Home of the Brave?

AN: Do not own HP, this should be apparent by now.

It was a Sunday afternoon in early autumn of Fifth Year when Harry and Ron returned to the Gryffindor common room from an enjoyable fly-about in the still warm Scottish sunshine. The school term was still young, so the work-load was mostly yet manageable to those not particularly of a scholarly bent, and easily enough mastered by those who were. Upon negotiating the entrance, Harry spotted their classmate and dear friend who was very much of category the second still slaving away amidst a large rampart of books and scattered parchments. Seeking to free their swotty friend from her academic drudgery, Harry prodded Ron with an elbow and motioned to Hermione currently garrisoning Fort Book-Learning (Ron made the mistake of calling the practice of ringing herself with books 'Nerd Castle' once within Hermione's hearing. His arm bruise lasted nearly two weeks.), and together sought to lay siege to the 'bastion of education', as it were.

Harry imitated the sound of a scratchy radio transmission. "Hermione? Earth to Hermione. Come in Hermione, over."

Ron glanced at Harry strangely, not really understanding the space transmission references, (Muggles? All the way up there? You're takin' the piss mate!), chimed in, "Oy Hermione! Come up for air a moment, wouldja?"

Hermione looked up at the two standing over her, glanced down at the text for a moment, and then looked up at the grinning boys. "Ron, hold out your arm for a moment." She said sharply.

"Uh, what was that?"

"Ronald," she repeated slowly, "hold out your arm over this piece of parchment." As she slid said parchment into place below where his arm was to be placed.

"Okaaay, why should I do that?" Ron asked as he slowly began to extend his appendage into the space indicated.

Hermione grabbed Ron's wrist pulling his arm into place. "Confringo minima." She incanted, cutting Ron's arm slightly and allowing a few drops to fall onto the parchment.

"OW! What the bloody hell was that for? Have you gone mental again?!" Ron was slightly upset.

"Oh, stop wingeing! Episkey!" Hermione healed the smallish cut on Ron's arm. She then wrote Ron's name on the blooded paper and produced a fresh sheet.

" Your turn Harry."

Harry shared a wary glance with Ron, who was rubbing the healed area on his arm.

"Before I do, would you mind telling us why you're cutting up your friends and stealing their blood?" Harry asked with a suitably arched eyebrow.

"Turning into a bloody vampire, she is!" Ron muttered.

Heaving an annoyed sigh, Hermione said "I'm testing a theory, and I need samples on which to perform those tests. The test requires a blood sample."

"What about your blood? You could use your own, you know!" Ron challenged.

"Good point." She allowed. "Confringo minima." To her own arm, followed by a muttered healing charm. A scrawled 'Hermione G' on the parchment completed her own donation.

"Okay then." Said Harry. "All you had to do was ask."

"Yeah, maybe try to actually get around to asking next time!" Said a still slightly peeved Ron.

Harry dutifully gave a donation to Hermione's research, and both boys sat down to observe the test.

Hermione checked the texts around her, which proved to be a combination of magical healing works and a couple of modern mundane medical journals she had obtained from somewhere. Once some point of doubt was cleared up, she then took up her wand and began casting a longish spell at the blood samples.

"Uh, Hermione, what exactly are you testing for?" Harry asked.

Hermione completed the spell, having caused a purple-ish light to emanate. "Toxoplasma Gondii." She said without looking up.

"Tox-what?"

"Toxoplasma Gondii, it's a blood-bourne parasite."

At this point, Ron was completely confused. Harry however began to pale a bit.

"Is it dangerous?" Harry asked.

"Not normally. It can be extremely hazardous to pregnant women, but healthy adolescents are in no particular danger from the pathogen itself." She cast the spell again and received the same result. All three parchments glowed with a purple light, Ron's very strongly and the other two with a fainter gleam.

"Your second question should be 'do we have it?', and I would have to say we do."

"You said it wasn't dangerous, right?" Harry asked, by now quite concerned. Ron for his part just sat silently, someone would come along and tell him what he needed to know.

"The pathogen itself isn't harmful, but the behaviors created by the pathogen certainly are!"

"And those would be?" Asked a slightly annoyed Harry.

"Well, think 'acting like a typical Gryffindor' and you wouldn't be far off."

"So you're saying it causes people to act like psychotic arseholes?"

"Decreased fear response and preference for riskier behaviors are two symptoms, as well as a tendency towards ADHD and ADD. Need I mention that all of the above can be plentifully found in this house?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked around at the other occupants of Gryffindor. Fred and George Weasley were seen chatting up a slightly angry Katie Bell, the accompanying hand gestures seemingly indicating the arrangement of a tryst. By all indication, a three way tryst a la ménage a trois given the back and forth hand gestures. Finally, George mouthing the word 'rotisserie' brought the conversation to a close with a resounding slap from the much aggrieved Katie Bell.

In another corner, Cormack MacLaggen was mounting a broomstick with loud assurances that he 'could totally pull off a ground loop in the common room. Those ceilings are like twenty feet high!'

Even at their own table, Ron had already lost track of the conversation and was currently trying to look down Lavender's shirt as she bent over a magazine her friend Parvati was reading.

At this point, Harry was convinced of several things. Fred and George would not be getting together with Katie Bell this evening, or ever. The ceilings in the common room are somewhat less than twenty feet in height and Cormac would be quite sore for some time once he woke up. Lavender does have a nice rack, even though she does annoy him sometimes. And most importantly, everything Hermione just said is very true.

"Okay, your analysis is spot on. I now have several questions. How did we all get it? What else does it do to your brain? Can it get worse? What do we do about it?" Harry asked.

"Do ye think Lavender will let me give her the 'motorboat'?" Ron asked.

"Ron! Focus! Now to answer your questions One: Cats or undercooked meats, two: hopefully nothing, though in rare cases schizophrenia can result, three: I don't think so without reintroduction, four: just keep an eye on the situation as you and I Harry don't seem to be badly infected, and lastly: never in a million years Ron, not even if you paid her."

"Well, the undercooked meat thing is pretty straight forward, like trichinosis or worms, but you mentioned cats?" Harry asked.

"Specifically, exposure to cat faeces. Like in a litter box or something of that sort."

"Hmm. Did you test Crookshanks?" Harry asked. When seeing Hermione's stormy look, he added quickly, "Not that he's at fault, or anything, but you know, just to be thorough and all."

"He's been tested, and I make sure to vanish his 'production' first thing every morning." She said, tightly.

"Okay, okay. No offence meant. Who else has cats in the tower?"

"Fourth Year Romilda Vane, a second year boy, and another first year girl. All have tested negative so far."

Just then, Professor McGonagall arrived to take charge of the concussed Cormac MacLaggen, delivering a stern lecture and setting some by-standing seventh years to clean up the minor structural damage. As the professor was leaving with the unconscious student in tow, a calculating look could briefly seen on her normally stern visage as if to indicate that she herself might be able to pull off a ground loop with only fifteen feet of clearance, where MacLaggen had failed.

"Hermione, what if it isn't a cat who is the culprit, but someone who can turn into a cat?"

"I had not considered that…"

AN: Just a little something to keep the juices flowing and prove that I'm not dead. The next chapter of One Wizard should be up any day now...