Dumbledore, Please Explain Your Twisted Logic!

Disclaimer: Not, etc.

A/N: This chapter is short. But I won't apologize, because I had it up in a few days, and I warned you ahead of time, and some chapters are just short. There it is.

Chapter Eleven

So Why Is Goyle So Smart?

Hermione Granger and Gregory Goyle were the first to leave the Great Hall. The moment Dumbledore told them to go to the library, Hermione set off at a brisk pace, her copy of The Quadrangle swinging fiercely in her clutched fist. Gregory followed at a run, his large frame making it difficult to keep in stride with the irate Gryffindor. He jogged past a number of students who had been spared from Dumbledore's disastrous casting. They gave him and Hermione strange looks, no doubt wondering what the two cast members were doing outside the Great Hall, especially with Hermione looking so furious.

In far too short a time, Gregory was out of breath. This he found frankly pathetic, as Hermione was merely walking. As the boy, shouldn't he have the greater athletic stamina, especially when Hermione was a bookworm and not given to athletics herself? I really need to lose some weight, Gregory told himself. Maybe ten pounds before Christmas, then ten pounds after, since I'm going to gain it all back over the holidays.

To take his mind off the stitch in his side and the strain on his feet, Gregory focused his gaze on Hermione. With every step her voluminous hair flounced tremendously in one direction, then the other, matching first the right footfall, then the left, then the right again. It was quite a mesmerizing sight. Sure, her hair was still ugly and frizzy--nothing could hide that fact--but for the first time Gregory realized that its hugeness was actually a part of the girl attached to it. Hermione, he decided, needed a big hairdo to match her big personality. As for the ugliness aspect... well, her attitude towards him was pretty ugly right now, so he supposed that it was only appropriate that her hair should be the same.

They reached the library. Hermione swept through the double doors in a very bad temper and ground to a dead stop, her body frigid as a corpse. Her head turned a slight fraction, as if it was enough to catch the gasping Goyle in her periphery vision. "Lose some weight, Goyle," she shot at him.

"Whoo!" Gregory huffed in reply. "H-how are you not out of breath, either?"

"It doesn't merely take Quidditch skill to stay in shape, you know," Hermione said acerbically. "How else do you think Harry, Ron, and I killed your daddy and mummy and all their little friends, plus Voldemort too, then lived to tell the tale?"

She meant the statement to sting, but Gregory was unmoved. He had not been all that sad when his parents died. They were stupid galoots, barely useful as sycophants for Voldemort, and they never understood why their son valued an education so highly, or why he had any ambition outside of serving the biggest bully on the playground. Their deaths had been quite a liberating experience, and he devoted his allotted mourning time to moving his possessions to Draco's house, where he now spent the summers and the holidays. He enjoyed himself at Malfoy Manor, especially since Lucius was in jail and Narcissa was in charge of the place. She was the only person from the Death Eater days with some actual sense about her, and Gregory liked spending the evenings listening to her intelligent conversation. He hadn't yet gotten the nerve to reply to her wisdom (partly because she was so intimidating, and partly because Draco didn't wish it), but maybe this coming holiday he'd take the chance--if he was brave enough.

But how could he spurt out this mouthful to Hermione? She didn't want to hear his life story right now. So he replied with a simple: "I guess I didn't think about that."

"No, you didn't," Hermione replied haughtily. She looked slightly disappointed that Goyle showed no signs of emotional injury, but she recovered speedily and said, "Now let's get started on this play; I don't want to waste any more time than I have to."

"Silencio!" This sudden input came from Madam Pince, who brandished her wand in Hermione's direction. The clever Gryffindor hadn't been kidding about being in shape; she sidestepped the curse easily, and it flew harmlessly into the door. "This is a library!" the irritable librarian hissed, stating the obvious. "Now be quiet or leave!"

So Hermione pulled Gregory further into the library--past the tables at which a dozen students studied, past the more popular shelves, and into a secluded alcove not far from the Restricted Section. "Now get out your copy of the play, and let's start before this day gets any older. Act II, scene i, line 1. Page 25. The pages numbers are in the corners, if you have any trouble finding them."

"I can find them, thank you very much," Gregory said, getting pretty peeved with her attitude. "I've read books before, I know how they work."

"Huh!" scoffed Hermione. "You've read before? What, was it your copy of Wicked Witches?"

"Actually," Goyle said calmly enough, though unable to fully keep a testy snap out of his voice, "I much prefer Playwizard. It's got better articles, see."

