Hagrid roared in indignation and bellowed about cruelty to animals and I-will-not-stand-for-this-if-Dumbledore-was-here-Professor-McGonagall-ye-can’t-how-could-ye-- It took a collective effort to make him understand that the creature hadn’t been a creature at all but an animated magical object he could obtain from the twin Weasleys’ shop.
All the Houses lost all the gems in their hourglasses. They’d all been in on it-- to Minerva’s amazed horror. It was the Ravenclaws’ idea that some of them had to get ingested to be able to rile their teachers more. It was the Hufflepuffs who directed the dramatic effort or non-effort to escape and fight. The Gryffindors and Slytherins let them take the glory this time, since they happened to house the masterminds already.
It hadn’t taken long for one and all to curse and confess left, right and centre at the sight of Professors Malfoy and Granger collapsing. They all thought they were to blame. Those stuck in the slime sat down or went on their knees in dismay and fear. Although they were all puzzled as well that a former Death Eater and a war heroine could be stupefied by The Monster Jelly so easily.
The headmistress, almost Apparating to her fallen staff and knowing all about a certain agreement, quickly deduced what had happened and switched Callie and Lia, depositing them each to their rightful parent. The change was immediate. Draco and Hermione stopped struggling for air, went limp, and though they promptly blacked out, they were breathing again.
Lia burst into tears. Callie threw up.
Draco woke up and winced at the moonlight slanting in through the windows of the infirmary. Was the school waiting to be endowed with draperies, for Merlin’s sake? His eyes felt like there were clamps around his eyeballs. But he opened them, turned his head, and found Hermione on the next bed, looking like she’d indulged on barrels of mead and a smidge of fisticuffs. Her eyes were a little swollen and bloodshot. Judging by how he felt, he probably looked the same, if not worse.
He moved to sit up and cried out at the pain that lanced through his veins. It wasn’t unlike Cruciatus, the sensation of jabbing and stabbing from a thousand needles.
“Is it really that bad or are you just scaring me? You know I’m not good with pain.”
Very gingerly, Draco turned to Hermione again. She was still looking up at the ceiling. Draco realised she was holding herself rigid. He sniggered before he could stop himself. And to his surprise, there was no pain at the movement. He tentatively raised his arm. No pain. He turned on his side so he was facing Hermione. No pain.
“Maybe it’s just when we move for the first time since. How long have you been lying there like a corpse?” She didn’t answer, didn’t move. “I’ll get Madam Pomfrey then. Stay there. Don’t stir.” Jokingly.
He sat up in his bed. She bolted upright. And uttered a small scream and curled in on herself for three seconds. When she relaxed, she was panting a little. Draco padded to her in bare feet, sat down beside her and stroked her back. “I suppose now we’ll be careful signing things in blood.”
She groaned, shifted and laid her head on his thigh. Draco’s left ventricle sort of stuttered. “This is fucked up. Lia and Callie must be scared out of their minds. I think we passed out right in front of them.”
He idly buried his hand in her hair and cupped his hand on the curve of her head. “Did they switch places on us?”
“Well, we nearly died, so that’s the only conclusion to be made, isn’t it? You thought you were saving your daughter and I thought I was saving mine, except we each grabbed the wrong girl and-- what the fuck was that monster? Did I hear right? It’s from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes?”
“Stop saying ‘fuck’, it’s turning me on. I heard something loud, but I was too busy trying and failing to breathe to pay attention.”
She looked up at him. Perhaps he should have said the first part of his response last. “I’m sorry, Draco. I’m so sorry. How do we fix this?”
Marry me. But damn it all to Hades, he was forgetting who he was talking to. It was impossible Hermione hadn’t seen that solution yet. And if she wasn’t even considering it, well, Draco wouldn’t trouble her. He could just make her consider it again. He’d court her. He wouldn’t ask. Not yet. Because if he asked, he’d beg. He wasn’t about to beg. He wasn’t the only one at fault here. They’d have been married long ago if she wasn’t as stubborn and unforgiving as dragon blood on silk.
“I can take Callie back to France. She can continue at Beauxbatons. It’s only been two months in the term.”
Hermione shook her head at that from the beginning. “I don’t think we can separate them again. Lia will--”
“I’m only telling you what I can do. I’m not even saying I want to do it.”
“I don’t want it either,” she said quietly. Draco found he didn’t like her like this, timid and sad.
“Well then, you just keep your hands off my daughter. And I’ll keep my hands off yours.”
Hermione half snorted, half sniffled. That sniffle undid Draco.
“You can always just marry me, you stupid cow.”
Hermione shot up from his lap so fast she clipped his chin.
