Slytherin Study Group #2.5: Ramifications

Jinx, bent double and pinning her own trouser cuffs into place while constructing her Snape-from-the-films costume for Hallowe'en: "That's it! That's how they work! HA! I've done it! I've figured it out!"

rabbit, during a pause in the celebration: "Oh, so you've finally succeeded in getting into Alan Rickman's trousers, then?"

(What, you haven't started making your costume yet? Howeverwillyoufinishintime???)

Ramifications Chapter 7

Seven pairs of eyes turned toward the barn door in the desperate hope that Hagrid would emerge and save them from the worst of Lockhart's good mood.

Momentarily forgotten, Snape shuddered from tawny top (his hair was utterly coated with the dust and flecks of hay that had drifted free as the others washed themselves) to mucky toes (his boots were covered with other barnyard incidentia) and demanded shakily "Did you feel that-?"

He shivered and muttered through clenched teeth "That felt like the passage of two years, two family crises, and two arduous sequels...." He shook his head as if that could clear it, sighed, "Bit like Noah's Ark gone horribly wrong...." His wandering gaze lighted briefly on Sirius Black, "You're well out of it."

"They must have gone round back," the cheerful knell sent adrenaline through the coherent members of the cohort, banishing the last vestiges of their exhaustion as they reckoned up their chances of coping without wands at hand.

Goyle grabbed Snape's collar and shook him, pleading in a thin whine, "Shut up shut up shut up, here comes Lockhart!"

The eight miscreants gathered 'round the washtub braced, like any other creatures anticipating mayhem and mischance.

James Potter proposed, "I say we throw Snape at him and run for it"

"You can't!" Crabbe protested, "He's completely defenseless!"

"Yeah," Black muttered, sounding disappointed. "Be no contest, really."

Pettigrew sighed and shook his head, looking as if he'd dropped his ice cream into the sand.

"Not another word," Malfoy warned his minions, and Crabbe and Goyle nodded hastily. The Slytherins had learned the hard way that loud noises and sudden movements were likely to catch Lockhart's attention and once that happened it was all over but the reconstruction and the Ministry inquiries. Let the Gryffindors take the risks. They were noted for that sort of thing.

Pettigrew whined plaintively, "Why isn't he in Hogsmeade? He should be in Hogsmeade, swanning about in all his fancy clothes- !" He looked rather envious, which was interesting given that Gilderoy Lockhart's going-to-Hogsmeade wardrobe was the inevitable result of a terrific excess of personality loosed from the confines of a school uniform: one could liken it to Oscar Wilde as costumed by Siegfried and Roy.

Most of the girls loved it.

Most of the boys thought he looked like a parade float which had wandered off on its own. Unfortunately, Lackwit Lockhart had proved to be just as attractive to giggling young things in search of an afternoon's exciting diversion.

"He never misses a Hogsmeade weekend!" Pettigrew sounded almost insulted. "They're the only chance we have to get blamed for our own disasters-!"

Black's well-placed elbow silenced him, as a stack of wooden boxes drifted languidly around the corner of the barn.

Lupin moaned faintly "Oh God and us with no wands-"

"And here we find our pertinacious penitents!" pronounced Lockhart, strolling into view. He was swathed in robes of forget-me-not blue and a scintillant smile. "Good afternoon, all! Respite is at hand! We've come bearing some delicious distraction from your detention!"

He had Narcissa Beauregard on his arm.

Lockhart's magniloquence continued, its author oblivious to the fact that his audience wasn't paying any attention to anything but the vitreous silence spreading around Lucius Malfoy, who was staring at his Fiancée with a kind of fascinated horror, as if he'd just realized how deadly poisonous she actually was.

"Let him have her," Black recommended in a fit of male camaraderie.

NO. Lucius shut his jaws with a creak, drew himself to order with the poise of a duellist saluting a challenger, and coolly studied his Sweet Intended.

She smiled at him, her eyes gleaming, showing quite a lot of very white little teeth. She was perfect.

She had arranged her hair in complicated curls, and small sapphires glittered at her ears and throat to compliment her diaphanous robes of--

forget-me-not blue.

Lucius realized with an icy congelation of his innards just how deliberately she'd done this. That's her jade ensemble, bewitched to match his. She'd even added tiny golden bows all along her sleeves, in thorough imitation.

