A Means of Survival – Chapter 03 – “New Routines”

As I have mentioned on no less than two times prior, before reading this story, you should be aware of the possible warnings and disclaimers.  If you have not done so yet, please GO BACK AND DO SO NOW.

Chapter 3 – New Routines

The silencing spell had worked. They had slept the night through for the first time in more than 48 hours. Unfortunately, a full night’s sleep was not enough to make up for the past three days of their lives. Moreover, as was evidenced by Ron and Harry’s physical states the morning after, there was a definite price to be paid for the full night of sleep that they had acquired.

Ron had screamed himself hoarse; no doubt at least a partial result of having to watch Harry’s repeated arse plundering by that ghoul Lucius – or so Harry thought. Harry, on the other hand, had scratched deep blood filled welts into the skin of his arms and legs and chest. Harry vaguely remembered a dream involving a shower and a potato peeler, but shuddered to try and remember any more about the cause of his unconsciously created claw marks.

While taking a careful piss in the lavatory that morning, he had passed by Ron at the sinks, watching his friend spitting out blood surreptitiously into the sink before gingerly brushing his teeth. He hadn’t deigned to make note of his friend’s actions, just as he hadn’t shown his friend the extent of the scratches.

It was Thursday, and never before in all of his short time on earth had he wished so much for the arrival of the weekend and its blessed recovery time. They were all three behind on their homework, but only Hermione could still be bothered to care.

Although, Hermione’s mental state was another point of worry causing contention. Harry and Ron had gotten to the common room first and were waiting on Hermione’s arrival so that they could go to breakfast. Harry had been forced to shove all of his sheets down the laundry chute, after hastily—and carefully—throwing on his clothes and robes. He hoped that no one would see his sheets save the house elves, for he wasn’t sure if he sit long enough to make it through his classes, let alone endure being lectured at by McGonagall or Pomfrey.

Finally though, Hermione had made it downstairs and they had gone down to eat.

“Oh Merlin,” Harry said quietly after sitting gingerly down at their table. He pressed his hands against his eyes, under his glasses, his sleeves carefully buttoned against the livid and scratches that were now burning and causing little winces across the whole of his body.

Ron looked questioningly at him as Hermione spoke for the first time in two days.

“Double potions.” She said in a monotone voice, as she stared at the tabletop, looking all the world as though Death had just danced across that very spot.

Ron’s groan wasn’t the only one heard at the Gryffindor table that day; Neville had added his voice as well, in a rare show of solidarity with the “Misplaced Three,” as some had secretly begun referring to them as.

“Amen, mate,” Harry had said wearily, nodding towards the round-faced boy. If anyone would understand abject terror and horror, it would be Neville.

It was obvious that the boy wanted to ask them a question, but they all three pointedly ignored him as they focused on putting some kind of fuel into their rundown bodies—well, at least Ron and Harry did. Hermione, for her part, sat huddled on the bench by herself, not touching anyone. The boys would have preferred to sit surrounding her, but they had felt that it was necessary for them each to keep an eye on what was before them, as well as behind them.

She looked as though she were cold, even though the day was likely to be fairly warm, if the bright blue skies above them were any indication. Harry, conversely, felt as though he were burning up with the fire elicited from the hundred or so scratches littering the expanse of his body. Some of the scratches were still bleeding a bit; he could feel the blood from one dripping down his leg, into his shoe.

It didn’t matter, he told himself firmly. Hermione would be the one facing her tormentor that day in class, not him. He wasn’t watching Ron any more carefully than usually, otherwise he would have noticed the nearly green tint that his face had taken on at Hermione’s mention of “Double Potions.” He could still feel Draco’s clammy hands on his body. In his dream from the night before, he had been on an ancient medieval stretching block, slowly being pulled apart as Draco had stood there, touching him yet again, and breathing harshly in his ear.

Neither boy knew what, if any, dreams that Hermione had had, for she wasn’t saying much of anything still. The trend continued that morning, through transfiguration. Hermione asked no questions and offered up no information. She sat there, stonily silent; Harry personally felt as though her gaze could potentially set smaller creatures on fire and was not certain if this were a good or a bad thing.

He could feel Professor McGonagall staring at her in concerned peculiarity, but otherwise made no motion towards her. The lesson of the day was to transform a goblet into a t-shirt, and this was where things became odd.

Ron’s wand was still giving off sparks intermittently, but he no longer was swearing vocally at it. In fact, he wasn’t doing much at all with anything. His head was propped up in his hands, and Harry assumed that Ron’s increased lackadaisical behavior was likely due to his wand problems. Hermione, however, had a different game plan.

“Ron,” she whispered after surreptitiously throwing up a lightweight silencing charm.

He jumped a bit in his chair and looked at her goggle-eyed.

“Ron,” she repeated, still whispering, “trade wands with me.”

Whatever they had been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.

“’Mione?” He blustered stupidly and hoarsely at her, looking at her closely as though his staring her down might somehow reveal the internal workings of her brain.

“Do it Ron.” She said, more forcefully that time. “And then work on the assignment.”

Without another word, they exchanged wands, and Harry raised an eyebrow at both of their expressions. He wasn’t sure if McGonagall had watched that little interaction or not, but he quickly chose to drop the silencing spell to make sure they hadn’t missed any more vital information.

