This fic is dedicated to Lady Alyssa and Random Flatmate/Dent who wrote the awesome 'Bagenders' and gave us permission to rip off some of their work in this fic.

[A short note for the six people who have not yet finished Order of the Phoenix. Do not read this chapter before reading Order of the Phoenix! It will spoil three of the Brand New Characters! It will spoil one of The Relationships! It will spoil The Character Death! It will spoil The Climactic Battle! Most important of all, it will Not Make Any Sense! Finally we should point out that any criticism of Jo Rowling's writing is done with the greatest affection. We have the greatest respect for the woman, but she can be a smidge heavy handed. Also, we should mention that this will be the only OotP influenced chapter in this fic. Next chapter we'll be resuming our status as a wacky AU, we just had to get this out of our system first...]

A Very Special Episode of Bunkbeds

In the diary room, Ginny stared unblinkingly at the camera with very serious expression.

"Hello, everybody. Today is a very special day..."

She pulled an enormous hardback book from a backpack by her feet and laid it open on her lap. As she did so, she displayed a henna tattoo on her arm which read 'Mrs Ginny Thomas'.

"Today we've done something in this house, which we have never dared do before."

Ginny took a deep breath and spoke again.

"We've broken the fourth wall!"

She tossed a copy of 'The Quibbler' and some other assorted crap aside in order to prop the large book on the table. The book was not 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', the book was 'War and Peace'. From downstairs came the sound of screaming.

"WEASLEY, REBUILD THAT SODDING WALL! IT'S FREEZING IN HERE AND I'M TRYING TO WATCH TV!"

Ginny beamed happily at the camera.

"I love Russian literature!"

*****

Harry was in a bad mood. Ron and Draco's fight earlier that morning had taken out a substantial portion of the front wall of the house. As a result rain was pelting into the living room and soaking the inhabitants. The weather had been crappy all week. Hermione had airily explained that this was down to somebody called Jo having an over-reliance on pathetic fallacy and as none of the boys had understood what this meant, nobody had been able to contradict her.

Hermione had been acting more oddly than usual ever since the summer solstice. She'd spent a lot of time ranting to anybody who would listen about how she had a perfect understanding of centaur etiquette and how only a complete idiot could mix up the runes for partnership and defence. Since nobody had been talking about centaurs or runes in the first place this struck everybody as highly suspicious. However, Hermione wasn't the only person who appeared to be losing their grip on reality.

Harry had been asleep in the lounge, surrounded by smarties, when Sirius had emerged from the basement in search of food. Harry had promptly woken and raced across the hall to envelope Sirius in a bone crushing hug.

"I love you. You know that right?"

Sirius was shocked, to say the least, but responded admirably.

"Um... yes?"

Fortunately Sirius escaped from the death grip when Harry began sniffing suspiciously and asked why Sirius smelled of leather and candle wax. Sirius's answer made Harry let go in a hurry and The Boy Who Lived stomped into the living room to berate Draco, instead.

"WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO THROW THINGS AT MY HEAD? I'M FAMOUS DAMMIT! I DEFEATED VOLDEMORT! WHY DOES EVERYBODY DO EVIL STUFF BEHIND MY BACK?"

"I'm throwing them at your face, idiot! And can we take a break from the creepy mood swings? Because you're acting like an even bigger tit than usual."

"OH YEAH? YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!"

Draco opened his mouth as though to deliver a devastating comeback and then paused, looked down at the lapel of his robes as if seeking some missing symbol of authority and then wandered into the garden, looking confused.

Sirius, in the meantime, had completed his foraging mission and made his descent into the basement. Remus, who was sitting cross-legged on the shag carpeting of the terribly out-dated room, looked up at his arrival.

"Sirius," he said quietly. "Have I told you lately that you're my best mate?"

Sirius' mouth twitched. Everyone was acting odd. So he shouldn't have been surprised that when he went to answer, what came out wasn't at all what he had intended. In a cold voice he muttered, "Locked away in this house, not allowed to do anything useful. How can Dumbledore expect me to stay here?"

Remus looked surprised and gave him a look that could probably pass for a leer on the stoic werewolf's face. On anyone else it would have been impassive. Actually, Sirius hoped it was a leer. "I think you're useful."

"I miss Buckbeak," Sirius muttered, nonplussed.

Rolling his eyes, Remus shook his head. "We are not having that discussion ever again."

Instantly Sirius went into super-prat, pouting mode. Knowing that it was best to ignore him in this state, Remus picked up the newspaper and looked through the help-wanted ads and tried to keep optimistic about his unemployed state. Damn that woman and her prejudiced employment laws!

A moment later, Remus looked up from his newspaper, puzzled. What woman?

*****

"Has anybody seen Dumbledore?" Voldemort asked Ron that afternoon.

"You mean he isn't in the living room watching soaps? That's odd."

Voldemort nodded, looking grumpier than usual. (And for a person who is to all intents and purposes pasted onto the back of somebody else's head, that's pretty damn grumpy...)

