Chapter Twenty-Eight

Feliz Navidad

Madam Pince, who had been informed of the chain binding Draco to Hermione and now knew just why they'd been researching love potions and curses last Friday, didn't object to the presence of Harry, Hermione and Draco, who chose a table at the far back and sat down with large stacks of books in front of them. Draco stared blankly at the cover of a book that might contain something on breaking the chain, barely listening to Harry and Hermione's conversation.

Draco realized now what was happening: He had gone mad. Completely, utterly insane. No sane person tried to kiss Granger. Wood, Snape, and Weasley were all proof of that. Draco had lost it. He wasn't sure when, but he was pretty sure it was right about the time he'd started fanatically planning that first prank, all those months ago… carefully brewing the potions, carefully making sure Crabbe and Goyle went nowhere near the potions, running over and over the plan with Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle. Perhaps that had done it; the entire prank now seemed like a damned fool thing to do. Even though she tried to avoid getting into trouble, he'd seen first-hand what Granger could do when she snapped, and Snape… why had he chosen Snape? Yes, Snape was the only teacher who would horrify her completely… but he was also a former Death Eater, for crying out loud. And it appeared that not only had he driven the two of them to work together, but he'd destroyed Snape completely.

"So Ginny wouldn't help you?"

"She said she wouldn't do it if I wouldn't tell her what the visions were about, yeah."

"Harry, that's a perfectly reasonable request—"

"No, no it isn't. You don't understand—"

Draco couldn't think. He wasn't sure what was up with Granger, but he knew that chewing off his own arm was sounding more and more appealing by the moment. Why had he almost kissed her? WHY?

"How are we supposed to stop the visions if we don't know anything about them?"

"You don't WANT to know anything about them, Hermione!"

"Harry… are you sure stopping them is such a good idea?"

"Excuse me? Miss Practice-Occlumency-or-I'll-Never-Let-You-Hear-the-End-of-It wants me to have visions now?"

"Visions, Harry, not dreams fed into your brain straight from Voldemort!"

Draco didn't even bother to flinch at the sound of the Dark Lord's name; he was too lost in thought. How could he have even thought about kissing her? She was a Mudblood, and more importantly, she was Potter's friend!

"Harry, I don't know why you don't want to tell me, but you have to tell me something—"

Even more importantly, why was he disappointed that he hadn't gotten to follow through with it?

"Fine. It was about you, me, and Malfoy, and it was the most horrifying thing I've seen since… since… ever!"

"Wait—what?" Draco said, tuning into the conversation fully. "You had a vision about me?"

"What else would make me want it out of my head?" Harry snarled.

"Harry," Hermione said uncomfortably, "did you see us… die?"

"No," Harry said shortly.

"Then I don't understand why you're so upset! You, me, and Malfoy… were we tortured?" Harry shook his head. "Er… seeing someone else get tortured?" Again, he shook his head. "Did… did anyone die?" Head shake. "Were we fighting?" She sighed in exasperation. "Well, then, what, exactly, could be so—"

"OH MY GOD!"

Harry and Hermione jumped and turned to look at Draco, who was staring blankly ahead, looking terrified. "What's with you?" Harry snapped, but Draco didn't reply.

Draco's eyes refused to close; the library was replaced with a room he didn't recognize, a room that looked more like a bedroom than anything else. He was staring at himself, and Hermione, as though seeing it through a crystal ball. He was kissing her, quite thoroughly from the looks of it, and she was… smacking him upside the head…

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. Draco returned to reality with a jolt that made him feel like he'd just been thrown off the astronomy tower. He stared numbly into space, so dazed that it took him a second to realize he was looking at Harry.

"You saw it too," Harry said shakily.

