Chapter 9: Potter, Is That A Bunny?

This is for X59, who wondered what Harry's boggart would look like. Makes more sense if you've seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Chubbchubbs.

"A what-fart?" Harry whispered to Blaise, who glared at him.

"A boggart, Potter, honestly," Blaise told him, resisting the urge to smack Harry upside the head.

"And what does it do?"

"Were you not listening to Lupin? It takes the form of your biggest fear."

"Oh." Must be some type of special effect. But then how did Lupin know their biggest fears to be able to set it up? Hmm…probably asked them all in one of the classes Harry skipped.

Harry didn't skip many classes, just the ones that bored him half to death. Like Defense did, most days.

But if Harry wasn't here when Lupin figured out what all their biggest fears were, then Lupin didn't know his, which meant he would have to make it look like he didn't want Harry to face the butt-fart thing.

"Boggart," Blaise said again, leading Harry to believe that Blaise could read his mind. Either that, or Blaise could just predict what he was thinking.

Either way, Lupin was no doubt going to prevent Harry from facing the boggart. Harry, feeling oddly vindictive today, decided that was not going to happen.

"Dobby," he whispered. The house-elf popped into existence near him. Naturally, Dobby used magic to perform this little feat, but Harry passed it off as the little psycho Gollum-cousin stalking him.

"What can Dobby do for the great Harry Potter?" Dobby whispered. He and Harry had had a nice long talk about being quiet when Harry called him with a whisper.

"Don't let Lupin keep me from facing the butt-fart thing," Harry told him.

"Boggart," Blaise corrected automatically.

"Yes sir, Harry Potter, sir," Dobby said, saluting him before disappearing.

Blaise shook his head. Sometimes, being considered the best friend of the Boy-Who-Lived just wasn't worth the annoyance.

Several of the students managed to turn their greatest fears into something funny. Two fainted (Weasley facing a spider and Goyle facing a test). One managed to laugh so hard he couldn't breathe and passed out (Longbottom facing Snape in Grand Lady Longbottom's dress, hat, and purse combo). Finally, it came to be Harry's turn. Lupin tried to step between Harry and the boggart, only to find he was handcuffed to his desk. And if he wasn't mistaken, they were his own damn handcuffs!

The class roared with laughter as Harry's boggart turned, not into Voldemort, or a Dementor as Lupin had expected, but a bunny rabbit.

"Potter," Blaise said, disbelievingly, "Is that a bunny? Your worst fear is a bunny?"

"That's not just a bunny, Blaise," Harry said, backing away from the bunny. "I always knew those Monty Python movies were real!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Blaise asked, stepping just a little closer to the bunny as Harry backed away further. Lupin barely had enough time to conjure up a brick wall in front of him as the bunny attacked. Not having enough time to conjure it properly, the brick wall was translucent. Blaise fell back as the bunny hit the wall right where his neck would have been. He got a good look at the razor sharp teeth that the bunny had.

"Potter! That could have been my neck!" he screamed.

"I told you it wasn't just a bunny!" Harry yelled back, attracting the bunny's attention. "It's a murderer! It bites people's heads off! Hey, no, don't come towards me!" Harry squeaked and ducked, letting the bunny sail over him.

"Ridikulus, Potter, ridikulus!" Blaise yelled.

Normally, Harry would have brushed that off as nothing more than a word (magic spells weren't real – it only made the insane ones feel better and therefore less likely to be violent if you played along), but it worked for the others (Slytherin's included), so it was probably the password to activate the advanced special effects system that this room seemed to employ.

"Ridikulus!" Harry said, waving his wand. Nothing happened. The bunny advanced. Harry heard a purring sound. Four chicks with pig noses appeared in front of him. The girls in the room 'aww'ed. Then the chicks' eyes grew red and they opened their mouths, showing three sets of extremely sharp, rotating teeth. The chicks attacked the bunny, and tore it to pieces.

"Chubbchubbs!" Harry yelled, happily. "You guys are real too? Sweet!"

A bloody rabbit's foot hit the wall where Blaise's face would have been. He whimpered. Several of the students fainted (Malfoy included), most of the remaining girls screamed before fainting as well, and the rest of the students ran screaming from the room. Lupin felt the urge to do the same, but he was still handcuffed to his desk, and the Chubbchubb things were now advancing on Harry.

"Harry!" Lupin yelled worriedly, only to see the Chubbchubbs purring and nuzzling Harry who was laughing and petting them. Fine, Harry was safe, now he had to concentrate on getting these damn handcuffs off. And figure out who handcuffed him to his desk with his own handcuffs in the first place.

Blaise stared at Harry petting the evil chicken things that he called Chubbchubbs and squeaked. The Chubbchubbs' turned their heads to him and hopped over, giving him the same treatment as Harry.

"Well, I guess you guys aren't too bad," Blaise said, petting them. The Chubbchubbs purred. Lupin felt the urge to growl at the handcuffs, only to see the key sitting innocently on his desk.

When he found out who did this, he was so kicking their asses!

Three Hours Later

Dumbledore sighed. He had gotten numerous complaints from Poppy about the amount of patients who'd turned up as a result of Lupin's third year Gryffindor/Slytherin class that day. From what he could glean from the woman's ranting, the problems the young students suffered from were mostly mental.

"Enter," Dumbledore called out when his door alerted him to the presence of his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Remus Lupin entered looking rather tired. Not even bothering with manners, the man made a beeline for the chair across the desk from him and flopped down into it with a sigh.

"What happened?" Dumbledore asked, after Lupin sat down.

"I introduced the class to boggarts today," Lupin said. "I really meant to stop Harry before he could face the boggart, but…I didn't move fast enough." No sense in telling Dumbledore he had somehow gotten handcuffed to his desk. He still didn't know who did that.

"Ah, I see," Dumbledore said, "and Harry's boggart was Voldemort, I assume?"

"No," Lupin replied.

"No?" Dumbledore asked, astonished. "Then what was it?"

"An evil bunny," Lupin said, sounding like he couldn't believe it himself.

"An...evil bunny...caused most of your class to end up in the hospital wing with mental problems?"

"No. The bunny only tried to bite Blaise Zabini and Harry's heads off. It was the evil chickens he fed the evil bunny to that caused most of my class to end up in the hospital wing with mental problems."

"Evil...chickens?"

"Yes sir," Lupin said, feeling oddly like he was a student in trouble for some prank again. "They ate the evil bunny in front of the students. It was rather gory. Harry called them Chubbchubbs."

Lupin wasn't really all that surprised to see Dumbledore break down into sobs. According to the other teachers, stuff like this was normal for Harry. Lupin felt like crying himself, and he'd only had to deal with Harry for a few months. Dumbledore had been forced to deal with him for years and would still have to deal with him for years to come since the political fallout for expelling the Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't be worth doing it to spare himself from the mental anguish that was to come. Poor old man.

Questions likely to be asked that I will answer now:

Why does Lupin have handcuffs in the first place? Sirius probably gave them to him as a joke.

Why didn't Lupin use magic to unlock the handcuffs? They're magical handcuffs, charmed against unlocking spells.

How did Lupin get handcuffed to the desk? Dobby did it.