A Potion Induced Advent's Time
by Healer Pomfrey

Please refer to the content/warnings/disclaimer note above page 1.

December 14

With a slightly uneasy feeling, Harry slowly stepped out of the staff room, only to stop dead in his tracks. The corridor that was supposed to be there was gone. Instead, he could only see people; however, there were only a few students and teachers, but he saw all of them several times.

"Mirrors," Fred's voice penetrated his ear.

'Oh no,' Harry thought, almost certain that this prank was Severus' doing again.

"All students go back to your common rooms," he heard Madam Hooch say.

Someone replied, "If you can show us how to get there."

Harry glanced around in confusion. Even the door to the staff room was gone. He could only see himself along with some other students and teachers. They all seemed to be moving, only to come back into his direction at the same time. Someone said, "You have to put your hand to the wall...err... mirror and then walk in the direction, in which you want to go."

Harry tried to follow the advice; however, it was not easy, because he kept bumping into others. Very slowly he made his way towards the huge staircase, only to realise that there were dozens of staircases, reflected by the mirror turned walls. 'I need to stop this, before anyone gets hurt,' he thought and called Dobby.

Instants later, half a dozen versions of the small elf were standing in front of him. "Yes Master Harry?" they asked with one single voice.

"Dobby, please take me to Severus," Harry whispered, not sure, which of the Dobbys was the real one. He noticed a firm touch to his left arm, before he felt himself being popped away. A mere instant later, he found himself in the living room of his and the children's quarters.

Minerva and Severus were sitting on the sofa next to each other, innocently reading books, which they seemed to have brought with them from the library.

'Too innocent,' Harry thought grimly, glaring at the six-year-olds. "Severus and Minerva, may I assume that it was your doing to transfigure all the walls and doors into mirrors?" he asked sternly.

While Minerva was unable to hide a small grin and looked very self-conscious, Severus' face remained void of any emotion as he queried, "Why would we do such a thing? We'd love to go and watch some spectacle though."

Harry let out a snort, before he asked sternly, "Do you know how dangerous this is? People could really get hurt, especially around the large staircase. While your idea with the beans was funny and very well done, I think that this goes too far. Therefore, you will come with me and cancel the charm or spell or whatever you did, at least around the stairs. Afterwards, we're going to have dinner. You will get no desert today, and you're going to go to bed right afterwards."

Minerva and Severus followed Harry out into the corridor with apparent excitement. To his relief, Harry realised that not all walls had been turned into mirrors, so that they could easily walk until the large staircase. They did not even have to go down to the first floor to realise that there was still a huge commotion going on. 'Apparently, they only did the first floor and the walls around the staircase and then went home, because they were scared of being caught,' Harry thought and instructed the children, "Undo whatever you did."

"Only here, okay?" Minerva asked pleadingly, and Harry grudgingly agreed.

"But you will do the rest when we'll come here later today," Harry replied strictly, thinking, 'It's not as if I was going to pull through with my threat to make them go to bed right after dinner. No desert for them is punishment enough.' He absentmindedly observed how the children both waved their wands successively at the walls in a quick movement, and the walls around the grand staircase returned to their usual old stone appearance.

"Can we go to Hogsmeade now?" Minerva queried, letting her wand sink.

"To Hogsmeade?" Harry repeated in disbelief. "What part of dinner and straight to bed did you not understand?"

"We can leave out dinner and go to Hogsmeade instead," Severus suggested in a small voice, causing Harry to cast him a surprised look, wondering if the children were still feeling the effects of the potion.

"We will not do such a thing," he replied decisively. "We can go tomorrow after classes."

'If you had ever observed the Head table at meal times instead of continuously planning your next pranks together with the Weasley twins, you'd know by now that I never eat deserts,' Severus informed him telepathically.

Harry let out an exasperated sigh. "I never played as many pranks as you did during the last week," he replied firmly. "No, we will not go to Hogsmeade today, and that's my last word. You can ask Poppy if she is willing to take you," he then suggested, knowing that Poppy would find it very suspicious if she heard that he had refused to go and would come to ask him before agreeing on anything, apart from the fact that she was much too busy to leave the castle anyway.

To his surprise, both children gave up on the matter without asking again and after a quiet meal and a bath willingly went to bed. 'This is mysterious. I just hope they're not planning anything else,' Harry thought as he returned into his own room. Somehow, he found his own bedroom very quiet without the children's breathing now that the six-year-olds were sleeping in their own rooms, and decided to go to bed early as well. 'Who knows what they'll be up to when they wake up in the morning, so I better get some sleep and be awake early,' he thought. Only when he stretched out on his own bed, did he remember that they had forgotten to get rid of the mirrors on the first floor.

tbc...

Thank you all so much for your kind comments! Sorry I haven't been able to reply to anything - I'm just glad when I manage to write the chapters on time in spite of still having problems... Oh well, hopefully till tomorrow :-)