Chapter 4 - the girl with the exploding head

Disclaimer: See Prologue

Chapter 4

Advertisement: Daily Prophet 15 December 2003

"Are your friends astounded by your stupidity? Is your child no well of knowledge? Or are you just always lost for an answer? Your prayers may now be answered by the Little Know it All from Granger Inc. Educational Aids.

She knows it all!"

~

Harry Potter dragged himself into the family room at Grimmauld Place and sank into the settee with a defeated groan. He had spent his day sorting out an altercation between two families of goblins from Hoggarths Cross over the ownership of seven candlesticks said to have belonged to Merlin, and he had only just escaped with all his limbs. For such wrinkled creatures, goblins were surprisingly spry.

"Bad day?" Ron asked needlessly as all Harry's days seemed bad of late, and he tossed him a beer, which Harry promptly failed to catch, and it hit him in the head. Ron winced and Harry had no reaction at all, which served to demonstrate just how bad he was feeling.

"I wish I was dead," Harry said emotionlessly and opened the can, covering himself in spray and downing it in one go.

"Here you go," Ron said brightly, holding up a folded and sealed letter delivered that morning. "It's from Wiltshire!"

If Ron thought that perhaps the letter might cheer Harry up, he was in for a rude shock as Harry groaned and summoned himself another beer.

"Draco still not putting out, eh?" he asked sympathetically.

"I'm more celibate than a fucking monk," Harry grumbled.

"More celibate?"

If Harry noticed Ron's wry amusement, he didn't comment. He didn't even scowl. He cracked his fresh beer open, utterly determined to get as drunk as possible in as short a period of time as possible. "Draco Malfoy is like a camel in the desert," he said bitterly, "he can go forever on nothing."

"Even a camel has to drink eventually," Ron said in what he hoped was a cheerful way.

"Then he's better than a fucking camel," Harry grumbled. "The bastard is never going to give in."

Ron offered up a wavering smile and hesitated before suggesting, "Well, maybe you should do what he wants you to do."

Ron found himself wincing again as Harry dropped his beer and stared at him in complete astonishment.

"Well, you'll have to eventually," he said hastily. "I mean, what if you get really serious about him or something like that? You'll want him to move in and she'll have to be told!"

Harry's eyes goggled at the very idea; Ron was almost certain that his eyeballs were actually pressing on the lenses of his glasses.

"Want him to move in?" Harry asked with horror.

"Well, you might... one day."

"Move in here?"

"One day," Ron replied helplessly.

"I can't even tell Hermione that I'm seeing him and you're suggesting that he move in here?"

"Well, I'm not telling you to do it now!"

Harry was gaping in total disbelief, as though he'd heard the words 'move in' and stopped hearing anything after it. He began shaking his head, got up and began to pace, convinced that Ron had gone completely insane. "Why the fuck would I ask him to move in here?"

"You're just avoiding the point!" Ron cried in an accusing tone. "Why are you so scared to tell Hermione about Draco?"

Harry was about to answer with another question of his own, but he stopped, his mouth still open as though about to form a word. Something was moving under the settee. He frowned and stared and frowned again. Under the settee was Ron's special place to hide things from Hermione. She had an abject horror of sticking her hand under there, as she was convinced that hideous things like Boggarts or Doxys might be hiding underneath. Ron had taken to the space with Raid to assure himself that there were no spiders and enlarged it with a charm he'd found in an old text book, and so now a little treasure trove of his personal things could be found there. Harry had never bothered to look and Hermione had no idea it even existed; but now something was moving around and Harry's eyes narrowed. Had Ron stuffed a girl down there?

"What?" Ron asked, looking at Harry's expression with some alarm.

"There's..." Harry bent down a little, his gaze fixed on the spot where he had seen the strange shuffling. "What is that?"

"What's what?" Ron asked, looking at the place Harry was looking.

"What's that?!" Harry said, pointing at the spot, and he saw it again, a shuffling, as though something was trying to get out from under the couch.

