The Dreaded M-word

A/N: I am hoping that with this chapter everything that has happened up till now is relatively clear. However, I am still working by myself, and you readers don’t live in my head, so if I have left something murky, please tell me in a review. I will not answer in a note, but I will try to clarify whatever it is in a later chapter. Feedback is welcome, even if you don’t share my opinions or don’t like this fic, though encouragement is also quite welcome if you feel I deserve it. As always, I apologize for any mistakes I have missed, as we all know spell check has its limits and I am only human.


This just wasn’t Hermione’s day. To begin with, Harry was avoiding everyone. Ron was of course taking it as a personal affront. Dumbledore volunteered her to be an assistant to the replacement Muggle Studies professor, whoever that was. And to top it all off, Draco Malfoy apologized for years of being an ass because he thought he was pregnant with Harry’s baby, but the rest of the school thought she was pregnant with Malfoy’s baby, and now Ron was no longer talking to her since it looked rather like she cheated on him.

She had planned to have a nice, quiet dinner and an early night after such an eventful day, but as they say, when it rains, it pours. The whole of the school was in a buzz not only with the supposed pregnancy scandal, but also from the fact that Malfoy had apparently also apologized to most of Gryffindor already and some weirdo was claming that Lucius Malfoy was the replacement D.A.D.A. professor. Of all the ridiculous rumors people make up.

Just as she was digging in to a lovely quiche slice, Dumbledore cleared his magically amplified throat and announced “Dear students, as many of you have already heard, due to an unprecedented incident involving a piglet, dung bombs, popcorn, and a poorly placed incendio spell, the Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts professors had to retire for the remainder of the year.” as Hermione’s tasteless classmates giggled over the well known story, she glanced at head table for the first time that night and noticed professor Lupin. The Headmaster continued “Please welcome back professor Lupin, who has agreed to take up the post of muggle studies, and for his first time teaching”

The doors to the great hall opened to admit the senior Malfoy, greeted mostly with shocked gaps, but also one very well placed expelliarmus. “Oy! Give that back!” he yelped indignantly.

Remus bellowed in reply “Not a chance you Death Eater scum! Incarcerius! You’ll be going back to Azkaban where you belong. Headmaster, would you be as kind as to supervise this jerk while I alert the Aurors about his escape?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Dumbledore replied with a twinkle in his eye. “You will find that he has not escaped, but rather was released and will be teaching defense for the rest of this year. Now if you would be so kind as to untie your fellow staff member so he may join us for dinner, I would be most appreciative.”

For the first time that she could remember, Hermione Granger found herself agreeing with Draco Malfoy. Dumbledore was clearly bat shit crazy. That, or imperoed. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

Colin Creevey missed all the excitement of the great hall, having taken his dinner in the infirmary that night, and finding himself enjoying it more then any he had in the last week. Madame Pomfry had found that some how he had ingested a lust potion and fire whiskey close together, creating a toxic build up in his system. After a potion sequence designed to purge the toxins that had taken most of the day to administer, he was feeling good as new.

The same could not be said for his bed neighbor. The battered blond was alternately bawling, sick as a dog, and giddy. The crying and the recent apology had left Colin inclined to share his paper in the hope of distracting him from his troubles, but the reading material seemed to make the mood swings worse. Colin hadn’t thought the week’s writing was that reaction worthy for the most part, but apparently Malfoy had other views.

With a clean bill of health, Colin left the paper with Malfoy to look over further while his ribs finished healing and went to the common room to try to get a bit of homework done before his nightly detention with Snape. He was quite surprised to find it buzzing with conversation and so full so close to dinner. Though the noise would make it hard to write an essay, he found Hermione and thought it was as good a time as any to try to find out what had Harry so worked up that morning. “Hiya, Hermione.”

“Bugger off Creevey. Harry isn’t here, I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know when I’ll see him so go bother some one else.” Wow. So Harry and Malfoy weren’t the only ones acting oddly today.

“Actually, I saw Harry at breakfast, and he was acting really weird. I was worried and thought since you have classes with him and you’re one of his best friends that maybe you could help him with whatever is wrong.” and being a good friend, that had her full attention.

“Wrong? What exactly happened that you think something was wrong with him?”

“He dove under the table at breakfast and hid between my knees, threatening to hex my dick off if I let anyone know where he was. Then Malfoy sat down and said he was sorry for years of being a git, and asked me to tell Harry that he wanted to apologize to him as well if I saw him. I’m not sure what the whole situation is, but Harry has never threatened me before, so he must be really stressed.”

“Oh. Stressed is one way to put it. Draco thinks he’s pregnant with Harry’s baby, so he’s trying to make what he thinks is his future hubby happy by making peace with all Harry’s friends.”

“Wait, since when was Harry gay? I thought he was with Ginny.”

“That’s just it. He’s NOT gay and he IS with Ginny. Since Draco is claming that he’s carrying Harry’s baby, Ginny thinks he cheated on her so she’s out for blood. Since Lavender only heard part of Draco’s apology to me, everyone else thinks I’m carrying HIS baby so Ron is pissed at me. Oh, and Dumbledore made Lupin the new Muggle Studies teacher even though he knows nothing about it, and made Malfoy senior the D.A.D.A. teacher in spite of the fact that he saw him aiming curses at us all with his own eyes at the ministry in full Death Eater robes. So yes, Harry is a bit stressed right now.”

