Chapter 9 : Gone to the Ferrets
The world was going to the ferrets. Truly, that was the only thing Severus was sure of at that moment in time. As he walked down the path to the edge of Black Lake, the shore was covered in bouncing ferrets.
Minerva was sitting on top of some sort of constructed castle playground as a multitude of ferrets were attempting to clamber up the castle and capture the various prizes they had to collect for the end tally.
The obstacle course was strangely ingenious. Each section of the castle construct had everything from tightropes, climbing nets, curving tunnels, teamwork building walls, and balancing rolling balls. All the obstacles led to various coloured objects meant to be collected by the team members and dragged back to a team pile.
Hermione sat in an impromptu recliner on the shore, watching her transfigured students literally ferret themselves towards the end goal.
A pair of ferrets bounced up towards Hermione and tackled a piece of rope from both ends and dragged it back towards the obstacle course. Their tails were puffed up like a bristle brushes as their excitement expressed through their body language.
A black masked ferret bounced up with a large rose clenched between his teeth. He plunked it down on one of the blankets Hermione had set out for each of the ferret teams to join the pile of random tokens left by his team. Baring his teeth and bouncing with excitement, the ferret student bounced back towards the castle obstacle course to find even more tokens.
A blond ferret with a strangely purple mask bounced up with a bell clenched between her sharp ferret teeth and she plunked it down on another blanket with a different pile of tokens and then bounced sideways back to the obstacle course. Severus raised an eyebrow in curiosity as the strangely coloured ferret bounced off.
As Severus placed his hand on Hermione's shoulder, she looked up at him with mischief written all over her face. Obviously enjoying herself with the day's turn of lessons, Hermione snickered as she watched the antics. Minerva, who was always a staunch defender against transfiguration of students for punishment, seemed perfectly content to watch Hermione's willingly transfigured students attempt to outdo each other in ferret mischief.
"I know you are perfectly capable of transfiguring someone into other animals, my witch. Is there any particular reason you chose ferrets on this day?" Severus rumbled softly, brushing the hair back from her ear.
Hermione grinned. "They voted on it," Hermione chuckled. "It was a toss up between ferret and the Tasmanian Devil."
Severus' eyebrow lifted into his hair. "I am not sure I wish to contemplate a class full of Tasmanian Devils," he said dryly.
"Me either," Hermione said with a laugh, using her head to bonk into her husband's side.
The Potion Master placed his hand against her head and pulled it to him gently as his eyes scanned the ferret castle obstacle course. "Who is winning?"
"Team blue," Hermione answered, gesturing to the planet with a pile of blue trinkets threatening to take over the blanket. "They can steal the trinkets of other teams, but only the blue ones count to their total."
Severus gave a wry smile. "But if they steal another's trinkets, that helps them indirectly, hrm?"
Hermione grinned. "Perhaps."
Severus fingered the snake pin on her collar. "Salazar would be proud of you."
She grinned at him as a trio of ferrets dragged a blue Muggle ball cap across the green and deposited it to the pile of loot gathering on the blanket. They squeaked to each other in solidarity and bounced back towards the obstacle course. A group of ferrets were dragging what looked like a blue candlestick up the pathway in their attempt to sabotage the blue team, but another group of ferrets including the blond ferret with the purple mask pounced on them in an attempt to steal what had already been stolen.
Severus raised a brow as the dust cloud rose as a cacophony of furious squeaking ensued along with a sizable angry dust cloud.
Meanwhile, as the two groups engaged in their rough and tumble, the blue team ferrets grasped the blue candlestick and dragged it over to their corresponding pile and bounced back towards the obstacle course, tails puffed in their coup against two opposing teams.
By the time the two groups finished their tiff in the dirt, the candlestick had long been stolen back with the perpetrators dispersed.
Severus snorted in amusement as the two teams bounced back towards the course to bring back honour to their team. "Minerva seems to be in better spirits."
Hermione nodded. "She's taking the entire self medicating student situation pretty hard. She's normally ahead of the game with situations stirring at Hogwarts, but this situation with Ms. Baylor took us all by surprise. I will admit feeling ashamed that I didn't see something like this coming."
Severus eyed Hermione curiously. "Why ever would you be ashamed?"
Hermione turned her head away and looked out over the lake. "The first part of my life was entirely Muggle. I feel like I should have seen this coming."
Severus turned her chin with his fingertips to look at him. "You have lived longer in the Wizarding world you spent in the Muggle world, my witch, even counting the time you spent straddling the line between them. You cannot expect yourself to be able to sense the ebb and flow of Muggle life as you once did." Severus brushed her hair with his fingers. "You are a witch of the highest calibre. Magic is in the very air you breathe and ground you walk on. When you are used to that, other more mundane things tend to slip through the cracks."
