As Harry, Hermione, and Ron walked out of the Great Hall, looking shocked and confused and feeling...well, shocked and confused, they each maintained a far-off, forward facing gaze and rather furiously avoided looking at one another.
"What...what just happened?" Harry asked, finally.
Both Hermione and Ron shivered, not bothering to answer.
"They can't do that," Harry said. "They just...can't. I mean, Hogwarts has always done things a bit more dangerously than most schools...but damn...that's got to be illegal..."
Hermione and Ron shivered some more.
The three kept walking, out of the Entrance Hall and onto the grounds. The maintained the direction of their gazes, still not daring to look at each other.
Ginny greeted them on the other side of the door. "Hello there," she said, a truly mischievous grin on her face. "How are you feeling?"
Only Harry managed to look at her; Hermione and Ron were too busy shivering at every word. "How are we feeling?" he asked, his voice going oddly high. "How do you suppose we're feeling?"
"Well, from what I've heard, having a decent lay makes you feel pretty good," Ginny said, winking at Harry. "Where is that girl of yours, anyway?"
Harry looked around, confused. "I don't know," he said. "I...she was..."
Hermione and Ron...yes, they shivered.
"Well, anyway, you shouldn't feel too badly about it all," Ginny said, trying very hard to contain a burst of laughter. "I mean, it was a great show...very educational...really, I feel enlightened..."
"You were watching your brother have sex," Harry said, bluntly. "How is that enlightening?"
Hermione and Ron stopped shivering and turned to stare point blank at Harry. Most unfortunately, for them anyway, Harry was standing in between the two of them, and by turning to stare at him they caught glimpses of each other in their peripheral vision. Both turned red as tomatoes and ran in opposite directions – again, unfortunately, Ron straight into a wall and Hermione into a bush. Ron was knocked instantly (and mercifully) unconscious, while Hermione tripped and sprawled through the bush and out of sight.
"I see that the encore is even better," Ginny said, observing the antics of her brother and his lover and letting a bit of the laughter out.
"Ginny, this is serious," Harry said. "What happened back there was...traumatizing."
"Pfft," Ginny said, brushing Harry's comment off. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. "There's more of that potion floating around, you know..."
Harry wanted to pull back from Ginny, but as her arms snaked around his neck and back he felt an inexorable force that prevented him from seperating himself from her. After all, she was quite beautiful. And smart! And witty! And talented!
So really...why not?
This time, when Harry awoke on the mattress in the Great Hall, neither he, nor his partner, now Ginny, were wearing any clothes, although a pair of robes had been deposited beside the mattress for them to put on. McGonagall, looking thoroughly less together than last time, stood next to the mattress, now holding a clipboard in one hand and a quill in the other.
"Right, you can go now," she said, scribbling something on the clipboard. "Consider yourselves punished. Don't play with love potions."
"Professor, we didn't play with love potions," Harry said. McGonagall gave him a fishy stare, and Harry decided that he could better argue his case with clothes on. "We were just outside on the grounds, talking, when we both started...well..."
"Yes, we've seen what the two of you started," McGonagall said, indicating a much smaller group of students than last time. Ginny, mortified, squeaked and grabbed her own robe, attempting at once to use it to cover herself up and to put it on; this may have worked if she hadn't drawn the right sleeve across her thigh.
"Professor, I swear...we didn't use a love potion," Harry said. "Neither of us had any control over our actions."
"Mr. Potter, that will be enough," Professor McGonagall snapped. "You breached the rules here at Hogwarts, and now you have been punished. Good day."
She turned away from the mattress Harry still shared with Ginny, and for the first time Harry saw that there were other mattresses in the Great Hall – at least four others. On one, Hermione and Roger Davies seemed to be having a go...and on another, Ron and Cho were...Harry turned away, not enjoying the sight of what his best friend and former girlfriend were doing to each other. The other two mattresses were unoccupied, although judging by their disarray, they hadn't been that way for long.
"What is this?" Harry muttered to himself.
"Horrifying?" Ginny squeaked, unable to bring her voice back to some semblance of normalcy.