"Oh..." Ron stepped back, and Harry didn't fail to notice that a guilty grin had spread across his features. Harry looked back to the settee. If Ron was smiling, then it couldn't be a spider or anything like that. Harry reached out and lifted the fabric surround that skirted the bottom of the piece of furniture...

And out wriggled a rather stressed out looking doll.

A rather stressed out looking Hermione doll.

Harry's mouth fell open and worked for a moment as he tried to fathom what he was seeing. Had Ron finally lost it and somehow transfigured Hermione into a chunky looking baby doll? And if Ron had transfigured Hermione into a chunky looking baby doll, was Harry upset by it or was he secretly rejoicing in the fact that he could just lock her in the cupboard and shag Draco to his heart's content?

He felt the shame rise with his desire to dance a jig, and so he contented himself with exclaiming; "Holy fucking shit, what the fuck is that?"

Ron was grinning guiltily, and he scratched at the back of his head before answering. "I was going to show you later, but she must have gotten disturbed by all the questions."

"That's not..." Harry's eyes were shining manically, "That's not... Hermione... is it?"

"What? NO!" Ron glared at Harry and had to concede that the thought of turning her into something had crossed his mind, but for Harry to actually think he'd do it! "No, it's a toy..."

Harry stared at the little doll in wonder. She was dressed in a little set of black robes with sturdy shoes and a tiny little wand raised at the ready. She had an enormous head, ridiculously cute but so big that Harry thought she might topple over under the weight of it, and adding to the size of her head was a mane of bushy brown hair that looked as though a rat might take up residence in it. She looked up at Harry in such a way that Harry could already tell she was incredibly bossy and that given a chance she might just take over the house. He had the strongest urge to kick her around the room like a football; they could use the stereo speakers as goals! But she had her hand in the air, and she looked as though she was desperate to get his attention.

"Where did you get it?" Harry asked, and he dropped to the floor to pick the doll up.

"It's a Granger Inc. product," Ron admitted. "He's got an ad in the Daily Prophet. She's called Little Know it All and she answers questions."

"Is that all?"

Her little body strained in Harry's grip as her little arm stretched a little higher in the air.

"Well, yeah, that's all," Ron replied, "but trust me, if you're going to ask questions, be prepared to let her answer them."

Harry turned the doll upside down and pulled her robes back.

"I've already checked," Ron said. "She's not anatomically correct."

Harry snorted with laughter. The doll was wearing a pair of white cotton panties – proving that Snape was perhaps not as crude as Hermione gave him credit for – but Ron had obviously already gotten to the doll. "Did you do that?" Harry asked, pulling the knickers down and indicating the fact that someone had drawn on a mass of curly pubic hair with black ink. The doll was really beginning to struggle now, her arm reaching desperately for the air.

"Yeah," Ron blushed, "she just looked a little nude down there – and I can assure you that Hermione has never heard of waxing."

Harry groaned, deciding that Hermione's abundance of body hair was truly in the realm of too much information.

Harry looked at the 'Granger Inc.' stamped across the doll's little plastic bum and had to nod in admiration. "You have to hand it to him," he said, "he does good work."

And it was true. Four days after washing his hair with the ill-fated Granger Inc. shampoo and conditioner set, the frizzing mess had washed out – as had the effects of Hermione's failed formula. Harry found himself with hair more manageable than he'd ever had in his life. He was actually contemplating using it again because the good results outweighed the four days of misery.

"Yeah, she's pretty cool," Ron agreed, and he grabbed the doll and flipped her up the right way, "but we have to hurry up and get her to answer our questions or she'll explode."

"What?"

"Her head explodes if you ask too many questions without letting her answer them."

Harry stared at him straight and said evenly, "I will pay you 1000 Galleons if you let her head explode."

Ron arched an eyebrow. "Stop using the doll to avoid the point," he said. "Why are you scared of telling Hermione about Draco?"

