Dumbledore, Please Explain Your Twisted Logic!

Disclaimer: In addition to the normal guff, let me add that I don't own the last six lines of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet that appear in this chapter (in fact, I don't own the first eight lines, either).

Chapter Nineteen

Some Very Hard Problems

As the week progressed, blocking for Act IV improved gradually. Although Harry still hated the play, it was a small comfort to be doing his nude scene opposite Luna Lovegood. In fact, if he just stared at her long enough, he could almost forget how much he despised Dumbledore right now for getting him into this mess. The other actors, however, seemed quite content with the way things were going. Loser and Eloise had an appearance in Scene Five as Xaxis's wife and Olivier, and Dumbledore announced that they made the roles look effortless, they were so spectacular. In fact, in every scene featuring Loser, he transported Dumbledore to cloud nine. "I do hope you all will trust my casting decisions in the future," the headmaster said joyfully. The cast chuckled lightly (except for Harry), and even Draco admitted that he was getting into his role a little.

In various other places in England, however, the parents had no such luck. They decided to spend the entire week doing research into the school statutes and Ministry law in an attempt to find a loophole that would get the play banned. They met up on Friday at Malfoy Manor to go over their progress.

"We have only two weeks until this play opens," Ivana said fiercely, glaring down at the parents who surrounded her in the grand ballroom. "Between now and then, we must find legal grounds on which to stop the whole thing.

"Sweet, sweet Ivana," Xenophilius cooed from his armchair, "we've been looking through the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Canon for the last week, and we still haven't found anything. What makes you think another week of searching will help us any more?"

"I refuse to let this rest, Mr. Lovegood!" Ivana squawked furiously. "How dare you insinuate that it's time to give up?"

"Call me Xenophilius, please," he replied. "And I only endeavor to be realistic in all things."

"Which I suppose is why you write about the Frapple-dee-doo-dah and the Bug-dug-a-bugga-bomp," she returned scathingly.

"If you mean the Frizznurple and the Buggermumsbumbugs, you are right."

Ivana's face twisted into an ugly glare indeed, and she turned away from Zenophilius and hissed, "I cannot bear to be around you. I cannot stand the very sight of you." To the parents she cried, "Don't listen to Mr. Lovegood--"

"--Xenophilius," he corrected her--

"--Don't listen to him! He is a dissenter and a foul old man!" The other parents didn't respond except to inconspicuously avert their gazes from the arguing pair.

"Hey, I'll bet I'm not as old as you," he argued, "and I'm certainly not as foul."

"Oh?" Ivana cried, her voice swelling into booming fury. "You're the one who's letting your own daughter go nude onstage for five hundred people to see! I call that foul, and I call that atrocious parenting!"

"Atrocious parenting," Xenophilius said, mimicking the obscene nag in Ivana's voice, "would be letting Luna have sex onstage -- either that or trying to get her out of the play entirely. I prefer a middle ground."

"A nude scene is not a middle ground!" Ivana railed at him. "Mr. Lovegood, are you on our side, or are you not?"

The other parents, who had been fidgeting on the edge of their seats throughout the verbal duel, couldn't help but turn their uncomfortable eyes back towards the spectacle before them.

"Call me Xenophilius," he repeated. "And I am on the kids' side. That is the right side to be on, I presume. Methinks that's why we started this PTA in the first place--to make things better for our kids."

"Of course we're on the kids' side," Mrs. Creevey piped up nervously. "That's why we're trying to shut down the play in the first place."

"But the kids clearly want to continue acting," Xenophilius disagreed. "They must make their own choices, you know."

"No, they mustn't," Ivana said fiercely. "Kids are stupid. They don't know what's best for them; we do." The other parents nodded in timid agreement.

"Naturally," Xenophilius said, somehow maintaining the light touch in his voice while ladling it full of sarcasm. "So when is the magic age at which kids automatically start thinking for themselves? Seventeen? If our reaction to this play is anything to go by, then obviously not. What about eighteen, when they're out of Hogwarts? Is there something about being out of school that suddenly makes them go from sheltered, infantile creatures to self-sufficient, single-minded adults?"

"You," Ivana said, her voice so dry it cracked, "are mad. You're suggesting we let our kids decide for themselves whether they participate in this play or not."

"Yeppity yep yep yep," Xenophilius nodded. "It's like you read my mind."

"But do you even realize what this play will do to them?" Ivana snapped, her voice suddenly fierce again. "All that sex and language! They'll become little sluts!"

"Don't forget the violence," Xenophilius whispered.

"And what happens when their morals become loose, and they start having sex, and our daughters become pregnant?" Ivana cried, ignoring Xenophilius's insert. "What do you expect us to do, Mr. Lovegood? Stand by and say, 'Oh, they're making their own choices. This is part of their journey, just let them have the baby, even though they'll have to drop out of school and become lowlife bums.' " She upped her voice to a whiny pitch in a poor imitation of Mr. Lovegood.

"They could get an abortion," Xenophilius suggested mildly.

More than a few of the parents gasped. The witches (most of whom had at least some idea what an abortion was) were especially shocked, but the Muggle parents were also put out at Xenophilius's lackadaisical suggestion. "But abortions are sinful!" Mrs. Creevey cried fervently.

"Says the parent whose children are going to a school for witchcraft and wizardry," he rebutted swiftly.

"Get out!" Ivana cried, her hands clenching with rage. Xenophilius dodged a fleck of spittle that escaped from her bared teeth. "Get out, Mr. Lovegood. You contribute nothing to this organization except immorality and illogic. You are no longer needed here."

