AN: Hello darlings! Glad to know that that chapter was well received despite its length :] Also I know I keep reminding you to check the dates and it's probably getting annoying, but you need to get into the habit before I begin hopping all over the place. This will be happening soon. Keep your eyes open for clues as to what is going on, go ahead and analyze everything that Luna said last chapter- I would love to hear what you think she means!

I may finally have a Beta! Here's to hoping that it works out and that she can begin going through the chapters to correct all of my little mistakes!

Also, many of you are asking me how long this story is going to be, and the only answer I have is long. Very long. But like I said before, things will be picking up soon, and I'm starting to get back into the rhythm of writing so maybe it'll go by faster than I expect!

Here's to another chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and thus I am not responsible for any of the ridiculous situations they get themselves into. Except that I am.

October 14th

Girls Dormitory's, Morning, Daphne:

Despite what Loony Lovegood had told her yesterday, she hadn't been able to bring herself to go and confront Neville, which meant that she had spent the night in fear of an attack from the Pratil twins. Nothing had happened yet, but there was still plenty of time before breakfast.

While Daphne kept herself hidden behind her curtains, waiting in the hopes that the twins would leave before she would be forced to get ready for the day, she inspected the random carvings that girls had done on the four poster over the years. It was only something to pass the time and she hadn't truly been paying attention until she came across a carving that sent ice down her spine:

Lavender Brown

That's it. It was just her name, but it had been carved in the most sickeningly spirally handwriting that Daphne could almost picture the silly chit giggling as she did it.

This had been her bed, and she would bet anything that a large part of the violence being directed towards her had to do with what bed she was using- and wasn't that just the most ridiculous thing? All they would have had to do was ask her and Daphne would have gladly moved to the spare bed in the room, but no. Instead they decided to- ugh!

For some reason seeing that name made a warm tingling sensation travel throughout her body, filling her with ire and a rage that settled out her nerves a bit. She was Daphne Greengrass, formally of Slytherin, and she was damned if she was going to be afraid of two stupid bints with a misplaced grudge. Daphne threw open her curtains, wand in hand, and disarmed the girls in her dormitory while they stared on in shock. With a flick of her wrist she sent their wands out of the room and down into the Common Room, forcing the twins to race after them, howling with rage all the while.

A smile graced her lips while Daphne closed and locked the door, using several spells that would surely take them awhile to figure out, leaving Daphne to get ready in peace.

Oh, yes. It was time for a little bit of retribution.

Great Hall, Breakfast, Hermione:

Ordinarily Hermione would have been overthinking and overanalyzing her entire conversation with Malfoy last night, and why exactly she had used his first name, with Ginny over at the Gryffindor table, now that she had the option to be there. However, after her conversation with Pansy, she felt as though the girl might need someone to fend off the questions about her parents that would no doubt be coming.

She had figured without Dean.

Dean who had suddenly decided that principles and pasts and current situations be damned, he was going to just go with it. Which is why Hermione had the joy of Seamus Finnegan sitting with them at the Slytherin table that morning, because the lad had nearly suffered a fit at the sight of Dean walking straight up to Pansy at the entrance to the Great Hall and kissing her full on the lips.

Even better were the gasps of surprise when Pansy had not only allowed him to do this unscathed, but had blushed and taken his hand afterwards- Nott's boisterous laughter had echoed throughout the completely silent hall for a few moments until someone had silenced him.

So now Seamus was there, supporting his best friend and acting as a guard against the stares and questions and downright murderous looks coming from many of the students surrounding them.

It was really a strange situation, Hermione thought. Dean was muggle-born and Pansy a pureblood, had everything really changed so much that they could be together? It wasn't as though the two had hated each other specifically before, but what about everything they stood for? Pansy had fought alongside Voldemort and had seemed to agree with many of the core concepts of his rule. Of course, Hermione knew that it was quite likely the girl hadn't had a choice in the matter- hadn't they all just spoken to each other about the utter lack of choices they'd all had in the war?

Even the relationship between Neville and Daphne hadn't been quite as shocking because at least they were both purebloods, not to mention that Neville was a well-respected war hero now. But Pansy and Dean… well she did suppose that anything was possible. And wasn't that a strange thought?

Hermione bit into her toast and only vaguely listened in to what was being spoken about around her, and alright yes she may have been doing this so that she wouldn't have to confront Malfoy before she'd had a chance to talk to Ginny, until Seamus directed a very loud question at her.

"So Hermione, how's all that planning for that Masque going on Halloween? Comin' along alright?" he asked.

