Episode One: Harry Potter and the Horrible House-Share
Harry Potter woke up one morning, with a strange agoraphobic feeling. During the summer, he slept surrounded by the imposing walls of the cupboard under the stairs or a veritable mountain of Dudley's cast-off toys. Even at Hogwarts, the velvet curtains of his four-poster enclosed him, so the idea of waking up with a breeze on his face was a little unnerving.
He lay for a moment in that strange state between sleep and wakefulness, a little perturbed until he recognised the sounds of Ron's loud snoring from beside him. He relaxed. Everything was normal. After a while, he began to wake up properly and took in the fact that the breeze was entering the room through a person-shaped hole in a large picture window. In the bed beside him, Ron was sleeping with a sparkly orange crash-helmet on his head. If he strained his ears, he could hear the vague sound of chains clanking in the basement, many floors below. Through the broken window, Hagrid could be seen sleeping on the lawn. Harry's memories returned with a vengeance. Things weren't normal at all. They hadn't been normal for two and a half weeks.
Harry decided his most pressing concern was getting to the bathroom and walked out of the bedroom. There was a rota of household chores pinned to the other side of the door, listing the names H. Potter, R. Weasley, G. Weasley, H. Granger, D. Malfoy, S. Snape, A, Dumbledore, R. Hagrid, R. Lupin, S. Black and L. Voldemort. Harry examined it and changed his mind. His first priority was getting out of this bloody house-share.
***
They still weren't sure who'd trapped them all in the house together, without their wands, but they were all agreed that some form of punishment would have to be meted out when they actually escaped. It had been Hermione's idea to videotape the evidence of their plight so that a future jury would be able to see how they'd suffered. Dumbledore, who'd started watching a little more Reality TV than was healthy had decided to set up a Diary Room upstairs for Big Brother style confessions. After only twenty-four hours, the tapes had devolved into unabashed bitching about the other housemates and were too obscene to be shown in any courtroom, ever. Snape, who was in charge of the household finances, had privately resolved to sell the footage to the Fox network as soon as the opportunity arose.
The actual housing situation was chaotic at best. With only four actual bedrooms, suitable rooming was hard to come by. Sirius had claimed the basement for himself and Remus because of the monthly transformations and other than moving in boxes labelled "Chains and Manacles," they were not seen often. Hagrid had made the excuse that since he didn't fit into the house properly, that he'd feel more at home keeping the garden in the backyard. Unfortunately for Hagrid, the garden was fenced in on all sides by concrete and barely contained his giant form when sleeping. At night, he could be seen lying in the grass, with Fang and Fluffy on either side of him and a small yellow Boy Scout tent covering his middle.
With all the undesirable locations already claimed, and Harry's refusal to see anyone sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, Snape, Ron, Harry, Draco, Hermione, Ginny and Dumbledore were left to battle for the remaining three rooms. It had all seemed easy enough. Harry and Ron had claimed the first bedroom on the third floor, which boasted a rather large picture window looking out onto the back garden. The girls had taken the other room on the third floor with the enormous walk in wardrobe and Snape and Draco had taken the first bedroom, which contained nothing but bunk beds. This had regressed into a rather loud bitch fight over who would get the top bunk, with Draco losing miserably and vowing revenge.
Thing had gone smoothly enough during the first week but the nightly occurrences of Ginny's terrible, screaming nightmares took their toll on Hermione and she devised a plan to find a more quiet room. Upon viewing the cupboard under the stairs she decided that it was unliveable and found Draco in the kitchen looking through Ginny's purse. With a huge smile Hermione had taken the seat next to him and propositioned him; she'd take the vile bottom bunk under Snape and he could have her single bed and extreme closet space.
Hermione was gratified by Draco's elation at the idea of closet space, although the dreamy smile could have come from the frosted pink lip gloss he'd fished out of the purse and the idea of being on hand to snoop through more girlie things. Then all that was left was to explain the switch to their respective roommates. They did this by telling Ginny, then letting her tell Snape. Since Ginny was having one of her episodes at the time, Snape got the impression that from now on he was going to be rooming with a giant basilisk and the knowledge that it was only Hermione came as a distinct relief.
Dumbledore had watched the proceeding with undisguised amusement and had merely set up a gigantic red and gold hammock along one wall of the living room. The hammock had an uninterrupted view of the television set which to the household's horror and Dumbledore's delight only got two networks, Channel 5 and the 24 hour Soap Opera network.
