Chapter Seven
No One Messes With a Gryffindor
"See you Harry, Ginny!" Seamus Finnigan called.
"Bye, Harry," Dean Thomas said, pointedly ignoring Ginny; his relationship with her had ended rather badly last year, though that was mostly thanks to the overprotective Ron.
"Bye," both of them replied absently. They were rather absorbed in the whispered conversation they'd been having while sitting on the couch together, mostly oblivious to the common room as they discussed what Hermione and Ron were up to.
As Dean and Seamus opened the portrait hole to leave, however, a small Hufflepuff fourth-year boy named Kevin Whitby, who was the Seeker for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and currently dressed in his yellow Quidditch robes, hurtled inside. "Listen up!" he yelled. The Gryffindors all turned to stare at him in astonishment; few members of other houses had the guts to barge into Gryffindor's common room uninvited, and those that were brave enough were rarely in Hufflepuff. "If any of you are interested, Draco Malfoy is tied up on the Quidditch field in lingerie!"
"What?" several people exclaimed. Half the room ran for the portrait hole and the others ran to the window, trying in vain to see the Quidditch pitch. Harry and Ginny looked appropriately shocked and eager as they rushed for the exit.
"Harry! Ginny!" Kevin called. "Have you seen Hermione and Ron? Ernie told me to tell them."
"They went to the library, Kevin," Ginny told him. "Come on! This is a must-see, don't just stand there!"
By the time the Gryffindors made it to the pitch, virtually every Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in the school was already there; even some Slytherins had turned up to see. Cameras went off like crazy and laughter and mocking remarks filled the stadium. McGonagall came hurrying over, followed closely by Snape, Ron, and Hermione. "You!" Malfoy shouted, glaring at Hermione. Snape broke the spell that bound Malfoy and tossed his cloak at Malfoy as he fell to the ground.
Snape and McGonagall forced the crowd to disperse, holding Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Ernie Macmillan (who was Head Boy and, after all, the one who found Malfoy) behind. "It was them," Malfoy snarled, pointing at Hermione and Ron.
"Is that true, Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked in a no-nonsense tone.
Hermione shook her head, but before she could reply, Snape asked, "How long were you out here, Draco?"
"About a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes," Malfoy said. "The two of them used a Portkey about ten minutes before the Hufflepuffs—"
"They've been in my office since a little after noon," Snape interrupted. "Discussing how best to serve detention."
Malfoy blinked. "Then it must have been Potter and the Little Weasel, pretending to be them!" he exclaimed, glaring at Harry and Ginny.
"We've been in the common room since about ten, ten-thirty," Harry snapped. "Ask anyone. Dean and Seamus were leaving the common room when Kevin Whitby came in and told us you were out here. Couldn't resist coming to look." He grinned coldly.
McGonagall shot a knowing glance at Snape. "Any other guesses, Mr. Malfoy?"
Malfoy's eyes widened as he realized what was going on. "It was Granger and Weasley! You're covering for them!" he yelled at Snape.
"The day I cover for Potter and his friends is the day you marry a Muggle-born," Snape said coldly. "They were in my office. Anyone else you'd like to try to frame?"
"Where would we get a Portkey, by the way?" Hermione added. "It's illegal to create an unauthorized one."
"But I bet you know how anyway, you know-it-all Mudblood!" Malfoy shouted.
"Mr. Malfoy, I will not have slurs like that in this school! Ten points from Slytherin! Miss Granger, your wand, if you please?" McGonagall said. Hermione handed it over. "Priori Incantatem!" McGonagall intoned.
Wisps of smoke formed a mockery of the Silencing Charm Hermione had lifted. McGonagall handed Hermione's wand back and both professors fixed Malfoy with calm expressions. "That is most certainly not the spell for creating Portkeys," McGonagall told Malfoy coolly, interrupting him before he could argue. She performed the same spell on Harry, Ron, and Ginny's wands, but none of them had used anything remotely resembling a Portkey spell. "That settles it, Mr. Malfoy. If you didn't get a good look at your attackers—"
"I did, it was them!" he insisted. He shot an angry look at Snape, knowing better than to accuse a teacher of casting an illegal spell, especially a teacher like Snape. Snape gave him a quick, evil grin that vanished before McGonagall saw it.
