Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty

Part Two:
MOLLY WEASLEY and the RHYTHM METHOD
or
DUMBLEDORE and the CHICKEN POX
or
MARY-SUE RESIDES

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"The human face
is an empty power, a
field of death...
... after countless thousands of years
that the human face has spoken
and breathed
one still has the impression
that it hasn't even begun to
say what it is and what it knows."
-- Antonin Artaud

---------------------------------------------

CHAPTER 7:
HERMIONE GRANGER and the GRAPES OF WRATH

"Woah!" said Ron Weasley, his eyes bugging out like a frog firmly squeezed in the vicelike grip of a malicious preteen boy.

"I know!" said Harry, "Strangest dream I ever had... think there's something Freudian going on there."

"Something what?"
"Never mind."

Harry and Ron were sitting at breakfast, poking at the sugared waffles, nibbling at the pumpkin pasties, and sipping the pumpkin juice.
"What's with all the pumpkins lately?" asked Ron. "I don't get it."
"Neither do I, but I think it's a little heavy handed to serve the same food all the time."
"Stereotypical! What do they think, that's all we eat and drink?"
Harry shrugged.
"Still!" added Ron. "What a dream. I've never heard of that. And Dumbledore and Snape were... ... ... snogging?!"
"I couldn't see exactly what was going on. I just know Snape had the most terrible smile on his face. The same sort of look he gets when he's going to deduct points from Gryffindor. And Dumbledore was even stranger. He seemed startled... but in a good sort of way."
"Wicked!"
Ron had a Rupert Grint-like smile on his face.
"Wicked?!"
Harry's expression had nothing of Daniel Radcliffe in it.
"I mean it... in a bad way," said Ron.
"Oh."
"I just think it's really strange that you'd be having this dream now of all times. I mean, he's up to something. That's for bloody certain."
"Who?"
"Snape."
"Snape? Up to something?"
"I think Hagrid's got Fluffy guarding something again, and Snape's trying to get past. He's limping just like after he got bit in the leg by Fluffy."

Harry blinked.

And looked over to the staff table. Snape sat near the end, chin propped on hands, head bobbing slightly as though he struggled to stay awake.

At Snape's side hovered Artaud. The ghost seemed less morose and somber than usual. Instead, he turned his head up slightly, his eyes dripping closed, as though he was exalting the Great Hall with the sublimely sweet and fragrant peace of the first perfect May morning, when you still have some 'Peeps' left over from Easter, and they've just gotten a little stale, so instead of eating them plain, you put them in the microwave and watch them swell until they explode in a dripping brown marshmallow-caramel mess.
Such was Artaud's disposition.

"Where's Hermione?" asked Harry.
"Don't know. She's working on something, though. Again."

A hush fell on the room, like a dead owl would.
*Thunk!*

It had become customary for all of the boys at Hogwarts to observe a moment of silence whenever Mary-Sue entered or left a room.

But something was different this time.

"She looks terrible," Ron gushed in penitential awe.

And she did look terrible. Terrible!beautiful!Mary-Sue. Her eyes were slightly reddened as though they had been brushed gently by feathers dipped in the sweet perfume of broken rosebuds mixed with the finest aloe Vera moisturizing ingredients. Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, as though dusted by melancholy, halcyon breezes from her far home of Ohio.

She gave a single, dainty, adorable sniff, and half of the Great Hall fainted.

"I am in love with her," said Harry.

"Me too," said Ron.

"What a bitch," said Hermione, sitting down next to them.

"Hermione!" Ron was startled. "You look awful."

Hermione did, indeed, look awful. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she hadn't slept in days, her face was as pale as a bed sheet, and she had a disgusting runny nose which she uselessly dabbed at with her napkin.

"Yes, well," she said, "I haven't gotten any sleep lately."

"What have you been up to?" asked Harry.

"Nothing!" she snapped.

Harry turned his attention back to Mary-Sue. The Slytherins had prepared her place of honor, as usual, with three velvet pillows placed around her chair to make it cozier for her willowy form. Mary Sue didn't acknowledge this, however. She sat at the end of the Slytherin table, dropped her face into her hands, and looked up, dejected.