Xenophilius nodded understandingly and stood up with a measured gravity, his normal smile gone. The brightness in his eyes was now fierce and sure as he gazed at each parent in turn, before turning back to the woman in charge of it all. "My dear Ivana," he said, "you mean to say that I am no longer wanted. But it is clear that I and my offensive opinions are most desperately needed."

**********

"So, Dumbledore, how's practice progressing?" Professor McGonagall asked him as she poured herself an early morning cup of tea in the staff room.

"Just spectacularly," Dumbledore said happily. "This is the first Monday in a long time that I've not felt dead on my feet. Just eleven more days until the play! You're all going, aren't you?"

The other teachers looked up from their places at the staff table. Professor Vector nodded silently and nursed her Firewhiskey. Snape scoffed and said, "As if I'd miss Potter's day of humiliation! You know me better than that, Dumbledore."

"Speaking of Potter," Minerva said eagerly, "I don't think I've told Professor Flitwick about last week."

The tiny Charms professor puffed silently on a pipe that smelled strongly of weed and looked up at McGonagall with owlish eyes. She took this as an invitation to continue.

"So I was up at 3:00 a.m. with a sore throat," she said, "and I decided to talk a walk to the Kitchens to get myself some more tea. On my way back, I ran into the most wonderful sight!"

She waited, grinning widely, until Flitwick grunted, "What was it?"

"It was Harry Potter..." she said.

"He's a brave young man to be sure--" Flitwick said before she interrupted him.

"In a chemise."

The other people in the staff room rolled their eyes (except Dumbledore), as they had already heard the story half a dozen times. Little Filius Flitwick, however, stared at Minerva with only mild curiosity but a good deal of frank astonishment. Mostly he was astonished by how gleeful she sounded. "You gave him a detention, didn't you?"

"I was too busy acting displeased, Filius!" McGonagall said, laughing. "Acting displeased when you are in fact quite the opposite takes a lot of concentration, and consequently I forgot about detention. In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from giving Gryffindor points for his hot, hot body, with the offer of more points if he stripped to his skin!"

"Maybe you should have given him a detention," Snape said dryly, "so he could spend some time with the naughty, naughty Transfiguration professor."

"And you could have assigned him to some hard labor that would have made him drip sweat out of every pore," Dumbledore added with a wry smile.

"I didn't think of it," McGonagall said lightly. "But I did summon a house-elf the second he ran off, and I instructed it to take as many photos of Harry as it could before he reached Gryffindor Tower."

Here she pulled out a small stack of photographs that all featured Harry running at top speed, his hands clutched around his penis and his bare bottom winking at the camera.

"He took the chemise off," McGonagall explained as she handed the photos to Flitwick. The midget looked at them for a second or two, then handed them back.

"Wow," he said, clearly not knowing what to make of the photos or Minerva's behavior.

"Have the rest of you seen these?" McGonagall asked, waving the photos around.

"I have," Professor Vector said, holding out her hand, "but I wouldn't mind seeing them again."

**********

Harry rolled out his bed with a morning erection. He yawned a bit, then groaned a bit more as his sexual organ brushed against his thick bedspread. Grumbling a little, he plucked his wand off his bedside table and summoned himself a set of clothing.

It had been one week since he broke up with Ginny. It had also been one week since he'd promised himself to stop masturbating, and one week since he came back to his dorm with Luna's chemise. The nightie now lay under his pillow, and it still smelled faintly of the mystical Ravenclaw that had captivated his heart. It was so painful, feeling the silky smoothness of the garment against his bare hand--a bare hand that longed to reach over and give his morning erection a few pumps as his fervent imagination conjured visions of a naked Luna yet again. But he had strictly forbidden himself from any sexual activity until he earned it, and if there was one thing he was, it was determined. He wasn't going to masturbate, and that was final.

This mindset didn't make his semen-filled prostate feel any better. Countless times this week he had reached to massage his penis in bed or in the shower, only to remember his damn pact. He sat in class and thought about the next time he could masturbate and suddenly realized he couldn't. He lay awake at night praying that his dissatisfied penis wouldn't give him a wet dream: He hadn't had to deal with those since he started masturbating, and he didn't want to go back to rushing to the bathroom in the middle of the night to wash off his sticky groin and change his soiled underwear.

Maybe just one quick wank, said a dissenting voice in the back of his head.

No, he told himself firmly. No wanking, and that's final! He just repeated that phrase in his head: No wanking, no wanking, no wanking. He didn't bother to explain it to himself over and over again, because then the dissenting voice would try to combat the argument with sly little points of its own: Why wait? What's so terrible about a quick little jerk off? Just to save yourself from a wet dream? If it saves you from a wet dream, that's a good thing, right? Right?

Harry went down to breakfast, where he promptly dove over to the Gryffindor table and sat down beside Ron and Hermione. Ginny was at the opposite end of the table, fuming all by herself. He did his best to ignore his ex-girlfriend, while at the same time avoiding any eyes from the Ravenclaw table as well.

"So, Harry," Hermione said, "what's going on with you and Luna?"

To tell the truth, Harry had been avoiding Luna for the past week. They had acted onstage during practices, and that had gone okay, but other than that he hadn't met up with her for more than a few seconds. "I... dunno..." Harry mumbled. Well, he did know: He was crazy about her, and he was pretty sure she was crazy about him.

"Are you with her yet?"

"No," Harry said, blushing a little.

"Why not?" Ron said, joining the conversation around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. "You've wanted to be with her ever since you started ignoring my sister."

