“Oh, I heard it through the grapevine; not much longer would you be mine; ooooohhhhh, I heard it through the grapevine; I’m just about to looooooose my mind, honey, honey, oh yeah.”

“For the love of God, man!” shrieked Tany, clamping her hands over her ears.  “Shut the hell up!”

William glared at her but continued belting out the song.  Off key.  Drastically off key.

“If you must insist on singing that infernal song, sing it on key.  On key!”

“For the sake of all our sanities and eardrums,” grumbled Harry.  No offense meant to William but he had heard drunken stoners sing better than that.  And on key.

“Fine,” grumbled William.  “You sing something then, Tany.”

“I’d be glad to,” snapped the golden-eyed woman.  She mused for a moment then broke out into an Eagles song, causing William to let out a moan.

“Not this again!”

“You told her to sing,” pointed out Glenda, smiling slightly at the disgruntled American.  “If you wanted something in particular, you should have said so.”

William snorted at that.

“As if she’d sing anything I want her to.”

Tany broke off in her singing to chirp, “Damn straight!” before launching right back in where she’d left off.

“See?” said William, looking at Glenda accusingly.

“And they’re always like this?” said Harry to Lars, who strolled along beside him.  The big man nodded slowly in reply.

“Always,” he rumbled in his deep bass voice.  Abruptly he grabbed Harry about the waist and threw the teen behind him, yelling, “Glenda!”

The dark-haired woman turned and frowned at him.

“What is it?”

“Look,” was all of Lars’ reply and he pointed towards a hill about a half-mile away.  Harry peered around the large man and saw a lone figure standing on the hill.  They were dressed in dark robes and leaning heavily on a staff.  Black hair streaked gray in places fell about their face, which was that of a man.

Glenda sneered at the figure and Tany dropped off her singing to let out a rumbling growl – one that was far too low and guttural to be human.  Harry saw her shoulders hunching and claws growing from her fingertips before Lars blocked his view.

“Who is it?” he demanded.  “What’s going on?!”

“It’s your dear old grandfather, if I’m not mistaken,” hissed William in a dark tone, causing Harry to blink.

“My grandfather?  Sadiron?”

“Sadiron Snape,” confirmed Glenda.  “Merlin, I hate that bastard.  Tany, take Harry and get out of here.  That man is not getting his hands on Lily’s son!”

There was a low growl in answer and a huge tawny wolf came around Lars, causing Harry to jump back against the man’s bulk.  The beast rolled golden eyes at him and tossed its head at its back.  Harry looked rebellious for a moment then he slowly clambered up onto the broad back, burying his hands in the thick fur.

“GLENDA!” came a bellow from the direction of the hill.

“Go!” hissed Lars to Tany the Wolf, who leapt into a lope, Harry clinging to her back.  He looked back once to see his grandfather firing what looked like a blast of Cruciatus at William and his stomach clenched.  He’d only run from a fight once in his life and he had sworn he’d never do it again.  Yet here he was, clinging to the back of the huge wolf that Tany had become, fleeing from battle.  It made him sick.

“We should go back!” he cried to Tany, who shook her shaggy head.  There was a vague crunching sound from the vicinity of the wolf’s throat and then Tany’s voice was coming out of its maw.

“I know you want to go back and fight, Harry, but we can’t.  Sadiron has found some way to leech power out of the world about us.  He’s even stronger here than he was in the real world.”

“You faced him?”

“Glenda has.  Several times.  I saw him fight once.”  A shiver ran through the wolf’s body and up into Harry’s arms.  “Nasty.”

“Well, here’s a question – what in all nine hells is my psychotic grandfather doing here?!  He was Kissed by the Dementors a year ago!”

Tany winced and said, “We forgot to mention that they come here too, didn’t we?”

“YEAH!”

“Well, they do,” said Tany, dodging a tree.  “And if he sees you…we won’t have a chance to get to your mum.  I’m glad he doesn’t know that she and Severus were together.  Else he’d have been trying to find her.”

“Does he always attack people at random?”

Tany shook her shaggy head in response.

“Na.  He’s got something against Glenda.  She’d never said what exactly and none of us have ever asked.”

Harry nodded absently and laid his head against her shoulder, asking, “When are we going to stop?”

“Soon as we’re far enough away.  You tired?”

“A little.”

