The Fidelius charm was complex, complicated to engage, and interrupted by the belated arrival of an Irish Setter who rehominified into Josh Bonhomie.
"Sorry, dude," he said. "Got arrested."
"Again?" asked Trent.
"This drunk-ass dwarf thought it'd be cool to pick a fight," he said. "So of course I must be the bad guy, right? And all I did was hold the little fucker at arm's length while he tried to swing at me."
Eiram wondered what the dwarf could have been thinking. Josh was not Hagrid's size, but he was close enough. To a dwarf he might as well have been Hagrid.
"Gawain must have given you some shit for that," Kingsley said.
"Oh no, he let me spend the night in lockdown," said Josh.
"I'd take Muggle jail over Gawain," said Tonks.
"Yeah," said Josh. "But then he gave me shit. For, like, hours."
Tonks and Kingsley winced.
"When are you going to learn?" Josh mimicked a curmudgeonly Welsh accent. "This is the third time this year! I don't care about your cover, you're meant to be an Auror! Next time you get taken in, you use your phone call on your mates in Princesses of the Happily Ever After Days and you better hope you can make a living on stoner rock and pub brawls because you'll be through at the Ministry!"
"Ah, that's bollocks, anyway," said Tonks.
"He knows he'd never sack you," Kingsley agreed.
"Nah," said Josh. "I'd make a better living on stoner rock, anyway, if I didn't have the day job. He'd hate that."
Josh was shortly introduced to Eiram and Diogenes and brought up to date. The Fidelius charm remained complex and complicated to engage, but there were no further interruptions and it was completed by midnight.
"Until Twiggy gets the corridor SEPed," said Trent, "it's probably better that everyone doesn't leave all at once, in case there are students roaming around when they shouldn't be."
"Or Filch is lurking in the corners to catch them," said Hagrid. "But if no one minds, I'll be off--I'm weaning an orphaned chimaera cub, you know, and she tends to burn up the curtains when she misses her ba-ba, the poor thing."
"Hagrid," said Josh. "Dude, what are you doing with a chimaera? You know their eggs are Class A Non-Tradable."
"She was already hatched when I found her!" Hagrid protested. "Sweet little dear was all alone and cryin' for her mummy--I couldn't just leave her."
"Come on, brah," Josh said. "You had to have smuggled her into the country. They're only native to a few places around the Mediterranean. It's not like I'm going to turn her in, but the DRCMC will have a friggin' cow if they find out, and the disposal committee will send MacNair after her."
"And imagine if MacNair shows up and finds Witherwings, too," added Tonks. "He wouldn't even care if it really wasn't Buckbeak."
"I'd show that MacNair what he can do with his axe if he ever comes creeping around my house again," said Hagrid. "Believe me."
"You might not have a house for him to creep around if you're going to keep a chimaera in it," said Kingsley.
"Really, Hagrid," said Minerva. "It's one thing to keep making pets of viciously dangerous beasts, but must you insist on flammable pets? Hasn't your house been burned down enough?"
"It wasn't any magical creature what burned down my house last time," said Hagrid. "And she's only a baby."
"That's all besides the point," Minerva said. "And your house won't be any less burned down just because she didn't mean to do it. Can't you keep her in Grawp's cave?"
"He'd eat her," said Hagrid. "Look, I've got a couple of NEWT students this year; I'm gonna have 'em work with Crystal, help bring her up so she can survive, and then at the end of the year I'll..." Hagrid sniffed. "I'll take her back to Arezzo."
"You can't take her to Arezzo," said Trent. "Chimaerae are banned in Italy. They're banned everywhere outside Greece."
"Well, that's where I found her," said Hagrid. "She wouldn't be happy in Greece; it's not her home."
"She probably won't mind," said Remus. "She won't remember much of Italy, and she'll probably love Greece after growing up in the Scottish Highlands."
"Pah, Greece," Hagrid snorted. "There's nothing in Greece except hairy men, air pollution, and penises."
"That's just Athens," said Diogenes. "You wouldn't take her there, anyway."
