*Thanks to ma soeur, ata, for smashing through my fanficcers' block with a battering ram.*

It was a dark and dreary morning in the Forbidden Forest. Harry suddenly wondered why he was in the forest. He shrugged and trudged on.

Being rather melancholy, he pulled evil faces at passing creatures... none of whom were much fussed over it.

He was then distracted from his stupidity by buzzing in his ear. He swatted in that direction, and slammed his fist into his cheek in the process. The fly buzzed on. Fuming, Harry and his stinging cheek pursued the fly. It went this way and that, and he struggled through the underbrush to get at it. Finally catching up, he mustered all his strength and slapped at it as hard as he could.

Unfortunately, the fly was too quick. Even more unfortunate was the fact that a centaur had been leisurely grazing in the fly's former position.

Harry gulped.

Ron and Hermione were notoriously going through their routine morning bout of sexual tension when Hedwig arrived. Tied to her leg was a letter, frantically scribbled:

Dearest Ron and Hermione:

GET THE HELL OUT HERE TO THE FORBIDDEN FOREST! THE CENTAURS ARE GOING TO KILL ME! THEY'RE GONNA BURN ME ALIVE AND THEN EAT ME WITH PARSLEY AND KETCHUP! IT'S ALL IN THE PAMPHLET I INCLUDED! HELP ME! HEEEELP!

Regretfully,

Harry J. Potter

"How on earth did he manage to write a letter and tie it to Hedwig if centaurs were planning to burn him alive?" Hermione sighed.

"I dunno," Ron began uneasily, "but we should go check it out. He could be telling the truth."

"Or Malfoy's happy pills have completely fried his brains," Hermione frowned.

"Fine," Ron snapped. "I'll go find him, and if he's all mangled ashes and the like, I'll never let you forget it."

"For goodness' sake." She rolled her eyes, and the pair ventured off to find him.

"What the hell are mangled ashes?" Dean asked once they had left. Neville and Seamus shrugged.

The sidekicks didn't have to travel far, for around the first corner they turned they found a glazed with sweat and terrified Harry dangling from a suit of armour.

Hermione glared at Ron, who looked away from her sheepishly to Harry.

"Centaurs?" they asked together.

"Yeah. Hagrid saved me, since you two were too busy." He thrust his nose up and folded his arms. "Playing your violins, I expect."

"Eating breakfast, actually," Ron said, smiling weakly. Harry continued to glare until Ron's smile faded.

"Guys –" Harry said suddenly, "where is that pamphlet I included?"

"Harry, there was no pamphlet," said Hermione sternly.

"WHAT?" bellowed he.

"Yeah, all we got was your letter," said Ron shooting Hermione another nervous glance.

"But, but, but… this can only mean one thing." Ron and Hermione stared at him. "And it's bad." They continued to stare. "It means that… my pamphlet may have fallen into the wrong hands!"

"Oh for the love of Jip-Jippity-Doo the Fourteenth, wife of Herald the Terribly Upbeat and Insatiable! Harry! Go see Madam Pomfrey and get those ridiculous pills out of your system!" Hermione shrieked.

"But Hermione! That pamphlet had all sorts of secret information on it, like Sirius's whereabouts, and the patterns on McGonagall's cat animagus, the working schedules of everyone at the Order who's a ministry employee, names, birthdates, family trees, bank records, and surveillance photos!"

"WHY would you put all of that in a pamphlet if Centaurs were about to murder you?" Hermione screamed as Ron looked on incredulously.

"Because it seemed like a brilliant idea!" Harry yelled back.

"Okay, well, I guess we should go look for that pamphlet," Ron suggested nervously as Hermione and Harry fumed silently at each other.

Elsewhere in the Palace… I mean Castle… Why can't it be a Palace once in a while?

Snape paced in his dungeon office. "I hate this office," he muttered mutinously as he paced. "It's so dungeony. You might say that I'm accustomed to dungeons and grease and cold and unfeelingness, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel secret pangs for squashy red armchairs by the fire! And enough with these pickled slimy things! I want fluffy teddy bears and bunnies from now on!"

He sat down angrily. Snape is good at emanating anger even when doing something as normal as sitting down, didn'tcha know?

"WHAT IS THAT?" He shrieked suddenly, staring up at one of the bottles directly above his desk chair. "It's not even a friggin' potion ingredient! Is that an inside-out frog? WHO THE HELL BOUGHT ALL OF THIS CRAP? IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE DECORATIVE OR SOMETHING? GOD!"

The phone chose that precise moment to ring.

Snape stared at it as if it was somehow responsible for being completely out of place and badly timed. Which it was not, even though I wrote that it chose a moment to ring. It didn't. It's a phone. Phones don't make choices. People make choices. And then they write things that don't make sense and don't bother to go back and fix them. In any case, Snape answered it.

"What?" he said irritably, but his face still betrayed a good deal of confusion.

"Close your eyes. Now picture yourself somewhere… anywhere, doing whatever you want to Bathilda Bagshot."

"As tempting as that sounds, no," Snape replied.

"But its good fun!" retorted the mysterious voice.

"Yeah. Well. How is it that you're calling me on a muggle phone when I'm in Hogwarts Palace?" asked Snape darkly.

"Well. How is it that I have your favourite flowered apron?"

"WHAT? You FIEND! Give me back my apron or so help me…."

"I'm DYING to find out what you'll do. Ta ta for now, Snapesickle." The line went dead.

Snape threw back his head and bellowed with all the fury felt by man and beast ever in all of eternity. Yeah.

I *think* that the line "It's all in this pamphlet" is from an episode of Family Guy I watched way back when.