Slytherin Study Group #2.5: Ramifications

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, however abused belongs to JKRowling, we intend no profit or fame, we're just running amuck.

~v~Jinx~v~ and rabbit

Chocolate chip cookies: they're not just for breakfast any more!

***

"Ramifications" Chapter 3

***

At half past six in the morning, the survivors of a very long night straggled towards the Great Hall, to attend the Detention Breakfast.

The school handbook called it the Early Breakfast, but everyone knew: it was the Breakfast of the Doomed.

There was only one table around which to gather, and only one choice of entrée.

They getting very tired of porridge. It was wholesome. It was beige. It was... uninspiring. Perhaps most importantly, it was not rashers of bacon and eggs.

The house elves, fanatically eager to please even the Disgraced, always provided an exhaustive cruet of condiments, including honey, butter, cinnamon, sugar, marmalade, applesauce, Tabasco sauce, tartar sauce, fish sauce, piccalilli, horseradish, cactus mince... and other things, which no one had ever dared eat. Even Goyle had not risked the lumpy blue-green stuff, particularly not since Crabbe had sworn he'd seen it twitching.

In lieu of salvation, there were eighteen kinds of jam to smear upon the multitudinous racks of toast, which were arranged like sympathy cards at every place, as if to apologize for the wholesome porridge.

Add to all of this a motley array of offenders, guaranteed to be waspish and disgruntled, and the day inevitably got off to a rousingly dismal start.

Well. At least one could walk the plank with one's dignity intact. Lucius Malfoy straightened his spine, thought of his heritage, and lifted his pointed chin high, determined to maintain strict decorum... even if anyone did have the temerity to inquire why his hair was puce.

He spared a suspicious glare for Crabbe and Goyle, who were trailing woozily after him, allegedly doing their best to stay awake. Crabbe was mostly intact - except for his socks, which resembled mummified Swiss cheese - but Goyle was definitely looking the worse for wear. His hair had been nibbled away in patchwork clumps all along the left side, and he'd had to squeeze himself into Crabbe's second-best uniform because everything in his own wardrobe had been chewed into hair nets by the sheep they'd locked in there; even his boots looked ragged.

Idiots. They probably were to blame for his hair. They certainly hadn't been able to help him change it back, and Sev hadn't shown up yet to help. Not that he was going to entrust any matter involving hair to Severus Snape. But Sev was really good with countercurses, and might have some insight into whatever the twin lumps had done with their careless wandwork. Whatever kind of hex had hit him, it was so stunningly inept that he couldn't comprehend it, let alone counter it.

That could be useful, if either of the fools ever admitted to knowing whatever they'd done during last night's ovine onslaught... which had ended only with the sunrise, perhaps twenty minutes ago.

It had been a long and singularly miserable night.

And the ram hadn't gone quietly.

Malfoy stopped abruptly and signaled his weary lieutenants to attention. "Stand up straight," he ordered, "and no talking." The other two nodded obediently. "If anyone asks, one of Sev's experiments went wrong."

His minions nodded, looking somewhat relieved. Lucius granted them a curt nod of approval, and waited.

They looked at him dully.

Goyle got it first, and hurried to grab one of the iron handles to the huge wooden doors of the Great Hall; Crabbe scurried into place a moment later, and they hauled open the doors so that Lucius could stride briskly forward.

He was greeted immediately with a rousing chorus of song. "When I'm calling ewe-e-e-e-e-e-e--!" trilled nearly the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team, who had laid claim to one end of the table. The idiots were grinning as if they'd just won a finals match, watching eagerly for the Slytherins' response.

"Got dismissed from the Quidditch team and joined the chorus, have you?" Lucius asked coldly, his tone carrying cleanly through the near-empty hall. "I must say, you're failing miserably at this new endeavor, as well.... "

They burst into another merry chorus, louder, hoarser, and brutally off-key. Malfoy, patently unscathed, led his companions to the end of the table farthest from the supposed serenaders, using the time to inspect his fellow detainees.