How they'd ended up with Voldemort in their midst had come about in a rather random manner. It had started as a normal day, well as normal as any day got in a house occupied by a bunch of grouchy, captive wizards, a large percentage of whom are senile, crazy or werewolves. The morning had started very quietly, with the occupants of each room laying low and entertaining themselves. It all had been interrupted by a huge crash from the attic followed by eerie silence.
Adjusting his weight on the hammock, Dumbledore gazed around the sitting room, with a mysterious smile and shining eyes. Harry sat in the couch upside down, feet above the headrest and head on the floor, asleep. Draco sat on the other side trying desperately not to look like he was watching "Passions" which was the soap opera of the hour and every so often pegging Harry about the head with Smarties. The sleeping boy was oblivious to the perfectly drawn circles that covered his face, making a target. Every few tosses, one of the sweets would land in Potter's slightly open mouth and Draco would giggle and make a mark on the notepad in his lap. So far his floor to mouth ratio was pretty good.
Turning his attention back to the roguishly handsome, if completely dense, Luis on the screen, the old wizard didn't acknowledge Ron tearing down the stairs with a look of terror on his face. At the bottom of the stairs he caught himself on the rail, stopped dead, jammed his hands in his pockets and started whistling. Seeing that no one in the room was paying attention to him he turned and crept past the odd atmosphere of the TV room and proceeded to the kitchen.
With resolve to be calm he stopped in the doorframe and regarded the opposing forms of Snape and Hermione who both had their faces buried in newspapers with untouched coffee in front of them on the table. Every so often, a page would be turned or a slight noise made under the breath but all in all it was creepy. Getting up his nerve Ron strode into the room with what he hoped was his nonchalant face. Hermione later told him that it looked terribly like his constipated face.
"So Hermione, anything good in the post?" Keeping a huge smile plastered on his face, he poured himself some fruit juice.
About two moments passed with silence but the sounds of pouring juice and newspaper pages being turned. Without even having to look up from her paper Hermione managed to give him the Look, something he didn't need to see, as it lowered the temperature in the room about thirty degrees all on it's own. "What did you do, now?"
"Oh-oh nothing," he stammered through his fake smile. " I was just poking through the attic, you know, trying to escape watching 'Passions'. No biggie... really."
"But?" Snape lowered his paper and looked at the now colouring redhead with narrowed eyes. "Mr. Weasley, it is my experience that if things ever get too quiet, it's a relative whistle blow to your family to cause chaos. It would be best if you just came right out with it so that the damage can be fixed."
"That's not true, all the time."
"But it is this time," Hermione stated from behind her paper, a quick glance up showing her suspicion was true by the redness of his ears.
Taking a breath Ron downed his juice and eyed the door anxiously, as if plotting a quick escape. "The attic was full of all sorts of books and things. And there was this shiny one on top of a pile. It looked like one of those Quidditch books by Whisp. No harm in pickin' that up, right? So... I did. I picked it up and opened it andtherewasthisweirdlightandProffessorQuirrelfelloutofitmutteringaboutnotbeingallowedanyprivacy. SoIrandownhereandlockedtheattic..."
As if on cue, Ron's babbling was stopped by a bang and the sound of Ginny Weasley shrieking with terror from upstairs.
Forcing a smile, Ron ignored the terror in the eyes of the other occupants of the kitchen and made a dash for the door. "Er... gotta go."
***
From his place on the sofa, Draco listened to the shriek that tore through the house, followed closely by the sound of Ron sprinting up the stairs and Fang barking maniacally from the yard. Low voices and the scraping of chairs on tile signalled Hermione and Snape leaving the kitchen and following Ron up the stairs with composure. Pausing he could hear the sound of voices and then the familiar sound of breaking glass, which indicated that Ron had annoyed somebody and been thrown out of a window again.
"What was that about?" Draco absently asked Dumbledore as he took up his game again and missed Harry's mouth for the tenth time in a row. This was not a complete loss though; he still counted 20 points for bouncing it off his nose. The scoring system of his game was rather simple. 100 points for the mouth, 50 points for the nose, as these were the most obvious targets. Then you scored 20 points for the eyes and 10 for the cheeks and chin. The most inspired part of the game, Draco thought, with some pride, was the 500 bonus points for the hitting the scar. He hadn't yet decided if there should be points awarded for getting candy in the ears, but he'd deal with that when the situation arose.
