Dumbledore, Please Explain Your Twisted Logic!

Disclaimer: Not mine. Oh, and I don't own The Shining, either. The movie belongs to Stanley Kubrick and (once again!) Warner Bros. And the novel belongs to Stephen King, though I more refer to the movie in this case.

Disclaimer for the crossover: Okay, so nobody really guessed the crossover in Chapter 23, so I'll tell you now. It's Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. Connie is actually not an original character, though she is much older than she is in that novel. Clifford and Ivana Chatterley, however, are original characters. Oh, and there are some spoilers for those who haven't yet read Lady Chatterley's Lover, but I try to keep it rather vague as to where D.H. Lawrence's story ends and where I take over. And even if I spoiled the entire story, you'd still enjoy reading it. :D

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dumbledore Explains His Twisted Logic

By Sunday, December 7^th, it was all over. Scratch that, the play was over; its repercussions, however, lasted a lifetime... and beyond. But never mind about a lifetime: Clifford Oliver Chatterley decided that he'd be taking his newfound freedom in daily portions. Gone were the days of uncontrollable worrying--he now was rid of that person who dared call herself his mother, and everyone else in the school had come forward to support his situation. It was immensely heart-warming when Ron sat him down and started making plans for Christmas break at the Weasley's house.

All the same, it was a bit disconcerting to realize that he, Clifford, now had no true family. Sure, Ron and Ginny were all too eager to step in as replacements, and doubtless they'd run circles around his mum in terms of familial solidarity. But still... he had technically turned himself into an orphan.

But then something happened on Sunday night that made everything better: Connie talked to him. Yes, that batty old woman who had tormented him just a few weeks ago came up to him during dinner and brightened his whole day.

"Hi hi hi there, Clifford," she trilled. "Mind if I separate you from your friends for just a few quick moments?"

Clifford exchanged glances with Ron, Ginny, Harry, Hermione, Luna, and Gregory, who were sitting with him, and they accepted his nonverbal attempt to excuse himself.

"Don't worry, we'll be here when you get back," Ron said.

"We won't be long," Connie promised them. And she slipped her hand around Clifford's forearm and steered him gently towards the Entrance Hall.

"So, Ms...."

"Connie," she said. "Please, call me Connie."

"Okay then, Connie. What did you want to talk about?"

"A few things, actually," Connie said. "First of all, I want to congratulate you on your performance and all those wonderful rave reviews."

"I got rave reviews?" Clifford said, a little taken aback. "Really?"

"Of course, my dear, everyone's read them!" Connie said, impatient in the sweetest way possible. "You were... I don't know how to put it... Whatever Dumbledore dreamed about, even wildly, he never thought anyone could play the battle hero so perfectly. And you did, Clifford, you really did. You should see just how happy you've made that old man!"

"Oh, is that why he keeps grinning all the time?" Clifford said, offering up a chuckle. "I thought it was his senility."

Connie roared with laughter and slapped her loose-skinned --thigh. "Oh, Clifford, that's a good one! I must make it a point to tell him!"

"Oh! No, that's not--"

"Don't worry, boy. Dumbledore loves a good joke!"

"Oh..." Clifford calmed down and realized that it actually wouldn't be the end of the world if Dumbledore knew Clifford was poking fun at him. After all, Dumbledore always had a great sense of humor, and it seemed only to have grown in recent years.

"Ah, yes..." Connie sighed, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Now where were we?"

"You were congratulating me," Clifford prompted.

"Yes, I was." Connie revved up her train of thought and took off. "Yes, and I also wanted to apologize."

"For what?" Clifford said automatically, though his mind flew instantly to her previous bullying attacks.

"For misjudging you, my dear," she said matter-of-factly. "I must admit, I expected you to be as

weak as the man you were named for."

"My great-grandfather?" Clifford queried, twisting his eyebrows. "What, did you know him?"

"I did, as a matter of fact," Connie said. "I was married to him."

"You what?" Clifford was quite taken aback. The idea that he was actually related to this oddball female version of Dumbledore seemed highly coincidental, not to mention a bit disconcerting.

"Yes. Constance Chatterley," she said, allowing herself a wry smile. "Or Lady Chatterley, as I was known back then."

"But that's not possible," Clifford whispered, "You can't be... my great-grandmother?"

"Oh no, dear," Connie said quickly. "We got divorced. He was crippled from the waist down. His dick was soft as cheese, and I ran off with the gamekeeper."

When she said "gamekeeper," Clifford's mind instantly flew to Hagrid, and he had to shake his head to clear out the awful image.

"Oliver Mellors, his name was," Connie said dreamily, clasping her hands together like a schoolgirl. "We'd fuck in his cottage, not even half-a-mile from the house, and we had enough explicit sex to fill a sizeable novel."

"Oh," Clifford said. "Um..." Despite his new-found confidence, this was still an awkward situation. A lady as old as the trees was confessing that she was his great-grandfather's first wife and that she had cheated on him after he became crippled. Except "confessing" was much too contrite a description for the way she was telling the story.

"Who did he marry after me?" she asked curiously. "Was it that Ivy woman?"

"Ivy Bolton," Clifford said. "Ivana perverted her own name into its current form because she thought Ivy sounded too meek." He did call that lady his mum anymore, because she wasn't... not in his eyes.

"Haha. Hahahaha!" Connie laughed uproariously again. "He married the servant! Well, I guess it turned out well, didn't it? So he actually got it up for her?"

"Apparently," Clifford said uncomfortably. It wasn't so much that he was embarrassed by her frank dialogue, but because it was his family they were talking about.

"He must have recovered," Connie said pensively.

"Just enough, I suppose," Clifford said. "He still used a wheelchair, and they only had one child."

"Who they named Oliver," Connie said, growing even more meditative.

