For notes, please see first chapter.

The Little R(ight Bunch of Nutters You Lot Are)ed Hen

"I say we flip a Galleon for it," Ron said, staring at the last remaining slice of the shepherd's pie with an expression of such deep desire that Harry thought he might well stab anyone who got between him and it.

They'd had a small bit of luck today, not with the Horcrux, which was no nearer to being destroyed, and not with finding any of the other hidden bits of Voldemort's soul, but they'd actually gotten a decent dinner for once. Hermione had gotten provisions in town that day, and while she wasn't the best cook, certainly no match for Mrs. Weasley, she'd carefully followed the directions in a cookbook she'd stowed with the thousand or so other books in her little beaded bag. The result was a pie that, while a bit burned on the crust here and there, was easily their best meal in a week. The only problem was that, as they'd carved away at it, savoring it in small pieces, somehow the pie hadn't come out quite even, and now there was an extra slice staring up at them from the pan, looking radiantly delicious.

"There's three of us, you know," Harry said, "and only two sides to a Galleon."

"Yeah, well, we'll do an elimination round," Ron said. "First Hermione and me, and then the winner goes against you. That sounds fair, right?"

"No, actually," Hermione said, folding her arms and looking remarkably cross.

Harry and Ron both turned to look at her. Harry had spent enough time with Hermione to realize that the gleam in her eye did not bode well.

"What's wrong with it then?" asked Ron, looking ill-tempered in heartbeat.

"Has either of you perhaps forgotten to say something about the pie?" Hermione asked testily.

"Ehm, it was a little burnt, but I was trying to let that pass without comment," Ron said, shrugging. "You shouldn't feel too bad about it."

"Bad about it!" Hermione cried, her eyes the size of Quaffles. "Are you mad! What about a bit of a thank you?"

"Oh, well, you're welcome," Ron said.

"What?" Hermione said, completely confused.

"I said you're welcome," Ron said.

"What precisely did you do in order to deserve thanks for this meal?" Hermione said, and Harry inched his chair back from the table a bit to be out of harm's way.

"Well, obviously, you never would have been able to get the pie done if Harry and I hadn't been out doing all the hard work, patrolling the countryside looking for clues to the Horcruxes while you got to stay in, relax, and just bake a pie," Ron explained.

"Ronald," Hermione said in an even, measured voice whose tightly controlled tones suggested she might be about to explode, "you and Harry took the day off and went to play an improvised round of Quidditch in the woods today."

"Oh," Ron said, deflating and looking rather guilty. "I forgot we told you we were going to do that."

"Just how easy do you think it was to come up with this dinner?" she said.

"Fairly," Ron said. "I mean, it's only a pie, not an N.E.W.T. level examination or something There's a reason they say something is easy as pie, yeah?"

"I thought it was really good," Harry said, smiling weakly and wishing not for the first or last time that the tent was larger so he could get well out of their way.

"Yes, it was," Hermione said firmly. "And if it's so easy, Ron, you try it next time."

"That's just silly," Ron said.

"Why?" Hermione said, looking furious.

"Because you're a girl and I'm not," Ron said as though this should be obvious. "Everyone knows girls are better at this sort of thing."

"I'd call you Medieval but wizarding society was far more egalitarian back then than Muggles were, so that's not even accurate!" Hermione said as her face turned bright red.

"Ron, that one's bang out of order," Harry said, deciding he'd best step in or else things were going to get out of control.

"Mum always does the cooking," Ron said mulishly.

"And your Mum spoils you rotten," Hermione said.

"Leave my Mum out of this," Ron said, now getting nearly as red in the face as she was.

"I'm not insulting your mother. I'm insulting you, you Neanderthal, and I'll say as I like!" Hermione said, her voice rising much higher.

"Hold it!" Harry said, stepping between them as he noticed them both starting to reach for their wands. He didn't want to deal with undoing hexes for half the night. "This is getting out of control. Just stop and breathe a second. Maybe it's the Horcrux again."

