Death's Manager
Courtesy of SilverWolf7007
Chapter Two - Did I Miss Something?
Or, The Signs of Badness
Albus Dumbledore was not only stumped, but also rather irritated to boot.
When he had awoken, he had been cold and wet, due to what seemed to be a random inside downpour of milk. He took this as a bad sign.
Nevertheless, being that he was Albus Dumbledore, he took this in his stride and rose to face the day.
Five minutes and the majority of his outfit for the day later, he had encountered Bad Sign Number Two: he had no socks left in his drawer.
On his way to breakfast, he had realised that he hadn't put his lemon drops in his pocket, and had returned to his office for them. Unfortunately, he didn't have any left.
That was Bad Sign Number Three.
Of course, as he was Albus Dumbledore, he ignored the Bad Signs. And so, soaked up to his knees, sockless and lemon dropless, he stepped into the Great Hall.
In the Great Hall, there was chaos.
This is a natural reaction to having the inside of a large castle full of teenagers doused with an evil white liquid – well, evil according to some, in particular the lactose intolerant. Many others were also converging upon the stance that milk is Bad.
Ignoring the chaos, Albus sat down at his customary place at the Staff Table and examined the choices for breakfast. There were two types of cereal, some soggy toast, and what may have once been cheese but was now a mutant creature intent upon Plate Domination.
Albus served himself a bowl of cornflakes, doused them in milk, covered them in an inch of sugar and inspected his choices in beverages, hoping for some pumpkin juice to start the day.
There was only milk.
Everyone else in the Great Hall, after experiencing the rest of Albus's morning, would have considered this Bad Sign Number Four.
The esteemed and eccentric Headmaster of Hogwarts, however, did not take these Signs into account and happily devoured his breakfast.
Unlike her colleague, Minerva McGonagall did not ignore the milky signs that something was substantially wrong in the school.
She had, as had everyone else in the castle, awoken to find herself very wet.
There had been no need for any further signs to get her attention, but she had experienced them anyway.
Her clothes had all been saturated, the hallways were flooded, and there were only a few very milky options for breakfast.
But it wasn't until she had finished her cornflakes, sipped her milk and was watching the evolving cheese with morbid interest that she was made aware that there was more than just an abundance of milk and a shortage of edible food going on.
The sound of someone nervously clearing their throat pried her attention from the fermented cheese and she looked up to find the majority of her Gryffindor sixth years standing across from her, headed by an embarrassed looking Hermione Granger.
She raised an eyebrow, taking note of the evident absence of one Harry Potter, which was, she was certain, a Very Bad Sign. Things always took a turn for the worse when Harry Potter was missing, whether the boy was simply in another part of the castle where he wasn't supposed to be (and, Minerva supposed, probably drowned in milk) or if Voldemort had kidnapped him.
"What can I do for you this morning, Miss Granger?" she asked, realising that Hermione wasn't going to start speaking.
"Um, well, it's like this, Professor," the girl started hesitantly, glancing worriedly back at each of her housemates. "You see, this morning Lavender, Parvati and I were in the Common Room when Neville and Harry came down to join us."
"They were trying to find out if it were just our dorm that had been Milked or not," Dean suppled. "Everything would have been fine, but…"
"Let me guess," Minerva commented dryly. "Mr Potter has vanished."
"Quite literally," Parvati said in confirmation. "One minute he was complaining about the morning, the next…"
"The next," Lavender finished. "He was surrounded by this cloud of black fog or something, and when it cleared he was gone."
Minerva looked from one nervous student to the other, until her eyes fell upon Neville Longbottom.
Now normally, she was certain, the boy would probably be hiding behind all his friends, trying to escape her notice and looking extremely guilty for simply being in the same room that Harry had disappeared from.
However, this time, while admittedly he was still behind the others, he did not seem to be hiding. No, in fact it seemed as though Neville was ignoring the conversation entirely in favour of…something else.
She had been told many, many times over the years that curiosity had killed the cat. Nevertheless, she ignored the advice every single time and generally emerged with all the normal vital signs, although she had ended up with a catnip addiction that one time…
"Mr Longbottom?" she called. The boy turned, slightly surprised and she continued. "Is there anything that you would like to add?"
Neville considered her question for what seemed like a minute, but was really only fifty-eight seconds, before he spoke. "Actually, Professor, I was wondering whether the sudden soddenness of the castle might have anything to do with Harry's rather random disappearance."
Minerva blinked at the abundance of alliteration in Neville's sentence before considering his actual words. "I'm afraid I have no idea, Mr Longbottom. The events as they have been described don't really mesh with this flood of milk, and it is entirely possible that the two events are merely coincidental. However, I have worked in this school for a great many years. As such I no longer truly believe in coincidence."
"Perhaps this is a distraction in the hope of people not noticing that Harry's gone," Hermione suggested.
Ron paled. "Do you think it could be You-Know-Who?"
Seamus frowned and shook his head. "Think about it, Ron. It's not really Voldie's style, is it?"
A very wet, very annoyed Severus Snape arrived just in time to hear Seamus's comment. "Indeed it is not, Finnigan, as the Dark Lord is lactose intolerant. He wouldn't even wish milk upon his greatest enemies…most of whom do reside in this school."
"Do you have any ideas on who could be behind this, Severus?" Minerva asked him hopefully.
The man just sighed, dropped into the chair beside her and shrugged. "All I know is that the Dark Lord had nothing to do with the milk, nor the Potter-napping."
"Do you think we should take this to the Headmaster, Professors?" Parvati asked worriedly, looking from one to the other.
Minerva and Severus exchanged a glance, before looking down the table to where Dumbledore was still enjoying his breakfast.
"No, Miss Patil," Severus replied finally. "I don't believe that taking this to the Headmaster would be a very prudent idea at all."
"Professor Snape is right," commented (of all people) Seamus. "We should deal with this ourselves. We need to discover the mystery behind this milk."
"And behind Harry's vanishing act," Ron added.
"Very well," Severus sighed. "Granger, Finnigan, Patil, Thomas. You have Potions first this morning. We can discuss this further then."
"And Ron, Neville and I have Transfiguration," Lavender said. "Lucky, I suppose. We'll talk with you, Professor McGonagall, and then we can all compare notes at lunch."
"In that case," Hermione said sternly. "We should all get to class. Not to insult the house elves, but breakfast really was disappointing this morning."
Oh, this is fun…really, really fun.
Shakespeares Whore – Thanks. I do like to write randomly. All questions have the vague possibility of being answered sometime in the future of this fic…
LoonyLoopyLisa – Thanks. And yes, milk, ew. I don't like the stuff…
Kaaera – Somewhat disturbing, yes. I don't even want to imagine it…oh wait, I did. Well, I don't know why you were thinking about it, but you got me thinking about the answer. I think it's just that the milk permeated every available space, even in drawers. And no, Tom is definitely not Voldemort.
DeppDRACOmaniac – Thanks!
DoD – Thank you! Well, the story is headed into the great unknown, places of Death, rubber baseball bats, certifiably insane vampires, more milk, evolving cheese, and more randomness. Also, I do hope you keep reviewing; it's always fun to read and reply to them!
ISC – Hopefully curious enough to keep reading…?
Luna Imbrium – Thank you!
Silver Sparklze – Then you shall find out.
TheSniggleRulz – That's a good question, where did the milk come from…hm…I'll have to look into that! Yep, milk is very evil, I agree. Well, your English seems to make sense to me…
Thanks again guys, and I hope you'll review again. Next chapter involves Harry and Tom…
Please review.
S. Wolf