?s

Hermione and Ron were lazing about in the common room when Harry rushed in.

"Ron!" he cried. "Hermione! Come quick! You've got to see this!"

"What?" Hermione asked. "What is it?"

"It's a ?!"

"A what?"

"A ?! Can you believe it? An actual ? in our school. I wonder where it strayed in from..."

"Harry," said Ron. "Have you gone stark raving bonkers? What on earth is a ??"

"It's an animal. The greatest animal on the planet. A spectabulous, triumphulous, congratulous creature in the world!" Harry replied, jumping about as he said each word.

"Yep," said Hermione. "He's gone mad."

"Gone?"

"If you don't believe me I'll show you," said Harry. "Come on, before it gets away."

He jumped around a few more times before diving out the portrait hole head first.

"Yep," said Hermione. "He's finally lost it."

"Are you sure we should go near him?" Ron asked. "It might be contagious."

"Well I suppose that as long as he doesn't find it again he can't give it to us."

"True. What is a ? anyway?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

But they followed Harry anyway. Harry led them down the stairs to the entrance hall where a large crowd was gathered.

"Ooh! Aah."

"Look," said Harry, pointing. "The ?."

And behold, in front of them, was a pair of floating eyes.

"Is that it?" Ron asked. "Where's the rest of them?"

"Who knows..." said Harry, mysteriously.

"Ooh look!" cried Lavender from the crowd. "There's another one."

Sure enough another, much smaller, pair of eyes had appeared.

"Aww," the crowd cooed.

"What's the big deal?" Hermione asked.

Everyone glared at them and by some communal shoving Ron and Hermione were pushed out of the crowd.

"Are you as worried as I am?" Hermione asked Ron.

Ron wasn't looking at her but rather at a point just above her right shoulder. She turned and saw Luna marching around in circles holding a sign that read 'Defeat the ?s!'. They went over.

"Er..." said Ron, "Luna? What are you doing?"

"Protesting," said Luna, simply.

"Why?"

Luna stopped in her tracks. "Because the ?s are evil!" She shoved a copy of the Quibbler in their faces. The cover bore a picture of a pair of white eyes floating on a black background. "They're vicious! And hypnotic. People are tricked into thinking they're cute and pretty and mysterious but really they're conniving little things and once you let down your guard and let them in to your house then you'll be dead! Just like that!" she said without taking a breath. "Don't look at their eyes!" she warned.

"All they are are eyes," Hermione reasoned.

"Then don't look at them!" Luna cried with such vigour that Hermione and Ron took a step backwards.

"They look pretty harmless to me-" Ron started.

"You looked at them!" Luna exploded.

Ron cowered from the wrath of Luna. She yelled a bit more then stormed off declaring that they didn't listen. No one listened. No one ever listened to Zaphros.

"So," said Hermione. "That was... odd."

"Everybody seems to be acting... odd."

"I say we leave them to it."

"I'm not sure," said Ron, thoughtfully. "What if it's a plot by Voldemort? What if it's a manifestation from the Dungeon Dimensions? We could be in serious trouble."

"Good point," said Hermione.

She pointed to the ceiling and declared dramatically. "To the library!"

She rushed off.

"Ah," said Ron. "So now I'm the only sane one." He considered this. "That's not good."

He wandered off after Hermione and found her in the library already with a huge pile of books in front of her.

"Come on," she said, tossing Ron a large book and nearly concussing him in the process. "We've got a lot of work to do. All these books could contain vital information that might save the world!"

Ron glanced doubtfully at the pile. One of them was a 'Where's Wally' book.

"Riiiiiight," he said, picking it up. "I'll start on this one then."

Hermione dived in to the books as Ron restlessly searched for Wally. It was a lot harder in the Wizard books than in the Muggle ones. For one thing people kept moving around. Ron had found Wally at the zoo, the funfair and the North Pole and was searching for him at what appeared to be the red stripy shirt convention when they heard a sound. It was a strange buzzing noise that kept getting louder followed by a strange sucking sound then a muffled explosion and finally the remnants of a few childish screams. There was silence as the dust settled.

"Oh," said Hermione, putting down her book. "Luna was right. They were evil."