The vexing, detail-attentive, calculating, exquisite little minx-

Someone was tugging insistently at his cape. Snape. Lucius, concentrating on the tableau before him, realized belatedly that he had forgotten to muzzle the deranged idiot and turned to do so only to be asked excitedly, "Is it the ice dancing finals?!"

Lockhart's grip on his levitation spell slipped at the same time as the smile on his face, but he was still safely distant, and Lucius could enjoy the spectacle. As laughter drenched the air, he awarded his tame swot an approving smile and went so far as to sigh fondly, "This is why I let you live."

Sev grinned at him, announcing, "I quite liked the French girl! Pity about the dragon, though-"

Lucius turned back to find Narcissa departing the danger zone with delicate haste, picking her way across the barnyard like a heron intent on a frog.

He composed himself and pretended to study Lockhart's frantic efforts to collect the lunchboxes now whirling through midair in eight different directions.

Really it was funny--

Narcissa came to a halt before him. Lucius deigned to notice.

She studied him coolly for several heartbeats and then said,

"That's... really interesting, what you've done to your hair, Luke"

Oh, damn it.

He'd forgotten his hair had been turned intransigently puce.

And now she knew that. And the wretched Marauders were howling. Crabbe and Goyle were making themselves suspiciously busy with towels and things at the washtub. Even Lockhart was laughing.

Admit nothing. Blame others, who will suffer. Lucius shrugged as if reshouldering some great burden, and explained graciously, "Well, you know, Sev got his hands on some weed or another... there was a sizzle, and a mist, and, well.... "There was no need to explain further.

"Oh," said Narcissa, perfectly neutrally.

Her gaze ran pensively over Snape. "It seems to have improved Sev's hair."

"Anything would," clipped Lucius.

"Mmhmmm... nice highlights... texture's a bit... uneven, somehow.... "Frowning, she reached up and delicately caught ahold of Snape's chin so she could better inspect his blonded mane."Nice bright shine, though...."

Lucius snipped, "It's hay."

"Yes," she agreed, "but with some Transfigurations spellcraft it has definite possibilities...."

Snape blinked at her, jolted to a halt and peeped, "Hi, Lily...."

James Potter choked. .

So did Sirius Black. Which was fine with Lucius. Let Sev be the epicenter of attention for awhile.

"Oh, I say," Lockhart intoned solicitously, bustling towards them with his arms full of the collected lunchboxes. "He's still right out of his mind, isn't he?" With an air of deep concern he peered at Snape.

"Here, hold these a moment, will you please, "Cissa?"

Lucius lost the rest of Lockhart's patronizing drone beneath a kind of oceanic roaring which filled his skull.

'Cissa?!

So now she's letting that - that randy Ravenclaw wretch call her 'Cissa--!

Oh, she would pay. Eventually. He reminded himself that her punishment and abject humiliation would require careful planning. More immediately and illustratively, Lothario Lockhart would reap the rewards of his misguided attempts at social climbing. I shall invite him to Malfoy Manor for the summer. The pretentious Prefect might survive a month, if proper care were taken of him. Leeches first, then poison..... He could get Sev to help with-

Sev.

Oh damn.

Gilderoy Lockhart was holding Sev at wandspoint and muttering to himself as he decided what spell to cast on his helpless victim

Lucius hurried to join the others in a widening circle as they all backed away from imminent disaster. Not even Professor Keele could blame him for abandoning Snape to his fate under these circumstances.

Lockhart declared, "Right! Yes! Exactly!" and made minute adjustments to his aim.

The circle broadened hastily as the perilous Prefect's wand began to glow.

Goyle moaned "I can't look-!"

Snape was studying the invisible bee, high overhead.

"SNAPE! LOOK! WATCH THE LIGHT!" Lockhart exhorted.

"COME TOWARDS THE LIGHT!"

Everyone else knew better.

Lockhart tried again, "LOOK! SHINY! PRETTY! SEE-"

"The number three copper ladle with the ding in!" Snape cried exultantly, snatched the wand from Lockhart's grasp and darted off towards the washtub.

Lockhart stared after him. "But - I say --" he stammered, and had to shout above a tide of general hilarity, "Look, now, wait, you'll do yourself a mischief-"

Snape had the wand clenched in both hands and was stirring aggressively widdershins, muttering to himself as he consulted notes no one else could see.