"—then I will talk to the Headmaster about finding other forms of evidence," McGonagall continued calmly, unfazed. "Until then, I suggest you return to your dormitory at once and put on some proper clothes."
"Don't forget to return my cloak," Snape added shortly. Draco glowered at all of them before hurrying off, his usually pale face tinged pink.
They all watched him go, doing their best not to smile. Surprisingly, it was McGonagall who cracked up first.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Ernie stared at her, rather stunned to see the usually prim and proper professor doubled over with laughter. "Oh, that was priceless!" she gasped through her laughter. "Did you see his face?"
Snape smiled. "Wiped the smirk right off him, didn't we?" he said slyly. He, too, started laughing, and Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Ernie, who'd never seen Snape laugh in the seven years they'd known him, edged away cautiously, as though Snape might be dangerous.
"Oh… and twenty points to Gryffindor," McGonagall said. "Five for each of you."
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny gulped, horrified that McGonagall had caught them. "For what?" Harry asked, desperately trying to look innocent.
"Come off it, Potter," McGonagall told him, still laughing, tears streaming down her face. "It was I, after all, who helped do the same thing to your father twenty-five years ago."
Hermione sighed, realizing she should have expected McGonagall to figure it out, as they were copycatting a prank involving her and Sirius and James. "Are you going to turn us in?" she asked in a small voice.
"You tied him to the goalpost?" Ernie exclaimed, looking scandalized. He puffed out his chest, so that his Head Boy badge gleamed in the sunlight. "But… but you're Head Girl, Hermione! And you three are prefects!" The four Gryffindors shrugged, smiling guiltily. "You have alibis, too!"
"Alibis can be faked, Macmillan," Snape said coldly. He straightened up and gave Ernie his most threatening look. "And if you tell another soul what you've just learned, you'll wish you'd never heard of Hogwarts, am I clear?"
"Yes, yes, crystal clear," Ernie said quickly, more shocked that Snape was suggesting he was covering for Ron and Hermione than he was afraid of retribution. He turned back to his fellow students. "So… so you…" He trailed off, shaking his head and starting to laugh also. "That was great, you guys! The look on his face when we found him… how did you do it? Where'd you even get the idea for something like that?"
"From… a friend," Hermione said innocently, glancing at Snape out of the corner of her eye.
"A friend?" Ernie repeated, following her gaze and looking at Snape in disbelief. "The whole school's gone mad!"
"Tell me about it," Ron muttered, looking at McGonagall, who was still laughing.
Ernie shook his head. "Thanks for the laugh, guys. This'll go down in Hogwarts history; it's right up there with the Weasley twins escaping that Umbridge beast. Well, I have to go find my Quidditch team and get some practice time in… this was worth cutting into Quidditch practice, though. Well, I'll see you."
"I have to write Sirius," Harry said as Ernie left, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as he looked at his two strictest professors, now shaking with mirth like deranged hyenas.
"I need to write Fred and George—guess I'll use a school owl, Pig still isn't back from taking my last letter to them," Ron said, watching Snape and McGonagall warily, as though worried their lapse in character was going to develop into something more frightening.
"I've got a letter to send, too; Bill said to fill him in when it was over," Ginny said absently, chuckling at the two laughing professors. "I told him about it when we first started planning."
"I'll come with you," Hermione said. "I expect it'd be a good idea to hide before we get mobbed by people wanting the full story. Though we do need to plan how we're going to top this, that's for sure."
"If all else fails," Harry said mischievously, "I hear some Slytherin or another once helped my mum knock out Remus and leave him naked in the Forbidden Forest."