"The old simpleton keeps leaving post-its lying around the house mocking me. He also keeps addressing me as Tom. I was going to teach him a lesson, but I can't find him anywhere."

"He's hiding out in the attic," said Harry walking in. "I passed him on the stairs, but he refused to meet my eyes. It's beginning to PISS ME OFF!"

"Do you n-need some of Hermione's m-m-midol?"

Harry glared at Quildemort and stalked from the room in a temper. There was nothing good on television, so Ron followed Quildemort upstairs to watch the confrontation with Dumbledore. When they got upstairs, Dumbledore had already left the attic. It was not uninhabited however. Hanging from one of the rafters was a young woman whose short hair kept rapidly changing colours. She was very, very dead. Pinned to the ceiling beside her was a note, which Ron read aloud.

"Dear all,

I'm sorry, I was just too fucking annoying to live. I hereby renounce my boring, trying-way-to-hard, Mary Sueish ways and take the only honourable way out.

Nymphomaniac Knots

P.S. I broke your floor. Sorry about that."

Sure enough there was a big hole in the floor, where Nymphomaniac had put her foot through it. Quildemort knelt down to look through and then reared backwards almost immediately as a paranoid and jittery Pigwidgeon came zooming through the hole from Draco and Ginny's bedroom. It was at this point that the other inhabitant of the attic revealed himself.

As Pig dive-bombed haphazardly amongst the books and piles of boxes, there came a high pitched squeal and a scuffle. The scuffle sounded a bit like drunken tap dancing punctuated by boxes falling over and at the end there was a high pitched, "Nasty owlses! Twinkie hates nasty owlses, hates unnatural beasties! Is that a sock? Owls!"

A tiny house elf staggered from the ruins of the attic, looking dazed. Her knobbly body was covered in several tie-dyed bandanas knotted together and she wore so many sparkly bangles that her arms were no longer visible. Seeing Ron and Quildemort, the little elf smiled dazedly and hoped around. "Twinkie's a good elf, staying put and not touching the nasty owlses. No owlses, ginger hair looks horrible on the nasty boy. Nasty boy! Twinkie's a good elf, yes she is."

Hopping from one foot to the other, the elf seemed oblivious to the hanging body behind it. Catching the confused expressions, the elf launched itself to attach to Quildemort's leg. "Masters! Kind masters, Twinkie hates the ginger hair! It burns! It burns!"

Ron looked uncomfortable. Shoving his hands in his pockets, in what he felt was a nonchalant way, Ron tried to look smooth but quickly gave up and dashed out of the attic searching for the nearest window. Somewhere around the landing he stopped and called up, "Oi! Tom...er... Quildemort! There's another sticky from Dumbledore. It says something about exfoliating yourself off... oh right."

Then the sound of the mad dash continued.

In the kitchen Ginny was fixing some tea for herself, Hermione and Snape. Snape was looking surly and poring over the ledger while Hermione was looking wistfully out into the rain. Every once in a while Hermione would move her gaze from the window to the man sitting opposite, and every time her eyes fell on him, Snape would look up accusingly. Ginny found this entire scene very odd but contented herself with fixing tea and perusing a box of brownie mix. The directions seemed simple enough.

Idly she scratched her right arm on the tattoo that read "Mrs. Ginny Creevy". It was right below the previous one, which had been crossed out in thick henna lines. If anyone had thus far noticed anything amiss, no one was saying anything. Not that Ginny noticed her own behavior. As far as she was concerned, it was everybody else who was acting a bit nutty.

"What has Potter told you?" Snape suddenly shot out, accusingly glaring at Hermione.

Hermione didn't take the bait, only looked at Snape levelly before looking back out the window. "I'm not speaking to Harry at the moment, every other sentence he comes out with is him reminding me how neglected he is and what a bloody hero he is. If I wanted melodrama I'd be watching Soaps with Dumbledore."

"Draco," Ginny supplied. "Dumbledore is out in the garden talking to Hagrid. Since the wall fell in, the only person who's stayed in the living room is Draco. But I wouldn't go in there. He's being right insulting."

"It's Draco, he's always being insulting."

Ginny had to agree; it seemed to be Draco's lot in life to insult. And steal her clothes, but that was another matter entirely.

"That said I don't see why I should subject myself to it. It's bad enough that I'm stuck in this house with a maniac, a mass murderer, a manic-depressive and a house elf with no inner monologue."

As if summoned, Twinkie scurried into the kitchen, bangles jangling. She was followed by Ron, who was still shaking bloodstained pieces of shredded post-it notes out of his hair.

"Do the good masters want food? Twinkie will make food. Twinkie knows that the greasy man tries to poison the other masters with the bad foodses."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"It's like having our very own narrator, she remarked in high dudgeon," said Hermione, trying her own hand at narrating.

"I suspect that will get very annoying, very quickly."

"Remarked Snape," said Hermione, continuing to narrate.

"Hermione, shut up!"

"Ron ejaculated loudly." Hermione paused. "Pretend I didn't say that."