“Oh. Ok then. As long as his friends know what’s going on I’m sure he’ll get all the help he needs.” and with that he headed of to detention in a daze. Little did Colin know that his night was about to get even stranger as he scrubbed the first years cauldrons from that day’s classes.

Snape had definitely had better days. He had worse days as well, but he had definitely had better. He had been fortunate enough to miss dinner in the hall that night while he fumed over his reviews, or rather lack there of. One of them had even had the pure nerve to flame him. (How dare they?) To make matters worse, Lupin would of course be someplace other then home on the day of his debut so he had nobody to rant to about it. Fortunately, he had a Gryffindor for detention shortly so he could at least make someone else miserable.

After snarling at the boy to clean the caked up cauldrons left from that days moronic classes, he sat at his desk to alternately fail his 2nd years pathetic attempts at essay writing, and watch the boy try not to curse at the task he had. Just as he pulled out his red ink, Lupin strolled into the class and approached the desk.

“Oh, good. I’m glad I found you. I had been planning to talk with you earlier about the publication, but had received an urgent letter from Albus and had to come right away. Since he needed me to fill in teaching, I thought I could talk during dinner, but you didn’t turn up.”

“Teaching? Let me guess, you’re to fill in for D.A.D.A. since that debacle with the flying pig bits. At least you’re more competent then that fop Lockhart. And this never would have happened if that barmy old coot would stop appointing the pranksters to prefect positions. I told him it would bite him in that withered ass of his sooner or later.” Snape stated in an annoyed tone.

At this, his fellow professor looked rather sheepish. “Actually, I have the muggle studies position.”


One dark brow rose. “What do you know about muggles?”

“Not much really. I failed that class.”

“And you’ll keep the students from failing as well by…...”

“Miss Granger will be my assistant. And if you think it odd that I happen to be teaching a class I failed, then wait till I tell you who got the D.A.D.A. post.” the other dark brow joined the first. “Lucius Malfoy. You know, blond, light eyes, about this tall,” Lupin made an indication with his hand to indicate the height. “Proven a death eater twice now, made a respectable attempt to kill Harry and several Aurors in the ministry last year with unforgivable curses?”

Snape looked at the man like he had gone stupid. “Don’t bullshit me. I happen to know he’s serving several life sentences in Azkaban.”


“Yes, well, apparently they shortened the sentence for attempted murder to about 6 months. And apparently, I’m no longer allowed to disarm him and bind him as he is a colleague now.” the lighter haired man stated with no small amount of annoyance. Then he added with false brightness and a blatant subject change “But hey, on a brighter note, you got some great reviews.”

“GREAT? They flamed me! The bastards have no ideal what brilliant writing looks like.”

“They didn’t flame you.”

“They did to!” At this, Colin watched in shock as the potions master pulled out a very familiar illicit paper. “Over used plot my ass! This is clearly a flame!”

His (unknown to Colin) beta let out a long suffered sigh “Read the rest, that one goes on to say that it was handled better then any other times it was used. And then it goes on to complement your inventive imagery and attention to detail. That is not a flame. A flame would be if one of them yelled at you for writing what was in the warnings without even reading it first.”

As Colin toiled away, ignored by both men, he was forced to come to some very peculiar conclusions. First, professor Snape was one of the authors in this edition of the paper. Second, if he was the author he suspected, then he was damn good and Colin had better hurry up and give him an encouraging review. Third, and most depressing, a greasy haired, sallow skinned, yellow toothed, hooked nosed and overall jack ass had more of a sex life then he did. And finally, the Flying Pig Incident, as it was now referred too, had been the sign of the world as we know it coming to an end.

Elsewhere in Hogwarts, Draco’s ribs were good as new and he felt that after his release from the infirmary, a nice bit of ginger tea and dry toast was in order to settle his stomach. Though he had taken to brewing the cure for his morning sickness after Snape refused to help him, it left much to be desired. As he opened the kitchens’ portrait contemplating the oddness of it being called morning sickness if it lasted all day, the strangest sight greeted his eyes.

Long hair, tied in a sloppy knot, his father appeared to be dancing (with no rhythm at all) with the house elves singing (horrendously off key with no rhythm either) ‘Smoke on the Water’, witch Draco was fairly sure was a muggle rock song. Strangest of all, the noble and intimidating pureblood appeared to be COOKING of all things. Given that Draco had heard nothing of a prison break out and his father would never cook anything himself, this lead Draco to the natural conclusion that this was not his father, but was in fact an imposter using polyjuice potion to impersonate him and ruin the Malfoy’s good name by behaving like an uncultured muggleborn (oh look, he finally got the right word for them on the first thought. happy dance in head).

He would just have to warn everyone in the school now so they could stop whatever nefarious plot this was part of. Whoever this person was, they were soon to rue the day that they had dared to besmirch the name Malfoy. Even with his mood swings and illness the Slytherin prince was still a force to be reckoned with, and with most of the Gryfindors on his side now, there would be nothing to stop the united group from taking fake-father down and humiliating him along the way. Tea and toast forgotten, he slunk back to the dungeons to begin his plotting.