"Which is my middle name."

"Yes, but Oliver... that's really interesting. So they actually named him after the man I ran away with?"

"Did they?"

Connie held her hands up in a shrug. "I don't know. Maybe Clifford still... I dunno... love isn't the right word, because we didn't really love each other... he must have still... appreciated what we had."

Clifford flashed an awkward half-smile and didn't speak because he had no idea what to say.

"Whatever," Connie said, snapping out of her pensive state. "Anyway, as I was saying, I expected you to be weak and foolish like my ex-husband Clifford, but you weren't. Forget about your performance in the play: Your performance in the court room was the best thing I've seen in the past sixteen-and-three-quarters years!"

"Thanks," Clifford said, this time grinning sincerely. "I think it's only right to tell you that you inspired me to stand up to Ivana."

"I did, did I?" Connie cooed happily. "Why, imagine that!"

"Yes. When you were bullying me in Dumbledore's office, and I told you to shut up, that was the very first time I had stood up to someone without anybody else's help. So I knew I could do it, you see? And that's what helped me stand up to my mother."

"Wonderful," Connie said briskly. "I admit I was aiming to provoke you into action. I just hope I didn't overdo it--so if I did (I did, didn't I?), I'm dreadfully sorry. I promise: no more bullying. I hope we can become fast friends."

"We can," Clifford said, a grin slowly spreading across his face, "if you will tell me just what happened sixteen-and-three-quarters years ago that beats my courtroom rhetoric."

"Oh that," Connie said jovially. "Well, I was getting old, and dear Oliver had just died, so my kids wanted to shuttle me into a nursing home, bless them. Naturally, I didn't take well to that, so I escaped."

"Escaped?" Clifford said, letting out an incredulous laugh.

"As in escaped the nursing home."

"Haha! How the hell did you do that?"

"Actually, Albus helped me," Connie admitted. "He Apparated into my room, upon which I helped him set up all manner of magic trickery. But we disguised it behind lots of loud bangs and noises, you see, so it wouldn't look like magic. We rigged everything tremendously, and then Dumbledore whisked me away."

"You rigged the room, you say?" Clifford said.

"Indeed, we rigged the room. We planned it so that the next person who opened the door would get coated in gooey, milky, luke-warm candle wax. Then everything in the room would start falling down and making tremendous crashes. Then the bed would break, the ceiling would crack, and the ancient bedside table would just crumble away. Lastly, the bathroom door would start spewing blood through the cracks. That last part was Albus's idea--he has a boner for Kubrick, and I have a special spot on my clitoris for horror movies, and we had gone to see The Shining a few months before, and we loved the elevator sequence. But I digress.

"Anyway, we meant for Miss Craig, my mean nurse, to find my goodbye gift. Unfortunately, another nursing home resident wandered into my room by accident and got the surprise to end all surprises--that is to say, she died of a heart attack. And the entire hall heard the commotion, so two more people died of heart attacks as well."

The laughter died from Clifford's face as Connie killed the mood. She shook her head, her poker-face forcing a smile from her lips, and said, "Oh Lord, when we heard, Albus and I felt rather guilty. But then we learned it was old Mrs. Phoenix that died, along with Mr. Rivers and Mr. Fox. And they were all on their last leg anyway; they were pretty miserable in the nursing home. And they had no relatives. So then we actually felt rather good about it; we figured the three of them are looking down at us and thanking us graciously for sending them off in style. I'm not quite sure, because I first met them when they were basically mental, but I think all three of them had been fond of pranks earlier in life. So... no harm done!" And, unable to maintain her calm any longer, she burst into laughter.

Clifford couldn't help it. He knew he shouldn't, but he started laughing too. Somehow, in both the best and worst way possible, it was inexplicably hilarious. I mean, it was death he was laughing about, but why couldn't it be funny? Why was death so bad that it couldn't be laughed at? People accepted jokes about serial killers and religious fanatics and annoying little kids, and every one of those was a million times worse than death. Besides, Dumbledore always said never to be afraid of death, that death was the next great adventure, so why not look at it, throw back your head, and guffaw your guts out?

"You know what, Connie?" Clifford said, setting aside thoughts of death for the time being. "You're really cool. Why don't you come eat dinner with my friends and me?"

"'Twill do," Connie said. And she draped her hand around his arm again.

Clifford was about to lead them both into the Great Hall when the double doors opened and out stepped Susan Bones. "Oh, Clifford!" she said, suddenly breathless. "How wonderful to see you! I was hoping we could talk."

Connie pursed her lips a little and gave Clifford a wry smile. "I'll see you at the dinner table," she said before slipping past Susan and into the Great Hall.

Clifford turned to face Susan Bones, the one girl he had had a crush on for his entire school career. She stared back, and for the first time her gaze bore him no contempt. In fact, by the way she quirked her eyebrows and giggled, she seemed quite taken with him.

"So, Clifford," she said breathlessly, "congratulations on your performance. You were the best person in the whole play! Even the newspapers said so."

"Thanks," Clifford replied.

"I can't believe we haven't hung out before," she continued, stepping closer to him. "What d'you say we... spend more time together?" When she was done speaking she left her mouth open so that her tongue could sneak out onto her lipsticked lips. With one finger she twirled a lock of her hair, and with the other hand she loosened a button on her robes to reveal a generous quantity of cleavage.

And yet as Clifford gazed at her, he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Something had happened to him--the last time he had thought about Susan, he had had a crush on her. Then there was that whole commotion with the parents trying to sabotage the play, then the hours and hours of rehearsing three times a week, then the court case, then the two nights' performances. Now that it was all over, he thought about Susan again, and he realized: He didn't have a crush on her.

