Episode Four: The Morning After.
Draco was feeling rather hungover when he eventually woke up the next morning. He made his way downstairs, only to see Hermione sneaking down the hallway in her bathrobe. She didn't meet his eye, just carried on towards the bathroom.
"You going to be long in there?"
"I will never be clean again," she replied dramatically, before closing the door.
Draco smirked, pleased that he wasn't the only one suffering, then headed for the kitchen to get some painkillers.
***
In the living room, Harry and Ron were hunched over the Scrabble board, engrossed in a game of rude-word Scrabble. They weren't paying the blindest bit of notice to the conversation that Snape and Dumbledore were having on the far side of the room. In fact, Ron only took his eyes from the game to eat more of his breakfast. He was eating cereal, but having seen the state of all the bowls in the kitchen he'd decided to do without one. He was currently pouring Cheerios directly into his mouth, then pouring milk in after them. Harry, who had fared slightly better in the kitchen, was scooping up Weetabix from a butter dish using a spatula. Draco, on the other hand, was extremely interested in the teachers' conversation and was standing in the kitchen doorway, so he could eavesdrop properly. The glass he'd been about to use for his alka seltzer was too filthy to drink from, but still managed to be useful as a listening aid when pressed against the dividing wall.
"Look Dumbledore," Snape was saying, "I know perfectly well that you're capable of a small degree of wandless magic and all I'm asking is a simple memory charm!"
"Memory charms are notoriously... Could you move out of the way, I think Tad is about to propose." Snape glowered, but obligingly stepped aside to give Dumbledore an unobstructed view of 'All My Children'. Seemingly ignorant of Snape's wrath, Dumbledore continued. "Memory charms are notoriously unreliable without a working wand, Severus. Or do I need to remind you of our erstwhile Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
"The one under the stairs humming 'The Girl From Ipanema' or the one doing things I'd prefer not to think about in the basement?"
"Gilderoy Lockheart."
"Oh. Him."
"You see? A wandless memory charm could turn both you and Miss Granger into gibbering simpletons!"
Snape muttered something under his breath about Lockheart being a gibbering simpleton to begin with, but didn't argue.
"So practice on somebody else first," suggested Draco, strolling around the corner.
"What do you mean?" asked Snape in a voice that suggested he was torn between annoyance that Draco had been eavesdropping on a very personal subject and relief that there might be a way out of his predicament.
"All you need" Draco told him, "is a person who's not all there to begin with."
Dumbledore and Snape both eyed him up thoughtfully.
"I didn't mean me!" said Draco, stamping his foot.
***
"I can't take it anymore!" Hermione was frantically telling the cameras in the diary room. "It's the house's fault! Nothing would have happened if I hadn't felt so claustrophobic. Stuck in here together day after day, getting more and more tense, it's no wonder I snapped! And the drink's to blame too! Those margaritas were definitely suspect. I bet there was still a layer of eye of newt stuck to the insides of that blender! Wow, I bet a research paper on the effects of combining eye of newt with tequila would really..." She stopped herself, mid-academic fantasy and resumed her hysteria. "Anyway, that's not important. The point is, I have to get out!"
***
"Boobies. Eighteen points," said Ron. He was turning out to be rather better at rude word scrabble than the regular kind. Draco, Snape and Dumbledore had gone into the kitchen, apparently plotting something, and the boys had the living room to themselves, with the exception of Quildemort, who had stomped in a few minutes ago and was now sat on the couch, deeply engrossed in Saturday morning children's television on Channel Five. Well Quirrell was at any rate, Voldemort appeared to be asleep, certainly he was snoring loudly.
"It's your go Harry."
"I know, I had a really good one lined up for the triple word score and I can't remember what it was."
"So put something else down."
"No, I want to remember the good one. Cheaters shouldn't prosper."
"I wasn't cheating!" Said Ron, indignantly.
"Not you, him!" Harry gestured in the direction of the sofa.