Harry wandered past the doorway for just long enough to remark that Hermione had no idea as she didn't have to share a room with the ginger haired hormone bomb. Ron did the only thing he could do in the circumstances and threw himself out of the window.

"Perhaps Weasley should confine himself to the living room for the foreseeable future?" Snape suggested. "That way, when he feels the urge to throw himself out of the house he can do it through the gaping hole in the living room wall. Honestly, our repair bills must constitute a complete retirement fund for those glaziers."

As a matter of fact, Snape's words were being echoed in the living room, as Rico and Juan sang to themselves while repairing the front wall.

"Weasley is our King,
Weasley is our King,
He bashes all the windows in,
Weasley is our King.

Weasley can break anything,
He always calls the glaziers in,
And that's why we repairmen sing,
Weasley is our King!"

*****

With the living room at least enclosed, if not completely repaired, Ginny ventured into the living room while her Brownies were baking. Twinkie kept dashing around the room, with shifty eyes while muttering about evil ginger hair, owls and something about frolicking kittens. Ginny knew better than to ask and instead focused in on Draco and Harry who seemed all set for a really spectacular row, even by the impressive standards of the houseshare.

"Listen, Malfoy, your dad can rot for all I care!" Harry was already wound up, and the way the verbal sparring was going, there was no way to figure out what had started the entire thing. From the kitchen, Snape had his money on asbestos in the house.

Draco's face looked pinched and instead of a wand he was brandishing the television remote menacingly. "You'll pay for that Potter. Your poncey godfather can't save you forever, no matter what they say about man's best friend!"

"You'd know all about being poncey wouldn't you? Does your lip gloss match your knickers?"

"It takes a real man to wear knickers," Draco snapped back, knuckles white on the remote. "You'll never be that manly."

"WATCH ME!" Harry huffed, shaking with rage. Outside the distant rumble of thunder accompanied a fresh batch of driving rain. Lightning flashed and was reflected in Harry's tumultuous eyes. "I'LL SHOW YOU MANLY. WHY DOES EVERYONE DOUBT ME?"

"Knickers be for girls, masters." Twinkie piped up helpfully as she hopped around the maze of Smarties that had developed on the floor. On her third curcuit she swept up the mess, then continued hopping again. "Knickers are not for Twinkie, no, nasty clothes are tricksy. Yes, made by owlses. Sticky notes are everywhere."

"STOP PATRONIZING ME," Harry shouted at the house elf, who didn't seem at all perturbed. "I want to go and live with Sirius, why are you all always making me suffer?"

With a huff, Harry stomped across the room and exited through the door leading down to the basement. Several minutes passed and he did not return. Malfoy looked mutinously at Ginny who was waiting for her timer to beep in the other room. Feeling as though a petty win was as good a real one, Malfoy smirked at Ginny and said, "Creevey, eh? Sounds about right for the intelligence level of a Weasley."

Ginny, who was in all probability the most in control member of the house at this point, informed Draco scathingly that she was with Professor Firenze these days, then did the muggle equivalent of casting Stupefy. Having chucked her copy of War and Peace at his head, she then went to tend to her brownies as Draco hit the floor unconscious. Alone in the living room, Twinkie glared about the room and started stuffing any spare object left lying around into the folds of her many bandanas. When she tried to make a getaway, all the objects fell through the cloth and onto the floor, but Twinkie didn't seem bothered. She'd seen something shiny and had wandered away.

*****

The comments about frolicking kittens were explained later that day, when Snape, Twinkie and Hermione went upstairs, to clear out Nymphomaniac's corpse and some other junk that appeared to have apparated into the attic while nobody was looking. In addition to a pile of jewelry and silverware that Twinkie promptly claimed as 'her preciouses' they had found an alarming amount of lace doilies, coasters and antimacassars, Anne Geddes merchandise and kitten covered wall hangings.

Hermione was just suggesting that they take it all out into the garden and ask Hagrid to burn it, when Twinkie, seeing this as a potential threat to her stash of sparkly stuff, went charging at Hermione intent on tackling her to the ground. Unfortunately, Hermione had enough experience in dodging flying Weasleys, that she was able to easily sidestep the crazed house elf, who instead went charging into Snape, who fell out of the attic and onto the third floor landing with a large crash. Harry, who was passing underneath and apparently ensconced in one of his manic phases, took a moment to run screaming down the hallway, informing the world at large that although circumstances had brought him a greater understanding of Snape, he was not ready to see his graying threadbare Y-fronts.

When the subject was inevitably revisited later that day, Draco enquired politely whether laundry day had come and gone. Snape informed him that doing laundry involved visiting the basement and since Sirius was stuck inside all day, with nothing better to do, he should do all the housework. Everybody was somewhat nonplussed by this, since they were all stuck in the house all day and had been for some time. Fortunately, Snape avoided further questioning as Harry distracted everybody by bursting into tears at the mention of Sirius's name.

