The Erised Effect
A fiction by
Maura BelleDisclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters from the books. They belong to J.K. Rowling, lucky girl.
As Snape continued his speech on the properties of the many ingredients the students were pouring into their cauldrons, Harry began to nod off. Homework had taken an unusually long time into last night, and he hadn't gotten much sleep. Once his eyelids began to droop, Hermione would nudge him with her elbow, or Ron would whisper, "Harry! Harry, wake up!" It was probably this lack of attention or the others circulating around the room that caused the accident. Perhaps it was the excitement of the coming Christmas break, in which many would be leaving for their homes and others staying in Hogwarts with their friends. Maybe Colin Creevey, being paired with Harry since the sixth years were doubled with the seventh in the Gryffindor/Slytherin class, let all the excitement of doing potions with the one he hero-worshipped go to his head. Was he the one who caused it? Or maybe it was Malfoy, who, for the first time, had received orders from his father not to come home that Christmas. Was it he, blinded by his anger and confusion? Or could it have been Ginny, who was distracted in that class by an ill stomach she knew Snape would not allow passage to the hospital wing for. Hermione, who was so intent on making a better potion grade than a Slytherin favorite of Snape's? Ron, who hardly paid any attention to potions anyway? Who had it been? Who, in truth, caused the explosion that sent countless students flying back against the walls, stones crumbling, and ingredients in little jars falling with the dust from shelves?
Snape had not seen who it had been, nor had any of the other students. Everyone else had been paying attention to their own cauldrons, no one else's.
In any case, a number of children were unconscious, and others so scared and startled by what had happened, they were either in shock or crying or muttering what could have happened. The Potions master stood and dusted himself off and immediately rushed to a student who was covered in stones that had fallen from the aged walls. Colin mumbled incoherent things about bruises and scabs and was the first to be sent to the Hospital Wing, on his own, since he could still walk fine. It wasn't Colin Snape was worried about. He hurried over to another corner of the dungeon. Ah, that annoying Harry Potter. In all his fame and glory, it would be horror for the press to learn he'd been knocked out of consciousness in Snape's class. Two other Gryffindors rushed to his side and immediately aided the professor in lifting him up. His fellow students carried Harry away.
"Draco? Draco!" Crabbe and Goyle were shouting at their unconscious leader, as he lay amongst the rubble with numerous burns and cuts. Snape ran over to his prized student, observing that as the two Slytherins had started, many of the other children started crying for their unmoving friends. All around the dungeon, people were feeling pulses, foreheads, and pulling stones from their friends' bodies.
*****
"How did it happen?" Dumbledore whispered, looking at the numerous bodies lying on beds in the Hospital Wing, Madame Pomfrey scuttling about this way and that. Snape shook his head and looked down, unable to look at the accident he allowed to happen.
"How many are still unconscious?" The Headmaster went on, noticing many of the students sitting up and asking for their burns to be healed before someone else's.
"Nine," Snape answered. "Five Gryffindors, Four Slytherins." His expression was one of grim importance.
Dumbledore still stared ahead of him, in shock, it seemed. "Names?"
"Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and—" At that moment, Crabbe and Goyle sat up.
"Seven in all," Snape corrected himself. He recalled how Crabbe and Goyle had passed out after seeing the amount of blood Draco had lost.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Terrible… terrible accident." The Potions professor breathed a sigh of relief, pleased his Headmaster didn't hold him responsible, or anyone else. It was an accident. That was all.
****
Ginny smiled as the warm morning sun from her window woke her gently. As she opened her eyes, she saw the light, and quickly closed them again. Once this was done, she realized it wasn't the sun that had woken her. There was an awful, deafening sound coming from down the hallway, but she had no idea what it could be. She was still tired, still asleep to some degree, and she didn't have enough strength yet to figure it out.
She was fully awake, however, when something beside her stirred. She nearly jumped off her own bed as she turned around to meet the gaze of what was there… What was lying there, in her bed, in her room, in— She took a look around and noticed she was not right. It wasn't her room. She didn't own the bed she lay in. What was going on? Where was she?
It was large, but at the same time, rather small. There was a closet in front of the bed, the open doors displaying one side holding dresses and an assortment of women's clothes, and the other, slacks and suits, men's wear. Seeing this, she only continued to wonder who was next to her. As she was on the left side of the bed, she looked in that direction, seeing a bedside table covered with clutter, and a small expanse of floor between the bed and the open window. The sunlight shown inside, and for a moment, she forgot all her worries, because this looked to her like her window from home. She wondered how far she was from home, and how she got here.