"What, Quirrell?"
"No Voldemort."
"But he's asleep! He's snoring!"
He is not!" Said Harry, vehemently. "He's singing 'The Girl from Ipanema' in Parseltongue!"
Ron listened, but the hissy noises turned to raucous snorts with a suddenness that was rather suspect. He was about to suggest insulting Voldemort to see if they could make him admit he was awake, when his attention was drawn to the window.
"What on earth is Hermione doing?"
Harry followed Ron's gaze to the front gate.
"Oh no! She's trying to escape again. Come on!"
Both the boys abandoned the Scrabble board and ran out the front door towards Hermione.
Voldemort waited until both the boys had definitely left the room again before opening his eyes. He was unnerved to find an unblinking, demented stare less than an inch away from them.
"Ginny, this is an invasion of my personal space."
"But Tommy! I only feel safe around you!"
Voldemort's obscene reply was forestalled by Ginny being abruptly yanked from the room. Draco had decided that a lasso made of two dressing-gown belts tied together would be much easier than trying to talk Ginny into the kitchen.
***
"Hermione stop doing that."
ZAP!
"Please Hermione. It can't be that bad."
ZAP!
"Look, you know full well we can't leave the house."
ZAP!
"Stop electrocuting yourself! It's pointless!"
ZAP!
Hermione's hair, which had been pretty space-consuming to start with, was now standing out from her head like a frazzled afro. She had a wild look in her eyes and had opened the front gate, throwing herself towards the street and being repeatedly driven back in a cloud of green sparks.
"Must!"
ZAP!
"Escape!"
ZAP!
"This!"
ZAP!
"House!"
ZAP!
She was thrown back once again and instead of continuing to zap herself, she settled for lying on the lawn in a foetal position, sobbing. After a moment, Ron and Harry picked her up and carried her inside. She was starting to get weird looks from the neighbours.
In the kitchen, Draco and Snape had manhandled Ginny into one of the kitchen chairs and were readying her for Dumbledore's memory spell.
"So you're saying it'll be a weaker version of the normal spell? What's the point of that? She's absent-minded enough already. This way she'll just be bonkers with Alzheimers!"
"No," said Snape patiently. "It'll just wipe some of her most emotionally draining memories. Which actually works out better from our point of view."
"Because if the spell erases her memories of the basilisk, then it means the spell will erase your wiggiest memory."
"Exactly Mr Malfoy. Ten points for Slytherin."
"And you won't remember getting drunk and going all Gary Glitter on the mudblood." Draco finished.
"Fifty points from Slytherin," said Snape, trying to stop himself from drowning Draco in the nearby jar of pickled newt eyes.
"OBLIVIATE!" said Dumbledore impressively holding out his hand towards Ginny, who promptly slumped into unconsciousness. "Can I go now? Xena is on."
***
When Dumbledore and Draco returned to the living room, Hermione was lying on the couch with Ron and Harry in frantic attendance.
"Please Hermione, tell us what's wrong."
"Are you both totally bonkers?" Draco asked. "She's all hysterical because she spent last night in an orgiastic frenzy with Snape."
"Don't be stupid, Malfoy," said Ron, witheringly. "That was just a joke. As if Hermione would really have anything to do with Snape!"
"Is that what you think?" Draco smirked. "Because my room's directly above theirs and I distinctly heard her yell out 'Spank me, Daddy! Make me... OOF!"
Hermione had got up from the couch with alarming speed. Before Draco could finish the sentence, he'd been pinned against the wall in the hallway, with Hermione's hands wrapped around his neck, severely impairing his ability to breathe.
"They do not know. They will not know. You will shut up." Hermione's enunciation was worryingly good for a person who was speaking without ungritting their teeth.
"Fine," Draco squeaked. "But you should be nicer to me if you want to know what Snape's planning."
Hermione reluctantly loosened her grip. "Why, what's going on?"