There was a larger crowd assembled than he'd expected: the annoying Gryffindors, as well as three of their younger Housemates (but no sign of the Marauders, as yet)... several interHouse couples, engaged in the sort of activity which had gotten them detention in the first place... two older Slytherins (unjustly not including Titus Maingit) (and no sign of Snape, either)... a mortified Ravenclaw, hidden behind a thick book... and at the very end of the table, in Malfoy's intended seat, a confused Hufflepuff, who no doubt had wandered in because his alarm clock had gone off early.

Lucius strode over and leaned in a distressingly friendly manner against the table, holding a knife of a smile over the intruding boy. "Give over," he ordered.

The little Hufflepuff blinked up at him. "I'm supposed to be here," he squeaked. "I've got detention." He looked like he was going to cry.

"Oh, have you? Well done," Lucius encouraged, nodding. "Now move!"

The Hufflepuff froze. Lucius sighed; his weariness had got the best of him, and now he'd terrified the boy. How tiresome. Scowling, he snapped his fingers to summon Crabbe and Goyle, who lifted the Hufflepuff right out of his chair and deposited him into a seat beside the Ravenclaw girl, who kept her gaze fixed upon her book.

Malfoy seated himself neatly, setting aside the Hufflepuff's abandoned breakfast. Crabbe and Goyle returned, rather scanting their Intimidating Glares at the rest of the company as they dropped into their places and dove into the fare, Goyle taking possession of the Hufflepuff's orphaned porridge.

Lucius served himself a clump of the porridge that was good enough for me, boy, and if you don't like it, then don't earn detention and sniffed disdainfully. Gruesome stuff. Fortunately, with enough milk and a pint of honey on it, it become nearly edible. Grimly, he pried up a spoonful and began Building Character.

Maybe if he wrote to his father about the horrid dry toast...

Or the appallingly seedy character of the blackberry jam...

Voices came softly from the corridor, and Genevieve Goldberg, Hogwarts's other resident Potions Swot, entered the hall; the Sixth-Year Prefect had striped her black hair with brilliantly sparkling gold, in celebration of Hufflepuff's thus-far excellent Quidditch season.

Lucius thought she looked like a badger with no fashion sense, but at least she had Snape with her. Goldberg had her arm snugly round Snape's shoulders, clearly steering him to his place at the table. "... really interesting results, yes," she enthused quietly, smiling down at her companion. "I wouldn't have thought to add snarkskin instead of boojam, but you were right, it balanced it right out during the seventeenth test, and it turned a perfect shade of lavender!"

"Dandelions," said Snape, staring at nothing in particular as the Prefect settled him into his chair.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Goldberg saluted Snape's roommates with cool politeness. "I thought I'd better escort him from the Student Potions Lab... he's had three tumblers full of Up All Night potion, by my count, which seriously exceeds his height and weight requirements, and he's acting a bit... odd," she admitted.

Crabbe and Goyle groaned. Malfoy rolled his eyes.

Goldberg leaned over so that her face filled Snape's field of vision. "All right, Sev?" she asked encouragingly.

Snape smiled at her. "Hi, Jenny!"

"Hi, Sev," she replied amiably. "Listen," she went on, clearly and slowly, "you've got detention, remember?"

"I've got detention at seven," he announced, sounding like a trained budgie.

Come to think of it, the resemblance was striking, beak and all.

"Yes, seven this morning. Here, Sev, eat something, it'll do you a world of good." She set some porridge before him, placing the spoon into Snape's hand. He looked at both with a faint glimmer of understanding, followed by a thoughtful frown. "There you go, Sev," Goldberg encouraged, drawing back. "All right, now. Good luck. And thanks for your help! That really worked!" She offered him a cheery, supportive smile. "I've got to get back to that Bracing Cold Brew before it thaws! Bye, Sev!"

"Hi, Jenny!" Snape said brightly.

Malfoy sank his head into his hands, all the better to glare through his fingers at his supposed intellectual support. "All right there, Sev?" he asked bitterly.

No answer.

"All right there, Sev?" Malfoy repeated, ramming an elbow into Snape's ribs.