"Ahem!" said Dumbledore, standing.

But nobody laughed.

It just wasn't funny anymore.

"I don't normally speak at regular meals, but I have to make an exception this time. We have several pressing announcements to make. First, I must regretfully inform you that we will be losing a staff member. Antonin Artaud has been gracious enough to guide us through these first several weeks as our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, but he must now leave us... some important business will take him to France. Of course, Tristan Tzara applied for the position once again, but we told him nothing had changed and he was still misinformed. He took his ducks and umbrellas with him but left a few manifestoes, if anyone would like one. Ultimately, however, I have had no choice but to transfer Severus Snape to the position of DADA teacher. He will take over where Artaud left off."
Snape's eyes gleamed in fevered delight.
"Your potions classes will henceforth be taught by Gilderoy Lockhart."

Ron and Harry turned to each-other in surprise.
There was a crash.
Hermione had fallen onto the table, spilling her drink.
"So much for pumpkin juice," mumbled Harry.
Ron nodded.

But Dumbledore wasn't finished.
"Now I have to tell you about something that has really pissed me off. I don't mind telling you, and it is high time someone did something about it, and as Headmaster, I'm going to do something about it."

Dumbledore shook like a caffeinated beatnik.
He continued:

"This House rivalry thing is getting riddikulus. I'm really getting sick of it... all the plotting and conniving and back-stabbing... all the trickery and cliquishness. All the unnecessary hate. It's quite wearying, it gives me all sorts of headaches, and I demand that the two responsible houses face up to their uncalled-for behavior."

Harry braced himself...

"Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff! You should be ashamed of yourselves. To think, Ravenclaws, with your Hegel and Marx and Grindelwald, your shades and black robes, that you would ignore and look down upon your brothers and sisters in magic, just because they're a bunch of unimaginative, dull, plain-looking saps you can sucker into scrubbing your floors."

A number of Ravenclaws snickered at this, and the Hufflepuffs looked fit to kill.

"And Hufflepuffs," Dumbledore added, "to think that you would save up the proceeds from your bake sales to buy hundreds of metal toothpicks, and then spend six hours a day for thirty years undermining the foundation beneath the Ravenclaw common room so that it would collapse at this very moment --"

Dumbledore was interrupted by a distant yet Earth-shaking "BOOM!"

The Ravenclaw prefect shrieked and ran from the Great Hall, and now the Hufflepuffs snickered.

"Unacceptable," Dumbledore said. "Therefore, I order that your two houses must take all of your classes together until you are better behaved. This means, of course, that the Slytherins and Gryffindors will also share all of their classes. I ask of them only that they maintain their splendid example of inter-house camaraderie."

Over at the Slytherin table, Draco quietly dabbed at this mouth with his napkin, picked up a cast iron cauldron full of gruel, and swung it forcefully against the back of Colin Creevey's head. Colin collapsed forward.
Dumbledore continued:

"Are there any questions-on-thisnotherearen'tgood. Then I have only one more announcement to make, and then it will be time for your classes. Our staff has decided that Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle, for her cool-headed, thoughtful, and ingenious approach to learning magic, will be advanced a year. She is now officially a sixth-year."

The Slytherins cheered fanatically. Mary-Sue cried delicately.

"Unfortunately, we have also learned that the Sorting Hat made a mistake in placing Mary-Sue in Slytherin. Apparently she lied in telling it she abused small, furry animals. The Hat explained to us that Mary-Sue actually belongs in Gryffindor. Today she will move into Gryffindor Tower, and her points, including the Quidditch match recently won against Gryffindor, will go to Gryffindor."

The Slytherins collectively dropped their plates, and then their faces, yet collectively, into their plates.
The whole Gryffindor table hooted and hollered. Mary-Sue cried daintily.

"Now," said Dumbledore. "Off to class."

***

"Who can tell me," said McGonagall sternly, peering down at her class through her glasses, "what the Animagus Law of 1897 stated?"

One and only one hand went into the air. It was a fair, ringed hand, fingers distended, and as it rose, brushed shimmering effervescent coils of silvery-gold goodness, as if to languidly brush the heavens.