Lockhart hurried up to him. "Look here, Snape, that's enough--"

Narcissa grabbed Lucius's arm and shrilled into his ear:

"-nterrupting Sev at his cauldron --"

There was a bright white light. Twenty feet might be a safe distance from Lockhart, but never from Snape in a snit. Lucius clutched Narcissa and ran for the barn, Crabbe and Goyle gallumphing right behind, dodging the comet's tail of lunchboxes that drifted higgledy piggledy in the witch's wake.

The Gryffindors passed them at a flat-out sprint and then succumbed to common decency which forced them to hold the barn doors open for their nemeses.

The stack of loose hay which had dominated the barn floor not ten minutes ago had been replaced by a phalanx of haybales piled precisely near the center. Lucius vaulted over the barrier, Narcissa in his arms, and crouched down, leaving the other six boys to their fates. They hurled their weight against the doors to slam and hold them shut. "Think it'll hold-?" Black asked anxiously.

"Duck," Narcissa popped up long enough to cast a Stonewall Spell which petrified the doors an instant before they heard Snape's muffled scream.

Lockhart's shriek was cut short by an ominous and surely fatal

BLVORRUPPP.

"That's it, they're dead," moaned Goyle.

There was a terrible silence.

And then a pattering of liquid to earth.

"That sounded like the giant squid sicking up," Hagrid stated in bemusement, emerging from a door which Lucius had somehow failed to notice next to the tack room. "But he don't usually come out here t'do that.... "He was carrying two large stone crocks. One said "Carrots" and the other had a lurid drawing of a horse in agony and was labelled "Horse Helper". He shut the door firmly behind him, and it faded away into the wall.

Pettigrew moaned, "Oh I hope those aren't for lunch," he said.

Hagrid strode towards the Stonewalled doors. Eight voices implored him, "DONT GO OUT THERE!"

The Groundskeeper halted. "Whyever not?"

A babble of voices surrounded him. "Lockhart - wand - idiot- cauldron - Snape - both dead - more to follow - dangerous -"

Hagrid stared down at his charges, slowly piecing the story together. At last he said in a very low voice, "Oh, dear."

He harrumphed twice, uneasily, before saying, "I'd best go check." He set down the jars, squared his shoulders, and hauled open the stone doors and poked his head out into the sunlight.

Potter groaned anxiously "Hagrid, please, don't-"

Lucius clipped, "He has to check on the welfare of a student in his charge " If the great oaf were horribly wounded, or killed, it would mean unhindered excursions to the Forbidden Forest for the next three and a half years.

Snape's shrill cry split the air. "Wobblystalks and Batwings?! "He sounded outraged. Sounds of a scuffle ensued.

"Oh, dear." Hagrid hurried out of the barn.

Lockhart began screaming in high staccato bursts.

The refugees hastened to the doors and peeked around them.

Hagrid was striding through ankle-deep mud towards two struggling figures, the smaller of which had to be Snape; the sodden swot had the smoking wand clenched in his teeth and Lockhart pinned beneath him; he looked like a terrier finishing off a rat.

Hagrid grabbed his collar and swung him off the puling Prefect. "That'll do," the Groundskeeper rumbled, deftly extracting Lockhart's wand from Snape's jaws.

After a shocked moment Snape drew a huge breath to shriek, "You could have killed us!"

Lucius glanced at Crabbe. "A pertinent comment. Very promising," he murmured.

Crabbe nodded vaguely, and warned in a gruff voice, "Lockhart's on his feet again-"

"You saw him!" cried the bedraggled Ravenclaw, staggering as his heels caught in the muck. "Assaulting a Prefect!" he intoned with horror, sounding impressed by the peril he'd survived. "Oh, this is very bad, Snape" he warned darkly, reclaiming his wand from Hagrid.

"Look out, he's armed again," muttered Black.

Pettigrew queried eagerly, "Can a Prefect expell you?"

"No," Lucius informed him flatly. "And it was self-defense. Unmistakably."

Lockhart in his efforts to look well was already making Snape's excuses, babbling, "Really, I don't know what came over him! He just... just snapped! He shook his head, indicating a kind of fatalistic sympathy, intoning ominously, "And it's not the first time-"

Black laughed. "Hey, James, remember Thursday?"

