Harry Potter and the Return of the Insanity

* * *

Surprisingly (and perhaps mercifully), the first two weeks of term passed in a blur, in which nobody seemed quite asleep or awake. The delayed shock of Dumbledore’s announcement set in with a vengeance, and the teachers could often be heard remarking that they’d never had it so easy, so pronounced was the lethargy with which their pupils went about everything. Only Doors and Sirius had anything to complain about--Sirius because his Animagi classes required a lot of energy on the part of the students, and Doors because she found it boring as hell.

Even Peeves seemed to feel the effects of the school-wide stunning, for his pranks were not at all up to their usual standard--he even resorted to planting Muggle-made rubber vomit on Filch’s desk. Harry muttered to Ron that day that it was a good thing the twins weren’t here to see him stoop so low, or it would have killed them.

Snape was rather slow to recover from his initial (and quite widely-known) shock, but recover he did, with the almost impossible result that Potions class became worse than ever. Had not the whole school been too dazed to retaliate, Snape would have found himself inundated with pranks from the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes order form, but luckily for him everyone was too preoccupied to even think of it. He avoided the upper part of the castle as much as possible, emerging from his dungeon only for very hurried meals in the Great Hall. Dumbledore, in a characteristic fit of wisdom, had seated he and the Marauders at opposite ends of the staff table, but anyone paying attention could see that arrangement wasn’t going to work for long.

And so the two weeks passed, with such little incident they might as well have all been attending a Muggle school. That period of grace came to a sudden and very joyous end on the third Monday of September, when the school seemed to band together as one and snap out of it. And then came the horrible delights of anticipation.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione happened to be halfway through Charms when the intangible stupor broke, where they had been halfheartedly learning Apparition Charms (“They’ll come in handy for your test next year!”).

“Wow,” muttered Ron, staring half dreamily as Trevor the toad winked to life in front of him. “How lovely....”

“What?” grunted Harry, who had most unfortunately had a pile of books appear on top of his head and fall to the floor with a crash.

“I was just thinking....” Ron murmured, his eyes unfocused as he gazed out the window. “I wonder what sort of wedding dress your Aunt Marge will be wearing?”

Harry and Hermione both gawked at him for a moment, before the former collapsed in a fit of laughter. The thought of Aunt Marge in a wedding dress hadn’t even occurred to him, but now that Harry pictured it, he was fairly breaking his ribs with glee.

“Where did THAT come from?” he asked, shooing Trevor off the table.

“Dunno,” said Ron, as Hermione zapped a book out of sight and back again across the room. “Just sort of.....occurred to me. Say, you think the Dursleys will actually show up at this thing?”

Harry shrugged, casting about for his missing herbal. “Depends,” he said, snatching at the book as it appeared on a table to his left. “Depends on how badly Marge wants to drag them here, and how badly they want to stay away.” He stuffed the book in his bag and glanced at the clock; they had about five minutes before the bell. Rubbing his head, he looked about for Hermione, who was trying to undo some disastrous blunder of Neville’s.

“Wonder what Malfoy would do if he saw your cousin Dudley?” Ron said, half dreamily. Hermione, who quickly gave up on Neville, sniffed.

“Well, honestly, I just know this whole thing’s going to be an absolute mess, and how any of us can be expected to make up our O.W.L.s with the school in such a state, I don’t--”

Harry and Ron groaned, but fortunately Hermione was cut off by the bell before she could wreck their spirits any further. The three spilled out into the hallway, which was flooded with cheery autumn sunshine.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” sighed Ron, as they fought their way to the staircase leading to the Potions dungeon. “Wish we could actually enjoy it....Hannah Abbott told me Hagrid’s got a fresh Pegasus hatching out by the forest.”

“Better hope they don’t get out into the vegetable beds like the Brownies,” Hermione grinned. “Doors might turn him into one himself.”

Harry snorted. Professor Doors had gotten hold of some weird and rare vegetable for them to play with, and some of Hagrid’s charges had gotten loose and raised hell with them. Doors had been so mad she’d given him a week-long case of Twitchy Ears, and gotten Fang drunk.

His mirth at this was short-lived, however--in no time at all they were faced with the door to the Potions classroom, and the thoroughly terrifying hell that lay beyond it. Both Harry and Ron glanced at Hermione before they went in, and Ron silently mouthed, “Watch Malfoy.”