Draco blinked and came back to earth. "Oh, GOD. THAT'S what you saw?" Harry nodded. Draco stared in horror. One of them seeing it, that was one thing. Draco could explain that as a delusion brought on by various injuries and cheese spirits; hell, he'd just shown that he was prone to recent lapses in mental health by that display out on the pitch. But if Harry had seen it too…

It can't be real, he thought desperately. It just CAN'T. And even if it is, I don't care, I'll never kiss Granger, never…

Draco lunged across the table, causing both Harry and Hermione to jump and try to scramble back, but he merely seized two stacks of books and pulled them closer. "Hurry," he growled at them. "I want this out of my head."

McGonagall sighed as she scrawled an E across the top of the last written exam. Now, once Draco and Hermione completed their written exam after dinner the following day, she would have all of the Slytherins' and Hufflepuffs' exams completed until the practical on Wednesday.

She stood up, stretching the muscles in her back, which were aching from too many hours spent hunched over her desk. The days' tests were graded, the majority of the Gryffindors were behaving for the moment, and now she could put on her slippers and settle down to a nice—

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why," sang a very loud, male voice, which was horribly off-key.

Who on earth is THAT? she wondered. The singer sounded older than most of the students, and familiar—and like he hadn't sung a thing in decades. Frowning, she headed for her office door—but it sprang open before she could reach it.

Severus Snape waltzed—not walked, waltzed—through the door, wearing a ridiculous Christmas sweater, clutching a bottle of fine wine, and smelling faintly of rotten cheese.

"Santa Claus is coming to town! Santa Claus is coming to town! Santa Claus is coming to town!" Snape sang loudly.

McGonagall stared in pure disbelief. She had never seen anything quite so disturbing in her life; it was like watching Santa sell drugs.

Snape danced towards her, shimmying around the office as he came. "He's making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town! Santa Claus is coming to town! Santa Claus is coming to town!"

McGonagall continued to stare as Snape danced to her side and threw his arm around her shoulders, wondering if he was drunk. He had two sides when drunk—depressed and sarcastic amused, both of which were radically different from happy and singing. Besides which, the bottle of wine was unopened, and all she could smell was cheese.

"Come on; sing it with me, Minerva! SANTA CLAUS IS—"

"SING ONE MORE LINE AND I'LL KILL YOU SLOWLY!" McGonagall shouted. Snape stopped, startled. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she stepped out from under his arms and glared up at him with an expression that was known to make first years wet themselves.

"I've had it, Severus," she growled. "I can't take this anymore. You're going to tell me exactly what the hell happened to you or I'll beat you until you remember that you. Are. An. Evil. Slytherin. PRAT!"

Snape blinked and stared at her, then shrugged and opened the wine. "Sure, Minerva," he said. "I'll tell you everything. But come, it's Christmastime! Yule is here at last! Let's drink to Christmas, eh?"

McGonagall sighed and eyed the bottle longingly. "Oh, why not," she grumbled. "I could use a drink."

"That was so great," Fred said for the fortieth time. "Him screaming like a little girl, I mean."

"Ten Galleons says Hermione did that to his arm," George said. "Looked like she tried to bite him; did you see the marks through that big hole in his sleeve?"

"Hermione trying to bite off Malfoy's arm," Fred said with relish. "Oh, I wish I'd seen that… don't you, Ron?"

Ron made a noncommittal noise in his throat. Even though seeing Malfoy on the run had been quite amusing, it had also been rather depressing. It bothered him that he and Hermione were fighting, really fighting, not just having one of their spats (which occurred several times a day, but never resulted in either staying mad for more than a few hours). It bothered him that she'd kept things from him. Most of all, it bothered him that he wasn't there for her.

When they had both first arrived at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, they'd both been so stressed out that they'd fought constantly; the only times they weren't fighting were when one of them had stormed off and ignored the other for hours on end. Eventually, about three weeks after staying together at Headquarters, they'd both just snapped. Ron had started screaming about how he was always left out, always the third wheel, and while she tried to apologize at first, he wouldn't calm down, and soon she'd started screaming back, about how Ron and Harry weren't there for her, not the way she was for them. He'd denied it and she'd thrown up every single instance in his face—Viktor, the fights in their third year about Scabbers and the Firebolt, and on and on, even some moments he could barely remember. For the first time, he'd realized how many times he'd really hurt her over the years, and how many times he'd taken her support for granted, and how many times he'd let her down by not helping her deal with her own problems. Hermione's problems had been her own, while Ron's and Harry's had always been Hermione's. She was in tears by the time she finally finished screaming.

