Chapter Eighteen:

Once Harry had returned with the food and had good-naturedly put up with Snayip fixedly grinning at him for five minutes, things went surprisingly smoothly.

Snayip ate his meat pie with no complaint and even managed to finish his pumpkin juice without wrinkling his nose too much. Hermione was consistently stunned by Harry’s blasé attitude towards the latest member of the group, which Harry had started to call ‘The Spoon Raiders’. Hermione had just groaned silently when she heard this and had hid her face in her knees; when Harry got an idea in his head, there was very little anyone else could do to stop him.

She raised her head and lazily watched her best friend explaining the mechanics of a pineapple to Snayip. Sometimes the world about her made her wonder if she were the insane one, instead of it being the other way around.

Arnold had also taken a sudden, unexpected liking to Snayip and was currently perched on his left knee. This time, the only explanation Hermione could come up with was that they had both been created by Harry Potter.

“Hermione! Pineapple!” Snayip grinned at her and held the fruit in question over his head.

Hermione forced a smile. “Yes, that’s right, Snayip. You’re learning things very well.” As of yet, she had not come up with an explanation as to why the copy of her Potions Master had taken a liking to her. Harry, she could understand. The Boy Hero had created him after all, but her?

Oh God. Hermione’s eyes widened in horror as slow realisation began to dawn. I’m a Mummy. She sighed and closed her eyes at the irony of it all. Harry will be lucky if I ever speak to him again after all this is sorted out.

The boy in question came over and plopped himself down beside Hermione. “So, where do you think we should put him? Room of Requirement?”

Hermione gave him a scathing look. “Don’t you think it would be a little too conspicuous if it suddenly stopped working? Especially seeing as you told the whole Order about it in our sixth year and the fact that they’re currently using it as a war supplies room on a regular basis?”

Harry pursued his lips. “Point.”

“Exactly.”

“Uh huh.”

“So? What are you going to do about it, Harry?”

“I... no, Snayip, you need to cut the spiky bits off before you eat it. Here; I’ll do it for you.”

After a simple wave of Harry’s wand, the pineapple shed its outer skin. Totally unperturbed, Snayip gave Harry a grin, spat out the spiky green leaf from his mouth and got stuck in to the newly exposed fruit.

“I think I’d make quite a good dad.”

Hermione snorted. “You? You’d spoil the child rotten and then leave the resulting tantrums up to your poor, harassed wife to deal with!”

“Hey!” Harry gave Hermione an offended look. “I would never harass any wife of mine. Anyway,” he continued, ignoring Hermione’s, ‘Oh, really?’ look, “yes, I need practice. I’ll... I dunno... take responsibility courses or something before I reproduce, OK?”

“Harry...” Hermione bit her lip, “talking of responsibility...”

Harry read the look in her eyes and tensed. “Hermione...” he sighed, sounding harassed himself.

“You need to do something about it, Harry. It’s a big thing...”

“Hermione, look!” He yanked up both sleeves, revealing arms littered with fading white scars, and held them in front of Hermione’s face. “See? Not a scratch since last summer! I told you I haven’t done it again and I’ve never,” here he lowered his voice, casting a glance over to the oblivious Snayip, “cut on anywhere except my arms.”

Harry swallowed, looking awfully pale from his confession. “It was a horrible thing to do to myself, even though it helped at the time. Besides, it’s not as if I can get help now. Can you imagine the headlines? The Death Eaters are looking for the slightest weakness, and they would have no qualms about manipulating something like this.”

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but Harry cut across her, “After the war’s over, Hermione. Until then... well, I wouldn’t mind talking to you and Ron about it, OK?”

Hermione nodded, feeling a little weepy, and shuffled closer to give Harry a hug, which he allowed.

“Don’t worry, Harry. We’ll get him soon; even if we have to use salad dressing to do it.”

Harry snorted and grinned at the reference before casually slinging an arm around her and staring up at the ceiling.

“What was I saying? Oh yes, coming up with alternative accommodations for junior here, hmm...” Harry leaned back and let his eyes drift closed. For a few minutes, there was silence which was only broken by Snayip’s few, softly spoken words to Arnold. Then, Harry’s eyes snapped open, a mischievous twinkle evident in his eyes.

“Hermione, what is it we always do when we’re at a loss on how to do something?”

