Harry Potter and the Slytherin Conspiracy

The grass glittered with the first frost of winter like razor-sharp shards of broken glass.

"How beautiful," said Hermione.

"Ouch," said Ron, who had stepped off of the stone steps of Hogwarts onto the lawn. It was razor-sharp shards of broken glass.

"Ron, why aren't you wearing any shoes?"

Ron just shrugged and hurried across the broken glass towards the infirmary. "Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch," receding into the distance. Hermione sighed and her breath made little smoke dragons in the cold air before she shuffled back inside to the warm Gryffindor fireplace.

Meanwhile, at the infirmary Madam Pomfrey was having a hard time of it. It seemed that during the night, a strange stupidity had spread through all of the first year Hufflepuffs and Ron. "Really," she scolded, "you should all know better than to go outside on a cold morning without shoes on, even if there wasn't broken glass everywhere. This might be the first time you've been away from your parents, but honestly!" Ron hid in a corner.

"Who put all the glass on the lawn?" someone asked.

"Probably the same person who broke all the windows."

"Probably Slytherin."

"This looks like a job for... Harry Potter!" said Harry Potter, who had shown up to show his solidarity and all that. And in case there was a job for Harry Potter. He now soared out of a window rimmed with a few remaining slices of glass, and off to Hogwarts to incriminate someone. First, however, he had to talk to Hermione about it.

"Hermione, I need to talk to you about something. And by 'talk' I mean more like, have you figure it out for me and then take all the credit," Harry said, flopping onto a couch in the common room. "What do you think about all these broken windows?"

"Well," said Hermione, looking up from her textbooks.

"It had to have been Snape!" shouted Harry, running out of the room. "Eurekaaaa!"

"Ok," said Hermione, and went back to what she was doing.

An hour later, Harry Potter was back in the Gryffindor common room. "As I was saying..." he said.

"Right," said Hermione.

That night, the two of them and Ron snuck into the restricted section of the Hogwarts library. "Shhhh!" Hermione admonished. Ron had been whining; his feet hurt as if he had been walking on glass at some time previously.

"Aha, here we are," said Hermione smugly. "Just as I suspected. This was caused by a large snake monster (which looks a lot like Slytherin's mascot, by the way). It says here that these snakes can make people forgetful, and that they communicate with high pitched squeaks (which must have broken all the glass). One of them must have gotten into the first year Hufflepuffs' dormitory, somehow."

"But how come I'm the only one in Gryffindor who was affected by them?" said Ron.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other.

"Um," said Harry.

"What?" said Ron.

"You don't need a bloody snake to be so forgetful, stupid," said Hermione, who was being rather bitchy of late.

"Oh," said Ron.

The next day, Harry & co. accused the entire house of Slytherin of being in on a conspiracy against the well-being of Hogwarts, and introducing dangerous snake monsters in accordance with that conspiracy. Dumbledore beamed warmly at them and proclaimed Harry Potter a great hero before dinner. Oh, and, uh, Hermione and that red-haired kid, too. Slytherin lost 300 points, which were awarded to Gryffindor. Draco looked snippy. Everyone cheered.