"Yeah," Harry said, too agitated to pay attention to the obvious barb. "But now I'm all nervous. I'm afraid if I try to ask her on a date, I won't even be able to get the words out of my mouth." He was terrible at reading girls, there was no denying it. How much harder, then, would it be to read someone as crazy as Luna? He had failed with girls many times before--maybe this was another failure in the making.

"C'mon, Harry, that's ridiculous!" Ron laughed. "If that's all the problem is, you should've told me earlier. Hey, Luna!"

"Nonononono!" Harry squealed, waving his arms at his best friends. "What d'you think you're doing, Ron?"

"Luna, come over here!" This didn't come just from Ron, but from Hermione as well. Harry glared at both of them, but they motioned towards the blonde Ravenclaw until she stood up and meandered over to their table.

"Yes, Ron and Hermione?" she asked. "You have a question?"

"Harry wants to ask you something," Ron said.

"Okay," Luna said, turning to the stammering Harry. "I love the Heebripple Communicatizing Device, by the way. I've used it every day since you've given it to me."

"Eep," came the reply.

"They say you have a question for me," Luna said, "but so far you don't seem to be saying much. Nargle got your tongue?"

Harry squinched his eyes shut, then opened them again. This question was just too hard to ask, really, it was! It had been bad enough with Cho and even harder with Ginny, but when it came to someone as amazing as Luna, it seemed nearly impossible! What if she laughed at him for even thinking they belonged together? "Will you go out with me?" But no, that was ridiculous--she had been hinting at this for the past month. Wait... had the question come out of his mouth already? Had he actually--

"Of course, Harry darling," Luna said, her face breaking into a delighted grin. "Anything else you want to ask me?"

"Wanna be my girlfriend?"

Had that also come out? Harry didn't rightly know, as he was still too loopy with success to think straight.

"Naturally. Now where shall we go on our first date?"

"Um..." Ooh, Harry hated thinking up places to go on dates. He didn't know anywhere good, and he was always worried that the girl would be disappointed by his final pick.

"We don't get a Hogwarts weekend until after the play anyway," Luna interjected quickly. "Just sit on it for a while. Talk to the Heebripple if you're stumped."

"Yeah, sure," Harry said, suddenly light-headed. The full weight of what had just done was now sinking in. He had asked Luna to be his girlfriend! He had risked rejection and gotten away with his life! He hadn't done something so life-threatening since he'd killed Voldemort. "Yeah. And... if I have trouble finding the Heebripple, er, would you mind helping me?"

"I would love to," Luna replied lightly. She took a seat beside Harry and said, "Mind if I join you all? The Cockmice are a lot less ticklish when I'm not alone."

"Sure, make yourself comfortable," Hermione said, looking a bit discombobulated over the idea of Cockmice. She didn't dare ask what they were.

A moment later, someone coughed nervously behind them, and the four of them turned around and saw Goyle. "Um," he said nervously. "Um, Hermione... So Malfoy and Crabbe haven't come up yet, so I just want to ask you a question about... about the play."

"Sure," Hermione said. "Come join us."

"Er," Goyle said, twitching a little, "do you guys mind?"

"Sit down," Ron said generously, scooting towards Harry so that Goyle could slip nervously into the seat beside Hermione. Ron smirked at the pair of them and gave Harry and Luna a wink. Harry shrugged his shoulders, nonplussed, but Luna grinned and winked back.

The five of them passed an amiable breakfast in conversation. Nothing of consequence happened after that, but it sure was nice to make new friends with people from other houses. None of them except for Luna noticed that Dumbledore grinned at them over his glass of vodka-spiked pumpkin juice. She gave him a conspiratorial smile, which he returned with an eye twinkle.

**********

Monday afternoon marked the first dress rehearsal for the play. It went okay--there were a few mistakes, a few missed cues, a few forgotten lines--but overall it wasn't a disaster. Dumbledore still didn't make Luna and Harry get naked during their now infamous scene, so Harry managed to suffer through it with a smile on his face, but a huge knot grew in his stomach as he realized that, in one-and-a-half weeks, he'd be in this very same position, sans underwear, in front of five hundred people. Hadn't those parents marched over to school during play practice earlier this month and demanded the play be stopped? What happened to them? Why weren't they here now, finishing what they had started?

What with the slight mistakes and delays, the play currently clocked in at 2 hours and 30 minutes. "Once we get everything ship-shape, it'll be at the two-hour mark," Dumbledore told them. "We have four more dress rehearsals to get everything perfect, and from now until then I expect you all to keep going over your lines, even though you feel like they're carved into the folds of your brain already. Also inhabit your roles--outside of this Great Hall, act like the characters you portray. Master Longbottom, you must act cunning and artful: Look into things that you are currently accepting with a blind eye. Master Clifford, be brave like Olivier: Don't let anyone force you to do what you feel is wrong! Master Malfoy... ah, you're alright, you were practically like Gryffindor from the beginning. Except for the brave part: Try to be braver."

And on this went. As Dumbledore continued his incessant prattling, some of the students became disinterested. Most notably, Susan Bones had slowly drifted away from Edmund's side and was now standing beside Draco Malfoy. Every few seconds she'd turn towards him and give him a sidelong glance, and each minute or so she'd accompany it with a wink or a flicker of her tongue. After five minutes of this treatment, Draco finally turned towards her and licked his lips, surreptitiously and slowly. She gave a girly little gasp and touched her throat with her slender fingers. The nails glowed red against her collarbone.

From ten yards away Edmund saw his girlfriend standing next to Draco and brushing her elbow against his waist. He glared at the two of them, as if that was sufficient to send Susan running back to his side. As it so happened, she didn't even notice him, and she probably wouldn't have noticed him had he been the only other person in the room besides her and Draco.