In the end Hermione managed to remove the puke-inducing household accessories from the attic, mostly due to the fact that she was an unusually good sprinter and ran off with them before Twinkie could recover from seeing Snape in his uncharacteristically grotty underpants. She then headed for the back garden, quickly joined by Ron who was shoving as many brownies and pastries into his mouth as was humanly possible. Ginny had baked all afternoon, tidied up all joint living areas after that and was currently ending her day by discussing War and Peace (which she had finished) with Quirrell who was more than a bit shocked to be addressed directly.

"Hagrid?" Hermione queried as she opened the back door. When the turned on the back light and the great half-giant came into view she nearly teared up. She felt as though she hadn't seen him in ages, and that she'd been carrying around a lot of anxiety due to his absence.

Her anxiety abruptly changed source as Hagrid turned to look at them and Ron nearly chocked to death on his brownie. Gasping for air, a more than a little blue in the face, Ron asked, "What truck hit you, mate?"

If it had been a truck, one that had torn through the backyard and not alerted anyone or torn up the garden more than the average Weasley swan dive, it had done nasty work on their friend's face. Both eyes were black, there was a cut on his left cheekbone, his hair was matted with blood, he was limping, his right arm was in a sling and he was wearing a neck brace. Before he could speak he had to spit a bright orange mouth guard out. "Nothing at all to worry about. Just me an' Fang wrestling with that bloody mole that's been ruining the garden."

Hermione took a deep breath, and in a very solemn voice said, "Hagrid. You don't have to cover for him. That's not love."

"If Tina Turner got her life back, so can you." Ron managed this with an entire square of strudel in his cheeks.

As the friends looked at each other with pain-filled eyes, Fang howled mournfully. Fluffy looked at his master with tear filled eyes and overhead the clear sky broke into sheets of rain. Hagrid looked up to the heavens and said, "I can't help it. That mole... he's my brother!"

His cry echoed through the heavens, making Ron fall to his knees in the rain soaked mud.

"No!" He moaned, grasping himself and looking pitiful. "It's not true... THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

Resolutely Hermione dropped the haul from the attic in the grass. She'd known letting the boys watch the Star Wars Trilogy back to back on the television had been a mistake. She just hadn't known how big a mistake it was until Ron took to wearing all black in addition to a single black glove. Added to Harry's delusion that he lived in a teen, made for TV drama and Ginnys new independent woman stance Hermione's life felt comparatively normal. That is, until she went to bed that night and in the darkness found herself engaging Snape in a tirade on how the warped female mind worked.

Not that Snape had minded. Since she wasn't treating him any differently than the others his paranoia was appeased and he was able to sleep.

*****

"This house resembles bedlam more closely than usual," Voldemort groused in the diary room. "It feels like a different reality is trying to imprint itself upon this one. There's no other explanation for Dumbledore's odd behaviour or the fact that Rubeus has spent most of the night trying to get in touch with his roots and I do mean that literally. Do you know what a mess it makes when a half-giant attempts to burrow underneath a suburban lawn?"

Voldemort sighed deeply and Quirrel continued the tale.

"All in all, w-we think something s-s-suspicious is happening. Of the two, I think I p-p-p-prefer predictable chaos!"

"It's possible," said Voldemort, as Quirrel swung the swivel chair around so that his master was facing the camera once again, "that this whole thing is the result of Ginny's last order to Amazon.com. She ordered a job lot of Russian literature while she was still in her dictator phase and large books have a powerful magic all of their own. I think I'll have to confiscate the littlest Weasley's copy of War and Peace..."

Voldemort's evil laugh would have sounded much better if a lungful of dust hadn't turned it into a coughing fit at the last second. The diary room hadn't been cleaned in some considerable time. Ron, who had been down on the cleaning rota, had been more concerned with secretly practicing Quidditch in the garden recently, in spite of the pouring rain. Realising this, Quildemort headed downstairs. Confiscating Ginny's book and reasserting reality could wait until he was done leaving subliminal death threats for Ron lying around in the kitchen.

***

Another morning showed Dumbledore to be MIA and as a result, the house was soap opera free for another entire day. At first no one noticed, as the occupants of the house-share generally walked around like zombies for the first couple of hours each morning before something was destroyed and all adrenaline was restored. It was Hermione who eventually noticed the lack of 1970s soap opera reruns.

Nursing a mug of coffee, she asked, "Where is Dumbledore this morning?"

As she said this, Dumbledore strode out of the pantry majestically, and said, "It is time for me to tell you what I should have told you five days ago, Hermione. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me, to do whatever you like- when I have finished. I will not stop you."

Hermione gave Dumbledore an odd look, but sat down and nobly suppressed the urge to ask him what the hell he had been doing in the pantry with the lights off.

"I have spent the last five days putting off the moment when I must tell you what I know. I've made many mistakes. Was my waiting for the best or was it folly to think you too young?"

Hermione noticed then that no one else was in sight. It was just dawn and pinkish light streaked through the windows to cast dim shadows off her teacup. "With all due respect, Headmaster, five days really wouldn't have changed my perspective on things."