It was currently slung over the back of a chair about six feet away, but it somehow looked positively ecstatic at all the commotion. It seemed to glow with a dull greenish light that reminded Harry of the dank, fetid atmosphere in the Chamber of Secrets.

Ron sighed and tilted chair towards the wall, nearly falling over he was so far back.

"Okay, sorry. Maybe I took it a bit far," Ron said with a sigh.

"A bit more than a bit," Hermione said, still looking furious. "I feel like the little red hen."

"The what?" Ron asked.

"The little red hen. It's another Muggle story," Hermione said.

"Is the little red hen Little Red Riding Hood's pet chicken?" Ron asked.

"No," Hermione said. "Not as far as I know."

"Oh, too bad. That one was deliciously mental," Ron said, looking glum.

"But how about you tell us this other one?" Harry asked, hoping it might break up the tension. Any distraction was welcome, even if it meant that the last slice of pie was going to be cold when whoever was going to eat it got the chance.

Hermione heaved a sigh herself, then nodded, probably seeing the wisdom of the suggestion.

"Once upon a time," Hermione began, and while Ron didn't chime in, he waved his fork in rhythm with the phrase they all knew so well by now, "there was a little red hen."

"Named?" Ron asked.

"She's not. She's just a little red hen, that's all," Hermione said. "None of the characters have names in this one."

"As it's a chicken, I'll let it go," Ron said.

"Thank you," Hermione said sarcastically. "This little red hen very much wanted some fresh bread, so she bought a bag of wheat seed."

"Why wheat seed?" Ron asked.

"Because she needed to grow the wheat to make flour for the bread," Hermione explained.

Harry noticed Hermione already seemed a little calmer, and he started to breathe more easily. Ron, on the other hand, only looked perplexed.

"Okay, I get that, but why not just buy a loaf of bread instead?" Ron said.

"Because, well, because—," Hermione's voice trailed off. "Perhaps there wasn't a bakery about."

"Just a shop that sells wheat seed?" Ron said, raising an eyebrow.

"Apparently so," Hermione said, giving him a look that almost dared him to contradict this, but he shrugged and accepted it, or at least he seemed to for a moment, though Harry could almost see the next question forming in his head before he even opened his mouth.

"Where did she get the money for the wheat seed?" Ron asked.

"I have no idea," Hermione said, folding her arms. "She just had it. Maybe her wealthy bachelor rooster uncle left it to her, or maybe someone dropped a few Galleons in the farmyard, or maybe she pilfered the farmer's savings that he kept in a sweets tin in the kitchen, or maybe it fell out of the air, or maybe she took to ruddy highway robbery, but regardless, she had the money to buy the seed, so she bought it. Is that all right, Ronald?"

"I suppose so," Ron said, "though I'd rather like to hear the story of the highway robber hen. But wouldn't a chicken rather eat the wheat seed raw than eat it in bread to begin with? Why doesn't she just eat the seed?"

Harry mentally took it all back. Hermione was not calm anymore. In fact, she looked like the personification of a potion that was about to boil over.

"Because that's not how the story goes," Hermione said, her voice strained and her lips barely moving from tension.

"Okay, fine," Ron said, appearing perfectly at ease. "So we have a little red hen who has somehow got money, possibly via criminal means, and who prefers to use it to buy wheat seed, not to eat it directly, but to make bread. Am I getting it so far?"

"Yes, perfectly," Hermione said through her gritted teeth, and Harry saw her take a deep breath, collect herself and continue on with laudable control. "The little red hen went to the dog on the farm and asked, 'Will you help me plant the wheat seed?'"

Hermione's version of the little red hen's voice was rather high pitched, but it sounded something like Mrs. Weasley, Harry thought.

"And how did the dog respond to the freakish talking hen with monetary assets and a penchant for farming?" Ron asked.

"He said, 'No!'" Hermione replied, making it sound rather like a bark, actually quite a bit like Sirius's, now that Harry thought of it.

"Sensible. Dogs don't do well as farmers. Chickens rarely do either, actually," Ron said.