Ignis and Sparks peeped in agreement from Severus' shoulder, flapping their wings as if to emphasise the point.
Hermione smiled. "How can I argue with such a skillfully reinforced argument?" She ran her finger down the black beaks of the phoenix chicks. She grasped Severus' hand in hers and squeezed gently.
"My logic is flawless," Severus replied smoothly.
Hermione grinned back up at him as her gaze returned to watching her students tumble over each other and drag their tokens with them as they slid down the slides and bounced across the tight ropes. Prince and Pyre circled Black Lake lazily before landing on the top of the castle construct to keep Minerva company.
Hermione stood up, clapping her hands together. "Time's up, my sneaky ferrets. Time to tally your tokens!"
Ferrets of all sizes and colourations came streaming down the castle obstacle course and bounced back towards Hermione. They all gathered around their blankets and waited. Hermione waved her wand down the line and each ferret became a student. All of her students giggled and laughed, standing proudly by their looted tokens.
As Minerva stood up and hopped down the obstacle course to meet up with Hermione, Hermione eyed the piles of collected objects. "Alas, team green, orange, and yellow, you have the duty of returning all of these collected objects to Hagrid after we are finished here. Team red you are third. Team purple you have second, and team blue you have managed to horde yourselves into first place."
There was a collective groan and cheers from each of the groups depending on their success and failure.
Hermione smiled. "Team blue, you get to pick first from the prizes. Purple you get to go after, and red after purple." Hermione waved her hand and the prize table she had hidden from sight popped into view showing everything from new notebooks, loudly colored socks, quills, candies, and trinkets.
The students excitedly claimed their prizes from the table with cheers and laughs. While the losing teams did get saddled with the chore of lugging the ferret loots back to Hagrid's hut, every student did get a prize from the table. Minerva smiled in approval.
"Class is dismissed, everyone," Hermione said as the last of the prizes left the table. "Enjoy your evening."
"Thank you, Professor Snape," the students chimed as they scrambled to pick up the blankets and objects and carry them off. Hermione shrunk the table and lounging chair down into a miniature form and tucked it away in her robe.
As the phoenixes launched themselves off the obstacle course, Hermione transfigured the structure back into the rocks she had formed them from, sharing a knowing grin at Severus and Minerva as she did so.
"That was an interesting show of inter-House solidarity building exercises, Hermione," Minerva said with a wink. "I never thought to see a good use for all the random stuff Hagrid collects."
Severus shook his head. "Flitwick helped Hermione charm Hagrid's main table to be perpetually clean and polished as if by lemon scented oil after he lost that bet with Pomona. I think it's the only thing in his hut that remains uncluttered. That Hermione even found things to use in that cluttered abomination of a living space is saying something."
Minerva snickered into her sleeve.
"He does organize in his own way," Hermione said with a chuckle. "He's just the only one who knows whatever the heck that is."
Severus' eyebrow twitched. "I'm not sure organise is the proper word."
"Haphazardly throws things into piles he remembers," Minerva recommended.
Hermione and Severus shared a sly look together.
Minerva rolled her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Go. Check on the students and make sure nothing falls over on them."
Hermione and Severus transferred the phoenix chicks over to their "Aunt" looking utterly pleased with themselves. The chicks peeped happily to be able to snuggle up to their adopted aunt and flapped their wings with excitement before settling down on the junction of her neck and shoulder.
The two Potion Masters leapt into the air in a fluid motion, great wings extending as their harpy eagle forms took the place of their ground loving human ones. The eagles called to Minerva before soaring off towards the direction of Hagrid's hut.
Minerva smiled as the two phoenix chicks chirped from her shoulders. She knew that taking on the form that each animagus was capable of was a different sort of therapy that none but an animagus could truly understand.
Ignis and Sparks chirruped sweetly in her ears, rubbing their beaks against the curves of her ear affectionately. Minerva used her fingers to scratch each chick under the chin. The phoenix chicks, too, were a gift of therapy to the Headmistress. Hermione and Severus had made sure that chicks were well socialised to many of the key people in Hogwarts. Wayne Mitchell had done the same with his own chick, making sure Keegan was comfortable in any social situation. They were happy to keep their adopted significant people company as they were to "their" people. Even Ember, who was significantly attached to Julius, had made a name for herself by making herself a common sight at Ollivander's Wand Shop. She drew in even more customers to the wand-maker's business and away from his competitors if only for the privilege of meeting the happy phoenix chick.