And then he stirred. He turned on his side and then back over to face her, all the while eyes closed and yawning. As he finally opened his eyes, all he saw was someone outlined by the morning's sun, an angel perhaps? Her red hair framed her face, ignoring that she had just woken, and even that confused expression on her face made her look beautiful. He sat up, as she was and yawned once more, adding a stretch for emphasis. He gave her the smallest glance, and then looked away, apparently too tired to care, until he gave her another gaze, harder this time and more serious. He mirrored her confused expression as he leaned in towards her, looking her over in the same manner she was staring at him.
Suddenly, he placed his entire hand over her face, so she could only see him through his fingers.
"Oh, crap," He muttered. "You're solid. You're real."
"Well, of course I'm real! And so are you, I'm assuming, now get your hand off my face, Malfoy!" She pushed him away, and as a result, fell off the bed. As she struggled to get control of her nightgown and the covers that had fallen with her, she realized the crying that she'd heard earlier hadn't stopped, only increased in volume. Draco himself began to notice it as he moved on the bed, sitting at the edge.
"What is that?!" He nearly shouted over the din of the covers rustling on the side of the bed Ginny had fallen off of, and the cries coming down from the hallway. "And what the he** are you doing in my….. room…" He muttered, trailing off.
"Is it your room? Because it's certainly not mine!" Ginny mumbled among the covers and the awful position she was in.
"This isn't my house," He whispered to himself, suddenly very confused. With a sigh, Ginny began to climb back up onto the bed, ignoring all the cries that destroyed her ears. She placed one hand up on the post, and another on the mattress, pulling herself up. Draco turned and gazed at her hands before grabbing one and waving it in front of her face.
"What's this?" He demanded.
"My finger, it looks like," Ginny groggily replied. Then she realized what he was talking about. The rings on her finger, one for engagement and another for marriage… She grabbed Draco's hand and noticed a band on his finger as well. It was then they began to scream and back away from each other. As they sat on opposite ends of the room, breathing heavily and panicking, they began to question a great many things.
Ginny spoke first. "What… what— I mean, are we married?"
"I… I don't know."
"We didn't even date."
"We didn't even speak to each other."
"I don't even know your middle name." She admitted, casting a glance to the rings that said far more than she wanted to know.
"I… don't know what kind of ice cream you like," He said, earning another confused glance from Ginny.
As they calmed down to some extent, they realized something needed to be done about that infernal noise. They each stood; one mere seconds before the other and walked down the hall, in the direction of the cries, childlike and wailing. Draco entered the room first, and noticed immediately the baby blue colors of the walls and the cradle in the center. He backed up against said wall and refused to look at whatever lay in the crib.
"There's no way…" He kept muttering. "No way…"
"Draco," Ginny began, as she hesitantly picked the baby up from its crib, "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Malfoy," He said.
"What?"
"You call me Malfoy, you and your friends do, in that tone of theirs. Why do you call me Draco now?" The baby began to quiet and reach for Draco, refusing its mother and wanting out of her grasp.
"I'm only assuming that by some weird twist of fate or a spot of bad luck we have the same last name. It'd be silly for you to call me Weasley now."
He nodded, understanding the logic, but most certainly not the situation. The child continued to reach for him, but he ignored it. "The last thing I remember…" He began. "I was in Potions… about to fall asleep from that boring professor's droning…" He sighed in remembrance. "And there was… some explosion."
*****
"Headmaster," McGonagal approached him, looking panicked. "There's a problem."
*****
"Draco… You don't think this is our future, do you?" Ginny asked, hesitantly. As Draco calmed down from his alarm, he muttered, "No offense, Ginny, but… I hope not."
*****
"The type of truth potion you were creating in your class, Snape, has been somewhat absorbed into their bodies. It's inside their flesh."
"W-what?" Snape stuttered for, perhaps, the first time in his life.
"Madame Pomfrey believes it's having the same affect on them the Mirror of Erised would, to an extent. They're seeing what they want, but these are wants they don't desire as of yet."
"What they will long for," Dumbledore muttered. "In the future. It's happened before."