Tany gave a rumbling growl that could have been interpreted as a laugh and said, “Sleep a little, kid.  I’ll wake you when we stop.”

“What about the others?”

“They’ll be fine,” assured Tany.  “You sleep now and don’t worry about a thing.  I’ll take care of you.”

Harry nodded sleepily and laid his tired head against her shoulder.  His eyes drifted shut as he thought to himself, I’m stuck in limbo with an ex-Death Eater slash spy slash Shifter with my psychotic grandfather on the loose and Slytherin knows what else.  Why is it always me that gets stuck in the insane situations?

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

It had been three months since Harry had been thrown – quite literally – into a coma.  Tyls, to the surprise of many, had settled easily into the politics of Slytherin House.  He had swiftly turned into the one Slytherin anyone in the other Houses was willing to talk to and trusted.  Thanks to Harry’s own dealings with the other Houses, the members of Slytherin readily accepted this.  Well…most of them.

Niamh was one of the few people who attempted to avoid Tyls like the plague.  Every time she got near him, her empathic abilities practically screamed something was wrong.  She just couldn’t figure out what…

Most of the castle resident’s had gone back to their normal routines.  Harry’s most loyal friends, however, continued to visit the comatose teen whenever they could.  Niamh was the most frequent of the visitor’s.

One soul in the castle, however, had the misfortune of not being able to visit the young Slytherin.

His father.

Since Harry had fallen into his coma, Severus Snape had become even more bitter and sarcastic than ever.  He had kept up his old routine for some weeks before grief had caught hold of him hard.  Now he had taken to rarely showing up for meals and taking points off anyone that got in his way – including members of Slytherin House.  Only Niamh was show partiality to his ire.

Most in the castle took it as him just being his usual git of a self.  But those who knew better (ie, those that knew the truth of the matter) felt pity for him.  Of all of them, he was the one who wanted to help Harry the most.  After all, what father did not want to help his son?

Another thorn in the dark man’s side was Voldemort’s obvious distrust of him.

The news of his being a spy had never been released to the public.  Or so Severus thought.  They were playing a game of cat-and-mouse now, he and Voldemort.

And Severus was feeling more and more like the mouse with every meeting.

Beyond that, all was perfectly normal at Hogwarts.  Well…as normal as the school generally was.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

“Gin?”

“Yeah?”

“Um…is that Seamus?”

Ginny looked up from her Potions book at Mika’s question – and immediately dropped the aforementioned book on Thomas’ hand, which had been snaking towards her inkpot.

“Ow!” exclaimed the brown-haired boy, snatching his hand back and cradling it against his chest.  “What in the ruddy heck was that for?”

The fourth year simply lifted her arm and pointed across the Great Hall, brown eyes wide.  Thomas followed the line of her quivering finger and immediately ducked underneath the table.

“I did not need to see that!”

“No,” grumbled Mika as a furious McGonagall chased the very naked and seemingly drunk Seamus out of the Hall.  “Definitely did not need to see that.”

“I’m going to carry that image with me for the rest of my life.  Or at least for a long while,” moaned Amanda.  Mika gave her an askance look.

“What about me?  I have a photographic memory!”

Amanda sighed and shook her head.  She then winked at Ginny and said, “Though he does have a nice ass, aye, Gin?”

Ginny smirked, catching onto the girl’s game, and agreed, “Yes, he does.”  Her response caused Mika to begin sputtering incoherently.

“G-Ginny!”

“What?” asked the girl innocently.  She then leaned over and whispered into his ear, “Yours is better, if that’s any consolation.”

Mika flushed red and sputtered even more at that.  All the while his mind was screaming, She’s flirting with me!

Amanda smirked at the boy’s reaction then said to the person under the table, “You can come out now, Tom.”

“All the naked Gryffindors running around with tea cozy’s on their heads are gone?”

“ARGH!” bellowed the other three, simultaneously clutching their heads.

“Bad mental image!” yelled Amanda.

“Bad, bad!” agreed Mika and Ginny in unison.

“Sorry,” mumbled Thomas as he climbed back up into his seat, flinching away from Amanda as she lifted her hand.  “Please don’t…”

SMACK!

“…hit me,” finished Thomas, his voice muffled by the fact that his face was now pressed against the tabletop.  “Ow…”

“Serves you right,” harrumphed Ginny, glaring at him.  She then turned to the person who had come up behind her and Mika and said, “Hey, Nev.”