Potter grinned at him. "Oh, yeah!" Pettigrew giggled and Lupin shot him a dubious look with red, watery eyes and sneezed, edging carefully towards the hay-free air just outside the doors.

Lockhart went on expounding with buttercream empathy, "You know, Hagrid, I don't like to speak ill of anyone, but really I wonder if he's not... unstable!"

"And they all turned into swans, and flew away," Snape said dreamily, still hanging dripping in the Groundskeeper's grasp.

Lockhart clucked his tongue and shook his head, "There. You see? I can't, honestly, say I'm surprised... all those strange potions... they twist the mind...."

Potter nodded archly. "He's right, you know." He blinked, and looked quite disturbed. "Did I really just agree with Loosecannon Lockhart?"

Black said supportively, "Well, even he couldn't miss it. Snape's completely crazy."

No. Not yet. Lucius was confident that he would know precisely when to take Precautionary Measures.

Lockhart likewise was explaining, "Doubtless they're the cause of his, er... erratic behavior...."

Narcissa said pertly, "There we are: 'total exemption from responsibility for his actions due to alchemically induced incapacity for rational thought.'"

Lucius nodded approval of this familiar tune, which they had devised as First Years and which had served them well so far: Snape's scholastic records were dotted with that exonerating phrase so often that connecting all the instances would form a bunny.

Hagrid rumbled authoritatively, "Now, all o' this has jus' been a misunderstandin'." He nodded as if agreeing with his own judgment and went on firmly, "Now, you tidy yerself up and go on ter Hogsmeade," he directed Lockhart, "an' we'll all settle down ter have lunch."

Snape giggled. "Careful, it's spiked!" he warned cheerfully.

Lockhart looked warily up at the soggy Fourth Year, then inspected his own sodden robes and sighed, and flourished his wand.

"Doors get the doors!" screamed Black, heaving uselessly at the blocks of stone. There was a general scrum as everyone tried to find sufficient cover before the dazzling cascade of lavender light.

Someone coughed dustily, and then Snape said, "It's very dark. Byron, are you there?"

Lucius let out the breath he'd been holding. He would have missed all those rounds of Pin The Blame On Sev. He stayed by the door, blinking yellow afterimages away as he waited for someone else to stick his neck out and look first.

Hagrid harrumphed, and said encouragingly, "Not ter worry... er... I'll jus' give yer a hand-"

It sounded oddly like someone were juggling potsherds.

The refugees looked quizzically at one another until Potter began to laugh. "Drying charm," he supplied. "And they were covered in mud!"

Black peeked 'round the door and threw back his head and howled with glee, "Baked to a brown crust!"

They all crowded together to see this amusing tableau: Snape was still hanging in Hagrid's grip, but now he was coated with dust and crackled mud and resembled nothing so much as a lightly-breaded bat; Lockhart was frozen in place with his hair and robes so twisted up that he bore a striking resemblance to a chocolate bunny.

"Why," moaned Black, "have I never got a camera at these precious moments?"

Lupin told him, "Becauze we're id dedenjion."

Potter looked at Pettigrew and ordered, "Next time bring a camera." Pettigrew nodded eagerly; he'd probably risk injury in the attempt.

Hagrid made the unfortunate decision to free Lockhart. With one deft wrench he pulled the Prefect out of his hardened shell with the sound of a very large Christmas ornament shattering. "There! Tha's much better! Now... where's that washtub got to-?"

Lockhart coughed out a plug of mud and snipped, "Destroyed in his rampage." He pointed condemningly at Snape. "It quite flew to flinders!"

Snape began singing the Ella's Enchanted Everkleen song, brightly and horridly.

Hagrid hurried across the mazed barnyard and dropped him into the pig trough by the pump. Water sloshed everywhere and the Groundskeeper gave a happy cry, reaching down to pry a blue bottle free of the reconstituted mud. He dipped it under the flow of the pump and swirled it around before pouring its diluted contents over Snape. Thousands of tiny bubble-bound washerwomen lent their thin sopranos to a chorus that rose painfully to join Snape's cracked tenor, and the other detainees retreated into the dimness of the barn.

Black commented knowingly, "Still won't clean his hair."

