Lucius, anxiously: Does it worry anyone else that they've now gone and seen Kung Fu Hustle?
Sev, resignedly: No, it's always like that inside their twisted, little, sugar-glazed minds...
rabbit and Jinx, with what surely must border on criminal negligence: WHEEEEEEEEEEE! (marfmarf) Pass the cookies... (marf) nku... (marf)
Ramifications 10
"Oh, brilliant!" snarled Goyle, chucking down his brush in disgust. It turned into a mousetrap and snapped shut on his foot. He scarcely noticed as he growled angrily, "Now we're two down!" He spun round and grabbed Pettigrew by the collar, loomed over him and commanded in tones fit only for a grimy alley after midnight, "Keep scrubbing."
Pettigrew cringed, and frantically complied.
Potter studied the milk can now encasing Snape and murmured, "Convenient... but is there a market for tinned grease?"
Black trotted to his side, grinning like Christmas had come early. He invited merrily, "Want to play Kick the Can?"
Crabbe looked to Malfoy and asked leadenly, "Should we help him now?"
"No, that will require Hagrid's involvement," sulked Lucius. "Now we know what the buckets do when we 'abuse' them." He drew a long, calming breath which only gave him strength to burst out, "Really it's not right, telling us there's No Magic Allowed During This Detention and then bewitching everything in this barn to turn against us! Are they tying to educate us or eradicate us!"
Crabbe blinked at him, and after a few moments began inching quietly away from Malfoy.
Potter was striding briskly towards the barn doors, which he proceeded to crack open just enough so he could call loudly and with rather too much satisfaction, "Hagrid, we need your help in here! Snape was misusing the tools and he's stuck in a bucket!"
There was a long silence from the barnyard.
And from the milk can.
Black said just a bit uncertainly, "You don't think he'd go and drown in there, do you?"
"Only if we upend it," Pettigrew proposed.
Goyle snapped the mousetrap shut on the pudgy Gryffindor' s nose reducing Pettigrew to a wailing lump.
The barn doors swung open.
Hagrid looked ANNOYED. He was covered in grass and mud and noticeably frayed around the edges. In fact he looked a great deal like the Quidditch pitch immediately following a bitterly-contested finals match.
And seemed every bit as large, as he glared at his prisoners. "RIGHT," he snarled, in tones that meant it certainly wasn't. "Guess I'll hafter stay in here an' look after ALL o' yeh!" Shaking his head disgustedly he stamped into the barn. "Not FIVE minutes, can yeh be trusted altogether! Really it's TOO bad! C'mon, you!" He lunged forward, and stumbled as if he were tethered to some great weight. "C'MON NOW!"
The boys realized to their horror that Hagrid was hauling on a thick rope which he had slung over one shoulder. Before they could gather enough wits to protest, he gave one great no-more-nonsense heave and into the barn stumbled a lanky roan.
Staggering dazedly, the horse was glowing with sweat and somehow it seemed oddly melted, like an hour-gone candle. Its head was hanging nearly to the floorboards and its dagger teeth were coated with a bluish froth.
Lucius's heart leapt into his mouth. INCENDIUM. INSIDE.
He couldn't help himself and broke and ran for the hayloft ladder, hoping desperately that the damned horse would eat one of the stragglers. As he grabbed the rungs, something touched his shoulder and Lucius screamed.
Crabbe screamed right into his ear.
Behind them, the horse let out a shriek like the Endurance being folded, spindled and mutilated by the icepack.
The two Slytherins veritably levitated up the ladder and buried themselves in the hay, perhaps in vague hopes that they would look more like a salad and hence unappetizing to That Fiend Incarnate. Shuddering, they clung onto one another and waited for the start of the Blood Feast.
The Aurors were welcome to show up Any Time Now.
Crabbe sniffled, "I'm really gonna miss Gav!"
Goyle was still down there, with the Marauders. And that vicious beast, who was shuddering and glaring at his imminent victims, red eyes glistening like a wet blade glimpsed by moonlight.
"Easy, now, Incendium," Hagrid warned, winding the rope more securely around his forearm.
The horse stumbled backwards, flattened its ears and growled like a rockslide.
Pettigrew whimpered.
Incendium fixed his attention upon the knot of Marauders.
"Don't move," uttered Potter, "his vision's based on movement, he can't see us if we don't move-"
"And you know this how exactly-? " whined Black.
"Shutupshutupshutupshutup," chanted Pettigrew, as Goyle ducked behind him and then with one fierce shove hurled the squealing Gryffindor forward as an appeasing sacrifice.