Snape tried to glare at him but was laughing too hard to get the proper effect. "We need to keep up on our other plan, Granger," Snape called after her as the Gryffindors walked off. "Tomorrow at seven?" Hermione nodded and left with her friends.
McGonagall did her best to get control of herself. "Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about what you and Lily did to Remus," she said, chuckling. "That was excellent, also."
"Yes, it was, wasn't it?" Snape said mildly.
"So… Malfoy said something about a Portkey?" McGonagall said. "Nice touch. We should have thought of that all those years ago."
"It was Granger's idea," Snape said with a shrug.
"What's your other plan, by the way?" McGonagall asked as she and Snape made their way back to the castle.
"I expect you'll find out soon enough," Snape said ruefully.
"Come now, Severus, you can trust me!" McGonagall pleaded.
"I know, but the other prank we're working on is hideously embarrassing," Snape replied with a shudder.
"Ooh, you have to tell me now," McGonagall insisted. "More embarrassing than what Mr. Malfoy just went through?"
"In my book, yes," Snape said, "though I can't say I've ever had the pleasure of being tied to a goalpost in Granger's underwear."
McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "Fine, I'll find out myself."
Snape winced at the idea of McGonagall happening upon one of his faked conversations with Hermione. Oh, boy.
Still, as he and McGonagall approached the castle, he couldn't help smiling again. He hadn't had so much fun since his own days at Hogwarts, before the Death Eaters had convinced him to join them. He felt… alive, in a strange sort of way, as though he were back in school and working out how to take James Potter down a notch. Suddenly, he found himself wondering what he would have done if it hadn't been for the Dark Lord—if he would have found a wife and had a family and maybe even gotten a job other than teaching idiot children, wondering if he would have gotten over his rotten childhood and become happy.
"What do you think I would have done if the first war had never happened, Minerva?" he blurted out.
McGonagall raised her eyebrows at him. "Why?"
He shrugged. "Just curious."
She gave him a shrewd look, seeing right through the casual demeanor. "Well, Severus, I doubt you'd have taught here," she said thoughtfully. Snape was a pureblood, and had inherited a fortune almost as large as Lucius Malfoy had; he had become a teacher when he had turned spy for Dumbledore. Maybe, in the beginning, he'd entertained the notion of being considered a good teacher or being respected, but that had passed as he grew more and more unhappy and bitter because of the war. "I don't know," McGonagall went on, "I suppose you would have moved on, lived a normal life."
Snape nodded. "I suppose so."
McGonagall glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "You know, Severus, it's not too late. It's never too late."
Snape snorted at the cliché, but he couldn't help hoping she was right.
By the time Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny made it back to the castle, the entire school was buzzing with the story. When they entered the common room, nearly every Gryffindor was there, applauding and cheering.
"Oh, what the hell," Hermione muttered, and climbed onto a table, grinning her head off. She bowed to the common room with a flourish. "Thank you, thank you!" she called over the noise. "Let it be known throughout Hogwarts that no one messes with a Gryffindor!"
Harry, Ron, and Ginny laughed, Ron climbing up next to Hermione and Harry and Ginny following suit on another table. "And there's plenty more where that came from!" Ron shouted.
"Close the bets!" Ginny yelled. "Nothing will top this, I guarantee it!"
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were regarded as heroes after they unofficially claimed responsibility for the prank; several people gave them pictures taken of Malfoy hanging from the goalpost, calling the photos both souvenirs and thank-you gifts. The majority of the students who'd betted on whether or not Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny would have the best prank went ahead and cashed in, not caring in the slightest that the year wasn't even half over and the prank war was far from finished.