"Then she asked the cat, 'Will you help me plant the wheat seed?' and the cat said, 'No!'" Hermione continued, the cat's voice coming out as whine that reminded Harry a little of Mrs. Norris.

"The hen asked a cat for help?" Ron said. "Don't cats usually eat birds?"

"Well, this one didn't," Hermione said, "possibly because, like the dog, it was rather lazy."

"Or it just didn't want to take up wheat farming in all its spare time," Ron said.

"Did she ask anyone else for help?" Harry piped in, thinking perhaps getting back to the plot might prevent another near hex attack.

"Yes," Hermione said, directing her gaze at him abruptly as though she'd almost forgot he was he there. "She went to a rat and said, 'Will you help me plant the wheat seed?' and the rat replied, 'No!'"

Harry was trying very hard not to picture Wormtail, or at least Scabbers, as the rat, but he was failing miserably. Hermione had given it a squeaky little voice that sounded nothing like Pettigrew, but still, having already pictured Sirius and Mrs. Norris, he supposed it was inevitable that the rat would show up as someone he knew as well.

"Wouldn't a rat just rip into a bag of wheat seed and eat it all?" Ron asked.

Harry wondered if Hermione had possessed enough foresight to pack duct tape in her little beaded bag that one of them could slap over Ron's mouth to shut him up. He really just did not know when to stop.

"Perhaps a regular rat might, but not this one," Hermione said, her voice still very carefully controlled. "The little red hen replied, 'Then I shall do it all myself,' and so she did."

"How did the hen plant the wheat seed?" Ron asked. "I mean, she doesn't have hands, so she can't use a shovel or something. Actually I'm a little confused how she carried the wheat seed home at all, but we'll just gloss over that. I suppose she could scratch in the dirt with her feet and maybe peck at it or something, but that would take an awfully long time."

"Yes, it would," Hermione said, "which is rather the point. The little red hen worked very hard to plant her wheat seed, and she tended it carefully, making sure it was well watered and the weeds were pulled, and in time it grew into a beautiful, tall, waving field of wheat, and so help me, Ron, if you ask how she managed to water and weed, I will hex you with a Jelly-Legs Jinx the next time you're not looking."

"Fine, fine," Ron said, then glanced at Harry and mouthed, "Touchy, isn't she?"

"When the wheat was ready to be harvested, she went once again to the dog," Hermione said, but Ron raised his hand. "Yes?"

"Is this winter wheat or summer wheat?" Ron asked.

"What on earth does that have to do with anything?" Hermione asked.

"In the last story, you mentioned winter wheat comes ripe in June, and summer wheat in more towards August. I'm just trying to picture everything properly," Ron said.

"You remembered the ripening dates of wheat in 'The Gingerbread Man'?" Hermione said, sounding, Harry thought, rather touched.

"Sure. I pay attention – more than you know," Ron said, giving her a winning smile, and Harry saw her color slightly. He restrained himself from rolling his eyes.

"And what did she say to the dog?" Harry asked.

"Oh, right!" Hermione said, jolting back to reality. "Ehm, she said, 'Will you help me cut the wheat?' and the dog replied once again, 'No!'"

"Can't blame him," Ron said. "I mean, okay, a hen could peck seed into the ground, and I guess a dog or cat or rat probably could too, but a dog's paws just aren't going to do well with those scythe thingies."

"I suppose he could bite the wheat down," Harry said, deciding he might as well jump in.

"True," Ron conceded, "but as he's not interested, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Correct," Hermione said. "Next the little red hen went to the cat and said, 'Will you help me cut the wheat?' and the cat replied once again, 'No!'"

"Okay, that one might possibly have made sense," Ron said. "Hermione, you've got a cat. Could Crookshanks use his claws to cut down wheat or not?"

Hermione pursed her lips in thought for a moment.

"I'm not sure," she finally said. "He could certainly scratch at the wheat well enough, but I don't suppose it would be particularly effective. Still, he's quite determined when he makes up his mind about something, so at least if the cat was part-Kneazle, I'd say it's possible, but not probable."