"There are pretty little islands in the Aegean," said Eiram. "You could find her one of those."
"Maybe even a nice little uninhabited volcanic island of her very own," said Twiggy.
"But then she'd get lonely," said Hagrid.
"We'll work something out," said Trent. "But come on, I'll walk with you to the stairs."
Hagrid nodded glumly.
"Oh hey," Trent said to the others, "there are towels and stuff if you guys want to hang out in the hot tub. Just, whoever's last to leave, remember to turn it off or it'll be a sauna in here by our next meeting."
He ushered Hagrid out. Everyone else stretched and gravitated to the bar. Arranged neatly on the counter were a sandwich tray, a crudite tray, a fruit tray, a bowl filled with mini-Snickerses and mini-Twixes, an ice chest filled with assorted sodas and bottled water, and a box of corn starch. There were several family-sized bottles of hard liquor and the fridge was filled with juice and beer.
Eiram fixed a plate of celery and cantaloupe. She would have liked something with a few more carbohydrates in it, but the Catering elves would not have known she was vegetarian, and had only provided cold cuts. Diogenes handed her a shot of tequila, with a look that suggested it was in her best interest. He glanced at her plate and tapped it with his wand. A white-cheddar-on-grilled-sourdough appeared. He walked over to Remus and Tonks before she could thank him and straightaway fell into animated conversation with them.
"Hey!" said Josh, coming up beside her with Twiggy. "I did see her when we played Columbiahalle. Got a pretty nasty elbow in the throat from the big guy right in front of me."
Eiram nodded. She'd had the bruise for weeks. She'd also been punctured several times by the railroad spikes that passed for facial piercings with the crowd filling that pit. It had probably been the most violent show she'd ever been to, until a month or so later, when Seven Inch Staples had played the same venue. She had promised herself that she would watch from the balcony, and she should have. Someone had leapt from it and landed on her instead.
She wondered if Maynard were going to turn up next.
A phone booth fell from the ceiling and crashed through the coffee table. It was impossible to tell who was in it through the dense cloud of smoke within, but this dissipated when the door slid open and revealed a couple of men in jeans and flannels, neither of whom were Maynard Ivory Wayans, though they were about his age.
"Dude!" said the short blond man. "We got backstage again!"
"Most excellent!" said the tall dark-haired man.
They laughed and did sort of a high-five, low-five, pinky-link thing. "Party!" they cried, and stepped towards the bar.
A cloud of flies descended from the hole in the ceiling and deposited a third man on top of the phone booth. He wasn't Maynard, either. He was Studebaker Hoch (he came with an caption box that identified him and disappeared), and he was wearing briefs, aluminum-foil wings, and about a gallon of Aunt Jemima syrup.
He tried to stand up, hit his head on the ceiling, and fell off the phone booth.
"God damn it," he said. "How many fucking times do I have to tell you two to stay the fuck out of my fucking phone booth?"
"Dude," said the dark-haired man to the blond. "We're so busted."
"In," said Studebaker. "Now."
They hung their heads and slunk back into the phone booth.
"Sorry," said Studebaker. "Fucking Bill and Ted. It just had to be a fucking phone booth..."
He stormed into it after them and beckoned the flies to follow. When they were all inside, he closed the door and the phone booth rose shakily back into the air, wobbled a bit, then shot up through the hole in the ceiling.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"Reparo," said Minerva firmly, pointing her wand at the coffee table, which rebuilt itself.
"Yeah," said Remus, pointing his wand at the ceiling. "Reparo."
"I think I'd better get going," said Kingsley. "Have to stop in at the Ministry before I go to the office tomorrow."
"I'll go with you," said Tonks. "I have to be in early, too."
Remus glanced from her to Diogenes.
"Oh, it's all right," said Tonks, cheerfully. "Catch up a bit with your godson."
"I'll see her home," said Kingsley. "Don't worry."
"I'll go, then, too," said Moody. "I'm ready for bed. Be sure to stagger yourselves in twos or threes at least fifteen minutes apart."
