"So we have to stay with them all night?" Hermione said disbelievingly. Snape's lips tightened.
"Did you hear me say that, Miss Granger?"
"No, Professor, but-"
"You did not hear me say it because I did not do so. We will bring them up to the hospital wing, where they will stay until the sleeping potion has worn off, upon which Madame Pomfrey will restore them to their adolescent selves."
"Oh," Hermione acknowledged.
With a sweep of his wand, all five bundles of blankets rose into the air and hovered, bobbing slightly, in midair. Hermione could see Ron sucking on one fist, his eyes shut tight.
"I'll go explain to Madame Pomfrey," she offered. Snape nodded his dismissal.
Hermione raced up the steps, emerged into the main school, and continued her assent up through the castle to the hospital wing. She reached the door and threw it open.
Snape was standing there.
"It would seem that my knowledge of the school's passageways are superior to yours, Miss Granger," he remarked with a thin smile. "Madame Pomfrey has retired for the evening."
Hermione tried to regain her breath. "All... all right. So I... I should put them into beds, and make sure they're not in danger of falling out, or maybe I should just put them on the floor-"
"Miss Granger."
Hermione stopped talking.
"Perhaps you could carry out your grand schemes instead of submitting me to the monologue. "
"Right," Hermione nodded. Snape's wand dipped, and all five blanket-wrapped children floated gracefully to the floor. The Potions Master turned with a swish of black, placed the bottle of antidote on a table, and strode out of the hospital wing.
"I am exhausted," Hermione told a sleeping Ron as she picked him up and put him on a bed. She tucked the blankets securely around him so he wouldn't fall, stifling a yawn as she did so. "Some extra-credit class this is."
Ron said nothing, understandably. Hermione smiled at how peaceful he looked, lying there with his fist stuck firmly in his mouth, without a care in the world.
"You little ones have it easy," she yawned. "I suppose I'd better get the others into bed before I fall asleep on my feet..."
Yawning all the while, she carried the other four toddlers to empty beds. Subconsciously, Harry clung to her as she tried to put him down, and it was a while before she could shake him off.
"I think I'm just going to spend the night here," she sighed at last. Goyle rolled over in his sleep, a rather startling amount of pillow wedged in his mouth. Hermione moved quickly over to unstick the little boy before he choked.
"I'm just going to lie down for a minute," she decided. The room at large ignored her. "Try to stay out of trouble for a bit, all right?"
Hermione flopped down on the bed closest to the window, where she had a vantage point of all of her charges. She shut her eyes for a second, enjoying the quiet.
The next moment, she was asleep.