The horse lunged; Hagrid dug in his heels.
The rope broke.
Black and Goyle dove for cover; Potter dove for Pettigrew, tackling him awkwardly and sending them both sprawling into a corner as the furious horse thundered straight for the milk can, which had made the mistake of gleaming.
"Oh, damn it!" Lucius was really going to miss Sev, whom he would remember almost fondly as a Useful Distraction and Occasionally Interesting Conversationalist.
The screaming stallion launched itself into the air and came down foursquare Like Doom upon the milk can.
The rafters rang with the sounds of Quasimodo performing a new work by John Cage.
Crabbe began sobbing. "S'pose he'll haunt the barn, then?" he hiccoughed hopefully, fishing out his handkerchief and saturating it. "Like Moaning Myrtle? 'Cos otherwise I'm never going to pass Potions!"
Malfoy swiped crossly at his own tears and choked, "Probably he'll haunt Potter."
"You mean Evans," snivelled Crabbe.
Lucius bleared at him incredulously.
" 'Cos y'know, they come back 'cos of something they've not done, right?" gulped Vic miserably. "And he'll never ever manage to ask her out, not in a million years...
Goyle flung himself down beside them, spooking them both.
"Don't DO that!" snapped Lucius damply.
"What save my life? Think I can, mate!" Goyle was flushed and panting and fool enough to crawl forward so he could watch what was happening on the floor below.
The Marauders scrambled up the ladder, Potter and Black hauling Pettigrew over the edge so quickly they all landed in a heap in the hay. The more agile boys quickly scrambled to the loft's edge to overlook Snape's Sticky End.
Lucius remembered keenly that he was Still Responsible for Snape 's General Welfare During this Nightmare of a Detention, Although Extenuating Circumstances (To Wit: That Equine Monstrosity Representing the Groundskeeper 's Fatal Error in Judgment) Have Nullified All Reasonable Expectations of My Success in Preserving Snape's Health and Existence. Still he would have to recount events accurately to the Aurors and Wizengamot... Malfoy crawled forward and peered down at the remains of the fray.
The lower floor looked as though a tornado had just waltzed across it twice, and hadn't bothered picking up after itself a bit.
Crowning the debris was the battered milk can, now strongly resembling a fortune cookie.
Goyle burst into angry tears. "We're gonna be cleaning the damn barn 'til June!"
Hagrid collected the doublebent and deeply dented milk can and solicitously set it upright against a haybale. Why he was bothering, Lucius didn't know. From the look of things, Sev must have been churned into butter.
A scream echoed from one of the stalls, which shook as Incendium protested his incarceration with a series of petulant kicks.
The Groundskeeper ignored this outburst and fished something shiny from his pocket; he touched this to the milk can, which turned back into a bucket and promptly fell to flinders.
Sev, drenched and crumpled, looked like a bat which had spent a very long afternoon lost inside a car wash. He coughed up a pint of soapy water, shuddered, and toppled over.
Hagrid dragged him onto tiptoes and shook him, recommending strongly, "Quit messin' about!"
KRAK! The door between Incendium and the Moveable Feast crazed beneath another swift kick.
Silence fell very thickly.
"Hagrid," asked a small haystack, in Lupin's anxious voice, "can that horse break out of there?"
"Nah," Hagrid reassured him.
More kicks produced more cracks. These were plainly visible even from the hayloft.
"Don't think so," said Hagrid rather less certainly, staring at the spreading maze of fractures. He glanced around the barn as if seeking inspiration, and said, "Oh, of course!" He snatched up a pitchfork and speared the nearest pile of hay.
Lupin screamed.
"Oh, sorry about that!" Hagrid glanced at the tines and seemed reassured to find no blood on them. "All righ', Remus?" he inquired.
"So far!" The haystack shuffled hastily away.
Hagrid picked up one of the haybales and heaved it over the stall door, interrupting another fit of temper and instructing firmly, "Yeh've just got ter shift it, Incendium, that's all there is for it! Now you eat that grass, that'll help!"
Lupin the Haystack edged closer to the ladder leading to sanctuary.
"I am," said Snape dawningly, "the Lizard King."
Oh no not AGAIN, thought Lucius.