Another fifteen minutes, then, though Eiram, who had been about to ask Moody to guide her to her room. She sighed. With luck, Minerva would be in the next group to leave.
Moody, Tonks and Kingsley swept out. The Weasleys went into the next room to get the hot tub going. Remus and Diogenes sat down with a bottle of whiskey. Eiram remained standing near the bar, still holding her plate and her shot of tequila, with Josh and Twiggy. Minerva joined them.
"No early morning for you?" she asked Josh.
"Oh gods, no," he said. "Gawain won't want to see my face for at least another month, and that suits me just fine. I'm giving Molly and Arthur exactly fifteen minutes alone, and then I'm hitting the hot tub with the coldest beer in that ice chest. You in?"
"Oh no," Minerva said, fighting back a smile and losing. "I'm leaving as soon as those fifteen minutes are up."
Yay! thought Eiram.
"Come on, Kitty," Josh said, batting his eyes.
"Stop that, Joshua," she said, sternly. "I have classes to teach in the morning."
"So does Twigs, and he's not going anywhere. Come on, you know you want to. Eiram, what about you?"
"Not me," she said. "I'll be clinging to Minerva's sleeve all the way to my room."
"See, Kitty," said Josh. "You have to stay. Don't you want to see my new tartan boxers?"
"As much as I would like to," she said. "No. And don't Kitty me."
"Kit-ty," he said, rubbing his cheek along hers.
"No," she said, blushing. She slapped him on the shoulder, but not very hard.
Twiggy caught Eiram's eyes and leaned his head very slightly towards the other side of the room. She nodded just as slightly, and they quietly eased themselves away from the bar and towards the fireplace.
"He thinks he's playing around," said Twiggy. "But he's totally in love with her. One of these days she's going to give in, and he won't know what hit him."
Eiram could see that. She could also see that the day might not be long in coming.
"How are you holding up?" he asked.
"Is it fifteen minutes, yet?"
"Aw," he said. "You're really not going to hang out with Josh and me? And the Weasleys?"
"I can't," she said. "I'm not even on autopilot anymore. I'm starting to hallucinate."
"No, no," he said. "The telephone booth thing really happened. And Minerva and Josh really are flirting."
"I didn't even mean that," said Eiram. "I meant your dress and your tights keep changing colors."
"Oh," he said. "Yeah, I guess they aren't really doing that."
"I can't believe you aren't dead on your feet, too," she said.
"I am," he said. "But I've had a lot of practice. Anyway I haven't seen Josh since we were on tour together."
Eiram nodded. She would have liked to seen them when PotHEAD opened for SIS, but that had only been on a leg through the US.
"So are you going to tell me about Diogenes?" he asked.
"There's nothing to tell," she said. "Nothing you don't already somehow know. He broke up with me, I wasn't happy about it, and you saw the state I was in a couple days ago."
"And now he's here, which puts a little damper on my hopes of making you forget about him."
Eiram didn't answer. It was, however, one thing to have a rock star she'd always had a little rock star crush on show up at the door just as she was falling apart over the long-distance ex-boyfriend she had wanted to marry and have rabbits with, and another thing altogether to find herself living in a castle with both of them. Given the circumstances, it would be beyond the realm even of parody to just suddenly be in love with someone she scarcely knew and never pine for the one she had never wanted to lose.
But that line of thinking was getting too serious, so the rest of the fifteen minutes flew by, and Minerva announced that she was leaving and shook Josh's arm off her shoulder. Diogenes, who had dozed off on the couch, started and shook his head.
"Ooh," he said. "I think I have to call it a night, too," he said.
"And me," Eiram said, before Remus could beat her to it. Both Diogenes and Twiggy frowned at her. "Please, Twiggy," she whispered to him. "It's got nothing to do with him."
Twiggy nodded acquiescence, but also very deliberately closed off his mind. He had not been absently projecting before that, so the conscious control over his thoughts told her clearly that he didn't really believe her.