Come to think of it, he didn't even like her. In fact, she disgusted him. She was snotty and stuck up, and she acted as if everyone should worship her on principle, just because she was modestly rich and had big breasts. The truth was, she was immature and insecure. She only wanted to be with Clifford because he wasn't Loser any longer. And because he'd gotten rave reviews in the newspapers.

I don't like her anymore, Clifford told himself, completely as peace with the idea. When I was Loser, I was foolish and insecure, so naturally I was attracted to Susan, who was just as foolish and insecure as I was, though I was too blind to see it. But now that I've finally gained some confidence, I'm no longer attracted to her. In fact, I find her sort of pathetic.

"So, what d'you say?" Susan repeated breathlessly.

"Whatever," Clifford said mildly. "I'd rather not."

And he went back into the Great Hall, not even turning around to see the expression on Susan's face. Maybe she looked shocked, or maybe hurt, or maybe furious--but he didn't give a fuck. In a minute he was back with Harry, Luna, Ron, Hermione, Goyle, and Ginny, who were all eating with Connie.

"Hey there, Clifford!" Connie called when she saw him. "Your friends are telling me their hobbies. What book did you say you were reading, Hermione?"

"Sons and Lovers," Hermione said. "And actually, I'm rereading it. I'm rereading all of D.H. Lawrence's novels."

"D.H. Lawrence, huh?" Connie said. "Sounds familiar."

"Have you read any of his works?" Hermione asked excitedly.

"Can't say I have," Connie replied. "Would I like them?"

"Oh, you would!" Hermione and Gregory promised at the same time. Connie laughed at the two of them and shook her head.

"I just might check him out, then," she said.

***********

The next week was almost too good for Harry to bear. On Monday afternoon he left class... and didn't have to go to play practice! Instead, he and Luna sneaked out of Hogwarts and Apparated to Hogsmeade, where they did some Christmas shopping and sight-seeing before having wild sex in the back of Dervish and Bangs. Then they walked home together, holding tightly to each other to protect themselves from the cruel winter wind. The same thing happened Wednesday.

On Wednesday evening, Harry came back to Hogwarts to find Hermione in a state of euphoria.

"Harry!" she squealed the moment she saw him. "Harry, Luna, guess what! Professor Vector is the best teacher ever! She graded all our projects in five days, and guess what I got?"

"An O," Harry said.

"How did you guess?" Hermione gasped, her voice now so high it sounded ready to break. "I was sooo shocked! I thought I was hyperventilating, I was so happy! I was afraid I'd get a P!"

"That's stupid," Luna remarked casually. "You're the smartest witch in the school; why would you get a P?"

"Yeah," Ron said, "and you'd better watch out, or you'll be hyperventilating now."

Everyone spent the next few minutes celebrating Hermione's success, though the witch herself was the only one that was surprised. Afterwards, they rejoiced in the fact that the whole play ordeal was over.

"It was fun while it lasted," Ron said fairly. "That the reporters all loved us only made it better. But it was way too much fucking work!"

"Yeah, I think it'll be more fun buying tickets for a West End showing," Ginny said. Yesterday it had been confirmed: The Quadrangle had officially been picked up and was going to open in April. It was being renamed, however, to The Four Founders, because its original name actually wasn't the most enticing, and the Muggle world wouldn't show up simply to see a play written by Albus Dumbledore.

"I can't wait to see someone else doing my nude scene," Harry said dryly. "I'm going to be pointing and laughing as his thing wags in front of the audience for seven straight minutes, knowing full well that he'll have to do that dozens more times than I did."

"But it wasn't all that bad, was it?" Luna asked Harry.

"I dunno," Harry shrugged. "At least I didn't get an erection onstage. It must have been all the eyes watching us: I don't think I could ever have sex in public, even with you."

"I've got to go to the bathroom," Ginny said almost before Harry was done speaking. Indeed, she sounded uncomfortable, as if she really did need to go to the bathroom, but even Harry guessed that that wasn't the case. Her face had fallen the moment Harry mentioned his nude scene; when Luna had spoken, Ginny looked even more upset. Harry kicked himself for not having talked to her already; they hadn't exchanged a word since they broke up, and any conversation that included the both of them and their friends had always had an awkward edge to it.

"I've got to go, too," Harry said quickly, fooling no one. "How about I accompany you, Ginny?"

Ginny stiffened at hearing her name spoken by Harry Potter. Yet she didn't complain or refuse his company. Instead, she said stiffly, "Come on, then." And they left the Great Hall with their friends staring at their backs.

This wasn't something Harry wanted to do at all; setting things straight with Ginny was about as terrifying as fighting Voldemort again. In fact, it was worse: Harry hadn't felt much remorse over killing someone as evil as the Dark Lord, but trying to smooth things over with the girlfriend who used to love him was a guilt trip and a half. So Harry pretended like he was in battle and plunged straight into it.

"Look, Ginny, I'm sorry for--"

"Yeah?" Her voice was rapid-fire and clipped, like a machine gun.

"I'm sorry for being an awful boyfriend. And for, um, stringing you on for months when I just wanted to break up with you."

Ginny stopped walking and crossed her arms, neither saying a word nor moving her face from its cold, calculating glare.

"And, uh... I'm sorry it all ended like this. We sorta... fucked up. I mean, I sorta fucked up. I--"

"No, you're right," Ginny interrupted abruptly.

"What?"

"We fucked up," Ginny clarified. "I'm sorry, too."

"I wish there was some better way for me to apologize--"

"Don't try," Ginny advised him. "It's... I forgive you."

"I do, too," Harry said awkwardly. "Um... so does this mean... I mean, d'you think we can still be friends?"

"No," Ginny said immediately. "I really don't see that happening."

Harry smiled weakly and kicked at the ground. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing... just thought I'd offer, you know?"

