Author's Note:
This is a continuation/soft reboot of the time travel tale "Hair of the Grim" by Nightmare Sired Muse, with a bunch of changes. It also contains many concepts, lines and situations from the grab-bag that is "Odd Ideas" by Rorschach's Blot. Both are used with the permission of their original authors. The Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. I do not own Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Anchorman, Austin Powers, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Blackadder, The Barber of Seville, the Bible, Discworld, Dragonball Z, Evil Dead, How It Should Have Ended, Farscape, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Futurama, Game of Thrones, Inglourious Basterds, Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness, Indiana Jones, Inuyasha, Keeping Up Appearances, Lolita, The Lone Ranger, The Marriage of Figaro, Mazes and Monsters, Monkey Island, Monte Python, Naruto, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pinky and the Brain, Pokémon, Popeye, Ranma ½, Red Dwarf, Robot Chicken, The Simpsons, Snakes on a Plane, South Park, Star Trek, Star Wars, Terminator 2, The Thousand and One Nights, Troll 2, Tomb Raider, Yes Prime Minister, White Chicks, and the works of Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, Roald Dahl, Shakespeare, or anyone else.
Rated M for some violence, language, drug use and sexual references. Nothing explicit.
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Recommended Fanfiction of the Week: "Lily's Changes" by arekay.
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Chapter 5 – Snuggle Bunnies
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When humans discuss the things which are to be, the rats laugh in the rafters.
– Old Chinese proverb
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Harry stirred and yawned. The air was chilly and soft gusts of wind were disturbing his rest. Opening his eyes, he spotted a lump of red hair on top of him. Something warm was pressed firmly against his chest. "Mmmmm, it's time to get up, Ginny," he mumbled. "I think we fell asleep on the Quidditch Pitch again …"
The red mass grumbled and snuggled deeper into him. As his eyes gradually adjusted to his surroundings, he could see the grey dawn light on the horizon, coming up over the rolling hills. Wait a minute, how could he see the rolling hills from inside a Quidditch stadium? Looking around, he froze in shock, then bolted upright. The sleeping redhead whined insistently, trying to return to his warmth and to dreamland. Shaking her awake, he realised this was not in fact his girlfriend-from-another-dimension, but a very confused, very sleepy, and very cranky Lily Evans.
"Lily?!"
"Peter!? What are you doing here with me?!" she demanded, rubbing the sleep from her puffy, bruised eyes.
"What I am doing here? What are you doing here with me?! And … where are we anyway?"
Ascertaining where they were resulted in a high, girlish scream (concurrent with a lower, more masculine sounding scream from Lily), for you see, dear reader, they were presently ensconced on the highest point of the rooftop of the South Wing of Hogwarts. Which explained the nippy breeze that was making them both nippy (in both senses of the word). More worrying was the fact that neither could remember how they got up there in the first place.
"How in Merlin's name did we get up here!" she said in horror (confirming the accuracy of the previous sentence).
"How in Melin's name did we get ahold of these digs?" Harry wondered. He was for some reason wearing hot-green jodhpurs, a black muggle combat jacket (sans shirt) and a pair of brothel-creeper shoes. "Sweet Freyr, I look campier than a row of army tents!" he exclaimed. Eyeing the beige,-black-and-white checked design on every stitch of clothing of companion was bedecked in, he added, "And you look like the Queen of the Chavs."
"What on earth is a 'chav'?"
"Never mind – the point is, we look like a couple of purebloods dressed to take a brisk constitutional in the muggle world," he said sourly.
"Is that … what is that written on your chest?"
Alarmed, Harry looked down, to confirm that there was indeed writing scrawled on his unimpressive, flabby, pale chest, in some deep-garnet-coloured ink. 'Slave To Nothing But Lily Evans And The Rhythm.'
"What does that mean?"
"I'm more concerned with the fact that it's written in my lipstick," Lily countered, testing the substance by rubbing it between her fingers.
"Urglk," he shivered as she inadvertently rubbed his chilly chest with her icy fingers. "What's the last thing you remember?", as they made their shaky way to the nearest emergency stairwell.
