A Sackful of Holiday Horsefeathers

The ninth installment of

A Sackful of Holiday Horsefeathers

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We now interrupt this programming with a visit to Malfoy Manor. Why? Because we can. We are the ubiquitous, omniscient forces at work behind this story. And since we are about to enter the home of a very important villain, the editors apologize ahead of time for any sadistic, capitalistic, or derogatory situation which may offend the reader.

Narcissa Malfoy was in the study, attending to her correspondence. Her husband Lucius entered the room and lightly kissed the top of her head.

"Hello, darling," crooned Narcissa.

"Hello, my dear," said Lucius. "What are you writing?"

"A letter to Draco. I want him to come home," said Narcissa. "He must be so lonely over there, with none of his Slytherin friends. I think I'll tempt him with a batch of anise flavored biscuits, with glazing on the top."

"That sounds delicious. I want some," said Lucius. His wife was an excellent baker. She had a sweet tooth and enjoyed baking rich, sugary desserts--leaving all the regular cooking to the house-elves.

"Perhaps," murmured Narcissa, signing her name with a flourish.

"We're having a Death Eater meeting in the drawing room this evening," said Lucius. "It would've pleased me to have Draco with us."

"He always listens in. What difference does one meeting make?"

"We're currently planning our next recruitment strategy," said Lucius, trying to stress the importance of this measure.

Narcissa waved a hand. "You silly men, with your silly secret clubs. The problem with recruitment is that you keep everything male-dominated. I know lots of girls who would love to become Death Eaters, but you won't allow them to."

"Like who?"

"Like me," said Narcissa.

Lucius told her for the umpteenth time, "Narcissa, I know you're very ambitious. But I don't think women should be allowed to become Death Eaters anymore. Just look at what happened to poor Mrs. Lestrange. Do you want to end up like her? You help out in your own way, and you're much safer because of it."

Narcissa sighed. "I know. But what about unmarried women? You would have a larger pool of people to choose from if you allowed them to apply; you'd get the cream of the crop."

"Some women can't be trusted. You know how they like to gossip," said Lucius.

"You silly men," repeated Narcissa. "I bet you all just sit around and drink beer and complain about nonsense, and watch Quidditch matches on the Spell-Binder."

Lucius gave a start. Was she spying on them?

Narcissa continued, "I'm going to start a club, too. It's going to be an all-female club."

"Is that so?" said her husband.

Narcissa smiled. She said perkily, "Yes. I'll think of an original name for it--none of this 'eating dead stuff' business. We could be the Singing Sirens. Or the Association of Secular Sisters."

"Um, darling? Don't yell at me, but that spells 'ass,'" Lucius informed her.

"Oh," Narcissa tossed her head, thinking up a new name. "Just add another 'S' to the beginning and make it SASS. The Secret Association of Secular Sisters. It has a nice ring to it," she said proudly.

"It has a lot of alliteration; I'll say that for it," said Lucius.

"I'm glad you like it." She grinned. "When I finally have my SASS club, we're going to do some major evil, you mark my words. Evil with a capital E."

Narcissa stood up and pushed her chair in. Her letter to Draco was finished, and she was about to mail it. Entwining her fingers with her husband's, Narcissa locked eyes with Lucius and played the part of the innocent lamb. She was quite good at this role by now, and Lucius had no objections. She then stood on the tips of her toes and gave him a pleasant kiss on the lips.

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Snape had trouble falling asleep that night. He punched his pillow some more to fluff it up. He listened for sounds of the Runespoor rustling through the leaves, but all was silent, so he assumed that she was sleeping.

He'd tried reading one of his well-worn mystery novels, but it had failed to make him sleepy. The copy of What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw was now lying on the dusty floor, and there was a blank space in his bookcase where the Agatha Christies were kept. The remaining novels seemed to be pining away for the missing volume that Snape had tossed so carelessly onto the ground. But maybe that was just in his imagination, for books didn't see or feel. They simply existed--for his literary pleasure.

Hmmm. He knew that he should get some sleep when crazy thoughts such as these kept entertaining him.

'Damn it,' he thought. He began talking to himself. "Stupid werewolf has to come back here and take away my woman. Okay, so she was never my woman. But she was single! Damn that Lupin!"

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Remus Lupin awoke with a start. Minerva's arm was draped across his chest, and they were lying in bed. It was warm in her chambers, but not too warm. What had caused his sleep to be so rudely interrupted? Was it a dream? Remus tried to remember. No, he had no idea what he'd been dreaming just moments before, but he was sure it hadn't been anything nightmarish.

Oh, well. Minerva's low, gentle snoring was reassuring to him, and he let his body relax once more.