“Marry you?”
At that moment, however, light flooded the ward from Madam Pomfrey’s door, and the matron, attired in a dressing gown, emerged to check on her patients. Hermione rearranged herself so that she was sitting demurely on the bed beside him. Draco gritted his teeth.
“Good morning. Awake, I see,” Madam Pomfrey said, bustling over. “How do you feel?”
Like utter shite. He probably had a bruise coming on his chin, he’d just proposed, he hadn’t begged at all but he’d looked and spoke like a drunkard while doing it. Real smooth and romantic. And how come the old hag hadn’t come running when they’d both yelped in pain, but barged in just in time to pre-empt the possibility of a certain ceremony and then perhaps a sib for the twins? Draco grimaced and went back to his bed, the feel of Hermione’s hair a ghost that clung to his hand.
Julius Menis was one of those men who hadn’t learned to say no. He’d been a yes man. Yes, he could do this. Yes, he could do that. Yes, he could have that. Yes, he could have this. He should. He shall.
In some respects, like his career in Magical Law Enforcement, this was an advantage, because he relentlessly pursued those who warranted pursuing, fought for laws he knew to be advantageous for the greater many and never backed down from jockeying into and for position. During the second war against Voldemort, however, he had no chance to promote himself. He had been out of the country, looking after his ailing grandmother who’d raised him. They were in France. This was both convenient and woeful. Julius preserved his life and reputation because nothing endangered the first and tempted the latter. When he returned with the dust settling around them all, he managed to wrangle the highest position in the Department, but only because of his seniority. Potter, Weasley and Hermione certainly garnered more respect than he did and if Potter wanted to be Head of the Department, Julius had no doubt he’d be booted back to France quicker than you can say ‘Auror’.
And then what would become of Julius? He had already spent his grandmother’s considerable monetary legacy. In France, creditors awaited him. He was accumulating debt here, too. Because Julius couldn’t say no to gambling, to racing brooms, to pretty much anything offered him in exchange for galleons. His grandmother used to say no for him. But after his grandmother died, Julius went on a downward spiral. His wife had already left him and sued him for alimony and child support, which was where most of his salary from the Ministry went. His retirement fund was nonexistent.
If he wasn’t a wizard, he’d have long ago been noticed wearing tattered robes.
He needed gold and yes, he could get some. He should. He shall.
He flicked his wand on his out-tray and the correspondence stashed there disappeared, going on their way to their recipient.
Good things came to those who wait.
But especially to those who’d learned to repel memory charms.
They came to visit together, holding hands, and for the hundredth time, Hermione’s heart broke because she couldn’t take them both into her arms, comfort them both, and kiss them both. Instead, only Lia went to her, Lia who was blonde and grey-eyed again, sobbing before she’d even reached Hermione, burrowing into her mother’s bosom like she hadn’t done since she was five when they’d all discovered the doxy egg allergy. Lia had been terrified of the hives that appeared all over her body, thinking she was about to die or worse, become a beast like in the fairy tales.
Hermione rocked and soothed Thalia, and tried not to despair too much that she could hold only one when she had two. It was different when only one was within reach. She’d be in for a lot of that now. She had better get used to it. Callie was with her father and even without looking, Hermione was sure Draco was also in a mirroring position of giving comfort to a frightened child.
She and Thalia jumped at the loud clang and clatter beside them.
It was Draco’s breakfast tray. The empty bowl of porridge was still bouncing on its sides, twanging on the stone floor. A goblet and a sausage rolled and disappeared under Hermione’s bed, leaving a trail of leftover pumpkin juice and grease.
Hermione looked up and saw Calliope marching away from her father’s bed in an impressive fit of pique, chest heaving, fists clenched. Hermione turned her gaze to Draco, who didn’t look happy, taking a deep breath, holding it and expelling it to say to Hermione, “You know what they say about the quiet ones. Explodes. Kicks and stomps. Does she get that from someone in this room? Or maybe from my mother. I always forget to ask her.”
“Lia, come along.”
Lia went. Callie was glaring so fiercely Hermione suspected she’d have snatched Lia away if Lia had hesitated for even a second.
“What happened?” Hermione asked as soon as the girls rounded the corner out of the infirmary.
“She sat on my bed, watched you and Lia, and kicked the end of my bed. Knocked my breakfast tray off. That had to have hurt her toes.”
Hermione winced and looked down at her lap. This was insane. She could still feel his hands in her hair, the heat of his body. The look in his eyes when he’d blurted that she should marry him seemed seared behind her eyelids. Of course, there were other things too, still not dislodged, tenacious, making her shake her head in disbelief at her daring. How dare she forget? How dare she consider forgetting? Hadn’t she learned? But this wasn’t about her any longer. No. And she wasn’t going to be selfish twice. She had to think of Callie’s poor toes.