She dropped the fork in her hand and her mouth opened up in surprise. How could she have forgotten?! Yes she'd been preoccupied what with making the Sacerdos Potion and planning how to distribute it… and then there was Fred coming back as a ghost, and then her parents, but this was no excuse.

While Hermione was busy berating herself and preparing to hand herself over to the Headmistress for being a failure as Head Girl, Malfoy spoke up.

"Charge of that has been handed over to that Goldstein fellow and the Patil twins. They've got it all planned out, supposedly it's going to be grand, and they're refusing to allow anyone else to assist them with it. Aside from anything they might need the permission of the Headmistress for, they event is completely in their hands," he said.

Hermione could feel his gaze on her and she felt her heart rate pick up a little bit at the thought. It made absolutely no sense for that to have happened, just as it had made no sense for her to have called him Draco the night before, but as Dean and Pansy had shown just a few minutes earlier, anything was indeed possible. She knew that she ought to meet his gaze but what would happen- enough! She was a Gryffindor, she was braver than this!

"Well, there you go. Thank you for that, Draco," she said as she looked him in the eye.

Bloody hell she had done it again!

Malfoy's eye widened slightly at the sound of his name, and a beat of silence filled their section of the table. Was he smiling a bit now? Was it in fact possible for Draco Malfoy to smile at something that wasn't at the expense of another person? The small upturn of the corners of his lips served to assert that it was, in fact, possible. And the sight really shouldn't have transfixed her as much as it had.

"You had other things to attend to at the time, so it truly wasn't any trouble… Hermione," he said softly, the small smile that had appeared growing even larger as he spoke.

Hermione tried to pretend as though her heart hadn't started pounding in her chest at the sound of her name crossing his lips without any malice behind it- was this how he had felt when she said his name? Godric help her she must be losing her mind.

"Well," Blaise stated loudly, breaking the silence and allowing Hermione to tear her eyes off of Malfoy's. "That was friendly. How about a distraction? I vote we discuss why Daph looks as though someone is about to die a very slow and painful death, while Longbottom looks as though he's lost his bloody toad again."

Distraction indeed.

Potions, Ginny:

Ginny was glad that Hermione had a friend over in Slytherin, she truly was, but there was some part of her that was a bit upset about the fact that Hermione was choosing to spend time with Parkinson instead of her.

Yes, they spent every night together, but they were generally out like lights as soon as they hit the mattress and Ginny had to wake up early in order to get back up to Gryffindor Tower to get ready each morning. Showering in the dungeons wasn't an option- that water was freezing and no one was awake enough that early in the morning to perform a heating charm. She understood that Hermione was going through a lot; of course she did, but ever since Fred had revealed himself things had been odd for Ginny.

A strange resentment sprang up at the weirdest of times- why hadn't Hermione told her anything about her plan for revenge? Why did Fred choose to reveal himself to her first? What had she been sorted into stupid bloody Slytherin instead of Gryffindor where she belonged?! And of course these bouts of strangeness disappeared as soon as they came, but it was still unsettling. Not to mention that she couldn't talk to anyone about it without sounding as ridiculous and irrational as her thrice cursed brother.

Fred wasn't helping.

Ginny was overjoyed that Fred was still around… sort of. But it was almost as if the wound was torn fresh every time that her brother popped out in front of her, because although he was there… he wasn't, really. He was still dead. He would never age, never marry, and never have children. Never again sneak into her room late at night and smuggle her out of the window do go out on a late night adventure. Never hold her when she was frightened- instead he would be forced to live a half-life. Forced to watch his family grow up around him, die around him while he lingered, unless he was indeed able to follow George in his death.

And though her heart ached at the loss of her brother, she ached for him more. And none of it was fair.

Slughorn marched his way through the door, a few minutes early, and Ginny glanced over at Hermione to note the disappointment on the other girl's face. When their eyes met, Hermione mouth 'I need to talk to you after class' with a sort of desperate look on her face, and a small weight lifted itself from Ginny's shoulders. Of course nothing was wrong with their friendship, she was just being stupid.

…she hoped.

Harry chose this moment to be observant apparently and nudged her, a question and a bit of concern in his eyes. Merlin how she loved this man. He knew her well enough to know that she was certainly more than capable of handling her own issues and wouldn't butt in on things if she didn't want him to, and she had to say it was refreshing. They'd almost not recovered their relationship after the Final Battle- the fact that he'd tried to keep her safe in the Room of Requirement still irked her to no end, but he more than made up for it later, when the Ministry had needed all the help they could get.

