What A Difference A Day Can Make

The people in question - so much is for sure - had never heard of those weather influences anyway. For them it was just a rainy, dark night like any others, when a man burst through the doors to the great hall screaming loudly: "Gaaaaaah!" and fainted.

Now this wasn't unusual either, since the twins had taken over from Madame Hooch as Hogwarts' part-time flying instructors and had become full-time pranksters. Not even the most insistent (every day at three o'clock) complaints by Professor Snape could move the Headmaster to even consider firing them. "We all need a little bit of cheering up in those dark times, Severus." And so Slytherin's common room continued to have dungbomb explosions thrice a week.

People bursting through the doors of the great hall had become something of a daily occurrence, the last time everyone had actually looked up from their plates when it happened, had been the infamous "Ron Weasley and the Spiders of Doom" incident.

So when the man burst through the doors screaming "Gaaaaah!" and fainted exactly three Hufflepuff first years looked up.

One of the Hufflepuff first years identified the man as Argus Filch - Hogwarts' very own caretaker and loudly screeched "It's Filch!" That one finally made everyone look up, well except for the Nott, Crabbe and Goyle who were too engaged in a food fight.

***

If there was something she couldn't stand then it was being woken up too early. And five o'clock in the morning was definitely too early for her.

But as she turned to the boy who had woken her up, she understood that complaining about it wouldn't make much of an impression at all.

"What do you want here?"

"What, Granger? No screams of delight seeing me near your bed? No invitation into your virginal sheets? I am so disappointed."

"Shut up. It's too early for your mindless drivel."

He just smirked. And said nothing for a change. He stared in her eyes instead. Tried to stare her down, the bastard. But she wouldn't let him. She just stared back. Two minutes later she got tired of the game.

"So what do you want?"

He sat down on her bed. "Well, you see I have a problem. And as you are one of the more intelligent students in this school I think you might be able to help me with that."

"Why should I bother helping you with one of your problems?"

"Because if you don't help me the whole school will soon have a problem."

"What did you forget your handy little charms and Blaise is going to have your love child?" That was spoken with all the contempt the girl could muster at five o'clock in the morning. (Which is quite a lot.) See there was a backstory behind the two people having this conversation. Once a long time ago (A time she referred to "When I was young and naive.") they had been an item. A secret item, but an item nonetheless. They had met in the most impossible places, hiding their snogging and hand holding and their lovey-dovey talks. Until one day he grew tired of it and moved on and she grew bitter and held a grudge.

"You could help with that?" The blond boy was surprised. There was obviously more to Granger, as he liked to refer her now that they were over and done with (and it was so much better that way, he assured himself), than met the eye. But there were more important things at hand. Like the apocalypse or worse what he was dealing with right now. "But no. Blaise is not going to have my love child." And couldn't help himself to add: "We have been too careful for that."

Hit them were it really hurts, that was what his father had been always saying. And he had been right, Hermione suddenly looked like she was in pain. The score: Malfoy - 1, Granger - 0 and it was still early.

"As interesting as it is to hear about your exploits with... Blaise, "she stretched the word like it was disgusting, slimy insect waiting to be squashed... which was exactly how she felt about Blaise. "I want you to leave. Now."

He didn't moved. "This is more important than our little grudge, Granger."

She snorted.

He was un-fazed. "Do you remember how Filch fainted yesterday?" She nodded and suddenly looked genuinely interested in what he had to say. "See I know why and now I need your help..."

***

Hannah Abbot, Mandy Brocklehurst and Justin Finch-Fletchley referred to themselves as "the other threesome". The only the had in common with "the not-other threesome" was that their friendship was platonic. Hannah and Mandy didn't swing that way while Justin did. Everyone thought that this was rather unfortunate as "the other threesome" tended to waste their time on only one thing - finding a suitable boyfriend.

"Ernie MacMillan or Dean Thomas?"

"Ernie."

"Ernie."

"Seamus or Roger?"

Now this question of Justin's was a little bit unfair as "the other threesome" shared Seamus. It had started out on a joke to shut the three up and had ended up as a rather "unique" arrangement. Mandy had him on Monday and Thursday, Hannah on Tuesday and Friday, Justin on Wednesday and Saturday and Sunday was his day off. Both Hannah's and Mandy's expression became slightly dazed: "Seamus, the things he can do with his tongue...", "The things he can do with his hands..."

"And his mouth..." Justin's eyes were suddenly unfocused.

Hannah was the first one who came back to reality. "Anyway..." When the other two heard her Manchester drawl, they suddenly started moving, avoiding each other gazes, squirming in their seats and in Justin's case - pulling at his robe for reasons that had a lot to do with previously un-mentioned body parts.

"Ron or Harry?" asked the witch from Manchester.

"The Boy-Who-Lived or the Boy-who-doesn't-own-a-sickle? What a tough choice!" Justin liked money. It was so shiny and you could buy so many nice things with it. Like hair care products. Hair was important for Justin. He blamed it on his mother for exposing him early to Gilderoy Lockhart's works.

