And as the thestrals spread their leathery wings and took to the skies, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sighed in despair.

"Where could my very important pamphlet be?" asked Harry as the trio searched the Charms classroom from top to bottom.

"Why don't you think about the last place you'd look, because you know, you always find lost things in the last place you look," Ron suggested.

"Ron, go sit in a corner," snapped Hermione.

Ron's lip trembled. "Hermione, that was… uncalled for." He put one hand over his eyes and sunk into a desk chair.

Harry glared at Hermione. "Now look what you've done!"

Hermione sighed and sat next to Ron. "I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated, because that pamphlet is really important and it's just… gone."

"Yeah, Hermione," said Harry, glaring even more furiously.

Ron and Hermione stared at him.

"Harry, you lost the pamphlet. And you made it in the first place, for no discernable reason," Ron told him as Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Oh, fine, blame everything on me, everything's always my fault, isn't it? I don't suppose either of you have ever made a mistake? Oh no, you're perfect, violin-playing sidekicks and neither of you would ever do anything even a little bit less than magnificent. Well, fine. You go find that pamphlet without me, you can forget about me helping you anymore."

With that, he stormed out of the Charms classroom. When he tried to slam the door it just bounced merrily back open, emitting bubbles. This seemed to infuriate him even more, because he slammed right into the wall as he left.

"Hermione, if I hexed him, would you rat me out to McGonagall?"

"Probably. Yes. I wouldn't be able to help myself."

"Okay. If I hexed Malfoy, would you rat me out to McGonagall?"

"Oh, absolutely not. Let's go do that."

Professor Snape was reclining in the comfiest chair in the Gryffindor common room, yes, indeed, the one right next to the fire. Lee Jordan stood foremost among the students clamouring to get a look.

"What is he doing?" whispered Alicia Spinnet.

"God knows," muttered Lee.

"This is too bizarre," said a curly-haired girl in fourth year.

Fred and George, ever paternal, patted a first year boy on the head as he sobbed with uncontrollable horror. "There, there, he'll leave eventually."

"Maybe."

"I'm going to ask him."

"No, Lavender!"

"It's too dangerous!"

"You have so much life ahead of you!"

"Don't do it!"

But Lavender's face was set. She looked at Fred and George questioningly.

Fred shrugged as he re-tied the crying first year's tie around his head in what he must have thought was a comforting gesture. George said, "Your funeral."

Lavender took a deep breath, stepped in front of Lee and mumbled, "Er… Professor?"

Snape didn't stir.

She took another step. Parvati bit her nails. Colin held his breath.

"Professor?"

Snape's eyes were closed, and his head was thrown casually back over the head of the chair where it rested against the wall. He was clearly breathing, but he made no notice of Lavender or the hundreds of Gryffindor students who stared at him.

Lavender gritted her teeth and closed the distance. She prodded him in the shoulder and said, "Professor, what are you doing here?"

Snape leapt up with a yelp, and several students shrieked. Cormac McLaggen fainted.

"What the devil is going on here?" Snape snarled.

"Uhhhm, well…" Lavender had gone white, but she stood her ground. "That's kind of what we were wondering, Professor."

Snape glared around at all of the students assembled. They stared back, wide-eyed and fearful.

Snape sighed.

Some of the students chanced perplexed glances at each other.

"Kids… let me explain something to you." Snape sat back down. Now all of the students (with the exception of McLaggen) were staring at each other.

"Sometimes… people decide for you… that you… what you are, what you'll be… and it's really hard to change it because you think, hey, if mum was a Slytherin maybe she'll love me if I'm a Slytherin too, and hey, if everyone else hates me but those guys think I'm swell maybe I will be a Death Eater, and then you wake up one day and you haven't had a shower in twenty years and everything you've ever loved is just… gone. And it's all your fault, because you never realized that the only person who ever had control over your life… was you."

There was silence in the Gryffindor common room that day.

Until Lavender said, "What… er… what?"

Snape glared at her for a moment, but then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes again. "What I'm saying is… I really want to sit in a squashy armchair for once. God."

Lee's jaw was on the floor. Fred and George seemed to have finally been left speechless. Alicia's lip was trembling and she held her heart. Colin's eyes were the size of dinner plates. Lavender looked around at her fellow Gryffindors, utterly bemused. They shrugged frantically at her (it's possible to shrug frantically if you're a Gryffindor and Snape just poured his innermost feelings out to you).

"Um, well, Professor… don't they have squashy armchairs in the teacher's lounge?"

Snape opened his eyes. "They all smell of mustard."

Nobody could think of anything to say to that.

Snape sighed once more, and then smacked his head repeatedly against the wall behind his chair.

The Gryffindor students stared at each other, gobsmacked to a man. And all at once, they grinned at each other.

"Professor? We have an idea."

Ron and Hermione found Harry moping in the kitchens with Winky after a productive and entertaining afternoon of hexing Malfoy with various maladies from various hiding places. Mean? Yes. Cowardly? Yes.

…

Well, Malfoy had made their lives miserable just because he wanted to see Harry make a fool out of himself. It was a horrible plan, not to mention lacking in cleverness or originality. Ron and Hermione considered themselves and Harry completely even with Malfoy, and afterwards they left him alone.

They now stared down at Harry, who sat, legs sprawled in front of him, countless bottles of Professor Trelawney's favourite cooking sherry and butterbeer scattered about. He and Winky were hiccupping simultaneously and trying and failing to sing "Oh Woe is Me and My Accromantula." The other house elves were staring at both of them in immense confusion.