Crabbe was tugging persistently at Malfoy's cloak, hissing into his ear, "Luke! Luke, I think we're in trouble— "
"Oh, just drop something heavy onto him," sighed Lucius disgustedly. "Another concussion might shut him up, anyway... "
"Look, Luke! -- I mean, Luke, Look!" Crabbe seized Malfoy's tie and forced his attention onto the stall wherein That Misbegotten Monstrosity was avidly chewing on something sparkly.
A glass phial.
One of Sev's potions— Malfoy heaved himself to his feet and dashed for the door that led to the upstairs stalls which flanked The Door Out Of This Deathtrap, betting his life that a thirty-foot drop would be better than whatever that potion was going to do to that already maddened horse.
He collided with something and fell sprawling flat on his back.
Something he couldn't see... investigated him. Closely.
Its breath stank of blood.
Malfoy shrieked.
Something licked his chin. Speculatively.
Malfoy discovered that if one tried very hard indeed one could levitate for short but vitally important distances, for instance back into the hayloft. He slammed the door shut and held it with all his inadequate weight and wheezed, "There's SOMETHING in there!"
The other boys didn't even look at him; they were all standing at the far edge of the loft, in postures of apprehensive disbelief, silhouetted by the cozy glow cast from the lower floor.
Hagrid's voice boomed from below, "MIND YER HEADS!"
Seconds later Snape came hurtling into the hayloft, as if sent there by a tournament-winning badminton smash. A chrysanthemum blossoming of loose hay marked his safe arrival amid one of the golden heaps.
"C'MERE, REMUS, YOU NEXT!"
Potter yelped, "No! Don't throw him, the hay-"
Went EVERYWHERE as Lupin came slewing into the loft. All the loose straw spun furiously into a golden haze that stung like bees and sent the boys scrabbling for handholds.
It was like being in a haystack full of needles.
"STAY UP THERE AN' YEH'LL BE ALL RIGHT," Hagrid seemed to truly believe. "BACK IN A TICK! JUS' NEED TER GO AN' GET MY OVEN MITTS!"
Everything was Yellow. And chokingly dusty. Lucius had a moment's Exquisite Sympathy for Lupin.
And made straightaway for him. Lupin was the center of the storm, hence near him there would be Air. Malfoy was grateful no one could see through the maelstrom as he was forced to crawl on all fours for several yards.
Someone grabbed him by the necktie and hauled him to Safety.
Maybe.
Snape was glaring at him. He was frothing at the mouth again, which was Never A Good Sign.
Around his other hand Sev had wound James Potter's necktie, which was beginning to strangle its owner. He snarled at both his prisoners, lightly misting them both.
Potter gasped, "izzeraproblem?"
"YOU!" Snape cried like the failing brakes of the Hogwarts Express, "and your little friends—" He hissed in a long, strangled breath and spewed out: "You just HAD to go sneaking 'round the sheep paddock in the middle of the night, for a little social gathering with Chang and Lovegood and Weasley and all the rest... and then YOU THREE," he rattled Lucius and bared his teeth at their roommates as they stumbled into view; Crabbe and Goyle took one look at him and hid inadequately behind Lupin, who was standing frozen with bewilderment and horror as he stared at Snape.
Snape's eyes were brimful of homicidal confusion with a twist of fanatical outrage, as he hissed accusingly, "YOU LOT just HAD to go sneaking AFTER them... AND THEN YOU JUST HAD TO TRY to take custody of them, instead of simply REPORTING the matter to the High Inquisitor, and OF COURSE the stupid sheep STAMPEDED." He shuddered at the memory, shook his captives for good measure and surged on even more furiously, "and OF COURSE all you inbred little morons PANICKED AT THE MERE SIGHT OF AN ILLUSORY DRAGON-!" Snape strangled on his own outrage for long moments and then growled at Potter. "And then YOU blasted Gryffindors just HAD to try to SA VE EVERYBODY, because you would never DREAM of simply RUNNING FOR IT-!" He gnawed the air furiously before strangling out: "Which forced my intervention just before all Hell broke loose and YOU SHOULD NEVER THROW AN UNAIMED HEX IN THE DARKNESS IN A CROWD ESPECIALLY WHEN SHEEP ARE DITHERING ABOUT!"
" 'kay," wheezed Potter. His eyes rolled back so only the whites showed.
Snape shrieked in horror and cast his prisoners away. He staggered backwards and tripped over Pettigrew and landed hard on his knees, looking for all the world like Richard the Third in Want of A Nail.
So this is how it ends, thought Lucius dazedly.
Snape was strangely hunched over, with his hands upraised beseeching Heaven's Mercy.