"Don't be so superficial." Mandy always wanted to be smart and idealistic, sadly her personality hadn't really agreed with that.

"Hah! And now you tell me that you wouldn't prefer Potter over Weasley." Justin knew that he would, although he had the odd fantasy about those hands...

Mandy's personality won over her ambitions. "But only because... because... well, who cares? My turn - Crabbe or Goyle?"

"Mandy, you are a sick and twisted individual." Justin's sounded slightly awed.

Mandy patted herself on her mental back. Now asking the question felt like a bad job well done - in other words wonderful. "I love you too, Justin. Now answer. Crabbe or Goyle? And don't say neither."

"Goyle." What? Justin had more than one odd fantasy.

He wasn't the only one when the Manchester drawl made itself heard once again. "Same here, but I would probably voluntarily subject myself to the Cruciatus curse before I let that happen, so it doesn't really count. So - Parvati or Padma?"

"Hannah! Et tu, Brute? Sister! I knew it. So how long has this been going on?" Justin's fake cheer sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

"Since we went out of boys to discuss."

"Parvati." Mandy spoke up.

"What?"

"Why?"

"She is not as prissy as Padma. If I would go for girls. I'd rather go for her than her sister." Sometimes even a Ravenclaw girl can successfully act on ambitions.

Justin lost no time agreeing with the one who actually thought about the question. "Makes sense. Okay, Parvati."

***

Not quite far away two boys had a similar discussion.

"Wasps or Magpies?"

"Magpies."

"Puddlemere or Canons?"

"Oh come on Harry. You know that there is no way I am not choosing the Canons."

"I thought it was worth..." The black-haired boy broke off and stared. And gaped. There walking across the corridor was his other best friend talking with the bane of his existence. (After Who-He-Shall-Not-Be-Named-but-listened-to-Lord-Voldemort-anyway and his family.)

"Ron, are you seeing what I am seeing?"

The boy nodded while trying desperately to get the control over his vocal cords back. "You mean Hermione talking to Malfoy? Harry, could it be that we both are still asleep and are just stuck in a nightmare."

"Hit me. Maybe I will wake up."

Ron didn't need to be told twice. After he pinched his own arm rather painfully, he hit Harry hard on the back.

"I still see them. Maybe those fumes in Potions..."

"Harry, I think we have to face the reality. She is talking to Malfoy." Both thought about this disturbing event for exactly two and a half seconds before they both came to the same conclusion.

"The Imperius." They looked at each other.

"I'll kill him."

***

Meanwhile in Slytherin dorms the Weasley twins busy. (Not like that!) But this latest plot to drive Snape up the wall or into St. Mungo's didn't went all that well.

"We should have gotten Harry to help us."

"And get him expelled? Glorious idea. Just because... bloody hell! One of those stupid things just tried to bite me. Okay, I am getting Harry right now."

George couldn't suppress a grin over his twin's newly changed attitude. "Well, a Parselmouth would have been rather handy here." With flourish he placed a rather large snake in Goyle's bed. "Maybe he could have told one of them to bite Malfoy where it really hurt."

Fred held up a black adder. "Do you think this one could do the job without being told?" He didn't wait for an answer and just hid it under Malfoy's pillow.

"Do you know that he shagged Hermione?" (Just for the record he didn't.)

"What?"

"I saw both of them coming out of a broom closet at two o'clock in the morning once."

"What?"

"But that was before he snogged that Zabini girl at every available opportunity and Hermione started to give him the 'Glare of Slow and Painful Death'."

Fred didn't take these news lightly for reasons that are entirely his own and have nothing to with the secret crushes he had when he was younger... like in a few months younger or days if you were a little bit obsessive about details. Nothing at all. "He shagged her and then broke her heart? That bastard! That rat-faced son of a bitch! That evil little turd. That piece of shite that isn't worth..." Fred stopped himself, picked up the black adder he just hid and said with an unholy smile: "Let's find Harry."

***

Snape graded an impromptu test he had given the Third Years just this morning, when he heard a rather loud scream. He ignored it.

"Elizabeth Adams, Gryffindor... Mandrakes, lacewings, asphodel... wrong... god-awful, good-for-nothing Gryffindor, wasting my time, no points for Gryffindor..."

***

Maybe the shock of seeing Draco and Hermione together had been too much trauma for one day, because by the time Harry and Ron and regained full control of their limbs, the couple had been out of sight and was nowhere to be found. Which gave Harry and Ron enough time to invent new and painful ways to kill Draco Malfoy. "... and then we run over him with a car."

"But not before we tear out his fingernails."

"And we will dance on his grave."

"Disco."

The Muggle-culture illiterate Ron couldn't help but ask: "Disk-what?"

"Silly Muggle dance that was all the rage in the Seventies." Harry stood up and gave Ron his best John Travolta impression.

"I am not dancing that."

"But it would be on Malfoy's grave!"

"I don't care. I am not dancing like an escapee from St. Mungo's. Even if it is Malfoy's grave."