Hermione let out a harsh laugh. "Like you ever read the articles!" she said. "All you'd be capable of doing is ogling the pictures."

"There you are incorrect," Gregory countered, making sure to keep his quiet voice free of his normal public grunts and mumbles. "I greatly enjoyed last month's piece on the endangerment of the Lethifold."

The cruel scowl on Hermione's face mixed poorly with the sudden influx of astonishment. Her brow, twisted already as it was, became so knitted that it looked ready to peel off her face. "You're having me on," she said, trying to convince herself that it was a fact.

"No," Gregory said, his voice methodical and reassuring. "The article was about how Lethifolds live solely in tropical climates and how the Muggles keep cutting down the tropical forests, which has killed off hundreds of animal species. The Lethifolds suddenly find themselves without food, and the need to hunt down wizards becomes greater than it normally should be (they don't eat Muggles, you know). But, thanks to the recent war with Voldemort--yes, Granger, stop gaping, I actually said his name--a far greater percentage of wizards have learned the Patronus Charm, which is the only defense against Lethifolds. Because of all this, the Lethifolds have less to eat and are starving to death."

Goyle wasn't Hermione--he did not sound like he had swallowed a textbook. Nevertheless, he sounded well informed about the situation with the Lethifolds, and this confused Hermione a great deal. How did this shadow of Malfoy, who had barely spoken a word in the past seven years, come to know so much about Lethifolds? What's more, if he hadn't spoken a word in the past seven years, why was he now expressing his opinion, quietly yet fluently, in a way that hinted at a deep intelligence that she never knew existed? Gregory watched in satisfaction as she became too confused to be angry, too frustrated with her own lack of knowledge to attribute any more stupidity to him.

"But..." she said, shaking her bushy head. "But... you're stupid, Goyle! You're an idiot!" This time she didn't sound upset at him. This time she sounded like her world had turned on its head, and she was trying desperately to set it right again. "You and Crabbe are the thickest people in the entire school!"

Gregory laughed. "Ha, Crabbe's certainly a bonehead. And Malfoy certainly wishes I were, too. But I'm not."

"Yes, you are," Hermione said automatically, like she had read it in a schoolbook somewhere.

"No, I'm not," Gregory said patiently. "I am, in fact, quite smart."

"Prove it," Hermione answered, staring at him like he was a freak show.

"What?" Goyle said, taken aback. "Prove it? How?"

"Dazzle me with the brains you claim you have," Hermione said, her gaze boring into him.

Gregory had always wanted everyone to know how smart he was, but now that he finally had the chance, he didn't know how to prove it. There were a thousand subjects he could broach, a thousand topics into which he could dive, and each one of them would reveal his knowledge in one subject or other. But the question was, which one should he choose? Which one would most convince a Gryffindor know-it-all? For a minute he didn't know what to say; he stood in a silence that Hermione waited stubbornly for him to break. Then he decided to play up on Hermione's deepest passion: books. Recalling a memory from a previous play practice, he began to speak.

"You were reading Women in Love," Gregory said to Hermione, his face slowly lighting up with his widening smile. "Great book, by the way--anything by D. H. Lawrence is worth the read--but that's beside the point. Anyway, I overheard you telling Ron you were going to 'pop over to the ladies' room and pull a Portnoy.' Remember that?"

Hermione nodded slowly, her breath suddenly drawing up short.

"Naturally, Ron had no idea what you were talking about, but I did. You were making an allusion to Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint, which features a Jewish kid called Alexander Portnoy, who spends the entire book masturbating, having sex, or wishing he wasn't Jewish. Well, the compulsive masturbation is the most notorious part of the novel, so I figured that was what you were referring to. In other words, you were going over to the ladies' room to masturbate. Probably because you just finished reading the nude wrestling scene in Women in Love."

It was a battle for Hermione--she was torn between being flabbergasted at Goyle's sudden intuition and blushing over the discovery he had made with it. She tried to fight down both reactions by asking, "You read Muggle literature?" Much to her dismay, the wonder was clear in her voice.

"Sure I do," Gregory said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I know hardly any good novels written by wizards. All we got is Charles Durdge and his Founders Play, which really isn't much at all."

"Do you really think Durdge's version was so awful?" Hermione asked, suddenly earnest. "Dumbledore constantly rags on it, and it's really getting on my nerves."