"He's made Dumbledore try out a wandless memory charm on Ginny to see if it's safe to wipe both your memories about last night." When she didn't step away immediately, Draco pressed his advantage. "Probably just as well considering your nympho tendencies. Less than twenty four hours later and you've got me up against a wall. You'd give Freud nightmares, Granger. Are you trying to work your way through the whole of Slytherin house? Because Voldemort's in the living room and he'd be more than happy to… OOF!"
Hermione smiled nastily down at Draco's crumpled from and walked victoriously back into the living room to watch TV.
***
By the time the closing credits of Xena were running, the group in the living room had almost forgotten about Ginny. So there was some surprise when she entered the room with an unusual look of clarity in her eyes.
"Has anyone noticed that this place is disgraceful? And that stench..." Ginny took in the state of the living room, ignoring Hermione, Snape and Dumbledore who were looking at her expectantly. "What this house needs is some structure. I'm surprised I haven't noticed this before."
With those rather ominous words Ginny strode from the room, stepping over the unconscious Draco and up the stairs. What no one dared say to her retreating form was that most of the wreckage in the house had been caused by her psychotic episodes. What was also left unsaid was the fact that the permanent ammonia smell in the house was solely Snape's fault. The room collectively decided that both facts were best left un-addressed for the time being. They were more concerned with how coherent Ginny had seemed, and way it had somehow sent shivers down their spines.
"This is not good," Harry managed.
***
"The Weasley Manifesto?" Harry looked at Ron who was sitting on his bed reading the copy of the document he'd nicked from the Diary Room. Ron gave Harry a blank look from behind the paper, and rolled onto his stomach for more comfortable reading. The pamphlets had arrived out of nowhere, pinned to every door in the house like an extremely warped parody of Luther's doctrine. Upon further reading they found that the manifesto, penned by Ginny Weasley, was a terrifying declaration that had the household describing Ginny as a mixture of Karl Marx's ideology, Charles Manson's charisma, and Anne Robinson's sadism.
The room was silent for a moment while the boys read with a mixture of awe and horror. Ron was the first to break the silence, asking, "Harry, what does she mean 'The history of all hitherto house shares has been the history of class struggles marked by disorder'?"
"I dunno, this is starting to scare me," Harry said, putting the document down. Ron looked into his best friend's eyes and shuddered. "You haven't got to the part where she says she's going to make the basement bathroom part of the normal daily rota."
Harry gaped.
"Where does it say that?"
Ron motioned toward a paragraph on the third page. "Right here... 'The primary objective of house share socialism and the revolutionary proletariat is the abolition of private property, for it is this that keeps them from living up to their full potential. For the better of the house share all property must be made available, be it in the basement or the yard. A standard of living has to be maintained or those suffering the abuses of the former regime will never be relieved.'"
"What else does she say?"
"Alcohol is banned, Sirius and Remus have to share in household responsibilities, records from the diary room have to become public property and the room locked from further use. Harry, we have to get out here."
Seeing the manic look that had entered Ron's eyes, Harry nodded in solemn agreement. They were not able to form a plan, however, because Draco took that opportunity to burst into the room with a smirk on his face.
"Has anyone ever told you that your entire family is terrifying, Weasley? Tell the truth, was your house built on a toxic waste dump or is it just the result of inbreeding?"
"Shut up, Malfoy. We have more important things to do than bicker with you," Harry said with a frown as his friend seethed beside him. "Ginny's become a monster."
Draco shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant way. "I'd have to agree that there are better things to do right now than to goad Weasley, there are more lucrative matters at hand."
"Lucrative?" Ron managed to sputter through his rage. "You mean you're not planning to run for the border like the rest of us?"
"Let's just say I'm connected," the blonde drawled before grinning at the two confused boys. "I think that living under the rule of your sister is going to work out just fine. Let's just say that I'm not in your 'revolutionary proletariat', Malfoys have a class of their own."
