"Neville looked astounded and grabbed the mote Harry was brandishing." –Moonprincess92, "Of Octopuses, Scandal and Dragons"

"Harry, you're right!" he exclaimed, after a moment's examination of the almost invisible speck between his thumb and forefinger. "This is it! This is the Mystic Dust Mote of Urquhart the Untidy, said to bring unlimited power to whoever holds it! Lost for six hundred years after his wife cleaned his study, and now it's resurfaced here at Hogwarts! Harry, this is brilliant!"

"Isn't it?" said Harry with a grin. "No more practising counter-curses or hunting for Horcruxes; the next time Voldemort shows his ugly face, we just brandish the Mote at him, and – boom!"

"BOOM!" Neville echoed enthusiastically, stretching out his arms at full length, his fingers outspread for full dramatic effect.

Then his eyes suddenly widened with horror, and he jerked his elbow back into the acute and stared frantically at his entirely un-dusty finger. "Urk…"

Harry's jaw dropped. "Neville, you didn't…"

"No, it's all right, Harry!" said Neville, dropping to his hands and knees and running his eyes frantically over the floor. "It has to be here somewhere, it… oh, Gwydion's underdrawers, why do we need shag carpeting in the common room anyway?… it can't have flown very… no, Hermione, get away with that vacuum cleaner!"

"She had pretty much got the Bellatrix decease, Andromeda thought, smiling darkly." –Mia-Zeklos, "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black"

"I just don't get it," Narcissa murmured. "How could Bellatrix have died, just… just like that? She was fine when we went to bed last night, and now…" She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense."

"Oh, I don't know," said Andromeda. "If you look at it another way, her decease is perfectly natural. After all, she did have her nightly glass of tea before retiring – and she had been making typically hateful remarks about Muggle-borns earlier that evening…"

"What?" Narcissa's eyes widened. "You don't mean… Andromeda, you can't mean…"

"And," Andromeda continued, with merciless emphasis, "she did have a sister who was in the kitchen while her tea was seething; whose skill and subtlety in potion preparation remains a Hogwarts legend; and who will permit no-one – no-one – to insult her fiancé in her presence, either specifically or generically." She fixed her sister with a darkly meaningful stare. "Get it yet, Cissy?"

Narcissa swallowed. "Got it."

"Good."

"Oh, because marauding around the place wrecking havoc isn't what you do?" –gpfs17, summary to "How to Become a Rebel"

"You did slip the stuff in, right?" Avery whispered to Mulciber.

Mulciber nodded. "Don't worry, Nick," he whispered back. "As soon as Slughorn's cauldron comes to a boil, this dungeon and all of Hogwarts will be engulfed in all the havoc that Dumbledore's worst enemy could wish."

Avery grinned, and the two of them fixed the steaming cauldron with expectant stares. Any minute now…

Then, unexpectedly, the doors of the dungeon burst open, and Sirius Black, incongruously garbed in a black bolero, mask, and cape, ran into the Potions classroom, leapt onto Eloise Braddock's desk, and thrust his wand out toward the cauldron. "Accio Crushed Cydia Moths!" he shouted – and, with a hissing spurt, five nearly-dissolved insect carcasses shot from the mass of simmering fear philtre and careened straight toward the young Gryffindor, who whipped off his hat and caught them all neatly on its brim.

Slughorn paled. "Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed. "Merlin's… how did those get in there?"

He was answered almost immediately, as Avery, despite Mulciber's frantic elbow in his side, blurted out, "You wrecked it!"

"But of course, Señor," Sirius replied in an affected Spanish accent, returning the bolero to his head as he spoke. "Eef 'Ogwarts ees een need of 'avoc, El Padfoot weel provide eet, not vosotros serpientes censurados."

"Do you mean to say," said Slughorn, aghast, "that these two really tried to… that they… well, I'm dashed! Mr Avery, Mr Mulciber, a month's detention for each of you, and thirty points apiece from Slytherin! And the same number to Gryffindor, Mr Black, for your prompt and decisive action."

"Gracias, Profesor," said Sirius with a bow. "And now I must return to la Historia Mágica, before Señor Binns misses a dashing young hidalgo from his class. Farewell and adieu to you, fine English ladies!"

And he leapt back down from the desk and vanished again into the corridor, leaving no trace of his passing except a glowing P on the dungeon door.

"Ok, the first thing we need to do is practice our harem skills." –Rorschach's Blot, "Hermione the Harem Girl"

"Ah," said Ok Taecyeon. "Well, is it all right if we rehearse while you're doing that? We have a concert in Taegu on Friday, and we need to get some new songs worked out."

"Of course," said Hermione. "That's why we're doing it here: so as to have a properly Oriental musical setting while we hone our powers of polygamous intrigue. Do you know Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade'?"

"No."

"Mm. Well, anyway, do try and play in some nice, connivingly lubricious key, would you?"

"Oh, yes," said Taecyeon vaguely. "Yes, fine."

He turned back to the stage, murmuring an indefensible generalisation about Occidental womanhood; Hermione, in her turn, rotated to face her own companions. "Okay, girls!" she said brightly, as the members of 2PM began to tune up behind her. "Let's back-stab!"