"Yes, I do," Ginny said.

"But we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other," Harry warned her. "I'm still Ron's best friend, and he's still your brother. I'm going to be over for Christmas, and all of us will still eat meals together in the Great Hall."

"I know. It'll be awkward. Very awkward."

"Especially the questions from your parents and your brothers," Harry said sheepishly.

"Oh Merlin, kill me now!" Ginny sighed, rolling her eyes.

"And Luna's going to be eating with us now, just like Gregory."

"And it just gets better and better."

"I'm just warning you ahead of time," Harry said. He wondered if he should ask Ginny if she had found a new boyfriend yet, but he decided that'd be cruel. "Once again, I'm sorry."

"You already said that," Ginny said.

"Yeah, I did," Harry said, feeling more than a little foolish. "Yeah... so, I'm going back to dinner. I didn't really need to go to the bathroom."

"Neither did I," Ginny said. "I was going to go upstairs."

"See you around, then," Harry said. And he turned around, letting out a whoosh of a sigh.

That hadn't gone so badly. His heart still hammered in his chest, and his limbs were shaky, just as if he'd been in a real battle, but he had emerged victorious. All the same, it was too bad there wasn't a better solution to this Ginny situation. Things would never totally heal between them, and even if they managed to be friendly later on in life, there'd still be a slight frost in their interaction. He turned around to see if she was still within sight. When he saw she wasn't, he ran at top speed back into the Great Hall, glad to have that conversation out of the way.

**********

That night, Dumbledore entered McGonagall's office and set a small box on her desk, right above the essays she was grading.

"Good evening, Albus," Minerva said, looking curiously at the box. "What is that?"

"Merry Christmas," Albus said. "It's your cat toy. But of course that's not your Christmas present: It's the bribe I promised you earlier."

The events from that fateful night rushed back into McGonagall brain. This cat toy was the reason Sybil Trelawney was now dead! If she, Minerva McGonagall, hadn't been so intent on earning it, she wouldn't have allowed Dumbledore to bribe her into going up to the North Tower to deliver a letter, and Sybil Trelawney wouldn't have accidentally raped her. The Transfiguration teacher heaved back into her chair, her eyes wide and her hands shaking near her chin. "I..." she said, trying to collect herself. "I... Albus, I can't accept it."

Dumbledore cocked his head to the right and stared questioningly at his Transfiguration professor. "Why ever not, my dear Minnie?" he queried. "I thought you loved cat toys."

"No, I do," Minerva said quickly. "But it's not that. It's... it's about Sybil." Here she choked up, both terrified and relieved to admit it. "Oh, Albus, it's my fault she's dead! I--I went up to her tower like you told me, but when I got there, she thought I was someone else, so she started tearing off my clothes and--and screaming: 'F-fuck me to death! Fuck me to death!' But then when she realized I was also screaming, she recognized me! She was so mortified that she went crazy and started hallucinating. Then she ran off, half-naked. The next morning, she was found dead in the Prefects' Bathroom."

Dumbledore smiled a little and patted her hand. "Sssh, Minerva, it's all right," he said, his voice calm and soothing. "It's not your fault--it's mine. You see, around forty years ago we had a one-night stand. At that time I made it very clear to her that it was just sex and that we didn't love each other, but then she became pregnant. She tried to lasso me into a relationship with her, but I refused. You see, I could read her well enough to know that she wasn't doing it for the baby, but so she could have me and keep me. Naturally, I didn't like her attitude in the matter, so I tried not to be a part of it. And sure enough, when Sybil realized I wouldn't be roped into a relationship, she gave the baby up for adoption."

Minerva's eyes were wide and her mouth was open. Dumbledore told the story like it was a familiar anecdote, and yet it was the biggest bombshell of gossip he had ever dropped in the entire sixty years she had known him! How could he be so calm about something so tremendously inconvenient? "Do you know where that child is now?"

"Certainly," Albus said. "We're the best of friends; I helped him get a job as a school governor."

There were twelve school governors, but it didn't take Minerva more than two seconds to realize which one it was. "Xenophilius Lovegood," she said without a doubt. "There's no other man who could be the love child of you and Sybil."

"Lust child," Albus corrected her with a frown. "I didn't love Sybil, you see. I'm only glad she realized that neither of us would have made a good parent for Xeno and that he was far better off being adopted by the Lovegood family."

"Yes, yes," Minerva agreed. "But what does that have to do with Sybil's death?"

"Well, recently Sybil has been short of loving," Dumbledore explained, "despite the fact that I'm pretty sure she'd been having an affair with someone since the beginning of the school year. So she sent me a love note over breakfast one day. And so I returned a note saying that our relationship was strictly that of an employer and his employee--that was the note I made you give her. She probably came back after you left, read the note, then went off to kill herself."

As Minerva's brain processed this new information, her stomach slowly buoyed in her chest until she felt almost as happy as she had during Act IV, scene iii of Dumbledore's play. It wasn't her fault that Trelawney was dead. And even if Sybil Trelawney hadn't read the note, for what exactly did McGonagall have to blame herself? Trelawney was probably boinking Moaning Myrtle right now--certainly that wasn't a bad thing, at least not for the Divination professor. McGonagall gave Dumbledore a sincere smile and said, "Thank you, Albus. And thank you for the snake chew. Just don't be too hard on yourself; it was her decision and hers alone to kill herself. And she's better off for it."