Ron had stopped her when she'd tried to storm off, and told her how sorry he was, and how he never knew, and promised to be there for her in the future. Ever since, he had done his best to be there for her, and he always felt horrible when he realized he'd failed, no matter how big or small the failure was. Now, she was chained to Malfoy—few things required more support than THAT—and here he was, hanging out with his brothers instead, letting her deal with her problems alone. It wasn't that he didn't feel he had a right to be angry; it was just that he felt bad about neglecting his duties as a boyfriend—and more importantly, as a friend.

"What's up with you?" Fred asked, interrupting Ron's thoughts. "You look like Pig died or something."

Ron glared at him. "Or was turned into a canary the size of the library, perhaps?"

"Right," Fred said, forcing his face into a properly ashamed expression. "Sorry."

"Hey, listen!" George said, holding up his hand.

From down the hall, they could hear Harry's voice, sounding agitated and jumpy. "I'm NOT telling you, Gin," he said.

"Let it die, Gin," came Hermione's voice.

"Wonderful!" Fred exclaimed. "We can ask them how that chase thing got started!"

Ron panicked. If there was one thing he couldn't handle right now, it was facing Hermione.

Ron seized the backs of Fred and George's robes and began to haul them towards the nearest secret passage.

Oliver walked down the hall with a spring in his step. He always felt great after flying—and this time had been absolutely hysterical.

From what he'd seen of Harry, Ron, and Hermione over the past two days, Ron and Hermione were fighting. Oliver felt bad for her, but he couldn't help feeling hopeful, too. Add that to her astonishingly funny antics with Malfoy at Quidditch practice, and it was a wonder that he didn't just go zooming down the hallway on his Firebolt 2 like a little kid. It was the best evening he'd had in a long time, no matter how horrifying his morning with Ron had been—and even then, it was good to know that Ron was no longer going to be out for Oliver's blood, even if the scene had been embarrassing.

Vaguely recalling that he was supposed to go to McGonagall and tell her when the practice was over and relate how it had gone, he detoured away from the path leading to his quarters and headed instead for her private office. He could hear her talking to Snape as he approached; they were conversing in a loud, informal way that he could hear even with the door closed. Something seemed off about their voices, but Oliver didn't realize what it was at first.

"So they're going to be experiencing visions and spouting prophecies?" McGonagall was saying, sounding amused.

"Oh, that's not the worst part," Snape replied, his voice sounding very odd indeed. "See, if the Cheese Spirit bites you, you become plagued with dreams about whoever you were visualizing while it was being conjured."

"Hang on a second," McGonagall groaned. "I can't handle big words right now, let me think—"

"When I did the spell," Snape clarified, "I'd been thinking of Evans. So for about a week, I dreamed of her every time I slept and thought of little else."

McGonagall laughed, much more loudly and raucously than she usually did. "So who did Malfoy visualize?"

"He said he wasn't thinking of anyone," Snape replied. "And Potter supposedly wasn't, either."

"But if they had, they'd be dreaming about that person? And thinking about them?"

"Yes. In a very intimate way." Snape laughed, which made Oliver shudder; laughter was just too FOREIGN coming from Snape. "I hope Potter was thinking of someone unconsciously."

"Maybe he was," McGonagall said. "Malfoy, too. Or maybe Malfoy just didn't want to say who he was thinking about."

Something about the way she said the sentence—the words so garbled that it sounded more like "er mebbe mall foyust dinnut wanna sssay ooh ee us sinkin abut," hit home with Oliver. Like most guys in their early twenties, Oliver knew slurring when he heard it. As a professional athlete, he was a little too acquainted with slurred speech, so he'd processed what they meant automatically and hadn't realized what he was really hearing.

He knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer, his jaw dropping at the sight of Snape and McGonagall. Snape was sprawled in a chair, practically lying on it, an empty bottle of wine next to him and a nearly full wine glass in his hand. McGonagall was lying on her desk, her feet bare and swinging off the edge, her head pillowed by what looked like rolls of parchment covered in students' writing, one hand clutching a large bottle of wine. As Oliver watched in disbelief, McGonagall took a swig from the bottle without lifting her head and smiled at him. "You scared us silly," she slurred. "Thought you was a student."

Oliver blinked and turned to Snape, hoping for an explanation and getting only a feeble wave. "Hiya, Wood," Snape said, the bells on his Christmas sweater jingling.

"What are you wearing?" Oliver managed to say through his shock.

"Christmas spirit," Snape told him. "Not to be confused with cheese."

"…Christmas… spirit? Cheese?"

"Yessir, Christmas is a time for spirits! And happy. I'm a happy man now." He held his hand up to one side of his mouth, as though he didn't want McGonagall to hear. "I got me a girlfriend now," he added in a loud whisper.

Oliver shook his head, unable to cope with one more strange moment today. "Um… I'll just be going now," he mumbled.

"Oh, come on, Wood, don't be such a wuss," McGonagall said.

"Did you just call me a wuss?" Oliver said indignantly. He'd just been called a wuss by a drunken woman who was old enough to be his mother? What the hell was WRONG with his life lately?

"Stay and have a drink," she said. "Drink like a man, you… you… wussy boy."

"Wussy boy!" Snape repeated gleefully.

"I think I'll just come back when you're sober," Oliver said stiffly, glaring at them both.

"Wussy boy!" McGonagall fairly shouted. "Wussy boy wussy boy wussy boy!"

"Wussy boy! Wussy BOY!" Snape yelled, taking up the chant.

Oliver spluttered. "I am… you… stop… I… I AM NOT A WUSSY BOY!" he roared finally, making both of them jump. He stormed over to McGonagall, snatched her wine bottle, and took a large gulp from it. "There, you happy? I… hey, this is good," he said, holding it up to read the label.

"Finest wiiiiiiiine in the wizarding woooooooorld," Snape sang.

"Help yourself," McGonagall said to Oliver. She opened her desk and pulled out another bottle, which she opened with a tap of her wand. "We have plenty."

Oliver frowned. On one hand, this was really, really weird. On the other, his weird experiences seemed to be turning out pretty well today. And the wine was good.

"Why not?" he muttered, and took another swig.

Ginny had joined back up with Harry, Hermione and Draco on their way back from the library—and as they needed someone to help carry their library books (all fifty-two of them), they put up with her prattling as they headed back to Gryffindor Tower in exchange for hard labor. She'd learned from Hermione that Draco was having visions similar to Harry's, and that it had something to do with the rumors Ginny had been hearing about a cheese monster (naturally, the one rumor she had deemed automatically false was really TRUE, go figure) and an accident in Snape's classroom, but no one would tell her anything else, and it seemed Hermione knew little more than she did. Hermione wasn't interested in talking about the Quidditch Practice, either, but Ginny had decided that for now, she might as well focus on the visions.

"Come on, just a hint?" she pleaded, thoroughly amused by the two spooked boys.

"I'm NOT telling you, Gin," Harry said.

"Let it die, Gin," Hermione said wearily, struggling to keep up with Draco; he was power-walking as quickly as possible towards the common room, determined to get back to researching as fast as he could.

"Did he tell you?" Ginny asked Hermione accusingly.

"No," Hermione said shortly. "Which you're going to have to do eventually, Harry," she added sternly. "It could be instrumental. If I knew what the vision was about, I could narrow down the research—prophetic visions of death, for example, would probably be different from visions of what we're going to eat for lunch tomorrow. And it could be important, in some way you haven't—"

"It wasn't," Harry said shortly. "It was not important. It's probably not even real. But it needs to go AWAY."