"Harry?" Hermione asked tremulously after a moment.

"What do you two hic want?" Harry asked.

"We… we thought of a way to find the pamphlet." Hermione looked at Ron for help.

He said, "It was a bit obvious, but better late than never, I guess." He raised his wand and said, "Accio pamphlet!"

The pamphlet zoomed out of Harry's pocket into Ron's outstretched hand.

"Harry, you already found it?" asked Hermione, staring at the thickly folded piece of paper.

"Hic… er…" said Harry.

"Merlin's pants," muttered Hermione. Ron stared at her. "Harry, have you had that the whole time?"

"It would hic seem that way," Harry slurred.

Hermione threw her hands up in defeat and sat down hard. Ron asked the house elves for a soy latté.

"Oh woooooe is me and my accromantula,

We've sailed the seven seas,

But everyone we meet on her,

Is terrified as you pleeze,

Because my accromantula is hungry,

And he tries to eat them so,

They get all prissy and they start to scream,

Especially when he tells them his name is Joe," warbled Winky and Harry.

"This is the worst song ever written. The meter is all off," Hermione complained. Ron sipped his latté and shrugged.

"Oh woooe, oh woooe, oh woooe is me and my accromantula,

Who, under better circumstances prefers to go

By the distinguished and terrifying name of Joe."

Snape lowered himself gingerly into his own Gryffindor-brand squashy red armchair. The students gathered about him in his newly decorated office, breaths held. Only when Snape was fully seated did they burst into applause.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione got back to their common room later that night. It was completely empty except for Cormac McLaggen who was sprawled out on the floor. He woke up as they stepped into the common room and said, "What'd I miss?"

The trio ignored him, but exclaimed over the missing armchair that had somehow disappeared from beside the fire.

Harry suddenly turned to the other two. "Ron, Hermione – I think I've just understood something!"

Ron and Hermione looked at each other with trepidation.

"That voice on the phone! I know who it was!"

"Who?" they said together.

"Follow me!"

Without offering any more explanation, Harry dashed from the common room with Ron, Hermione, and McLaggen in hot pursuit.

Harry took a sharp right at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She squealed happily when she saw him, but he just ran right through her. Ron, Hermione, and McLaggen followed a little more slowly.

"Harry? Are you… sure about this?"

But Harry wasn't listening. "Open," he said to the little snake etched in the sink.

It wasn't much longer before Harry, Ron, Hermione, McLaggen, and Moaning Myrtle were in the Chamber of Secrets, marching straight towards the lair of the dead Basilisk.

Ron and Hermione clutched each other like… the Hand of Glory. Yup. McLaggen held Myrtle's hand, shuddering the whole time.

But Harry walked right in and shouted, "Oy! Mr. Basilisk! You home?"

"Harry, you killed the Basilisk in second year!" squeaked Hermione.

But Harry wasn't listening.

"Okay, everyone. Close your eyes! You too, Myrtle!"

"Harry, I'm confused. What is it you're expecting to find down here besides a dead Basilisk?" Ron was asking angrily. Harry bumped into a few walls, ignored Ron, and tripped over the dead Basilisk.

"Wow. That hurt," Harry muttered.

"Harry, the Basilisk is dead, okay? Can we go now?" Hermione whispered.

"WHAT? But I was so sure that it was the Basilisk who called me on the telephone."

Ron, Hermione, McLaggen, Moaning Myrtle, and now a puffing, furious Filch stared at Harry.

Hermione finally broke the silence.

"Harry, do you mean to tell us that… that you're… surprised, that it wasn't this Basilisk who called you on the phone?"

"Yes," Harry said slowly, as if she was very stupid for not realizing this.

When Harry, Ron, Hermione, and McLaggen returned to the common room, tired, aching, and irritated, but without detention, because Filch was just grateful to get out of the Chamber of Secrets without having to clean it, they found the rest of the Gryffindors back in their common room.

"Where have you been?" asked Ginny.

Hermione growled in response.

"I was so sure that it was the Basilisk who called me!" Harry said again, causing Hermione to storm off to her dormitory.

"Oh, we know who called you, Harry," said Ginny.

"You do? Who was it?"

"It was Peeves. He disguised himself as a phone. He did it to Snape, too," explained George as Harry and Ron sat with him, Fred, and Ginny.

"Oh. Well then."

"Harry, you'd better go to Madam Pomfrey in the morning or Hermione will probably explode," Ron muttered.

"Oh, fine," Harry sighed.

"Ahh, Harry's much more fun like this. Sing for us, Potter!" yelled Fred.

"Oh woooe is me and my Accromantula,

Because when we're together he,

Far worse than any wing man,

Charms the ladies more than me.

He sips his tea with his eighth leg sticking out

And when he's done he'll say,

"'Twasn't me what caught you up

"But it probably was my web."

"Hey wait, that doesn't rhyme!"

They squeal, a-flutter and a-flirtin',

And he'll smile big and wear a wig,

And kill them and drink their fluids."

OH WOE IS ME AND OH WOE IS MY ACCROMANTULA!"

Even Hermione came back into the common room and listened with one eyebrow cocked.

The next day Harry was so embarrassed that he locked himself in the Room of Requirement with Winky and Moaning Myrtle and the three of them sobbed uncontrollably together.