Disclaimer: I borrowed names, places, etc. from Ms. J.K. Rowling to serve as a medium for my dementia. I have taken great (very, very great) liberties with her work, and if such offends, I suggest you leave.

Warning: What you are about to read comes from a deranged mind with a love for J.K. Rowling's books and a distinct inability to take anyone or anything (including herself) seriously, except under the influence of certain controlled substances which serve to shove her rudely into reality. Said substances were not used in the making of this fan fic.

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Luna sat quietly in the library, attention alternating between three different books. Such an activity was not so odd for a Ravenclaw; in fact, it was quite expected. However, the exact nature of her reading material negated any normalcy the situation might otherwise boast. Well, that and the paperclip and feather crown adorning her ruffled blonde hair.

Flipping a page in the September issue of the Quibbler, she jotted something down in a hardcover journal. She studied the magazine page carefully, referred to a large textbook to her right, then made another note. She seemed to be very absorbed in her work.

But alas, seeing is deceiving, and she was barely aware of what she was reading and writing, being much more interested in the eyes she could feel watching her every move.

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Draco eyed the basket resting on the desk before him with trepidation. The nice lady at Madame B's had arranged the beauty products in it so nicely, with pink and white ribbon winding through the perfumes and cosmetics. The overall image was so perfect and pristine, he was afraid that if he touched it, the basket might spontaneously combust. But the tube of Smooth and Luscious Lipcolor in shade #182, Sunrise Rose, was calling to him. It really couldn't hurt to have a look, make sure it was alright before giving it to Weaselette - could it? He nervously reached his hand forward and -

MOOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOO!

The miniature rooster on Blaise's bedside table began wailing, causing Draco to jump in surprise and fall out of his chair. He leapt to his feet quickly before Zabini could once again catch him sprawled haphazardly across the floor.

"Damn it, Zabini; shut off that infernal noise!"

The bed hangings shifted, pushed aside by Blaise, who sleepily reached over to quiet the alarm. For many centuries magical peoples had used the small creatures as Muggles did alarm clocks. Incidentally, this is the source of the facetious aphorism purporting that wizards had small cocks.

Blaise rubbed his eyes sleepily and began to assess his ability to sense tactile discomfort.

WHAM!

Yup, that hurt. He was okay.

Draco stared. "Why the hell did you just throw yourself off your bed into that dresser?"

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"The seventh way a stable potion could spontaneously metamorphosize is if transfigured ingredients were used in preparation. See, the problem with any transfigured item is that at some point it would naturally revert to its former state. So if one were to, say, transfigure dragon scales into powdered unicorn horn to make a potion, then when the spell wore off, the potion's composition would suddenly alter drastically, potentially destabilizing and liable to re-equilibrate. This final stable form, if it is in fact stable, is difficult to predict but quite consistent," Hermione explained. She was feeling much better than she had last night before hiding the eerie necklace safely in a locked desk drawer. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Okay," said Ginny slowly. "But if one wanted a certain spontaneous reaction from a seemingly stable potion, is there any way to know what to transfigure for what result?" She had requested Hermione's assistance with a Potions essay after breakfast, and the girls were now ambling leisurely to the library, deep in discussion.

Hermione absently trailed her fingers against the cold stone wall of the corridors. "Well, the problem with that is Potions is a tricky subject. As Snape is ever so fond of saying, it's a very delicate and precise art. When making the potion, a lot of it is how and when one adds ingredients that makes the potion what it is. So when the transfigured substance reverts to its original form, it's already incorporated in the potion. Can you assume that it's as though you made the potion with the original? Or is it like taking then adding from the end result? The spontaneous reaction depends on such a wide variety of factors that it really is almost impossible to predict what exactly will occur."

"So the only way to know what will happen is a sort of guess and check," Ginny summarized.

Hermione smiled. Gin was a lot quicker than Harry and Ron. "Exactly. And that can get a bit dangerous."

"I imagine it could," the redhead mused, mind full of lovely images of destruction and mayhem. She'd have to try this transfigured potions thing out sometime.

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Harry crouched behind a large bookcase sighing dreamily with a dazed look in his bright green eyes. He peered between Beating the Bludger: A Guide to Solo Quidditch by Harry Palmer, and Two-Handed Broomstick Techniques by Jack Hoffman, to get a better look at the occupant of table 42.

"Hi, Harry!"

Harry jumped and fell backwards, startled by Ginny's rather loud greeting.

"What're you doing back here?" inquired Hermione.

He tried to hush them, desperate to avoid Luna's notice. He glanced through the books again to see that she had vacated her table, and sighed in relief.

Hermione followed his gaze. "Harry, were you spying on someone?" she teased.

"Uh, n-no," he stuttered. "I was just- just looking at these books." He quickly grabbed the two he had been looking through earlier and showed them to her. He then noticed the titles, and a little part inside of him died.

Ginny started sniggering. "I'd ask if there was something you wanted to share, but, to be honest, I really would rather not know."

"They're not- I was just-" All the blood in Harry's body rushed to his face, broadcasting loudly his mortification. He could not imagine how the situation could be any worse.

"Hello, there." Luna popped her head around the end of the bookcase. "I thought I heard you lurking around back here, Harry."

It was as if Harry's blood realized that it was now woefully inadequate to represent the extent of his embarrassment, and dejectedly dispersed from his epidermis. The effect made Harry feel slightly faint. "Luna," he squeaked, beginning to turn a light shade of puce.

She smiled brightly. "Oh, Harry, you're so festively complected this morning. Are you preparing already for Christmas? Golly, every year it's earlier and earlier."

Hermione disagreed with Luna, rather thinking that Harry's face resembled a capricious banana, or better still, traffic signal. She thus took his untimely verdancy has her cue to go ahead and further humiliate him.