When the Slytherin boy had left the room after that cryptic remark Ron muttered, "Yeah, class of fungus. He's mental."
Harry threw himself back on the bed and glared up at the ceiling. "This is horrible. What the hell is a proletariat?"
"The poorest class of working people. If I'm not mistaken, Ginny's read the Communist Manifesto," Hermione offered from the doorway through which Draco had just left.
"I didn't think Ginny had been in a fit state of mind to read a cereal box for a very long time, " Harry admitted.
Ron looked thoughtful.
"She got awful megalomaniacal after the diary thing. The whole summer after our second year she read a lot of thick books and took notes. Hermione, what's a Communist?"
"Is the entire wizarding world as dense as you, Ron?" With a sigh Hermione smoothed her frazzled hair. "Let's just say your sister is becoming a dictator in the grand tradition of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin."
Harry groaned, and sat up looking determined. "We have to escape, but how?"
"There is no escape Harry," Hermione whispered with a haunted look in her eyes. "We're all going to die here."
Then, with a sob, Hermione ran from the room leaving the two boys together in worried silence. "I think I miss Ginny's psychotic episodes already. Hermione used to be the voice of reason, and now she's the nutter."
Ron nodded in agreement. "We're going to have to face our fears and go talk to Ginny. She has to be stopped before she destroys the protective wall between us and the basement."
Suddenly from downstairs there was loud bang followed by a shout that sounded distinctively like, "The next person to blow that bloody dog whistle is getting it jammed where the sun doesn't shine!"
"I think it's too late," Harry moaned as the two made haste for the ground floor to face their fears.
***
Sirius Black was not a happy man. His ears were ringing and every pore in his body was begging him to take hold of the petite redhead and shake her senseless. She'd been harmless when senseless. It was this new return to her senses that was the problem. She'd stormed into the basement, demanded its surrender and then promptly reclaimed the space as part of the house for everyone to use. To add insult to injury, she'd resorted to using a dog whistle to drive him out of bed to help cook lunch.
It would be so easy to just grab her by the whistle hanging around her neck; going back to Azkaban was preferable to being in the fold of the house. Not that he thought he'd get locked up for her murder, he'd be given a medal. That'd clear his name for sure, public service. So lost in this thought, he merely grunted a hello to his godson when Harry entered the room before focusing back on the cooking.
"It smells good down here," Ron said in awe as he trailed in after Harry. When his eyes fell on Sirius, he let out a small whimper and paled. "I think I'm going to throw up."
Harry shot Ron a look and whispered, "Just don't think about the basement, Ron. Think about meals that don't contain eye of newt."
"They never will again," Ginny said matter-of-factly, without looking up from her seat at the kitchen table. "It's unhealthy to have a reliance on something we wouldn't be able to procure for ourselves during situations like war."
"Did she say war?" Ron muttered, before he and Harry took seats across the table from the youngest Weasley.
"We have to be self-sufficient, don't you two have any pride?" Ginny eyed them both suspiciously before looking back down at her clipboard and muttering "though war wouldn't be an option unless I could set up some satellite house shares..."
Clearing her throat, Ginny narrowed her eyes and looked at the boys. "We all have to pull our weight for this house share to succeed and become a super power. Ron, you are assigned the task of splicing the cable so we get all the channels. I need the local access network to keep up on house share politics."
"Erm, Ginny. Isn't splicing cable illegal?" Harry winced under the glare she gave him.
"What's theirs is ours, what's ours is ours." Ginny waved her hand dismissively. "Ron, I know you've not had much experience fixing televisions but I'm sure you can pick it up as you go along. Now go, Harry's assignment is strictly on a need to know basis."
"But I thought everything was public domain," Ron argued as he stood up.
Ginny slammed her fist on the table, then smiled, creepily. "It is, unless I say it isn't. Dimissed!"
