"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

-- Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972)

-

Silence.

Well, silence except for the moaning.

Most everyone began to blush. Draco Malfoy's hands were…adventurous.

Finally Ron summed up the thoughts of every person in the room with one question: "What the fuck is going on?"

"I don't know…" ventured Harry, crouching down to peer at the pair as if they were mating pandas in a zoo. "Wow…They're really going at it, aren't they?"

"What I'd like to know," began Colin Creevy between snapping pictures (after all, it was good stuff, this), "is how he got in here."

"Yeah! How'd he know the password?" posed Lavender Brown, eyeing Ron and licking her lips slowly, all the while trying to maintain an air of indifference. It wasn't really working.

"He had 'em!" Came a voice from the fat lady's portrait, sounding remarkably like a female version of a certain medieval knight. "Had the whole week's, my lady! Read 'em off a little piece of paper!"

"BLOODY HELL, NEVILLE!" Shouted half of the occupants of the room. Poor Neville was having a particularly difficult night, what with the scales and all.

"I-I'm sorry?" He said, his face thoroughly crimson, as he scratched at his arms. Several scales winked in the firelight as they fell to the floor.

"Oh good! You do end up shedding, after all! We weren't sure," exclaimed either Fred or George.

Neville whimpered. And slithered.

Ron looked at Harry. Harry looked at Ron. In the end, they simultaneously said something akin to "Shouldn't we be a little more upset that our Arch-Nemesis is kissing Hermione?" and leveled their wands at their pointy-featured, blond-haired, pale-skinned dilemma.

"Malfoy!"

Nothing happened. Except for the moaning, of course.

"Ferret-Boy!"

…

"Ferret-Boy?"

"What?" said Ferret-Boy, finally pulling away from Hermione, his cheeks decidedly flushed. Hermione looked rather dazed and was grinning as stupidly as anyone had ever seen her grin, which was never, because Hermione never grinned stupidly. If that makes sense, which it probably doesn't.

Right. On with the story.

"Get away from Hermione!" said both Ron and Harry.

"Why?" asked both Hermione and Draco.

"Because you two are disgusting! What ever happened to Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry?" exclaimed both Patronus-Caster Extraordinaire and ickle Ronnikins.

"It's officially abolished," stated both… well, you know. They promptly went back to kissing. Well, eating one another's faces, more like.

More silence. It was getting rather annoying, actually.

"Well!" shouted Gred, clapping his hands and causing everyone in the vicinity to jump a foot in the air. "That's good news, then! Anyone else for another pastry?"

"We're 85 sure that the feathers will molt and the hair will grow back. Eventually," added Forge.

Ginny Weasley, often referred to as The Gorgeous Gryffindor among other less respectable titles, rolled her eyes and smacked her two twinish brothers upside the head. She was extremely perturbed with them, as they had interrupted her nightly routine of staring admiringly and somewhat lustily at Harry. "Shut up, you two."

Harry and Ron, oblivious, soon turned to one another again to resume their discussion about… The Plan.

"This is pathetic, really. I'm the Boy-Who-Lived. I'm supposed to know instinctively how to defeat Voldemort, aren't I? Maybe if I—"

"Don't say that name, Harry!" shouted Ron in a rather panicked tone. His nose had begun to bleed and he was attempting to stem the flow with the hem of Hermione's robe. She didn't seem to notice. "It has…bad…effects!"

"VOLDEMORT!" Harry bellowed, smiling cheerfully as he perused the room to enjoy the various "bad" effects he had caused.

"DON'T SAY THE BLOODY NAME!"

Neville had collapsed in a scaly heap on the floor. Lavender shrieked and dove at Ron—Harry very much doubted that this was one of said effects, but he chose to give her the benefit of the doubt—just before fainting dead away in his arms. Ron dropped her and plugged his nose between his thumb and forefinger, but not before a spurt of blood managed to shoot from his nostrils. Ginny curled into a tight ball on the floor and pressed her folded arms against her abdomen as a particularly nasty and somewhat curious case of menstrual cramps made their presence known. Colin only just made it to the rubbish bin in time to empty his stomach of his dinner. The twins swooned with a sudden onslaught of high fever. Parvati groaned. Seamus oozed. Angelina sobbed. Denis twitched. Neville slithered. Again.

Oddly, the only two people in the room who the exclamation of Voldemort's name seemed to have no effect on besides Harry were Ferret-Boy and The Brains of the Golden Trio. Of course, they were rather busy.

Harry smiled again as he took in the destruction. He knew from experience that it would take several minutes for everyone to recover, and so he decided to lie down by the fire and have a nap.

It didn't last long.

"Harry, mate, I told you to never do that again," came the frustrated voice of Ron. Harry cracked open his eyes to see his friend mopping the blood off of his chin with Draco's clothing. The unlikely couple, still snogging furiously on the couch, had discarded their outer robes quite some time ago.

"I won't, I promise," Harry singsonged unconvincingly. "Let's go for a walk. C'mon, get Hermione."

The two boys literally dragged—by her feet, no less; they tried grasping her round the waist but she could be very slippery when the situation called for it—their flushed companion away from their flushed arch enemy and climbed out the portrait hole.

Harry ignored the fact that half of the Gryffindor common room had followed them (he was a celebrity after all) and propositioned that they visit Hagrid. His friends readily acquiesced, albeit with much pouting and moping on Hermione's part. She soon forgot her pouting and moping and told them the story of her and The Slythern Sex-God's unlikely romance.

Harry and Ron tried not to sick on their shoes throughout her breathless explanation. It was very difficult. Very.

"If you really want to know, he—"

"WE DON'T, HERMIONE!"

"—he said he'd been coming up to the library every day to try and talk to me, but he hadn't been able to pluck up the courage! He's very tortured, you know. His father's really hard on him and all he needs is a bit of love…" she trailed off dreamily, oblivious to the smears of lipstick about her face. The funny thing was, Hermione didn't wear lipstick. Curious. Maybe Ferret-Boy did.

Ron glanced at Harry. Harry glanced at Ron. It was a regular occurrence. "You're…you're sure you're talking about Malfoy, Hermione?" Ron asked. He looked rather sulky.

"Of course. Why?"

"Nevermind."

Hermione seemed satisfied with that, and soon began humming a muggle tune Harry recognized as "All You Need Is Love" in a manner not unlike that of Loony—er, Luna Lovegood. Speaking of…

"Hello, Harry, Ronald. Hello, Hermione. Have you seen any Crumple-Horned Snorkacks lately? They're migrating."

-

"Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life."

-- Dorothy Parker

-

Author's Note: It just keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it? Hermione and Draco, the abolition of the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry, Hermione's hippy side revealed, the magical properties of Lord Voldemort's name, and migrating Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. What fun.

As always, I adore you, and let me know what you think.