"Um," she scrunched her nose. "We were walking out of the Forbidden Forest, you were bragging about being a lordly high lord and forcing me to silence about everything …"
"Hey! I was not bragging!"
"… then we reached the Shrieking Shack, and you showed me the tunnel back to Hogwarts," she continued unfazed by his objection. "That's … that's all I can remember. You?"
"About the same," the frowning boy replied.
"Do you think it was obliviation? Or the Imperius?"
"Possibly the first. The Imperius Curse doesn't work on me, so I'd've known," Harry said.
"Do I even want to know how you know that?"
"A man pretending to be an Auror thought it'd be fun to put me under," the boy replied tightly.
"You certainly lead an interesting life," she muttered, eyeing him dubiously.
"You have no idea. Possession maybe? I've heard of people losing track of time while they were being controlled by a spirit or some other entity."
"Let's go find Professor McGonagall, if anyone could fill us in about what's been going on, it's her."
"I'd prefer the Headmaster. Nobody knows more about dark magic and strange, arcane magics than him. If somebody's done something to us, he'll get to bottom of it."
"Could've been that hooded figure we met in the Forest," Lily growled darkly. "He could've waited until we'd finished and were distracted and then, wham! Nailed us from behind."
They moved as fast as their addled minds could take them down the empty corridors. It was still the crack of dawn, so it seemed they were the only ones up. The first sign that something was amiss was a cluster of streamers hanging from a suit of armour. A bit further down, another suit of armour's helmet had been transfigured into a half-rabbit's head, half chrome-teethed monstrosity.
"What's that?" Lily pointed. On the walls were a series of what looked like the footprints of some animal. Some animal that had run through a puddle of pink paint and then tracked it all through the castle. Except these footprints were enormous – at least as long as her armspan. A bit further on, the pink footprints were joined by green footprints, and then orange and purple ones. The tracks criss-crossed each other over the floors, walls, and even the ceilings. "What kind of thing runs around along the walls and ceilings?" she wondered, craning her head to observe it.
"Nothing I've ever heard of."
They reached the Great Hall, and gasped.
"Your damn Marauder friends have been at it again!" she accused.
Harry shrugged. "Possibly. I don't remember anything being planned. Or carried out."
"But then, you would say that wouldn't you?"
"Or it could be Peeves, ever think of that?"
"I've never heard of Peeves doing anything on this scale."
"Nor Potter," Harry countered.
One end of the Hall was painted a higgledy-piggledy melange of blues and pastels, dominated by the message, in towering, but trembling, letters: 'The Hare Club For Men' and 'Taste The Rainbow and Carealot'. On the other end, in bold reds were the words 'I am the Lizard Queen' and 'All Shall Love Me And Despair'. The tables and chairs had been replaced with children's jungle gym equipment and foam castles. On the raised dais where the teachers' table usually stood was a sign that said 'The Best Seat In The House' and an arrow pointing to Dumbledore's throne. Except the throne was no longer present, instead was a large porcelain toilet standing in its place, which had been polished to a mirror shine. Harry discreetly smoothed down his cowlicks in his reflection.
"Any idea why there's a pond in the middle of the Great Hall? Or why the water is smoking? And the same colour as Felix Felicis?" Lily sniffed. "The fumes smell like aubergines."
"Let's … let's just go to the Headmaster's Office …" Harry offered weakly.
She nodded and they made their way there, gaits more confident (and concerned) now. They still leaned on each other's shoulders for support. Also, they didn't want to be physically apart, not in this silent, bizarre rabbit hole they'd fallen down. Heading down a hallway, more brightly coloured streamers enwrapped the suits of armour, paintings, statues and chandeliers. It looked as if a psychedelic Acromantula had gone wild with its webspinning.
"Curiouser and Curiouser," Harry muttered to himself. "Did someone order a web-slinger?"
"There's another message written here," she scowled. "'You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Study Here, But It Helps'."
"Truer words were never written," Harry uttered sagely.