"Besides that," Harry said. "There's something odd going on here..."
When Hermione and Ron were done...ahem...copulating with their respective partners, they joined Harry and headed up to the library.
"Roger Davies?" Ron asked, sounding somewhere between amused and disgusted.
Hermione shrugged. "I found him in the bushes. Dunno what he was doing there."
When they entered the library, Madam Pince shot them all dirty looks. Harry looked down and realized that the three of them were only wearing the robes provided by Professor McGonagall, and nothing else...which was quite noticeable. Blushing, Harry summoned a pair of trousers and a shirt from his dormitory. Catching on and also blushing, both Hermione and Ron followed suit. True to form, Ron's shirt didn't show up with his trousers, and he was forced to sit down with Harry and Hermione shirtless.
"Something very...odd...is going on around here," Harry said.
"We've noticed," Hermione said, eyeing Ron's bare chest.
"McGonagall keeps telling us that we've been using love potions on each other, but I haven't ever used one, let alone two in the past twenty-four hours," Harry said. "And now...geez, up until yesterday, I was a virgin..."
"I wasn't..." Ron said.
"Yeah, and now...wait...what?" Harry said, his train of thought completely thrown off by Ron's strange comment. "You...what?"
"Huh?" Hermione asked, her eyes as fixated on Ron as his were on her. "Did you say something, Harry?"
"Oh, don't you two do this," Harry said. "I need you to help me. You can't go off and..."
"Too late," Ron and Hermione said at the same time, and they pounced on each other, disappearing as soon as they made contact.
"Great. Now what am I supposed to do?" Harry asked. Just then, Ron's shirt, bearing a tear (it must have snagged on something on the way up, accounting for its delay) came flying into the room at breakneck speed, apparently attempting to make up for lost time. It hit Harry squarely in the face, knocking his chair over backwards and spilling Harry onto the floor of the library.
Madam Pince shot Harry another dirty look and then, doing a slight double-take, looked back, no doubt wondering where Ron and Hermione had gotten themselves off to. Harry, plucking Ron's shirt off of his face and tossing it aside, saw her inquisitive look and shrugged.
Harry picked himself up off the floor, picked up his chair, and then stood, looking at the vast library. He was going to have do this by himself...and he was going to have to avoid females while he was at it.
An hour and a half later, Hermione and Ron dragged themselves back into the library. "What took you guys?" Harry asked. He quickly held up his hands. "That was rhetorical...I don't really want to know..."
Hermione and Ron both blushed, but neither seemed singularly embarrassed this time. Mostly, they seemed tired. "Look, Hermione, don't take this personally, but...don't come near me, okay?" Harry said. "Whatever's doing this is pairing up whoever comes in close contact with us, and we need to focus on work and not...that."
Hermione nodded, halfheartedly. "Okay," Harry said. "I'm going to start in Curses and see if there's anything that matches the...uh...symptoms. Hermione, you can check Hogwarts, A History and see if this has ever happened before...and Ron, you check the old Daily Prophet archives...there might be something about this happening somewhere else."
Hermione and Ron sleepily nodded their consent, moving off towards the history section of the library. A few minutes later, Harry snuck a peak around a bookstack to check on their progress...and neither was there.
"Amazing," Harry muttered.
As the night wore on, Harry began to despair of finding anything in the Curses section on rampant, unexplainable lust. Sure, there were plenty of curses that could do the job, but they had to be administered singularly, and what was happening at Hogwarts seemed to be more of a blanket effect.
"Halio Sexo," Harry muttered, reading aloud. "A curse to make the Cursee feel uncontrollable lust towards the closest member of the opposite sex, or the same sex in the case of a compatible sexual preference. Well, that sounds like the culprit...but who could be putting these curses on us?"
Just then, Fawkes the Phoenix flew in through the closest library window. Harry quickly checked on Madam Pince – if she saw a bird in the library she'd probably kick Harry out – but she was thoroughly engaged in the latest edition of Witch Weekly, and was paying Harry and his new company no mind.
"Fawkes...what are you doing here?" Harry asked.