Snape looked vaguely down, then blinked at him, then smiled. "Hi, Jenny!"

Malfoy glared at him. "Are you in?"

"In?"

"Are you there?"

"What?"

"You're out," sighed Lucius. "I'll call again."

"Not again," moaned Crabbe, scooping up wobbling heaps of porridge.

"He was like this last week, as well," groaned Goyle. "Wish he'd get that stuff right.. "

"I'm not sure there is a way to get it right," Lucius snapped, buttering his toast 'til it tore. "Up All Night Potion is probably just a myth, something they talk about in class but no one can really make... probably it's a ploy to cause headcases like him to obsess over something harmless, so he can't be mixing up Balefire or Rotstone or the Draught of Living Death...."

"...but the liquorice acts a stabilizing element, you see," muttered Snape, stirring his porridge widdershins with careful, steady movements. "Horsehair, maybe.... " He added cinnamon to the gruel, delicately tapping the container to sift its contents into the bowl.

"I thought Goldberg knew how to brew it, though," offered Crabbe. "I think it is possible."

"Anything's possible," Goyle allowed, "given that Sev's actually got a girl to talk to him."

"Arm round his shoulders, and all."

"Maybe there is something to this distracted aspect," muttered Malfoy.

"I just don't get it," grumbled Goyle, through a mouthful of toast. "I mean, look at him, he's pathetic."

"Oh, yes," muttered Malfoy. "Drinks whatever falls into his cauldron, just to see what it does... then wanders around looking bewildered and woebegone, with a nebulous air of inscrutable misery... "

"And girls like that sort of thing?" queried Crabbe.

"Guess so," mused Goyle, trying to look woebegone. "She's the third one who's walked him home this month."

Crabbe attempted to look woebegone.

"Slug spit," said Snape, and attempted to pour his toast into his porridge.

The others looked at him. Snape raised the toast and peered into it, frowning, then lowered it again and began tapping it to improve the flow. He seemed to think this was working.

Lucius sighed and snatched the toast away, flinging it down the table and demolishing the castle of toast that some of the younger detainees had started to build.

"Here they come!" One of the Gryffindor beaters hurried into the hall, looking delighted as he joined his fellows. "One! Two! One, two three, four!" he cued.

"When I'm calling eweeeeeee-e-e-e-e-e-e!" the team bellowed, even more off-key than before as the Marauders stopped, appalled, in the doorway.

"Eighty-three choruses," sighed Pettigrew, in put-upon tones.

"Eighty-four," corrected Lupin. "You missed one when you fainted."

"Oh... too bad it was only one." Pettigrew looked disgusted.

Having failed to get a better reaction, the team tried again, "When I'm calling eweeeeee-ee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!!!"

"Don't call us," said Potter flatly. "We've been called. We're here."

It gave Malfoy a certain pleasure to note that even the daring and ever-capable James Potter sounded and looked exhausted. In fact, all told, the Marauders looked worse off than Lucius and his lieutenants.

Malfoy smiled.

The four Gryffindors trudged to the table, delightfully lacking their usual rambunctiousness. Lupin was best off, other than a pattern of hoofprints deeply embossed into the wool of his cloak. Black and Potter looked they'd been caught in a stampede. Again. In a closed room. Pettigrew was limping like he was in the Christmas pantomime, and one of his sleeves had been partially consumed. In spite of an obviously recent scrubbing, all four Marauders had a distinct air of the paddock about them when they passed by.

"Interesting new cologne, Potter," Lucius purred snidely.

"Shut up." Potter led his gang as far down the table as they could get from their Slytherin nemeses.

"Who did your hair, Malfoy?" inquired Lupin, grinning.

"Maybe he tried Snape's shampoo," said Pettigrew.

"No," Potter said. "That would be Goyle. Nice new look, Gavin."

"Thanks," said Goyle in surprise, reaching up to feel his hair and looking alarmed as he discovered the bald bits.

The Marauders slumped into their seats. Atalanta Finch, the perkiest of the Gryffindor chasers, dropped bowls of porridge in front of them and asked loudly, "So, Black, we're dying to know -- is it true that you dumped a whole bucket of sheep shit on top of McGonagall's head?"