"Miss Darkstar-Riddle?"

"Yes," began Mary-Sue, with a weary glare at her grinning Gryffindor compatriots, "the Animagus Law of 1897 stated that Animagi did not need to be registered. This was in response to the law of 1893 requiring registration, which caused a huge dispute among a community of monkey Animagi who wanted to do what monkeys do in anonymity. But of course, then Lugger the Peruvian Llama Enchanter trained a bunch of llamas to transfigure into humans, which caused an ever greater confusion, and led to the Animagi Registration Act of 1901."
"Very good," responded McGonagall in eager pride, "such a splendidly complete answer. Oh, I'm so very happy to have you in my class! Ten points for Gryffindor."
"Thanks Minerva," was Mary-Sue's dulcet reply.

"Now..." McGonagall began again, "who can tell me why we're learning history in a Transfiguration class?"

Mary-Sue raised her hand.

"Miss Darkstar-Riddle?" asked McGonagall, smiling.

"Yes," said Mary-Sue, "I would suspect we're learning it because this year we will start work on transfiguration of living creatures. All of the history you've taught us applies to Animagi, except we won't be learning that, I daresay. Rather, you will have us transforming dangerous monsters into small mammals of the rodent variety, I suspect."

"You are corr--" said McGonagall, but Mary-Sue interrupted her.

"Becoming an Animagus is far too difficult for adolescents in general. I suppose I am a bit of an exception, though. It runs in my family. My father's mother's great-great-grandmother was in fact a Kneazle. So I can turn into a cat."

"How... how... how marvelously impressive!" gushed McGonagall in penitent awe.

"Harry," whispered Ron.
Harry looked up.
"Look how quiet Hermione is, while Mary-Sue's totally showing her up."
"Yes. It's strange," said Harry.

Hermione sat at the back of the class, completely ignoring McGonagall's lecture and Mary-Sue's answer. Instead, Hermione scribbled frantically on scraps of paper, occasionally crumpling one and discarding it.

"Weasley?! Potter?!"

Harry sat bolt upright, too late, to find McGonagall standing over his desk, glaring down imperiously.

"What have I told you about paying attention? If you don't behave, I may turn one of you into a roach, a jim, some hash-eeesh so the other will toke up that good stuff and mellow chill for a little while."

She said this in a very un-McGonagall-like tone of voice. Almost a drawl.

"What?" asked Harry and Ron at the same time.

But McGonagall was herself again... more or less.

"Look at Miss Darkstar-Riddle... she's so attentive in class. She does all of her readings well ahead of time, and has such a helpful, competent manner."

Mary-Sue smiled for the first time since breakfast.

"Miss Darkstar-Riddle," asked McGonagall.

"Yes, Minerva?"

"Deduce if you may, what you'll be transfiguring specifically, and how we will procure it."

"Well, I should thi --"

"She's EVIL! She's EVIL! She's EVIL!"

Harry turned around to see Hermione, her face flushed red and furious, leaping up and down on her desk in a sort of spiteful rapture.

"Miss Granger!" howled McGonagall, horrified.

"Her name! It's an acronym! She's EVIL I tell you!"

"What are you saying?" sneered one of the Slytherins.

"She's gone completely starkers," said Ron to Harry. "I knew it would happen sooner or later."

"Exactly!" said Hermione. "She has gone starkers!"

"You've gone starkers!" yelled Ron.

"No," said Hermione, calmly. "She has." And she pointed to Mary-Sue.

The air was punctured into silence, before deflating into startled lungs.

"Did you hear what she said about Mary-Sue?" buzzed back and forth. Only Mary-Sue seemed not to notice or care.

"It's true!" explained Hermione, stepping from desk to desk, gesticulating angrily.
"I don't know how many of you remember... I seem to be the only one here with any sort of a memory, but it seems to me that You-Know-Who's original name was Tom Marvolo Riddle. Which is an anagram for 'I Am Lord Voldemort.' (At this another horrified intake of breath.) At first, I thought the name Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle was just a coincidence. Then I saw the way she charmed all the boys in the school, and how she charmed all the teachers. The only people who saw right through her were myself and Professor Artaud, and he's gone, so I guess I have to pick up the slack. Thanks Harry. Thanks Ron!"