When Ron had left the room and his cursing was out of earshot, Ginny smiled at Harry and ignored Sirius who was opening and slamming cabinets like a child. "You see Harry, we have a traitor in our midst."
Harry laughed.
"Who, Draco?"
"How did you know?" Ginny inclined an eyebrow and made a mark on her clipboard. "You're not above suspicion yourself, you know. Are you faithful to Mother House Share?"
Trying not to laugh, Harry nodded. Ginny accepted this and went on.
"If you know anything of activities that go against my policies, you will inform me correct? Good. You are dismissed to help Dumbledore in intelligence gathering."
From his seat at the table, Harry could clearly see that Dumbledore was currently flipping between 'Home and Away' and 'Real World'. Not wanting to anger Ginny, or even have to speak to her anymore, he stood up to leave but Ginny stood up as well.
"You're fighting the good fight, comrade." Hugging him, the mini-dictator nodded solemnly. Then he ran for his life. Sitting back down, Ginny smiled and made another mark on her clipboard. Her regime was off to a good start.
At the stove Sirius started tapping a spatula against the counter top, humming 'Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles' under his breath
***
After spending an hour or so watching TV with Dumbledore, Harry began to feel a little guilty about his promise to keep an eye on Draco and decided to see if he could find him. He eventually tracked him down in the diary room, which appeared to have been refurbished; it now looked like a very small, very cramped, Seventies disco. Draco was inside, drinking with Juan and Rico, the window repairmen.
"What on earth is going on in here?"
"The first rule of business, Potter. 'Where there's a demand, supply it.' Fuhrer Weasley seems to have forgotten that, although, given her family, I suppose it's doubtful that she knew it in the first place. Anyway, she's prohibited alcohol, so there's a demand for speakeasies. Which I'm supplying."
Harry boggled a little at this explanation.
"But Juan and Rico aren't trapped here. They could just walk down the road to the offie."
"Well of course!" said Draco. "Where did you think we got the alcohol?"
Harry rolled his eyes and walked back downstairs. He'd have to warn Ginny of course, but he thought that the inevitable bitchfight could safely wait until after lunch. He entered the living room in time to see Dumbledore yelling "OBLIVIATE!" in Hermione's face. He was about to interfere, but decided that since Hermione now seemed happier than she had all morning, he'd just sit and watch 'The Tribe' instead.
***
Hermione felt better, although now she came to think of it, she couldn't put her finger on just what had been bothering her. Oh yes! Dumbledore had erased one of her memories. That would explain the gap. She frowned a little, wondering what had been so bad that she'd asked to have it pulled from her head, then decided that there were more important matters afoot and she could pick at the edges of the missing memory later. She could hear disco music from upstairs and was about to go up and see what was happening, when the table by the window caught her eye. There was something about the Scrabble board that was setting off warning signals in the gap in her mind. She picked it up decisively and carried it into the kitchen, then tore up the board and fed the pieces into the waste disposal.
There. Much better.
***
Snape swept from the house and into the yard, a dark scowl fixed on his face. "There's no use hiding, I know you're out there Quirrell. I once told you how dangerous I could be as an enemy, show yourself!"
His demands went unheeded, and repressing the urge to stamp his foot the ornery Potions master turned his anger on Hagrid who stood nearby. "Have you seen that atrocity, Quildemort? There is something urgent I need to discuss with him."
The half-giant looked thoughtful for a moment, before looking around the tiny yard. "He ain't here, Professor. Little Ginny had him helping me pick glass out of the garden to fix to the walls, but that were hours ago."
Frowning, Snape turned on his heel to go back into the house as Hagrid called, "Have yer checked the basement?"
His steps faltered and the ever-composed Severus Snape almost tripped into the house. Luckily there was no one around to notice, with the entire household on various errands for the Weasley brat. From the kitchen the unmistakable sound of Sirius cursing, tipped him off that the basement was missing at least one of its deterrents.