“If this goes on, we’ll see what we can do.”
Before he could question her, before she could question herself, she got up from bed. She ignored the vertigo and managed to dress herself using her wand. When the room stopped tilting, she put one foot forward, and then the other. The floor wasn’t steady so she Banished the heel off her left shoe and transfigured the heel of her right shoe into a cane.
“Impressive, Granger,” said Draco behind her. She felt a sizzle of magic on her head. She clutched at her hair, but it was all there. “Now you look the part.”
She detoured to a wash basin in the corner that had a mirror over it and angrily turned her hair back to normal, removing the streaks of grey.
“There’s still a chance you might grow old with me, Draco dearest, so no need to hanker for a preview.” She turned away from the mirror after seeing his reflection go still. She pretended she hadn’t heard his indrawn breath. Pretended her heart wasn’t malfunctioning like she was ninety.
They both cursed loudly at the sudden appearance of another rose. It materialised right before Hermione’s nose, making her stop short and wobble and topple despite her cane. She landed painlessly and she was grateful. Tailbones and stone floors didn’t mix.
Draco had shot a very timely Cushioning Charm. He incinerated the rose next. “Goddammit, I’m going to wring your secret admirer’s neck when he reveals himself.”
Me, too. Hermione finally got back to her feet, but she was very nearly knocked over again, this time by the sudden avalanche of Hogwarts girls who poured into the infirmary, an avalanche that headed straight to Draco’s bed.
Madam Pomfrey-- who seemed to have given Hermione and Draco much too much privacy-- pelted out of her office, but Hermione spoke first, in her courtroom don’t-even-think-about-obstructing-my-justice-in-any-manner-or-you’ll-be-very-sorry voice.
“What is this?” Three words. Not even bellowed. But the girls froze as one and fell silent.
“Professor,” said the prettiest one, a Ravenclaw N.E.W.T student. Hermione forgot her name. It was Preening or Puggy or Daft-Dimbo or some such. “We just wanted to see you and Professor Malfoy. We were--”
“Well, you’ve seen us. Go back to the Great Hall, eat your breakfast and wait for class. And if any of those involved in the Halloween entertainment are in my classes, tell them they should probably write to their parents now. Say goodbye and tie loose ends.”
A swift exodus resulted. Madam Pomfrey clucked her tongue. “You two have got to stop threatening the students!”
Draco brayed in his bed like a demented donkey. If the room wasn’t so wobbly, Hermione would have turned her back on him and stomped off. As it was, she could only shuffle like a geisha with spine problems and ingrown nails on all ten toes. And then of course Madam Pomfrey grabbed her and put her back to bed. Damn it, that was too undignified a treatment for someone who was nearly thirty.
“If I’m having the day off, can I spend it in dreamless, blissful sleep, please?”
“Don’t want to think about it?” Draco asked, shaking his head when Madam Pomfrey offered him a dose of Dreamless Sleep.
“On the contrary, I am thinking too much about it,” said Hermione candidly. “I need distance. Perspective. You do, as well, Draco. Don’t set your mind on something that might just worsen things.”
“How?”
But the potion Hermione had just drank took hold then and she fell asleep before she could say something about torn pages being less pitiful than a tattered book.
To the Master of the Vaults of Gringotts:
Sir:
In reply to your letter of November first, Hogwarts has not ever enquired as to the identity of the patron or patrons behind the Hermione Granger Fund. Hogwarts is aware that to do so is not only futile but pointless and tactless. This educational institution is grateful for endowments but does not actively seek it.
Below is my seal, to authenticate this letter as mine.
Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
“Peeves, if you want in on this, just hover upside down like a nice and wonky ghost and stop dumping our homework in the fire!”
Nothing was more delicious than sitting beside a crackling fire on a chill autumn night, sipping hot cocoa while surrounded by your peers (and a poltergeist who grumbles but does your bidding), even if the fire was currently crackling on homework due in two days. There was also the novelty of all her peers being there, thought Prissy. Perhaps they should do this regularly, in rotation. They could meet in the Gryffindor common room next. And so on in the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff dorms. It was nice to see blues and yellows among the reds and greens.
June Finch-Fletchley, the quietest of the prefects, took pity on Peeves and gave him her gobstones to play with. She regretted it immediately when Peeves grinned wide and squirted her in thanks. Peeves began juggling the gobstones. They all cast the Bubble Head Charm on themselves. Quillian cleared his throat as a preamble to speaking, and they all cracked up at the funny way he sounded, at the funny way they all sounded.
