, both literally and figuratively. He was currently recuperating in the Hospital Wing from injuries sustained before Moony and McGonagall had managed to stun Severus enough to force feed him one of his own extra strength calming draughts. Padfoot's list of injuries ran something like this:
1 cut above his left eyebrow,
1 cracked rib,
2 sprained ankles,
327 large purple blisters-thankfully numb,
17 bruises,
and 1 temporary sex change.
If Fred and George Weasley weren't students, they'd be dead men. As it was, however, a little Marauder-style payback surely wouldn't go amiss...
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"Nopilosus Totalus!"
"Harry, for Merlin's sake! Petrificus Totalus!"
"Winguardium Leviosa!"
"Protego!"
"Where did you learn that?!"
"I'm a Malfoy."
The bald floating dog with a frozen paw was now safely enclosed on the other side of the door, tucked away behind a shield. Hermione was standing in the hallway tapping her foot and glaring at Harry in a manner very reminiscent of McGonagall. "You realize, of course, that anyone who has seen Mrs. Norris and then goes to check up on that thing will connect the two animals' conditions." Draco buried his face in his hands for a bout of un-Malfoyish laughter. He was joined by Neville and Ron.
"That's...not even a...real...spell, is it?" the blonde managed to choke out.
"No, it's not," Hermione answered as they made their way to the Hospital Wing. Harry was a very interesting shade of red. "In fact, it could have done anything. Set the school on fire, blown up the Great Hall, turned Neville inside out...anything. You need to be more careful about what you're saying, Harry!"
Remus caught up to them as they were walking past the Great Hall. "Oh! Harry!" The werewolf looked relieved. "We've had a bit of a problem..."
"Uncle Sev went berserk, huh?" Draco guessed. Remus nodded slowly. "How high is the body count?"
"He and Sirius are both in the Hospital Wing, but Poppy says that there won't be any lasting damage, and we can get Padfoot back to his normal self by Tuesday."
Harry was confused. "What do you mean by normal self?"
"Well..." Remus turned an amazing shade of red. "Severus used a trans-gender hex on him." Draco excused himself for a moment and ran outside. Harry blinked. Hermione's lips twitched twice before she ran after Draco.
"What's a trans-gender hex?" Harry asked. Ron and Neville followed Hermione.
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Sirius Black as a man was God's gift to women. As a woman, he made men want to consider becoming monks. Severus-finally allowed to remain conscious enough to appreciate his work-was alternately congratulating himself and wondering why he had felt the need to remind himself of why he had chosen to remain celibate in the first place. Sirius was standing in front of a mirror performing a continuous tirade against both the Weasley twins and the way the hospital gown failed to compliment his figure. Where was a camera when you needed one?
He finally shut up when Remus walked in with Harry, Draco, and Hermione. Severus was pleased to note that the three were fighting back laugher at the sight of Black's feminine side. He did, however, notice a bruise on Harry's cheek.
"Poppy!" The Potions Master's voice was as sharp as ever. "Mr. Potter has been injured somehow. You may wish to check over all three of them, where one goes the others follow. And after this morning's events, there is no telling what sort of mischief they might have unintentionally gotten into at the hands of the Weasleys."
The medi-witch nodded in stern agreement. "I've had more students come in here banged up and scratched through today than I care to think about!" She ran a quick scan over each of them. "Mr. Malfoy's got a few scratches across his back and sides that will have to be looked at. Mr. Potter seems to be a mass of bruises...and Miss Granger has two cracked ribs! What in the world were you three doing?"
"The spell wore off in the middle of a jump, and we didn't land on our feet," Draco said smoothly.
"We didn't land on anything soft either!" Hermione added. Harry was too busy staring at his new Godmother to comment.
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By Halloween everything was back to normal. Loki had enacted a strike against the Gryffindors by turning all their feet into hiccupping rubber chickens-except Professor McGonagall's, at Hermione's insistence. A once again male Sirius Black and a perennially male Remus Lupin gave the school a dinner theatre reenactment of The Rocky Horror Picture Show courtesy of the Weasley twins, and Severus Snape returned to his normally snarky but not-quite-homicidal self. Harry had even found out in a visit to Hagrid that the three-headed dog was named Fluffy, and there was a man named Nicholas Flamel involved. He also found out Hagrid had no idea what the word 'discretion' meant.
Now everyone was sitting in the Great Hall pigging out on candies during the Halloween feast. There were bats flying around the ceiling, and Jack O'Lanterns floating in the air where the candles used to be. The ghosts were conspicuously absent for some reason, but no one really cared.
"TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!!"
"You notice Quirrel doesn't stutter when he's shrieking," Draco observed around a lollipop.
"TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!!"
"It is a rather fascinating phenomenon," Hermione noted, picking up a chocolate truffle.
"Thought you ought to know..." Quirrel collapsed in a heap.
"He's going to try to go down the trapdoor, of course," Harry said as he tucked away a few handfuls of sweets for later. "So do we get help or try to stop him ourselves?"
"He's probably already bald under that turban," Draco pointed out.
"That was just one time!"
"Actually, Harry, it was twice," Hermione said gently. "But the professors are already gone."
"Well, at least we still have Rumples," Draco noted as they snuck away from the Slytherin prefects towards the third floor corridor.