Edmund stomped through the crowd until he was only a few feet away from the pair. A couple of students had turned away from Dumbledore to watch the developing excitement. Draco and Susan, however, were not among them, as they were still tied up in their own flirting. Draco casually but knowingly scratched his balls, as if trying to dispel an itch, and Susan plucked at the low cut neckline that peeked out from beneath her open robes.

Finally, Edmund could stand it no longer. "DRACO, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY GIRLFRIEND?" he screamed. He effectively drew everyone's attention--including Dumbledore's. The old man stopped speaking and looked down at the trio.

"Ah, Miss Bones, how delighted I am!" Dumbledore cooed. "You're acting your part, just like I asked."

"What?" Susan said, flustered. She had jumped half a mile when Edmund had yelled. Now she was shifting from foot to foot, her hands wringing blood red blushes into each other. "I--I wasn't doing anything!"

"You were flirting with Draco!" Edmund accused. "What's the matter with you? You're supposed to be mine! Can't you see a good thing when you have it?"

"Don't go blaming her!" Pansy shrieked in protest. She had been in a foul temper ever since her breakup with Draco, mostly due to the fact that everyone thought she was exaggerating or even lying about Draco's atrocious cheating habits. "Draco's the one that's being a whore. See, I told all of you that he's a complete slut, and none of you believed me!"

"Hey, I wasn't doing anything," Draco lied in protest. "I swear I wasn't. All I was doing was standing here minding my own business, and here comes Bones trying to flirt with me. I don't even like her, I swear!"

Susan stumbled backwards as if scalded. "What?!" she gasped, her hands flying to her throat again, though this time for a different reason. She looked like she was strangling. "But you said you... We did..."

"Did what?" Edmund snarled, grabbing her roughly by the arm. "Did what, you bitch?"

"We..." Susan was moaning now, her shoulders drawn inward and her legs pulling herself away from Edmund. "Oh, oh, oh, get off of me!"

"Tell me what you did!" Edmund yelled at her.

"Dumbledore, do something!" Hermione yelled in distress.

"Let them work it out like adults," Dumbledore replied cheerfully, grinning at the altercation below.

"But they're so immature!" Hermione retorted. She whipped out her wand and cried, "Relashio!" The spell hit Edmund around the wrist and dragged him bodily away from Susan. He slid to the floor and landed at the bottom of the stage, a good thirty feet away from his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend. Susan herself stumbled backwards towards the doors of the Great Hall, sobbing wetly through a gasping throat. She pushed her way through the crowd and ran from the hall.

At this moment Edmund stood up, a bit loopy but angry as hell itself. He whipped out his wand and pointed it at Draco. "Infestae Gangrenus Arse!" he shouted, showing an aptitude at curses that he didn't display in other areas of his education.

"Protego," Dumbledore said lazily, stopping the spell before it hit Draco. He then immobilized the seething Edmund and tut-tutted to himself. "My goodness gracious," he said mildly. "For a scene involving two Hufflepuffs, that was mightily devoid of peace and loyalty. Shame on you both. And on you, too, Draco."

"But I didn't do anything," Draco lied again. From the other side of the room, Pansy seethed at him.

"Be that as it may," Dumbledore said, "I'm going to give you both detention. Edmund, you are to serve with Filch this evening. Draco, you are to go up to the North Tower right this instant and inform Professor Trelawney that you are spending two hours in detention with her."

Edmund couldn't make any noise through his petrified state, but he managed to glare at the headmaster without moving his eyebrows. Draco, however, groaned loud and long, crying, "TWO HOURS? Two hours! Why the hell do you want me to spend two fucking hours with her?"

"Just because," Dumbledore said zippily. "Now off you trot. Shoo, shoo!" He waved Draco away. Still protesting loudly, the Slytherin trudged towards the door. When he left, the room of students was completely silent.

Fifteen minutes: Perfect! Just enough time to fuck Trelawney and skiddaddle. Thirty minutes: That had happened once before, and he hadn't liked it. But two whole clitting hours! Did Dumbledore know just the type of exquisite hell he was putting Draco through?

She's going to read into this all wrong! Draco thought furiously as he stomped up a flight of steep stairs. She's supposed to be my sex object, not my lover! The only thing I love about her is her wrinkled pussy, her gaping arsehole, and her gummy mouth, and even then it's only as a bizarre fetish. Other than that, she's just a wackjob who sees crazy things and has no life. What the hell makes her think I'd actually love her?

He reached Trelawney's trapdoor in high dudgeon. The ladder descended just for him, but for a minute he stood at its bottom rung, groaning inwardly a thousand times over and dreading the next two hours of his life. Finally he balled his fists together and hissed at himself, "Oooh, just get this the fuck over with!"

So, cursing his misfortune, he clambered up the ladder and into Professor Trelawney's oppressive tower. A hundred burning candles, plus a roaring fire, filled the place with a heat stifling enough to send Draco into an instantaneous sweat. The Divination Professor sat in the middle of the room, stripped to the waist as she gazed at her crystal ball. Her neck craned forward like an insect's, and her drooping breasts allowed her nipples to graze the glacial surface of the orb. Her eyes were dilated tremendously, and her hands trembled against her sagging mammaries.

"Professor," Draco said uncomfortably.

Her head whipped up at the sound of her name, and for a moment she stared long and hard at Draco. Her eyes went in-out, in-out, her nostrils grew large, and her open mouth salivated. Then, without warning, she grasped the hem of her skirt and removed it clear from her body with one awesome tear. The panties came with it. "FUCK ME TO DEATH!" she shrieked, jutting her face towards the ceiling and exposing her undulating neck.