The Marauders generally agreed.

Outside, they could hear Snape having a fit, apparently convinced he'd fallen into a bubbling cauldron. Hagrid was ignoring the boy's frantic protests and holding him under for longer and longer intervals, as if hoping that he could sober Snape up in the process of getting him clean.

Lockhart was edging stiffly towards the barn doors, hissing, "'Cissa-? 'Cissa, are you there-?"

Narcissa insinuated herself into Lucius's arms, and arranged herself with the grace of an Art Deco necklace to greet Lockhart with a cool smile. "I'm right here, Gilly."

Gilly? Lucius opted to smirk.

Lockhart looked down uncertainly at the pair of them. "Er... bad bit of business, that, with Snape," he lamented. "I did all I could, but you know how he is.... " He shook his head in solemn regret.

"Anyway, I thought I'd just nip back to the castle and change-"

"Oh!" Narcissa sounded shocked and appalled by the very idea.

She darted forward, halted well before she actually came into contact with the detritus covering Lockhart, and implored him prettily, "You can't mean it! If you do, our ensembles will be disharmonious!"

The Marauders squawked with laughter, Pettigrew joining in a few beats late.

Lockhart dismissed this magnanimously: "Never mind them; they haven't the first clue about the social graces."

Potter asked gleefully, "D'you mean Grace Featheruffle and Grace Gravesend? 'Cause those two lumps couldn't get a date even if they baked a golem from scratch!"

Crabbe marched over, grabbed him, and told him, "Grace is all right." He held Potter's arms while Goyle punched the Marauder solidly in the nose.

There was a satisfying sound of glasses breaking.

Lucius stared, thinking Merciful Heavens, they've discovered girls. What an unfortunate distraction. He had admittedly indulged in hopes that the day might never come when his burly goons took note of the fairer sex. Perhaps it's not come to that. Perhaps "Grace is all right" because she offered him some food. That would be enough, he decided.

He returned his attention to his own winsome problem, and was unsurprised to find Narcissa repeating sternly, "No. No. No." It was a too familiar tune.

Lockhart in counterpoint was importuning her, "Please, 'Cissa, won't you please perform the spell? It will greatly improve matters," he promised coyly, and smiled white. "You know very well how susceptible I am to your charms...."

Narcissa giggled. "Oh, Gilly.... "

Lucius saw red, and not from the sparkling of her spellwork.

He looked for help. His minions were busy thrashing the Marauders, and Snape was underwater.

Narcissa was clinging delicately to Gilderoy Lockhart, who seemed if anything more resplendent since her spell had hit him and was gushing, "Oh, thank you, 'Cissa! Excellently done! You really have a talent for this!"

Narcissa giggled again. Lucius gagged.

Lockhart tucked Narcissa under one arm, protectively, and estimated, "Let's see... you've put all their lunches in the barn, haven't you?"

She simpered, "Yes, Gilly." She cast a measuring glance at Lucius, who strove to Rise Above The Occasion by assuming A Mien Of Ennui.

"Ah!" Lockhart rifled through his several pockets and came out with a small brown bottle. "This is for... Remus Lupin," he read the label carefully. "To be taken internally as remedy for hayfever symptoms-"

The smallest Marauder somehow sprang free of the battle to seize the bottle, gasping, "Thangyou!" He got the stopper loose, paused just long enough to read the label, and gulped the bottle's contents down. His eyes cleared up, the harsh red line faded from his nose, every bit of hay on his person leapt away like it had been frightened, he took deep, joyful breath and fainted.

"Poor fellow," Lockhart commiserated. "I'm the same way with pomegranate juice."

Lucius filed this Interesting Fact away to be shared with Sev later. Snape had a wonderful talent for sneaking absolutely anything into pumpkin juice.

Lockhart seemed to have realized his error of Oversharing. "Er, come along, 'Cissa, let's hurry off to Hogsmeade," he encouraged, hastening her towards the pasture door. "Good day to you all!"

Lucius glared after the glittering git. Lupin snuffled appreciatively in his stupor and curled up contentedly in his widening circle of hay-free floor. Perhaps he shouldn't have drunk it all at once. His goons were still busy pummeling the other Marauders. Sev was still busy being drowned by the Groundskeeper.

Lucius decided to have lunch.