"I hate you, Harry."

Harry Potter, who was spending his free period in the Gryffindor common room, looked up from his Defense Against the Dark Arts text at his best friend's words and stifled a snicker at Ron's appearance. The gangly red-head was looking much the worse for wear: his uniform was soaking wet, muddy, and significant portions of it, his face, and dripping hair were liberally spattered with a fluorescent lime green froth.

"What in Merlin happened to you? I thought you were in class."

"I was--until Hagrid's latest pet decided it liked me. So, I hate you, Harry." Ron ineffectively rubbed at the sticky froth on his forehead with his left hand.

"Why do you hate me? I'd think you would hate whatever it was that did this. What is it anyway?"

"A Flying purple…"

"…Hippogryff! "

With those words Ron's older brothers fetched up on either side of him and cocked their heads as they looked him over.

"Hmmm, not really…"

"…a good look for you…"

"…little brother."

"Better see if you…"

"…can change it to blue instead..."

"...to match your eyes!"

"Get lost!" Ron growled before pushing them away and leaning over Harry, who had been watching the exchange with amusement. "I hate you, because you're the one who talked me into taking N.E.W.T. level Care of Magical Creatures and then you didn't bother signing up for the class!"

"It wouldn't fit in my schedule, Ron! I had to take Potions if I'm going to be an Auror and that meant I had to take a different DADA class..."

"Well, helping me get this stuff off me better fit in your schedule because Hermione's Scourgify didn't do anything!

Harry shrugged and put his textbook in his satchel before getting to his feet. "All right, but I have Transfiguration in a half-hour. Did you bother trying soap and water first?"

Ron rolled his eyes as he started up the stairs to their dorm. "Of course, I did! It didn't do any good. That's why I found Hermione in the Library before coming here."

By the time Harry had to leave for class Ron was in a clean uniform but the green froth was adamantly refusing to be removed from either his skin or hair. He'd offered a sympathetic smile and the suggestion that Ron see Madam Pomfrey or their Head of House. "Or maybe it takes a potion!" He hastily closed the door and laughed at the "thud" that immediately followed.

At dinner that night, Ron was the subject of much interest and some serious and many not-so-serious suggestions to remove the stuff from his person from the other students along with a good deal of nastily gleeful comments from the Slytherin table.

Harry shoved his plate away after finishing his Yorkshire pudding and asked, "Was it actually a Flying Purple Hippogryff like the twins said that got this all over you?"

"No, it was a Zygerthimmer. Merlin only knows where Hagrid got it from. There's nothing in the textbook about them at all!"

Hermione hurried up with an armful of books and dropped into the empty seat opposite them. "Sorry, I'm late. I was trying to find out why that Scourgify didn't work, Ron."

"'Mione, have you ever read about something called a Zygerthimmer?" Harry asked as Ron attempted to pick some of the green froth off the back of his left hand.

"No, but I can research it as soon as I get my Arithmancy assignment finished after dinner."

Harry looked up at the Head Table which was oddly empty of teachers for a weekday evening. The only instructors present were Hagrid, a yawning Professor Sinistra, and Professor Snape. Hagrid was concentrating on his dinner, Vector seemed to be trying to wake up, and the Potions Professor seemed intent on the contents of a parchment he held in one hand while he used the other to periodically lift his teacup to his sneering lips.

"Hey, what's up with all the teachers being missing?"

Neville volunteered an answer, "Professor Sprout told me that she wasn't having office hours this evening because she'd be at a meeting of the Magical Educators Guild in Hogsmeade. I guess that's where the others are. I suppose the Headmaster would have to attend it, too."

"Too bad, Snape didn't go…" Fred said.

"…then we could have…" said George.

"…a real party in…"

"…here. But with Snape…"

"…still on duty that's…"

"…out of the question."

"Nev, did Professor Sprout say how long the meeting was going to be?" Harry asked, ignoring the twins.

The other Gryffindor shook his head. "No, but I would think they'd be back by curfew since they have to teach in the morning."

"Hmmmm."

"What are you up to now, Harry?" Hermione asked, having finished her dinner.

"We need to find a way to get this stuff off Ron. I meant to ask Professor Flitwick about a different cleaning charm that Scourgify or Abstergo but a bunch of Ravenclaws got to him after class and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. And I forgot to ask Professor McGonagall if she had any ideas."

Ron had given up on the froth and had begun a discussion about the Cannons chances against the Tornadoes in the Quidditch quarter-finals with Seamus and Dean when dessert appeared. As per usual, Hermione objected to Ron's table manners when he grabbed a large serving bowl of chocolate pudding and started shoveling it into his mouth.

"Ron, that's disgusting," She scowled and turned back to Harry who had selected a slice of treacle tart. "Maybe we could transfigure that froth to air… But we haven't learned that type of transfiguration yet. It'd be terribly dangerous…"

"No kidding! I know I'm not the greatest at transfiguration but unless we know what it is, trying that could really hurt Ron, and I'm not willing to do that."

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by a shriek from Lavender Brown who was halfway down the table. "He knocked her up?!"