Albus smiled a little and patted her arm. "To tell the truth, I already came to that conclusion," he said. "So I feel no guilt or regret."

~~~~~

Outside the office Draco Malfoy was listening at the door, and he heard every word. After Dumbledore had finished speaking, he gave a sigh of relief.

It wasn't his fault that Trelawney had died! He could now blame Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore, or even the old seer herself! Feeling considerably more light-hearted, he decided to show Professor McGonagall his Transfiguration essay tomorrow. For now, he simply sneaked quietly back to his room, making sure to avoid any sex-hungry girls along the way.

**********

On Tuesday night a girl went to the Hospital Wing with a collection of bodily chancres. Madame Pomfrey gave a diagnosis, and the girl went off to bed without telling anyone. And yet by breakfast time the next morning, everybody knew:

Millicent Bulstrode had syphilis.

By the time classes started, everyone who had participated in the orgy nine days ago knew. They also knew that syphilis was a sexually transmitted disease, because, much to their horror, half the Muggle-borns had spent breakfast talking about STDs. So every one of them opted out of their first class so they could rush to the hospital wing for a checkup.

Draco caught the tail end of the group, still a bit too numb from shock to realize what was going on. He had heard about Millicent's condition from Nott, at which point Seamus Finnegan came over from the Gryffindor table to give them all the gory details of sexually transmitted diseases.

"STD's make your dick sprout with red boils!" he said excitedly. "Then they pop and ooze pus. Oh, and when you take a piss, blood comes out, and it burns. It's like having pins stuck up your urethra."

Draco didn't want to know how Seamus knew about this. And yet it was with this vivid mental image that the Slytherin boy stumbled into the hospital wing, heart hammering and palms sweating. I might actually be infected! He thought. Is this syphilis fatal? Or will it make me impotent for the rest of my life? Which would be worse?

Madame Pomfrey tut-tutted at the sight of twenty-nine students packed inside the Hospital Wing. "When I told Miss Bulstrode to inform her sexual partners, I wasn't expecting this," she muttered to herself. Aloud, she cried, "All right, get in line, you lot! You still have classes to attend!"

Madame Pomfrey did some diagnostic spells on each one of them. Then she took them individually behind a curtained stall. Draco found out exactly what she was doing when it was his turn.

"All right, Master Malfoy, drop your trousers and pants," said, longsuffering, as if she had had to argue people over this request way too many times in the past ten minutes.

"Sure," Draco nervously, worried about what Madame Pomfrey would find, but not at all embarrassed about revealing his privates. He undid his belt and his trousers, then slid them down his legs with his boxers. Madame Pomfrey waved her wand around his penis for a moment, then gave it a small poke. It glowed red for a brief second and returned to its normal peachy hue.

"Mhmm," the matron said pensively, making a note on a clipboard that lay on the table next to her. "Now turn around and bend over."

Draco turned around and bent over. Madam Pomfrey inspected his anus carefully. She did some more diagnostic wand work, then made more notes on her clipboard. Last of all: "Now let me inspect your throat." This he allowed her to do.

"Go outside and wait," Madame Pomfrey said, frowning at her clipboard. So Draco Malfoy pulled up his pants and exited the stall. "Next!"

Once Madame Pomfrey was done checking all twenty-nine of them, she left the stall with her clipboard and turned to face them all, her face very serious.

"Every single one of you is infected with syphilis of the genitalia. Most of you also have it in the throat, and about half of you have it in the anus as well. I have each individual diagnosis written down on your prescription slips."

The students exchanged worried glances. The gay Third-Year Slytherin raised his hand nervously and said, "Is it permanent?"

"No," Madame Pomfrey said in exasperation. "And you should thank your lucky stars for that! Syphilis happens to be a bacterial disease, but if you all had caught a viral STD, it would be permanent."

She started pacing back and forth, her arms on her hips and her face stern. "Did none of you think to use protective spells?" The mute silence that followed was more than enough of an answer. "You learned them back in the Third Year!"

"Actually," Draco offered sheepishly, "Our year was being so immature when Snape was trying to teach us that he got mad as said we could just go ahead and catch as many diseases as we felt like."

"But you still knew the diseases existed!" Madame Pomfrey cried. "You knew that you needed protection! You could have asked your parents, or me. I know everything about STDs and unplanned pregnancy that you could possibly care to know."

She sighed loudly and stopped pacing. "Every one of you must alert your sexual partners from the past three months and send them up here to be tested."

"But Madame Pomfrey!" Lavender said worriedly. "With Draco here, that's practically the entire school. At least, among the students that aren't virgins."

"Then tell the entire school!" Madame Pomfrey said, irate. "I'll get Dumbledore to make an announcement this evening. In the meantime, I have a stock of syphilis potion to prescribe to each of you, of which you will take one dose per day before breakfast. It will alleviate the symptoms, but it will not entirely get rid of them. Within a month, the infection should be out of your system entirely. I discourage sexual activity in the meantime. If, however, you cannot possibly contain yourselves, use protective spells! And if you are not 100% sure what those protective spells entail, come to me."

She ended the lecture in a bad mood. Then she signed off prescriptions of syphilis potion for each one of them, and they left the Hospital Wing just two minutes before the bell rang to end first period.

Draco headed towards McGonagall's classroom, cradling his potion in his hands. He had syphilis. It was a disconcerting thought, and for a few minutes he couldn't help but feel depressed over it. Would the symptoms be so painful as to distract him from his schoolwork? Or maybe they'd simply ruin his Christmas break. And as for limiting his sexual activity for a month...

Wait! Limiting his sexual activity? That's exactly what he wanted to do! Now he had the perfect excuse. The homework excuse would only work so often before girls started to get suspicious, but nothing killed suspicion like a good: "I have syphilis. D'you want some?"