Harry really didn't want to get off the subject of the doll, which was struggling so much now that Ron had to let her go, and she fell to the floor with a heavy thud. He wondered why Ron was so intent on discussing the subject of Draco Malfoy, but he just rolled his eyes and threw himself back onto the settee.

"Have you..." Harry stopped and rethought the question. "Remember when you guys broke up, and then you told her that you had a new girlfriend less than two weeks later?"

Ron nodded and scratched his groin uncomfortably at the memory. "Yeah, but the Healers at St. Mungo's were able to fix my balls pretty easily... and she got over it."

"Well, think about it. I have the double whammy to deliver. First up, the witch from Wiltshire sending me all those letters is actually a wizard from Wiltshire who I've been seeing – and just when she starts to recover from that shock, I have to follow it up with 'oh, and by the way, it's Draco Malfoy.' Somehow I think I'll have more than a case of crotch itch!"

Ron once again scratched at his groin and suppressed the urge to argue about the severity of Hermione's hex on his balls; instead, he tried to reason with Harry. "Look, you told me without any problems – why is it so much worse with her?"

"Because you aren't going to hex me so that I have twenty arseholes or start some kind of mail order company selling humiliating products that will make me look like some kind of twenty-arseholed pervert! In case you haven't noticed, she's really fucking scary at the moment!"

"It's true," Ron agreed, "but I gotta tell ya, I really think she just needs a good shag."

"A shag?" Harry cried a little hysterically. "She needs a weeklong fuck fest that leaves her utterly incapable of walking or talking for a month!"

Ron snorted with laughter and opened a beer of his own. It was probably true – and at the very least it would give them a month's worth of peace. He wondered briefly if they could hire someone for her. "She'd get over you and Draco though," he said thoughtfully. "She'd get over it eventually."

"You think so?" Harry asked and didn't believe a word of it.

They were both distracted by a small whimpering noise and looked down to discover that Little Know it All had dragged a tiny soap box out from under the settee and was now standing on it, her hand stretched so far into the air that she was going a little red in the face.

Ron, it seemed, could not deny her and crouched down to her level. "Do you think so, Little Know it All?" he asked kindly.

The little doll seemed greatly relieved that she would get to answer at least one of the many questions thrown about the room that day. She lowered her hand, straightened her robes and cleared her throat so they could both hear her clearly. "Hermione will 'get over' your news that you have started a sexual relationship with Draco Malfoy," she said in a horribly all-knowing and familiar way – Harry was just waiting for 'I read about it in Hogwarts, A History' to come out of her mouth. Instead, she came out with "However, you are scared to tell her because you are afraid that she will discover that it was you who told Mr. Malfoy about the position in the developmental potions department of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries one night when you were trying to convince him to have sex with you in a broom closet at the Leaky Cauldron."

Harry's mouth fell open.

"Mr. Malfoy spurned your affections that evening, telling you that he 'didn't do sex in closets,' and you came home and masturbated in the shower – orgasming into Ron's flannel..."

Ron's mouth fell open.

"... You then set about trying to cover up the evidence of your masturbation by..."

"How?" Harry gibbered. "How? How? How does she know that?"

Little Know it All's hand immediately flew into the air.

"ON MY FLANNEL?" Ron cried, recovering from the initial shock and turning balefully to Harry.

"I washed it!"

"You... you..." Ron searched desperately for a word, "you disgusting, feral... cretin!"

"I WASHED IT!!!"

"You dirty bastard! How could you do that? Why didn't you use your own flannel, you dirty shit?"

"I washed the fucking thing! I put it in the washing machine with a scoop of fucking Persil and everything!"