As they progressed, closer and closer to their destination, the more every hair on his body would stand on end. He was aware of his consciousness expanding outwards, his awareness of the stone under his feet, the cool balls of air he was inhaling, the softness of Lily's crimson tresses as they brushed against his face and neck, the gentle pressure of her hands as she gripped his right arm, the sound of both of their lungs breathing in and out. He could feel the shiver of nervousness increasing as well, a subtle paranoia that drove him to keep looking behind him, in front, above, to the sides, over and over again, eyes darting around rapidly. Suddenly, the paranoia spiked to a new level, and he could feel subtle vibrations. His rodent instincts kicked in.
"My ratty-sense is tingling! We've got incoming!" he snapped. They sprang apart, wands at the ready. "Whatever it is, it feels big, mean and fearsome!", as around the upcoming corner charged … The Beast.
"There it is!" he pointed a trembling finger.
"What, behind the rabbit?"
"It is the rabbit!" he hissed, gripping his chestnut and dragon heartstring wand in a white-knuckled grip, rat-senses screaming at him to flee.
"What?!" Lily stared hard at the tiny white bunny hopping sedately across the far end of the corridor. The creature stopped, looked them over carefully, nose and whiskers twitching, then began snuffling around for scraps amidst the stone blocks that made up the floor. She frowned and relaxed. "You silly sod!" she snapped, jabbing him in the shoulder. "You got me all worked up!"
"That's no ordinary rabbit," Harry insisted, eyes never leaving the Creature. "'Tis the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on …"
"Uh-huh … wait, what's it doing?"
Before their astonished eyes, the tiny mammal began to morph, growing larger and larger, until it was at least double their height and quadruple their combined mass, its fur and skin transfiguring into …
"It's … it's a …" Lily gasped. "A bunny made out of towels and pillows!"
The Creature was indeed a collection of Hogwarts-issued towels, sheets, pillows and pillowcases all stuck together. The Hogwarts logos printed thereon were clearly visible. The haphazard mass of folded and rumbled fabrics made the giant bunny look remarkably similar to an oversized shar pei puppy. Focusing baleful black eyes (made out of bundles of black nylons, by the looks of them) on the pair, the Creature bellowed out a teeth-rattling lion's-roar, belching forth a great torchblast torrent of red flame. Then charged! The two students dived to opposite sides of the corridor, backs against the walls to prevent being taken from behind, forcing the Beast to choose one or the other as a target. It decided to go for Harry first. His panicked Incendio! was neatly dodged, as was his follow-up banishing charm. His panicked bone-breaker hex had absolutely no effect, and then it was on top of him! With a muffled "Shmrug!" the white Bunny swallowed the boy in one gulp.
"Peter!" she screamed, racing towards him, wand raised.
"Gaaaaah! It's hugging me to death!" Harry's voice cried out melodramatically. "Must … resist … so … soft and cuddly!"
She slid to a halt. "You pipeweed-sucking prat! You nearly scared the life outta me!"
"Sorry, sorry," he apologised, voice muffled by the layers of towels. "I was terrified for real – until I realised that these freshly-laundered fluffy towels and pillows were about as solid as warm butter. Now, if they were trying to smother me, that'd be a different story; but they're just rubbing me all over. Feels kinda nice. Warm. Comforting. Guess all the fire-breathing was just for show. I could get used to having one of these Snuggle-bunnies around all the time!"
Lily's gathering tirade was cut short at the sound of another mighty roar, echoing down the hallway from their rear. The heavy tremors of giant footfalls became louder, until another Creature, this one enormous, charged up to them from the opposite direction, towering over the Snuggle-bunny. Its head interfered with the chandeliers, and it needed to hunch to prevent its skull from smacking against the ceiling. Harry struggled to extract himself from the mass of fabric to reach his partner, but it was slow going. Trying to disentangle himself from the layers of towels that kept moving around as the Bunny bounced here and there, was not as straightforward an action as it may sound. The giant, fire-engine-red Tyrannosaurus Rex opened its toothy mouth, threw back its head and gave a powerful "Neigh!" Then, with surprising speed, lunged down and seized Lily in its mighty jaws and bit down.
"Eeeeek!"
"Lily! Are you alright!"