The next day, Hermione once again headed to Snape's office after dinner, with a very sour, furious Draco Malfoy following discreetly. Harry and Ron had both protested her going to the dungeon alone now that Malfoy was likely to be murderous, but she'd pointed out that Harry and Ron weren't supposed to know she was going down there. It would be even more dangerous for her to take Ginny and have Ginny stand outside Snape's door alone and wait, where Malfoy could sneak up on her and Hermione would be unable to hear if he did, thanks to the Silencing Charms she and Snape used. Hermione doubted Malfoy would ambush her, for the simple fact that Malfoy would figure Snape was expecting her and would realize that Snape might come looking for her if she didn't show. Plus it was too risky, so soon after he'd just accused them all of performing a prank; if Hermione ended up cursed, it wouldn't be too difficult to pin it on Malfoy. Malfoy would not only know that, but would assume Snape might try to frame him or set him up if something happened to Snape's "lover." As far as walking back from Snape's office, however, she had agreed to meet up with Harry in the entrance hall two hours after dinner officially ended, just to make certain Malfoy wasn't going to attack her as she left. The office was close enough to the entrance hall that Malfoy wouldn't hurt her before she reached it, for fear Snape might overhear. So unless Malfoy was stupid enough to get caught, she was covered either way.
Still, that didn't prevent her from being nervous at the idea that Draco Malfoy—a Death Eater's son with an extensive background in the Dark Arts—was very angry and following her, which gave him a clear shot at her back. She increased her speed as she took the stairs to the dungeon and practically ran along the corridor, anxious to get in the office before Malfoy decided he didn't give a damn if he got caught as long as she got hurt.
Snape called "Come in" a split-second after she started knocking, and she rushed inside and shut the door hurriedly behind her. "Is something wrong, Miss Granger?" he asked.
Hermione shook her head, mouthed "Later," and smiled, jerking her head at the door to let Snape know Malfoy was behind her again. "I just missed you," she said, grinning at the thought of what Malfoy would be thinking right now.
"You're late again," Snape remarked.
"I'm terribly sorry," she gushed. "Harry and Ron think I'm in the library, but it still makes them suspicious when I just start running off."
"Make sure your tardiness doesn't become a habit," Snape said. A fiendish grin appeared on his face. "Or I shall have to give you a detention," he added, and then cracked up, muffling his laughter with his hand.
Hermione gaped at him, biting back a giggle. "You could give me one anyway," she said in as sultry a voice as she could manage while desperately wanting to laugh.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Snape said, trying his best to keep his voice even.
"Don't I always?" she said innocently.
Snape decided now would be a good time to cast the Silencing Charm. Before he could, however, a loud retching noise sounded in the hallway. Quickly shucking off his robe and unbuttoning a few shirt buttons, he strode past Hermione and opened the door.
Draco Malfoy was a few feet away, his hands braced on his knees as he puked violently on the stone floor. Snape wrinkled his noise and waited for the vomiting to stop before casting a Vanishing Spell and fixing Malfoy with a cold stare. "I suggest you go see Madam Pomfrey, Draco," he said coolly before going back inside the office, casting a Silencing Charm and bursting into peals of laughter.
"Was he throwing up?" Hermione exclaimed.
"Yes," Snape laughed. "Hard, too. Oh, this is fun. Wait, you never told me what he thought of your neck."
Hermione frowned and told him the story. "I was beyond pissed off about it," she said. "Talk about sick."
"Well, he's a boy. Boys do that," Snape said. "I know you find it disgusting… but try to take it in stride and add it to your 'Reasons I'm going to get him if it's the last thing I do' list."
Hermione nodded. "Yeah. Well, I better get going. Harry and Ron are waiting for me in the entrance hall—you know, making sure Malfoy doesn't hit me."
Snape frowned. "Maybe I should walk with you."
She shook her head. "No, if Harry and Ron saw you, it could screw things up."
"All right, then. Well, until next time."
Hermione nodded and left, heading back up to the entrance hall at high speed, her fear of Malfoy keeping her from thinking about anything else.
Harry and Ron were waiting at the top of the stairs. When they saw her, both of them stared in shock, their eyes widening. She stopped, confused. "What's going on, guys?" she asked.
Harry swallowed hard, his face reddening as he turned his back to her. "Um, 'Mione? Where are your clothes?"
Hermione looked down. She was wearing nothing but a black lace bra and thong.