As Minerva walked the path back towards Hogwarts, she smiled as the two chicks sang to her sweetly, lifting her mood in spite of the drama over Miss Baylor's situation in the hospital wing. Every so often an owl would fly by her head, hooting softly. The chicks would flap their wings and warble to their adopted owl guardians as if to report that all was well. The owls would circle and glide off to whatever destination that was their true goal.
The Headmistress smiled to herself. There were plenty of positives that had grown in the fertile soils of Hogwarts to counter the most current concern that was spreading through the corridors. She reminded herself to write to the other Wizarding Schools' Headmasters to enquire about similar trends within their walls. It might be overly paranoid of her, but if it was something spreading across many of the Wizarding Schools then Hogwarts' students would not be the only ones in danger of becoming the next Miss Baylor.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Preston Reese, Professor of Muggle Studies, sat at the small table as he watched The Professors Snape work over their bubbling cauldrons. Wayne Mitchell softly scraped the heel of his shoe on the stone floor as he moved in behind them in customary courtesy. Both Hermione and Severus moved to the side, grabbing cauldrons and ingredients from various places, leaving room for their apprentice to tend the cauldrons they left him. They said nothing.
Wayne paused, seemingly randomly, staring into one of the cauldrons with concern. Hermione and Severus turned without a word being said. Hermione moved her hand in an anti-clockwise motion, and Severus motioned one of his hands down, palm held down and flat for Wayne to tend the flame. Wayne, without a pause to question, stirred as directed and lowered the flame, sighing with relief as the cauldron did something more to his liking.
Severus sniffed, turning back to his cauldron. Hermione smiled silently, holding out three jars to Wayne without a word. Her eyebrow lifted with amusement and challenge.
Wayne stared at the bottles with a focused expression. He took one, opened the lid, wafted the lip, and scrunched up his face. He put it back into her hand and took the next, doing the same. The second bottle seemed more to his liking and he tapped the bottle into the mortar and gave it back to Hermione before attacking the mortar with the pestle with a determined expression on his face. He paused, peering at the powder he had made, and then emptied it into the bubbling cauldron.
There was a slight puff of purple smoke as Wayne stirred in the contents, but neither Hermione or Severus seemed to be concerned. Both focused on their cauldrons as though nothing significant had happened.
The Muggle Studies Professor was startled as Wayne's voice broke the strange silence in the laboratory. "We're ready for your compound, Preston," Wayne said softly with a smile on his face.
Preston stood and handed Wayne the stoppered tube of compound he brought with him.
Wayne stared at the tube and the contained powder with consternation. "Amazing how something that is considered safe to the Muggle would could cause so much suffering in the Wizarding world."
Preston shook his head. "From what my contacts have said, it is something a doctor would normally prescribe for their patients for anxiety. It is not something you just walk into a grocery store and acquire."
Wayne shook his head. "I suppose it would be like bottling our potions and randomly selling them to Muggles would have much the same disastrous effects." Wayne opened the tube and tapped the side, measuring a spoon of the powder into three separate bowls. He handed the tube back to Reese with a nod.
Wayne, Hermione, and Severus took a spoon of their cauldrons and carefully poured it over one of the bowls. Severus' bowl turned black, and the Potion Master shook his head silently. Wayne's bowl shuddered, and Wayne's eyes widened as he pointed his wand at the bowl and threw a stasis charm over the bowl before it could violently explode. Hermione's and Severus' respective eyebrows raised at their sheepish apprentice.
The trio stared at Hermione's bowl and seemed to find more interest in it. Reese eyed the contents with curiosity, but realized that whatever fascinated the two Potion Masters and their apprentice was beyond his area of expertise.
"It's been a long time since I've had to work with a cauldron, my friends," Reese admitted. "Could you please tell me what has you so rapt?"
Hermione smiled at Reese with amusement. "I believe 'jackpot' is the phrase you turned the other day at lunch?"
Reese smiled at Hermione's remembrance of a few of the random Muggle expressions they had discussed over lunch at the High Table. While he knew that Hermione had begun her life with both feet in the Muggle world, she had embraced magic in a manner that none could deny her power as a witch. He had, almost as an opposite, found much fascination with Muggle ways and inventions despite his living the Wizarding life. Hermione had commented often that he and Arthur Weasley should get together and play his collection of Muggle board games.
Hermione tapped the bowl in front of her with her finger and caught Severus' gaze with a look. He nodded back to her silently. She pulled out a tray of empty vials from one of the cabinets and carefully decanted a clear liquid from one of the nearby flasks into the vials. Severus used a large dropper to dip into Hermione's working cauldron and placed one drop of the potion into the vials. By the time Severus finished putting drops into the vials, Wayne had already finished quilling out small labels for the vials and wrapped each vial with a label.