Black glared at her.

"Oh, well done!" lauded Malfoy, saluting him above the various howls and hoots of laughter.

"How was I to know she was prowling beneath the window?" Black demanded hotly as if he'd said it before, several times.

Even the other Marauders were grinning into their porridge. "You couldn't have made a better shot if you'd tried, " sniggered Potter, and collapsed into insomniacal giggles with Lupin and Pettigrew.

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle raised their glasses in a toast. "Huzzah!" Snape looked up in vague alarm and tried to adjust the volume on the toast rack.

"Wasn't she angry, though!" trilled Fiona Wood, grinning. "I thought she was going to turn you all into soap!"

"And start scrubbing the walls with you!" added Martin Weasley. "Shame she didn't, it would have saved us the trouble!"

"You wouldn't have had to trouble yourselves, if you hadn't turned all our beds into sheep," pointed out Potter.

"And our wardrobes," said Lupin.

"And trunks," added Black.

"I still say it wouldn't have been that bad if Remus hadn't frightened them," muttered Pettigrew.

"It wasn't intentional," snapped Lupin.

"Hoofprints healing up all right, Pete?" asked Black.

"No." Pettigrew sulked.

Black smirked, and directed an interested gaze down the table. "So, Malfoy, how was your evening?" he asked brightly.

"Nothing special." Lucius poured himself more juice. Snape took it and poured it into his overflowing porridge bowl.

"Really," said Potter. "Just stayed in, did each other's hair.... "

"... tried on each other's clothes," added Black. "That's Crabbe's uniform you're wearing, Goyle. I recognize the teeth marks from the paddock."

"Sounds very cozy," Pettigrew said. "Nice little pyjama party."

Crabbe shot a worried look at Malfoy. "How does he know about the pyjamas?" he asked under his breath. "He can't have gotten into Slytherin."

"It occurs to me that..." Snape announced loudly.

They waited.

After a minute, they went back to their breakfasts.

The toast racks began to disappear as the house elves started to clear the tables. Goyle grabbed the nearest serving bowl and dished himself another lump, then groaned with dismay as the milk pitcher disappeared.

Lucius seized the serving bowl from Goyle, commandeered Snape's hand and dug his spoon into the glue. "Try it," he directed, aiming the spoon up towards Snape's face. "See if it's ready."

"There's no milk in that!" Goyle exclaimed worriedly. The cruet vanished.

"Fiddlehead fronds," Snape said thickly, trying to chew.

Lucius pantomimed adding another ingredient to the mix. "This should do it," he said enthusiastically. "Try now."

"It's true," murmured Crabbe. "He can digest anything."

"He hasn't succeeded, yet..." Goyle returned dubiously.

"Shouldn' be this crunchy," Snape muttered, jaws snapping as he gnawed the goo.

"Almost a sentence, very good, Sev," encouraged Malfoy. "Come on, third time's the charm -- "

Snape looked puzzled as he desperately masticated the mouthful. When he swallowed it looked like it hurt.

"Beeswax," he coughed, tears gleaming in his eyes.

"Just the thing," Malfoy agreed. "How are you, Sev?"

"I've got detention at seven."

"Yes! Very good! And it's just seven now, aren't you lucky?!" Lucius sat back with relief; he wouldn't have to rely on Crabbe and Goyle as his only support during this incarceration, and by noon Snape might be nearly coherent.

From somewhere high above, the Great Hall's clock began clanging out their final moments of liberty.

The interHouse couples began to untangle themselves, and realize that they'd missed breakfast.

Uniforms were adjusted, hair shoved into place, and Good Student expressions put on just in time as the professors overseeing today's detentions filed in executioners' silence onto the stage and formed a line like a wall of granite facing the Doomed.

The last chime died away, echoing faintly. It was like watching the last butterfly of summer flit away into eternity.

"Goldfish gills and coffee grounds!" Snape exclaimed delightedly.

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle clapped their hands over his mouth.

It was going to be a very long day.