Hermione eyed him warily. “I don’t know. What do we do?”

“Consult the Marauders, of course!” Harry leapt up and bounded over to his trunk. Once there, he muttered something lowly, which Hermione couldn’t quite catch, and yanked out the Marauders Map after the lock had clicked open.

“Ta da!” He waved the parchment in front of Hermione’s nose. “If anyone knows of a secret chamber were we can hide a person, it’ll be them. It’s not as if we can leave him,” he jerked his thumb at Snayip, “in the Chamber of Secrets. He might get scared and it’s too far for us to go to get to him if he needs us. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Harry tapped the parchment with his wand, ducking his head; probably so Hermione wouldn’t see his face flushing red. She smirked down at the top of his messy hair. It was quite cute that he’d developed some fatherly concern for their latest not-so-little charge. The poor thing needed someone on his side. It wasn’t as if the man who’d been his template was going to welcome him, and if the rest of the population of Hogwarts ever found out about him, they’d shun him because of his resemblance to Professor Snape.

Poor Snayip, she thought as she watched Harry studying the map with heightened scrutiny, he really is going to have a tough time of it, no matter what happens. We don’t even know if this spell is permanent or if it will wear out after a certain amount of time. She shook her head and sighed. Poor Snayip...

“Hermione,” Harry said softly, his voice quaking a little with suppressed excitement, “you’re not going to believe this...”

“What?” She leaned forward eagerly. “What is it?”

Harry pressed the map into her hands and pointed a slightly shaking finger to a room on it. It took a moment for Hermione to realise what he was getting excited about.

“But, Harry... This room’s right in the middle of Gryffindor Tower!”

Harry’s eyes were alight with interest. “I know! Have you ever of an extra room leading off the Common Room? Something like that would be regular gossip around here, but no one’s ever said a word! Fred and George would have known, but they’re not here anymore! I’d bet my boots that that room’s been abandoned and forgotten for years now.”

“Harry, you don’t own any boots.”

Harry looked stumped for a minute. “Well... well, I’ll buy some boots and then bet on them! Come on, let’s go and have a look.”

“Harry, there’ll be people in there. Today’s only a half day of lessons.”

“You leave that to me; I’ll be able to get rid of them easily enough. Now, let’s get Snayip and set off. Do you know where Ron might be?”

“Serving detention with Filch... Don’t ask.”

Harry grinned. “Well, I won’t ask you, but I might ask him.” His face took on a faraway look for a couple of minutes before his eyes slowly focused on Hermione once more. “Right! He knows all about the situation and said that he’d meet us at supper... if he can get away, of course.” Harry shrugged sheepishly. “Filch was almost ready to send him on his way, but Ron dropped a pail of water on the old grouch’s feet when I told him about Snayip.”

Hermione sighed and massaged her temples. Dealing with her two best friends was a full time job. She sometimes wondered how she managed to fit anything else in around sorting out their mistakes.

“Harry,” she said firmly, “we’ll deal with Ron later. Let’s get Snayip and...” Her voice trailed off as her eyes tried to deny what she was seeing. “Snayip, what did you do?”

Snayip blinked at her innocently, his hands folded demurely in his lap. Perched, motionless, on one of his knees was an iridescent Arnold. Harry and Hermione watched in disbelief as the foam’s colour flashed from yellow, to green, to purple, to blue and back to orange again in a good imitation of the Muggle world’s best strobe lighting. Every colour change Arnold went through was sparklingly bright and impossible to ignore.

Snayip wriggled uncomfortably and the innocent look slipped. “Arnold... like pineapple?” he mumbled quietly to his hands. He flashed a quick look at Hermione and gave her a slight smile. “Arnold pretty,” he muttered shyly while gently petting the flashing foam.

Hermione could almost sense how quickly the coming migraine was building. “Nice as that is, Snayip, you must not feed pineapples to Arnold, or any other kind of food for that matter. Don’t you remember what I told you that you must do?”

Snayip fidgeted and pouted a little. “Do everything Hermione and Bloody Imbecile say,” he mumbled reluctantly.

Hermione didn’t budge an inch. “And?” she inquired, eyebrow raised.

Snayip huffed and jammed his hands underneath his armpits. “Snayip must not be seen,” he said sullenly.