"He's part-Kneazle?" Ron said, looking surprised and Harry thought more than a little impressed. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Hermione said, smiling. "I suspected he might be after everything that happened with Sirius in third year, but I kept forgetting to ask Hagrid to confirm it for me until last autumn, and yes, he said Crookshanks is definitely at least half Kneazle."

"Okay, fine, I'll look like a prat and ask. What's a Kneazle?" Harry asked. Normally he knew most of the references to the wizarding world now, but he wasn't familiar with this one.

"Oh, sorry," Ron said. "They look like cats, but they're really smart."

"Yes, and they can tell when a person is trustworthy, and they're usually very fond of their owners and can be quite aggressive with anyone else," Hermione said. "Hagrid never talked about them in class because, well, they're more or less…"

"Cuddly," Ron provided. "Cute. Non-life threatening. Oh, and they aren't poisonous and don't breathe fire."

"So obviously they're not especially interesting to him," Hermione said, laughing a little.

Harry and Ron both joined in. It was a lot easier to laugh about Hagrid's penchant for Skrewts and Acromantulas when they didn't have to face them every day. Still, Harry thought, a good old fashioned fight with a giant spider might burn off a bit of their pent up energy from their fruitless search for Horcruxes. With a shudder, he realized he really must be homesick for Hogwarts if he was thinking fondly of Aragog's hideously huge family.

"What?" Ron asked. "You look like you just swallowed a Wrackspurt."

"Can one swallow an imaginary animal?" Hermione asked innocently.

"Don't tell Luna that," Harry said, "not unless you want a twenty minute lecture."

"I miss her," Ron said, smiling. "She's always good for a laugh. Have you seen her on the Maurauder's Map lately?"

"You know, now that you mention it, no," Harry said slowly. "I haven't really been specifically looking for her, but then a lot of names are missing. I think some parents are pulling their kids out of school, so maybe Xenophilius brought her home."

At least he hoped that was the case. Harry found the gaping holes in some of the classrooms more than a little troubling. While it was entirely possible that the missing students were back home and safe, it was also possible something horrible had happened. Silence fell over the three of them, and Harry knew they were all thinking the same thing.

"I'm sure that's what it is," Hermione said, sounding anything but sure.

"Rat," Ron said.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Rat," Ron repeated. "We know the cat and the dog won't help the red hen cut the wheat, but I'm guessing she asks the rat next."

"Oh, right, I'd almost forgotten," Hermione said. "Yes, the little red hen does indeed ask the rat to help her cut the wheat, and he refuses as well."

"You didn't say it right," Ron said, a whine creeping into his voice.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Hermione said, rolling her eyes, but Harry knew what Ron was doing: defusing the situation, and remarkably well. "The little red hen asked the rat, 'Will you help me cut the wheat?' and the rat replied, 'No!'"

"That's more like it," Ron said, sitting back further in his chair once again in satisfaction. "You've got to do these things properly or they don't work, like saying the words in a spell in the right order."

"You know, you really do have a point," Hermione said. "I suppose that's part of the charm of the story, really, the repetitive pattern of it. Anyway, the little red hen said, 'Then I shall do it all myself,' and so she did."

"Too bad she couldn't nab the reapers from that last story about the nutty gingerbread man," Ron said.

"She could have hired reapers if she really wanted to, what with having pocket money to buy wheat seed in the first place," Harry said.

"I suppose she could have, but she did do all the work herself, or so the story says," Hermione said.

"So, after the little red hen pecked down an entire field of wheat on her own, which should probably take a few centuries or so, what happened?" Ron asked.

"The little red hen went to the dog and said, 'Will you help me grind the wheat?' and the dog said, 'No!'" Hermione said.

"You know, I think she might need to realize these other animals have no interest at all in helping her out here," Ron said. "She's beating a dead Thestral at this point."

"Ah, but she actually does have a reason, though, which will be revealed in time," Hermione said mysteriously. "Next she went to the cat and said, 'Will you help me grind the wheat?' but the cat said 'No!' as well."