"No, I am not! It's dripping funny-smelling water all over me!" Her face and wand-arm were the only parts of her visible, flailing around outside the T-Rex's teeth. "Its mouth is all scratchy and foam-like! Like it's made out of sponges or something!"
"Don't panic, if you hold perfectly still, it'll kill you slower!"
"Kill me slower!?" she demanded shrilly. "Oh well, I can just bloody well relax now, can't I?"
Harry finally broke free of his super-soft captor and raced towards the action, hurling a bright orange spell at the monster. It hit the great beast full on the broad side (given how huge the thing was, it was hard to miss). The creature writhed and shuddered at the impact. With a terrified neigh, it dropped Lily unceremoniously and bravely turned tail and fled, like a rat deserting a sinking ship.
"Huh," he said, looking at his wand in wonder. "That spell had a lot more power in it than I thought I'd cast with."
Harry helped up a fluoride-smelling Lily from the floor. "What … what spell did you use? That was super-effective!"
"A drying charm." At her surprised look he added, "The thing was full of water, and you said it seemed to be made of sponges. Seemed like the logical thing to fight it with."
"Point," she conceded. She reached up a cast a few drying charms of her own, trying to dry out and disentangle her sodden mop of red curls.
"I think we have just the thing for your situation," Harry announced.
"What's that?" she sighed.
"Levicorpus!"
The redhead shrieked as she shot upwards, upside-down, levitated by one of her ankles, then was hurled at great speed towards the Snuggle-bunny. The Bunny crouched, then leaped towards her, snatching her body dextrously out of the air, swallowing her down.
"Er, sorry about that!" Harry called out apologetically. "I meant to use Mobilicorpus, not Levicorpus. Plus my magic's been acting all wonky this morning for some reason."
"I truly hate you," her muffled voice said.
"But you are getting nice and dry now, right?"
The girl deigned not to give him a response. Shrugging, Harry raced towards the Creature himself, and jumped towards it. The Snuggle-bunny snagged him from the air as well, and for a moment he was tumbling, then landed in an ocean of soft fluffiness.
"Mmmmm, so soft," he sighed in rapture. "And smells so nice."
"Get off me, you creep!" his 'cushion' growled.
"Sorry." They rearranged themselves. "Now we are dry, and now we have transport," Harry said in satisfaction, ignoring the glowering redhead. "To Dumbledore we go! Forward, Towelie!"
"That's the worst name ever," Lily grumbled.
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"We've arrived," Lily announced, peeking her head out of the Snuggle-bunny's mouth. In front of them was the stone gargoyle that lead to the Headmaster's inner sanctum. Emblazoned over the opposite wall was another sign: 'Welcome To Wonderland, Population: Infinity. Don't Want To Go Around Mad People? Too Bad – We're All Mad Here.'
"I think we've discovered the whereabouts of the Headmaster's throne," observed Harry, nodding towards the golden chair in question. It was stuck to a nearby wall. Sitting on it, perpendicular to the surface of the wall, was a statue of Barnabas the Barmy. Stuck to the wall all around it were what looked to be a horde of paper-mâché trolls in mid-plié.
"When I find out who did all this, they're going to be cooling their heels in detention for the next hundred years," Lily shook her head. "I wonder what they were thinking?"
"A question I would very much like the answer to, Miss Evans," came the tight, grim voice of a very surly Albus Dumbledore. In their distraction, neither had noticed that the gargoyle had moved aside to allow the Headmaster's approach. A brief wave of his wand, and the Snuggle-bunny shivered, shimmered, shuddered, and then collapsed into its component parts. Lily and Harry tumbled ass-over-kettle onto the hard stone floor.
"Oooof!"
"Oh sir, how cruel," Harry said sadly (once he'd regained his bearings), looking in regret at the mortal remains of his once-animate animal friend.
"Fear not, Mr Pettigrew," Dumbledore growled. "There are at least a dozen more such creatures haunting the halls of Hogwarts for you to play with."
Harry immediately perked up at this news. Springing to his feet, he made to race towards the dungeons, only to be frozen and levitated back.