In the early light Dumbledore looked old and tired. "At first I thought of telling you after you tripped Professor Snape to reach the bathroom that morning five days ago. I told myself it could wait, you must have your victory. You seemed so happy then."

"Well, yes," said Hermione. "Because you know how quickly the hot water gets used up in-"

"My next opportunity to tell you came four days ago, when you were trying to persuade Draco not to try building a double bladed lightsaber. At the time I thought keeping the house from burning down was more important. Was I wrong?"

"Probably not." Hermione reassured him. "That thing was a total health hazard. Laser beams in confined spaces are always a bad idea. I thought he'd learned that lesson after the do-it-yourself microsurgery incident, but apparently not."

As the sun rose further into the sky, shadows vanished from the tabletop, like the cheap, atmospheric tools of a hack writer trying to emphasize a moment of revelation.

"Three days ago the front wall of the house came down and caused much strife. You proved yourself time and again; shouting at the boys, demanding Quildemort's silence on the matter and volunteering to call the builders. I'd realized that you were growing into your own. No one else could have put things back in order."

"Save the return of Communist Weasley." Hermione muttered. She was getting frustrated and finally understood Harry's bi-polar mood swings. Absently she wondered where everyone else was, as the sun was reaching full noon.

"Then yesterday," continued Dumbledore, "during the unfortunate incident in the attic where Professor Snape accidentally exposed himself. I found myself once again unable to tell you."

"Pity," Hermione said shortly. "I could have done with a distraction just then."

By now, however, she was only half listening to the Headmaster's words. Dumbledore may be old and puissant, but he didn't half go on at times. It was almost as if somebody were needlessly dragging out his confession in order to increase dramatic tension.

"By now, having shown yourself to be equal to the horrors of Severus's emergency underpants, my excuses were running out. Young you might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Hermione. I knew the time must come soon."

"The time for what?" Snapped Hermione, losing her temper. "Is there even a point to this story?"

"We are no longer receiving the Soap Opera channel," Dumbledore informed her gravely. "I fear the repair bill for fixing the cable will be immense. I need to sneak it into the household finances without alerting Professor Snape."

"Sorry," Hermione told him. "He doesn't let me near that ledger anymore. It's a bit weird, really."

"Then I must find somebody else to act as my agent," said Dumbledore, standing up and preparing to retreat into the pantry at the sound of somebody heading down from the third floor.

"But sir! Wait! What about all the other oddities? The post it notes for Quildemort? The way you've been playing hide and seek with everybody?"

Dumbledore shrugged. "I was bored. I haven't been able to watch any of my programs."

With that the pantry door clicked shut.

Hermione frowned and decided that she'd had enough of the house share. With full intentions of doing Snape's laundry to put her mind at ease, followed by a very long nap helped by earplugs, she wandered upstairs.

Ron passed her on the stairs with a sleepy 'good morning' despite the fact that it was going on for 1pm. For the first time ever, he'd beaten the queue for the bathroom. The rest of the house share was currently engaged in a melee for the shower.

In the kitchen he put together some tea and pointedly ignored the strange noises coming from the pantry. His Ginny training was flawless. From upstairs he heard the triumphant double-cry of 'Shower is MINE!' Followed by Harry proclaiming that he'd use the basement shower and Quildemort screaming in a high pitched way and fleeing the bathroom.

From his safe place downstairs, Ron grinned. He probably should have warned them about the owls who'd taken up the shower rod as their turf. It sounded like Quildemort hadn't paid their tithe.

The kettle went and Ron finished making his tea. The noises from the pantry continued, but only worried him when Ginny popped in for a drink. If Ginny was there, and the others were upstairs...

"Must be a draft," he concluded. When all else fails, denial is just the thing.

By the time he had finished his tea, he's developed a nervous tic that Quirrell would have envied. The noises were driving him mad. The caffeine from the tea was just kicking in and he was trying to read his tea leaves as a distraction when Snape wandered in to make breakfast.

"Di... dia... die..." Ron squinted as the pantry door rattled. Snape didn't even look up, but it all made sense.

The leaves said 'Die Ron! Die!"

From behind him Snape let out a horrified scream and Ron did what came naturally, after throwing himself out of windows. He dropped his teacup with a clatter and ran like he was being chased by bees... or Ginny.

Snape, who had recovered, shot the boy's retreating form a glare before glancing back at the empty pantry. A single yellow post-it note was attached to the broom that had fallen and surprised him enough to make him shout.

Leaning down, he picked it up. Its message made him scowl.

'Severus,

It's a matter of some urgency that Mister Potter learn bookkeeping. I suggest you teach him.

Ta!

A.P.W.B.D.'

***

Somehow Snape made accounting sound as dangerous and silky as potion making. "It's simple, Potter. You run the tallies in this column, write all information to the left of it and in the margin you write who rang up the bill."

Harry looked at Snape, barely able to hide his dislike. "Why does Dumbledore want me to learn to do this? Why doesn't he teach me himself?"

"Not everything," Snape almost spat, "is about you. Now run these figures and I will recheck your work."