"Good morning, Luna!" she sang. "Harry was just showing us his selections for bedtime reading." She snatched the books from Harry and pushed them into Luna's hands.

Harry's blood then made a dash for his arms as he valiantly fought the urge to strangle his best friend, and Ginny, who had her scarf stuffed in her mouth as a barricade to her emerging laughter.

Luna read the titles. "I've always had an interest in Quidditch." She returned the books to him. "I'd like very much to read them when you're through. Although I'll surely need your assistance in understanding the content, as my experience is quite limited." She exuded an almost preternatural innocence.

Harry's blood departed for somewhere else entirely. What the hell was this, musical extremities?

Ginny had given up all pretenses of stoicism, collapsing on the floor in paroxysms of mirth. Hermione, however, narrowed her eyes and glanced back and forth between Harry and Luna. The conversational undercurrents tugging at her subconscious, she wondered what exactly was going on here, and whether she could beat it out of the hysterical redhead.

Luna noticed her appraising look and smiled sweetly at her. "Well, it was lovely chatting with you all. Harry, do tell me when you've finished… with those books. And you might want to check on Ginny; I'm not entirely certain she's breathing properly." Indeed, Ginny was turning purple and making a sound Hermione wasn't sure was normal for humans, or most mammals, at that.

Luna dropped her voice and whispered to Hermione. "Wouldn't you like to know." She turned on her heel and skipped off.

Before shock could set in at Luna's apparent clairvoyance, Hermione noticed Harry was leaning awkwardly against the bookshelf with a strained look on his face. Deciding she didn't want to know, she grabbed Ginny by the collar and dragged the aspiring mental patient out of the library and up to her dorm. It had been a thought provoking morning, and she needed jelly beans urgently.

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Blaise, bruised but sober, cheerfully strolled down the corridor, grateful to again be in full possession of his mental facilities. He saw Hermione approach, and nearly called out a greeting, but stopped. She was muttering to herself incomprehensively and dragging the youngest Weasley, who was evidently having some sort of seizure. Hermione seemed relatively unconcerned, yet Blaise predicted that it might be in his best interest to leave her alone for the time being.

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Hermione deposited Ginny in the girls dorm, telling her to come find her when she could speak normally again. She then went up to her room in the prefects' dormitory. Opening the door, she was pleased to find the other female prefects were nowhere in sight. Finally, some peace and quiet.

She opened her desk drawer to fetch her jelly beans. Her hand strayed from the bag of candy to a small velvet pouch next to it. Hermione bit her lip in hesitation, then removed the contents of the pouch. The necklace she had purchased the day prior fell into her hand, and she placed it around her neck. Idly twirling it around her finger, she commenced reflection on the morning's events. As she drifted slowly into a dreamlike state, her eyes began to glow.

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Harry's confusion had persisted for so long it teetered upon the brink of corporealness, almost seeming to have acquired mass at this point. If the current state of affairs continued any longer he would need to clear space in his trunk for it. Who knows, eventually it might ask him for a cup of tea, with extra sugar. He wondered briefly if confusion had a sweet tooth, then quickly derailed the train of thought, as it occurred to him that he was also nurturing insanity. If he allowed it to gestate, it would only bicker incessantly with his confusion, leaving him with a massive headache and broken teacups. Damn kids. What? Before he could have an aneurism, Ron found him.

"Harry? What are you doing here?"

Harry was sitting in the urinal in the boys' bathroom looking as pensive as a man soaked in urine could. "Peeing."

Ron's mouth opened and closed, as though he weren't quite sure what to say. "But that's not- Yo- you can't-" He paused and took a deep breath. "It just doesn't work that way, Harry."

"It does now," Harry insisted stubbornly.

"I think there's something very wrong with you," Ron said slowly.

Harry sighed. "Okay, look, there's-" Harry stopped mid-sentence, terrified at the disaster he had barely averted. After taking a mental moment to calm himself, he laughed inwardly at his near folly; he had almost confided his feelings to Ron. Such a breach of male friendship protocol would've been unforgivable.

"My zipper's stuck," he finished finally.

Ron nodded in understanding. "Ah. Happens to me all the time; if you go to Madame Pomfrey, she'll cut you out of them, but it's so much trouble that I've just stopped zipping up in the first place."

Harry inclined his head solemnly. A question he'd never dared ask, finally answered.

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P.S. If you want to know how I imagine Harry really looked in the library scene, check my profile for a link.

xoxoxoxo

Sapphire Dragons: Thank you! My goal in life is to make reviewers happy. Okay, that's a lie, but I'm sincerely glad that my happiness coincides with yours.

Excuse Me Mr. Mister: That does make sense, which makes me wonder if you just make more sense than you think, or I don't make sense either and the nonsense allows us to see sense where there's really none. If that makes sense. And golf sucks, too, but in a different way. Golf golf would be a hell of a lot more interesting if the two "games" sucked in the same way. But we won't go there.

Madam Sorceress: Thanks! About Draco, eh, men are fickle. Sorry the update couldn't be sooner, but alas, 'tis a busy time of year with school and whatnot.

froggifrog: I'm only going to tell this story once (okay, twice, since I've added it to the beginning of the first chapter to prevent these things from happening again), so listen carefully: Once upon a time there was a company that made chainsaws. Today, the company still makes chainsaws, but with a new twist: each saw is adorned a little label that says "WARNING: Do not use near genitals." One can only imagine why they felt the need to caution us against such things. Perhaps there was some sort of lawsuit, after which these warnings were required to be placed on the product in plain view. Then, if anyone repeated that terrible, terrible mistake, the makers of the chainsaw would be perfectly free from fault - after all, the user was warned. With this in mind, please read this story's warning and disclaimer carefully, as you obviously have failed to do so. Thank you.