"There will be plenty of time for that later. In the meantime, the two of you will be explaining to me exactly what has been going through your minds for the past day, to inspire such 'pranks of mass destruction'?
"Sir? Are you saying – that Peter and I were the ones who did all this?"
"Of course," Dumbledore said impatiently.
"How can that be!? We've only been awake for less than an hour?!" Lily's confusion and distress bled through into her tone.
The Headmaster frowned. "You don't remember the past 24 hours at all?"
"'Twas not me, 'twas the one-eyed man!" declared Harry, then tried to make another break for it, only to be frozen once more. To Lily's concern, he started shivering and chittering as his eyes darted about wildly.
"I believe we shall make the Infirmary our first stop," Dumbledore declared in turn. "We can begin the interrogation and assignation of punishments there just as easily as here in the hallway. "Fawkes!"
There was a feeble flash of green fire as the Headmaster's faithful friend and long-time familiar of decades appeared in a and perched on his ancient shoulder.
"What happened to Fawkes?" Lily questioned hesitantly. "Was he always purple with pink polka-dots? And doesn't he have … you know, feathers? Is he having a burning day?"
The bird gave a mournful trill, then shot the girl a baleful glare.
"You happened to Fawkes," the Headmaster growled bluntly. "I recall it having to do with a muggle shaver, a can of paint and a hex."
"We did that too?" Lily asked in astonishment, massaging the top of her skull in agitation. "Okay, I'm seriously starting to freak out – this is a madhouse, a madhouse!" Harry patted her back comfortingly. Then began gnawing and worrying at an itch on his arm.
"Fawkes, could I trouble you to transport us to the Infirmary, please?" asked the Headmaster politely. The bird gave him a filthy look, and disappeared in a bang and puff of smoke and chaff that set the trio to coughing fitfully. "Ahem," said Dumbledore, after they had recovered, "I do believe we must ambulate on this occasion."
As they walked through the silent castle, their footsteps echoing eerily, Harry finally plucked up his courage to, in between his sudden bouts of chattering paranoia, ask, "Um, sir? Where's Mr Filch? Usually he and Mrs Norris are always wandering about the hallways after hours."
"Mr Filch and Mrs Norris have been given a week's compassionate leave," the old man said in a tone as flat as Dudley's recorder playing.
"Uh … dare I ask why?"
"It was Madame Valentine's diagnosis that both would benefit from an extended period of rest and quietude. To recover from their many traumas."
"I really don't want to know," Lily groaned. "That poor cat."
"Poor cat?" Harry demanded incredulously. "That thing has been the bane of every student's existence for 40 years! Rumour has it that she's so long-lived because she feeds on the mystic energy of generations of students' pain and suffering."
"Excuse me, Professor," Lily said, ignoring Harry's opinions of certain felines, "but if all this … this," she gestured vaguely, "has been going on for two days or thereabouts, why didn't you and the staff reverse the changes? And why weren't the two of us put into straightjackets, or put in a warded cell or something?"
Dumbledore scowled. "We HAVE been reversing the changes, Miss Evans. Classes had to be cancelled for all of yesterday to allow the Professors and elves the time to scour the castle and clean up everything that had been done to it. What you see now is the result of those efforts."
The two students paled and shared a stunned look. What on earth had the place looked like before this morning?
"And as for your second question," the Headmaster continued, "we could not find you until now. Even I have been unable to locate your presences through the Hogwarts wards. You have both demonstrated most impressive stealth capabilities, so much so that I'm awarding Gryffindor 100 points apiece for such deviousness."
"Really?" asked Lily, hope rising anew from the ashes within her fiery heart.
"Really, Miss Evans," replied the old man firmly. "Which lowers the net number of points I'm deducting from Gryffindor for your abysmal conduct down to 650 points apiece."
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The two reprobates sat in chastened silence as Madame Valentine ran test after test. "The most obvious assumption would be possession by some sort of spirit, ghost or enchanted artefact," she stated, casting yet another diagnostic charm, "but there's no evidence of that. Also no evidence of memory charms, compulsion charms, mind-altering potions or Legilimency.