She was too tired to hassle with it. She said goodnight and met Minerva and Diogenes at the door.
Diogenes thought it had to do with him, too, which she thought was amazingly unfair, as she had planned to leave in the next group before she had any idea he would do the same. He stayed on the other side of Minerva all the way to Eiram's room, which was the first they reached.
I didn't plan that, either, she thought as clearly as she could in Diogenes' direction. "Goodnight," she said. "Thank you, Minerva. I swear one of these days I'll figure out how to get here on my own."
She picked up an image of Diogenes guiding her through the halls. Diogenes himself narrowed his eyes and stepped a little further away from her.
Great, she thought.
"It's no trouble," said Minerva. "I believe in the entire history of Hogwarts, only Fred and George Weasley have been able to find their way everywhere in this castle without a map. Sleep well."
Eiram slipped inside gratefully and went directly to bed without so much as taking off her boots. She might have been asleep before her head reached the pillow.
---------
She woke, feeling unreasonably warm. This was most likely because someone had drawn a quilt over her, and the quilt was held tight by the men lying on top of it to either side of her. She was facing Twiggy; her head was on his shoulder, and his other arm was draped across her waist. She was fairly sure it was Josh behind her, and sleeping on her hair, because he wasn't snoring, and Diogenes did. Also he just felt really big, and Diogenes wasn't much taller than her and he was rather slight.
She sat up hurriedly.
It was Josh. He didn't stir. Twiggy did, however.
"Mmrph," he mmrphed, glancing around and determining that it was still dark. "We don't have to get up, yet, do we?"
"Twiggy," she whispered. "Why are you and Josh in my bed?"
"Er," he said. "We're not. We're in my bed."
"How much did you two drink last night?" she asked.
"Well, a lot," he told her. "But this is still my bed."
"Then what am I doing in it?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said, sitting up, himself, "but you looked so exhausted we didn't want to wake you. We figured we'd just go camp in your room, but the door wouldn't open for us, so we decided the time-honored tradition of sleeping on top of the covers would have to do."
Josh rolled over, rolled back, then shot to his feet, his wand appearing out of nowhere. "Oh," he said shyly, noticing Eiram and Twiggy watching him. "Hey Eiram. Whatcha doing in Twiggy's room?"
"I thought it was my room," she said.
"Aw, dude," he said. "This is nowhere near your room. You're up a few flights and way the hell on the other side. There aren't even any secret shortcuts between here and there."
"Um," she said. "Well unless I walked in my sleep, this is where Minerva brought me."
Josh laughed and laughed. "No fucking way," he said, finally. "But that explains it. Oh, Kitty, you are mine, now."
"Dude," said Twiggy. "You going to elaborate on that?"
"I whispered in Minerva's ear just before she took off that if I only had a good excuse not to crash on your floor, I would sneak up to her room as soon as you went to bed."
Eiram and Twiggy said nothing.
"Hell of an excuse, too," Josh continued. "To tell the truth, I can't believe I missed it. But it never occurred to me that she would actually want me to..." He looked thoughtful. He peered at his watch. "Hah," he said. "It's not even two, yet." Without another word, he left.
Eiram and Twiggy looked at each other.
"I'm going back to sleep," she said.
"Do you want to get up for breakfast?" he asked, reaching for a wind-up alarm clock.
"Fuck breakfast," she said. "I don't want to be awake one minute sooner than it takes me to get from here to my classroom."
"I'll scourgify you in the morning," he said, tapping the clockface just below the 8.
"You have to show me that one," she murmured, laying herself down and drawing the quilt to her chin.
"Okay," he said, replacing the clock on the night stand and sliding back next to her. "You could put your head on my shoulder again," he said.
She did. It had been very comfortable. It still was. She closed her eyes and counted two thirds of a sheep.
Disclaimer: The character Studebaker Hoch, his phone booth, and his flies were introduced in "Billy the Mountain", and therefore belong to the estate of Frank Zappa. Bill and Ted belong to whoever was responsible for that Excellent Adventure movie and its sequel.