Draco drew it out as long as possible. He performed an unnecessarily long striptease, but soon her yells got too much on his nerves, so he took his fist and plunged it wrist-deep inside of her. He half-expected it not to fit, but it did rather comfortably--too comfortably, in fact--and Trelawney orgasmed so hard that Draco could feel his teeth rattling. Once she finally calmed down, she dove between his legs and stuffed him eagerly into her mouth. However much he tried begged for her to take it slow, she didn't, and in barely two minutes she was half-swallowing, half-choking on a mouthful of semen. Draco patted her on the back a few times, and she managed to get it all down without doing any harm to her throat or lungs. Then she pulled Draco down onto the sofa with her and let out a long, low sigh.

Two minutes for the striptease. One minute for the fisting. Two minutes for the blowjob. Oh, great: Five fucking minutes. Only 115 to go. Draco sagged against the couch and wished he was dead.

"Dumbledore says I have to spend two hours with you in detention," Draco muttered with an ill temper.

"Oh really!" Trelawney cried delightfully, grabbing him in a tight hug. "Oh, my sweet Draco, thank you so much!"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea!" he protested, fighting against her clawing grip.

"You don't know how much this means to me," she said breathlessly. "I've never spent two hours alone with you before. Think how much we can talk about, how much we can do!"

I am going to KILL you, Dumbledore! Draco growled inwardly. If I lose my mind and kill Trelawney, prepare to be the next victim on my way to Azkaban. Aloud, he griped, "I came here at 5:44, so at 7:44 sharp, I'm gone."

"But until then!" Trelawney said, running her bony fingers through his pubic hair. "Until then, we have the whole world in our hands!"

"Yeah, okay," Draco said dourly. "Now start sucking my cock." He was soft as pudding right now and he had just ejaculated a minute ago, so maybe it'd take a good fifteen minutes of sucking before he came again. That'd put a dent in their time.

It did. Once he was hard, Draco fucked Trelawney again, going slower and gentler than he had ever cared to go in his whole life. He reduced Trelawney to such ecstasies that she could hardly move for quivering so much. When he wanted to go for a third round, she was too much of a jelly to do anything more than gaze up at the ceiling. "If I orgasm once more, my body shall melt!" she breathed. "Let's go to my bedroom instead and lay down on my bed. And then we can just talk."

"I like it better out here in the armchairs," Draco groused as he picked a speck of semen from his pubes.

"But I want the both of us to lie together," she said, her eyes rolling upward into her head in pure bliss at the thought. "I want to spend hours talking to you, and then I want you to cradle me in your arms as we drift off to sleep. I want to sleep together for the entire night, then wake up in the morning as dawn drifts gently through the windows. Then we can summon a pair of house-elves, who will cook us breakfast in bed. We can skip class for the whole day and make love. Isn't that a glorious idea?"

Draco gagged at the thought. A whole day with Trelawney? And he thought two hours was a taste of hell! But all he said was, "I prefer this armchair."

"Please, Draco!" Trelawney pleaded, throwing herself violently to her knees. "Please lie in bed with me!"

Draco marveled at her energy, wondering how she managed such passionate lunges without shattering her kneecaps. At the same time, he shrunk away from her in horror, rather like the way he'd retreat if a gigantic flying bug leaped out at him from an adjacent armchair. "Okay, then!" he said a bit furiously. "We can lie in the bed together." He relented mostly because he was afraid Trelawney really would break a bone if he didn't give in, and he did not want to deal with levitating a naked Trelawney to the Hospital Wing at dinnertime.

Trelawney was over the moon. Nearly hyperventilating with joy, she dragged Draco bodily into her bedroom, which amounted to little more than a cubbyhole with a fearfully-sloped ceiling and a long, low bed. A skylight window hung directly over the pillows, letting in a wealth of pure moonlight.

"Ah, isn't this romantic!" Trelawney sighed orgasmically as they lay against the pillows.

"Mmph," Draco said crossly as he stared at the moon above them. He had often wondered what patients three hundred years ago had felt like when doctors had attached leeches to their bodies. Now he knew, and he knew why some things are better left to the imagination.

"Let's spoon!" Trelawney suggested eagerly. "I'll be the little spoon, and you be the big spoon."

Fuck you, Dumbledore. Fuck you, Trelawney. Fuck you, Dumbledore. Fuck you, Trelawney. Draco repeated this mantra over and over in his head as he spooned his naked body around Trelawney's. He needed a focus to draw him away from the pain of her infuriating chatter, and this was marginally better than nothing. She let out a delicious sigh and snuggled her flabby arse into his soft penis.

"Now let's talk," she said. "I'll start. A week ago, I spent all my month's salary on candles. Today, they came: all one thousand of them! And they're so beautiful. They also have this lovely smell that makes me forget my troubles. You should buy some, Draco."

This was talk? This was torture! Draco had never longed so badly to keel over and die on the spot, not even when he was hiding in the castle during the final battle, convinced that Voldemort would kill the side of the Light and take over the world.

Hell means many things to many different people. To Harry, it meant waking up at 5:45 every day and finding out it was Monday. To Hermione, it meant being surrounded by a bunch of Crabbe-like idiots without a single nook or cranny to hide in, nor a single book to escape to. To Dumbledore, it meant living with a bunch of totally normal people in a totally normal world and having to fit in with every single one of them. As for Draco, he was convinced that if he died and went to hell, he'd spend every day with Trelawney, lying beside her and talking, but never having sex. This was in addition to the lake of burning fire and the equation of eternity.