Or perhaps he was still just lucid enough to refrain from touching his own hair, as he drew a great shuddering breath and keened like a hinge about to wrench loose for once and all: "SO HERE WE ARE AND ISN'T THIS TERRIFIC, I'M LAID OUT COLD IN A CURSE-INDUCED COMA WHILE THAT UNBEARABLE UMBRIDGE WOMAN DOES WHATEVER SHE LIKES WHILE THE HEADMASTER IS GOD-KNOWS-WHERE WHILE GOD-KNOWS-WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH YOU-KNOW-WHO-!"
He shrieked again, like an entire string section emphasizing a stabbing, and then collapsed like a unfortunate motel guest.
In the silence the susurrations of the swirling hay seemed quite loud and just a bit ominous.
Black inquired gruffly, "Does he have these turns often?"
"Only when he's been hexed senseless," replied Lily Evans. "All of this is just a kind of fever dream." She smiled wistfully, and sighed, "Still, some of it did happen... and you, and you, and you, and you were there!" she informed the staring boys.
"Told you, Pete," Potter choked, "you're just a bit of bad potato."
Lily moved through them as if they or she were not really there, and crouched down beside Snape; when he raised his head and stared blearily up at her, she intoned solemnly, "Help me, Severus, you're my only hope."
She repeated this several times, as if to make her message sink in, and then flickered out of existence.
Lucius fought his way free of his necktie and breathed as deeply as he could, hoping to avoid further Hallucinations Induced By Oxygen Deprivation.
Snape swayed up onto his knees, trembling like the last leaf of Autumn; he rucked back one sleeve to reveal a thin forearm bearing an incredibly tacky tattoo of a fanged skull upchucking a snake.
"Didn't know you had it in you, Sev," coughed Lucius wonderingly.
Snape made a noise like a laugh turned wrongside-out, and hauled up his other sleeve to reveal a smaller tattoo comprised of the neat Copperplate inscription: Everyone deserves a second chance. Love always, or else. Albus Dumbledore.
Crabbe lumbered forward and kicked Sev out of the way, grabbed Lucius by the Only Just Loosened necktie and helpfully informed him, "YOUR MAN-EATING HORSE IS STARTING TO SMOULDER."
" 'scuse me?" said Black.
"Incendium," gagged Lucius.
"Oh, right! No happenchance names in the Wizarding world, are there?" moaned Potter, who had quite a talent for Ceramics. .
There came an ominous FLUMPH! from downstairs.
"FIRE!" Snape flung himself flat to the floor. Then sprang back to his feet crying "STUDENTS!" Somehow he managed to gather all of the others into an untidy gaggle which he shoved firmly behind him as a wave of flame crested the edge of the hayloft.
Snape braced his feet, and stared into the blazing abyss, and whispered, "This is going to hurt."
The flames surged.
Everyone huddled beneath Sev's thoroughly fireproofed cloak, which grew several yards longer and broader in accordance with the wishes of eight wandless but deeply motivated wizards.
The world turned Blue.
All around them the flames writhed hungrily over the dome of clear air surrounding Lupin.
Lucius elbowed the others aside and seized ahold of Lupin.
Black inquired mildly, "So why aren't we dead exactly, this time?"
Crabbe grunted from the bottom of the heap of boys, "Lupin drank the whole lot at once, didn't he? A whole bottle of Hayfewer Brew, that's bound to cause some significant side effects."
"Yeah," Goyle agreed sullenly, "and you know just banging it down always ends in tears and ruined decor..."
Lupin ventured, "I don't understand..."
"Good lad!" enthused Potter, clapping him heartily 'round the shoulders. "You're experiencing interesting side effects and so we're not dead yet! IDEAS, GENTLEMEN!" he invited somewhat maniacally. "Our sanctuary is shrinking!"
"Dunno why," muttered Crabbe. "The hay's still avoiding him, will be for hours yet according to the dosage instr-"
Pettigrew seized his necktie and shrilled up at him, "Fire burns up air as well as hay you moron!"
Black announced brightly, "Time to go!"
"And how exactly might we do that?" demanded Malfoy, crowding closer as their haven dwindled.
"Out the back way!" Potter decreed. "We can use Snape's cloak as a parachute!"
"Yeah!" Black enthused. "It might actually work THIS time!"
"WAIT!" cried Lucius, and not just because he'd seen what'd happened the last time. "There's SOMETHING back there! It TASTED me!"
"ew," said generally everyone, frozen with distaste.