"When did they wake up?" Snape asked.
"Three years later in the last incident," Was the solemn reply. "Imagine you living your life's greatest moments, achieving everything you wanted, and then waking up to find you haven't really done anything in three entire years of your life."
*****
"What do we do now?" He muttered, as she set the sleeping baby back into its crib.
"I guess we," She smiled, "make breakfast."
*****
Over the sizzling of bacon and the hissing eggs, a rattle was heard. It went on and on, in random bouts, never the same twice. Shake it here, shake there, bang the rattle on the chair, bang the rattle on tray—the child never seemed to stop. It just continued to either cry or play, and both were driving Draco insane. Finally, the noise came his way, as the child began to bang the rattle on him. It hit his shoulder first, as he was waiting for his food, and he didn't seem to mind much. At least, Ginny took no notice of it, and Draco just sat there.
But then it continued, and harder. Who ever would have known babies could have such strength. Getting bored with Draco unflinching, he threw the rattle at his head.
And it hit. Hard.
"Hey!" Draco shouted, rubbing the sore spot above his eye. "Stupid, little…" He trailed off muttering curses and threats the baby couldn't possibly begin to understand.
"Don't curse around the baby," Ginny scolded.
"Like he understands," Draco shot back.
"I don't want any foul language to be heard by that baby! That's that!" Not her baby, and not his. It was that baby. An it—A thing, coming from whence no one knew. It giggled, as if knowing this and finding it humorous.
"It's fine! It's nothing! I grew up listening to crap from my father," Draco rolled his eyes.
Ginny turned around from her spot at the stove, waving the spatula at him with little egg bits flying off onto the kitchen's linoleum floor. "I don't care, this baby won't! And don't say 'crap.'"
When she turned back around, there was a grease fire around her bacon and she began to panic. "Oh… crap!" Was only the beginning of her long string of curses, as she desperately covered the pan. Draco laughed, and didn't bother to help her. He looked to the child as if he found this funny too and said, "Ginny's not doing a very good job at being a mom, is she?"
"Oh, it's nothing to joke about Draco! I'm not a mom, I'm a student! I'm not even in my last year yet!" Once the fire was put out, she groaned and sank to the floor, leaning against the cabinets. She still held her spatula. "It's not fair…" She muttered. "I don't remember finishing school. Nothing of the ceremony."
The baby giggled again reaching for Draco once more, but for a second time, the man denied him. Seeing its tablemate was not going to hold him, he began to cry, the loud wailing filling the entire house, which, incidentally, wasn't that big. The kitchen was probably the smallest room, but it was, at least, a bit bigger than the Burrow's. So Ginny was comfortable. Draco, probably never having been in a kitchen his entire life was rather upset that he had to sit in one to eat, with a red-haired devil-girl and a screaming banshee-baby. He cursed and then Ginny cursed him for cursing.
"Shut him up!" She screamed, tossing the spatula on the floor with such force, it sprung back up and fell onto the table. It scraped its way across the wood's surface, until it landed in the second seat, where Ginny was supposed to be. Supposedly. For some reason, there were two other adult chairs beside Draco, as though they expected company often.
"How?!" He demanded, waving the rattle in front of the baby's face, but it did not take it.
Ginny made a motion with her hands desperately. "Hold him!!" She swished her arms back and forth. Draco rolled his eyes and stuck his hands under the baby's arms, lifting it from its chair.
"There," He held the baby away at arms length. "Now what? It's not stopped crying!"
"You're just holding it!" Ginny screamed above the roar of the red-faced little child. "You have to hold it!"
"I am holding it! You just said so!" Ginny became so infuriated with him that she ran across the kitchen (which was only about two to three steps to where he was) and grabbed the baby herself. Draco let his guard down, believing that now he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. Faster than lightning, Ginny had grabbed his arms with a free hand and put them in position to hold it. She then dropped the baby in his care.
It immediately stopped crying.
"You see? All it wanted was you!" Ginny breathed a sigh and sat back down in one of the chairs, until she realized the eggs had turned out horribly and the bacon was all but burnt to a crisp. She then got back up and began to make pancakes. Draco sat back down in his own chair, this time, with the baby—with It.