It was bad. It was beyond bad. Draco had no idea how he survived the next hour-and-a-half. Maybe the sex around 7:15 helped break the chain of torture, at least a little bit. Anyhow, after an eternity the clock on Trelawney's wall reached 7:44, and Draco shot to his feet.

"Gotta go now, Professor," he said quickly.

"Stay just a little longer!" she wailed, following him as he ran into the classroom to put on his clothes.

"No, I've got lots and lots of homework, and I want to do well in school!" he half-moaned. "Please, get off my back, I'll come later!"

And he was down the ladder. It had taken him only fifteen seconds to throw on his clothes and escape that hellhole tower. And now he never wanted to go back there for as long as he lived! No more Trelawney, he told himself firmly. I don't care how blueball I go for the old pussy, I'm going to pretend like she doesn't exist. There's a hundred other girls in this school I can fuck: I should be able to get by without the old stuff.

**********

As Draco suffered in Trelawney's detention, the other students hung around the Great Hall to eat dinner after the rehearsal. Loser was about to take a seat next to Eloise Midgen at the Hufflepuff table when Dumbledore walked up behind him and grasped his shoulder in his bony hand.

"If you'll excuse me, Miss Midgen, I must borrow our esteemed battle hero for tonight," Dumbledore said calmly. "I hope you don't mind?"

"Um," Eloise said uncertainly. "Sure, go ahead. I... you're the professor, what you say goes, sir."

"Too true, too true," Dumbledore said. "Now come, Sir Olivier."

So Loser followed Dumbledore from the Great Hall and through the corridors of Hogwarts. "Where are we going, sir?" he asked Dumbledore nervously. "I'm sorta hungry."

"You're going to have dinner in my office," the headmaster replied. "Connie specifically requested your presence."

"C-Connie?" Loser queried, wiping away a thin line of sweat that grew on his forehead. Connie scared him! If their last meeting was any indication, she took great pleasure out of bullying him and generally making him feel like the Loser everyone said he was.

"Yes indeed," Dumbledore said. "Why are you dragging your feet? Battle heroes never lag behind."

Loser gulped a little and jogged to keep up. His armpits grew prickly as he worked up the nerve to ask a question that had been nagging him for quite a while. "Professor Dumbledore, sir," he puffed, "wh-why do you always call me Battle Hero? I mean, it's okay and all," he added, speaking very quickly, "but you call the others Master Potter and Master Weasley and Miss Granger and... and stuff like that. Why am I Battle Hero or Most Esteemed Battle Hero or... or..."

"Because, my dear young man," Dumbledore said kindly, "you, of all people, are the one that needs most to be in character."

As Loser pondered the old man's answer, they reached the gargoyles that flanked the entrance to his office. He spoke the password in a loud voice that rang throughout the entire hall, "Penis-shaped lollipop." Then they stepped onto the revolving stairs that led them up to Dumbledore's office. "The teachers can't stand the password," he told Loser conspiratorially as they waited to reach the door.

"I'll bet not," Loser muttered. He enjoyed having a stab at dry humor, but he was so timid at it that he, let alone Dumbledore, could hardly hear himself.

They entered the office and found Connie sitting at a round table set for three. "Well, hello, Albus!" she crooned. "Ah, you even brought the runt. Wonderful!"

If Loser had expected Connie to act any more polite towards him with Dumbledore in the room, he was sadly misled. He backed away nervously from the table, but the headmaster ushered him into a chair before taking a seat himself.

"How are you doing today, Loser?" she asked him conversationally, though her voice fell heavily on the last word. "Did play practice go well?"

"Uh..." Loser whispered, ignoring the sautéed vegetables that magically appeared on his plate. "Uh..."

"Well, did it or didn't it?" Connie said impatiently. "Don't just stand there gaping like a fish."

"Uh... um... it w-w-went fine."

"It w-w-went fine?" Connie said, pulling off Loser's stutter with an annoying perfection. "What exactly does w-w-went mean?"

"I-i-it means..." Oh no, he was stuttering again! A panic rose within him, as strong as when his mother had rebuked him in front of the entire school two weeks ago. He could never withstand attacks, either physical or verbal, and here Connie was attacking him, just like his mum always did. If he couldn't win against one, he probably couldn't win against the other, either!

"What does is mean, Loser?" Connie said.

Why didn't Dumbledore do anything to stop her? She was his friend, and he should be responsible for the way she acted in his school!

But wait, what had Ron told him? "I can help, but in the end, it has to be you who brings out the strength in your character." Also, "If someone calls you Loser, don't feel like you have to believe them."

Loser repeated the words once more in his mind, then screwed his face together and counted to ten, trying to work up a streak of bravery and a witty rhyme. Connie's gaze bore into him all the meanwhile, waiting as his vegetables grew cold. Meanwhile, Dumbledore ate heartily as if this conversation wasn't even happening.

"What's the matter?" Connie said coldly after a minute. "Cat got your--?"

"Don't call me Loser, ancient sodomite!

Now shut up, or else try to be polite!"

Connie gaped at Loser, her mouth open wide. The fork that twiddled idly in her hands fell against her plate with a clatter. For a second Loser had thought he'd gone too far and truly offended her, but then he saw she was hiding a grin. Even Dumbledore was trying not to chuckle.

"What else can I call you, Loser?" Connie said slowly. "I don't care much for your last name, and I can't stand the name Clifford."

"My middle name is Oliver," Loser said, glaring at her. To tell the truth, he liked his middle name better than his first--especially now that he was playing a battle hero with a similar name--but had been too timid to tell that to anyone, especially his mum.

