What Became of the Bust of Paracelsus

What Became of the Bust of Paracelsus

"I would not go that way if I were you," said Nearly Headless Nick, drifting disconcertingly through a wall just ahead of him as he walked through the passage. "Peeves is planning an amusing joke on the next person to pass the bust of Paracelsus halfway down the corridor."

"Does it involve the bust of Paracelsus falling on top of the person's head?" asked Harry.

"Funnily enough, it does," said Nearly Headless Nick in a bored voice. "Subtlety has never been Peeves's strong point."

***

"All right," Hermione said busily, pulling out two stacks of parchment from her bag and slapping them down in front of Harry and Ron. "Here you go."

The two boys stared blankly, first at the four-inch-high piles of parchment, and then at the obviously satisfied expression that Hermione was wearing.

"Er," Harry said.

"Exactly," Ron added. "It's..."

"It looks like you've done loads," Harry put in quickly, pasting a grin onto his face. "Madam Pince'll give you a partnership in the library anytime now."

"She will?" Hermione asked, fighting back a smile.

"Oh, yeah," Ron nodded emphatically. "You must have spent ages doing this...and it's all...you know, organized, and, er--"

"Professional," Harry interrupted. "You'll get a job wherever you want, Hermione, you really will."

Hermione couldn't help it anymore; she let out a sound that was an interesting mix between a snort and a giggle, with a pinch of awe sprinkled over the top. "That's great, that really is. I'm glad you think so."

"Right," Ron said, relaxing in his seat. "So...finished McGonagall's essay yet?"

"Professor McGonagall," Hermione corrected absently. "I've got about four rolls of parchment covered, but I think I might just rewrite it, because I forgot to add the connection between changing genetics and Switching Spells. She didn't exactly ask for that, but I figure there's no harm giving more than less, don't you think?"

"Absolutely," Ron agreed, who always preferred to do less rather than more, especially on essays that were supposed to be two rolls of parchment to start with. However, he unluckily forgot all about that until after he had supported Hermione wholeheartedly in what he usually grumbled about to no end.

"Er," Harry said again.

Ron twitched nervously. "Right."

"You look as if someone was going to bite your heads off," Hermione observed innocently. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, we're fine!" Ron assured her hastily. "Just a bit--er, hungry. Hungry. Dinner, y'know."

"Dinner was two hours ago," Hermione said, carefully keeping her face a blank.

"Didn't eat much," Harry explained, patting his stomach for emphasis. "Studying. And the rain," he added, pointing at the window, which was still withstanding a violent, lightning-streaked battle of the winds, who had apparently advanced beyond the hair-pulling stage and were now in the breaking-limbs level of combat. "We called off Quidditch practice."

"So we're studying," Ron grinned, unnecessarily pointing to his open Potions book.

"Ah," Hermione nodded slowly. "You two are acting rather oddly."

"No, we're not!" Ron said quickly, accidentally knocking his ink bottle to the floor and staining a large swatch of scarlet carpet black. "Oh, bloody hell--"

He froze in mid-action, bending over to salvage the wreckage, and uneasily glanced at Hermione, who looked as if she was withholding a stupendous tutting ritual with the greatest of efforts. In actuality, she was trying very, very hard not to laugh, but Ron didn't know that.

"...Muddy bell, that was the carpet," Ron mumbled quickly, but, to his surprise, Hermione didn't say anything at all about his use of language and instead pulled out her wand, muttered a quick spell, and the ink dissolved, leaving Ron with an empty bottle. Satisfied, she reached inside her own bag and pulled out an unopened inkpot, and handedg it to Ron.

"Here you go," she said pleasantly, absently wondering how much longer Ron could stand to keep that look of complete cluelessness on his face. "Oh, honestly, you two, that's the blank parchment you ordered three days ago. It just arrived."

The look of relief on their faces was bordering on ludicrous, and Hermione permitted herself a slightly sadistic smile as she pulled out her knitting and began to finish off one of her infamous elf-hats.

"You evil, evil girl," Ron sighed. "I thought it was something like an enormous project that I'd forgotten to do my half of, or something."

"That would have been rather stupid of you," Hermione said pleasantly, "but it isn't, and therefore you're quite all right."

"Have you had a good day?" Harry asked cautiously, looking over at Hermione, who was placidly working on the top bobble on the elf-hat. "You look really...happy."

"I am," Hermione confirmed, a grin finally breaking out. "Not that Umbridge needs to know, of course," she beamed. "Nasty old bat," she added as an afterthought.

"A hag if I ever saw one," Ron snorted, sitting back up and leaning forward eagerly. "What happened?"

"Did someone finally strangle her with her cardigan?" Harry asked, looking as if a particularly long and nasty exposé about Draco Malfoy in conjunction with house-elf exploiting had made its way onto the front page of the Daily Prophet, complete with pictures. "Tell me they did. Tell me they strangled her after making her write 'I will not be evil' with that quill of hers until her hand falls off." His homework, sadly enough, was quite forgotten, but it too pricked up its ears and listened eagerly, for rumors in the world of parchment rolls was that Dolores Umbridge had once tossed a clean, unused fellow parchment piece into the fire out of pure maliciousness. "I'm begging you, Hermione, tell me someone dropped a chandelier onto her head."

"Most unfortunately not," Hermione said briskly, "but you're quite close. It's all thanks to Peeves, really. Apparently he set up a booby-trap of some sort in one of the fourth-floor corridors, but Nick's been warning people about it, as the Bloody Baron didn't bother to make Peeves dismantle it. But Nick was feeling rather bored, and I wandered across him, and I started talking to him."

"Fascinating," Ron said, his attention drooping. "What does that have to do with Umbridge."

"Wait a minute; I'm telling you!" Hermione said irritably. "Honestly, Ron--"

"Ahem," Harry coughed loudly. "Er--what happened with Nick, Hermione?"

"Right," Hermione said, reddening slightly. "Yes. I was talking to Nick and--well, I certainly had not seen Professor Umbridge turn the corner and walk toward the bust of Paracelsus. It was...an oversight."

"Hermione, you're brilliant," Ron grinned, looking as if he quite wanted to propose to her on the spot. "Go on, then!"

"Well, nothing," Hermione shrugged, finishing the hat and snipping off the remaining yarn before immediately beginning another. "Paracelsus did a magnificent front flip, and Professor Umbridge is now lying in the corridor with a large bruise on her forehead. I always knew Peeves had to be good for something," she sighed almost ecstatically. "Although I suppose someone ought to go do something about her..."

"I vote," said Ron, "for forgetting you had ever witnessed that. After all, if we say something about it, Umbridge is going to think that we asked Peeves to set that thing up or something."

"All right, then," Hermione smiled, looking not in the least put out. "Besides, it wasn't as if any of us did."

Harry looked up sharply, catching a mischievous glint in Hermione's eyes. "Hermione, you didn't, did you?"

Shocked, she dropped a couple of stitches and straightened up about three inches in her chair. "Harry James Potter, I did no such thing!"

"I was just wondering," Harry said hurriedly. "Not that you would. It would be seriously out of character if you had."

"Exactly," Hermione assented, with a disturbingly angelic twinkle in her eyes as she finished knitting off another row. "I think I'd have had to blackmail Peeves into it. I'm not the Bloody Baron, after all."

She glanced at Harry and Ron's flabbergasted stares, and smiled serenely in the direction of her knees, pretending to be solely occupied with counting stitches for a largeish bobble.

"Of course," Ron said slowly and precisely, "you mean, if you had done so, right?"

"Yes," Hermione agreed, "of course, if I had done so."

LA FIN