Never Say Never
Part 2/5
Never Tickle a Sleeping Cat...err, Dragon
Harry swallowed. This was the Moment of Truth. The Point of No Return. He crossed his fingers beneath the table linen.
A large spectacled owl flew in through the Great Hall's windows with the other mail owls, carrying a large bouquet of red and yellow roses. Some of the older Gryffindor girls started preening as the owl flew above their table, but when it stopped at the Head Table, every eye in the room was fixed on the professor getting flowers. Most assumed it would be for Professor Granger-after all, she was young, famous, beautiful, and unattached. But when the bird gracefully dropped the roses before Professor McGonagall, everyone gasped. She stared at the bouquet as if it was a snake.
"If this is a joke," she began, waving the bouquet like a riding crop at the student body. But then the card slipped out.
"To a beautiful lady, from a secret admirer," She mouthed.
The frown lines smoothed out, and she smiled a bit girlishly. Harry let out a relieved breath.
"Harry, you should be shot!" Hermione chided.
"What? Even if she turns me down, at least I made her happy for a little while."
"Harry, you don't really believe what you say, do you? I should warn you of the dangers of self-delusion. Guilt is a powerful-"
"What you should do is help me." She sent him a disbelieving look. "Seriously! This would go much smoother if you did."
She spoke to him in the slow, patient tone one usually used with the mentally ill or irate infants. "So you want me to help you marry a woman who, not only taught us, taught your parents, and probably their parents?"
"Well...yes," he smiled sheepishly.
She threw up her hands in exasperation. "You choose: Bedlam or St. Mungo's. You're obviously further gone than I thought."
"Please?" He gave her his I'm-irresistible puppy-dog pout.
Hermione glared at him. "Why am I friends with you?"
Harry guessed-strictly speculation, mind you-that McGonagall wouldn't appreciate poetry. Not that she couldn't, just that she wouldn't. More importantly, she'd probably think he was joking.
He wasn't. He was determined.
Especially since he'd nearly been lured into an alcove with an underdressed Ravenclaw armed with a digital camera and delusions of becoming Mrs. Harry Potter. While the girl had gotten off lightly-thirty points from her House and a week's detention with anyone but him-this had to stop.
Hence why he was stepping up his campaign. The small trinkets Hermione had approved continued arriving by the spectacled owl, and McGonagall seemed to show a few girlish flutters but not so much curiosity-at least on her part. The rest of the school-and most of the staff-was on tenterhooks. Were they from a professor, like Dumbledore? Or maybe Snape? (The last was a very minor opinion given by a first-year Hufflepuff who was later found in the dungeons crying for his mother around a cake of soap shoved into his mouth.)
Harry knocked on the door to the private chambers of the Charms Professor. Since Professor Flitwick retired two years ago, Professor Vector had become the Ravenclaw Head of House while Hermione received a set of chambers with the rest of the staff. While Harry knew the password to her room "to only be used in the very direst of emergencies," they both felt that Hogwarts had enough to gossip about with adding the revolving door on their favorite professors' rooms.
"Who is it?" Hermione's voice called.
Honestly, how many people visited her at this hour? "Harry."
"Damn." He heard a bit of scuffling, then some indignant thumping until finally the door opened with a muttered "Princess Bride." "Yes?"
He pushed past her. "Did you just say 'damn'? I could have sworn I heard you say 'damn'. Why would you say 'damn'?"
She eyed him warily. "I think you take me for granted, Harry."
"I never take you for granted," he announced magnanimously just before relaxing onto her plush green couch and taking a sip from her cup of tea. Manfully, he restrained himself from adding a bit more sugar and cream.
She snatched the cup away. "Then what's this?"
"What's what?"
She let out a furious breath. "This, you idiot! It's midnight and maybe it would have occurred to you that I might like to sleep without the frankly disturbing visual of you romancing Professor McGonagall?"