Muttering, "He better be down there", Snape slowly walked down the steps to the horror that was known as the basement. Luckily he didn't have to go far, he found Quildemort in the bathroom by the bottom of the stairs. Quirrell had yellow gloves on and was scrubbing the basin and taps, the toilet and the tub looked as though they had received the same treatment earlier. The room fairly sparkled, a huge contrast to the horrors of the rest of the basement.
From the back of Quirrell's head, Voldemort was smirking. "What brings you down here, Severus? Turning your back on another leader?"
"Enough," Snape hissed, his whole face contorting with rage. "I know that you're behind this somehow. There is NO way that girl decided to research muggle political theory on her own."
Voldemort giggled, a girlie sound that made Snape's frown deepen.
"You brought this situation upon yourself. This side of Ginny Weasley was unfortunately fostered by my sixteen year old self. After I abandoned her, she was left to her own devices and found an outlet for the political instincts I'd stirred in Communist writings. You'd never suspect."
"Then how is this my fault?" Snape yelled, losing his patience.
"Considering our situation it was best to leave the girl as the lunatic she was. When the memory of her fear was erased, it left her with nothing from her previous conversations with me, but her desire to take over the world. Since her current world only reaches as far as the walls of this house you're bearing the brunt of it and serve you right, too!" Smiling pleasantly, he added an admonishment. "Potions-position indeed! Really, Severus. She's a student!"
Snape inclined an eyebrow.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Turning around Snape stalked up the stairs, leaving Voldemort very amused. "I hope he doesn't pass that Weasley girl on the way up. I haven't even told her my plan for exploiting her workers, yet."
"Like m-me?" Quirrell asked gloomily.
"Don't be ridiculous," Voldemort told him. "I don't exploit you. Now stop blithering and finish cleaning the toilet!"
***
"What on earth's going on in there?"
The door to the diary room slid open on a chain and Draco's face appeared in the gap.
"What's the password?"
Hermione bit back a comment comparing Draco to the Fat Lady and tried to guess what Draco would have chosen as password.
"Lipstick?"
The door swung open and Hermione smirked. Draco was so predictable.
"I'm not sure I should be letting you have anything to drink, Granger. You might try to ravage me."
"Keep dreaming, Malfoy. The only person who'd have less of a chance with me is Snape."
Draco gave her a weird look, but didn't say anything, so she sat down beside Rico and Juan. They were beginning to see first hand why the windows got broken so often. If they had to live with this lot, they'd jump out of windows too.
***
Eventually, Ginny arrived at the door of the diary room to break up the speakeasy. When Draco had opened it on the chain and asked her for the password, she'd begun a tirade about how bourgeois self-interest was the reason for the collapse of co-operative societies and he was just encouraging things by holding a speakeasy in there.
Draco countered by swearing on his sisters life that it wasn't a speakeasy at all. They were deeply engrossed in bible study.
"You haven't got a sister!" Retorted Ginny. "And religion is the opiate of the masses!"
This would have sounded more impressive if she hadn't been wearing a clip on moustache. Draco mentioned this and got a sour look from Ginny.
"All the world's most innovative leaders have had moustaches," she told him.
"Yeah," said Hermione, sotto voce. "Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein..."
"So you're walking around in a plastic moustache quoting dead Russians? Crazy-you and sane-you have a lot in common." Draco told her.
"I'll have you know I'm very much in touch with reality!"
"Not the reality we're using," said Hermione, firmly. "Yours is a reality nobody's really understood since Stalin."
They were interrupted by Rico's voice coming from the back of the mini-speakeasy. "Meester Draco, can we go now? We have more work to do."
"You'll stay there until you're told to move!" Draco shouted, annoyed at being interrupted mid-bicker. Ginny took exception to this.
"OPPRESSIVE BOURGEOIS PIG! LOOK, ARE YOU GOING TO OPEN THIS DOOR?"