"Well, that's just great! This is all your fault, Pettigrew! I don't know how you did it, but it's the only explanation that fits!" declared Lily, reddening in fury. It was hard to tell where her face ended and her hair began.
"And what about their mood swings?" queried the Headmaster. "Miss Evans' temperament shows disturbingly high increases of rage and frustration, while Mr Pettigrew demonstrates ever-greater levels of nervousness and paranoia." He gestured grandly to Harry, who was starting to tremble and shiver again, and to Lily, who was starting to grind her teeth again, eyes almost shooting sparks as she glared flaming death upon he whom she perceived as the progenitor of her current woes. "And they appear to be getting worse with time."
"What the hell is going on!?," bellowed Lily to the sculptured bust of Galen mounted above the door. Somebody tell me right now or so help me Buddha I'll start cursing everything in sig–" Using her ranting as a distraction, Harry made another blindingly-fast bid for freedom … which was thwarted as he bounced off the ward Dumbledore had erected around the Infirmary. Again. He quickly righted himself and began scheming frantically for another way out.
"Physically they're fine," Madame Valentine said slowly, "but their magic is completely out of harmony, and that's what's driving the mood swings and other irrational behaviour. And their magical signatures seem to be affecting the other to a significant degree. A sort of folie á deux."
The old man's brows furrowed in concern. "And the cause?"
"Instability in their magical cores."
The ancient wizard paled.
"I knew this was your doing!" Lily snarled viciously, jabbing her finger like a wand at Pettigrew. "It was that Thor-damned ritual we did last night – you screwed it up, somehow!"
"Ritual?" the mediwitch demanded. "You two have been performing rituals together?" At their nods, she hurried away to her office and returned with a stack of medical reference books. "All right young man and young woman," she said sternly. "You are going to tell me everything you know about this rite. And then I'll find a way to stabilise your cores. Settle in, you'll be residing in the Hospital Wing until you've regained control over yourselves; that may be for some time."
Dumbledore sighed (though whether in relief or exasperation was hard to tell).
Madame Valentine grumbled as she leafed through her texts.
Lily fumed.
Harry chittered.
The stair stared.
The box boxed.
The drain drained.
Their thoughts thought.
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"Well well well, if it isn't Peter Rabbit and Tyrannosaurus Lils" Sirius announced, as the Marauders burst into the Infirmary with all the grace, subtly and tact of a crash of particularly indelicate and thoughtless rhinos.
"Are you two alright?" asked James, his eyes flicking in concern between the two inhabitants inhabiting side-by-side beds next to the windows.
"Fine, thanks," said Lily tiredly, the hours of all-consuming rage had worn the girl out. She nibbled on a polished apple that Mary had brought her earlier. Her best friend's not-so-subtle implication was not lost on the budding genius. "They were able to figure out what went wrong with our cores and stabilised them. We're just recovering from a touch of magical exhaustion. Madame Valentine says we'll be right as rain by tomorrow night."
"Thank Merlin," James sighed in relief. Then stiffened as he noticed something ... "Hey Wormtail, what happened to your eyes?"
Pettigrew grumbled something under his breath and turned away, looking out the window. James was not deterred, stepping forward briskly and taking Peter's face in his hands, he gently brought it around to face him. And gasped in surprise. Looking back at him were two deep, piercing emerald orbs. He recognised the shade instantly. It was the exact same colour as a certain redhead with whom he was besotted, the same colour his infatuation had picked up as one of the first things about her to fix in his memory.
"What? How …?"
Lily shrugged indifferently. Peter looked uncomfortable. "Madame Valentine didn't know," he mumbled, squirming uncomfortably in his bed under the incredulous gaze of his three friends.
Padfoot was the first to recover, as usual. "Yes, well, whatever it was that did that, it at least didn't do any harm, right?"