Pulling a face and making a rude hand gesture, Harry went to work about the tallies. Glass repair. Glass repair. Groceries. Estimates on utilities. More glass repair.... Did that say 'chains and manacles'? Next to that were the initials S.B., the very sight of which made Harry's tolerance for the task lower.

Seeing that Snape was busy pulling ingredients for dinner from the cabinets, Harry ruffled through the pages of the ledger. Ron sure went through a lot of glass. He suddenly understood why Rico had shown up for the last job in a Porsche instead of the company's repair truck. Some entries were comical, like Hagrid's botany expenses and Quildemort's custom-made, Swiss moisturizer. Others less amusing, like the entries labeled 'female miscellaneous' and 'basement perversion'. Just like Snape to label Sirius that way, the slimy git!

Then something fell out of the ledger. It hit the table extremely dramatically, almost in slow motion, the obvious sign of an ominous portent. Harry looked up. Snape was still rummaging in the cabinets. Silence seemed to permeate the house share for the first time in its history. With shaking hands he picked up the obviously secret item from the table.

It was a receipt from a book shop listing three items. So You Shagged a Student by Lolita Landerbrut, Wise Warlocks and their Wands: An Ageing Wizard's Guide to Sustained Sexual Satisfaction by Dr. Troy Proudstaff and They Say It's Wrong, but You Say It's Great by N. Joy Aminer. The receipt was made out to one Severus Snape. All at once Harry felt amused, squicked and a new height of blinding rage.

Knowing that it was best, he went to slip the receipt back in the ledger. It was almost certainly best to ignore it and file the find away in his mind as something never to think about. Then suddenly, he felt Snape's bony fingers on his shoulder. When he spoke it was in a slippery, unpleasant sort of voice. "Amused, are we, Potter?"

"Ye... NO!" Harry shouted, jumping from his seat to glare at Snape. "I didn't mean to find that, you gave the ledger to me. IF DUMBLEDORE HAD DONE THIS HIMSELF I... I would probably still have found it but I wouldn't have to deal with whatever abuse you are going to cook up for me."

"Cook up, I will. Never fear." Snape looked at Harry with a malicious grin. If Harry had been in the right state of mind he would have seen the panic behind Snape's eyes. The sort of panic that would have sent Ron through a window, Hermione running repeatedly into a magical barrier and Ginny on a destructive rampage. Though Ginny went on destructive rampages when it rained, when she was happy, when she was being chased by imaginary basilisks and on days with a Y in.

Confused by his own thoughts, Harry arranged his face into an impressive teenage sulk and entertained soothing thoughts about how much of a martyr he was. Or how Snape had to read books to feel all right about his 'ageing wand'. Fortunately he didn't have to entertain those thoughts long as Hermione and Ginny walked into the room and Snape swept up the receipt, the ledger and with a parting glare, stalked from the room with a parting, "You'll pay."

Once he was gone, Harry sank back down in a chair and smirked. Ginny didn't notice and Hermione was too smart to ask. Both reactions sent Harry on a major pout.

"Have you seen my copy of the Feminine Mystique?" Ginny asked Harry, as he was the only person left in the house that she hadn't asked. He shrugged in a moody, teenaged sort of way so as to look simultaneously disinterested and unhelpful. He couldn't help but notice that Firenze had been crossed out on her arm and had been replaced by the name of the Giant Squid. This was yet another disturbing thought that Harry would have to mentally file under very bad things.

"Oh!" Hermione said, dragging Ginny out of the room. "I think I saw Twinkie reading it earlier!"

Yes, very bad things.

***

Things came to a head later that day, when there was a knock on the (hastily rebuilt) front door of the house. Harry opened the door to reveal a squat, toad-looking woman with a clipboard, who didn't bother to give her name, but merely gave a little and obviously fake cough, then marched into the house and asked who had stolen her furnishings.

Twinkie, who had been bouncing on the sofa, abruptly screamed and ran up the stairs involuntarily yelling at the assembled witches and wizards. "Twinkie will run away from the bad witchie, yes! Twinkie will keep the silver from the ugly kittens and the micromanaging dictator lady. Yes Twinkie is a good elf and must find her preciousesss!" From the top of the house came the sound of the attic door being slammed and objects being piled against it. Hermione, meanwhile had worked out from the reference to kittens what the creepy cough woman might be looking for. The only tiny snag was that the objects in question were currently being added to a bonfire in the back garden: a fact which Ron, with his usual tact and discretion, lost no time in pointing out to the visitor.

"In that case," said the toad-faced lady, glaring at him, "I will be forced to repossess your furniture in recompense, in accordance with educational decree number four thousand six hundred and eighty two."

"Educational decree? It's the school holidays!" Hermione responded scathingly.

The toad lady scribbled something on her clipboard, then read it aloud.

"All magical persons discovered burning the exclusive property of the High Inquisitor will be forced to surrender their own possessions up to the holder of the aforesaid office. This will teach the parties in question a valuable lesson and is thus covered under the provision of magical education act."