Unfortunately, this drew the attention of the formerly preoccupied Potions Master and in far fewer seconds than Harry felt should be humanly possible he was leaning over Harry's group of friends and glaring. "Ten points from Gryffindor for unseemly behaviour, Potter."

"But I didn't say anything!" Harry objected, "It was Lavender!"

"I can easily make it twenty more and a detention because of your attitude, Potter." He sneered when Harry hastily backed down. The House points were such that the status of the Cup was anybody's guess and the sixth-year didn't want to jeopardize Gryffindor's chances any more than necessary. Besides he really needed to get a decent grade in N.E.W.T. level Potions to have a chance at the Auror Academy.

Snape ran his dark gaze over the rest of the sixth-years and stopped on Ron whose reddened face contrasted markedly with the brilliant green froth. "And twenty points from you, Weasley for being out of uniform. I have no idea what you are trying to indicate by your…barbaric… display but I had better not see a hint of it at tomorrow's breakfast or you'll be spending every spare minute between now and the Christmas holidays in detention. And get out from under the table, Longbottom."

That said, he turned away in a characteristic swirl of black robes and returned to the Head Table.

"I think we need to go to the Room of Requirement," Hermione said. "We've got to remove or hide that stuff or we won't see Ron for two months."

"Greasy Git!" muttered Ron in disgust as they made their way from the Great Hall. "And stupid Lavender. If she would keep her trap shut we'd be a hundred points over Slytherin despite that Bat."

"Leave it go, Ron," Hermione snapped. "We need to find out exactly what that stuff is before we can do anything. At least it's not poisonous."

"Didn't you go to Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked as they waited for one of the staircases to move.

"Well, I went to the hospital wing but she was busy with the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team. They were doing follow-the-leader drills and half of them ended up ploughed into the pitch when Casey's broom's charms failed and they followed his plummet. I decided that she was too busy to bother with me and I don't feel any different than usual."

The door to the Room of Requirement appeared and they found themselves in a largish room that Harry found reminiscent of the attic at the Burrow, complete with cobwebs, a dirty skylight that admitted sunlight (despite the fact that it was at least an hour past sunset), dust-covered trunks and boxes and a rather battered table with four equally battered chairs.

Hermione sighed and cast a Scourgify before dropping her armload of books on the table. "Next time I'm going to set up the Room. This isn't exactly conducive to research."

"Fred and George do research in our attic all the time!" Ron retorted, dropping into the nearest chair.

Refusing to get drawn into an argument Harry sat down and asked, "Ron, what is a Zygerthimmer? I've never ever heard of one."

"Neither did I until Hagrid went into that new barn behind his hut and led out one. Can you imagine a turquoise and pink tiger-striped furry saber-toothed salamander with a scorpion's tail, an antelope’s front legs and the hindquarters of a lion with a 6 foot tall neck and a slimy prehensile green tongue?"

"Ick!" was Hermione's response.

"Er, not really…" Harry was having trouble just imagining the colours of the creature let alone its actual appearance.

"Well, add a second set of front legs like a monkey's with rabbit paws and you'll have it. Oh, yes. If it likes you it squeals and licks you. A lot."

Harry considered the saber-toothed aspect and the scorpion's tail and decided that he didn't want to know what the result would be if a Zygerthimmer didn't like you. "I agree with Hermione. Ick."

"Well, as I doubt the Library has any books on them, let's see if the Room has anything. Hermione looked around the still mostly dusty sunlit Room. "Where would someone in your family keep reference books, Ron?"

The red-head, whose fluorescent decorations were still glowing as brightly as ever, looked around. "Ummm, Bill's trunk should be up here somewhere. He was almost as much as a bookworm as you are, Hermione. It's probably in that corner over there."

A few minutes search located the trunk in question and after another few minutes of sorting through what seemed to be innumerable books on Egyptology and curse-breaking, Harry found a thin book titled "Everything You Wanted to Know About Zygerthimmers And Some Things You Didn't."

An hour later a disappointed trio looked at each other in dismay. According to the author of the “Everything You Wanted to Know…” book, the only way to remove the Zygerthimmer’s saliva from human skin was by use of a potion. Luckily, he had provided a source for the formula and instructions, which book they found in another trunk in the Room. Unluckily, it appeared to require over two dozen ingredients (some Hermione hadn’t even heard of) and eight pages of instructions.

“What in the world is a heleot’s aspiris?” Harry asked in frustration. “Or a quigon? It needs the third cervical nerve from 6 of them!”

“I’m doomed!” Ron slumped even further in his chair, fiddling with a ripped up hat that had a faded Chudley Canons logo on it that he’d found during their search for the books . “Even if we knew what all these things are there’s no way we can get this potion brewed before breakfast!”

Hermione looked torn but finally turned to Harry and asked, “Maybe Dobby could help with finding the ingredients?”

Harry and Ron both stared at Hermione in utter surprise. Finally, Ron asked her, “’Mione? Are you sure you want to ask Dobby? What happened to your whole House Elf Welfare thing?”