"I'm not completely useless, you know!" Harry whispered vehemently. Hermione patted him gently on the head.
When they got to the second floor, a horrible stench reached their nostrils. It was accompanied by loud thuds, groaning, and wet snuffles. "Apparently, the troll has no sense of direction," Rumples observed from Harry's pocket-the squeak toy was currently possessed by Bast.
The troll spotted them as it turned the corner.
"Crocinus lubricus!" Once again, Harry used a spell the other two had never heard of. This time an oil slick appeared at the troll's feet as it was walking forward, and the troll slid toward the three Slytherins at an alarmingly rapid rate. They dived out of the way. "I meant to do that."
"That's what scares me." Draco said gently. "Ligocum catena!" The troll was bound head to toe in chains. "It's good to be me."
Hermione just smiled. "Winguardium Leviosa!" The troll's club dropped on its head with an amusing Thunk!
"Was that really necessary?" Draco asked.
"Fully grown male mountain trolls can break through steel walls, solid brick, and cast-iron gates. The chains wouldn't have held it for very long." Strangely, it was Harry pointing that out. "What? I like reading about weird creatures."
Professors Snape and McGonagall rounded the corner with Professor Quirrel trapped between them-in a non-threatening manner, of course. The three stopped dead at the sight of the bound and unconscious mountain troll.
"What? Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall appeared to be having a nervous breakdown. "Explain yourselves!" The three Slytherins exchanged a glance:
Quirrel can't know. (Harry)
Congratulations, Mr. Obvious. (Draco)
Any ideas? (Hermione)
Let me handle it. (Harry)
We're doomed. (Hermione and Draco)
I want cashews. (Rumples)
"I overheard some of the Slytherin girls talking about someone crying in the girls' bathroom, so I talked Draco into coming with me to warn her," Harry said. "But the troll came along before we got there."
"And if either one of them had stopped long enough to listen to me, I could have told them that the girls were talking about Moaning Myrtle!" Hermione was the picture of indignance.
"Well how were we supposed to know they were talking about a ghost?" Draco said reasonably. "Who in their right mind wants to haunt a toilet anyway?"
Professor McGonagall turned to Severus with a small smile. "How in the world did these three get sorted into your house, Severus? Running off to rescue another student, taking on a fully grown mountain troll...it's the very height of Gryffindor." She turned back to the three Slytherins, still smiling. "I just hope you realize that not many first year students could have taken on a fully grown mountain troll and lived to tell the tale. Five points will be awarded to each of you for an outstanding display of courage and skill."
"Come with me, you three," Professor Snape said, smirking. "I'll escort you back to your dormitories." Once they were out of earshot of the other two Professors, he added, "I take it you were trying to head off Quirrel, as well?"
"Yes, but the troll intercepted us," Draco answered. "Apparently, it failed to realize that going up staircases implies that it is leaving the dungeons."
"Did you notice that Quirrel lost his stutter when he started screaming like a girl?" Harry asked.
"Yes," Snape answered. "I found that to be one of the highlights of the evening. Incidentally, that was an excellent cover story."
"Thank you."
"Now why was the troll covered in cooking oil?"
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Guess what today is? It's my BIRTHDAY! WHOOO!!!! (I'm a little hyper from all the chocolate cake...can you tell?) Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone for all the reviews for the last chapter! I also wanted to thank everyone who put me on author alert and especially those who put me on their favorites list-it's good to be loved. :) Keep those reviews coming! (By the way, has anyone else noticed my chapters keep getting longer? I know that's not necessarily a bad thing, but tell me if I ever get too verbose.)
-Cerberus is the three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hell in Greek mythology. Persephone is the Queen of Hell (also in Greek mythology), but she's only technically there six months out of every year. Her return to Hell is responsible for the changing of the seasons. Bast is the Egyptian goddess of pleasure and music. She also offers protection against evil spirits. (I particularly like the thought of Bast possessing a rubber mouse because she is the Egyptian goddess of cats.)
Night-Owl123: I'm always happy to oblige! Thanks! -Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
athenakitty: -grins- You'd be amazed by the amount of blackmail pictures Remus has stored up against the rest of the school. As to the Dursleys, just wait for the Christmas special...
-Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
CuriousKitty: Thanks! I hope this chapter also exceeded your expectations, but if I keep raising the bar, pretty soon I won't be able to top myself! :) -Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
Anon Junky: Thanks for reviewing. As to the Dursleys...Christmas Special. That's all I'm saying. –Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
AnItsyBitsyTeenieWeenie: Thanks! You'd be surprised how often I get told that. Actually, I take that back...you probably wouldn't. :) -Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
Lady FoxFire: Girl, actually, and thank you! Here's a good recipe: three cans of mountain dew at three am, one box of chocolate-covered cherries or sugar wafers, and one hyper white Persian cat. It's a guaranteed recipe for insanity. I find that Three Stooges movies also help. –Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
gaul1: Thank you. Wow, that's a lot of reviews! -Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
NightShadow135: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I particularly liked the bald cat, but that may just be me... -Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-
nogoalielikeme: Basically, I update whenever I can. It's usually within a period of four or five days. Thanks, though, I specialize in weirdness! -Gives out piece of chocolate birthday cake-