Hermione quilled something in a large leather tome and handed it to Severus, who made it disappear into one of the many hidden pockets in his robes.
Hermione lifted one of the finished vials and shook it, causing the contents to mix and glow with a faint blue fluorescence. She handed it to Wayne, who had finished cleaning up the working cauldrons with practised efficiency.
Wayne grasped the vial and bowed slightly, exiting the laboratory with a whoosh of fabric that had become the trademark of each of the Professors Snape. The phoenix chick on his shoulder, who had remained silent until then, warbled a farewell from his shoulder in his wake, causing the two chicks on Hermione and Severus' shoulders to trill back a farewell.
"I completely forgot they were there," Preston laughed as Ignis and Sparks shamelessly begged for food from the Potion Masters.
Severus stuffed each hungry beak with a fig. "They never let us forget they are there," he commented.
"Have you decided amongst the list of people who wish to procure one of the grown chicks?" Preston asked curiously.
Severus tilted his head slightly. "The only one we are sure of is Ember, who is going to stay with Julius. Between he and Ollivander, Ember will never lack for attention and stimulation."
"As for Ignis and Sparks," Hermione continued for her husband. "Neither of the Sanctuaries are ready at the moment to send their chosen keepers to come and bond with the chicks, and neither will leave unless that has occurred, so for now, at least, they remain with us."
Reese scratched Ignis under the chin with his finger, gaining a soft warble of pleasure from the young phoenix. "The bonds seem pretty strong between you already. Will they even accept anyone else?"
Hermione and Severus tilted their heads at the same time. "We are fairly certain that we share a familial bond with the chicks, which is very strong, but not the same as what we have with Prince and Pyre, which is a more complex bond. We cannot say for certain, as we seem to be blazing the trail for this sort of thing."
"Your first book on them seems to have been quite a hit, from what I have seen," Reese chuckled.
"Garrick says he can barely keep the book on his shelf at the wand store," Severus gave a tight close-mouthed smile. "I told him that is what he gets for having Ember perched in his front window with his wand displays."
Reese chuckled. "Speaking of the book," he began sheepishly. He pulled out a book from his robe. "My daughter would love you forever if you signed her copy of your book."
Severus slide his eyes to the side to peer at Reese as Hermione shot him a furtive glance. "Melody, yes? It's been a few years since your daughter has roamed the halls of Hogwarts. I seem to recall that she worshipped the ground Hagrid walked on the entire time she was here."
"Aye," Reese chuckled. "She's off chasing magical creatures for her research in America with her cousin Marcus."
Hermione took the book from Preston with a twitch of her lips and opened to the front page and quilled a short note to Preston's daughter. She handed the book and the quill to Severus with a sly smile.
Severus rolled his eyes but quickly scribbled something on the cover and signed it. He handed the book back to Preston and the quill back to Hermione with an overwhelmingly bored expression.
Hermione placed her hand to his cheek and bounced onto her tiptoes to gently place a quick and caste kiss upon his lips as if to reward his tolerance for the entire book signing.
Preston smiled as he tucked the book into his robe. He knew his daughter would be ecstatic to receive the signed book.
"I suppose we should make our appearance with Miss Baylor," Severus said. "Wayne should have informed Minerva and Poppy by now about the neutralisation potion."
Reese nodded. "I hear her friend hasn't left her side, save for classes, the entire time she's been there."
"Mr. Quinn, from what Poppy had said, has been her only visitor," Hermione noted. "No one else, save faculty, has visited her. Not even members of her House."
Reese frowned. "I had no idea that her life was so lonely."
Severus, who paused to pick up the crate of filled vials, had begun to move towards the door, leading the way out. "I have a feeling it is less to do about being lonely and more to do with being connected to her downfall, unfortunately. If this mixture is spreading through the school, here or Merlin forbid, the other Wizarding schools, being connected to its spread would bring no small amount of shame upon them or their families."
Preston rubbed his temples with his fingers. "I am still struggling with the fact that we are having to deal with this sort of thing at all. We've always had to deal with potion abuse of some sort or another, some student sneaking into Poppy's stores and mis-medicating themselves thinking they had a pepper-up potion, students brewing their own version of something and giving themselves odd symptoms, or even such lax as not reading the potion labels, but this seems almost predatory."
Severus paused his walk and turned around to face Preston with a frown. "Purposeful introduction of Muggle medication into the school?"