Fawkes reached out one of his great talons and tossed Harry the Sorting Hat, which fell in Harry's lap. Harry looked down at the crumpled old hat and then back up at the Phoenix, inquisitively. Fawkes jabbed at the air with his beak in the direction of the Hat, and Harry, taking the hint, put it on.
Why hello, Harry, the Sorting Hat said, in Harry's mind.
Hello... Harry said. Could I ask you what's going on here?
Whatever do you mean by that? The Sorting Hat asked.
Me – and all of my friends – have been getting hit by the Halio Sexo curse every few minutes the entire day. We keep waking up in the Great Hall, too. Who could be doing this?
Oh, Harry...such a suspicious creature you are. You would have made an excellent Slytherin, as I told you all those years ago. It sounds like a classic case of teenage hormones to me.
It can't just be hormones, Harry said. The whole thing's been really weird from the start...and how do you explain all of us waking up in the Great Hall?
Harry, Harry, the Hat said, sounding conciliatory. Sometimes strange things happen in this castle, things that no one can explain. Usually, I don't try to.
There has to be an explanation, and...hold on... Harry said, realizing something mid-thoughtsentence. What are you doing here?
Me? Can't I just come out with Fawkes to visit an old friend? The Hat asked, jokingly.
You and all of this must be connected somehow, I know it, Harry said, feeling confidant in his hypothesis.
The Hat was quiet for a moment Well, enough of that, it said. I happen to know that your friend Ginny is downstairs in the Common Room at this very minute...she's wearing a very, very nice red dress...I'm sure you'd like to see her in it...and you'd probably like to see her out of it, too...
Harry felt his stomach turn over. He suddenly, very badly, did want to see Ginny in that red dress...and he wanted to see her out of it even worse. He began to sweat, his vision losing focus. His hands shook. His fingers lost their grip on the Hat and it slid sideways on his head. His feet shook, for Christ's sake.
Harry slid down, sideways, in his chair, the physical need burning inside him. As he slid, the Hat slid further askew, and eventually fell off. Instantly, the paralyzing burning sensation left Harry. He looked down at the Hat, accusingly.
"You were trying to distract me," he said. "But why...?"
Harry looked up, intending that next question for his old friend Fawkes, but Fawkes was no longer sitting on the table in front of him. Instead, a massive Randar stood there, its tail poised and ready. The Randar swung its tail, hitting Harry in the head and causing him to black out...but before that blackness consumed him, a tiny light went on his mind.
"Harry... Harry, you're awake!" a voice yelled over him. Harry recognized the voice as Ginny.
"Ginny? Are you alright?" Harry asked, groggily.
"Uh, yeah..." Ginny said. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Harry's grogginess cleared instantly and his eyes came fully open. Strangely, he couldn't see. "No reason..." he said. "Where are we? I can't see."
"Madam Pomfrey said that your sight might be out. We're in the Hospital Wing. Once I knew the Randar was dead, I levitated you back to the school, and told everyone what happened. And that you saved me. Thank you, oh, how can I thank you?"
Harry rubbed his forehead, attempting to get the headache out through his forehead. "Exactly what are you thanking me for now?" he asked.
"I have no idea," Ginny said, perplexed. "I don't know, the words just...came out..."
"This is really, really –" Harry started to say, but didn't get to finish the sentence.
"I'd love to," Ginny said, and ravenously jumped on top of him.
The next morning, Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, as well as several other couples (there were now ten mattresses), awoke in the Great Hall.
McGonagall looked frankly annoyed. "Don't waste any more of my time," she snipped at them, not even mentioning punishment.
The four who were, by this time, more or less accustomed to waking up in this position each grabbed their clothes, dressed, and left the Hall, where the other victims were just starting to come to terms with what they'd just partaken in.
"Listen, guys, I'm not sure how long we have before this starts again," Harry said. "But last night, in the library, I found the curse. It's called Halio Sexo, the –"
"Lust curse!" Hermione interjected. "Of course!"