"So far, so good," Ron said.

"Finally she went to the rat and said, 'Will you help me grind the wheat?' but the rat too said 'No!' 'Fine,' said the little red hen. 'Then I shall do it all myself,' and so she did."

Hermione looked expectantly at Ron.

"What?" he said.

"Aren't you going to ask how a little red hen could grind wheat all by herself?" Hermione asked.

"She's already got money, planted a field, and cut down the wheat by herself. Throwing some wheat on a millstone to grind it down really doesn't seem all that out of the realm of possibility in comparison," Ron said.

"When you put it that way, I suppose it isn't the hardest thing she's had to do, particularly if the mill happens to be operated via a waterwheel, which would make it self-propelling, of course, and that sort of Muggle technology would definitely have been available during that time," Hermione said. "The actual difficulty would come with hauling the wheat to the mill, I suppose, though that's never explicitly mentioned, and all the versions of the story seem to skip the step of preparing the wheat to be ground by removing the chaff first. On the whole, yes, you're right. The little red hen really has done much more difficult tasks than this in the story already."

"I'm right," Ron said, smiling and nodding. "I have no idea what you've just said, but I'm right, so I'll take it."

Hermione heaved another long-suffering sigh, but pressed on.

"Once the wheat was ground into flour, the little red hen went to the dog and asked, 'Will you help me bake the bread?' and the dog said, 'No!'" Hermione said.

"I'd nearly forgot she wanted bread to begin with," Harry said.

"Yeah, what was that, seven, eight months ago?" Ron said. "Wouldn't she have starved to death by now?"

"I'm fairly certain she's eaten since then, Ron," Hermione said, rubbing the bridge of her nose to ease tension. "And wheat usually takes about five to six months to reach maturity."

"Duly noted," Ron said. "So the dog doesn't like baking bread. How about the cat?"

"The little red hen asked the cat, 'Will you help me bake the bread?' and the cat said, 'No!' too," Hermione said.

"Uh-huh," Ron said, leaning forward on his chair excitedly. "And the rat?"

"The little red hen asked the rat, 'Will you help me bake the bread?' and the rat said, 'No!' as well," Hermione said.

Ron looked crestfallen. "Oh," he said.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"No, I just thought for some reason that it would go differently this time," Ron said. "Still, imagine a dog, a cat, and a rat all kneading bread dough. That'd be a right old mess, fur and hair in the bread and all. I think I'd rather have a stray feather or two in it myself than that."

Harry and Hermione both grimaced.

"You do have a point," Hermione said, looking rather ill before she continued. "The little red hen replied, 'Then I shall do it all myself,' and so she did."

"I miss Mum's bread," Ron said wistfully. "That's a good smell in the morning, fresh bread and all that. And bacon, and eggs frying up, and maybe some sausages in the pan. Best alarm clock ever."

"It is a good smell," Hermione agreed.

"I usually did the sausages and bacon for the Dursleys," Harry said. "They never had a good word to say about them, but they ate them fast enough. I never made bread, though."

"It's very time consuming, especially when you can just go to a shop and get a loaf ready made for very little money, but I suppose there's something satisfying about it, rather like making a complicated potion," Hermione said. "I may have to get your mum to show me how to make it when this is all over and done."

"She'd like that," Ron said. "She's fond of you, you know."

"Well, I like her quite a bit as well," Hermione said, rather embarrassed.

Harry thought he might just choke on the unspoken theory that they would make a lovely pair of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, so he broke in and said, "The bread's made. Then what?"

"Oh, well," Hermione said, looking a bit ruffled but plodding on. "Yes, the little red hen did indeed make a lovely loaf of bread, piping hot from the oven."

"Just one?" Ron said. "From all that wheat?"

"Well, she made at least one to start with. The wheat won't go bad all in a minute, you know. She probably kept the rest for later," Hermione said.

"I suppose that's fair," Ron said.