Across the room, the elder wizard seemed to ignore the question and waited for the next commercial before coming up with an answer. "Professor Quirrell is upstairs scaring Ms. Weasley with Lord Voldemort, is this week's Soap Opera digest over there?"
Shaking his head Draco popped a Smartie into his own mouth. "Didn't see that one coming."
"I have actually seen this coming for quite awhile." Smiling affectionately in the direction of the stairs, he rummaged around one-handed under his hammock and pulled out the television guide. With a sigh of satisfaction, he opened the guide and scanned the pages. Draco didn't seem impressed.
"Would warning us have been too hard?
***
After dealing with a very dazed Professor Quirrell, who had fallen through the trapdoor of the attic onto a now concussed Ginny Weasley, the housemates had tried to deal with the new arrival with care. If he was going to stay, he was going to have to be a productive member of the house, which mean cleaning and cooking duties. This went over relatively well with him. Frankly, he was amazed that they hadn't killed him on the spot, considering Voldemort was clearly visible on the back of his turban-less head and ecstatic about this new opportunity to take his revenge on Harry. The boy in question however, got to fulfil one of his lamer childhood dreams by forcing Voldemort to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, with plans of course, to run up and down the stairs in the middle of the night.
There were relatively few problems in settling the arch-villain in; he was very agreeable and civil in conversation. His manner became a little more drawn when Ginny had become responsive again and had thrown herself at the Voldemort side of the body shrieking, "Tom, you are my only friend!" Then promptly jumping up, covering her eyes and running from a giant snake that nobody else could see. Ginny Weasley had suffered from recurring basilisk nightmares, since her first year at Hogwarts, but the head injury she'd received, seemed to have destroyed her grasp on reality. Mostly, there were just a lot of questions that everybody wanted to ask the hybrid person, whom Hermione had suggested they name Quildemort for convenience.
While everybody in the room was familiar with Voldemort's diary trick, there was some confusion as to why he had immortalised himself in one of his weakest incarnations. Sixteen-year-old Voldemort had had a much better chance to commit evil. Voldemort explained that he'd created a different magical diary for every year of his life and that one-day he was hoping they would be as famous as The Hitler Diaries. When Hermione patiently pointed out that the Hitler Diaries were forgeries, Voldemort confessed that he hadn't been entirely honest in his own. He'd lied about a few things, specifically his appearance. Didn't they think his cheekbones looked sexier?
Ron told Voldemort that, no, he pretty much still looked like a wrinkly middle-aged wizard who'd been super-glued to the back of somebody else's head. He then left the room quickly, via the window.
***
"I have to say that I am a bit surprised that Professor-Lord Quildemort has mixed into the workings of the house so well." Dumbledore beamed into the camera of the diary room looking happy as a clam. "He seemed very sorry for his inadvertent injury of Ms. Weasley, in fact he keeps apologising to everyone for it. I've known both Professor Quirrell and Lord Voldemort as separate people for many years and I must say that as one person their personalities really do even out. I think it's a fantastic idea that they've gotten together the way they have. It's rare to see two men so close."
Popping a Smartie into his mouth the old wizard looked thoughtful for a moment. "I really think things are going well. This living situation is going to be a real learning experience."
***
So all in all, despite having an evil wizard fall out of a book and destroying the last of young Ginny's sanity, the day had been relatively uneventful. It had ended quietly with everyone settling into their respective rooms for sleep.
Under the stairs, Voldemort was lying awake. His mind was on more important things than sleep... like murder. Ignoring the protests of Quirrell, they crept up the stairs to the third floor. Without a sound, Quildemort pushed open the door to Ron and Harry's room. The light of the nearly full moon shimmered in from the recently replaced picture window and across the two beds. One of the beds contained Ron who wore a sparkly orange helmet on his head to protect him during any nocturnal window dives and an ugly pair of hand-me-down pink flamingo pyjamas. In his sleep he kept muttering something that sounded an awful lot like, "Harry, can I towel you dry?"
Putting this image out of his head, Quildemort crept toward the other bed, a blank look on Quirrell's face and an evil smirk on Voldemort's. Pillow in hand, ready to smother, he stood beside the bed, ready for the final revenge on 'The Boy Who Lived' when a sudden draft from the window shook the bedsheet revealing the bed as empty and stuffed only with a pillow. Turning on his heel Quildemort stalked from the room cursing and made back for the tiny room under the stairs, foiled again.