Harry had expected this. In fact, he was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. However, it was useless for her to protest. Throughout the course of their friendship (and their follies), Hermione always made a token protest before she caved into one of his or Ron's stupid plans. During their terms at Hogwarts, she'd made at least one such protest every year for seven years.
He grinned unexpectedly. Her caving was one of the few things that made her human. He suspected-and had for many years-that Hermione was really as weak-willed as the rest of them.
"Come on, Hermy, don't be a worrywart. I'm just here for a little advice and a bit of catching up. You'll be asleep in a half an hour."
She rolled her eyes dubiously. "Of course we will. A half an hour past five. And stop calling me Hermy!"
Obviously this was going to take drastic measures. "Come on, please?" he whined. "Tomorrow's Saturday. It's not like we have to teach or anything."
"I'll have you know that I have a tutorial tomorrow with some of my younger students," she retorted.
"So? I've got a dueling club meeting as well as working on lesson plans, being a chaperone for Hogsmeade, and running any number of errands all without being trapped into the sacred bonds of matrimony by a scheming marriage-minded student. But I," he tried for his most noble expression, "decided to spend my night with my very best friend in the entire world."
She muttered something under her breath that he pretended not to hear.
"Please, Hermione?" he tried blinking at her in the rapid, entreating way that Ron and Luna's three-year old Megan used to get her way. It probably didn't look nearly as endearing on a twenty-six year old man with stubble, but she caved anyway.
"By Merlin, Harry, I really should start charging you for all the trouble you cause me."
"But you love me anyway, so you won't."
She ignored his comment. "So how's Operation: Minnie going?"
"Stagnant. She's flattered, but so far, not interested. The one interesting thing is that she has been ridiculously happy, even during her classes. Rhonda Whitticomb in Slytherin told me that she only took five points from a student who didn't do their homework."
Hermione nodded, but didn't look surprised.
"Doesn't that seem weird to you?" He distinctly remembered being in sixth year and losing fifteen points from Gryffindor when he hadn't completed his Transfiguration homework. Not to mention his detention with her. Involuntarily, he shuddered.
"Not at all," Hermione murmured. "Her real live boyfriend, however, is not pleased. Apparently Snape caught Dumbledore bellowing at two students today, neither of whom actually did anything more than walk past his office."
Harry gasped. "Don't joke about things like that. It's disgusting."
"People have needs, Harry," she said demurely. But she smiled secretively into her cup.
"You don't!" Even as the words left his mouth he rushed to stop them. "I mean, I'm sure you do, but that's just gross. No, wait, I didn't mean that either!" His eyes beseeched her. "Help me?"
Her expression was a blend of amusement and annoyance. "If you'd shut up, the hole you're digging might not get deeper."
A dull red flush crept up his neck and cheeks, and he was having difficulty looking at her. "Yes, ma'am."
"So what are you going to do now that your future bride is having an affair-and probably a long-standing one at that-with the most powerful wizard on Earth?"
Funny that all he felt was relief. But then that Gryffindor spirit was back. "I'm not giving up until the lady in question has a ring on her finger."
Immediately, Hermione's amusement sobered. "Um...Harry? You do realize that Dumbledore might decide to make your life a living hell if he finds out that you're trying to woo his girlfriend?"
Harry waved off Hermione's warnings, even as his own instincts agreed with hers. "Hermione, Dumbledore thinks of me like a son. He would never try to harm me."
"A son with an Oedipal complex. But fair warning, Harry: it's your funeral." Then she smiled serenely. "So you'd better not drag the rest of us down with you."
___________
Dumbledore was Evil.
Harry was amazed that he hadn't seen it before. But he'd been lulled into complacency by twinkling eyes and lemon drops.
He scratched the red, scaly patch on the inside of his right thigh.
He started wondering if Dumbledore and Tom Riddle were related before he stopped himself. Of course! Lord Voldemort was really a manifestation of Albus Dumbledore-the dark and scary side that hardly anyone aside from Harry really ever saw.
Because eyes that twinkled like that had to be evil. Harry would lay a good chunk of his fortune that Dumbledore's mother was the inspiration for Rosemary in that Muggle movie Rosemary's Baby.