"Or maybe she left some of the wheat for seed for the next year," Hermione said, drifting into her own thoughts. "If she reserved a good portion of the wheat seed, she could actually go into the business of agriculture herself, suggesting that the story is on some level a fable on the importance of independent determination of one's destiny as well as the facilitating of a previous farm laborer, namely the hen, with the endowment of land rights and her own form of industry, made even more impressive under the strictures of the culture and era by her female gender. That could suggest a latent criticism of the farm system of the time period, in which a few families owned the land worked by many others, but in this case the hen achieves self-sufficiency through her efforts. It's really quite an uplifting theme, really."

"Uh-huh," Ron said, "or maybe she just didn't plant all that much wheat to start with since she's a hen."

"Also a possibility," Hermione said. "Anyway, the dog, the cat, and the rat, smelling the tantalizing aroma of the bread wafting from the kitchen window, had all wandered over to the little red hen and were standing at the door. 'Will you help me eat the bread?' asked the little red hen. 'Yes!' cried the dog, the cat, and the rat together."

"Aw, that's nice," Ron said.

"'No!' cried the little red hen," Hermione said.

"Wait, what?" Ron said.

"The little red hen said, 'I planted the seed, I cut the wheat, I ground the wheat into flour, and I baked the bread all by myself, and I shall eat it all by myself as well!' And so she did, enjoying it very much," Hermione said. "The end."

Ron frowned.

"That seems rather mean," he said. "She's going to eat the whole loaf of bread on her own?"

"Well, they didn't do anything to help her, but they were perfectly willing to eat what she'd worked for so hard without so much as a thank you," Hermione said. "Some versions of the story do have the little red hen relent and give them some of the bread if they promise to help her next time, but that sort of undermines the point of the story, really."

"I suppose so," Ron said, still sounding dissatisfied. "So what does this have to do with the shepherd's pie again?"

"Well, let's think for a second about exactly how that pie got here," Hermione said, feigning innocence. "Let's see. While you and Harry were playing Quidditch, I rationed out a tiny portion of the Polyjuice Potion I brewed back at the Burrow. Then I used the Invisibility Cloak and went into town. I did a summoning charm to get a bit of hair from the dustbin in the alley in back of a women's beauty parlor and used it to look like one of the locals. After I transformed, which still hurts quite badly, you just don't get used to that, I went into a shop and bought the ingredients for shepherd's pie with some of the Muggle money I packed last July, then ran back to the tent, getting here about a minute before the potion wore off. After that, I baked the pie and had it ready and hot when you got in."

Harry and Ron exchanged slightly guilty looks.

"At least you didn't eat it all yourself like the hen," Harry said.

"Yeah, you've earned the last piece," Ron said. "Take it."

"Oh, forget it," Hermione said, sighing. "Let's just split it three ways and have done with it. I won't enjoy it all by myself anyway."

"Really?" Harry and Ron said together.

"Yes, really," she said, smiling. "But I get to have a day off tomorrow, right?"

"Too right you should," Ron said, picking up his fork and taking a bite of the crust. "You know, 'Mione, this really is a good pie."

Harry saw her blush a little as she mumbled a thank you and took a bite herself, then Harry followed suit. Somehow in the end, the slice came out even, and they all felt a bit fuller.

"It's getting late," Hermione said, checking the clock on the wall that said it was nearly midnight. "If we want an early start again tomorrow to head for the Cornish coastline, we really should all get to bed."

"I suppose, but it's so nice to be full that I don't want to miss it by being asleep," Ron said, patting his stomach fondly.

"Understandable," Hermione said. "I think I'll turn in, though. I'm tired. Good night."

They both wished her a good night, and in a few minutes it was obvious she was asleep behind the little curtained alcove that served as her bedroom.

"When we get out of this," Ron said, turning to Harry, "I'm buying her a whole crate of Mrs. Torpington's Magically Delicious Meat Pies, sticking a bow on it, and giving them to her for Christmas, possibly every year for the rest of our lives."

"Sounds like a plan," Harry said, and the pair of them sat there a long while in companionable silence, for once not feeling hunger pangs, the tent a quiet eye in the storm that surrounded them.