“’Lo,” replied Neville in his soft voice, nodding to all of them.

“Say, what was Finnegan doing running around…well, the way he was running around?” asked Mika, eying Neville curiously.

Neville fidgeted slightly before he replied, “Well – Fred and George smuggled in a few crates of butterbeer (“CRATES!” exclaimed Ginny) from Hogsmeade.  Then they started playing some game called Truth or Dare…”

“What?” asked Mika, Ginny, and Thomas.”

“Muggle game,” explained Amanda.  “Go on, Nev.”

“Then they got a bit – er – tipsy.  I left before anything bad could happen.”

“Too late,” chorused the four blandly.

“So you don’t know who dared him?” asked Thomas

“Do we really want to?” moaned Ginny as Neville shook his head.

“Fred or George most likely,” said Mika.

“Who else would dare him to do something like that?” asked Amanda, looking at her friends.

“Speak of the devil,” muttered Mika suddenly, causing Amanda to look around frantically.

“The devil?  Really?  Where?”

“Not that devil,” admonished Thomas.  “Those devils.”  He pointed towards the twins, who had just entered the Hall.

“On damn…wait, are they – singing?”

Fred and George, staggering with their arms about each other’s necks and a bottle of butterbeer in their free hands, were indeed singing.  By some miracle, they were in unison.  Off key but definitely in unison.

“Sometime I run…hic…sometimes I hide…”

“Oh dear God, no,” breathed Amanda.  “Not that.  Oh anything but that!”

“What?” asked Thomas, giving her a bewildered look.

“Britney.  Spears,” ground out the girl, scowling darkly at the twins.

“Sometimes I’m…hic…scared of you…”

“Who?” asked Mika.

“Some American singer,” muttered Neville absently.

“But all I really want…hic!”

“SOMEONE STOP THEM!” screamed Amanda, clapping her hands over her ears.  “FOR THE LOVE OF ALL SANE THINGS, STOP THEM!”

“I sense she had something against this Britney Spears,” mused Thomas.  Neville nodded then yelped and ducked as Niamh (who had been sleeping on top of her Charms book all this time) lifted her head.  She peered about with dark-circled eyes before her gaze fell on Ginny.

“Who’s doing that infernal singing?” she growled, drawing her wand from her pocket.

Mika, Ginny, Thomas, Amanda, and Neville all solemnly pointed towards the twins.  Niamh followed their pointing fingers until her eyes landed on them.

“Ginny?”

“Yes?” moaned the redhead.

“May I brutalize your brothers?”

“Please!”

Niamh smiled a malicious smile, an evil glint in her eyes, and rose to her feet.  At her rising, everyone in the Hall ducked, not wanting to get in the way of whatever hex or curse the Lady Hex unleashed.

The dark-haired girl flicked her wand in an odd pattern then jabbed it in the twin’s direction, hissing, “Obvolvo!”

Something like paper rushed through the air and the twins singed was abruptly cut off.  As Niamh took her seat with a satisfied smirk on her face, heads slowly began to ruse about the Hall.  Laughter erupted immediately as what the Lady Hex had done to the twins was seen.

They both were – to the amazement of all – still in one piece.  However, they were both wrapped tightly in duct tape with only their dazed blue eyes and bright red hair showing.

Amanda let out a hoot of laughter and crowed, “Duct tape!  Niamh, you are a bloody genius!”

Niamh smiled a sad sort of smile at that.

“Yes, it is a good spell, isn’t it?  I’m glad Harry thought of it.”

Amanda’s face fall and Thomas said, “Harry created that spell?”

“Yeah,” murmured Niamh softly.  “Yeah, he did.”

“Ni,” began Mika, only to have the dark-haired girl turned a furious scowl on him.

“Don’t…call…me…that,” she hissed angrily.  “They’re the only one’s who can call me that!”  With that she grabbed her books and fled, leaving her friends to stare after her.

“’They?’” repeated Thomas.

“Harry and Cedric,” mumbled Neville.

Realization flashed across Thomas’ face and he murmured, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Ginny.  “After what happened to Cedric, I’d be worried too.”

“She’ll be okay,” murmured Amanda, to which Mika shook his head.

“No.  She won’t be okay until Harry wakes up.  And even then…I’m not sure.”