"No, my vision's even gotten a bit better." It hadn't improved as much as it had after he achieved the animagus transformation, but it was still noticeable. According to Orion, the effects of the runes that were now embedded in his and Lily's cores would start to affect them slowly over time, gradually enhancing, speed, sight, sense of spell, resistance to magical attack, and so forth. The eye-colour change was certainly a surprise though; on balance, Harry couldn't say he was displeased to have his original eyes back, sans the crippling farsightedness, of course. At the very edges of his hearing, he could swear that he'd started hearing little whispers. Not like the chillingly slow hisses of snakes or basilisks, but light and rapid as they bounced information to and fro at lightning speed. Little chitters and squeaks and chirps all around him. He wondered if the ritual had enhanced his rat-like characteristics, or whether his mind and magic were finally easing into the full flow-on effects of Pettigrew's animagus form. Somebody had told him once (who and when he'd forgotten) that the reason the old Pettigrew had been able to locate the shade of Voldemort in the first place, setting the whole cavalcade of the second blood war into motion, was because the rats and mice had told him where he and Nagini were. Harry pondered whether he could talk to them as well – what did one call the magical ability to speak to rats and mice? Mustongue? Antechinusmouth? Rattongue? Mousemouth? No, those all sounded lame.
"Anyway, we came to congratulate you both for successfully shutting the entire school down for an entire day!" Prongs proclaimed, near to bursting with pride. "That hasn't happened because of a student's behaviour since 1786, when Edie Widder somehow permanently transfigured herself into the Giant Squid that we all know and love today! I looked it up!"
"And I keep telling you that book's full of shite!" argued Padfoot. "Everyone knows that the Giant Squid is actually Godric Gryffindor, the world's oldest and largest animagus. Legend says that on the eleventh hour of every evening, the Squid rises from the Black Lake and transforms into Godric, who wanders Hogwarts with the ghosts until dawn! That's why you never see the Squid after dark!"
"Pshaw!" James snorted in contempt. "You never the Giant Squid after dark because it's dark! And the Black Lake is so black that it's impossible to see anything in its murky depths even in the middle of the daytime! What kind of knut-store paperback trash-novel would spread such hippogriff shite?"
"Hogwarts: A History," commented Remus.
"You lie!"
"That's the most diligence I've ever seen either of you two clowns put into researching any subject that wasn't Quidditch, pranking or Transfiguration," Lily noted in wonder. "But your newfound studiousness aside, this is nothing to be celebrated! I've already lost almost two whole days of classes, and I'm looking set to lose another! And to make matters worse, the entire school had to suffer their loss as well!"
"Are you insane?" Padfoot demanded, horrified. "I suppose another day spent memorising potions reaction tables would be better time spent than the noble art of pranking, is that what you're saying?"
"Of course it's what I'm saying," she said matter-of-factly, with the air that she was the poor unfortunate soul burdened with the dread task of explaining the self-evident to every lackwit she encountered. Padfoot shook his head in pity at such a lost cause.
"Well, you needn't worry," James tried to reassure the girl of his dreams. "Classes resumed today for the most part, and they'll be fully up and running by the time you're out of this antiseptic hellhole. Then we'll all be back to the usual rat race, the endless hamster-wheel of classes and assignments and tests ..." He sighed sadly.
"It's a real tragedy." Harry mused philosophically, "Schools are not supposed to be exam factories for the rat race. What's the point? O or T student, you still end up as this rat in the British Maze, working your way towards the cheese; a job, a career, gold, power, women, whatever. Makes you wonder what the objective of it all is?"
"What's that, Wormy?"
"Just a couple of sayings."
"By whom?"
"Some muggles. I forget."
"Figures. That aside, I've brought you a present/reward for all your hard work in managing mischief and causing chaos! But next time, don't cut us out of the fun, alright mate?"
"Sure, no problem," Harry said. "By which I mean to say," he amended hastily as he remembered who was lying next to him, "I think I'm all pranked out for the year. Possibly next school year as well, yeah." He seized the book James had left on his bedside table and began flicking through it. "What is this?"
"It's a book written by my beloved great-grand-aunt Beatrix," James explained grandly. "She was a Squib who made it big writing stories for muggles. Became extremely famous I'm told, Merlin rest her dearly-departed magicless soul."
"'The Tale of Peter Rabbit','' Harry read out loud.
James smiled. "It seemed appropriate."
