Dumbledore, who had become increasingly senile over the past week, was sitting in his office, humming to himself while popping lemon drop after lemon drop into his mouth.
Suddenly he heard a loud commotion outside his door. Being the senile old coot he was, however, he just let whoever it was continue banging, and lay his head on his chest to take a little nap.
Outside the stone gargoyles, Harry was having a temper tantrum.
"Let us in. Lemon drop. Or was that sherbet lemon? Why did they translate the books anyway? They were already in English. Who cares about a bunch of bloody Yanks? … Anyway… uh… cockroach Clusters! Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! Drooble's Best Blowing Gum!"
He kicked the gargoyle angrily. Mary-Sue soothingly put her arm around his shoulders, and he dissolved into tears that he had been needing to shed ever since Sirius had died.
"Oh, Mary-Sue! Every time I come here, I get mad at Dumbledore and I feel so bad. And poor Sirius is dead! It's all my fault!"
"Shh, it's okay. It wasn't your fault, Harry. I still love you!" Mary-Sue's sappy words were exactly what Harry had needed.
Feeling particularly emotional, he sobbed even harder, now also out of gratitude and love for Mary-Sue.
Rolling her eyes at such un-Harryish behavior, Hermione walked past the pair and up to the gargoyles, only to find them opening.
A few moments later, Dumbledore flopped out, having just tripped over his extremely long beard.
Looking up at Harry and Mary-Sue, entwined as they were, he sighed.
"Ah, Harry. Now you understand the power the Dark Lord knows not! Love. Yes, young love. And such a gorgeous girl, too. Good choice, Harry. Good taste, yes..."
As Dumbledore continued his rambling, Hermione hid her face in her hands and burst into angry tears.
"Not you, too! Not Dumbledore!" she shrieked and ran away as quickly as possible.
Harry and Mary-Sue, however, were too busy gazing into each other's eyes to notice Hermione's breakdown or Dumbledore’s inherent rambling.
Finally they looked up, as Dumbledore's long-winded speech came to a close with the words "Your true love will save the world from that evil psychopath!"
Mary-Sue stepped forward.
"Sir. Harry would like to tell you something. The potions book he's been using, it had spells and hints and everything in it. And it belonged to the "Half-Blood Prince" and I'm... I mean, we're sure it's Snape."
As usual, Dumbledore ignored all the glaring evidence (thought Harry) and said:
"I have my reasons for trusting Snape. Now... lemon drop?"
Being the polite girl she was, Mary-Sue graciously accepted and Harry followed her lead, while glaring at Dumbledore.
"If we were in your office..." he growled, "we soon... wouldn't be!"
"What?" inquired Dumbledore pleasantly.
"He means he feels like demolishing your office, sir," Mary-Sue clarified.
"Oh, alright then. I've got to get back to my nap, err… I mean, important Order business now. Ta-ta!" Dumbledore mumbled, tripping back up the stairs.
"Well, he was no help!" hiccoughed Harry.
"I know!" giggled Hermione.
“Um… ‘Mione, weren’t you gone?”
“Maybe…”
“Okay…”
All three friends had just grabbed a handful of the offered lemon drops from Dumbledore and were happily devouring them.
"Hi hi!" added Mary-Sue then said seriously, "wait a minute! These lemon drops... they're... alcoholic!"
"No they're not!" laughed Hermione, “but if they were… that would sure explain a lot of things about Dumbledore…”
"Yesh they are, 'Mione! Everything Mary-Sue says is true!" replied an angered Harry.
“Oh, don’t be shtupid! I am not drunk!” she giggled, then noticed what she was doing and covered her mouth with her hands in embarrassment.
For some reason, Hermione Granger had decided not to be a girl who giggled. In fact, it seemed she was barely a girl at all, and more a robotic nerd, who didn’t really care what color her hair was, as long as it was there, nor whether it was bushy or whether she looked like she had just crawled out of bed. Not at all. All this had changed a bit recently, though…
“You should giggle more often,” said Mary-Sue, always one to offer advice where the knew it was needed, “and maybe you should start wearing make-up and tighter robes, too."
After all, over the past week (this is unique! It’s not the summer in this fic!) Hermione’s frizzy hair had turned into beautiful light-brown curls, her eyes had become large and enchanting, and her once child-like body had miraculously become curvy and perfect.
Those were, in fact, the exact thoughts of one Draco Malfoy, who had also undergone quite a transformation from annoying, snobby pureblood prodigy to suave, sex-god, angelic-looking, clever young man, who is just… misunderstood!
This, of course, had not gone unnoticed by Hermione as he just happened to walk past at that moment.
Draco and Hermione’s musings were not long-lived (for the moment), however, as Mary-Sue grabbed Harry and Hermione’s arms and pulled them both off to Gryffindor tower for an anti-alcohol potion - Mary-Sue was, after all, the best potion mistress ever!
Meanwhile, Draco was sitting alone in his dormitory, having sent Crabbe and Goyle off after some food. He was contemplating the thoughts seeing Hermione (he had just randomly started calling her that when he had noticed her cute bum earlier) had brought out.
“No. I can’t love a mudblood!” he yelled, then realized that he had just almost admitted that he thought he might love her.
“What would father say?” he worried, fearing the wrath of his cruel, torturous father, whose fault it was entirely that Draco had become the arse he was today.
As she walked, Mary-Sue considered the stares she had noticed going on between Draco and Hermione. They were obviously hiding a great love with their supposed hate. A masquerade would do the trick quite nicely…