"The door? No." Draco smirked evilly. "But we've got booze in here, so if you'll just fetch us a Scrabble board, Hermione's legs may be...OOF!"
"No! No!" Ginny shouted at them. "It's in the best interests of the revolution to present a united front against our enemies!"
***
From behind the TV all that could be seen of Ron was his ass up in the air, or alternately the top of his shiny, orange helmet. Dumbledore had fallen asleep leaving Ron time to splice the cable as ordered. The problem was that Ron barely knew how to turn a television on, let alone what really made one work. A good ten minutes of fiddling with the plug and the wall socket had taught him that the cable had nothing to do with electricity. It had also taught him, after repeated shocks, that electricity was not his friend.
"Ron, what exactly are you trying to do?" Even from behind the television set Ron could sense the amusement in Lupin's voice.
"I'm trying to dig a tunnel out of this place. What does it look like I'm doing? My freaky sister is making me splice cable."
The couch creaked as his former professor sat down to regard Ron's failure. "Did you ask Hermione how it worked, she's muggle-born, right?"
Ron grunted.
"She's hiding from Snape somewhere, not that I blame her."
Lupin laughed and stared at the blank television screen. "I'd be hiding if I'd drunkenly had sex with Professor Snape, too."
"You mean Draco was telling the truth?" Ron looked over the television set speculatively. "How do you know?"
"We could hear Hermione's very vocal assessments of the situation," Sirius called from the kitchen, causing Remus to laugh again. "Something like 'Ooh, I like bad boys', and so on."
Ducking back behind the television Ron blushed for Hermione. On the motion down his noticed a black wire that went into the back of the television set from the floor. "Professor Lupin, does cable come from the floor?"
"I'm not sure. It's going to obviously be one of the wires that doesn't plug into the wall."
"Obviously," Ron muttered, rolling his eyes. Coming up from the floor was a wire that had been unplugged. Picking it up he put it into an empty space in the TV. Instantly screaming filled the room.
"I THINK IT'S IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE REVOLUTION THAT I KICK HIS ASS!"
"Ron," Lupin ventured, the amused tone back in his voice. "I think you might want to look at this. You, too Sirius."
Coming around the TV to sit on the couch beside the older man, Ron couldn't stop himself from gaping. Somehow he'd managed to connect to the camera in the diary room, which now looked like the bastard child of a John Travolta movie and the Jerry Springer show. Dim lighting barely filtered through the smoky atmosphere of the tiny room, and somehow Draco, Hermione and the two window repairmen were all squashed in with small round tables and various bottles of alcohol. Currently Hermione had her hands around Draco's throat and was beating his head against the nearest wall.
"Help!" Draco managed to gurgle to the two repairmen who ignored him and made hasty exits, muttering about not being paid enough for this. Sirius, who was watching the scene on the television from the doorway to the kitchen was laughing hysterically, clutching his stomach.
"Ron, why does your sister have a moustache?"
Ginny who had entered the diary room after Rico and Juan had unlocked the door was still sporting the daring black moustache in the grand tradition of sketchy leaders. She was now also wearing a small military hat with a red star on the front. Seeing this, Ron buried his face in his hands. "Oh no."
Ginny, who made no move to actually involve herself in the scuffle, stood with her hands on her hips, shouting, "Fighting amongst yourselves is a violation of the manifesto! Treason, borscht for brains! I demand you stop, as leader of the free world!"
What happened next could have been an accident or calculated. Either way Hermione abruptly let go of Draco and dodged to the left, while he struck out hitting Ginny in the face. Or more specifically, in the plastic moustache which became lodged up her nose. Chaos ensued.
Down in the living room, it was generally decided that it would be best if they pretended that they had never seen it. Sirius went back into the kitchen, chuckling, and Lupin followed with a slight smile on his normally serious features. Ron went back behind the television and pulled the plug out, closing the connection with the diary room. He still hadn't managed to splice the cable and giving it one last shot, he took the plug that ran from the floor and plugged it into the wall socket.