He was glad that Minerva didn't think of him as an outsider. She seemed to forget that he was a werewolf. Most people in the wizarding world avoided him once they realized the truth. They were unsympathetic, afraid, and ignorant. He didn't fully understand this as a young boy. When he was ten, he only knew that he was being singled out.

Remus had feared that he would never be able to attend Hogwarts. But the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, was far more compassionate and open-minded than his peers. He let Remus attend the school, and the young man has been grateful to Dumbledore to this day, for it was at Hogwarts that he finally made many good friends. His closest companions were Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and James Potter--Harry's father.

Those seven years were the best years of Remus's life. However, they were not to last. His life and the lives of his friends came crashing down when Lord Voldemort rose to power. In the Dark Lord's haste to dominate the world, he slayed hundreds of people who stood in his way.

Among the dead were James Potter and his wife Lily. Then, it appeared that Sirius Black had betrayed them to Lord Voldemort and murdered Peter.

And in the blink of an eye, Lupin's friends were gone. They had been destroyed by someone they thought they could trust--someone who had been a spy right under their noses.

Years later, after the Dark Lord lost his power and went into hiding, Dumbledore was in need of a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He asked Lupin, who gladly took the job.

You see, in the time period following Lupin's schooldays, a treatment had been invented for werewolves. It allowed the patient to keep his rational mind while his body transformed. It was because of this new treatment that Lupin could teach at Hogwarts without being a threat to the students or staff. (As a boy, he had to spend the three nights of the full moon in a shack somewhere off the grounds of Hogwarts.) Severus Snape would brew up this Wolfsbane Potion for Lupin to drink. He only did so because Dumbledore ordered him. Snape had disliked Lupin and his friends ever since they went to school together, and he secretly hoped that one of the students would discover Lupin's identity as a werewolf and reveal him for what he was.

'But I didn't need Snape to look bad, did I?' Remus thought wearily. 'I just had to forget my Wolfsbane potion that morning, didn't I?'

He could still be teaching at Hogwarts today, but he didn't want another accident like the one he had a year and a half ago. Nobody was hurt; luckily, Sirius was there to restrain him.

Everything was crazy about that night, though. Looking back on it, Remus wasn't very surprised that nothing went as planned. After all, history was picked up and turned inside out that night. Remus had just discovered that Sirius was innocent while prisoner in Azkaban for twelve years. Meanwhile, Peter--the real traitor--was living a peaceful life as a family pet. He was Ron's rat, for crying out loud. And all this time, he was letting somebody else pay for his crimes.

Remus turned over in bed, careful not to wake Minerva. She made a quiet moaning sound, and he stroked her hand. Perhaps she was sensing his unsettled mind. He kept stroking her hand, for he felt that would help him calm down.

Remus Lupin was tired of everything. He was especially tired of the way witches and wizards treated him. Yeah, like it was his fault he got bitten by a werewolf when he was six years old. Let's all blame the victim. Let's all get together and throw stones from glass houses.

Lupin gave up trying to find a life in the magical world after he resigned from Hogwarts. It was too hard to blend in. He soon discovered that Muggles didn't care if he missed a couple days of work a month. Oh, sure, they were non-too-pleased about it, but at least they didn't suspect him of being a werewolf.

But, perhaps he could work here at Hogwarts again... Lupin's heart leapt at the prospect. If only--if only he could be sure of himself... He gave a sigh. He was happy with his current job, but Defense Against the Dark Arts was his real passion in life. And he wanted to be with Minerva. Not just on the weekends, but everyday. She was one of those people who never failed to surprise him. And she was such a good woman--a caring teacher, a loyal friend, and a passionate lover.

'I wonder what will happen,' he thought. He had developed a certain kind of optimism over the years. He bore whatever life gave him. He toughed it out because he knew from experience that good things always follow the bad, and he didn't want to miss any of those good things.

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INTERMISSON

While the reader takes a break to get a bite to eat and use the lavatory, an orchestra begins playing, and we are transported to a radiant, tropical island. A male voice begins singing the lyrics from an old musical:

"Carefully Taught"

"You've got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You've got to be taught

From year to year,

It's got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You've got to be carefully taught.

"You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

"You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!"

---South Pacific, Rodgers and Hammerstein

The music fades away, and the setting sun slips beneath the waves--far out on the horizon. As the clouds take on a warm reddish hue, we slowly return to our senses and realize that nobody bursts out into random song in real life, but it sure is fun in musicals. The reader finds his place in the manuscript and continues to read.

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The next morning was quite beautiful. It was sunny, and the clouds were gone, and there was a freshness in the air that no one had felt in a long time.