"It was okay," Gregory said, shrugging his shoulders. "It wasn't Shakespeare, but it worked, for the most part. I think Dumbledore's just sore from having to see that play every other year, complete with terrible student actors and a measly school budget. And it does have some historical inaccuracies."

"But no more than Dumbledore's reprehensible play!" Hermione argued. "How could he assume that his version is possibly any better?"

"Actually," Gregory said, chuckling a little, "I did some research right after he assigned us the roles, and I found that his script is more accurate in all but speech, which is supposed to be stylized anyway. Gryffindor was indeed a bit of a slut, and Ravenclaw really did have an affair with a stable boy."

"And the librarian?" Hermione asked. "And his lover?"

Goyle nodded. "Those, too. It took me three books before I found a passing notation, but there they were."

Hermione shook her head, trying to clear it, then sat down on a window seat at the end of the alcove. "I'm sorry, Goyle, it's just so... screwy, trying to imagine, er, you reading..."

Gregory huffed indignantly. "Of course I read," he said, a little wounded. "How else do you think I pass all my classes? I got into NEWT potions with Snape, for Merlin's sake."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you're in NEWT potions," Hermione said quickly. "We share that class. I..."

Gregory put his hands on his hips. "How exactly do you think I could have gotten into that class if I hadn't gotten an O on my OWL?"

Hermione shrugged helplessly and said, just above a whisper, "Uh, well... I sort of thought that you... that Snape just let you in, because he unfairly favors Slytherins, you've got to admit!" She spewed out the last part in a rush, trying to squeeze in her explanation before Gregory's indignant response.

"Snape wouldn't go that far!" he gasped. "Sure, he screws up the points system and assigns unfair detentions, but he wouldn't even dream of letting a less-than-brilliant student into his NEWT class! You have to realize that Snape may favor his house, but he favors his subject far more."

"Oh," Hermione said quietly, realizing that Goyle had a point. Not knowing what else to say, she fiddled with her fingers and looked down at her lap.

Goyle sighed and slumped against the shelves. "Hmph, I suppose it's my own fault that you thought that. I've been playing dumb for seven years now; how were you supposed to know otherwise?"

"But why?" Hermione asked wonderingly. "Contradictory to everything I thought I've know for years, you seem pretty intelligent. Why hide it? It must have been torture!"

"Yeah, well, I certainly didn't want to," Gregory Goyle sighed sadly. "But I entered Hogwarts as this chubby little loser with a streak of shyness that was large enough to serve the entire First Year."

"Oh!" Hermione said sadly, her hand against her mouth. "And you acted dumb to fit in, so that people wouldn't make fun of you?" The thought seemed to truly bother her. "I'm so sorry! I wanted to do that so many times in elementary school, but it was too late, as everyone already knew how smart I was."

"No, it wasn't that," Goyle said. "What happened was this: I was on the train, looking for a place to sit, when Draco sauntered up to me and introduced himself. We knew each other by sight--our dads were both Death Eaters, you know--and it was natural that we'd gravitate towards one another at school. In a few minutes I was friends with both Draco Malfoy and Vincent Crabbe, though it was immediately obviously that this was not a friendship of equals. Draco was always the leader, and it wasn't until a day later that I realized that, to keep his friendship, I could not seem smarter or better than him. So, knowing how hard it would be to make new friends in my house, especially if Malfoy rejected me, I played the part of a dumb sycophant and kept his company."

"Oh no," Hermione murmured, her eyes shining with tears. "Oh, Goyle, the thought breaks my heart! I would have never dreamed that a smart kid would do that to himself, but for it to have happened to someone I thought I knew for the past seven years--and for me to have never even known--it's almost too much! If I had even guessed, we could have been partners in Potions or Defense Against the Dark Arts, and then I would've seen how smart you were, and then maybe we could've been friends."

Goyle shrugged miserably. "Hey, what's done is done. I can't change it now."

"Yes, we can," Hermione said earnestly. "Tell me truly, how do you feel about Malfoy?"

For a moment Goyle stared at his hands, trying to decide what he truly thought about his best friend. He coughed a little to buy himself a bit of time. Then, at long last, he said, "I dunno. He's been my friend since First Year; it'd seem a shame just to drop him now."

"Do you want to drop him?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. No. Maybe. He's so controlling. And he makes me act dumb. And he's a slut. But at least he, like, is there for me and stuff."

Hermione stood up and moved opposite of Goyle, absorbing the tears in the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. "It sounds to me like you need to do some serious reevaluating here," she said crisply. "I don't think you like Malfoy very much, do you?"