The lemon drops were probably evil too. He bet they were some sort of demon candy meant to slowly poison the minds of those who ate them. It probably made people think that the possessor of such candy was a good person.
But he knew now. The blinders had been removed. He couldn't be fooled anymore. And soon, he'd tell the world. He scratched again.
"Professor Potter?" a timid voice asked.
First the Daily Prophet, then Witch Weekly. If he had to, he'd talk to the Quibbler, but he wasn't sure if he should get the Muggle papers in on it too-
"Professor Potter?" the voice inquired a bit louder.
"Yes, Mr. Farnum?" Harry asked, a sincere, if vapid, smile on his face.
"Um, sir, are you going to um, teach us anything today? You've sort've been staring off into space."
"I have?" Must not let anyone know...must keep it a secret until all of Dumbledore's wickedness could be revealed. "Sorry about that, class. What did we study last time?"
The third year student cleared his throat importantly. "Boggarts, sir."
"Right. Boggarts." He couldn't teach right now. He had other, more important things on his mind. "Right. Read the next two chapters in your textbook, Dark Creatures and Defending against Them for homework. Class dismissed."
While the third years were all confused, they were very bright and left posthaste. Since Monday, Professor Potter had been acting strangely, which was to be expected, what with all the accidents. At first they seemed nothing more than harmless pranks, like water over a door, but everyday they escalated in danger from prank to joke to threat. In fact, the happier Professor McGonagall got, the more bad stuff that happened to Professor Potter.
Weird. The connections were too mind-boggling to contemplate.
__________
"Your friend, Miss Granger, is a complete idiot," Snape remarked over dinner.
"I know. And it's Professor Granger." she corrected absently.
"No, no, you don't understand, Miss Granger. A raving conspiracy theorist lunatic. I just heard him mumbling about Dumbledore being the Dark Lord."
"I know."
He paused. "And you're not concerned?"
"I am. Harry's gone off the deep end, but Dumbledore has been rather mean to him lately."
Snape wasn't certain how to break it to her. "Miss Granger, I really don't think you understand. Lord Voldemort wasn't this anti-Dumbledore. Potter's trying to get a reporter from the Daily Prophet to hear his story."
She buttered a roll. "Harry did wake up this morning to red ants biting the family jewels, apparently."
He winced. "Still...he should really just give up and give in."
Hermione sighed. "He's a Gryffindor. Harry's personal motto has always been Never Give Up, Never Surrender."
"Unless he's Merlin, he really ought to know when to quit. He's trying to poach on another man's preserves."
"Preserves?" He watched, in morbid fascination, as her hair stood up like a cat's. Or rather, it seemed like it did. "Did you just call sweet Professor McGonagall 'preserves'?"
Ah. So this was where Weasley and Potter's nearly unreasonable fear of Hermione came from. But he was made of sterner stuff. "Yes, I do believe I did."
"You arrogant, greasy-haired chauvinist!"
He didn't back down so much because of her name-calling. It was more that she happened to do it while waving her wand with the same swishes and flicks that one usually used to transfigure someone into small, many-legged, easily-squished creature.
Besides, retreat was the better part of valor. Something that Potter ought to learn very, very quickly. "Did I hear you call Professor McGonagall 'sweet'?"
"Yes."
"While it was a long time ago, I distinctly remember my Hogwarts years, and I do not recall her being sweet."
She smiled tightly. "Just because I can't call you sweet doesn't mean you have to insult my very favorite professor."
"You wound me, Miss Granger. And here I thought you had a crush on me."
Her smile widened mischievously. "Sorry, Sevvie, it was only in fifth year that I found The Voice irresistible. With Umbridge running rampant and all, not to mention those adolescent hormones, how can you fault me?"
That shut him up.
