A/N: Hey everybody! Hope you are all having a wonderful almost the end of term week, I know I am! Hehe! 1 final on finals week and 1 more to take in class and I am home free! WEE! Ok I really am done now. I will hopefully have some actual time to write once I have finished moving now that I get my car at the end of the week and all the wonderful creative juices that have been stagnating can start flowing again! All right, now I am just babbling.
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and for those still waiting oh so patiently for the next chapter of Raising Phoenix rest assured that I will have a new chapter up by the end of the month, I have something half written, but I have yet to get the end of the chapter hammered out. I will get it out as soon as it is ready.
OK now on to the next chapter of this fic!
Chapter 3
The Reign of Furby
It was three days before Dumbledore seemed to notice that the Furby was gone from his shelf. The plate of sandwiches had been removed by a second house elf and any mess left behind had been cleaned up so that there was nothing that would have caused him to take notice of it. So it was reasonable that Dumbledore didn't notice anything out of place in his office upon returning. It was only when he had a few minutes to himself on a weekend afternoon and he decided that he would amuse himself by pandering to the demands of the furry little tyrant, when he noticed that Furby was indeed missing. Thinking that it was strange that it would be missing he did not have much time to really think about it as there was suddenly a knock on his door and his attention was called to something else. His musings about Furby were put aside and forgotten until Monday morning.
Normally Monday morning was something that no one in the castle looked forward to, including most of the staff (as if anyone really jumps up and down with glee at the thought of having to get back on an early morning schedule). This though did not always include the Headmaster who seemed to be on some sort of coco rush or lemon drop drip that kept him on a sugar or caffeine high and thus happy, most of the time. This though was not necessarily the case this morning. Dumbledore's normal allotment of an entire coffeepot of coco had not been delivered as normal to his chambers. Normally he would drink about a coffeepots' worth of hot coco before he ventured into the Great Hall to greet the day, the staff and student body. Then he would consume an additionally alarming quantity of caffeinated tea to go on top of the sugar and caffeine from the coco as well as a heavily jammed piece of toast. But not this morning! For the first time in his Headmastership he had not even smelt the hint of even coffee or tea brewing in the whole castle. It was usually even brewed when the castle was not full of young minds waiting to be filled during the summer. This was not something normal.
Calling for a house elf he was surprised by the fact that he had to wait a full five minutes for his summons to be answered, and he called for a house elf three or four times. Normally he would call once and in less than a minute there would be at least one house elf at his feet asking what they could do for him. When this house elf finally did finally show up it was not in the normal attitude that house elves were usually in, enthusiastic servitude. Nope, this house elf looked rather frightened by something as well as angry, though both emotions did not seem to be directed at Dumbledore, but instead at something else that he could not seem to fathom.
"Yes Headmaster." The house elf bowed low after a very visual effort to recollect itself. "What can Gumdrop do for you?"
"Well I was going to ask where my pot of coco was, but I believe it would be much more productive to ask what has happened to cause you so much distress!" He said, taken aback by the little creature's upset demeanor.
"We have had some trouble this morning Headmaster." The house elf told him. "Something has happened that we cannot explain! There are things from the pantry that are missing! Whole food categories and specific items, and large quantities of items!"
"What?" He said taken aback.
"Yes Headmaster." The little house elf nodded so fast it is surprising it didn't give itself whiplash or concussion in the process. "The whole kitchen is in an uproar! We don't know what happened! This is something that we cannot explain away! We house elves are trying to fix the problem! But it may not be something that we can fix right away!"
"Alright." Dumbledore said with a resigned sigh and a dismissive gesture. "Go do what you can to fix the problem; I will not worry about my coco this morning. Just make sure that you can keep the castle feed until this problem can be fixed." Gumdrop nodded vigorously and apparrated away to continue fretting and working.
With a heavy sigh Dumbledore turned and went over to a picture of a landscape that hung in his bedchambers and tapped the frame a couple times while muttering something. The frame then swung away from the wall and revealed a small covered cubby hole. Opening up the door he withdrew a small package of his reserve coco supply. He would have to replenish it soon, but he would have enough for the day and for a while longer. The world at large was safe from a grumpy Dumbledore, for now.