Harry was about to argue that they had no way of knowing they weren't supposed to burn things that randomly appeared in their attic, but a sudden inexplicable pain in his hand made him think better of the outburst and he maintained an angry silence. Ginny felt no such compunction.

"Property is theft. I have no intention of legitimising your appropriation of the rightful belongings of the masses by allowing you to remove furnishings from this house."

"Little girls," the high inquisitor told her sweetly, "should be seen and not heard."

Hermione's snort of deep indignation, prompted Snape to step forward.

"Then allow me to reiterate everything she said." Snape paused for a moment, then added. "Except for the part about property being theft, but the rest of it certainly stands. You will not remove a single item from this house."

"I think you underestimate the power of the office I hold!"

"And I think you underestimate our contempt for the edifice which supports it," argued Ginny, not at all cowed. "Any power you may have is inauthentic, callously stolen from its true possessors: the proletariat."

The high inquisitor now refused to address Ginny directly, but turned to Snape instead.

"Tell the little girl that such behaviour is treasonous under educational decree number four hundred and twelve. All true patriots recognize the necessity of my office and support it."

"By which you presumably mean the privileged few who reap the rewards of such a system to the inevitable detriment of the downtrodden masses?" Ginny shot back. "I've never heard such bourgeois twaddle! Your supposed patriotic system creates class distinction in the place of a unity, inevitably leading to the fall of such a system at the hands of the repressed. When a ruling class subjugates the labor and free will of a society it destabilizes the entire system and loses legitimacy."

Ginny had worked herself up into awesome indignation. Snape looked almost fondly down at her, but stopped short as he had unpleasant flashbacks to what her righteousness could produce. Then, noticing that the squat woman was gathering herself up for a rebuttal, Snape smirked at the angry, squat little bureaucrat. There was no winning an argument with Ginny Weasley on the subject of politics. If she couldn't sway you with words, she would just club you into unconsciousness with a chair leg.

"Little girl, you don't understand that these policies exist to benefit you. It's for your own good that you learn your place and measure up in the same mold as every one else. Your head has been filled with ridiculous lies against an institution that is obviously in the right. Clearly, someone has been feeding you ideological nonsense. What is established is right. You are wrong."

"Have you read Kafka? 'Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice...' Blind acceptance of anything is folly, the so called idealism is logical when given the choice between the chains of your so called democracy and free thinking. You and your badge of office have no power over this house share."

That got Ginny a patronizing little smile. "Well, you are not the one who decides that. My office was appointed to me by the Minister of Magic. If you want to change the institution then when you grow up, work your way up the ranks and learn a little bit more. Now is there a grown up I can talk to?"

The woman eyed Snape, who knew better than to get in the middle of the argument. Which was a smart move as Ginny tore right back.

"Coup d'etat is the only thing for an institution." Ginny responded, spitting the last word as though it tasted worse than eye of newt and crossing her arms over her chest. "When you hide behind the word, when a government or an idea become too sacred to change with time and to benefit the populace, it is archaic and needs to be torn down. Man is condemned to be free, we are responsible for our actions, our government and we make our own place in the world. We owe you no fealty."

While Snape and Ginny continued to face off against the invader, another heated discussion was occurring behind them.

"Why has my sister gone all political again?" Ron asked the others. "She hasn't seen imaginary basilisks in a week and she keeps acting... well... sane! Don't any of you remember the chaos that happened the last time that she went sane? We need to do something!"

"We need to know what happened," said Hermione firmly. "Everything's been weirder than usual lately, but I can't think why!"

"Much vaunted intelligence not working today?" Voldemort asked her nastily.

"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled, succumbing to another fit of temper. "It's not as though you can explain what's happening!"

"Can't I Potter?" Asked Voldemort with a sneer. "Obviously you learned nothing from your experiences with my younger self. In the right hands the pen can be mightier than the sword."

"That can't be right," argued Ron. "You can't cut somebody's head off with a pen."

Foreseeing Quildemort's inevitable attempt to prove that you could if you really tried, Hermione tried to bring the conversation back to the point.

"You're talking about magical books, aren't you?"

"N-Not at all Miss G-G-Granger. Even ordinary m-m-muggle books wield enormous p-power over the reader."

"And we have reason to believe that Weasley Minor's copy of War and Peace has taken on extra power from being kept in a house containing so much pent up magic."

Harry was puzzled.

"What are you saying?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you, idiot boy? We've been thrust willy nilly into an alternate reality by a piece of overlong Russian literature."

"As the effects of enchanted volumes go, Tom, this one seems rather mild," remarked Dumbledore.

"There is nothing worse than having your reality warped by Tolstoy, Dumbledore!" snarled Voldemort.

"You are quite wrong, said Dumbledore. "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than Tolstoy has always been your greatest weakness."

"It's true." Hermione pointed out. "What about The Bewitching Bestseller of Bath? That book had a charm on it so you couldn't stop reading it! Or there was that encyclopaedia by Edgar the Effulgent that burned your eyeballs out! Not to mention dangerous muggle texts like The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf and Ulrika Johnson's autobiography!"