Harry gave up on the Disco dancing and went on the more interesting topic at hand. "We will shave all of his hair off and his eyebrows and then we will..." Before he could continue he was greeted with yet another disturbing sight. The Weasley twins were walking towards the two of them, and the one with the grim and murderous expression on his face was carrying a fat, black snake.

"I can talk to snakes, I can talk to snakes, I can talk to snakes." he chanted softly to himself.

"Harry!"

"Forget the talking part, I am gone." he thought.

"We need your help."

Harry started to breathe again, so did Ron.

Fred held the snake under Harry's nose, Harry backed away. "Tell it that it has to bite Malfoy where it really hurts." George gestured where "where" exactly was.

"Malfoy?" Ron and Harry replied in stereo sound. "What? Why? Do you know about Hermione?"

"We know about Hermione alright. Why do think we are asking you?"

Ron asked the obvious: "Is the snake poisonous?"

"Are you worried about Malfoy?" Fred bit back. From all the people he thought Ron would the last who'd be worried about Malfoy. Harry maybe, but that was Harry for you.

"No, I just wanted to be sure that it is poisonous."

"Now you are scaring me, little brother."

The infamous temper immediately surfaced. "He put Hermione under the Imperius and I am scaring you?"

Now it was the twins' turn to be surprised "The Imperius?"

"But I thought he just had been shagging Hermione..."

"Shagging?" Ron paled. Harry looked like he was going to be violently sick.

"And then leaving her all heart-broken..." Fred broke off. A few moments of silence lapsed. In those few moments Draco Malfoy's crimes and faults, imaginary and real, were blown up to gigantic proportions by the group.

Harry was the first one who spoke. "Give me that snake. It will be our back-up plan in case we can't get Malfoy into Azkaban."

***

"Snape or Flitwick?"

"Justin!"

"What?"

"Are you trying to make me vomit all over my new robes?"

"Hey, it's fair question. Imagine you are the last three people on earth and you have to save mankind..."

"I don't care about mankind, I would rather kill myself than... what are Draco Malfoy and Hermione doing in the Charms classroom?"

Justin sneaked a look at the two of them. "Trying out a new charm by sticking their tongues down each other's throats?"

"What? Where?" Mandy had caught up with the other two thirds of the "Other Threesome" and promptly stared at the busy couple. "Blaise won't like that." She said thirty seconds later, when she had moved back to Justin and Hannah, out of the hearing range of "Hogwarts Newest Gossip" as she immediately termed the couple. (Mandy was also the brain behind the name "The Other Threesome".)

"Harry and Ron won't like that." Hannah helpfully added.

"Snape won't like it either." Justin pretended to think for a second and then continued with glee: "Malfoy's father, mother, housemates, friends won't like it. The Gryffindors won't like it. The girls won't like it. The boys won't like. None of the teachers will like it. Actually nobody will like it."

"They are doomed." concluded Mandy rather happily. "Like Romeo and Juliet. That's so romantic."

***

"Sherbet lemons."

"Cotton Candy."

"Pepper Imps."

"Fudge."

"Plum pudding." Harry was getting desperate.

"Vanilla ice-cream." So did Fred.

The gargoyle in front of Dumbledore's office didn't moved.

"Gummibears. I am the only one who gets hungry here?" Ron just got hungry.

"No. Bubblegum."

"Okay then. Fizzing Whizbees."

***

Maybe they wouldn't have guessed their way through every sweet that ever touched their tongues, if they had known that Dumbledore was in Snape's office.

"Severus, you shouldn't take all this so seriously."

"They put snakes into my students beds! Poisonous snakes!" Had Severus Snape been the type to foam at his mouth he would have done so in this moments. "They have to go. This is no longer a harmless prank. They attempted murder on my students and put Filch into the hospital wing! They are a danger for everyone!"

"I am sure they will have a good explanation for all this. Severus, lighten up."

***

An ear-splitting scream could be heard through the whole school.

***

In front of Dumbledore's office four people looked at each other, said "Snape" or in Harry's case "Dumbledore" and then ran into the direction of Snape's office.

***

Mandy, Justin and Hannah stopped their re-enactment of "Hogwarts' s Newest Gossip" that they had held up in front of half of the Hufflepuff house and a third of the Ravenclaws for a moment and then followed their audience to Snape's office.

***

In the not so empty Charms classroom two people didn't even heard the scream. (The score so far: Malfoy - 34, Granger - 38.)

Five minutes later the whole school made their way to said Charms classroom.

***

There aren't many things she got embarrassed by, but getting caught how she snogging her evil and secret ex-boyfriend by the whole school tended to be one of them. Another one was not being under the Imperius while doing so. And no she never did shag Draco Malfoy thank you very much for asking in front of the whole school!

Another fifteen minutes later the twins were no longer part-time flying instructors, but still full-time prankster (Which turned out to be a much more profitable business.), Draco Malfoy wasn't on his way to Azkaban, but it would have been preferable to the treatment his house, his family, his new ex-girlfriend Blaise would give him for the next months and the "original threesome" was no longer on speaking terms.