That first time McGonagall had shown up at the Burrow asking for their aid, Ginny had been so sure that Harry would stand alongside her mother once again and refuse to let her fight. Instead, much to everyone's surprise, he was the first to place one of the golden charms in her hand and won the stare-down that later ensued with her mum. Not that Ginny didn't understand why it was her mum didn't want her fighting, after the loss of Fred, but that was precisely the reason why she'd needed to fight in the first place.

"Gin you do realize that if you leave this potion to me it's going to be a disaster, right? Knut for your thoughts?" Harry asked, jolting Ginny out of her thoughts and bringing her attention to the task at hand.

"Oh it's nothing, I just got lost in my own mind for a bit, that's all," she reassured him, before looking at the wreckage of daisy roots before her. "Honestly Harry it's not all that difficult to cut them in equal pieces…"

She had managed to keep her attention and thoughts completely on the potion for a good while after that, until there was a small explosion and screaming coming from the table behind her.

Potions, Draco:

At least now he understood why Daph had been uncorking a bottle of undiluted buttorbubber pus, seems how they were lucky enough that it wasn't actually required for this potion.

The explosion of the Patil twins cauldron was really rather spectacular, and if Draco hadn't personally seen Daphne's wand conducting the pus into their cauldron while they weren't looking he would never have suspected her to be the culprit, not with the look of horror on her face. In fact, the horror didn't seem to be as faked as it was-

Oh no.

While the Patil twins screamed in pain and outrage at the giant, Slytherin green, boils sprouting on their flesh from each spot the potion touched them (disfiguring them rather magnificently) they moved around enough to show that a third person had been affected by the explosion. Longbottom, who had been walking by to get more supplies from the closet, he assumed, had managed to get the vile potion all down the length of his robes. And while at least none of it had touched his skin directly and boils weren't forming, it seemed that hadn't stopped the other effects from happening.

After a moment of shock, the lad started screaming as the fumes scorched his nose and the heat seared his side.

A quick glance at Daphne showed that she was close to tears, though she was vanishing the solution from Longbottom's robes just as quickly as she could, apologizing profusely as she did. But Draco saw the pain the man was in and thought there wasn't any way the bloke would be able to forgive that easily- in fact given the recent events is was altogether too possible that he may have thought she'd caught him with the potion on purpose.

The classroom quickly became a flurry of motion as everyone either rushed to Longbottom's aide or set about work vanishing the potion anywhere they could find it, as it truly had managed to get everywhere. Draco himself was checking and double checking from the corner of his eye to be sure that Granger hadn't been caught in the splash, once again repeating to himself that it was only due to the pact he'd made with the bloody hat- but he needn't have worried, the chit was fine. Rushing about the room and helping out where she could.

Slughorn was somehow the only one who was doing anything to help to Pratil twins though; Draco was overjoyed to point out. Their boils looked as though they were starting to grow a funny silver fungus on top of them at this point- successfully decking them with splotches that looked to be suspiciously formed in the Slytherin crest all over their bodies.

Later he would laugh, but at the moment he needed to make himself look busy so as to continue dodging any attempt Pansy made to grill him about the little exchange between Granger and himself at the breakfast table. One might think this miniscule little detail might have been overlooked what with Pansy's new relationship with Dean Thomas, but of course not.

Class was dismissed early and Draco managed to slip out the door without being noticed, thinking over recent events.

Where in the name of Merlin's baggy y-fronts did that whole relationship spring up from, anyway? Had he truly not been paying that much attention? Had he been that far gone from his friend's lives? In time's past Draco wouldn't believe such a thing possible, but perhaps it was time for him to reconsider. He still hadn't the slightest clue what had happened with Pansy's parents (he'd written to his mother of it the night before, but he'd yet to receive an owl back, perhaps she was as shocked as the rest of them), and now she was supposedly with Dean.

Somewhere in the corner of his mind, Draco agreed with his assessment that he'd made their first day back: the war must have handed out personality transplants, because there just didn't seem to be any way for Draco to justify any of this happening in the first place. Consequences would be paid, of course, but with Nicolai's cronies locked away in the Hospital wing as they tried to decipher what caused their little gender mishap, there weren't many who would take action against it. After all, Pansy's role in the war wasn't very well known, not to mention that Dean himself wasn't a notable figure.

It was something to be thought about of course, what was acceptable in this new regime, but surely things couldn't have changed this quickly?

Draco needed to have a good long chat with Pansy and Blaise about all of this, of course, but there was no way in hell he was even going near them until he'd sorted things out in his own mind. It made for a lonely existence, of course, but what choice did he have?

Somehow he'd managed to lose himself- did he even have a self? Who was he is not his father's son? If not all of the old traditions and ways of being and beliefs that he'd once held but were never really his in the first place? There was no one for him to talk it all over with, that was for certain, leaving Draco alone in his own self-made despair.