“Exactly.” Hermione rewarded Snayip with a smile, but that just made him pout even more. “Don’t you think an armful of flashing foam will attract people’s attention enough for them to notice you?”

Snayip looked even more miserable. “Yes.” Then, more grudgingly, he murmured, “Snayip not feed Arnold.”

Hermione gave him a big smile. “That’s all I ask.” She stood, walked over to him and stroked his hair a little, trying to ignore the greasy texture. “Good boy. Now, why don’t we go and have a look at your new room, hmm?” she asked, offering him her hand.

Snayip looked confused. “Snayip no stay with Hermione?”

“No, you get to have your very own room,” Hermione told him, hoping this wouldn’t cause a tantrum, but all Snayip did was to grab her hand and use it to help pull himself up.

“’Kay.”

“Good boy,” Hermione said again and tugged his hand for him to follow her. Harry gave her the ‘thumbs up’ and darted down the stairs from the dormitory. Hermione waited at the top of the stairs, Snayip’s hand tucked safely into hers (or rather her hand tucked safely into his), and waited for Harry to give them the all clear. She managed to catch a couple of words from his explanation, things like: ‘dungbomb,’ ‘Second Years,’ and ‘plan,’ and was immediately certain that the Common Room would empty in mere seconds.

“Hermione? Let’s go.”

“Coming, Harry,” she called and gently tugged on Snayip’s hand to get him to follow her. Despite looking unaccountably nervous, he followed her meekly enough, Arnold safely tucked under one arm. Hermione briefly wondered what Ron would make of what had happened to his new ‘pet’.

“Quickly, Hermione.”

“All right, all right. We’re here.” Hermione hurried across Common Room to where Harry was standing beside a large tapestry of a lion prowling through the Forbidden Forest. Snayip had pulled his hand out of hers, but had followed along behind her complacently enough.

“Well, Snayip, your room should be behind here if we’re lucky!”

Snayip looked at Harry as though he had grown an extra arm. He looked at the wall, and then back at Harry.

“Why thank you. I’ve always wanted a flat room.”

“Ahh!” Hermione sprang away in surprise. Unfortunately, as there happened to be a couch standing directly behind her, her descent to the floor could be considered certainly less dignified than it would have been otherwise.

Harry peered over the back of the sofa. “Smooth, Hermione.”

“Ah, shut up!” She hastily tried to dislodge all the fluff that had somehow made its way into her mouth over the course of three seconds. “And you!” She pointed an accusing finger at Snayip. “Since when did you acquire a vocabulary?”

Snayip’s eyebrows rose up his forehead and it could clearly be seen that he was trying to suppress a smirk. “Are you complaining?” he asked innocently as he helped haul her up off the floor.

“Yes!” She scowled fiercely at him. “You can’t suddenly go changing your speech pattern without any warning! It’s just not the done thing!”

Harry mock-sighed and aimed an amused glance with Snayip. “Ah, they grow up so fast.”

The innocent look on Snayip’s face increased. “Hermione, mad?”

“Oh, just, just be quiet!” Hermione pushed away from him and quickly dusted down the front of her robes. “There are only so many shocks I can deal with in one day! First, Snape gets down on his knees and practically proposes to me, then you happened – which is enough to give any normal person a mental breakdown – and now you can suddenly talk without needing any time to even properly learn English!”

“Err, Hermione? Can I just back you up a few steps there?”

Hermione stopped screeching and waving her arms about wildly to stare at Harry in bewilderment. “What? I mean... Pardon?”

“Well, I got the bit about you being upset about Snayip appearing... and how he suddenly has perfect diction.” Harry raised an eyebrow at Snayip, who smirked back unrepentantly. “And, of course, there’s no way we can tell if that was a magical phenomenon or if he was having us on all along, but, and let me get this perfectly clear in my head...” Harry stared at her as though she had just admitted to liking Morris dancing. “Snape proposed to you?”

Apparently saying it out loud was even more unbelievable than thinking it, especially considering how Harry’s eyebrows had long since disappeared into his hairline.

Hermione hid her face in her hands. I did not just say that. Please say I did not just say that!

She lowered her hands. Yes, I did. Otherwise, Snayip and Harry would not be snickering at me like that. “He did not! He was just acting strangely because of the potion. He did not propose to me! He, he... Stop laughing! And when I said that, I meant both of you!”