The three were met with a blast of cold, as though the stone walls were sweating ice. Their breath rose in frosty clouds, and Harry shivered as he drew near their table and glanced at the Slytherin end of the room. Sure enough, there was Malfoy, his face slightly flushed as he watched the Gryffindors enter. Goyle was clattering around near the sinks, and Crabbe, as usual, was nowhere to be seen. Harry looked at Ron and rolled his eyes.

Hermione alone seemed not to notice the mooning Malfoy, and briskly set about arranging their cauldrons and ingredients. She had just finished color-coding her jars of powdered herbs when Harry realized they’d been here a whole five minutes and Snape still hadn’t yelled at them. He looked around the room, confused--

“Oh, no way,” he muttered.

Most of the class stood assembled and ready around the dungeon, but Snape was nowhere to be seen. Snape was never late for class--Harry thought it rather made his day to sneer at everyone as they came in--and the only time he’d ever shown up after the rest of them had been during that whole Starling fiasco of the previous year. That he should do so now did not bode well.

Apparently several other people had caught on to this as well, for some worried muttering had broken out around the room. A few of the Slytherins looked downright alarmed, but their fears were laid to rest a moment later, when the door slammed open and Snape strode in. He stormed up to his desk, robes swishing, and turned to face them all.

Harry wasn’t the only one who recoiled as the Potions master passed--Snape had seemed more menacing than ever lately, for in addition to his usual ill-temper he had acquired an air of slight.....unbalance, that made anybody near him unconsciously think of straight jackets. The Gryffindors were by no means the only ones who thought he might snap and strangle them all--several Slytherins had been spending a lot more of their spare time in the library than even Hermione could manage.

“Good afternoon,” Snape said, his voice so soft Harry could scarcely hear him; his eyes, glinting unpleasantly through a curtain of black hair, had an almost manic gleam in their cold depths. Harry shivered.

“Today we will be working on something new,” he whispered, his eyes darting over the silent students. “Something you won’t find in your textbooks. This potion is one of the most highly dangerous concoctions you will ever brew, and I warn you now that anyone who fails to follow my instructions, TO THE LETTER, will wish they were never born.”

Silence. Neville gulped.

“I also must inform you that I sincerely doubt any one of you is ready to prepare such a work of artistry as this potion, but the Headmaster seems to believe otherwise. Even if, by some miracle, you should manage to do it right, I know none of you has the maturity to use it correctly.”

The class glanced at one another, both interested and apprehensive. Hermione sniffed indignantly, clearly miffed at Snape’s lack of faith in them.

“So, what’re we making?” demanded Blaise Zabini, voicing the common question.

Snape’s expression was so forbidding that Harry felt a momentary pity for Blaise. He took a moment before answering, apparently working up a proper sneer. “A--” slight shudder “--love potion.”

Silence, broken by a loud sputtering from the Slytherin side. Closer inspection revealed its source to be Malfoy, who had gone redder than a sunset and looked as though he’d rather like to sink through the floor.

Ron kicked Harry and grinned--if anybody ought to know about the effects of a love potion, it was Malfoy.

Harry coughed, and an awkward moment passed in relative silence, while the Gryffindors, most of whom knew full well about Fred and George’s activities, snickered into their sleeves.

“Moving right along,” Snape hissed through clenched teeth. “I must explain this concoction, before I dare let you people loose with it.

“As many of you know, love potions are banned at Hogwarts, and that ban has not been lifted. What we are brewing is a highly diluted form of one of the oldest and most complex love spells in known wizardry, which will act, in the words of the Headmaster, as a ‘cheer-inducing’ drink.”

“Sort of like wizard Prozac, eh?” muttered Dean. Hermione and Harry chuckled.

“Anyone attempting to make or even research the original recipe will have to answer to me,” Snape continued, sounding so venomous that Neville trembled visibly. “Were it not for the Headmaster’s--unique--sense of humor, I wouldn’t let any of you near this potion, but as it is--” and here he shot them all a frigid glare “--get it right or pay the price.”

He swept around the room and began handing out papers, leaving the class to murmur among themselves.

“Trust Dumbledore to help the fun along,” muttered Ron, scanning the list of ingredients.

Hermione looked up from her crushed dittany. “What d’you mean by that?” she asked, adding a cupful to her cauldron.