"I'M ALLERGIC TO PERSIL, YOU DUMB FUCK!" Ron's mind reeled, thinking back to a time when he'd had an outbreak of hives all over his face and then turned his fury on Harry. "I don't care if you washed the fucking thing in lye! You let me use that on my face, you dirty prick! How could you do that? How could you..." Ron's expression changed then, and his mouth formed a perfect 'O' of shock. "YOU!" he cried, unable to think of any other word to describe it. "You told Malfoy about that job! You started this whole thing! You told..." He stared wildly at Harry and then suddenly became agitated. "I'm telling," he said crisply. "I'm telling Hermione!"

"Oh Jesus, Ron, no!"

"What the fuck were you thinking? You know what she's like!"

"Don't," Harry pleaded. "Don't tell her. Don't all these years of friendship mean anything?"

Evidently it didn't because Ron was on him suddenly, launching himself at Harry with speed that Harry never thought he had in him and tackling him to the ground.

Harry tried to roll him off, but Ron had the advantage of sheer fury, and he grappled at Harry's face as Harry tried to push him away. He rolled onto the doll, causing it to squeak in protest and dig its little wand hard into Harry's back as it fought to get out from under him.

"My fucking flannel, you dirty bastard!" Ron was ranting. "All these years of friendship, my arse. You jerked off into my fucking flannel!"

"I WASHED IT!" Harry screeched, aiming a knee at Ron's groin but missing and ineffectually catching his thigh.

"I'm telling her," Ron told him, pounding him bodily into the floor. "I'm telling her that you told Malfoy!"

"Then I'll tell her about the doll," Harry retaliated, hoping to strike at least a nuance of fear into him.

"She'll know about the doll!"

"I'll tell her you bought one..." Harry panted under Ron's weight and the fist he'd just taken to the ribs, "and I'll tell her that you drew pubes on it with a quill!"

"Tell her!" Ron cried, sounding vaguely triumphant. "See if I care! She won't give a shit about the doll after I tell her that you take it up the arse from Draco Malfoy and you told him about her job!"

He was probably right, but Harry felt the need to clarify one point. "I'm the pitcher, he's the catcher," he panted.

"You won't be when she's finished with you!" Ron roared.

There was a sudden screaming from the hall as a door slammed and echoed through the house. They heard the sound almost every day, but it still managed to shock them both into silence. They froze, listening as Old Mrs. Black let forth a stream of abuse about Mudbloods and Traitors invading her home. They had been tempted upon first moving in to try and remove the painting – but it was an excellent alarm system, as not much got past Mrs. Black. And as they heard the dulcet tones of Hermione screaming, "Shut up, you old sow!" they were keenly aware of the fact that although they had no time at all to compose themselves, their alarm system had enabled them to learn that their housemate was not in a particularly good mood.

She appeared in the doorway before either Ron or Harry had time to move. Not that it mattered; the look on her face told them all they needed to know, and she did not bat an eye at the fact that the pair had obviously been fighting.

"Dolls!" she cried somewhat maniacally. "He's making fucking dolls!"

She waved the headless remains of a Little Know it All in their direction as though to prove her point.

Ron and Harry struggled to sit up and to keep the doll hidden from view. They shoved her unceremoniously behind their backs, and Ron found that he had to hold on to the thing lest it march out and confront her.

"Everyone at the Ministry has one! They're on everyone's desks! Kids are carrying them all over Diagon Alley, and Rita Skeeter was letting one answer questions at today's press conference about the Muggle Protection Act!"

Ron shuffled the doll desperately over to Harry, who desperately shuffled it back.

"They are horrible," Hermione continued. "They don't shut up! I mean, it starts answering a question and it just keeps going and going. They're awful, obnoxious..." she glared at them both, but wasn't really seeing them through the veil of anger that had consumed her. "They don't even look like me! I mean look at it, does it look anything like me?"

It was a rhetorical question, but behind them the boys felt the Little Know it All start to struggle harder, her hand no doubt stretched so high in the air that her arm was about to dislocate. Harry mashed her bodily into the carpet behind him and stared at the headless version that Hermione was waving at them.

Amazingly, even headless, it had its hand up.

"Well?" Hermione demanded, shaking the headless doll a little harder. "Does it?"