"Really?" Connie said, and Loser was surprised to see that she was surprised--truly surprised. "Oliver? Is that... a family name?"

"My grandfather's name," Loser explained, speaking quickly because his adrenaline was still high from talking back to Connie. "My great-grandfather was Clifford, as you already know, and my great-grandmum was Ivy. Despite him being crippled, they managed to have one son, and they named him Oliver. So... that's my name. Clifford Oliver. My own mum used to be Ivy, but she changed it to Ivana."

"Wow..." Connie said softly. "That is to say, wow... Your grandfather's name really is Oliver? Did you know that, Dumbledore?"

"I might have, once upon a time," Dumbledore said pensively, "but for some reason the significance escaped me. Hmm, that really shakes things up, doesn't it?"

Loser looked uncomfortably between the two of them. "Um, what's the big deal?" he asked quietly. "Is it something bad?"

"Fear not, my dear boy," Dumbledore said, patting Loser on the shoulder. "We'll tell you in good time. Just sit tight now and eat your dinner." And he changed the subject.

For the rest of the evening none of them mentioned Loser's family, though he was still very curious as to the apparent significance behind his grandfather's name. However, he managed to have a decent conversation with the two adults, as Connie forgave him for calling her a sodomite. If anything, she seemed to like Loser better for it, which was very odd.

**********

Sybil Trelawney waited all Tuesday for Draco to come back to the North Tower. She fluttered about the room during her classes, resting on each chair for only a few seconds before she was pacing again, as overactive and excitable as one of the insects with which she bore such a similar resemblance. Her students constantly exchanged glances with each other and backed away when she brushed past them. She didn't pay attention to them; however, she was ready to send them out at a moment's notice should Draco come traipsing up the stepladder. However, he didn't come.

I don't understand, Sybil thought, perplexed. He said he loves me. He said he'd come back soon! And I know he wants to spend time with me, because we were together a whole two hours on Monday evening, and he wouldn't have been there if he hadn't wanted to be. That whole story about detention was just that: a story! He loves me deeply, and he doesn't quite know how to show it. That's why he acts so irritable all the time--because he's trying to express such vast emotions, and yet is incapable of doing so!

There were two major flaws in Trelawney's logic. Firstly, a woman's idea of "I'll come back later" was a lot different from a man's idea. "Later" to Trelawney meant, "Not now, but as soon as possible!" "Later" to Draco and pretty much every other male in Hogwarts meant, "Once I get around to it."

Secondly, Trelawney did not know about Draco's determination to cut back on his old person fetish, particularly with anything involving a certain professor of Divination. When she woke up on Wednesday, Draco was happily ear-fucking Cho Chang in a broom closet on the second floor, any thoughts of old people flushed from his penis along with the globs of semen that dribbled down the Asian girl's neck. Trelawney morosely set up a hundred candles around her room and lit them all. Then she canceled her classes, sending away each student as they arrived. The morning melted into the afternoon, which then slowly froze into a dark evening, and still Trelawney paced by the light of her candles, waiting for her lover to return to her once more.

~~~~~

"Minerva?"

"Yes, Albus?" McGonagall drank a cup of heavily-caffeinated tea, knowing she needed the energy for the stiff night of grading that lay ahead of her. She and Dumbledore were currently alone in the staff room after dinner on Wednesday.

"Before you start on those masterpieces you call student essays, I need you to run this letter up to Trelawney." The headmaster held out an enveloped sealed with milky-white wax that looked inexplicably vulgar.

"You carry it up yourself," Professor McGonagall retorted tartly. "It's your letter."

Dumbledore hit the edge of the envelope softly against his palm. "Ah, Minerva," he said lightly, "it's a matter of some delicacy. I'd feel foolish handing it to her in person."

"Why?" McGonagall said sharply. "Seriously, Albus, why must you always appoint others to do your dirty work for you? Are you too high and mighty yourself that you can't afford to get your feet muddy once in a while?"

"I only wish this had to do with frolicking in the mud," Dumbledore said regretfully. "However, it involves nothing of the sort. Please indulge me, just this once."

"No," McGonagall said crisply. "I'm going to finish this cup of tea, and then I'll grade my essays." She lifted the cup to her lips and took a long sip of the burning liquid. "Ahhhhh, there's nothing more glorious than a cup of Earl Grey in the evening."

"How about I refill your tea?" Dumbledore offered magnanimously, raising his hands to summon a house-elf.

"That won't work," McGonagall rebuffed him. "I'm spending too much time on this cup as it is."

"Please, Minerva darling," the headmaster wheedled, clasping his hands together. "For your dear ickle Albus, please?

"No."

"I'll buy you a cat toy."

A pause. McGonagall set down her teacup and turned to stare at her boss. "One that doesn't squeak?"

"I'll buy you a cat toy that doesn't squeak," Dumbledore swore, his hand held up in oath. "Name any toy, and it's yours."

"I want the snake chew," McGonagall said immediately. "You know, the synthetic serpent that you can chew into pieces as it makes fully realistic death hisses. But once it's all chewed up, it returns to its original state by magic. I have it circled in a magazine--I'll show it to you tomorrow."

"Done," Dumbledore replied, holding out the letter with one hand and holding out his other hand for McGonagall to shake.

McGonagall shook and took the letter at the same time. Then she strode from the staff room, gleefully imagining how much fun she'd have chewing up a snake. Cat toys were one of the very few weaknesses she had, but so far she'd managed to get most of her collection for free by giving in to one of Dumbledore's senseless requests every month or so. It kept the headmaster happy, and it kept her happy.

Hmm... maybe next time she'd hold off until Dumbledore offered to buy her two toys...