The day did not improve from there though, for anyone. The lack of coco in Dumbledore's chambers was only the beginning. The student body was in an exhausted uproar coming down to breakfast. Many of them had found that when they had gone into their drawers to get the standard black robes required as part of the uniform, that they were missing. Only a few of the students had a single robe that they were able to find, the rest, well it seemed that they had just evaporated into thin air! Then at breakfast they had one and only one thing to eat, lumpy oatmeal. That was it. There were not extras like brown sugar, cream, raisins or nuts to throw in to make it better, or toast and jam to go on the side; just lumpy oatmeal and pumpkin juice. Needless to say there was quite a bit of grumping and grumbling about this whole idea. Many of the students were not quite sure what the whole problem was that their usual many optioned breakfast was suddenly taken away, and some of them decided that they would forgo breakfast in hopes that there was some terrible mistake and lunch would not be affected.
This development of lack of uniforms, and a proper meal was felt most severely by one Potions Master. Normally it would be assumed that since he had been a spy for the Order and had betrayed the Death Eaters, that his wards would be unbreakably strong. But it would seem that though his wards had not been broken, they had been breached. This had resulted in something that would have never been believed by anyone; expect perhaps Hermione, unless it was seen. The Resident Potions Master was seen outside of his chambers in something other than his customary black teaching robes. Granted they were of a similar cut that he normally wore, but it was not the black that he had become known for.
He had found earlier that morning that there was nothing in his wardrobe that he considered to be suitable to wear to teach in, or in fact anything that was black. He had been both baffled and furious when he had to call for a house elf four times before one appeared, in much the same manner as had appeared before the Headmaster. Finally deciding that he would get nowhere with the small distraught creature he sent him away.
He then decided that he would have to modify something else that he owned. This only worked marginally well. While it would be believed by the general populace of the school that Severus only had one robe that he taught in and that was it that was not true. He actually had seven sets of the teaching robes, one for each day of the school week and a couple to be in the laundry. He also had some other types of robes that he would wear on special occasions, or to go out with his wife. Unfortunately everything that was black had been removed from his wardrobe and this presented a significant problem, leaving him with very, very few options to wear.
Actually it left him with one option, something he had forgotten about and wished he still could forget. The only robe that was not black, or so dark that it seemed to have been mistaken for black was of a medium olive color, something of the same hue as an unhealthy pallor of someone who is halfway through the stomach flu. It was the robe that he had been forced to wear at the Yule Ball when he had graduated. He had wished to burn the thing on sight, but it would seem that he had not burned it directly after he had returned from the Ball as it had somehow managed to still end up in his closet, much to his horror and slight relief; he would not have to be teaching in the buff (nuts).
Hermione on the other hand had not fared so horribly as he husband. Most of her wardrobe was still intact, though it must be said that many of her less than 'go out' clothes had disappeared, but she was pretty much unaffected, at least when compared to her husband's major wardrobe malfunction. Looking at the one robe he had to wear Severus decided that he would see if he could change it into something more palatable. He obviously had to change the size to fit him now, as well as the cut and then he decided that he would try to make it a different color. What he had not remembered was that the last time he had tried to that, it had turned out badly. So when he turned his wand on the fabric he quickly found out that the fabric had a mind of its own. This resulted in the color changing, but not in the direction he wanted. After a couple attacks on it he found himself with something even worse, a sea foam color. Defiantly not good!
If he could have breathed fire or killed with merely a look, the poor set of dress robes would have burst into flames and the resulting ashes burned again. But since he had not acquired that particular talent, much to relief of the students and in opposition to many of the rumors flying around the school, he had to be content with an evil glare being focused on the piece of offending cloth. This resulted in a laugh from Hermione who had just come from their bathroom, wrapped in a towel after her shower. "What are you laughing at Madame!?" He growled at her in distress.
"Nothing." She tried to lie, but was horribly unsuccessful as she watched him try again. The attempt only managed to turn the fabric from the sea foam to a pastel pink, what an improvement, NOT!
"Well what do you suggest?!" He asked in deadly exasperation and panic.
"Let me try." She said holding out her hand for the robes that looked more like they would have been found in the closet of a young teenage Umbridge than in any Snape closet. Severus was more than happy to hand over the offensively colored robes, especially if Hermione could fix them in some way. She was defiantly better at that sort of thing, than he was. After a moment or two of waving her wand over the robes (her towel held up magically) she deduced what was causing her husband so much trouble.
"Well here is your problem." She stated flicking her wand in an overly complicated matter above the fabric. "There is a charm on this set of robes that prohibits the owner from modifying them for anything other than size."
"Well, how do if fix it?" He asked, sounding exceedingly short on patience; especially since he had a vague remembrance of reading something along those lines in the letter that had accompanied the robes from his mother. His mother had made sure that her son could not go to the Yule ball in black that year, feeling her son needed to have a better or at least wider range of colors in his wardrobe. This had resulted in him trying to turn the medium green robes into something darker, but had only resulted in the original color of the fabric that he had found at the back of his closet earlier that morning. He had decided that he would not be able to survive any more wardrobe malfunctions that night and had gone to the Ball in that horrid olive-ish color. Needless to say he had not let any photographs he had been in (not that there had been very many) survive for very long. Now he was stuck with this monstrosity as the only thing he could wear.