The class apparently was having mixed success at their assignment, Harry soon surmised; some of the t-shirts were okay, minus the metal imprint of a goblet in the centre; while others were only the size of a goblet. He poked his wand at his goblet, trying to focus on what he wanted to make happen, and was pleasantly surprised for the first time in a week, when it actually happened. His had turned into a pajama shirt, complete with little goblets that steamed little “Z’s” out their tops. Caught in the surprising moment, he actually let out a little snort of amusement which was quickly overshadowed by McGonagall’s shout of approval.

“Well done, Mr. Potter!” She exclaimed, a bit too jovially for his tastes. “Full points and ten points to Gryffindor for your creativity!” she said brightly to him, standing far too close for comfort. Unconsciously, he shrunk away from her and immediately looked for the position of her wand. Unbeknownst to him, the other two of the “Misplaced Trio,” had responded likewise.

McGonagall, thinking that her sudden exclamation was to blame, took a step back, but did not lose the hearty grin she still had displayed on her face. She felt that it was time for him to outdo Ms. Granger in something for once. Surely that had been the reason for his reticence at her praise. Surely.

…

After that, class had passed rather slowly for Harry as he had watched Ron and Hermione carefully work with each other’s wands. They had made no more comments to each other, and Harry wasn’t sure if that was due to their individual levels of concentration or something else, deeper.

He couldn’t actually see what it was exactly that Hermione was doing. She was bent over her goblet like a prisoner holding onto his or her food plate. It was almost as though she were deep in mental conversation with the goblet. He didn’t dare interrupt her to ask for details though, but hoped that she would explain after class.

Ron, for his part, was behaving very skittishly. He couldn’t seem to focus on the goblet as a whole; instead he seemed only able to transform a portion of the goblet one bit at a time. Thus far he had changed the mouth of the goblet into a slightly stretchy circle that Harry had assumed was the part where the head went through. He had done the same with the bottom of the goblet, but had somehow stretched it out into nearly four times the size of the top hole.

Every so often Harry caught McGonagall staring mystically at them, and as the practical part of the lesson waned onwards, he began to get a bit annoyed at her. There was obviously a problem with three of her students, not just three of her class students, but three students of her house. Why then was she just content to continue staring at them and not actually put forth any offers to help?

…

By the time that McGonagall had called time, he was fully pissed off at her callousness towards three of her own students. Why, even Snape watched out better for the students under his direct care.

Of course, Harry reasoned to himself that that was probably more because of his hatred of having secrets kept from him, especially right under his nose, than due to any real concern for his charges.

Still though, it seemed to him that had Snape been their head of house, Lucius would have never gotten his perverted hands on them, and certainly would have never, never . . . done anything else, he decided uneasily.

Trying to distract himself, he looked around at the class’s results of the day. He saw more than a couple of brown t-shirts with gold looking trim, alongside some more disastrous attempts. Neville’s goblet still retained its original goblet shape, but it no longer seemed able to hold up on its own power, and currently had fallen to the side in a great mushy heap that McGonagall had sniffed disdainfully at.

His shirt was without doubt the best of the day, he noted with more than a little surprise. Meanwhile, Ron’s shirt looked just about right for, say, someone shaped like Barbie; its mid-section, while made out of cloth, was barely as big around as its collar. However, in direct opposition to that, its bust section looked large enough to fit someone like Aunt Marge.

Harry shuddered a bit, before looking at Hermione’s goblet. He still couldn’t believe that she had voluntarily switched wands with Ron, considering how much she valued her grades, and how little good Ron’s wand had done since its fateful snapping when they careened violently into the Whomping Willow.

And yet, there she was, still hunched furtively over the goblet, his wand still in hand, her arms still covering her work.

“Ms. Granger, I do hope that you haven’t fallen asleep over there,” Professor McGonagall said, as she finally got around to checking Hermione’s work. Harry winced with the iciness of their Professor’s words and chanced a quick glance at Hermione, trying to gauge what her reaction—if any—would be at hearing one of her favorite professors speaking to her thus.

Harry, Ron, and the rest of the class sat tensely on the edges of their chairs as they waited for what surely would be a huge explosion of emotion from Hermione. McGonagall’s words had sounded like something Professor Snape would say, and the man rarely failed to get an emotional response from her. Moreover, everyone knew that whatever had caused the Golden Trio’s transformation into the Misplaced Trio had outwardly affected Hermione the worst.

Hermione though, had other plans, as was evidenced by the cool glare she used when she glanced up at their head of house.

“No ma’am,” she said crisply at McGonagall. Harry thought that her gaze was almost sharp enough to go through their professor and he silently winced, setting up a domino effect across his still injured flesh.

“Then let’s see what you have,” McGonagall said, obviously choosing to ignore the distasteful behavior of one of her best students.

And, miraculously, Hermione handed her a pale pink t-shirt that had been tucked under her arms for who knew how long. Ron gaped at her use of his wand to create something as adequate as that.

McGonagall unfurled Hermione’s creation, and was rewarded by a harsh intake of breath from the rest of the class.

Written across a perfectly normal sized bust section, was a word in what looked like steaming red ink, which read “BITCH.”

The class was shocked silent, and most were trying to figure out whether to stare in dismay at their completely flabbergasted professor, or to sneak glances at their now satisfied looking classmate.

McGonagall’s mouth open and closed several times before she managed to speak a one word command that no one dared argue with.

“DISMISSED,” she said, glancing harshly at the rest of the class, obviously daring them to argue with her.

The fourth chapter can be found here.