'It, jr.' Ginny thought, smiling. Though the sight of it did look sort of cute. Draco with a baby boy in his arms, each of them staring at each other, not knowing how the other got there in that position, or on the face of the planet, for that matter. But they weren't on Earth anymore. They were past it, beyond it, on their own little world, where they had nothing to do today, or for the entire year, but sit there and lovingly, stare at one another.
"He smells," Draco announced, his nose wrinkled in disgust. He then set the baby back into its high chair. Now it was crying for a different reason. It was probably not because that cute little 'moment' had been broken, but because it needed a change.
"Ugh," Ginny began to whine. As she went up the stairs to the baby's room, which would, undoubtedly have the supplies she needed, Draco noticed her in her nightgown, so silky and smooth, hugging her curves…. and then what he was wearing.
"AHH!" He screamed. His pajamas were horrible! How had anyone talked him into this pinstriped monstrosity? He darted up the stairs after her and into the room he had woken up in, dashing into the closet and shutting the door behind him. When he emerged, he wore the most comfortable clothes he could find. Jeans that were a bit too loose for his comfort, and a shirt that he was currently buttoning up. He smiled. The shirt was Slytherin Green. To his surprise, a sound resounded throughout the house when he was on his last button, a sort of ding-dong sound.
The baby began to cry for the millionth time that day, it seemed, and Ginny, bouncing it up and down in her arms—it had on a new diaper, fastened with safety pins and a lot of duct tape—ran down the hall to where Draco stood at the top of the stairs.
"What is that noise?" She asked. It happened again. They each tilted their heads up, looking around as though it came from the ceiling, or the very walls. Perhaps the floor they stood on… they wondered.
Then it was accompanied by a knock and dim shouts of "hello, hello?"
"Oh! I remember Daddy telling me about that! It's a doorbell!" She explained to Draco, as he was looking more confused by the minute. "It's on some Muggle houses. People ring your doorbell when they come over, instead of knocking, most of the time. Some wizarding families have it too, I believe. A lot, in fact. We were going to get one, but it cost a lot to install it. Such a tiny little thing—"
"Ginny," He interrupted.
"Yes?"
"When someone rings a doorbell, that means they want to come inside?"
"I suppose so, yes," She looked around thoughtfully, then met his gaze once again. It seemed they were, at least, getting used to each other, though she still had a few plans in the back of her mind to just dart off to her mother's.
"Then… let them in."
"OH! Oh, Draco, I'm not dressed and the baby—" She stopped. It still wasn't her baby? With a shrug she left it to him and dashed off to set the baby back in its crib, then towards the room she'd woken up in to change. So Draco shrugged as well, letting the doorbell ring again and again as he calmly, slowly made his way down the stairs, passing a small table with a telephone, a notepad that said 'Ginny—your brother called' and a jar full of candy. He grabbed a lollipop, stuck it in his mouth, then casually walked to the door and opened it. What he saw scared him out of his mind.
"Omigosh, you're smoking!!" Hermione screamed, when she saw something white sticking out of his mouth.
"No, no, Mommy! It's a lollipop! Can I have one, too, Uncle Draco?" A redheaded little girl looked up at him with anticipation written into her smile. It was all he could do to keep his mouth from hanging open and the piece of candy falling out.
"Jake-O! Jake-O!" A three-year old began to scream, reaching for him from Ron's arms, as he also held a diaper bag and a bottle of soda.
"Caffeine deprivation," He explained. Draco nodded at a snail's pace and opened the door for them just as quickly. Hermione dashed in and demanded to know where Ginny was and what he'd done to her, three other children following. Two twins and the oldest, it seemed, and then the redheaded girl who had smiled at him earlier was clinging to his leg, sitting on his foot. One of the twins saw this and did the same, preventing Draco from walking anywhere.
Hermione held in her arms, an infant, looking about the same
age as the own they called It in "Draco's" own house. In her free hand, she
held a calendar. It was this, and not the baby, that she shoved in front of his
face.
"You moved in here seven months ago. Calendars say a lot. You married a month before that. So, now tell me what you've done to her!!" She screeched.
"Jeez, Mommy. You probably just woke her up," The smiling girl looked up at Draco from his foot. "How is Aunt Ginny?" She asked, apparently trying all her charm to get a lollipop of her own.
"Where's Gabriel?" The oldest asked. "I wanna hold the baby!"
"You can hold the one Mommy's holding!" The twin that was not sitting on Draco's foot declared. "I wanna hold Gabriel."