“Well, think about it.” Ron dumped a spoonful of rosemary into his own cauldron and turned to her. “Teaching us the recipe to an over-potent love potion just before a wacko wedding? He knows half the school will go look up the real thing, it’s too good not to, and by the time we’ve all got it figured out right, half the guests will be here and Mrs. Norris will be mooning over a squirrel.”

Harry laughed, and even Hermione had to smile. Snape glared at them from across the dungeon.

“Cheerful potion, huh?” Harry murmured, more to himself than anyone. “If anybody could use one, it’s him.”

“I heard that, Potter,” Snape said lazily, shooting Harry a withering stare and flipping open his grade book. “That’ll be fi--”

Harry winced, but before Snape could decimate Gryffindor’s points, the dungeon door opened and in strode Sirius.

“Oh, hello, all,” he said, stopping short on sight of the class. “Didn’t mean to intrude, but Severus, how many times do I have to ask you for essence of Coreopsis before you finally cough it up?”

Harry hadn’t thought it possible for Snape to look more murderous, but at Sirius’s more-than-timely entrance his face had taken on a look of such fury that Neville gave a squeak and dove under his table.

“How many times must I tell you, Black, that I haven’t got any?” he hissed, through a jaw clenched so tight it was a wonder he didn’t crack a tooth. “Go ask that little tree-hugging friend of yours for some, it’s her department more than mine.”

The class looked at Sirius, waiting for his response, when the door opened yet again and Doors stuck her head in.

“And how many times do I have to tell you, Snape? Dumbledore made me ship all that garbage into the ingredients closet, which you in your infinite paranoia refuse to give anyone the key to.” She turned to Sirius, who still hadn’t opened his mouth to shoot a retort Snape’s way. “And Sirius, I just thought I’d inform you that your class has invaded my greenhouses and almost trampled all the Candelibren Mushrooms. Get ’em outta there.”

The class snickered, but Sirius paled visibly. Candelibren Mushrooms were some of Doors’s more interesting pets, which belched fire at irregular intervals and had more than once set the gardens alight.

“The Candelibren Mushrooms?” he asked, sounding as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Lorna, you left them alone out there with those things? They’ll get burned alive!”

“Aw, no they won’t,” Doors said, her eyes dancing. “I left Hagrid with them.”

This completing Sirius’s horror nicely, he dashed from the dungeon with a mumbled, “Oh, NO.” The students watched him go, half amused and half afraid.

“Well, that was amusing,” said Doors, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Pity it had to be a lie.” She flashed a grin at Harry, and, after a moment’s rummaging in the numerous pockets of her earth-covered robes, produced a lumpy paper package tied with string.

“Oh, my, that was ever so professional,” Snape sneered, crossing his arms. “Honestly, are we running a school or a circus?”

“I vote circus,” muttered Seamus. The Gryffindors snorted.

“Nah, more of a crazy house,” Doors said cheerfully, producing more odd parcels from the depths of her pockets. Harry was very forcefully reminded of the only other time he’d ever seen her down here, two years ago when she had saved Malfoy from potential decapitation at the hands of Snape. She even had a smear of dirt on her nose, and it was a full two minutes before she had emptied her pockets all over Neville’s table.

“What’s going on now, I wonder?” muttered Ron, shoving his cauldron off the fire as it started to boil.

“Merry Christmas, everyone,” Doors said, shaking the dirt on her robes all over the floor. “You’re gonna be needing all that for your--er--potion.” She gave Neville a nudge with her foot that brought him out from under the table. “Snape, that junk Sirius wanted ought to be on the top left shelf in the corner, if you haven’t reorganized yet.” She blew a wisp of frazzled hair out of her face, her odd eyes twinkling with an unusually mischievous light.

Snape seemed to be fighting for self-control. “Thank you, Lorna,” he said icily, sounding about as grateful as a stray duck on a skeet range. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach.”

Doors grinned and cocked her head to one side, observing the way the students nearest Snape flinched at his every move. “Erm, right,” she said. She turned and added in a whisper to the students, “Don’t worry, his birthday party will be ruined, once again, by his explosive flatulence.”

Such a bizarre tone did she say this in that before they could help it, the whole class had burst into gales of laughter. Snape, who hadn’t heard a word the Herbology professor had said, flushed the color of an old brick and finally lost it completely.

“OUT!” he bellowed, pointing a long, pale finger at the door. “I WILL NOT HAVE YOU DISRUPTING MY CLASS ANY FURTHER!”