Hermione was standing in the girls' bathroom pondering her strange relationship with Draco Malfoy.

'But maybe it could work--just maybe... Oh, no, it wouldn't work at all. But what if it could?' thought Hermione as she looked in the mirror, trying to arrange her fluffy hair into an elegant frame for her face.

If only love were like Arithmancy, with a definite set of formulas and a definite answer. And a foolproof process for arriving at that answer. Yes. If only love could be more structured, and one could derive the correct set of actions from the square root of A and the logarithm of B!

'But that would take all the fun out of it,' thought the girl. 'If only I could be less structured, and more like Ron and Harry! They don't seem to think about things too much. Just go with the flow of things--like a speck of foam upon the ocean. Maybe it could work...'

Hermione opened her toiletry bag and brought out her toothbrush and toothpaste. She was in the habit of brushing her teeth at least twice a day; her smile was one of her most charming attributes.

After rinsing out her mouth, Hermione began daydreaming about a future encounter with Draco, acting it out with subtle body language in front of the mirror.

"Hello, Draco," she said in her sultriest voice, with an instinctive lift of her eyebrow. 'Oh, wow! That looks good!' she thought.

"So, did you sleep well last night?" she asked her Imaginary Draco.

"How could I, with you keeping me up all night long, my little fireball?" she said in a deeper voice, glaring provocatively at her reflection. Imaginary conversations were always fun!

"Oh, you're too much," she chastised Imaginary Draco. "I wouldn't be a little fireball if it weren't for you, and your perfect body, and your strong neck muscles."

Hermione paused a moment, and then she reached out a hand to stroke the curvature of the sink, pretending it was Draco's waist.

Imaginary Draco said, "Go on."

Hermione smiled and tilted her head. "Why should I?" she asked.

"Because I told you to," said Imaginary Draco.

Hermione was intrigued. "So now you're playing the dominant one?"

"I am the dominant one."

"Oh." Hermione giggled softly. "A girl could get used to this."

Just then, the door to the bathroom opened, and in came Ginny.

"Oh, hi--Ginny!" exclaimed a startled Hermione. Oh, dear. Ginny must think she's weird now, smiling and talking to herself in front of a mirror.

"Good morning, Mionny," said Ginny, smiling warily.

'She thinks I'm weird now!' thought Hermione. 'She must think I talk to myself whenever I'm alone!'

"It's such a beautiful day," said Hermione brightly, trying to sound as perky as could be. "I was just brushing my teeth."

Ginny said, "Oh," and headed straight for a stall. Hermione gathered her belongings and quickly made her exit.

She was now standing in the middle of the girls' dormitory. She tossed her grooming supplies onto the bed, rushed over to her wardrobe, and threw the doors open. Her critical eyes darted back and forth, examining the selection of clothes before her. What to wear, what to wear? It mattered more today than ever, since she now wanted to impress Draco. She must look fetching, but not as if she were trying to look fetching. She must be natural. But not as if she were trying to be natural. She must simply be.

After much consideration, Hermione picked out an outfit and got dressed. She wondered where Ginny was, and then she heard the sound of running water and assumed her friend was taking a shower.

Hermione had a few minutes to spare before joining Harry and Ron for breakfast. She took this time to figure out how she would treat the tender subject of Draco Malfoy.

She could tell Ron and Harry her true feelings, of course, and witness their indignation.

Or she could say nothing. Or lie--and tell them her infatuation had been brief, and now she could see clearly again.

She thought the last option would work the best.

She had a brief panic attack just then and wondered, 'Why in the world am I lusting after Draco Malfoy? His father is a bastard, and his mother is a snob, and Draco is the direct result of their unchecked breeding!'

Then she remembered. Draco had apologized for everything he'd ever said or done to her. It had been a heartfelt apology, and Hermione had forgiven him. The simple act of forgiveness was not beyond Hermione. She was a nice girl. She did not carry grudges as some people did--like badges of war. She was above all that.

And the fact that she was lusting after Draco now--why, she deserved to let loose once in a while! She had focused all her energies on academia, helping the unfortunate, and resolving arguments between Ron and Harry. Why, it was time for her desires to be gratified for a change!

And Hermione could think of nothing that could gratify them better than another encounter with Draco Malfoy. There was something deep inside of her that was awakened when he kissed her for the first time. She longed to experience that feeling again--that blessed peace of mind in which everything seemed all right. She must feel that again! She had never felt it with anybody else except for Draco, which was strange. Nevertheless, it had to mean something! Feelings did not arise in one's soul unless they had a purpose!

........................to be continued