A few minutes later, Harry entered the Great Hall, his eyes darting left and right, searching out danger. His movements were jerky and his left eye twitched every-Hermione timed it-eight seconds. Black hair that never behaved stood up at odd angles and his wand was clutched desperately in one hand while the other held a squirming neon pink object to his chest. And every few moments he scratched the inside of his right thigh.
A number of Harry Potter crushes died the moment his scent filled the room. It was a cross between eau du skunk and sauerkraut and one wondered how he managed to stand it.
There was murder in his eye when he marched up to the Head Table and stared Dumbledore down. Harry turned to the students assembled for dinner and addressed them, raising the pink object.
It was a cat.
"Oh Lord," Hermione breathed.
"This is my cat, Rowena." The cat in question let out a plaintive mewl. "She hasn't done anything to anybody, except maybe the stray mouse. Yet she became the last victim in a vengeful war against me orchestrated by none other than our dear, beloved Headmaster."
The audience tittered.
Hermione groaned. "Don't do it, don't do it."
"So I stand before you, humble, and"-this time he glared at Dumbledore- "nearly unmanned to honorably"-another glare-"court dear Minerva McGonagall."
Snape leaned over to whisper to Hermione. "He did it."
"Dammit, I don't have the time to train another best friend."
Professor McGonagall wasn't sure what to do. She looked at the Headmaster on her right, who was trying to fight back a blush. Then she looked at her former student, who apparently had been the source of her amusement for the past week and a half.
"My dear Minerva, would you be my valentine?"
At least fifteen hearts were broken in that moment, but any number of the older girls would remember it as the most romantic thing they'd ever seen in their entire lives, especially when the poor pink cat mewled too.
"Mr. Potter!" Professor McGonagall looked at him sternly, hoping that her 'professor tone' would make him confess the joke, but she caught a hint of that Potter determination and groaned. She was going to make Albus pay for this one.
"Harry, if I were twenty years younger"-someone snickered and she wasn't sure if it was Albus or Severus, so she glared at both of them-"then I'd take you up on your offer, but you, dear boy, thank you for all the lovely gifts. I knew I should have recognized that scrawl." She sent a large, sincere smile his way and dearly hoped that this was the end of this very strange courtship.
"I won't give up until you agree, Minerva."
She should have remembered that he was even more stubborn than his father. It had to have been Lily's fault. The girl had been sweetness and light until her back was against the wall, and then she was like a dog with a bone.
Minerva threw her hands up into the air. "All right, Harry, I'll be your valentine."
A few of the girls were obviously too caught up in the moment to realize that the world's Most Eligible Wizard was pursuing a witch who'd left menopause behind when Harry's parents were in school. They clapped and cheered, all in all forgetting that they were the ones driving him to this insane gesture and that now there was no point to continue working on their Valentine's Day cards.
But it wasn't until the enchanted Great Hall started hailing fist-sized chunks that anyone realized how angry Dumbledore was becoming.
"Enough!" he bellowed.
Harry's sweet, entreating stance changed swiftly to that of Underdog Hero as he braced himself for a fight.
Rowena hissed as Dumbledore stood.
"I've tolerated your nonsense for too long, Harry. It's time you stopped this game of yours."
Raw energy crackled around them both in primitive, elemental magic that captivated their audience. Most didn't know who to cheer for: Dumbledore, their omnipotent, omniscient Headmaster; or Professor Potter, the Boy Who Lived and the Man That Triumphed.
The smart ones-and that included Snape and Hermione-didn't want a battle of wills.
"How did this happen?" Hermione bemoaned.
"I don't know," Snape answered. "Something about Potter and more paternity suits."
"So he's probably going to duel Dumbledore for McGonagall's honor?"
Snape looked slightly bemused too. "Yes?"
A black glove materialized in front of Harry, and slapped his cheek, once, then twice. "Name your seconds," Dumbledore demanded.
Harry's gaze flickered to Hermione, who looked resigned when she nodded. "Professor Granger."
Dumbledore smiled grimly. "Severus. When?"
Snape rolled his eyes in patent disgust.
Harry's green eyes twinkled mischievously. "Now."
To be continued...