Doors looked at him, apparently scandalized. “Really, you’ve done a more than passable job of that yourself,” she said, her eyes widening and an almost-convincing look of innocence flitting across her face. Her voice lowered in a conspiratorial whisper as she added, “Don’t worry, Snape, you’re still the true Lord of the Dance, no matter what those idiots at work say.” And with that she spun around and marched from the classroom, leaving Harry and company speechless with suppressed hilarity.

“Some things never change,” Harry sighed, as the class set to digging about in the pile of goodies Doors had left them.

“Some things are better left they way they are,” Hermione retorted.

* * * * *

Despite this more than welcome Potions diversion, school progressed as usual, with the slight difference that the days seemed to crawl along at a speed comparable to that of Ron’s old broomstick. Harry knew it wasn’t possible for time to stop completely, but it certainly seemed to come close.

Now that the school had woken up to the fact that the greatest chance for anarchy Hogwarts had ever seen was looming quite close in their future, a sudden and roaring joke business sprang up in a matter of days. From what Harry could see, over half the merchandise looked like it came from a Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes order form, and he knew for certain that Fred and George were raking it in when they sent Ron a solid gold owl collar. It made Pigwidgeon drop like a stone, so Ron sold it and raided Honeyduke’s.

The gag-plotting provided a temporary distraction, but anyone could see a more permanent solution to the schoolwide unrest would be needed, and soon. Hagrid confided to Harry that Dumbledore had called about three faculty meetings over it, but the only result was a lot of bickering between Snape and Sirius, and Filch’s suggestion that all students be shackled until December.

At least Harry had the imminent start of the Quidditch season to keep him occupied--so many players had graduated that Katie Bell, before passing on her captainship to Harry, had helped him scout out all the potential talent in the whole of Gryffindor house over the summer. Surprisingly, Denis Creevey proved to be an astonishingly good flier, and Harry had recruited him as a Chaser. As for the rest of them, only two people had been known to Harry beforehand--Ron and Natalie McDonald, a third-year who had once lent him an extra Dungbomb. He’d never seen his team play, but he knew Katie wouldn’t let him have anyone who wasn’t up to strut.

And so another fortnight snailed by. Filch was kept so busy catching pupils trying to sneak out to Hogsmeade that Peeves got away with murder--literally--and wound up being chased over half the castle by an extremely irate Hagrid, taking wild swings at the poltergeist with a dead stoat. It took his Brownie population weeks to recover, and Peeves was so traumatized that he hid in McGonagall’s broom closet and refused to come out for the better part of four days. Harry and his motley team flattened Hufflepuff in their first Quidditch match, much to Malfoy’s chagrin--for Malfoy was now captain of the Slytherin team, and was having such a hard time dividing his attention between it and Hermione, it was a wonder he hadn’t lost it.

Potions class had quickly become something of a favorite--not because Snape suddenly cracked and became a good teacher, but because the long process of brewing their “cheerfulness” concoctions (Snape still wouldn’t tell them just what it was called, for fear they’d go find the recipe for the real thing) was an absolute riot. Harry privately felt Snape had good reason for not wanting them anywhere near it, as he and everyone else learned very quickly just how unstable the potion was when Neville knocked his cauldron over and nearly blew up the entire dungeon. Even Hermione was treading with caution around it, and what little of her time wasn’t devoted to studying for the O.W.L.s was spent researching various love spells and their effects when altered.

“She’s batty,” Ron said to Harry one day, as Hermione staggered into the common room with her arms so full of books she was nearly falling over. “All this hanging over her head, and she’s studying for the O.W.L.s? I haven’t heard any teachers mention them, have you?”

Harry shook his head, tongue between his teeth as he studied the chess board in front of him. Ron’s bishops had him hemmed in good, and his tiny knight kept swiping his lance at them in frustration.

“And as for all that love potion nonsense, if she doesn’t quit it Malfoy’ll hear about it, and Lord only knows what he’ll do then,” Ron continued, seeming to take Harry’s silence for a response.

“Well, at least Halloween’s coming up,” Harry said, as Ron’s bishops launched a double attack on his knight and threw him off the board. He was sure that wasn’t legal, but somehow Ron’s chess set always seemed to win on its own. “That ought to be interesting enough to distract everyone, at least for a little while.”

It wasn’t.