"You can't fix it." Hermione said with a bit of a grin. "But you are in luck, I might be able to at least bring it back to the original color that it was. I am not the owner of this particular piece of clothing so I might be able to work around the spell on that technicality."
"Well that is better than nothing." He sighed dejectedly. "I will certainly not be cancelling classes and I refuse to go in my night shirt!"
At this Hermione could not suppress a giggle at the thought of either option, though she had to quell it almost as soon as it surfaced due to the death glare that was pointed in her direction. It would seem that this morning was not the one to provoke her husband anymore that he already was. Though, she was quite sure she would commit the thought to pensive for later mulling over in the future, and perhaps a bit of leverage when he was feeling particularly obstinate about a major issue. With a few more very complicated and seemingly time consuming movements the set of robes were turned into the deep forest green that they had originally been when he had been back in his 7th year. Hermione looked quite pleased with herself and Severus let out a great sigh of relief.
"Well, that worked out better than I thought." She said happily. "I made them something darker than they were when you first started."
"No, that is actually the color they were sent to me as. The first color you saw was my first attempt when I was back at school myself to change or 'fix' the original color to something I liked better. I figured at that time I would stop while I was still ahead." He told her, giving her another death glare because she had been unable to hold back another giggle.
"Well, I think you will look quite good in them." She told him as she held them up to him. She then waved her wand a couple more times and made the robes big enough for them to fit. As almost an afterthought, or perhaps as a curtsey to her husband who looked very put out about the entire ordeal, she did a few more complicated movements and she had managed to make the cut to be the same as his teaching robes. They may not be black as they should be, but they now still retained the Great Billowing of Doom that he seemed to like. Severus gave her a look that was somewhere between exasperation, disgust and thankfulness for her efforts in trying to make his life more 'normal' on such a trying occasion. He silently took the robes and went into the bathroom to finish his morning routine. It was probably all for the better that they did not make it to the Great Hall for breakfast because of the time that they had taken attempting to make Severus happy with his 'wardrobe'.
It could not be said that the day got any better for anyone beyond that point. There were rumors that the world was soon to come to an end because the Potions Master was not wearing his customary black. Though there were some students that countered these rumors with the 'logic' that his robes were of the same cut and he was still ruthless in his classes, if not more so, and the aura of irritation and shortness of his fuse countered the color change. Luckily for everyone involved it was a day that involved him teaching more theory than actually brewing, so there were no health issues that resulted, at least not from a miss-made potion. Though it must be pointed out that most of the student body was quite terrified of even his shadow by the end of the day, and most held a torch of sympathy for Mrs. Professor Snape for having to live in close proximity to him, most would not have been surprised if they were to find out that she had expired due to a death glare from him.
Lunch occurred at the appointed and required time, but there was also a distinct lack of the normal choice, or indeed much of anything. Actually lunch looked much like something you would get for hors d'oeuvres at some restaurant. There were plates of cheese, crackers and pickles and some cut up vegetables with a sour cream dip. That seemed to be the only thing the house elves had managed to pull together. The people who had declined breakfast were sourly disappointed by this development, but everyone seemed to be able to eat their fill, even if it wasn't really a proper meal. Everyone hoped that things would improve at dinner time and they would all be able to have something of real substance and merit, and hopefully warm for dinner.
Unfortunately for everyone, the house elves, though creative and indeed very powerful magically in their own right, could not create miracles. They had a very limited amount of things from which to work from, after discovering that they had very little in the school's normally packed to over flowing pantries. Considering they were keeping the entire school fed on so little was a feat in itself! The only thing the house elves had seemed to manage to scrape together was plates of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, at least the bread was fresh as it had been baked that morning between breakfast and dinner. But there was only the choice of water or pumpkin juice to drink, as no milk had been found anywhere in the castle.
By this point even the most determined of the hold outs had to admit that there was not going to be anything better coming along to eat, at least not that day and they ate what they could before they all went off their separate ways for whatever the student body did on a Monday night before curfew was enforced. The teachers on the other hand had all gathered at the Headmaster's request in the Conference room for an emergency staff meeting. Even Trwellany had come down from her tower to participate, claiming that all of the negative energies brought in by her students was clouding her inner eye, giving her great illness and it must be stopped in order for her to be well again.
