The Fat Muggle, Ten Years Later

-----------------The Fat Muggle, Ten Years Later. chapter thirteen, "Wednesday"--------------------

"You called?" Severus Snape strode into Hermione's office, wearing his usual black robes and his hair in a ponytail with a few loose strands of hair hanging into his face, giving contrast to his pale skin and his dark two day old stubble.

"Yes, Severus! I need your help. As you know, Malfoy is on the loose and he has captured Harry," Hermione said and started searching in a huge pile of papers on her desk.

Snape nodded and waited for her to get to the point.

"And what you don't know is that Neville Longbottom is still alive and he's solved the mystery of the Thought-Uniter root, and we're going to use it to nail Malfoy this Wednesday, but we nee..." Hermione rambled on until Snape stopped her.

"Wait. Longbottom is alive? How? And what was that about the Thought-Uniter root? Isn't it illegal?" he asked utterly confused, which he seldom was.

"Ron Weasley and Dudley Dursley found Neville in Sweden being held captive by Lucious Malfoy and an old friend of yours; Peter Pettigrew," Hermione said calmly.

Snape's eyebrows flew high up on his brow.

"And Neville solved the mystery of the Thought-Uniter root, so it isn't dangerous anymore and he and Dudley will use it to nail Malfoy. Are you with me now?" Hermione said as if she was talking to a ten year old boy.

Snape nodded again, digesting this startling new information as fast as his mind would allow him.

"So what do you need me for?" he asked, stroking his stubble.

"There is one component of the, what should we call it? Anti-danger potion, needed to safeguard Neville and Dudley's minds that we need you to prepare, as it is way out of our league," Hermione said and continued searching in what now was a huge mess of papers instead of a pile.

"What is this potion called?" Snape asked just as Hermione found what she was looking for.

"This! The Mercuriousity Potion! Here's the ingredients list just in case you should need it," Hermione said and handed Snape the piece of paper.

"This won't be so hard. It'll take about a day to finish brewing. I'll get started immediately," Snape said and left the office before Hermione had the chance to say thanks.

"That's a difficult man to figure out," Hermione thought to herself.

The remainder of the day was uneventful, with Snape preparing the potion and Ron, Dudley and Neville in hard training.

Wednesday was creeping up on them and on Tuesday night, Dudley and Neville were ready to take the Thought-Uniter root.

Ron and Grindle entered the training room carrying the heavy cauldron that held the Mercuriousity Potion, closely followed by Snape.

Dudley and Neville stopped their training and they were joined by Hermione moments later.

"So. Ready to start?" Hermions asked Dudley and Neville.

They nodded and stepped up to the cauldron and Neville took out a small bag that contained the Thought-Uniter root and began slicing it into thin coin-like shapes.

He threw them into the cauldron and conjured a jar of peanut butter and opened it.

"We have to eat a spoonful and keep it in our mouths while we drink the potion. Then we swallow the peanutbutter too," Neville told Dudley and Ron handed them each a spoon.

They put the peanutbutter in their mouths as Snape filled each a glass of the potion for them.

They took the glasses in one hand and looked into eachothers eyes.

Dudley took Neville's hand and squeesed it firmly.

And in one gulp they emptied their glasses of the smelly potion.

They immediatley grabbed their throats as the potion caused a violent cramp; Neville knew this, but didn't want to frighten Dudley so he didn't tell him about it.

Dudley fell to his knees in pain, but Neville stood upright, eyes closed, focusing on what he was doing.

Suddenly the pain stopped and they both swallowed the peanut butter.

They felt a numb sensation in their bodys and a slightly tickling feeling grew in their forehead.

Then they both started laughing hysterically, scaring both Hermione and Ron.

"Are you ok?" Hermione asked them.

Neville waved his hands in a manor as if to tell them 'yes, we're fine, but we can't stop laughing right now', and Hermione felt eased.

Suddenly they all heard a voice inside their heads.

"We're ok! This is great, hearing other people's thougths!" It was Dudley's voice and within seconds, Neville's voice was heard too.

"Ron! You have a really dirty mind!" he said.

"Get out of my head! That's private stuff in there, you know," Ron exclaimed and waved his hands as if he was warding off flies.

"Sorry! It's still abit hard to control the telepathy," Dudley said, using his mouth.

"Can you feel Malfoy's thoughts?" Hermione asked Neville.

Neville closed his eyes and felt how he let his mind expand into the fullness of the training room, feeling everyone's mind and thoughts.

He let his mind expand beyond the room, beyond the Ministry and across the ocean and search the whole of Scandinavia, where he thought Malfoy might still be, but although he heard and felt thousands of minds, he found nothing feeling like Malfoy.

"No. I just searched the whole of Scandinavia and I don't think he's there anymore," Neville said.

"And we don't have any time to search the entire world, nor do we have the experience needed to do such a massive search," Dudley said.

"But if Dudley and I would connect our minds, I could find him anywhere that Portkey brings him and Ron," Neville said and he and Dudley immediately began to connect.

They put their fingers to eachothers temples and closed their eyes.

Neville felt himself fly into Dudley's mind, seeing every memory, feeling every feeling he'd felt in his life.

He stopped travelling Dudley's mind when he recognised a memory; it was himself and Dudley standing outside the Potions classroom.

"You really care for me?" Neville heard himself whisper and heard Dudley's trembling voice.

"I wanted to be your....your lover," Neville saw himself walk up to Dudley and look him in the face.

"But I guess it'll never happen. I'm gay and you're not, and that's that. End of story, I guess," Dudley said and Neville felt exactly what Dudley had felt back then; heartbreak and the urge to start crying, but refusing to, in vain as a tear rolled down his sweetly round cheek.

Neville saw himself lift Dudley's head and smile.

And kiss him.

Dudley's feelings of confusion and bliss and arousal hit Neville's mind as a jackhammer and he was forced to carry on finding a connection point in Dudley's mind.

In the dissarray of Dudley's mind, Neville saw a silver figure fly towards him and realised it was Dudley's astral form, coming to meet him.

"Hi! Pretty screwy, right?" Dudley said and smiled.

Neville nodded and leaned in and kissed Dudley's astral form and thereby closing the connection.

The both opened their eyes and felt uncomfortable in their bodys, like when you sleep in the middle of the day with your clothes on and then wake up and feel a bit gross.

"There! We're connected. And only death can sever that bond now," Neville said.

"Then all we have to do now is wait untill seven o'clock tomorrow night," Ron said.

"Yeah, you, that is! I have to arrange a small army of Aurors to be ready to Apparate to where ever you guys end up and that is no easy job, I tell you," Hermione said.

Neville and Dudley went to the room they had been assigned to and conitnued to experiment with their newly found sense and Ron went home for the day.

Grindle stayed in the training room and kept on fighting untill late in the evening.

As for Hermione, she didn't even go to bed.

The next morning they were going to save Harry and kick the shit out of Malfoy.

------------------------to be continued in chapter fourteen, "Wandering with Werewolves"--------------------