Sleeping With Snakes ~ A Dramione FanFiction

Arts & Crafts

"Should we make something for the baby? Maybe the first photo album?" Pansy asks as we sit down with a bunch of construction paper, scissors, and glitter. "Pink or blue?"

"Oh Pans, please no. No glitter."

"Yeah, Malfoys don't do this glitter crap," Draco looks at the glitter with disdain. "No Malfoy heir of mine is going to have a photo album made of construction paper and glitter. Really Pans, where has your sense of taste gone?"

"I just think it would be cute to make something for the baby." She nudges Draco and I to look over to the edge of the tent where we are doing our bonding exercise for the morning and we see what has caught her attention - Rita Skeeter is lurking in the shadows.

"Baby, no glitter. I am game for something for the baby, maybe something to show where it all starts, but no glitter." He looks at the numerous bottles filled of sparkly shards with such loathing.

"I will concede to no glitter. I don't like it personally." I smirk wondering where this passionate dislike came from. "Plus it gets everywhere and you can't get it out of anything. If you spill one of these bottles, ugh."

An evil look crosses Harry and Draco's faces. It is like they are on a special telepathetic wavelength, which sends shivers down my spine thinking of it. "Are you thinking?"

Draco replies, nearly manically, "I think a little pink glitter will do a gnat good. Maybe in that mess she calls a coif?"

"It's Lev-ee-OH-sah, not Lev-ee-oh-SAH."

"Oh Merlin, help me..." I mumble at Harry's first year reminiscing as the two boys - because that is how they are acting - levitate a couple of open bottles of glitter, which was soon joined by most of the class doing the same, over Rita's head and dumping them. Soon she had rainbow sparkles in her hair which I doubt will come out even with magic.

The whole tent erupts in laughter as Skeeter becomes the 8th years' bonding arts and crafts project. There are Hufflepuffs that mutate her suit into something that looks like a disco ball to 'match her hair'. The Slytherin girls take care of her shoes, making them into platform ice skates. Each house takes their own tole, Merlin knows what 'my Gryffindor boys' did - all I knew it had something to do with her knickers and I only learned that because of the laughs that came from Blaise and Theo. The Ravenclaws tweaked her quick quotes quill to write in ancient Babylonian and made it completely irreversible.

So now she will have to go into Hogsmeade to get a new quill with glitter in her hair, suffer with a normal quill, or well just flit away like all good bugs do. But I guess the knickers won't let her do that, or so I have gathered.

I just got to sit back and watch our communal arts and crafts project take shape. It lightened the mood for all of us, and even our healer therapist was joining in with the frivolity. Merlin only knows what the headmistress would have to say about this. I hope it doesn't deter our movie nights nor our weekend escapades.

And poor Ginny and Luna. They will be beside themselves when they hear about this. Then I think to myself, let the truth be told for once and as I get up to grab a quill and parchment myself, "A knut for your thoughts."

"First of all, my thoughts are always worth more than a knut. Second of all I have an idea. Do any of you have a contact at the Prophet that we can - um - utilize?" I quickly turn to all those surrounding me hoping that one of them speaks up.

"My uncle is the editor," a Hufflepuff states. "I can owl him and he can help. What do you need?"

"A camera," I state. "We need to document this for posterity. And a copy for the baby book of course." I look over at the members of the Operation with a knowing glance.

"I have a magical one. It was on my list," Daphne exclaims a little too excitedly. She takes it out and starts snapping pictures of all of us and a multitude of Skeeter.

"Now give me a moment, I need to write an article." Draco pats my knee and kisses my forehead at that.

The next morning, Monday - perfect timing for when everyone goes back to their normal routines, it hits the morning press. It came out in time. At breakfast the professors, popcorn still at the ready, had a communal snort of the morning beverages.

One Shall Not Tell Lies, The Truth About Hogwarts 8th Years
By Hermione Granger

The front page had that plastered across the top with the addition of a lovely picture of Skeeter in her disco glitter goodness, another of the bonding exercises we did, and finally one of all of us around the fire talking over our fears and what still troubles us.

'The Hogwarts 8th years have seen more and done more than any one previous class on record. They watched one of their own in the TriWizard Tournament. They survived their OWLs. They fought a war. They had many other 'adventures' along the way from battling trolls to just figuring out the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor of the term. Now they are healing. And they are doing it as a united class.

'Once their houses dictated how the members would interact. Now they all realize what bullocks that was. Now they enjoy weekends where muggle movies are shown. Sometimes they have dances. Sometimes they go on campouts.

'That is what occurred this past weekend for our heroes. Yes they are all heroes. Not just survivors, but heroes in their own right.

'With the assistance of Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, the 8th years took a much needed break from their intensive studies to heal. They went away from the school for the weekend and with the assistance of a healer therapist, they began to heal post-Battle of Hogwarts and post - Voldemort era.

'Some of the class still can't bear to hear his name spoken. Some still have nightmares regularly. All of the class are in some state of mourning for lost ones - if only for their own lost youth.

'They have all seen atrocities that no one barely the age of magical adulthood should have witnessed, nor should those atrocities should have been inflicted upon them.

'They still are healing in our own ways. They still have a lot of healing to do. But know that this class, the class of Harry Potter and the Golden Trio, the class that defeated the darkest wizard of the era, the class that has lived under a proverbial magnifier, will survive. They will thrive. They will, together, bridge the new era for the magical world. They will heal the wounds of prejudice and together - pureblood or muggle born or anything in between - they will strengthen our world for this generation and future generations; so that no future witch or wizard has to see what they have borne witness to.

'Please, give this class this time to heal. Find your own healing also. May you look upon yourself to see where you fit in the new era that this class will hearld in.

'Their lives are not those of gossip. Their lives are not the story. The story is and always will be how they have come together in healing and ignoring the past era of prejudice to build a better wizarding world for everyone.'

I watched as my professors, those who I have looked up upon since I first walked these hallowed halls, stood up and applauded me. Many of them caught the innuendos that lay thickly in my words, many of them saw the heartfelt plea in them, all of them caught the underlying message - 'Don't mess with us. Don't mess with Hogwarts.'

We all expect multiple owls later today. 

Author's Notes: I blew it last week, sorry. So I am posting the two chapters early. I needed a fun one to break up the gloom... Wait I wasn't supposed to say that.