"It DID! And it's INVISIBLE!" Lucius insisted frantically. "AND ITS BREATH STANK OF BLOOD!"
Snape bundled them altogether into his cloak and stormed towards the door, snarling, "They're THESTRALS, which you would KNOW if you ever bothered OPENING your schoolbooks!"
They staggered along boggling at him. Except for Lucius, who was still desperately trying to dig in his heels.
"They're invisible horses that can FLY!" Snape explained crossly. "If they haven't fled already, we can ride them out of this conflagration!"
Pettigrew dithered, "I always thought they were lucky horses-?"
Black snorted. "Yeah, and if you can see 'em, good luck to you!"
"What d'you mean!"
"COME ON!" Snape in a rarely useful fit of temper managed to haul them all across fifteen feet of charring floor; he was reaching for the door handle when the hayloft collapsed.
The landing hurt Incendium more than it did them.
Probably.
It certainly made him plenty mad.
The furious and now flaming stallion shrieked and tried to buck free of the tangle of boys, with no success; the bitten corner of Snape's voluminous cloak fell over the beast's eyes and the stupid creature reared and bolted.
Fortunately the wall was only Keeping Up Appearances and collapsed in a hail of embers and charcoal dust as Incendium charged right through it, taking his unwieldy howling cargo of boys along for a very bumpy ride.
In the barnyard he stopped, dropped, and rolled.
This snuffed out several of the boys.
Lucius, clutching gratefully at someone's ankles, opened his eyes and looked thankfully up at Professor McGonagall, who was standing over him, clutching a tray full of china cups.
"The Detention Tea, boys!" cried Potter dazedly. "We've done it! We've survived!"
"Yay us!" saluted Black, and fainted.
Lucius twisted round to look at the sparkling embers which were all that remained of the barn, and looked up at McGonagall and said at exactly the same time and in exactly the same charming tone as James Potter, "The barn's finished."
"I can see that," she informed them through clenched teeth. Just beyond her Hagrid was studying the conflagration with an air of bewildered dismay.
Goyle sat up, dusted himself off without much success, looked at the smoking, empty space where the barn used to be, and groused, "I'm not sweeping up that lot!"
Pettigrew reeled over to his Head of House and asked hopefully, "Are there any biscuits?"
"Maybe later," Lupin groaned. "Help me up, fellows... the ride's over, and I'd like to throw up now."
A muscle was working overtime in McGonagall's jaw. She began to count slowly: "One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... where's the other one?"
In the not-nearly-enough distance, Something screamed again. Lucius rolled over and confronted a scene from Bosch. The Horse was racing aggressively widdershins around the barnyard, trailing a magnificent cloud of thick black smoke...
... which, as Lucius desperately rolled out of its path, proved to be a dozen or more yards of ensorcelled black woolen schoolcloak. It undulated past like a prolonged oil slick and at the end of this serpentine writhe of fabric kited Sev, shrieking, his hair graced by an aureole of eerie, turquoise flame.
"Amazing," sighed Goyle. "His head's on fire and even the flames won't touch that grease."
Incendium hurtled over the nearest fence and ran for a solitary tree, with the arrowflight urgency of a dog which has been Let Out for the first time in fourteen hours.
"Oh, no," said Lupin very softly.
"This is going to hurt," sighed Lucius, "to watch."
But no one could look away as Incendium zagged past The Whomping Willow, which over the past four years had been responsible for more injuries to the student body than Quidditch, Herbology, and Filch combined.
Sev almost made it, flapping desperately in an updraft.
The tree lunged up and seized him with the unforgiving grace of a koi gulping a low-flying dragonfly.
Incendium staggered free of the cape and ran for his life. His whickering sounded nastily triumphant as he vanished into the Forbidden Forest.
The willow was juggling its prey, having realized that its dinner had arrived flambé. Many of the flames leapt for safety from Sev's hair onto its branches.
It writhed and beat at him with withies, but its attempts to extinguish his hair were worse than futile; in under a minute the willow had acquired its own corona of azure blaze. With one great shrieking twist it suddenly grew another ten feet and a great sturdy branch, which it used as a trebuchet to launch Sev after the horse.
He went like a Roman Candle, with an unearthly scream that faded woefully into the distance as he dwindled to a tiny blot of black and burning blue.
Crabbe tapped Lucius ritualistically on the shoulder and asked in an apprehensive monotone, "Should we help him now?"
"I'll fetch him." Hagrid pulled up his oven mitts, and strode into the forest as it began to kindle.