ZAP!
No, electricity was not his friend.
***
By the time Ginny had removed the moustache from her nose and recovered from the fainting fit brought on by extreme blood loss, the household had mostly returned to normal. Sirius and Lupin had both retreated to the basement, after persuading the window repairmen to take the dog whistle out of the house with them. There had been some wistful sighs at the loss of the house's best cook, but there were enough leftovers from the truly spectacular lunch Sirius had prepared, that nobody was forced to consume the newt-eye soup that Snape had made for dinner.
When Ginny tottered down the stairs that evening, Harry, Ron, Draco and Hermione were settling down in the living room for the Channel Five Bond movie marathon, consisting, in the true Channel Five tradition, solely of the movies which were either unauthorised or completely crap. The others eyed her mistrustfully.
"We're not taking any more orders from you, Ginny," Harry said, when he saw her sidle into the room.
"I'm not going to give any," said Ginny quietly.
"Good. You really have to get these delusions of yours under control."
"I'm trying," she sniffled. "I sent away for a book to help, but I think the basilisk ate it."
Ron beamed. The basilisk hallucinations were much easier to deal with than the attempts at world conquest.
"That's okay, Gin. Wanna watch crap TV with us?"
"Yes, please."
She walked over to the couch and sat down beside her brother, who gave her a big hug. Draco got up, making loud barfing noises.
"Heartwarming as this is, I don't think my stomach can take it. Granger, can I talk to you in the kitchen?"
Hermione shrugged and followed Draco out the room. From the hallway, she could just hear Harry saying 'Hang on, would this be a big hardback book with a dark green cover? That arrived days ago, but it was addressed to Snape so I hid it to piss him off.'
***
When she entered the kitchen, Hermione's nose was instantly assaulted by the sour smell of the abandoned newt-eye soup. As much as it pained her to admit it, there had been advantages to Ginny's brief reign of terror. Decent food for one thing, and the dishes had all been washed and put away.
"Interesting that Weasel Junior believes in snakes again. The others may be too thick to work it out, but I know what that means."
Hermione scowled at him.
"I don't know what you mean!"
"Come off it, Granger! You gave yourself away, when you started hitting me earlier. Your spell's obviously worn off too."
"No it hasn't! I mean... erm... what spell?"
Draco smirked.
"Nice try. The rest of the house may buy it, but I know the truth. You remember shagging Snape. Now, about the terms of the blackmail...OOF!"
"Tell anybody and I'll finish the job I started on your face."
Draco winced, but seemed to accept this.
"Fine, but I figured you'd be doing the same. Blackmailing Snape for better Potions grades or something."
"I can earn good grades by own hard work. Besides, you don't have to share a room with him," said Hermione, heatedly.
"I used to," Draco reminded her, "but have it your way. No more talking about your vivid memories of Snape's one eyed trouser snake?"
"SNAKE!" Ginny burst in from the hallway, where she'd apparently been listening and made a run for the kitchen cupboard. She flung the door open, only to have a pair of very angry owls burst out and fly at her face in a formation more commonly seen in Hitchcock's 'The Birds.'
She collapsed in a heap on the floor sobbing. Ron came chasing in after his sister, heard her mumbling "Hitchcock! Hitchcock!" under her breath and promptly threw himself out of the kitchen window.
Hermione looked around and shrugged. Rabid denial and general background level craziness, while not exactly what she wanted from life, was a vast improvement on earlier. She could deal.
***
In the cupboard under the stairs, Voldemort grumbled to himself. Someday he would have a protégé worthy of his teaching. He would train somebody up in his image and become immortal, holding the world to ransom.
Of course, he'd have to get his own body back and escape from this sodding house first.
Want to read the Weasley Manifesto?
Why not visit the site?
http://www30.brinkster.com/bunkbeds/