Preston waved as if to include the world in general. "Think of it," he argued. "None of the other Wizarding schools have had people pass out due to using herbal supplements until now. You said that, save this ingredient and the devil's snare, that the mixture could have been used as an anti-anxiety preparation. What if no one suspected it being harmful because up until now, they haven't been. Reckless, perhaps, but not fatally so."
Hermione frowned, running her fingers through her hair. "We haven't had anyone, save Miss Baylor, end up in her condition. And anyone who would have taken it would have definitely ended up in her condition, yet…"
"No one but her did," Severus completed her thought. "That is… disturbingly suspicious, if indeed, no one else has suffered this here or in the other schools."
"Well, first things first," Preston said with a sigh. "We need to make sure Miss Baylor is on her way to recovery. Perhaps she can enlighten us as to who gave her those capsules to begin with."
Hermione and Severus nodded and shooed Preston out of the laboratory before closing the door and warding it. The trio walked down the corridors towards the Hospital Wing with somber expressions.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Minerva stretched as she lay on the windowsill in the Hospital Wing overlooking the recovering Miss Baylor and her ever faithful friend, Mr. Quinn. Ignis and Sparks cuddled up next to their feline aunt, making for an odd picture of companionship between feline and avian.
The neutralisation potion, thankfully, had done its job well, bringing the young student out of her drug-induced stupor. While she was too weak, as of yet, to leave the Hospital Wing, Miss Baylor was thankfully on the road to recovery. Interrogation would wait for later, now that the immediate concern of Baylor's health was addressed.
While Minerva was thankful in some part that the more harmful version of the capsules had not made their way to the other Wizarding schools, the fact that they had been used on one of the students of Hogwarts seemed to point to a more sinister and insidious plot against at least one of Hogwarts students. As no one else in the school had fallen ill to the pills, Reese's suggestion that the capsules had been custom-crafted for a sinister purpose seemed terribly plausible. Minerva wasn't sure what would have bothered her more: one student being singled out or multiple-cases of victims to the contaminated capsules that had no one target in mind.
Minerva yawned, her ears flicking back and forth as she absorbed the sun from her window perch. The phoenix chicks seemed perfectly content to join her in a mutual doze, and she was glad for the supportive companionship. At least, thanks to the work of multiple professors at Hogwarts, a cure was now in Poppy's stores to help deal with any new cases like Miss Baylor's, if the situation did arise. She was thankful that such talent remained housed under one roof at Hogwarts. It was no small blessing to have such synergy working together for a common cause, and Minerva was not one to lack appreciation for such things when they came.
McGonagall's eyes closed slowly as she allowed herself to doze, her ears flicked slowly, ever ready to alert her to visitors. Hermione and Severus had shared in taking her Headmistress duties for the day, giving her a much desired break from the swirling stresses adding to her growing list of added situations. While outsiders may have questioned why the Board of Governors had not argued in the slightest about her wishing to appoint the Professors Snape as her Deputies, no one within the circles of Hogwarts did. Hogwarts itself seemed to approve of the appointment, long before it was formally approved by the Board, and who in their right mind would take up an argument with a magical castle? The Board of Governors had long since realized, especially with the aftermath of the last Wizarding War, that some things in Hogwarts were not really up to them to decide.
Ignis snuggled closer to her, laying his beak across her back. Minerva curled her tail around the phoenix chick with amusement, gaining a contented warble from the young bird.
As Poppy came by to check on her patient, her eyes came to rest on the dozing pile of feline and avians on one of the hospital windows. She smiled as she monitored Miss Baylor's condition. Miss Baylor may not realize how lucky she was, but Poppy did. Thankfully both luck and skill were abundant at Hogwarts.
Poppy cast a small blanket over the sleeping body of Mr. Quinn, allowing the stalwart friend to stay with his friend despite the usual policy. There was something to be said about the power of friendship in healing both the body and the mind in some cases, and Poppy was not against it for Miss Baylor's recovery.
With a gentle tug, Poppy moved the curtain so the sun didn't beam directly onto Baylor's bed. She smiled at Minerva, who gazed at her drowsily from the window sill. Poppy nodded to the Headmistress with a bow of her head and left, leaving her patient to recover with her friend at her side and the watchful eyes of one feline and two avians.
It was all perfectly normal within the confines of Hogwarts, and Poppy would not have it any other way.
-o-o-o-o-o-
A/N: It's back to the books time for me, folks, and I have switched gears from frantically getting ready for classes to setting my nose to the studying grindstone. Updates will most likely be few and far between, but if I do have a rare moment in which to come up for air, I will try update as I can. Thank you for hanging in there with me. It's been a wonderful summer.