“The twins heard themp this borning. They only left the infirmpary when Mpadam Pompfrey went to fetch breakfast. It seemps this agreempent can be broken by mparriage.”
Everyone knew the agreement by now. Callie and Lia had explained after being mobbed by terrified upperclassmen who were bewildered at having literally scared their favourite professors three quarters to death.
“Why aren’t they getting hitched then?” said Kazu Minako.
“Just like a guy to say thad.”
The boys rolled their eyes at each other.
“Think aboud it, mpy little mpen,” said Katya Smith. “They separaded. They even signed an agreempent do sday away from each other. Thank Mperlin they didn’d bother do word that agreempent dightly, or this would haf been a very dull leaving year for us. Anyway, there had do have been a mpajor fight infolfed.”
“Thad’s why they’re nod ‘getting hitched’ as you have so elegantly pud id,” said Prissy. “Nod yed, anyway.”
Peeves grew bored fast because he wasn’t affecting them with the gobstones’ stink. He proceeded to obey Prissy, only varying the monotony by plunging and bouncing off their Bubble Heads every few seconds.
“I wish they’d led us sid the examps already,” said Kazu. “Argh, Peeves! So then we won’d care if we ged expelled. We can just snatch those two and feed themp Veritaserump.”
“Whad use is your N.E.W.T level if-- Peeves!-- if you ged arresded, idiod? Led’s leave classified potions oud of id. Id won’d--”
“Is Polyjuice classified?”
They all stared at June, who’d been quiet until then.
“Are owls winged?” said Prissy, a little impatient and a little intrigued, a combination that always made her snappish.
“No, I know that. I-- I meand, why nod use Polyjuice Potion?”
“Peeves, I amp this close do firing a Permpanent Sticking Charmp infolfing your nose and the ceiling!”
“Prissy, deep breaths,” said Quillian.
Peeves blew a raspberry and stopped bouncing off their Bubble Heads. They all removed it belatedly. All hint of gobstone stink had gone by then anyway.
“Junie,” said Liam Gallagher, “who do we Polyjuice into? Their mothers? So we can question them? Not that it’s likely for us to locate and get hair from their mothers.”
June was shaking her head. “I-- I wasn’t thinking of questioning them. I just want to help the twins. They both want to be with the other parent--”
“You saw what happened. If they switch, their parents die.”
“But they didn’t switch.”
“What?” “Beg pardon?” “What are you talking about?” “You were there, June!”
“They only changed their hair and eye colour. Polyjuice, on the other hand, will switch them. Polyjuice Potion makes you wear another person’s skin. You become that person, even as you retain your own identity. If Callie becomes Lia, and Lia becomes Callie, I don’t think the agreement will--”
“Hey, she’s right.” “My goodness, why didn’t we think of that?” “Brilliant, Junie!”
“I hope you always speak up with your genius ideas, June.” Prissy was grinning. And to think, Callie didn’t like ‘prissy’. She and her sister were going to owe Prissy And Co. a lot. “So we’re brewing Polyjuice. Should be just in time for Christmas hols. They can switch then!”
“And then they can nose about and have our collective questions answered.”
June was nodding, smiling shyly as everyone turned her suggestion into a plot.
“Ingredients, idiots,” said Prissy. “What do we do about ingredients?”
They all fell silent. They’d all gotten a sneak peek at Professor Malfoy’s wrath and none wanted to incur it further.
“Erm, my brother-in-law’s uncle owns the Apothecary in Hogsmeade,” said June, silencing everyone for the second time. “I can write my sister and--”
There was cheering for a couple of seconds before they remembered the time and the people sleeping upstairs (and the professor also sleeping not too far from the Slytherin Dungeon).
“But as for the question of the ultimate help to the twins, which is getting their parents ‘hitched’, what do we do?”
At that moment, Peeves plunged from the ceiling again, right in their midst, only missing the rims of their cocoa mugs by a centimetre.
“Mistletoe, you miserable misdemeanants. Mistletoe!”
Misters Weasley,
In future, please refrain from engaging our students in your pranks and siccing your products on Hogwarts faculty. Consider this a warning. You don’t want your former Transfiguration teacher for an enemy.
That was a very impressive, if inane, application of several Transfiguration theories. Accept my congratulations. Give my regards to your mother. But perhaps I will write to her myself.
Sincerely,
Professor M. McGonagall.
“Albus, you are tempting me to permanently silencing your portrait. Aren’t you flatulent yet? You’ve done nothing but giggle for hours!”