He was at the door to McGonagall's classroom just as the bell rang. Draco stood to the side and waited for the classroom to empty. The students poured through the doors, chattering animatedly. Near the end of the crowd was Neville Longbottom. Draco ran up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. Neville turned around and did a double take.

"Hey, Neville," Draco said breathlessly, "I have some great news!"

"What?" Neville said, his face pained both from confusion and from seeing the blond-haired Slytherin face-to-face. "What's going on, Draco?"

"This way!" Draco dragged Neville down an empty side hall and let go of the Gryffindor boy only when they were out of earshot of anyone else.

"What is it?" Neville asked again.

"I have syphilis!" Draco said, grinning.

Neville huffed furiously and swung his fist at a nearby statue. It creaked a little as it dodged the blow, and Neville's knuckles ended up halfway inside the wall instead. "That's not good news, Draco!" he cried, cradling his bruised fist. "If you have syphilis, that probably means I have it, too."

"No, you don't understand," Draco said quickly. "I'm trying to not have any more sex, and now I have syphilis, and that's the perfect excuse."

"What?" Neville said, trying not to cry. "I don't understand."

"I'm trying not to have any more sex," Draco said slowly and clearly. "Because I... because I think I love you. No, because I know I love you, so I'm trying to stop having sex."

"But you were just in a gigantic orgy!" Neville cried passionately. "What do you call that?"

"That was nine days ago," Draco explained intensely. "And that was probably when I caught the syphilis. Don't you see? It's like a punishment, or a sign. Anyway, I haven't had sex since then, and now that I have syphilis it'll discourage me from having sex for even longer."

"Bloody wonderful," Neville complained bitterly. "And what about after the symptoms go away? You'll give in and start fucking girls and boys all over again."

"No, I won't!" Draco promised.

"Yes, you will!" Neville retorted. "You're a sex addict! You can't help yourself. I know you like me, but I can't be with you! I can't deal with someone who's going to cheat on me all the time."

"But I won't," Draco said fiercely. "I'll do whatever it takes, Neville!"

Neville was crying by now. He avoided Draco's gaze as he said, "And what if you can't stop it?"

"Look at me, Neville," Draco commanded him. "Look at me!" He took Neville's face in both hands and turned the Gryffindor's gaze towards his own. "I love you, Neville. And I know you love me."

Another line of tears slid down Neville's face as he nodded miserably. "Everything logical about me says I shouldn't," he whispered around a constricted throat, "but I do."

"And that is why I'm going to overcome this," Draco said. "It seems logical that I'd fall back into my old ways, but if you insist upon following illogic, then so should I. Anyway, I have it all planned out: I'm going to go to sex addiction rehab, even if it has to be a bloody Muggle institution. Then I'm going to totally change my image. I'll even move if I have to. But I'm going to become an entirely new person for you, Neville."

Neville didn't even try to stop his tears as they dripped in a silent line down his cheeks. Some dropped at his chin, but others clung to his neck and ran down his shirt. He sniffed a little and asked forlornly, "When did you figure all this out?"

"The no-sex part I decided upon right after the orgy," Draco said. "As for the rest... well, just right now, actually. But that doesn't make it any less true! I didn't know it before today, but catching a disease like syphilis sure puts life into perspective. And now I know: I'll do anything to win you back. Please tell me I still have a chance."

**********

The term ended that Friday, one week after the play. That evening in the Great Hall the House-elves prepared an extra-special Christmas feast, outdoing themselves from years past. The aroma of meats and pies and steaming vegetables was enough to trigger a collective orgasm, but when combined with the taste and the texture against the tongue, the Hogwarts residents were transported to ecstasy.

There was very, very little in life that was better than eating an orgytastic feast while savoring the end of term and anticipating a good few weeks of holiday cheer. The students and teachers would have found the evening to be perfect if they could do just that. But of course Dumbledore had to throw a wrench into the workings... again.

Halfway through the feast, he turned to Professor McGonagall and said, "I think I want to make an announcement."

McGonagall nearly choked on her tripe and instantly waved her hands at her boss. "No, Dumbledore! If you're thinking about making a speech about how much we've learned over the course of this term and how the experience of putting on your play has opened all our eyes, we don't want to hear it! Please, let us enjoy our feast without interruption."

"I didn't think of that, actually," Dumbledore said, amused. "It's a good idea, though." He chuckled when the Transfiguration professor turned bright red and coughed out a mouthful of food onto her plate. "Come, my dear Minnie, ickle Albus is just being a big old tease! I'll forgo that speech--but I still have an important announcement to make."

So Dumbledore stood up and tapped his goblet with his fork. The glass broke. He hastily shoved the remnants into Hagrid's lap and stole the half-giant's goblet, pretending as if nothing had happened. This time, however, the students could not pretend along with him. A strange feeling of déjà vu stole stealthily upon them as they remembered the morning Dumbledore had announced his decision to put on the play. None of them could explain why, but they all knew without a doubt that Dumbledore's announcement was going to turn Hogwarts on its head yet again.

"At the beginning of this semester," Dumbledore began, "a few weeks before we started production on our excellent play, I went to St. Mungo's for my yearly checkup. It proceeded as smoothly as my past checkups, and the Healers took care of me in the way that only a truly proficient Healer can."

Nobody wanted to tell Dumbledore he was rambling. Nobody even wanted to open their mouths.

"Anyhow, a few days later they called me back to St. Mungo's for another checkup, at which they made me take a series of tests, which I admit were rather difficult. The next day the Healer called me back to St. Mungo's again, this time to expose their findings.

"I have been diagnosed with senile dementia. This means that I am going crazy with old age, and in somewhere between five to ten years, I will most likely be dead."

Nothing could ever have the effect this pronouncement had. The entire hall emptied of its festive cheer, leaving behind a stupefied pall so great that not even a Death Eater attack during the war could have created it. The only person in the entire room who looked in the least bit cheerful was Dumbledore himself, who was grinning like a loon. It didn't help that he now officially was a loon. In fact, that made it a million fucking times worse.