"It must have been major," Ginny said smugly. "Oh, well, I guess I'll just have to slip Malfoy here a truth potion and get it from him, since he's having them too now—"

Draco stopped in his tracks and whirled to face her, startling her. He stared at her seriously, his mouth set in a thin line. "Listen, Little Weasel," he said coldly, "and listen good. You. Do. NOT. Want. To. Know."

Oliver lay flat on his back between Snape's chair and McGonagall's desk, drunk off his ass, little red stains on either side of his mouth from where he'd missed with the wine. "So you guys do this a lot?" he asked.

"Sometimes," Snape said, holding his wine glass out towards McGonagall. "Fill 'er up, Minerva."

McGonagall mostly missed the glass; a lot of wine poured onto Oliver's chest and the carpet, but enough made it into the glass that Snape pulled his glass back after a few moments. McGonagall continued to pour; Oliver, who was used to this by now, tipped the bottle upright for her and she withdrew her arm.

Alcohol affected witches and wizards in slightly different ways than Muggles—the magic in their blood did funny things when exposed to mind-altering substances—but alcohol still did its job, magic or not. Snape, McGonagall and Oliver had been in the room for some time now, and Oliver was nearly as trashed as the other two. They'd been telling him all about "Dorwilaron," whatever that was—a cheese demon of some sort—and he was simply nodding and saying "Uh-huh" in the right moments, knowing that he'd just sort out the information later, when he was more sober.

"I'm bored," McGonagall said suddenly, and struggled to a sitting position. "Hey! I know! Let's go play Confuse, Terrorize, or Escape the Students!"

"How do you play?" Oliver asked, frowning.

"Well, we wander the building," Snape said, "and if we see a smart student, or a student who might talk, we run."

"Same goes for if we see Argus or Albus," McGonagall added.

"If we see a dumb student, or one we don't like, we do crazy things to confuse them," Snape continued.

"That's usually for the Slytherins, though," McGonagall said helpfully.

"If we see a cool student—one that no one would believe, or one we like who wouldn't be all 'guess what Snape and McGonagall did,' then we terrorize them!"

"I have more cool students than Severus, though," McGonagall said, giggling.

"Terrorize how?" Oliver said suspiciously, remembering a wild story of Angelina Johnson's back in his fourth year.

"You'll see," Snape and McGonagall said mischievously.

Oliver shrugged and sat up. "Can we take the wine?"

"Can't play Confuse, Terrorize, or Escape the Students without wine!" Snape said.

"Or something like it. Liquor's best," McGonagall agreed.

"Then I'm game," Oliver said cheerfully.

Ron, Fred and George watched from a secret passage hidden behind a tapestry as Harry, Hermione, Draco and Ginny started walking again. "Weird," Fred muttered.

"Could you imagine hanging around those two all day?" George said. "Harry and Hermione, I mean?"

"Imagine all the stuff you'd have to put up with," Fred said. "Psychic visions, fighting evil, the gods only know what else—" Ron gave Fred a look, and Fred cut himself off. "Right, sorry," he said. "Don't know how you do it, Ron."

"It takes practice," Ron said dryly, stepping out of the passage once he was sure Harry, Hermione, Draco and Ginny were gone. The twins followed Ron out.

"So… should we follow them, and eavesdrop?" George said eagerly. "Might be good research for the prank war."

Ron shook his head. Overhearing the conversation had made him feel a lot worse; not only was she chained to Malfoy, but she and Harry were struggling to solve some strange new mystery all alone. "I think I need to be alone for a while," he muttered.

"Um… okay," Fred said, startled. "We'll… go visit Oliver."

"Yeah," George said. "He told us he was going to be overseeing Slytherin practice; I bet he has loads of things to tell us…"

George trailed off; once again, they could hear voices… only these were infinitely more interesting that Harry and Hermione. Not to mention tuneful.

"Is that Snape again?" Fred wondered.

"Someone's with him," Ron said, "I can hear it."