~~~~~

The next person I see will be Draco, Trelawney promised herself hysterically. The trapdoor to her tower was open, and the stepladder was down, waiting longingly for someone to clamber up its stiff rungs. He'll come tonight, and he'll tear off my clothes and make love to me in the same heartwrenching way he always does! And it will be glorious! My orgasm will shatter my very existence, creating a new heaven and a new earth to match the new love I have for Draco, a love which grows more transcendent every day! The next person I see will be Draco... The next person I see will be Draco... The next person I see will be Draco!

Then it happened: The stepladder shook as someone ascended to the smoky tower. Trelawney grasped her chest so roughly that her breasts popped out the front of her dress and hung down to her belly, hot and hard. Her breath grew so rapid that specks formed before her eyes, and all she could make out were hazy shadows against the spheres of candlelight. One shadow was a person--Draco Malfoy, her Draco Malfoy! She couldn't wait for him to come to her--she had to go to him and knock him to the ground and ravish his youthful body with the eternal youth of her love!

"FUCK ME TO DEATH!" she shrieked, slamming into the figure. "FUCK ME TO DEATH!" She tore away the person's robes and pawed desperately at the curly pubes that she discovered beneath the waistline. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! DEATH, DEATH, DEATH!!"

Trelawney's vagina was leaking like a faucet. Tearing her dress down the front, she slapped her flabby skin against that of her beloved partner, still screaming the name of Death and Fuck. Then she pulled away the person's underwear and reached down to guide her lover's penis into her fiery chasm

When Trelawney was a child she had stepped out of her treehouse, only to find that her sister had removed the ladder as a practical joke. Her foot had landed on thin air, and for a second all she could comprehend was a swooping horror before she fell from the tree and landed on the ground in a state of hysteria.

Much was the same emotion Sybil experienced now. As she howled in ecstasy, she grasped the penis, only to find her hands closing on thin air. For a second her brain raced in distress as her fingers fumbled desperately for the hardened shaft, or at least for a floppy tube. All that she found was a mound of pubic hair that led into a chasm not unlike her own. "FU--" She stopped in mid-scream, which was when she finally realized that the other person was also screaming.

The person wasn't Draco.

The person wasn't a man. The person wasn't even a student. In fact, it was none other than Professor McGonagall.

"HELP!" Minerva shrieked in panic. "HELP! RAPE!" Not even on the battlefield had the Transfiguration teacher sounded so traumatized. Her breasts were bare and bruised, as was her belly and her vagina. A bit of Trelawney's vaginal juice had even coagulated in her pubic hairs. "HELP! RAPE! RAAAAAAAAPE!!"

"NO!" Trelawney wailed, horrified at her error. "NOOOO! DEATH, DEATH, DEATH!" From the table nearest her a crystal ball flashed a single solitary image, the same image it had flashed before: A figure in a pool of water, sunk dark and deep in the nighttime and surrounded by flames. "GET AWAY FROM ME!" Trelawney moaned, stumbling away from the gasping Transfiguration professor. "Don't... Don't!" She half-tripped, half-stepped down the ladder, and then fled down the stairs, leaving McGonagall's cries of distress to trail behind her burning ears.

Onward Trelawney ran, her breasts flapping in the cold night wind. She ran through the top levels of the castle until she reached the Astronomy Tower. There, she took the steps two at a time, still sobbing as loudly as her ragged lungs would allow. All around her students stumbled from behind statues, straightening their clothes and running away in fright from the crazy, half-naked teacher. Then she reached the outside balcony at the top of the tower. She dragged her feet all the way to the edge and gazed out over the ramparts.

[SYBIL stands on the Astronomy Tower, watching the first drifts of snow that float down towards the Forbidden Forest. She sighs and sobs, her voice ragged. She flings her arms around in helplessness, but she is weary, so they flop more than they swing. Her feet falter against the stone. She is alone, all alone!]

SYBIL: [despondently]

Alone, all alone! Alone, alone, alone... My Draco will never return. Who now do I have to love?

[SYBIL looks down at the beech tree at the edge of the lake. Snowflakes flicker through the tangled branches and dissolve in the shallows. EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY materializes beside her and stares out across the ramparts, pointing towards the single beech.]

EDNA:

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

SYBIL: [in a lifeless whisper]

I cannot say what lads have come and gone;

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

EDNA:

Do you have any requests to make, Sybil?

SYBIL: [tears running down her face]

Spare me from this torment, Edna, please! Tell me how I must escape it! Or if you will not, leave me to my grief, for I can no longer bear to spread my anguish into the lives of others.

[SYBIL slumps against the ramparts, her shoulders hunched sharply against the snowy sky and her hair hanging down to cover her shameful face. EDNA places a hand on her shoulder and leans in to whisper to her.]

EDNA: [very seriously]

Take a bath, Sybil--right now, tonight. You need one.

A/N: So just a few days ago I found out I've been spelling Trelawney's first name wrong all along. In the American edition, books 3-5, it's Sibyll, and in Britain it's Sybill. I've been spelling it Sybil the entire time (probably because that is the only version of the name that my spell check recognizes as a real word). So until I get around to changing it, let's just say for now that Trelawney was dissatisfied with the spelling of her name and knocked off the extra L. This is slighty AU, after all. *wink*

Thanks to my beta Lisa725 for the super-quick turnaround on this chapter! She'll be on vacation for a week near the end of this month, so it may be two or three weeks before you see Chapter 20, but I'll be consistently writing, so you may get two chapters within a few days of each other, as has happened in the past.

Have any of you given thought as to what crossover I've sneaked into this story? Tell me yes or no in a review!