In the next room over, Harry stood ready for revenge of his own. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he'd been forced to scrub the target mark from his face until the skin had been pink and burning. He would have been much more convinced by Draco's excuse that it had all been an evil plot of Voldemort's, if he hadn't later found a score card on the couch labelled "Peg Potter" in Draco's handwriting. With an 'Evil Ernie's Incredibly Indelible Ink' marker in hand he approached Draco's bed with an eerie gleam in his eyes.
Ignoring Ginny who flailed about wildly in her bed, alternately banging her head on the headboard and muttering about snakes, he took hold of the fabric of the blanket. Pulling back the corner of the comforter, Harry suppressed a shriek as Hedwig and Pigwidgeon swooped from the mattress, pecked a few times at his head then abruptly perched upside down from the ceiling fan. Covering his head with his arms, he ran from the room, fearing for his life.
The owls had become very weird lately. Hiding in unlikely places and trying to attack people. Most of the housemates ascribed their paranoia to the fact that they'd been hanging around with the equally psychotic Ginny. Draco ascribed it to the large amounts of drugs he'd secretly been feeding them.
In the hallway, Harry heard the sound of knocking and peered down the stairs to see Draco pounding on the door to Hermione's room enraged.
"You tricked me! No closet space is worth this," Draco hissed at the door while clenching his fingers into his green silk pyjama bottoms.
Pounding on the door again and getting no answer, he kicked it stubbornly. "WHY DOES NO-ONE PAY ATTENTION TO ME?"
"One generally tries to be asleep at this hour of the night Mr. Malfoy, or have you forgotten that there are other occupants of this room." Snape's silky voice stopped him dead as he looked up, mid kick at the door, into the unamused eyes of his head of house.
Snape stood with his arms crossed over his white T-shirt and his pasty white legs on view to the world from his green boxers that asked 'Who's Your Potions Master?' in large silver letters. Blinking a few times in horror, Draco began muttering some excuse when Snape spoke again. "Ms. Granger is not in the room and her present location is unknown to me. So if you will excuse me, I am going to go get a drink of water and then hopefully sleep undisturbed."
Striding down the hall and then down the stairs he left Draco gaping in front of the door. Creeping down the stairs Harry came up beside him and laughed. "You looked like a fish gaping at Snape. The sight of the man in boxers renders you speechless?"
"Actually, Potter, I think I may need therapy after this."
Following Snape's lead to the kitchen for a glass of water, the duo stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs where Snape and Quildemort already stood, struck dumb in horror. Following their line of vision they saw Hermione and Dumbledore sitting side by side in the hammock with their eyes fixed on the ever-present Soap Opera network. As if the pair sitting in a hammock together wasn't horrifying enough, the conversation the two were having was beyond disturbing.
"No, no, no Professor," Hermione was saying. "You need to catch up. Leo and Greenleigh are really no Luke and Laura as far as couples go. He isn't after her for her money anymore since he stopped dealing with that nasty mother of his. He married this Laura though because he felt bad for her and she was supposed to die, but then she got that heart transplant when the princess died."
Dumbledore was looking at the television set quizzically. "But they aren't married anymore? What about Tad and Dixie?"
"No, neither are they. Dixie was cheating on Tad because his stalker had her convinced he was already cheating. I know what you're thinking but she's not with her doctor anymore. Adam Chandler Jr. though, he's been in a lot of trouble despite all that attention from Bianca a few months ago. I just don't think there is any hope for that family especially since Erica is all set up to go to jail at the moment. Who'd have thought!"
"I thought Tad and Dixie had staying power," Dumbledore said wistfully. "Did Haley ever go to prison for the murder of Eileen?"
Hermione shook her head. "She didn't, since Eileen is alive and frankly the Chandler name gets you out of everything. Mateo is in prison right now because of Leo's mother who is the real drug dealer... so poor Haley had to spend Christmas alone. It was so sad, I almost cried."
The couple on the hammock droned on and on about what the screen proclaimed as "All My Children" an American soap opera institution. In terror Harry watched as Quildemort hurried toward his cupboard with his fingers stuck in his ears humming and Snape turned on his heel and ran up the stairs with all thoughts of getting a drink of water gone.
Harry exchanged a glance with Draco and the two boys turned and walked back up the stairs, shaken and mentally wounded. They'd never have figured Hermione the type; she didn't even have the excuse of being utterly mental the way Dumbledore did. As the two parted ways for their respective bedrooms there was no animosity, there were just some things that you come out of being a little bit closer. Terror of in depth conversations about Leo and Greenleigh was one of them. They'd never be the same.
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