Harry waited to see what her response would be before calling for the energetic elf.

Hermione blushed and stammered, not meeting Ron’s eyes. “Well, this is a special case. You’re my boyf--er, one of my best friends, and I don’t want you to end up in detention for the rest of the term. And Dobby’s already a free Elf and can say no, right?”

Harry managed to keep from snorting with laughter as Ron’s face turned as red as Hermione’s cheeks, and called for the House Elf. “Dobby?”

Dobby appeared with a loud BANG! a little too close to a collection of discarded toys and ended up buried under the collapsing pile before he could get out his standard greeting. The three scrambled to uncover the Elf, and finally, after lifting a broken ceramic winged warthog and a gadget that Ron said was the Wizarding version of a Muggle child’s piggy-bank, he was able to grab Dobby’s hand and pull him to his feet. “Are you alright, Dobby?”

“Oh, Master Harry Potter Sir, Dobby is just fine and so happy to be honoured by Master Harry Potter Sir’s asking after Dobby, but what can Dobby do for Master Harry Potter and his Weezey and his Miss Hermione?”

Harry gestured towards Ron, having immediately thought that maybe House Elf Magic could remove the Zygerthimmer froth from Ron’s skin and hair. “Can you remove that green stuff from Ron? We haven’t been able to get it off him.”

Dobby studied Ron for a few minutes then gestured towards him. There was a loud bang and a cloud of orange smoke appeared around the teenager, who was immediately stricken with a coughing fit. Once Ron had waved the smoke away he looked at his hands and groaned. If anything, the froth was an even brighter fluorescent green than before. Dobby immediately began to bang his head on the table and apologise profusely. It took both Harry and Ron to get him to stop.

“Stop it, Dobby! Since that didn’t work, do you know where we can get these ingredients?” Harry asked, going back to the table to get the book that Hermione had dropped. “We need to make a potion to get this stuff off of Ron before breakfast tomorrow morning.”

Dobby peered at the page and tugged at his ears worriedly as his bulging eyes scanned down the list. By the time he reached the end of the page he looked absolutely miserable and he was squeezing his ears so much his knuckles had turned white. “Dobby is so, so sorry, Master Harry Potter Sir but—Dobby can’t get them.” His tone turned lugubrious as tears started pouring from his eyes and Harry grabbed him to prevent him from smashing his head into the table once more. “They are in the castle but the Greasy Git Bat Professor Snape said he’d cut Dobby into little tiny pieces and use him in a nasty potion if Dobby took anything from his storeroom ever again.”

“It’s alright, Dobby. I’m not asking you to get them. I just needed to know where we could find them. So now we know… in Snape’s private stores.”

“Dobby is so sorry…”

It looked as though the House Elf was about to start punishing himself and wailing again so Ron grabbed an old broom from one of the piles of clutter and shoved it into his hands. “Here, would you clean up some of this mess?”

“Ron!” Hermione’s House Elf Welfare obsession reawakened and she glared at him. “How can you?!”

Harry ignored the burgeoning argument between his two friends and concentrated on asking the Room for the needed ingredients only to find that only a small pewter cauldron and a stirring rod appeared in the table. He groaned and shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess the Room won’t give you something specific if you don’t know what it is.”

Hermione turned from Ron and frowned, “Well, that makes sense. What we need is someone who knows what these things are to ask the Room for them.”

Ron had slumped down into his chair again. “Perfect,” he muttered. “But who can we ask at this time of night? It’s not long till curfew. I wish the twins were here, they might have an idea or two.”

Hermione squeaked and looked at her wristwatch. “Oh, no! I haven’t revised my Charms essay or looked up those additional references on the ethics of organic to inorganic transfiguration! And I have a patrol in an hour. And so do you, Ron!”

Ron groaned and he lurched to his feet, “That’s right. Sorry, Harry. I guess you won’t be seeing me until after the hols start. There’s no way I’ll get out of Snape’s detentions or that Gryffindor will win the House Cup this year.” He started trudging dejectedly towards the door where Hermione waited impatiently.

Harry watched them go and sighed. There had to be a way to save Ron and the House Cup. He stared at the sunlight that was still coming in the skylight as Dobby continued to enthusiastically clean up the Room, reminding him of a scene from a video Dudley was watching the summer before Harry’s second year. True, there was only one broom dancing around the Room instead of dozens and Dobby looked nothing like the mouse in wizard robes in the film, but the similarity was a little amusing. Of course, he'd never seen it again since Uncle Vernon had smashed the video cassette as soon as he saw the cover.

In order to keep Ron out of detention for two months they needed to make that potion. In order to get the potion made they needed the ingredients. The Room couldn’t give them the ingredients since he had no idea of what they really were. There was no way that he could (or would) break into Snape’s private stores to get them, even if he could recognise what was needed. He was about to give up when he rembered Hermione's comment. Straightening in his chair, he asked aloud, “Room, I need someone who knows what these ingredients are.”

The Room of Requirement rippled and Harry found himself sprawled on top of his fallen chair looking up at an incredibly irate Severus Snape.

“Potter!”