Chapter Five- Rooming Requirements and Baby Blues

Again , big thank-yous of gigantitude go out to ALL my reviewers! Love y'all!

Later that cursེd evening, the professors, depending on their house, showed all the victims-ahem...participants to their new rooms.

Malfoy and Hermione were taken upstairs a few floors, near the Astronomy Tower, by Professors Snape and McGonagall, who bickered almost as much as the students themselves. Which was saying something!

"That's the wrong room, Minerva," Snape insisted.

"It most certainly is not!"

"Is."

"Isn't."

"Is."

"Isn't"

This went on for quite awhile. Hermione elbowed Malfoy. "Look at them! They're squabbling like children!" He nodded in disgusted assent.

"Oh," they heard Snape say, as he read the names on the label affixed to the door. "Didn't see that.."

He tapped the small golden label, and it immediately became a portrait frame filled with swirling silver liquid. A moment later, two figures appeared on the frame. It, horrifyingly, looked to be older versions of Malfoy and Hermione (a.n Which will sometimes be referred to as OH or OM, as in Older Hermione and Malfoy.)

"Ohmigod!" shrieked the Older Hermione, who looked to be in her mid-twenties. "It's cute mini-me-and-you's! My God! I was adorable!"

The Older Malfoy rolled his eyes . "You do know that you frighten me greatly, don't you?"

"Oh, shut up," OH said. She then proceeded to pout most convincingly. (Wonder where she learned how to do that...?)

"I've got to find out how people do that!" her present-day counterpart grinned.

"You will," OH winked, then changed the subject. She whacked OM on the arm and exclaimed, "Ooh! Draco, look how cute you were when you were little!"

OM smirked. "You didn't think so then. Oh, and I can see why." He addressed present-day Malfoy. "You might consider using less hair gel. If you don't, this one here," he nodded at OH, "might feel the need to be a wench and wreak havoc on your beauty supplies."

OH looked quite triumphant. "Like flushing the lot of it down the toilet?" Quietly, she whispered to Hermione, "He keeps about twenty bottles in the top of the medicine cabinet."

OM clapped his hand over OH's mouth. "Don't tell her- er, you, that!"

"I. Am going. To bite you," came the muffled reply.

Hermione and Malfoy watched, horrified, as their future selves squabbled. "Oh dear sweet Merlin!"the mortified girl exclaimed. Her partner looked equally aghast.

"You two will never grow up," said their coldly sarcastic professor. "You can make up a password later." He pushed the door open to reveal their new dorm room.

The living area was painted a shiny silver with red and black accents.

"Nice," Malfoy commented, surveying it.

Hermione nodded and saw that there were four doors at the cardinal points of the common room. One door opened to show a red and black bathroom. She opened another to find her room, predominantly red. Malfoy announced that the room opposite hers, to the south, was his.

The fourth door was opened by McGonagal and Snape. It was a light shade of pink with hints of gold. It was utterly out of place in their White Stripes-esque dorm.

"What's this, Professor?" Hermione asked her Head of House.

"This, Miss Granger, is the other aspect of the project," she replied with an air of mystery.

A small cry was heard from inside the room. Hesitantly, the two students entered. Hermione slowly walked over to a small bed-thing and picked up its tiny contents.

Malfoy looked terrified.

"What?" she asked. "The Great Malfoy has a baby phobia?"

He looked defensive, then just a little pathetic. "No! ...I just don't know what to do with it. I mean, what do I feed it? What does it do?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Honestly, 'it' happens to be a 'she', and she doesn't do anything but eat, sleep, and cry. That's all babies do, genius boy."

"Oh, well...did they give it- er, her, a name?"

"No." It was Professor McGonagal who replied. "That is up to the 'parents'; that is to say, you."

"Any other questions?" Snape looked impatient.

"Erm, how did you get her to look so much like us?" Hermione asked, fingering the girl's blonde curls.

"Do you remember the end of the ceremony this afternoon?" the female teacher asked. They nodded. "Good. What about the, er, jolt?" Again, they nodded.

Flashback

(AN: Oooh! I looooove writing flashbacks! You know what else I love? Killing space so I can start a fresh page!)

Hermione heard her and Malfoy's name called. She walked out from behind the curtain erected to keep the boys and girls separate, as did her partner on the other side. Then, she noticed that the first chorus of "I Melt With You" by Modern English flowing into the room. Hermione mentally noted that they'd skipped the somewhat dirty first verse and laughed.

Once they's both reached the dais in the middle of the room that the headmaster was standing on, they stopped. Professor Dumbledore said a few words, none of which had actually registered in their brains. There were no vows and they, like the couples before, were asked to produce their wands. The Headmaster muttered something in Latin, and the tips of their wands flew together; there was a sudden jolt, more of an electric shock, really, and they flew apart again. Dumbledore smiled and they were dismissed.

End Flashback

Yep, they definitely remembered the jolt. (It'd been something akin to unplugging a stereo after just getting out of a pool. Not so peasant.)

"That," the Professor said, "was the effect of a Give-and-Take spell. You were given a binding spell, and we took a bit of your power, which we mixed to create her."

Hermione looked pensive. "You know, I really should've thought of that."

"Well, you'll just have to live with that," the over impatient Snape said. "And if there are no more questions, we really should be going." He gave them no opportunity to ask any further questions and then proceeded to all but drag his female counterpart out of the room.

"You really are an arse, you know that?" Minerva asked.

"I am not. I actually have a legitimate reason for wanting to get out of there." He pulled her into an empty classroom and produced a small mirror.

"What are you doing?" she asked, exasperated.

"Watch," he insisted. When he tapped the mirror, it became larger and an image appeared on its surface. It showed a blond boy and a brunette girl holding a small blond baby.

"Now the fun really begins," Snape said almost gleefully as he conjured up two armchairs and a jumbo bucket of popcorn.