Ron climbed up onto a stack of cauldrons, sending the last two flying across the room with a horrible clashing, clanging clatter, and began to poke around the glass jars in search of something to eat. Startled by the noise, Harry began to scream.
Snape sighed heavily, then lifted Ron by the back of his robes and hauled him off the shelf. "Sit down," he growled, dumping the toddler onto a chair. He pointed his wand at Harry. "Silencio."
Ron began to howl. Malfoy crawled over to Harry and yanked a handful of his hair. Harry yelped. Crabbe and Goyle giggled. Harry shoved Malfoy hard in the chest, upon which Malfoy toppled over and began producing a noise that would send dogs into hiding.
"Professor," Hermione offered loudly. "Maybe I could help? I babysat a lot when I was younger."
Snape sighed heavily again. "Yes, Miss Granger."
Hermione picked up the howling Ron, placed him on the floor, and gave him some bottle corks to play with. She pulled an extremely noisy Harry, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle apart from what was apparently a fight to the death. Harry pouted, Crabbe stuck out his tongue, Goyle shoved his fingers into his mouth and began slurping noisily, and Malfoy continued shrieking at the top of his voice. She sat down on the floor, pulled him onto her lap, and rocked him gently until he quieted down.
Harry plopped himself down beside her. "Hold Hawwy too?"
Hermione smiled at Harry's large, beseeching green eyes. "Just a moment, Harry."
She shifted Malfoy over carefully, then noted with some measure of irony that he had fallen asleep in her arms. Harry clambered up onto her lap.
Snape watched in badly disguised awe.
"I have a lot of babysitting experience from when I was younger," Hermione explained, somewhat sheepishly. "All the neighbors asked me to babysit for them."
"Ah- very well," the Potions master replied, much wrong-footed. "I've begun preparing the antidote. See to it that they stay out of trouble while I go and get the last ingredients."
Harry began chewing on his small fingers. Snape left the room.
He returned, however, a few moments later with a very tart look on his face.
"The antidote requires dawnweed, which my stocks are conspicuously lacking in. The Hogwarts greenhouses grow dawnweed, but it can be picked only at the first light of dawn, or it is entirely useless."
He shook Ron off the bottom of his robes. "We will have to look after these- these- children for the night."
...
A/N: Greetings, my readers. I am very much glad you are enjoying this fic. Snape, if you are reading this, I beg your apologies for what I intend to do to you next.
(Evil grin.)
However, I feel it would be proper to inform the general population that I do not believe I will be appearing on this site for approximately two weeks. Thus, the next installment of this story will have to wait to be presented to your eager eyes.
I leave you now to wonder what our toddler-ized valiant heroes will be spitting up on and/or chewing next, and what our other, non-toddler-ized valiant heroes will do to make sure no one finds out about the toddler-izing incident.
Suspense, anticipation, tension... ah.