"The situation standing as it is, this shall be my last year as headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I shall spend the second half of the year training our new headmaster for the job."

Then Dumbledore, still standing, fell silent and clasped his hands in front of him, grinning happily at everyone. Nobody grinned back; instead, they stared in frank disbelief at their headmaster, wondering how in hell this was actually happening. Then they turned to each other and began whispering in hushed tones.

"We should have known!" Hermione breathed in shock, her eyes brimming with tears. "He lets us swear without docking points, he's much more obscene than he ever was, and he even went naked during his trial! Oh dear Merlin, how come we never guessed?"

"But Hermione," Harry said, also at a loss for volume, "Dumbledore's always been crazy! How the fuck could we have known the difference?"

"So wait," Gregory said slowly, each word weighed like a stone around his neck. "We just acted in a play... directed by a man with senile dementia."

"I know," Ginny said morosely. "Everything makes a whole lot more sense now, doesn't it?"

Up at the staff table, the professors gaped at Dumbledore in sheer shock, none of them saying a word. Fat tears leaked into Hagrid's beard as he realized that his favorite man in the whole world had hardly more than a decade left to live. McGonagall looked too stunned to even move. Snape betrayed the least emotion; beyond the extreme arch in his eyebrow, his face looked surly as it always did.

The headmaster himself spread his arms wide and swayed purposefully where he stood. "Come, come, my sweetie pies, there's no need for the hushed voices!" he cried. "I announced my official insanity, not my death. Now be happy for me: I have five to ten years in which I can do absolutely anything, blame it all on my dementia, and not be held accountable! How many of you can say the same about yourselves?"

In the seat next to Dumbledore's sat his good friend Connie. Of all the people in the room, she was the first (and perhaps the only person) whose initial shock was slowly fading into a smile. "Does that mean," she said, "that we can have sex in public and blame it on our old age?"

"This is why I keep you around, my most excellent Connie!" Dumbledore said joyfully. "We shall do exactly that, and what's more, I am now free to say anything that comes to mind, no matter how obscene it is. I shall abuse that freedom until it accuses me of domestic violence. And then I shall abuse it some more!"

He turned to the student body and said, "I beseech all of you: Do not be somber over my pronouncement. I encourage you--no, I require you--to make frequent jokes about my insanity, and at the end of each week I will award house points to student whose joke is the most tasteless. The only requirements are that you cannot repeat a joke and that you have to say it directly to my face. I mean, this is my impending death we're talking about! And after that is the Next Great Adventure--I find myself hard-pressed to think of anything more titillating that that."

"I'd even say it's better than sex," Connie ventured.

"It'll most definitely be better than sex!" Dumbledore said emphatically. "That's not to say anything against sex, of course. In fact, I have a very important request to make in regards to sex. At the end of my life, when my short-term memory is so shot that I can't remember why I'm necking my good friend Connie, I request that you keep me in a constant state of nakedness, so that I can at least remember to have some more sex before I go. And if I can't even remember that, then at least we can rub privates. After all, the next life might not include the glorious act of copulation."

The students were goggling at their headmaster, too shocked by the big announcement to properly process anything that came after it. Some of the younger students even looked quite frightened. A Gryffindor First-Year scuttled over to Hermione and sobbed quietly into her leg. The teachers, meanwhile, pinched the bridge of their noses and put their faces into their hands, all of them too embarrassed for words. It wasn't that Dumbledore was trying to embarrass them--but he was being so ridiculous that it was embarrassing just to be sitting at the same table as him. It was almost to the point that they were embarrassed to share the same genus and species.

"He really seems to be overacting," Ron whispered to Hermione. "Do you think it's because he's afraid of death, so he's trying to make a big joke out of it?"

"No," Hermione breathed, staring in wonder as her brain worked double-speed to process everything Dumbledore had just said. "No, he's always looked forward to death... I think the real answer is that he's finally lost it."

"So yes--death!" Dumbledore cried happily. "The next great adventure. Now, you all are listening to me and thinking: Hmm, my headmaster says that death is better than sex. Maybe I should try it myself. I beseech you all not to try it just yet! I am not at all condoning suicide as the ultimate high, nor am I suggesting that life gradually becomes more worthless until death finally seems like a joy in comparison. That is false. If you live it right, life ages like a fine wine. But at the same time, as you learn to love life more, you also learn to embrace death..."

"Uh oh, he's moralizing now," Harry said.

"Which is my cue to ignore him," Gregory said, chuckling.

"Yeah," Ron said. "Wow. Just look at him! You'd think I'd feel sorry for a man who knows he only has a few years left to live, but when he takes it that well..."

"Let's be happy for him, then," Luna said reasonably. "You know that Cockmice also age like fine wine. The Heebripple's talked to a few of them, and so I know exactly how Dumbledore feels right now. I wish him all the happiness in the afterworld."

"WAIT!" This cry came from the Slytherin table, where Draco sat alone. Dumbledore stopped speaking, and the students stopped with him. "Dumbledore," Draco continued amongst silence, "you say there's going to be a new headmaster. Who?"

"Ah, an excellent question, Master Malfoy," Dumbledore said. "Yes, well... I've talked to some of my staff recently. Our own Professor McGonagall, it seems, is very attached to her Transfiguration post and would rather keep the position as Deputy Headmistress in the case of my retirement. Professor Snape, meanwhile, is too biased to make a good headmaster. No offense, sweet Severus."

Professor Snape glared at the headmaster, though his offense was not so much over the slight as it was over being called "sweet."

"And so I've come a decision. Our new headmaster shall be one of the current school governors."