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˂:3 )~~~~ . ˂:3 )~~~~ . ˂:3 )~~~~
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Harry stared out of the window while Lily fiddled with her Potions notes.
Harry twirled his wand between his fingers. Lily began reading her Charms Master book.
Harry started tapping his wand on his bedside table. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Lily gritted her teeth but said nothing.
Eventually noticing the glares she was directing his way, Harry sheepishly put his wand away on the side desk.
Stared out the window. Stared at Lily until she glared at him and silently demanded he find something else to do with his time. Stared at his textbooks, which he had no desire to read. Stared at his wand. Stared at his secret second-hand wand he'd bought from B&BBBB in Knockturn Alley, wondering when Snidely Whizzpopper would send his first delivery of Harry's untraceable, and apparently non-power-limiter-including and lots-of-runes-including, wands.
Stared at the ceiling. Stared at his sheet. Stared at his bedside mirror. Merlin, how he despised that ugly mug that stared back at him so smugly. As if defying him to do anything about it. Defying him to defy his role as the Eternal Bitch of Fate, Space and Time. His now-viridian eyes widened as inspiration struck. There was something he could do about one aspect of that idiotic, traitorous, cowardly, parent-betraying sack of sallow snake skin Peter Pettigrew. Not to mention traitorous and betraying.
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˂:3 )~~~~ . ˂:3 )~~~~ . ˂:3 )~~~~
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"I cannot over-emphasise how strongly I recommend you not do this," Lily said firmly. For the eighth time.
"Duly noted," Harry said absently as he consulted his textbook one more time, running over the correct wand movements and pronunciation over and over in his mind. It seemed simple enough. Hell, if the stupid ferret could manage it on the fly, it couldn't be any harder than a simple Lumos.
"This isn't necessary – it's not so bad," she said lamely, trying a different tack.
"Not so bad?! I can open beer bottles with my overbite!"
"At least wait for Madame Valentine to come back; I'm sure she'd do it for you if you asked her."
"No she won't," Harry shook his head with absolute certainly. "I know mediwitches, they're all alike. Just tut-tut and click their tongues and tell you that you should be happy with what Nature and Magic gave you, that they're not using scarce school resources to satisfy students' vanity, that if you want cosmetic magic go to St Mungos or any of the cut-rate dodgy 'specialists' that infest Knockturn and Diagon. If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of residing in the Hospital Wing, is that if you want a mediwitch to do something that you actually want her to do, you have to force her hand!" So saying he lifted his wand, carefully angled it to make sure it was properly aligned with his teeth, and summoned up his recovering magic.
"But what if she doesn't get here in time to fix you up!" Lily protested.
"She will. Mediwitches are like the Devil. Speak their names and they shall appear."
"I really think you should reconsid–"
Ah, maybe Lily's right, Harry, the Otter gnawed her lip nervously. At the very least, make some preparations to mitigate possible worst-case scenarios in the event of –"
"Densaugeo!"
He immediately realised he'd miscalculated when his front teeth, indeed his entire overbite and jaw burst into flaring, fiery pain. His magic was apparently still wonky and excessively overpowered, as every tooth in his mouth began to grow rapidly, in all sorts of different and non-linear directions; and his entire jawbone as well!
"Matham Barrentie! Mathem Barrentie!" he called desperately, teeth getting in the way of his tongue and mercilessly mangling the Muggle Queen's English. Seeing the clock in the corner of his eye, he mentally kicked himself for being so stupid as to try out 'Project Hermione' right in the middle of lunch, when the mediwitch would be with all the rest of her colleagues, enjoying whatever spread the Hogwarts house elves had prepared. Pain from his bones mingled with new pain from his limps and gums, which started to tear and bleed as his teeth and jaw grew too large and unwieldy for his flesh.
Tumbling out of his bed, he weaved crazily through the hallways, banging into the walls as he went, before racing out into the Great Hall, where he howled at the top of his lungs, then collapsed in agony before a startled Madame Valentine, while the entire student population watched on in sympathy. So much sympathy, in fact, that only half of them howled with derisive laughter.
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