"Who on earth would go wandering around singing with Snape?" George asked.

"Maybe everyone's gone insane," Fred said brightly. "Harry and Malfoy are sharing visions, Ginny's wandering around with a load of library books, Ron's not being a proper Weasley and looking forward to practical jokes, and Snape is singing."

"The world has really gone insane, hasn't it?" George mused. Then he frowned. "Don't answer that."

The answer came, however; in fact, it walked right around the corner. Snape, McGonagall, and Oliver, all covered in wine stains and carrying bottles of the stuff, were stumbling down the corridor with their arms around each other's shoulders, singing… if one could call it that.

"Feliz Navidad!" they shouted together without much regard for unison as they staggered closer, their words slurring and making it difficult to figure out what they were saying. The three Weasleys vaguely recognized the words as Spanish as they continued.

Fred, George and Ron could do little more than stare as the three professors—one of which who had been their friend for years—stopped in front of them. Suddenly Snape lunged forward and seized Ron by the shoulders; Fred and George drew their wands on reflex but Ron was too startled to think of any such course of action.

Snape glared into Ron's eyes for a moment; there was a long pause as the twins tried to decide if cursing Snape would be a good thing or a horrible mistake at this point. Then Snape opened his mouth and screamed the English chorus of the "Feliz Navidad" song, so loudly everyone in the vicinity nearly wet themselves. When he was finished, he looked expectantly at Ron for a response.

Ron really couldn't think of much to say.

After a very, very long pause, Snape let go of Ron, shoving him backwards hard enough to make Ron stumble. Then he turned back to McGonagall and Oliver.

"I like this game!" Oliver exclaimed happily. McGonagall burst into giggles.

"Feliz Navidad," McGonagall gasped through her giggles, advancing on the three confused and panicky Weasleys. Fred and George hurried to get farther behind Ron, but McGonagall surged forward and threw her arm around Fred. "FELIZ NAVIDAD!"

"Feliz Navidad!" Oliver yelled, bunny-hopping around in circles.

"Feliz Navidad!" Snape said, swaying back and forth with a Luna-Lovegood-type expression.

"Feliz Navidad!" McGonagall told Fred, who stood frozen with a wide-eyed "please god help me" look on his face. "Feliz Navidad!"

"FELIZ NAVIDAA-HAAAD!" Oliver yelled in a jazz-singer imitation as he continued to hop in circles in the corridor.

Snape threw his arm around George's shoulder in much the same way as McGonagall and Fred and tried to get George to sway with him. Ron looked at all three teachers nervously and began to cautiously edge away down the corridor, trying to keep everyone in his sights. Oliver, McGonagall and Snape stopped just then and began to scream the English part like Snape had a moment before.

Simultaneously, the twins reached up to rub at their ears. "Um… please let go," George told Snape weakly.

Snape obliged, then made a little jump and landed with his arms and legs spread wide. "'Jingle Bell Rock,' everybody!" he called. The three of them sang the first four lines together, all of them doing strange little dance moves that might have been bad versions of The Twist.

"To the Ravenclaws!" McGonagall exclaimed, and the three of them began to form a conga line.

Snape sang the next line in such a creepily happy way that each Weasley privately thought they'd never been more afraid of anything before. Every few steps someone kicked, but usually the kicks weren't timed and everyone kicked at different moments.

They had now reached the end of the corridor. "Ravenclaw, here we come!" McGonagall exclaimed. She and Snape turned left, and Oliver turned right, all of them singing and kicking (and Oliver turning around and chasing after them a second later). Somewhere around the last line of the song, the three teacher's voices faded.

For quite some time, Fred, George and Ron simply stared after them in the numb sort of shock one feels after cheating death. Slowly, Fred and George blinked and turned to look at each other.

"Yep, the world has gone insane," George said, taking a shuddering breath.

Fred nodded and glanced in the direction the professors had gone, shaking his head in awe. "Wow," he whispered in awe. "Hogwarts really has changed."