"He likes me more," The other twin said, sticking out his tongue.
"I want a lollipop," The girl repeated.
"Me too!" The others chorused. The baby began to cry. Ron continued to drink his soda. The first baby crying made the other baby cry—It, or as the other children knew It, Gabriel.
"Jake-O, Jake-O!" The child in Ron's arms began to scream.
Ginny descended the stairs, wearing a skirt and a nice blouse. Her hair had been hurriedly pulled back, and she took no time with make-up.
"Aunt Ginny!" All the children ran to her, except those on Draco's feet.
"W—what?" Ginny began to stutter. She looked to her brother, who shrugged, as the caffeine did its work, and then to Hermione, who looked like she was about to cry—to mimic the babies.
*****
"I am not a stay-at-home Mom! I'm a career woman! I didn't work as hard as I did in school for nothing! I'm supposed to have a job!!" Hermione wailed as Ginny pat her back, muttering a little 'I know, I know.' She nodded and sipped a cup of coffee—of which she'd already had three—but sighed as she noticed she was still fast asleep, mentally speaking. Ron had all but finished his soda and had raided their fridge for six more (they come in packs like that, you know) and he had offered Draco one. Draco, being the person he is, had stuck to candy, and it kept him occupied enough. For some reason, he was becoming quite partial to the jar-full, which was now in his lap instead of on the 'telephone table.'
The children were all upstairs, laughing and giggling and often times screaming at each other, but to Hermione's standards as calm as it could ever be. She had explained in detail all the mayhem she went through when she woke up. One of the twins—it seems to be the Weasley curse to have twins in the family—had awoken them screaming "Happy Secretary Appreciation Day!" and the other playing a fake little trumpet that came out of a box marked "Christmas Decorations." The closet the box came out of, and the rest of the contents of the box itself were later designated off-limits and a danger-zone due to the broken glass of the ornaments he'd so kindly dropped.
As of now, there was a crash heard above their heads and a loud thud. "Nothing's broken!" One of the children screamed. The others giggled, as though in chorus.
Hermione whimpered and put a hand to her head. "I don't know what happened. Did we all just lose our memories, or…" She trailed off, her voice becoming far more silent than any whisper would dare to go. Ron finished off another can and opened a new one, which began to fizz and drip all over him. He dashed off to the sink and let it finish "exploding" there, muttering about sodas and all their caffeine addiction. Ginny took the candy jar away from Draco. It was all right with him though, because he already had most of it in his hands and pockets.
The doorbell rang.
And now that they knew what it was, they responded a bit more quickly, but with less enthusiasm. They were going through a crisis, and they didn't need nosy neighbors or Would-you-like-to-buy-this-vacuum-Salesmen. Ginny stomped to the door—which was about two steps from her chair since the living room was rather small as well—and opened it to see Harry on the other side.
"Oh, at last," He breathed little clouds in the cold. "A familiar face." Ginny stood there stuttering as he walked in and began to unzip his jacket (which had some sort of insignia on it) and looked around the room to see Hermione (in tears,) Ron (satisfying a caffeine craving,) and his arch-nemesis Draco, looking very annoyed at everyone, but finding peace in a little thing called sugar.
"Hey, Harry! You play Quidditch professionally!" Ron shouted, standing and pointed at the markings on Harry's jacket. Harry himself looked and his eyebrows rose to show his surprise.
"Well, I guess. I just found it in my closet this morning. I kinda just assumed it was mine… I do own this jacket, don't I? Do you guys know, 'cause this morning I just woke up drawing blanks in all directions and—" He was cut off by Ron and Hermione and Ginny rushing up to him and pulling him into a group-hug. Draco scoffed.
"WE DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING EITHER!!!!" Hermione squealed. "WE'VE ALL LOST OUR MINDS!!!!"
The children, from the top of the stairs, giggled. The oldest Weasley child, of whom they had still to learn his name, held It—Gabriel.
Draco put a hand to his forehead, feeling the beginnings of an ache and muttered, "Could it get any worse than this?"
Just then, the doorbell rang again. Since everyone else was crying or shouting and bringing confusion down upon the house, Draco himself answered it.
"Hey, Malfoy, I saved you the trouble of picking up your kids. Jonathon and Ebony are back from their sleepover," Pansy Parkinson's voice drifted to his ears and all noise inside the house fell silent.