Try as they might, the students couldn't suppress a groan at this information. "But the governors are so lame!" Dean complained, loud enough that Dumbledore heard "They don't do anything except vote on useless rules, and when a real decision comes along, they run behind Dumbledore like a bunch of fucking pussies! If one of them becomes headmaster, he'll have nothing to run behind and pussy-fuck when the shit hits the fan."

"True, my dear Master Thomas, very true," Dumbledore said, completely ignoring the profanity. "But you speak of only eleven of the governors. The choice I have made is a good one, and this man fully deserves the new title."

"Uh oh," Hermione said softly. She glanced knowingly at Ron, but he simply shrugged his shoulders.

"He is a good friend of mine, and he has had quite a few years of experience as a school governor. On top of that, he's the only person who took an active role in the PTA this past month, while still supporting the students' rights to produce our play."

At the staff table, Flitwick leaned over to Professor McGonagall and whispered fearfully, "I can only think of one man who even attended those PTA meetings!"

"I didn't go to any of them myself," McGonagall whispered back, just as uneasily, "so I wouldn't know. But I still think I know who Dumbledore is talking about..."

"The new headmaster," Dumbledore announced grandly, "shall be none other than Xenophilius Lovegood!"

The students looked at each, their eyebrows slowly disappearing behind their bangs and their jaws slowly dropping into their necks. Everybody recognized the name Lovegood, thanks to Luna's distinctly dotty personality, and they all knew better than to think that her parent might be any less loony than she was. The thought of having an adult version of Luna as headmaster was a bit too much to bear, especially on top of the rest of tonight's bombshells. Half the student body turned to each other with panic-stricken glances. A few students stifled moans, and one of Luna's dorm mates even had to dab a few tears from her eyes.

Luna was the first to react. She jumped to her feet and clapped gleefully. "Yay!" she said. "My daddy's going to be headmaster!"

Hermione looked a little scared as her gaze switched between Dumbledore and Luna's matching grins. She had grown a lot more accustomed to Luna's odd ways since they'd met two years ago, but accepting the Ravenclaw's odd beliefs hadn't gone further than ignoring what she said. Accepting her dad as the headmaster of Hogwarts was a bit too much for Hermione, and she couldn't help overreacting. She leaned over to Ron and hissed, "This is crazy! Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is an educational institution. It can't be run by the editor of The Quibbler! Next year we're going to be learning about Pittlepoofballs and Crumple-stooped Poop Loopers while reading Ancient Runes upside down! What kind of twisted logic was behind this decision?"

"Dumbledore's," Ron whispered back, knowing that it was Hermione's logic that was rebelling and that she didn't truly mean everything she was saying. "And let's face it: If one crazy headmaster could do so much for our school, I'm guessing another crazy one will serve us just as well."

"Yeah," Harry said, being quiet so that his girlfriend wouldn't hear him. "At least Mr. Lovegood isn't officially insane."

"Not yet, at least," said Luna, who had heard every word.

THE END

A/N: Well, well, there you go! I hope the final chapter was everything you expected, and more! I have had a complete and utter blast writing this fic and sharing it with you all, so my eternal thanks is out to all those who stuck with me for the ride.

Now to clear up some things. First of all, to those who have read Lady Chatterley's Lover--I know Connie is OOC. However, she is at least 70 years older than she is in that novel, and people can change in 70 years. And she's very old and probably a bit senile, so that adds to her change in character. Yes, those are excuses, but they shield me quite admirably.

As for Dumbledore being apparently straight in this story when J.K. Rowling revealed he was gay. Yes, it was perhaps the biggest and most überlicious bombshell she ever dropped in an interview. But I couldn't help feeling a wee bit sad, because for the longest time I've always liked to imagine that Lady Chatterley and Dumbledore met up during her school years before she became Lady Chatterley. That's what inspired me to insert the crossover, even though the entire sexual aspect of it was AU.

Neville and Draco. Before you ask--yes, that's where I ended their subplot. The truth is, there's no easy answer for them. I'd like to think they'll finally end up together, but that'd be after years of struggling and missteps and mistakes, and that's a whole other story in itself--one, I might add, that I wouldn't want to write. And besides, it'd be more of a sordid drama, the kind that would be the more desperate type of Oscar bait if it were turned into a movie. And that really wouldn't go with the comedy. So I decided to end it where I ended it and leave the rest to your imaginations. :D And for the purpose that it serves the story, I'm quite satisfied with it.

Now for some extra tidbits. I'm a strong proponent of the theory that Luna and Dumbledore are related somehow or other. They just... feel related, if you know what I mean. They're both odd and batty and calm in the most uncomfortable situations, yet they're both smart and quite dangerous at times. They just feel like part of the same tree. Can't you see that, too? Lolness.

Things I cut: I was originally planning for Clifford to get together with Eloise at the end of the story. That's why I made her play the part of Xaxis's wife, who the battle hero seduces in Dumbledore's play. But I just wasn't able to fit it in, and in the end I'm glad it didn't. Partly because it would have felt forced, but mostly because I suddenly thought of another great ship for Clifford just a few weeks ago. See if you can guess who it is!

I also cut a chapter (from my plan, that is; I didn't bother writing it) in which Goyle gets Dumbledore to add a coprophilia scene into the play to spite Malfoy. This was supposed to show that Goyle wasn't going to stand for any more of Malfoy's crap, but the scenario turned out highly unnecessary, not to mention repetitive after the poop-eating in chapter 8. It would have only been more of the same.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them in your review! Speaking of reviews, for all those who've been waiting til the end, now's the time to leave that long review that you've been dying to leave! *wink wink*

I shall give one last big thanks to my beta, Lisa725, who has been indispensible to me throughout the whole thing. Thank you and thank you! And thanks also to those who have read this story and especially to those who have reviewed. Etc. Etc. You get the end. :D

~Islander