"Um..." Harry ventured, hoping that if he answered the question the doll behind him might calm down, "it doesn't have a head... so..."

Hermione threw the useless doll's body away. "That greasy pig is going to pay," she growled. "What kind of a petty animal is he anyway? I do shampoo so he does shampoo, I do a doll, so he does a doll."

"Well, technically he didn't know about the shampoo," Harry said stupidly.

"I don't care what he did and didn't know about, he's a petty..." another thought obviously ran through Hermione's mind because she stopped suddenly and swooped down on the headless doll remains. She turned it upside down and pulled the robes back quickly.

"Don't worry," Ron said brightly, "it's not anatomically correct."

Hermione's eyes narrowed instantly, and she looked at the pair suspiciously as Harry groaned and Ron had a moment to realise his mistake. The headless doll was still clutched in her hand, its little white pants on display. "How do you know that it isn't anatomically correct?" she demanded.

Ron's mouth ran dry, and he tried to make some spit but found he couldn't.

Hermione's eyes flicked from Ron to Harry and back again, and she finally registered the state they were in. "You've been fighting?" she asked suspiciously. "What have you been fighting about?"

Harry grappled behind his back and almost yelped when Little Know it All jabbed her wand into his hand. He let her go for a moment, but it was enough to lose his grip. "Nothing," he said and his voice was oddly high in pitch. "We were wrestling, that's all."

"How does Ron know that the doll isn't anatomically correct?"

Harry swallowed hard. Considering he had been hiding a secret from her for months, he was terrible when confronted directly. It wasn't helping that they were sitting on the floor while Hermione was looming above them holding the headless remains of a children's toy.

"Ron?" she asked, turning her attention back to Ron and giving Harry a moment's pause to breathe. "How do you know what the nether region of this doll looks like?"

"W-w-w-w-w..." Ron blinked and realised too late that Harry had lost his grip on the doll. Before he could catch it, she slipped deftly between them, emerging from the tangle of robes with her hand in the air and her face almost scarlet from holding her tongue.

"You," Hermione's face ran so pale that even her lips turned white. She began to shake as she glared down at Ron. "You got one?"

"The ad," Ron yelped, "the ad said it was a study aid! It said it was good for people looking for a promotion! I didn't know it looked like you!"

It was a terrible lie and Hermione saw through it immediately. "Where did you get it from?" she demanded.

"I..." Ron gulped and realised that he had broken out in a sweat. His hands instinctively moved to cover his balls. "The ad... it was in the Daily Prophet..."

"And so you thought you might buy one?" Hermione growled.

"I... I... I..." Ron looked frantically from Hermione to the doll and then to Harry. Hermione had her wand out and she was going to hex him, he just knew it.

"So? You thought you'd just buy one then?" Hermione prompted again, and the little doll, her soap box crushed under the weight of Harry's shoulders, decided to climb up onto Harry's knee to get attention.

"I... I... I..." He looked at Harry and almost felt bad for what he was about to do, but then saving his own arse was paramount at that moment. "Well... Harry told..." he began frantically, and then his face visibly relaxed, melting into an appearance of dopey confusion. "Huh? Oh, yeah... Harry... huh?"

Hermione took a step back and noticed that Harry had his hand in his pocket. "Did you just Confundus him?" she asked, a little confused herself.

"Me?" Harry asked innocently. "I wouldn't Confundus Ron! He's drunk. He's been home drinking all day."

"Then what was he going to say?" she growled.

Harry looked at the little doll whose face had gone from red to purple. She was beginning to shake.

"What was he going to say, Harry?" Hermione took a step closer, and Harry looked up at her sheepishly. "He said, 'Harry told.' What was he going to say?"

"I... I, um..." Harry swallowed and shrugged and decided that he might well have to take some punishment. "I told him to draw pubes on it with a quill," he said.

And in the face of such a bald faced lie, Little Know it All's head promptly exploded.

~