Goyle shrugged again. "Perhaps not," he confessed quietly.

"And Crabbe?"

"Idiot," Gregory answered promptly. "What else can I say? He's the world's biggest douche bag."

"So what are you going to do about them?"

"No idea," Gregory said. "Give me time to think about it, and I'll tell you then."

Hermione surveyed him for a long while, evaluating his conflicted facial expressions and shifting body. Going against her knee-jerk reaction, she decided not to press the matter and said, "Okay, then."

"In the meantime," Gregory said hastily, "let's get back to practice."

"Fuck practice," Hermione said calmly, causing Goyle to gasp in astonishment. "You have just proved you have a brain, and thus I think I can trust you that you have your lines memorized and your character down pat."

Gregory's eyes were wide as he realized that one more person had finally comprehended his intelligence and that this person wasn't going to abuse or ignore it (as Malfoy did). Even better, Hermione was as intelligent as him--perhaps he'd finally found someone with whom he could carry a conversation for more than two minutes! "Are you sure?" he said timidly.

"Sure I'm sure," she said. "I'm sick of practicing for this twatting play."

"Then what're we going to do for the rest of the afternoon? Are you going to run by Professor Vector's to get help on that project thing your class is doing?"

Hermione shook her head firmly and said, "No. I have just found a wizard who actually reads D. H. Lawrence, Shakespeare, and Philip Roth, and I'm about to have a long conversation with him."

Goyle gazed at her, his eyes shining with hope and his heart racing with excitement. "Did you also mention Faulkner?" He could barely keep the tremble out of his voice as his dam of eager knowledge, backlogged over seventeen years of life, finally began to break.

"Really?" Hermione said breathlessly. "And Jane Austen?"

"Say her name one more time, and I shall orgasm," Goyle said passionately. "Whoever doesn't like Jane Austen needs to reevaluate his life."

"Or hers," Hermione added in an effort to be politically correct.

"But mostly his," Goyle added, grinning. "I mean, Austen's a favorite of people everywhere, but especially women. Even that really famous British author loves Austen."

"Which really famous British author?"

"The one who's made a couple hundred million pounds or so," Goyle said. "I forget her name, but I think her books are supposed to be awesome, once I get around to reading them."

"What about The Crying of Lot 49?"

"LOVE."

"And Pynchon's other book, Gravity's Rainbow?"

"Reading that right now. What a strange fucking book!"

"Oh, I know! It's pretty gross, too, but not as bad as Marquis de Sade."

"Granger, I never would have believed it of you! You actually read de Sade?"

"Call me Hermione. And of course--I read everything, you know, Goyle."

"Oh, duh. And call me Gregory. What's another favorite author of yours?"

"Charlotte Brönte."

"Anthony Burgess."

"J.R.R. Tolkien."

And so on and so forth.

A/N: Okay, now is a good time to address the matter of Out Of Character. Every single fanfic author writes a bit OOC, even if they don't mean to; the only person who's ever approached canon in her characters, actions, and storyline is Melindaleo. Fanfiction is fun to read, but it's rarely canon. It's more fanon, which is a sort of composite of the various characters that most fanfic writers seem to fall into. Like Sexy!Draco and Dumb!Ron and Manipulative!Dumbledore. Many people seem to accept the latter two as canon when they are clearly not.

In this story, most of the OOC is satirizing the fanon versions of character. Since I've never seen a fic that has made a serious attempt at making a smart Goyle, I decided it was high time. And I took Sexy!Draco and perverted him into Slut!Draco. Macho!Ron transformed into Intuitive!Ron is my jab at the Dumb!Ron scenario. Most people haven't complained about the OOC in this story yet, but I thought I'd just put the explanation out there anyway.

Another matter: Chronology. This story takes place in 1997. I've already made an allusion to Daniel Radcliffe's 2007 performance in Equus, and now I've made an allusion to the $1 billion that Rowling made, although she didn't reach that mark until 2006 or 2007. Just so you know, I'm aware of this discrepancy.

Additional disclaimers: I don't own Women in Love (D. H. Lawrence), Portnoy's Complaint (Philip Roth), The Crying of Lot 49 or Gravity's Rainbow (both Thomas Pynchon), and I don't own William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brönte, Anthony Burgess, J. R. R. Tolkien, or Marquis de Sade. I don't think I'd want to own Marquis de Sade--that'd be pretty damn creepy.