"Uh, yeah," Harry said. "Of course. Anyway, there's no way that this is a blanket curse...whoever is doing it has to curse each of us separately. And it seems that if we got a certain amount of time without being cursed again, reality starts breaking down...I thought I saw a Randar last night..."
Ron nodded. "And I thought I saw a pussy cat."
Hermione grinned slyly. "Well, maybe not the "cat" part..."
All four turned sharply towards each other. "Oh God," Hermione said, covering her mouth with both hands. "Is it happening again?"
"Do not worry, Miss Granger," an ethereal voice said from above them. "It will not happen to you again."
Albus Dumbledore, floating in midair, shimmered into view above them. Fawkes sat on his shoulder. "Professor Dumbledore!" Harry said. "Did you catch whoever's been doing this to us?"
"Not exactly, Harry," Dumbledore said, smiling his twinkling smile. "It was I who was doing it."
"What!" the four teenagers gasped, exclaimed, yelled, and cursed...and not particularly in that order.
"Yes, it was I," Dumbledore said, floating down to stand in front of the shocked group of teens. "You see, very early in my life, I discovered that my parents were from the future, and that they had sent me back in time, for reasons of their own. Although I never came to fully understand those reasons, over time, and applying my rather considerable magical skill, I was able to discern from which time I originated. Namely...this time.
"As you may have guessed, I became Headmaster of Hogwarts with the intention of steering whoever would become my parents towards each other, in order to assure that the event actually happened – it was entirely possible that I had already altered the timeline in such a way as to prevent my parents from ever meeting, and I needed to make as sure as possible that my parents would meet here at Hogwarts, conceive a child, and send that child back in time.
"So, I waited. I watched as children with slightly compatible genetic structures came and went, and I made sure to subtly match them up with other students with compatible genetic structures. Harry, Ron, Ginny, I matched all of your parents together, knowing that in all likelihood, it would be one of the two of you who would eventually be my father. I magically tracked my birthdate to approximately nine months from now, and acted, beginning to cast lust spells on anyone with compatible genes.
"Although at first, I believed Miss Chang to be the best genetic match for Harry, I had an epiphany after watching their...festivities...and several of Miss Chang's more undesirable hobbies, I realized that they weren't to be my parents. So, too, did I realize that Ron and Hermione probably weren't going to be my parents, although they still held promise. Then, I had a second epiphany...what if I combined the Potter and Weasley lines? Harry and Ginny were both perfectly compatible, both genetically and by their auras.
"Therefore, I'm proud to announce...Ginny Weasley, you're pregnant! With...me!"
"No," Harry said.
"Freaking," Ron added.
"Way," Hermione finished.
All three of the trio turned to look at Ginny, who stood, stunned.
"I'm...pregnant?" Ginny asked. "How am I going to tell my parents?"
"Do not worry," Dumbledore said, smiling at...well, his mother...icky as that sounds. "I will notify Molly and Arthur...oh dear...they will be my grandparents now, won't they be? I will also make sure that you are not chastised here at school, and once the baby is ready, we will send it back in time. Now, I'd best be on my way...many preparations to attend to..."
Dumbledore once more shimmered out of view, although Fawkes remained with the still-stunned Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione.
"Deus Ex Machina," Fawkes said, and all four teenagers turned to stare at the Phoenix.
"You talk?" Ron asked.
"Deus Ex Machina," Fawkes repeated.
"Uh, I"ll bite," Ginny said. "What's a Deus Ex Machina?"
"It's an old theater technique from Ancient Greece, where a godly character would step in at the last minute to save the hero of the play from certain death. A machine would lower the godly character in, who would resolve the plot happily without requiring the hero to die or do any real dirty work...and it just happened here."
"I don't get it," Harry said, confused.
"It means that you ponces were too thick to figure everything out before the end of the story," Fawkes said.
"Wait, do you mean..." Hermione asked, comprehension dawning on her face, as well as the faces of her friends. Slowly, all four turned to stare out of the computer screen on which these flowing lines of text are printed. That's right, reader – they're looking at you.
And considering their track record of late, if you wind up waking up naked on a bare mattress in the middle of a fancy cafeteria with a strange person...don't be too surprised.