Hermione spat the last four words vociferously, but she managed to go on.

"So we know she's related to the Dark Lord. But can we prove she's evil? All you have to do is rearrange the letters of her name, and you get the answer, just as you would with Tom Marvolo Riddle."

At this Hermione leapt high and far and came down on McGonagall's desk, sending a spray of papers flying into the air and drifting down like feathers.

Hermione started to shriek:

"I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS! I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS! I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS!"

"Hermione, stop it!" yelled McGonagall.

"I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS!"

"Hermione, get off my desk!"

"I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS!"

"Sonorus," murmured Mary-Sue, not bothering to get out her wand, and her voice projected at a higher volume than the screaming Hermione Granger.

"As I was saying, Minerva, and class, I should think we will be transfiguring troll babies into mice. This will be very helpful for a great number of reasons. For starters, it will be a challenge, for trolls bear very little in common with mice, with differences in the areas of stature, diet, disposition, and amount of hair. I should think this will require us, as students, to take full advantage of our transfigurative resources. We will also be doing a service to the world, as mice are more pleasant, sociable, and intelligent than your average troll. Finally, it will be an interesting experiment bringing the baby trolls here, as they are always guarded by their mothers. I should think this will be accomplished by running into the lair, grabbing the infant trolls, and immediately Apparating back to Hogwarts."

"Ha," said Hermione, dropping to the floor.

For the first time, Mary-Sue turned her attention to Hermione, crooked smile revealing just the faintest hint of disdain.

"Yes?" she asked.

"You can't Apparate on the Hogwarts grounds," said Hermione with exaggerated pretension. "You can't. There are charms to block it. I read it in Hogwarts, A History."

"Oh," said Mary-Sue. "You must have read the new edition then. Yes, well they did dumb it down a little, if I may say. The 1836 edition of Hogwarts, A History explains in detail the charms placed on the school to prevent Apparition. There are, I believe, several loopholes, mainly involving the grounds in the proximity of Forbidden Forest, and Astronomy Tower. But I shouldn't attempt it if I were you. It's rather complicated."

"You bitch!" roared Hermione, and pounced on Mary-Sue.

They both collapsed to the floor. The whole class sprung up, running to the front to presumably watch Hermione suffer the wrath of Mary-Sue.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!" Hermione shouted over and over again, grabbing Mary-Sue by the shimmering locks of her sublime, flowing, graceful mothspun hair, and slamming her head onto the flagstones. (If you need some mental imagery, consult the first chapter of Draco Dormiens by Fanon Demigoddess Cassandra Claire.)

But Mary-Sue's hand had reached into her robe for her wand. McGonagall too was drawing her wand, as were several of the students.

"I HATE YOU!" Hermione screamed.

And then it happened.

A voice, a feminine voice, said these words: "Avada Â--"
And another: "Delego!"
And another: "Labrusco!"
And finally: " Â-- Kedavra!"

At once the room was filled with thick, black fog. Harry wretched and gasped for air.
There was a violent strobelike flash of green and violet light, a smell of saltpeter, and a sound of bubbles bursting.

Eyes watering, Harry buried his face in his robe, forcing himself to breathe as the smoke gradually cleared. As the torchlight began to shine through again, the front of the classroom came into focus.

First he saw McGonagall, standing at the front with her mouth wide open and tears streaming down her face. Her wand dangled from her right hand, and her arms hung limply at her sides.
Then he saw Mary-Sue. She was on her back, propped up on her hands, and her robe had been torn and scorched in places. Through the soot on her face, Harry could see she was very pale, and for the first time ever, she wore an expression of distress.
Then, turning his attention to the space in front of McGonagall's desk, Harry saw a blast mark streaking out from the center of the classroom. The flagstones glowed a faint, dull red and smoked.
And finally, at the center of the mess, where the floor lay shattered and cracked and glimmering with rapidly fading heat lay a small stone bowl, cradling a cluster of plump, red grapes.

Hermione was gone.