"This has got to stop! Something must be done!" Severus cried out. Many of the other teachers gave their grumbling assent to his declaration. Normally Severus did not speak in the staff meetings unless prompted or there was something that directly benefited him or his Slytherins. But this was a case where he was speaking not only for himself, but indeed the entire school, every student from 1st year Griffindor to 7th year Huffapuff included.
"That is the problem." Dumbledore said. "We don't even know what is causing this problem! I have done a complete scanning of the castle and there is no magical interference with the school's wards and nothing has come through them. Whatever is going on has come from within. I can be quite sure that it was not one of us or the students. They are not happy with what is going on either. There has to be something that we are over looking."
"There is a great evil at work here!" Crooned Twrellany with her eyes looking particularly bug like as she tilted her head back, in possibly an attempt to be more dramatic (as if that was really possible, at least in her mind). There was a moment of pause where everyone looked at her for a moment and then promptly dismissed her ramblings and turned their attention back to the headmaster who just looked plain distraught.
"Perhaps Peeves or the ghosts know something about this that we do not." Hermione suggested, trying hard to think of any angles that might have been missed already in the discussion.
"That is a wonderful idea!" Dumbledore cried. "I never thought of them! I will go call them together immediately; it should not take more than a few minutes." He then swept out of the room to do whatever it was that called all of the castle's less than alive individuals to the same place. This left the entirety of the staff alone together, requiring that they all amuse themselves accordingly. This resulted in some light small talk among many of the teachers, except for Severus of course, who was still rigidly antisocial with the whole ordeal, even now that he had been married for a couple years. It was perhaps a full twenty minutes later that Dumbledore retuned with a look of slight confusion on his face.
"Well the ghosts didn't know anything, though Peeves and the portraits had an interesting tale to tell between them." Dumbledore told the now confused collation of teachers. "It would seem that a new or strange phenomenon has occurred within our halls. It would seem that the combination powers of some of the different creatures within the castle can animate something that is supposed to be inanimate. It would now seem the result of that discovery has now begun to run amuck within the school."
"And what exactly does that mean Headmaster. Please explain so that we may go hunt this thing down and remove it so that we may once again have our wardrobes and meals back to the way they were before this all happened." Severus nearly growled out, his patience with the whole ordeal worn particularly thin, especially by his lack of 'proper' wardrobe for the day.
"Well it would seem that the portraits in my office saw something most interesting a few days ago. It would appear that the gift I received at Christmas had some ambitions of its own." He gave a rather pointed look at Hermione to give a clue to what gift he was referring.
"The Furby?" Asked a very confused Hermione.
"Yes the Furby." Dumbledore confirmed. "It would appear that while I was out Peeves snuck into my office and somehow interacted with the Furby. According to the portraits, a house elf was called in with sandwiches and somehow there was a mixing of the energies from Peeves and the house elf that converged on the falling Furby and as a result a creature they had never seen before came into being and walked around the office, ate the sandwiches and then managed to find an escape route from the office before I returned later that day. So it would appear that we are dealing with a rouge Furby, evidently bent on creating chaos." Dumbledore explained, back to his far too cheerful self once again, as if this knowledge had brought him great joy. But the main question now hung in the air even though no one had spoken it yet. Now what were they supposed to do, now that they knew what was causing the issue?
"So what are we going to do about it?" Severus asked. "It is especially dangerous in my classroom to have any type of distractions. It was extremely lucky that we only had a couple minor accidents today. If these distractions that are caused by the deviation from dress code and hunger because the children don't want to eat what is provided, I don't know how long I can keep my class casualty free this term. I for one don't believe you Headmaster would like to explain to a parent why and how their child died, at least not when in conjunction with this rouge thing running around the school."
"You are correct." The Headmaster nodded, sobering his expression. "I would like to know if anyone has any ideas about how we can catch and kill this thing." He looked expectantly around the room at his staff, hopeful for any ideas they might be able to come up with.
A/N: well now, the world as we know it must be coming to and end! Severus is not only not wearing black but he is speaking for the entire school and not just his own Slytherins! Ok now I am done, anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, I believe that there will be only one chapter after this and then this little ficlet will be at an end. The next chapter is just about half written, and should be done before the end of next week. This fic should be done before the end of the month.
As always I must thank my wonderful beta Skydancinghobbit who listens to my weird ideas and is kind enough to laugh with me and not at me for most of them. If you have the time go check out her fics too. They are quite good if I must say so (as I am her content beta too).
I hope everyone is having a good holiday season and has the opportunity to eat lots of tasty holiday treats and have all the time you desire to hang out with friends and family. Live Laugh Love ~ Dragons Quill