"Never mind all that," said Draco. "I want to know why we couldn't have landed in an alternate reality where we could escape this damn house! I mean, one's got to exist, right?"

Hermione nodded.

"Certainly, the thinking goes that any reality which can exist without defying logic, does exist somewhere."

Ron became excited.

"So somewhere out there, there's a reality where I'm worshipped by hordes of naked women?"

Hermione placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and told him sadly "You can't square the circle, Ron."

"Phew," said Malfoy. "I was worried for a moment that there might be a reality where I'm not a charming and devilishly handsome young sex god!"

Hermione decided to see if she could get Quildemort to try that 'chopping somebody's head off with a pen' thing, since Draco's had evidently grown too large to be supported by his relatively slim shoulders. Voldemort however had taken offence to being called Tom one too many times and was currently involved in a fistfight with Dumbledore, hampered somewhat by the fact that he was facing the wrong way to hit him properly. Hermione was about to try and intervene, but was distracted by the argument between Ginny and Toadie. Which had turned into a slanging match of epic proportions.

Ginny was on a roll. "LISTEN YOU PATRONISING OLD HAG, DON'T YOU CONDESCEND TO ME OR I'LL GET MY BOYFRIEND TO KICK YOUR ASS! THE TROUBLE WITH YOUR TYPE IS YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE GUTS FOR ANYTHING BUT HALF MEASURES!"

At her last word Snape, who was mediating the match, turned to the opposition with quirked brow. Taking that as her cue, the stranger began her rebuttal. It was at this point that Ron wandered over with a confused expression from the get go.

"And the trouble with your type is you have no understanding of subtlety! A secret police will never be as effective as a few well placed laws, ostensibly in the interests of patriotism which will force the population to police each other!"

The woman had a high pitched girlie voice that grated on the nerves in the exact same way as Voldemort's whining voice. With the way Voldemort was trying to throw right hooks, without being able to see where he was punching, no one was about to comment on the fact.

"What are they talking about?" Ron asked Snape, but only got a glare as an answer. As far as Ron could tell, this was a flashback to Ginny's führer phase. He understood that much, and thanks to Hermione's detailed explanations following Ginny's reign of terror, he even had a vague grasp on some of the arguments Ginny was putting forward. He was stumped, however, by the warped logic the other lady working by? Whatever it was, he was sure no mass population would ever buy into it. Ron was not a political animal, yet he felt instinctively that a successful Minister of Magic should have integrity, the people's interests at heart and the ability to pronounce the word 'nuclear'. Confused by this last thought, Ron went to question Hermione, who started to explain something about thinly veiled political parallels, but was distracted when the high inquisitor got bored of arguing with Ginny, stormed into the house and made a grab for the television set.

There was instant uproar. Everybody except the two eldest wizards lunged to stop her and the result was two separate fistfights, which rapidly combined into a single brawl of epic proportions. Since the housemates outnumbered the high inquisitor eight to one, they were hitting each other more often than they were hitting her so that their numbers were swiftly depleted as they managed to knock each other out.

Harry watched dazedly from the floor as the high inquisitor picked up the television and started to carry it from the room, unstopped by the two remaining conscious wizards: Dumbledore and Quildemort. This was largely because Dumbledore had Quildemort in a headlock, and wasn't letting go for anything, although he looked clearly conflicted at the eminent loss of his beloved television set.

"Let her take it, Dumbledore," Voldemort rasped. "If Tolstoy is nothing, Dumbledore, let her take the television."

Let the madness stop, thought Harry. Let him fix things... End it, Dumbledore. Death is nothing compared to a life without La Femme Nikita... And I'll see Sirius again...

As Harry fainted dramatically, Dumbledore released Quildemort, who ran for the third floor, smacking the high inquisitor over the head with a small, ornamental statue of a centaur as he did so. She had barely regained her equilibrium when Quildemort ran back down the stairs, carrying Ginny's copy of War and Peace and heading towards the back garden.

"Hem hem!"

"Good point!"

Voldemort grinned at the repellent woman and hitched up the hem of his robes in order to run faster. The others followed him through the kitchen and onto the patio, from where he flung Ginny's copy of War and Peace forcefully onto the bonfire.

Reality reasserted itself with a painful thump.

***

A week later Ginny sat in the diary room, speaking to the camera once more. She appeared to remember nothing of their short stint in an alternate reality, although the signs which, in another person, might have indicated a period of confusion followed by a severe shock, were constantly present in Ginny anyway.

"My books disappeared," Ginny was informing the camera, somewhat sadly. "I think perhaps the basilisk ate them. Luckily I've got other things to keep me occupied these days. I've been talking to Tom a lot, I'm planning to steal my dresses back from Draco" Ginny rolled up her sleeve, to reveal that her arm was now graced with one solitary henna tattoo. " And of course, I've been spending a lot of time with my new lover, J. K. Rowling!"

Want more snark at Rowling's expense?
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www30.brinkster.com/bunkbeds/