Granger certainly wasn't wrong when she'd stated that the lot of them were lost without the war.

Headmistress Office, Before Lunch, Minerva:

Godric but she hated dealing with parents. How had Albus ever done this? They were all absurd!

How was she supposed to know or prevent something like this from happening? There was nothing that gave any sort of proof as to whom had caused their children to suddenly be of the opposite sex and, no, as a matter of fact it did not matter that said children were absolutely positive the culprit was Miss Granger. There was no proof, and as such- no, the school would not submit Miss Granger to questioning under Veritaserum! The idea was absolutely preposterous! Miss Granger Head Girl and as such she would never-

And on and on it had gone for hours.

Minerva hadn't even realized that she'd been rubbing her temples until an altogether too amused voice spoke out for behind her.

"Headache, Minerva? Because I would pleased to offer certain… suggestions… as to how to-"

"No thank you Severus. For the third time today, I do believe that I am quite capable of handling this situation without your help!" she snapped, her lips thinning into a line as she cursed the day that the artist had finished this particular portrait.

Ever since he'd been given his place on the wall, Severus seemed to be doing his very best to make her life more difficult. During her conference earlier with all of the parents of the Slytherin students who were now residing in the Hospital Wing he'd even gone so far to point out that Miss Granger was the only student currently attending Hogwarts who had the skill to brew the Sacerdos potion correctly! This of course led to a whole new argument (frequently interrupted by her former colleague) and finally she was forced to stun the man's portrait in order to get the meeting to carry on in peace!

It had been stupid and childish, of course, not to mention it had certainly earned Albus' disapproval and made certain that Severus would be insufferable for ages- but she couldn't help it. Minerva was at her wits end trying to sort through everything that was happening, not to mention she had to prepare herself for the confrontation she would have later that day when she informed the students that regardless of their current gender they would be attending classes the next day.

She wasn't looking forward to it.

Her fingers resumed the rubbing of her temples as she tried to distract herself from the moral dilemma forming in her mind regarding Miss Granger, and found a suitable distraction in the form of the pile of gold medallions sitting in a drawer of her desk. Godric but she didn't want to hand these out again, but the ranks of the Ministry were still entirely too depleted to be able to handle everything on their own. And while she understood Kingsley's reasons for not calling in international wizards to help, Minerva couldn't help but wish he'd gone on with it anyway.

At least then she wouldn't be putting her student's in harm's way. Again.

These medallions were spelled so that they would act as a portkey, taking the wearer and any who touched it to the destination under attack. The destination would of course appear written on it so that they could be prepared for whatever would face them. Just the sight of them made her blood run cold, but it was better to err on the side of safety, and these students had been proving themselves time and time again since they'd first walked through the giant oak doors.

This distraction was doing her no good whatsoever, so Minerva returned her attention to the problem at hand.

"I know it was Miss Granger, it had to have been Miss Granger. But what do I do about it?!" she exclaimed, finally unable to take it anymore. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Severus open his mouth, but she silenced him before he had the chance to speak.

"Why, Minerva, you do nothing of course!" Albus chuckled from his portrait, smiling down at her from behind his spectacles.

Beg her pardon?

"But it was her! Do you realize how many school rules were broken? The damage done to the students? This, of course, leads me to believe that she had to have had a damn good reason to do it which- hm. They must have been those who attacked Mr. Thomas, why hadn't I thought of that earlier?" she muttered to herself, losing her train of thought.

She saw Severus rolling his eyes at her.

"But if that is true, then what is to be done? They all can't simply get away with it!"

"My dear, does it truly seem as if they have gotten away with it? Not to mention you lack any sort of proof," Albus said softly, his eyes sparkling in amusement.

"Of course not, but you can't expect me to just accept this, this, vigilante justice?! Do you?!" Minerva demanded, slack jawed.

"Hm."

"But-but- "

"Would you care for a lemon drop, Minerva? I do believe that there are still a few packets hiding in the top drawer…"

Minerva stood, her mouth working but no sound coming out of it and she openly stared incredulously as her former mentor. This entire situation as madness! Albus and the rest of the portraits who were awake smiled down at her, while Severus seemed to be laughing until he was blue in the face and- and-

And if she didn't leave that room soon she was going to throw something.

Minerva stormed out, muttering to herself about batty old men and their scheming thoughts, unaware even of where exactly she was headed. Surely there must be some wretched disaster somewhere in this castle that needed her attention.

Severus stopped laughing when the door to the office slammed and e realized he would be silenced until Minerva decided to come back and undo it.

He wanted to throw something.